The rest of August 1998: Aftermath

Dh went to church the morning after we got home from the hospital (Sunday, August 9th). I wasn't up to it, but he, Mom & I went the following Sunday (August 16th). I was jolted when the parishoners were asked to pray for those who had died, including "Baby Kathleen," in the intercessions. Later, we had barely arrived home, when one of the parishoners arrived at our door with the flowers from the altar, & saying they were sorry for our loss.

Later on the afternoon of the 9th, FIL & stepMIL arrived, with Mom's suitcase. FIL had been so happy about this pregnancy. He would greet me by patting my belly and, with a huge grin, ask "How's my baby??" As he came up the steps now, with an expression of sorrow on his face, I put my arms around him & started sobbing again.

We also picked up the wallpaper border we had ordered from Sears. I put it, unopened, into the closet. It remained unopened for five years. I joked that they had probably gotten the order wrong. I decided to finally open it on the five-year "anniversary" date. It was the right one. ; )

Flowers were starting to arrive. The very first bouquet -- a dozen pink roses in a vase, from my godmother (my mother's closest cousin) -- had actually been delivered next door while we were still at the hospital. The neighbours, who had just moved in that February, and whom we barely knew, then sent us a bouquet of their own. I called my laywer/college roommate girlfriend -- Dr. Ob-gyn had delivered her son -- to tell her what had happened, and she also sent a beautiful bouquet of all-white flowers.

One day, a florist's truck stopped, and the delivery guy carried an absolutely humungous bouquet. "Only a bunch of guys could send something so big & ugly," dh said (meaning the guys he worked with!) and he was right! I didn't think it was that ugly, but trust a bunch of guys to go for the big gesture. ; )

One day, early on, a courier truck pulled up & handed me a big brown package from my office. I couldn't believe it -- they were sending me work??? Then I opened the package. Knowing my love of reading (& that I'd probably be off work for awhile), they had chipped in & sent me a selection of books instead of flowers. I was touched. The only thing that bothered me was the card was simply signed with the name of my department, instead of having everyone add their signature & message, as I knew I had done with other sympathy cards, when people's parents had passed away. It was as if nobody knew what to say in this situation, so they went for a generic signature.

The calls continued to flow in. My aunts & uncles called, as well as dh's. Cards & notes started arriving too. The very first one I received was from the secretary to the CEO of the bank I worked for. She had previously worked as the secretary to an executive whose office was adjacent to my department, so all of us knew her, & someone must have told her. To say I was touched is an understatement. I also received a card from the HR vice-president I had been working with on a project just before I left, and from a member of my lunch hour Toastmasters club. All totally unexpected.

The mother of my three best friends from childhood -- sisters who lived across the street from us -- called. Her youngest daughter had had a twin, stillborn at birth. Back in the early 1960s, it was not common to see your dead baby, but another neighbour had encouraged her to do so, and she spoke about how glad she was that she had. I knew that my friend had had a twin -- had visited her grave in the local cemetery -- but had never heard her mother speak about the experience. A few days later, the middle daughter (the one closest in age to me, now the mother of two adopted children) called. At first I didn't recognize her voice, but when I realized who it was, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. I knew she would listen to me, just as she had during so many late-night slumber parties growing up, and she did. "Oh, it's so SAD!!" I sobbed into the phone.

And I started encountering people I knew who had to be told what had happened. My mom needed a trim, so I made her an appointment with my hairdresser at the mall. As we walked in, she started to exclaim over my belly, which was larger than when she'd last seen me -- but I sadly shook my head & told her what had happened, and her expression changed to one of shock and then sadness. She told me she had had a miscarriage at five months, a few years before her daughter was born. She took an unusually long time at the end of the appointment, spraying & teasing my mother's hair -- until the shampoo girl arrived, bearing a bouquet of flowers for me. She'd slipped her some money & stalled until she brought them back.

On Monday, August 10th, the assistant curate from our church came to visit us. Reverend E. was a good-humoured woman around the same age as dh & myself. We talked about what had happened, about how she had become a minister, and what sort of a service we would like to have. I can't remember exactly when we decided on the date, but we eventually setttled on Wednesday, August 19th, which would give time for my father to arrive.

On Tuesday, August 11th, we went to a local funeral home to make arrangements. We had decided to have her cremated. The man we talked to spoke very softly and kept referring to "Kathleen." That was her proper name, but to us, she was "Katie," & it felt very weird to hear her referred to in that way. He asked whether we would like to see her again (we said no -- now, of course, I wish we had). Would we like her dressed in a specific outfit or wrapped in a special blanket? We said no. I had nothing to dress her in (what would fit a baby so small, anyway?). I was not about to give up the little white crocheted outfit the hospital had given us either -- I had so little that was HERS.

