In Praise of Not Having it All

Infertility sucks.  No two ways about that.  Being unable to conceive when you want to conceive is a nightmare.  But now that I have been on so many sides of this parenting thing - a non-mom, a woman suffering from infertility, a pregnant woman, and now a mom, I have had a little something to say turning over in my mind for some time now.  So I think I'll say it here.  On my blog.  I want to say this right, without sounding in any way patronizing or ungrateful or anything negative.

I want to lay some praise down on those who live, by choice or by providence, in a state of non-parenthood.

A couple of posts ago I wrote about the difficulty I have had adjusting to the negative associations society makes with motherhood.  But I have also been in this other place - the place of being an aging woman without kids.  And society does a whole different number on that demographic.

I believe we still, even in this amazing time of freedom to make our lives look how we want them to look, expect that someday everyone will break down and have a kid or some kids.  We look at people who are off living marvelous, adventurous adult lives and we say: "That's great. Get it all in before the kids come and shackle you down."  We hardly ever say: "Cool, they're having a great life without kids.  Good choice."

I'm guilty.  Years ago, when I was in my 20s, I had a really good friend who was a few years older than I.  She was in her late 20s and she knew she never wanted to be a mom.  She was married.  She told me how she, a few times, had booked appointments to consult about having her tubes tied.  Every doctor refused to perform such a drastic operation on such a young woman.  One doctor said: "But what if your husband wants children one day?"  She replied: "I don't ever want kids.  Neither does he.  But if he suddenly changes his mind he'll have to go find another woman to do it with."  She was still denied the procedure.  When she told me her desire to render herself infertile I also said: "But what if you change your mind one day?"  I found it hard to believe she could be so resolute at such a young age.  When she turned 30 my friend went to a new doctor, explained her position, and the doctor said: "Well, you're 30.  You're a grown woman.  Let's do it."  And they did.  And she has never regretted or questioned her choice to close up shop.  Motherhood never interested her in the slightest.

I also have friends who always assumed they would be moms one day, but all kinds of circumstances made it not happen.  One woman tried to conceive for 15 years.  She tried the less invasive fertility treatments, she tried the holistic approach, she looked into adoption.  And then one day she was done.  She was sick of the whole roller coaster and so she got off the ride and decided to accept and love her life as it was, and is.  Another friend, nearing 40, realized she had devoted herself to her career and hadn't had kids.  She had always, always imagined she would be a mom one day.  And just when she had made the huge decision to go for it and get herself some fertility treatments her career took off in a profound and deeply fulfilling way and she went with that instead.  She cancelled the treatments and trusted the amazing path that life was throwing at her.

One of the hardest parts for me about being an aging woman without kids was the things people would say to me. When my body was shot full of hormones in preparation for our first IVF attempt I was having to endure these questions:

"So, you decided not to have a family, eh?'

"Why didn't you ever have kids?"

"Are you guys going to have kids?  You're running out of time!"

The few times I opened up and admitted J and I had been struggling with infertility I got some interesting responses.  Here's a sampling:

"Wow.  I got pregnant the first time we tried!" (Great.  Good for you.  Thanks for letting me know.  That was SUPER nice of you.)

"You can have one of mine!" (Hilarious.  You should get into stand up.  I'm laughing so hard right now I might punch you in the face.)

"Have you ever thought about adoption?" (Wow.  Adoption....  I just told you I have been trying to have a baby for six years and you think, you honestly f*cking THINK, adoption has never occurred to me?  Oh, and by the way, we no longer live in the decades when young women were shamed into giving away their babies, so adoption is not as easy as you assume.  And nowadays things like foreign and/or private adoption take a massive bank account.  Or, if you think you can do it, you can adopt a child who is handicapped, or emotionally troubled, and the people who do adopt these beautiful children are freaking heroes but I don't want that.  I am not a bad person for not wanting that.  I am honest about it.  I have a desire to have my own baby.  That's it.  And besides, adoption comes with restrictions and most agencies would consider me too old and too low income, so... please feel free to stuff your question up your... well, you know.)

