Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

It Got Me Thinking…About Shotgun Weddings

By Kathleen Guthrie

We recently sent out save the date cards for our upcoming wedding and, in response, I’ve received several variations of “Didn’t know you were pregnant – har har!”

I’m not finding this the least bit humorous, although I’m sure this is what these Jim Carrey–­wannabes had intended. My fiancé and I have been together for four years, living together for two. We are getting married because we want to, not because we have to. And so what if I was pregnant? Would it make this occasion, our commitment to each other, any less solemn?

Of course, because I have finally (mostly) made peace with our decision to be childfree, this strikes a deeper, more painful chord. What I really want to do is reply back by saying, “No. Sadly, pregnancy is no longer an option for me.”

But that would be rude.

Kathleen Guthrie is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She finally met her Mr. Right in her 40s and looks forward marrying him this fall.

Whiny Weekend

Tomorrow, May 8, is VE Day in Europe. It’s the birthday of David Attenborough (who I want to be when I grow up), Enrique Iglesias, and Gary Glitter (who I used to love until he went to jail for child pornography.) May 8 marks the deaths of the French painter Paul Gauguin and novelist Gustave Flaubert. It’s also the Feast Day of Catherine de Saint-Augustin.

Oh yes…and for many of us, it’s Mother’s Day.

I think I’ve said just about all that can be said about this awkward day, so instead of hashing out my feelings again, I’m just going to declare today and tomorrow Whiny Weekend. Drop by, say what you need to say, get it off your chest if it’s on your chest, and feel free to let it all hang out here.

I’ve also created a Mother’s Day Safe Haven on the main Life Without Baby site. It’s password protected (just sign up) and the place to go if you don’t want to post a comment here on the blog.

There’s also a chat function, so feel free to go there and support one another. I plan to drop in, so come by and say hi.

Otherwise, hang in there, ladies. It’s just one day, which leaves 364 others for us.

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No! It’s Super-Lisa!

It’s something I’ve always dreamed of having – a superpower! I always thought how fun it would be to be invisible or to fly like Superman. But my personal favorite superpower would be to teleport (or apparate and disapparate if you’re a Harry Potter fan) – to disappear from one place and reappear somewhere else. Very useful skill.

I don’t have any of those skills, but it turns out that I do have a superpower! I have a magic force field and I discovered it a couple of weeks ago.

Stepping out of a cab in New Orleans, the doorman at our hotel greeted us with a jovial, “Welcome to the Big Easy. Where are the kids? Did you leave them home alone?” For a moment I was caught completely off-guard. I struggled between trying to come up with a witty response and fighting the urge to give the man a piece of my mind. And then Zup! Up popped my force field! I could feel it shimmering all around me, protecting me from this man’s unintentional sting. And from inside my invisible shield, I smiled and let him figure out for himself that I had no kids to leave home alone.

Then last week I went to the dentist to get a chipped tooth fixed. Because it was also the opening night of my show I told the dentist that I couldn’t have any Novocain. (Didn’t want my mouth numb on stage!) She immediately jumped to the conclusion that I was pregnant and even after I explained that I wasn’t, she continued to prattle on about babies and pregnancy and blah-blah-blah. In the chair I closed my eyes and Zup! Up went my force field again. I could hear all her baby talk dinging off my protective shell, but inside I was safe and sound.

Once upon a time I’d have been upset by either of these scenarios and more recently I would have been mad and felt the need to set these people straight, but now I just Zup! put up my force field and let it all bounce off. I know these people aren’t trying to hurt my feelings, and there’s no need for me to set them straight. They don’t need to know my story and I don’t need to try and fix them.

You can call it cowardice if you like, or denial, but I call it self-preservation. It’s peaceful inside my force field, and after the emotional drama of the past seven years, I feel I’ve earned the right to a little peace.

