Posts from — June 2009

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

First and foremost, welcome to Show and Tell at its brand new place and time. The list will go up every Wednesday evening and will close on Friday night–a big window for adding your own item to the mix. How do you participate? Just think of something to show and tell the class; it’s just an old school, standard, fidget-in-front-of-the-class presentation. You can do it with pictures or simply tell a story. It is not too late to participate unless it’s after Friday night and then…well…it is too late for this week. But save your post for next week because this happens every Wednesday night.

My item? This past Sunday, the women of TOOTPU got together for lunch. Afterwards, we took a picture outside the restaurant, clogging the walkway for all the people trying to get into the nearby mall.

From left to right: Sell Crazy Someplace Else, Me, A Real Life, Hoping for Another Lovebug, B, Our Family Beginnings, Hopeful Mamma, A Little Sweetness, The Happy Hours, Two Hot Mamas, Body Diaries by Lucy, Chez Perky

I’ve always had a bond with Hoping for Another Lovebug that started via email and finally culminated with meeting face-to-face through TOOTPU about two years ago. This weekend, we discovered that we’re actually related. Her husband is first cousins with my first cousin’s husband. Which means that not only did she gain honourary Jewish status by this connection, but we are now family forever. Do you see what starting a blog can do? It can bring you new family members.

My new cousin who is also my old friend–isn’t this like a preteen-girl’s fantasy come true? Her friend turns out to be her cousin? And then we start sharing a pair of jeans and talking about boys and crying because of something we read written about us in a popular girl’s slam book?

Lastly, boobs.

I was signing a copy of my book when Katie mentioned that she had wanted her book signed too, but she had lent it to her MIL. She told me that her husband said that I should sign her boob instead. I have always wanted to sign her lovely lady humps, so I jumped on this idea.
Oh–and I should mention that we’re standing outside the swankiest mall in Virginia.

At this point, I can’t remember how I turned the pen on A Little Sweetness’s lovely mammaries (maaaaaammaries, in the corners of my bra, misty signature scrawled mammaries, of my fellow TOOTPUers).

Fine, so it was less Girls Gone Wild and more a statement about how much I love my girls. I love my TOOTPUers. I feel so lucky to have met a group of women where we can sign our boobs AND celebrate our victories AND commiserate during our disappointments AND become family members AND eat a lot of chocolate.

Oh, and of course I got mine signed too. Like that shit-eating grin? You may need to click on the picture to enlarge to see it.

Josh and I saw UP that evening and as I left the theater, sobbing, Josh said, “I am trying really hard to take you seriously right now, but you’re walking around with a woman’s name across your breast. It’s just hard.”

Saving the rest of my TOOTPU photos for the Roundup on Friday. No more breasts, but some fun photos from the day.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (hint: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name). The list is open from now until late Tuesday night and a new one is posted every week.

Last thoughts on resolution…I sort of promise?

I know we’ve all taken sides on whether or not relationships/marriage work as an analogy to the infertility experience, but I really do think that it lends itself well to discussing resolution within infertility. At least, it helps me to think about it this way in explaining why Domar’s book and therapy and a lot of crying worked for me in resolving the infertility, and how–for me–the two sides happened separate from one another. I think they can happen at the same time–resolving the infertility and the childlessness–but, for me, they happened separate from one another.

So you have five scenarios:

1. Resolve infertility and childlessness at the same time (removing the childless state removes the feelings about infertility)
2. Resolve the childlessness, but never resolve the infertility or resolve it later (you have a child, but you’re still stuck in the same emotions, self-hatred, and depression you experienced during infertility–whatever form your personal struggle with infertility took)
3. Resolve the infertility, but never resolve the childlessness or resolve the childlessness after resolving the infertility (come to a place of emotionally coping with infertility separate from whether or not you have a child)
4. Never resolve infertility or childlessness.
5. Infertility doesn’t affect you emotionally beyond some basic disappointment, frustration, or sadness and therefore, you’re not really on this list.

