Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

It Got Me Thinking…About Labels

Girl ThinkingBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods

I play a lot of roles in life: friend, sister, writer, daughter, gym rat, wife, aunt, citizen of the world. They are all important to me, but I would argue that not one, on its own, defines me. I think maybe that’s why I get irked when I hear people trying to pigeonhole others by saying things like, “She’s your gay friend, right?” Um, no. She would be my friend, period. The fact that she happens to be gay is only part of who she is. (And, by the way, from an editor’s point of view, I have many friends who happen to be gay, not just one.) It’s like saying someone is an Irish cop or that fat actress or a Catholic conservative. It smacks of bigotry and it feels demeaning, whether the comment is spoken consciously or not.

That’s why I think it stung when someone recently referred to me as “circumstantially infertile.” Have you heard this term? It means a woman who has not had children due to life circumstances: hasn’t met the right guy, opted not to be a single parent, ran out of time on her biological clock. This in part describes my life path, although I’ve become more comfortable with the term we use around these parts, “childfree,” which I’ve now been informed means someone who has “chosen” not to have children.

Po-tay-toes, po-tah-toes?

I suppose labels help people better understand me, possibly be better able to relate to me, but it feels like they are used more often to separate and isolate us. I am a human being who happens to be circumstantially infertile. Emphasis on “human being.” There’s so much more to me than that one little label, and I hope people will take time to look beyond that and get acquainted with all the other parts that make me, well, me. I promise to do the same.

Meanwhile, I’d like to hear what you think about the whole label issue. What, if any, label do you use to describe your status and how do you feel when you hear others use it to define you?

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

 

Decluttering Baby Stuff

releaseIn her blog Baptism By Fire, Wolfers wrote a wonderful post about our emotional attachment to clutter, and how she wasn’t yet ready to let go of her baby-related items.

It’s been a couple of years already since I reached the point of being ready to let go of my baby clutter, so I was surprised by the emotions that stirred up when I read her post.

As I never actually became pregnant, I accumulated only a few baby items. It took me several years before I had the courage to say goodbye to them, but when I did let them go, it was sad, but not difficult. I was ready.

The things that brought on the strongest wave of emotions were all the books I’d bought over the years as I’d tried to uncover the magic formula to my fertility. I had books on Chinese medicine, diet, mindfulness, you name it, and I can remember feeling so angry when I put them in the donation box. I felt as if I’d been taken for a ride by these authors who had promised me a miracle. I felt duped and cheated—and really, really mad.

They’re out of my life now and largely out of my mind, but even though they’re gone, they’ve still left a mark where they used to be. And sometimes that mark gets sore again.

What have you held onto and what have you been able to let go?

My Inner Cranky Old Lady

Furious womanIt’s Valentine’s Week (because no commercially-driven holiday ever lasts for just a day anymore) and my inner Cranky Old Lady and I are having words again. As you can probably tell just from my opening sentence, she is already getting the better of me.

My Cranky Old Lady doesn’t like Valentine’s Day. It’s too commercialized, too many expectations on people to impress and throw around good money on overpriced roses and dinners. It snubs people who don’t have a special Valentine in their lives, and it points a rude finger at their singledom. What’s more, it’s yet another holiday, originally intended for adult lovers, that’s been hijacked by kids and their cute “I love you Mommy” Valentine’s cards. Nope, my inner Cranky Old Lady abhors Valentine’s Day.

But I kinda like it. Oh, yes, it’s all those things my Cranky Old Lady says it is, but I don’t want to hate it. My Cranky Old Lady has taken over too many holidays from me over the past years and I’m ready to take them back.

In her defense, I know she did me a favor by keeping me away from the Hallmark holidays and protecting my tender interior. She talked me out of Halloween, Christmas, even July 4th, to keep me from the hurt I was feeling about not having children for those holidays. She did the right thing by me, and I appreciate that, but I’m ready to come out and play again.

Part of the silver lining of not having children is that I’m not bound to anyone else’s expectations of how holidays should be celebrated. If I want to celebrate Valentine’s Day, I can. If I don’t want to, I don’t have to. And this year I choose to lock up my Cranky Old Lady and embrace the silliness and blatant commercialism of the day. Who knows, I might even break my Crank Old Lady rule and wear something red!

Do you have an inner Cranky Old Lady? When do you let her out and when do you put up a fight?

 

Guest Post: Un Blog en français (A Blog in French)

journalingBy Catherine-Emmanuelle Delisle 

Je m’appelle Catherine-Emmanuelle Delisle et je suis une femme infertile de 36 ans. Je réside au Québec,  province du Canada à majorité francophone.

