I’m Not Normal by Vicky Hughes

Please note that this blog posts contain references to adoption and abuse which readers may find distressing. Please be mindful of your wellbeing and take care of yourself when reading our blogs. Support can be found on our website.

My husband Michael has been pushing me to write about my life for a long time, he believes that it would be an inspiration to others who have had a complex traumatic life. I on the other hand would always find an excuse why not to do it.  I can tell the story to him because he has all the context, but to anyone else I feel ashamed and embarrassed.  But now as I approach 60 and I have found that ‘I don’t give a fuck’ attitude that I see so many other women my age adopt, I think I’m ready. Also, the bugger came home from work, put his bag down and just said, let me interview you. He knows me well, he knew if he had given me notice, I would have found a way to deflect, ignore or use my favourite phrase “I can’t deal with that at the moment”. So, there I was in our kitchen, he’d set up his phone and was recording our conversation. Bastard. It’s a good job that I love him, although I will get him back one day.

He tells me that the phone will make a transcript of the interview and we can use that to help us put this together. When I say us, it's like the royal ‘we’, Michael will be doing the typing and I’ll be telling him what I want in this. For reasons that will become very clear, you will understand when I say, writing is very hard for me and leaves me feeling well…. Like the title says.

I’m not Normal.

This is also why I tend not to engage in our online community.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve never felt that I fit in anywhere and it all began before I was born.

My mum was very young when she became pregnant with me, to another young man who was fixing the refrigeration at the fruit and vegetable shop she worked in as a teenager. I can imagine mum falling for Brian Fletcher very easily, her home life was very dysfunctional and devoid of a deep love. My mum for most of her adult life was continually looking for that love that was missing at home. Hence falling for Brian very easily, but I also expect that it wasn’t an easy time for either of them. My mum had told me many years later that previous to meeting Brian she had been packed raped and so was traumatised by this which amplified how she dealt with the dysfunction at home. Her dad was a miner who had been injured and now spent his days mostly getting drunk, being abusive and violent.

Many generations of our family lived in the very sleepy little mining village in the hills behind Wollongong and so everyone knew your business. My great grandfather was a very well-respected man in the village, he was the blacksmith and pit pony hostel manager. Many years later, I spent a lot of time with ‘Grandpa’ . Yes I know that’s not ancestrally correct, but I was not much younger than the last sibling of my mother so I was stuck between generations. Like I said, I didn’t fit in. I always remember Grandpa being a gentleman, always wore a hat, a waist coat with a pocket watch, I idolised him and he me, but it wasn’t always like that.

It was the mid 1960’s, and although in other parts of the world society was getting ‘progressive’ a small village in the hills behind Wollongong couldn’t be further away from that if you tried. So a young 16 going on 17-year-old girl getting pregnant, in a place where everyone knows your business and your family is somewhat well known is a scandal.

Mum was sent off to a girls home to wait out her pregnancy and then when ready she was admitted to the Crown Street Women’s Hospital in Sydney. This place was notorious for dealing with single unwed pregnant women. In fact, in today's language, it was a state sponsored coercive environment to separate mothers from their babies to be given out for adoption to middle class couples struggling with infertility. The irony of this is not lost on me and as a childless woman who would have adopted a child if we were able to, it leaves me feeling very conflicted.

The practices in this hospital, again, in today’s language would be classed as barbaric. Those young mothers were drugged to keep them stupefied so they were kept more compliant. Their chests were bound in tight bandages to assist in convincing their bodies not to lactate along with being administered a drug that would combat the release of oxytocin to prevent them bonding with their babies. All in the name of making it easier to separate mother and baby. It is now known that this drug is a carcinogen, responsible for many types of cancer. Psychological torment was also used, making these mothers feel worthless, bad, immoral, this was reinforced by the attitudes of the church and media as well. A tactic to legitimise these practices was to also not put the fathers name on the birth certificate, even if it was known. My own birth certificate is an example of this, even though my mum knew who my father was. I’m led to believe that it was ‘Grandpa’ that instigated these actions on my mum and I have to say there are times when I ponder on this and it makes me angry because it adds albeit in a small way because of how things changed with Grandpa that I didn’t fit in.

As I have mentioned, my mum was always open to love and when I was born, I imagine I was love personified. She fought tooth and nail to keep me, so I was taken back to the dysfunctional family home.

Mum tells a story of ringing the place of work of my father when she got back home. I do have to say that it feels strange to say father, because he was never a father to me and using his name feels weird as well because it feels too falsely familiar. Details get a little murky here, that phone call didn’t go well, the receptionist whom we suspect he later married, was rude and abusive when mum wanted to talk to Brian and tell him he had a daughter. “Don’t call here again and if you do, he’ll get all his mates to say they all had a go with you and so you can’t be sure he is the dad” is what mum would tell me later in life. But there is also a conversation that was had where Brian was told, go away and don’t come back by ‘Grandpa’ I believe. So Brian did exactly that, never to be seen again. So, I didn’t fit into his life either.

Things are going to get a bit heavy from here on in, so please proceed with caution.

Mum met Raymond Jenkins when I was about 18months I believe and they got married so after. He was a monster and whilst he and mum had a daughter and a son, he was also sexually assaulting me until I was about 5yrs old. If he didn’t get his way he would beat my mum. Mum believes he resented me and so I didn’t fit into his life either, not that I wanted to.  Now we understand that there can be rape in a marriage and back then I witnessed this many times. I remember that I would try to stop Ray hurting my mother only to be tossed against a wall and one of these times my arm was broken.  It was at this time whilst in a cast he deliberately set up a jug of boiling water very close to me, we believe so that I would burn myself as I knocked it. It worked and I spent a lengthy time in hospital naked in a cot, and I still have the scars today.  I would have been 3 or 4 and this is burned into my memory. 

So far authoritative males had not been a positive experience for me.

Eventually, I was able to tell mum what Ray was doing to me, even though he had told me he'd kill mum and my brother and sister if I said anything. To her credit this is what she needed to finally get the courage to report him to the police.

I can still remember the police coming to the house and violently restraining Ray, I watched as they kicked and punched him and to this day I swear they did it in front of me so I could see this. I am not a violent person but, on that day, I imagined it was me kicking and punching him.

He went to prison.

And so began our itinerant life.

My nan never really believed that Ray did what he did, perhaps it was too inconceivable for her to get her mind around it. What happened clearly didn’t fit into the way she saw the world and so yet again I didn’t fit. Not being believed by someone who is supposed to love you creates complex emotions. She would care for me, but there was always this lingering unspeakable thing that sat between us. I lived with my nan and pop for a while and this is when I also got to spend time with ‘Grandpa’ as he didn’t live far and there was a short cut through the bush we used to use.

I have fond memories of walking with him when it was time for the pit ponies to come to rest at the property where he lived. I remember he would take me to the pub and get me a lemonade and sit me on the bar whilst he had a chat with his friends. I remember sitting in the front of his ute when he went down to the local town to do a few chores for people in the village. I look back on those times with such love, because they were a vast contrast to other parts of my life.

‘Pop’s’ drink of choice was cheap port and being an alcoholic he would never go and buy it himself, so it became my role at 7 or 8 to get on the bus from the only bus stop in our village and take the trip down to the local town. Pass over a note to the person behind the counter in the ‘grog shop’ as we knew it. Then with a 2l flagon of Port that was quite heavy for the tiny me, I would carry this to the bus stop and take it back up the mountain. As a mature person, I sit here thinking to myself “What sort of people do that to a child?”

Especially when you consider that the result of him drinking this, made him violent and abusive. So much so that in the dead of night, Nan and I would grab blankets and sleep in the awning of the local hall across the road to get away from him. Or take that bush track to Grandpa again in the middle of the night. This is not normal.

Mum met Brian C.

Together they chased work up and down the entire east coast of Australia, Brian was a mechanic who also drove heavy machinery and so could get work anywhere. We lived out of a pretty big caravan and I’ve lost count of the number of places we lived. But in this time I suspect I went to about 22 different primary schools. This was awful, I was perpetually the new kid, the target of bullies and when I did make friends, we would most likely be on the move shortly after. Those feelings of not fitting in really amplified in this time of my life. I recognise now, it didn’t allow me to build confidence, to develop good social skills and because my education suffered, I couldn't do or understand the work and so was labelled ‘dumb’. This has plagued my self-worth my entire life and hence, why Michael is typing and putting this together whilst I tell him what I want in this.

Mum and Brian C broke up.

Mum was searching for love again and in my opinion in all the wrong places. An example being;

Rod Staples, he told mum that although still legally married, it was over and they lived in the same house for convenience. But strangely, if mum wanted to contact him, it was me that had to go in the dead of night to the phone booth and call him and pretend I was one of the kids from his scout troop. Then he suddenly stopped coming over, we found out a few days later, he had killed his wife and son. We were shocked of course, because that could have been us we thought. I loved my mum, but like I said before, what sort of person makes a child go out in the dead of night to ring their married boyfriend, this is not normal.

By this time we had established ourselves in a small Housing Commission town house. We had a permanent roof over our heads so we had physical stability, but still sporadic psychological stability. Mum's almost addictive search for love, her own trust issues and dysfunction would almost always sabotage the relationships that she had and this would see her spiral.

Often she would tell me that she had taken pills and I would have to call an ambulance.

I can now see she was vulnerable and was taken advantage of by many, we would often be put to bed whilst mum and different men would be down stairs. When I figured out what was going on, I’d walk around stamping my feet hoping that it would stop what was going on. I even remember a policeman, a well known radio announcer and priest!

I vowed I would never be like my mum.

I can now say that the accumulation of my experiences really affected how I viewed men, not only the abusive ones, but when you have men in positions of authority doing wrong it has left me with a deep suspicion of most men. I can see this is part of the basis for my trust issues and it takes a lot for me to trust someone. Contrast this to how Michael will give it freely and I just feel confused, it does cause friction with us both at times on how we socialise which makes me feel that I’m not normal.

Mum was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and so needed a hysterectomy as part of her treatment. My half sister and brother and I went to a Children’s home run by a charity, I only lasted a couple of days, I wanted my mum, I was a mess.  So I went to stay with my Uncle Kenny and his family. I didn’t fit in there either.

My lack of education and being made to feel dumb, made it really easy to bunk off school when mum would ‘need me’. It was much easier being home for mum than being subjected to bullying and teasing. She relied on me a lot, I’d cook and clean and be there for support, it was like I was the parent. All of this was before starting high school.

When I was about 15 years old I got a job at McDonalds and my life changed, as soon as I put that uniform on it was like I was someone else, I felt part of something, I could fulfill all the tasks given to me, I excelled, I felt important, I had purpose and I was good at it. That uniform was my armour and that job made me feel worthy. The version of me in a uniform was so different to me at home, this is true for every job I’ve had.

Michael found it very strange when we got together that whilst I was this confident person behind the counter at work (he started there sometime after me). Out in the big wide world I’d not even go into a shop on my own due to anxiety.

Although, this was not an easy time for him, because with only witnessing my mum's experiences with men, I began to act like her, possessive and untrusting, which caused no end of friction between us. He will tell you he was left perplexed as to why he was always the target of my anger, when he felt he had done nothing wrong. Like I said, I’m not normal.

