Eleven years ago
May 13, 2007 Infertility
Eleven years ago I was recovering from a miscarriage (emotionally — physically I was a-ok) and it was mother’s day and little did I know it but I was going to find out I was pregnant with Noah in a couple of weeks. But for that day it was mother’s day and I was crying.
For a long time I had strong sense memories about being infertile. I could blink and feel exactly the way I felt at my worst and I’d have to hitch myself up by my logical bootstraps to stop feeling that way. But sometime in the last year or so it all just stopped and now I can’t really remember what it felt like. I mean, I can remember but I can’t feel it anymore. I don’t identify with infertility anymore. And this is the big reason I finally gave up on my book; it just doesn’t matter to me like it used to.
What does matter to me is our social values about motherhood, about not-motherhood, about womanhood as it is limited and defined by motherhood and how our cultural beliefs and formal policies shape our very personal experiences. This is the part of infertility that interests me and then you can see why adoption continues to fascinate me.
And this, too, is why I have real issues with the infertility industry — I know that for many of us, it’s the infertility industry defining our infertility experience and I believe that this is dangerous and unhealthy. It’s not the treatment per se — I’m not against individual women making individual choices about treatment — it’s the way that infertility treatment has become synonymous with infertility. That was going to be the point of the book and I hoped that I’d end up writing something that would help women make better sense of their choices. But, you know, I just don’t think I’d be successful. I’m too far away from the subject (emotionally) and I have too much antagonism with the ART industry.
But sometimes I think maybe I’d be able to wring an essay out of it. I’d hate to just throw away all of the research I’ve done.
So that’s my mother’s day entry. I kinda realize that my attitude towards mother’s day this year is “smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”
May 13th, 2007 at 12:02 pm
Your essay indeed! There you go!
May 13th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
This makes sense with regard to your previous post. The detail allows me to understand your dislike. You explain and dissect so well. Or dissect and explain. Which way does that go?
May 13th, 2007 at 9:59 pm
The way you feel about miscarriage is exactly the way I feel about depression. I remember that it was excruciating, but somehow now I just can’t relate to it anymore, and I can’t write about it. But I think what you’ve done with infertility here is awesome. Way to go!