Taking Baby Steps. Jody Lyneé Madeira
in less than ideal circumstances. Patricia Burns recalled, “[M]y brother and sister get pregnant every other second… . It was horrible. And you don’t want to make them feel bad, but I also don’t want to hear from them they’re pregnant, because nobody wants to hear … your sister cry… . I got to the point where actually I was having panic attacks, and had to actually go on medication.” Because of jealousy, individuals might feel like Dana Gibbs: “a heartbeat away from being bitter.”
b. Experiencing Jealousy During the Expedition. After individuals begin treatment, feelings of jealousy can intensify as physical, emotional, and financial resources dwindle. Lola Lewis acknowledged growing envy of “all those people [who] don’t have all those problems and get to have kids and a typical life.”
The pain of encountering pregnant women and children prompts many to socially withdraw: “I just isolated myself, because I either didn’t want people to know what we were going through, or those that did know didn’t understand” (Brittany Watson). Kay Elliott emphasized, “[E]ven if you’re at home, it’s always on your mind. You don’t want to see that physical reminder that’s outside.” Thus, even one’s home isn’t a place of peace.
Socially withdrawn individuals often become lonely. Isolation presents a profound problem for many; 49% of interviewed individuals noted that others could not understand what they were going through, 46% found it hard to see others building their families, and 31% reported troubled relationships with former friends. Though 20% observed they felt alone and didn’t know others experiencing infertility, 26% formed new friendships. “I had a lot of depression, anxiety, and feeling very alone until I got to a support group to find out that other people were feeling that way,” recalled Danielle Green.
But it is impossible to stay inside all the time; workplaces and daily routines inevitably bring individuals into contact with painful reminders of what they lack. Joyce Harrington found it particularly difficult “seeing co-workers’ pictures of their kids and hearing about relatives who had a baby or things like that. Just seeing someone with a child in a supermarket can cause anxiety.” Diane Barrett described these encounters as “daggering your heart,” noting it was “torture even stepping out of my house, practically… . it just destroyed me until I got pregnant.” Men also experience jealousy; Clay Padilla confessed, “[Y]ou just don’t feel like you can measure up there, in that department.”
At these moments, jealousy also provokes the feeling that life is unjust: “this one thing that’s supposed to be natural doesn’t come to you, and it seems very unfair” (Lana Houghton). Unfairness captures the maddening abyss between the childbearing “haves” and “have-nots”; as Phoebe Paul put it, “Why can everyone else get pregnant and not me? … I just was wondering why we had to go through these trials and tribulations and a lot of people don’t have to.” These words echo with loneliness, underscoring the need to befriend others enduring similar struggles.
3. Inadequacy
a. Experiencing Inadequacy on the Precipice. During the Expedition, many individuals (18% interviews) feel physically inadequate, perhaps even “broken.” An infertility diagnosis often makes women and men believe they are less feminine or masculine. Christine Zimmerman noted, “I do feel less of a human … incomplete, like I’m not even a real girl.” Marie Boyd told her husband “that he was still within the lemon law to exchange me for a wife that actually worked.” Infertility may produce a physiological breach not only with friends, family, and even complete strangers, but also with one’s ancestors: “you can’t do a simple function that women’s bodies have been able to do for gazillions of years” (Amber Butler). Men facing male factor infertility also experience inadequacy; as Nathaniel Sims related, “I felt like … I kind of let her down and didn’t feel like as much of a man after.”
Feelings of inadequacy accompany self-doubt; infertility “shakes your self-esteem” (Jeannie Lindsey). Victoria Santos wondered “a lot of emotional things … are you sexy, or … does he not want kids, does he not want to be married anymore.” Cynthia Gardner’s infertility “made me doubt my body, and … some of the choices, because I started to believe that maybe it was because I’d waited too long.” Inadequacy, then, ushers in many new fears.
b. Experiencing Inadequacy During the Expedition. Once treatment begins, protocols can reinforce feelings of abnormality and brokenness. Victoria Santos explained, “There’s a degree of separateness knowing that you had to conceive a child in separate rooms, and that you really didn’t do this together. It’s not normal. Or what you concede is normal.” During IVF cycles, individuals have to monitor life choices in ways others don’t, from everyday decisions about diet, exercise, and stress management to more consequential ones regarding vacations: “It’s irrational [that] they say, ‘If you do all these things, you’ll get pregnant,’ but then people who drink and smoke get pregnant on a whim” (Darla Clarke). Unfairness is always close at hand.
Self-doubt can easily intensify after an unsuccessful treatment cycle. Lena Coleman encountered “Inadequacy. Failure. As if God has decided for me that that’s not the path I get to take, being a mother. I felt like … a burden on my husband for having to bring him through this with me as well.” Many are frustrated because this helplessness is altogether new. “Both of us have never failed at anything in our life and so this is kind of the first thing,” Anne Kelley noted. “[I]t’s not something you can work harder and succeed at… . it’s either going to happen or it’s not going to happen.” It’s especially painful when individuals regard infertility as a personal failure.
At times, feelings of inadequacy can bleed into anger, frustration, and anxiety. Women and men refer to IVF as an anxiety-inducing process of “learn[ing] to be afraid” (May Weiss). “You always want some sort of outcome, whether it’s follicle growth, or this or that, or estrogen building up,” Juanita Poole explained. “[It made] me completely anxious, in a way far more than I ever was before.” June Barber had “a high level of stress” because “you couldn’t really plan things in life, just because you didn’t know if you get pregnant or if you’d be in treatment.” This fear and anxiety in turn heighten stress, which most patients internalize and a few vent on others, including partners and clinic staff.
4. Other Emotions—Surprise, Frustration, Anger, Guilt, Determination
a. Experiencing Other Emotions on the Precipice. The “surprise” emotional cluster encompasses both the shock of an infertility diagnosis and its unforeseen disruptions. Very few individuals make room for infertility in their life plans, and those who can’t easily conceive must face (perhaps for the first time) their lack of control: “I think that was … the biggest wake-up call. I can’t control when this happens, which was very hard for me because I’m one of those planner type[s] of people” (Kathryn Patton). This sense of helplessness was “really devastating” for Sylvia Nelson, especially given that “it’s kind of like a basic part of my life.” Women and men are often surprised at infertility’s emotional currents, including frustration (n = 23), anger (n = 16), loneliness (n = 15), nervousness or fear or anxiety (n = 12), stress (n = 11), guilt (n = 9), hope (n = 6) and hopelessness (n = 6), lack of control (n = 6), determination (n = 5), pressure (n = 5), being upset (n = 4), and trauma (n = 2).
Stranded upon the precipice, individuals become frustrated, particularly at delays in seeing providers, obtaining testing, or managing others’ judgmental reactions to their diagnosis or choices. “The infertility heightens the frustration, heightens the aggravation, because we were married 11 years before we got pregnant … and we never intended to wait for that long,” Marisa Sims said. Monica Hansen was fed up with friends’ reactions to her choice to undergo fertility treatment: “[T]hey’d say things to me that were bothersome to me like, ‘Well, why don’t you just adopt?’” Even waiting to begin treatment was frustrating: “When you’re in a cycle, you’re hopeful. When you’re after one and in between, you can’t start the next one, there’s this lag time that really feels tough” (Nicole Bell).
Several are angry at themselves for being on the precipice in the first place: “Being male factor