On That One Question….

I know, I know.  You only had good intentions.  

You were just trying to make conversation.  

You were curious.  

You meant no harm.  

You’ve heard other people ask.  

You didn’t mean to embarrass or upset me.  

I know because in the past, I’ve done the same thing.  Now that I’m walking this road myself, I will deeply consider the person and context before asking these questions.

What did you ask?  You asked when we were having another child. 

It’s a question that a wide variety of people ask.  Teachers I work with, friends I haven’t seen in a while, cousins, the librarian, random people in public places.  It doesn’t always come in the same format; it may appear in any number of ways:

“When will you give him a brother or sister?”

“He needs a playmate to chase around.”

“When will you have another one?”

“Are you trying again?”

Or my least personal favorite:  “It’s time to have another one already, what are you waiting for?”

Ouch.

I will start off by saying that there are several problems with ALL of these questions but the first one is the assumption that I want another kid.  I will make my intentions clear; I DO indeed want more children.  But there are some couples that don’t.  Some families are perfectly happy and complete as families with one child.  What kind of insinuations are we making about these families when we ask the above loaded questions?  Are their families not complete?  Not good enough?  This line of reasoning alone is enough reason for us to stop hounding people over the number of children they have.

But I will give one more.  Some parents of only children are trying desperately to have more.   People assume because you have one child automatically it should follow that you have no trouble having more children.  As I’m learning, this is simply not the case.  Secondary infertility is a real problem that affects 3 million women in America alone.  The woman you casually ask about having another baby could be in the middle of fertility treatments, recovering from a miscarriage, or going into the second year of trying with no success.  She could be reeling from hearing yet another pregnancy announcement of a friend or colleague who “wasn’t even trying!”  Infertility is an incredibly personal struggle that most women suffer in silence.

So when we get asked these questions, we say things like “Well we’re working on it,” or “We’ll see what happens,” or we might even lie and say “We’re not quite ready yet,”  because we don't want to get into the struggle we're fighting everyday or we don't want to make you uncomfortable with the truth.  We know you're not looking for a real-life answer anyway.

The bottom line is that the structure of someone’s family is an intensely personal issue; whether it’s by choice or not.  It shouldn’t be fodder for small talk.  Just a simple question can be very painful to answer.  

I'm not saying that family and fertility issues shouldn't be talked about; quite the opposite actually.  I think that support and sharing feelings with our close family and friends is key to grappling with this struggle.  I just don't think we should be asking these questions of people in passing or of strangers/people we barely know in the middle of a grocery store.    

So as someone who seems to be getting this one question more and more, please think before you ask. 

And if you really wanna know, we’re working on it and we’ll see what happens.  :\