Giving up (some of) the goods
First some parental discussion and then some thoughts about where I am with my book.
We switched doctors (to one we used to see when Noah was a pup) for a couple of reasons but the most relevent one for this blog entry is that it’s close enough to walk there. Walking five blocks for a check-up is much nicer than driving cross-town. We’re making a concentrated effort to drive a lot less this summer. This is also one reason that Noah doesn’t have a lot going on activity-wise. (The other reason is that we all deserve a break. Remember when summers were meant for relaxing?)
So Madison had her 2-year old check-up today and she is 34.5 pounds, 36.5 inches. She’s a big, tall, healthy girl. She was charming the other patients in the waiting room by chatting about the magazine she was reading. “Dat guy is sunny [funny]! See him?” Then she segues to the next most important thing on her mind. (Remember that in Madison language the f’s sound like s and the l’s sound like y.) “I go in the jogging stroller with Daddy and he goes SAST! And the race car comes [there's a guy in our neighborhood who does drag racing] and it is YOUD and I cry. I don’t YIKE the race car. [pause] Yes I do!” Chitter-chatter away. Between her height and her talking, she’s usually mistaken for three.
Right now the kids are playing in the wading pools. Noah has created a water park — 2 wading pools (one with a slide), her water table and her rocking boat. They are screeching and splashing and generally having an awfully good time.
Work-wise I need to get back on the query train. Book-wise, I found a history expert whose interests/research includes fertility issues who said she’d be happy to talk to me about secondary infertility. I can’t find much about it.
I figured out the paradigm that would underlie my book but I can’t find any specific research to support it. So what I’m going to do is go across disciplines and try to build a case. And as I work on my survey questions, I’m going to try to come up with more effective ones to address this theory. I have some anecdotal stories but they’re not really strong because I didn’t know what I was looking for.
I can’t decide if the reason I haven’t found much work about this (not just my idea but about secondary infertility) is because: 1. I’m wrong; 2. I just happened to get there first; 3. Nobody cares. I’m rooting for #2. But I need to think about that. Why is secondary infertility the redheaded stepchild (to quote my mother) of reproductive research? If I don’t nail the prejudices that inform this neglect, I won’t be able to overcome them. My sense is that the popular biases (that it only counts if you have no children, that a woman with even one child has nothing to complain about) run deep. And here’s the most interesting kicker I’ve been thinking about (and this is important to the direction of my research and of this book): Primary infertility is about womanhood; secondary infertility is about motherhood. See, we have this cultural idea that primary infertility signifies one’s worthiness as a woman (”Maybe you’re just not meant to be a mother; some people aren’t, you know.”). There’s this other idea — less blatant but still there — that secondary infertility signifies one’s worthiness as a mother. I’m really focusing on that idea because it’s one I certainly internalized.
It seems obvious, doesn’t it? To look at secondary infertility through the lens of motherhood? But I haven’t found much about it. I’m piecing it together from books about different subjects — about mothering and infertility but also about grief and crisis and parenting through these things. Because secondary infertility is not primary infertility with a kid. (This was the epiphany I had — see what I mean about epiphanies being obvious?)
I have more specific things to write about around this but I’ll hold off for now.
I think you are on to something here. For us, we had a very difficult time concieving our first daughter, but since we got pregnant with the first IUI, I think, our infertility was not taken all that seriously by those around us—family, friends, and even our doctors. Our secondary infertility was much, much “worse”, in that, we were not able to to get/stay pregnant through several IUIs and two IVF cycles (our daughter was the result of our third IVF) with the added heartbreak of miscarriage sprinkled in.
Through all of the emotion, there were two primary attitudes: 1) as you mentioned, we already had one chile. do what was all the fuss about anyway? Why couldn’t we just let it go and be satisfied with our one beautiful daughter? 2) You are not really infertile (because we had one child)you simply need to relax.
I don’t know if this helps, or even makes sense (I love the new look, but the comment box is much longer thatn my computer screen and I can’t see half of what I am typing…that is a little scary, I must admit), but I will submit this anyway and hope for the best.
Any chance you’re including firstmothers in on the research regarding seconday infertility because there’s definitely the stigma there of, “Well, maybe you just REALLY weren’t meant to be a Mom. Ever.”
I really think I have some stuff still bookmarked about that specific issue from when Josh and I started TTC Nicholas. I can check when I get home from the heck that is work if you’d like. Or google while I’m here… “Working.” Hmm, yes.
I have no idea what to write my book on… *thinks*
Madison sounds absolutely adorable! Our little guy (17 months) is really starting to talk now and we love it!
I answered your questionnaire awhile back but something which just occured to me now was that in all the fuss about women’s fertility decreasing with age, no one ever says that one of the risks of delaying motherhood is that you’ll have trouble having more than one child. I suppose it’s a bit strange to say that to women who don’t yet have any children, yet I know so many women (in real life and online) who were unable to have a second child because of being older first time mothers (ie over 40) and i think there must be a way of raising that as a public discussion.