Quotes in homage of the No Kidding blogging community

I love a good quote. Regular readers know that already! I love finding that someone has perfectly, succinctly, eloquently expressed an emotion I have not previously been able to articulate. Or when I read a quote that has expressed a feeling or belief I have had, and I see it validated in print. (If only I could memorise them all when I first read them.) Quotes can go a long way – much further than a too-wordy blogpost! And so, today’s post again highlights thoughts from the insightful Maya Angelou:

“If you are always trying to be normal, you’ll never know how amazing you can be.”

This seems to be made for the No Kidding community. We feel ever so normal until we find we will never have children. All of a sudden, we are isolated, judged, and seen as different. Not normal, even. But look around at our No Kidding blogging community. They embody this quote, and are truly amazing. I hope they know it.

“When you learn, teach, when you get, give.”

As a lifelong learner, I love this. I think it is also a special strength of our blogging community. Going through something difficult teaches us so many things. My Gifts of Infertility series is evidence of how that worked for me. This community gives us so much support when we need it. Passing it on through our blogs, and giving and taking the community support that has grown here, helps many. Teaching as we learn, giving as we get. This is such a good example for our lives.

And last but never least,

“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anybody.”
                                                                                   Maya Angelou

 

 

No Kidding Voices Count

If you haven’t read Jess’s post about speaking, from a No Kidding childless not by choice perspective at the function for the book Adoption Unfiltered (frequent commenter here, Lori Lavender Luz is a co-author) then I urge you to do it. Do it now! She talks from the perspective of someone who tried to go the adoption route, but is now living a kick-ass (her words) life without children. Many of you might share her perspective, or recognise some of her concerns from your own experience. There was an interesting series of posts from different bloggers some years ago about why we did not adopt. Here’s my post at that time, and it includes links to other posts.

She noted that she hoped her comments would not be seen as sour grapes, given that she did not get the child(ren) she had hoped for from adoption. It was this sentence, above all others, that set me thinking, and that inspired this post.

Why should we feel that our comments on a process that did not work for us should be disparaged as “bitter” or “sour grapes” compared to those who are considered the “success” stories? Answer = we shouldn’t. Our views are just as valid, and perhaps more so, because we are evidence that the processes are not infallible, that they don’t work for everyone, and in many cases, they don’t work for the majority. Everyone needs to understand why that is. Our voices count, and should be heard.

In general, people who get what they wanted understandably find it hard to critique the processes that gave them their heart’s desire, however hard they were to go through. Stepping back and looking at these difficult processes objectively can be very confronting to them. (Though Lori LL is a notable exception, and is doing great work talking about adoption.) How can someone who got the child they wanted critique the process if, in doing that, they feel they’re betraying that child? How can they critique a process or agency or clinic when that can be seen as a critique of their own decisions, or of them and their families. It’s not surprising some might react defensively, or simply be unable to step back and review the process without bias. Those of us who went through these processes but came out without a child have a very different perspective on what is good, what needs to be changed, and why. But for the adoptive/IVF parents, it is as if they wouldn’t have their children if things needed to be changed. And that becomes terrifyingly unimaginable for them.

And of course, the best form of defence is attack. So yes, it is true, just as Jess feared, that some of the “successes” of assisted reproduction/adoption etc will label us as bitter, our perspective as “sour grapes,” and any criticism is seen as “not getting over it.” Or they think we’ve taken the easy way out, and didn’t deserve their “success.” I’ve seen all these reactions in the media, in blogs, and in email exchanges. Our own Pamela Tsigdinos has been subjected to this view in the media, but is undeterred, still speaking out on IVF still speaking out on IVF and patient rights just last week. It’s a case of being prepared to see things from a different perspective. We all have different points of view, and those who didn’t get the “golden ticket” may even have a wider perspective. We learn to see a subject from all sides, because we’ve been on both sides – the hopeful who desperately want it to work, and those for whom hope wasn’t enough.

It is precisely because of this differing perspective that we are the ones who should be speaking out. I see both the joy of the wanted results and the problematic issues around the assisted reproduction industry and adoption – the so-called success rates, regulation and limits and lack of limits, over-pricing and prescribing, the treatment of birth parents, care or lack of care for the children involved, payment and non-payment, support and lack of support, and all the myriad international and cultural issues, etc. It’s not a contradiction to both be pleased that there are paths to parenthood for the infertile, and to want to ensure these paths take care of those prospective parents during and after this process, as well as act in the best interests of the children who may emerge from this. That’s not sour grapes. It is in fact much more holistic. And maybe we might actually be better placed to think about the children’s interests, because we don’t have that deep, personal parental relationship that can at times (understandably) trigger defence mechanisms and block honest reflection.

It should be a requirement to consider all these factors in any discussion about assisted reproduction or adoption. All of these processes are far more complicated than the public discourse or industry advocates ever acknowledge. Along with the details – the science, financial, emotional and societal issues – of adoption or assisted reproduction, they don’t talk about the hidden results that no-one involved really wants to acknowledge. The No Kidding. Us. Me. My existence suggests an outcome no-one wants to admit is real or is statistically very significant, and is terrifying to those people entering these processes. It’s easier not to consider us, talk to us, or include us.

