The narrative of barrenness

The other week I attended a joint church service where the guest Ghanaian preacher took for his theme "Be fruitful." I confess to not attending much to the style and content of his message beyond this theme. Over the years, and particularly over the last 12 months, I have been developing the ability to sit in a service, appear to participate, and actually hear or internalise very little of what is actually said or done. Instead I connect with what I can and use the space to reflect on those nuggets. On this particular morning it was the phrase "be fruitful."

My gut reaction to this instruction is quite bitter. In the context of the creation narratives, out of which the preacher lifted the phrase, "be fruitful" is followed by "and multiply, fill the earth." Fruitfulness is directly connected to fertility - the ability to bear children. Perhaps it is not a surprise then that more 4.5 years of infertility has bred in me an instinctive response of bitterness at the injunction to "be fruitful" - as if I had a choice! I have wept, begged, asked only that the desire be taken away, ached in silence every time I saw a pregnant woman or a baby. I have closed my eyes and turned away, swallowing the bitter resentment. How dare you instruct me to be fruitful! I have no choice in the matter.

This familiar, instinctive reaction of swelling bitterness was already beginning to swamp me, when I realised something very important. However much I might still feel this indignation on the behalf of countless couples who are at this moment struggling with infertility, I am no longer doing so. As I sat in the pew, I felt my baby move, and I realised that the time has come to contradict the narrative of barrenness out of which I have lived for so many years. To refuse to do so is to deny the existence of my child, that child who, in 10-12 weeks will be a present reality, shattering life as I know it and daily changing before my very eyes.

I can no longer think of myself as barren. I tested this new thought in my mind as I sat in the pew. What does that mean? How long has this identity coloured and controlled every thought of myself, my life, my future, if only in my vain attempts to banish it from my mind. For years the spectre of barrenness has been a constant presence in my mind, gnawing at my heartstrings, poisoning my joy, mocking my plans. I finally began to see how the simple fact of infertility had subtly worked its way into my own identity, or perhaps dovetailed with a defeatist identity that I was already carrying.

How long have I thought of myself this way? Nothing I do prospers. None of my efforts are good enough. I am loath to try for I am always, in some unacknowledged way, convinced of my eventual failure. Have I, unwittingly, been enacting a self-fulfilling prophecy?

For years I have been unable to conceive a child, but for nearly a decade before that I was unable to attract a mate, and then there was the man I nearly married at 21, what a mistake that would have been! There were my years in College when I made virtually no true friends, and what do I remember of my time there? That I almost failed the English Lit class.

And so I can trace the narrative of barrenness, of failure, back and back into my youth and childhood, as the stand out memories are of what I didn't do, what I couldn't cope with, how I failed, and the many things at which I succeeded did little to counter that defeatist narrative. Whatever I accomplished I was always short of perfection.

This spring, when the reality of my pregnancy began to sink in, I realised that something inside me had finally slotted into place. Without my knowledge or consent a significant tear in the fabric of my being was suddenly made whole, and with it my priorities and identity altered instantly and irrevocably. The shock has almost worn off now, but I am still adjusting to these radical changes. Perhaps the adjustment will be made when baby arrives - or perhaps it will have only just begun.

But what does all this say to the narrative of barrenness, a narrative I now feel it is imperative I reject, for the sake of my husband, for the sake of my child, for the sake of myself. I mustn't believe this any longer. I must not sabotage all that is positive in my life for the sake of the certain dread of failure. I must not agonise, procrastinate, live in fear.

But how to construct a narrative of fertility?