Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

It Got Me Thinking…About Telling Friends

By Kathleen Guthrie

“I’m leaving my husband.”

It was girls night out, and my small group of gal-pals was catching up over wine when Jen* dropped this bombshell on us.

“What?!” After twenty years and three kids together, their marriage was one I held up as a role model for making things work. How did it suddenly come to this?

That night I learned she’d been going to counseling for years, trying to make it work, trying to overlook her husband’s shortcomings for the sake of keeping their family together. She’d wanted to leave him months earlier, but the timing wasn’t right, and now she was ready to take the leap and begin to build a better life for her and her children.

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I asked, as I reached over to touch her hand.

“Because you are so happy and in love, and I didn’t want to take away from any of your pre-wedding romantic bliss.”

I quickly replayed our recent visits in my mind and looked for clues that things were amiss, some hint of her pain that I hadn’t picked up on, some expression or comment that gave an opening for my to check in with her, to ask her deeper questions, to see how she was doing. Had I said anything that made her feel worse? Had she felt I was rubbing her face in my happiness? Had my joy in my new role as bride-to-be added to her hurt? I hated that I had not been a good friend to her in her time of need.

I respected her choice to hide her situation from me, yet it also broke my heart. “I wish you’d told me. I want to know so that I can be there for you.”

“But you have so much else on your plate with all the wedding stuff.”

“I’ll always have stuff on my plate, but my priorities include taking care of my friends.”

As I mulled over this in the ensuing week, it reminded me of our conversations—on LWB—about talking to our friends and families about our struggles with infertility and childfreeness. When do you tell them? What and how much do you tell? It’s not dissimilar from Jen’s decision to not tell her friends what was going down in her marriage, and I found it interesting to be on the other side of the conversation for a change.

And here’s what I learned: It’s important that we share our pain so that we can allow our friends to support us. Allow them to be better listeners, to learn how to help you with a hug or by knowing when it’s better to ignore the elephant in the room. Once you open up to a close friend, you also have an ally in groups. Moving forward, when the dynamic shifts to all things pregnancy and mommydom, and you feel yourself being pushed to the periphery, your informed and sensitive friend can help steer the group back to more inclusive topics before you have a meltdown.

Please share. How else will I know what you need? I want to help. I want to be there for you. I say to Jen, as I say to you, “Please let me know how I can best support you.”

*Not her real name, of course.

Kathleen Guthrie is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She’s mostly at peace with her decision to be childfree.

Interview with author, Dr. Ellen Walker

Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Ellen Walker, author of Complete Without Kids: An Insider’s Guide to Childfree Living by Choice or by Chance. Ellen is childfree by choice, and even though I am childfree by chance, we had plenty to talk about on the subjects of friendship and community, the drive for motherhood, and what to do when life doesn’t go as planned. Here’s our conversation:

Life Without Baby: How did you make the decision to be childfree?

Ellen Walker: I never spent a lot of time thinking about motherhood. I was busy with work, travel, and hobbies, and I always had partners that never wanted a family.

My current husband already had grown children, and I never felt pressure from him, this was the first time I’d really been close to a father-son relationship, and when I’d hear him on the phone, telling his son he loved him, it tugged at my heartstrings. For the first time, I began to question my decision not to have children, and suddenly I wanted a baby of my own.

After many tearful discussions and weeks of writing, talking, and contemplating, I was able to step back and analyze. I realized that if I really wanted children, I would have made it happen before.

LWB: What do you think triggered that urge?

EW: I think it’s a basic biological drive to create a child, especially in a relationship with a man. You have a primitive urge to have his baby. It’s also about not wanting to be left out of a group. When friends are having babies and people are bringing photos of children into work, you have nothing to talk about with them.

LWB: Do you find that most of your friends are also childfree?

EW: Yes. My female friends tend to be 10-20 years older because the women my own age didn’t have time for friends without kids. Their friends went to soccer games and connected because of their kids. I did seek out childfree people, but most came about through chance meetings.

LWB: How important is it to find your own community?

EW: Really important. I never thought about it until I started meeting people and got really excited when they didn’t have children. I began to seek out others. I found a childfree Meetup group and went to a few meetings. It was fun, but I realized that just being childfree does not make someone a good candidate for friendship. Now, I look for people with interests in common, and if they happen to be childfree, I nurture those relationships.

LWB: Do you ever regret your decision?

EW: Sometimes. In a way I feel as if I’ve missed a big life stage. I’ve been career driven for a long time, and I’m feeling as if I’m ready to do something else. Many women my age with children are now focusing on their careers, and I’m ready to retire. I’m trying to figure out the next stage.

If I’d been raising kids, I wouldn’t have had the energy I’ve had for other things. I’m glad I made the choice and pursued my career. I’ve had the opportunity to impact people’s lives and I’ve written a book. I wouldn’t have been able to do those things. Everyone has regrets, but luckily mine are fleeting. Mother’s Day is always hard. I recently wrote an article about it for Psychology Today, asking people to be careful about saying “Happy Mother’s Day” to every woman and to be aware that it can be a very painful day for some women, and not a happy day.

