Yesterday, I was looking out the kitchen window while I made lunch and I noticed a bundle of fabric on the grass next to my car. If I was a normal person, I would have thought it was a discarded sweatshirt or a rag. But since I’m not a normal person, my first thought was that someone had finally left a child on my doorstep. Okay, so next to my doorstep. Okay, so next to my car. But, nonetheless, a child, who we’d ultimately adopt.

I used to have these fantasies before we had the twins. The fantasy always included a few dilemmas–how would I drive the baby to the police station if I didn’t have a car seat? And how would I keep the baby in the house without any baby supplies on hand until Josh could come home and help me? Especially since I wouldn’t be able to get to the store for diapers because…well…it’s back to not having a car seat.

Yesterday, the fantasy included twenty new layers that had nothing to do with me becoming a mother and everything to do with how this child would feel later in life. How would this child process how he/she came into our family? Would everyone get along? What would life look like twenty years from now with the twins and this new baby?

It was a moot point. I discovered the reality of the fabric bundle a few hours later when I went to look for my coat prior to leaving the house. It wasn’t in the front hall where I usually hang it (read: drape it over the small table). A trip out to the car wiped out all chance of instant motherhood that day: the bundle was my coat. My damp coat. Which my husband pointed out later in the evening was not a baby–it was a polartec pullover from L L Bean that was probably currently soaked with deer urine.

I’ve been adding to Operation Heads Up and created a little explanation post that shows the format. There are still many more write ups that I’d love to have on the list. While some write ups may be long if it describes an intricate procedure or has numerous personal tips, others may be extremely brief.

To volunteer to do a write up, email me at thetowncriers@gmail.com and let me know which one you can do. Also, email and let me know if you want to add a write up topic to the list. Anything you think people ask about on the bulletin boards is fair game–it doesn’t have to be connected to treatments or testing; it just needs to be connected to infertility or pregnancy loss. Therefore, adoption is a great umbrella topic that lends itself to many write ups–a heads up about a homestudy (with personal tips to help calm the reader) or your rights during an adoption reversal would be very helpful.

Here are a few that I came up with when I looked down the list of what is already listed in the side bar. Again, please suggest others either by leaving a comment or emailing me directly.

IVF (FET cycle)
Choosing a donor (for donor egg or insemination)–the process, tips, trouble-shooting problems
D & C
Natural miscarriage (what to expect, problems that could arise)
Testicular biopsy
Varicocelectomy
OPKs (how to use)
BBT (again, how to do–a tutorial of sorts)

What else am I missing? And what will you write? Don’t be shy–you can keep your write up anonymous if you wish. Just email me the write up using the set format. I’ll post it and add a link to the side bar. But let me know before you start writing in case someone else has already started the write up.

Thanks!

First and foremost, you don’t know how much it means to me to know that I’m not alone in feeling tremendous guilt when I engage in comparative pain. And feeling tremendous guilt when I don’t engage in comparative pain. It would appear that there are at least 20-some-odd people who are all doing it alongside me. So thank you for volunteering your stories and tips.

I’m reading through all the comments and they’re brilliant. I feel like I still have more to say on this–especially because it seems like we’re all thinking about it. And feeling guilty about it. Off to write back everyone and glean how you stop engaging in this manner of thought.

I forgot to mention that the LBWWMTDASADFFIHAOTAC didn’t come to my house on Halloween. Or if he did, he came while we were making the rounds. And by “making the rounds” I mean shamelessly using our children to collect candy for ourselves. If he had come, he would have gotten a recycled mini Hershey bar that we collected from our neighbour earlier in the evening. It seemed to come with an extra gift of some random pet hair. Perfect for the LBWWMTDASADFFIHAOTAC.

What was the worst Halloween candy you saw this year? When I worked at a school, we used to dump out all of the leftover Halloween candy (and recycled candy) on a table in the teacher’s lounge. Talk about a feast. The key was getting there at 8 a.m. or all that was left were the recycled candies like a half-opened tootsie pop or someone’s old Christmas candy (yes, we actually got a square of Christmas chocolate this year–and I’m thinking that this baby is left over from the last holiday. And the worst part–Josh ate it!). Is this done in every office across America or are teachers the only people eating leftover chocolate after rolling out of bed?

On a side note about blogs, since everyone is participating in NaBloPoMo and pulling out their best thoughts, it made it freakin’ difficult to choose just four entries to discuss this week. Seriously, there is a blogging feast of words happening. Pick a random blog from my blogroll and enjoy a new perspective on the world.

