Every Friday in “The Canbace Diaries” I will be sharing the experience of another Courageous Canbacer as they shift their perspective and embracing their new CANBACE life. Let’s celebrate our successes and share our stories: they may inspire and give hope to other people who are still be struggling.
Introducing Courageous Canbacer – Andrew Fletcher
The Courageous Canbacer Process
What are your views on the childLESS/childFREE dilemma?
I am both childless and childfree neither of which I like particularly. Let me explain as briefly as possible. I am childless because I do not have any living children even though I would like to. I am childfree because my son died 22 years by suffocation, because of a virus that caused his lower trachea/upper lungs to swell; not pleasant. The autopsy found that he had visible sclerosis of the liver so would have died within a year; very unpleasant. So, perhaps I am childless because I did not want him to die but childfree because I am happier, in hindsight, that he died when/how he did rather how he would have if he had survived the virus.
However, my situation is more complicated than a brief stressful period of parenting followed by the grief of my son dying. I am childless because I couldn’t have children with my second wife: a pregnancy would probably have killed her and the baby. Now I am childless again because the diagnosis of Nicci’s Stage 4 endometriosis was so late that that she had been rendered infertile. So, whichever way I look at it neither childless or childfree really fits my situation and neither of them have any real tangible positive connotations for me.
What were your thoughts when you first heard the word “Canbace”?
As I’m Nicci’s husband I was there for all the iterations to arrive at CANBACE from inserting vowels into CNBC to some totally spurious words. As with most things CANBACE developed from the inspiration of others as a starting point from which to move forward. As a word CANBACE encompasses the CNBC ethos and as a bonus can be used as a verb or noun in sentences thus making it easier to use in written or spoken form. (look I’m a bloke and the practical bits make more sense than the touchy-feely bits)
What is the biggest sign that you are Canbacing?
At this stage I don’t think there is one BIG sign that I am Canbacing. It’s more of lots of little, yet important, signs. I am starting to smile more and put forward ideas to help the community. There are other little signs too like taking an interest in being more adventurous in cooking; for instance, this weekend we are going Caribbean. I bought a “Taste of the Caribbean” cookbook quite a few years ago when we thought our move to The Bahamas was imminent. We needed to have some time to perfect our “Peas and Rice” – we’re moving to the eastern edge of the Caribbean so it’s not “Rice and Peas”! However, the years of infertility, and putting our new life in paradise on hold, had an impact and dampened our excitement. Thinking too much about The Bahamas, when knowing it wasn’t going to happen any time soon, was simply too depressing. However, my new mindset means this is something that I can be actively excited about again and this has inspired my taste buds to think of spicy food and palm fringed beaches again.
What future changes do you hope to see/experience in your life as you fully embrace your Canbace status?
I hope to see us in the Bahamas before too long. We are now, again, making positive steps to achieve this end state whereas we were muddling along for a few years. I am going to use the qualifications I have in renewable energy to help, not only us but others, to get to be as self sufficient as possible (very important in the Bahamas). I suppose one way of keeping fit would be a exercise bike generating electricity for the air-con.
Now that you are a Courageous Canbacer ….
What three negatives words associated with your childless life are you looking forward to ditching, and why is it important to leave these behind?
Anger, conflict and hopelessness. These make life very negative and unhappy and being happier (than I am at the moment) is always good. Also, being happier will hopefully mean that I’m healthier as well. Win- Win.
What three positive words do you want to associate your CANBACE life with and why are these important to you?
Hope, dreams and excitement. I don’t get excited about things (ask my wife) but I am now. New hopes and dreams that can be realised without having to contend with the negativity associated with the CNBC condition. Well that’s enough to make even me excited!
What words of hope and encouragement would you give to people who are still feeling so hurt by their experience that they aren’t quite ready to Canbace?
It will get better, grief does abate over time and the quicker you can change your mindset from being a victim the quicker it will happen. Easy to say, not so easy to do, however, hopefully Canbace will help with the process even if you are just starting out and have only reached the “Ca” bit of Canbace.
