Birth Plan B

All that I could say while being lifted into the ambulance was "she can't come now, she can't come now." The doors closed and I could think of nothing but the little girl inside of me. I was in premature labor at 28 weeks pregnant. When I arrived at the hospital the paramedics rushed me down the hallway. As I lay on my side on the gurney to ease the pain, the look of concern was reflected in the strange faces of people that lined the emergency room. I stopped briefly at a desk to receive a bracelet that simply said "Kim."

A nurse and very young doctor were waiting in a room. As I answered their questions, more people and large machines arrived. They shouted at each other and to me. I was embarrassed. I apologized because I was not prepared. I told them that I was taking a birth class tomorrow. I would be prepared tomorrow but not today. They told me how to push. All that I could say was "I am sorry, I am sorry."

I remember looking at a clock on the wall and thinking about each contraction "this too shall pass." My daughter was born so fast. My dream was here. The doctor pushed on my stomach and placed the afterbirth in a bowl. I wanted to see it, to whisper goodbye to her twin lost at 9 weeks.

After I was taken to my postpartum room, the rush of adrenaline from the birth would not let me rest. I remember pacing the hospital room floor, alone and waiting to say goodbye to her. People in red flight suits would take her away again, to the nearest neonatal intensive care unit. When I saw her in that plastic box, I whispered through the cracks, "Hi, I am your mother."

The day still seems so surreal. From the ambulance ride to the local hospital, to the room full of strange doctors and nurses yelling overhead, the whole day seems like a foggy memory. When I do think about that day, I am able to focus on my daughter's faint cry and thick eyebrows that adorned her sweet face and connected her to me.

My daughter's birth day did not go like I had planned. In a few quick moments, I had learned to trust people that I had never seen before. I trusted them with all that I valued. They held my hand and told me what I needed to do. They took care of my daughter. They took care of me and I am so grateful.

Well, she did come that day. I was not ready and it was not what I expected. Life has not been what I expected but I love it just the same, and so I say of my daughter's birth story.

Kimberly Ross

Goodnight Moon

It's been a tough week. Two huge projects at work have left me stressed out and exhausted. And it's my son’s first week back to school as a newly minted first grader. He seems to be doing ok, but it's a major adjustment nonetheless, for both of us.

Our rituals soothe us, particularly at night after a long day. And for even more comfort, we've retreated into the past. This week's bedtime selections have been our old standbys, the board books I started reading to my son when he was an infant, the ones I still know by heart. A Color of His Own, The Runaway Bunny, Are You My Mother?, and tonight, Goodnight Moon. Although my son can read these books to me now, we both still enjoy it when I read aloud to him, it's part of the ritual.

We snuggle in together in his bed, me carefully lowering my head so I don't hit it against the top bunk. We enter into that great, green room with its telephone and balloon. "And a picture of…" I pause dramatically and then slowly turn the page. "…the cow jumping over the moon." "Yes! I KNEW it!" says my son in the tone of voice normally accompanying victorious athletes fist pumping in exhilaration. His relief is palpable. I wonder, does his busy brain truly think that the pages of a time-honored book change when we aren't looking, the familiar replaced by the new and the unknown? No matter. Tonight, the cow is jumping over the moon, the three little bears sit in their chairs and the old lady still whispers "hush." The stresses of the week fade away and all is right in our world.

Marsha

Child of my dreams

To the Child of My Dreams:

Since I was a very young child I’ve dreamed of holding you in my arms….looking into your face and seeing some of myself in you…watching you grow and develop some of my characteristics (good ones, hopefully). It seems now that that will not be the case, and I am extremely sad about that.

I’ve tried so hard to create you, but my body will not cooperate. Each of the nine times that I’ve tried, I could sense your presence with me…your little soul ready to come into being. I’ll never understand why it could not happen for me. Each time I was devastated and cried because I felt I had really lost you…even if you were only in my dreams.

Now it seems that I will say goodbye, but only to part of my dream. I need to mourn the loss of a biological connection to you. But, in the scheme of things, is that really such a big deal? So you may not have the same color eyes as I do, your hair may not be the same color as mine, but you will have the same amount of love from me…that’s a guarantee!

I hope to carry you inside of me…you have been given to me out of great kindness from a couple who has experienced the same devastation and loss that I have. I have to believe that somehow, someway, your soul will find its way to me…otherwise I don’t know how else I will find happiness again. Like the words from the song, “Somewhere, out there, if love can see us through. Then we’ll find one another, in that great somewhere out there.” I love you and always will, even if you are not to be!
Mommy

Too Old Too Fast?

By Nancy Nisselbaum

This summer, my 9-year-old son lets himself into our apartment after getting off the camp bus. He goes upstairs and plops his stuff down and calls me at work. I get home within an hour, so he’s not home alone for very long. He says he’s fine. He says he can handle it. His friends ask their parents why they aren’t being left home alone. He’s only cried twice.

Don’t ask how many times I’ve cried. How many times I’ve questioned the wisdom of this decision (which, honestly, has been based on monetary concerns but also factored in that he’s a very responsible boy who has handled being home longer than this—it’s the letting himself in part that makes me somewhat concerned). My son is self-reliant for his age. And he handles this responsibility with bravado. He has his own cell phone now—so he can call me when he gets home or I can call him while he’s on the bus. He empties his backpack daily and puts his wet towel and swimsuits in the dryer. He lies on the couch and watches television. It all sounds so innocuous.

Yet I feel torn. Am I growing him up too fast? Am I giving him responsibility that’s too old for his years? I know other 9-year-olds who are as independent, yet I know many more who are never left home alone—EVER!!!! And I don’t feel that’s right either. Kids need to start learning some form of independence, of being separated from mom and able to do stuff on their own. I’ve started this process slowly—leaving the house for 5-minute intervals, then lengthening those, then going to an evening meeting at my local synagogue.

