Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Whiny Wednesday: You’re Too Young for Menopause

Over the past couple of years I’ve been “enjoying” a journey through menopause. Yeah, it’s a hoot. All the symptoms of PMS, plus fuzzy head, weight gain, night sweats, the works.

I’ve been prescribed HRT and I’ve been reaching out to older friends for advice, because there’s a lot about this I don’t know. Most of my friends have gladly offered support, however one woman (a friend of a friend) looked at me and said, “Menopause? You’re too young for that.”

I assured her I was not, and left the conversation, but really, is that a helpful thing to say? Yes, I know I’m too young for menopause. Add it to the list of things my body’s given up before its time. And then ask me how I feel about the possibility the rest of me might be aging faster than it should too. Does this ever end?

As you may have guessed, it’s Whiny Wednesday. If you’re not yet hearing this about menopause, in what other ways have you been dismissed?

For more about the realities of dealing with menopause and infertility, please check out Mali’s excellent series on her No Kidding in NZ blog.

How Not to Say the Wrong Thing to Someone in Crisis

I have posted this article by Susan Silk and Barry Goldman in the past and it always seems to resonate with people, so I think it’s worth re-running. It’s a good reminder 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.

Owning Your Childlessness

I like to tell this story about a conversation I once had with a group of people I had recently met. I remember one of the women was telling a story and tossed out that she was unable to have children.

Then she went right on with her story.

She didn’t pause for people to give her sympathetic looks, she didn’t elaborate on why she couldn’t have children, and she didn’t explain that she’d wanted to have them or tried to. She said it matter-of-factly, as if she’d been telling us she didn’t care for the taste of liver and onions.

I was in awe.

Later that day, we were talking about confidence and she told me that it has taken her a long time (she’s in her 50s) to own who she is. “You just can’t entertain that voice that tells you that you’re less than or not good enough,” she said.

How many of us hear that voice and how many us pay attention to what it tells us?

What if we stopped apologizing for who we are? I think we could be very powerful.

Do you have a voice that tells you you’re less than? Do you listen to it? How do you shut it up and own who you are?

Childless Men on Father’s Day


Mother’s Day is pretty much the worst day of the year for those of us who didn’t get to be moms. But what about Father’s Day and the men in our lives? Do they feel the loss of fatherhood in the same way we feel it for motherhood?

Some of you have expressed frustration with partners who don’t want to talk about the loss and grief we women go through, or who seem to have accepted a life without children much quicker than we have. I know I saw a difference in the way Mr. Fab and I dealt with grief (or appeared to not deal with it at all) so I thought I’d do a little research on the topic of men and grief to see what I could learn.

Turns out that, when it comes to grief, men really are from Mars, as opposed to our home planet of Venus. They’ve often been taught to keep their emotions in check and brush grief under the rug in the hopes that it will just go away (which, of course, it doesn’t.) As a result, we tend to interpret their reluctance to grieve openly as a lack of feeling. But that doesn’t mean they don’t feel the loss just as keenly as we do.

Here’s what I learned about how men grieve:

  • Men often prefer to grieve alone, rather than openly, in a support group setting, or even with a partner.
  • Men are more likely to withdraw and to be introspective than to do “grief work.”
  • Men are more likely to express grief physically with actions or activities.
  • Men sometimes deal with grief by planning for the future rather than dealing with the present situation or looking back at the past.
  • Men sometimes let grief out in the form of irritability or anger.

In other words, just because your partner isn’t hanging out with other men in online support groups, sharing stories, and lending an empathetic ear to other men, it doesn’t mean he isn’t grieving the loss of fatherhood in his own way.

I’d be interested to hear how your partner has dealt with his grief. And if you’re a grieving man reading this, we’d love to hear your point-of-view.

Talking About the Grief of Childlessness

I’ve been writing and talking a lot about grief—here on the blog, in my fiction, in my personal life, in the novels I’m reading, and in the Life Without Baby book. Even when I got chatting to a stranger on a plane, the conversation turned to the topic of grief.

Over paper cups of tea, this woman—who had lost her brother to suicide—and I talked about how grief stays with us long after we’re “over it”, how the shape of grief changes with time, how it can change us, and how everyone carries around their own personal grief.

My only regret in the discussion is that it didn’t begin sooner on our journey, because I would have liked to hear more about what she had to say on the subject. But eventually we parted ways, she to her office and I to catch another flight, and I didn’t have the opportunity to ask her more about her grief.

So, I’d like to ask you instead.

