Posts from — November 2010

While the movie Alive was in the theaters, a popular topic of conversation was what you would do in the same situation. Would you eat your teammates if it meant your survival — if it was the only way you were getting out of the situation alive? Some people stated that yes, they could find it within themselves to do it. And others said no, they couldn’t foresee themselves eating another human. And I admitted that if my plane crashed in the Andes, and there was a properly roasted chicken on a silver platter (with a lid so that no snow could dirty-up the bird), surrounded by potatoes and carrots, I would not only not eat my teammates, but I wouldn’t eat the chicken, and I wouldn’t eat the potatoes and carrots because they had been on the platter with the chicken and touched it.

And this is why Josh tells people that I have poor survival skills.

Which is probably true — in Darwin’s world, I would most likely be snuffed out like those poor peppered moths — but what it comes down to are my extensive list of food phobias. It’s not that I don’t want to live; it’s just that my food phobias are that much stronger than my desire to get out of the Andes. (And, let’s face it, I rarely wear a coat or have one with me, so I probably would die of hypothermia long before they pulled the lid off the silver platter filled with chicken. My poor mother — can you imagine having a picky-eating-non-coat-wearing daughter?)

If I had to describe my food phobias with some umbrella factors, it would include foods that are white, foods that are goopy, and foods that come from animals. The two main food groups affected are meat/protein and dairy, though I have to admit that there are plenty of light-coloured vegetables with goopy preparations that don’t make the cut.

So on the spectrum from I’ll-eat-it-grudgingly to I-won’t-walk-down-the-aisle-of-the-food-store-where-this-item-is-housed:

• Eggs, Milk, Sour Cream, Cream Cheese, Butter: I’m pretty good at eating these five items, even though all are white. I added them to my diet fairly late in life, and while I’ll sometimes go through phases where the thought of them makes me queasy, it’s generally a given that I’ll eat these foods on their own, or mixed into something.
• Light-Coloured Ice Cream: It’s a given that I’ll eat chocolate ice cream, but every once in a while, I’ll have something with a vanilla base and survive to tell the tale.
• Yogurt: I’m fairly inconsistent with eating it, but I can do it sometimes if it’s a flavour dark in colour and something is in the yogurt such as bits of fruit. Smooth yogurt on its own is almost never consumed.
• Potato Chips and Other Light-Coloured Snacks: Again, not consistent with eating them, but I can generally be counted on to eat a few. It comes and goes — some weeks, I’m willing to eat a Pringle. And other weeks, they make my teeth hurt thinking about crunching something so light in colour.
• Mashed Potatoes: don’t like them, but I’ll eat them sometimes if I want something small off a menu or I need to be polite.
• Mashed Sweet Potatoes: ha, a surprise side-trip off the grid — it’s darker in colour than white mashed potatoes, but for some reason, I find mashed sweet potatoes goopier (perhaps smoother?), plus, people often put marshmallows on top, and marshmallows are one of my bigger fears.
• All Animal Proteins: I wouldn’t dream of eating chicken, beef, or fish, but I’m generally okay about touching it when I’m wearing gloves. One thing I can’t do at all is pureed animal — such as fish spreads or pate. Even tuna fish prepared for a tuna fish sandwich makes me throw up in my mouth when I see other people eating it.
• Jello and Marshmallows: anything with gelatin. I am a freak about checking things for gelatin, and I can’t even bring myself to prepare things with gelatin for the kids. Which is fine because the one time they tried it, they hated it. Gelatin is goopy bone marrow, or something like that, so … yikes! Goopy and clear — a terrible combination.
• Cheese in General: I am willing to shake mozzarella, Parmesan, or Monteray Jack out of a bag. I am willing to even eat said cheeses if they’re melted, and I don’t have to think about it being cheese. Every other cheese not only makes me queasy, but I don’t even want to touch them. I don’t want to see them or smell them. I don’t even want to walk by the cheese counter at Whole Foods. I do not want to shred my own cheese. I don’t want people to touch me after they’ve touched cheese. Cheese freaks me out. The only thing that can make me deal with cheese is if the twins want it. I can overcome my cheese fears for them and only them.
• Cottage Cheese: it literally almost made me throw up to type the word and stare at it on the screen, just as I feel like throwing up when I walk by it in the dairy section or see someone eating it.
• Mayonnaise: number one food fear. Can’t walk by it in the food store. Won’t let Josh bring it in the house. (We tried once, keeping it in a brown paper bag, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it being in the refrigerator.)

