Insensitivity goes two ways

I've been thinking a lot lately about whether it is fair to expect friends and families to be sensitive to our situation.  Initially, after my ectopic pregnancies and finding out I'd never have children, I encountered some unthinking reactions.  We've all come across these, but for the record, I'll include some of them:

• "What's wrong with you?" my mother-in-law asked after my second ectopic pregnancy.
• "Sorry to hear of your ectopic pregnancy," emailed a (male) friend I'd emailed to tell about it. "But guess what, we're pregnant, and attached is our scan photo!!!"
• "Oh yes," said my mother knowingly, as I explained that I'd been given a single room at hospital, after becoming upset at visitors coming in with newborn babies.  "It's like when I was in the nursing home, waiting to have my baby, and all the other women already had theirs."  ("No Mum, it's not like that at all!)
• "But you never lost anything because you never had anything," said a friend after I'd sobbed that we'd come so close to having the baby, only to lose it in a second, almost-in-the-uterus-but-not-close-enough ectopic pregnancy. 

     etc etc etc

But it's seven years now since I found out I would never have children. I'm doing well apart from the occasional "ouch moment."  I enjoy my life, I'm excited about the opportunities for my husband and I for the next few years, and find it very hard to imagine having children. So is it fair of me to expect friends to be sensitive?

Recently, when on holiday in Thailand, a friend texted me to say she'd become a grandmother.  She's always been one of those women who get very clucky (whilst I hate that phrase, it's probably the best way to explain her) over babies, any babies.  I knew it was coming, but I noticed that the text had a photo attached.  Thankfully, due to problems with the roaming network, I couldn't download the photo.  I was relieved, because I was feeling a little fragile (see my previous post), and knew that I didn't want to see the photo.  I was a little annoyed too, because my friend - perhaps more than any of my "real life" friends (as opposed to my virtual/internet friends who totally understand) - usually makes a real attempt to understand how I feel.  I complained to my husband.

"But she's excited," he said.

Yes.  She is so excited at becoming a grandmother, at the journey her son is embarking on, at the new, gorgeous member of their family who arrived right on schedule.  And it got me thinking.  Here was I, on a holiday in Thailand, putting Facebook updates about drinking berrytinis at the bar on the 64th floor, or adding a photo of our resort pool, complete with palm trees and cocktails.  She would love to go on a holiday like this, but can't afford it right now, having made different financial decisions over the years (and admittedly, having had children).

How fair is it of me to show photos of my travels, if I can't look at photos of her first grandchild?  Do I have double standards?  Is there a "use-by" date around our childless state, and after a while we should just shut up and get on with it?  Am I any different from my robustly healthy mother-in-law, who annoys the entire family by gloating about her good health in front of her husband who is quite infirm and increasingly immobile?  Am I just another insensitive clod?

I don't talk about my "ouch moments" except with online friends who truly understand.  I don't let people know that they're hurting me.  I went to drinks with my friend last week, and looked at the photos of the new parents and their baby, and the new and ecstatic grandparents. She laughed and thanked me for being polite and looking.  I objected.  I want her to know that I'm interested in all parts of her life. I don't necessarily want her to know that sometimes it hurts, because I know she makes a real effort to understand.

I don't brag about my holidays, and only provide photos or information if people ask.  My friend asks. She puts in orders for pxts from the beach before I leave.  She's interested in where I go.  I don't think I forcefeed her with boasting photographs or stories.  I try not to.  I think she does the same with me, by and large, about her children and now grandson.  Unfortunately, not everyone is as considerate as her.

And if I'm honest, my husband and I have thrown ourselves into our travels in recent years to fill that void that should have been filled with children.  But perhaps noone else understands that.  Perhaps they just think we're boastful and extravagant?

So is my infertility and childlessness really different?  If I find I can't afford overseas holidays, I'm still childless.  My friends might or might not be able to travel overseas, or might choose not to, but they'll always have their children, and now their grandchildren.  The world expects you to have children and grandchildren.  There are daily reminders that I am different.  The world doesn't remind you daily that you're not travelling overseas regularly.

