Loving the life we have

Elaine wrote a wonderful post - "You can't have everything." Go read it. It's perfect. 

I've mentioned before that my husband was essentially given a terminal diagnosis just over a year ago. At the time, well-meaning friends and family said, "you must be so pleased you had your big trip last year," referring to our three-month trip* to Ireland, UK, and Portugal. At the time, that was TOO SOON! His life wasn't over. But they were acting as if it was. And as symptoms had appeared on our trip, maybe we could have got treatment sooner if we hadn't gone. I felt and feel real guilt about that. The trip's wonderful memories were not a silver lining to learning how sick he was, and that treatment would never be "curative." The trip was a reminder that it may have made his condition worse. And of course, I was grieving then. I still am. 

The "aren't you glad" comments felt similar to the "at least" comments about early pregnancy losses ("at least you weren't further along") or "at least you have each other" or "at least you can travel" when we knew we'd never have children, or "at least you could afford IVF." Comments like "at least" need to be timed better. When loss is new, or imminent, it is not a comfort. It is a little dismissive. It's not going to make us feel better. Even if it makes the speaker feel a little better. And I know the sentiment behind it is well intended. But it definitely made me flinch. Ouch.

We were told during treatment that he would have a "healthy period" and we should make the most of it, and decide what we wanted to do. We went on another trip** -  this time to his bucket list destination of Egypt, and then a cruise through the Straits of Hormuz to Singapore. Of course, everyone now is saying what perfect timing our trip was. They are right. We were lucky, in a year when very little has felt lucky. But there was grief and there were good-byes as well as joy. 

We're now at the stage where we have accepted the ending is coming. We've been talking about our lives, and in particular, our travels. Travelling together was our great love, our great interest, and yes, our great expense! In the years after learning we would never have children, we intensified our travels. From 2002, between ectopic pregnancies, through to 2013, we travelled internationally every year, sometimes twice. That's nothing if you are in the UK or Europe, or even the US, but quite an achievement if you live in NZ, where a seven-hour flight is almost considered "short haul." We had some wonderful wonderful trips. Some were adventures, some big long road trips, some were "blobs on the beach" as we called our tropical beach holidays, depending on our energy levels. After 2013, our travelling slowed for a few years, with health issues and elder care issues, though we still managed to fit in several new countries in 2017 and 2019, COVID caused a glitch for a couple of years, but even then we managed to have a great tour of NZ when overseas travel was out of the question. 

We took these trips because we didn't have children, and the trips from 2004 through to 2013 were deliberate responses to our No Kidding status becoming permanent. They were not just consolation trips. They were trips we had chosen to sacrifice when we decided to try for children. Because of course, if we'd had children, we knew we wouldn't be able to "have it all" either, as Elaine said. Every choice includes a sacrifice too. And knowing we couldn't have children, we decided to make the most of it. 

So now I can admit that yes, I'm glad we had our three-month trip in 2024. I couldn't say that this time last year. But I don't flinch thinking about it now. Well, not all the time. Not badly. Yes, I'm glad we went to Egypt last year too. And yes, we are both very glad that we were able to enjoy those trips together, that we have all those memories of discovering over 65 countries (mostly) together. "At least" we travelled earlier, before retirement. 

And now our world is more limited. So I take advice from Elaine's post, and embrace the little things, that together make something big. We are doing that now. Today's was a coffee and a sausage roll together from a local shop. 

We couldn't have it all. We knew that. We couldn't have children. And we're not going to have an old age together. I am very much feeling that now. I especially feel it as I watch another family going through a similar process, but with the support of two adult children. But that was our life. We couldn't have it all. But we have had a lot. After not having children, we made the choice to accept it, and live. And our life together is not over yet. 

 

 

 * I write about it here - My 2024 Travels - though I've only got through Ireland for perhaps obvious reasons.

** I've documented some of the trip on A Separate Life where you can search "What I did on my holidays" or just click here.  

