“It is okay to regret you tried to have children and it is also okay to admit you are happy for the fact it did not happen.”
Hi, I am Jessica, 41 years of age and from the Netherlands. THE mother focused country of Europe I would say.
Nature failed on me in the process of having children and to be honest, I am very thankful and grateful for that.
The childfree journey has been an interesting one for me. Before my thirties I was very much convinced that having children was not part of my life goals. There was no doubt in my mind that I would stay childfree for the rest of my life.
But then “strange things” happened. I got insecure about the decision, my friends starting to have kids and I found the love of my life. People around us were pretty clear in asking if I was 100% sure. Was I? What was happening to me? My work was my passion and I was traveling all around the world both for work and for fun. Children were not for me.
But against all odds I got sucked into the laid-out life for women of my age and got pregnant. The start of one of the most painful periods in my life and 3 lost pregnancies further I still got to decide myself (of course together with my husband) that we reached the end of the line.
Reflecting in therapy on what happened, I am not sure why all of a sudden I wanted to have a baby and it still confuses me today. But one thing I do know is that I am grateful to mother nature, who decided a childfree life for us. Something which took me a while to say out loud because all the people around us were feeling incredibly sorry that we ended with no children while I actually was thinking “thank god nature failed on me”. I am not sure how many women are out there having the same thoughts or went through the same process but I would like to tell them: “you are not alone”. It is okay to regret you tried to have children and it is also okay to admit you are happy for the fact it did not happen.
This world, focused on motherhood, can make you doubt your decisions. It can make you feel an outsider and feeling the peer-pressure of family and the people around you makes it even worse.
In the end I am living my childfree dream life by doing a job I love, enjoying some really good quality free time and now even living in the Caribbean for 6 months! Thinking about the motherhood that could have been my final destination, I am very happy that life took a different turn.
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