Every month, MotherStories brings you an exclusive article written by Jacqueline Comte. Discover all her work on her website Espace Fertile. Enjoy your reading.

That child you miss before you arrive

"When a desire for a child is born, a child begins to exist. At least in our thoughts and in our hearts. Secretly, we daydream about how to tell our partner and family about the pregnancy. We imagine how happy we'll be to see our belly round, to caress it and feel this little being moving inside us. We may even stroll prematurely through the baby aisles, smiling at the thought of our happy project.

We begin to project ourselves as mothers. We imagine ourselves with this little baby in our arms, stroking its hair, sniffing its neck. Babies smell so good...

Fortunately, for many women, these dreams soon become reality, and so much the better! But for others, it's hard to bring the project to fruition. At first, we keep our spirits up, feeling joyful at the idea of becoming a mother soon, and telling ourselves that next month will be the right one. But as time goes by, the joy and excitement give way to frustration, sadness and even despair.

We miss our baby terribly, and given that with each new cycle she starts to "live again", only to "die again" with her period, we are faced with a real sense of loss. Each unsuccessful attempt leads us through the stages of grief: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally the acceptance that this time it didn't work out. We go through it, once, twice, three times, ten times, sixty times. It's like an eternal restart, extremely painful and never-ending...

What's more, we often find ourselves alone with these feelings, because it's not easy to make those around us understand that we may miss a child who doesn't yet exist. And to explain that we feel we've lost him with every unsuccessful attempt is downright impossible.

These strong emotions are often accompanied by feelings of shame. We then try to hide this mixture of feelings, which often leads to deep loneliness and even severe depression.

It was the day I attended a conference organized by Bloom and Boom and hosted by Estelle Phelippeau Métrot, founder of 1001fecondites, a specialist in preconception support, that I finally understood that my feelings were "normal". Estelle projected a diagram showing all the emotions that could be touched during the desire phase... and I can tell you, there are a lot of them! For me, it was a revelation and the trigger that helped me to finally identify and accept my confusion.

Childlessness is accompanied by a multitude of emotions that are already very difficult to manage and digest. So don't feel guilty about feeling the way you do. Try to accept them as best you can, experience them without embarrassment and talk about them without shame. Sharing them won't take their weight off you, but it will shed light on them so that you can reconcile with them."