Under what circumstances
A Map of Influences
If I keep to the metaphor of a map or plan, the map of the quest for a child was meant to serve as a walking map that shows all the trails and intersections and even the contour lines by which one can assess the terrain. But many other influences affect one’s completing the tour. For example, the surface of the trail and climatic conditions. We cannot forget about financial aspects either. The journey will be different for a rich person who will hire a plane, sleep in the a hotel, and eat caviar for breakfast, than for someone who will drive an old car, carry a tent along, and eat instant pea soup. The journey will be perceived differently by someone who is athletic and who can elegantly handle the problems on the way, and by someone who loves his or her comfort and is depressed by every blister. Moreover, the journey will be easier with someone who can recognise that you are temporarily at the end of your tether, who can help with the backpack and offer a chocolate, than with a partner who did not want to set out of the walk in the first place, whines all the way and does not want to go any further.
We can, therefore, divide the influences into the outer ones (for example the climatic conditions) and the inner ones (one’s personal disposition). The ‘map of influences’ shows what these can be.
Illustration: Magdalena Říčná
Various influences affect different people to different degrees. What is unimportant for one person can have fatal consequences for another. For example, finances do not play any role for a couple who are simply trying to have better nutrition, while a couple who have used up the allotted number of cycles of assisted reproduction covered by health insurance and still need more, or perhaps a donor egg, finances determine the aspect of whether further continuation of the treatment is possible at all. At the same time, for some couples, methods of in vitro fertilisation do not present an obstacle, whereas these methods can be unacceptable for a religious couple.
(Based on the book The Quest for a Child, Anshan, UK, 2008)
