Anonymous

The dog mum.

At some point during my 20’s, I started to question the appeal of dogs. They got hair and drool everywhere, kept you homebound. I was that person who never stopped to pat a dog on the street. Besides, who wanted to take on the role of a dog mum? I wouldn’t have time for that. I was going to be a human mum.

I was going to be the young mum, the soccer mum, the mum staying up until midnight sticking smarties onto a number 1 cake. I was going to be the camping trip mum, the school canteen mum, the mum who taught my kids how to ski for the first time. I had grown up the oldest in a huge family so my dreams were not idealistic. I knew with this would come the sleep deprived mum, the mum who broke up sibling fights, cleaned muddy footprints off the floor and crayon off the walls. I knew I’d be the mum having to decide what to have for dinner, the mum who sacrificed and the one to help my kids navigate all the challenges life threw their way.

My battle with infertility started early. In the form of relationship breakdowns. My dreams of being a young mum shattered when my first real boyfriend turned out not to be husband material. I held onto the relationship for years past it’s due date hoping it might change. The experience hurt me. The relationships that followed were barely an improvement. It took many years of repeating toxic relationship patterns, soul searching, therapy and studying social work to finally turn things around. By the time my beautiful husband came into my life I was 38. By then I had been grieving not having children for 18 years. It was familiar territory for me to leave baby showers in tears, family gatherings with a huge hole in my heart and to see others living the life I thought I’d always have.

I had worked in an infant unit in my early social working days and I was very well read on the statistics around having a baby so late in life. We knew we needed to make decisions quickly. We tried, got the tests done early and found ourselves staring down the path of IVF, a journey I had never wanted to consider. 2 rounds of IUI and 2 rounds of IVF. My numbers were good, the doctor was eternally optimistic. Our first round was confronting, our second round resulted in 14 embryos. In between I fell pregnant naturally. For just over a week I experienced what it is like to be pregnant. We told ourselves not to, but we talked about schools and how we would manage and what it would be like to be parents on the hot summer nights we walked around the block. And then, just like that, my husband was picking me up off the floor sobbing uncontrollably as I miscarried.

After almost 4 years of fertility treatment, that’s been my only experience of being pregnant. Of being ‘part of the club’ with a biological child. I am a stepmother, an aunt who has solely cared for her sisters kids for a good part of a year, the volunteer to a vulnerable new mum. I am grateful for every opportunity I’ve had to mother. For the birthday parties I’ve been able to plan, the camping trips I’ve been able to take, the newborns I’ve been able to cuddle, the games I’ve played, the participation in the mums whatsapp groups (not missing anything there), the loud family dinners I’d always imagined, the tears I’ve helped to soothe, the laughs I’ve had along the way and the appreciation that absolutely nothing can prepare you for the sheer exhaustion, mental tenacity and drive it takes to be a parent. But I will never be someone’s mum.

I’m very new into my childless not by choice journey. I don’t know what’s changed as I’ve moved towards acceptance; maybe it’s the exhaustion of parenting children who aren’t my own, maybe it’s the increasingly persistent perimenopause symptoms I’m experiencing, maybe it’s all the risks of falling pregnant as I’m nearing my mid 40’s, maybe it’s simply deciding that living stuck in ongoing uncertainty is not how I want to spend another minute of my precious life. But finally I’m starting to feel grateful that there is an end point. Accepting having kids just isn’t part of my story. That my life can continue to be about all the things it has to this day and still be worthwhile and important. Appreciating the small things; a sleep in, a weekend away, a yoga class, the ocean, my dogs silky little ears. Life surprises you. And, as it turns out, being a dog mum isn’t so bad after all.

Photo by Hannah Lim on Unsplash