What are the chances, after exiting your first fertility-related appointment in two years (with the exception of dumping out all of my fears at last year's pap smear), that you would stop to get a sandwich at a random cafe 45 minutes from home and bump into one of the women who got you through your first round of infertity?

This is the point where I tell you that I believe G-d puts people in your path when you need them.

I went to my hematology appointment today. My friend, L, who recommend the doctor warned me that since he treats all blood disorders, the waiting room is comprised of people with various illnesses and conditions: leukemia, sickle cell anemia, clotting disorders. Sitting amongst other people around my age with varying degrees of baldness from chemotherapy put everything into perspective. And then took it out of perspective. And then put it into perspective. And then made me carry a strange weight of guilt into the examination room.

Infertility isn't life threatening--at least not in the same way leukemia is life threatening. So there was an enormous guilt over the idea that I was taking up appointment time with an infertility-related problem. But (and this is where the wave of serious navel-gazing and reasoning begins--it won't crest for a while. And then be prepared for the crash) infertility is certainly life threatening to children I try to carry in my womb. It's hard to make an argument for unborn children because I let a potential child go unborn each cycle when I don't even make an attempt to fertilize the egg. But still.

The doctor and his medical student were so kind, so understanding, and took me so seriously, that I went into my normal fight or flight reaction with doctors in reverse. I'm so used to a doctor blowing off my concerns until the situation reaches a crisis that I didn't know what to do with a doctor who came in the room, listened to my history, and told me that he wanted to run a full panel of tests because it sounded very likely that I had a clotting disorder and it could be the key to getting me pregnant quickly this go-around.

I started back-pedaling. I thought I would have to bring up my points over and over again. I thought I would have to convince him to do something. Instead, he was telling me that he was willing to do something and I was telling him, "but my losses were all so early." I didn't feel legitimate. I felt like an infertile fraud. I just wanted him to be sure that he understood that my losses were not as huge as other women's losses. That mine were not worth his time.

Truthfully, there was a part of me that felt that we never gave those cycles the attention they deserved. We never focused on the loss. We didn't process it or honour the babies. I couldn't even tell you the exact dates--just the month. Because I was so focused on the next cycle, it was like shedding clothing while you're drowning. You're not thinking about the sweater or shoes you're kicking towards the bottom of the ocean--you're only thinking about getting up to the surface and breathing again. Reading everyone else's loss interviews for the book, I started to realize that we never mourned. We never honoured. I read so many beautiful things that other families did for their unborn children. And all I did was call my OB or RE and ask what we were trying next.

I felt like it wasn't my right to ask for that problem to be treated now when I had never focused on the problem in the first place.

Does that even make sense?

Speaking with this doctor gave me a lot of hope that we may be able to conceive naturally--or semi-naturally. As natural as one can be with Prometrium and Lovenox. We could conceive in our bedroom. With the door closed. And no one watching. And when I say "no one watching" I'm comparing it to seven doctors and nurses looking at my hoo-haa while they all marvelled that they just couldn't get that catheter in. Because this doctor pointed out that the three chemical pregnancies all occurred before I started treatments. Which means that I can get pregnant on my own. I just can't stay pregnant and get that embryo to implant. Though his explanation of my fertility didn't take into account the high FSH or the non-existant progesterone, or the fact that some of the intervention built a better egg, it still sounded so good. I would be willing to try on my own for a bit without intervention if someone told me there was a chance.

After they took 22 vials of blood. And after I fainted when we were 4 vials to the end. And after I staggered out of the office feeling completely embarrassed (I guess I just wanted to be the nonchalant blood giver who could squeeze out 22 vials while still making small talk about Halloween), I decided to stop by my favourite bookstore/coffee house for a sandwich to eat in the car. My husband calls this store my safe space. We went a lot during infertility treatments and we went a few times when the kids were in the NICU. It's always the place I want to go if we get a date night. It just makes me feel good to walk inside. Everyone needs a safe space.

They didn't have a sandwich I wanted and I was about to walk out when I heard a tentative, "Melissa?" It was J, who I had exchanged emails with recently, but hadn't seen much in the last two years. Not only do I have two ladies-when-waiting, but J is my Infertility STAR. My bright, twinkling Says-Things-Amazingly-Right (STAR) that guided me to my clinic, that got me through my first treatment, and yanked me far from the edge of the baby blues after the kids were born. I don't see her often, but when I do, she always knows the right thing to say that makes me see a situation in an entirely new light. She is currently working towards her PhD in clinical psychology and anyone who receives her counsel is extremely lucky. Her words have changed my outlook and acceptance of the situation numerous times during infertility. She truly has a gift and I'm not only lucky to have her in my life, but I'm lucky that she chose to study in the same cafe this afternoon.

Somehow, when I walked back to my car and drove home (still sandwichless), I had found peace with the entire day. Had stopped thinking of myself as a waste of valuable appointment time. Had a good cry and moved on.

I recently received an email from RESOLVE about spokesperson Cindy Margolis's decision to model for the December issue of Playboy (my husband's response: "see...I told you Playboy has great articles"). I'm assuming that there has been a backlash from RESOLVE members and they put out an official statement explaining their position that Margolis's professional decisions are her own. Without supporting or condemning her photoshoot, they addressed it as well as the fact that Margolis will continue to be a spokesperson for RESOLVE.

And while I'm normally not a fan of magazines that objectify women and if I catch my husband with this issue he will be an extremely sad man, but...

I think it rocks.

I think a sexy woman, lounging about in almost no clothing, talking about infertility is bold. Frankly, infertility made me feel extremely unattractive. Profoundly unsexy. Grabbing the fat on my stomach to do an injection while Victoria Secret models paraded around the television whispering about their skintimately fantastic bras made me feel like Ursula in the Little Mermaid. A fat, dried up sea-creature-of-a-woman with a messy ponytail and tear streaks on my face.

So I'm all for Cindy Margolis showing off her breasts and taut tummy (her post-IVF, post-motherhood body). I'm all for men who see her as a sex symbol reading about her infertility experience (one son via IVF and twins via a surrogate). Do I think it's going to change the way people think? Not exactly. Do I think that Playboy is "good" for women everywhere. Not exactly. But am I insanely proud that the Playmate of the Month is talking about infertility and "posing for a purpose"? Definitely. Because she's donating proceeds from the sale of the magazine to RESOLVE. And she's putting out the idea that even sexy supermodels suffer from infertility. And she's making that man who's donating his sample in the sperm palace and perusing a certain issue of Playboy think about why he's there and what he's doing. And that's huge. Did she pose for the good of womankind? Doubtful--I'm sure she's being well-paid and it was a career move. But can I see the silver lining in being able to reach a demographic that isn't necessarily tuning into infertility blogs and the RESOLVE web site?

If it gets one secretly-subscribing lawmaker to rethink mandatory funding after seeing his wet dream discussing PIO shots, then I'm all for it.

Happy National Infertility Awareness Week! So...um...it's not exactly "happy" like your birthday or your anniversary, but since you're living in the Land of If, and since you're going through this crappy experience anyway, you might as well embrace community, reach out to others, and educate.

So what can you do to create awareness?

Start within the community before even moving out towards educating the fertile masses. There are plenty of newly-annointed (or not so newly-annointed) stirrup queens and sperm palace jesters feeling lonely and confused and needing a bit of reassurance and information. Help them to start a blog or point them towards other blogs on a blogroll--reading can make someone feel empowered.

If they have questions, pass along the link to the Peer Infertility Counselor List. In fact, put the link on your blog so others can find it easily and use it. Post it on bulletin boards and spread the word through your fertility clinic or adoption agency.

Wear your pomegranate bracelet and connect with others. Look at other wrists this week. And spread the word! Blog about it, post it everywhere, make a t-shirt and wear it, write it in soap on your car, make bumper stickers, bring threads to other women in the clinic waiting room during your next day-3 bloodwork, make flyers, leave threads tucked into fertility books at the library with a note, tape threads to boxes of ovulation predictor kits at the local food store, write in to your local newspaper--anything you can do to get the word out to as many people as possible this week. Even if you have it as a link on your side bar, post about it this week so other people can find the story when they start googling: what is up with all of these pomegranate-coloured bracelets? If you need the link to the compilation, here it is: http://stirrup-queens.blogspot.com/2006/09/history-of-infertilitys-common-thread.html. You can snag the code for the icon from the bottom of that post. Please use the link in order to give credit to those chickies (and man-pies: thank you, Di-Dad!) who came up with the idea including (but not limited to) Paz, Royalyne, Mandolyn, Aah0424, KE, Ms. C, Piccinigirl, Carolyn, and Serenity.

Post about infertility every day this week on your blog. Flood the Internet with information about infertility so that any stirrup queen or sperm palace jester reading your blog doesn't feel quite so alone.

Oh...and if you're inspired to start a blog this week and start venting about your experience, let me know so I can add you to the blogroll.

