BEL MOONEY: What’s the purpose of my life if I am unable to have kids?

Dear Bel,

I’m sure you’ll have had letters on this, because it’s not uncommon. I ask – how can you live life positively when you long for children and can’t have them?

I’m 42 and my heart feels so empty and hurts so much and nothing can fill it. Ever since I can remember I’ve wanted children (two or three, I thought) and always thought I would. I am not a career girl, but a family girl through and through.

Now I blame my whole body for letting me down with something that for a woman should be one of the most natural and special things their body can do – having a baby. I did become pregnant once, a few years ago, and became a mum in my mind. Six weeks later I started having a miscarriage – and have never felt more lonely in my life.

Why had my body failed me? Why did I get pregnant, only to lose our baby? I still think about how old that child would be now and it makes me so sad. Some people ask why I want to bring a child into the world when there are wars and climate change and all the bad things going on. But hasn’t it always been bad? We just know more about it with 24-hour news. People were still having children during two world wars, when the world would have felt very dark indeed.

People often ask if we have children – then talk all about their own. One day I’ll be asked if I have grandchildren. I’m envious of pregnant women. I will never get to know that unconditional love that people talk about of having their own child.

I dread my future and how the emptiness in my heart just seems to get bigger. What is the point of my life when I can’t even do the basic breeding?

All I ever dreamed about was me, a husband and two children. So many people have this and take it for granted. Why couldn’t I have been one of them?

KATY

Bel Mooney replies: You are quite right to guess I’ve had many sad letters about infertility over the years, all saying (in essence) the same thing. So I thought I’d print this shortened version of yours simply to remind people how cruel the situation can be.

It’s estimated that infertility affects one in seven heterosexual couples in the UK, and can be caused by many factors. Such a statistic can conceal a world of sorrow – and should serve as a reminder that, for many women, pregnancy is far from being ‘one of the most natural and special things’ the female body can do.

And the ripples spread outwards. I have here a letter from an older woman whose daughter’s latest round of IVF has failed. She writes: ‘I appreciate all that I have, and know that there are many who would love my lot in life but at the moment I cannot sleep, eat or think straight.

‘For a precious couple of months my mind has been filled with the joy of imagining a granddaughter or grandson – who would be worth the wait. But now I am right back where I was when my husband and I were thinking we’d never be lucky enough to be grandparents.’

This lady, C, ends her email: ‘I also know of course that there is no answer, because it is in the lap of the gods.’

When most people believed in ‘the gods’ or God, it must have been easier to accept fate as divine will, even if you railed against it. I can still relive the mix of grief and anger after my second son was stillborn at term, 49 years ago next month.

I also know what it’s like to see a planned pregnancy ebb away into another miscarriage. And I remember the dread when my own daughter began IVF – although happily she had (with great difficulty) two wonderful children.

Yes, I know what it’s like to shake my fist at the dark sky and cry out: ‘Why me?’ Just like you.

Many of us write a ‘script’ for our lives: the dream partner, the happy family at the right time, the perfect children, the satisfying job…

When things go wrong we cast about for a reason. When my baby was stillborn I wrote in an article that I must have been ‘wicked’. Your uncut letter also seeks about to apportion blame, even though you know it’s futile.

Like all the others over years who have written on this sad, painful subject, you have no choice but to try to achieve what seems impossible: to write a new script for your life which finally accepts what has happened and seeks to create a new ‘fate’. Because there is no choice. Please believe how desperately sorry I am not to be able to trot out any uplifting words of easy comfort.

Age 13, I was abused by my father

Dear Bel,

First let me say how much I love your column – a rare bit of sanity in a world going a bit bonkers.

I’m writing in response to Evelyn, whose letter you printed last week, in great distress because her husband had been arrested for viewing child abuse images. I’m telling her that him saying he was abused himself as a child is never an excuse.

I’m 45 and at 13 was sexually abused by my drunk father at his 40th birthday party.

I didn’t cry out, even though I knew it was wrong, and I have lived with the guilt and shame to this day.

When I was pregnant with my first baby, I watched a television programme that said most abused people become abusers.

I never felt like that – yet think it seriously impacted my ability to raise my children. I have a terrible history of self-harm, substance abuse and a couple of suicide attempts.

After my breakdown, the children went to live with their dad. They were seven and five.

The only good thing I’ve done in my life was to choose that man as the father of my wonderful children – who thrived with him.

Anyway, I do have some sympathy with Evelyn, but maybe she might like to consider the girls like me, and how their life is impacted, when she thinks about forgiveness.

Her husband may not have done the actual abuse himself, but there is a scared, confused, emotionally ruined child somewhere whose life will never be ‘right’.

Do you see?

TONI

Yours was not the only email that arrived calling into question Evelyn’s husband’s ‘excuse’ that he downloaded the disgusting material because he was abused as a child. But it is the only one with such a heartbreaking story to tell.

I feel nothing but compassion for the terrible pain which blighted your life since that appalling, drunken man (I can’t bring myself to type ‘father’) inflicted himself on you, betraying and damaging you for ever.

You describe a lifetime of consequences, for which I sincerely hope you have had some help over the years.

I never suggest that counselling/therapy/serious analysis is the ‘magic bullet’ which can erase pain, but it can help, which is why I hope you have been able to talk about these things with somebody trained to unpick them. (The Samaritans – call 116 123 or visit samaritans.org – are also on hand for those who have suicidal thoughts.)

I’m glad you say you feel ‘some sympathy’ for Evelyn. She has had her whole life called into question, with no obvious solutions. I’ve read comments to the effect that she shouldn’t be so gullible but should just kick her horrible husband out.

I wish those who glibly offer quick and easy solutions for human pain would just sit in my chair for a while. I wish they could start to understand that people can feel two things at once, or even more.

The whole point of Evelyn’s letter was her being torn between still feeling love for the man she has spent her life with, and her real revulsion at what he has done. And until you, too, are old and faced with a choice of being very lonely, please don’t pontificate about what a tormented soul like poor Evelyn should and shouldn’t do.

Here, Toni, let me move on to the topic of ‘forgiveness’. Last week, Evelyn explained that her husband ‘has destroyed my trust and I feel we will never be the same again’.

Nowhere in her printed letter or the uncut one I first read does she mention forgiving her husband. It was clear to me she could never forgive the man who, shockingly, turned into a stranger the moment the police came to their door.

To give another example: can a woman go on living with a man who has been unfaithful to her for a long time? I will never stop pointing out to my readers that people are very complex creatures and may have a multiplicity of reasons for any one course of action.

This is not about forgiveness. It involves a sad, pragmatic, deeply-wounded, shamed admission of her own needs.

You can hate a sin while retaining a desperate, ruinous love of the sinner. This is the worn and tattered patchwork of the human heart.

Toni, it was so brave and moving of you to write such a beautiful tribute to your ex-husband who brought up your children so well. I hope they are now a part of your life and that you can go on reading this column with understanding, knowing how many people also suffer the stress and sorrow you have known.