Happy New Year!
Welcome to Our Brainstorming Series to Help You Launch 2020.
Which of these resonates with you? Click on the one that speaks to you and get started!
It’s the New Year and I want to:
Make the Decision Once and for All
1. Accept ambivalence. Maybe the decision is already 80/20 but you’re afraid you’ll regret it? Tap into your courage, hope, and optimism. Get support from family, friends, and professionals. Remember the right question is which decision will you regret.
2. Resolve conflict if you’re disagreeing about the decision. Re-read the “Tug-of-War” chapter of The Baby Decision to see if you can work it out. If you’re still locking horns, see a psychotherapist or coach to help you lovingly communicate and negotiate.
3. Tap intuition, get out of your head and into your gut using guidelines 3, 4, and 5 from the book.
Even if you’ve already read The Baby Decision, re-do these exercises, and you’ll probably get new information and inspiration. If you’ve never done them before, grab a copy of the book and plunge in. If you’re a couple, do these exercises privately before talking about them together so you’ll be able to fully concentrate on your own discoveries.
4. Chairs and Colors. Re-open these three exercises: “Secret Doors”, “Chair Dialogue,” “Rocking Chair,” and do Journaling with different color inks for child and childfree.
5. Test drive the choices.
Spend two separate weeks pretending you’ve already made the decision to be childfree or to parent. During each week: Are you excited? Are you terrified? Does it feel foreign, not really you? What actions might you take? Whom do you tell?
Jot down a few quick notes each week. No obsessing! Which week felt better? Talk to each other about it.
6. Crystal ball. Imagine yourselves in three years, already parenting or engaged in your childfree life.
Scenario one: You’re going to a holiday celebration with family and friends who are interacting with your child. You tell your loved ones how much you enjoy parenting.
Scenario two: Three years from now you enjoy your life as a childfree individual or couple. You are traveling, showing your art in a gallery, winning an award for environmental work, or just enjoying a relatively unburdened life. Which crystal ball image attracts you?
7. Take the leap! “You can’t take two small leaps across a chasm.” It’s scary, but waiting, now that you’ve decided, will only make it scarier. Replace rumination with action. Depending on your decision, have a “We chose childfree” party or take a trip. Or, if you’ve chosen parenting, get basic fertility testing, learn about pregnancy and parenting.
Launch Our Childfree Life
1. Announce your decision, have a ritual, e.g. celebrate with friends.
2. Take an action you’ve been postponing until ruling out parenthood, such as making exciting travel plans, signing up for a drawing or language class, committing to volunteer work. Have fun. If you’re lucky enough to afford it, you can buy a sports car now that you know you don’t need an SUV!
3. Learn to deal with disapproval with humor, snappy comebacks, or deeply respectful dialogues, depending on whether you want to get someone off your back or want a loved one to understand and support you. Visit childfree websites for inspiration. See The Baby Decision chapter “In and Out of the Pressure Cooker.” Are you worried about telling your parents? Click here for my blog post for a smoother conversation.
4. Daydream and brainstorm. Ask yourselves what hasn’t happened yet in your life that you want to experience before you die. Two great books for this are Callings: Finding and Following an Authentic Life by Gregg Levoy and Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans.
5. Find role models of happy childfree people. Let their lives be a kind of test lab for designing your new life. Find websites and books online, or in my resources section of The Baby Decision and the Childfree section of my website.
6. Take stock of your relationship. Is it as close, romantic and fun as you would like it to be? How can you change it for the better?
7. Decide if and how you might spend time with kids or mentor young adults in your work or in the arts. Make plans to do this, if you like. You have no obligation to nurture anyone at any age if that’s not your desire.
Getting Started with Parenthood
1. Decide when to start trying. Refer to this helpful diagram from my appearance in Time Magazine.
2. Prepare psychologically. Overcome panic about pregnancy, childbirth, and parenting. Start short-term therapy to deal with any couples conflict, shared anxiety about parenting, or emotional readiness to parent. Take a parenting class or listen to podcasts or audiobooks.
3. Prepare for medical issues: Visit a gynecologist and urologist, have non-invasive basic fertility assessments (are you ovulating? Is your sperm normal)? Get some genetic counseling, advised for everyone. Find out about recommended food, vitamin and lifestyle changes. See “Preparing for a Healthy Pregnancy by Kayla Sheets in the appendix of The Baby Decision.
4. Prepare financially: See a financial planner, investigate health insurance (is your current policy the best for pregnancy)? Find out what you’re entitled to for paid maternity leave.
5. Don’t panic! Don’t jump to conclusions about fertility problems if you don’t get pregnant the first month. Most so-called “fertile” couples take several months or a year to conceive. If you’re over 35 and have tried for 6 months, it’s time to see a fertility specialist (reproductive endocrinologist) even though you probably just need more time. That way, if there is something wrong, you’ll have a chance to correct it. If you’re under 35, unless one or both of you has a problematic medical history, you probably won’t be allowed to see a specialist until a year has gone by. Also, if you have medical insurance, it probably won’t cover specialist visits before you meet the criteria above.
Good luck. Let me know if these tips helped!
Merle and The Baby Decision Team
