“Have you seen those baubles – Baby’s First Christmas? If my first pregnancy hadn’t ended in miscarriage, last year would have seen our tree adorned with those, but instead it marked yet another year filled with loss.” Sophie Flynn is telling me about navigating the festive season when you desperately want to be a parent. So much of Christmas is framed around children that it can feel like an emotional obstacle course for those who have experienced baby loss, miscarriage, or biological or social infertility. Everywhere you turn, there are reminders of what others have.
“Christmas becomes something you count as another year that didn’t turn out as you hoped,” she says. “Add into it the messaging that it’s all for the kids, as if your celebrations are frivolous without them, and the season can become something to endure.” It’s all very well having a happily childfree, adult Christmas of oysters and champagne and movie marathons and naps, but when your childless status is a source of pain, it’s a different matter altogether.
That’s especially true if you’re spending time around other people’s children and are forced to endure your mother’s pitying glances, or the proclamations that “next year will be your year!”. There’s the pressure to feel festive and put on a brave face at this time of year, even for couples who find themselves in the midst of profound grief, and well-meaning but tactless questions from family have the potential to cause further pain. “Last year was awful,” one woman, Nina, writes. She has lost four babies and has one living child. She is now infertile as a result of ectopic pregnancies. “I recognise I have a child, which makes a big difference,” she says. Nevertheless, there were triggers everywhere. “I had panic attacks throughout Christmas.”
Julia Bueno is a psychotherapist and author of The Brink of Being. She points out that not only do celebrations invariably focus on families and children, from nativity plays to pantomimes to Santa, but they also contain “an overarching narrative about the birth of a baby”. “I’ve lost count of the number of couples I have spoken to who had imagined, hoped and prayed for a Christmas with a stocking to fill for a child who hasn’t made it into their lives. That loss can be agonising,” she says. One reader tells me how, one year, she and her husband took it in turns to cry upstairs, unseen.
Fertility treatment, too, can affect celebrations. Katie lost a baby in May that should have been arriving about now, and is waiting for an embryo transfer in January. For her, Christmas is just another thing to get through. “Everything that is not getting pregnant is a non-event,” she says, adding that she is dreading the office Christmas party. “There are countless opportunities for boozing and that can be difficult to navigate in the depths of fertility treatment.”
For Katie, who is in her mid-30s, Christmas has her wondering who exactly she is. “It brings into focus this bizarre crisis of festive identity – am I dancing in velvet with my twentysomething work colleagues until 3am, stumbling home kebab in hand, or am I snuggled up on the sofa in matching pyjamas with my husband and young child? I’m neither. I’m half in, half out, not part of anyone’s club. This odd combination of not a mother but also not not a mother.”
So how do you get through it? Many couples tell me that they’ve chosen to remove themselves from the festivities entirely and go on holiday. “When we lost our first baby, who was due on Christmas Day, we went to New York because we couldn’t bear the idea of being here without a baby or being pregnant on Christmas Day,” Nina says. Another couple plan to go to Paris, partly to avoid questions from family members who don’t know what they are going through.
Others say that Christmas can also be a powerful time in which to acknowledge grief and loss. Kat Brown is the editor of the upcoming essay collection, No One Talks About This Stuff: Twenty-Two Stories of Almost Parenthood. “Winter is an excellent time for quiet reflection – quite literally a time to light a candle in the darkness – and quiet is what you need here,” she says. “We often think of seasonal music as loud and jolly, but Advent church music is very minor key and cathartic. I had a really good cry on my own at a lovely service the other day. Nobody minds, and you don’t have to be religious to go.”
Both Brown and Bueno urge those grieving to consider swerving celebrations that simply hurt too much. “Remember that you aren’t being ‘silly’ or ‘selfish’ if you can’t face parts or all of Christmas celebrations,” says Bueno. “You are entitled to feel vulnerable, as reproductive loss is a real, albeit disfranchised, grief. So it might mean spending one or two days rather than four with your heavily pregnant sister-in-law, or going to one party but not the church service full of babies and toddlers.” Think about being honest about your reservations with a trusted family member or friend, she adds. Indeed, several couples tell me that Christmas has been a lot more manageable since they were open with family.
As for tips for family members, Bueno advises being conscious about raising certain topics, such as pregnancies and baby names, and treating everyone equally regardless of their reproductive status. Friends can help by not ambushing others with scan photos, which can be especially triggering and remind people of the moment they discovered their baby was gone, and by not taking it too personally if your friend hibernates this year. “If your friend doesn’t want to come and see your baby or comment on your pregnancy Christmas photoshoot, it’s not because they are selfish and awful. It’s because they can’t, their heart is too broken. Allow them to be sad while you are happy. They will come back to you when they’re ready,” says Sophie.
This year, Sophie and her partner are taking a break from IVF, and they are looking forward to being utterly selfish and doing exactly what they want. “I am no less sad as we enter our fifth Christmas without a baby, but I am now able to see the life that has grown around this loss – and the many small joys in our life, most days, outweigh our sadness. I honestly love Christmas, and it’s such a relief to be able to enjoy rather than endure it again.”
Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist
