Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Giving a Voice to Infertility

Producer, Irina Vodar

Filed under F for “Forces to be Reckoned With” I guarantee you’ll find Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos. In case you’ve never come across Pamela, she’s the dynamo behind the award-winning book Silent Sorority and the newly revamped blog of the same name.

 

And now she’s part of the advisory board behind a new documentary about infertility that hopes to lift the stigma around that topic.

 

Pamela writes:

 

“How can we talk about infertility, how can we help someone process infertility if we lack a common language or socialized behavior to do so?”

 

You can read an interview with the documentary’s producer, Irina Vodar, in Pamela’s recent blog post.

 

This project needs support, so please also take a moment to leave a comment on Pamela’s post and answer this question:

 

What’s been your experience with infertility, and why do you think this documentary needs to be made?

 

I’ll look forward to seeing this project come to life and giving a voice to what so many of us have dealt with in silence.

 

Your Stories

Young woman sitting on floor with a laptopSadly, I have no guest post this week. But you can change that!!

I’d love to share your writing here. Even if you think you’re not a writer, you have something to say, a story to tell, a point-of-view to share. And if you think you’re the only person to ever feel a certain way, I promise you, you’re not.

If you need some inspiration, here a few recent posts from Kathleen, Sparkling Rain, Maybe Lady Liz, Amelia Ricardo, and Robin.

If you’d like to share your story, please take a look at the writer’s guidelines for ideas and suggestions. If you’re concerned about privacy, you’re very welcome to writer under a pseudonym. And if you have a blog or website of your own to share, I’m more than happy to toot your horn.

I looking forward to hearing what you have to say.

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayI don’t have a whine today as I just got back from four days in Hawaii, and I can’t bring myself to find anything at all to whine about.

But if you’ve been snow-bound, work-bound, or anything-bound, feel free to get it off your chest here. It is Whiny Wednesday after all.

It Got Me Thinking…About Excuses

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods 

At 10 pm I was at my computer, reviewing my presentation for an early morning meeting, when an e-mail from the client came through. He had forgotten about an event at his kid’s school and needed to reschedule. Seriously?!

Now, I never want to disappoint a child and think parents should support as many events as possible. However. Four other people had cleared their schedules to be at this meeting. We all made sacrifices, both personal and professional, to be in attendance. I’d been prepping for days, and I’d turned down other work to get started on the project (lost money for a freelancer). Had I been in bed instead of in my office that night, I would not have seen the last-minute e-mail and would have shown up at the meeting location as scheduled, thus losing another day of work. What pissed me off the most was this guy never even apologized for inconveniencing the rest of us, he just requested that we  “reschedule as soon as possible.”

It got me thinking about all the times I’ve heard parents use their kids as excuses:

  • I can’t work late tonight/this weekend/over the holiday because of the kids. (Which leaves me, the childfree person, to pick up the slack.)
  • I missed the deadline/didn’t finish the name tags/couldn’t bake the cupcakes I promised because my kid kept me awake last night. (So now I have to scramble to get it done and cover your butt at the eleventh hour?)
  • I have to leave early (and leave all the extra work with you) to pick up my kid/go to my kid’s soccer game/get groceries for the kids’ dinner. (I have a life too, dangnabbit!)
  • I’m late because of my kid.
  • I’m tired because of my kid.
  • I’m cranky because of my kid.

I get it. Being a parent is exhausting, time-consuming, and crazy work. But I want to say to the people who overuse this excuse: SUCK IT UP! You chose this life, so take responsibility for your responsibilities. Either that or be ready to accept without complaint my excuse that “I just don’t feel like covering for you this weekend because you missed the deadline and it’s made me cranky.”

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She desperately needs a vacation, preferably one involving sunny beaches and fruity cocktails.

Silver Linings

beach-ocean4Mr. Fab and I are off to Hawaii this weekend.

Three weeks ago we decided we could use a weekend away. We have a ton of frequent flier miles to use, so we looked to see where we could go that wasn’t cold and snowy, or overrun with drug cartel. Hawaii was it.

We flipped through our calendars, found a free weekend, and booked the flights. We found a condo, a rental car, and a hotel near the Oakland airport for the night before our early morning flights. Done. We’re going.