Meeting Michael and becoming part of the Hughes family, challenged everything I knew. I went from a world where authority figures were entirely untrustworthy to a partnership built on stability. But healing isn’t a straight line. For years, the contrast between his safe ‘normal’ upbringing and my chaotic past caused quite a bit of conflict inside me. When our friends and family started to have children and we began the exhausting and joy stripping process of IVF, that old feeling of ‘not fitting in’ returned with a vengeance.  The shame and embarrassment I constantly feel was also amplified when we discovered we were going to be childless.  It felt like more items on the list of things that made me feel like ‘I’m Not Normal’.

Whilst logically, I can make sense of that I’m not abnormal, I was just surviving an abnormal world, my heart will still tell me a different story and even at being close to 60 years old, those feelings of being an outsider haven’t abated.

An example being when at 52 we finally found Brian Fletcher, through a long process of using Ancesty.com and the DNA tests. Unfortunately, Brian has passed away 6 months previously, but I had found out that I had  2 half brothers and a half sister as well as two aunts.  But yet again, one of those aunts didn’t believe her brother could have done something like this and my two brothers do not want to know me, this rejection hit my already fragile self worth hard.  But I can say that I have a lovely relationship with my new sister and now both of those aunties.

It was only this past Sunday when we went to a 80th birthday for one of those aunts that all those feelings of not being normal and not fitting in emerged again. There I was, surrounded by family that I have no history with and the complex emotions of both feeling loved by those there, but angry that my father never came looking for me.  So, I didn’t feel I fitted in there and it didn't feel normal.

I do struggle to value myself, Michael always encourages me when I’m out and about doing errands, to go and have a nice lunch somewhere. I never do, but maybe next time after writing this, I will.  I just need to keep telling myself that the little girl carrying flagons of port up a mountain or walking to the phone booth in the dead of night is safe now, and she deserves a nice lunch.

But I do have a life filled with travel, a husband I genuinely love, and a home that is my sanctuary where I can just be.

I’ve asked Michael how we can finish on a positive note because I don’t want to finish in a dark place and I’m going to try live by this.

If childhood trauma or a childless life has left you feeling like an permanent outsider, remember this: Your past dictated the armor you had to wear, but it doesn't get the final say on who you are inside.

We may never fit society's narrow blueprint of a normal life. But we are real, we have value, and we are exactly where we need to be.

Childlessness Hits Differently: Digital Glimmers

I take a lot of photos. Always have done. The mountains of pre-mobile-phone printed photos we have scattered around are a testament to that. Currently, I have around 750GB worth of photographic data sitting in the cloud.

When I used to cycle with my mates, I’d be well known to just stop dead and take a photo of the view if I thought it was worth a picture. I have thousands of photos from our travels around the world—some of my wife and I, some of just her, and some of just me. And, much to the chagrin of popular culture, I have plenty of photos of food as well.

In a society where a person's camera roll is culturally expected to track children’s first steps, school terms, and graduations, mine tracks a completely different journey.

Now, I can’t quite believe I’m going to type this. I am definitely not one of those ‘wellness’ influencers who, more often than not, turn out to be grifters. Yet, I think I’ve inadvertently stumbled across… and yes, I am cringing as I type this… a wellness tool of sorts.

But first, we need to pivot a little.

Back in the late 90s at my then-place of employment, we had a department manager who was the warm and fuzzy type. He believed a humanistic approach to management was far better than the sociopathic alternative. He sent a group of us on a training course based on Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. It is too far back in the dim and distant past for me to remember most of it now and at this age and with much more worldly experience, it’s likely just common-sense stuff anyway. But what I do remember was his concept of the ‘emotional bank account’.

Covey's belief is simple: you make deposits through kindness and honesty to keep a relationship healthy.

This really resonated with me. It became the basis of how I try to conduct my life. I know I’m not perfect at it, but on the whole, I feel it’s been a pretty successful way to exist, keep that in mind as we progress.

One of the positives I genuinely enjoy from my social media obsession is how both Facebook and Google feed me my photographic memories. Only this morning, I was reminded of a day 14 years ago (oh, the photos go back way further than that!). We were in London watching the Changing of the Guard. Then it showed me a moment from 12 years ago, cycling with my mates on a beautiful winter morning. Then, a memory from last year, carving timber for our gazebo in the workshop.

In our Full Stop online community, Sarah, who runs our wellbeing space, often talks about ‘Glimmers’. For some strange reason—which I don’t think we need to dive into right now—it never used to make sense to me. My mind always just defaulted to glitter!

A "glimmer" (a term originally coined by polyvagal theory expert Deb Dana) simply refers to micro-moments of safety, joy, or connection that calm our nervous system. They are the exact opposite of triggers.

As childless people, our everyday social media feeds can frequently feel like a minefield of traditional family milestones. If you aren't careful, it's easy to let a hypernatalist world dictate what a meaningful life is supposed to look like.

And that is why I finally get it now. All those lovely digital memories being served to me? These are my glimmers. They are the undeniable proof of a full, authentic life lived differently, and I realise now that there are days when I need to be reminded of this as I’m not immune to the swell of grief from time to time.

So it would seem that unintentionally, loosely using Stephen Covey’s theory, I’ve built a digital emotional bank account for myself.

The cloud acts as a sort of automated emo-financial manager. It takes my daily deposits of photos and, years later, serves them back to me with compounding emotional interest—helping me recall a feeling I might have otherwise entirely forgotten. Which, as I age, is becoming a more frequent occurrence.

I’ve even been known to manually scroll through my photos on those bad days when you just need a little emotional pick-me-up. Mind you, I do have some housekeeping to do. There is a lot of practical noise in there right now—like shopping lists, screenshots, and price tags—that needs clearing out.

While my camera roll doesn't feature the traditional societal milestones, it is overflowing with landmarks of a different kind of life: our travels, sunrises, sunsets, our deeply loved pets who have passed away, and things we have proudly built with our own hands in the workshop.

I tend to find myself completely immersed in reminiscing when presented with these photo memories. I'll wonder, was it warm or cold that day? Sometimes the memory triggers a specific smell, a taste, or a sound.

We have a favourite photo—a selfie on a bridge in Venice, with the reflection of the sunset bleeding into the canal in the background. I can still feel that warm evening, the hustle and bustle of the crowd, and that unmistakable, unforgettable scent of the Venetian canals. It instantly unlocks the memory of the old monastery we stayed in for a few nights before boarding a cruise through the Mediterranean. See what I mean, these photos are like keys to the vault of our experiences.

I think I’m onto a good thing here, and it warrants a bit of intentional strategy. Firstly, I need to tidy up my storage and get rid of the logistical junk so that all my remaining glimmers are pure gold.

And if this interests you, statistically, if you take just three intentional "glimmer" photos a week, in five years your automated emotional bank account will have over 750 custom moments of joy waiting to support you on one of those metaphorical rainy days.

But if you are like me, you’ll take it one step further. When those memories pop up, pause for a minute. Actively remember the environment you were in—the smell, the taste, the sounds, and the people.

Of course, we can't predict when low periods or stressful times will hit, but we can absolutely prepare for them.

Start making those small deposits today. Your future self will thank you for it.

When Time Hits Differently: Milestones, Miscarriages, and a Mirror

In our online community, I chose a rather cheeky photo of myself for my profile picture. I don’t tend to take myself too seriously; I’ve always felt that’s a healthy way to be.

The problem is, that photo is over 12 years old. In it, my hair is dark, my skin is clearer, and there are fewer lines. Back then, I felt resilient and had boundless energy. That was the guy who rode close to a thousand kilometers on a bicycle for charity five times with his mates. He was happier, lighter, and excited by the world.

It is such a pity we don’t have that cup anymore. It used to make me laugh every time I made a cuppa. Vickie had the matching "Her Ladyship" mug, and the sheer fact that we were so far removed from a real Lord and Lady is what made it funny. Well, to us anyway.

Then, reality catches up. I get up in the morning and look into the 90s-style mirrored wardrobe next to our bed, and I just don't see that person anymore. I feel like I completely missed the transition from the cheeky guy holding the mug to the man I see now.

But here is the kicker: I’ve always prided myself on trying to be as authentic a person as possible. So why am I presenting a version of myself to my community that is, essentially, fake news?

The man in the mirror today has grey hair. He’s overweight, dealing with a dodgy hip, an ankle that is a mess, and wears five different types of glasses. He’s currently navigating Squamous Cell skin cancer and finding it a bit harder to find the joy in life.

How did I miss this transition? How did I sleep through my own aging?

Part of that answer, I’ve realised, lies in the quiet, heavy reality of our childlessness. 

A childless life hits differently.

We all share the commonality of our foundational years. When we are young, our birthdays and our changing shoe sizes are how we establish the passing of time. As we grow, most of us want to fall in love and share our lives with a special person. For some, this happens; sadly, for others, it doesn’t. But finding a partner is one of life's major milestones—a significant marker. And for many, it is the beginning of how a different life unfolds.

While the joy of love typically morphs into marriage or a solid relationship, for many around us, it then evolves into having children. As parents observe, mentor, and guide their children, their timelines become intertwined. They see their own aging reflected naturally in the joyous growth of their kids. They measure life by first words, first steps, and the first day of school.

Contrast that with our reality. Our timeline didn’t move forward with those joyous milestones; it was violently disrupted.

When your milestones are marked by an IVF confirmation on a birthday and a devastating miscarriage on Father’s Day, time doesn’t feel like your friend.

Our life was put on hold for close to 25 years—15 of those spent aggressively trying to have children. And then, because there is an absolute absence of an instruction book for this path, we stumbled through life for 10 more years just trying to figure out "what’s next" through a heavy haze of grief.

Our markers were not joyous ones. Now, year after year, we are forced to deal with a deep grief while the rest of the world deals in joy. To survive, we simply learned to ignore the calendar. We learned to ignore the passage of time.

Because we froze our internal clock to survive the trauma, did I freeze my image, too. Is that why I kept that younger picture of me up for so long? Because it was safer to stay frozen?

Authenticity isn’t about clinging to the dark-haired guy who rode bikes for hundreds of kilometers. True authenticity is looking directly at that grey-haired bloke in the wardrobe mirror—with the dodgy hip, the messy ankle, the scars, and the cancer—and developing a new mantra:

"This is the man who survived. He is heavy, he is tired, but he is real."

So, I’m finally changing that profile photo to something more recent. It’s nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed of. I should wear this present reflection like a badge of honor.

Have you found that your own childless journey caused you to "freeze" yourself in time as a survival mechanism against missing traditional milestones?

Do you find it hard to look in the mirror and reconcile who you are today with the person you were before the grief took hold?

Where We Choose to Stand.

I’m really drawn to streets with deciduous trees, I believe the foundation of this is from growing up in rural England. As much as I love my life in Australia, I do miss the change of seasons. It is this that has drawn me to Yarrunga Street.

I’ve been taking a photograph of this street in Robertson on the Southern Highlands of NSW now for over a year. My intention was and is still to produce a photographic diary of how Yarrunga changes through the seasons and pulling over on a Monday morning has become part of my routine. Standing at the western end, looking east.

I often think about what those passing drivers must be wondering as they pass an old grey bearded man taking a photo of a street. I wonder if they see what I see.

