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National Infertility Awareness Week News

April 26, 2012

The Huffington Post is running a series on infertility for National Infertility Awareness Week and I’m very pleased to be included among their guest bloggers. You can find my post on the topic of compassion here. (Regular readers may recognize the topic from a post I wrote here a couple of weeks ago.) If you’re comfortable, please feel free to share the post.

In other news, we are gearing up for Saturday’s Life Without Baby Live! event. I’ve really enjoyed conducting the interviews and I think you’ll enjoy hearing from these wonderful, dynamic – and childfree – women about their experiences.

The fun starts here at noon (Pacific time) Saturday April 28. (You can find your time zone here using America/Los Angeles.) If you can’t make it live, fear not, the event with be recorded and available here shortly afterwards.

Thanks for your support and I look forward to chatting with you on Saturday.

Filed Under: Childfree by Choice, Childless Not By Choice, Children, Current Affairs, Family and Friends, Infertility and Loss, Published Articles by Lisa, The Childfree Life: Issues and Attitudes Tagged With: children, comparing, compassion, friends, grief, Infertility, niaw, secondary

How to be Happily Childfree in 10,000 Easy Steps

April 26, 2012

There are two questions I get asked frequently: How did you come to terms with not having children, and how long did it take?

The answer is something akin to “how long is a piece of string and how many knots can you tie in it?”

Believe me when I tell you that if I could write down ten easy steps to making peace with being childfree-not-by-choice, I’d do it, but the answer isn’t that simple. Yes, there were many things that happened along the way that helped me make some peace, but it took closer to 10,000 steps than ten.

Writing down my story was hugely cathartic, venting about the injustices on this blog helped, too. Realizing I wasn’t alone in this and that people like you were out there wanting to talk through the minefield has helped immeasurably. Drawing a line in the sand and saying, “This is where that chapter of my life ends and this is where I start healing” also helped. And frankly, telling myself a big fat lie that I was better off not being a mother actually helped me to realize that in many ways I was. Setting new goals, appreciating the benefits of not having kids, and allowing myself to feel bitter and badly treated when I needed to. All these things helped.

I don’t think there’s a formula for working your way through this, and it’s definitely a journey of making forward process and dealing with inevitable setbacks.

As for how long the process takes? How long is that piece of string? It’s been three years for me and I consider myself largely at peace with my situation. I have closed the door on the idea that I will have children someday and most days I’m good with it. Everyday it gets a little better and a little easier. Some days there will be reminders of what I’ve lost and sometimes a flicker of a thought of “what if…”

The truth is, in many ways, I expect this piece of string to go on forever. The experience of infertility has changed me. It is one of the most significant and life-changing events of my life, and I don’t think the repercussions of that will ever stop reverberating. It doesn’t mean I won’t find harmony and even happiness in this new life – I already have – but I don’t expect this journey of coming-to-terms to ever fully end.

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Infertility and Loss, The Childfree Life: Issues and Attitudes Tagged With: coming to terms, healing, how long, how to, Infertility, peace, support, writing

Whiny Wednesday

April 25, 2012

Hooray, hooray, it’s Whiny Wednesday today!

This week I was in a conversation with my friend “K” and a young woman who said of their mutual friend “D”, “She’s never going to get pregnant if she keeps stressing out like this.”

K and I exchanged a knowing glance (she knows all my story) and I think she probably held her breath for a moment, waiting to see if I would actually lose it on the spot and give this woman a full on lecture about infertility.

I didn’t. It wasn’t the time and place for a teachable moment. Instead I said, “Well, that’s easier said than done. Trust me; I know.”

Still, I can’t stop thinking about D and hoping she has someone to talk to who understands the hell she’s undoubtedly in right now. I know that K understands, but it’s clear that not all D’s friends do.

It’s Whiny Wednesday. I’ve set a bit of a melancholy tone here, but don’t let that stop you from venting what’s on your mind today.

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Family and Friends, Infertility and Loss, The Childfree Life: Issues and Attitudes, Whiny Wednesdays Tagged With: friend, Infertility, pregnant, relax, stress, support

Don’t Ignore…the Life Without Baby Option

April 23, 2012

If you’re someone who imagined, or even expected, that motherhood would be part of your life, the option of a life without children isn’t one you’d be in any hurry to consider. But for many women, that can become the only reasonable option.

I never thought that I would be childfree, childless, a non-mom, or however you’d choose to describe me. Children were always going to be a given for me, “No matter what it takes.” But in reality, I wasn’t willing or able to do whatever it takes, and eventually the option that started to make the most sense to me, even though I didn’t like it, was a life without children.

