This is the question that invaded many couples: When will you have a child?
When you finally find out the cause of your infertility after 8 years, the news comes as a shock. Today, in Romania, we should talk about infertility a lot more and more often. Infertility holds the 5th place in the top of disabilities on a global level. However, Romania today only offers a single finger to infertile couples. When will you have a child? This is the question that has invaded many couples and has turned many polite conversations into intrusive inquiries, but it's also a question our generation is hearing more and more often. When will you have a child? This summer, I was attending an open air wedding and the weather was sort of chilly for that time of year, and at our table there were two married couples with children who tried to explain to a third couple, that was about to get married, how your life changes once you have children, and about how bad it's going to be. This would be the time of their lives. They should be happy about it! Me and my husband heard the conversation.
We didn't want to join in. We wanted to avoid it at all cost. So, we communicated through sign language that we should focus on the appetizers in front of us, on the snacks, one fancier than the other with pretentious names, but without any taste. At that point, the question hits us, right on target: When will you have children, if you got married last month? At that point, we were in the middle of in vitro fertilization procedures.
At the same time, I was going through the most horrible premenstrual syndrome possible multiplied by 10 and I wasn't in the mood for someone to talk about how bad it is after you have children; if you can have them obviously. In that moment, I went through all possible moods. I was irritated because the question was too intimate. I was angry because, through all the years I've heard it, I've never been able to come up with a good comeback. I was angry because I had no idea how to manage my feelings towards this question. There's an African proverb that says that you need an entire village to raise a child, whereas we felt it on our own skin that an entire village is having a child in our stead. I was disappointed. You see, compared to the way this situation about having children was presented to me, I would've never imagined that there are so many women and so many men who want to have children, but can't. After all this, I found out later that in Romania 1 in 4 couples suffers from infertility, meaning they can't have children, and that half of these couples don't do anything, don't try any procedures or other means to have children, despite wanting to. Therefore, I found out that I wasn't alone. I received the diagnosis of infertility at 22 years, and, throughout all the years I visited various doctors, none of them was able to establish the cause of my infertility. When I heard this cruel diagnosis for the first time, I felt as if I were only half a woman, as if I'm the only one that can't do something women have been doing for hundreds of thousands of years, without any issues.
Only by 30 did I find a doctor specialized in fertility issues who discovered the cause of my infertility quite quickly. However, at the same time, I found out that my husband suffers from infertility, too, and that, together, we could never have children the natural way.
See, after 8 years, when you finally find out the cause of your infertility, you feel relieved, but it makes you feel shattered. When you haven't even suspected that you'll have issues with having children, as was the case with my husband, the news comes as a shock. It makes you reconsider all the choices you've ever made in life. So, the only way the doctors recommended for us to have children, was through in vitro fertilization. Actually, in vitro fertilization means daily injections in your belly, tens of visits to doctors, tens of sonographies and costly and painful medical procedures. In vitro fertilization also means expenses that can range from 3,000 to 10,000 euros. Infertility holds the 5th place in the top of disabilities on a global level, but Romania understood it should recognize it as a public health concern only towards the end of 2010, when almost all European countries had already established mechanisms to help infertile couples. However, Romania today only offers a single finger to infertile couples, choosing to pay only a part of a single in vitro fertilization procedure, but not for everyone. If you succeed in complying with the Ministry of Health's criteria and you have the financial resources to cover the last part of the treatment and you have access to a clinic that is part of this national program, you might have a chance of having a child. Me and my husband were lucky.
We obtained funds from the national in vitro fertilization program, we had the necessary financial resources to cover the rest of the expenses and we had access to a clinic that was part of this program in our own city. And, as you can see for yourselves today, our first in vitro fertilization procedure was a real success! In vitro fertilization was a 3000-euro experience for us, from our own financial resources, along with state support within the framework of this national in vitro fertilization program.
It meant 8 years of living without a known cause for infertility, 7 months of medical procedures, and a month and a half of living in fear, since I had a high risk of Down syndrome at the beginning of the pregnancy. But today we are excited to be expecting a little girl. However, beyond our experience and our fortunate outcome, infertility is an experience that isolates and alienates you. Most of the time, you have no one to talk to about this subject, and your family doesn't understand. T
hey treat you to responses like: Have a glass of wine! or: In my day, we would got pregnant just thinking about it. On the other hand, there are the coworkers from the office, former colleagues from college or schoolmates, who are already inviting you to baptisms, baby shower parties, and your Facebook feed is full of posts about babies. Over to the men's side, there's even less talk of infertility.
Men don't really discuss such problems among themselves, and, when they somehow choose to do it, their approach is, to an overwhelming extent, to believe it's not their fault. What would it be like, instead of asking When will you have a child? to think that there is a person in front you that's going through a stillbirth or through a second round of in vitro fertilization. What would it be like, if instead of unsolicited advice, like Relax, Have a vacation!, we would think that person in front us needs costly medical procedures in order to have a child. I firmly believe that avoiding the subject is not a solution, and that, in Romania today, we should be talking more and more often about infertility.
#SchimbareaRo, just like any other change we would like in society, starts with each and every one of us. My story is not only my story and I decided to share it with you, publicly, to help raise awareness and spread the facts about infertility in Romania. And that it exists! So, we propose starting an education and awareness campaign to create access to information, education, support groups and funds for infertile couples.
Therefore, I'm asking all of you that want to get involved in this education campaign to open your phones right now and to scan the QR code with any application that can scan QR codes with the camera. And, behind this QR code you'll find a very short form that will only ask you about the way you wish to contribute to this education campaign, concerning infertility in Romania. I firmly believe that this course of action will help our generation a lot more to have children exactly when it wants to, than the question: When will you have a child? Thank you!