Posts from — March 2009

I had a massive camp convergence this week where I found pictures from my old camp on Facebook, reconnected with some old camp friends, and started signing up the twins for camp. How many more times can I use camp in a sentence? Camp camp camp.

I was a camp sort of kid. I was at a party a few years ago and I was talking with this man who was a camp director. He lived at the camp pretty much all year round and planned the summer sessions. It sounded like the greatest job in the world. I mean, I would suck at it due to that whole “fear of crickets” thing, but still. Camp all year round? What could be bad about that?

I feel like I was really me at camp.

I went to the same day camp for eight years, then took a three year hiatus to attend sleep away camp (a sleep away camp with a socialist theme–just to give you a reason for how I turned out. This is how you achieve such a high state of kumbayaness: go to a camp where the session themes are “educate yourself on fighting Apartheid!” or “18 ways kids can help the homeless”), and returned to my day camp for nine more years as a counselor. Getting a year-round job really sucks–it cuts into your camp life.

In honour of camp, I would like to tell you a story about one of my counselors.

We had a rule at my day camp that you couldn’t bring toys from home. But one day, when I was eight, I got a retractable yo-yo. Many of you will be saying as Josh did, “but aren’t all yo-yos retractable?” And yes, they are, but this was one of those orb-like yo-yos that had a spring inside so that the string always rolled back no matter what you did. A yo-yo for lazy, uncoordinated children like myself.

And I had to bring this yo-yo to camp. I was just too proud of it–I wanted to show it off to everyone in my unit. Every morning, we started the day with songs and skits and they called the half hour “Gully” because it was held in this natural amphitheater that had 2 X 4s nailed into the ground as seats. The counselor at the heart of this story played guitar and led the songs in Gully but he was also my unit counselor (he had actually been my CIT when I was six, but now he had moved units and was my counselor at age eight).

I was showing off my yo-yo during Gully, trying to keep it discreet so it wouldn’t get taken away, but when I tried to put it back in my pocket, it slipped out of my hands and rolled all the way down the amphitheater to the stage. I ran after it–I was so embarrassed and worried, but I didn’t want to lose the yo-yo. I put it back in my pocket and returned to my seat and tried not to cry.

When we got back to the room, the counselor took me aside to talk about the yo-yo. I was so embarrassed, I remember not being able to look up at him. But all he said was, “that yo-yo must be very special if you brought it to camp even knowing the rules. You must love it a lot and be so excited about it. I’d like to see it if it is that special to you.” So I showed him the yo-yo and he made the appropriate exclamations over it (and did not tell me that it was a yo-yo for lazy, uncoordinated children, as Josh did). And then he told me to put it in my cubby because it was against camp rules and he wanted to make sure it got home safely. But he was so happy that he got to see it.

Josh asked me how I remember these random people–camp counselors who I haven’t seen in 13 years–but how can you not when someone taught you such a valuable lesson about letting a child save face? I think about that counselor every time I try to do the same.

Dear Cat Cora:

I don’t usually proclaim my love for celebrity chefs–you probably understand that I’m watching you for the recipes or to see the creative ways in which you use ostrich meat, even if I don’t actually eat ostrich. But I thank you from the bottom of my heart for announcing your IVF pregnancy during a news cycle obsessively reporting on the outlying freakiness of the assisted reproduction community including the Georgia bill and Nadya Suleman’s octuplets.

Thank you for your part in helping reclaim ART from being a dirty word.

Thank you for not only having the ovaries (which, you know, are ten times more powerful than having cojones) to make something called “pig candy” in the coffee battle but to also speak frankly about how you and your wife built your family including your current, simultaneous pregnancies. I love that you cross-transferred your embryos, giving each parent the chance to be either the biological or genetic parent for each child. I love that you admitted that you two had your first IVF cycle five years ago which resulted in your oldest son (Jennifer’s embryo and womb). That you followed it with a cross-transfer of your embryo to Jennifer’s womb, and now are carrying a child created from Jennifer’s embryo in your womb while she carries a child with an unknown genetic parent because you two transferred embryos from both of you to her womb.

See, that’s the story that people need to hear. Because even though some are acting like 14-year-old boys as they discuss it (yes, Mr. Hilton, I’m speaking about you), more are seeing your story at its roots: two people, in love, who want to build a family, and use technology to make it possible. This is technology used correctly–it fills a gap, making the impossible possible in a way that is healthy (emotionally and physically) for all parties involved.