Book Review: The Inadequate Conception

I just finished reading Lori Green LeRoy’s The Inadequate Conception: From Barry White to Blastocytes: What your mom didn’t tell you about getting pregnant. This is one of those books I wish I’d read before I started trying to conceive.

Lori’s story is, frankly, mind-blowing. She says on the cover of the book:

“I am the no prego pro, the infertility warrior, bunless oven, can’t-make-a-baby veteran. It has taken six years and tens of thousands of dollars to achieve this distinction, and more specifically, 1,611 prenatal vitamins, 78 fertility drug injections, 55 ovulation detection tests, 40 blood draws, 33 ultrasounds, 16 pregnancy tests, and 11 embryos to confirm it.”

And yet, stunningly, Lori manages to find humor in all of this, something I stopped doing within the first couple of years of my journey. And even though she ultimately gave up trying to conceive, she was able to gather funny stories from her own experience and that of others, and find a lighthearted way to share them in her book.

I really applaud Lori, for her courage. It’s not easy to find the funny side of infertility, even when so much of what we put ourselves through is utterly ridiculous. And yet, having been on this journey myself, I couldn’t help but read between the lines and see the hurt behind Lori’s laughter. Had I read the book without my own experience. I would have appreciated her attitude and her determination to maintain her sense of humor – something that would have been very valuable to me.

I know from Lori, that since stopping her fertility treatments, she and her husband have embarked on a journey to adopt a little boy. She says:

“The adoption finalization has gone about as well as our trials in fertility, which is to say, that it hasn’t progressed much…”

I wish Lori the very best of good fortune and trust that her wicked sense of humor continues to serve her well.

Breaking Up With Mother’s Day

My friend is getting married this year and received some good advice from an aunt, who explained that marriage isn’t all about romance and that sometimes you’re not going to like the person you marry. Sometimes you’ll be angry, upset, frustrated, and hurt. She told my friend, “It’s okay to be angry, in fact it’s good. It’s when you stop feeling angry and feel nothing that you know there’s a problem.”

I think this is very sage advice and I know from my own experience of past relationships that when I stopped being upset about things that should have made me angry, that relationship was pretty much doomed. Apathy is deadly.

I bring this is up because of the way I’m feeling about Mother’s Day this year. In the past, I’ve run the gamut of emotions when this day has ticked around. I’ve been sad about my own loss, frustrated at my situation, angry about having motherhood pushed in my face, and hurt that other people don’t realize how much that day affects me. I’ve stayed indoors on past Mother’s Days; I’ve avoided restaurants that are celebrating mothers, and I’ve even avoided public places, where some unsuspecting nicey-nice person might wish me a happy Mother’s Day, oblivious to how much it stings.

But this year, I feel differently. This year I don’t care. I’m not feeling dread at the approaching day; I’m not putting on my emotional armor ready to deflect the hurt, and I’m not making plans to hide away. I don’t feel especially determined to not let this day affect me, and I’m not taking a stand and trying to prove I’m strong. I just don’t feel anything.

I think this means that Mother’s Day and I are about to break up. And how freeing that would be to get up on Sunday morning and just go about my day. As you may recall from a previous post. my own mother is in a county that celebrates Mother’s Day in March, and my husband’s mother is no longer with us, so we are under no obligation to celebrate at all. It’s truly liberating.

I’m writing this post almost a week before the Big Day, so I will be keeping a watchful eye of my vitals and checking how I feel as the week goes on. But maybe this is the year that will mark the closing of a chapter for me, which of course, is always followed by the start of a new one. Watch this space!

Infertility Myth: Women without children are never complete

Remember this children’s ditty? I’m using myself and my husband as the example.

Jose and Lisa sitting in a tree,

K.I.S.S.I.N.G.

First comes love,

Then comes marriage,

Then comes a baby in a baby carriage.

As a little girl, this was the expectation for how my life would unfold. Find a nice man, get married, and have a family, just as my parents did, and their parents before them. Sure, I came of age in the 80s, so there was college, a career, travel, and other big dreams thrown in there, but marriage and children were always a part of the picture.

