Category — Friday Blog Roundup

We got a new dishwasher this week and it’s gorgeous.  It makes the rest of the kitchen look like crap, but the machine itself brings shivers of newness.  I’m still creating a new loading system, shifting around plates and bowls so everything fits neatly and unloads quickly.

The man who installed it at first appeared as if he didn’t want to talk, but when I sat back down to work, he started calling out friendly questions to me — mostly about the area since we both grew up here — and I sat down to watch him work, chatting on about best swimming spots on the river and restaurants in Frederick.

At one point, he asked what I do if I’m no longer a teacher, and I answered that I’m a writer.  He looked surprised and said, “there’s money in doing that?” and I answered honestly that for most there wasn’t, but I had been doing this long enough that I was able to make a living — at least enough to float us — by being a writer.  The next logical question was “what do you write?”

The truthful but vague answer of “books and articles” led him to inquire what these books and articles were about.  I realized in that moment that I usually speak with women and therefore, when I answer this question truthfully, I’m usually not squirming on the inside admitting that I write about reproductive organs.  I muttered something about women’s health and then changed the subject.

Because, come on, the next honest answer was staring him in the eye and saying, “actually, I’m going to write about you.  This week.  On Friday if you care to read it.”

Because that obviously would have been the truth too.

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Tonight begins Yom Kippur and it will last until Saturday night.  As much as I dislike the fasting aspect, overall, I really love the holiday.  The service tonight — Kol Nidre — is gorgeous.  And then you go home and you feel quiet and perhaps you read a book.  And then in the morning, you go back to the shul for another service, and home to rest, and then we’ll have some people come over to break fast.  And afterwards, it feels like you’ve been under a blanket for 10 days and it’s suddenly lifted and you can breathe again.

Part of the holiday is asking forgiveness — for the things you know you’ve done, but also the things you have no clue that you’ve done because the other person silently seethed instead of let you know what a dick you are.  And this aspect of the apology fits perfectly with the Internet because too many times, you have no idea how your words have affected another person — if they’ve damaged them or ruined their day or made them frustrated — by the mere fact that you can’t see the other person or even know if they read your words.

So I’m asking for forgiveness from you if I’ve upset you in the past year.  I am sorry, and it was never my intention.  Which doesn’t excuse it; it just serves as an explanation.

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And now, the blogs …

A Little Blog about the Big Infertility has a post about how infertility has affected her marriage.  It is a very raw, very honest post, and for me, the most interesting part came when she discussed how infertility has made her feel violated.  Once she said it, I completely understood what she described, and I’m glad they came to a place where they realized what was going on.  The post continues through so many loops and turns, through tears in a store and dreams, and she held me right there on their vacation until the end.

Expecting a Miracle also has a hard post as she heads into a personally hard weekend.  She begins, “It is starting again.  That ache.  That old familiar ache of wanting to be pregnant and knowing that another month has passed in which I’m not.”  It is a lovely, small post.

No Swimmin has a post springboarding off a commercial for the movie, Life As We Know It, wondering whether he’d be happy living child-free.  It was an option he considered before he was forced to truly consider it, and he’s now thinking through the what ifs.  I love this thought, “I think that, at first, back at the very beginning, well before the pulling of the goalie, I wanted kids mostly because Ms. Swimmin wanted kids, and I didn’t not want kids. In the beginning, that was enough for me. Now, things have changed.”  It’s a post you really need to read from beginning to end.

Lastly, A Little Pregnant provided food for thought with her post on whether infertility makes you a better parent.  It’s not only well-written with a very interesting thesis, but the discussion happening in the comment section is worth a read too.

The roundup to the Roundup: Suddenly I’m squeamish discussing my vagina.  Accept my apology.  And lots of great posts to read.

If you have seen the first movie in the recent straight-to-video Disney franchise, Tinkerbell, you know that fairies are born when a baby laughs. (This is a relief to learn because I was so freaked out at the idea of REs trying to get the speculum up the tiny vaginas of infertile fairies — there are no infertile fairies; only dour babies who are not contributing to the world’s fairy population due to their poor sense of humour.)

