After my third miscarriage I became bitter. All sadness spent, I was seething. I’d taken all the expensive supplements, done all the mindfulness meditations, aced all the fertility tests. My bank account was poised to buy an expensive Danish cot. My parents were a 10-minute drive down the road, by design, ready to feed me post-partum bone broth. My husband and I had picked the name. I was the perfect host to grow life.
But as the babies came and left me, I buried my bitter. I hid my pain from everyone, quietly hating anyone who had what I could not attain. I’d crane over my phone like a toxic gargoyle, zoom in on pregnancy announcement posts. I wonder if she’s put on weight… She has. I’d nod to myself, glad. I deleted my ovulation tracker. I sent congratulations cards as friends welcomed their second, licking the envelope with my acidic spit.
Lydia Pang in the garden of her home in Wales © Julian Broad
Copies of her forthcoming memoir on a tray she bought from Kurashiki beside jars of rice in the kitchen © Julian Broad
Her kitchen cupboard is filled with trinkets from her travels, including peas in a pod from Seoul and a wine cork from Lisbon, alongside Kokeshi dolls that her husband, Roo, collects © Julian Broad
