"Us" by David Nicholls

"Us" by David Nicholls has been in my TBR pile for a while, but I moved it up when I heard that a TV version will begin showing on PBS on June 20th. :)  (Apparently it's also been shown on CBC TV here in Canada -- which I totally missed while I was watching stuff on PBS! -- and is also available on the CBC Gem streaming service.) 

I read and (mostly) loved Nicholls' earlier book "One Day" (and reviewed it on this blog, 10 years ago now -- eeek! -- we never did go to see the movie version...), and I have another title of his, "Sweet Sorrow," in my TBR pile. 

"Us" is a classic tale of midlife crisis: a long-married couple facing their empty nest and struggling with the question of what comes next. As the book opens, our narrator, Douglas, is drifting off to sleep when his wife of 25 years, Connie, announces that their marriage has "run its course" and she's thinking of leaving him, once their teenaged son, Albie, heads off to college in the fall.

"I just feel that as a unit, as husband and wife, we did it," she tells Douglas. "We did our best, we can move on, our work is done... I want to feel this is the beginning of something new, not the beginning of the end." 

Before Albie's departure -- and presumably Connie's -- the family agrees to spend the summer together on a "Grand Tour" of Europe, which Douglas views as an opportunity to keep his marriage together -- and to forge a better relationship with his uncommunicative son. The narrative shifts back and forth between past and present (and sometimes it's difficult to tell what time frame we're in, at least at first...), with Douglas remembering the arc of his relationship with Connie, as they drag a reluctant Albie around the museums and art galleries of the Continent. 

I've seen similar scenarios among couples we know, when family life (and especially the mom/wife's life) revolves completely around the children for 18+ years -- and then the children leave home, and the couple is left staring at each other and thinking "Who ARE you??" and realize they have absolutely nothing in common any more. Sometimes they stay together, albeit leading rather separate lives, sometimes they go their separate ways. (Sometimes, of course, they wind up adjusting to this new chapter in their lives just fine.)  

But this idea that children are the only reason for a marriage, the only reason for two people to stay together...?? (and then when they leave...??) That's not my idea of what marriage is (or should be) all about -- has never been, even when we were hoping for children.  And when Connie talks about dreading "the hole" that will be left by Albie's departure, I couldn't help but think, HEY, what about those of us who can't have children?  We've had to confront that hole -- learn to deal with it and how to fill it (or try to fill it), while she was busy enjoying 18 years of motherhood??  

Anyway, there's plenty of humour to go along with the angst. Douglas's "brief history of art" (chapter 39), for example, had me cracking up. He's a biochemist, with a practical view of the world; Connie has a background in art, and Albie wants to be a photographer. 

 

And, of course, there's an ALI angle lurking in the wings (as there so often is!). (Potential spoiler alert!):  Douglas & Connie had another child before Albie, a daughter named Jane, who died shortly after birth. This is mentioned by Douglas early in the book, almost as a throwaway as he introduces himself to readers -- but (as you might guess) it pops up again later... 

I enjoyed "Us." It's a little long (416 pages in paperback), but well-written and absorbing. The parts about Jane were bang-on accurate. It took me less time than I'd estimated I'd need to finish it. Douglas is a thoroughly decent fellow, albeit perhaps a little obtuse at times (as many men are...!). I was rooting for him to succeed. It's a bittersweet story that ends on a hopeful note, albeit perhaps not exactly the way you might think. 

A solid 4 stars on Goodreads, possibly 4 & 1/2.  

This was Book #26 read to date in 2021 (and Book #3 finished in May), bringing me to 72% of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 13 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2021 tagged as "2021 books." 

