Tonight we had an audience with The Queen. Ha, ha, ha, I've been saving that little joke for the entire time it took my computer to boot up. I have an affinity for the queen, mostly because we share the same title. She, the ruler of the United Kingdom. I, the tamer of the stirrups. Both of us, in thankless positions. Stiff upper lip (except when I start crying in the middle of the meeting with the RE). Love of hats. She enjoys a good walk. I enjoy a good walk. She likes tea and, by fuck, I like tea as well. She lives in a palace and owns several properties. I aspire to live in a palace and own several properties. The list of similarities is endless.

I loved the film not just because I am totally and completely in love (in LOVE) with Helen Mirren, but because it led to a very interesting conversation on the ride home about celebrity worship. There is a point in the film where Prince Philip looks at the video footage in disgust of the mourners crying and exclaims, "Sleeping in the streets and pulling out their hair for someone they never knew. And they think we're mad!" The whole film made the concept of finger pointing seem so ridiculous in retrospect. The judgements we levy on people we don't know. The assumptions we make based on a small amount of information.

I was thinking about it in the way people jump down one another's throats based on a few words on the screen. When we have no concept what has shaped that person's view of the world. Or what else they would say if we were to engage in conversation. Reading blogs is a privilege. Growing up, no one left their diary open to the world. Even if reading each other's diaries could have saved most of us a great deal of heartache and angst during those middle school years.

I'm thankful for everyone who shares their blog with me. And while I take all with a grain of salt--on one hand, I don't actually "know" you simply by reading your blog and on the other hand, what does it mean to truly "know" someone and do we ever really know another person--I can't put a price tag on what I've learned in the last six months of blogging and reading blogs. Without the editing of a publisher, this raw material of first-hand information is invaluable. I love every typo--yours and mine--that show our humanness. I love the posts that are left up even though we have an impulse to take them back down after a response. I am eternally thankful for the people who admit to their jealousies and foibles and the hushed out side of humanity. You make me stop kicking myself so viciously. We all have our faults.

Helen Mirren admitted in an interview that I recently read (in People Magazine) that she was worried how the Queen would view her portrayal. "I had been invited to Buckingham Palace while I was making the film, but I turned them down because if the film became mortifying to the royal family, I didn't want their mortification to be doubled by me turning up. If they invite me now, I'll go. And if I get a steely stare, then that is what I get." I don't think she will get the steely stare that she fears--though I understand the impulse. We all want to be loved. We all want our work respected. Queen Elizabeth expresses that hurt over her unpopularity post-Diana's death so eloquently in the film.

I think she did a wonderful job of showing the Queen as human. As a woman who argued with her former daughter-in-law. Who thought it was best to internalize emotions and not dump them on other people. While the world was mourning Diana, the Queen was concerned with her grandsons. And rising above the difficult relationships she had with her son and former daughter-in-law until the end. At the end of the day, she is simply another person whose car breaks down now and again. Who owns a cell phone and sleeps with clips in her hair to keep her curls crisp upon awakening. The movie showed her as a human, whereas the press portrays her as an entity. And I love humans. I love seeing their foibles and accomplishments.

I leave 2006 with a large thank you to everyone who had read the blog thus far. And a thank you to everyone who has commented and shared their point-of-view. I still have so many thoughts brewing to carry me through not only 2007, but well beyond. Can you imagine if your kids grow up to find themselves faced with infertility and I'm still yawning on about infertility. In my day, we didn't have these fancy Follistim pens! We had to mix our own vials. In my day, we didn't have implantation information the moment it happened! We had to wait two whole agonizing weeks to find out results.

A thank you to everyone who writes blogs--all the blogs in my blogroll and an advance thank you to the people who will be added this upcoming year as they begin their own blogs.

My New Year Resolution: To listen and read without judgement. When I feel judgement creeping into my mind, looking at the picture of Helen Mirren taped onto the refrigerator and remembering her portrayal of the Queen. Her stiff upper lip, yes. But the way her lips also trembled slightly when she admitted how hurt she was by the way she was judged. And with that lack of judgement, a sense of temperment when leaving comments or blogging about something I read in the newspaper that upsets me. Perhaps not when it comes to huge entities such as insurance companies, but certainly when it comes to individual people.

Happy New Year. May 2007 be a wonderful year.

Sunday to Monday seems like a huge step this upcoming week. It's just a date on the calendar, yet we take the turning of the year so seriously. It's a chance to reboot. It's a chance to start over so to speak. To change something. When I was little, I used to write out the same poem every year on December 31st and slip it into an envelope. I liked to watch my handwriting change. I would make envelopes for myself to open in the future with far-off dates like 1996 listing everything I hoped to have accomplished by that year. By 1996 I wanted to have a harem of boyfriends. I coveted wall-to-wall carpeting. I believed my life would only be complete if I had a white bunny rabbit named Snowball. I wanted to be a mommy. A mommy at 22 somehow sounded right to an eight-year-old.

I have one husband. I prefer hardwood floors. If I ever had a rabbit, I doubt I would name it Snowball. The desire to be a mommy is the only thing that hasn't changed (though it certainly didn't happen in my twenties...).

I hope everyone closes out this year with peace. I hope that 2007 turns out to be the best year yet. I wish everyone ease in keeping resolutions who makes them.

And now the blogs.

My prize for best Christmas post goes to DrSpouse at What am I? She talks about viewing the service as a woman experiencing infertility and the thoughts flitting through her mind. She discusses the connection between birth and Christmas and ends with this thought: "But Christmas is also so much about birth - and I have to remind myself to skip ahead to other parts of the story, where we are adopted as children of God, who are equal with birth children. And also that Joseph, crucial in Christ's lineage, was his adoptive father. Somewhere, tonight, a child is born. Maybe to us." It was just a gorgeous post.

Nica at Life as a Sandwich has a very funny post lamenting all the baby showers she has attended and calls for someone to throw her an infertility shower. Why do we only shower people with love and attention for celebratory life events such as weddings or impending motherhood? Where are the infertility showers where friends provide the couple in need with money for fertility drugs or adoption? Where are the friends giving the couple a day of relaxation to escape all the stress of infertility? Nica may be on to something... Why are we only gathering to celebrate or mourn? There are too many in-between times, the stressful times where we could benefit from people gathering around and comforting the couple. It's food for thought.

Shlomit at You're Still Young! had a funny thought that she passed along to her husband, Sariel, during their last insemination. It was a question that we probably all have asked at some point in our life. We're going on a date tonight and returning to the restaurant of our first date in honour of Shlomit's question... (hint: you need to click on over to see the question and laugh).

Lastly, Stacie at the Twinkies cleared up a lot of confusion this week and put my idea of natural is nice to shame. In case you were vying for the title, Stacie has revealed that she is the most natural mother. Ever. I am fairly certain that she also hums as she cleans the house (both babies in tow) and deers and rabbits smile at her kitchen window a la Snow White. It's a very funny post reminding us of the crappiness of the Mommy Wars.

Happy New Year!

We have a word in Hebrew--b'shert--and what it literally means is that it was fate. It was meant to be. People usually use it to discuss their soul mate--the person they were meant to marry--but read enough infertility or adoption blogs and you'll see the same thought popping up when it comes to children. The child you ultimately parent is the child you were meant to have.

And I love this idea. I love the idea that the waiting was worth it. That it was all a process to bring you to the child you were meant to have in your life. It makes the whole journey worth it because it was all part of the whole--you had to go through that heartbreak, you had to go through those treatments, you had to go through those anxious nights waiting to get your referral, you had to go through all the failed cycles before you realized third party reproduction was the path you needed to take. All those things led you to the person you were meant to hold at night after a bad dream and put bandaids on her knees after a fall. To quote Ben Folds: "Now I know all the wrong turns, the stumbles and falls brought me here." The child who made you a parent is the child you needed to wait for in order to become a parent.

You can't hurry love.

No, you just have to wait.

She said, Love don't come easy.

It's a game of give and take.

The only place where I begin to trip over this idea concerns loss. How does loss fit into the bigger picture? When a spouse dies and a person remarries, no one dismisses that first husband or wife by saying, "their death needed to happen in order to bring this person to their b'shert." And no one would even say that about a child who had lived for a short period of time: "oh, sweetie, it had to happen in order to bring you to your new child." Somehow, we know this would not be appropriate or helpful. But people often use this idea to explain pregnancy loss.

"If you hadn't gone through all of that (pregnancy loss is usually reduced to the word "that" in these cases), you never would have met this child that you were meant to have." And I can't accept that. I see the two events as completely unconnected because I must in order to not reduce the loss. Am I grateful for the children I have? Of course. I could not imagine my world without them. But I also miss and mourn the children who weren't born without believing that they needed to die in order to bring me to the twins. Their lives are completely separate--not small stepping stones to bring me to my b'sherts. They are like the first spouse who dies--b'shert in and of himself/herself. Death and the loss of a b'shert creates a space for fate to step in once again and create destiny.

You can't hurry love.

No, you just have to wait.

You got to trust, give it time.

