Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Our Stories: LuDexMommie

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Our Stories“This infertility journey nearly broke me on multiple levels,” LuDexMommie* writes. She believed she deserved to have a child, and as multiple fertility treatments failed her, she found herself in a very dark place on the “hope-despair rollercoaster”. Now 39 and soon to be divorced, LuDexMommie acknowledges that she could keep trying, she could recruit a surrogate or adopt, but “I am loathe to open myself up to more pain.” We can relate, can’t we? More of her story is below.

LWB: Briefly describe your dream of motherhood:

LuDexMommie: I didn’t dream, I assumed. I could easily picture all the wonderful moments shared between my child and me. I knew there would be challenges, but I felt I had the capacity to excel at raising a child. In fact, I was so confident that I went to lengths to develop my career and put motherhood (and what I felt to be a requisite relationship) on hold. My philosophy was that if you worked hard enough at something, you would get it. But I never considered having to work to have a baby.

LWB: Are you childfree by choice, chance, or circumstance?

LuDexMommie: I have premature ovarian failure and adenomyosis, and I consumed infertility technology for three years to battle against this. I have had four IUIs, two IVF procedures with two different egg donors (one was my sister!), two transfers with donor embryos, and two surgeries. Out of all that, only two chemical pregnancies resulted with a hell of a lot of heartache and grief. Circumstances got me here, but I find myself moving toward choosing a childfree life.

LWB: Where are you on your journey now?

LuDexMommie: Over the past few months it became clear that my marriage is an irreversible source of frustration, not support. I have always had difficulty relating to the term “DH” [Darling Husband] that I read about on blogs. My husband was quite limited in what he was able to give to the relationship, so I am choosing to move forward alone. I am hoping to connect with others without a DH.

LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?

LuDexMommie: I wish I could take that cold, hard scar out of my heart and put it in someone else so they could instantly understand how much it hurts. I will not see an ultrasound picture of a baby growing inside of me. I will not brush my child’s curly hair. There won’t be recognition of myself in a child’s mannerisms. I cannot hug or kiss my child, and no one will run to me for comfort. I won’t be able to teach or learn from my child. I will not experience the pride that parents have for a variety of childhood “firsts”. There will be no school supplies, sports teams, musical instruments, birthday parties, scraped knees, bedtime stories, school dances, family vacations, or driving lessons. I won’t be mother of the bride or groom. No grandchildren for me. I anticipate loneliness. I anticipate pangs of jealously. I am fully aware that parenting is not all roses, but the decision to stop trying when so many rewards are possible is very, very difficult.

LWB: What’s the best part about not having children?

LuDexMommie: Getting “me” back, emotionally, mentally, and physically. Opening up choices for myself. Getting out of a dysfunctional relationship and making myself ready for a healthy one. Cultivating special relationships with my nieces and nephews. Simplifying my life. Recognizing my potential as a human being. Acknowledging the difficulties that having a child in my 40s would present, and taking advantage of the freedoms that being childfree affords.

LWB: What have you learned about yourself?

LuDexMommie: I am surprised that I’m willing to consider being childfree; I would not have predicted that when this process began. I learned what my limits are. I learned I am a positive person at my core, but not at the expense of being practical. I learned how people not going though infertility pain could not help me in the way that I wanted them to. I became more forgiving of obliviousness. I am still trying to understand what “grief work” is. I recognize better what makes me happy, what makes me anxious, and what I am willing to do. I am kinder to myself.

LWB: How do you answer “Do you have kids?”

LuDexMommie: I say, “No. Do you have dogs?”

LWB: What’s your Plan B?

LuDexMommie: Ha! I’m way past Plan B. It’s time to rediscover myself and do things that make me happy.

 

*Not her real name. We allow each respondent to use a fictitious name for her profile, if she chooses.

Won’t you share your story with us? Go to the Our Stories page to get more information and the questionnaire.

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

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayIt’s Whiny Wednesday, your chance to gripe about the issues you’re dealing with this week. This week’s suggested topic is one we’ve all had to deal with:

 An over-abundance of work pregnancies

 I can relate to this one. When I was trying to conceive, I managed a small department of about eight people. One year we had three simultaneous pregnancies…and none of them was mine.

Whine away!

