Women Speak Out

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Women from the eastern provinces assess the values and beliefs which have influenced their drive to have children 

Pam is a lifelong resident of New Brunswick and since 1990 has been a nursing instructor at the University of New Brunswick. Pam has been a member of IAAC since 1996, a Board member since 1998 and on the Editorial Board since 2002. It was her personal experience of 11 years of infertility that prompted her continued interest in the area of infertility and in providing support for those currently encountering infertility. She has led the Fredericton Infertility Support Group since 1999 and will complete a Master of Nursing degree this fall on The Infertility Experience of Women in New Brunswick. This article is a portion of her findings. All names used in the article are pseudonyms. 

Women from the eastern provinces spoke of many feelings and circumstances affecting their drive to have children. These feelings and circumstances have been separated into values and beliefs.

Values are often hidden within what becomes enacted in a person’s life. Women who experience infertility are compelled by their experience to reflect upon what they value most in their lives. These women shared how they valued their ability to have children within the context of their marriage and how they had to become increasingly discriminating in their valuations as treatment continued.

The participants uniformly spoke of values that influenced their wish for a child. Most reported that their own expectation of motherhood was present from childhood.

"I just remember always thinking, well, I am going to get married and we are going to have children and they are going to look like you or me and that’s it. And I love children; I love them especially as little babies, just crazy about them. I never thought about the fact that I might not be able to have any. It was always that I will be a mother some day, you know? And it struck me as really odd that I never questioned it and it was never something that I consciously brought up in my head. Because it was always there; it was like breathing. You know you are going to be a mom, you know you’re going to take care of something, you’re going to love it, it’s going to love you … when we found out that we weren’t going to, well, how can this thing that is just like breathing, just like your heart beating, not ever going to happen. So there was no real time when it just clicked with me, it was kind of an always there kind of thing."

Four women clearly recognised it was their own positive family experiences as children that caused them to want to recreate this emotional warmth with children of their own. Rebecca recalled the close relationships she had with siblings in childhood, and Iby remembered the fun she had playing with her brothers and sister. Laurel spoke of the happy family experiences both she and her husband had experienced. Pat remembered the moment she understood the impact of these recollections of her childhood:

"And I didn’t understand why I wanted to be a mother so badly until I wrote that Mother’s Day card to her. And that’s it, that’s it. That’s just it. Because I came from such a wonderful home, I want to have that for the rest of my life, and I’m not going to live at home with my parents forever. I want that again. I want that feeling again. So, that’s what drives me to be a mother." 

In addition to early impressions sometimes influencing their drive to have children, these women were also aware of others’ reactions toward children as they encountered people day to day. Anna was very aware of her parents’ response to her sister’s children. She also felt pressured by the presence of many young families with children in her neighbourhood.            

Being unable to fulfill their wish for a child allowed these women to realize how much they valued children and to what lengths they would reach to have a child. Iby found herself unable to take a needed break from treatment because she wanted her child so badly and because she knew she had limited time left to try to conceive. These women were willing to persist in their efforts even though it sometimes meant walking through some of the experience alone. Hayley recognised that there were aspects of the experience that could not be shared with her husband:

" … I even had to walk through some stages on my own because Terry is a man and I am a woman, and I wanted to be a mother because that is just something in me … but Terry couldn’t understand that. His life was just as it was meant to be, and I believe that too, but, it’s just there is still that, why couldn’t I conceive?" 

Women spoke of wanting to have a child with their husband and their sadness that they would not see him become a father. Some women spoke of wanting to give their husband a child. Anna said, "I really want him to experience it because it’s such a miracle. And such a beautiful thing that I would really love to be able to give that to him." 

The women and their husbands valued children more than the financial hardship treatment created. They were willing to take time from work to travel for treatment, sometimes losing salary when off work. Lost salary was added to the mounting costs of medications and treatment, increasing their financial burden. Extended families were generally supportive of the couple choosing to spend money for treatment and sometimes contributed funds to help make treatment possible.

Pat said children were priceless. She was able to describe how her feelings about children influenced her view of acceptable treatment.

"And then to put a price on having a child. That’s why I couldn’t do in vitro. I can’t, I can’t put a price on a child. I can’t just say, you know, you get three in vitro procedures for nine thousand dollars. It’s like going and buying a set of sheets. It just seems so strange to me that I have to make a contract to have a child. It just doesn’t . . . it’s really frightening. It really is. And that’s why it’s not for me. I’d put my body through anything, really. But that’s just not for me. I can’t put a price on it."                                                     

Two women disclosed abusive childhood experiences. For both of these women, the need to have children was altered by the abuse. Stacie’s experience was both physically and emotionally abusive. Hayley suffered emotional and sexual abuse.    Stacie defined how to parent well, in large measure, as the antithesis of her own childhood experience. Her current life is highly involved with children; she is professionally educated in the care of children, and she is ever vigilant for signs of abuse among those in her care. 

