I have no children, just a niece and three nephews. Will I just be “mad auntie Christine” who gave inappropriate presents and was always guaranteed to have one sherry too many?

It’s very sad when you don’t have children, believe me it wasn’t my choice.

I had my life all planned out, married at 19, nice house, good job, good husband, life as they say was good.

But ten years down the line, it was still the same, but with knowing looks from family and friends and snide jokes about not having children.

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People often asked if we didn’t want children, it never occurred to them that we couldn’t. Watching your friends and cousins having children makes you an outsider from that club, all they talk about is the children and what they’re doing.

You smile, and nod and pretend you care but you feel left out and just can’t compete.

As the years go by, you get cats, get a degree or two, act in pantomimes and plays, go to night school, go sailing, you have good holidays and are the envy of your family and friends with children.

Little do they know how that basically your life feels empty. You are working towards nothing, no one needs you, relies on you, you have no one to care for.

You go down the IVF route, become a body, a monthly cycle, not a person.

You take your temperature, have sex when you least want it; eat carrots or whatever the latest fad is (why couldn’t it be wine and chocolate?!).

You endure the injections, the mood swings, the miscarriages.

No counselling, no hugs, most of the time you don’t even tell your family in case you raise their hopes, only to dash them again.

Two free cycles on the NHS and then the choice of re-mortgaging your home to chase the dream of a baby or give up.

If one more person said to me “let nature take its course...” I think I would have screamed.

No matter what they say, you never come to terms with it and you never talk about it, not even with your partner.

It’s a taboo, it’s a disease that no one recognises, no one talks about and for which there is no cure.

I was lucky in that my sister involved me with her children; I went to the school play, was the proud auntie, took my niece to get her ears pierced, got my nephew drunk at Christmas!

All the usual things, but oh, how I wished I could have sat up all night making a nativity costume, how I longed to feel a small hand in mine, a little voice saying “I love you mummy”.

The marriage didn’t last, and not having children played a huge part, I am sure.

All those wasted years. If I had married someone else, would I be a grandma by now?

And now, in my fifties, friends’ and cousins’ children are having families of their own, I knit the matinee jacket, send the card, but all the time a voice inside me says “why couldn’t it be me”? When I’m gone, I will leave nothing of value, no one will really miss me, I will just appear in the background of a family photo and future generations will say “who’s that?”.