Anonymous. 47, UK

I had been seeing her for a while, C was warm and compassionate. An active and gentle listener, and from a similar profession, which I am sure made it easier for her to relate. I had questioned at times, was this worth it? Is this doing anything? So, when I arrived in late summer into that room, the room that felt safe, familiar and like being wrapped in a comforting blanket, I sat down whilst I awaited  the usual kind offer of a fruit tea. It was then that the feeling landed. Something had changed, shifted, lifted.  I somehow felt lighter….I couldn’t really explain it.

The last time I had sat there, only three weeks or so before I had been in a terrible place. A recent holiday, at my widowed mum’s home, with whom I desperately wanted to re-connect with, following the loss of my lovely Dad, had been tense, fraught and full of disappointment. My expectations were high, we had not visited mum at my childhood family home, for over a year. We had seen her a lot over that last year and in the proceeding four as the pandemic allowed, but the time spent with mum had been either at our home or my siblings, rather than at  her home. These times spent together  as a family, over the last years since Dad died were clouded with much sadness fuelled with anxiety, alongside a wish for her and us all, that the grief she was consumed by,  and unable to see beyond, would lift and allow our lovely mum to return. It had been months after Dad was diagnosed that he left us and took some of mum with him….I try to think it was too hard for him to go alone, so he borrowed her for a while, but in reality, it felt like we had lost them both.

This I realised early on in my grief journey, had felt like a double loss for us all, Dad taken too soon, and mum left behind after decades of knowing him, as shadow of her former self. Dad,  it turns out was the glue that held everything together and the gap was now a canyon. This gaping hole made worse for me by the layering of loss and what I now understand following time and untangling this journey with C, as grief. Or, more correctly termed by Jody Day, a beacon in the fog of this journey, as disenfranchised grief.

My disenfranchised grief, a culmination of the loss of a married life we assumed would come with a child of our own. The loss of my successful professional role and career, whilst I stepped away to make sure that the stress wasn’t the reason we weren’t conceiving. The unanticipated further loss (or distancing) of friends. Many of whom, if reading this would be unaware of the loneliness experienced during this journey, made more painful by the ‘friendship apocalypse’ (as I refer to it), which I have experienced as I became the woman without children in a friendship circle, society and media dominated by women and men with children. Further aided by the pronatalist narrative that being a mother, is what makes you a woman, and therefore to be without, is somehow lesser/ other.

I can hear you sigh as you read this. It feels heavy, dark, and full of sadness, doesn’t it. It was.

Yet sitting in that room that day. The room that had provided the comfort blanket over the last months, whilst we explored all this sadness, hurt and feeling stuck, which presented as anger. I realised I had untangled and explored this anger gently with C, who had walked me through these past 8 years and our journey. Your words at the start of this recent exploration, still in my head: ‘well maybe we need to explore this ‘anger’ that brought you here gently and allow it space to be present here in this room’. And we did.

Our journey started with hope, and we married at an intimate affair in a sunny square in Europe, surrounded by those that we love. A year later, we had been ‘trying’ for a baby. Following the words of our lovely GP, who’d advised during an initial consultation, that we didn’t wait due to our age, we returned after a few months for a follow up  appointment. Against policy he referred us to the fertility clinic after just 6 months of ‘trying’. This was one of the few acts of kindness experienced during our infertility journey. This meant that in the December we were seen and heard the words no one wants to hear, ‘you have a 10% chance of conceiving naturally and a further 5%-10% chance at best, if you try IVF’. The odds were stacked against us. The low fertility, infertility was a combination of us both. We went away and carried on ‘trying’. Why me, why my ovaries, why us?

We had both waited so long to meet the ‘one’, and now you are here, this is not how it was meant to be. A year later, the monthly roller coaster of maybe I am, no I am not, maybe this time, maybe not, maybe next month, maybe not, the battle was uphill. It was taking its toll on me, and us. The unspoken shame, newlyweds, but no baby……in a family full of babies, a friendship circle full of families. Your mental health took a knock too.

We went to Stockholm for a break late that year. I cried all weekend. I was low and this was unbearable. What should have been a perfect walk in a beautiful park and glass house in the autumn sun in Stockholm, felt numb and clouded with sadness. You, as always wanted to help, to find a solution for me and us. So, in the foyer of the hotel that evening, you opened your laptop, looked at our finances and said, we can afford it. Just stop, stop work and take some time. Maybe it will help. Maybe it’s the stress of being in a senior professional role. I returned from the weekend and handed my notice in. It was emotional and liberating. I finished a 19-year career, that December to chase another dream. But it would always be just a dream.

