The Road Less Travelled

Rest in peace, girls...

2012-01-30T20:30:00.029-05:00

Sunday afternoon, dh & I were glued to CBC Newsworld. A verdict was imminent in the Sh.af.ia murder trial that had been playing out & making headlines in Kingston over the past several months.

I don't know how much coverage this trial has had outside of Canada. Do some Googling (remove the periods in the name) and you will find tons of coverage.

The barebones of the story is this: Father S., an immigrant from Afghanistan; his wife and their 21-year-old son, were all found guilty of murdering four women -- including not just one, not just two, but three of their teenaged daughters/sisters -- as well as an older "cousin" of the family, R.o.n.a. (top left), who immigrated to Canada to help with the seven (!) children.

A car containing the four bodies was pulled from the Rideau Canal near the locks near Kingston, Ontario, in late June 2009. The water was not deep (a mere 18 inches above the roof of the car) and the window was wide open, but there was no indication that they had tried to escape. The official cause of death was drowning, but, ominously, the three girls all had bruising on the tops of their heads.

The murders have been called "honour killings" by some. Not long after I started this blog, I wrote about a teenaged Pakistani girl from suburban Toronto named A.q.sa Pa.rv.ez, who refused to wear the hijab, stayed out with her friends, and ran away from home several times. Her brother convinced her to return home; shortly afterwards, she was found dead in her bed; her father & brother were later convicted of strangling her.

Like A., the S. daughters chafed at the restrictions placed on them by their father. When their tattletale brothers reported that the girls were changing from the hijab into revealing clothing at school and (horrors!) being seen in the company of boys, Father S. would fly into a rage. His daughters were pulled out of school for months at a time & confined to the house. At various times, the girls sought help from social services authorities, but understandably were reluctant to discuss their complaints in front of their parents when the police or child welfare officers arrived at the house to investigate. The oldest daughter, Z., age 19, got married, seeing it as the only way out of the home, but was persuaded to annul the marriage before the ink was barely dry on the license.

As with A. several years earlier, I wanted to weep when I learned about this case. As someone who lost a very much wanted daughter, the idea that a father (& mother) could just throw away the lives of three beautiful, spirited, NORMAL teenaged girls, like they were garbage, all for some twisted sense of family "honour," all because they were girls and therefore deemed disposable, made (and makes) me ill.

But I will admit that it was R.'s death that has affected me the most. The family presented her as a cousin/aunt who helped with the seven children. The truth was a little more complicated: the children's mother was actually Father S.'s second wife. R.was his first; it was a polygamous marriage. R. was infertile. Because she could not bear children, she encouraged Father S. to take another wife -- who promptly popped out seven over the following years, and enlisted R. to help raise them.

If female life is cheap in Afghanistan, you can only imagine what it's like for an infertile, childless female. After years of living essentially as a servant (which she chronicled in a diary that was entered as evidence at the trial), R. somehow screwed up the courage to request a divorce, and a little money to help her move to France and start a new life near her siblings.

Instead, she wound up in a car at the bottom of the Rideau Canal. She was 52 years old when she died -- a few years older than me.

As I have written before, hearing stories like this makes me eternally grateful to the Powers That Be that, as a woman, I happened to be born in Canada in the late 20th century (how much more fortunate can you be, really??), and into a family where I was never, ever made to feel less than or disadvantaged because I was a girl.

But that doesn't mean that all the women living in this country are as lucky as I am. And it doesn't mean that I don't mourn for the A.'s and R.'s and S. daughters of this country and this world. There are still far, far too many of them.

Imitation is supposed to be flattery, but...

2012-01-29T19:32:00.009-05:00

Every now & then, I go on Google Blog Search & do a search for "childless infertility," "childfree infertility," etc. I've found a few interesting new blogs that way.

Recently, I found something VERY interesting. I stumbled onto a blog (or something resembling a blog) that was reviewing Melissa Ford's wonderful book, Navigating the Land of IF.

But as I read, I realized that there was something awfully familiar about this post.

As in -- a good chunk of it was MY post -- or pretty damned close, anyway. (!!!)

Have a look & see if you agree:

My original review of Melissa's book, from June 2009: "It's a book I would definitely recommend to anyone going through infertility. It would also be a fabulous book to read if you're a fertile person hoping to gain some insight into what a friend or family member is going through and how you can best support them.... I'll confess -- I went straight for the chapter on childfree living. So very few books on infertility say much about the childless/free option beyond a few paragraphs -- so I'm always interested to see how the subject is covered in any new IF book that I come across."
Plagiarized review, from January 8, 2012: "It’s a book – Navigating The Land Of If Understanding Infertility And Exploring Your Options By Melissa Ford – I would definitely recommend to anyone going through infertility. It would also be fabulous to read if you’re a fertile person hoping to gain some insight into what a friend or family member is going through and how you can best support them... Because my husband & I wound up living without children, I was particularly interested in what Melissa would have to say on the subject, and went straight for the chapter on childfree living first. Very few books on infertility say much about the childless/free option beyond a few paragraphs — so I’m always interested to see how the subject is covered in any new IF book that I come across."

Anyone else ever been plagiarized, by this or any other blog? (I use the term "blog" very loosely.) What, if anything did you do about it?

I scanned the site, but there doesn't seem to be any way of contacting the writer/owner or leaving a comment (gee, I wonder why...). I did notice that, at the very bottom of the page, the copyright line misspelled the word pregnant as "pergnant." Which gives you an idea of what we're dealing with here.

People get expelled from university for stuff like this.

If you ARE the so-called writer, hello, I'm onto you. And I don't appreciate it.

30 years ago: Hot romance, cool skating ; )

2012-01-23T20:45:00.002-05:00

This past weekend, dh & I marked 30 years since our official first date. As I wrote in a post this past fall, about the 30th anniversary of our first meeting, the attraction between us had been building for some time. It reached a turning point at the residence Ukrainian New Year's (Malenka) social -- where I started the evening in a last burst of flirtation with the good-looking guy who lived down the hall from dh (all flirtation all fall long, but no real action), but wound up leaving with dh. (Smart choice. ; ) )

Our first official date, not long afterward, was January 22nd, 1982: he asked me if I'd like to go to a movie. There weren't any movie theatres anywhere near campus at the time (going to the movies generally involved a long bus ride), but once a week, the student union building showed cheap movies in the multipurpose room -- so we went to see that week's offering: "Altered States" starring William Hurt and Blair Brown.

It was a very weird movie -- in the words of the IMDB synopsis, "A Harvard scientist conducts experiments on himself with a hallucinatory drug and an isolation chamber that may be causing him to regress genetically." There wasn't any popcorn, and the seats were just hard, uncomfortable folding chairs. Not exactly an auspicious first date, eh? Well, I don't think we were paying much attention to the movie anyway. ; )

We thought about going to a movie this weekend to celebrate... but there wasn't anything on we wanted to see, at least not at a time when we wanted to go. Jan. 22nd is also FIL's birthday, so we went there on Saturday night to celebrate. We often go to the movies on Sunday afternoon, but I wanted to be back home by 3:30 because... this weekend was also the Canadian figure skating championships in Moncton, New Brunswick....

*** *** ***

...which brought back even more memories from 30 years ago, lol. Because, shortly after our first date, I regretfully abandoned my new boyfriend for the weekend, & took the bus two hours down the TransCanada Highway to Brandon to visit a girlfriend. We "met," several years earlier, via a chain letter for Bay City Rollers fans, & became penpals. (Today, we'd no doubt meet on a message board or blog.) Eventually, since Brandon was not that far from where I lived at the time, we met in real life. I haven't seen her in years, maybe since my wedding, but we still keep in touch on our birthdays and at Christmastime.

Having moved on from the Bay City Rollers by then (!), we still had another mutual interest: figure skating. And her extremely generous combined Christmas/birthday present to me that year was an all-events ticket to the Canadian figure skating championships, which were being held in Brandon in mid-January that year.

Torn between my new love interest & my longtime love of skating, I compromised: I skipped the Friday night events, including the women's final (won by a marvellous spinner from Toronto named Kay Thompson)(my girlfriend took her grandmother instead that night) -- but arrived on Saturday in time for a full day of skating events, including the senior dance, pairs and men's competition, as well as the gala performances on Sunday afternoon, before I returned to school. (I spotted Elizabeth Manley as we came into the arena, all cute & blond & fluffy in what looked to be a rabbit fur coat -- very fashionable at the time.)

I was already a big fan of an up-and-coming jumping sensation from Ontario named Brian Orser, who could do the still-rare triple axel with ease (the most difficult jump a skater could do at the time -- the first one had been landed in competition only four years previously), and had used this competitive advantage to jump right onto the top spot on the podium the previous year. My girlfriend preferred the skater he beat then, the three-time Canadian champion & more artistically inclined Brian Pockar (it was the original Battle of the Brians). We stopped at a florist en route to the arena to buy bouquets to throw to our respective Brians on the ice, and when we got to the arena, we found out they actually sold pre-wrapped flowers there. Who knew? (We were still pretty naive and didn't realize that both Brians were gay. Pockar -- whom Dorothy Hamill handpicked to be her Romeo in a skating version of Romeo & Juliet -- sadly died of AIDS in 1992.)

Anyway, Orser skated & I ran down the aisle to the boards to join the throngs of adoring fans and present him with my bouquet & a kiss on the cheek. My mother saw me do so on national TV. : ) This being pre-VCR days (and many years before YouTube), I missed it. Years later, I mentioned the moment on a skating message board, and someone actually mailed me a VHS tape with a very fuzzy clip, in which I'm just barely visible for a few seconds. I've checked YouTube but sadly, it is not available there. Brian Pockar's wonderful performance is, however (although the sound & action are slightly out of synch, & it ends before you see him collecting the flowers... no doubt my girlfriend & I are in that one too, lol). Orser won in the end (I could see him backstage, jumping up & down in excitement when he realized he was the repeat champion), and there's another YouTube clip from that event in which Johnny Esaw, Mr. CTV Sports of the time, interviews both Brians.

I saw Brian Orser skate many times over the years years before he finally retired (& turned to coaching). One of my favourite memories was seeing him & Brian Boitano skate an exhibition number together at Maple Leaf Gardens (not long after their own epic Battle of the Brians at the 1988 Calgary Olympics) to "King of the Road," one-upping each other in a spectacular "anything you can do, I can do better" dual of triple jumps. He's still one of my all-time favourites. : )

16 years later, in January 1998, I attended Nationals again, this time in Hamilton, Ontario, just prior to the 1998 Nagano Olympics (with Aunt Flo memorably in tow). One thing I didn't mention in the post I wrote about it: while we were there, Quebec and eastern Ontario were hammered by an apocalyptic ice storm. Weeks later, tens of thousands of people were still without power. At the arena, the sizeable Quebec contingent was abuzz. Several people sitting in the row behind us left the event early to go home & survey the damage; others scoured the local Canadian Tire outlets for prized power generators to take back home.

It was the bizarre beginning of a rollercoaster year for me.

Calgon, take me away....

2012-01-17T18:15:00.003-05:00

It was supposed to be a business meeting -- a daily "huddle," with each team member updating the others on their projects and their expectations for the day ahead.

It turned into a prolonged discussion about the team leader's due-any-day-now granddaughter -- she excitedly sharing the details, the baby's name, what the expectant mom (her daughter) has packed in her suitcase for the hospital, what the latest ultrasound photos look like, how she plans to take off on vacation the moment she gets the phone call, and not return for several weeks -- the rest of the team (all women -- two of them also mothers, three of them young single women with stars in their eyes) chattering excitedly, giggling and throwing in frequent sighs of "Awwwww!!" And all of it taking place in the cubicle directly across the aisle from mine.

On & on it went. I could literally feel myself slumping, physically, mentally, emotionally, behind the wall of my cubicle. With every giggle and every chorus of "Awwwwww....!!" I felt more & more suffocated, their words & excitement weighing me down. At the same time, I started feeling jittery, my skin crawling, a nervous tic surfacing. A voice inside my head started whispering, then shouting, "I've gotta get out of here... gotta get out... gotta get out gotta get out GOTTA GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT..."

And so I did the only thing any self-respecting bereaved mother of a stillborn would do in such a situation. I got the heck out of Dodge. ; ) It was a little earlier than usual for my coffee/tea break, but I took it anyway (& made it an extra long one... lingering over the magazines at the newsstand downstairs, doing some banking at the ABM, etc.). The relief I felt as I fled down the hallway, voices fading behind me, was palpable.

This wasn't the first time (or even the second) that I've had to endure a similar scenario, or remove myself from the scene. Of course, my coworker has every right to be excited. No doubt if it were me, I'd be acting exactly the same way.

But it never WILL be me -- and knowing what I know about how some pregnancies (far more than most people think) end, I find it difficult to get too excited about ANYONE's pregnancy these days. There is always more than a little fear & apprehension until the baby arrives & I know that both he or she & the mom are all right. They may not be too worried whether anything bad will happen. They don't have to -- I'm doing it for them.

I'm not quite sure why I reacted the way I did today... it's not an "anniversary" date or anything like that. I have endured previous such sessions with only perhaps an eye roll behind my cubicle wall. I think it's a cumulative sort of thing, too. I might be able to endure five minutes of such conversation -- but at the 7 minute point, it becomes too much, you know? As I wrote in a post last year, about the Academy Awards ceremony:

I often find that, when it comes to enduring all things pregnancy and baby and mommy-related -- at baby showers & family events, at work, on TV, in the movies, online, on the magzine covers -- I can take it & take it & take it -- but then, slowly, gradually, the steady, constant, never-ending drip-drip-drip begins to erode my sense of self and security -- the relentless talk, everywhere, about babies and pregnancy and children and baby bumps, all reminding me of the reverence (well, the lip service, anyway) paid to motherhood in this culture -- and that I am not a part of it, never WILL be part of it -- & then suddenly, I reach the tipping point, & I've had enough, & I just want to go home, or turn off the TV set and go to bed, and sulk for awhile. And vent about it in my blog. ; )

I know I'm not the only person who feels this way. But please, humour me; go ahead & tell me that I'm not anyway, won't you? ; )

Article: "The War on Only Children"

2012-01-17T17:30:00.002-05:00

Salon had a great article by Mary Elizabeth Williams recently about "The War on Only Children." As I read, I couldn't help but compare the reactions she describes to her status as an only child to the typical reactions those of us who are childless/free (for whatever reason) get when people find out that we don't have kids. Tell me, does any of this sound vaguely familiar?

I was making small talk with a woman I’d just met when the inevitable subject of family came up. “Do you have any brothers and sisters?” she’d asked. “No,” I’d replied. And there it was: the subtle change in her expression, the quick reassessment, the pinched face I’ve seen a thousand times before. “Well, that must have been nice for you,” she replied. “You must have been so spoiled.”

It’s one of the standard responses we “onlies” get — near strangers denigrating us because of our parents’ reproductive habits. Nobody ever says, “Youngest of four? So you’re really immature, right?” or “You’re a twin? Wow, you must be a total dick.” But I didn’t answer, “Yeah, after my dad left my 21-year-old mom when she was pregnant with me, you can imagine what a cosseted, pampered existence this princess had.” That’s because I didn’t want to get the other classic reaction: unbridled pity for my no doubt sad, lonely existence. Hi, what year is this?

Growing up in my mostly Irish-Catholic neighborhood, I understood that I was an anomaly. Hell, just having parents who were divorced was considered exotic. Back then, I generally shrugged off my dubious reputation as both wildly pampered and horribly starved for company, content with my childhood claim to fame as The Girl Who Didn’t Have to Share.

As I grew older, I met other onlies. It wasn’t always easy to find them – shockingly, they look a lot like everybody else. We exchanged stories of our similar bad and sad reps, but I noticed we almost never expressed a longing for a different fate. We were just a contented if misunderstood minority. But times have changed. There are now roughly 20 million only children in America, representing nearly a quarter of all our families. You’d think those swelling ranks would have changed those misconceptions. So how come if we don’t smoke in bars anymore, we’re still dissing only children?

I particularly loved this paragraph:

It’s especially galling to hear the contempt for onlies – that vaguely snide attitude that the real selfishness is on the part of the parents – coming as it does within a culture in which the subjects of infertility, pregnancy loss, deferred child rearing, and divorce are the stuff of idle playground chatter. If a child you know has no siblings, chances are you know the reasons why. It’s rarely because the parents are such big jerks. But whether it’s by the hand of fate or conscious decision, who’s to knock another’s choices, anyway? Why be a self-appointed Goldilocks of family size, bloviating that one is pathetic, five is pushing it, but two or three is juuuuust right? As my friend Anne’s mother once sagely told her, having one is a long way from the worst thing you could do to a child.

Read the entire article here. And thank you, Mary Elizabeth Williams!

Birthday girl

2012-01-12T07:30:00.010-05:00

Yep, that's me. About 47 (eeeekkkk!!) years ago today, give or take a few. It was January 1965, and it was my 4th birthday party. Note the cake (confetti angel food, from a mix but made by Mom, decorated with plastic flowers -- in other years, it might be Smarties), the pin the tail on the donkey game on the wall behind me, my stylish '60s bob, Mary Jane shoes, tights & crinoline. : )

All my birthday parties as a kid were more or less the same (& so were those of my friends) -- up to a dozen friends would come to our house (decorated with balloons & streamers), we'd play a few games, have hot dogs or sloppy joes with potato chips & pickles, drink Kool-Aid, have birthday cake & then open the presents. I think we might give or get a chocolate bar to the guests as they left -- loot bags were unheard of.

I stopped having birthday parties around the time I became a teenager, instead having a handful of my closest friends over for dinner, & sometimes a movie. These days, my birthdays tend to be much quieter events. The last several years, I've usually tried to take the day off work, maybe go to the spa or shopping (or both), & then for dinner at a favourite restaurant with dh. That's more or less the plan for today. I'm thinking I might be daring & go for blue nail polish on my manicure, lol. It only took 51 years to try it...!

I look at that little girl in the picture, and it seems so long ago and like yesterday, all at once. (And I wonder if that's anything like Katie would have looked when she was 4.) 51 seems old when you write it out. :p But it's one year closer to retirement ; ) & being done with Aunt Flo's visits for good. (And, as my grandma used to say, & as I wrote last year, "consider the alternative.") All things considered... I'll take it, lol.

Anyone out there??

2012-01-11T20:31:00.004-05:00

According to Melissa, it's International Blog Delurking Week. : ) I already feel like mine has been under way, since putting out the call for additions to my blogroll. : )

Step out of the shadows & say hello! : )

Sad story in the news

2012-01-10T17:45:00.001-05:00

GTA's first baby of 2012 dies

Even sadder, many of the commenters are taking the parents to task for not taking the baby to the dr sooner. :(

Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What it Costs Us by Nancy Berns

2012-01-09T20:45:00.004-05:00

This book had me at hello, lol.

You may recall I first learned about it in a newspaper article that I saw & posted about a few weeks ago. Being a topic near & dear to my heart, I rushed to order the book and took it home for holiday reading.

By coincidence, Beef Princess had also just bought & read the book, and left me a comment to that effect. I agree with her assessment: "academic in nature but fascinating." The book is extremely well researched -- full of examples, data and footnotes -- but that does not mean it's a dry or difficult read.

The author, Nancy Berns, is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, who teaches and researches in the areas of grief, death, violence, justice and social constructionism. She is also (are you surprised?) the bereaved mother of a stillborn son -- something she addresses on the first page of the book -- and her loss has obviously informed her work.

While it addressed the topic of closure in ways that I would expect as a bereaved parent (the pressure we feel from others to "move on" with our lives, for example), the book was also a huge eye opener for me with regard to how many different ways the concept of closure is being applied in our world today -- and how many different parties are seeking to profit from it (financially, politically and otherwise). I consider myself fairly well read & knowledgeable when it comes to grief issues, but I had many "aha!" moments as I read this book. It made me think, and consider familiar topics and issues in entirely new ways.

I particularly liked Berns's introduction of the concept of "feeling rules" -- which, she explains on page 4,

"...are informal guidelines that tell us how we should react to certain situations. Societies and institutions have different feeling rules, and these rules change, with consequences for the people who are expected to meet them. Furthermore, when one set of feeling rules becomes dominant in a culture, it makes it difficult for us to imagine other ways of handling a situation. Closure represents a new set of feeling rules and expectations for people.

"...the way we name and describe experiences has consequences. "Closure" is not some naturally occurring emotion that we can simply "find" with the right advice. Rather, closure is a made-up concept: a frame used to explain how we should respond to loss." [emphasis mine]

Chapter 1, Seeking Closure, introduces the concept of closure and sets out the concepts and structure for the pages that follow. Berns shows that "closure" is a relatively new term that rose to prominence in the 1990s (think about it -- did our grandparents talk about seeking closure after Pearl Harbour?). But while it's become ubiquitous in our society to seek "closure" after a traumatic event (which could include not only the death of a loved one but the loss of a pet, a divorce, adoption, natural disaster, murder, etc.) there is no specific, agreed-upon definition of what exactly closure is or how it can be achieved -- and the impact that this new concept is having on our society is not yet well understood.

Chapter 2, Closure and its Tangled Meanings, uses the recent example of the Caylee Anthony murder trial as a springboard for a discussion about the many different ways "closure" can be interpreted. Berns identifies six: closing a chapter, remembering, forgetting, getting even, knowing, and confessing or forgiving. All six definitions imply that closure exists, and that closure is possible, good, desired and necessary. This statement (from pages 28 & 29) really resonated with me:

"Closure encourages the idea that grief is bad and therefore something that needs to end. These assumptions, and the larger narratives that carry them, build feeling rules for how we are supposed to respond when bad things happen... When the feeling rules fail, or do not produce the emotions promised, individuals may experience... a disconnect between what they feel and what they think they should feel."

Chapter 3 explores research on grief and bereavement, including whether there is a roadmap or standard process and timetable for grief, the medicalization of grief, what's considered "normal" and what's not, and ambiguous loss and disenfranchised grief (concepts that will be familiar to the ALI community). It also introduces the Walking Wounded (people who want closure, but say they can't find it) and the Myth Slayers(those who don't believe closure exists). (Guess which camp I fall in.)

Chapter 4, From Embalming to Teddy Bear Urns, examines the death care industry and how it uses closure to promote "proper" and "dignified" ways to care for and remember our loved ones. (Bury or cremate? Embalm & view or not? Scatter ashes, keep them, or make them into jewellery? The choices are dizzying, and each has an advocate.)

Similarly, Chapter 5, The Assurance Business, discusses how lawyers, private investigators, psychics, medical consultants, DNA testing facilities and forensic pathologists are using the idea of closure to generate more business. Berns argues that it's understandable to want answers, but points out that the search for answers often just leads to more questions -- and not necessarily closure.

"We can survive a loss even when there are some questions that remains," she writes on page 100.

"We can find peace (even if not complete) and healing (even if pain lingers, which it does) , without having all the answers. And even the answers we receive may carry lingering doubt. The trick may not be finding all the answers, but learning to live with some questions."

(I love that passage.)

Chapter 6, Bury the Jerk [!], discusses how businesses have sprung up to offer mock vengeance and symbolic death as routes to achieve closure after the end of a bad relationship (think divorce parties & all the trappings, including cakes, games, and ring smashing ceremonies).

Chapter 7, Should You Watch an Execution or Forgive a Murderer? explores how the concept of closure has come to play a major role in death penalty politics, and whether vengeance or forgiveness is the best route to closure in these cases. Berns illustrates her points through the moving story of Brooks Douglass, who witnessed the murder of his parents in 1979 and spent almost 20 years fighting to bring the killers to justice, and for the right to witness their execution. It's a story with many unexpected twists and turns, and I found it absolutely fascinating.

Chapter 8, Forgetting versus Remembering, explores the politics of mourning, "sacred space" and public memory, including public memorials, such as roadside crosses and Ground Zero in New York City. It also includes a discussion about abortion. It poses the question, "whose life is worthy of memory and how."

The final chapter, Framing Grief beyond Closure, suggests other ways we can think about grief beyond the frame of closure.

"The concept of closure taps into a desire to have things ordered and simple, but experiences with loss and grief are typically messy, complicated, and not easily resolved. Still, we long for peace, order, and resolution. The appeal of closure rests in large part on the hope that pain will lessen and healing will come. Yes, of course we long for healing, and we should seek it. But healing can come without closure. Even if you do not want to give up the subject of closure, at least know that it is subjective and and may take a long time to "find" and that no one particular ritual, product, service, or politician's promise can guarantee closure." (page 162)

I really can't say enough good things about this book. Berns has done all of us a huge favour in shedding a bright light on this subject, and making us THINK about a term that is broadly used but not very well understood. Grief touches us all, eventually, in some way, and while this book's messages are highly relevant to the ALI community, it's safe to predict that many others around us will eventually be faced with pressure to apply the concept of closure in their own lives -- and may well think differently about it then. We'll see...!

Berns has a website, which includes links to the first chapter of her book and a blog, as well as a blog on Psychology Today with similar content. She recently wrote a thoughtful piece, published on both blogs and highly relevant to the ALI community, about the Santorum and Duggar families -- how they chose to mourn the loss of their children, public reaction, and what it says about our society. If, like me, you were appalled by the way these families (&, by extension, my own and possibly yours as well) were treated because of how they chose to mourn their babies -- regardless of how you feel about their political &/or religious beliefs -- you may want to check it out!

If you read the book, I would love to hear your thoughts about it!

So why aren't there more of us?

2012-01-07T09:14:00.012-05:00

I don't mean why aren't there more of us choosing the childless/free after infertility & loss option. Any of us who are in this position can understand why. After all, it wasn't our first choice either, & nobody knows more than we do just how difficult a choice that can be (if we feel it was even a true choice to begin with). The decision not to have children -- for whatever reason(s) -- is extremely personal and complex, and not well understood by others in our highly pronatalist society -- even within our own ALI community where -- we know -- we are some people's worst nightmare come true. It's extremely difficult to go against societal norms, not to mention our own biological impulses. For all the positive and wonderful advantages of childless/free living (& there are many), it can be a lonely place to be sometimes.

My question is, why aren't there more of us who write & speak out about our experiences, on blogs or message boards, in books and in public?

Granted, there are more & more of us doing so all the time -- witness the number of blogs listed in my childless/free blogroll (accumulated over several years), & the number of responses to my post asking for more. There have been several great books published on this subject just in the last few years alone (hello, Pamela & Lisa!).

But in the 10+ years since we stopped infertility treatments, I've found lots of message boards, blogs and websites dedicated to childless/free not by choice living. Very few of them are well used. Many tend to peter out after awhile.

I have a few theories:

People just get on with the "living" part of the equation after the initial adjustment period is over (on the flip side, lots of infertility blogs tend to peter out after the baby finally arrives too).
Let's face it, infertility blogs are event & drama driven -- the next cycle, the next round of infertility drugs, what protocol to use, the big hpt results, whether to use donor eggs or a surrogate, whether to adopt... living childless/free is... well, just LIVING. The focus becomes our life generally, not specifically the pursuit of a baby. There's the occasional angst when life slaps us in the face with baby showers & cruel comments from unthinking friends and relatives, etc. -- but for the most part, there isn't a lot of ALI-relevant drama to report.
Having made the decision to live without children, they want to get on with the business of living and not think about ALI matters or angst anymore. That doesn't mean they don't have it, at least occasionally, but they don't want to be reminded of it or dwell on it anymore (just as some people who have been through loss &/or infertility seem to forget everything they've been through once they finally become parents).
They find that childless/free living is so busy & fulfilling, they don't have time to write about it anymore. ; )
They find other obsessions/interests beyond the ALI community that consume their time.
Deep down, they might still feel their lives aren't interesting or worthy of sharing with others, without children to talk about.
Some of them (especially the younger ones) eventually do resume treatments or decide to pursue adoption, or -- surprise! -- find themselves miraculously pregnant -- and wind up with a baby after all.

Thoughts, or alternate theories to share?

If you blog or otherwise write (on message boards, etc.) about childless/free living, especially if you've been doing it for awhile, why do you continue to do so?

If you don't anymore, or as often as you used to, why not?

Housekeeping: Looking for other childless/free bloggers?

2012-01-05T20:48:00.010-05:00

Mrs. Spit was commenting today on the dearth of blogs for women in her (& my) specific situation -- living childless/free after loss (&/or infertility). I already had a general ALI community blogroll here, based on my Google reader, a blogroll of a few childfree by choice blogs, and a list of relevant websites & other resources, and I had updated some of these features when I revamped my blog design a few weeks ago.

But I hadn't taken the time to carve out a special space for my childless/free not-by-first-choice peeps (although they're there, lurking within the general ALI blogroll). And so, taking the hint (thank you, Mrs. Spit, for lighting a fire under me), I’ve added a new blogroll specifically for childless/free not by choice bloggers -- scroll down & check it out.

Sadly, well over half the list is currently not active -- some of these blogs have been dormant for years -- but I’ve included them anyway since there’s still some good reading in there (and, once in a great while, a new post pops up from one of these women).

If you are on the list -- but don't consider yourself as living childless/free or done with infertility treatments, my apologies. Please let me know and I'll remove your name (although I would love to keep it on my general ALI blogroll). If you're not on the list, but think you should be, let me know that too. (And consider popping over to Stirrup Queens.com and asking Melissa to add you to her fabulous, humungous, categorized blogroll as well -- it really is the go-to resource for the ALI community.)

Happy reading! : )

New Year odds & ends

2012-01-02T11:32:00.037-05:00

2012, eek. As one of my university friends commented on Facebook, "Wasn't it just 2000?"
The Toronto Star has begun a weeklong series on "Motherhood After 40" that I thought might be of interest to some of you. Here's a link to the first story from today. There are no comments... yet!
Back to work tomorrow (boo, hiss...), after 17 days away (but only 8 of them actual vacation days -- not bad, eh?). It's been a really good holiday. : )
We went into the city on the afternoon of New Year's Eve for a matinee performance of the Broadway touring production of Hair. I was 7 in 1968, when the play originally debuted, & grew up singing & listening to songs like "Good Morning Starshine," "Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine" and "Hair." Memory flash: My figure skating class skated to "Hair" in the carnival of 1973, when I was 12. We all wore jeans, turtlenecks under vests, love beads, & shaggy wigs that our mothers made by pulling lengths of yarn through the bottom of a pair of pantihose, lol. And the grand finale that year was skated to Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World."
I had never seen the play before. I saw the movie about 30 years ago, when I was in university (starring Treat Williams as Berger and Beverly D'Angelo as Sheila), but couldn't remember much except the ending. Which, as it turns out, was very different from the play.
Overall, the play was really good & we both enjoyed it. The key role of Claude was played by an understudy, but I thought he was wonderful. I'm sure the play was considered quite shocking when it first came out in 1968, & the ending still packs a wallop today -- particularly in light of Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. Yes, I had to find a Kleenex.
My one quibble is that the kids onstage looked way too cleancut to be hippies, lol. Dh can remember being on Yonge Street in Toronto in the late 60s/early 70s (which was sort of the Haight-Ashbury of Canada at the time), & says they were filthy, lol. At the very end of Act I, everyone strips down to their birthday suits (something the play is famous for) & although it was sort of dimly lit, I couldn't help but notice how many of the actors seemed to have had extensive waxing done (guys too) which was certainly not very '60s. I mean, it's called HAIR, people, lol.
After the play, I had made dinner reservations at our favourite go-to restaurant, where dh had pasta & I enjoyed a delicious steak. And then we headed home, watched "Animal House" on TV for the umpteenth time, & actually managed to stay awake until midnight, lol.
Seeing "Animal House" reminded me of one of my all-time favourite New Year's Eve parties. It was New Year's Eve 1979-80 (32 years ago, eeek) -- I was home from first-year university, & "Animal House" had made toga parties all the rage. One our friends had the brilliant idea of a New Year's Eve toga party. (Picture my sister walking in to the local beer vendor to buy some supplies, clad in a toga, lol.) I have lost touch with many of those people over the years, but I still cherish the slightly fuzzy group snapshot of all of us, clad in our togas, raising our glasses to a new year and a new decade. Ahh, youth... (I went to several toga parties at university, too.)
Went to dinner at FIL's yesterday, & to see "Sherlock Holmes 2" today -- great fun!
How was your New Year's Eve?

