Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Knowing Who I Am

By Lisa Manterfield

Lisa HeadshotThere was a time when I found it difficult to be around mothers of young children. It was hard to listen to them talk about their kids when I felt I had nothing to contribute, and it was painful to know that I’d never be able to share those experiences with them. I couldn’t bear to hear their sweet or funny stories, and it made my blood boil to hear them complain. What I wouldn’t have given for the chance to be kept awake all night by a colicky baby.

As I’ve progressed on my journey and begun to heal, it’s become easier for me to spend time with mothers, to listen to their stories, to speak up when I have something to add, and even to commiserate about the hard stuff, without feeling resentful.

I’m listening to what they say about motherhood and I’m hearing a common theme: Motherhood chips away at them until they lose touch with the women they once were. They love their children, they love being mothers, but they resent how all-consuming the job is and how much of themselves they lose to their families, until they know longer know who they are.

There are always two sides to every story, pros and cons, gains and losses. When we don’t get something we want and deserve, it’s easy to focus on what’s lost—the experiences, the opportunities, and the stories we won’t get to tell. But what about what’s gained? And what about what’s not lost? What about the sacrifices we didn’t have to make and the women we now get to be?

I may not be the woman I’d once hoped to be—a mother—but I know who I am now, and a part of me is grateful for what I didn’t have to lose: myself.

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayTonight is Bonfire Night in the U.K. As a child, it was one of my favorite nights of the year, second only to Christmas Eve.

We’d have a bonfire in the backyard, and my dad would bring home a box of fireworks to set off and a couple of packets of sparklers. We’d have baked potatoes and roast chestnuts, and my mum would make parkin and gooey, delicious bonfire toffee. It was an evening spent outdoors, clustered around the fire. It was about friends and food and a little bit of danger.

It’s one of the many things I miss about my homeland, and it’s one of the traditions I would have enjoyed sharing with my children. And that’s the topic for this week’s Whiny Wednesday:

Traditions you won’t get to share with your children

Happy Bonfire Night and happy whining.

(Still) Learning About the Fertility Industry

By Lisa Manterfield

thinkingIf you’ve been hanging around the childless-not-by-choice community for any length of time, you’ve undoubtedly come across the wonderful Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos. Author of the groundbreaking book Silent Sorority, Pamela has long been a steady and articulate voice for our community.

More recently, she’s turned her attention and her voice to the fertility industry. After the recent announcements from both Apple and Facebook that they would include egg-freezing coverage as part of their employee benefit packages, Pamela wrote articles for two renowned publications on the realities of that procedure. You can read what she has to say in Fortune and Wired.

As always, when I hear first-hand accounts and well-researched data on fertility treatments, I find the statistics shocking, sobering, and infuriating. I think about all the people who told me to “just do IVF”, often based on nothing more than the fact that such-and-such celebrity had done it and had been successful, but with no knowledge of what the procedure actually involves, what the odds of success might be, or whether it was even a viable option for my situation (which it wasn’t).

Even the medical professionals I met during my journey offered little in-depth information about what was ahead for me. My first experience was an almost flippant referral from a primary care physician, basically “Go see this guy. He’ll get you pregnant.” And my first visit to a fertility clinic involved a calendar of procedures and a chart of costs, with no discussion about the physical or psychological effects of what I was about to go through, or honest and realistic statistics of what the chances of success really were.

I’ll admit I was naïve going in, but I don’t consider myself to be an ignorant person. I did my research, but I still wasn’t prepared. I was given glossy brochures filled with terms I didn’t understand and procedures that seemed more invasive than what I felt I needed. And they all included pictures of adorable babies and joyous parents, but never hard information—the kind I needed to make a life-changing decision. I received a stellar sales pitch, but never felt guided by a trusted professional who had my welfare and best interests at heart. Even though I’m wiser now, I continue to be educated by people like Pamela.

If you’ve been through fertility treatments, how do you feel about the process? Has your view changed? Do you feel you went in prepared? What do you think should change for women facing this in the future?

Please leave your comments below and also consider stopping by Pamela’s blog to offer support for the work she’s doing.

Talking About Grief

By Lisa Manterfield

MP900438973I’ve been writing and talking a lot about grief lately—here on the blog, in my fiction, in my personal life, in the novels I’m reading, and for the new ebook series. Even last week, when I got chatting to a stranger on a train, the conversation turned to the topic of grief.

Over paper cups of tea, this woman—who had lost her brother to suicide—and I talked about how grief stays with us long after we’re “over it”, how the shape of grief changes with time, how it can change us, and how everyone carries around their own personal grief.

My only regret in the discussion is that it didn’t begin sooner on our journey, because I would have liked to hear more about what she had to say on the subject. But eventually we parted ways, she to her office and I to airport, and I didn’t have the opportunity to ask her more about her grief.

So, I’d like to ask you instead.

  • How has your grief changed over time?
  • How has your loss changed you?
  • In what ways has your grief crept out, even when you’ve tried to keep it under wraps?

As a society, I don’t believe the topic of grief gets enough attention. We’re uncomfortable with grieving people, no matter what type of loss they’ve suffered, but it’s especially true when the loss isn’t understood.