The ChickieNob was inquiring whether her new baby cousin had laughed yet, producing a new fairy and whether we could go to Pixie Hollow to meet said fairy since, you know, she’s sort of part of the family.  As she was inquiring about this, she realized that SHE must have laughed at some point and, by fuck, is she currently the mother of her own little Tinkerbell?

She became scarily intense asking after her baby (albeit a baby with translucent wings), almost frantic over the idea that she had created this being and sent it out into the world, and she had no clue where her fairy was at this very moment in time.

It was like turning a mirror on myself, a glimpse of how I’ll look when they leave for college.

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The Weekly What If: What if you were given your own talk show to start filming next Monday.  Who would be in the line up of your five first guests — Monday to Friday?

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And now, the blogs…

Lifeslurper has a post called “Little IVF Earthquakes,” about a tiny mistake made by her clinic which has huge life reprecussions.  The name and address of her anonymous egg donor was accidentally left on a form mailed to the author, and now, instead of having the woman remain an anonymous entity, she has become someone reachable; Google-able.  And while they would have had access to this information when their child was 18, that information was supposed to be years away; something to deal with at a later date.  The post is gut-wrenching — especially as she explains the other events that fell during the days she was pregnant before she experienced a pregnancy loss.  And it’s simply a chilling post, that leaves you in a state of wondering what you would do in the same situation.

Waiting for Baby has a post about her recent loss and telling people about it.  She muses over whom they will tell, explaining the pros and cons of placing this information with other people.  She writes, “Instead I feel like the choices are suck it up, fake it, or share and risk being upset by their lack of understanding and sensitivity.  In a way not telling is a way of feeling more in control.”  I found my head nodding at times while I read the post.

Riding the IVF Roller Coaster has a post about being hopped up on hormones.  I love these lines: “This is a rough cycle.  They all are.  It is endless.  I can’t think at work – sooo many things are slipping.  I’m not the on-the-ball person I usually am – and it’s really hard to care.  The thing I’m best at doing at the moment is being weepy and emotional.”  She manages, through her words, to make you feel as if you are also racing along the same hormonal road.  Later in the week, she writes the gorgeous and heartbreaking, “Grief Pounces,” explaining that, “the great puma of grief pounced on me in the night.  I’m surprised anyone can recognise me today; I feel like I’ve been mauled.”  Seriously, click over to read both.

Speaking of writing that makes you feel as if you are in the author’s head, Someday has a post about her crazy, swirling thoughts.  They are of the “if this happens, then I’ll do this” variety.  And the post contains this eloquent truism for many in the infertility blogosphere: “I feel like giving up at the same time that I feel like desperately hanging on.”

Lastly, Child Bearing Hips has a sweet and sad post about remembering Nora.  She comments on the difficulties she has had in finding a way to remember her: “I know it’s silly. It’s just a tree and an earring. They don’t REALLY represent Nora… but seriously. SERIOUSLY. Can I catch a break? My good friend told me that maybe it’s a sign that Nora it meant to only live in my heart – but I just wanted something nice and small… and it seems like every effort fails.”  Read the post, if for nothing else, her therapist’s excellent advice.  But really, read the post because it’s beautiful and raw.

The roundup to the Roundup: Please don’t worry about infertile fairies and their tiny vaginas.  Answer the Weekly What If about your talk show.  And lots of great blogs to read.

I have a friend who always comes at the right time.

She lives in Atlanta where she works to ensure that — around the world — women don’t die in childbirth.  Doesn’t she already sound like an amazing person, just based on that small sliver of information?  She protects women’s lives.

She is physically very beautiful, but she also has this gorgeous and quiet personality.  She is very smart — both in the grand sense of the word, and in self-knowledge.  She is funny and self-effacing and has this tiny Southern lilt in her voice.  And she has this habit of always coming at the right time.

This trip to D.C. was for a wedding and a birthday party and a general vacation, coming off a trip to Nepal, where she was … you know … just saving women’s lives.  And during the week that is emotionally tumultuous, where I feel like I’m made out of plastic on the outside and glass on the inside, she was the perfect person to meet for lunch and tea (oh! and I get to reorganize her computer this weekend.  There is nothing that gets me wetter than the idea of creating new online filing systems!)

It doesn’t matter how much time has passed since we’ve last seen each other — we can jump right back to where we were before.  So we unpacked our lives, and from my end, it was all of the obvious things you’d think I’d cover from this week, and then also, we paused on the topic of jealousy.