Then it was time to pick out a container. He asked whether we'd like to go downstairs to where they kept the caskets & urns. I paused and looked at my mother, & she asked whether they could bring some urns up for us to look at. So they did. I remember one that was shaped like a fish!! OK, fine, if you're a big hunter/fisherman, but...!!?? My mother cleared her throat and said, "Umm, don't you have anything that would be more suitable for a baby??" They finally brought up a pink marble urn. I knew it would probably be way too large for the few ashes that our 4 oz. daughter would amount to, but it seemed the best choice. He asked whether we'd like anything engraved on it. I asked for an angel, and her name & the date. I also asked whether the urn would be tightly sealed, and he assured me it would be. I had nightmarish visions of every sitcom I'd ever seen where Aunt Gertrude's ashes got spilled all over the living room & then vacuumed up.

As for where to put the ashes, they directed us to a cemetery a few miles up the road. Cremation did not bother me; having my daughter's ashes flung to the four winds, with no marker to show that she existed, did. The genealogist in me appreciates cemeteries & having graves to visit. ; )

The funeral home called ahead, & a "counsellor" (salesman) was waiting for us when we got there. He pumped our hands & said, "My condolences," in a matter of fact way. I had the bizarre sense that I was talking to a used car salesman. He showed us some of the options. First, there was a section of the cemetery known as "The Garden of Angels," specifically reserved for infants. Dh & I looked at each other. It just seemed way too sad a place to put our daughter.

There was also a section of plots, close together, specifically for cremation urns and, close to that, a cluster of columbaria (sp?) -- granite walls with niches to hold up to two urns each. This was where we decided Katie's ashes would rest. The cemetery was relatively new, but located along a ravine, and full of trees. Dh & I knew it would be a beautiful place to come visit our daughter.

We went back to the office to deal with the paperwork and to receive our FREE estate planning booklet -- as many as we'd like! Take one more for your friends & family!! The salesman pumped our hands again as we left. Once we were safely in the car, we all looked at each other & burst out laughing. What a totally bizarre experience. Then I my gasps of laughter turned to sobs. My mother reached up from the back seat & patted my shoulder. "What an awful, awful thing to have to do," she said -- meaning having to make funeral arrangements for your baby. Thank you, Mom. (He was still there when we went back recently to purchase a niche for ourselves!!)

My dad finally arrived -- as originally planned, pre-loss -- on Tuesday, August 18th. The night before, I remember sitting quietly at the dinner table, and my mother asking if something was bothering me about my father coming, because I was so silent. I started crying & whispered, "It wasn't supposed to be this way."

Katie's funeral was at 2 o'clock the day after Dad arrived, Wednesday, August 19th, at the beautiful little Anglican church dh & I attended. I wore one of my maternity dresses (navy gingham, small check). It was just me, dh, my mom & dad, FIL & stepMIL, BIL, SIL & our two nephews, then aged 6 & 9. The funeral home had offered to send a limousine, but we said we'd drive ourselves. (I've always wanted to ride in a limo -- but that wasn't quite the way I had pictured it...)

We walked into the church. The pink marble urn we had selected was sitting in the middle of a pedestal, with a wreath of pink roses surrounding it, and two sprays of pink and white flowers on either side (which we left for the church to use at the next service or to take to a shut-in). There were two large bouquets on the organ nearby, sent by dh's partner at work (who had lost a little girl five years earlier) & an associate he had never met but spoke with on the phone nearly every day. I walked up to the urn, fingered it & admired the flowers. The engraving of the little angel, name & date, was perfect. "It's beautiful, thank you," I said to the funeral director.

I heard one of our nephews whisper to his mom, "The baby's in there??" I think they envisioned us stuffing the body inside, lol. I watched them during the service. The younger one's feet barely touched the floor, & he swung them back and forth. I thought how awful it was for someone so little to learn about death in this way.

The service was very short. We sat in a semi-circle of chairs near the front, near the urn. A few readings, a few prayers, a few words from Rev. E. Then it was time to make the trip to the cemetery. I remember dh carrying the urn out of the church. We may have taken it in the car with us, but I don't remember.

At the cemetery, the niche was open. Rev. E said a few more prayers, & dh put the urn inside. Then he reached into his pocket & pulled out a toddler's board book, and put it into the niche beside the urn." It was Classic Pooh, in keeping with the theme of her nursery: "Pooh and Some Bees." "After all, he said to me when he bought it a few days earlier, "she would have grown up in a house full of books." I slipped in a letter in a sealed envelope that I had written a half-hour before we left. The funeral director handed each of us a pink rose, broken off the wreath that had surrounded the urn at the church, and each of us placed one inside.

My dad's shoulders heaved with sobs, which broke my heart.

Rev. E hugged me. "I'll stay and watch them close up. You go on back to the house, I'll come later."

Back at the house, we had a couple of sandwich and veggie trays we had ordered, and some angel food cake with berries. Our nephews wrestled for the Nintendo controls while the adults chatted. A sense of semi-normalcy once again prevailed. We went out for dinner that night, too tired to cook.

Not one to sit around the house, my dad immediately started in on a few projects: painting the backyard shed and putting up new wallpaper in our bathroom. To thank my parents, we decided to take them on an overnight jaunt about a 60-90 minute drive away, where a native band had recently opened a new casino. My parents love casinos. Dh hates them, & was in a sulky mood the whole trip. We argued in our hotel room. I felt like I was living in a nightmare. In retrospect, a family excursion to such a frivolous place that he didn't appreciate at the best of times probably wasn't the best idea when we were both newly grieving.