"So even growing up, I would say when I had my child I am not going to treat them that way. I am going to listen to them. I am not going to be like my father, if you did something wrong you’d get a beating. But half the time when I got slapped or whatever, I didn’t even know what I did wrong." 

Stacie recognised how her abusive background added to her drive to parent, ". . . when I was waiting for my children , I felt that there were issues from my home and the stress that I experienced in my home and I want a chance to do it right."   

Hayley spoke of having to come to terms with events in her childhood and also recognised an opportunity for an abused woman to parent would help to " … solve the wrong that was done to her." 

Throughout their infertility experience women monitored their relationship with their husband, being alert to stressors within their relationship and sometimes recognizing when a break from treatment was needed. Beth and her husband had been "of the same mind" regarding treatment until recently, when she found "he wants to go in one direction, and I want to go in another." Both Beth and Pat found their quest for a child created conflict within the couple relationship. Pat’s husband was willing to try to conceive for another year. Pat, who was ten years younger than her husband, at times found herself able to accept this time constraint and at other times wondered if she would be leaving her marriage at the end of the year.

Continuing treatment put an increasing toll on the couples, and the women were required to face a myriad of couple issues including whether to add to their financial burden or revisit their individual and mutual decisions regarding methods of treatment.   Pat reviewed their decisions as a couple and her inability to manoeuver any further within the situation at present.

"My husband is not interested in adopting. I am. That’s fine. I married him for a reason . . .   So I’ve made that decision in marrying him. I knew he would never adopt before we got married but I never thought that I needed to worry about it. So he’s brought it up again. [He said] friends of ours adopted a child and what do you think? How would you feel about that? And I said ‘just don’t even talk to me because I know that it would make you sad.’ So, we made that decision, we’re sticking to that decision. So that’s done. We decided we’re not doing in vitro. It’s not for us. We’re not doing insemination. The turkey baster, he calls it. We’re not doing it. That’s not for us. It’s wonderful that it works for other people and they’re fine with it. It’s not for us. Stick to the decisions. And then at that point, what is meant to be will be.”

Four of the women had ended infertility treatment at the time of their interview, and a fifth woman was considering whether to try in vitro fertilization once more. As infertility ‘tested’ them again and again, it made clear their own personal limits for treatment, as well as those of their husband.   Hayley recognised her own limits:

". . . we did four treatments of insemination and that was all they would do. And then at that time too they were doing a study for in vitro fertilization and I did a cycle of that. And then at that point I felt it wasn’t happening. "    

Beth realized they were reaching the end of active treatment, in part because her husband was reaching his personal limit for treatment.

"He has a really hard time with the loss; he feels that he has lost years doing this because everything takes so much time. It takes time to get to a doctor; when you do see them it takes time to get any procedure done. You know it’s just that everything in this process is so slow and everything is waiting and you only have one chance a month, so you have twelve chances a year and that’s if you ovulate. So it’s all just one big waiting game and unfortunately time is the one thing that we don’t have, but nothing is fast. So he’s really struggled with that." 

Iby knew her age, a fourth miscarriage and changing blood work indicated peri-menopause and logically suggested the end of her reproductive years. Yet she recognised there was a process to her letting go of the wish for another child, "… somehow there’s this lingering on" of the wish to have a child.  

Anna described her awareness of being about to enter a new phase of her infertility experience. 

"So, it’s just being able to right now get to the point that we can say this may not happen for us. Or this will not happen for us. And then if anything does, we’ll be happy about that. Maybe the best thing is to just face it you know, face on. And say if it’s not going to be in our life to have children and then, and then try to work around that. I think that might be the next step for us." 

These women were clearly able to discern the worth of continuing treatment against the increasing costs for them individually and as a couple. Additionally, Hayley and Pat spoke about their need to regain their sense of self that was diminished or changed within the infertility experience.

"I guess I just felt like I needed to put it aside because it was consuming so much of my life and I didn’t want it to be. I didn’t want that to be who I was and I felt if it was going to happen it was going to happen in a natural way, because obviously all this in vitro fertilization just wasn’t working for me." 

"Not everything that upsets me in life is based on infertility. I’m still me. And I think it’s, you don’t know, you’re trying to figure out who you are and everybody else thinks its infertile you, instead of just you. And getting that back is really hard when you’ve shared with everybody what’s gone on. And I just, you know, it’s me." 