Medical technology has made great strides over the past decade or two (I was just reading an article this morning about the latest procedure that enables women to freeze ovarian tissue.) Adoption has lost much of its stigma and is considered by many to be the obvious next step for someone who can’t have children of their own. In many ways, there’s a perception that infertility is never an insurmountable obstacle to a family, and that there is always a next step available.

In theory, that’s somewhat true, but in practice, it’s never as simple as that, and many us find that we reach the end of our emotional or financial paths long before we exhaust the list of family building options available to us. It’s hard to walk away from the dream of motherhood, but sometimes it just makes sense.

This week is National Infertility Awareness Week. There are many things that I would wish for my former self, if I were starting out on the road to parenthood again. I wish I’d had more information; I wish I’d had someone I could talk to, who could guide me through the process; I wish I’d had one great doctor who could have given me a step-by-step work-up, an accurate diagnosis, and a set of options sooner, before I’d exhausted the emotional stamina and financial means to use them.

But now, three years after deciding to end my quest for motherhood and starting to make peace with my life without children, I have this wish: I don’t want to promote childlessness as an option. I don’t want to say, “Hey, you! You don’t need to put yourself through all that hell any more. Come over here and be childfree!” I don’t wish “unresolved infertility”, as I’ve heard it called, on anyone. But when some of us reach that point, I wish there was more support available. I wish that infertility resources included information about choosing to walk away from motherhood, and how to come to terms with that decision.

The theme for NIAW this year is “Don’t ignore…” and my request is this: Don’t ignore those of us for whom the infertility journey does not end with a baby.

And now for some resources that are available: There are lots of us out here in the blogosphere, talking about this topic. Check out the blogroll on the right and please support their efforts to have our voices heard. If you have a blog on living without children, and it isn’t yet on the blogroll, include it in the comments and I’ll add it to the list. We have a strong community here on this site, so if you’re new here, cruise around and see what we’re talking about. You can also sign up for the password-protected site where you talk to other women in a private forum.

If you’d like to hear some live voices (and see some beautiful childfree faces) please join me here this Saturday, April 28th at 12:00pm PST as I talk to three wonderful women about their own journeys to come to terms with being childfree-not-by-choice. There’ll be the opportunity to chat live with other women online and make connections with some kindred spirits.

Finally, if you’re here supporting NIAW and want more information about infertility, please visit these links.

 Infertility 101

About National Infertility Awareness Week

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Current Affairs, Infertility and Loss, The Childfree Life: Issues and Attitudes Tagged With: adoption, child free, childless, choice, family building option, fertility treatment, national infertility awareness week, niaw

Guest Post: Miracle Stories

April 20, 2012

By Quasi-Momma

In responding to the April 4th Whiny Wednesday post, a few of us commented on the frustrations of having to deal with the inevitable, “Have you considered … adoption, fostering, egg donation, or surrogates?” It is annoying.  Why do other people think (a) they have the answers and (b) that we haven’t considered whatever “solution” they are proffering?

The worst is the suggestion followed by the “miracle story.”

I was extremely surprised when I got such a story from a friend.  She is a new mom who suffered several miscarriages on her way to mommy-hood. I am happy for her, and still consider her a sister-in-arms, even though she’s crossed over.

I was sitting in her living room broken-hearted over recent news of a pregnancy in the family, when the conversation turned to the financial barriers of adoption.  She launched into this story of a friend who was an obstetrics nurse who managed to adopt a baby from one of those “I didn’t know I was pregnant” patients that you hear about on TV, but never quite believe they exist.  The total price tag was around $6,000. What an incredible stroke of luck.

 

I honestly did not know what to do with that information.  What was I supposed to take from it?  I am supposed to camp out in emergency rooms waiting for a mom who might not want her baby?   Seriously, I love my friend, but this was not a helpful story.

I think that Americans are groomed to expect a happy ending. I personally blame the entertainment industry for this.  All problems are resolved in Hollywood.  No problem is insurmountable.   It is so pervasive that when people encounter real life scenarios that can’t be fixed, they are confounded, and that’s when the suggestions and the stories start a-flyin’.

What these well-intentioned people don’t understand is their stories usually have the opposite effect than what was intended.  Instead of feeling inspired, we feel deflated.  Why someone else and not us? What are we doing wrong? Have we not tried hard enough? Are we unworthy?

I do believe in God and the power of faith and prayer, but with that comes surrendering to the fact that our destiny may not look the way we envisioned it.  God is not a cosmic ATM. If we all got the miracles we prayed for, everyone would be a lottery winner, right?

