Out of Office reply

My husband and I are spending time with my sister, her husband, their daughter, and Jeff the dog. Not a bad spot, is it? 

For more pics, check out A Separate Life. 

The Day that is Not For Us

Yes, it's that day soon, the Day that is Not For Us, the day that strikes dread into the heart of many of the No Kidding, the day that reminds us without mercy that we didn't become the mothers we had wanted to be, the day that has a little sting, whether we've been No Kidding after infertility for months, or for 15 years!

 Last year, we were in Iceland and delightfully buffered from the day and all it brings, but this year I am unable to escape, and so I am currently trying to figure out how to maintain a level of control over the day and how it affects me. It is actually my husband's birthday this Sunday, and we've decided to go out for dinner the night before, to avoid the happy families in the restaurants, but this means we have no excuse but to spend time with his mother! The truth is that, of her four children (and their spouses), we are the only ones who will be with her on the day, and we want to do that for her.

However, I want to keep some of the day for my husband, too, so I'm trying to think of a way we can do both – do justice to his mother, but give him some special time too.

But I also want – yes, I want a lot! – to carve out some of the day for me too, because I'm not going to pretend that I don't feel ignored and isolated by society on this day, and forgotten by friends and family - that would dishonour my journey, and our losses. As I said recently to Infertile Phoenix, I think that the world wants us to assimilate and join in with the day, whereas doing our own thing, honouring our own lives (because nobody else will), is a legitimate a way to spend the day (or in my case, part of the day). It is in fact, one of the great freedoms of living a No Kidding life.

For the record, some previous M Day posts:

2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011

#Microblog Mondays: (More) Miscellaneous

I’ve been working on a number of longer posts (watch this space), and so haven’t posted mid-week this week, and didn’t have a pithy eight-sentence post ready for today either. Clearly, my plan to write a blog schedule has gone by the wayside, but hopefully you’ll see some evidence of my labours soon.

It’s my mother-in-law’s birthday on Wednesday, and I plan to bake her a birthday cake. I don’t get to bake birthday cakes for my never-born children, or for any nieces and nephews, so I’m quite happy to do it for my elderly in-laws. I’m thinking a lemon layer cake - because she lost a lot of her tastebuds several years ago with radiation treatment, but can still taste tart citrus flavours - but first I need to find a good recipe, and must remember to make sure I have the right pans before I start.

I am finally able to start thinking about where we might travel next, possibly in November or December when my husband’s contract will have ended. There are advantages to being unencumbered by the need to provide a memorable Christmas for any children, or to travel only during school holidays. Anyone have any suggestions of good destinations at that time of year?

Blog posts I won't be writing

A continuing series

• Posts that list prompts that focus on being a parent, and “your” child. I’ve done that already, and have made my point that these posts can almost always be rephrased to be more inclusive, so as I don’t want to keep reminding any of us of what we have lost by continuing these posts, I have finally deleted all those prompts I won’t be using.

But that got me thinking about the other posts I don't want to write here:

• Posts lamenting what should have been, because I don't feel this language is helpful. I may however, occasionally touch on what might have been, and will always try to be balanced, if not in one post, then in a follow-up.

• Any post that says "you can achieve anything if you want it enough," because we, of all people, know this isn't true, whether it refers to becoming a parent, or whether it refers to achieving happiness, it only spreads blame and smothers empathy.

• Posts that ignore the pain and heartache it takes to get to a good place.

• Posts that deny that we can, indeed, get to a good place, a happy place.

A thread in my tapestry

I have just finished reading On Top of Everything by Sarah-Kate Lynch, a New Zealand writer of generally light-hearted fiction who is always likeable, with a good sense of humour and lovely turn of phrase. As well as enjoying the characters, laughing at some of the comments, and drooling over a  recipe for a chocolate cake, this book also had me in tears a number of times, discussing grief and loss in many forms, including (but not only) infertility, childlessness by circumstance, and loss.