Back home, our parish priest, recently returned from the conference in England, dropped by to visit, as did cousin/neighbour & family, recently returned from spending several weeks with the wife's sister and her new baby boy, born the day after I delivered.

Mom & Dad left to return home, as originally planned, on Friday, August 28th. I plunged into writing thank you notes to everyone who had sent us flowers & cards, or helped us in some way over the past month. It was therapeutic to be able to write the words, "our daughter."

On Monday, August 31st, dh returned to work. I was on my own.

Show & Tell: I survived the barbecue...

As I mentioned in my last post, yesterday was dh's cousins' annual Labour Day weekend barbecue. I had a pretty good time, all things considered -- although, as usual, the back to school/kid talk got a little boring after awhile, having nothing much to contribute to the conversation myself.

My SIL is away right now -- which does not happen very often! -- so it was a little strange not to have her there to chat with (although BIL and our nephews were there). Also missing from the party was doppleganger cousin's pg wife, who is due Sept. 17th!! -- their little girl was sick, so she stayed home with her.

There were only two sad/bad moments during the day, when it really hit me that our daughter should have been there: first, when we were taking the traditional annual group photo of all the kids (and even then, it didn't quite hit me until I looked over at dh, & he was looking at me with these sad eyes). Second, when the hostess's 6-year-old daughter gleefully modelled a new dress (with matching hat) that dh's aunt had sewed for her. She looked so cute. Totally choked me up.

Probably the most fun part of the day was meeting the very latest addition to the clan! Cousin/neighbour's youngest daughter (now 15) has been dog crazy almost from the day she was born, and has been nagging her parents for years to buy her a dog. She wanted a black Lab, but her mom (not a big dog person to begin with) said no, it was too big a dog for the small house they live in.

Recently, she was watching "Lady & the Tramp" for the umpteenth time & asked about a cocker spaniel. That was more acceptable to her parents, so they did some research & went last week to get a puppy from a breeder. She's 12 weeks old and has a lovely gentle temperament. Even dh, who is afraid of most dogs, thought she was sweet. The kids had so much fun with her.

I don't feel comfortable publishing any photos of the kids, but dogs are another story!

Meet Lady!

It's one of those weeks...

(…and it was only Monday when I started writing this post...!) Even though I was back at work last week, I still feel like I am adjusting.

It's been a busy two days at the office -- a taste of things to come. September through March (year-end) tends to be the busiest season of the year at my office. My company's third-quarter results were released today. Yesterday, I spent most of an absolutely brutal day holed up in a boardroom with a co-worker, taking turns proofreading long columns of numbers aloud (this being Canada, both the English AND French versions!)(another pair of proofreading coworkers had an even worse deal -- both numbers AND (English) text!). It turned out this document was 38 pages long. Same time last year it was 27 pages, & two years ago it was 23 -- no wonder!! By the end of it all, my voice was shot & I was totally useless for the short time left in the work day.

Stayed up waaaayyyyy past my usual bedtime last night nurturing my inner political junkie, watching Ted Kennedy & Michelle Obama speak at the Democratic convention in Denver, and am paying for it today. (Why is U.S. politics so much more interesting than what passes for politics/politicians here in Canada right now??) Would love to hear Hillary Clinton tonight, but not sure I'll make it before I have to crawl into bed. Why does the coverage start so late?? (10 p.m. my time.) I suppose the networks find the advertising revenue at 8 or 9 p.m. is more lucrative when they schedule something like "Big Brother" or "Dancing With the Stars"...!

(Which reminds me of a sort of funny, politics-related story related to my great-great grandmother's letters, which I posted for Show & Tell a week ago. My American-born mother is a dyed-in-the-wool Republican -- but when I came home a few weeks ago, she was sporting an Obama button on the side of her purse!! She said she got it when they were at a family reunion, from her cousin's wife, who is a bigtime Obama supporter. I think she kind of liked shocking people with it, lol. Anyway, when we stopped at the office of our distant cousin to pick up those family letters, we were waiting in the foyer for him & I hissed at Mom, "TURN YOUR PURSE AROUND." I didn't know this man's politics -- although from what little I knew, I could hazard a guess that he was probably not an Obama fan! -- but I wasn't willing to risk him taking offense & not handing over the letters after all, lol.)

Lots of comings & goings at the office. My immediate boss is on holidays this week. The summer students are heading back to school. So is the young assistant we've had working with us for the better part of the last 5-7 years. She's very good at what she does & I will miss her. Another coworker from the 20-something set is also leaving at the end of the week for a more prestigious job. We've had three new people (replacements) join the department in the last two weeks, with a few more to come.

