2014 AGC Scholarship recipient Mary McGowan
Let’s talk about the word “infertility.” It is an awful word but unfortunately you will need to use it to investigate resources and with your insurance company. With yourself and in your head, use it as little as possible. What a horrible word! It calls to mind deserts and rocky, dusty mountainsides. It is the word agriculturists use to describe desolate areas where nothing can grow nor flourish, where nothing is good. A desert calls to mind hopelessness. If a farmer came upon land that was rocky and deemed “infertile,” it would be worthless. Each time we use this word to identify ourselves we are reinforcing a worthless, hopeless feeling that a diagnosis of infertility brings anyway, no matter what it is called.
This word is the first thing you must banish from your mind before going any further. You are not a lonely, desolate place, incapable of nurturing life. Even if your physical body never bears a child, this does not mean you cannot nurture life. You are a complete person. You are not broken. You are the person you were born to be. This is difficult for a woman who has been labeled as “infertile” to accept. Change your thinking by first changing the words you use. That sounds cliché but it really is true. Hey, clichés have to come from somewhere.
Why is it so hard for us to accept that we are worthy and valuable? As a woman, we grow up with the knowledge that our bodies are designed to bear children. We watch the physical changes in other women. A diagnosis of “infertility” makes us feel like there is something wrong with us, like we are insufficient. We feel like we are less of a woman. Somehow we are less than these other women. We feel that other women judge us. We suspect that they think we have done something to deserve “infertility.” This is embarrassing to us. This is why so many women do not speak about their struggles with infertility. Perhaps this belief starts with this ugly word that inherently implies worthlessness.
A sapling is planted in a field. It takes root and grows into a strong, towering tree with hundreds of branches and thousands of leaves that put on a glorious show every autumn. It goes on to serve as shelter from shade for people and animals as well as a home for birds and squirrels. All the while it has drawn its strength to grow from that field. The field has provided a home, the nutrients, and the water for that tree to become the amazing miracle that it is. The field is forever a part of the tree and the tree is forever a part of the field. Would anyone ever call this field “infertile” because no seed landed in the grass and grew into a tree on its own?
Let us try to identify ourselves with this field. Unfortunately we still need to use the word “infertility” to find our community resources and in clinical settings, but in our heads, let’s use any other phrasing. We are people who are working to create a family, we just have to work harder than others. Even if you think of yourself as “struggling” to create a family, use phrasing that implies a process with a positive result- no matter how hard it is to get there. This leaves room for hope instead of the dire predetermination implied with the word “infertility.”
You’re a field. You’re “working.” You’re “struggling.” Whatever phrasing you use with yourself, make sure it leaves room for hope. “Hope never fails.”
Mary McGowan is a thirty-five year-old middle school Spanish teacher. She went through fertility treatments for two and a half years, after years of trying without treatment. She was diagnosed with PCOS and went as far as having exploratory surgery to try and discover the key to solving her infertility. In February of 2014 she applied for and received a scholarship from AGC which allowed her to pursue IVF. Mary is expecting her first child in March of 2015. She lives with her husband and dog Molly in New York State.