Just Us

Yesterday, my husband and I celebrated a major wedding anniversary. MAJOR! It seems hard to believe that we are that old, to have been married for so many years. We’ve had an amazing time together, with the usual ups and downs that people have. It’s just that our ups and downs have not been children-related. Wait. Actually, some of them have been – infertility and pregnancy loss and getting used to the idea of never having children are ALL children-related. They’re just not the usual ups and downs.

I know that a lot of people go through relationship difficulties during infertility, especially if there are differences of opinion over how far to go down the reproductive assistance or adoption angle, if either or both of those are possible options. And I know of relationships that haven’t worked out as a result. But I also know many who have formalised their relationships after becoming permanently childless, many who have celebrated their relationships with new commitments or new beginnings together. Being childless does not doom a relationship, just as having kids doesn’t keep people together.  My husband and I became closer through our losses, and have stayed closer as the years have passed. (Which is not to say that we don’t drive each other crazy at times. We are very different personalities!) We have been lucky, we know. But it has also required understanding, commitment, and patience. A lot of patience! Love can get you through.

So we went out for a special meal on Saturday night, and I cooked us a favourite meal on Sunday and we had a special bottle of champagne. I’m not going to lie, though. There was a twinge of emptiness – people celebrating this number of anniversaries are usually surrounded by children and grandchildren. Others who genuinely want to celebrate our relationship. Our anniversaries always pass by unrecognised by everyone else except us, and our parents when they were still around. One of my sisters made a point of remembering this year, publicly posting on my social media feed, which was lovely of her. 

But otherwise, it was just us. Of course, we could make a big deal of it. Invite friends over, sisters to visit, etc. But ultimately, the relationship has been for us, about us, with us. There haven’t been any other people in our lives distracting us, or acting as a buffer zone in conflicts. It's always been just us. And therefore celebrating it that way, just the two of us, seems somehow right. We are enough.

 

We had to celebrate with champagne,
of course!

 

Being kind to others and yourself

Being kind to others as well as yourself is something I've seen the No Kidding community struggle with for years and years. (I've listed previous posts on this issue at the bottom of this post, just before an admin note.) There's the feeling we can't reply to people the way we want to or stand up for ourselves in case we're considered to be rude. The idea that saying "no" to a question and not explaining ourselves might be rude. The idea that others can trample all over us and we would be rude to point that out, or that by putting a different point of view we are confrontational. The idea that by protecting ourselves we might not be a good friend. I've been quite disturbed by this at times. So I was really pleased to see a meme posted on social media the other day that pointed out all the things you can do and say and still be a kind person.

I've tried to find a credit for it, but can't. So I'm going to write my own No Kidding version. 

You can be a kind person and still:

• Refuse to answer invasive questions
• Set boundaries, protect your heart, and say "no"
• Refuse to be ignored or sidelined simply because you don't have children
• Point out incorrect stereotypes or assumptions
• Be honest about your life
• Forgive yourself and, in time, others
• Defend yourself and your tribe
• Realise that putting yourself and your needs last helps no-one

 

A few relevant previous posts include:

• My existence is not offensive
• All those questions 
• Saying "no

Lastly, some admin: I've been having trouble commenting on any blogger sites - including my own - for some reason. Sometimes I can't comment even though I'm logged into blogger myself. Sometimes I can't comment even with my name and URL.  It comes and goes, and is frustrating. I'm still reading though. Apologies if I've been silent on your blogs, or if - like me - you are having difficulties commenting here.

"

 

Complicated choices lead to childlessness

Sue at Childless by Marriage recently wrote a piece titled Childless by Marriage vs Childless by Infertility. She concluded that the main difference between being childless by marriage rather than by infertility was choice. I didn't comment on her post, (though I read and comment regularly on her blog, and would love to see her here), because this one felt very specifically directed towards people who see themselves as childless by marriage. I understand the comfort that can come from talking to people who understand, who have been through similar experiences, and I didn't want to disturb that. Rather, I thought I might explore this issue here, putting my slightly different point of view.

When my husband and I got married, I was young, just graduated from university. I wasn't prepared at the time to discuss children, because I was far from ready, and I couldn't and didn't guarantee I would ever be ready. My husband married me anyway. So he was childless by marriage for years. Little did we know that when I would be ready, my body wouldn't be.

I have heard this this a lot. Women who talk about how carefully they avoided pregnancy in their 20s, only to find in their 30s that they had difficulties conceiving or carrying to term. I don't know if I had tried to get pregnant when I was younger if it would have been possible. It's a pointless question now anyway.

