I was reading a memoir by a woman who is schizophrenic and has managed to have a successful career as an academic and to enjoy a happy and healthy marriage. For a moment, I thought - maybe I'm asking too much out of life. Maybe I'm irrationally dissatisfied with what is, when it gets down to it, a blessed life.
But then, an hour later, I think - it's not necessarily dissatisfaction with what I have, if I just want this one other thing. Could I be happy without children? Yes, although I am sure I would grieve that lost possibility on and off for the rest of my life. But yes, I would still have Mr. Ibis, I would still have my work, I would still have my health and my dog and my family and friends and my home. But just because I could, doesn't mean I have to. I could be happy in a one bedroom apartment for the rest of my life, but it doesn't mean it's wrong to try to buy a house. I could be happy eating beans & rice for the rest of my life, but it doesn't mean it's wrong to want to enjoy my food.
And then I get a little fired up about the whole topic.
The thing that drives me especially crazy about the Octomom controversy is the public backlash against infertility treatments - not just irresponsible IF treatments, but all of them. Someone on the nest posted an LA Times opinion piece to get people's reactions to the thesis that those who seek infertility treatments have a selfish, unreasonsable sense of entitlement.
I think that's an all too common attitude, and I don't understand why it's only applied to those who can't make a baby with just a penis and a vagina (sorry to be crude, but really - that's what we're talking about here). If you think the infertile feel entitled, doesn't everyone who tries to have a child? Having a child is not strictly a need on an individual level, only on a species level, and really the species is doing just fine without your help, Mr. & Mrs. Baby Machine. Why is there this double standard?
Most bizarrely, the infertile are always told, "Why don't you just adopt?" Well, why don't you? Why do the infertile (or fertility-challenged) have to take on the role of Saving All the World's Unwanted Children? And if you're going to apply a little logic to this absurd premise, why does adoption escape the judgment of Selfish & Entitled? Who says the adoptive couple deserves to raise any child, even an "unwanted" child, even if they are infertile? Maybe they should just stay home and donate money to some mythically deserving Superparents who might come along.
Sometimes I think that this is all boils down, once again, to misogyny and a deep rooted discomfort in our culture with women's right to choose. And now I know I sound like a crazy feminist crusader. But it's interesting to me that nothing gets people wound up like women's reproductive issues. Having babies, raising babies, giving up babies, losing babies... is there anything that can ignite controversy quicker?
I know that I don't technically struggle with infertility, since I certainly got pregnant easily enough the first time I tried. But I think what infertility and miscarriage have in common is that, in each instance, your reproductive choice is ripped away from you. People who have not been through either can sit on their thrones all they like and point fingers and say what they would do, but they don't know. You can't know what you would do until your ability to do is stolen from you. The loss of control over your own body that you experience when you miscarry or (I admit I'm only imagining) struggle to achieve pregnancy is stunning, paralyzing, terrifying, and finally, enraging. And the only thing that can top that rage is the rage you feel when someone out there tells you what you "should" be doing next.
Even the loss of physical control that an ordinary pregnancy entails - I feel I can say since I visited that state for a little while - is nothing compared to having your power to decide wrenched from your control. I would venture to say that everyone, EVERYONE, would feel an overpowering need to take it back. Autonomy is all we have as human beings.
Some people take back control by choosing willingly to be child-free. Some take control by adopting. Some take control by trying to get pregnant again, and some need to take control by employing whatever medical treatments and aides may be necessary. And to anyone who says they know they wouldn't do x, y, or z, I can only say - I hope for your sake you never have to find out whether that's true.
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