Six years ago I made a good friend online. We met on an endometriosis message board: same town, same age, similar (but, crucially, not the same) factors in common; both agonising about what to do with the infertility diagnoses we had been given.
About one year of real-life friendship later, she fell pregnant at exactly the same time that I decided to exit the rabbit-hole and get my life back. The meetings fizzled out before she gave birth.
Now, we are arranging to meet, after a gap of four years – during which she has raised a small child, and I have done nothing much, really.
I like this woman. The problem is, at our last meeting we had reached an impasse – I had exhausted treatment options and felt that I was now reluctantly pushing for “just in case” motherhood (excellent phrase stolen from this great article): trying to make a family in order to defer regret. But I was still in the throes of a crisis about it.
She, on the other hand, wanted an actual baby in her arms at all costs. Shed tears over it in front of me.
The thing that still makes me feel belligerent and churlish, though, is that she pitied older couples without offspring. Something she said still clamours around my head, about a childless couple in her neighbourhood that she knew from dog-walking:
They’re so lovely, and they seem happy, but I just don’t want to be them (through tears).
She hammered home to me that I would regret it when I was fifty. She brooked no possibility of my giving up.
Then, the king of awkward moments: she had to tell me she was pregnant, on the evening that I rolled up full of new revelations that it might actually be OK to renounce the madness and just get on with living.
She was distressed when she announced her news: she cried, seemed in agony. Admonished me for giving up, pleaded desperately with me; told me to see her doctor and do the same esoteric treatment that she had done: insisted you can do it too!
It totally rattled my composure and I left early, disorientated. We met just once more, when she was heavily pregnant.
Now, I would see her, but one thing makes me feel truculent, defensive: the fear of concealed pity. When the cocked-head question arrives – “But how ARE you.. now?” – I know I will turn surly.
Because I have become that older couple with the dogs that she talked about (except we don’t have dogs: it’s on my to-do list). Is it possible that an idea which was horrifying enough to make someone sob can simply go away? I know she has been through some tough times since then, so yes, maybe.
Am I a thing that people weep in fear about? Or is it just a transitory panic they have, something that passes when the person (woman) gets what she is looking for?
Surely there are fates worse than mine? (Of course there freakin’ are).
But I do think this aversion lurks in the corners of a lot of people’s minds, and it’s something I’d dearly like to see changed about this world.
I will meet her, anyway.
Never regret your life choices. We each choose our own paths in this life. Your will be unique and wonderful. I’m thrilled that you are taking your readers on this journey with you!
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Christ. There can such a fine line between empathy and projection at times. The compulsion to filter the experiences of others through one’s own hopes and dreams. Compounded by sharing a venn diagram at some point along the way. G’luck with the meet-up.
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That’s a very succinct summing-up and makes lots of sense – I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it as projection, but of course it is. Validation for people’s own choices. That’s helpful, thanks Dept.
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There’s a couple here in their early 40s who decided not to have kids and they lead a great life. They are constantly traveling or planing their next trip and just enjoying life. Whenever I think of the possibility that I might not be able to ever have kids I think of them and remind myself that there would be life after infertility and it might not be so bad. I certainly never pity them. And if it doesn’t work out for me I wouldn’t want people to pity me either.
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Thank you so much Dubliner, it’s comments like that that keep me going!
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I think that Department of Speculation is right. It’s about projection. So much of what people say actually has more to do with them than with the person they talk to. It’s not a general truth, it’s their personal opinion. It can get to us though, especially when their opinion meets some secret fear we may still have!
Your friend did not think she could have been happy without children. But you are not her! We have nothing to be ashamed of, Different Shores! We are strong. After all, we have been through so much and are still here – even making the world a tiny bit better (I hope) by writing about a taboo topic! You should meet your old friend and feel proud of yourself!
By the way: having children is no guarantee for happiness. I have a friend who loves her children, and would never trade them for anything. But very often I think that she was not born to be a mother. In fact, nearly everything went wrong during the pregnancies, when giving birth and after. Ever since she got pregnant with her first child, she has not been her full self. Having children didn’t equal happiness (or a good marriage, or good health, or success) for her! On the other hand, I am going back to school soon (my “plan B”) and am happier than I have been in many years. And that’s only 1 1/2 years after stopping treatments. I am sure it will be even better in a few years. When I am old, I plan to look back on my life and say that it was a rich, fulfilled life, even if it turned out different than I had planned ;-)!
Sorry for writing so much today, but I just had to… please, please don’t feel “less” than your friend when you meet her!
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Thanks for your lovely comment Elaine. I must remember those things: I am often too thin-skinned and think everything is an insult but of course these things are all about the person speaking – after all, why would they be so passionately invested in my life? You are totally right in all those things, especially about the way things can turn out for parents. Don’t apologize for writing a lot I love your comments!
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Ask my husband – I very often lack a layer (or several layers) of protection myself. Grief makes us raw. In fact, I tend to apply all kinds of things that people say to myself. My husband then says: It’s not all about you, which helps ;-)!
I have come to believe that we should be proud of ourselves, though. Because that grief and the vulnerability come from the love that we have for the children who were never born. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. We can be proud of pushing through grief, proud of our YES to life!
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Your husband is right: I must keep repeating to myself “It’s all about them, not you…”. Cheers Elaine
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I so agree with the projection piece. I think she so succumbed to the “never give up” train that the idea of “quitting” was just horrifying, because it wasn’t anything she could imagine (and she didn’t have to do it, she got the ending she wanted). That whole “you can do it too” business is just awful, and I have found myself at the receiving end of it as well. It sucks. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to keep up with someone who questioned your choices and actively told you not to make the decision you did. I feel like you hit a point where you are like, “I just can’t DO this anymore” and that point (vital to sanity) needs to be respected, not basically whittled into “couldn’t you have just tried a little harder.” I agree with Dubliner, I know of a handful of couples who don’t have children (or dogs) and they have a beautiful life, one where they have so much time to devote to each other and their separate pursuits, and travel seems to figure in heavily in the three couples I’m thinking of.
I wish you so much luck in your meetup with this friend. You don’t have to have had a child to have a full, rich life…even without dogs. On a separate note, her statement about not wanting to be the childless couple was so much more about her own fear than about a judgment on you (I hope), because I can remember wailing that I didn’t want to adopt and I didn’t want to never be pregnant, and I’m pretty sure I said it in front of a friend who had adopted, and now I cringe about that but it was where I was at the time, and perspectives shift. I can only hope that your friends’ has shifted so that she can see other perspectives than her own as valuable…see outside her own sphere.
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Thank you so much for your comment Jess. It helps to hear people’s perspectives on this. I’m seeing now that it was all about her fears, rather than a judgement of my life. It’s so useful to hear feedback like yours on this, I’m grateful for it
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I agree with everyone else that your friend’s comments reflect more on her than on you. I would love to hear how your meetup went!
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Thanks Loribeth I’ll probably post on it. Yikes I hope she’s not reading this…
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