Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

That He Would Do This for Her

By Sue Fagalde Lick

When my friend John started going out with Lizzy, a teacher at least 20 years younger than he was, I kept my qualms to myself. Who was I to judge? Had I not married a much older man myself?

A couple years later, I ran into John and Lizzy at the Toledo, Oregon summer festival. Weary from strolling up and down Main Street, I saw them in the crowd sitting on orange folding chairs by the stage outside Bank of the West and decided to join them in the shade of a big alder tree.

I didn’t notice Lizzy’s belly until they stood to move their chairs into the sun. Was it really rounded under her denim overalls or was I imagining it? No, she was definitely pregnant.

Battling hot flashes and glad to be out of the sun, I remained alone in the shade, gazing up at the yellow and green leaves. With each gentle breeze, waves of sadness washed over me. John had finished raising his family. He had retired. He enjoyed his life of writing, music and bicycle trips. I was certain he did not want to start raising children again, but I could see the whole picture: Lizzy was young, she wanted a family, he loved her, and he could not deny her that part of life.

Of course it could have been an accident, a birth-control failure, but they were both too smart for that. This was pregnancy on purpose. That he would do this for her . . . It echoed in my head like a mantra: that he would do this for her. A corresponding chant answered: that my husband would not.

But I got it wrong. When I asked John about it later, he said he was the one who wanted another child. Lizzy didn’t mind doing without, but he wanted a chance to do a better job than he had before.

Why wasn’t my husband like that?

I had been through this so many times. It was not Fred’s fault. I had married him despite his declaration that he did not want to have children with me, that the three he had with his first wife were all he ever wanted. I had decided it was better to have him without children than to marry someone else I loved less or, more likely, to remain alone. Besides, had I not always placed my career above everything, thinking that someday I would get around to kids, but not today, tomorrow, next week . . .?

Suddenly the toe-tapping music grew tiresome. I needed to do the laundry, start dinner, make some phone calls. I kept glancing at John and Lizzy, unable to stop staring at Lizzy’s belly.

I had thought I was past this, beyond this agonizing over not having children. As I gathered my things, waved goodbye to my friends, and started the long walk to my car, I asked myself “Will it never end?”

Sue Fagalde Lick has been married twice to men who did not give her babies. She blogs on the subject at www.childlessbymarriage.blogspot.com.

It Got Me Thinking…About Picky Eaters

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

I called my sister’s house just before dinnertime last night and was greeted with sniffles. “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Someone is disappointed with tonight’s dinner selection.” Really? So now the 3-year-old won’t eat pasta with cheese, and his older brother refuses anything green (i.e., vegetables).

I don’t know how my sister keeps it up; I’d be a basket case if this was a regularly occurring reaction in my kitchen. My cooking may not be worthy of three stars from Michelin every night, but no one cries. And, if I let them, my two dogs would eat any and all leftovers.

Count this among the perks of living in a childfree home.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. Tonight she’s making Chinese Chicken Salad for dinner.

Irish Chero: Adi Roche

Photo courtesy: Business and Finance

By Jane G.

Adi Roche was born in Clonmel, County Tipperary, in 1957.  She is a campaigner for peace, humanitarian aid and education.  She was working as a volunteer with the Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in 1991, when she received a fax message from Belarus, a country ravaged by the effects of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster of 1986.  This message, which was to change the course of her life, simply stated “SOS, for God’s sake, help us get the children out!”.  So began her life’s work, to establish Chernobyl Children’s Project International, which since its establishment in Ireland in 1991 has delivered over €80 million in aid to the areas most affected by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and has brought over 13,000 children to Ireland on rest and recuperation vacations, some for life saving surgery. The organization expanded into the USA in 2001.

For her work with CCPI, Adi has been honored by various awards: the Medal of Francysk Skaryna (by the Belarusian Government), the European Woman Laureate Award, Irish Person of the Year, the European Person of the Year award, The Robert Burns Humanitarian Award in 2002 and the World of Children’s 2010 Health Award.  She lives in Cork, with her husband of several years, Sean Dunne.  They have no children of their own.

In an interview in Hot Press magazine in 1997, she stated that she had suffered a number of miscarriages in the early years of her marriage.  Because she subsequently chose to pursue a career of humanitarian work involving exposure to areas of high level radioactive contamination, and because of the sheer time commitment her work takes up, she and her husbanded decided to remain childfree.  In another interview she is quoted as saying ” the day we cannot shed a tear for another human being or feel an emotion about the suffering or the agony of another human being, no matter what part of the world they are in, is the day I think we switch the light off on the planet, because we have lost who we are as a species and we have lost our sense of responsibility of being part of the human family”.   A mother not in the conventional sense, but a mother to thousands of children none the less, Adi is the person whom I proudly nominate as an Irish chero.

