Momi, 42, tells us about the painful journey through the experience of an extra uterine pregnancy, which forced her to redefine her whole self as a woman, about her relationships within and outside the family circle, and how this experience gave her the strength to become an advocate for the right to adoption for singles.
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MOMI: «I am Monica, I’m 42 years old and I have no children. The reasons behind it are biological, that is, I wanted to have a large family but unfortunately, due to a bad situation I experienced, as I had an ectopic pregnancy that devastated me, I can no longer have children. So I must live with the thought that, although I am still a woman of childbearing age and I have no pre-menopause symptoms, I will not be able to have children. I must therefore consider my whole life from another perspective; a totally overwhelming change because I grew up with the idea that I would have a family, children, and a man next to me. Instead, when I got pregnant he ran away. Unfortunately, I had to live alone, with family and friends who supported me, a great tragedy from which I came out, fortunately, alive, because I could have died, because it was not immediately diagnosed. So it was a great pain, both physical and psychological, which shook me deeply; it was overwhelming.
The idea of not being able to have children is devastating, although at times I try to think why it happened to me and I try to understand how I can use this strength that I feel inside, which could be shifted onto something else. Not having children could also be a way to create something different. However, it is still possible to give birth to something. I focussed mainly on supporting adoption for singles. It is something that I always felt very close to me I have three cousins who have been adopted, they are second cousins, my father’s cousins have adopted three children who are adults by now, almost my age, and they are amazing.
For me it was pretty natural to have adoptions in the family, it is something we experienced very spontaneously. I concentrated my non-pregnancy a lot on this topic, let’s say I hope to give birth to something more there.
When I was pregnant, I had not yet found a place I considered my own, luckily I was living with my parents who helped me, but at that moment I was so confused that I felt devastated also in that respect. I was constantly thinking, “where will I go, what will happen to me”, and a terrible fear of the future, because I did not have a project. You can be a single mother and have your own personal project, but if you are devastated by such an emotional tsunami and you don’t have a project, you must come up with your own project while you are struggling with your grief, and you don’t know how to react and how to build this project, how to organize it. It’s not easy. I could have been supported by his parents, who fortunately adored me, so I knew I would have been thoroughly supported. But it would have been someone else’s project, not mine, so I would have to accept another non-place, that would have hosted me for a period, I hope but then I had to find my own way. And maybe it’s easier alone than with twins, it would have been slightly harder to find a space. It’s not easy.
Being the only child of only children, I have always desired to have a family to pass down my family’s legacy; I met my great grandparents and so I’m sorry not to be able to talk about us to someone who has my same genes. I hate to think of this family tree that gets severely cut off. I am full of stuff, I am full of beautiful things: such as my great-grandfather’s cameras, and also my father’s and my mother’s, as my family has been involved in photography for generations, since my great-great-grandfather, so from the beginning. And from time to time this bothers me, although sometimes I think: “I’ll give my things to my friends’s children, saying, “this is for you, that is for you…”. There are moments when I find myself listening to what they like, in order to decide what to give them. I think that maybe these boxes, where I keep all my things, sooner or later instead of being labelled ‘cups’, ‘books’… they will be labelled as ‘Giada’, ‘Stella’, ‘Silvio’ or other names so that my belongings will be scattered around. Other times I think: “I sell everything and when I am old, if I am alone, I will stay in a hotel and do nothing, I will just relax in a hotel, without necessarily needing a house to live in”. At times, it could be comfortable to live in a different place, you will be able to travel, go places, if you have the opportunity to do it. The most precious thing is to be able to walk and have the strength to move. Or rather you can meet a man who has children of his own, in which case the situation changes completely, because at that point you’ll have an extended family, and it is a different perspective; but I think that in any case, I will give something around, because giving is good.
I’ve never been pitied. Mainly because I come from a family where pity, such as, “ah poor thing!” does not exist. On the contrary, straight away try to make you turn pain into strength. Acknowledge this strength and change, that is, try to move it onto something else. Transform your pain! My friends were great too, especially my best friend who was about to give birth when it happened. She had a baby two months later, and it was heartbreaking for me. I haven’t been able to even touch her daughter for months, until one day, she was so amazing to leave me alone with her, saying: “I’m going to prepare the baby bottle” and went to the kitchen. The baby burst out crying, and after letting her cry for ten minutes I said: to myself, “oh well, I’ll hold her”. My friend had hoped this would happen, she gave me the bottle, saying: “You’ve made it, see”? And then she asked me to be her godmother. I feel a strong bond with this little girl, and let’s say they let me be her aunt, and so I transformed it into a role of her great aunt, very present and very maternal too. But I never felt pitied, instead, everyone around me always saying: “Come on! You can do it”! It can be an opportunity to do something else.
I believe that both single women and men can adopt a child. First of all because women have a greater strength to go through this kind of motherhood, as they are more used to it: they are mothers, workers, they are good organizers by nature. We have several levels where we can live, and I think it feels more natural for us to do such a thing.
I always start from this assumption: how many women were widowed after the two world wars, and raised their children by themselves? Weren’t they single mothers? Why shouldn’t people be allowed today to have this opportunity by adopting? After all, I could have been a single mother too, since he left me as soon as he learnt what was going on, I would have been a single mother: what difference would it make? Only that I would have had a man who got me pregnant in a natural way? After all, I find it very natural to have a child and help someone grow up. Very often people think that single people want to adopt out of selfishness, because they want to be like others or because they are missing something. I find that first of all it is natural to have an instinct to pass on, to help someone grow and to give; because in any case you give unconditional love, without asking anything in return; why not? Why should a law decide that as a single woman I can’t adopt? I can’t do certain things? I can’t … Why? What am I lacking? Then again, being single is not necessarily a permanent.