The women’s beliefs framed their experience. Their expectation of marrying and having children was challenged. They were sustained, in part, through their belief in God and in the varying support from those around them. They were altered by their experience and found their beliefs had been changed by their experience of infertility.

All of the women needed to believe in support from their partner to continue treatment. When women believed support had ended, it meant perhaps a break in treatment or the end of active treatment. After Pat’s husband spoke out about his distress over the impact treatment had on them, they chose to take a break from treatment.

"We went through it all and you know, finally, my husband said that’s it. I don’t want children. And he said, if you need to do this to yourself, then do it with someone else but I, I don’t want children now if it’s going to do this to us. "          

Women were more likely to receive effective support from their husband than from their family. Family members’ well intentioned help was often perceived as stressful. Iby related an instance of receiving a suggestion from her mother. 

"I think my mother was concerned and she felt my pain but she was trying to offer suggestions that were totally inappropriate because she didn’t understand … she heard from my sister-in-law who had no problem getting pregnant … that day twelve worked for her and had I heard that? And I nearly blew up.”

Two women described feeling the lack of support from one or more family members. Pat recalled " … the first day my Dad said, ‘well if you’re not going to give me grandchildren,’ I missed everything he said after that …" Beth knew she was not finished with infertility treatment, yet felt family members’ support for continuing treatment ebbing away from her.

"It’s funny, when my family found out that we were looking into adoption it was almost a collective sigh of relief on their parts that I wasn’t going to continue treatment. They felt I was just going to adopt and be done with it. . . . but it’s almost as though my family is not just tired, they are tired of seeing me hurt. But it’s difficult when you feel your support system going. ‘Oh thank God, she’s finally given up’ … my mother actually said that, she said we were hoping you would do that a long time ago. She just thinks it’s a good thing if I just give up and move on to another kind of thing, other than this difficult thing that hasn’t been the best experience."

The majority of women talked about friends attempts to support them. Anna and Laurel were the only women to say they had supportive friends, and for both these women, their support came from infertile friends. Iby found her friends did not know how to help, saying, " . . . you keep in touch, you give us a call, tell us how you are doing." Iby said, "well, there comes a time when you can’t make the call. You don’t have the energy." She finally found some support for the depth of her pain in a Grief Support Group. No one there had infertility, but all had losses, and some had lost children. She felt her pain was understood within the group. 

"And so I went to the Grief Support Group, I think I called and I asked or maybe I just went I don’t remember, and at the time there were two other couples who had lost infants. One stillborn at birth and the other there had been a genetic problem and miscarried at five or six months. The foetus had actually been dead for some time and she hadn’t been properly informed. So I was hearing these stories but I literally went and I cried all the first time I went, I cried all the second time I went; I couldn’t even say my name and the third time I went I thought ok, get hold of yourself here, Iby, like you’re going to say something tonight. And finally I was able to and I said a bit of the story but it was like the voice was somewhere else. Like it wasn’t me, it was like the voice was coming out of my mouth but it sounded like it was over there. It was so hard. I kept going because I felt that there was the empathy or the understanding of other people who had had losses . . . not identical but they had had losses. And other people that had lost a grown child at seventeen, eighteen in a car crash or twenty-five or thirty or whatever. They had all sorts of losses but it was I would say that that was when I first started to feel some empathy and understanding with people because I hadn’t found it from immediate friends nor family because they had never had that experience. They had no real understanding of it so it taught me also that you have to be willing to go for help where you need it. And like my friend the other day she said she can’t imagine how I carry on. Well, you have to."

Seven of the women alluded to their spirituality as they described their infertility experience. It provided a framework that supported them through the experience of infertility, sometimes by providing solace and sometimes by allowing the women to find meaning in their experience. Anna periodically found herself and her husband in a particular chapel sitting quietly, being comforted by her surroundings which included a banner of Mary while pregnant. She described how her awareness of the spirituality of others increased as she knew of their prayers for her. Pat took comfort in a prayer to St. Gerard for motherhood that she had been given. Laurel felt God had a plan for her life.

". . . so four babies we lost, one two three surgeries and one, two, three, four, five blood transfusions and then we had a beautiful adopted baby boy two years ago. So we are lucky … you know the way we look at it is maybe it was in God’s plan that we had to go through all that to appreciate our son and we just treasure him." 

Both Stacie and Hayley, who experienced childhood abuse, had very strong religious faith that helped them believe in a future with children and that there was a purpose for their struggles. Stacie had her faith profoundly tested while pregnant for twins, miscarrying one twin and then despite her prayers, subsequently losing the second twin.

