Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Our Stories: Angela

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Angela found Life Without Baby when she was researching “living childfree” online. After incredibly painful losses, she is moving forward in her journey toward acceptance, with some rough days along the way. Like those days when you’re caught in awkward situations, when some stranger asks if you have children, and you find yourself falling into an unexpected abyss of grief and loneliness. “I feel like a leper,” Angela wrote to me, “and that should not be the case.”

That’s why I feel these stories, our stories, are so important. We are here to remind each other “You are not alone.”

I hope for better days for Angela and all of us, days when we are heard, accepted, embraced, and appreciated for simply being ourselves.

I hope, after reading her story, you’ll reach out to Angela through the Comments to offer your support and encouragement.

Wishing you better days. — Kathleen

 

LWB: Briefly describe your dream of motherhood.

Angela: I always thought I’d get married before I was 30, have three amazing children, and move to a beautiful house in the countryside.

LWB: Are you childfree by choice, chance, or circumstance?

Angela: I hadn’t been able to conceive naturally, so my partner and I decided to try IVF. It worked the first time. I was elated and couldn’t believe that at last I was going to be a mother. Sadly, it turned out to be an ectopic pregnancy. I was devastated, but managed to pick myself up to do a couple more egg collections before doing a transfer. Again, I was pregnant, and this time it wasn’t ectopic, but sadly, I had a miscarriage. This was followed by an emergency D&C, then another D&C two months later to remove the remaining tissue. Due to the biopsy results of the removed tissue, I needed to see a gynecologic oncologist who performed a colposcopy and found that I had carcinoma in situ of the cervix and had to have a cold knife cone biopsy. It was only after this sorry saga was over that I able to grieve for the loss of my baby whilst simultaneously coming to terms how fortuitous it was that I had had a D&C when I did.

I did step back onto the IVF train four more times, but all four failed. My partner had moved on long before me, and I often felt like I couldn’t talk about my feelings to him without being told to move on, get counseling, therapy, anything.

Nevertheless, I finally decided that enough was enough after depleting much of our savings, being emotionally broken to the point where I couldn’t fall anymore, and making a promise to myself that I was going to live the rest of my life happy and strong, no matter what.

LWB: Where are you on your journey now?

Angela: I have now come to accept that my family of two makes me happy in so many ways. We are more appreciative of each other and what we have. I have even begun to embrace life again and accept that this is the life I was given, even if it wasn’t the one I would have chosen. It took me a very, very long time to get here, and although I still feel pangs of sadness—which I don’t think will ever go away—they don’t sting like they used to.

LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?

Angela: Not being able to experience loving, nurturing, and educating my own children from birth and beyond. The joy of being pregnant, the miracle of giving birth, and experiencing the ups and downs of being a parent and potential grandparent.

LWB: What’s the best part about not having children?

Angela: Being able to do what I want, when I want, and not ever having to burden myself with the financial stress that I see so many parents experience.

LWB: What have you learned about yourself?

Angela: I am stronger and more emotionally resilient than I ever imagined.

LWB: What is the best advice you’d offer someone else like you?

Angela: Life is tough. There will be dark days, maybe even months, and when you hit rock bottom, you will find the strength to fight back up to the top. It’ll take time, patience, a lot of reflection, and big doses of hard work, but don’t give up, because you have so much to look forward to. Life is waiting for you to embrace it and make it what you will, no matter what. Live authentically, compassionately, and learn to help others when they cannot help themselves.

LWB: What do you look forward to now?

Angela: A life with abundance: travel, getting my masters degree, starting a new career, making new friends, and simply living happy again without being on a rollercoaster of drugs, appointments, and emotional highs and lows that consume my every thought.

World Childless Week

 

This week is World Childless Week, a week-long international awareness campaign hosted by Stephanie Phillips.

Between September 10thand 16th, you’ll find a full calendar of articles, live discussions, awareness events, and other ways to participate. Each day has a different theme, including comments that hurt, finding acceptance, and self-expression through letters and art.

