Booby traps 

It’s a struggle to do much at the moment without flashes of what’s happened barging to the front seat in my mind. I’ve just done the monthly credit card bill, only to stumble across the payment for the scan we had a few weeks ago. I forgot what it’s like to be surrounded by little booby traps, never knowing where those little trip wires are likely to go off. I opened my wardrobe door this morning and there’s a bag of neatly folded maternity clothes at my feet. I’ve barely noticed it for the past couple of years. Now I can hardly see past it.  

Playing me 

I found the lead up to Father’s Day especially painful. I had to try and pull together cards and presents for my husband. I needed it to be a jolly occasion for my daughter and for my dad who was joining us for dinner on the day. There was no time or space for my grief. It had to be buried. I would have to dig out an old version of me and wear it for a day.  

The vast scale 

The scale of human experience, good and bad, is vast. Infinite. Even as I battled through a weekend of being quasi-me, another voice in my mind was telling me that there are worse things. I know there are. I thought about the people experiencing Father’s Day who long to be a father and aren’t; those who are bereaved or estranged or who have been seriously wronged by their father or their child for whom a day of celebrating fatherhood replays recent or long-ago trauma. 

And I know there are experiences that are so much worse than mine that I don’t even know they exist. 

There are versions of this story where I am the lucky one because, for all my suffering and loss, I do have a beautiful, healthy child. My home is secure. There is enough food, warmth and love for everyone in the household. I live a comfortable, middle-class existence. So what if I’ve had four miscarriages? Is that really suffering? 

Living in parallel 

My grief makes me feel ashamed and ungrateful. I see how rich I am in other ways – my daughter, my husband, my health – and I feel like I’m living in parallel. I am both a mother and not a mother. I am fertile and infertile. I am lucky and unlucky. I live a life full of joy and a life full of sadness. I am surrounded by love, I am isolated by grief. I want to be seen, I want to be invisible. My life is completely unchanged and it is transformed.  

In putting these words down I am trying to find my way through something that doesn’t have clear guidance. Small step by small step, quietly moving forward. Healing, one cell and one moment at a time.  

Choices 

I write solely from the point of view of a person who longed for a healthy pregnancy. I believe fiercely and deeply in body autonomy. There is a parallel to this story in which a person finds themself unexpectedly pregnant and either can’t or doesn’t want to proceed with the pregnancy. It’s a loaded and emotive debate, but in both cases I want choice to always be on the table. In my story the choice has been taken away from me; ultimately it was never in my gift. But choice must always be there. Every child born should be wanted, because to be born to a family that either doesn’t want or can’t look after them is to create a life of sadness and suffering, both for the child and the parent.  

Every story matters 

I know my story and I can tell it from my perspective. I can be mindful of where my story might sit on the scale, but I can’t tell it in relation to every other experience. Forgive me if your experience is at odds with mine. I believe everyone’s story matters. This is just mine.