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.
