Trying to Conceive Feels a Little Bit Less Awful Than Not Trying
It isn’t my job to bear as much pain as I possibly can to prove that I am somehow worthy of becoming a mother. Why is it so hard to remember this?
maybe like that
By the way, how are you feeling?
It’s the clinic’s job to manage my pain, to make me feel cared for. Isn’t it? Why is it so hard to remember this?
watched
Mandy Len Catron is the author of How to Fall in Love with Anyone: A Memoir in Essays. You can find her work in the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Guardian, and the Rumpus, among many others. Originally from rural Appalachia, she now teaches creative writing at the University of British Columbia.
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More in this series
Murder Nights
It was as if I needed a third surgery, a reconstruction. I needed the surgeon to rebuild what he tore out.
Learning to Love My Mother’s Body and My Own
Envy feels a lot like binging—the more you give into it, the worse you feel.
Buying My Girlhood Is Putting Me In Debt
Each time I used my credit card, I rationalized my ballooning debt by imagining a future in which I was satisfied with my transition.