A message I try to express, but never so beautifully, about healing from grief is noted in the following line:

“It’s like he’s a thread in my tapestry, not the whole wall hanging …”

I was also please to find a comment that expresses how I feel about my ectopics and infertility, in that I discuss them only when I deem appropriate, and don't feel at all obliged to share my losses with others unless I am comfortable with doing so.

“I wouldn’t be bring him out like that and introduce him to someone unless I thought it would be of some help.”

  

She talks about grief and vulnerability, aptly saying:

“Accepting sympathy means you’ve
dropped any pretence of not needing it and that leaves you raw.”

 And finally, perhaps my favourite, 

“nobody escapes the pitfalls of being a human being.”

#MicroblogMondays: Books

Nothing pithy or thoughtful today, as I’ve been thinking about some other things this week, and my brain is all used up.

So this is merely a Watch This Space post, flagging that I’ll be doing some book reviews over the next week or two. It does seem to be book review week, as last week I wrote a post over on A Separate Life outlinging the books I read during my convalescence, that was my first book review post there, and given the crickets in the comments section, might be my last too!

I have however reviewed books here – I reviewed Pamela’s Finally Heard last year, though I just realised today I haven’t reviewed Lisa’s recent book here yet (though I did review on Amazon and Goodreads) either! A few weeks ago I was sent a review copy of a new book about a woman’s experience of IVF in Australia, which – along with the approach for the AWW article – means that No Kidding is showing up more often in searches! I finished it at 1 am this morning, but I have too much to say to fit in a MicroblogMondays eight sentence post, so will review it over the next week or two.

I find book reviews quite difficult, as - through my book club, and through seeing the reactions to various books written in this community – I am acutely aware that what speaks to me doesn’t necessarily speak to others, and vice versa. Still, all I can do is be sensitive and honest.

Being honest about jealousy

Infertility bloggers are amongst the most honest people I know – maybe they are the most honest. They’ve had to deal with some difficult emotions, have had to face the fact they can’t do (easily, or at all) what others just take for granted, and they’ve had to face their demons. One of those demons we talk about regularly is that of jealousy, as we beat ourselves up for envying others, though so often what we are really feeling is sadness that we can’t experience what comes to others so easily.

This weekend, I confess that I am jealous - not of happy families or parents, but of other No Kidding bloggers. You see, a group of our esteemed colleagues got together this weekend, meeting up in person after getting to know each other online through the written word ("getting to know each other inside out" to quote my friend Sarah).

I wished I could have gone, though Vancouver is a long way to go for a weekend! I am very happy for the ones who are there, and I am hopeful another such gathering might occur some other time and some other place (New Zealand anyone?), when I can attend.

In the meantime, though, I confess that I am just plain and simply jealous!

Deleting unwelcome comments

One of the hazards of blogging on No Kidding lives and infertility is that the very words that attract readers (“childless” or “infertility,” for example) will occasionally attract those who have something to sell or who just want to stir up trouble. There are the miracle cures, the ovulation predictors, or the surrogate clinics from India, to name just a few, along with the occasional aggressive member of the “just adopt” brigade. None of these are appropriate on this blog, which is all about moving on to the next phase after infertility, living without children, not looking for solutions on how to have them.

So I have no compunction about deleting such comments. This is my blog and there is no freedom of speech here, as I strongly believe that it is my right and responsibility to determine which comments get to stay, and which should go. I don’t delete comments that might disagree with me but are a legitimate part of the discussion, because I welcome these, especially if they give me pause for thought. But I don’t want to expose readers to vitriol or off-topic but hurtful comments, or completely misdirected promotions of “fertility cures,” and I feel no guilt whatsoever deleting these comments.

Do you delete comments?

Knowing ourselves

I was going to write another in my series of blog posts I won’t be writing, but when I looked at some of the prompts that I won’t use, I decided against listing them here. None of us here need to see a list of ways for a mother to brag about what a great mother they are, how much their kids love them, and how adorable and precocious their children are.

