I don’t talk about politics on my show. I talk about creativity and I interview guests who can help all of us step into our creative selves. But then J.D. Vance started talking about “childless cat ladies,” and as a woman without children, I have a problem with that. So I thought it was important to air a story I told on the StoryCollider stage some years ago about my ambivalence towards motherhood and my call to become an artist. The story is part of a larger piece I’ve been working on called “Be Fruitful and Multiply.” If you have any feedback, I’d love to hear it. You can reach out to me at podcast@triciaroseburt.com.
Transcript
Hey there and welcome to this special edition of No Time to Be Timid. If you’re a regular listener, you know I was going to talk about creativity and kindness this episode and I will next week but something more pressing came up that I wanted to address. Now, I don’t talk about politics on this show. I talk about creativity and give y ‘all a nudge to help you step into your creative selves. Like my guest, R. Eric Thomas said in our last episode, and if you didn’t hear it, make sure to check it out. “If we’re not here to make something that wasn’t here before, whether it’s artistic, whether it’s a family, whatever it is, then what are we here for?” But as we’ve all heard by now, the Republican vice president nominee, J .D. Vance, has decided that first and foremost, we’re called to make children and that people without children are somehow suspect and less than. Now, I’m a person with no children and I got a problem with that. But I’m grateful to Mr. Vance for his comments because for more than a decade, I’ve been working on and off on a project called Be Fruitful and Multiply. I got the idea one day while I was in my studio making these obsessive pencil drawings. I’d just gone through fertility treatments that didn’t work I was struggling because I felt a much stronger call to be an artist than to be a mother. But you need to know that growing up, I was raised that the criteria for whether or not you were successful, whether or not you mattered, was if you made money or if you made babies. And I wasn’t do it either. So as I’m making these drawings, I’m wondering, does this even count? So I started writing a performance piece prompted by those drawings that’s about veering away from family and society’s expectations, either willingly or by circumstance, and leading a life that’s outside the norm. I’m really interested in redefining what it means to be fruitful and in starting a conversation that being fruitful can be way more than just making money or making babies. I first told a portion of my story on New York’s StoryCollider stage back in September of 2011, even before I knew I wanted it to be a full show That’s the story you’re gonna hear on this episode. Then seven years later, I workshopped a 30 minute version of the story at the Tennessee Women’s Project in Nashville. And now another seven years have gone by and thanks to Mr. Vance, I’m ready to finish the heck out of this show and take it out on the road. This entire last season of No Time to Be Timid has been about how artists can make a difference in the world. I needed the inspiration. As my pal Amy Grant once said to me, Tricia I don’t think you’re here to help two or three children find their voices. I think you’re here to help hundreds, if not thousands of people find their voices. I’m hoping I can do just that because I have a stake in the people I love and in the country I love. Enjoy this first part of the story and if you’ve got some comments, I’d love to hear them. Please reach out to me at podcast@triciaroseburt.com.
My husband and I never talked about whether or not we would have children. We just assumed we would. Our families expected it too. When my sister got pregnant with the first grandchild, my mother bought this exquisite christening gown to be worn by all of the grandchildren she assumed her three children would have. And when my husband told his father we were getting married, the first thing my father -in-law said was, you’ll be a great dad. We met and married in Ireland. I was 38 and he was 31. And as newlyweds, our top priority was not making babies. We changed continents. We moved from Ireland to New Hampshire. And we both changed careers. I was in business and left to become a writer and a performer and an artist. And he was in printing and left to become an ornithologist. But when I turned 40, my husband said, I guess we should start trying to get pregnant, which was the extent of our family planning. We tried for a year naturally to conceive with no success, and I was frankly offended.
For years, I concentrated very hard in trying not to get pregnant. So I assumed the first time I had unprotected sex with the man I loved that I would instantly conceive. But as we continue to try, I notice something kind of alarming. Every time I get my period, I’m sad, but I’m also kind of relieved, like I dodged a bullet.
