The Promise Gap

It's the silly season in Edinburgh. It's Fringe time.

For those of you not familiar with the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, it's the biggest arts festival in the world. A panoply of theatre, music, dance, comedy, and fire-eating juggling street performers. There are shows where people perform naked, doing unbelievable things with certain body parts. There are plays that last 11 hours. There are parades and concerts and fireworks every night.

The population of the city doubles as people arrive from all over the world to partake in the extravaganza of entertainment. This is all great fun, of course, and the atmosphere in town is lively. Plus, it's a real boon to the tourist industry. For locals though, I think it becomes slightly tedious at times. It's impossible to go about daily business without being bombarded with Fringe stuff, including people performing (read: obstructing) your way as you try get on with earning your daily crust. But it's only for a few weeeks.

Tickets are expensive, and if you want to see popular shows, you have to be decisive about it, and book early. The difficulty with this is that often times, you have no idea of whether the show in question is actually any good. It's really the ultimate potluck. Over the years I have seen some wonderful shows. I've also seen some that are utter crap. You pays your money, you takes your chances.

A few days ago, E. and I braved the crowds in town to see a show that we had picked at random from the lengthy brochure of events on offer. The description of the performer made it sound as if this was going to be the most moving, earth-shattering, stunning, evocative, soul-shaking experience of our life. OK, we're not totally stupid, we know that a little hype is in order. But this made it sound as if this particular singer was a sensation that we simply Could! not! Miss!.

Maybe it was because we were both tired and cranky after a hard week at work and other assorted disappointments, but we were less than impressed. Whilst the crowd was undeniably enthusiastic, we thought it...sucked, basically. Hackneyed lyrics, and a phoned-in performance.

Afterwards, I complained to E. that the show hadn't lived up to the expectation I had developed from the description in the brochure. Far from it.

"Ah," he said, taking my hand in his, warm palm to palm. "It's the promise gap."

"Which is?" I asked

The promise gap, he explained is a concept commonly used in business to illustrate the extent to which the reputation of a product or brand lives up to the level of customer expectation.

Take Mercedes, for example. On the whole, Mercedes Benz is noted for quality, class, reliability- great cars. But recently, according to E., customers have been disappointed with what they get for their money. The end product is not living up to the expectation. The promise of something great, on which the consumer relies, is not met. On the other hand, another lesser known, less reputable brands may outpeform expectations by a mile, delivering a fantastic result.

That's the promise gap. The gap between expectation and reality.

Like all things in my life at the moment, I relate this to infertility. I don't think I am alone in that part of this experience has been feeling utterly betrayed by my body. The idea, held for so many years, that all I had to do in order to have children was one simple, natural act. The idea that pregnancy would so easily be achieved that I must go to great lengths to avoid it until I was ready.

Cautionary tales abounded in my youth- that girl in college, who was on the Pill, and still got pregnant! The couple that hadn't even had proper sex- the sperm swam from her underwear, from her thigh, from thin air! Getting knocked up was so easy apparently a guy would have to LOOK at me with come-hither eyes and I would be buying maternity clothes.

Even knowing the reality- that it can be harder for a woman in her thirties to get pregnant, that fertilty declines as we get older- it's still hard to shake off the expectation that it can, or should, happen so easily. A colleague, just back from maternity leave is pregnant again. Oops, she said. Another friend, pregnant the first month they started trying.

I read an article in the paper today of a well-known athlete, who after competing in this Olympics is thinking of taking time off to start a family. I wonder if she thinks, like I once did, that it would simply be a matter saying, OK, we're ready now? Are they prepared for the reality that it may take months and months? That they may need help? That it may never happen at all?

I'm having to close the promise gap for myself. My expectations of conceiving naturally are now officially lowered- I no longer believe it will be that simple. And I'm now pretty much OK with that, much more so than I would have been even six months ago. But I worry a whole new promise gap may be opening- the expectation that the medical profession can help us. That it won't take another year to just to start treatment. That what is wrong can be explained.

Maybe the trick is to have no expectations at all. That way, I won't be disappointed. But it's so hard to approach the future, as if it is a blank page, no map to follow, no beliefs about what is to come and how to feel about that. Not knowing if the show will be as wonderful as the poster says- or something else altogether.