My husband and I had infertility struggles. Basically, he had less than 2 million in a sample and ALL were deformed. My tests came back normal.
We were public with our IVF results, which weren’t great. We underwent two sessions of IVF and I only ended up with one embryo who developed into my amazing son.
Yesterday, while I was at work, one of my co-workers approached me and said, “You know, there’s lots of women who thought they couldn’t get pregnant but then got pregnant!”
I just stared right at her and went, “I can get pregnant.”
After an awkward pause, she went: “I don’t know why I assumed you couldn’t.”
“Well, I mean, I did become pregnant via an embryo. I was pregnant, i had my son.”
But this rhetoric has been very common to me.
I’ve had people give me advice: “Just go on birth control and then get off birth control! That’ll make you pregnant!”
I had another co-worker tell me she’d happily be a surrogate for me.
Like, she seen me pregnant???
I understand people really don’t understand why we’re choosing to only to have one child. (The emotional and financial toll of IVF really hurt us.) But in the 10 years of us having unprotected intercourse, we never conceived naturally! The only time we were successful is when an embryo (that had to have his sperm injected directly into it to be successful), was placed by doctors into me.
Fertility issues are half and half! Which makes sense. Why would it only be women who are infertile??
Now, this is an issue that has bothered me silently but its one I cannot really discuss. I don’t want to throw my man under the bus here. Infertility wasn’t his fault. He’s a healthy, normal guy. We don’t know why his results were dismal.
I wanted to go public to alert people to the difficulties of IVF. But it really does seem like the general consensus is that it must be the women’s fault!
Anyway, is it sexism? Is it that the idea of males being infertile is so taboo, people default to it? Is it just that I was the public one?
Comments
It is indeed sexism. Pregnancy is associated with women.
But imo, as an infertile AFAB person, I think we need more acceptance for infertility in society. There’s nothing wrong with being infertile. It’s normal and the fact is there have always been people who cannot produce children, and we shouldn’t look down on them. I am exactly how my creator made me. I’m all the kids favorite auntie too, and I still have a wonderful and full life. I hope one day we can get to a place where being infertile is normalized and there’s no judgement placed on it. I personally feel like I exist to be a safety net to children in my family and community. And that is beautiful.
Please note I’m not against trying for children, I just really think the stigma needs to end.
I would like to say that even if your eggs weren’t capable of fertilization, or you had a hysterectomy for cancer, or whatever it still would not be your fault. It is not your husband’s fault if he has issues either.
As for assuming, that’s just the regular ol’ patriarchy and it sucks. I’m so happy for you, your husband, and your son and I’m sure you have a beautiful family!!
Good question. My theory would be, that pregnancy is so centered around the woman, that any issues indirectly become the woman’s “fault” as well? And also maybe you wrote that post on your social media, people link the infertility to you?
That said, the unsolicited advice is still weird and inappropriate.
It’s just what you said, it’s both sexist and the topic of men’s infertility is considered taboo and just not talked about. That and many people assume that just one sperm is enough to produce a baby and men have an abundance of sperm, and that coupled with ivf already disproportionately requiring women to put up with the brunt of the work (the need for hormones, injections, etc as opposed to men just needing to produce a sperm sample) results in people incorrectly assuming fertility is a women’s problem.
Misogyny. Misconceptions about the reproductive system. People think cis men having the ability to produce sperm throughout life means that that is always the case for every man. Not to speak of the fact that sperm quality and quantity decreases for men with age.
Tldr: misogyny
This is a minor plot detail in The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood that really stuck with me
Yeah sexism. We’re pretty upfront that we’ve fine all the tests, it all looks fine, but IVF successes were sperm donor.
Of course then had a typical method success after our first two so who the heck knows
A male friend of mine who went through this with his wife said he always advises people to get tests done on the guy first, because they’re much easier than what the woman has to go through.
The male ego.
“She can’t get pregnant.”
“He knocked her up.”
It’s always the man’s super strong swimmers that get a woman pregnant but, if a woman is having difficulty staying pregnant, it’s her fault.
. . .
even though the egg tries to fix the shit quality of sperm (DNA fragmentation).
Because patriarchy