The first order of business is to talk about the name of the book tour since not everyone in the world of infertility is a barren bitch. I mean, most of you are bitches (and I only mean that in the nicest sense of the word. You give that fucking infertility hell!), but regardless of that fact, not everyone is barren. Therefore, what do you think of the term Uterina Ballerinas? It's light. It's delicate. It says, "I am like an artery bringing blood to the uterus AND I can dance." What do you think? The Uterina Ballerina Book Tour? Or just keep it as the Barren Bitches? Leave your choice in your comment when you vote for the next book for the book tour!
Yes, the time has come to choose the next book for book tour three. I've compiled a list of choices below. Click on the titles to see information at Amazon about each book. We have a mix of fiction and non-fiction as well as new and old books on this current list. Some are literally about infertility and others have infertility or loss as part of the plot.
1. Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein
2. The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
3. Maybe Baby by Lori Leibovich
4. The Red Tent by Anita Diamant
5. Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
6. Inconceivable by Julia Indichova
7. Crossing the Moon by Paulette Alden
8. Sarah: A Novel by Marek Halter
9. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
How to Vote:
In the comments section or in an email to me (thetowncriers@gmail.com), write the number of ALL of the books on the list that you would read. If you literally would read any and all of the books on the list, it's fine to simply write "entire list." Or even to write something along the lines of "every book but #10" (I know, there are 9 choices, but I didn't want to curse one by using it as an example). But please don't put down a book that you wouldn't join in a book tour to read--really, it's okay to eliminate some from the list!
The book that receives the top vote will be used for book tour #3. If there is a tie between one or more books, I'll just randomly assign them out to tour #3, #4, and #5 so people can also plan ahead. It's nice to know way in advance which books we're reading so that you can put your name down on a wait list at the library or share copies.
If a spouse wants to join along, they can either post their own write-up on your blog or consider starting a separate blog simply for the book tour (hence what we did with the Annex). They don't have to post constantly on that blog, but can use it when they're participating in the book club. Since the master list is up on my blog, people will know how to find their write-up. And it's a fun way for you to do something with your spouse...that is...if they know about your blog.
Okay--so voting is open until Sunday at noon. I will post the title of the next book on Monday along with the opening post from this current (book tour two) book tour for Children of Men. So many freakin' books.
And on a side note, completely separate from our book club, I've joined Mother Talk and I'm participating in their next book tour. The book is called A Running Start by Rae Pica. It's great so far. I definitely bring an infertility slant to my reading and I've found myself nodding my head along with her ideas on raising kids. So...just more books. At the end of the day, it's just more books...
Okay--now vote:
On the book for the next book tour AND the permanent on-going title of our book club: Barren Bitches or Uterina Ballerina?
And if you're part of the current tour for Children of Men, look below to see the list of questions.
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Updated at 3:23 p.m.: forgot to add that even if you've read a book already, you can still vote to have it discussed in the book tour. There are a few books on the list that I've read and enjoyed, and I'd love to reread them and enter into a discussion about them. Just wanted to add that in case anyone felt like they should only vote for a book they haven't read!
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Barren Bitches Book Club Questions--Tour Two
Welcome, all you Barren Bitches (or is it Uterina Ballerinas?) and our one manpie, Josh, to the question portion of the second tour of the Barren Bitches Book Club. This current leg of the book club is now closed (sorry!) so if you're reading this and want to join this online book club (or even just drop in for a single book to try it out), look at the post immediately above this one to see the voting process for the third book tour (each book is called a book tour since the club works by jumping from blog to blog).
These are the 22 questions from the 16 participants in the current book tour. Each participant needs to choose five questions off the list and answer them in a blog post. Everyone will post their entry (hold onto it and don't post it early!) on March 5th. I will send out an email on March 4th to remind you. On March 5th, I will post my own entry as well as the main list. Everyone can jump from blog to blog, reading each other's responses and commenting in turn. By the end of the week, people should have at least 16 comments from the 16 participants as well as any other random people who have seen the movie or read the book and have something to add to the discussion.
The List of Questions...
1. Though there are interesting female characters in the forefront of the novel, the cast of thousands of infertile women in the background are portrayed as crazy, desperate, and delusional. Did you feel P.D. James captured the emotions of infertility or do you think she merely repeated the image presented in the general media--infertile women are desperate and single-minded and obsessed with babies and pregnancy?
2. Some of the most memorable passages for me were those that described how dolls and even kittens came to take the place of babies for people after Omega. In all of these scenes, it is women who are pushing dolls in their strollers or taking kittens to be christened. Why do you think P.D. James chose to only portray women in these scenes? How does this fit with your own experiences of how men and women cope with infertility insimilar or different ways?
3. One of the story's responses to mass infertility was that couples stopped having sex since there didn't seem to be any point in it. How has IF affected your sex life with your partner? Did you have different experiences at different times along the way?
4. Do you think this was based on James' own experiences with infertility? Also, what did you think of the fact that Julian was a religious person and became pregnant. Is religion her solution, as it were, to infertility? Which is probably two questions...
5. In Chapter 7, Jasper Palmer-Smith says to Theo within a tyrade about society, "Now, for the rest of our lives, we're going to be spared the intrusive barbariam of the young, their noise, their pounding, repetitive, computer-produced so-called music, their violence, their egotism disguised as idealism. My God, we might even succeed in getting rid of Christmas, the annual celebration of parental guilt and juvenile greed."How do you feel about this statement? Do you agree in certain respects with it (and the rest of his statements, not quoted here)? Do you think this has become a true generalization of the youth in America today? If you have children now, how do you plan to raise your children so that this statement does not pertain to them? If you do not yet have children, how would you parent your children so that this description does not fit them?
6. Would you be able to go through all that Julian went through in order to have her baby in peace and safety?
7. Which male character in the book would you choose to repopulate Britain, if you chose the father of the alpha baby and why? And if you could widen the pool to include anyone in the world, which man would you choose and why?
8. What do you think is the significance of the fact that the two people who are finally able to conceive are both considered "flawed?" (Luke had epilepsy and Julian had a deformed hand)
9. What are your thoughts on the scene with the lady pushing her pretend child or doll? What do you think about the response of the people who react to her?
10. As a global epidemic, infertility creates an environment of desperation and chaos. How do you find this global reaction similar to your own personal reaction to infertily?
11. In describing the world's "universal bereavement" over it's lack of children, the narrator tells us, "Only on tape and records to we now hear the voices of children, only on film or on television programmes do we see the bright, moving images of the young. Some find them unbearable to watch but most feed on them as they might a drug." How is this like your life dealing with infertility? How do you cope when you are confronted with images or reminders that are painful to you?
12. In speaking of Theo's preparation to attend the Quietus, the author says, "It had been his habit all his life to devise small pleasures as palliatives to unpleasant duties." Do you have any habits or coping mechanisms that have a soothing effect on days that you expect to be unpleasant?
13. Once Rolf discovers the truth about his child, in his anguish, he rubs his skin raw against the bark of a tree. Do you think he is mourning his wife's adulturous affair or his new-found knowledge of his own infertility (since he thought he had impregnanted his wife)?
14. If you were living in this time period and were given the ability to become pregnant but knew you would be the only person to do so, would you have that child knowing that they would be completely alone in an empty world for the last twenty-odd years of their life?
15. Some parts of the book were written in first-person narrator and other parts were written as third-person omniscient. Did this make the book more or less compelling? How did this change in narration style impact your enjoyment and/or understanding of the book?
16. One of the reason's I suggested this book to Mel was because of a very thoughtful article in the NY Times by A.O. Scott comparing the film and the novel versions of Children of Men. Scott closes the article with a quotation by James speaking to the differences between what she normally writes -- detective novels -- and the world she created for Children.... She says, "The detective novel affirms our belief in a rational universe because, at the end, the mystery is solved. In Children of Men there is no such comforting resolution." The conclusion she leads us to, of course, is that the universe is not nearly so rational, which I thought very aptly describes the world of IF. At the end of the novel, we really don't know what will happen next -- will they find a cure for the world-wide infertility crisis? Will totalitarian rule come to an end in England? Will Theo wield power more wisely than Xan did or will he fall victim to the same peril he saw in Rolf? The haze of uncertainty resonates as it does with parenting-after-infertility because it's not all happily-ever-after when the wished-for child is born. Does anyone else identify with that? What does it take to deliver ourselves out from our own dystopias?
17. James' book makes much of the role of history--what should be (and so, is) kept and what should be discarded. These concerns seem a question never far from the handling of infertility and loss--how we reckon with our bodies' past failures, what we carry of that into our daily lives, and what we choose, instead, to put away. James' character Theodore writes in his diary of the "half-demented women" who fawn over dolls as replacement children in this invented, infertile world, but in our real world, infertiles are often cast as desparate, insane, ready to look madly for any replacement for a child. How, then, do we make known an "appropriate" history, of our hopes and failures and losses as we struggle to make a child when the body--and seemingly, at times, whole world won't allow it? How do we keep more than we lose, keep more than we hide, deeply, away?
18. For those that are naturally ambitious (in other words, a type-A personality), do you think it is realistic to fall into apathy or ennui so easily if there are no future generations?
19. In the book, there is a passage (Chapter 16, p 116) in which Theo describes the majority of the population's attitude towards intercourse. With the decline of humanity's fertility, there is also a decline in the physical pleasure of intercourse. The State has to actively encourage pornography to get people to "enjoy" sex. In the novel Theo assumes that because people are freed from the act of trying to conceive, people should be "liberated" and more uninhibited, yet the very opposite happened. Sex becomes synonymous with comfort rather than physical pleasure-in fact, it's relayed that women associate sex with physical pain rather than pleasure. As infertiles, the very act of intercourse suddenly and irreversibly has a different meaning for us-especially those of us who have been raised in religious faiths which stress that sex is for the main purpose of conceiving children. So, here's my question.........how has infertility affected sex for you? How has it affected your relationship with your spouse or partner? And, how have you worked through those feelings?
20. If the world that's described in the novel were to somehow become a reality, how would you live your life, knowing that there will be no future generations to carry humanity forward? What would you do differently, if at all?
21. Which aspects of the book are fair speculations about the future, and which seem too pessimistic?
22. The Omegas are portrayed as cruel, self-obsesssed and cold. Do you suppose that's a function of the way they were raised (as the last generation of children) or something inherent in them? Do you think that infertility has an effect on parenting?
These are the 22 questions from the 16 participants in the current book tour. Each participant needs to choose five questions off the list and answer them in a blog post. Everyone will post their entry (hold onto it and don't post it early!) on March 5th. I will send out an email on March 4th to remind you. On March 5th, I will post my own entry as well as the main list. Everyone can jump from blog to blog, reading each other's responses and commenting in turn. By the end of the week, people should have at least 16 comments from the 16 participants as well as any other random people who have seen the movie or read the book and have something to add to the discussion.
The List of Questions...
1. Though there are interesting female characters in the forefront of the novel, the cast of thousands of infertile women in the background are portrayed as crazy, desperate, and delusional. Did you feel P.D. James captured the emotions of infertility or do you think she merely repeated the image presented in the general media--infertile women are desperate and single-minded and obsessed with babies and pregnancy?
2. Some of the most memorable passages for me were those that described how dolls and even kittens came to take the place of babies for people after Omega. In all of these scenes, it is women who are pushing dolls in their strollers or taking kittens to be christened. Why do you think P.D. James chose to only portray women in these scenes? How does this fit with your own experiences of how men and women cope with infertility insimilar or different ways?
3. One of the story's responses to mass infertility was that couples stopped having sex since there didn't seem to be any point in it. How has IF affected your sex life with your partner? Did you have different experiences at different times along the way?
4. Do you think this was based on James' own experiences with infertility? Also, what did you think of the fact that Julian was a religious person and became pregnant. Is religion her solution, as it were, to infertility? Which is probably two questions...
5. In Chapter 7, Jasper Palmer-Smith says to Theo within a tyrade about society, "Now, for the rest of our lives, we're going to be spared the intrusive barbariam of the young, their noise, their pounding, repetitive, computer-produced so-called music, their violence, their egotism disguised as idealism. My God, we might even succeed in getting rid of Christmas, the annual celebration of parental guilt and juvenile greed."How do you feel about this statement? Do you agree in certain respects with it (and the rest of his statements, not quoted here)? Do you think this has become a true generalization of the youth in America today? If you have children now, how do you plan to raise your children so that this statement does not pertain to them? If you do not yet have children, how would you parent your children so that this description does not fit them?
6. Would you be able to go through all that Julian went through in order to have her baby in peace and safety?
7. Which male character in the book would you choose to repopulate Britain, if you chose the father of the alpha baby and why? And if you could widen the pool to include anyone in the world, which man would you choose and why?
8. What do you think is the significance of the fact that the two people who are finally able to conceive are both considered "flawed?" (Luke had epilepsy and Julian had a deformed hand)
9. What are your thoughts on the scene with the lady pushing her pretend child or doll? What do you think about the response of the people who react to her?
10. As a global epidemic, infertility creates an environment of desperation and chaos. How do you find this global reaction similar to your own personal reaction to infertily?
11. In describing the world's "universal bereavement" over it's lack of children, the narrator tells us, "Only on tape and records to we now hear the voices of children, only on film or on television programmes do we see the bright, moving images of the young. Some find them unbearable to watch but most feed on them as they might a drug." How is this like your life dealing with infertility? How do you cope when you are confronted with images or reminders that are painful to you?
12. In speaking of Theo's preparation to attend the Quietus, the author says, "It had been his habit all his life to devise small pleasures as palliatives to unpleasant duties." Do you have any habits or coping mechanisms that have a soothing effect on days that you expect to be unpleasant?
13. Once Rolf discovers the truth about his child, in his anguish, he rubs his skin raw against the bark of a tree. Do you think he is mourning his wife's adulturous affair or his new-found knowledge of his own infertility (since he thought he had impregnanted his wife)?
14. If you were living in this time period and were given the ability to become pregnant but knew you would be the only person to do so, would you have that child knowing that they would be completely alone in an empty world for the last twenty-odd years of their life?
15. Some parts of the book were written in first-person narrator and other parts were written as third-person omniscient. Did this make the book more or less compelling? How did this change in narration style impact your enjoyment and/or understanding of the book?
16. One of the reason's I suggested this book to Mel was because of a very thoughtful article in the NY Times by A.O. Scott comparing the film and the novel versions of Children of Men. Scott closes the article with a quotation by James speaking to the differences between what she normally writes -- detective novels -- and the world she created for Children.... She says, "The detective novel affirms our belief in a rational universe because, at the end, the mystery is solved. In Children of Men there is no such comforting resolution." The conclusion she leads us to, of course, is that the universe is not nearly so rational, which I thought very aptly describes the world of IF. At the end of the novel, we really don't know what will happen next -- will they find a cure for the world-wide infertility crisis? Will totalitarian rule come to an end in England? Will Theo wield power more wisely than Xan did or will he fall victim to the same peril he saw in Rolf? The haze of uncertainty resonates as it does with parenting-after-infertility because it's not all happily-ever-after when the wished-for child is born. Does anyone else identify with that? What does it take to deliver ourselves out from our own dystopias?
17. James' book makes much of the role of history--what should be (and so, is) kept and what should be discarded. These concerns seem a question never far from the handling of infertility and loss--how we reckon with our bodies' past failures, what we carry of that into our daily lives, and what we choose, instead, to put away. James' character Theodore writes in his diary of the "half-demented women" who fawn over dolls as replacement children in this invented, infertile world, but in our real world, infertiles are often cast as desparate, insane, ready to look madly for any replacement for a child. How, then, do we make known an "appropriate" history, of our hopes and failures and losses as we struggle to make a child when the body--and seemingly, at times, whole world won't allow it? How do we keep more than we lose, keep more than we hide, deeply, away?
18. For those that are naturally ambitious (in other words, a type-A personality), do you think it is realistic to fall into apathy or ennui so easily if there are no future generations?
