I see it in so many women around me. The longing. And underneath it, the fear.
What if it doesn't happen anymore? What if I am too old?
They rarely say it out loud. They smile, they carry on, they answer "we'll see" when someone asks. And on the inside they're quietly grieving something that hasn't even been lost yet.
I know that fear from the inside. Not as a theory. As a woman who cried on her sofa at forty, alone, with no partner and no child, and a longing so big it hurt to breathe.
So let me tell you how it went for me. Because I had my daughter at nearly forty-four. And she came into the world healthy, after years of waiting, and after the doctors had quietly stopped believing it would happen.
There I was at 35. Divorced. Broken.
Sad that my marriage was over. And underneath that, the hardest thing of all. I had no child.
For a long time I carried guilt. How could I have ended my marriage? How was I supposed to build a life from here? It took me years to truly leave that chapter behind.
When I turned forty, I moved house. I still remember that birthday. Me, on the sofa, crying. No one around me. No partner. No child. And this enormous wish to become a mother.
But how?
Then something quiet started to happen.
In that period I went deep into spirituality. The teachings of Mooji. The idea that we are more than our thoughts, more than our bodies. I started learning about manifesting. Not as a trick. As a way of feeling.
And every time it got quiet in my head, I saw her.
A daughter. Around seven or eight years old. I never saw a face, just a presence. But I knew. I simply knew she existed somewhere ahead of me. I even painted her once. A girl, and a man right behind her. And me, watching them.
My reality, though, said something different. My reality said: no man. Or just men who wanted fun and nothing more. Or men who gave me the creeps.
Dating was a horror show.
There was one date I'll never forget. We'd met online. I logged in, and honestly, on first sight he was lovely. Tall, brown hair, kind eyes, a smile.
And then there was no sound. It was still.
I thought something was wrong with my computer. Was the sound off? Did I accidentally push the mute button? It wasn't. Because the first words out of his mouth were: "I love silence."
I'm sorry, what? Are you serious, I thought? On a first date? What are we supposed to do then, gaze lovingly into each other's eyes in total silence?
I silently sat in this date, thinking this was the first and last time I have seen this man. And so it went, one date funnier and weirder than the last, until I finally decided: that's enough. I'm done. Totally fed up. I'm not putting up with these wrong men anymore.
Ironically, one week later he walked in.
It was a Sunday at the gym. I'd just finished teaching a class and was chatting with a colleague. And there he was. Tall. Handsome. Eyes full of mischief. He friendly chatted with me. And after a few weeks, he asked me out.
He was a good deal younger than me. Sixteen years younger, to be exact.
On our second date I told him I still had a deep wish for a child. People will tell you not to say that. Date slowly, let it unfold, don't scare him off. But I was forty-one. There was no slowly. Time was pressing.
And then, against all odds, he said he wanted children too. The thing I'd been told to hide was the very thing he was hoping for.
One of my biggest wishes came true, I had met the man of my dreams. But it didn't stop there. I had a second wish.
That second wish was a different mountain altogether.
After six months we started trying to get pregnant. Because of my age, we soon qualified for help from a fertility clinic. And it was brutal.
Every injection I gave myself in my own belly to grow those eggs, I felt myself sink a little further. Sadder. More powerless. Is this the way? Is this my way? It felt artificial. Squeezing it in between work, becoming pregnant in a laboratory way, while something in me kept whispering: this isn't it.
I heard the other voices too. Well, you should have thought about children sooner. See, you're too old. As if my path were a mistake instead of simply a different path.
The first attempt failed. The second attempt failed as well. The doctor said a third round probably wouldn't change much. So we decided to stop. That was December 2016. The coldest December I have ever experienced.
I was broken. I felt like a failure. And worst of all, I thought I'd let my partner down. I couldn't give the man of my dreams the child he longed for too. I said it to him, in those words.
He looked at me and said: "I choose you. And if that's without children, then that's how it is."
So I let go.
Not because I'd stopped seeing her. I still saw my daughter, somewhere in the back of my mind, that deep knowing. But I let go of the how. Maybe IVF was never the road. Maybe life wasn't going to give me what I wanted in the package I'd imagined. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I was not supposed to be a mom.
And then, somewhere in March 2017, my period didn't come.
I had tests in the house, so I took one. When I saw the result I couldn't believe it. And somehow, I could. Because deep down I'd always known. I was pregnant!
A fertility clinic had never been the way. Rest was. Relaxation was. We'd been on holiday, calm, not trying, not forcing. And there she was. She felt welcome to come.
On the 20th of November 2017 she was born. I was almost forty-four. Three months short.
The girl I'd seen in the silence. The girl from the painting.
So here's what I want you to take from this.
Your dream man doesn't always arrive in the package you ordered. Not the right age, not the right place, not the right look. He arrives in the way he makes you feel. Yes, I had wishes for looks. But more importantly, I wished for a feeling. Calmness. Safety. Joy. Someone who'd be there for me, no waiting, no second-guessing.
And your child may not arrive on the timeline anyone told you was sensible.
I won't promise you that wanting it hard enough makes it happen. Life is more honest and brutal than that, and so am I. But I will tell you this. The pressure, the forcing, the clenching against time, that closed something in me. The letting go opened it.
Wonders are possible. With the right mindset, the right emotional state, in a body that's allowed to relax, the chance that your wish comes true grows.
I was almost forty-four. And my biggest dream came true.
So maybe yours is still on its way too.
Louise Hildebrand is a Dutch psychologist, author, trainer and speaker. She wrote the book Happy from the Inside Out, get mentally fit and healthy beyond outward success (available in Dutch). Louise wants to contribute to a world where people are empowered and mentally fit to deal with life and live a happy life. More on louisehildebrand.nl/boek