I'm old now. 52. Probably too old to even consider being pregnant. But then, according to my body, I've always been 'too old'. An inverted uterus, an inhospitable environment, but no solid reason for it. My husband, a little older than me, would love to share children with me. It hurts that I cannot give him the family he craves.
I've not lost a pregnancy, not miscarried, nor have I had a still born. I haven't even had an abortion, so it's not 'payback' for killing my foetus. I just have a barren womb. Empty. Never fulfilling it's intended purpose. Most of the time, this is OK. Sometimes it's not.
In my first relationship, he threatened to jump on my stomach if I ever did get knocked up. Thinking about that still makes my stomach churn. Fortunately, I wised-up to his abuse before taking that marriage step, although it took 9 years for me to build the courage I needed to leave him. Probably one of the hardest things I've ever done. Then the next long-term relationship lasted for 18 years. He really wanted to have at least one daughter with me, but after having my tubes blown, and other invasive tests, nothing happened, although I wasn't on any contraceptives after the first few years so I sort of decided that I didn't want to be a single mum in any case. My gynaecologist, one of the premier baby specialists in South Africa, said that he could get me pregnant up to the age of 45. He always said that he wanted to give me a daughter, just like me ! Unfortunately, I've been living in America since I was 39, and the American specialist Herbie and I went to focused on my age and didn't even consider my body age, wanting to go the route of donor eggs in a petri dish. We discussed it and decided against. I wasn't desperate to conceive, and if God allowed it, we'd like it to be 100% our biological child.
When I allow myself to dwell on this, the unfairness of it, that dark place, it takes a while to pull out of it. It seems so very unfair that after my mother being killed a few months before my 5th birthday, I'm unable to hold my own children, to feel that all-encompassing mother love that I missed from childhood. To share my love with my children, to hold them, and teach them, and be there when they grew into adults. I feel that is doubly cruel. I'm motherless, and not a mother either.
So, to all those mothers out there, who have at various times shoved their precious bundles at me, I can't hold your children, or admire them, because it hurts too much. Those feelings that I can suppress most of the time, cannot fight your babies. Your cute, screaming, beautiful, pooping, sleeping babies. I yearn, and I spurn. The other side of my coin.
I do not feel sorry for myself. It is what it is, and I cannot change it. We've looked at the fostering route to the end result of being able to adopt, but for various reasons, it hasn't worked for us. We carry on our lives, we cling together, knowing that it is just us. There won't be a legacy. Yes, Herbie has girls, so technically I have step-daughters, and now step-grandbabies. But, we only get to see them about once a year, so we don't know them, they are not part of our lives. And I believe that I can't be their step-mother in any case as they have their birth mother. To me a step-mother is there instead of your own birth mother. There is also that 'you're not my mother' thing. No, I'm not. I don't try to be. I grew up with a step-monster, so I know exactly what not to be. Unfortunately, I've learnt that children don't know how to be step-children. And their mother wages an unfair war against their father, and I'm caught up in the flak. I'm adult enough to live through it, I understand it, but it cuts Herbie. When they do come visit the farm, I stay in the back-ground, let them have that precious time with their father, let them make memories with him, let them see what a great guy he is, and how much he loves them.
So I pray, that maybe, even in my advanced years, God will be gracious and allow me the joy of holding my own newborn. But if not, I will survive this too.