Let’s have another! (Oh wait.)

This one is a tough one for me, and I have waited a while to share. It’s super personal and as my sister pointed out recently, I don’t share much with the people I do know, it’s interesting I can be so open on my blog.

I think there are two reasons for this: I’ve always found writing things down way easier than speaking them out loud, to myself or anyone else; and more importantly, I made a decision soon after my diagnosis that I was going to be open and real and there was going to be no shame and no bullshit, from now on. This is what the possibility of death does, I guess.

So here goes.

Without going into too many details, it appears I may be going into early menopause. I’m phrasing it like this because some doctors have said it’s too early to tell, and others have said that it’s extremely likely.

I would like to be able to say I was never told this could happen, but the doctors did warn me there was a chance I could be infertile after chemotherapy. They did say that if I wanted more children I should freeze my eggs. I can claim I didn’t realize this also meant early menopause, but I did know about the infertile part. At the time, we didn’t think IVF would be something we’d be willing to do in the future. Plus we needed to get the chemo show on the road, ASAP.

I was diagnosed at the end of November 2018, and since the summer of that year Spence and I had been trying for another baby.

For quite a while before that “Let’s have another!” had been a casual remark we exchanged with each other on days when our two small children were being particularly hard work, or just life as a family of four seemed less idyllic than we had imagined. It was accompanied with an eye-roll, or maybe a laugh/cry emoji on Whatsapp. What we really meant was: No fucking way we’re having another child.

Until we, or more precisely I, didn’t mean that at all. And although we kept bringing it up to lighten the mood when the children were arguing in the back of the car during a long drive, or when our 4-year-old started weeing through his nappy at night and needed several bed changes, or when parenting seemed something we were barely scraping the surface of; even if the joke never grew old, the initial feeling did.

I really wanted another.

Our kids were then 4 and 6 and daily life seemed more settled; and while Spence saw this as a positive, meaning more date nights, easier long-haul flights, holidays that might actually be deserving of the name, well, I was thinking, it seems like the right time to have another.

We agonized over it for a while, and it came down to the inescapable fact that I wanted a bigger family and it would have hurt me a lot more to give this up, than it would hurt him to go through with it. It was agreed then; this included promises on both our parts and ways we were going to do things differently in order to stay a little more sane and connected, this time.

We’re having another! And the refrain on tough days became, “Well, just you wait until we have three!”, which inevitably made him sigh and me shudder with glee. I’ve always appreciated a bit of a struggle I guess.

Now I realise we were in a privileged position. We could have, at that point, just got on with it and most probably made another baby. Not everyone can and I can only attempt to imagine the heartache of infertility or loss. I am and forever will be so, so grateful for my two wonderful children. But the fact is, that I love children and I wanted more. Selfishly, of course, but also so fiercely. It’s an instinct and something you feel inside of you so deeply, you can’t even give it a name.

Instead, I got lymphoma.

All the months I was wondering whether I might be pregnant – interpreting the tiredness, aches and pains, nausea as maybe, possibly, early signs of pregnancy – my lump was growing bigger and bigger until it was 12 cm in diameter just before I was diagnosed. Your baby is now the size of a pea, Babycentre or some such upbeat prenatal website might say. No one ever compares tumours to vegetables.

Your lump is now the size of an avocado, doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.

And now, I am struggling with the fact I will probably not be having another child.

The reason this has been so tough is this: I am also, in parallel, super grateful that I’m even alive. I’m grateful I have two healthy children already. I love my life and I feel content and at peace in so many other ways.

I now know that it is very possible to love and live life fully and yet be so deeply sad over one thing.

Because everyone expects, wants and needs me to be grateful right now, I feel like my infertility grief just cannot be spoken. And this makes me feel incredibly isolated and alone.

I feel like I need to keep this ridiculously indulgent first-world problem to myself, because who is going to empathize with me on this right now?

I know I will let this go, at some point. I know I will one day feel like my family is complete. I know that all I need is time.

But like any woman (or man) out there who has a clear picture of everything a bigger family brings, and desperately wants all those things, I don’t need to dig too deep within myself to know that there will always be a tiny (pea-sized) space in my heart for my third child.

Lorenzo at a party, being wrapped up in toilet paper. Just to lighten the mood here.