filling the silence in the motherhood discussion
Happy Whiny Wednesday! I hope you’re doing okay today. If not, this is the place to get it off your chest.
This week we turn to spotlight on the men in our lives and discuss the topic of:
Spouses or partners who aren’t dealing or healing
If you have one of these, we’d like to hear to about it.
By Lisa Manterfield
The third book in the new Life Without Baby ebook series is out today. In Dealing With the Day-to-Day Challenges I tackle all those issues we talk about here on the blog, including what to say when someone asks if you have kids, how to handle surprise pregnancy announcements, and how to get through social events and holidays.
I sent an early draft of the book to Kathleen, who offered me lots of great notes for improvement. In fact, one of her comments resulted in an entire new chapter. She said that while it’s important to cover the big issues that come up for us, one of the biggest day-to-day challenges, especially in the early stages, can be simply getting out of bed and bracing ourselves to face a world that seems to have shut us out.
I really appreciated her insight, because the truth is I’d forgotten what it was like to lie in bed in the morning and absolutely dread having to get up and face people. I’d forgotten what it was like to go to work each day being constantly on guard in case anyone said anything to flip the switch on my emotions again. I’d forgotten how often I seriously considered staying in bed and hoping it would all just go away.
I hope I’ve managed to tackle all those issues in this book, and I want to say a big “thank you” to Kathleen for her insight and for the amazing work she’s done editing the whole series.
Workbook 3: Dealing With the Day-to-Day Challenges is now out on Amazon, along with books 1 and 2 in the series. If you’ve read the books and found them helpful, I’d be very grateful if you’d consider adding a review on Amazon. It can help really help other people find the books—especially those women in the early stages who’ve yet to discover that they aren’t alone after all.
As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods
I was so excited to see a new story pop up in my inbox. I love getting to know our members, and I’m always encouraged when I can see a bit of myself in their stories.
Once I started reading, though, my excitement turned to heartache and compassion. Diana, 39, has had a long and difficult journey, and today she’s still in a very dark place. I’m not going to sugarcoat this: Her responses to our questions are real and raw, and I appreciate her being so candid.
It’s possible she hasn’t been able to talk with anyone who truly understands what she’s going through or can offer real support, and that’s where we come in. The members of Life Without Baby have sympathy in spades. We’ve either been there or we are there, we know how it feels, and we are pretty good about knowing what to say and what not to say.
After you read Diana’s story, I hope you’ll take a moment to reach out to her in the Comments, perhaps to share how you’ve found some light in the darkness.
If you’re in a similar situation, please reach out for help. You can start by connecting with other LWB members in the Community Forums.
LWB: Please describe your dream of motherhood.
Diana: I have always dreamed of becoming a mother. Always. I constantly feel that something is missing and nothing can make up for it.
LWB: Are you childfree by choice, chance, or circumstance?
Diana: I am childfree because my husband is sterile. We found out two years after we were married.
LWB: Where are you on your journey now?
Diana: After 13 years, I’m still depressed. I have anxiety attacks, and I am nowhere near accepting the fact that I don’t have a child.
LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?
Diana: My motherly instinct is stronger than ever, and I feel like there is a constant emptiness in my heart.
LWB: What’s the best part about not having children?
Diana: Absolutely nothing.
LWB: What’s one thing you want other people to know about your being childfree?
Diana: Quit telling me to enjoy my life and travel and do things for myself. You don’t understand the emptiness. Materialistic things do not take the void away.
LWB: What do you look forward to now?
Diana: Nothing. I have good days and bad days. I just go through the motions.
If you’ve been feeling that you’re all alone on this journey, I encourage you to read other members’ stories here. There is a lot of wisdom and support in the stories themselves and in the comments. Then, when you’re ready, I hope you’ll share your story with us. Go to the Our Stories page to get more information and the questionnaire.
Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.
By Lisa Manterfield
I nicknamed my infertility journey “The Crazy Train.” It felt crazy because of the endless cycle of doctors and opinions that never seemed to get results. It was crazy because of the rollercoaster of emotions I experienced, one day feeling full of hope and certain it was going to happen for me, and the next sobbing my heart out because everything felt hopeless. And it was also crazy because of the things I told myself, the beliefs I chose to adopt to get myself through the mess, the potions, old wives’ tales, and witchcraft (quite literally) I tried in the hopes of conceiving.
But when someone referred to me as “crazy” for what I did, I took offense. Because nothing on this journey is really crazy.
