Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Remembering why you got together in the first place

If you’re in a relationship and you’ve faced infertility or loss, odds are you’ve been through the wringer. Few people are at their best under stress and when that stress is prolonged, sometimes for years, the edges of even the strongest relationship can get a little frayed and tattered.

Part of the process of coming-to-terms with a life without children is patching that old relationship and moving on down the road. But how do you even start that when so much water has gushed under the bridge? It’s hard. Sometimes when so much has changed, it’s easy to lose track of why the pair of you ever got together in the first place, but those reasons form the glue that will hold the hold mess together when things go wrong.

So, what was it about your spouse that made you decide this was the person you wanted to have children with? What made you fall in love with him or her in the first place?

When your plans for a family don’t go right, take some time to reconnect with your partner to remember what it was that made you ever start out on this journey.

Oh, and don’t forget to keep the spark ignited in the passion department. See this post for ideas!

Infertility, Men, and Communication

Kathleen sent this article to me this week. It’s a kind of “Top tips” for men going through infertility. I really appreciated the writer’s ability to find humor in this topic, and I admire that he was able to step back from his own experience (he and his wife now have three children) and offer some advice to other men who find themselves in this situation.

As we’ve discussed before, there seem to be so few resources aimed at men. While it’s often we women who go through the worst of the testing and unpleasant procedures, it’s easy to forget that the men involved are working through their own confusion, conflicting emotions, and sadness.

Here’s a man who tried to do the right thing. He gave his wife flowers after every failed procedure. What a nice guy! Except that, from his wife’s point-of-view, the flowers were just a reminder of the failure she felt.

His discussion about the importance of communication is dead on, and I think that it remains true even if you’ve decided to stop treatments, or if you’ve otherwise decided that children are not in your future. We humans can be fickle creatures and our big life decisions are seldom clear-cut. We waver, we reconsider, and we’re affected by events in our environment. Talking about this is critical.

I know I’m often guilty of keeping my thoughts to myself so as not to upset my husband (although he does read this blog from time-to-time, so it’s hard to have too many secrets!) But experience has shown me that being honest about what’s going on means fewer surprises for him and fewer, “I had no idea…” conversations.

Breaking Up With Mother’s Day

My friend is getting married this year and received some good advice from an aunt, who explained that marriage isn’t all about romance and that sometimes you’re not going to like the person you marry. Sometimes you’ll be angry, upset, frustrated, and hurt. She told my friend, “It’s okay to be angry, in fact it’s good. It’s when you stop feeling angry and feel nothing that you know there’s a problem.”

I think this is very sage advice and I know from my own experience of past relationships that when I stopped being upset about things that should have made me angry, that relationship was pretty much doomed. Apathy is deadly.

I bring this is up because of the way I’m feeling about Mother’s Day this year. In the past, I’ve run the gamut of emotions when this day has ticked around. I’ve been sad about my own loss, frustrated at my situation, angry about having motherhood pushed in my face, and hurt that other people don’t realize how much that day affects me. I’ve stayed indoors on past Mother’s Days; I’ve avoided restaurants that are celebrating mothers, and I’ve even avoided public places, where some unsuspecting nicey-nice person might wish me a happy Mother’s Day, oblivious to how much it stings.

But this year, I feel differently. This year I don’t care. I’m not feeling dread at the approaching day; I’m not putting on my emotional armor ready to deflect the hurt, and I’m not making plans to hide away. I don’t feel especially determined to not let this day affect me, and I’m not taking a stand and trying to prove I’m strong. I just don’t feel anything.

I think this means that Mother’s Day and I are about to break up. And how freeing that would be to get up on Sunday morning and just go about my day. As you may recall from a previous post. my own mother is in a county that celebrates Mother’s Day in March, and my husband’s mother is no longer with us, so we are under no obligation to celebrate at all. It’s truly liberating.

I’m writing this post almost a week before the Big Day, so I will be keeping a watchful eye of my vitals and checking how I feel as the week goes on. But maybe this is the year that will mark the closing of a chapter for me, which of course, is always followed by the start of a new one. Watch this space!

Infertility Myth: Women without children are never complete

Remember this children’s ditty? I’m using myself and my husband as the example.

Jose and Lisa sitting in a tree,

K.I.S.S.I.N.G.

First comes love,

Then comes marriage,

Then comes a baby in a baby carriage.

As a little girl, this was the expectation for how my life would unfold. Find a nice man, get married, and have a family, just as my parents did, and their parents before them. Sure, I came of age in the 80s, so there was college, a career, travel, and other big dreams thrown in there, but marriage and children were always a part of the picture.

