I am childless by marriage. Husband Number 1 did not want children. Husband Number 2 already had three kids and a vasectomy. He did not want any more babies.

This poem’s for you – our children, for you are the meaning of life.

From the day of your conception to the smiles of your midwife.

“You’ve got ovaries," said my Airbnb neighbor in Valencia. She meant it metaphorically, as in “You've got balls."­

My little sweet Lily Rose Marie, I actually wanted to write during the whole time we were together. Write feelings and little stories for you - for later. You should know how much I enjoyed every day, how nice it was to feel you in my body and to be bilingual with you.

The journey to childlessness through disability is a very varied one and this story is my own personal journey.

I’m childless, single, and never married. And I wanted a partner and children. I wanted to grow a family and create my own pod of people who I would belong to forever. Being single is the reason I will never have children.

I had a plan, but now I haven’t.

I had a path, but now there is none.

I am floundering, unsure, without purpose, skilled for something I’ll never be.

I am childless not by choice. There I said it! I’ve never been pregnant. Wow I even said that! It’s a horrible place to be and I’m sorry to bring you in here with me but thank you for being here.

I’m clinging on. Can’t look down.

Loosening grip. Help!

Someone help?

Anyone there?

Daughter I never had
Evolving into a woman I’ll never see

Why me with the unexplained infertility? The endless search for an answer, a reason.

For as long as I can remember, I always thought I’d have a family of my own and it’s been my only dream for almost 3 decades.

The toughest part of my story was acknowledging and working through the unresolved grief of childlessness.

Life goes by so fast. All the things you think you’ll be, all the things you think you’ll have. . .they don’t always show up when you think they will. Or ever.

However much women with unchosen childlessness can move past their grief and feel that they’ve lived a meaningful and fulfilled life despite their childlessness, there are some sobering realities which come with aging for them and which it will be difficult for most to avoid.

I’ve lost a lot of things these past few years. Loss. Losing. It’s a strange concept. I don’t really buy into it. Loss suggests absence. But these things are still present and I still feel them deeply.

My children are invisible

My heart is where they stand

I’ve never seen their faces

I’ve never held their hand

I'm submitting a watercolour painting that I made to symbolise the nine embryos I lost from my first round of IVF.

I created this artwork not thinking about what it meant until afterwards.

It’s just over 2 months since our final round of IVF. I’m only just beginning to ‘feel’ it, partly down, I think, to being bed-ridden for 3 days with a bad summer cold/flu.

In my teens I had my perfect life all planned out; married in my 20s, 3 kids by the time I'm 30 and we all live happily ever after. By my early 30s I found myself single again and things not going quite to plan.

I get concerned about being alone and disabled and having to move into a nursing home.

It’s like the light inside me faded, and now is gone
That little flicker of hope, faded and died, the day I lost my son

I've always wanted children my whole life this was the one dream I always had having a family.

Had I known at the age of 27 that that was my last chance of having a child, I would never have had the abortion.

I have felt the love in holding you my precious baby girl
I've touched your face and kissed your hand and promised you the world

Here is a link to my poem. I wrote it for Mother's Day but it is about how we are all individuals with differing reasons for our situation and it's a plea for understanding from people who do have children.

I write this as a childless, married female in her late 50’s. I am not childless by choice and not childless from infertility. I just am.

Until recently I never even realised I had a ‘Childlessness Story’. I’ve never been pregnant, or tried to get pregnant, intentionally, unintentionally or surreptitiously.

Out of the blue

Hit by an awful viral illness

I presumed I’d recover

It never occurred to me otherwise

Talking to my therapist recently, I described how I felt trapped and powerless in relation to my childlessness. Had I ever felt like that before, she asked?

Advent signals hope to those who believe, which reaches a peak on Christmas Eve. Working by then to a state of elation, and for me bringing also a troubled relation!

Vivere a Roma e non avere figli ha significato solitudine. Solitudine perchè qui in particolare - la città dei cattolici - famiglia significa aver figli e tu non sei una famiglia neppure con un compagno.

Last year I wrote the story of how my identity as a woman was shaped by the possibility and the impossibility of having children.

From an early age, I always thought that I’d be a mum. As I grew up I would sometimes imagine
my children and how life would be with my family.

Curled up, tightly, on my bed, one dark and empty night, I wrote. I did not know I had a story. ‘Childlessness’ was not in my vocabulary.

I never thought you were even on my radar.

The chance of ever meeting someone like you was a minuscule percentage.

I would never hold my own baby.
I would never have her skin against mine.

Unprepared, guard down, familiar social space, low ebb after long day

I’d stopped. The life train kept going, my limp body in tow.

Healing eluded its own arrival

I would like to give you something palatable and or eloquent, however at this point, I cannot. Largely as I am not a professional writer! Instead, I am someone who has some things to say.

Hearing about someone’s pregnancy has consistently been a triggering situation for me. Even
the inkling that someone MIGHT make an announcement sets me into a tailspin mood wise.