When Everyone Else Has Kids But You
I feel like I’m missing out. In fact, my heart knows I am.
— -- (Editor's Note: This article first appeared on Babble.com. It has been reprinted here with permission. Disney is the parent company of both Babble and ABC News.)
Thirty-six and childless -- not by choice -- is an odd place to be.
By this age, practically everyone has children -- or is at least pregnant. I don’t feel any peer pressure to get pregnant or anything like that. Everyone knows I want a family. It’s not like the pressure those who are childless by choice often say they feel. My own personal pressure is often muddled with my extreme desire to be a mom -- but that’s all mine, self-induced.
I feel like I’m missing out. In fact, my heart knows I am.
It doesn’t matter that people tell me to “enjoy it now,” before the sleepless nights and no time for the self take over. The quiet in our home isn’t always enjoyed. It’s actually deafening, at times. The emptiness screams. So few people get that, except for those who also want a family but struggle to get there.
If only parents heard themselves through my ears when they complain about dirty hands, or unmade beds, or sibling tiffs, or not eating broccoli, or diaper changing or the countless other aspects of being a parent -- what those of us trying so hard to become one wish for most.
I’m one of four siblings. By November, all three will have children. Families of their own.
Of my 18 cousins, three of us have no kids -- and the other two besides myself are well under 30.
All of my immediate-circle friends have children except for a very small handful, and even those are by choice.
The world spins on, and I’m just here.
First-day-of-school photos litter my newsfeeds with captions like, “Time goes so fast,” or, “Where did the time go?” or, “In the blink of an eye.”
It seems like everyone’s life is moving forward. Mine is just moving.
This ain’t no pity party. It’s just what it’s like when everyone else has kids but you.
It’s like “not getting” the joke.
Not being invited to the party.
Being picked last in gym class.
But worse.
There’s this club -- Parenthood -- and I’m trying everything I know to get an in. But the door keeps slamming in my face. The rejection letter keeps re-sending month after month.
Nearly everyone I know belongs.
And there I sit.
Waiting.
More on Babble:
8 ways to make coping with infertility easier
9 things you shouldn’t say to couples trying to conceive
25 powerful photos of women giving birth