And the way I would phrase this idea in terms of dating is that partnership resolves singledom, but it doesn’t resolve relationship issues. Meaning, you can get married or enter a partnership and that will take away your state of being partnerless. But having a partner doesn’t magically cure whatever baggage you have been carrying with you emotionally. If you don’t resolve your emotional baggage, you are going to have that baggage affect your relationship or marriage.

Healthy is a relative term. We all have our quirks and issues and we’re talking about two separate people coming together. Of course there will be friction when two people need to navigate a single world together and constantly interact. You may not always be on the same page and you may fight and you may have times where things are quite boring in your marriage–but that is different from having problems in your partnership. Healthy couples argue healthily (sort of like absolute power corrupts absolutely?).

What I mean by unhealthy are the larger issues we bring to a relationship when we date knowing that our minds and hearts aren’t really ready for dating; that we have personal work we need to be doing for ourselves so we can bring trust into a relationship. I think that lack of trust plays a big role in ruining relationships and it plays a big role in life after infertility. Because a lack of resolution with infertility usually goes hand-in-hand with a lack of trust in other places–a lack of trust with your body, a lack of trust in happiness (how many people talk about waiting for the other shoe to drop? I know I do), a lack of trust in your own abilities.

I was doing that with family building–trying to do the physical side of treatments without taking care of the emotional side. I will obviously always choose to plow ahead and work on the family building and emotional stuff at the same time because they’re separate issues but entwined. I think it’s also possible to move forward and date while working on your relationship issues at the same time because the two are entwined as well. It’s only helpful to a point to work on resolving your relationship issues without being in a relationship. But I don’t think it’s healthy to move ahead with either dating or family building without also addressing and working on resolution with the emotional issues. By which I mean, putting coping mechanisms in place. In both situations, there needs to be new outlets for emotional stress or that stress will keep manifesting itself in the same way. With dating, you may keep entering abusive or unhealthy relationships. With infertility, you may keep entering a state of self-hatred and depression.

I think Anonymous spoke a valid point for her–the book didn’t work for her. And this is true for every method out there for removing stress or coping with emotions: therapy, religion, yoga, medications, gardening, art, basketball. I think the way a person resolves their infertility is very personal. I was only stating what worked for me; it really really won’t work for everyone.

I think that it was very telling when I was pregnant with the twins that my therapist didn’t release me from the sessions because there was still work to do. I kept going until a few weeks after the twins were born, when she told me that she trusted that I was in a better space, with coping mechanisms in place. For me, the visualization techniques and return to Buddhism and therapy worked which is why I said that I got the brass ring. I got to resolve my infertility and I got to resolve my childlessness, and I count myself lucky that both happened because it could have been otherwise.

And by resolution, I don’t think I’m at a place of absolute peace with it. I bumped into an old peripheral friend a while back and she was late in her pregnancy. I hadn’t seen her in almost a year and I didn’t know that she was pregnant. And I felt such a seething jealousy looking at her belly, knowing how easy it comes to her. That’s not resolution, but it’s better than where I was so I count it as progress. Aren’t we all just a work in progress, stumbling around, trying to find our way?

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.

The final part of our trip to New York came on Tuesday night. After mooching some free wifi off of Lindsay’s brother–thank you!–we went back to my brother’s apartment to get dressed and got caught in a torrential downpour where the streets flooded and our clothes were sticking to our body (and the ballet flats that shredded the back of my ankles were ruined, which may have actually been a good thing, but is a point worth making because it features later in this story).

My brother told us to leave our clothes in the bathroom and he would dry them for us so we could pack when we returned that night. We quickly got showered and smeared on some make-up (me…not Josh) and Josh called a car service because I was unsure I could do the subway in heels due to the aforementioned shredded ankles.

The Night of Hope was held at Tavern on the Green, which had this fantastic hallway with chandeliers and mirrors that made me miss the ChickieNob. Every time I walked down it, I thought about how she really would have sucked the marrow out of this event. And while I hope she never experiences infertility, I hope that she attends the Night of Hope one year in the distant future just to give respect to the organization that helped her parents so much.

So, here I am, smiling a little wanly outside because I am shy as all get out and I’m terrible at shmoozing. Then we went inside and Erica from Parenthood for Me found us. She was the only other blogger there. It made me feel better to have someone from the blogosphere in the flesh.

