I don't ever, contrary to many fertiles' misconceptions about infertiles, construct imaginary children. E.g., I don't think about a child with Daddy's nose and Mommy's toes. Why torture myself, you know?
This is why I take offense to many critics and self-help-book writers (e.g., I seem to recall that The Long-Awaited Stork is one of them) who 'kindly' advise infertile women that their expectations for their as-yet unconceived offspring are unreasonable. These critics seem to believe that ALL infertile women create dream children in dream homes with dream partners, and that everyone is happy all day long. These critics simply assume that all infertiles construct fertile worlds for themselves, and they chastise us for making up 'perfect' children to dream about.
I have never taken a flight of fantasy about my future children - why make myself hurt worse than I do already? - so I don't understand why so many fertiles have this stereotype about us. I think fertiles worry that if we infertiles do eventually have kids, we'll have unrealistic expectations of our offspring. I beg to differ; I'd say the opposite situation would be in force: I think we've had more time to observe what kids are really like and to consider our parenting styles. I know I have.
Maybe I'm an anomaly, though. Wouldn't be the first time. Maybe everyone else does fantasize? Don't get me wrong - I am a dreamer, an imaginative person. I see shapes and colours and possibilities where many others see only futility. But I can't bring my imaginative life to the nonsense that is TTC. It would hurt too much.
If you're interested in this topic (and especially if you disagree with me, perhaps), British author Hilary Mantel has a poignant memoir entitled Giving Up the Ghost in which she discusses infertility and her imagined child, a daughter. Mantel had really terrible endo and was never able to have a baby, and so she describes her ordeal of handling her relationship to her imaginary daughter who could never be: her process of giving up her dearly beloved ghost.
Tuesday, May 5, 2009
theoretical children
Posted by one-hit_wonder at 3:08 p.m.
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12 comments:
I don't have imagined children either and actually it really bugs me when other people in my life have them for me! So many people say things like "when your pregnant..." or "when you have children..." and my response is ALWAYS "look, the reality is that I may never have children so stop with the future predictions please"
And then of course you always get the bullshit lecture on positive thinking and I pretty much want to smack someone!
I can't bring myself to imagine my children, it's too painful. But, I can tell you I absolutely HATE it when a fertile person's kids are acting up and they look at you and say "Are you SURE you want kids?" Well, yeah actually I am, I've wanted it for 8 yrs. and NO child is perfect, they all have their moments. I want to look right back at them and say "Are you SURE you want YOUR kids?"
I imagine my kids as being them... Which means I cant really imagine the ones that arent here yet until they are here. I look at the children we've had and point out their features to my husband, but, no, we've never done the whole imaginary child thing. Seems kind of counterproductive...
Guess I'm alone here. I've created "dream children" but despite what the so-called experts say, my dreams don't affect my expectations. Sure, I imagine my baby having my green eyes and DH's perfect nose, and of course never throwing a temper tantrum in walmart and never getting sick and sleeping through the night at birth... but that keeps me going. It gives me a reason to continue ttc even when it gets depressing. I've considered the not-so-good things about being a mom many times, but as far as I'm concerned, that's not a bridge I need to cross yet.
I think someone should ask those self-help writers and critics what exactly they imagined before their children were born. I can't believe that not one of them had a fantasy world with perfect families even if they never had to ttc for longer than a cycle.
Wow...I guess I missed that misconception from Ellen's book, "The Long Awaited Stork". She is such a wonderful woman and honestly I would not be where I am today without her help. She has written a number of books and I honestly never picked up that type of vibe from her. She gets it. Thats just my opinion. Anyway, I wish you well and am looking forward to your beta.
Oh, and I hope this post doesn't come across all bitchy.
I do imagine, especially when donor eggs were suggested. I thought I would not see any of my partner or myself. I don't have/see a face, nose, hands... just a form.
You're no longer infertile. Am I imposing too much to say this? They'll join you soon.
I have that book in my gargantuan "to read" pile... found on the bargain shelf at Chapters. Glad to hear it's worth a read.
What a fantastic subject to post on...
No, I myself have never imagined children who have the right mix of our looks/traits...only if it were, it would be the mixture of Cleopatra and George Barnard Shaw, the glitch is that DH is Cleopatra and I am GBS. :p
I am going to google that Mantel article though...
But it is not like that I have never thought of my children...or what would they do...I hope to have kids who love to read....I think of the places where I would like to take them...and so on, but never about how they would look or whose features they must take.
I have an exception to report on infertiles and kids, and expectations... One of my mother's friends had a son after about 8 years of marriage (I have no idea, about the details of her struggle to have a kid)... Well that son of hers is a real nice kid, but it scares me to see how much is expected out of the kid. His mother takes him to school and then he has a hugely hectic list of activities that he is expected to excel at. This lady was not able to have a second kid...all her pennies seem to ride on this one boy... oh God! Sometimes I think that if something happened to this boy, what would happen to the parents...I am not a sadist to be thinking on those lines, I have seen the ugly side of being a one-kid family.
And yes....Self-help writers....I can't stand them...neither can I stand these motivational writers.....
I don't imagine my future kids, it would be another form of self torture (I'm skilled at several methods already, why add another?!). I see what our daughter looked like and make comments on her features (she had my skin, her dad's blue eyes), like Michele said. But its stupid for me to make up perfect children, when I have no idea if/when I will ever bring one home alive and kicking. And even then, everyone knows (sarcasm), if you knew what kids are really like, no one would want them ... {roll eyes}
S
RRA: Happy to report that our passports are travelling back to us with the Visa stamp. And yes, the dinner was lovely....
Great comments, ladeez. Thanks!
S: Well said!
Jackie: I agree completely on asking those writers and critics on what they imagined, pre-baby. I think they'd sputter a bit.
Fashionably: Oh no, actually, I think I may have misquoted the title. So thanks for pointing that out - I'm going to check.
Victoria: I guess it depends on how 'fertile' and 'infertile' are defined. I mean, I have no baby. And, thanks to doctors' misdiagnoses, I've considered myself infertile for so long, that's how I feel inside. Yet, really, clinically speaking, I am not infertile. All my functions work; I just ovulate a few days later than what's considered 'normal.' But the idea of being fertile is new knowledge for me, and hard to wrap my head around.
Wise: Oh, same here. I do think of things we'd do together, especially reading, going camping with our extended families, and bugging my DH. :) But I do balance that out by remembering that I'll probably spend most of my time being frustrated at them for one thing or another, too. lol Seriously, my DH was hell on wheels when he was a child/adolescent, so I know that's coming back to bite him in the @ss.
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