When my best friend, my sister and both sister-in-laws announced that they were pregnant, I cried. When another friend became pregnant after eight years of trying, all I could think was “it’s not fair”. When they gave birth it was a struggle to visit them, though I was thrilled for them. Most of the time I feel great but every time I see a baby or a pregnant woman I think of what I can’t have. Then, when I feel good again, I realise how pathetic I have been: I have no real problems and don’t want anybody feeling sorry for me when there is no cause. So why, at some point almost every day, do I think in this selfish way when I have nothing to feel sad about?

Hilary

What a poignant and heart-rending letter. I can sense that you are in great emotional pain but also that you are feeling annoyed with yourself that you have these feelings and want not to. What you describe is a profound grief response to the loss of part of you — the essence of you as a woman and mother. You must not feel ashamed of your feelings. Forgiving yourself and not trying to talk yourself out of your emotional responses to other people’s babies and pregnancies is the first part of your recovery.

You had an operation as an emergency so you had no time to prepare yourself. Even more fundamentally, you had no choice in the matter — power and control of your body was snatched away from you in dire circumstances. And you had just given birth, so in the process of welcoming a new life into your family, you also had to deal with the loss of your reproductive system (which had just finished doing its wonderful job). For many women, deciding not to have another child is an emotional one. For me, the greatest privilege of being a woman was being able to bear children. Although after my second child I knew intellectually that I would have no more, it still took time emotionally to process the decision. The sight of a pregnant woman or a woman holding a baby would send me into “shall we or shan’t we have just one more” conversations with my husband (who, like me, was also temporarily ambivalent about stopping when we said we would). That ambivalence is common and is often played out when another new life appears or one’s own children are growing away from being a baby, representing a complex process on a number of levels: emotional, psychological and biological. Also, it moves a couple away from the reproductive phase of their relationship.

For you, there was no time to make this decision so you are living with a key life question unanswered. I suggest that you and your husband talk about this as if you were trying to make the decision, regardless of your hysterectomy. If you, individually or together, feel that you might have had a fourth child, then it is important to understand that you are angry and sad and that you need to allow yourself time to grieve for the loss of choice and the loss of the parts of you that would have allowed you to reproduce again.

But if you come to the conclusion that your third child would have been your last then it is important to process the physical trauma that you went through but also to untangle the hysterectomy from a decision that you would have taken anyway.

Of course, emotional conversations are never that straightforward and it may help to seek support about how you are feeling to help you to process it. Your GP may have a counsellor for onward referral or you can contact the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy: 0870 4435252, www.bacp.co.uk.

WE RECENTLY HAD to put our daughter Georgie, 2, into a bed as she was jumping out of her cot and we were concerned that she would injure herself. Initially, she took to her bed well and she went off to sleep by herself. Once sleeping, we closed her door and put a stair gate over the door.

This lasted only for a few weeks, however, and now we cannot keep her in bed. One of us has to sit with her until she falls asleep — after 20 minutes or sometimes for hours.

We have tried leaving her in her room with the stair gate on, but this only provokes outrageous tantrums. She is also waking up throughout the night around 3am. Sometimes she will go back to sleep, sometimes she will go back to sleep only in our bed and sometimes she won’t go back to sleep at all.

Julie

The problem is that Georgie is calling the shots and is getting no consistency from you in the management of this problem — inconsistent parenting messages leave a child feeling unclear as to what is expected. You can either let Georgie sleep with you or, if you want her to sleep in her own bed, you have two options (both of which will be met with some resistance).

Option one will take very little time but will be met with the most opposition: to put Georgie in her bed and, every time she gets up and comes to the door, return her with no words or cuddles or any behaviour that will reinforce the not going to sleep behaviour. This method should also be used when she wakes in the night.

Option two involves a longer process (two weeks maximum if you are consistent in your approach): to gradually withdraw from her over a few nights so that she learns to fall asleep on her own.

Stay near her but do not interact or look at her as she falls asleep — if she tries to get up, lie her down with no words; gradually sit further and further away. Also leave her door ajar and put the stair gate across the top of the stairs so that she learns to be in her bed rather than feeling trapped in her room.

WORK OR FAMILY PROBLEMS

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