Holiday reading

2012-01-01T21:45:00.003-05:00

As I mentioned in a previous post, I didn't read quite as many books as I normally do when I'm on holidays... having The Princess around every day cut into my reading time significantly. (Not that I'm complaining, mind you, lol.) Nevertheless, I did finish off one novel, read a second, & get most of the way through a third book.

I can't remember if I saw The Sherlockian by Graham Moore in the bookstore first, or read a review about it & was intrigued. Anyway, I love mysteries, & while I will confess to never having read anything by Arthur Conan Doyle, I have seen my share of Sherlock Holmes movies & TV shows, including the classic BBC TV series from the 1980s starring Jeremy Brett, the new movies starring the charismatic duo of Robert Downey Jr. & Jude Law, and the new BBC TV series with Benedict Cumberbatch (what a great name...) and Martin Freeman as a modern-day Holmes & Watson, who use the Internet & cellphones as well as their brains to solve cases.

So I picked up "The Sherlockian" awhile back & finally got around to reading it, starting just before I went on vacation & finishing while I was still at Mom & Dad's. The plot is fiction, but based in historical fact, alternating between Arthur Conan Doyle trying to solve a mystery in the late 1890s and early 1900s, and a modern-day Sherlock Holmes buff named Harold, who gets caught up in the investigation of a murder at a Sherlock Holmes convention. The common thread is a certain volume of Conan Doyle's diary from 1900, which mysteriously went missing and remains unfound to this day (fact). The murder near the book's beginning is also loosely based in fact, which adds to the intrigue.

The book has been well received. I liked it. It wasn't the best book I read all year -- but it was fun, & I wound up learning a lot about Sherlock Holmes and his creator. (Example: Would you believe one of Conan Doyle's best friends was Bram Stoker -- the creator of another memorable fictional character, Dracula?)

About a year ago, I picked up a novel I kept seeing on the store shelves, called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley -- a murder mystery set in post-war 1950s England, and featuring a precocious 11-year-old protagonist with a penchant for poison, by the intriguing name of Flavia de Luce. Within just a few pages, I was hooked. Over the past year, I've read two more Flavia mysteries, and happily, a fourth was published just before Christmas.

Appropriately, I Am Half-Sick of Shadows is set at Christmastime. Sadly, Flavia's family has fallen on hard times -- the family silver was sent to auction in a previous book -- and Flavia's father has leased the family's crumbling mansion, Buckshaw, to a film company for a movie shoot, in a desperate attempt to stave off insolvency for awhile longer. The two stars of the movie agree to stage a benefit performance at Buckshaw. Most of the villagers attend and, conveniently, get snowed in by a blizzard. While they are trapped in the big house together, there is (of course!) a murder, and Flavia goes to work trying to untangle the mystery and identify the killer. Meanwhile, she is determined to solve an even bigger mystery: whether Father Christmas (Santa Claus) is real, and how he gets down the chimney.

I guess you can tell that I adore Flavia, & I think you might too. Each book builds on the next one, so I would recommend that you to begin with the first book, Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, and move to the other books from there.

The third book I began while I was on vacation was Closure by Nancy Berns, which I heard about a few weeks ago & blogged about here. I am almost finished & will have a separate review soon!

Year in Review 2011

2011-12-31T07:00:00.008-05:00

I enjoyed doing this year-end meme so much at New Year's last year that I decided to do it again this year. Interesting to see what's changed (& what hasn't!). Feel free to use on your own blog (& let me know if you do!).

1. Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

As I said last year, I generally don't make new year's resolutions anymore -- they tend to be pretty much the same, year after year (erk):

Lose weight. (sigh)
Exercise more. (And hopefully lose more weight...!) -- sadly, did no better in 2011 than 2010. :p
Write more in my journal (blog??). Didn't write in my paper journal at all. Blogging: at xx posts (including this one), I didn't quite equal the 131 posts from 2010, but still, not bad...
Read more of the books that have piled up around the house. (Need to do better at this... the faster I read, the more I buy, it seems... yikes!) Read ## books this year... but still nowhere near keeping up. :p
Tackle some of the clutter that never seems to go away. ("Some" being the operative word...) I did make some leeway here... took some old suitcases & several boxes of old dishes, glasses, vases, etc. to Goodwill this fall. Of course, there's always scope to do more....!

In January 2009 (almost two years ago), I also resolved to:

Finally do something with the spare bedroom that was to have been the nursery (get new furniture & linens to replace the old castoffs). I did get a new bedding set earlier this (ADD LINK), but still have the old furniture.
Set aside the nephews' scrapbooks for awhile, & start a scrapbook for dh & me (that will hopefully be finished in time for our 25th anniversary in 2010). And maybe (finally) start Katie's, too. Very little scrapbooking done this year too.

2. What did you do in 2011 that you’d never done before?

Nothing comes to mind at the moment. I have to admit I'm not a terribly adventurous person.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Yes, PND had a little girl in September. : )

4. Did anyone close to you die?

Thankfully (& knocking wood), not close-close. However, dh's uncle passed away of a massive heart attack in July. He was only 70. The wife of one of dh's cousins also lost her mom earlier in the year -- also of a heart attack, also in her early 70s. Both of my parents are also in their early 70s, so this is starting to get a little too close for comfort. :(

5. What countries did you visit?

I didn't leave Canada this year.

6. What would you like to have in 2012 that you lacked in 2011?

Last year, I said: More time (& energy) to get more things done. :p A sunspot vacation. : ) A greater sense of self-confidence. I'd go with those again this year.

7. What date(s) from 2011 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?

My 50th birthday (Jan. 12th), for obvious reasons. : ) My 25th anniversary at work (Aug. 11th). I don't remember the exact date, but dh & I met 30 years ago in late September/early October (1981). And a very merry Christmas with PNGD/The Princess. : )

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?

Surviving ANOTHER busy, turbulent year at work, including ANOTHER new senior manager (second one in less than a year, after 16 years of working with the same person), new director (similar story), new VP, more new (& mostly much younger) coworkers, and an office renovation, which involved purging & packing up all my stuff, TWICE.

And, despite all this, reaching my 25th anniversary, not just with the company but also with the department. I'd say that's an achievement. ; )

9. What was your biggest failure?

As I wrote last year: So many things that needed to be done around the house -- projects both large & small -- remain untouched. Also, I did not lose any meaningful amount of weight, & I had really hoped to be in better shape before I hit 50. :p

I also did not get any scrapbooking done, again. :( However, there's a Michaels opening near me soon. Maybe that will be the incentive I need. ; )

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?

Nothing serious, thankfully. I did have the first significant sore throat/cold that I've had in quite a long time -- over Christmas, of course. :p And my knees are feeling a tad creakier than they used to. :p Knock wood, & thanks to a careful strategy of avoidance, I have not had any problems with my allergies (food or otherwise) in a long time.

11. What was the best thing you bought?

A netbook for dh for Christmas. : )

12. Whose behaviour merited celebration?

The first person who popped into my head is Olivia Chow, widow of Jack Layton and NDP member of Parliament. I haven't always been a big fan of hers, but I thought she showed great poise and dignity in the public eye at a very difficult time.

13. Whose behaviour made you appalled and depressed?

I continue to be less than impressed by the vast majority of politicians on both sides of the border, federal, provincial and municipal, and spanning the political spectrum. We had both federal & provincial elections this year (& municipal elections in late 2010), & then of course there's the neverending U.S. presidential election (how many debates do the Republican candidates need to have??).

I also second my comment last year about the ignorant commenters on any newspaper column dealing with infertility, who think we should all get over ourselves and "just adopt." This includes the heartless and appalling commenters who felt the need to judge Michelle Duggar and how the family handled the loss of their 21st child. I'm not a fan of the Duggars -- their hyperfertility seems like a slap in the face (however inadvertent) to those of us who struggle with bringing even just one living, healthy baby home -- but a loss is a loss, whether it's your first child or 21st.

14. Where did most of your money go?

Beyond the essentials of daily living, and savings, our biggest indulgence is probably reading materials -- books & magazines. We didn't do any major projects around the house this year (although we probably should have...). No, wait, we did hire stepBIL to reset one side of the backyard fence (the other side was done a few years ago). It was leaning horribly & just about ready to topple over, & neither dh nor I were keen to have the neighbours' two rambunctious dogs using our back yard as their bathroom. :p

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

PNGD/The Princess. : ) And, I have to admit, I did get excited about my 50th birthday & 25th work anniversary. Whatever you think about aging, it's still a milestone.

16. What song will always remind you of 2011?

"Rolling in the Deep" & "Someone Like You" by Adele.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer?

(a) happier, I think. (b) probably more or less the same :p (c) slightly richer, thanks to some diligent saving and investing (even accounting for market decline).

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?

Scrapbooking. Reading. Theatre. Taken more time off work. I have a ton of unused vacation & lieu time, & I didn't even use all my personal days this year.

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?

Saying stuff that I knew would make me look ancient in the eyes of my 20-something coworkers. Sometimes I just can't help myself, though. ; ) And working through my lunch hours. I feel so much better when I get away from my desk for awhile.

20. How did you spend Christmas?

In Manitoba with my family (my parents, sister & her boyfriend). Mesmerized by The Princess. ; ) Reading a few books, enjoying Mom's shortbread, playing cards & dominos. Sleeping in. Isn't that what holidays are for?

21. Did you fall in love in 2011?

Yes -- with PNGD/The Princess. : ) And with Burnt Sugar Fudge, lol. ; )

22. What was your favorite TV program?

My favourite continues to be The Big Bang Theory. : )

23. Do you hate anyone now that you did not hate this time last year?

Hate is a strong word... nobody comes to mind immediately.

24. What was the best book you read?

I read quite a few good ones this year -- 21 (22 if I can finish the one I'm reading right now by midnight, lol). I read three of the four Flavia de Luce books by Alan Bradley (read the first one, The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, a year ago LAST Christmas) & love them all. And I really did enjoy The Help.

25. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Adele. (See #16, above.) Love her big, soulful voice!

26. What did you want and get?

More charms for my Pandora bracelet (from dh for Christmas). : ) And a new bedspread for the spare bedroom.

27. What did you want and not get?

A sunspot vacation (again). My parents are hoping to spend a month in Florida this winter, though, & if they do and have the room, we may go visit them there. : ) I've promised dh a visit to Cape Canaveral as incentive. ; )

I didn't get the new everyday dishes I've been hankering after (which I mentioned in last year's post) this year either. (I have a pattern in mind & am watching for sales!)

Tickets to American Idiot. It's only on for a few weeks, the theatre is in north Toronto (not as convenient as downtown), & you have to buy tickets for at least THREE productions at the same theatre, even if you're really only interested in (or can afford) one show. :p Bah humbug.

28. What was your favourite film of this year?

We saw a dozen new movies in the theatre this year, which is actually on the low side for us. The vast majority of them were very good. Hard to pick a favourite, but two that come to mind that I really enjoyed were "The Help" and "Midnight in Paris." We're both big Woody Allen fans from way back, & this was probably one of his better movies in many years.

29. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

I was 50 (erk!). I spent the day at the spa, & dh took me out for dinner later. And I blogged about it, here.

30. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Less stress & upheaval at work. I felt like I was just getting used to my new boss when she quit in March, just nine months after she started. On the bright side, her replacement is a former coworker (albeit a much younger one, whom I used to mentor when she was a summer student...!). Things finally seem to be settling into a more even keel. Knock wood...

31. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2011?

As I said in 2010, not sure I have one, let alone a new one every year?? I did buy a lot of new clothes -- capris with tanks worn under cardigans for work (in the summer -- definitely not in winter, lol). I bought several new cardigans, both winter & summer style. I like to look nice, but I definitely favour comfort over trendiness as a rule. Lots of Reitmans, Gap and some Laura & Cleo thrown in. ; )

32. What kept you sane?

Again, as I said last year: dh, weekends, & being able to vent to my online friends. : ) And knowing that retirement could be just four more years away. ; )

33. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Ditto the above comments about Olivia Chow, and her late husband, who went from one battle (political) to another (cancer) & was gone in a shockingly short period of time.

Kate Middleton, for showing grace under extreme pressure, and choosing a classic & classy gown for her wedding. And her grandmother-in-law, who is 85 & will mark 60 years on the throne next year, and is still going strong.

34. What political issue stirred you the most?

The Occupy movement didn't make too much of a splash locally, but they had my sympathy, even though I work for one of the institutions they love to target. I'm also concerned about the growing secrecy & concentration of power in our Prime Minister's Office. Democracy is not being well served.

35. Who did you miss?

As always, my daughter, and my grandparents.

Our nephews. Being 19 & 23, they like to spend their spare time with their friends, so we don't get to see as much of them as we used to.

Our friends from our support group.

Last year, I said I missed my college roommate, but happily, had been able to reconnect with heer for lunch last November (2010). Sadly, I haven't seen nor heard from her since then (although I have called her & left messages on her birthday & a couple of other times).

36. Who was the best new person you met?

One of my coworkers. Technically, I met her when she joined our department in November 2010, but this was her first full year working for us. She is young (just turned 26), full of energy & enthusiasm and questions. Her mother is a year older than me (!!!). She makes me feel ancient sometimes, but she also makes me smile.

I also got to meet Deathstar this summer, in person -- but I felt like I already knew her from her blog. ; )

37. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2011.

Stressing out isn't worth it (no matter what the stressing is about). It's a lesson I've had to learn before... but it seems I have to keep releaning it. :p

38. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year.

Can't think of one offhand.

New Year's Eve 2007

New Year's Eve 2008

New Year's resolutions for 2009

New Year's resolutions for bereaved parents

New Year's Eve 2009

New Year's Eve 2010

Post-Christmas odds & ends

2011-12-30T09:15:00.002-05:00

I had a great Christmas. : ) One of the best in years.
A big part of it, of course, was The Princess/PNGD. Her mom (PND) generously brought her over to visit every single day we were there -- & the one day she didn't (because we went out of town shopping), we stopped in en route back to visit her and to see her nursery. She's a very good baby, even with half a dozen strange adults passing her around and hovering over her and keeping her up late and off schedule. If she started fussing a little, it was usually because she was needed a nap, feeding or changing, and quickly resumed her smiles and coos.
I finished off one photo memory card, completely filled up a second and started a third. I haven't counted (I'm a little afraid to...) but I think I took well over 400 photos -- most of them of the Princess. Erk.
Let me be clear -- I very much doubt I could have taken so much pleasure in The Princess's presence, or written my previous post, a year or two years or even five years out from Katie's stillbirth. Time and aging don't erase the hurt, of course, but they do bring a certain level of acceptance and perspective. I'm glad.
I was also happy that I was able to completely surprise dh with his own netbook (bought & set up by my sister's tech guru boyfriend).
Of course I had an ulterior motive: now he doesn't have to share my laptop, lol.
He's even asked me to help set him up on Facebook. What have I done?? lol
Dh went back to work on Wednesday, but I am still off until Tuesday (woohoo). I have been puttering around the house, unpacking, doing laundry & cleaning, updating my calendar for 2012, working on my family tree, catching up on blog reading & commenting. I could get used to this... is this what retirement is like? (Although retirement will have to be slightly more active... I will admit I am feeling just a tad couch potato-ish.)
With all the distractions provided by The Princess, I didn't get to read quite as much as I usually do while I'm on vacation... but I did finish off one book, completely read another, & am currently on a third. I will be providing reviews shortly -- particularly once I finish my current book, Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What it Costs Us by Nancy Berns, which I mentioned in another recent post.

All hail The Princess!

2011-12-21T12:55:00.008-05:00

The Princess lays on a blanket in the middle of the living room floor, kicking her legs, waving her arms, cooing & drooling adorably, surveying her loyal subjects with wide blue eyes. All other activity comes to a stop when she enters the room. Seated around her, half a dozen adults watch her every movement in fascination.

Thirteen years ago, I called my mother to tell her I was pregnant, and due in November. "A baby for Christmas!!" my mother exclaimed happily.

Sadly, there was no baby in the house for Christmas that year. Or any Christmas since then.

Until now.

It's Christmas again. And there's a baby in the house.

No, not MY baby. Sadly, that will never be.

But perhaps the next best thing: PND, who has spent part of every Christmas at my parents' house since SHE was a baby, is generously sharing her 3.5-month-old daughter (PNGD/The Princess) with us. She has brought the baby over to visit every day since we've been here, and she, her husband and The Princess will be spending Christmas Eve with us.

There are, as usual, lots of presents under the tree. We giggle as we count how many of them are for The Princess (with more in the bedroom closet, waiting to be wrapped).

Does it hurt? A little. I'd be lying if I said it didn't. The hardest part? dh & I agree: watching my childfree by choice sister, who never shows too much excitement about anything, gleefully showing me the Santa suit (complete with hat) that she's bought -- holding The Princess in her lap, bouncing her up & down, smiling and talking baby talk to her. It is easy to envision the kind of proud, doting auntie she would have been.

But there is happiness, too. For all that I detest the idea that "Christmas is for kids," having one in the house adds a special dimension of joy to the celebrations --the continuity, the traditions -- especially when we've been without children in the house for so long. We have been so fortunate to have PND with us all these years, of course -- but when she was little, dh & I fully expected we would have our own children to celebrate with... someday.

Which is why it is extra-special to have The Princess with us this year. We'd be appreciative of any baby, of course, but being PND's daughter just adds to the specialness.

It's Christmas. And there's a baby in the house. At last.

Seriously??!

2011-12-14T21:17:00.002-05:00

Anybody who denies this culture is seriously pregnancy & baby crazed needs to read this:

Fake baby bumps: They're so hot right now

Pre-holiday odds & ends

2011-12-13T17:30:00.009-05:00

Thanks for weighing in on my recent post about our support group's candlelighting. It's tomorrow night, & we won't be going. The closer we get to the day, the more OK I am with that. (For one thing, it's been a busy week -- I'm exhausted, lol. The last thing I want to do when I get home at night is go out again.)

Further to my recent post about closure, I ordered Nancy Berns's book, Closure, from Chapters online, & got it about three days later. Looking forward to delving into it over the holidays!

I went to the Toronto Eaton Centre on my lunch hour yesterday (yes, I'm probably nuts, but it was Monday, and really not too horrible). Walking through the upper level, I could hear a beautiful, soaring soprano voice, singing an ancient Christmas carol -- I recognized the melody from church. She was not only singing but playing the harp, sitting in a corner beside the glittering Swarovski Christmas tree. I paused for awhile to watch her & to drink in the beauty of sight & the sound. And felt the lump rise in my throat. It was a wonderful, soul-calming antidote to all the hustle & bustle of the mall and stress of the office.

Normally, I would come to the Eaton Centre to watch Santa with the kids as a pick-me-up. Alas, Santa is not in residence this year at one of the city's (& Canada's) biggest & most famous malls. You can Skype with Santa (!!) or buy tickets to a storytime session with him... but if you want to do the traditional thing and line up to have your picture taken with him, you'll have to go elsewhere. Bah humbug. :p

I actually braved the Eaton Centre at lunchtime because I was out of Burnt Sugar fudge from Indigo & had to restock my desk drawer stash. I just recently discovered this delectable treat -- both the Original Crumbly Fudge & Sea Salt Caramel flavours, both "Heather's Gift Picks." O.M.G. I am addicted.

My young, idealistic, single & childless coworker/cubicle neighbour was on the phone with her pregnant best friend last week. She was bubbling over with questions and enthusiasm. "Can you feel the baby kicking? What does it feel like? That must be SO COOL!! I can't wait to meet him!" What does it feel like to be so young & full of energy & exuberant, innocent enthusiasm about pregnancy? I wondered. And then wondered how I got so old & cynical. (And then thought about just how indeed that happened.)

Shades of grey... on a sitcom

2011-12-06T19:30:00.019-05:00

OK, anyone watch "How I Met Your Mother" last night? (If you didn't, & you are a fan of the show, this post contains spoilers -- you have been warned.)

In a nutshell, at the end of the last episode, Robin thought she pregnant, & that Barney was the father. As someone who has been adamantly childfree by choice, Robin was not particularly happy to find herself in this position.

Last night's episode started out with a big twist: instead of the usual voice over of Future Ted talking to his two bored kids on the sofa, there's a different sofa, two different kids -- and Robin's voiceover narration with a new title: "How I Met Your Father." Huh?

Then, Robin finds out that she's actually not pregnant, and she & Barney do a silly happy dance. She apologizes to the kids on the couch -- "sorry, kids." Huh? again.

Then Robin get called back to the dr... and in one of the those "only in TV Land" twists, gets told that she will never be able to have children. (They can tell all this from a pregnancy blood test? And even if they could, should they really be testing for other stuff without telling the patient?)(But, I digress...)

It's one thing to say you don't want kids -- quite another to be told you won't be able to have them. Robin struggles with this newfound knowledge. Her friends sense that something is wrong, but she doesn't tell them the truth, instead making up a dumb story that she's disappointed that she just found out she can never be a Canadian Olympic pole vaulter (!). (Robin's Canadianness has been the butt of many jokes on the show over the years.) Meanwhile, Lily, the clueless preggo (who went through "infertility" very briefly while trying to conceive), takes her shopping for baby stuff, & waves a maple leaf onesie in Robin's face. Poor Robin has to leave.

In the end, we learn that the kids on the couch were all in Robin's imagination. (I figured that one out long before dh -- it just wasn't in keeping with the arc of her character.) "I'm glad," she says, although there's a tinge of sadness in her voice.

Future Ted tells us that although Robin never became a "pole vaulter," she became a famous journalist -- and a bull fighter (!)

But the last line of Ted's voice-over narration, as he gives Robin a hug -- "She was never alone" -- absolutely slayed me. I bawled like a baby while dh held my hand. I guess it tapped into my deepest fear -- of being alone and forgotten at the end of my life. It's something I try not to think about -- our nephews will look in on me once in awhile (won't they??)... I have friends... lots of people with kids are lonely in their old age too... But it's hard not to sometimes.

I spent part of the morning ignoring work (shhh...) & searching for online reviews of the show to see what other people thought. This writer and this one gave it thumbs up. I read some comments on the plot summary on ew.com, and some people hated it. I got a rueful chuckle out of how many were trying to figure out how Robin might wind up being a mother after all, even if she doesn't have biological kids (adoption? stepkids?)(She just HAS to be a MOM!!! Somehow!!! Right???)

Overall, I thought the episode was very well done. The unexpected pregnancy is such a TV cliche. I like that they didn't go through with it -- go for the easy ratings (both main female characters pregnant)(even though a pregnancy would have been totally out of character for Robin). I like that they left Robin childless/free. I give everyone involved kudos for tackling a subject that's not the usual sitcom fodder, & exploring and acknowledging the shades of grey that creep into our lives -- how we can be both happy & sad at the same time about something -- how you can be sad that you don't have children but still have a good life without them.

Did you watch? What did you think?

Article: "Looking for closure in all the wrong places"

2011-12-05T17:45:00.003-05:00

This article was in today's Globe & Mail -- timely, I thought, given the holiday season and the number of people out there for whom Christmas might not be particularly merry, for whatever reason(s) but who nevertheless are feeling the pressure to get with the program.

Of course, I dislike the whole concept of "closure" intensely -- I don't believe there's any such thing. One of my all-time favourite quotes, from Elizabeth McCracken's amazing stillbirth memoir, An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination: "Closure is bullshit."

Here's an excerpt:

Of the many self-help platitudes invoked during a crisis, none has been more flogged in the past two decades than “closure.” No tragedy can be complete until the narrative has run its course, converting sadness and injustice into a three-act screenplay taught in a night school course: happiness, disaster, closure. It’s the ultimate celebrity-interview reveal: “I finally have closure,” Tamara Mellon, former head of Jimmy Choo, told Interview magazine about her troubled relationship with her mother. Online posters want Rihanna and Chris Brown to get it, and the editors of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are scrambling to find some for Taylor Armstrong after her husband’s suicide.

When news is cast as entertainment, which it is in the 24-hour cable world, stories require endings. The meaning of closure is both mutable and vague – move along, finish up, put away your grief – which makes it highly utilitarian. A romantic breakup, a dead pet, a terrorist attack – closure is the great equalizing imperative, offered as cold comfort. There’s something profoundly attractive about closure: In chaos, it’s the one clear idea. Closure is something to do.

Yet closure isn’t a term used by many bereavement therapists. According to a new book, in fact, closure doesn’t even exist. In Closure: The Rush to End Grief and What it Costs Us, Drake University sociologist Nancy Berns writes, “Closure is not some naturally occurring emotion; it’s a made-up concept that tells us how we should deal with loss.” In other words, it’s a prescription that can’t be filled...

The truth is that grief is ongoing and laborious. Freud said that “mourning is work,” a thing to be wrestled. But it’s a valuable struggle; all kinds of truths arise from contemplation. What benefit is there to rush past injustices of the kind we’ve witnessed these past weeks? Who would be served by closing the door quickly and moving on at UC Davis, at Penn State?

Read more here. (I've put the book mentioned in the article on my "to shop for" list. Would you be surprised to learn that the author had a stillborn baby boy in 2001?)

To go or not to go?

2011-12-04T17:30:00.043-05:00

I've debated what, if anything, I should write about this.

If you're read my blog for awhile, you'll know that attending meetings of a local support group was an enormous help to both dh & I in the days following Katie's stillbirth in August 1998. Although blogs didn't exist back then, I was lucky enough to find some daily support on the Internet -- and a support group not too far from where we live that met twice a month. Online support was my daily lifeline -- but meeting face to face with other real, live bereaved parents, & getting a sympathetic ear, suggestions and even hugs from our wonderful facilitators -- both bereaved mothers as well as NICU nurses -- was an invaluable part of our healing.

After a year, we felt we'd progressed sufficiently in our own grief journey to be able to help others, and so we began training as facilitators. We stayed on for the next 10 years, welcoming dozens of moms & dads, telling our (Katie's) story, listening to theirs (as our facilitators had done for us), offering the benefit of our experience where we could.

We facilitated our last meeting in December 2009, almost exactly two years ago. We stepped down because we felt that 10 years was long enough and that it was time for someone else to take on the responsibility. Dh, in particular, was feeling the toll of listening to one too many sad stories after another.

But, truth be told, there were other reasons. For one thing, the clients had changed... or maybe we had. Whatever the reason, it suddenly seemed like the clients were getting younger & younger -- & I started feeling older & older (& crankier, lol). The generation gap yawned like a chasm before me. A growing number of our younger clients (some of them young enough to be our kids, eeekkk) seemed more self-centred, less interested in listening to the other clients and providing mutual support. There were more & more nights when clients were monopolizing the discussion -- or, if not talking too much before the group, holding side conversations with each other instead of listening to whoever was talking. There were many nights I could see people surreptitiously text messaging under the table -- or, worse, leaving their cellphones on & then taking calls in the middle of the meeting (!).

And the organization had changed. The original founders of the group had gradually left -- many of them burned out from trying to keep the organization afloat & funding rolling in (dead babies being a far less popular cause in the public mind than breast cancer or heart disease). Unfortunately, many of the original values, principles and practices seemed to go with them -- or began slowly eroding -- lost in transition.

Soon, there were people on the board of directors and in the office who had not been around when we first joined the group, who did not know the founders or why certain things were done the way they were. Money was a continual problem, as it always had been, but not all of the problems related to money. Events were less well organized, with less attention paid to the fine details. Volunteer training became more sporadic, less hands on. Sometimes, I found myself annoyed by directives from the office concerning matters that were probably best left to each group & facilitator to decide. At other times, we felt that we were operating in a vacuum & not getting the level of support we needed.

Since we left, there have been more changes. Greater responsibilities & expectations have been placed on the facilitators' shoulders.

Now, I'll admit that I am a person who does not accept change easily. I know that sometimes, change is necessary, and that financial constraints make it difficult to maintain every service, every tradition and every position.

But it's not just the changes themselves but the way they were carried out that have most upset me, and many others. While I don't want to go into all the details, over the last two years since we've stopped facilitating, people we know, love and respect -- people who have served the organization well for many years, made enormous contributions, and were beloved by many, many volunteers & clients -- have been abruptly removed from their paid or volunteer positions in the organization -- often with little or no reasonable explanation given. (One lost her part-time job just days before the anniversary of her baby's death. You would think that an organization devoted to serving bereaved parents would have thought to check out that critical detail first before dropping the bomb.) Some volunteers who have voiced their displeasure or asked too many questions have been told that perhaps group was not the place for them any more. All this, from an organization that is supposed to care for and about people at the most vulnerable time of their lives.

To say that I am saddened, even sickened by what has happened, to people I admire & respect, and to an organization that has meant so much to me these past 13 years, is an understatement. Dh is furious, & has vowed that we will not give them one more penny of our money until things change. (Until just recently, we had been making generous monthly donations for about the past decade. We also raised about $10,000 for the group over the years through one of our workplace philanthropy programs.)

Many of our friends, especially those who have also volunteered with the organization in some capacity, feel as we do. Others who are still involved are dismayed by what's been happening --but (as you might expect) feel a tremendous loyalty to their clients & do not want to see them hurt any more than they are already hurting, through no fault of their own. The group is not perfect -- but what would parents like us do without it? Newly bereaved parents don't know what the group was like before, or care about the current internal politics. They may be getting an inferior experience compared to what we had, but they don't know that. They're just glad that someone is there to listen.

I hate to think about what the group has become, versus what it once was -- but I also hate the thought of no group at all.

What a mess!!

So here's my current dilemma: The group's annual holiday memorial candlelighting is coming up soon. This is an event that both dh & I have loved & always looked forward to (I've actually skipped or skipped out early from my office Christmas party several times to attend). It has been a huge part of our holiday celebrations for the past 13 years -- a time that we can set aside the hustle & bustle of the season, meet up with our old friends & remember our babies together. I can't imagine NOT going.

At the same time, I can't imagine GOING -- facing some of the people who made these decisions that I do not agree with, and pretending that all is well. I'm not a particularly confrontational sort of person, and frankly, I think I would feel like a bit of a hypocrite being there. To go would feel like we endorse what has been happening, when we don't.

I don't know yet if any of our friends are going -- it certainly wouldn't be the same without them. Some feel as we do. Others may not want to disappoint their children, who have grown up attending these events & come to look forward to them. In our e-mails over the past few months, some have said, well, who needs group, we can always get together ourselves sometime. Yes, but we generally haven't in the past, and nobody has volunteered to organize anything in the near future.

Another former facilitator has kindly organized an alternative event; unfortunately, it's on a night when we are otherwise engaged.

(We will be facing the same dilemma in the summer, when the annual picnic & butterfly release -- another annual highlight on our calendar -- rolls around.)

I just feel so terribly, terribly sad that it has come to this -- that something that once gave us such comfort & a sense of belonging has become so tained -- a source of pain. It's another loss, on top of so many others that we (dh & me, and our friends, collectively) have endured.

I know this sort of thing happens in lots of group situations. I just didn't think it would ever happen in this one. Sadly, I was wrong.

I think we have made our decision -- but I still feel very ambivalent.

What would you do?

That's a loaded question...

2011-11-30T18:00:00.016-05:00

Mass e-mail from co-worker (edited to remove identifying information):

Hi Everyone!

For our Holiday Party, I am collecting your best/worst/funniest holiday memory.

The Social Committee will be using this information for a fun activity we have planned for the party.

Please try to keep it concise (a line or two at most) and email it to me privately.

If you could send it to me by EOD Friday, that would be great!

