Donor Conception Network - Stories
Parenting After Assisted Conception
Talk given to Twins and Multiple Births Association (November 2006)
In a recent issue of the journal Fertility and Sterility, researchers in Australia reported that treatment for infertility appears to be associated with an increased risk for developing emotional problems related to parenting. “Conceiving a child after undergoing infertility treatment was four times more likely to result in emotional issues related to parenting than having a child without such treatments”.
Why should this be so?
Common sense would seem to tell us that the birth of a healthy child or children following difficulties with conceiving and the use of assisted conception, would be cause for great joy…. and that parenting could now proceed in the same way as for everyone else.
But clues to why it may not be as simple as that are found in a quote in a recent article by infertility counsellors Sheila Pike and Kate Grieve –
‘My infertility is a blow to my self-esteem, a violation of my privacy, an assault on my sexuality, a final exam on my ability to cope, an affront to my sense of justice, a painful reminder that nothing can be taken for granted. My infertility is a break in the continuity of life. It is above all a wound to my body, to my psyche, to my soul.’
‘Therapy Today’ October 2006
These eloquent words are from a woman. But we know from long experience in DC Network that men do not feel any less wounded. If anything, infertility is harder for a man to bear. They just have more difficulty putting their feelings into words. And this is one of the reasons why couples sometimes find it so hard to support each other during the assisted conception process. Typically, women want to talk about it and men would prefer silent grieving or searching the internet for ways to ‘fix’ the problem.
Infertility, far from being something clearly defined….’not being able to have children’….. is a compound of losses and a long and winding pathway of complex decision-making and uncertain outcomes……… and when it continues for some time, with several unsuccessful treatments and maybe miscarriages along the way, the effects may continue to resonate long after a child has been born.
The parents from ACebabes….a support organisation for those who have conceived following assisted conception……who I interviewed for my chapter in Mary Nolan’s book Education and Support for Parenting, were quite clear that despite having achieved pregnancy and the longed-for state of parenthood, they did not feel the same as other parents. They felt changed by the emotional turmoil they had been through. Some felt that they would be better parents because of this, others could see that the very ‘preciousness’ of their children made them as parents vulnerable to being over-indulgent and over-protective. And these were all parents who had conceived using IVF with their own eggs and sperm.
Before I go on to look at the complexities that both the birth of multiples and use of donor conception might bring, I want to return for a moment to pregnancy, birth and the immediate post birth period following assisted conception.
Pregnancy following prolonged infertility and the use of assisted conception may be a wonderful return to the world of ‘normality’ or it may be a time of great anxiety. A woman having conceived using IVF with her own eggs or with the help of egg donation, may feel that her body has let her down and have little faith in it behaving properly now. Kate Brian in her book In Pursuit of Parenthood speaks of feeling that her ‘bump’ was not a proper one. Other peoples were real but hers was a fraud because she had needed so much help to make it.
Birth may be an equally anxious time with those doctors who want to do a caesarian ‘for safety’s sake, just because this is such a precious baby’ not helping. For those who have used donated eggs, sperm or embryos there is the fear that this child or children will emerge with the fact of their origins emblazoned in flashing lights on their forehead! What will he, she or they look like! A midwife, sensitive to these feelings, can make all the difference.
The transition to parenthood – moving from being a couple to being a family – has long been acknowledged as one of life’s more tricky transitions. Those who have had to struggle to conceive may be very shocked by the reality of life with a very small baby or babies. What they imagined would be bliss may feel like hell. The sense of let-down, the shattering of dreams may be great…..and who would understand when a baby had been wanted for so very long? The guilt and shame of the ambivalence of motherhood is hard for any mother to acknowledge but it may feel particularly unforgivable for the woman who had sought this status for so long. No wonder that post-natal depression seems to be higher in those who have used assisted conception.
Ambivalence about mothering isn’t just confined to those early days and months with a small baby. It continues throughout the long haul of parenting. Men are better at admitting to mixed feelings about their children. Women often find the co-existence of love and hate in their relationship with their children hard to acknowledge, believing that they must attempt at all times to be the tolerant, loving mother. But Donald Winnicot, paediatrician and psychoanalyst, the originator of the much over-used phrase Good Enough Parenting, understood why all mothers were likely to feel ambivalent sometimes. He wrote in 1947 –
‘Let me give you some reasons why a mother hates her baby. The baby is ruthless, treats her as scum, an unpaid servant, a slave….he is suspicious, refuses her good food, and makes her doubt herself….’