No matter how long it takes.

To paraphrase Eytan Fox, I'm trying to convince the convinced. You all know that words like "it was meant to happen" do not comfort when it comes to loss. They prickle and they stick in your mind like a cactus needle even months after they're spoken. It is impossible to see how a person's death--whether they were born yet or not--was necessary in order to bring about another step on your journey. It's a very self-focused point of view: that others only exist insofar as how they affect my path. But how to convince the unconvinced that these words hurt terribly? That while you are either still waiting or are eternally grateful for the children you have, you miss the others along the way: the IVF cycles that didn't take, the miscarriages, the late losses, the adoption reversals, the surrogates who fell through.

How long must I wait?

How much more can I take?

Before loneliness will cause my heart;

Heart to break?

No, I can't bear to live my life alone.

I grow impatient for a love to call my own.

But when I feel that I, I can't go on

These precious words keeps me hangin on.

And back to the original thought: b'shert. If it is truly destiny, I can accept that I can't hurry it along. It will happen when it is meant to happen and the only thing I can do is to keep plugging away so that I'm keeping all paths open to chance. And it's that part of the idea that things are meant to be that I love. That makes the waiting bearable even when it feels so heavy that it may crush me beneath its weight. Beneath its wait.

With help from the great Diana Ross (and Mr. Ben Folds)

Hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had a wonderful holiday. To be honest, I'm dreading getting in the car in a few minutes and hearing the normal easy-listening music on our Christmas station. It's as if my best friend has split town in the middle of the night, barely even mentioning that she was leaving.

But a question for you from my notebook that Teamwinks actually addressed this week too:

Here's karma coming back to bite me in the ass (karma in the misused western sense of the word and not in the actual, Hindu sense of the word): In an already iffy relationship, the straw that broke the camel's back was the chance of infertility. A month or two after he told me, I broke up with the boy because he casually mentioned that his doctor once told him that he may have difficulty conceiving since he only had one testicle. I knew from a month or two into the relationship that he was never going to become my husband due to a complete lack of chemistry, but hearing that he might impact my ability to easily have a child hastened the break-up.

Well, you get what you deserve, perhaps.

Since I am the infertile one in my marriage.

And based on something I just read in a book about divorce rates and infertility, would you continue dating someone you intended to marry if you knew that they were infertile? At what point would you want to be told about the person's infertility? Early on (or could that backfire if the person wasn't yet committed and that clouded their judgment)? Later (or could that open hurt because the other person felt like it should have been on the table earlier, even if it wasn't going to affect how the person felt)? Should it come up when you begin speaking about having children? And would it be somewhat easier emotionally to jump into treatments from point one (as Lance Armstrong's exwife did--she knew she would be doing IVF before they ever tried to conceive) or is it a non-issue: even if you know beforehand, it's still the same level of emotional pain expended during treatments?

All things to consider if Josh were ever to leave me...

Since it would be me doing the telling this time.

Western-karma really bites.

Discuss...

We had dinner at my parent's house last night for the last night of Chanukkah. My mother told me that she was bothered by the use of the word "guilt" in the post this week on infertility diagnoses (yes, my mommy reads my blog, and she does call me every time I use a curse word. I was going to write a curse word in this space to be funny, but I know that she will not find that amusing).

(I find it amusing)

She felt the term "guilt" implied something within the person's control. She believed a person experienced guilt over knowing the right thing to do, but choosing a different path. Most of the time, infertility isn't about choices or right vs. wrong. It's about a medical condition and elements that are outside your control.

I grabbed my dictionary.

Guilt (n) 1. the fact of being responsible for the commission of an offense. Culpability for a crime that carries a legal penalty. Remoreseful awareness of having done something wrong. Self-reproach, as for inadequacy (American Heritage Dictionary).

So what is the right term to describe what you feel as you lie awake at 3 a.m., worried about finances and feeling the weight that your reproductive organs are the reason you are spending your money on fertility drugs rather than a vacation?

Only three more days of Christmas music this year and then my Christmas radio station will switch back to playing Genesis and Air Supply. I drank in "O Holy Night" on my ride home tonight. It feels like an old friend is going back home after an extended visit.

Bye, Christmas. I'll miss you. Please write.

And tonight marked the last night of Chanukkah. We lit the candles for the final time and sang a rousing off-key version of "Chanukkah, Oh Chanukkah." I'll leave out the chanukkiah for a few more days on the pretense that I'm just too lazy to pack it back in the cabinet.

Sigh. This is a rainy, cold weekend. A perfect time for reading blogs.

Frances at Unyielding has a gorgeous post about the baby's room. About the various incarnations of the room--from empty to her stepson's room to a gym. And now the room will hold the child that they will adopt. She has a beautiful passage about her mother coming for a visit and she states: "I've been so angry with her all my life but now I am hopeful as I sit in my baby's room; wondering what my Mother will think of the mother that I am in my baby's room." That was such a gorgeous thought--wondering how her mother will view her as a mother. But you need to go to the post and read the thoughts from beginning to end.

For those who like to read and comment on the plethora of news articles that concern fertility, there is a new blog on the side bar on "in the news" called How to Make a Family. And it's been interesting thus far. A good source for news stories (and I believe the blog is written by a journalist). Plus they have a link to an upcoming commercial for a pee stick.

The Cracked Pot had a post this week that included one of the most profound ideas I read all week. She states: "I was hit by this sensation of feeling that that will never happen to me. I look at other people's babies, and feel like I'm never going to get there, that I'm just going to be waiting, and waiting, and waiting some more. And eventually I'll be a shriveled up old lady, and no baby, just a pretty nursery, a closet full of clothes, and a freezer full of milk. I just can't fully imagine getting to the travel stage (or hell, even the referral stage.) I keep waiting for someone to jump out from behind the curtain and yell "psych!" And really, after wanting this for so long (6.5 years) and actively trying for so long (18 months) - it's almost like the wanting and the trying have become a way of life, and it will never, ever actually happen." That final thought: that the wanting and trying have become a way of life. I thought about it all day.

Dosmamas had a post this week that completely stopped me in my tracks--and that is why I love blogs. Being exposed to someone else's intimate thoughts makes you see the world in an entirely different light. They already have a son that was conceived by Charlotte using the sperm of her wife's (S) brother. They are now trying to have another child, but S is having trouble conceiving. This week, they discussed the idea of Charlotte carrying the child again. They are obviously awaiting the outcome of this recent insemination, but they've also started discussing the future. Without sharing all the reasons for why this decision is difficult, Charlotte does admit: "I don't know if S or I can give up the possibility of her ever being pregnant or giving birth. It makes me very sad." It is not unique in the sense that it is an emotional process many infertile women go through as they try to resolve their infertility. Especially if their infertility leads to paths that do not include getting to experience a pregnancy. But what made this situation so unique and what made me sit with it all day in my heart, turning it over, is that S and Charlotte are both women--both supposed to be able to carry a child. And the heartache that must bring to not being able to escape the infertility for moments at a time when you shut the door to the house because your wife is pregnant. It wasn't a question--I was the only person in the house who could carry a child and all the pregnant women of the world were on the other side of that front door. And my heart went out to the two mamas as they navigate this new development. I hope this insemination works and they both get to experience pregnancy. And barring that, I hope that they come to a perfect peace as they conceive (or choose a different path to) their next child. Sending good thoughts their way on New Years this year.

Lastly, you'll probably pee in your pants a little if you go over to read (and sing) the Infertile 12 Days of Christmas that was composed at BigP and Me. But it's worth the underwear change.

Karaoke Diva sent me an interesting clip that was commentary on Angelina Jolie's recent appearance on Larry King Live:

KING: Some other aspects of our extremely talented guests -- you have two adopted children, right? What's that like?

JOLIE: It's the same as my biological child. They're -- I have three, and Maddox -- he's five and he's from Cambodia, and Zahara is two, almost, and she's Ethiopian, and Shiloh is six months. And they are all just like everybody. I love my kids -- they're funny, and they're magnificent, and --

KING: The late Bob Considine (ph) -- the Chicago writer -- wrote, "I have four children; two are adopted -- I forget which two."

JOLIE: That's right. You really do. And I honestly thought, when I was pregnant, I thought, god, I hope it doesn't feel different. Because I was worried. And it didn't feel different -- it doesn't at all.

KING: What do you make of the fuss over Madonna adopting a young African boy?

JOLIE: I don't know all the details and we're not close friends, so I wasn't able to speak with her. I only understand that we all have to be very -- everybody who adopts -- it's a difficult thing, to adopt, probably more difficult in many ways than it should be. But it's great that it is out there. And you have to go through many levels in order to do that.

KING: It should be hard.

JOLIE: It should -- it should be hard to be a parent, period. It should be -- you know, you shouldn't...

KING: They ought to have a test for it.

