Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

How to be Happily Childfree in 10,000 Easy Steps

By Lisa Manterfield

This post is an oldie, originally posted on April 26, 2012, but I think it’s worth a rerun. You can see what others had to say in the original comments here.

MP900289486There 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?”

Believe me when I tell you that if I could write down ten easy steps to making peace with being childfree-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.

Whiny Wednesday: Unfair Expectations

Whiny_WednesdayIt’s Whiny Wednesday, your opportunity to rant on a theme.

This week’s topic has been brought up by several readers:

Feeling that you’re expected to carry a disproportionate responsibility for the care of aging parents because you don’t have children to worry about. 

Feel free to add your own whines, too.

The Power of Voice

By Lisa Manterfield

MP900433193Last year I attended the World Domination Summit in Portland, OR, where I spent the weekend surrounded by creative types and some incredible people looking to make a difference in the world. It was truly an inspiring experience.

While I took something of value away from every speaker who presented, every story I heard, and every person I met and talked with, there were, as always, standouts.

One speaker, Shannon Galpin, told her story of traveling to Afghanistan to provide education programs for women and girls in conflict zones. She talked about going into a women’s prison in Kandahar to interview some of the women and girls being held there. She was concerned that these women, already in danger because of their actions, would not be willing to speak to her and tell their stories. She couldn’t have been more wrong.

So many women wanted to talk to her, she ended up spending hours over the course of several days sitting with them and recording their stories. At the end of her time, one woman unclipped her elaborate hair clip and offered it as a thank you gift. “No one has ever cared enough to hear our stories,” she said. This experience prompted Shannon’s wonderful TED Talk on pity, apathy, and the power of voice, which I encourage you to watch when you have 10 minutes to spare.

The sentiment also struck a deep chord in me as I thought more about this idea of sharing stories and having a voice. It made me think about some of the conversations I’ve had about why I don’t have children, how the topic is met with pity or apathy, or handled with platitudes about whether we tried x or y treatment or if we considered adoption. Even people who know and care about me have expressed their own discomfort about the frankness of what they’ve read in my book or one of my blog posts. It has sometimes felt as if no one really wants to hear the story of what happened and how much the loss of not getting something I really wanted—having a child of my own—has rippled into every aspect of my life.

But that isn’t going to stop me talking because, for every person who’s squirmed, I’ve come across ten who’ve said, “I appreciate your honesty” or “That’s exactly how I feel” or “Thank you for giving me a voice.”

Last year, we launched “Our Stories” on this site. Since then, we’ve featured more than two dozen of your voices. Firstly, I want to send an enormous hug to everyone who had the courage to share her story. I always want to give a massive shout-out to Kathleen who created the column and worked with every storyteller.

Gwen shared her story and told Kathleen, “Putting my story out there and reading responses from women who have dealt with the same exact problems and feel the same way as I do… I am comforted and I do not feel so alone.”

And Maria said, “I felt like people connected with my story and it gave them hope. I feel like we are all here for a reason and that is my purpose right now—to take what I have learned and share it with others.”

This is the power of voice. This is why we keep telling our stories, even when it gets uncomfortable for us and even when it sparks pity or apathy in others.

Our Stories will be taking a short hiatus in August, as I take my customary summer break and rerun some of the year’s favorite posts. But we’ll be picking up again in September and we’d love to share your story.

You’ll find a questionnaire to get you started and details on how to submit on the Our Stories page. I hope this will help you to find your voice, inspire others, and know that you’re not alone.

To Shower or Not To Shower

By Solo Girl 

invitation - pixabayI have a large extended family; we have to rent a hall for big family holidays so we can all get together.  And now all those sisters and female cousins are newly married and reproducing.  Every time a baby shower comes up I’m invited, and I wrestle with myself over whether or not I should be able to go yet.

I’ve always been supportive and encouraging with my family, happy to celebrate in another’s happiness.  It’s been four many years since my dream died, and I get the sense that I’m expected to be “over it” by now.

Unsure and not wanting family to think I’m selfish or emotionally immature, I went to a cousin’s baby shower about a year ago.  I mentally prepared myself ahead of time.  For example, I’m terrified of flying, but I know that there is lift-off, food, a movie and a landing, and then it’s done.  I thought about how there would be food, presents and games at this shower, and then it would be done.  I thought to myself “I should be able do this, even my own Mom is expecting me to go.”

I thought the worst part would be the games, but I was wrong.  It was the chitchat.  I actually got stuck between my mother and a cousin having a conversation on the couch about how all the women in our family have long labors.  Seriously.  When I got home I wrote myself a note in black marker and stuck it on my kitchen pin board where it still remains today:  “You never have to go to another baby shower ever again.  No one will notice; no one will care.  It’s torturous.  Don’t Go.  Don’t feel guilty”.

