Defining Infertility





I joined Mel's newest community project, the Prompt-ly listserve a few weeks back and have really enjoyed the conversation, links to interesting articles, and prompts for post topics. If you have the time, I'd definitely recommend checking it out.


One of the recent topics (Article: Comments on the Childless/Childfull Women Piece in HuffPohas been about the term "infertile" and who should be allowed to claim that definition. I didn't read the article that started the conversation, about a single older woman who wanted children but never had them and claimed that she was situationally infertile. The discussion that followed however has made me feel a little bit uncomfortable. 


If I've learned anything on this journey it has been to have compassion for others. I know what this experience has been like for me, but there is no way that I can fully understand or grasp or judge what this experience is like for others. I may not know someone else's experience, but I do know the pain, the grief, the sadness, the hopelessness, the loss that comes with these types of life-altering experiences. I have a newfound appreciation that compassion is simply the acknowledgement of another's experience. The compassion that I have been so lovingly shown here in this community is beyond incredible - people simply meeting me, without judgement, wherever I was at any point on this journey to offer me encouragement and support. 


I suppose that the Prompt-ly discussion is more theoretical in nature, and on some level necessary, but seems to have an undertone of judgement that lacks the compassion that I associate with this community. In essence the discussion is about who should be allowed to use the term 'infertile', and does the use of that term by certain populations render the term less meaningful for other populations. 


Simply defined infertile is the inability to reproduce.

By this definition the woman in the article would not qualify as infertile, since she may very well be able to reproduce given different circumstances. 


By this definition, I would not qualify as infertile either. Given different circumstances I may very well be able to get pregnant and carry a child naturally. 


I think this is the part that I am having a hard time with in the Prompt-ly thread. I am in deeply in love with and married to the most incredible man. A man who is infertile. Those are my circumstances. WE are unable to conceive naturally... I am unable to carry a child who shares his genetic make-up... How dare anyone imply that his infertility is not my infertility. 


I get it that our experience is different from a couple who has female factor infertility, or a couple who has suffered for far longer than we have... or for that matter a friend who is deeply upset that she is still not pregnant after 6 months of trying, or a military wife who grieves the opportunity to share her bed with her husband for extended periods of time... I get that we all have our own journey. 


Its just that getting into a debate about the definition of a term that is so emotionally charged hits a nerve with me. Language is powerful, and being on the same page is important, especially as Mel points out in the attempt to promote legislation that recognizes infertility as a disease, however I would love to think that somehow we can engage in this conversation in a way that embodies a compassion and lack of judgement that I know is so valued by this community.  


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5 comments :

Marissa said...

Well, I've been pretty vocale about this. I don't think she's infertile. Her problem isn't that she can't have kids--her problem is that she doesn't want to have kids unless she's married, and she's not married and so doesn't have the children that she would like.

I'm sorry, but name ONE infertility treatment that would help her. There are many ways to help her have children (donor sperm, co-parenting with someone she doesn't marry, foster, etc etc), but no medical treatment to help her get married.

Like you, "I" have MFI. But the treatment to help my husband have biological children involved *me* shooting myself with hormones, having a needle up my vagina, etc. Those with female infertility that can't be cured with a trigger and timed intercourse also require their partner to do things that wouldn't "normally" occur (jacking off into a cup, having that sperm washed, etc.) It becomes a couple's problem because both are involved on a physical level as well as an emotional level.

For me, saying she's not infertile doesn't mean she can't have sympathy. It just means she's not infertile. People who lose their wives to cancer don't have cancer, but they still deserve sympathy. People can have compassion offered towards them for many circumstances, but calling everything by the same name helps no one.

My two cents, again. ;)

Kerrik said...

I guess I find it hard to comment on her "infertility" as I also feel that we each have our own story, and though the pain may be similar for each of us, we can't know what it is to walk in another infertile's shoes.

It is frustrating enough that infertility is so poorly understood by our doctors, ourselves, our friends and families and of course by greater society, and I hate to be the one to start drawing lines in the sand and deciding who gets to be considered a member of the IFer club and who does not.

Perhaps a woman who wants children and can't have them because she never found the right partner, is infertile? I don't know. It seems a little odd, but my mind has been opened to greater oddities than that since starting this infertility journey.

Anonymous said...

I haven't followed this story and/or commenting around it at all.

What I do know is that we as a couple are infertile. I have written about it as well and stated something like: 'I'm not infertile but we are.' And that's very true to me. Everyones circumstances are different and how we see ourselves is very individual and private. If you want to bring it up to discussion you should be prepared that not all will agree and that too must be okay.

Lollipop Goldstein said...

I will say that you need to go read the article. At this point, you may have, but I'm going by what's in this post. You know I thought it was a well-written post that needed some editing help. I love your call for compassion, though I do understand how she rubbed people the wrong way with her words. And if they are prickling from her word choice, is it their fault if they react to the fact that they're smarting? I don't know.

Anonymous said...

I too struggle with the term "infertility". I've understood it as the inability to get pregnant naturally after 6 months or 1 year of trying. Because I am over 35 I got that label on my medical history chart after our second miscarriage when we were trying again and it took us more than six months. Since then we've had 3 pregnancies. I tend to think of infertility as being "resolved" by getting pregnant. Since I have unexplained repeat pregnancy loss my struggle is more with the staying pregnant. I find most outsiders/fertiles assume we have IF as we don't have kids and so I still feel the stigma. For this reason I still find myself embracing the term infertile. However, I can't use IF treatments like IUI and IVF to solve our problems, so I question if IF really describes our issues.

 

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