Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Our Stories: Samreen

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

I wept as I read Samreen’s story. Her losses, her anger, her depression cut me to the core, in large part because I know how she is feeling. I wish I could reach across the miles and pull her into a safe and comforting hug. I wish we could all do that for each other. At the very least, I hope you’ll join me in the Comments to let her—and all of us—know, “You are not alone.”

LWB: Briefly describe your dream of motherhood.

Samreen: I dream of feeling a baby inside me and bringing her into this world. Raising her, seeing her growing, cuddling her investing my heart and mind in giving her a bright future.

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

Samreen: By circumstance. I am eight years into marriage. I have had three failed IUIs, two hysteroscopies, and two unsuccessful IVF attempts. We have registered for adoption, but I still want to conceive my own biological child.

LWB: Where are you on your journey now?

Samreen: I feel angry and depressed. I want to accept the infertility factor and move on, but I fail to do so. I feel irritated with the pregnancy news of other women. I feel angry looking at others’ kids. I feel like breaking all connections with the girls/friends who are pregnant and having children. I cry at the thought of not being able to experience motherhood in this lifetime. And these thoughts creep into my mind at least 10 times every day, making me cry.

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

Samreen: The hardest part is to believe that I will not be able to experience motherhood in this lifetime. People say that it’s a beautiful feeling and nothing can replace it. I wanted to experience it too. I wanted to have child who is a carbon copy of me or my husband, a child who looks like us.

LWB: What have you learned about yourself?

Samreen: I think I am still trying to figure out myself. I do feel scared thinking about the labor pains, but inside the core of my heart, I do crave for a baby that would be my biological child.

LWB: How do you answer “Do you have kids?”

Samreen: “No, we don’t.” But it doesn’t stop at this. The next question always pops up, which has a why in it always. I usually tell them that I am dealing with infertility.

LWB: What do you look forward to now?

Samreen: I look forward to being okay about the fact that I can’t have biological children. I look forward to being a person who has accepted herself with her infertility and inability to deliver a child. I look forward to having peace in my own self and my life. I look forward to being happy.

LWB: What is your hope for yourself this coming year?

Samreen: I feel hopeless and depressed right now.

LWB: How has LWB helped you on your journey?

Samreen: I am hoping that LWB will be able to bring in acceptance on this topic and help in healing my wounds of infertility.

When Samreen emailed me her story, she mentioned she found Life Without Baby through a search for helping with infertility. Is this how you found us? If so, I hope you will take a little time to explore the site and check out the many resources available, from the safe place to share stories (and whines), to the Forums (sign up under “Community”), to the list of books and other websites that might be of help to you. Please be gentle with yourself today. —KGW

It Got Me Thinking…About Happy Endings

My friend Patti* announced to our group of mutual friends that after a long period of trying to decide if she really really wanted kids, she was pregnant. We raised our glasses of nonalcoholic sparkling cider and toasted her future, then Ellen, one of our childfree friends, leaned over to me and whispered, “Well, I guess she got her happy ending.”

It’s been weeks since this scenario, and I can’t get it out of my head. Why is it that for so many women, a “happy ending” means the over-the-top wedding with the fairy princess bridal gown or a baby? Just look at movies geared toward women—“chick flicks”—and you’ll see what I mean. Stressed-out career gal lands hot leading man and looks forward to blissful domestic life. Cinderella gets her Prince. The bridesmaids finally all get along. Soft-focus on a pink, pudgy baby as happy parents gaze lovingly at each other and fade to credits.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned through my journey, is that there are no happy “endings,” but lots of new beginnings. I mean, if you think about it, Patti’s ending is actually the beginning of a new chapter in her life, one that I hope will be mostly happy. And if there’s another thing I’ve learned, it’s that there are as many definitions of “happy” as there are people.

Some of my happy beginnings include finally getting married in my mid-40s because I loved the guy (versus needing to find a father for future children), discovering the satisfaction of a challenging and thriving career, having the time and energy to be a devoted friend and the world’s best aunt, and doing some things that are fun and are just for me.

Happy ending? Pfft! I’m just getting started!

 

*Not their real names, of course.

I’m experimenting with trying new things, trying to figure out what I’ll include in my next chapter. Taking a class (or going back to school?), engaging in potential new hobbies, challenging my mind and body in new-to-me ways…all are on the to do list. I’d love some inspiration and hope you’ll share your ideas/plans in the Comments. xoKGW

Up and Down the Sliding Scale of Grief

By Lisa Manterfield

In the very early stages of our relationship. Mr. Fab and I discovered all sorts of odd things we had in common, one of which is that we both played the trombone as teenagers. We talked 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.