But a year later I still get shower invites and I continue to question whether I am – or should be – ready to attend now.  And I want to know, is it ever going to be something I can attend?  And what can I tell my family that will help them understand how painful it is to attend without sounding like I’m feeling sorry for myself after all this time?  They have high expectations of me, and I really do think they mean well.  I was in a deep depression four years ago, and I think they are trying to make me normal again.  I think.

I’m glad Irina Vodar is producing a documentary on the subject of infertility that some helpful social norms will come of it.

How do you handle these situations?

Solo Girl lives on her own with her 2+ dogs in Ontario, Canada.  She focuses her time on volunteer work and fostering rescue dogs.

 

Not Less of a Woman

By Lisa Manterfield

“I take pleasure in my transformations. I look quiet and consistent, but few know how many women there are in me.”

~Anaïs Nin

Lisa women circle

There’s an idea going around that not having children somehow makes us “less of a woman.” I don’t subscribe to this idea.

As this quote by author Anaïs Nin states, I am many, many women, and “mother” is only one element of me.

I am a writer, friend, wife, cat mama, reader, thinker, curser, fighter, nature-lover, spider catcher, traveler, cook.

All these women are fluid. They ebb and flow in me as needed. And when one of them isn’t able to fulfill her purpose, the others quickly rally to fill the gap, so I am always whole.

I am never less of a woman.

Tree Planting for Non-Motherhood

By Paula Coston

Tree planting 22 March 14 025In Jewish culture, it’s an ancient tradition to plant a tree on the birth of a child: a cedar for a boy, a cypress for a girl. The child would then care for the tree; when she or he married, they would stand under a canopy made of its branches. There’s a Jewish text: ‘A person’s life is sustained by trees. Just as others planted for you, plant for the sake of your children.’ (Midrash Tanchuma Kedoshim 8)

I live in the UK, and in our country of Wales, over the last two years, hundreds of thousands of trees have been planted as part of a project to grow a sapling for every new baby born or adopted in the region.
But childless women like us have no upcoming generations. So my thoughts have returned recently to an inspirational woman in her late eighties. I already shared in a personal post here the wonderful gesture made by  Salumarada Thimmakka, who lives in rural India. Teased and despised in her village community as a young wife without children, despite her gruelling job in a quarry she began to plant saplings, treating them lovingly every day as her own ‘offspring’. Gradually they grew into a stately, shady avenue of 284 banyan trees, now worth millions of dollars.Meanwhile, the U.S. has a time-honoured tradition of mass tree planting, with a dedicated day, Arbor Day, for which the commonest date amongst the various states is the last Friday in April. People, young and old, take part. The day’s founder, J. Sterling Morton, declared 140 years ago, “Each generation takes the earth as trustees”, again linking this activity to the upcoming generations.

Why not, like her, plant trees for the children we never had?

Tree planting 22 March 14 022

I discovered that the council in my pretty little Cotswold town in England was funding a new tree planting scheme along the banks of our renovated canal and fringing the ridges of my local park, overlooking a lake and weir: silver birches, rowans, oaks, maples. I saw a chance, and invited a childless friend and neighbour along.

That day, we found ourselves under a spring sun flitting behind black clouds and threatening rainbows over the hills and valleys while we helped to dig holes, scoop moist earth round young roots, funnel weather guards over the saplings’ baby heads and drive in stakes to support them. I found myself asking the name of each plant, in some weird sense bonding with it, and even – unashamedly – talking to it as if it was a child. Kneeling beside the bed of each root ball, teasing out those little water-seeking veins, taking a moment to think about what I’d lost but what I was now giving to something living, was surprisingly moving and reviving.

Tree planting 22 March 14 037

My neighbour finds it hard to talk about her loss of children, but somehow, too busy digging to feel self-conscious, backs turned on each other, we began telling our personal stories of childlessness to each other.

On an impulse, I took out some postcards I was carrying in my backpack. For each young, vital thing I planted, I wrote a message to a child I never had and posted it into the tree’s new resting place among the soil. It didn’t cure my pain, but it felt like part of an answer.

I discovered something simple: that gardening, nurturing something other than a child, is great therapy for childlessness.

Paula Coston writes on childlessness, the older woman and singledom at her blog, http://boywoman.wordpress.com. Her novel, On the Far Side, There’s a Boy, comes out in June. It’s about an Englishwoman from the 1980s to now and her gradual discovery, through a link with a little boy in Sri Lanka, that she will never have a partner or children.

Our Stories: Karin

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Our StoriesAlthough she came from a very close extended family, Karin didn’t really think about motherhood until she experienced infertility in her early 30s. Then it became a “dream.” Now 41, she and her husband of 19 years find themselves in a place of mostly acceptance, but she feels somewhat alone in her concerns about the future. If you can relate, please reach out to her—to all of us—in the Comments.