Guest Post: Infertility Cuts Men Up Too

By Sheridan Voysey

Childlessness isn’t just a “female thing.” It cuts a man up too.

I know. I’ve felt it—felt each stinging cut.

For ten years my wife, Merryn, and I dreamed of starting a family. Our journey in pursuit of that dream included special diets, courses of fertility-boosting supplements, healing prayer, and chiropractic sessions (yes, chiropractic sessions—you’ll try anything). The journey included numerous rounds of costly IVF treatment, and a year of assessment as potential adoptive parents followed by an agonising two-year wait for our hoped-for adoptive child.

We pursued our dream with all the energy we had. But our dream never eventuated.

Exhausted from a decade in the wilderness of infertility, we brought our dream of a baby to an end on Christmas Day, 2010, after doctors had told us, just days before, that our final IVF round had been successful. They’d been wrong.

I feel the loss of that hoped-for child today. I feel it when I see a father tickling his giggling daughter, or as I watch a family celebrate the birthday of their teenage son, or as I see a proud father walk his radiant, veiled daughter down the aisle. I hear a little voice at these moments that says, “You’ll never have that,” followed by a jolting sense of injustice. “It’s just not fair,” the voice says, “when we tried so hard to have a child.”

Yes, infertility can cut a man up.

It cuts a man up in more ways than the loss of fatherhood, though. Having written a book about Merryn’s and my experience of starting again after infertility, and sharing our story through speaking, I regularly have men confidentially email or pull me aside at conferences to share feelings they rarely share. “I can’t talk about this to my friends,” one guy told me. “I have low sperm count. I can’t father a child. That’ll hardly impress my football buddies.” For many men this threatened masculinity is the most difficult aspect of infertility.

The lost opportunity of fatherhood. Threatened masculinity. Infertility can bring a third kind of pain to a man too—a pain born of empathy.

Try watching your wife’s bottom lip quiver as the doctor delivers the results of those first fertility tests. Watch the sadness grow in her eyes—a sadness that may last for years.

Watch your wife’s face contort in pain as the needle extracting the eggs for your first IVF round goes in. Watch as she later recovers from the trauma in shocked silence.

Watch your wife wait in hope for the results of the blood test—for the phone call with the good news that you pray for. Watch time and again as her hope falls to the floor.

Watch as she waits, and waits, and waits for the phone call from the adoption agency. Any day now it could come—the call to collect our child. But the call never comes.

Watch as she sits on the bed, a circle of tissues around her and her eyes rubbed red. Watch as she cries night after night. Feel her body shake as you hold her.

Watch as she enters an identity crisis, wondering if she’ll ever become the person—the mother—she longs to be.

And watch as she struggles with the faith that once sustained her. Watch as she wonders if the God she prays to cares. If he cared, surely he’d give her a family.

Watch all this—watch and try not to be cut up. When the one you love most suffers so much, how can your soul not be ripped to shreds?

Over three years have passed since my wife and I brought our quest for a child to an end. We’re in a different place now—we’ve started life again. And our story is helping others who need their own new beginning after a broken dream.

But please know this: childlessness isn’t just a “female thing.” Infertility cuts a man up too. In more ways than you may know.

 

Sheridan Voysey is a UK-based writer, speaker, and broadcaster. His latest book, Resurrection Year: Turning Broken Dreams into New Beginnings, chronicles his and his wife’s journey to start life afresh after ten years of infertility. Follow him on Twitter @sheridanvoysey, Facebook, and get his articles and podcasts at www.sheridanvoysey.com.

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayWhen a reader suggested this week’s topic, I spotted myself immediately. The topic is:

Staying busy to fill the hole of being childless

Work, hobbies, school, projects, friends in need, volunteering: Have you packed your life with busyness in order to fill a gap?

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s on your mind today?

Letting Go of the Dream of Motherhood eBook is Here!

By Lisa Manterfield

Exiting news! The first book in the Life Without Baby ebook series is out today. Workbook 1: Letting Go of the Dream of Motherhood is available on Amazon now and will be showing up at other online retailers over the coming weeks.

It’s been an interesting process to gather all that I’ve learned about this strange journey over the past years. I wish I’d known five years ago (or maybe even before then) that it was okay to let go of my quest. I wish I’d understood that the loss of my dream meant more than simply not having children and that it would affect the foundation of my identity, my relationships, and all my plans for the future. And I wish I’d known to give myself permission to grieve, instead of putting on a brave face and pretending everything was okay. At least I know that now.

