WE ARE CHILDFREE

When I was eight years old my mother screamed at me, ‘I hope when you have children they make you every bit as miserable as you’ve made me!’ I thought to myself, ‘I already know being a kid is no fun – if being a mother is no fun then I’m not going to do that,’ and the decision was made right then and there to never have children.

Due to fibroid tumors, I had debilitating periods. Thirteen times a year I would be in bed for four days sandwiched between two heating pads. I begged for a hysterectomy to free me from the pain and was told it couldn’t be done because it would keep me from having children. When I said I didn’t want children anyway, the doctor told me I would change my mind and he wouldn’t do it. He didn’t trust me enough to know my own mind and wasn’t compassionate enough to free me from my pain. When I was twenty eight, a particularly bad period landed me in the emergency room and fourteen pounds of fibroid tumors along with my uterus were finally removed from my body.

Just the joy of never having to have a period again was so wonderful and combined with never having to worry about becoming pregnant made it such a blessing.

I’ve have had a wonderful and interesting career that I never would have been able to have, had I the responsibility of raising children. I’ve had the privilege of traveling and experiencing the world in a way that I never could have had I the financial and time constraints of having a child.

I have never regretted not having children.