Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayMost days I’m glad to be a renter rather than a homeowner. I like that when my water heater goes out (for the second time in two years) it’s not my problem, and I like the feeling of freedom that comes with knowing that if we suddenly decided to up sticks and ride our bikes around the world, we don’t have a mortgage tethering us to one place.

But this week, I am not loving renting. I am not appreciating my plants being replaced without warning or the constant hammering and sawing and the stream of workmen yammering outside my window when I’m trying to write thoughtful blog posts. This week I am a whiny renter.

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s rubbing on your last nerve this week?

Defusing Tension

Facing a ProblemIt’s a familiar scenario: You’re at a family gathering or out with a group of friends. Everyone’s having a good time, when the topic turns to babies, and some bright spark looks your way and says, “So, when are you going to have kids?”

You could drive a double-decker bus and a Winnebago through the gap in the conversation, and even the birds stop twittering so they can hear your response.

Your face goes cold; your palms start to sweat; you can feel an eruption of emotion rising up into your chest, ready to spew forth and shower everyone in sight. What are you going to say? Do you tell them the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, in all the gory details? Or do you mumble something about “someday” or “maybe” or “We’re trying. Ha!” to deflect the question. Or do you stare dumbfounded and hope that someone steps in to rescue you?

Odds are you’ve tried some variation of all of those tactics at some point. And you know that if you so much as mention any attempt to conceive, someone’s going to jump in with all sorts of “helpful” advice from asking if you’ve thought about adoption or offering her eggs for your use, to regaling you with a tale of someone else’s miracle baby.

Recently, I had a conversation with a reader who offered another option that’s worked well for her:

“We tell people we’ve decided to just travel instead,” she told me. “People want to solve problems. If you make it positive, there’s nothing to solve.”

She said this response immediately defuses the tension and changes the topic. She even found that people envied them their freedom to travel. What a refreshing change from the usual pity.

Another reader told me she’d been to an event where the speaker mentioned at the end of his talk that he and his wife (both well past reproductive age) were childfree. “We don’t have children,” he quipped, winking at his wife in the audience, “but we try every night and twice on Sundays.”

I’m sure no one approached him after the talk to offer advice. Why? Because he didn’t give them a problem to solve.

As you’re arming yourself to go out into the world and face potentially difficult conversations, what are some things you could say to answer these awkward questions without prompting people to try and fix your situation?

Sharing What I’ve Learned

Lisa stepping_stonesOver the past few years, I’ve learned a lot about loss and grief, and the process of coming-to-terms with living without a dream I always thought I’d see fulfilled.

I learned how important it was for me to mark the end of my dream clearly, at least to myself, so I could stop hanging onto “what-ifs” and start mourning what I’d lost.

I learned how to start finding myself again when the real me had become so lost in doctors’ visits and dashed hopes that she couldn’t envision doing anything fun again.

And I learned the importance of a compassionate support network of people who understand me, even if I’ve never met those people in person.

As you can see, I’ve learned a lot from my experience. The only sad thing in all this is that I learned these lessons in hindsight, after I needed them, and so I struggled through the early days clueless and on my own. In fact I had no idea how important it was to find support until I started this site to offer support to others…and realized how much I needed that support, too.

So, now I want to share what I’ve learned in a program called “Road Map to Healing,” and I’m offering it free to anyone who wants to access it.

There are eight video modules and you’ll receive one a week in an email, beginning October 19. There will also be a group on the forum so you can talk through what you’ve learned and get help in the places you feel stuck from others in the same position. (Remember the value of peer support?)

I’m offering the program free so that anyone who needs it can access it (because goodness knows, if you’ve been through any kind of infertility treatments, your wallet is already tapped). For anyone who might have a couple of bucks to spare, there’ll be an opportunity to support the program via donation. And as with any good public television pledge drive, supporters will be acknowledged with a fabulous bonus gift.

If you’d like to join the program, you can sign up here.

