100% Woman

I was reminded today  that we often hear women going through infertility say that they feel like less of a woman.  I’m pretty sure I’ve said it.  I certainly know I felt it, I thought it.  And yet, we forget that the grief over infertility, the grief over pregnancy loss, is a very female experience.  Waiting every month and feeling the disappointment when we bleed, being forever reminded that our bodies are not performing the way we expect them (as female bodies) to perform, the hormones surging and waning (sometimes natural, sometimes swallowed or inserted or injected), the pain and fear of loss – it is a very real, quite uniquely female experience.*  And I've always thought it is just as uniquely female (because our men feel it differently) as giving birth.  Don’t ever forget that.  To go through this over and over again, and to survive with love and compassion intact, means, I think, we’re all woman.

The best and almost the kindest advice I got when going through my second ectopic pregnancy (or rather the aftermath) was from an internet friend who had also suffered infertility and loss.  "Go buy some pretty (or sexy or both) underwear,"  she instructed.  I did.  Lace and flowers.  It felt frivolous.  But I felt more like a woman.  So go shopping!

*   With a nod to Ben Elton's Maybe Baby movie, where Joely Richardson's character said something along those lines.

Nature/nurture and general ignorance

Mel's post prompted me to think about how other people view adoption.  On the one hand, we are barraged with comments along the lines of "just adopt."  On the other hand, we have people who make judgements and view children and relationships differently if they know they are adopted.  I suspect there are family members who feel that way about donor eggs too.  I wrote this post in 2009, and think it's worth repeating here.  I'll have more to say at the end.  Here it is:

Over the last few months, I’ve found myself frustrated over comments from people about members of their family. They have used family with quotation marks – “family” because they have included people in it who have been adopted. (Spouses were also not included as “family” but that in itself has not bothered me). Every conversation about the wider family has included a variation on the phrase “but of course don’t forget that J and D are adopted.”   I know that these people have strong feelings about this, and have included provision in their will for grandchildren “of natural issue” only.

It brought me to that age old question, what makes a family? Is it the years spent together, the shared experiences, love, arguments, traditions? Remembering the Christmases when Uncle Robin drank too much, or Auntie Evelyn’s beautifully-iced Christmas cake, or Yvonne and James wrestling, or the games of French Cricket on the lawn? Or is it simply the shared blood, the shared DNA, that ties us? The fact that we can look around and see that we share the Rose hips, or the R noses, or that I see my mouth on my nieces’ faces.

And how important is that blood? It is only important in consciousness. If you know that someone doesn’t share your DNA, do you look at them differently, in that awareness? If you are not aware of the lack of any genetic connections, wouldn’t you love them as deeply? Don’t people manage to find or imagine physical or emotional similarities to ensure they’re included in the family? Aren’t family trees full of children who don’t have the fathers that are recorded or assumed, coming from different blood? Or these days, family trees will include children from donor eggs or sperm, whose genetic links are to another family tree entirely, but who have been loved and raised through this one, whether the wider family is aware or not that they don’t share DNA? Aren’t, too, family trees empty of those who should be there, the children who are lost to that branch, unacknowledged because of indiscretions, shame and stigma, or simply lack of knowledge of their existence?  So why should these blood connections seem to be so important? And why do I mind so much that they are?

I suspect that this has hit me hard on a personal level, because our particular branch of the family tree ends with us. Adoption or other alternatives were always a possibility for us, not having any children of “natural issue.” I am furious at the thought that if I had adopted, people would view my children differently to those of my sisters, or of my husband’s brothers. The fact that they would be seen as second class citizens, not true members of the family. Would they feel the difference? Would it scar them? It makes me wonder whether child J and D, mentioned in the first paragraph, are aware of how some members of their family see them. I hope upon hope that they are not.

So why is it that I still flinch when I think of the bare, lonely branch on a family tree that ends with my husband and I? Why should it matter? Whilst I mostly feel accepting of my life without children, of my death and beyond, it does annoy me that this still has emotional power over me. Is it the desire for some form of immortality that makes blood so important? And isn’t that based on a deep-seated fear of being forgotten, a fear of ending? And isn’t that based on a feeling that you have not been enough in this life? Done enough? Been loved enough and loved enough right back? Is it based on a fear that we have not made a difference in someone’s life? Or that we have not changed the world after all?

