Exploring Our Decision
Well, I guess I'm going to start back in the beginning of our decision to not have kids- I feel a little bit like I am detangling yarn- and not for the first time- like it is yarn that I keep with me and in the beginning it was nice and neat, but over time it got tangled and so I straightened it out and now it has gotten tangled again...
When I was diagnosed with cancer my main question for my doctors was "OK, yes, cancer, but when can we start trying to get pregnant again?" Most of them looked at me like "OK, you must not have heard me--- CANCER." Eventually it sunk in and we decided to not even discuss the trying again until we had been 1 year past treatment and had gotten the 1 year test results back. We really put it out of our minds at that point-- I recovered from the surgery in time to feel like crap from the treatments, so that ate up a couple of months. And then we just knew it wasn't an option and we did other things- took trips, went to concerts... I don't know, just got on with life without thinking much about it- we finally were living in the present instead of the future, for the first time in years- maybe in our entire marriage. Every house we had lived in had a room we called the nursery, but in this house we started calling it the office instead... I don't know why or when. I remember for my birthday, about 9 months after my treatment, we were on our way home from dinner and I asked if he still wanted to have children. I half way wanted him to say "Yes, of course." so that I could put the question mark in my mind away for good, and half way wanted him to say "No." But instead he said "I will be happy either way." He seemed to be as uncertain as I was-
It was around that time that I started searching for information on the internet about life without children and came across the term Childfree and various Childfree groups. Some of it made me feel less alone, some of it was much more anti-child than I felt. I wanted to know if there was happy life without children and what I found proved there was that possibility. During this time I started testing my feeling: I would stare at babies and children in stores and pretend they were mine. How would I feel if they were mine? I felt tired imagining it. I would stare at the ads in the Sunday flyers to see if there was the familiar longing that I had felt for years, and there wasn't.
I'm not sure that DH ever had the conflicted feelings that I had. I had started to feel really excited about the possibility of a life without children, but I hadn't said anything more to DH. One night on the way to dinner I told him about the information I had found on the internet, testing the waters. He didn't say much, but he doesn't usually anyway and he didn't sound opposed to it and so I asked if he thought that might be for us. "Fine with me, if you would be happy with that- I have a hard time picturing myself as a father anyway." I couldn't believe it! He was on board! Ahhh!
At that point it was very much like a honeymoon- not just for our marriage, but our feelings about the decision to not have children were in a honeymoon phase. I 'came out' to a few select friends, I started exploring all kinds of things- the possibilities seemed endless- travel, more education, creativity, taking up golf... Who knew where this road could lead?
In hindsight, perhaps making decisions or gauging emotions in the wake of a cancer diagnosis isn't wise. Maybe I was in one of the stages of dealing with a major life event that makes people do things like climb mountains or jump out of planes. Maybe the lack of desire to have children was more just a general numbness due to all the shit we were trying to adjust to.
When I was diagnosed with cancer my main question for my doctors was "OK, yes, cancer, but when can we start trying to get pregnant again?" Most of them looked at me like "OK, you must not have heard me--- CANCER." Eventually it sunk in and we decided to not even discuss the trying again until we had been 1 year past treatment and had gotten the 1 year test results back. We really put it out of our minds at that point-- I recovered from the surgery in time to feel like crap from the treatments, so that ate up a couple of months. And then we just knew it wasn't an option and we did other things- took trips, went to concerts... I don't know, just got on with life without thinking much about it- we finally were living in the present instead of the future, for the first time in years- maybe in our entire marriage. Every house we had lived in had a room we called the nursery, but in this house we started calling it the office instead... I don't know why or when. I remember for my birthday, about 9 months after my treatment, we were on our way home from dinner and I asked if he still wanted to have children. I half way wanted him to say "Yes, of course." so that I could put the question mark in my mind away for good, and half way wanted him to say "No." But instead he said "I will be happy either way." He seemed to be as uncertain as I was-
It was around that time that I started searching for information on the internet about life without children and came across the term Childfree and various Childfree groups. Some of it made me feel less alone, some of it was much more anti-child than I felt. I wanted to know if there was happy life without children and what I found proved there was that possibility. During this time I started testing my feeling: I would stare at babies and children in stores and pretend they were mine. How would I feel if they were mine? I felt tired imagining it. I would stare at the ads in the Sunday flyers to see if there was the familiar longing that I had felt for years, and there wasn't.
I'm not sure that DH ever had the conflicted feelings that I had. I had started to feel really excited about the possibility of a life without children, but I hadn't said anything more to DH. One night on the way to dinner I told him about the information I had found on the internet, testing the waters. He didn't say much, but he doesn't usually anyway and he didn't sound opposed to it and so I asked if he thought that might be for us. "Fine with me, if you would be happy with that- I have a hard time picturing myself as a father anyway." I couldn't believe it! He was on board! Ahhh!
At that point it was very much like a honeymoon- not just for our marriage, but our feelings about the decision to not have children were in a honeymoon phase. I 'came out' to a few select friends, I started exploring all kinds of things- the possibilities seemed endless- travel, more education, creativity, taking up golf... Who knew where this road could lead?
In hindsight, perhaps making decisions or gauging emotions in the wake of a cancer diagnosis isn't wise. Maybe I was in one of the stages of dealing with a major life event that makes people do things like climb mountains or jump out of planes. Maybe the lack of desire to have children was more just a general numbness due to all the shit we were trying to adjust to.
posted by Rooshie at 08:50
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