In Australia, there are only pockets of deciduous trees, usually in older towns when introduction of non-native species was less controlled. Most of Australia’s native trees are evergreen and so those pockets of introduced trees are a stark contrast particularly in Autumn.

With life being so hectic, it is little moments like this that make me stop and simply be in the moment. Knowing I’m watching something bigger than me unfold, watching how nature quietly reminds you things change over time. 

I was close to getting a full year's worth of photos. I was settled into the rhythm—and 'was' is the operative word here—until a thought hit me: 

'How does the street look from the eastern end, looking west?'

So, I drove up the street, parked the car, walked to the centre of the roadway and then everything changed. Gone was the sound of the traffic passing by. The quietness seemed to deepen the moment. I sensed my breathing slow as if time stood still for a moment, the light, the colours, the shadows... left me in awe.

Gone was the bare patch in the western view and now was an unbroken corridor of those beautiful autumn colours.

The view was much more beautiful.

Of course the bare patch is still there but now almost unseen.

I felt a sting of foolishness, I had spent over a year taking photos of the street, from the wrong end. I knew the photos would be better if from the west looking east there were more trees on that left hand side. But I ignored this thinking, “well that’s the way it is”, its authentic, but why did it take a year to realise that if I went to the other end, the photo might be different.

That gap, that absence of trees reminded me of my own life. I accept that the life my wife and I lead has the absence of the children we dearly wanted, we like to think we lead that authentic life, making our childlessness part of our truth. But now my experience with Yarrunga street has left me wondering...

What if we changed our perspective?

Not to remove the absence, not to pretend it isn’t there, but to see what else might also be present.

Because sometimes, the landscape doesn’t change…

Only the place we choose to stand.

Grace, Grief and Boundaries: Finding Unity in a Childless Marriage

The topic of boundaries is a very common topic within the childless not by choice wider community and is a very frequent discussion in our Full Stop online community. We recently also discussed the topic with Sandy Langhart Michelet, author of ‘My family tree stops with me and founder of The childless life.com. Pondering on this and through discussions with Vickie I was propelled to write this piece as an extension of what I wrote for our latest newsletter. Boundaries are viewed differently in our household and I’m sure we are not the only couple that have this discussion.

How do two people in the same marriage view the exact same boundary but through entirely different lenses.

Although from the outside looking in, some might think we have it all together, we still struggle with the complexities of childlessness, although we have found what triggers these as we age are different and compounding. But the constant through all our management strategy is the boundaries we set up. They help us navigate our ‘different’ life and whilst they have been extremely helpful, they come with their own challenges. Many we have met have perceived our boundaries as walls we built to keep people out, when in fact they are not about being anti-social or difficult. They were and still are in place to create enough breathing room so that the grief we carry doesn’t suffocate us.

Early on, trying to live a ‘normal’ life, doing the ‘expected’ things, like celebrating friends who have had babies, attending birthday parties, we were confused as to why we just felt so low after these events. In hindsight now nearing sixty with a lifetime of understanding we know we were feeling grief, but back then we were just confused.

I have to say that I would have most likely have kept doing the ‘right’ things, I would say that I was most likely in a bit of denial, whereas Vickie was deep in grief. This caused her to set a very firm set of boundaries; she realised years of "doing the right thing" only to end up emotionally spent needed to change and so we decided;

• We don’t go to see people with newborns in the hospital.

• We don’t go to baby showers.

• We usually wait until the mum has stopped breastfeeding before we visit.

• We both decided not to go to children’s birthday parties.

Vickie found it hard in her really "griefy" days to communicate these boundaries, even though she knew they were the best thing for her. I was worried that shutting out the world was not healthy for us and so pushed back a little. I’ve always been a bit of a "White Knight"—the guy who sees a problem and wants to grab a toolbox. My logic was simple: Context equals understanding. I believed if we told people ‘why’ we couldn't attend a child’s birthday or a baby shower for example; they’d see our pain and give us grace. For me its comes from a place of self-preservation – a fear of being misunderstood or labelled “bitter” or “weird”. I’ve also taken the route of taking control of the narrative to prevent others from filling in the blanks with their own assumptions and in my opinion this swings the power balance of the situation back into my favour. Vickie saw it differently. Through the hazed filter of grief, guilt, and shame, she felt that our reasons were private. To her, "explaining" felt like "defending" our right to exist and this felt wrong to her.

But after a lot of discussion both between us and on our psychologist’s couch, we agreed on some rules.

We don’t talk about the reason why we couldn’t have children, unless we feel we are in a space that feels right for us. We take the view it is a ‘our’ issue, not a her or me issue to preserve our self-esteem and show unity. This role also played right into my need to be the protector

We agreed after a lot of negotiation I would be the one to inform people of our choices not to attend events and provide context. I also deal with all the questions that might come from this as well.

Before any communication about us is delivered, we both must agree on the content. So far, this has worked for us.

A challenge we found was that not everyone accepted our wishes the way we expected, there were several times we didn’t get that ‘grace’. One family member, for example, even after being given all the context, still thought we were being selfish and that we "needed to get over it." Due to this and other issues, they no longer have a place in our life.

On the other hand, Vickie’s "new" sister (a story for another time) was much more understanding. When she came into our life, she and her husband had a toddler and really wanted us to participate in birthdays and other milestones to make up for lost time. We declined, with context.

What was lovely was that she then thought about it and came back to us with a suggestion: “How about the week after, we get together just the three of them and us two for a little celebration?” This worked. Vickie got to be part of her new niece’s life, but we didn’t have to feel like the odd ones out, waiting for those awkward questions that would inevitably come from the other parents at a big party. We didn't have to leave feeling horrible because we’d been witnesses to a joyous occasion that simply reminded us of the hole in our hearts. Even after the special little party, we’d still have a painful reflection on the trip home, but it was manageable.

Boundaries are important and, at the same time, complex depending on who needs to understand and abide by them. Giving people context is also important; it gives them the opportunity to look for other ways to include you in their lives. But, yes, this may fall on deaf ears. That is, unfortunately, part of the tapestry of life. Boundaries don't make the pain vanish, but they give you the room to catch your breath and find a manageable way through the day.

The Rear View Mirror

It happens without fail, every time I see the Dementia care home fade away in the rear view mirror we sit in silence as I have an internal sigh of relief and at the same time feel the anger well up.

Then I’ll hear Vickie say, “Are you OK”, she knows I’m not and she always wants to remind me she is there and to snap me into the present.  As always, I’ll say “yeah” with us both knowing that I am not.

Dad has now been in the home for seven years, while mum has been there just over two, it is a good home, they are safe and well looked after.

You may be thinking that I’m angry because of the disease they are both experiencing, I chose my words here as they are not suffering.  The dementia they both have has left them now comfortable in their day to day existence and all the pressures and anxieties of living have left them now.  So no I’m not angry about the disease, I have a very pragmatic approach to it, after all we will all die of something, we will not go on forever.  I am angry with them and yep, it is triggered by our childlessness, I also understand if you are thinking I’m not being very benevolent, I get that.  But let me explain.

Mum and dad did give us nearly all of what we needed to exist, a home, food on the table and support of sorts.  Dad worked hard all his life, to provide the funds for all of this, whilst mum managed the home front.  In essence a typical old school family unit.  Something that nowadays is not something you often see.

There wasn’t much laughter in our home, my dad was always a worrier and this gave him the appearance of being a grumpy bugger.  I also believe now with hindsight that my mum was depressed for most of her life.  As I look back it was as if she was just going through the motions.

Once we emigrated to Australia, which was the best decision I think they ever made, life was more about existence than enjoyment.  Not once did we go on a family holiday, so we have no memories of frolicking around as a family enjoying themselves.  We didn’t do family picnics, I think once or twice we might have gone to the beach, but that memory is so distant that I’m not even sure if I’m making that up!

Support was there, or sorts, a basic support for our immediate needs, but beyond that it was severely lacking.  My sister and I often talk about how when wanting to do some out of school activities, examples are boxing for me and Windsurfing for her.  We would get a response from my dad similar to “Well, how are you going to get to that, I’m working so I can’t help you”

Never was there a thought of …… How can I make this happen for my children?  Our mother never learnt to drive… why I’ll get there later…. But never was there a thought of, maybe I should learn to drive so I can help you!

So, we learnt very quickly, if we needed anything extra, it was up to us.  This manifested into us both being very independent, we learnt there is no point asking for help, so we didn’t and still don’t.  I for one find it very hard to ask people for help and at the same time I have to confess to not being tolerant of those that don’t help themselves…. Just ask my wife.  But I’m trying to change and I challenge myself over this, I think, maybe I’m the odd one out, maybe I’m the abnormal  one.

We learnt that our needs were not important.

Further to this as I've been away from the family unit for so long, I’ve been able to analyse even more family dynamics.  I realise that I have a love hate relationship with books, let me explain;

Reading and books are important, it was and continues to be, although times are changing, the way in which we convey knowledge, preserve history and give a lot of people enjoyment. For me, they are a reminder of my lack of importance in my father’s life.  Way back when I was a preteen, my dad started to write novels.  My early memories were filled with him hammering away at a manual typewriter with the occasional swearing rant when he made a spelling mistake.  He would pump out manuscript after manuscript and that was his focus, when he wasn’t working.

If he wasn’t writing a book he was reading a book and that lasted all through to my mid twenties, so my entire growing up years were filled with my dad’s attention being on a Book.

Right now this has left me feeling that my life was not as important as a book.  Because we never had a holiday from at least 1980 because of books, we have no family memories of different places because of books.  He won’t take me to a boxing gym because of books, my sister couldn’t windsurf because of books.

We never went out for lunch as a family because of books.

I feel like books stole from my childhood.

Contrast this to when I began to be exposed to other fathers, both those of my dad’s generation and my peers becoming parents.  I’d hear stories of, “yeah dad came over and we had a beer in the back garden and we may have had a little too much” from peers, this was a foreign concept to me.  To be honest it’s something I wouldn’t have enjoyed anyway as I didn’t really have that  depth of relationship with my dad.  I don’t think he really knew the real me, sure he would observe what I get up too, but he really didn’t know what made me tick or what my innermost needs were.

I said to my mum once when we had a heart to heart in my late forties/early fifties.  “You know mum, I’ve never heard dad ask me, How are you Michael?”

His dementia journey has been an ‘interesting’ one, the first things that left him were his worries.  He became this jovial man that didn’t seem to have a care in the world.  That was really hard to get used too, seeing as he was a grumpy old man all his life.  There is some research to suggest that those things that have not been deeply embedded into the memory get lost first.  So whilst early on, he’d remember mum's birthday, the date they got married, when it came to his kids he had no idea.  

The birthdays of his children were so easily lost, although to be perfectly honest, I don’t think they were forefront in his mind anyway.  

Every birthday would be the same, mum would want a hug and a kiss and give us a present.  All we’d get from dad would be ‘many happy returns’…. That’s its.  I still shudder when I hear this as it seems so sterile, there was no warmth.  Never did a conversation on our birthdays reminisce about when we were born.  No personal anecdotes of when we entered the world, never heard how it was the proudest day of his life…. Nothing! emotionally he was a desert.