Everything I did was something that was right for me at the time. All my behavior came out of an ever-mounting cycle of determination and frustration. And only when I met others like me who’d also been on that journey, and also thought they were crazy, did I realize how absolutely normal I was.
So, if you’ve been feeling like you’re losing your mind or if you’re wondering if you’re crazy, rest assured you’re not. Because nothing is crazy on this journey; it’s all perfectly normal.
By Lisa Manterfield
I’ve learned a lot from my experience of navigating the world as an unwillingly childless woman. I’ve learned that it’s not a straight road of recovery, where you get progressively better day after day, and where challenges become easier to handle each time you encounter them. It’s more like a wild slip’n slide, where you get up, fall down, make progress and sometimes get hurt—sometimes all in the same day.
When I first started trying to navigate my new path in life, I took a very cavalier attitude, putting on a brave face and telling myself I could handle whatever challenges came my way. I was strong enough, I thought, to volunteer at my local hospital’s NICU, to visit friends and hold their newborn babies, and to keep pretending everything was okay, when it wasn’t.
If I had to do it all again, I’d be kinder to myself. I’d take note of how I was really feeling, and treat myself accordingly. I’d understand that there are stages to the healing process and I’d assess where I was before deciding how much I could handle. For example:
In the early stages—maybe when I’d just made the decision to let go of my dream of motherhood, or I was feeling especially vulnerable—I’d take drastic steps to protect myself. This might mean saying no to events I felt obligated to attend and more-or-less hibernating during the most difficult ones. I’d know I wasn’t going to do this forever, but I’d also know that it was okay to put my own needs first.
In this stage, I’d start to step carefully out in the world again. I might have events I was worried about attending, but if I really wanted to go, I’d say yes to the invitation. I might not feel like being social, but I’d make an effort to test myself, to go out knowing someone would ask if I had children, and hoping I’d be ready with an answer. These would be the days that gave me hope that this would eventually get better over time.
This is the stage I’m in most of the time now, but it took me some time to get here. I’ve worked through my grief and found my own ways to manage tough scenarios. I can answer questions like “Do you have kids?” calmly, and I’ve found ways to reinvent the holidays so I can enjoy them again. I am a childless woman and I’m okay with telling people that. I can even answer them if they decide to ask prying questions or make assumptions about why I don’t have children.
If I’d understood these stages earlier, I might have cut myself a little more slack when my emotions caught up with me or I got caught out in a situation I thought I could handle.
What do you think? Have you moved through similar stages and was it a linear path for you, or was it more the slip’n slide version?
By Lisa Manterfield
Photo Credit: “Rollercoaster” Stevie Gill
Today is Groundhog Day here in the U.S., that monumental day when Punxsutawney Phil comes out of his burrow, looks for his shadow, and thereby predicts whether spring will come early or if six more weeks of winter weather can be expected. It’s all good clean fun and not to be taken too seriously (although Phil is fairly accurate), and I’ll admit to getting a certain thrill out of the festivities and silliness.
In the movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray plays a weatherman stuck covering the low level news of Phil’s forecasting. Desperate to get out of the town, he finds himself stuck in a time loop, waking up day after day, reliving the same series of events over and over again, each time growing more and more frustrated.
I can remember feeling this way about grief. I recall waking up every morning thinking, “Oh no, not this again” and wondering why I should even bother getting out of bed when there was nothing worth getting out of bed for.
The thing I learned about grief is that, if you don’t get out of bed, you get stuck in that loop of feeling like life isn’t worth the effort. You can talk yourself into believing that life without children is no life at all, that you’re not complete unless you’re a mother—all those things we hear out in the world that we can start to tell ourselves.
It’s not helpful to ignore grief, to pretend it’s not real and that “everything’s okay, honestly” when it’s not. But you also have to beware of getting stuck in an endless loop of sadness. If you’re feeling that way, here are some ideas to get unstuck:
If you’ve found yourself stuck in this kind of grief loop, how have you found a way to break the cycle? If you’re feeling stuck right now, what could you do to make a change so you don’t have to endure another six weeks of winter gloom?
By Lisa Manterfield
I’ve had several e-mails recently asking for information about regional in-person groups for women who are childless-not-by-choice. Unfortunately, I’ve never had anything valuable to offer as no such groups existed, but thanks to Jody Day at Gateway Women, they do now.
Here’s a post that Jody wrote on her blog about the meet-ups she’s set up so far. In there, she also includes links to the meet-up sites for each country.
