Life Without Baby

filling the silence in the motherhood discussion

Holiday Self-Preservation

By Lisa Manterfield

Woman Giving Gift, Portrait, Blurred.Imagine you have a good friend who experiences a death in the family right before the holidays. She’s dealing with funeral arrangements and in among the holiday cards that people sent before they got the news are sympathy cards and notes of condolence. She has her loved one’s belongings to go through and her mind is anywhere but on the holidays. She is mourning and there is little or no room in her grief for festivities.

You understand this and so you forgive your friend when she doesn’t send a card or a gift this year. You don’t expect her to attend the annual get-together you usually have with your group of friends. Instead, you check in on her to make sure she’s okay and you let her know that you’re there for her if she needs anything. You both know next year will be different, that she’ll be back celebrating with you, even though this will always be a difficult time of year for her.

If you’re in the earliest stages of your journey, where perhaps your latest round of IVF has failed or you’ve just come to the realization that children aren’t going to be part of your plan, you’re also grieving a great loss. The difference is, most people around you aren’t going to understand why you aren’t in the holiday spirit and they’re going to expect you to attend events, show up with gifts, and contribute to the merriment. They probably won’t make the same concessions you would make for your friend, so it’s up to you to treat yourself as kindly as you would treat her.

If this year feels too difficult for you, consider taking the year off.

Seriously, what would happen if you didn’t send out cards this year? What would happen if you mailed gift certificates instead of subjecting yourself to the mall and all its triggering festivities to shop for gifts? Do you have to decorate? Can you make excuses for parties you don’t want to attend? Could you even take a year off from whatever family obligations you might have?

It’s just one year. Will the people you love disown you? Some might be upset and yes, there’ll be that relative or friend who’ll never let you not forget, but odds are, most will forgive and forget.

We often try so hard to be there for other people, to meet their expectations and give them the holiday experience they want. But maybe this year you could give yourself what you need instead.

It Got Me Thinking…About Saying the Wrong Thing

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

IGMTA buddy of mine, let’s call him Heath, works in PR in the entertainment industry, and he’s in the thick of a campaign for a new movie. One of the stars is making the rounds of various talk shows, and Heath is accompanying her.

Today I found myself laughing until tears flowed as Heath told me about her recent meeting with a young producer. He was prepping her for a TV interview and repeatedly advised her to tell a few “antidotes.”

“If you can start with an antidote…answer with an antidote…wrap up with a funny antidote….”

Now we all know he meant “anecdote,” but he was working so hard to do his job and impress this big star he had been assigned to prep, that she couldn’t bring herself to correct (and publicly embarrass) him. I appreciate her graciousness, and I appreciate Heath for telling me this story because it’s funny and sweet and we have all, at one time or another, been this eager young guy.

And it made me think about all the inappropriate things people say to us childfree women. With very few exceptions, none of the comments are mean-spirited. Most people who reach out are trying to love and support us, albeit at times clumsily and horribly. They don’t want to hurt us, and they are doing the very best that they can to navigate unfamiliar and treacherous territory. Maybe we can’t bring ourselves to laugh at their bumbling efforts, but I think I can find it in my heart to accept their efforts, to show them some compassion, and to just appreciate that someone really really wants to help.

 

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.

Resetting Holiday Expectations

By Lisa Manterfield

Christmas Stockings Hanging over FireplaceRecently a friend posted this question of Facebook:

“Are you the adult you dreamed of becoming?”

I laughed when I read it. No! Of course I’m not. The adult I dreamed of was an international engineering consultant, living in a large house with a circular driveway, with a fabulous husband and four beautiful children, including one set of twins.

Aside from the fabulous husband, that adult is almost the polar opposite of the adult I am now. I’m a writer, who works from my very small rented beach cottage, and of course, there are no children in my picture. And yet, once I stop to consider my friend’s question, I realize that I’m a lot happier as this adult than I would have been had my expectations been met. I’ve met the person I’d once dreamed of becoming; she wasn’t a very happy person and she definitely had more grey hairs than me.

I’m coming to the conclusion that half the battle of coming-to-terms with a life without children is letting go of our expectations—and creating new ones. This is never more true than during the holiday season, one of the most difficult times of the year to be childless.

When I think of my expectations of what Christmas should be like as an adult, those four children are always there, gathered around the tree, gathered around the dinner table, and then gathered around me as the day comes to a close. Even when I realized that children wouldn’t be part of my life, I still strived to make Christmas live up to my expectations. Consequently, Christmastime was very sad time for a number of years. I knew there was no way my expectations could be met, and eventually I stopped making an effort to celebrate.