But it was the two times that he cried, that he got scared because he couldn’t get in touch with me (once I didn’t hear the phone and once I was on the subway) that did me in. That raked me over the mommy coals and made me question my—our?—decision. This isn’t something I imposed on him. This is something we talked about and talked about and talked about—and still talk about. We considered various scenarios and he—we?—decided that he was able to handle this. So long as he could get in touch with me. He has the phone numbers of numerous friends and neighbors programmed into his phone, but there’s the embarrassment factor. He couldn’t call Dylan’s mom—he’d be too embarrassed, even though Dylan is never left home alone and when his mom drops Marshall off after picking him up from the bus of camp #2 (which doesn’t do door-to-door drop-off and pick-up as camp #1 does), she makes him talk to her on the cell phone while he goes up to the apartment in the elevator and locks the door.

Add into the mix that we’ve talked about afterschool in the Fall. He goes to the local Y, but we’ve—I’ve?—agreed that he can come home on Fridays by himself and left himself into the apartment. He still says he wants to do it, that he’s not afraid. But maybe I’m a little afraid. Afraid that he’s growing up too fast, that he’s 9 years old but taking on the responsibility of someone much older. Then, just to cap things off, I talk about getting a babysitter for the six nights a year I go to theater. And he looks at me and says, “Why do I need a babysitter? I can put myself to bed.” I calmly explain why that isn’t an option.

Am I growing him up too fast? I think back to my own childhood and realize I was walking to and from school by myself from first grade on. Were times all that different? I’m not sure. But my mom didn’t work when I was in grade school. When I got home, she was there. I’m newly re-employed after 13 months of unemployment. So much happened—so many transitions occurred for a boy who doesn’t like transitions—at the same time: I got a job, he started camp and started letting himself in, then my brother and his family came to visit from Israel and my nieces were staying in our apartment—in Marshall’s room, which meant he was displaced and had no place to call his own for two weeks—and then he started a new camp for two weeks. All events that make a person’s head spin.

I think he’ll be okay. I know he’ll be okay. But I want him to be able to say, “This isn’t working.” And at one point he did. When he cried the second time, I asked him if he wanted to go to Laura’s house after coming home from camp for the rest of the week. And he did. But now he’s back at camp #1 and letting himself him. And I have to be ready at 4:35 to answer his call. I wear my cell phone and make sure the volume is turned up.

Would I be going through this, I wonder, if I weren’t single? Maybe. If I made more money? Maybe. Am I growing him up too fast? Maybe. Is this working? Maybe. But for now, this is the way it is in our family. And for the most part, it’s working. Maybe we’re both growing up a little too fast. Maybe he’s evolving at exactly the right pace for him and I’m reacting like a typical mother—worrying that he’s growing up too fast. We’ll have to see how it all pans out and realize that no decision is ever irrevocable.

My Only Regret is that I Waited so Long

I've always wanted to have children, always wanted to mother. I've been an au pair to other families, spent time with all of the kids of friends and family. I hoped and assumed, of course, that I would have a family of my own when the time came.

I suppose that's the tricky part - that time thing. Like many, I've been in a series of long relationships that have not withstood the tests of time. A long medical training that I started when I was twenty-eight ended ten years later. And there I was, at thirty-eight, for the first time seriously thinking of having a child on my own.

So many questions came to mind - how could I do it? How could I make it work in time and money and love? And most importantly, would it be, could it be fair to bring in child into the world who would not know his or her biological father? These are tough questions, and every SMC I know has struggled with them. But at the time, now almost nine years ago, I was just plain sad that I did not have a partner to undertake this endeavor. What I had always imagined - love, marriage, baby - hadn't happened for me yet, and there was a melancholy quality to my view of single motherhood. I knew that a heavy heart could not care for a infant or child, could not offer the kind of life I would want to give to my child. So I waited. Threw more baby showers. Held more babies. More time went by, another relationship developed and sadly faltered around the issue of having children.

Single again and now pretty secure in my career as a psychiatrist, I asked those tough questions again, and decided to move. It took about a year from the time of my decision to try to have a child to pregnancy. A long, scary year filled with the statistics I knew about, somewhere in the back of my brain (after all, I was in medicine) but had really avoided. After some tough sessions with a wonderful reproductive endocrine group, I decided to jump right in and try IVF. The chances of having a healthy baby using my own, 43 year-old eggs, they told me, were about 7% (who knows where that number came from, but I swear that's what I remember).

There is much I could say about the decision to proceed given the tremendous cost IVF and low odds of success, about the process of two rounds of IVF; these can be tough, tough times for women and couples. But there was a meaningfulness in it for me, because I was finally doing something that I had wanted for so long.

Pregnancy was easy, and that was just plain good fortune - those hormones were just right for me! I received warm and enthusiastic support from friends, family and professional colleagues. My daughter was almost born on the Bay Bridge, because, the obstetrician announced admiringly, I had the uterus of a twenty-year old.

I have the warmest memories of pregnancy and delivery, which is probably both a statement about dumb luck and the distortion inherent to memory. My daughter is now two and a half years old, and my only regret is that I waited so long. Life is very, very full.

There is much I could say about the experience of parenting, and parenting without a partner. I am incredibly fortunate to be so supported in my professional life as well as my personal world. My professional life is very, very busy: days and nights seem to fly by. But every parent of babies and toddlers struggles to fit everything in. I had years in which time was spent on myself - this very different time is filled with a joy and a wonder that all the night life, swell San Francisco cuisine and great culture couldn't really bring me.

To do it all again - I'd still prefer to have had a partner, I struggle with how my daughter and I will discuss and understand her biological father (an anonymous sperm donor). But this is absolutely the sweetest time of my life. And this little girl - her own kind of miracle.

