I started a garden when I was searching for a summer project that was within my control. And my first tomatoes ripened today. We’ve been eating jalapenos for a few weeks. The herbs were harvested a day or two after transfer (you can probably guess that I purchased seedling rather than attempt to grow the plants from seed–maybe that will be next summer’s project).

I don’t know why I feel so good when I see those little red fruits. Maybe because it seemed so unlikely that I would be able to keep them alive for the weeks required in order for them to bear fruit? We’re talking about a person who has never had a houseplant live beyond a week or two. Hence why we don’t have houseplants. But I researched this and got over my overwhelming fear of most bugs (there is a particularly atrocious green caterpillar-like thing that has been haunting my dreams. He was living on the jalapeno plants–larger than an actual jalapeno–and needed to be removed by my husband as I ran dramatically into the house and told everyone, “the garden project is OVER!”).

I’m going to go harvest. Make a tomato, basil, and mozzarella sandwich for dinner. Feel good about the garden.

So I got to see the full version of Technostorks tonight. Andrei sent us a copy. It was amazing. You follow three couples through their IVF experience–from the first Lupron shots to the betas. The sniffling started about 8 minutes into the film.

What I liked most about the film is that men had an equal voice. Too many times men sit in the frame while their wife speaks. Or they’re shunted into one chapter of an enormous book.

I really liked all three couples and felt such a profound sadness that they weren’t successful. I wish we could have a little Technostorks II where we see the rest of their journey after their IVF attempts. Did they go through it again? Did they adopt or try surrogacy? Did they ultimately become parents?

Okay, so by “profound sadness” I mean that I sat on my bed and bawled. I just cried and cried and cried for my favourite couple. These stories get under your skin because they are so close to your own. And you can guess their emotions because it’s all out of our control. No matter what we do, it’s ultimately out of our hands. And that is so scary. And so sad.

Thank you for making a great film, Andrei.

This subject obviously cropped up when we started writing about Ladies-When-Waiting for the book. At first I was trying to be all sensitive and politically-correct and write Ladies-or-Lords-When-Waiting. My first sign should have been the fact that I couldn’t come up with the male equivilent. Was a knight the male counterpart to a lady-in-waiting? A courtier? A man-of-arms? The King had to have counsel, but I couldn’t find a word to describe this relationship. I settled on “lord” because it seemed like the opposite of lady. Lords and ladies. Right?

But then my husband pointed out that this was a moot point because men didn’t truly have a Lord-When-Waiting (gasp!). And most guys didn’t even really want one (gasp!). Apparently, I learned, these crazy men don’t want to spend all day on the phone with their friends analyzing every fertility sign. What does the male do for fun?

This question also came from a book I’m currently reading on infertility. Overall, I love this book. I’d hate the only post about it to be a criticism because I think that it has great information in it. It’s just their chapter on men and infertility that bothered me. I’m simplifying the chapter, but one overriding message is that men are not as bothered by infertility and actually love the amount of sex they get to have.

“No matter what he tells you, when it comes to the sexual part, your guy is in heaven. Infertility-induced sex is full of guiltless quickies for the guys. And for the first time, the woman in his life doesn’t really mind. Is this great for a guy or what (Vargo, p. 266)?”

My husband may be a fantastic actor, but I don’t believe he is any less upset than I am with infertility. Do we grieve differently–of course. But never underestimate the grief by the way someone grieves. How we show sadness is not necessarily how deeply we feel the sadness. I think one of the biggest disservces we do for boys is encourage them not to cry. Not only is crying a healthy release, but I think people believe that if they don’t see someone outwardly grieving that they must be fine internally. And that is certainly not the case.

Fertility treatments are painful AND humiliating for women. And you can’t dismiss the pain factor. But just because men are not giving themselves injections or having surgery (though they sometimes are!) doesn’t mean that it isn’t emotionally painful. Does ejaculating into a cup have the same pain factor as having a tube inserted through your cervix? Certainly not. Is it equally humiliating? Certainly. I haven’t met these men who were thrilled to make a donation. I think they’re thrilled that their part in the procedure isn’t painful, but I don’t know many men who are excited when walking into the Sperm Palace (our excitement was also dimmed by the squat German woman who led us to the backrooms announcing each time, “it must be a clean specimen!” as if we were thinking of mixing a little dirt into the sample before handing it off to the andrologist.)

