Frankie Hockham
You don’t notice it at first.
Things simply stop hurting quite as much.
I no longer get as upset sitting in the gynaecology waiting room beside a woman with a baby bump. I can enjoy talking to friends about their pregnancies and feel genuinely happy for them.
There are still things I struggle with. Baby showers are difficult. Mother’s Day is difficult. And I still feel the occasional twinge when I see my husband talking to children, because I know he would have been a wonderful dad.
When we stopped IVF in 2018, I had begun to accept that I would not become a mum. I was slowly healing and starting to imagine a different future.
Then, in 2020, I became pregnant naturally. I only found out when I was having a miscarriage.
That experience brought back the hope I thought I had put away. It reminded me that I could become pregnant, and for a while it made moving forward much harder.
Afterwards, I had to make a conscious effort not to build my life around the possibility of becoming a mum. I had to begin planning a new future.
Running our astronomy charity, has helped enormously. Every day, we get to inspire young minds and share their excitement about the universe. Sometimes we wonder whether this is part of the reason our lives took a different path. Perhaps we are able to inspire many more children because we have the time and freedom to do this work.
Talking to friends who have children has also helped me see that every life comes with gains and losses. Sometimes they envy our freedom to pop to the pub, make spontaneous plans or travel outside the school holidays, just as we sometimes envy parts of their lives.
Moving forward has not been one dramatic change of direction. It has been made up of small emotional shifts that I did not always notice while they were happening.
The grief is still there, but it has changed shape. It no longer fills every part of my life.
I know it may shift again when our friends start becoming grandparents. That may bring a new kind of sadness or a reminder of another future we will not have.
But I cannot live all of that now.
For now, I take it one day at a time. There are new opportunities, smiles, laughter and a sense of purpose alongside the difficult moments. Life no longer feels as though it is standing still.
