Am I Going to Die Alone?

That’s a question I have asked myself from time to time. The funny thing is, other people have put this thought in my head by asking me “You don’t have kids yet? Aren’t you scared of dying alone?”. Tough crowd, am I right?

I’m 35 and I don’t have children. I am fortunate that I look younger then my age, so people who don’t know me always say “oh don’t worry, you’re young, you have time” but, this is far from true. Besides fertility decreasing in your mid-30’s, I also have Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome and Hashimoto’s disease, which means my chances of falling pregnant naturally is very unlikely. Even in the unlikely event that I do fall pregnant naturally, recent blood test has revealed that I am most likely to miscarry. If I want to have children, the advice from several doctors has been that I must act now. Talk about pressure!

Well okay, so I have options. I could just start now, undergo IVF or even freeze my eggs. That would all be fine, except I don’t even think I want to have children (cue horrified reactions now).

Being a mother is not only the most important and rewarding job in the world, but it’s also the hardest. Most of my friends have children, so I am aware of the sacrifices that need to be made and what is entailed. I take my hat off to all parents, however I honestly don’t feel like this is my path and something I should push for. I feel that if it happens naturally then fine, but I didn’t want to sit here and plan for something that I didn’t even want. I know this conversation makes people uncomfortable. You’re meant to want to have children, be a family, take your kids to school, worry about them until you get old and wait for grandchildren. Some people think I will change my mind, and perhaps maybe I will, but as it stands now, I really don’t want to and I have to follow my heart.

So why not just be safe and freeze my eggs? Well to freeze my eggs is a big ordeal. Not only is it costly, but I would also need to jab myself with needles and pump myself with hormones. And there is no guarantee that I would even have a baby from doing all of that. I really have no interest in doing that to myself. If I were to go down that route, it would purely be because people have been telling me I would regret it if I didn’t. To me, this doesn't seem to be a justified reason.

I feel that making decisions and living with them are all a part of life. If I change my mind and I don’t have any options then it will be okay, I will be okay. I will not be less than because I never had kids. My life will just take a different trajectory. Life is about choices and I choose to do something different than the status quo. That might be something I live to regret, but that’s the adventure of life. The unknown and the pure potential. I must stop looking at all that is missing in my life and start to think about what I could do and be – and that is limitless.

Someone asked me yesterday if I was to have my life over, would do things differently? I suppose that depends on which way you want to look at that question. From where I’m standing now yes of course I would do things differently. I’m more knowledgeable, have more experience and the benefit of hindsight – I am a totally different person than who I was in the past, but I did the best I could with what I had back then. I couldn’t have done things differently, I didn’t know any better. And maybe that’s how I’ll feel when I’m old and grey with no kids or grandkids, but that’s why I’m determined to make my life count and do something extraordinary with my life.

I’m not here to say motherhood isn’t the path you should take, I’m just saying it's not the path I want to take. At least not right now. And if I change my mind or it happens down the track, then it happens. Life might throw me a curveball - I’ll adjust, grow and do something else. I think there’s some excitement in not knowing the future. We have become so obsessed as a society to have our lives mapped out, but I’m okay in the not knowing how it’s all going to turn out. After all tomorrow isn’t promised, so all I can do is enjoy the now and live a life I’m proud of.

Women are constantly being pressured to have children or if they don’t there is something wrong with them. Or there’s the other side that if they can’t have children then that it is the most devastating thing in the world. And if that is how the individual feels then that is fine, but do you know what I think is devastating? That women are pigeon-holed into this cookie cutter mould. Well I’ve had it. I’m here to say it’s okay if you decide not to take that path or if it just didn’t happen for you. Don’t let societal norms bully you into thinking unless you live a certain lifestyle that you are abnormal or less than everyone else. Women of the world: it’s okay if you don’t have children, you are enough just the way you are.

I’m here to start a new dialogue for women who are childfree or childless – you have so much possibility that lies before you. Take advantage of that and let it fuel you to do something extraordinary. We owe it to our sisters who have children who wished they did more but couldn’t because they had kids. Let the fact that you don’t have children be the precursor of a new enriching life. It is not sad, it is an opportunity to create something different, something remarkable. And that can be through work, through travel, through something that hasn’t even been discovered yet because we have been so fixated that we have to become mothers. Not being a mother is going to push me to live my life exceptionally. It’s going to remind me that I have the opportunity to do anything else.

And to those who ask if I’m scared to die alone, my answer is this: just as I was born alone, I will die alone. Besides, I don't fear death, I fear that I never truly lived.

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