Accept what is, let go of what was and have faith in what will be
There was a time when asked if I had children I would get flustered and it wouldn’t matter who was asking the question I’d feel obligated to give them an explanation. Because like so many women I am childless through circumstance.
In my thirties I married my husband and wanted to start our own family, it transpired my path to becoming a mother was not going to be as straight-forward as I’d hoped. Through-out this time the pressure and expectation to become pregnant and have a healthy baby was immense, intensified by the people around me but mostly by myself. My life plan always featured children, there wasn’t an alternative plan B and I could not imagine living my life without them.
What will be will be
As the months and years rolled by I’d frequently find myself at my GP surgery as I instinctively knew there had to be something wrong. I was 39 when I received my diagnosis, I could conceive but due to large fibroids embedded in my womb embryos were unable to implant successfully. I opted to have surgery to give me the possibility of carrying a baby to full-term. This was a tough time as it was here where I began to let go and find the faith that if I was meant to give birth to my own child somehow I would.
As my fortieth birthday approached I refocused my attention on trying to live my life and put my hopes and dreams of becoming a mother to one side. To my amazement nine months after my birthday I became pregnant and I was filled with joy, hope and trepidation.
Sadly our happiness was not to last as we lost our longed for baby Grace Rose several months into my pregnancy to a missed miscarriage. I was utterly heartbroken and my life completely unravelled.
What I didn’t expect to experience following my miscarriage was the silence and taboo that surrounds baby loss. People around you would rather you kept quiet and grieved silently. So not only did I find myself grieving for my baby, I also had to overcome the judgement of being a woman who had lost her baby and was still childless. But my voice would not be silenced as I was incensed by this reaction. I owed it to Grace and myself to speak up, voice my sadness and grief and would not deny the fact that my baby and pregnancy ever existed.
You get to decide who you are for yourself
For a long time I had believed it was up to others to validate and accept me. But I had been seeking acceptance in the wrong place. As I embarked on a long personal journey through the depths of grieving and healing, I realised I had been giving my power away. It wasn’t up to others to decide whether my life could be fulfilling without my own living children. It wasn’t up to society to decide if I was worthy as a childless woman and it wasn’t up to those who I once believed were friends to decide whether I should speak up or not. Acceptance of who I am and my life is entirely up to me.
And so as I healed I sought out a more spiritual way of being, I instinctively found myself drawn to learning more about the divine feminine and empowering women. I began to write my own story about my loss and eventual awakening which will be published as a book in the autumn. Gradually I understood for me to feel any peace I had to learn how to fully accept myself. Now I believe I am enough as a wife, daughter, sister, auntie, friend and as a woman without her own children - I am always enough.
Women continue to have expectations placed on us by society, within our communities, amongst our friends and families and on ourselves. Despite living in a time of choice, freedom and opportunity our worthiness as women continues to be assessed and judged on whether we have children. If you don’t have children there must be something missing in your life, there must be something wrong with you or you must feel incomplete. But it doesn’t have to feel this way.
Choose to support don’t judge
I believe in order to bring much-needed change and diminish the taboo’s, silence and judgement surrounding childlessness women need to unite and support and accept each other, despite our circumstances. If we start here with mutual kindness, compassion and honesty everything will begin to shift, we will feel as though we belong and the world will change for the better.
Share your truth
As for me if anyone chooses to ask me if I have children, now I tell them the truth. Now I say no, I don’t have any living children. Now I say that we sadly lost our longed-for baby during my pregnancy. Now I tell them about our baby Grace.
And if they don’t like my response, they have to accept they should never have asked the question in the first place. I refuse to be defined by my childless status and no longer feel flustered, because after all the only person whose opinion really matters is my own; especially since I’ve found self-acceptance.
Melanie Mackie
Melanie Mackie runs her own award-winning mentoring business and is an Intuitive Mentor and Consultant. She supports her clients to reconnect with their intuition and divine femininity, to use their voice to speak up for much-needed change and to embrace mother nature to support their own healing and awakening. In 2015 Melanie lost her baby Grace Rose during her pregnancy, this heart-breaking loss was a catalyst to changing her entire life. Eventually she chose the light and committed to living her best life, for her and especially for Grace. Her new book “Living With Amazing Grace - a journey through grief, healing and transformation will be published in October 2019. Melanie is a speaker and her talks raise awareness of the impact of miscarriage, grief, healing and the power of our divine feminine wisdom. All subjects that have been hidden, buried and silenced for far too long. To find out more visit melaniemackie.org