everyone has an opinion and a story

A new friend of mine who is also experiencing challenges around conceiving sent me the following snip-it:

there is in Harvard Square, right now, an interesting type of kiosk where people write down their universal questions, and wait for an answer from the anonymous owner of the kiosk. They are all posted for the public to see but only the kiosk owner gets to write answers (he crosses them out when other people write them. I assume it is a “he”). Two questions were about fertility: “should I try IVF again? Will I get pregnant if I try again?” and the jerk owner of the kiosk wrote back both times that these women should consider what they’re trying to gain in their lives out of pregnancy, do they think having a baby will “fix” things they can’t fix in other ways, and they should just go for adoption, which is easier and always successful. I was so mad and wanted to write a card about it but I figured why bother with my energy.

Indeed, one of the questions I often ask myself is why bother spending my energy trying to explain or defend my decisions to those who don’t understand and haven’t experienced the loss that infertility is.  But, ultimately that is what this project is all about. It is about you and me sharing our stories with those who haven’t a clue about infertility or think they know what it is based on sensationalized media stories. Fertility Stories, I hope, will be a way for us to share while protecting our anonymity – well yours not mine so much – and still get these stories into the public sphere.

Why is this important you might ask. Why not just make this another blog for support and sharing within the community? Those blog have certainly been helpful to me and I’m sure their helpful to you, you might even write one.

For me the reason to collect the stories and use them to create a play is to attempt to shift public opinion. I happen to be lucky enough to live in the state of Massachusettes where state law mandates that health insurance companies cover fertility treatment. It is one of only 14 states that have any laws regarding this and it is also the one with the most generous policy. Most of you don’t have that blessing. In part, its because public perception about infertility and fertility treatment is limited by those sensational stories – the single mom of 14, the reality show family of 10 – not the stories of the 30 year old diagnosed with premature ovarian failure, the 38 year old diagnosed with breast cancer, or the 40 year old with endometriosis.

These are the stories that the public needs to hear. I believe that if they hear them in the context of a “play” that will be both funny and poignant, sad and indignant, it may have the power to wake people up and shift that public perception enough to eventually change the laws and make fertility treatments more accessible to more people.

So today is RESOLVE’s advocacy day in Washington. In honor of that, I am asking you to share your story. Send an email to me, write a comment on the page, or call your law maker. Do all three, just share your story. Here are some questions that could help you get started:

1. What’s the most ridiculous thing you have heard someone say about IVF or fertility treatments?

2. Have you ever been caught away from home when it was time for a shot? Where were you and what did you do?

3. What has been the most surprising thing you’ve learned about yourself, your partner, your family, the world, since you began to address your infertility?

4. What’s the one thing that you want people who haven’t experienced infertility to know, or to GET?

I thank you in advance for sharing.

Fertility and Story Telling

Perhaps it was sitting in my car dialing the injection pen for my nightly shot and worrying what might happen if a cop pulled up next to me at that moment or maybe it was the third conversation I had with that well meaning friend or relative who asked if I had considered pursuing adoption which seemed “easier,” or the overwhelming feeling of failure I felt when I found out my first IVF cycle had failed to result in a pregnancy – probably it was all of these moments that led me to want to share my story with people who GOT IT and to simultaneously create a way for those who didn’t, to GET IT through hearing the personal stories of others.

I have seen the power of personal stories to create change. We all have. Personal stories have a tremendous power to transform how we listen to and experience the world around us. I realized that if I could share my story and maybe the stories of others  – the humor, pain, hope, and transformation – with people who didn’t experience infertility first hand then perhaps we could change public perception and maybe even get policy to change. So was born Fertility Stories: In Search of Parenthood.

Fertility Stories: In Search of Parenthood is a project to collect stories from women, men, and couples who have experienced fertility problems and to use those stories to create a theatrical performance piece that will change public awareness and perception. It is my hope that this project will contribute to public conversations about fertility, assisted reproductive technology, and all the various ways that we aim to create family; that it will provide a means for healing and challenge what we think we know about who seeks fertility treatment and why.

