MABP
Our second miscarriage floored me. Caught up in the excitement of sore boobs, relentless peeing and nausea, then a painful sharp twist in my abdomen and I just knew that was my future disconnecting from me. This was all made worse by it being Christmas Eve. I genuinely thought it was going to be my turn.
I was troubled by body image issues growing up and had a lifetime membership in diet culture clubs. I ruminated about the damage I’d done to my body, and cursed myself that the reason I lost another pregnancy was because I’ve never looked after myself. Pregnancy loss fuelled the critical voice in my head further.
I still find it odd that new mums get to share their birthing stories, however brutal and long and laboured they were in minute-by-minute instalments - but no one has ever in four years, quietly asked about my miscarriages, they just know they happened. It’s a societal issue I’m sure, one I’m guilty of too. But here begins grief in isolation and silence. They undoubtedly observed that it marked the beginning of the most soul destroying for me, but perhaps no one will ever understand the depth of darkness that I went to, when I finally realised it wasn’t going to happen for us, for me.
I was the sentimental girl growing up that kept keepsakes for my future children, wanted my grandmother to knit me a baby blanket in case she wouldn’t be here by the time I needed one, made actual photo albums to pass down, kept heirlooms, saved clothes just in case my child wanted to wear - just like I did with my mum’s. It’s hard to think about what will happen to the things that fill my home: my books, my photos, my whiskey collection, all my jewellery, the family jewellery that my mother will leave to me as her only daughter, all of which I prepared to pass to my own child one day. Instead, it all ends with me. There will be no one to feel compassionate for my treasures. And at the end, will there be anyone to care for me? As I was cared for my grandparents and as I will with my parents.
I did what life expected me to do 6 years ago…I met, moved in with and got engaged to the most amazing man. He love bombed me and I lapped it up having waited 38 years to meet him. We wanted all the same things, we never talked about how we’d go about making them happen though. Regardless, I was hell bent on living a fairytale. The wedding got postponed because of the pandemic (and three more times after that in fact). But if we couldn’t get married, we’d start a family - and nothing would stop the excitement of knowing that I was at that point in my life where I would start “trying”. I was now 40 and I figured I had 2 years to make this happen…Ready, Steady, Go.
It did not take me long to pick up that thermometer and lose myself in ‘baby making mania’. Dog walks, car journey’s I was plugged into infertility podcasts like Big Fat Negative, For Trying Out Loud and I was consumed with how to get pregnant, how to educate my partner (whilst keeping things ‘natural’). But in secret my desperation is unravelling, and I was getting confused by all the conflicting advice. Supplements, private online fertility blood tests, sexual health clinic tests, acupuncture, four different period tracker apps (just in case), Chinese herbal medicine, running (but don’t run too much), ovulation sticks, giving up alcohol, reflexology, more private online blood tests, different supplements, exercise (but don’t exercise too much), decaf tea, don’t eat that in your follicular phase, eat that in your luteal phase, get the Covid vaccine (but don’t get the Covid vaccine you fool), stay active (but rest), progesterone suppositories, stress management, thyroxine, did I mention private blood tests…? This was no fairytale; I was a mess. I was suffocating.
I wanted monthly blood tests to see what was going on, and I knew the GP would think me unhinged if I requested that - the act of desperation. I was up against a clock that was getting louder and louder and louder. And I felt so alone. My partner, with children from a previous relationship, had a different approach to ‘trying’: ‘If it happens it happens’. So, he would clumsily tell me to RELAX when he ignorantly ignored my biology lesson and I’d feel more alone and enraged. I couldn’t understand, we’d spoken about wanting the same things from life, so why didn’t he share my desperation?
And I slowly began to take responsibility for my childlessness. It made sense to: he had three children, and I was overweight, with a history of troublesome trying in my family. It didn’t matter he was a big drinker, had a poor diet and was constantly physically and mentally stressed. He would have been happy just having me for the rest of his life if that’s what it came to, but me, I needed to give it everything I had and in doing so I lost him along the way. He didn’t understand the fertile window and didn’t care to educate himself. The arrogance and privilege of knowing he didn’t have to worry about those things when he was making his children…they just happened. In the small timeframe I had left as a 42year old woman, he didn’t want to change a single thing about his life in an effort to see if a change would make a difference. My resentment was spilling over, made worse that by this point I felt that I was there to support him whilst he grew his business and legacy realising there was nothing left for mine. The clinic suggested egg donation, given my age, but ultimately our infertility was unexplained - which just felt like the lazy answer. I wanted to scream and whilst they couldn’t find issues with us, we did, and I left.
It is hard to come to terms with how much I’ve lost through ‘trying’ and the realisation of just how much this journey has taken of my soul and my spirit. I’m not the same person I once was. I believe they it call chronic grief when the symptoms of grief intensify, instead of subside, over time.
During all this emotional pain, you’ve to throw in other life issues; maintaining friendships that serve to make you feel inadequate and different, supporting your best friend who got pregnant with her boyfriend of three months, which absolutely floored me again, my career as an Adoption Social Worker (not recommended whilst going through infertility and puts a different spin on the favourite question - Have you considered adopting?). With resilience at an all-time low I was ripe for a spot of depression…crushed by it all I took myself away from society and hid.
I can see, with therapy, and time and space that so much of my perspective is raw and ugly. He wasn’t ignorant, he was fearful, out of his depth, and not surprising he didn’t recognise me anymore, I didn’t either. He had his goals to reach too, within a limited timeframe, things to prove to himself, driven from him past. It made sense to him to nurture the bigger picture of having a life together.
And now, in hindsight, I cannot help but feel such deep regret that I took all the pressure into our relationship - I took a bite out of the world and built a career as an Adoption Social Worker (which is another story entirely whilst going through infertility - not recommended) and focused on getting myself in the best place possible to start a family, it just took too long it seems. Yes, he could have been a better team player, but our communication styles were so poor we couldn’t be heard, no doubt a direct consequence of each of our childhoods and the way we learnt to function and be seen. We no longer felt safe with each other.
Two years on, after leaving, the anger feels softer. I’m living day to day rather than in follicular and luteal phases, and whilst I feel consistently triggered by the clumsy and insensitive reminders of my childlessness, I hope eventually people will see that I’m not unhappy for what they have, I’m just unhappy at being reminded about what I lost. I lost him, I lost them, and I lost me.
Very slowly I’m starting to find me again, to move on from the fairytale I now know I will never have. And I am working on building my strength and resilience to endure those who measure my success against whether I’ve had children or not. “So, kids?”, ask the friends I’ve not seen since Covid. I shouldn’t be shocked, this is not the first time I’ve been shot down by this, but as my eyes well up and I say no, the follow up questions plunges the dagger in further: “But you’re happy though?”. No, you fanny, of course I’m not happy.
Of course, socially I am programmed to respond with something that makes them feel comfortable, which I do, but I zone out as mother friend, in attempt to rescue me, takes over the conversation. As I somehow find the strength to regain my composure, I come back into the conversation to realise I am being gestured at by tactless friend/also mother who is irritated her child is being ‘left out’ in his friendship circle - I suppose she thinks I may empathise. Oh, the irony.
And so, the isolation continues.
I still feel at adrift with my childlessness, I feel aimless and without purpose, but as life gets gentler, I wonder if the social worker in me will challenge how society sees ‘my kind’ and raise awareness of the need to be kinder to us lost souls at sea, until a time we can re-enter society as equals. I hope so.
