Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayWelcome to Whiny Wednesday!

If you’re new here, this is the day you get to whine, groan, and complain about whatever’s on your mind, on or off topic.

Another baby announcement in the family? Whine. We get it.

Working late again because you’re the only one who doesn’t have kids so everyone thinks you have no place important to be? Let it all out here.

Neighbor got his leaf blower on a 7:00 on a Sunday morning…again? Ok, well, that’s my whine.

The great thing about this party is you get to bring your own whine.

Comments

  1. My sister recently reproduced. The good part is she lives in Maryland, USA and I live close to Toronto, Canada. The bad part – get this – my family has decided to hold a baby shower for her and the baby on MOTHERS DAY. They thought it would be the most convenient day for me since I’d already be in town for my Mom’s mother’s day dinner. Ya.

  2. I was taking medication for a yeast infection and I had a terrible side effect – tremendous bleeding. I told my mother about it and said it was as bad as when I had a miscarriage. My mother is generally insensitive and I don’t know why I let my guard down around her — I guess I was feeling vulnerable and just wanted some comfort. Her response to me (47 years old) was that maybe I did “miss” and when I said, no mom, that’s not possible, she went on and on insisting she was right. I sat there with my mouth hanging open horrified by every word she said and the way she said it. We don’t have the best relationship but I have been trying to give her a second chance since my father died. I thought our relationship was improving but now I feel like whenever I let my guard down, she sucker punches me.

    • Maria, I hear ya. I reached out to my mother this week, and got pretty much what I expected. Sometimes, I don’t know why I bother.

    • Hi Maria,
      I totally get it. Our moms are supposed to be our “safe place”, and it’s hard when they’re not there for emotional support, or even worse, cause more hurt.

      After my miscarriage last year I had a short medical leave. After my leave was over, as hard as it was, I had to return to work. It was awful to go back out into the world and put on some sort of a semblance of my life. I was still bleeding awfully heavy and in the throws of the first wave of deep grief. It was one of the hardest days of my life. I don’t know why, but I called my mother on my lunch break that day and she said “I’m glad you’re back to work and everything is back to normal now.”

      I couldn’t believe how insensitive that was of her. I started crying and said “I just lost my only child. Life will NEVER be normal again!” She tried to back pedal a little, but it was too late. It was already out there. She has never mentioned my baby or the miscarriage again to me. That was seven months ago. Her ignoring my heartbreak is just as painful to me. So I understand Maria. Those sucker punches take the wind out of us every time. *hugs* to you.

      • So sorry Mary. My miscarriage was 7 years ago but it was very traumatic and very few people understands that. Add to it that no matter what my doctor or husband says, there is a part of me that still blames myself for doing something to cause it. So for mom to suggest that I could have been now — it made me think I caused it again by taking that medicine. That was what made her comments so horrible.

        Oh, and right after I had my miscarriage, my mother told me it was a good thing because now it would be easier for me to get pregnant again. It took me 5 years to get pregnant and I knew even then that I lost the old pregnancy I would ever have. I don’t know why people say such stupid things.

          • Wow, talk about rubbing new salt into an old wound. How can our moms expect us to heal when they keep reopening the hurt? I’m sure almost all women feel guilt along with the grief when a baby miscarries. It is so normal Maria.

            I felt guilty about taking Imitrex to control the migraines while pregnant. I had heard mixed reviews about the safety of Imitrex while pregnant. Some said it was ok, some said no, some said it was better than aspirin, which can do a lot of harm. I just know I was plagued with migraines and needed to do something to control them.

            I held off for as long as I could taking it, but finally gave in around week 9 or 10 of my pregnancy. I only took one to help relieve the pain. Little did I know that my little one had already died (the doctor estimated that she stopped growing around week 7) so in actuality, I didn’t do her any harm at all. She was already gone. But I STILL feel guilty for having taken the Imitrex thinking baby was still fine. I never told my husband or my doctor about it. I didn’t want anyone to add to my guilt about taking such a strong drug while pregnant.

