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Neither of us had realized how much of our lives had been consumed by infertility until we chose to live childfree. Suddenly we found energy for doing things. I began quilting, and Mike began to work in earnest on his dissertation. We became more active in community and church activities. We felt that once more we were in control of our lives - and could do something with them.
There were two more important milestones on our road to a childfree resolution. The first occurred almost a year after we made our decision. One Friday night, at the beginning of what promised to be a romantic weekend, I came home with a package of contraceptive sponges. And Mike's reaction was, "Yes, that's a good idea." We seemed to have arrived together at the point where it was time to exert that final bit of control over our reproductive lives. We know that Mother Nature's sense of humor is just bizarre enough to wait until my fortieth birthday to grant the wish we long ago stopped wishing for, and we didn't intend to let her do that. We also realized that even though we had decided to live childfree, there was always that little bit of hope each month that I would not get my period, enough hope, though to hurt. Contraception was our declaration of independence from the cycle of hope and despair and for us, the final step in being childfree.
The second milestone came shortly after the first, when we were asked to speak at a RESOLVE chapter meeting about the childfree alternative. Preparing for the talk forced us to go back over our journey, step by step, which was a painful process. But it was only through that process that we began to understand what we had done, and we discovered that it seemed to make sense. We realized that choosing to live childfree is just as "successful" a way of resolving an infertility crisis as having a biological child or adopting. It is not a failure or resignation to fate; instead, it is an affirmation of who we are and of our ability to live full, productive, happy lives because of who we are. We discovered that we don't need children to be a family.
© Jean W. Carter and Michael P. Carter
Credits: Perspectives Press
