Please don’t tell me to ‘stop thinking about it’

My period was now officially late, but I wasn’t getting too excited. Instead, I was desperately trying to be chill. Maybe we’d do a pregnancy test; maybe we wouldn’t, whatever. After all – this is what everyone tells you to do when you’re trying to conceive: just chill, yeah? Plus, we were here to chill. That weekend, my husband and I were in Vevey, a Swiss lakeside town, to distract ourselves from something we didn’t want to deal with: my still-empty womb. 

Over the past eight months, Jonny and I had become familiar with ovulation tracking, fallopian tube dye, and our fertility clinic receptionist. Rationally, I knew for up to 40 per cent of women, it takes longer than expected to get pregnant. But every negative pregnancy test was starting to feel like a cruel joke. 

To distract myself, I had recently flown to New York to hang with old friends; I was seeing a new coach to grow my business; going into a client’s office weekly; working on a new book; organising trips, brunches, and dinners. But maybe in all that, I was following the much-publicised formula – stop thinking about it; it’ll happen when you least expect it. Everyone tells you this, oblivious to how everyone else is telling you the exact same thing. And it starts to sound hollow when you hear it twenty times a week.

Weirdly, it mirrored the advice everyone gave me when I was single for seven years. You’ll meet him when you least expect it. No matter how many times people said it, there were months (years?) when I questioned if a partnership was in my future. I knew there was more to life than a partner, but I still wanted one. It was emotional and harder to explain, but a desire I learned to own. It took me a while to figure out that emotional needs didn’t make me a bad feminist. 

Years later, while part of me knew there was more to life than having a baby, another part couldn’t help but get excited in Vevey when my period soon became four days late. I took a pregnancy test. Jonny and I sat on the bed, waiting for the results. Waiting. Waiting. This was the light torture of recent months, mirrored in minutes. 

All you can do is wait. You don’t know how much you should be proactive versus how much you should ‘stop thinking about it’ (the magic formula). You don’t know whether IVF is a bet worth taking. You don’t know if ‘drunk sex on a sunny holiday’ (worked for one friend) beats ‘carefully timed medical intervention’ (worked for another). ‘Just pray’ is my mother’s chosen fertility activation method, and faith is something I’ve been thinking about a lot. 

When I was single, I was scared of losing faith - in men, love, partnership in general. Maybe I did for a bit. Then, over the years, I rebuilt my faith, but it was in myself. I learned to have my own back and to trust my gut instincts. Faith wasn’t about sitting back and letting the universe (or God) do its thing. Neither was it about trying to control what couldn't be controlled. It was about learning to tell the difference.

Plenty of well-intentioned people said things that stung while I was single, not because they didn’t care but because they did. I’ve made the same mistakes too. The more time goes on, the easier it is for me to forget that when someone has a bad date or breakup, they don’t need ‘help’ with solutions or to be ‘inspired’ with anecdotes or ‘reminded’ that it’ll happen when they stop looking.

They need to feel seen. Especially because with each year, different losses start to occur. I remember reading a grief book which said when someone’s just lost a loved one, your words won’t bring that loved one back. Your words will not be able to take away their pain. So, you don’t have to be profound – instead, convey: “This sucks. I’m here for you.” 

When life punches us in the throat, that’s all we need to hear, as I was reminded in Vevey. The pregnancy test was negative. I cried. I felt ghosted by a baby who had never even existed, and it reminded me of actual guys who’d ghosted me. Maybe they hadn’t led directly to Jonny, like fairy lights on a string, but there isn’t always a clear visible reason why things happen the way they do. The fact is that the more we desire, the more capacity there is for disappointment. But maybe, in new voids, comes faith.