*** *** ***

OK, I'm assuming by "worst holiday memory," they are looking for worst/we-can-laugh-about-it-now stories about the time Santa left a lump of coal in your stocking, or you had one too many glasses of eggnog & woke up with a hangover -- that sort of thing.

Because, honestly -- do they REALLY want to hear people's WORST holiday memories?

I mean, let's face it, I love Christmas -- but most people's Christmases, even the best ones, rarely if ever measure up to the Norman Rockwell ideal. And I'm pretty damned sure nobody wants to hear about MY worst Christmas.

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to be expecting a baby in November -- to have your mother exclaim, when she learns the due date, "A baby for Christmas!!" -- to dream about bringing that baby home for the holidays to her adoring grandparents & great-grandparents -- only to have that dream totally, utterly shattered when the baby is stillborn in August?

Do they REALLY want to know why you can't bear to hear or sing "Away in a Manger" anymore? (especially when, one year, the choir changed the lyrics to include the line, "A baby for Christmas...")

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to start crying every year while you're watching the Santa Claus Parade, because it brings back memories of your pregnancy & your secret wish that you'd be able to watch the parade from the windows of the hospital (on the parade route) with your newborn daughter in your arms?

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to go to the mall and be confronted with oodles of toys, impossibly precious holiday clothes at Baby Gap & Gymboree, and a massive lineup of adorably dressed babies & toddlers waiting to see Santa Claus, when you'd give anything to be doing the same thing with your daughter?

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to lose your grandfather just a few weeks after losing your baby -- the grandfather you adored, secretly thought was Santa Claus, and spent every single Christmas of your life with?

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to go to your Christmas party -- the one place where you think you're safe & looking forward to kicking back with your co-workers -- only to have the colleague who was pregnant at the same time as you were & due just a few weeks before arrive? WITH her baby girl in tow?? And then be told that not just one, not just two, but THREE other coworkers just announced their pregnancies? (See my post about the Worst. Christmas Party. Ever.) And then leave the party early & spend the next two hours sitting numbly in the train station, waiting for your husband (who is at his party -- this being pre-cellphone days), & reading the same page of your People magazine over & over again, because you keep replaying the night's events over & over again in your head and just can't focus?

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to decorate the Christmas tree in silence & without smiles or laughter, that first Christmas?

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like, searching for the perfect ornament for the tree to memorialize your stillborn daughter?

Do they REALLY want to know why your entire Christmas tree is now covered in teddy bear angels & Classic Pooh Christmas ornaments that you've accumulated over the past 13 years (hint: the baby's nursery was to have had a Classic Pooh theme)?

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to read the cards that your mother received from her friends (who obviously haven't heard the news), saying things like, "Congratulations! You're going to love being a grandma!" and "Being a grandmother is the best!" and "How's that grandbaby?"

Do they REALLY want to know what it's like to hear everyone around you mouthing platitudes like, "Christmas is for kids"?

Do they REALLY want to know about how awful it felt to watch your father's face crumble as he started to take the traditional "family around the dinner table" photo, set down the camera & retreated downstairs so that we couldn't see him cry?

I didn't think so.

(For the record, I sent the story about my parents giving me the stereo I had been bugging them about for years -- complete with turntable & cassette deck. It was 1981 (30 years ago, eeek), I was in third-year university and I honestly didn't expect they would ever buy me such an expensive gift (which seems so Little House on the Prairie-ish these days, when I hear about parents buying their kids iPods and iPhones and game systems and television sets and Ugg boots, & taking them to Disney World) -- you can see in the pictures that I'd been crying from shock! They hid it under a roll of carpet in the shower stall of an unfinished basement bathroom in their new house, and sent me on a treasure hunt to find it. I still have it, in my basement, along with all my vinyl albums.)

(Not) the most wonderful time of the year :p

2011-11-29T21:17:00.009-05:00

(Sorry, I hit "publish" before I was quite finished. And Blogger has been acting wonkily enough that I couldn't go back in & edit -- I had to copy & paste into a Word doc, delete what I had posted before & then report -- ARGH. So if you read my first post in a reader, this is the correct version.)

For awhile there, I thought I was going to make it through November without my annual "I hate November" whine. The weather has been unusually mild (which actually makes me a little nervous, global warming & all that) -- & SUNNY (which lifts my spirits enormously -- part of the reason I dislike November is the constant grey and gloom, at least here in southern Ontario). I got through Katie's 13th birthday/due date relatively well. The stress of year-end activities at work has been pretty manageable up to this point (although the daily 1 p.m. project meetings were really putting a cramp in my day). I got an early start on my Christmas shopping. My cousin recently moved just a 15-minute drive away from me (after 26 years of being surrounded by dh's family -- nice people that they (mostly, lol) are -- I FINALLY have a relative living closer than 1,000 miles away!!) -- and invited us to dinner for his daughter's birthday last week. Not only did I get to eat perogies, homemade by his visiting mom (my aunt), it was American Thanksgiving and they cooked a turkey dinner with all the trimmings.

Last weekend was lovely. I got to sleep in, & slept pretty well. Housecleaning went quickly. We took Christmas stuff to the cemetery to decorate Katie's niche which, although a sad reminder of what we've lost, also made me feel better to see her little corner of the world looking appropriately festive. We had dinner at a new local restaurant (Irish pub) -- the food was good & hot (we'll be back) & had a $10 coupon to pay for part of it. We had a nice, leisurely browse at Chapters without too many disruptions from screaming children in the toy section or inconsiderate dolts sitting sprawled out on the floor, blocking the aisle, while talking loudly on their cellphone. Sunday, we went to see "The Descendants" with George Clooney, & while the subject matter was on the depressing side (middle-aged man with two daughters dealing with his wife's impending death and the discovery that she was having an affair), the performances were excellent. Plus the scenery was gorgeous (not only George, lol, but it was set in Hawaii).

And then Monday rolled around (as it always does) & everything has been downhill since then.

It's crunch time at work -- major milestone coming up on Friday. A couple of projects will be more or less off my plate at that point, but (of course) other have come to take their place -- urgent stuff that needs to be done well before I leave on my vacation, of course.

Everyone is under stress. Dh is under stress at work -- and he has a mancold. :p And when I woke up this morning, it was pouring rain, and hasn't stopped all day. The sky has been dull, dark and grey.

Christmas decorations are springing up everywhere, I see people everywhere with shopping bags, but I don't have time to take a full lunch hour to work on my Christmas shopping, I'm too tired at night to head to the mall, and the thought of the mall on a weekend makes me cringe. :p

And so, just like that, I'm into my annual November sulk & feeling sorry for myself.

Update: Things are slightly better tonight, since I started drafting this. We had some hot soup for supper and assembled the Christmas tree (decorations to come later this week). Doing something a little Christmasy helped, I think.

To quote Scarlett O'Hara (watched the movie for the umpteenth time other night, Kleenex in hand), "Tomorrow is another day."

November 2010: Black Friday
November 2009: November blahs
November 2008: November again
November 2007: November: The cruellest month

New header, new look

2011-11-27T21:54:00.004-05:00

What do you think? The new header photo comes courtesy of Melissa, Stirrup Queen extraordinaire , who used it in a recent post & generously designed a new header for me when I complimented her on it. Absolutely love it, but it didn't quite fit in on top of the template design I had, so I have been playing around with new ones.

I was thinking I needed to update some of my links, etc., so this was the kick in the pants I needed to get started -- and it wasn't hard at all to add in the header either. Thank you, Mel! : )

Guess I'm not alone ; )

2011-11-26T21:46:00.005-05:00

Opened the paper this morning & found this article:

Hello marketers? Pay attention to professional women

Sample quote:

“Marketers are still targeting moms, just like they’ve done since the 1950s,” lamented Marti Barletta, chief executive officer of Chicago-based TrendSight Group, which provides insights about marketing to women.

Ms. Barletta expresses her frustration with this short-sighted approach since people are having smaller families than they did years ago, and because marketing to moms resonates most often with first-time mothers only. “Marketers who were supposed to be trend forward, leading-edge and future-focused are the most outdated people on the planet,” she complained in an interview.

"Moms rock" -- oh, really??

2011-11-25T20:06:00.021-05:00

I came home tonight & found a brochure from a certain telecommuncations company in my mailbox. Below my name & address was the line, "Learn how superphones help moms do more with their day."

On the flipside, the title: "Moms Rock. Superphones help them roll."

"What makes superphones so super? Just like moms: They're great at multitasking... They make every minute count... They don't just work hard -- they look good too."

(!!!)

Inside: "Super selection for super moms" -- and this bit of advice: "If your kids are old enough for a phone, you can add them to your plan."

Gee, thanks, B.e.ll.Can.a.da, for rubbing the absence of my child (who should be a teenager bugging me to get a cellphone, if she hadn't already sweet-talked her dad into getting her one) in my face (and not just once but over and over again in a single piece of marketing material). Flattery may get you everywhere, but you are barking up the WRONG tree here. :p

FYI -- and for some reason, this seems to be a hard thing to grasp -- just because I'm a WOMAN does NOT automatically mean that I am a MOM. I know that moms are a favourite demographic in the marketing world these days -- but there's a growing number of us out there who, for whatever reason, don't have kids. (Although my guess is that the vast majority of us do have cellphones).

Many of us are great at multi-tasking and making every minute count. And we look pretty damned good too, if I do say so myself. ; )

Sincerely,
Me

This year's model

2011-11-23T20:00:00.010-05:00

As I've written in the past, I can be pretty picky when it comes to the Christmas card I send out every year. Since Katie, I tend to go for either angel designs or Classic Pooh (when I can find him -- sometimes he's pretty elusive...!). Almost without fail, I know "the" card when I lay eyes on it. I might look for awhile longer, but I almost always go back to that first one that made me go "aha!"

This year was no exception. I've bought Papyrus cards a couple of times in the past, and a Papyrus store opened in the concourse of my office tower this fall. When they set out their Christmas card display (in October, ugh...), I had a peek & instantly knew I had found my card. I did look around a few other places, but a few weeks ago, I went back & bought a stack of boxes.

It's by an artist I love, Rebecca (Becky) Kelly. On her website, Becky cites the Swedish artist Carl Larsson as an influence. I've seen his work at IKEA (of course, lol -- his artwork is on the gingersnap cookie tins I bought there) & liked it (maybe being 1/4 Swedish has something to do with it too). I also know that another artist I like, Tricia Romance, was heavily influenced by Larsson. I've been to her gallery in Niagara on the Lake (down the road from the Falls), one of my favourite places for a getaway, and my Mom gave me one of her plates, Star of Wonder:

Anyway, here is this year's card, by Rebecca Kelly:

Here's a link to the card on the Papyrus website, if you're curious & want a different view.

Here's a Becky Kelly design that was on my Christmas cards some years ago (but also post-Katie -- you can see in the right-hand corner that it's dated 2001). I'm sure you can see why it appealed to me. ; )

I didn't blog about my card last year but, if you're wondering, it was a picture of dh & me, taken with a self-timer on our 25th wedding anniversary. : )

2009 card
2008 card

Odds & ends

2011-11-21T17:30:00.007-05:00

I now have 100 followers!! : ) I have to admit, I've never "followed" anyone myself (insert red-faced icon here) -- I read/follow my regular blogs through my Google Reader (where I have 224 (!!) subscribers)(is there some advantage to being a Blogger follower vs Google Reader subscriber?) -- but I really do appreciate my regular readers & commenters, through whatever medium. : )

Thanks to all of you who sympathized with my vent about Katie's due date and the anticipation of listening to baby shower talk from the weekend. As almost always happens, the anticipation was worse than the reality... the shower talk was not too horribly excessive (we're too busy at work these days to spend a lot of time standing around chit-chatting), & when it was, I found that rolling my eyes behind the sheltering walls of my cubicle while others talked was a great tension reliever. ; )

New definition of heartbreak: watching your husband as he wistfully looks on while his cousin's husband dances with their 10-year-old daughter at a recent banquet.

I got busy yesterday afternoon & didn't watch the Santa Claus Parade this year. Probably just as well, given my history with the parade in recent years. We had the radio on CBC news at noon, & a mere description of the massive crowds lining the route had the tears welling up in my eyes. (Then Stuart McLean finished me off with a story on the Vinyl Cafe, about Dave and the Big Narrows Centennial Baby, which ended with an an ode to community historians & memorykeepers -- something near & dear to my heart. I'd heard the story before, & I don't recall if I cried then too, but I was obviously in the mood.)

But for some reason, I was able to hit the mall later & shop for PNGD with gleeful abandon. The Children's Place, Baby Gap, Gymboree -- I hit them all (even just a few years ago, I would have avoided them like the plague) & had a blast. I even stopped off to watch the kids with Santa, and didn't even flinch. (Of course, tomorrow I could be a mess doing the same thing... but I'll take my small victories as they come...!)

I Lost a World stumbled onto a brilliant video this week, which she shares on her blog -- about Christmas cards, infertility, and how we define families. The kicker is that she realized it was done by someone she knew. I know this is an issue that many of us face at this time of year. Go have a look.

Recent reading

2011-11-15T18:30:00.005-05:00

I've actually found time to read a couple of books lately! I've been trying to keep track of all the books I've read this year in my blog (16 so far, not counting the ones I'm writing about here -- not bad!! -- not as many as I would have read 10 or certainly 20 years ago, sadly, but not bad...). Here are the latest entries on the list:

I actually bought & started the hardcover of The Beatles by Bob Spitz when it first came out about five or six years ago. I'd read about 4/5 of the book before I put it down (around the point where Brian Epstein died), picked up something else... & never got back to it. It wasn't because it wasn't good -- on the contrary, it's a great book about a great band, one of my all-time essential favourite bands. I just seem to have developed a nasty habit of doing that over the past few years (insert red-faced icon here). I decided that has to change, and recently picked it up again to tackle what was left.

If you're a Beatles fan, this is an amazingly detailed look at the band, with lots of fresh material that will have you going "I never knew that..." The stuff about the early days of the band, in particular, was a treat to read. It also puts so many things in context. For example -- I'd heard & seen clips from the band's legendary performance at Shea Stadium, but not until I read this book did I realize its significance: the Beatles were the first band to EVER play a concert, not just at Shea Stadium but at ANY stadium, anywhere -- it had never been done before. So, among many other things, we have the Beatles to thank for arena rock shows. : ) Not for the first time, I wished I had been a teenager back then to experience Beatlemania firsthand. (As it was, and as I've written before -- here and here, for example -- the Beatles are among my first and most treasured pop culture memories as a preschooler.)

One of the many seldom-heard-from sources Spitz dug up for this book was Paul's Liverpool girlfriend, Dorothy (Dot) Rhone. Did you know she became pregnant by Paul, just as the Beatles were starting to hit it big, and had a miscarriage? She & Paul immediately got engaged -- his father was apparently delighted that he was going to be a grandfather -- but after the baby died, she could feel Paul slipping away from her, and they broke up. (It doesn't reflect very well on Paul -- but he WAS only, what 20 years old? & his life was rapidly changing at that point.) Heartbroken, Dot emigrated to Canada not long afterward, married & had other children (& grandchildren), worked for many years as a civil servant in southern Ontario (!), and is now retired. She & Paul have since seen each other backstage at some of his concerts over the years.

I've written before about my love of the most famous band to come out of my home province of Manitoba, the Guess Who, and its lead singer, Burton Cummings. Its guitarist, Randy Bachman, also went on to further fame with Bachman Turner Overdrive, and now hosts a weekly show on CBC Radio called Vinyl Tap, where he plays some of his favourite songs & tells stories about his personal encounters with the artists over the last 50 years.

Now, some of those stories have been collected in a new book called Vinyl Tap Stories. Randy wrote a memoir a few years back that I'd read, called Taking Care of Business, & some of the stories he tells here are familiar -- whether from that book or from interviews I've seen him give over the years, I'm not sure.

Still, there's no doubt that he has some great stories to tell and tells them well. As a Manitoban, of course, I get a huge kick out of his local references and his recollections about the Winnipeg of his childhood. Randy is closer to my mom's age than my own (he was born in 1943, just ahead of the first wave of post-war baby boomers), but when he talks about the Paddlewheel Restaurant, for example, I know exactly what he's talking about (although I had NO IDEA until I read this book that it was once THE place for Winnipeg teenagers & musicians to hang out!!).

(Incidentally, dh's former boss grew up kitty-corner from the Bachmans in the north end of Winnipeg in the 1960s. He told me once at a party that Randy & his brothers always had a band & always wound up playing at their school dances & hockey banquets. "Not the Bachmans again!" he & his friends would groan. Who knew?? lol)

I've always thought Jann Arden was a great singer, and over the years, she's also shown herself to be a funny and witty interview. She's been on the Rick Mercer Report several times, mostly in Calgary -- visiting the Calgary Zoo & luging at Olympic Park, ziplining, attending RoughStock and, most recently, doing the CN Tower EdgeWalk in Toronto, with hilarious results. Now she's written a memoir about her growing up years, Falling Backwards. (Sidenote: She was signing copies earlier this month at a bookstore in the office tower across the street from mine at lunchtime. Any other time of the year, that would have been perfect. Unfortunately, it's year end, and I had a mandatory meeting I had to attend around the same time -- so, sadly, my book is unsigned.)

I loved this book. It is extremely well written -- hilarious, as one might expect, frank and also poignant. What I really love, though, is the feelings of deja vu that the book conjured up for me. Jann was born in 1962, and grew up in a small town in rural Alberta outside of Calgary in the late 1960s & early 1970s. I was born in Manitoba in 1961, and spent my childhood in small rural towns in the neighbouring Prairie provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, in the same time frame. (Coincidentally, neither of us has children, either.) So, as you might expect, we share a lot of similar memories about similar things. For example:

* Jann claims her mom is "the cleanest person in Canada" (p.11) -- I always thought mine was. ; )
* she grew up in a classic baby boomer suburban neighbourhood where kids walked to school & people didn't lock their doors (so did I)(p. 12).
* Jann's dad cooked bacon & egg breakfasts on the weekends (p.15). My dad is great cook, but his weekend brunches are legendary in our family. Yum! (My mother is the potato lover in our family, though!)
* Milk was delivered by a milkman (p.15)(I remember that too, in my early childhood).
* Jann used a big fat HB pencil when she started school, as did I (p. 25).
* Old Dutch salt & vinegar chips (p. 26) -- ahhh, the memories...! I still think Old Dutch makes the best chips ever. We couldn't get them in Ontario for years, & they're still hard to find. Dh thinks they're awful. ; )
* Reading about Jann's teachers, Mrs. Hurst & Miss Humphreys, reminded me of my favourite teacher from fourth grade, Mrs. Dean. She was in her early 20s, had long blond hair & wore mini-skirts. She was beautiful and she sang like an angel, at school and in our church choir. (My mother told me a few years ago that her obituary was in the local paper, so I found it online. She was only in her mid-50s when she died... and the obituary mentioned her beautiful singing voice.)
* Jann's fascination with the globe (p. 29).
* Jann says Prairie people refer to underwear as "gonch" (p. 33). Where I lived, it was "gotch" (close enough, I guess). But I never called them that -- it made my ears hurt just to hear the words. I wonder how that term came into being??
* Dubble Bubble bubblegum (p. 43).
* Jann's parents' work ethic, & how it makes her feel lazy (p. 73)(boy, me too). "They are in their seventies now, and I swear they still don't sit down."
* Well cooked meat (p. 55).
* "Romper Room" & "The Friendly Giant" (p. 64).
* Walking for miles all over town at the age of 10 & nobody batting an eyelash about it ("I know I sound like I am a hundred years old, but the seventies were so much different from how things are today," p. 66).
* Playing outside all the time (p. 66).
* Gigantic pigs (p. 72 -- my uncle had some on his farm -- scared the crap out of me!).
* Slaughtering farm animals (p. 74). I was at my grandparents' farm when they were killing chickens once. My cousins all went out to watch -- they thought it was hilarious to watch the chickens run around with their heads cut off. I stayed in the house with my nose in a book & refused to even look out the window.
* Milking cows (p. 75) -- never did it myself, but I did used to watch my grandmother do it in the barn.
* Having only three TV channels (p. 88 -- we had just one, the CBC, until we moved closer to the border when I was 14 & got a rotary antenna, & then eventually cable).
* School lunches (p. 98) & open area classrooms (p. 103).
* Reading, Enid Blyton mysteries in particular (p. 104).
* Listening to a transistor radio under the covers at night (p. 105) -- late at night on the Prairies, especially after a thunderstorm, you could pull in radio stations from far-away, exotic places like KSTP Minneapolis & WLS Chicago. It was almost a competition to see who could pull in the radio station from furthest away.
* Listening to records & singing from mimeographed sheets in music class (p. 107).
* Anne Murray & "Snowbird" (p. 107).
* Casual dressing (p. 115)(Corduroy pants -- which we called "cords" -- were about as dressy as things got in the small Prairie towns I grew up in the the 1970s. And if I wanted to wear mine, I'd have to call up my friends & make sure that at least one of THEM was ALSO going to be wearing cords).
* Lonesome Charlie (!!) (p. 116).
* The Columbia Record Club (p. 157)
* The Carpenters (p. 158 & several other places in the book)
* home perms by mom (p. 168)
* Yahtzee (p. 181)
* finding out that you're short credits to graduate from high school (p. 183). This happened to me. I got called to the guidance counsellor's office in November of Grade 12 & was told I couldn't claim both Music 101 (band) AND 108 (for my private piano lessons & Royal Conservatory of Music exam) -- hence, I was short a course to graduate. After I'd finished crying, we went over my schedule & looked at the available classes that I could fit in. I wound up in History 301 -- comparative governments. I caught up very quickly & wound up with something like a 92 in the course. But I was kind of resentful all year long that it took them until November of my graduating year to figure this out.

Now, there's a lot that is different about our childhoods, of course. Jann's upbringing was, shall we say, a little more backwoodsy than mine, & she was a lot more adventurous than I ever was (I never killed gophers or was never chased by a bear, for example, or dove headfirst into a brick barbecue). I didn't have a troubled older brother who wound up serving a life sentence for murder, or an alcoholic father, and I was never molested by a relative when I was 10. But I knew people and places like the ones she describes -- I knew boys like her childhood buddies, Dale and Leonard, and places like the gas station with the cooler full of pop bottles.

The book ends with 30-year-old Jann on the brink of releasing her first record. Which leaves me hopeful that someday, there might be a sequel. : ) Fingers crossed!

To see or not to see

2011-11-15T17:00:00.016-05:00

The New York Times columnist David Brooks had a thought-provoking piece today about the scandal at Penn State -- one that got me thinking about pregnancy loss, infertility and involuntary childlessness. (There's almost always a connection, if you look hard enough, lol.)

Brooks notes how so many people are (re)assuring themselves and others that, had they been in the shoes of those who discovered that children were being abused on the campus, they would have taken action (at least, more decisive action than was taken).

Brooks begs to differ, pointing out that history shows the opposite generally happens: "Many people do not intervene. Very often they see but they don’t see."

He continues:

Some people simply can’t process the horror in front of them. Some people suffer from what the psychologists call Normalcy Bias. When they find themselves in some unsettling circumstance, they shut down and pretend everything is normal.

Some people suffer from Motivated Blindness; they don’t see what is not in their interest to see. Some people don’t look at the things that make them uncomfortable...

As Daniel Goleman wrote in his book “Vital Lies, Simple Truths,” “In order to avoid looking, some element of the mind must have known first what the picture contained, so that it knew what to avoid. The mind somehow grasps what is going on and rushes a protective filter into place, thus steering awareness away from what threatens.”...

People are really good at self-deception. We attend to the facts we like and suppress the ones we don’t. We inflate our own virtues and predict we will behave more nobly than we actually do.

Those of us who have lost babies, or endured infertility, or faced a future without children when we always thought we would be parents someday, know what it's like to see people turn away -- mentally, emotionally, sometimes even physically -- when they are confronted by the reality that is our life.

We all like to think of ourselves as compassionate and caring people, particularly when it comes to our friends and family members. But the inability to conceive or carry a child to term is something that falls outside the realm of most people's personal experience or comfort level. They know it happens, of course -- just not to them, or to anyone they know or love. The radical idea that, yes, it can and does happen to you & yours can be overwhelming -- threatening, even, to one's sense of personal security, fairness and "happily ever after."

Are our friends and family members evil when they turn away or remain silent in the face of our pain? Evil is a strong word, & I'm not sure I want to apply that label here.

But do they cause us undue pain and suffering -- or add to the pain & suffering we are already feeling -- through their words &/or actions (or lack thereof)?

Most certainly.

What do you think?

(See also my post about the book I read earlier this year with a similar theme, Willful Blindness by Margaret Heffernan.)

Bad mommy :(

2011-11-13T20:01:00.004-05:00

I had almost forgotten. I'd been so busy, at work, with the (ahem) events of last weekend, a day off on Friday & cleaning house all day yesterday. Friday & Saturday were gloriously clear & sunny and mild, totally unlike November, which is always grey & dull & dreary in my mind.

But then we stopped off at the cemetery late yesterday afternoon, en route to dinner, as we often do on weekends. And as we got closer, it struck me anew: tomorrow (Monday, November 14th) is Katie's due date. The first one of several I was given, anyway, which is always the one I tend to think about.

She would have been 13 years old this month. In a more perfect universe, I would not have been lolling on the couch all long weekend long, reading my book & catching up on blogs. I would have been planning and hosting a birthday party. For my TEENAGER.

I rarely cry at the cemetery these days, but I shed some tears yesterday, and I've been feeling guilty ever since.

And I've been bracing myself. So far, November hasn't been too bad, but I know from past experience that that is likely to change, as the month wears on, the early darkness envelops me more, and the year-end frenzy continues at the office. I don't think I've missed an annual "I hate November" post yet. ; )

And also because I know what's coming tomorrow. My grandmother-to-be coworker was throwing a baby shower for her daughter this weekend -- took the last few days off to get ready (!). And not only that, but another coworker -- young (26), idealistic, unmarried -- was hosting a baby shower for her best friend on the same day. There's already been lots of shower talk -- what games to play, what decorations to make, etc., etc. -- and I know that will be the prime subject of conversation tomorrow morning.

And of course, it HAS to be TOMORROW morning. :p Such is my lot in life, it seem. :p I feel the first hint of the November blahs settling upon me...

11-11-11

2011-11-11T08:00:00.004-05:00

(Who couldn't resist posting today, just to use that cool headline?)

Today is Remembrance Day, of course -- the day that fighting ceased in World War I, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. I have the day off work (yay!) -- nothing special planned. A little cleaning & organizing, maybe; a lot of reading and blog hopping. ; )

I'm thinking about the veterans today, of course -- but I'm also thinking about a friend from first-year university (30+ years ago now, eeek), a neighbour who lived two doors over in my dorm. Her birthday was November 11th, & the number 11 loomed large in her life. She'd look at the clock and the time would invariably be 11 minutes after the hour, for example. It freaked her out.

She was bright and funny and sassy and friendly -- but she was horribly homesick for most of that year. She had a boyfriend back home (whose photos papered half her room) and an adorable baby niece (the other half). He came to visit her (nice guy), & she positively glowed while she was around him. Part-way through the year, they agreed they should try dating other people. She did, but it was obvious her heart wasn't in it. That summer, she called my roommate & told her she was back together with her boyfriend & wasn't coming back in the fall. She was going to live at home & attend the smaller, local university.

Sadly, it wasn't too long before we'd lost touch with her. (Back then, it was harder to keep tabs on people -- long distance was expensive, e-mail and Facebook were still decades away, so if you weren't a good letter writer -- good luck!) But I still think about her, and my old roommate & I still talk about her sometimes when we get together. I've tried Googling her a few times, and haven't found much -- her name is a fairly common one. But I recently tried her old boyfriend's name, & found a lot more -- including their names listed together as a couple in a relative'srecent obituary ("survived by..."). So they did get married, & I'm hoping they are living happily ever after. : )

Here's to you, K. I think of you whenever I look at my watch or a clock & it's 11 minutes past the hour.

Survived : )

2011-11-08T20:38:00.003-05:00

I survived my colonoscopy, and all is well. : ) As most people said, the prep was the worst part, & I would agree -- although I rather suspect that Aunt Flo had a lot to do with making mine that way. Yes, as I suspected/feared -- Aunt Flo, with her impeccable sense of timing, decided to drop by to add to my misery. My one comfort is that, the next time I do this, five or 10 years from now, she should (should!!) be a non-issue.

I started out feeling not too bad & that, "Hey, I can do this!" However, as the long day worse on, I got hungrier, crampier, queasier and increasingly sick of the taste of Gatorade. :p I wound up spending part of the night before on the bathroom floor, worshipping the porcelain goddess, breaking into a cold sweat & feeling like I was about to pass out (poor dh wound up propping me up until I had the strength to crawl back into bed myself) -- and part of the morning at the clinic getting better acquainted with the bathroom THERE before my appointment too. :p Not fun. I actually have a purple mark under one of my eyes -- I think I broke a capillary from all the dry heaving -- eventually, my stomach was so empty there was nothing left to bring up. :(

Once they popped that needle in my hand, though, I was off in LaLa Land. The next thing I remember was waking up in the recovery area. They gave me a small dixie cup of water & some melba toast, & I almost immediately started to feel better. : ) At home, I had tea, toast & a nap, and aside from being very tired, felt almost entirely like myself again by late afternoon. I was back at work again today.

Thanks for all the advice & well wishes!

And how's YOUR weekend shaping up??

2011-11-03T21:19:00.036-04:00

(Warning: this post may contain slightly TMI.)

Sunday morning, I will wake up. I will eat nothing solid all day. I will drink lots of Gatorade and clear fluids, and maybe eat some Jello.

Mid-afternoon, I will take a few tablets. Awhile later, I'll mix a packet of crystals into some water & drink it. And expect to spend some time hanging out in the bathroom with some reading material. Repeat procedure until there's no reason to spend time in the bathroom anymore.

When I wake up early on Monday morning, I will take my blood pressure pill as usual, but with only a small sip of water -- no more. No food, no drink at all. Dh & I will leave the house around the usual time, but instead of driving to the commuter train station, we'll drive into the city.

Monday morning, I'm having a colonsocopy. My first. Woohoo!!

I hasten to write that there is nothing wrong with me that has prompted this procedure (& I am hoping very much that things stay that way, knock wood). The only thing "wrong" with me is that I turned 50 earlier this year, & my family dr generally sends all his patients for their first colonoscopy at this age (unless they have a family history of problems, in which case, you go earlier). If I get a clear bill of health, I won't have to have another one for five years.

Dh had his first colonsocopy a few years ago, & points out, "If I can do it, you can certainly do it!" True -- dh & drs are not a very happy combination. He frets endlessly before each appointment (which I have no doubt made for him) & then until he gets the results. His colonoscopy & even his prep were relatively uneventful -- except for the fact that he didn't react well to the sedative they gave him -- got up before he was supposed to & came out to where I was waiting, then had to make a hasty retreat to the bathroom where he was promptly sick, and spent the next two hours in the recovery area, dozing on & off. He has a note in his file to use a different sedative the next time!

Several of my friends have had them & similarly assure me it's nothing & the prep is the worst part. And a few friends, who have had several procedures over the years, also assure me that even the prep is a lot easier than it was 10-15 years ago.

The last time that a nurse popped a needle into my arm (my wrist, actually) & started the flow of drugs that would lull me into blessed stupification, was August 7, 1998, as I laboured to deliver my small, silent daughter. Demerol, I think it was. I was similarly sedated when I had my wisdom teeth out about 20 years ago, & I was put totally under several times when I was a kid & being checked out for kidney & ureter issues (which thankfully have not been an issue for me as an adult -- but which I now know are very likely co-related to the bicornuate uterus I was diagnosed with during my pregnancy). Maybe that's why I have the slightest case of the jitters as the weekend approaches.

