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THE WIND PHONE
The Hidden Grief of Involuntary Childlessness
When the dream of motherhood slips away
Working in a primary school while going through infertility investigations, I should have known better than to answer an unexpected phone call during my lunch. It was just before the bell rang to indicate break time was over, and soon there would be 30 seven-year-olds vying for my attention, wanting help resolving whatever conflicts had emerged on the playground. But I took the call, and received the news no woman wants hear. My body was faulty.
A few weeks earlier, my GP told me I was going through early menopause; a piece of critical information he’d withheld from me for a month because he “didn’t want to ruin my Christmas.” Following this news, I was desperate to explore alternative ways to get pregnant and have the baby I wanted so badly. We’d been trying to conceive for almost three years by this point and my husband and I were both hurtling full-speed towards our late thirties. Time was running out, especially for me and my biological clock. As it turned out, my clock had stopped ticking years ago.
Because of the doctor’s decision to withhold my diagnosis, I no longer trusted the National Health Service to do what was best for me, and when they said IVF was probably not going to work (and that I…