So there are the inconsistencies — for instance, we will probably be having huevos rancheros tonight — but like Walt Whitman, I defend this by admitting, “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.” But all in all, these are the foods that strike fear in my heart as I munch on my broccoli and green beans (thank you, world, for dark vegetables).

What are foods you could never bring yourself to eat or look at?

Cross-posted with BlogHer.

I’ll admit that the wishes made me weepy.  And that while I made my wish on something for myself, I also wish that everyone else’s wishes come true.

*******

I started running again this week which has made me stupid tired.  You know that kind of tired where you have to reread every sentence several times because you can’t remember the first part of the line by the time you get to the second independent clause?  By which I mean please excuse any typo-s in this post.

I was so worried to oversleep and miss my first day running that I woke up four times in the middle of the night to look at the clock.  And finally, at the godawful hour of 6 am, I trekked down to the basement to run indoors. (Please, I wouldn’t walk outside to the mailbox at this hour in my neighbourhood much less take a leisurely jog.)

And there was a cricket.

Okay, maybe it wasn’t a cricket, but it could have been an emaciated, red cricket.  So I ran upstairs and woke up Josh and told him about the cricket as if the house were on fire and he came downstairs and saved me.

And then I went running.

And discovered that I had gained four pounds in the five month interim between running routines.  I have felt the extra weight and it has made me miserable, so I decided to do something about it.  In addition, I went on a walk with the twins this week, and in the middle of the walk, I started having chest pains.  By which I should clarify that it was probably indigestion, but I started thinking about heart attacks and properly freaked myself out.  So, yes, running again.

On Wuhu Island.

Which is why, if I’m a little slow on the uptake for the next few days, you’ll understand that it is the fact that I’m still trying to make it work where I can watch Colbert and wake up at 6 am.

Like I said, stupid tired, emphasis on the word stupid.

*******

I got to meet up with a bunch of bloggers while in Boston last weekend.  Which rocked.  On Friday night, I had dinner with I Won’t Fear Love; Henry Street; Ultimate Journey; and Slaying, Blogging, Whatever.  So first, I got to eat dinner with these funny, sassy, smart women.  I seriously had no idea how much time had passed, but we were down there in the empty restaurant for more than three hours.

Then, on Saturday morning, I got to meet Keiko and her husband at the conference.  She is just as organized and smart and funny as you’d expect her to be from her blog.

And then, perhaps the creme de la creme moment, I was sitting at this table and I looked up and a few feet away was Natalie.  Which was 20 kinds of emotional and I feel so lucky that I got to hug her in person.  I wasn’t expecting to see her, so it was amazing to look up and see here there.

(This is me looking stunned)

Plus, the conference itself was amazing.  New England Resolve is so organized, and their executive director, Rebecca Lubens, who was heading the conference is this erudite, kickass woman who brought together a conference combining information with support.  The conference was like finding test answers inside a chocolate bar.

That last line made perfect sense to me with my lack of sleep.

*******

Instead of the Weekly What If: tell me which bloggers you’ve met this year (in 2010).  Or which bloggers you want to meet in 2011.

*******

And now, the blogs…

An Unwanted Path has a bleakly honest post about how she now doesn’t wish for a pregnancy insomuch as she wishes to not have another loss.  I love this thought: “But … I guess I’m grasping here. But, not getting pregnant could be a blessing in disguise. And maybe, just maybe, it means something. Or it could just be another sad mind-fuck on the path of infertility.”  It’s a brief, beautiful, sad read.

From IF to When has a post about what fertile women don’t know.  It’s a post that works best with the least amount of description.  It is something you need to read; to experience.

I Spy a Family has a series of posts for National Adoption Awareness Month and her post on fear was particularly well-written.  I especially love the last line: “If I haven’t done that, I would’ve missed out on the chance to parent the two people I love most in this world.”

Lastly, in a heartbreaking week, Hold My Hope has a post about needing a diet for the soul rather than the body.  She explains that she knows how to manipulate her body, train it, lose weight, gain weight.  What she can’t do is exercise that control over her emotional cravings.  I thought the analogy and the question was simply brilliant, and I wish I had a good answer to give.

The roundup to the Roundup: damn, running makes me tired. I got to meet a bunch of fantabulous bloggers.  Who have you met/who do you want to meet? And lots of great blogs to read.