Or maybe I'm just dreading the thought of going through an entire day without food, lol. I can get pretty cranky when I haven't been fed. To add to the fun, Aunt Flo is scheduled to show up sometime within the next several days -- and with her always impeccable sense of timing, you just KNOW it's probably gonna be Sunday night or Monday morning. (The nurse at the clinic assured me that they can still do the colonscopy regardless.) And asprin (including ibuprofen, my usual security blanket that gets me through one of Aunt Flo's visits) is verboten the week before a colonoscopy. Tylenol, maybe??

The silver lining, in my mind? I don't have to go to work! -- at a very busy time of year, lol. (You know I HAVE to be pretty busy & stressed at work to be looking forward to a colonoscopy as an excuse to get out of the office, lol.) Friday (11-11-11) is also Remembrance Day here & a holiday for me, so I will only have a three-day work week. Yay!

I realize that most of you are younger than me & probably haven't reached an age where a colonscopy is part of your regular medical routine -- but have you ever had one? Stories, advice to share?

Blogoversary #4

2011-10-31T07:30:00.029-04:00

How's this for scary stuff on Halloween? It's my fourth blogoversary today. : )

I started this blog because, even though I was almost 10 years past Katie's stillbirth and six years past stopping infertility treatments & the decision to remain childless/free, loss & infertility were still a big part of my life, and I felt I still had something to say on these topics.

That was four years, 556 posts ago (including this one). That's an average of 12 posts per month or 3 per week. Not bad.

According to my stats tab, I've had more than 68,000 page views for "all time" -- which is actually just since May 2009. That's pretty wild! My readers are overwhelmingly from the U.S., then my own Canada -- followed by UK, Australia, Germany, Russia, France, Israel, Ukraine & Netherlands. I've received more than 4,400 comments. Without doing an exhaustive search, I'm pretty sure that the post that got the most comments ever -- 63 -- was last year's entry about our 25th wedding anniversary (it was also my Creme de la Creme pick for last year, which boosted my comments somewhat).

My all-time most-read post, without question, is my 2009 review of the movie Julie & Julia. It still continues to be at the top of my hit list, most weeks that I check, and I still get comments on that post too (49 to date) -- often from someone who is not necessarily familiar with the ALI blogging community but who saw the movie, was intrigued by Julia's childlessness and Googled something like "Julia Child childless." Six of my all-time top 10 search key words relate to "Julia Child" paired with either the words "children" or "infertility."

Second in terms of all-time hits is a post was my rerun of a 2008 Globe & Mail article called "Canada's U.S. baby boom," about women with high-risk pregnancies in rural communities being sent to the U.S., because of the lack of space in local high-risk units. My interest was the topic of high-risk pregnancy & the lack of a national birthing plan in general. I couldn't figure out why this particular post drew so many hits, particularly throughout 2009 -- until it hit me that the rise in interest coincided with the U.S. debate over "Obamacare" (!!).

In other words, I suspect my post was being read & passed around by anti-Obamacare forces as an example of the supposed inadequacies of the Canadian healthcare system (&, by implication, the superiority of the U.S. system). This was certainly NOT my intention. I know our system is not perfect -- but I daresay there are women in rural communities in the U.S. who likewise have to travel some distance to get the healthcare they need (not to mention women who are denied the care they need because the hospital doesn't accept their health insurance -- NOT a scenario we ever have to worry about in Canada). Sorry to my American readers -- I would never trade!

I'll admit my output this year has slowed a bit. Blogging is like any kind of writing (including what I do for work) -- sometimes I feel like I'm brimming over with inpiration -- stuff I want to say, & how I want to say it -- & the words just tumble out onto my keyboard; other times, I stare & stare at the screen and nothing clicks. Sometimes there's stuff I'd like to say, but life (and work in particular, and particularly at this time of year) intervenes. (How dare it, right?? lol)

But while I may not have had much time to read or write blog posts lately -- and while I'm now 50 years old and 10 years out from fertility treatments -- I don't feel my interest in this community has waned. I still feel like I have things I want to say. I plan to keep on writing. And although, as I've said before, I primarily blog for myself, it's nice to know that you're out there too, reading & commenting. Thank you!! : )

Blogoversary #3 (2010)
Blogoversary #2 (2009)
Blogoversary #1 (2008)
First post

Fall getaway

2011-10-23T16:07:00.028-04:00

I don't know where my blogging mojo has been lately. It seems it's all I can do to keep up lately with work, reading the daily newspapers & maybe a daily scan of Facebook & a couple of posts from my Google Reader. :p Sometimes it feels like I'm brimming over with things I want to write about; other times, I draw a blank.

Year end madness has begun -- I had one day where I had back to back to back to back meetings & barely had time to wolf down half a sandwich. I did have an enjoyable time last weekend with a scrapbooking event on Saturday & visiting a friend who is a quilt appraiser and was working at a nearby quilting show on the Sunday. I don't quilt myself, which is not to say I don't appreciate the work of those who do. And I felt priviliged to be there as she examined a vintage quilt with still-vivid colours that had been painstakingly handstitched by the elderly owner's great-grandmother in the 1850s (!!).

Before the year-end madness fully hit, and just after Canadian Thanksgiving, dh & I did manage to take a week's vacation. I had earmarked that time off thinking that my parents might be coming to visit -- and when they didn't, decided to take it anyway. I insisted to dh that we needed to go somewhere to make it special, & not just hang around the house, as we often do. I had it in my head that we should head up north to a resort to enjoy the fall colours for a few days.

And that's what we wound up doing. For various reasons, we didn't go too far. We wound up going to a resort that's only just a little more than an hour's drive north of us, close to the town where one of my great-grandfathers was born, & where my great-great-great grandparents & one of their daughters are buried in the cemetery adjacent to a beautiful (and beautifully preserved) historic stone church from the 1840s. We had stayed at this resort for our 15th wedding anniversay, 11 years ago, & it was still as we remembered -- charming rooms with beautiful views (loyal as I am to the Prairies where I was born & raised, I must admit, fall in Ontario is gorgeous!!), lots of great places to go walking and exploring, excellent food and the added attraction of gorgeous fall colours. The weather was so nice the day we left that dh wore his shorts & I dug my capris back out of the closet where I had previously sent them for winter storage.

While it's a family resort (& there likely would have been children, had we been there on Thanksgiving weekend), the clientele during our stay were strictly adults, & mostly seniors at that (who else has the time & the money to spend at a place like that, especially in the middle of the week?). It was a wonderful break, & we had a lovely time. Once again, we found ourselves wondering why the heck we don't do this more often. After all, having the time & money to do things like this (particularly on short notice) is one of the "perqs" of childless/free living. As dh said, "Umm, I think we can afford to come here more than once every 10 years." ; )

Here are a few fall photos from our stay:

The entrance to the inn, decked out in seasonal splendour.

Likewise, the entrance at a nearby stone church, which dates back to the mid-1800s.

The church has an adjacent cemetery overlooking Lake Simcoe (dh looking out). What a peaceful place to spend eternity!

Dh enjoying the lake view from the private beach across from the resort where we were staying.

Dh on the resort's dock. The weather was turning cloudier & colder by then.

The entrance to (another) churchyard in the area, where my greatx3 grandparents are buried.

A view of the beautiful trees in the cemetery.

Tree outside the resort, with changing leaves.

Controversial article

2011-10-09T19:45:00.001-04:00

Has anyone else seen this recent Salon article, "My stillborn child's life after death"? What did you think of it?

OK, I'll admit, the part about taking the baby in a sling for a walk to the park seemed a little bizarre. Not something I would have done. I kept wondering what would have happened if one of the other moms at the playground wanted to take a peek & admire the baby.

But on the whole, I found myself applauding these parents for saying goodbye on their terms, not to mention the funeral director who encouraged them to do so. And maybe just a little bit envious.

I especially liked this line: "This was when I understood: Thor was our baby. He did not belong to the hospital. He did not belong to the funeral home. He was ours." It has taken a long, long time for hospitals and funeral homes to start acting like they understand this. Given the silence that still exists around stillbirth and pregnancy loss, it's something that many bereaved parents don't realize until it is far too late.

It brought back memories of when my grandfather died -- almost exactly 13 years ago this week. I never got to see him again. Before I could arrive for his memorial service, his body was sent away to be cremated. His ashes were returned to us a few days later, after the memorial service had already been held. Returned IN THE MAIL. US Postal Service. (Tell me THAT's not undignified.) I don't remember what the postage was (!) but I can still remember my mom coming into my grandparents' apartment with the parcel under her arm, wiping her eyes. "Here's Grandpa, home for the last time," she sobbed.

My immediate thought? "Oh, and we don't even have his chair here for him!" I said. My grandparents had been living at the seniors care home in town, but we had kept their apartment, partly as a place to stay when we went to visit. Mom had wanted to move Grandpa's easy chair to their room at the home, but he wouldn't hear of it. I think he knew that would mean that he really wasn't going back to the apartment. After he was gone, we took it up there for Grandma to use.

Anyway, it might have seemed weird to some people to give a container of ashes the place of honour in an easy chair. But that's what felt right to me at the time, and I wish we had been able to do it.

Later that afternoon, under gloriously clear & sunny Prairie skies, Mom & I set the container of ashes between us in the front of the car. Together with some other family members, we took Grandpa home, to the site of the farm where he had grown up and, as he had wanted, scattered his ashes on the land that he loved, taking turns reading the service from his mother's Book of Common Prayer. "I love you, Grandpa," I said, as I let a handful of the ashes slide through my fingers. A few generations ago, doing something like that no doubt would have been controversial too.

If you read the article, beware the comments. Some of them are truly awful. It's so obvious that people really don't understand until they have lived through this themselves.

15 years online

2011-10-07T21:20:00.003-04:00

I started writing this post a couple of weeks ago. My plan was to have it ready to post on the anniversary date mentioned -- but life intervened, as it too often does. I dusted it off again after hearing about Steve Jobs's death this week. I've never owned anything by Apple (yet?)... but no matter what brand you own, he's essentially the reason why we all have personal computers sitting on our desks or in our laps today.

*** *** ***

The last year seems to be chock full of milestone "annivesaries" of one kind or anothern -- our 25th anniversary & my parents' 50th, my 50th birthday, my 25th anniversary with my company. Here's another one: 15 years ago, on September 21, 1996, we bought our first home computer, & shortly afterward, I went online for the very first time.

But first, let's go back. WAAAYYYY back. ; ) I guess my generation sort of straddles the time between the older folks, who didn't grow up with computers at all, and kids today, who seem to be born with an iPad or Game Boy in their hands.

I have no clear memory of when computers first entered my life in a meaningful way. They were around, although certainly not in the same way they are today. My first memories of computers are associated with my uncle, who got into the mainframe computer industry after graduating from university in the early 1960s. He worked for what was then called Univac, later became Unisys, and was Honeywell by the time he retired several years ago. He used to bring us excess continuous form printer paper to draw on, & would send us posters with images of Snoopy and Linus from Peanuts, fashioned from rows of printed numbers.

The one Christmas my family spent with his, in 1976, my cousins had a newfangled game -- called Pong -- that you played on a television set. A little white dot bouncing back & forth between two white lines on a black screen, like a ping pong game. I'm sure today's kids would find Pong about as exciting as watching paint dry (maybe even less so), but it was pretty fascinating stuff back then.

By the time I was off to university in 1979, games like PacMan & Galaga had replaced pinball machines in the campus bar, and one of my girlfriends was actually studying computer science, which meant spending long hours in the lab with boxes of punch cards, learning new languages called BASIC & COBOL. In the early '80s, my mom bought my dad something called Intellivision, which came with game cartridges for Donkey Kong, poker, hockey, golf, etc. My dad was enchanted and it provided us with endless hours of entertainment on cold winter nights during Christmas and February break.

But nobody, except maybe the very geekiest of the geeks, had their own computers or wrote term papers on them. For me, researching and writing a term paper in those days would mean spending long hours going through the card catalog at the library, taking pages of notes from stacks of books (if I could find them), using roll after roll of nickels to photocopy materials that weren't allowed to be signed out, then spreading all my raw material out on my dorm room bed & floor and starting to write. Longhand. I would revise my draft at least once, perhaps two or three times -- and then I would start typing.

Because I had probably procrastinated, I would often start typing late on the night before my paper was due, type through the night, turn in my paper the next morning, & then go home to sleep. ; ) To muffle the sound in an attempt not to annoy my dorm neighbours, I would put the typewriter on top of a couple of towels. And I woudl use easy-erase paper, which was much easier than trying to correct errors with whiteout. And trying to realign the typewriter carriage with the spot where you had corrected the error -- ARRRGHHHH.

I spent the month of January 1984 as an intern reporter at the London Free Press, before entering my final term of journalism school. This was the first time I ever used a computer, I think. Very basic, primitive stuff, of course. I would type my stories on a black screen with glowing yellow type. Then, after I'd filed it, I would read other stories from the wire services that were coming in, stories that would appear in the paper the next morning. It was intoxicating.

When my internship month ended, I returned to J-school for my final term -- and surprise! We now had computers too. We were the first class in the history of the school to use them. Again, very basic, primitive by today's standards -- black screen, green type, very little formatting, & there were 30 of us sharing a dot-matrix continuous form printer (with a tangle of numbered cables corresponding to our individual computers, which you had to plug in — & then unplug so someone else could use it).

But oh, what a thrill!!

When I started working in 1986, I still had a typewriter on my desk, but the secretaries had huge, boxlike computers on their desks, called Wordstars. The rest of us shared two Xerox PCs that sat in a separate cubicle, and had to take turns using them, saving our work onto 5.25" floppy discs. We would compose our stories longhand or on the typewriter, & then input them on the computer.

Eventually, we upgraded to IBM PS/2s (blue screens, white type) with WordPerfect software, & just kept upgrading from that point on. And although I never could have imagined it, I became comfortable with composing onscreen (to the point where I do very little writing longhand these days). It wasn't until 2001, though, that we all got e-mail & Internet access (and we were the communications department!!). We switched to MS Word software in 2006.

*** *** ***

By the mid-90s, I was thinking it would be nice to have a computer at home. I could bring work home, write letters, play solitaire! And there was this newfangled thing called the Internet that I was curious about. The idea of all that knowledge at my fingertips, just waiting to be explored, had me salivating. (But then, I used to read encyclopedias when I was a kid...)

At the IBM store at the mall. I'd seen a newspaper ad offering "back to school" specials, & there was a "Back to School Bundle" deal that looked promising. I still have the ad: an IBM Ambra Achiever, including a 100 mhz Pentium processor, 16 MB RAM, 1.2 GB hard drive, 28.8 K modem, one free year on the Internet, speakers and a colour inkjet printer -- all for $1799 (plus tax, plus the cost of the desk we bought).

I had this computer until the fall of 2003, when I bought a Dell Inspirion 4600. Again, I saw a newspaper ad, but this time I actually ordered it sight unseen over the telephone (!) & had the local Geek Squad guys set it up for me & transfer over my files from my old computer. By last spring, it was giving me increasing grief, & my sister's boyfriend -- who, amazingly, could remotely access my computer from their home 1,000 miles away, run a diagnostic program & make some fixes -- advised me that the hard drive was going. So I bought my first laptop -- a Toshiba Satellite that he recommended.

I can still remember the thrill of going online for the first time. I knew that this was life-changing stuff, a whole new world opening up before me, & of course it was. I wasn't quite sure what to do, but somehow, I figured it out. I think I looked up the URLs of a couple of magazines I subscribed to, and some news sites.

Two years later, during my pregnancy, one of dh's coworkers (who was also pregnant), gave him the URL for a pregnancy website -- Parents Place, part of iVillage -- she thought I might be interested in. I didn't join an expecting board -- I was still very wary of message boards & the like at that time -- or otherwise spend a lot of time there then -- but when Katie was stillborn, I went there again, looking for support. The computer became my lifeline. I obsessively searched for information on stillbirth, bicornuate uteri, IUGR. I ordered books on pregnancy loss from Amazon. I found an e-mail list for grieving mothers, hoping to try again.

I spent less time reading and watching television as my time online increased, and I sometimes regret that (the reading, anyway -- I don't think the TV time has been any great loss!). But I've gained so, so much from being online. New worlds of knowledge, new friends from all over the world, the ability to stay in touch so much better with old friends & family members. I certainly never could have envisioned it all 15 years ago.

But I still sometimes think that I'd like to go back to school someday -- if only to experience the pleasure of both researching AND writing a term paper completely on a computer. Kids today have NO idea…!! ; )

Odds & ends

2011-09-30T19:10:00.001-04:00

* Dh & I went to see "Moneyball" recently, in which Brad Pitt plays the GM of the Oakland As baseball team. He's also the devoted divorced dad of a 12-year-old girl who plays the guitar. Gulp.

* Earlier this week, we stepped off our morning train in the city, & were almost immediately engulfed in a crowd of kids. Hundreds of them. (Including, I'm sure, many 12-year-olds.)(The NOISE!!) We couldn't figure out what was going on -- & then I saw someone's T-shirt, remembered a news story I had read, & everything clicked into place. They were all headed to "We Day" at the Air Canada Centre, the brainchild of Craig Kielburger of Free the Children -- which he founded when HE was only 12. Part of me wished I could go too. ; )

* My much-younger (30ish) boss is engaged & planning a summer 2012 wedding. Which means she'll probably be pregnant by Christmas 2012, right? Then, of course, she'll go on mat leave for a year... which means I'll have to get used to a new interim boss, again. I've already had three different immediate bosses in the last year & a half. I'm getting too old for this.... :p

* I know she's already got baby fever: I was standing in a group of girls beside her when a woman pushing a stroller with an adorable sleeping baby went by. "My ovaries hurt," she moaned.

* A coworker who's currently on mat leave dropped by today with her dh & their absolutely adorable 6-month-old daughter. I was proud that I felt only the briefest pang. I think I was too enchanted by those chubby cheeks. (Yes, I couldn't resist giving them a gentle pinch!)

* Another coworker's birthday is coming up soon & she's taking the day off. She'll be 26. In other words, I'm definitely old enough to be her mother. Erk.

* As if I needed to be reminded of that, she told me it's her mom's birthday soon too. Her mom will be 52. I'm younger than her mom -- but only just. Double erk.

* Suddenly, I press "publish" on Blogger -- and it actually works!! I haven't been able to do that in months.

* On the other hand, I can no longer get "preview," "link," bullets, boldface, or several other functions on the "compose" window to work now. Arrrrrggggggh. (With comments, it seems like I can comment on some Blogger blogs but not others, depending on how their comment window is configured.)

* All my problems with Blogger started earlier this spring, around the time my browser automatically upgraded itself to IE9. Do you think there might be a link there? Is there anyone out there using Blogger who has NOT had any problems with it over the last several months??

30 years : )

2011-09-29T08:30:00.002-04:00

The exact date is a mystery to me. I didn't realize until much later that it was a day that had changed my life.

But it happened 30 years ago, right about now -- late September/early October 1981. I was in the third year of my four-year arts program, and also my third year of living in the all-girls dorm on campus (which these days in now coed).

I think it was the night of the inter-residence social at university, which brought together students from all the campus residences. Before any big party, though, there was always a pre-party. The girls on my floor would get together with the guys from one of the guys-only floors in the neighbouring residence next door & get a (ahem) head start on the celebrations.

On this night, the party was in their building, in one of the beautiful old oak-panelled lounges with big fireplaces. The guys from this floor were a great bunch, and we wound up partying with them often that year. And I remember having a long conversation with a very cute, very nice guy -- a pre-masters immunology student from Toronto, of all places. That fact alone probably helped him stand out in my mind. We had lots of kids from Manitoba, of course, lots from Saskatchewan & Alberta, lots from Thunder Bay & other towns in northwestern Ontario -- but Toronto?? It wasn't exactly a popular place in western Canada in the early 1980s (& things probably haven't improved much since then). (I'm not sure there's an equivalent relationship in the States.) If someone had told me then that I would wind up living in Toronto, I would have never believed it. Winnipeg, certainly. Calgary, Edmonton, sure. Toronto?? You've got to be kidding.

Anyway -- I wouldn't say it was love at first sight, but we definitely made an impression on each other. I remember going over with some of the other girls to visit some of the guys on his floor that fall. Most of us would keep our doors open unless we were out, asleep or deep in studying, so I poked my head in his door to say hi. "Who's the hunk on your wall?" I asked, pointing to the rock star poster on the wall. "Bruce Springsteen," he said to me. I don't think the expression "Duuhhhhh" had been popularized yet, but he might as well have added it. I should have known -- his nickname on the floor was "Bruuuuucce" (most of the guys had their floor nicknames on the back of their official floor T-shirts, & that was his, & he had already explained to me why).

(Months later, when he went home for the summer -- &, as it turned out, off to do his MBA at another university that fall -- he gave me the poster. It hung on my dorm room wall the next year, & then was rolled up, along with all my other posters, & went into storage in my parents basement. For the next, oh, 26 years. I found it a couple of years back when we were cleaning out my parents' basement, still rolled up, along with all my other posters, in mint condition. I gave most of the other posters to my mom for her next garage sale, but put that one into a box of "stuff to keep." I'm going to retrieve it someday, frame it & hang it in our house.) ; )

But I guess he forgave me for my faux pas, because a few weeks later, at the Halloween party, he (wearing a lab coat) asked me (in a waitress's uniform, with fishnet stockings) to dance. At the Christmas dance, he kissed me under the mistletoe. Sparks were beginning to fly. He later told me he spent his Christmas vacation plotting his next moves.

In January, I became his neighbour for a week when several of us girls on the floor council traded rooms with the guys on his floor's council, & we bonded over a shared love of nightly popcorn. I actually had long had my eye on his good-looking neighbour -- but by the time the neighbour started showing some interest in me, I was already moving on. I danced with both of them at the Ukrainian Christmas social in January, shortly after my 21st birthday -- but I left with the nice, cute guy from Toronto.

Our first official date was Jan. 22, 1982. And we've been together ever since then. : )

*** *** ***

Sadly, the big, beautiful, 100-year-old residence where dh lived, with the beautiful old oak-panelled lounges, closed this spring. Kids today apparently don't like to share communal bathrooms, or bedrooms, for that matter, and the thick, concrete walls aren't conducive to easy wiring for wi-fi and all the other bells & whistles that come with 21st century campus living.

Happily, though, it will gain a new lease on life as the new home to the school of music. Those thick walls may not be great for wi-fi, but they are perfect for practicing musical instruments! And the auditorium where I attended so many dances & parties & movie nights (where, in the early 1970s -- before my time & before they hit the big time -- it's rumoured that KISS played at a dance), & first danced with dh, will be restored to its former glory as a concert hall.

Me & dh (ages 21 & 25), at our residence spring dance, March 1982. : ) My dress cost all of $19,99. ; )

Lurking on my own blog

2011-09-27T19:53:00.006-04:00

Hi, remember me? It seems like forever since I last posted (it's been 16 days), & it's probably a longer drought than I've had for awhile, maybe even ever. My excuse is that it's been a heck of a few weeks at work (& it's not even the REALLY busy season yet...). I HAVE been reading other people's blogs (catching up...!) & commenting, and I have had post topics flit through my head. I've just lacked the time &/or motivation to write them down & develop them.

I shall return... soon...

Sept. 11th, 10 years later

2011-09-11T07:30:00.006-04:00

I wrote a post a few years ago, essentially answering the question, "Where were you on 9-11-01?" I don't have much to add to what I wrote then. It's hard to believe that 10 years has passed, that the world has changed so much (and in some ways, not enough). I never would have believed I would need a passport to drive two miles over the U.S.-Canada border to visit the cemetery where my ancestors are buried. I sometimes wonder what my grandfather (born on a farm near that cemetery -- he used to tell stories about rum runners driving down the back roads at night, during Prohibition...!) would think of all this. :(

CBC has been showing a number of 9-11 related stories from the Canadian perspective. I know if sounds kind of weird to have a favourite 9-11 story, but Brian Clark's has stuck in my mind these past 10 years -- maybe because he's Canadian, maybe because it's such a great story, and maybe because, as the reporter (Alison Smith) says, he tells it so articulately and well -- & I am so glad they revisited him. I love what he says at the end -- essentially that life is a gift, that it can all change in an instant, that we need to appreciate and enjoy every day while we're here. It's a lesson that is familiar to anyone who has endured traumatic loss & grief of any kind, I think -- but it warrants repeating over & over & over again.

(((Hugs))) to all.

It's a girl! : )

2011-09-06T13:30:00.002-04:00

PNGD (daughter of PND) is (FINALLY!) here, safely. My parents called me at work this morning with the happy news, getting ready to head to the hospital. PND thought she was having a boy, but my whole family just knew (& even hoped) it would be a girl -- although needless to say, it is a bittersweet thing for dh & me in some respects.

I don't want to say too much more, because her story is not really mine to tell, but we are all happy & excited (& relieved!), and dh & I can't wait to meet her the next time we are there (probably at Christmastime). As I've written before (& as you can probably guess), I generally avoid Baby Gap like the plague -- but I made a beeline there on my lunch hour, lol. Didn't buy anything (yet) but actually had fun looking.

Thank you for all the prayers & positive thoughts while we waited.

Grade 8

2011-09-05T20:30:00.003-04:00

Tomorrow is the first day of school hereabouts. It's been all the talk on Facebook & my non-ALI message boards, etc., and of course, you can't miss it in all the malls, stores, newspaper & TV ads, etc. etc. Adding to the fun (not), AF decided to pay me an early visit, just in time for this long weekend (impeccable timing, as always...!). My one reprieve this year: the annual Labour Day weekend get-together with dh's cousins was cancelled this year because of the recent death of dh's uncle, so I don't have to listen to all his cousins who are not just moms but also teachers.

Katie would be starting Grade 8 tomorrow. Grade 8!!! I remember my first day (and subsequent days) of Grade 8 very well. We had moved to a new town over the summer, so I was "the new girl." Ugh. Oh well, I survived. I like to think Katie wouldn't have had to go through that. She'd be turning 13 in November. A teenager!

At most schools hereabouts, Grade 8 is the last stop in either elementary or middle school (jr high) before moving on to high school. My understanding is that Grade 8 graduation has become almost as big a deal as high school. In some ways, I'm relieved I don't have to deal with that.

But it hurts too, thinking about how much fun it would have been -- having grad portraits taken & proudly handing them out to friends & relatives, shopping for a nice dress (& no doubt fighting over it, lol), giving her flowers from her dad & me, arranging for hair & nails to be done as a special treat, taking pictures.

I miss my little girl every single day. But tonight, it's hurting a little more than usual. :(

2010: Grade 7

2009: Grade 6

End of August odds & ends

2011-08-31T20:45:00.007-04:00

PNDGS/D is late. He/she was due late last week, but still hasn't put in an appearance. Drs will induce, but not until late NEXT week, by which time his/her mom will be two weeks overdue. Can I tell you how very, very nervous this makes me?? Please send all your prayers, positive thoughts, good vibes, etc., for a healthy delivery for both mom & baby.

Tash had a post today about dealing with clueless relatives that reminded me of an incident a couple of weeks ago. A few days after Katie's anniversary, we attended a memorial mass for dh's uncle, who passed away last month. On this side of the family, all of dh's cousins (including dh & his brother) have now lost one parent, and after the service, several of us were standing outside, talking about the importance of pre-planning funerals and making your wishes known. Dh said, "Well, we've bought a niche," and one of his cousins said, "Oh, at (cemetery where dh's mother is buried)?" "No," said dh, "(suburban cemetery where Katie's ashes are interred)." The cousin looked completely puzzled -- "why there?" Another cousin -- who is a Facebook "friend" of mine and had seen & commented on the photo I'd posted of Katie's niche at the cemetery on her anniversary -- said gently, "They already have someone there." Another completely blank look. In Italian, the one cousin said to the other, "Their daughter -- the baby!" "OHHHHH...." To her credit, the clueless cousin looked quite embarrassed. I jumped in with a comment that we don't intend to use it for awhile, but we decided that if we wanted to be there, we'd better get a spot, & the conversation went on. Dh & I chuckled, ruefully, about it later.

In an unprecedented (and uncharacteristically generous) move by our prime minister, Jack Layton received a state funeral last Saturday in Toronto. The music was fabulous, albeit not your standard funeral fare -- beginning with a saxophone rendition of Van Morrison's "Into the Mystic;" Leonard Cohen's "Hallellujah," as sung by Steven Page, ex-Barenaked Ladies; the Parachute Club's anthem "Rise Up," as sung by original member Lorraine Segato; and wrapping up with a church choir singing an old 1960s hippie anthem, "Get Together." ("Come on, people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now"... only they changed the lyrics to the more politically correct/gender neutral "smile on each other")(!).

Before entering federal politics, Layton was a well known Toronto city councillor and, after his casket lay in state at the Parliament buildings in Ottawa, it was brought to City Hall in Toronto. Outside, a makeshift "shrine" sprang up of flowers, photos and cans of orange Crush (orange being the colour of the NDP). And then, someone wrote a message on the pavement, in chalk, and left a bucket of chalk behind. People started writing their own messages. Within hours, the huge expanse of Nathan Phillips Square was covered in chalk tributes. There was a a wicked thunderstorm that washed them all away on Monday night, but by Tuesday morning, they were more. I work not far from City Hall, and while I didn't think I had time to stand in line and pay my respects, I did walk up to the square on my Friday lunchhour to view the chalk tributes (& leave one of my own). It was an extraordinary, moving sight. This Flickr photo by Jackson Chiu gives you an idea of what the scene was like (although there were a lot more people walking around, reading the messages, when I was there).

When real life meets blogging life

2011-08-26T21:20:00.000-04:00

Last week, I met my first blogger "in real life." I've met online friends before, from both the ALI & scrapbooking worlds -- and, when I was in high school, long before the Internet, I had actual penpals that I wrote letters to and met face to face (including one I am still in touch with today) -- but never a blogger.

It's always a slightly unnerving feeling, meeting someone you've never actually met face to face, but who has also been privy to some of your innermost thoughts & feelings, wondering if you're going to live up to the picture in their mind they have of you. And then there's the whole "stranger from the Internet thing," which I still get lectured about by dh from time to time. Fortunately, aside from the occasional awkward pause, the vast majority of my Internet friends have turned out to be just as delightful "in real life" as they have been onscreen.

(And I know dh is not the only skeptical husband out there. The very first Internet friend I met was a woman from a pregnancy e-mail list we both belonged to. I noticed some references in one of her posts that sounded local, & contacted her off list. Not only was she from the same general vicinity as me, she was about the same age as me, AND we both happened to work for the same company, albeit in different locations. I had mentioned a Christmas ornament I had bought for Katie & she expressed an interest in getting one for her stillborn son. So I got her one, & we agreed to meet at a local coffee shop. Dh came with me, & while we were there, she got a cellphone call from HER husband. "No, they're not axe murderers," she said, rolling her eyes at me in conspiratorial fashion while dh looked embarrassed & I stifled a giggle. I haven't seen or heard from her in a long time, but I did have coffee with her again a year or two after our initial meeting, when I was visiting her location on business.)

*** *** ***

If I remember correctly, I found Deathstar through her comments on Pamela's first blog, Coming2Terms. I loved Deathstar's sassy comments & followed her back to her own kickass blog, A Woman My Age. Deathstar writes with honesty and humour about her ongoing struggles to balance parenting after infertility & adoption with home, husband, dog, aging mother, faith (Buddhism) and an acting career.

One of the benefits of working in the heart of downtown Toronto is that I'm close to many of the most popular hotels & tourist spots -- which is great for meetups with friends & relatives who are passing through. Deathstar happened to be planning a visit to Toronto, & I commented that if she needed a break, she should look me up for lunch or coffee.

Much to my delight, she took me up on the invitation. We arranged to meet at a pub close to my office. There was a bit of a comedy of errors -- I was waiting outside on the street while she had arrived early & was already waiting inside, with no cellphone signal. Just as I was asking the waitress on the outside patio if she could check the reservation list to see if my party had already arrived, Deathstar emerged & enveloped me in a huge hug.