Pamela S

Child of mine: a story of embryo donation

For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be a mom. I started babysitting when I was just 9 years old and continued to do so through college. I have always loved children and "borrowed" my friends’ children on a regular basis. When I was in my mid-20s, I would often say that if I got to be 35, wasn’t married, and had no prospects for marriage, I was going to go to a sperm bank and use a turkey baster. Fast forward 10 years: Me, at age 35, not married and not involved with anyone. And so my journey to a child began.

Fast forward another 2 years. I had moved back to my hometown so I could be near my family, bought a house, lost weight, and was on the brink of my first donor insemination. I was beyond excited!! The morning of my insemination, I took a picture of myself, my dog, and the tank that held the sperm and labeled it as my first family photo. Little did I know that disappointment lay ahead.

After three negative natural cycles, I proceeded to Clomid, which yielded three more negative cycles. During the final one, I had some testing done and found that my chance of conceiving a child with my own eggs was less than 4 percent. To say I was devastated is an understatement. After two days of crying, I made an appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist who confirmed the news and also felt there was a good chance that I had endometriosis. A laparoscopy confirmed and corrected the problem.

But now I was reenergized. I was sure that I would conceive after going through all that. After three failed cycles of injectible fertility medications, I couldn’t take anymore. I had been in counseling after getting the news of my elevated FSH but had stopped after the laparoscopy. After the third failed injectible cycle, I called the counselor again and she saw me right away. She prescribed an antidepressant medication. I didn’t want to take it, but I could barely get out of bed in the morning and knew that I had to do something.

I attended an all-day adoption seminar put on by a local RESOLVE chapter. One session was on “donor embryo”—it changed my life. Couples that have embryos left over from an IVF cycle have the option to donate those embryos (depending on the clinic) to another couple or single person who wishes to experience pregnancy and birth. The cost is much less than a donor egg/donor sperm cycle. I found a clinic that had donated embryos available and sent in my application.

I had a phone consultation with one of the physicians and waited for the list of embryos to arrive. The list tells you how many embryos are available from a particular couple, whether there was a third party involved, and some basic information (height, weight, hair color, eye color, profession, and ethnic background) about the man and woman who created the embryos. When the list arrived, I made my choices and then waited to hear if they would be donated to me.

The phone call came in about two weeks. I had been given 10 embryos from three different couples! In my haste to become a mom, I decided that I wanted them all. After discussing my decision with my counselor, I decided it would be preferable if all of the embryos came from one couple. This way, I would have at least some basic medical information for my child. I let the clinic know my decision and waited for the next list to arrive.

During that time, I did some intense grieving over the loss of a biological child. My counselor was helpful and supportive. I spent the majority of my sessions with her in tears. It was the only place I felt I could truly let go and just cry. I also did some artwork at that time to express how I was feeling. The new list of embryos arrived and I, again, made my choices and waited for the phone call. Luck was on my side and I was offered 9 embryos….all from the same couple! I accepted them and was planning on having them transferred as soon as possible.

Just prior to having my transfer, I met with my counselor and told her that I wanted to have some sort of ritual to let go of the dream of a biological child an open myself up to whatever soul was to come to me. She thought it was a great idea and said that she would be happy to be a part of it. I planned the ritual, made a program, and asked my pastor and a close friend to be there. I set up a little altar, lit a candle, and had 9 balloons to release as a representation of the nine times that I had tried to conceive. My therapist read a letter I had written to “the child of my dreams,” and the others spoke and read some special things that they had chosen. The service was very healing for me.

Five days later, 4 of the 9 embryos (those that survived the thaw) I had chosen were transferred into me. An incredible sense of peace came over me at that point, and I considered myself pregnant until proven otherwise. Nine days later, my blood test confirmed that I was, indeed, pregnant. I was elated!!

I now watch my beautiful daughter and am in awe of the miracle that she is. It’s hard to believe that I grieved so intensely over the loss of a biological connection. She couldn’t be anymore mine. The resemblance between her and my mom (when my mom was young) is uncanny. I just know that she is the child who was waiting for me all along. I am incredibly grateful every day for the couple that enabled me to have this incredible gift in my life.

How We Came To Be

Four years ago this month I conceived my first child by a non-medicated, interuterine insemination. I hadn’t been a Thinker for long. Or perhaps, I had been a Thinker my whole life. The certainty that I would never marry and have children was something that haunted my thoughts since I was in my early twenties. Until I separated the two life events, becoming a mother seemed all but hopeless. I thought about it only in terms of what would never be.

For over a decade, I mourned the loss of what came so easily to most women: a family. Once I gave myself permission to research the possibilities of single motherhood, things happened very quickly. Within a month I had read everything I could find on the topic. I began contacting adoption agencies. The official responses were consistently negative. A social worker at a domestic agency said to me, “No birthmother will ever choose you.” She referred me to an international agency. That agency agreed to take me on but later contacted me to say that their published fees would double since I was single.

I began to worry that if I spent all my time and savings on an unsuccessful adoption attempt, I wouldn’t be able to pursue other options. I quickly changed gears and contacted several fertility centers. I wanted to find a clinic that not only accepted single women as patients (some do not), but welcomed them. I found a wonderful doctor with a warm and caring staff. The positive reception and communication was a wonderful change from the pessimistic adoption agencies. These people believed I could and would be a mom.

When I became pregnant that summer, I had a hard time believing it. It was a thrilling secret and a terrifying concept. I had wanted my life to change and now, well, was it ever! More than once, I compared my situation to having to run in order to catch a departing train, hopping aboard seconds before it left the station. Once safely seated, I wondered if I was headed in the right direction. What was this train’s destination? Where would we end up? By the start of my second trimester, I was certain I had taken the correct route to motherhood. I’ve never looked back since. I did do a little more Thinking, though. Two years later, I returned to the station for another passenger.
Lara at www.bubbynme.blogspot.com

It's Just a Date

How pursuing my dream of having a child made dating more fun.