Tonight I’ll toss a bathing suit, flip flops, and a book or two into a carry-on bag, plus a couple of dresses for the evening, and we’re outta here. By the time some of you read this today, I will be horizontal on a beach towel, fully on Island Time.

For the purposes of this post, I gave a little thought to how this story might have unfolded if we’d decided to take an impromptu weekend away with a baby in tow. It’s possible it could have been much the same, right until the packing began, but once I reached the part where I’m juggling a baby, a stroller, a car seat, and three suitcases of paraphernalia through the airport, I stopped trying to imagine what my “dream” life would have been like.

I’m in no denial about the many wonderful things I won’t get to experience because I don’t have children, but nor am I going to lie to myself or anyone else about the silver linings that have come along too.

My impromptu trip is definitely one of them.

You’re Not Alone: The Things People Say

shhhBy SparklingRain

Much as I wish to be able to say that I am my own best advocate, sometimes other people’s words would fly into my ears and get lodged in the corners of my heart. There are also times, when against my logic, I would lie awake and think of each of these words, trying to figure out why exactly they hurt so much.

You see, I married the love of my life exactly two months before I turned 34, and this alone was enough for some people to judge me “too old to start having children”.  In the subsequent 5 years of our marriage, when it was clear as day that no child was on the way/on the floor/in our arms, I built a collection of bizarre comments, proof that people can be ruthless with their words.

Here are some of the comments I have collected so far:

  1. From a 53 year-old female colleague:  “Those not blessed with children simply do not have the capacity to handle such big responsibility. You just have to realize that and count your blessing.”
  2. From a 40–something brother-in-law: “So, what’s the deal here? When are you having a child? I know; you’ll wait until your hair turns white, right?”
  3. From 73 year-old mother-in-law (who already has 9 grandchildren from husband’s 4 siblings), on the day I got my PhD: “Of course she can finish school. She does not have children.”
  4. From a 33 year-old female colleague to whom I regrettably confided that we might have male factor infertility: “So have you really accepted the fact that you’ll be childless forever? Why don’t you persuade your husband to get some treatments? Oh I know, you two are too old anyway, right?”
  5. (Same person as no.1): “Having children at your age is just so risky; you’d better stay childless unless you want children with severe ailments.”
  6. From a 60-something female ob-gyn whom I saw once for a regular check-up unrelated to infertility: “Are you sure you don’t want any children? I’ve known people who, in their old age, regret not pursuing fertility treatments.”

My husband, bless him, has the clear logic not to process these kinds of comments in his brain.  I have been trying to follow his example, but I don’t always succeed.  I am a naturally happy person and I certainly don’t carry the world’s burden on my shoulders.  However, comments like the ones above sometimes creep too far into my brain and darken my world.

I know it is up to me whether or not to let others’ ruthless words to affect me.  What I didn’t know was that it might take years before I can gracefully let rude comments slide. I also suspect people will comment without thinking 99% of the time, so I will be in a dark place 99% of the time too, unless I can truly make peace with our childlessness. Which, unfortunately, is not so easy in reality.

Therefore, as for now, whenever a rude comment is thrown my way and I can handle it without punching the offender in the mouth, I allow myself to celebrate.  Celebrations have so far include buying myself new lipsticks, and um, nice clothes.

Please tell me that it in time the comments will disappear/ I will grow a nice thick protective hide/ things will be okay. Meanwhile, somebody just asked whether my marriage was still intact despite the years of childlessness; I think I ought to go and buy myself a nice new bag.

SparklingRain lives with her husband and several outdoor cats in Indonesia. She blogs at  “As Fictional As the Truth.”

 

To learn how to submit your story to “You’re Not Alone,” please visit the Writer’s Guidelines page.

Whiny Wednesday: The Public

Whiny_WednesdayYesterday I took myself down to my local library to do some nice, quiet research. It wasn’t to be. Instead I got a loudly hissed lesson on sentence structure from a homeschooling mom who’d decided to turn the public library into her own private classroom.

I hightailed it to a nearby café and found a quiet corner near a woman who was busily working on her laptop. All was fine until she made a phone call and began loudly exchanging her clients’ confidential financial information. I now know exactly how much money several members of my community have in their retirement accounts. Fortunately, none of them were people I knew personally.