JOLIE: I mean, yes, you're saying -- and I go through many, many things in order to adopt. I'm fingerprinted, I'm checked, I go through home studies. I go through everything to prove I'm a decent citizen, I'm a good human being.That doesn't -- that didn't happen to me when I gave birth. You know? So it's interesting that there's no background check on you when you bring a child into your home in that way. But -- but I think, you know, that there's -- it was a country that does not have foreign adoptions usually. And so I think she's--I'm sure--smart enough to know that that was going to be unusual.

Jolie's comments during the interview reminded me of the line Keanu Reeves delivers in the movie, Parenthood: "You know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, to drive a car - hell, you even need a license to catch a fish. But they'll let any butt-reaming asshole be a father."

I disagree with Contactmusic.com's take on the interview: "Angelina Jolie insists adoptive parents are more fit to raise a child than biological parents, because their background and personality is thoroughly scrutinised to see if they're suitable for the challenge." She didn't say anything close to that. Instead, she was pointing out the hoops adoptive parents jump through that are absent from the world of biological parents.

It is interesting that there aren't background checks. There's no one turning to you in the hospital and saying that you're too fat or too old or too damaged to parent. Yet countries set up stringent rules on who they deem worthy to adopt children.

China recently changed their rules to exclude many people--not only single parents, but also "those who are obese, disfigured or on antidepressant medication. Applicants who are divorced or had their marriage annulled must wait five years after remarriage, and first-time couples must have been married for two years before becoming eligible, the rules stipulate. Homosexuals are excluded from adoption. Both prospective parents must have body mass indexes under 40 -- in other words, they cannot be morbidly obese."

I question some of the hoops that parents go through who take the adoption route. Why is it permissible to have that level of judgment within adoption, but we wouldn't dream of making some of the same rules for biological parents? Would the world be up in arms if government officials were entering the hospital and removing newborn children from parents who are "obese, disfigured or on antidepressant medication"?

And how many Americans would currently be parents if all of the rules governing the China adoption program (which is not the only program in the world with these limits) were suddenly in place in America?

I can't really put my finger on the "why" since it isn't determined by genetics, but there is a tinge of something akin to eugenics in this new ruling. Instead of weeding out the "undesirable" in order to create a race of blond-haired blue-eyed children, the Chinese government is weeding out the "undesirable" in order to create a community of slim, heterosexual, married adoptive parents. The government has the right to limit their program, and certainly no person has the "right" to be able to adopt (adoption is a reality of the world at large coming together to help raise a child--it isn't a system to create parents but rather one that allows people who can help to step forward to aid that child). Yet the new regulations smack a little too much of Nazi Germany to make me feel comfortable.

I am all for determining the fitness of parents--but that fitness is directly tied to having sound parenting techniques and responsibility in regards to the child. It's not determined by weight or having four limbs or being free of mental illness. Nor is it determined by arbitrary characteristics such as IQ, hair colour, or height. And I guess that's what worried me since, as Keanu Reeve's character pointed out, any asshole can be a parent--that is, as long as they don't engage in adoption.

What if, amid all the wrapped and ribboned gifts there was a little jewelry box straight from the great Infertile Santa and his barren reindeer himself (he's the gift giver at my IF Christmas) given to all with unexplained infertility--the gift of a diagnosis? You'd grab it, right? It would be the first gift you'd open because you'd finally have an answer.

Unless what you want is not an answer but a solution. The key to unlocking your uterus and getting a baby to stay in there for nine months.

I know the grass is usually greener on the other side, but regardless of which side of fence you're currently standing, the methods for getting one pregnant are usually the same regardless of diagnosis. You would still be taking the same medications and doing the same procedures, only now with understanding the reason behind the actions and what these drugs and procedures are supposed to be correcting or circumventing. A diagnosis may save you some time and catapult you past certain steps (no reason for an IUI if your tubes are blocked). There are some diagnoses that come with specific solutions that may or may not be the key that turns the lock--certainly clearing up endo or removing a septum is going to help increase your chances if your diagnosis is endometriosis or a uterine anomaly.

And there are some diagnoses that make the decision for you so that you can stop trying in peace. Though medical science has a funny way of still bringing up the what ifs even in the face of poor statistics. But, regardless, there are times when a diagnosis is helpful to have in the sense that it gives you limits. It can help you move onto a different path.

But beyond these basic advantages to having a diagnosis, at the end of the day, it's the same procedures and medications used on both sides of the fence.

The other side of the diagnosis is the guilt and the loss of hope. What is wrong is not always fixable, which is why sometimes answers just suck. I don't want an answer; I want a solution. Even if your reason for infertility is treatable, the treatments don't always work.

It's just me writing from the other side with a diagnosis in hand, looking at the unexplained side and thinking, "maybe it would be easier for both parties if no one knew why." Because while you don't want it to be the other person's problem, you also don't want it to be you. I didn't want my husband do have to undergo any painful procedures or be saddled with guilt AND I didn't want that for myself. In the end, his SA came back fine and my tests came back every time with another answer. Low progesterone. High FSH. Poor responder. Clotting disorder (hey, that almost rhymed!).

Even though my husband has never made me feel guilty and has been only supportive. And even though I don't feel guilty that my body overproduces cholesterol putting me at risk for a heart attack or feel guilt over any other medical issue that indirectly affects my husband, I feel so guilty that I'm the reason we can't conceive. I'm the reason we spend all this money and I'm the reason that for a long time, we had no children. And if I don't go through all of this, I'm the reason we won't have children. Sometimes, I feel like I have to put my body through treatments simply because it is my fault. That if my husband wanted to choose adoption, I could go that route. But since this is all my fault, I should be willing to do anything to conceive if my husband wants a child biologically related to him.

Which I know isn't rational and believe me, my head knows something much different from my heart. But my heart sometimes has the louder voice. It's almost as if my head speaks to me in my calm, Maryland accent and my heart yells at me in the voice of my Hungarian great-grandmother. And guess who wins out in a shouting contest?

But, again, this is just the grass always being greener on the other side. Which is why I want to hear the other side too. Plus, Kris, who is seriously tuned into the same wavelength as me (and we both jotted down this idea to one another back at the beginning of November), said that she was kicking around this idea too. Start writing, Kris!

Head over to Infertile Fantasies to learn more about Bea's completely online, completely brilliant, and truly international (with participants ranging from Singapore to Australia to the USA) film festival. And while you're there, watch her short (but make sure you're not drinking anything at the time because you'll probably spit it out on your computer screen while you're laughing...)

The real story of Chanukkah is about a war and a rededication, but at some point, the focus changed and now the point of the holiday is miracles. Namely, the miracle of the oil. In every synagogue, there is a light that is constantly lit (ner tamid) and when the people entered the Temple after the battle, they found that all the barrels of oil had been destroyed out of spite. Except for one. And the miracle is that this little barrel of oil, which should have only lasted a day or two, lasted for eight nights, giving them enough time to obtain more oil and keep the ner tamid aflame.

Which is a miracle. It should have only lasted for one night. That was the expectation and that was the norm. But it lasted for eight nights--something completely unexpected and out of the ordinary. And by default, the word miracle refers to circumstances brought about by a higher power. G-d helped the oil last for eight nights.

In the beginning, I used to refer to my children as miracles. They weren't supposed to happen and yet they did (fine, fine, with medical assistance. But still). I thought their birth was so special that it should be equated with burning bushes and seraphim visitors. But here is the problem with the idea of miracles. By definition, these unusual occurrences happened to specific people. These incidents are unique and unusual. G-d didn't reveal himself to everyone in Israel at that time: only to the select few. Who were special. Who could accept the miracle and bring it forward. And once I took a step back from the word, I started seeing that in the end, it was exclusive.

Why were we more deserving of a miracle than anyone else? Everyone deserves to parent who wants to parent. Our bodies are supposed to work--we're supposed to create eggs and sperm. They're supposed to join together. And just because statistically it isn't a perfect system, it doesn't mean that when it works, it's a miracle. It means that the system worked. Sperm are supposed to fertilize eggs. They are supposed to implant in the wall of the uterus. The baby is supposed to remain in the womb for 9 months. And while all of these steps are wonderous--they aren't miracles. Because miracles are what comes when nothing is expected.

When we're working for something and we achieve it, it's not truly a miracle. It's the event that couldn't happen, that was absolutely outside of the realm of possibility, that needs to be reserved as the miracle. Once we start seeing miracles everywhere, they cease to hold importance.

And I know this isn't a popular view. Ask any parent who has been waiting a long time to have a child and is finally holding the result of all of that hard work/pain/science if they are holding a miracle and they will say, "yes." Simply because it seems miraculous--a child that is the result of so many threads coming together: science catching up with the body, the enhanced follicle, the concentrated sperm, the assisted hatching, the blood thinners, the cerclage. Except that all of these threads could come together and do come together on a daily basis. And it is awe-inspiring. And it is moving. And it is emotional. But I hesitate to use the term miracle.

Because in the end, we can accept that awe-inspiring things happen to people who have worked hard and also accept that sometimes those same awe-inspiring things don't happen for another person who has put out an equal effort. We recognize that there are multiple factors at play determining success--the person who responds well to chemotherapy and the person who doesn't. The person who recovers and the person who doesn't.

