The Daily News

LFCA Latest Issue: Friday, September 25, 2009.

Latest Post on BlogHer: Parenting after Infertility.

My Status: Fed Josh's almonds to the squirrels. They needed them very badly.

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

A Mishmash of Thoughts

Even though there were more votes than people who actually participate weekly in Show & Tell, I'm going to go with the majority and move it to Thursday. Which means that from this week forward, the list will open on Wednesday evening as well as the Mr. Linky box for participants that week and people can post what they are showing and telling any time between Wednesday and Friday. The participant list will always close on Friday night and reopen the next Wednesday night.

So what are you showing and telling about this week? I have one planned that features many other bloggers, a long-lost cousin, and boobs. Lots of lady boobs.

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Lindsay gave me the most amazing birthday present. She took a picture of me several weeks ago blowing apart a dandelion with the ChickieNob and she blew it up to 16x20 and printed it on canvas. We propped it up on my desk during the evening and Josh saw it when he walked through the door. I wish I could have captured the grin he had on his face when he spotted his girls.

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Thank you for the Resolve congratulations and I literally shat my pants again over Ali Domar's anonymous comment. Paz said, "See, being 35 ain't so bad after all. Ali Domar is commenting on your blog, life is good." And it's so true. Now that I have gotten to tell Ali Domar how much her book meant to me, I wish I could email my therapist my sincerest thank yous too. Paz's comment really gave me pause because it made me think of all that I would have missed had I not resolved my infertility.

Because, you know, that it's different--resolving your infertility vs. resolving your childlessness. You can have a child and never resolve your infertility and you can resolve your infertility before you have a child. Unfortunately, it is also possible to never resolve your infertility nor your childlessness. And sometimes, it happens simultaneously--I literally saw my friend resolve her infertility when she held her child.

I personally needed to work on both at the same time--the emotional side and the family building side. I was really drowning in the emotional side and I could feel myself pulling farther and farther away from myself as I worked on the family building part. In the end, I got the brass ring--emotional health and the children. It could have been otherwise, and that scares me so completely. And still, it's such a powerful lesson to get to see what comes after that it's worth the work of coming to resolution.

Things we feel so deeply, so wholely, so completely, cannot be dismissed or talked out of or ignored. My infertility needed to be addressed. It needed to be talked about just as much as I needed to go to the RE to work around it.

Ali Domar's book came to me around the same time as I entered therapy. I was stuck in Detroit at my best friend's apartment due to a snow storm. All the flights were cancelled back to the East Coast. I had just been diagnosed with infertility before the flight to her apartment. I took apart her vacuum cleaner while she was at work and cleaned out each individual piece. I was cleaning the item used for cleaning while simultaneously reorganizing her linen closet. She came home while I was putting the vacuum back together, the closet door ajar and some of the items still on the floor and she looked at me and said, "I don't want you to get angry when I say this and I'm not telling you this because I think you're weak. I'm saying this because I love you and because you need to do something about this." I need to thank her as well; for not reacting with glee to finding your vacuum cleaner and linen closet spotless. For instead seeing someone who was crying out for order in her life, a return to the pristine state of her early marriage, when she thought life was going to be easy because she had found a man who she loved with her whole heart. And that was supposed to be enough to build your family.

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Damn, this post was supposed to be just an announcement about Show and Tell moving so that people would get their posts ready in time for Wednesday night; a post about Lindsay's incredible birthday gift; a post thanking you for your congratulations. I guess I had more I needed to say.

14 comments:

Lori Lavender Luz said...

The moment you find your dreams are shattered -- it kind of makes YOU shattered. For a bit.

Did I say "you"? I meant me.

You can go back to that vacuum cleaner time; I can go back to the sitting-on-the-grass-railing-with-my-mom time. And we can revisit the hurt/pain/anger/grief.

But we look back from a place of resolution.

Resolve is kind of an appropriate word: re-solve. Like we view it through (mostly) healed eyes.

Would love to see that pic. I bet it's stunning.

S said...

Interesting perspective about resolving your infertility, especially for someone like me who is at a very different place in the process than you, having been TTC for 16 cycles.

Since realizing that we are infertile, I have been assuming that getting pregnant would be the resolution to the problem. I will be interested to see if more emotional work than that will be required, even if we are ultimately able to have a child of our own. (I assume that more emotional work will/would be required to resolve my feelings about childlessness.)

Eve said...

First, a belated congrats to your award! Woo-hoo! It is well-deserved and hard-earned!