Depuis quelques mois, j’ai entrepris une démarche personnelle de deuil dans le but d’accepter mon infertilité.

Si vous êtes un jour confronté comme moi à l’impossibilité d’avoir des enfants de manière naturelle, vous constaterez qu’il existe à ce jour très peu de ressources littéraires et virtuelles en français. Sans compter la quasi absence de groupes de soutien.

Heureusement, quelques cliniques de fertilité québécoises offrent de l’aide psychologique afin de soutenir leur patientes et patients. Qu’en est-il ailleurs dans le monde ?

Donc, à qui peuvent s’adresser les femmes ayant décidé simplement de tirer un trait sur la maternité pour diverses raisons ( médicales ou personnelles).

Comment ces femmes peuvent-elles arriver à faire le deuil de la maternité sans être isolées? Comment peuvent –elles échanger avec d’autres femmes vivant la même situation ? Et que dire des hommes ?

Voilà pourquoi j’ai créé un blog en français pour partager avec vous les ressources, livres, sites, groupes d’entraide, interviews que j’ai pu trouver sur la toile pour m’aider dans ma démarche.

J’espère que ces ressources serviront à aider d’autres personnes désireuses d’arriver à vivre une existence satisfaisante sans enfant.

Au plaisir d’échanger avec vous!

Catherine-Emmanuelle Delisle

 

My name is Catherine-Emmanuelle Delisle. I’m a 36 year-old infertile woman and I live in Quebec, a province of Canada where the majority of the population speaks French.

A couple of months ago, I decided to undertake a process of grieving to accept my infertility.

If, like me, you have to face your own infertility, you will soon discover that there are very few resources (books or web sites) in French. Support groups addressing these issues are also very rare, especially away from the big cities.

Thankfully, in Quebec, a few fertility clinics offer psychological support to their patients. But what about the situation in the rest of the world?

Where can women who decide to come to terms with their absence of maternity (for medical or personal reasons) turn to?

How is it possible to accept your infertility when you feel so different and isolated form other women? How is it possible to exchange thoughts and information with other women who feel the same as you do? And what about the situation for men facing infertility?

That is why I decided to create a French blog to share the resources, the books , the web sites, the support groups, and the interviews that I have found on the net or elsewhere.

I hope that this information will help other people like me who want to learn how to live a great life without having kids.

Catherine-Emmanuelle Delisle lives in the region of Montréal in Québec, Canada. She shares her stories and resources at “Être femme sans enfant.”

 

Asking for the Help You Really Need

holding handsLast week I wrote about learning to ask for help and I’ve been thinking a lot about that topic since. Why is it so difficult for so many of us to ask for help?

Mali made a great point in her comment:

“I used to think asking for help was a weakness. Now I realize that asking for help is often the hardest thing, and requires real strength and honesty and courage.”

It does take a lot of courage to ask for help, especially from people we care about or who know us as strong, independent women. I also think that often we know we need help, we just have no idea what we need and who to ask for it.

When I need help, I’m fortunate enough to have some true friends and understanding family members I can turn to. My friend C is a wizard at research. If I need informational support, I go to her. My friend K is an ace networker, so if I need to find someone who’s shared my experience, she would know someone who knows someone. If I need someone to be pragmatic, I call M. If I need someone to call me out on my BS, I plan lunch with SC. If I need a friend who’ll say nothing, but just give me a hug, J or C will do that, and if I need someone to commiserate on the injustices of life, SR is my go-to girl.

Mr. Fab is a fixer. If I tell him a problem, he’ll instantly go to work on a solution. But sometimes it’s not what I need. Sometimes I just want to talk and know that someone has heard me. Sometimes I just want someone to listen and say. “Aw, that sucks!”

For several years I would ask him for help and then get frustrated when he didn’t offer the kind of help I really wanted. Finally, I figured out that I needed to be specific. “I don’t need you to fix this; I just need to talk about it,” I told him. Even as I saw him register my request, I could sense that not trying to fix my problem went against his instinct. But when he saw that simply listening helped me to talk my way to my own solution, we both ended up getting what we needed.

Now, when I need to ask for someone’s help, I also try to be specific about exactly the kind of help I need, whether that’s feedback, a solution, or just someone to hand me Kleenex while I pour my heart out.

What have you learned about asking for help?

Finding support and learning to ask for help are just two of the topics covered in the new Road Map to Healing course. I’m sharing a little love right now and offering this course at a special “new program” rate until Valentine’s Day. If you’re looking for help in coming-to-terms with a “life without baby,” please consider joining me.

Where Do You Turn for Help?

