As you know I take every opportunity to share my experience of dealing with the grief of being childless. Recently I shared the difficulties that I have experienced as a manager, at a digital story telling event hosted by NHS England. After my presentation a lady approached me to express her sadness at hearing my story. Her sadness was as a result of her having a number of children and me having none. Taking my hands in hers she looked me in the eyes, asked me my age (46 I replied) and gently encouraged me to not give up hope. I just sighed!!!
I smiled and reassured her that I do have hope, she smiled back feeling (I imagine) that she had done a great job in offering me this gift (of wisdom) that no-one else has offered me before nor could I have offered this to myself (not sure why people believe this to be true???). I do find it amusing that others think that I have lost hope because I am telling my story but what about the hope that I will be ok, what about the hope that I can hold a newborn baby without breaking down in tears, what about the hope that I will not lose my friends and what about the hope that I will find a fulfilling life without children??? In this moment it finally didn’t matter that she left believing (in her mind) that she had passed on this advice, it mattered that I was no longer left feeling angry (as I have felt in the past) at hearing those word ‘Please do not give up hope’.
Hope is defined as ‘a feeling of expectation and desire for a particular thing to happen’ so I will end this post by saying that I have left go of the hope of getting pregnant and having a child of my own and I have replaced it with the the hope that something crazy big will happen as a result of me no longer remaining silent about my grief.
A close friend told me that ‘there are many ways of being a mother’ and my hope of being a mum is taking me on a journey to this becoming my reality!!!
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