They reminded me of a lot of the Mother’s Day posts I saw (translation: was unable to avoid) on Fb, where, instead of tributes to their own mothers, I saw mothers post self-congratulatory photos of cards from their children declaring how much they loved their mother, photos of flowers their adult children had sent, and photos of breakfasts or other meals their children had prepared for them.

I wondered if the mothers felt the need to do this, to brag to the world how well loved they are, because on a day-to-day basis they feel taken for granted and struggle to keep their heads above water? If so, I have sympathy for them, and hope that they find a way to feel better about themselves, a way to define themselves, without endless self-promotion that is focused on their relationships with others.

When we first enter into the rest of our lives without children, it is easy to define ourselves as people without children, and that is a relationship focused on the negative. Eventually though, I think we're able to move to a place where we can define ourselves as simply ... well ... ourselves. That - being realistic and accepting, recognising both our flaws and our good points, not kidding ourselves - brings a welcome feeling of quiet satisfaction and freedom.

Choosing not to "suck it up"

I had a conversation recently, that gave me pause for thought. The person I was talking to had commented that they made friends largely with other parents from the same school, and I decided to interrupt, to put a different slant on this, pointing out that we had indeed been dropped by parents who made friends with other parents from their children's schools.

“Well,” said the other person, “that’s just what happens.”

There was no remorse, no real awareness that that must have been painful for us, but there was no judgement either, just an acknowledgement that this is the way the world works when everyone is just trying to get by.

This is, of course, is true, and for a moment, it made me wonder if I had protested unduly, if I was finding offence where there was none, and where there was none intended?

Or is this why we need to speak up, even if only in individual conversations, one-on-one, to get people thinking that just because this is the way the world works, it doesn’t make it right, and it doesn’t mean that others don’t suffer from it.

What many don’t realise though, is that it is not just the childless who are suffering. Parents miss out too – on variety in their lives, on people who could help them and their children (free babysitting, baking, or piano lessons, anyone?), who could provide different perspectives on life, bring different knowledge and skills, resulting in greater understanding and enriching everyone’s lives.

#Microblog Mondays: Miscellaneous

1. Mother's Day actually passed quite easily, probably because I didn't leave the house, and avoided Fb. Though in a way, not having to celebrate Mother's Day (other than the night before having dinner with my mother-in-law, where a visiting prodigal son was the focus, rather than the mother) has meant that I think I feel a freedom from it, and I felt surprised to realise that maybe the day doesn't really have any power over me any more.
    
2. I was talking with my FIL, about a project he had been working on, and said I would help him finish it and get it printed in a book so we can give it to all his offspring and their families, when of course he qualified that he was indeed doing this for the grandchildren. I'm not sure why he felt the need to say it to me, of all people, so I acknowledged it, then commented, "it's funny how the childless ones are the only ones who bother to ensure the memories are there to pass on to the next generation, isn't it?" I'm tired of pretending that the fact I have no children is irrelevant, and that there's no cost to dealing with his focus on his grandchildren all the time, and to be honest, it felt good!
    
3. An aside from a visiting BIL, when he saw the Mother's Day card I had made for my MIL, was that clearly I had "too much time on my hands" being able to do these creative, but thoughtful, things for my in-laws. The snide dig was there, undeniably - I'm childless, therefore I have nothing better to do with my time - and it found its mark, briefly, though ultimately, I just roll my eyes loudly at this Busy Olympics Parent vs Non-Parent petty competition.
    
4. Best news of all, my cast is finally off, though walking will be tentative for a while! 

Embracing joy

“The children don’t have to bring the joy.”

I read this sentence in a blogpost (extolling the virtures of motherhood – or in our case, the resolution of infertility – so be warned, and read at your own risk) recently. It’s my message, and I firmly believe it is true for me, and can be true for all of us. But my negative inner voices kept telling me that others who have children would deny it, tell me I’m kidding myself about the joys of no kidding, and would play the Joy Olympics by claiming that they have an extra dimension and therefore extra joy in sharing experiences with their children.