When a mate of mine's daughter was a lot younger, she wanted to try different hobbies and pastimes.  Horses, chickens, dogs and so much more. My mate would be there thinking of how he could support her in those activities, he has built a horse stable, with  a water source and I’ve lost count of the dog kennels he has built for her.  Even built what he called the world’s biggest chicken coop for when she was breeding them for shows.

It was wonderful to see how this father supported his daughter but at the same time, I just felt insignificant because I wasn’t worthy of support.

These sorts of experiences were all around me.

When I was playing rugby I played with three brothers, they were notorious for beer drinking after the matches.  I got to know them really well and you could see they were a chip off the old block, because their dad was just the same.  Now put aside the issues of alcohol, what I saw was a tightly knit family, where the boys bonded with their dad in ways I never did.  Seeing them sit around a table, poke fun at each other and  laugh harder and harder as the beer took effect was both funny and heartbreaking  for me, I was so jealous.

I wanted to be a great father, I wanted to help our children flourish and become the best they could be in the way they wanted.  I wanted the opportunity to figure out how I could make it all work for us all.  I wanted to right the wrongs of my self centred parent, by making sure our children never felt insignificant.

I wanted to create experiences to ensure our family had a rich tapestry of memories that would both not only allow them to feel they really belonged in a healthy family environment but also so these memories would help them shape how their own families would develop over time.

Here I sit in this middle land angry that my father and mother, to some respect, squandered something so special and at the same time grieving the lost chance of being able to be the best parents we could.

As I sit here, thinking of that rear view mirror, I know that I’m no longer that pre-teen waiting for a seat at the table or a ride to the gym. And it has taken a long time, but Vickie and I are building a different kind of tapestry now—one made of advocacy, shared honesty, and a community that understands this 'middle land.' My father may have chosen his books over his children, but I am choosing to use my actions to ensure none of us feel quite so insignificant again. 

Ghosts

The phone rang at last. “Hi Michael, it’s Cathy from Wollongong Private Hospital. Vickie is out of surgery, all went well and she is in recovery. I’ll call you when she is in her room so you can come in to see her.”

The day had been a long one of waiting for me, but an even longer waiting process for Vickie. Having been diagnosed with fibroids some years ago, the specialist had taken a “wait and see” approach, coupling it with drugs to try shrinking them. Apparently, "menopause" would also help with shrinking too, he said. As time went on, it was clear this strategy wasn’t working. As the radiographer said at one of the last ultrasound sessions, "there is not a lot of room in there," something had to change.

A conversation with an acquaintance uncovered that she too had undergone the same surgery. She mentioned her specialist was brilliant and added, "she has not felt this good in a long, long time." So with the recommendation in hand, Vickie was able to get the necessary referral from our GP, who by the way is great, for a second opinion.

Things moved fast. An initial specialist appointment was made, a new ultrasound was scheduled, and it was not long before we were both in front of the surgeon. Vickie wanted me there to remember what was said, as she knew her anxiety would be through the roof and she has difficulty taking everything in when feeling this way.

“You have the biggest fibroids I’ve seen in a very long time, and they need to come out.

It’s like the size of a 20+ week fetus”

WTF! Yes, he had said this after we had told him we didn’t have children and were veterans of many rounds of IVF treatment. But this awoke something in Vickie that I rarely saw, in a good way, but more on that another time.

Surgery was scheduled for early 2025.

I remember thinking, as I was driving in once I’d gotten the call that Vickie was now settled in her room, what the psychological ramifications of the hysterectomy would be. We had talked previously that even though we are approaching 60, there was a finality here that we both felt and knew shouldn’t be underestimated.

The private hospital is literally across the road from the public hospital, and ironically they couldn’t be more different. The cacophony of noise and activity I’ve always experienced in the public hospital is missing in the private one. I imagine it was what a carpeted monastery would feel like and strangely make me feel a little comfortable.

As I find Vickie’s room, the door opens silently and I wonder if they are designed that way. I see my girl; she is asleep, looking peaceful. This is contrasted with the chaos of still being in the poorly fitting surgical gown, the IV, and the inflating leg massagers. I pull up a chair and sit next to her, I reach out to hold her hand.

In that brief moment, the room fills with ghosts.

The ghost of our daughter Emma. I’ve always loved the name Emma, and so this was always going to be my choice for our daughter. Emma is fussing over her mum in that way only a woman could, a mixture of worry and care, flipping between what magazines she needs to get, “have you got enough spare clothes?” and "do you have your iPad charger?” all whilst she is straightening that ill-fitting surgical gown. As I sit there, I realize how inadequate my attention to caring is compared to hers. A testament to her mother’s influence and guidance.

James and Matilda, her children, come over to hug their grandad. I can see the worry in their eyes for their nan. I pick them up, sit one on each knee.

“Don’t worry, nanny is fine. She has just had a little operation and is still very sleepy, just like when you wake up in the morning. Come and hold her hand, but we can’t hug her at the moment as she is a little sore.”

Vickie slowly opens her eyes and turns her head, registering that I am there and they are gone. The emptiness of the once ghost-filled room and the silence is visceral and leaves an intense feeling of loneliness.

In that groggy post-op phase where she is in and out of consciousness, she asks:

“How long have you been here?”

“About 5 minutes, I think. It's hard to say.”

“Why?”

As I look around the room, hoping that the ghosts return, I say, “A lot has happened since I’ve been here.”

But it fell on deaf ears as my girl had fallen back to sleep.

If things were different.

I’m on a quest to understand how my life experiences so far and my childless grief interplay with each other. Having immersed myself into the childless community now for sometime, I feel a deeper need to know both for myself and to hopefully, with recording my observations, assist others in navigating a childless life.  Talking with other men who like me have difficulty finding both the vocabulary and ways to express what its like to be childless sees me being more analytical of how I’m feeling at different points in time. Today is one of those points in time.  As I type this I hear the low drone of historic military aircraft returning from a fly by of one of the many marches being held in Australia today.

It's ANZAC Day here, the time of year  where we commemorate the fallen and give thanks to those who have served in our armed forces.  It has its origins in WWI when the ANZAC’s, Australian New Zealand Army Corp, were landed on the Gallipoli peninsula on the 25th April 1915 to a fierce resistance from the Ottoman Army seeing the loss of 8709 Australians and 2721 New Zealanders.  The nation stops for the day, there are dawn services at all memorials around the country and marches where all the old diggers get to ride in vintage military vehicles to the cheers of the crowd and for some this is  the highlight of their year.

I like to share the photograph of my maternal grandad, George Deaker, as well as his place of rest via my social media on this day.  Sadly, I never knew him, he was killed in the last months of WWII in Italy, I still feel a sense of loss that I never got to sit with him and be captivated with his stories of serving in so many countries. I often wonder what type of man he was and would have been if things were different.  I’m sure that cheeky nature I have has come from him and mixed with a london accent I’m sure he would have had that London rough around the edges charm.  I often think if things had been different what influence would he have had over me. 

That curiosity doesn’t end with Grandad George. In fact when I analyse my extended family dynamics, which I often do as it's part of my personality type, apparently I have a deep need to understand how things interconnect, there's that curiosity again! I realise I have missed out in a big way.

I only knew one of my grandparents, my mum's mum Gladys and I only knew her for a very short time, I was 9 when she passed away, she was 56 a year younger than I am now! I can still remember the day, we had a school outing to Chelmsford to watch ‘Joseph and his Technicolour Dream Coat’ and as I got home that evening mum told me the news, of course I had no concept of what that meant at the time. 

My sister and I often reminisce about nan getting her purse always bulging with coppers and dealing us out a small handful so we could buy sweets. I do remember her brother George Chapman, although my great uncle we all knew him as uncle George.  I remember sitting up till late one night talking about race car drivers with him, these times were rare for he had his own issues to deal with, we can say now it was PTSD from WWII. He was a medic and we have his diary which shows him moving around Europe after the war to what we assume would have been the concentration camps, we believe the atrocities he would have seen led him to develop that PTSD. He was a very loyal Arsenal fan and I remember he had a huge pile of programs in his bedroom, I was way too young to go with him.  Sadly, his affliction would see him often disappear for days on end and so he wasn’t very present in my life. If things were different,  I wonder what influence he would have had on me, would I have been a die hard Arsenal fan as well?

My dads parents were hardly ever talked about, I can remember seeing nanny Scotland as we called her, twice, her husband had died a couple of years before I was born. When dad did talk about his parents, it was never in a good light, there were never happy memories shared to keep their memories alive and it would seem there was very little enthusiasm from nanny Scotland to be present in our lives as well.

There were very few memories of my parents having friends come around, we didn’t have dinner parties, there was never a best friend that would take me under his or her wing.

In fact there was never anyone for me to idolise in that innocent way that kids do.

As my parents now come to the closing of their lives and we reflect on this through the eyes of now mature adults we can see that dad was hardly present due to working hard and his own lack of parental role models manifested as a type of selfishness and mum it would seem was depressed for a lot of hers and although she was an attentive mum, there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm to encourage us on to bigger and better things.

As I continue my quest  to understand my grief, I believe this all has relevance for me.  I have missed out on a vast amount of love and support that most would receive from the various relationships in their lives and I’ve missed out on nearly every opportunity to model myself on someone I admired, war has obviously played a big part in this.

Now it has become obvious that I wanted to have all those relationships I missed out on.  I wanted to be there for our children when they needed help or advice.  I dearly wanted to be that grandad that mesmerised his grandchildren with his tales.  I’ve watched my mum copy the behaviour of her mum and pull out her purse to give the kids a little something, although now its notes and not coppers.  And if things were different I too wanted to open my wallet and share what I have with our grandchildren.  I wanted to make sure that my behaviour left such an impression on their lives that through them, our memories would be kept alive for a couple of generations at least.

And so this is why ANZAC Day hits me so hard, it is another experience of disenfranchised grief reminding me of all the things I will never be as I reflect how a war 80 yrs ago has influenced my life.

But there is a bright side emerging from this all, for a lot of my life I have felt lost, directionless questioning everything I would do or think of doing, never knowing if it was the right thing to do.  I believe this is a result of the lack of influence I’ve had in my foundation years by others. 

What I can now also see is that I was a blank canvas unblemished by others attitudes and beliefs.  Yes there was some trial and error in my younger years as I navigated and developed. Credit needs to be given to my wife Vickie for being the rudder, gently steering me to who I am today as we come close to four decades together.  And as sad as all this appears and as much as I would have loved things to be different, I am in a weird way grateful for that blank canvas, as my mum would say, ‘You turned out alright didn’t you!’.

A badge of honour

I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole of the childless and childfree conundrum of late and in my opinion what I’ve discovered is very worrying. Firstly let’s get out of the way this clarifying statement;

Whilst I recognise that it is an individuals right to determine their own identity, there is in my opinion a greater good here that some people are missing.

I believe that being childless and childfree whilst being too very valid terms are also very different.  I really love the description my dear friend Sarah Roberts of The Empty Cradle uses  “Being Childless and Childfree are two very different ways of existing in our world”. The childfree have exercised their right to choose a life without children, where as the childless had the choice taken away from them, setting them on a grief journey that for some will be lifelong.  Yes, there are many similarities on how both these lives are perceived and judged by the wider community but at the end of the day they are a product of two very different situations.

