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By Newsweek Editors
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I'm outing myself. Until now I've refused to talk about it with the friends, family and even strangers who are perfectly comfortable asking when I'm going to have children because, after all, I'm 39 and finally married and isn't it about time? Even if they're too polite to ask directly, they note how great my husband is with kids or press me for the real reason I quit my job, even when I insist it was to concentrate on my writing.
I'm tired of presenting the world with silence and a Mona Lisa smile. So here it is: yes, I'm trying to get pregnant, and, no, it isn't happening.
"That's it?" you're saying if you've never been in my shoes. And if I weren't wearing them myself I'd probably agree with you. How can admitting to infertility compare to, say, having bipolar disorder or being HIV-positive? What's the big deal?
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We've all heard about women's biological clocks. But it isn't until you hear your own ticking that you notice that, everywhere you turn, someone's warning you about how hard it is to get pregnant at your age, as if it's your fault you didn't find the right person or the right time in your career or you just weren't ready until now.
Recently, my 42-year-old sister, in a panic, told me about a lecture she had gone to where experts in reproductive technology told the audience of highly successful women over 35 that they may as well start taking fertility drugs now because their chances of getting pregnant are worse than their chances of getting married after 40.
So, it seems, I should be prepared for my own set of purple and green bruises--the kind that spread across the bloated belly of one of my girlfriends when she was injecting herself daily with synthetic hormones. And I should warn my husband that those hormones are likely to reduce me to a puddle of despair when I discover we're out of organic sesame-seed butter, since my friends who've gone through it tell me it's like having the worst PMS you've ever experienced. Multiplied by 10.
My husband assures me I don't have to worry about this since we've been trying for less than a year. Sound advice--unless you're in your late 30s and believe the conventional wisdom that says you should consider fertility treatments after six months. Sure, the side effects are hell, but what do I expect when I've waited so long?
My doctor, who has had two children through IVF, promises me it's worth it, as if I don't have any other choice. Why doesn't she consider that I might not want to subject my body to technology that treats it like a piece of defective machinery?
I picture myself as one of those cool moms in their late 30s and early 40s I see pushing strollers through hip Glassell Park. Like 20-year-olds, they dress in denim and funky halter tops. They quit their corporate jobs to be artists or to open coffeehouses. They practice yoga daily. And when they're ready--poof!--they become pregnant. Why shouldn't that be me? My yoga-toned body is healthier than it was when I was 20. I've already quit my job. I even shop in the teenage section at Nordstrom. But my eggs are 39 years old, and no amount of eyebrow piercing is going to change that.
As certain as I am that now is the right time for me to have my children, it's hard not to blame myself for how difficult it's turning out to be. My husband tells me we don't know if it was any easier for our friends because no one talks about the trying, only the success.
Which brings me back to the question of why we don't talk about it. Certainly, a couple's decision to start a family is a deeply personal matter. But so is pregnancy itself, and we talk about that, just like we talk about illness, marriage, divorce.
So what am I afraid will happen if I tell people about the early miscarriages? About the tears every time I see blood on a piece of toilet paper? I'm afraid they will feel sorry for me, that they'll stop asking about anything else in my life because they won't think it's as important as being able to have a baby. I'm afraid that people will know that I have failed at something that really matters.
Or maybe it's that I'm afraid to find out that my career isn't as important to me as being a mother. Maybe it's our version of a midlife crisis, we women who've had so much success that suddenly pales in comparison to being able to conceive. But, hey, better to long for a baby than a cherry red '67 Ford Mustang convertible.
So, now that you know, what do you say next time you see me? Don't say anything. I'll tell you when I'm pregnant, and in the meantime you can stop wondering whether every decision I make means I am. After all, I don't ask you if your interest in Gyrotonics is just a sign that your kids are growing up and you have nothing else to do. I don't blame you for being able to have your beautiful children. And I'm learning not to blame myself for my difficulty having my own.
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