They had a great program where they talked about the enormous blogroll. When the program was written, the number was about 1700. When I went on stage that night, the number of blogs on the blogroll was 1828.

I got very emotional right before I went on stage to accept the award. I don’t know why. I think it just felt very surreal to be there and all I could think of was this night many years ago when we discovered that there were books on infertility out there and we dragged a pile to a table at Borders, trying to figure out which ones to buy. And one of the books was Resolving Infertility, which was written by Resolve. And I remember crying at the table and putting my hands up on either side of my face like blinders and my shoulders shaking so hard as I tried to cry quietly and not fooling anyone else in the cafe area. Just wanting to wail because we had done the gleeful bookstore trip for baby books almost a year earlier and there was no baby. And here we were buying Resolving Infertility and this just wasn’t the way it was supposed to be.

So as I was standing in the wings, I missed everything the host said as an introduction because I was thinking about that night and how far I’ve come, how surreal it is to think about the night I started the blog and to now be having the blog honoured or how surreal it is to think about the night where I bought infertility books instead of baby books–I lost the glee long before that night, but certainly, it could not have been a more different trip from the one we took to the bookstore when we first started trying. Resolve has been there for me for so long–for so many years–and it was crazy to think that I was now there for them. If that makes any sense. It was like finding out that your professor in your 400 person introductory seminar class knows your name. You have learned so much from them; you can’t believe they would reach out and know who you are too.

The award is lovely. This picture really doesn’t do it justice. But it is hard to photograph crystal when you don’t know how to use your camera. I missed everything the host said about me, but this is what I said about you as my thank you speech.

There are currently 1828 blogs on my blogroll and that number grows daily. My thank yous need to begin with them. To the people who are unafraid of sharing their story and connecting with others in order to provide support, take comfort, and disseminate information. I am so proud to be a part of the blogging community and I encourage every person in this room to Google stirrup queens when you get home to find my site, click on that blogroll link in the top left corner, and peruse the blogs. It is an invaluable resource to understand what those experiencing infertility think and feel.

I thanked Resolve and the ChickieNob and Wolvog and the doctor who helped make them (who was my tablemate that evening!). And, of course, Josh. “And, as always, my most enormous thank you goes to my husband, Josh, who does everything with me as an equal partner, from infertility to parenting to the book/blog. You are my heart—thank you.”

After the award ceremony, I met the third celebrity of the trip. Perhaps she is not on television like Mario Batali or Judah Friedlander, but she means a lot more to me than those people. What have they done? Made people feel full? Made people laugh? This third person has brought calm, and I cannot think of anything more important than helping a person find peace of heart.

The same night that we bought Resolving Infertility, we also bought Conquering Infertility by Ali Domar. In hardback. Josh asked me if I thought I could wait for the paperback edition and I looked at him and said, “do you think I can wait for the paperback edition?” Had I not just cried in a Borders cafe? We bought the book and I still use one of the visualization techniques to this day. In fact, I taught my visualization to the twins to use for our afternoon meditation times until they can come up with their own.

I was too nervous to go up to her until Josh dragged me to her at the end of the
night. She was so gracious, so grounded, so funny and smart and straightforward and bad-ass. The best way I can describe speaking to Ali Domar is that you feel as if you’re on a sound stage and this is the movie about the therapist who saves all of these people and you’re in the final scene where the music is playing in the background and you think about all of these people who wouldn’t have made it to the other side without her; what would have been lost. Too much? It was such a huge experience for me to meet her; her book helped me so much. Hence the huge, nervous smile on my face. It was this strange night where I felt like I was yanking at my infertile roots and here was this person who had brought such calm to me when I felt like I was in a storm that I just could not find a way to weather.

At the end of the night, we decided to take the subway back to my brother’s place because the car service seemed to take forever. Plus, my ankles had someone stopped their bleeding due to the fact that my heels are too big that my foot isn’t really against the back of my shoe. Though it begged the question: how would I get home tomorrow with the ballet flats ruined, my ankles bloody, and tottering along in heels with a long walk ahead of me?

