The art of losing is not hard to master. I lost two cities, lovely ones, and vaster, some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. I miss them, but it wasn’t disaster.
from “One Art” by Elizabeth Bishop
This is the story of how my identity as a woman has been shaped by four “phews” and a “yech”.
Before I tell you about my “phew” moments you have to know that I grew up as the daughter of an OBGYN. Women delivering babies was the usual interruption in our family activities. While newborns were celebrated and named, infertility cases were always whispered with sorrow and anonymized (in hindsight due to confidentiality reasons).
Phew- moment #1: At four years old I acquired my identity as a woman. It happened when I learned that boys could not be pregnant. “Phew, I am so lucky I am not a boy. I am privileged because I will be able to have a baby inside me.”
But when I heard my dad talking with sorrow or concern about his patients’ infertility cases, a small fear was also murmuring to me, “what if you are one of those cases.”
Phew-moment #2: At 15, after having my first ultrasound my dad confirmed “healthy ovaries, and excellent pelvis for deliveries”. I am so lucky.
Phew- moment #3: In my twenties, there was something in my cervix that looked like HPV of the type that causes cancer. The fear became a loud scream and the realization that I really wanted to have children. The biopsy showed everything was ok. “Phew! I am so lucky that now I know I do want to have children so that I take that as a serious consideration in my thirties.”
At 30, I moved from Mexico to US for work, thinking it would only be for a couple of years. I literally put my personal life on hold. At 35, I started to realize that this immigration was not temporal and that it was time to freeze my eggs, as still there was no partner in sight.
Phew-moment #4: My dad warned me in January 2017, that based on the genetics from my mom’s side he estimated I had 3 years of fertility left. I had a hormone profile taken, and everything looked good. “Phew, I still have time. On my next visit to Mexico in December I will go through the freezing procedure.”
Yech- moment: I went back to Mexico in December to do the egg freezing, but the tests this time showed the numbers out of range. Ovary failure. Repeat test. Fail. My work permit was expiring soon and I had to go back to US with the renewed work permit to my employer. I did one more attempt that was unsuccessful. Five minutes after sharing my pain in a text message to my sister, she called to announce her pregnancy to all the family. I left Mexico knowing I had no more eggs to freeze and no family member that could understand the grief. They were all too busy with the first grandchild.
While the phew moments were sighs of relief that were self-contained in time, the yech moment extended into a prolonged period of questioning and re-defining:
1) Cause: Premature ovary failure has no known causes. Did I trigger it during that year of intense work sleeping 4 hours a day, drinking insane quantities of caffeine and losing so much weight my undies would fall?
2) Purpose: I had worked hard as an immigrant thinking that I would be able to earn the opportunities for my children; but now there were no children in the future.
3) Value as a partner: In New York’s dating market, people are broadly classified as family-oriented or hook-up seekers. Should I put in my dating profile that I am family oriented but with a disclaimer about my infertility? I immediately felt like a devalued currency. Yes, the pool of candidates reduces, but it also enforces a qualitative selection of who values you as a person and not only as a reproductive mate.
4) Options: I always thought that if I ever was one of those infertility cases, I would adopt. But with no partner, no permanent immigration status yet and a job that had already exhausted me, adoption does not seem like an option.
5) Secondary health effects: Not producing hormones has more effects than infertility. It leads to osteoporosis, and muscle loss among other conditions. I felt that my body had betrayed me, but maybe it was me who had neglected it. Now I am more conscious of the care I have to provide to it.
6) Repurposing the energy of inertia: Even though I do not make plans about having children in the future, I still catch myself thinking “that is a name I like for my child.” Whenever this happens, I remind myself to make a plan for me instead of for a life that won’t happen.
I went to the delivery of my niece and cried in the bathroom, disguising the tears as allergies, or yawns. I had the fantasy, that my sister would apologize for her lack of empathy, we would hug and cry and forgive. But that did not happen. Once, I told her that I do not think women-friendly workplace policies should equate womanhood with motherhood. She replied, I should be part of a childless women group and not to mess with mothers’ groups. Does it really need to be like that? As if we were another tribe? Sometimes I feel the grief is stronger not for being deprived of having my own children; but for the loss of the relationship I had with my sister.
I don’t feel I have completely recovered yet, but I have learned in the process. I am braver, even if sometimes I still cry. I am coming to terms with the fact that losing is not necessarily due to lack of merit, lack of qualifications, lack of thought, or lack of effort. And, by symmetry, that winning is not necessarily something earned or deserved. At the end, it is about “phews” and “yechs”, and the random order in which they happen.
Daniela Zenteno
Daniela Zenteno