My Choice Is Not Temporary -- I'm HAPPY Living Childfree

The other day, a coworker friend was driving me to the doctor and the subject of "how's your life now?" came up.

I said it was good, that we were at peace, that the new house was really such a big step in claiming our new life and moving forward. 

And then she said, 

"Do you think you'll ever revisit adoption?" 

I felt like revisiting my words in a thought bubble and bolding them, highlighting them in bright colors...

AT PEACE

CLAIMING OUR NEW LIFE

MOVING FORWARD

No. Nonononononononono. Making the decision to end our quest for parenthood and stop pursuing adoption was hands down the MOST difficult decision I've ever had to make, that we've ever had to make as a couple. (And, thanks to infertility, we've had to make a LOT of difficult, complex decisions in our time together.) It was AWFUL. SO much thought went into it. Heartache and soulsearching and wondering, will we regret this? but also realizing that we were living a shell of our life and it was impacting my physical health, and so the answer was NO. We need to live the life we have and let go of the one we'd hoped for. 

That is basically sentencing a dream to death. It's not done lightly. 

I did answer, though, and say "No, that process was incredibly difficult on us and it just always went the other way, and we'd started it already exhausted from IVF and loss, and it is actually quite lovely to just BE DONE with the hoping and the wishing for something more than what we have." 

Which I thought was a good, honest answer. 

And then the next question was, "But would you look into foster care?" 

OH HOLY JEEZUM. I adore this person. She is incredibly caring, and dropped everything to drive me to the doctor while my uterus was doing the cha-cha on my cervix, and she just genuinely wants everyone to be happy. She is the mother of three, and I have to remind myself that she probably pushes it because she wants everyone to have the joy and happiness she has from her children. 

But no. Just....no. 

I am so tired of explaining away why we stopped, and why we did look into foster care and determined that it was not the right process for us. That we did not have the emotional wherewithal to withstand more possibilities of instant-child but with additional risks of not being able to raise instant-child long term, or being equipped to adequately handle trauma and difficulties resulting from being removed from your home, from your biological family. There is no good reason to be in foster care, everything is traumatic. And I have the greatest admiration for people who choose to grow their families in this way, or who can help children in a temporary way as they go through difficult times. I think it's an amazing thing to be able to do for a child. But we knew that especially after 5.5 years of IVF and miscarriage and ectopic pregnancy and loss after loss after loss of what we thought our family building experience would be, that we were not those people. 

Rarely is the person asking me about foster one of those people, either. I have never had someone who was a foster parent or adopted through foster care ask me why I didn't do that. They know. It's not for everyone. But it sounds just so appealing to someone who wouldn't have to consider it seriously. As a solution to MY childlessness.

A while ago someone I knew peripherally read one of my grieving blog posts and wanted to talk to me about international adoption because that had worked for her when she was as old or older than me, and she felt maybe I wasn't truly resolved. She said, "I have this feeling you're not completely happy." We did not choose international adoption for a variety of reasons that were well thought out and carefully considered. I certainly was not going to go back and say, "you know what? I forgot this option existed, and I would like to start an entirely different adoption process," more than a year after we resolved childfree. And it seemed that I was comfortable with the mix of sadness and relief that resolving childfree gave me, but she was not, likely because she grew her family with international adoption and so what worked for her could obviously work for me, too, if I just opened myself up to it. 

And that is where I have the most trouble -- why is it that EVERYONE ELSE has far more difficulty with my childlessness than I do with my childfree status? I mean, it's sad that we wanted it and it didn't happen. It's sad that we fought for so long and at such a great cost that we had to end our own journey. But it can't STAY sad.  My life is NOT sad.

My existence without children is not, on a regular occurrence, sad.

I would like for my life to be seen as one of many resolution options, and as one that came with freedom, and opportunities, and does not deny me the possibility of enjoying other people's children.

One that is, actually, a solution to the long terrible time of limbo and heartbreaking events coming in waves one after another.

I do not regret making this decision.

I do not think on it and go, "you know what? I'd like to go back to putting myself through hell for no ostensible return."

I rearranged my life to fit this new reality, this new future, and I LIKE IT.

It took time to get to a point where I myself didn't look at the childfree resolution as scary and sad. So I don't blame people who initially think that, before they talk to me and hear me say that I am happy -- I want them to believe me when I say that. And one of the things that helped me in coming to this resolution was the fact that there were other people out there who had gone before me, who were willing to share their stories, who were putting their realities out there for everyone to read.

People like Mali at No Kidding in NZ, and Loribeth at The Road Less Travelled, and Infertile Phoenix, and Life Without Baby (Lisa Manterfield), and Gateway Women (Jody Day), and Different Shores, and Bent Not Broken.

Books like The Next Happy by Tracey Cleantis, and Ever Upward by Justine Brooks Froelker, and Life Without Baby by Lisa Manterfield, and The Silent Sorority by Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos, and Living the Life Unexpected by Jody Day, and Avalanche by Julia Leigh.

These resources helped me to see that resolving childfree could actually be a success story -- that it was possible to have life turn out different than you'd planned but no less important or fulfilling. That I could grieve my childlessness and revel in my childfreeness, all at the same time.

That the operative word in "Childfree" is FREE.

It may not be by choice, not initially, but it was a resolution that I am committed to and that I am fully immersed in. I am turning a corner from more grief to more gratitude. It's always a mix of both, but the balance has shifted.

I wish that there was as much airtime given to people who resolve childfree as those who find parenthood through pregnancy, gestational carrier, or adoption. I wish our stories were seen as equal routes to success, even though we didn't get what we originally sought. That there are three paths to success after infertility -- pregnancy/biological parenthood, parenthood through adoption, or living childfree, and they ALL have their positives and their negatives. NONE of them are wholly negative, sad, or unfulfilling. None.

I am childfree. Not by design, but by resolution. I am happy. I am a success story. This is my life, and it is a damn good one.

This post inspired by "Why Aren't There More Of Us? Part 2" by Loribeth at The Road Less Travelled.