By now you should be thirteen and sixteen

laughing long into the night

after lights have turned dark

sharing unexpected adventures of summer evenings

to last you till next time the sun turns.

Dialogue has stopped

Rocks, untouched, sit in the garden

The pavement is a blank canvas

Grief is the only color I know to use

I too am childless not by choice. Over the years I have felt very alone and that it was “just me” Finding others, and reading their stories has brought a lot of solace and helped me realise that it isn’t “just me”. For that reason I have felt that I would like to share my story, in case it can help others, as their stories helped me.

Not in the consulting room

does heart break

but in the footsteps walking away

in the closing of the car door.

Never have i ever bean

Nor never have i had a bean

Never have i grew a bean

I haven’t had sex with anyone for over 10 years. Not by choice, not intentionally, not that I don’t want to. It’s just that it hasn’t happened. For whatever reasons. For reasons that stupefy me, baffle me, embarrass me, make me feel like a complete freak.

To my laughing friends,

I know I’m been in a settled relationship, don’t marvel at my sensibility or control.

I know I’m a woman in her mid-twenties, don’t tell me there’s plenty of time.

I know you’re all blessed with children, don’t say I’m the lucky one.

My childlessness story is a fifteen year journey of assumptions, disappointments, denials, self blame and what I now recognise as trauma.

Sometimes

I catch them out of the corner of my eye.

The little boy and little girl

I saw your face when you made love to me

I saw your face when you held me close and we danced

Theres a churning in my stomach,
an ache of pain and sorrow,
There feels like something's missing,
but I can't quite identify it.

Oh — who’s that?
She reminds me of someone I know, frightening!
Don’t look at her head, it’s dangerous!
There must be something wrong with her...

How gullible was I? A product of Irish, Catholic parents, it was assumed I would settle down, get married and have children just like all of my other school friends eventually went on to do.

Childlessness is the absence of a life, a life you planned
That didnt happen......

I was born in 1971; from as far back as I can remember as a young child I would play with my friends and talk about being a mom, I knew how many children I would have and I had names picked out and sometimes the names would change here and there. Regardless all through childhood up to marriage I just knew I would have children.

In this video Stephanie Phillips, World Childless Week and Karin Enfield De Vries, Gateway Women discuss how cancer has impacted on their childlessness.

Dear God, Why?

Why are most people I know married? Why aren’t I?

Why do most people I know have children? Why don’t I?

Memories come and go

I am back there, lying in the bath. The violins sweeping and a piano softly playing.

The ordeal is over, but the real pain is just about to begin.

A one-woman show that occurs in my bathroom 2-3 times a year.
Curtain opens on Carissa, 40 years old, in bathroom when period is 2 days late: Carissa’s inner voice talking to herself:

I said stop and no to more treatments. We had considered this for a while, reflected upon this – now the doctors also recommended it; they could see no reason for us to continue. Our decision became somewhat easier to make.

This is the story of how my identity as a woman has been shaped by four “phews” and a “yech”.

I’m the middle of 3 children. I was the shy, sensitive child, the caring one, the one seen as a ‘natural mother’. Never once did I question that I would get married and have children. My life had other plans.

I had this vision

That love would arrive

And bring with it the gift

Of other small lives

I was 42 years old, drinking alcohol to excess regularly, depressed and felt like my life was meaningless. I had not yet contemplated taking my own life but it was only matter of time.

Sometime tsunami that drowns me
rises up to choke my heart
from fathomless depths.

I painted this watercolour painting to express emotions around reaching the end of our journey through failed fertility treatment, which can be so hard to put into words.

Until I found available resources, the silence around involuntary childlessness was, for me, one of the most difficult parts of living this experience.

He says get over it
Move on
You can’t stay stuck here

I crave black and white thinking. I presume that plain sailing thoughts and decisions make for an easier, more comfortable state of human existence.

When I tell people how I met my husband, they are quick to comment: “Just like in a movie!”

I was duped. I was cheated. I was well and truly taken for a ride. And it’s too late for a second chance. It comes to me, the realisation that my life is finite. That this life is IT. No more chances to start again, from scratch.

I was inspired to write a song when I heard the following comment on a radio talk show.

I met my husband at age 19, and we married at 21, which is almost unheard of nowadays.