Hope Delayed asked a question on the last post about when you know that it’s time to leave Wandingland, or whatever otherness you are experiencing: “It begs the question, when is it enough? Where is the line between chasing your dreams and risking everything else in the process? How long can we stumble around in “Wandingland?”  How did Alice know it was time to come home, or did she even make a conscious choice — didn’t she just find herself out of Wonderland just as inexplicably as how she found herself in Wonderland?

I think about this all the time: how do you know how much you can withstand?  Do you only know the limit when you hit it, when you have a breakdown or are shattered?  Or can you see the limit ahead of time and pull back?  And then we hear things such as humans are resilient, we can adjust to anything.  Is that really true?  Can we adjust to anything?  That doesn’t sound quite right as an umbrella statement, though perhaps it is perhaps true on the individual level.

I went to a yoga class last week where we spent about a half hour doing dragons.  I had nothing but time to think because you hold the same pose for two or three minutes.  When we’re doing prana flow — or continuous movement yoga — I find that I’m thinking about nothing because I’m so focused on listening for the next movement.  Whereas during this yin class, I usually end up daydreaming even though she tells us to clear our heads and concentrate on our breath.

It should be noted that I’m not fantastic at following that direction.

But a bunch of my recent blog posts have been written mentally while I’m on the mat.

One of the things my teacher talks about a lot is pain vs. intensity in yoga.  There should never be pain — and if there is, you should stop what you’re doing — but there can be intensity.  In fact, there usually is intensity.  It is a strange body that can get through three minutes of a dragon pose without feeling the burn.  Her other point she repeats is this need to breathe because when we hold our breath in pain, it creates a fight or flight sensation in our body.  We stop breathing, so our body thinks, “I need to get out of this position so I can breathe easily again.”  But if you remember to breathe, you should be able to hold the pose for the full three minutes.  Again, there will be intensity, but if you can breathe through it, you can maintain the hold.  Her solution is always to “release the heat” by releasing your breath out your mouth vs. trying to push it quietly through your nose.  Make a little noise while you breathe and you can hold the position longer.

I spend a lot of time wondering if what I’m feeling is pain or intensity.  If she hadn’t given me two options, I would have described it as pain.  My hips are burning, I am trying hard not to vomit as my head tucks down against my forearms.  It is not a sensation I feel neutral about — it hurts.  And yet if I spend the three minutes saying to myself over and over again, “anyone can endure pain for three minutes if they know the pain will be over in three minutes,” I can get through the pose.  Is that impressive or stupid?

Can you see the problem here: where is the line?  I know it’s personal, but the point is that we can always talk our way around it until we can’t.  And perhaps that is the real position of the line: when we can’t talk our way around it anymore.  And it’s why no one else can define our line for us.  Every person has a marking labeled “enough” on their beaker of life, and where that line falls on the beaker is both personal and meaningless.  No one gets to the end of their life to discover there is a prize handed out for being willing to endure beyond their personal breaking point.*

This is what I thought about when Hope Delayed asked that question: when do you know enough is enough?

While dragon may be incredibly painful for me, I can see from the expressions of other people in the class that they are mildly uncomfortable and there is one woman who cannot get down in them at all and she lies down in child’s pose.  And that is why it is impossible for anyone to tell you when it is time to step back from family building.  Because it is such a personal thing, unique to each individual or couple.  Some people can never get themselves into treatments or adoption, and some can do it for x-amount of time, and some can do it until they have reached their goal.  And there is no right or wrong; no want-it-enough or not-want-it-enough.  Just as we cannot change our bodies and what they can do, we also can’t change our emotional make-up.

Family building with infertility is intense.  It might bring you to your knees, make you feel as if you’re going to vomit, make you hold your breath.  I think it is the rare individual who experiences infertility and doesn’t have it affect them intensely.  So the line then that marks where keep going ends and stop begins is pain.  For me, pain is something that blots out the rest of life whereas intensity is something that allows life to still remain visible at least on the periphery.

The difference, let’s say, between holding a dragon for three minutes and breaking your hip.

But every person needs to come up with their own definition of pain so they know where the line is.

