Whiny Wednesday: M-Day Post-Mortem

May 15, 2013 19 Comments

Whiny_WednesdayI survived Mother’s Day relatively unscathed.

In a testament to how far we’ve come on our journey of coming-terms with infertility, Mr. Fab bought me flower and vegetable plants for my garden and told me they were a Mother’s Day gift from the cat. This is the first time he’s been able to say something like that and the first time I’ve been able to hear it without one or both of us sliding into a dark place. I call that progress.

I saw additional progress when we decided to go out for gelato and I noticed a sign announcing their Mother’s Day offer of a free scoop for moms. I decided I was okay with that, that it was a nice gesture, and that there was no need for me to kick up a stink about cruelly excluding those of us who didn’t get to be mothers. I ordered the two flavors I wanted and left it at that. And then…

“Do you want a third flavor?” asked the young, unsuspectingly girl.

“No thanks,” I said.

“We’re offering a free scoops for moms.”

“I know. I saw your sign.”

“Are you a mom?”

Beside me, I felt Mr. Fab brace for the storm. But I’m past all that, remember? So I shook my head, no.

The young girl made an apologetic face and finished scooping my TWO flavors.

“See where honesty gets you?” Mr. Fab muttered.

“Next year, I’m going to lie,” I said.

And this may be my tactic from now on. I’ll need an elaborate story to explain why I’m not with my kids on Mother’s Day, then I’ll just going around lying my head off, and gathering up the Mother’s Day swag.

I’ll report back next year on how this goes and how I actually feel about telling this particular whopper. I’ll also let you know if this is real progress or if my prior sadness and anger has just turned passive-aggressive.

For now, it’s Whiny Wednesday. If you’re still feeling the sting from this weekend, feel free to let it all out here.

 

 

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Current Affairs, Whiny Wednesdays Tagged With: , , ,

To Shower or Not To Shower

April 29, 2013 23 Comments

invitation - pixabayBy Solo Girl 

I have a large extended family; we have to rent a hall on Boxing Day so we can all get together.  And now all those sisters and female cousins are newly married and reproducing.  Every time a baby shower comes up I’m invited, and I wrestle with myself over whether or not I should be able to go yet.

I’ve always been supportive and encouraging with my family, happy to celebrate in another’s happiness.  It’s been four many years since my dream died, and I get the sense that I’m expected to be “over it” by now.

Unsure and not wanting family to think I’m selfish or emotionally immature, I went to a cousin’s baby shower about a year ago.  I mentally prepared myself ahead of time.  For example, I’m terrified of flying, but I know that there is lift-off, food, a movie and a landing, and then it’s done.  I thought about how there would be food, presents and games at this shower, and then it would be done.  I thought to myself “I should be able do this, even my own Mom is expecting me to go.”

I thought the worst part would be the games, but I was wrong.  It was the chitchat.  I actually got stuck between my mother and a cousin having a conversation on the couch about how all the women in our family have long labors.  Seriously.  When I got home I wrote myself a note in black marker and stuck it on my kitchen pin board where it still remains today:  “You never have to go to another baby shower ever again.  No one will notice; no one will care.  It’s torturous.  Don’t Go.  Don’t feel guilty”.

But a year later I still get shower invites and I continue to question whether I am – or should be – ready to attend now.  And I want to know, is it ever going to be something I can attend?  And what can I tell my family that will help them understand how painful it is to attend without sounding like I’m feeling sorry for myself after all this time?  They have high expectations of me, and I really do think they mean well.  I was in a deep depression four years ago, and I think they are trying to make me normal again.  I think.

I’m glad Irina Vodar is producing a documentary on the subject of infertility that some helpful social norms will come of it.

How do you handle these situations?

Solo Girl lives on her own with her 2+ dogs in Ontario, Canada.  She focuses her time on volunteer work and fostering rescue dogs.