A pair of old friends gave birth this week and I am so jealous of their new son.  It’s not even my normal jealousy where they can easily have a child (they were only married a few months when they conceived), but simply the fact that they have all this time in front of them.  They are at the start of the path, and I am deep on the path — in the tall grasses that are difficult to navigate.  And I want to be back at the start of the path again with the twins.  It’s not even wanting another baby.  It’s simply being jealous of other people’s time.  I am thrilled for them — they should only have happiness and warm cuddles — but I am so jealous of the time that’s on their side right now.

I revisited an old post I wrote about jealousy many years ago (for the love, is this blog really that old?):

Anyway, the paragraph in Lamott’s essay that helped me tonight falls close to the end when Anne is setting out the pieces of the puzzle that helped her rein in her jealousy when a fellow writer was calling her daily to tell her about her literary success while Anne seethed on the other end of the phone.

…My friend Judy said that the problem was trying to stop the jealousy and competitiveness, and that the main thing was not to let it fuel my self-loathing. She said it was nuts for me to try to be happy for this other writer. I cannot tell you how much this helped. I was raised in a culture that promotes this competitiveness, this insatiability, this fantasy of needing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and then, in the next breath, shames you for any feelings of longing or envy or fear that it will always be someone else’s turn. I was only doing what I had been groomed to do.

I think that first line–the idea of stopping the jealousy–spoke to me. I’m not a fan of this idea that we need to be happy 100% of the time. We were given this enormous palette of emotions for a reason. I don’t think it’s our job to always try to realign towards happiness. I think it’s okay to remain for a while in sadness and explore it as long as we don’t allow ourselves to inadvertently board up all the exits out of the emotion.

There is a part of me that recognizes that these are all emotions I just have to feel.  To tell myself not to feel them is only to push myself deeper into self-loathing because I feel so small being jealous of something that is outside of their control.  They are probably jealous that I’m farther along and actually know my childrens’ personalities rather than holding a lump of warm baby.  Don’t we all want what other people have?

And then there is a part of me that still feels as if I need to admit this to my friend, to spill out to her that I am so hopelessly jealous of that time.  That needs to admit this to you in order to absolve myself of this jealousy.

Damn … this really wasn’t where I saw this opening going.  I just wanted to virtually introduce you to my friend.  Who is really this lovely, wonderful person.  Did I mention that she saves women’s lives?

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Rather Than a Weekly What If: When was the last time you felt jealous and what was it about?

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And now, the blogs …

Serenity Now has a post about how hard she is on herself and how she is learning to let go.  She admits, “I put so much fucking pressure on myself. To be a better person, a better friend, a better parent. To manage this life I’ve got; to make sure the dishes are done, the house is clean, O is fed and bathed and happy. To run a half marathon in under 2 hours. To please my boss and do an amazing job at work.” It’s a beautiful post about finding peace with the idea of not reaching goals.  And yes, I think it’s a damn important read.

Finding a Family has a post about being with her family.  She writes, “being with family always reminds us how important it is to build a family of our own.” I love this post because — unlike me — she is able to find that place where she can set aside her jealousy and simply feel enormous happiness for another person.  And I want to learn that.

Reproductive Jeans has a new project called Thoughtful Tuesdays.  She says, “Each Tuesday, I’m going to tell you about something I am either: a) thankful for, b) something I witnessed that was an act of kindness, or c) something I did to ‘pay it forward‘.”  I expect nothing less from the lady who brought the world the Braces Bunch.

Lastly, Getting There has a post about the public’s reaction to a government minister’s public admittance of their infertility.  When the public sputters, “too much information!” in regards to discussion on miscarriage, Getting There responds that this is exactly the type of information that people need to hear; that we need more people giving too much information.  She says, “And I’d love to think that we could stop people thinking that they are alone; that there are many, many people out there who have been through what they are going through.”

The roundup to the Roundup: I am a jealous person, but my friend is lovely.  When was the last time you felt jealous and why?  And lots of great posts to read.

Thank you for your support this week with the twins heading off soon for kindergarten.  Please indulge me in some more weeping?  I would promise that these will be the last thoughts, though I know they’re not because I haven’t even begun to unpack our 6 hour excursion to purchase a backpack.

