Monday 1 April 2013

Coming out of the IVF closet

I suspect it all starts with the taboo of sex.  It is something that we aren't supposed to talk about.  We sort of vaguely know that other people do "it" but we don't want to know the details.  Especially when it comes to our parents. 

This is of course different with girlfriends.  They know I have a very raunchy sense of humour and love to joke about sex.  A friend has never started the sentence "I just have to download some..." without me finishing for him "porn" even if that's not what he has in mind.

As a young woman, having her first sexual encounters my parents were the last people I wanted to find out about it.  They never knew anything about my first.  Even with my husband I have trouble admitting that there were men before him. 

I suspect that is why it all seems so strange to have a conversation about IVF with those very people.  See, sex is what is supposed to lead to babies right, and the fact that we haven't yet, even though we are "TRYING"... that's something that is hard to say to my parents.  "Yes mum, even though we have sex throughout my fertile period we haven't had success".  "Yes dad, we tried all of the positions designed to put your son-in-law's penis close to my cervix during ejaculation".  Ug.  Not a conversation I can have.

Still... through a bunch of tears I managed to choke it out over the weekend to my mother.  Not the imagined conversation above... Not with that detail.  But yes, that we were going to go to an IVF clinic.  That it was going to cost us thousands of dollars to give them a grandchild. 

I wonder if we could post it on kick-start.  Anyone wanting to give a full round of IVF would have naming rights.  Anyone contributing a half round of IVF would have the baby's room named after them.  Anyone paying an IUI would be able to have his or her name embroidered on a bib.

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