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August 2019 | REDONLINE.CO.UKself
It’s good to take a pause
I came off the Pill and expected to get pregnant
straight away, but it didn’t happen. It seemed that
as soon as my biological clock started ticking,
it escalated to a disco beat pretty damn fast.
Over two years, my then-partner Chris and I went
from trying to get pregnant naturally to having
our fertility tested (everything looked normal)
and going through IVF three times. Every time it failed,
I felt my body had betrayed me, that I hadn’t looked after
that precious embryo well enough. By the end, I felt lost,
emotionally drained, physically exhausted. I couldn’t
process that I was 33 years old and completely infertile.
When my doctor advised me against having any more
IVF, I threw myself into investigating surrogacy. When
that began to look too complicated legally and also too
expensive, I launched us into adoption, not taking a breath.
I see now that I should have given myself time before I
made each decision. But we were on the fertility treadmill
and I was so determined not to fail, I couldn’t stop. That’s
why I wrote my book, Meant To Be; if I had read someone
else’s story, I might not have felt so lonely and desperate.It doesn’t matter
how long you’re
pregnant for
Recently, while I was
writing the book, I found
my first positive pregnancy
test. I was surprised to feel the
grief of that loss all over again.
I took the test eight months after we
started trying. Just a few days later I was
at work, suffering the worst cramps and
pains, and then collapsed on the floor.
In hospital, we found out it was an
ectopic pregnancy; it was in a fallopian
tube, rather than the womb. When the
doctor told me this, I had no idea they
wouldn’t be able to move the baby to
where it was meant to be, that I’d need
surgery to have my tube removed.
The grief floored me. It was as if I’d
been given the best gift, then someone
had snatched it away. I felt like I couldn’t
even grow a baby in the right place.
I think the grief was so acute because
the minute the test is positive, you
map out your whole life with that
child. Whether you’ve been pregnant
for two days, two weeks or longer,
you feel the loss. You’re grieving not
only the loss of the baby, but the life
you’d imagined together.Motherhood
doesn’t have
to be biological
For a long time, I couldn’t
see the point in having a
baby that wasn’t biologically
mine. I wanted to grow a child. However,
it was being a birth partner to my sister
and knowing the love that I felt the
minute I held her children that made me
realise birth doesn’t
define love. I realised
what was most
important: to love
unconditionally, to
nurture and mould,
to watch a child grow
and flourish. I wanted
to wash and dress
them, to sing nursery
rhymes. I wanted
the everyday things
I saw mums do: finding a high chair
in a cafe, putting the pushchair in the car.
Once I had got over this mental hurdle,
the world seemed to open up to me.
It was Chris who suggested we adopt.
Everywhere I went I searched for
examples of people who’d been through
it, trying the idea of adoption on for size.You fall in love slowly
When Billie came to us, aged 18 months,
it was with a scheme where she could have
been returned to her birth mother. If that
didn’t happen, we’d be offered her for
adoption. I threw myself into looking after
her. I didn’t want to let her, the system or
myself down. But, after a few weeks, I
began to struggle, not knowing if she’d
stay. During the routine of the day, I was fine, but in the
mornings I felt so vulnerable. One day, when Chris had
gone to work, I heard Billie waking up. I went in to her,
and saw her standing up in her cot, messy bed hair, dummy
hanging out. She looked me in the eyes and I felt myself
falling deeply in love. I thought, whatever happens now, even
if you go back to your birth family, I will always love you.
Even so, it took me until she was three to take ownership of
the word ‘mother’. It was after I put in those days and months
of being there to listen, hold and comfort that it felt real.4
‘I REALISED
WHAT WAS
MOST
IMPORTANT:
LOVE’
3
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