Posts from — March 2010

Back in graduate school, we paid a yearly fee to the graduate student union which funded a plethora of projects including the graduate student newspaper. Though I went to graduate school in Massachusetts, the front page article of the weekly newspaper was usually inexplicably about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict arguing in favour of Israelis moving out of the Middle East entirely. Week after week, while there were plenty of newsworthy things happening in the college town and on campus, these topics were eschewed for Middle East politics. And the whole thing made me beyond uncomfortable.

I made an appointment with the Dean of Graduate Students and she patiently listened to why I might feel uncomfortable with my graduate student dollars supporting a newspaper that advocated the extermination of…myself. And then she explained that she cannot control what the editor of the newspaper chooses to print, though the university did end up establishing an anti-Semitism task force to deal with the fallout from the articles.

I then expressed my Plan B, which was to stop paying my yearly fee to the graduate student union. It made perfect sense–I didn’t want to support the newspaper, so I would pull my funding from the organization that supports the newspaper. Except that it didn’t work that way. It turned out that out of the $100 fee, under a penny went to fund the newspaper and the rest of that fee went to support great programs such as rape/crisis hotline and financial aid. Pulling my penny wasn’t going to sink the newspaper that included such scintillating headlines as “Death to Israel” but protesting our graduate student fee or refusing to pay it was going to affect a lot of other programs.

It was my first life lesson in the idea that simple solutions sometimes don’t take into account all the facts.

With health care reform being a hot topic, the discussion of whether it is cost-effective for insurance companies to fund IVF is being debated within and outside the US.

According to Resolve, the National Infertility Association, “Some insurance companies and employers incorrectly believe that adding infertility coverage to a health benefit package leads to increased premiums. In fact, states that have passed laws requiring coverage of infertility treatment actually have reduced overall health care costs.”

The reason being that those with insurance coverage tend to treat their infertility based on the best course of treatment rather than first trying procedures, surgeries, and medications covered by insurance. It saves money to bypass expensive attempts that have a lower success rate based on the reason for the person’s infertility. Coverage of expensive procedures such as IVF, means that those utilizing the procedure can make sensible decisions such as transferring fewer embryos and therefore lowering costs on the back-end including the financial burden associated with premature birth (which is often the case with multiples). According to Resolve, “In states with full coverage for infertility treatment, multiple birth rates (twins, triplets, etc.) are lower than in states with no infertility coverage. (New England Journal of Medicine, August 2002).”

Think about it this way: would you rather have your insurance dollars going towards a $10,000 IVF cycle or a $150,000 hospital bill for a three week NICU stay for premature triplets?

Barb Collura, the executive director of Resolve says,

RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association has known for years that insurance coverage for IVF treatments is not only the right thing to do, but it will dramatically reduce and perhaps even eliminate higher order multiples as a result of IVF treatments. Study after study shows that when you take the cost issue of an IVF cycle out of the equation, patients make better decisions about the number of embryos to transfer, thereby reducing the risk of a multiple birth. A recent study by Shady Grove Fertility on eSET (elective Single Embryo Transfer) among their Shared Risk patients confirms this – patients make better decisions when they are not pressured with paying out of pocket for every IVF cycle. If you only have $10,000 to spend, as a patient you want to get the most for your money, which does not always lead to a healthy pregnancy, mom, or baby.

Yet even with these stark financial facts on the table, if you take the comments and blog posts popping up about insurance companies covering IVF, it appears as if the average, vocal, non-infertile man or woman would rather pay the astronomically high costs associated with premature birth rather than have a few pennies of their insurance premiums go towards IVF. Childfreedom posted two emails that she got from readers on this topic, with one stating:

Covered by insurance? It should be illegal. Nobody ever died from not having a baby…This is the thing I hate most about assisted reproduction: for some reason your body is not able to sustain an embryo or bear a child, but we can chemically torture it into doing what it shouldn’t, all because society says you are a failure as a woman if you don’t pursue every possible option to get a baby, no matter how impractical or expensive or detrimental to your health. Look what Science can do for you! Oh, so many beautiful babies! It’s a miracle!

The Globe and Mail wrote about this topic in regards to Ontario and received 400 comments on the online article which states: “Life’s unfair, and health care is a bottomless pit, and some of these procedures have wretched outcomes” to which many of her readers agree: “To the infertility zealots all infertile couples are angels. Dose of reality many are not, and some have indeed created this by their own making as well. Some should NOT have children, and if nature has assisted with that, maybe that is a good thing too.”