Listen, there are those who have never had to struggle for something, never had to push open a door that was only slightly ajar, and so they won’t get it. They’ll blog about it, asking if you should be allowed to do this instead of considering how what you are doing is mirroring what heterosexuals take for granted in their family building process–that unless they are struggling with infertility or choose adoption as their path to parenthood, both parents will get to experience being either the genetic or biological parent. It’s a given that heterosexuals rarely consider and it’s a shame that they use terms such as “real mom“, “unusual“, or “silly” instead of highlighting the creativity and forward thinking you two brought to family building. Forget them–concentrate instead on the people who have just mentally had doors open for them who hadn’t considered how they could achieve the same thing in their family building process.

But it’s not just a service you’re doing for other women who are actively building their families. You’re putting a face onto IVF–a familiar face who shows up on the television each night showing brains and brawn (it takes a wo-manimal to cook a five-course meal in under an hour in front of a live studio audience with people reporting on your every move). The people who have had their views of IVF shaped by the recent octuplet incident and now pulling back and seeing a new twist on just who uses IVF (and who is wo-manimal enough to inject herself with hormones).

For every idiot claiming that they can’t quite wrap their brain around this one (seriously, I could understand if we were talking geometry theorems or sentence diagrams, but they can’t understand how one woman could supply the egg and the other supply the womb?), there is another person who was being dragged down the sensationalism road, with the Georgia bill and Nadya Suleman waving to them from the sidelines and they’re suddenly pausing, refusing to walk another step and even muttering to themselves, “so normal people do IVF too? Celebrity chefs like Cat Cora? And she has singletons?”

I think at the heart of it is that our language cannot keep up with advances and people have a tendency to think small. I mean, unless you’re going to head down the incredibly offensive road of “Irish twins“, we don’t have a term that describes this type of twinship. And lest you believe the definition of twinning refers only to two children born simultaneously from the same womb, the dictionaries are already far ahead of the game, explaining that twinship can refer to anything: “two persons or things closely related to or resembling each other.” They just stop at imagining all the possible permutations.

I mean, first and foremost, we need a word for you: for siblings born of a few months apart and in two separate wombs. And then we need a term for siblings who enter a family within months of each other–one via adoption and the other via a pregnancy. Or two siblings who are from embryos created during the same cycle but transferred years apart.

Listen, Cat, you’re creative with the ingredients; but bloggers are creative with words. Let readers suggest new words we could introduce to the lexicon for these situations.

Of course, your situation reminded me of one of my favourite blogs, Uterus x 2, and their subsequent story, Finding Chaos. Carey and Steph did dual IVF cycles that resulted in twins and a singleton born 4 1/2 months apart. I asked Carey if she had any advice for you, since they have been in this same situation.

Well, I’m all about the SCHEDULE. We live our lives by a set schedule (especially in those first few months) and it gives us so much time to get things done knowing when the babies sleep and eat. Plus, it makes for happier babies – they thrive on it. Some may think we’re a little too scheduled, but it works for us. When one baby eats, feed the other – even if that means waking them up.

I think it’s important to avoid the “mine” and “yours” trap that can happen when both moms give birth at nearly the same time. Does that make any sense?

As for being pregnant at the same time… well, that’s tough. Hard to get your needs met when your partner is all pregnant and miserable too! But it was really awesome to know what each other was really experiencing. We were 4.5 months apart.

See, that is great advice. That’s what you should focus on. I mean, that and your other two children and wife. Oh, and the cookbooks, television career, new restaurant you’re opening, and your organization, Chefs for Humanity, that “is an alliance of culinary professionals and educators working in partnership with U.S. and global organizations, providing nutrition education, hunger relief, and emergency and humanitarian aid to reduce hunger across the world.” Because that’s the type of person who does IVF–someone who has the energy to think outwardly while having the fortitude to think inwardly. Oh, and can wield a syringe to her stomach just as well as she yields a knife to carrots.

Love,
Mel

P.S. I’m really sorry I rooted against you in the chocolate challenge. I am
such a whore for Alinea and pastry that I got blinded by seeing Alex Stupak. Perhaps, as JK Rowling would say, he’s part-Veela. Regardless, the next time the episode reairs at 3 a.m. and we’re still up talking about my feelings, I’m going to root for you.

cross-posted on BlogHer

This is the 34th installment of Barren Advice. You can ask questions that are fertility or non-fertility related.

Barren Advice is posted each Tuesday-ish. If you have your own question for Barren Advice, click here to learn how to submit. Please weigh in with your own thoughts in the comment section and indicate which question you’re addressing if there are multiple questions in the post.

