And no one came
When it comes to infertility the common thought is often that if you want it enough and try enough, eventually your dream will come true and you will have your miracle baby. This is the story we read and hear about, mainly. But sometimes the ending to the story is another one. This is one of those stories.
Being single, and really wanting children, I found myself in the situation of needing to consider other ways to become a mother. Making that decision was not completely easy, but once it was there it felt completely right, and totally wonderful. I did know that not all fertility treatments work, but of course it would for me…
I entered the fertility industry in October 2013. Nervous and excited at the same time. And so incredibly overjoyed by the prospect of soon being a mother. Well, the joy did quickly disappear in that process of medical procedures and one failed treatment after the other. IUI, IVF, ICSI – own eggs and donated.
Fourteen possibilities turned into negative results, barely visible positives, and one missing heartbeat at the ultrasound in week 7. “There’s no one here.”, said the doctor, and did then find the embryo – too small for the week count, and with no beating heart. Pills in hand and crying my heart out, I took the bus home.
In the beginning months of 2017, after one final negative pregnancy test, I closed the door on that dream. The decision to do so had grown during the previous year, and I found myself just really having to stop. It was not easy, nevertheless, and I did (and still do) have times when I question that decision – but I had to.
An infertility journey is excruciatingly tough and painful – an emotional rollercoaster of enormous scales. Yet, so is also leaving it without the baby. There are many of us ending up here – in permanent involuntary childlessness. Through many different routes and with many different stories but sharing the same grief of never welcoming a child of your own into your life, your home, your lap, your family. And it’s devastating.
There is the grief in the moment that a child does not start growing and make it all the way into this world. There is grief in realizing that will never happen. And there is the grief that follows you through your life – in all the things that you imagined and dreamed of, and that never will be. Lifelong, since a child would have filled the whole life with being, growing, hitting milestones, and maybe (if everything works well) in their turn continue the line by having children of their own.
I often find myself in that grief. In the emptiness of all the never. Never carrying a child inside you, feeling the kicks and the movements. Never holding your own child in your arms, feeling the weight, the skin and hearing the sounds. Never knowing what he or she would have been like. Never getting to see them grow.
Sometimes I lose myself in all that never. The enormity of it comes crushing down and threatens to drown me. Those times the grief is like storm waves in the ocean, and all I can do is gasp for air, waiting for the storm to pass, the grief to lessen. Those times, all I can see is the emptiness of the unrealized dream.
Other times it´s just like the small flickers in the water of a pond. Seeing a pregnant belly, hearing about someone expecting, witnessing someone´s interactions with their child… There´s a slight pinch in my heart and stomach, a momentary sinking feeling – and then it often ebbs out without more than a slight pause.
And then there´s the freedom part. Because that exists as well. Being childless not by choice is a grief, and we would have wanted it other ways, but coming out of the dream with this outcome – one slowly needs to build other meaning, other paths, and other contents in life. Sometimes I even feel more childfree after infertility nowadays. The emptiness is there, but so is the freedom, and all the other wonderful things.
Learning to accept a life without children and finding your way as a childless not by choice person is not easy. It takes time. It does not progress in a linear fashion; it has aspects of grief that linger on. But it´s a life that can be meaningful, wonderful, and rich as well. It took me a while to say that and believe it, but now I do – soon four years after the decision to let go of that dream and try to find my foothold in life again.
Being childless not by choice is nowadays just one aspect of who I am. It does not define me, but it is one factor in the life I live. Sometimes it’s neutral – I just don’t have kids, other times it’s emptiness, and then there are the times it’s an enabler and a freedom. Increasingly, I feel it´s more of the last one.
To whoever is trying to find their way in (or into) permanent childlessness – take your time, listen to your heart (I know, it´s not always easy) and give yourself a lot of compassion. It´s a tough journey we´re on. But this life too is meaningful and marvelous in many other aspects – try to make room for them, with time.
~Katja Helenelund
