This may sound shocking, but I think Candace and I had the easy type of infertility. Hopefully, the rest of this will clear this up, but think about it, we had a constant goal … have a family … and a constant approach … get pregnant … with a constant result … not this time. If it was at least one thing, it was constant and concrete. Okay, so that is two things, but we knew what we wanted and we knew that we were physically not able to have it. We had physical infertility. Apart from secondary and unexplained, there are other types.
Candace made me aware of something that was going on recently that got me thinking that there are other types of infertility. There are these “events” called Egg Freezing Parties (check out this link and this one ) which are information sessions for professional women (whatever that means) to learn about freezing their eggs now so that later, when they have more time and aren’t itching their professional scratch, they can focus back on having a family. So, maybe they don’t have physical infertility, I’d like to think this is professional infertility: the inability to have a child because you are focused on your profession.
Screeetch … wait a minute! Please understand I am not attempting to denigrate women who decide to pursue a profession prior to starting a family. This is just me working through some thoughts in a very public forum. Keep reading, I promise to try to come full circle on this, leaving everyone either fulfilled or offended. Either way, you won’t be ostracized.
So, now we are at two types of infertility. Really though, I think there are a lot more. How about emotional infertility? “I don’t think I am big enough, strong enough, mature enough to be a parent so I am not going to try.” Or mental infertility? “I am not ready to be a parent. I still have too much to do and don’t want to be tied down with a kid.” How about relational infertility? “I don’t have a significant other to share a child with so I cannot start a family.” There is chronological infertility, “I’m too old to have a family,” economical infertility, “I’m too broke to have a family,” and community infertility, “We don’t have enough support around us to have a family.” Who knew that the infertility line could be so crowded! And aside from physical infertility, all these other types of infertility seem more ethereal, a little harder to put your thumb on the exact cause and resolution. And, since I am a super literal person, they seem terrifying! How do you know when you are professional enough? Rich enough? Close enough? And not too old? I have no clue!
I don’t know what the easiest or hardest type of infertility is. I don’t know which type of infertility is the easiest to overcome. I do know that all of them share a common bond, the desire for something that seems out of reach. The struggle for something that seems to be haplessly given to those around you and yet, so insurmountably challenging to you. What I do know is that all of these are winnable. You can beat the IF monster no matter what clothes it wears. It may mean alternative pathways, adoption or surrogacy or even pursuing a child-free family. It may mean alternative lifestyles, CEO could mean chump electronics offerer instead of chief executive officer or Ramen noodles for dinner instead of Hamburger Helper, but YOU get to decide! That decision is your power … never forget that!
Candace- Chris, that was deep man. Just wanted to give you all a heads up. We are super excited to have a few giveaways soon from our good friends at Fairhaven Health. Fairhaven Health has some pretty awesome products to help you through your IF journey. Check them out! That being said, keep an eye out on our upcoming blog posts and on our FB page(s) for our free giveaways!
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Hmm, as someone who is physically unable to have a family, I find the concept of “professional infertitily” kind of insulting. If you make the choice to prioritize your career over a family, more power to you, but at the end of the day you are still making a choice. That doesn’t imply an “inability” to start a family. We all have to make decisions about what to prioritize in life. The choice itself is a luxury. It’s not the same thing as choosing to start a family and then not being being able to, not because your life choices make it inconvenient at that point in time, but because you literally CANNOT conceive. To pretend that the two are in any way equal kind of minimizes the shittyness of true infertility, ya know? Anyways, I know you were just thinking out loud and I love your blog, it is definitely an interesting question to raise!
Cait,
Thank you so much for your comment! If anything, I (Chris) hope the post has gotten people thinking outside their own lives. Maybe some of this can be explained by the fact that I, owner of a penis, will never be able to conceive or carry a child. Stupid Y chromosome. Anyway, I do not think we should limit ourselves to considering physical infertility as the penultimate difficulty regarding starting a family. One of the most important things that got Candace and I through everything was determination and confidence. Maybe not in the most mainstream way of thinking about it though. Sure, we were determined to have a family and were confident that we would see it through, that is main-stream. But we were also determined to BEAT the physical infertility and confident that it, the physical infertility, was keeping us from having a family. That is a very tangible thing. That is something you can go to a fertility clinic or adoption agency for. Contrast that with a woman who is 41, who has not found someone to share the rest of her life with, share her dreams of a family with, but who desperately wants a family, and the picture is very different. She cannot go to a “make a spouse happen” clinic. She does not get the opportunity, albeit expensive and never guaranteed of success, to “implant” a spouse in her life (nod to IVF). So, what is she left with? The singles scene, dating websites, her church. All in the hopes of finding that one, that person, to share the rest of her life with and start a family ASAP! As a “Y” chromosome holder, I can tell you that is a lot to consider on a first date. Not to say that there are not guys in the same boat … I know a few for sure. So, what does all this rambling boil, down to. I think sometimes a cliché, although by nature it is over-used, has a particularly poignant bearing on this discussion. “The grass is not always greener” is what I am referring to. Sure, physical infertility sucks! There is no doubt of that. I just wanted to open the conversation and give recognition to the other impediments that people face to starting families. Are they easier or harder than physical infertility? I have no clue. I have only walked in my shoes. Are they happy places to be? Probably not. It is my hope, and I have people that I know that I pray for daily, that all of those out there that wish to have a family will have their dream realized. And I think it is important to expand this wish to anyone, whether they are physically infertile or not.