I was 34 years old when I finally married Mr. Fabulous. Four years later, a doctor told me I’d never have biological children of my own. Those first years of our married lives were a crazy rollercoaster of desire and desperation, filled with doctor’s appointments and a desperate drive to complete my image of the perfect family. Even after this hopeless diagnosis, I kept pursuing that dream, convinced that the next doctor would have the secret elixir or that adoption would be my quick-fix solution.

I think I could have continued to look for a solution forever – there was always something else to try – but I realized something from that children’s ditty. After all that kissing in trees, there are three things that are supposed to follow – love, marriage, and children. In my pursuit of the baby in the baby carriage, I was frittering away two: the love and the marriage. I already had a wonderful life, doing work that I loved, in a city that I loved, with someone I loved. If I never had children, I’d still have that wonderful life.

We live in a culture of high expectations, where, as women, we expect to be able to have it all. But anyone who’s lived for any length of time knows that you don’t always get what you want.  I wanted motherhood, but it wasn’t meant to be, so I was left with two options: spend the rest of my life mourning what I’d lost and living with the hope that maybe a miracle would happen, or start figuring out how to build a life without children.

I chose the latter.

It was the hardest decision I’ve ever made, but now, two years later, I’m free to fully enjoy that fabulous marriage with that fabulous husband. Motherhood is only one small part of the life I imagined for myself and I am so much more than just an infertile woman. I discovered that there is life after infertility and that a life without children can still be a wonderful life.

For more information about infertility, please visit: http://www.resolve.org/infertility101

This post was written RESOLVE’S Bust a Myth Challenge. To learn more about National Infertility Awareness Week® (NIAW) go to: http://www.resolve.org/takecharge.

NIAW Guest Post

Tiffany is an ex-pat, living in Germany with two young children. She contacted me a few weeks ago and asked if I would write a guest post for her blog No Ordinary Homestead in honor of National Infertility Awareness Week. She told me that, although she hasn’t dealt with infertility herself, she has friends who have and she wanted to do her part to help raise awareness.

How could I say no?

Here is the post I wrote for her: A Family of Two.

 

Please take a moment and look at some of her other guest posts for this week. I suspect you’ll see a couple of familiar faces. I am so honored to be asked to do this. It’s people like Tiffany, who are willing to speak up to help the people they care about, that are making a difference and getting this subject matter out into the mix of general conversation.

So, Tiffany, thank you.

Telling My Story

Tonight is the Opening Night of Expressing Motherhood. This is a show with 13 women and one man talking, singing, and performing on the theme of motherhood. This is the show where I will get up on stage and tell an audience, consisting mostly of mothers, my story.

I won’t give away too much now, suffice to say I will touch on the subjects of desire and choices, as well as some thoughts on the fertility industry and baby showers.

I’m a little nervous – about performing and about my story – but the producers and cast of the show have been truly supportive, and I’m hoping the audience will be too.

During this, National Infertility Awareness Week, I’m hoping to shed a little light on a side of motherhood that doesn’t get much love.

Wish me luck, and I’ll promise to report in.

What to Say (or Not to Say) to Someone Who is Infertile

Photo courtesy E. Lindert/L.A. Times

My friend Carrie Friedman wrote this wonderful article for The Los Angeles Times My Turn Health column. In it she articulates perfectly what we’ve talked about many times here, which is people (well-meaning people) who just say the wrong thing. I found myself nodding to each unhelpful thing she’s heard and saying, “Yup, heard that one. Yup, that one, too.”

She also suggests some things that are helpful. Here’s what she says:

First, listen. Or, if you know it will make you uncomfortable to hear about it, let us know that. We’ll be A-OK talking about something — anything — else.

