Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

It Got Me Thinking…About “All Saints Day”

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Today in my corner of the world is All Saints’ Day. It’s not one of the so-called Hallmark holidays, or one of those we group into The Holiday Season, but it has its place. Different rituals are performed, depending upon your faith, and some of those rituals are based on ancient traditions that center around appeasing the “malevolent and restless spirits” of the recently departed. I mostly think of it as a day of remembrance, a day when I light a candle, cry a few tears, and offer up prayers of thanksgiving in memory of friends and family members.

In the past 10 months, we’ve lost some notable cheros (heros who happen to be childfree) including revered actor Richard Griffiths (perhaps most widely known as Harry Potter’s Uncle Vernon), Muriel Siebert (the first woman to buy a seat on the New York Stock Exchange), and Helen Thomas (a news correspondent who covered the White House from the Eisenhower to the Obama administrations). Closer to home, I lost a chero who had been part of my life for 20+ years (read my post about her here), and I’ve supported friends as they’ve grieved the passings of parents and siblings.

I think there’s more to this day, though, especially for those of us who are childfree not by choice. Some of us are grieving the heartbreaking losses brought on by failed IVF procedures and miscarriages. All of us our grieving the losses of long-held dreams. While I won’t try to sugarcoat our very real pain, I would like to suggest that today is a good day to start letting them go. I plan to light a candle, sit in prayer, and try to release some of the restless spirits that I’ve carried with me for so long. I don’t expect my world to change overnight, but I do hope to experience a little more acceptance and maybe even some grace.

I wish peace, acceptance, and grace for you too, dear sisters.

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

Halloween Without Children

jack o lanternThis week it’s Halloween and I know it can a tough time for many of you.

There’s the threat of a constant parade of cute munchkins at your door, the inundation of kid photos on Facebook, and, of course, it marks the start of the holiday season, which is never an easy time if you don’t have children.

So, how are you handling it?

Do you turn out the lights and pretend you’re not home? Do you make alternative plans to be out of the house? Or are you ready to embrace the festivities, just in your own way?

I’m going to be out of town this year, so plan to go out to dinner with Mr. Fab and take Halloween as it comes, if it comes to me at all. If I were home, I’d possibly do the same, but have some treats on hand in case of early callers.

In the past, I’ve hidden with the lights off on those years I wasn’t ready to face it. I’ve also decked out the lawn, bought a cauldron of sweeties, and fully embraced other people’s children (although I’ll admit there was more of the former before I could muster the strength for the latter.)

So, what’s your plan this year? How do you feel about the holiday and what’s your strategy for getting through it?

Pet Parenting

petMy cat is my baby, and I have countless cell phone photos and cute stories to prove it.

I’m generally hesitant about talking about Felicity as my baby, as people usually look at me as if I’m insane. On more than one occasion, I’ve caught myself listening to someone talk about her child and then heard myself chip in with, “Oh, I get it. My cat…” and regaling her with a comparable pet parent tale.

So, I was very pleased to hear about a recent study that found that dogs become attached to their caregivers in the same way that human infants attach to theirs.

The researchers discovered that animals exhibit the “secure base effect,” which allows them to feel safe in an unfamiliar environment when the caregiver is present.  In other words, just like children, dogs feel more comfortable exploring the world and interacting with strangers when their “parent” is around, and a dog will bond with its parent in the same way a child bonds to his or hers.

My experience has been that this behavior is also true of cats.

And while human children eventually grow out of this behavior, our pets don’t. Which means they’ll always be our babies.

Road Map to Healing Program Starts Saturday

Stone BridgeJust a quick reminder that the Road Map to Healing program starts this Saturday.

If you missed the information, you can find the original post here and more details about the program here.

It’s free to join, but you must sign up before end-of-day tomorrow to get the materials on Saturday.

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.