Author: Sadie Scotch
Photo: Samanta Sokolova
Throughout my life, I’ve felt like a winner. A literal, bingo-card, raffle-ticket, free-trip-to-Bermuda kind of winner. Things just went my way; serendipity spread itself thick.
So, I assumed having a baby would be the same; it would just happen. One day, I’d blink and find myself with children and a family, another fortuitous outcome. Life is random, so I ought to just let things flow naturally, right?
I hate when men use the words “biological clock.” It feels like an accusation. But female fertility does have a deadline. I wish someone had taught me earlier that the stories about women having kids into their 40s are mostly anecdotal.
So it began, slowly, then desperately, my “fertility journey”. It started with an at-home hormone test I bought through a podcast ad that came with a 10% discount. I played around with one-night stands, but timing that out was tricky. I met a lot of flaky men who would bump our dates past my ovulation window. I got a few willing participants to try to knock me up, too. I found that some men get aroused at the thought of impregnating someone, not necessarily even me. One of them legitimately loved me, and we could have made it work, except for his male infertility issues, discovered after a semen analysis. I met some men on online forums who would donate their semen for free, and I wouldn’t have to have sex with them. I still have a legally binding contract with one of them.
But because within the world of reason, it is my time to stop. My body’s over it.
The final stretch of my 30s, and the beginning of my 40s, were shaped by this pursuit of fulfilling my childhood expectation of becoming a mom. I stayed in a job I’d long outgrown for the insurance, which partially covered fertility treatments. I put off travel. I, the former vagabond, narrowed my life to a series of clinics and depraved dating schemes. Life still happened, of course. I got sober. I had meaningful relationships, some with men, most with friends. It wasn’t all awful.
But mostly it was full of doctor’s appointments. I explored, nah, spelunked down into the world of fertility treatments. Weeks of at-home injections, going under, waking up to the “news” of harvested eggs. Then putting embryos back in. And the even better “news” I’d get a week or so later. But the news was never worthy of broadcasting.
And I’m not trying again.
Not because I’ve reached some enlightened state of acceptance. I haven’t. But because within the world of reason, it is my time to stop. My body’s over it. I’ve spent three years, seven cycles, god knows how much money and mental energy, and I don’t have it in me to do it again.
Letting go of my uterus is not black and white but like a series of shades of gray. I wanted an end date, something definitive to grieve and move past.
I used to think the decision to stop would feel dramatic, like a door slamming shut. But instead, it was quiet. Like a slow leaking out. A dull but steady end that was finally sticking.
Letting go of my uterus is not black and white but like a series of shades of gray. I wanted an end date, something definitive to grieve and move past. I think I’ve stopped trying, but options like donor eggs, one of my brothers’ sperm with donor eggs, embryo adoption (yes, that’s the term), traditional adoption–– those things will be on the table until I’m 50 or beyond.
This letting go of hope comes with unexpected relief as well as extended dread. I stopped taking forty supplements a day. I threw out my water distiller. I drink more coffee now, though, to be honest, I never really tried scaling back my 5 cups a day in earnest. But what happens when your next 40 years look nothing like the life you assumed you would be given? No children. No one to leave behind. Not growing old with descendants by my side. It can get dark. I try to find tools. I try to see past the absence.
My uterus failed me, or maybe I failed it. I didn’t give it a chance in my 20s, when it was likely at its peak performance, instead I was gobbling birth control pills. Perhaps I abused it with microplastics, parasites and whatever else my woo-woo fertility nutritionist speculated on. I don’t judge other women by their reproductive outcomes, and I try not to do it to myself. I’m a rung or two higher on the lucidity ladder than those who blame themselves for miscarriages or c-sections. My fixation isn’t on control, it’s on loss. But I still try to intellectualize my bad luck.
So I will let my uterus be, like an unused appendix. It’ll sit inside me, quietly, until we’re both ready to go.
And that’s my thing, I do believe in randomness. I believe it is random that my series of IVFs didn’t work out. Statistically, someone has to end up in that long tail of the curve of unfortunates. I just happened to be one of them. My body still works in many ways. I’m grateful. I use it every day. And one day, it too will fail, as it’s built to do.
So I will let my uterus be, like an unused appendix. It’ll sit inside me, quietly, until we’re both ready to go.
About the Author:
Sadie is a writer and other things living in New York City. You can see more of her writing at www.sadiescotch.com