LWB: What advice would you give to someone struggling with being childfree?

EW: Let yourself go through a real grieving process, preferably with a therapist. A dream is something you’d hoped to have as a part of your identity and most likely wanted it your whole life. Losing that dream is like a death, and a formal grieving process has to include acceptance. Only then can you make a decision about where you’re going to put your energy. Then you can create a new dream, picture your future, and figure out how to make that happen.

While writing my book, I interviewed a woman in her 90s. She had never talked about her childlessness. Decades later, she still hadn’t reconciled and come-to-terms with it. She had so many strengths and talents, and had she dealt with her grief and loss, she could have embraced a new life.

LWB: It was a pleasure talking to you about your choices and hearing your insight.

EW: This is a really important issue for women of the world. We are peers for the next generation of women who may experience pressure from mothers to have grandchildren. We need to talk about this topic and be good role models for young women.

LWB: I couldn’t agree more.

To learn more about Ellen Walker, please visit her website, CompleteWithoutKids.com

Meeting Other Childfree People

I’m taking a short but much-needed vacation this week and, although I had planned to write a set up a full week’s worth of posts before I left, my dear friend Kathleen suggested that it might be more sensible to cut myself some slack, rather than tripling my workload! Thank goodness for clear-headed friends! So this week, I will be recycling some old favorite posts. I’ll be back next week, refreshed and ready to talk about National Infertility Awareness Week!

Recently, a reader posted this comment:

“Do you have any tips on how to find people without kids? I went to a RESOLVE meeting once and made friends with a fellow infertile… who got pregnant the next month.”

I suspect we’ve all had that feeling of being cheated on by someone we hoped would be an ally, while at the same time being glad the person got what she really wanted. So how do you find other childless people to spend time with?

Here are a few of the ways I’ve found kindred spirits:

Activities at non-kid-friendly times

I go to an early morning exercise boot camp three days a week. It starts at the ungodly hour of 6:00 a.m. which is a tough time for anyone, but especially for people with very young or school-age kids. Most of the people in the group don’t have children and I’ve been going for long enough that I’ve made a small circle of childless friends. What’s great is that our primary connection is exercise, not childlessness.

Stealing or borrowing other friends’ childless friends

Quite a few of my friendships have come about through mutual friends. I’ve been invited to a dinner or barbecue, made my way around the room, making polite conversation, until I’ve met someone I’ve clicked with and discovered they don’t have children either. I have several childless friends who were introduced to me by mutual friends with children. In some cases the original friend has drifted away and the new friend and I have grown closer.

Groups and clubs

Just getting out and meeting people in general is a really good way to ultimately meet other childless people. Joining a group or club relating to your interests or hobbies means you automatically have something in common. I’ve been in book clubs, running clubs, and various classes. Over time, I’ve attached to certain members of the group, and just because of schedules alone, the childless members have ultimately gravitated to one another.

Childless and child-free groups

I haven’t actually tried this yet, but I’ve considered it. No Kidding! is an international social network for people without children. They have chapters all over the country and arrange social events regularly. If there’s one near you, this seems like a great way to meet people.

Another idea is using Meetup.com. You can sign up and state your interest in meeting other childfree people in your area.

We also have a Groups page on this site. Try starting a group for your local area and see if other people join. Hopefully you’ll find at least one other person who lives close enough to meet in person, and our membership is growing daily.

If anyone else has ideas on how to meet other childless singles or couples, please post them. I know that there are several other members who would love to find people they can connect with in person as well as just here online.

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.

Life and Friendship After “The Thing”

Please take a moment and contribute your opinion to this poll.

Last Saturday, I met Pamela (Silent Sorority) for the first time. We had lunch and talked. In fact we talked for so long and so easily that I forgot to collect my husband from the airport. No long-term harm done, thankfully.

Pamela and I talked about many things, but we didn’t talk about “the thing” – our infertility – even though that was the common tie that brought us together in the first place.

What we talked about mostly was the future. What’s next? Once you’ve come to terms with a life without children (no short or easy journey, I might add) where do you go next? Once you’ve found your tribe of women who aren’t going to bring their offsring into every conversation, and aren’t going to spring a surprise pregnancy on your friendship, what do you talk about, when you don’t want to keep talking about “the thing?”

Pamela and I batted around some new ideas. She talked about her view of our meeting in a post today, and also put together a poll. Please take a moment and add your two cents.

When you don’t want to talk about “the thing” anymore, what do you want to talk about?

Whiny Wednesday: Facebook (again)

Last night I didn’t feel like writing a post for this morning. The weather turned chilly again (and no, my east coast friends, I am not whining that it was only 60 degrees yesterday, merely commenting) so I lit a fire and pulled my chair up to it. I got out my laptop and thought about writing, but quickly drifted onto Facebook, which spiraled into a connect-the-dots search of all the names and faces I thought I’d forgotten.

