Aging under my skin

Life in Rio de Janeiro is beautiful, but difficult. A simple commute to work will take one through breathtaking sights of white sandy beaches framed by green hills and blessed by an open-armed Jesus Christ. It is also wildly expensive, with deficient public services from education to healthcare providers. Personal safety is a real daily concern, and we all have our survival tips and tricks, from knowing when and where to go to keeping lean with our belongings out in the streets.

For these reasons, I waited until I was fully stabilized in Berlin before I finally tried for a child. Seemed like the best way forward: crime is low, public education and healthcare are of decent quality. It was finally time.

Aging in our society is treated as something that only happens to the surface of the body, causing wrinkles or a less firm skin. Little is overtly spoken about how unavoidable it is, and how deeply it changes our experience and possibilities. Yes, we still have the best of life ahead of us. But it is more painful. Stomachs are less enduring. Sleep, shorter and lighter. And reproductive systems are very far from their prime.

We spent a year and a half trying to naturally conceive before I heard for the first time that we likely couldn’t. It was shocking news: our youthful skin and tight exercise regimens did nothing for our fertility. It filled us with sorrow, even as we learned that we still could try the expensive procedures that we, in our geriatric wish for a child, would have to privately afford. Being a mother was not a decision I made lightly, and to revisit it over and over again, against the backdrop of repeatedly overcoming failed attempts, is possibly the hardest emotional investment I will ever make in my lifetime.

Why was I surprised by the completely average state of my reproductive health? The discourse around fertility is damagingly political, and women who opt to wait are either shamed with misinformation or punished with silence. We are urged to immediately give birth, lest we want a child plagued by illness, or surrounded by an optimism that does not give us tools to understand our aging bodies.

Finally, we are encouraged to keep our sorrows to ourselves. The truth about fertility is that it is delicate and difficult at almost every stage of human life, but women are urged to believe it is instead a threat waiting for us around the corner of every sexual encounter. When we finally do welcome it, we are advised not to share our pains. Don’t tell anyone before the first twelve weeks, we hear, keeping other women from understanding how common spontaneous abortions are. Don’t talk about your IVF before it’s successful, is the advice, depriving us from the very support network we will need if the procedure fails.

Age happens. It doesn’t stop underneath a youthful skin; it doesn’t give the strong or even the healthy a pass. And we must, by all means, share our experiences and hardships, and not, instead, be shamed into ignorance, loneliness, and silence.