Is that really a difference?  think there is. But as time passes, I find it harder and harder to justify.  Perhaps I am just using it as an excuse?

The wall is never thick enough

Just when I'm celebrating feeling free and anonymous, unjudged about my childless/free status, old hurts wedge their way through the cracks in the wall I have put up between my life now and my infertility.  I was lucky - I had about two weeks of freedom from hurt.  But uncharacteristically there were some ouch moments too. Sweeping it under the carpet is good - it works most of the time, lets me feel good about my life, and for the most part I'm not hurting.  Not allowing myself to think about what life could have been works well for me.  In fact, for the most part I'm very happy.  But just occasionally I want to say, "hey, this isn't fair, I'm not over it, and it does hurt."  And I feel this especially given the strength of my emotions over these two incidents.  So I record them here because I want to acknowledge the pain and the loss that hits sometimes.

• Seeing a brother and sister playing poolside at the resort.  They were having such fun, mum and dad were drinking cocktails and looking on.  I looked on too, thinking what joy it would give me if I were their mother to see them enjoying themselves, and each other, so much.  Then I sipped my own cocktail and looked in another direction.

• Two little blond girls on the train with their mother and father, coming back from the Weekend market.  They had bought shiny, sparkly mirrors.  They fought over which colour - the older girl won of course - and they played with the mirrors.  They could have been me and my sister.  And suddenly, tears came to my eyes.  That's the first time that has happened in public for a number of years. Thank goodness for sunglasses.

And yet, even acknowledging that these moments made me sad, I realise that others would also find these sad.  My niece is an only child, and will always be.  My sister could equally have had such a reaction, knowing little CJ will never have the joy of playing with a brother or sister like that.  Was I sad for her or for me or for us all?

The freedom of anonymity

There's something about being away, on holiday, that gives a real freedom.  Of course the absence of daily chores, the distance from work and work worries, the fact that you don't actually need to do anything you don't want to, all that helps.  It allows you to breathe, breathe deeply, just breathe, and shed all those worries and burdens we carry around with us every day.

But for those of us who are infertile, who don't have children, I think the anonymity of being in a strange place, with no-one who knows you or cares about you, can bring a special freedom.  In a resort in Thailand, I've found we rarely exchange words with any of the other guests.  They're tied up either with their family groups, or with themselves as couples, just as we are with each other (and with our e-readers).   We give them their space, as they give us our space.  And that is enormously freeing.  For a week, I haven't had to deal with anyone who knows me, who knows that I can't have children, that I had losses.  For a week I haven't had to face any curious questions about whether we have children, I haven't been "Mali the Childless."  I've been free to be me.

In fact, not only am I free to be me, but I'm free to be me at the most inner core of my being.  There's no pity or sympathy or judgement or assumptions about anything - my childless state or my career or my waist-line or  style of dress or size of feet.  I'm just me.  It's free.  And it's good.  I wish I could be me more often.

All those questions

I am a strong believer in self-protection, perhaps because I have little faith in others being able to be sensitive enough to protect us when we need to be protected.   Even when they are well-intentioned, even when they know our stories and would never ever want to hurt us, insensitive things are said and done.  I know how easy it is, because I’ve done it myself.  I said something thoughtlessly in front of someone, and I know it upset her.  Later that day, we had a good cry about it together, and I believe she forgave me.  I still feel awful about it, and I have never done anything similar, and I’m very cautious about what I say.  Others are not, unfortunately, and don’t learn.

I approach insensitivity in two ways.  If they are people I think will learn, will listen, or simply need a bit of a shock, then I will tell them why they’re being insensitive.  Not in detail.  I don’t go into detail, because I really don’t want to share my private feelings with insensitive clods.  I don’t want to give others the power of knowing how vulnerable I am.  But I do speak up occasionally when I think it’s needed.  My most commonly used comment is this one:

I’m not the person you should be complaining to/ showing this to /telling this to.