The worst year was when my husband and I found ourselves sitting at home, with no Christmas tree, no plans, no celebration, and we knew we’d allowed our lack of children to take over our lives. We also realized it was time to set new, more realistic expectations.

When I took a step back and looked at what I really wanted for Christmas, not on the surface of gifts, family, and decorations, but on a deeper emotional level, I discovered that my spiritual wish list included love, peacefulness, companionship, and a good dose of silly fun. I needed to explore new ways to get what I really wanted.

It took a couple of false starts to find a new way to celebrate Christmas, but a couple of years ago we nailed it. Mr. Fab and I rented an apartment for three days in a nearby beach town. We celebrated on Christmas Eve with a lovely dinner at an historic hotel with an enormous Christmas tree, roving carolers, and even an outdoor ice rink (in Southern California!). On Christmas Day, instead of sitting at home feeling sad about a pathetic Christmas for two, we went to the zoo, like a couple of big kids, and had a whale of a time. I even got to feed a rhino and have an ice cream. We both agreed it was the best Christmas we’ve had for a long time, plus there were no tantrums or mountains of dirty dishes to deal with.

It’s hard to let go of our expectations, especially when they’re often so deeply engrained, but if you’re struggling to find your holiday cheer this year, I encourage you to look beneath the obvious losses and examine what’s really missing for you. Even if you can’t meet your tangible expectations of what the holidays should be, you might be surprised to find you can satisfy your true needs in unconventional—and unexpected—ways.

It Got Me Thinking…About Making Someone’s Day a Little Brighter

By Kathleen Guthrie Woods

IGMTEvery day, Tinney Davidson sits in her front living room and waves to students as they pass on their way to school, and they wave back. It’s become “a thing.” This past Valentine’s Day, the students decided to recognize her with a special assembly.

If you haven’t already seen the story, check it out here.

There’s no mention of children or grandchildren in the video clip, so I started to check to see if she is childfree, to see if I could feature her on our site as a chero (a hero who happens to be childfree). Then I thought, It doesn’t matter! This is a wonderful story about a wonderful lady who takes care of many children, who is generous with her wave and her smile, who offers daily kindness and encouragement. Chero or hero, she is doing good on earth, and she inspires me.

Let’s all take a hint from Tinney. Wave, share a smile, and make someone’s day a little brighter. I bet this will make you feel a bit happier too.

Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.

Holiday Support Call

invitation - pixabayYou’re invited!

You’re probably seeing these words pop into your inbox or land in your mailbox as we head towards the “festive” holiday season. Invitations to family gatherings, company parties, and get-togethers with friends can seem more like a burden than a gift when you’re facing the holidays without the children you’d hoped to have.

So, I’m inviting you to an altogether different kind of gathering this season—an invitation to spend the holidays with friends.

Please join me for the Life Without Baby Holiday Support Call on Tuesday, December 9th, at 6:00pm PDT.

We’ll gather by phone for an hour or so to discuss the issues you’re facing this holiday season, share tips and ideas for making it through, and, perhaps most important of all, spend some safe time with people who understand that this might not always be “the most wonderful time of the year.”

During the call I’ll answer your burning questions and provide a safe space to talk with one another. And if this sounds like your worst nightmare, you’re also invited to come along and just listen. Unlike other holiday gatherings, you won’t need to feel you have to mingle.

If you can’t make the call or if you don’t feel you’re ready to join in, you can also get a recording of the call to listen to on your own time.

However you’d like to participate, you can sign up for the call here. It’s free to attend. Once you’re registered, you’ll receive the private call-in information, instructions on submitting topics and questions, as well as the recording after the call.

I hope you’ll join me and not go through this difficult time of year alone.

Sharing Tips for Getting Through the Holidays

By Lisa Manterfield

thanksgivingThis week we celebrate Thanksgiving here in the U.S. and, for the first time in a long time, I am looking forward to it. We are bucking tradition this year and spending the day with good friends, including another childfree couple. Mr. Fab is cooking a decidedly nontraditional Thanksgiving dinner, so all I’ll have to do, aside from a few sous chef duties, is show up and have a good time.

I know for many of you, Thanksgiving might not be such a fun time. Traditionally, it’s a holiday when families gather, which might mean facing insensitive relatives and prying questions about children. It also marks the beginning of what can often be the most difficult time of the year, with social gatherings, kid-oriented activities, and constant reminders of the many ways we don’t get to celebrate the holidays.

I love that this community includes new readers and seasoned pros, so let’s help one another out this year by sharing ideas on getting through the season with our hearts intact.

What are some of the issues you know you’ll face this holiday season? What events are you dreading? What’s going to be hardest for you?