19. In the book, there is a passage (Chapter 16, p 116) in which Theo describes the majority of the population's attitude towards intercourse. With the decline of humanity's fertility, there is also a decline in the physical pleasure of intercourse. The State has to actively encourage pornography to get people to "enjoy" sex. In the novel Theo assumes that because people are freed from the act of trying to conceive, people should be "liberated" and more uninhibited, yet the very opposite happened. Sex becomes synonymous with comfort rather than physical pleasure-in fact, it's relayed that women associate sex with physical pain rather than pleasure. As infertiles, the very act of intercourse suddenly and irreversibly has a different meaning for us-especially those of us who have been raised in religious faiths which stress that sex is for the main purpose of conceiving children. So, here's my question.........how has infertility affected sex for you? How has it affected your relationship with your spouse or partner? And, how have you worked through those feelings?
20. If the world that's described in the novel were to somehow become a reality, how would you live your life, knowing that there will be no future generations to carry humanity forward? What would you do differently, if at all?
21. Which aspects of the book are fair speculations about the future, and which seem too pessimistic?
22. The Omegas are portrayed as cruel, self-obsesssed and cold. Do you suppose that's a function of the way they were raised (as the last generation of children) or something inherent in them? Do you think that infertility has an effect on parenting?
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
Sending Out the Love
Must.Wrap.
One.
More.
Stack.
Of.
Golden Gamonkey cookies.
The jellybean satchels were what almost broke me. You can barely see one in this picture because it's hidden by the larger cellophane-wrapped brownie package (with two kinds of brownies--a triple chocolate brownie and a standard brownie with walnuts), but I made jellybean bundles in the leftover pink gauze from my daughter's Queen Esther costume. By the 15th one, I began chanting, "this was a bad idea" as I tied each string closure.
Purim is a little bit like a cross between Halloween and Mardi Gras. There's a lot of drinking. And a lot of costumes. And a lot of beads being passed out to women who show their breasts in shul (just kidding about that last one...or am I?). Instead of going house-to-house collecting candy, Jews have set up a much more efficient system of mailing packages to one another during this holiday. And there are rules to giving mishloach manot (as these packages are called). Halloween should take a page from Purim's book and set up some rules so that kids know that they're not going to end up with a toothbrush or a walnut if they visit certain houses on the street.
A few of the rules to giving mishloach manot: at the bare minimum, you must send two types of food to one person. The food needs to be ready-to-eat. It can be two forms of the same type of food (such as two types of cookies or two types of noodle dishes--though who the fuck sends noodles through the mail? Or wants to receive macaroni and cheese as a gift?). Two people can send their mishloach manot together who are unmarried, but they need to include double the portion (so four gifts of food). Married people can give their mishloach manot together as a single package (just another reason to join in the fight to make all marriages legal). It is preferable to send the package via a third-party in order to complete the mitzvah (commandment), but if you have to give it face-to-face, it's okay. You cannot send your package anonymously.
So I spent the entire weekend and first part of this week putting together my mishloach manot packages so they could go out on time. In addition to gifts for kids (because we give our Christmas-like presents on Purim), we're sending the aforementioned two types of brownies, golden gamonkey cookies, hamantaschen, smarties (the American kind), Hershey kisses, and jellybean bundles. A gigantic mass of sugar. I think I absorbed sugar through my pores--is that possible? Because I feel like I've ingested massive quantities of sugar.
So, yes, I will be that woman at the post office in a few minutes, furiously stuffing boxes with a layer of tissue paper and addressing labels at the counter. And I'm sorry. But we have big families. And there are many people out there who need a little box of love this week.
If you're looking for something to distract you during a wait, may I suggest putting together your own mishloach manot packages? First of all, even though I woke up feeling anxious-as-all-get-out yesterday, I didn't have time to focus on anything except wrapping baked goods in cellophane or gauze. Secondly, you can obsess, OBSESS, about making the perfect card to go in each package. That will waste at least two hours of time that you would have used to think about an upcoming sonogram or peeing on a stick (I used at least an hour searching the Internet for the perfect quote about imbibing alcohol to kick off our card). The trip to the post office alone can take up to an hour roundtrip. And then you get to pick at the candy and cookies while you package them. The other person feels so good receiving your package and they have no idea that you used this activity to take your mind off your own wait. How perfect is that?
And the Oscar Goes to...
I want to win an Oscar.
I know I don't act or direct or even watch many movies. But I'd like to win the highest honour the film industry has for its practitioners. In fact, as I was watching the Oscars last night, my heart was breaking a little as I realized that I would never be on stage, crying in the spotlight as my hand fluttered over my heart, thanking the Academy. And my mother. And G-d.
Oh...shit...and Josh.
It really wouldn't be enough to be nominated. I want to win one. I want to have people put the words "Oscar winner" before my name every time I'm being introduced. I want to change the rules slightly to include jeans and a t-shirt on the red carpet because I'm not that into dresses. But if I had to wear a dress, I'd wear a dress. You know, to pick up my award.
Does anyone else think like this while they're watching the awards? Become overwhelmingly sad that you'll never get to be an Oscar winner?
I feel this way every year when they announce the Nobel Prize. In every category. I don't even like chemistry and can't recite half the periodic table, but I'd love to win a Nobel Prize in chemistry. Or peace. I think I'm pretty peaceful. I'd love to win that one. Or literature. I mean, how cool would that be? Maybe even better than having "Oscar winner" before your name is "Nobel Prize winner." And since I have an MFA, it would make sense to win the literature one. More than physics perhaps.
The Fields medal. It would be nice to win one of those. Or a Pulitzer. Maybe for a novel.
The last time I really felt this strong a sense of loss over not being qualified to win a prize was during the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. I was lying on the floor, watching speed skaters and moaning about how I was never going to be good enough to compete in any sport and now I was old, OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD, and my hair was greying and my knees were crap and I. Was. Never. Going. To. Be. An. Olympic. Athlete. Ever. Ever. Ever.
I brought this dilemma to my students and explained that I didn't even really want to play any Olympic sport. I just wanted to win and get the medal and have the American flag waving and the entire stadium singing for me. So we set up our own Olympics. And they were all sports where no one needed training in order to compete. Standing on one leg. Lying still on the floor. Synchronized drawing.
I competed in several events along with the children. And because a team was disqualified for inappropriate lyrics in a choreographed eating routine, I won the gold medal with my team. On the day of the award ceremony, my middle school head bought us medals and placed them around our neck in a reenactment of the real Olympic ceremony. Someone held a flag over our heads and the whole middle school sang the national anthem to me. It was just as fulfilling as if I had won a real Olympic medal. I swear. I really didn't need to be in the actual Olympics--it was really enough to be in our school Olympics. I wore my medal to school for weeks afterward and had the kids put "Olympic gold medalist" before my name. I still have this medal.
But now I'm not teaching anymore. And I want to win an Oscar. So how am I going to do this?
Any suggestions?
I know I don't act or direct or even watch many movies. But I'd like to win the highest honour the film industry has for its practitioners. In fact, as I was watching the Oscars last night, my heart was breaking a little as I realized that I would never be on stage, crying in the spotlight as my hand fluttered over my heart, thanking the Academy. And my mother. And G-d.
Oh...shit...and Josh.
It really wouldn't be enough to be nominated. I want to win one. I want to have people put the words "Oscar winner" before my name every time I'm being introduced. I want to change the rules slightly to include jeans and a t-shirt on the red carpet because I'm not that into dresses. But if I had to wear a dress, I'd wear a dress. You know, to pick up my award.
Does anyone else think like this while they're watching the awards? Become overwhelmingly sad that you'll never get to be an Oscar winner?
I feel this way every year when they announce the Nobel Prize. In every category. I don't even like chemistry and can't recite half the periodic table, but I'd love to win a Nobel Prize in chemistry. Or peace. I think I'm pretty peaceful. I'd love to win that one. Or literature. I mean, how cool would that be? Maybe even better than having "Oscar winner" before your name is "Nobel Prize winner." And since I have an MFA, it would make sense to win the literature one. More than physics perhaps.
The Fields medal. It would be nice to win one of those. Or a Pulitzer. Maybe for a novel.
The last time I really felt this strong a sense of loss over not being qualified to win a prize was during the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City. I was lying on the floor, watching speed skaters and moaning about how I was never going to be good enough to compete in any sport and now I was old, OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOLD, and my hair was greying and my knees were crap and I. Was. Never. Going. To. Be. An. Olympic. Athlete. Ever. Ever. Ever.
I brought this dilemma to my students and explained that I didn't even really want to play any Olympic sport. I just wanted to win and get the medal and have the American flag waving and the entire stadium singing for me. So we set up our own Olympics. And they were all sports where no one needed training in order to compete. Standing on one leg. Lying still on the floor. Synchronized drawing.
I competed in several events along with the children. And because a team was disqualified for inappropriate lyrics in a choreographed eating routine, I won the gold medal with my team. On the day of the award ceremony, my middle school head bought us medals and placed them around our neck in a reenactment of the real Olympic ceremony. Someone held a flag over our heads and the whole middle school sang the national anthem to me. It was just as fulfilling as if I had won a real Olympic medal. I swear. I really didn't need to be in the actual Olympics--it was really enough to be in our school Olympics. I wore my medal to school for weeks afterward and had the kids put "Olympic gold medalist" before my name. I still have this medal.
But now I'm not teaching anymore. And I want to win an Oscar. So how am I going to do this?
Any suggestions?
Sunday, February 25, 2007
Infertile Enough
There are a few different branches of our library system and I go to each one for a different reason. One has the best selection of cookbooks and new DVDs. Another is close in location. And my favourite contains the medical library which is where I get all of my light reading on PCOS or recurrent pregnancy loss. The medical library also happens to be situated in an orthodox Jewish neighbourhood, therefore many of the patrons are orthodox and enter the library with the obvious signs and symbols: long skirts, hats or wigs, tzitzit hanging out.
And this probably speaks more about my own insecurities, but when I see orthodox women walking through the library, I have an urge to tell them that I'm Jewish too. My method of choice is to position myself near them and then begin speaking loudly about the challah I have to complete at home or how I'm going to the kosher butcher after this stop at the library (saying these things to another person--not just shouting them out to the library in general. Er...). I feel this need to do this because my observance isn't outwardly obvious. Yet even though I'm wearing brown cords and a sweater and my hair isn't covered, I do many of the same Jewish traditions as these women. In function, our houses probably don't operate that differently. But in form, they differ greatly. But at the end of the day, function and action win out over form in my world--I have mezuzot on every door of the house, I keep Shabbat, I keep a kosher home.
Sounds pretty observant, right?
But sometimes when I'm having a low-self-esteem day and I'm standing next to the orthodox women, I don't feel Jewish enough. I know in my heart that I'm still Jewish even if I choose to wear pants. The fact that they choose not to wear pants doesn't make them more Jewish. Their overt signs of Judaism don't detract from my observance of Judaism. Right? Yet I still feel this need to let them know that I'm Jewish, perhaps because I am waiting to see if they accept me as Jewish.
And I'm not the only person who plays the am-I-Jewish-enough game. I was standing in the library Friday morning, speaking with a friend about how I had to get a move-on with making hamantaschen for Purim, a holiday coming up in another week or so. An older woman next to me leans into our conversation and says, "I used to make hamantaschen every year, but now I just buy them. Too much work."
She doesn't really give a crap about hamantaschen (at least, this is my assumption since how many of us actually give a crap about jam-filled cookies?), but what she wanted me to know from overhearing my conversation is that she's Jewish too. And on the sliding scale of observance, I'm looking more observant than she is in this moment. Because I'm speaking about the upcoming holiday whereas she's talking with her friends about the latest romance novel that she read. If this were the old version of the SATs and they still had analogies in the verbal section, I would be to this woman what the orthodox women are to me.
We rank.
That's what humans do.
And we do it in infertility too. The driving force behind the pomegranate-coloured thread was to establish our commonality. We all go through our journey differently, but we all have this common thread of infertility or pregnancy loss. That's the other thing that humans do: we make connections, we let people know that we belong. But once you establish community, it feels like our inner insecurities automatically kick in and people begin wondering: "do I really belong?" as well as "do other people think I belong?"
Some of it comes from the same place as comparative Jewishness: while there are some general guidelines for establishing whether someone is Jewish, there are other factors that are more fluid. In Conservative Judaism, it's completely acceptable to wear pants. In Orthodox Judaism, not so much so. Therefore, someone Orthodox may look at me and say, "damn, she isn't that observant." Whereas someone in Conservative Judaism may look at me and say, "damn, the chickie makes her own challah every Friday? She's pretty observant."
You see what I mean?
I write this because this topic keeps coming round in many forms with the common refrain being, "I don't know if I belong." I've written about this before, but it really saddens me when I see people second-guessing. Infertility and loss is difficult enough without people wondering if it's appropriate to ask for emotional support.
Like Judaism, there is a definition for infertility. According to RESOLVE, "Infertility is a disease or condition of the reproductive system often diagnosed after a couple has had one year of unprotected, well-timed intercourse, or if the woman has suffered from multiple miscarriages." For women over 35, the accepted time frame is six months and "multiple" miscarriages generally refers to three, though there are doctors who begin testing after two (or even one depending on the circumstances).
Which would follow that if you have had a year of earnest bonking or home inseminations, you are infertile. It doesn't matter if you've decided to continue trying on your own or if you've decided to go to the RE: you are still infertile. And it doesn't matter if you've been told to go directly to IVF and do not pass go, or if you're first trying some lower impact solutions such as Clomid: you are still infertile. A person who has chosen a different route is not more infertile just as those women I see at the library are not more Jewish. In both cases, the two people belong to the same group and it's simply the chosen path and the fine details that differ.
Beyond that, I think that the emotions of infertility are broader than the medical diagnosis. Under the standard definition of infertility, a lesbian couple who is undergoing IVF in order to transfer the eggs of one woman into the womb of another may be going through the emotions of infertility after the first or second failed cycle even if they haven't been trying for over a year. Fertility treatments are a roller coaster and other factors come into play in that situation. Therefore, in my opinion, they belong. Secondary infertility where the woman conceived her first child on the first try, but has now been trying for over a year to have another? She belongs. A woman who has tried for four months and is currently stressing out because her friends all became pregnant on the first try? Not so much so. It's a flexible definition, but even flexible definitions break if you bend them too far.
I guess what I'm trying to say in apparently the longest way possible is that if one considers the emotional journey to be just as valid and important as the medical journey, many more people can fit comfortably into the world of infertility and draw necessary support. And subsequently, if there is a diagnosis written on a medical chart somewhere, you are infertile enough--even if you look at other infertile women walking around the lobby of the clinic and wonder if their journey is ten times more terrible than your own. Regardless of the decisions you make and the choices that are influenced by outside factors, you are infertile. Therefore, in my definition, you belong. And you can ask for emotional support. And you can receive it.
I am having a difficult time ending this post. I know this is my personal opinion and I can't speak for the entire community. But I'd like to believe that as a whole, we are empathetic and inclusive. Right?
And this probably speaks more about my own insecurities, but when I see orthodox women walking through the library, I have an urge to tell them that I'm Jewish too. My method of choice is to position myself near them and then begin speaking loudly about the challah I have to complete at home or how I'm going to the kosher butcher after this stop at the library (saying these things to another person--not just shouting them out to the library in general. Er...). I feel this need to do this because my observance isn't outwardly obvious. Yet even though I'm wearing brown cords and a sweater and my hair isn't covered, I do many of the same Jewish traditions as these women. In function, our houses probably don't operate that differently. But in form, they differ greatly. But at the end of the day, function and action win out over form in my world--I have mezuzot on every door of the house, I keep Shabbat, I keep a kosher home.
Sounds pretty observant, right?
But sometimes when I'm having a low-self-esteem day and I'm standing next to the orthodox women, I don't feel Jewish enough. I know in my heart that I'm still Jewish even if I choose to wear pants. The fact that they choose not to wear pants doesn't make them more Jewish. Their overt signs of Judaism don't detract from my observance of Judaism. Right? Yet I still feel this need to let them know that I'm Jewish, perhaps because I am waiting to see if they accept me as Jewish.