But I’ve also had to say this:

I’m sorry, I don’t really want to hold other people’s babies.

The second group are the insensitive clods or people I don’t know.  I ignore them.  I give myself permission not to respond to rude, prying, insensitive people.  I feel good about that.  It allows me to protect myself, and keep my dignity and self-respect.

If someone wants to ask personal questions, I simply won’t answer them. Since I’ve faced infertility, I’ve been surprised at our automatic inclination to respond honestly to questions, no matter who asks them.  We need media training by the people who teach politicians never to answer questions, so when we’re asked “why don’t you have children?” we can either change the subject completely, or turn it back on them (“why do you?), at the same time avoiding giving any meaningful answer ourselves. 

I’ve used this answer:

If I wanted you to know, I’d tell you/have told you.

And this one:

You’d run a mile if I told you.

But I really want to use these ones  (found on a “comebacks” webpage years ago):

The cats (dogs) turned out so well we didn’t think it was necessary.

The dog’s allergic.

Reclaiming Christmas

Christmas is a time full of memories of loss for me.  It begins in November, pauses today on 4 December to remember my Dad who would have been 82 today, and then builds up steam as I remember the diagnoses of my two ectopics in December and January.  Christmas carols bring back memories.  Old repeats of corny TV programmes (Mr Bean's Christmas for example) bring back painful memories, and the brilliant red blooms on the pohutakawa trees (often called New Zealand's Christmas trees) never fail to transport me back to the Women's Hospital at this time of year.

But I've always loved Christmas.  Over the years I've heard a lot of women - usually those who are worried about their fertility or are going through loss - say that "Christmas is for children."  They're grieving the loss of Christmas as well as the loss of their children, their future.  And I understand that.  I had collected cute knitted Christmas stockings from markets when I lived overseas.  I ended up with multiple stockings, imagining a house full of our children and their cousins at Christmas. And the year my last IVF failed, and I knew I would never have children, I looked at those stockings and cried.  I've since given one to all my nieces and nephews.  I hope their parents use them.  I hope they make them happy.

But understanding the grief that we won't ever celebrate Christmas with our own children, doesn't mean that Christmas has to be lost to us.  If it was important to you before children, it can be important to you afterwards.  It might not be what you always wanted, but let's face it, what in life is exactly as we had envisaged it, or just how we always wanted?  And so I stamp my feet a little, and say "Christmas is NOT just for children.  It's for all of us, to make our own." 

And so I do try to make Christmas my own.  If family are visiting my city, then I insist on hosting Christmas dinner, both to save my mother-in-law from the effort (she hates cooking), and also to claim it for myself.  I keep it simple, but have traditions that are mine.  And to be honest, one of the traditions I like is that I keep it simple, and sophisticated.  Sure, kids are catered for, and have a good time.  But this is not just about them.  It's about all of us, family getting together, or simply my husband and I, celebrating our love.

My own losses have made me much more aware of how difficult Christmas is for so many people.  We may think that others are happy, but there are people without families, others who may be going through things we don't know about, hiding behind seemingly happy family photographs, or busy Christmases, as their hearts are breaking, as they struggle with illness, or financial difficulties.  Our culture's emphasis on being happy at Christmas is cruel to a great many people, and they all need our help and support, so much more than any child needs a new playstation (or whatever the latest "must-have" present is).

My friend is about to go through her second Christmas separated from her husband.  Last year she was hopeful they could reconcile.  This year she knows they won't.  It's difficult for her, her parents, her children.  They're all grieving.  But she's making it her own, and I applaud that.

I guess I'm saying we should reclaim Christmas.  Get our own happy memories.  We never forget, of course we don't.  But it doesn't mean that we can't welcome Christmas or other holiday traditions with peace and joy.  And that is what I wish everyone.  Joy and peace and love.