 

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Family and Friends, Guest Bloggers Tagged With: , , , ,

It Got Me Thinking…About Hug Deprivation

April 26, 2013 5 Comments

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods 

I had a great life. I’d started and was running a successful business. I had a tribe of smart, funny, and supportive women friends. I was healthy and fit. Furthermore, I was coming to terms with the possibility that I would remain single and childfree, and I was becoming more confident that I could create a fulfilling life for myself, by myself. I had everything I needed and I was happy.

Until.

During an extraordinary two-week period, I took care of my 15-month-old nephew, Jake, while his parents traveled. We danced, we laughed. He threw tantrums, I stressed about keeping the house together and keeping him from getting hurt. Everything was somewhat under control. Then one night, while I was in the kitchen washing the dinner dishes, he came up behind me, threw his arms around my leg in a tight hug, kissed the back of my calf, then toddled back to the living room.

“Thanks, Jake!” I managed to get out before tears locked up my voice. A current of love surged from my leg and throughout my body as I sobbed into the soapy water. I was struck by the realization of how touch deprived I had been for so long. Sure, friends greeted each other with a light hug and peck on the cheek. It wasn’t even the passion of a romantic relationship that I longed for. It was the daily human interaction, the hugs and kisses, the gentle caresses, the genuine affection, the skin-to-skin contact, something moms get (and have even been heard to complain about).

At that time in my life, I had none of that in my home. What made me a bit scared was that I hadn’t even noticed. It had become my “normal” and I hadn’t thought anything of it until Jake reawakened the need in me.

When I got back home, I brainstormed how I might create more physical affection in my life. I ruled out engaging in one-night stands and, well, hiring male escorts, both of which lacked the “genuine” aspect I needed. I thought about scheduling more frequent massages. I lavished my dog with belly rubs, which helped some. Was it enough? Would it be enough?

The one answer that made sense to me was that in order to receive, I needed to give. I could visit elderly residents of retirement homes, providing them with conversation, attention, and gentle touches. I could become more huggie with my friends, especially my single friends. I could offer to babysit, giving my mom-friends breaks they needed and getting some cuddling time with the children who inhabit my circles.

Are you aware of this need in yourself? If you’ve come up with creative solutions, please share them with us in a comment. Meanwhile (and I know this is just a tidbit), please consider yourself cyber-hugged.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is wrapping up her memoir about being a temporary single mommy and how it helped her come to terms with being childfree.

 

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Children, Guest Bloggers, Infertility and Loss, It Got Me Thinking... Tagged With: , , , , ,

It Got Me Thinking…About To Do Lists

April 19, 2013 4 Comments

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Back when I was planning a life with babies, I created two separate to do lists. List #1 was all the fun things I wanted to do while I was still footloose and fancy-free. At the time I was anticipating single motherhood, I didn’t want to have any regrets about what I would be sacrificing, so my list included indulgences such as reading the big classic books, watching all of Oscar’s Best Picture winners, and exploring different countries and sampling their wines.

List #2 included all the fun things I wanted to do with my children, such as teaching them how to make my gram’s Christmas coffee cake, singing songs around campfires, coaching their sports teams, and demonstrating the art of touching their noses with their tongues.

I cranked through List #1, confident that I was on my path. Aaah…but life is what happens when you’ve made other plans. When I realized that baby-making was not going to happen for me, List #2 became a source of great pain. It mocked me. And what made it even more unbearable was that for the first time in my life, I didn’t have a to do list and I didn’t know how to go about creating a new one.

It seemed at times that the fearless, focused, fired-up woman I used to be had gone into hiding. I missed the gal who had passion and drive, the dreamer who confidently made plans and optimistically pursued them. Who was this “new” woman and what did she want out of life?

I don’t have answers yet. I’m still in a weird limbo, knowing that all I need is a big dream to set my heart aflutter again, then I can go about creating List #3. Till then, my list looks something like this:

  • Pray
  • Listen to my heart
  • Follow my curiosity
  • Live in the now
  • Find joy in every day

Deep down I’m still that fearless gal, I just need to stretch my muscles and start using them again. And most of all, I need to trust that even if my life doesn’t follow my plans to a T, I will still experience something wonderful.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is wrapping up her memoir about being a temporary single mommy and how it helped her come to terms with being childfree.