There are those who choose to live alone, while others may be on their own only for a part of their lives, because they have not found yet their soulmate, who is not easy to find. So what’s wrong with it? Being single doesn’t make me a bad person, without rules or principles, that’s the big mistake. I have rules and principles, like everyone else. I went to a school run by nuns, I do not harm anyone; why not? I really don’t see the problem, just as I think there is absolutely nothing wrong in allowing gay couples to adopt. There are no problems, we make them up, problems created by a social structure which is a bit… I dare say, old-fashioned and narrow minded, whereas we are in the 21st century, and we should look ahead.
What I felt, physically, when I was pregnant, and which really shocked me is my body starting to use its full potential. I remember saying to myself, “Oh my, that’s what I’ve made for!”
As if, for the first time, it got itself into motion, and in that moment I thought: “I want to be pregnant all my life!”, if you feel so good… although I had an extra uterine pregnancy, so I was really not in a good shape! Despite this, physically I really felt good. Physically, you have the feeling that your body is finally working, as if it is switched on. But no, I don’t think it’s like that for all women. I think that in general women are more keen, because we are the ones who biologically bear children, and we take care of them usually, but at the same time, there are women who do not feel this need, but this does not mean they are less of a woman, it is just something different.
I also know many men who feel this urge for fatherhood, and who fully embody the role of fathers. Perhaps also because nowadays it’s a little easier to express this need, easier to feel free to do it, it is a pleasant feeling. I know many of them, specially divorced ones, they show a sort of “mom’s syndrome”, they adopt an overwhelming kind of fatherhood.
My mother had me when she was very young, she was 22 or 23, yet she was still very much a daughter. Daughter of a very strong mother, very demanding, at times intrusive, therefore she always remained in the daughter’s role. My mother’s relationship with me is more of an older sister than a mother, and often this has not been very easy for me because I needed a stronger guide, whereas I am the one who is more maternal, at times.
My father was an actor when I was born, so he was always traveling and we didn’t see much of each other. He was also the son of divorced parents, therefore not very easy back then, and he, like my mother, a bit childish too. So, none of my parents acted very much as a parent, and when they want to act as parents, since I’m not used to it, we often argue.
When I had my surgery, and I lost this opportunity, let’s say, from that moment on my father never recovered: he was fine and all of a sudden he began to age, to feel sick. My mother, instead, at times becomes aggressive. We have a weird relationship, it is as if I had somehow disappointed her, as if she kind of blames me for not being a grandmother, for not having what her friends have, and she began to hate small children. She looks at them without knowing what to say. She also tells me: “better this way as I would not know what to do, how to turn them over”. So they are a bit ambivalent, sometimes I feel that they support me more than I need and at other times instead their attitude is devastating, as if it were all my fault. It is not easy, it’s a very difficult situation because it very easily triggers conflicts, and you keep being a daughter. This is also an issue, because if you are a mother your parents think, “you are our daughter, but also a mother”, as if you were more mature person. I find myself alone fighting with the two of them, and always as a daughter because not being a mother, I keep being their daughter and they tend to dominate me, always. This is the real problem.
I’m still dealing with it because there are things that have recently come up, just last Christmas, so only a few months ago. My father brought it up now, so after six years. Slow, at times it’s like a long slow torture. I am working on it because when something like this happens, everyone tries to overcome the pain, but in reality it takes a long time to get over it, not straight away. At first there is the strength and the initial reaction, only after a long time you realize what is still there, and you see how the others have worked on this issue. I went into therapy in order to find a balance for everything, not only on the physical level, but on all levels, which was definitely not easy. I was alone anyway, and when you are expecting a child you feel the need of the other person next to you: he wasn’t there, so I had to manage by myself. After I tried to find again a balance within myself. They didn’t work on it, that’s the problem.
As for myself, personally I would love to have a place to go back to, where I could keep everything while I travel around the world; for a while it was like that. I grew up in this house for many years and where before I used to have all my things. Then I decided to move somewhere else and all the boxes you see have been like this for nine years.
I have done nothing but travel around, leaving all the boxes here, that is almost my whole life
except a few clothes I have at my parents’ house… in short, various suitcases. Here is almost my whole life; except some furniture that is scattered around the rest of the house but all my plates, cups, books, the cameras belonging to my great grandfather, who was one of the first photographers, so I have a lot of things I care about, and that unfortunately, sometimes I forget where I put them, I can’t even reopen all the boxes.
I always say that since I come from a Central European family who settled down in Italy and decided to be Italian, and in reality I am the first true Italian after several generations, I have the great migrations in my DNA.
My place is not here, I don’t know where it is, I feel it is not here; I searched around trying to find where it was but I still don’t know where it is. This is why the boxes represent me, because I have had all my things packed up for so many years, that I am trying to figure out where I should be. This does not imply a very strong anxiety which stops me from doing things, it is just that I go to places and I have to feel at home. I still haven’t found my ‘home sweet home’, that feeling of ‘That’s my place!’ I haven’t found it yet that’s why I prefer to have my things in boxes, so when I find it I can leave quickly since all is packed. At that point I don’t have to let the place slip away.
In reality, when I think of my friends’ homes, of my friends who have children, the concept of the house has changed a lot now. Before, I remember when I was a child, the houses were all kept in a certain way; very neat, the living room, this and that. I have all friends whose children paint on the walls of the living rooms, they do whatever they like. They try to set rules, but then they let their children express themselves freely, so they might have a beautiful house, but totally wrecked. In this respect, I am a bit … those with no children are perhaps a bit more strict. I would be more like: “You can’t do this, you don’t do that”. I am very strict. I think that children should express themselves freely, but they should not tear my house down!»
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