Dinner started off simple enough, three friends in their mid-thirties catching up on each other's lives. One was a married mom of two kids. One was a newly married woman, pregnant with her first. And one was a single woman about to lose another unfertilized egg hours later. I was the latter.
The conversation turned to maternity, the two who had the common experience of pregnancy shared stories about the challenges of a burgeoning bump. Then they went through the list of mutual friends expecting a first, second, or third. And finally they talked about one of the friend's younger sisters, recently married and having trouble conceiving. Understandably, the conversation got solemn, and I got quiet, as they shared thoughts on the grieving of the young couple. The topic went on past the appetizers well into half a bowl of pasta... and I lost it.
"Stop talking about babies!" I shouted in a very uncharacteristic way. A passing waiter stumbled with his tray and my friends awkwardly changed the subject, but not before looking at me like I was inappropriate.
Later that night, the mom of two called me out on my outburst. "I've never heard you like that," she softly scolded. "I'm sorry," I said, "but I just couldn't take it anymore. We had been talking about motherhood and pregnancy and infertility the entire time out. Don't you know I want to be a mother too? It's like my inability to have a child is invisible to you."
"It's different for you," she immediately responded. "You're not even married!" "Exactly," I replied. "I'm 36 years old and not even married. I am years behind your younger sister who at least gets to try to have children. I get to try to go on a date." And then, as if on dramatic cue, I went to the ladies room to dry my inner tears and noticed I had lost that egg.
Last month I published a post here called "The Truth About Childless Women," and hit a nerve. It went viral, shared over eleven thousand times on Facebook alone. In it I talked about the grief of childless women who suffer from what I call "circumstantial infertility," the inability to have children because one doesn't have a partner with whom to conceive. Of women ages 40-44, for example, 19 percent are childless -- almost one in five American women in that age bracket. Pew Research reports that among that group, about half have chosen not to be mothers. The other half suffer from infertility, and not all biological.
"How DARE you?" opined the commenter on the "Truth" post. The twenty-something told me that the grief of a married biologically infertile couple was deeper than mine and I was wrong to compare the grief or to call it 'infertility.' They suffered, the commenter inferred, from real infertility. Well commenters are allowed their opinions but when I noticed it was written by a young man, I was taken aback. There is no doubt that men suffer the grief of infertility, too. I do sympathize. And while there are many women who are childfree by choice, a very valid choice, many women have a biological urge to conceive a child and to be pregnant. It's how we are built. And every month, there's a physical reminder that we have failed to be who we believed we were born to be -- mothers. (There is little coincidence to the fact that with menstruation, there is physical pain and blood, often associated with death.)
Stephanie Baffone, LPCMH, NCC, grief counselor and married woman who suffers from biological infertility, writes in an article on SavvyAuntie.com that what women like me go through is called 'disenfranchised grief,' or a grief that isn't recognized by society with legitimacy. For women like me, we not only grieve the loss of motherhood, but we also grieve the loss of the dream, the dream of finding love and marriage resulting in that beautiful baby carriage. And not only do we grieve childlessness alone, with no partner to console us or share the grief, but society as a whole won't let us grieve, as if we've brought it on ourselves by being unwilling to settle in love. As Baffone articulates so beautifully in her article, "has compassion for victims of infertility become the proverbial carrot on a stick, reserved exclusively for those considered by the masses to have legitimately, 'tried hard enough?'"
I awoke to an email a couple of days after "The Truth" had been circulating from a woman I do not know (who does not know me) who chided me for not adopting. "If you were really maternal, you would adopt a kid," she scolded. Followed by "If you want to remain the 'auntie', the godmother, etc... then you're not really mother-material."
I honor single mothers and want-to-be-mothers who have invested time and money in adopting or conceiving a child alone. I am comfortable in my choice to not be a single mother, or even try to be a single mother. The grief I've seen and heard of women who tried to conceive through IVF and couldn't or the ones who adopted only to have the biological father take the child back, well frankly those are not losses I want to grieve alone. And those are just a couple of reasons. What one can trust is that I've considered the options. For me, finding love is my only honest choice.
Thankfully, my friend's sister and brother-in-law went on to have beautiful twins, a boy and a girl. My friend went on to have her third. And six years later, I'm still looking for love.