So, what is worrying me when it seems so clear these are two different ways of being?

Bear with me, I’ll get to the answer eventually, but it’s important that we get some context out there first.  Having now immersed myself for close to eight years in the childless community, I think I can say with some validity that one of the biggest issues is the childless want to be understood, not put into the too hard a basket and marginalised which is often the case.

For this to happen, we the childless need to craft our own identity, but sadly we have left it up to the wider community to do this.  How often are we met with pity, the assumption being our life must be so sad because you haven’t achieved the status of being a parent and the inference being your value is less. Or the assumption you never wanted children when you dearly did. Throw into the mix, the crazy cat women, the witch, questions on your sexuality and for those single men being a ‘threat’ to children it is really high time we took control of this.

There are a number of barriers that get in the way of us crafting this identity.  We are a fractured community, we have learnt that the safest place to be is isolated from those around us as they don’t, can’t or don’t want to understand us.  We then lose the skill and/or confidence to develop community and friendships for fear of being hurt yet again.  Vickie, my wife, desperately wants to meet more of our community, she has some wonderful big ideas, but fear holds her back and I know she is not the only one.

On the positive side, there are more and more from our community now speaking out, leading by example and through this giving courage to those up-and-coming leaders in our world.  There are many in our community who are working to ensure that those childless that come behind us will not have to wander through the wilderness like our generation had to. This, is beautiful a thing.  We now have Steph Phillips founder of World Childless Week and Katy Seppi founder of Chasing Creation and her Childless Collective Summit holding global events to bring meaning and understanding of our community. These, in turn help us all solidify our own personal narrative. The number of courageous childless authors has exploded giving a very personal account of what it means to be us. So, I think it will be safe to say our community is evolving and what I’m hearing more and more lately is how can we bring all those leaders from around the world together, to share ideas so we are not continually reinventing the wheel, workplace inclusion being a good example.

And here comes the BUT.

What I’m also seeing from some in our community is the changing from Childless to Childfree with statements like ‘living a childfree life’. To my way of thinking the inference here is that Childless and Childfree are on the same scale with less at one end and free at the other, where the inferred free status is the goal.  I find this very concerning, to me it is another way the childless are being marginalised.  Let’s put this into a scenario, a childless person who is trying hard to manage their grief of loss, finds inspiration in a childless leader, they are buoyed by their confidence and their acceptance of being childless, it gives them hope that in time things will improve.  Then one day the source of inspiration decides they are now living a childfree life vs a childless life. The childless life has again been marginalised and I would go as far to say those who are vulnerable have been set up to fail by the inference that you can’t always be childless.

Why do some try to run away from being childless?

In the context of being childless there is a belief out there that if you get to a point in your life where you don’t want children anymore you have a ‘childfree’ way of thinking.  Vickie and I are in our mid-fifties and we still mourn the loss of not having children, we have a pretty high level of grief management and have accepted this life.  Would we want children now? Hell no, we don’t have the resilience we did as younger people, our infertility journey has left mental scars of anxiety and depression.  We’d also be very irresponsible to bring a child into our life now, we’d both be 70 and the child or children would still be in their teens. There is the potential that one or both of us won’t be on Earth this long and so what sort of life would our children have?  So, does this make us ‘childfree’ because we don’t want children at this stage in our lives? I would find it very disrespectful if someone was to tell me that.  

There are some that find unease in the ‘less’, to those I’d like to say rather than concentrate on the last 4 letters, take hold of the whole word and put meaning behind that, own it and make it yours by taking control of the narrative.

For me, I wear my childlessness as a badge of honour.

I live with ghosts, their names are Michael and Emma and I honour them with my childlessness.

I honour the hard-fought life that Vickie and I have with my childlessness.

I honour our podcast audience that listen to us with my childless status

I honour the members of the Clan of Brothers who like me wanted life to be different, by being a childless man.

I believe we should stop running away from and embrace our word ‘childless’.  We need to take ownership and craft that narrative behind what it means to be childless.  We make it clear and not muddy the waters by sending mixed messages of childless vs childfree. It is only then we will find that identity we need to be understood.  

I’d like to say to those that lead in our community be it 1 person or 1000 people, it is incumbent on us all to ensure we send the right message to our community, by being clear, courageous and showing that a childless life is not a second-rate life.

Again, I do accept that it is an individual’s right to determine their own identity, I’d like to leave you with this quote to ponder on.

“In Iroquois society, leaders are encouraged to remember seven generations in the past and consider seven generations in the future when making decisions that affect the people.

Wilma Pearl Mankiller - Cherokee Leader

(18 Nov 1945 - 6 Apr 2010)

I don’t know what I’d do without you

We are 100+ days into a COVID lock down here in NSW Australia, it has taken its toll on everyone in different ways.  Our state government has leaned heavily on technology to help with the management of contact tracing and in turn our mobile phones have become an even more vital part of modern-day life as we check in and out of places we visit.  But, tomorrow we will see our first major lifting of restrictions and the one most wanted by my mum, she’ll be able to go and see dad in his care home.  All she’ll have to do is show her proof she has been double vaxed, wear a mask and she’s in.  For us that keep ourselves up to date with the newest technology that would be easy, but not for my mum, she is of the old school, never saw the importance of having a mobile phone dispite having a number of hand me downs from us kids, or understanding how to use a computer.  Now approaching her 80th year, with a diminishing mental capacity and unwillingness to learn a new skill the technological age is way beyond her reach.  So, there will be no showing her double vaxed status on her mobile phone screen to get access to see dad.

 All is not lost, of course mum is not the only one in this position and it took a simple phone call to a special number found on the Australian Government website for the Australian Immunisation Register and the helpful staff on the other end are sending out a certificate showing mums immunisation history.  So, as I got off the phone and explained to mum that the letter would be here in about 10 days she said;

 “I don’t know what I would do without you”

 Of course, I didn’t show it, but that familiar stab of sadness hit me again.  I was sad because that formidable woman who was once my mum is no longer there.  I knew that if one of us wasn’t there to do this for her, she would have just resigned herself to the fact that she’d not be able to see dad again, working herself up into a panic, because she couldn’t work out for herself how to navigate the systems needed or even where to start.

 I’m sad because she has no friends that could have assisted here. Even pre-covid there would be no one that would pop around for a cuppa, apart from children who live close by.  How does someone getting to their twilight years with no friends, no additional support network that would be an additional layer of social interaction. Of course, I know the answer to this, Mum and Dad were so busy with us and establishing themselves here in Australia, they forgot to enjoy it along the way.

 When he retired, we’d say “Why don’t you take mum out for a drive and have coffee somewhere nice” he’d always return with “Why, we can have tea and coffee here together”

 Ironically, another reason for this is my dad was never a social person, he was happy just coming home to Mum after work, sit in his favourite chair and watch TV or read a book.  There were never friends popping over, no gregarious dinners or parties in the back garden.  There were never any holidays taken with other people, I remember tagging along on holidays with my mum’s sister and her family, but never did mum and dad have a getaway with friends. My mum would have enjoyed times like these, she is a social person, but that ship has sailed.  The irony comes as my dad is now living in a care home making friends and entertaining the staff, whilst mum sits alone at home, defiant she will never be ‘put away in a home’.  As her children manage her, manage covid, manage lockdowns and manage their own lives in these complex times.

 I feel sad because as I sit opposite her, I think this could be both Vickie and I, sitting there with no idea the world around us has change dramatically due to how quickly technology advances.  Like a rabbit in the headlights, stunned and not sure where to turn.

 I feel sad because we won’t have someone like me, to look after us when we get to the stage in life my parents are and it scares us both. It’s a tough time mentally right now as we both try to navigate our best way through this, we are lucky we have each other, we both know intimately what each is going through.  We think about those who are single and childless, dealing with ageing parents, with no significant other to lean on, or those childless couples with one of them needing care and having no children to fall back on, it must be so so tough.

 We as a community really need to start talking about this, we need to recognise that robust friendships will be a way to help manage these situations.  We need to step out of the shadow, gather our tribe and create those networks that can assist us as we age.

 As I chat with mum, it becomes evident she regrets not having friends, she regrets not having a friend pop around for a cuppa, or being asked around for dinner, or asked out on a day trip with ‘the girls’.

 So, to finish, I want to ask you a question, when you are in your twilight years, will you be sitting on your lounge alone, full of regret and no support network around you?

 If you, like us, want to build up that friendship network, please reach out and lets build a more positive supportive future.

Bittersweet

As I settle into the role I have had now for about two years and find my place within our team, I have become a source of support for one of my colleagues, a young women who impresses me greatly.  When I was her age, I had no idea of where life was taking me, I just went with the flow taking advantage of opportunities that drifted by.  Whereas this young women has a clear plan of where she wants to be and how she is going to get there, her drive, motivation and foresight are impressive, she is wise beyond her years and does it all with humility and care.

It’s been a while since we have seen each other and today we had the chance to catch up, whilst purchasing some equipment together.  Over breakfast we delved into what had been happening since we had seen each other last, I was particularly interested in the progress of her Phd. I was asked about how I deal with conflict with other colleagues as she was having issues with one.  We discussed our MBTI characteristics and how they can be misinterpreted.  We talked about a health ailment I’m managing at the moment and my imposter syndrome.  Then we talked about what was deeply concerning her and it was complex and yes it was to do with love.

Having had an emotional melt down or two in my time, I’ve learnt that this is when you listen.  My role was not to fix, it was to understand and if I’m able to, give some advice when its asked for.  Of course I’m not going into the details of our discussion and break the trust that was given to me, but let’s just say that when it comes to love, things are never simple.

One of the losses that a large section of the childless community mourn is not being able to correct the wrongs of their own upbringing with their own children.  My parents did the best they could to bring up their children and we haven’t turned out too bad. I didn’t want to be the ‘blocker’ that my dad was, his logic would always find the reasons why not to do something, rather than see things as a chance to grow.  I vowed that this blocking behaviour would end with me, my sister has done the same with her children as she also experienced the blocking.  I’ve realised that one of the skills to do this well is to have a good balance between when to use logic and when to turn it off as things get emotive. In my opinion when things get emotive the best course of action is to listen and try to understand.  Sadly, I thought I’d have to come to terms with the fact that all this self appointed wisdom I’ve acquired would go to waste.

Back at the breakfast table, as our discussion deepened, this young woman checked in to say “ I’m sorry for dumping this all on you, but your one of the main people that I look too for support”.  “No, no, no, I feel so honoured that you share these intimate details of your life with me, I’m honoured that you trust me with this, I’m honoured that you seek my counsel” I reply.  I could feel the emotion welling up with what I wanted to say next “I may tear up with what I’m about to say,  please don’t worry” I say as my voice gets a higher pitch, I pause to settle myself, “This makes me feel like the father I wanted to be” I manage to get out before my voice cracks.

Here we paused, not an awkward silence it was a recognition that no words where needed we knew a beautiful moment had just occurred, special for each of us in our own way.

As I was not close to home, when we said our goodbyes I couldn’t wait to share this with Vickie and yes it was with a cracking voice.  Her thoughts echoed mine, “Ahhh… that’s beautiful” she tells me and when she said her goodbyes, I hear the crack in her voice.