People are often casually insensitive about fertility issues.

One day, when I was in my late 30s and still trying to conceive, a woman at work walked into the full staff room and asked to the room in general:  "How old is too old to be a mother?"  And the whole room started weighing in with their opinions.  It was generally agreed that if you are over 38 and you try to get pregnant you are a selfish asshole.  That was a fun day.

A woman who knew full well I was trying and failing and brokenhearted decided to make her screen saver her sister's ultrasound image and whenever she had a chance she would squeal with delight and swivel her computer so I could see it and then give me updates on the pregnancy.  Also fun. 

I know a woman who was unable to conceive who one day came home to find that one of her neighbours, upon hearing the infertility story, had run out and purchased a stone angel and placed it on my friend's doorstep.  In a bizarre attempt to "comfort" this poor, barren soul, this neighbour had actually dared to express her misguided pity with a surrogate baby in form of stone doorstop.  What comfort did this neighbour possibly imagine this might provide?Unbelievable insensitivity.  Although the angel is, apparently, a pretty good doorstop.

After six years of infertility I chose a stock response whenever anyone asked me about my childless state: "I believe reproduction is a personal matter." And I really do.  It's none of your damn business why I do or do not have kids.

So now here I am, at the other end of my fertility adventure.  I have my beautiful twins and I am in love with them.  But I also miss the hell out of being a non-mom.  SURPRISE!  Did not really see that coming.

Now I look at the non-moms in my realm and I appreciate so much what they have, and what they do.

My non-mom friends have a personal freedom I can now only fantasize about.  They go to the pub... whenever they feel like it!  They go to work without a thought about who is minding the kids while they are away.  They go on trips and watch grown up shows at any time of the day.  They have breakables on low shelves and cream coloured furniture.  They live rich, full, happy lives.

Some of these non-mom women are surprised to find themselves over 40 and childless. Some are childless by choice.  Some tried hard, but it did not happen.  These women, I'm sure, are sick to death of the questions: "Why didn't you have kids?"  "Are you going to have kids?" "I guess you couldn't have kids, eh?"  They know, of course, that people ponder their childless state behind their backs.  The gossip ladies in our Town certainly will have had the: "Well, I heard she really wanted kids but...." conversations.  But I try never to mention their childless state.  If they want to talk to me about it, I'm all ears.  But I will never, ever look at them as women who missed out.  Being a non-mom is cool, wonderful and brave, no matter what path got you there.

As an over 40 woman I want to really, honestly, honour the choices and paths my peers have taken.  Non-moms have great lives, careers, adventures.  Sometimes they even babysit for me and I totally get the speedy manner in which they get the hell out of my house when their shift is over and they can go back to their own houses where toys are not the new decor and they can have beautiful, breakable objects right down low because no little hands are going to smash up their stuff.  Non-moms have no obligation whatsoever to help me out with my kids.  My kids were my own choice.  But they often do help.  Cool women.

So, not sure if I've managed to say what I set out to say at the onset of this post, but what I want you non-moms to know is, you're cool.  And in the same way that I am blessed to have a life full of Wonder Pets and stuffed dogs and bums to wipe you are blessed to have lives full of freedom and breakables and stairs without gates.  Non-mom on, sisters.  You have my full support.

10 Years Old

The 22nd of August is my 10th wedding anniversary.  J and I are 10 years old!  We have been together for 12 years, and we have known each other for 14 years.

When J came to work at the Site in 1998 I instantly liked him.  He is that kind of guy.  He is unfailingly personable.  This is such a fortunate quality.  He genuinely cares that other people feel happy and comfortable and appreciated.  He lacks the tough shell that I have, and it makes him very beautiful and very hard to resist.