And I'm not the only person who plays the am-I-Jewish-enough game. I was standing in the library Friday morning, speaking with a friend about how I had to get a move-on with making hamantaschen for Purim, a holiday coming up in another week or so. An older woman next to me leans into our conversation and says, "I used to make hamantaschen every year, but now I just buy them. Too much work."
She doesn't really give a crap about hamantaschen (at least, this is my assumption since how many of us actually give a crap about jam-filled cookies?), but what she wanted me to know from overhearing my conversation is that she's Jewish too. And on the sliding scale of observance, I'm looking more observant than she is in this moment. Because I'm speaking about the upcoming holiday whereas she's talking with her friends about the latest romance novel that she read. If this were the old version of the SATs and they still had analogies in the verbal section, I would be to this woman what the orthodox women are to me.
We rank.
That's what humans do.
And we do it in infertility too. The driving force behind the pomegranate-coloured thread was to establish our commonality. We all go through our journey differently, but we all have this common thread of infertility or pregnancy loss. That's the other thing that humans do: we make connections, we let people know that we belong. But once you establish community, it feels like our inner insecurities automatically kick in and people begin wondering: "do I really belong?" as well as "do other people think I belong?"
Some of it comes from the same place as comparative Jewishness: while there are some general guidelines for establishing whether someone is Jewish, there are other factors that are more fluid. In Conservative Judaism, it's completely acceptable to wear pants. In Orthodox Judaism, not so much so. Therefore, someone Orthodox may look at me and say, "damn, she isn't that observant." Whereas someone in Conservative Judaism may look at me and say, "damn, the chickie makes her own challah every Friday? She's pretty observant."
You see what I mean?
I write this because this topic keeps coming round in many forms with the common refrain being, "I don't know if I belong." I've written about this before, but it really saddens me when I see people second-guessing. Infertility and loss is difficult enough without people wondering if it's appropriate to ask for emotional support.
Like Judaism, there is a definition for infertility. According to RESOLVE, "Infertility is a disease or condition of the reproductive system often diagnosed after a couple has had one year of unprotected, well-timed intercourse, or if the woman has suffered from multiple miscarriages." For women over 35, the accepted time frame is six months and "multiple" miscarriages generally refers to three, though there are doctors who begin testing after two (or even one depending on the circumstances).
Which would follow that if you have had a year of earnest bonking or home inseminations, you are infertile. It doesn't matter if you've decided to continue trying on your own or if you've decided to go to the RE: you are still infertile. And it doesn't matter if you've been told to go directly to IVF and do not pass go, or if you're first trying some lower impact solutions such as Clomid: you are still infertile. A person who has chosen a different route is not more infertile just as those women I see at the library are not more Jewish. In both cases, the two people belong to the same group and it's simply the chosen path and the fine details that differ.
Beyond that, I think that the emotions of infertility are broader than the medical diagnosis. Under the standard definition of infertility, a lesbian couple who is undergoing IVF in order to transfer the eggs of one woman into the womb of another may be going through the emotions of infertility after the first or second failed cycle even if they haven't been trying for over a year. Fertility treatments are a roller coaster and other factors come into play in that situation. Therefore, in my opinion, they belong. Secondary infertility where the woman conceived her first child on the first try, but has now been trying for over a year to have another? She belongs. A woman who has tried for four months and is currently stressing out because her friends all became pregnant on the first try? Not so much so. It's a flexible definition, but even flexible definitions break if you bend them too far.
I guess what I'm trying to say in apparently the longest way possible is that if one considers the emotional journey to be just as valid and important as the medical journey, many more people can fit comfortably into the world of infertility and draw necessary support. And subsequently, if there is a diagnosis written on a medical chart somewhere, you are infertile enough--even if you look at other infertile women walking around the lobby of the clinic and wonder if their journey is ten times more terrible than your own. Regardless of the decisions you make and the choices that are influenced by outside factors, you are infertile. Therefore, in my definition, you belong. And you can ask for emotional support. And you can receive it.
I am having a difficult time ending this post. I know this is my personal opinion and I can't speak for the entire community. But I'd like to believe that as a whole, we are empathetic and inclusive. Right?
Friday, February 23, 2007
Friday Blog Roundup
Feh.
I know I should be grateful that Meredith is alive. And amazed with modern medicine. And if Josh hadn't been sitting next to me on the bed, waiting for me to cry during the scene with her mother, I would have cried except that I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of being right about me (and instead cried during a commercial break and made it about something other than saying goodbye to her mother).
But I didn't think it was a fantastic episode. I know I'm not a doctor or anything (though I like to pretend that I know more than my RE), but really? You're dead for 4 hours and then you have the energy to make spoons with your boyfriend in a hospital bed that night? And what was up with the woman who kept spontaneously bleeding. Did I miss the part where they explained why that continued to happen? The character I ended up loving a little more last night was Christina. Sandra Oh on a normal episode kicks some serious ass. But with the exception of shouting out her wedding news as the first thing she tells Meredith, I thought she went above and beyond her usual greatness.
LJ at Looking for Two Lines hit it right on the head by predicting that Meredith would live and Ellis would kick it. Bleu at Soulbliss came in at a close second, but apparently Bleu was too realistic in her guess when she bet that there would actually be reprecussions for being underwater all that time. DD wins for most creative as does Millie. I created this button for your blogs (simply cut-and-paste ladies) until I can come up with a fantabulous prize. All creativity was sucked out of my ears by watching soap opera-y television.
Oh...what? This isn't a Grey's Anatomy discussion blog? It's about--wait, can you say that a bit louder? It's an infertility and pregnancy loss blog? Are you kidding me? That sounds like a...well...like a downer.
But look at these little sparkling gems of writing I found this week! (how was that for a transition)
Gil at The Hardest Quest has a post about a family tradition for Shrove Tuesday. Trinkets are cooked into pancakes and each symbolizes an event in the future: you'll marry a fisherman, you'll be wealthy, you'll die (okay, so some people leave out that one...). Gil writes beautifully about how her parents taught her these traditions and how she wants a child of her own so she can pass them along as well. I bawled reading it and we had pancakes for dinner Wednesday night.
Starfish at Hell or High Water has an interesting post this week about being the breadwinner. I love the title: "White or Whole Wheat?" It's also about the way work is divided between a couple and households in general. It's an interesting discussion: click over and jump into the discussion.
~r at Uterine Grail has a post that sent chills down my arms when I read it. 4 cousins and 4 pregnancy losses. She writes: "There are four girls in this generation of my family. All four of us have lost a baby now. Out of nine pregnancies, there are four children. Five if things go well with RiceCake." Click here to head over and give support to her family.
Littleangelkisses at In Search of Biscuit 2.0 has a post this week that will make you crack up. And tear off your clothes. Intrigued? Click here.
Jamie at Sticky Feet has a very moving post called "Everything is Not Fine!" You will nod your head in agreement and you will cry alongside her--for all the times you had to pretend that everything was fine when it really wasn't. When you wanted to scream at everyone in the room: "everything is not fine!" and have them understand a little slice of what you're going through behind the scenes. A must-read for everyone who has ever cried on the way to an appointment.
Lindsey at This Side of Pregnant and Julie at A Little Pregnant each have a post about the infamous Starbucks cups--but not the same one! Lindsey tackles a quote from Corrine Bailey Rae, presenting the infertile point-of-view, while Julie takes the reader through a hypothetical meeting of the minds over in the dark recesses of Corporation Starbucks. Both will leave you laughing, vowing to never purchase from Starbucks, and then craving a white mocha--all at the same time. Click on each name (Lindsey and Julie) to read their original posts.
Lastly, a huge congratulations to Marcia Cross who delivered her donor egg/IVF twins on Tuesday (and thanks for the heads up, Lyrecha). They are fraternal twin girls named Eden and Savannah. On my sliding scale, whenever a stirrup queen leaves the trenches and steps onto mainland, my heart soars to a 10.
I know I should be grateful that Meredith is alive. And amazed with modern medicine. And if Josh hadn't been sitting next to me on the bed, waiting for me to cry during the scene with her mother, I would have cried except that I didn't want to give him the satisfaction of being right about me (and instead cried during a commercial break and made it about something other than saying goodbye to her mother).
But I didn't think it was a fantastic episode. I know I'm not a doctor or anything (though I like to pretend that I know more than my RE), but really? You're dead for 4 hours and then you have the energy to make spoons with your boyfriend in a hospital bed that night? And what was up with the woman who kept spontaneously bleeding. Did I miss the part where they explained why that continued to happen? The character I ended up loving a little more last night was Christina. Sandra Oh on a normal episode kicks some serious ass. But with the exception of shouting out her wedding news as the first thing she tells Meredith, I thought she went above and beyond her usual greatness.
LJ at Looking for Two Lines hit it right on the head by predicting that Meredith would live and Ellis would kick it. Bleu at Soulbliss came in at a close second, but apparently Bleu was too realistic in her guess when she bet that there would actually be reprecussions for being underwater all that time. DD wins for most creative as does Millie. I created this button for your blogs (simply cut-and-paste ladies) until I can come up with a fantabulous prize. All creativity was sucked out of my ears by watching soap opera-y television.
Oh...what? This isn't a Grey's Anatomy discussion blog? It's about--wait, can you say that a bit louder? It's an infertility and pregnancy loss blog? Are you kidding me? That sounds like a...well...like a downer.
But look at these little sparkling gems of writing I found this week! (how was that for a transition)
Gil at The Hardest Quest has a post about a family tradition for Shrove Tuesday. Trinkets are cooked into pancakes and each symbolizes an event in the future: you'll marry a fisherman, you'll be wealthy, you'll die (okay, so some people leave out that one...). Gil writes beautifully about how her parents taught her these traditions and how she wants a child of her own so she can pass them along as well. I bawled reading it and we had pancakes for dinner Wednesday night.
Starfish at Hell or High Water has an interesting post this week about being the breadwinner. I love the title: "White or Whole Wheat?" It's also about the way work is divided between a couple and households in general. It's an interesting discussion: click over and jump into the discussion.
~r at Uterine Grail has a post that sent chills down my arms when I read it. 4 cousins and 4 pregnancy losses. She writes: "There are four girls in this generation of my family. All four of us have lost a baby now. Out of nine pregnancies, there are four children. Five if things go well with RiceCake." Click here to head over and give support to her family.
Littleangelkisses at In Search of Biscuit 2.0 has a post this week that will make you crack up. And tear off your clothes. Intrigued? Click here.
Jamie at Sticky Feet has a very moving post called "Everything is Not Fine!" You will nod your head in agreement and you will cry alongside her--for all the times you had to pretend that everything was fine when it really wasn't. When you wanted to scream at everyone in the room: "everything is not fine!" and have them understand a little slice of what you're going through behind the scenes. A must-read for everyone who has ever cried on the way to an appointment.
Lindsey at This Side of Pregnant and Julie at A Little Pregnant each have a post about the infamous Starbucks cups--but not the same one! Lindsey tackles a quote from Corrine Bailey Rae, presenting the infertile point-of-view, while Julie takes the reader through a hypothetical meeting of the minds over in the dark recesses of Corporation Starbucks. Both will leave you laughing, vowing to never purchase from Starbucks, and then craving a white mocha--all at the same time. Click on each name (Lindsey and Julie) to read their original posts.
Lastly, a huge congratulations to Marcia Cross who delivered her donor egg/IVF twins on Tuesday (and thanks for the heads up, Lyrecha). They are fraternal twin girls named Eden and Savannah. On my sliding scale, whenever a stirrup queen leaves the trenches and steps onto mainland, my heart soars to a 10.
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
Return of the Human-nequin (Children Mentioned)
Twice a week, I leave the house around the same time to go to a tutoring job. And every time when I turn the corner on a certain street, there is a tall man waiting for the bus. As someone who is perpetually lost and perpetually late, I use markers to retrace steps and budget time. For instance, when I enter a department store, I memorize the clothing on the mannequin closest to my entrance door and then find that mannequin when I want to leave.
Seeing the tall man still waiting for his bus let me know that I had just enough time to make it to my tutoring job. This was especially helpful if I was running errands beforehand and wasn't leaving directly from my house. He was like a store mannequin in terms of helping me judge time. My human-nequin.
And then one day he wasn't there and I muttered "shit," assuming that I was late. Maybe it was a few minutes later than usual, but I couldn't really judge because I had been out running errands. Luckily, I made it to tutoring on-time. Two days later, when I was driving again, I noticed he wasn't standing on the corner. This time, I was certain that I was on-schedule. My human-nequin was gone.
For the last few weeks, I've looked for him every time I've turned that corner on my way to tutoring. And he's never there. Back when he was simply a man standing waiting for a bus, I wouldn't have given it a moment's thought. But now he had started the process of weaving himself into my life, standing amongst the other people who had started out as human-nequins and become actual, real people as their lives criss-crossed through our lives.
There's Steve. He returns carts at the local food store. He used to be a human-nequin in the sense that he was someone who simply went with that store. I didn't use him to tell myself that I was in the correct parking lot--I mean, I knew I was in the correct parking lot for the food store. But seeing Steve made me feel like I was part of a neighbourhood--one where you could recognize the man who brought the carts in from the parking lot to the front of the store.
He went from being labeled tall-skinny-man-who-brings-in-carts to Steve the day my kids were having a meltdown in the front of the store because they were out of car carts and he not only found one for them in the bowels of the food store, but he then signed "please don't be sad" to my son (who used to sign more than he spoke) who prompty stopped crying since this kind man was telling him not to in his own language. And that is how he became Steve and why my kids wave at him and sign with him when we go to the food store.
And then there is Ms. Michelle who is our favourite librarian. Prior to the day that she became Ms. Michelle she was simply known as older-librarian-who-leads-storytime-on-occassion at the library. But then one morning we walked into the library and she called out a greeting to my kids, calling them by their first names and mentioning their favourite musical instrument which she had remembered from the last time she had led a storytime. And once I realized that we had crossed into her life, she crossed into our life and now when we get in the car to go to the library, we say that we are going to visit Ms. Michelle.
There is Eric, who used to be man-from-Sierre-Leone-at-Starbucks, and Taj, who was once known by favourite-waiter-at-the-Vietnamese-restaurant. There was woman-who-checked-me-in-at-the-RE who is now Celia and the woman-who-checked-me-out who is now Renee. And there is Maria who is the best at drawing blood in the lab. And Margaret who is my favourite person to get for a sonogram. When I entered the office, the only name I knew was the doctor, who turned out to be the person I saw the least. Everyone else was a label--a human-nequin who marked the space--until they became this important character in the journey. Sometimes life seems a little like Alice in Wonderland where all you see at first is the white rabbit with a pocket watch and then one day, the white rabbit becomes the White Rabbit who has a story and kid gloves and lives in a house with a thatched roof. And once they become etched into your story, you miss them when they suddenly disappear.
After weeks of missing my human-nequin, he returned yesterday. It will start with a wave. But perhaps one day I'll need to take the bus as well and I'll admit to him that I always looked for him on the corner when I was driving to my job. And then I'll learn his name. And he will cease to be simply a marker and become a very real person.
An ode to the cast of thousands who create the backdrop of life in honour of the man at the bus stop.
This is the part where you tell me about your human-nequins that one day sprung to life.
Seeing the tall man still waiting for his bus let me know that I had just enough time to make it to my tutoring job. This was especially helpful if I was running errands beforehand and wasn't leaving directly from my house. He was like a store mannequin in terms of helping me judge time. My human-nequin.
And then one day he wasn't there and I muttered "shit," assuming that I was late. Maybe it was a few minutes later than usual, but I couldn't really judge because I had been out running errands. Luckily, I made it to tutoring on-time. Two days later, when I was driving again, I noticed he wasn't standing on the corner. This time, I was certain that I was on-schedule. My human-nequin was gone.
