Elisabeth Rohm - Baby Steps: Having the Child I Always Wanted

BABY STEPS

BABY STEPS

HAVING THE CHILD I ALWAYS WANTED
(JUST NOT AS I EXPECTED)

ELISABETH RHM

WITH EVE ADAMSON

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

Copyright 2013 by Rohma Victor

All photos courtesy of the author, with the exception of pages 7 and 105: Daniel Cima/American Red Cross.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Da Capo Press, 44 Farnsworth Street, 3rd Floor, Boston, MA 02210.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available for this book.

ISBN 978-0-7382-1664-5 (e-Book)

First Da Capo Press edition 2013

Published by Da Capo Press

A Member of the Perseus Books Group

www.dacapopress.com

Note: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. This book is intended only as an informative guide for those wishing to know more about health issues. In no way is this book intended to replace, countermand, or conflict with the advice given to you by your own physician. The ultimate decision concerning care should be made between you and your doctor. We strongly recommend you follow his or her advice.

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To my mother, Lisa, and my daughter, Easton,
who opened my heart to love

I write entirely to find out what Im thinking,
what Im looking at, what I see, and what it means.
What I wanted and what I fear.

Joan Didion

H is penis got soft at the mere mention of it.

Youre going to write about infertility? Youre going to write about IVF? he said. He practically cupped his hands over his crotch, like I was going to kick him in the balls.

Whats your problem? I said. It seemed selfish to me. I wanted to tell people about it. I even imagined writing a book about it. Too many women, in Hollywood and elsewhere, hide the fact that they cant have a baby the so-called normal way, and I didnt want to be one of them. Its my body thats broken, not yours, I said.

The world doesnt need to know about this, he said. Was he blushing? I suppose he had a say. He was the one I was trying to have a baby with. I was planning to marry him. But I also believed he was wrong.

Maybe the world does.

My mother was such a role model of truth-telling that Ive always known I would say and do whatever I needed to say and do. Whether its pursing my passion (acting) or admitting my mistakes (too many to list!) or revealing my big dark secret lurking in the closet to hundreds of thousands of strangers (infertility), I dont know how to hide the truth, sometimes to a fault. It unnerves people sometimes, how straightforward I am, but I dont know how to be any other way. I dont know how to keep my mouth shut. I dont know how not to say to other women, What do you think about this? I want to talk about things, and I come by it honestly.

Im proud of that. Part of being a strong woman is telling the goddamn truth. I think people are thirsting for honesty, dying for it. Even dudes. Women talk more about it, but we all need it and crave it, especially in a world where reality TV makes us believe we are getting it. But thats all fake, too. Where is the reality? Where is the truth? If we dont remember how to speak our truth, how can we be true to ourselves? My mother always used to say, Whatever you do, dont lie to yourself. Thats always been my plan. Im not going to lie to myself, and Im not going to lie to you.

This is why I wrote this book. By refusing to lie to myself and speaking my truth, I want to empower you to refuse to lie to yourself and to speak your truth, too. Women need to talk to each other. We all have our stories, our secrets, our private moments, but when they feel unbearable, sharing them can make us realize we are not alone. That we are not freaks of nature, because thats how infertility can sometimes make us feel.

This is what makes a community. This is what holds us up. This is what makes women strong. I hope you will see this book as the beginning of a conversation, and I hope its a long and fruitful one.

Infertility can feel like a dirty little secret. Whats the opposite of emasculated? Defeminized? Whatever the word is, thats how infertility can make a woman feel. If you cant have a baby, especially if your heart aches to be a mother, if youre so baby crazy you cant think of anything else, infertility feels like a punch in the stomach, a negation of your power. What good are you? You can begin to feel like you are nothing, even if you keep on keeping on with your regular life, never revealing to anyone your private shame. Or you get proactivewe go to such extreme lengths, financial and emotional and physical and intellectual, to have a baby, using every bit of modern technology we can get our hands on. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesnt.

But what if we said it out loud to each other, with courage and without shame? What if we reached out to each other and said, This happened to me, so that someone else could reach back and say, That happened to me, too! Wouldnt the whole world feel different?

I want to explore what all of this means. I asked myself a lot of questions, in my darkest hours. Questions I felt were too shameful to voice. Now, I want to put them down in this book and share them with you because they might be the questions youve asked yourself: If you are infertile, are you still a woman? Are you worth less than a woman who can have a baby naturally? Do you feel like less? And did you do this to yourself? Do you deserve a baby? Do you really even want a baby? If you do, what price will you be willing to pay to get one?

In this book, I want to talk about these questions on every level, in my own life and in yours. I want to tell my story of discovery, fear, struggle, and hope. This is a story about mothers and children, love and sex, career and body, and of course, conception. I want to talk about some of womens most terrifying and heartbreaking momentsand some of our shallower, vainer moments, too. They all make us who we are. From the day I lost my mother to the day I had my daughter and everything in between, this is my story, but its an open door to your story. Its a question, an invitation. I tell it for myself, and I tell it for you, because were all in this together.

When women stop talking, women stop being heard. This is no time to step back and be quiet. This is the time to speak. Ill go first.