On 29 December 2022, I received a text. ‘Hi mum I’m texting you off a friends phone I’ve smashed mine and their phones about to die, can you WhatsApp my new number x’ I was in a rental car when I got it, my partner at the wheel next to me as we drove down an anonymous stretch of motorway. Both the sky and the road were grey. It was that indeterminate space between Christmas and New Year when the days become sludgy and diffuse; a time when teenagers meet up with their friends to go shopping or gather in each other’s homes and post Snapchats or exchange festive gossip while pretending not to vape. It was the time of waiting – for the next thing to happen, for the promised excitement of New Year’s Eve and snogging underneath leftover mistletoe. So it wasn’t a particularly unusual text to receive, especially not given the trademark adolescent lack of grammar and punctuation.
2022 年 12 月 29 日，我收到了一条短信。“嗨，妈妈，我现在用朋友的手机给你发短信，我的手机摔坏了，他们的手机也快没电了，你能用 WhatsApp 告诉我我的新号码吗？”我收到这条短信时正在一辆租来的车里，我的伴侣在驾驶座上，我们正沿着一条不知名的高速公路行驶。天空和道路都是灰色的。那时是介于圣诞节和新年之间的不确定空间，日子变得黏糊糊的，模糊不清；这是青少年们与朋友们聚会购物或聚集在彼此家中，发布 Snapchats 或交换节日八卦，假装不吸烟的时间。这是等待的时间——等待下一件事发生，等待新年夜承诺的兴奋和在新年余下的槲寄生下接吻。所以收到这样一条短信并不特别不寻常，尤其是考虑到典型的青少年语法和标点符号的缺失。
There was just one thing.
但只有一件事。
I wasn’t a mother. 我不是母亲。
Not yet. 尚未
Because I was also waiting, suspended in silvery threads of an ambiguous hope. Three days previously, my husband, Justin, and I had flown to Los Angeles for our latest round of fertility treatment. This time, we had opted to try for pregnancy using an egg donor. We’d had the embryo transferred the morning after our plane landed.
因为我也在等待，悬浮在模糊希望的银色丝线中。三天前，我和丈夫贾斯汀飞往洛杉矶，进行我们最新的生育治疗。这次，我们选择尝试使用卵子捐赠来怀孕。我们在飞机着陆后的第二天就进行了胚胎移植。
在存在的不确定性中，我开始探索一种不同的逻辑。我开始寻找迹象。
I’d had a totally sober festive season until that point, sipping non-alcoholic wine to accompany the Christmas roast. My cocktails had been a carefully calibrated combination of oestrogen and progesterone rather than the kind I generally preferred, which were served in ice-cold martini glasses with extra brine.
在那之前，我一直保持着清醒的节日气氛，啜饮无酒精葡萄酒来搭配圣诞烤肉。我的鸡尾酒是经过精心调配的雌激素和孕酮混合物，而不是我通常喜欢的，它们被装在冰冷的马提尼杯里，加了额外的盐。
Justin and I hadn’t chosen for this to be our Christmas, but when you go through fertility treatment, you realise that timing as it exists for other people is beyond your control. You are at the mercy of hormonal fluctuations, the thickness (or otherwise) of your uterine lining and the inconsistent vagaries of menstrual cycles.
贾斯汀和我并没有选择让这个圣诞节成为我们的，但当你经历生育治疗时，你会意识到其他人所拥有的时间安排已经超出了你的控制。你受制于激素的波动、子宫内膜的厚度（或缺乏）以及月经周期的不可预测性。
And so, in the grip of existential uncertainty, I had begun exploring a different kind of logic – one that existed outside the parameters of rationality. I had started looking for signs. Call it superstition, spirituality or plain old stupidity, but I saluted pairs of magpies and took care not to walk under ladders. I went to a shaman in south London who performed rituals with feathers and pieces of rock. I wrote a letter to my future child. I tried to meditate and manifest and think positive and talk in a healthy way to my own body. I saw meaning in everything – a dream, a floating feather, a robin redbreast who turned up in the garden one unseasonably warm day in July. All of this, I told myself, was sent to tell me something. The universe was signalling that I was destined to have a child.
因此，在存在主义的迷茫中，我开始探索一种不同的逻辑——一种存在于理性参数之外的逻辑。我开始寻找迹象。称之为迷信、灵性或简单的愚蠢，但我对成对的喜鹊表示敬意，并小心地避免走在梯子下面。我去了伦敦南部的萨满，他用羽毛和石头碎片进行仪式。我给未来的孩子写了一封信。我尝试冥想、显化、保持积极的心态，并以健康的方式与自己的身体交谈。我在每一件事中寻找意义——一个梦、一只飘浮的羽毛、一只在七月的某个异常温暖的日子里出现在花园里的红胸鸫。我告诉自己，所有这些都被派来告诉我一些事情。宇宙在向我发出信号，注定我会有一个孩子。
At some level, I realised this was unhinged. I understood that, in the sea of my own sadness, I had latched on to any passing piece of driftwood to keep afloat. In a precarious world, certainty – just like hope – is an addictive placebo.
