56: Dreaming of a Life Unlived with Yvonne John

How are you supposed to deal with the intense grief that
accompanies the disappointment and shock of an unexplained
infertility diagnosis? What if you’ve finally found the one
person with whom you REALLY WANT to have a child? Yvonne’s story
covers these emotions and more as she shares the circumstances
that have transpired to alter what she thought was her perfect
life.


After taking a break to move back to the UK after 20 years living
in Australia, I’m back with the podcast, sharing the stories and
the healing experiences found in the lives of unclassified women.
My guest today is Yvonne John, who is based in the UK and the
author of Dreaming of a Life Unlived, the stories and portraits
of women who are childless by circumstance. The book highlights
women who are coming to terms with their grief and moving toward
fulfilling lives without children.


"I was the person sitting with my head down, feeling
embarrassed and ashamed and not worthy to belong. I then became
someone who has been accepted now for everything I am. It’s just
fantastic."


Yvonne was never sure if she wanted children, but she knew there
was the expectation that she would get married and have a family,
in that order. Somewhere between her dreams of travelling and
experiencing what life had to offer, she wished for the perfect
family, which for her would be comprised of a husband and four
children. By the time she reached her 30’s, this dream had lost
its momentum, and when she reached her mid-30’s, she’d given up
on this dream of being a wife and mother. Because of her past,
Yvonne decided it was now time to live by her choices. She
believed the opportunity to become a wife and mother had passed
her by, so it was now time for her to move on to something new.
However, it wasn’t until she met her husband at age 38 that her
faith in love was reignited. Maybe she could have a family after
all?


What you’ll hear in this episode:


Yvonne’s background: married for 8 years and tried to
conceive for 3 years, and then an unexplained infertility
diagnosis, with a the distressing conclusion: there's no obvious
reason why you can't have children.

"I was surprised at how emotional I got at the “unexplained
infertility” diagnosis. My heart sank and I knew that I wasn’t
going to be a mum. I went home and cried and I couldn’t even talk
about it."

She had been ambivalent about having children until she met
and married her husband, finally realising that they wanted to
share a child together.

The emotional heartbreak when she realised her dream was NOT
going to happen. She couldn’t be around children or those who
were pregnant. She blamed herself, carried immense shame and
guilt, and couldn’t make sense of it all.

Since Yvonne had also experienced two abortions in her 20’s,
she thought her infertility was a result of those choices she had
made back then.

How she felt the pressure from friends and family and the
difficulty in explaining what was happening. Explaining her
situation was hard because it opened the door to those emotions
for others.

It wasn’t just the difficulty of wanting to have a child, but
wanting to have a child with the husband she had finally found
later in life.

The emotional journey when people would say, “Why don’t you
‘just adopt’?”---like that’s an easy process to go through

How she found Gateway Women to be a helpful place to accept
and normalise what she was feeling, even though she didn’t at
first understand the emotions as GRIEF.

How the grief in telling your own story gives others
permission to share and opens doors to the healing process.

How Yvonne wrote a letter to her younger self and gave
permission to forgive herself.

The common threads of the stories in her book: why she wanted
each woman to have a voice and be heard in a deep and powerful
way, giving a platform and courage and control over infertility.

The commonalities of grief and sadness for all women who go
through these experiences.

The differences Yvonne noticed between hearing white women
talk about grief and how women of colour discussed the topic.

The Reignite Weekend, for women of colour, whose grief is
represented in a different way, mostly because of the culture
they were brought up in, especially because of the language used
about “God’s will”.

Why Yvonne felt the hurt, thinking that God didn’t love her
enough or think she deserved to be a mother---that she wasn’t
“good enough”

Yvonne’s greatest gifts that she's now experienced to heal
her grief: public speaking opportunities, self-expression, love,
kindness, and acceptance from other women.

Through what she found at Gateway Women, women can be with
others in the same places of grief and find the light at the end
of the tunnel.

We also discuss abortion - another taboo subject that we need
to discuss more openly.



Resources:


Find Yvonne John at her blog:


https://findingmyplanb.wordpress.com/about/


Find Yvonne's book on Amazon at:


https://www.amazon.co.uk/Dreaming-life-unlived-Yvonne-John/dp/1526201216


I do hope you enjoyed this episode and would be so grateful if
you could subscribe on Itunes and leave a review so that more
women can find this podcast. Find more episodes at:
www.michellemariemcgrath.com