I don’t doubt that sharing wonderful experiences with your children brings another dimension to that experience that I don’t have. But maybe we have other, different dimensions and intensities too, coming with the knowledge that we don’t get to share these experiences with our children, and the awareness that we alone must soak up the joy and the memories.

Everyone experiences the world differently, and so - despite my negative inner voices - it doesn’t seem strange to me that these could be intensified and expanded simply because of our No Kidding status, in the same way that a parent might experience other different dimensions and emotions.

In other words, playing in the Joy Olympics is just as dangerous as playing in the Pain Olympics. 

Training our brains

In the early days of learning I’d never have children, I realised it was possible to retrain my brain. I remember catching myself thinking “if I get pregnant” and shutting down that thought - the thoughts that had almost become an obsession -  by a) telling myself “that is not going to happen now,” and then b) deliberately turning away from that thought. I think that the thoughts themselves brought such painful feelings of shame and failure in those early days, that I realised I simply couldn’t go on letting myself think that way.

I was reading an article this week when I found a reference to a quote by Jeffrey M. Shwartz, who, it turns out, writes books (that I might now read) about this exact idea – that you can consciously train or – as I have always called it – reprogramme your brain.

"The struggle is not to make the feeling go away; the struggle is to not give in to the feeling by thinking about the obsession.”

This is not an effort to shame those of us who feel grief, rather it allows us to understand that whilst those feelings are natural, our brains have also been programmed to think one way (ie, that our lives will be nothing without children). Unless we make a conscious effort to change, we risk being stuck in a pattern of grief and longing for what we will never have.

When we’re ready, it is indeed possible to say enough is enough, to look forward, and to embrace our futures wholeheartedly.

Hidden Meanings

A while ago, Cristy posted about signs and symbols, and it reminded me of something I treasure.

Both my ectopic pregnancies would have had due dates in August, and after learning that the birthstone for August is peridot, my husband bought me some peridot ear-rings. We initially considered burying them in the pots where we had planted two dwarf Tahitian pohutukawa that flower in August, but – perhaps with some foresight, as my husband and I are not good gardeners and the plants didn’t last the distance – I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

Recently I learned that peridot is not only the official birthstone for the month of August but is also a stone for the Zodiac sign of Libra, which is my birth-sign. That symmetry makes me happy.

The advantages of peridot are to attract love and calm anger while also soothing nerves and dispelling negative emotions. It is thought to bring the wearer good luck, peace, and success, and its powers supposedly include sleep, but more importantly, health, and protection. I don’t think I’ve been wearing them enough lately!

One of our own to lead UN?

Helen Clark, current head of the UNDP and former NZ Prime Minister, is a woman with no children. Like me, she grew up on a farm in New Zealand in the 60s and 70s, but unlike me, she has risen to great heights, leading NZ for nine years and the UNDP for seven (with a record of reform and transparency), a tireless advocate for the vulnerable and needy.

Today, with a nomination from the current NZ Prime Minister, she has entered the race to be the next UN Secretary-General. I know there are other candidates, and - with my diplomatic background - I know as well as any that these things are rarely chosen on the basis of who is the best candidate, but always on political wheeling and dealing. If appointed, she would be the best qualified Secretary-General in history. And it is time there was a woman at the head of the UN. 

I doubt she could have achieved what she has achieved if she had children. I just hope that this isn't held against her.

Speaking out

My name is Mali, and I have no children. I have no problem admitting this, and write openly about this fact, the issues around it, and my experiences both in terms of accepting that I could not have children, and in terms of embracing my life as a woman, not a mother.

Yet my name is not Mali, and I don’t publicise this blog to my wider group of friends and colleagues - though I expect I may do so one day - and I worry that this makes me a fraud.

The bottom line is that under my own name, I might be more hesitant, hoping to avoid both judgement and pity. What we write about, and why we write, can, unfortunately, be easily misconstrued, as I see sometimes in discussions with people who aren’t part of this community - even when they want to understand, they struggle.

But then I found this quote about speaking out and fear - born from different circumstances but no less relevant here - and my intentions for this space are renewed.