Jane G is 42 year old Irish woman, who is married and childless not by choice.  She lives in County Tipperary with her husband and three cats, and works in the field of finance.  She and her husband recently became involved as a host family with the Chernobyl Lifeline Ireland project, an organization which arranges rest and recuperation visits to Ireland for children from disadvantaged areas of Belarus.  Read about their life changing experience with their two adorable seven-year-old Belarussian guests here.

Uncovering Grief: Writing the Story of Your Day

By Shannon Calder

Before writing, I’d sidestepped my sorrow, not knowing how to move through it. The terrible ache, I believed, would always be there. Writing changed that.”

 – Susan Zimmerman

6:45pm – 3/12/12

5 years ago at 6:45pm my mother’s body was wheeled out of her house, the same house where I sit writing this column, in her office.

Grief clouds everything. I had an important interview to go to today, an errand at the post office, a client to see, this column to do, and a psychological assessment to write. My loss was apparent to me in all these bits of business. It gave them all great meaning. Nobody really thinks about how this is the day, the week, the month, where I still feel that I am moving through tear gas. Five years later, with eyes wet and muscles weak, much of my life, the things I do, the house I live in, has great meaning. It creates the kind of richness in my existence that does not feel man made. People may think I’m over it, past it or that I don’t grieve anymore. But everyone here knows that grief stays with you. And I believe that grief bestows meaning.

I haven’t acted out on anyone today but I know my significant other has had moments in the last few weeks where he looked at me as if I was out of my body. There are times when people ask me what is wrong and I say nothing, when I mostly want to say, ‘my mother, my favorite person, died 5 years ago.’ But if I did say that, say my truth, I would say it to everyone, all the time. I don’t say it because I don’t want it to take me over every day.

I have grieved in writing this. Story predates psychology. Write the story of your day. Today was about me sharing a story of this day with you, this is basically how it’s done. You may have feelings while doing this, indulge them, I did. I didn’t craft this into the best writing ever. I wrote what I needed to write and I feel a relief to have shared this day’s story with you.

I hope you will do the same.

The act of writing brings a structure and order to the chaos of grief. It taps into the healing power of your own unconscious. By giving voice to fears, anger, and despair, by letting go of old dreams and hope; our self-healing powers come into play. The soul knows what it needs to heal. Through writing, it will lead you where you need to go.

 – Susan Zimmerman

Be Well,

Shannon

Contact me at: Shannon [at] LifeWithoutBaby [dot] com

Resource: Writing to Heal the Soul: Transforming Grief and loss Through Writing by Susan Zimmerman, writer, lecturer and author.

Shannon Calder is a writer, psychotherapist, and survivor of grief. She has an MA in Counseling Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute and is currently in a doctoral program in Clinical Psychology. She works in private practice treating people suffering from a wide spectrum of symptoms. 


Whiny Wednesday: Sanctuary

Last week, determined to launch myself into some kind of exercise routine, I signed up at a local fitness studio for a month of unlimited pilates, yoga, and zumba.

At my first class I tentatively took my place on the floor and hoped the class wouldn’t be too torturous. It was, but not because of the exertion. It was painful because of the teacher, who talked through the entire class about her teething toddler.

Can there be no sanctuary anymore? Not just for me and the other childless women in the class, but also for the women who have teething toddlers of their own at home and who finally got out of the house for a peaceful hour and then have to hear all about this woman’s drama. Not professional.

Fortunately, it was tough class, physically, so I (and a few others I suspect) was able to let out a few audible groans and get away with it. And I’ve crossed her classes off my schedule.

It’s Whiny Wednesday, time to let out some own audible groans of your own.

Guest Blog: Non-Accidental Accidental Pregnancy

By Maybe Lady Liz

Why is it that every pregnancy announcement these days is quickly followed up with the footnote that this was an “accident”? One of my friends called last night with the big news, and I truly was shocked to hear it. She’d been debating for a long time whether or not she even wanted kids and hadn’t come to any kind of conclusion. After delivering the bombshell, she said, “Obviously, this was a total surprise and completely not on purpose.”

So of course, I countered with a question as to what happened to her birth control – you know, that little pill she’d been taking every day of her life since freshman year of college? That’s when I got the “Welllllllllllll….”, followed by a convoluted tale of a change in insurance, a radical increase in cost, a two-month swing where she and her husband just went without and they thought they’d be okay because a doctor once told her she might have trouble getting pregnant someday.

I’m sorry, but that does not an accident make. What’s an accident, you ask? Someone who takes their birth control religiously, at the same time every day, and one still manages to get past the goalie. Someone whose condom breaks and on their way to get the morning-after pill, they’re kidnapped and held for ransom until it’s too late. Someone whose Nuva Ring fell out and somehow, they didn’t notice it. These are accidents. Going off your birth control for two months while still having sex, is not.

