How gullible was I? A product of Irish, Catholic parents, it was assumed I would settle down, get married and have children just like all of my other school friends eventually went on to do.
I met my husband to be when I was 23, moved in with him almost immediately - I knew he was the one I wanted to spend my life with.
I can’t begin to describe the excitement and anticipation when we decided to try for our first baby. I was fortunate enough to be in a job with flexible working arrangements which was unheard of 3 decades ago. Over a year later, nothing had happened apart from the return of my debilitating periods that would literally wipe me out for a week each month after stopping the pill.
It took over 18 months to get pregnant and when we did, I had no idea and ended up being blue lighted to hospital as an emergency, where it was discovered I had a ruptured ectopic pregnancy and was close to dying. I lost a lot of blood and was lucky I had been taken to the hospital so promptly. My baby didn’t make it.
I left the maternity hospital after a week shaken to my core, both myself and my significant other bereaved and in shock at the suddenness of it all. Friends seen when out walking looked horrified, suddenly did an about turn and vanished in the opposite direction. Other friends stopped calling and remained away, leaving me grieving and isolated. Nobody ever had dialogues around grief, loss or baby loss back then and most were palpably uncomfortable around these subjects. We’ve still got a long way to go in society addressing this.
Nobody said to my other half that they were sorry he had lost a baby. His pain was marginalised and ignored. Nobody gave a thought that he too was deeply distressed and traumatised by witnessing what had happened to me and that he was also grieving. His losses have rarely, if ever been acknowledged by anyone. My losses and the distressing experiences I have had suffering multiple losses and the PTSD and anxiety attacks afterwards have never been acknowledged by anybody. The grief we feel over losses and never having a family are known as disenfranchised grief - at least there are words to describe the indescribable nowadays.
I didn’t expect the reactions we had from other people and all this compounded our grief and distress. I had nobody to speak to about how I felt - counselling wasn’t a ‘thing’ back in the early 1990’s here in the UK; I didn’t know anybody else who had experienced an ectopic pregnancy; all my peers had children or were expecting their 2nd or 3rd pregnancies. I literally had nobody to turn to, to speak about the trauma and shock I felt - nor my husband to be. We were an island of desolation.
The loss affected my work. After my first loss, unknown to me, my supervisor decided to tell the residents of the old peoples home where I worked what had happened to me, so upon my return I had to deal with them all giving their opinion on my pregnancy before marriage and many saying it had been for the best I lost the baby - so traumatic to hear and triggering. Turns out my supervisor was also pregnant and would have been a similar due date as me - and thought it was ok to question me every day about every aspect of my pregnancy and any symptoms I’d had. Why someone would do that to another who had lost her baby and was clearly distressed about it, I have no idea. I eventually quit despite being offered a promotion; what was once a workplace I loved had become too toxic an environment to remain.
Now to the present day. 27 years have gone by and a total of 3 ectopic pregnancies (with emergency surgeries - 3 times I have faced my own mortality). Surgery to remove what was left of a fallopian tube damaged beyond repair from ectopic pregnancy. Numerous attempts at IVF. More than a smattering of miscarriages and treatment failures. A diagnosis of endometriosis in my mid thirties after years of horrendous, painful, heavy periods (a constant reminder of what my body refused to do each month) and here I am, now married to the same man. We never had a family together.
I eventually quit the IVF rollercoaster - nobody told me it could cause early ovarian failure due to hyper stimulation of your ovaries - hello early menopause. Adoption wasn’t an option, nor fostering… I literally couldn’t bear caring for a child to have to hand them back, not that fostering was viable for us anyway.
I’ve been a moderator for various support groups and for an early pregnancy loss charity supporting men and women and I’ve also been a moderator for ladies who have not been able to have children. I am currently a moderator on the Gateway Women forums and write a blog about involuntary childlessness. I wanted to support women who had faced loss and/or infertility and give them the much needed support I would have wanted back in the day when I’d had these experiences and had nowhere to turn for comfort. I’m still passionate about trying to help people in any way possible who are facing this life.
Nowadays most of my friends who had children have grandchildren. Here I go again, revisiting my childlessness riding the second wave of infertility. Without grandchildren there’s no common rhetoric amongst my peers. Cue my silence at work meetings, my silence at get togethers, my silence everywhere I go where anyone else of a similar age is present and they wax lyrical about their families. Although I’m in a much better place now in my 50s than in my 20s, I have the occasional ache of wishing things had been different.
The silence can be deafening sometimes.
Bamberlamb