Sink or Swim

I have been playing a lot of J.S. Bach. Particularly, I have been pounding out the notes to one of his Prelude and Fugue sets that he wrote in the early 1700s. The piano was not yet invented; these songs were written for the harpsichord- an instrument having very little softness or sustain. I pluck this piece from the tension of the Baroque era and play it in the softness of my home. I have found solace in playing the classics, the same comfort a mathematician might derive from working equations that demand a precisely certain solution. These songs are rigid and structured and closed to interpretation. Unlike emotional and romantic Chopin and Debussy who would follow, there is a bit of madness to the Baroquians. They belong to an era whose very name means “rough, imperfect pearl.” 

I have been thinking about the late 17th century, the century into which Bach was born. There were no fertility clinics, no prenatal yoga (can you imagine?) and no ovulation kits. Simply, if you could not get pregnant naturally, you were not meant to be a mom. The word barren makes people from this century twitch. We are control freaks; we are not comfortable with permanent diagnoses. There is always something we can do. Bach had 20 biological children. (Go Johann, you stud!) If you read the footnotes, though, you will learn that only 6 of them lived to adulthood. Are the tears of the barren women and grieving mothers from the 1600s the same as the tears I cry today? I believe we march to the same drum. I believe I am playing their same tune. 

Eric and I are beginning to discuss the lengths we will go to to manufacture a child. If we were born into a different era, we would not have the options of labs and petri dishes and injections. We would wear black robes as we strolled through our village (because I’m sure they did that!) and would be marked with a scarlet B on our foreheads. Barren. We would love each other immensely, sure. But we would grimace as the little babes in bloomers and bonnets would crawl at our feet as we walked through the schoolyard. 

***

There was a man drowning in the sea. He trusted God to come down and rescue him. As he was flailing and gasping, a large boat appeared and threw down a life raft. “Climb on!” they shouted from the deck. The man said “No! I am trusting my God to save me!” A helicopter hovered overhead and lowered a rope. “Grab the rope!” the pilot yelled. “No! God is coming to my rescue!” The man drowned. He got to heaven and said, “My God! Why didn’t you come down from heaven and save me?” God said, “Uh, DUDE, i sent  you a helicopter and a boat...”

I too am bobbing in this raging sea awaiting rescue. The question is, what is my life raft? What rope do I grasp? Will I get to heaven to hear God say, “I provided you with the option of IVF; why didn’t you try?“ Or do I intrinsically belong to an era of women who trusted God alone to fulfill their maternal needs. A world where your story ends and doesn't begin with a negative pregnancy test.  Maybe I am plighted to be a gritty, misshapen pearl. Maybe refinement lies just around the bend. For now I will tread water and pray for a boat to appear, and that when it does, I will possess the gumption to climb aboard.