And that, my friends, is my big public service annoucement to kick of National Infertility Awareness Week. Later posts will be about actually educating those off the island :-)
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Updated at 6:12 p.m.

I've been tackling the blogroll in pieces, trying to keep all of the categories current. I never remove a blog unless the person closes down their blog and removes it from the Internet. So if you see a blog missing from a category, it just means that it has been moved to a different section. Use the "find" function under "edit" on your toolbar to do a word search and you'll find its new location on the blogroll. Some of the "parenting after" categories have also been expanded to include people who are pregnant or close to adopting. Just so you know since this week is a fantastic week to start reading blogs similar to your own experience. Or to recommend a new blog to a fellow stirrup queen or sperm palace jester.

Jessica at Getting Pregnant the High-Tech Way has simply the best last three lines in today's post and if you haven't read this entry you need to get over there:

"I’ve realized something else. I have become emotionally invested in this cycle. I wish there were a drug to prevent that part."

Me too, Jess. And I think whoever invents that suppressor is going to be mighty rich.

There are one thousand good reasons to adopt and only a few bad reasons to adopt:

Bad adoption idea #1: adopting a child in order to put their nimble little fingers to work.

Bad adoption idea #2: adopting a child in order to make another person jealous.

Bad adoption idea #3: adopting a child so you could be his or her saviour.

There is a thin line between helping other people and becoming their saviour. And sometimes when we discuss transnational adoption, that saviour complex comes bubbling to the top. And when it pokes its head out of the jumbled soup that is parenthood, it makes me worried. For that child and for that parent.

I don't know Madonna and Guy's motives for adoption--I'm not in their head or in their family. I don't know the intimate details of how the adoption took place or what was said to the birth father or what thoughts ran through Madonna's head when something that smelled vaguely like the starting words of an adoption reversal took place. I don't know how deeply invested they are in the life of this child or what kind of childcare they're giving him. I don't know if Madonna makes her kids breakfast in the morning or leaves all nightly tuck-ins to the nanny.

I can't throw stones because I live in a glass house where I'm considering transnational adoption as well. What I can comment on is something she said during her Oprah interview: "To see what I saw. It is a state of emergency. As far as I'm concerned, the adoption laws have to be changed to suit that state of emergency. I think if everybody went there, they'd want to bring one of those children home with them and give them a better life."

And that's what I mean by the saviour complex. Avonlea has a wonderful post about race and adoption as well as class and adoption. She asks difficult questions about adoption and poverty--whether we are more uncomfortable discussing class and poverty in regards to adoption than even race and nationality. And Madonna's words played directly into this idea of removing children from poverty and bringing them into affluence as a means for "bettering" their life.

My fear is that Madonna actually believes that she is helping the country of Malawi by adopting this child and bringing him to England.

As I said in the beginning, there are 1000 good reasons to adopt. I don't think I would be writing this post at all if she said something like this to Oprah: "Oprah, Guy and I realized that we wanted another child and we have so much love and support to give another child. But since we couldn't conceive with my eggs, we decided to adopt. And we met this boy at an orphanage in Malawi and I instantly knew that he was meant to be in our family."

Some humble parenting: I hope we do a good job raising him. I hope that we navigate this new experience well and help our son grow. I hope he knows how much we love him and how he is now one-third of my heart.

Anything other than thoughts of saviourhood and how much he needs you to parent him. How about how much you need him to be a parent?

This weekend is just the perfect storm of activity--visit from the inlaws, twin club consignment sale (selling, buying, AND working in it), National Infertility Awareness Week, and I'm certain many Halloween activities thrown in for good measure. The true question is whether there will be time to swing by the salon for an eyebrow appointment...

While next week will obviously be dedicated to all things spooky, this week was sweet: both true sweetness such as Tara's wonderful news and bittersweet as Manuela discusses life after Shoelet. But they say it better than I can...

Tara over at Plan B found out this week that her plan B worked--her surrogate is pregnant with her baby! With a beta of 204 at 11 days post 3-day transfer. Which is amazing, amazing, amazingly fantastic news. And...on the Twilight Zone-y front...her father always predicted that something big would happen for her in October. In October!

Recently, Artificially Sweetened turned me on to the phrase "Google Med School" through her blog. AfriIndie Mum's entry this week about getting blood test results back and spending the day engaged in a round of medical sleuthing drives this idea home. It's not that medical information didn't exist prior to the Internet. We have a huge medical library a few miles away that I use constantly. But now it's so eaaaaaaaaaaaaaasy. I just hit a few buttons and two thousand Web sites pop up with information about antithyroid antibodies. The problem with being a medical student at Google University is that you have just enough information to become worried, but not enough information to actually understand the big picture. It's a great entry, and I hope everything turns out okay when she speaks to her doctor next week.

Sarah Solitare got a big old box of fun this week in the mail: her meds arrived! I always had my meds filled (perhaps like an idiot who didn't know how much less expensive it could be to fill them all at once via the mail) at the pharmacy in the clinic building so I've never had a box like this arrive, but I assume it feels a great deal like Christmas. A big, infertile Christmas. I'm trying to laugh about it because if you don't laugh...you cry. Hope you get it to fit on one shelf--or better yet, hope you're shipping it all off to someone else very soon. And congratulations on the saline sonogram.

Jen and Gretch at Butterbeans and Baby Dreams are experiencing a little thing I like to call ICBFT--an "I Can't Believe the Fucking Timing" (which, for anyone who cares, I pronounce ick-ba-fat). Their next IUI is going to possibly fall during the one day that Jen has her engineering certification. That takes 8 hours to complete. And is one-hour away. What are two chickies to do except pray and keep taking OPKs like crazy women? I think the timing dance of infertility is one of the more annoying factors that no one thinks is a big deal...but is always a big deal. I mean, it doesn't hurt, it's not embarrassing, it doesn't cause complete devastation. But living your life by a calendar and clock is difficult to do and means something always has to give. Hope the surge miraculously holds off until Monday (wouldn't that be cool?).

There's no way to end this week without talking about Manuela at the Thin Pink Line. If you haven't been over there for a bit, please comment and leave your good thoughts. She has an amazing post this week about the birth and her future plans. And I think she just has an incredible point-of-view--of life, of birth, of motherhood, of this process. And I wish it had all turned out differently, but since I lack a magic wand...I wish her strength while her heart grieves and sends love to her Shoelet.

National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW) begins this weekend on October 29 and runs through November 4. RESOLVE has set up programs around the country through its local affiliates to educate the public on infertility issues. The three ways they suggest taking part in NIAW:

Learn. RESOLVE is here for you—to answer your questions and get you the information you need during your family building journey.
Cope. You are not alone. Attend a local RESOLVE-sponsored support group or event. You can find one in your area.
Take Action. Contact your representatives and ask them to support legislation affecting infertility treatment and adoption.

From their website, you can download sample letters to mail to local newspapers and other media sources about NIAW. I think it's very empowering to still be doing something to combat infertility even when your body isn't cooperating. As I said in my last post, some things are out of our control. But raising awareness isn't.

From the RESOLVE website:
If you have any questions or need more information please email our Marketing and Membership Manager, Rebecca Flick at rflick@resolve.org.
Download a sample NIAW Press Release.
Download a sample NIAW Letter to the Editor of your local newspaper.
Download a sample NIAW Public Service Announcement.
Download a sample NIAW Calendar announcement to submit to community calendars in your local newspaper.

If you're not already a member of RESOLVE, this is a good time to join and find out about all the resources they offer to those experiencing infertility. This includes a helpline, a great magazine, and local programs and support groups in your area.

So go kick some ass and educate people this weekend.

A few weeks ago, I received a surprising email from a friend in the area. She had given notice at her job, given notice at her apartment building, and was picking up and moving alone from Washington, D.C. to California at the end of the month. No job in hand. No place to live. No true knowledge of the area.

And you probably just read that paragraph and thought the same things that I thought when I first read the email. Is she crazy? What will she do for money if she can't find another job for a while? Where will she live? Why would anyone give up their stable life for a cross-country move without reason?

There were the selfish thoughts: but I'll miss you. And the incredulous thoughts: do you really think this will make you happier? And the other incredulous thoughts: California is just so far away from everyone you know and love. If you want warm, why can't you try Florida?

And the jealous thoughts: how fantastic would it be to live on the beach? How fantastic would it be to be at the mouth of this brilliant new experience that could lead to...anything?

I don't want to move. I don't want to pick up and start over somewhere. That truly didn't run through my mind. I'm happy where I am--location and situation. But there's this excitement that comes from the first day of school or the first day in a new city or the first day of marriage that is so fleeting. Anything could happen. And you sometimes wish you could experience that level of excitement again. Because you forget that it comes as part of a total package that includes many other emotions--some good and some undesireable.

I know that she's scared and I know that she's wondering if this was the best idea in the world. But this is the way she explained it to me. She is not expecting this move to make her happy. She's not expecting that by moving she will meet her future husband or become a mother. She's not expecting that by moving all the pieces of her life will fit cleanly into place and she'll find a satisfying career and a wide circle of friends.

