Frustrated fatherhood: the untold story

“REMEMBER, words are like eggs…”

My former partner Natalie and I were about to start trying for a baby and we’d come to see her doctor. He was giving us a final piece of advice before we left the room.

“Once you’ve broken an egg, it stays broken. Once you’ve said something, it stays said. There might be ups and downs along the way but you’ve got to support each other. Remember that, whatever happens from now on.”

These words would turn out to be a piece of advice more valuable than I could ever have imagined. After three years of trying for a baby unsuccessfully, Natalie and I then went on to lose three babies in three years, each in very different circumstances, surprising the seasoned medical staff of one of London’s biggest hospitals with our odds-defying bad luck.

The first pregnancy, in early 2014, was progressing normally as far as we were concerned until the 12-week scan, where abnormalities were identified. Despite Natalie having taken folic acid throughout the pregnancy, at 16 weeks it was confirmed our baby had severe spina bifida.

After much agonising and soul-searching, we took the extremely difficult decision to have a Termination for Medical Reasons (TFMR) at 18 weeks. Our baby would have been a little boy, who we called Osian.

LIMBO

Because of this experience, when Natalie fell pregnant again the following year, the hospital brought us in for earlier scans. At seven weeks the foetus had hardly grown and the heart was beating extremely slowly. The midwife said that the pregnancy was very likely to end in a miscarriage in the coming weeks. The following week it was confirmed that the heart had indeed stopped and Nats underwent a procedure to remove the foetus.

I had always wanted to be a dad but we were five years into trying for a baby and I started to feel that fatherhood was slipping out of my grasp. The harder I tried, the more it eluded me. For the first time in my life it started to dawn on me that my chances of fatherhood might be in jeopardy.

I began to feel like a misfit, in a strange limbo between a happy bachelor and family man. And because men don’t really talk about it, I felt like I was the only wannabe dad in the world.

Each time Nats and I lost a baby, my own desire to become a father grew. There were times when I was scared and unsure if I had the reserves of strength to keep on going but we just did. At the start of 2016, Natalie fell pregnant for a third time. We told no one that she was pregnant this time, not even our closest family. Passing the 20-week milestone was a big step. Neither of us acknowledged it, but we were both aware of it as we moved beyond this halfway point in the pregnancy. There was now more time behind us than there was ahead.

At the end of May, in week 23 of the pregnancy, Natalie felt unwell and took herself to hospital to make sure everything was OK. Almost the instant she arrived, her waters broke. Despite this we were told it would still be potentially possible to carry the baby to near full term.

Natalie stayed in hospital for tests, but three days later I received a call in the middle of the night to tell me they

had taken Natalie for a scan and found that our baby’s heart had stopped. She had died. We named our little girl Lux. In the months following Lux’s funeral, I often felt as if I was surrounded by the ghostly projections of what might have been. Like there was a tribe of phantom versions of me walking round representing my alternative lives where the pregnancies worked out and I went on to become a happy, proud dad.

LOSSES

In my head I’d be pushing the pram up and down our neighbourhood on a Sunday morning, pacing the flat in the early hours lulling the little one back to sleep, planning first journey to take him or her back home to Wales. In the early weeks, I found myself forgetting Nats was not pregnant anymore.

Previously, I would have found it difficult to understand how parents could have mourned the loss of an unborn baby. Simply writing that shocks me now. I’m certainly not that person anymore. It’s bleak, of course, but with the hope, love and ultimate loss of each of our children, I have probably become a better person.

Our losses tested us to the limit and turned our lives upside down and inside out on a daily basis. It also showed me that while the majority of focus when a couple lose a baby, quite rightly, goes to the mother, there’s also the father’s side of the story which often goes untold.

The traditional strong and silent role that a man plays in these circumstances is a valuable one but it’s important to remember that as the baby’s father, men obviously have feelings, thoughts and aspirations that need to be acknowledged too.

I was convinced I couldn’t be the only man to feel as I did about what I had started to call “phantom fatherhood”. Eventually, I realised I was going to have to change my mindset if I wanted to stay healthy and sane. After the third baby, we had no plans to try again, we were still stunned. It was time to take stock.

I soon realised that getting over what had already happened was only half the battle, because it’s not the past that’s the problem. The past is behind you, you know what you’re dealing with. The future is a far more daunting prospect.

As unnatural as it felt – because wanting a baby had become our entire lives – I realised I had to start viewing life through a wider lens. Yes, I had always wanted to be a dad but in the past few years it had turned into all I had ever wanted.

I tried to recall who I was before we started trying for a family and realised I’d have to adopt a different outlook. I left my permanent job and started working for myself. It was a risk, but I just wasn’t scared of failure or disappointment anymore. I started to adapt my life to our circumstances, seeing the opportunities rather than the challenges they offered.

Creating the beginning of this momentum where I could believe that a rounded and fulfilled life without children could be achievable was a breakthrough.

While Natalie and I went our separate ways in 2018, we remain great friends. I’m now single and if I don’t go on to become a father again, I know the desire will always be there, but the prospect doesn’t fill me with as much dread as it used to.

I’ve written a book about my experience, which Natalie fully supports. If that can help others, then it will feel as though I have turned everything we went through into something positive.

At week 23, Natalie felt unwell. She had tests, then I got a call to say the baby’s heart had stopped...

LOSS Richard and his former partner Natalie