When Motherhood Didn’t Happen for Me

When Motherhood Didn’t Happen for Me

I always assumed I’d become a mother.

As one of eleven children, the idea that I’d one day have my own felt natural—inevitable, even. I never questioned it. That’s just what life looked like: you grow up, fall in love, get married, have a family.

But that’s not how it unfolded for me.

There were relationships I stepped into—some too quickly—because I believed they would lead to children. I even married someone I’d known for years, thinking we were finally ready to build that life. But the marriage ended before it really began, and with it, the dream slipped further away.

Years later, with my now-husband, we tried again. Two rounds of IVF. Hope, disappointment, grief. I remember one day driving to the clinic, expecting a routine check-up, and being told the eggs hadn’t fertilized. I was alone. I drove to my sister’s house before returning home where I shut myself away and howled. There was nothing left to do but feel it.

Eventually, I had to ask myself the hardest question: Am I giving up, or giving in?

The truth is, I wanted my body to do what I thought it was supposed to. I didn’t want adoption or donor eggs. I wanted to create life myself. And when it became clear that wouldn’t happen, I wrote a poem—a goodbye, a reckoning, a release. I called it Creation.

That grief doesn’t vanish. It lives quietly in the body. It resurfaces sometimes, unexpectedly. But over time, I’ve made peace with it. I’ve come to understand that I am a mother in other ways—in my work, in the spaces I hold, in the nurturing I offer others and myself. That archetype didn’t disappear; it transformed.

When people ask if I have children, I’ve learned to say, “It didn’t happen for me.” It’s honest. It honors my experience. And sometimes, it invites a different kind of connection—one rooted in presence, not pity.

This story isn’t just mine. So many women carry their own versions of it, often silently. If you’re one of them, please know: you are not alone. You are seen. And you are whole, exactly as you are.

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