I had often assumed that some women, unlike me, were able to date lightheartedly. Unconcerned with a hoped-for long-term outcome, these women could treat a date as just a date. They found a way to relax and have a good time. These women, I further suspected, were free to be themselves with their dates and so were the ones finding the right partner.

As these musings might indicate, my single dating life was often riddled with worry. When dating a man, I was rarely fully present. My mind ran the back story. I’d size him up, then rocket mentally into an imagined future. Is he the right fit for me, and I for him? Is he commitment-phobic? Am I? Are we wasting our time?

Of course, sometimes, there was true hope and love. But the stifling “what-ifs” commanded my attention. Revelations. Then about a year ago, a crossroads moment appeared. My father was in the hospital, in what would turn out to be the last month of his life. I was about six months past the most painful breakup of my life, and about six months away from 40. While chatting with a friend during a business trip to New York, I blurted out to her, apropos of nothing, “I think I’m going to become a mom on my own. Do you know anyone in our field who’s done this and how on earth they did it??” She grinned at me. The biggest, most joyful grin I have ever seen. I knew in that moment—we were in a bar, but I’ll take revelation where I can get it—that motherhood was where I was headed. That I was going to do this.

For many women, the decision to become an SMC comes with intense mourning for “the dream,” that happy imagining most little girls grow up with of a traditional marriage and family—or whatever version fires one’s personal aspirations. Giving up the dream was one of my roadblocks. I tried to focus on letting go only of the order in which the dream would take shape, but it was hard. In my pained and somewhat perfectionist heart, I was letting go of ever finding love, before or after motherhood.

And for a while, I lived this out. In the initial trying months of fertility tests and treatments, dating was the last thing on my mind. Regular appointments with the vaginal ultrasound technician can do that to a girl. My thoughts were directed at my ovaries and the vials in my doctor’s deep freeze.

As difficult as my trying to conceive phase has been so far—including unexpected surgery and other things—the rebirth I first felt when I committed to becoming an SMC has remained. Out from under that pressure to find a mate, I have made space for lots of other types of fulfillment in my life. I’ve learned to better appreciate my friends, and I enjoy them more than ever before. No longer does every sighting of a traditional-appearing family cause envy and anxiety. My focus and confidence at work has improved, even as I mentally rehearse methods of fitting a child and my career together. The last thing I expected at the (previously dreaded) age of 40 was to blossom, but that is exactly what I felt. More than 20 years of dating and not quite getting what I wanted and hoped for were over. I was going to give myself what I wanted. It was a new era. Opening Up.

In addition to all this, my feelings about men have become delightfully uncomplicated—for the first time in my adult life. Obsessing over which class or volunteer cause might have the highest male/female ratio was no longer occupying my thoughts. I’ve even found that I’ve been getting a lot of male attention—without really trying. Again, not what I expected at 40, and certainly not what I expected in the pursuit of SMChood.

Pregnancy and early motherhood won’t easily accommodate dating, and, no doubt the grounding experience of parenthood will temper the near-euphoria I often feel these days. But I am, for now, while in the trying to conceive stage, enjoying an unexpected gift. I no longer look across the dinner table at a man and size him up as a future partner. I simply size him up as a person that evening. He need not meet my dreams of “the one,” although if this happened by chance, great. If he and I stay in touch, I just let those encounters add to my impression of him. Unknowns regarding his (and my) commitment potential can remain unknown unless he and I decide otherwise. This feels more natural and human than any other moment in my dating life. I can be my authentic self, “rules” be damned. Some women friends say I am finally getting to “date the way a man dates.” Whether that’s true or not, I certainly feel like I am more fun to be with. I am finally one of those women who can treat a date as just a date.

Perhaps most important, and ironically, I feel much better equipped now to recognize who is or is not a potential “keeper” (perhaps a divorced dad I meet with my child on a playground, or maybe someone I’m dating now, who knows?) than I was before I was regularly in touch with a sperm bank. I feel truly romantic on the dates that I do have. Go figure.

What seemed at times to be one of the darkest moments of my life, letting go of a life plan I had held close since childhood, may yet yield more hope than I ever would have imagined. There are so many side benefits when you give yourself what you truly want.
Joanne H.

Unsure, Unsettled, Undecided

From Unsure, Unsettled, Undecided:
The pendulum of my SMC decision-making has most recently swung toward NO WAY!! How could anyone ever do this? How could I ever do this? NO, NO, NO!!! I had been more positive about choosing to be an SMC, but I haven’t been able to shake this place I am now in. I could use some feedback about the different stages you have gone through as well as some of your thoughts and feelings about how one can do something seemingly so emotionally, physically, and financially difficult as having and raising a child alone. At the moment, only the model of two parents together works for me, no matter how I turn it around. I would like to get back to a more open place about it.

Dear Unsure:
First of all, you don’t have to do this and that’s okay. Second of all, why do you think it’s so hard? Your fellow SMCs aren’t superwomen. We’re bright, committed, and fairly independent, but we’re not the CEOs who run the world or Mother Teresas or anything like that. All kinds of women do it and do it well enough. Maybe you should hang out with some moms and their kids of various ages to get a sense of what it’s like.

Has something recently happened that may have caused your thinking to take a turn? Maybe a comment from your family or a sudden realization that something you had not previously thought of may be unmanageable? We’ve all woken in the middle of the night thinking “What will I do in the middle of winter when I have to shovel the snow and get the car warmed up in time to go to work? Who will watch the baby? How can I possibly manage this!”

Then, we joined SMC and started reading and participating in our local groups and on the email groups. We read the "Single Mothers by Choice" book and raided the library and checked out every book on marriage, single parenthood, breast pumping at work, etc. We started discussing our fears with friends who helped come up with solutions.