But miracles are random. Miracles are out of our hands. And they're doled out by a higher power. And I hesitate now to ever call my children miracles because while I find them awe-inspiring, while I am moved just watching them play, while I become emotional speaking about them, I also know that if I were to see it as a miracle, I would be placing myself in a more deserving category than someone else. And we're not more deserving. It's just that one of those random factors brought us to this point rather than a different outcome.

Infertility often brings about a religious crisis. Especially when you receive the message that G-d is doling out parenthood. When it's a series of random factors, it's much more tolerable to think that you didn't win. But when a higher power could make it happen for you, but is choosing not to intercede? That's a bit more difficult to swallow. Because it makes one wonder why they're not deserving. What did they do that made G-d turn their back on them? What didn't they do that they were supposed to do in order to be blessed?

There is a story in Judaism that is often used to explain why G-d doesn't intercede on earth. After that major flood that sent Noah packing the animals two by two into his ark, G-d made a promise that he would never force his opinion on the earth again. He would sit back and watch. He would offer counsel. He'd give strength and hope to people merely with his presence. He wasn't going to wipe out the human population again in order to restore goodness, BUT on the flip side, he also wasn't going to swoop in and remove the bad. We couldn't pick and choose and only have him fixing mistakes and making things well. Therefore, humans were given control to fuck up things as much as they wished. But we could also be affected by chance.

He made a rainbow to sign that contract. Whenever we see a rainbow, we're suppose to be reminded of that relationship. G-d is essentially a parent: he can't remove terrible things from our life and he can't make good things happen. But he can offer us strength just by letting us know that he's on our side.

And I think I like that idea much more than I like the idea of miracles and G-d placing his/her hands into things. My mistakes are my own and my accomplishments are my own. And there is room for random chance blessing me with twins. But it was not divine intervention. I'm not more deserving than any other woman. I'll leave the miracles to things like oil. And maybe peace in the Middle East.

That's what has been on my mind this Chanukkah.

See--this is ten times more interesting than just hearing what the authors have to say about the quote. And, as Serenity pointed out, it's the authors' opinion so asking the question would simply get more of the same. This has been fascinating to hear so many people giving their point-of-view.

We're female factor and we're very out. We're so out that my husband annouced our RESOLVE membership in front of an entire film audience without blinking an eye. After I read that quote in the book, I wondered if our willingness to speak openly is due to the fact that it isn't male factor. And how will we ever really know since it's all hypothetical?

In college we had a massive senior thesis we needed to complete in order to graduate. I had a double major in anthropology and creative writing (which was actually more realistic in leading to a career than my original major which was Scandinavian studies--what the hell was I going to do with that degree except teach Scandinavian studies at one of the two colleges in American with a Scandinavian studies degree?). My senior thesis was on the transmission of infectious disease through religious ritual. The preparation of the body for a funeral continuing the transmission of ebola in Angola. Immunosuppression from hallucinagenic drugs in religious cults. And the drinking of semen in Papua New Guinea.

There was a group of people in Papua New Guinea (and I can't believe I remember this, but the group was called the Kaluli) who passed virility and bravery through the male line by drinking semen. A man's power was contained in his sperm, and the best way to ensure that the next generation were great warriors and could protect their clan was to imbibe the semen of other men.

Um...the point. Part of me has this ingrained--that from Papua New Guinea to New York City, sperm is what makes the warrior: whether that warrior is protecting his village or protecting his Wall Street investment. So I can imagine that if our diagnosis had been male factor, we would have processed it in an entirely different way. Or would we? Because for all the joking about sperm and masculinity, there is the same message passed to women about our bodies. We have "child-bearing hips" and "baby-making bodies." About our wombs and femininity. At the end of the day, even though it compromises my femininity, I admit to the world that I'm infertile. And if we're going to give credence to the importance of masculinity, we need to also give credence to the importance of femininity in navigating the world. At least, that's my opinion.

From my experience, no one has ridiculed us in the holding-the-head-in-the-toilet-and-giving-a-wedgie sort of way, but we certainly have gotten the subtle hints about being a real woman that Road Less Traveled and Teamwinks mentioned.

Maybe the lack of outright ridicule is due to circumstances as Max stated. Usually, when we tell people, we're not in a boisterous situation, therefore the response goes one of three ways: (1) fantastic with the person sharing their experience too or--if they're not infertile--with them offering sympathy, (2) dumbfounded with the person changing the subject, or (3) asinine with the person sputtering out a nervous response such as "well, you're lucky you didn't end up with 7 children." With the majority falling in the first and second categories. We probably have a larger amount of stories about that third category than most people because we tell so many people. When we talk about it, we're usually tell one person at a time or in a quiet situation. I'm sure the response would be different if we were socializing with three other couples at a bar vs. if we told one person in quiet conversation over coffee.

All this went through my head as I read that quote in the book, and I'm glad everyone is chiming in with how they read that quote. It's as if I'm getting to read books through twenty different sets of eyes. Many many more quotes to come--I've been keeping a notebook of ones that have stopped me in my tracks.

Is it longer than one entry?

Yes.

Is it one of your random what ifs?

No.

Is it based on things that you read?

Yes.

Is it twenty questions?

Why, yes. It is. Good guesswork.

I read, as you know, a shitload. Of blogs, of newspaper articles, of magazines, of books. Especially books. And a few times a day, I wish I could start a conversation with the author, hence why I am psyched beyond belief that Elizabeth Swire Falker agreed to participate in the Barren Bitches Book Tour.

But since I can't always reach the author OR I'd rather hear what a plethora of people have to say, I'd like to pose the questions to you. Hence the next twenty or so questions...

In Helping the Stork (by Carol Vercollone, Heidi Moss, and Robert Moss), on page 9, the writers are discussing the reluctance on the part of men to admit to infertility and state, "some feel terrified that friends or relatives will find out and ridicule them--which happens more to infertile men than women."

And I just wanted to start a conversation on perception--do infertile men get ridiculed more than infertile women (and this is really a two-way question; once you've stated that it's male factor vs. female factor, are men mocked more whereas women are given sympathy OR if you haven't stated the reason for the infertility at all, are men still mocked more often than women)? And are women ridiculed, but it's more subtle? If we take into consideration all forms of ridicule--from the obvious rude remarks to the more subtle jabs--is it equal, or do men have a harder time when being open about their infertility because they are met with more ridicule than sympathy?

Discuss...

Chanukkah begins tonight. On a side note, in case you were wondering uses for unused needles after a cycle, you cannot use them to inject jam into your sufganiyot. I know this because we tried one year. The first problem was drawing the jam into the needle--pretty much impossible with the gauge of needle I had on hand (one of those thick ones for mixing Follistim. Which totally dates me. It makes me feel like an old woman now that they have those fancy Follistim pens this time around). You also, I learned, cannot easily remove the plunger and load the needle as if it were a pastry bag. All of this is a shame because I have not found a satisfactory way of injecting the jam into my sufganiyot.

Luckily, Chanukkah lasts for eight nights, so I can always write my miracle-of-the-season-have-hope shmaltzy post later in the week. Tonight, it's all about latkes and candles. And a little game of strip dreidel...

Oh...wait. Before I get to that... (clears throat and hopes her mother isn't reading this entry) The blogs.

Manuela at Thin Pink Line always has a good read. She's not only a gifted writer, but she presents such an interesting point-of-view. Every time I walk away from her blog, I see the world in a new way. This week, she had a post about meeting her birthmother (and these types of reunions in general). She gives, as always, sound advice on this situation--and it's a moving post to read even if this is not your reality. Because her post can be read on so many levels including what happens when one person tries to balance the happiness of everyone around her.

Many of the posts I read this week were extremely moving and emotional. Perhaps it is just that time of year. Sanorah at the Twatlight Zone is waiting her beta. She had a post this week in which she describes herself as feeling "I’m tired, just plain tired. My heart…or maybe it's my soul, is black and blue. I'm bruised, I feel mishandled." She goes on to wonder, "What scares me most is I worry that once I finally reach that goal, finally become a mother, I’ll be so broken that I won’t be any good to anyone. Not to my husband or my child or myself." Her words rang so true and I know that's the fear of many people.

Worrier/Warrior sums up the feelings of many at the holiday season: "The Christmas holidays are coming up and I’m just not feeling it. I used to love this time so much, but now it just feels like things that should be are just missing. It’s not like a sadness or an aching, more just a hollow feeling." I thought she did a beautiful job putting that feeling into words--that hollowness that comes from missing someone who is not yet here. I hope things turn around soon, Worrier/Warrior, and you either find peace with the wait or move ahead with IVF.

Lastly, while the pain of loss is more acute for some during holiday seasons regardless, a bit of the rawness comes from the fact that you end up seeing people that you rarely run into except at parties or community events. Last year at this time, Laura at Nate Nate Roller Skate was pregnant and about to give birth. She was playing again this year in a holiday concert and was asked by the oboist (who last saw her pregnant) about her baby. And what could she say? She explained once again about the horrific loss they experienced 10 months ago and she spent the rest of the concert laughing while they spoke about other topics (all the while, secretly wanting to vomit). She writes about this moment with such emotion and clarity.