You can also find out more details about what I’ll be covering in the modules here.

I hope you’ll join me, because hard-earned knowledge is a terrible thing to waste.

It Got Me Thinking…About Being Forever Young

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods 

My husband and I went to a fabulous wedding a few weeks ago. Gorgeous ceremony, lively cocktail party, mouth-watering dinner, heartwarming toasts. Then a weird thing started to happen. One by one, guests in our age group (late-30s to mid-40s) started to slip out. Babysitters needed to be relieved, teenagers needed to be checked on, babies needed to be fed, sleep-deprived adults needed to drive home while they could still keep their eyes open.

But not us. We danced till after midnight, alongside all the “young people.” It was awesome.

As one of the few childfree couples in our circle of acquaintances, I’m noticing that our circle of friends is starting to change. While we still make efforts to maintain ties with the friends we’ve grown up with, as their priorities shift to parenting duties and time schedules, the friends more in line with our way of life are the other childfree friends. With our late-20 and early-30-something friends, we linger over dinners at trendy new restaurants, sip cocktails at lunch, go on adventures with no time limit. It’s fun, active. And we feel fun and active.

We also laugh at ourselves when things like “’Sup?” slip out.

Granted, sometimes I worry about getting too attached because some day they might have babies and switch teams, leaving me to find new, younger, friends to hang with. You know what, that sounds pretty cool too.

 

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

 

When Craziness is Normal

crazy

When I first started this blog and began writing openly about my feelings and thoughts surrounding infertility and my unplanned

childlessness, I often thought: You can’t write that, Lisa. People will think you’re crazy. 

I worried that being honest about the thoughts that ran through my head, the bitterness that always bubbled under the surface, and the absolutely madness of questing for a baby would flag me as “not normal.”

I know that some people did think I was crazy. One compassionate soul even told Mr. Fab as much. And I’m sure there were plenty more who wondered about my sanity. If they did, I never heard from them.

What I do hear, so often, on this blog and in my email box is: “I can’t believe I found someone else who thought/said/did this crazy thing.  I thought I was the only one.”

I laugh to myself when I read this, because I thought I was the only, too. By being honest about my craziness, I discovered I wasn’t crazy at all, because for every crazy thing I admitted to, I found someone who had thought/said/done the same thing.

Turns out this insanity is perfectly normal.
When you’re in the thick of frustration, of feeling odd, left out, and misunderstood; when people tell you you’re acting crazy and it’s not normal, find someone here to tell. Add a comment to a post or start a thread in the forum. I promise you, you’ll find someone else who understand exactly how you feel, and it’s very reassuring to realize how normal your craziness is.

You may not be surprised to hear that the people who thought I’d gone mad had never walked in my shoes. They had no idea what it was like to be unable to have the children they wanted. Any time I have spoken to someone who has been through this experience, we’ve almost always been able to share in a common craziness, and nodded knowingly as we’ve admitted to some of our crazy thoughts.

It Got Me Thinking…About Being Worth Our Salt

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods 

When I need a pick-me-up, I frequently turn to jazz singer Lizz Wright. Her “Walk With Me, Lord” lifts my spirits every time. Here’s a sampling from the title track of her 2003 album, Salt:

How can you lose your song

When you’ve sung it so long

How can you forget your dance

When that dance is all you’ve ever had

It must be true

You can’t separate the two

It’s impossible to do

Just like the salt in the stew

It’s all a part of you

One thing that life can’t do

Is can’t take your song from you.

As I listen to the mellow notes, as I let her lyrics sink into me, I’m reminded that even though my dreams didn’t work out quite as I planned, the essence of me is still intact. The loving, generous, creative, hopeful, compassionate, spiritual, happy, true Kath is still here, and she will figure it out. Because despite all that challenges life has dealt me, one thing that life cannot do is take my song from me. So says Saint Lizz. I am worth my salt, and you are too.