Cliches - not always as simple as they seem

 I was reading some pronatalism/childless/childfree articles, and got thinking. I don't feel the gap between the childless and childfree, because I have been both. In my earlier years, I had no desire to be a mother or have children. I didn't have much younger siblings, or cousins that I knew well. I never wanted to "play house" or play with dolls. My mother's life was not enviable to me. It looked like unrelenting work, little social interaction (living in the country on a farm), etc. I was interested in being outdoors, or reading of other places and worlds, and dreaming of escape. As a teenager and young woman, I knew I was part of the first generation of women who could actually have a career as a right, whereas women before me had to fight for everything, for contraception, entrance into professions, universities, careers, etc. (Which is not to say I haven't had to do that, but my university classes and work places were filled with men and women of equal talent, which had not been the case for my predecessors. Or even for me when I was at primary school.) I bristled at assumptions that I would do things just because I was female. I'm sorry - I'm sure I am repeating myself in this rant.

So it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I wanted children. And with infertility issues and pregnancy losses, it hit me hard. Twenty years later, I'm still writing about the subject. Because I'm living it. 

Yes, I am a cliche. I'm the woman who didn't want children, until she did. The one who "changed her mind." The one that people warn against, that doctors use as an example and as an excuse not to perform sterilisation procedures, the one who causes the genuinely-held feelings and desires of women to be dismissed. And I hate that my example could be used to shame young women, or restrict their choices, or pressure them into something that they do not want or are not ready for. It infuriates me.

Because I wasn't ready until I was, in fact, ready. And I was determined that I wasn't going to be pressured to be ready before that. I was determined people were not going to stereotype me into a role just because of my biology. I don't think I ever said "I will never have children." But I said, often, "not yet" or "not now." Not knowing was fine. Normal even. It certainly was for me. 

Loribeth at The Road Less Travelled referred to an article about pronatalism, which talks about all the pressure still on women to have children. My head was ready to explode after reading it. Over forty years since I was at university, putting structure to my feminism, and what has changed? I finished the article full of everything I wanted to say to all those people who are promoting pronatalist policies and points of view: Let people make their own choices. Accept their realities, rather than trying to impose yours. Don't be a hypocrite. Don't have double standards for women and men. I never had a lot of pressure on me to have children. Sure, there were expectations, but at least my close family members were tactful about it. (Unlike the uncles and aunts at my wedding!)

These days, I fully appreciate the opportunities I have had and still have without children. But I am also cognisant of the losses my husband and I have experienced, and continue to experience. Lori Lavender Luz often talks and writes about the concepts of Both And. Nothing explains my life without children better than Both And. Joy and opportunity, loss and exclusion. If I had never said "I am ready" then it would have been okay too. I would not have regretted it. I do not regret waiting until I was ready. No-one is a cliche. We all have our reasons and stories and lives, and we are all different. Just let us be who we are.

 

Childlessness in a book that wasn't kidding

I recently read a book recommended by Loribeth. Yes, I've been managing to read again and listen to audiobooks. Yay. You Are Here is by David Nicholls, a wonderful writer, and takes you on a journey across hills and dales in England. There's a discussion of childlessness at one point, in which a character mentions  "the tyranny of proving your life is fulfilled, and not a leaky bucket." (paraphrased as I listened to it as an audiobook).

I've written about that here - the expectation that we have to have a Next Big Thing if we are not having children. When actually Life is our Next Big Thing. And it comes with joys and challenges just like life with children. 

Later in the book, I noted a comment about friends re-emerging from parenthood as their children grew up. That too has been my experience, and I have of course written about it too. That friends are able to be friends again, without the all-consuming need to be with their children. I've even noticed that friends who dropped us years ago because they were only or mainly socialising with other people who had kids, the parents of their kids' friends, for example, have now reappeared. Maybe they realised that those were really friendships of convenience, and once the children were grown, they didn't have much in common? I don't know. But the reappearance has been nice too. Of course, none of that made the fact that we were dropped any easier. Or reduces my new levels of wariness around them too. But being open to reclaim these friendships has been good for all of us.

How nice to see ourselves reflected in a book in a calm, non-histrionic way, when childlessness was not the central feature of the book, but it was a very present, talked about, and acknowledged feature that contributed to the richness of the characters and story. 

 

The healing power of travel

Klara at The Next 1500 Days has written a most beautiful post about visiting a glacier and how it helped her and her husband heal after their first IVF, and gave them strength for the future. Go read it here, if only to see the fabulous photo, but also to read her wise words. Klara and I both love travel. So of course, she got me thinking. 