People have commented this week that there seems to be a lot of anger in the Blogosphere--people fighting in the comments section and blog posts of pure nastiness. There were people who went password protected this week and others who left the Blogosphere permanently. And I just caution--tread carefully. It may just look like words on a screen, but they belong to a very real person. And anything you wouldn't say to a person's face shouldn't be said just because there is the possibility of anonymity. People are emotional this time of year; blog posts are emotional this time of year. Rather than leave words that could hurt someone in the comments section, just walk away from posts where you disagree and find another blog to read. I am not saying agree emphatically with everything that is written. Simply think before you post: what you hope to accomplish with your comment (offering support? Changing someone's mind?). I think it's important that we minimize the hurt this time of year. You never know what another person has experienced that day.

Just my two cents.

Where are all the freakin' infertile Hollywood writers? If 12.5% of the population is infertile, then shouldn't it somewhat follow that 12.5% of the writers and newscasters are also infertile? So why aren't they influencing what flits across my television set? Where are the movies that show the reality of fertility treatments? The television shows that don't reduce pregnancy loss to a 52 minute storyline that falls off the screen by the closing credits, never to be brought up again? Where are the news stories that discuss advances in treatments without the scary mood music welling up in the background?

There's a television show that used to be on in Israel called Florentene and the distributors have packaged the episodes to be shown at film festivals around the world--both Jewish and GLBT festivals. It was a groundbreaking television show that paved the way for gay characters to stop being tokenized and appear instead as just one piece of an ensemble cast. With homosexuality one piece of a three-dimesional character rather than the defining characteristic.

There was an Eytan Fox retrospective at the film festival last week so they showed the first six episodes. The show is set in the Florentene district of Tel Aviv (an artsy section of the city--think Rent crossed with Friends) and follows the lives of a bunch of twenty-somethings about two years after they left the army (army service in Israel is compulsory--about two years for women and three years for men. So you don't go to college until after service, and many people take a year off after the army). At the core of the show are three characters who went to high school together, all three still mourning their friend (and in one case, boyfriend) who died during army service.

I went to a discussion where Eytan Fox (and his partner, Gal Uchovsky) were discussing how they went about creating their television shows and films. They were never looking to "convince the convinced" but were instead trying to reach the greater population by, as Gal says, "telling stories that are very important to us, close to us, stories of our lives. There’s always something in the movie that is about us."

So where are the freakin' infertile writers who are putting a bit of themselves onto the screen, giving the outsider a greater understanding of what we're going through? That we're not psychotic baby stealers or type-A personalities demanding a child NOW! It's the difference between Florentene viewers getting an insider's perspective on coming out to your parents and the Friends viewers receiving infertility wrapped up in a laugh track.

Friends tackling infertilty: Phoebe will serve as a surrogate for her infertile brother! She can take a pregnancy test a day or two post transfer! And carry to term without complications! And have three healthy babies in the easiest labour ever! Hmmm...how many stirrup queens do you think Friends had on their writing staff?

When Florentene tackles homosexuality, they do it with subtle realism. The son who can't connect with his father after he is told that his medical discharge from the army makes him a "nobody." The turmoil of wanting to cling to who you were and wanting to embrace who you are. And, hands down, the best coming out scene of all time. It is Rabin's funeral and the son sets up a video camera on top of the television to capture his family's reaction. So as they are watching Rabin's granddaughter Noa give her famous speech about her grandfather ("Grandfather, you were, and still are, our hero. I want you know that in all I have ever done, I have always seen you before my eyes. Your esteem and love accompanied us in every step and on every path, and we lived in the light of your values. You never abandoned us, and now they have abandoned you, my eternal hero--cold and lonely--and I can do nothing to save you, you who are so wonderful.") he tells his father--every son's hero--that he is gay.

Homosexuality isn't presented in a neat box that we can leave the theater believing we understand. Instead, Fox gives the viewer a springboard to jump from as homosexuality is painted as a complicated, messy, wonderful element of this main character. He wasn't just presenting homosexuality to the convince the convinced--he was aiming at presenting homosexuality to the outsider without dumbing it down or reducing it. Fox takes the viewer as close as he possibly can to viewing in context.

I want the Eytan Fox of the infertility world to step up and not just convince the convinced, but present infertility as the complicated, messy, and...well...not so wonderful thing that it is. A regular thirty-something woman who works in advertising. And has crappy insurance. And a sister who gets pregnant at the drop of a hat and always put her foot in it. Who gets her beta results right before a big meeting and needs to pull it together to present (but has a boss with a heart-of-gold who covers for her even though this boss has never experienced infertility herself). Who sometimes fights with her husband because they're not on the same page. And who's conflicted about holiday gatherings--both drawn to the Christmas lights like a moth to flame and repelled by the constant baby-making questions from Aunt Margaret.

And on the other hand, she's also on the company softball team. And she goes on vacation. And she drinks sometimes a bit too much. And she never returns her library books on time. Her whole life isn't about infertility--it's just one enormous piece that sometimes overshadows the rest. But the rest is still there.

For that, I would pay for cable or follow the episodes through the film festival circuit. Hell, I would even start my own infertility film festival if there was anything else to put up on the screen.

I dreamed that we adopted a child from Russia. I don't know if it was because I had just been speaking with my mother about adoption prior to going to bed (I was sleeping at her house) or if this is some sort of sign that it's a good road to take. Because I felt very much at peace during the dream.

Important background you need to know in order to psychoanalyze me: In real life, the twins were supposed to be triplets, but the third sac was a blighted ovum. The edge of the empty sac is visible in the first sonogram picture we have of them. I see that photo almost every night in a video that Josh made for the kids. Perhaps that has been on my mind as well, though it is something I rarely think about overall.

In my dream, we decided to adopt a boy from Russia. I decided I wanted a boy who was the same age as the twins rather than adopting a baby. And it became clear in the dream that I was trying to pass them off as triplets rather than as twins and their brother. In my dream, I was scared that the twins wouldn't include him, but my daughter wrapped her arms around him and gave him a big hug while my son circled around them. They kept putting their heads against one another (which was the way my daughter used to "kiss" people when she was little--she touched her forehead to the other person's forehead).

There were all sort of problems--where to put a third crib in their already cramped bedroom. But I kept insisting that the triplets needed to remain together and they all needed to be able to reach each other. So we placed the cribs in a triangle. While I felt at peace with pretending they were triplets, everyone else was worried when I called them the triplets. I kept explaining that it was easier to just call them the triplets than admit that we had adopted the third child long after having the first two. Though I was calling them the triplets even when we were at home.

I woke up and couldn't stop thinking about it. Anyone want to play Freud with this one?

Josh came home this week with a crate of lemons and asked if I could do anything with them (please don't ask how he ended up with a crate of lemons).

When life gives you a crate of lemons, most people would make lemonade. But I used them to make the world's worst and most complicated lemon cookies.

Thanks a lot, Rachael Ray. They will be going into the garbage soon enough--all eight dozen of them.

But the baking process--of which there was over 45 minutes of just prep time to zest all of those lemons and juice them--gave me time to think of a new what if.

What if a close friend or family member couldn't withhold judgement on your infertility/pregnancy loss decisions (for example, they were wholly against IVF and you chose to do IVF or they thought you needed to wait after a loss and you wanted to try again or they thought you should keep trying IVF with your eggs and you wanted to use donor eggs)? What would you want them to say in order to protect your relationship while still continuing with your decisions. Would you rather have them be honest, or would you rather have them slip off the face of the earth for a bit rather than tell you the truth?

Subsequently, is there any way that a person could tell you that they couldn't support you during infertility and didn't want to hear the details of your journey that would still keep your relationship in tact?

Wasn't sure if everyone knew about the AFA's (American Fertility Association) online chat sessions, but there is one happening tonight. I've never done one of these chats, so I'm not entirely sure how it works, but it sounds like you can ask questions about IVF to a doctor from Cornell.

This is the information I received in an email this morning:

AFA Online Educational Session

Don't forget to join The AFA for an online educational session, part of our Connections program. This is a wonderful opportunity to get your questions answered by leading physicians and professionals in the field, learn something new, and find support.

www.theafa.org/connections/chat.html

Date: Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Time: 8:00-9:00 PM (ET)
Guest Speaker: Owen K. Davis, M.D., F.A.C.O.G., The Center for Reproductive Medicine and Infertility
Topic: Assisted Reproduction and IVF - What are your options and how do you decide?

About Dr. DavisDr. Owen Davis is the Associate Director of the Center's Program of in vitro fertilization, a world-renowned specialist and leader in the field of reproductive medicine, and a board certified obstetrician-gynecologist and reproductive endocrinologist. Dr. Davis is a member of more than 10 leading medical societies and is Past President of the Society for Assisted Reproductive Technology. Currently, Dr. Davis is on the Board of Directors of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. In addition, he has served as Chief of the Division of Gynecology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and is a member of the Medical Center's Institutional Review Board.

