I turn 40 this year and it’s feels overwhelming deeper than I expected, I think back to 2016 when I entered my thirties and I definitely went into that decade feeling lighter than I do going into my 40’s.
I went into that decade probably so naive really, thinking about how we would try for a family with really little, to no thought about anything or that it would be a challenge. It’s most definitely been the hardest decade so far, at times I felt like I was climbing a mountain that I kept sliding back to the bottom of.
I experienced desperation and sadness that I held heavily inside, with a sense of disbelief in myself which was new to navigate, as I think I’ve always backed myself and believed anything I set out to achieve I would do it and it would be a win no matter how hard I have to try…. But this well it flawed me and I was so out of control in so many ways.
I often think about specific days in my thirties that I think will stay with me forever, they are etched in my mind so clearly yet really they were huge to me but to no one else. I know that some of you will have read this blog from day one, I know that you will have had those days that are in your head but no one knows how bad it is or was.
I remember walking into my house after a gp appointment had confirmed it was another non viable pregnancy, my friend was getting her nails done in my dining room and I fell to my knees and this awful noise was coming out of me whaling loudly.
I remember standing in my best friends kitchen after my third loss whilst she told me she was pregnant with her second baby and this awful feeling coming over me that I needed to get out of there and jealousy id never experienced before.
Standing in the cubicle in a&e flushing my baby down the toilet and walking out and down the road outside the hospital with blood all over my trousers, just numb and not really knowing where I was going or what to do.
Sitting on a train to London crying the whole way that I was ovulating and we couldn’t try and had lost the chance that month. Parenthood felt like it slipped further away every cycle.
Getting in my husbands van to go to the fertility clinic to get his sperm results, although I was pregnant and already bleeding but I darent tell him it was all over again and I’d failed.
Standing in our bathroom upstairs with a tiny fetus in my hand shouting him to come and see and he couldn’t face it, so I kept it in a container in the fridge over night and lay in bed upstairs thinking about how it must have felt so cold.
Been in another city and needing to get home because the bleeding had started so heavy, I couldn’t drive I was in so much pain, I couldn’t talk and could only cry.
Leaving the scan after “there’s no heartbeat” and going to work, to teach a dance class knowing there was a dead baby inside of me that needed to come out again but another that I couldn’t grow and keep.
Sitting at a little mix concert in the pouring rain feeling cold and anxious, then starting to miscarry a few days later blaming myself that it was the cold and rain that caused it.
Visiting another best friend to meet their newborn baby, I had a positive pregnancy test in my pocket but knew it was doomed before it even began.
There’s so many I could go on and on, people will think or say, well you got your happy ending in this decade too. That’s right I did and I am so blessed and thank my lucky stars but that doesn’t mean that all that we go through goes away. It doesn’t it torments and haunts us and is triggering when you least expect it.
I can’t use the words ‘baby shower’ I try to plan them now for friends and colleagues, I do this weird thing where I say we are having a get together but skirt around what it is because I hate them… I hate baby showers but I also do want to celebrate the happiness and joy.
So many things become a conflict within your brain and your heart, it’s just grief and trauma living on within you and it manifests in different ways. Just so you know, incase anyone hasn’t told you, that’s ok.
My tolerance level for everything and everyone was changed forever undoubtedly I look at everything differently now. You lean into people and friendships that have such safety and fragility when they get it on the same level as you do, you crave that company of those who want to talk about it and understand.
When the darkness lifted and I felt like my heart had mended a little when we had our son, I knew I couldn’t take that for granted and I needed to stay in this community because it might happen again, I never knew when I would need these strangers again or they might need me.
They knew a side to me that wasn’t my real life I was living, they knew I had taken apart ten pregnancy tests with a kitchen knife. They knew I’d paid a ridiculous amount of money for another stranger to post me their medication from America because I was desperate to try it but then too scared when it arrived.
God those women, some of them I have no idea where or how you are now but they seriously kept me going, strangers yet the closest feeling of sanity when I thought it had all but gone. I know some of them never got their baby, I hope they found their peace and happiness in any way that they could.
I know I’ve come a really long way and well this shaped me and gave me a purpose that burns like fire inside of me, I hope that those of you that have trusted me from the very start or maybe you found me just yesterday.
Well I hope that you know I have a dedication and commitment in me, to push myself to places that I don’t even know exist yet. I hope that doors and paths I’ve not yet faced will allow me to find them to pursue for you.
I guess the first half of this decade lead me to this last 5 years, but if your in that first part right now in the trenches feeling lost and all those things are etching your mind like those above, I want you to know that, when people say you’ve changed or your not the same person, fertility struggles and or loss has ruined you. Well it’s true, you have changed, you won’t be that same person you were before and that’s ok.
I’m ok with the fact that I’m not as naive as I was ten years ago and that is something that those that love you have to learn, it’s not a bad thing, you just have to learn to navigate the new you and all that comes with it.
I’ve had to learn that although baby loss and infertility is a priority of mine, it’s not everyone’s and actually everyone has their own things that are relative to them. I’m learning to not harbour frustration and anger about that and to just put my focus into making any difference I can.
I think I feel heavy at the thought of saying goodbye to my thirties because so much happened and I honestly don’t think I would change any of it now, because it’s shaped the woman that I am today and hopefully will guide me to stride into my forties to do more.
I’ve got a whole year almost by the way as the big 40 doesn’t land until December. Maybe I’ll do a few more entries as I unpack and brave opening some of the chapters I’ve kept closed.
I know I want to take the writing with me. I’ve found this blog such a cathartic space and it holds so many emotions, SO much knowledge and a whole lot of love. This is blog number 32 and 48 thousand of you read it 🥹.
I haven’t published a blog for 11 months and now I’ve realised it’s been that amount of time, well a lot happened in those months. On the 27th Feb it will have been 12 months to the day that I walked out. Have I looked back? God yes!
I’ve gone through a lot and had so much to unpack, one day I’ll most definitely write about my 16 months of working within the NHS, but that’s not for now. I need more time to continue moving on and feel less frustrated so I can keep some professional integrity and not let off a massive bomb.
I go towards turning 40 bigger (in more ways than one ) bolder, wiser, braver and stronger than I was at 30. Is it mid life or is it prime adulthood, not middle aged but mid-life adjacent. Ready to level up and pass the wisdom of my thirties on to more women, to empower and uphold my beliefs, to amplify and execute a legacy.
For myself, for my children and for all of you, I always like to give hope but with a realistic sobriety that this doesn’t ever end.
If this makes you realise anything let it be that even though we go onwards it will never erase what we went through and endured
Thank you for the support, love, unsolicited advice, questions, answers, all of it…. I’m here for it all…. Always
Xoxo – crazy fertility queen 👸
Crazy Fertility Queen 