Nicci Fletcher is 48-years-old and lives between Dorset, UK, and France.

When I was 26-years-old my father died. I woke up one morning shortly afterwards, when I was on my honeymoon, and realised that whilst I desperately wanted to have children (which often happens following the death of a parent) I didn’t want to have them with this man. My first marriage only lasted another eight months.

13 years later (and happily married to Andrew) I woke up in screaming agony on the morning of my 40th birthday. Having had no prior symptoms I was diagnosed with stage four endometriosis and a badly frozen pelvis. The adhesions were so severe that, during excision surgery, my gynaecologist refused to proceed because he knew that I wanted to have children. I underwent five hours of laser surgery followed by a cycle of IVF which was a total disaster. 

We were advised that conception was unlikely so we decided not to put ourselves through the ordeal of a second cycle of IVF. It was at that point that we started considering adoption but we didn’t go ahead because of Andrew’s time raising Angus – the severely disabled child he’d had with his first wife. Angus died when he was seven-years-old and we were advised that because Andrew had had this experience we would only be matched with children with those types of life-threatening or life-shortening illnesses. Having been through the trauma of being Angus’s primary carer he couldn’t do it again.

In April 2013 I was prescribed the contraceptive pill in an attempt to slow down the rate that the endometriosis was sticking my abdominal organs together. We went into a state of shock and a long period of denial about our feelings. We knew we weren’t going to have biological children and just thought it was time to get on with life.

We didn’t appreciate that you need to grieve, and suppressing those emotions caused a lot of stress and depression. Two years later I finally started to acknowledge my feelings (which made me feel terrible yet better at the same time) and made friends with others dealing with infertility. If you’re coming to terms with unresolved infertility there is something comforting in belonging to a community that understands what you’ve been through. Healing and acceptance is possible but it takes time and there isn’t a magic wand.

There is a terrible lack of support for people dealing with unresolved infertility and it’s vital because we live in such a child-centric/parent-centric world. We don’t conform to the social norm and this makes us feel judged, shunned and shamed. The insensitive comments that we get from people when infertility comes up in conversation just highlights the problem. I’ve been told that I’m better off with my dogs, and that people wish they’d never had children because of the stress they cause.

My own healing has gathered momentum since I realised that I can use my pain and grief to help other people deal with theirs. I am now working as an infertility advocate. I work with, and on behalf of, people dealing with infertility helping them to move forward, and have written several books and a blog sharing my experiences. My aim is to help people to redefine their dreams in order to create a purposeful life without children.

Resources for childfree living:
Life without baby – Lisa Manterfield
Coping with infertility – Nagar Nicole Jacobs and William T O’Donohue
Living the Life Unexpected – Jody Day
Gateway Women
Accepting Infertility
Childfree