I don’t think my friend is a scheming, conniving liar. I think she actually believes, on the surface, that this truly was an accident. But anytime you’re having sex while not taking every precaution to prevent pregnancy, there’s got to be a part of you that understands and accepts the potential consequences. And I’d have to argue that going through with it means that even if it’s just on a subconscious level, you sort of want a baby.

What I can’t figure out is why people are so eager to convince everyone it was an accident. Why can’t they own up to what they want? There’s absolutely nothing wrong with wanting a baby. Is it because society has made us feel that becoming a mother should be secondary to having a career? Or that we should have accomplished this laundry list of great achievements and amassed a small fortune in college funds first?

I don’t know, maybe it’s not important. But for some reason, it’s just driving me crazy lately! Is this happening to anyone else, or is it just my delusional friends?

Maybe Lady Liz is blogging her way through the decision of whether to create her own Cheerio-encrusted ankle-biters, or remain Childfree. You can follow her through the ups and downs at www.MaybeBabyMaybeNot.com.

Whiny Wednesday: Charity Case

It’s happened again. I’ve been offered a child for adoption. Unfortunately, this “child” is the adult black sheep of the family, a young man who has so disappointed his own mother that she’s willing to give him away to a charitable cause, i.e., me.

I’m fairly sure (although not 100 percent certain) that this woman was kidding when she said, “You can have one of mine,” but even so, I can’t help being totally insulted by her suggestion that I am so desperate to be a mother that I’d take her seriously damaged goods.

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

It Got Me Thinking…About Greener Grass

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

It was early in the morning on a national holiday. I was walking to our gym when I passed one of our neighbors as she loaded kids and gear into a minivan.

“Off to the gym?” she asked, grunting as she hoisted a toddler into his car seat.

“Yup.”

“I would give anything to trade places with you.”

For a split second I paused, then replied with the only response that seemed appropriate. “I’m sorry.”

As I continued down the street, it dawned on me that for the first time in years I wasn’t feeling (a) judgmental (she was, after all, dissing her kids) or (b) wistful. So often in the past I would have thought how I would have traded anything to have precious kids of my own, but now, not so much. I was pretty happy with the prospect of spending my holiday taking care of myself, maybe even reading a book or taking a nap instead of having to read a book to someone else hoping he would settle down for a nap.  I didn’t feel sorry for or envious of my neighbor, and I didn’t want to trade my grass for her grass. The grass was perfectly green on my side of the street.

Me thinks the healing process has begun.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She’s mostly at peace with being childfree.

Happy Leap Day

It’s Leap Day, the day when tradition states that a woman can propose to a man…and he has to accept. If I wasn’t already married to Mr. Fab, I would snag him today. We’re going on for eight years (a record relationship for me, I might add) and despite his numerous flaws, I wouldn’t swap him for anyone, not even Leonardo DiCaprio (although I’d give it serious consideration before turning Leo down.)

We talked recently about how things might have worked out differently if we’d met sooner. Perhaps we might have been able to have children, then again, perhaps we wouldn’t. I’ll never know. But the time we spent before we met has made us the people we are today, and maybe if we’d met when we were younger, we wouldn’t have been ready for one another. Again, we’ll never know.

But my husband also acknowledges that if we’d met in a different time and place he wouldn’t have had his two children, and he wouldn’t change that for anything. So, I guess my whine for today is that I can’t begrudge him that…even if I really want to.

It is Whiny Wednesday. What’s irking you today?

It Got Me Thinking…About Basketball

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

In my mind, there are two kinds of people: those who hate the sound of shoes squeaking on the basketball court (“It’s like fingernails on a chalkboard!”) and those who think it is one of the sweetest sounds on Earth. I am in the latter group. In fact, just thinking about it now has me rolling my eyes in ecstasy.

We have season tickets to watch a local college team, and as we head toward the playoffs, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve missed…and what I might have missed. On the one hand, I’m envious of the mom of one of our seniors. He has had a phenomenal record-breaking career, and she must be so proud. I used to think I’d be a mom like her, the one who would humbly accept praise from the other fans in between screaming her head off as she cheered her kid to victory. I would have been a great basketball mom.

But in reality, if I were a mom now, I’d be missing all this. I’d be the one at home breastfeeding or helping with homework or taking care of the kid with a cough while my husband went out and had all the fun. For the better part of a decade (depending on the number of kids I was mothering), I might catch highlights on the evening news, but most likely I’d fall into an exhausted sleep while listening to my husband deliver his play-by-play account. I would have missed the thrilling one-point wins, the bad calls, the game-winning steals, the Hail Mary shots. I would have missed the camaraderie, the strategy talks with the coach, the high-fives across the rows of devoted fans. I. Love. Basketball.

I know, I know, there are other rewards in being a mom. But in celebration of being childfree, I have to say I’d rather be sitting courtside on the home court than sidelined at home.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She’s mostly at peace with being childfree.