My journey started with my own mother walking out of our family home when I was 16 and never coming home. It wasn’t a surprise she had confessed to me the previous evening she was having an affair. What followed was promises not to leave my sister and I that she couldn’t keep. My mum and dad both moved in with new partners, sold our family home, and making my younger sister the priority for housing I was left homeless. This led to a very physically and emotionally abusive 5 year relationship with a man 19 years older than me. He stripped me of all my identity not a scrap of me survived. I didn’t even wear the clothes I liked. When I finally got away from him I looked for love wherever I could find it. I became very promiscuous and this resulted in my first pregnancy with my daughter T.
She saved me, its a cliche I know, but it’s true. I needed to protect this baby who loved me so much. Unlike lots of new mums, my new baby gave me an identity. I was a young mum who breastfed and co slept and took my daughter to playgroup. She motivated me to go back to university, we needed a future. Just before T’s first birthday I fell pregnant again. I think finding my identity through my baby made me think I needed another to make me relevant. I quickly came to realise the reality would be very different and had a termination. This choice has haunted me every day since. It was what was best for us as a family but it’s left a dark shadow.
Fast forward 3/4 years I met my now husband. A wonderful, sensitive caring man who has been T’s father and my rock. We got married in 2009 and always wanted children together. 4 years of painful trying and a few early miscarriages followed. My mental health deteriorated at a high rate of knots. I was being punished for having the abortion years earlier. I knew this in my heart and no one could convince me otherwise. Suddenly I wasn’t a great mum anymore I was a desperate one. It was finally revealed that both my Fallopian tubes were blocked Id have to have them taken out if I had any chance of IVF working. I sobbed my way through an operation that would make me permanently infertile. The operation took my female identity away from me. I felt old and useless,
my body had failed me and I hated it.
I knew we couldn’t afford IVF and were not eligible on the NHS. I became an egg donor it was a no brainer for me. I needed IVF and another woman out there needed some eggs. I could help someone not to feel as hellish as I did, I could give some hope. I had to write a letter to any children born from my donation. Information about me and why I was making my decision. I realised through this that my identity had changed again, I was a mum, a wife, and a person who truly wanted to do good things. I liked me for the first time in a long time.
We went through 2 IVF rounds and finally fell pregnant with twin boys the pregnancy was physically hard but I revelled in every minute of it. When the boys were born I was determined to be the same mum to them as I had been to T. I breastfed and co slept it was bloody hard. My husband tried really hard but the babies only wanted me. My family were nowhere to be seen.
My own mother’s lack of presence has significantly shaped how I am as a mother. I am determined to always be present for and with my children no matter how old they get. I’d rather be told to go home because I’m too there than them have to ask where I am. I will be in the delivery room for my grandchildren’s entrance into this world. I will not leave my children ever. My identity is strong because of my children not in spite of them. I am grateful every day that I have this family we created to call my own.
The Motherhood & Identity Project 