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

Karin: We were first childfree by chance and now it’s by circumstance. After years of unexplained infertility, various drug treatments, one horrific miscarriage, and lots of ovulation kits, my husband and I decided to stop trying for children. At that point, I began a very intense hatred of my body. My [menstrual] cycles were very long and painful, and as I grew older, they got worse and worse. This only intensified the self-loathing I was carrying around. It got so bad that the only option I had left was a hysterectomy. Knowing that I was not going to be able to conceive without massive medical intervention, and knowing that path was not for us, I decided to go through with the hysterectomy. It was the best decision I have ever made. I feel like I got my life back! Thanks to mindfulness training, yoga, and that surgery, I’ve been able to accept my body again and, more important, regain peace.

LWB: Where are you on your journey now?

Karin: I’ve been in the acceptance phase for quite some time. I have a wonderful husband and a very fulfilling job. But the residual feelings of isolation and fear of the future are what dominates my infertility issues now.

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

Karin: The fear of who will take care of me when I am old. My grandparents were in wonderful assisted living facilities toward the ends of their lives, but they were still attended to by my mom and my aunts—everything from shopping for basic needs to handling the finances. I cannot think of anyone in my life now who I could rely on to help us in our old age. My husband is an only child, and my sister has only one daughter. I do not have the nieces and nephews that many others have and will hopefully rely on when the time comes. And this truly terrifies me. This is, by far, the most difficult issue for me now. I feel quite alone in this. I don’t think many other people who are childfree have this worry, or, if they do, it is not as intense as mine. Also, I am the only person in my immediate social circle who does not have children. I feel like all the feelings of loss and isolation will resurface when my friends become grandparents.

LWB: What have you learned about yourself?

Karin: That I’m stronger than I thought I could ever be. You read that going through infertility will make you a stronger person, but until you actually feel it, it’s hard to believe. I’ve also learned to live life as consciously as I can with as much compassion as I can muster. Living a life with as little harm as possible toward others, including the environment around me, is rewarding and purposeful. I didn’t feel it this intensely prior to trying for children.

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

Karin: I say “NOPE!” And if they ask why not, I simply say “We tried and it didn’t work out.” That usually stops people. Occasionally, people will ask why we didn’t adopt, and I say adopting does not cure infertility and we believe adoption is a calling that we just didn’t have.

LWB: How has LWB helped you on your journey?

Karin: It was the first community that got it!! Besides Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos’ book Silent Sorority, what else did we have? LWB has been so incredibly integral in my journey that it’s hard to put into words. I would, however, like to see more information or discussion by others about being childfree in old age and the new dynamics that will come into play when we are not just non-moms but non-grandmothers!

 

We’d love to hear your story! Go to the Our Stories page to get more information and the questionnaire.

In-person Support Group: Chicago

holding handsLong-time reader, Andi, emailed me recently to let me know she’s starting a local support group in Chicago for women and couples who are childfree-not-by choice.

If you’re in the area and would like to find out more, Andi has posted information on her community page. You can also contact her directly via email: ayakovitz [at] hotmail [dot] com.

I’m so pleased to hear that groups like Andi’s are forming and there are places for us to go to talk about this in person.

If you know of a group near you or if you’d like to start one, please use this site as a resource.

You can leave information in the comments (just beware of posting personal information and be sure to encrypt any email addresses.)

You can also form a regional group on the community pages, or post information in the forums. The information will be seen only by members, so you can safely post details there.

It Got Me Thinking…About Nurturers

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

I can bitch with the best about how much I loathe the holiday that’s coming up this Sunday. I’ve spent past years avoiding church, restaurants, flower shops, TV ads, and, well, people who brightly wished me “HAPPY (you-know-who’s) DAY!” It was easier to hibernate than face painful reminders of what I am not.

But this year is different. This year I am embracing the second Sunday in May because a wise friend has transformed it for me. This year I am pulling out all the stops and celebrating because I am…drumroll, please…a Nurturer!

Here’s the message my friend sent out last May, and it is my message to you.

To the nurturers in us all: For helping friends in need, for compassion for strangers in pain, for helping children to learn, and for being good stewards of our world…Happy Nurturer’s Day!

If you are an aunt, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a coworker, a coach, or a listener. If you’ve comforted another person, if you’ve offered support or encouragement, or if you’ve shared a hug. If you’ve read something on this site and responded with kind words or sent up a prayer for a sister in need. If you’ve been any or all of these things, then it’s time you acknowledge yourself.

You’ve been there for me, in our forums, in your comments, in your presence here with us on this site. For that I say, Thank you! and Happy Nurturer’s Day!