The reason she is moving is that she realized that she could be unhappy and confused in a city that she dislikes or she could be unhappy and confused in a city near a beach that she loves. And she's taking back control of her life. For years, she has been waiting for life to happen, and she's coming to the realization that some of the things she wants are out of her control (sound familiar, anyone?). And she's just taking back the things she can control. Like where she lives. And owning a dog. And spending her free time on the beach. In a town that is sunny 360 out of 365 days of the year. As she said, she could deal with five days of rain. What she couldn't deal with anymore was working in a job that she didn't like and living in a city that she didn't like when she doesn't have the things she wants. She knows she may not have the things she wants in California, but at least she won't have them in a place that she chose. That represents the control she took back in her life.

I'm so proud of her because making those choices are so scary. And they're huge. And they come with a boatload of doubt. Isn't it just easier to stay in a place that you know, even if you're not happy? But she hasn't chosen the easier path. And I'm sure there will still be people who scoff at her decision to move. But why is one reason better than another? Why is it better to move for a job or for another person? She's chosen to move for herself. Not for any fleeting unstable reason--you can be fired from a job and you can lose a person. But no one can take self-awareness away from you. And she had her moment of clarity--her moment of self-awareness--where she looked at her life and thought, I could be doing this elsewhere. And where do I want to be?

And those are the best decisions we make--the ones we do for ourselves and no one else. Without regard to the struggle that lies before us when making those decisions, but trusting that it will all work out in the end. I hope she gets her happy ending. I hope she finds so much peace in California that the other pieces of the puzzle fit into place. I hope the drive cross-country is easy and that she stops at every corncob statue and canyon in the West to gawk. I hope she doesn't forget how strong she was the day she made this decision.

I love you, sweetie. Have a wonderful journey.

After waxing on about the shitty things people say, I wanted to explore that tangential thought about how people feel the need to distance themselves from anything perceived as imperfect. We're all looking for a reason to take ourselves out of an undesired category. We create new language for it--people aren't fired anymore, they're downsized or their company is "reorganized." People aren't irresponsible bastards, they just have anger management issues. And then there are the chickies who come back to let me know that they didn't have fertility issues. They are knocked up. They are with child. Ta-ta!

My sister once told me that she was deeply annoyed that I would call her and cry for an hour about a boy issue and then never follow up and tell her how things turned out down the line. I see her point--once you've vented to someone and asked for advice, there is a bit of an obligation to let them know how things turned out (agree or disagree). Just because they've invested their emotional energy into helping you solve your problem. Therefore, I somewhat expect that once someone has shared their fertility struggles with me that they'll return and tell me how everything turned out. This isn't always the case, but it's nice when they do.

So then it follows that if the person didn't end up having problems, shouldn't they come back and fill you in on how everything is okay?

Well, yes, I do want to hear that all is well. I do want to hear that you're now pregnant. But...I don't want to hear about the line that divides me and you. Because those who return and say, "turns out that I didn't have a problem" aren't really telling me about how it turned out. What they're really saying is that they're removing themselves from that category of infertile and planting themselves firmly in fecund soil.

The Mommy Wars battlefield starts back with the womb. The one-upmanship that sociologists pick apart on the playgrounds begins with who has the more fertile womb. Because what is more feminine, more female, more powerful than the ability to create life? And those who create it without problems are like the girls who aced every exam in school without studying. And needed to tell you that too.

So what could these people say when they came back to admit that they were panicked for nothing? Here's a little sample I whipped up for anyone in this situation: "thank you so much for sharing all of that information with me. It certainly helped because it eased my mind when I was freaking out and I'm grateful that you were so open about your experience. It helped mine in turn and I'm now pregnant."

An obvious question that may be asked by...me...or the person who shared the information: "did you end up seeing an RE or using treatments?"

Answer if you didn't because you really didn't have a problem: "No, we didn't. But I'm still keeping in mind everything you told me because you never know what's going to happen in the future."

Mission accomplished: the truth is exchanged and feelings are saved. The person isn't part of the infertile category and the infertile person doesn't feel subpar. And they join hands and dance in a ring and sing about the "Circle of Life" a la the Lion King.

But women aren't always like that. You have your troops--those chickies who stand behind you no matter what. Who would never date someone you once dated. Who will bring over the tub of ice cream. Who will let you try on 22 pairs of jeans and give her opinion on each one. And then there are the neutrals--who don't factor into this story. And then there are the Mullies--the Mommy Bullies--who start by telling you that they are so fertile and continue into the parenting years by explaining why their way of potty training is the best way of potty training. And judge. And make comments about how parenting is soooooooooooooo easy.

I'm glad I have my troops and that they're large in number. And I'm glad the majority of women in this world fit into the neutral category. And I'm glad that the Mullies who go out of their way to try to make someone feel shitty are somewhat avoidable.

Why does the implication of "I'm not one of you" hurt me? Because it implies that I'm in the damaged category and they're in the undamaged category (again, back to natural is nice). And because they obviously went through a range of emotions about trying to conceive but they're sweeping away reality in exchange for some sugar-coated vision of pregnancy that is filled with an inner light of peace and joy. And by sweeping away those emotions, they're apparently forgetting how I may be taking this information--a person who didn't sweep away the emotions and remove herself from the infertile category even after she had children. It's not that it can't be done--people either talk themselves out of the fact that they ever felt something or it truly didn't phase them. But it phased me and I didn't talk myself out of it. And even if I had accomplished that feat the first time around, it would be back to bite me in the ass on this go-around.

Which goes back to the idea of white lie. Is it better to share the truth in this situation and come clean with your fertility or is it better to spare the person's feelings and dance around the topic? Is blunt better than sensitive or is it a case-by-case basis (and how do you ever decide which way to go)? If I can share my struggles, why can't the other person share their accomplishments? And lastly, do we have a responsibility to go back to the people who helped us along the way and let them know how it turned out?

Because I am Out, with a capital "O", with everyone from family members to the woman trying to buy green beans at the supermarket, I get many people who come to me with questions. These conversations usually start out with "I think there's a problem" and then goes into probing about how we knew we were having trouble conceiving and when we first visited the RE or had testing done. And they ask for details about the different tests and procedures and ask what we know about certain medications or paths to parenthood. And usually these people update us once or twice during their journey and we're ultimately happy for them when they either conceive through treatments or third-party reproduction or adopt.

But twice I've had these conversations lead a few months later with the person telling me, "it turns out we didn't have problem conceiving at all!" With the emphasis on the word "we." As in, we are not you.

I'm not sure why the person needs to share this with me. Do they also walk up to mothers who have children with an illness and point out that their baby is healthy? Do they walk up to poor people and say, "I don't know what to do with all of my cash. We're just roooooooooooooooolling in it."

And in this same category are the people who did use reproductive technology and then tell me that "thank G-d we didn't have twins because we were so freaked out that we were going to end up with multiples." Again, why would you say this to a mother of twins? And why would you talk about it as if you dodged a bullet and I ended up with a curse rather than the blessing of multiples? I think I'm quite clearly in love with the idea that I'm a mother of twins--I've never expressed sadness over this fact--so I'm not sure why the person thinks I would ever nod my head and say, "man, you really lucked out having a singleton. I can't even stop and talk to you more about your pregnancy because I need to get back to my shitty life."

And the only people who top those other two categories are the ones who know that we used treatments to get pregnant but tell me, "oh, we don't have that problem at all. I got pregnant on the first try."

I am well aware that the majority of people in this world, myself included, speak before we think. No matter how thoughtful you try to be, you will end up saying the wrong thing at some point if you engage in enough conversations. But just because I understand it doesn't mean that I'm not hurt when it happens. And because thoughtlessness is so commonplace and unavoidable, I almost never address it. And I wonder if I'm perpetuating it by not addressing it or if it's impossible to eradicate regardless so why even try.

The two times when a person told me that they were not infertile, I pulled out a top-quality, Seher-like "that's so nice." But I didn't explain to them why their words made me feel like shit. While I understand that human impulse to distance yourself from anything considered imperfect, it still negates any emotions they felt up to this point as well as just emphasizes that I'm damaged goods while they are perfect, Grade-A babymakers. And I'm not sure why that emphasis needs to be made (but that is now making the wheels turn for a tangent post since this one seems to be getting too long).

For the people who make comments about how they dodged a bullet by having a singleton, I usually just smile and say, "my husband and I don't really see twins as the devastating hardship that you apparently do." And this either makes them back-pedal and say, "but what I meant was..." or stops that branch of the conversation entirely. But, again, I'm not really addressing how it made me feel and I'm sure the person didn't truly get the message as to why those words are offensive. And, again, I'm not really sure what is gained by pointing out to another person how you don't have their (perceived) shitty situation. It's like walking by widows and saying, "thank G-d I still have my husband. I really dodged a bullet because I was worried I would end up with one who would die young from an illness!"