And then there's my pg coworker, who is counting down the days until mat leave (due date is Oct. 3rd; last day is Sept. 12th or 19th) -- & telling everyone about the pink nursery she's decorated. :(

StepSIL (married to stepMIL's youngest son, both aged 41) had her baby on Sunday, a day earlier than scheduled (a boy). StepMIL is over the moon. I think she had given up on ever being a grandmother. We will be expected to go visit & bring a gift soon.

And of course, it seems like every other woman I pass by these days is hugely pregnant.

Dh's cousins' annual Labour Day weekend barbecue is this Saturday. On the one hand, I do enjoy getting to see everyone (we so seldom all get together these days). On the other hand, we are now the one & only adult couple in the entire extended family that doesn't have kids. Doppelganger cousin's wife (who will be 45 in December) will be hugely pregnant with their second -- not sure of the due date, but it should be soon. Their first little girl is not even 2 yet. Dh adores her. She's very cute, but seeing him with her always makes me a little sad.

Two cousins are teachers, another is a teacher's aide and another works for the school division --so the "back to school" talk is always overwhelming. Not only do I get to hear all about their own kids, I also get to hear about everyone else's, lol. After awhile, I tend to get bored silly.

It's been 25 years since I was in school, and I find I still kind of miss that "back to school" feeling. I guess most people get to relive it with their kids. It feels like everyone else is on the move with their lives in some respect, starting some exciting new chapter in their lives, except for me. I'm not really sure where I should be, or want to be moving on to (except maybe early retirement, lol). And I'm really not that good with change, generally speaking. I just don't like the feeling that everyone else is moving on & leaving me stuck in the dust.

Dh just read some of this post over my shoulder & sadly said that I sounded like a bitter, unhappy person. :( I hope not, since that's not how I generally think of myself. But a girl's gotta vent once in awhile, doesn't she?? And this blog is one of the places where I feel "safe" doing that.

I find that I can usual handle any one or two of these things as they happen, one-off. But it can be very draining. And then when everything starts piling up all at once...

"Epilogue: A Memoir" and the universality of grief

Reading today's New York Times Book Review, I found a review for a new book by Anne Roiphe, called "Epilogue: A Memoir." I haven't read the book yet (it's not out until next week, apparently), but I'm going to have to look for it (although I still haven't read "The Year of Magical Thinking" by Joan Didion yet either).

Just reading the review, however, reminded me how universal the experience and emotions of the bereavement experience can be. There are differences, to be sure... but at a very basic level, so much is the same. Substitute "grief" for "loneliness," "child" or "baby" for "husband" and "wife" for "mother," etc., and there's not a whole lot of difference. I've boldfaced some of the passages that really hit home for me -- being left out of the conversation, for one!

The last line, in particular, about most likely never having another soulmate (baby) -- but being OK regardless -- I found particularly relevant, as I continue down the road of childless/free living after loss & infertility.

See what you think:

*** *** ***

The Unmerry Widow
Anne Roiphe describes her life after the death of her husband

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/24/books/review/Scarf-t.html

By MAGGIE SCARF
Published: August 22, 2008

In a little-known essay called “Loneliness,” the psychoanalyst Frieda Fromm-Reichmann once remarked that it’s difficult for most people to retain vivid recollections of times when they were very lonely. This isn’t because the experience isn’t striking; it’s because it’s almost unbearably so. Loneliness presents a threat to a person’s integrity and well-being, to the very sense of who one is. “Loneliness is so awful an experience,” Fromm-­Reichmann observed, that “most people will do practically anything to avoid it.” But loneliness makes up a large and unavoidable part of a newly widowed woman’s life. So, paradoxically, does the wish to be left alone with one’s grief, as Anne Roiphe tells us in this raw, painful and yet occasionally comic memoir of the year and a half following the sudden death of her husband.

Herman Roiphe, a psychoanalyst, suffered a fatal heart attack in December 2005, when he was 81. “Epilogue” is Anne Roiphe’s description of the aftermath of their happy, 39-year marriage. As readers of her novels and her previous memoirs will expect, she isn’t reticent about taking off the bandages and showing us the extent and depth of her injuries.

Roiphe is now the extra woman in the coupled world she and H. (as she calls him throughout) formerly inhabited. While her old friends talk about travels they have planned or just returned from, she’s left out of the conversation. She isn’t going anywhere. She doesn’t feel fully present in the group. She’d rather return home and get under the covers, with the cat lying beside her in the space H. used to occupy.

The pressing need is always to retreat to her safe base, even though that’s where the silence of her single status awaits her: “If I am at dinner with a friend I keep glancing at my watch, how soon can I leave, how long till I am back in my apartment. If I am in my apartment I am anxious. I should go out. I need to be out. I need to go somewhere. If I am downtown I worry about the subway on the way home. Will it come? Will I be safe? I go to the theater with friends. I want to leave at intermission. I can’t concentrate. I am worried about how I am going to get home. . . . This anxiety, anxiety about nothing, no reason or sense to it, flows in and out of my mind all day.”

In a much earlier book, the novel “Torch Song,” inspired by her disastrous first marriage to the playwright Jack Richardson, Roiphe informed the reader that she had learned something important about disasters: They had their rhythms. They built, they rose to a peak and then they subsided as “adjustments” were made — as discarded partners found new people to love. But the situation of a woman nearing 70, alone and mourning a long-term mate, is a calamity not easily resolved.