A yearly tradition…

November 11th.  11/11.

Make a wish.

Here’s how this works: (1) Make a wish in the comment section (and don’t believe that stuff about how if say it aloud it won’t come true.  That is precisely when the parts that are within another human being’s control can come true).  (2) Then leave a comment on the blog of the commenter directly before you (so it’s a chain.  #2 comments on #1, #3 comments on #2, etc. If the commenter above you didn’t leave an address, just go one above that.  The point is to find new blogs/leave a comment–not stress).

The first person who comments on this post gets a free ride and does not need to leave any comments.  The last person who comments on this post gets … screwed.

It would be nice within your comment to refer to their wish (if it ties in to the post you read and comment on) and if you can grant any part of it, to do so.  If you can’t, because their wish is outside of human control, don’t feel badly.  But if you have the power to grant a wish, why not do it?

Just a heads up — this post is not going to be nearly as funny as Julie’s post on it (which just might be my favourite post ever).  By which I mean that it won’t be funny at all, but I was giving a quote for an article and it made me think through the whole situation.

WashPo did an article about Facebook updates and infertility a few weeks ago, and many places did a follow up post, and — as you’d expect — the comments were a mixed bag of “thank you for reminding people to be sensitive” and “these damn barren bitches need to get over themselves.”

Because apparently, asking someone to practice circumspection is a little bit too much to ask.

Circumspection is very different from not speaking about it at all.  Circumspection means that you think about how your words may be perceived and you tailor them to the person.

I gave news of my engagement differently to different people:

• Some people got: “Josh proposed and we’re getting married in November.”
• Other people got: “Josh and I got engaged, and this is how it went down…”

In other words, single friends who I knew might be happy for me but sad for themselves got the bare facts.  I gave the news, they processed the news, and if they wanted to know more, they asked for it.  Add widows to that category too.  I wanted them to know what was happening in my life, but I have to believe that it’s painful to hear about someone else’s happiness when you’re grieving your loss.

Oh, and add everyone not particularly close to me in that list as well: my co-workers may think I’m swell, but few needed to know more than “Josh and I are getting married” even if I was so excited that I wanted to talk about it incessantly.  It wasn’t about me, you see.  It was about me operating within a larger whole, where it can’t all be about me.  Just because something is exciting in my world doesn’t mean that everyone else is going to find that news exciting enough to hear more than a cursory amount of facts.

But here’s the thing, engagement announcements rarely come out of the blue.  You know the people are dating and you know it may be coming in the future, so if you’re sensitive to those sorts of announcements, you brace yourself for it.  Pregnancy announcements are different because most of the time, you don’t know when your friends are ovulating or if they’re trying to procreate.  Pregnancy announcements can come at 5 weeks or they can come when the person is 6 months along — you just never know.

I like to think of engagement announcements like spiders — when you see them on the wall, you know they’re going to move up or down or left or right.  Whereas pregnancy announcements are more like crickets: they jump out at you and you never know where they’re going to land.

Part of what people are missing with the infertility example is that — like most health issues — it’s wholly outside of your control.  Think about it this way: if your friend just lost her legs, would you put up a status update that says, “I just ran 5 miles and it feels so good.  It’s amazing to have legs and I’m so blessed!”  Or would you put up this more sensitive update: “Just ran 5 miles.  Going to shower now.”

In both updates, you convey the information, but with Facebook — unlike a blog where you might not know the audience — you do know who is possibly reading your feed.  You can save the detailed, gushy news for personal emails rather than broadcasting it to the larger audience.*

Which is also to say that if infertile men and women want a little sensitivity thrown their way, they need to be upfront.  People only know what you tell them.  And beyond that, there are other options beyond schooling someone when you’re unhappy with the way they deliver news — you can hide their feed or unfriend them on Facebook (though hopefully keep them as a friend in the face-to-face world).  It has to flow in both directions with people realizing that the way they deliver news may affect how the news is taken AND people realizing that if we all walk around on egg shells around each other, the world will be a very uncomfortable place.

And what people need to understand about the WashPo article — WashPo ASKED infertile men and women how they dealt with their friend feed.  Infertile men and women didn’t go to WashPo and say, “please let the world know this because we think they need to change.”  Instead, WashPo wrote the article, people were honest in their quotes, and now, it’s up to people who read the article to decide how they want to comport themselves.  They know the truth about how people are reading their feed.  Or not reading their feed.  Which is very different from your friend calling you up and saying, “you, Person X, need to change the way you write your feed.”  WashPo’s article was simply presenting how people approach Facebook.