We spent the next hour (OK, two hours, lol -- fortunately it was a slow day at the office...!) talking and laughing and wiping away tears, and talking some more and eating fish & chips (if that was a half portion, I'd hate to see the full.) It felt like being with an old friend -- because, of course, we were, even though we had never seen each other before in our lives. (Or maybe we have. As it turns out, Deathstar actually used to work in my office tower, a couple of floors above mine. We've probably been in the same elevator together dozens of times & never even knew it. The world is much smaller than we think it is sometimes.)

There's blogging life, and there's real life. And sometimes they intersect. I'm so glad that, in this case, they did. : )

Goodbye, Jack :(

2011-08-22T20:34:00.011-04:00

Jack Layton died today from cancer at the too-young age of 61 -- and all across Canada, people of all political stripes are sharing their sadness. (Mohammar Gaddhafi who?)

For those of you outside Canada, Jack Layton was the leader of the federal New Democratic Party (NDP) -- left-wing/socialist in leaning and perennially in third place behind the Liberals and Conservatives.

Until the election earlier this spring, when Layton led his party into second place, thanks to a breakthrough in his home province in Quebec, which gave the party enough seats to become the Official Opposition. It was a great triumph. Even people who would never vote NDP voted him the leader they'd most like to sit down with over a beer.

He had recently battled prostate cancer -- the same disease that killed his father (also a politician) -- campaigned with a pronounced limp and walked with a cane -- yet nothing seemed to slow him down, nor erase the smile from his face.

That's why it was such a shock when, only a month ago, he showed up at a news conference looking pale and gaunt, announcing that he was taking a leave of absence to battle a new cancer. He said he was looking forward to leading his caucus when Parliament resumed in September. I was on vacation at my parents' house and saw the press conference live. We all gasped when we saw him. We knew it didn't look good, but I don't think anyone expected that he would be gone just a few weeks later.

Before he went into federal politics, Jack Layton -- although born & raised in Quebec -- was a very well known municipal politician in Toronto. He never saw a TV camera or a microphone he didn't love. I used to see him now & then as we walked through Union Station in the morning, en route to work, promoting one of his pet causes -- for example, handing out white ribbons on Dec. 6th to show his support for stopping violence against women. Dh & I would both roll our eyes. (ETA: not because of the cause itself, but "there's Jack, at it again.") But like many other Canadians in recent years, he won our respect and our affection (if not our votes) with his determination, his cheerfulness, and his dedication to his principles.

Tonight, I'm thinking about his wife, fellow member of Parliament and constant companion, Olivia Chow. Whatever you thought about their politics, there was no doubt they absolutely adored each other. They went everywhere together, even rode a bicycle built for two. They didn't have any children together (although Jack had two adult children from his first marriage, and a granddaughter, Beatrice, whom he adored). They kind of reminded me of another couple I know. ; )

Before he died, he wrote a letter that he gave to Olivia to be released in the event of his death. Its closing words read:

"My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we'll change the world."

Amen.

Summer reading

2011-08-20T20:45:00.016-04:00

One of the things I love about going on vacation is having oodles of free time (&, admittedly, less time on the computer, erk...) to read... not just the daily papers & magazines, but books. I can usually read about two books in a week at my mom & dad's, so I brought five with me for our recent two-week vacation, & got through four & a bit. I also finished one just before vacation, and two since then = 8 this summer. They were all great reads, and (while I didn't intend it this way) almost all included at least some passing reference to grief/loss, perinatal loss &/or infertility.

William and Kate by Christopher Anderson tells the story of the world's most famous newlyweds. I found it a pretty easy read, and while I've read a LOT on the royals over the years, I actually learned some stuff I hadn't known before. It was interesting to learn more about Kate & her family too.

From an ALI angle, the loss of William's mother, Diana, and its ongoing impact on his life, is examined. And of course, Kate's stomach, or lack thereof, has become tabloid fodder, even before the wedding.

About a year ago at Christmastime, I finally got to read a novel I had been hearing good things about, called The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by a Canadian author named Alan Bradley. I loved it, and while I was on vacation, I read the second book in what is going to be an ongoing series, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag. And I've just finished reading the third book in the series, A Red Herring Without Mustard. (A fourth is to be released in November.)

The books are all mysteries, set in early 1950s postwar England, featuring a precocious 11-year-old heroine with a passion for poison named Flavia de Luce. Young Flavia lives with her absent-minded stamp collecting father and her two mean older sisters in a crumbling mansion in the English countryside. As The Globe and Mail's review describes, "She’s Harriet the Spy by way of Agatha Christie, with a dash of Lemony Snicket and the Addams Family. Who could resist?" I couldn't help but think these books would make great Masterpiece Theatre Mystery movies on PBS.

From an ALI angle, "The Weed That Strings" features a pregnancy subplot and the tragic death of a child. All three books feature the haunting (almost literally) presence of the young heroine's mother, who died when Flavia was a baby.

I finally got around to reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett while I was on vacation, which has been in my "to read" pile for more than a year. I knew the movie was coming out in August and I was determined to have the book read before I went to see it.

I know there has been controversy in some circles about the historic improbability of the plot, not to mention the structure of the story (should a white woman be appropriating black women's voices and stories? -- both Stockett and her white heroine, Skeeter). I did think, as I read, "HIGHLY unlikely" (that this would have happened in early 1960s Mississippi).

But I was able to overcome that and take the story at face value, on its own merits. It's fiction, all right, but it's a story that's well told with wonderful characters. It's got people thinking and talking about that time in U.S. history again, and about a part of black history and race relations that hasn't received much attention before, and from the often-neglected female perspective. What's so bad about that?

Dh & I went to see the movie last week and both of us enjoyed it hugely. To my relief, it was mostly faithful to the book and was extremely well acted all round, with more great parts for more female actors than I've seen in a long time. The two actresses who played the maids, Viola Davis and Octavia Spencer, in particular, were absolutely wonderful, and I hope Oscar will remember them when nomination time rolls around.

ALI angle: One of the characters has a history of multiple miscarriages.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot was the next book I read after "The Help," and was an interesting companion piece to that story. The immortal cells grown from a tissue sample taken from Lacks -- a poor black woman from the South, who died of cervical cancer in the early 1950s -- paved the way for some of the most important medical developments of the last half of the 20th century, including a polio vaccine and (from an ALI viewpoint) cloning and IVF. (Lacks's doctor went on to become one of the pioneers of IVF in the United States.)

The questions of medical and scientific ethics raised by the book echo the questions raised by ARTs -- and I was moved by the Lacks's family's ongoing struggle to learn more about the mother they barely remember and what happened to her cells -- and to ensure her legacy is recognized and honoured --a disenfranchised form of grief not entirely unlike the disenfranchised grief experienced by perinatally bereaved parents. This book seems like a highly unlikely subject for a bestseller, but it's a fascinating story, well told, and I think it deserves all the critical praise it has received.

Next on my reading list was One Day by David Nicholl, the story of Emma & Dex, who meet on their university graduation day in Edinburgh, Scotland, July 15, 1988. The "gimmick" of the book is that each chapter features Emma &/or Dex on one day, July 15, every year for the next 20 years. Grief and loss of various types are woven throughout the book, and infertility also makes an appearance.

I enjoyed the book overall, although it dragged a little, and the climax had me exclaiming out loud, "Awww, you've GOT to be kidding!!" It does end on a sadly sweet note, however.

The movie adaptation, starring Jim Sturgess and Anne Hathaway, was just released, to lukewarm reviews. I think we might still go see it anyway. ; )

I'd been hearing alot of buzz about The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson. It's a quick read, not too long, and quirky. Written from a first-person perspective, it has Ronson examining the whole concept of psychopathy. How can we tell whether someone is a psychopath? Who decides? Is it possible to cure a psychopath? These are some of the questions the book poses. It's interesting and even entertaining stuff -- although I found myself questioning the wisdom of using it as bedtime reading as I lay awake with some disturbing images and questions running through my head (be forewarned!). Not really any ALI angles -- BUT, one of the featured cases involves a blogger and the commenters who make her life miserable.

Right now, I am just finishing reading Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher. Fisher's one-woman show of the same name has just finished a brief run in Toronto. I had hoped to get to see it (which is why the book was in my pile), but the show ends tomorrow -- sooner than I had thought. Oh well. :(

As I've admitted previously on this blog, I have a weakness for Hollywood biographies & memoirs, and I'm familiar with the story of Fisher's life and those of her parents, Debbie Reynolds and Eddie Fisher. Still, it's fun to read from Fisher's perspective. Not for nothing is she known as one of Hollywood's best comedy script doctors.

So what have you been reading this summer?

25 years at work (long post)

2011-08-15T19:00:00.061-04:00

I learned to write around the same time that I learned how to read -- early, when I was about 4 years old. My dad would bring home paper, pens & scotch tape for us from the office, and we always had plenty of crayons & colouring books in the house. I wrote stories, letters (to Santa and my grandma), drew pictures & made cards. Some of these pieces still survive, preserved in my mother's basement all these years (and some of them are pretty frickin' hilarious to read as an adult). When I was 7, I started my first journal in a little green coil-bound notebook, and have continued to write about my life, on & off, on paper and online (in e-mails, on message boards and in this blog), ever since then.

I loved my books, and I can remember wanting to "be an author" when I grew up from at least the time I was in grade school. But, as I got older, I began to realize that not many people actually made money, a living, writing books. And, this being the '70s, I accepted the idea that women could (& maybe even should) have a career, make a living, contribute to the family economically, support themselves, if they had to. I don't remember when the concept of "journalism" entered my life, but we always had newspapers around the house, and I read them from the time I was in grade school. Gradually, I realized that I could make a living writing for a newspaper.

Not just any paper, of course. The newspaper of choice for my family was the Winnipeg Tribune, and to be a reporter for the Tribune seemed like the pinnacle of achievement for me at that time, careerwise. (I also envisioned being married -- to a doctor or lawyer, of course -- having a family, and living in a lovely house, in Tuxedo or Charleswood -- the most affluent suburbs of the city, of course.)

I wasn't quite sure how I would obtain all these goals (nevermind do all these things at once). Thinking about it now, it strikes me about how unfocused & unsure I was about how to turn my dreams into reality -- especially when I think about my own teenage years compared to today's teenagers --- focused, driven by ambition (and their ambitious parents), with so much information at their fingertips with the Internet...! I did the usual things that seemed conducive to a career in journalism career -- I wrote for the high school newsletter (such as it was), and worked on the yearbook. I also had the brilliant idea of writing to the editor of the Tribune, who just happened to be a woman -- one of the very few in the field at that time. She wrote me a very kind letter back (which I know is still tucked away in the depths of my closet at my parents' house), answering my questions, nurturing my ambitions and offering advice. I was thrilled.

I also had a guidance counsellor who, bless him, took my ambitions seriously, and showed me the catalog (paper at that time, of course) for Carleton University in Ottawa, which boasted the country's most famous journalism program. At that time & place, however, Ottawa might as well have been Timbuktu. Like most of my classmates, I just couldn't fathom going somewhere so far away from home -- even if I could afford to. Getting together enough money to go to a local university seemed daunting enough.

And so, in the fall of 1979, I enrolled in the arts program at the University of Manitoba. The following year, my father was transferred to another town. There was very little available in the way of housing, and eventually he and my mother decided to build a house. The furniture went into storage, my father lived in the town's lone motel, my mother (not even 40 years old yet) spent several months bouncing around from the motel to my grandparents' house to visiting friends, until the house was (barely) finished just before Christmas -- and my sister & I went into separate residences at the university.

As my mother, sister & I supervised the movers who were packing up our house in the dwindling days of August 1980, the axe fell on the Winnipeg Tribune and several others across Canada on the same day. The closing was a shock to me, a wake-up call to the brutalities of real life and the business world. I felt like my world was falling apart: no home, no future.

Anyway. I finished my undergrad degree & applied for post-graduate programs -- a one year program at Carleton, a one-year program at Ryerson in Toronto and a one-year master of arts program at the University of Western Ontario (which was my first choice, since I would get a master's degree out of the deal). I was initially turned down, but asked if I wanted to stay on the waiting list. I said yes, and a few weeks later, I got the call: I was in.

*** *** ***

"Corporate communications" was only just beginning to be recognized as a legitimate career choice. These days you can actually get a certificate in it at some community colleges. Most of my J-school classmates & I still thought in terms of getting jobs at newspapers and magazines, radio and television stations. We were the first class to abandon typewriters for computers (black screens with glowing green type and a continuous form dot-matrix printer shared by 35 people), and some of my classmates participated in an experimental computer news service for farmers. When I graduated, I managed to wangle a job on the weekly newspaper in the town where my parents now lived -- a way to gain experience, earn some money (at barely above minimum wage) & bide my time until dh & I got married the following year.

I had very few contacts in Toronto when I moved here after our wedding, and we scraped by on my unemployment insurance cheques for awhile (which would never happen these days; the eligibility rules have gotten much tighter). When those ran out, I signed up with a temp agency doing clerical work.

Then I saw a newspaper ad for for a writer/editor position at one of the two banks my father had worked for when I was growing up. I hesitated: my sister and I DESPISED the bank when we were growing up. The bank was the reason why we had to move and leave our friends behind every three to five years, interrupting the family vacation plans we had already made. We both swore that we would never, ever marry bankers.

But it was a job in my field, and a pretty good one. I applied, I went for some interviews. I got the job. (Ironically, my sister wound up working for many years at the other bank my dad had worked for. I have often quipped that, to paraphrase Gloria Steinem, we became the men we didn't want to marry.)

I started work on August 11, 1986.

Last week was my 25th anniversary, not only with the bank, but with the department.

*** *** ***

Others in my department have been with the bank longer, coming from other areas -- but nobody has been with the department longer than me. I've outlasted everyone I started working with, by more at least five years if not more.

I know sometimes people find this incredible (myself included, sometimes). Everyone has heard the prevailing wisdom that loyalty & longevity with one employer is dead; that we will have multiple employers during our working life. Even within my company, anyone who has ambitions to climb the corporate ladder these days is encouraged to cross business lines in search of broad experience rather than specializing. The current head of our department, who came up through the business lines rather than journalism or communications, is very much a proponent of that thinking. As a result, turnover in our department has increased exponentially over the past few years.

But I'm still there. And I'm fine with that.

Today, there are many more opportunities for communicators, generally, and at my company (it seems like every department has at least one). But the truth is, I've never really wanted to work for another company, or even another department. I am a creature of habit, of course. I don't like to rock the boat unnecessarily.

Moreover, I have never really wanted to climb the corporate ladder. It didn't take me long to look at the headaches my bosses had to deal with and decide I didn't want or need that; I have enough stress in my own job as it is. Managing budgets and people has never interested me as much as the words, as the writing itself, as telling a story (even if it is only about a new account or executive appointment). And, as one of my bosses once observed, noting the growing numbers of management-level employees in our department at that time, "Too many chiefs, not enough Indians." -- i.e., you can plan & strategize and create business cases and project plans & dashboards and budgets till the cows come home -- but eventually, someone has to do the actual work.

Sometimes it's hard being the person who stays while everyone else moves on, eventually. You start to feel like part of the furniture, and sometimes, taken a little for granted. It's hard when new people come in and make changes and don't really seem interested in what was done in the past and WHY, even if the lessons learned 10 years ago might still be valid.

But longevity also gives you perspective, I think. I've had the really good fortune of working for, and with, some really great people, for the most part. There have been a few jerks along the way, of course (they're unavoidable, wherever you work), including some who made me question whether I should start polishing up my resume. But time and time again, the jerks eventually either moved on (or were asked to move on). The pendulum might swing too far one way or another for awhile, but I've been around long enough to know that, eventually, it will start moving back toward the centre again.

And there are material benefits to longevity. I've built up a pretty nice pension, or will have by the time I'm ready to retire -- assuming I don't get pinkslipped first. :p I know no job is certain these days, nor pension plans, it seems (although mine is one of the country's better funded ones).

I suppose some people might think that, being childless, I would be more career focused than I am. Isn't that the stereotype? But infertility and stillbirth have given me a different perspective on work and its place in my life.

Work is important, of course. Without children, my expenses might be lower in some respects than those of parents, but I still need to keep a roof over my head & food on the table, the same as anyone else. Moreover, I won't have any children to take care of me in my old age -- I have to have money saved to hire the help I will need. And, for the most part, I like what I do, and I like the people I work with (which is hugely important). I always wanted to be a writer when I grew up, and while I could never have envisioned writing letters and speeches for executives and copy for the annual report when I was 12, the fact is, I AM writing for a living. And I think I'm reasonably good at it, if I do say so myself. There are far worse ways to be making a living, and although I sometimes grumble, I work for a pretty good company when all is said & done.

But I work to live -- I don't live to work. There's nothing like losing a child to make you re-examine your priorities in life, and while I wasn't wildly ambitious pre-Katie, losing her certainly didn't make me any nore so. Dh, home, family -- those things come first. I may not have kids, but I do have a life, and I don't want to spend any more of it at the office than I absolutely have to.

I often wondered how I would manage to juggle work and family. I didn't think I could afford to be a stay-at-home mom, & part of me didn't think I would be able to hack it. I've always thought part-time was the way to go, so long as you could afford it, and my office best friend/coworker & I tentatively explored the idea of sharing a job as she wound her way down to retirement. But I never did get pregnant again, and her stock portfolio took a hit after the dot-com boom went bust. So we both kept working full-time -- she retired five years ago, and I'm still there, for another few years (minimum 5, maximum 15), if all goes well.

*** *** ***

Earlier last week, my senior manager e-mailed me. We had missed our regular "touchbase" and she suggested we do it over lunch last Thursday. Ummm, yeah, right, OK. ; ) I e-mailed dh, "Do you think it's JUST a coincidence...??!" So I wasn't entirely surprised to walk into the restaurant to find our entire immediate team there -- along with my retired coworker. It was the perfect way to celebrate.

A few weeks ago, I received my official anniversary gift from the company, which I had chosen a few weeks before that -- a lovely watch. In September, dh & I will be attending a banquet for all the long-service employees from our head office who are celebrating significant anniversaries this year.

And I've been forewarned to be ready to say a few words at our all-department meeting later this week. Other coworkers have already been dropping by cubicle since the luncheon to congratulate me. The younger ones have been helpfully adding stuff like, "Gee, *I* just turned 25!" Ummm, I don't need to hear that, lol. But it's the thought that counts, right...?? (Someday, they will understand...!)

Finally...

2011-08-14T17:31:00.006-04:00

A columnist who's speaking (writing?) positively on our behalf.

No comments yet... but I'm sure they are coming (and I'm also sure they won't be pretty...).

A healthy choice: funding in-vitro

Aftermath, & hope for the future

2011-08-08T20:45:00.001-04:00

Thank you for all your good wishes these last few days. The rest of the weekend was much better, thankfully. : )

For starters, one of my oldest ( = time I've known her, not necessarily age, lol) & dearest online friends, JuliaS., who lost her daughter Carena the same day I lost Katie, was the first to message me, as she always is.

Sunday, dh took our traditional bouquet of pink roses to the cemetery. I took a photo & posted it on Facebook -- only the second time I've done something like that. So far, I've had six "likes" and 26 comments. The majority are from online & support group friends, but there are some others too, which is nice to see. : )

Then, this morning, I discovered that another dear online friend -- from the childless living board I've blogged about -- (who has since moved on to adopt two beautiful children) had written a blog post about Katie, and what Katie means to her. I was floored, and dh is still raving about it tonight. Thank you so much (again), Karen! We will treasure your words always.

*** *** ***

One of the harder parts about childless/free living -- particularly for someone like me, who is into family history and treasures every photo and attaches meaning to all kinds of things associated with the people I love -- is the sadness I feel when I think that there will be nobody to pass these things along to, nobody who will appreciate them in the way that I hoped my own children would

Six years ago, when my one cousin's daughter graduated from high school, I decided (after much inner debate -- it is hard for me to let go of things like this that mean so much to me) that she should have my grandmother's high school ring as a gift.

As I blogged here, three years ago, I was sad and disappointed that the gift was never acknowledged.

Nevertheless, my other cousin's daughter graduated this year, & I felt that, to be fair, I should think of an equivalent gift to give to her.

Around the time I went to grad school, in the early 1980s, the "preppy" look was very "in," particularly at the school I was attending, which has a reputation as one of the more "American/Ivy League" universities in Canada. Pearls were back in fashion, & somehow, they came up in a conversation withe my grandmother.

"Oh, I have some pearls you can have," she said, and the next time I saw her, she gave them to me. She didn't remember how or where she got them, but said she never wore them & they were just collecting dust in one of her drawers. I don't believe they're real pearls -- my family didn't and doesn't have that kind of money -- but they were still nice, slightly yellowed with age. The string looked a little fragile in places, so I took them to a jeweller & had them restrung, knotted (so that if the string broke, they wouldn't all slide off) & a new clasp added. I wore them a lot over the next few years, including as the "something old" on my wedding day. But I haven't worn them in awhile, and I do have another, newer pearl necklace to wear if I want to.

So I packaged them up & sent them to my cousin's daughter with a card and a handwritten note, explaining the story behind the pearls & expressing my hope that she would likewise give them to her daughter or niece or cousin someday. This morning, her mom messaged me on Facebook -- the package had arrived, and her daughter loved it. She noted what a special gift it was, and added, "So glad we have someone like you to pass along family history and heirlooms."

Well, as you can imagine, that made my day. (I still hope that she'll eventually contact me herself with her own thank you, whether in a written note or online -- but this time, at least I know she got it!)

In a similar vein, we celebrated our nephew's 19th birthday on Saturday night, nephew's birthday. This fall, he'll be starting his second year of university and -- as we did last year on his high school graduation -- we presented him with a cheque to help defray some of his expenses. "THANK YOU!" he said, giving each of us a big hug. We are so happy that we're in a position to help him out a bit -- and his brother too, if/when he ever returns to school (or buys a house or some other such life goal).

Doing things like this -- and getting these kinds of reactions -- gives me hope for the future -- that maybe we'll actually have visitors at the old folks home now & then ; ) & people who will listen to (and actually be interested in) our stories -- who will know and value the meanings behind some of the things we give to them, and remember us when we are gone.

Words are flowing... pools of sorrow

2011-08-05T18:30:00.000-04:00

I thought I was going to be all right today.

And then a coworker whose cubicle is near mine started showing off her adult daughter's ultrasound -- i.e., her expected grandchild -- to her team.

"That's my grandbaby," she said in (understandable) delight. "They said the baby was moving all over the place," she added, as a chorus of female "Awwww!"s went up -- and I -- who endured an ultrasound 13 years ago today that confirmed that my baby was going to be born silent & still -- couldn't help overhear.

She said the due date is Feb. 7th. My LMP date with Katie was Feb. 8th.

People from other areas of the department kept coming by on & off during the day to look & gush. Another coworker brought over one of HER relatives' ultrasounds for comparison. After awhile, things died down -- and then our department's senior executive dropped by, got shown the picture, gushed over it, and started talking about HER grandchild. I thought I was going to scream. Needless to say, I did NOT getting much work done, even though there was lots to do that had piled up while I was away the past two weeks.

Then I went to read the Stirrup Queen's Friday roundup (which actually wasn't a roundup this week, because of the BlogHer convention) -- and Angie at Still Life With Circles mentioned a wonderful comment that Esperanza had left her. The post was built around the Beatles song "Across the Universe," which I love.

Then I read Esperanza's beautiful comment, which mentioned the song "Somewhere Out There" from the movie "An American Tale." Dh & I saw & LOVED that movie & that song. Just thinking about the little brother & sister mice, looking out their respective windows, far away from each other, & singing to the moon in those sweet childish voices (not to mention the Linda Ronstadt & James Ingram version), would get me tearing up -- long before Katie.

Somewhere out there beneath the pale moonlight
Someone's thinking of me and loving me tonight
Somewhere out there someone's saying a prayer
That we'll find one another in that big somewhere out there
And even though I know how very far apart we are
It helps to think we might be wishing on the same bright star
And when the night wind starts to sing a lonesome lullaby
It helps to think we're sleeping underneath the same big sky
Somewhere out there if love can see us through
Then we'll be together somewhere out there
Out where dreams come true

Needless to say, it had the same effect on me today, if not moreso. I sat in my cubicle sobbing -- not loudly enough for anyone to hear me, but enough to ruin my makeup for the day.

I used to try to take at least one of these two days off (Aug. 5th or 7th) if they didn't fall on a weekend. Aug. 7th is a Sunday this year, so I thought I'd be OK working on the 5th. And sometimes I am. But today I wasn't, & I was wishing I had taken the time off, even if I am just back from vacation. Note for future reference. :p

As I told Msfitzita in a comment about a recent post, "When the going gets tough... the tough go shopping." ; ) I took a long lunch hour & treated myself to some new CDs & lipsticks. ; ) And then some fish & chips (greasy, but comforting). And a Starbucks tea latte later. ; ) Then dh & I went home where, finally, behind closed doors, we were able to hug, & I finished off my remaining mascara, thinking about that horrible homecoming from the hospital, 13 years earlier.

As usual, the Beatles said it best. Nothing's gonna change my world. Nothing can bring her back. Pools of sorrow... but also waves of joy.

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither while they pass they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my opened mind,
Possessing and caressing me.
Jai guru deva, om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
They call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Jai guru deva, om,
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Sounds of laughter shades of life are ringing
Through my opened ears inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying Love which shines around me like a
million suns, and calls me on and on
Across the universe
Jai guru deva, om,
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva
Jai guru deva

13

2011-08-05T07:30:00.013-04:00

I don't know if today will be lucky, unlucky or (most likely) something in between. But 13 years ago today, August 5th, 1998, became the worst day of my life, before or since -- the day I went for my six-month prenatal appointment, and learned that my baby girl, the baby I had hoped and waited so long for, the only baby I would ever have, was dead inside of me.

Two days later, I delivered and held her tiny, lifeless body for a few all-too-brief hours. It was the thunderbolt that split my life in two -- before and after stillbirth, the life I thought I was going to have and the life I ended up with.

One month earlier, on July 6th, dh & I had marked our 13th wedding anniversary. Well, sort of. We had to cancel our plans for dinner because I came down with a migraine. An omen, perhaps?

Had she lived, our little girl would be entering her teenage years in mid-November. I know some parents like to joke about how the teenage years are "every parent's nightmare." I want to tell them I've already lived every parent's worst nightmare, & believe me, having a teenager ain't it.

I'm writing this post in advance and, as usual, I am not sure how I am going to be feeling today or Sunday. There is so much I could say (& have already said, over the past almost-four years in this blog and, before blogging, on message boards and listservs).

I guess what I want to say, right now, is this: it's 13 years later, and yes, I've survived. I'm 50 years old, infertile and childless (in the living child sense), and know that I will remain so -- but I'm still here. Doing pretty well in many respects, actually.

But while I'm in a much better place overall than I was then, stillbirth still sucks just as much as it ever did.

And I still miss my daughter.

I will love her & miss her as long as I live.

12 (August 7, 2010)

11 (August 5, 2009)

10 (August 7, 2008)

1998 Memories: Wednesday, August 5, 1998: Gone

1998 Memories: Friday, August 7/Saturday, August 8, 1998

Waiting for PNGD/S

2011-08-04T19:46:00.034-04:00

My Parents' Neighbours' Daughter (PND) is in her last few weeks of pregnancy. I still tend to think of her as an adorable toddler in a pink snowsuit sometimes, so it was a surreal moment when she and her gigantic belly came through the door of my parents' house while we were on vacation there recently. Harder still to believe that the next time we see her, at Christmas, she will have a baby of her own in tow. Maybe even in a pink snowsuit. ; ) (My secret hope.)(She doesn't know yet if it's pink or blue.)

Of course, both dh & I are nervous as all get out for her, & hoping beyond hope that all goes well. PND was 14 when I lost Katie, so she knows what happened -- but I'm not sure how much she has related our story to her own pregnancy. Not much, is my guess. She is bubbling over with chatter -- about her prenatal appointments, the great stuff she's picked up for the baby at garage sales, the colour she's painting the baby's room, the baby names they've chosen, about her friends' kids and pregnancies (she says she can count more than a dozen other girls she knows who are also expecting right now) -- just like any typical young 20-something mother-to-be.

Unlike most expectant mothers (even the non-infertile/non-bereaved variety), however, she played tag football (with other girls, but still...!) earlier in her pregnancy, and went golfing while we were there, on a day when the humidex reading was something like 47C (37C is about 97F, if that gives you any idea how hot & humid it was). Needless to say, dh & I (not to mention my mother!) had fits when we heard that. Part of me envies her that youthful innocence, the sure knowledge that pregnancy = baby, and that bad things only happen to other people. :(

*** *** ***

As I've written before (almost exactly two years ago, in fact!), my mother keeps a little wooden chest in her spare bedroom (where we stay when we're there), filled with the things she bought for Katie & gifts that her friends had given her for the baby. :( I've peeked in there, but I've never gone entirely through it all. I'd like Mom to do it with me, tell me what came from who -- but I know that would be a hugely emotional hour or so, & I just haven't had the strength to bring it up. :( I know from peeking in that there is a bunting bag, some Bunnykins baby china, & a few outfits -- including one knitted by Mom's neighbour, M -- who sadly passed away about 10 years ago now, but lived next door to PND & her family as PND grew up, and treated PND & her brothers like her own grandchildren.

While we were there, Mom asked me what I thought about giving M's outfit to PND for her baby, that it might be meaningful to her since M made it.

I couldn't speak for a moment -- and I think Mom sensed that I wasn't too keen on the idea.

Frankly, I'm not.

Honestly, if I gave any of my baby things to anyone, it would be to PND.

But.

Call me selfish -- but because my pregnancy was so tentative for so long, I didn't buy a whole lot of baby stuff -- so I have very few outfits or other things that were Katie's, or supposed to be hers. I know they are just sitting there, collecting dust, while someone else could be making use of them -- but frankly, I don't want to share. ; )

I did mention to Mom that, totally aside from anything that I might feel (and while I don't think PND would ever say anything), some people might feel funny about using things that were intended for/associated with a dead baby. I don't think she had thought about it from that angle, and she let the subject drop after that.

That's one reason why I've never offered my maternity clothes or Katie's bedding set to anyone that I know. I'm not sure which would be worse -- to have someone look horrified by the thought, or to see someone walking around pregnant in MY clothes. :(

*** *** ***

Please send prayers & positive thoughts that all goes well for PND & her baby. If not for her sake, for mine & dh's. ; )

Post-vacation odds & ends

2011-08-03T21:20:00.000-04:00

Yes, I was on vacation. Did you notice I was gone??
One of the best things about vacation is having lots & lots of time to get lost in lots & lots of books. : ) I'll be posting separately, shortly, about some of what I read.
If you thought Facebook was a minefield before, get this: if you're pregnant, you can now list your expected child's name and due date under your "family members." Thanks (...I think??!) to Apron Strings Emily for bringing this one to my attention.
Even after being away for just two weeks, things change and take you by surprise. For example -- the newsstand in the concourse of my office tower, where I stop almost every day to buy magazines and lottery tickets and breathmints and chocolate, is closed for renovations. Like Joni Mitchell sang, sometimes you don't know what you've got till it's gone. : ( Hurry back, newsstand!
On a related note, I was shopping in the concourse of the next office tower over from mine yesterday, and noticed that a new maternity wear shop will be opening soon -- conveniently located right next door to Baby Gap. :p
On another note somewhat related to the last one: Is it just me?? I swear that every other woman I saw today was sporting a hugely pregnant belly, an infant carrier or pushing a gigantic baby stroller. :p Most weeks, I don't notice this as much, and even when I do, it doesn't bother me these days. (Much.)
Of course, this week is not like most. August 5 & 7 are fast approaching. :( I'm sure that has something to do with it. More on that later too.

