Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Remembering why you got together in the first place

If you’re in a relationship and you’ve faced infertility or loss, odds are you’ve been through the wringer. Few people are at their best under stress and when that stress is prolonged, sometimes for years, the edges of even the strongest relationship can get a little frayed and tattered.

Part of the process of coming-to-terms with a life without children is patching that old relationship and moving on down the road. But how do you even start that when so much water has gushed under the bridge? It’s hard. Sometimes when so much has changed, it’s easy to lose track of why the pair of you ever got together in the first place, but those reasons form the glue that will hold the hold mess together when things go wrong.

So, what was it about your spouse that made you decide this was the person you wanted to have children with? What made you fall in love with him or her in the first place?

When your plans for a family don’t go right, take some time to reconnect with your partner to remember what it was that made you ever start out on this journey.

Oh, and don’t forget to keep the spark ignited in the passion department. See this post for ideas!

The Five Stages of Grief

In her 1969 book On Death and Dying, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross described the five stages of grief as Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. If you’ve been given a diagnosis of infertility, suffered the loss of a pregnancy or baby, or you’ve reached a point in your life where you realize that motherhood just isn’t on the cards, odds are you’re all too familiar with these five stages.

Have you ever caught yourself saying some of these things?

“This can’t be happening to me?” “I’m perfectly healthy; what do you mean my tubes are blocked?” “I’m only 38; I’m too young to be infertile.” “I’m 42; there’s still time.”

That’s the Denial talking.

“It’s not fair.” “Why me?” “She doesn’t deserve to be a mother.” “Why is there no logic to the way blessings are handed out?”

That would be the Anger Stage.

How about: “I’ll just try this one last thing and then I’ll stop.” “If I can just relax, I know it will happen.” “If I lower my expectations, maybe I’ll meet someone worthy of being the father of my children.”

Yup. Bargaining.

“If I can’t be a mother, what’s the point of me?” “I must have done something to bring this on myself.” “No one understands what I’m going through. I feel so alone.”

Classic Depression.

“It’s going to be okay.” “So, you don’t always get what you want. At least I have my health/husband/career/golden retriever.”

This is at least the start of Acceptance.

As Kübler-Ross pointed out, the stages don’t always happen in this order, or in any logical sequence at all. May you got stuck in anger for a long time and skipped the bargaining all together, or maybe you went straight to acceptance, only to slip on one of life’s banana peels and end up right back in depression.

The thing is, it’s okay, it’s normal, and it won’t last forever.

Kübler -Ross applied her theory to death. In this situation, some people struggle with death until the end. Some psychologists believe that the harder a person fights death, the more likely they will be to stay in the denial stage, and the less likely they are to die in a dignified way.

Unlike someone facing death, we have somewhere to go after our losses. We have the chance for a new, if different, life. And while going through the five stages can be ugly and unpleasant, the key is to come out the other end with our dignity intact.

How Did You Know You Wouldn’t Have Children?

I write a lot about issues that affect me now that I’ve more or less come to terms with the fact that I won’t have children. Looking back over the past two or three years, I can see just how far I’ve come, and I’m pleased. Unfortunately, that’s not always very helpful for readers just beginning their journeys and sometimes I’m asked, “How did you get there?”

It’s a good question, but it doesn’t have a simple answer, so I thought I’d take a look back at some of the milestones that shaped my journey and try to analyze what made a difference for me.

Today, I’m starting with The Decision. How did you know you were going have to figure out how to come to terms with being childfree?

If you dealt with infertility, a doctor probably gave you a diagnosis that you knew would mean the end of the line, but if you were anything like me, you didn’t just throw up your hands at that point and say, “Okay, well I guess I just won’t bother trying anymore, then.” So, when did you know you were at that point?

If you are childfree by some circumstance other than infertility, maybe your journey was different. Maybe you toyed with the idea of having children despite your situation. How did you know that motherhood was definitely not going to be a part of your future?

And if you are childfree-by-choice, when did you know you wouldn’t have children?

