Isolated and Lonely in the Land of Infertility

Ya’ know, I always told people, I didn’t really want kids. Well, I didn’t. It seemed like something that didn’t really fit in with my perception of myself. I never saw myself as a parent. And the love of my life, my partner and spouse, didn’t seem to want children either. So, I didn’t worry about it. What did I worry about? Birth control. Birth control was a big deal, because NOT getting pregnant with a child that I was pretty sure I didn’t want was an all-consuming, expensive necessity. I remember screaming at my OB/GYN when I found out that Norplant had been taken off the market. My ability to stay safely unpregnant was suddenly gone. Most of my adult life, it took a lot of time, and money, and energy, to prevent pregnancy.

Which is sort of ironic, now.

Awhile ago, when I was in my late 30s, my husband and I sort of did a turn-around. We started talking about kids. We were both tentative at first. Kids were a lot of responsibility. You needed to be a grown-up, and you had to really stop being selfish and indulgent, when there was a tiny person that was utterly dependent on you. Okay, it looked sort of tough. But we talked about it. And suddenly, we were both smitten with the idea. So I stopped all birth control. After all, pregnancy was an easy thing to achieve, wasn’t it? Since we took such draconian measures to prevent pregnancy, getting pregnant seemed like the least of our issues.

In the intervening years, I have gotten pregnant. But they have not lasted long. I’ve sort of lost count of the miscarriages at this point. Yup. I got tired of telling the primary care physician and the OB/GYN about them. Yes, this is the same OB/GYN I screamed at about the birth control. He’s a good guy. He has utter faith in my ability to conceive. I got tired of saying, yes, it was a miscarriage, because my period was several weeks late, and suddenly there was the most intense pain, and I lost a lot of blood all at once, and then it was done in a couple hours. Miscarriage. Not a heavy period, you morons. Don’t patronize me! I was pregnant one day, and not pregnant the next. A couple of times, I wasn’t even sure I was pregnant until I had the miscarriage. So, I stopped reporting in. I pretended not to be present, when I was dealing with all that blood and the other unmentionable products of lost conception, and I shoved all my sorrow down deep, and tried not to be morose for too long.

In all this time, I have grown accustomed to some pretty stupid truths about infertility. The most horrifying underlying truth is that infertility is really expensive, and a lot of the time, it’s just money thrown away. It seems there’s this whole hush-hush underground economy that preys on the hopes and wishes of infertile parents. It’s a racket, I tell you. It’s an evil, evil scheme, promising you the joy of parenthood but mostly leaving you more horrifyingly broke and desperate and despondent. Even trying to join an infertility support group costs the big bucks; several hundred dollars a month. Just to be in a group of other equally sad and grasping people. You know, just for fun, I tried the other support groups offered by the local medical conglomerate. The cancer support groups were free, the diabetic support group was free, even the HIV+ support group was free. Why does infertility cost money? Don’t infertile people qualify as being worthy of a support group without cost, because they, too, are facing illness and uncertainty? Apparently not. Apparently, it’s the last taboo to be infertile, no one is sympathetic, and you are unworthy of consideration by the medical community, unless you have a nice, fat bank account. Then they’ll talk to you.