10 years childless/free

2011-07-18T17:00:00.003-04:00

Recently, someone posted a link to a New York Times article about "The Decline of the Online Message Board." That prompted a discussion on our Promp-ly writing group around the question of whether message boards were still relevant & who still frequents them.

It was, as I noted on the group (which, ironically, is really a message board itself) a timely discussion for me. Blogs weren't around when I was going through ttc, stillbirth and infertility treatment -- but listservs and message boards were, and they were (and remain) an enormous source of support for me.

Ten years ago today, on July 18, 2001, I made my very first post on an iVillage Childless Living message board, for women who were childless not by choice. I had been lurking on the board for several days & while I hadn't had much experience with message boards, I decided to take a leap of faith, put myself out there publicly and join in the conversation. Not only was this one of the first message boards I had ever posted on, period, but -- after a long struggle with stillbirth and infertility treatment -- I was, essentially, admitting to myself and to the cybersphere that our ttc journey truly had come to an end, that we were not going to have children after all.

I've written about the board and what it's meant to me before -- most notably here, two years ago, and here, three years ago, when the board finally (sadly) disappeared from the cyberspace. Some people have drifted away over the years, for whatever reasons, but I'm still in touch with half a dozen of those women, on another (private) message board we set up, and on Facebook, and I've met two of them "in real life."

Admittedly, we don't post as often as we once did and, as time has blunted the sharp edges of grief, we write less and less often about childless living specifically. But on the days when an "anniversary" has us feeling emotional, when someone lobs an unkind or unthinking comment about our childlessness that cuts one of us to the bone, when something happens to remind us about the life we thought we'd once have and the experiences we are missing out on, we come to the board to vent our hurt and frustrations, and to give each other the cyberhugs and support that we can only get from each other -- from other women who have been there, done that, and truly understand what it's like to walk a mile or 10 in our shoes.

I simply couldn't let this milestone day go by without paying tribute once again to the board that brought me together with these women, and to the huge role they have played in my life these last 10 years. I can't imagine how I would have gotten through it all without them.

Odds & ends

2011-07-15T21:43:00.004-04:00

When we visited Katie at the cemetery recently, we noticed that someone had placed a single red rose in her niche vase.

There was one other niche that also had a similar rose in it, & we are thinking that perhaps it was someone from that family who did it. Perhaps they have visited before, and were touched to realize that the niche near their loved ones was for a baby.

Whoever that kind soul(s) is (are), dh & I thank them. Sometimes it's sad knowing we are the only ones who visit Katie in the cemetery. I know FIL did a few times shortly after our loss, but that was a long time ago now... and I know that some of our support group friends whose children are buried nearby have also visited in the past, but most of them don't visit their own children very often (let alone our daughter).

*** *** ***

What do you think of the term "circumstantially infertile"?? I've heard of (& think I much prefer) "childless by circumstance," but "circumstantially infertile??" It comes from this piece in The Huffington Post by Melanie Notkin, founder of the site Savvy Auntie and a self-coined "PANK (Professional Aunt No Kids") (can you tell she was in marketing??).

I don't discount Notkin's grief over not having children, for whatever reason. But it bothers me when people who may or may not be truly infertile try to co-opt the term. It reminded me of the woman on my pregnancy loss e-mail list who once wrote about how she had "struggled with infertility." I think she went something like five cycles post-loss before she got pregnant. (She had had several losses but went on to have two or three living children.) I know waiting for a subsequent pregnancy can seem like an eternity, but give me a break. :p

Beyond the marketing spin, though, I do appreciate the voice & profile she's given to all of us CNBC-ers (childless not by choice) through Savvy Auntie -- and, terminology aside, I really did like the article. I especially liked this part:

"...the assumption is that all women who don't have children don't want children. There is a place between motherhood and choosing not to be a mother. And tens of millions of American women are there."

*** *** ***

Dh & I were doing our usual Saturday stuff last weekend, & I was just getting into the shower after doing the housecleaning when the phone rang. When I emerged, dh came upstairs with a stunned expression on his face & told me his uncle -- the husband of his mother's youngest sister -- had died a few hours earlier of a massive heart attack. He was 70 -- not exactly young, but not really old either (same age as my mother) & in good health. He was a realtor, who helped us buy our house 21 years ago, as well as our home & auto insurance agent, & looked after us well. He had two daughters, three grandsons & a granddaughter (all between the ages of about 4 & 13).

So we abandoned our plans & drove up to the house. (Not that there was anything we could do, but we didn't want to be the only ones NOT to show up.) Dh's aunt was a mess, understandably. She kept repeating, "How could everything change so fast?" She talked and talked. She told and retold the story of what had happened. And everyone kept trying to get her to stop talking about it, to calm down.

Dh & I may not have lost a spouse (& the good Lord willing, we won't know what that's like for many years), but we do know a little something about grief and loss, and about how quickly life can change. Dh took his cousin aside & emphasized to her how important it was to let her mother talk about what happened, to let her tell the story over & over again if she wanted to, to listen.

I don't know if he made an impression. But it felt like something we could do, some way we could contribute and help in a meaningful way.

*** *** ***

I reviewed Ted Kennedy's memoir before I actually finished reading it. Toward the end of the book, writing about a period when he had lost several more loved ones, including his nephew, John F. Kennedy Jr., there is a lengthy excerpt of a speech he gave at a congressional prayer breakfast in which he spoke about his faith and how it had helped his family overcome one tragic loss after another. He also tells this story:

In 1958, my father wrote a letter to a friend whose son had died. Fourteen years earlier, my oldest brother Joe had been killed in World War II. Ten years earlier, my oldest sister Kathleen had been killed in an airplane crash in Europe. My father wrote to his grieving friend, "There are no words to dispel your feelings at this time, and there is no time that will ever dispel them. Nor is it any easier the second time than it was the first. And yet, I cannot share your grief, because no one could share mine. When one of your children goes out of your life, you think of what he might have done with a few more years, and you wonder what you are going to do with the rest of yours. Then one day, because there is a world to be lived in, you find yourself a part of it again, trying to accomplish something -- something that he did not have time enough to do. And, perhaps, that is the reason for all of it. I hope so."

I wish that life were simpler. I wish that loved ones didn't have to die too young. I wish that tragedy never haunted a single soul. But to wish all that is to ask for an end to our humanity. God, family and country sustain us all.

26

2011-07-06T07:30:00.004-04:00

Even though 26 years isn't one of those special numbers that's divisible by 5, it's still a special day -- because 26 years ago today, I married my dh. : )

It hasn't all been a fairytale (whose marriage is?)(& when you think about it, fairy tales usually included a lot of dark stuff before they got to the "happily ever after" part) but there is no one else with whom I'd rather have spent the last 26 years -- or the next 26 and beyond, for that matter. : )

Happy anniversary to us! : )

My wedding

25 years

24 years

23 years

Amen!

2011-07-03T17:24:00.004-04:00

LOVED this article in today's New York Times:

Time for Oratorical Contraception

Choice quote:

...politicians, including both the Democratic and Republican members of Congress who brought up their offspring during last week’s fiscal wrangling, are also sending the message that they can be trusted to whittle down the debt, shore up the country and otherwise safeguard the future precisely because they have a direct biological stake in it. If they breed, they lead, or so their self-promotion holds.

That’s ludicrous. Progeny aren’t proof of caring and farsightedness, qualities manifest in politicians who never procreated — George Washington, for example. This Founding Father fathered none. He nonetheless proved eminently capable of the long view.

How many children someone has says nothing about how well he or she will govern, and the tableaux of family bliss that candidates choreograph regularly prove to be
fictions.

The Treatment Diaries: 10 years later

2011-06-29T07:30:00.002-04:00

So endeth The Treatment Diaries. When I first kicked off this project back in May, several of you wanted to know how going back in time like this made me feel, and how my perspective has changed over 10 years.

It wasn't easy to take this particular trip down memory lane. In some respects, my "1998 memories" series of posts (about my pregnancy with Katie & her stillbirth) was easier to relive. It was stressful writing about that stressful time in my life too -- but there is a part of me that loves to write/talk about my pregnancy & my daughter. She is still (& always will be) a part of my life and, on a certain level, it brings me a wistful pleasure to think about her, even if her story is ultimately a sad one. There's no real pleasure in reliving the details of my failed fertility treatments (except maybe the fact that I survived & am still here to tell the tale). Writing about the onset of anxiety, I could feel the tension in my body rising all over again, even though it all happened 10 years ago.

There were so many little details that I had forgotten, or hadn't thought about in years. When I look back now at all the little daily ups & downs, the 4 a.m. wakeup calls (5 a.m. on weekends!) to get to the clinic in time to join the lineup for ultrasounds, all the running around from train staion to ultrasound clinic to RE's office, and then the mad dash to MY office to put in a full day of work (sneaking in the side door & hoping my tardiness wouldn't be noticed)... I get exhausted just reading about it. How did we do it? And we only did it for a handful of IUI cycles over 1-1.5 years. How do other people do it for so many more cycles, of IVF, even, over many years??

I also found myself getting annoyed with Dr. RE all over again -- how he'd be hot about our prospects at one visit, cold the next. I realize the doctors aren't gods and they just call it like they see it from one visit to the next (and don't always read their own files or remember what they've told you at previous visits) -- but a little more consistency would have been appreciated.

As I read through the ups & downs (many, many downs) of each cycle, I found myself thinking that, really, the writing really was on the wall, almost from the very beginning, if we'd cared to see it. But we didn't. We (at least I -- dh was always a little more skeptical) didn't WANT to see it, at least not until I was forced to -- blinded by hope (& desperation) as I was. I'm really highly doubtful that IVF, in addition to the treatments we did, or instead of them, would have ultimately led to a different outcome. It confirms my belief that we did the right thing in getting off the merry-go-round when we did.

I'm not sorry we tried, even though the odds were stacked against us -- we gave it a good shot. And I'm not sorry that I've written about now at this level of detail, or revisited this time in my life at the 10-years-later mark. If you don't look back now & then, you sometimes forget just how far you've come.

But I'm glad it's all over and I don't have to do it all again. Once is definitely enough.

The Treatment Diaries: Aftermath & anxiety, June-July 2001

2011-06-28T18:16:00.039-04:00

Monday, June 4, 2001: Negative, of course. :( What's more, my ultrasound showed a few large echogenic follicles. "He wants you to come back in a few weeks (Monday, June 18th) to monitor those large follicles and make sure they're going down," office manager K. said in a phone call to me later in the day. By late that afternoon, I was bleeding heavily -- the heaviest cycle I'd had in a few years. In 8 hours, I soaked through five maxipads, and was leaving large clots in the toilet.

I paged Dr. RE: "Is this normal??"

"I wouldn't say it's completely normal, but it's not unexpected," Dr. RE said when he called me back awhile later. "Your estrogen levels were very high, and your lining was quite thick." He told me I could take ibuprofen. He started talking about things we could do "the next time," but I told him we would probably be taking a break for awhile. (Maybe permanently.)

Tuesday, June 5th happened to be my annual physical with my family dr. I was 10 lbs heavier than I had been the previous year. :p

Later that night, I called my mother. She chose that evening, of all nights, to tell me about someone she knew who had adopted two children through the same agency two of my girlfriends had used. And now they had just gotten a third child, after a wait of just three weeks! "I just thought I'd mention it," she said brightly. "Your sister told me to leave you alone, but we DID sort of talk about adoption once, didn't we?"

My replies were monosyllabic. When I finally got off the phone, I burst into sobs & cried for more than an hour. My sister was right -- I knew my mother meant well -- she wanted grandchildren, and she had no idea the lengths we were going to, trying to get her at least one. But geez Mom, what rotten timing!! Dh was furious -- with my mother, for bringing it up, and with me, for not telling her what was going on. That didn't help matters.

The next morning, Wednesday, June 6th, I wrote in my diary:

I look like a mess -- woke up this morning, eyes sunken with huge bags underneath. I feel lousy, like I was hit by a truck. Eyes feel sunken (could hardly put in contacts), hard to even walk (a little short of breath?). I am so out of shape it's not funny (although I suspect some of this is psychological -- also compounded by general end of cycle/period fatigue).

My life is a mess. Dh is right -- we need a break from all this.

I didn't take my temps this morning.

Friday, June 8th:

I have been winded all week. Today, I noticed my ankles are swollen. Weight is up slightly, but it's evening, & I usually weigh myself in the morning. Health encyclopedia says symptoms of pulmonary edema/congestive heart failure. OHSS?? OH. GOD.

You can see I was beginning to work myself into quite a state. I called Dr. RE (again). He pointed out that OHSS symptoms usually show up within a week to 10 days after an IUI, and it had been almost three weeks now. "I would be very surprised if it showed up this late, unrelated to other symptoms." He pointed out that the weather had changed, that the body tended to retain fluids in hot weather. Also, I had just had a very heavy period, and my body might be trying to compensate by retaining fluids.

Then he added, "I guess we could have pushed you a little too hard with the drugs, so your kidneys & heart aren't working very well." Exactly the WRONG thing to say to a hypochondriac who had kidney & bladder problems as a child (and one kidney slightly smaller than the other) and a diagnosed heart murmur (albeit a very minor one).

I mentioned I had been to my family dr for a checkup. The blood results weren't back yet, but my EKG had been normal. "If there was anything abnormal, I'm sure he would have picked it up," Dr. RE said, but then reiterated, "You may have underlying problems that have been exacerbated by the drugs... you should get that assessed. You might be unique." Oh, I'm friggin' unique, all right... :p

He wound up by saying, "Don't be frightened... but don't dismiss things either. If you're really concerned, get to the nearest hospital. And call me, so the drs there get the full picture."

My next few journal entries obsess over the daily state of my ankles. :p They looked better, but I still wasn't sleeping very well.

Sunday, June 10th was our pg loss support group's annual picnic and butterfly release. It was a highly emotional day.

Monday, June 11th, I got up at 4 a.m. & got ready to take the early train into the city. Then I remembered -- I wasn't due back at the clinic until NEXT Monday, June 18th. I decided to take the early train anyway & head straight for the office.

I had a lunch date at a restaurant downstairs in my office tower with my college roommate -- she'd had a birthday recently & it was my treat. All morning long, I'd felt a certain tightness & discomfort in my chest. My bra felt tight, & before I went to meet her, I went into the washroom, took it off & stuffed it into my purse.

In my journal, I wrote (and I have no idea why I was writing in present tense...!):

As I settle into my seat, I think, "This is a mistake." But I chat, I laugh, I eat -- lightly -- tomato basil soup, salad, roll and Perrier. I do have a good time -- for awhile.

About the time the tea comes (1 p.m.-ish), I start feeling really funny. I nod and laugh, but I'm no longer listening. My chest is feeling tighter, my shoulders feel sore, I start to feel warm from the chest up, but my hands feel cold & clammy & weak. I reach for the leather folder to slip in my money, but I have to try three times before it opens. I try to take a sip of water, but I can't lift the glass.

"I'm not feeling very well," I tell my friend. I try to take a deep breath, but it's hard. She asks if I feel sick, asks me questions. Tears fill my eyes. "It's scary," I whisper.

She asks if I'd like to call my dr. on her cellphone. She tries to dial, but the phone doesn't work inside the restaurant. Somehow, I find the strength to rise slowly and leave. We go sit on a bench in the concourse outside. I call Dr. RE & the receptionist answers. I tell her I'm not feeling very well. She gets K. on the line and I tearfully tell her how I'm feeling. She asks me questions. Nausea? (No.) Bleeding? (No.) Cramps? (No.) She asks me to call back in five minutes.

When I do, I'm still not feeling great. Maybe I'm having a panic attack? I suggest. "Could be," she says. It's too far past the profasi shot for it to be OHSS, she says, "but you should get checked out at your family dr's or the emergency room." Gee, thanks. :p

I call dh & tell him what's going on & where I am. Decide not to call Family Dr., just go there. I call my boss & leave a message, saying I'm not feeling well and am going to my dr's. We slowly make our way to the escalator. Outside, there's a cab waiting -- thank God! I hug my roomie and thank her. She offers me her cellphone but I decline...

Not sure which is scarier, the way I'm feeling or the way the cabbie is driving. I feel like I'm going to pass out. I struggle to remain calm and take deep breaths. Dh squeezes my hand reassuringly and smile. I am so proud of him.
We pull up in front of the dr's office. Dh pays the cabbie and we go in. There's a delivery guy with the receptionist and the nurse (who is also the dr's wife), but no one in the waiting room.

"I'm sorry I didn't call," I sob, "but I'm not feeling very well." Within seconds, I'm led into an empty room and told to lie down. Dh uses my cardigan to make me a pillow. The nurse slaps a blood pressure cuff on me and pumps it up. She shakes her head -- it's high. She asks me how I feel -- chest pain? (Tightness, no pain.) Nausea? (No.) Headache? (No.) etc. etc.

I tell her about the fertility treatments, about Friday. I had actually called there just before lunch about my bloodwork. My thyroid was high (6.64, normal is 0.5-5.5), & hemoglobin a tad low (116 -- should be 120-160) but everything else, including my ECG, was fine.

The nurse takes my blood pressure again (and again). Still high, but falling each time, until it reaches a high normal range of 130/90.

The dr finally comes in. Same conversation as with the nurse. He listens to my chest & lungs and pronounces them fine. To ease my mind, he does another ECG. It's fine.... He also takes some blood to test for cardiac enzymes (it comes back the next day negative). He tells me it looks like a panic attack to him.

He leaves briefly and comes back with a little bottle. He shakes out a tiny white pill and offers it to me. "What is it?" I ask. He tells me it's anti-anxiety medication & will help calm me down. (He later tells me it's the receptionist's!) He writes me a prescription for the same thing, "just in case," only a lower dose.

I'm finally calming down. They send us on our way feeling better (the drugs are working!).

We go to a nearby drugstore to fill the prescription. Stop at a payphone to call people. Dh calls his partner at work, I call my best friend at work and then my boss, then my roomie (voice mail), then Dr RE's office (talk to K.). We take the subway to the train station & take the next train home (by now, it's almost our usual time to leave anyway). I lay on the couch most of the evening & go to bed at 8:30. I sleep soundly for the first time in ages. Dh stays awake until 2 a.m., listening to me breathe!!

Over the next few days & weeks, I experience what I think of as "aftershocks." The next day I was attending a training workshop out of the office. All was going well until about 3:30 p.m., when I got what I described in my journal as "a funny cold feeling... a little tingle/numb feeling going up the right side of my face that started to turn warm. Great, now I'm having a stroke??" I struggled through the rest of the session, wound up taking another pill and going to bed early again.

Wednesday, June 13th, I called the infertility counsellor we had visited prior to embarking on injectables & IUIs. She remembered me instantly, and we set up an appointment to meet Monday after work. The next day, I returned to Family Dr's for a followup blood test for my thyroid. "Well, you're looking MUCH better!" they all told me. He checked my blood pressure and listened to my heart while I was there, and all was well.

Eight years earlier, Family Dr had thought he detected a mild heart murmur. He sent me to consult a cardiologist, who ordered an echocardiogram. At that time, he said he saw absolutely nothing that concerned him -- on a scale of 1 to 6, my murmur ranked at about 0.5 -- but he added I might want to repeat the test in another 10 years just to check things out. Family Dr asked if a repeat echocardiogram would make me feel better, and I said yes, so he booked one for me. "I don't want to dismiss your concerns," he said, "but this sort of thing is almost always emotionally based and you've been under a lot of stress lately."

Monday, June 18th, I was back at Dr. RE's for ultrasound & bloodwork. The echogenic follicles were still there, but they weren't as big.

Later that evening, we met with the infertility counsellor again & told her everything that had happened since we last saw her. We acknowledged that we had said "three cycles" -- and we'd done three cycles. Were we ready to stop treatment? To stop ttc altogether?

Dh said he was ready -- he felt we had done all we could, and he was worried about my health, the stress on both of us, the possibility of multiples. He said we could continue to try on our own for awhile, but acknowledged he wasn't getting any younger.

I said I was 85-90% of the way there. "I know we could do more -- more IUIs, IVF -- but emotionally, physically, mentally, I'm not sure I can do it anymore. I said I still wanted to keep the door open crack. And I said I needed a holiday!!

The counsellor recommended that we take a break -- put away the thermometer. think about the surgery. "If you're going to do one more cycle, set a time limit, say, your 41st birthday in January." She recommended that, once we decided we were ready to stop, we should consider birth control (!!). "I know it sounds nutty," she acknowledged, "but then you won't be constantly hoping in the back of your mind." She also recommended performing some kind of ritual to acknowledge & mourn the end of this phase of our lives.

She also asked us, "What would it mean to give up on that dream?"

In my journal, I summarized my response: "I know in my heart we can have a good life with just the two of us. But I will always feel like I missed out on something special."

She asked us what we did for fun, to relax. I said, "You know what? I had fun tonight! We stayed downtown, had dinner, wandered around a bit until it was time for our appointment. Usually we just head for the train, go home and flop on the couch in front of the TV set."

"You had a DATE!" the counsellor grinned. "I'm going to prescribe a regular date night for you two. You should take turns planning it. Something different, not the same thing all the time."

[I loved date night. Dh was less enthusiastic. He confessed he was usually too tired at the end of the day & wanted to just go home & flop on that couch. So it didn't last long, but it was fun while it did, and it helped get us over that initial post-treatment hump.]

Besides a date night, she recommended yoga for stress relief. I did eventually start taking a weekly yoga class, which I loved. I also started getting regular mini-massages at a walk-in storefront massage clinic near work, on my lunch hour. "You're very tight," one of the girls there remarked as she worked on me.

Monday, June 23rd, day 23, I was back at the clinic. K. called me later in the day. "Looks like you're starting to surge," she said, advising timed intercourse -- every two days for the next week.

I returned Tuesday, July 3rd (day 31) I was back for bloodwork. K. called me later to say my beta was negative, and my results suggested I was having an anovulatory cycle.

I returned a week later on July 10th (day 38), My homone levels were still fluctuating wildly, & I was offered Provera to induce my period. I was almost ready to go on vacation. What would happen if I didn't take the Provera? K said there was no medical risk; it was just a way to end a "really long" cycle & wipe the slate clean. 38 days was not that unusually long for me, so I said I'd prefer to wait things out.

"Call us when you get back," K. said. "And have a good vacation."

I never returned.

The Treatment Diaries: IUI #3, May-June 2001

2011-06-27T19:33:00.043-04:00

We embarked on our third IUI cycle -- my 27th cycle since losing Katie,and the final IUI cycle we had agreed to do -- on Friday, May 4, 2001. On Sunday (day 3), we were back downtown for the usual ultrasound & bloodwork.

Ultrasounds were now being done again at the clinic where we had first gone when we started treatment. However, since Dr. RE had moved his office in the meantime, this meant that clinic days now went something like this: (1) arrive at the train station & take the subway three stops, walk the short distance to the building where the ultrasound clinic was & get my u/s done. (2) Hop back on the subway & travel another three subway stops to Dr. RE's office for bloodwork, drugs, etc. (3) Hop back on the subway & ride 7 stops to the office. More subway tokens, more running around, more time. :p On weekends, we would generally go to Dr. RE's office first, then for the ultrasound.

Because it was Sunday, we decided to drive downtown instead of taking the train & subway. Perhaps not the wisest choice, since many of the downtown streets were blocked, either for a charity run/walk, or with construction (which made dh REALLY happy...!). Dr's office came first: then off to the u/s clinic. When we got there, the usual entrance was closed. We walked around to the other side of the building & had to be escorted in by the security guard. The clinic was already open and there were six people ahead of me in line.

Later that afternoon, Dr. RE called, said my baseline results looked good, & I could either (a) start taking Clomid & return to the clinic on day 7 for monitoring, or (b) skip the Clomid & go straight to the Gonal-F. I told him I didn't HAVE any Gonal-F; the girls at his office had only provided me with Clomid. So, Clomid it was (my 6th cycle using Clomid). He said I really should start straight with the injectables, though, that the Clomid really wasn't boosting my results that much and he acknowledged the side effects were nasty. He also said he wanted to do an ultrasound himself to determine whether my uterus was a true bicornuate uterus, or just a septum. He said he would have one of the girls at the office call to set this up.

I asked him about the Gonal-F dosage this time around. The possibility of OHSS the last cycle had scared the crap out of me, & dh too. He said we'd wait & see the day 7 results -- he didn't think he'd lower the dosage, but didn't think it would be necessary to increase it either. He did actually increase it, to 4 amps or 300 IUs nightly.

Thursday, May 10th (day 7): I'd been having all-day, dull headaches and eye strain the past several days, no doubt a side effect of the Clomid. I went to the office in the morning for bloodwork, left work slightly early that afternoon & returned to the office, where Dr. RE performed an ultrasound. While he wasn't able to see anything on my left side, he was flabbergasted to find that I already had 12 -- 12!! -- follicles on the right side. They were small, but they were there. "I didn't expect to see that," he said.

As for my uterus, he said there were definitely two horns there -- but the tissue in between looked fibrous & could probably be removed. He estimated that I had a 70% chance of pregnancy loss because of my uterus, and said this likely contributed to Katie's stilbirth. While there were no guarantees, of course, he felt that surgery could help improve those odds. "Your odds are already low -- your age, and you don't ovulate well," he pointed out (gee, thanks...). He explained what the surgery would involve, and said we would have to postpone ttc for several months while my uterus healed. When you're over 40, of course, every month counts, & the thought of having surgery and then losing more precious months in recovery time was not a happy prospect for me.

I left with my head swimming around 5:45, & raced to the train station to meet dh. He was in a bad mood already after a long day at work, and as I told him about what Dr. RE had said about the surgery, he snapped, "What's the point?" I was a little ticked myself that Dr. RE had waited this long to figure this out & dangle the carrot of surgery in front us. Shouldn't he have checked it out & recommended it right up front before we'd started treatment?? I felt we should get a second (Dr. Ob-gyn?) & possibly third opinion before going ahead with surgery. And of course, first, we needed to get this cycle over with.

I noted in my journal that I was feeling LOUSY -- stressed, flushed on my face & neck (even Dr. RE had noticed) and a constant headache. I was exhausted. But that night, before going to bed, I injected myself with the first three amps of Gonal-F. I woke up the next morning feeling much better.

Sunday, May 13th was Mother's Day. :(

Monday, May 14th (day 11) was a clinic day. K. called me that afternoon & told me to come back Friday; however, I only had enough Gonal-F to last me until Thursday, so I spent my lunch hour making a hasty round trip to & from Dr. RE's office to get more drugs. By Wednesday, I was beginning to feel uncomfortably bloated. My Friday visit showed some follicles developing, but not as many or as big as might have been expected.

I went back in for more u/s & bloodwork on Saturday. I was told that now Dr. RE wanted to see the film of my HSG from November 1999. I had to request a copy and spend another lunch hour that week trekking up to the hospital to retrieve the CD, take it up to Dr. RE's office & return to work.

"I just don't get it," Dr. RE said later Saturday afternoon when I spoke to him on the phone. "Your E2 levels are astounding -- 8700 -- I've never seen them so high. Yet there's only one or two follicles that I would call mature. There's a disconnect there. I don't understand where all the E2 is coming from. It's not very encouraging that your response is so unpredictable... You are a bit of a challenge and a mystery." Oh, just lovely.

I asked him whether such high E2 levels posed any risks. He mentioned OHSS again & then threw out another thing to worry about -- blood clots. But he, added, "your levels are high, and high for you, but not exceedingly so."

Monday, May 21st (day 18) was our Victoria Day holiday -- but it was no holiday for us. :p We were up at 5:30, at Dr. RE's for bloodwork by 7:30 and the ultrasound clinic at 8, where (once again) the tech had difficulty seeing my left ovary. Nevertheless, I now had at least three good-sized follicles (although Dr. RE said my E2 levels suggested I should have 13 or 14?!). "We could push you for another day & do IVF, although I don't know how good the quality of the eggs would be," he said. (Nevermind that we didn't want to do IVF -- unless he was willing to do it for the cost of an IUI cycle!)

We agreed: Profasi shot tonight, sample around 8:30 & IUI around 10:30 on Wednesday morning.

Wednesday, May 23rd (day 20) was my third (& final) IUI. We arrived at Dr. RE's office at 7:30 a.m., where dh produced his sample -- went to work (!) -- & then returned for the IUI at 9:30. I was feeling rather crampy, before & after, but barely felt a thing during the IUI itself. Dh's count this time was lower than the two previous IUIs, just under 8.2 million. "It's been a strange cycle -- I really can't give you the odds," Dr. RE said.

En route out, we received our bill:

10 Clomid pills = $62.40
44 amps of Gonal F = just under $3,000
1 Profasi shot = $65
Sperm wash = $350

Total for this cycle: just under $3,500

Later that afternoon, I was feeling extremely bloated & uncomfortable, & called the office. "You could be ovulating," K., the office manager said. She told me I could take a couple of Tylenol, but added I should weigh myself daily for the next few days and watch for anything unusual. A friend at work, who was also going through infertility treatments, said her RE had told her to drink Gatorade or Powerade, so I found a bottle at the newsstand downstairs & sipped on that. I found it very difficult to get comfortable in bed that night, and had an extremely restless sleep.

The next morning, I felt much less bloated, but I felt sore all over -- under my ribs and shoulder blades, through my back & shoulders -- "like I was hit by a truck," I wrote. I decided to call in sick, using the excuse that I'd had an upset stomach all night long. By Friday, I was feeling slightly better.

Saturday, May 26th, I was back at the office at 8 a.m. for bloodwork. Sunday (day 24), I felt crampy all day. Around 8:30 p.m., I noticed I was spotting. I immediately paged Dr. RE & he called me back within 20 minutes. He agreed with me that it was awfully early for my period, but added, "It may not be a bad thing -- it could be implantation spotting... It's unlikely to be anythign serious, so long as you're not bleeding or cramping heavily." To be on the safe side, he suggested I come into the office the next morning to have my bloodwork checked. In my journal, in capital letters, I wrote, "I AM TERRIFIED!"

Monday's bloodwork showed nothing amiss and although I was still feeling crampy, I was not spotting. I was told to come back the following Tuesday for my beta.

Friday, June 1st (cd #29, 9 days past IUI) I woke up at 4 a.m. to go to the bathroom. I felt woozy and nauseous, and staggered back to bed. I woke up an hour later & took my temperature. It had dropped almost four degrees.

Every time I opened my eyes, the room started to spin around me. Eventually, I threw up. Twice. I did start feeling a little less nauseous after that. Even though my temps had dropped, I felt deliriously happy (emphasis on the delirious, I think...!). I must be pregnant!! Why else I would I feel so crappy?? (In recent years, thinking about my symptoms, I have wondered: did I have some kind of a mini-stroke?? Was it some weird hormonal thing going on? Or was it a manifestation of the stress and anxiety I was feeling?) Dh fed me crackers & water and even made a trip to the nearby 24 hour supermarket to get me some apple juice.

I had already missed a lot of work recently. I didn't want to call in sick, so I called my boss & left a message saying we'd had a late start & would be in later. (I told you I was delirious...) I decided not to call Dr. RE, because I knew he would tell me to come into the office later that morning or the next, and I just didn't think I could haul myself in to work AND up to his office feeling the way I did.

Somehow, by shortly after 7, I managed to drag myself out of bed and into the shower. Thankfully, it was casual Friday at work. I put on a pair of drawstring capris and one of dh's polo shirts but didn't put in my contacts or apply any makeup. We made the 9 a.m. train into the city, and I arrived at the office around 10 a.m. By the end of the day, I was exhausted, albeit tired & with a dull headache.

Saturday morning, I felt much better.

Later that night, though, I started spotting again. It continued the next morning, and by the afternoon, it was in full flow.

I called the office and was told to come in the next morning for bloodwork & ultrasound.

