lifeslurper

Because I did not wait to have children

The other day the coordinator of my fertility clinic’s recruited donor egg program phoned me. This was a call intended to provide a quick answer to my earlier email regarding the importation of frozen eggs from the United States to Australia. I had only recently heard of a Queensland clinic’s relationship with an American donor oocyte ‘bank’ and wanted to know if my own clinic had similar arrangements. The response was a resounding “no”. The science experimental, results poor, conflicting with State legislation, transportation difficult and so on went the points against the idea of frozen egg importation. Somehow this spiel segueyed into a statement on why so few donor eggs are available in this country, and there it was for what seemed the kazillionth time since I was first introduced to ART: women are waiting later to have babies.

Can I state for the record now: Lifeslurper did not wait to have babies. It was not a conscious decision. At no time did I think “hmmmm….I will relax and have fun now….waiting until I am over forty, then I will think about babies.”

Broad statements about the trend towards later motherhood fail to consider the complexities of modern life and human existence. Emotional uncertainty, economic circumstances, pairing up later, changing partners, changing sexuality, second families, extended gaps between the birth of children are just a few of a whole host of reasons why many might find themselves attempting to become parents at a later age. There are also those who having battled with infertility throughout their thirties (some even as early as their twenties), crossing that most dreaded of reproductive thresholds (otherwise known as turning forty) and still are hoping that statistics might smile in their favour.

Exactly who or what is perpetuating this idea of women waiting to have babies is difficult to pinpoint. I am sorely tempted to point an accusing finger at the media. Sure the number of women giving birth in this country between the age of 40 and 44 has risen from 4.3 to 10.6 per cent in the 20 years leading up to 2004. I am not disputing that there is a current trend towards older motherhood, or attempts at older motherhood. The part I take umbrage with is the view that these women are simply waiting later to have their babes.

Sure, the blame game is often directed at ‘career’ woman, suggesting that the idea of women wishing to find fulfilment outside of the home is still new and unusual. Thirty years ago I attended high school with the daughters of stay at home mums. These friends would express their disdain at my mother ‘taking away’ jobs from younger single women; single women who should in turn surrender their jobs once they married. Back then women and career were still newish concepts to many. The professional women still seems to be portrayed as some child-hating femnivore devouring all who stand in the way of her climb to the top.

Then what of the many blue collar workers, low wage earners and the average battler? Two income families put off by rising childcare costs and the lack of the inbuilt family support of yore which might have seen grandparents minding the children of working parents. How many parents would chose to make theirs a latch key child, and how many modern welfare organisations would frown on such a practice?

It seems too simple to cast off all delayed child bearing to dizzying career heights and lucrative salary packages. Lifeslurper worked a variety of jobs, from fast food-delivery, change room attendant to management level in her profession of choice. For the bulk of her professional life she was single. Like many of the younger ‘infertiles’ I know today, I worked surrounded by pregnant bellies, baby showers, and the constant flow of photo updates excitedly passed around the office. The milestones don’t end in infanthood. Eventually that all graduates to news of the young person’s growth into adulthood with details of their elaborate eighteenth birthday party, their attempts to get their driver’s licence, and their plans to go backpacking around Europe before starting university. As a younger woman I was not biding my time waiting to have babies. I watched as those around me found partners and reproduced with seeming ease. I hardly went a day, or an hour wondering if that would always be something I viewed from afar.

Only in the last few years has my desire to be a mother been able to reveal itself. After decades of being buried so deep, it was the love and nurturing of my darling Wobbles which saw it finally revealed when we first began our relationship. Sure, there were talks during my early twenties while in the throes of first love that saw me make youthful plans for the family I would raise with my then sweetheart. Together we planned the number of children, even their genders (don’t worry it was long before gender selection), their names, the location and type of house we would live in. Okay, truth be known the ideas were mostly mine, but in true romantic fashion, he went off and followed that plan (virtually to the letter!) with someone else. Oh yes, she happened to be the girl he was already seeing when we were still together.

Thing is, I watched my thirties come and go with a never ending sense of dread. It wasn’t my youth I mourned. It was my chance to have children; to know a family of my own. I never had the confidence to attempt parenthood on my own. I was stuck with my own old fashioned visions of children only being derived from love. I had an unquenchable wish to have someone who loved me so much that the desire to have a child with me would be a natural next step. I also wanted my children to enjoy something I had not known: an involved and loving father. Too soon I had passed forty and my dreams of children were silently packed like some tattered old suitcase and filed into a dusty corner of my mind under ‘wonders lost.’ In the years prior to that the choice had boiled down to do something about my family ideas on my own or do nothing. The instability of my economic circumstances and a host of other reasons led me to the conclusion that this was a far from ideal situation to bring a child into. Once I had recovered from this loss, I told myself, I would look into fostering. Then came Wobbles. For a time hope has been restored.

Our lives so rarely take us where we planned to go. We strive to do the best we can, within the circumstances that face us. Sadly, the trend of later birth ages leaves one very important story untold: that of the many who have fought with infertility, experienced repeated and long term ART treatments and finally called it a day on their own baby making excursion. These are the unsung heroes, a group which I find myself ever increasingly drawn towards.

Statistics say so many things. There is also much they do not tell. We all have our own stories. The reasons why we have our families when we do are broad and not easily summarized into to one brief statement.

Sometimes there can be a huge difference between waiting and wanting.