 

For all its pitfalls (endless baby photos, gushing stories of kids’ antics) I find Facebook fascinating. It’s the ultimate voyeuristic thrill. I get to peer into the lives of people I once knew, without having to actually reignite whatever relationship might once have existed. And yes, as the dorky kid in high school, I get a certain satisfaction from seeing that some of the prettiest, coolest, most popular kids never amounted to much after all, and that the people I find most interesting now are some of the ones who had the toughest time in school. My nerdy friend, who never had a girlfriend, became an award-winning documentary filmmaker and travels the world with his beautiful partner; my friend from preschool who turned Goth, became a brilliant artist; and the weirdest kid in school became a theatre actor and someone I’d enjoy being friends with now. Life is a funny old thing and you can’t predict which way it’s going to go.

 

The one thing that does give me the willies on Facebook, is seeing some of those former classmates with kids. The guy with the cruel streak, the pot head, the former heart throb destined for fame and fortune – all grinning from the entrance of Disney World with their wives and numerous offspring. These are people who weren’t responsible enough to take care of a pencil, let alone another human being. But there they are, being parents.

 

And I’m also surprised at the number of people I knew in school who don’t have kids and I can’t help but wonder why. Was it by choice or do we have more in common now than we ever did back then.

 

So, it’s more of a Reflective Wednesday for me, but as that doesn’t have the same ring to it as Whiny Wednesday, I’m opening the floor to you.

It Got Me Thinking…About Gratitude

My friend’s sister is going through a horrible divorce and is fighting a fierce battle for custody of her children. She’s in a deep, dark, seemingly unending chaos. And yet…in the past month, she has won three major awards for her poetry.

Isn’t this just like life? You work your butt off in one area only to be faced with failure, pain, frustration, betrayal, or humiliation, then you get some random gift from the gods in another.

In this season of giving thanks, this got me thinking…. I’ve held epic self-pity parties. I can bitch and moan about how unfair life has been to me, and I have loads of evidence to back up my complaints. And yet…I bet there’s something in my life that’s going right.

Sometimes, it’s a little surprise: My roses are blooming! Sometimes, it comes out of my darkest moments of jealousy and desire: At least I’ll never have to struggle to lose pregnancy weight. Ha! When I’m feeling beyond down and my future is looking bleak, I can be thankful for something as basic as I can breathe on my own.

Today, here’s the top three on my gratitude list. What are yours?

  1. I am sharing my life with a wonderful man.
  2. There’s chocolate in the pantry.
  3. I’m part of an extraordinary circle of friends.

Kathleen Guthrie is a Northern California–based freelance writer. Her articles have appeared in AAA’s Westways, GRIT, Real Simple, and 805 Living magazines. Read “How to Be the World’s Best Aunt Ever” on eHow.com.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a funny holiday in our house. As I didn’t grow up here, the holiday doesn’t hold any special meaning to me (even though I love the traditional turkey dinner), plus my family members are on the other side of the world and don’t celebrate it anyway. My husband’s family is close by, but his kids always go to their mother’s house and his sister and dad aren’t really the kind to sit around the big family table and celebrate together.

Usually Jose and I head out of town, but this year we didn’t quite pull our plans together in time, so we’re just going to stay home. I’m perfectly ok with these plans as we could use a few quiet days to ourselves, but somewhere inside me is an ember of an idea about how the holiday should be.

In my dream I have a long oak table laden with good food that I’ve spent the past few days creating. Around the table are all my favorite adults, talking, having intelligent conversations, and periodically glancing my way to rave about the food. When I think about a big family holiday, I think about my friends. They are the family I’ve chosen and I am thankful to have them in my life.

So I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving, including our far-flung readers who might be reading this and wondering what the ruckus is all about. I also know that the holidays can be trying for we childless and childfree peeps, so I’m moving Whiny Wednesday to tomorrow, just in case it all gets out of control.

Be well and Happy Thanksgiving to you.

Friends Who Said the Right Thing

“Just ride your husband like the stallion he is, then flip over like a dead bug.”

“Oh, get IVF. Just do it.”

“My friends just adopted from Guatemala; I’ll have them call you.”

There never seems to be a shortage of people with “helpful,” and usually unsolicited, advice that can send us reeling off with our backs up and our feelings hurt. The above quotes are taken directly from my own experience as I was dealing with infertility. All were from people who cared and wanted to help, and every single one hurt. But what about people who say the right thing?

For every person that said something hurtful, the were two more who said something kind (or sometimes just said nothing at all.) One friend who stands out is the woman who quietly confided that she and her husband had experienced similar issues and come to a decision. “We decided that we were already a family,” she told me. “We were just a family of two.” Her words really made me think about what it was I was questing for and eventually I came to the same conclusion that I was also happy with the family I already had—my husband and my cat.

Who are the people who said exactly the right thing at the right time to you?