And it helps to remember to breathe out your mouth instead of neatly breathing out your nose; to release the heat, as my teacher would say.  To honour that intensity, to recognize it.  It works somewhat in yoga.  Two minutes into the pose, I usually hear myself let out a sigh (okay, it’s more like a grunt) and I do feel somewhat better afterward for a few seconds.  And what do we do to release the intensity of dealing with infertility knowing that we can’t neatly breathe out our noses in polite quietness?  We make some noise.  Cry.  Scream.  Throw plates against the wall.  Fight with our partners.  Write on our blogs.  Go to Resolve’s Advocacy Day and make our views heard.

Breathe through.

I hope that made sense.  Sometimes the thoughts that make sense on the mat don’t really translate well when I actually go to write down the post.

* I will obviously eat my words if I find out in the afterlife that there really are accolades given for enduring more.

I was reading MissConception’s blog recently and I was struck by all the othernesses she was experiencing, one on top of the other.  How she felt removed from the world around her as she went through this cycle.

I used to teach at a university, and my clinic had a satellite office on their campus in the hospital.  I would go teach my earliest class, then walk over to the clinic for the blood draw, and then return to teach another class.  And every time I had to do this, I would think of myself as Alice in Wonderland, except that instead of a tea party with the Mad Hatter, I was having a transvaginal ultrasound.  Which I guess isn’t the same thing at all.

The point is that whenever you’re engaging in an otherness, there is a sense of removal from the world around you.  How can there not be?  The students saw me as someone who taught sociology, who liked to talk research papers.  I saw myself as separate from everyone, both mentally and physically entering this alternate universe where I couldn’t procreate.  They had no idea where I went between classes.

Adjacent to the university was a convent of cloistered nuns.  I have to admit that I was blown away by their otherness, the way they purposefully removed themselves.  I didn’t want to be removed, but felt removed due to circumstances — all I wanted was to conceive on my own and carry to term like my friends.  And here were nuns who chose to be removed, who got a lot out of being removed from the rest of the world.  They let me use their parking lot — they certainly didn’t have cars or any need for the spaces.  Which meant I cut through their campus on the way to my own.  They took me into their building and showed me this gorgeous room with a rose window where they sat and prayed for hours.

I was struck by this thought as I read her blog of the otherness inside the otherness inside the otherness, running down almost as deep as Inception.  There is the general otherness of not being able to conceive without assistance.  And then there is the otherness — deeper than that — of utilizing something that is emotionally and physically painful (IVF) in order to bring you this wonderful thing (a child).  And deeper still is the otherness of trying to conceive again after a loss.

It would be as if Alice went into Wonderland, found another Wonderland, and then found a third Wonderland in that, and then had to go back to the real world and interact with people who don’t know what she has seen, how deeply she went into the otherness.  How can you possibly explain to someone what it feels like to conceive with assistance?  Or to conceive via something emotionally and physically painful?  Or to conceive after a loss?  You can’t.  We can’t even really explain it well to each other; even amongst those who know, who have experienced their own personal version.

The twins were born at the same hospital on the university campus because they were the hospital in the area that had the highest level NICU.  Sometimes I walked the other way, from the hospital to the campus and back to the hospital in order to buy a cup of coffee at the student union.  I would look at all these students milling about, students I might have been teaching if I hadn’t turned down the teaching position that summer.  They had no clue why I was in that building, what I was thinking, what we were going through.  All they saw was a thirty-something woman buying a coffee; the same action I took the summer before when I was teaching and doing treatments.

They had no idea how deeply I felt my otherness, just as I had no idea looking at them how deeply they felt their own othernesses.  I guess the only way we could have overcome that would have been to talk about it.  If I had been a nun, I would have brought them into my praying room, let them see the way the sunlight hit the wood, and I would have tried to help them understand that even with the things that divide us from each other, there is always that current underneath, that commonality in the existence of the otherness.