Which is not to say that there are probably men reading this blog who are snickering and saying, “she has it all wrong. I don’t care if we can never have kids and I love all the sex. I can deal with a crying wife any day of the week in order to get all that baby-dance loving!” Though…if they’re taking the time to read an infertility blog…doesn’t that mean that infertility is sort of…on the brain?

I think women (okay, what I mean by “women” is actually “I”) often forget that men don’t communicate the same way as women. And I think men also forget this. They don’t realize that women need to speak about it and women don’t realize that men really do need to have downtime from the topic. The fact that a woman needs to speak about it a lot does not mean that she feels it deeper than a man, and a man’s avoidance of the topic doesn’t mean that it doesn’t profoundly affect him. We forget that we get something out of talking about it–clarity, peace, information.

My husband was always happy to discuss infertility with me, but it wasn’t a topic he discussed at length with friends. When he spoke about it, he was passing on information. He may talk about emotions after they’ve been expressed, but rarely as they were happening. He didn’t talk about how he felt. At least not directly. Which is not to say that he didn’t feel deeply. When we started trying-to-conceive, I began a journal. I thought that it would be a pregnancy journal. Little did I know that I would fill the pages with entries about longing and treatments. I have beautiful entries that he wrote into that journal–messages to our not-yet baby begging him/her to arrive. He never sat in front of me and sobbed, but I can read those words and know that his heart was breaking too.

I was often frustrated that my husband could go to work and compartmentalize infertility. He could go for hours without thinking about it. And, again, that’s not to say that it wasn’t affecting him profoundly. I thought my pain trumped his because my mind was always focused on infertility. The amount of time I spent thinking about it had to mean that I was feeling it very, very deeply. Well, no. It was happening in my body, so realistically, I never got to have a break. I was at work, but I was analyzing every twinge. I’m also an information junkie, so I spent a great deal of time either reading books or surfing the Web. The amount of time I spent on these activities did not reflect how deeply I felt. It reflected how I coped with my emotions.

One time, I was driving with a friend from Massachusetts to D.C. We stopped off at my grandmother’s house for lunch. During the meal, she asked my friend if she had a boyfriend and my friend said, “well, I have a girlfriend. I’m a lesbian.” My grandmother took her hand and said, “Lesbians I understand. Girls: you laugh with them, you pee with them (I think she was referring to the fact that we all go in packs to the bathroom, but perhaps Grandma meant something very different…). Girls bring everything beautiful into a relationship. But two men–who brings the beauty into that relationship?” Oh, Grandma, I’ll send you a link to some chat rooms and you can ask your questions.

Grandma’s point (I’ll translate Grandmaese for you) is that women talk through things. It’s the woman who brings up the topics for discussion and moves the relationship forward. Or does she? I think from a female perspective, discussion is the best way to deal with things therefore a woman believes “something is getting done” if they are talking about it. But I wonder if men believe anything is “getting done” when you’re talking about something. Grandma couldn’t imagine what happens when two people who don’t discuss their feelings get together.

EXCEPT

That men will discuss infertility (and other emotional topics) with their wife or partner. It’s just the rest of the world that they leave out of the conversation. It’s a matter on intimacy. While I speak about IF with my husband, I also speak about it with most of my friends (male or female) as well as the greater world through this blog. Talking about IF is the way I cope with IF. My husband, on the other hand, will speak with me (especially if I bring it up first), but once he has discussed it once, doesn’t feel the need to collect opinions from different sounding boards.

Ah, men truly are from Mars.

What I’m trying to say is let’s give guys a break. Let’s not make them talk like girls. Let’s not ignore their pain. Let’s let them cope in a way that suits them best.