After some months had passed, Roiphe’s daughters placed a personal ad in The New York Review of Books. It described her as an attractive writer, someone who loved the ocean and books. This ad flattered her, even if she found it somewhat embarrassing. It did, however, prove effective, hauling in the first of the many fish (some of them distinctly peculiar) she was to encounter as she tried to get on with her life in a way H. would have wished — to find new love and new pleasures in the years she has left.

The writer’s first “date” — a short, thin man with a white mustache — joins her at a bistro a few blocks from her apartment. The man turns out to be a lover of Proust, Stendhal and Thomas Mann. He loves Melville too, and they fall into a discussion of “Billy Budd.” As the conversation moves along, they talk about the fighting in Iraq and discover that their political views are comfortably similar. Yet all the while the stranger keeps moving closer, his hand approaching Roiphe’s left breast. She keeps shifting backward, staying out of reach. This dance continues until finally the man calls for the check. Then they stand and — in full view of the other patrons — he grabs her and kisses her so hard she can barely breathe, rubbing his hands along her spine and down the front of her blouse: “Then he stops. ‘Was that good for you?’ he says. ‘It was good for me,’ he adds. I laugh. This was not a nervous laugh. ‘Are you laughing at me?’ he said. ‘I am,’ I said, and that was that.”

As this and a series of future disappointments are to demonstrate, “adjustments” to the loss of a beloved partner are far more difficult later in life.

At the outset, we’re told that “Epilogue” isn’t meant to focus solely on the grief and loss associated with becoming widowed. Rather, Roiphe’s goal is to detail the bereaved person’s efforts to restore the rhythms of a normal, everyday existence after the loss of a spouse. Time is said to be the widow’s friend, as Roiphe notes (adding wryly that she isn’t so sure that’s the case). Yet it’s true that as the days and months pass, the worst symptoms of her shock and panic recede — the crazed insomnia, in particular. There are even moments of great fullness and joy, when love for her daughters and their families seems to banish her numbness, fragility and fear. But at other times suicidal reveries come to preoccupy her, and she broods over possible strategies for ending her life.

Roiphe wants to avoid the trap of self-pity — “the graffiti,” as she puts it, “of the heart” — and yet her thoughts keep trekking back to the happier times when her husband was alive. She thinks longingly of a period of young parenthood during which they and their little daughters spent each Saturday afternoon at the zoo. “I thought I would spend every Saturday of my life at the zoo,” she writes. “But that phase passed, and other phases passed, and now I am looking at the hours of the day as if they were endless dunes in an endless desert. There is nothing to do but start forward.”

In other words, she’s going on simply to keep going on. Intended to be the story of the remaking of a survivor’s life after a cherished partner’s death, “Epilogue” is instead the moving, immeasurably sad story of the aftermath of an irreplaceable relationship. “I do not have my soul mate,” Roiphe realizes, “and most likely will never have another but I will be fine. . . . I will be sad often but not always.”

Maggie Scarf is the author of the forthcoming “September Songs: The Good News About Marriage in the Later Years” and an updated edition of “Intimate Partners: Patterns in Love and Marriage.”

A version of this article appeared in print on August 24, 2008, on page BR18 of the New York edition.

Barren B*tches Book Tour: "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert

The latest selection for the online Barren B*tches book club is Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. This book had been in my "to read" pile for some time (familiar story...!), so I was glad when I heard it would be a future book club selection. I had heard mixed reviews on the book -- people either seem to love it or hate it.

Dh actually read it before I did! He said the Italy part was interesting (full disclosure: his background is first-generation 100% Italian-Canadian) but after that, he thought she whined way too much & it got boring. (I tried to persuade him to do a guest review here, but he wouldn't bite.)

Maybe it's a guy/chick thing (although I know women who didn't like it either), but when I finally did read the book (finished it on my recent vacation), I did find myself liking it. There were many passages that "spoke" to me, & to my infertility journey specifically -- such as her visit to the Augusteum in Rome in Chapter 25, her musings on whether to have children in Chapter 30 and the importance of rituals in Chapter 60, and the awkwardness of being asked extremely personal questions ("Are you married?") in Bali in Chapter 76.

On to some of the questions:

At the start of the book, the author states that she will not go into the details of her divorce. Could you accept this and move on to the rest of the book, or did this lack of explanation influence your opinion of the entire book?

I was surprised, reading some of the first-day book club posts, that the lack of details on the divorce bothered some people so much. I never gave it very much thought, & I really don't care whether they fought over the wedding china or the house or what have you.

To me, it was quite clear what happened on a fundamental level: they married young &, as the years went by, found themselves moving in different directions: he wanted kids & the big house in suburbia with the white picket fence, etc., & she realized that she didn't. That doesn't make him right & her wrong, or vice-versa -- different people have different life visions & that's OK (otherwise, the world would be a pretty boring place). And dreams can change as your life circumstances change, and you gain maturity, perspective and greater self-knowledge about what makes you happy. It's sad when it happens after two people have been together for a long time (& sadder & more complicated still when there are children involved), but it does happen.