Odds & ends

• COVID-19 updates:  
• My province (Ontario) has halted first-dose use of the AstraZeneca vaccine (which is, of course, the vaccine both dh & I got -- after being urged to take the first vaccine available to us), because of the clotting issue. Also cited: the fact that only a limited number of new AZ doses are scheduled to arrive soon, versus a ton of Pfizer on its way. Any AZ leftover/received will likely be used for second doses. (Ontario is not alone:  there are now 7 Canadian provinces that have suspended use of AZ.) 
• Now there is some question as to whether we'll be getting AZ for our second shots in mid/late July, or one of the MRNA vaccines (Pfizer or Moderna). (There won't be enough AZ for all of us who had first shots with it to get second shots within the current Canadian standard 16 week/four month time frame.) There's a study coming out of the UK soon on mixing vaccines that's supposed to help the authorities decide what to do. 
• I have no fears of a second AZ dose (the risk factor is supposedly much less with the second dose than the first, for whatever reason), and if they tell me that mixing is safe, I'll be happy to get a Pfizer or Moderna shot -- I am thankful for whatever I can get to become fully vaccinated. But quite frankly, I can't help but feel like a bit of a lab rat. :p  
• After reaching a pandemic high of 4,800+ new cases in a single day in mid-April, both our daily new case levels and the 7-day rolling average have dropped below 3,000 (on a couple of days recently, new daily cases have been in the low 2,000s). Those are still pretty high numbers, though, and hospital ICUs are still at capacity. 
• The stay-at-home order that went into effect in early/mid-April was due to expire next week, on May 20th -- just before our Victoria Day long weekend -- and rumours that it would be extended another two weeks, to June 2nd, were confirmed this morning. Which of course will not please the anti-lockdown crowd, but the evidence is clear that long weekends/holidays have fuelled big spikes in case numbers and contributed to the second and third waves we've experienced. I'm happy to keep things locked down until the numbers get a whole lot lower. 
• Jody Day was the guest on the podcast "A Certain Age" -- on the day after Mother's Day, no less!   Links to the podcast and a transcript here! 
• Journalist Jill Filipovic (who is childfree) recently mused on Twitter: 

I would really love to read more essays and op/eds from women (and men, too) who regret having children as early as they did, regret having as many as they did, or regret having children at all. There's not much about motherhood that remains publicly unexplored, but that does.

In her Substack newsletter, Filipovic admits "Perhaps I am naive, but I was surprised by the level of vitriol and blowback." (I wasn't.)  Her entire essay on the subject of maternal regret, the decision whether to have children (or not -- and if so, when) and why these subjects are so taboo, titled "The Things We Don't Discuss," is worth a read. 

• A couple more MDay-related articles/essays worth reading: 
• Another brilliant piece by Yael Wolfe, Asking Some Hard Questions About Mother’s Day. Sample passage: 

Try to tell someone you don’t like Mother’s Day and the response that elicits can be pretty harsh — especially for those who feel sad on and around Mother’s Day because they weren’t able to become mothers as they had hoped. That’s almost guaranteed to inspire a harsh response that lacks any sense of compassion. 

If you don’t like Mother’s Day because your mother has passed on or because you lost a child, you’re likely to get a little more sympathy, but there’s still not an open invitation to share freely.

(And this:)  

Does another woman’s pain about Mother’s Day actually take away anyone’s joy or ability to celebrate in a way that suits them? Can there not exist the nuance that a woman can feel grief around Mother’s Day and still support and encourage mothers? 

And do we really need to be so miserly about how we celebrate this holiday? Is it really necessary to insist that women who struggle with this day just sit down, smile, and shut up?

• Rebecca Solnit had a similar essay in the Guardian, expressing her "conflicted feelings" about Mother's Day.  "The holiday feels coercive, as though it tells us what to feel and what our experience was, and it leaves out those who don’t fit its template."  Yes to all that!  

A few words of advice

A friend from one of the childless forums I'm on was recently preparing to speak to a group of women who are trying to decide whether to walk away from infertility treatment. She asked us: what advice/suggestions/words of wisdom could we offer from our own experiences? 

I've probably shared some if not all of these tips/observations in previous posts over the years I've written here, but I'm not sure I've ever put them all together in one post before.  It's a huge subject, and everyone's experience/advice will be different, of course, but this is what I told her was helpful for me:  

