TRIGGER WARNING

Fertility struggles

When I got married, the first and only thing people wanted to ask me about was when I was having a baby. No one asked my new husband that.

Not once.
But no one asked me about anything else.

Not about how school was going. I was in university at the time. Or about how work was going. I had just been promoted to a management position. Never about how the apartment was. We had just moved).

This started on our wedding day, literally. It continued every time we told anyone we were married. The conversation was always the same…

Them: “Oh, do you have kids?”
Me: “No.”
Them: “When are you planning on having them?”

What a creepy and invasive thing to inquire about.

People have so many milestones in their life. Bearing children isn’t one of them for everybody. Either by choice, or otherwise.

“I want us all to stop assuming that every woman WANTS to be a birth mother. It’s okay if women have no desire to birth children.”

The reality of fertility

12% of American women have difficulty getting and staying pregnant.
40% of males within struggling couples are infertile or have low sperm counts and/or mobility.

10% of women have PCOS, which is the most common cause of infertility.
25% of couples have more than one factor contributing to their infertility as a pair.

Another issue within infertility is miscarriage. 10%-25% of all recognized pregnancies end in miscarriage.

Infertility can happen to anyone. But it is devastating when it happens to someone who’s trying to conceive. It is not your fault if you’re struggling with fertility issues. You did nothing wrong.

“i’ve thought i was infertile since i was 14. i’ve been trying for six months. it finally happened”

The Next Step

We need to stop defining womanhood by someone’s ability to bear children. This is insensitive to cisgender women, tranwomen, and also transmen. We also need to normalize the choice not to have children.

My take away is this: please do everyone with a uterus (and without) a favour and don’t ask about their reproductive plans.Unless you are entirely confident you won’t be making them uncomfortable in doing so.
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I’d love to know…
How do you support someone struggling with infertility?

“Childfree & Powerful: Oscar winning Actress Octavia Spencer, stated “I am not maternal at all, I lack the instinct to have kids. There’s no gray area for me; this is what I chose.” We this powerful statement made by Octavia! #bibsburpsbottles”