The Panda Can Get Pregnant But I Can't

It’s funny how our perspective is kept in balance. This week, after Lara Bazelon’s piece on her surprise at finding out she was pregnant ran, a number of people wrote in with their own positive pregnancy result stories. (I’ll be posting some of those next week.) At exactly the same time, Shawnee Barton’s poignant account of trying and failing to conceive landed in my inbox. Shawnee’s experience will be familiar to many women who have experienced the hunger of wanting a baby and know the monthly sense of loss that comes with a negative test result. I think you’ll agree, however, that she has a unique and entertaining view of this situation, even if it remains extremely sad.

I first learned that Bai Yun, the only adult female panda at the San Diego Zoo, was pregnant again while listening to the radio on my drive home from the fertility clinic. My husband and I live in San Diego. We take the many friends and family who visit our lovely city to the zoo, so we know a lot about the way pandas live. These unique bears spend 10-16 hours a day eating bamboo, and when they’re not eating, they’re sleeping. In the wild, pandas live in complete isolation. At the zoo, every panda, even the youngsters, occupies a separate habitat.

This means that on a normal day, Bai Yun never sees her mate. She is alone, and either passed out or stuffing her face 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Still, Bai Yun managed to get pregnant, and I, frustratingly, can’t. Expensive hormones, an ovulation-predicting machine, acupuncture, an attractive partner in my bed each night, and fancy doctors with high-tech turkey-basters aren’t working.

Each month, I willingly turn myself into a hot-flash-prone, hormonal monster and make multiple visits to those dreaded cold, metal stirrups in my fertility doctor’s office. Then, two weeks later, at the moment I finally allow naïve hopefulness to settle in, I pee on a stick and find out that it was all for nothing.

After this, my doctor tells me that age is one of the most important factors in predicting fertility. Hearing this is comforting, but youth isn’t helping me. It also makes me angry that Bai Yun managed to do for free what I am paying thousands of dollars for. She is 18. In the wild, pandas live about 20 years. Nesting in a cushy zoo will likely give her five to 10 extra years, but by either standard, Bai Yun is no spring chicken.

The fertility gods clearly favor her and don’t like me. My medical records reveal that I have depleted ovarian reserve. Obsessive Internet research explained what this means—I have bad eggs. Women lose good eggs as they age. Eventually, when only bad eggs remain, menopause begins. For some unknown reason, I have the same number of good eggs, and years left to reproduce, as a 40-year-old woman. Since I am 29, this means I should have started trying to have kids back when I was an undergrad. Still, if a mature lady, like Bai Yun, can defy the odds, maybe I can too.

Frankly, it’s remarkable that she, or any panda, ever gets pregnant. Pandas can conceive on only 3-7 days of the entire year. We humans have a couple days each month when baby making is possible, which seems excessive in comparison. Knowing this makes me wonder how Bai Yun was impregnated so easily. You’d wonder too, if you could see the mating setup at the San Diego Zoo and hear the docent describe the process. It isn’t very romantic.

Essentially, mating begins when Bai Yun rubs her “business” up against a Plexiglas gate that looks like a prison door. When the zookeepers see her do this, they open the gate that separates the two pandas’ habitats. Bai Yun then waits to see if Gao Gao, the adult male, is interested. He may not be, since there’s a pretty good chance he’ll be busy sleeping or eating. But if the stars align, the pandas will make some black and white magic happen while crowds of gawking tourists with flashing cameras stand only a couple of feet away.

Fertility clinic baby-making isn’t very sexy either. First, my DH (that’s “dear husband” in infertility-chat-room lingo) watches out-of-date pornographic videotapes in a special exam room outfitted with mood lighting and a pleather couch. Once he’s “provided a sample,” I am called into the stirrup room. The doctor tells me how plentiful my husband’s sperm are and how wonderfully fast they swim. This is supposed to fill me with pride and hope, but it actually makes me more aware of my own inadequacies. Next, the doctor sticks multiple cold metal instruments inside of me. I try not to think about what he is doing down there and instead focus on wiggling my toes, which is somehow supposed to relax the muscles around my cervix.