• Take a realistic look at your situation. What has the cost of this journey been so far to your mental, physical, emotional and financial health? Can you continue without doing further damage to your health, your finances, your relationships? Could you handle another loss/failed cycle? -- are you prepared for that outcome? Realistically, what do you think your odds of success are?
• If you're not sure you're ready to stop yet, try taking a break for a while and then revisiting the subject once the dust has settled a little. While you're on break, try to reconnect with your partner and some of the things you used to enjoy before infertility took over your lives. We had pretty much decided to throw in the towel by the time our third medicated IUI failed (in June 2001), but then we headed off on a family vacation on the Oregon coast. Having some time to rest, relax and distance ourselves from treatment helped me know for sure that I couldn't do this any more... I was done.
• Perhaps discuss your options with a counsellor/therapist. (One who is familiar with infertility/childlessness/loss & grief issues can be especially helpful.) We did this as we were heading into treatment and then again as we were heading out, and I am so glad we did. She did not try to talk us into continuing treatment, or push adoption as an alternative. She treated childless living as a valid option, and asked what we thought a family of two would look like for us.
• Think about what a life without children would look like -- the positive things you could do with your time, money and energy, as well as the things you'll be missing out on (which we tend to dwell on).  My dh & I knew a good life without kids was possible, because we'd been having one already, before ttc took over our lives. :)  We looked forward to doing more of the things we already enjoyed doing together: dinners out, going to the movies & theatre, travel, spending time with extended family. We immediately knew that if we weren't going to have kids, we were going to try to pay off our mortgage as quickly as possible and retire early. (We both wound up losing our jobs before we had the chance to retire on our own terms, but with no mortgage and no children to support, and having saved some money in the years since we stopped treatment -- and having rolled with a few punches in the past, i.e., infertility & pregnancy loss! -- we were much better prepared to cope than some of our colleagues who still had families and mortgages to support.) 
• The counsellor also told us "I know this is going to sound completely crazy, after everything you've been doing to try to have a family, but consider going on birth control. It's the only thing that will remove that nagging little voice in the back of your head that says 'maybe this will be the month!' " I'll admit we did not follow that piece of advice -- but I know some women who have, and I do see the wisdom in it. 
• Find other childless women who can support you in this transition. There are SO many more resources, online & in "real life" now than there were 20 years ago when I was facing this decision -- blogs, forums, social media, podcasts, books (and you'll find some suggestions on the pages and in the sidebars of this blog). I actually started lurking on a few childless living forums/message boards, long before we made our final decision. Knowing there were other women out there struggling with the same situations and issues made a huge difference for me! 
• Finally, remember: this takes time. You're not going to flip a switch and everything will immediately be sunshine & roses. Rome was not built in a day, etc. etc. You've spent an entire lifetime thinking you were going to be a mother someday -- you're not going to reverse a lifetime of hopes, plans and expectations overnight. But over time, it DOES get easier. It might not be the life you planned or expected, but there IS a good life to be had without children! ❤

Do you have any advice to add?? 

*** *** *** 

On a somewhat related note, Mel at Stirrup Queens flagged a recent article in Vox from Ann Davidman, a "parenthood clarity mentor," who helps people to decide whether to try to have children at all. Some of her advice might also be helpful for people going through infertility. 

#MicroblogMondays: Small pleasures & annoying things

 Small pleasures: 

• Seeing Little Great-Nephew (soon to be 18 months old) this past weekend (stay-at-home order notwithstanding...) for the first time in over a month, and basking in all the cuteness. :)  (It was just BIL & SIL at home with him, the front screen door and balcony doors were both open for air circulation, all the adults have had our first vaccines, and BIL is the only one of us still out working, so we took a calculated risk.) 
• Bonus: Seeing the dog too. :)  
• Bonus: Getting out of the house!! after spending most of the past month in the house. :p 
• Finishing yet another book (reviewed here) and watching my Goodreads Reading Challenge total grow closer to my goal. :) 
• Easy crockpot chicken & dumplings (comfort food!) for yesterday's dinner.  

Annoying things: 

• WAY too many grey, dreary, cloudy (sometimes rainy) days lately.  :(  
• Seeing/reading about fully vaccinated people in the States travelling, venturing out into bars and to places like Disney World and getting to hug their moms on Mother's Day, while things here are (still) in such a mess. :(   Those kinds of scenes are still a long way off here... 
• Knowing our current stay-at-home order is due to expire on May 20th -- just before our Victoria Day long weekend -- and not trusting our provincial government to make the right call and extend it for another few weeks. :p  (New case numbers are starting to decline, but they're still pretty high, and the hospital ICUs are still pretty jammed. I heard an estimate today that it will take something like THREE YEARS to clear up the backlog of surgeries that have been postponed...)   
  
• Coming up to 9 weeks since our last haircuts, and my scraggly hair is starting to get pretty annoying again... 
• (I've said it before and I will say it again:  Wearing masks everywhere? No problem. Staying home for weeks on end? No problem. Staying away from malls and restaurants for more than a year?  Can do!  But going without regular haircuts??  Heeellllpppppp....)

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here. 

"Sorrow and Bliss" by Meg Mason

I don't remember where I first heard about "Sorrow and Bliss" by Meg Mason. It may have been when someone suggested it might be a potential read for the Gateway Women book club. We haven't read it there (yet?) but I picked it up myself earlier this month. 

I've heard/read comparisons made between this book and Bridget Jones's Diary, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine and Sally Rooney's novels -- all of which I've also read. I'd say the comparisons are both vaguely apt and not quite right at the same time. "Sorrow and Bliss" is funny and witty, full of pointed observations and some amazing writing -- but it's also sad (sometimes overwhelmingly so). I felt like there was a dark cloud hanging over (almost) the entire book -- just as a dark cloud perpetually hangs over the life of Martha, our narrator/protagonist.  

