A few weeks ago,
someone forwarded one of the silly anecdotes that go around the internet that
are supposed to make you value the so called “important, big picture” things in
your life. The punchline was something like:
if you fill the jar with sand, which represents all of the little unimportant
things like your clothes and possessions, you would have no room for the rocks,
which represents the big things, like your husband and your children.
Needless to say, as one whose husband has been something of
a casualty of the infertility process, and having failed at double digit IVF
cycles, I didn’t take too well to this little ditty. Like many of you, I am struggling to find
meaning in a world that values all of the things I don’t have. There are days when I feel like a loser, a
failure, and less than a woman. There
are days when all I feel is anger at the process, at societal values, at other
people who have more than I have. As I’m
sure all of you do too.
Infertility is a lonely disease. No one wants to hear about it. And when they do,
they want to make a joke, or offer naïve solutions.
Just tell your husband to stop wearing briefs and start
wearing boxers!
Just keep your legs in the air for an hour after sex!
Just go on a vacation!
Just douche with baking soda an hour before sex!
Just have more sex, just have less sex… Are you sure you’re
doing it right?
Just take a teaspoon of Robitussin on the morning you’re
going to have sex!
And the crowd favorite: Just relax!
How many of you have been given this advice? And for how
many of you has it worked?
There’s a commonality to all of this advice: it all starts
with the word “just”, as if it were all so easy.
There’s something about having a medical condition that
people think can be solved by advice that begins with the word “just” that
completely eradicates the gravity of your condition. That makes you feel like
your problems don’t count. That makes you feel invisible. In a society where
women earn 78 cents on the male dollar, having children is the one thing that
women are supposed to be able to do that men can’t. And other women contribute to these feelings
all of the time: for me, the experience of sitting in a boardroom with chief
executives, journalists, elected officials, all women, introducing themselves
and ending each introduction with “….and
I have three children and 8 grandchildren!!”
Just makes me feel so incompetent.
And somehow, shamed.
We are a community of ghosts, of people with problems that
just not visible to the naked eye. We
hide our condition, we make jokes, we feign annoyance and irritation with
children. We cast furtive looks at women
with double strollers and wonder who their RE was but really don’t want to know
that it was an accident. We listen to our friends talk about how expensive
summer camp has gotten and we just swallow hard. We attend high school and
college reunions and maneuver to avoid the inevitable “how many kids do you
have?” We hear our colleagues share notes on their pregnancies and are asked
for contributions for baby showers and we suck it up and silently hand over the
$15 – all the while wondering if we can have an “ivf shower” where everyone
brings us syringes and extra lupron.
We stand at the women’s hygiene aisle at the pharmacy and
stare at the pregnancy tests, trying to figure out which is the most economical
package, because we know that no matter the outcome, we’re going to pee on more
than just one stick, and man, those sticks are expensive! We sit on boards and listen to testimony
about the high poverty rates among children and numbers of uninsured children
and just want to scream: “You’re so lucky to have kids, stop whining” – and
then hate ourselves for being so callous.
So we keep our mouths shut. And
we feel, well, transparent. Invisible.
How lonely this disease is, invalidating our most basic
nature – to talk, to share, to nurture. It alienates us from our own bodes, our
most private parts on display for doctors, nurses, lab techs, medical students
and visiting physicians. Somehow, you
just lose connection with who you are. How our most intimate relations are a
subject of public discussion – how we do it, how often, whether our bodies are
a hostile environment, whether it’s your problem or his. And how we’re foreclosed out of “girl talk”,
the diaper conversations, which we scorn, mostly as a defense mechanism.
And if it actually works, we’re deprived of the most basic
right to complain about nausea or swollen ankles or weight gain – “well, isn’t
this what you wanted”, you’re told.
And while I would never accuse a mother of not loving her
child, somehow, those of us who suffer from infertility before having children
cringe at comments like “here, you can have mine!”
While everyone here is changed as a result of your
infertility experience, I want to speak most to those who haven’t achieved
success yet, or who won’t ever.
Like many of you, I’ve struggled to find answers about how
to face the rest of my life without having the things that are supposed to give
life meaning. It’s a process, I don’t have the answer.
Rene Descartes said “I think, therefore I am”. I know I am, because I feel pain. The
question is, is that enough? And no, just being,
isn’t enough. We all want to count. To matter.
And for so many of us, having children was how we saw ourselves
mattering. Seeing our reflection in the
existence of that other, that child that we wanted to love.
I’m here to tell you that you’ve just taken the first step
out of just being and becoming someone who matters, you’re on the path to
regaining your worth, your self esteem. To redefining your world.
I can’t tell you how to fill the void of being childless. I
can’t tell you what will make your life have meaning. I can’t even tell you how
to make Mother’s Day not the worst possible evil day in the calendar year.
What I can tell you is that you matter. You matter because
your actions matter. Your efforts count.
Your voices are heard. And by YOU
believing that you matter, and raising
your voices on this issue, you are making not only yourselves matter, but every
person still lying in bed this morning wondering how they’re going to drag
themselves out to face another day.
Today, you take back your dignity, your self worth. And you
demand recognition for an issue affecting millions and millions of invisible
families across the country. And with your efforts, these people become visible
again.
So Monsieur Descartes, hear this: I act, therefore I matter.
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