We stopped by the CVS and examined the most atrocious flip flop display imaginable. I had my pick of florescent pink flowers, beads, or feathers. I went with the flowers even though they barely fit. They were the $7 I had to spend in order to get home.

And after 48 hours away, all I wanted to do was go home, shnuzzle with the kids, and get in my own bed. And while this was not a single perfect moment, it was a string of perfect moments and therefore, I think it qualifies for Perfect Moment Monday.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

First and foremost, a poll. I am considering moving Show and Tell to a different day of the week. Part of it is old school honesty–elementary school simply isn’t held on weekends. Part of it is the craziness of weekends and wanting the time to read posts at a more enjoyable pace rather than shoveling them in my eyes like I would, let’s say, attack a display of chocolate candy. But I do not want to move the day if the core participants like having it on the weekend.

Added: I probably should have stated this too, but since the vote is somewhat splitting down the center, it’s hard to get a read. Vote for Wednesday/Thursday/Friday if you’re willing to move (even if you like Saturday. I like Saturday too, but it makes it hard to read all the posts on the weekend). Vote for Saturday/Sunday/Monday if you’d be unwilling to move (meaning, you wouldn’t be able to participate anymore). The move is to enable me to hold Show & Tell every week and not have to skip it sometimes if we’re out of town for the weekend or to post it, but not get to read along. But I don’t want to move the date if everyone is really set on the weekend. So if you’ll still participate if it is held on Thursday, please vote for the move. If you plan to stop doing Show & Tell if it is on another day, vote to stay.

So I’ve embedded a poll below and please take a moment to vote on which set of days works best for you. If we vote to move it, we will hold a second Show and Tell this upcoming week on Thursday (I will open the list on Wednesday night, people can participate on Wednesday night/Thursday/or Friday). If we vote to keep it where it is, I’ll see everyone back here next Saturday night (the usual: I post on Saturday night and people can participate on Saturday night/Sunday/or Monday). I’ll post the results this Tuesday as to which day we’ll use.

I need to preface this story by telling you that while I often stray from recipes, if I’m making something from a restaurant cookbook, I will stick to the recipe exactly in order to taste what it would be like in the restaurant. So we’ve tried Bouchon or Les Halles or Morimoto through their cookbooks. I’m sure the dishes are much more incredible when prepared at the restaurant, but this is as close as we’re going to get to some of these places.

On Tuesday morning, I had a meeting that backed-up on Josh’s afternoon meeting. Lindsay came to meet me at the office building when I was finished and asked if I wanted to try Mario Batali’s restaurant, Otto, for lunch. I had not had success with Batali’s recipes when I tried them–and by a lack of success, I mean that the food was inedible and we ended up dumping the meal. But Lindsay promised that the food was good so I was willing to give it a try.

We shared a Margherita (D.O.P.) and a pasta alla Norma. The meal was incredible.

As we left the restaurant, we were musing on whether chefs purposefully make their recipes for shit in the cookbook so that you will still be inclined to get a meal at their restaurant. Because the pasta alla Norma I made from the cookbook was nothing like the meal I had in the restaurant. We laughed about asking chefs this question.

A few blocks later, we are about to cross into Washington Square when I see an explosion of colour beginning with the shoes. Orange crocs, bright socks, hairy legs, blue shorts, two shirts, red ponytail, and sunglasses. It was so surreal and I heard myself saying to him as he passed, “Mr. Batali?”

“Yes,” he responded, and we both started walking backwards.

“We just ate at Otto. The meal was incredible.”

“Thank you!”

And then we both turned back around and I walked into Washington Square Park with Lindsay and baby Fred and he walked down the street with his friend, and Lindsay and I spent the next three minutes saying, “that was so bizarre.”

The end of the story is that now that I could compare the red sauce in my mind, I tried to make it at home on Thursday night and here’s the secret part he left out–blend it. Stick the whole thing in a blender and it’s sort of the same consistency and sort of the same flavour as the sauce at the restaurant. And it also made for a lovely pizza sauce.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (hint: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name). The list is open from now until late Tuesday night and a new one is posted every week.