As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods
“Since none of my sisters or my mom had troubles getting pregnant (well into their 30s),” Ani* wrote, “I had no worries about waiting until after my 30th birthday to start thinking about babies.” As many of us can imagine, she was devastated and wholly unprepared when she then suffered two miscarriages.
Today, Ani and her husband are trying to come to terms with being a family of two. That journey includes some days of feeling anxious, bitter, and depressed, and others days hoping they can make peace with their childfree life.
At the end of her story, she shares her hopes for the new year. I hope you’ll jump on the Comments to offer Ani some encouraging words and share with all of us what you’re hoping for in 2016.
LWB: Briefly describe your dream of motherhood.
Ani: I’ve always loved kids. I am exceptionally close to my niece and nephew (who live in the same town as me), and I adore my other three nephews. I have always just assumed I would be a mom.
LWB: Are you childfree by choice, chance, or circumstance?
Ani: Circumstance. We have been trying to conceive/not preventing since October 2013. In December 2013 we got pregnant the first time, which ended in heartbreak when I miscarried in January 2014. December 2014, almost exactly a year after our first BFP [“big fat positive” pregnancy test], we got our second. I was super-cautious about getting excited too quickly, and was proven horribly right when I suffered another miscarriage in January 2015. We’ve been checked out, and seemingly things are physically alright with me, except for being overweight. My husband has very bad sperm morphology.
LWB: Where are you on your journey now?
Ani: I would say I am still in the depression state of mind. Pregnancies give me anxiety and make me feel so bitter toward even my greatest friends. I am fine with babies and older kids, but seeing a pregnant belly or positive pregnancy test or a sonogram picture can send me into hysterics.
I want to accept my childlessness, and my wonderful husband assures me constantly that we, as a couple, are enough. But I feel like I’ve ruined his life and chance at being a father, and I fear that he will one day resent me for not being able to carry a child for him.
LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?
Ani: People treat you as “less than” when you don’t have kids. You will also never know what being tired or sick or upset feels like, because those feelings are reserved solely for parents (*sarcasm*).
LWB: What’s the best part about not having children?
Ani: Having our free time. We can sleep in or stay up as long or as little as we want, with nobody but our cats and dog to worry about. I also think having a child would send my anxiety into overdrive, since I would constantly worry about money and safety issues, etc., etc.
LWB: What’s one thing you want other people (moms, younger women, men, grandmothers, teachers, strangers) to know about your being childfree?
Ani: Please don’t treat me as useless or irrelevant just because I don’t have kids.
LWB: What is your hope for yourself this coming year?
Ani: That my husband and I will be able to fully make peace with our childfree lives and spend as much time as we can doing the things we love to do together…without worrying about the past.
*Not her real name. We allow each respondent to use a fictitious name for her profile, if she chooses.
Where are you on your journey? Are you wounds raw? Have you made some progress toward accepting a life without children? We can all benefit from hearing about your experiences, plus we’d like to support you. Please visit the Our Stories page to get more information and the questionnaire, and consider sharing your story with women who truly understand what you’re going through.
Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.
dear Ani,
thank you for sharing your story.
Wishing you & your husband all the best for 2016!
Of course those things to do with pregnancy send you into hysterics because it hurts when you see others experiencing what you wanted for yourself but sadly lost out on and its natural to feel bitter about the whole thing as its bloody unfair.
Ani – my heart goes out to you. I had two pregnancies (June 2009 and June 2010) and two miscarriages (July 2009 and July 2010) in my late 30’s and I can really relate to what you shared. Several years later, the heart break, anger and grief has lessened and we are more accepting of our family of 2 plus 2 feathered “babies.” Please take the time you need to grieve and be gentle with yourself. Thanks for sharing your story.
Ani, thank you for sharing your story with us. I am so sorry to hear about the miscarriages. How devastating! You are a person who deserves happiness and healing and I don’t understand why bad things happen to good people. Hang in there, sister, and stay connected with the LWB community. We may not always say it out loud in the comments section, but we are holding you in our positive thoughts and prayers.
