All That She Wants

I didn’t know how it would feel. I just sort of assumed it’d be a little twinge now
and again. I never realised quite how it would affect me. It’s all encompassing and
there’s only one thing that I can do to make it stop… have a child.

You know when women go on about being broody and we all usually just roll our
eyes and think ‘chhh yeah we all get broody love, come on, get over it’? Well, I’ve
discovered there are varying degrees of it, and I’m about set to go into meltdown,
such is my broodiness. I really wasn’t aware of quite how strong a feeling it is. At
my lowest points during my depressive episode, I was queuing in Boots and I started
to cry because a woman in the queue had a baby and I did not. That is of course an
extreme reaction due to depression and having not taken my medication for a week or
so, but that is the feeling I still get. It’s extreme version of jealousy. I want what all
the other women have. I want to be someone’s mummy. That’s all. And now that
my mental health seems to be on the up and all the shit at work has finally dispersed,
the yearning is stronger than ever.

It just seems at the moment that everywhere I look, people I know are pregnant and
announcing their pregnancies via the scan pic of Facebook technique, or they’ve just
had a baby and I seem to forever bump into them in town, the usual chit chat and then
the obligatory ‘you’ll be next!’ with a grin…but what if I’m not next?

I have an inherent fear of not being able to have children, borne of nothing (no pun
intended). Growing up, girls are forever being bombarded with stories of ‘young
teenage mums’ and basically if you even LOOK at a penis, you’ll get pregnant.
Well, not at MY school you understand (Catholicism WOW), but just in general. So
because it comes across so easy to get pregnant (it happens to everyone all the time,
doesn’t it?) you sort of almost expect it to happen just like that… and then it doesn’t.
I am, of course, well aware that it takes time and effort and maybe I’m just being
impatient but Lord above, surely it’s my turn? It has to be.

I’m one of only two in my circle of seven friends who isn’t pregnant or who hasn’t
got children and it’s really quite painful. I’m well aware that ‘it just hasn’t happened
yet’ and ‘it’ll happen’ but that does nothing for the gnawing pain deep inside
whenever I see a friend’s new baby or see another pregnancy announcement on
Facebook. Don’t get me wrong, I am always genuinely delighted whenever one of
my friends announces a pregnancy, I just sort of always feel jealous or that it’ll be me
next. We’ve even got announcement ideas (I know, quite tragic really).

I guess what I’m trying to say is that I really genuinely never thought that something
like broodiness be such a powerful feeling. It’s almost all consuming. It was
something I always thought was just a little feeling and a twang of the ovaries when
you saw a newborn – it isn’t; it’s way worse. And I know there’s only one way to
quell it.

Top tip:  Never, EVER, trawl 'trying to conceive' websites and forums.  They make me weep for humanity.