It’s always amazing to me how people lose sight of the fact that public places are exactly that…public!

It’s Whiny Wednesday (hurray!) who or what’s rubbed you the wrong way this week?

It Got Me Thinking…About Labels

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods

I play a lot of roles in life: friend, sister, writer, daughter, gym rat, wife, aunt, citizen of the world. They are all important to me, but I would argue that not one, on its own, defines me. I think maybe that’s why I get irked when I hear people trying to pigeonhole others by saying things like, “She’s your gay friend, right?” Um, no. She would be my friend, period. The fact that she happens to be gay is only part of who she is. (And, by the way, from an editor’s point of view, I have many friends who happen to be gay, not just one.) It’s like saying someone is an Irish cop or that fat actress or a Catholic conservative. It smacks of bigotry and it feels demeaning, whether the comment is spoken consciously or not.

That’s why I think it stung when someone recently referred to me as “circumstantially infertile.” Have you heard this term? It means a woman who has not had children due to life circumstances: hasn’t met the right guy, opted not to be a single parent, ran out of time on her biological clock. This in part describes my life path, although I’ve become more comfortable with the term we use around these parts, “childfree,” which I’ve now been informed means someone who has “chosen” not to have children.

Po-tay-toes, po-tah-toes?

I suppose labels help people better understand me, possibly be better able to relate to me, but it feels like they are used more often to separate and isolate us. I am a human being who happens to be circumstantially infertile. Emphasis on “human being.” There’s so much more to me than that one little label, and I hope people will take time to look beyond that and get acquainted with all the other parts that make me, well, me. I promise to do the same.

Meanwhile, I’d like to hear what you think about the whole label issue. What, if any, label do you use to describe your status and how do you feel when you hear others use it to define you?

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.

 

Hunting for the Old Me

thoughtsI’m doing really well at being at peace with not having children. But some days the darkness comes over me. Do you know what I mean?

Ordinarily, the darkness is a tiny ball. I carry it around with me wherever I go, and usually it’s safely tucked away and I don’t even notice it. Then something happens to flip the lid and suddenly the darkness has crept into every open space within me.

I’m tired of carrying the darkness around and I’m ready to let it go. I don’t want to feel bitter or sad about not having children, because honestly, I’m okay. But sometimes I can’t remember who I am any more. When I look in the mirror I don’t see me. I see a woman who looks tired and overweight, and very, very serious about life. She doesn’t laugh easily or live with abandon, like the real me used to. She’s cautious and unwilling to let herself go. She feels like a square peg in a world full of round holes and it’s lonely sometimes.

Our experiences make us who we are, but what happens to who we were? In a universe where energy remains constant, the old me — the laughing, carefree joyous me — must still be around. I catch glimpses of her sometimes, and like a huntress, I follow her into the woods. And yet, so often, she manages to evade me.

So, all I can do is be patient, keep an eye on her and keep moving towards her. I know she still exists, and one day, if I keep hunting her, I know I’ll catch up with her again. Then maybe we can stand together again and let the darkness go.

Decluttering Baby Stuff

releaseIn her blog Baptism By Fire, Wolfers wrote a wonderful post about our emotional attachment to clutter, and how she wasn’t yet ready to let go of her baby-related items.

It’s been a couple of years already since I reached the point of being ready to let go of my baby clutter, so I was surprised by the emotions that stirred up when I read her post.

As I never actually became pregnant, I accumulated only a few baby items. It took me several years before I had the courage to say goodbye to them, but when I did let them go, it was sad, but not difficult. I was ready.

The things that brought on the strongest wave of emotions were all the books I’d bought over the years as I’d tried to uncover the magic formula to my fertility. I had books on Chinese medicine, diet, mindfulness, you name it, and I can remember feeling so angry when I put them in the donation box. I felt as if I’d been taken for a ride by these authors who had promised me a miracle. I felt duped and cheated—and really, really mad.

They’re out of my life now and largely out of my mind, but even though they’re gone, they’ve still left a mark where they used to be. And sometimes that mark gets sore again.

What have you held onto and what have you been able to let go?