I receive an email from them every week or so with online programs similar to this one. You can receive this email too by signing up via the AFA's website. Just wanted to pass it along in case it's helpful for anyone.

I went to see a film about motherhood at the Washington Jewish Film Festival called Be Fruitful and Multiply. Afterwards, they had a panel discussion with the filmmaker, a woman from the film, and two researchers. This film, by the way, has nothing to do with infertility and everything to do with hyperfertility. There were four women in the film--the first had 16 children (woman A), the second had 14 children (woman B), the third had 5 children and wanted more but her husband thought they should limit their family size (woman C), and the fourth had been part of a large family and had decided to limit her family to 4 children (woman D).

You would think, statistically, that out of 16 children, one would be infertile. Just based on statistics. But all of the siblings were popping out babies left and right. My husband raised an interesting point--some fertility issues are present immediately and some (like diminished ovarian reserves) develop over time. Are some women, who may be infertile if they waited until this mid-twenties to start, leaping over infertility just because they're cranking out babies by 18? Are they facing infertility at 30 after they've already had 10 children so it's not as obvious to the outsider that there's a problem?

But I digress.

The woman who sat on the panel discussion was the first-born child of woman A. You see her in the film. She's the one sitting around the dining room table, holding her baby while she tells a story about a woman she met in the zoo who chose to live child-free. Her sisters are discussing this woman with their mother (woman A), and they essentially decide that this woman must be mentally ill if she has chosen not to have children.

Um...

As this woman sat on the panel discussion, she paid lip service to living child-free or limiting family size, saying that it was every woman's choice. People are entitled to change their minds, but it felt like she realized the audience didn't share her wildly fertile uterus and she was changing her tune in order to appease the crowd.

But again, I digress.

I raised my hand and asked a question: "how are infertile women viewed in ultra-orthodox society? Are they more supported because everyone is sympathetic to their yearning to have a child or are they living on the fringes of society as an outcast?"

Without actually addressing my question, the child of woman A spoke about the organization A T.I.M.E., which is a Jewish infertility support group. She talked about the financing of fertility treatments and how there is so much support for the infertile orthodox person.

Up until this point, every time an audience member asked a question, it was answered by one person on the panel. But this time, one of the researchers grabbed the microphone and added her own point of view in an incredulous tone.

She told the story of a woman she knew in the ultra-orthodox community who was so consumed by the pressure to conceive and so distraught over her inability to conceive that she made herself physically ill. She became bulimic in an attempt to gain some control over her life. It was a sad story.

The other researcher, who turned out to be a fellow stirrup queen, also grabbed the microphone and added her two cents. Jewish women have the highest rate of infertility out of any other ethnic group. And the rate of infertility increases based on education level (damn, why did I go for that MFA? Thank G-d that I dropped out of the PhD program or my eggs would have shriveled up all together). She pointed out that certain RESOLVE chapters have overwhelming numbers of Jewish members. The point being not only is infertility prevalent in the Jewish community, but if the support is so fantastic, why are the Jews flocking to an outside source--RESOLVE?

Touche.

And I have to agree with her. I think the Jewish community has many great points (and I'm obviously still part of the community regardless of my "but"), but one of the places it fails is in regards to infertility. Like the name of the film, the highest commandment in Judaism is to "be fruitful and multiply." At the minimum, you are supposed to have a boy and a girl to replace yourselves. But what if you can't fulfill this commandment? When that question was posed last night, one woman said, "so you don't fulfill it. It's not a big deal. Not everyone was put on this earth to be a mother." But in the next breath, she pointed out how multiplying is the highest commandment. So which is it?

In Israel, army service is mandatory with a few exceptions. If someone has an illness that precludes them for serving, they would be released from the draft. But just because there was a reason to why they weren't fulfilling this governmental commandment wouldn't mean that it wasn't a big deal. Not serving is a big deal emotionally. And it's a big deal socially. At the end of the day, it's a fucking big deal.

And I'm trying to figure out how to explain this to an outsider. It's not just a disappointment. It's not on the same level as "I wanted to...but." Becoming a mother can be a need and it's a need that blossoms when a person is a child and playing house and becomes louder and louder until the time comes to fulfill it. And then you discover the need can't be fulfilled. And while the outsider, like the woman on the panel, may say, "okay, so you can't fill it--there must be another reason you're on earth. You just have to move on and stop obsessing" it merely reveals the lack of understanding between the non-infertile and the infertile communities. What is the analogy?

Her response was just the outsider paying lip service--of course we support! Of course it isn't a big deal if you can't conceive! No one is judging you!

But you know full well that you are being judged. You're being pitied. Which is almost worse than being judged. And the saddest part was that this woman on the panel probably considers herself to be supportive to those going through infertility. But it was obvious from her answers that she had no clue.

At the end of the researcher's remarks on RESOLVE, my husband leaned into the microphone and said in front of the whole audience, "thank you, and as a card-carrying member of RESOLVE, I couldn't agree more." Announcing your infertility in front of your entire community--priceless. And that, my friends, is strength and conviction--the opposite of lip service.

P.S. The film was excellent. If you get a chance, you should see it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Updated at 7:49 p.m.

Just to clarify, I believe the statistic of infertility rates rising with education levels applies only to the Jewish community. I could be wrong, but that's how I understood the comment. Which obviously makes my graduate degree look a little less appealing right now. I'm not sure if the reason behind this is that people are delaying family building (though I certainly knew people in grad school who were married and trying to conceive) or if it's just an interesting little coincidence. Either way...

Googling "Judaism and fertility" brought this little nugget: "Because proportionally more Jewish than U.S. women have attained higher education, the connection between education and fertility disproportionately affects the Jewish population."

So I guess it's not exactly tied to religion, but instead tied to education. But it's perhaps more apparent in this population because many Jewish women continue their education past college. Strangely, googling education and infertilty did not bring up similar studies that are focused solely on education levels and not education levels within a specific group. Anyone out there in the fertility world who knows of such a study?

And even if I had known about this study before I ever applied to gradute programs, would it have impacted my choice?

Taking a break from making applesauce for Chanukkah (how does applesauce fit into the meal, the non-Jewish reader asks? On top of the latkes!) to clean up the side bar a bit and make it more readable. All the write-up titles flowed into one another so I divided them with numbers.

I added two links that aren't on the blog. One is a hormone level chart (from Fertilityplus) under "diagnosis" and the other is a beta chart (from betabase) under miscellaneous. Both seem like helpful links to have handy.

There are a bunch of new write-ups including unexplained infertility (thank you, Jackie) and questions for a high-risk OB (thank you, Tina). Tina wanted more eyes on her list to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything important. If you've been to a high-risk OB (MFM specialist), head over to her post and see if you have anything to add.

Keep those write-ups coming...

My side bar keeps growing and growing in length. It is now longer than the posts. I find that very amusing. I think it was adding so many write-ups to Operation Heads Up (by the way, if you have any topics to add to Operation Heads Up, let me know. I would love to have a bunch of international adoption ones geared towards specific countries since the process varies from place to place--anyone want to jump in and start one?).

I also added a new poll, but it's so far down the side bar that I'm not sure how many people have seen it.

Lastly, I added a link under the big book icon for the Barren Bitches Book Tour--essentially a book club that you can do from the comfort of your own living room in the hour you choose. Go to the post to read more and send me an email or leave a comment if you want to participate. The more the merrier.

And now, the blogs...

Serenity had a great post this week about conversations at parties. Obviously, if you're doing treatments or in the middle of the adoption process, it's on your mind. Yet no one talks about it. You see people at parties and they ask how you're doing and what do you say? You feel like you're lying if you don't mention that last IVF attempt. But you also know that most people don't want to see pictures of your embryos while they're drinking that appletini at the company Christmas party. Serenity says it much better that I do, so head over and read the whole post...

Teamwinks at Are We There Yet asked an interesting question on Wednesday: why does foster-to-adopt lag behind domestic and international adoptions in terms of popularity? She has already posted a list of books about foster parenting. But it is a good question--why does it not only lag behind as "third choice" in the adoption world statistically, but it also lags behind in terms of printed material and web sites? Why isn't there more information out there to be gathered by prospective foster parents?

I know I posted about this earlier in the week, but it's such a good idea that it's worth repeating. Bea at Infertile Fantasies has started an idea called 50 Good Deeds. Every week, she posts a report card chronicling the things she's doing to give back to the world. Rather than repeat the same crappy year, she's decided to take control of her life by giving to others. And this idea rocks. It rocks for everyone she helps along the way, it rocks for Bea who is turning around her life, and it rocks for every person who is motivated by her great idea to go out and get involved.