This is it is a process. Don’t dig into anything you’re not yet ready to handle. If you are informed as much as possible, you’ll be in the best place to make the decision that is right for you. In the meantime, when that wave of terror hits you, be aware, YOU ARE NOT ALONE! Many of us have been through it and come out the other side.

Realize that you are on the horns of a dilemma. To be brutally honest, if you are in your late-30s or early 40s, it is unlikely you will find a partner in time to conceive a biological child from a fertility/biological clock perspective. Are you willing to forgo a biological child? You could potentially achieve pregnancy using a donor egg and your partner’s sperm. Or are you willing to become a parent through adoption. Try to pinpoint what bothers you most about being an SMC and focus on that. Find a good therapist to help you think this through. You need to be at peace with whatever decision you make.

Perhaps you might take six months and think about bring an SMC every day, every minute, in every situation—sick, on a date, happy, crazy busy with work. Whatever is going on in your life, think and ask, “How would this be different as a mom? How would I handle this situation?” Some things may appear to be major challenges, but would they make you walk away from the idea forever?

One day a friend who the mom of six kids said something that has stuck with us. We were talking about the Thinking stage and all the doubts, convictions, worries, and so on. She said, “That’s great to be aware and go into it with your eyes open, but the thing that is missing for you as you consider all of these situations is that you are not a mother yet, so you don’t have access to that strange wealth of strength and patience—resources you only know about and tap into once you are a mom. And, of course, you can't possibly ever imagine the incredible love you will have for your child, and which will help you find those resources."

Being a parent can be MUCH harder than you ever prepare for, but we’re also often amazed at the things we can do, tolerate, and roll with—things we never knew we could do until we became a mom. Good luck to you in your decision-making.

A Shift in the Tears

The green folder from SMC arrived in the mail and I was excited to receive it. I made dinner and sat down at my table to read the literature that was inside. I was flipping through the various pages in the packet, reading absolutely everything. Then I got to the last page and the words that jumped off the page at me completely caught me off guard. The last page of the welcome packet was entitled “Last Call for Motherhood” and right under it said “Calm your panic. You don’t have to decide today.” From somewhere in the depths of my soul came this horribly painful, primal and unrecognizable half gasp, half cry. I immediately covered my mouth with my hand almost in disbelief that the sound had come from inside of me and the tears started to flow.

I was shocked at how hard these words had apparently hit something inside of me so deeply that I, without thought and warning had cried out. Those words said to me yes, if I wanted to become a parent, I better get moving as I may not ever have a partner to start a family with. So indeed, the route of becoming a SMC may be my last call for motherhood. How ironic that just a few years ago ‘last call’ meant something very different than this last call.

I now find myself two months after receiving the welcome folder from SMC with tears in my eyes again. But the tears are definitely different than the ones that came just a short while ago when I saw ‘last call for motherhood’ for the first time. The tears are different because they are not tears of sadness, now the tears are hopeful tears as I read the responses to my laundry list of questions from other SMC’s on the adoption email list. They are tears of absolute joy and hopefulness that so many other women have pursued this journey. They’ve pursued adoption both domestically and internationally and they have these wonderfully rich stories of their journeys and of their children, each unique, none without a few bumps in the road, but that’s parenthood.

I believe that I have always known in my heart that I couldn’t imagine myself not being a mom, but now I’m starting to believe that I will be a mom, that I can make this happen if I want it to.

Yes there will be sacrifices and compromises and lots of changes in order to make this happen, but if I find I really do want to do this, I can. I realize that becoming a part of this community, taking the time to read as much as I can about this process means that this may in fact be my “last call for motherhood’ but the emphasis in my mind is no longer on the sudden sadness I felt relating to the words ‘last call’ but instead I can now relate to the joy and invitation of the ‘call to motherhood’ that I now believe is possible.

NMJ

From a Mom of a Little One though Anonymous Donor IVF:

Hooray for the new SMC blog! It's time some of our stories were told BY us -- not by a trend-spotting reporter looking to stereotype late-in-life, child-hungry career women for the quick-hit of reader responses and page views. In the popular media, single mothering by choice is always about these crazy women who go looking for sperm donors like they're ordering pizza toppings -- Tall? Check. Good SAT scores? Check. Mushrooms? Check.

In reality, it's not about the sperm. It's not about the donor. It's not about the turkey baster or the petri dish. It's about the milky smell of a newborn, the little fingers that clutch mine when we cross the street, the worries about paying for college and whether the plastics and the scented baby shampoo will poison my toddler. It's about motherhood, not hatred of men. So that's why I'm leaping to add my voice to this blog. I want people to understand why so many of us are doing this. I've always known I was a mother, I just needed a little help to get there. And I thank God -- thank God thank God thank God -- that I'm here.

My journey started earlier than some. It was about 2004, maybe 2005, and I was watching The West Wing. CJ Craig, the smart, funny, aging press secretary talked about it possibly being "too late" for her, about how her wonderful career was wonderful, but perhaps all she would get. No husband, no kids. I was a Washington-based reporter, having a great career, very happy, 32 years old. And boy, did CJ's musings hit home. After the episode ended, I called my mom in Canada, knowing that she, too, had watched. And I said "So when do you think I should start trying to have kids?" And she said she thought I could start anytime. It was an acknowledgment of what we both knew: that I was unlikely to get married, that time was ticking, that I was meant to be a mom. I really was. I was that child, that teenager, that woman who monopolized other people's babies at family get-togethers and public events. I babysat -- not just as a teenager, but as an adult. I'd meet new colleagues, find out they had kids, and offer to babysit for them. I doted on my nephew and niece.

As I got older, and rarely dated, I got more and more terrified that I would never get to be a mother. And terror is the word. I could not imagine being 45 and single and childless, STILL doing the same things, decades of movies, dinners out, drinks with the girls, great career, world travel, books, long hikes on the Appalachian Trail on the weekend with my hiking club. And then 55, no kid in college, no grandchildren on the way, and then 65, alone, 75, with my six cats ... you get the idea. A wonderful life at 30 is a lonely life at 40, 50, 60, 70.