I have found Dr. Rick Hanson’s work, at the Foundations of Well Being, to be remarkably healing for my constant struggle with anxiety. He is the psychologist who is famous for saying, “The mind is like Velcro for bad experience and Teflon for good.” What he means is that, through thousands of years of evolution, our minds have developed a negativity bias, always looking for danger, which creates anxiety. Conversely, when we have a good experience, we tend to blow it off and not absorb the goodness of the moment. This bias helped us avoid tigers in the old days, but now works against us sometimes. By studying his teaching, I learned to stop my negative thoughts and replace them with positive feelings like gratitude, etc. I have less anxiety now. I no longer wake up in the morning feeling like my life is worthless.
Hope you can find a source of peace, too.
Sorry — need to add something: I don’t always replace negative with positive thought because there are some things that need to be processed, for example, a spat with my sister. My life would be out of whack if I constantly tried to be positive and push ugly things to my subconcious. Dr. Hanson has a lot of good advice on how to process the messiness of life, too!
Hi ladies,I am Ani (nickname from my full name – Juani).Thank you so much for your beautiful words.I feel so at home and welcome on this site.If anyone wants/needs a chat, please feel free to contact me on my e-mail, [email protected].
Hope you all have a wonderful day!
Ani, Thanks for sharing your story. What you’ve described is so similar to my experience, even to the date of pregnancy and miscarriage except it happened to me once 40 years ago and then I never got pregnant again even though we tried with the minimal help that was available at the time. I am so sorry that you’ve had these losses and are experiencing the angst that you are. I hate to say it, but the loss hits me every day because I am quite social and most everyone I know has children or grandchildren although I do have some childfree friends through my golf leagues. For awhile I put my life on hold, thinking that any physical activity would impede my ability to get pregnant (I had been a marathon runner, racquetball player, fitness enthusiast). Now I realize the activity helped me keep my sanity and alleviate depression and the activity had nothing to do with my infertility as I was DES exposed (another story). Anyhow, if I had any advice to give it would be this: if you can, find activities that you really enjoy, try to eat healthy foods and be active to the extent that you can. It will pay off hugely when you get to your 60’s and beyond. Also, I have found huge satisfaction in being a platelet donor for the American Red Cross (they can use donors who have not had a live birth) as they tell me my donation helps to save lives. So, I think if you can find a way to give back to society in a positive way it may help. Good Luck to you in your healing journey.
Hi Ani,
Big hug to you! After reading Dorothy’s comments, I am now eager to look into Dr. Hanson’s work. Another author that helped me was Eckhart Tolle. I listened to him on audio and it helped calm down my anxieties. Like you, I don’t have issues seeing or being with babies and kids, my toughest times came from being around pregnant women or new moms, or women whose conversations only revolve around the theme of motherhood. I get that it is of course the focus of their lives, but I like to be able to connect with them on other issues. For me, the hardest thing has been this sense that I am no longer all that important to my friends. Try not to allow the sentiment that you are “less than” other women who are mothers take over your thinking. It is an entirely false notion and anyone who thinks that this is the case is a fool. Hugs!
Dear Ani – thank you for sharing and I’m thinking of you. As always thanks to everyone who comments and gives us all ways of coping. I visited today as after 17 years TTC and the journey ending 2 years ago – I was sideswiped this morning with a colleague saying “didn’t you know she was pregnant and leaving in a few weeks”. It caught me so off guard that I felt like I did in our early days – hurt, angry, sad and less than. Thank you for these comments and suggestions and reminding me I am not less than. Life is random and thinking of the good things is helping me back to where I was – which is feeling more at peace with childlessness. I can get back to work and concentrate on me and wish “her” well (to myself) but not let it take over my thinking and spoil my day – I too will look into the suggestions on changing our thinking and dealing with anxiety – thanks Iris and Dorothy. 🙂 x x