Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Happily Childless, Not-So-Happily Infertile

Recently I’ve been dreaming about babies. These aren’t sad dreams or dreams of longing, just dreams in which I’ve interacted, in a very tender way, with a baby that wasn’t mine. I’ve woken up thinking about the dream, but not upset by it.

Last night I had a different dream. I was on one of those double decker open-topped tour buses (like the one I took in San Francisco last week) and the tour guide asked if anyone had ever tried (and he implied, failed) to have a baby. I reluctantly put up my hand. Looking around the bus, I saw that I was the only one.

“And what was that like?” asked the tour guide.

“It was horrible,” I replied. “It’s completely out of your control and there’s nothing you can do about it. There are procedures and things you can do to help, but you can’t control whether they work or not.”

After that the dream gets fuzzy and I woke up feeling very out-of-sorts.

Pottering around the kitchen this morning, I knew this would be a blog post of some nature, I just didn’t know about what. The dreams didn’t make much sense and I couldn’t decipher any meaning to them.

Buttering my toast, it came to me.

I am happily childless, but I am not happily infertile. I have reconciled the fact that I am not going to have children and I am okay with that. In fact, the more time passes, the more I realize how much I enjoy my life without children and what an upheaval to that life children would be. The part I haven’t yet reconciled is my infertility. I still can’t fully get to grips with the idea that my body failed me and that, no matter how hard I worked, not matter how dedicated I was to the goal,  there was nothing I could do to change that.

I don’t feel alone in my childlessness–the majority of my friends don’t have children—but infertility is still, and maybe will always be, something that makes me feel like the odd one out—the only person on the bus with her hand in the air.

Finding My Passion Again

Two Champion Cyclists!

This past weekend I took part in a big organized bike event. Along with my husband, mother, and some good friends, I pedaled my old Trek through 35 miles of beautiful Wine Country. It was a tough ride and I wasn’t quite as fit as I should have been, but still, I made it up the grueling two-mile-long hill, down the wild descent on the other side, and then turned around and went back over the same hill—wild climb up and grueling two-miles down! By the end I was exhausted, ready for the complimentary cold beer and mountain of paella, a hot shower and a long nap. And I did all of those things and THEN went out for beer and fish and chips with my family and friends. It was a fantastic day.

The ride reminded me how much I love biking and running, how much I used to enjoy training and participating in events. Somewhere in the mess of trying to become a mother, I lost sight of this. The ride inspired me to do more, to find other events and train to participate. And I can do that. I can get up early and go for runs; I can take an entire Saturday morning to go for a long training bike ride; and then I can do an all-day event and conk out on the couch in peace for the rest of the afternoon.  In short, I can do the things that please me, because the only other person I have to consider is my husband, and he’s a big boy who can choose to come along with me or stay home and entertain himself. Right now, I am grateful for this freedom to do something good for myself.

What about you? Over the years, what have you pushed aside that used to make you happy?  What haven’t you done for a long time that you could do now? And what would it take to do those things again?

It Got Me Thinking…About Tax Refunds

As in any election year, we’re hearing a lot about taxes and fixing our schools…and that got me thinking. I have no issue with paying taxes. I like that our government takes care of things like maintaining roads and bridges, supporting our armed services, providing social services, and running arguably the fairest judicial system in the world. And back in the days when I was certain kids were in my future, I didn’t see a problem with supporting public schools with my tax dollars. Now, however, I feel kind of cheated. Since I won’t be sending any kids to public school, I’m kind of pissed about having to support other peoples’ offspring. In fact, I’d like a refund.

 

Do you think it’s fair that childfree people have to contribute funds to public schools? And what did you invest in pre–LWB days for which you’d now like a refund?

 

 

Kathleen Guthrie is a Northern California–based freelance writer. Her articles have appeared in AAA’s Westways, GRIT, Real Simple, and 805 Living magazines. Read “How to Be the World’s Best Aunt Ever” on eHow.com.

27 More Days ‘Til Halloween

Is it really October already? My goodness this year has flown. Back in May, during our discussions about that holiday, someone mentioned Halloween as being their second least favorite holiday as a non-mom. I must say I vacillate between loathing and loving Halloween. In years past I have gone out of town, or at least out of the house, to avoid all the impish cherubs begging for candy on my doorstep. Sometimes the cute factor is just too much to bear. Other years I’ve stocked up on candy and joyously given handfuls to every sized kid in the neighborhood. Hey, I never claimed to be logical or rational about my childlessness.

This year, the jury is still out. Maybe I’ll pull out my skull lights and Marcus the Carcass, my glow in the dark lawn ornament, and show some enthusiasm…or maybe I’ll turn out all the lights and pretend I’m not home. As I don’t have kids, the prerogative is mine.

