‘When’s his sibling due?’ asked a fellow parent at my son’s sensory class, touching my stomach.
It knocked the wind out of me.
I’m not pregnant, and I’m not sure if I’d be able to pregnant again. My son Teddy is our miracle baby after four losses.
I felt angry, upset and worst of all, alone. No one else stepped in or piped up to help. Perhaps too uncomfortable to approach the situation for fear of making it worse.
Had I lost all the pregnancy weight at 10 months postpartum? Probably not. But do I like my postpartum body? Yes.
The question was insensitive enough, but the touching was next level.
In this instance, I chose grace over anger and explained that I wasn’t pregnant, and that Teddy was conceived via IVF. I didn’t know if we could have more children, but that we’d love to have another. Her response was to double-down on her question.
It proved to me how normalised it is to ask when women are having children – even when they’re already mothers.
No one has the right to comment on, or touch, another person’s body. You never know what other people are navigating.
They may be child-free by choice, or not; experiencing fertility issues, receiving fertility treatment, have PCOS, endometriosis or another chronic illness or suffered a loss or losses, struggle with self image, have a postpartum body or be prone to bloating.
After we got married in March 2020, my husband Jordan and I constantly got asked when we were having children. We ignored it at first and then it started to get to us.
A few months later, I started to experience pregnancy symptoms. We were so excited. Sadly, the pregnancy resulted in a chemical pregnancy, also known as an early miscarriage.
Over the next few years we struggled to conceive and, after numerous tests, discovered that I have polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which is thought to affect 1 in 10 women in the UK.
PCOS presents issues like difficulty getting pregnant as a result of irregular ovulation or no ovulation at all, and a heightened risk of miscarriage.
As a result, we sought help from fertility experts and opted for IVF treatment. We embarked on our first round of IVF and collected and fertilised three eggs.
The first embryo transfer unfortunately didn’t result in a baby. Neither did the next, which was a kicker as they were twins. We saw them alive on the screen before the transfers so in our minds, they were our children. Our losses.
We were honest about our losses but people often discount losses in IVF, as though they don’t count. We were told ‘don’t worry it will happen’ or that ‘they weren’t really babies’ so as not to get upset. Jordan and I started treating these comments as white noise that we would tune out.
We were too laser focused on IVF and our own wellbeing to be bogged down with other people’s insensitivity.
After letting my body recover, we prepared for another round of IVF, self-administering the daily injections to get the eggs ready for collection. Again, three eggs were successfully fertilised and one embryo was the strongest.
We saw the embryo before the transfer, and it was the shape of a heart. That heart, it turns out, was Teddy, who nine months later would bound into the world, full of wonder.
It took me a long time to go from saying if the baby gets here, to when. When I held Teddy for the first time it was remarkable. We’d finally done it and he was perfect.
But other people didn’t seem to think it was enough. Straight away we got questions about when the next baby would be on its way.
At the sensory class, even with no apology in sight, I’m glad that I stood firm and acted with grace. I want to set a good example for Teddy to stand up for himself. That it’s OK to have a strong will and a soft heart.
I waited for her to leave, and then had a little cry as I put Teddy into his pram. Jordan was very angry, but we sadly weren’t surprised by the behaviour after the insensitivity we experienced during the IVF process. My other friends were shocked.
I decided to post about it on Instagram because inaction does not breed change and the reaction showed that this is a common issue people are dealing with.
A recent article by Vogue showed that 50% of mothers say that they avoid certain people who are too critical. If this goes unchecked without support or understanding, research indicates it could escalate to postpartum depression.
Asking someone when they’re having kids – whether they’re already parents or not – isn’t an innocent question, it’s a loaded one. Unless you hear that someone’s expecting directly from them or their partner, zip it.
I haven’t seen the woman at the class since. It was supposed to be a safe space for new parents to relax with their children and she derailed that, and didn’t apologise. I do feel anxious about attending the class but if her child wants to play with Teddy I’m OK with that.
Truthfully, I don’t think she meant any harm with her comment, and wasn’t aware of our losses and uphill battle to get our son here. I can imagine she feels bad, it just shouldn’t be an automatic question or reaction to my body.
Everyone makes mistakes, I just hope that she learns something from this one. Instead of focusing on others, their bodies and mindless gossip, we should show more compassion. Women’s bodies – including my own – aren’t here for your feedback after all.
Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk.
Share your views in the comments below.
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