Our Stories Update: Justine

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

It’s been four years since Justine first shared her story with us. I remember reading it for the first time and feeling in awe of the strength she had to state “I will always be a mother,” and how she defined that. Today she continues to impress me with her courage, her candor, her grace as she lives her life.

Her original story, first posted in June of 2014, appears below, followed by her update. The words of encouragement she now offers to her younger self inspire me, and I hope they will inspire you too.

•   •   •

Serious back problems (including surgeries and a year spent in a body cast) in her youth caused Justine to never be able to carry a pregnancy, so she didn’t think much about becoming a mother. Then the gestational surrogacy option became a media darling, and she started to think about new possibilities for creating a family. Justine and her husband endured two rounds of IVF, two transfers, and the loss of three potential babies. She’s 34 now. They have stopped all treatments, know that adoption is not an option, and are actively working to accept a childfree life together. Here’s some of her story.

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

Justine: Always fighting this feeling of not belonging. In every sense of the traditional woman my age, I will not belong because I am not a mother. However, I have learned that I will always belong, even when I do not feel I fit in, because that is my right and worthiness.

LWB: What’s the best advice you’ve received?

Justine: That I will always be a mother. I mother and parent my dogs. I mother and parent my clients as a therapist. I mother and parent all the children in my life. I just mother and parent in a different way, and in a lot of ways, I have a bigger audience than I would have if I’d had my own children. I also get to have different—not necessarily better, but just different—relationships with all of the children in my life because I am not their actual parent.

LWB: What have you learned about yourself?

Justine: I’m a lot stronger and braver than I thought I was, especially in owning my story with courage.

LWB: What’s one thing you want other people (moms, younger women, men, grandmothers, teachers, strangers) to know about your being childfree?

Justine: I think a lot of times we are considered to be sad and bitter women, or people feel major pity for us. I think after we do our work of recovering from struggles we can actually have better and happier lives. It took major work to get to this side. My sad and bitter moments are few and far between, but I have to stay on top of my recovery.

LWB: How do you answer “Do you have kids?”

Justine: I hit people with the truth and take the teaching moment. I usually say something to the effect that we tried to have our own children but can’t. I might say that we are learning to accept a childfree life, but we have a lot of children in our lives through our friends and family.

LWB: What is your hope for yourself this coming year?

Justine: Continue my recovery, especially getting stronger in it. I will continue to work on my blog, Ever Upward [see below]. I hope that it can reach more and more women and continue to open up the conversation to the other side of infertility.

•   •   •

LWB: Where are you on your journey today?

Justine: Grief is lifelong—I will have forever wonders of who my three would be. And, I love my life. Love it. Every day I do the work to honor myself and my three, living in the sacred space of the forever grieving mother and doing the work to make it all a gift. I am the best version of myself, and I got myself back, the better self, after this brutal journey and because I choose to do the daily work of moving through grief, loving myself and others, living authentically, and teaching it to others. Because I am a mother of mothers. Because I am a mother. Because, without a doubt, I choose to love my journey, hard parts and all.

LWB: What would you like to say to the you of 2014?

Justine: Keep going. It will be harder, and most of all, more beautiful, grand, and better than you ever imagined.

Learn more about Justine’s work, her books, and her blog at her website.

Won’t you share your story with us? Go to the Our Stories page to get more information and the questionnaire.

 

It Got Me Thinking…About Beloved Books

There’s one shelf in my office where I keep my most favorite books, the ones that touched my heart and sparked my imagination, the ones I’d saved because I knew I’d want to read them again some day.

In January I pulled them all out, thinking this would be a good year to revisit them. While I eagerly anticipated re-reading brilliant novels, genre-challenging classics, and inspiring biographies, there was one category that pinched an especially sensitive nerve: the beloved books from my childhood.

Charlotte’s Web, the Little House in the Prairie series, the adventures of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn, all the Harry Potter books. I had saved those books, moved them from apartment to apartment, with the intention—and the hopes—of one day reading them to and with my own children. Alas….

Offers of some to nieces and nephews were declined, typically because they had already outgrown the stories. I had to think hard about what I was going to do with these treasures of mine.

Read them. Ah-hah. That’s what I chose to do. Read them to myself, for myself. And so I dug in.

At this point I still have the Mark Twain books in my to read stack, but all the others have been enjoyed, devoured, and—to my surprise—released. I discovered I needed to love them one last time before I could consider where they might go next.

A couple of those books have been gifted to the daughters of a friend (which made me so happy to do). Others will be donated to the library, where I trust they will thrill some young reader. None of them are going back on my shelf.