在某种程度上，我意识到这已经失去了理智。我明白，在我的悲伤之海中，我抓住任何飘过的浮木来保持浮在水面上。在一个不稳定的世界里，确定性——就像希望一样——是一种上瘾的安慰剂。Like many women who experience misplaced shame, I readily set about internalising the failure as my own
On I clung. I told myself that receiving that text calling me “mum” was the surest sign yet that I was on the right path. I recalled listening to a podcast that claimed successful manifestation relied on acting as though you already possessed what you most desired. This was a test, I realised. I had to demonstrate that I was capable of maternal love.
我紧紧抓住。我告诉自己，收到那条称呼我为“妈妈”的短信是迄今为止最确凿的迹象，证明我走在正确的道路上。我想起了听过的那个播客，它声称成功的显化依赖于表现得好像你已经拥有了你最渴望的东西。我意识到，这是一个考验。我必须证明自己有能力拥有母爱。
So I replied with extra care and kindness to that unknown texter using their friend’s WhatsApp number. I said they’d got the wrong person but I hoped everything would be sorted out.
所以我用朋友的 WhatsApp 号码，以更加细心和友善的方式回复了那个未知的发信息者。我说他们找错人了，但希望一切都会解决。
As I returned my phone to my pocket, I thought back to the preceding years of unsuccessful fertility treatment and recurrent miscarriage. I thought of the slow-motion grief they had caused me; the belief that I would never be fulfilled unless I had a baby. I thought of the difficult decision Justin and I had taken to pursue egg donation. I thought of the embryo now nesting inside me. And I thought: it was all meant to be. It led us here.
当我把手机放回口袋时，我想起了之前几年不成功的生育治疗和反复的流产。我想起了它们给我带来的慢动作式的悲伤；我坚信，除非我有一个孩子，否则我将永远无法满足。我想起了我和贾斯汀做出的艰难决定，去追求卵子捐赠。我想起了现在在我体内孕育的胚胎。然后我想：这一切都是命中注定的。它引领我们来到这里。
This would turn out to be true, but not in the way I had anticipated. Because it would be a psychic, rather than a baby, who would change my life for ever.
这最终证明是正确的，但并非如我所预期的那样。因为改变我一生的是一位灵媒，而不是一个孩子。
I’d spent the previous 12 years failing to have babies. During my first marriage, I’d had two unsuccessful rounds of IVF followed by a “natural” pregnancy, which I lost at three months. I was in hospital for that miscarriage and can still recall seeing the blotted, bloodied remains of my much-longed-for child in a kidney-shaped cardboard tray the nurses had given me.
我之前 12 年一直在努力要孩子却未能如愿。在我的第一段婚姻中，我经历了两次失败的试管婴儿手术，然后是一次“自然”怀孕，我在三个月时失去了这个孩子。我为那次流产住院，至今仍能回忆起护士给我一个肾脏形状的纸盒，里面是我梦寐以求的孩子血迹斑斑的残骸。
Some months later, that marriage ended in the throes of a peculiar sadness: simultaneous grief for what was, for what might have been, and for what had never existed. I thought I was dealing with it but, in truth, I was numb. There seemed to be no way of communicating the magnitude of the loss. Not back then, anyway, when miscarriage and infertility were still barely talked about. A loved one advised me to treat it like a heavy period. Another questioned why I’d told anyone I was pregnant before the three-month mark, as if not speaking about it would have made it less real.
数月后，那场婚姻在一种奇特的悲伤中结束：对过去、对可能发生、对从未存在的事物的同时哀悼。我以为自己在处理它，但事实上，我感到麻木。似乎没有一种方式能够传达失去的巨大程度。至少在当时，当流产和不孕还几乎无人谈论的时候是这样的。一位亲人建议我把这当作一次严重的月经。另一位质疑我为什么在三个月之前就告诉了别人我怀孕了，好像不谈论这件事就能让它不那么真实。
And so, like many women who experience misplaced shame, I readily set about internalising the failure as my own. The doctors told me my infertility was “unexplained” – a diagnosis so blank that I could quite easily shade it with my own self-loathing. It was, I determined, all my fault.
