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Bookseller recently put out the long list for their Oddest Title Prize (the short list goes up on February 19th which is when public voting commences) and nestled between Briefs for the Reading Room and Collectible Spoons of the Third Reich is a book titled Budgeting for Infertility. While this may seem like an odd title to some, for those who have been through treatments or adoption and know the exorbitant cost of all things connected to assisted family building, the book title is anything but amusing.
Which made me think of a recent discussion with my daughter. I was working with a customer service representative, trying to fix a problem with the computer and I used his name when explaining to her why I still wasn't off the chat screen to play My Little Pony with her. "Sooraj is trying to help me fix this and once I'm done, I'm yours for the rest of the afternoon."
She started giggling over the name "Sooraj," repeating it several more times before saying, "that is the funniest name."
"Do you know what Sooraj is saying right now?" I asked her. "He's saying, 'that Israeli name you have is so funny! It's barely pronounceable! Why did your parents give you that name?'"
Which made my daughter stop laughing immediately. "My name is normal."
"It's normal to you and your friends but someone living in India may think it's the strangest name they've ever heard. Listen, there are enough amusing names in the world--like our pet squirrel Simon Liverspot--to make fun of the ones that are commonplace in another culture. In India, Sooraj is as common as Matthew, Keith, or Roger here."
With names, it comes down to cultural relativism, but with diseases it's all about experiential relativism. If you've lived it, the unusual becomes commonplace. So while budgeting for infertility might seem strange to the outsider, every insider (even the few with coveted insurance coverage) thinks about money constantly. You would too if you had to pay upwards of $10,000 every month just for the chance of having a child.
Worrying about how to get drugs through airport screening, staring at pictures of your embryos, and agonizing whether or not to pee on a stick are all things that may make non-infertile people shrug, but if one follows experiential relativism, they wouldn't mock the experience and instead would examine the moment within the context of infertility. What I see from those three examples is the nerve-wracking nature of needing to know you did everything right when so much is riding on each cycle, a moment of hope, and the agony of the unknown.
Because what you have if you're not practicing experiential relativism is what amounts to the experiential form of ethnocentrism, the belief that your experiences are more "normal" than other people's experiences--or, to coin a new term--expericentrism. Even if no one else has ever used this term, I think it's easy to see examples of it from ancient history until now. What were the Crusades except a belief that one group's experiences trump another? Why else are we so divided into red states or blue states in this country if not for the longstanding belief that our personal experiences have led us to the best way to run this country? Those in the cities don't even try to imagine life on a farm except within stereotypes. And few with their fertility intact (or who believe their fertility will be intact when they go to procreate) consider what it is like to live life as an infertile man or woman.
And, of course, I am guilty of this as well. How many times have I thought something is weird or unusual that would be commonplace to someone else? And even worse, how many times have I laughed about something that is actually an emotional point for another person?
It's easy to peruse infertility blogs and find stories that are strange to outsiders that wouldn't make a fellow Iffer (that's shorthand for a person with infertility) bat an eye. Slaying, Blogging, Whatever had a post during an IVF cycle about doing a PIO shot in the parking lot of an amusement park (er...for those not in the know, those are the progesterone shots that go into your bum). Bottoms Off and On the Table recently gave