Like It Is jumps off this article with her own thoughts: “it’s clear that it’s not just childfree people who object to being the purse strings for women who think having IVF is their right. The tax-paying public has a right to be alarmed.”

The problem, of course, is that when insurance companies pick-and-choose what they cover without rhyme or reason, the general public is left to argue amongst themselves. Treatments for impotence are covered (“Within weeks of hitting the U.S. market in 1998, more than half of Viagra prescriptions received health insurance coverage.”) but the drugs that help the body release an egg are not. Pregnancy and maternity benefits are well-covered, but abortion and fertility treatments (two sides of the same reproductive coin) are not. We pay a lot of lip service to family building and reproductive health, but then do not give people the means to help themselves or make sound personal decisions in regards to their body.

We can reduce people to caricatures and chalk up all problems to bad decision-making. Those who don’t want insurance to cover gastric-bypass surgery reduce all people experiencing obesity as “lazy, irresponsible, sly and greedy folk.” We can write off all children with ADHD as just needing to lower their sugar intake.

And even though the facts point to the contrary–according to a December 2005 report of the CDC’s National Survey on Family Growth (NSFG), the fastest-growing segment of U.S. women with impaired fecundity (the capacity to conceive and carry a child to term) is those under 25– we can say that those who are experiencing infertility just waited too long to start building their family.

Returning to the lesson learned back in graduate school, simple solutions don’t usually take into account all the facts. That simply writing off sections of the population and deeming certain diseases the fault of the person is reductive and lumps all the various causes for a disease down to a single factor. Instead of stating via insurance coverage that some diseases are worthy of treatment and others are not, let’s aim to have policies that neither reward nor punish, but instead enable citizens to treat their health ailments.

So rather than discuss the people with the disease, let’s discuss the disease itself and whether or not insurance companies should fund treatment based on the ideals and ethics we subscribe to within our respective countries.  I plan to pass on all our thoughts in the comment box to Resolve so they can know our thoughts on the fight they’re fighting on our behalf within the US.

Cross-posted with BlogHer.

Holly Golightly: You know those days when you get the mean reds?
Paul Varjak: The mean reds, you mean like the blues?
Holly Golightly: No. The blues are because you’re getting fat and maybe it’s been raining too long, you’re just sad that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?
Paul Varjak: Sure.
Holly Golightly: Well, when I get it the only thing that does any good is to jump in a cab and go to Tiffany’s. Calms me down right away. The quietness and the proud look of it; nothing very bad could happen to you there. If I could find a real-life place that’d make me feel like Tiffany’s, then – then I’d buy some furniture and give the cat a name!

I have been in a terrible mood all week, and when the mean reds set in and everything in life feels out-of-my-control, I clean.  I scrub and organize the house within an inch of its life with the other inhabitants clinging to my leg and screaming, “don’t give away my thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiings.”  And at some point, in the process of cleaning and organizing, I generally decide that while I can’t control my body and produce a person, I can control the way my bathroom looks and I get a new $5 shower curtain with a Swedish name and all feels right in the world much in the same way that a chocolate bar can make things feel right even if your body knows that it was cheated out of the calories it actually wanted and needed in exchange for this tasty item.

Substitute room redecoration is like empty calories.

I knew on Monday after I gutted the closet in the second bedroom and purged it of bouncey seats and baby bjorns that I needed to go to IKEA to get a storage bin that would allow the kids to help themselves to their toys.  It was the thought that kept me going all week as I went through the baby items–that on Thursday, I would go to IKEA and envelope myself in the warmth and safety that comes in the form of clean-lined furniture and cheap textiles.

Cali and N agreed to go with me (Lindsay was supposed to be there too, but last minute changes meant her items would not fit in my car and so she is going on a different day and I am tweaking to go again too just so we can covet kitchens together–our favourite IKEA activity) and we met in the cafe.  It is nice to have a set of friends who agree with you that IKEA is our Tiffany’s, a place to go that has the power to instantly calm.  I have 1000 memories tied to trips to IKEA, and calls to my father begging him to drive down to Virginia and save our asses when the stuff we’ve bought doesn’t fit in the car, and putting together furniture.  It feels like nothing can go wrong in IKEA with the exception that anything you buy will be missing a few necessary screws.  Everything is organized, with signs, and clear boundaries, and when life feels chaotic and scary and the choices to big to wrap my mind around, it is a place to go where everything makes sense.  Where the world is colour-coordinated.  And in the face of expensive losses of dreams, everything comes with a tiny price tag.  Where else can you redo an entire closet for $40?