因此，就像许多经历过不当羞耻感的女性一样，我毫不犹豫地将失败内化为自己的责任。医生告诉我我的不孕症是“不明原因”——一个如此空洞的诊断，我几乎可以轻易地用自我厌恶来填补它。我断定，这一切都是我的错。
In my late 30s, I did a cycle of egg freezing at a different clinic. Once again, I was told my results were disappointing: two eggs, where most women my age could have expected about 15. By the time I met Justin, I was 39 and he was 43, with three children from a previous relationship. I decided I would try to be happy without a baby of my own. But then we got pregnant naturally just after my 41st birthday. That ended in miscarriage at seven weeks. We were both so devastated we realised we wanted to try again. We travelled to Athens, to a new clinic and a new set of protocols, and I had an operation to remove a uterine septum. Within a month, I was pregnant again. At seven weeks, we had a scan and saw and heard a heartbeat. At eight weeks, the heartbeat had gone. By now, the UK was in the grip of its first national Covid lockdown. I took pills to trigger a miscarriage at home. The pain was horrendous. Of my three miscarriages, this was the worst to get through.
在我 30 年代末，我在另一家诊所进行了一轮卵子冷冻。结果再次令人失望：只有两个卵子，而同龄的大多数女性可以预期大约有 15 个。在我遇到贾斯汀时，我 39 岁，他 43 岁，有一个来自前段关系的三个孩子。我决定尝试在没有自己孩子的情况下快乐。但就在我 41 岁生日后不久，我们自然怀孕了。然而，在七周时，我们经历了流产。我们都非常沮丧，意识到我们想要再次尝试。我们去了雅典，一家新的诊所和一套新的方案，我进行了一项手术来移除子宫纵隔。一个月后，我又怀孕了。在七周时，我们进行了扫描，看到了并听到了心跳。在八周时，心跳消失了。这时，英国正处于第一次全国性的 Covid 封锁之中。我服用了药物，在家引发了流产。疼痛是可怕的。在我的三次流产中，这次是最难熬的。
医生让这看起来很简单。我们只需要找到一个合适的捐献者，他建议我们雇佣一个“生育顾问”。
I took a few months off the ceaseless trying in order to feel my way back into my own body, to reconnect with who I was when I wasn’t riding a wave of pregnancy hormones, or having my insides prodded and scanned and examined by unfamiliar hands. When Covid restrictions started to lift, I was allowed to book a sports massage at home via an app. The masseur was Polish and when he began working on the left-hand side of my lower stomach, I gasped. He had pressed the exact point where I felt the aching, yawning tenderness of pregnancy loss. It was a very specific sensation, starting in the womb, then spreading through my synapses. I thought I might faint.
我暂停了几个月的不断尝试，以便找回自己的身体，重新连接上那个没有在孕期激素的波浪中飘荡，也没有被陌生人的手探查和检查的我。当 Covid 限制开始放宽时，我可以通过一个应用程序在家预约体育按摩。按摩师是波兰人，当他开始对我的下腹部左侧进行按摩时，我倒吸了一口凉气。他按到了我感到孕期失去的疼痛、渴望的温柔之处。这是一种非常具体的感觉，从子宫开始，然后通过我的神经元扩散。我以为自己可能会晕倒。
“You have a lot of sadness here,” the masseur said.
“你这里有很多悲伤，”按摩师说。
“Yes,” I replied, eyes closed, trying not to cry.
“是的，”我回答，闭上眼睛，努力不让自己哭出来。
Lockdowns lifted, vaccinations rolled out, and fertility clinics resumed their normal business. We had been recommended a place in LA by friends. This clinic, we were told, was at the forefront of fertility medicine (“Because lots of Hollywood stars get to their late 40s and the acting parts dry up and then they decide they want a child,” said one of my more cynical acquaintances).
封锁解除，疫苗接种展开，生育诊所恢复了正常营业。朋友们推荐我们去洛杉矶的一个地方。据说这家诊所是生育医学的先锋（“因为很多好莱坞明星到了 40 多岁，演艺生涯开始走下坡路，然后他们决定想要个孩子，”我其中一个比较愤世嫉俗的熟人说道）。
The clinic’s website looked impressive and claimed to offer several cutting-edge procedures that weren’t available anywhere else. In October 2021, Justin and I joined a Zoom call with one of the leading consultants, who apparently had a legion of celebrity children to his name. He was robotic in manner, listing all the ways in which he could ensure higher than average success rates. He advised egg donation.