 

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Guest Bloggers, Infertility and Loss, It Got Me Thinking... Tagged With: , , ,

Asparagus in my Future

April 15, 2013 6 Comments

asparagus - pixabay.comLast month I did something I’ve been thinking about for years and which signified a real and definite change in my outlook on life. I planted an asparagus bed.

For those of you who aren’t horticulturally-inclined, planting an asparagus bed is kind of a big deal. Asparagus takes up a lot of space, with tall spreading plants. The plants don’t produce edible asparagus in the first year and have to be carefully tended and consistently watered to produce crisp, delicious spears the following year. With care, the plants will continue to produce year after year, but planting a bed means dedicating a large patch of garden and making a long-term commitment, which is why I haven’t done it before and why it’s so significant to me now.

So much in my life has been uncertain for so long that I’ve found it hard to make plans for a month in advance, let alone commit to a project that will take at least a year to come to fruition and will mean an ongoing commitment of many years. Ever since my future as a mother began to look uncertain, I haven’t been able to form a clear picture of how my life might look down the road.  Setting goals and making plans has felt pointless when I’ve no idea what my desired destination is anymore.

Although having a bed of homegrown asparagus isn’t exactly a fully-formed picture of my ideal life, and there is certainly a lot of fuzziness around the path my life will take now, my decision to commit to planting took forward planning and feels like the beginnings of commitment and permanence. It’s a step towards a positive future…and a very tasty future, at that.

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Current Affairs, Fun Stuff, Health Tagged With: , , , , ,

What a Difference Three Letters Makes

April 8, 2013 5 Comments

Maybe BabyBy Maybe Lady Liz

Coming to the end of my three and a half mile torture session on the treadmill, I found a final burst of energy when what I thought was going to be an incredibly uplifting commercial came on. It was for Walt Disney World (hey, I watch soap operas – I’m just glad when it’s not a diaper commercial) and featured a mid-thirties-ish couple having a real blast by themselves. It went through a litany of things that people without kids can enjoy when thinking about planning a spontaneous trip to the Happiest Place on Earth…

No homework to check…

No school vacations to work around…

No photos with Mickey…

It finished by introducing them as “Mark and Natalie with no kids…” over an image of them looking madly in love at a romantic dinner. Just as I’m thinking, “Whoa, Disney – way to go on representing the childless and the Childfree!”, they drop their three-letter bomb:

YET.

*Sigh* I went from being totally jazzed about how such a mainstream company had the forethought to be inclusive of the 20 percent of us who don’t have kids, to being totally bummed by the realization that we’re probably a long ways away from that.

Needless to say, I hopped off the treadmill and immediately made myself a martini.

Maybe Lady Liz is blogging her way through the decision of whether to create her own Cheerio-encrusted ankle-biters, or remain Childfree. You can follow her through the ups and downs at MaybeBabyMaybeNot.com.

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Children, Guest Bloggers, Maybe Baby, Maybe Not Tagged With: , , , ,

It Got Me Thinking…About Unfriending

March 22, 2013 10 Comments

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods 

Due to some unfortunate security issues, I recently had to “unfriend” several “friends” and business acquaintances from my personal Facebook page. I sent individual messages to each person to explain that this would be happening and express my hope that this wouldn’t cause any hard feelings. It wasn’t a fun process.

But, when it was all done, I found it was rather liberating. Friends-of-friends-of-friends and coworkers-of-coworkers who really had no business being in my personal business were removed, leaving me with a smaller circle of real friends, people with whom I actually want to keep in touch.

And it got me thinking about other things I’d like to unfriend. Like entertainment shows that consider having a baby newsworthy, magazines for mothers that masquerade as magazines for “women,” and books (typically classics) that feature a female character who has gone insane because she couldn’t give her husband children.