WCW Calendar of Events

 

There is also the social media #IAmMe campaign to show the face of childless individuals. The aim of the campaign is to raise awareness and eliminate the stigma surrounding childlessness. Here is my #IAmMe post:

 

You can learn more about the event and find out how to participate at WorldChildlessWeek.net   and by searching #WorldChildlessWeek on social media.

What Accepting Childlessness Means to Me

Guest Post, by Jane P (UK)

I first had a desire to accept—to let go of my plans for motherhood—when marriage issues and signs of depression followed six failed IVF cycles. My husband could not continue fertility treatment and I could not stop. I would not contemplate accepting infertility, as it meant a life without baby. After 17 years of marriage, the word “divorce” came up.

I asked my husband to help me accept.  He agreed to come to a counselling session with me at our local GP. There, the Counsellor asked, “What would a world look like to you if you could accept?” A simple question and my response was along these lines:

The bickering and arguments would stop. We would laugh again, we would plan again—not just plan, but look forward to things. (I felt that I had been going through the motions of life.)  I wouldn’t feel pain or anger every time I walked through the town or in the office, turned on the TV or heard a casual baby/child related comment from colleagues, friends. (Everything was a trigger. Every minute of every day I was consumed with a massive sadness that wouldn’t shift. I countered this thought for years with, “Next time we try it will be different.” It never was.)

So, I was left thinking about my reply to the question from the Counsellor. I needed to accept so that I could stop feeling the pain, I would stop arguing with my husband.  We would feel love again, enjoy life again…

I started to seek help. This came from LWB and through continuing to speak to the Counsellor. We found a way back to each other and through a final IVF treatment with donor eggs that ended with emergency surgery for an ectopic pregnancy. For the first two years I was tormented with wanting to try again, wanting to stop, but I’d promised myself and my husband that this was the end of the line.

Four years on, we stopped pursuing any more treatment.  I am now officially too old at 50!  So, why do I still wake up frequently and stare at the ceiling every day before forcing myself out of bed? Still ask the same questions, still feel the same sadness at the “motherhood” and baby conversations I overhear, still want to run away when a colleague makes an announcement, or leave my desk before her presentation on leaving day?

Initially, I thought acceptance would mean no more pain, looking forward to life again. Well, my marriage is back on track. I definitely look forward to things and plan fun events and holidays.  I seek to relish every day in small ways—my latte treat at 11:00, having my hair done, buying a new lipstick here and there.

The triggers are still there, though. They don’t have me running away anymore, and I counter the feelings with acknowledging the loss and rationalising that motherhood is full of difficult days as well as joyous ones. But, I still feel the pain, and recently I wondered if I have truly accepted.

The word “acceptance” conjures up a feeling that “it’s OK that I didn’t get to experience motherhood and hold my baby”.  But it’s not OK. You can’t stop the pain and it’s unrealistic to not feel the loss in some way.

So, maybe I don’t have to completely accept. Perhaps this is now what acceptance means to me:

Allowing myself to live again, letting in joy, loving my husband.  Not expecting to not feel sadness when I see pregnant women, small babies or toddlers. 

It means, loving myself, valuing myself, grabbing the life I have and enjoying it again with as much passion as possible!  

What does acceptance mean to you?

 

Note from Lisa:

Jane P (UK) has been a long-time member of the Life Without Baby community. We really appreciate her writing this heartfelt guest post.

It Got Me Thinking…About the Perks of Being Childfree

Woman thinking beside ocean

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

I’m working in my fuzzy gray slippers today. I can do this because I’m a freelancer, I work in an office in my home, and the only creatures likely to see me in less-than-professional attire are my dogs. On most days, I choose to get dressed to the shoes because it is part of my routine, my discipline. But on a day like today, I am relishing the little perks of my status.

