A book that combines essay and personal narrative about the struggle to be a mother
The writer Maria Climent (Amposta, 1985) has just released ‘Mai és una parola mot letja’ (Ara Llibres), a work that mixes essay and personal narrative to explain her real experience with infertility. In this book, the author shares the process she followed to achieve having a child, as well as the reflections she made on the emotional, physical and financial aspects surrounding this situation. In an interview with ACN, Climent confesses that during the process – which lasted about seven years – she felt ‘very alone’ and hopes that her book can ‘accompany’ other women who are on the same path . ‘Only the beautiful part of motherhood is shown’, he says, ‘but it is a serious subject where there is also suffering’.
A reason to write: ‘I had no one to talk to’
Climent says that what prompted her to write this book was that she had a lot of information, but also that at the time ‘she had no one to talk to’. Although she knew it was something that affected a lot of people, it wasn’t talked about as much then as it is now, and that led her to experience it with some isolation. The author’s journey to motherhood spanned almost a decade during which she tried different methods.
As happens to the protagonist of his first novel, ‘Gina’ (L’Altra Editorial), Climent’s decision was accelerated when the doctor told her that if she wanted to be a mother, she could not wait any longer because he they had to modify the treatment he was doing. ‘From the age of 35 it is very difficult, you are hitting the bottom of female fertility and you find that your life revolves around this’, he explains. The attempts, moreover, do not always bear fruit and from time to time the treated person must do a kind of ‘examination’.
The concept of betaespera: ‘When you don’t pass, it destroys you’
In fact, the book repeatedly introduces the concept of beta wait – the period from the end of the assisted reproduction process until you know if it worked or not – which lasts about twelve days. “The day comes when you have to move on to the next phase, and when you don’t, it destroys you, but you have to go on with your life, even though you’re devastated,” she recalls. He also acknowledges that at first he explained it, but in the end he stopped doing it because he was investing ‘money, energy and illusions in a subject that might not get anywhere’.
‘I had a number of embryos, and I thought when they are over, the game is over, and I didn’t want it to not work in any way’, he remarks, ‘but it also happens, and I will surely be read by some woman who will reach this limit, and for her all my respect, whoever you are’. For this reason, the writer states that at all times she wanted to treat the subject delicately, and above all not to be superficial.
A current debate: ‘It’s not a whim of women’
The first time that Climent noticed that there was interest in talking about this topic was in the ‘Gina’ book clubs, where different women wanted to delve into topics such as perinatal grief or assisted reproduction. Although it is a subject that he believes is now being talked about more, Climent also adds that it is still ‘not enough’ and that this is precisely one of his intentions with ‘It is never a very ugly word’.
‘I wanted to put it in writing, but it’s real, it happened to me and I’m not hiding, and if I can accompany any woman on this trip, I’ll take it for granted,’ he says. Climent also emphasizes that this is a ‘global’ problem that cannot be considered a ‘whim’ of women. It also warns of the importance that certain comments can have that interfere directly in the most intimate lives of women and couples.
‘When they see a fertile woman who just got married, or who is in a relationship, or who are the only ones in the group who don’t have children, people feel empowered to say, what about you? And there might be a wound there, maybe they’ve been wanting to for years and can’t, or maybe they don’t have the money to try,’ he adds. In fact, money also occupies a large part of the book, where Climent remembers that precariousness also has a full impact on this process. ‘The pressures are enormous, there is the emotional issue, but also the economic one because you have to prepare a fortune to try again’, he concludes.
