Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Mother’s Day: Part I

Self-Portairt: Mum and Me Climbing Mountains

Last Sunday was Mother’s Day in the UK, where my mum is. I sent her a card and on Sunday I called and wished her a Happy Mother’s Day. We chatted about the weather and her garden, and she caught me up on the news. It was a lovely Mother’s Day—for both of us. I quietly, privately, without ceremony, celebrated my own lovely mother.

Next month will see Mother’s Day here in the U.S. On that day I’ll probably stay in bed.

Thanks to the Hallmark influence, people will be going nuts for every mother, not just their own. Restaurants and stores will be celebrating motherhood and those of us who aren’t mothers will be reminded again of what we’re missing.

When I celebrate Christmas, I try to remain aware that others may come from different religious backgrounds, and I choose carefully when to say “Merry Christmas” and when to opt for the safer “Happy Holidays.” I celebrate Christmas in my way, but I don’t force my celebration on others. I’m not suggesting that “Happy Mother’s Day” be replaced with “Happy Everyone’s Day,” but I do wish that Mother’s Day would return to its origins, of children celebrating the mothers they love, in their own private way.

Talking About Infertility

Last night I was at a book signing event in San Francisco. It was really fun. I sat around with about ten women and we drank wine and talked about the craziness of infertility and how life doesn’t always give you what you want—and how sometimes that’s ok.

It was a mixed group, including women who were childfree by choice, not-by-choice, or not-exactly-by-choice, as well as a handful of mothers. Here are some of the most interesting highlights for me:

From one of the mothers: “My friend just told me that she’d been through infertility treatments. I had no idea.”

From another of the mothers: “Out of my circle had nine friends, seven had problems conceiving. I didn’t realize how common a problem this is.”

From a woman who was childfree (I think not-by-choice, but I’m not sure): This isn’t the life I’d planned for myself, but I feel like I’m just where I’m supposed to be.”

From a lovely softspoken woman, the oldest member of the group: “I can completely understand how you lost all logic and behaved the way you did, because it happened to me.”

Sometimes you feel as if you’re the only person in the world to go through infertility or to find yourself childfree when you hadn’t planned it that way, but what I’m seeing first-hand is that this touches so many people. And what I’m encouraged to learn is that those who haven’t experienced it themselves want to know more, so they can help the people they care about. I find myself heartened by this.

Whiny Wednesday: Feeling Old

Last year my milestone birthday (40, if you must know) passed without an ounce of angst. In fact I was glad to be 40. I felt that I had come of age at last, come into my own, reached my zenith. Now, as my milestone-birthday-plus-one approaches, I just feel old.

 

My feet hurt, my back hurts, my tooth broke, and my hair went thin. My GP says my blood sugar is high and my OB tells me I’m heading into menopause, oh, about 10 years ahead of schedule.

Yesterday was the topper, though.  I went to the health food store to buy vitamins and found myself checking out the cute guy behind the counter. He was clearly younger than me, but still within range had I been in the market for such a thing. Or so I thought. In a conversation about IDs, he mentioned that his mom still gets carded. “And she’s 45!”

I paid for my old lady vitamins and left.

Yes, I know that age is a state of mind, and that I will snap out of this, but today is Whiny Wednesday, so I’m feeling sorry for myself.

Whine on, sisters. What’s on your mind today?

Facebook’s Skewed Perspective

As much fun as I had profiling some of great Cheroes, it’s time to get back to regular programming, and as usual, there’s no shortage of material.

 

In the news this week was a warning from doctors about teen depression and Facebook. Listed among the “unique aspects of Facebook that make it a particularly tough social landscape to navigate” were the “in-your-face status updates and photos of happy-looking people having great times,” leaving some kids to “feel even worse if they think they don’t measure up.”

 

If you’re childless-not-by-choice and spend any time at all on Facebook, these painful feelings might sound all too familiar. There’s nothing quite like a pregnancy announcement or cute kid pictures to remind you of what you don’t have.

 

But take heart!