Which got me thinking about some of the little perks of being childfree. We’ve talked about the big perks, like having extra money for luxury purchases, being able to sleep in on the weekends, and the flexibility to travel on a whim during the off-season. I’m starting to also appreciate some of the little everyday things, too. Like being able to turn on the TV or computer without first having to shut off parental controls, or being able to curse a blue stream when I stub my toe (i.e., not worrying that my child will later repeat those words in church). I like that the laundry is manageable in my household and that I really only have to go to the market once a week. I like that right now it’s quiet here and I can hear myself think.

I think a big part of this journey for me is moving from acceptance to appreciation. For so long, I could only see the woe-is-me side of life, the loss of the family I couldn’t have, the experiences I knew I’d miss. As I shift my perspective a bit, I’m starting to see all that I have, all that I’ve been given, all that I didn’t lose.

I wish for you today a sense of peace as you look at some of the perks in your life.

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

What Are You Struggling With?

Last week, while out on a walk, I watched a little frog make her (I assume) way across a pond. She was a feisty little thing, swimming like crazy as hard as she could, then pausing a while at a clump of pond weed or a log to catch her breath and regroup before swimming off again.

It struck me that her efforts were a good analogy for my own journey with coming-to-terms with not having children. I would battle through one set of emotions, then stop to rest and settle with the new mind-set for a while, only to discover some other trigger or unresolved issue, and off I’d go again to figure that out. Unlike my little froggy friend, my journey wasn’t a straight line across the pond and I often found I’d swum in a circle and needed to revisit an issue I thought I had under control.

Right now, today, I am well into the acceptance stage of my journey. I can be around small children and babies, and I’m not flooded with grief every time I get a pregnancy announcement (although I’m not yet to the point of being thrilled either.) I’m mostly at peace with the idea that motherhood won’t be a chapter in my personal history and I wrestle with some of my thoughts about the future and where I’ll end up.

Right now, I’m struggling with grandchildren. My husband has two grandchildren and it is a daily struggle to keep my emotions in balance. On the one hand, I don’t want to deny him the joy of being a grandfather. He’s good at it for one thing, and his grandchildren are mad for him. On the other hand, I find it very hard to share that joy. On the surface, I want to embrace this new adventure, but it’s hard, and I realize that tucked way down below the surface are some strong and well anchored feelings that I haven’t worked through yet. So, off I go again, swimming for the next patch of dry land.

Do you feel this way, too? Do you feel as if you keep rehashing the same problems, disguised as something else? What are you struggling with in your own journey right now?

Hope vs. Acceptance

In the past week two different people have made comments to me that have amounted to the same message: Don’t give up hope; there’s still a chance you could have a baby.

Whether you’re childless-by-choice, or by circumstance, I’m willing to bet you’ve had someone say something similar to you.

“It could still happen.”

“You’ll change your mind.”

“Don’t give up hope.”

The “don’t give up hope” type of comment is the one that hits me closest to the core. While I think that hope is key to human survival, I think it can be dangerous if it isn’t backed by action. Just hoping something will happen someday is how potential and lives get frittered away.

While I was trying to get pregnant, I was full of hope, but I was also doing everything I possibly could to make it happen. Now that I am no longer trying, I am no longer holding out hope.

But this doesn’t mean I feel hopeless. And this is what I want to be able to explain to people who still carry hope for me.

Losing hope of having children is very different from accepting and coming-to-terms with the fact that I won’t. I am not hopeless; I haven’t thrown in the towel; I haven’t rolled over and surrendered to my childlessness. I have made a conscious decision to stop my quest to conceive and for the past two years I’ve been working on coming-to-terms with that decision. I haven’t lost hope; I’ve just changed my outcome. I haven’t simply given up on the idea of having children; I’ve made a decision to live childfree.

I know that many of these comments are said with the best of intentions. People who care about us can’t bear to see us not get something we want, or not get something that they think we should want. There is still a pervading idea that people who don’t have children do, or eventually will, want them. But some of us just don’t, or won’t, or did once, but don’t anymore. For the latter group, it’s not about giving up hope; it’s about accepting what is and building a life from there.