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TTC: UK

Infertility in my role as a health visitor

Just wanted to share something I wrote today to express my feelings:

"Congratulations", I smile, for the hundredteenth time.
A new life, what a real joy.
And as I watch mother smile at baby, my heart is full. It never gets old.
Some mothers are relaxed, with parenthood emerging calmly and naturally from somewhere deep inside, an uncomplicated, easy state of contentment. Nature has blessed them and they are radiant and at peace.
For others there are questions. So many questions. Is this right? What does that mean? There's a rash here. How do I...? Parenthood can be baffling. A cosmic shift from "I" to "we", where "I" felt safe and "we" feels confusing at best, terrifying at worst. My role, often, is reassurance. Being a trusted anchor of stability in a changing sea, until mothers can become their own anchors again.
Sometimes, a mother will ask, off-hand, "do you have children?" She's trying to connect, make polite conversation, share common ground. And I smile and recite my pre-prepared, professional-faced answer: "not yet, hopefully one day!" As I leave the visit and get back into my car, the fullness I felt at seeing mother and baby together drains away and the hole I've become so used to reappears. I've learnt not to hope too hard because the hole feels bigger if I do that. And it's easier to push down the grief and the anger than to feel it. Although I know intellectually that this is not my fault, that I am not alone, that statistically I am likely to have a child... one day... I can't help feeling like that first mother, born to parent, except achingly bereft of nature's blessing. Trapped instead in the experience of the second mother. All at sea with no anchor. No baby. And no idea when this might end.