A History of Infertility

Sometimes I feel broken, like less of a woman because my body doesn't work the way it is supposed to. It is so frustrating that my body does not do the one thing that women are supposed to be able to do. Pregnancy is one of the things that makes women special and so much different from men. Womanhood is often defined by Motherhood. It is hard to believe that something that comes naturally to so many women has eluded me for so long. Sometimes it even makes me feel inadequate as a wife because I can't give Ryan something he wants so much. I feel left out, left behind-like my life as a whole is at a standstill while we wait for the next phase, parenthood, to begin.

Sometimes I feel alone; I have people to talk to, but I feel like maybe I talk about this to some of them too much and I wonder if they get sick of hearing about my problems and concerns. Sometimes I feel like I can't even talk to Ryan about it because I think he doesn't want it as bad, then he says something that makes me realize he really does. I think men just handle infertility differently than women do. Just the other night I started to tell him about an article I read about a financially struggling infertile couple and he said he had read it too. He follows Resolve (The National Infertility Association) on Facebook, just like I do. He might not talk about them as much as I do but I love that he reads the articles.

Years ago there would have been nothing anyone could do to help me and I would have been considered a barren woman. "Barren" is such an ugly word. All of the synonyms for infertile are hopeless, negative, ugly words: depleted, drained, empty, exhausted, impoverished, sterile, unbearing, unfruitful, unproductive...the list goes on. For centuries infertility was considered a disgraceful thing; a woman who could not bear children was thought to be useless. This long history of shame in relation to infertility is probably one of the reasons it has been considered a taboo topic of discussion for the last few decades. Only recently have stars like Jimmy Fallon publicly discussed their infertility problems, raising awareness and making the topic more socially acceptable.

Infertility is an issue that goes all the way back to biblical times, although most (I think all but one) of those women were only temporarily infertile before God showed his miraculous power by blessing them with a child. In some religions it was even thought to be a divine curse and some women even today feel like their infertility is a punishment from God. In the 1600s barren women were looked upon with suspicion. Puritans believed that barren women were that way because they needed to prove their faith in order for God to bless them with children.

A century later, infertile women in what would become the United States were given the responsibility of caring for orphaned children. This was something that was thought to be the job of women who had no children of their own throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. They were actually not looked down upon like they had been in the past, as these women were seen to be doing a good thing by taking on the role of mother for motherless children. Although some still believed that the condition was the woman's fault, as in she must be doing something that is disrupting her bodily function, by the 1800s sterility, as it was called, began to be viewed as a medical condition. Doctors began experimenting with treatments ranging from increasing sexual pleasure to artificial insemination. It was not until the 1930s that the first woman gave birth to twins as a result of artificial insemination.

Men were not exempt from the ridicule that often came with infertility. In early modern England men who could not impregnate their wives were considered unmanly and looked down upon (even though in those days there was no way to tell if the infertility was due to the male or female factor). Even George Washington is thought to have been infertile. He never had any children of his own, but took the responsibility of raising his wife Martha's two living children from her first marriage as his own.

In the early days of the Unites States, children were thought of as essential for survival. Children helped families survive economically by working the family business (which was largely agriculture before the Industrial Revolution) and cared for their parents when they got old. Families with no children often suffered economically because of this. In some cultures this is still the case today.

In other cultures it used to be socially acceptable for a man to denounce his wife, and even kill her in some cases, if she could not produce an heir for him (I am sure this still happens today too in some less developed countries). In some developing countries today, having children is the only way for a woman to improve her social standing. When a woman cannot bear children she is thought to be a failure and often punished physically as well as psychologically. In other cultures marriage only exists to unite a man and woman for reproductive purposes and women who cannot bear children are often ostracized.

Women have a heavy burden to carry in the expectation of motherhood. With all of the scientific advances that have been made all over the world it is so sad that some cultures still place so much blame on infertile women and treat them so poorly. A disease is defined as: a disorder of structure or function in a human, animal, or plant, especially one that produces specific signs or symptoms or that affects a specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury. The truth is that infertility IS a disease. It affects 1 in 8 couples in the United States today. It affects men and women physically, psychologically and socially. I am so lucky to live in a country where infertility is not punished and women are not disgraced or beaten for a disease that is out of their control.

I am lucky to live in this time when there are so many modern medical advances that have made treatments like IVF available to me. In the grand scheme of things, IVF is still pretty new. The first IVF baby (known as the "fist test tube baby") in the US was born in 1981, that makes her just one year older than myself. Even in the last 33 years, since her birth, so many advances have been made in the field of reproductive science.

Even though I sometimes feel alone or like less of a woman, it could be so much worse. I just have to remind myself that I am lucky for so many reasons. I have a great husband, who will love me whether I give him a child or not, and so many loving and supportive family members and friends. I have the privilege to be a part of my nieces and nephews lives and really live a pretty good life. Timing is everything and I would not want to be going through this at any other time in history.

*I read a very interesting article, where I also found some of the facts for this post. It is long, but a good read. If you are interested, you can find it here.