I think all our stories are different, because it’s such a big milestone in our lives and not something that changes in an instant. For me, a number of factors were in play, but I think the biggest one was that I knew my husband and I were suddenly on different tracks. I think that he knew (although he didn’t like it) that it wasn’t going happen for us, whereas I was still running from doctor to doctor trying to find something that would work. I could feel us begin to drift apart and I finally realized that my marriage was more important to me than trying to prove that I wasn’t infertile.

“Don’t you mean you realized that your marriage was more important than having children, Lisa?”

No. And that’s one of the other factors in this. I realized that my quest was no longer about having children; it was about winning and proving that I wasn’t broken. My doctor had told me that using donor eggs would give me about a 50 percent chance of conceiving, but I didn’t want to use donor eggs and I didn’t want to go through IVF. That was my choice for my own reasons. But if having children was my top priority, wouldn’t I have done whatever it takes?

This is way too much public psychoanalysis for me right now, so let’s just say that my decision to get off the crazy train came slowly. There were many events that happened that pushed me towards the decision and many more that made me change my mind again along the way. Eventually though, I reached the Tipping Point and started figuring out how I was going to come to terms with the fact that something was wrong with me and that I wasn’t going to have children.

How about you? How did you get to that point? Please share your stories; yours could be the one that makes a big difference to someone who is trying to start coming to terms.

Let’s Talk About Sex

A new reader, let’s call her Kerry, contacted me recently and had this to say:

“I’m in the coming-to-terms stage. Being 35 and on the crazy train for 5 years is enough for my husband and me.  I would like to hear from others about how to deal with (sigh…) loss of libido.  I assume I’m not the only one?  But I don’t know what to do about it, other than see a therapist, and I don’t really know how that will help anyway.  I used to have a sex drive like a MAN and TTC seems to have killed it almost completely.  This causes me much sadness, embarrassment and anger, and I have no idea how to fix my body’s refusal to enjoy sex!  I want to get back to enjoying my life, and this is a huge barrier.”

Let’s face it: having sex on-demand is like being force-fed chocolate. It sounds like a lot of fun at first, but it doesn’t take long for the novelty to wear off.

If you’ve been on the TTC (trying to conceive) merry-go-round, you know all about charting fertility and the mad scramble for the bedroom when that little line on the ovulation test stick shows up. After just a couple of months of failed attempts, it’s difficult to muster the enthusiasm to keep trying, especially as the success of the mission depends so much on both people being “in the mood” and even “in the moment.” Add to that the fact that the most intimate parts of your anatomy have been paraded before countless doctors, and the whole think quickly loses its allure.

From my own experience, I remember how sex became a frustrating chore and how quickly it stopped being about fun or even love. I also found that, once sex was associated with trying to conceive and all the emotional baggage that comes along with it, it was hard to separate the two again. But it’s possible.

I am no expert on the psychology of sex and libido, but I can speak from my own experience, so I will.

It does come back. It takes time and it’s part of the healing process. Once my husband and I got some distance from our experience and were truly on the road to moving on, we were able to focus on one another again, and the love that brought us together in the first place was still there. In fact, I think that the experience we went through together has brought us closer in many ways. We talked about it a lot (a LOT!!) and both agreed that, as awful as the infertility experience was, we were glad we went through it with each other, and not with someone else. In many ways, it has brought us closer and it helps to remember that.

As for getting the old libido back on track, pick up almost any women’s magazine and it will have an article on rekindling the passion – warm bath, candles, lingerie, toys. I think the trick is finding the thing that works for you. Warm baths and candles, for instance, are a sure way to put me to sleep. Here’s what does work for me. [Note to my husband: you should have stopped reading this post about five paragraphs ago. Sorry.] Commit to a minute. Just one minute. Even if you’re not in the mood, you can do anything for a minute. Agree that if it’s going nowhere after a minute, you’ll stop. Odds are, once you’re actually in the throes of intimacy, the rest will follow.

Ladies, what has been your experience in this department? Do you have any advice for Kerry? Please share it.

