#Microblog Mondays: Odds & ends & lots of links!

(Another #MM post that's not so micro... but it's what I've got!)  

I haven't posted as much here lately as I often do. I can chalk it up, in part, to the usual mid-winter/February malaise. Aside from a few (too few) glorious days of sunshine & clear blue skies, it's been grey and blah outside lately.  And there just hasn't been a lot going on to write about. I've hardly been out of the house. (Planning a trip to the mall this week to remedy that!)  

I've also been feeling slightly overwhelmed by the volume of stuff coming at me every day. Nothing particularly important or heavy or consequential -- just trying to keep up with all the things I want and need and like to do -- and read. 

I've always been a voracious reader and consumer -- of books, of magazines, of newspapers -- of media generally, from the time I learned to read. Even when I was a kid, my parents and grandparents always got (and read) at least one newspaper daily (the one from the nearest city), sometimes two, when there was a daily local paper (and if there wasn't a daily, there was a weekly) -- plus, we tuned in to the news on TV at lunchtime, suppertime and later in the evening too (in the days before 24-hour news channels existed).  And every morning when I arrived at journalism school, there were stacks of of the local London Free Press and Globe & Mail waiting in our classroom/newsroom for us to read -- with regular news quizzes to ensure we were keeping up with current events. I've kept the habit of reading multiple daily newspapers (along with other reading material, of course) all through my adult life. 

These days, the news tends to come in a digital format. Just getting through my email inbox -- full of newsletters from various newspapers, magazines, Substacks, etc. -- takes forever some days. (I look forward to weekends, when the volume diminishes considerably.)  Plus there are blogs to read and comment on (something I haven't been very good at doing lately...!), social media accounts, message boards and other sites I follow regularly. I've slacked off considerably on keeping up with my Facebook & Instagram accounts -- which I suppose is not a bad thing in some ways (lol) -- but also leaves me with mild cases of both guilt and FOMO.  

Additionally, I've been checking my Ancestry account every morning to see what new DNA cousins have shown up overnight for me, my mom & dh. Checking the daily e-book bargains on Kobo. Juggling reading for the several book clubs & readalongs I belong to, plus squeezing in a few books from my own towering to-read piles now & then. Plus the usual household stuff, etc. 

On the other hand, all this reading lately means I have some really GREAT stuff to share with all of you here!  :)  

• Jody Day has been on an absolute roll lately with her Childless Elderwomen Substack.  SO MUCH insight and wisdom!  Check out her latest post -- "Shouldn't you be over that at your age?" -- and then peruse the archives for more.  
• Jody also recently shared this thoughtful essay by Kristen Gentry: "Childless." 
• "I will be, they would have been, it will be:"  Katie Hawkins-Gaar at "My Sweet Dumb Brain" (Substack) examines "the ever-changing calculations of grief math."
• A fascinating (excellent!) article from ProPublica about how Australia has reduced the number of stillbirths there, and what America (and Canada!) could learn from their example.   
• Canadian Affairs recently published an article about Canadians' access to IVF treatment -- or lack thereof -- followed by an editorial arguing "Why IVF treatment should be publicly funded."  (You will likely need to register for access.) 
• Pamela recently posted a new article in Medium calling (once again) for greater accountability from the fertility industry. (It may be behind a paywall?) 
• Yael Wolfe, who is CNBC, had a great post in Medium:  "To All the Women in Their 40s Who Are Saying Goodbye to Their Fertility."  (Subhead:  "This is one of the most sacred journeys we’ll ever take — and the world barely acknowledges it.")  
• Unfortunately, it's (also) behind a members-only paywall. (I got a membership a while back specifically so I could read her stuff!)  And the only way I can access a gift link is by upgrading my membership -- I mean, seriously??)  But it's worth a read, if you can access it somehow.  
• Sample passage (boldfacing & italics hers):  

I suspect no one had the fertility journey that they thought they would have. There are surprise pregnancies. There are unimaginable losses. Life has no greater talent than that of disrupting our expectations.

In all of these circumstances, it is the women who are “childless by circumstance” that I think of the most. The women like me. There is such pain for those of us who wanted to become mothers yet did not. And there is no recognition of this type of loss in our culture.

We understand and honor the grief of miscarriages, stillborns, and other losses associated with our fertility. But we don’t have a social protocol to help us support a woman who is childless by circumstance. In fact, we don’t even have a cultural understanding of the very important difference between a woman who is childless and one who is childfree — our culture assumes any woman without children got there by choice.

We’re strangely unable to understand that many women struggle with the emotional and physical toll of infertility — that they perhaps wanted a child of their own very badly but could not have one. And apparently, at least so far as I can see, it’s incomprehensible that a fertile woman could end up without a child unless she chose that path.

Western imagination understands the fickle hand of fate when it comes to miscarriages and surprise pregnancies — but not when it comes to a woman who had a plan…a plan that just didn’t work out.

Those who don’t have children aren’t without stories — and equally complex stories, at that. If you have a uterus, you have stories. And someday, when the storyline of our fertility comes to an end, we feel drawn to open those worn pages again, flip through the familiar words and images, and maybe even share them with those around us.