  • How has your grief changed over time?
  • How has your loss changed you?
  • In what ways has your grief crept out, even when you’ve tried to keep it under wraps?

As a society, we don’t give the topic of grief enough attention. We’re uncomfortable with grieving people, no matter what type of loss they’ve suffered, but it’s especially true when the loss isn’t understood.

So let’s start the conversation now. Let’s talk about this grief. I’d love to hear what you have to say.

Whiny Wednesday: Don’t Pity Me

A while ago, I asked you to share topic ideas for Whiny Wednesday. Quite a few of you were glad to oblige. Thanks for the great ideas. If you’d like to suggest a topic, please leave it in the comments below.

This week’s Whiny Wednesday topic is this:

Other People’s Pity

As always, you’re free to vent on your own topic, too.

Why I Didn’t Adopt After Infertility

When I would tell people I didn’t have children and the topic of infertility came up, they would often ask if I’d considered adoption. Can I tell you how hard it was to keep my sarcasm at bay and to not answer, “Adoption? Really? No, I’d never thought about that. I’m so glad you brought it up.”

But now I’m in a better place I can answer that question easily and in a more friendly and helpful way. I’m doing it today, not for those people who want to make sure I’ve thought of every avenue, but for those of you on this site who might be thinking of adoption and wondering why I didn’t do it.

My answer could be very complex and I could talk about how our adoption options were limited by age and finances, about how much more complicated and heart-wrenching the process was than we’d expected, and about how we didn’t have the emotional strength to risk being matched with a child who could be snatched away again in an instant. But having some distance from that time in my life, I see it more simply now.

We didn’t follow through with adoption because we hadn’t yet dealt with the loss dealt by infertility.

During our adoption training we were warned about the importance of resolving our infertility before diving into this new avenue, but at that time, I didn’t want to hear that. Now I think it was perhaps the most important piece of advice we were given. Adoption isn’t the next logical step on an infertility journey; it’s a step off that road and onto another completely different path. But the infertility journey still needs to be brought to a resolution. You still have to work through that grief.

When we ventured into adoption, we didn’t fully understand this. Perhaps if we’d taken some time to heal first, we might have been better equipped to deal with that wild emotional rollercoaster, but we didn’t, and we weren’t, and that’s the way that story went.

I know that some of you are still weighing your options and making some big decisions. My story is unique to me and my opinion is based solely on my experience, but I hope hearing it helps you.

Whiny Wednesday: Mother’s Day Aftermath

Mother’s Day was strange this year. Being on lockdown meant not having to navigate many of the usual landmines, but I know that probably did little to make the day easier for you. I hope you made it through the weekend relatively unscathed. So, do tell:

How did Mother’s Day go for you?

How did you handle it? How did it go? What went well? What didn’t? Let us know the good, the bad, and the flat-out ugly.

How to be Childless and Happy in 10,000 Easy Steps

There are two questions I get asked frequently: How did you come to terms with not having children, and how long did it take?

The answer is something akin to “how long is a piece of string and how many knots can you tie in it?”

If I could write down ten easy steps to making peace with being childless-not-by-choice, I’d do it, but the answer isn’t that simple. Yes, there were many things that happened along the way that helped me make some peace, but it took closer to 10,000 steps than ten.

Writing down my story was hugely cathartic, venting about the injustices on this blog helped, too. Realizing I wasn’t alone in this and that people like you were out there wanting to talk through the minefield has helped immeasurably. Drawing a line in the sand and saying, “This is where that chapter of my life ends and this is where I start healing” also helped. And frankly, telling myself a big fat lie that I was better off not being a mother actually helped me to realize that in many ways I was. Setting new goals, appreciating the benefits of not having kids, and allowing myself to feel bitter and badly treated when I needed to. All these things helped.

I don’t think there’s a formula for working your way through this, and it’s definitely a journey of making forward process and dealing with inevitable setbacks.

As for how long the process takes? How long is that piece of string? It’s been three years for me and I consider myself largely at peace with my situation. I have closed the door on the idea that I will have children someday and most days I’m good with it. Everyday it gets a little better and a little easier. Some days there will be reminders of what I’ve lost and sometimes a flicker of a thought of “what if…”

The truth is, in many ways, I expect this piece of string to go on forever. The experience of infertility has changed me. It is one of the most significant and life-changing events of my life, and I don’t think the repercussions of that will ever stop reverberating. It doesn’t mean I won’t find harmony and even happiness in this new life – I already have – but I don’t expect this journey of coming-to-terms to ever fully end.