You Just never know when.

Its Thursday 17th of September as well as  World Childless Week 2020 and just happens to be Men Matter Too Day.  I’m driving into town to get a haircut, which is nicely timed as I’ll be joining all the World Childless Week Champions early Sunday morning for a webinar and I need all the help I can get to look decent.

I’m listening to David Tennant’s podcast and he is chatting with Cush Jumbo, I’ve just turned off Five Island Road onto Spring Hill Road and they are discussing Shakespeare.

As if like magic I’m transported back a quite a few years, I’m sitting on a chair, on stage at what was once called Theatre South.

Different motivators have made me dip my toes into the water of many things over my 50 odd years. The Theatre South acting classes episode was me trying to overcome the intense shyness  I’d felt all the way into my 30’s. Nothing brings you out of your shell more than mimicking the movements of a woman you have just met with your noses touching.

Or pretending you are a tree, in front of 12 others whom you have never met. As nerve racking as it was, I enjoyed this part of my life, it was fun, exciting and enriching. 

Although I had played Bottom in Midsummer Night’s Dream, it wasn’t Bill’s work that had me sitting on the chair.  It was Christmas, we were performing A Christmas Carol and I was playing Bob Cratchit, sitting there at the table with my pretend family and sitting on my knee was Tiny Tim.

Acting gigs are a strange surreal experience, you know it’s not real, but you force yourself to make it real, it’s what performers do.

As I straighten the car after the tight corner that is this intersection, my breath is taken away even though the experience was so many years ago it was visceral.  For a fleeting moment I felt like a father and it hurt.

We talk in the CNBC community of triggers and how they can come at the most unexpected times. I believe it’s important to acknowledge them, process them and talk about them, something we guys aren’t that good at.   As I reflect on this experience along with today being Men Matter Too Day, I’m sharing this with you.  I’m sharing to show you that there will always be triggers, I want to show that, yes, we guys get affected too, but I also want to show that they get easier to manage overtime.

We are Warriors

When Jody Day founder of Gateway Women asked me to contribute to Gateway Women’s Fathers Day campaign, I said Yes very quickly.  I admire Jody for what she does, who she is and what she achieves, she has been an inspiration to me and many others around the world.  In the clear light of day, I thought to myself “What the hell am I going to talk about, the audience will be most likely, a vast majority of women”.  Talking on behalf of women is not my forte.

 So, I decided that as Fathers Day is a time of reflection for the CNBC community, I’d try to convey my thoughts of why we men behave in the way that we do through the lens of being childless.  A statement that Vickie said to me some time ago always comes to mind when I reflect on our differences. 

 “When we were going through IVF and it failed, when I was at my lowest, I never saw you grieve.  It made be think you didn’t care”.

 I know Vickie is not alone here, as I immerse myself deeper into our community, I hear versions of this story regularly.

 Apologies to our LGBTQ+ family, this is going to be a piece that will be bias towards female and male couples.  I’d feel like a fraud if I was to try and speak about the challenges and issues faced by a part of our community, I have not been exposed too. But through the podcast Sarah Lawrence (After The Storm), Berenice Smith (Walk In Our Shoes) and I share, we are planning to change that, but I digress.

 Before I delve into the reasons why, a little context is necessary.  Its actually a bit confusing for males of my generation right now, societies expectation of what a male is, is not really conducive to how the majority of us were socialised.  There is an expectation now that the traditional masculine traits of stoicism, competitiveness, dominance and aggression are harmful. Of course taken out of context and used in the wrong way they are of course, but they are traits intrinsic to us.

I remember as a 7 yr. old, one particular boy used to bully me, I suspect because he had older brothers that would bully him.  I was a little taller than most in my year and I wasn’t a reactor, I was pretty laid back.  But one day, I’d had enough and popped him one in the chops.  Immediately the dynamic changed, long story short, he stopped bullying me and wanted to be my friend.  The lesson here was of course survival of the strongest, but it also changed the way others saw me, almost like a celebrity, I was the boy that ‘stood up to the bully’. Reinforcing that idea of strength is good.

 I was never home, always out with my mates getting up to some innocent mischief.  Growing up in the Essex countryside was great, with a bonus being so many trees to climb.  I fell out of many, but I would never cry, never wanting to see my friends see me as weak, after all ‘big boys don’t cry’ I was always told.

 A sporting outlet also defines us, I played rugby, it’s a tough game, you get knocked down, you get hurt, but you get up and carry on.  The aggression is the tool to do this, you harness it, focus it on doing better, doing more.  Vickie only ever watched a couple of games, all she could see was the potential for me to get hurt, she didn’t like this.  She did understand that when you cross the sideline onto the pitch, its like setting foot into the gladiator’s arena.  But she couldn’t grasp the concept that when you step back across the line you shook hands with your opponent and showed friendship, Vickie on the other hand would be holding a life long grudge for anyone that would have hurt me.  If we won, we’d be victorious, if we lost, we were dealt a lesson in humility, which is a great life skill to have, I see lacking these days.

 Also, what must not be overlooked is the fact that for a very very short period of time, when comparing the evolution of humans, our current lifestyles are so different to how we evolved. 

 When we were hunters, that Stoicism allowed us to focus on the prey, chase the prey even if we were injured.  The competiveness and aggression would make us strive for better, be the faster hunter, be the better shot, it allowed us to combat threats.  Weakness meant you didn’t survive.

 We are wired to be warriors.

 So why didn’t I show emotion, its quite simple really, I was being the warrior.  I was reaching down enduring the hardship and pain to keep our lives moving on. I had to focus that stoicism, aggression to be the rock that I thought I needed to be.

 Is this a good or a bad thing, to be honest I’m still unsure with hindsight I can see that Vickie felt isolated in our marriage, she felt alone even though she was in a couple.  She felt let down, she felt I didn’t care.  Whereas in my mind I was keeping it together, drawing on all my warrior traits to be strong, to get us through this trial.

 As I’ve aged and I guess my testosterone levels are not as high as they were 20yrs ago, I feel now that the aggression has waned.  I can see I’ve changed from the gung-ho warrior to that wise old man sitting calmly around the fire. I feel the emotions rise in me now, it is something I’m not used too as most of my life I’ve kept them deep down low.

 We are not wired to sit around and chat about our feelings that the fairer sex finds so easy to do.  We are beings of action, we bond from activities, be that saving the village from attack or defeating our rival rugby team.

 But what we do need is a place to belong, a place where we are understood and feel safe.  I know Jody will have a big smile right now, she encouraged me last year to create this space for men, I was very apprehensive about this as I wasn’t sure it would work.  But I took the plunge after talking with some other ‘brothers’ as I like to call them we together created;

 The Clan of Brothers - https://www.facebook.com/groups/2484973765084925/

 This can be found on FB; it is a closed group so only members can see what is posted.  We have had an online meet up, where we discussed our hobbies, our younger years and I hijacked the rest with a geography lesson on how big Australia is. (insert a laugh here).

 But there are some interesting discussing that have come up via posts in the group and they have been met with compassion and understanding only men in our position can give.

 So, if you know of someone that needs this space, please direct them to us.

 Thank Jody for this opportunity

 And as we say at the end of each podcast episode and this is especially for my CNBC brothers …… You are not alone.

I Hate Christmas

I’ve been wanting to write this for a long time and for a long time I’ve never wanted to write this. It’s late November, I’m sitting in Launceston Airport on the island of Tasmania, what some could consider the ends of the earth, the next stop south from here is Antarctica this creates within me a sense of isolation. It’s the end of a work trip and as I sit here typing, there is a group of people sitting on the table in front of me the majority being I believe in their 20’s with the exception of who I assume is a mother of one. I can only imagine they are off on a group adventure and I must admit I feel some jealousy, they are oblivious to the trials of life and can innocently experience things for the first time.  As their flight is called mother hugs her boy tightly and as much as she wants to send him off with a smile the fragility is obvious to us worn and weathered souls, as she says, “I’ll see you after Christmas”.

 O Fuck! Christmas already, fuck I hate Christmas.

 I have a little laugh to myself at the irony, I once played Bob Cratchit in an amateur production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ and here I am in real life Scrooge. I too am haunted by my very own ghost that seems to appear at this time of year.

 I come from a long line of Michaels who I’ve tranced back to the Tyrone region of Northern Ireland.  Recently, Vickie and I had the chance to go to Ireland and thanks to my cousins Kate, Helena and Colm I was able to visit the grave of the first Michael and as macabre as this might sound, I loved it.  Some people refrain from naming their off spring after themselves, I was not one of those.  As far back as I can remember my dad instilled in me the heritage of my name and my dream was to have my own little Michael to continue the line.  Vickie and I would joke, saying our children would be ‘little dumplings’, as we have always struggled with our weight.  Girls names we could never agree on, but it went without saying what name our boy would have.  Many years ago, a friend once told me that he’d never name his son after him as he wanted his boy to have his own identity and although it didn’t deflect me, it did give me food for thought. It wasn’t identity that I would be giving our son, my personality is nothing like my dad’s, I would be giving him heritage, something to belong to.

 We just like the rest of the childless community grieve for the loss of not having their children, these children live in their dreams and they will never leave us. This Christmas and every Christmas I sense the ghost of our son Michael. And every year I wish I could tell him this.

My dearest Michael

 Every Christmas morning as we gather together as a family and I see the excitement on your cousins faces, I imagine yours as you unwrap your microscope or your chemistry set.  Your mum would spoil you, she got nothing for Christmas as a child and through you she’d try to put things right.  But don’t worry I’d make sure you got all the good boy’s toys and I looked forward to lots of hours on the floor with the Lego.

Your early years, I imagine would have been just a haze of poo, vomit, nappy’s and sleeplessness, mind you, if you had the majority of my genes, you would have been as good as gold as your grandmother always said that about me.

 Your mum and I would have had quite a few arguments about you when you were young, as we both had very different early years.  I’d be wanting you to get outside and explore your world as soon as you could, just like I did. Where as your mum would want you close because you would have been the most precious thing she had and she’d want to keep you close just like her mother did to her, I was prepared to take second place for you my boy.  To your mothers horror, I’d encourage you to climb a tree, walk through muddy water or dig a hole.  I’d get you a bicycle as soon as you could stay up right, because I know this simple machine would allow you to expand your horizons and have more richer adventures with your friends.

 I’d have taken you camping, just you and I, I’d show you how to light a fire, how to respect your world and introduce you to sleeping under the stars. I’d share with you the story of how I introduced your mum to this, by taking her camping purposely not bringing a tent.  I’d show you how to cook on that fire and as we sat around like all those centuries before us did, we’d share stories, we would bond, and I’d hope you feel proud to be the next Michael.

 I wanted you to be proud of me.

 As you aged, I wanted to teach you that sensitivity would not make you a lesser man but make you a better one.  I wanted to watch you experience the results of your decisions, knowing that if you make a wrong one, I’d support you as you figured out the remedy.

 I wanted to help you become a better man that I, I wanted to show you the strength in being able to talk.  I always see this as you coming over in the evening after work and we sit in the garden with a drink as you ask for my guidance and me trying my hardest not to tell you what to do.  You mum would always be peeking through the window at us, obviously wanting to know what was being said, but beaming with pride and love to see you and I like this.