14 years ago, when I first encountered the man I did not know I would marry, I found him sweet, charming and kind of goofy in his earnestness.  14 years ago J was a beautiful boy with inspirational tattoos and a penchant for white, flowing, poofy shirts.  I heard him sing in a comedy show one night, and discovered that he has a heartbreaking voice.  Dude can sing.  When I sat next to him at the opening night of the Theatre Royal that season he told me how he had already been married and was in the process of divorcing, he had already  lived and studied in New York City.  I said: "You've packed a lot into 24 years!"  Little did I know, at that moment, that this is a guy who packs about a year's worth of experiences into every single week of his life.  This is a guy who has a kind of eager need to make sure he does not miss out on any adventure or crisis or opportunity.  This is a guy who wants to be liked, but never backs down from a challenge even if it means he might fail, or fall on his face.  This is a guy who grabs life.

14 years ago J went through a series of girlfriends at the Site before falling hard for someone unexpected - a tall, brilliant, kind of awkward girl who worked for a local historical society for the summer (let's call her A).  I barley noticed A that season, except that she seemed to be wound very tight.  She held her body in such a way that it appeared her muscles were always tense and ready for some unexpected attack.  She dressed like an artist and one night I heard her sing in the pub and she was really good and charming.  And that surprised and delighted me.  She also had a one in a million smile.  Like Julia Roberts, you could forgive this girl for anything once she flashed that smile (although I'm not sure I can forgive Julia for "Eat, Pray, Love," but that's a story for another day).  A and J seemed to fall into quite a serious thing that season.

At the start of the next season, in 99, J returned to town but he and A had split over the winter and he was torn up about it.  A was somewhere else that season.  She didn't seem to be in town.  J, in his state of heartbreak, went through a quick series of flings and I got a kick out of watching him with a different girl (seemed like) every week.  And each of these girls, briefly, had his full attention.  He is not a jerk.  But he is a romantic. Then A came back to town.  She and J did not get back together right away, as he was with someone else, but they did become roommates.

That summer I was working on my first ever solo show that would premier at the Vancouver Fringe in September so I was MIA as far as being in the social loop that season.  I was obsessed with my show so I had no idea that J and a little group of our friends were dealing with something much bigger than building a show.

A was indisputably brilliant.  I didn't know it at the time, but she was so academically gifted she had already been accepted to Oxford.  The other thing I didn't know was that she, like many people blessed with a super brain, was plagued with mental illness.  She was haunted with thoughts of suicide.  One day that summer J came home unexpectedly to the apartment he was sharing with A and another friend (he had left work early) and walked right into a scene of A trying to take her own life.  J and A weathered a massively painful and dramatic evening, and then, after that night, they became a couple once again.  As it seemed they were meant to be.

Now, as I have mentioned before, the town we live in has a spectacular rumour mill.  But the small group of people who were involved with this event (neighbours, for example) all agreed to a pact of silence and stuck to it.  To this day I am amazed at the ethics and honour of these people.  A's suicide attempt was not reduced to ugly gossip.  It was honoured with love by her friends.  I still well up when I think about that.

In fact, A's friends were so careful with this secret that I knew nothing about it until the week she succeeded in killing herself.

It was  between seasons at the Site and I was working in an art supply store in the big city.  One day I looked up and saw one of my friends from our small town in the store.  I was thrilled!  He was thrilled.  We hadn't seen each other in months and here we were bumping into one another in my store.  We made arrangements to meet for drinks in a couple of days.

It was a Thursday when my friend and I went to a local bar for a few drinks.  Another friend who also spent his summers up here and winters in the city (as I did at that time) joined us as well.

We had only just settled down with our drinks when my friend from our Town said: "I talked to J last night and he had the worst possible news."  He made this statement so casually that I thought he was going to say that J wasn't coming back to work at the Site for the upcoming season.  But that's not what he said.  What he said was this:

"A killed herself on Tuesday night."