Want to share your Courageous Canbacer thoughts?
If you would like to be featured in the “courageous canbacer” blog please email me: canbacing [at] canbace [dot] com
In CANBACE friendship
If anything I have written resonates I’d love to hear from you in the comments. I appreciate that this can be a difficult subject to speak openly about so if you don’t want me to publish your comment on the website please let me know and I will keep your words private.
Louise Harris
I really hope we don’t end up making distinctions where someone who has had children but lost them is not really “one of us”. Andrew is childless, and the fact that he had a child who died can’t exclude him from the tribe. My greatest support and sympathy comes from a friend who lost one of her four children. When I was at my most insane she used to say “I was like that after my son died”. At the time I was amazed that she would make such a comparison – because I believed that her grief had to be much worse than mine. But she could see that I was behaving in the same way and she has always been a huge help to me with her sympathy and listening ear. She never, ever shuts me down or minimises my feelings. Thank you for your post Andrew. I hope you continue to feel that your perspective is valid.
Nicci Fletcher
Thank you Louise (typed extremely carefully again!). I think what shocked us most was the comment was made from someone we thought of as a friend and who is also CNBC so knows all about being on the receiving end of disfranchised grief. We’ve now believe that the comment was made out of jealousy, be that around Andrew having had the experience of being a parent (albeit a experience that was far from the dream of parenting we all have wished for), or perhaps it’s based on the fact that Andrew is so supportive of me and the community which I don’t think it true in the case of this person’s partner.
I agree that support, sympathy and empathy can come from all different sources. If someone who is a parent offers support we shouldn’t reject it because they can’t fully understand what we are going through. As long as they are offering the type of support that we need, that should be all that matters. I am glad that you have someone who has been helping you through this even though she’s had so much grief to deal with herself.
infertilityandlife
Love this interview, well done Andrew! Lots of love ❤️
Nicci Fletcher
Thank you! Andrew was worried that his comments about being happy to be childfree because that meant Angus was no longer suffering might cause offence. He’s happy to know that this isn’t the case. He’s confidence about his role within the community has been shaken by comments suggesting that what he writes could upset or offend people when they find out that he had a son. Love received with thanks and love sent back to you too xx
infertilityandlife
Absolutely not, i didn’t read it like it that at all. No one wants anyone to suffer and I completely get where he’s coming from. You know, before gareth was killed, Micheal Schumacher had his skiing accident which seems to have left him pretty much a vegetable. We’ve (my parents and I) have spoken about this – how would we feel if the accident hadn’t killed gareth, but left him in that state. Of course, selfishly, we’d take it, because at least then he’d still be here, in some form. But my brother could not live like that, that would be to him a fate worse than death and so when we really think about it, we know that we couldn’t chose that for him, we’d have to chose what actually happened. Which is a surprise to us really, but as I said, no one wants anyone to suffer. I’m sorry he has received such comments, people are so thoughtless sometimes. To me, his place in the community is clear – it’s by your side xx
Nicci Fletcher
You are so right about wishing that Gareth was still with you yet knowing in your heart of hearts that would not have been what he wanted or what you really would have wanted for him. I was the same when my mother was killed: torn between wanting them with you at any cost because the pain of losing them is so great yet knowing that, in reality, what happened was better for them. Big empathetic hugs being sent across the internet to you. Thank you for saying “Andrew’s place in the community it clear”. We are very much a partnership and “in this together”, not only in terms of dealing with our infertility and embracing our Canbace status, also in terms of what we do to help others in similar situations. I think the insensitive comments about Andrew may have partly stemmed from jealous about the fact that he is active in the community as well and very visually supportive of me. xx
infertilityandlife
I think you could be right, Andrew is definitely an example for how involved as a man you can be and I guess other women may be jealous if they don’t get that support and men may be jealous if they don’t feel able to be involved in the same way, but maybe would like to. It’s a complex issue isn’t it – all of this!! It’s just a shame people have to put negative views onto others, when it’s so much better when we support each other, we achieve so much more. I think you both are an inspiration xx