So we then dealt with pregnancy loss and infertility. The issues were mine - I kept having ectopic pregnancies, and then after the trauma of my second ectopic, my body effectively shut up reproductive shop! I have an online friend who had a compatibility issue with her husband that caused their combined infertility. But in most cases, the issue usually lies with one partner or other (or is unexplained). So the other partner, in our case this was my husband, then became childless by marriage. He wasn't infertile, after all. He was childless only because he was married to me. I worried that he would leave me, then I worried that by staying with me, I was denying him the children he so wanted. I wasn't alone in these thoughts. I've seen many many women grapple with the same issue over the years. My husband made the decision to stay, in just the same way as any of the childless by marriage partners who also chose to stay with the one they love. He had a choice. 

If we had lived elsewhere, there might have been more decisions or issues to discuss. Should we go further with IVF options? Should we look at donor egg, or surrogacy? These weren't issues in New Zealand, where assisted reproduction is carefully regulated. But at each step, there are choices to be made. Should we try? How much do we spend?  And at each step, there is a risk of opposing views, or differing limits, and doors closing.

We discussed adoption. Briefly. We had differing views on this. But I knew that I wanted my husband in my life more than I wanted any potential adopted child, knowing how difficult adoption can be. So did our roles switch then? Was I childless by marriage? Potentially. I might have had a choice, but it didn't feel like one. There was no question for me. I chose my husband.

So, we don't have children. Infertility/pregnancy loss is just one of the reasons for that. Anyone who has been through this can see that it can be very complicated. Whether someone is childless by marriage, chance, or circumstance, or all of the above, there will be a list of reasons why they don't have children.  They probably don't know for sure if infertility might have been one of those reasons - after all, none of us assumed infertility would be a problem until it was. We assume we are fertile until evidence is presented that proves otherwise. Does it matter? Not really, because none of these choices feel like choices. Those who are childless by marriage might choose love, and not having children becomes a consequence of that, rather than being their first choice. Life is very complicated, and the issue of choice is really complicated too. I guess it's why I don't really like labels, because things are never quite as clear-cut as they might seem.

I don't feel that how we got here is as important as what our lives look like now. We have all faced difficult decisions and difficult circumstances, and will continue to do so in this pronatalist society. Which is why I feel real solidarity with those who are involuntarily childless for whatever reason. And hope that we can all live full and happy No Kidding lives.

Making real human connections

I was browsing Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly again this morning over coffee, and found her simple statement that she had learned from her research that “nothing is as important as human connection.” I thought then of most people I know, and recognised that – excluding friendly but peripheral relationships we all have - family is at the core of their human connections. In fact, some, perhaps many, barely reach beyond family for their human connections.

Probably, I thought, that’s why there is such a focus on having children, being a family unit with a group of people they can focus on and rely on. After all, I think that many people do struggle to make human connections outside of family; connections where they feel that they belong, that they're heard, that they have a purpose.

Maybe that's why people both pity us, and fear being us, because they struggle to understand human connections outside of family, or to see those connections as real or meaningful?

Yet I wonder too, how many people actually have real, deep, meaningful and honest relationships, real connections where they are heard and feel heard and accepted and understood as they are, with their families - or even, outside their families?

This is one of the reasons why I like blogging – the quest to hear and be heard, to accept and be accepted, to understand and be understood, and to make true connections in a part of my life that few in my day-to-day life understand.

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.

Gifts of Infertility Series - # 23 - Our Marriage

I’m slowly coming to the end of this Gifts of Infertility Series. The one big issue I haven’t yet touched on, the issue that I don’t write about often on this blog because it’s not just my story, is that of our marriage.

Going through infertility and loss was incredibly stressful. It was stressful for me, making me question who I was; it was stressful for my husband, unable to do anything to help (and whose hair went grey over the year of our first and second losses), and it was stressful on our marriage. We had both changed in this process, and we were both finding that life together wasn’t going to be what we had hoped.

We’d been together a long time by the time we faced infertility. We’d had our ups and downs, made many compromises, and were looking forward to having children together. When that didn’t happen, we could have taken it out on each other. But we turned towards each other; we mourned together.

We tried to comfort each other, and - knowing that words wouldn't help - we rediscovered the real value of touch. Not in a sensual way (though that was still there), but in an intimate, caring way. Simple hugs, or a touch as we passed, reminded each other we cared, that there was a place we could feel safe, with a person who would love us no matter what. We learned that even when words are too hard to get out, emotions too difficult to express, a touch can speak volumes.

We showed patience with each other, more than ever before, and learned to focus almost exclusively on the positive, on what we had together, on what we loved about each other, and on what made us smile, or laugh. We learned that life can hit you with sadness when you least expect it, so we should embrace happiness with joy and enthusiasm when we have it.