While I’m at it, I wouldn’t mind temporarily unfriending anyone who relays in great detail their baby’s smallest developments (“She pooped!”) and skipping over the royal pregnancy (I mean, congratulations and good luck to the Prince and Duchess, but spare me the nine months of “news”).

This could, of course, get out of control, and I could find myself friendless, but it has some appeal, doesn’t it? You tell me: What would you like to unfriend this week?

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

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Current Affairs, Guest Bloggers, It Got Me Thinking... Tagged With: , , , ,

Infertility Girl

March 18, 2013 10 Comments

typewriterLast month I interviewed author Jennie Nash about her new novel, Perfect Red. Before she was known as a fiction writer, Jennie wrote a book about her battle with breast cancer. The Victoria’s Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming is a wonderful book and has been a big success for Jennie, but she doesn’t talk about it much anymore. “I didn’t want to be “Cancer Girl” anymore, she says.

When I meet new people, they usually ask one of two questions: “Do you have kids?” or “What do you do for a living.” Eventually either of these two questions leads to the same awkward conversation about Infertility Girl.

When people ask me what I do for a living, I happily tell them I’m a writer. The next question is always, “Oh, what do you write?” Sometimes, if I’m feeling particularly strong and confident, or if the person feels like an empathetic type, I’ll tell them about my book and this site, and that I write a lot about coming-to-terms with not having children. More often than not, I find myself offering a blurry answer about writing articles for websites, which is also true, but not the whole truth.

It’s not that I’m ashamed of what I do or the subject on which I write. It’s just that I don’t want my childlessness to be the first thing people know about me. I don’t want to become Infertility Girl.

When people ask me what I do for a living, I want to be able to tell them “I’m a novelist.” The only problem with this is that I’ve yet to finish a publishable novel. (And any of you writers out there will probably read between the lines that I have two full and two half manuscripts hidden in a drawer, not yet fit to see the light of day.)

So, a decision has been made. I need to finish my novel. This year. And get it published. Which means something’s got to give.

So, beginning this week, I’ll be posting to the blog only three days a week instead of five. Look out for me on Mondays and Whiny Wednesday on Wednesdays (I wouldn’t dare take that away!) Kathleen’s It Got Me Thinking… column will move to Fridays and there will still be guest bloggers making appearances at various times.

I’ll admit I considered starting a new blog about writing a novel, but even I could see the futility of cutting back on one blog to make time for writing, only to start up another blog! Just know that I’ll be taking notes for the future.

Is Life Without Baby going away? Heck, no. It’s just playing nice and sharing brain space with something new, and giving Infertility Girl the chance be Novel Girl as well.

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Current Affairs, Infertility and Loss Tagged With: , , , , ,

It Got Me Thinking…About Excuses

March 5, 2013 10 Comments

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.

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Children, Guest Bloggers, It Got Me Thinking... Tagged With: , , , ,

Why Don’t You Just Adopt?

March 4, 2013 16 Comments

storkLast week, Tracey at La Belette Rouge tackled the question, “Why Don’t You Just Adopt?” She asked me if I’d be willing to contribute my thoughts on the topic. Her innocent request resulted in a six-page diatribe in my journal!

Of all the thoughtless questions we childless and childfree folks are asked, this has to be among the most insensitive and least thought through. I’m always left feeling as if the person asking the question is judging me as some kind of lesser human being because I thoroughly researched all the options, weighed the odds, factored in the condition of my already broken heart, and made an educated decision that adoption wasn’t right for me.

As I say, I have another six pages of discussion to add to this topic, but I contributed a more concise one-page version to Tracey.

You can read what she, Pamela from Silent Sorority, Loribeth from The Road Less Travelled, and I have to say on this topic, plus the comments by other thoughtful readers, in Tracey’s post.

What do you say when someone asks this question? And what would you like to say if you weren’t so well brought up?

Filed Under: Childless Not By Choice, Infertility and Loss Tagged With: , , , , ,
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