Of course it was not just a TV character who spurred my decision. When I was younger, in my 20s, I read a biography of a Canadian journalist who'd adopted two girls from China. She was single, and successful, and this was her family. And I stored away that story as a possible option for me. I knew then that I dated much less that others, I'd had no long-term relationships, I didn't seem to fit that mold. I'd found a few good guys, but never love. When other people were making semi-joking pledges with platonic friends that if neither of them had met their life partner by age 35, they'd marry each other, I was making a pledge to myself that if I hadn't met my children's father by 35, I'd do it myself.

My final decision to go ahead was made the Christmas I was 32. I'd gone home to my parents' house in Canada to spend the holidays (the perpetual child, returning home as if from college, because I didn't have my OWN family yet) and we'd had a big get-together for the extended family, all of the uncles and aunts and cousins. At some point in the evening, as my niece and nephew and all my cousins' kids tore around the house, I realized I was the only one there over the age of 11 who was NOT a parent. Everyone else, all of my aunts and uncles and cousins, had bred. Everyone in the room had children. My cousins were busy dishing out plates of food for their kids, and my mom and aunt were taking care of my grandmother -- generations helping each other in both directions. And I had no one to care for. The maiden aunt at 32. When I got back to Washington after the holiday, I wrote in my journal that this was the year I would start looking for my child.

I'd always sort of assumed I would become a mom through adoption. But as I looked into a few things, and read the Single Mothers by Choice book by Jane Mattes, my thinking started to change. As a Canadian living in America as a non-permanent resident alien, I could not bring a child home through international adoption. One adopting parent had to be a U.S. citizen. Going the adoption route would mean quitting or transferring with my job back to Canada, and starting over from there. Surprisingly enough, getting pregnant with the help of an anonymous donor seemed like it might be an easier route.

I made my appointment with my doctor -- a reproductive endocrinologist -- shortly thereafter. At my first visit, we sat in his office to discuss my path. He said at 32 there was no rush, a year this way or that way did not matter. We settled on a course of treatment to prepare. I went off the Pill. Testing began. I'd had endometriosis and there were various complications with my cycle. During the year that I waited for my cycle to regulate and the tests to be completed, I joined the international group called Single Mothers by Choice and started attending a few meetings of like-minded "thinkers" and "tryers" -- those on the road to becoming moms, but not yet there. I also lost weight and tried hard, one last time, to meet someone. I did speed-dating. I wore more make-up, dressed more stylishly, batted my eyes, tried not to intimidate men with my career and intelligence. The few matches I tried included men who still lived with their parents, who hated their jobs, were depressed, were infantile, were married and dating on the sly (ugh). I stayed single.

When I was 33, I did my first insemination with sperm from an anonymous donor that my best friend had helped me choose. All of my close girlfriends knew I was going down this path, and my parents knew as well. They were nervous, but supportive.

Once you start down the fertility treatment path, it sucks you in pretty quickly, and with each negative pregnancy test I got more and more worried. I worried it would never happen. I might not get to be a mom. I considered whether I could cope with that -- certainly my career would have to get even more important. Perhaps I could be a war correspondent? Something really exciting and time-consuming. A White House correspondent? There's a job for childless people! After six failed insemination attempts, my doctor started talking about IVF. It would really boost my chances, he said. And while when I first started down the path I thought I'd never do IVF (too radical, too desperate, too much), by then I was ready to make the leap. Easily. I was committed, and I wanted a child more than ever. IVF it was.

That was three years ago. Today I'm the mom to a 2-year-old girl named after my mom, who was with me for the labor and birth. I've moved back to Canada after nine years abroad, and I am happier than I could ever imagine. My evenings are full of visits to playgrounds and libraries, and on the weekend you'll find us at the zoo, or the wading pool, or in the backyard with all of our very large plastic toys. I am embarrassingly thrilled to be part of the club of moms. I am one of those who care too much about children and parenting and have too little interest in life outside the world of toddlers. I haven't seen a movie since my daughter was born. The only hikes I take are ones with my daughter in the backpack, eating her goldfish from a snack cup, no longer than an hour or there will be trouble. And I love it. I was done with movies and dining out and self-absorption (I don't mean that judgmentally of others, simply that I'd grown bored of a life that was all about me). I still read books, just don't ask me the titles or authors. My career is still important -- because it pays the bills. I do worry a bit that I won't ever advance up the career ladder like I once might have, but mostly I worry about how I don't care about it anymore. My dirty secret is motherhood really does make me a less committed employee, at least for now.

While becoming a single mom once seemed like Plan B -- after finding a man didn't work -- I now realize this was my path all along. I was meant to be a single mom. I'm type A, I like having all the control. I like making all the decisions. I like getting up when she cries at night. I like being the one to read all the bedtime books and give all the kisses. I drink up her unconditional love and admit I am amazed, touched, stunned, that anyone could love me as much as she loves me (okay, therapy required for that one). My married friends with babies admit to me they don't love their husbands as much as their babies, it doesn't even come close. Their early baby days are full of resentments and struggles to balance the marriage and the baby. Mine have not been. They've been blissfully about just me and her. All-consuming and fantastic.

And because I'm aware my daughter deserves more than the glare of her mother's constant love and attention, and because I would like nothing more than a house full of kids, more kisses, more cuddles, more shrieks and giggles and yes, even more tears and more worries and more work, I did IVF again last year and am expecting baby #2 in just a few weeks.

I have no regrets. I'm glad I pursued a great career and had lots of fun doing it. I'm glad I traveled and dated in my 20s and early 30s. And I'm glad I live in a time when becoming an SMC is not only possible, but relatively easy. I've been blessed by decent fertility, a stable income, and supportive family and friends. I am so grateful to be a single mother by choice.

