Last week in my third-year course on ‘Urbanization
in the Global South’ we were discussing Amartya Sen’s book ‘Development is Freedom’.
Sen is an Indian economist and philosopher, to me the two most important ingredients
when thinking about the idea of ‘development’. For many decades the western-centric
approach to development was and is been driven by economic indicators such as
GDP, but Sen’s book published in 1999 was part of a shift to view poverty as a
lack of choice. Sen argues for the ability to make choices based on: political
freedom, access to full knowledge without coercion and the ability to have
economic choices and protection in terms of employment. If we view freedom as
the ability for all to make choices then we will have full equality.
The freedom to make choices is a simple
concept, but the reality of it is much more complex as it essentially
encompasses many aspects of society and the economy. It does however hold true
to something I hold very dear, and that is the ability to have the knowledge to
make the best choice in any situation. I am in education because as critical as
I am of the institutionalization of knowledge acquisition, I do believe that by
attending school and possibly university a person develops the skills to
question their ability to make choices and decisions. I value my personal freedom above
everything else in life. I believe that I have been given all the best possible
tools to seek and put into practice my ability to choose. The reality is though
that there is always a struggle as to whether the choice we make is truly being
made by us or is it being made because of societal, family, romantic partner or
peer pressure. I suppose we can never be sure, but to feel that I do not have a
choice that for me is the ultimate prison.
I have maintained for as long as I can
remember that getting married and having children was something that may or may
not happen for me. I of course, as most of us do hoped that I would meet
someone that would take my breath away and that then the other choices associated
with being in a partnership would unfold. Children for me were not a necessity,
maybe because I struggled with my own dislocation and family situation (as
discussed in previous blogs), or maybe I just was not ‘wired’ that way. I did
not feel a need to reproduce at any cost, and certainly did not seek a ‘father
for my children’. The sense I had within me was that if I met someone for whom
having children was important I would certainly be open to it.
And then I did meet that person…He did take
my breath away and all the clichés we see in Hollywood romantic comedies. I
would have done anything for him. Children were a conversation and it was an
important one, and I was very open to it because he had my heart and soul. But
then, as I have written about before, my health seemed to offer challenges. The
process was not as easy or as ‘natural’ as it should be. I felt my ability to
choose how I reproduced had been taken away from me. I felt trapped, cornered,
forced to view my fertility as a medical lab-like condition despite it being
constructed as the most natural occurrence in life. It consumed me, occupied my
every thought, drove me crazy with fear and shame.
My heart was broken and I found myself
alone once again, I will not explore this here as it is not the focus of my blog.
The question of children did not go away because I had constructed it into such
a huge part of my existence, my worth. For the past year I have spent many
waking hours debating various aspects of this: am I looking for a new relationship
by seeking a father for my children, do I want to have children at any cost, will
my life be empty if I do not have a child? When I really sat down and thought
about each of these things I realized that what it all came down to was I wanted
the ability to choose. That is ultimately what I hold most dear in life. I
acknowledge however that sometimes life presents us with choices that we would
not necessarily have predicted or even considered. I chose these past couple
of months to explore one of these options. I present to you the option of egg
freezing, most of all I want to emphasize that there should be no shame in
considering it a choice. A woman should have the ability to choose when, how
and if she wants to have a child. I should know that it is alright for me to
love all the children in my life, but to know that maybe birthing a child is
not for me. I want to be loved by a romantic partner for who I am and not because
I can produce children. All that said I still wanted the choice – it in fact
may seem selfish and I have considered this, to not be sure but to invest so
much money in a medical procedure when there is so much need in the world. This
thought kept me up many a night, but once again it all comes back to choice. I
did it, I injected all kinds of hormones into my body for two weeks. I cried as
the emotions consumed me, I endured the physical effects, and then yesterday I
went to the clinic. I made the choice to give myself a possible choice in the
future. It is a very slim choice as it always was going to be, but in giving
myself a choice most of all I gave myself hope.
A mention here to my friends Sara and Mia here
who were my rocks over the past few months as I explored and then embarked on
the journey. A special thanks to Sara who sat through the entire morning and
procedure with me yesterday.
“In the end that was the choice you made,
and it doesn't matter how hard it was to make it. It matters that you did.”
― Cassandra Clare, City of Glass
