By Mutryce A. Williams
This may be the most difficult, yet most personal piece I have ever written, and even as I am writing there are knots in my stomach. There is a lurking guilt and shame because as I am writing I wonder had I not been successful would I have ever had the courage to write on this issue. I am ashamed of myself because I was not able to speak out for women like myself. I was not able to let society know that the Scarlett letter they brand us with, the hurtful and derogatory societal epitaphs that they label us with make us feel subhuman, like nature’s rejects actually. What I am speaking on is the issue of infertility or those women and men in our society who society has labeled ‘barren.’ It is neither a pandemic nor an endemic. It is not an issue that is discussed unless it is in the form of gossip or used as a weapon hurled at the infertile person. It is not a disease like AIDS which is acquired or cancer which can be cured. It is not a cause that anyone champions. It just is.
Over the years society has been brutal in reference to its treatment of infertile persons. The stigma and attitudes that go along with infertility is commonplace within our society. We do not even realize it. I recall a friend being derided by her cousin when asked the reason why she had not had any children. She explained. The jokes followed. She smiled through it all. Knowing how she felt I jumped to her defence. To which I got the response, “Wha she going vex for…if she can’t breed, she can’t breed, is the truth…she can’t vex with me…so Sara wha you say again…you is a real mule then…but girl consider yourself lucky…that mean you can do and do and do and not worry about getting pregnant. Some women out there would love you problem…” The laughter followed.
The issue of infertility isn’t something that you hear discussed on panel discussions or in medical or mental health forums in our region. There is no need as no one dies from infertility. It’s not contagious like the swine flu. There is absolutely no need to sensitize the public on the cause or how the stigma attached to this problem affects those who are afflicted. There is no marching with placards saying that we have to eradicate the stigma that goes along with it. There has been no association or link to this and the crime rate, so why should there even be a discourse. There are no support groups. Over the years women like me have suffered in silence as we curtly dodge the insensitive and degrading remarks that go along with our inability to do the one thing that God put us here on this earth to do, and that is to procreate. We even hear Scriptures quoted on the issue. We are seen as an anomaly, a freak of nature, of no use to the human race. People pity us. They whisper about us. They are often times blatantly rude to us. There are no apologies for the remarks. They joke about us and the thing is it is socially acceptable.
Growing up you would hear conversations as to why Tanty Jane or Titter Ann didn’t have any children of her own. There was always, “Oh she barren…She couldn’t breed.” There was the explanation that that is why Granny decided to send two or three of her children to live with her because Granny had more than plenty and Tanty Jane or Titter Ann had none. Growing up you would hear the insults hurled at women like myself, insults hurled without hesitation I must add, “You barren like a mule…Hush you can’t breed so and so…You grudge me because you can’t breed…You miserable…You going tired grieve because the one thing you want you can’t get…look here one, two, three, four, five Pinckney, all these are mine show me yours…You going go back to God exactly how you come…what you have to show for it…you husband/man going leave you cause you can’t give him a child…” There are even rationalizations and the shocking thing is to hear them come from the mouths of women. “Well if he go breed somebody else, she can’t vex…the man want a child and she can’t give him…who could blame him…a bet you if he knew she couldn’t breed he wasn’t going to marry her.” Whenever I hear remarks like this, I question, “Is that all we are as women or as human beings, meaning that without this machination of fully functioning reproductive organs we are considered nothing but droids?”
Our society defines and characterizes a woman by so many things, but most importantly she is defined by her ability to produce offspring, no matter who she is, where she is from or what she has accomplished, if she fails to do this, she has failed at life. She is not a woman. Even the men get it, “Boy, he got sand in he balls.” Again, this is commonplace in conversations, at the bars, around the domino tables on the streets and society we take no notice of how these remarks affect this demographic in our society. Let me tell you, it hurts like hell. No thought is given to how we feel. No thought is given to how this affects our psyche or that we have and are battling with this issue ourselves, asking God why he made us this way, asking him why some people can have five, 10 even 20 and all you want is one but this seems all but impossible. Praying to Him each day for a miracle of just one child because you know you would be the best parent there is. When I was told that I was infertile it hit me like a ton of bricks. I literally did not move off the couch for two weeks. Because of everything that I have aspired to or wanted, the only thing that mattered most to me was that someday I would be the best mother that there ever was. I dealt with this and came to the resolve that if all else fails I had no problem adopting. Being a mother did not mean that I had to physically give birth to a child. However, what I was not prepared for was how personal I would take the caustic and cutting remarks and insults hurled at people like myself. I was not prepared for how commonplace and socially acceptable the treatment of infertile people nor even for the ignorance that goes along with it was. My infertility is not something that I hid, however it is not something I openly brandished to the world either. You fear disclosure because of the stigma and the treatment. I can recall a conversation with one of my closest friends and she was venting about a lady with whom she was supposed to partner with on a work project. She was ranting and raving about how the woman was miserable and jealous of her and her life because she has a child and the woman could not ‘breed’. I allowed her to lament and when she was finished I asked several questions, “What are her faults…what is root of the matter…what is your issue with her…what do you think of her as a person?...Because from where I am sitting, the crux of your argument seem to be that this woman had a problem with you because she was jealous of your ability ‘breed’ as you put it. Couldn’t it have been anything other than that like maybe she is a Type A person who likes to get things done on time and you are not? Couldn’t it have been that there was a lack of communication somewhere and you guys needed to work on the group dynamics? Isn’t there anything else about this woman that you could have attacked other than her inability to procreate?” She retorted, “Oh me arm, not because I say that about her mean I feel the same about you, don’t take it personal. Is just that I don’t like her.” As I said, this is so inculcated in us that we are not even aware of how insensitive it is.
Writing this piece has been both therapeutic and cathartic for me. I have not written in a while and it’s not because I have lost my voice. It’s just that I refused to listen to it, as it was asking me to write what’s on my soul, as it was asking me to be real, as it made me feel that any other thing that I had written would have been just words. My voice was asking me to shed some light on this issue as it is something that has plagued me ever since I was declared infertile seven years ago at the age of 23 and, although I gave birth to my son Aidan Daniel Alexander Morris on June 17th 2009 at 10:26 p.m. after three years of undergoing numerous, numerous tests, surgeries and several rounds of fertility treatments, I am infertile. There have been medical advancements in this area over the past decades, however, these advancements are neither prevalent nor accessible in our region. The process is also extremely costly and not for the faint of heart, as your body not only go through the rigors of the treatment but it takes a grave toll on your emotional state each time the treatment does not take.
The women of yesteryear have suffered and there are those who are still suffering silently, whilst society throws salt and rubs onion in their wounds making them feel subhuman, a freak of nature and less than a woman. I empathize with these women and I feel guilty because as someone who holds dual citizenship I was able to migrate to a country where undergoing treatment in order to achieve my Miracle was possible. When I left St. Kitts about three years ago to begin this quest, I can recall saying to a friend who questioned my decision that I was willing to make this huge sacrifice and if I wasn’t successful at least there would that resolve in knowing that I had tried. On that day when I first heard my son’s first cry and that single solitary tear rolled down my cheek, and as I hold him in my arms whilst typing this piece, I can say that there was no sacrifice in it at all. It was all a labour of love. If there is one hope that I have is that after you read this piece is that you become more empathetic to those who are infertile and that words such as ‘barren’ or ‘mule’, which are so commonplace in our vernacular, be removed from our tongues. We are not mules. We are not barren. We are not a freak of nature. We are human.
