Fertility thoughts!

I am sitting at my mother‘s kitchen table.
The yellow wallpaper is glowing in the evening sun, while the radio got stuck in the 70s.
We are having a late Espresso, and I catch a wave of empathy on my mother‘s face.
„Women don‘t have it easy“, she says in deep contemplation. „The clock is ticking constantly and puts such a strict time table on all the important decision in life.“
She smiles at me warmly, but this was not what her 28-year-old daughter needed to hear at all.

I did want to have this kind of empathy from my mother.

Empathy for being almost 30 and still not having had a baby.
For being the age that she was when she got married, while I still am not even close to it.
For having old friends from childhood who do not ever call me back because they hang out with their other mom-friends now.
Yea, that kind of empathy was not really my thing.
Sorry, mother.

I empty my third cup of Espresso that day and feel a panic attack creeping closer.
Although I usually felt quite caffeine resistant and only drank it for the taste, when I was feeling a bit weak this could easily change.
„I still think I have a lot of time“, I respond with a tired voice.
„Yes, but once you‘re 30 things are not that easy anymore“, my mother responds lost in thought.
„I know a lot of women who had babies in their mid or late 30s.“
„Yes, sometimes there are accidents.“
And again, there is a wave of empathy in her face that I‘d wish to drown in the next cup of coffee I was preparing.

The empathy.
Not my mother.
Although I see that this situation needs the clarification.

Even if there is a part truth to the things my mother just said, I do not want to view my life from that point of view. Just because I carry a uterus around, I don‘t want to think in deadlines and be under so much pressure to reach all my important goals on time.
I cannot live like that.

And is it even true?
Is it so much tougher to become pregnant, once you‘re over 30?
I have looked into this myth recently, and where it came from.
For one thing, because I still have not completely ruled out the possibility of wanting a child at some point on my future, but also because it is so related to the whole witching issue!

So, first of all let us unravel this.
The myth that fertility is shrinking rapidly in your 30s is a very old one and starts in the 17th century. Doctors back then reported that women from 35 on gave birth to fewer children than the younger ones, but the factors for this were not carefully documented. If they even still tried, or had had difficult births before, as well as untreated or undetected disease is unknown, so that conclusion is useless.

Today‘s study show that even people over 35 have an almost equal chance of conceiving as younger uterus carriers, for more click here!
Honestly, I worked hard to find an English source on this issue, all of mine were German, so please check it out.

But of course, these are only useful numbers for those of us who still play with the thought of having a baby one day.

What if we don‘t?

Why is it such a big issue to always be mentioned and discussed?

Why have I so often been asked if I had the deadline for babies in mind, when I was talking about something great I was about to do?
When I started a new job, was working on my novel, or planned an Erasmus-stay in Hungary?
Why was it always put into perspective like that?
„Oh, you‘re still planning an all of these things at your age?“
„I am 26.“
„The clock is ticking!“
I had a friend who I knew longer than I could remember and once was very close with, but when we were in our early 20s, she stopped hanging out with me and got married early, hurried through her degree and one or two years in a job to have the first baby at 25 as she had always planned. The last two times I saw her, she only nodded towards me and then kept talking strictly to my mother.
About not having time for anything, not reading books anymore, not listening to music anymore and not hanging out with friends, because she knew now what mattered in life.
„Once you‘re a mother, you‘ll know too“, was what both of them then said to me, and honestly, I wanted to die.

That is true.
I thought that if I stopped having any of my interests, my personality and stopped being there for my friends or do any of the things that defined my life, that sounded like killing myself.
And if I wanted to stop living my life, I would not put another human being into this world as an excuse, but just stop it.

Yes, that was dark. Sorry.

As the sun is setting, my mother lights up a candle as well as a fairy light shaped in lemon slices I once got her years ago.
„You don‘t seem happy“, she states and I have to nod.
I am not. I have had a depressive episode for the past 8 months, which for several reasons I had failed to identify as such until very recently.
„I don‘t know where my life is going at the moment“, I admit.
My mother listens up. „What are the good things you have right now?“
I have to think.
„My blog was read by more than 10 000 people on five continents.“
„Yes, but some might never read it. So what else.?“
„I am writing my novel as I had always wanted when I was a child.“
„Okay, what else?“
„I work at the museum a lot these days.“
„That is great, but not a fixed job, right?“
„Right.“
I have to swallow heavily. Where is the wine?
„Why don‘t you move in with your boyfriend?“, she asks out of nothing and I am confused.
„What?“
„It‘s what people at your age do.“
I shake my head. „We both like our freedom a lot.“
„I think you need safety rather than freedom. Why don‘t you get a real job as a teacher again?“
„Because the school system here in Germany made me sick, remember?“
But my mother continues. „Get a real job, move in with him, and you‘ll feel better.“

On a sunny day a few weeks later my mood has finally lifted.
The longer days always make everything easier for me.
Wearing black clothes that honestly are bit too warm, I am strolling through the city of Düsseldorf with one of my few female friends.
We talk about our daydreams of renting a place in the middle of the city, with a view on one of the murals or close to one of the Asian supermarkets. After iced coffee and ice cream, we agree on cooking something exotic for each other soon. She would introduce me to Sushi (which I really haven‘t tried yet), and I would cook a Transylvanian stew.
She congratulates me for having finished 20 000 words of the witching novel, she tells me about a new piece she learned to play at the piano.

Is this what childless women around 30 talk about?
Probably.
And I am glad that I have a time like this at the moment.
No matter what the future holds.

My mother has one friend who never had a baby because she could not, and my mother once told me about an expensive new floor in that friend‘s kitchen.
„Your life takes so different turns if you never were a mother“, was her thoughtful conclusion.

I don‘t see why mothers necessarily don‘t have nice flooring in their kitchen, and I hated how she pointed that out.

Maybe having a nice kitchen floor, having a career, being an artist or a scientist, or just a good friend, or even political activist are just things that matter too?

I wish the decision on giving birth or not was just a private one, concerning what kind of home I would like to have and what kind of effort my body and mind can take, while outside of this I could just pursuit my dreams without all of these questions and reminders.

And honestly, I think that we uterus carriers could do more to support each others as complex human beings with so much potential besides or instead of giving birth.

In my experience, we are still far from that, and so very often it is smothering me.