And yes, I’m well aware that I sound nut-jobby about the twins, but that is because I am unapologetically nut-jobby about the twins.  And these posts are not just to let out these feelings so they don’t knock around inside my heart all day, but also, I hope that one day they read these and realize how much they mean to me.  How incredibly loved they are.

Jonathan Franzen was on the cover of Time this week (really, the more interesting story is the one from Jen Weiner and Jodi Picoult pointing out which types of writers the media fawns over — hint: they’re white and male).  I only knew this because Josh and I stopped in a Royal Farms on our way back from the beach since my mid-year resolution is to never deny myself a beverage, and the magazine was by the cashier’s stand.  It reminded me of his book The Corrections, which I read and Josh was banned from reading because he had just lost his grandfather.

In The Corrections, the eldest son, Gary, has a wife and sons who make his life miserable.  They’re really infuriating characters so it may not make a lot of sense when I say this, but without the evil inclinations and exclusionary actions, I wanted some of that relationship that Franzen describes when he writes about the mother and sons playing football.  That easy-going friendship they share.  The boys are her partners-in-crime, and I wanted that, though only on the side of good.

Until now, I’ve had that — grand adventures with my two sidekicks.  Preschool cramped our style, but it was only two hours in the morning which gave us plenty of time to take wrong turns while driving to see where the roads would lead or go to the farm or out to Shepherdstown to have a tea party.

This will be the first time their day belongs to someone else.  When kindergarten begins, I lose my job — the job I’ve held for six years — and someone else, someone who doesn’t have the time or energy to listen to every last one of their great ideas and only wants the executive summary will be doing my job of teaching them.  I’ve met their teacher and she is wonderful and kind.  But with that many students, she cannot sit with them for a full hour while they tell her their plans to capture a mermaid.  And so, this job that I have loved (though let’s not forget all the times I’ve also whined about it), is being taken away from me.  My hours reduced.  My favourite tasks outsourced to someone else.

When I read descriptions of the derogatory terms parenting experts throw at other parents, I fit the idea of the helicopter parent, the velcro parent, the hovering parent.  I like to be around because I genuinely enjoy their company.  No one calls me a helicopter wife when I spend inordinate amounts of time with Josh because, frankly, he rocks.  But I am a helicopter parent because I have a lot of fun with them and I want to grab that fun while I can.

(I have long suspected that the reason they do this is not to label us for our own good since how many people would honestly change how they approach life just because they were belittled by a “parenting expert,” but because their terms are the embodiment of their own embarrassment.  Rationally enjoy time apart from your child, but feel guilty because you think it makes you look like a bad parent?  Just call someone who enjoys being with their kids a helicopter parent.  Secretly wish you could grab back some semblance of your life pre-child, but feel guilty admitting how much you hurt over the idea of losing yourself?  Simply write a rant about laissez-faire parents.)

This separation is painful, and there aren’t really any words or thoughts that erase that.  As I said to Allison this week, “It feels like someone is digging out my insides with a spoon.  And it is both painful AND I am acutely aware that they are removing my internal organs.”

So, that’s where I am.

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On a more fun note (gee, Mel, why don’t you just pee in everyone’s Cheerios with that Roundup opening … ), I am involved in Calliope and Lindsay’s new brain-child, Who Wants to Know.  It is an everything site — reviews, opinions, experiences, advice, suggestions, giveaways — and I’ll begin writing over there once I get over the kindergarten threshold.  It is a really fun site, and I encourage you to go over, check it out, bookmark it, add it to your feed reader, get a tattoo of the header across your back, and rename yourself after your favourite dessert.

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The Weekly What If: what if the universe would magically make your favourite dessert calorie-free (you could eat it indefinitely and never put on a single pound) in exchange for having you walk around for 24 hours with dog shit smeared to the bottom of your shoes.  Would you do it?  You know, for ice cream?

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And now, the blogs…

Maybe Baby (or maybe the looney bin) has a post about the realities of IVF vs. what the general public believes.  She admits, “I guess if I have to be here then I am going to write it how it is. I try to keep my blog amusing as I do tend to live my life with glass half full but sometimes it can be exhausting and I don’t want to make it seem like this isn’t hard.”  Sort of wish the New York Times would publish her post rather than some of the drivel they produce about fertility treatments.

