As told to Kathleen Guthrie Woods
I am so moved by Gill’s story. She has always wanted her children, but her husband doesn’t. And now that they are both dealing with health issues, they’ve made the difficult choice that it’s better not to have children. When asked where she is on her journey now, Gill responded, “Hoping for a miracle whilst trying to accept the inevitable.” I so get that!
Gill is now 33 and working to make peace with her lot in life. She admits to feeling alone on this journey, so after you read her story, I hope you’ll offer her your support and encouragement in the Comments.
LWB: What was the turning point for you?
Gill: My husband has never lied to me about not wanting children, but I’ve always thought he would change his mind one day. Fast-forward 11 years and my husband has been diagnosed with Asperger’s and anxiety, and has a real fear about how he would cope. Whilst I am still wanting children deep down, I know that the stress of having children will probably not do our relationship, or his mental health, any good. Not only that, but there is a real chance that any child we did have would have mental health problems (my husband’s condition is genetic, so chances are our child would also have autism) or allergies (I have asthma and eczema, also genetic) too. The best thing we can do as parents in not have a child, for who would want to put their child through a lifetime of struggling to fit in?
LWB: What’s the hardest part for you about not having children?
Gill: I feel my situation is different to most and that all people say to me is that I am brave for giving up on this dream. This doesn’t help! I really want to know if one day I will “get over it”. Although I understand and agree with our reasons, it still doesn’t help with the fact that I want to be a mum. I hate myself for being selfish and sometimes wonder if I did have children, would I always feel guilty if they had autism? I know that there is always the chance that we would have a healthy child, but the chances are slim and my husband doesn’t want to ruin what we have already.
LWB: What’s the best advice you’ve received?
Gill: A few people I know who do not have children due to infertility have said that it does get easier with time and that you begin to appreciate all the things you can do that you wouldn’t if you had children. For example, going on lots of holidays, staying out late, or maybe even enhancing my career.
LWB: What is your hope for yourself this coming year?
Gill: I am going to have counseling to try to come to terms with not having children. I am lucky to be an auntie, so I plan to do lots with those children.
LWB: How has LWB helped you on your journey?
Gill: I love this website as it is full of nice stories that make me feel less alone on my journey.
If you’ve been feeling that you’re all alone on this journey, I encourage you to read other members’ stories here. There is a lot of wisdom and support in the stories themselves and in the Comments. Then, when you’re ready, I hope you’ll share your story with us. Go to the Our Stories page to get more information and the questionnaire.
Kathleen Guthrie Woods is a Northern California–based freelance writer. She is mostly at peace with her childfree status.
Jayne says
It truly does suck. We found out 1 yr ago that having children naturally will be near to impossible, tubal issues. However I think we tend as humans to dwell too much on what isn’t “fair” in life or what we can’t have compared to what we do. An old colleague of mine had a baby last year, I will be honest I was jealous. Then I found out that after she delivered they discovered she had stage 3 rectal cancer, she died 2 weeks ago. She was 36, she only got to be a mother for 1 year. This put things into perspective for me, it may be extreme but these things happen and being happy with our lot is very important.
Gill says
Thank you Jayne for your comments it is nice to know that regardless of how we got here, we all have the same grief journey to follow.
I am actually doing a lot better now, I have had some counselling and he said pretty much the same. Before I was always concentrating on my husband’s reasons for not having children and struggled to find how it was fair on me.
I am trying hard to find my own reasons for not having children and to try and look at the positives, it is helping and I am dwelling on the “not fair” issue a lot less. I still get overwhelmed and with a friend getting married at Easter I am already dreading (and practicing my reaction) when she tells e her happy news.
“The show must go on”
Klara says
dear Gill,
thank you for sharing your story. Wishing you all the best for the future!
lots of love from sLOVEnia,
Klara
Gill says
Thank you Klara
Every day gets that little bit easier and to quote Nemo “just keep swimming!”
Kathleen Guthrie Woods says
Love the Nemo quote. So perfect. 🙂 Thanks again for sharing your story, Gill!
Leah says
Thank you for sharing your story Gill. I am currently up at 1am struggling with my own journey into accepting childlessness. We are a similar age and I suspect you have some similar feelings as I do.
My husband was diagnosed with cancer three days after our engsgement party. Before commencing treatment it was strongly suggested to us that we freeze some sperm. He refused, and I didn’t want to argue the point as he had gotten so sick so quickly. I didn’t want to risk delaying treatment – the sperm bank was a 2hr car drive that he wouldn’t have been able to tolerate, and i didnt want to make him suffer any more pain thsn necessary.
Children and babies have always made him anxious as he had severe epilepsy as a child and as a result of the damage it wreaked on his brain, he can’t actually remember a lot of his childhood. And he attributes this to why he struggles to relate to them. I honestly have never seen a man so jittery around kids. He has often said he was petrified of his child being epileptic due to his experiences.
I am a nurse and a lot of my specialty involves children. I relate well to them, and my best friend’s son claimed me as Aunty Leelah “because he adores you” as his dad put it. And I always wanted my own child.
Fast forward two years and my husband is in remission. My sister in law has just given birth to the first baby of my husband’s generation on his side of the family. Brother in law (husband’s brother) has spent the last five days posting photos and videos hourly of the child and the steady stream of visitors on a facebook messenger thread. And I am not kidding. I checked the times. They live interstate and want to share every second they can with interstate family. Which is sweet but hourly updates is overkill.
This has become incredibly painful for me, as my husband not wanting to have children/and probability that he is infertile anyway.. it has made the fact that i will never be a mother (can’t say it out loud without crying) be pushed to the forefront of my mind. So much that I have deleted all facebook apps from my devices so that I don’t have to deal with it and the stream of baby posts from many friends who are now having children.
It’s probably not going to help the somewhat unsteady relationship I have with my interstate inlaws (which is a separate story).. but it’s the only thing I can think of to cope.
So here I am at 1AM… and reading because I discovered this page by searching for childless on the amazon kindle store of all places. Because I need to start healing.
Gill says
Hi Leah
I am so sorry about what you have gone through but I admire your strength. I have (secretly) wished that either me or my husband wasn’t able to have children as I thought it would make it easier to “get over.” However reading your story I think I should just be happy that I have got a loving and supporting family.
Although my mum still thinks it will happen one day!!
I remember being on my teacher training and breaking down in tears in the classroom as my husband was not coping with life at that particular moment. My mentor turned round to me and said an old well known saying that I heard a thousand times before, but I needed to hear it then as I opened up to her and felt better.
So now I am going to say it to you
” A problem shared is a problem halved”
There will always be someone to answer blogs on here. I have had one or two rants!
Mali says
Gill, it was very brave of you to share your story. Yes, it does get better. We have ups and downs, two steps forward followed by one step back. It’s hard, but eventually you’ll be able to embrace your life. I’ve written a series on my blog called “Gifts of Infertility” – but it took time for me to be able to see these and appreciate them. You’ll get there, and I wish you well in your journey.
Gill says
Thank you Mali