Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This limited series Eggs contains discussions of fertility, IVF and ableism.
(00:20):
What would you tell your younger self? In truth, I
think my younger self would be appalled by thirty four
year old me and a little sad. Probably she had
life figured out and I haven't stuck to the plan.
(00:41):
My younger self wanted the world Now, I just want
what everybody else wants. I want to tell my younger self.
I think I might have changed my mind. I have
never been that maternal. I have really never adored children.
(01:06):
It's not something you hear that often, the thing that
women are not supposed to say. But there had been
many yard six or moments in my life that had
confirmed to me that children were not for me. Over
summer holidays in my teens, when the sun made things
(01:28):
hazy and it was burning your skin to a crisp,
I was with my childhood friend Melissa, in a time
before the Internet, when our mobiles went out of range
and texts were fifty cents each. We would walk to
a neighbor's house to help with their four boys. Even
(01:51):
back then, Melissa was a born mother, effortlessly placing one
baby on her hip and guiding another down the hallway. I,
on the other hand, was completely out of my depth.
I had just been educated to why we must not
ring the doorbell. The kids were asleep. I was assured
(02:16):
we were not being rude. We could just open the
door and walk in. This family was busy and happy
and had their hands full with four boys who had
arrived in quick succession. As a wheelchair user, to this
day and then, I wasn't often able to access people's houses.
(02:41):
I am hyper vigilant moving through someone's home, trying to
not scuff walls or hit furniture. This house was the
first house where I started to compute how children a
tricky match for somebody in a wheelchair. While Melissa was
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cooing on the floor with a baby doing tummy time,
I felt like I had a hundred land mines to
maneuver through. The toys felt endless, brightly colored plastic strewn
across the floor. I would always try and spot a
space on the wooden floor and treat it like my bunker,
(03:25):
turning off my wheel chair, sighing with relief that I
had not broken anything by running them over with my chair.
The seeds of polodcast Peter began to be planted as
I tried to be a valuable presence in the house
by making thoughtful conversation. But deep down I knew Melissa's
(03:47):
help was what the family needed. How could I help anyway?
I was terrified to hold a baby, worrying I would
drop them, never letting myself practice, knowing full well how
precious that little life is. This was the first time
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I remember feeling uncomfortable and inadequate around children. I couldn't
even manage to make my face look like I was
excited by a piece of lego being held up by toddler,
their blue eyes wide with wonder. I was too distracted
by the little toes so near my wheels, and the
(04:32):
little fingers attempting to find the on button for this
big toy that I was sitting in. Later in my twenties,
whenever I was in a cafe with friends, everyone else
would seemingly point out how cute that baby was sitting
in a high chair on the next table. I instead
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would see a child that was overtired due for a sleep,
not pouring down their face mingling with the mash that
the baby's mother was spooning into their mouth. I clearly
was missing that mothering Jean. At this stage of my life,
(05:16):
I was deluded and arrogant. I remember thinking how very
boring that mother's life would be as I paid for
my share of the bill, pulling my car keys out
of my designer handbag. I believed that because I was
not born normal, not the standard, I was not going
(05:36):
to have a regular life. I was going to have
an amazing life. In fact, I was going to be success,
maybe a CEO, a hotel inspector five Stars only of course,
or the head of Tourism Australia. My life was going
(05:57):
to be filled with work and I couldn't wait. On reflection,
I think this was my way of protecting myself from heartbreak.