If all women are likely to feel this way sometimes, how much more difficult must it be for those who have sought so hard to achieve motherhood. And how particularly hard it may be for mothers of twins or triplets whose conception by IVF was welcomed so very warmly…two for the price of one, a complete family in one go etc. but whose daily experience hardly allows her the space to go to the toilet.
Let me now turn to parenting issues for those families who have used donated eggs, sperm or embryos. And the first one has to do with how comfortable parents feel about the way they have created their family. Experience within DC Network has shown that the more confident parents are with their use of donated gametes, the more likely they are to want to share the information with their children and others. An open atmosphere in the home where trust and honesty are valued is likely to provide the best sort of environment for ‘good enough’ parenting to take place. Where parents have not reconciled themselves to the loss of being able to create children together, where there is a sense of shame or stigma about using donated eggs or sperm, children often sense that there is something wrong and not knowing what it is, blame themselves. Donor conceived adults who found out or were told about their origins later in life have spoken of being aware of a secret being held as they were growing up. They often link this with poor relationships in the family, low self-esteem and difficulty in finding their place in the world.
Research has shown that high quality parenting of young children can and does take place in non-telling families, but as the children cannot be questioned and research beyond a certain age is impossible because of secrecy, it is difficult to know how the children feel as they grow older. Can non-telling really be a risk worth taking with family relationships?
For parents who have used donated gametes and those who have not, issues of loss may linger in unexpected ways. The normal ‘letting-go’ processes that come with transitions from baby to toddlerhood, starting school, moving into adolescence, may stir up feelings of sadness, anger or loss of control that have their origins in the past. Parents also have to discover that just loving these wonderful children is not enough! They need just the same things as other children for them to learn to regulate their emotions and actions. Some DI dads find it difficult to say ‘No’ to their children because they fear that withholding something from them will contribute to rejection later on. These dads need to know that children thrive when they understand what the limits are and know who is in charge. Children do not feel secure when they experience their demands as overwhelming their parents, causing them to collapse and give in with frustration. If the use of assisted conception is known about by those leading parenting groups, they can help parents by giving ‘permission’ for them to behave normally with their children rather than treating them as ‘special’. Being ‘special’ is of course wonderful if it comes about through a sense of being loved and cared for, but constantly being referred to as ‘special’ or ‘precious’ can be a burden for a child – something to live up or rebel against!
As parents become more confident in their role and family relationships develop and strengthen, the pain and losses of infertility and assisted conception are likely to move into the background, apart from potential resurgence at times of transition. But for families where donated gametes have been used, then issues to do with ‘telling’ need to be kept gently on the family agenda. From the age of about eight onwards many children understand for the first time the story that their parents have been building up brick by brick over the years and realise that they are not genetically connected to one (or both) parents. This may result in some sadness and probably quite a lot of questions, but parents who are prepared for this stage, feel confident and are well supported …by family, friends, DC Network…may find that this can be a time of family togetherness, further soldering the bond of attachment, before the potential …and normal… rockiness of teenage years. Having some information about what children understand at different ages and stages is very helpful for all parents, but particularly for those who are explaining about different beginnings. DC Network’s new Telling and Talking series of booklets does just this.
Parenting is the biggest challenge that any of us take on in a lifetime. How we get to achieve that role may have an influence on how we face those challenges. My husband says that he thinks he is both a better person and a better parent for having to face up to and deal with his own infertility. If he had not been infertile, he would not have had to think so hard about what he felt he had to offer to children as a parent. He is not a perfect parent and neither am I, but I can say as a (previously) fertile woman that I have never regretted using donor insemination to have our children and I cannot imagine having different children to those that we have.
Of course my husband and I were lucky, not all relationships survive the challenges of infertility and the use of assisted conception. Like serious illness or disability in a partner or a child, infertility is something that can get into the cracks that already exist in a relationship and drive couples apart. The use of donor conception can do this too if partners are not given…or do not take…opportunities to talk through the emotional and practical implications and integrate the loss of the child they cannot have together…..before moving on to conceive the child they can have. Successful parenting following assisted conception is likely to follow on successful adjustment to the reasons why assisted conception was necessary in the first place. Parents need to feel they have re-gained control over their lives and have faith and confidence in their ability to be in charge and parent well. Not so very different to any other parent really!
Olivia Montuschi 2006
