Fieldnote Feb 11 2024 - 6:27pm

1st Artifact:  Excerpts from my in-depth interview with Eda

This document consists of excerpts from the first preliminary in-depth interview that I made. The research participant is a Turkish woman living in Germany, who had her eggs frozen four years ago. The main topics covered in this interview were her experiences as a migrant, her engagements with the egg freezing technology, and her future aspirations. The excerpts are translated from Turkish.

#1

Eda: […] So I always knew I didn’t want children at an early age.

Beste: Why is that?

Eda: I think I really care about my freedom, you know. My social life and everything. I mean I would like to live life by myself and learn things by myself. I should raise myself before raising a little individual. I always wanted so. And I love exploration. And I always wanted to travel so much. I am not sure if I traveled enough yet but like I said, I wanted to nurture myself and raise myself. Then the child. Now I am thinking that one advantage of being in Germany is that the concept of raising a child here is so different and I find it so much more positive. You know, I always hated the logic “Oh, now that I have a child, my life is over. Now everything is for the child and I don’t exist.” But people here do not give up on their freedoms that much. This is a really significant advantage for me.

#2

[On the idea of having kids soon]

Eda: If I didn’t freeze my eggs, I would be quite panicked right now. I like my life as it is at the moment. And like I told you before, I wouldn’t like to get married just to have kids. I would rather get married and enjoy it for a while. That’s why, I don’t like to rush [to have a child].

#3

[On her reasons for having her eggs frozen four years ago]

Beste: Did your decision have to do with prioritizing your education or social life? Or, for example, due to not being able to right partner?

Eda: We can rather think of it as freezing time. It was not like “I will do this and that first”. I knew that I was not going to have a child anytime soon. But when my AMH level turned out to be that low, I made the decision partly due to panic too.

#4

Beste: […] Do you ever feel like you gained more of control over your own life [having your eggs frozen]? What would it be like if you hadn’t undergone this process?

Eda: My mom used to say “The nature is unfair to womenkind. We are the ones who get pregnant, it literally grows inside us, and then we nurture it. But at the same time, we have a deadline [the end of reproductive age].” I still think about this a lot. I get angry when I think about this. [Egg freezing] doesn’t bring equality to this but I think it helps a bit. Of course, time flies without our control, but in this case, not that out of control. I also find it really cruel that we have vaginas and they don’t (Laughs). That’s why I always thought that men can’t relate to us because they are so much freer in planning their lives because they can [have a child] whenever they want. But that’s not the case for us. I feel angry even when I am talking about this right now but [egg freezing] helps a bit, I mean.

2nd Artifact:  Excerpts from my in-depth interview with Dilara

This document consists of excerpts from the second preliminary in-depth interview that I made. The research participant is a Turkish woman living in Germany, who started considering to have her eggs frozen after she was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. The main topics covered in this interview were her experiences with migration, the reasons why she considers egg freezing, and her future aspirations. The excerpts are translated from Turkish.

#1

Beste: Was motherhood something that you always wished for yourself or is it something that you started considering recently?

Dilara: “It is a thought I started to consider recently, I don’t believe that I will be an ideal mother anytime soon. I am too far from that ideal. But the trigger for this decision [of egg freezing] was to be able to have a child. I think it is a different thing to want to be a mother and want to have the possibility of becoming a mother. I want to have that potential.

#2

[On her plans to have egg freezing]

Dilara: I think egg freezing is such a relaxing process. I don’t know, it should be really relaxing. We have such vulnerable bodies. Our bodies get affected even when we eat something, drink something. So, in that sense, we are really unlucky. That’s why I think [egg freezing] is relaxing because I will have my eggs there, I can become a mother anytime, and nobody will have a say.