Once the loaded catheter is nestled where it should be, the doctor does something that makes me realize that medical technology hasn’t advanced as far as one might think. He crosses his fingers and tells me to think good thoughts just before he pulls the trigger on the syringe. Finally, we both watch the ultrasound screen with awe as my husband’s superhero sperm shoots towards my fragile follicles.

All this fancy equipment hasn’t gotten me pregnant yet, but things have worked out surprisingly well for Bai Yun this year. Turns out she was carrying not one, but two panda cubs. This doesn’t seem fair, and I find myself feeling desperate to someday be half as lucky as a bear. I realize that it isn't normal to feel resentful towards an adorable panda, but my situation encourages irrational thoughts. I do feel resentment, just like I feel it when I log onto Facebook and see countless new baby pictures, or when I have to listen to my good friend, who recently got pregnant during the first month she tried, complain about tight-fitting pants and morning sickness.

I can't create a filter that blocks chubby-cheeked infants from appearing on my computer screen or tell my friend to shut up, but the next time I go to the zoo, you can be sure that I will head straight for the pandas. It’s going to be hard, and I’m sure I’ll cry a little (I’m crying right now for God’s sake), but I’m going to say some things under my breath to that bear that I will wish I could scream. It makes me inconsolably sad to know that even sleepy, hungry, loner Bai Yun managed to get herself knocked up in a stressful and unlikely situation, and for some reason I can’t do the same.

Shawnee Barton is an artist who keeps a blog on other people’s blogs. If you have a little nook of cyberspace and are open to welcoming a guest poster, please email her at shawneebarton@gmail.com. She will be grateful. To see where she is headed next, check out shawneebarton.com.

 

Photo courtesy of the author

Tags: depleted ovarian reserve., infertility, San Diego Zoo. Bai Yun

Emma Gilbey Keller ’s book, The Comeback: Seven Stories of Women Who Went from Career to Family and Back Again is available in paperback and makes a great gift. Emma lives with her husband, Bill Keller, their two daughters and their dog. Follow her on Twitter @EmmaGKeller

Comments

I'm glad this article is

By: teapot | Wed, 10/28/2009 - 13:33

I'm glad this article is getting more supportive comments. Thank you so much for sharing your story, Shawnee. After two miscarriages over a year I am out of my mind with fear and grief. Acupuncture for anxiety and depression helps me keep my head above water, but not a day goes by where I don't wonder -- what is wrong with me? What will I do if I can't have children? It is the greatest fear I have ever experienced -- I feel like I am asking myself, what will I do if lose my reason to live? Every month I feel like my heart has been sucked dry for the dozenth time. It is feeling of profound emptiness that I, even as someone who was wanted a baby from the day I discovered that girls can have them when I was 4 years old, could not comprehend before I was in this situation. It is not something that can be quelled with any amount of logic -- "Oh, I can just adopt". It's in a deep, deep place of mammalian instinct, where the rational mind can't penetrate. And so desperately searching for a reason, I find myself wondering what terrible thing I must have done to be in this situation. Is there just not enough love in me to keep my babies alive? Do I want children so much that I am causing myself not to have them? It is true: you cannot really understand until it happens to you. Even my husband, who is with me every step of the way and is the only other person to share my grief, even he can't feel the sting of the deepest cut. For this, you are always, somehow in the end, alone to face. Again, thank you for sharing, Shawnee as well the other commentors. We can know at least that we are not alone in our loneliness.

this could be my story

By: bc | Sat, 10/24/2009 - 16:47

I am so happy to see this story, because I am going throught the exact same thing right now. I am also "only" 29, and 2 years ago, I excitedly threw away my last birth control pills and waited....for nothing to happen. I know that this happens to lots of women all the time, but it is still frustrating when EVERYONE you know has no trouble at all and all your friends are posting pictures of their smiling babies and pregnant bellies on Facebook and when your family continually asks you when you are going to DECIDE to have a baby, as if you had any choice in the matter (I haven't told them yet because it is just too painful for me to talk about and I don't want pity). To Shawnee, thank you for sharing your story - it made me feel a little less alone, and I understand your feelings 100%. I never thought that by waiting until the old age of 27, I would have already missed my chance to ever have a baby, but it looks like this is the case.

