Lisa Manterfield - Life Without Baby: Surviving and Thriving When Motherhood Doesnt Happen

Page by page, Lisa holds your hand with gentle, unflinching support, openly sharing her story with you, and giving you permission, guidance, and gentle queries that help in your journey of healing. I only wish that when people called their reproductive endocrinologists offices to tell them that they were drawing a line in the sand that the doctors were honor-bound by the Hippocratic Oath to send their patients a copy of this wonderful guidebook.

Tracey Cleantis, author of The Next Happy: Let Go of the Life You Planned and Find a New Way Forward

Many women end fertility workups and failed treatments lost in a maze of murky what ifs and lacking a sense of direction. With a calm, clear voice Lisa Manterfield distills hard-won knowledge into a much-needed framework. Readers will take away valuable insights andthrough useful exercisesfind a way to put competing desires and raw emotions into context and construct a path forward.

Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos, author Silent Sorority

A comforting book, full of practical help for women who wanted to have children and are trying to move past the overwhelming panic and grief that comes with realizing its not going to happen. I wish Id had a book like this when I was 40.

Sue Fagalde Lick, Author of Childless by Marriage

If you're newly coming to terms with this, or if you've been living this life for a decade or more, or if you have a friend or family member you want to help, you will find belonging, food for thought, and further hope for a future, wonderful life without baby.

Mali, Founder of No Kidding in NZ

I cant pinpoint the exact moment I first acknowledged that motherhood would not be part of my future. The idea started as a knot in the pit of my stomach, a fleeting thought of What if this doesnt happen for me? It put out little tendrils of doubt that manifested in sadness and frustration that I couldnt get this thing I wanted so much. But even as doctors shook their heads and test results showed over and over again that I could not conceive, the idea that I would never be a mother was unimaginable, and the possibility that it might not happen was drowned out by hope and my blind determination that, if I just kept trying, it would all work out in the end.

But it wasnt nave denial that kept me pursuing my dream of motherhood. It was the completely blank canvas of the unknown that lay beyond if I made the decision to give up. I had no idea what the future would hold for me, and it was easier to stay in that awful place of painful possibility than to cut my losses and step into an uncertain future. Despite being surrounded by loving friends and family, I felt completely lost and alone, carrying around with me a deep grief that had no outlet. Id never met anyone like me before, and I didnt know where to turn for help or even what kind of help I might need. I didnt even realize I needed help. I just pushed along on my own, taking it one day at a time, and trying to figure out how I was ever going to make peace with the enormous loss I felt. I honestly wasnt sure I ever would.

It was a long process that didnt come with a roadmap. There were no books to guide me through the process and no one to help me understand the sadness and confusion of losing something that Id never had in the first place. I wrote about what I was going through, first in a journal, then as exercises in a writers workshop, which became chapters of a memoir. When Im Taking My Eggs and Going Home: How One Woman Dared to Say No to Motherhood was published in 2010, I felt as if I was laying out all my shortcomings for the world to seeassuming anyone would actually read it. But a funny thing happened: As I began to write publicly, in the book and on my blog, I found a community of womeneach with her own unique storyall struggling with the same issues and trying to find acceptance in the life theyd been dealt. For the first time, I felt as if I wasnt stumbling through this alone.

Some of the women were like me and had dealt with infertility and never been pregnant, while others had suffered miscarriages or delivered stillborn babies. Some had dealt with other health issues that forced them into a decision not to pursue motherhood, and others were dusting themselves off after the blow of a failed adoption. Some watched their dreams of motherhood dashed as the search for the right mate kept turning up the wrong man. Others found themselves facing divorce or the death of a spouse, or a partner who had a change of heart about parenthood. Each of us had our own story about how we came to find ourselves watching the window of opportunity for motherhood slowly closeand yet we shared so many common issues. What I discovered through the blog was that, when I wrote openly about the tangled emotions and crazy thoughts I was having, others kept whispering Me too.

I realized how important it is to walk this path with others whove been there and how sharing my story helped me to feel normal again. I learned a lot from my own experience and from the comments of other readers on the blog. I came to understand the importance of grieving something that never existed, even if my immediate family and closest friends couldnt fully understand my loss. I learned the value of a compassionate community and the power of knowing I was not alone. I also learned to look forward toward a future I hadnt planned and find joy and passion in my life again. I learned not just how to survive, but how to thrive in a life without children.

Over the past several years, Ive written thousands of posts on this topic and put together a program of workshops to help other women. This book is the culmination of my journey and everything Ive learned. My hope is to share with you my experience and what Ive discovered from others, to offer a roadmap to guide you through that unknown territory of the uncertain future, and to make sure you dont have to go through your experience alone.

This book is divided into four parts. While Ive attempted to present the information in a logical sequence, the reality is that this is a messy process, and youll probably find yourself jumping around from one section to another and back again.

Part I of the book deals with letting go of the dream of motherhood, and its where this whole journey begins. Ill help you to determine when its time to call it quits and point you toward the first steps in coming to terms with that decision.

Part II will guide you through dealing with grief, especially when those around you might not always be understanding. As with any kind of loss, the grieving process can be long and unpredictable, so you may find yourself coming back to this section again and again. You might also be tempted to skip this section entirely, but I encourage you to at least read through it, even if youre not yet ready to dive into some of the more difficult exercises.