Being ready to have a child and parent: what does this mean?

By Mariette

When I turned 18, I was allowed to take driving lessons. With my driving teacher sitting next to me, I spent hours and hours on the road, learning about driving a car and being in traffic. The first couple of lessons, I was not allowed to drive. There was so much to learn about the car, and about myself and how I related to driving. I had to do a theoretical exam, which I had to do twice, and after passing I was allowed to do my practical driving exam. I passed, even though my parking style was somewhat messy. Parking is, and has never been, a talent of mine.

It took a lot of preparation before I could drive on my own.

When we want to get pregnant and have a child, we need to have a partner or find a man who wants to have sex with us, to become a mother. When a man is not available, we can choose to go to a sperm bank and have a child on our own, as many seem to be doing in this era.

The thing is, there are no lessons, no exams, let alone a license; there is no learning about and preparations for becoming a parent and what it means to have and raise a child. There is no theory exam, which we need to pass before we can take the final parenting test. For most of us, there is no teacher who walks next to us and supports us, who has actually lived the steps of what it truly means to be a mother from a basis of not needing the child to be a certain way and without wanting the child to fulfill something for us. There is no support group who observe whether we have the basic settlement in our body and the awareness, observation and responsibility that is needed to be in and deal with ‘traffic,’ in other words, to be in life and in the world. Nobody bothers or questions if we ‘drive’ around being aware of our choices, if we take care of our car—aka our body—and if we live the basic requirements to bring a child into this world. Let’s say, that a basic requirement would be that we take care of ourselves and love ourselves, so we don’t need that love from our child.

I realise now that when I wanted to become pregnant, I had a strong need to get something from my child and from being a mother.

I wanted to be loved, and I wanted to belong, in this case, to the worldwide group of mothers. Even before I was pregnant, I had many fantasies and desires about what it would be like once I became a mother.

In the world we live in, it is usually expected that a woman will want to have a child, regardless of:

• the quality and integrity she lives in
• whether she has dealt with her issues and hurts,
• the choices we she makes on a daily basis as to how she cares for and loves her body
• the quality of her relationship with herself and her partner and if there is a foundation of respect and decency in her life
• whether she (and her partner) have the financial means.

It seems that, if we want a child, we can have a child, whatever it takes: IUI, IVF, ICSI, egg donation, freezing eggs, surrogacy, and fertility surgery or drugs. But we don’t dare to question why we want a child or if we are truly ready to be a mother.

So, why do we want a child and why are we putting so much effort into it, are questions that are hardly ever asked, either by family, friends or medical experts. We don’t have to do exams, and nobody checks our license if we have the basic preparations to parent. Nobody wonders if we are emotionally and mentally capable and responsible to have a child and to raise this child in a way that they get the reflection from us of what it means to love, care, nurture, and to be a respectful, mature, decent and responsible fellow earth inhabitant.

One day somebody asked me, while I was trying to get pregnant: “Mariette, what if you don’t have a child, is that also okay?” It was, in hindsight, the most honest and supportive question someone asked during the entire period I tried to get pregnant. My answer, at that time, was “No, that is not okay.” That is how attached I was to the picture of having a child and what that would bring to my life. I could see nothing else.

Once during IUI treatments, I had a party the night before I had an appointment. I woke up with a headache and did not feel like going to hospital. I had drunk too much and felt like a wet mop. But off we went, my partner at the time and I, because his sperm was waiting, and it was ovulation time. I laid uncomfortably on the cold, hard treatment table in an even colder and unpleasant hospital room with my legs apart, socks on, and feeling sick. No one asked or pulled me up on the fact that I had a hangover. Why would they, as it’s socially accepted and seen as normal. We focus on the end result, a pregnancy, and don’t care how we get there, disregarding the state our body is in on the way. And with this disregard of ourselves, how can we have the deep regard needed for the child we may conceive?

While they were inserting the sperm, the only thing I could think of was, “I don’t want to fall pregnant while having a hangover.”  When I got my period two weeks later, I felt a sense of relief as I knew this was not the way. I just knew that it did not feel true to conceive a child while my body was recovering from the ingestion of a poison that I would never consciously give to my (unborn) child. I pulled myself up and made the choice to never do that again.

At some point, after several IUI treatments, I gradually started to honor what I felt. I realized that it was not for me to have a child. I actually already knew that but was so focused on getting pregnant I had ignored the truth. 

So, if not a child, then what? I no longer felt to go to the hospital and declined the offer to start IVF. The effort and need for a child no longer sat well in my body. Why had that need been so all consuming? Was my life not fulfilling enough without a child? I learned and realized a lot during the years after I made the choice to stop trying to get pregnant. And I still am.

I have learned a lot, for instance:

• what it means to care and love for myself
• having a connection with my body and listening to it
• being aware of the quality I move in through the day
• the importance of being honest and dealing with my reactions and emotions towards life, myself and others
• healing unresolved hurts and needs
• what it means to have a relationship with myself
• being aware and present, instead of living in my head
• taking responsibility for my life and to stop blaming others
• committing to life, work, and to why I am here
• and so much more…

These are basic life lessons I should have learned in school. These are all lessons I should have had—in hindsight—before even entertaining the need for a child. These are lessons we should all learn before we step into the world, regardless of whether we have a child or not. We are all responsible for parenting and therefore a reflection for the next generation. These lessons should be the standard global curriculum in schools. How is history, French or Math’s going to support us with when we want to become a mother and raise a child in a world that is very challenging to live in on many levels.

I have come to realize that it takes much preparation, a solid foundation in life and a steady livingness to carry a delicate and precious baby for nine months, to then give birth to it, raise and support it, without needing anything from that child.

So, what is our way of living and what choices do we make as women before we decide to get pregnant? On a practical level, if we are on the pill we would stop taking it or if we had a spiral (IUD) in place, we would have it removed. According to the doctors, we should take folic acid and vitamin D and live in a healthy way once we try to get pregnant. Great, but there is so much more to attend and respond to, like our emotions, mental health, reactions, needs, why we want a child, our relationship with our partner and most importantly, the relationship we have with ourselves.

Looking back, I was not treating myself in a loving way and was far from being connected to the precious and delicate woman that I am, around the time I wanted to get pregnant. I have eventually realized that I was not ready to have a child and raise it in a way that I now know feels true. It makes total sense to me, that we have the saying: ‘It takes a village to raise a child.’ I have also come to understand that it takes an honest look into the mirror and to ask myself: “Where does my desire to have a child come from and am I, my body, and my relationship, truly ready to have a child?” And if I am not a woman who wants or can have a child, am I a villager who lives in a way from which I can parent and lovingly hold those children around me and give them the space to live a life connected to their true essence. That is, in truth, what every child born into this world should receive: the reflection and support of a mother, who knows that the child is already complete from the moment they are born.

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