And on that note, posting an update to Facebook is just about the worst way to deliver important news.  Some people are on there daily.  Some people go on monthly.  And some people on your friend list don’t actually go on at all.  If you have important news to share, share it directly.  Send an email or make a phone call to ensure that the person knows rather than posting it to a social media site.  If the news is so important that you want people to know about it, then take the time to actually ensure that they know about it.  The only people who should be finding out important news (such as the fact that you’re pregnant) via a social media site should be peripheral people that you wouldn’t mind if they stopped reading your friend feed.

So why get your panties in a twist if they stop reading it?

* This, of course, assumes that your Facebook friend list is a mixed bag of people.  If everyone on your list is in your family, carry on as if you were sending a group personal email.  If your list is made up of a few co-workers, a few old college friends, a few random people from your neighbourhood, and your great-aunt Rose who happens to be an Internet junkie, then treat your status updates like the subject line of an email — you don’t gush all the news there; you just provide a taste.

My keynote for the New England Resolve conference yesterday did a 180 from where I thought it would go.  I could talk about what it was going to be, but perhaps, instead, I should just post what it was.  Here is my address if you weren’t at the conference to hear it:

My husband called me one morning and told me that Carla Cohen, the owner of our local, independent bookstore, Politics and Prose, had died. The news came on a day when I was already hurrying, behind on a deadline, and at first, I was angry that he had shared the news with me then and there when he knew how important it was that I got this work project done. Her death was like a punch straight in my heart.

And maybe that’s where it first felt like infertility. Because — as you know — news never comes when you’re prepared to hear it. There were calls from my nurse with negative betas where I had to brightly smile and go face the students in my classroom without missing a beat. Nurses never called when I had an hour free period stretching ahead of me. They always called three seconds before the class bell rang so I had to jump off the phone, a fist-sized hole in my heart, and pretend nothing had happened.

Sometimes the show has to go on.

Back to the death of the bookstore owner; what else could my husband do? He knew how much she meant to me. Her store had served as my community during some very difficult times in my life. It was a refuge of sorts. And she had given me one of the most important pieces of advice, one that I promise I’ll share with you today (this is called the big build up – where I keep hinting about this awesome advice, ensuring that it will be a let down).

Again, her death reminded me a lot of infertility itself because I had many of the same thoughts and feelings. I didn’t feel right mourning so deeply because she wasn’t my mother or my best friend – she was simply a person who meant a lot to me. I gave myself the same talking-to often during treatments or after a loss – what right did I have to mourn so deeply?

During my first round of treatments, I wanted life to stop for me, to let me pause, but again, no one recognized what I was going through as a reason to pause. Cancer, of course, or the death of a family member excused one for a short period from life. But infertility? It’s a silent mark – you often don’t share the experience with others, and when you do, they usually don’t understand how deeply it cuts.  My day 3 bloodwork would suck, and I’d have to pretend everything was okay during work hours or out with my friends. And here, I had lost someone who meant a great deal to me, and my editor was not going to understand if I didn’t turn in that manuscript as promised.

So what was Carla Cohen’s ever-brilliant advice – words that can apply to every facet of life?

Just wing it.

Let me explain. It was my first reading for Navigating the Land of If, and it was special because I was at my favourite bookstore, this place that meant the world to me. My publisher didn’t have great luck booking readings there, but Carla made a special exception because she knew what the space meant to me.

The night before the reading, I typed up a page of things I wanted to talk about in terms of the book and blog. I printed it off, folded the paper, and tucked it into the book, proud of myself for being so freakin’ prepared.

The next afternoon, I am waiting in the back office with Carla Cohen prior to the reading and we’re chatting. She asks if I’m prepared because we’re about to walk out to the podium. I pull out my book and notes and unfold the paper to find myself looking at a blank page. The printer must have spat out two pieces of paper — a blank sheet and my notes. And I grabbed the blank one.

My first instinct was to hide inside the office until it was safe to sneak out to my car and drive home, crying all the way. But Carla’s answer to this problem was “just wing it.” And what she meant wasn’t that I shouldn’t take this seriously or feel embarrassed. But that the only way through it was … well … through it. That stopping wasn’t an option. And that I needed a lot more fortitude to get through the problems in life.