I remember putting my glass down, looking him in the eyes, and just saying: "What?"

I was sure I must have heard him wrong.

And at that moment I got the whole story of what had transpired the summer previous, how A had tried then, and failed, mostly because J arrived home sooner than expected.

I went to A`s funeral in the city.  J sang, and spoke, and was beautiful.  In retrospect, I may have suspected at A`s funeral that I would marry that guy one day.

I called J a few days later and we hung out a couple of times in the few weeks before we were to head back up here for the 2000 season.  And once we got here we basically became inseparable.

The 2000 season was also the season that my friend - the daughter of the people I worked for - was dying of cancer.  Our whole company was in a state of crazy high emotion as we helped the family get through a season where they were trying to keep shows up and running while at the same time guiding their daughter to the end of her life.  J and I came together in a moment of mutual crisis.  But, as I have come to understand, it is these moments in life - when you have just faced or are just facing the reality of death - when you truly cut the bullshit and just live.  That summer of 2000 was intense, brutal, sad and euphoric.  And it was all those things every single day.

J and I didn`t know where our relationship was headed, but we did know that it was something.

That winter J stayed here and I went back to the city and we traveled back and forth to see one another almost weekly.  And then in April of 2001 I moved here and moved in with him.

And on the 22nd of August, 2002, we got married here.  In the Community Hall.

During the course of our marriage we have had the usual amount of ups and downs, but I would argue that we have had more than the average number of adventures.  J has forced me out of my comfort zone over and over.  I think I have shown him a lot about resolve and I have been able to help him with follow through on projects and ideas.  We have had a very good record of having break downs at opposite times so that one of us is weak while the other is strong.

And we had two babies.  And now the babies have turned into kids.  And J and I have gone from a couple to a family.  We have grown up stuff now, like jobs and a mortgage.  But in almost every way else we are still the same two people we were 12 years ago when we first, in the midst of chaos, loss and a mind blowing Northern Lights show, decided to give it a go.  I still look at my J and see the wounded 26 year old in the poofy shirt, but now I also see years of life lived with a man I still love with everything I`ve got.  I also see a man who has yelled at me when I needed to snap out of my stuck place of fear, a man who has beamed proudly at me from the audience when I opened a new show, a man who has been my champion through thick and thin.  I look at J and I see friend, boyfriend, husband, actor, director, provider, partner, Daddy to my Mommy.  And every day I am so proud to be his wife.

Momdentity

In the place we live seasonal work drives the whole town.  Yes, there are a few people with full time, year round jobs.  But mostly, we work in the summer, when the Site is in full swing.

I choose to work in the summers.  I could stay home, because my husband makes a good living for us all. The extra money is really helpful, but it is not my main reason for working.   I work because the Theatre is one of the places my heart can sing, and one of the places my soul lives.  I work because it brings me joy, fulfillment, profundity.  I perform because it brings to my life moments of deep connection with others through the ritual of storytelling.  Those are the big reasons.  The other truth is I choose to work in the summers because, for three and a half months, I get to regain my sense of identity - the one the world loves to take away from me the moment I put on my mom face.

I had my twins when I was 42, almost 43.  I had 42 almost 43 years to establish who I am.  I have a very strong sense of me.  I went through all of my "finding myself" years.  I tried on personas and jobs and ideas that didn't fit quite right, or at all, and I altered and discarded and stripped away and added to and by the time I became a mom I was cooked and ready.  So, I was really unprepared for what happened to my identity when my kids were born.

I have achieved many things of which I am very, very proud.  I have written and produced and performed in shows.  I have shown my art in galleries, I have been published, I have an MA.  But the second I became someone's mom the outsider's view of me changed.  For all the lip service we pay, in our society, to honouring and cherishing mothers, the absolute reality is, as with most if not all female specific roles, it is really NOT honoured that much at all.

