Right now I am happier than I’ve ever been. 

• This doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t change anything if I could.

• This doesn’t mean that I never have griefy moments, or hours, or days, or even longer periods.

• This doesn’t mean that I don’t tear up when I see my nephews (would my children have looked like that?) or when I see my in-laws interacting with the little boy whose unofficial grandparents they have become.

• This doesn’t mean that I don’t feel excluded by parent-talk, or that I don’t feel hurt by the assumption that I must have children because everyone of my age does (do they?), or the assumption that lockdown was easy for me because I wasn’t home-schooling (as I wrote last year, I’d swap in a heartbeat).

• This doesn’t mean that I’m not sometimes devastated by other people’s carelessness, or insensitivity (I recently ended a twenty-five-year friendship after they had a baby, didn’t tell me about the pregnancy, and announced the birth by changing a Facebook profile picture). It doesn’t mean that I don’t curse the universe when a horrible story about a child murder, or child abuse, hits the news.

• It doesn’t mean that I have no wounds, or even no scars.

• It doesn’t mean that I now think of myself as childfree. I will always be childless.

But, as the old saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. Childlessness is like a cloud. When my final IVF failed and I realised that that was it, game over, that cloud surrounded and enveloped me and I had to make my way through the fog. The grief dimmed my senses and left me lost and scared for a long time.

But eventually, the cloud began to lift. With more time, I could see the silver lining in the distance ahead of me, and gradually it became closer. Which is another way of saying that the grief became more manageable, that I had more good days and fewer bad ones, that I slowly began to enjoy life again. As time went by, the tiny shreds of silver lining grew larger, more coherent; they encompassed days, not just moments. Now the cloud only pokes through the silver lining occasionally, and rarely for very long.

Life can never be all silver lining; the cloud will always be there. Sometimes it’s large and the silver lining small, so small that you might miss it if you blink. Sometimes the lining becomes shreds again and you have to look for them. But you can’t find the silver lining without firstacknowledging that the cloud is there, and you may need to acknowledge it again and again. The silver lining is part of the cloud; you don’t get one without the other. However, the cloud doesn’t define me, or my life, and it doesn’t have to define you and your life.

And sometimes, just sometimes, the silver lining can actually be quite fun. More time and money for yourself, not having to worry about schools or living near schools, no need for child-friendly holidays, greater spontaneity, being able to swear whenever you like, more and better self-care. As well asnot needing to worry about looking after anyone else when you’re ill yourself, no fighting about eating vegetables, no tantrums. Never, ever having to watch Peppa Pig. All of these are quite small in themselves, but together they add up to quite a lot of enjoyment, or absence of pressure.

Childlessness is not – will never be – what I would have chosen. But I am (mostly) happy despite it. The silver lining often hides the cloud.

Bella C