As the novel begins, 40-year-old Martha has just broken up with Patrick, her husband of 8 years and friend since they were teenagers, and moved back into her childhood home with her eccentric parents (an alcoholic artist mother and a struggling poet father). The bulk of the novel is an episodic look back on the events and tangled web of relationships that led her to this point in her life.  

Martha describes how a "bomb" went off in her head when she was 17, and how things were never the same afterwards. The "bomb" is never clearly identified (there's an author's note at the end of the book, indicating that Martha's diagnosis, treatment, etc., is entirely fictional), but it's obvious that she's had an almost-lifelong struggle with some form of mental illness.  She longs for a baby -- her uber-fertile sister Ingrid has four (!) -- but a doctor tells her that her diagnosis and medications are not compatible with pregnancy, and so she tells everyone she does not want children. Late in the book, she receives an unexpected new diagnosis, which changes her life. 

The melancholy mood that permeates this novel is lightened/tempered by a  hopeful ending, and a wonderful cast of supporting characters. I particularly loved Martha's father;  her kind, sweet, patient husband Patrick; her hilarious sister Ingrid;  her former boss and kind friend Peregrine; and the wealthy and domineering Aunt Winsome, who bankrolls the entire dysfunctional family and attempts to hold them all together. 

4 stars on Goodreads.  There's a lot to chew on here. Overall, I loved it and would recommend it, but you may find some of it difficult, depending on your frame of mind!  

This was Book #25 read to date in 2021 (and Book #2 finished in May), bringing me to 69% of my 2021 Goodreads Reading Challenge goal of 36 books. I am (for the moment, anyway...!) 13 books ahead of schedule. :)  You can find reviews of all my books read to date in 2021 tagged as "2021 books." 

More odds & ends (pre-Voldemort Day)

• Not sure what I did to deserve this, but why do I suddenly have Pampers diaper ads popping up in all my social media accounts??  And just before Voldemort/MDay, too... Ugggghhhhhh....  :p 
• Speaking of V/MDay, Civilla Morgan at the Childless Not By Choice podcast has posted a lovely special episode full of practical advice and encouragement on that subject. It's only about a half hour long, but it packs in a ton of wisdom from 10 childless & childfree women on how they manage this difficult weekend. Some of them will be familiar to many of you, perhaps some not. Worth a listen! 
• Also speaking of V/MDay, a Facebook friend flagged a post from the writer Anne Lamott in which she reproduced an old essay of hers, "Why I hate Mother's Day."  I know I've read it before but not sure I've shared it here -- at any rate, worth a reshare!  
• Anne prefaced her Facebook share of this essay by saying: 

Here is my annual Mother’s Day post, ONLY for those of you who dread the holiday, dread having strangers, cashiers and waiters exclaim cheerfully, mindlessly, “Happy Mother’s Day!” when it is a day that, for whatever reason, makes you feel deeply sad. I told Neal last year that I didn’t think I’d run it, because I always get so much hate mail, and he said, “It’s never stopped you before.” 

This is for those of you who may feel a kind of sheet metal loneliness on Sunday, who had an awful mother, or a mother who recently died, or wanted to be a mother but didn't get to have kids, or had kids who ended up breaking your hearts. I wrote about how I’m still getting over having had Nikki as a mother, and how I miss her, 20 years after her passing, in Dusk Night Dawn. If you love the day and have or had a great mom and happy, highly successful kids, maybe skip this:

• A great article from Forbes (!) about "miscarriage: the costly business taboo" -- the costs to businesses, the value of greater recognition and more compassionate treatment of employees who have experienced pregnancy loss, and practical things employers and managers can do to help. 
• This is a gorgeous piece by Yael Wolfe, a childless woman writing about the children she has mothered over the years. 
• Quote: "Too often, I feel the contributions women make to children who are nor their own are dismissed and ignored. But I’d like to see that change — to see our culture celebrate all expressions of maternal love. All of it is worthy."
• The New York Times had a recent article/photo essay about a photographer in Berlin who is photographing and telling the stories of consciously childfree women.  These women are childfree by choice, but I think there's still lots here that not-by-choicers can relate to. (Some interesting comments too.) 
• This article from the NYT, published a few weeks ago, tells the story of a couple in their 60s who thought they had put their IVF treatments behind them nearly 20 years ago. Then they got a letter -- and a bill -- from their clinic. (Beware the comments section.) 
• Another NYT article (& podcast):  U.S. birth rates are plummeting, and the pandemic hasn't helped. 

“It could be good news if women feel like they have more control over their fertility,”  [Caroline Sten Hartnett, a sociologist at the University of South Carolina] said. “But it is not good news if having a child is just becoming harder than it was because jobs are more precarious, and families just can’t make it work in a minimally functional way.”