Last week I wrote about learning to ask for help and several of you commented that you’d had the good sense to seek professional help when you needed it.

thinkingOne of the things I’m aiming to do on this site is to provide information about resources and support, and this is where I need your help.

On the Learn page you’ll see a section call Therapist Directory. You’ll also see a big blank space and “Coming Soon!” I need your help filling in those blanks.

Have you worked with a therapist or counselor who really understood the special issues of dealing with unplanned childlessness or infertility?

Do you know of support groups in your area that help women come-to-terms with being unable to have children?

Do you have a resource for grief support?

If you have kind of resource that might benefit others, please share it here. You can add it to the comments on this post, or if you’d prefer, you can contact me privately through the Contact page.

When you’re facing a life without children, sometimes it’s impossible to know where to turn. We can all help one another by sharing whatever resources we find.

Guest Post: Top Ten Causes of infertility

andrew-head-22-2By The One Hand Man 

Let me preface this post by stating that thousands of men are affected by infertility, in a variety of ways. I am a true believer in laughter being the best medicine, and whilst I do not dismiss my fertility issues as being unimportant, I have come to terms with it, and accepted it for what it is. It has never been healthy to take things too seriously.

I suspect many men will share this view, so don’t pity us or feel sorry for us, support us by laughing along, and sharing this with others – It’s okay, you have my permission.

This top ten list was put together in its entirety with little or no research, it is a by-product of my imagination, with a dash of experience thrown in to explain the big words; I am not arrogant enough to tell you the biggest causes of male infertility, so don’t tell me I am wrong – do your own list.

10 – Exposure to radiation. This one is a double-edged sword. Fellas who have been exposed to radiation treatment have been so, probably to combat cancer. This of course, is not the case for Radiation Man from Superman 4. He may well be able to fly and shoot fire from his eyes. But that is the only shooting he will be doing. That might be why he is so angry, his ill-fated sperm are so illuminated by radiation poisoning, it looks like superman has put some glow sticks down his pants.

9 – Stress. The irony is not lost on me here. The stress of not being able to get your wife pregnant is the very cause of it. It’s okay though, some cretin will tell you to ‘just try and relax’ Thanks Captain Obvious, very helpful.

8 – Alcohol. Now I just don’t believe this. All those teenage pregnancies across the western world didn’t happen because their PlayStation broke. The horny little oiks got liquored up and pounced on the nearest willing participant. Cynical and bitter I may be, but tell me I am wrong.

7 – Cigarettes. Sperm motility and morphology are affected by smoking apparently, this means they are slow and ugly. Your little sperm may think they are looking cool, but just remember, half way up the urethra; they have to stop for a breather.

6 – Fat. If you are a bit tubby, tread carefully – obesity can have an effect on your hormones, so if you find yourself crying at Love Actually, like I do, get yourself down the clinic….. oh…..

Half way through the list now and you can see that a healthy lifestyle is key here, so if you are a fat alcoholic, who smokes 40 a day, you may as well just cut your sack off.

5 – Very frequent intercourse. Your guess is as good as mine as to what this means, but if you can find the time to do it 18 times a day, I say, go for it.

4 – Laptops. Proof that technology is moving forward at a pace that our own testicles cannot cope with. Experts will tell you it is the heat from the laptop radiating your bits, but I think it is that your junk simply cannot put up with you using the laptop to scour the internet for grot – here we go again boys.

3 – Too much exercise. Again, certain hormones get over stimulated with excessive intense exercise. When the doctor asked me if I exercised too much, he was met with barrel laughter from both my wife and myself.

2 – Trauma. I cannot remember a specific time my brother kicked me in the nuts, so the finger of blame cannot be pointed at him. I have played plenty of sports during my childhood though – just think: one unfortunate ball in the groin may have your mates bent double in laughter, but you could well pay for it later.

1 – Bad Luck. Yes this is a cop out; topping my list is that of lady luck, but I believe it to be true. Whether you believe in fate or not, I am convinced that pure fortune has played its part in my fertility. I may sound bitter and twisted at times, but I can assure you I am not. I have many things to be grateful for, and if infertility is the challenge I have to face throughout my life, I know the hand I have been dealt, is without doubt, a winning one.

I would implore any men having fertility problems to do whatever you can to improve your fertility; if you smoke – stop, if you are fat, try losing a bit of timber, cut down on the booze and definitely don’t get kicked in the balls, but don’t, under any circumstances, let infertility consume you, I am pretty sure that is not what we are here for.