It's one thing to disagree about petty details like what brand of toothpaste to use and who should take out the garbage this week; quite another when it comes to fundamental questions like having kids and kind of lifestyle you want to lead. Either you have kids or you don't -- there's not really an in-between option (we'll try it out for awhile & if we don't like it, we'll send them back!). And I certainly wouldn't recommend going ahead and having them in the expectation that it will be different with your own kids (maybe it is -- but what if it's not?) and that a reluctant partner will come around eventually once the baby is here.

When my IRL (in real life) book club discussed this we had widely differing opinions on the tone of the book. Some thought it was "all about me, poor, poor me!" and "whiny" while others saw Gilbert's self-focus in as a fascinating journey to becoming a better person. What would you say?

As I said at the outset, dh thought she was "whiny." I was able to relate to a lot of what she had to say. Not everything, but a lot. Reflecting on my life is part of why I blog and have kept journals over the years, & I suppose some people reading what I've written might think I'm being whiny at times too. Who was it who said, "The unexamined life is not worth living"? Granted, one can certainly become entirely too self-absorbed, but it seemed to me like Liz had lots of friends & she does refer to the wisdom she gained from others throughout the book.

In the end, is Gilbert a better person? Why/why not?

"Better?" It's hard to say. I would certainly say she is happier and more at peace with herself.

Elizabeth Gilbert's spiritual crisis was brought to a head by a failing marriage and the dawning realization that her desires were not nearly on the same track as some seemingly powerful, external expectations about how her life should unfold. What defining 'disasters' have triggered you to course-correct your life? Did the crisis(es) sneak up on you or did you see it (them) coming, but deny it for a while? What expectations did it force you to challenge -- either your own or external ones? How hard was that for you personally (as in, are you the kind of temperament that is naturally rebellious? Or not so much? Do you have a hard time letting go of control? Or are you at ease with improv on a grand, spiritual level?)

I hesitate to describe the loss of my baby & later decision to stop infertility treatment as a "disaster" (my daughter was definitely not a disaster!) -- but that period of my life it was certainly a crisis and a turning point. I was absolutely in denial for a long, long while -- throughout my pregnancy (thinking that the drs would work miracles & she would be OK), and then during treatment (of course it's going to work...!), and even long after treatment, when I continued to hope for a miracle pregnancy against all the odds.

I most certainly would not describe myself as rebellious. ; ) (That's my younger sister!) I've always been the conventional, traditional one -- definitely not one to break the mould. I don't necessarily think of myself as a control freak -- but I always used to believe that if I did all the right things, didn't rock the boat too much, met other people's expectations, that the universe would unfold as it should & I would be rewarded.

The last 10 years of my life have shattered my long-held beliefs & expectations of how my life was going to unfold. In many ways, it's unfolded as planned (good education, good job in a field I've always wanted to work in, wonderful husband, nice house...), but in others (i.e., children), it has not. It is hard for me to buck the social norm & accept that my life is not going to work out the way I had planned -- particularly when so many other people take their families & their ability to have children for granted. I never really saw myself as a trailblazer, but I kind of see myself as one these days. It's still expected that most women will be mothers, but more and more of us will not be, whether it's a road we've deliberately set out to travel on (like Liz Gilbert), or one that we find our cumulative life choices have led us down.

In chapter 13, the author talks about what type of traveler she is and other traveling personalities. What type of traveler are you? Does it vary based on the trip or do you approach every trip the same way?

One of my life's regrets -- and one I hope to remedy in the coming years! -- is that I have not travelled as widely as I'd like. That's partly a function of starting out my working life with just two weeks of holidays (I now get five) & living 1,500 miles away from a family that likes to see me a couple of times a year, & vice-versa.

I've never done the backpacking thing, & I don't think I'd be comfortable with that. (For one thing, I always overpack. I much prefer my nice suitcase with the wheels & telescoping handle.) I don't think I'm a tour bus kind of traveller (although a guided tour of a new city is great to scope out what's available & where you want to return to spend the rest of your time), but I'm also not a "let's go to Africa & bum around" type of person either. I've always wanted to travel across the rest of Canada, to certain places in the States (I want to see the glaciers in Alaska before they all melt...), maybe a Caribbean island or four ; ) and go to Europe -- all over Europe. But I've never had a burning desire to go to visit some of the exotic places in the developing world that my boss has been to, like Thailand and China and Peru. I can put up with some inconveniences (more so than dh can, I think) -- I used to go camping in my youth -- but these days, I prefer a nice soft mattress, preferably in a hotel with a spa & room service. ; )

Have you had a breakdown like Elizabeth Gilbert's scene on the bathroom floor (near the beginning of the book)? How did you come out of your crisis? Did you adjust yourself to the situation, did you change your situation, or did you find a third alternative?