Before we headed to fill my actual needs, we walked through the upper level of mock rooms, critiquing the set-up of furniture and paint colours.  There is something so hopeful about seeing those rooms, as if you too could live that free of clutter and disorganization.  You too could have a place for everything tangible and the thought bleeds off the side of reality into making you believe that you could also have a place for everything intangible.  A neat doling out of your love and emotional energy and happiness.  Wherever you placed your feelings would be where they belonged.

I could tuck my thoughts on family neatly into a drawer where it would rest, nestled inside a box and untangled from all the other items beside it.

I place a lot of stock in the power of IKEA.

Everything I needed was in textiles or the warehouse room.  It is best to visit IKEA with others who appreciate IKEA, who can move through the textiles with a mental map in place.  We didn’t consult the signs in the warehouse, marching directly to the aisle of Trofasts.  And after I paid (a mark of true friends–Cali and N didn’t buy anything.  They just came with me to ensure that I didn’t end up curled in a ball, rocking back and forth, muttering in Swedish) and the twins and I kissed our friends goodbye and went out to the car to fit our items into the trunk and live happily ever after.

And that’s when I had the quintessential IKEA experience that I have almost every trip (at least the ones where I do not bring along Lindsay or Josh who have highly-honed spatial relations skills).  I let the twins in the backseat and went to put my Trofast in the trunk.  It was freakin’ heavy and I grunted and strained to slide it from the cart into the trunk, gasping at the Wolvog to please-for-the-love-of-G-d-hang-over-the-backseat-and-pick-up-the-beach-toy-basket-and-move-it-out-of-the-way-because-my-heart-is-going-to-explode-from-lack-of-oxygen.  I finally got it wedged into the trunk and tried to close the top and–of course–it didn’t fit.  I say “of course” because this has been my experience every damn trip and I never seem to remember it.  My thinking went: “I have obviously gotten a Trofast home before, therefore, it must fit in the car somehow.”

I tried several more times to get it to fit, the twins a complete lack of help because they have muscles as sturdy as a Kleenex tissue.  People walked by me in the parking lot, watching me struggle and stand with my hands over my face and no one offered to help.  And it wasn’t them–I mean, I don’t know how often I’ve paused at IKEA to help someone get something into their trunk and everyone struggles at IKEA–it was just the idea that two minutes upon leaving the safety and orderliness of IKEA, that I was back to feeling as if a situation was out of my control.  That I could shove and push as much as I wanted, but it wasn’t going to do any good because there were additional factors that the dream item had to contend with.  Sometimes you can’t make a Trofast fit no matter how you twist and prop it.

I already warned you that I make IKEA work hard to bring me emotional catharsis.

In the end, I took the Trofast out of the trunk and somehow hauled it to the side door and slid it across the backseat, an ordeal that took about 10 minutes of gasping while the twins cheered me on.  I closed the door and slipped into the driver’s seat, admitting that I no longer held that IKEA joie de vivre energy to spur me through a trip to Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  We drove home, a route we never take that Google Maps promised me was faster than my usual route.  And for once, it was.

Holly Golightly: He’s all right! Aren’t you, cat? Poor cat! Poor slob! Poor slob without a name! The way I see it I haven’t got the right to give him one. We don’t belong to each other. We just took up one day by the river. I don’t want to own anything until I find a place where me and things go together. I’m not sure where that is but I know what it is like. It’s like Tiffany’s.

The Weekly What If: What if you could take one physical characteristic (your eye colour, your crooked nose, your flat ass, your flat stomach) and put it on another person.  Would you be kind and put your best trait on a friend who struggles with her love of the same body part?  Or would you make someone walk a mile in your shoes by placing your least favourite trait on the body of a person who needs to get a clue (hey, Kate Moss, welcome to my stomach flab post IF drugs)?

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I designed a onesie for a gift with HereWeGoaJen via her Little Star Shop.  It came out exactly how I pictured it in my head, the person loved it, and it was so damn easy.  Her stuff makes great gifts and is definitely priced too low (though don’t raise your prices yet because I still have more gifts to get!).

Just saying if you need a gift too.

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Even though I haven’t seen pictures of Corey Haim since I religiously bought 16 magazine at age 12 (with the exception of the scintillating spread on the two Coreys in People magazine last year detailing their feud), I was really sad when I heard that he died this week.  I flip flop between my favourite Corey Haim film being Lucas and The Lost Boys.  We quote more often from The Lost Boys in our house and we refer to it as Our Twilight (poor Wolvog often has us say to him a la Edward Herrmann, “Don’t ever invite a vampire into your house, you silly boy. It renders you powerless.”), but we also are prone to clapping at a very slow pace and building up to a normal clap like the end of Lucas.

