by Ariella Davidson

Ariella Davidson is a freelance writer living in the New York area.

The history of the world is often divided by its professional practitioners into Ages: the Middle Ages, the Age of Exploration, the Age of Industry, the Age of Democracy. If, as political theorist Francis Fukuyama posits, we have reached the End of History, if all the great deeds have been done, and all the heroic epics written, our technocratic, clerical time might be dubbed the Age of Acronym.

Deerstalkers have the NRA, seven-footers the NBA, Golden Agers the AARP, witch-hunters the IRS; there’s CNN for news junkies, JFK for conspiracy theorists or aviation buffs, WWW for web surfers.

And so, like most Americans, I, too, belong to a special-interest group. We have our issues, our particular focus, and a magazine that gives us our very own acronym: A T.I.M.E.

Never heard of it? Probably not. That’s because many of you are bustling, busy mothers and fathers. A T.I.M.E. stands for A Torah Infertility Medium of Exchange.1 It’s a magazine, with an attendant website, created for the purpose of allowing those suffering the searing pain of infertility in the hyper-fertile Orthodox world to air their concerns, discuss their fears, share words of encouragement, and exchange all sorts of information, medical and halachic.

It wasn’t supposed to be this way

We all had our dream weddings, the prefect bride and groom on the three-tier cake. And then, if our society was any indicator at all, the next step was producing five or eight or ten or twenty-five kids sometime in the span of the next three years. Along the way, the cake would get destroyed, of course, but that was just part of the fun.

But a strange thing happened. Two years passed, and then four, and then seven. And the cake stayed perfect. Bride and groom, frozen in endless, glossy adulthood, with nary a runny nose or dirty diaper in sight.

Many couples experience difficulties of one sort or another as their marriages progress, whether it be illness of a family member, financial concerns, or problems in child-raising. The problem rears its head, it is dealt with and resolved in one way or another, and they move on.

But Hashem handed the A T.I.M.E. crowd a very unique sort of challenge. For those of us in the infertility community, this is not a test that builds up to a point of crisis, and then reaches resolution. It’s more like Chinese water torture: drip, drip, drip, the unremitting pressure of the same thing happening. It questions the fundamental assumptions upon which our identities rest. Who am I, when that basic cornerstone of my being, my physical body, does not play its appointed role, and make me a father or mother? Who are we, this couple who are not parents? Infertility becomes the baby, the catalyst that affects and colors and challenges and changes every couple to whom it is born.

Obsessive or Over-reacting?

I leaf through the winter 2000 issue of A T.I.M.E., and come upon the following in “Daunting Dilemmas,” an advice column:

Boy, does this question pack a punch. She hits all the buttons: obsessive thinking, different styles of communication, fear of rejection, questions in emuna, the ubiquitous Jewish disease of guilt.

I’m not much of an astronomer, but one of the first lessons I learned, early on, was that Men are from Mars, and Women are indeed from Venus. What my husband sees as obsessive rehashing with my friend of my experiences that morning at the doctor, I see as therapeutic and cathartic. A number of times he’s expressed the concern that my constant discussion of infertility with this friend is only drawing me deeper into the coils of depression. I counter that she is my escape valve, that without her shoulder to lean on, I would be infinitely lonelier and sadder. And who does he talk to? He just doesn’t have the same need. When sadness overwhelms him, he seeks out dear friends whose company he enjoys, but the conversation centers on the yeshivish equivalent of the Super Bowl and the World Series (what masechta, what daf, what chavrusa, what’s the “reyd,” etc.). Heaven forfend that it should get any more personal than that.

In the same vein, my Mars-dwelling husband has often amazed me with his ability to rejoice in the simchos of other. I can see that he really means it when he seeks out a new father, gives him a hearty handshake, and wishes him a sincere mazal tov. My Venusian response, on the other hand, to news of a new birth on planet Earth, is more likely to be a shoe thrown at the nearest window, along with a flood of tears. Of course, it doesn’t help that my body is a veritable factory of mood-altering hormones, the production of which is often enhanced and augmented by powerful fertility drugs.

Ravings of a human pin cushion

It is a common misconception that the source of fertility problems lies in the female half of the equation. Research indicates, however, that forces preventing conception are equally divided between men and women. And yet, all the research in the world does nothing to assuage the feelings of guilt and resentment that worm their way into an infertile marriage.