诊所的网站看起来令人印象深刻，声称提供一些其他地方无法获得的尖端技术。2021 年 10 月，我和贾斯汀参加了一个与一位顶尖顾问的 Zoom 会议，他似乎有很多名人孩子的名字。他的态度机械，列举了所有确保高于平均成功率的方法。他建议卵子捐赠。It was surreal scrolling through pages of beautiful donors you could filter according to height, education, hair, eye colour
The doctor made it seem straightforward. All we had to do was find a suitable donor, for which he recommended hiring a “fertility consultant”. This person would assess relevant medical histories and physical traits in potential donors to ensure their compatibility. In the UK, it is illegal to pay someone for their eggs but donors can receive up to £985 expenses per cycle. Donor-conceived children then have the right to access identifying information about their donor when they turn 18. But in the US, the laws are different – donors are paid a fee (typically, $5,000 to $10,000, but sometimes tens of thousands of dollars), and you can access hundreds of websites containing extensive profiles and photographs. It was surreal and a little dystopian scrolling through pages upon pages of beautiful women whom you could filter according to height, education, hair and eye colour. The women answered questions about their favourite books (The Alchemist and Harry Potter were popular choices and, for me I’m afraid, automatic cause for disqualification). They also listed their preferred foods and hobbies. It felt like a strange kind of speed dating.
医生让这看起来很简单。我们只需要找到一个合适的捐献者，他建议雇佣一个“生育顾问”。这个人会评估潜在捐献者的相关医疗史和身体特征，以确保他们的兼容性。在英国，支付他人卵子是非法的，但捐献者可以每周期获得高达 985 英镑的费用。捐献者所生的孩子在他们 18 岁时有权获取关于捐献者的身份信息。但在美国，法律不同——捐献者会收到一笔费用（通常是 5000 至 10000 美元，有时甚至数万美元），并且你可以访问包含大量详细资料和照片的数百个网站。浏览一页又一页的美丽女性，你可以根据身高、教育程度、发色和眼色进行筛选，这感觉既超现实又有点反乌托邦。这些女性回答了关于她们最喜欢的书籍（炼金术士和哈利·波特是热门选择，对我来说，这恐怕是自动淘汰的原因）的问题。她们还列出了她们喜欢的食物和爱好。这感觉像是一种奇怪的快速约会。
It took us over a year to find our donor. We got close a few times, but then we’d uncover some incompatible medical issue or they would change their minds and pull out. We also got defrauded by the consultant we’d hired, and the clinic was shockingly poor in its communication. The whole thing cost an inordinate amount of time and money, and I’m aware of my privilege in being able – just about – to afford it. Still, it was one of the most stressful periods of my life.
我们花了超过一年来寻找捐献者。我们几次接近成功，但后来总会发现一些不兼容的医疗问题，或者他们改变主意退出。我们还被我们聘请的顾问欺骗了，诊所的沟通也出奇地差。整个过程耗费了大量的时间和金钱，我清楚自己能负担得起这种费用是多么的幸运。尽管如此，这仍然是我人生中最有压力的时期之一。
Eventually, we found an amazing young woman (favourite book: Plato’s Republic) who wanted to help us. We remain so incredibly grateful to her.
最终，我们找到了一位令人惊叹的年轻女性（最喜欢的书：《理想国》）她愿意帮助我们。我们对她的感激之情难以言表。
The donor’s egg retrieval was scheduled in LA. On the other side of the Atlantic, my cycle was synced with hers. The eggs were then fertilised with my husband’s sperm, resulting in four embryos, two of which were deemed to have a good cell number, minimal fragmentation and optimal symmetry. The embryos were awarded an AA grade, as if they were premium hotels. Apparently, these two had the highest chances of implantation in my womb (and were presumably offered late checkout and in-room spa treatments).
捐赠者的卵子采集安排在洛杉矶。在大西洋的另一边，我的周期与她的同步。然后，这些卵子用我丈夫的精子进行受精，产生了四个胚胎，其中两个被认为细胞数量良好，碎片化程度低，对称性最佳。这些胚胎被评为 AA 级，就像五星级酒店一样。显然，这两个胚胎在我子宫内植入的成功率最高（并且可能还提供了延迟退房和房间内水疗服务）。
Justin and I flew out to LA on Boxing Day 2022. The weather was terrible – one of those freak patches of torrential rain that sometimes beset the city – and our windscreen wipers squeaked and slid across the glass as we drove to the clinic. I changed into a surgical gown and lay on a gurney before being wheeled into theatre to have the embryo transferred via catheter to my womb. Before I was sedated, our doctor beamed a picture of our chosen embryo on to a TV screen hung high up on the wall.
2022 年圣诞节前夕，我和 Justin 飞往洛杉矶。天气糟糕——那种偶尔会袭击城市的极端暴雨——我们开车去诊所时，挡风玻璃上的雨刮器发出吱吱声，在玻璃上滑动。我换上手术服，躺在担架上，被推入手术室，通过导管将胚胎转移到我的子宫。在我被镇静之前，我们的医生将我们选定的胚胎照片投射到墙上挂着的电视屏幕上。
“An absolutely beautiful embryo,” he said.
“一个绝对美丽的胚胎，”他说。
I squeezed Justin’s hand more tightly.
