Hatching: Experiments in Motherhood and Technology

“There once was a woman who wished very much to have a little child, but she could not obtain her wish.” Thus begins the story of Thumbelina by Hans Christian Andersen. “Many fairy tales are set in motion…by a woman who decides to take an unorthodox, experimental course of action to gain a child…I had never thought I would be that woman.” In the story, the fairy matter-of-factly replies, “Oh, that can be easily managed,” and hands her a magic barleycorn. Ironically, the Walnut Room fairies at Macy’s echo a similar promise as they waft by each table wearing prom dresses and waving glittering wands. They hand each guest a small clear “magic” stone sure to make all their wishes come true. The Bible describes similar miracles in the stories of Sarah, Hannah, and Elizabeth in almost magical language. But my nest of plastic spheres from Macy’s are collecting dust, and I’m left to wonder what happened to my answered prayer? Where is my wish come true? The “fetus in utero has become a metaphor for ‘man’ in space, floating free, attached only by the umbilical cord to the spaceship.” But “Why is it so difficult to become a spacewoman in one’s own life?” Maternity is seen as a mantlepiece, put on the pedestal (or petri dish as the case may be). Some “people had children when they realized their careers weren’t going to work out the way they wanted.” For me, the opposite is true: I am pursuing a PhD in education because children didn’t work out the way I wanted. Childlessness is grieving a choice made by circumstance without my consent. “The process of deciding to have a child has changed my phenomenology of self…How I think or perceive the world cannot be peeled away from my reproductive experience…not having a child is just as much a reproductive experience as having one…I am a multi-minded Scylla of attention and breath and thinking…a meteor trail spread out through the world.”