For the last few weeks, I've looked for him every time I've turned that corner on my way to tutoring. And he's never there. Back when he was simply a man standing waiting for a bus, I wouldn't have given it a moment's thought. But now he had started the process of weaving himself into my life, standing amongst the other people who had started out as human-nequins and become actual, real people as their lives criss-crossed through our lives.
There's Steve. He returns carts at the local food store. He used to be a human-nequin in the sense that he was someone who simply went with that store. I didn't use him to tell myself that I was in the correct parking lot--I mean, I knew I was in the correct parking lot for the food store. But seeing Steve made me feel like I was part of a neighbourhood--one where you could recognize the man who brought the carts in from the parking lot to the front of the store.
He went from being labeled tall-skinny-man-who-brings-in-carts to Steve the day my kids were having a meltdown in the front of the store because they were out of car carts and he not only found one for them in the bowels of the food store, but he then signed "please don't be sad" to my son (who used to sign more than he spoke) who prompty stopped crying since this kind man was telling him not to in his own language. And that is how he became Steve and why my kids wave at him and sign with him when we go to the food store.
And then there is Ms. Michelle who is our favourite librarian. Prior to the day that she became Ms. Michelle she was simply known as older-librarian-who-leads-storytime-on-occassion at the library. But then one morning we walked into the library and she called out a greeting to my kids, calling them by their first names and mentioning their favourite musical instrument which she had remembered from the last time she had led a storytime. And once I realized that we had crossed into her life, she crossed into our life and now when we get in the car to go to the library, we say that we are going to visit Ms. Michelle.
There is Eric, who used to be man-from-Sierre-Leone-at-Starbucks, and Taj, who was once known by favourite-waiter-at-the-Vietnamese-restaurant. There was woman-who-checked-me-in-at-the-RE who is now Celia and the woman-who-checked-me-out who is now Renee. And there is Maria who is the best at drawing blood in the lab. And Margaret who is my favourite person to get for a sonogram. When I entered the office, the only name I knew was the doctor, who turned out to be the person I saw the least. Everyone else was a label--a human-nequin who marked the space--until they became this important character in the journey. Sometimes life seems a little like Alice in Wonderland where all you see at first is the white rabbit with a pocket watch and then one day, the white rabbit becomes the White Rabbit who has a story and kid gloves and lives in a house with a thatched roof. And once they become etched into your story, you miss them when they suddenly disappear.
After weeks of missing my human-nequin, he returned yesterday. It will start with a wave. But perhaps one day I'll need to take the bus as well and I'll admit to him that I always looked for him on the corner when I was driving to my job. And then I'll learn his name. And he will cease to be simply a marker and become a very real person.
An ode to the cast of thousands who create the backdrop of life in honour of the man at the bus stop.
This is the part where you tell me about your human-nequins that one day sprung to life.
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Promises (Children Mentioned)
For the past several nights, I have been curled up on the sofa, listening to Erin McKeown's Sing You Sinners on continual play (pausing sometimes to look up lyrics to songs like "If You a Viper" to figure out if she's actually saying, "if you a viper.") while hand-sewing Purim costumes. My mother asked me why I wasn't using a sewing machine. Because. Because I don't own one. Because I have more control over the stitches by hand-sewing the dress. Because this is the way I have to do it because of my messed up hoohaahooterus.At least it's what I feel I need to do to appease the infertility gods.
I think many people parenting after infertility know what I'm talking about--maybe you breastfed even though you wouldn't have made that choice if you hadn't gone through infertility. Maybe you made all your baby food from scratch, but you would have bought jarred food if you hadn't gone through infertility. Maybe you stopped working out of the house once your child arrived, but you would have stayed in your career if you hadn't gone through infertility. Maybe you've enrolled your child in dozens of classes or slept a night on your child's floor or had an anxiety-attack during a childhood illness. All things you may not have done if you had conceived your child during that first month or two of trying.
It's the changes we make when we have a lot of time to think. It's the changes we make due to promises we've made to whoever is in charge of making babies stick in-utero. Or it's the changes we make when we realize how high the stakes are in our own personal journey.
I hand-make costumes.
It's a promise I made to the Almighty Keeper of the Uterus one day when we were standing in a fabric store. Just let me get pregnant and keep the pregnancy and I will be the best mother. I will hand-make all costumes for Halloween and Purim. Even if I have to build my own rubber factory, I will also hand-create the masks. Just give me a baby and I'll show you how worthy I am of becoming a mother.
It's not the only promise I made and it's not the only thing I do differently because I waited to hold my children. But it's the thing I'm currently doing now so it's on my mind. And it feels like those promises are even more important now that we're trying again. I need to show I'm good on my word.
I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to make these changes. I think it shows a level of reflection. A maturity of age. I think many people go through changes after they hold their child for the first time. They thought they'd go back to work, but now that they're holding the child, they can't imagine spending the day in the office. Or they thought they wanted to stay home, but then discovered that they needed a different balance. I think what is unique about infertility is that we form some of those changes before we've met the child. Just from waiting and thinking about the future.
We write and then rewrite our definition of the "good" mother.
Are weddings different for brides who have had a long wait? A long time to consider that walk down the aisle and what the commitment means and what goes into a marriage? Is life lived differently by those who have experienced a life-threatening illness? Are the choices different?
Infertility changes you. Those who claim that they've stepped away from the experience; that infertility is behind them and never affects them--I'm not impressed. I'm more awed by the woman who has walked through a situation and exited out the other side changed by what she experienced. Used that struggle to become more self-aware. Or used that struggle to change her view of the world. If you've gone through a struggle (and not all women undergoing fertility treatments are struggling--I read a blog yesterday of a woman who was completely matter-of-fact about the whole experience and didn't seem upset in the least to be using IVF to become pregnant with female factor infertility. If you can do that, more power to you), why not reap the reward of a change in point-of-view? Of course there's the goal--a child--but there's also the tangental side effects: the patience that emerges simply because you've learned about waiting; the sensitivity to others; the thoughtfulness.
I don't think it's weak to look back at an experience and say it remains with you. On the contrary, I think it takes a strong woman to keep on the heavy weight of infertility after the fact and allow the positive lessons to influence her definition of motherhood.
Before I started trying to conceive, I thought I would keep working and my husband would stay at home with the kids. I was going to serve them Earth's Best organic baby food. They were going to be vegetarians like me. Then the waiting began and I started to rethink my vision of motherhood. If you just give me children, I'll feed them chicken. I'll even touch the raw chicken! If we finally get children, I'm going to want to be the one who stays home with them. This is what the waiting taught me (and this is personal to me--not a lesson for everyone): it didn't matter if my children were like me at all. It didn't matter if they wanted to be carnivorous or omnivorous or vegetarians. It didn't matter if they wanted to be a writer or a teacher or a lion tamer. All the things I thought would matter suddenly didn't; and all the things I hadn't really spent time considering--what would be their personal path to happiness and how will I support them on it even if it conflicts with my own personal beliefs--suddenly did.
I think some of us go through an extremely personal parenting journey prior to becoming parents when we start making the hard choices of fertility treatments or other paths to parenthood. When parenthood doesn't come easily. I think these promises we make--of the things we'll do if we just get to reach parenthood--are extremely personal to our own unique vision of the "good" mother. Of what we believe makes a good mother who is worthy of parenthood.
What I mean is that I think I have two levels of goodness. The first is a common plateau that everyone needs to reach in order for me to view them as a good parent. It's a pretty low bar to clear: don't abuse your child either emotionally or physically. Don't neglect your child. Comfort your child.
The second level is my own personal level, and they are the things I feel like I need to do in order to call myself a good mother. They are challenges for me: sewing is a challenge for me--I have no sewing skills. But I need to be the kind of mother who makes all costumes from scratch in order to view myself as a good mother. I need to bake my own bread. I need to plant a garden with my kids.
It does bother me that I stop to consider my own personal worthiness of parenthood. I don't know if people who concieve easily ever question if they're worthy to become a parent. But it's something I can't deny--I've made promises. Promises about what I'd do if I became a parent. And even if I have to start planning Purim costumes months in advance in order to get them completed on-time, it's something I need to do in order to feel as if I am doing a good job. As a mother. I want to be a "good" mother and I want to keep the promises I made to the Almighty Keeper of the Uterus. Even if I know that those promises are not what makes one able to conceive or keeps one from conceiving. It's all just magical thinking.
What is your own list of your personal "good mother"? How has infertility changed how you believe you'll be as a parent? Or if you are now parenting, what are you doing now that you decided to do during the journey--before you met your child?
I am halfway through sewing this costume and it seems to be becoming more and more complicated. Last night, I decided to add a layer of beads to the hemline. What the hell am I doing?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Added at 10:44 a.m.: I just thought of another one after I posted this; one where the reason behind the action changed. Before trying to conceive, I wanted to breastfeed for financial reasons. I couldn't imagine spend hundreds on formula. But once we started treatments, I realized I wanted to breastfeed because it would be a way of reclaiming my status as a woman. It would erase some of the things I lost via infertility. Well...we all know how breastfeeding turned out for me. But it was still a change that came from the long wait.
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Dirty Little Secrets of a Stirrup Queen (Children Mentioned)
One of the libraries nearby has a bookstore on the ground level. They cull out old books and sell them for about $.50 in order to make room for new books in the library. Pretty much every book I have wanted recently has ended up there. Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking? Check. The Ninth Life of Louis Drax? Check. Of course, this is where I picked up Children of Men for the current book tour.
They have an enormous children's section. I buy the kids books there because used books don't elicit the same guilty feelings that occur when they accidentally tear a page in a new book. These books have already been well-loved. They can withstand the effects of the twins' intense loving without looking much different.
So let's unpack yesterday's purchase.
As I scanned the shelves, I grabbed a picture book called Triplets. My gut reaction when I examined my final pile of books to separate into the "buy-these" and the "reshelve-those" is that the triplet book--while extremely cute--was a bit over their heads languagewise. Yet I threw it into the buy-these pile. I felt uneasy about it, but I justified this $.50 decision by telling myself that someone in my multiples group would love it. I'd bring it to the next meeting and give it to a triplet mother.
I have to get this off my chest--I WAS FREAKIN' LYING! It won't be going to a triplet mom. It will be sitting on our bookshelf for the next few months. And every time Josh passes it, he will say, "didn't you mean to give that to a triplet mother at the next meeting?"
Because this is my dirty little secret. I know a lot of people are freaked out by the idea of carrying and caring for multiples. We talk about it all the time. It's the fear of many a woman undergoing hyperstimulation of their ovaries. How many embryos to transfer? What if we end up with twins? What if we end up with triplets?
I'm not one of those women. I felt like multiples were the only silver-lining to infertility. When I was little, I always wanted twin babies. I imagined myself with identical twin girls. So when we saw the ultrasound screen and saw the multiple sacs (three--though only two had fetal poles. The third was a blighted ovum), I didn't freak out. It felt like an ultimate moment of peace--my reward for all the shit. I felt like I deserved twins--like it was a prize rather than a detriment.
In my twin group, so many women talk about the fact that while they would like to return to the clinic and try for a third, they won't because they're freaked out about the possibility of having another set of multiples and they wouldn't want to transfer only one embryo. And that's my other dirty secret--the one that probably gives my mother a minor heart attack. Not only am I not scared of having another set of multiples, but I would welcome them happily. I would feel like I had somehow gone from being the unluckiest (and most unfeminine) woman in the world to the jackpot winner.
I think the triplet book is like hanging a swimsuit over the scale to remind you to keep focused on the task-at-hand: losing the weight so you can fit into the suit. Maybe the triplet book is a tangible daily reminder that all the shit is worth it for the end result. Do you have something like that? Something you look at that motivates you--existing children perhaps if you're going through secondary infertility or an empty room in the house or a onesie you bought when you first started trying?
Financially, triplets would be the end of us. But what a great story of how the ship went down.
They have an enormous children's section. I buy the kids books there because used books don't elicit the same guilty feelings that occur when they accidentally tear a page in a new book. These books have already been well-loved. They can withstand the effects of the twins' intense loving without looking much different.
So let's unpack yesterday's purchase.
As I scanned the shelves, I grabbed a picture book called Triplets. My gut reaction when I examined my final pile of books to separate into the "buy-these" and the "reshelve-those" is that the triplet book--while extremely cute--was a bit over their heads languagewise. Yet I threw it into the buy-these pile. I felt uneasy about it, but I justified this $.50 decision by telling myself that someone in my multiples group would love it. I'd bring it to the next meeting and give it to a triplet mother.
I have to get this off my chest--I WAS FREAKIN' LYING! It won't be going to a triplet mom. It will be sitting on our bookshelf for the next few months. And every time Josh passes it, he will say, "didn't you mean to give that to a triplet mother at the next meeting?"
Because this is my dirty little secret. I know a lot of people are freaked out by the idea of carrying and caring for multiples. We talk about it all the time. It's the fear of many a woman undergoing hyperstimulation of their ovaries. How many embryos to transfer? What if we end up with twins? What if we end up with triplets?
I'm not one of those women. I felt like multiples were the only silver-lining to infertility. When I was little, I always wanted twin babies. I imagined myself with identical twin girls. So when we saw the ultrasound screen and saw the multiple sacs (three--though only two had fetal poles. The third was a blighted ovum), I didn't freak out. It felt like an ultimate moment of peace--my reward for all the shit. I felt like I deserved twins--like it was a prize rather than a detriment.
In my twin group, so many women talk about the fact that while they would like to return to the clinic and try for a third, they won't because they're freaked out about the possibility of having another set of multiples and they wouldn't want to transfer only one embryo. And that's my other dirty secret--the one that probably gives my mother a minor heart attack. Not only am I not scared of having another set of multiples, but I would welcome them happily. I would feel like I had somehow gone from being the unluckiest (and most unfeminine) woman in the world to the jackpot winner.
I think the triplet book is like hanging a swimsuit over the scale to remind you to keep focused on the task-at-hand: losing the weight so you can fit into the suit. Maybe the triplet book is a tangible daily reminder that all the shit is worth it for the end result. Do you have something like that? Something you look at that motivates you--existing children perhaps if you're going through secondary infertility or an empty room in the house or a onesie you bought when you first started trying?
Financially, triplets would be the end of us. But what a great story of how the ship went down.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Friday Blog Roundup
Skip the first two paragraphs if you taped Grey's Anatomy last night and haven't seen it yet...
So I'm still reeling a bit from last night's Grey's Anatomy episode. I have to admit something--I don't like the "thing" that makes for "good television" (and all of that is in quotes because the element of surprise is what others believe makes for good television. What I personally believe makes for good television is attractive people, interesting recipes that are completely vegetarian, and more attractive people. But I probably need to admit that I'm either watching television for the eye candy or the recipes). I don't like my emotions being jerked around. If someone is going to die, I'm fine with them dying. Television doesn't need to be an hour of happiness. But I really dislike the whole you-think-Meredith-Grey-is-going-to-die-but-she-is-actually-going-to-live-and-the-person-you-think-is-in-no-danger-of-dying-is-going-to-kick-it-by-the-end-of-the-episode.
So these are my predictions for next week's conclusion, and feel free to offer up your own thoughts as a little distraction during your wait (because at any given moment, it feels like 3/4th of the infertile world is waiting for something: for a cycle to begin, for a beta to be drawn, for referral papers to arrive, for a donor to be chosen): I think Meredith will live AND she will have literally no brain damage. Everyone else in this world would have brain damage, but she will miraculously recover. BUT I also believe that either George or Burke are going to kick it by the end of the episode. I'm thinking George and that Callie is pregnant. So George will be gone, but he'll live on still in Callie's baby (and I will have to watch her be pregnant for the remainder of the season and I will start disliking her character because--come on--she got pregnant without trying and if George was alive, she would be questioning whether or not she should keep the pregnancy because that seems to be what all the doctors on this show do once they become pregnant). My second choices is that Burke will die which will send Christina into a tail-spin because she will realize that while he was alive and she was engaged to him, she still thought of Meredith as her closest friend and not Burke.
