When friends piss you off because of this choice

A woman wrote recently about the unfortunate comments of a close friend of hers, after announcing that she was on the Choice Mom path. Many women responded by letting her know that the "toxic" ones need to be let go of when we're on the journey, because we need to focus our energies with the positive people in our community, not the ones who are focused on their own issues.

This response from Morgan was a good one, useful for anyone who deals with the community acceptance issue.

I found that when I became pregnant, all kinds of unexpected things happened in my friends and family. I think it can be hugely provocative to many people, that we become Choice Moms.

My two closest female friends, who lived nearby and who'd originally agreed to be my birth partners and hands-on support, suddenly did a big rejection of me and my choice when I was 19 weeks PG. This was totally unexpected to me. On the other hand, my parents -- 'conservative, traditionalists' -- were incredibly positive about my choice, also unexpectedly. My sister was the person who suggested becoming a Choice Mom to me in the first place. My brother, the family member to whom I'd always been closest all my life, reacted weirdly and withdrew.

What I'm getting at is that you never know what kind of response you'll get from anyone until that time comes. I imagine your friend has all kinds of unresolved issues herself perhaps about being an autonomous women, without a life partner (Is she scared of that? Does she crave this? Is she jealous of your strength?), about having a baby (Is she worried it'll take you away from her when the focus becomes your child? Does she want - and not have - a child of her own?) Who knows what's going on for her but at least something is clearer now for you with her, given her reaction. Can you trust her to be the kind of friend you want and need at a time like this?

Our types of friendship may change radically when we become Choice Moms. Sources of support may come from unexpected places, as may rejection/ abandonment/ negativity.

Is she the kind of friend you can have a 'heart-to'heart with over this and she'll really listen and take heed? Is the friendship worth you being authentic and honest with her about how you feel at her reaction? Is this a warning that you may need to look elsewhere for friends when you're a mom?

My two friends completely rejected me and have never come back into my life, and so have missed out on my beautiful twin sons, and on me. My brother is very peripheral to our lives. Though both my parents are now dead, their support for me becoming a Choice Mom still gives me strength inside. In fact, one of the last things my mom ever said to me was that she was glad I'd had my babies.

Before children, people's flippant attitudes and minor unkindnesses mattered less to me than they do now that I'm a mom. Now there are three of us here to be affected, and two of those are my vulnerable little children who I refuse to expose to people who aren't 100 percent good for me and for them.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Finding the light at the end of the tunnel

submitted by Barb, who responded to a woman on the Choice Mom discussion board who was feeling stressed about the challenges of fertility

I completely understand how you're feeling. I was there myself once. It is really so much a part of the process. You're reeling with a lot of different emotions, some of which you don't even know are there until something unexpected happens. I am currently in the process of trying to have a second child and every little speed bump or unexpected test result instantly shoots my emotions to the surface... and I remember how hard this was the first time.

It is a process you have to get used to. I know that probably isn't much help, but it's true. You really can't live your life expecting the unexpected or expecting things NOT to work, but you do have to start setting your life up to cope with the occasional setbacks and speed bumps. Even if all that means is that you should find a support person or someone you can vent to when things don't go as expected.

I vividly remember calling my friend Rhonda from the parking lot of a pharmacy after they didn't have my prescription for progesterone suppositories and they sent me to another pharmacy two miles away. The other pharmacy DID have what I needed, and it turned out to be no big deal. But in that moment, full of hormones and overwhelmed with the emotions of what I was undertaking, it felt like some giant sign from God. Why can't this be easy? Maybe I shouldn't be doing this. Maybe I'll never be a mother. My friend Rhonda just listened and reminded me that things were worse because of the hormones, and she didn't over-react when I barked at her insensitively.

And that moment passed. That drama passed. That day of fear and anxiety passed.

But there were many, many more of them on my journey to becoming a mother. Poor fertility test results. Insensitive doctors. Young, married friends who had oops pregnancies. Scheduling problems at a clinic. Panic over sperm delivery. The entire process was a series of dramas and emotional challenges.

But I learned how to cope with them. With each new drama that I survived I learned to stay calm, learned to wait to see what I was dealing with, learned how to keep my brain from spiraling off into my-god-what-am-i-doing-will-i-never-be-a-mother land.

And in the end it all worked out. I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. The process I went through to become a mother was good for me. It made me a better parent than I might have otherwise been. And it helped me learn that some things you just can't control... a big thing you will rediscover over and over and over again when you are a mother.

And you will be a mother if you really want it.

Your test results may not be great. But people with perfect test results can try for years and never get pregnant, and lots of women have bad results and end up pregnant right away. Medical science can do so much, and there are drugs and shots and procedures to help tackle so many fertility hurdles. The important thing is that you've made the decision to start this journey. That's a big commitment. It's scary. And it will be challenging. Over and over and over again. But you'll look back on this later and be so glad that you had the courage to try.

Hope: the four-letter H word

Just prior to the holidays, a little girl who tends to like to dance in front of the sanctuary whenever our music plays, did a dance that made many of us weep. My favorite Unitarian Universalist minister, Kate Tucker, then got up, still teary, to deliver her sermon about Hope: The four-letter H word.

She talked about people in a conversation circle with her who described their own visions of hope. The person who said we get energy from hope. The homeless man who teaches people trying to finish their high school education. A woman who found hope through infertility to adoption.

Kate said that hope is about reaching out to find the help we need in order to make things happen. Because being without hope -- hopelessness -- is stuckness.

When we reach out for it, hope becomes our partner. We have the choice to sit and hope for something to happen. Or, with hope as our helpmate, we can proactively do a huge amount of work to propel us forward.

With hope, she said, it is not that we are then able to find something/someone who lines up with our pre-selected requirements. But that we are then able to recognize and be released into our own power.

Kate said that hope:

• sees what is possible when others do not;
• can imagine a way out, a way in, another way;
• is active waiting;
• does not yield;
• is the moving current that carries us forward;
• has the power to heal;
• is living in a world where everything -- frozen grass, snow scrapers, warm bed, coffee -- is holy.

I had only an eyeliner pencil in my purse, and used it in place of a pen to scribble down phrases as fast as I could.

Since then, I have seen the power of hope in so many ways. And how dejected and stuck we are without it. I have also seen that it is not an external power that chooses us. It is us who choose it.

In the Trying stage, there are naturally times of fear and hopelessness and despair and impatience. But always around us, available when we want to grab for it, is the comforting, energizing cloak of Hope, the healing, holy four-letter word that can help us realize the dreams that WE set in motion.