So let’s start the conversation now. Let’s talk about this grief. I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayThis week’s suggested Whiny Wednesday topic is thought-provoking:

Fearing the quiet we will have for years

How do you feel about this? Is it something you worry about? If not, what is on your mind this week?

Our Stories: LuDexMommie

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Our Stories“This infertility journey nearly broke me on multiple levels,” LuDexMommie* writes. She believed she deserved to have a child, and as multiple fertility treatments failed her, she found herself in a very dark place on the “hope-despair rollercoaster”. Now 39 and soon to be divorced, LuDexMommie acknowledges that she could keep trying, she could recruit a surrogate or adopt, but “I am loathe to open myself up to more pain.” We can relate, can’t we? More of her story is below.

LWB: Briefly describe your dream of motherhood:

LuDexMommie: I didn’t dream, I assumed. I could easily picture all the wonderful moments shared between my child and me. I knew there would be challenges, but I felt I had the capacity to excel at raising a child. In fact, I was so confident that I went to lengths to develop my career and put motherhood (and what I felt to be a requisite relationship) on hold. My philosophy was that if you worked hard enough at something, you would get it. But I never considered having to work to have a baby.

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

LuDexMommie: I have premature ovarian failure and adenomyosis, and I consumed infertility technology for three years to battle against this. I have had four IUIs, two IVF procedures with two different egg donors (one was my sister!), two transfers with donor embryos, and two surgeries. Out of all that, only two chemical pregnancies resulted with a hell of a lot of heartache and grief. Circumstances got me here, but I find myself moving toward choosing a childfree life.

LWB: Where are you on your journey now?

LuDexMommie: Over the past few months it became clear that my marriage is an irreversible source of frustration, not support. I have always had difficulty relating to the term “DH” [Darling Husband] that I read about on blogs. My husband was quite limited in what he was able to give to the relationship, so I am choosing to move forward alone. I am hoping to connect with others without a DH.

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

LuDexMommie: I wish I could take that cold, hard scar out of my heart and put it in someone else so they could instantly understand how much it hurts. I will not see an ultrasound picture of a baby growing inside of me. I will not brush my child’s curly hair. There won’t be recognition of myself in a child’s mannerisms. I cannot hug or kiss my child, and no one will run to me for comfort. I won’t be able to teach or learn from my child. I will not experience the pride that parents have for a variety of childhood “firsts”. There will be no school supplies, sports teams, musical instruments, birthday parties, scraped knees, bedtime stories, school dances, family vacations, or driving lessons. I won’t be mother of the bride or groom. No grandchildren for me. I anticipate loneliness. I anticipate pangs of jealously. I am fully aware that parenting is not all roses, but the decision to stop trying when so many rewards are possible is very, very difficult.

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

LuDexMommie: Getting “me” back, emotionally, mentally, and physically. Opening up choices for myself. Getting out of a dysfunctional relationship and making myself ready for a healthy one. Cultivating special relationships with my nieces and nephews. Simplifying my life. Recognizing my potential as a human being. Acknowledging the difficulties that having a child in my 40s would present, and taking advantage of the freedoms that being childfree affords.

LWB: What have you learned about yourself?

LuDexMommie: I am surprised that I’m willing to consider being childfree; I would not have predicted that when this process began. I learned what my limits are. I learned I am a positive person at my core, but not at the expense of being practical. I learned how people not going though infertility pain could not help me in the way that I wanted them to. I became more forgiving of obliviousness. I am still trying to understand what “grief work” is. I recognize better what makes me happy, what makes me anxious, and what I am willing to do. I am kinder to myself.

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

LuDexMommie: I say, “No. Do you have dogs?”

LWB: What’s your Plan B?

LuDexMommie: Ha! I’m way past Plan B. It’s time to rediscover myself and do things that make me happy.

 

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

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayIt’s Whiny Wednesday, your chance to gripe about the issues you’re dealing with this week. This week’s suggested topic is one we’ve all had to deal with:

 An over-abundance of work pregnancies

 I can relate to this one. When I was trying to conceive, I managed a small department of about eight people. One year we had three simultaneous pregnancies…and none of them was mine.

Whine away!

Guest Post: Infertility Cuts Men Up Too

By Sheridan Voysey

Childlessness isn’t just a “female thing.” It cuts a man up too.

I know. I’ve felt it—felt each stinging cut.

For ten years my wife, Merryn, and I dreamed of starting a family. Our journey in pursuit of that dream included special diets, courses of fertility-boosting supplements, healing prayer, and chiropractic sessions (yes, chiropractic sessions—you’ll try anything). The journey included numerous rounds of costly IVF treatment, and a year of assessment as potential adoptive parents followed by an agonising two-year wait for our hoped-for adoptive child.

We pursued our dream with all the energy we had. But our dream never eventuated.

Exhausted from a decade in the wilderness of infertility, we brought our dream of a baby to an end on Christmas Day, 2010, after doctors had told us, just days before, that our final IVF round had been successful. They’d been wrong.