Whoever gets the closest guess to what actually happens will get a special prize in next week's Friday Blog Roundup...
And I'd like to say a special thank you to my Mommy at this point. My mother can predict the unfolding of a television show or movie like no one else in this world. And since I don't like to be surprised--ever--I often call her to ask what will happen next. And. She. Is. Always. Right. Right now, I watch two television shows each week, but I've only gotten her to watch one along with me and tell me what happens. I totally know who is going to be murdered on Desperate Housewives this week AND I know who commits the murder.
Hey, I figure I get enough surprises with hoohaahooterus (which is my new name for all my sexual organs AND hormone levels--I needed to sum them all up in a little package--oh, and throw in my blood clotting stuff too. And hoohaahooterus just rolls off the tongue and it sounds fun. And I am trying to think of my uterus and ovaries and progesterone and estrogen levels as a happy party in this new stage of positive thinking) that I don't need surprises in my two hours of television watching a week.
On a final television note, a friend from college, Joley, who has been reading this blog and never knew that he would discover so much about my hoohaahooterus back when we were literary magazine editors together, wrote a book about Lost and Powell's has him blogging about each episode afterwards (that's the archive page where you can click and read the entire entry). If you watch this show and you love knowing all the literary and pop culture references, read his blog.
And I can't believe I just spent that much time discussing television.
Adrienne at Max's Mommy has possibly the funniest list of pre-period symptoms ever (go on, click on the link, it won't hurt you). Number two is my favourite. And while I feel badly for her husband for his recently headlessness, my heart is going out to Adrienne who was home worrying through a child's fever last night. And her more recent post shows how the hand of secondary infertility caresses every moment in a life.
Bleu at Soulbliss explores grief in a post this week called "Good Grief." She lost her pregnancy last week and she could use the additional support right now. I think this is an important post to read for anyone who is currently grieving. Or who has grieved in the past. Or who possibly might grieve in the future. In other words, all of us. I love her final lines: "I am getting through it. I have moments of deep gripping, soul crippling pain, and I have moments of relative normalcy. I have all of it, and it is simply that part of life none of us can escape."
Demented Delusions has an entry this week about the now-infamous Starbucks cup that I hadn't heard about until I read her blog. I'm really being pulled in several directions with this: (1) the word desperate shows a strong bias, (2) when I go into a clothing store, I want an article of clothing. When I go into a Starbucks, I want a drink. When I open up the newspaper, I want to read opinions and news. I do not need any coffee while I'm shopping for shirts and I don't need opinions on the side of my cup when I'm going to get a drink, (3) in a world that brushes infertility, adoption, et al under the carpet, I like that they are opening up a conversation and not adding to the invisibility, and (4) if she had not directed her comments towards those experiencing infertility but rather towards the entire world, I would actually like the sentiment. She just needs to remove the first sentence entirely from the quote. So four directions.
I really love this post on The Waiting Game about secondary infertility seen through the eyes of a three-year-old. Just love it. Also, head over and vote for the Irish Blog Awards because she is nominated for three.
I had chills go down my arms and I had a good cry last night when I read "Creation" on Paper Pregnant's blog: an ode to her daughter Ava, who died at 36 weeks, on the anniversary of the day she was conceived. It takes you through the miracle of that conception to the heartbreaking conclusion. And it's just a gorgeous post.
Elan Austere did a gift exchange with a pomegranate theme with six other women. And she posted her pomegranate paintings on her blog. And they're beautiful. Looking down at my pomegranate-coloured thread as I type this.
I'll finish off with some good, bizarre fun. Liana at Welcome to the Dollhouse has this really funny post this week called "How Smart is Your Foot?" I couldn't get my foot to stop switching directions. Go to her blog and try this exercise. But while you're there, also read her most recent entry about Amazon.com and their baby registry. It's one of those incidences where whoever created the computer program for the registry did so with a narrow scope of paths to parenthood. But perhaps with enough people explaining the actual needs of the people utilizing the registry, they will work to change this policy. At least, that's what I'd like to hope. So start writing and calling.
So I'm still reeling a bit from last night's Grey's Anatomy episode. I have to admit something--I don't like the "thing" that makes for "good television" (and all of that is in quotes because the element of surprise is what others believe makes for good television. What I personally believe makes for good television is attractive people, interesting recipes that are completely vegetarian, and more attractive people. But I probably need to admit that I'm either watching television for the eye candy or the recipes). I don't like my emotions being jerked around. If someone is going to die, I'm fine with them dying. Television doesn't need to be an hour of happiness. But I really dislike the whole you-think-Meredith-Grey-is-going-to-die-but-she-is-actually-going-to-live-and-the-person-you-think-is-in-no-danger-of-dying-is-going-to-kick-it-by-the-end-of-the-episode.
So these are my predictions for next week's conclusion, and feel free to offer up your own thoughts as a little distraction during your wait (because at any given moment, it feels like 3/4th of the infertile world is waiting for something: for a cycle to begin, for a beta to be drawn, for referral papers to arrive, for a donor to be chosen): I think Meredith will live AND she will have literally no brain damage. Everyone else in this world would have brain damage, but she will miraculously recover. BUT I also believe that either George or Burke are going to kick it by the end of the episode. I'm thinking George and that Callie is pregnant. So George will be gone, but he'll live on still in Callie's baby (and I will have to watch her be pregnant for the remainder of the season and I will start disliking her character because--come on--she got pregnant without trying and if George was alive, she would be questioning whether or not she should keep the pregnancy because that seems to be what all the doctors on this show do once they become pregnant). My second choices is that Burke will die which will send Christina into a tail-spin because she will realize that while he was alive and she was engaged to him, she still thought of Meredith as her closest friend and not Burke.
Whoever gets the closest guess to what actually happens will get a special prize in next week's Friday Blog Roundup...
And I'd like to say a special thank you to my Mommy at this point. My mother can predict the unfolding of a television show or movie like no one else in this world. And since I don't like to be surprised--ever--I often call her to ask what will happen next. And. She. Is. Always. Right. Right now, I watch two television shows each week, but I've only gotten her to watch one along with me and tell me what happens. I totally know who is going to be murdered on Desperate Housewives this week AND I know who commits the murder.
Hey, I figure I get enough surprises with hoohaahooterus (which is my new name for all my sexual organs AND hormone levels--I needed to sum them all up in a little package--oh, and throw in my blood clotting stuff too. And hoohaahooterus just rolls off the tongue and it sounds fun. And I am trying to think of my uterus and ovaries and progesterone and estrogen levels as a happy party in this new stage of positive thinking) that I don't need surprises in my two hours of television watching a week.
On a final television note, a friend from college, Joley, who has been reading this blog and never knew that he would discover so much about my hoohaahooterus back when we were literary magazine editors together, wrote a book about Lost and Powell's has him blogging about each episode afterwards (that's the archive page where you can click and read the entire entry). If you watch this show and you love knowing all the literary and pop culture references, read his blog.
And I can't believe I just spent that much time discussing television.
Adrienne at Max's Mommy has possibly the funniest list of pre-period symptoms ever (go on, click on the link, it won't hurt you). Number two is my favourite. And while I feel badly for her husband for his recently headlessness, my heart is going out to Adrienne who was home worrying through a child's fever last night. And her more recent post shows how the hand of secondary infertility caresses every moment in a life.
Bleu at Soulbliss explores grief in a post this week called "Good Grief." She lost her pregnancy last week and she could use the additional support right now. I think this is an important post to read for anyone who is currently grieving. Or who has grieved in the past. Or who possibly might grieve in the future. In other words, all of us. I love her final lines: "I am getting through it. I have moments of deep gripping, soul crippling pain, and I have moments of relative normalcy. I have all of it, and it is simply that part of life none of us can escape."
Demented Delusions has an entry this week about the now-infamous Starbucks cup that I hadn't heard about until I read her blog. I'm really being pulled in several directions with this: (1) the word desperate shows a strong bias, (2) when I go into a clothing store, I want an article of clothing. When I go into a Starbucks, I want a drink. When I open up the newspaper, I want to read opinions and news. I do not need any coffee while I'm shopping for shirts and I don't need opinions on the side of my cup when I'm going to get a drink, (3) in a world that brushes infertility, adoption, et al under the carpet, I like that they are opening up a conversation and not adding to the invisibility, and (4) if she had not directed her comments towards those experiencing infertility but rather towards the entire world, I would actually like the sentiment. She just needs to remove the first sentence entirely from the quote. So four directions.
I really love this post on The Waiting Game about secondary infertility seen through the eyes of a three-year-old. Just love it. Also, head over and vote for the Irish Blog Awards because she is nominated for three.
I had chills go down my arms and I had a good cry last night when I read "Creation" on Paper Pregnant's blog: an ode to her daughter Ava, who died at 36 weeks, on the anniversary of the day she was conceived. It takes you through the miracle of that conception to the heartbreaking conclusion. And it's just a gorgeous post.
Elan Austere did a gift exchange with a pomegranate theme with six other women. And she posted her pomegranate paintings on her blog. And they're beautiful. Looking down at my pomegranate-coloured thread as I type this.
I'll finish off with some good, bizarre fun. Liana at Welcome to the Dollhouse has this really funny post this week called "How Smart is Your Foot?" I couldn't get my foot to stop switching directions. Go to her blog and try this exercise. But while you're there, also read her most recent entry about Amazon.com and their baby registry. It's one of those incidences where whoever created the computer program for the registry did so with a narrow scope of paths to parenthood. But perhaps with enough people explaining the actual needs of the people utilizing the registry, they will work to change this policy. At least, that's what I'd like to hope. So start writing and calling.
Thursday, February 15, 2007
Offensive Remark of the Day
Quote from Variety from the director of the film version of Children of Men (thank goodness we're reading the book...)
Um...remind me not to give you my $8 to see the film version. Since...you know...you couldn't care less (really? You're at the very bottom of care? There's no way to care about it less?) about infertility and it's just science fiction... I understand how quotes can be twisted when they are taken out of context, but I can't imagine where this quote would fit where it wouldn't be dismissive and glib.
Read the post below to see how to participate in the book tour. Screw Cuaron--read the book instead of seeing the movie.
What could have been a mere sci-fi thriller turned into a subversive bit of
agitprop in the hands of director-screenwriter Alfonso Cuaron.
"I couldn't care less about infertility, because that goes into the
realm of science fiction," he says of his film "Children of Men," in which only
one woman on earth is pregnant. "But I saw that infertility could be a point of
departure to explore the themes that I cared about" -- themes such as
immigration, terrorism and paranoia.
Um...remind me not to give you my $8 to see the film version. Since...you know...you couldn't care less (really? You're at the very bottom of care? There's no way to care about it less?) about infertility and it's just science fiction... I understand how quotes can be twisted when they are taken out of context, but I can't imagine where this quote would fit where it wouldn't be dismissive and glib.
Read the post below to see how to participate in the book tour. Screw Cuaron--read the book instead of seeing the movie.
Twenty Barren Bitches On Board
Okay, it's 19 barren bitches and one...what is the male version of not being able to procreate? It's not sterile because a man can produce sperm and still not be able to fertilize an egg. I mean, barrenness is about not having a baby within your womb. Starting out a post about the book club has thrown me into linguistical dilemma. What is the male equivilent to a barren bitch? 10 points to the person who coins this new term...
You know that whole theory about "breaking the pee seal?" Well, Josh has urinated for men everywhere by joining the group, making it safe for other men to join along. Can we do something co-ed for once? I mean, we follow you guys back into the sperm palaces and make phone calls to your urologist for you--can't you join our book club?
Regardless, we now have 20 people signed up for tour #2 of the book club. For people who have no idea what I'm talking about, read the post here: Barren Bitches Book Tour.
So, it's an online book club. Where you don't have to clean your house because no guests are arriving. And you don't have to bring a potluck dish. And you don't even need to change out of your pyjamas. You just have to post. On a certain day. And read everyone else's post. And leave a few comments. Simple.
Anyway, we're now up to 20 people which means at least 20 questions posted February 28th. Everyone will pick 5 questions to answer from the big list, so there will be a lot of variation on all the different blog entries.
I'm repeating all of this because there's still two weeks left if you want to run by the library or your nearest bookstore and join along. There's actually almost three weeks left since the post won't go up until March 5 (so you could always make up a question when you're halfway through with the book and then continue reading). So join in for this one, or if Children of Men isn't your cup of tea, consider joining the next book tour (the best part of an online book club--only join for the books that interest you).
Actually, people should start throwing out ideas for the next book tour. I figure if we're discussing this current one in March, we should plan the next one to post around the end of April/beginning of May. But in order for people to get on library waiting lists or comb the used bookstores, I thought we'd start throwing out ideas and cement the next book in the next week or so.
So, throw out ideas--whatever you want. Fiction or nonfiction. Since we're all barren bitches (and barren is, of course, broadly defined since there are many lovely ladies on the blogroll who are doing treatments, but are not necessarily infertile. Or who have adopted or are adopting. Well, you get my point) and will bring that unique point-of-view, I think we should still kick it with books that bring up the topic of infertility or pregnancy loss. Not necessarily the entire focus of the book, but at least a part of the book.
Therefore, I throw out these two ideas for voting (and add other book ideas to this short list):
Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Just click on the title to learn more about the book.
When we get a few more books, we can vote and even set the next two or three book tours well-through the summer and into the fall. See--a book club that you can even do from your summer vacation since all it takes is a quick blog entry to participate.
You know that whole theory about "breaking the pee seal?" Well, Josh has urinated for men everywhere by joining the group, making it safe for other men to join along. Can we do something co-ed for once? I mean, we follow you guys back into the sperm palaces and make phone calls to your urologist for you--can't you join our book club?
Regardless, we now have 20 people signed up for tour #2 of the book club. For people who have no idea what I'm talking about, read the post here: Barren Bitches Book Tour.
So, it's an online book club. Where you don't have to clean your house because no guests are arriving. And you don't have to bring a potluck dish. And you don't even need to change out of your pyjamas. You just have to post. On a certain day. And read everyone else's post. And leave a few comments. Simple.
Anyway, we're now up to 20 people which means at least 20 questions posted February 28th. Everyone will pick 5 questions to answer from the big list, so there will be a lot of variation on all the different blog entries.
I'm repeating all of this because there's still two weeks left if you want to run by the library or your nearest bookstore and join along. There's actually almost three weeks left since the post won't go up until March 5 (so you could always make up a question when you're halfway through with the book and then continue reading). So join in for this one, or if Children of Men isn't your cup of tea, consider joining the next book tour (the best part of an online book club--only join for the books that interest you).
Actually, people should start throwing out ideas for the next book tour. I figure if we're discussing this current one in March, we should plan the next one to post around the end of April/beginning of May. But in order for people to get on library waiting lists or comb the used bookstores, I thought we'd start throwing out ideas and cement the next book in the next week or so.
So, throw out ideas--whatever you want. Fiction or nonfiction. Since we're all barren bitches (and barren is, of course, broadly defined since there are many lovely ladies on the blogroll who are doing treatments, but are not necessarily infertile. Or who have adopted or are adopting. Well, you get my point) and will bring that unique point-of-view, I think we should still kick it with books that bring up the topic of infertility or pregnancy loss. Not necessarily the entire focus of the book, but at least a part of the book.
Therefore, I throw out these two ideas for voting (and add other book ideas to this short list):
Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
Just click on the title to learn more about the book.
When we get a few more books, we can vote and even set the next two or three book tours well-through the summer and into the fall. See--a book club that you can even do from your summer vacation since all it takes is a quick blog entry to participate.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Be My Valentine
Happy Valentine's Day.
I don't actually celebrate Valentine's Day, but if I did and if there wasn't a layer of ice on the road preventing me from getting to the nearest CVS, I would be eating conversation hearts and cutting out paper hearts. I'm actually pretty big into holiday celebrations. But not Valentine's Day, for whatever reason.
