Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Whiny Wednesday: I don’t want to talk about this anymore

Let me just say, right up front, that I love the community of women I’ve found through this blog. I’ve really been amazed at how people are willing to rally around and help others they’ve never even met. I attribute the speed of my healing progress to this community and to having somewhere to go to talk about infertility and childlessness.

But sometimes I feel as if I just don’t want to talk about it anymore.

For the past two weeks I’ve stood up in front of a theater full of strangers and told my story. It was a fantastic experience and everyone I met was wonderful and supportive. (More about this very soon.) I know that talking about this issue is bringing it to the forefront and building understanding. People have come up to me and told me as much.

But sometimes I just want to be little old me. I don’t want to keep talking about “it.”

Recently, this article reminded me of why I don’t want to talk about “it.” Here, this writer pours out her heart and her “regrets” at never having children.

“I know, for example, that not being a mother means there is a part of me which remains unused, a love that will be forever unexpressed. I know that what any mother describes as the most profound love she has ever known is, to me, a locked door — there is so much love I will never be able to give, wisdom and understanding I cannot share, shelter and solace I cannot provide.”

I admire for having the guts to say that, and I know she’s right, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise. There are a million ways to substitute for not having children, but none of them are really going to fill that gap. I know that; I feel that.

But, then she goes on to say:

“My regrets will always linger. My life is a poorer place for not having children, and I am less of a woman for not being a mother.”

And that’s when I want to yell, “No!! Pull yourself together, woman! You have a successful career, friends, a great life. How can you say your life is a poorer place and that you are less of a woman because you don’t have children?” Forgive me, friends, but it just comes across as feeling sorry for herself, and that doesn’t sit well with me.

And this is why I don’t want to talk about this sometimes. I don’t want to be defined by my childlessness; I don’t want to be a one-ring circus with the same act playing night after night; I don’t want to be “that poor pathetic childless woman, who never quite got over it.”

All that being said, I’m going to keep talking about it, because it’s an important topic to me, but I’m keeping an eye on myself to make sure it doesn’t become the only thing I can talk about, to make sure I don’t start feeling sorry for myself.

Getting Over Mother’s Day

On Monday, I had lunch with a friend. “We had so much fun yesterday,” she said. “We had the whole family over at my mom’s and we all brought food and ate way too much.”

“That’s great,” I said, understanding that “whole family” would mean siblings, their families, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents. “What was the occasion?”

My friend stared at me for a moment and then burst out laughing. “Um, Mother’s Day?” she said.

“Oh right! Of course!”

Luckily, this is a friend who knows where my head is and also reads this blog, so knows about my breaking up with Mother’s Day. Well, apparently, I succeeded in not only breaking up with Mother’s Day, but getting over it and forgetting about it!! How fickle I am.

I’ll admit, that on Sunday morning, I unwittingly hopped on Facebook and very quickly hopped back off again! Way too many Mother’s Day posts for me and I thought why torture myself? I checked in on the blog comments and the forums to see what was going on there, but other than that, I didn’t give much thought to Mother’s Day at all.

What about you? How did you do this year?

It Got Me Thinking…About Shotgun Weddings

By Kathleen Guthrie

We recently sent out save the date cards for our upcoming wedding and, in response, I’ve received several variations of “Didn’t know you were pregnant – har har!”

I’m not finding this the least bit humorous, although I’m sure this is what these Jim Carrey–­wannabes had intended. My fiancé and I have been together for four years, living together for two. We are getting married because we want to, not because we have to. And so what if I was pregnant? Would it make this occasion, our commitment to each other, any less solemn?

Of course, because I have finally (mostly) made peace with our decision to be childfree, this strikes a deeper, more painful chord. What I really want to do is reply back by saying, “No. Sadly, pregnancy is no longer an option for me.”

But that would be rude.

Kathleen Guthrie is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She finally met her Mr. Right in her 40s and looks forward marrying him this fall.

Whiny Weekend

Tomorrow, May 8, is VE Day in Europe. It’s the birthday of David Attenborough (who I want to be when I grow up), Enrique Iglesias, and Gary Glitter (who I used to love until he went to jail for child pornography.) May 8 marks the deaths of the French painter Paul Gauguin and novelist Gustave Flaubert. It’s also the Feast Day of Catherine de Saint-Augustin.

Oh yes…and for many of us, it’s Mother’s Day.

I think I’ve said just about all that can be said about this awkward day, so instead of hashing out my feelings again, I’m just going to declare today and tomorrow Whiny Weekend. Drop by, say what you need to say, get it off your chest if it’s on your chest, and feel free to let it all hang out here.

I’ve also created a Mother’s Day Safe Haven on the main Life Without Baby site. It’s password protected (just sign up) and the place to go if you don’t want to post a comment here on the blog.

