When you are married / in a couple in your early thirties, it is very hard to avoid children. It seems (because it's true) that almost every week we hear about someone falling pregnant, having a baby.
On the one hand, it's wonderful - I am so happy for my friends and families who are having children, creating or growing their family. In different circumstances I would be leaping with joy, but I can't. It's not their fault. People aren't out there falling pregnant to spite me (I would hope not - that would be weird), in fact very few people know that we are trying to have children. But it still hurts. It's not that I'm jealous of them having their baby. I'm jealous of me not having mine, us not having ours.
This is the best way I can explain it is as follows. One of the defining characteristics of being human is dignity. And what is dignity? Dignity is being complete within yourself, despite your circumstances, despite your position in life, being able to stand up straight, your head held high, knowing that you are complete in and of yourself. A dignified person isn't jealous of someone else. Being jealous of someone else is acknowledging that you lack something, believing that you are not complete, that you lack a partner or a bigger house or better job. After years of maturing and learning not to be jealous of what others have, working towards being dignified, I have lost that. When someone else announces they're pregnant, despite everything, it is a reminder of what we, I don't have. That despite all the trying and working so hard, the appointments, the injections, the vitamins, the life overhauls - they have something, they have achieved something that I can't. I just feel acutely the child-shaped hole that I know is in my life.
I don't want their child, I don't want their life, I want mine.
I don't want their child, I don't want their life, I want mine.
