‘I feel like I failed in being a woman. Motherhood felt like my destiny.’ The agony of the women who can��t be mothers

One in five Irish women is childless by 45. Fertility is a factor but there are many other reasons for this. While some are child-free by choice, suitable circumstances elude others, and yet more suffer ill health. They have not lost a child, writes Niamh Jimenez, but many still grieve a future

“The first advice they gave was, ‘Just keep trying, keep having sex'." Graphic: Eoin Flynn

Niamh Jimenez

“As I see myself ageing and I feel the symptoms of perimenopause, it’s quite painful because I feel like I failed in being a woman,” says Sarah [who wishes not to disclose her surname], a Cork-based entrepreneur in her mid-forties.

The eldest of three siblings, Sarah’s childhood world — filled with baby dolls and maternal role-playing — was built on a deep-rooted, unconscious presumption that she was “made” for motherhood. “It felt like it was my adult destiny,” she says, recalling the “fascination” she felt around pregnancies, birth stories, and the joyful arrival into the world of fresh-faced tiny humans.