THE ROAD LESS TRAVELLED

We tend tiny, empty graves hidden in our hearts. We endure the daily tortures – the careless questions and judgement, the thoughtless commentary, the barrage of propaganda. In our fundamentally conservative country, even in the third decade of the 21st century, to be a woman without children who wanted children is to be in an invidious position.

We all have different stories – infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, circumstance – but are united by our raw understanding of how it is to live in a society that glorifies the fairytale virtues of motherhood, a society in which governments prioritise ‘working families’ in both rhetoric and policy, and politicians urge the nation’s women to breed (and, if they don’t, label them as ‘deliberately barren’).

For a long time, I kept my story of childlessness to myself. I was ashamed. I had failed to achieve something I’d long thought was fundamental both to my vision of myself and to being an acceptable, authentic woman. My fairytale vision had put me at the glowing centre of a circle of love and warmth, the sun to a planetary bounty, a delicious man and multiple adoring children.

Through my 20s and 30s I worked long hours, stayed out late, lived overseas and wasted time with men of meagre character,