Pressing on,

Three years have passed.

from our IVF loss,

Lately, I’ve been sitting with the realization that I desperately want to move forward, I’m just not entirely sure what that even looks like.

I am worthy of laughter, of joy and idyllic dreams,
Not just shattered ones, sadness and tears.

There is no one like me, I am neither a sister nor am I a mother.

I just finished the last chapter today. I'm feeling a little bit sad that the book is finished and I also have the feeling I'll read this book again and again.

It's been just over a year since we decided to end our fertility treatment. It was a really hard decision to make, especially as we were preparing to do a 5th round of IVF.

I used to think I had to be done with my grief before I could even begin to consider moving on.

I choose to find joy

And joy finds me

What’s the hurry?

Where’s the worry?

My infertility journey started when I was 26 . I was diagnosed with Premature Ovarian Syndrome which meant my body was going into early menopause.

I just got back from a work trip in Europe, one of the few places where I always feel like I can breathe.

It began in 2014, with hope. A heartbeat seen, a future imagined. And then, silence, loss in the Masai Mara,where the wild carried my grief away with the wind.

It was understood since I was a young girl that I was going to get married and have babies. I was Polish and Catholic, as such one of my “roles” in life was to follow the path so many other women in my family did.

Once upon a time there was a little girl called Sarah, who lived with her Mummy and Daddy and sister. She had two Nanas and two Grandads and lots of Aunties and Uncles and Cousins.

You have been wandering lost and confused for so long. I know now that you just wanted a guide.

I wasn’t sure whether to put this into ‘My Stories’ or ‘Moving Forwards’ because whether I feel like I’ve moved forward or not depends on the day.

I am single. This reality cannot be denied. I am middle aged

Mother Nature remains unfazed by our emotions.

Her silence is steady

a balm for the ache of being childless.

I am struggling with what to submit for World Childless week this year and don’t know why. Suddenly, it hits me. That word WHY.

The years leading up to menopause were not particularly nice years. They were full of heightened emotions, dramatic outbursts and yes, lots of crying.

The first time I really noticed the door, really stopped, studied it, was after a conversation we - my partner and I - had about whether we wanted children.

Instead of avoiding, hiding, dreading what makesmy life unfullfilled, challenge it, find the alternative.

I wrote this in my diary on 4. July 2023.

As I sat, quill in hand, reflecting on what to write for this year’s World Childless Week submission, one image and sentence kept coming to mind – the well is dry. 

My ten-year run at trying for a baby ended the day of my thirty-fifth birthday when I spilt with my partner.

I can't put into words how healing nature and especially the mountains are for me.

The swans are tired of this cold place.

They have gathered sleekly on the shore,

If you can’t have kids
you’ll be OK

We feel it more us childless

Unanswered texts like taking bullets

In this conversation for World Childless Week, Yvonne John and Civilla Morgan explore what it really means to live with the grief of involuntary childlessness.