 

The report is very quick to point out that Facebook “provides a skewed perspective of what’s really going on.” I think that’s true. While there are some people who clearly don’t give a second (or even a first) thought to what they post on Facebook, I know that I am very aware of how many people can read my posts and the different levels of “friendship” I have out there. Because of this, I’m always careful to manage my public persona.

 

If I’m having a crappy day and life is just the pits, I stay off Facebook; I don’t post my misery to the world. On the other hand, the pictures I do post are usually of my best days, out in the sunshine, with my husband, in some exciting locale, living a dream life!

 

I think that the majority of people post this way – we put our best Facebook faces forward – so it’s easy to look at a small sliver, a snapshot of someone else’s life and see it as perfect. In other words, it’s easy to look at a portrait of a happy family or read a jubilant pregnancy announcement and perceive that someone else has EVERYTHING we want.

 

But life just isn’t as simple as that.

 

If you’re at the stage in your journey where seeing some else’s children or baby news tips you over the edge, I strongly recommend giving Facebook the elbow for a while. But that’s just my opinion. There’s been a really great discussion on the forums about how to deal with Facebook. Take a look to see how other readers dealing with it.

Another Voice for the Childless-Not-By-Choice

We’ve long bemoaned the lack of media coverage for the childless and childfree. I know that I’ve complained several times about “safe” magazines, such as Runner’s World springing unexpected parenting articles on me in between the shoe reviews and training programs.

 

So, when I was asked recently to contribute some thoughts about childfree/childless/infertility blogs for a sidebar to an article about the mommy blog phenomenon, I was understandably hesitant.

 

Well, the article came out in BITCH Magazine this month (Spring ’11) and I must say that I’m thrilled. After the main Mommy Blog article was a FULL PAGE article entitled Barren Bloggers in Breederville!

 

OK, not the most flattering of monikers, especially considering one of the bloggers mentioned now has twins, but right up there, flying the flag for the “life after infertility” crowd was Silent Sorority’s Pamela – and yours truly.

 

And Hallelujah, if the author didn’t make a point of mentioning that some women choose a life path that doesn’t include motherhood, and that (and I quote) “Infertility and adoption experts stress that [adoption] is not a universal solution,” especially for “emotionally and financially drained” infertility patients, hesitant to “embark on yet another uncertain journey.” Honestly, I could kiss the author for getting those words into print. In fact I am considering printing them out and keeping them in my pocket for the next time someone asks if we ever considered adoption before deciding to live childfree.

 

Anyway, I’m keeping an eye open for the article popping up online, and when it does, I will most definitely be posting it here.

 

Sisters, if we just keep talking, eventually, we will be heard. –x-

Surviving

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the death of my father. 25 years have passed and I’ve grown from a teenage girl to a woman, but if I was sitting in a room with you, I still wouldn’t be able to tell you about my dad without my voice cracking.

Losing my dad was the single most significant thing that had ever happened to me. It changed the whole trajectory of my life and it colored everything I did for many, many years.

Then I found out I couldn’t have children.

In many ways that has trumped my father’s death. It has taken the title of Most Significant Event. It has changed the trajectory of my life in ways I could never have imagined, and it still colors everything that I do. But already I am able to tell you that I can’t have children, without my voice cracking. Because what losing my dad taught me is that life goes on and that I will survive. It does, and I will.

Last night I spoke about writing at the Wellness Community, a cancer support center near my home. I sat in a room with survivors, women whose Most Significant Event has given them an up-close view of their own mortality. Their diagnosis changed their lives and continues to color everything that they do. But they’re here, they’re talking (often with cracking voices), they’re telling their stories and they are surviving.

Life deals us blows; it’s the nature of the thing. But we go on and we survive. That’s what makes us human.

Whiny Wednesday – Thoughtless Comments

It’s Whiny Wednesday and I’ve been brewing a post for a couple of weeks about people who leave thoughtless comments on blogs.

I’ve come across several cases recently of commenters posting hateful or at least unthinking comments on blogs and websites. The worst was on an article about infertility that I reposted here. That article generated some of the most cruel and heartless comments I’ve ever read on the subject.