Dear Mel:

I need your barren advice. After two D&Cs, the last of which was last week, I am trying to decide if I even WANT a second baby. My last two pregnancies, before their eventual terminations, were each awful in their own ways. The first, a blighted ovum, never felt right, which, it turned out, was correct. The second was great, and I was so excited and happy until I started to cramp and bleed heavily at six weeks. A huge bleed was discovered, and I was told to take it easy, not lift or exercise, not have sex, and not have orgasms. That was in place for four weeks until I went in for a routine check-up, and found out that there was no heartbeat, and not only was this one dead, I have a clotting disorder that killed this one and probably was behind my severe preecampsia with my son. It sounds like knowing this, it won’t be hard to fix… baby aspirin and maybe a monthly shot. But I don’t know, I am so burnt at this point.

My husband, who would be fine with our son being an only child, thinks we should have another, because he thinks it’s something I really want, and have for a long time, and heck, he’s agreed twice before. And that’s true: I love babies and children, and I don’t want my son to go through life with no siblings or cousins, which looks very likely at this point. My husband also thinks that it would be silly to quit now, when we have figured out the problem. And also, up until the end, my pregnancy with DS was fantastic, so I know it’s possible.

The problem is, I don’t have a lot of time to figure this out. I’m 38, and while I seem to be really good at getting pregnant, I don’t have forever. I also don’t know if I’m willing to make sacrifices to have another baby. I realize they are short-term, but still. And, my confidence is shaken. I was sure that I could have a sunny, uncomplicated pregnancy, then could breeze my way through working full time, having a marriage, having an infant, and raising a kindergartner. Now I don’t know… I could potentially ruin everything. Or, I could forever regret chickening out at this point.

Do you have any advice on how to make this decision?

–Anonymous

This isn’t going to be the answer you want to hear, but this is such a personal decision, the only person who can make it is you. Not your husband, not a friend, and not a therapist or doctor. This doesn’t mean that we can’t help you by walking with you up to the edge, but you are the one who ultimately needs to make the decision to jump or fly. And only you know which decision represents falling and which one represents flying.

And that is where I would start. I placed you at the edge and used these two words: fall or fly. When you thought about yourself falling, which side of the decision (trying or stopping) did you picture? When you considered yourself flying, what were you flying toward?

I think you already know the answer of what you want to do–it is merely the work of finding it buried under all of those emotions.

Sometimes, when I’m looking for something in a drawer and I know that it has to be in there but I’m overlooking it, I take everything out of the drawer and place it on the floor and then put it all back in the drawer neatly, usually finding the missing item along the way. I think the same thing can work with difficult decisions. Take everything out of your head and lay it on the page and then look at it from the outside, seeing how it looks from a different view. And these are the pieces of paper that you will take to your husband to explain your decision because your choice involves him as well.

Begin with looking at continuing to try for a second child. Write that inside a circle you draw in the center of the paper.

Now make lines coming off it and start writing out every what if you’re carrying in your heart about this decision. Follow each what if to its possible end. I included a few I could imagine myself just as an example, but you need to personalize this and make it the what ifs that are suffocating you about this decision.

There will be many more what ifs, all tied to your personal situation, including what happened after the birth of your first child, the feelings of your husband, and your age. Your paper may have five major what ifs, or you may need to pull out the poster board in order to have enough space to get down all of your thoughts.

Once you finish with this choice, you’re going to set aside the page, turn it upside down, and honestly fill out another decision web using the other choice–stopping now–and all of the what ifs that stem from that (good or bad what ifs).

When you’re doing this exercise, you need to be brutally honest with yourself. You can choose whether you want to redraw the webs to show another person, keeping the brutal honesty solely with yourself, but that is my only caveat. You cannot hold back any of the yucky thoughts, the embarrassing thoughts, the regretful thoughts from yourself. Putting them down on paper, admitting them to yourself, is the only way you’ll make this decision without regrets.

Without regrets does not mean joyfully. You may still cry or be angry or frustrated or resigned. But you won’t have regrets, and that is truly the only weight others can help you remove before you decide the way to exit the cliff.

Before I send you off to find a quiet space and work through your decision, I want you to know that all of the points you discussed in the note were all valid reasons to keep trying or stop. None should be swept under the rug. Just because you now know about the clotting disorder doesn’t dismiss the enormous feelings you have about trying after multiple losses. Not putting yourself through that again, even if it
means that you have to change the way you saw your life in the future, should not be undertaken just because. Just because you don’t want to disappoint someone or just because you were already on this path. It is equally valid to say no. To stop. To know your limits and respect them.

