👶 One journey for a child #9 👶

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I adapt my post on one journey for a child whose French version can be found here.

November 2011

I had pretty much digested the bad news that the midwife had announced two months ago over the phone.
Indeed, their lack of professionalism had meant that our file would be sent in November because two documents that had never been asked for were missing.

Yes, but in November I'll be 37 years old since October 20th and then... will you tell me?
And then, it made all the difference a few days later this commission was no longer a mere formality because it was going to become the one who would decide if yes or not I would finally be able to try, I was finally going to have a chance to become a mother.

This MAP centre had taken the initiative, made the choice to interpret the law in their own way. At the same time, the bioethics law was and still is not too much there to help them since it says :

The MAP is reserved for couples [...] who are of "childbearing age".

Even though social security coverage could go up to the age of 43, my centre did not accept women over the age of 37.

I had to get an exemption from this commission.
The past two months had been atrocious, with nights punctuated by frightening nightmares. It was almost always the same one coming back.
I watched helplessly as I watched my file go into the "denied" pile and all the members present burst out laughing. I would try to beg, plead with the members one by one until I realized that I was invisible. This was inevitably the moment when I woke up screaming.

I was exhausted, I couldn't sleep, I was too afraid to fall asleep, I was too afraid of this nightmare, I was too afraid that it would become my reality.

I had to keep my spirits up and stay positive, but it was getting really hard. I became a shadow of my former self, unable to react.

I ticked off day after day on a calendar waiting for the D-day like the Messiah.
I was thinking more and more about going abroad to benefit from this gift because I could no longer help myself from thinking that France, my country, would not help me. I thought, rightly or wrongly, that I would be much better taken care of by bordering countries like Spain or Belgium.

In short, I had decided once again, resignedly, to wait and wait for the good will of these people. In any case, I didn't feel the strength or the courage to find out about foreigners, it was already so difficult in France, so elsewhere...
Once again, I had experienced this as an injustice, I almost felt it as if I was being relentless.

I can write today with such precision this life path thanks to the many notes I took during all these years in the greatest secrecy and the note I find for this period is :

They want to stop me from having a baby, are they allowed???

At the time, I didn't have the strength or even the desire to verify the veracity of the mass of information given to me.
When I mention, for example, the law of Bioethics in my articles, I systematically check:

• that the information I have noted or memorized is accurate,
• that the law has not been changed.

In the process, I found a 2018 article on Libération whose title,

MAP: Is there an age limit for having a child?

speaks for itself.
So, no the answer is clear... they had no "right" !!! not the right to waste my precious time..All these months, years stolen by medicine, by my bad medical choices.
It's all very silly, but this one article has given me the sobs.

Let's get one thing straight. I didn't take it personally, but rather as a societal problem that concerned all women in my situation.
I just told myself over and over that beyond the age of 37, they completely disregarded the journey, the situation, the human factor, in favour of probable statistics that would necessarily be more favourable if we excluded the women who would necessarily lower the success rate of the centre.

I had spent the 72 hours before D-Day without sleep.

I'm tired, I'm at the end of my rope and I'm not going to make it, it's over.

Those were the only thoughts that went through my mind, impossible to be positive, impossible to be optimistic, impossible even to smile.
All my husband's attempts to try to make me smile again were unsuccessful. At best I didn't react to the worst, I would burst into tears, which made him feel disillusioned, helpless and without any solution to bring me back.

The day before, I couldn't help but call them to be sure:

There were no pieces missing? The file was ok ? the commission was tomorrow ?

D-Day

"MAP Service, good morning.
— Hello, Chistel M., I wish to speak to Dr. V. or a midwife.
— What's this for?"

You will have to wait for the rest, hoping that you enjoyed it, allowed you to reflect, and especially to learn more about medically assisted reproduction with oocyte donation.

See you soon.

Christel @corsica

If you missed the first parts:


One journey for a child #1
One journey for a child #2
One journey for a child #3
One journey for a child #4
One journey for a child #5
One journey for a child #6
One journey for a child #7
One journey for a child #8

To go further, here are some articles that I have selected with great care, unfortunately only one is in English because they are important articles for which I do not find an equivalent in English (mainly French problem):

• Reproductive Technology and Its Impact on Child Psychosocial and Emotional Development -Encyclopedia on Early Childhood-
• PMA : Y a-t-il un age limite pour avoir un enfant ? -Libération-
• Bioéthique : les États généraux de la bioéthique sont lancés. -Gouvernement.fr-
• Bioéthique : comment réécrire les lois de la vie ? -Le Monde-
• La loi de bioéthique et actualités -Gènéthique-