The Folly of Human Desire

Only early afternoon, yet I was instantly exhausted by the couple that sat in front of us. She cried quietly into a tissue. He put his arm around her, looking slightly bored and detached as he looked at us accusingly. They had gone through three miscarriages and were now pregnant again, being followed closely at the recurrent pregnancy loss clinic after being fully investigated. An ultrasound had just shown a normal fetal heart rate at 10 weeks, but also found a subchorionic hematoma, a blood clot next to the developing embryo. Although things were fine at this point, it gives her about a 25% chance of losing this pregnancy as well.

There was a strange dynamic in the room. Deep pain and defensiveness. This is a place they had been before, and with all the medical technology in the world we could not give them a child of their own. I had seen the same look in the eyes of couples who have spent thousand of dollars on fertility treatments and IVF (in-vitro fertilization) to face failed pregnancies, or none at all.

A woman I saw at one of the fertility clinics had separated from her husband last year and was now dating someone else. Someone who would have a child with her. “He’s good enough and my eggs aren’t getting any younger.”

It amazes me. The desire we have to bring a child into the world. Is it desperate signals from rotting ovaries that do it? Maybe its the evolutionary drive to have our genetic material continued in the world? Or perhaps an equally altruistic and selfish desire to have someone else to love, to care for, and to bring us laughter. Is there a divine calling of love that creates this desperate need within us?

I don’t know what it is, but the desire for a child drives people mad. It breaks their hearts, destroys their marriages and makes them feel like they have failed at this business of life.

That same morning, prior to going to the recurrent pregnancy loss clinic they schedule residents at the Comprehensive Abortion and Reproductive Education clinic. Where the other side of human desire comes in. Seemingly the polar opposite, yet on some levels the same. The desperate need not to be pregnant. Not to have a child. Not to let anyone know. A 15 year old in foster care. A mother of four. Some heartbroken and scared, others logically facing the facts of life.

The incongruity in my mind and heart at the end of the day is a feeling I am slowly getting used to. The stories I have the privilege to witness in this messiness of life are not always easy to digest. We so much want what we cannot have and desperately don’t want what we have. The folly of human desire.