In the UK, fertility is increasingly sold as flexible. Ageing is minimised, and IVF and other medical methods are positioned as a reliable safety net. What’s rarely discussed is how narrow access really is, how unequal outcomes are and how quickly optimism curdles into blame. When fertility falters, responsibility becomes personal, grief becomes private, and failure is silently feminised.

This is the mistake I wish I’d understood sooner: to delay something is still a choice. I postponed motherhood, believing I had time. I trusted a culture that promised me ‘later’ without acknowledging biology, illness or chance – but these things matter. My body did not wait simply because I asked it to.

Now, I’ve learned to hold time differently. I treat it less as something to master, and more as something to witness. I no longer believe waiting guarantees safety.

But that is not the only thing my journey has taught me. I’ve learned that regret can be fuel. It doesn’t only arrive to punish you. It took me a very long time to realise this – through raw resentment, sore feminine rage and labyrinthine PTSD – but sometimes, it sharpens your vision. Regret can galvanise you into action to advocate for yourself and others, raise awareness and live a full, creative and meaningful life. Sometimes it teaches you what mattered – and what was never truly yours to control.

I’ve learned that systems shape outcomes far more than individual effort. And I’ve learned that a life doesn’t need a neat resolution to be meaningful.

My story doesn’t have a clean ending. It is jagged, barbed and beautiful. I may never become a mother. I live alongside that grief, not beyond it. I am softer now, but less forgiving of systems that confuse silence with strength.

If readers take anything from this, I don’t want it to be instruction or reassurance. I want them to feel seen in their uncertainty. To recognise that not every life follows the promised arc, and that meaning can exist alongside grief. Some truths don’t resolve. They stay with you. I’ve learned how to stay with them too.

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