Check out what Ms. Wright is up to, listen to a recent track, and check out upcoming concert dates at http://www.lizzwright.net/.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is wrapping up her memoir about being a temporary single mommy and how it helped her come to terms with being childfree. 

Whiny Wednesday: The Reluctant Villager

Whiny_WednesdayLast weekend my friend and I stopped by a very cute new café that opened in my neighborhood. It has a lovely private patio, big sun umbrellas, and a good menu of healthy food, so we looking forward to a Saturday morning breakfast and chat.

But when we stepped out onto the patio, there were young children everywhere, and by everywhere, I mean everywhere. They running in and out of the tables, playing in the middle of the floor, and one little boy was rolling his toy truck under a table where a couple, who were definitely not his parents, were eating.

Out of the six or seven sets of parents present, there was one who appeared to be making any kind of effort to teach their child how people behave in restaurants. One. My friend (who is a mother) suggested we leave and take our coffee to go instead.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, but that doesn’t mean the village should have to step in and do the parent’s job. Nor does it mean the village can’t have a quiet meal without their feet being run over by a toy truck.

It’s Whiny Wednesday. I’m done grumbling for today. It’s your turn now.

And the Survey Says…

checkFirstly, an enormous “Thank you” to the 127 of you who took the time to complete the recent LWB survey. I’m truly blown away by the response.

I’m still sifting through the data and analyzing what it all means, and of course, there are questions I wish I’d asked, but for now I wanted to share a few insights:

  • Over half of you are in your 30s and another third in your 40s. The over 60s and the under 20s aren’t hanging around with us (or aren’t filling surveys.)
  • Many of you (60%) said you were either trying to come to terms or at the stage of accepting and making peace. More than 20% of you are still trying/hopeful for having children.
  • Over 90% of you said you’d used the blog and found it useful, so hurray for that, especially as no one said they’d used it and didn’t find it useful. J What surprised me was that for all the other areas of the site, more than half of you said you hadn’t used it but were interested. So what are you waiting for? Snoop around.
  • The most popular type of post on the blog was “Personal Journey Stories,” with 84.5% saying they enjoy these posts, with my personal experience stories and guest posts following closely behind. What this tells me is that we want to hear other people’s stories, so if you’ve been dancing around the idea of submitting a guest post, do it! We want to hear.
  • The most popular topics were: “Dealing with friends and family” (72.6%), with “What’s Next in Life?”, “Ups and down of childfree living”, and “Finding Fulfillment” all following close behind.
  • When it comes to resources, printed books, ebooks, and a regular newsletter are of most interest to you. This is good news for me, as all these things are either in the works or on my to-do list.
  • An overwhelming number of you said you wouldn’t use a support group, either via phone or in person, or attend an in-person workshop. So, what I’m hearing is that you love the community and knowing you’re not alone, but you don’t want to come out in public and talk about this topic. I’m with you on that.
  • Almost half of you expressed an interest in programs and course online, so I’ll be taking a look at those again soon. Stay tuned.
  • Perhaps the biggest surprise was how many of you (over 40%) said you’d like to support the site through the purchase of LWB merchandise. If you were one of those people, I’d love to hear more about what that means? Would you use a discreet LWB coffee mug or are you looking for t-shirt that says “Childfree and loving it!” (or something in between)?

As I let all this valuable information percolate, I’ll be thinking about what changes I need to make to the site and what I need to do more of. A quick to do list so might look like:

  • Sharing more of my own story and encouraging you to do the same.
  • Getting the ebooks I’ve been noodling out of my head and onto the page
  • Getting the resource page pulled together to include other books you might find useful.
  • Writing more posts addressing the topics that are of most interest to you.

If you have other ideas or suggestions, I’m always open, so please leave them in the comments below.

And finally, many of you added wonderful and generous comments at the end of the survey. I’d like to thank you for those and I let you know that I have printed them all out and stuck them above my desk for those days when I wonder why I keep talking about this topic.