Guilt. Completely illogical. It makes absolutely no sense to assume blame for something over which you have no control. However, early on in this game, those of us lucky enough to have been chosen as players learn that logic isn’t on the game board. In the ever-seething emotional cauldron of infertility, the partner diagnosed with the problem often carries a heavy weight around his or her heart. I’ve failed him… I’ve failed her. If she were married to someone else, she’d be a mother. I’m holding him back from being a father. And even more insidious, a fainter whisper: I’m not fully a woman… I’m less than a man.

Resentment. In the vast majority of instances, it is the wife who has to bear the brunt of treatment. Shots, pills, invasive procedures – all exacerbated by the pre-rooster hours at which these procedures often take place (to allow working people to get on with their day) – are generally her burden. It’s not fair, many women find themselves thinking. All he has to do is hold my hand and look sympathetic, while I’ve become a hormone-crazed human pincushion.

from alienation to connection

And yet, with the passage of time, the very same experience that can alienate so powerfully can also provide incredible opportunities for connection; on one level, between husband and wife, and on a deeper level, between the couple and Hashem.

Because when all the howling is done, and the denial overcome, one begins to intuit that there must be more to this experience than banging heads against stone walls. The ticking of the dreaded biological clock infuses the phenomenon of time with amazing clarity. One becomes intensely cognizant of every passing day, because every dawn is another chance at hope, every night shadowed with sadness. We are so aware, so intently aware, of our limits, of our finiteness, of our powerlessness. And that awareness brings in its wake a desire to grasp at the Infinite source of all power, the Father who loves even as He chastises, who caresses as He challenges. Infertility forces us to hear that ageless question: Ma Hashem Elokecha sho’el me’imcha? What does Hashem want me to do with this? Who am I expected to become?

And so we talk to Him, not only at times of formal prayer, but throughout the day, through the constant cycles of hope and death. We learn humility, as we see the ineffectiveness of man’s most strenuous efforts. And inevitably, the mikdash me’at – the little sanctuary – that we carve out for Hashem in our hearts affects the bond between us as well.

For we have become partners in raising Infertility, this baby of ours. And in this partnership, we must draw upon many of the same resources that our friends who are parents use in the upbringing of their children. Emuna, patience, humbleness, humor, an overriding sense of purpose and mission. True, the nachas may be a bit more elusive than that derived from a bar mitzva boy saying his pshetl, or a daughter starring in a school concert; but we can take great pride in being chosen for, and meeting, the challenge of this very unique sort of tzaar gidul banim.

through the back door of our minds

I remember when the sensation struck me, about five years into our marriage, of being in suspended animation. I looked around at our dear friends who had been at our wedding. Many of the singles had married and begun families, and those with one or two kids now had four or five. And then there was us, Yehuda and Ariella, eternally the “young couple.” It seemed to me that I had my nose pressed up against the glass, gazing longingly into the tantalizing window of a shop I could not enter.

And yet, if it’s immortality that one seeks through his children, by bequeathing to them the heritage of Sinai, it seems to me that there is indeed room for us in the shop. We just have to enter in through the back door of our minds and hearts, instead of by the front door of DNA. There is so such to be done – in kiruv, in chinuch, in chessed – and we possess that most precious of resources. We have the time to get involved.

We also have time to enjoy each other, to travel and see the world, to have fun together. Incidentally, the experience of travel has often provided a few of the lighter moments of this trial. Because whenever we would board a plane, and see parents struggling with numerous offspring, and even more pieces of luggage, shlepping crying babies, leaking toddlers, and whining kids through the narrow aisles, we would turn to each other and say, “Maybe this isn’t so bad after all!” (Not that we weren’t yearning to be in some form of their situation, of course, but there is something to be said for traveling with someone who can put on his own oxygen mask, and go to the restroom alone.)

Yamim Tovim, when families assemble, each sporting their latest addition, can be extremely painful for us; but at least we can enjoy an afternoon nap undisturbed, and learn something together when we get up. (A sight that a niece found somewhat disconcerting: “Tanta Ariella, girls don’t learn Torah!” Well, honey, this one does. And with rather a good rebbe, I might add.)

We’ve learned how to talk, and how to listen; how to laugh together, how to feel each other’s pain, not as the hurt of another person, but as the ache of the other half of ourselves. Together we have grown, as spouses and as Jews.

Ultimately, infertility has given both of us our best friend.

1 This is an organization that supports and educates those in the Jewish community experiencing infertility by offering a telephone helpline, peer support network, support groups, educational symposia and the A T.I.M.E. Reader. Contact A T.I.M.E. directly at (718) 686-8912 or website www.atime.org.

Back to Homepage