我紧紧地握住 Justin 的手。
This time, I thought, I had done everything right. I had taken all the drugs and undergone all the necessary surgical interventions and been monitored closely by the best medical professionals. I had gone to acupuncture and yoga and followed nutritional advice and eaten shedloads of protein and taken the correct supplements. I had done all the spiritual work I possibly could. I had followed everyone’s advice. All the signs were there. This time, I tried to convince myself, it was going to be OK.
这次，我以为，我已经做了一切该做的事情。我服用了所有的药物，接受了所有必要的手术干预，并且受到了最好的医疗专业人士的密切监控。我去过针灸和瑜伽，遵循了营养建议，吃了大量的蛋白质，并服用了正确的补充剂。我做了我所能做的所有精神工作。我听从了所有人的建议。所有的迹象都在那里。这次，我试图说服自己，一切都会好起来的。
In the 10-day waiting period that followed, Justin had to return to London for work and I stayed in LA, with a quietly blooming feeling of cautious optimism. I had all the pregnancy symptoms – mid-afternoon exhaustion, nausea, sore boobs, vivid dreams. I went for a walk along Venice Beach one afternoon and wrote the name we’d picked out for our child in the sand.
在随后的 10 天等待期里，贾斯汀不得不回到伦敦工作，我则留在了洛杉矶，心中充满了谨慎的乐观。我有了所有的怀孕症状——午后疲惫、恶心、胸部疼痛、生动的梦境。有一天下午，我在威尼斯海滩散步，把为我们孩子挑选的名字写在沙滩上。
On the allotted morning, I went into the clinic for a blood test and was told I’d be phoned that afternoon with the results. Instead, they sent me an email. They had analysed my bloods. I wasn’t pregnant. “Cease all medication immediately,” the email read. Those symptoms I’d been experiencing? They were simply a result of the hormones I’d been taking. And all those signs I’d believed had been sent from the universe? They hadn’t meant a thing either.
在指定的那天早上，我去诊所做了血液检查，被告知当天下午会接到结果电话。然而，他们给我发了一封电子邮件。他们已经分析了我的血液。我没有怀孕。“立即停止所有药物，”邮件上写着。我之前经历的那些症状？它们只是我服用的激素的结果。而且所有那些我认为是来自宇宙的迹象？它们也没有任何意义。
Justin cancelled everything and flew back to LA so we could be together – an act of love, if ever there was one. But I felt unmoored and exhausted and horribly sad. I remember FaceTiming with my best friend, Emma, shortly after we’d got the news.
贾斯汀取消了所有事情，飞回洛杉矶，为了我们能在一起——如果这算得上是爱的话。但我感到无所依托、筋疲力尽，非常悲伤。我记得在我们得知消息后不久，我和最好的朋友艾玛视频通话。
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” she asked.
“你的眼睛怎么了？”她问。
“Nothing,” I said. “Why?”
“没有，”我说，“为什么？”
“They look a bit … funny.”
他们看起来有点……滑稽。
I glanced at myself reflected in the screen and could see straight away what she meant. My eyes were glittery and disconnected, as if I were viewing the world from the seabed of a deep ocean. I didn’t recognise my own features. I didn’t recognise myself.
我瞥了一眼屏幕上的自己，立刻明白了她的意思。我的眼睛闪烁着，显得有些游离，就像是从深海的海底看世界一样。我看不清自己的五官。我不认识自己了。
Back in London, I wasn’t sure what to do next. We still had one embryo left. The clinic advised us to try again straight away, possibly with a surrogate, but I just couldn’t face it. Well-meaning strangers would mention adoption, without realising that the adoption process is itself far from straightforward and could take years. I was already 44 and felt lost and letdown. I was angry with our doctor, angry at the callousness of the clinic’s email, angry at the entire fertility industry, and angry with anyone who had ever had an uncomplicated pregnancy that ended with a healthy child being born. But, most of all, I was angry at the illusory stories I’d believed – all those beautiful lies I’d told myself.
在伦敦，我不确定接下来该做什么。我们还有一个胚胎。诊所建议我们立刻再尝试一次，可能通过代孕，但我就是无法面对。好心的陌生人会提到领养，却没意识到领养过程本身远非简单，可能需要数年。我已经 44 岁了，感到迷茫和失望。我对我们的医生感到愤怒，对诊所邮件的冷漠感到愤怒，对整个辅助生殖行业感到愤怒，对任何有过简单怀孕并最终诞下健康孩子的女性都感到愤怒。但最重要的是，我对那些我深信的虚幻故事感到愤怒——所有那些我对自己说的美丽谎言。
I went for breakfast with a friend. She had recently split from a long-term partner and, in passing, mentioned a psychic who had given her a freakishly accurate telephone reading in which a future romance was outlined in detail.
我和一个朋友去吃早餐。她最近和长期伴侣分手了，顺便提到了一个灵媒，这个灵媒给她做了一次非常准确的电话占卜，详细描述了未来的恋情。
And even though I thought I was done with that woo‑woo stuff, I just couldn’t help myself.