I don’t think we need to continue with everything we start, especially when new information is learned that would have kept us off the path in the first place. Quitters do win–especially those who know their own heart and listen to its wisdom. Winning is not only having everything turn out how we wanted in the end–winning is about how we live our life, the choices we make, the happiness we grab, the sanity we preserve. I have a deep respect for people who can say no. Who can take a step back and ask themselves what is lost as they try to gain and weigh out the two sides so that they don’t come out at a deficit just for the sake of doing what is easy vs. doing what is best.

Stopping is neither good nor bad–truly, the only thing that matters about stopping is knowing why you are doing it so you can come to a place of closure. I think a lack of closure comes from not understanding what brought you to a stopping point or having the choice taken away from you and made by someone else or circumstances.

And, at the same time, I have a deep respect for those who continue on, even knowing that they could possibly lose a lot by taking the next step, but doing it anyway because it is the strongest impulse within.

Go find your quiet space. Remove all the thoughts from your head and place them in front of you to examine. Come to a place of peace and know your own heart and then share it with others–your husband, namely, who may surprise you in agreeing wholeheartedly with whatever decision you make when he hears the reasons that brought you to that place.

No really, the beauty of a blog advice column is that you get to weigh in with your two cents too. Let the questioner know if you support the advice, add to the response, or dispute it completely.

Leave a comment in the reaction box below–only keep in mind that conflicting advice is embraced and rudeness is not. Want to ask your own question? Click here to see what you need to send in order to be included in a future Tuesday’s installment of Barren Advice.

This is the 33rd installment of Barren Advice. You can ask questions that are fertility or non-fertility related.

Barren Advice is posted each Tuesday-ish. If you have your own question for Barren Advice, click here to learn how to submit. Please weigh in with your own thoughts in the comment section and indicate which question you’re addressing if there are multiple questions in the post.

Dear Mel:

Updated at bottom:

It has been a long time since I have dressed up for Purim. My last true costume was Martha Stewart (Josh went as a protester wearing a Free Martha t-shirt) which should tell you how long ago it was. Growing up, I was always Vashti if I dressed up from the story. I tried being Esther one year in grad school–it just wasn’t me.

Tonight, I was getting ready to take the twins to shul for the Megillah reading and I decided to see if I could still fit into a dress that I haven’t worn in a while. I took it in the other room, just in case it…cough…didn’t fit. But it did and I came back into the bedroom. The twins looked up at me and the ChickieNob said, “you look so fancy. You’re just like Vashti.”

That was my perfect moment.

Later, outside, as Josh took these pictures, the ChickieNob started to sob and went to bury her face in my arm. She finally explained that I just didn’t look like myself and it scared her. I thought it would make her feel better to know that her mother wouldn’t dance naked on the table. I mean, who the hell knows what Esther is capable of doing if the king asks–at least you know where Vashti stands.

Unfortunately, I’m covering up the great beadwork at the top of the dress; a double layer of gold beads around the neck. Though it’s a great dress–I feel like I should whip it out for BlogHer this summer.

Looking for other Perfect Moments? Head over to Lori’s for Perfect Moment Monday.

Update:

The last time I wore this blue dress, we had gone over to a friend’s apartment for dinner. I had peed on a stick in the morning and it was negative, but I decided that I really wanted to try one more test that night. But I also wanted to hold in my pee for four hours to give it a better chance of having enough hCG to tip the test (never mind the fact that I wasn’t pregnant that cycle and therefore there was no hCG regardless).

No problem; we’d eat dinner, I’d go easy on the liquids until the end, and then we’d head home and I’d take the test. So, we eat dinner, I start drinking water towards the end of the meal, and I soon have to pee. But we’re not making any moves towards the door. Then, our friend suggests that we take a walk around his neighbourhood. So I said, “well, I’m not really dressed for a walk.” But that excuse was shot down and I had to haul my ass outside and walk around while I had to pee so badly that I was starting to get cold sweats. We were pausing on street corners so I could keep from wetting myself.

Finally, we went back to the apartment to collect our things and I ran to the bathroom because I was never going to make it through the drive home. Josh insisted that the holding-the-pee thing shouldn’t really matter and told me to take the test anyway when we got home. And I cursed the friend who made me take the stupid walk instead of come straight home to the comfort of my pee stick. Which, you know, would have been positive if I had just peed at the right time…