It was the end of 2015 and my now-hubby and I had just bought our dream house in regional NSW.

It’s been almost 8 years since my only pregnancy and miscarriage,
Five years of fertility treatments, and
many embryos that did not grow in my body.
So many sad months of getting my period.
So much grief.

Until the moment I met my husband I was child-free. In that I knew I wanted children some day, but had never yet met anyone I wanted to have them with.

My story is almost two decades old now. It has been over 20 years since I began trying to conceive. Over 20 years since I first realised that it was not happening.

Where did I go?

I hardly know

During those years

Where becoming a mother was everything

In the depths of my childless grief I felt forgotten.

Peace in her Smile
Her smell.
The touch of her soft skin on mine.
The sound of her gentle breath.
The wonder in her tiny form.

I sat as calmly as I could this week while Esther, the acupuncturist, held my wrists palms up and felt my pulse. Her pulse check came after inspecting my tongue and my eyes.

The reason for this is to highlight to others what NOT TO SAY.

10th April 2012, my husband and I had just failed our 4th and final attempt at IVF.

My child’s name lays on my lap.

What I thought I knew.

My life has slipped through my fingers.

Sitting with my tears
I recognise the etched feeling in my heart
Yes, it is grief

Why has it taken so long… perhaps it hasn’t as the small steps have constantly evolved but I am now at a point where I am looking back at the long road behind me.

Mine is a childless-not-by-choice story. A year ago, at age 39, I was finally diagnosed with Endometriosis.

I never thought that I would be sat here writing this, but I am happy.

Is that really possible? If we ‘move on’ from our grief of childlessness, does that mean that we didn’t
want children badly enough?

There were truth seekers and speakers,

hysterectomy and cancer conquerors

and many who finally felt seen.

Hope is crying because of lost dreams

I move forward, always slightly uphill on rocky terrain, carrying my experience and treasuring the contents of my baggage.

A poll was carried out in Childless Perks!! to discover our favoutite Perks for 2021.

I dreamt about you

You never had a face

You were part of my dream life

You were part of my silent thoughts

I spent most of my life looking to have children. As a child I loved playing with my dolls, pretending they were my little babies, thinking that one day they will be real kicking, screaming, giggling bundles of pure joy that will love me as I will love them.

All I wanted to be when I grew up was to be a wife and mother. I was a social misfit and longed to fit in.

Taken in local woods, this reflects what my path looks like now.

My experience of childlessness is like climbing a mountain on a circular path- moving on is moving upwards and to my surprise I am feeling hopeful.

Have you heard of parallel universes? I’m no quantum physicist but basically it is the idea that many universes exist at the same time, parallel with the one we live in right now.

Sharing my story has given me strength, courage and healing in accepting my life as a childless woman.

I expected to have children. The lives of everyone in our family were derailed by a car crash that happened to a family member. My first husband wasn’t good at helping a bereaved wife.

I am 69 years young. I was a nurse, Ward sister and midwife. Like many of you I have experienced the profound sadness that not being able to have your baby brings.

There was a time when I was caught in a small sense of self, living with apprehension, fear, avoidance and grief.

I had high hopes for 2020, it was the first time in a long time that I felt a stirring inside me of things shifting and moving of change and energy. I even made a list of all the things I wanted to do, see, achieve, and explore…

You are able to conceive as both of you have all working parts. Never did I think these words from the fertility specialist would end up being a lie.

Growing up, so many of us think about what we will do as adults and what life will look like. For me, the overriding dream I had, from a very early age, was to travel the world.

For good chucks of my life, I would be thankful for the way my life was unfolding.

Shortly before midnight on the night of my 50th birthday, I started to cry and could not stop. My mother had died four months earlier.

Lengthening of muscle as the stretch reaches a hand's-length further past the mole on her right calf.

Opening of psyche as her new and healthy thought bubbles up unbidden and is accommodated.

Right now I am happier than I’ve ever been. This doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t change anything if I could.

Out of the blue the world stood still, and dreams shattered into pieces

When I was a young child my pre-school bully teased me for being “a scribbler.” My inability
and unwillingness to color inside the lines earned me the taunt.

My colleague told me today that she was pregnant. I smiled and congratulated her wholeheartedly. At
last, I thought, I have accepted my fate.

This poem I wrote the time when things started to click that I could create a new life, one that wasn't dictate to by society, but one of my very own.

Walking in the nature really helped us literally move forward…

What am I

But a woman and a womb?

A basket or a tomb?

Unlovable. Undatable. Ugly. Spinster. Sexless.

These words will live on in my head.

A few years ago, I carried out a private ceremony to mark the loss of my unconceived children.

Like many experiencing confinement at home, there have been a few emotional struggles. Anxiety brought on by not knowing what lays ahead.

‘There’s more to life than just getting married and having kids, Yvonne’, said my confident, beautiful, perfectly organised blonde P.E. teacher, during a return visit to my old school with other friends from my year.

When did I start to know I had started to move forwards? Was it when I gave away the baby clothing I bought on our first IVF cycle?

I am always very keen to move forward. So keen that I would happily put the pain in a box, label it “dangerous/don’t open” and lock it up the attic for ever.

One afternoon a few years ago, after a searing romantic disappointment, I sat at the piano and, unexpectedly, poured out all my feelings into a song.

We both remember that moment vividly, the exact moment when we decided to stop fertility treatments and embrace life as a complete family of two (and pets!).

I submitted a story last year as we were right in the middle of lockdown. It was like therapy for me submitting our story, it really brought home what we had been through and survived!

I never foresaw that I would be childless. Never imagined that I could not only survive this but thrive.

I was never ready to have a child, but I always loitered along the razor’s edge of wanting one. I cast away all my healthy reproductive years to the agony of indecision.

In a fairytale world, I would be the witch. Not to be nasty: in fact, I am quite happy. Grey and drizzly outside and I am tucked up by my fire, my cat at my side, her head all warm and comfy on my hip.

Dreams shattered and destroyed
Feelings of loss and loneliness
Not fitting inside society’s box

Having a hysterectomy felt like, at the time, the permission I needed to start moving forwards, to begin to widen the scope of view on my life.

My name is Kerry, I am 45 and childless not by choice and circumstances.

It sounds so mature – I’ve accepted my unexplained infertility, embraced my childless state, and am moving on into a new and wonderful future full of joy and endless amazing opportunities.

As I struggle to find the words to express my journey, I decided to use textiles.