Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Whiny Wednesday: The Baby Shower and Gender Reveal


This week’s Whiny Wednesday topic is that old chestnut:

The baby shower!

A reader wrote:

I would like to know how others handle baby showers. I have vowed to not go to any more baby showers after leaving the last one in tears and disappointed in myself because I felt so strong before I went. Do others have emotional issues about other people’s baby showers or am I alone?

After assuring her that she definitely was not alone in feeling this way, I thought I’d turn the topic over to you. And I’m adding to it the newest horror, the gender reveal party.

Please whine, rant, empathize, and even advise on this most delicate of topics.

Creating an Ending After Infertility


Recently, a reader commented that she’d had an idea to write a letter to the child she never had, and she asked if I thought it was crazy.

Here’s what I told her (edited slightly to maintain her anonymity):

“Writing a letter isn’t crazy at all. One of the things that makes infertility grief so unique is that there is seldom a finite end to the journey. There’s almost always some option still open and the loss is more of a gradual moving away from the dream, rather than a sudden end. It makes it really hard to acknowledge the end and grieve that loss.

Doing something tangible, such as writing a letter, creates a kind of marker that says, “this is the end.” And the other ladies [in the program] are absolutely right about not being silent. If you need to find a time to be alone, close the door to your room, and just let it all out, do it. It’s exhausting, but it’s amazing how much grief you can purge with a good cry.”

I told her I would write a post on this topic so that you could share your experiences with creating an ending to something that has none. So here it is.

In order to start moving on with your healing process, did you need to create an ending with something symbolic and meaningful to you? Please share any “crazy” ideas that helped you find a stopping place and begin coming to terms with your life without children.

Whiny Wednesday: Caring for Aging Parents

I’ve seen this topic come up a lot in the blog comments, so I know that many of you have experienced this. It’s the topic of caring for aging parents, and whether the responsibility is shared fairly when you don’t have children.

What’s been your experience with this?

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

Do You Ever Get Over Loss?

My friend Paula turned 50 this year. It’s been more than a decade since she and her husband realized it was time to accept that they wouldn’t have children. For ten years she’s been working through the mess—the grief, the anger, the sadness, the despair, the big, big question of “what am I am going to do now that I won’t be a mother?” And because her older brother was a confirmed bachelor, Paula also felt pressure from her parents to produce a grandchild, even though they never said it out loud.

But that was a long time ago. If you ask Paula now, she’ll tell you she’s “cured.” She’ll tell you that, most days, she doesn’t think about the fact that she’s childless. She and her husband travel, they have a broad circle of friends, she’s been able to hop on career opportunities that would have been difficult with small children. She enjoys her friends’ children and she enjoys handing them back to their parents. In her candid moments, she’ll say her life worked out better than she’d expected and might not have been so great if she’d had the children she once so desperately desired.

Life is pretty good for Paula.

And then her brother fell in love, married, and shortly thereafter announced he would become a father. Paula called me in tears. She was utterly blindsided by her tearful reaction.

“I thought I was over this,” she said. “I wouldn’t swap places with my brother for anything. A newborn at 53? Nightmare.”

She told me her parents were over the moon, that her mother was telling everyone that she was going to be a grandma. “At last,” she told people, giving Paula a meaningful look.

“At last?” Paula said to her father. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

And that’s when her dad opened up. He admitted how “difficult” all this waiting and longing had been for them. He’d felt left out too, he told her.

She understood, but his confession found its way deep inside Paula, to that one small dark spot that had yet to heal, and poured salt into all those old—and now reopened—wounds. The guilt and shame that consumed her in that moment was overwhelming, and the tremendous weight of that was part of what took her by surprise. Her brother had made her aging parents happy, had given them the thing she couldn’t. The family torch had been passed and it wouldn’t be to Paula.

When I talked to Paula again a couple of weeks later, she assured me that she was going to be okay. She said a part of her was looking forward to being an aunt and that her big grown-up self was happy for her brother and her parents.

“But,” she added, “people always ask how long it takes to get over not being a mother. I always thought seven or eight years was about right, but now I think maybe the answer is ‘never.’”