Perhaps I just need to get over myself. We all need to get over ourselves. Simply being here has changed the world, and made it a better place. A kind word can make all the difference to the right person on the right day. Delight in someone’s writing, their work, their smile, their garden. Loving and being loved, whether by family or friends, near or far. These are not unimportant things. They should be, and are, enough.

The person I referred to in that post is my father-in-law.  Yes, I obviously harbour a deep resentment towards him as a result of these comments!  The ridiculous thing is that he is so ignorant of reproductive technologies that there are some grandchildren who could easily be the wonderful result of IVF or donor egg/sperm.  I don't know, and as I said here, it's not my business.  He loves them (as do I) - they are good students, very active, athletically-talented, and fun kids.  Everything he wants in grandchildren.  And that's all that matters.

Wanted/unwanted

The body of a newborn baby was found yesterday.  It was in the back garden of a house in a lower socioeconomic suburb, found when a woman went out to hang her washing on the line.  There were immediate appeals for the mother to come forward, so she could get medical attention.  Today there are appeals for people to help – to notice a woman who may have been large, but seems to have suddenly lost weight in the last few days.  Wherever she is, I hope she is warm and safe.  A southerly blast is coming through from the Antarctic, and it is mighty cold outside.

I don’t really feel anything.  I mean, obviously I feel sad for the child.  I feel sad for the mother who was, probably, terrified and alone, unable to think her way through to a solution.  But terrible stories like this used to make me feel very upset; they used to evoke a yearning, making me want to go and adopt the child, and they used to make me feel so angry and frustrated that I couldn’t.  Now, though, I know that’s not going to happen.  I’m not in that space anymore.  I don’t think I’m hard or uncaring or cold.  I think I understand what I can and can’t do, and managing my emotions accordingly.

And the truth is, however many women there are who desperately want to be pregnant and give birth, there are others who desperately do not want to be pregnant or give birth.  And I have compassion for them too. 

Imagine ...

It’s well recognised that those of us who don’t go on to have children, whether naturally, by IVF, surrogacy or adoption, are not welcomed with open arms to the community.  Perhaps that’s unfair, and an over-exaggeration, as I do know that our presence on-line is appreciated by those who want to see that there is hope after infertility.  But the majority don’t.  They majority would rather not acknowledge our existence.  The majority who are “still in the trenches” have their heads firmly in the sand.  Let’s be blunt here.  They don’t always want to see us, to accept that our lives are a reality, and that they might become one of us.  “I could never do that!” they say in horror contemplating our lives.  They are incapable of seeing our happiness, our joy.  They look at us and see only their imagined emptiness.

Yes.  I know this, because I’ve been there. I’ve been thinking about this issue a bit lately, after writing a few things.  And then today, in response to Mel’s post about finding out how the infertility journey was to end, I wrote this comment:

“When we’re in the midst of infertility, of treatments or losses or both, we are blinkered.  We're the ones wearing the eye patch, and no matter what we saw, we wouldn't believe how happy we could be in the end, regardless of the outcome. I think I was like that, and I certainly see a lot of women here in the ALI community who refuse to allow themselves to imagine another possibility.  So if I'd seen a happy, childless Mali at 49, would I even have understood what I was seeing?  No, I don't think so.”

You see, I wouldn’t have understood what I was seeing, because I just wouldn’t have let myself let go and imagine it.  The power of imagination is after all what drove me on to keep trying, what drove me to want to have a child in the first place.  I could imagine my family, I could imagine being a mother, I imagined pregnancy (beyond 7 weeks), and childbirth, and breastfeeding.  I imagined holding my baby, my toddler, my 6 year old.  I imagined all that, and it kept me going.  And all that imagining didn’t let me stop, because the (imagined) feelings were so good.  The thrill of the BFP, of telling people, the thrill of it all was (as I have said) addictive.  And easy.

