A woman’s fertility is her own business, not everyone else’s

Despite the endless public discussion of baby-making, relatively little is said about fertility problems, even common ones. Photograph: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters

Laura Bates

A WOMAN’S fertility is her own business, not everyone else’s

When Michigan-based writer Emily Bingham took to her Facebook page to vent her frustration at intrusive baby questions, she probably expected a few of her friends to share or “like” her post. Accompanied by an ultrasound photo she had found online, her post implored:

“Before you ask the young married couple that has been together for seemingly forever when they are finally gonna start a family … before you ask the parents of an only-child toddler when a Little Brother or Little Sister will be in the works … before you ask a single thirtysomething if/when s/he plans on having children because, you know, clock’s ticking … just stop. Please stop. You don’t know who is struggling with infertility or grieving a miscarriage or dealing with health issues. You don’t know who is having relationship problems or is under a lot of stress or the timing just isn’t right. You don’t know who is on the fence about having kids or having more kids. You don’t know who has decided it’s not for them right now, or not for them ever. You don’t know how your seemingly innocent question might cause someone grief, pain, stress or frustration”.

But instead of reaching a few dozen of her friends, Bingham’s post went viral, shared by more than 77,000 people and liked by more than 42,000. It’s not surprising that Bingham’s message struck such a chord. Being a woman of childbearing age can feel like being stuck in a glass pressure-cooker; the heat is rising, the pressure is on, the timer is ticking (or so we’re constantly told) and it seems as if the whole world is watching.

Last week, the British Fertility Society suggested that every 25-year-old woman should be offered a “fertility MOT”. The BFS chairman, Professor Adam Balen, said: “There is a lack of understanding of the dramatic decline in fertility and, of course, there are pressures to develop careers. Every week in our clinics I see couples who express surprise because they didn’t realise the degree to which fertility goes down in your 30s. These are people accessing care now. You walk around and you see young girls smoking and I’m thinking: ‘They’ll be in my fertility clinic in a few years’ time’”.
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Women are bombarded by bossy and contradictory diktats about what we definitely must or absolutely must not do with our reproductive organs, while companies such as Facebook offer egg-freezing as an employee perk.

Meanwhile, the Daily Mail confidently informs us that the best age to have a baby is 26, 34, and 29 (which perhaps explains another headline: “Half of women are confused by pregnancy advice”). We obsess over fertility as if women are slot machines who simply need to be primed and pumped at the optimal socially acceptable moment for a baby to shoot out like a prize.

Ironically though, perhaps the reason Bingham’s message resonated with so many women was not only the constant stream of diktats about pregnancy, but also what isn’t spoken about. Despite the endless public discussion of baby-making, relatively little is said about fertility problems, even common ones. The erasure of these issues from the public consciousness, combined with the “don’t leave it too late” narrative, directs a heavy and unnecessary sense of blame towards those who struggle to conceive.

While the coverage of maternity fashion and post-partum weight loss is endless, we rarely discuss miscarriage, which can make it a very lonely experience, as Mark Zuckerberg recently pointed out in a powerful Facebook post. Silence can lead to stigma and shame, as shown by a study that shows nearly half of women who have had a miscarriage feel guilty or wrongly blame themselves for it. Moving away from the idea that women are mothers first, and people second, would be a positive step. This insidious narrative can make those who don’t have children feel less valued, like second-class citizens. As Sex in the City actor Kim Cattrall recently pointed out, even the term “childless” suggests something lacking in those who don’t procreate.

But we also need to see more open discussion of issues that are wrongly shrouded in silence and stigma. When a close friend of mine was referred to a fertility clinic by her GP at the age of 28, she said it felt like a punch in the stomach. Despite every logical argument to the contrary, she struggled with feelings of embarrassment, failure, guilt and shame. What would have made it much easier, she told me, was feeling that this was normal, common even.

Bingham is right – we should think twice before asking nosy questions about people’s baby plans, no matter how friendly or well-intentioned. Let’s take the pressure off, stop the interrogations and ditch the idea that women are, first and foremost, baby machines. Guardian.com