Ed Ismail
When I think of the 10 things you should know about me, I immediately wonder what you'll think as soon as you read them - Will you judge me? That’s what naturally springs to mind.
I hear the voices of people that can’t identify being Childless Not By Choice – how they “know what it’s like because they struggled to conceive, but they still got their miracle baby.”
I hear negative voices telling me that there’s nothing special about me and my story.
1. Being CNBC makes me feel dismissed by society: Smug parents telling me they’ve found their true path, their reason for existence. How I don’t understand because I don’t have kids. How I don’t know what real love is, until I’ve had children.
I feel small.
I have love, and one’s not ‘real,’ as opposed to another, it’s just different.
2. News of newborns trigger me.
It’s hard to escape it sometimes. If it’s not on social media, then it’s on WhatsApp groups. Depending on my day, it can hit me really hard. Pictures of new a born baby literally thrust in your face. No warning. Just there. The only thing you’ve ever wanted, that you can’t have.
If you had a friend who was an alcoholic – would you drink in front of them?
And let’s not get it twisted – I’m never unhappy that people have children – I’m just unhappy for me.
3. I will not walk down the baby aisle of a supermarket.
4. I prefer not to be in places where there might be an abundance of children.
5. I have put off/avoided plans to see friends because they will have their children with them.
6. I never knew I could grieve for something I could never have, as well as something I have lost. Experiencing both makes me realise it’s the same.
It doesn’t matter how much time passes – you will always get taken by surprise on days it hits you hard.
7. I have a football kit from when I was quite little, that I wanted to give to my child. I intend to give it away, but it’s too painful to let it go.
8. I was very close with my Grandmother. When I used to think of having my own child, the first thought was putting it in her arms to hold. She’s passed and it hurts I couldn’t give her that happiness.
9. I use poetry and playwrighting to process and express my feelings of pain and bitterness.
10. I’ve had paternal feelings since I was a child, knowing early on I wanted to be a Dad. I was raised an only child – always wanting brothers or sisters. In some strange way, I wanted to fill that void by being someone’s father.