 Michael, your ghost is never far away from me and at Christmas you are especially close, and you know what, as my mind makes senses of what I’m writing, I don’t feel so bad now being Scrooge because my hatred of Christmas comes from how much I miss you.

Forever your Dad.

This Was Not How It Was Meant To Be

As my wife gave into the drugs and quickly fell asleep, like drawing a sword he drew the biggest needle you have ever seen.  Bloody hell, that wasn’t explained to us, you can’t help but feel so helpless as the one you love is violated with such a cruel instrument.  Your intellect knows it’s got to be done, but your emotions run high, you are built to protect, but here you sit watching helpless. It gets worse with every moan she lets out as he puts that needle in deeper searching for those elusive follicles.  All you can do is hold her hand and not cringe as her grip tightens to something you have never felt before.

For most people what we are experiencing should be performed behind the closed door of a bedroom. I should be hearing the soft moans of pleasure; instead all I can hear is the Dr and technician exchanging test tubes.  I should be looking into the eye of my loved one instead I’m looking at a wall, trying not to look at anyone.  We should be alone behind that bedroom door, but we are not.  I should hear the seductive rhythm of her breath; all I can here is the beeping of the heart monitor.

Then it is over, I can’t remember how many eggs were harvested; I think I have a kind of PTSD.

Then the nurse in her Irish accent says “Its your turn”. I can remember the fear, it was real, I could feel it like a lead overcoat. “Go up to the next level look for the Andrology dept. and tell them your name.”  I had visions of a large reception area, with a waiting room and ‘the rooms’ would be hidden away deep in the department. What I found was far from that.  I followed the signs to the narrowest corridor I have ever experienced, walking up to a hole in the wall in the corridor I found the ‘Andrology’ dept, it is not meant to be like this.

I was given a sample jar and a key; the technician then tells me that I’m in the room behind me. “There is only one key so you can feel secure that once locked no-one else will enter”, she said. “There is scotch in the cupboard and magazines in the draw, wash your hands before you start and do not get any other liquid in the sample jar”.  In a daze I turned, opened the door and stepped inside, then the reality of my situation dawned on me. Lock the door, lock the door, I thought.

I looked around the room; it was only around 2.3m square with a hospital flick tap sink, a recliner and a small cupboard.  The floor coving went 6 inches up the wall, making me think they could hose it out like some seedy nightclub.  I open the cupboard, that held what someone thought would be the best tools to ‘assist’. We were driving home after this, so scotch was out of the question and besides, I still couldn’t face it after my bucks night all those years ago.

It was then I heard voices, coming from outside in the corridor, for fuck sake, how the hell am I supposed to do this with people only a few feet away.  I reached for the recliner, as it moved it squeaked, could it get any worse.

The gravity of my situation was not lost on me, the pressure had been building for weeks, hormonal drug stimulation, the egg harvest I had witnessed, all came to this point right here.

Instead of an exciting experience in the back of the car in a secluded spot over looking the ocean or an afternoon quickie on the kitchen table, I was here; it was not meant to be like this.

I washed my hands

There were obviously many other rooms, as another conversation just like mine was being had only feet away.  “I’m not sitting in the squeaky chair, I’ll have to stand,” I said to myself, all I could think of was, it was not meant to be like this.

It got worse, the pressure and anxiety took its toll, what is so easy in the comfort of your own home, takes on a whole new perspective, I felt like I was a failure, but I couldn’t let my girl down all our dreams relied on me and this moment.  After what seemed like hours, a few tears, rest breaks and cramp, I completed my task. I tried my best to compose myself as I would have to go back down to the ward and sit with my girl, I failed in this too.

As I walked up to the bed my wife was chatting with our nurse, they both look up and begin to laugh, it was not meant to be like this.

Surviving Christmas

I must warn you, if you are thinking you’re going to learn a subtle way of surviving being childless, this is not for you.  This will be almost like a frontal attack, something that Napoleon would have been proud of.

 As with most families there are complexities that the pressure of Christmas seems to always bring to the fore.  Ours is no different and last year was a great example, I’d lost my job earlier in the month we were both smashed by a bout of Glandular fever, we were not in a good place.  My parents had decided to make the effort to travel to the UK to have a Christmas with my sister, as they are both over 70 and with varying health issues, it wasn’t an easy time for all.

 My wife and I are seen as the ones who can successfully cater for many in our family, so for years we would slave away for the day creating a memorable Christmas lunch, only to fall in a heap at the end of it, with me trying to come to terms with how tired I was for just one day and my wife excited that we had pulled off yet another fabulous Christmas feast, she usually loves Christmas.

Last year was different

As a present to ourselves we decided that this Christmas it was going to be different for us, taking advantage of mum and dad being overseas, we decided that we’d close the plantation shutters, turn on the air conditioning (we are in Australia) and sit around in pyjamas all day, eating whatever we could get out of the fridge or Freezer, no special meals, no roasting, no vegetables, but Ice Cream was on top of the list.

 It didn’t go down well, at the least some scratched their head, others got very upset.

 This is because no one was listening, but not by any action of ours.  We live a very overt life, many years of dealing with various issues on the psychologist’s couch has taught us the strength in being open.  But sadly, no matter how many times you tell some people, ‘Christmas is tough, for us because it reminds us of what we won’t have’ or ‘sorry we can’t come to your child’s birthday party because they are just too upsetting’, they will never hear the message you are trying to send.  You may get an answer, as we did something like “Why don’t you like us, you never come our daughter’s parties” or a real humdinger “why are you always forcing down our throats, that you can’t because you don’t have kids”.

 We have shed many a tear, when at a low ebb almost convinced how nasty and selfish we must be.  It is an easy trap to full into, conditioned by those around you to live ‘their’ life and not your own. It takes guts and a thick skin to weather this storm, but we stayed true to ‘OUR’ needs and believed we couldn’t have done more to educate those around us of our situation and so we still shut those shutters.

Why did I share this with you?

We realised that survival starts with us, no matter how we looked at it, we are different and that’s an important factor we needed to recognise and internalise. Once we had this squared away, we needed to get the message out to all those near and dear to us.  I know this is easier said than done, but we knew we had to rise above that self-imposed stigma, that is being childless can create and let those near and dear know, exactly how we felt and why. 

 “Let them know you are different, let them know you will not see the world in the way they do and let them know all the milestones of their lives that all revolve around children, will have the opposite effect on you.”

 I bet there are some of you cringing right now, thinking how uncomfortable it would be to do that, undermining yourself by saying you won’t have the strength perhaps.

 Something that I have come to cherish is a lesson taught to me by some acting classes I took many years ago.  Standing on the stage can be such a terrifying ordeal, you are exposed and vulnerable, until you realise that you are the one with the power, you are the one in control.

Everyone in the audience is in awe of you up on the stage, because they believe it is something they could not do.  Your skill as an actor delivering the lines have the ability to control their emotions, living that overt life is not too far removed from this situation.

 Having the courage to speak up and not hide will leave those around you in awe of your strength, granted they may not vocalise that, it might make them feel awkward.  And yes, there will always be those that will not listen and just not want to understand your behaviour because it is not what THEY want from you.

Betrayal and Truth

Our experience’s so far have taught us the value and strength that comes from truth.  As much as its hard at times and uncomfortable for others, truth for us means facing up to the realities of our life.  It is devastating when those that you believe to be your support, use your truths against you.

It was the mid 90’s, my wife’s sister was getting married, Vickie had arranged for my mum to make the wedding dress as she was a dressmaker before my arrival.  Vickie was excited that she was part of her sister’s wedding, family dysfunction had not always worked in the favour of the relationship between the two sisters, but Vickie was hoping this would bring them closer together, because at that time her belief was ‘family is family regardless’.  What her sister chose not to mention was that her father was also going to be part of the wedding.  I can hear you all from here, saying ‘So!’, well let me elaborate.

As we might have mentioned in the past, Vickie was born when her mother was just 17 and due to circumstances at the time, Vickie’s dad wasn’t around.  When her mother was about 20 she married a man who would inflict unspeakable sexual cruelties on both Vickie and her mother.  Her mother had two children by the time Vickie was able to speak up to her about what was happening, she was 5.  To her mother’s credit, this motivated her to involve the authorities and this man was put away.  Mother and the three kids then lived an itinerant life, in fear that this man once out from prison would find them.

When the news broke about ‘the father’ being involved in the wedding it was heartbreaking for my wife, she confronted her sister who said something like ‘No, no I want you at my wedding, you’re my sister’.  Vickie made it quite clear, ‘if he goes I cannot and you know why, so the choice is yours’.  This was her truth.

To cut a very long story short, the sister chose the father.

My vocabulary fails me right now with how devastating this was for the beautiful soul that is my wife. Not only did ‘she’ choose the man that abused her sister over her, but as you can imagine the rejection of the horrific experiences endured by both Vickie and her mother, by her choice, was unforgivable.  As the build up to the wedding grew, questions began to be asked as to why her sister was not participating in the wedding.  To our horror, it became apparent the story being told was, Vickie being jealous of her sister because she had a child, didn’t want to be part of the wedding.

Vickie was broken, I was extremely angry.

I stormed around to their home with Vickie, I’m not sure what I was expecting to achieve, I was livid, what she had done was unforgiveable, even evil in my book.  The future husband was left to deal with us as ‘she’ ran off to the bedroom.  Nothing was achieved, our pleas for her to face up to the truth of the pain she has caused, went unheard.

The lessons of truth from this experience have guided us ever since, we chose to live overtly about our infertility, so that it could not be misunderstood.  Vickie to her credit decided that her experiences as a child needed to be expressed as she was the victim and should never be made to feel inferior for it.

The most hard hitting lesson of truth, was that her sister didn’t care for her or what she had been through.

So, why have we chosen to share this with you?

Post the inaugural World Childless Week 2017, we had been exposed to many stories of couples who keep their truth hidden.  Who navigate life, hiding the truth for their own individual fears of being exposed that they are infertile.

We want to tell you that the truth will set you free, tell it, don’t let it be misunderstood.

We hope that you will never be put into a situation like Vickie where it will be used against you, so get on the offensive and let it free.

I will tell you it won’t be easy, it will take time for there is nothing more frightening then facing up to your own fear.

But trust us when we say – Set your Truth Free

Blinded

We have always lived an overt life; we know the process of learning to live with our issues is via being able to talk about them openly.

Having grown up beside my wife, I know first hand the lasting effects that childhood sexual abuse can have on a person and left unchecked it can be devastating.

You know that person who always seems to end up with stray dogs, well that’s my Vickie, but she collects people that seem to have lost their way. Which in itself is not a bad attribute to have in these days of everyone yarning for those past days of community. Sadly, the other edge of this sword is the vulnerability it can create.

This is the foundation of why we let Amber into our lives.

It went something like this, a young girl has started at my wife’s place of employment, and its obvious she is troubled. Like the Winnie the Poo character, Eeyore, she had that black cloud followed her around. Vickie recognised her moody, reclusiveness and aggression with her co-workers as signs of a person crying out for help.  As Vickie took Amber under her wing, the support she needed spilled over into evening texting and the pouring out of her experiences. We believed she was a scared girl just out of her teens with experiences that no one deserves to endure. She needed protection.