I just caught my breath. A year ago I could not have imagined saying that I had, without an emotional breakdown, let them go.

This got me thinking about the whole grieving process. Over the years of wrestling with my losses, I have come to believe that in order to fully let go and move on, I must first acknowledge my grief, then dance openly with it, then bless it and allow it to move out of my heart. Easy? Heck no. Necessary? I think so.

There are so many items we hold dear that represent what we wanted, and what we’ve lost. What is it for you? A family heirloom, hand-me-down baby clothes, the baseball glove/dance shoes/board games saved from your own childhood? Are you ready to open up your hope chest, pull out your treasures, and perhaps let them go? A perfectly fine answer is “No.” But when the time comes that you are ready, know that many of us here at Life Without Baby have been through the process, and we came out intact.

Good luck. And please be gentle with yourself.

Our Stories: Anita

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Anita has known for about 10 years that she’ll not have children. Now 42, she hesitates to describe her dream of motherhood because it isn’t something she allows herself to think about. “To much scratching on this wound can cause it to bleed again,” she says.

But she’s well aware that there are triggers all around us that scratch and wound, and she addresses some of them in her answer to “What’s the hardest part for you about now having children?”

I certainly can relate to what she’s saying, and I sense you will too. After you’ve read her story, I hope you’ll reach out to her in the Comments.

LWB: Describe your dream of motherhood.

Anita: I dreamed about nurturing and raising a child of my own, sharing her life, watching her grow.

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

Anita: Circumstance. My husband had been previously married, and they had a son. Before we married we discussed the “having a baby” question, and we both wanted children. A few years into our marriage, my husband decided against having children.

LWB: Where are you on your journey now?

Anita: Acceptance, and depressed. I am not really sure that one can ever really overcome this. I think this is, like the death of a parent, something you learn to live with.

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

Anita: In short, it feels as if being without a child has robbed me of interaction with other women. I am forever lurking on the fringes. I’m not a man, but not a “real” woman either. [Following are some of the situations she finds especially difficult.]

  • Stork teas/baby showers. At work, every now and then, we have a stork tea. In the beginning, I went (because it is expected of women). It was terrible. It felt as if I was going to break apart. Everyone was having fun, but I felt like running away and weeping in my office. I felt as if I was a freak. On the one hand, you have the mothers giving advice to the pregnant woman, talking about pregnancy, birth, and caring for your baby, with little personal stories to illustrate points. Scary things, good things, funny things. On the other hand, you have the young women still able to have children. And I fitted in neither of these groups. I still buy the gift, but I arrange for someone else to take it to the stork tea.
  • The same can be said for gatherings everywhere. The men stand around the fire, and the women sit around discussing their children.
  • Going to a “Womanhood” lecture at our church. The conversations during tea time included “Oh, I already have one child, but I am hoping for another one” and “A woman’s purpose is to have children”. I found myself surrounded by women with many children in tow, with toddlers running around. I excused myself and walked to another room, trying to control my emotions, my despair.
  • Seeing pregnant woman everywhere.
  • Colleagues coming to show their babies after maternity leave.
  • Knowing that you are the last of your family, a biological dead end. There is no one to whom I can pass down my grandfather’s bayonet that he had fought with in the war. No one to pass my mother’s keepsakes. All my keepsakes sold to a secondhand dealer, or chucked away as rubbish. No one to tell the story of our family to. The long line of my family will be snuffed out, and it will be as if I had never existed.

LWB: How do you answer “Do you have kids?”

Anita: “No.” Sure, I have a stepson, but he already has a mom. For a while I hoped that I could be his “other” mom, but it wasn’t to be.

LWB: What is the best part about not having children?

Anita: Listening to our neighbor’s child scream seemingly for hours every night, and feeling thankful that it is not our child.

 

Won’t you share your story with us? The act of answering the questions itself can be very healing, plus we’d like to support you by telling you “You are not alone.” Please visit the Our Stories page to get more information and the questionnaire.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is mostly at peace with her childlessness.

 

 

 

Making the Best of a Life Without Children

By Lisa Manterfield

Thanks to Iris for forwarding this article about living happily without children.

I love this author’s attitude to the hand she’s been dealt. At first read, she seems almost flippant about her inability to have children, but she’s packed a whole life story into one article, and reading between the lines, it’s clear to see the pain she felt, the struggles she and her partner went through in coming-to-terms with being childfree, and the attitudes she still has to endure from others. But her whole outlook was encapsulated in this paragraph:

“We didn’t get to have something. We had 2 choices as a result of that – let it control, dictate and sadden the rest of our lives or find something else to do instead. Either way, we still wouldn’t get to have kids. So which is the best choice?”

