Revisiting Novembers

November is an important date for this blog. My first post was on 12 November 2010, and talked about how November is both a time of promise, and a time of loss for me. It is spring in New Zealand, and our summer holiday season looms. It’s a time when the country collectively begins to relax at the end of a busy year and look forward to the summer and the future.

Back in the early 2000s, it was – for a while – a time of extra optimism for me too. But now I have hindsight, and I know those few weeks of hope were soon slammed in December with pregnancy losses and everything that came after that. I know too, that when it was clear that everything was over for me, November was the month that it really hit home, almost 18 years ago. I wrote about it here a few weeks after my first post, later in that November.

But that was also the month that I began to turn the corner, even though I didn’t realise it at the time, didn’t see that it would or even could happen, didn’t trust that life could and would still be good. So in many ways, November is about possibilities too.

It's helpful for me to remember that now, with everything else we are dealing with in the world. I hope we are all turning the corner for the better.

Note: If you're interested, I'm also revisiting Novembers today over on A Separate Life.

Family trees when childless

Today's post will be a true microblog. My brother-in-law stayed with us last night, passing through the city from a fishing trip with his brother. We enjoyed his line-caught fresh blue cod from the waters of Cook Strait where he spent the last week, a bottle (or two) of delicious wine, and lots of interesting conversation. 

In the course of conversation, we got into family backgrounds, and he told a fascinating story of an ancestor involving Napoleon Bonaparte amongst others. But his story finished with the surprise that it was the brother of his ancestor with the same first name, not the direct ancestor.

It reminded me of all the episodes of genealogy shows I have watched that focused on an interesting ancestor who was the cousin or brother or sister of the subject's direct ancestor. It was a good reminder again of how we don't have to have direct descendants to be interesting, to be remembered, or even thought about. Or - alternatively - that you don't have to be childless to be forgotten. In other words, I think that it all (largely) evens out in the end.

We are worthy

This year I joined a social media group for Childless and Childfree Women in Australia and New Zealand. I'm in a number of No Kidding groups, and of course read blogs from all over the world, and love the international connections and global sisterhood that we share. But it was nice to find one for people in my own region, filled with women who "speak the same language" even if we love to tease each other about our accents.

The atmosphere in the group is largely positive, cheerful, forward-looking, which I haven't always found in other groups, but it is very supportive too. There seems to be little to no conflict between the childless and childfree, which makes me happy, because we do have a lot in common. Every so often I see a post or a meme that I want to share with you here, or that I want to explore in more detail, so I'm going to do that. Today though, I'll start with one that is simple, and that I really liked:

"I'm not perfect.
I'm only human."

 I love that. It's a reminder to us all that we are worthy, no matter what. Remember that!

 

A No Kidding getaway, and an unrelated dilemma

Just a couple of things. First, I missed blogging last week basically because I forgot! But I forgot for very good, No Kidding reasons. My husband and I went away for a few days. We left on Sunday, staying overnight with friends, and so I hadn't even thought about my Monday blog. Then on Monday, we continued driving north for a few days in a lovely foodie region for my birthday. It's not a special birthday, but we decided to get out of the city for a change. Fbk reminded me that we do this, to the same region, about every six years. It seems that we've found the perfect spring destination. I've written about it here on A Separate Life. 

We decided to go relatively recently, because we could squeeze in the visit between the end of the October school holidays, and before the long weekend due to a public holiday today, so there were no families travelling, only singles and couples of various ages, making travel very easy. Then our friends over the hill asked us to stay on the way, which was the perfect start to a trip away, and we decided that only late last week. Their kids are adults, and so we could both be relatively spontaneous. We could have convinced them to come with us, except that one of them had to work. It's lovely being able to be "no kidding" with my parent friends whose kids are all grown and doing their own thing. 

The second thing is an issue which has me in a bit of a dilemma. The dilemma may not exist if I didn't have children, or at least, not to the same extent. I haven't even been able to discuss it with others, simply because I'm not sure anyone will understand, childless or not. Ironically, I think childfree people would in fact understand. Sigh. I also know one or two who read this blog who might not, so I'm going to be deliberately obscure. It's a dilemma because my husband and I want to set limits around our own lives. And even though we are pretty much in agreement, he is relaxed and comfortable with these limits, and I feel guilty. Even though I know that ultimately, if I don't set the limits, I will get stressed and feel resentful. But, of course, I feel guilty because I imagine (yes, here come the negative thoughts!) that others will judge me for this. Even though I think at least one of them would probably make the same decision. I feel guilty because I (see, it is all me!) imagine others saying that it is because we are childless. That we are selfish. That we'd be different if we had had children. Et cetera. You know the drill. 

There's a difference between banishing my own negative thoughts, and still caring about about what others think or say about me. Does that make sense? I want to be considerate. Yet I want to stand my ground too. After all, my life is still full, even if I don't have children. (Or a job! lol) And maybe if we had had children, we would have different limits. But that never happened. And ... I guess I shouldn't feel guilty about that. Progress? Maybe. I knew that writing this down might help. But now I just need to convince my psyche of that. Wish me luck!

Grief, attitude, and hope

Today I noticed a headline on a national news website, even though it was listed under Parenting and then – warning -  featured lots of happy photos of the author with her family. The article is called “Rediscovering joy after baby loss” and was published in recognition of Baby Loss Awareness Week this week. It comprised an excerpt from a new book, “Your Soul is Wintering” by Annie Anderson, telling her own story after losing babies in utero.

The excerpt itself doesn’t go into any details of her losses, though maybe her book does, or her other children (two of whom look young enough to have been born afterwards). Instead, it talks about her grief afterwards, turning to others who had experienced similar losses (as we have all done here), and observing that whilst some people had recovered and were full of joy and gave her hope, others gave the appearance that they would never recover, and implied that there was nothing they could do about it. The excerpt notes the debilitating experience of being told that life being “bearable” was the best she could hope for after such a loss, and when she realised that she wanted to be happy, and her fear that she never would be.

Grief, as we know, can be different for everyone, but I also see so many similarities too, regardless of the type of loss. The author gained great hope from this quote:

‘I am convinced that life is 10 per cent what happens to me and 90 per cent how I react to it. The same is true for you.’ Charles R. Swindoll

Although I might quibble with the exact numbers, I like the idea of the overall quote. Ultimately, how we react influences our future happiness. I touched on this last week here. Attitude, perspective, acceptance, and approach can also influence how we can recover, and long-term, how we might bounce back from setbacks, the occasional ouch moments, or hurtful comments. For me, as I often say, learning to deny those negative questions, learning to show self-compassion, knowing that I am more than my loss or childlessness/No Kidding status allowed me to feel free to embrace my new future, and allows me to continue to do that every day.

Anderson also talks about another key feeling that motivates me too. She wrote,

“I was deeply moved by a strong urge to live a life that honoured our babies, not defined by our suffering but by our love.”

I’ve used very similar words. We can, I think, all relate to this sentiment. Because whether or not we suffered a pregnancy loss, we all suffered the loss of the children we had wanted, the children we already loved so much. Honouring our love for them by living a good life can give us meaning. It honours the difficulty of what we might have been through. It makes us think of love. And it allows us to hope again, and feel true joy. I, and so many others, can attest that it is worth it.