Wednesday, September 28, 2005

An interesting analogy

It came up again at work yesterday. It always comes up at work. There's baby fever here, y'know. According to everyone surrounding me, I'm just not ready for kids yet; once we've been married awhile that will change. We don't really want to remain childless.

And I thought about this, and an interesting analogy popped into my head. It's like when a 6-year-old girl says boys are gross, or vice-versa. Everyone just laughs and says "wait 'til you get older!". I think, because of my age, that's what people write off my CF views as -- I'm just not ready yet, but it's only a matter of time.

When I went for my last depo provera shot, my doctor and I were discussing nobaby options. She made a number of suggestions for less reliable means of contraception, and i told her I wasn't comfortable with a reliability rate of only 85%. "Well, you're getting married, so getting pregnant wouldn't really be a bad thing, right?" she said with a smile.

"No," I told her, "we're choosing not to have children."
She laughed. "Okay, so we'll stick with the Depo... for now. You're still young. hahaha!"

I suspect it's a similar thing to what gay people go through -- everyone says it's just a phase until, finally, it becomes clear that this isn't changing. I've referred to the decision to tell our families as "coming out"; maybe the similarity of the two situations is stronger than I think? I don't know... it's all just so frustrating.

I'm really starting to wonder at what age I'll have to be when people start believing we're serious about this...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

My name is Janice Still and i would like to show you my personal experience with Depo-Provera.

I am 24 years old. I have been on Depo for 9 years and did not realize that the symptoms I experienced might be related to the shot. I am now facing thousands of dollars in dental work due to bone density loss, and will probably end up with osteoporosis. I am getting off Depo and will never touch it again!

I have experienced some of these side effects-
Low libido, joint pain, bone density loss, dental problems, headaches, fatigue, out of control eating, gained 40 lbs., depression

I hope this information will be useful to others,
Janice Still

Anonymous said...

I really think that your analogy of "coming out" as a childfree individual holds a lot of water. I've been trying to come out to my closest friends over this past year, and honestly, it's the silence that's worst. Even one friend on the fence prefers to remain closeted and not voice support publicly of my choice (even though in private conversations she shares all my anxieties and reasons for not having kids). Ugh, why does it have to be like this?