And perhaps most important of all, how to do plan to get through the season with minimum emotional damage?

For more tips, inspiration, and support, check out the Life Without Baby Holiday Companion, available now at Amazon.com.

Whiny Wednesday

Whiny_WednesdayThis Friday is Halloween, which for many of us means streams of cute children knocking on our front doors.

Love it or hate it; it’s hard to avoid it. So the discussion topic for this week is:

How do you handle this difficult holiday?

As it’s Whiny Wednesday, there’s room for your gripes here, too.

Our Stories: LuDexMommie

As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods

Our Stories“This infertility journey nearly broke me on multiple levels,” LuDexMommie* writes. She believed she deserved to have a child, and as multiple fertility treatments failed her, she found herself in a very dark place on the “hope-despair rollercoaster”. Now 39 and soon to be divorced, LuDexMommie acknowledges that she could keep trying, she could recruit a surrogate or adopt, but “I am loathe to open myself up to more pain.” We can relate, can’t we? More of her story is below.

LWB: Briefly describe your dream of motherhood:

LuDexMommie: I didn’t dream, I assumed. I could easily picture all the wonderful moments shared between my child and me. I knew there would be challenges, but I felt I had the capacity to excel at raising a child. In fact, I was so confident that I went to lengths to develop my career and put motherhood (and what I felt to be a requisite relationship) on hold. My philosophy was that if you worked hard enough at something, you would get it. But I never considered having to work to have a baby.

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

LuDexMommie: I have premature ovarian failure and adenomyosis, and I consumed infertility technology for three years to battle against this. I have had four IUIs, two IVF procedures with two different egg donors (one was my sister!), two transfers with donor embryos, and two surgeries. Out of all that, only two chemical pregnancies resulted with a hell of a lot of heartache and grief. Circumstances got me here, but I find myself moving toward choosing a childfree life.

LWB: Where are you on your journey now?

LuDexMommie: Over the past few months it became clear that my marriage is an irreversible source of frustration, not support. I have always had difficulty relating to the term “DH” [Darling Husband] that I read about on blogs. My husband was quite limited in what he was able to give to the relationship, so I am choosing to move forward alone. I am hoping to connect with others without a DH.

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

LuDexMommie: I wish I could take that cold, hard scar out of my heart and put it in someone else so they could instantly understand how much it hurts. I will not see an ultrasound picture of a baby growing inside of me. I will not brush my child’s curly hair. There won’t be recognition of myself in a child’s mannerisms. I cannot hug or kiss my child, and no one will run to me for comfort. I won’t be able to teach or learn from my child. I will not experience the pride that parents have for a variety of childhood “firsts”. There will be no school supplies, sports teams, musical instruments, birthday parties, scraped knees, bedtime stories, school dances, family vacations, or driving lessons. I won’t be mother of the bride or groom. No grandchildren for me. I anticipate loneliness. I anticipate pangs of jealously. I am fully aware that parenting is not all roses, but the decision to stop trying when so many rewards are possible is very, very difficult.

LWB: What’s the best part about not having children?

LuDexMommie: Getting “me” back, emotionally, mentally, and physically. Opening up choices for myself. Getting out of a dysfunctional relationship and making myself ready for a healthy one. Cultivating special relationships with my nieces and nephews. Simplifying my life. Recognizing my potential as a human being. Acknowledging the difficulties that having a child in my 40s would present, and taking advantage of the freedoms that being childfree affords.

LWB: What have you learned about yourself?

LuDexMommie: I am surprised that I’m willing to consider being childfree; I would not have predicted that when this process began. I learned what my limits are. I learned I am a positive person at my core, but not at the expense of being practical. I learned how people not going though infertility pain could not help me in the way that I wanted them to. I became more forgiving of obliviousness. I am still trying to understand what “grief work” is. I recognize better what makes me happy, what makes me anxious, and what I am willing to do. I am kinder to myself.

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

LuDexMommie: I say, “No. Do you have dogs?”

LWB: What’s your Plan B?

LuDexMommie: Ha! I’m way past Plan B. It’s time to rediscover myself and do things that make me happy.

 

*Not her real name. We allow each respondent to use a fictitious name for her profile, if she chooses.

Won’t you 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.

Guest Post: Infertility Cuts Men Up Too

By Sheridan Voysey

Childlessness isn’t just a “female thing.” It cuts a man up too.

I know. I’ve felt it—felt each stinging cut.