I think Valentine's Day is sort of like New Year's Eve--you can never make plans that are good enough to fit your expectations of a perfect holiday. And I've had a bunch of crappy boyfriends in my past, therefore, it doesn't matter if I am currently happily married. Those boyfriends sort of spoiled the holiday by being their crappy selves on February 14th. So somewhere during grad school, I dropped all pretense of celebrating the holiday. Josh and I exchange cards, but I'm anti-flower, anti-boxes of chocolates.
Let's talk about those sucky ex-boyfriends for a moment, shall we? And I promise, I can relate this to infertility. Because, my G-d, have you noticed how I can always bring it back to my uterus?
I was thinking about an ex-boyfriend last night as I drove home. I had a memory surface that I had forgotten about for years. There was a car that had pulled over to the side of the road and it had its lights shining on the snow. Other cars were slowly driving past it and it suddenly made me remember a snow storm many years ago.
I was going back to college after a break at home. I had a flight to Chicago and another that would take me to Madison. But when I landed in Chicago, I learned that the connecting flight was cancelled due to a snow storm and there wouldn't be another flight out until the next morning at the earliest. I panicked because I had never been stranded before and I didn't have the money for a hotel room.
And a stupider reason: my current boyfriend was living in Mexico and we had a standing weekly phone call scheduled for that evening. If I missed the phone call, I wouldn't be able to talk to him for a week and it wasn't possible to get a message to him saying that I wasn't going to be able to make it to a phone that night.
I admitted that it was a stupid reason.
A woman who was standing nearby told me that she and her husband were going to rent a car and drive to Madison. And I was welcome to join them. And since I really wanted to make that phone call and since I didn't want to be stuck in Chicago overnight, I went along with them even though getting in a car with strangers goes against every impulse in my extremely cautious personality. Also in the car was a fellow student from Kansas who had been in one of my introductory English classes three years earlier and a businessman who had flown out to Chicago for a meeting, discovered it was cancelled and then couldn't get a flight back out of the city. How much does that suck?
It took 6 hours for the five of us to drive what is normally around a 2 or 2 1/2 hour trip. This was due to the storm--the one that aeroplanes couldn't get through. The highways were icy and snow-covered. Other people pulled over and we passed cars giving up at rest stops or trucks pausing on the side of the highway. But we kept moving along in this little-car-that-could. We did stop at a rest stop for coffee and at the woman's suggestion, we each inserted a quarter into a prize machine and gave each other a small tangible gift to remember our stupidity that evening. I wish I still had that plastic toy--I don't even remember anymore what it was--because it would fit perfectly into the Bad Boyfriend Box (but more on that in a moment).
I got back to Madison in one piece and we all marvelled at the miracle of it. The little-car-that-could somehow got us through the snow where other trucks and cars had failed and had to pull over. It had been a rockin' adventure. And I never saw those five people again.
I got in the apartment, called out a hello to my roommate and dove for the phone. I was about a 1/2 hour late. And that is all the boyfriend focused on when we finally spoke. He wasn't impressed that I drove 6 hours and walked home with a suitcase through snow up to my knees (and that I was still standing in my wet jeans since I had called him before I could change). Or that I had placed that phone call--and in actuality, him--before everything else. It was one of the straws that broke the camel's back. Along with a host of other, similar straws.
When we broke up, I took most reminders of our relationship and threw them in the trash. But I took a few and put them in this big, blue, plastic box. I worked backwards and added a stuffed animal from an early boyfriend and set of fake dog tags from another and pictures and cards. Everything I had left over from past boyfriends was culled out from their hiding places and placed inside this box. It became known as the Bad Boyfriend Box.
Throughout grad school, I added to the box. Not everyone I dated ended up in the box--only those who were either particularly shitty or who showed a foible in my own decision-making process or who served as a turning point or a life-lesson. A memento of each went into the Bad Boyfriend Box.
That box is currently in the basement and this is why I keep it even though I will never add to it again. It wasn't for me. I thought it was for me at first--I thought I was keeping it because I needed to remind myself of bad decisions. I needed to remember my history and make better choices. But somewhere along the way, I realized that I wasn't saving all of that crap for me.
Kris at Baby Proof wrote this week about her own box (read her gorgeous post by clicking here) and I commented on my Bad Boyfriend Box over there, which is what brought about this post in the first place.
It hit me why I was keeping the box early on during grad school. I had just broken up with a boyfriend and I got on a bus and went down to New York to meet my father who was there for a business trip. And when I got off the bus, I saw my dad waiting for me and I started crying and I told him, "a boy hurt me very badly." And he comforted me by telling me his own dating stories. And somehow he found his way to my mother and I would one day find my way to my own husband.
I keep the box for the day that my daughter comes home and tells me that someone has hurt her very badly. I will take out the box and she will see all the stumbles and falls and twists and turns that brought me to her father. That I made mistakes. And I chose the wrong people. And I had my heart broken. And time went by and now I'm in a different space. I want her to remember that there will be good spaces in the future when she's in a bad place. We always seem to be aware that there is the possibility of a bad space in the future when we're currently experiencing something good (how many stirrup queens have become ill with worry during a coveted pregnancy because they spent the nine months worrying they would lose the baby?), but the opposite doesn't hold true.
She needs to remember that one day, there will be a right turn that will bring her to someone who will love her intensely. I won't be able to tell her when that will be, but it will most likely happen if that is where she wants to dedicate her energy. It's not a guarantee, but it's a strong possibility. And when she meets that person, she will create the next generation. She'll have her own daughter--either gestationally or through adoption--and she will also create her own box. And that box will show her daughter the bigger picture just as she got to see the bigger picture and the map of the journey through my box.
What I said to Kris about her Baby Box and the pain it is causing her now and why she keeps it (and perhaps even why she keeps it semi-hidden): I think you keep the box because you know that one day you will have a child. And that child will be having a crap day and will say something like "I wish I had never been born" or "I wish you had never adopted me" or any combination thereof. And you will take down the box and you will show that child how desperately DESPERATELY that child was wanted. And all the wrong turns and stumbles that brought you to that child. And that child will learn something huge that day. And that child will carry that love forward to another generation.
Because that's what I believe this Valentine's Day. That our kids--and by our kids, I mean the collective generation of children raised by stirrup queens and sperm palace jesters--will know how much they were wanted. They will know that their parents waited a long time to be brought to them and their parents went through twists and turns and stumbles and falls to find them. That it wasn't an easy choice--it was a deliberate choice. There may have been loss along the way, but their parents kept trying to find them. And that they are so loved. They are so wanted. They are unique and special and wonderful. And they will bring all of that love forward to the next generation--hopefully not with a Baby Box; hopefully it will be easy for them. But they'll know what it's like to be so wanted and they'll know how to show that to another person in the future.
Those are just my thoughts because I think there are more than two of us who have these types of boxes...
I don't actually celebrate Valentine's Day, but if I did and if there wasn't a layer of ice on the road preventing me from getting to the nearest CVS, I would be eating conversation hearts and cutting out paper hearts. I'm actually pretty big into holiday celebrations. But not Valentine's Day, for whatever reason.
I think Valentine's Day is sort of like New Year's Eve--you can never make plans that are good enough to fit your expectations of a perfect holiday. And I've had a bunch of crappy boyfriends in my past, therefore, it doesn't matter if I am currently happily married. Those boyfriends sort of spoiled the holiday by being their crappy selves on February 14th. So somewhere during grad school, I dropped all pretense of celebrating the holiday. Josh and I exchange cards, but I'm anti-flower, anti-boxes of chocolates.
Let's talk about those sucky ex-boyfriends for a moment, shall we? And I promise, I can relate this to infertility. Because, my G-d, have you noticed how I can always bring it back to my uterus?
I was thinking about an ex-boyfriend last night as I drove home. I had a memory surface that I had forgotten about for years. There was a car that had pulled over to the side of the road and it had its lights shining on the snow. Other cars were slowly driving past it and it suddenly made me remember a snow storm many years ago.
I was going back to college after a break at home. I had a flight to Chicago and another that would take me to Madison. But when I landed in Chicago, I learned that the connecting flight was cancelled due to a snow storm and there wouldn't be another flight out until the next morning at the earliest. I panicked because I had never been stranded before and I didn't have the money for a hotel room.
And a stupider reason: my current boyfriend was living in Mexico and we had a standing weekly phone call scheduled for that evening. If I missed the phone call, I wouldn't be able to talk to him for a week and it wasn't possible to get a message to him saying that I wasn't going to be able to make it to a phone that night.
I admitted that it was a stupid reason.
A woman who was standing nearby told me that she and her husband were going to rent a car and drive to Madison. And I was welcome to join them. And since I really wanted to make that phone call and since I didn't want to be stuck in Chicago overnight, I went along with them even though getting in a car with strangers goes against every impulse in my extremely cautious personality. Also in the car was a fellow student from Kansas who had been in one of my introductory English classes three years earlier and a businessman who had flown out to Chicago for a meeting, discovered it was cancelled and then couldn't get a flight back out of the city. How much does that suck?
It took 6 hours for the five of us to drive what is normally around a 2 or 2 1/2 hour trip. This was due to the storm--the one that aeroplanes couldn't get through. The highways were icy and snow-covered. Other people pulled over and we passed cars giving up at rest stops or trucks pausing on the side of the highway. But we kept moving along in this little-car-that-could. We did stop at a rest stop for coffee and at the woman's suggestion, we each inserted a quarter into a prize machine and gave each other a small tangible gift to remember our stupidity that evening. I wish I still had that plastic toy--I don't even remember anymore what it was--because it would fit perfectly into the Bad Boyfriend Box (but more on that in a moment).
I got back to Madison in one piece and we all marvelled at the miracle of it. The little-car-that-could somehow got us through the snow where other trucks and cars had failed and had to pull over. It had been a rockin' adventure. And I never saw those five people again.
I got in the apartment, called out a hello to my roommate and dove for the phone. I was about a 1/2 hour late. And that is all the boyfriend focused on when we finally spoke. He wasn't impressed that I drove 6 hours and walked home with a suitcase through snow up to my knees (and that I was still standing in my wet jeans since I had called him before I could change). Or that I had placed that phone call--and in actuality, him--before everything else. It was one of the straws that broke the camel's back. Along with a host of other, similar straws.
When we broke up, I took most reminders of our relationship and threw them in the trash. But I took a few and put them in this big, blue, plastic box. I worked backwards and added a stuffed animal from an early boyfriend and set of fake dog tags from another and pictures and cards. Everything I had left over from past boyfriends was culled out from their hiding places and placed inside this box. It became known as the Bad Boyfriend Box.
Throughout grad school, I added to the box. Not everyone I dated ended up in the box--only those who were either particularly shitty or who showed a foible in my own decision-making process or who served as a turning point or a life-lesson. A memento of each went into the Bad Boyfriend Box.
That box is currently in the basement and this is why I keep it even though I will never add to it again. It wasn't for me. I thought it was for me at first--I thought I was keeping it because I needed to remind myself of bad decisions. I needed to remember my history and make better choices. But somewhere along the way, I realized that I wasn't saving all of that crap for me.
Kris at Baby Proof wrote this week about her own box (read her gorgeous post by clicking here) and I commented on my Bad Boyfriend Box over there, which is what brought about this post in the first place.
It hit me why I was keeping the box early on during grad school. I had just broken up with a boyfriend and I got on a bus and went down to New York to meet my father who was there for a business trip. And when I got off the bus, I saw my dad waiting for me and I started crying and I told him, "a boy hurt me very badly." And he comforted me by telling me his own dating stories. And somehow he found his way to my mother and I would one day find my way to my own husband.
I keep the box for the day that my daughter comes home and tells me that someone has hurt her very badly. I will take out the box and she will see all the stumbles and falls and twists and turns that brought me to her father. That I made mistakes. And I chose the wrong people. And I had my heart broken. And time went by and now I'm in a different space. I want her to remember that there will be good spaces in the future when she's in a bad place. We always seem to be aware that there is the possibility of a bad space in the future when we're currently experiencing something good (how many stirrup queens have become ill with worry during a coveted pregnancy because they spent the nine months worrying they would lose the baby?), but the opposite doesn't hold true.
She needs to remember that one day, there will be a right turn that will bring her to someone who will love her intensely. I won't be able to tell her when that will be, but it will most likely happen if that is where she wants to dedicate her energy. It's not a guarantee, but it's a strong possibility. And when she meets that person, she will create the next generation. She'll have her own daughter--either gestationally or through adoption--and she will also create her own box. And that box will show her daughter the bigger picture just as she got to see the bigger picture and the map of the journey through my box.
What I said to Kris about her Baby Box and the pain it is causing her now and why she keeps it (and perhaps even why she keeps it semi-hidden): I think you keep the box because you know that one day you will have a child. And that child will be having a crap day and will say something like "I wish I had never been born" or "I wish you had never adopted me" or any combination thereof. And you will take down the box and you will show that child how desperately DESPERATELY that child was wanted. And all the wrong turns and stumbles that brought you to that child. And that child will learn something huge that day. And that child will carry that love forward to another generation.
Because that's what I believe this Valentine's Day. That our kids--and by our kids, I mean the collective generation of children raised by stirrup queens and sperm palace jesters--will know how much they were wanted. They will know that their parents waited a long time to be brought to them and their parents went through twists and turns and stumbles and falls to find them. That it wasn't an easy choice--it was a deliberate choice. There may have been loss along the way, but their parents kept trying to find them. And that they are so loved. They are so wanted. They are unique and special and wonderful. And they will bring all of that love forward to the next generation--hopefully not with a Baby Box; hopefully it will be easy for them. But they'll know what it's like to be so wanted and they'll know how to show that to another person in the future.
Those are just my thoughts because I think there are more than two of us who have these types of boxes...
Monday, February 12, 2007
Calling All Virtual Lushes--The Bar Is Open
It's been about a month since the last drinkfest, so it felt like a good morning (because virtual drinks can be consumed before lunch without completely fucking up your work day) to set out a sign for drink specials: the current theme is "anywhere but here" and we're serving big, tropical cocktails to go with the dreary winter weather.
So pull up a seat and I'll pour you a drink and let everyone know what is happening in your life. Maybe you have good news to share and we'll all toast you with a glass of wine. Or maybe you just need to vent about your RE. Or have a good, long cry. My only request is that if a story catches your eye, you follow it back to the person's blog and start reading their posts. Give some love, give some support, or laugh with someone like Watson until your drink comes out of your nose.
I have a ton of assvice in my back pocket and as a virtual bartender, I will give it to you unless you specifically tell me that this is simply a vent and you do not want to receive anything more than a hug.
So if you have been a lurker for a while, sit down and tell us about yourself. Remember to provide a link or a way for people to continue reading your story (or if you don't have a blog--gasp!--you can always leave an email address if you're looking for advice or support. If not, people can leave messages for that person here in the comments section too). If you're a regular at the bar, I'll get out your engraved mug while you make yourself comfortable. And anyone new, welcome. I'm glad you found this virtual bar.
And for anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about right now, you can continue reading the paragraph below from the Friday Blog Roundup following the last open bar. Or click here to read the original post that kicked off the monthly drinkfest...
So pull up a seat and I'll pour you a drink and let everyone know what is happening in your life. Maybe you have good news to share and we'll all toast you with a glass of wine. Or maybe you just need to vent about your RE. Or have a good, long cry. My only request is that if a story catches your eye, you follow it back to the person's blog and start reading their posts. Give some love, give some support, or laugh with someone like Watson until your drink comes out of your nose.
I have a ton of assvice in my back pocket and as a virtual bartender, I will give it to you unless you specifically tell me that this is simply a vent and you do not want to receive anything more than a hug.
So if you have been a lurker for a while, sit down and tell us about yourself. Remember to provide a link or a way for people to continue reading your story (or if you don't have a blog--gasp!--you can always leave an email address if you're looking for advice or support. If not, people can leave messages for that person here in the comments section too). If you're a regular at the bar, I'll get out your engraved mug while you make yourself comfortable. And anyone new, welcome. I'm glad you found this virtual bar.