I crawled into bed that night, turned out the lights, & proceeded to bawl my eyes out.

I let the cat out of the bag today...

2011-06-27T18:30:00.005-04:00

I'm one of the first people to arrive at the office in the morning, and today, I got talking with two other early risers, before everyone else started arriving. One is about my age, in her late 40s or early 50s; the other, a young woman about 25.

The older woman was telling us about her daughter (her only child)'s wedding last year. "We're just waiting for the grandbabies now," she said with a smile. She went on to say that her daughter had, in fact, had a miscarriage in January at four months... "but you know, these things are so common, once you have one, everyone starts telling you that they had one too."

And that's when I opened my mouth. I said yes, I'd had a stillbirth, & my heart always goes out to anyone who's had a loss, no matter what stage of pregnancy.

I could tell they were both shocked, especially the younger employee (who is not only young but single & idealistic). "Oh, that must have been hard!" the older woman said. I added that I had been six months pregnant, & that we had been involved in volunteer work for a pregnancy loss support group until just recently. I didn't mention anything about infertility, although it's obvious that I don't have any (other) children. The older woman continued talking about her daughter's miscarriage, and the converation eventually moved on to another subject.

I guess it just seemed like a natural segue to talk about my own experience. I would have felt funny if I hadn't. It's not exactly a secret, & to NOT say anything at that point would have felt like it was.

But it's just not something that I bring up offhand in polite conversation, if you know what I mean. If people ask me whether I have children, I generally just say "no" & leave it at that. I'm old enough now that I don't get pestered with a lot of questions about "why" or "when," & with most people, I don't feel that any explanation is really necessary.

When people do talk about infertility or pregnancy loss at work, I have mentioned my own experiences in the past -- but of course, they don't get talked about very often, particularly in an office where so many of the current employees still aren't even married yet. Everyone at work knew about it when it happened, obviously, but that was 13 years ago now, and there are maybe 10 employees, max, out of a total department of about 50 people, who were around then & would remember what happened (and none of them who in my particular area anymore).

So I suppose there will be some gossip going on behind my back over the next little while, especially among the younger girls, who like to go for lunch & coffee together. Oh well. :p

The Treatment Diaries: IUI #2: February - March 2001

2011-06-26T09:00:00.000-04:00

Sunday, Feb. 18th (day 3): the usual day 3 ultrasound & bloodwork routine. I was the first i line, with only a few others coming in after me. "Different tech -- brutal!!" I noted about my ultrasound. Also noted: the technician told me I had an echogenic or hemorragic cyst on the left side, and two small fibroids on the right.

At Dr. RE's office, I had to once again search out his lab technician and tell her I needed my bloodwork taken. She always seemed far more interested in puttering around the lab than attending to the patients -- I was not impressed. She left me a message later in the afternoon to tell me to start my clomid and return for bloodwork & ultrasound on day 7.

I left a return message asking to speak to Dr. RE. When he called me back, I asked him about the cyst and the fibroids. He said the cyst was evidence that I had ovulated, but said it was small enough and my hormone levels were low enough that it shouldn't have any impact on this cycle. Likewise, he said the fibroids were small and shouldn't make a difference.

Thursday, Feb. 22nd (day 7), there was a bag of Gonal-F waiting for me at Dr. RE's office. I was told it was essentially the same thing as the Puregon I'd used the last time, and was instructed to use three amps (225 IUs). In my journal, I noted that the Gonal-F dissolved better than the Puregon, and didn't hurt as much when I injected myself, although there was more bleeding from the injection site. Over the next few days, I noted the usual side effects of fatigue, dry mouth and hot flashes.

Sunday, Feb. 25th (day 10), back at the clinic. Dr. RE called later to say my numbers were definitely looking better than they had the previous cycle.

Wed., Feb. 28th (day 13) was another clinic day. Dh & I had booked off work to attend an RTS training session for our support group. Instead of taking the train, we drove downtown, & then drove out to our training session. I noted feeling bloated and sore.

Friday, March 2nd: My journal notes indicate the technician was having great difficulty getting accurate measurements. "It's very hard to see... there are gas clouds (?!) obscuring the view... the most difficult I've ever done (SIGH)," I quoted her as saying. :(

I spoke with Dr. RE later, and he was probably the most upbeat I'd ever heard: my E2 levels were almost 7300, more than double what they had been at this point in my previous injectable cycle. "This looks very good!" he said. I was to administer my hcg shot (Profasi) that night, and return to the clinic on Sunday, no earlier than 10 a.m. (he had another IUI at 9;30).

Sunday, March 4th, day 17: Feeling distinctly uncomfortable. Dh elected to give his sample at he clinic again. The waiting room was quite busy, especially for a Sunday. "U/s clinic closed??" I noted in my journal.

Dr. RE greeted us by saying, "Very good" but then undercut the optimism by adding, "but it took you a lot to get here." Dh's sample was better than last time: 12 million, with 86% motility.

He said he was slightly concerned that I looked "puffy," and instructed me to weigh myself every day. If I noticed I was gaining weight, I was to call him immediately: I could be overstimulated and retaining fluid, which could be dangerous. (Great....) I went home & devoured all the information I could find on OHSS and its symptoms.

The bill for this cycle included just over $1,900 in drugs, plus $350 for the sperm wash = about $2300 again.

By the next day, I noted I was feeling MUCH better physically (less bloated), although I was also finding it difficult to sleep ("worrying about multiples!" I wrote). As the week wore on, I began feeling crampy. I returned to the clinic for bloodwork on Monday, March 12th, and was told to come back in a week's time for more bloodwork (i.e., a pregnancy test).

I didn't make it that far. Wednesday, March 14th -- cd #27 or 10 days past IUI -- I started spotting, and the following day, my period arrived. Friday, I went to the clinic for bloodwork. As I already knew, it was negative.

I no longer remember why, but we had decided not to start a new cycle immediately.

Monday, April 9th (day 26), I went back to Dr. Ob-gyn. I made some notes to discuss with him: no sign of ovulation yet. Possible yeast infection? (Took antibiotics prior to dentist visit on March 21st.) Dr. Ob-gyn said he saw no changes from the last visit (and the lab results came back clear), and to return in 6 months.

Monday, April 17th (day 33) I called Dr. RE's office: my temps were still low and according to the many OPKs I'd been using, I still hadn't ovulated. The same thing had happened after the last IUI cycle I had done with injectables -- that cycle had lasted an interminable 58 days! -- and I had wound up taking Provera to induce a period. I was told to come in for bloodwork, and it was decided that I was having an anovulatory cycle. "Wait a couple of days, and if nothing happens, you may want to take provera again," I was told.

Friday, April 20th, my temps rose slightly. Monday, they jumped higher. I decided to wait things out. Thursday, May 3, I began spotting and Friday, May 4th, my period finally began (on day 51!).

The Treatment Diaries: The Clomid Capers continue, and the Big 4-0, December 2000 - February 2001

2011-06-25T20:01:00.000-04:00

New year, new cycle. My period arrived on Jan. 7th, 2001. Jan. 9th found me back at the clinic for day 3 ultrasound & bloodwork.

As I wrote previously, as of Dec. 1st, Dr. RE had moved to new digs, another three subway stops further north of his previous quarters. He had switched ultrasound providers too, making arrangements with a facility a short walk away from his office. The building was very old and change room cubicles quite tiny. On the bright side, there were chairs in the waiting area where we could wait for our ultrasounds, instead of standing in line. The technician was very friendly and talkative but, as the other girls noted, very slow.

Dr. RE wasn't in, but the office manager provided me with Clomid, Puregon and some syringes, and told me to wait for instructions later that afternoon, after my bloodwork results had come in. The instructions were to start the Clomid, and then return on Saturday (day 7).

This time (my fourth cycle using Clomid, alone or in combination with injectables), I noticed some definite side effects: dry mouth & light sensitivity (especially in the morning), sore breasts, a jittery feeling, and extreme fatigue. But I felt better on Friday, January 12th -- a good thing, since it was my 40th birthday! I wasn't especially happy about being 40 and childless, but since there wasn't much I could do about it, I decided I might as well use the day as an excuse to enjoy myself. ; ) I took the day off work & spent the day getting pampered at the spa -- facial, massage, manicure & pedicure, including lunch. I loved it! Dh & I went out for dinner later that night.

The next day, Saturday the 13th, I got up at 5, and took the 7 a.m. train into the city. Dh didn't come with me this time, although I don't remember why, but I had company -- Cousin/Neighbour's neighbour, whom we saw occasionally, both at Cousin/Neighbour's house & on the train from time to time. I told him I had an appointment in the city, and thankfully, he didn't probe. I went to the clinic for bloodwork first, and then for my ultrasound. I wound up waiting an HOUR before I saw the technician. There was a lot of grumbling in the waiting room.

Also in the waiting room, one of the girls was chatting to another, & handed over her business card. I couldn't help but see the logo on it: it turned out she worked for the same company I did, in the same downtown location, in fact. We also exchanged business cards & had coffee together once to chat, but I rarely saw her after that.

I had about five small follicles on each side, each under about 5 mm. By about 10 a.m., I was back on the train, and home again around 11.

Later that afternoon, I had a message from Dr. RE. He bluntly told me this cycle wasn't looking very promising, and that the clomid had obviously not had a significant impact. My E2 levels were essentially the same as they had been on day 3, when he expected it to be up at least 100%. "I can't tell you how successful this cycle will be," he said, according to my journal notes. "If you want to go ahead with the injectables, I would have to increase your dosage substantially, to 300 or 400 IUs. Those are very high doses... You may choose not to go ahead this month, and discuss further treatment." He ended by asking me to have him paged.

When I finally got hold of him, Dr. RE went over the numbers with me again. "Your response was much poorer than I would have expected from a woman your age, given the dosage," he said. He told me I had two options: (1) forget this cycle (beyond the clomid I had already taken) and wait for a better one to try the Puregon again. "We can still monitor you, if you like," he said, "but I'd be very surprised if this cycle took off." This, he said, was his recommendation.

Or, (2) go ahead with the Puregon, but instead of the 200 IUs he was going to recommend, push my ovaries with 300 or 400 IUs daily. "If you don't respond to that, you really should consider your options," he said. "At some point, we have to talk long-term plans -- including, maybe, stopping." I reminded him that we had agreed to three IUI cycles using injectables.

The last cycle, he said, "was adequate -- but I want more than adequate." (What?? Hadn't he said at the IUI that it had turned out to be a good cycle after all??)

I agreed that, since the prognosis was not good, we should save our money for a better cycle, but continue to be monitored. He told me to come in next Friday to see what was happening.

*** *** ***

With this as a backdrop, I moved on to my next immediate challenge (wait for it...!): surviving a baby shower. My FIRST baby shower since Katie's stillbirth, more than two years ago now.

Back on Dec. 1st, on something like day 52 of my neverending cycle, we had arrived home, I opened the mailbox, and pulled out a small square envelope. Without even looking at the return address, I said to dh (a la Johnny Carson's Karnac the Magnificent), "This is an invitation to your cousin's baby shower -- and it's going to be the weekend of my 40th birthday." Nobody had told me. I just KNEW. His cousin was pregnant; I knew her due date was mid-February; logic dictated that her shower would probably be held about a month before that, and my birthday just happens to be in mid-January. But beyond logic, I KNEW in my bones. Of COURSE I would have to spend my 40th birthday weekend at a baby shower. That was just the the way my life seemed to be going these days.

I opened the envelope -- and of course, that's exactly what it was. My birthday was on Friday, the shower was on Sunday. I cried for well over an hour. Bad enough to be turning 40, crossing the rubicon, as it were, without a baby in my arms, while suffering through the indignities of infertility treatment -- but to have to spend that weekend at a BABY SHOWER added the ultimate insult to injury.

I didn't see an easy way out, so I RSVPd yes. The shower was near where BIL lived, so dh drove us there, and SIL & I went together. I don't remember a lot about it, except that it was (thankfully) a smaller shower than some I had attended, perhaps about 40 ladies in all, at an Italian restaurant. I sat at a table with SIL & some of dh's cousins, & (also thankfully), the conversation didn't entirely revolve around babies.

A couple of days later, on Wednesday, Jan. 16th, I noticed a funny rash that had broken out on my neck, just below my right ear. It tingled/burned, and was also itchy.

Dh happened to have an appointment the next day with our family dr and, on an impulse, I tagged along, hoping he would be able to have a quick look.

Family Dr took one look at the strange patch on my neck and immediately said, "That looks like shingles."

SHINGLES??!!

Family Dr gave me a prescription, saying that, since it seemed to be in an early stage, it might help to minimize the discomfort as well as prevent the shingles from spreading. And it did, although it took awhile to disappear completely. Thank goodness I decided to go with dh when I did. I used aloe vera gel to soothe the itching & burning.

When I got to work, I immediately started consulting Dr. Google to learn more about shingles. What I learned was that the chicken pox virus I (and probably you) had when I was a kid (pre-chicken pox vaccinations) never really left my system. It went underground, dormant and, most of the time, never resurfaces. But in some adults, for reasons that aren't entirely clear, the virus suddenly resurfaces in the form of shingles. I did read with interest, however, that one suspected cause of shingles is stress. Hmmm....

Shingles cannot be spread to anyone who has also had the chicken pox virus. However, if you haven't had chicken pox but get exposed to shingles, you could get shingles or the chicken pox.

Chicken pox can be harmful to pregnant women -- and the babies they are carrying. Reading this made me feel sick to my stomach. I called Family Dr back to ask him about it. He reassured me that it was highly unlikely, and reminded me that most adult women had been exposed to the chicken pox virus. But we should find out whether dh's pregnant cousin had.

I couldn't talk to her myself. I just couldn't. Dh made the call for me. Cousin hastened to assure me it was all right, she'd already been through this when her nephew came down with the chicken pox, and yes, she was immune. Talk about relief!!

*** *** ***

Friday, Jan. 19th, day 13, I was back at the clinic. Sitting in the waiting room at the ultrasound clinic, I struck up a conversation with a woman who had a little girl in a stroller with her. The little girl was about 3, her mom had a British accent. There was something vaguely familiar about her, so I checked the sign-in sheet on my way out from my ultrasound for her name, and I realized that, hey! I know this woman. Again, we both worked for the same company in the same location, & had belonged to the same lunchtime group awhile back.

I went back into the waiting room, called her by name and re-introduced myself. We laughed, and she said, "I won't tell if you won't!" She told me her daughter had been conceived through fertility monitoring; she and her husband were now trying for a brother or sister. I suggested lunch some day; she told me she never took a lunch hour: she worked through her lunch and breaks so she could shorten her work day & pick up her daughter from daycare. Daycare issues were also why she had to bring her daughter with her to the clinic in the morning. I marvelled once again at the lengths we go to in order to try to have a child.

Later that day, K., the office manager, called with the disappointing news that both my bloodwork & ultrasound were essentially at baseline. "We'd like you to come in to discuss what's next," she said. I told her about my shingles diagnosis and asked whether that might be having an impact on the cycle; she said it was possible but she didn't know for sure.

We returned to see Dr. RE a week later, on Friday, Jan. 26th (cd #20). He asked us what our plans were. I said we'd committed to three IUI cycles with injectables at the outset, and we'd still like to complete three cycles. "Obviously, if it's six months down the road, and the results have been such that we still haven't completed those cycles, we'd have to rethink our options," I said.

Surprisingly, Dr. RE said he thought that was a good plan, that "you probably should try three or four cycles of any particular treatment." (I guess it was a glass half full day.) He said I responded well to the previous cycle, and my initial FSH results this cycle had been encouraging. But he added, "If, after three or four cycles, you still aren't pregnant, I'd recommend you go on to IVF, or stop... you have better things to do with your life."

We chatted a bit about IVF & the dosages required. I reminded him he hadsaid the placement of my left ovary would make retrieval difficult, and he said, "Well, I haven't abandoned a patient yet!" (This sort of flipflop drove me crazy.) He asked me where I was in my cycle: I said day 20, & I'd noticed some nice quality cervical mucus over the last day or two. "Let's take your blood & see where you're at," he said. I noted in my journal, "Left feeling reassured & satisfied."

K. called later that afternoon: sex every two days for the next week, back on Friday, Feb. 2nd (cd #27) for bloodwork. I noted that my temperature still hadn't gone up. K. called me later with my bloodwork results: my E2 levels had dropped, although my LH was high and progesterone was up. "At this point, there's not much we can do, except wait for day 1," she said.

My period finally arrived on Friday, Feb. 16th, day 41 of my cycle. On to the next...!

The Treatment Diaries: Addendum to the last post...!

2011-06-22T21:28:00.011-04:00

I didn't mean to hit "publish" on the last post... I did it accidentally.. and the problems I've been having with Blogger lately (grrr...!!) meant it wouldn't let me open & resave as a draft. I had to copy & paste in a Word doc, delete my post, then copy & paste back into Blogger -- then go through & clear all the weird formatting.

When I did it a SECOND time, I thought, "I give up!" :p I decided to let the post stand & finish it in a "part 2" if you will (even though I WAS almost finished, damnit...!)

Anyway -- AF FINALLY arrived on Dec. 8th -- day 57!! which still remains a personal record for me. (Woohoo.) :p

However, because it was almost Christmas vacation and the office would be closed anyway, I opted to wait until my NEXT cycle. I called the office and said I would see them in the new year.

Here endeth the longwinded saga of my first IUI cycle...!

The Treatment Diaries: IUI #1 & beyond: September-December 2000

2011-06-22T20:40:00.020-04:00

Warning: LONG POST!

Sept. 18, 2000, found us back at the clinic for the usual routine of day 3 ultrasound, bloodwork and a chat with Dr. RE about how we were going to proceed with this next cycle. "You're going to need a LOT of drugs," he predicted. He proposed a combined regime of both Clomid (100 mg daily) and 100 IUs (2 vials) of Puregon daily for four days & return for monitoring. He explained that the Clomid would tackle the pituitary gland & hopefully make my ovaries work harder, so I wouldn't need quite as many injectable drugs. "Any problems with the injections, just page me," he said, patting my shoulder encouragingly.

Later that night, I wrote:

Survived my first date with the needle, about 9 p.m.... seemed to take forever to get everything set up -- and of course, I stabbed my finger with the mixing needle as soon as I tried to pull the cap off! (& so had to toss it) When I finally had a full syringe in my hand, I had to pause and look at it, wondering, "What the heck am I doing to myself?" I was on the verge of tears -- a tad shaky (oh, great!) -- breathing hard. Finally, I took the plunge, so to speak. (Right side.) It didn't hurt going in, but did a little as I injected and then pulled it out. I just sat there for a few minutes afterward, almost afraid to move. (Luckily, there's plenty of cushioning there!!) I told dh to go upstairs, because I knew he's make me nervous, and I could hear him pacing upstairs, which didn't help matters any...!

When it was all over, I called to him that he could come down. He brought me down a little band-aid (! -- not really necessary, but appreciated) & a hug and told me to tell the girls on my e-mail list how proud of me he was.

I did the injections every night at the kitchen table. I meticulously cleaned it off with Lysol first, laid some paper towels down & then laid out my vials,syringe, sharps, etc., on top of that. Someone had told me the injections didn't hurt as much if you numbed the area with ice first, so I also had some ice cubes at the ready.

The next night, I wrote:

Prep went smoother than last night, but when the time came to do the injection, I realized I hadn't iced the site first. (Left side tonight.) Thought I'd try to do without, but the needle pricked the skin and I chickened out & got the ice. (Hope I didn't contaminate the needle.) It was harder going in tonight. I felt shaky & teary as I was doing it. The first site I scratched started bleeding as I actually did the injection. I hope I did it OK. It bled a little more tonight than last. (I had dh bring the bandaids again!) I find I have to sit quietly for awhile after. Some redness and soreness (perhaps the effects of the ice wearing off, too?).

Wednesday night, Sept. 20 (cd #5, day 3 of the Puregon), I thought I felt some hot flashes. Later that night, I wrote:

I'm getting much better at the mixing... but it still gives me pause when it comes to actually injecting...! The ice helps... a little. Going in isn't actually too painful -- it's the actual injection & aftermath that's painful. I usually sit at the table for a few minutes and then on the couch, quietly.

Friday was a clinic day -- day 7 of my cycle & day 5 of the Puregon. There were just two people ahead of me in the lineup for ultrasounds. However, my glee and anticipation quickly deflated. I wrote down my measurements with this discouraging note: "In other words, no progress, and I LOST a follicle!!" :p I also recorded this conversation with the u/s technician:

Tech: Are you on hormones?
Me: Yes -- I 've been taking shots!
Tech: What does Dr. RE say about this?
Me: He's stumped.
Tech: How old are you?
Me: 39.
Tech: (shrugs) I'm sorry, but this is what I see. I wish I had better news for
you.

I wrote:

I was nearly in tears. This is so frustrating. Shooting up every night... 4 nights x 2 amps = 8 amps @ approx. $75 each = $600 to date... and NOTHING.

Even more frustrating, although we arrived at Dr. RE's office early, around 7:30, and waited an entire HOUR in hopes of discussing my results with him, we eventually were told that he had called in sick that day (!!). I arrived at the office just before 9 a.m.

Later that day, the office manager called: she had discussed my results with Dr. RE over the phone & I was now to bump up my dosage to 3 ampules (150 mgs) a day. I must have expressed some concern, because I noted in my journal "it's not a huge whopping dose." Nevertheless, after duly injecting myself with three amps that night, I wrote in my journal, "Is it supposed to hurt so much afterward? Am I doing this right?"

By Sunday night -- less than a week after starting -- I had injected myself with 17 amps total, or $1,275 worth of Puregon. Before committing to this course of action, I had checked out my coverage with my company's medical benefits plan. Strangely enough, while the IUI itself was not covered by our provincial healthcare plan or my private company plan, the sperm wash was. As for my drug coverage, the benefits people told me there was a lifetime maximum of $1,500 for fertility drugs. I had almost reached lifetime max in less than a WEEK.

Monday, Sept. 25th was a clinic day again. Left ovary: 0 follicles. Right ovary: 0 follicles. "The more drugs I take, the less I get," I wrote sadly in my journal.

Office Manager called me later in the afternoon: my estrogen levels were well over 1,100 -- "that's good -- there must be something there they're not seeing," she said, and told me to come directly to the office for an ultrasound the next morning.

Tuesday, Sept. 26th, cd #11, day 9 of Puregon: Went to the RE's office, where the office manager did the ultrasound for me herself. "Looks like a follicle to me!" she said encouragingly. There were actually two on the left side and four on the right, the largest one measuring at 14.

Next, we saw Dr. RE, whose comments were on the "glass is half full" side that day. He said the results from the u/s clinic the other day were "not acceptable," and that I obviously WAS responding (although he'd like to see more large follicles).
"You need a LOT of drugs," he commented, but added that wasn't unusual for "a woman your age." (Thanks, doc... I think...!)

Thursday, cd #13 (with the bill for my drugs now approaching $2,000), I went to Dr. RE's office for bloodwork and then returned there again in the afternoon for another ultrasound, this time performed by Dr. RE himself. My E2 level had skyrocketed to 2,800 and I had one follicle approaching 18-20mm. "Excellent -- way to go!" he said enthusiastically. One more day with the Puregon (26 amps, bringing my total Puregon costs to $2,175 over 11 days), he told me, bloodwork tomorrow morning, back for another ultrasound in the afternoon (what kind of excuses was I giving my bosses??) and then a hcg/Profasi shot that night, with the IUI likely on Sunday afternoon. (Well, at least I wouldn't have to worry
about missing work for that!)

Friday, Sept. 29th (cd #14): "Wonderful...we finally got a good cycle out of you," Dr. RE pronounced after myafternoon ultrasound. Of course, he deflated my ego with his next observation by saying my left ovary appeared to be tucked behind my uterus, & that "I wouldn't want to do an IVF extraction on you." (Hmmm.)

He provided me with the Profasi & instructed me to inject myself at 10:30 p.m. that night -- then return to the clinic on Sunday for the IUI at 10:30 a.m. However, we'd actually have to be at the clinic with dh's sample by 9-9:30, so that it could be washed & prepped for the IUI. He gave us the option of dh producing a sample onsite, or at home, but with the stipulation that we'd have to deliver it to the clinic within a half hour. At the best of times in good traffic, even on a weekend, that sort of timing would have been a stretch, so we said we'd come in.

Saturday, Sept. 30th journal entry:

Yesterday I didn't feel too bad. Today I feel like I have rocks in my ovaries!! Not really painful, but uncomfortable. A woman on my pg loss e-mail list wrote, "I swear I could feel the buggers pop," and I agree.

It has been a quiet day. Dh is helping his brother do the ceiling in their basement. If he hurts himself somehow, I'm gonna kill him...! So I have spent a lazy day, reading the papers, weeding out my e-mail inbox, watching TV (a repeat of "The Champions" on CBC Newsworld, in honour of Pierre Trudeau). [The former prime minister had just passed away.] I feel very tired and a little emotional. I can hardly believe the day is almost here. Whether it works or not, I'm sure I will be a basket case!! The next two weeks are gonna be hard...!

Sunday, Oct. 1: Dh delivered his sample at 9 a.m. And then we waited. And waited. And waited some more.

Around 11:30, we were ushered into the procedure room. Dr. RE said it had taken him awhile to wash the sample, as it contained a lot of "debris." He also noted the count was low, about 8.4 million. Motility, however, was good at 67%, and I had four good-sized follicles.

The IUI itself was over with fairly quickly. I noted the speculum was probably the most uncomfortable part, & there was a cold rush through the tubes. "You don't have to stand on your head or anything," Dr. RE said, "but take it easy for the rest of the day."

In my journal, I've written down a list of "Problems" that he apparently went over with us: (followed by the note "Why didn't he go over all this with us BEFORE we did this??")

low estrogen/small/few follicles -- have overcome that to some degree
low sperm count: wash will help some...
bicornuate uterus: again he expressed an interest in seeing the actual film of my HSG, and mentioned the possibility of surgery.
cervix appears to be chronically inflamed. He asked whether I had followed up on my irregular Pap. I said yes, & he said it was very important to keep on top of that.

He told us to come back in a week's time for an ultrasound & bloodwork. The total bill, drugs included, came to more than $2,300.

As I recall, I bawled all the way home from the clinic. It hit me that I had four mature follicles. What if all of them fertilized?? Twins I thought I could deal with, but quadruplets??

Dh talked me down from my momentary panic attack & suggested we go somewhere for brunch. When we got home, I took a nap for three hours. I am not generally a nap-taker, but I was physically & emotionally exhausted.

Saturday, Oct. 7th, we got up at 5 a.m. (!) & took the 7 a.m. train into the city. First to Dr. RE's office for bloodwork, then to the ultrasound clinic, where there was a huge lineup, at least seven women ahead of me in line and three or four behind.

When the technician dictated the measurements to me to write down, she had me note one follicle with an "E." Note in my journal: "I couldn't get her to tell me what it was for!"

Later that morning, there was a message from Dr. RE's office: we were to return in one week for bloodwork only. I knew what that meant: a pregnancy test.

Monday, I left a message on Dr. RE's voice mail, asking what the "E" stood for. His officer manager called me back: she said it meant "echoes," or an echogenic cyst, left over from ovulation. That still didn't tell me why it was noteworthy.

Thursday, Oct. 12th, cd#27, 11 days past IUI, my temperature dropped, and I began spotting. I knew that was the end of it. I called the clinic: what should I do? Consider it the start of a new cycle? Come in Saturday as scheduled? I was told to come in the next morning.

Friday, Oct. 13th (yep, Friday the 13th...!!): I had my bloodwork done in the morning, & got the call later that afternoon. As suspected: negative.

*** *** ***

Did I want to do another cycle? Yes please. : ) Right away? So long as the dr said it was all right. The office manager told me to come in the next morning for an ultrasound & bloodwork to ensure I was back to baseline before they gave me more drugs for another cycle.

So we got up at 5 a.m. on Saturday (again!) & took the 7 a.m. train into the city to be at the ultrasound clinic when it opened at 8. There were still two large follicles on my left side.

At Dr. RE's office, I was given a package of clomid, but told to wait for further instructions before I started taking it. If all went well, they'd give me the Puregon to start injections on day 7.

But all did not go well. :( The office called later that day & told me to hold off on taking any meds: I did have two follicles left -- cysts, & they were filled with fluid. "It's nothing to worry about," I was told, "but they have to clear up before we can begin again... Call us on your next day one."

"I will," I said, "so long as it doesn't conflict with Christmas -- we're going away then." I was told the office would likely be closed for several days over Christmas anyway.

Monday, Oct. 23rd, I was back at Dr. Ob-gyn's for a repeat Pap/colposcopy (which showed no significant changes for better or worse since the last examination). I told him that Dr. RE had described my cervix as "chronically inflamed." Dr. Ob-gyn begged to differ, saying that aside from the very superficial changes he had seen at my last visit, he didn't see anything that concerned him, and he didn't think it would be a deterrent to our efforts to conceive. Who to believe??

Tuesday, Nov. 14th was cd #33 -- normally not a long cycle for me, but my temps were still low and there was no sign of AF. I called Dr. RE's office. Should I be concerned? Wait & see? Could it be the drugs? The cysts? The stress??

K., the office manager, said it sounded to her like I was having an anovulatory cycle. She suggested I wait a few days & then come in for some bloodwork.

Thursday, Nov. 16th, I received a letter from Dr. RE advising that his office was moving, as of Dec. 1st. This would mean travelling a further three subway stops north of his current location. On the brighter side, ultrasounds would now be done at a different office, a short walk away from Dr. RE's office.

Friday, Nov. 17th (cd #36), I duly reported to Dr. RE's office for bloodwork. The conclusion was that my levels were moving back to baseline and that Aunt Flo should be paying me a visit shortly. "Wait another week, and if nothing happens, call us again," K. advised me.

Two days later, I began spotting. I spotted on and off for the next several days. What the heck was going on??

Thursday, Nov. 23rd (cd #42), I called the office again. The next day, I went for an ultrasound & bloodwork. No trace of the cysts remained. Dr. RE wasn't in, but there was a prescription for Provera clipped to my file. K. said it was used to induce a period.

K. called me with the results of my bloodwork that afternoon: my estrogen levels were on the rise. "You're having an ODD cycle!" she said wryly. "You may have hit bottom and are starting to rise again." She told me to take the Provera, all 10 days' worth, even if my period started -- and to call the clinic when it did.

Condo conundrum

2011-06-20T07:30:00.002-04:00

Dh is on a condo kick again.

On & off over the years, since we've realized we aren't going to have the standard 2.2 children (let alone one) to go with the house & white picket fence in suburbia -- and usually after a particularly arduous session of snow shovelling or lawn mowing -- dh has brought up the subject of condo living.

Not downtown in the city, mind you, where condos continue to sprout like mushrooms, cheek to jowl alongside of bars & restaurants, or right along the 16 lanes of the main highway. We had a staff event on the patio at Wayne Gretzky's bar & restaurant awhile back, & I could practically have reached out & touched the patio of the condo in the tower next door. Imagine having that noise right outside your door on a hot summer night (& since Thursday nights are the main party night downtown, a weeknight to boot).

There ARE condos out in the suburbs where we live -- not a lot, but some, and getting to be more & more. Some of the locations are less than desirable -- but we've found a few. Dh is particularly taken by a newish development located in a very nice community that's about a 20-minute drive from where we currently live, heading further away from the city. It's close to transit, shopping and, best of all, it's right on the waterfront. Many of the units have a lakefront view. He found some listings in the MLS & showed me.

I had to admit they looked very nice, AND the prices were, for the most part, reasonable for a fair-sized unit. I would never want to live in a 500-square foot box, but judging from the current listings, we could buy a 1,000 square foot, two-bedroom condo for not much more money than we could probably sell our house for, and pay monthly fees that aren't too terribly much more than we currently pay in utilities. Not to mention that we would no longer be dealing with the problem of yard upkeep, shovelling snow, plumbing repairs, asking a neighbour to pick up our mail for us when we go away, etc.