And the last category...well...I'm not even sure what could be said to them because they're either completely clueless and can't empathize with anyone outside their own experience or they do subconsciously know what they're saying but are so insecure that they need to point out how they trump you--at least in the babymaking department. Because there's never a reason why someone would need to know that you got pregnant on the first try. Unless a person asks outright. In reality, there's no explanation that needs to be made--no tears at a baby shower or secret trips to the clinic that need to be explained. There's just no reason to pass along that information unless you're flaunting it. And when you're flaunting it to an infertile woman, well, that's just thoughtless at best and mean at the worst.

When these situations arise do you address them? Do you let them go? And what do you say? Have you ever handled it very well and can pass on tips to others? And if you choose (like me) to not inform people how it made you feel, why do you remain silent?

P.S. To my sweetest friend who did get pregnant on the first try, but not only didn't tell me, but made me believe that it happened for you after months of trying...thank you. For sparing my feelings with your white lie. Because I know exactly why you told that to me--you knew that the truth would be obvious once numbers were calculated. And even though after math comes into play, the white lie has so many holes that it's ridiculous, I still love you for pretending.

The blogroll is in a bit of a state of disarray. I go through the blogroll constantly to make sure that people are still in the correct category. And while doing that, I decided to create a bunch of new categories within adoption and parenting so that people could find information quickly.

Which means that some of those big categories such as...well..."adoption" have been broken down into smaller categories of adoption (domestic or foster), adoption (international), parenting after adoption (domestic or foster), and parenting after adoption (international). But I'm still in the process of moving people into the correct category. And I'm still leaving up a general adoption category to catch the people who are still considering which adoption path to take until they can be moved into one side or the other. Of course, there are people who straddle two categories (why y'all have to be so difficult?): they already had a child adopted through China and they decided to adopt domestically the next time around. Or they have a child (so they're parenting), but they're adopting again (so they're in the adopting category). When these situations pop up, I place the person randomly in one category. If you'd like to be moved, let me know (thetowncriers@gmail.com).

So, bear with me as I break down those huge lists into smaller categories. Anyone who has been parenting at all has been lumped into one huge category and I'm trying to split that one up along with breaking down that large adoption list (and adding many other adoption blogs I found this weekend).

Lastly, I joined Blogger Chicks (check out the additional blogroll at the bottom of the page--and join yourself by clicking on the link at the top of the list). Which seemed like a no-brainer since I am (1) a blogger, (2) a chick, and (3) a big fan of building community. So check out the blogs listed within there--they range from blogs about motherhood to work to play to just being a kick-ass woman.
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Updated at 11:01 p.m.

Some blogs that I know will have to be moved from adopting to parenting in the next few weeks/months (such as someone who is currently in PGN), I'm moving straight to parenting. Because you have pictures of your child. And you've even possibly spent time with your child. And...well...you're moving to parenting shortly. So. I hope I'm not offending anyone by putting you over in parenting if your adoption isn't finalized. Please let me know if you wish to be moved to a different category.

Sorry--I'm really stuck on the etiquette of this one and don't want to offend anyone.

How would I know anything about myself (or knitting or China) without One Long Yarn? Today, I was scrolling back through the archives and I discovered what type of coffee I am. Actually, my first "type" was so off that I redid the quiz with my alternate set of answers (you know, the ones that you discarded for the one that seemed to fit you better at the time). When I read it aloud, my husband was like, "oh, yes, that's the little nut job I know and love."

You are a Black Coffee

At your best, you are: low maintenance, friendly, and adaptable At your worst, you are: cheap and angsty You drink coffee when: you can get your hands on it Your caffeine addiction level: high

I am normally not a big fan of the general advice column. I mean, how can one person offer advice on such a diverse range of issues—from relationships to divorce to fighting with in-laws to infertility? I know that while I could probably dole out some advice when it comes to certain areas of infertility (treatments--but not adoption or third party reproduction), raising twins, or just being a fantabulous woman-about-town (by the way--that's how fantastic and fabulous I am--the words just merge when they describe me), most other issues in life are just a guess. I don't know for certain how to help someone through a divorce because I have never experienced divorce. My fallback is just to sit and listen. But that's not really...advice.

But I was pleasantly impressed with Ms. Hax this morning and her recent Tell Me About It column.

TELL ME ABOUT IT
By Carolyn Hax
Washington Post Staff WriterFriday, October 20, 2006; Page C02

Dear Carolyn:
My wife had a string of first-trimester miscarriages over the past two years. Devastated us both. Now she's five months pregnant, gorgeous, glowing, healthy (according to a new doctor we both trust). I am overwhelmed with my excitement; she is numb with fear. She hasn't told anyone but me, and won't even let me be happy for us. I know our baby will be okay and I feel like we're missing out on being the happiest we've ever been. What should I do now that it turns out my excitement isn't as contagious as I thought it was?

Carolyn's Answer: Consider your wife, whose fear hasn't been as contagious as she had probably hoped. This is not a gratuitous downer, it's the truth: You don't "know" your baby will be okay. Nobody does. Most babies are okay but some aren't.

And, someone who has internalized bad news, especially recently, won't buy into a mood that's built on a belief that bad news won't happen. Not only does it directly contradict what she has felt in her own body, it minimizes it. It's like you're saying, "Okay, the fetus is healthy, we're all better now!"

You don't mean to do this, you mean well, I think that's clear. But you're essentially denying her grief, which is no doubt still fresh. In fact, the joy of a healthy pregnancy can actually exacerbate grief by underscoring what she lost in those first babies.

It can also make the specter of loss loom even larger: If she feels she barely made it through those early miscarriages, how will she endure a loss now, or, unthinkably, later on, when the love for her baby grows with each passing day?

This probably sounds like a primer for how you don't want to think right now. But I'm willing to guarantee she's thinking it already, so nothing you say will be persuasive until it sounds like the truth and not just wishful thinking. She might even benefit from talking to others who have been through similar losses, so she can work these things out at her own pace; your obstetrician should have a ready supply of resources.

I think your optimism will help, too -- once she hears that you get it. You get the risks, and you're excited and unafraid to love your baby anyway. Maybe because you're not denying life is tenuous, you're accepting it -- and so you take your joy where you can.

Not sure if Carolyn ever experienced a pregnancy loss or pregnancy after infertility/loss, but I was duly impressed with her advice.

What's your take?

Knew I could count on you guys to find out what happened on Grey's. Have to say that I'm not that impressed with the "secret." First of all, I feel like we already knew that from another episode. Second of all...well, there is no second of all, but it feels like there should be a "second of all" because that was a really lame secret.

My whole house smells like vegetarian chicken soup. What? Vegetarian chicken soup? I'm so glad you asked. I've been trying to create a soup stock that tastes like chicken soup but is completely vegetarian (without using any of those premade veggie bases that taste like chemicals). And I think I'm getting closer. We're putting this batch to the test tonight with a pot of pho ga (Vietnamese chicken soup). Email me (thetowncriers@gmail.com) if you want the recipe for my "no chicken" soup. You can use it in place of chicken stock in any recipe. The only catch is that if you make it, you need to write back and tell me what you think so I can keep tweaking the recipe.

And what is the best thing to do while you wait the hour and a half for the pot of soup to cook down into golden goodness? Read blogs.

A huge congratulations to Ella at Nothing But Lemons. It's still quite early, but she just learned that she's pregnant. Woohoo!

Southern Comfortable posted a 100 things list this week. I've been meaning to do one of these for a while. Perhaps I will get to it this weekend. Top of that list: I've been trying to create a recipe for non-chicken chicken soup. I think my favourite part of Soco's post was about leaving for her cruise: "I've had at least three people tell me that I'll get pregnant on the cruise. Aha! The solution to our infertility was there all along! A vacation-- silly me for not thinking of it earlier! Gah. Luckily, I knew all three well enough to explain that, no, we won't be getting pregnant on the cruise, considering that I won't be ovulating during the cruise. I also think that, somehow, a cruise was unlikely to be the solution to my blocked tube. I know these people all meant well, but good grief." I love this image of her explaining how ovulation works. Right...so the answer is that you need to time the relaxing with when you're ovulating. Silly, Soco, don't you know that you should have scheduled your cruise around your cycle? Hope you have a good trip and post pictures when you return.

Makariya at Two in the Infertility Boat has a gorgeous post on why she's not out to her parents (specifically her mother). Unlike Grey's Anatomy, the end of this post was a total surprise. And I think it's such an interesting twist on how we choose who to tell.