Let me give you a little exercise:

Imagine a woman walking along a sidewalk in your town pushing a double wide stroller.  One of her kids is acting up, she is desperately trying to take a sip of her latte, she is wearing exercise clothes, and she is kind of in your way.

You're already irritated by her, right?  She is a soccer mom , a stroller mom, a latte mom.  She doesn't have a job and she lives off her rich husband, and her kid is a brat and she is in your way.  You roll your eyes and shake your head a bit as you pass her.

Now imagine a man walking along a sidewalk in your town pushing a double wide stroller, trying to sip a latte, one kid acting up, exercise clothes, in your way.

You think he's cute, don't you?  He's got a fabulous job and he is taking some time away from it to be a parent - he is awesome and adorable and really, it's not that big a deal to step out of his way.  You probably smiled at him as you passed.  He is a great dad.

Don't even try to tell me you don't have these different reactions to parents depending on their gender.  Because I won't believe you.

The second I walk out with my kids anyone who does not know me sees this: she's a mom.  Everything else about me evaporates.

The woman who is watching my kids a few days a week this season is ridiculously accomplished.  She is also over 40 and has a toddler and a baby.  She and I have had some really wonderful bitch sessions about our struggles with how motherhood, for all of its wonders and joys, has also diminished us.  Of course, we are really not allowed to say that.  We are supposed to talk only of the profound ways becoming a mom has altered us and made us the ultimate versions of the female ideal.  But there is a big, giant, obvious truth that we are just not supposed to talk about -  becoming a mother has made some parts of our lives lesser than they were before.

So...what is the point of this post?  Stay with me.  I'll get there.

My wonderful friend who takes care of my kids a few days a week had to go away for a while last week.  Now, my Mother in Law is no longer able to fill in when we cannot find childcare (she has not completely recovered from the massive setback a July bladder infection brought on, and by her own admission, she should not be caring for the kids right now).  My husband had to be out of town on business the same time as my friend was away, and at this crazy busy time he cannot take time from work anyway.  And I am in shows, which means if I am not there, the shows do not happen.  So days off are not an option for me.  So what was I to do?

Here's what I did: I sent messages to two really awesome moms in town, explained the situation, and they stepped right up without hesitation.  One mom asked if I could watch her adorable baby boy one day while she worked in exchange for her watching my kids on one of the days I was desperate for childcare, and the other mom just took the girls for two days.  This is what being in the mom club means.  These awesome, accomplished, whip smart, razor sharp witted women did not even pause before agreeing to take my kids off my hands even though it meant a couple of exhausting days for all of us.  Moms get what other moms are all about.  Moms know that you can't leave your kids with just anyone, and moms step up.

So, let's return to that stroller mom you rolled your eyes at earlier.  Here's the deal:  she hasn't slept well in three years.  She is trying to sip that latte because it will keep her awake and because it is one of the few things she will do for herself today - buy herself a big ol' cup of caffeine.  The reason she is in workout clothes is because they are comfortable, and none of her pre-pregnancy stuff fits right anymore, and she kinda doesn't give a shit what she looks like right now.  The kid who is acting up is going through this phase where she freaks out in public because she likes how much it embarrasses her mom.  So her mom is ignoring it because this might be the one tactic that gets them both through this stage. You guessed that this mom is me, right?  Okay, good.

I have three weeks left in the season.  I have three weeks left of loving being an actor and loving chatting with people after the show about the show.  I have three weeks left before the coach turns back into a pumpkin.  And I will be happy when the season ends, because I miss my girls so much when I am at work.  But as I take my last bow of the season I will grieve a little for the person I get to be in the summer.  Because that version of me is a version I worked damn hard to get to.

So here it is...my point: the next time you are tempted to write someone off as a stroller mom, think of all the other things she is - and think of all the times she has stepped up for other moms like my friends do for me.  And if her big stroller is in your way, think about what a tiny thing it is to just move over a bit for her...without even rolling your damn eyes.