There’s also a chat function, so feel free to go there and support one another. I plan to drop in, so come by and say hi.

Otherwise, hang in there, ladies. It’s just one day, which leaves 364 others for us.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It’s Super-Lisa!

It’s something I’ve always dreamed of having – a superpower! I always thought how fun it would be to be invisible or to fly like Superman. But my personal favorite superpower would be to teleport (or apparate and disapparate if you’re a Harry Potter fan) – to disappear from one place and reappear somewhere else. Very useful skill.

I don’t have any of those skills, but it turns out that I do have a superpower! I have a magic force field and I discovered it a couple of weeks ago.

Stepping out of a cab in New Orleans, the doorman at our hotel greeted us with a jovial, “Welcome to the Big Easy. Where are the kids? Did you leave them home alone?” For a moment I was caught completely off-guard. I struggled between trying to come up with a witty response and fighting the urge to give the man a piece of my mind. And then Zup! Up popped my force field! I could feel it shimmering all around me, protecting me from this man’s unintentional sting. And from inside my invisible shield, I smiled and let him figure out for himself that I had no kids to leave home alone.

Then last week I went to the dentist to get a chipped tooth fixed. Because it was also the opening night of my show I told the dentist that I couldn’t have any Novocain. (Didn’t want my mouth numb on stage!) She immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was pregnant and even after I explained that I wasn’t, she continued to prattle on about babies and pregnancy and blah-blah-blah. In the chair I closed my eyes and Zup! Up went my force field again. I could hear all her baby talk dinging off my protective shell, but inside I was safe and sound.

Once upon a time I’d have been upset by either of these scenarios and more recently I would have been mad and felt the need to set these people straight, but now I just Zup! put up my force field and let it all bounce off. I know these people aren’t trying to hurt my feelings, and there’s no need for me to set them straight. They don’t need to know my story and I don’t need to try and fix them.

You can call it cowardice if you like, or denial, but I call it self-preservation. It’s peaceful inside my force field, and after the emotional drama of the past seven years, I feel I’ve earned the right to a little peace.

Book Review: The Inadequate Conception

I just finished reading Lori Green LeRoy’s The Inadequate Conception: From Barry White to Blastocytes: What your mom didn’t tell you about getting pregnant. This is one of those books I wish I’d read before I started trying to conceive.

Lori’s story is, frankly, mind-blowing. She says on the cover of the book:

“I am the no prego pro, the infertility warrior, bunless oven, can’t-make-a-baby veteran. It has taken six years and tens of thousands of dollars to achieve this distinction, and more specifically, 1,611 prenatal vitamins, 78 fertility drug injections, 55 ovulation detection tests, 40 blood draws, 33 ultrasounds, 16 pregnancy tests, and 11 embryos to confirm it.”

And yet, stunningly, Lori manages to find humor in all of this, something I stopped doing within the first couple of years of my journey. And even though she ultimately gave up trying to conceive, she was able to gather funny stories from her own experience and that of others, and find a lighthearted way to share them in her book.

I really applaud Lori, for her courage. It’s not easy to find the funny side of infertility, even when so much of what we put ourselves through is utterly ridiculous. And yet, having been on this journey myself, I couldn’t help but read between the lines and see the hurt behind Lori’s laughter. Had I read the book without my own experience. I would have appreciated her attitude and her determination to maintain her sense of humor – something that would have been very valuable to me.

I know from Lori, that since stopping her fertility treatments, she and her husband have embarked on a journey to adopt a little boy. She says:

“The adoption finalization has gone about as well as our trials in fertility, which is to say, that it hasn’t progressed much…”

I wish Lori the very best of good fortune and trust that her wicked sense of humor continues to serve her well.

Whiny Wednesday

It’s been a while since we’ve done a good old-fashioned Whiny Wednesday, hasn’t it? I’ve missed it.

It’s a beautiful sunny day here in Southern California, so it’s hard to get too whiny, and the thing I do want to whine about isn’t appropriate to whine about in public. So, my whine today is that I don’t get to whine today.

But you do.

It’s an open forum, no topic, just a chance to get whatever is on your chest off it.

Whine on!

Breaking Up With Mother’s Day

My friend is getting married this year and received some good advice from an aunt, who explained that marriage isn’t all about romance and that sometimes you’re not going to like the person you marry. Sometimes you’ll be angry, upset, frustrated, and hurt. She told my friend, “It’s okay to be angry, in fact it’s good. It’s when you stop feeling angry and feel nothing that you know there’s a problem.”

I think this is very sage advice and I know from my own experience of past relationships that when I stopped being upset about things that should have made me angry, that relationship was pretty much doomed. Apathy is deadly.