To those who suggest adoption and criticize fertility treatments, of course adoption is a great option, and I am considering it strongly right now, but that doesn't take away the pain of not being able to have your own biological children. Perhaps it is cultural programming, but I do feel more than a little like a failure for not being able to do something any 16 year old in the back of a car can do. No matter how successful I am otherwise, I cannot fulfill this one basic goal of all humanity (and pandas, for that matter), and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. I cannot help but feel sad and a little bitter about this. If you have not experienced this yourself, you can't really understand what it feels like.

Life is Complicated

By: Shawnee | Sun, 10/25/2009 - 15:46

My husband and I have always wanted a big family and plan on adopting regardless of how our infertility treatments work out. Unfortunately, knowing that a happy ending (with or without biological babies) awaits us doesn’t make what we are going through now any easier.

Communicating with one another about difficult and uncomfortable subjects like this can be tricky. For example, it’s puzzling that when a couple who already has kids wants another baby, few people instinctively suggest adoption to them, yet people commonly offer this unsolicited advice to women without kids that are struggling with infertility, as if we haven't already considered every possible option.

RESOLVE, the national infertility association, published an insightful article on infertility etiquette that is worth a read if you’d like to know how to better emotionally support friends and relatives.

http://www.resolve.org/site/PageServer?pagename=lrn_ffaf_ie

If I have learned anything through this challenging journey, it is that life is complicated. I desire adopted babies just as much as biological ones, but I can understand and respect why other infertile women don't feel the same way. I live a full life and appreciate the benefits of being child-free for the time being--a lot of alone time with my husband, plenty of energy and time for professional aspirations, etc--while also desperately wanting a child. I am genuinely happy for my friends that become pregnant, but I acknowledge and accept the small part of me that wishes the bump were on my belly instead of theirs. I may not have a baby yet, but I believe that learning to better negotiate these kinds of internal conflicts is making me a stronger person, and for that I am grateful.

Thank you all for your thoughts, insights, and good wishes. They truly mean a lot to me.

Best of luck

By: JJL | Sat, 10/24/2009 - 14:05

Best of luck to you with your struggles. Thank you for this post, which is is both sweet and sad, heartbreaking and uplifting. I hope you are blessed with a healthy baby very soon.

This poor woman

By: Lilith | Sat, 10/24/2009 - 13:59

Way to drive home all of MK's points, KtE. "You must have either already reproduced or be nowhere near ready" -- as if reproduction awards you wisdom and intellect that others don't have? "I DO understand the intense desire we have as human beings (especially female human beings) to procreate" -- and people who have less desire to procreate are less of human beings (especially female ones)? Thanks for perpetuating the stereotypes that women are not really women until they've used their own uteruses to make babies, and that women aren't inherently useful for any other purpose. It's that stereotype that makes your friend Ms. Barton feel alone, useless, and broken because she can't reproduce, and that compels her to go through the expense and emotional roller-coaster of fertility treatments instead of considering adoption. Perhaps you should consider your own level of support to your fellow human beings.

.

By: KtELewis | Sat, 10/24/2009 - 18:49

.

It's unfortunate...

By: MK | Sat, 10/24/2009 - 04:19

It's unfortunate that society has convinced so many humans that we cannot lead fulfilling lives without reproducing.

Pandas are an endangered species. Humans are not. In fact, there are so many humans in the world that other species are becoming extinct as a result, and humans are even making war on their own species, committing acts of mass murder and genocide over natural resources and space in which to live.

Does the world need more humans? No. In fact, the world as a whole, including humanity itself, would benefit from there being fewer humans on planet Earth.

Infertility is a blessing, not a curse. If you feel you must be a parent, please adopt. There are many children, who are already here in this world, who are in need of a loving home.

Well ...

By: Mizz.Givens | Fri, 10/23/2009 - 22:27

I hope you get what you want, and soon.