I’ve learned so much from all of you as I’ve voiced my difficulties here and heard about yours. You have taught me so much about this issue and about myself. For that, I am very grateful.

I’m also enormously grateful to Kathleen for her help in crafting the book and then her brilliant work editing and proofreading the final manuscript. There’s so much that happens behind the scenes of this site that couldn’t happen without her.

So, please, grab yourself a copy of the book. It’s affordably priced at $2.99. Your support of these projects enables me to keep this site running without ads or fees. Don’t worry if you don’t have an e-reader. You can download a free App so you can read the book on your computer, phone, tablet, or maybe even your watch!

You can find Workbook 1 here. And if you can’t get enough, you can even pre-order Workbook 2. I’d love to get your feedback if you find them helpful.

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayOne of the earliest posts I wrote here was about the trend at the time in baby doll tops that, on me, looked like maternity wear.

This week, a reader offered this Whiny Wednesday topic about shopping for new clothes. Her whine is:

“The need to go shopping for new clothes and trying to find something I feel good in vs. something I think screams ‘infertile and has a poor sense of style.’”

She may not have a great sense of style, but at least she has a great sense of humor.

It’s Whiny Wednesday. What can you laugh about this week?

How Not to Say the Wrong Thing

By Lisa Manterfield

shhhI absolutely love this article by Susan Silk and Barry Goldman about how not to say the wrong thing to someone in crisis. I wish it was mandatory reading for everyone, and I especially wish it came with a note explaining that it applies when talking to infertiles and the childless-not-by-choice.

The gist of their Ring Theory is that the person in crisis is at the center of the ring and those next closest to the person occupy subsequent rings. In the case of someone coming to terms with not having children, she would be at the center, her spouse or partner on the next ring, perhaps closest family and friends on the next, and more distant family, coworkers, and acquaintances beyond that.

The rule is that that if people have something mean or insensitive or opinionated to say, they say it to someone on a bigger ring. When speaking to someone on a smaller ring, they can only listen or—if they must say something—offer help, support, or comfort. No advice, no miracle stories, no blame or shame. No offering of their kids, no suggestions to adopt. “I’m sorry” is all that needs to be said. If they want to dump, dump outwards, not inwards.

I wish people would understand that someone who has just acknowledged she won’t ever have children is in crisis, and what she needs more than judgment and unhelpful help is for people to say to the right thing.

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayThis week’s Whiny Wednesday topic comes from a reader and is ripe for a rant and perhaps some ideas.

She writes:

“I still haven’t figured out how to make friends with people my own age (40s) who have children. I often feel disposable, or okay to invite to things when it suits them. I’m a thoughtful, caring person who deserves better.”

What do you think about this? It’s Whiny Wednesday, so let it all out.

An Interview with Henriette Mantel

No Kidding coverBy Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Henriette Mantel was first introduced to me as the editor of No Kidding: Women Writers on Bypassing Motherhood. In this collection of essays, some very funny women—including Margaret Cho, Wendy Liebman, Laurie Graff, and Nora Dunn—tackle the mostly serious topic of why they opted out of having children. Their stories are in turns hilarious and raw, inspiring and heartbreaking, and they all give voice to women who are traditionally shamed for their choices.

An Emmy Award–winning writer, a documentary film producer, an actor—Henriette’s résumé is impressive. Shortly after I spoke with her I learned she has portrayed one of the most beloved childfree characters of all time: Alice in The Brady Bunch movies. (Read Henriette’s lovely tribute to Ann B. Davis, the original Alice, here.)

For those of you who are new to Life Without Baby, we have a tradition of honoring “cheroes,” i.e., heroes who happen to be childfree. Henriette is one of my cheroes, for being her authentic self and for speaking up for childfree by choice women everywhere. Even if you are childfree not by choice, I think you will find inspiration and support in her perspective. Let me introduce you….

LWB: What was your inspiration for the book?

Henriette: Watching endless interviews with authors about how to deal with/live with/not kill/brag about your kids. Seriously, I couldn’t take it anymore. I wanted to hear the other side of the story.

LWB: Are you childfree by choice, chance, or circumstance?

