I wish people would stop asking me “Is she your first?' 😕
The playground is already busy at 8 a.m. on Saturday. It’s the only early morning activity in my otherwise quiet and sleepy residential neighbourhood. My daughter loves the swings and I try to take her every weekend. At 11 months, she’s still a bit small for the infant swing, but it’s endearing, almost like she’s wearing a gigantic rubber diaper over her crisp bright yellow onesie with black and white zebras on it and a matching sun hat.
I’m so engaged in the moment that I barely notice as another woman pushes a stroller towards us, unbuckles the baby in it with confidence and plops him down in the infant swing to the left of my daughter. Her baby looks a few months older than mine, although maybe he’s just a big baby. Our babies begin swinging in unison and it reminds me of when I was a little girl swinging side by side with my best friend, joking that we were “married” and then “divorced” once we fell out of sync.
My mind begins to flood with scenes from the past five years. The ultrasound that revealed a mass on my right ovary. The ovarian cancer diagnosis and oophorectomy that followed. Waking up from anesthesia round after round ofshivering, teeth chattering. Hopeful each time I sent my embryos off for testing. Devastated when the results came back showing chromosomal abnormalities. Injections, tests, procedures. Time suspended. The financial resources I poured into three different fertility clinics.
I know I’m not supposed to care about what a random stranger thinks about me or my family. But the assault feels bigger than this one instance. The cumulative effect of hearing this question, again and again, feels like a greater societal disregard for the struggle some women face when it comes to fertility.
As always, I grappled with the best way to respond. If I answer “yes” without any further explanation, I’d be perpetuating the woman’s assumption that I can choose to have more than one child. I could give a more genuine answer, but that would probably be oversharing and might make things super awkward with a total stranger. In the past, I’ve tried educating others about this sensitive topic and the conversation awkwardly came to a halt.
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