Then, last week a fellow blogger told me of her experience with an equally unpleasant throw away comment someone left on a blog she visits. It was one of those comments about the childless and childfree that we know in our hearts aren’t true, but that sting anyway. The words, bitter, pathetic and whiny are often associated with those stereotypes.

I know better than to read comments on news sites, because I always get riled up, and yet I do it anyway, and then find myself stomping around furious that someone could be so thoughtless and insensitive.

Finally last week, I had lunch with a friend who had published an article called My Husband, the Convicted Murderer on Salon.com. Her article spawned 122 comments, ranging from support and understanding to the inevitable hate mail variety. I asked her; “How do you deal with this?” and she gave me some helpful advice.

She said (and I’m paraphrasing here):

“Some people just come looking for a fight. They’re looking for controversy and they’re looking for someone to leave their darkest thoughts. The internet is the perfect, almost anonymous place to do that.”

She’s right. People come from all sorts of dark places, and often with their own personal agenda. Sometimes people post before they think, or they just don’t bother wasting energy thinking at all. There’s nothing we can do to help those people, and odds are, they don’t want to be helped or educated or enlightened. They just want to fight.

I feel very fortunate that most of the people who find this blog are coming with something positive to say. It has helped create the kind of community I’d envisioned when I first started this project. But when I venture out into the wider world and encounter the other kind of commenters out there, I’ll be sure to keep my friend’s advice in mind.

It’s Whiny Wednesday, so chime in to the discussion or feel free to have a whine of your own.

P.S. On the subject of other blogs, here’s an article tying in to our National Women’s History month series that I posted on Divine Caroline earlier this week.

Death Penalty for Women Who Miscarry

Ironic that, in this month of celebrating women who made history, this story should hit the headlines.

Kathleen Guthrie sent me this report:

As reported on MSNBC TV yesterday, Bobby Franklin, a Georgia lawmaker, has proposed a bill that would hold women criminally and legally accountable—and eligible for the death penalty—if they miscarry.

This isn’t just the case of one extreme politician. The bill has made it to the legislature, and similar bills are being considered in other states.

I am too stunned to be outraged yet; in fact the bill is so ludicrous that I find myself on the verge of laughing.

But really, it’s not funny.

The women who came before us fought hard for our reproductive rights, and yet it seems we are in constant danger of losing our grip on those rights.

I realize that this bill is a political vehicle to overturn abortion law, but what kind of a country do we live in where a law that would systematically wipe out women who are unable to reproduce make it any further than the first trash can?

Expressing Motherhood – Part III

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about going to see my friend in a show called Expressing Motherhood. I wrote a post about my trepidation and facing my demons head-on, and a follow-up about my surprise reaction to the show.

Mali left this comment:  

“What a difference it would have made if the performance had […] included the story of one infertile woman. We would all have felt included then, and positive towards the performance.”

Great suggestion, I thought, so I contacted the producers, and to cut a long story short, when the show reopens in April with a new cast, yours truly will be out there flying the non-mom flag.

Ok, so I’m pretty excited about this, but I bought fresh scallops from the fishmonger today and it’s almost dinner time, so I’ll keep it brief. Just know that this won’t be the last you’ll hear about this. I’m really pleased that the producers were open to this idea and I’m nervous but excited about having a captive audience of moms to hear my story. My hope is to be able to open a few eyes and maybe get people thinking a little about their own friends and family who don’t have children. It’s going to be interesting.

So, here are the basic deets, for any of you who happen to be in the Los Angeles area and think you might be up to seeing the show:

Expressing Motherhood

Mother’s Day Show (Yup, that’s right!)

April 27, 28, 29 & 30

May 4, 5, 6 & 7

Elephant Space

6322 Santa Monica Blvd., Los Angeles

Tickets are $20 from www.Brownpapertickets.com, and if you buy on March 1 and use the code “Five” you can save $5.

I’ll keep you posted.