cranky? who said i'm cranky? YOU? YOU TALKING TO ME?

Well, I finally did it. I snapped while watching Private Practice. I'm cranky. I blame the jet lag.

Said jet lag means I'm waking up at 5am and then completely wiped out by 8:30 at night, so I just finished watching last night's episode. (Yay, DVR!) In which a couple comes in wanting to get pregnant, and seeking a particular characteristic for their child, which leads to what I'm sure was supposed to be a REALLY CUTTING EDGE show involving genetic tomfoolery and designer babies and - hey, look! a guy in a wheelchair! and he's a brilliant doctor! you people are CRAZY! - except that I couldn't focus on any of this deeply meaningful plot, because the "fertility doctors" on the show kept repeatedly saying that they were going to implant the embryos. I mean, over and and over again: "I object to this implantation!" "We are doing this implantation!" "This implantation is a slippery slope!"

I'm not sure why this pisses me off so much. Because it does, and I mean a LOT. An inordinate, illogical amount, really. I think it's because all the publicity out there regarding fertility treatments seems to be stories about people who end up pregnant with 1.) the wrong baby, or 2.) nineteen babies, or 3.) babies born early who cost so much money to keep in the hospital, thus proving that all of us seeking help for infertility are raging, selfish bitches who should be forced to adopt (I'm talking to you, New York Times and subsequent commenters). (Who undoubtedly do not read the blogs of said infertile bitches, so whatever.)

But really. If you are promoting a show about a fertility practice but can't get a simple piece of fertility treatment straight, who are you kidding? I realize this show is basically a glorified soap opera, but I need some brain candy on Thursday nights. I have Grey's, of course, but I need something even dumber before I fall asleep. I would like this show to be it, but now I watch it and get all frustrated and angry and then I come to bed muttering things about "how these idiots don't even know the word 'transfer,'" and this is not great for my poor husband, who is just trying to get some sleep.

So I went online and found that this show has a "Medical Researcher blog," which I assume is written by the intern who runs to the drugstore to get bandaids, given that there seems to be a total void of actual research on this show. But it did give a forum to vent my little frustration , which I enjoyed.

That link is my public service for the day: go forth, friends, and explain to the "researcher" over there at ABC how it really works. Unless you are smarter than me and have stopped watching this show.

Meanwhile, I'm off to take a little nap.

home.

Woke up at 4am in Berlin.

Flew through Amsterdam to home.

Have now been home for about 6 hours.

Up for 24 hours. Maybe more. Or less. Math skills very bad when tired.

So, so tired.

But determined to stay up until 8pm because everyone says you have to stay up until bedtime or the jet lag will be worse. I may fall asleep as I type thissdlkfjoginowreoijeworan...sorry. Napped on the keyboard for a moment.

Great trip. So wonderful.

Must. Stay. Awake. For 90 more minutes.

Stories later.

get out

If something really important happens to you in the next few weeks, blog-friends, and I don't get over to your place to comment - don't take it personally. I'm going on a trip!

After many, MANY months of planning, we're heading to Europe this Saturday, and coming back November 3rd. We're going with a group from my church, so I'm technically the leader (though we'll have a local guide, mercifully, since my language skills are rusty at best) - and all the preparations means there's been not much time for blogging lately. And who knows what internet connectivity will be like where we are, so I may be missing for awhile.

But we're really excited, and I'll give you a full report when we get back. If you're the praying sort, send up a few for our travels: I really hate flying, and ten hours in a plane is a LONG DAMN TIME for me, but on the other hand, it's ten hours away from the phone and email and any demands on me, so that's sounding better and better.

See you in a few weeks. Ciao!

start seeing motorcycles

You know how, when you're single and wanting to meet someone, every single freaking thing around you is all about marriage? It's as if the D.avid's Brid.al people have some kind of radar to track down the homes of single women and show bridal-gown-sale commercials every twenty-five seconds, just for the sheer torture value.

And then how, when you're trying to get pregnant, every single freaking thing is about pregnancy? Everybody's having a baby, every single celebrity on the face of the earth is on the cover of Pe.ople magazine with their smiling child, saying how they "thought that life was all about work, and then I had this baby, and now I know the whole purpose of my life, why doesn't everyone do this, it's so amazing"?