The One Hand Man: Married in 07, sperm test in 08, IVF in 09, another sperm test in 10, adoption started in 11 – still going through the adoption process. Not had any recent sperm tests. Read more at: www.theonehandman.co.uk

Road Map to Healing Program

Stone BridgeI’ve been underground since the beginning of the year (figuratively, not literally) putting together a new workshop program. Based on feedback I received from the two wonderful groups of women I had the opportunity to work with in last year’s Mentorship Program, I’m very pleased to be able to offer a new program this year, Road Map to Healing.

During the program, we’ll tackle important topics, such as letting go of the dream of motherhood, creating time and space for grief, and getting valuable support from friends and family. You’ll have the support of other women through a private online group and be able to attend monthly support calls for as long as you need them.

If you’re new to the idea of a life without children or you’re stuck with moving forward to a place of acceptance, please join me on Road Map to Healing. The program opens for registration on Monday, and I’ll be offering a special new program rate until January 31st.

All the details will be available on Monday, but you can get a sneak peek of the program here.

 

Fertility Planit Show Report

Fertility PlanitLast weekend, I was at the Fertility Planit Show, speaking on a panel about Letting Go. I wrote about my trepidation in a post last month and so many of you were incredibly supportive that I thought I ought to report in on my experience.

As anticipated, it was very strange for me to be at the show. I walked around the exhibition hall glancing sideways at the booths for everything from adoption agencies to cryogenic storage facilities to banks offering IVF loans. I spotted a few organizations whose paths I’d crossed on my own journey, including one of my former doctors, who apparently had no recognition of me (probably because he’d spent little time looking at my face, if you know what I mean.) I’ll admit that my pulse quickened and my chest tightened as I walked around. I didn’t feel any pull to get back into the fertility game or any tempting new possibilities, but I could feel some of those old, anxious, emotions creeping back in.

The panel itself was great. About 50-100 people sat in the room and I’m told another 22,000 watched online! Attendees asked lots of questions and I was glad I had answers to many of them.

The hardest part for me was looking out at people in the audience who I knew were coming to the end of their infertility ropes. I could feel they were in so much pain and it was incredibly courageous of them to come and listen to this panel on a topic I know they didn’t really want to face. Part of me wanted to climb down off the stage and just hug them and the other part wanted to kick the world in the kneecaps and scream that these perfectly nice people didn’t deserve this. But I didn’t do either of those things. I sat on the stage, told my story, and answered as many questions as I could.

The upshot of the whole experience is that I’m very glad I accepted the invitation to speak. It was ultimately very rewarding to speak from a place of peace and healing.

As an added bonus, I got to meet two incredible women, Melanie Notkin and Tracy Cleantis, who I’ve known for some time through the blogosphere. I also made connections with some wonderfully compassionate therapists, who specialize in this area. More about this aspect coming soon.

The show is coming back to LA next year and you can bet I’m adding plenty of suggestions to my speaker survey of more ways to bring this crucial topic out into the open.

If you’d like to see the panel discussion, it’s available to download on the Fertility Planit site or you can view below.

Video streaming by Ustream

Thank you all again for being so supportive and encouraging on this new step in my journey.

POF Support Group/The Fertility Planit Show

newspapers showing extra extra messageIf you’re dealing with Premature Ovarian Failure/Primary Ovarian Insufficiency and you’re in Southern California, a local IPOFA support group invites you to join them.

“We talk about HRT and medical issues related to POF, but we also talk about the infertility side as well,” says the group’s organizer. “Even if you don’t have POF, you are welcome to join us as long as you don’t mind a little HRT chatter from time to time. A lot of us are childfree by circumstance. And it’s very casual – just chatting over coffee.”

The peer-organized group meets monthly, alternating between Los Angeles and San Diego. The group’s next two meetings are:

Saturday, January 12, Noon-2:00pm

Bread & Porridge

2315 Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica

www.breadandporridge.com

 

Monday, February 11,  7-9pm

Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Point Loma

955 Catalina Blvd, Suite 103, San Diego

www.peets.com

You can find more information about the group at their website: http://poisurvivorsgroup.blogspot.com/

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In other news, I will be speaking on the topic of “letting go” at The Fertility Planit Show this weekend. You can read more about what I’m doing there in this post.

I’m very aware of the awkwardness and delicacy of discussing a fertility education event on this site, so if you’re in the thick of coming-to-terms and trying to move forward, please stop reading now.

If however, you’ve arrived here by accident, you know someone who is trying to conceive and would appreciate this event, or you’re just curious, I do have a few guest passes for the show. If you’d like to attend as my guest, please register here. My panel is on Sunday from 3-4pm, so please be sure to drop by and say hello.

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If you have news of support or information meetings, or other events that might be of interest to our group (please keep them relevant to the childless/childfree topic) please send me the information and I’ll be happy to post it.