Before we started IVF, after our first ectopic pregnancy, we took a trip to France.  I have written before about it here, about how it taught me to hold joy at great beauty, and sadness for a loss at the same time. Later, between our first and what would be our last IVF attempts, we had six weeks between cycles, and we took off to nearby Vanuatu for a short beach holiday. More recently, after a difficult diagnosis and treatment, we have been on a bucket list trip to Egypt and a cruise. It took us away from the reality of diagnoses and treatments and necessary home maintenance that were threatening to overwhelm us. 

Travel brings me great joy, whether it is through extraordinary landscapes, or famous sites, or food, or learning new things. That joy, for a short time, helps me forget sadness, or at least, it helps remind me that I can hold both at the same time. In fact, travel almost requires me to do that. Because at home it can be easy to push away any pleasure because I might feel guilty for feeling joy in awful circumstances. I felt that with the loss of pregnancies, until I allowed myself to let go of the guilt. Travel almost demands we do that. After all, we owe it to ourselves to enjoy something that is out of the ordinary, something we paid for, something that has taken a great effort to experience. 

It can even allow me to forget those stresses and realities of life. Because there is only so much we can hold at once. Travel insists that I concentrate on a new environment, maybe different languages and almost always cultures. That brings a real focus on where I am and what I am doing, on experiencing the immediate, the now, and of being aware and appreciative. And in opening my heart to wonder and joy, to experience that, makes it is easier to shut out some of the troubles we are facing. It allows me space to breathe. My posture improves, my shoulders relax, and the biggest stress is (usually) where to eat dinner each night. It makes it easier to forget sadness. And therefore easier to relax. When we are mindful, and focused on that, it gives our brains and our hearts a welcome and much-needed rest. It allows us to stop thinking about the "what-ifs" and what is going to happen in the future. Our brains and our bodies can relax. Our souls can heal, just a little. It allows me some rejuvenation of body, if possible, and almost definitely of spirit.  

By opening our hearts to experience the now, to be mindful, I feel relief. I noticed this first when I just needed to be away from a stressful job. Then after some more serious life events, including pregnancy loss. Travel, for me, provides some healing, and reminds me that there is much happiness to be found in this world, if we stay open to it. I am especially aware of that if I am relaxing in a gentle breeze in Asia, or absorbed in an animal sighting in Africa, or appreciating a beautiful village square in France, or most recently watching a lovely sunset over the Nile. But there is joy in a sunset at home too, or in a funny encounter, or seeing a beautiful flower. Travel has helped teach me that, too. Even if or when we know that there is worse to come, a brief respite of mindfulness can be welcome relief.

The stress of being in new places might be too much for some people. Certainly, travel is not completely stress-free, even when we love it. I'm not a brave intrepid traveller, oblivious or blase about risks in different environments. But for me the benefits outweigh the risks.  That is not the case for everyone. I know too it is a luxury to be able to travel. I hope I will be able to continue to travel, but nothing is certain. So if travel is not for you, I am sure there are other things that can deliver the same awareness and relief for you. When I think about it, a hobby, a good book, a walk or run, a film or play or gig, a day out, or even cooking and eating a delicious meal can be healing, if we let it, if we are mindful, if we are open to letting small moments of joy and peace into our hearts when all else feels gloomy.

 

 

 

 

 

The importance of connections

I remember when I had my ectopic pregnancies that I could talk about the "mechanics" of the situation - scans, what an interstitial or cornual ectopic was, etc etc, relatively easily with friends and family. But as soon as it got into the emotions, I couldn't speak. I'm not someone who cries easily in public. Or should I say, I'm not someone who wants to be able to cry easily in public. I hate it! I try not to. But ectopics and infertility opened the floodgates. And being in contact with kind people who were empathetic saved me. Blogging here has reinforced that. Helping people who are going through hard times, or just having a space for myself to have a moan and a wobble, a space where I know people will understand, has been a gift.

So this last year has been tough. People ask how I am, and I talk about my husband's condition. If they're extra kind, they'll say, "and how are YOU?" and that's the danger zone. So I explain that, through the tears threatening to spill, and see if we can change the subject. The thing is, I don't even know what the answer is. So even if I could talk, I'm not sure what I'd say. The kindness though, starts the waterworks. Accepting their sympathy and/or empathy is really tough. So I let them know I appreciate it. And that contact helps. Whether it's a blog comment, an email or whatsapp, a dinner or coffee out, or a visit. Support comes many different ways. Sometimes the most meaningful is also the simplest.  I am pleased to be reminded of that, so I can help myself, and at the same time support others too.