Alice Domar's book came to me during my primary IF and really took me to a place of deeper understanding about my IF and realizing that I had become depressed as well and needed to address that before I could get pregnant.

It is a hard lesson to know that a child doesn't make infertility go away. It's definitely something I've learned. And TTC again after primary IF resulting in a child puts you right back where you never thought you'd be.

I'm so ready for resolution in my own infertility, really whatever the outcome. I've been living in it since 2002! I'm hoping that my upcoming IVF cycle in August will bring me closure to a bio child no matter what the results.

I had a friend lately who said she was sorry I was going through IF again. I thought about it for awhile and said, "Well, the world's not fair...and this is MY part that's not fair. But I'm on the other side of fairness in so many other ways." I've turned that into a mini-mantra for myself, that seems to be helping me lately.

Geesh, sorry to write a novel. Shutting up now!

LJ said...

Yay! I'm glad Josh liked it too. I definitely need one of you and Wolvog though, or maybe Wolvog and his true love - the Orange phone.

Resolution is an interesting place...for me, I never thought I'd be able to reconcile my feelings about infertility. However it turns out that I was mourning childlessness, or at least most of the time, that's how it feels in retrospect.

Kristin said...

I had never really thought of resolving infertility as being different than finally having that long sought after child but it really is. Wow! Happy Birthday again. Congrats again. And, when do we get to see the pics of you signing Katie's boobs?

Anonymous said...

I hate that book. Hate, hate, hate it.

Some of us have issues that can't be resolved no matter how at peace, happy, meditative, alternative therapy treated we are.

Theories like that make it the victim's fault he/she isn't cured. It's like a religion that tells you if you pray just the right way, you will be cured.

Well, not true. Life is not magic. Life is chaos.

Now I will apologize for being anonymous. You know me and I am not ready to admit how disenchanted I am with the mind/body connection fantasy.

Aurelia said...

Hey congratulations on the award!

And yes, I completely agree about the difference between resolving infertility and having a child. I cannot tell you how many times I have met people who have never dealt with their issues, and ended up projecting them on their children, or if they have no living children, ended up depressed or bitter.

It always makes me sad...

Aurelia said...

Well, in case anyone thinks I was referring to the mind/body connection, I wasn't, for one! I've always thought that was less than helpful. Mostly because if i had a nickel for every doc who tried to give me antidepressants but never bothered to diagnose my clotting disorder, I'd be a millionaire.

But yes, anon, I do hope that everyone finds peace somehow regardless of how it turns out, and not because it will magically cure anyone, but because it's pretty shitty to have to live a sad life forever.

And who says it has to be one way for everyone? Drugs are good, if you really have a diagnosis and still feel crappy. My fave actually. I know other people who bury themselves in work or sports or travel. Mel liked this one particular book, for her.

Take care anon.

Anonymous said...

Mel,

I need you to know that YOUR book has come to me at the start of my IF journey, and already, it's given shape and purpose and hope in ways that I'm sure Ali Domar's book did for you.

Thank you. Thank you so much.

Phoebe said...

Dang, I missed the whole Alice Domar comment thang. You're like a celebrity now! Oprah will be next!

So wishing to find resolution myself, but not there yet. And I'm sad about Show and Tell moving. I missed that vote too. It just won't be the same...

Phoebe said...

Double Dang!! And you met Mario Batali?! How wild is that!!

Paz said...

I believe the mind body connection is more about getting through the process of whatever it is your dealing with. IF is hard enough, but it doesn't have to rob you of your soul. You have resources that you can protect and nurture that will help you as you go through it all.

I see that as the point, not that you heal the mind and that heals or helps lead to healing the body.

That said, there is potentially so much self-blame, guilt or self-loathing to the IF experience that a book like Domar's can trigger. But to anon who disliked her book, I understand your perspective but... well, as you describe it doesn't gel with my perception of the book (that I have gleaned, but not read to be honest)

And lady boobs. Um, did I miss them? They are to come? For the life of me, I just can't imagine what the heck you are talking about.

Ms. Perky said...

Me? I don't like the book either, but I didn't leave the anonymous comment. It didn't work for me. It's not my thing, and it 's the kind of thing that never COULD have worked for me. I've heard interviews with Ali Domar and her whole attitude frustrates me.

But that's me. I can also totally see how she would truly speak to other people.

beckylbranch said...

So glad I found your blog and thanks for the great list of fertility blogs...it's great support!