The Day My Mother-in-law Pretended to Take Me to a Spa so She Could Take Me to a Fertility Clinic
My womb couldn’t function as she would have liked!
My infertility was unexplained, leaving doctors baffled. I was a healthy weight, had normal hormone levels, and was under the age of 30. Then what was the issue, exactly? Nobody knew, which just added to my misery because surely there would have been a solution if there was an issue.
We’ve spent six years trying to start a family. Even though we weren’t intentionally preventing conception, I considered the first two years too early to try to conceive. We had the attitude that whatever happens, happens.
The stress of those six years had a negative impact on my mental health. Being infertile affected the people around me as well as my marriage. Everyone had something to say about it.
Only someone who has struggled with infertility can truly comprehend the crushing guilt and the gut-wrenching pain one feels. It’s terrible enough that you blame yourself or your body’s treachery, but it’s a thousand times worse when your loved ones regard you as the root of the problem.
I’m all too familiar with the dull ache in the pit of your stomach when you think about babies or see others having children with little effort on their side.
In my case, I recall when my work colleague got pregnant after she gave birth three months earlier. She bawled her eyes out at getting pregnant so soon after giving birth. I loved her dearly, but I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that she couldn’t appreciate her good fortune. Meanwhile, I spent six years trying to conceive while my friend was devastated by the news that she was pregnant again.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t feel sorry for her. My own suffering made it hard for me to empathize with hers.
Why was she so upset?
Here was my body, which couldn’t even become pregnant once. It got so bad that I told myself my body couldn’t even manage a miscarriage.
Do you see how screwed up I was?
The situation was exacerbated further by my mother-in-law, who had nine children and had never experienced infertility. Exactly how could she possibly understand what I was going through?
She could only see that I was the problem, not her precious son. You see, he used to be married and had kids. She ought to have been satisfied, but those kids were girls!
She wanted boys. Boys are a valuable commodity in certain societies, like mine, in East Africa. I cannot understand why, though. For example, women have always worked hard to send money back home in my community. Compared to our menfolk, they have always made enormous sacrifices to support their families. However, that is a story for another day.
So when I went to see my mother-in-law at her house, she greeted me and kindly extended an invitation for a day out. I figured she’d take me to the spa since it was my day off and I needed some R&R. The topic of a spa day came up in conversation a few times before, and I suggested we have a mother-daughter-in-law day to relax and enjoy one another’s company.
Me: “How did you know I needed this?”
MIL: “I know it is something that has been on your mind.”
Me: “How kind, and thank you; I am grateful.”
So we took a cab, and it took us straight to a fertility clinic!
Me: “What on earth is happening here?”
MIL: “Since you never make the time, I thought I would help you.”
You must be joking!
I can’t speak for the other ladies, but I require mental and physical prep before any doctor performs any invasive examination.
“I did not consent to this!”
To which she said, ‘“You are no spring chicken, and time is of the essence.”
I told her she had no right to spring this on me.
“As his mother, consider this my way of supporting my son, who desperately needs boys.”
I called my husband to tell his mother to back off and that her interference with my life was not welcome.
He made all the appropriate noises, but I could tell he was aware of what was going on and lacked the courage to tell me.
The spineless worm!
I had to reschedule and tell the clinic that I wanted my husband to be present, and he wasn’t able to make it.
I couldn’t bear to look that awful, meddling woman in the eye after that. It was already bad enough that she didn’t think I would make an obedient, fertile wife for her son to give her grandsons. It wasn’t as if she didn’t have any. Her daughter was the mother of two sons.
Throughout that week, they held several family meetings on what to do with me and my audacity.
Those family gatherings were the bane of my existence for the duration of that marriage!
It seemed as if my womb and its failure to produce a baby were the only topics of conversation.
To sum up, our marriage did not work out, and now that I think back on it, it was a blessing in disguise that I did not have children with him. Having a child would have meant forming a lifelong connection with my mother-in-law and his extended family, and that prospect filled me with dread.
My husband’s lack of courage to confront his family and defend me was the worst letdown.
Last I heard, he married a lady who had his mother’s stamp of approval. She did, indeed, give birth to a child for him.
Yup, you guessed it. A daughter. It must have been a knife through his mother’s heart.
As for me, with the help of in-vitro fertilization (IVF), my current husband and I were finally able to have a beautiful, precious daughter after 5 years.
Thanks for reading my story