Henriette: I have pushed a lot of things in my life, but I never pushed having children. Partly because I could never imagine raising a child alone and partly because my choices in men have always been just this side of serial killers. But most of all, I have never had that gotta-have-a-baby visceral craving that ruled so many of my friends. I like kids. I LOVE kids. I love my nieces and my lone nephew more than life itself. My reason for not having kids wasn’t that I hate the little buggers, it was that I always felt fate would let me know if I was supposed to be a mom or not. Fate never brought me a man I would love to get pregnant with, fate never called me to raise a child alone, and fate never knocked me up, so here I am, childless.

LWB: Where are you on your journey now?

Henriette: To be honest, sometimes when I hold my new great-niece I wonder what my kid would have looked like. But that is ego. Of course I wonder what my kid would have looked like, but is that enough to have a kid? I don’t think so. When I think of all the work/heartache/rewards that a child can bring, I still don’t seem to crave having one.

LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?

Henriette: Not cleaning up bodily fluids? Not racing to the hospital when they have a fever of 104? Not worrying about them shooting up heroin? Oh, yea… wanting to talk endlessly and boringly about my kid when all the indulgent, tedious moms talk about their kids. That’s the hard part.

LWB: What’s the best part about not having children?

Henriette: My time is my own.

LWB: What’s the best advice you’ve received about living a happy childfree life?

Henriette: No one ever really talked about it to me until I edited No Kidding. It’s like a non-subject. That’s what I love about the book. At least people now talk about it.

LWB: What’s the best advice you’d offer someone else like you?

Henriette: Follow your heart. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with not having/wanting/craving kids. And there’s nothing wrong with having them either. Do what you do.

LWB: What advice do you wish you could have given your younger self?

Henriette: Try not to date psyco-men. Oh wait, that’s not about kids. I guess just go with the flow, baby.

LWB: What’s one thing you want other people (moms, younger women, men, grandmothers, strangers) to know about childfree women?

Henriette: There is nothing wrong with us. Stop feeling sorry for us. And for god’s sake, stop assuming we wanted them! Open your mind up a little and know there are choices and some of us are brave enough to make the choices that aren’t mainstream (boring) thinking.

The other day, my friends were dealing with their teen-age girl (nightmare) and after I gave some dumb advice, the father joked to me, “That’s coming from a person with no kids.” He knows I wrote the book, he knows my life, he just said it teasingly. Well, the other woman in the room, who didn’t know me, had such a look of pity when she looked at me, that I actually felt sorry for her to be so unevolved. Actually, I wanted to punch her in the nose. But as my mom used to say, “That wouldn’t be very ladylike, would it?”

LWB: At Life Without Baby, we talk a lot about “cheroes,” our heroines who happen to be childfree (Sally Ride, Oprah, the first female 4-star general). Who is your chero and what about her inspires you?

Henriette: I guess out of all the childless women it has to be Gloria Steinem because she said to Joan Rivers (who ooozed pity upon her childless soul), “If we all had kids, there wouldn’t be anyone here to tell you what it’s like not to have them.” Hearing that statement, at age 16, liberated me for the rest of my life.

 

No Kidding: Women Writers on Bypassing Parenthood is available on Amazon. Henriette Mantel is currently adapting it into an Off-Broadway show. Visit her website for updates.

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayIf you’re new to the site, you might wondering what Whiny Wednesday is all about.

A few years ago, some readers commented that they couldn’t express how they felt around friends and colleagues, as they were always made to feel as if they were whining. So, we created Whiny Wednesday as a place to complain and grumble about whatever’s on your mind each week. It can be an issue surrounding living without children, or just a general grumble about life, work, family, the world.

I used to start each post with a gripe of my own, but lately I’ve found I’ve covered most of what bothers me, so I put out a call for Whiny Wednesday topics, and you, dear readers, came through! So, each week, I offer one of your suggested topics as a starting point, but as always, any topic is fair game.

So, let’s kick off with this week’s topic:

Parents who complain and complain then ask “Do you want my kids?”

Happy whining!

P.S. If you need something to cheer about instead, check this fun list of quotes from famous childfree women.

If you have a topic that hasn’t been covered yet, please drop me a line, send me ideas, or a list of ideas, and I’ll include them here. You can reach me at: lisa [at] lifewithoutbaby [dot] com.