And for anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about right now, you can continue reading the paragraph below from the Friday Blog Roundup following the last open bar. Or click here to read the original post that kicked off the monthly drinkfest...
All the girl drink drunks in the house say "yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"
Yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!I have to say that pouring drinks for the last 48 hours has been as emotional and cathartic as the creme de la creme list. Just sitting down with a bunch of awesome women and hearing what was happening in everyone's life. It was much better than a night out on the town because I didn't even have to leave my own living room. The best part was when I'd go to someone's blog and someone else would have been there before me saything that they read about how they were going through X and they were going through X too. And that's the whole point of having a place where
everyone knows your name. Because everyone is comfortable reaching out to anyone else who comes through the door and you meet new people who you didn't even know were going through the same shitty experience as you or thinking the same shitty thoughts as you. And suddenly, you're not so alone. So I'm calling a monthly
drinkfest. My bar is always open, of course, but once a month, I'm running specials for 48-hours where everyone can come to my virtual bar and drink and bitch and comfort and cry and laugh. So there. That's my new New Years Resolution--more imaginary alcohol and girl time (boys are welcome too, but you guys never show. Come on, Smarshy. Pull up a barstool and have a good vent). Another drinkfest to follow soon in February--remember to drink responsibly and such.
Yes, Smarshy--you're still invited to become a girl drink drunk (and so is DI Dad, Dynamo Dad, and Richard--come on, where are the men?). So now that you're caught up on the idea of a virtual bar, pull up a seat and tell me your order.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Golden Gamonkeys
Sometimes you need a bit of sweetness, without high-allergens (if the high-allergens you're trying to avoid are chocolate and nuts and not wheat, eggs, or dairy...). Sometimes, when the world is giving you crap, you need a golden gamonkey.
I am not sure what a golden gamonkey actually is. But once the kids named them, it seemed to fit these cookies perfectly. I am picturing a gamonkey as a dreamlike visitor like the werefox out of Chabon's Summerland that takes you on this amazing adventure and makes you see infertility (or whatever your struggle may be in the moment) in an entirely new light. That's a lot for a cookie or any inanimate object. Especially one that you consume. But that's where I am with the golden gamonkey cookie.
I think I'm in a worn sweatshirt place. Not just because it is winter and freezing outside. More in a change-out-of-your-day-clothes-and-spend-the-night-in-a-worn-sweatshirt-watching-old-
movies-you-could-pretty-much-recite-by-heart place. I think it's all connected--the need for wishes, the worn sweatshirt, curling up with a book. It's a need for care. For someone to care for and for someone to care for me. A lack of surprises. Something comfortable. Knowing exactly what to expect and having those expectations fulfilled. As I said, a worn sweatshirt.
So...my recommendation, for what it's worth, if you are also in a worn sweatshirt sort of a place in life right now. Make the cookies. Freeze half. Consume the others in bed. With a blanket pulled up. A book next to you. A cup of hot chocolate. Maybe spiked with some liquor--maybe not. And just breathe. And don't feel guilty if the floor isn't being vacuumed or the dishes aren't being washed. Sometimes, you need to just embrace the worn sweatshirt and not fight your body into a little black dress.
You know what I mean?
1 stick of butter, softened
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Place the butter, sugar and vanilla in a Kitchenaid and mix. Add the egg and mix well until combined. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt and mix a third time, again until well-combined. Add in the white chocolate and raisins. Chill batter in the refrigerator for twenty minutes.
I am not sure what a golden gamonkey actually is. But once the kids named them, it seemed to fit these cookies perfectly. I am picturing a gamonkey as a dreamlike visitor like the werefox out of Chabon's Summerland that takes you on this amazing adventure and makes you see infertility (or whatever your struggle may be in the moment) in an entirely new light. That's a lot for a cookie or any inanimate object. Especially one that you consume. But that's where I am with the golden gamonkey cookie.
I think I'm in a worn sweatshirt place. Not just because it is winter and freezing outside. More in a change-out-of-your-day-clothes-and-spend-the-night-in-a-worn-sweatshirt-watching-old-
movies-you-could-pretty-much-recite-by-heart place. I think it's all connected--the need for wishes, the worn sweatshirt, curling up with a book. It's a need for care. For someone to care for and for someone to care for me. A lack of surprises. Something comfortable. Knowing exactly what to expect and having those expectations fulfilled. As I said, a worn sweatshirt.
So...my recommendation, for what it's worth, if you are also in a worn sweatshirt sort of a place in life right now. Make the cookies. Freeze half. Consume the others in bed. With a blanket pulled up. A book next to you. A cup of hot chocolate. Maybe spiked with some liquor--maybe not. And just breathe. And don't feel guilty if the floor isn't being vacuumed or the dishes aren't being washed. Sometimes, you need to just embrace the worn sweatshirt and not fight your body into a little black dress.
You know what I mean?
Golden Gamonkey Cookies
1 stick of butter, softened
3/4 cup of sugar (half of it light brown sugar and half of it white sugar--or any combination you wish though I thought it needed a bit of light brown sugar)
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 egg
1 1/8 cup of flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup white chocolate chips
1 cup raisins
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Place the butter, sugar and vanilla in a Kitchenaid and mix. Add the egg and mix well until combined. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt and mix a third time, again until well-combined. Add in the white chocolate and raisins. Chill batter in the refrigerator for twenty minutes.
Spoon onto an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 9 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
Friday, February 09, 2007
Friday Blog Roundup
I was going to write a whole post about this nightmare I had last night where this RE (who was not actually my RE. Sort of like one of those dreams where you know the other person in the dream is your husband, but he doesn't look like your real husband) told me that I needed to start Follistim tonight and I couldn't use the normal gauge of needles. I needed to use those motherfuckers that come attached to the syringe to use for drawing up the medication (before you switch to the smaller sub-cue needle).
I'm a nightmare-y sort of girl so it's not that I'm surprised that I had one or need to unpack this dream to discover its deeper meaning. I think what is surprising me is how long it is sticking with me this morning. I feel panicked. I feel like I'm gearing up to start stimming this evening. I feel like I'm watching a clock and counting down to something. And none of these things are actually true. So why is the dream bothering me?
Instead, to kick off Bea's FET cycle Down Under (she flies from Singapore back to her embryos in Australia tonight...or tomorrow...damn these time changes), I will counter her heartwarming story of a woman determined to fold a paper crane and feed a child with my less heartwarming story of a woman who fed someone a potato through a series of mishaps...
When I was 21, I was in Israel visiting family with one of my cousins when we went across the country to a small town named Safad to spend New Year's Eve. We met up with a friend of mine from the U.S. who happened to be in Israel too at the time and we all toured the small-artist-colony-of-a-town. We were looking at a menu posted outside a restaurant when a man approached and asked if we had any money we could spare. I gave him whatever I had in my pocket at the time--a few shekels.
We were eating lunch and he came back to the table and asked again. I apologized and told him I gave him all that I had in my pocket and he responded, "aaah, well, you gave once so I thought you might give again." He left and returned many times throughout the day. It's a small town. He must have asked us again between fifteen and twenty times. Every time we'd bump into him in another spot, he would ask and remind us that we gave once so the chances were better that we'd give again.
Come nightfall, we couldn't find a hostel that would allow us to share a room (we were two girls and one boy) so we caught a bus down the mountain to the resort town of Tiberias below. First, when we arrived, there was discarded backpack leaning against a street sign when we were standing on a corner, waiting to cross the street. The street was relatively deserted and because we noticed it, we felt this obligation over reporting the "hafetz hashud" (it may seem silly wherever you are living, but since bombers sometimes leave explosives in these unattended "suspicious objects" you're under obligation to call the police), which took a bit of time and turned out to be just that--a discarded backpack.
Tiberias and tourism in general was hit hard in the months following the death of Rabin and a spate of bus bombs so restaurant owners were standing outside their restaurants as we walked down the promenade, trying to get customers to enter. We went into one where the owner was especially convincing and where it felt particularly sad--there were no other customers at any other table. We sat down and I ordered a potato boureka. The waiter brought me a baked potato. When I said, "but this wasn't what I ordered" he admitted that he had given me the next best thing. They did not have potato bourekas at this moment in time and they had pared back the menu to its bare bones in order to keep the restaurant afloat.
When I explained that in America, the waiter would have told the customer this while they were ordering so they could order something actually on the menu, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "you're not in America." Which was true. But it felt like one of those rules that should be in place internationally. The international code of restaurants. He told me that regardless, since I had ordered and they had made the baked potato, I needed to pay for it and he was charging the same price as the potato boureka.
I followed him back into the kitchen, still arguing with him. I was not going to pay for a potato boureka that I never received and I didn't want to eat a baked potato. The waiter and I finally haggled it down to this: I would pay half the price of the potato boureka and he would package my baked potato. He asked what I was going to do with it and I said that I would give it to someone hungry on the street.
When I sat back down at the table, my friend and cousin asked what had happened and I explained the plan. My cousin commented that it was too bad that this happened down the mountain because if it had happened in Safad, we could have given the potato to the man who had asked us for money throughout the day. We spent some time speaking about this man and by the time we left the table, we were considering the worth of going back up the mountain with this potato just to have a good New Year's Eve story to tell in the future.
We stepped outside and who is standing there but the man from Safad. I ran over to him and threw my arms around him, saying, "we've been thinking about you all evening and please, take this potato. And I have more money now, so take this as well." At that point, I hear my friend mutter, "aaah, Melissa?" and I step back to see that our man is currently surrounded by twelve police officers that I somehow hadn't noticed because I was so happy to see the man. The police officers opened the "to-go" package, poked at the potato, shrugged their shoulders, and handed it back to the man. He smiled apologetically and tucked himself into a waiting police car. The police drove off with our man and the potato.
But at least he had dinner in the cell?
But...er...the blog roundup is sort of about the blogs...
So, a good trip, Bea. May it be an easy transfer and a successful cycle.
A from a Somewhat Ordinary Life turned 30 this week and had a post of how she pictured herself at 30 when she was 20. This paragraph deeply touched me: "Now I wish I could go back and tell that niave girl barely out of her teens to stop putting so much stock into planning out her life. To stop putting time frames and milestones on life events. I would tell her that sometimes circumstances beyond your control will rattle your plans and there isn't anything you can do. I would tell her she needs to learn to be at peace with the great things she has so that the things she doesn't don't hurt so much. Life throws you curve balls sometimes and things don't happen the way you expected them to. They don't even come close sometimes." I think we all wish we could go back in time and tell our younger selves something that would prepare us for the place we're in now. Click here to read the whole post (no, really, click there because I'm only giving you a small taste of the greatness of this post).
Dianne at Flutter of Hope had a cycle end this week and the anger and sadness in these two posts (here and here) are emotions with which many will relate. I think for me, my feeling in those times is literally wanting to crawl out of my skin and leave my whole body behind for a few days. It's not just the reproductive organs--it's everything. It's my heart wanting it so badly, my brain telling me about late implantation stories, my eyes seeing pregnant women. I wish I could grant you this wish, Dianne--just for a day so you could get back on your feet. Head over there and give your support.
K77 at Scarred Bellybutton had one of the greatest lines in her post called "He Said": "For once I am crying because of GOOD news!" What is the good new, you ask? Well, you'll just have to head over to the post to find out... Click here to read the whole post.
Elizabeth at My No Baby Blues has a recount of her interactions with that damn bitch, Hope, this month. She acts like your best friend and she convinces you that you may be pregnant. As Elizabeth writes: "I feel foolish. But then, hope pointed out that it might be a little early to test. It's not that early, I told her, and all my symptoms have vanished. She's still whispering in my ear. And I can't quite block her out. So I am feeling (1) not pregnant, (2) hopeful that I might be anyway, and (3) stupid for clinging to that hope." She's gotten all of at one point or another. It's a fantastic post--read the whole post here.
Lut C at Things Get Iffy had a successful transfer this week (and even has an embryo to freeze!). She also left a lovely wish to all of us at the end of her most recent post. Go over to read it and receive your wish as well as offer her congratulations... Click here.
Happy reading (no, really, go over and read the whole post and leave a comment) and a wonderful weekend. When I get a moment, I will put up the cookie recipe I made up yesterday morning that the twins have named "Golden Gamonkey Cookies." What's a Gamonkey, you ask? Seriously, you have to ask? I mean, doesn't everyone know about gamonkeys?
I'm a nightmare-y sort of girl so it's not that I'm surprised that I had one or need to unpack this dream to discover its deeper meaning. I think what is surprising me is how long it is sticking with me this morning. I feel panicked. I feel like I'm gearing up to start stimming this evening. I feel like I'm watching a clock and counting down to something. And none of these things are actually true. So why is the dream bothering me?
Instead, to kick off Bea's FET cycle Down Under (she flies from Singapore back to her embryos in Australia tonight...or tomorrow...damn these time changes), I will counter her heartwarming story of a woman determined to fold a paper crane and feed a child with my less heartwarming story of a woman who fed someone a potato through a series of mishaps...
When I was 21, I was in Israel visiting family with one of my cousins when we went across the country to a small town named Safad to spend New Year's Eve. We met up with a friend of mine from the U.S. who happened to be in Israel too at the time and we all toured the small-artist-colony-of-a-town. We were looking at a menu posted outside a restaurant when a man approached and asked if we had any money we could spare. I gave him whatever I had in my pocket at the time--a few shekels.
We were eating lunch and he came back to the table and asked again. I apologized and told him I gave him all that I had in my pocket and he responded, "aaah, well, you gave once so I thought you might give again." He left and returned many times throughout the day. It's a small town. He must have asked us again between fifteen and twenty times. Every time we'd bump into him in another spot, he would ask and remind us that we gave once so the chances were better that we'd give again.
Come nightfall, we couldn't find a hostel that would allow us to share a room (we were two girls and one boy) so we caught a bus down the mountain to the resort town of Tiberias below. First, when we arrived, there was discarded backpack leaning against a street sign when we were standing on a corner, waiting to cross the street. The street was relatively deserted and because we noticed it, we felt this obligation over reporting the "hafetz hashud" (it may seem silly wherever you are living, but since bombers sometimes leave explosives in these unattended "suspicious objects" you're under obligation to call the police), which took a bit of time and turned out to be just that--a discarded backpack.
Tiberias and tourism in general was hit hard in the months following the death of Rabin and a spate of bus bombs so restaurant owners were standing outside their restaurants as we walked down the promenade, trying to get customers to enter. We went into one where the owner was especially convincing and where it felt particularly sad--there were no other customers at any other table. We sat down and I ordered a potato boureka. The waiter brought me a baked potato. When I said, "but this wasn't what I ordered" he admitted that he had given me the next best thing. They did not have potato bourekas at this moment in time and they had pared back the menu to its bare bones in order to keep the restaurant afloat.
When I explained that in America, the waiter would have told the customer this while they were ordering so they could order something actually on the menu, he shrugged his shoulders and said, "you're not in America." Which was true. But it felt like one of those rules that should be in place internationally. The international code of restaurants. He told me that regardless, since I had ordered and they had made the baked potato, I needed to pay for it and he was charging the same price as the potato boureka.
I followed him back into the kitchen, still arguing with him. I was not going to pay for a potato boureka that I never received and I didn't want to eat a baked potato. The waiter and I finally haggled it down to this: I would pay half the price of the potato boureka and he would package my baked potato. He asked what I was going to do with it and I said that I would give it to someone hungry on the street.
When I sat back down at the table, my friend and cousin asked what had happened and I explained the plan. My cousin commented that it was too bad that this happened down the mountain because if it had happened in Safad, we could have given the potato to the man who had asked us for money throughout the day. We spent some time speaking about this man and by the time we left the table, we were considering the worth of going back up the mountain with this potato just to have a good New Year's Eve story to tell in the future.
We stepped outside and who is standing there but the man from Safad. I ran over to him and threw my arms around him, saying, "we've been thinking about you all evening and please, take this potato. And I have more money now, so take this as well." At that point, I hear my friend mutter, "aaah, Melissa?" and I step back to see that our man is currently surrounded by twelve police officers that I somehow hadn't noticed because I was so happy to see the man. The police officers opened the "to-go" package, poked at the potato, shrugged their shoulders, and handed it back to the man. He smiled apologetically and tucked himself into a waiting police car. The police drove off with our man and the potato.
