I wasted a lot of my life on the Wrong Men. That's not what this blog is about, but if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't be writing this now. Those of you who know me know the stories. You were right, but I wish you'd used your outside voices -- screamed at me so that I couldn't blithely ignore you, as I did for so many years. I really wish someone had told me that it can actually be too late to have kids at some point. No one ever did. I didn't think it would be too late at 40 -- I was pretty confident that my life would begin at 40. Sure, there's tons and tons of fertility information out there on the internet now, loads of information about fertility decreasing in the late 20s, sliding backward in the mid-30s and nearly disappearing in the early 40s; but when I was chasing around after the Wrong Men in my 20s, the internet didn't exist, and I had plenty of time. In my 30s, I was really busy chasing The Career (and more Wrong Men). Usually I was busy enough to forget that my clock was ticking. Usually.
It's not that I didn't realize fertility could diminish. I knew that, of course I did. I remember thinking when I went back to school at 32 that by the time I finished, got my career going and found the right guy, I might be risking my chances of having children. But, at the time, the most recent Wrong Man had done such a job on my heart that all I could think about was burying myself in work for 3 years to get over him. And it took that long. I buried my longing for a nice guy and a couple of kids and told myself that now was the time to focus on work. There'd be plenty of time to think about kids later.
In the Big City, there ensued a long dry patch of endless studying and exams. Later, as I pursued The Career, I found myself dating one Crazy Man after the next. We're talking certifiable, lock em' up and throw away the key, don't let 'em walk down the street without their meds nutballs. Geniuses who live in their parents' basements. Executives who scream at you in restaurants on second dates. Men so traumatized by their first marriages (or second or third) or their failing careers that they can barely get dressed in the morning. Famous men who react with tantrums of fury to the smallest of slights. Rapidly aging men who have spent so many years bedding every woman they see that they wouldn't know monogamy if it smacked 'em in the face. Big City single straight men over 35. They're single for a reason. Beware!
When I finally did meet a Sane Guy, we got hitched within a year. Married at 40 -- phew! Thank the gods. The Mister and I are quiet types and neither of us pushed the kids issue immediately. When we finally started trying, it was really fun. And then not quite as fun. And then, eventually, not fun at all. I was sure that all of our problems were related to the stress of the Big City, so I convinced The Mister to move to a New Town where life took a more reasonable pace and everything smelled good.
When I finally got around to consulting an Ob-Gyn in our New Town, the first words out of her mouth were "You should really consider donor eggs."
And so it began.
Comments