On Wednesday, I tweeted that I wished it were socially acceptable to sing aloud in the food store.  I had just found myself in the bean aisle, passionately crooning to the pintos about how “ever since [they] went away I’ve had this sentimental inclination not to change a single thing.”  The beans did not respond to my Paul McCartneyisms, but a fellow shopper looked at me in disgust.  What she doesn’t know is that I lack the reflexive impulse to stop myself from singing along when certain songs come on over the store’s loudspeaker.  These songs include (but are not limited to):

• “My Brave Face” by Paul McCartney
• “Let the River Run” by Carly Simon
• “America” by Neil Diamond

And G-d help us all if “We Are the World” starts playing.  I not only have to sing along, but I have to sing along mimicking everyone’s voice.  And it doesn’t end there.  When Cyndi Lauper comes on, I have to raise my right hand into the air, close my eyes, and do the open-handed fist pump-like movement she often brought to her performances.  And it’s like an illness — once I hear “We Are the World” in the store, I need to KEEP SINGING IT, DOING ALL THE VOICES, FOR THE REST OF THE DAY.  And maybe even a little bit of tomorrow.

The exact same thing happens in winter when I hear “Do They Know it’s Christmas Time at All.”  I curse group song projects.

But it gets worse.

There are certain songs that I can’t not sing and I can’t not cry while I sing.  Such as the Police’s “Wrapped Around Your Finger.” (Please, tell me how you stay dry-eyed thinking about Freud’s mentorship of Jung?)  The entire score of Les Miserables.  John Lennon’s “Beautiful Boy.”  And if anything by Michael Jackson comes on, I have an overwhelming need to tell people around me how I used to have a Michael Jackson folder back when I was in school.  It was that fantastic picture of him in a pale yellow sweater vest, leaning on the wall.  And once I say that, I have to tell the person how I went to the Michael Jackson concert, and my mother let my sister and I make one white glove covered in glitter glue, and I felt like the coolest girl in the entire world that night (even after getting to the show and seeing every other girl in their single white glitter glue glove).

Musak is hard on me.

Do you sing along?  Are certain songs triggers and which ones set you off and make you start singing?

*******

I bought myself new business cards this week.  I’ve had the same ones since 2007, and I still have over 3/4ths of the box.  So I never bother getting new ones.  The information doesn’t change and the only place I really use them is at the yearly BlogHer conference and a few meetings throughout the year.  But I decided to splurge and get myself something that still is business casual but perhaps not as business so-casual-that-I’m-talking-to-you-in-flip-flops.  I mean, I am usually talking to the person in flip flops, but I’d like my card to not point out just how casual I am.  Especially when I’m speaking with people who have very serious business cards.

This is my old one:

This is my new one:

 What do you think?  I plan to still use the top one, but now I have a second option.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week as well as the week before.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “The Coming Spring” (Bloodsigns)
• “My Secret Stash” (Lessons from an Infertile Social Worker)
• “CBub is Back” (My Lady of the Lantern)
• “The Nine Circles of Hell” (Mothernatureschmature)
• “Choose Happy” (Mrs. Spit… Still Spouting Off)
• “Intentions” (Serenity Now)
• “Dipping My Toes In” (Single Infertile Female)
• “Why I Blog” (For We Are Bound by Symmetry)
• “What Nadav Taught Me: Live Life” (Mommy Odyssey)
• “The Fifth Belongs to Calvin” (These Fragments I Love)
• “Our Story: Part 8” (Infertilit-He)
• “One Blushing Shame, Another White Despair” (Glow in the Woods)

Okay, now my choices this week.

A Glimpse Inside has a post about spirituality and what she believes, which is a gorgeous image within a sea of confusion.  While she doesn’t know why terrible things happen or where we go after we die, she has this strong vision of her friend meeting her daughter in the world beyond.  It’s just a gorgeous, simple, breathtaking post.

Hapa Hopes has a post about one of those dreams that you keep waking from and then falling back asleep to pick up again.  Not to diminish the feelings the dreamer gets from watching it in her head (some dreams just coat you with odd feelings for the rest of the day), but it was like a transcript from the best avant garde movie for the rest of us.  I think her interpretation sounds spot on.

In Search of Motherhood explains how she feels when her nurse tells her surrogate not to pee on a stick prior to the beta.  She writes, “Did it occur to the nurse coordinator that I don’t want to find out from her on the phone — her with her always cheerful voice, which if we don’t end up with a pregnancy is going to cut like a scalpel?”  It’s a powerful post.