Not so much a breakdown -- but I did start having anxiety attacks, shortly after my last IUI failed, seven years ago. I have not had an anxiety attack in more than six years now (knocking wood...!), but it was a scary time in my life. I knew I couldn't do infertility treatments anymore, but the idea of a childless life terrified me.

Time has been a great healer, as has the childless friends I have found on the Internet, & several sessions with a couple of sympathetic counsellors. I came to realize that my life was pretty happy before loss & infertility took centre stage, & the same things that made me happy then (dh, my family & friends) make me happy now. It is just a different life than the one I thought I would be leading. I was ready for my life to take a different direction, only to find myself in more or less the same place as before (at least when viewed from the outside). If I still want it to go in a different direction, I know that I can't rely on a child (or anyone else, for that matter) to take me there. It's something that I will have to figure out for myself. And that's what I'm trying to do. ; )

Which of the three settings (along with associated activities -- eating, praying or loving) resonated most for you? Why?

Definitely eating in Italy. ; ) Can I say that I think I deserve a medal for actually LOSING two pounds while reading this section of the book?? I found the India/pray part somewhat interesting, probably the part of the book with the most substance. However, while I love yoga -- it's incredibly relaxing -- I find it hard to relate to gurus & ashrams & such. (I keep getting visions of the Beatles & the Maharishi.)

In one passage, Gilbert describes the typical life experience: "first you are a child, then you are a teenager, then you are a young married person, then you are a parent, then you are retired, they you are a grandparent--at every stage you know who you are, you know what your duty is and you know where to sit at the reunion...watching over your progeny with satisfaction. Who are you? No problem--you're the person who created all this...If I have done nothing else in this life, then at least I have raised my children well." If you're an infertile person, possibly or definitively unable to have children, how did this passage make you feel? What emotions or conflicts did it evoke?

I have felt the same way many times. To a certain point, my life went according to the usual script; then it started veering off on tangents into unknown territory. It's scary sometimes. But it also means that I'm free to write my own script and move my life in a different direction.

As I said before, I'm not really a trailblazer, and I'm sad that my life is not going to include children, let alone grandchildren. I think I will always feel like I missed out on something very special. And I don't think I'll be donating all my money to charity & going to live on a beach in the South Pacific or anything like that. ; ) But I think it I can set my sights beyond the things that life has denied me, there are possibilities out there waiting to be explored.

Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list at Stirrup Queens (http://stirrup-queens.blogspot.com/). You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: Baby Trail by Sinead Moriarty (with author participation).

Show & Tell: Great-Great-Grandma's letters

I have something very, very cool (I think, anyway!) to share for Show & Tell this week.

As I've written in the past, genealogy is a subject that has fascinated me since I was a child. My great-great grandparents & their children were among the early settlers of the area where the states of N.ort.h D.ak.o.ta and M.inn.esot.a meet up with the Canadian border, along the R.ed Ri.ve.r V.alle.y (of the North), back in the late 1870s. How do I know this? My great-great grandmother, and later other members of the family, wrote letters to her parents & younger sister, who remained behind in a small town north of Toronto (not too far from where I live today, coincidentally).

When the (childless) sister died in the late 1940s, one of my grandfather's cousins travelled to Ontario to help wrap up her affairs, & rescued the letters she had lovingly saved over the years from the rubbish heap (or so the story goes). The letters begin with the very first letter sent by my grandmother after they arrived in the R.ed Ri.ve.r V.all.ey in the late 1870s, and end shortly after her death in the early 1900s (with some gaps, including several years in the late 1880s & early 1890s).

In the mid-1950s, my grandfather's cousin agreed to loan the letters to a local college to be copied (by typewriter!) for their archives. Everyone in the family got mimeographed copies, and the originals were returned to him. We've had little contact with this branch of the family over the years (even though they live in the same area where the family settled & where my mother grew up), and every now & then, someone in the family would wonder what had happend to the letters & whether this family still had them.

My grandfather and his cousin are both gone now, but a few years ago, a local history buff learned of the letters' existence & began inquiring about the whereabouts of the originals. My mother took it upon herself to stop by the cousin's son's business, introduce herself and express an interest in the letters, if they still existed. All of us felt that the letters were valuable documents, not only from our own family history perspective but as historical documents in their own right, & should be properly preserved.

The cousin was cordial -- said he was sure they were in the house somewhere, he would have to look for them. Every now & then, my mother would stop by again to say hello & reiterate our interest in the letters.

I was visiting my parents last week, & my mother & I planned to go down to her hometown for a day or two to meet up with (another) distant cousin, who was travelling in the area & doing genealogical research. The night before we went, the phone rang while we were playing cards. It was my grandfather's cousin's son. He had found the letters, and would we like to come get them the next time we were in the area?

Would we??!!

The letters were, of course, technically his -- but he seemed agreeable to turning them over to us, and to having them properly preserved. He also expressed an interest in having them scanned & receiving a copy. (We said we were sure that was possible.)