            My heart goes out to you as you and I are in the same boat. I too lost the only pregnancy I’ll ever have (most likely, as I’m already 47). For people to say “It will be easier to get pregnant again, your body knows what to do now” does not offer much hope, since the one pregnancy itself was a miracle. We tried for seven years. We knew it was a once in a lifetime miracle, very unlikely to happen again. Last month my period was late and I thought maybe I was pregnant again, and to be honest, I kind of panicked. I was so afraid I would have another miscarriage. It turned out to be a false alarm anyway.

            I don’t know about you,but since my miscarriage I’ve been asking “Is that it? Is that the only chance I get?? That’s it???”. Many women go on to have healthy pregnancies after miscarriage, but that seems very unlikely for me. I go back and forth between telling myself “It’s my own fault that I don’t have kids” to “Is that all I get? Just this one shot? And I blew it?”… These thoughts plague me, and I’m afraid they will be all I have to keep me company in my old age. Other women have grandkids to keep them company in their older years. I’m afraid I’ll have regret and guilt and bitterness to keep me company.

            I know I will eventually find other ways to be fulfilled in life, but for now, these are my thoughts. Thank you for your kind email. Sorry for such a long response!

          • My miscarriage happened when I was 40 and I had a lot of the feelings you do right after it. All I can tell you is that time really does help you heal. I no longer feel that way and even my mother’s recent comment didn’t hurt – shocked me into silence — but didn’t hurt. It will get better, give yourself time.

          • If this helps, my sister was pregnant and had a terrible migraine and soon after found out the baby had died. She didn’t take any medicine for the migraine. I think that’s why you were suffering from migraines — because of the loss — I don’t think your taking the medicine caused it in any way. Please don’t blame yourself.

          • >> If this helps, my sister was pregnant and had a terrible migraine and soon after found out the baby had died. She didn’t take any medicine for the migraine. I think that’s why you were suffering from migraines — because of the loss — I don’t think your taking the medicine caused it in any way. Please don’t blame yourself. <<

            Funny, I wondered this same thing. I think maybe the crazy hormones fluctuating all over the place (miscarried but still pregnant) might have been the cause of the migraines. They seemed to come out of nowhere, after several weeks of feeling wonderful. No morning sickness or anything. Just all of a sudden – bam! Migraines! Thank you for your friendship Maria. I appreciate all of your kind encouraging words. I look forward to seeing you again here for our next whiney Wednesday! God bless.

  3. Esso and I have been planning a trip to London, UK for about a year. We had invited our friends who also don’t have kids to come with us, and they are only able to overlap our trip by a week, so we (ahem, *I*) arranged to include sightseeing both couples were interested in for that week. We leave in about 5 weeks. This week, the wife called to let me know she hasn’t made any travel plans because they are having marital problems. Of course, I’m concerned for them, very sad to hear it, and disappointed they might not be coming along. However, I’m also a bit miffed, because they had us buy theatre tickets and tickets to the London Eye–and there has been no mention of paying us back. It’s almost C$300. I worry they think they don’t have to because they aren’t going to use the tickets.

    I have a couple of places I can try to sell the tickets–but I have to wait until I get confirmation they are not coming. And, given the limbo nature of things in their world at the moment, I’m worried they won’t saying anything concrete until it’s too late for me to sell the tickets anywhere but at the venues.

    • I’d send them a bill for the cost of the tickets or flat-out ask for the cost of their share of the tickets back. At this point, if they haven’t made travel plans, they likely aren’t going.
      Either that, or I’d sell the tickets and send them the bill for the difference in what you lost.

  4. I’ve been having a crappy 2 weeks. It seems like everything is going wrong with my house at the same time. Our heat broke on Sunday (or late Saturday night) and with the nighttime lows still in the 30s, we needed it fixed. It was finally repaired today (4 days later) at a cost of $700. While they were working on the furnace, we noticed a puddle under our hot water heater across the room and found that we’ll need to replace it in the near future because it has a leak that can’t be fixed. Grand total of that project will be $1,800. Oh, and we need a new roof in the near future. I don’t even want to know what that will cost at this point.
    Bye-bye (or should I say buy-buy) vacation money! It looks like we’re having a stay-cation this year instead. I’m totally pissed and if one more thing happens, I am moving into a tent.