So, I winged it.

Just wing it is an attitude that takes into consideration that life doesn’t always go according to plan, but regardless, we need to keep going. We need to keep pretending that we have our shit together, that we can do this. Pausing from life isn’t an option just as returning to your house with your tail between your legs when you show up for a book reading without your notes isn’t an option. Carla Cohen’s advice points out that life goes on because life has to go on. And this attitude shift is imperative for getting through infertility because often life feels like it can’t go on.

This attitude is there to wrangle those thoughts back into their place. You are allowed to curl up on the bathroom floor and cry. You are allowed to sit out a baby shower or two. You are even allowed to hide all pregnant people from your Facebook feed. What you aren’t allowed to do is let infertility stop you from living. You can’t allow infertility to become like one of Harry Potter’s dementors, sucking your soul from your body. Conjure up whatever Patronus works for you to chase that infertility dementor away.

Just wing it is the anti-just relax. “Just relax” dismisses the problem. It says: it’s not such a huge deal, just relax about it. It’s negating the problem: it’s not a medical issue; it’s just your stress getting the best of you. It’s belittling the problem: that infertility can be solved with a vacation or a good massage.

Where as “just wing it” acknowledges the problem and reminds the person that they need to find it somewhere within themselves to cope. The only way out of infertility is through infertility. You have to resolve it; you can’t live here indefinitely.

But “winging it” takes a leap of faith, one that is perhaps impossible when you’re not in a comfortable situation. If the same thing had occurred at a different bookstore, I probably wouldn’t have been able to pull myself together and walk out in front of that podium faking it. I was in this space that had been essentially a refuge to me. And beyond that, I was amongst friends – albeit friends that were in a sea of strangers, but friends nonetheless.

So I leaned on that, and that is what got me through it, and the same can be said, as you’ve probably guessed, for infertility. Going it alone; not having understanding people around you; it’s impossible. You need fortitude that most people just don’t have naturally. And frankly, infertile people live in an un-infertility-friendly world. Few of us naturally have people around us who understand that it’s not a disease you can leave for a few hours. Medications are timed, appointments are frequent, and toilet paper examination goes on hourly.

But the way we wing our way through infertility is by making connections such as the ones that are going on in this room. It’s about going online and finding your virtual tribe; whether it’s other parents-to-be going through the adoption process or others beginning treatments or others utilizing donor gametes. No one will have your exact story; but there will be places that you overlap and in those venn diagrams of life, we find support.

And I challenge everyone here, if you don’t already have a blog or a bulletin board or a face-to-face support group, get one. Go home tonight and start a blog; many blogging platforms are free. Within ten minutes, you can have a short paragraph up announcing yourself. Read other blogs, and leave comments. Add yourself to my blogroll at Stirrup Queens – you can find a link in the top left-hand corner. There are over 2500 blogs on it right now. People will find you if you go out seeking them. And now you have a refuge, a place to go when people tell you to just relax. These people will know that while “just relax” is bunk, “just wing it” is the way you really get through infertility.

Having support – whether its online or face-to-face – will not cure infertility. But it will certainly make tackling infertility easier. It is always better to plow forward knowing people have your back if you slow down, to know there will be people there to show you the way if you get lost, or to simply hold your hand when you don’t want to be alone. Having support doesn’t erase the terrible parts of infertility or loss; those still exist. But what it does is give you the refuge to take a deep breath and move forward rather than continue to stand in the storm, becoming increasingly battered.

Having support allows you to just wing it: to go back to work after a negative beta knowing that you will vent to your friends that night. To get through that upcoming Thanksgiving dinner where your Great Aunt Jane is going to ask you when you’re finally going to have kids. To pick yourself up after a terrible loss.

I wanted to say something funny about infertility today. And there are times when we can be sarcastic and bitter and list all the horrific things people say to us in the name of “helping out.” We can list our comebacks and snicker over people’s ignorance. But in the end, sort of like black coffee, there’s no sweetness to it. It’s not the kind of the laughter that leaves you smiling. It’s the sort of laughter that is the precursor to tears.

So instead I give you the best advice I’ve received in a while, one that applies to book readings as well as infertility. It’s a way to honour Carla Cohen, a fellow infertile woman who died way too soon, one that taught me the importance about plowing ahead. And how you can do that when you have supporting hands behind you.