Little did I know Dad, that whilst this was happening in a parallel world, you had been referred for a scan for a minor medical issue that was being investigated. A matter of weeks after I left my job for a year’s career break, you phoned whilst we were walking in the park. There was something on the scan. That something was cancer, and despite being told it was a resectable tumour-a curable cancer, I knew in my heart we were losing you. How could this be?

You left us 18 months later, not without a fight. Yet, through your own journey of resilience, treatment and sadness, you still managed to be my dad, who asked how ‘we’ were, what did we want to do, shared your wise words about our thoughts about ‘what if it never happens for us…would we/should we adopt’. You were always there, quietly supporting and providing strength. And cruelly you were also slipping away. I now know that I never realised how much just your presence gave me and us all strength, and most of all love. Never spoken, but always shown. We said goodbye in the summer months in the perfect place to watch the sun set. A lifetime packed full of sunny holidays.

Six months later, I then decided to get off the rollercoaster, I could no longer cope with the hope and the dashing of hope, every 28 days. So, I saw another lovely GP, who advised that a Mirena Coil would take away the 28-day rollercoaster. See it as a break. It’s ok to take a break. I was 43, it wasn’t a break, it was the end. But now, I am starting to realise that maybe, in fact it was the beginning.

I have always seen life as chapters of a book. And like any book, some chapters are terrible, some are good and some unclear. I have been in an unclear chapter for over four years, since the rollercoaster stopped. At times, I actually think it wasn’t just unclear, it was stuck. I felt lost, questioning my identity. Who am I now, if I am no longer a mid-career professional, or, ‘a mother’, and now also a woman in the peri-menopause. The journey has biologically come to a natural end. Yet I am a carer and what at times feels like a mother to mother and others. Professionally, I am shaping the future of others and nurturing younger peers who come to me for advice, guidance and hope. I always try and give them hope. I read an article once, about care of patients who have been diagnosed with cancer and the author wrote ‘we can do many things as medical practitioners’, but we should never remove hope’. I think we all need hope in life, and our journeys. More recently, I became an aunt for the 3rd time, and like the chapters, this one was initially unclear. My fear would be that like many other pregnancy announcements, I would be delighted and happy for them, but also somewhere deep inside, very sad. But this unclear chapter turned out to in fact be the happy chapter. You were compassionate, you involved me in your journey and when I offered to look after him for you, you accepted. It was joyful.

I now realise it was the beginning of my next chapter, the healing chapter. I realised that one of my favourite expressions ‘It takes a village to raise a child’ is true. I appreciate for many reading his paragraph, this will smart. You may not have the opportunity, feel able or even want to look after a child that is not your own. I wasn’t sure I was either. But I have and I have gained so much. It has not always been easy however, being in the park and being asked about your ‘little one’, and having to correct them was initially difficult, but then I shifted. I pre-empted and offered that you were my nephew (and then nephew & niece months later), before the smarting questions were asked. This approach, came to be required in many situations, as I experienced a number of unwelcome and awkward  questions about my family status, in the most unexpected and surprising social circumstances.

For me this taking ownership, shifting the power is a lesson that I now realise applies to my life. The next chapter, I realise, I need to write. I realise I have a choice. I can continue the chapter that is unclear, waiting for things to change, become happier, clearer, more fulfilled, different, less lonely. Or I can take ownership, seek new opportunities, social circles where you are not ‘other’ because you don’t have children. Realize that you can make a difference, be something and someone, even  as a female, a couple without children. I am not saying it is easy, but nor was being stuck.

And so, as C saw in that final counselling session, I am on the cusp.

I really identify with that expression, as a lover of the sea, I can see a wave, on the cusp of breaking ….but actually just before it does, we do not fully know which way it will go and when. I am that wave, I was about to break, I can’t stop that momentum of life moving forward, but I can embrace that break point and let the wave take me somewhere new. The sea is never the same, it is ever moving, reforming, changing shape. However, it has a rhythm, a tide that changes twice a day, every day and the momentum continues. I now see my future as the sea, there is opportunity for the tide to shift daily, so if I try new things it may lead to a new chapter, but if it doesn’t bring a good chapter, then the tide will shift, and it is another new day.

Everyday, we are on the cusp of  a new tide, a new chapter. So, my hope is that it brings new beginnings for me and for us all.