The Elusive Second Line has a post about her fluctuating weight.  Let’s just say that I could relate a lot right now, but it’s also just a raw, deeply-honest post about another aspect of infertility that the general world probably doesn’t think about when they hear about the two week wait.

Searching for Our Silver Lining has a really interesting post about her opposite of the hero — the villain.  She looks at the way villains are made vs. born.  I love this post because it makes you think.  I personally shifted the opposite of the hero to be the anti-hero and wrote: “the opposite of the shiny, happy hero is the anti-hero as imagined by someone like Knut Hamsun. Like the narrator in Hunger — who is a product of his starvation. Who is a reflection of Hamsun himself after he returned from his failed trip to America to obtain a job.  Maybe the opposite of a hero is a human.”  It’s always a good post when I get to talk Hamsun.  So go read her post in full for a good brain-stretch.

Lastly, Danana Has a Baby has a post about the people who live across the street from her who are childless.  She realizes that she doesn’t know their backstory; what has brought them to this place.  I love the ending on it: “I’d like to ask them what their story is. And I probably will. Both because I am curious, and because, especially after paying attention to what childfree bloggers have said over the last week, I want to acknowledge them, their presence in this neighborhood and in this world.”  It’s about noticing the world around you and acknowledging everything you take in.

The roundup to the Roundup: Do you sing in the grocery store (and which songs get you singing).  I got new business cards.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between March 9th and March 16th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

Yes, the Virtual Lushary has creaked open its doors and the bartender is ready to pour you figurative drinks.

The doors were actually opened by Loribeth who said, “Mel, we need a Lushary.”  Which is why I’m raising up this first beer (normally, I like a Grolsch, but since it’s almost St. Patrick’s Day, I took some of the Guinness on tap) to Loribeth and offering up a toast.

To Loribeth, who has been a friend for about six years. (I literally can’t remember when we first started reading each other, but Gmail spat out back and forth emails from 2007 when I did a search.)  Who once sent me a Jewish calendar that I loved so much that I left it unused so it wouldn’t have markings in it.  Who brilliantly deconstructs news stories.  She’s a wonderful, kind-hearted, lovely, smart person, and I’m lucky that she decided to start a blog and put her story online, inviting us to all know her daughter, Katie, who she lost many years ago.

I’m imagining at this point that you’re all raising your glasses with me and calling out, “to Loribeth!”

So take a moment to offer up your own toast to another blogger, a shout out telling us why you love them.  And as I’m pouring you a drink, fill us in on what has happened in your life this past month.

It has been awhile since we met, bitched, cried, comforted, and caught up each other on our cycles and lives. Pull up a seat and I’ll pour you a drink. Let everyone know what is happening in your life. The good, the bad, the ugly. My only request is that if a story catches your eye, you follow it back to the person’s blog and start reading their posts. Give some love, give some support, or laugh with someone until your drink comes out of your nose.

I have a ton of assvice in my back pocket and as a virtual bartender, I will give it to you unless you specifically tell me that this is simply a vent and you do not want to receive anything more than a hug.

So if you have been a lurker for a while (or if this is your first open bar), sit down and tell us about yourself. Remember to provide a link or a way for people to continue reading your story (or if you don’t have a blog — gasp! — you can always leave an email address if you’re looking for advice or support. If not, people can leave messages for that person here in the comments section too). If you’re a regular at the bar, I’ll get out your engraved martini glass while you make yourself comfortable. And anyone new, welcome. I’m glad you found this virtual bar.

For those who have no clue what I’m talking about when I say that the bar is open, click here to catch up and then jump into the conversation back on this current post.

So have an imaginary cocktail and tell us what is up with your life.

I was reading on the front steps and half listening to the ChickieNob and Wolvog chat with their friend.  The boy was telling them that people used to be monkeys, and the twins were politely listening while they all sat on their scooters.

“Oh, so people in Japan used to be monkeys,” the ChickieNob told the boy who hails from Tokyo.

“No,” he said, “we were all monkeys.”

“Yes,” the Wolvog agreed since he’s an agreeable person.  “We were all Japanese monkeys.”