Oh, who am I kidding? Like I can control how I feel when I have all those hormones racing through my body. I’m about as sympathetic and gentle as a…well…as a hormone-raging woman.

For male eyes only…

Doesn’t that sound intriguing?

This question comes from a long rant I have about an infertility book I just read that demeans the male experience during IF. I will save that rant for another day…just in case I’m wrong in my assumptions…

I’d rather ask my question first than eat humble pie later. I’m not a huge fan of pie in general.

Women have their lady-when-waiting: a special friend that they turn to for support during their IF journey. Do men speak about infertility with their friends? Do they turn to other men (or a close female friend) for support or do they speak about it merely to inform the other person? Do they find that they want to talk about it or would they rather have a male friend take them out for a round of golf to keep their mind off of it? Would men rather not speak about infertility at all and only be told when to go to appointments, have sex, etc?

If you’re a man, weigh in with your opinion. If you’re a woman whose husband doesn’t read this blog, ask him tonight. Or answer for him! I always find that I like to put the words in my husband’s mouth (I love you, sweetie)…

I am still thinking about this book (The Year of Magical Thinking)–mostly because I am spending large portions of my day reading about loss. Your losses. And the rawness of the book is reflected in the rawness of your responses. It doesn’t matter how much time passes from the event. You may be able to discuss it without crying, but it doesn’t make it any easier. Any less of a loss.

I was reading another blog last night (http://asomewhatordinarylife.blogspot.com/) and she covered the exact topic I was going to bring up today! A terrible little piece of magical thinking I love to do: figure out the due date. At the beginning of the cycle, I check the little chart included in one of my numerous pregnancy books (because there is nothing like reading about infertility through a pregnancy when you’re trying to conceive). And, of course, you can’t help but dream harder when the date lines up with an event that already holds meaning in your life–your anniversary (you imagine the romantic celebration dinner where you’re staring into the eyes of your husband and say, “it’s time to go to the hospital.”), your birthday (big bite of birthday cake and then…whoosh! Your water breaks), or Halloween (okay, this was stretching it, but it’s one of my favourite holidays).

The question all this raises for me (especially when my husband tells me to stop checking the due date) is how this dreaming differs from the games of House we played when we were little (men who are reading this blog–perhaps you have engaged from time to time in a game of House. If you haven’t, you may want to ask your wife to dig out the costumes and Little Tykes cars so you can experience the fun that is House). House was essentially a developmentally-appropriate game where little kids dream and practice the life they plan to lead when they are older. It’s a way to try out the relationships of husband and wife long before you are married. And in role-playing, you’re essentially stating the kind of wife or mother you wish to be in the future as well as the kind of husband and father (father to your children–not your daddy) you hope to attract.

When I look at these due dates, they help me visualize myself in the future. The winter baby who will be wrapped in a snow suit on the way home from the hospital. The summer baby that I will push in a carriage around the neighbourhood. Seeing myself in these activities made me realize what kind of mother I wanted to be. Are these visions always true–especially when you add into the equation the realities of life? That you may not be able to breast feed or you may have to return to work? Do they have to be true? Don’t they give hope in a space that desperately needs hope?

Isn’t hope the oxygen we desperately gasp when we’re drowning in IF?

I think these dreams are important. I think looking up due dates or whatever you need to do in order to visualize yourself in the experience and stay on course is important. These thoughts grow the hope that help you keep moving so you can make it to the other side.

Joan Didion speaks about her need to be alone on the first night after her husband’s death. She needed to be alone so he could come back to her–in dreams, in visualizations, and–more importantly her emotional side hoped–in reality. I don’t think I’m ruining the ending of the book for you when I tell you that he doesn’t return. She makes it through the year with magical thinking. If it helped her process her loss, how could it ever be a bad thing? And unhealthy thing?

How could looking up a due date be construed as unhealthy thinking?

How could rocking in a chair and pretending I’m holding a child be unhealthy? (okay, so I am crazy. So what? That’s not the point…)

Especially if it was what we were encouraged to do when we were little.

The games of House. The games of marriage. The games of parenthood. Our preparation for the future.