At the Unachievable Double Lines, the twins were taken to their four month check-up. I found this post interesting on two levels. (1) she mentions how difficult it is not to compare twins–especially as a new parent who is witnessing differing times for milestones. It fit nicely into my theme–okay, two posts–about comparisons this week. And (2) she confirmed something I’ve thought for a while. Every mother cringes (and some cry) when their child receives an injection. But I think stirrup queens reflexively think about their own injections when they hear their child howl. And you can’t help but have your heart break when you reenter that memory and think about how your poor baby feels being jabbed–even if it is for the sake of vaccinations. Everyone please wait while I don my white lab coat and psychoanalyze myself a bit further and then project all my feelings onto others. Anyway, Unachievable, I’m glad the twins passed with flying colours and that visit will be just one of many times that your kids will make you look like an idiot by doing precisely what they refused to do for you for weeks on end at home 🙂

My heart is going out to Beth right now at Prop Your Hips Up Afterwards. I really wanted to write something sensitive about the PICC line. I wanted to write something that would cheer her day and give her support and help her remember that she is such a little engine that could. But all I could think of when I saw the photos of the PICC line were…holy vomit. As a fellow stirrup queen who was still vomiting up until the day she delivered (in fact, the car behind me on Georgia Avenue got treated to a little show when I realized I was out of disposible cups a few days before the twins arrived), I’m sending a virtual Zofran to Beth. In honour of Himself, her husband, who made an extremely amusing acronym for their clinic using the letters from SNATCH (check the side bar of her blog in order to read the full story), I propose that everyone go post on Beth’s blog and give her new and creative meanings for the acronym PICC (beyond the obvious “Please, I Can’t Chew”. Curse words acceptable. Get creative). Now scootch. Go over there. And then come back here and read about this next blog.

Because it’s a very beautiful tribute to Manuela and loss in general and how we mourn each other’s losses as a community. No stirrup queen should ever stand alone. Ms. Dooneybug (since her husband is Mr. Dooneybug) writes about reading Manuela’s blog and feeling that she “mourns so much for her and I don’t even really know her and am not a regular reader of her blog. It sort of overwhelms me.” I really struggled whether I should write about this post because she didn’t link to The Thin Pink Line because she felt as if she didn’t have the…right (is that the right word?) to mourn because she wasn’t a regular reader or one of Manuela’s troops. I hope Dooney doesn’t think I’m a bitch for writing about it here. It really wasn’t my intention to make anyone uncomfortable. But I think that not only does she have the right to give support to a fellow blogger and stirrup queen, but she has a duty. We are all in this crappy little boat and the only way it’s going to stay afloat is if we lend each other these types of words every once in a while. Manuela (like all the stirrup queens who have suffered a loss as of late) needs to know that we all have her back. Because we do have her back. I think “Z” said it best in her comments: “The loss of a child is an unbelieveable and unbearable thing. We, the parents, can feel so many emotions all at once. One minute we need to be held and talked to and the next we just need everyone and everything to go away. It’s difficult for everyone…friends, family as well. Just let her know you’re there whenever she needs someone. Even though I don’t know her or have never read her blog, my heart goes out to her.” I just thought you summed up what so many people feel when they read about loss in the blogosphere, Dooneybug, and the post shouldn’t be whispered.

And ending with a beautiful post about loss…My Journey Towards My Little Miracle has two posts this week about the aftermath. I was holding my breath towards the end: “the silence in the room when we didn’t see the flicker of life. The look on my doctors face. Feeling like I was underwater and in slow motion as my doctor explained that our baby was gone.” And smiled through the earlier memories of “the day I began to crave sweets again. When I always needed a nap and this one day I wasn’t even tired.” I’m so sorry, Sunny. These were gorgeous posts. I wish you were pulling out maternity clothes too.

Before we were engaged, my husband came up with a game called likey/no likey. He would take me to jewelry store windows and try to guess if I would answer likey or no likey to each ring. Hence how I ended up with a fantastic setting that kept in mind the fact that I wanted to be able to wear it while I went kayaking. Apparently, back then, I thought I would still be kayaking in my thirties. I guess I was mistaken.

But the point of the game was that it was a gut reaction, that first impulse. There are plenty of things that grow on you and plenty of things you can talk yourself into liking. But in likey/no likey, only the first feeling counts.

And me no likey comparative pain.

As incredibly obvious in my post a few days ago about seeing the hematologist, I engage in comparative pain. But I hate the game. Just one of the ways I’m a complete, bleeding hypocrite. It’s unhealthy. It’s unrealistic. It’s unproductive. What is gained by being able to say that my situation doesn’t suck as much as that person’s? Does it make mine better? Does it alleviate any of the emotions I’m feeling?