(Is it possible that the above paragraphs are really more about my perception than actual reality? No. Certainly not.)

Anyway. Lately, everything around me is about infertility. And this is unusual, though it does have its good points. I wrote just a little while ago about my lunch with a parishioner, during which we both confided our fertility struggles. A grandmother in my congregation told me about her granddaughter, pregnant by IVF with twins (very, very sadly, she lost the pregnancy and both children shortly afterward).

Then there was that article in Sunday's New York Times, which made want to run screaming out of the room (WARNING: DO NOT, under any circumstances, read the comments, because you will lose your faith in humanity). And that Padma Laskmi lady from the Fo.od Netw.ork who talked publicly about her endometriosis (I think I spelled your name incorrectly, Padma. My bad.). There was even in a hint in a story about healthcare reform that the Oba.ma's might have had some fertility problems themselves.

And then, on Sunday night, someone else confided in me about a year-long struggle to get pregnant, culminating in a really bad semen analysis and now the fight that lies ahead.

My brother.

There are three of us in my family: older sister and two younger brothers. My middle brother got married first. He and his wife tried for nearly six years to have a child - my sister-in-law, like me, has severe endo (though she knew it beforehand). We all know my story. And now, the trifecta: my youngest brother has joined our sad little club. Three kids, three separate reasons, three infertility battles. (It took my parents five months to conceive me, my mom told me when I first told her about our struggles. My brothers: both on month 1. My mother is the sort of fertility story I now hate. Ironic, no?)

The other day, I was driving down the road and noticed a bumper sticker on the car next to me: "Start seeing motorcycles." "Huh," I thought to myself, "I was unaware that I was not seeing motorcycles."

You know what happens after you see that bumper sticker? You see motorcycles everywhere. They're on TV, they're parked next to you at the grocery store, they're on the freeway, they're cutting you off downtown, they're waiting next to you at the light. THEY'RE EVERYWHERE. I suppose that's the point, really; that some motorcyclist who felt like nobody was really seeing him (or her) decided to remind us all that there are other vehicles on the road.

I feel like getting a bumper sticker that says, "start seeing infertility." Because one thing I have learned over the past four years is that this struggle is a lot more pervasive than I ever imagined.

This is what I tried to tell myself while I was reading the hateful comments on that Times story: that, right now, I see infertility everywhere. It's shot through my family like a virus. It's in my congregation. It's on TV and in the newspaper and in the lives of friends - but not everyone sees it. Lots of people push it away, cut it off in traffic, drive right past it on the side of the road, because it's not their problem - they drive cars, not motorcycles, why should they care? - and so they feel free to say horrible, cruel things, because they just don't see.

I used to get so fed up about that. I used to write comments back on news stories, letters to editors, blog posts of righteous anger - and now, for better or worse, I don't have the energy for it anymore. They just don't see us. And I can't make them.

Instead, I'm trying to ask myself who it is that I don't see. Who's sitting by the side of the road, trying to pick themselves up from an accident, with traffic flying by and nobody even taking a second look - who is it that I can try harder to see, really see, even if their great heartache is one I'll never know myself?

Maybe I'll get myself a motorcycle. We'll see.

bad plan.

Note to self:

Even though, when lovely sister-in-law invites self to "Girls Night Out" drinks and swears that said Girls will not, absolutely not, just talk about their children, remind self that said Girls met at a Parents' group and so "swear we will not talk about our kids" will probably last, oh, about two minutes. If self is lucky.

However, luckily, have drinks. So this is good.

Now will look for Infertile Girls to have night out with. Might be better than Cheerful Moms with Constant Cute, Well-Meaning, but Tiresome Anecdotes of Darling Children.

Sangria was yummy, though.

show and tell: hey, at least I can knit cute things for other people's children.

You'd think that the last thing an infertile girl would want to do is knit baby clothes. But you would be wrong. At least in this case. Because, despite any other emotional baggage they might carry with them, baby clothes have one distinct advantage: they're small. I can actually finish them. This is a huge bonus point in my world, where I have been working on two sweaters for myself for the past, oh, two years, but where I have managed to complete a number of baby items in the meantime.

