What Video Games Have Given Me While Struggling to Conceive

The endless repetition of trying to have a baby means living life in a state of limbo between two timelines. Video games have helped.

Photo by Fé Ngô on Unsplash

“I’m sorry, there’s no heartbeat.”

I let out the breath I had been holding for the last two weeks, since the six-week ultrasound had shown that the embryo’s growth was lagging behind where it should be. My husband and I squeezed each other’s hands and were escorted to a private waiting area to await the obstetrician.

This miscarriage was not unexpected and my emotions were surprisingly level, an acceptance with some numbness and a tinge of grief and disappointment.

The rest of the day passed in a blur: family and friends learning of and losing the pregnancy in one fell swoop. Letting our workplaces know that we would need time off for processing and recovery. A bad, mindless movie in cinema to provide a couple of hours of escapism.

The grief hit properly later, hours on my couch weeping, comforted by my husband and cared for by my friends and family. In the midst of this overwhelming emotion, I hit purchase on Marvel’s Midnight Suns. It was a game I had decided I didn’t have time to play between work, social life, and medical appointments related to the pregnancy.

Over the next two weeks, in a haze of emotion and hospital visits, I mainlined it until I had exhausted it, and alongside it, burned through the worst of the emotional backlash.

It’s a strange game to revisit now, so strongly associated with both the grief of the loss and the relief of the distraction. The dynamic card-based combat, paired with building relationships with familiar characters provided a perfect level of engagement to keep me from mentally checking out. Amid the trauma, wingmanning Blade with Captain Marvel by starting a book club was just the right level of silly to jolt me out of the fog.

Two years on from the miscarriage, with some culpable health issues hopefully starting to get under control, our lives remain inert, and our hopes and plans for a child still yet to come.

“Amid the trauma, wingmanning Blade with Captain Marvel by starting a book club was just the right level of silly to jolt me out of the fog.”

Struggling to conceive means that you live your life in a constant state of limbo between two different timelines, one where things continue without much change, and one where life changes on a fundamental level forever.

This calculation has been constant for the last four years—should we book a holiday for next year when we could potentially have a child by then? Should I put an immense amount of work into starting my own business when I might need to put it on pause not long after? Can we afford to buy a new car or are we going to need that money for medical bills? Your brain has to simultaneously inhabit both timelines, hoping for change but preparing for constancy.

On a much more trivial level, this has also impacted my entertainment choices.

While I hope to be able to continue to enjoy gaming as a lifelong hobby, I recognise that fitting in big games is likely to be ambitious with a young child. Every year through the last three years of our fertility journey, I have thought that this will be the last long game that I can squeeze in before parenthood.

Horizon: Forbidden West. Tears of the Kingdom. Baldur’s Gate 3. Now, Metaphor: Refantazio.

Each time I start one of these games, it feels like a concession, a reluctant acceptance of the fact that I am going to have the time to complete it because the child we awaited is not here yet. I play it with gusto, savouring each side quest, mastering each system, and falling in love with the characters and worlds. Each time, I hope and anticipate that it might be the last time for a long time that I get the chance to do this.

Each time, another game follows. And there is no tidy or satisfying ending to this narrative.

I strongly prefer games, no matter how long, with an ending, something that I can close the book on, and tick as completed. I find it hard sometimes to know where to draw the line with games that do not have a natural end, such as a Balatro or Slay the Spire. While I enjoy these games and have played them for many hours, they end up lingering on my “Playing” list for a long time after I have my last session with them, because I haven’t quite let go. Similarly, this limbo state has no current end point, depending on either a longed-for resolution that is based on factors outside of my immediate control, or on us drawing a line in the sand and accepting that even though it is not the outcome we wanted, we are going to move on with our lives.

I am fortunate enough to love my life. I have the privilege of time and resources to spend doing what I love and with the people I love, playing Dungeons and Dragons, birdwatching, and playing, watching, and reading what I like. I catalogue everything that I experience, from books to movies to birds to games. I look back on and review my accomplishments at the end of the year, highlighting experiences that stood out to me and sharing those passions with others.

I often describe myself as “immune to boredom,” as even if no more art is ever produced, I will never run out of films on my watchlist or games in my backlog. Many of these big games now sit in my “Completed” catalogue, hitting credits when I anticipated never being able to start them.

Having a child would disrupt a lot of this rhythm, with many of my current passions depending on an excess of leisure time. However, Crossplay has shown that while the hobbies might change with the arrival of a child, they can also transform, providing new and rich opportunities to enjoy them in different ways.

I still hold out hope that my last big game is coming.

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