    • Been there and done that. (Why do furnaces and hot water heaters always die as a pair?) I refer to different fixes in our house by the vacation we could have had. The decks are Bali, the foundation repair is Greece, first-class 🙂

  5. My whine for this Wednesday is Kate Middleton. Not her personally, I’m sure she’s a lovely sweet person. I just can’t deal with seeing all of the pictures of her glowing pretty beaming face and her growing adorable baby bump. It’s just torture.

    It was announced that she and Prince Williams were having a baby (back when she was hospitalized for morning sickness) just days after I miscarried. I remember crying when I read the news. I was excited for her but so sad for me. Now every time I see her picture and how happy she is, it’s heart breaking.

  6. My whine for this weeks is the news story here locally of a mother putting her 2 year old out in the rainy, cold, 50* weather this morning so she could do her illegal drugs. Awesome!! That gets to be a mom and I don’t.

    • Awful! Abused children (and abused animals too) absolutely break my heart. Why do these people get to have children and we don’t?? Good question Kara. *hugs*

  7. My whine for today is I went shopping with my younger sister on the weekend and as we just got into the store I received a text from a friend. Were not super close but anyway I looked at it and my heart sunk, this is what it read “I don’t know if you know yet or had an idea haha but I’m expecting and I’m just about 3 months so were just telling people” She and everyone of our friends know that I cannot have children, so it really hurt me. I understand that she is happy, but I wish people would think before they do stuff like this. My response was nope had no idea congrats. I wish I could have said seriously after everything you know about my infertility you had to text me this?. But I’m not very blunt and I hide my feelings.

    • I probably wouldn’t have responded. If it was so important for her to tell you, she could have called and spoken with you directly. Texting drives me crazy. It’s an expedient, but not great way to communicate with someone–especially if the subject is touchy.

  8. I was starting to share two-three nice informative posts to start on Infertility Awareness week (on Facebook)- I hadn’t shared anything before that for past two weeks or so. After that, someone I thought as a good friend for 20 years, slammed me with a nasty LONG email, lashing out, claiming that I was milking for attention due to my infertility, with sharing “8-9 memes/posts daily”, (never mind that in truth I share one or two post/meme maybe a week, or the week before, on Facebook- Hell,I’d KILL myself if I share that many as in her claim!), being angry, wanting me to ‘get over it’ and that I stop “obsessing/complaining about infertility” (never mind that I don’t complain but for once a month or less, (usually over a baby shower invite or announcement). I was really blindsided big time by this unexpected and hostile behavior of hers. And on top of that, she then un-friended me suddenly after that email.
    Of course, I bawled, shell-shocked.
    Thank gods that I have other friends who knocked sense into me that it’s not about ME, but about HER- she was projecting her own infertility anger/grief upon me (she’s in her late 60’s, and probably hadn’t access to support or resources back then in 70’s-90’s) upon me; easier for her to lash out at someone else, instead of facing her own emotions.. That’s the theory…..that is.

    Nevertheless, I didn’t appreciate *THAT* horrible email- I’d not even send that kind of email to my worst enemy (that is if I had one)..Apparently, I didn’t know her as I thought I did.

  9. I know it isn’t Wednesday anymore – but I wanted to add one since I wasn’t online yesterday. I have been a leader in our youth group for a few years and decided that I wasn’t going to do it again next year for a lot of different reasons. One of my friends who had a baby about a year ago also decided not to do it next year. After telling the kids that neither of us would be doing it next year, one of the students said “She (talking about my friend) has a kid so it makes sense that she can’t do it, what is your excuse?” I didn’t know how to respond, I was so shocked and hurt. I couldn’t exactly say what I was thinking especially since this was just a 16 year old kid who didn’t really understand how that hurt. I feel like I am usually pretty good at taking comments in stride, but I was blindsided by this – never thought a comment from a teenager would hurt so much.

    • Kind of a bold question from a 16 year old. Do he/she really even need an excuse or a reason from you? I’m curious how you answered. Very difficult moment for you, I’m sure.

      • I actually kind of stared dumbfounded, and stuttered a bit. Luckily the other leader (who knows what I’ve been going through) stepped up and said something like everybody has a lot going on in their life whether they have a baby or not. So luckily I didn’t have to say to much after that other than agree with her. I was very thankful she stepped in.