We all have different paths, and they are beautiful in their own way. Part of our struggle with childlessness is embracing it for what it is worth and finding the beauty in ourselves and our lives with or without baby. It is not an easy path, and, unfortunately, there is no easy way for us to make others realize that.

Luckily, we do have an amazing community here. One that reminds us we are not alone, and that in itself is something I consider a small miracle.

Quasi-Momma, whose real name is Susan, is not quite a mom, but really wants to be. In her blog, Quasimomma, she explores her struggles with pregnancy loss and facing childlessness while grappling with the ups and downs of step family life.

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Children, Family and Friends, Guest Bloggers, Infertility and Loss, The Childfree Life: Issues and Attitudes Tagged With: adoption, childless, egg donation, friends, Infertility, pregnancy loss

With Eyes of Faith…Adversarial Growth

April 19, 2012

By Dorothy Williams

“Great suffering or trauma

can actually lead to great positive change…”

 

~ Shawn Achor

Does your mental map include a path that leads up out of adversity to a place where you are stronger than ever before?  Positive psychology researcher, Shawn Achor, believes it is essential to creating happiness and he refers to it as a path that leads to Post-Traumatic Growth.

In his book, The Happiness Advantage, Shawn explains it this way:

“…when soldiers are heading to combat, psychologists commonly tell them they will return either ‘normal’ or with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.  What this does, in effect, is give these soldiers a mental map with only two paths – normalcy and psychic distress.  Yet while PTSD is of course a well-documented and serious consequence of war (and while war can be so horrifying that returning ‘normal’ might be a very attractive promise), another large body of research proves the existence of a third, far better path:  Post Traumatic Growth.”

Also known to psychologists as Adversarial Growth, the experience is achievable if you know the right strategies.  Shawn adds, “People’s ability to find the path up rests largely on how they conceive of the cards they have been dealt, so the strategies that most often lead to Adversarial Growth include positive reinterpretation of the situation or event, optimism, acceptance, and coping mechanisms that include focusing on the problem head-on (rather than trying to avoid or deny it).”

Thanks to the work of the Holy Spirit, I found the third path. With spring bursting forth here in the Midwest, and Easter’s resurrection power welling up within, I’m compelled to keep exploring it.

How about you? How are you dealing with the adversity that comes with infertility?

Dorothy Williams lives near Chicago.  During a flurry of spring cleaning, she tossed out the cards she was dealt. 

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Guest Bloggers, Infertility and Loss, The Childfree Life: Issues and Attitudes, With Eyes of Faith Tagged With: coming to terms, faith, happiness advantage, Infertility, post traumatic growth, shawn achor

Whiny Wednesday

April 18, 2012

I’ve been back from my vacation for two days and already my head feels as if it’s about to explode.

 

Why do I keep saying “yes” when I really mean “no”? Why do I create a weekly task list and put enough tasks on it to last a month? And why, why, why am I not working on my new book project, when I know that’s what will really make me happy?

 

If you have answers to any or all of these questions, feel free to post below. If not, feel free to vent your own frustrations. It is Whiny Wednesday, after all.

 

P.S. My vacation was wonderful, blissful, and peaceful. I miss it already.

Filed Under: The Childfree Life: Issues and Attitudes, Whiny Wednesdays Tagged With: book, commitments, rest, stress, vacation, writing

My Pain is Bigger Than Yours

April 16, 2012

Be honest. You’ve played this game, haven’t you? Someone tells you something awful, and you immediately weigh it against your own loss. It’s ok, you can say it. Tell you what, if it will make you feel better, I’ll go first.

My friend has suffered a series of miscarriages over the past couple of years and is now talking very openly about her infertility. She and I are kindred spirits…except that she already has a daughter. I have been supportive of her courage to speak out about secondary infertility, but that little voice in the back of my head keeps popping up. You know the one, don’t you? It’s the one that says, “Well, at least she got to have one baby. At least she got to experience pregnancy. I didn’t get any of that.” Have you ever caught yourself having those thoughts? And yet, is my friend’s loss any greater or less than mine? And does it really matter?

My thoughts on this crystallized recently when I started thinking about other losses. When someone loses a parent, do we dismiss that loss when they still have a surviving parent? If we lose a good friend, do we feel that loss less because we have other friends? No, we do not. And if we do, shame on us. How can you put a value on someone else’s grief?

And yet we do it all the time. All of us here have dealt with loss. Some of us have experienced childbirth, some of us pregnancy, and some of us have never experienced either. I don’t think that we can weigh one type of loss against another and say that one is worse or another is easier, because “at least she got experience [fill in the blank].”

