I’m jumping round a lot with these ideas on what impacts on our experience of infertility and why. Dipping into books here and there, I discover yet another component to the complex web, and want to weave it in somehow. Someone mentioned Unsung Lullabies in a recent comment, and as I got it down from the shelf this morning for a re-read, I noticed Australian author Leslie Cannold’s What, No Baby? next to it. So I took that too, got sidetracked, and looked up ‘infertility’ in the index.
More grist for the mill!
Her book examines women’s freedom to choose motherhood in the context of economic, social and ideological values and realities within Western cultures, (specifically Australia and the U.S.) and it runs the gamut of experiences from childlessness to motherhood, putting them under a somewhat feminist microscope.
I like the way she acknowledges childless women as being that way by choice, or by circumstances beyond their choosing. And how she discusses the impact that assuming all women are childless by choice has on those who did not choose this path. There are two ideas at play here. One is: what importance do we place on ‘choosing’ in our culture? And then, in the light of that, what impact does not being able to choose have on us? Leslie argues that it has so much impact, that we can hardly bring ourselves to admit our childlessness is not a choice. I think this is huge. Here are some quotes:
pp51-52: “The main reason why researchers ‘confuse’ women’s happiness about childlessness with their choice to be that way…is that qualitative researchers are acutely aware of both the social stigma women will experience, and the high psychological cost they’ll pay if they continue to think about their childlessness as unchosen. To understand why this is so, a brief detour into the fundamental beliefs of nations like Australia and the United States is required. For those who haven’t yet noticed, the capacity to choose is at the heart of Western values.”
pp53: “Australians and Americans tend to see themselves as people whose identity and life course are direct outcomes of their (totally free and fair) choices….Australians and Americans, more than any other people on the Earth, believe that everyone sits at the steering wheel of their own destiny, and that each of us consequently deserves all the praise we get for the races we win, and all the blame when we fail to cross the finish line.”
pp55: “This is the critical issue: how the experience and nature of circumstantial childlessness is described. The powerful- though unspoken- presumption that sits behind the glowing ideas we have about choosers, is that everyone can be one, if only they have a good attitude and try hard; it’s a sort of Nike ‘just do it’ stance on reproductive…decision making.”
So here we have a basic tenet of our society “you have the freedom to choose every circumstance in your life” that doesn’t fit with our (infertility) experience. I don’t think that most people struggling with some form of infertility (or sub fertility or what have you) are viewing this as a choice they made to be childless. But it is so hard for our culture to allow the thought that sometimes choice is not within our power, that we come up against people who want to tell us “You shouldn’t have left it too late; you must be ‘doing it’ wrong; I KNOW this next IVF will work for you; (insert almost any Aunt Jane comment here) – anything to lay the blame (responsibility/choice/control) back on us, or to negate the idea that we won’t get what we want in the end, because that would be simply unthinkable, and not at all consistent with our worldview. And, really, who wants their worldview shaken? If we concede that choice may not be within our control, my God! We might have to rethink some major components of our lives.
This may well be one very good reason some people are simply unable to hear our stories without judgement- not only are they having uncomfortable feelings about the content, but the premise is highly threatening also.
Leslie divides circumstantially childless women into two camps: ‘the waiters and watchers’- those who are still not convinced motherhood is for them (ambivalent), and ‘thwarted mothers’ – those who see motherhood as a goal (committed) but are unable to achieve it. My arguments will address the ‘thwarted mothers’ simply because that’s the camp I’m in, and the scope of this book is big enough already.
It is particularly telling that Leslie encountered great resistance on the part of ‘thwarted mothers’ to tell their stories for her book. She had incredible difficulty in interviewing anyone from that category. Friends of the ‘thwarted’ were reluctant to ask them to be interviewed, for fear of causing them distress. The ‘Thwarted’ themselves were reluctant to take part for fear of ‘crying hysterically through the whole thing’. [pps 62,63,64].
pp 64: “What do thwarted mothers find so embarrassing and distressing about their predicament that they won’t share it with a solitary interviewer who could promise them anonymity and -short of legal proceedings- complete confidentiality?…There are two reasons why circumstantially childless women in general, and thwarted mothers in particular, tend to feel so embarrassed and distressed about their situation. Comprehending both is not only essential for entering sympathetically into the mindset of these women, but critical to understanding why circumstantial childlessness is a real and important social phenomenon, despite languishing below the horizon of public awareness and concern.”
Well I don’t know about there being just ‘two reasons’- Leslie talks about one major issue being that of finding yourself single in childbearing years and how it made women feel like losers. Lack of control was the other reason brought to bear. And in the feminist context of her book, both are valid. Both are valid anyway, I just think there is a whole lot more beneath the surface that has not seen the light of day. More than others can imagine, and possibly even more than we are willing to admit to ourselves- because it is simply overwhelming and more than our mental health can cope with.
This is a raw and gaping wound, from where I sit. Opening it up to close inspection is hard. Opening it up to ourselves is hard, to close friends and family is hard, to the general public is harder. Without a firm feeling of trust and support during the opening up process, there is little incentive to do so. And, once opened, what to do with it all then? This is where the overwhelm comes in. It is all very well and good to lay our misery out on the table, but when we are looking at the sheer magnitude of it all, it can further reinforce our feelings of loss, powerlessness, lack of control, of choice. Exacerbating our feelings of self-loathing and already shaken sense of identity.
So while I think that it is important for those of us dealing with infertility to speak out about our experiences, to find connection with and support through that connection with others, and to make clear to the ‘non-thwarted’ what our needs are, I understand why this is hard. And I don’t judge the people who can’t or wont do it. I think you need a fair amount of resilience and support to unpack this stuff and make something of it, and you need to be ready.
I suspect this is why I am hearing more from the ‘other-siders’ at the moment, than from those in the ‘trenches’. The other siders’ wounds are partially ablated by successful childbearing and attainment of motherhood. They are now parents, and as such, have achieved their goal. This must go a long way to relieving feelings of embarrassment, shame, failure, and give a more solid place in which to stand and share the difficult elements of their journey.
Those in the trenches have no guarantee of motherhood, of success. We are still living the quotidian uncertainty. The wounds are current. And we don’t have a baby to plug the wound when the bleeding becomes frightening. Is it any wonder we might fear that if we open that wound, we could bleed to death?
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