It is Tuesday, Right? has a funny post about being strung out on IVF drugs.  From wanting to two-fist oreos to manically making felt bats to getting the crankles, she wonders what the hell will happen if she has to do this again.

I love Infertile Fantasies’s post about being pregnant and conceiving without treatments.  While some may feel that the benefit of not doing treatments outweighs everything else (and perhaps if weighed against everything else, it would), uncareful readers would miss the point — that it is a different playing field which brings out different emotions.  I just thought it was an illuminating post.

Lastly, perhaps because I am already in a weep-tastic mood, Unwellness’s post about her mother moved me to tears.  I love the point she makes about her birthday: “But my birthday… wouldn’t exist without her.”  The post is an unbelievable, raw, stunning post — one you will probably want to reread many times, even if you never knew her mother.

The roundup to the Roundup: having a hard time losing my job.  Check out Who Wants to Know.  Answer the Weekly What If.  And lots of great posts to read.

The Wolvog has his own email account, which came after much begging (it is only used for family and fictive kin).  He needed it, you see, to set up his private blog — a space that he picks at every day, calling it his “work.”  He writes music with Garage Band and then takes these crazy-ass pictures and combines them into these stop-action videos (he is very, very into gamelan at the moment).  Sometimes, I don’t even know what I am looking at.  He is entering kindergarten.

What is this?

How the Wolvog conceptualizes our kitchen

This picture made me queasy; as if I was looking at something out of a Margaret Atwood novel … oooh, so apropos.

The computer is set up so I can watch what he’s doing while I’m cooking, and this week, I was peering over his shoulder when I said, “are you in Daddy’s email account?”  You see, down the left sidebar were a series of folders, much like Josh’s account, with all of them neatly titled from “personal” to “car.”

“I’m in my email,” he insisted.

I motioned to the sidebar and said, “what is that?”

“They’re my folders,” he explained.  “‘Car’ is for when I receive an email that mentions a car.  ‘Stories’ is for when someone tells me a good story.  ‘Shoes’ is for when Grandma sends me an email telling me that she is going to make me try on shoes.”

But how did you do that?

The folders, with the first letter neatly capitalized, alphabetized for good measure — that is the child I always wanted to raise.  I mean, creativity is well and good, but organization skills?  Taking the time to capitalize the first letter and keep it consistent?  That is love.

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The Weekly What If: would you rather be super creative, blowing people’s minds with your brilliant ideas, but be terribly disorganized, unable to find your keys or even your pants when you pull them down to pee — OR — would you rather be hyperorganized, always knowing where everything is, but leading a fairly straightforward, rational life?

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IComLeavWe begins this weekend on Saturday.  I will be slow to add new people to the list over the weekend because we are going to be ensconced in some offline activities.  Therefore, be patient.  You will get on the list if you sign up before 11 p.m. EST on Saturday.

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And now, the blogs…

Tales of Rachel has a post called “Choice or Circumstance” that I thought was brilliant.  She asks a tough question: is she infertile if she has a non-functioning uterus (and permanently impaired her fertility with tubal ligation in order to remove the chance of a pregnancy she should not attempt to carry) but never tried to have a child?  She finds herself unable to relate to those who have chosen to be child-free, nor feels she belongs with those who have tried for years to get pregnant and have now resolved their infertility by living child-free.  She writes: “I’m stuck somewhere between choice and circumstance.  And wondering, really wondering, if anyone out there understands that feeling.”

Storm in my Tea Cup has a post about coping skills.  She writes: “I need some coping skills.  Perferably, ones that don’t involve 2 hour naps, lots of salt or anything chocolate covered.”  It is just an honest, simple post.

Attempting to Love Life Without Her has a post about all the things she didn’t know before she lost her daughter.  It is almost poetry, and you are lulled into a sigh by the ending.  It’s really beautiful.

Lastly, HolyMoly Toledo(s) has a post about reaching out to a woman that she suspected had miscarried.  You need to click over to read the whole post in order to understand, but it is about the small clues that only someone infertile would notice.

The roundup to the Roundup: email folders and trippy pictures.  Answer the Weekly What If.  IComLeavWe begins this weekend.  And lots of great posts to read.