Those Pommie girls at Pomegranate have declared their blog a celebrity-free zone. At least it's a celebrity-bashing-free zone. After the brouhaha with Madonna's adoption this week, they posted an entry on the fact that Angelina Jolie, Meg Ryan, and now Madonna are adoptive parents--regardless of what they do. Their adoption aren't more unique and interesting and wonderful. They're just adoptive parents trying to create their families. The Pomegranate ladies ask: "At Pomegranate, can adoptive parents (all of us reading and also beyond) be just that: adoptive parents? Women? Men? People? With good intentions and insecurities and hopes and shortcomings?" The gist of this entry is that we shouldn't judge each other's decisions--and we shouldn't do it just because the person is famous and the story is out there in the news.

Serenity has done it again with a gorgeous post about infertility and marriage. The stress of infertility has caused many a divorce, but it can also have the opposite effect--working together day after day under duress can strengthen a marriage as well. Which is what it has done for Serenity. But she came to that understanding over time. It's not that they've been without their fights, but realizing that you're standing on the same side of the river with someone who wants to cross it just as much as you do is a huge moment in a relationship. And one that carries you over to the other side and life beyond.

Being the good wife, I waited until my husband came home at 8:30 p.m. to eat dinner last night. No problem--I'll just tape Grey's Anatomy. EXCEPT THE VCR BROKE! We only discovered this at 9:45--too late to discover Mark and Addison's deep dark secret. If you watched, what happened last night?

I swear, knowing the indiscretions of Addison Shepherd will help me get the Friday Blog Roundup out sooner.

Apparently, it starts back around age two.

Two days ago, I'm looking out the window. It's dark and damp and threatening to rain. When I comment that I don't think we'll be able to play outside today, my daughter glances outside and says, "it's not dark out; it's nice out. Not dark. It's nice. It's nice, Mommy. Okay, Mommy? It's not dark; it's nice."

Really?

Last week, I sat down on the kitchen floor and started crying. My daughter came up and stared at me. Finally, after a minute of watching me cry, she tells me: "Mommy is happy! So happy!"

I know one thing that drives another person to minimize your pain or provide a new story about your emotions: when someone loves you, they don't want to see you hurt. Rather than allowing the couple to mourn after a loss, they're immediately told stories that are either comparative in nature (do you remember our neighbour back at the old house? Well, her daughter miscarried at 14 weeks) or minimizing in nature (at least it happened early. It's not as bad as it could have been). You're told to be thankful for what happened vs. what could have been. People want you to get through the mourning process as quickly as possible and seem surprised if you're still speaking about the loss long after the fact.

I know another reason why we do it. Mourning is uncomfortable: not just for the couple experiencing the loss but for the people who need to comfort them. Msfitza had a post this week about seeing a woman she knows at Costco. The woman, who knew about her loss, did an I-can't-see-you maneuver where she suddenly became deeply interested in a stack of books when their oversized shopping carts passed one another. I like to call this move the you-just-suffered-a-terrible-loss-and-I-don't-know-what-to-say-so-I'll-pretend-that-I-don't-see-you (or a YJSATLAIDKWTSSIPTIDSY. Which shouldn't be confused with the LBWWMTDASADFFIHAOTAC).

And it's not just pregnancy loss--we do this to each other over anything that falls into a sad-inducing category. Divorce, break-ups, job loss, bankruptcy, death. There's always someone there in your life who tries to convince you that it's not that bad. That it could be worse. That you shouldn't be feeling sad right now; or, if you have to feel sad, you shouldn't feel that sad. Or if you have to feel that sad, you shouldn't feel it for too long. Think back to any time in the past six months that you've been having a crappy day for no reason. I'm sure if you expressed that idea to someone, they gave you a sympathetic, "I'm so sorry" and then immediately changed the topic with the hope of changing your mood.

Because people don't like to see other people sad. Sadness is just one of those emotions that needs fixing. Like anger. If you're angry, you need to fix it. You need to get out of that emotion. And if you're sad, you need to fix it. It seems like the only emotion that doesn't need fixing is happy. No one tries to get you to stop being happy. Which would lead one to believe that we need to be happy 100% of the time or as close as we can get to that emotion in order for other people to be comfortable. People understand if you're sad for a period of time after a loss, as long as they also know that you're going to be working yourself back to that happy place. People who don't work themselves back to that happy place tend to be shunned in our society.

There just isn't a revered spot on the guest list for the party of life for the widow who has been in mourning for three years or the infertile woman who is miserable or the middle-aged man who suffers from depression. They're invited to the party because they have to be invited to the party. But secretly, most of the other guests are hoping that they snap out of it. That they don't bring them down. Because it's an uphill battle, fighting to be happy all the time. Fixing all of those emotions to only read happy. And it's hard to be around a person who still wants you to be mourning with them. Or who needs not to be cheered up, but be allowed to experience what they're experiencing. It's not that they don't want to move away from mourning--but not everyone finds that door out of hell.

Which leads to my question--if we know how crappy it feels when someone is trying to change our emotions for us (through stories, through goading--I mean, what is it with people telling those who have just suffered a pregnancy loss that they need to try again?), why do we do it to other people? Why does this phenomenon exist at all if we truly understand that golden rule: do unto others as you would want done unto you?

Hmmm...sorry that I can't muse on this any longer. I need to go convince some people that their feelings aren't valid and they should just be happy by now...

Back to the quote I introduced a few days ago...

The funny thing is that when I wrote that down, I was in the first month of trying to conceive. We were near Deep Creek Lake and we passed a church on the way to dinner that had this quote from Alain de Botton. I wrote it down because the journey I thought I was on in that moment was the journey to motherhood. I thought I was going to get pregnant on the first try (I mean, seriously, how could you not believe that in the way they freaked us out in high school about practicing safe sex?). In fact, I had a pregnancy week-by-week book with me on the trip so I could look up what I would be feeling in the third week of pregnancy. Yes, I truly mean the third week as in before the implantation that never happened.

So what ultimately was my journey? Trying to conceive with infertility being an obstacle? Or was motherhood the journey with trying to conceive merely the turnstile at the start of the path?

Why did this quote stop me when I found it on my palm pilot? Certainly, I think we can all agree that there are thoughts that came from my journey. An entire blog full of thoughts. But de Botton was speaking literally about travel in this quote. His book is about "how we imagine places before we have seen them" (or...perhaps...babies before we've seen them?). And "the soothing effects of train travel and its ability to stimulate the imagination and help us work through problems."

Is it that simple; just hop on a train and you'll be able to see your entire world an an entirely new light? You'll find the solution to whether it's more sensible to adopt or try one more IVF cycle. Or whether you should try the testicular biopsy or move to donor sperm. I think too many times, we take our troubles with us to a new location. All we've done is move places with our baggage--we haven't actually unpacked it. And if we were to open the bag and unpack it, we would see the same damn sweaters and jeans that we had worn back home--just now in a new space. Folded into a new, temporary drawer.

Do I think that I have come up with new ideas while on a journey? Of course. I can think of plenty of times when I've had the luxury just to stare out the car window for a solid hour, not distracted by doing anything other than thinking. And I've come up with story ideas or ways to word a letter or job prospects. But I've never made the big decisions that way. A good long cry is the midwife of those thoughts. And when a solution to a problem has been discovered on a trip, I've never felt like it was the act of traveling that created it. When a new understanding has occurred while I'm away from home, it's simply because it was the right time. My mind was finally able to accept the answer that had been buried in those twisty coils of tissue for probably months without recognition.

I'm hearing de Botton's smarmy voice in my head saying, "uh uh Melissa. You are too simple. Think back to your travels. The first Clomid was taken on the road. The first Follistim injection was given in a hotel room. All the turning points have been away from home. I am...how do you Americans say....correct."

Maybe dear Alain has a point.

This is also the point where you add in your favourite church signs...

Though we were supposed to light the candle at 7 p.m., we went an hour early so the kids could be involved in the process. I spent an hour of the afternoon trying to find a small candle holder. In the end, we wrapped one of our Shabbat candlesticks in foil and placed a single candle on the counter.

"Shabbat!" my daughter exclaimed, even though it was Sunday night. "Challah! Eat challah. Light candles. Two candles. Shabbat!"

"Actually," I told her, "it's not Shabbat. We're going to light one candle. It's a different day where we remember something...different."

Thus began an APM--an awkward parenting moment. One of those conversations that you wished would go in a certain way, but you have no idea how to take it there. You wish the words would magically come into your mouth. Or that your children would just understand without speaking the difficult ideas you need to impart. The birds and the bees. Why bad things happen to good people. Death.

"Sometimes," I said, putting on my lightest voice so that I didn't do grave psychological damage to her two-year-old mind, "babies aren't born. You know how you came out of Mommy's tummy? Well, sometimes there are kids who don't come out of the tummy."

"Shabbat!" she called out again.

"And..." I said, turning towards my husband and realizing as he sat there staring at me that I was probably going to be the one doing the sex talk down the line, "we're lighting this candle for those babies. And giving them a voice. What do you think the babies would say if they were born?"

"Waaaah," my daughter informed me.

I looked at my son who nodded seriously. "Waaaah."