The point of a comparison is not just to draw parallels between two unrelated situations–it’s a way to negate and create a hierarchy. We want to scratch the skin off of someone else’s face when they do it to us (at least you lost the baby at 8 weeks–could you imagine what it would be like to have a stillborn? At least you’ve only been trying for three years; I know someone who has been trying for seven. Oh, you had to do two IVF cycles?–I had to do four). And then we do it to ourselves. Alone. It our head. It’s as if that well-meaning neighbour that everyone has who says these things has wedged herself somewhere in my head.

How many of you have doubted the legitimacy of your infertility emotions when faced with an even “worse” situation in a blog? Don’t lie–I know you do it! We all talk about it on our blogs and you mention it in the comments. And I know that you do it because I do it too. I literally look at the cards in front of me and think: do I have the right to feel this upset? I’ve never endured an adoption reversal. I haven’t experienced a stillbirth. We didn’t try unsuccessfully for nine years.

But this is the problem with comparative pain–it’s not just what you go through, but the choices you’re able to make when other factors are taken into consideration. Not everyone can afford IVF, therefore, not everyone will get to endure failed IVF cycles. Or perhaps it’s because their religion doesn’t allow it. Or it’s just not physically possible. Or their husband isn’t on-board. There are a multitude of reasons why a person wouldn’t be able to do IVF. But does not enduring a failed IVF cycle mean that you didn’t suffer? How does a failed cycle of IVF rate a higher level of pain than someone who desperately wants to do IVF and can’t? Or someone who doesn’t want to do, but doesn’t have another viable choice?

And then we get into the fact that pain is in the eye of the beholder. All of us would agree that it is devastating to lose a child–it goes beyond human endurance. It is literally heartbreaking. But what about the woman who never gets to experience pregnancy at all? Who goes through her whole life never knowing what it is like to carry another person inside her body? In all of the pregnancy loss interviews that I’ve conducted to this point (and there could be many more people out there with a different point of view), not one person has said that they wished they had never been pregnant. They wished it had turned out differently. They wished they still had their child. But they didn’t wish away the entire person. They still cherished that baby. Their pain is understood and recognized. Who is recognizing the pain of the woman who never gets to come close to being pregnant? It just doesn’t hold weight in comparative pain–but the pain is just as heavy and real and sharp as the pain felt by those who have lost.

Is that woman who never carries to term “more” infertile than one who finally gets pregnant after their fourth round of IVF? Is the woman who suffers loss after loss somehow “more” infertile than one who never experiences pregnancy? How do we quantify it and stack it up? And what is even gained by doing this?

My mother asked me recently if I would still feel infertile if it happened for us faster this time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened faster–we’re starting with diagnosed problems therefore, we’re at least saving ourselves the year of wasted cycles. We’re not even bothering to try without Prometrium–what’s the point? At the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised if it took much longer or didn’t happen at all. We’re not sinking money into treatments if it doesn’t look like I’ll have a good chance. We may go to adoption instead. Or keep trying like assholes on our own. And then does the waiting time count? Can we say that we’ve been trying for months if we have to wait until June to cycle with IVF? Is it even really trying if you know that there is little chance that you’re going to get and stay pregnant without intervention?

The answer to her question is yes, I would still feel infertile. Because the problems didn’t go away in between these two rounds of trying to conceive. Infertility is not curable–it’s treatable. And if we want another child, we need to go through that help all over again. I may even still feel infertile when I’m eighty years old and I’ve been in menopause for more time than I’ve been ovulating. It has changed the way I view the world. It has changed the hope I feel at the beginning of something new. It has made me more realistic. It has made me more empathetic. It has made me more grateful. Those are things that wouldn’t change even if I got a positive pregnancy test next month (please let there be a positive test, please let there be a positive test).

Listen, your doctor wrote infertility in your chart. He or she wrote a reason or unexplained. Your pain is your own. And someone else’s pain her own. And my pain is my own. And what I can handle may be the thing that drives you to your knees. And perhaps I could never endure the problems you have endured. But we’re all on this island. And we all go through crap. And stop thinking about your own journey as somehow “less” than someone else’s. I get enough judgment from outside the community for how I cope or the choices I make. I don’t need it from my fellow stirrup queens. And I certainly don’t need it from myself.

Just my two cents. Or…judging by the length of this post…my half dollar…

Your thoughts on quantifying pain–do you do it? And how do you stop yourself when you get in that mindset? And is there something healthy to be gained from this way of thinking (and I’m differentiating between keeping things in perspective and comparative pain. Comparative pain is hierarchical) that I’ve missed?