Vee at The Sweet Life has been having a hard week--she went to her friend's mother's funeral this week and her own mother is ill. She also had a very moving comment in the center of one of her posts this week. She writes about holding a friend's new baby: "Everyone was oohing and aahhing and they kept throwing in the 'oh he looks exactly like his father.' Which he did but one thing I have learnt was never say who the baby looks like because you just never know. I know for a fact that they didn't use a donor it was an accident, yeah one of those. But I know if I can avoid any pain that any future donor mum or dad have to go through then I will. Even if it is as simple as not mentioning who the baby looks like, not unless the mother or father mention it anyway." I've been thinking about this for a while and the whole biology game and the importance people seem to put on a child looking like their parents. I know I'm guilty of doing this too and it's something I've tried to be conscious about not doing once I realized how those comments would sting if we go ahead with adoption (see, even stirrup queens need to be taught). When I first met my husband's grandfather, I commented that they both had the same hands. And when my son was born, the tradition continued. He was named after Josh's grandfather and he has the hands of his father and great-grandfather. It's something I think about a lot now as we look at adoption. And weighing whether seeing those hands again matters (as if it's entirely up to me!). Or why we can't celebrate and comment on the beauty of having everyone biologically unique. Again, what is the purpose of the biology game except that it makes us feel connected to someone who has passed away. But what about the emotional pain it causes the living parents when people comment about how their child doesn't look like them? Do the drawbacks outweigh the benefits of the game, especially once you consider that this is the reality of the donor and adoption world. And, like Vee points out, the simple way to remedy this situation is to not try to look for these similarities and point them out to the parents.

Baby Blues has fantastic advice--comparing parasailing to infertility--and how the same techniques that can get you though your fear of heights can also be used to navigate the non-infertile world as a stirrup queen (or sperm palace jester--boys sometimes need advice too). You need to go to her blog and read the whole thing--especially before you have to go to all of those holiday parties that Serenity mentioned in her post.

Prior to being diagnosed as infertile--which was my first major experience with failure--I was of the mindset that you should push on to see all attempts to their ends. If you start college, you should finish it. If you begin a project, you should see the final product. I had the mindset that if one tried hard enough, they could do anything.

And then I found out that my reproductive organs weren't in agreement.

As a teacher, I was constantly faced with students who wanted to quit. They would receive low grades on papers and they told me they wished they could drop out of English class. They sat on the bench all season and they told me they wanted to quit the team. They struggled with math and tried to convince me that learning algebra wasn't necessary for what they wanted to do in life.

And I didn't listen because I had this philosophy--this philosophy that you had to try. You had to keep going at it until you succeeded.

To keep busy while we tried to get a baby to stay and grow in my uterus, I started taking classes. Cake decorating, as you know, rocked. Leyning didn't. Leyning is the singing of the Torah. There are little marks that tell you whether your voice should go up or down or hold onto a note or keep it short. Our synagogue is community led, meaning that there is no rabbi who performs the service. Anyone who wants to participate can get up and participate. A friend talked me into taking this class so I could read the Torah portion on a Saturday for the congregation.

Except that I sucked. I sucked hard. I just couldn't get it. I had learned to play piano by ear, and trying to read marks from a sheet and translate them into a sound was very difficult for me. I was excited the first class. I was nervous the second class. I dreaded going by the third class. That's all it took--three classes for me to feel like a total failure while the rest of the class read and sang. And I muttered and fumbled over the words. Even my husband--my tone-deaf husband--was able to catch on to the method. But I was completely stuck.

At any other point in my life, I would have made an excuse and said I was too busy and dropped the class. Or I would have forced myself to practice and attend until I had mastered the skill. But failing at making a baby had made me overly sensitive to the fact that I couldn't succeed at this too. Instead, I went to my classroom and said, "now I know how you feel." And I explained to my students that I was quitting because I had assessed the situation.

It wasn't a base experience that I needed to have in order to go onto another experience. It was an entity unto itself. And it was making me miserable. And it was making me feel badly about myself. And it was taking up a huge spot in my worrying cache and I needed that space to worry about other things.

I told them that I would help them quit things in order to make room for other experiences as long as it wasn't a base experience that was necessary for a journey. Learning how to form a thesis statement? Sorry, you have to push on and learn it or you won't be able to construct a paper. And that will affect you through college and possibly beyond. Learning how to make a lay-up? What? You don't want to be a basketball player forever and you'd be happier playing soccer? Well, let's go down to the coach and I'll help you quit gracefully.

And in all my years of helping children quit, I never once had a child come back and say they had regrets. And I never once had a parent tell me that they were upset with the idea of quitting once they saw the transformation of their child. Replacing anxiety producing activities with enjoyable ones tended to make a happier, healthier child. It's not a popular stance in this country, but it's one that I now feel strongly about. It's okay to quit. It's okay to remove things that are stressful from your life. You don't need to feel badly about it. You can walk away and not look back except with a dull twinge of sadness from time to time. Which is much better than a daily dose of anxiety.

Do I wish I knew how to leyn? Sure, I do. And if I ever change my mind, leyning is still there to try again. But I also know that leyning is an important base experience if you want to become a rabbi or a cantor. But it's an entity unto itself in my life. Even though I didn't feel this way when I was considering quitting, in the end, I closed up shop and walked away without it affecting my quality of life.

I think too many times in the fertility process, that mantra of "winners never quit and quitters never win" comes into play and we feel like we can't walk away from a path until we have exhausted it. Until someone kicks us off the path. And while it's okay to let yourself take a path to its ends if that's what you need to do, it's also okay to step off the path before the end and say, "you know what? I'd be happier on a different path."

It all comes down to understanding what are your necessary base experiences. For some people, they want to become a parent no matter what. Therefore, trying all the paths to parenthood becomes the base experience necessary in order to achieve the end goal. For other people, parenthood isn't necessarily the only job they could see themselves doing in this lifetime. Therefore, all those paths aren't a base experience. They're entities unto themselves. Therefore, if they stop treatments/the adoption process/surrogacy, they could be just as happy in life living child-free. They replace one goal with another.

For people who do have the goal of parenthood, unfortunately, you don't have the ability to walk away because these experiences are necessary for achieving your goal. But I think we sometimes get focused on our current path and forget that we can quit and step over to another path. And it's not quitting in a negative sense. It's self-preservation. It's taking control. It's seeing that the paths are all parallel to one another and each leads to the same place--mommyhood or daddyhood.

It's so hard to quit for the first time. It goes against everything you're taught. The pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps-mentality of a red-blooded American (are there other colours of blood?). But it can be so freeing and the flip side is that you create a space for a new experience.

I just wanted to say as people are making their New Year's resolutions that it's okay to have one of your goals be that you're going to quit your current path and try something new--either third party reproduction or adoption or IVF or living child-free. Because quitting takes a lot of courage and strength. And it can lead to the most wonderful achievements.

In honour of 2007 quickly approaching--and since I suck at actually doing memes once I'm tagged, I've started my own. I'm not sure if this is kosher--if a regular person can start a meme or if there is a group of men and women tucked into a dark room somewhere creating these lists. So...um...I tread carefully, attempting to not offend the Memers with my offering.

I have created this meme which can be done in two different ways. Either you can do all seven categories and list two answers for every category (get it? It's 2007, so I'm playing on the two numbers: 2 and 7) OR you can choose two of the categories and list seven answers.

The categories:
Things you learned this year
People you met
Things you don't want to take with you into 2007
Things you want to hold close as you pass into 2007
Things you're looking forward to in 2007
Things that were life changing in 2006
Things you hope to accomplish by the end of 2007

(see--those are the seven categories. Now you can either give two answers for each category OR you can choose two from that list and give seven answers)

Things I learned this year
1. Even Cooks Illustrated recipes sometimes need tweaking
2. That I'm homozygous for the MTHFR mutation (C677T)

People I met
1. I came together again with Lisa R (who I knew in high school and haven't seen since) which has been fantastic--I love how our lives criss-cross.
2. All you lovely ladies (and men) of the Blogosphere--way too many to name. And a huge thank you for keeping me sane.

Things I don't want to take with me into 2007
1. My on-going anxiety
2. Negativity and pessimism (what? Me? Negative?)

Things I want to hold close as I pass into 2007
1. Josh and the twins
2. My current calm with conceiving (it may be short-lived so I'll hold it close as long as possible)

Things I'm looking forward to in 2007
1. Our trip to Smith Island in June (right, Josh?)
2. A healthy pregnancy--perhaps?

Things that were life changing in 2006
1. Signing with a new agent
2. Starting this blog--it has been a huge outlet emotionally

Things you hope to accomplish by the end of 2007
1. Learn how to knit
2. Make croissants for the first time

Let the tagging begin--if you're reading this, consider yourself tagged. And let me know you did it by placing a comment on this post.

I was tagged by Michelle about 80 years ago to do that five things meme, and I've really been struggling to come up with five interesting things about myself (beyond my conflicted feelings about Christmas...). Sorry if the pickings are slim...

1. I bake all of my own bread. We haven't brought store-brought bread into our house for almost a year. I usually bake four times a week: bagel day, whole wheat day, challah day, and then a wild card: it could be rye bread, a baguette, or a loaf of crusty Italian. It was one step on our multi-tiered ladder to taking part in a sustainable living philosophy.

