I don't remember when I stopped being embarrassed by infertility. It feels recent so maybe it's been in the past couple of years. I don't feel ashamed anymore. It's not my fault I'm not a mother. It's not my fault I wanted to be one. I navigated all that and eventually integrated it.
I feel more matter-of-fact about it now. I don't talk about it "in the wild" very much, but I don't shy away from it like I used to. It has led to some interesting connections with others.
There's a woman at work. She shared with me that she and her husband tried for years and it's not going to happen. She said they didn't do fertility treatments, and she was shocked to learn the low success rate for IVF.
Then there was another woman at work who was talking to another co-worker and me. She very casually said something about being infertile and I stopped the conversation. I asked, "You're infertile?" She said, "Yes." I said, "So am I." There was a pause and, if you can believe this, she simply said, "I see you." I appreciated that so much.
She saw me. What a kind thing to say. She didn't try to say something to make it better. She just acknowledged the facts that cannot change and sat with me.
Then a third person at work, this time a man (different from the one I wrote about here), shared that he and his wife don't have kids. I said something like, "Oh me neither, I can't have them" and he replied with, "Well, it's easier to say we don't want them than to know you can't have them." There was a slight pause. I felt the pain in that sentence. And then we talked about other things. Haven't talked about that since.
Why would we? We are at work. But having kids just comes up. Even when you don't have them.
Then, yes, a fourth example. These are all from work.
(I really gotta get out more! Lol. Just kidding, I'm pretty tired after this year so I'm fine with working and going home for now. But that means all of my socialization comes from work though. Good thing I like my co-workers haha.)
I went to an organization-wide lunch and randomly sat next to someone I didn't know because she was diagonal from one of the few people that I did know. Everyone else seemed to know each other, and they were all visiting. The woman next to me was talking all about her nephews.
Then she turns to me and asks, "Do you have kids?"
I was assuming this was going to be a situation where I said no and she turned her back to me, but I was wrong. I said no, and she said me neither. Then she said her nephews never call her or want to hang out anymore. I jokingly told her my niece and nephew very rudely grew up too. We agreed, in all seriousness, that being an aunt was overrated. Neither one of us have kids, and we are past the age of trying. All that at a work lunch while everyone else was chit chatting.
Interesting.
In my thirties I was surrounded by friends and family getting pregnant, having babies, and raising kids. In my forties all of those babies are now kids and teenagers. In my forties I've created a life that prioritizes my needs and interests over other families. That might sound strange, like an obvious thing to do, but it can be surprisingly hard with society's implicit expectations.
And now, instead of being constantly asked when I'm going to have kids, I attract conversations like these. Snippets of other people's childless not-by-choiceness (CNBC).
