Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

“Dealing with Infertility” Free E-Class

Lily, over at The Infertile Mind, is really clued into the emotional aspects of being childless-not-by-choice. She hosts a free e-class about dealing with these emotions and recently invited me to drop in to see what she’s up to.

Even though the class is aimed at dealing with infertility, the exercises she teaches can be used by anyone who is childless-not-by-choice. We all go through many of the same emotions. Participants work through a series of exercises at their own pace, but within a small community of likeminded women. You can choose to participate in discussions or just quietly work through in your own time. The exercises are all based on Lily’s own experience of dealing with infertility and moving on with her life without children.

One of my favorite exercises was about dealing with jealousy (see tomorrow’s post for more on this particular topic!) by listing all the things you envy about a person, and then listing all the things you don’t envy about them. What an eye opener that was! And it made me laugh—at myself—which is always a good thing.

Lily will be hosting another free class running October 4th through November 1st.

You can sign up here: http://www.infertilityeclass.com/Register.html

or get more information here: http://www.infertilityeclass.com/FAQs.html.

The class is private and password-protected, so you can safely let it all hang out, so to speak.

What are you grateful for today?

Happy Friday. It is a happy Friday isn’t it?

We often get caught up in the things that go wrong and add to our list (sometimes long, granted) of what’s not good in the world, in our lives, and in our heads. So, today, I’m choosing to focus on what’s good in my life right now. Here’s an abridged list of  10 things for which I am grateful today:

  1. I live at the beach, where it’s deliciously cool
  2. My husband is coming home tonight
  3. I am my cat’s favorite human and we both know it
  4. My health is good
  5. I have wonderful, smart, and funny friends
  6. My mother is healthy enough to travel 6000 miles to visit me
  7. I’ve grown amazing winter squash in my garden this summer!
  8. Fresh strawberries
  9. Perfectly worn slippers
  10. Clean sheets

What’s on your list today?

Spring Cleaning My Past

I know it’s a bit late in the year, but I’m spring cleaning.

Over the years I’ve been added to mailing lists and e-mail subscriptions based on my plans to be a mother. Even though I’ve moved on to a new chapter in my life, every now and then a reminder from my past pops up to haunt me.

It’s been a while since I’ve received free samples of diapers and formula in the mail, but I still get plenty of postcards for children’s portrait photographers, baby fairs, and parenting classes.

I’ll be unsubscribing myself from the e-mail lists of Babies R Us, Adoptive Families, and my former acupuncturist. It’s not that these reminders send me into any kind of emotional turmoil; I just don’t have a use for their products and they’re cluttering up my Inbox. So it’s time to say “Goodbye.”

Have you done a spring cleaning on your past? Or are you still not ready?

Are you okay?

I’m a little worried about you.

In Tuesday’s post I admitted that I had lost my sense of humor and was looking to find it again. I asked for your best jokes and even offered a fabulous prize! But only one person posted a joke; granted, it made me giggle, but now I’m worried.

Are you okay?

Seriously now, are you okay? Because sometimes we tell everyone that we are okay, and sometimes we even tell ourselves the same thing. Sometimes we mean it, but sometimes it’s a flat out lie. It’s seldom that anyone actually asks us if we are okay (and I don’t mean just the standard “Hi. How are you?”), but when they do it gives us the opportunity to ask ourselves, “Are we really okay?” My good friend asks me this frequently and I’m just as grateful to tell her truthfully that I am as when I need tell her about why I’m not.

So, I’m asking you now, “Are you okay? Are you happy/comfortable/at peace with not having children?”

If your answer to yourself is “no” then ask yourself what you need. Do you need to talk someone or throw something or make a change in your life? Do you need to go to bed and feel sorry for yourself for a day (this is allowed if you promise to get up and do one of the other things as well.)

If your answer is “yes, I’m okay,” what helped you get to that place?

And if you haven’t completely lost your sense of humor in this process, please share a good joke. After all, there really is nothing like a good belly laugh to turn things around.

Cracking open that door again

About a month ago a very nice gentleman contacted me and asked if I would review his new book on this blog. The book’s title was A Baby at Last! and was co-authored by this man and two fertility doctors. I politely explained that I didn’t think our audiences were the same group of people, but he replied that the book also contained a section about moving on without children. “Okay,” I said. “I’ll take a look.”

The book has been burning a hole through my office floor ever since. I haven’t even taken it out of the envelope. There are three reasons for this:

  1. The author is a friend of a friend, or at least an acquaintance of a friend, and I feel obligated to write something positive about his book.
  2. There’s no way on this green earth I can recommend a fertility book to the women who I know read this site. It goes against everything we’re attempting to do here.
  3. And here the rest of the truth comes out: It hasn’t been long since my shelf-full of fertility books went into a Goodwill bag and out of my house forever. The very last thing I want to do is crack open that door again. What if, in turning to the chapter on moving on, I inadvertently spot some new idea, something I’ve never seen before, a solution that just might work for me? What if it triggers a tailspin and undoes all the positive progress I’ve been making?

But, according to the Press Release, the book is out today, and a promise is a promise, so tonight I’m going to crack it open and find out what the authors have to say about moving on. With luck, I’ll have some great advice to pass along, but if there’s no post tomorrow, you’ll know why.

Wish me luck.

Finding Peace

After last week’s slump, I’ve been on the lookout for inspiration and uplifting posts, and I’m happy to report that I’m finding them. This particular one is from Christina Katz’s writing newsletter, but if you substitute “motherhood” for “writing, publishing, and self-publishing,” I think this post says so much about what we’re all trying to do here, which is to find a comfortable spot for ourselves in the world. She says:

Walking a few miles with our two dogs is always a great way to clear my head and get clear about the future I am envisioning.

I think there is a huge temptation right now to follow the crowd, to imitate what others are doing, and to just generally agree with the online opinionati.

But there is another choice.

You can read up on what people are saying right now about writing, publishing, self-publishing, and the world in general, and then you can run what you have read through the filter of your own instincts.

I don’t think individual instincts have ever been more important than they are right now.

The more confusing the times; the more important it is to follow your gut.

And if you go against the grain temporarily, don’t sweat it. The rest may come around eventually. And if they don’t, but you are on the right track, then who cares?

This last section especially spoke to me:

Other people’s choices and paths are not any of our business. And we have absolutely nothing to gain by blindly following the self-appointed leaders of the day.

But we have absolutely everything to gain when we commit to following our inner vision and then do just that.

It’s hard to tune out the siren song of motherhood sometimes, but we need to find ways to follow our own path and find our own peace.

As an aside, but worth mentioning, I discovered Christina Katz a number of years ago, when I bought her book Writer Mama: How to Raise Your Writing Career Along Side Your Kids. Oh the irony! But even though her book is geared towards Writer Mamas, I found her advice applied to Writer Non-Mamas, too. Maybe we’re not so different after all.