I love our little house -- but it is 27 years old & showing its age in several respects. (So, for that matter, are we.) We bought it 21 years ago, with the idea that we would move up to something bigger when our family expanded. Instead, we've remained a family of two, and we're still here.

We've done some major repairs & renovations over the past 10 years or so -- new furnace, new roof, replaced most of the windows, repaved the driveway. We know the list is only going to get longer the longer we stay. Dh, bless him, is not particularly handy, which means we either have to ask for help from BIL, or go through the hassle of hiring outside people. This, as we all know, can be time consuming, stressful and expensive.

We have a big backyard -- bought with kids in mind -- that never gets used. Dh & I have never really been outdoors people. Both of our mothers used to have to yell at us to turn off the TV, get our nose out of our book & go outside to play. (One of dh's cousins tells me her lingering image of dh from growing up was sitting in the corner at a family wedding, bored & reading a book.) But even if gardening is something I find hard to make time for, the grass still needs mowing and the weeds constantly need pulling.

But for all its stresses, there is something about home ownership that appeals. Let's face it: it's the American (& Canadian) dream, and by "home ownership," we generally don't tend to think of a condo: we think of a house with a nice yard in a nice neighbourhood with (hopefully) nice neighbours. And, more often than not, a family. Maybe when you're young & just starting out (we had a tiny one-bedroom apartment for the first five years of our marriage), or when you're older. (I like to think we're not THAT old, yet.)

For all its faults, I love my little house. I like the neighbourhood where we live. I like having a basement that can accommodate our overflow stuff (I don't think a condo storage locker will quite match it). I even like having a big backyard. For all that it sometimes reminds me of the little people who aren't playing out there, as planned, I like having some extra space around me. (Of course, I'm not the one who mows the lawn...!)

Condo or not? This is not a decision we are likely to make overnight, or anytime soon. Remember, we're the couple who took five years before we decided we were ready to buy a house, and another 4-5 after that before we decided we were finally ready to have kids.

Have you thought about downsizing your living space (particularly if you've decided to remain childless/free)?

Springtime reading

2011-06-19T19:00:00.000-04:00

Awhile back, I mentioned that I had picked up Shania Twain's new memoir, From This Moment On. And while many of the books I buy just get added to my gargantuan to-read pile(s, plural), I actually read this one from cover to cover within the space of a few days.

I have a particular weakness for celebrity memoirs. Many of them are pretty fluffy -- but I must say, I thought this was a worthwhile read. I was a little irritated by the foreword, "Why Write Now?," in which Twain takes a full nine pages to explain why she has decided to write about her life at this point. Once she actually starts telling her story, however, you quickly get absorbed.

I knew the outlines -- that she had grown up poor in northern Ontario; that while barely out of her teens, she had set aside her dreams to take on a job as a cabaret singer at Deerhurst Resort near Huntsville in cottage country (where dh & I, incidentally, spent our 10th wedding anniversary, several years after Twain had performed there) to support her younger siblings after the untimely death of her parents in a road accident; and that she had recently split from her producer husband, Mutt Lange after finding out he was having an affair with her best friend -- and then, just this past Jan. 1st, married the ex-best friend's ex-husband (if you can follow that...!).

The fuller details were no less interesting than you would expect, & Twain pulls very few punches in describing the ups & downs of her life, particularly the details of her childhood. Even so, she is generous toward her late parents, whom she believes did the best they could with the considerable challenges life handed them. She is, however, fairly close-mouthed when it comes to discussing her marriage & her notoriously private ex-husband (perhaps in deference to her young son, to whom she dedicates the book).

The loss of her parents was, obviously, a tremendous blow -- but Twain is perhaps most reflective when writing about grief over the loss of her marriage. Just as many of us turn to writing -- blogging -- as release after loss, so does Twain:

"The act of writing helped me regain some badly needed perspective. When you're in the depths of despair -- over anything; it doesn't have to be a romantic breakup -- it's easy to lose sight of the fact that you weren't always in this much pain, and the time will come again when that crushing sensation in your chest finally lifts and the weight of feeling that maybe you're going crazy will dissolve. Grief is not a mental illness, even though while you're in the midst of it, it may very well feel that way." (p. 365)

"Even when life hits you like a Mack truck that's come out of nowhere, there is still a chance that you will survive, and although the road to recovery may be slow, long, and even permanent, this doesn't mean you can't enjoy the rest of your life and be happy again.

"Time is a healer, and it has moved me along through many difficult moments in my life because of the way it so ingeniously brings change along with it.... What I have gained from the generosity of time, though, is acceptance that so much was out of my control." (p. 397)

If you like Shania Twain, country music, or enjoy a good story about overcoming adversity, you will like this book.

*** *** ***

Another really interesting book I recently finished is Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys by Kay S. Hymowitz. Although I don't have kids myself, I'm still fascinated by parenting topics -- wondering whether I would have been able to cut it as a mom in today's "helicopter parenting" world. I've also been wondering whether it's just me, getting older (& grumpier), or "kids today" really are so much more different than when I was the same age.

Maybe yes, maybe no, but it's clear that kids today are growing up in a very different world than the one dh & I did. Hymowitz does a great job of outlining just how much things have changed, particularly in the world of work & the radical transformation in the kinds of jobs that exist today vs years ago (quite an eye opener, when you start to think about it). Her theory is that these changes have benefited girls & women, who have already been encouraged to realize their potential -- boys & men, not as much. She points out how the growing gap between the sexes is clearly illustrated by the characters played by Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl in the movie "Knocked Up."

Contrary to some reactions I've read & heard about this book, I don't believe she judges, but simply presents her case & challenges us to think: is this good? is this bad? if so, what should we do to rectify the situation?

From an infertility perspective, I particularly appreciated Hymowitz's focus on what this new "pre-adult" phase of life means for marriage and parenting.

"...whatever their upsides, the truth is that later marriage and childbearing are in an uneasy standoff with human biology, culminating in an unintended set of medical, economic and social consequences, including more child-men, single mothers and fatherless hones." (p.176).

By and large, most people still want marriage and families, and Hymowitz points out (although perhaps not in these exact words) that women are wasting a lot of precious fertile years waiting around for the men in their life to grow up.

"While we have more control over our reproductive destiny, biology continues to organize life, at least for women. Biology writes a major part of the female script: you mature, meaning today you hit 30 or 35, and you reproduce -- or not. For men, biology in this sense is more lax, more ill-defined... Single motherhood only adds to the problem by creating its own negative feedback loop... Too many young men resist responsible, considered adulthood. Women give up on them and go it alone. As the single mother becomes a new (almost) normal, the cultural environment become increasingly indifferent to a guy in the house. The result? With nobody expecting anything of them, men get worse." (p. 186)

It's an interesting perspective that really made me think.

*** *** ***

Right now, I am about 3/4 of the way through reading the late Senator Edward Kennedy's memoir, "True Compass." I bought the book when it first came out, read about 50 pages, got distracted & laid it aside (as I find myself doing far too often these days). I recently picked it up again, determined to finish it this time.

It's a good book. Of course, I have long been fascinated by the Kennedys, as I have written before on this blog. The family has known much tragedy & grief over the years, of course, and while I've read many books about them, "insider" glimpses like this one have been rare. Reading about one loss after the other from the Senator's perspective brings home to me anew what the family has been through. He writes about struggling to control his emotions, letting tears come only on solitary walks on the Cape Cod beaches he loved.

"It never occurred to me to seek professional help or grief counseling of any kind," he writes of the period following President Kennedy's assassination (p. 213). "The times were different then. But I prayed and I thought and I prayed some more."

I found this particular passage, describing the time in the late 1960s/early 1970s after his brother Bobby's death, particularly poignant (and something I could very much relate to myself):

"As I settled back into the Senate, into something like a state of equilibrium, I recognized that I had grown almost completely devoid of a state of mind that I'd taken for granted since my early childhood. That state of mind was joy.

"What amazing fun it had all once been. What adventures, what friendship and laughter and travels I had shared with my brothers and sisters. What a thrill I'd felt at mounting a wild bronco in Montana, or diving off a cliff in Monaco, or setting my sails into the teeth of a squall, or even facing off against old Wharton in the barracks at Fort Dix. What a lift to the spirit it had been, watching Jack and then Bobby soar into the stratosphere of world events, and to watch each of them accomplish mighty and good things; and the, incredibly, to join them on that plane standing with them to engage history, with laughter and good cigars and the pranks we still played on one another. No more." (p. 295)

If you enjoy reading about the Kennedys, the history of the last 50-60 years, or just enjoy a well-written memoir, give this one a try.

"Your dream will change... and that's okay"

2011-06-16T08:08:00.001-04:00

If you haven't already, I urge you to read or watch Conan O'Brien's commencement address at Dartmouth from earlier this week. It's funny to read & even funnier to watch, if you have 25 minutes to spare/kill/waste. But he winds up with a serious message, and as I thought about it in relation to my own life, my pursuit of a family & my ultimate decision to remain childfree, I could recognize something of myself in his words.

Some excerpts:

In 2000, I told graduates "Don't be afraid to fail." Well now I'm here to tell you that, though you should not fear failure, you should do your very best to avoid it. Nietzsche famously said "Whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger." But what he failed to stress is that it almost kills you. Disappointment stings and, for driven, successful people like yourselves it is disorienting. What Nietzsche should have said is "Whatever doesn't kill you, makes you watch a lot of Cartoon Network and drink mid-price Chardonnay at 11 in the morning."

Now, by definition, Commencement speakers at an Ivy League college are considered successful. But a little over a year ago, I experienced a profound and very public disappointment. I did not get what I wanted, and I left a system that had nurtured and helped define me for the better part of 17 years...

But then something spectacular happened. Fogbound, with no compass, and adrift, I started trying things... and guess what: with the exception of the blue leather suit, it was the most satisfying and fascinating year of my professional life. To this day I still don't understand exactly what happened, but I have never had more fun, been more challenged—and this is important—had more conviction about what I was doing.

How could this be true? Well, it's simple: There are few things more liberating in this life than having your worst fear realized... Your path at 22 will not necessarily be your path at 32 or 42. One's dream is constantly evolving, rising and falling, changing course....

But the point is this : It is our failure to become our perceived ideal that ultimately defines us and makes us unique. It's not easy, but if you accept your misfortune and handle it right, your perceived failure can become a catalyst for profound re-invention.

So, at the age of 47, after 25 years of obsessively pursuing my dream, that dream changed. For decades, in show business, the ultimate goal of every comedian was to host The Tonight Show. It was the Holy Grail, and like many people I thought that achieving that goal would define me as successful. But that is not true. No specific job or career goal defines me, and it should not define you. In 2000—in 2000—I told graduates to not be afraid to fail, and I still believe that. But today I tell you that whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality.

Many of you here today are getting your diploma at this Ivy League school because you have committed yourself to a dream and worked hard to achieve it. And there is no greater cliché in a commencement address than "follow your dream." Well I am here to tell you that whatever you think your dream is now, it will probably change. And that's okay....

Not that I will ever consider losing Katie a good thing... but yes, it most certainly was a catalyst in my life, and nothing has been the same since then. Sometimes that's been good, sometimes it's been bad. But I survived. I'm still here.

My dreams today at 50 are different than they were when I was 20, or 30, or even 40. (Sometimes, I'm still trying to figure out what they are.) But as the guy said, that's okay. Thanks, Conan. : )

Picnic 2011

2011-06-12T16:56:00.007-04:00

Another year, another picnic & memorial butterfly release, put on each year by the support group where dh & I were facilitators for 10 years. In the almost 13 years since we lost Katie, we've only missed one picnic -- the second year we were attending group. It began POURING rain just as we were getting ready to leave. Disappointed, we unpacked our bag & stayed home for the day. We later learned, to our chagrin, the weather at the picnic site had been overcast, but no rain. Lesson learned. We haven't missed a picnic since then.

Some years the weather has been chilly & other years sweltering. (This year, it was mostly overcast with a cool wind. But somehow, I still managed to get slightly sunburned on my neck & nose.) But no matter what the weather, there's always been warm hugs from dear friends, some of whom we only get to see once or twice a year at group events.

Over the years, many of the friends we've made through the group have drifted away. I'm still in touch with some of them, but we no longer see them at the picnic. And while there are still a few people we know we can always count on seeing there, the numbers get smaller each year. Some have other events to attend (birthday parties, bridal showers, etc.) that conflict with the picnic. Some have moved away, too far to attend for an afternoon (particularly when the weather is iffy). Children get older & no longer want to attend a picnic that's largely focused on kiddie entertainments such as pinatas, face painting and magic shows. It's summer, the weather is good and the family cottage beckons. Sometimes the families feel they have moved on and no longer "need" to attend in the same way they once did. Sometimes they haven't, and find it difficult to be around reminders of their loss, around other families' small children.

Things change.

For dh & me, who don't have other children, & whose lives haven't changed in the same way that many of our friends' lives have changed over the years as their families have grown, it's been a little disappointing to watch people drift away. A sizeable number of our friends weren't there at all this year (& were sadly missed); several left shortly after we released our butterflies and, as the others began chasing after their kids, leaving us standing by ourselves amid a cluster of empty lawn chairs & picnic coolers, we decided it was time to leave too, even though we'd only been there two hours & there was still another 2-3 hours to go.

Still, it felt good to be there and to see the people who did show up. And to watch our butterflies flutter around the picnic area, each one representing a much-wanted baby, and many broken hearts. I don't foresee a day anytime soon that we will not be attending.

Picnic 2009

Picnic 2008

(Guess I didn't blog about last year's picnic...??)

Article: "My photos are memorials to lost little lives"

2011-06-09T19:30:00.003-04:00

Wonderful article in today's Globe & Mail, written by a photographer for Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep. How I wish they had been around when we had Katie!

Article: "A Good Enough Life"

2011-05-30T20:24:00.012-04:00

I read an article in this morning's Globe & Mail that I can't stop thinking about: "The Secret to Happiness: Live a Good Enough Life." (One of our friends could have written it: he always used to joke about setting the bar low to avoid disappointment later.) Infertility & childless/free living is not mentioned (of course), but I can most certainly see some parallels here, can you?

*** *** ***

The secret to happiness? Live a 'good enough' life

by Sarah Hampson
From Monday's Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, May 29, 2011 4:00PM EDT

Here’s some counterintuitive news. You should aim for The Good Enough Life.

Oh, I know. It sounds pathetic, defeated: the goal of someone who lacks high standards and a good work ethic, someone who is willing to settle for mediocrity. Not a doer; a pessimistic loser.

Well, happiness experts say satisfaction is largely a matter of expectations. Expectations can sink you. You always thought you would live in a nice house with a double-car garage, have a couple of lovely children, an influential, well-paid job, a devoted spouse and savings in your bank account.

And when you don’t? Yeah, help yourself to a slice of misery pie.

On the other hand, when you don’t expect much, when you manage the ideas of what you think your life should be, you can be pleasantly surprised – and grateful – for the good fortune that comes your way.

The trouble is, that attitude doesn’t fit with society’s prevailing imperatives. There’s a fundamental tension at play in how we’re encouraged to think about our lives. We’re exhorted to achieve our dreams and never give up, to think positive, and yet the resulting expectations – some unrealistically high – can make us dissatisfied, even depressed.

Go ahead, start by blaming your parents. “Have you ever heard a parent say ‘I only want what’s good enough for my children?’ ” offers Barry Schwartz, a professor of social theory at Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania and author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less.

“You can’t even get that sentence out, can you?” he says, laughing. “Whatever standards we have for ourselves, they’re not true for our children. We create people who are perfectionist because they observe us trying to provide the very best, showing us day after day that good enough is just not good enough for our precious jewels. And when the time comes to make their own decisions, children adopt the same standards.”

The idea that realistic parenting might yield happier, more well-adjusted adults is also at the heart of Alina Tugend’s new book, Better By Mistake: The Unexpected Benefits of Being Wrong. She identifies a similar tension in the conflicted messages that mistakes should be avoided (and even punished) even though they’re our greatest teachers.

“There are no simple fixes but there are ways all of us can shift our thinking about mistakes, starting with our children,” she writes. “We can emphasize effort and de-emphasize results. We can appreciate that we – and they – can’t be perfect, nor is it a goal we should aim for.”

Apart from the influence of parents, Prof. Schwartz also fingers the culture of abundant choice. Everything about modern Western life encourages a pursuit of “the best,” he says, adding that “every time a company comes out with a new product they’re trying to convince you it’s the best so you will throw out the old one. This notion of best so suffuses the culture that you almost look like a shirker if you go through life trying to live the good enough life.”

The solution is not about lowering standards, he says. It’s about adjusting the way we think. “High standards are very different from wanting or expecting the best all the time,” he says.

And the same is true for how we should think about our personal accomplishments. “Having very high standards of achievement – working hard, persevering, not being satisfied with what is merely acceptable – no doubt spurs people to achieve things that they would otherwise not achieve,” Prof. Schwartz says. “But there’s a crucial difference between shooting for perfection, realizing you can’t achieve it and yet still being satisfied with your accomplishments and shooting for perfection, thinking you can and should achieve it and thereby living a life of misery and perpetual disappointment.”

What’s required for a contented life is a personal investigation into what matters most. “It’s having to figure out what is worth pursuing. If you have high standards, you need to say ‘this is what’s important to me,’ in a job, in a college, in a relationship, in a house or whatever. It takes more reflection than simply allowing externally imposed ideals dictate what you should want.”

Of course, increasing age can make a person adjust the sails on her ship of expectations. Who among us mid-lifers hasn’t had to weather the knocks of life and realize that sometimes just being healthy, solvent and connected to good friends is more important than the big job you lost, the marriage that failed or the house you had to sell?

It’s about how you redefine what is excellence,” observes Dominique Browning, author of Slow Love: How I Lost My Job, Put on my Pajamas and Found Happiness. The former editor of House & Garden lost her job when the magazine folded in 2007 and found herself reeling from a number of changes. Her two sons had left home. Her post-divorce relationship of 10 years ended. She sold her “forever” house and downsized to Rhode Island. A high-achiever, accustomed to the kind of success people could see from the outside – a limo lift to a high-powered job, a house in New York, a social life among the media elite – she was suddenly adrift, caught in a “feeling of loss and disintegration.”

But one step at a time, she built a new life – freelancing, working in her garden and enjoying the beauty of each day – that didn’t have all the external markers of fulfilled expectations that she once had. “It’s about making a distinction between structure and values,” the now-55-year-old explains on the phone from Rhode Island. “My values remain the same. You can still keep your values even if you lose the structure, which can look like failure to others. I want to do the best that I can do. I care about meaningful work. I want to work with people I admire. I want to grow and I want to overcome fear.

“That’s how I would define my good enough life. That’s not defeatist. It’s the best life for me.”

Right Where I Am: 12 years, 9 months

2011-05-29T13:53:00.071-04:00

Angie, the brilliant creative mind behind the blog Still Life With Circles and other related blogs & projects, recently came up with the great idea to have bereaved moms (& dads) write about where they are now in their grief -- how far they've come (or not) & what life after loss is like for them at this point in time.

I have only read a fraction of the 40-odd posts linked to Angie's initial post for this project, but I suspect I am probably further along in my journey than most of the other writers: coming up to 13 years since August 1998.

I have written about this topic before, I think -- most notably on a guest post for Glow in the Woods two years ago. Most if not all of what I wrote there still applies.

Thirteen years later, Katie is still very much a part of our lives. I still miss her, and feel her absence, even though she was never really "here" in the conventional sense, & her prenatal existence less than 7 months.

We still visit the cemetery every weekend. Most times now, I don't cry, unless maybe it's Mother's Day or a special "anniversary" date or just a crappy day for whatever reason. Mostly I just feel sad & wistful about what might have been, & happy to be there, close to her for a little while. She is always with me, of course, but the cemetery is her special place, a quiet place where I can set aside all my other thoughts & obligations, and just be with her and focus on her and think about her for awhile, before resuming the regular rhythm of my life again.

But there is never a day that goes by that I'm not thinking about her in some way -- about my all-too-brief pregnancy and how it ended, about our struggles to conceive again, about how old she would be & what she would be doing now.

In that regard, of course, we have (Not So) Little Girl Next Door, six months younger than Katie would have been, to act as our constant yardstick. Last night, she and half dozen friends were whooping it up for several hours on the trampoline in the backyard, which I can see from my living room & bedroom windows. They were jumping and shrieking and giggling in youthful exuberance, well after dark, even after dh & I had settled into bed with books before going to sleep for the night. I wasn't sure whether to be sad, knowing that Katie would probably have been among them, had she been here, or secretly, smugly pleased, knowing that at least it wasn't MY daughter out there creating a ruckus in the neighbourhood ; ) and that's one thing I will never have to worry about.

Probably the biggest difference between my life 13 years ago and my life today, however, is that I am not a mother (to a living child). I wasn't then either, but I still hoped to be. I am almost 13 years older now -- 50 -- and I know now that the motherhood ship has sailed permanently, that I will never be a mother to Katie's brother or sister. I've had 12+ years to think about this, and write about it and adjust to this reality, but the truth is that I still sometimes feel like the odd woman out, even among other parents who have dealt with loss &/or infertility.

The vast majority of other bereaved parents who lose a child in pregnancy or infancy either already have a child, or go on to have another child, or maybe both. This doesn't minimize their loss in the least, of course (although outsiders to the world of grief might think it does, or should) -- but the fact is, they are still actively parenting and experiencing parenthood in all its joys & sorrows & frustrations (just not parenting the child they lost). The rhythm of their lives is very much the same as most people's -- but much different than mine and dh's. Their lives are full of bedtime stories and temper tantrums, soccer games and daycare arrangements. They will know, eventually, what it is to see a child celebrate a birthday, graduate from high school, leave home to go to college, maybe get married and have a child themselves some day. They will, more likely than not, have someone to worry about them and visit them in the nursing home and leave their most precious belongings to.

I will not.

Already, some of my peers -- my friends & cousins -- are becoming GRANDPARENTS, reminding me that not only did I completely miss the parenthood boat, there is another new, related phase of life that will not be mine to share with them. In many ways, my life (& my life with dh) has continued on exactly as it always has. Their lives have expanded and changed in ways that mine never has & never will.

At the same time, my life HAS changed -- just in more subtle ways, and in ways that parents who have never experienced loss will never know or understand. They may know the joys & pains of parenthood in a way that I never will. I have known grief, and I would never have welcomed it willingly into my life -- but it has brought unexpected gifts and richness to my life in ways I never could have imagined.

I have watched, sadly, as friends & relatives have become distant in the years since we lost Katie. At the same time, we have made wonderful new friends, both "in real life" and online, who have also struggled with infertility & childlessness and who have experienced the pain of perinatal loss, who understand us as perhaps no one else can. We've both developed much greater empathy and compassion for the pain & struggles of others, and not just in the sense of infertility and loss. We have given back to the support group that helped us so much, volunteering for more than 10 years, something that many of the parents who attended (who would also have made wonderful facilitators) just don't have time to do. We know that grief has the power to tear some marriages apart -- ours, thankfully, has survived and become stronger. We spend more time together than most couples we know. We appreciate the good things about our life together.

We have endured subtle and not-so-subtle digs over the years about how "it must be nice" to be able to sleep in late, to afford whatever new purchase someone is admiring, to be able to retire early, as we are planning with hope -- the unspoken implication being that we can have and do all of these things because we don't have children. They don't stop to consider -- will never know -- the awful price we paid to have the life we have now. (If they did, I don't think they would envy us quite so much.) We both know that there are much, much more important things in life than things, or money, or clawing our way up the corporate ladder. At the same time, though, I refuse to apologize for having some things that others don't (both material & non). I would give it all up gladly to have my daughter back, but since that isn't going to happen, I will gladly take whatever advantages & nice things life sends my way.

Almost 13 years later, my life IS better than it was, immediately post loss. I have survived.

But I still wish things were different. I still wish she was here.

The Treatment Diaries: Weighing our options, August 2000

2011-05-26T18:45:00.005-04:00

The entries in my journal hint at, but don't entirely reflect, the emotional strain and turbulence that I remember dh & I were going through at this time. The results of our first two Clomid cycles hadn't exactly been encouraging, and the early-morning routine of clinic visits was already taking its toll. At the same time, Dr. RE hinted that better results could be had with injectables, and that was tempting.

We spent the first few weeks of August on vacation visiting my family -- & celebrating my parents' 40th wedding anniversary (without any grandchildren for the guests to fuss over, of course, which just added to my guilt & stress). August 10th, day 28 of my current cycle, I called Dr. RE's office to make an appointment to discuss our options & next steps. The appointment was for August 17th, which happened to be day 2. If we wanted, we had the option of launching into a new cycle immediately afterwards, with the routine day 3 ultrasound & bloodwork.

In my journal, I outlined some of the points & questions I wanted to cover during our visit:

How do you decide which meds I should take?
Which injectables would you recommend for me?
What will it do? (Good/Bad?)
How much $$?
How taken? (Injectables = training?)
How many days?
IUIs/wash: want to try!!!

Our conversation with Dr. RE was the usual maddening mix of encouragement & discouragement. On the negative side, I said I hadn't responded very well to the Clomid, & that my LH & FSH numbers were almost inversely proportionate to what they should be. I was only producing half the number of follicles he would expect to see. Ovulating on day 21 was "way too late."

Taking injectables, he said, would be like "stepping on the gas." Even so, he said the success rates for a woman my age were only 6-10% -- "for you, it would be less than 6%." He predicted that we would be spending at least $1500 per cycle, including the sperm wash for the IUI, but said we could return any unused medications for a refund. He assured me that learning to inject myself would be very, very easy & loaned me a video that outlined what to do.

We took the video & a pamphlet & said we would think about it and let him know. In my journal, I recorded dh as saying, "On the one hand, pretty low odds... on the other hand, don't want you to have any regrets. Can't do this indefinitely -- but if it would make you happy, can max out the credit cards."

Below that, I pasted my horoscope for the day: "According to your solar chart, you are on the verge of giving up on something that you just can't seem to crack. What you don't seem to realize is that you are closer to a breakthrough than you have ever been before. Hold on a little longer -- if you give up now, you will always regret it."

!!!!!!

Still, we dithered. I have some notes in my journal, outlining what I wanted to say in a phone message I left on Dr. RE's voice mail that night: "We've decided we're really not ready to make a decision yet... we need some more time to talk this over. We've been away on holidays, we've just passed the second anniversary of our daughter's stillbirth, we've been out the past two nights, so we really haven't had the time we wanted to mull this over. We know that, at this stage, every month counts, but we don't want to be pressured into making a hasty decision that we might regret later. We're going to take another month off to explore this a little further and will call you once we've made a decision one way or another."

In my journal, I wrote these lists:

Factors

on holidays
parents' 40th wedding anniversary
no grandchildren (alive) = GUILT
2nd anniversary of daughter's stillbirth
out two nights last week
out Wednesday night AND tonight = no time to really discuss
period = v. emotional
bad back for two weeks
= this is no way to make a decision!!

Should we continue with injectables?

Pros/Yes/Positives

increase our chances (however slight)
keep hope alive...
we haven't tried this yet, OR the IUI -- do at least once (= no regret)(could/should have done more...)
would only do if the numbers were right (= maybe not that often)
less expensive than IVF
we could set a limit on # of attempts/$
if we give up on drugs, do we give up altogether?
biological clock: time is running out -- make the most of it while we can
I WANT TO HAVE A BABY!!!!!!!!!!
if I don't try at least once, I will probably regret it and always wonder "what if"

Con/No/Negatives

6-10% chance (more like 6% max) -- @ $1,200-1,500 -- a gambler wouldn't take those odds...
setting ourselves up for more disappointment, if #s not right this cycle, or if we do it and it doesn't work
cost factor (less than IVF but still substantial...)
always the urge to keep going: when do we stop?
more early mornings, dr's appointments, etc. -- STRESS & EXHAUSTION
NEEDLES (YUCK)... feel like a druggie
possibility of side effects (what am I doing to my body?)
even if pg, no guarantee of a baby, esp. w/bicornuate uterus
lack of support from husband? -- he'll do what I want, but... (enthusiasm lacking) = stress and strain on marriage

And below all this, a notation: "Dh agrees: see infertility counsellor, get neutral 3rd party perspective."

*** *** ***

Several months earlier, I had attended an all-day Saturday seminar on IVF, sponsored by a local infertility support group. The guest speakers included various local REs (including my own), embryologists & researchers, representatives from sperm banks, and a couple of infertility counsellors who addressed the emotional aspects of treatment and parenting after infertility. I was particularly impressed with one counsellor who seemed friendly & down to earth, and had some great, practical points in her presentation. I picked up one of her business cards at one of the display tables, which said she did individual & couples counselling, specializing in grief, loss and reproductive issues. Perfect. I mentioned her name to one of our support group colleagues and was told that we regularly referred clients to her for individual counselling, when they requested it.

So on August 18th, I left a message requesting an appointment for dh & me with the infertility counsellor, briefly outlining our story and how I had found her, including the fact that we were wrestling with the decision whether to move on to more aggressive treatment. Our first meeting with her was on August 30th. We left work early and took both the subway and a streetcar to get to her office, in a funky old building in one of Toronto's ethnic neighbourhoods.

The night before our meeting, I had a strange and vivid dream that I described in my journal. I was trying to decide whether to give myself the Gonal-F injections... and I decided to just try giving myself shots -- so I was drawing up fluid from Vitamin E capsules (!) & injected myself in the stomach with them. It HURT, & I had blood and Vitamin E oozing out of holes everywhere on my stomach. Yuck.

Then the dream changed, and dh and I were on a bus with all of my coworkers -- only instead of seats, there were beds up & down the aisle. We were in bed, & I woke up and started fumbling with my thermometer to take my temperature (beep, beep...) & with the stuff to inject myself with. Dh rolled over, got up and went to the bathroom -- came back, but walked by me and crawled into bed with one of my (younger) coworkers!! who patted him on the back!! I started crying & crying, and hissing at him (trying not to make a scene), "Come BACK here!!"

I woke up in a cold sweat. I figured it reflected my subliminal fears that dh would quickly get tired of all this infertility crap and move on to a younger, more fertile woman. :(

My horoscope for the day read: "Someone you work with or know socially can be of inestimable value to you today -- all you have to do is let them help you out. Not even a Capricorn knows all the answers, but you will meet someone today who has the one answer you really need. Listen and learn."

*** *** ***

We hit it off with the counsellor immediately. Besides having infertility in common, she was originally from my home province, and we discovered we even knew a few of the same people. She told us a bit about her story, and we told her ours.

She started off by asking us what we needed from each other, and what we feared. Dh said he personally was ready to call it quits, but he didn't want me to have any regrets. He said his greatest fear was actually another pregnancy. The counsellor told him that was entirely understandable.

I said that while I wasn't wild about the idea of further, more aggessive treatment, and I didn't think I wanted to still be doing this when I was 45, I didn't want to give up just yet. I wanted to try the IUI at least once and see if the numbers improved. My fears: (1) the money & stress, (2) what am I doing to my body?? & (3) the needles. The counsellor said that was a very common fear.

The counsellor commented that to limit ourselves to just one try would be putting a whole lot of stress on ourselves (all our eggs in one basket). She suggested three trys -- setting a limit, as Dr. RE had suggested at our very first meeting. By three trys, she meant three "good" cycles, where we actually got to go through the whole cycle & do the IUI. If we were unsuccessful after three tries, she suggested either moving on to IVF, or stopping treatment altogether. "Call me then," she said. "It will help in making the transition."

She recommended Alice Domar's "Healing Mind, Healthy Woman" to me, and suggested a website I might want to check out (I didn't write down what it was & I can no longer remember).

We left feeling MUCH better and that it had been an hour, and money, well spent.