Jade

How are you feeling today?

On the whole quite broken at the moment, I’ve not long had COVID-19 for the first time and it’s caused my endometriosis hormonal medication to work less effectively and as such, I’m in the midst of a flare up. I didn’t get diagnosed till I was 38 in 2019, and it’s been a very rough ride with the pandemic stopping NHS gynaecology care other than cancer treatment, a late diagnosis and my age/fertility. I am from Wales, and women’s healthcare here is particularly bad, the average waiting time for an endometriosis diagnosis is 2 years more than in England. Plus, we have vastly less access to specialised endometriosis consultants and centres. I’ve also lost both my parents in the last 7 years, my mother more recently in January 2022. It’s been a difficult time.

What are you most proud of?

I find this a very a difficult question to answer, I also struggle with selling my strengths as a person, so I think the two are interlinked.  I’ve had two employers describe me as “having grit” and “stoic”. Which shows that I have managed my extremely challenging life, well from the outside.

I personally just think, I grew up in very difficult circumstances (dysfunctional family dynamics) and a result and I am very resilient, determined person on the outside but quite anxious and racked with self-doubt on the inside.

I have strived to be an overachiever and on paper I am quite successful, I have a successful career, I am educated. The one thing I am proud of is despite having a bad start, a lot of health issues including in childhood- I have stuck at my goals and achieved this and no one has called in favours to help me - I’ve done it on my own just through sheer perseverance and my own intelligence when people believed and told me I couldn’t get there.

What is your biggest learning in life so far?

Oh gosh, several!

Firstly, life is not fair and it isn’t kind.

That IVF is not a cure all band-aid to infertility. That its success percentages are in fact extremely low in most cases and not everyone will have a baby from it.

That no one will really understand infertility unless they have been through it. Even your closest friends.

Aging – can be devasting.

What are your hopes for the future?

That people will be more thoughtful to the childless not by choice (CNBC) community. And by this, I mean, I don’t want to hear about yoga, a new diet, adoption or your cousin Rita who tried for 14 years.

That when went you meet new people the narrative will change from “have you got kids?’ I know it’s a well-meant question, but I’d like the presumption to shift from a woman’s sole purpose being to bear children to being an entity in her own right.

That the NHS will improve gynaecological care for women and those who identify as female, especially those pursuing a pregnancy. I was under gynaecology for 8 years; I endured so may invasive tests without pain relief to be told time and time again there was nothing wrong me other than I was over on my BMI. This happened for 8 years until the last hysterosalpingogram, blocked my tubes with the dye and caused an abscess next my ovary resulting in the loss of both tubes which needed surgery, that had to be done privately because the wait was so long and I was off work for 9 months.  I was 39 by this point because the delaying in appointment’s and getting seen is so vast on the NHS.

That there will better investment in endometriosis care and treatment, with research done actively into the disease. I honestly think, if it affected men too there would be a cure by now. 1 in 10 women have it, that’s the same as diabetes, yet everyone knows not to eat too much sugar and take care of their diet appropriately.

What would you tell your younger self?

That your journey doesn’t need to look like everyone else’s to be yours. You will be ok.

When or where are you happiest?

As a place, Bath makes me happy, so when I am eating chocolate in Bath, with Edith my boston terrier by my side. (My doggie baby).  

What would you like to say to wider society?

That when someone says “No, I don’t have kids” not to presume that they were never wanted. And don’t take it further, as it’s probably something they do not want to discuss unless they volunteer the information.

I’d like the non childless community to start recognising that just because people don’t have kids, doesn’t mean we don’t have full lives and stuff to offer the world, that being a parent isn’t life’s only purpose.