So my niece, the official Cutest Baby in the World, is turning one in a few weeks. And the world's cutest baby needs a cute sweater, no? Seems about right to me. Thus, in spite of my normal dislike of showing off (I can hear my mother's voice now: "It's rude!" Damn Scandinavians.), I think it's cute enough for a little show and tell.

Witness, my victorious and extra cute baby sweater:

Yay, me!

On the not-so-good-news front, I think I might need a root canal. Which, to be erudite about it, sucks. Big time. I do however, promise not to create a show and tell opportunity out of that.

Now, I'm headed back to the Show and Tell class to see what other people have been up to. Go and check it out!

fertility crone

I have reached a new stage in my infertility life: fertility crone.

I remember the first time I went onto a "trouble conceiving" message board, stepping carefully into a world of completely unfamiliar acronyms and words and a whole lot of, "wow, I would never do that." What the heck is RE? BFN? HSG? They do WHAT to your uterus? Endo? FOUR YEARS? Sperm can be the wrong SHAPE? WHAT THE HELL KIND OF WORLD IS THIS?

Fast forward to yesterday, when I had lunch with a woman from church who had a miscarriage a few months ago. She had told me, at the time, that she just couldn't talk about it yet, so I told her to give me a call when she was ready. She called a few weeks ago.

Normally I don't share a lot about myself when I'm talking to a parishioner, because the point is for them to get support from me, not the other way around. Also, I really hate it when you're trying to tell your painful story to someone and all they do is top every comment you make with an even worse one of their own. "Oh, you had an ectopic? I had two." "Oh, I had that surgery too but I was allergic to the pain meds and it was just horrible." "Wow, you got hit by a bus? I got hit by a bus last week, and then I got run over by a train and two cars AND one of Santa's reindeer!" (Okay, that last one has never happened. But it's been close.)

So my intent was to giver her support - and, before I knew it, the conversation had turned into a mutual consolation society. She has had two pregnancies, both of which turned out to be a blighted ovum. She had her first IUI that very morning.

It was as if we were two ex-pats, having been separated from our home country for years, who happened upon each other in a strange city and started speaking English to each other after speaking only a foreign language for what seemed like forever. "I can't tell you what a relief it is not to have to explain all this stuff," she said at one point, and I completely understood what she meant.

(As an aside, "I completely understand" is not one of my favorite phrases, because people use it all the damn time, and most of that time, it's not truthful at all. Maybe we can never say that we "completely" understand anybody, actually. But when you do connect with someone who really, really gets your situation, at a very deep level - it's pretty great. It feels as "complete" as understanding ever gets.)

She and her husband have been trying to get pregnant for not quite two years, while we're coming up on anniversary four. And after all this time, it occurred to me after lunch that now I'm the one who knows all the lingo, all the acronyms - I'm the one doing things I never imagined doing, spending money I swore I'd never spend, becoming someone I occasionally don't recognize anymore. How is this my life? we both asked. How did I get here?

We both confessed how much blogland means to us now. And how we always assumed we were the sort of people who would be completely, totally open to adoption - and how it still baffles us, even in the midst of it, that this pull toward biological parenthood is so unbelievably strong. How bizarre it is to lay on a cold, vinyl table while your husband is at work miles away, waiting for a nurse with a catheter to knock you up (you hope). How you always imagined lying in bed after sex, cuddling with your spouse and thinking about whether your act of love just conceived a child, and instead you're spread-eagled on a doctor's table waiting for the little timer with the sperm on the ticker to 'ding' so you can GO TO THE FREAKING BATHROOM, MY GOD I HAVE TO PEE.

It's a weird world we live in, the world of the infertile. I've become one of its crones, I fear - the person who has watched a hundred thousand other sisters come in to our little society and then leave, while I wait here and hope it will be my turn someday. Every once in awhile I speak our language to someone who looks like she might understand. Sometimes I get a blank look, or bad advice.

But sometimes you get a fellow traveler, and you have enough time to stop for lunch and laugh through your tears at the sperm timer, and at the very least, you know you're not alone.