My Circuitous Route to Adoption

As I sit here writing, my house is filled with baby items from friends and freecycle. All I need is a baby. At least now I have hope—I’m on an adoption waiting list. But what a long journey it has been…

I became a thinker and joined SMC at age 39. People encouraged me to move forward, but I was stuck. I wanted a husband, then kids—the traditional family. At 40, I met someone I hoped could be Mr. Right, who turned out to be Mr. Autonomy Issues. At 41, I broke it off. I was devastated. I went into a depression, sought counseling and was stuck—I wanted biological kids, but I also wanted a traditional family. I kept thinking.

Looking back, I see how uneducated I was about fertility for women in their 40s. Despite the many women in the news having children well into their 40s, I didn’t know these women used donor eggs—not their own. So, with my eggs growing older by the day, I continued thinking.

Finally at 42 (and 10 months), I made what I thought was the most difficult decision of my life—to try to conceive on my own. I passed fertility tests with flying colors, but after seven tries—IUIs and IVFs—I had low egg quantity/quality. I had another difficult decision to make: Should I keep trying with my eggs? I had to think about finances, my age (43 and a half) and my desire to be a mom—how would I feel if I found myself six months later, age 44, still not pregnant?

I went to the counselor and grieved and grieved. All my dreams down the drain—my desire for a husband with three biological kids. All those years of envisioning my children, who they would take after—my mom, my sister, my brother? My connection to my heritage. It was one of my darkest hours.

But my desire to be a mom pushed me forward. I weighed donor egg vs. adoption. Donor egg seemed like an easier route. I picked a donor and did my first cycle at 44. Cut to me a year and a half later—three miscarriages and an inability to carry to term due to an immune issue. The first two miscarriages were devastating. By the third, I’d selected an adoption agency and knew if the pregnancy didn’t take, I’d immediately move on.

Last July, after learning my final pregnancy wasn’t viable, but before the actual miscarriage, I contact the adoption agency. They were enthusiastic at a time I needed enthusiasm. I was exhausted—2.5 years of fertility treatments, disappointments, miscarriages, poking/prodding and money out the door—all for nothing.

I did my home study and got on the waiting list in September 2009. I’m excited about adopting. With adoption I will be a mom. With fertility treatments, it was a crapshoot. Moving to adoption was a relief—no more needles, doctor appointments, miscarriages, disappointments, hormones. I could live my life more normally while I waited, although I have moments of grief that sneak up on me.

I try not to be bitter. Everyone has her own journey. I just never thought I’d have such a long road to motherhood. I believe God has a plan for me, even if I can’t see it. I date, trying to find someone to share my life with and be a father to my children. I keep busy while I wait for my match. I’m now 46 and, although I sometimes can’t believe it, this circuitous route to motherhood is my story.

Leslie C

"Good Lord"

And Baby Makes 2

“Good lord”, said my therapist
when I told her I was trying to have another baby with my husband. “You haven’t even recovered from your other 2 baby losses. And all you do with your husband is fight. You don’t even seem to like him.”

“Good lord”, said my therapist
when I told her about all the infertility things I was now going through again, for a third time. The mood changing Clomid, every diet known to increase fertility, 2x a week acupuncture, awful tasting tea made by a Chinese only Chinese pharmacy in Chinatown, and lots of lots of awful, awful timed sex, timed with the very best in $299 ovulation predictor kits. “Are you sure you want to put yourself through this now? I think you should SLOW DOWN you’re not even 35 yet. And you and your husband are not getting along.”

“Good lord”, said my therapist
when I told her I told her I was preg yet again.
And, “good luck,” she added. “I think we should increase the amount of time we see each other to 3 days a week”.

“Good lord”, said my therapist
when I called her, hysterically crying. I had had yet another miscarriage.

“Good lord”, said my therapist
when I called her, hysterically crying that my husband was being a complete ass in couples therapy and was refusing to try to have another baby with me even though it was now 3 months later, we had agreed to try again, and here it was that exact time on the calendar we should be trying and I wanted that baby more than anything and he knew it.

“Maybe it’s a good idea he won’t?” she ventured. “I think you should concentrate on your marriage before tying again. A baby won’t fix everything and it might only make things worse. Imagine, if you have a baby with him, you’ll be stuck fighting for custody until the child is 18 at least if you can’t make things work. Imagine his mother, [my words: the chain smoking, mean, Tom-Brokaw loving, rambling, passive-aggressive, jealous, possessive, borderline alcoholic], watching your child”.

“Good lord”, said my therapist
When I told her I was going to get divorced and I was going to have a baby by myself. I had already chosen who/what/where and everything. “You’re moving too fast. You should SLOW DOWN!!”

“I’m so happy for you”, said my therapist
when I told her I had done all I said I would and that now I was pregnant.
What more was there for her to say?
She said yay throughout my pregnancy and yay when the baby was born. Yay to my taking care of her and yay for what I was doing.

“Good lord”, said my therapist
when I told her my father died suddenly and I was moving from NYC back to Miami Beach to be closer to my remaining family.
“Do you really think it’s a good idea for you to live with your mother?”
I’m not sure I said, but it’s the best option I have.

“Good lord”, said my therapist
when I told her how I was balancing a hectic job as an advertising writer with a 1 hour drive to work from where I live, living with my mother, getting annoyed at my mother, rushing home everyday to be with my daughter for as long as I could, caring for one noisy cat, freelancing, trying to get caught up on getting manuscripts to my agent, comparing myself to my seemingly perfect stay-at-home mom sister with 2 kids who married a doctor and my other work-at-home sister who just had a baby and 2 months later looks like she was never pregnant at all, and living in a city where the people I was meeting in the park couldn’t fathom the possibility of happiness and hope in the single mom thing. They think I’m either going to try and steal their husbands or the fate of being single/divorced with baby will rub off, like a disease.