Loss is loss, and it’s always painful. We’re all in this together, whatever our circumstances.

And now I think I’ll call my friend.

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Children, Family and Friends, Infertility and Loss, The Childfree Life: Issues and Attitudes Tagged With: birth, compare, Infertility, loss, miscarriage, pregnancy, secondary infertility

Guest Post: Spoiling Someone Else’s Kids

April 13, 2012

By Heather Smith

Whether you made the decision to not have children or it was made for you, more than likely there is a little kid somewhere that has your heart; it may be a niece or a nephew, a godson or your friend’s child. Whoever this child may be to you, you love them and you want to show them that.

But what is more fun than being the ‘cool aunt’? Here are some sure fire ways spoil someone else’s kids and probably annoy their parents:

Trips:  Be the crazy and fun grownup or the silly godparent that takes junior to see that silly new cartoon movie or to get ice cream that is piled up too high. Don’t forget about water parks, zoos and children museums. You bring out the kid in the kid. Don’t forget the souvenirs, especially the ones that make lots and lots of noise!

Toys:  Oh joy the toys! The must haves and the wants must be fulfilled as the spoiler. This doesn’t mean you have to wait until a holiday or a birthday to shower them with the newest video game or the latest princess game. More sporadic and random the gift giving is, the better. Your goal: clutter someone else’s living room and be the queen of queens through the child’s eyes.

Candy:  Always keep candy on you. Not only is it a great idea for you and your mid-day sweet tooth, but having candy on you is an excellent way to butter up that butterball. Candy can be used as a prize or an excellent bribing technique. Either way you will have the kid eating out of the palm of your hand. Literally.

Use your words:  Yes trips, candy and toys may be fun, but in all seriousness, when it comes down to spoiling a little one, using words is the biggest form of showing your love. Spoiling doesn’t mean giving them trivial things that they want. Telling them you love them and that you are there for them will stick around with them longer than any piece of candy or trip to the zoo. And remember if you say these things, you better follow up. We all know that actions speak louder than words.

Heather Smith is an ex-nanny. Passionate about thought leadership and writing, Heather regularly contributes to various career, social media, public relations, branding, and parenting blogs/websites, and offers site design advice for Hire a Nanny. She can be available at H.smith7295 [at] gmail [dot] com.

Filed Under: Childfree by Choice, Childless Not By Choice, Children, Family and Friends, Fun Stuff, Guest Bloggers Tagged With: aunt, heather smith, nanny, other people's children, spoil

Guest Post: Just Enjoy Your Life

April 12, 2012

By Iris D

“Just enjoy your life.”

These were the words one of my mom friends shared with me not too long ago.  I had not seen her since she had her second baby, and we got to talking about kids and I opened up to her and told her that my husband and I were unable to have biological children, and how difficult this was for me.  That evening I learned that her older son, now about 5 or 6, had been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome.  She told me that when she and her husband married they had agreed to remain childfree, but that after some time she changed her mind and really pushed him to reconsider, and so their first son was born.  I guessed by our conversation that they had decided to have a second child largely out of concern for their firstborn.  My friend is an older mom and her husband is quite a bit older than she is. Although her son seems pretty high functioning, she worries mostly about the potential for social isolation that children with Asperger syndrome might experience.

Lately, I’ve thought a bit about my friends and family who have special needs kids.  I have a little cousin (now 15) who has Down Syndrome and another cousin who has a significant learning/developmental disability, this latter case is even more difficult because the young man in question looks physically very strong and people do not understand that he actually has a problem and cannot help some of his behavior.  In both cases, the people in question have siblings that will hopefully step in and take charge if and when their parents are unable to do so, but I know that not everyone is as fortunate to have an immediate or extended family that can help. I recall reading an article a few years back about an older woman who was looking for someone who could step in and care for her adult disabled son, as her health no longer allowed her to do so.

These stories get me thinking about the many needs that are out there and the opportunities that I might have to volunteer my time and of course about the positive emotional (and physical) benefits of volunteering, but they also remind me of one of my favorite quotes, “There but for the grace of God, go I.”

When I allow myself to think about my childlessness, mostly I just feel sad, and so lately I really try to remind myself to feel grateful for the life I have right now, and sometimes I hear my friend’s voice reminding me to just enjoy my life.

Iris lives in Florida with her husband and best friend of many years. Five years ago infertility and other life stressors really messed with her head, but she’s gradually regaining her Self and her passion for life.

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Children, Family and Friends, Guest Bloggers, Infertility and Loss, The Childfree Life: Issues and Attitudes Tagged With: Asperger syndrome, child free, children, Infertility, life

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