Selfishness

It's a topic that's been on my mind lately.  Does my fervent perusal of fertility treatment make me selfish?  It's an argument that the fertile crew tends to make.  They say that trying to use technology to have a baby when you've been diagnosed with infertility is selfish.  You'll find reference to this train of thought in the comments section of any public article on infertility. I'm sure you've all seen it.

But how is it really selfish?  Being selfish means that you are putting your wants and needs ahead of others.  How is my perusal of pregnancy hurting anyone else?  My husband isn't being drug behind me by his hair.  He wants this as badly as I do.  I'm not putting anyone ahead of me.  I work just as hard as I always have.  I don't ask for special favors.  I may have asked for more compassion from my friends than I typically do, but doesn't anyone who is going through a major life event?  True - by seeking treatment the grieving process has been extended and we've asked for support for quite some time.  If we had just accepted our fate and not moved forward with treatment, we wouldn't have had constant months of ups and downs.  I've only asked for support from friends, though.  Two of those friends high-tailed it out of dodge and left us in the dust, but others stuck around and continue to love us just as they always have. 

Is it because I have a hard time celebrating other people's pregnancies and births?  That's always going to be a struggle by virtue of the disease.  It isn't treatment that makes me feel grief over my lack of children, it's infertility.

Is it the overpopulation argument?  Because that's a bunch of crap.  We'll just leave that there.

Is it because people think that by not fulfilling the moral obligation to adopt that infertility has apparently inflicted on me that I'm sending a child off to face a lifetime of foster care and group homes?  If this were even an argument worth entertaining, the question remains, isn't it selfish of anyone to have a biological child rather than adopt?  And by that same vein, what does it mean when my husband and I are planning to remain childless if we aren't able to have a biological child?  Are we doubly selfish?

Or maybe it's because of the popular adage, "children are a gift."  You can't try to force a gift upon yourself, right?  By the same token, people say that life is a gift, but you don't see anyone saying, "You know what?  I'm not going to try to keep that leg.  Let the gangrene take me.  It's selfish of me to try to force the gift of life upon myself." I can see that life isn't tangible though, while a child is in essence. 

Is it the money?  Do people see those of us pursuing treatment as being flush with cash that they think could be better used elsewhere?  After all, the high cost of IVF is widely discussed.  Some of us are lucky enough to have insurance coverage, but most aren't.  Instead we make many sacrifices to be able to afford treatment.  The biological predilection is that strong.  The general public doesn't see that or get that, but money can't be the whole basis for the accusations of selfishness, can it?

So where does this selfishness notion come from?  More importantly, how can I be sure that I'm not acting from a self-centered urge.