For ten years my wife, Merryn, and I dreamed of starting a family. Our journey in pursuit of that dream included special diets, courses of fertility-boosting supplements, healing prayer, and chiropractic sessions (yes, chiropractic sessions—you’ll try anything). The journey included numerous rounds of costly IVF treatment, and a year of assessment as potential adoptive parents followed by an agonising two-year wait for our hoped-for adoptive child.

We pursued our dream with all the energy we had. But our dream never eventuated.

Exhausted from a decade in the wilderness of infertility, we brought our dream of a baby to an end on Christmas Day, 2010, after doctors had told us, just days before, that our final IVF round had been successful. They’d been wrong.

I feel the loss of that hoped-for child today. I feel it when I see a father tickling his giggling daughter, or as I watch a family celebrate the birthday of their teenage son, or as I see a proud father walk his radiant, veiled daughter down the aisle. I hear a little voice at these moments that says, “You’ll never have that,” followed by a jolting sense of injustice. “It’s just not fair,” the voice says, “when we tried so hard to have a child.”

Yes, infertility can cut a man up.

It cuts a man up in more ways than the loss of fatherhood, though. Having written a book about Merryn’s and my experience of starting again after infertility, and sharing our story through speaking, I regularly have men confidentially email or pull me aside at conferences to share feelings they rarely share. “I can’t talk about this to my friends,” one guy told me. “I have low sperm count. I can’t father a child. That’ll hardly impress my football buddies.” For many men this threatened masculinity is the most difficult aspect of infertility.

The lost opportunity of fatherhood. Threatened masculinity. Infertility can bring a third kind of pain to a man too—a pain born of empathy.

Try watching your wife’s bottom lip quiver as the doctor delivers the results of those first fertility tests. Watch the sadness grow in her eyes—a sadness that may last for years.

Watch your wife’s face contort in pain as the needle extracting the eggs for your first IVF round goes in. Watch as she later recovers from the trauma in shocked silence.

Watch your wife wait in hope for the results of the blood test—for the phone call with the good news that you pray for. Watch time and again as her hope falls to the floor.

Watch as she waits, and waits, and waits for the phone call from the adoption agency. Any day now it could come—the call to collect our child. But the call never comes.

Watch as she sits on the bed, a circle of tissues around her and her eyes rubbed red. Watch as she cries night after night. Feel her body shake as you hold her.

Watch as she enters an identity crisis, wondering if she’ll ever become the person—the mother—she longs to be.

And watch as she struggles with the faith that once sustained her. Watch as she wonders if the God she prays to cares. If he cared, surely he’d give her a family.

Watch all this—watch and try not to be cut up. When the one you love most suffers so much, how can your soul not be ripped to shreds?

Over three years have passed since my wife and I brought our quest for a child to an end. We’re in a different place now—we’ve started life again. And our story is helping others who need their own new beginning after a broken dream.

But please know this: childlessness isn’t just a “female thing.” Infertility cuts a man up too. In more ways than you may know.

 

Sheridan Voysey is a UK-based writer, speaker, and broadcaster. His latest book, Resurrection Year: Turning Broken Dreams into New Beginnings, chronicles his and his wife’s journey to start life afresh after ten years of infertility. Follow him on Twitter @sheridanvoysey, Facebook, and get his articles and podcasts at www.sheridanvoysey.com.

Letting Go of the Dream of Motherhood eBook is Here!

By Lisa Manterfield

Exiting news! The first book in the Life Without Baby ebook series is out today. Workbook 1: Letting Go of the Dream of Motherhood is available on Amazon now and will be showing up at other online retailers over the coming weeks.

It’s been an interesting process to gather all that I’ve learned about this strange journey over the past years. I wish I’d known five years ago (or maybe even before then) that it was okay to let go of my quest. I wish I’d understood that the loss of my dream meant more than simply not having children and that it would affect the foundation of my identity, my relationships, and all my plans for the future. And I wish I’d known to give myself permission to grieve, instead of putting on a brave face and pretending everything was okay. At least I know that now.

I’ve learned so much from all of you as I’ve voiced my difficulties here and heard about yours. You have taught me so much about this issue and about myself. For that, I am very grateful.

I’m also enormously grateful to Kathleen for her help in crafting the book and then her brilliant work editing and proofreading the final manuscript. There’s so much that happens behind the scenes of this site that couldn’t happen without her.

So, please, grab yourself a copy of the book. It’s affordably priced at $2.99. Your support of these projects enables me to keep this site running without ads or fees. Don’t worry if you don’t have an e-reader. You can download a free App so you can read the book on your computer, phone, tablet, or maybe even your watch!

You can find Workbook 1 here. And if you can’t get enough, you can even pre-order Workbook 2. I’d love to get your feedback if you find them helpful.