Alana

It was Saturday and I had been at the church hall with friends, setting up for an event. I was up on a ladder putting the last letter of a word up on the wall when my husband’s mobile phone rang. He was at the hospital for a gastroscopy and I was going to pick him up when he was finished so I assumed it was my husband calling me.

But the call was from the fertility doctor we had seen earlier that week. Why would he ring on a Saturday I wondered? Why today? I was soon to hear the words come from his mouth that would determine the rest of our marriage, our lives together and a future I could never have imagined for us.

He was pretty blunt. He didn’t beat around the bush at all. Thinking about it afterwards, I think he was more rude and unkind than blunt. I don’t think he thought about the words he was saying- he just blurted them out. His call was in response to several tests and procedures that we had done recently. He said that there was no chance that we would ever be parents. I told him there must be some mistake and we’ll do the tests again. “Oh no, there’s no mistake- you and your husband cannot and won’t ever be able to have a child together”. I started to shake. I blinked. I sat down. I tried to control the rumblings in my stomach, the sharp pain in my chest. This was us he was talking about. This was us.

The 10th May 1996 is engraved on my heart. I will never forget the date. I will never forget who I was the day before this- that hopeful, young married woman because I would no longer look at myself that same way again. I will never forget the way that doctor made me feel and I will never forget the look in my husband’s eyes when I told him the dreadful, heartbreaking news.

This was a zero, a no, a never. Forever, it would just be- “Alana and David”. No one else, no-one to pass on the family name, no-one else to sit at our dining room table or to fill the bedrooms with beds, clothes and desks. This was a total transformation of our expectations, our lifestyle, our plans and our future. We should have just hung a big sign around our necks saying- “NO”, to save us from all the years we have had to answer that dreaded question- Do you have children?

We have moved on since that awful day. We have found our way amongst the pain and the hurt. We trust in the good hand of our God even though we don’t understand why this is our story. My husband is positive and realistic. He has jumped the hurdles of childlessness much better than me.

For me, the hardest thing, is the continual and never-ending milestones of other’s children that bring fresh pangs of unstifled emotion. Each time a child walks unaided for the first time, begins school, reads their first book, performs in a concert, graduates, gets their licence, announces their engagement or pregnancy, I ache. I find it difficult to respond to other’s news. I need time to think through it. The ache is so strong and so deep. Every single time, the ONE thing they have, reminds me I have ZERO. It’s like a placard being waved at me in the face, saying – Look what our ONE has done! Look at what we’ve gained because our ONE is doing this or that. I often don’t have the words to say what I’m feeling inside. All I see is ZERO- the never, the no, the nothing- the unoccupied bedrooms, the empty chairs, the absence of toys, books, trinkets and balls. It is surprising how useless I feel. I can’t change my emotions quickly, and I certainly can’t be positive straight away. It is so despairing because you can’t do anything but feel it! Thankfully, I have some good friends and family who are available to talk me through those moments and listen when I need it. But there are many times when it’s just me and the tissue box and I’ve learnt to just let it out when it’s necessary.

Remember that ladder I was on, when that phone rang? I actually got back up there again after taking the call. I got back up and straightened that last letter on the wall. Looking at it later, I realised it was never quite as straight as it should have been. The woman who went up that ladder the second time was now forever changed. She was about to face a new unexpected life where she would learn that ZERO is sadly a very, very long way from ONE.