And so I didn’t want to imagine not having children in the end.  I wouldn’t let myself imagine that. Perhaps because in that imagining, I knew there would be sadness.  But I think I also feared that if I did imagine how it would be, I would find that I might like it.  So I was stamping my feet, in a tantrum, and saying “NO!”  Like a toddler, I was shaking my head, wanting only the yellow sweets, not the red.  The ALI community is a little, no, a lot like that.  Even those who got their yellow sweets still will not allow themselves to imagine that it would have been okay to have the red.  They will not allow themselves to imagine their happiness with the red sweets, only their unhappiness, because otherwise it means they didn’t get what they want.  (More stamping of feet).  But it's not an all or nothing equation.  Wise Loribeth commented “but what if you saw you were 50, no kids, and happy?”  But our ALI sisters won’t let themselves imagine that.  Why?  Because if they understand the happiness, it might make them feel differently about us, our lives, our so-called choices?  Or because they feel that it in some ways it denies the struggle they ... no ... WE have been through? 

And yet those of us who have had little or no choice in the matter, who have come to a stage when our only option is to imagine our lives without children, when we finally let ourselves imagine that life, we often feel a huge wave of relief and happiness.  We see lives free of treatments, free of waiting for adoptions, free of more losses and disappointments and endless uncertainty.  We see lives where we are in control (as much as anyone ever is), where we can plan, where we can live the way we want to, where there is certainty.  For me, this came in a flash between treatments, and it felt as if a door opened, a light shone, and a burden was lifted.  It is what kept me going, and helped me know I’d be okay, even when I was in the depths of disappointment. I've had other friends describe this too.  I wish more women were prepared to let themselves go, and imagine – for one minute – what it might be like.  They might find it helps them get through the most difficult parts of their infertility journey.  It won’t necessarily influence the outcome.  It might make the process easier though.

Small Talk

One of the many hats I wear is that of a marketing trainer, in particular working on developing, maintaining and improving client relationships.  My clients are consultants, and often those working in infrastructure.  So they’re technical people, engineers or architects or environmental consultants.  People who would rather sit down with a technical problem than walk into a crowded room and have to make conversation.  But as part of their jobs, they have to do that.  They have to be able to talk to clients, and they have to be able to attend networking functions and “work the room.”

So one of my key tasks is to give them hints about how they do that.  They spend their days focused on the latest technologies to build bridges (to use a basic example), perhaps a bit like a parent or mother might spend their days focused on how to get their child to sleep.  So fronting up to a client who for example, might be an elected official with no technical background at all, is like seeing someone from another world.  Perhaps how a parent feels when they meet us.   

So I give them hints.  The first is aimed at establishing and then improving a lasting client relationship.  It’s also a helpful tip on “how to make friends.”  And the key is to ask questions to learn about the person you’re talking to.  If they aren’t an engineer, then you ask them about their job, what they do, where they live, where’re they’re from, and finding out what’s important to them (and it might not be their job).  This in turn helps you understand your client and learn how you can help them.  In doing that, you might find something that they both enjoy, that creates a common point of reference.  Or it simply makes for a closer, or more relaxed relationship if you can both talk about your favourite sports team, or the latest play that you both enjoyed, or the road trip or hike they took.  Simple huh? 

The second hint is more practical.  If you’re going to a function, or a meeting where there might be some mixing and mingling before they get to business, then it is worth spending 15 minutes preparing.  The easiest way to do this is to read the newspaper, take note of about three major news stories (not all about the same thing – war, or politics, but a variety of current events).  This week, for example, based on a five minute perusal of a local website, you could choose:

• The Paralympics
• Prince Harry in Vegas
• Is hitch-hiking safe?
• The rugby test this Friday
• Spring (Autumn)

 ... and when in doubt, the weather.

There, they’re armed, ready to strike up a conversation, or join a conversation, that might be interesting, and might lead to other things you can talk about.  It doesn’t take much effort.   We're not encroaching on religion or politics.  And not one of those topics requires the use of the question “do you have kids?”