Amber could never actually speak of her experiences, they were always written in a note. I mean how could you face someone and tell them the most shocking of abuse that you have endured, writing it was so much easier, especially when according to her, it was her father who put her through these horrific experiences.

A few nights a week on our couch, told us that she was deeply affected, we could hear her whimpering like an injured puppy in her sleep.

After seeking advice from our psychologist and debating between ourselves the pros and cons, we decided that it was our duty to take this frightened and abused girl into our home and protect her whilst we helped her get justice and support.  We knew it would be a long road, but we figured what’s a couple of years in the great scheme of things and how could we live with ourselves if the death threats she endured via texts came to fruition.  We finally got to decorate that room and fill it with a bed, cupboards and shelves to create a safe space for her to retreat too.

Vickie was on a mission, taking her to her Dr to get checked out, dragging her to the rape clinic to get support, forcing her to confront what we thought were her fears and walk into the Police station to report the abuse.

She must have been so deeply trauma because no matter how much support we gave her it didn’t seem to lift her mood; this poor girl must be suffering so so horrendously.  But we kept up the pace and as time went on, she told us “you are both the parents I wish I had”.  We thought our roles were to give Amber a ‘normal’ life; to experience what life could be like. We introduced her to our family and friends as a way of creating that normality.

As I have mentioned in the past, we spent 10yrs on the psychologist couch, you can’t be there for that long and not discover things about yourself. What I discovered was I had a kinda ‘White Knight Syndrome’, which I recognise now is more about being a fixer, there is a problem I can work it out. Our life journey so far has taught me that as a male, I don’t always have to fix those things that Vickie is going through, just being there as a support and listening to her was enough, because at the end of the day, she knew what the solution was, she just needed to know she wasn’t alone.

So, with Amber I decided that this is how I would be the support, being there when Vickie needed me. It was also clear to me that this mission of Vickie’s was more than just getting justice for Amber, it was also her vicariously righting the wrongs of what Vickie had endured with her step father.

And if we are honest with ourselves, it was like us finally being a parent, but instead of taking her to a sporting competition, it was the rape clinic for her or a birthday party was replaced with detective interviews, there was not visits to friends that was seeing our psychologist who never charged because she too felt the need to support Amber.  It was difficult getting Amber to her appointments, but we understood why, its hard having to relive these episodes over and over again. We knew, this is how it works, desensitising you and allowing your brain to make sense of what is happening and learning to live with the experiences rather than bottle them up to fester.

But we were all wrong.

What we didn’t see, was how Amber gathered information about Vickie from her co-workers, creating a story that would hit home to Vickie in the most powerful of ways, using the story as the talisman to hypnotise her.

When the Dr would discretely say, “Vickie how do you know this girl is telling the truth”, she would just brush it off as the Dr just being cautious. What she didn’t know was the Dr could see the online medical records and of her personality disorder, but of course couldn’t divulge this to her.

The rape clinic representative did divulge once everything had come to a head that Amber did not behave in the way of a person who had been abused.

But the straw that broke the camels back, so to speak were the Police.  At their last interview, the two female detectives played bad cop, bad cop. Vickie was mortified that they would treat this abused girl in such a way, she still can’t believe that she screamed at the police to ‘stop’.  Even after the police investigated and told Vickie of how Amber would go back home and visit her parents, using her dads phone to text herself abusive messages. Or how the exact same scenario had been played out with another childless couple in her last place of employment, nearly break apart the marriage, she chose to believe Amber.

As she drove her home, Vickie still reassured Amber that things would be OK.  But once on her own as she came to pick me up from work, the light switched on and everything started to make sense. So much so that once I was with her, she arranged a meeting with the detectives to allow me to hear the results of the investigation first hand.

I was livid, that someone had taken us for a ride, I was livid that Amber had made Vickie relive her own experiences through this whole episode. I was angry with myself for being duped in this way.

Needless we went straight home as instructed by the Police and kicked her out; at no time did I have doubt, as the behaviour she showed was not one of someone being thrown to the wolves. She was angry, damn angry and I now know this was her narcissistic behaviour shining through. Not all her belongings fitted in her vehicle, so I decided that we would deliver them at a later date.  That later date was an eye opener, as I stacked the items neatly next to the house, Vickie handed all the letters of those horrible made up experiences to her mother and asked, “did you know where she was?” “O, yes” was her reply, “so why didn’t you warn us” Vickie asked, “I needed the rest” she said.

Stupid, angry, disappointed, betrayed, gullible are just some of the words that come to mind as we sit here and write this. How she was able to drag us to a place that we thought we had finally climbed out of, told us that she had put us in jeopardy too.  We recognise that our childless situation made us a target, as we finally thought we would be that parent we so longed to be, albeit only if it were for a few years.

As we debrief even now, we get angry that someone could be so thoughtless to use our vulnerability for their own selfish reasons.

A positive realisation is that we good people, we did this because we have heart and wanted to make a difference in someone’s life.

But, together we survived yet again, we owe this to our ability to communicate about the ‘right stuff’, checking in with each other and truly knowing that we have each other’s back.

A Line In The Sand

I must confess, I’ve had writers block, I think it stems from the stress of being jobless at the moment.  So, as a lot of you will know, I asked my social media friends to suggest a subject. The overwhelming response was, ‘When do you know it’s time to give up?’.

Like most families, we have our issues and ours is most likely no stranger to some, making a decision and committing to something.  For example, a few years ago, my sister, my wife and I took my mother to Italy to visit her Dads grave to which she had never been.  It was a warm evening as we strolled around the narrow streets of old Ravenna, looking for somewhere to eat.  The girls studied every menu as we pasted and every time I would ask, ‘do you want to eat here?’ the reply would be either ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t care’.

Now I’m not naïve, I realise unlike men who will battle for control, woman will be thinking of everyone, making sure everyone’s needs are covered and no one is offended.  At the rate we were going, I’m sure they were taking into consideration the whole of Northern Italy and I was scared that I would not be eating for the next decade. And even though my gorgeous wife doesn’t share the same genes, somehow that behaviour has rubbed off on her. (said with my cheekiest of grins)

Having said this, when we were on our IVF journey, it was like I was married to a different woman.  The best metaphor I can give you is a Regimental Sergeant Major with an OCD.

The initial time the procedure was performed it was a bit clumsy from our perspective and quite comical, when I get braver I may share this with you.  But, my wife learnt from this, every other time was flawlessly planned, annual leave would be planned around administration of the hormones to stimulate, ultra sounds to track the growth of follicles, the trigger injections to get those follicles ready and the egg harvest (not my terminology by the way).  She would remember exact dates and times for all the appointments, the exact dose of drugs we would administer at home, the exact date of the blood test to determine if the procedure worked and the exact date of when the six weeks safe period would be over.  I was married to a woman possessed with the need to become a mother, to feel normal, to be a woman.

But it didn’t end here.

To give herself the best chance possible, she would take off from work the next 2 weeks, taking it easy hoping those eggs stuck to where they needed to be, of course there was no resting of the mind.  Of course the obvious is, each round was unsuccessful, every time the coordinating nurse would call with the sad news, there would be tears, there would be wails of ‘Why me, I’m a good person’ and I would be afraid to come home to face the devastation.

There were times when Vickie would protect me from the bad news, whilst I was at work, but I could always tell the result as I drove up to the drive way and our curtains would be close at 3.30pm.

Once the purge had ran its appropriate course, socks were pulled up, big girl pants were put on and I would hear ‘Right, when can we do it again?’.

Of course I would not argue, I wanted to be a dad, I thought I’d be a really good father.

This merry go round, became our new normal.

What we didn’t realise was our new normal looked like this;

• A decade of annual leave spent on IVF procedures

• A decade of regular devastation

• A decade of medical fee’s

• A decade of no light let into our life

• A decade of psychology fee’s

• A decade of watching other families grow

As I write this and discuss with Vickie our content, she tells me,

“At the time, I would have just kept going, for me there was always hope that the next time would work.  I was so focused on getting that child, I was blind to everything going on around me. The only reason I stopped was the Dr told me I had too.”

I remember that time well, at her consultation Vickie had asked the question;

“It’s not going to work for me, is it?”

As he tapped Vickie’s feet, as was his habit, he shook his head, even he couldn’t say the word, no.  Later he said, “You don’t give up do you, but it’s time to stop”

This may seem callous, but this news was a relief for me, it gave me the chance to say what I had been wanting to say for some time.  As I sat on the couch, holding Vickie’s hand, through the tears I said  “I can’t do this anymore, I can’t deal with this emotional rollercoaster and the devastation at the end”.  We were 40, one of the reasons the Dr had said no, was due to the high risk of us having a child with a disability, as well as a risk of death from over simulation. I tried to bring a little logic to the discussion, if we kept going, the potential is we would be 60 and still have a child in their teens and if this child had a disability that would not fare on that child or us, who would be there to love and care for them, when we were no longer here.

There, we drew our line in the sand.

Just The Two Of Us

Our usual Sunday morning custom starts with reaching over to the bedside cabinet for our iPads.  A few wines and a late night with friends the night before meant I was slowly becoming conscious, as my wife caught up on what was happening in the virtual world.

Then I hear, “Lets have a facebook free day today”

This statement was like a shot of adrenalin sending me into a panic, ‘WHAT NO FACEBOOK’. But then reason won out, we had a big day at the community farm planned and then a meet up with my parents, so it didn’t seem too painful, no need to reach for the Valium.

Although the idea didn’t last long, as my wife fixed breakfast I sparked up my laptop.  The penny dropped, I had forgotten it was fathers day! My girl had my back!

On our way to the farm, via the local hardware/garden store, we checked in with each other. My wife confesses to telling me that she was “sad and sorry”, as is my normal behaviour I asked “why?”. Yes, this may seem like a stupid question, please bare with me.

” Because, I was never able to make you a father”

This is where my vocabulary fails me, I can not put into words the emotion I felt at this exact time, but I was able to say this;

“You know, I’ve never looked at our situation in that way, EVER.  To me it’s always just been we, us, the two of us.  WE didn’t have children, it didn’t work for US and as I have discussed earlier, this journey is extremely isolating, so to me ‘it’s just the two of us’.

“I hope I have never made you feel that way” I said, but in my mind I was in a panic, “Fuck, have I made this beautiful human being feel blame…. fuck, fuck, fuck”

The significance of this moment can never be under estimated, we have been together since we met at 16, that is close to 34 yrs.  We have together sat on the psychologist couch for 10 yrs learning how to live with the legacy of childhood sexual abuse as well as our infertility, successfully I like to think.  But, it took ‘a father’s day as we approach those 34yrs for my wife to confess what she has been carrying for years.

As I write this and read it to my wife for approval, the tears flow from us both.  “The words were just too hard to say and now I’ve said it, I do feel like a weight has lifted from me”

This is another lesson I give to you, your greatest strength is within the two of you.

As Bill Withers sang;

Just the two of us
We can make it if we try
Just the two of us
Just the two of us
Building castles in the sky
Just the two of us
You and I

I believe the sun is shining through for us now.

Now where is that Prosecco and authentic French Brie!