But this comment, from a 29-year-old woman interviewed at the end of the article, set my teeth on edge, with the tired old assumption that postponing having children (or not having them at all, for whatever reason) is "selfish." 

“I’m feeling a little bit selfish,” Ms. Jones said. She said only one of her friends had a child.

“Everybody in my friend group is saying, ‘When is the right time to let go of that selfishness?’” she said. “We are all putting it off.”

• I did like this take on the population decline from Jill Filipovic on her Substack newsletter: "The Great Birth Rate Freak-Out." (I enjoy Jill's writing/newsletter in general!) 
• Although they allude to the gap between the number of children women say they want and the number they are actually having, neither of these two pieces mentions rising infertility rates as a factor in declining birth rates. If governments truly believe that falling birth rates are a problem, why not provide policies and funding to ensure that those who would like to access infertility treatment can do so without going bankrupt (while recognizing that ARTs do have their limits and won't work for everyone)?  

Childless mother*

*(a name I considered giving to this blog when I was starting it. Also the name of a poem I found long ago.) 

I've been pondering the curious place I find myself in as a childless mother -- a woman without children, who actually/technically is a mother -- as we approached International Bereaved Mother's Day (last Sunday), and now in the dreaded lead-up to the "main event" this Sunday. 

On the one hand:  I am a mother -- a bereaved mother. I was pregnant, for 26 weeks  anyway. I went through labour. I gave birth. But I went through it knowing that my daughter was already dead in my womb;  she never took a breath. (Nobody wants to hear MY birth story...!)  I held her for an all-too-brief time that evening, staring into her wee red face, then handed her over to the nurse to take to the morgue, and I never saw her again. 

On the other hand:  I am childless. I am a parent -- but I didn't get TO parent. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. I did not have a "rainbow baby." I have no living children. I will never be a grandmother either.  I won't have any children to take care of me as I age. 

Another bereaved mom on one of my childless forums called it "having a foot in both camps."  It's an awkward place to be in, sometimes. After my daughter's stillbirth, I found comfort in the pregnancy loss community (both online and in a "real life" support group). All the pregnancy loss groups I belong(ed) to were (and to some extent still are) a place where I feel free to be the mom that I am (however limited that experience of mothering must be), where I can feel comfortable talking about my daughter and what happened to us. 

But many of the bereaved moms there were already mothers of living children. And/or the vast majority of them went on to have "rainbow babies" -- sometimes two or three of them. I've watched their kids grow into young adulthood (high school, university, graduate school, work...) while Katie remains frozen in time as my one, forever baby. At get-togethers, I sat in silence while they chatted and compared notes about their growing families. Even among these people, who knew my pain better than anyone, I would occasionally get "bingoed" with comments like, "You want to take mine?"  (Seriously?!)  I hesitated to join in when they complained about how busy they were, because of course, how busy could I be if I didn't have children??  

Once we realized there would be no more babies for us, I began to look for similar support among women who were also childless not by choice. And I found some -- but I found myself treading carefully there too. As Jody Day of Gateway Women has said, the room called childlessness has many doors. Some women, like me, are childless because of loss and/or infertility, but there are many, many other reasons why a woman might not have children. To name just a few: mental and physical health issues, husbands who already have families from previous relationships, husbands who don't want (more) children, no husbands or boyfriends to have children with... 

I know some childless women envy me my experience of pregnancy.  And while I understand that, and while I would never trade those 26 weeks, I would never wish a pregnancy like mine on anyone -- the wild rollercoaster ride of emotions, gradually overshadowed by a growing sense of fear and dread --  nevermind the way the whole thing abruptly ended.... 

Some childless women I know identify intensely as mothers to their lost children -- even those they only knew as embryos in an IVF petri dish. Others rarely mention their pregnancy(s) or the children they never got to parent. Some post faithfully on social media about International Bereaved Mother's Day and Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day/Month, but nothing about World Childless Week;  with other friends, it's the opposite. 

There is no "right" or "wrong" way to be a childless mother, obviously. I just find it interesting that some people seem to identify more with one part of the equation than the other. I think sometimes it's easier/more socially acceptable to identify with/focus on the "mother" part of the equation than the "childless" part.   

I try to remember my audience and post/speak with care, depending on where I am and who I'm addressing. Obviously, this blog is my personal space and I write about my whole experience, both as an "older" (gulp) childless woman and as a childless mother. Some days I feel my childlessness more keenly; sometimes (like this week) I'm more in mother mode, thinking of my brief pregnancy and the little girl who would now be a young woman. But I'm always both.  

If you are a childless mother like me, can you relate to this experience of having "a foot in both camps?"