"Well, there are Mommies and Daddies who miss hearing their baby cry. And they wish their baby was here like you are so that their baby could cry."

"I say, 'don't cry babies!'," my daughter told me. "Don't cry Mommies. Don't cry Daddies."

"Sometimes Mommies and Daddies need to cry," my husband reminded her. "It's okay if they cry."

"Before we had you," I told them, feeling both like this moment was not going in any direction I wanted it to go AND feeling like this was exactly what needed to happen as my daughter serenaded us with Baa Baa Black Sheep apropo of nothing, "we had other babies who weren't born, so we're going to light this candle for them. And for all the other babies in this world who weren't born. So we're lighting this candle for Zoe. And for the babies who we never named but were lost in the months of November, February, and March. And for the blighted ovum who was supposed to be your triplet."

And that's when I felt my voice started to break. I'm so grateful that we have these children. And I'm grateful that they act like two-year-olds. And I'm grateful that they have each other. But how can you not miss the kids who could have been when you see what was in front of you? Our losses were so early; too early to be named. And, for me, too early to be missed. I was always focused on next, next, next and trying again and figuring out what was wrong. And I was so sad in the moment. I once threw my glasses on the floor because I was so surprised to see the blood on my panties. But after a day or two of mourning, I was thinking about what we were going to do different that cycle. And lighting that candle made me think about those babies that never happened. That never implanted or never stayed implanted or never grew.

After they were in bed, my husband and I were lying on our bed, his head on my chest. "Were you sad tonight?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he answered quietly.

I'm glad there is this day on the calendar that forces you to remember. Because sometimes, we get so goal focused that we forget the people we passed on the path. And I loved remembering them tonight--not the sad moments when everything was over, but the heart-racing excitement I felt when I thought something was finally starting.

Last night, I was scrolling back through old notes in my palm pilot (didn't that just make me sound like a businesswoman? A smart, sassy businesswoman? Instead of a woman with a stain on her shirt?) and I found the usual--old shopping lists, reminders to look up something on the Web, and lessons learned from reading church signs. Don't we all write them down when we get to the next traffic light? Please don't tell me that I'm the only person with a palm pilot full of pithy sayings from billboards.

But this one felt very fitting and I wanted to throw it out there: Journeys are the midwives of thought (by Alain de Botton).

What does that mean to you and your personal journey?

P.S. There is money involved for the first person who finds two midwives named Journey and names their child "Thought." I'm just throwing it out there.

Children Mentioned: Still not feeling very funny this morning. Perhaps it's the fact that my trip to the mall to buy my daughter stockings was a total bust. Seriously, children's store after children's store were selling black baby stockings. Baby stockings! When I inquired where were the plain white stockings, the employees stared at me blankly and said that they didn't sell light-coloured stockings. Because perhaps all babies are headed for a goth look this season. Perhaps they've put away all the light-coloured stockings because it's Friday the 13th.

But more important...the blogs.

Carolyn at This Sorta Fairytale had a great post this week about anger. Sadness came prediagnosis, but anger followed once she knew what was wrong...and what caused her infertility. I have a bunch of thoughts on this that I'll try to put into words over the weekend, but head over to her blog and read the entry because it's very interesting: is a diagnosis in the hand worth the emotional pain in causes?

Cecily at and I wasted all that birth control has an equally interesting entry on forgiveness. I think my favourite part of the post is her husband's ability to forgive and not carry anger into his relationship with his mother. Being able to forgive is a powerful thing--especially being able to forgive when an apology is not forthcoming. It made me think about the places in my life where I'm still storing anger. And how it affects me emotionally. And how all of that could be solved if I just forgave--even without the apology in my pocket.

Thalia over at Thalia's Fertility Journey had her anonymous blog suddenly become known by her RE and clinic, and all hell ensued. Her safe space where she could vent about treatments (both ART and...well...how she was treated by other people) is suddenly gone and she's contemplating what to do. It sounds like she may stop writing for a bit so she can think things through. I, for one, will miss her greatly. She is funny and smart and always provides thought-provoking writing. I'm sorry this happened, Thalia.

Lastly, over at Her Very Own, Akeeyu, has some very beautiful and heartbreaking posts about taking care of her father who is dying of cancer. I think the line that punched me hardest in the stomach came a few weeks ago when she first began writing about this process: "My father is dying without any grandchildren." It broke my heart and reminded me of a woman I once knew from the RESOLVE boards who found out that she was finally pregnant and that her father was dying all at the same time. And I just wanted to send a lot of strength her way. Hang in there, sweetie. This is the worst of life--at some point, you will have to be out of this space. Being out of this hole will be bittersweet because you will have been in the hole to begin with. But. There is sunshine when you come out of the hole. I hope you climb out soon.

My brother called me this week to let me know that my blog isn't funny.

"Infertility isn't really an amusing topic," I told him.

"But it used to be funny. Before you started reading eight pregnancy loss books a day."

(Add obligatory, Paul Shaffer-like drum roll to cue laughter)

It has been making me pause. And consider things that I hadn't really stopped to consider. Serenity had a great comment this week that when she had an early miscarriage, she didn't know whether she was mourning the loss of the baby or the failure of the cycle. And take that a step further because sometimes I didn't even know whether I was mourning the failure of the cycle or the failure of myself as a woman.

(Um...Mel...this really isn't funny. Where are the stories about putting on knee-high boots and accompanying your husband into the sperm palace rooms?)

When we conceived the twins, there was a third sac--a blighted ovum. The RE directed our attention away from the sac, continuously talking about the twins every time I asked about it. And I barely acknowledged it except for when I lost the sac 8 weeks into the pregnancy and ended up crying in the therapist's office. And again, was I crying about the fact that the baby didn't form or was I crying from fear over seeing that much blood and cramping during the pregnancy.

Or was I just mourning the entirety of the experience of infertility itself?

(Damn, Mel, seriously, put down the pregnancy loss books. Pick up something light. Something fun. There's a Plum Sykes piece of fluff in your book bag. Read that.)

Sometimes I wonder if it's healthier to keep barreling through--keep trying after the loss, move on to adoption, have a few more tests--or whether it's healthier to pause for a bit. Give yourself time and space to mourn that is imposed by your own needs rather than matching your mourning time to the IVF slots at the center. How many people have jumped into the next cycle before they were emotionally ready just because they couldn't really handle the idea of sitting out a cycle and not trying? I know I can't stand the idea of waiting. I'm impatient by nature. And any time I was told that we had to sit something out, I became a bleeding mess. When I talk about a self-imposed break, I mean at any point in the process--not just after a pregnancy loss. Because there's a lot to mourn even if you haven't suffered a miscarriage or a late term loss. There's a lot to mourn in infertility itself.

(Plum Sykes? The Debutante Divorcee is just breathing in anticipation for you)

And I think sometimes I only considered those losses in terms of what they meant: what did we learn? How can I stop this from happening in the future? What is the greater meaning of this loss? Rather than taking pause and considering the emotional side of the loss. At some point, I started thinking like an RE instead of thinking like a woman trying to conceive. I was emotional, but I took the emotions out of the process and instead the emotions were directed at myself--at my own failures, at my own short-comings--rather than at the not-yet baby.

(For the love of Jesus Christ Almighty, put. down. the. pregnancy. loss. books.)

A man and a woman walk into a fertility clinic. The woman tells the RE, "we want a baby. With my eyes and his nose." The RE rolls his eyes and says, "his nose? I wouldn't do that to a kid even for the $12,000 IVF price tag!"

Ba-dum-dum.

See, it really isn't funny.

A set of questions pertaining to everyone who has suffered one or more losses--from chemical pregnancies and early miscarriage to ectopic and beyond to late-term loss and...here is where our language is lacking...death of a child soon after birth.

Actually, our language is lacking left and right. We use the term "failed cycle" to describe both the failure of IUI or IVF. But there is a key difference. With IUI, fertilization may or may not have taken place (obviously, implantation has not happened either, but that's a different story). But with IVF, an embryo has already been formed. You are, in a way, pregnant during every IVF cycle. It's just a matter of implantation. So what is the word to describe this type of loss?

What do we call that child who is born alive but dies soon after birth? We have another term--stillbirth--to describe a child who wasn't born alive, but why don't we have a name to honour those who are born alive and die soon after?

Are there words connected to loss that bother you--especially medical terminology (habitual aborter comes to mind just because those who haven't suffered a loss may hear habitual aborter and think it is something entirely different).

These next two questions ask how important is it to you (on a scale from 1--10) that people use the correct terminology to describe your loss?

1. How important is it to you that they differentiate and use the term miscarriage if the loss was prior to 20 weeks or late-term loss after 20 weeks (on a scale from 1--10; and explain your answer if possible)?

2. How important is it to you that they use the name of the correct type of loss (ectopic, blighted ovum, molar, chemical, stillbirth, etc)? Again, the scale is 1--10 and it would help if you could explain your answer.

