It wasn't planned this way,

• that I would get divorced in my mid-thirties.

• that during the time when I wanted a child from my ex-husband, it didn't work out right away.

• that I fooled myself into thinking that I didn't really want a child.

• that I find the love of my life in my mid-thirties.

• that the love of my life already has a nine-year-old (now almost fourteen-year-old) daughter from his first marriage.

• that he didn't want any more children.

• that I do have a desire to have children.

• that I cannot fulfil this wish with my great love.

• that I also love his daughter more than anything.

• that I live every day in my dream come true and at the same time grieve that my wish will not come true.

How it came about
This is my life. It wasn't planned this way, but it happened. I am 38 years old and the fact that my partner is eleven years older has never bothered me. When I met him, I was in a crisis.

My husband at the time and I were trying to have a child. However, our idea of what life as a family should look like was drifting further apart, which deeply unsettled me and drove me further and further away from him. After months of going the other way, I decided to end the relationship. I was sad, devastated, disappointed and felt like a failure.

During this time, my current partner was already standing by me as a friend. After countless conversations about God and the world, relationships, families, friends, children, joy, pain, dealing with all kinds of strokes of fate and much more, I knew I wanted to spend my life with this person and have the kind of relationship I always wanted. A relationship in which we experience beauty of life together as equals and with mutual trust, but can also talk about unpleasant things and always take each other out of our comfort zone. Growing together with a deep, intimate love that I had never experienced before.

I didn't think it was a bad thing that he already had a daughter who was nine years old at the time. On the contrary, we got on very well very quickly after the first contact. I found it totally understandable that he didn't want any more children either, and since I had just been through a divorce and our relationship was fresh, I didn't give it much thought. The months went by, I moved in with him, his daughter lives with us half the week and with her mother the other half, we spent our first holidays together, everything went better and better, more and more harmonious, more and more familiar and I became sadder and sadder.

It took me a while to realise that I actually did want a child of my own. And another while until I could clearly tell my partner what I was missing. We had some difficult conversations and many tears flowed until I found my life coach. It was only after the first conversations with her that I understood that I was going through life with a deep sadness about my unfulfilled desire to have a child.

A lot of work with oneself
For almost two years now, I have been actively working with my grief. Besides yoga, writing a diary and reading a lot about women without children, I am developing understanding and goodwill towards myself and am slowly trying to get rid of my shame about my situation bit by bit. Yes, I was ashamed.

For a long time I had the feeling that I was not allowed to talk about my unfulfilled wish to have a child and my grief. I was too afraid of reactions like, "After all, it was your decision to have a relationship with a man who is already a father and doesn't want any more children.”

It was also difficult for me to talk about it with my partner. I don't blame him, he has always been honest with me, and yet he and his clear decision are somehow part of it. Without him, however, I don't know how I would even bear all these feelings. He always listens to me, is understanding, supports me and is there for me. For that I am grateful to him from the bottom of my heart.

My life and it is good this way
The experiences of the last few years have had a strong impact on me. I did not expect that my unfulfilled desire to have children within my patchwork family with my partner and his daughter would become the biggest challenge of my life so far. It sounds strange, but sometimes I feel like I'm going back and forth between heaven and hell, sometimes every minute.

There is this huge happiness to accompany a growing girl, to be there for her like a mother, to lead a daily life like a family, to be a strong team with my partner like parents, everything that belongs to a perfect family in my imagination. And then I get caught up again and again by the fact that my partner's daughter is just not my daughter, I am just not a mother, I lack a lot of motherly experiences and I get sad, sometimes jealous of my partner, sometimes even of his ex-wife, the mother of his daughter and sometimes there is anger.

All these rollercoaster-like feelings to admit to, to look at and to find ways to deal with them takes a lot of energy and sometimes I am tired. However, to withdraw from all this, to give up all the wonderful moments and experiences, just so that I don't have to bear all the unpleasant and difficult feelings, was never an option for me. I had to learn that my grief at not having a child of my own is a part of me. It is not a matter of getting rid of it, but of finding ways to deal with it. My grief will always be with me - sometimes more, sometimes less. That is life, my life. It wasn't planned this way, but it's good.

Jrene