I Failed My Own Test

Do you ever test yourself to see just how well you’re really doing with this whole “coming-to-terms” business? I’ve been doing it a lot lately. I’ve been inserting myself into mothering conversations, just to gauge how it makes me feel. I’ve started smiling at other people’s babies again, to see if it stirs up any dormant emotions. The other week, as I was driving past Babies R Us, I seriously considered pulling in and just walking around the store to see if I could do it. I realized it was a crazy idea, and I went home instead, but I’m pretty sure I would have been okay. Based on all these tests, in fact, I’d say I’m doing pretty well at re-entering the real world, where mothers and babies exist.

So, when I found myself in a conversation with a pregnant woman last week, it really was no big deal. I was genuinely happy for her and chatted about names and the baby’s sex, and how she was doing. No big deal. When she pulled a strange face I asked her if she was okay.

“Oh yes,” she said. “He’s just moving around. ”

I laughed and asked her what it was like.

“Here,” she said. “Do you want to feel him?”

Before I knew it I had my hands on her belly and I was looking at her wide-eyed as I felt her baby’s little backside sticking up in the air and a tiny pointy elbow poking out to one side.

“That’s amazing,” I told her. And it was.

As I drove home later that night, that baby was all I could think about. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a tidal wave of emotions barreling towards me and there was nothing I could do to get out of the way.

I could picture her little guy clearly and I imagined what it must be like to have another human being grow and move inside me. I could feel it. And then the what-ifs started. What if we tried IVF and it worked? What if we found an egg donor; wouldn’t it be worth it to go through that? And even as the logical side of my brain was listing all the good reasons to not even entertain these thoughts, the other side was cooking up a plan to offer myself up as a surrogate for another woman, just so I could experience what it would be like to be pregnant.

I’m not going to tell you that these were fleeting thoughts, nor am I going tell you how I laughed at my craziness and put these silly thoughts behind me; neither of those is true. But I am going to tell you that I know that this won’t be the last time this happens to me. My infertility is up there at the top of the “life-changing events” list in my life. And like the other experiences, it’s always going to be with me. Most of the time it will just hang out in the back of my mind and not give me too much trouble, but every now and then, something is going to trigger my memories and all those emotions will come rushing back. I think that’s just a part of being human.

The Sliding Scale of Coming-to-Terms

J and I just purchased a used trombone. In the very early stages of our relationship we discovered all sorts of odd things we had in common, one of which is that we both played the trombone as teenagers. Anyway, we’ve been talking about learning to play again, and we finally found a used instrument in good condition.

 

The main difference between a trombone and other brass instruments is that you make the notes by moving a slide up and down, rather hitting a key. It makes it a lot more difficult to hit just the right note. It’s also what makes the trombone so much fun to play, because you can slide easily from note to note, up and down and back again.

 

The reason I’m telling you all this is that today I’ve been thinking a lot about the whole coming-to-terms process. I’ve been thinking about it in terms of school grades, with the freshman class having just made the decision to live childfree or to stop fertility treatments, and having no idea how to start getting used to the idea. They eventually graduate to acceptance and begin to find a way to get happy, and ultimately go on to live a full and happy life without children.

 

But it’s really not that simple. You never really do hit all the notes precisely and in order. It’s much more like playing a trombone, where you slide from one state to the next and sometimes back again. One day, you’re content and determined to make the most of your situation, then something happens to trigger all those old emotions and you find yourself sliding back down. Then you get to talk someone who understands you and you feel like you can really figure this out…until your friend announces a pregnancy and back down you go again.

 

So, I’m wondering, where are you on the sliding scale of coming-to-terms? Where are you right now and have you been better or been worse? Do you feel that, even though you have setbacks, you’re slowly moving towards a place of peace, or can you see no way to ever come-to-terms with your lot in life? Or have you already been up and down the scale and have finally found a place of contentment? I’d like to know.

Life and Friendship After “The Thing”

Please take a moment and contribute your opinion to this poll.

Last Saturday, I met Pamela (Silent Sorority) for the first time. We had lunch and talked. In fact we talked for so long and so easily that I forgot to collect my husband from the airport. No long-term harm done, thankfully.

Pamela and I talked about many things, but we didn’t talk about “the thing” – our infertility – even though that was the common tie that brought us together in the first place.

