Saskia Fraser
TRIGGER WARNING: this experience was a gathering of my close female friends and family that allowed me to explain how to support me through this childless-not-by-choice experience.
In January this year I had a ceremony to mark my transition from potential mother to childless woman. I asked my closest friends to arrange it for me as I realised this transition was MASSIVE for me, as it is for many women (apparently in the UK 1 in 5 women are reaching 45 without kids now). Usually this transition goes pretty much unmarked, whilst we, the childless women, are in deep mourning for the life and children that we will never have.
I made the decision to stop trying for a baby in August 2022 and gave myself until Christmas to get over it (haha, said life!). I came to realise, as with all griefs, that this will be with me for life; as I hold the hands of my nieces and nephews; when the children in my life have their own babies; when my friends talk about the joys and challenges of being grandparents. It will be there. As I know from my experience of grief already, it will get easier with time but the rawness will resurface and overwhelm me at times - the reality that I never got to have, hold and love my own children.
My decision to go ahead with the transition ceremony at that time was particularly emotional as my sister and a close friend, who had both been on the fertility journey with me, had just had babies. My new niece was too young to be left at home for the ceremony and so she came along too. I wasn't sure how it would feel, but I wrapped her in the blanket that I had been crocheting for the last three years - the one that was meant for my own baby and that I now wear as a scarf and a badge of honour - and somehow it all felt right.
We started the ceremony by sitting in a circle, with snacks and tea in the middle. My sister led the ceremony (she has not done this before but she was a natural), letting us know what the format of the ceremony was going to be and keeping the time during it.
First, everyone shared their names, how they knew me and then one reason that they were grateful to have me in their lives.
Then I was given space to talk about my experience of becoming a childless woman. I spoke about all the things that were coming up for me since deciding to stop IVF and accept that I would remain childless; grief, shame, failure, loneliness, self-blame etc.
Then I was woven into a web with my women - each woman bought a ball of wall and we passed the wool around until each ball had passed around each woman, and me, to create a web. Then they thought of all the happy things they wished for me in my childless life, closed their eyes and put that energy into the wool. We then crafted tassels from the wool, for everyone to take and hang in their homes to remind them of me and the journey I will be on as a childless woman for the rest of my life.
After that, we went around the circle with each woman presenting a bead to me, with an intention for my grief journey (one of my friends created a necklace from the beads during this time - it is a crazy, potent necklace and I love it!), and they also shared what they valued about me as a now-childless woman in their lives and the lives of their children.
My friends had all clubbed together and bought me a tree (a rowan - my favourite), and they each had a ribbon with an intention for my future life, which they tied onto the tree.
Finally, they created an archway with their arms, which I was asked to walk through whilst thinking of my fertility journey, so they could pour their love into me as I walked with it. At the end of the tunnel I was asked to walk out of the yurt (where the ceremony was being held) and circle the yurt alone, facing my childlessness, before coming back into the middle of the circle where they sang a song with the words 'We love you, Saskia. Saskia, We love you' for around 5 minutes. I was bathed in their love.
I tend to face life full-on, and this ceremony was one of those moments when I walked up to the rock face, not knowing if I was going to be able to climb it or not - whether my family and friends would be able to understand. By the end, they did and the love and gratitude for me that my friends expressed, plus knowing that they will be there supporting me around this for the rest of my life, truly helped me to experience a 'transition'; from feeling really quite lonely, experiencing a grief that is little understood, to feeling fully seen and held. We all cried a lot and they felt deeply grateful for this opportunity to understand the childless experience more. As I felt their support, it was the first time I’d laughed in a while too.
After this, I decided that I want to share ceremony with other women on this journey, creating ceremonies to empower us on this unexpected and powerful childless path that we are on together. Childless women, with all our grief and rawness, have so much to offer the world, especially when we feel held and supported by people who understand.
