Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS writer.
I come from a line of obsessive control freaks. My dad used to bring hospital grade ethanol home from work and clean the kitchen benches with it.
I remember chopping carrots on the bench one day and wondering what the weird taste was. Dad had only just swept through the kitchen with his ethanol and in my hurry to eat the dip with carrot I hadn’t notice the bench was still wet. It tastes like chemical, but not a nasty strong one. It was subtle, like unscented washing powder.
He used to spray the house in insect repellent. I hated it. Even the family eating at the dinner table wasn’t enough for him to desist. I remember arguing with him so many times about where spraying was not okay, but to no avail. One time I grabbed my dinner plate and ate elsewhere. At the time this was a noticeable act of rebellion. He didn’t do that again for a while.
His hands have always been raw from cleaning. He taught us about germs from early primary school. But it’s not just about cleaning. It is about control. The fallacy of control.
When on holiday once for my sister’s wedding I stayed with Mum and Dad in an apartment. On the night of the wedding I picked up one of the wedding party. The next day after coming “home” in my wedding dress at 7:30am Dad was trying to pack. He had taken over the job of packing a couple of beach chairs.
He always took over. There was never a negotiation. In our family if Dad wanted something we would just let him do it. It was easier that way.
He taped the chairs together so they could go through the luggage check-in. He taped. And he taped. And he taped. After 20 mins or so he had a bundle that had been covered in packing tape as if it was wrapping paper. He was still distressed that he might have not done it right. I looked at him and the chairs and said that it was fine, that they would be fine. Then he got the scissors out. He cut the tape and started again. Mum tried to intervene but this made Dad worse.
From a young age I have been able to placate Dad in these situations, if I wanted to. Today I did. His behaviour was in part a response to Dad’s inability to cope with my fun night out. I was no longer young enough for him to make judge my choice of extra-curricular activities and certainly not for him to yell at or control me. The obsessive wrapping was his way of projecting: directing his anger at the chairs instead of me.
Control: it is so often we think we can control things in life. We think that a bank account or the latest gadget or the new job or some improved government or workplace policy is going to change things, save us, insure us against trouble and disaster. But nothing can ensure anything. Not really.
Two and half years ago, at the age of 37 and after breaking up from a 9 year relationship, I decided to proceed with my plans to have a child. It was the perfect decision made under the perfect conditions. I owned my own place, no money owing to bank or government. I could decide and control exactly how I wanted to parent. I had friends around me who were elated and wanted to help. I had a good job: a 12 month contract in a university, the kind of stability that is rare in the sector. Plus, IVF was now available to single women and the technologies were so advanced. “I’ll be pregnant by the end of the year” I told a friend. Decision made. All planned. It was going to happen.
It is now three egg collection rounds, seven embryo transfers, around 150 or more days of hormone treatment and over $25,000 spent (much of that borrowed), with no success. That feeling of planned control has faded. This is one of my biggest gains from IVF.
The white suits and white rooms, the technologies and medications, the graphs showing new successes, the specialists with long lists of qualifications: none of this controls life. No matter how far the technologies of fertility have developed, we don’t know what creates life and what kills it. But more than that, it is outside the hospitals and clinics that life really happens, away from plans and policies and scientific advances.
This fallacy of control is disabling. It distracts, gives false hope. It prevents us from seeing the world and people around us clearly.
Dad’s obsessive chair wrapping was not going to assist him to understand that in having a one night stand I was perfectly happy and safe and living my life well.
Taking out yet another mortgage, or more time off work for another attempt at IVF, is not going to guarantee the arrival of a baby. Worse, it closes you off from other parts of your life and the possibilities these bring.
My Mum and I talk regularly during IVF rounds. “You have given up so much for this” she says after each of the last failed rounds. “I don’t want you to miss out on the great things in your life.” I hear her words often. They remind me of talking to my Dad: “The kitchen benches don’t matter that much. Can’t we just start cooking”.
I think of our family of control freaks and scientists and our penchants for planning. I think of the birth of my niece, and the other beautiful little humans in my life. I think of those unexpected accidents, the surprises and the joys they have brought: out of our control, unplanned.
I think of the relationships and friendships that have suffered as I have obsessively saved and planned and injected and waited and then grieved. Again and again.
I hear the stories of those giving up IVF to have only gained broken relationships, lost homes, lost jobs, damaged health, even bankruptcy.
I wonder at this fallacy of control: what it does and how it disables us, whether by obsessively cleaning hands and benches, or writing the next cheque for that IVF promise.
Back in the apartment with Mum and Dad, I put the kettle on. I told Mum it was okay. She joined me. At sometime between putting the kettle on and making his tea Dad came around to our point of view. The chairs would be fine. They now just had a criss-cross of tape around them.
As he joined us for tea he said to me “I think you’re right. I think that’s enough.” We drank our tea and finally talked. And everything was, indeed, just fine.
Twitter: @pollytext
Email: lisafaa@gmail.com