Second, say you’re sorry for our struggle. Several months ago, a friend of mine wrote me the loveliest, simplest paragraph I didn’t even know I so badly needed to hear:

“I am so very sorry. I’m most sorry that there’s nothing I can say that will make this better for you. But please know you’re in my thoughts and prayers and I am wishing you peace and good news. I’m always here to talk if you want to.”

My hope is that Carrie’s article will help people to understand a little more about what it’s like to deal with infertility, and what it is they can say if they truly want to help.

And, by the way, if Carrie’s name rings a bell it’s probably because I reviewed her excellent book, Pregnant Pause here last year.

Infertility 101

Although I know that many of you have more education than you’d like on the subject of infertility, my goal this week is to get the word out there, and offer as much information as possible for people who don’t know about or understand infertility.

Here is Infertility 101, from the RESOLVE website:

Infertility 101: Get the Facts

What is infertility?
Infertility is a disease or condition of the reproductive system often diagnosed after a couple has had one year of unprotected, well-timed intercourse, or if the woman has suffered from multiple miscarriages and the woman is under 35 years of age. If the woman is over 35 years old, it is diagnosed after 6 months of unprotected, well-timed intercourse.

Who gets it?
Infertility is a medical problem. Approximately 30% of infertility is due to a female factor and 30% is due to a male factor. In the balance of the cases, infertility results from problems in both partners or the cause of the infertility cannot be explained.

What are the risk factors?

  • Weight
  • Age
  • Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs)
  • Tubal Disease
  • Endometriosis
  • DES Exposure
  • Smoking
  • Alcohol

What are the signs and symptoms?
Often there are no signs or symptoms associated with an infertility problem. Listening to your body and getting regular checkups will help to detect a problem. Early detection and treatment of a problem are often critical in achieving successful pregnancy outcomes later.

How is infertility treated?
Medical technology now offers more answers and treatment options to men and women trying to conceive a child. From hormonal treatments, ovulation induction and Intrauterine insemination to more advanced technologies like in vitro fertilization, ICSI to surrogacy, egg/sperm donation and even embryo donation. For more information on treatment of infertility visit the Family Building Options section of our site.

What medications are used?
There are a variety of medications used to treat infertility. It is important to understand the medications and what their purpose is and to speak with your physician about the medications that will be used in your specific treatment plan. Read more about Fertility Medications.

What is artificial insemination?
Artificial insemination is now more commonly referred to as IUI (intrauterine insemination). It is a procedure used for couples with unexplained infertility, minimal male factor infertility, and women with cervical mucus problems. The procedure uses the husband’s or donor’s sperm, washing and treating the sperm, and then injecting it into the woman during the time of ovulation. Read more about IUI.

What is In Vitro or IVF?
In vitro fertilization (IVF) gets its name from the fact that fertilization occurs outside of the woman’s body, in a lab dish instead of a woman’s fallopian tubes. Typically, a woman will use ovulation stimulating drugs to produce an excess number of eggs. These eggs are surgically removed from the woman and fertilized in dish with sperm. If fertilization takes place, the physician transfers the embryo(s) into the women’s uterus. Read more about IVF.

How can I find an infertility specialist?
Visit RESOLVE’s Professional Service Directory to find an infertility specialist in your area or visit www.sart.org.

Can my OB/GYN treat me?
In many cases the difficulty experienced in becoming pregnant can be resolved by a gynecologist without a referral to a specialist. Often the problem comes down to timing intercourse with ovulation, which may be assessed using one of the over-the-counter urine LH test kits (ovulation predictor tests). Your OB/GYN can also conduct a basic infertility evaluation. If a problem is found during your evaluation and for more complex fertility issues, it is advised to see a specialist.

What questions should I ask my doctor?
It is important to go into the visit with your doctor prepared. Visit the “Downloads section” of this site which covers important questions to ask your physician on a variety of topics.

Also, if you haven’t yet seen Keiko Zoll’s excellent video, What IF? please take a look. She captures all the questions that ran through my head and then turns the idea around.

[vimeo http://www.vimeo.com/11214833]