Later, in the house, I decided to broach the topic while I was baking cookies and the twins were eating their dinner.

Me: I overheard you guys talking about evolution.

Wolvog: I don’t know what that is.

Me: It was what you were talking about with the monkeys.  How humans used to be monkeys.

ChickieNob: Is that true?

Me: Yes, evolution is true.

ChickieNob: So I used to be a monkey and now I’m a girl.

Me: No, what I mean is that millions of years ago, there were primates — monkeys and humans are both primates — and ever so slowly, small changes occurred in the body.  And over millions of years, we changed from these early primate ancestors into modern day monkeys and apes and humans.

Wolvog: So was this back when you were little?

Me: No, I’m talking millions of years ago.

Wolvog: Like back when Steve Jobs was making the first Apple products.

Me: Millions.

Wolvog: Oh!  So when Steve Jobs was little?

Me: Millions.  As in tens, hundreds, thousands, ten-thousands, hundred-thousands.  Millions.  Millions of years ago.  65 million years ago.

ChickieNob: So I was a monkey?

Me: No!  You were never a monkey.  Your ancestors, millions of years ago, were these monkey-like primates.

Wolvog: Is this when Grandma was little?

Me: Millions!

Wolvog: I bet they didn’t even have cars that drove themselves back then.

Me: What the hell are you talking about?  Seriously?  Millions.  I am talking about 65 million years ago.  There were no cars.  There were no computers.  There were no smartphones.  Didn’t you retain anything that Dame Judy Dench taught you on that Spaceship Earth ride at Epcot?  Don’t you remember the people hunting the Woolly Mammoth?  People had no clothes back then — they certainly didn’t have cars.

ChickieNob: Was a million years ago when Betsy Ross was alive?

Me: NO!  She was alive 300 years ago.  Hundreds, thousands, ten-thousands…

Wolvog: (interrupting) I got really scared on the Spaceship Earth ride when it stopped in that room.  We didn’t even know why it was stopping.

Me: It was letting on someone who needed more time to get on the ride.

ChickieNob: So who do we know that was a monkey and changed into a person?

Me: For the love, I only brought this up because I heard you guys talking about it, and I wanted to get to you before someone who doesn’t believe in evolution filled your head with anti-evolution thoughts.

ChickieNob: Who doesn’t believe in monkey-people?

Me: Some people.  Some people don’t believe in evolution.  But we believe in evolution.  Most Jews believe in evolution.  Scientists believe in evolution.  We can look at bones and see proof of evolution.

Wolvog: What is proof?

Me: Evidence.  Things you can see that prove that something is true.

Wolvog: Jews and Japanese people were monkeys.  And then we changed into people and made computers.

Me: You are killing me.  [Opens laptop and Googles “human evolution images.”  Turns computer around to show the twins the pictures].  Look.  65 million years ago — before Betsy Ross —

ChickieNob: (interrupting) I love history.  I love learning about things from history.  Like things Betsy Ross might have used.

Me: 65 million years ago, primates looked like this.  And slowly small changes occurred, separating primates onto distinct paths.  Some became monkeys and some became apes and some became humans.  But early humans didn’t even look like humans now.  They looked like this, hunched over and covered in hair.  And slowly over time, we began to walk upright, and our brow shape changed, and we lost a lot of our body hair.  So about 2 million years ago, humans as we know them existed separate from monkeys, but we all came from the same primate ancestors.  Our DNA is 98.4% identical to a chimpanzee.

Wolvog: I don’t know what DNA is.

Me: I didn’t want to make this more complicated.  Don’t you remember we had that long talk once about DNA and why you look like me?  It’s the information in the cell that makes us who we are.

ChickieNob: Do you think they’re going to make a Toy Story 4?

Me: I have no idea.  Do you understand this now?  Evolution?  Because it goes back even farther than primates.  We can look at life forming from one-celled organisms and trace it up to humans today.

ChickieNob: If they did make a Toy Story 4, I bet it would be about that toy monkey who bangs the cymbals.  Since we were all monkeys when we were little.  And then we became boys and girls.

Wolvog: Can we talk about cars that drive themselves?

Fini