- when life is asking you to find another way -

I wrote this contribution to World Childless Week 2020 in the middle of the challenging and never before experienced situation of a long confinement due to Covid-19 virus. A period of time where my thoughts were traveling very often to those who had to face the virus, and to those who lost family members because of it. My thoughts were also going to people who were finding isolation very challenging, as well as to those who were struggling between home-office and home schooling. But most of all, I was thinking about all the people who were going through the process of losing a child, of suffering from miscarriage or still birth, all while in the middle of this global pandemic.

During this time, I had to force myself quite often to calm down. Especially while listening to parents who complained about the demanding circumstances, and about how exhausted they felt for having their kids around all day. In these moments, I wanted to grab my phone and tell them how lucky they were to have their kids. However, instead of getting angry, I understood I needed to find another way to address my emotions. The anger I felt raised my inner voice and convinced me to follow-up on a strong intention that I already had a few month ago: raising awareness on the special topic of Childlessness not by choice (cnbc) which unfortunately is still another taboo in our society.

Many life situations or life events can have an impact on being a mother or father. For some of these, the impact can result from a personal decision when preferring for instance to focus on the next career step or deciding not to be anymore with the partner you once thought would be the right person for founding a family. Unfortunately, there are also unforeseen events, where it is not possible to have any kind of control over the impact nor the outcome, like in my case:

My name is Daniela, I am 44 years old, childless by a number of circumstances (job, divorce, cancer, decreased fertility after chemotherapy). I am of German nationality but I am living far away from my family since almost 17 years, as I am an expatriate in Luxembourg where I am working for a European institution. A triple-negative breast cancer diagnosis in 2013 at the age of 37, shortly after a divorce, was the turning point in my life. Not only had I to accept to restart completely from scratch in all areas of my existence, but I also had to encounter the fact that chemotherapy treatment is leading to a massive decrease or loss of fertility, despite the hope of 22 frozen egg cells following an oncofertility treatment in Brussels.

It took me a while to make my way through reintegration to work and social life. I went through extreme tiredness, very fragile immune system and constant appointments at the doctors and social isolation. But eventually I met someone who after just one year of our relationship was giving me the chance to conceive. I truly considered this as a miracle.

The first positive pregnancy test was on November 4th in 2018. I will always remember this particular moment. I had never felt so happy in my life… I would finally become a mother!

Just 6 weeks later, the doctor had to tell us that the egg was empty. We were devastated. We had never heard about a bighted ovum or anembryonic pregnancy. Why was this happening, what was the reason?

The second pregnancy, 3 month later, ended in a similar way, although this time there were two empty eggs. Again, we had to deal with absolute sadness and emptiness. It felt like a part of my heart was leaving me.

At that point, we started to inquire about genetic preconditions and the causes why all of this was happening. What may seem to be a normal process was for us very irritating and stressful.

After these two natural pregnancies, we decided to go back to CRG Brussels where my 22 frozen egg cells were sleeping in deep hibernation.

We committed to an IVF treatment, which was successful. I will never forget the few minutes of the heartbeat that I could here during ultrasound in week 9. Then in week 11 the disaster. No heartbeat anymore. That was an absolute drama, I felt so empty and so hurt that it took me over a week to come out of my bed and to find a “normal” life back.

Very quickly, it became clear to me that I had to take a final decision: the one to let this dream of motherhood go, forever.

That was back in January 2019. Long walks in Ireland and Luxembourg and especially Jody Day’s book “Living the life Unexpected – 12 weeks to Your Plan B for a meaningful and fulfilling Future without children” were my anchors during this hard time. It took me almost a year to come to terms with this situation and not feeling irritated every time I heard about a birth or pregnancy around me. I definitely went through an emotional rollercoaster.

Slowly by slowly, I discovered my plan B and here it is:

As a breast cancer survivor for 7 years now, I engaged myself into a volunteer work with Europa Donna Luxembourg and I became BC advocate in order to raise awareness, to break the silence and to empower women to speak about their experiences. Over the past months, I really felt the growing need to do the same for childless parents, as I realised that this is even a bigger taboo than cancer.

Even if it took me a while to do my ‘coming out’ on being childless (not by choice), I would like to share my story in the framework of the World Childless Week in September and above, since I am sure that it can make a difference to a lot of women and men going through a similar experience. I truly believe that this topic needs to be taken out of the “I cannot talk about it” zone.

My vision is to create an association in Luxembourg, which will be dedicated to “Childlessness”. I am currently looking for local information in order to have a precise idea on what it takes as well as what needs to be provided in terms of administrative documentation. It is a long way, but I am sure that “our angels up there” will help me!

Joined to this article you will find a very special picture I took on December 13th, 2018. The day our 4th angel left us. I had knitted this little shoe while preparing for oncofertility treatment in October 2013. I kept it together with the rest of the wool as I promised myself to knit the second one when my baby was born. The shoe is together with the only picture of the baby’s heartbeat. As for the rest of the wool… I had to throw it away when I decided to turn the page.

With my kindest wishes and with special thanks to my partner Tony

Daniela Pfaltz

NB: For those who would like to read more about my last 7 years, I invite you to visit my blog Mein Leben en rose which is a mixture of French and German articles (some are in English) about my life in pink: