childless?

[emily_in_nc]

Emily, thank you so much for your post. I'm 37 and I am in a pretty bad transition stage ... a year ago my husband didn't want kids but had a fairly open mind about the subject, then I got accidentally pregnant and had a miscarriage in May, then we were ambivalent and not really trying but I had a couple of chemical pregnancies, then he said he didn't want to try, now he's back to being open to the possibilities, but I just had my first half-hearted appointment with the doctor and there is apparently some concern that I am not ovulating properly and might need assistance to get pregnant again. And I think my husband's ambivalence, plus my absolute terror of having another miscarriage, is enough that we probably won't go that route.

This sounds a lot like where we were -- I was 36 when I miscarried. My husband was always more ambivalent about having children than I was. I wanted it so badly, where he could go either way. So we did argue quite a bit about continuing the infertility treatments (I initially wanted to, he didn't), and in the end, I let him "win" because it was such a painful road to go down with so many seemingly inevitable disappointments. Expensive too! And like you, I was terrified that I might get pregnant again (through IVF), only to suffer another loss -- that was scarier in many ways than never being pregnant again.

For various professional reasons, most of my female colleagues are older than I am, and about half of them don't have children. At some point I noticed that that was definitely the unhappy half. They weren't taking advantage of their freedoms to do anything but work a lot of unpaid overtime, they were just a pretty unhappy group. I don't know if the unhappiness is a cause or effect or totally unrelated to not having kids, but I have been looking for some happy role models for a while, pretty unsuccessfully.

Yes, it can be hard to find us, but we're out here! I got lucky in that a few long-term friends ended up choosing the childfree path for entirely different reasons than me, and I made another friend in the infertility forums when we were both going through it together. We supported each other through the roller coaster, and like me, she was ultimately unsuccessful in her quest to have a child but is now happily remarried to a wonderful guy and living a great life in her late 40s. There are also a couple of childfree gals at work who are happy and have great lives, and don't live just to work longer hours.

The other group of women I've found to be fun to hang out and do things with is those who had their child(ren) young and are now empty-nesters. They aren't wheeling baby strollers or coaching soccer, and most are actively involved in hobbies (like cycling) and other healthy pursuits that interest them at this stage in their lives. Most of these women are in their 40s and 50s but have a youthful zest for life and could care less if I have children as it's just not a main topic of conversation or a huge focus in their lives any more.

I used to be hugely jealous of pregnant women, moms with babies, moms with kids, etc, but now that my friends are getting older and their kids are getting up towards the difficult teen years, I found that that envy has melted away. My life is simpler and with fewer worries -- I never have to worry about my kid driving drunk or using drugs.

It really does get a lot better as you get older and the immediacy of the fertility struggle is in the past.

Emily