We try for over a year, after about a year we try, and my doctor recommends that we go to a fertility clinic. And at this point I’m 41 years old and the specialist says if we want to try fertility treatments that we have to start immediately because the cutoff point at this facility is age 42. But there’s a problem because I have my first major solo art show scheduled for Boston. And I don’t think there’s any way that I can make a body of work and make a baby using science at the same time. So there’s this standoff between my biological and my career clocks. And every bone in my body tells me to pick the solo show. So with my husband’s consent, we both decide that we’ll try to make it work at 42 and we’ll go to a different doctor. Now, the first thing they tell you to do as a fertility patient is to relax. And for good reason. If you’re stressed, you’re in sort of fight or flight mode, and your body produces adrenaline, which tells the rest of your body that it’s not safe to reproduce. It’s very sound primal body wisdom. So the doctors and the specialists and the books tell you to relax while your friends and your family say, just have sex and get drunk and it’ll all work. Like we haven’t tried that already. Now I’m a little wound up and relaxing does not come very easily to me. And so to help in this effort, I go to this highly recommended Chinese acupuncturist who specializes in helping women trying to get pregnant. And she has very broken English. And the first thing she says to me is, you’re not very relaxing. And she’s right. I am not very relaxing because I am terrified. I’m terrified of the fertility treatments and I am mostly terrified of two things. One, having a baby and all the freedom I will lose. And two, not having a baby and all the joy that I will miss. Plagued with ambivalence, we move ahead with the treatments. And the first step is the Clomid challenge. Now remember, the most important thing that fertility patients are supposed to do is relax. But the first thing you are required to do is to accept the challenge. Not the Clomid meditation, but the Clomid challenge. The irony is lost on the nurses and the doctors. And I am wondering if they are listening to the words that are coming out of their mouths. The Clomid challenge uses the fertility drug Clomid to test for decreased ovarian reserve. If you have decreased ovarian reserve, You don’t have very many eggs and they’re not a very good quality and so you’re not a good candidate for fertility treatments. As it turns out, I’m a candidate for every baby making science available. We go with artificial insemination and we’re going to do three rounds over the course of six months. And this is how it works. In the first days of my cycle, my husband injects me with a precisely measured drug exactly the same time exactly every day in the hopes of producing multiple eggs, six to eight instead of the regular one. So you can increase your chances for fertilization. And numerous sonograms are taken over several weeks so they can track the exact size and location and number of my eggs. And the doctor times the insemination when I ovulate, which is determined by the technicians who are taking daily blood samples and looking for a hormone that peaks right before I ovulate. And on the appointed day, my husband provides his semen sample and the nurse washes it in the laboratory so it’s just this highly concentrated, fast -moving sperm. And the doctor takes the sperm and injects it in my uterus using a It’s all very romantic. The artist in me who loves mystery and romance hates these procedures, and my husband just patiently holds my hand. The first round, we make one egg and one little tiny one that hasn’t matured yet, which we could have done on our own and saved the $2 ,000 on the shots. But the doctor goes ahead with the inseminations even though we haven’t produced five or six eggs. And we do two procedures in two days. The doctor says, no one ever gets pregnant on the first round, and he’s right, we don’t. But everyone’s still very hopeful, and I’m still a candidate for everything. And so we wait the recommended two months and move ahead with the second round. And I’m still ambivalent. I can see us with children, but I can just as clearly see us without them.