Whiny Wednesday: The Illusion of Other People’s Perfect Lives

Facebook has been the topic of many Whiny Wednesday rants, and rightly so. Social media in general has perpetuated a myth of happiness that can make any kind of pain feel worse. So this week, our topic is this:

“The Illusion of Other People’s Perfect Lives”

Let us know how you feel.

 

Whiny Wednesday: Left Hanging by the Fertility Industry

40 years after the birth of the first IVF baby, the fertility industry has come a long way. But when it comes to the psychological aspects of infertility, most clinics are still in the dark ages. And for those of us for whom IVF was not the magic fix, what happens to us afterwards?

This week’s topic is for those of you who arrived here via the infertility route.

Do you feel you were left hanging by the fertility industry?

Okay, I know that’s a loaded question, so if you don’t feel like jumping in on this topic, or if it doesn’t apply to you, feel free to bring your own whine to the party this week.

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.

 

The Intangible Losses of Infertility

By Lisa Manterfield

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

This simple phrase is the one thing I wish someone had said to me. It would have meant that someone—one person—acknowledged that my inability to have a child was an enormous loss for me and that I needed to grieve that loss, as if my children had existed.

Where Western Culture Gets It Wrong

In Western culture in particular, most people don’t know how to behave when someone loses a loved one. They follow accepted protocols such as sending cards or flowers. Some may call to offer help or just show up on the doorstep with the ubiquitous tuna casserole. A few will know to give people space when they’re mourning, expect unexpected behavior, and be ready for tears or anger. Still, most people struggle with how to handle those in pain.

Our society also has an unwritten hierarchy of loss. Someone who’s lost a spouse, a child, or a parent is given different allowances to someone who’s lost a boyfriend/girlfriend, a friend, or an elderly relative. Further down the ranking come pets, coworkers, and ex-lovers. Even people who’ve lost houses, jobs, and limbs are allowed a degree of understanding, sympathy, and mourning. But most people have no idea how to react when they can’t see the thing that was lost—in this case, motherhood and all that it encompassed. Many people won’t understand—or even acknowledge—your need to mourn at all.

Intangible Loss

In her 2010 memoir, Spoken from the Heart, former first lady Laura Bush writes about her experience with infertility. “The English language lacks the words to mourn an absence,” she writes. “…For someone who was never there at all, we are wordless to capture that particular emptiness. For those who deeply want children and are denied them, those missing babies hover like slant, ephemeral shadows over their lives. Who can describe the feel of a tiny hand that is never held?”

The fact is that your children and your idea of motherhood did exist for you. If you had planned on having children, you undoubtedly made room in your life for them. This might have included creating life plans around the assumption that someday kids would be part of that plan. In some cases, making room for children in your life might have included making physical room, perhaps dedicating and even decorating a room in your home that would one day become a nursery, or it may have involved moving to a bigger house or a more family-friendly neighborhood. Did you pick out names for your children? Did you imagine which family members they might take after? Did you fantasize about your daughter winning a Nobel Prize for her research or your son bringing home a gold medal from the Olympics? You probably thought about the kind of mother you wanted to be. You collected data as you went through life, putting check marks through things you observed that you’d do better when you became a mother and striking red lines through the things you’d never do with your children. And you undoubtedly imagined what it would feel like to hold a child that was yours.

Here are some other losses you might be feeling:

  • your identity as a woman
  • the loss of your dream
  • the babies you’ll never get to see and touch
  • the vision of your future that you’d painted so clearly
  • experiences you could only share with your own children
  • the legacy of family traditions and heirlooms
  • the rite of passage into adulthood
  • being treated like a “real adult” by your family
  • making your parents proud grandparents
  • fitting in with friends or peers
  • your place in society

Your children and your identity as a mother existed and were very real to you. You have experienced a great loss, and the only way to begin coming to terms with that loss is to acknowledge it and mourn it.

This post is excerpted from Lisa’s book, Life Without Baby: Surviving and Thriving When Motherhood Doesn’t Happen.