Yet we might be the ones who understand best what the data means to real people. Many of us who walked away from IVF or assisted reproduction or adoption – either before by choosing not to go through the process, or after, when it was clear there wouldn’t be a baby coming as a result – are the ones who recognised these risk factors, who understood the data, the implications of all the various options and avenues, and made the hard decision – or had it made for us – and had to walk away. That was never easy. But it is an outcome that everyone needs to acknowledge, and more importantly, understand.

After all, our message is that our outcomes should not be hidden, ignored, or feared. We shouldn’t be erased from the conversation. We should be an important part of it. Our perspective counts.

That is why I’m immensely proud of Jess that her always wise perspective was included in the conversation around Adoption Unfiltered. (Of course, I’m immensely proud of Lori LL and her co-authors too.) In fact, I think it is terribly important, and moving – monumental even – that someone who didn't get the baby they wanted should be the one to talk about that. An unfiltered discussion indeed!

Our voices count, and our voices matter. Sadly, the opportunities to use them are still too few and far between.

 

Adapting to change

I’ve been thinking about resilience and adapting to change recently, and was chatting to my husband about it. We agreed that many people struggle to adapt to change – his parents did, for example. He laughed, and pointed out how much it annoys us when the supermarket changes its layout, or drops some of our favourite things. “That’s just irritating,” I said.  Infuriating, even, I will admit to you now! But it doesn’t make me afraid, in the way I see that change makes some people afraid.

Adapting to change is really hard. Covid was scary enough, and there are changes all over the world right now, both positive and negative, that has various groups reeling at the thought of it. Change can be good, or it can be bad, on individual or societal levels. When I think of my own personal situation, most change I have adapted to in my life has been positive, even if it was very scary at times. I’m thinking about the changes and opportunities as a result of second wave feminism, my student exchange, and the various career opportunities that have come my way. Even then, I slowly adapted to the idea that having children would be a good idea. And I wholeheartedly embraced it.

Until, of course, I had to adapt to the idea that a) I was infertile, and b) I would remain childless throughout my life. That change was a huge adjustment. Even though, for much of my adult life up to then, I had not been affected by the fact I did not yet have children, I had assumed I could have them if I wanted to do so. Equally, I had not contemplated my life without them.

Adjusting to that change was hard. Hard, because it involved a number of issues around self-confidence, including feelings of being unworthy and of guilt, as well as the external reactions of others – judgement, isolation from society’s mainstream, condescension, etc. It required not just an adjustment to the idea of my place in society, but an adjustment in how I saw myself. Ultimately, though, learning to change the way I saw myself and society and my life was what helped me to be able to embrace the life I have. I learned to appreciate my life, and to be grateful for what I have.

I look at people who can’t adjust to changes in their lives. Whether it is the white man who feels his status in life is threatened, or those who can never pull out of the grief of not getting what they had always wanted, or those who can’t adjust to inevitable changes, there are plenty of examples of people who are change resistant. My father-in-law, for example, struggled with getting old, grieving the years of fitness that he had lost decades earlier, rather than feeling grateful for what he still had (eg a brain that still functioned, family, his wife, relative longevity, etc).

Frankly, I pity them. Because the one thing I’ve learned about my own resilience is that fighting against change is painful. It hurts to always want something that we know we’ll never have. In comparison, learning to be grateful for what we have, looking forward to what we know is achievable, and finding joy in the moment all feel so much better than an impossible yearning. Isn’t that the key to living a better life, to enjoying ourselves, to being compassionate and understanding?

 

Repetition

When we are children, we learn by mimicking others, and by repetition.  I remember first studying languages - mimicking, and repetition were the keys, along with understand why sentences were constructed the way they were, or why things meant what they did. I still love that, and I've just started teaching myself - with online assistance - another language. Repetition is the key.

I was thinking about my post last week. Nothing I wrote there was new on this blog, except for the way it was expressed and packaged. The messages were the same I've been giving for years. This was not the first time I've repeated messages, or even whole posts. I felt a little embarrassed - am I all out of ideas? 

But then I thought about the value of repetition.When I was adjusting to the fact that the rest of my life I would not have children, I knew only a few people who had entered the No Kidding world before me. I knew I didn't want to be like the person who was still stuck mourning her losses, decades later. A kind woman I had known 10-15 years earlier who lived a good life was an inspiration, as was another friend who was blissfully free of the self-recrimination I felt. 

Mimicking the aspects of their behaviour and attitudes helped me learn more about myself, understand who I was, and what I wanted. Other discoveries - for example, learning that I could change the way I thought - were also beneficial, but only after repeating these lessons to myself over and again. It's how I learned to put the past behind me, and embrace the life ahead of me. It's also how I remind myself regularly of lessons that are worth holding close.

Repetition. It gets a bad rap. I'll keep doing it. Unashamedly.