Michelle Heumann

I’m playing a fun word-based game with some friends and we’re having an amazing time. Most of us don’t see each other very often, but we have a lot of important things in common, and most of us share our griefs and burdens with each other, so they know that my childless-not-by-choice journey has been long and hard – but tonight I’m just happy to be here in this moment, laughing and being silly.

Then I’m handed the card with the next clue I have to get my team to guess, and the word is adoption.

My body responds to the word almost even before my brain registers it, my blood pressure rising, my face flushing, my ears ringing. I slap the card face down on the arm of the sofa and almost ask for a different card, but the game is moving along without anyone noticing my growing panic, and my throat has seized up too much to speak.

By the time it’s my turn to give the clue, I’ve managed to get the rising panic mostly under control, but I suddenly have an entirely new appreciation for what “feeling triggered” actually means. I do successfully get my team to guess the word, but it costs me a significant amount of mental and emotional energy.

Who knew that such a simple word could have such power over me? But after years of fending off the casual assumption that being childless-not-by-choice is easily solved by adoption, it’s not a simple word – it’s an arrow carrying a payload of trauma, and the wave of anxiety breaking over my head at the appearance of this word suggests that, despite me telling a friend just that morning that I was doing pretty well, I am not as ok as I thought.