“Good lord”, said my therapist
when I told her I was doing JDate.
“You really should STOP, REFLECT and WAIT until you adjust before embarking
on a relationship.”

“Good lord”, said my therapist
when I told her I now had a boyfriend I actually liked.
“SLOW DOWN!!! You don’t want to rush into things.”
I told her I wasn’t. I was enjoying myself.

“Good lord”, said my therapist
make sure you use birth control.

“Good lord,” I said.
“I can’t believe I’d get pregnant that easy, not after all I’d gone through to
get the one I have!”

And, here I am. Not pregnant at the writing of this!

Aimee Heller

I was Never a Thinker

I was never a thinker. I always knew that someday, somehow, I would be a mother. I remember being a teenager and saying to myself: “Self, if I’m not married by the time I’m 35, I’ll just have a baby on my own.”

Today is my son’s 9th birthday. It still boggles my mind.

There are mornings when I wake up and it strikes me all anew—there’s a child in the room next door and that child is mine. I’M A MOTHER. I want to scream it to the world. The word single doesn’t really enter into the equation. Yes, I’m a single mother. Yes, I did this on my own, consciously choosing to have a child who wouldn’t have a tangible father in his life. And we’re a family, a perfect little unit that suits us just fine. His friends know he doesn’t have a dad and sometimes they ask questions—but most times they don’t.

I was never a thinker. This has always been my destiny. Motherhood was in my soul. Sure, it’s hard, but I look at my married friends with kids and you know what? Their life is hard too. Parenthood is hard, whether you’re doing it alone or in a traditional nuclear family or in a divorced family or in a same-sex family. But parenthood is also magical. It opens your eyes to world again. It let me rediscover the wonders of this planet.

I knew nothing about dinosaurs before I had Marshall. Now? I can name them all. Who knew Star Wars and Legos could be so all-encompassing? I remember walking him to preschool when he was 3. The walk for me alone took 5 minutes. I left us 20 minutes because there were cracks in the sidewalk we had to follow; there were water access pipes that had caps that NEEDED to be spun EVERY SINGLE MORNING; there were stories to be told and songs to be sung along the way.

Today is my son’s 9th birthday. He was born two days after my 40th birthday—the absolute best birthday present I ever got. I was never a thinker. I was always a mother. It took a few years of trying and the stars to be aligned in just the right pattern for that vision to become a reality but I am a mother to an amazing boy. And together we forge a path and embark on an incredible journey. Sure, we make mistakes long the way but we also light new ways of thinking and doing that fill my heart and make my soul sing.

I was never a thinker. I was always a mother. Today, my son is 9, and I feel so blessed to have him in my life.

Nancy Nisselbaum

Choices

I recently got together with some folks, including an SMC who is a full-time mom and her delightful 14 month old son. She was clearly relishing being his mom, and he was equally clearly adoring her. When we got to chatting a bit, she confided to me that she was feeling a little bit guilty about how much she was enjoying being a mother. After all, she said, didn't the women of earlier generations go through a lot in order for women to have the right to be liberated from being "just mothers"? Was it okay for her to WANT to spend her time being a mom? And to enjoy it so much?

Having been one of those women whose consciousness was raised in the tumultuous sixties, I pondered her question for a moment, and then remembered --- it was all about CHOICE. We believed that women should have the CHOICE to work and not to be a mom, or to work and be a mom -- or to do whatever we wanted -- and most importantly, we wanted to have the opportunity to achieve as much as any man.

Sure, some of the women in the movement felt we should reject motherhood and be more ambitious, that we should aim for loftier goals. But many of us also knew that there are infinite delights in being a mother, and we didn't want to miss out on them. I was one of those women. I worried, as the years went by and I didn't find someone I loved, that perhaps I would never be a mom. And then, when I became a mother in 1980, I remember thinking how fortunate I was to have that opportunity. I cherished every single minute of that experience, even the rough ones, especially during the early years of my son's life when I almost couldn't believe that I was really a mother.

I will never forgot how close I came to being childless. But thanks in great part to the women's movement, I had the CHOICE to be a mother as a single woman, a choice that the generation of women before mine did not have. And for that, I will be eternally grateful to the women who made it possible for us to have choices about what we do with our lives, even if what we want to do is "just" be a mother.

Jane Mattes, LCSW
Founder and Director, SMC

Welcome to Our Blog!

I am pleased to announce the start of a blog for Single Mothers by Choice (SMC). Our organization began in 1981, soon after I gave birth to my son, Eric. I wanted support from other women like me (37, educated, single) and by the miracle of networking and word of mouth, several of us found one another and began meeting in my NYC living room. We ranged from 30 to 40 years of age and were in varying stages of the process (thinking, trying to conceive, pregnant, adopting). We found that although we were from differing backgrounds and points of view, we all shared an important bond -- we wanted to share our experiences as new single moms and provide support and information to women who are thinking about or working on becoming single mothers. We became more organized as we grew in numbers and chapters started growing up in other large cities across the US. We felt strongly that there was a need for a support network for women who were at the beginning of thinking about whether or not this choice would be right for them, as well as for those who had already made the choice to become a mother, and we have been providing that network since our inception.

Fast forward 29 years........ 12,000 women have passed through our doors. About 50% of our members were "thinkers", as we call those considering this decision. A large percentage have decided to become single mothers by choice, and a reasonable percentage (about 30%) have decided not to. What was back then a new concept (mature single women CHOOSING to become single mothers? Most people didn't know anyone like us) is now a well-established trend in our society. Pretty much everyone knows someone who has done this, and we're better-understood. We're not radical feminists, we're not anti-men, we're just women who want to make an active decision about having or adopting a baby before it's too late.

Watch this spot for posts from our members about their experiences on their journeys and visit our web site, www.singlemothersbychoice.org for more information about our services!

Jane Mattes, LCSW
Founder and Director, SMC