It’s rare times these days (OK, really these past few years, but who’s counting?) when I read the newspaper and find myself nodding in agreement. Thus I could not be more pleased when I came across a tiny news item tucked away on the lower corner of page A13 of today’s New York Times. According to the article by Roni Caryn Robin, a new home fertility test is available that tests both women and men for fertility issues. The money shot quote (in my opinion):

The availability of the two-in-one test helps drive home the message that both men and women can contribute to infertility, experts say.

“It takes two to have a baby, as silly as that sounds,” said Dr. Harry Fisch, director of the Male Reproductive Center at New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, who does not have a financial relationship with the maker of the test, Genosis Inc.

The test results could give couples early warning that they should see a doctor, Dr. Fisch said. “Couples often don’t appreciate this,” he said. “So many times the woman goes through all these tests, and the guy doesn’t even have a semen analysis.”

Dr. Fisch completely nailed it on the head. (Heh heh. Sorry, I just can’t resist the bad puns today. I’ll blame it on my sinus infection.) Living in New York City, I am surrounded by women in their mid-thirties and up who are constantly stressing about their ability to have babies. In some cases, it is a problem within the female reproductive system, which has been my personal frenemy for years. No matter what the problem is, I nearly never, ever hear anyone even consider that her inability to get preggers might be because of her partner. Women blame ourselves first, let others guilt us for “waiting to long” (or eating poorly or breathing wrong or whatever), and maybe much later down the road do we even consider that this might not be our “fault.” Ultimately, knowing who is “responsible” for the problem doesn’t lessen a couple’s anguish over infertility, but I do feel like we need to stop automatically assuming that woman are broken and need to be fixed without looking at both parties.

I’ve been pondering this over the past few weeks because after I saw the move Children of Men on pay-per-view (or whatever the technology is that lets me order movies off my cable box is), I loved it so much that I suggested that my book club read the book. While both are based on the idea that humans have succumbed to infertility, I was surprised by the divergence of the two plotlines.

**SPOILER ALERT** Plotlines in both book and movie revealed.***

The Children of Men was written by a British woman, PD James, in 1992. In the book, men are infertile and thus the cause of the decline of humanity. Yet in the action movie, which came out at the end of 2006, women are suddenly stricken with an inability to get pregnant or, in the case of those who were pregnant when the epidemic struck, carry a baby to term.

In some way, I felt that the change was done to make the movie palatable to mass audience consumption. Somehow, I could not imagine an action/political film blaming men for human extinction without alienating a good part of its audience. And yet it struck me as oddly misogynistic, as if it was a foregone conclusion that womankind already got our butts kicked out of Eden, so obviously it would be females who ultimately screw the human race.

As I mentioned, I saw the movie first and thought it was excellent, even if I had my reservations. When I read the book, I could not help but be pleased that for once, female infertility was not to blame. For anyone who wants to see this issue played out, I recommend both the move and the book highly, even if the book has a disappointing (ie – cheesy crap) ending.

Suzanne is an actual infertile woman who doesn’t often blog about it at Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants