So…

I’m really shy about putting this out there, but I’m doing WalkAmerica this year, which is the walk to benefit the March of Dimes. The money raised will go to “improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth, and infant mortality.” Which…as you know…is kind of sort of extremely really close to my heart.

Our twins were IUGR and had to come out at 33 weeks (almost 34). They spent three weeks in the NICU and came home on heart monitors. It’s sort of crazy to read the old email updates I’d send–the day my son hit the big four pound mark! The day they took 1/2 ounce by mouth!

Um…that’s why I’m walking this May. Because my son finally hit the big four pound mark when he was about six weeks old due to the excellent care of the NICU staff and advances in medicine supported by the March of Dimes. And for the day the twins took 1/2 ounce by mouth or came off the heart monitors or became the little crazed monkeys they are today. All due to the excellent care of doctors and nurses and the good work of the March of Dimes.

I still get choked up writing about this.

So if you don’t mind a plea for fundraising–since it is a good cause that it close to many-a-stirrup queen’s heart, please click on the WalkAmerica link below to contribute–even if it is just a dollar or two in memory of another baby born too soon on the Land of If or in honour of a child who has made it out of the premature years. It is hard to be a part of this blogosphere and not know a story.

We’re also walking in honour of our friend’s son who came home this week after 111 days in the NICU. She is a fellow stirrup queen who delivered her son in her second trimester. He was 1 pound 12 ounces at birth. He is over 6 pounds 6 ounces today. Happy Coming Home Day, Yoav.

Let’s take a moment to ponder this series of coincidences:

Before last night, I had never heard the name Graciela. During dinner, my friend told me about a new woman she met named Graciela while she was traveling in Japan. When I got home, I printed out a contact list for some volunteer work that I’m doing. Last name on the list? Graciela.

Two days ago, we were passing by a series of houses in my parent’s neighbourhood. As we passed each one, I pointed at it and told my husband who had lived in each house when I was little. We passed by the house of a boy who was in my nursery school class–my first love. I have harboured a grudge against my nursery school teacher for 28 years because on the last Shabbat, she sat me next to Poison Oak Boy instead of my love, Danny (whom I called “Benny” because I liked the name Benny better than Danny. And Danny never conveyed any annoyance over being called Benny instead of Danny). “She knew this,” I told my husband as we passed his old house. “She knew I loved him and she sat me next to Poison Oak Boy.”

I am still not over it.

Last night, as I was meeting my friend for dinner–the friend who would tell me about Graciela–I paused in my parking spot to write myself a note. As I moved to open my door, a car pulled into the empty space next to mine and I waited for her car to stop. I thought to myself, “wouldn’t it be funny if it were the friend I’m meeting for dinner; choosing the parking spot right next to mine in this huge lot simply by chance.”

It wasn’t.

It was an old friend from nursery school–one that I haven’t seen in over six years since we lived in the same apartment building before we each were married.

We got out of the car and I told her about how I had been speaking about Danny the day before to my husband. And how it was a strange coincidence to bump into another classmate from that small nursery school class 28 years later. She asked what had happened to me in the last 6 or so years since we had last seen each other. We had both gotten married and changed our last names. I had the twins. She didn’t have any children yet. She asked if the twins were identical or fraternal. She said, “oh, it must have happened quickly for you!” I pointed out that over 6 years had passed since we had seen each other. The twins were now 2. It hadn’t been that quick.

My laydar buzzed a bit in the back of my head. Oh…you know…laydar? That sixth sense stirrup queens have for figuring out when someone else is a stirrup queen before they say anything? That familiar feeling of knowing that for both women, a good lay brings nothing your way.

We walked into the restaurant together and looked for my friend. She offered to wait with me until my friend arrived. She asked what I was currently writing. I told her that I do freelance work for magazines and I’m working on a non-fiction book. “What sort of subject?” she asked. “Infertility,” I answered.

“From your own experience?” she asked hopefully.

“Sure; the kids are fertility treatment twins.”

And that’s how I learned about her own diagnosis, the start of her first IVF cycle, and how her SIL just told her about her second pregnancy as my friend was telling her SIL about starting treatments.

We go to the same clinic. We have the same doctor in this large clinic. We both have high FSH.

I had been at home, working on the Diagnosis Blilt (oh–side note–send in your words for your square by tomorrow night. I have 35 squares created so far on kicky quilty-looking virtual fabrics. And we haven’t had any repeats–every thought is unique. Isn’t that incredible? 35 unique reactions to the same news. I’m going to post this first blilt when it’s finished on Thursday.) and then I go out to dinner to bump into an old friend with a new diagnosis.

Two girls in a class with perhaps eight girls total end up at the same clinic. What did the teacher put in our grape juice? Or is it all just a coincidence?

In Jasper Fforde’s novel, Lost in a Good Book, the main character is being “killed by coincidence.” When she asks her uncle what he thinks about coincidences, he says he believes that “most coincidences are simply quirks of chance…[but] the universe always moves from an ordered state to a disordered one; that a glass may fall to the ground and shatter yet you never see a broken glass reassemble itself and then jump back onto the table.”

What does that explanation have to do with the conjunction of Graciela-infertility-nursery school coincidences?

Because I marked the page about coincidences in that book when I read it 4 years ago.

What a coincidence that I had some foresight to mark that page for easy retrieval as I write a blog entry about the coincidences of the past three days.

What do you do with coincidences? It seems a shame to ignore them. It seems a little far-fetched to believe these things fall into place randomly and a little far-fetched to believe these things are predestined. It’s sort of like a dream that sticks with you–you don’t want to overlook it and, at the same time, you know it’s probably just your mind finding connections in unconnected spaces. But if the glass can break, why can’t the glass unbreak? And if these are simple quirks of chance, why do they make you feel as if someone is jerking your head upward and making you see the bigger picture?

Updated with the beginnings of the blilt at the end of the post:

You know how a quilt pulls together all these unrelated pieces of fabric and combines them to produce a single object–a blanket? Well…a blilt would be the same idea. There are all these unrelated blogs that go off on their separate stories. But they could be tied together to create a source of warmth and comfort.

Maybe this is something that needs more of a visual explanation than paragraphs of analogies.

Okay, so as of writing this, no one has submitted a link about receiving an infertility diagnosis for the emoblopedia. So this is my idea: everyone will submit how they felt when they received their diagnosis in ten words or less. Just think back to the moment when you received whatever test results began to point towards a problem or the moment when you realized that you wanted to be pregnant but would need assistance to do so. Whichever word(s) come to mind–anywhere from a single word to a ten-word phrase (pick one sentiment)–put them in the comments section or email them to me at thetowncriers@gmail.com.

I will then take these and weave them into a clickable, virtual quilt of blogs. It will look something like this:

But instead of blog names, the words inside the squares will be the emotions felt when you received a diagnosis and the link will take the person back to your blog. The general idea: that you might find a like-minded person in clicking on the squares of the quilt that speak to your own experience. For instance, if I just received my own diagnosis and I was feeling as if I had just been punched in the gut, if someone had a square that said “punched in the gut,” I could click over and read their journey. At the same time, the blilt stands as a testament to the wide range of emotions one feels in these common infertility situations–receiving a diagnosis, receiving a BFN, experiencing a miscarriage, seeing two lines.

I’m playing with graphics to try to make something that looks a little more quil
ty (quilty in the quilt-like sense and not in the Lolita sense). But regardless, send your words (or short phrases) either by leaving a comment or sending an email. It would speed things along if you also included your blog address. And I will have this clickable quilt up and running in that section of the emoblopedia later in the week. Send your thoughts between now and midnight on April 11th (Wednesday night). I’ll start constructing the next blilt for a new subject after this first one goes up.
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Update:

Just thought of this as I started laying out the first pieces of the blilt: you don’t need to have a blog in order to participate. We can have squares that aren’t linked outside the blilt that still convey how someone felt in the moment. And we can link words to an email address if you’re open to having someone write you out of the blue to talk about their own diagnosis (a la the peer counselors list). I just didn’t want anyone’s words left off simply because they didn’t have a blog.

Here is the beginnings of the Diagnosis Blilt (I’ll put up the full blilt when it’s ready on Thursday or Friday):

I think it’s gorgeous to see such diversity in thought. Need to go weave my own words into the blilt as well…

Um…I’ve been nominated for a Best of Blogs Award (thank you, Allison!). So…er…if you like my blog…um…please click on over and vote for me…um…. And…er…I think you can vote once a day…so…um…feel free to make voting the first thing you do every morning…like…as you drink your coffee…or something…um…so thank you…and…er…that’s it.

Best of Blogs: Adoption and Fertility Blogs

Um…and the next thing is that I started a new space to house the emoblopedia now that it is starting to grow. If you are linking to the old space on my blog, it will still work since it continues to direct people there. Please spread the word about its existence and keep sending links as you write them (or find them in the deep dark recesses of your archives). I collect all the links that come in and enter them once or twice a week so it sometimes takes me a day or two to get links up into the emoblopedia. Just so you know, I always send back a note when they’re up. In light of some Internet abuse I recently discovered and in the interest of quality control, I’ve now decided against going with a wiki program. So I’ll enter them by hand–a little slower, but probably less work overall. You can speed up the process by using the new submission format. And here’s another idea: when you can’t think of anything to blog about, use the empty emoblopedia categories to think up a new post subject. And then send the link!

To kick off the little emoblopedia’s space, I christen this week: Linky Linky Week. Look at the emoblopedia to see where there are gaps and send over a link to plump up a skinny category. Or kick off a new category by sending a link to start it off. If you are feeling too shy to send a link, leave a comment on someone else’s blog suggesting one of their posts for the emoblopedia.

Oh…well…lookie here–these look like some good posts for the emoblopedia…

Congratulations to Katd on the birth of her daughter, Lily. If you’ve been following Katd’s story at They Grow In Your Heart, you know that she was waiting to adopt. Most people get 9 months to get into the idea of parenthood. Katd and her husband had about 2 weeks. 2 weeks ago, they were going through life, eating out, going to work, stressing about adoption. And today, they’re parents. It’s sort of mind-blowing how quickly life can change. Head over and wish them good thoughts and look at pictures of little Lily.

Speaking of adoption, if you want to hear one of the most kick-ass stories told by a kick-ass storyteller–the Journeywoman–head over to her blog and read her post “Daddy, I Knew You’d Come For Me.” Will send chills down your arms.

Anam Cara at Living Without Thomas has a brief post this week about a school assignment where her daughter needed a photo of the family. The son they lost is missing from every photo of the family. I’m not sure why this entry touched me so, but I love that her daughter spoke up at school and informed the teacher that she actually has two brothers.

Niobe at Dead Baby Jokes has a gorgeous and heartbreaking post about her c-section scar. Even more heartbreaking is reading the comments of all the other scars–internal and external–from loss.

Bleu at Soulbliss has a very moving post this week called “Vent.” The two week wait has a funny way of bringing to the surface all of the shit in your past that brings out the same emotions of frustration and sadness. In her vent, she wonders how her child will view his own childhood and wonders if there is a way to circumvent this phenomenon as she lets go of all the things she has already let go of again and again.

Lastly, sometimes a blog post about nothing can speak volumes. Lut C. reassures with her post this week that not every pregnant woman feels symptoms. For anyone who has been worrying about a lack of symptoms during the wait or early pregnancy, I found her post extremely reassuring. I think you can’t help but search for symptoms–some sign of good things to come–but not every woman feels symptoms and the early symptoms are so similar to pre-period symptoms that it really is impossible to know anything from sore boobs or a lack of sore boobs. It’s not a post to blow wishing smoke up your bum, but one that presents reality. And I take comfort in that reality from time to time when I need hope more than I need information.

A small vignette on why it is good to move people from human-nequin status to living, breathing human… On the crappiest Thursday ever, we went to the food store. When I was entering, former human-nequin, Steve–who does odds and ends around the grocery store–came over to tell me that when he saw the look on my face as I was driving through the parking lot, he immediately wanted to find me a car cart to make the morning easier. He told me, “I just wanted to bring it to your car to make something easier because you looked so frazzled.” Thank you, Steve. You are truly the only reason I go to that food store. If it wasn’t somewhat creepy for me to show up at the food store with some homemade cookies for you, I would. Instead, I will simply write a letter to your manager telling him that you are the only reason I ever give money to his crappy, crappy food store. Steve makes me want to seek out other human-nequins and turn them into real people. I have a feeling that it’s time to introduce myself to tall-skinny-man-at-Starbucks-who-always-gives-my-kids-cups-of-water-even-when-I-don’t-
order-anything.

Sorry, actual seders just got in the way of writing about seders. When we last left off, Melissa was the camp pariah…

That night, the camp had a social. When I tried to speak to my friends, no one would respond. They wouldn’t even look at me. They continued their conversations as if I wasn’t standing right next to them. I cried and they ignored me. I went to my counselor, sobbing that I wanted to go back to our cabin and she didn’t even glance at me. After about a half hour of sniveling in the corner, a counselor got on stage and said, “I’d like to welcome everyone to Camp High School’s 10-year reunion! Can everyone have a seat?”

So we all played along and plopped onto the ground. The counselor smiled at us and continued with this completely bizarre speech since we were, as you know, at a camp social where we usually listened to music and then went outside and made-out behind the nurse’s station with the guys from the boys’ cabin. “It has been a crazy few years. We’ve had so many accomplishments. Alicia became the youngest person in space recently!”

Alicia laughed and everyone cheered except me since, as you can probably understand, I was pretty bitter in the moment.

“And Jason now owns his own computer company and Sarah is well on her way to becoming a US Senator–and maybe even president one day!” the counselor said. “We’ve also had some sad times too. As many of you know, we lost a few classmates in the past few years. Melissa, Micah, and Allison all contracted the H.I.V. virus and we lost them from complications due to AIDS. And we miss them a lot. Unlike some viruses, you can take precautions to not pass along this virus. Safe sex, for one thing, can help stop the spread of H.I.V. And we’ll be talking about that a lot in these next few days now that we’ve kicked off this unit. Also, since H.I.V. is blood-borne, we’ll be talking about behaviours that can transmit the virus that way. But most of all, we’re going to spend this unit talking about how we treat people. And how myths keep us from interacting with other people in a sensitive way. And how a virus doesn’t stop you from being a human with human emotions and human feelings. And to keep that in mind as you go through your life because with the rate with transmission, you probably will meet people as you grow older, if you do not already know someone now, who is H.I.V. positive.”

And that’s how the counselors kicked off our HIV/AIDS unit at my social action camp.

The counselors all knew prior to that day who would be chosen. The campers simply picked up on the treatment I was receiving from the counselors and mirrored it. My friends admitted that right before the social, a counselor told them to ignore me no matter what and they agreed to pretend they couldn’t see me because they didn’t want to piss off the counselor and receive the same treatment I had received that day. Apparently, I was “dead” prior to the reunion hence why no one could “see” me in the room. Lovely.

When I tell this story to people now, they always say something along the lines of “your camp was so fucked up” as many of you did in the comments section. Well, yes, in today’s climate, you wouldn’t be able to get away with that kind of lesson without receiving irate phone calls from 15 parents along with a few threats of lawsuits. But while it had some temporary fallout–about 8 hours worth of frustration and sadness–it had a quick resolution as my friends gathered back around me and I learned a (forgive the afterschool specialness of this phrase) valuable lesson within a safe space. This would not be the case for every child, but I’d like to believe that some brainstorming went on before they tried this at camp and children were chosen who would they believed would not be permanently damaged.

I think this kind of playacting can be an invaluable tool–similar to using dress-up to imagine ourselves a movie star or playing house to imagine ourselves a parent. As a child, we try on different personas to see which fit, and I don’t think empathy should be exempt from that type of play if it is done in a safe space and a brief amount of time. I’m sure many of you will disagree, but these are my feelings on the topic. I learned the same lessons in empathy that many people need to learn the hard way as an adult by actually messing up in real life and saying something idiotic that destroys a relationship.

You can tell a person that someone who has been diagnosed as a carrier of this virus will feel regrets and scared and ill and a pariah. You can tell a person that someone with the virus will probably lose friends and be barred from activities and spend an inordinate amount of time alone. You can tell a person that someone who is H.I.V. positive will feel the weight of all of those myths and want to strangle another person for their stupidity when they either avoid interactions with them or offer out their opinion on something they know nothing about. Those are all things I think someone can intellectually know and understand. But it drives home the point so much clearer when you’ve felt the pain of being shunned. That day certainly increased my desire to be careful about transmission. That day certainly always plays in my mind when I meet someone who is H.I.V. positive and informs my response and behaviour.

There is obviously empathy you gain from going through the actual experience, but empathy can also be taught–either by thrusting someone into the feelings as was done to me at camp or by telling stories and asking someone to playact as Aurelia suggested in her comment. These experiences don’t give people the intimate details of the landscape, but give them an overarching picture of the situation. To borrow an analogy from the writer, Michael Stein, it is the difference between learning the language and knowing the idioms. I think hearing stories can give you enough proficiency to move about the “country” awkwardly. I think feeling stories as I did at camp can give you enough proficiency to be able to truly understand what you’re seeing when you move about the “country.” Which is what is trying to be accomplished at a Pesach seder. I think living the stories can give you fluency that allow you to utilize the idioms of the situation.

For me, one of the main points of the seder is to feel not only what the Jews felt as they exited Egypt–the story is told with our point-of-view in mind–but also to feel the anguish of those who perished due to the Exodus. The Egyptians who drowned. The first-borns who dropped over dead. As Niobe pointed out, we don’t rejoice at another person’s downfall. And I think sometimes when we’re teaching empathy, we’re so focused on a single subject–a single person–that we forget that there are more people affected by a single situation. More people with intense feelings that need to be recognized and navigated.

I’m always impressed with people who can jump directly to that base level of empathy. Who can cross-empathize: take the feelings from one situation (being ostracized in middle school) and apply them to another situation (being a good listener for someone recently widowed). Not everyone can. Which is why exercises such as the Pesach seder exist.

It’s not enough to simply tell someone “be empathetic” and have them know the right thing to say. They have to hear the Pesach story, place themselves emotionally in those shoes, and imagine what it would be like to wander the desert for 40 years. Of course, you can’t really run an exercise for infertility as they did at my camp. I mean, what are you going to do? Slap a big “I” over a woman’s cervix and make her leave it there for over a year while trying to get pregnant? Tell a man that he produces no sperm for three straight SAs and then surprise him with a “you’re on Infertility Candid Camera” moment and have him realize that he was fertile all along? There really isn’t a way to put people th
rough the emotions that come with infertility. The loss of control, the loss of hope, the loss of life.

Empathy can be taught, seder-style, through stories and imagination as long as the receiver wants to change their behaviour and have that empathy inform their decisions. It can get them to a place where they don’t need the proper response dictated to them, but they can produce that response naturally on their own. But not everyone truly wants it and not everyone is truly open to it despite what they say with their mouths. Their lack of openness to these ideas speak volumes. We need to want to have that change in order to have our hearts and minds changed by someone else’s experience.

It’s not enough for someone to tell me that I need to imagine myself leaving Egypt–I need to be open to that idea and want to be changed by the story. And if I am open to it, I believe that we can hear about ancestors leaving Egypt and feel for a moment like we are in that crowd, running with our basket of dough in a frantic attempt to get out of Egypt before the Pharoah changes his mind. At the same time, I can consider how it would feel to see the waters closing above my head and understanding in that moment that I’m about to drown. We can be ostracized at camp and remember that experience when we’re hanging out with friends who are H.I.V. positive. That we can tell someone about our losses or the treatments or the decisions we’ve had to make and have them understand for a moment what it feels like to be on that table with your feet in those stirrups. To speak accordingly. To offer comfort accordingly. To understand and be empathetic because it is something internalized and not just told to us.