When you know you know by Tracey Connelly

I was thirteen years old. I was a gocky young teen who preferred to read books than put on makeup and dress up. However, like all other young kids who have just started high school It was important that I blend with my peers. We were at that time in life where we felt we were young women and we knew all we needed to to be considered young adults (time and experience would show differently but you get the mindset).

The subject of children came up and the other girls began to chat about how many children they would like to have and how their life with a perfect husband would be. I didn’t relate to any of this. It was just the year before that a kindly doctor explained to me that Turner’s Syndrome would likely mean having my own family would be difficult without some intervention. We discussed all the other options available – adoption, surrogacy, fostering etc. – but I had decided then that having children was never going to be a priority for me.

Fast forward to a bunch of teenaged girls gushing over their imaginary babies. One of the girls must have noticed that I hadn’t contributed much to this conversation so she kindly asked me my thoughts. At first they were aghast that I didn’t want to have babies. Then when I explained to them as best I could that it was unlikely I would even if I did want to the most remarkable thing happened. One of the girls hugged me. The others offered their understanding and some of them even told me I would be the top aunt to all of the babies they had. I appreciated the sentiment of those girls.

Nowadays the option to be child free is starting to become more and more accepted so hopefully it won’t seem so unusual or out of place for young TS girls in my position to explain to their friends. With infertility still being a big issue I believe that educating young girls (TS and non TS) in infertility would be beneficial.