I write this on the eve of what would have been my own mother's 75th birthday. Upon returning to college after the Shiva period some 22 years ago, a classmate expressed his sympathy having known my mother since childhood. "The semester is almost over," he said. "Why don't you just take the rest of it off to grieve?" Without flinching I replied, "My mother died, I didn't."
I move on; I celebrate my maternal instincts with my nephew and nieces and all the children who come my way. I allow myself now and again the time to grieve. But then life, the life my mother gave me, goes on.
Follow Melanie Notkin on Twitter: www.twitter.com/savvyauntie
However, the other issue about "involuntary childlessness" is of course, if one waits too long one is likely to become infertile through age, and as well, if one has never attempted pregnancy, could, in fact be infertile without knowing it.
Blessings to you.
I agree with you too, that true love was going to be the only way for me.
However, now happily married, my husband and I have decided to post pone any baby plans until we are emotionally, mentally and more financially more stable. We are also taking care of elderly parents, which take a lot of time from us as well. I am quite clear on the fact the grains of sand is running out from my biological hourglass clock, and perhaps I will never get to experience the joys of becoming a mother... however, I cannot mourn my days for a life that could or could not happen. Instead, I can only live the life that is present now.
You might want to read this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/01/fashion/fertility-is-a-matter-of-age-no-matter-how-young-a-woman-looks.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=fertility&st=cse
In any case, I wish you well.
Now finding love is another issue. :) Good luck with that! Lovely article.
The one thing that surprised me was towards the end, when she was being offered the very sympathy from an outsider in society that she laments the absence of, she rejected it, or at least was loathe to accept it. Granted, society has no shortage of sympathy for grief after a family member's death, and they have virtually none for the aging singles, but this felt odd to me.
I am a woman in my mid-thirties, and much like yourself, finding love is my only honest choice. It's not just that I want a baby, I want the whole package: the partnership, the family unit and, the love and support that comes from a strong relationship.
Ttwo years ago found out that I suffer from Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome, so aside from the lack of a partner and the age-associated loss of fertility I have the joy of malfunctioning ovaries to throw into the mix - lucky me. I'm struggling with it, I can tell you and I think if I hear one more of my friends say "oh don't worry, you're still young", or "you'll meet the right man" I may very well scream, or punch them in face...not sure which.
I think I still hope that it will happen, but I am taking steps to ensure that my life is going to be the best it can regardless of whether or not I meet the right man and we have a family. I'm doing my best to allow myself those small moments of grief and then get on with living an amazing life.
It does seem that once I got divorced after 14 years of marriage (and almost 10 years spent trying to have a family), that everyone seemed to think I would be "over" the "kid" part. I wasn't over it yet. And sometimes I wonder if the fact that I was childless for good hurt more than the fact that I was divorced. I lost my whole identity because by that time in my life, my identity was wrapped up in being a wife who was trying to become a mother and had been trying for a very long time.
I'm resolved to it now, but I still have tough times. yes, there are days when I see it was best I didn't have kids (like when my single-mother friends have to see their ex-husbands to drop off the kids), but there are also times when I really wish I could have been lucky enough.
This article helps me feel a little more normal with my own feelings. Thank you.
I love this piece because it helped me to connect with what's going under the smiling, friendly and charming persona that is 'savvy auntie'. The invisibility of your 'infertility' - the same one that I went through, is heartbreaking on the inside and, yes, seemingly invisible to others.
The 'why don't you adopt' comment is also often unintentionally cruel - because in reality not that many women I know would either pass the criteria to adopt nor are they wealthy enough to bring up a child alone. And yet to point this out to well-meaning friends and onlookers can make them sound petulant or picky - or even invite the "well then you obviously don't really want a child" comment.
I'm 47 now and have come to terms with not having a family. It wasn't easy - I had to 'grieve for the life unlived'. But once I'd come through that, I found a new zest for living again, and have channeled all that loving 'maternal' energy into exciting new projects: training as a psychotherapist, writing and setting up Gateway Women. Gateway Women's mission is to support, inspire and empower women without children 35+- both those still hoping for a baby (like yourself) and those a bit older and post-fertile (like me) who are making the unexpected adjustment to a childfree life.
Thanks for your honesty Melanie. I hope it works out for you. Big hugs, Jody x