Last week while listening to Fresh Air, I heard Terry Gross interview Peggy Orenstein about her new book, Waiting for Daisy. Daisy is her daughter, born to Orenstein only after six years of fertility treatments including drugs and donated eggs. As an adoptee whose grandmother also adopted her three children, it’s easy to see why I have mixed feelings on the subject; my grandmother was unable to have children, she adopted my mother and uncles, and we’re one happy family. But my qualms about fertility treatments stretch beyond the why-not-adopt argument.
It could be argued that anyone who chooses to give birth in a world full of unwanted children is being selfish to some degree. The world is overpopulated, and there are the classic starving-children-in-Africa. But I understand the urge for motherhood. The desire to make a family organically from yourself and your love. Wanting to breast feed and take baby photos.
I get it, and I may even take that route in my life. But only if my body allows. Orenstein’s chronicles begin when she is 35, happily married, and had never before wished to start a family. So here she is attempting pregnancy. Despite advances in modern medicine, it’s a fact that as a woman ages, her eggs lose quality and her baby is more likely to experience birth defects. Even so, if you can conceive, who am I to tell you not to? Plenty of healthy women have healthy babies into their thirties.
Orenstein told Gross about how the attempts to conceive led to passionless sessions of “fertility sex,” arguments, and even to her husband telling her that her obsession was so single-minded that he felt vulnerable to advances from other women– that just the idea of someone paying attention to him might tempt him to cheat. This potential father of this child was telling her that he’d rather have a relationship with his wife than pop out a kid. And still she pushed the issue.
Most troubling, though, is that early in this course to motherhood, after pumping her body full of chemicals, hormones, and foreign objects, Orenstein was diagnosed with breast cancer. She fought it off, and I applaud her. But her diagnosis compounds the problem: First of all, having a mother with breast cancer is a risk factor for that child later in life. Secondly, receiving hormone therapy and fertility drugs after a breast cancer diagnosis can lead to increased risk of recurrence, especially if you are not successful.
So here’s this woman, wrecking the family she does have (yes, a husband and wife are a family), risking her life, and she’s going to pass her breast cancer genes and likely her lowered fertility on to her daughter. Her daughter who, in the fetal stage, is likely to experience chromosomal abnormalities and health problems. Her daughter who, at age 16, will be confiding in a 56-year-old mother. To a teenager, that kind of gap makes Mom seem ancient. All this, to finally have a baby at age 41.
Some say the happy, healthy daughter is a miracle and a justification for fertility treatments. I say it’s fortunate the little girl doesn’t have Down Syndrome, birth defects, or any other major complications resulting from her mother’s pregnancy. It’s a happy accident, surely, but falls short of an argument for midlife fertility treatment. Orenstein’s all-consuming quest for motherhood becomes morbid, and while I think her tale is fascinating, I don’t think it ought to be celebrated. It’s not heroic to take dangerous risks to get something you think you ought to have. This isn’t a tale of life and passion and family, it’s a tale of a woman who becomes fixated upon pregnancy to the point that she risks her health to produce a child.
Personally, I believe that if you can’t conceive, there’s a reason. It’s called survival of the fittest. I wonder if it crosses the minds of these people, who impregnate themselves with hundreds of eggs to see if they stick, that maybe their genes aren’t fit for mass production. If I’m ever married and we want children, I can guarantee I won’t see a fertility doctor. And in 15 years, you can hold me to it.
I think a very wise man once said:
“Yeah, just because you’re hung like a moose doesn’t mean you gotta do porn.”
– “Harold and Kumar Goes To White Castle”
I totally agree with you. It makes me shudder to think what kind of childhood this kid is going to have… And you know what the irony of all this is? She’s probably going to be one of those very overprotective mothers, thereby getting all hypocritical of all the stuff she had to do to herself for the child.
Hope to see you tonight.
eds
Hi Kim,
Your argument that people who cannot conceive naturally should not conceive because they are passing on bad genes borders on nazi-style eugenics. I suggest you pause before promising what you might do, think, feel in the future if you are unable to conceive. It is a total mind-fuck which I think you should talk to your grandmother about to better understand before passing judgement. I am sure that adoption was not an easy decision for her, nor was being unable to conceive something that she was able to take as matter-of-factly as you suggest that people should, in your opinion.
Thanks for your comment. I think your depiction of my disapproval of drastic fertility treatment as eugenics is a bit disingenuous; if you think it’s eugenics for those who aren’t able to conceive to be unable to have children, perhaps your issue is with evolution or biology.
Regardless, I can tell you exactly what my beliefs are on fertility treatments. I understand it is tough, both as a potential parent and as an individual, to be infertile. However, I believe that pumping your body full of chemicals and hormones just to create your own mini-me is bizarre, unnatural, and narcissistic. And from a brutally biological standpoint, if someone can’t reproduce, they’re probably toting a gene they shouldn’t be passing on.
It doesn’t make you a bad person if you give birth to, miscarry, or are unable to conceive a baby with a genetic disorder. I am not in any way saying that mothers and fathers are responsible for these outcomes. If you miscarry, your child has autism or trisomy, I’m not faulting you. But I believe it’s irresponsible to force one’s body to produce a child, especially given the multitudes of homeless and impoverished children around the world.
In closing, I’ll say again that humans birthing litters of six to eight babies is wholly unnatural and honestly, it disgusts me. Sorry if you disagree.
Good luck with your future.
Hopefully, we both see this as a civilized discussion on reproduction and won’t be using any inflammatory language like “eugenics” anymore. To further this definition, doesn’t promoting one’s own special pretty/smart/talented genes qualify as a backwards sort of genetic engineering, too? Isn’t it tampering with the population to force the perpetuation of a gene which may be weak, ill-expressed, or faulty in its expression?
As a side note, I love when people don’t leave any contact information or identifiers after posting such content.
Another note: My grandmother, with whom I had lunch today, did not pursue fertility treatments. She decided to adopt instead, which I respect. Though I did not address this initially, claiming to know, or claiming as evidence for your argument, the mind and heart of one of the most important women in my life is not a good idea.
bitch
I love the reactions this post inspires. For the record, I usually privately contact angry posters and ask them to elaborate, intellectually, on their stance on the subject.
Also, you have to wonder at the fact that the least astute comments on this topic seem to advocate the practice of fertility treatments. Makes you wonder who’s desperate to spawn, and who maybe shouldn’t…
Another comment, by way of kim.info:
Hey, Kim, you may want to soften up a bit. You’re bound to look back at your haughty diatribe about desperate, selfish older mothers with a little remorse. At least I hope so. For you, that is. By the way, a 16-year-old should consider him- or herself lucky to have a loving 56-year-old mom to confide in. Kids are more sophisticated — and parents are more youthful — every day. Not to mention that having older parents will be so common for the next generation. You’re clearly smart and full of opinion. I suggest you pray for wisdom.
The comment, and my reply, can be found on the kim.info page. To clarify, I haven’t said that older mothers are unfit; to a teenager, talking to a mom who’s twenty years apart feels like talking to a Martian sometimes. I brought that contrast up in the interest of naming one of the plethora of lesser issues facing women who give birth later into life.