[LifeStyle] Not being able to have a baby was devastating – then I found people who embraced a childfree life

[NesT_YT]

 

I had always wanted to be a mother, but after three unsuccessful rounds of IVF, I decided to stop trying. What could I learn from the people who have chosen not to be parents?

it was my hen do in the Lake District and my friends had organised a game of Mr and Mrs. The idea, for the uninitiated, is to test how well you know your future spouse. Beforehand, they quizzed Ian, my intended, and then repeated the exercise with me, with extra fizzy wine. It began with the usual stuff (Where was your first kiss? Who is the better dresser?) but then they asked a question that suddenly sobered me up: “What is your greatest fear?”

 

I wondered whether to answer honestly. I instinctively knew the truth but was aware it might kill the vibe. I went for it anyway. “Not being able to have children,” I said. There was a momentary hush before one of the hens played a video of Ian guessing the rather more sweeping “Failure”, and someone filled my glass to the brim. I was 36.

Several years in to trying and failing to have children, that game of Mr and Mrs sometimes haunted me. There are all sorts of complicated and sometimes illogical feelings that come with infertility. For me, shame was one. I felt ashamed that I had never hidden my desire to have children – I used to claim I would have four – and was embarrassed that it wasn’t working out.

I was a person who got what she wanted by putting in the hours. I had been ludicrously motivated from a young age, certain early on that I wanted to be a journalist. I wrote to my local radio station at 14 and explained why no one my age listened to their programmes, my cheek rewarded with a weekly slot on Radio Lancashire beamed live from my bedroom. Later, I deliberately chose a degree I knew wouldn’t take much time (German) so I could devote myself to student journalism.

 

I remember sobbing on a rock as I watched a seal plop into a loch followed by her many glistening babies

My focus paid off. I got offered a job at the Guardian when I graduated, and by 30 was working as a foreign correspondent in Berlin. I remember holding a friend’s newborn baby in the pub before flying to Germany. I always loved babies – I still do – but having my own seemed so far away. There was so much I wanted to do first.

By the time I had found the right man and it became clear that baby-making the classic way was not going to work, many of my friends were on to their second child. I started IVF at 38 when a colleague was just about to go on maternity leave, her basketball belly an everyday reminder of the fertility I lacked. Social media seemed awash with 12-week scans and delivery suite snaps, with captions extolling “the greatest love of all”. I pretended to be happy for everyone else.

I developed an intense hatred for male celebrities who became fathers in their dotage after finding much younger second wives. I began boycotting the work of an actor I previously admired when he gave an interview saying that he only had to look at his wife and she seemed to get pregnant. I resented more than ever having to be the one doing all the running in my friendships, fitting in visits around school pick-ups and nap times. In my day job as a reporter, court cases involving child neglect hit me harder than ever. How were these monsters having babies when I couldn’t?