I have come to detest weddings, church and pretty much any event where you will meet old aunties or insensitive young women. Will this keep going until I'm too old for them to pry or stomach their pity?
But for now, chief amongst my irritations is that most of them will start off with the notion that you need to be convinced that a child is a good thing, i.e. "you know, children are such a joy". They will then move on to assuming that you aren't trying, e.g. "you know, you shouldn't leave it till too late, or, you should try to have one soon". This entire monologue will be preceded or capped off by pointing at your belly and asking, "no baby, no baby?" or "so I hope we will hear good news soon?"
Have you ever tried talking to people about infertility? And if you have, have you had the experience where it's as if they don't understand, sometimes it even feels like they don't want to understand, what you are worried about?
The top three things that people tell me are: oh, you are still so young! That's convenient for now, but not in two years, or five years? Second, they say, just relax, don't stress, which is both unhelpful and hard to even comprehend.
And third, they would say, Don't think about it. (completely unsolicited from my mother-in-law). At which point, in the midst of my stony silence, I feel this frustration that if I didn't think about it in my busy life, it would be An Immaculate Conception. Most of all, the part that I really don't like, is that sometimes it sounded more dismissive than encouraging. What do I worry about?
I worry that time is slipping by, that each month passes by and suddenly it's September, or yet another birthday goes by and suddenly I'm 32 and still in this bind.
On bad days, I worry that it's not meant to be and I'll be stuck, worrying here forever, before I have to move on to the painful process of IVF or spend 7 years trying. I worry that even if it does happen, after all the hormones I'll have ingested by then and the scary stories of birth development and defect issues, I'll have a dreadful experience and something happens to the foetus. And that I'll be back to Square 1, but with grief.
And some days, I worry about the effect of all of this on my mind, on my liberty and my independence. I even worry about what my Type-A, alpha female college friends will think about me. How weird is that? Right when we started this process, I worried that I would conceive soon and have to miss out on my college roommate's wedding in July. And now, of course, I worry that that'll be over and done, and I'll still be ... empty.
All through this period, I've noticed that I downplayed my own feelings, perhaps out of fear of being rejected or becoming a hurricane of worry or frustration. I would tell my close friend that I was "a bit" disappointed when really, looking back, I was ***a lot disappointed***. I would hedge my own fear by saying "I'm sure it's just a matter of time, but" when really, I was feeling a lot of dread.
***I think this is because even within my circle of friends, there is a certain loneliness in this experience. I had already lived through my professional female twenties, when you experience a slow fallout of friends to other commitments. First those who stop working, then those who go back to school, those who married well and finally and perhaps most dramatically, those who become mothers.***
I'm sure we've all experienced it — the time when adult appointments become the last priority, when you can barely have a meal together without someone arriving late, leaving early, or not turning up at all. The times when you feel that the spontaneity and closeness in your adult friendship receding, when you forget even the shared interests that drew you together.
What I know now is that because I was one of the last single girls and we were a childless married couple, what I was experiencing was the pain of my friends having grown past me into motherhood. This was compounded by the invariable burden of organization because I had more time to make reservations, cook food, check on RSVP numbers, herd children, just to have friends turn up looking frightful, hours late, or not show at all.
Because, let's face it. New parents are really ungenerous, constant favour-seeking friends. They've pulled away because because of the pressure of caregiving and it's hard for them to give more. It took me awhile to understand that some of them really didn't want to talk about infertility because this period of young motherhood, was both consuming and the happiest, most fulfilling part of their life. They had neither the time, nor the inclination for anything that made it feel less complete or anything less than perfection.
As a woman, somehow you are expected to be maternal, or to be interested in other women's news about children or motherhood. Somehow, they don't expect the men to be interested, but they just naturally perhaps reach out to other women. I genuinely like kids, but I'm realizing you're socially not allowed to skip out, or pass, or think it's unfair, even if that is how you feel. It makes me feel right now like I can't be honest with what's whirling inside.