My experience with meeting other women in a “childless-not-by-choice” group has been a feeling of belonging and not having to worry about being asked if I have children and enduring one of those long, awkward pauses when I say I don’t. I’ve been able to talk openly about shared experiences and also chatted about all kinds of other topics having nothing at all to do with being childless. It’s a great opportunity to find common ground in a safe environment.
Do let me know if you go along to one of these meet-ups. I’d love to hear how it went.
By Lisa Manterfield
This is absolutely my favorite time of year. The madness (and sometimes, sadness) of the holidays is behind us and it’s time to look forward to a brand new year.
I love the New Year. I love making plans, taking a little time to do some walking and dreaming, creating a picture of what I want my life to look like the following year. I always set some pretty lofty goals and sometimes I even reach them! But the thrill for me is not in checking accomplishments off my list (although I enjoy that, too) but in taking a deep breath and realigning my life to how I’d like it to be.
Among the cards I received over the holidays were a several (I was surprised how many) photo cards from friends who are also childfree. I really enjoyed seeing their adventures and travels, and although I’ll admit to a touch of envy, I was also glad to see photographic evidence that these women had worked their way through their loss and grief and were living life to the fullest again. Their photos also prompted me to move some of my old passions (travel and hiking, for example) higher up my list next year.
If you’re in the thick of grief, looking ahead to a rosy future can feel impossible, and even when the healing begins, you can sometimes find that you’ve lost touch with who you really are and who you’d like to be again.
One of the most encouraging weeks during one of last year’s support calls was after we’d discussed the topic of finding yourself again. So many participants said they’d pushed aside old passions during the baby quest, and it was so fun to see all the amazing things people had once loved to do that were about to be dusted off again. Some people loved singing, reading, writing, traveling, even trampolining. Their ideas made me think about bringing some of my own former hobbies back into my life again. I’d like to encourage you to do the same.
If you’re thinking there’s no way you’re getting on a pair of rollerskates again, I suggest thinking about how your old favorite hobby made you feel; what was it about rollerskating (for example) that you loved so much. Is there a way to recreate those old feelings in a new hobby? If your rollerskates gave you freedom and if you loved the feel of the wind in your hair, can you get that by riding a bike or taking a long drive with the windows open?
As we step into this brand new year, I encourage you to think about the “you” that got lost and to look for ways to find her again.
Can you believe this is the last Wednesday of 2014? This year has just flown by. This means it’s also the last Whiny Wednesday of the year.
I’m going to open the floor for all whines today, but wanted to add one extra consideration. If you were visiting this site at this time last year, what’s changed for you? Are there things you would have whined about then that don’t affect you in the same way now? Can you see improvements in your outlook on life? Are there things you’re less tolerant of now than you were last year?
Enjoy your whining and I’ll look forward to seeing you here next year.
Happy New Year!
By Kathleen Guthrie Woods
I can’t get into the details (lawsuit pending), but let’s just say I have been exposed to the dark side of a very not-nice person (NNP). As I’ve prepared to do the right thing and hold NNP accountable, I’ve had some very dark days. My stress level has been through the roof. I’ve anticipated every possible good outcome and every possible bad outcome. I’ve awakened in the middle of the night panicked. I’ve cried, I’ve sworn, I’ve pleaded with God to Give me an f-ing break!
Now, I realize NNP hasn’t lost a wink of sleep; I know I am the only one suffering at a deep level, and I know I have some forgiveness work ahead of me. (Fodder for another post, I’m sure.)
In the meantime, in the midst of all the darkness, I found myself being warmed by some very bright lights in the form of extreme kindness from strangers: The attorney who provided me with counsel then waived his fees. The volunteers who guided me through complicated paperwork. The friend who heard about my situation, called upon another friend, who called another friend, who stepped up and stepped in to help me.
My beautiful epiphany is in recognizing how easy it is to redirect my focus away from the NNPs and to the 99.9% of people who are doing good in the world, who are generous, thoughtful, helpful, and kind.
You know who else falls into this camp? The men and women of LWB. The people who candidly share their stories of loss and healing. The commenters who support, commiserate, and encourage. The members of the forums and groups. The many quiet readers who see themselves in the stories on our pages and offer up prayers for healing and peace.
Yes, there is darkness in our world, it comes in many forms. But, oh, the joy of finding the light!
Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.
~ "a raw, transparent account of the gut-wrenching journey of infertility."
~ "a welcome sanity check for women left to wonder how society became so fixated on motherhood."
