Finding out I was never going to be able to conceive a child naturally in my early 20’s was somewhat of a bizarre experience.  I was working in a large city law firm and loved my career, was dating but not really in a rush to get married as I felt I had all the time in the world, and I had a social life that was thriving.  I felt like it didn’t really impact me at that time so wasn’t affecting my day-to-day life. When the consultant said ‘you do understand this means you cannot have children’ my immediate thought was ‘ok but can I get back to my friends at the pub now??’.

After some time of actually letting the facts sink in and being on incorrect medication for a number of years, I was finally diagnosed with premature ovarian insufficiency and put on the right treatment. 

At this stage in my life all my friends were now married and having children…I felt isolated and had a sudden panic attack as to what it meant for me?  Coming from a relatively traditional Indian family where everyone marries and has children at ‘the right time’ I felt like a failure who wasn’t doing what she should be.

Meeting who I thought was the right man for me came at a time when I was fully on HRT and felt I was coming to grips with my ‘situation’.  He had two children from a previous marriage and didn’t want any more, so my head said ‘well that’s great then…problem solved! You have a ready-made family!’  Little did I know…

We dated for a few years and integrated our lives and families, but something was always missing in my heart.  On a trip away I broached the issue of children, and he was,unsurprisingly shocked as this had all been discussed and we were on the same page.  It was at that moment reality hit me and I admitted that I wanted to have children with this man and wanted to build my own family with him.  The conversations in the following months became more and more intense and I realised that what I was doing was grieving.  I was grieving for the life that I saw we could have whenever we were with his children but in my head, it wasn’t our life as they were not my mine.

The relationship became one of blame – I blamed him for being selfish and not allowing us to try for adoption or investigate any alternatives. He blamed me for telling him I didn’t want children when the truth was I did.

At this point friends and family could not understand the problem.  All I heard was ‘but you guys are so good together’, ‘but his kids get on with you so well’ etc etc...

What people didn’t see was that I began to resent his children which was an awful thing to realise.  Every time we couldn’t go away or do something because he had the children, I would make passive aggressive comments.  I started spending less time with the children and this put a massive strain on our relationship.

Eventually we split up just before Christmas.  My niece was born that New Year’s Eve and both the joy and grief washed over me like nothing I had ever known.  I now also was grieving the relationship I had with a man I really did love as well as everything else.

To this day I get asked why I could not just be with him and be happy, but the truth is, being in a relationship with someone who already has children when you cannot have your own is not something you really know how you will react to until it happens.  It would have been easy to stay with him and pretend all was ok but eventually the pain would have taken over and the fallout would have been worse, particularly for his kids who are amazing and don’t deserve to be collateral damage any further.

Currently I am still single but feel that I am making steps in the right direction to be able to meet someone who either does or doesn’t have children and approach the relationship with a lot more honesty and understanding of my own situation as well as my POI diagnosis.

MM

Photo by Sarah Medina on Unsplash