I was 34 years old when I finally married Mr. Fabulous. Four years later, a doctor told me I’d never have biological children of my own. Those first years of our married lives were a crazy rollercoaster of desire and desperation, filled with doctor’s appointments and a desperate drive to complete my image of the perfect family. Even after this hopeless diagnosis, I kept pursuing that dream, convinced that the next doctor would have the secret elixir or that adoption would be my quick-fix solution.

I think I could have continued to look for a solution forever – there was always something else to try – but I realized something from that children’s ditty. After all that kissing in trees, there are three things that are supposed to follow – love, marriage, and children. In my pursuit of the baby in the baby carriage, I was frittering away two: the love and the marriage. I already had a wonderful life, doing work that I loved, in a city that I loved, with someone I loved. If I never had children, I’d still have that wonderful life.

We live in a culture of high expectations, where, as women, we expect to be able to have it all. But anyone who’s lived for any length of time knows that you don’t always get what you want.  I wanted motherhood, but it wasn’t meant to be, so I was left with two options: spend the rest of my life mourning what I’d lost and living with the hope that maybe a miracle would happen, or start figuring out how to build a life without children.

I chose the latter.

It was the hardest decision I’ve ever made, but now, two years later, I’m free to fully enjoy that fabulous marriage with that fabulous husband. Motherhood is only one small part of the life I imagined for myself and I am so much more than just an infertile woman. I discovered that there is life after infertility and that a life without children can still be a wonderful life.

For more information about infertility, please visit: http://www.resolve.org/infertility101

This post was written RESOLVE’S Bust a Myth Challenge. To learn more about National Infertility Awareness Week® (NIAW) go to: http://www.resolve.org/takecharge.

Guest Column: It Got Me Thinking…About Marriage

According to our local radio show host, celebrity Mario Lopez was “so inspired” by the birth of his daughter Gia on September 11 that he proposed to his girlfriend, Courtney Mazza, shortly after she delivered their baby.

I haven’t been able to confirm this online, but I have seen reports that Mario is planning a new reality show about how he’s going to juggle his career and fatherhood, so maybe he’s saving the details for a ratings sweep. Anyway, it got me thinking…. Didn’t he want to marry Courtney before they got pregnant? What was it about having his baby that made him want to marry her now? And, the question that keeps nagging me: Is marriage primarily for having and raising children?

Next year, I’m getting married for the first time. In my mind, our wedding will be a celebration of our success at finding love and a joyous reason to bring family and friends together. But not everyone agrees with me. Almost every ceremony I’ve attended has included words about welcoming children into the world. Because we are in our 40s, well-meaning friends ask if we’re going to hurry up and have children. On the flip side, other friends suggest that, since there won’t be kids, we skip the legal part of our commitment to avoid the “marriage penalty tax.” And Project Marriage, as part of the appeal process defending California’s Prop. 8, which specifically outlaws gay marriage, defined the “true purpose of marriage” as “responsible procreation and child-rearing.”

So where does this leave me—and us, the child-free adults? If you got married with the expectation of children, then discovered it wasn’t going to happen, do people make you feel you’ve broken vows? Is marriage only for making families? What does getting/being married mean to you and how has it changed since you learned/decided you wouldn’t have children?

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.

More Than Just an Infertile Couple

Over the summer my husband and I went with a group of friends to see one of our favorite bands in concert. We’ve seen them several times in that last couple of years, but this concert was a small outdoor venue at a winery in Sonoma County, the heart of California’s Wine Country.

It was a beautiful, sunny day, the wine flowed, the picnic we brought was delicious, and when I suggested to my husband that we get up to dance on the lawn, he said yes. We danced through the entire show, until I was perspiring in a most unladylike manner and we’d just about worn a bald spot on the grass. Our other friends (who all have children) have “husbands-who-don’t-dance” and the wives, I’m sure, coveted my husband for a couple of hours. After the show we bought a CD, got it autographed by the band and even chased down the drummer, who I have a small , strange crush on. And we laughed. We danced and laughed and ate and drank. It really was a perfect day.

Two months have passed and I’m still thinking about that day. We’ve been to other concerts and events since and had a good time, maybe even been to better concerts, but that day sticks in my mind. That day my husband and I were the people we used to be before we were an infertile couple. Somewhere along that journey, little bits of who we were chipped off and we forgot why we ever got together and wanted children in the first place. That day reminded me.

If you’re childless-not-by-choice (or even not-exactly-by-choice) has the experienced changed who you are? And when was the last time you did something with your partner that made you both happy? If it’s been a while, can you plan something in the upcoming weeks that will break you out of your “infertile couple” state and remind you why you got together in the first place?

Earlier this year, Vicki at A Woman Without Children wrote about a hiking adventure with her husband. Maybe this will give you some inspiration, too.