As I learned to take care of my own feelings, I became more acutely aware of my husband’s feelings. He didn’t react the same way as I did, but that was okay. I didn’t place any expectations on how he should behave. (Though some of this was instinctive, much of it came from the advice of a few wise women who had been through this before.) This was helpful, as I think the burden of his overwhelming sadness at the same time as my own might have been too much to bear. We shared with each other, but we also protected each other. My friends, and my online friends, gave me outlets to share my grief and sadness, without expecting him to be all things to me. Because he was grieving too, and as we all know, that is a lot. So he didn’t really start opening up about his feelings until he saw a definite improvement in my demeanour. He felt that he could do this when he felt I could cope with his grief. I think too he also learnt from me that opening up was okay, and that grieving was okay too.

Ultimately, I think our losses and difficult no kidding journey in those first years helped forge our relationship into something even stronger. We turned to others, but in doing so we didn’t turn away from each other. Yes, we were lucky. Not all couples are able to come through this with a deeper, stronger, kinder relationship. But you know, my observation is that most of us do. It's a lovely feeling too, knowing that we're together because we want to be, not because we feel we have to be.

When we travelled a couple of years ago for five months, some people sounded puzzled that we could go five months with each other as company, as the only people we talk to, as our social fun, and emotional support. They joked that they were surprised we hadn’t killed one another, which of course said much more about their relationships than about ours. Yet the truth is, we didn’t find it an effort at all. Once we got home, it was also another year before my husband started getting work more regularly, so we also had a lot of time together after the trip. I did say to some people, perhaps only 50% joking, “there is such a thing as too much togetherness.” But actually, we don’t really have issues being together 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Our relationship is probably the beneficiary of the “no kidding” factor in our lives. We both feel this way. We don’t have to be parents together, so we don’t have to have battles about different parenting philosophies and styles (and believe me, we would have had a few battles). We don’t have to crawl in bed exhausted from looking after children, wrestling with toddlers or teenagers, or juggling our annual leave so we can look after the children in school holidays. We don’t struggle to find time for ourselves as a couple. On the contrary, we need to be sure we find time for relationships with other people, and give each other some breathing space.

As a couple without children, we are able to just “be.” It doesn't mean we don’t have difficulties. But having been through some tough times, and having survived these, we are able to know each other in a different way than I suspect we would have if we were parents. For that, for our close relationship now, I am very grateful.

Letting go of the guilt

A reader emailed me with a suggestion for a blog post. They suggested that I write about the guilt they feel about being the one unable to have children. “If,” they said, “anyone else feels like that too.”

I am absolutely positive that there are other people who feel this way. The truth is, there’s a lot of guilt around infertility. I’ve written before about the guilt around healing, and wondering if that means I didn’t deserve children, or didn’t want them enough. But there’s another area of guilt I realise I’ve covered only rarely.Perhaps because it’s so close to home. That’s the guilt that it was my fault that we couldn’t have children.

I felt guilt for two reasons. The first was that I was the one who asked my husband to wait before we started to conceive. He would have been happy to try much earlier. But I was the first in either of my families to graduate from university, a young woman who saw a world open up to her (in the 1980s and early 90s) in the way it hadn’t to women at any time before in history, and I felt that I shouldn’t squander that. I wasn’t ready to become a mother in my 20s, and by the time we started trying in my mid-30s, there were difficulties. Difficulties, as it turned out, with my body, not my husband’s. So this was a second reason to feel guilt.

Guilt is a hard thing to feel, and it brings isolation and shame. I feared that I’d been the stereotypical “selfish” career woman, and I felt guilty for it. But I thought about my motivations. I had delayed trying to have a child because I felt that I should only become a mother when I could fully commit, when I could be the best mother I could possibly be for my future children. I didn’t ever want to feel resentment towards my husband or my children for having them before I was ready. That was a burden they didn't deserve. By the late 1990s, the promise of a genuine feminist revolution had faded, and I knew very well that as the mother, I would be doing the bulk of the care-giving. So it was not only my body, but my life that would be most affected, and would have most impact on any children we managed to have. So ultimately, I was making the best decision for my future children, for my husband (who wanted a happy family), and for me. This decision was no more selfish than my husband’s simple desire to have children. Fortunately, he accepted that it would happen when I was ready. He didn’t blame me – not outwardly at least.(He assures me now that he doesn't blame me, and never did. He sounded puzzled at the idea when I asked him.)