尽管我以为我已经摆脱了那些玄乎其玄的东西，我还是忍不住。
“Could I speak to her?” I asked.
“我能和她说话吗？”我问。
My friend gave me the psychic’s number and a few key pieces of advice: text to arrange the appointment; don’t give your full name (no possibility of her Googling); and when she calls, don’t ask her any questions (too leading).
我的朋友给了我灵媒的电话号码和一些关键建议：用短信安排预约；不要提供全名（她不可能谷歌搜索）；当她打电话来时，不要问她任何问题（太引导性了）。
I followed her advice to the letter. The psychic, whom I will call Alexia, called me at 7pm on a Wednesday evening. Her voice was warm, her accent American.
我严格遵循她的建议。这位灵媒，我将她称为 Alexia，在周三晚上 7 点给我打了电话。她的声音温暖，带有美国口音。
“Is Elizabeth your real name?” she asked.
“伊丽莎白是你的真名吗？”她问。
“Yes.” “是的。”
“OK, let’s see what’s here for you.” A pause. “Well,” she chuckled. “You love words.”
“好的，让我们看看这里有什么适合你的。” 一阵沉默。“嗯，”她笑着说，“你喜欢文字。”
I did! I loved words so much! At the most challenging points of my fertility journey, I often counted myself incredibly lucky to have a writing career I was passionate about. I had written eight books when I spoke to Alexia and my ninth was about to be published. She went on to say several other things that were spot-on, including identifying that my partner’s name began with a J and describing what he did for a living. Alexia asked if my mother had experienced neck pain recently (I later checked: she’d just booked a session with an osteopath after putting her neck out).
我确实喜欢！我非常喜欢文字！在我生育旅程中最具挑战性的时刻，我常常觉得自己非常幸运，因为我有一个我热爱的写作生涯。我和 Alexia 说话时已经写了八本书，我的第九本书即将出版。她还说了其他几件非常准确的事情，包括指出我伴侣的名字以 J 开头，以及描述了他的职业。Alexia 问我母亲最近是否有过脖子痛（我后来查了一下：她刚刚预约了整骨治疗师，因为她的脖子扭伤了）。
“OK, so you write books but do you also do something else?” Alexia continued. “I’m getting … it’s almost like, I don’t know … you’re a life coach helping people through their failures or mistakes?”
“好吧，所以你写书，但你还做其他事情吗？”艾丽西亚继续问道。“我好像……我不知道……你是生活导师，帮助人们度过他们的失败或错误？”
I didn’t feel sadness; I felt relief. Because sometimes quitting, not persisting, is the bravest thing you can do
Since 2018, I’ve had a podcast called How to Fail, where I interview guests about three times they’ve failed in their lives and what they might have learned along the way. Not quite life coaching, but not a million miles away either. To reiterate: Alexia didn’t know my full name so wouldn’t have been able to look me up online. Might she have recognised my voice from the podcast? I felt it was unlikely given that she was American, and most of my listeners are UK-based. Also, if she had actually been able to research me, wouldn’t she have been more direct and simply stated outright that I was a podcaster? Similarly, although she could tell instantly I was a writer, it took her about half an hour to identify correctly whether I wrote books or film scripts – again, with no guidance from me. Not once did she mention journalism, even though that is one of the first things that comes up if you do Google me. All of this gave me confidence in her, even in my newly sceptical state.
自 2018 年以来，我有一个名为《如何失败》的播客，我在其中采访嘉宾，询问他们生活中三次失败的经历以及他们可能从中学到了什么。这不算生活指导，但也离得并不远。再次强调：Alexia 不知道我的全名，所以不可能在网上找到我。她会不会从播客中认出我的声音？鉴于她是美国人，而我的大部分听众都在英国，我觉得这不太可能。此外，如果她真的能调查我，她应该会更直接地简单声明我是一个播客主持人。同样，虽然她立刻就能看出我是一个作家，但她花了大约半小时才正确地判断出我是写书还是电影剧本——而且完全没有我的指导。她一次也没有提到新闻业，尽管如果你在谷歌上搜索我，新闻业是首先出现的。所有这些都在我新怀疑的状态下给了我信心。
Then, after about 40 minutes, Alexia said: “I feel as if you’re grappling with letting go of a lifelong desire. You don’t know whether to let it go or not.”
然后，大约 40 分钟后，Alexia 说：“我感觉你正在挣扎着放弃一个终身的渴望。你不知道是该放手还是不该。”
“Uh-huh,” I replied, on the other end of the phone line. “That makes sense.”
“嗯哼，”我在电话那头回答，“这很有道理。”
“I don’t know whether it’s to do with children but, if it is, I want to tell you – and I don’t always talk about past lives, but with you I get a very strong sense that you were a mother in a past life. You were the mother of six and it almost melted you.”
