Yesterday I read the cover story in the New York Times Magazine by Alex Kuczynski about her use of a gestational surrogate to become a mother after 11 IVFs and four miscarriages.
One of the things that hit home was her brief description of "the terrible, wishful math of infertility." I'd never thought of it that way exactly, but I immediately recognized myself. And I recognized my penchant for Infertility Math.
I have repeatedly calculated how old I will be when I give birth if I get pregnant on X attempt, which is a continuously moving target. I also calculate where I will be in my academic training and career…along the lines of "If I get pregnant now, I will be on my internship… applying to post-doctoral fellowships… interviewing for post-doctoral fellowships…on a post-doctoral fellowship (probably true if I get pregnant this cycle)…on the academic job market," etc.
One of my most grueling versions of Infertility Math is computing the age and developmental stage our baby would be at if we hadn't miscarried the first time. I only do this with pregnancy no. 1- by the second and third losses I'd learned to not calculate due dates that might come back to haunt me.
With that first pregnancy, Will's older sister was one month farther along and now has a child (truly, a lovely child) who is a continual reminder of the fact that our baby is not here. Try as I might to NOT do this, when I am at my sister-in-law's, holding her beautiful son, it is almost impossible to not start the dreaded calculations in my head, subtracting one month from her baby's age and imagining what our daughter would be doing and how our lives would be so very different if she had lived.
Then I catch myself, and I stop.
Until the next time.
Similarly, watching friend after friend get pregnant and deliver, and then some of these friends get pregnant - how is it possible? - a second time, has become yet another barometer of loss. A painful reminder that Will and I are somehow out of step with time.
The holidays engender a particularly treacherous form of Infertility Math. Just yesterday, Will and I bought our tree and were securing it in its stand in the living room. Before I could stop myself, I reflexively thought, "This will be our last Christmas without a child."
Which would be fine, except that I think this every year.
And we don't have a child.
And (breath hitches in throat) I don't know if we ever will.
Infertility carries us along on a continuous cycle of hope and loss…followed by more hope. Hope that I can soon be a mother, hope that Will and I can seal our union with an oh-so-beloved child, hope that we can put this chapter of grief and loss and longing behind us and move forward into the future.
And at the same time that hope carries us into dangerous territory - dangerous and terrible and wishful territory - a landscape of unmappable days, of the uncharted and unknowable future.
That's the rub of infertility. And the peril of Infertility Math.
Mo
One of the things that hit home was her brief description of "the terrible, wishful math of infertility." I'd never thought of it that way exactly, but I immediately recognized myself. And I recognized my penchant for Infertility Math.
I have repeatedly calculated how old I will be when I give birth if I get pregnant on X attempt, which is a continuously moving target. I also calculate where I will be in my academic training and career…along the lines of "If I get pregnant now, I will be on my internship… applying to post-doctoral fellowships… interviewing for post-doctoral fellowships…on a post-doctoral fellowship (probably true if I get pregnant this cycle)…on the academic job market," etc.
One of my most grueling versions of Infertility Math is computing the age and developmental stage our baby would be at if we hadn't miscarried the first time. I only do this with pregnancy no. 1- by the second and third losses I'd learned to not calculate due dates that might come back to haunt me.
With that first pregnancy, Will's older sister was one month farther along and now has a child (truly, a lovely child) who is a continual reminder of the fact that our baby is not here. Try as I might to NOT do this, when I am at my sister-in-law's, holding her beautiful son, it is almost impossible to not start the dreaded calculations in my head, subtracting one month from her baby's age and imagining what our daughter would be doing and how our lives would be so very different if she had lived.
Then I catch myself, and I stop.
Until the next time.
Similarly, watching friend after friend get pregnant and deliver, and then some of these friends get pregnant - how is it possible? - a second time, has become yet another barometer of loss. A painful reminder that Will and I are somehow out of step with time.
The holidays engender a particularly treacherous form of Infertility Math. Just yesterday, Will and I bought our tree and were securing it in its stand in the living room. Before I could stop myself, I reflexively thought, "This will be our last Christmas without a child."
Which would be fine, except that I think this every year.
And we don't have a child.
And (breath hitches in throat) I don't know if we ever will.
Infertility carries us along on a continuous cycle of hope and loss…followed by more hope. Hope that I can soon be a mother, hope that Will and I can seal our union with an oh-so-beloved child, hope that we can put this chapter of grief and loss and longing behind us and move forward into the future.
And at the same time that hope carries us into dangerous territory - dangerous and terrible and wishful territory - a landscape of unmappable days, of the uncharted and unknowable future.
That's the rub of infertility. And the peril of Infertility Math.
Mo
Posts
