Infertility

I still, I do feel fairly okay about it. I, I know some people refer to themselves as childfree, rather than childless. I don’t think I’ll be saying that for a good while. And I do still want to have children. I don’t think that will ever leave me. I think, you know, while I have a breath in my body I’ll still, I would still want to have a child. But generally I feel okay about it. And also I don’t really feel the need to apply a label to myself now. G-, people do ask you, especially in Ireland, “Oh, any family?” Just random people that you meet in a shop or at the bus stop or something, people will ask that question. And I actually, I used to find that a very very difficult question to answer. But now I just say, “Sadly, no, I don’t have children.” And I think that conveys everything that I need to say, without having to go into a huge long explanation to a stranger about why at this age I don’t have children. And that feels a more positive way of dealing with it.

 

 

I did feel very, I think for, certainly for women and also for men, I know from my husband’s perspective, a lot of our image is around this kind of fertility. You would see, you know, people having three or four kids and, you know, this kind of earth mother thing, this yummy mummy thing came in. And it was very much, you know, people, film stars and pop stars didn’t used to have children, you know, they would d-, devote their life to their kind of art. And then all of a sudden it became very fashionable to have a huge family. And I did start to feel very kind of as though my sense of being a woman was questioned. You know, “Isn’t that, isn’t that what women are here for? Do women not just have babies?” And that felt, did feel quite difficult to deal with.

 

 

Yes, I don’t think it would bother me at all. Because again I am one of these people that if I haven’t got it now, then I don’t know what it’s like to have one, so therefore I am not that bothered. I mean, I have not got a big fancy four by four or something so I don’t particularly want one. I mean once I have driven a Jaguar or something and I think oh I like that, I will really want one, but at the moment I have never had a child, I have never had a baby, so therefore what I have never had I will never miss. But obviously my wife doesn’t see it that way, but again may be it is a coping mechanism I don’t know. 

 

 

I don’t think I ever looked at it to be honest. As I say the only time I actually considered parenthood is when you are going out in the early stages and you have a scare or when we first when we decided to have a go for a child, it was when it was first discovered you know, there might be difficulties. They are the only two times really that we have considered, or I have considered sorry, about being a father. I can’t visualise myself as a father. I never have. But it doesn’t bother me. Again whether it is down to coping mechanism I don’t know. But I just never see myself in the future sort of running around kicking a football with a little kid so…

 

 

Well I suppose just to, it is easier said than then done, but, you know, try to remember that there is a life out there and try to remember, yes, it will be fantastic if it works but you know, a life without children isn’t, is by no means meaningless and that you are very likely to find other things that are really important to you. 

 

And you know, to make sure, you know, that you don’t lose what you have currently got in an attempt to get the final piece of the jigsaw, you know, I think it put marriages under tremendous strain and some people will split up because of it. But what seems to me is a tragedy is if it splits up, if you split up because of it, when actually if you hadn’t let it become such an issue you would have had the chance to enjoy each other. Live you know quite happily in a very good fulfilled way.

 

 You know, I mean I think some people will decide that children are more important to them than to a marriage perhaps, you know, so that is what they really want but to me, I was fairly clear which way round my priorities were, and I don’t think I ever had that, you know, very strong yearning for a baby. I always thought of it in terms of children, so it wasn’t as if seeing a baby caused a great maternal rush. It was more, you know, I saw, yes, I wanted a family life like my parents and in fact that is one other thing that I felt, and it was very, quite a strong influence that, you know, you came across people who were having infertility because they had one child and they were unable to have a second and there was some people whose view as well, they have got one child why would they want another and I realised that I didn’t want to have an only child. I actually think it is quite hard to be the only child, and that is probably because I wasn’t one and I could see the benefits of siblings, not always, generally benefits of siblings. And also that it is a very big responsibility for an only child with aged parents. I mean I am going to be a nuisance to a large number of nieces, but at least, you know, they can share it out. So perhaps I am just over pragmatic to be, you know, thinking my old age before I have even had a child, but there was this feeling, well okay so we have one child, what next, you know, apart from anything else a second child would have a different Father and you know, and time was not quite running out but it was moving on, you know, I felt as if, you know, my parents, my family, my friends and family were having their children and that if we didn’t have one until about the time they had their third then we would be perpetually lagging behind. Which I know isn’t terribly rational but I was getting very pragmatic about what the next steps might be and how it all fitted into the picture of family life that I had.

 

So in fact that was, yes, having realised how difficult it was going to be, you suddenly thought well hang, this is really makes sense.