And I begin to think there’s something wrong with me, like I’m a bad person. As I read about other women who are so desperate to have children that they sell their homes and move to states where insurance covers even the most radical fertility treatments. And we live in New Hampshire where nothing is covered and we have no intention of moving anywhere. And even though I’m ambivalent, I’m still slightly outraged because I can’t get pregnant. I’m an artist. I make things all the time. Why can’t I make a baby? And I talked to a dear friend of mine who has three children all by adoption and she says, Tricia do you want to be pregnant or do you want to be a parent? There’s a big difference. And I talked to another friend who has three children all by in vitro and she says, Tricia a house isn’t a home unless it has children in it you need to get $20 ,000 and go get in vitro or adopt. And when I hear this, I have a visceral reaction. This pain just screams across my chest and I think that just can’t be right. I read that one of the major causes of infertility is ambivalence. I am working against myself. And so I try to convince myself about all the joys that having a baby will bring. And at the same time, I ask God that if I am not supposed to have a baby, to please block it. Babies come into this world, these beautiful clean slates and I don’t want to mess some poor child up because I think I’m supposed to have a baby and then I realize after it’s way too late that I don’t want one. We move into the second round and I am prepared. I have done yoga, I have done acupuncture, I am as relaxing as I am ever going to be. First stop is blood work and I go to the lab and they don’t have my records because there’s been a scheduling mix up and my anxiety rises a little bit and I think, well that’s okay, things happen. I’ll come back after I have my sonogram. And I’m waiting in the doctor’s office for the sonogram and the nurse comes out and says, okay, Terry, come on back, it’s time for your sonogram. And I said, but my name is Tricia. And she said, my mistake. which are not the words you want to hear in a fertility clinic. The stakes are too high. And my anxiety rises as I imagine them injecting me with the wrong person’s sperm. And then the doctor decides to drastically increase the amount of meds I’m supposed to be taking on this round. And there is no question I am going to be crazy. All the yoga, all the acupuncture out the window, my anxiety skyrockets. And my husband says, Tricia, it’s your decision and I will support whatever choice you make. But after this round, I’d really like to stop trying. It’s just way too stressful. And we follow the treatment protocol. And without explanation, my entire reproductive system simply shuts down. All hormone levels plummet. I produce four tiny little immature eggs. They cancel the upcoming inseminations. And suddenly, I’m a candidate for nothing. I call a good friend who’s an Episcopal priest and I say, you know how God called Mary to have a baby? And she said, yeah. And I said, well, I think God is calling me not to have a baby. I think I’m the anti -Mary. And she says, Tricia, there are so many reasons why you are the anti -Mary.
I read that artificial insemination and other mechanical techniques to force pregnancy are on some level traumatizing to the body and they actually inhibit the very processes they’re trying to accomplish. So in a last ditch effort, my husband and I try several more months naturally using alternative therapies, but nothing works. And again, I’m both sad and relieved.
But mostly I’m confused and scared. I’m really okay with not being a mother, but it’s what I always thought I was supposed to be. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do now. I don’t have a blueprint for this new life. I don’t know what my purpose is or what my legacy is going to be. And the group of friends that gets this the most are my gay men friends. They know what it’s like to be thrown a curveball and find themselves decidedly outside the norm. So I asked them, what did they think when they first found out that they were gay? And they all start their answers with the exact same phrase. I was terrified. But those are the cards I was dealt. I was terrified, but I knew I could handle it. I was terrified, but I knew I could build a good life. I go into the studio and I start to draw.
If you’re listening to this podcast, it’s because you care about creativity and courage too. And believe like I do that this is no time to be timid. This year, I’m taking the no time to be timid message on the road and maybe you’re part of the world needs to hear it. If you’re looking to awaken boldness and creativity in your company or organization, I’d love to come speak to you. Let’s have a conversation. Please reach out to me at booking@triciaroseburt.com
Learn more about No Time To Be Timid at my website www.triciaroseburt.com and make sure to follow me on social media @triciaroseburt No Time to Be Timid is sponsored by Interbang Books, a Dallas -based independent bookstore, which was named one of the top five bookstores in the country. They have a fabulous curated online collection. Check them out at interabangbooks .com. That’s interabang, I -N -T -E -R -A -B -A -N -G, books .com. No Time to Be Timid is written and produced by me, Tricia Rose Burt.
No Time to Be Timid is written and produced by me, Trisha Rose Burt. Our episodes are produced and scored by Adam Arnone of Echo Finch. And our theme music is Twist and Turns by the Paul Dunley Group. If you like what you hear, please spread the word, subscribe to the show and review us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you listen. No Time to Be Timid is a presentation of I Will Be Good Productions.