All of the women indicated an intention to have children be a part of their lives. Pat and Laurel spoke of their belief that the drive for children came from within themselves rather than being imposed from those around them. Sometimes this was framed within an expected order of events in the women’s lives. Iby said " … well it’s another phase of your life, you want to experience it too."   Beth had expected following her marriage to have more than one child that would look like her husband and herself. Anna realized there was an order to the events in her life and particular circumstances had to exist before she wanted to have children. 

"I was at the hospital and there was a pregnant woman there and they asked her date of birth. And I figured out she would be 27 . . . I would never have even thought at that point that this would be the time for me to have children. It would just seem not important to me at that time. So I had that living to do before I met the right person and really wanted to settle down. So what works for some people, to have children during their twenties, doesn’t work for others. "

Rebecca spoke of suppressing the strong desire to have children in her early twenties as she was not yet married.

All of the women indicated an awareness of their age as they considered when they wanted to have children born to them. All but two of the women 35 years of age or older and still in treatment indicated their sense of urgency to have a child. Laurel had found a level of contentment having adopted her daughter. Stacie also felt she had achieved her goal with the birth of her daughter. 

Five of the women spoke of their awareness of society’s perspective towards having children. Rebecca said she had felt no pressure from her husband, family or friends but noticed "after you’ve been married a couple of years they say ‘when are you having children?’ and people are always bugging you …" Stacie encountered these type of inquiries and found them hard to confront.

" . . . people would say to me ‘do you have any children?’ And it’s funny there was this one time before Sherri was born this person always kept asking me ‘don’t you think it’s about time? Well, what’s wrong with you guys?’ And she was rather abrupt. And I looked at her and I just said ‘I can’t have children’ and she just said ‘Oh’ and she never bothered me again. But it took a lot for me to say ‘I can’t have children’, and then I got pregnant with Sherri shortly after that and I remember running into her in the grocery store and she said, ‘well, it’s about time.’ But it was like, ‘didn’t you remember me saying I can’t have children?’ But anyway it was a real hard thing for me to say to someone, I can’t have children." 

"Got married, next step is to have children, everybody asks you, but that didn’t pressure me into doing it, like into wanting it, I wanted it for myself. But society definitely had brought it up, in a society that believes you get married and then have children, so that was definitely an influence. That societal - not necessarily pressure - but expectation." 

The women described how their views of life were challenged and changed by infertility. As Iby reflected on her earlier dreams of a family with five children, she recalled her four miscarriages and the birth of her daughter Lisa, "well, that’s five." Anna struggled with how her view of life was being changed by infertility.   "… I’m losing my optimism. And that is spilling over into other parts of my life that, that’s a little bit harder. I don’t feel like myself a lot of the time. And that’s hard." She also searched for meaning within her experience of infertility:

"It’s different life experiences that lead you to where you are and I guess that I think that there may be a reason for this. And I’ve got a great friend who keeps saying look, God doesn’t close a door without opening a window, so there’s got to be something for us." 

Beth anticipated what it would mean for her to have a child. "But I know once we have children, that looks like through adoption, that it will be very healing for me … just to finally be somebody’s Mom." Stacie’s joy in being mother to her daughter Sherri gives credence to Beth’s perspective. 

" … it doesn’t bother me as much any more because now I feel that I have accomplished what I needed to do. So, yeah, my child is here. As long as I have her I am fine. So it’s a good thing. Because, I probably couldn’t have sat here and talked about all this stuff. What if I didn’t have her, because she is my pride. She makes things so much easier, and I know that everything I did was worth it in the long run."

In contrast, while Laurel was very happy with her adopted daughter, she hoped she would have found happiness whether or not she had children.

 "Oh yeah, life is wonderful. Like before we adopted Megan I really had a hole in my heart. I know we could have been happy just my husband and I and I don’t mean just he and I, but being child free, I know we could have been very happy." 

Pat has struggled with decisions she ultimately felt were best for them as a couple and her words also captured some of what was felt by all the women interviewed.

"So that, it changes everything that you ever thought your life was going to be. And, who you are completely changes. And what you planned for your life, completely changes. It’s a whole self-realization … which you never thought that you would have to do."    

The values and beliefs expressed by these women reveal the extensive reflection that has been required of them by their experience of infertility. They have examined their lives before infertility, scrutinized their infertility treatment and decisions they have made and wondered if they have done enough in their efforts to have a child. These women were looking for ‘landmarks’ to tell them what choices to make in treatment, when it was time to take a break from treatment and when it was time for treatment to end. There seemed to be a wish to be a part of life by their ability to create life. Children created further connections between the woman and her husband, her family and the community. Children seemed to represent hope and possibilities, and the bonds they created would become a large part of the web of her life’s connectedness.