• This article from the Atlantic by a woman who has had three miscarriages and one full-term loss is gorgeous:  "I Don’t Know If I Can Call Myself a Mom."  (Subhead:  "I’ve had three miscarriages, seven reproductive surgeries, and one infant loss. I still don’t have a child.") Caveat: She & her husband are still trying to conceive. (Gift link.)  Sample passage: 

How do you confirm parenthood without proof? Without spit-up on your clothes, a diaper bag slung over your shoulder, or commiseration with fellow mothers?

But I did mother Lucy. Every decision I made for her—from the positive test to her last breath—was mothering. Not drinking booze or eating raw fish during my pregnancy was mothering. Reading parenting books and touring day cares was mothering. Practicing prenatal yoga and labor positions was mothering. Stroking her face while I held her languid body had to have been mothering.

• In her Substack "The Antidote," Helen Davenport-Hall once again nails it with "'breathe yourself fertile': aka my latest bullshit, unethical find" (about the rhetoric and ethics of the "fertility wellness and spiritual world").  Sample passage [italics and boldface the author's]: 

The ethics of fertility wellness and spirituality matters to me. You matter, we matter and we deserve ethical sensitivity, criticality and someone to redress the balance. We deserve far far better than being told we’re not breathing properly either and so of course we aren’t fertile.





There is a particular feeling of futility and self blame that we can be left with alongside our negative pregnancy tests. And it’s never as loud as when we’ve bought into the suggestions, claims and promises that THIS is the thing that will get that positive test - paid for it, tried it and come away empty handed.



You didn’t do it wrong.





• I had mixed feelings about this article from the Guardian (so, caveat emptor...):  "‘At 45, I grieved the idea of motherhood. Then, by pure fluke, I was pregnant’." To her credit, the author -- who endured multiple miscarriages and two failed rounds of IVF -- is honest about the mixed feelings & emotions. (And the writing is beautiful.)  A couple of sample passages:  

In many ways it has been a strange tributary in the conversation most women have throughout their lives: why you don’t have children, why you do. Fertility is a part of a woman’s life that exists beyond herself, that is forever subject to public speculation and interrogation. “Questions,” as Rebecca Solnit put it, “that push you into the herd or nip at you for diverging from it.”

It has been stranger still to cross from one side to the other, as if handed, like a baton, between the divergent and the herd. At this stage in my life, I do not seem to fit entirely in either; I have missed the mothering years of my peers, and now I have absconded from my child-free fellowship.

and

I am wary of the false hope this kind of fertility story might give: woman gives up trying to have a baby, then duly falls pregnant – as if the very act of wanting something is the very thing that might prevent it. I do not want this to seem like a cautionary tale of female desire. Nor was there any great trick – I cannot attribute my pregnancy to a particular vitamin supplement, acupuncturist, health regime. I have no advice. It was luck, pure fluke.

It was also not without complexity. I was of course elated to be pregnant, but I had spent a good two years grieving the idea of motherhood and imagining a different kind of life for myself. Now I was doubling back, revisiting the hopes of my younger self.

• Not ALI-related (at least, not obviously so...), but...:  I don't know if those of you outside of Canada know who Brittlestar is:  his real name is Stewart Reynolds, and he's a comedian, corporate spokesperson and wry social media commentator/content creator, among other things. He also has a Substack (who doesn't these days, right?), and I thought he made a great point recently, explaining "Here's why some people have gone crazy." 
• (Personally, I think politics and world events have always had an impact on us all -- it's just that most people don't pay attention or make the connection until it becomes blatantly obvious and too difficult to ignore, as it did during the pandemic -- just as most people will offer up "thoughts and prayers" when a tragedy happens, secure in the knowledge that such a thing would never happen to THEM...)(until it inevitably does, of course...!).   
• If you've been a reader here for a while, you'll know of my longstanding admiration for the Maynard women -- mother Fredelle, and her daughters Rona and Joyce -- all successful writers. I've followed both Rona & Joyce on social media for years, and Rona is now expanding on her wonderful Facebook posts in a Substack called "Amazement Seeker." You MUST read today's post -- "Voice Lesson from a Literary Warrior" -- if only for that opening paragraph, which left me slack-jawed with envy (oh, to be a fly on the wall of THAT gathering...!).  But I'm betting you'll stick around for the whole thing. ;)  How about this paragraph, which will speak to bloggers everywhere?  

Not every revolution strikes at a foe. For a woman who writes, the first barricade is within. To claim what you know, and tell it in your own voice, is a revolutionary act that not only remaps your emotional world but clears a path for others... If my joys, sorrows and amusements mattered, then so did my reader’s.

• The CBC had a story this weekend about the declining number of cousins that children today are growing up with, and the important role they can play in families. 
• This is certainly something I've noticed in my own experience, and in dh's family too. My mom had just one brother and he had just two kids (my first cousins) -- but on my dad's side of the family, I have something like 35?? first cousins & half-cousins. Dh has a similar amount from his mom & dad's families combined. But our nephews have just one (living) cousin (their mom's brother's daughter).  Little Great-Nephew has just one first cousin -- Little Great-Niece -- and it's likely to stay that way.  Little Great-Niece has two other cousins on her mom's side of her family.  

You can find more of this week's #MicroblogMondays posts here.