My decision to delay was made with the best of intentions, and on the information I had at the time, and so wasn’t a selfishly motivated decision. I genuinely didn’t realise (this was the 80s and 90s) that delaying conception might have such an impact. It wasn’t something I had ever explored, and there was little public discourse about the issue of delaying childbearing in the way there has been this last 10-15 years. Or if there was, I never noticed it. So if my decision was made with the best of intentions, and with the best information I had, then what was there to feel guilty about? I didn’t know this would happen. I didn’t know the pain it would cause either of us. And so, I realised there was no option but to forgive myself. In forgiving myself, in accepting that I wasn’t to blame, that I had done nothing to bring shame, in accepting the “why” of all this, I was able to let go of the guilt.

Forgiving my body (the second source of guilt) was I think easier. Guilt is a feeling of culpability, of blame, of responsibility for a choice or actions. Nothing I had done (apart from my earlier choice about delaying timing) had led to me having two ectopics, one of them resulting in blocked tubes, and then failing to respond to the drugs. Yes, it was my body, but was it really my fault? I hadn’t deliberately failed my husband, and he didn’t blame me. My body had failed both of us. He understood this well before I did.

The overwhelming emotion I felt was shame that my body couldn’t do what was so normal for other women. I felt embarrassed and inadequate and shunned, but I’m not sure I felt a lot of guilt. I never really hated my body for what had happened. That would have been a pointless emotion. Hatred, I think, is reserved for something that intends to do you evil. (Or spiders.) My body didn’t intend to hurt me. My body had just failed to work in this one way.

So it was easier to forgive my body than it was to forgive my earlier decision-making, which took some time. Still, because it was a problem with my body, a problem that I couldn’t change by changing my mind or my attitude, small tendrils of guilt and blame stayed with me.

I had those thoughts that I know are common amongst women in these circumstances. That it was all my fault, and that I was causing him grief, ruining his life. Would he be better off if he went and found someone who could give him children? But you know, after a while, I realised that by thinking (and by saying sometimes) that my husband could, would or should find someone else who could give him children was insulting to him, and his love for me. It was insulting, suggesting that he would abandon me in my grief, putting his desires above me. It was insulting, suggesting that he wasn’t in fact in it for better or worse. This belief became clearer when I saw other women experience this too, in relationships I had observed first hand. I knew their partners were there for them. How dare we insult them and suggest they would go off and find greener pastures!

I now have the advantage that I’ve observed other women going through similar issues, on the pregnancy loss board I frequented and volunteered for a decade, and more latterly, on infertility blogs (though to be fair this is a much smaller sample number). The key pattern I have seen over and over again is that our partners, husbands, wives didn’t blame us – either for the failings of our bodies, or any decisions we had made. Though they were sad about this, they were sad with us, for us, and never blamed us.

Isn’t that part of being in a mature relationship? We accept what happens to each of us, and we don’t blame. It might be more difficult when it comes to individual choices we have made, but even then, we have to accept that someone makes a choice that honestly reflects how they feel. We can’t force them to change their minds, their feelings, and if we love them, we can accept it, and vice versa. Our relationships are, in most cases I think, stronger than we know – just as we are stronger than we knew before we started all this.

I won’t lie. In my time, I have seen relationships end under the stress of IVF, infertility, and/or loss. But only very few — the exceptions that prove the rule. In fact, of the hundreds of women I’ve been involved with, I can think of only two or three relationships that have foundered. More often I have seen relationships grow closer (as ours has), and I’ve seen a number of relationships formalised – weddings or civil unions – only after the door has been closed on children. I think many couples valued the opportunity to be able to say, “it’s you I love, not your ability to give me children.” It is a way to show that their love is real and important, to renew their commitment to the relationships, to publicly prove that they mean what they say.

I believe that we can only honour our pain, our grief, our losses, by letting go of unnecessary and unproductive guilt. The guilt and blame (self-blame or otherwise) twists the context of our pain, and twists and damages our relationships. Forgiving ourselves, letting go of our guilt, honours us and the journey we’ve been through, and in turn, allows us to honour our relationships too.

#MicroblogMondays: Under-estimating friends and family

Recently I’ve had occasion to see someone behaving how I always wanted them to behave, rather than how the past had led me to believe they would behave (in a particular circumstance). It has made me very happy, and so pleased that I can upgrade my opinion of this person.

It has also made me think of the friendships and relationships that are lost and scarred by infertility. Too often I read someone writing that they have cut someone out of their life, because of the way they behaved. Sometimes this may be warranted – I can’t judge relationships that don’t include me – and I admit that a downgrading of relationship status is often necessary to protect ourselves at a time when we are very vulnerable.

But I do want to suggest that we should leave some connection open, however tenuous. They just might surprise us one day, and I wouldn’t want any of us to miss out on a relationship that once was, and can be again, good in our lives.