I feel the loss of that hoped-for child today. I feel it when I see a father tickling his giggling daughter, or as I watch a family celebrate the birthday of their teenage son, or as I see a proud father walk his radiant, veiled daughter down the aisle. I hear a little voice at these moments that says, “You’ll never have that,” followed by a jolting sense of injustice. “It’s just not fair,” the voice says, “when we tried so hard to have a child.”

Yes, infertility can cut a man up.

It cuts a man up in more ways than the loss of fatherhood, though. Having written a book about Merryn’s and my experience of starting again after infertility, and sharing our story through speaking, I regularly have men confidentially email or pull me aside at conferences to share feelings they rarely share. “I can’t talk about this to my friends,” one guy told me. “I have low sperm count. I can’t father a child. That’ll hardly impress my football buddies.” For many men this threatened masculinity is the most difficult aspect of infertility.

The lost opportunity of fatherhood. Threatened masculinity. Infertility can bring a third kind of pain to a man too—a pain born of empathy.

Try watching your wife’s bottom lip quiver as the doctor delivers the results of those first fertility tests. Watch the sadness grow in her eyes—a sadness that may last for years.

Watch your wife’s face contort in pain as the needle extracting the eggs for your first IVF round goes in. Watch as she later recovers from the trauma in shocked silence.

Watch your wife wait in hope for the results of the blood test—for the phone call with the good news that you pray for. Watch time and again as her hope falls to the floor.

Watch as she waits, and waits, and waits for the phone call from the adoption agency. Any day now it could come—the call to collect our child. But the call never comes.

Watch as she sits on the bed, a circle of tissues around her and her eyes rubbed red. Watch as she cries night after night. Feel her body shake as you hold her.

Watch as she enters an identity crisis, wondering if she’ll ever become the person—the mother—she longs to be.

And watch as she struggles with the faith that once sustained her. Watch as she wonders if the God she prays to cares. If he cared, surely he’d give her a family.

Watch all this—watch and try not to be cut up. When the one you love most suffers so much, how can your soul not be ripped to shreds?

Over three years have passed since my wife and I brought our quest for a child to an end. We’re in a different place now—we’ve started life again. And our story is helping others who need their own new beginning after a broken dream.

But please know this: childlessness isn’t just a “female thing.” Infertility cuts a man up too. In more ways than you may know.

 

Sheridan Voysey is a UK-based writer, speaker, and broadcaster. His latest book, Resurrection Year: Turning Broken Dreams into New Beginnings, chronicles his and his wife’s journey to start life afresh after ten years of infertility. Follow him on Twitter @sheridanvoysey, Facebook, and get his articles and podcasts at www.sheridanvoysey.com.

Letting Go of the Dream of Motherhood eBook is Here!

By Lisa Manterfield

Exiting news! The first book in the Life Without Baby ebook series is out today. Workbook 1: Letting Go of the Dream of Motherhood is available on Amazon now and will be showing up at other online retailers over the coming weeks.

It’s been an interesting process to gather all that I’ve learned about this strange journey over the past years. I wish I’d known five years ago (or maybe even before then) that it was okay to let go of my quest. I wish I’d understood that the loss of my dream meant more than simply not having children and that it would affect the foundation of my identity, my relationships, and all my plans for the future. And I wish I’d known to give myself permission to grieve, instead of putting on a brave face and pretending everything was okay. At least I know that now.

I’ve learned so much from all of you as I’ve voiced my difficulties here and heard about yours. You have taught me so much about this issue and about myself. For that, I am very grateful.

I’m also enormously grateful to Kathleen for her help in crafting the book and then her brilliant work editing and proofreading the final manuscript. There’s so much that happens behind the scenes of this site that couldn’t happen without her.

So, please, grab yourself a copy of the book. It’s affordably priced at $2.99. Your support of these projects enables me to keep this site running without ads or fees. Don’t worry if you don’t have an e-reader. You can download a free App so you can read the book on your computer, phone, tablet, or maybe even your watch!

You can find Workbook 1 here. And if you can’t get enough, you can even pre-order Workbook 2. I’d love to get your feedback if you find them helpful.

How Not to Say the Wrong Thing

By Lisa Manterfield

shhhI absolutely love this article by Susan Silk and Barry Goldman about how not to say the wrong thing to someone in crisis. I wish it was mandatory reading for everyone, and I especially wish it came with a note explaining that it applies when talking to infertiles and the childless-not-by-choice.

The gist of their Ring Theory is that the person in crisis is at the center of the ring and those next closest to the person occupy subsequent rings. In the case of someone coming to terms with not having children, she would be at the center, her spouse or partner on the next ring, perhaps closest family and friends on the next, and more distant family, coworkers, and acquaintances beyond that.

The rule is that that if people have something mean or insensitive or opinionated to say, they say it to someone on a bigger ring. When speaking to someone on a smaller ring, they can only listen or—if they must say something—offer help, support, or comfort. No advice, no miracle stories, no blame or shame. No offering of their kids, no suggestions to adopt. “I’m sorry” is all that needs to be said. If they want to dump, dump outwards, not inwards.

I wish people would understand that someone who has just acknowledged she won’t ever have children is in crisis, and what she needs more than judgment and unhelpful help is for people to say to the right thing.