"Enjoy It While You Can"
If I hear that from another one of my new-mother friends even one more time, I just may have to commit murder.
I know, I know. Grass. Other side. Greener. Fine. I'm sure babies are a pain and a half, and I still reserve the right to complain about swollen pregnancy ankles and 2 A.M. feedings and cranky babies with the sniffles who just don't want to be put down...but for now all I can think about is how I don't have any of those things. Yeah, I do appreciate that (for now) we can pretty much do what we want, be it going out on the spur of th emoment or enjoying a quiet dinner at home. But it's not like we're enjoying it now, with the assurance that in so many months or years, we will try to get pregnant and *boom* nine months later our lives will change. No, there's just this big cloud of uncertainty, and we can't even plan for when our lives are going to change, because they may never change, but they will also neve be the same - never the carefree, fun-loving, easygoing existence of the deliberately childfree.
It's a funny situation we're in. I feel like if we lived in a yeshivish/black-hat/super-frum/charedi/whatever-you-want-to-call-it type of community, and after x number of years of marriage we didn't have kids, there would be some kind of understanding that it wasn't on purpose. People would know we were having problems (even if they didn't officially "know") and would be appropriately deferential. Or, at least, they would understand that we wanted children and our non-parental status was not by choice.
Our religious community is different, though. It's "modern" (if you want to use that term). Almost everyone in our synagogue is college educated; many have or are working toward advanced degrees. Many, if not most, of the women my age work outside the home, and in fields where it would be likely for them to remain employed once children arrive. I'm pretty sure most newly-married couples use birth control for six months or a year, and a good number probably longer than that - hey, we did - even without the requisite heter (dispensation from a rabbi). Overall, the concept of a couple in the 25-35 age range, married a few years, both parties working, no kids...it's not so unusual here, and it's not clear that we're not childfree by choice. But I feel like the presumption that we choose to be childfree - the thought that we've been using birth control for more several years, that we're evading our obligation to build a family - goes along with a negative judgment on our suitability as members of the community. Every time I go to shul on a Shabbat morning, I want to hang a sign around my neck that reads: "Trying to get pregnant, twelve months and counting." I'm no one of "them" (as much as I don't think there's anything wrong with "them") and I want everyone to know it.
The worst part is that I can't wear a sign like that, and I can't go around telling everyone that we're infertile, because who wants to hear something like that? So I laugh off the comments about enjoying our childfree days. I talk about my work and how excited I am to be looking for a new job (more on that another day, I think). I toss back a couple glasses of wine during a dinner and then pour myself a generous Scotch and joke that I'm "drinking for two." I tell people that Ezra's sister is expecting baby in the spring, and go on and on about how lucky I am that she gets to be the "guinea pig" because she's having the first grandchild. We put our breakables on low shelves and store cleaning agents under the sink. In all ways, I try to make it seem as if I love my life.
And all the while, my heart is breaking. I can't enjoy even one moment of it, and all I see lying ahead is day after day and year after year of spare bedrooms and three-drink dinners.
Labels: Judaism
posted by Robber Barren at 6:09 PM
comments (8)
I was much the same. I kept telling people, it's not that I need a baby this very second... if I knew I was going to have one in a year, or even two, I'd be fine. But not knowing if it's ever going to happen? How would that be enjoyable, exactly?
People understand the kind of hardship they've experienced, but they can't really imagine the kind they haven't. That's why I think writing about it is so important.
I find the opposite comments just as hard.
New father BIL keeps telling us we should have kids, it's wonderful blah blah blah.
Besides revealing our IF, there is no response that will shut him up. Awful.
And I'm not confident that revealing IF will do the trick either.
And I'm not confident that revealing IF will do the trick either.
It probably wouldn't. I speak from experience (my dad).
I did the same thing, pretending how much I loved my life, how great it was not to be "tied down", and all that when we were TTC our first for 16 months. And every one of those months is one more month I wished and prayed and cried for the chance to be "tied down". But, as I don't like talking about IF to casual acquaintances, there wasn't really anything else to do.
You know what? We've now been TTC our second for 14 months and I still do it. I pretend that we love being a one-child family, that it's great to not have to worry about midnight feedings anymore. And I cry frequently, probably more so than I did before I had our first, because I'd give anything to be getting no sleep and have no time to shower.
I wish there were some advice to give, but all I can say is to do whatever helps you through the day.
Not sure if this will help, but in the hopes that it might be worth a chuckle, or at least the hint of a grin, what about responding to "enjoy it while you can" with "did you ever try telling that to a 2 year old at naptime?"
Fortunately (?) we don't get comments too often. Usually we get the "do you have children?" comment and when we say no (I've stopped saying, "not yet, soon, G-d willing" or anything like that. It's just "no"), after the obligatory, "soon, G-d willing" (argh), that's usually the end of it. But then again, nearly everyone knows we're going through infertility stuff. We've been very open about it, which was difficult *during* our first cycle, when people repeatedly looked at us with the "nu?" look.
I'm sorry your Dad hasn't been as responsive as you'd hoped.
I don't know, but maybe you should question whether your way of dealing with this is really helping you or not. Is it creating more internal stress and strain to do all this pretending? Is there a balance you can strike between being totally open and letting it all hang out vs. pretending that this is the life you've chosen for yourself?
I talked a lot to others about my infertility, so it was no secret. In a way, I regret that I was SO open. However, I would never have found it helpful to allow people to assume that I was happy about my childless marriage.
Only you know what feels best, but I just couldn't handle the pretending. It takes too much effort! Plus, you don't get any understanding or empathy from anyone, and probably a fair amount of judgment (as you've found).
I think it is always hard knowing how to deal with community in these situations. I've stopped talking about our infertility, but when people ask if we have children, I still say, "we hope we will" and leave it at that.
In the past, when faced with such serious problems that are out of my control, I have looked to davening and increased tsedakah (both financial and otherwise). Though this is unusually traditionalist for me and does not necessarily have any direct affect on the source of my grief, I have felt that it provides for a positive, constructive outcome of my sorrow.
Speak up!
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