Confessions

some things that have been on my mind:

1. I haven't always wanted to be a parent, identified the 'mom' in me, or really thought much about starting a family. F and I used to tell certain family members that we didn't want kids. Some who don't know about our infertility still think this is the case (which is hurtful now). It's not that I regret feeling this way--I think in many ways I am a late bloomer -- only just in the last 3 years have we reached the point in our lives where the discussion of whether or not we want to have a child even makes sense.The month I turned 30 is when I knew I wanted to be a parent with F after all. And for F, having a child or becoming a parent is never 'a given', it is an ethical choice that two people should make together. I am sad about the fact that when we finally made that decision, a decision that took a long time to make, it didn't work, and we still are not parents. I rationally know we are not infertile because we waited too long to decide, or thought too hard about that decision or believe in population control or completely lack sentimentality and romanticism, but sometimes I wonder if our thoughts are infertile.

2. I used to babysit for a family when I was 25 or so, and hold this adorable baby in my arms in front of the hallway mirror, trying to imagine myself with a child. I couldn't. I used to rock her to sleep and sing to her and she would just watch me. I loved the feeling of singing to her and holding her in my arms, but I never felt that strong urge to have one of my own. Yesterday I was thinking of songs that I would sing to my child and I started thinking of this baby that I used to know, and I started to cry. It sort of came out of nowhere but I know that it was probably my worst fear surfacing: that I will never be able to experience that moment as a parent.

3. This is a hard one to confess. When I was a person who didn't really want children, I thought A.R.T. was an excess, something I would NEVER do. Sometimes I still feel conflicted about it. My thinking was very similar to Jesse Klein's, in her 35th birthday essay for The Daily Beast describing her feelings about A.R.T. after her doctor confronted her about her family building plans and egg freezing options. She writes,

"...if I'm meant to give birth, I will."

and

" It’s just that when I think about my uterus (which is rare) I don’t have any desire to bully it into doing something it may not naturally feel like doing. In vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, egg transplants, surrogacy, fallopian Xeroxing—I have no interest. I know I could change my mind one day, but to the degree that I know anything, I also know I won’t."

Despite being a bit uneducated about why certain procedures are necessary (I'm going to bully my breasts into not getting cancer!), I know this essay is not really about infertility, she is not against A.R.T. or even arguing against people who do not believe that if we are meant to give birth we will, and seek the treatments that she minimizes and pokes fun of. But she is a comedian, who doesn't really care about family building, who is single and 35 and who felt a little insulted by her doctor's assumption that she wants to procreate. My 30 year old self can relate. My infertile self cringed when I read this and couldn't relate at all.


How great would it be to rarely think about your uterus? I think I might look into that Fallopian Xeroxing procedure.

One more confession: I've been drinking decaf coffee again. My excuse and rationalization: I return home, to babymaking, to being an infertile couple, to deciding what to do next, to testing, to waiting for results, to disappointment in one week and I feel like this is my last week to indulge in my favorite fertile diet no-no.