What we talked about mostly was the future. What’s next? Once you’ve come to terms with a life without children (no short or easy journey, I might add) where do you go next? Once you’ve found your tribe of women who aren’t going to bring their offsring into every conversation, and aren’t going to spring a surprise pregnancy on your friendship, what do you talk about, when you don’t want to keep talking about “the thing?”

Pamela and I batted around some new ideas. She talked about her view of our meeting in a post today, and also put together a poll. Please take a moment and add your two cents.

When you don’t want to talk about “the thing” anymore, what do you want to talk about?

Announcing the Official Release of My New Book

I am very excited indeed to announce the official release of my new book I’m Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood.

It’s currently available in e-book format from Smashwords.com and Amazon.com, and next month it will also be available in the good old-fashioned printed version. You can be sure I’ll let you know when that happens.

If you’re an e-reader type or just can’t wait for the printed version, I’m offering the book at a special price for Life Without Baby readers. Download the book from Smashwords and use the code FB35D to get it half price – $4.95 instead of $9.95.

If you do read it, and love it, please tell everyone. If you read and don’t love it, please just tell me.

We’ll be back to our regularly scheduled programming tomorrow, but for today, it’s all about the book.

Happily Childless, Not-So-Happily Infertile

Recently I’ve been dreaming about babies. These aren’t sad dreams or dreams of longing, just dreams in which I’ve interacted, in a very tender way, with a baby that wasn’t mine. I’ve woken up thinking about the dream, but not upset by it.

Last night I had a different dream. I was on one of those double decker open-topped tour buses (like the one I took in San Francisco last week) and the tour guide asked if anyone had ever tried (and he implied, failed) to have a baby. I reluctantly put up my hand. Looking around the bus, I saw that I was the only one.

“And what was that like?” asked the tour guide.

“It was horrible,” I replied. “It’s completely out of your control and there’s nothing you can do about it. There are procedures and things you can do to help, but you can’t control whether they work or not.”

After that the dream gets fuzzy and I woke up feeling very out-of-sorts.

Pottering around the kitchen this morning, I knew this would be a blog post of some nature, I just didn’t know about what. The dreams didn’t make much sense and I couldn’t decipher any meaning to them.

Buttering my toast, it came to me.

I am happily childless, but I am not happily infertile. I have reconciled the fact that I am not going to have children and I am okay with that. In fact, the more time passes, the more I realize how much I enjoy my life without children and what an upheaval to that life children would be. The part I haven’t yet reconciled is my infertility. I still can’t fully get to grips with the idea that my body failed me and that, no matter how hard I worked, not matter how dedicated I was to the goal,  there was nothing I could do to change that.

I don’t feel alone in my childlessness–the majority of my friends don’t have children—but infertility is still, and maybe will always be, something that makes me feel like the odd one out—the only person on the bus with her hand in the air.

Healing Bit-by-Bit

I’m ovulating. The fact that my body continues to go through this useless motion is of little consequence, other than the fact that my hormones go wild and I click into nesting mode, cleaning and tidying everything in sight. For someone as disorganized as me, it’s useful to have this happen once a month, and especially so this month.

I am preparing for the Royal Visit, otherwise known as my mother’s annual trip to stay with us for about five weeks. As I work from a home office and we live in a small two-bedroom house, this means I have to convert my office into a guest room, while still leaving a small corner in which I can continue to work.

It’s a nightmare, self-inflicted, but no less horrendous. Yesterday I threw out six bags of papers, today I boxed up everything that I can live without for the next month-and-a-half, and the rest is in a pile in the middle of the floor, awaiting my decision regarding its fate. I’m thinking that if I don’t look at it, it will just go away, but I know that come Wednesday morning, I’ll be stuffing it into a closet, where it will remain, probably forever.

During yesterday’s purge I came across some things: all my notes and test results from my assorted fertility-related doctors, information from two different adoption agencies, and a baby naming book, half filled in.

The whole lot went in the trash.

Not that tossing it didn’t leave a dent in my heart. It did. But it was a small dent and will heal quickly. And this is how it works. This is how we move on, one small step, one event, one reminder, one discarded memento at a time. It’s slow and it’s painful, but bit-by-bit, it works.