Are you still struggling to come to terms with your own situation and feeling that childlessness is “controlling, dictating, and saddening” your life? If so, can you see what your “find something else to do instead” could be? And could you do it?

I don’t this author is trivializing the blow she was dealt – far from it – but I love that she’s found a way to turn her situation to her advantage. What do you think?

Throwing a “Moving On from Infertility!” Party

Our private community now boasts close to 3,000 members and I’m extremely proud of the support and camaraderie we offer one another.

Periodically, someone leaves and I wish her a silent farewell and good luck. Members don’t often fill in the note about why they’re leaving, but when they do, it’s usually along the lines of “Yippee! I’m pregnant. See you later, sucka!”

Ok, it’s never like that, but you get the idea. Women generally leave Life Without Baby to pursue life with baby, and I have to admit that it always stings a little.

Recently, though, one member left and gave this wonderful reason:

“I am moving on from my identity as a childless woman.”

I wanted to throw her a party. She’s not leaving because she’s no longer a childless woman; she’s leaving because she no longer wants to carry around that label and all the stigma and resentment that can come along with it. She’s moving on, I assume, to embrace her life as a woman, with all its facets.

We play many roles in our lives and carry an assortment of identities. Sometimes those identities no longer suit us and we have to let them go. And while I’m sorry to lose a member, I truly wish her nothing but a wonderful life.

The Ups and Downs of Infertility

By Lisa Manterfield

Do you remember the game Chutes and Ladders? In the UK we called it “Snakes and Ladders” and I loved it. I had a nursery rhyme version with Jack and Jill happily climbing the hill on one ladder, and then tumbling down at the next snake (or chute). Humpty Dumpty, Rock-a-Bye-Baby, Little Bo Peep and her poor lost sheep were all there with their assorted joys and disasters.

In case any one is reading and has no clue what I’m talking abut, Chutes and Ladders is a board game. There are 100 squares on the board and you roll a dice and move along, trying to be the first person to reach 100. If you land on a ladder you get to follow the ladder up and jump ahead on the game. If, however, you land on a chute (or snake) you slide back down the board to a lower number. There’s no strategy involved in the game at all, and it’s pure luck as to whether you joyfully climb the ladder or careen back down a chute.

It struck me that life is a lot like chutes and ladders, especially when you’re playing the “coming-to-terms with infertility” game.

Case in point: A while ago, Mr. Fab and I had a great weekend. It was the first one in a while that we’d spent together just relaxing and enjoying one another’s company. We slept late, took a long walk, planned a vacation, and took a long afternoon nap. It’s on weekends like these that I realize all the positive things that have come out of us not having children.

But on Saturday night we had dinner with some friends at their home. They and the other friends who were invited have adult children, so the evening was spent talking about all kinds of other things not relating to the perils of parenthood. But in their hallway were photos of their children as toddlers, sitting in the garden, laughing those infectious toddler laughs, and for a few minutes I found myself just staring at the pictures and thinking about all that I’ve missed with not having children. My happiness hopped on a chute and slid back down a few squares.

I think that my life is always going to be this way, that I’ll keep making progress and moving gradually towards that place of being 100 percent at peace with being childfree, but there are always going to be chutes thrown in my way: the cousin’s pregnancy announcement, the friends celebrating milestones with their children, those moments when I rethink the whole thing and wonder, “What if we got back on the train? What if that risky and expensive treatment worked? What if we adopted?”

But, for every chute that comes along, there’s a ladder that will take me back up. So, the trick to maintaining sanity and finding peace is to keep living for the ladders.

Our Stories Update: Amber

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

I am so glad I followed up with Amber*, who first shared her story with us in the summer of 2014. She is completely candid about the “dark days” that followed, the hard work it took to begin healing, and the bright spots she’s now able to enjoy in a life without children. Wherever you are on your journey, I hope you’ll find some encouragement in her story.

•   •   •

When Amber is asked, “Do you have kids?” she answers, “We have dogs, which are much easier than children.” There’s a lightness and humor to her answer that puts people at ease, but it doesn’t reflect the challenging journey she’s been on and her amazing strength and perspective. I was struck by the depth and wisdom in her answers to our other questions, and I think you, too, will be moved by her insight. Maybe some of it will strike a chord with you and help you in your healing.