But at least he had dinner in the cell?
But...er...the blog roundup is sort of about the blogs...
So, a good trip, Bea. May it be an easy transfer and a successful cycle.
A from a Somewhat Ordinary Life turned 30 this week and had a post of how she pictured herself at 30 when she was 20. This paragraph deeply touched me: "Now I wish I could go back and tell that niave girl barely out of her teens to stop putting so much stock into planning out her life. To stop putting time frames and milestones on life events. I would tell her that sometimes circumstances beyond your control will rattle your plans and there isn't anything you can do. I would tell her she needs to learn to be at peace with the great things she has so that the things she doesn't don't hurt so much. Life throws you curve balls sometimes and things don't happen the way you expected them to. They don't even come close sometimes." I think we all wish we could go back in time and tell our younger selves something that would prepare us for the place we're in now. Click here to read the whole post (no, really, click there because I'm only giving you a small taste of the greatness of this post).
Dianne at Flutter of Hope had a cycle end this week and the anger and sadness in these two posts (here and here) are emotions with which many will relate. I think for me, my feeling in those times is literally wanting to crawl out of my skin and leave my whole body behind for a few days. It's not just the reproductive organs--it's everything. It's my heart wanting it so badly, my brain telling me about late implantation stories, my eyes seeing pregnant women. I wish I could grant you this wish, Dianne--just for a day so you could get back on your feet. Head over there and give your support.
K77 at Scarred Bellybutton had one of the greatest lines in her post called "He Said": "For once I am crying because of GOOD news!" What is the good new, you ask? Well, you'll just have to head over to the post to find out... Click here to read the whole post.
Elizabeth at My No Baby Blues has a recount of her interactions with that damn bitch, Hope, this month. She acts like your best friend and she convinces you that you may be pregnant. As Elizabeth writes: "I feel foolish. But then, hope pointed out that it might be a little early to test. It's not that early, I told her, and all my symptoms have vanished. She's still whispering in my ear. And I can't quite block her out. So I am feeling (1) not pregnant, (2) hopeful that I might be anyway, and (3) stupid for clinging to that hope." She's gotten all of at one point or another. It's a fantastic post--read the whole post here.
Lut C at Things Get Iffy had a successful transfer this week (and even has an embryo to freeze!). She also left a lovely wish to all of us at the end of her most recent post. Go over to read it and receive your wish as well as offer her congratulations... Click here.
Happy reading (no, really, go over and read the whole post and leave a comment) and a wonderful weekend. When I get a moment, I will put up the cookie recipe I made up yesterday morning that the twins have named "Golden Gamonkey Cookies." What's a Gamonkey, you ask? Seriously, you have to ask? I mean, doesn't everyone know about gamonkeys?
Thursday, February 08, 2007
Sermony
First there were the begats where everybody created somebody while I could create nobody. Then there was Sarah and Rebecca and Rachel with her pleas for motherhood. Tucked into Haftorah (1) portions were Hannah and Michal. The endless "womb openings" and commandments to be fruitful and multiply.
I could not spend one more week hearing about barren Biblical women.
Two-and-a-half years ago, we took a break from shul (2) and the break ended a few weeks ago. We knew that we couldn't return to our old shul--there was no way I was going to be able to pick up that red Etz Hayim (3) and not turn to Rachel's story like a freakin' fanatic if I was sitting in the same seat where I had sat for years, wishing for motherhood.
Trying on shuls is sort of like jeans. When it fits and makes your ass look good, you know it instantly. And when the shul feels wrong the moment you sit down for the service, it's like standing in a dressing room at the Gap and thinking, "it's me; isn't it? If I just lost a few pounds, these jeans would look better. No; it's them. Their clothes have gone to crap. Who the hell would fit into these? Fuck it. I wish I hadn't even tried this on."
We tried on many crappy pairs of jeans to find this fit.
We were pretty much on our final shul when it clicked. I can't really put my finger on why this shul and not another. They have the same books, the same service, the same faceless congregants as all the other new shuls we considered. But this one felt good. It fit me. And instantly finding a new home made me realize how much I had longed to have a home for the last two-and-a-half years.
The only thing (and even things that fit perfectly can have an "only thing") was that the service was so kid-centric. Next to the main ark (4) was a mini-ark filled with mini-Torah that the mini-children carried in their mini-arms behind the normal-sized rabbi to kick off the Torah service. The rabbi paused in the middle of the service to read a picture book to the kids who gathered in a small semi-circle next to the bimah (5). Lollipops were passed out to kids at the end of the service.
It was like entering a big, Jewy Willy Wonka factory without the river of chocolate. Or oompa loopas. With perhaps the only ties to Willy Wonka being the candy at the end of the service. But still.
And I get it. The future of the shul rests on the rabbi's ability to include the kids in the service and commit them to continuing the traditions. If you don't hook the kids, you're looking at a congregation that will die out at the end of the current generation. So I get it--I understand why catering to parents and children is a good investment in an age where tradition has the possibility of falling by the wayside in favour of secularism.
But what about everyone else? What about the single guy I was talking to after the service? What about the widows or the single women? What about those who decided not to have children? What about those who can't have children? Where do they fit into this bigger picture? Where is their lollipop?
This is what I was thinking as I was sitting through the service--how could the rabbi change it so that it was all inclusive? So that the children could be celebrated and made to feel like little kings and queens for the day with the Torah parade and quiet play area in the back of the shul while at the same time wrapping an infertile person in a much needed hug? Is it possible? Or are the two situations so diametrically opposed that it would be impossible to feel peace in a scene that brings you emotional pain?
And then I received this note this week from a woman who is writing a sermon specifically to reach out to infertile congregants in her church:
I am due to write [a sermon for Lent] on an Old Testament Woman and the theme is "being still and finding G-d in the storms of life." I remember a post from a friend struggling with infertility about how hard church was on Mother’s Day and am sure it can be a painful reminder. I was thinking about preaching on Hannah or Sarah or one of the “barren” women that God gave a child to. Knowing so many people struggling daily with IUIs, IVF, miscarriages, etc I have been touched quite a bit about this real struggle in our society even if I’m not at a TTC point in my life yet. So a few questions for you (and your readers if you would be willing to post them?)
1. How has dealing with IF changed your view of God (if you had one?)
2. Would it cause more pain to hear it talked about in church or be a comfort to open a dialogue?
3. For those who have succeeded in having children, has that also changed your view of God?
4. How does the Bible stories of Hannah, Sarah and the other “barren” women in the Bible relate to your own IF journey?
I’m also open to other thoughts and comments. My biggest concern is that I don’t want to do this if it would be more painful to hear for people. I don’t know who might be hearing it and I don’t want to be insensitive or seem like I have easy answers. I would like to be true to the experience and the emotions even though I have just been an IF supporter thus far.
For me, the second question brought out the most internal debate. To give some background, there is a short sermon-like speech given after the Torah portion called a "d'var Torah". In some shuls, the rabbi gives this speech, but in my old shul, a congregant (who was chosen beforehand) prepared the commentary on that particular passage in the Torah--perhaps providing more information to help the listener understand the passage or connecting it to current events. Which meant that people tended to choose a passage that they could speak about comfortably. The burden wasn't on the rabbi (we didn't have a rabbi--the service was community-led) to be everything for everyone.
So would it be a pain or a comfort to hear a d'var Torah on the desperation of Rachel, let's say? I started debating this in my head. How would I feel if it was brought up, but not done justice? Would I just be happy that someone was recognizing me as a part of the community and giving me a voice even if it wasn't perfect? How would I feel if it was a woman with seven kids giving the d'var Torah and I knew that she conceived each one on the first try because she's always talking about that fact? Would it matter if it was a really rockin' d'var Torah that somehow truly captured the infertile experience?
The best d'var Torah I ever heard was on Leviticus 18:22. It's a hot-button portion and I've heard some pretty crappy divrei Torah (6) in the past. But one year, the d'var Torah was delivered by J, a gay congregant. Rather than tiptoeing around the history of offensiveness over this passage, he said the words that made everyone cringed--the ones people like to sweep under the rug and pretend aren't a big old pile of hot-buttons "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is abomination." And then he paused and said something along the lines of this (though far more eloquently): "it's true--I cannot lie with a man as I could with a woman. The hardware is too different. Therefore, I see this statement as fact: I cannot lie with a man as I would with a woman. I lie with him in a different way." The d'var Torah was about homophobia and how it tears apart community. It was a brilliant, honest, raw account of his own experience as a gay man sitting in a heterocentric shul listening to Leviticus 18:22 come around every year.
Which brings back the question: can someone outside the experience ever speak as honestly and as eloquently as someone inside the experience? Is it the speaker or the personal experience that truly has the power?
I could not spend one more week hearing about barren Biblical women.
Two-and-a-half years ago, we took a break from shul (2) and the break ended a few weeks ago. We knew that we couldn't return to our old shul--there was no way I was going to be able to pick up that red Etz Hayim (3) and not turn to Rachel's story like a freakin' fanatic if I was sitting in the same seat where I had sat for years, wishing for motherhood.
Trying on shuls is sort of like jeans. When it fits and makes your ass look good, you know it instantly. And when the shul feels wrong the moment you sit down for the service, it's like standing in a dressing room at the Gap and thinking, "it's me; isn't it? If I just lost a few pounds, these jeans would look better. No; it's them. Their clothes have gone to crap. Who the hell would fit into these? Fuck it. I wish I hadn't even tried this on."
We tried on many crappy pairs of jeans to find this fit.
We were pretty much on our final shul when it clicked. I can't really put my finger on why this shul and not another. They have the same books, the same service, the same faceless congregants as all the other new shuls we considered. But this one felt good. It fit me. And instantly finding a new home made me realize how much I had longed to have a home for the last two-and-a-half years.
The only thing (and even things that fit perfectly can have an "only thing") was that the service was so kid-centric. Next to the main ark (4) was a mini-ark filled with mini-Torah that the mini-children carried in their mini-arms behind the normal-sized rabbi to kick off the Torah service. The rabbi paused in the middle of the service to read a picture book to the kids who gathered in a small semi-circle next to the bimah (5). Lollipops were passed out to kids at the end of the service.
It was like entering a big, Jewy Willy Wonka factory without the river of chocolate. Or oompa loopas. With perhaps the only ties to Willy Wonka being the candy at the end of the service. But still.
And I get it. The future of the shul rests on the rabbi's ability to include the kids in the service and commit them to continuing the traditions. If you don't hook the kids, you're looking at a congregation that will die out at the end of the current generation. So I get it--I understand why catering to parents and children is a good investment in an age where tradition has the possibility of falling by the wayside in favour of secularism.
But what about everyone else? What about the single guy I was talking to after the service? What about the widows or the single women? What about those who decided not to have children? What about those who can't have children? Where do they fit into this bigger picture? Where is their lollipop?
This is what I was thinking as I was sitting through the service--how could the rabbi change it so that it was all inclusive? So that the children could be celebrated and made to feel like little kings and queens for the day with the Torah parade and quiet play area in the back of the shul while at the same time wrapping an infertile person in a much needed hug? Is it possible? Or are the two situations so diametrically opposed that it would be impossible to feel peace in a scene that brings you emotional pain?
And then I received this note this week from a woman who is writing a sermon specifically to reach out to infertile congregants in her church:
I am due to write [a sermon for Lent] on an Old Testament Woman and the theme is "being still and finding G-d in the storms of life." I remember a post from a friend struggling with infertility about how hard church was on Mother’s Day and am sure it can be a painful reminder. I was thinking about preaching on Hannah or Sarah or one of the “barren” women that God gave a child to. Knowing so many people struggling daily with IUIs, IVF, miscarriages, etc I have been touched quite a bit about this real struggle in our society even if I’m not at a TTC point in my life yet. So a few questions for you (and your readers if you would be willing to post them?)
1. How has dealing with IF changed your view of God (if you had one?)
2. Would it cause more pain to hear it talked about in church or be a comfort to open a dialogue?
3. For those who have succeeded in having children, has that also changed your view of God?
4. How does the Bible stories of Hannah, Sarah and the other “barren” women in the Bible relate to your own IF journey?
I’m also open to other thoughts and comments. My biggest concern is that I don’t want to do this if it would be more painful to hear for people. I don’t know who might be hearing it and I don’t want to be insensitive or seem like I have easy answers. I would like to be true to the experience and the emotions even though I have just been an IF supporter thus far.
For me, the second question brought out the most internal debate. To give some background, there is a short sermon-like speech given after the Torah portion called a "d'var Torah". In some shuls, the rabbi gives this speech, but in my old shul, a congregant (who was chosen beforehand) prepared the commentary on that particular passage in the Torah--perhaps providing more information to help the listener understand the passage or connecting it to current events. Which meant that people tended to choose a passage that they could speak about comfortably. The burden wasn't on the rabbi (we didn't have a rabbi--the service was community-led) to be everything for everyone.
So would it be a pain or a comfort to hear a d'var Torah on the desperation of Rachel, let's say? I started debating this in my head. How would I feel if it was brought up, but not done justice? Would I just be happy that someone was recognizing me as a part of the community and giving me a voice even if it wasn't perfect? How would I feel if it was a woman with seven kids giving the d'var Torah and I knew that she conceived each one on the first try because she's always talking about that fact? Would it matter if it was a really rockin' d'var Torah that somehow truly captured the infertile experience?
The best d'var Torah I ever heard was on Leviticus 18:22. It's a hot-button portion and I've heard some pretty crappy divrei Torah (6) in the past. But one year, the d'var Torah was delivered by J, a gay congregant. Rather than tiptoeing around the history of offensiveness over this passage, he said the words that made everyone cringed--the ones people like to sweep under the rug and pretend aren't a big old pile of hot-buttons "You shall not lie with a man as with a woman; it is abomination." And then he paused and said something along the lines of this (though far more eloquently): "it's true--I cannot lie with a man as I could with a woman. The hardware is too different. Therefore, I see this statement as fact: I cannot lie with a man as I would with a woman. I lie with him in a different way." The d'var Torah was about homophobia and how it tears apart community. It was a brilliant, honest, raw account of his own experience as a gay man sitting in a heterocentric shul listening to Leviticus 18:22 come around every year.
Which brings back the question: can someone outside the experience ever speak as honestly and as eloquently as someone inside the experience? Is it the speaker or the personal experience that truly has the power?
On one hand, I don't know if a straight man could have delivered the same emotion even if he was speaking the same words. On the other, as a writer, I don't believe that one has to go through the experience to speak eloquently on the topic. Think of all the books with a believable female protagonist written by a male author. All the stories written that speak to the emotions at the core of an experience that could not possibly have been experienced by the author.
But...I keep coming back to the word "but." I don't know how I would feel--would it be the best moment ever in shul if my rabbi marched in this week with a d'var Torah about infertility or should I just sit in the shul, understanding that we're not living in a perfect world and in this world, the kids get the lollipops and I get to simply watch them.
Now with a glossary of all my Jewlicious terms...
(1) You've heard of the Torah, but what the hell is a Haftorah? A long time ago, when Jews were forbidden to read the Torah, the rabbis got around the edict by substituting portions from the Prophets in lieu of reading the Torah. They tried to find portions from the Prophets that matched the message of the portion of the Torah they were forbidden to read. Even though Jews can now read the Torah, they still read the corresponding Haftorah portions each week. And that's one to grow on... (Back)
(2) What is shul? It's just another way of saying synagogue. (Back)
(3) The book favoured by the Conservative Movement in Judaism. It contains the Torah--or Bible--and all the Haftorah portions along with commentary.
(Back)
(4) The ark is where the Torah is kept. (Back)
(5) The bimah is the little stage where the rabbi (or whoever is reading the Torah) stands (Back)
(6) The plural of d'var Torah (Back)
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