Childless sister & aunt no one cares

Somebody googled today "childless sister & aunt no one cares " and found my blog.

As always, I wonder who this visitor is and where she comes from. I hope she found some comfort in my writing. 

Grey hair

Not that long ago, whenever colleagues at work were discussing problems with raising kids they usually commented something like "You will see when you have kids."  I never commented anything, I just smiled (I guess it was either a sad or a bitter smile or both).

This week, two coworkers were discussing how was their night. Both children were vomiting so they slept very badly. One coworker looked at me and said: "We should stop talking about these details, Klara never needs to hear about it, it is boring."

Her comment was so matter of fact. We never discussed anything really personal. But she just said it - between the lines - matter of fact - that I will never have children. Since I am too old to have children. This is absolutely true. But it still hurts to realize that somewhere between waiting for a child that never came I got old.

All coworkers of course know I am over 40. And they see my partially grey hair (somehow I can't decide to start colouring it, perhaps I don't want to look younger than I really am).

There was no malice in my coworkers comment. It stung a bit. But it didn't really hurt. It is what it is.

A day later,  I went with this colleague (32, mother of a 2-year old child) to a business event for two days. We had a lovely time together actually.

Since I was driving this time, I drove her home with company car. She invited me to go to her home to meet her husband and a baby. My first instinct was that I should decline invitation. But somehow that seemed impolite, so I went. I played with her beautiful daughter for ten minutes, it was nice. In the darkest days of infertility I couldn't play with someone else's kid. But now, that I am almost cured, I really know and feel that because what my colleague got (=a picture perfect little kid) I didn't loose anything. There is no such thing as limited number of babies.  But there are something as broken tubes because of swimming in polluted swimming pool in Australia and ovaries that got too old to produce anything.

On Hope (written by Elaine)

In general, hope is considered as a positive concept. In my country (Switzerland) we say: "Where there is hope, there is a way". I do think it is often true, but not always.

Actually, I even think that hope can become destructive. Especially when this hope has not been fulfilled for a very long time. It somehow turns bitter. At least that is what it did in my case when we could not have children after years and years of trying.

Towards the end of infertility treatments, I realized that continuing treatments would have kept the hope alive, but it would never have been a guarantee for holding a baby in my arms. Before that, I kind of thought I paid that price (i.e. the operation, the treatments) for the baby itself. But all we got was the hope. And honestly, that hope got smaller with every cycle and every disappointment, while the price seemed to rise higher and higher. I even came to the point where I caught myself thinking "Why should it work this time? It didn't work last time either."

So when we said goodbye to hope, it was a relief in some ways. Giving up this hope also meant that we had to grieve. And that was no fun at all.

Thankfully, I got through the worst of the grief. I started to feel better. Then, something unexpected happened. I wonder whether others have experienced the same? While I had given up hope, a very close friend of mine would not. She continued mentioning that she still believed I would be a mother one day. She would look up alternative treatments, natural medication and things like that. I told her that it was okay if she wanted to keep that hope for me, but that she should please understand that I had to let it go. It was a question of survival. She said she understood. But she kept mentioning it all the same. Again and again. Until the day I told her that this was doing no good to me.

Then there was my aunt. I have not seen her in years, but we do write each other for Christmas and birthdays. Last December, I wrote to her that the year 2015 had been a tough year for us because we had to let go of the dream of having a family. I am sure my aunt meant well. She answered "I would not give up just yet". As if that hope had only been there for a short time. As if it had not been honoured the way it should.  

I never responded to that. I do not expect her to understand. Some people do not realize that by the time you are able to tell them that you will never have children, a lot has happened. Years of hoping, of treatments, tears and continuous disappointment. It is not like we got our diagnosis and accepted it right away.

Somehow, in our society, people think that hope is always the right answer. It is not. Sometimes hope is just plain wrong.

I still think that the healthy kind of hope exists. The hope I have now is completely different: I hope for a fulfilled life, even without children. It's the kind of hope that makes life better, not worse.

written by guest blogger Elaine 
http://www.elaineok.com/ 

Silver lining of childless life / Belissima Sicilia

Do you see the photos above? This is for me true silver lining of childless life. Having flexibility to travel.

I found out very last minute that I can go to Sicily on a business travel and so I went. I returned home yesterday. My time for sightseeing was very limited, but it was awesome, I enjoyed every minute of it.

I am attaching some photos. Some beautiful photos are missing, since I didn't have time to take them. Photos of fresh and delicious fruits that I bought on market. Photos of very sweet sweets (I love sweets, but Sicilian sweets are too sweet for me). And also poor and dirty streets 15 minutes away from Unesco city centre. 

I visited a church of Saint Agatha. As usual, I sat down and prayed. And then I made a wish. Not that long ago, my wish was always the same. I begged God to give us a child.

I am wiser now. When I pray, I wish health and happiness for me, my husband, my parents and all people that are close to me. I ended my prayer with a thought: "God, when I am very very old, I really wish to look back to my life and think: This is not the life I planned, but no other life would I love to have more." 

Meet Elaine, new blogger who writes about life after infertility

Do you remember what I wished for Christmas? I got many kind emails that made my December meaningful. One of them was from Elaine, here are the kind words that she wrote me:

"I am still in recovery. One of the things that help me is your blog (and other blogs). It makes me feel less alone in my struggles. That's why I want to thank you for writing about infertility. It does make a difference. For me and many other women, I am sure."

I got a new email from Elaine today, I learnt that she started to write her blog and I am happy to share the link with you:

http://www.elaineok.com/


It is in German. The ones who don't speak German, don't let the language barier to prevent you reading the blog. It is great fun to follow the blog in foreign language with the help of google translate.


Dear Elaine - wishing you all the best! And since you live a driving distance away from me, I do hope we will meet one day for a coffee somewhere.

100,000th pageview

My blog reached  100,000 pageviews today.

My dear readers - thank you for reading me (since it is no fun to write if nobody reads and nobody comments). Writing helped me a lot.   It is wonderful to connect with soulmates from around the globe. It is lovely not to feel alone.

Memories

I recently got an invitation from my cousin to attend her son's 4th birthday party. And some months ago I got an invitation to her daughter's 6th birthday party. I didn't go. I never did. Which means that there were already 8 kids parties that I skipped. I just couldn't attend. It is too hurtful to be in a room together with 10 other couples that all have kids. Except us.  

My cousin knows I will not attend. What I love about her is that she still invites. She doesn't delete me from her invitations guest lists as majority of other people.

I don't want to be an aunt who buys expensive gifts. I want to be an aunt who invites for adventure days. On Saturday, I invited the boy for a train ride to our capital. As soon as his sister heard about the invitation she wanted to join as well... so I invited her as well.

It was a lovely morning. We went for a walk. Visited a beautiful church. Attended kids' workshop outside. Went for an ice cream. Went to an awesome park for kids.

I took plenty of photos. Since my new plan is that for each niece & nephew I will make for his /her next  birthday a  special photo book, with photos that include moments with me.

Perhaps these future  4 photos books are my way of preventing fading memories.