16 years, 12 embryos, 7 doctors, crazy diets: why despite everything I’m OK we never had kids

For years Bernadette and Quentin Andrews tried without success to have children. Now they want to show others you can embrace life without becoming a parent.

Sixteen years, 12 embryos, seven doctors, countless medical procedures and endless fervent wishing was not enough to grant Bernadette and Quentin Andrews their hearts’ desire.

A baby of their own. A family complete.

For practically the entirety of their marriage, hours and hours of research meant every aspect of their lives was devoted to falling pregnant – what foods they ate, what herbs or medicines they took, the type of exercise they did, how and when they had sex, right down to the feng shui of arranging furniture and even putting three baby-conjuring Balinese elephants in their bedroom.

To no avail. And, frustratingly, with no real explanation why.

“Everything on paper looked okay, the embryos looked great under the microscope, so okay, we’ll keep going, we’ll try to get healthier and less stressed, that might help. It’s why we kept on doing the acupuncture, because it might just be the one per cent that we need,” says Bernadette, 44.

Bernadette and Quentin Andrews, who tried for 16 years to have a child. Picture: David Kelly

“You’re in that hopeful land of ‘just keep trying’, of tweaking things slightly (to try to improve your chances).”

Today, the couple are content and settled in their life as a family of two in North Lakes, north of Brisbane; as keen travellers, home renovators and fitness lovers, as proud and involved aunt and uncle to more than 14 nieces and nephews.

Rather than eliciting sympathy, Bernadette wants to empower other women especially to benefit from her and Quentin’s experience, both during the oft-gruelling process of trying to conceive and, if unsuccessful like them, in embracing “otherhood”. In embracing a life without parenthood.

With her book How to Stay Sane on the Baby-Making Train, she wants to add her voice to the growing chorus affirming that being a woman is far more than being a mother, and push against the lingering societal shame and stigma around childlessness.

“Especially in the earlier years, I thought I had to have children to have purpose in life. However, I came to realise I do have purpose, regardless of whether I have children or not. I really wish I had known this earlier. We are whole just as we are.’’

Born in St George, in the state’s central west, and raised across the South Burnett and Sunshine Coast hinterland, Bernadette was the doll-obsessed youngest of five in a Catholic farming family. This “perfect nuclear family” was destroyed by her father’s sudden death aged 56, leaving her mum a widow at 46 and Bernadette the only child living at home at 15.

She was studying a diploma in business travel when, aged 18, she went on a blind date with 21-year-old Quentin, a Tasmanian-born boy raised, alongside his sister, in Caloundra. They married when Bernadette was 22, bought a house at 24 and set out to have a family.

“We got married young and were hoping to be parents,” Bernadette says. “It wasn’t even really discussed prior, ‘do you want kids?’ It was more, that’s what everyone does, it’s the general status quo.

Bernadette and Quentin on their wedding day.

“The people around me, my closest friends and family, were having babies, it was the next natural thing. But when it didn’t happen after six months, that’s when I became obsessive. How come I’m not joining the mothers’ group? Why are they all having baby showers, doing the gooey-ga-ga things and I’m not?’’

She and Quentin, a warehouse operations manager, tried everything possible to see their dream of a family become reality, eventually embarking on IVF when Bernadette was 31. Excited and sure this would be the answer to their prayers, the devastatingly undeniable evidence their first round failed came on Christmas Day.

Brave faces were put forward for the day’s celebrations. It’s after blows like this, the couple put the gruelling process on hold, to give their hearts and minds a break, to concentrate on career, friends and travel. Like the time they planned a winter Christmas holiday in Canada with friends, only to see Quentin fracture his knee on the slopes, spend the holiday on crutches and need a long recovery.

“Look, if you ask some of my friends, they will say, why are you without a bandage today? Stuff just happens sometimes,” Quentin laughs, admitting he’s yet to finish reading his wife’s book.

“It’s been interesting because there’s some things I had an idea she might have been feeling, but when you see it written down on paper, it’s confirmed. Sometimes I wish she had felt more comfortable to confide in me at the time,’’ he says. While he could relate to some of the feelings his wife documented, Quentin says “it’s a far more emotional journey for the woman”.

“I always tried to be there, to be available. I obviously had a few bits and pieces of my own medical stuff I had to get checked out, but nowhere near as intrusive as (she had) to go through … not to mention all the extra hormones pumped through the body at the time. We shared the ups and downs, but it’s more of an up and down journey for the woman I think.”

Bernadette Andrews.

Walk through any bookshop, type key words into any search engine and there’s a dizzying array of books, resources, tips and advice on how to fall pregnant, navigate IVF, adoption or surrogacy, and how to care for your baby.

Far rarer are the stories of women who have tried to become mothers to no avail; who are childless by circumstance. These are the stories Bernadette desperately needed to hear and read, the personal accounts of other women she’s determined to relay in her next book now she’s shared her own. “I’m very upbeat, positive. That’s honestly me. When I wrote this book, I didn’t want it to be a sob story, I didn’t want to be seen as the victim. While I don’t make light of it or make it a funny story, I wanted it to have the lightness in it, the funny stories of throwing up in the cinema, whatever, that shit happens,” Bernadette says.

“And also, we had the opportunity to try (for a family). So many people probably don’t even have that opportunity,’’ Quentin adds.

The couple briefly considered surrogacy and adoption, before deciding around ages 40 and 42 respectively to let go of the dream, for emotional, physical and financial reasons.

“In the past, if people asked if you’ve got kids, I would have said, ‘no’, and changed the subject, because it was too raw and I didn’t want to go into it, to re-feel that shame and vulnerability and stigma. Now I’ve learnt to be more open, to say, ‘you know what, we wanted children but it didn’t happen for us. It’s okay because we’re embracing other things’.

“It’s really refreshing and makes me feel lighter when I answer like that, instead of holding on to torture; that’s the honest truth without spilling every detail. I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me because I’m actually in a really good space.’’

Bernadette and Quentin Andrews. Picture: David Kelly

With that in mind, Bernadette’s launched a life-coaching career to help empower other women to share their vulnerability, to realise their worth with or without children, and break down the stigma lingering around childless women, whatever the circumstances.

“You can’t know just by looking at someone what their story is. If you’re at a gathering and someone says, ‘hey, I’m childless by choice, and the next person beside them says, ‘I wanted children but it didn’t happen for me’, it’s two completely different experiences,” she says.

Quentin says he and Bernadette have friends with a variety of experiences and family make-ups, including a couple with one child who experienced secondary infertility, another who stopped their IVF journey after having one child and a couple who are childless by choice.

“Needless to say, we’re all a bit more open about our paths and the things we choose to do,” Quentin says. “In terms of the conversation we had with that (childless by choice) couple, it was pretty embracing and all-encompassing and understanding of each other’s point of view. You sit in the uncomfortableness for a bit, but get around it and past it. As I say, understand each other’s perspective and journey.”

Bernadette agrees.

“Everyone is different, there are different types of family structures and it’s a lot more acceptable now, and there’s a lot more awareness. Everyone has their own uniqueness and I find that really interesting.”

How to Stay Sane on the Baby-Making Train by Bernadette Andrews, the kind press, $33, out now. embraceotherhood.com