Trying To Answer
Inconceivably, the curious question reproductive rites.
JILL DAVIDSON SKLAR
Special to the Jewish News
ro
erhaps I am just a little too
sensitive. Perhaps I am mak-
ing too much of a big deal
out of what, on the surface,
is really an innocent question.
But I can honestly say that it has
been just two weeks since someone
asked me if I am "getting it on" with
my husband, if my reproductive health
was in fact OK, if I plan to breed in
the near future.
OK, they weren't really using those
words. But they were asking the loaded
question: Are you trying?
I married my husband Joel in April
1994, about six years after we started
dating and 10 years after we had first
met. It wasn't enough that we had over-
come cultural differences (I was not
born a Jew) or age differences (he is
nearly 10 years older than I am).
Suddenly, we were no longer the
focus of our relationship. Instead, our
ability to conceive had taken center
court for everyone but us.
Within days of our nuptials, people
phoned with their congratulations,
asked us of our desires for gifts and
wanted to know when they could
count on attending a bris or baby nam-
ing. I am not joking.
While it was a quick three weeks
between the time we announced we
were engaged and the time we were
actually married, we, or rather I, was
not pregnant. Nor did I intend to be
anytime soon.
So it came as sort of a surprise when
the little blue line indicating pregnancy
appeared on a home test 10 months
after we were married. Jonah was born
Nov. 24, 1995.
Eight days later, I attended his bris,
exhausted from the physical ordeal of
taking care of a newborn compounded
by a severe lack of sleep. I might have
been hallucinating, but I could swear
that the same people who wanted to
know when this blessed day would
arrive demanded to know when the
next heir to the Sklar throne would be
here.
The questions took on a hint of sub-
tlety after that. Co-workers, admiring
photos of Jonah on my desk, would
coo and then ask when he would have
a little brother or sister. Others would
simply ask how many we were plan-
ning on having. How many what was
never specified, but it
was clear they wanted to
know how many chil-
dren would spring forth
from my uterus.
My friend Didi told
me to expect the ques-
tions to become more
pronounced and more
direct as my child grew
closer to kindergarten
age. A mother of two
grown boys, she said the
"trying" question began
shortly after she got
married, continued after
the birth of her first son for five years
until she became pregnant again.
Finally, a reprieve came during her sec-
ond gestation.
That, however, was short-lived.
While in the hospital recovering from
the birth of her second boy, she was
asked if she was going to "try again,"
this time for a girl.
"It's insane," she said. "I think they
want to make sure that you are having
sex. Why else would they ask?"
So I guess it shouldn't have been
shocking when the "T" word began to
surface in conversations around the
time Jonah was 18 months old. The
first to ask was one middle-aged woman
I have been friends with for a while.
"Are you trying?"
"Trying what?" I asked, completely
naive.
"You know," she hesitated, making
her voice louder as if the sheer volume
would drive home the point. "To get
pregnant."
Before I could respond, she told me
a horrifically graphic story of how she
and her husband had tried and tried
every conceivable (no pun intended)
method, time of month and position
they had heard of to have a child. They
had gone to specialists to make sure
they were anatomically and physically
able to have offspring.
"And then it just happened," she
concluded.
Although the conversation gave me
more knowledge than I ever bargained
for or wanted, it also gave me pause to
think about exactly what people meant
by "trying."
Webster's New
World Dictionary
offers a definition for
trying as "to subject to
trials, annoyance, etc.,
to afflict." It seemed
strange that with my
shift of status from
single person to wife
to mother came this
affliction of others
annoyingly wanting to
know all about the tri-
als of my private life.
The conversation
also allowed me the
time to ponder not only what exactly
people wanted to know by asking this
question as well as how I would answer
what I (and I am sure Miss Manners
would concur) consider to be an imp-
-
propriate question regarding my repro-
ductive health and sex life.
Did they want to know if my hus-
band and I were intimate? Well, I
guess the answer would be yes on that
one. Did they want to know if we
were acting like a pair of trained mon-
keys timed to perform sexually by my
schedule of ovulation? Not exactly.
Did they want to know if we thought
one child is enough? Well, most had
formed their own opinion in that mat-
ter anyway.
"One is never enough," one childless
friend informed me. "Of course you'll
try for another."
While Miss Manners would advise
people to ignore the question and
smile, I know people in this communi-
ty are more persistent than to let the
matter drop so easily.
So when the last person asked if I
was trying, I simply responded, "Yes."
'What I really meant was that I am
trying to come up with a good
response to their intended question. El
1 1 171 ,111.1 1 Pig
e Road. 7 .m.
(48)
Davi
1/2
1998
63