What about you? Do you love or hate Halloween? Is it a holiday for kids or is it a better holiday without kids in tow?

“BARREN: life on infertile soil” Opens Tonight

Don’t forget! Monica Wiesblotts’ new exhibit “Barren: Life on Infertile Soil” opens tonight at Gallery 255 in Ventura, California.

Monica is a photographer whose work “examines the quiet reflections of a life without children in a child-centric world, and what it means to navigate daily in those constraints”.

If you’re in Southern California between now and October 23rd, check out Monica’s show.

Whiny Wednesday: Tired of Media Exclusion

My TIME magazine just arrived. On the cover is the silhouette of a naked pregnant woman. I put the magazine face down on the table and I refuse to read it. The sight of a pregnant woman does not make me envious or pine for motherhood; I’m just tired of having motherhood pushed at me endlessly.

Last month’s Runner’s World met the same fate with its double features on pregnant runners and the best baby joggers on the market. My longtime subscription to this magazine is in jeopardy as they continue to aim more and more articles at parents, leaving non-parents flipping the pages looking for something relatable.

There are magazines galore for parents and mothers-to-be. Is it too much to ask for my news and hobbies to be safe havens?

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s rubbing you the wrong way today?

My Spare Room

My mum arrived last week for her annual 6-week-long visit. This means I spent the prior two weeks tearing my house apart and reassembling it to accommodate a guest. We have two bedrooms in our house, the second room being my fulltime office. It usually contains my desk, computer, files, papers, office supplies—basically everything I need to do my job on a daily basis. But right now it contains a bed and a couple of suitcases, with my desk and computer squeezed into one corner.

While clearing out the room, I started thinking about a book I recently read—Kathryn Stockett’s The Help (an excellent book that I can recommend highly.) One of the characters in the book has a series of spare rooms in her large house, at least one of which is set up to receive the children she expects or is expected to have (the mystery is revealed later in the book, but I’m not about to blow it now.) I realized that I had never envisioned my spare room as a nursery. I think that in my mind, we would make do in our little place and once children came along, we’d figure out how to move to a larger house, maybe in a different town. But a part of me can’t help wondering what had really been going on in my subconscious mind that I never planned for a place for a child to live, despite planning, or at least thinking about, all kinds of details involved in being a mother.

What about you? Did you ever make solid plans that included actions, rather than simply daydreams?

Should childless women be entitled to maternity leave?

This is a debate that is fueling some heated discussions, as I’m sure you can imagine. Should we be allowed to take maternity leave if we don’t have children?

My first response is “no, of course not.” I’m of the viewpoint that maternity leave falls in with other benefits such as unemployment and social security; it’s there if you need it, but it’s a service, not an entitlement.

That having been said, maybe it’s time to rename maternity leave. In recent years many companies have stopped separating sick days and vacation days, instead giving employees Personal Time Off to be used as needed—to go to the beach, visit the dentist, or lay in bed with the flu.

What if maternity leave became just “personal leave” offered to every employee to be used for their own personal life goals—to do volunteer work, write a book, run for mayor, or care for a newborn baby? After all, for most women, having children is a choice, and those of us without children are often left to pick up the maternity leave slack. When do we get time off to pursue our dreams?

Finding Her Place After Infertility

Several months ago, one of our sisters, Wendy, was in crisis. She had been working as a child development specialist, but after her infertility diagnosis she realized she could no longer stand to work in that environment. She quit her job and then found herself, in her words, “trying to find out who the hell I am and what to do with my life.”

Well, she found out. A couple of weeks ago she got a call out-of-the-blue, and last week she left for Bangladesh to take a position with UNICEF as a pre-primary education consultant.

I’ve never met Wendy, but I’ve been following her journey on the forum, and I’m so inspired by her accomplishments. Here’s a woman who was knocked sideways by her unplanned childlessness, and yet she’s found her way.

She told me:

I have spent a lot of time thinking, and the only way I can make sense of my infertility is that maybe [it] means I can and should continue development work. Rather than focus only on the children who might be living with me under my roof, I can impact so many more children. Indirectly, yes, but many more. Working in international development, I can work to improve their schools, their home life, their health and sanitation, their nutrition, their families’ lives.

Congratulations, Wendy. Good luck in your new endeavor.

Childless and Childfree Websites and Blogs

Pamela over on the Silent Sorority blog is putting together a directory of sites relating to childless and childfree living. I’m going to be checking these out over the coming weeks and sharing some of the posts with you here.

If you have a favorite blog or website (other than this one, of course!) relating to living childless or childfree, please share it below, so we can all take a look.