What No One Tells You About Infertility

Five years ago, I walked into a fertility clinic for the first time. My sister-in-law wanted to have a baby as a single mother, and I wanted to be a sort of fertility doula. Her story ended happily, with the gorgeous little shrieking banshee I call my niece. But it was an uphill battle, and the experience stuck with me.

I never wanted to be one of those women who obsesses over her fertility. The fertility clinic smelled of desperation. The nurses were patronizing; the clinic oozed paternalism. It all reeked of buying a baby at any price. Endless rounds of cancer-causing hormones? Fine. Renting someone else's womb without regard for their feelings or how economic hardship led them to this point? Par for the course. Scrolling through catalogs of semen and trying to find the "best?" Normal.

I had a lot of judgment and very little compassion for women struggling with infertility until it happened to me. I still think the fertility industry is disgusting and exploitative. I also understand why women are willing to put themselves through literally anything, consequences be damned, to get pregnant. If you don't understand this, it's because you have not been there.