Exquisite Torture

Congress is having a great deal of difficulty defining the term, "torture." Is, for example, the practice of waterboarding - a simulation of drowning which, while not fatal (as far as I know), is highly terrifying - is that torture? Government lawyers are having a lot of trouble answering this question. Personally, I think that if it's something so many people are concerned about and suspect is exactly what torture is, then it's close enough for me. If it smells like a rat and runs like a rat and IS A RAT - oops. You get the point.

I have some assistance for them, however. If Congress is having trouble coming up with a salient definition for what, exactly, constitutes torture, then they have only to ask me: torture is a woman with infertility who agrees to babysit in the infant room for two hours so that the daycare staff can have their Christmas lunch. Torture is the child who smells like baby powder and insists on being held and immediately snuggles up right underneath your neck, that part where a baby's head fits perfectly, and sighs with satisfaction and clutches said woman's hand. Admittedly, said (foolish) woman agreed to this scenario, so this is partly self-inflicted torture, but still. If you want to feel like you're going to drown, this is the scenario for you. Even if the stuff of your drowning is self-pity.

Okay, I know that this is right on the verge of making light of a very serious and horrific situation. I am trying very hard not to fall off the perch on which I have placed myself in the last paragraph: I don't intend to equate my two hours of babysitting with the actual practice of waterboarding, or suggest that my afternoon actually was torture in some sort of Geneva convention way. Hopefully any readers of this blog will realize that.

You know, I think we might need some sort of Geneva Convention about infertility. The whole idea of the Geneva Convention is that painful, humiliating, and secretive practices are brought out into the open so that we can all agree on what is, and what is not, acceptable to do to our fellow human beings. You can argue for days about whether it's complete enough, or whether nations actually follow it, but that's not the point for now: the point is that we think, when we are at our human best, that it is better to lay down the ground rules so that everyone knows what not to do.

The most torturous thing about infertility, for me, is how secretive I am expected to be about it. Maybe you think that secrecy is an expectation I place on myself. That's partly true. But imagine this scenario: a woman with at least one child runs into another woman, about the same age, whom she knows in a passing way, at the supermarket. Mother Woman says, eventually, "Do you have kids?" or something along those lines: "Are you going to have kids?" "Don't you want kids?" "You'd be such a great mother!"

Non-Mother Woman replies, "Actually, no, or at least we're not sure. My husband's sperm are the wrong shape and we'll probably have to do in-vitro fertilization, but you know, that's like $15,000 so we're debating what to do about it."

I suppose that could happen. And if it did, Mother Woman would probably flee. If she didn't, because maybe she was part of the Secret Infertility Society herself for awhile, then any other conversation partner would.

Clean up on aisle five.

I babysat with two moms, each of whom asked me at some point, "Do you have kids?" And I wish, or part of me wishes, there were a way to be completely blunt about why my answer is, "no." That's the acceptable response, the secretive one. No reason. Just, "No," or maybe, "Not yet," or "We'd like them, but we'll see." Anything other than that is more information than people actually want to know.

And if you actually let go of that information, if you say something about being infertile, you have NO idea what the response will be. It might be very comforting and thoughtful. It might be a story of someone else's struggle (this happened to me just the other day, and it was very powerful).

It might also be one of the dreaded comments which only perpetuate the torture. This is where the Geneva Convention of Infertility would come in. I did a little research, and there are four conventions in this thing, along with two protocols. Being the week before Christmas and all, I didn't really have time to parse the difference between a convention and a protocol. But this topic is important enough to me that I think we ought to consider it a convention. The fifth one. Here are some of my suggestions for inclusion in this:

Part One: General Provisions
Art. I. "Infertility" is not a bad word. It is also not a lifestyle choice. The Powers who are parties to this Convention agree that infertility is a medical condition, with various medical treatments.

Art II. At no time, when informed of someone's struggle with infertility, shall the Parties to this Convention utter the phrase, "just relax."

Art III. In the case of infertility for one of the Powers bound by this Convention, the Parties agree not to bombard the said Power with stories about their best friend's sister's cousin's neighbor, who got pregnant while on vacation to the Bahamas.

Art IV. The Parties who are fortunate enough to be parents shall not burst forth with case after case of how difficult children are in a vain attempt to console the said Power, saying that children are a lot of work. This is also not helpful.

Art V. The Parties agree that Mother's Day is a pain in the ass.

Art VI. If a particular Power takes a pastoral call which happens to be an associate position, none of the Parties to this Convention shall say things like, "Oh, now you'll have time to have a family." (This one is pretty specific. But I feel the need to include it anyway.)

See, if we could all agree on these sorts of things, it wouldn't be so bad. Maybe Part Two of the Convention could lay down the rules about why infertility treatments need to be covered by all health insurance plans (don't even get me started on the sheer idiocy of covering prescriptions for Viagra but nothing for infertility).

I really do need to write some sermons, but this Convention idea is growing on me. Let me know if you have other articles to include. Enough with the secrecy. Enough with the torture.