Kotapress has a fantastic online dictionary concerning loss, but depending on your religious beliefs or how you view pregnancy loss, not all people would be comfortable with terms such as angelversary. I started using terraversy (a combination of terrible and anniversary--with obvious connections to the idea of in-ground imbedded in the word) to describe those terrible days--date of death or lost due date--just because it doesn't have religious connotations. And people process loss differently--I think it's important to be inclusive so that however you view your personal loss, you can still have language to describe what happened and how you feel.

A huge thank you in advance to everyone who has already helped me with this chapter by providing interviews or sharing your stories of loss. Writing this chapter...just sucks. Whereas in every other chapter there is an element of hope--yes, things can go wrong, but ultimately, there is hopefully a child at the end of the path--this chapter...well...I don't think I need to finish that sentence for you to know what this chapter is about. Thank you for being open to answering my dozens of questions--I want to get this right so that it serves the greater community and doesn't just speak to my personal experience. And some of these losses are outside my experience--such as late-term loss. And without your stories, I wouldn't be able to do this chapter justice.

More questions to come. This is just a week of questions, questions, questions. And feel free to email your answers directly to thetowncriers@gmail.com if you don't wish to post them in the comments section.
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Updated at 2:20 p.m.:
Joan added this question in the comments and I thought I would move it up here:

Do you differentiate between a chemical pregnancy and a miscarriage?

She explains: There seems to be disagreement even in the medical community. A midwife in my OB practice told me a chemical pregnancy "doesn't count" as a miscarriage. My RE said it absolutely does. Does calling it a "chemical pregnancy" make you grieve any less? In my case, I think it did, but losing the chemical pregnancy was much more painful physically than the miscarriage I had a year and a half later at 6.5 weeks. Go figure.

October 15th is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day. The good people at Remembering Our Babies is spearheading a movement to have everyone light a candle that will burn for at least an hour at 7 p.m. (whatever your time zone) on the 15th in order to create a wave of light.
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Updated at 1 p.m.: Thank you, Kay, for sending this link. Wanted to post it again in case people missed it in the comments section:

The link to the House Concurrent Resolution supporting Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day and calling for a presidential proclamation regarding the same is here.

Next time you see me out of sweatpants and a t-shirt, look out!

Fertile women dress to impress, U.S. study finds

A reintroduction to the word "glum" by my lady-when-waiting. A perfect way to sum up my current mood. As she pointed out, it's an eyeore-sort-of-a-word that doesn't come up nearly enough even though it fits those moody days where you can't quite pinpoint what's wrong. It's up there with gloomy, though "gloomy" has a goth-teenager-writing-bad-poetry feel to it.

So glum.

Glum.

Sigh.

You come to the computer, filled with deep thoughts about medical controversies and medical discrepancies and differing opinions. And then you stare at the screen for a while and finally decide to type in what you read from Preventing Miscarriage.

First off, though I had initially been a little put-off with the opening of the book (it had a tinge of manic cheerleader: you can have a baby, you will have a baby, go team!), perhaps because I don't like people to make promises that they can't keep to all readers. But I grew to love this book when the river of information began flowing. Mostly because reproductive technology changes minute by minute and even books written two years ago seem outdated in light of new discoveries.

The only drawback with this book is that the "interview" stories comes from his patient base. And all but one person interviewed was ultimately successful in carrying to term. Therefore, take their glowing reviews of the author with a grain of salt. Then again, since the author practices in New York and seems to have many tricks up his sleeve, he may be someone who you'd want to schedule a consult with if you have recurrent loss or recurrent unsuccessful IVF cycles.

When I broached the topic of clotting and immunology disorders with my OB, I had no idea about this can of worms. I was confused by his reaction, but after hearing your stories and reading a few books, I'm beginning to understand that there are whole layers of in-fighting (sometimes connected to off-label use) within the medical community. Sort of like the Sharks and the Jets. And like the Sharks and the Jets, anyone who cavorts with a member of the opposite side is in danger of...a sound rejection and mocking (which doesn't sound dangerous, perhaps, but try having someone mock you when you are strung out on hormones and grasping at anything that is going to get you--and keep you--knocked up. Not a pretty picture).

This is from the book: "IVIG has been used by doctors for over 28 years to treat autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis, but it is new in the treatment of miscarriage and IVF failure. This is an 'off-label' use for the drug--a new use for an already approved drug...(p. 187)"

Which is what made me pause. I had thought that IVIG was a new treatment--and it's not. It's an off-label use. And more on the politics of this in a moment.

One of his patients stated this: "I admire the doctors who are prepared to stand up for the immunology treatment. If no one was prepared to fight the conservative ways of medicine, we'd never get any changes accepted. It seems to me that it's become quite a political issue. Some doctors refuse to treat women immunologically, even after several failed IVFs. So the women have to go secretly to get the treatment. I've heard doctors say IVIG is like witchcraft. One screamed at his patient and told her to get out of his office, then he slammed the door behind her. But women talk to each other or search on related Internet sites."

Not being a doctor, I don't really understand the controversy that surrounds off-label use of accepted treatments. And what goes into establishing a drug's usage in the first place. I can understand doctors rejecting non-approved medications--especially if taken in conjunction with treatment prescribed by your doctor (though, with a situation like Domperidone, which is approved in other countries, I'm betting that some of the decision-making comes from pressure from the drug industry lobbyists). With doctors, I understand the desire to have control over a situation you are being asked to control.

But I've seen this before when the lactation consultant recommended Reglan (don't do it, don't do it) in order to increase milk production (instead of doing something like...oh, I don't know...checking my prolactin levels and making sure that I still produce prolactin and it wasn't wiped out by...oh...fertility treatments or something). Reglan is actually a reflux medication, but it has the added benefit of increasing milk production (if you produce a normal amount of prolactin in the first place). An extra use, let's say, to an already established medication. The OB waved the whole thing away at first, but later gave in with a "if it's what you want to do" (can we note, for a moment, the fact that he too didn't offer to run some simple blood work when I told him that my milk still hadn't arrived after three weeks? It wasn't until months later that I saw the endocrinologist when my new OB sent me).

And perhaps it's just my perspective, but the controversies over off-label use seem to pop up quite often when it comes to women's reproductive health. Which goes hand-in-hand with the lack of desire to be agressive and treat a problem. Or search for the root. Again, my experience is limited to matters of women's reproductive health. But I would love a study done that looks at off-label usage of medications and see how quickly they're established as commonplace, accepted treatments when they're outside vs. inside women's reproductive health.

It's the ungodly hour of 6 a.m. and I am driving through small town America thinking about the bicycle I left behind when I moved from Massachusetts. Her (because every hot pink bike is a "her" in case you didn't know) name was Amalia Skofeld. And she was gorgeous. Rescued from the side of the road. Rebuilt by the commune (yes, I once lived in a group house/commune). It was an indoor bike and I liked to ride it around the top floor of the commune, thumping on everyone's door. Why wasn't it an outdoor bike, you ask. Because we rebuilt it. Which means it was hardly safe. But I loved it.

I was thinking about Amalia Skofeld this morning because I was driving (at 6 a.m., in case you missed that fact) to a massive, indoor yard sale. I am a huge lover of the indoor yard sale. This particular one was run by a twins club and contained only baby items. I go to two or three a year. We've been trying to practice sustainable living and commit to having a certain percentage of our toys and clothes recycled. I also love vintage toys--the old Fisher Price people who looked like tubes with knobby heads. The Playmobil sets BEFORE they changed the horses from blobs into...well...horses.

So I spent an hour sifting through some godawful clothing (last night, my husband gasped and said, "we don't know how they dress in Columbia! What if the clothes are hopelessly out of style? What if they're from...2005?" But I've watched enough television lately to know that everyone, across America, has got their "fash" on. Thank you, Old Navy commercial) and toys to find a fantastic pair of black velvet bellbottoms for my daughter and 85 pieces of fake food for our toy kitchen. I'm going to be cooking up a delicious meal of plastic peas and rubber eggs tomorrow night. Come. And. Get. It!

I left the sale and made my booty call (you know, that phone call you make after you leave a yard sale to let everyone know what you found. That's everyone's definition of a booty call, right?). And drove home still thinking about Amalia. Partly because of Murray's post the other day about what we can do to protect the environment--I think bringing Amalia back to life somehow fits--but also due to Bea's post about the photograph and why she doesn't want to take it.

I was really thinking about the day I left this bicycle back in Massachusetts. I didn't have a bicycle rack or room in my car so I decided to leave it with this family who had taken me in for meals many times when I was an impoverished graduate student. They were extremely poor themselves and had ten (I'm sure it's more by now) kids. I knew they would be embarrassed if I offered them the bike so I decided to leave it in their garage while they weren't home with a note explaining that her name was Amalia Skofeld and I hoped they would love her as much as I loved her. As I was leaving the house, the father came home unexpectedly and I froze. He looked at me and he looked at the bike and I just said, "you didn't see me here today." I jumped into my car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw my bicycle or this family. My mental photograh of myself during grad school involves resting the kick stand on the floor of that garage and saying goodbye to that bike.

