filling the silence in the motherhood discussion
Overheard outside my local café last week:
“I have three kids and I hate all of them.”
Can someone please explain to me why this jack@$$ gets to have the privilege of being a parent when so many lovely people I know (including myself) don’t?
It’s Whiny Wednesday. What’s got you spitting nails this week?
I don’t usually get political on this blog, but the recent Marriage Equality discussions have been pushing my buttons. I am strongly pro-gay marriage and am often dumbfounded by the arguments cited by opponents.
One morning last week, I heard someone on the radio saying (and I’m paraphrasing) that the constitution supported equality for like situations, and gay marriage and heterosexual marriage could never be equal because of the inability for gay couples to reproduce.
This pushes two of my buttons:
1) As part of a straight couple who cannot reproduce, I take extreme exception to this suggestion that a marriage is only acceptable when it produces children.
2) I know several gay couples who have reproduced via sperm donor, surrogate, or adoption. Is this person then suggesting that any marriage—gay or straight—that doesn’t produce children “naturally” falls into the category of unacceptable? Surely not.
It’s Whiny Wednesday. I’m on fire this week. What’s pushing your buttons?
Last month I interviewed author Jennie Nash about her new novel, Perfect Red. Before she was known as a fiction writer, Jennie wrote a book about her battle with breast cancer. The Victoria’s Secret Catalog Never Stops Coming is a wonderful book and has been a big success for Jennie, but she doesn’t talk about it much anymore. “I didn’t want to be “Cancer Girl” anymore, she says.
When I meet new people, they usually ask one of two questions: “Do you have kids?” or “What do you do for a living.” Eventually either of these two questions leads to the same awkward conversation about Infertility Girl.
When people ask me what I do for a living, I happily tell them I’m a writer. The next question is always, “Oh, what do you write?” Sometimes, if I’m feeling particularly strong and confident, or if the person feels like an empathetic type, I’ll tell them about my book and this site, and that I write a lot about coming-to-terms with not having children. More often than not, I find myself offering a blurry answer about writing articles for websites, which is also true, but not the whole truth.
It’s not that I’m ashamed of what I do or the subject on which I write. It’s just that I don’t want my childlessness to be the first thing people know about me. I don’t want to become Infertility Girl.
When people ask me what I do for a living, I want to be able to tell them “I’m a novelist.” The only problem with this is that I’ve yet to finish a publishable novel. (And any of you writers out there will probably read between the lines that I have two full and two half manuscripts hidden in a drawer, not yet fit to see the light of day.)
So, a decision has been made. I need to finish my novel. This year. And get it published. Which means something’s got to give.
So, beginning this week, I’ll be posting to the blog only three days a week instead of five. Look out for me on Mondays and Whiny Wednesday on Wednesdays (I wouldn’t dare take that away!) Kathleen’s It Got Me Thinking… column will move to Fridays and there will still be guest bloggers making appearances at various times.
I’ll admit I considered starting a new blog about writing a novel, but even I could see the futility of cutting back on one blog to make time for writing, only to start up another blog! Just know that I’ll be taking notes for the future.
Is Life Without Baby going away? Heck, no. It’s just playing nice and sharing brain space with something new, and giving Infertility Girl the chance be Novel Girl as well.
By Just Jinny
I found out some great news this weekend. One of my very good friends is finally pregnant. She and her husband have been trying and trying. So I was thrilled and over the moon to find out that it has finally happened for them.
The news also brought to light another issue. How others expect me to handle the news of another pregnancy. Dealing with infertility sort of puts you in a position of always “handling” the fact that someone else is pregnant and you are not.
My friend, bless her heart, was nearly in tears sharing her happy news with me. It’s a bittersweet thing. She didn’t want to hurt me. I get that and I love her for it. And when I shared the news with my mom I could see the concern in her eyes as well. It got me thinking about how others might expect me to react to the news that someone else is pregnant. I wanted to help other people understand what it feels like for me to deal with these emotions.
I am not the type of person to cause a scene. I’m not going to fly off the handle in anger, or in a rage, or in a sobbing heap on the floor. That’s not to say that I don’t get angry, or cry like a baby…I just usually do it in the privacy of my own home. Being constantly depressed, sad, or mad about my “condition” isn’t an option for my state of mind. For me, the only option I have is to be OKAY and to keep going. Some people might think that makes me strong. For me, it’s just my reality. I don’t break down. I don’t give up.
But, I’ve been trying to think of a proper analogy to relate how I do feel when finding out about someone being pregnant. I want other people to be able to try and understand. And I found the perfect example!
Finding out that someone else is pregnant is like having a Charlie horse. It sort of creeps up on you, and then for just a few moments the pain gets so intense that you can’t move. You think it will never go away or get better and that your world will never again be anything but you curled up in bed with that pain. But then the pain does start to lessen, and gradually it fades away until finally you feel normal again.
That is exactly what it feels like for me. Of course, I feel a little pinch in my heart. Of course, I may be a little down and pensive for a moment. It’d be weird if the news didn’t affect me somehow. But, this thing, this infertility thing, will never bring me down for good. Childless or not, I am blessed and highly favored. I have a wonderful life, with a wonderful husband, pets, family, and friends. Infertility will never, ever beat me. And any pregnancy will be celebrated as it deserves to be. Every child is a blessing, even if it’s not mine.
Just Jinny lives in the wilds of West Texas in a love cottage with her rockstar husband, two dogs, and two cats. She blogs about her daily musings at A Girl in the Real World.
Producer, Irina Vodar
Filed under F for “Forces to be Reckoned With” I guarantee you’ll find Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos. In case you’ve never come across Pamela, she’s the dynamo behind the award-winning book Silent Sorority and the newly revamped blog of the same name.
And now she’s part of the advisory board behind a new documentary about infertility that hopes to lift the stigma around that topic.
Pamela writes:
“How can we talk about infertility, how can we help someone process infertility if we lack a common language or socialized behavior to do so?”
You can read an interview with the documentary’s producer, Irina Vodar, in Pamela’s recent blog post.
This project needs support, so please also take a moment to leave a comment on Pamela’s post and answer this question:
What’s been your experience with infertility, and why do you think this documentary needs to be made?
I’ll look forward to seeing this project come to life and giving a voice to what so many of us have dealt with in silence.
By 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.
By 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.”
By 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
Last 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.
Thank you all again for being so supportive and encouraging on this new step in my journey.
If 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
Monday, February 11, 7-9pm
Peet’s Coffee & Tea, Point Loma
955 Catalina Blvd, Suite 103, San Diego
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.
~ "a raw, transparent account of the gut-wrenching journey of infertility."
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