Mother's Day 2017

Yes, tomorrow is Mother's Day. A day we recognize as the one person who usually supports and loves us in our very beginning of life from the time of conception until you or your mother dies. I say usually as most of us have mother's who will give us what we need to thrive and survive which the base is usually love.

Here are the important mother's in my life (including me in this so hopefully people can see where these important people fall in my chromosomes) and this is due to their influences and other important deals which, when women raise children, are passed along to their children which in turn cascades down and into me. This makes me simply - me.

Copyright on images used J. Fitzgerald 2017

Myself

I haven't really let it be known in past posts, but I'm not a mother. I have had some pregnancies which have NOT resulted in a live birth. And after a surgery almost 18 months ago, I will never carry a child - ever. Is it difficult and hard? You bet your sweet behind it is. However, there is one avenue which we're currently researching to still become parents - which is surrogacy. If we ever get this lucky, we're hoping someone will be kind enough to do this for us. It would be the best present EVER.

Fostering/Adopting

Some people have asked us about fostering and adopting. We've talked about it,and due to some family things this past year, we'll never go down this road due to our experiences this past year unless something else happens. Do I know what that is? Nope, but its never good to close those options.

However, this year we've experienced a bit of parenting so in a way this year I WAS a mother (in a substitute type of way) - for a short while.

Myself and a child we were helping out in 2016/2017. Taken March 2017.
Copyright on image J. Fitzgerald 2017

As you can see, we were both very happy. Unfortunately, he's not with us full time any longer, but it was a special time.

Women Not Exactly Mother's

There are women out there, like myself, who would nothing better than to have a child. However, it seems like no matter what we do, we are not blessed in them. Do them a favor on day's like Mother's Day - be kind to them? The day is extremely hard for those of us who fall into this category. In fact, I usually hibernate and stay away from the most of the TV and social media because it seems like everywhere you turn its there in your face. After awhile you just want to go in the corner and curl up and cry the rest of the day. Again, please be kind and look after the childless women. We do have feelings too and we intend to get forgotten during these types like many of the other children/family holidays.

Image taken from here.

The No Issue issue

Have you ever come across an ancestor who has had what they termed "No issue"? This is when the person has had no children. This can be both with men and women. Have you ever thought of what the ancestor must have gone through when they were dying or getting elderly and never had any children? No one to keep their memories or values alive and to be passed along?

Us on our wedding day May 1997

Most people, in my experiences, just say "they had no issue so we didn't look at them" and move on to another ancestor. Its like they didn't matter because they had no offspring to grow the family tree. I have to admit when I started researching my family history, I heard of it but hadn't run into it myself. Most people in my family have at least 1 child.

However, in the last 15 years, I've slowly, over the years, have come to know what these people must have felt through personal experience. My husband and I got married in 1997 and we wanted things to settle down and then we'd look into starting our family. We got married, I settled into living in

Australia, became a permanent resident here, and had we had stable jobs. We decided to go to the doctors to start on the journey of adding to our family of 2 (my husband and myself). The doctor was very upbeat and encouraging and we started on this road. Meanwhile, we bought and built our house thinking it was only a matter of time, and now we knew we would need help, to add to our family.

Our Pregnancy we named Jamie Sweetpea in 2003 which had to end.

In 2003, we became pregnant and thought things would now start to fall into place there. However, we soon realized it was not to be as it wouldn't survive as it was in my tube so it was either the baby or myself. We did become pregnant a few other times but it never stayed for long. By this time over 7 years had gone by and we knew we were in trouble. We eventually found ourselves in IVF and doing IVF.

Meanwhile, our friends and family have had children and moved on and drifted from us. We found ourselves on the outside looking at the range people we had in our lives and found they didn't want to invite us out or over because they had children. We became the "too difficult and too different" couple. Then there were the conversations with people talking about their children and then them looking at you and saying either through looks or through words "you wouldn't know anything about this because you're not a parent". Eventually, we found ourselves not even trying to keep relationships going.

If this is how hard it in the 2000-2016, can you imagine how they must have felt back in the 1900's or before? What did they end up giving up or were excluded from because they didn't have a family like everyone else? My heart breaks for them each and every time I see someone refer to an ancestor which had No Issue.

Found at https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTGbkJrqeBoqLV_14wUNUNP2_kdA8Mrq-NAqEiGBP91ptVREO8-

I understand. We're in that basket with them. 

Our story doesn't end here for us. In late 2015, things took a tragic turn. We learned I had a medical condition and would never - ever - be able to carry a child full term. True we could use surrogacy if we ever won the lottery, but its very expensive and a very long process if you got to do it. Yes, we're still looking into it, but since things happened in late 2015, I feel more kinship than ever before to those people who have been classified as having No Issue.

I hope we're not two of the forgotten ones in our history just because we might have No Issue under our names.

All I can ask is for you to remember those people with No Issue under their names matter too - they've lived, loved and were just the unlucky ones who couldn't have children. Please take a look at them and remember them - after all they are your family too.