In Latinx culture, we are taught to respect our mothers above all. Moms, motherhood, and maternity are central to our culture to the point where they condition the way we see and understand the world – I’ve always been aware of how many Catholic folks consider la Virgen María almost as important as Christ himself (if not more). We have songs and poems dedicated to mothers. The villains in our Telenovelas are jerks to everyone except their moms. Our nosy tías feel entitled to ask us about our motherhood plans as soon as we get our first period… That’s how big motherhood is for us.
We see lots of media about the beauty of motherhood, but none about infertility, about what to do if our attempts to become mothers fail, which they do quite often. According to WHO, one in four pregnancies end in miscarriage. So, where is the media by Latinas and for Latinas showing women they’re not alone at a time when they are so vulnerable?
Like many women who are expecting, a friend of mine hit the books. She studied for her baby like she used to study for her finals when we were in college. There was no book she left unread, no podcast she hadn’t listened to, and no Pediatricians or OB-GYNs that she hadn’t followed on social media. However, her research didn’t prepare her for loss. Her community failed her. While we’ve become more open and willing to approach many so-called taboo topics, infertility and pregnancy loss are still two topics that we can’t quite get ourselves to openly talk about.
The thing is, infertility and pregnancy loss are part of everyday life. For me, I’ve seen it in friends who mention not being able to have kids but won’t go any further into detail, relatives who lost pregnancies and only reveal it 50 years later, coworkers who are struggling through IVF… These things are somehow always a secret, something shared with a very select group of people, and always with a hint of shame. My friends and relatives who have experienced it have, for the most part, kept it close to their hearts, and it pains me to know I failed them, that I couldn’t provide a safe enough space for them to not have to carry the burden alone. Why do we get to share their joy and celebrate the good, but make them feel like they have to carry their pain on their own?
We, as their community, have the obligation of creating spaces for ourselves, our sisters, friends, grandmothers, cousins, aunts, nieces, and even random women whom we don’t know, to feel safe and sheltered enough to unburden if (or when) they feel ready. Sure, it’s a complicated and uncomfortable topic, but continuing to treat it as something best left unspoken isn’t helping anyone. If we’re all uncomfortable, we might as well be uncomfortable together.
The older I get, the more I think about my desire to be a mom. As I get close to my mid-30s, my thoughts go from “I’ll be a mom someday” to “if it happens, what are the potential ‘ugly’ sides?” Motherhood, birth rates, birth control, and abortion are topics we often see in the news. I’ve read the studies and know the facts. However, it all feels so foreign to me, and part of that, I think, is because most of the (easily accessible) child loss, infertility, or miscarriage literature out there is not written by Latinas. While the experience might be somewhat similar, there are particularities to our community that only we can understand. I’ve learned more from uncomfortable conversations with my mom friends (or who are trying to become moms) than from any piece of media. It’s thanks to their heartbreak and trust that I feel a bit more prepared for what’s to (maybe) come.
It’s time we let go of the stigma around the “darker” sides of fertility and motherhood – and the road to it. Part of that stigma, I’m sure, comes from the popular belief that Latinas are naturally fertile, well, that and some traditional and outdated religious views about the importance of procreation. Whether we like it or not, these beliefs are prevalent in our community, and they influence the way we move through and understand life. It is precisely this stigma that makes Latinas less likely to seek fertility treatments, and when they do, it may take them a lot longer than women from other cultures.
Correcting the cultural issues that prevent Latinas from seeking help starts with more honest, frequent, and open conversations about reproductive health: the good, the bad, and the in-between. It also starts with seeing our struggles and our stories (yes, even the uncomfortable and painful ones) represented in the media we consume, be it TV shows, movies, podcasts, books, YouTube channels, influencer blogs, or even music.
The small amount of media by Latinas, for Latinas on these topics is simply not enough: Infetilidad Latina, a podcast that stopped putting out new episodes two years ago. My Beautiful Blunder, an IVF, infertility, and motherhood blog by Mexican-Jewish blogger Erin Bulcao. In Vitro, a book by Mexican writer Isabel Zapata. La Hija Única, Guadalupe Nettel’s novel, which explores motherhood and its struggles through three different women’s points of view and experiences. Body Betrayal, a short book by Dr. Anna Flores-Locke, in which she openly shares her struggle with infertility and provides resources for other Latinas experiencing the same things she did. These are just five examples, and I’m sure (or, at least I hope) there are many more, but finding these was a struggle in itself.
Odds are, yo know someone who has gone through infertility or pregnancy loss, and given our apparent collective reluctance to approach these topics openly, it is very likely that that someone grieved in silence. For a community that’s so big on sharing our collective experience and loving mothers, we’re oddly silent about the bad, ugly, or risky aspects of the road to getting there.
Some people might think that by not speaking of it, the “bad” will go away, but that old “out of sight, out of mind” thing that never really helped anyone. The truth is, these things don’t simply go away. Just like untreated wounds, things left unspoken don’t heal – they fester. We are doing a disservice to each other by not speaking up, by not sharing infertility stories, by not creating an environment where we can all speak up freely, without judgment. We owe it to our sister Latinas and ourselves to do better.