Irritating ignorance

The other day, I received an email from someone marketing an ovulation testing website – or something like that, because, to be honest, I’ve forgotten exactly what it was and I deleted the email in anger.

It annoyed me for a number of reasons.

Clearly, the company had obtained my email address somehow from Resolve, as the email referenced my participation in past Resolve activities (I have sometimes joined their National Infertility Week or whatever they call it, and have linked blog posts to their site). I wonder, did Resolve itself feel it could forward my details to a company which was urging me to “keep trying?” Does this not conflict with the very name and purpose of their organisation?

Or did this company lift our email addresses somehow, and in a major marketing fail, completely misjudge its audience, not understanding that by the time we are engaging with Resolve, we are already experts on ovulation testing and a myriad other reproductive issues, and are often deep into the scientific, and very expensive, methods of trying to conceive or build families.

Or we already accept (or are working towards acceptance) that Resolve, in infertility terms, simply means to end our journey and move forward into our new lives, whether as parents, or as happy, independent adults.

Now that my irritation has dissipated, I can only laugh at their sheer ignorance.

Leaping to conclusions

Back in January, I was sitting in my car in the car park of a major store, getting some bad news about my mother, when I physically cringed at a personalised number plate, reading “IM A MUM.”

It irritated me, off and on, for a day, but when I was calmer, I asked myself why someone would get a number plate like that? Of course, if they were one of those women/couples who think that because they have been able to conceive and give birth they should be congratulated, my rolling eyes were valid.

But then I thought further, and thought that maybe they had been trying to conceive for years, maybe they’d endured multiple losses, maybe this was the last IVF cycle they could afford or were eligible for, maybe this was the culmination of their dreams against all odds. Maybe they had been so overwhelmed that it actually had happened to them, that they bought the number plate, forgetting perhaps how it felt to be on the other side, or maybe their husband or their parents or in-laws bought them the number plate to celebrate the birth. Or, of course, maybe it is to celebrate an adoption, which gives another spin on this.

The thing is, I don’t know, and likely will never know, so I shouldn’t jump to conclusions. Accepting this makes me a lot less judgemental (in a whole range of situations), and actually helps take the pain away. 

Time, perspective, and laughter

I’ve spent the last hour or so searching for something to write about this #Microblog Monday, but with little luck until I read Bent Not Broken’s post* about her sister’s comments as a very new mother, and BNB’s newfound abililty to brush off these comments off, and even laugh about them.

I’ve also been reflecting – all day - about a relationship that caused two people a lot of pain for years, with one in particular completely misreading the other’s behaviour, always taking the negative view.

When we’re sad and vulnerable, insensitive or misguided comments hurt, they’re personal, and too often they dig deep into our hearts, taking residence, and potentially marring relationships, perhaps even permanently.

But sometimes sooner, sometimes later, but usually with time, we become able to step back and look at what the person said more objectively. With perspective, we either figure out that they didn’t mean their comments in the way we initially received them, or we choose to no longer take offence.

After all, how we react, what we think, is so often more about us and our vulnerabilities than it is about what others say. And what they say is always more about them and their issues, than it ever is about us.

In due course, like BNB, we find we can in fact, laugh - and that is a very liberating feeling.

*   Go read BNB’s post, and celebrate with her.

I trust ...

In January, I started Yoga with Adriene’s 30 Day Yoga Camp. Each day has a particular mantra, something to think about as you practise, something to help you as you go through your day. Sometimes these have been helpful, and I may write about them too, but the day the mantra was “I trust” I admit that I felt a little betrayed. Because I don’t believe that the universe will provide, or that it will be okay in the end, or that “everything happens for a reason.”

As I thought about it, I realised I don’t really trust in much – certainly not the universe, a religion, my health or my body, society or politics, financial security, or even the security and stability of the ground beneath me (given there is no ground beneath me  - for quite a few metres at least -  and what’s there can be shaky).

But then I realised, I do trust in my ability to get through things – or at least, to know I can come out the other side. That’s not nothing either.

So, for obvious reasons, I’m holding on to that now - you should, too.