Corey Haim was somewhat emblematic of a certain time period of films–the Breakfast Clubs and Pretty in Pinks and Lucas and Lost Boys.  What was your favourite film from that time period and which movie star’s picture hung in your locker?

It was Johnny Depp for me (21 Jump Street era) and Rob Lowe (especially in Class).

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And now, the blogs…

One Eye Open and Dreaming has a post about how different your life is from how you pictured it.  It is about knowing when you are done with family building and how that end might come at a different place than you pictured it when you started trying to have that first child.  She writes, “I don’t know what I am. Crazy? Ungrateful? Selfish? A friend told me that if I still think about doing another cycle then I’m not done and there’s nothing wrong with that. I sometimes wonder if she’s right.  I definitely didn’t expect this to be a part of my life.”  It was simply what I needed to read this week along with all of your comments on my post.

I was very moved by this post from Crazy Heart Stuff.  She explains, “As I trudged through the soul-sucking experiences of infertility and recurrent loss, I couldn’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.  I’d get frustrated when I read a blogger had achieved their dream of a baby, then still didn’t seem happy.  I am that person.  And for that, I am so so so sorry.”  It is a post about struggling with depression and anxiety after infertility and it’s an important read for anyone experiencing this too.

Baby, Borneo, or Bust has a damn good story about her husband’s Valentine’s Day surprise.  Can’t say much more than that or it will ruin the ending.

Awful But Functioning has a post that made me cry about a wish cloud and worry dolls.  It is about magical thinking and reality, about letting our children know that we worry too balanced with giving them a cushioned world.  I love her musings on the word “expecting.”  It’s a post that meanders through various thoughts, all beautiful, all heartbreaking.

Lastly, Hoping for Another Lovebug has a post about the infertility hangover.  She explains, “I feel as though I’ve been down for so long that I’m not sure how to be up again…The infertility hangover is more about the lasting effects of the all-consuming, constant depression that became a way of life during all the years we were trying to have another baby.”  It is an amazing post that I think everyone should read–run, don’t walk, your clicking finger over to her blog–and it’s just as much explaining how she got into this funk as explaining how she plans to get out.

The roundup to the Roundup: Answer the Weekly What If about body parts. Jen makes good gifts. Whose picture graced your locker? And lots of great blogs to read.

Cali had a post yesterday about her mum, how she starts each day, regardless of where she is in life, filled with hope.  Because today just might be the day.  The day that whatever she is waiting for (in this case, a job) comes through.

It waxes and wanes for me, based on how much potential I think the day actually holds.  I feel like I wake up each morning and weigh my day.  And sometimes, I am pleasantly surprised that more happens than I expected.  But a lot of the time, I’m disappointed that something I thought would occur doesn’t.  And how well I weighed the day before tends to factor into whether I wake up like Cali’s mum, full of hope for the day, or whether I feel cat-like and needy, hating that my emotions are influenced by the actions (or non-actions) of others.

It’s terrible to feel in limbo; as if nothing is within your control except removing the expectation from your mind.

My favourite book growing up (and still) was the Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster.  I think the reason the story grabbed me is because on an ordinary day, Milo comes home to find a present in his room.  He unwraps the gift and sets up the tollbooth to play with it, and then finds himself on this incredible adventure.  And that was sort of how I wanted to live my life, waking up each day like Cali’s mum with this understanding that something wonderful could happen during the day.  That all of us could be like Milo and receive an unexpected gift–though perhaps not a toy.  Good news is always welcome, but I consider it a gift when someone writes me a nice email or links to my blog from theirs.

But I seem to have lost that anything-could-happen mindset a bit along the way.

A friend once told me that the key to happiness is having no expectations.  That our expectations are what creates unhappiness.  That if I wasn’t waiting for anything (a child, good news, an email from a friend), I could never be disappointed, and I would simply delight in anything that came my way.

Which is all well and good, but you can’t divorce yourself from your personality.  I am so tied to my expectations that I have post-it notes to remind me what I’m waiting for just in case I forget.

Are you the type who wakes up with hope because something good could happen today (after all, it has to happen some time)? The type who wakes up filled with dread?  Or the type who weighs her day factoring in possible odds based on the last few days?  Or…something else entirely?

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.

Returning to the idea of colour, I am absolutely in love with paint samples.  Not paint; just paint samples.  I mean, I like paint on my walls, but I love picking up paint samples and keeping them on my desk.  Paint samples for the sake of paint samples–as their own entity and not as a means to helping make a decision.

Am I the only one who makes an outing out of going to the paint store and bringing home samples just to make herself happy?

What are you showing today?

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