Lately, I’ve been think­ing a lot of the title of my blog; mostly because of the whole NaBloPoMo theme of “Ties.” After all, what other ref­er­ences are their to apron strings other than being “tied” to one or need­ing to be cut from one?

But as I men­tioned in this page, the pur­pose of my blog title is in ref­er­ence to my favorite song and the rela­tion­ship it had with my long­ing to have a fam­ily of my own. It’s a song that ref­er­enced my need to let my “imag­i­nary child” know that he/​she would be happy wrapped in my apron strings.

Then there’s the whole use of this song in the movie sound­track for the John Hughs film, “She’s Hav­ing A Baby”. It’s a per­fect song for this movie, espe­cially as there is a small bit part in there about the strug­gles of infertility.

Though what gets me about the use of “Apron Strings” in this movie is that they do not use the orig­i­nal ver­sion of the song from the album “Idlewild.” While I under­stand mak­ing the song more “com­mer­cially” palat­able, I do wish that they would have used the orig­i­nal lyrics to the song.

You see, the movie ver­sion uses dif­fer­ent lyrics on the first bridge of the song. The movie ver­sion lyrics bring on the tone of a woman wait­ing for the birth of her child. While the orig­i­nal lyrics … well, those are the ones I can relate to most:

Your baby looks just like you when you were young
And he looks at me with eyes that shine
And I wish that he were mine
Then I go home to my
Apron strings; cold and lonely,
For time brings thoughts that only
Will be quiet when some­one clings
To my apron strings

These lyrics; they expressed (still express?) the feel­ings that I have when I see other fam­i­lies with babies … with chil­dren of their own. It’s the feel­ing of want­ing … of long­ing to expe­ri­ence what most other cou­ples, and more specif­i­cally, women expe­ri­ence.

And while I’m no longer entrenched in those aching emo­tions of child­less­ness, I still have that feel­ing of want­ing to belong. Of not want­ing to be so dif­fer­ent than oth­ers. To get to expe­ri­ence those things in a woman’s life that most women get to share with one another.

Child-​​free Liv­ing is, as Lori­beth’s blog title says is def­i­nitely “The Road Less Trav­elled.” It’s a place where not many peo­ple can accept or under­stand; where the per­cep­tion is that those peo­ple who don’t raise chil­dren are purely selfish.

My fave pic of Hubby & our nephew. We were in the midst of IF treat­ment at the time.

And even amongst those cou­ples who live with­out chil­dren, there is con­sid­er­able debate sur­round­ing the def­i­n­i­tion “child-​​free liv­ing.” For some cou­ples, child-​​free liv­ing is defined as the “lack of desire” to have chil­dren. While oth­ers see it sim­ply as a lifestyle choice. The com­mon fac­tor, how­ever, is that child-​​free liv­ing is a con­scious deci­sion to con­tinue a life with­out chil­dren. Now … throw infer­til­ity into the mix and there’s even less of a con­nec­tion to oth­ers who may see child-​​free liv­ing strictly as not want­ing to have any children.

Some­times it’s as if I feel that my life is des­tined to be one in which I am con­stantly “dif­fer­ent” than oth­ers. First there’s the whole two-​​different-​​worlds, in being a first gen­er­a­tion Filipino-​​American. Then there’s the whole deal of never being able to expe­ri­ence moth­er­hood. And even moreso now, as I begin to live child-​​free after infer­til­ity.**

While I’ve known since Novem­ber that the title of my blog has since strayed from it’s orig­i­nal pur­pose, I do feel that the lyrics to my favorite song still ring true. Because now … instead of that long­ing for a child … I am now long­ing for the under­stand­ing from oth­ers that liv­ing child-​​free after infer­til­ity was not an easy deci­sion to make. And let­ting go of these apron strings was/​is not such an easy task to do.

So maybe it’s not a mat­ter of “let­ting go” of these apron strings*. Maybe it’s more of long­ing for accep­tance that my apron strings can be good for other things in my life …

For apron strings can be used for other things
Than what they’re meant for
and you’d be happy wrapped in my
Apron strings

~~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~

EBTG’s first stu­dio album … a classic!

* How do you like my new and improved “About This Blog” blurb? Yep … it was time to change it.

** So here’s a side­bar story … Hubby & I recently started to “branch out” from our Chicago apart­ment to find groups or events that might be of inter­est. (About time, it’s been a year!!) When we first started to look for things, we went to this web­site and looked up local groups. What I was sur­prised to see was the lack of sup­port for CF Liv­ing after IF. But trust me, I found groups for those actively going through IF treat­ment; and I found staunch “No Kids” groups … but none where I might relate to other women.

Yep … IRL, I must really be all alone. But at least I have all you won­der­ful folk out there in blog world!