2. I once had a guinea pig named Vladimir. When we brought him home, the pet store owner told us that we should make sure that different people held him while he was getting accustomed to his new environment because guinea pigs have a tendency to bond to the first person who holds them. My parents went out the first night he was at our house. I grabbed the guinea pig. I didn't put him down all night. The guinea pig became solely attached to me--all according to plan (apologies to my brother). I loved Vladimir will all my heart and soul. In his old age, he developed stomach cancer (but lived for an additional two years). He was finally in too much pain and had stopped eating so we needed to put him to sleep. The vet said he had never seen a person cry so hard over a rodent. I made Vladimir a promise that I would never get another guinea pig. I deeply regret making this promise because I would like to get another guinea pig one day. But I'll always feel like I'm breaking a promise if I take in another guinea pig.

3. I began printmaking when I was in high school. I went to the Smithsonian program. I first studied intaglio (mostly etching). Then, when I went to college, I got time in a studio and continued with intaglio and also silk screening. When I went to graduate school, you needed to complete six credits outside of your program in a related fine arts program. My college advisor wrote the head of the department at my graduate school and got me an independent study (again in etching). I deeply regret going the independent study route. I wish I had taken a course and learned more rather than just continuing to hone what I already knew. But my happiest moments in grad school were mixing acid in my lab over at the visual arts building. That and eating dinner Friday night with my cousin on the Smith campus.

4. I am a neat freak and I love organizing things (as you can probably tell from my side bar...). Whenever I'm stressed out, I have to clean. It is my number one favourite way to relax.

5. My dental file has me listed as a "heavy gagger." Which just about sums me up. I could not wear a retainer or a mouth guard. I can't even chew gum. I have such a thing about having having stuff in my mouth. Except...well...some things... Like...um...food. Yes, I can have food in my mouth.

I'm not going to tag anyone because it feels like I'm the last person in the world to do this meme and everyone else has moved on meme-wise. But, just in case I'm not the last person, if you haven't done this one, run straight to your blog and post five things. And let me know so I can go read yours too.

This is the post where the Jew tries to explain how she views Christmas...

Skip reading if Christmas is your favourite holiday, you're a caroler, or don't care to hear an outsider talk about your holiday...

Oh, wait. There's the other side of Christmas too. The one that makes me feel like an ever-loving hypocrite as I drive down Connecticut Avenue belting out "O Holy Night." I need to listen to my Christmas music as I drive out of the city because once I'm back in the presence of the kids, it's Dan Zanes and Raffi. It's Shiralala every Friday as we make the challah. It's all about avoiding drawing attention to "that holiday that we don't celebrate."

It's a Christian world, just like it's a fertile world. So I expect the majority to rule and for all stores and street corners to be decked out for the holiday just as I expect that most people will think it's perfectly fine to ask if my husband is bonking me and if we'll be having another child soon. It's not "right" per se; but it's expected.

But this is the other way I see Christmas: The sparkling lights on trees and the red ribbons around every street lamp? It's sort of like showing a Jewish child and entire parking lot full of ice cream trucks and then smiling benignly while you remind them that they can't have a popsicle.

My son's nickname is the MOPT (pronounced Mop-tee) which stands for the Minister of Toilet Paper. Whenever someone annouces that they have to go to the bathroom, he follows them to the toilet and stands waiting at attention to rip off the toilet paper. But since Thanksgiving, when the first Christmas lights went up, he has been renamed the Crazy Sparkle Light Fiend. It's like driving around town with a junkie who sees a dealer on every corner. Our drive home sometimes takes an additional fifteen minutes as we meander down cul-de-sacs to see strings of lights draped over bushes. And then the second you point out a set of lights to him, he acknowledges them by saying, "sparkle lights" and then immediately follows it with "more sparkle lights." Like a freakin' junkie.

And feeding into this problem is that my attempts at separation are feeble at best. Josh can drive home without noticing the lights and he never turns to the all-Christmas-all-the-time radio station. But I love seeing the lights too. And having only been in a house with a Christmas tree a handful of times in my life, I'm attracted to the unknown of the holiday. Josh has dated non-Jewish. He's done the Christmas thing. But I've never gotten to get celebrating Christmas out of my system. So I want to see the lights too. And I want to eat candy canes. And take part in all of the secular commercialism that surrounds the holiday. Without actually celebrating the holiday. Since I'm usually burned out by December 18th. And I'm Jewish. And we don't celebrate Christmas.

If you're Christian, you probably can't relate and ask, "what's the problem with throwing up a few lights this year?" Because Christmas isn't ours. And Chanukkah isn't Christmas. It's this tiny holiday that has one commandment tied to it--light the candles for 8 nights. That's it. No gifts. No festive meal. Americans commercialized Chanukkah in order to give children a focus during the season. So they didn't feel left out. I don't need to celebrate Chanukkah as if it's Christmas. Think about it this way--do you feel left out during Rosh Hashanah and feel like you need to celebrate a holiday too? It sends a strange message to kids--our religion isn't interesting enough or celebratory enough so we need to grab other people's traditions. It detracts from our fun holidays like Purim and Simchat Torah.

The Christian world always looks at this dilemma and says, "what's the harm?" But it's sort of the same attitude that drives your Aunt Margaret to ask you if you're going to have a baby. What's the harm in asking a simple question in the fertile world? If only 12% of the country is infertile, then odds are that when you ask the question, you're hitting one of the 88% who do like to think about their fertility. Newly-minted brides are downright giddy thinking about how they'll start trying soon. They don't mind the question as much because it makes them feel as if they've arrived. They are finally considered an adult and mother material if people are asking them about procreation.

But hit one of those 12% and you'll have annoyed at best and sobbing at worst. Talking about my fertility is probably one of the last things I want to talk about in casual conversation anymore. Talking about my fertility means thinking about blood clotting and Lovenox. Or finding the money for treatments. Or injections. Or wondering if it's physically possible for someone to hold their breath for nine months.

Which is what it's like to be Jewish during the Christmas season. It's annoying at best to have people remind you to have a merry Christmas. And it's isolating at worst to think about how you're out of the loop. I have this image in my head of someone pressing their face against a snowy window while they watch the family inside the warm house decorating the tree when I think about being Jewish in a Christian world. It's easy to be Christian around Rosh Hashanah. It's not everywhere you turn. You probably don't even think about it because radio stations aren't playing High Holiday music (a little Neil Diamond Kol Nidre, anyone?) and every store isn't decked out for the New Year. But it's impossible for Jews not to think about it because it's sort of like someone waving a party invitation in your face. A party where you're not invited. It's not that you want to go, but you certainly don't want to be reminded that you're not part of the celebration.

Sometimes it feels a bit like when I'm trying to run errands and everywhere I turn, I'm faced with a pregnant belly and reminders of my own infertility. Pregnant women walking around blissfully unaware in their carefree pregnancies. Never thinking that the woman standing behind them in line may not want to watch them rub their belly and coo at their unborn child to "stop kicking, Mommy, darling."

But just like pregnant women can't hide their bump when they face my infertility, I don't expect Christians to hide their holiday from me. I certainly am not saying don't celebrate Christmas. But there are ways to celebrate that are private and cozy. And there are ways to celebrate that remind those who are out of the loop how far they are outside of the loop. It's sort of the difference between putting up lights at your house and coming to my house and caroling. Because it's just really really really hard to explain to a child that we get Shabbat every week--with challah and grape juice and candles--when two seconds after we point out what they have in their corner, they go back to asking about those lights. And why we don't celebrate Christmas. It's something that most Christian parents probably don't deal with until Bat Mitzvah time--and then what non-Jewish kids want is the party, not the actual ceremony. And it's easier to explain religion to a middle schooler than it is to a two-year-old.

The analogy between Christmas and infertility doesn't truly match up because I don't necessarily want to be "in" in the grand sense of that word (I just want my music, lights, and a candy cane or two). And if I wanted to be in, I technically could be in by throwing up a tree in my living room and attending midnight Mass. But we're not going to do it because we're Jewish. And we're happy to be Jewish. And I am happy with the holidays that we have and enjoy them tremendously. And I know my interest in Christmas is directly tied to my idea of the IF Christmas. Which--as we all know--isn't like any Real Christmas that anyone has ever celebrated. It's the stuff of movies. It's just my own fantasizing about greener grass in someone else's yard.

When you whittle away all the layers, what remains is that when assumptions are made, people are bound to have their feelings nicked. The majority assumes that all people fall into the majority. Just like it's unfathomable for non-infertiles to understand why you may not be happy and want to celebrate at the baby shower of a pregnant woman, it's sort of unfathomable for Christian people to understand why I may not want to celebrate their holiday. Or be ambushed with Christmas ads and tinsel. Or be reminded to have a merry Christmas every time I make a purchase between Thankgiving and New Year's.

Damn...I think burnout has come early this year.

I'm beginning to sound a lot like a Grinch. A big, infertile, Jewish Grinch.

Um...Merry Christmas?

Candy cane anyone?

(Cringing as I wait for people to throw boughs of holly at me)