我不知道这是否与孩子有关，但如果有关，我想告诉你——我并不总是谈论前世，但和你在一起，我强烈地感觉到你前世是一位母亲。你是六个孩子的母亲，这几乎让你融化。
It was such a striking phrase that I noted it down afterwards. “Melted” was the precise word she used.
这是一个如此引人注目的短语，我后来把它记了下来。“融化”是她用的确切词汇。
“And I feel this life has been offered to you to live on your own terms,” Alexia continued. “Which might be why, if you’ve tried to have babies before now, you could have experienced fertility issues or miscarriage.”
“而且我感觉这生活是为你而提供的，让你按照自己的方式生活，”艾丽西亚继续说。“这也可能是因为，如果你之前尝试过要孩子，你可能会遇到过生育问题或流产。”
I was dumbstruck. The number six was particularly important. I’d had three miscarriages and undergone three unsuccessful rounds of fertility treatment and each cycle had ended after an embryo transfer. Essentially, I’d had six failed pregnancies.
我惊呆了。数字六特别重要。我经历了三次流产和三次不成功的试管婴儿治疗，每次周期都是在胚胎移植后结束。本质上，我经历了六次失败的怀孕。
“Be careful what you wish for,” Alexia carried on. “Sometimes, when we push really, really hard for something we think we want, and there seem to be lots of obstacles in our way, it’s because we’re being protected.”
“小心你所祈求的，”艾丽西亚继续说，“有时候，当我们为了我们认为想要的东西而拼命努力，似乎前方有无数的障碍，那可能是因为我们在被保护。”
She told me a story of her own, about a relative whose child had been in a car accident and who was now in a persistent vegetative state. It had been a living tragedy, Alexia said, and so, really, there was no guarantee that having a child led to the happiness we yearn for.
她给我讲了她自己的故事，关于一个亲戚的孩子在车祸中受伤，现在处于持续的植物人状态。艾丽西亚说，这是一场活生生的悲剧，所以，实际上，拥有孩子并不能保证我们渴望的幸福。
我开始问自己：如果我在这一生的目的不是成为母亲呢？
“I hope you don’t mind me sharing that,” Alexia said.
“我希望你不介意我分享这件事，”艾丽西亚说。
“No, no, of course not.”
当然不是。
In truth, I was grateful. So often during the preceding 12 years, I’d told myself a hundred different fairytales of how completed I’d feel by motherhood. But in a world where the most positive version of events exists, there also has to be the possibility of the most negative, too: a child who is ill or unhappy or who doesn’t love you back. Alexia gave me permission to imagine that. She gave me permission to stop trying so hard without it feeling like weakness. When she gave me that permission, I didn’t feel sadness; I felt relief. Because sometimes quitting, not persisting, is the bravest thing you can do.
事实上，我很感激。在过去的 12 年里，我常常告诉自己一百个不同的童话故事，讲述我如何通过母爱感到完整。但在一个最积极版本的事件存在的世界里，也必须存在最消极的可能性：一个生病或不快乐的，或者不爱你回的孩子。Alexia 给了我想象这个的许可。她给了我停止努力而不感到软弱许可。当她给我这个许可时，我没有感到悲伤；我感到的是解脱。因为有时候放弃，而不是坚持，是你能做的最勇敢的事情。
And the thing was, I had always had a deep-rooted, secret feeling that I knew what it was to be a mother. I felt I had held babies in my arms and taken a toddler’s pudgy hand in mine, and smelled that milky, biscuity scent from the back of a sleeping child’s neck. It was as if my soul remembered. So, no, maybe I wouldn’t be a mother in this lifetime. But maybe I had been in the past. Maybe I would be in another.
而且，我内心深处一直有一种秘密的感觉，我知道什么是做母亲的感觉。我觉得我曾在怀里抱着婴儿，握过幼儿胖乎乎的小手，闻过熟睡孩子颈后那股奶香和饼干香。仿佛我的灵魂还记得。所以，不，也许我这一生不会成为母亲。但也许我过去曾经是。也许我会在另一个世界里成为。
I’m sure there will be people reading this who don’t believe Alexia was accessing some collective spiritual energy to deliver me the message I most needed to hear. They will argue that she kept her observations vague enough that I could interpret whatever I wanted from them. And that’s totally fine. I’m not trying to convert anyone. If you didn’t have the experience I did, you can’t know how utterly real it felt to me.