I bring this is up because of the way I’m feeling about Mother’s Day this year. In the past, I’ve run the gamut of emotions when this day has ticked around. I’ve been sad about my own loss, frustrated at my situation, angry about having motherhood pushed in my face, and hurt that other people don’t realize how much that day affects me. I’ve stayed indoors on past Mother’s Days; I’ve avoided restaurants that are celebrating mothers, and I’ve even avoided public places, where some unsuspecting nicey-nice person might wish me a happy Mother’s Day, oblivious to how much it stings.

But this year, I feel differently. This year I don’t care. I’m not feeling dread at the approaching day; I’m not putting on my emotional armor ready to deflect the hurt, and I’m not making plans to hide away. I don’t feel especially determined to not let this day affect me, and I’m not taking a stand and trying to prove I’m strong. I just don’t feel anything.

I think this means that Mother’s Day and I are about to break up. And how freeing that would be to get up on Sunday morning and just go about my day. As you may recall from a previous post. my own mother is in a county that celebrates Mother’s Day in March, and my husband’s mother is no longer with us, so we are under no obligation to celebrate at all. It’s truly liberating.

I’m writing this post almost a week before the Big Day, so I will be keeping a watchful eye of my vitals and checking how I feel as the week goes on. But maybe this is the year that will mark the closing of a chapter for me, which of course, is always followed by the start of a new one. Watch this space!

It Got Me Thinking…About Stevie Nicks

By Kathleen Guthrie

Sheryl Crow recently revealed that rock legend Stevie Nicks advised her “not to have babies, ’cause you’ll never write a great song again.” (Watch their amazing duet of “Landslide” on Oprah here.) Now, I don’t agree that mothers can’t also be great songwriters, but it is hard to argue with Ms. Nicks when you consider her legacy: more than 40 hits, over 140 albums sold, 8 Grammy Award nominations as a solo performer, 1 win for Album of the Year (for Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours), and 4 decades of success in the music industry. Plus, she looks damn hot at 62.

Tomorrow, May 3, Nicks’ latest album, In Your Dreams, will be released. In a parallel life, she might be helping out with the grandkids. Instead, in part because she’s childfree, she’s touring with Rod Stewart, promoting her album, and moving all of us with her extraordinary musical gifts.

So I say, Let’s support one of our own! Purchase the album, get tickets to her shows (visit her official Web site here for more information), and show the world that childfree women ROCK!

Kathleen Guthrie is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She’s mostly at peace with her decision to be childfree.

Infertility Myth: Women without children are never complete

Remember this children’s ditty? I’m using myself and my husband as the example.

Jose and Lisa sitting in a tree,

K.I.S.S.I.N.G.

First comes love,

Then comes marriage,

Then comes a baby in a baby carriage.

As a little girl, this was the expectation for how my life would unfold. Find a nice man, get married, and have a family, just as my parents did, and their parents before them. Sure, I came of age in the 80s, so there was college, a career, travel, and other big dreams thrown in there, but marriage and children were always a part of the picture.

I was 34 years old when I finally married Mr. Fabulous. Four years later, a doctor told me I’d never have biological children of my own. Those first years of our married lives were a crazy rollercoaster of desire and desperation, filled with doctor’s appointments and a desperate drive to complete my image of the perfect family. Even after this hopeless diagnosis, I kept pursuing that dream, convinced that the next doctor would have the secret elixir or that adoption would be my quick-fix solution.

I think I could have continued to look for a solution forever – there was always something else to try – but I realized something from that children’s ditty. After all that kissing in trees, there are three things that are supposed to follow – love, marriage, and children. In my pursuit of the baby in the baby carriage, I was frittering away two: the love and the marriage. I already had a wonderful life, doing work that I loved, in a city that I loved, with someone I loved. If I never had children, I’d still have that wonderful life.

We live in a culture of high expectations, where, as women, we expect to be able to have it all. But anyone who’s lived for any length of time knows that you don’t always get what you want.  I wanted motherhood, but it wasn’t meant to be, so I was left with two options: spend the rest of my life mourning what I’d lost and living with the hope that maybe a miracle would happen, or start figuring out how to build a life without children.

I chose the latter.

It was the hardest decision I’ve ever made, but now, two years later, I’m free to fully enjoy that fabulous marriage with that fabulous husband. Motherhood is only one small part of the life I imagined for myself and I am so much more than just an infertile woman. I discovered that there is life after infertility and that a life without children can still be a wonderful life.

For more information about infertility, please visit: http://www.resolve.org/infertility101

This post was written RESOLVE’S Bust a Myth Challenge. To learn more about National Infertility Awareness Week® (NIAW) go to: http://www.resolve.org/takecharge.