Musings on Infertility

I've been thinking about the poem to which I posted a link, "I will be a wonderful mother." I've read that poem over probably a dozen times or more now. In a way, I can imagine that someone who reads it who has not experienced infertility might feel it is a bit egotistical, a bit narcissistic. After all, what gives anyone the right to compare themselves with anyone else and declare themselves better, especially when they are talking about something they haven't even experienced yet?

But then I think of some of the women I shared this poem with. They are members of email discussion lists, and are Catholic women who are either adoptive mothers (or somewhere on the path to adoption) or who gave birth after some experience of infertility, or both (as in my own case). There were many admissions of tears in response to this poem.

The voice of the poem is a woman still in the painful unknown. She does not say "I am a wonderful mother," but rather that she will be. She talks about a child who is her own, but who somehow is not yet with her. Further, the voice can either be a mother waiting for the green light towards adoption or awaiting birth. One would think this would be a joyful time, but it happens all too often that adoptions fail, even sometimes after the adoptive parents bring the newborn home with them. And of course, not every child in the womb opens her eyes to the light of this world.

It is in the climax of the pain of loss, when hope is so close that it can be tasted, that this kind of affirmation is desperately needed by those who have experienced infertility. Hope can be such a devastating thing. If a woman is blessed with normal looking cycles, there is the constant ebb and flow of waiting for the right time, "frantic activity," waiting, and disappointment. If a woman does not ovulate regularly, then there is the other issue of feeling there is no hope to have. But whether one still is at the point of having hope during each two-week wait, or whether hope is only allowed in once pregnancy is achieved, or the first, second, or third trimester, or birth is reached, or papers are filed with the adoption agency, or the call is received, or the baby is born, or the termination of birthparent rights is signed... there is an awfully long time for one to hold one's breath, or live face-to-face with the possibility of one's dreams being absolutely and totally devastated.

In my own circumstance, our adoption proceedings stretched on for so long that all the markers of hope and excitement got overshadowed in murkiness. We met our son the day after he was born. Then, there was the day he came home to us, eight months later, and there was the finalization of his adoption just over three years after that. In between there were many developments that slowly took any potential uncertainty away regarding our future together. But these were moments that were hard to celebrate because they were usually good news in a slightly higher ratio than the previous time, mixed with an open door to some kind of uncertainty.
One of the biggest griefs as the adoption process dragged on and on with no end in sight was that our state requires a waiting time of one year between the finalization of one adoption before the opening of another. So for a time I felt stuck -- unable to conceive, and unable to pursue adoption so that our one-day son could have a sibling.

But we did conceive, thanks be to God, and we finalized my son's adoption 15 hours before I gave birth to my daughter. I would say it took me until my second trimester to really embrace this reality with joy. I was ecstatic, mind you, to be pregnant, but the reality was too big for me to take in. The first moment I saw her I cried out "Oh! It's a baby!" It was a joy that shocked me to my core. I spoke the words "my baby" in the following days with a fear-filled reverence.

I always felt, before getting pregnant, that I would never be satisfied, even if I gave birth. I thought I would be satisfied with nothing other than a large gaggle of children, and I wondered if even that would do it. Of course, life's satisfaction is not found in the number of children one has. But one cannot discount the sense, the urgency, the desire in the hearts of husbands and wives for children. I have heard people speaking of this desire as the way they knew they needed to pursue another adoption, or continue seeking medical treatment. I suppose it might be the same for those for whom it is a matter of shifting use of NFP as well.

I am satisfied now, although I would still be ecstatic if God were to bless us again.

I think there is a unique suffering in being a Catholic women with low fertility in our current culture. It can be hard to find friends of a similar age with whom one can share faith, but without conversations always turning towards children and pregnancy. There is the fear of people presuming our use of contraception, and even fear of getting lectured about how we need to be open to life. I struggled for quite some time with this notion that God was actually preventing me from being a "good Catholic woman," you know, the kind with lots of kids. Women in the work world can get tired of being lumped in with judgments against women who defer childbearing for career. Catholics usually mean well when they talk about treasuring fertility, but unthinking statements and judgments can hurt, especially when a woman is not comfortable in responding by sharing intimate details of her struggle freely. And, I'm sorry, but women with high fertility who complain endlessly about the discomforts of pregnancy and caring for children can be the most difficult resounding gongs and clanging symbols to bear.

I am fairly fluent in both dialects -- the never-fertile and the always-fertile. But my heart is most warmed when I hear women who appreciate the broad spectrum of human experiences that a faithful living of the marriage vocation creates. My heart is most devastated by those who treat fertility as a disease to be stamped out. St. Paul was absolutely correct, I believe, when he asserted to Timothy (1 Tim. 2:15) that a woman's salvation comes through childbearing, whether or not that is something she ever experiences herself.