By Lisa Manterfield
I’ve learned a lot from my experience of navigating the world as an unwillingly childless woman. I’ve learned that it’s not a straight road of recovery, where you get progressively better day after day, and where challenges become easier to handle each time you encounter them. It’s more like a wild slip’n slide, where you get up, fall down, make progress and sometimes get hurt—sometimes all in the same day.
When I first started trying to navigate my new path in life, I took a very cavalier attitude, putting on a brave face and telling myself I could handle whatever challenges came my way. I was strong enough, I thought, to volunteer at my local hospital’s NICU, to visit friends and hold their newborn babies, and to keep pretending everything was okay, when it wasn’t.
If I had to do it all again, I’d be kinder to myself. I’d take note of how I was really feeling, and treat myself accordingly. I’d understand that there are stages to the healing process and I’d assess where I was before deciding how much I could handle. For example:
Stage 1: Protection
In the early stages—maybe when I’d just made the decision to let go of my dream of motherhood, or I was feeling especially vulnerable—I’d take drastic steps to protect myself. This might mean saying no to events I felt obligated to attend and more-or-less hibernating during the most difficult ones. I’d know I wasn’t going to do this forever, but I’d also know that it was okay to put my own needs first.
Stage 2: Experimentation
In this stage, I’d start to step carefully out in the world again. I might have events I was worried about attending, but if I really wanted to go, I’d say yes to the invitation. I might not feel like being social, but I’d make an effort to test myself, to go out knowing someone would ask if I had children, and hoping I’d be ready with an answer. These would be the days that gave me hope that this would eventually get better over time.
Stage 3: The New Normal
This is the stage I’m in most of the time now, but it took me some time to get here. I’ve worked through my grief and found my own ways to manage tough scenarios. I can answer questions like “Do you have kids?” calmly, and I’ve found ways to reinvent the holidays so I can enjoy them again. I am a childless woman and I’m okay with telling people that. I can even answer them if they decide to ask prying questions or make assumptions about why I don’t have children.
If I’d understood these stages earlier, I might have cut myself a little more slack when my emotions caught up with me or I got caught out in a situation I thought I could handle.
What do you think? Have you moved through similar stages and was it a linear path for you, or was it more the slip’n slide version?
Overall, I would say I have moved into stage 3 at this point, but it’s definitely been the “Chutes and Ladders” route for me. Looking back, I don’t think I really understood the importance of the Protection stage at the time. I was angry and wasn’t even sure why. I would feel guilty about avoiding situations so I would mostly force myself to suffer through them. Even though it doesn’t happen as often anymore, I know better now when I need to distance myself from a situation. I just do what I need to do for myself and that’s ok. The difference is that I understand myself and this journey a bit better now. Realizing that there will be ups and downs – sometimes even in the same day as you stated, Lisa – but knowing overall how far I’ve come as a whole, has been a huge step in the healing process for me.
I used to avoid situations as well that would upset me in order to protect myself from pain but I don’t do this as much as I used to anymore as I made a decision to let the jealousy go which is hard but there comes a point I found where isolating myself did more harm than good and was causing me to miss out on things I would have enjoyed normally.
I went through similar stages and I used to feel the same slip and slide (or I used to think of that old song from the 80s, take 2 steps forward and 1 step back). I’m in stage 3 (at 48) and there is rarely any sliding back anymore because I know when to protect myself, I no longer feel guilty about not doing things that may hurt me. Something came up today – we received an e-invitation to a 40th birthday party being thrown by the husband and their one year old. I made sure to check the rsvps to see who is coming and if they are bringing children and I’m going to give it serious thought about whether we will go.
You shouldn’t feel guilty about not doing things that might hurt you as its not worth having a nervous breakdown in order to celebrate something their good fortune which is something you wanted for yourself but lost out on as it hurts and if they care about you they will understand if you cant go to those things as if they are real friends they wouldn’t want their good fortune to be the source of your emotional pain and the ones who say you should be happy for them and stop being so selfish aren’t worth getting upset over so they should butt out as if you cant go to an event that might upset you its none of their business!
Great article with helpful wisdom and perspective. At my current age of 48, I thought I was entering into stage 3, but I am suddenly back in stage 1, again. Two miscarriages at 44, after a surprise pregnancy with twins, have brought my healing process well into a time of life when I thought I’d be largely through it. I find that bigger life triggers still cause me to lose emotional ground: family pregnancies, my hysterectomy of a year ago, pending menopause. So, I protect myself for the most part right now, although I trust very much that I will get back to stage 3, as I have been there before. It is something to look forward to: for me, stage 3 brings with it a kind of hard-won peace snd sense of joy where the fruits of labor are experienced as heightened perspective, gratitude, and compassion, among other things. I appreciate your message to honor the stage we are in.
Its hard though isn’t it when you see others and family members experiencing the things you wanted for yourself and you lost out on and that hurts and a few years ago my sister was getting married and call me a nasty bitch but I was envious because I had wanted that for myself in my 20’s but it never happened and I was angry about it but had denied those feelings for years but they all came out when that happened and to protect myself from a nervous breakdown I never went to their wedding reception party which sounds spiteful but everyone else had told me if its going to upset you this much then stay away which was good advice as no one plans to have ill feelings towards others do they when they experience things you wanted but you lost out on and I felt awful for having felt that way and others all told me it was natural that I felt that way. I am ok now as time has helped but what I found has helped is to make a list of potential triggers and ways to deal with them like having an I hate valentines party this weekend! Good luck!
Its cruel isn’t it the way infertility comes back to haunt you when your friends become grandparents and it hurts!