I never felt more isolated than when I talked to other women about trying to have a baby.
The summer after our third miscarriage, Jeremy convinced me to go to a fancy party for his work. He thought that dressing up and eating a nice meal in a ballroom with other dressed-up people might distract me. I sat in my cocktail dress — too tight on my postIVf bloat — and held my husband’s hand under the table. Occasionally, a waiter would pass by with canapés and I’d grab one with my free hand. The table was buzzing with wine-leavened conversation, with introductions and interruptions and compliments, especially for the women, who wore a lot of modest necklines and black and navy — the assured unchicness of women who do not need to impress. They generated an air of capability and confidence, of success.
I desperately, desperately did not want to talk to any of them. Over the previous four years, socializing had become my biggest problem, second only to infertility. If you had asked me about my social life, I would have said, ‘It does not exist,’ though, in fact, all I did was talk to other people — in support groups on Facebook and the forum sections of infertility websites. I’d wake up in the morning and log on and read and write all day with hundreds of infertile women, sharing details of our miscarriages, our IVF results, our searches for surrogates, and replying to one another’s queries and stories in turn. But as soon as I logged off, I’d forget all about these women. Not to say I found these groups useless: though I wasn’t happy about my condition, I was certainly grateful to have a place I could discuss it. But the circumstances of these conversations left them feeling ghostly and unreal, in a way that talking with other women, even about other shitty and gendered topics, never had.
この記事は The Walrus の May 2019 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は The Walrus の May 2019 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、9,000 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Dream Machines - The real threat with artificial intelligence is that we'll fall prey to its hype
Some of the world's largest companies, including Microsoft, Meta, and Alphabet, are throwing their full weight behind AI. On top of the billions spent by big tech, funding for AI startups hit nearly $50 billion (US) in 2023.
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
MY CHILDREN are grown, with their own partners, their own lives.
The Quest to Decode Vermeer's True Colours
New techniques reveal hidden details in the Dutch master’s paintings
Repeat after Me
TikTok and Instagram are helping to bring Indigenous languages back from the brink
Smokehouse
I WAS STANDING THERE at the corner, the corner where the smaller street intersects with the slightly wider one.
How Could They Just Lose Him?
The Huronia Regional Centre was supposed to be a safe home for people with disabilities. Then, amid suspicions of abuse at the facility, twenty-one-year-old Robin Windross vanished without a trace
Prairie Radical
How conspiracy theorists splintered a small town
Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe
Scott Moe rose quietly through the ranks. Now the Saskatchewan premier and his party are shaping policies with national consequences
The Accommodation Problem
Extensions. Extra exam time. Online everything. Addressing the complex needs of students is creating chaos on campus
MY GUILTY PLEASURE
I WAS AS SURPRISED as anyone when I became obsessed with comics again last year, at the advanced age of forty-five. As a kid, I loved reading G.I. Joe and The Amazing Spider-Man.