So how does this tie in to Bea's photograph? One of the points of her post is that she doesn't want to remember herself like this--she doesn't want photographic proof of herself childless when she was supposed to be a mother. When she had been trying to be a mother for so long. When she expected to be holding a child in the next family photo. And I was just thinking about all the old photographs of myself and how they capture how you wish to remember yourself. You usually take photographs during special moments--days that you want to remember forever. Rarely do you ask someone to photograph you while you are sitting on the bathroom floor, sobbing your eyes out after seeing yet another negative pee stick. You hand them the camera to record happy moments or things that were important in your life or places that you've been. So your photographs aren't really an accurate remembrance of life--they're just a recording of happy moments.

There are all of these photographs of me on top of Amalia Skofeld. And when I look back at those photos, I think about how happy I was--just riding my bike around the top floor of the commune with no inkling as to how much misery we would go through a few short years later when we tried to have a child. In Bea's last photo, she was sipping tea at the Ritz in London, oblivious to the fact that by the time the next photo rolled around, she would be enduring IVF cycles.

One of the only photos I have of myself from those years trying to conceive the first time (that wasn't taken on a trip) is a photo that was snapped at a dinner party. A few minutes before the guests arrived, the RE had called with bad news--either it was a negative beta or a cancelled cycle because my estrogen was too high. I locked myself in the bathroom, sobbing hysterically. I could not calm down. I heard the first person arrive and my husband tell him that Mel was just getting dressed and could he take coats and pour drinks? Later in the evening, someone took my camera and snapped a picture of us. And I look like I'm faking it. I'm smiling, but you can see something is truly wrong. How do I feel about having that photograph now?

And is it important to take those pictures and keep those pictures and record all the events of our life--not just the good ones? Remember how we looked when we were in that terrible space of limbo--not a newlywed with marriage rolling out in front of you nor a parent cradling a baby. You're in limbo, between those two happy places. And the camera keeps rolling. And recording. And you have to remember.

And later recycle and reuse how strong you were during this time period to get through a different, unrelated struggle in life. Because that's the other way you can view the pictures you take right now. You were at your saddest point, but you were also at your strongest. What is the saying? Women are like tea bags, you never know how strong they are until they get in hot water. And you are freakin' boiling right now. This is the hot zone. And if you are slogging through, if you are still trying, if you are making decisions, if you are filling out paperwork or waiting for your referral, if you are giving yourself injections, you are possibly the strongest you've ever been. Remember that and record it.

As you all know, my favourite infertility distraction is cake decorating and if you have to dump a lot of time and money into classes to stop yourself from sitting at home and poking your sore ovaries, then I suggest taking up something that you can utilize down the line. And what better skill to have than cake decorating? Everyone loves a cake. Everyone. Except for the people who don't. But they don't count.

Yesterday, I made a vanilla cake stuffed with raspberry buttercream and covered in vanilla buttercream. And painted pale pink cherry blossoms over it for a couple in my husband's office who had just gotten engaged. Really--I'm that nice. I bake cakes for my husband's coworkers.

Last night, we were watching Ace of Cakes on the Food Network and I couldn't help but notice how steady Duff Goldman's hands were as he painted an outline on the side of a cake. I enviously pointed this out to my husband who replied, "you never see a cup of coffee in his store, do you?"

At that moment, we both looked down at our shaking hands and I thought, "whatever. I am not trading coffee for cake decorating." I've given up quite enough, thank you. Including that second 16-ounce cup. Great--leave it to me to choose a skill that sucks away all the joy from life...

I mean, except for the joy of eating homemade cake.

In regards to torturing the LBWWMTDASADFFIHAOTAC on Halloween, we need to aim for things that cannot fly through my front window. This punk wouldn't help a hysterical middle-aged (am I middle-aged yet?) lady with a cricket. He's not above throwing a potato through a window (by the way, I love the idea of a potato. One sprouting things). We still have a box of Christmas candy canes in the pantry that can be put to good use. And a half-eaten dum-dum...

Can you believe how much energy I'm putting into thinking about this?

Ba-blogs-ba-blogs-ba-blogs...

Domesticated has officially turned into an adoption journal. As you know, I am deeply indebted to JJ for introducing me to the beautiful world of IM this week. In addition, I love her recent post on her MIL. Okay, so I don't love it in the sense that I love how much stress she brings. But JJ writes so eloquently. I think it was A Few Good Eggs that had a chapter about cutting out the stress in your life. And treating IF like the crisis it is and cocooning yourself for optimal relaxation during a cycle. And it's an interesting idea--especially once everyone starts coming out of the closet about who is causing the most stress in their lives. Obviously, there are friends that you can avoid for a cycle or two. And there are friendships that don't survive the crisis. But what do you do with the relationships that can't be shut off (like a familial one) but are the straws that break the camel's back--those moments of stress that are more than you can endure in an already grueling cycle? And do we have a right to hold certain people (like you own parents or a sibling) at arm's length for the sake of self-preservation? It's an interesting idea--I'd love to hear your thoughts. In a little over two weeks, her home study begins! Good luck :-)

In other adoption news, Steph over at Mommy's Adoption Journal proved my point again that you're a mother long before you start the actual process of recognized mothering. She was read a post about a category 4 hurricane headed right towards Vietnam. And her son, Dylan, who is currently 6 months old, is still in an orphanage in Vietnam, one mile from the coast. The story has a mostly happy ending. The children were evacuated farther inland and the babies were fine. The orphanage itself is a different story. The roof and windows are gone. Her post felt like one of those slow-motion scenes where the mother is watching her child in danger and is helpless to reach him in time. It was a maddening experience, with your child halfway across the world and unable to cradle him close. I hope he's in your arms soon, Steph and Chris.

The Muriels has a great post about being your own advocate. And this new wave of patients that know more than the doctors. Okay, at least more than the GP. Here's where the frustration lies--you know just enough that you can't walk away from the possibility, but you don't know enough to interpret results or assign treatment. By being thorough, she got her GP to test her NK cells with a Lymphocyte Subsets Test. But now she's waiting for the immunologist to interpret the results. It's such a different world from even our parent's generation. People don't blindly follow their doctor--they research, they request, they know. And you know that I'm all for passing along information and using the Internet to our advantage. Sometimes I feel like if you don't know the right questions to ask or you're not pushy enough with your health care, you can end up taking this meandering path through the fields of Infertility. And I'm all for anything that shaves even a few months off the process.

The Anonymous Infertile at Random Ramblings has a lovely post about weddings. Which seems fitting considering the two posts this week comparing break-ups to infertility/pregnancy loss. Her frustration with weddings comes from looking at the couple and thinking back to that time when she thought everything would be easy and parenthood would follow soon after marriage. The wedding couple is still inside that fairytale, whereas Kel has moved into a nightmare that involves ovulating only three times in the past two years (by the way, sweetie, I love how you look at it--"Even normal 'fertiles' sometimes don't get pregnant in 3 cycles so the way I see we just have to keep trying"). Regardless, it's a bittersweet post and one worth reading.

Murray at Remaining Products of Conception is obsessing about the environment after watching "An Inconvenient Truth" and muses about the state we're leaving things in for our children (not to mention that this is all about mothering Mother Earth). She ends the post with a great list of small things she is doing that will make a big difference. And it is true--you can't wait to have things dictated to you. You need to take action into your own hands. So bring your own bags with you to the grocery store instead of taking plastic ones. Plant a garden. Walk or bike to work. And join Murray in her quest to start Mothers Against Global Warming :-)

Normally, I am not a huge fan of Internet petitions, but I'm making an exception because this is actually tied--albeit in a roundabout way--to the Internet. Google, as you know, sometimes creates what is called a "doodle" in order to present a visual image for a holiday or to raise awareness for a cause. They've had some pretty random doodles in the past. Beyond Halloween, 4th of July, and Thanksgiving (both Canadian and American!), they've celebrated Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's birthday and the Lunar New Year.

The March of Dimes is trying to get Google to create a doodle for Prematurity Awareness Day (November 14). Prematurity is a major condition affecting as many as 12% of all births -- that's over 476,000 babies a year. And that rate is rising. As you know, this cause is near and dear to my heart because the twins were born prematurely and spent three weeks in the NICU. Both were IUGR and had stopped growing inutero. Anything that benefits the March of Dimes benefits all of our future children. Because that's the thing--you never know when it's going to be you who is affected. So take this time to help out others now so the research continues. And yes, this last part is meant to cause major guilty feelings if you don't take the three minutes to click on the link...

Click here to sign this petition (Mom--that means click on the hyperlinked word "here"). And pass it along to everyone you know. And raise prematurity awareness. And get the March of Dimes more funding possibly in the process. And go thank Julie at A Little Pregnant for posting this on her blog and raising my awareness as to its existence.