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

Amber: I actually was never sure I wanted kids, but after some health problems, we were told “Now or never….” I had several surgeries to remove fibroids, and after each surgery I developed Asherman’s Syndrome. Several corrective surgeries, tons of scar tissue reforming, several dangerous ectopic pregnancies later, and then being told our only hope was a surrogate, well…I was fresh out of $75,000. You have to draw the line somewhere.

LWB: Where are you on your journey now?

Amber: I have moved on to live my life and be happy. I still have a wonderful husband and two dogs, and we will always have a wonderful life as long as we are together. I refuse to throw it all away just because we cannot have children. Sometimes people lose sight of what they have while trying to reach another goal. It’s like what Alexander Graham Bell says in my favorite quote:

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.

LWB: What was the turning point for you?

Amber: Plan A was ruining my life and I was constantly devastated and sad. We were living in limbo between procedures and surgeries hoping for a miracle. As soon as we made the decision to move on, things started getting better and we starting enjoying our life again. We were back in control, and the most important thing was that we had each other. Thank God we had not lost each other in the whole mess. Lord knows I have lost multitudes of friends and family over our journey of infertility.

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

Amber: I worry about whom we will spend time with as we age, who will pick us up from the nursing home at Christmas. But, then again, some people’s children do not do that. I have to focus on the fact that we will have each other and a wonderful network of family and friends.

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

Amber: I get to spend all day, every day, with my best friend, and we can do whatever we want together at any given time. We get to take our dogs to the beach two to three times a year, sleep in on Saturdays, buy extravagant things, take naps whenever, hang out at the bar and watch a game, and, most of all, love each other more than anything on this earth.

LWB: What’s the best advice you’ve received?

Amber: This was from my friend Penny, who died way too young: “Life isn’t what it should be, life is what it is. However, we get to choose what to make of it.”

•   •   •

LWB: How are you doing today?

Amber: I am living my life, but do not get me wrong, I had some dark days after 2014.  It was a lot to work through, and I would have probably benefited from counseling, which I did not do. I will say I carry the guilt of our inability to have children, but my husband has never blamed me. At times I feel that I robbed him of a family life, but we have so many things to be thankful for, and our life is so full. 

I might sound all “Pollyanna”, like life is all rainbows and unicorns. I promise you that is not the case, as we took a long break for my mental health. I am just an it-is-what-it-is type of person. Quite frankly, I am glad that infertility has been the biggest tragedy in my adult life. I have lived longer than my own mother, who died of cancer in her 30s. I see people all around me losing their health, their spouses, their jobs, or their homes. Worst of all, I have seen people lose their happiness, which encompasses countless things, because they are holding onto anger and resentment. 

The best advice I can give is: Do not lose what is sitting in front of you, do not take what you do have for granted. Get rid of the resentment and anger however you must, and live your life. My life is not bad without children. As a matter of fact, many people envy us for our lifestyle. I am so sorry for everyone reading this, as I would not wish infertility on my worst enemy. Just know that you can pick up the pieces after some healing and have a happy life. We have countless friends who are our parents’ age, and we all enjoy kid-free activities.  We have also reconnected with our childhood friends now that their children are older. None of them even know what we went through. (When you tell people, you must be prepared for their well-meant but stupid responses.) We have our dogs, tennis, work, we know every bartender in a ten-mile radius, extra money, and so many other things. To sum it all up, we are living a happy life.

LWB: What would you like to say to the you of 2014?

Amber: Ahh…this is a loaded question. First and foremost: Go talk to a counselor! Perhaps even join a grief group if your reproductive endocrinologist offers one. Talking to people who are going through what you are would be way more helpful than becoming resentful of all the stupid things family and friends say trying to help you. Trust me, nothing they say will help you unless it is “Oh, I have $75,000 to give you” or “Oh, I can carry your baby for free.”

Do not feel guilty—it is not your fault. Only time will help you heal and, unfortunately, you are going to have to suffer through it to get to the other side, but the other side is better! While you drown in your grief, make a list of all the things you should be thankful for. It is a much longer list when you start writing it down. Help your spouse through their grief too. You are not the only one suffering. 

You have a purpose in life, and that purpose was not just to have children. You must find your purpose, your passion, and your happiness. Time is the only thing in this world that you cannot get more of no matter what you do. What you do with your time is the most precious thing you have on earth. Choose what to do with it wisely.

This (see photo below) is what kept me going, part of my passion and my purpose.

 

*Not her real name. We allow each respondent to use a fictitious name for her profile, if she chooses.

Won’t you share your story with us? Go to the Our Stories page to get more information and the questionnaire.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods got goosebumps when she saw the above photo of Amber and her dog. How wonderful and inspiring to see Amber embracing and enjoying her Plan B life!