我确信，有一些人阅读这篇文章时不会相信艾丽西亚是在接触某种集体精神能量来传达我最需要听到的信息。他们会争辩说，她把观察到的内容描述得足够模糊，以至于我可以从中学到我想知道的一切。这完全没问题。我并不试图说服任何人。如果你没有经历过我所经历的事情，你就无法知道这对我来说是多么的真实。
After speaking to her, I started to wonder whether all those signs from the universe (or whatever you want to call it) were in fact guiding me and protecting me. It’s simply that the destination wasn’t the one I’d pictured, so I was interpreting them wrongly. And there was part of me – the bruised, defensive part – that thought, well, even if none of this is true, isn’t it easier for me to believe it is?
和她交谈之后，我开始怀疑那些来自宇宙的迹象（或者你可以称之为任何东西）实际上是否在引导我、保护我。只是因为目的地并不是我所想象的那个，所以我错误地解读了它们。而且，我内心的一部分——那受伤、防御性的部分——想，即使这一切都不是真的，难道不是更容易让我相信它是真的吗？
I started asking myself: what if my purpose in this lifetime was not to be a mother? What if, instead, it was to speak for others who go through similar pain and to reassure them that there is hope on the other side of it? What if I chose to focus on the abundance of love I already had in my life, rather than the absence of another kind? We cannot, all of us, have everything.
我开始问自己：如果我在这一生的目的不是成为母亲呢？如果，相反，我的目的是代表那些经历相似痛苦的人发声，并让他们相信在这痛苦之后还有希望呢？如果，我选择专注于我生活中已经拥有的爱的丰富，而不是另一种爱的缺失呢？我们不可能，我们所有人，拥有一切。
The next day, I walked past a woman pushing her child in a buggy in the street. I smiled at her. All the bitterness and angst I had felt for so long had evaporated. It was magical; almost miraculous. At first, I didn’t think the sensation would last. Yet now, almost three years later, I still feel that same lifted peace. Of course, I also still feel grief, but it’s not constant. Sometimes, the sadness will rear up in unexpected moments and I’ve learned to let it, because I know it will pass. I’ve learned, too, that just because we feel sad for the life we didn’t live, doesn’t mean we made the wrong choices in this one.
第二天，我路过街上一个推着婴儿车女人的身边。我对她微笑。我长久以来所感受到的苦涩和焦虑都消失了。这是神奇的；几乎是奇迹般的。起初，我以为这种感觉不会持续。然而，现在，几乎三年过去了，我仍然感受到那种提升的平静。当然，我仍然感到悲伤，但不是持续的。有时，悲伤会在意想不到的时刻涌上心头，我已经学会了接受它，因为我知道它会过去。我也学会了，仅仅因为我们为没有经历的生活感到悲伤，并不意味着我们在这一生的选择是错误的。
Although I haven’t felt the need to contact Alexia again, I’ve booked a number of sessions for loved ones going through challenges. Each time, they report back to me and are astonished by her accuracy and the comfort she is able to give them. Each time, she says something different. A friend who didn’t believe in psychics, who gave a fake name for himself and his family members, has been fundamentally changed by what Alexia was able to tell him about a sick relative, his career and his relationship.
尽管我没有再次联系 Alexia 的需求，但我为面临挑战的亲人预订了多次咨询。每次，他们都会向我反馈，并对她的准确性和给予他们的安慰感到惊讶。每次，她都会说不同的事情。一个不相信灵媒的朋友，为了自己和家人使用了假名字，被 Alexia 关于一个生病的亲戚、他的事业和人际关系所说的话从根本上改变了。
A few months after my own experience with Alexia, I started writing a new novel. The plot and the characters came to me in a blissful rush. I wrote as if the brakes had been taken off, as if I were no longer pushing a metaphorical boulder up an unforgiving hill. I wrote, in short, as if being myself was enough. It was the most fun and creatively fulfilling experience I’ve ever had writing a book. It will be published a few days after the baby whose name I wrote in the sand would have turned two.
在我与艾莉西亚的经历过后的几个月，我开始写一本新的小说。 情节和角色涌现在我脑海里，带来无比的快乐。 我写作时，就像踩了油门，就像我不再推着一块比喻的巨石爬上无情的山丘。 总之，我写作时，就像成为自己就够了。 这是我写书以来最有趣、最具创造力的经历。 这本书将在写下那个我在沙滩上写下的名字的宝宝满两岁的几天后出版。
And that text I received from the kid with the broken phone? I Googled it recently. It’s an internet scam. I suppose it could have been a sign from the universe to stop believing false promises. But maybe it wasn’t a sign at all. Maybe our task in this world is to build our own meanings – like fires lit from the kindling of many lives.
那个从那个手机坏掉的孩子那里收到的文本？ 我最近在谷歌上搜索了它。 这是一个网络诈骗。 我想这可能是宇宙给我的信号，告诉我不要相信虚假的承诺。 但或许它根本不是一个信号。 或许我们在这个世界的任务是建立我们自己的意义——就像从许多生命的柴火中点燃的火苗。