I was unable to confront the fact that I had
no examples of how someone like me could be a mum,
knowing that if I raised the topic, questions would be
(06:20):
asked and I had no answers. As my mother would say,
there's no book telling you the absolute right way to
parent a child. But if there was, there was definitely
no chapter of how to parent a child when you
have cerebral palsy. Then one single day changed my mind
(06:47):
about motherhood. My father, Clive, was in ICU after having
his second stroke in six months. This was not my
first radio with hospitals and health, but it had never
been dad before. The shock was so pronounced it made
(07:07):
it hard to breathe. Nothing was guaranteed. My dad was
not bulletproof. Life might not end like a movie. Like
my younger self had presumed. My thinly veiled bravado that
I liked being single evaporated after my dad's strokes. A
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strong pull that I had never experienced before was now
ever present. It forced me to be brave. I decided
life was not a dress rehearsal. It was time to
take life more seriously. Can you have sex? This was
(08:05):
one of the most common questions I got asked by
straight single males whenever I went out to party with
my friends. Most of the time, the tone of this
question was not gentle, but abrasive. It was not done
in a whisper, but loud enough for his mates to
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snigger behind him. It was designed to humiliate. This was
not a pick up line, but if it was, I
would have sat would you like to find out? I
have also been asked by a man if I own
a bed, equally perplexing, I have been asked if I
(08:49):
have a vagina. I am not Barbi. I am a woman.
I did not come in a box, but I have
a box. I was so naive to beauty standards. I thought,
once someone got to know me, the fact I have
cerebral palsy would be a non issue. But as I
(09:13):
attended more and more engagements, weddings, and then baby showers,
I realized people didn't see me how I saw myself.
I had done the carry Bradshaw single years. I lived
in a beautiful little place near the city. I was independent,
(09:34):
I was happy, surrounded by friends, and every outfit aimed
to reflect the fact that I was the picture perfect
girl most of the time, even if I couldn't stand up.
And yet my puzzle piece was not making himself known.
(09:55):
I was realizing the men I was attracted to were
not necessarily attracted to me. Cred men somehow smell desperation.
I didn't feel desperate, but equally with each year I
was surprised to have not found him yet. COVID for
(10:19):
everyone was like a big full stop on all our lives.
It felt like overnight, my friends, who were in settled
relationships decided to move the schedule forward and start a family.
The party was over. Now what felt like every conversation
(10:40):
with my girlfriends was no longer lighthearted, but instead made
me want to bite my nails with anxiety. Epic stories
of late night excapades were replaced with talk of the
prospects of getting pregnant and how statistically unlikely that can be.
(11:00):
My age was now seen as a negative. Time was
a rare resource that we had seemingly squandered. The pressure
felt immense. After high school sex ed had drilled into
us not to get pregnant. It felt like whiplash to
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be now considering the opposite doing the unsettling math in
my head that I was single and that I had
to factor in the time to find the person, date
them for a while, and then get pregnant. The math
wasn't mathing. My mother's story then came into sharp focus
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for me. I knew my mother, Lorraine, had struggled with infertility.
After all, I was the result of years of trying, failing, losing.
I was her miracle, the person she'd been trying to
meet for over ten years. Now I saw her story differently.
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I realized it might be my story too. I had
always been the baby in the story, the happy ending.
But now I had to face the fact that I
might be the mother struggling to get pregnant. This handful
of years in my thirties was like it or not,
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going to define a big part of my life. Would
I have children? Would I become a mother? Then, like clockwork,
a nagging reminder to those unanswered questions by mother Nature
arrived every twenty eight days. The month's opportunity was not taken.
(12:56):
That egg was now gone. Sitting in my IVF doctor's
clinic on the first day of consultation, I had no
idea the hidden challenges on the road ahead. I knew
I was about to confront my fertility, but I had
no idea I would have to confront the issues of access, dignity,
(13:19):
and equality. There were many more eggs I was yet
destined to lose. Thank you for listening to Eggs, a
limited series from the creator of the I Can't Stand Podcast.
(13:46):
This series was voiced, written, and produced by me Peter Hook.
If you've faced similar barriers with IVF, or you work
in the healthcare system and want to share your story
about ableism, I'd love to hear from you. Links in
(14:07):
the episode description, and all stories can be shared anonymously.
Just let me know if that's your preference. Your support
truly means so much. Thank you for listening, Take care.
(14:32):
I would like to respectfully acknowledge they were wondery and
Bunner wrong people of the call and nation of which
I record the podcast today, and I pay my respects
to both elders past and present, along with and especially
to those in the First Nation's communities who are disabled themselves.