Why me? My story and the birth of the project

I am a 40 year old single woman who has been dealing with infertility issues for about a year.  When I first starting trying to get pregnant, I was sure based on the fertility of my maternal relatives that even having waited until I was 38, I wouldn’t have problems. I had so many cousins and friends who had waited that I just thought it would be okay. Many people ask – if you’ve always known you wanted children why did you wait so long? Good question – impertinent question – but fair nonetheless. I guess, I had been waiting to find the person with whom I wanted to build a life and create a family, but after several failed relationships and my 38th birthday, I finally decided to pursue parenthood on my own.

Not a decision to take lightly. But once taken, I was sure that I would just choose a donor, order the necessary vials, find a midwife to help me and be on my way. I though four maybe six months and I’d be pregnant. My grandmother had given birth to my mother after 40, so I was good to go. I didn’t expect to have any problems, and I had decided I wouldn’t pursue IVF – I wouldn’t need to.

Then I did.

As I made the call to schedule the appointment with the fertility specialist, I realized how much hiding and anxiety there was for me just in beginning to address my fertility issues. I also realized how much public perception, negative perception, I was carrying into making the decision to move on to more medical intervention. It meant giving up my fantasy of an “easy” avenue to being a mother. It meant reexamining my sense of myself, as a relatively healthy woman, a woman made for making babies. It meant entering a scary world of statistics and treatments that by all reports were not in my favor.

You would think that bucking the system by trying to become a single mother would have cured me of worrying about what others think but it didn’t.  So I kept everything very close and private only telling those who I really felt needed to know or could help. With everyone else, I just pretended that I was continuing regular alternative insemination. I had shied away from the infertility support groups run by an MSW through my clinic because I was afraid that most of the women would be married or partnered, and I would be the only single person there. The hiding from friends and family, however, created more anxiety around the procedures I was taking on in my quest to become a parent. Who would be the support for me if I went through another failed cycle? Who would be willing to drive me to the office for the different procedures that required sedation? Who could I trust to follow my lead and not ask the “wrong” question. Suddenly doing this on my own took on a whole new level of meaning. And to top it off – as is I believe always the case when we really want something – everyone around me was getting pregnant. Everyone! So I felt even more betrayed by my body.

Until one day, while waiting for an ultrasound, I began chatting with the nurse and another woman who was in the midst of what was clearly not her first IVF cycle. The act of sharing our stories and laughing at some of the crazy things you do while chasing the dream of conception and pregnancy was really liberating. I came to realize how much I had been hiding and how alone I felt. I began sharing with others and being more open. I got to hear the stories of friends and family members who had dealt with this – people I hadn’t known had struggled with infertility or who just hadn’t ever talked to about it.  I began reading and searching the blogs of others and found a whole online infertility community.  People sharing and “talking.”

But the talking and the sharing was limited to those already in the community; those, who because of an experience of one kind or another, were seeking the Infertility community. I thought what if there was a way to connect all these stories and people by creating a single online place for people to share their stories.  And what if those stories could be turned into a “play” about fertility and infertility and the things people do when they are trying to become parents or preserve the possibility of it in the face of a cancer diagnosis. I got excited about the possibility that this project and the “play” could perhaps have an impact on our culture by giving public space to talk about something that is generally considered private and unmentionable.  Thus was born “Fertility Stories – In Search of Parenthood”.  And the beauty of it, is that the process of creating this project is not only connecting me to more folks in the IF community, it is also something other than my monthly cycle and hormone levels to which I can give my attention and my passion.

Share your story with the project. Visit the ABOUT page to learn how to get involved.  Email me at andreamj09@gmail.com to find out more. Even if you don’t get involved with this project, share your story with someone. It will change you and those who hear it.