The next day, mom & I stopped by his business & he brought out an envelope. I have read & re-read the typewritten transcripts of these letters since I was a child -- I know some of the passages practically by heart. I was in near tears as I gingerly turned the pages that my ancestors' hands had touched more than 100 years ago, & read the familiar words in their own handwriting. One thing surprised us: the pages had been handstitched together to form a sort of a booklet. Obviously they had been well read & treasured by the recipient through all those many years.

After we had looked through the letters -- and thanked him profusely -- he put them back into the envelope & handed it to me (!). In the car, Mom & I laughed: now we finally had the letters, & we were almost afraid of the responsibility of having them in our possession!

When I met the visiting cousin/genealogist for the first time about an hour later, I couldn't wait to tell her what we had in our motel room! That night, we all carefully looked through the letters. I opened the curtain to let in the natural light, turned off the flash on my camera, set it on macro mode, & took some photos of various pages with different people's handwriting -- my great-great grandmother & grandfather, their son (my great-grandfather) as a little boy, and his siblings. One letter, from 1886, had special meaning to me: it was penned by my great-great grandfather to tell his in-laws that his wife -- then about 45 years old -- had delivered a stillborn baby boy -- apparently the second stillborn in recent years. She had been very ill after the delivery, but had been spared to her family.

The next day, we took the letters to the county museum, unannounced. The manager there was just as excited as we were when we told her what we had to donate. She told us the letters were going straight into the safe (!) & she would begin the process of preserving them (encapsulating them in archivally safe materials) the next day -- after which they will be scanned, and will be available for anyone who visits the museum to see.

Here is the first page of the very first letter, in my great-great grandmother's handwriting. The year is not on it, but I believe it was 1876 or 1877:

And a later letter, with Great-Great Grandmother's signature:

Is this not amazing stuff??

Infertility, loss & weight

Back from vacation, to a pile of unread e-mails & blog posts! I did manage to read & comment on a few blogs while away (and finish "Eat Pray Love" for the book club next week), but there's lots to catch up on!

Until I do, here is a pre-vacation post from my drafts folder that I finally managed to finish up this morning. I would love to hear your thoughts on this subject.

*** *** ***

Dh loves to watch diet/fitness makeover shows, like "X-Weighted" (on the "Slice" network in Canada). What happens on these shows is they take initial weights & measurements, run the person(s) through a fitness test, inspect their refrigerator & cupboards, & then start them on a diet and fitness regime. Often, there are psychological issues that need to be tackled as well. Three to six months later, they run the subject(s) through the same fitness test, weigh and measure them again, to see what progress they've made toward their goals, and give them a makeover.

The Globe & Mail's Kate Taylor, recently wrote an article about diet shows on TV. And there was a paragraph that struck me:

"One recurring theme on the shows is recent bereavement: On Stuck, Mary is grieving the death of her brother just like Tammy on X-Weighted, while the recently divorced Margaret and her daughter lost their son and brother when he interrupted a break-in at their house. These women don't need tae kwon do; they need therapy. When Tammy, now suffering from the added blow of her grandmother's death, finally calls in a grief counsellor on tonight's episode of X-Weighted, I could have cheered."

I was never "fat" growing up -- although of course I moaned over my weight all the time (silly girl!!). I'm not sure whether I gained the traditional freshman 15 when I was in school, but I did gain weight over my university years, and then more after my marriage. When I turned 30 in January 1991, I was a good 30 lbs over my pre-marriage weight. I looked at the photos of me with my birthday cake & realized there was nothing I could do about growing older, but I could do something about the way I looked.

So I joined Weight Watchers, and by October, I had lost over 30 lbs, reached my goal weight and become a lifetime member. (WITHOUT doing much in the way of exercise.) I was a size 10, and even got into a size 8 Gap denim mini-skirt for one brief shining moment.

I managed to keep the weight off for several years before it slowly began creeping back on. By the time I got pregnant in early 1998, I was almost 20 lbs over my goal weight. I gained another 15 or so during my pregnancy. After my daughter was stillborn, the weight eventually shifted and I lost that "pregnant" look, but it did not come off, & I actually gained several more pounds. I went back to Weight Watchers, knowing that any weight I lost would only help my efforts to conceive again... but my heart just wasn't in it.

In January 2007, I got on the scale & realized I was at my heaviest weight ever. Even my size 16 pants were getting tight on me. Back to Weight Watchers I went. I did manage to lose almost 15 pounds (& get back into size 14s) by the end of that summer by attending meetings & keeping my food journal, eating better and doing lots of walking. About half of it crept on again during the winter (when I'm under more stress and find it harder to walk regularly) -- but I'm almost back to where I was last summer now, & hoping to lose another 7 or so to reach my WW initial 10% goal before winter hits again. Needless to say, developing high blood pressure over the past year and being put on medication recently has been a real wake up call & motivator!

I don't think I'll ever be my original WW goal weight again (which would mean losing at least 40 lbs more)... but getting back within the goal range for my height (which works out to a healthy BMI) is certainly do-able. It would mean losing about another 25 lbs. It's easy to brush these things off when you're younger & feel invincible -- but it's true -- it really does become more difficult to lose the weight when you get older & your metabolism slows down. And you really do start to see the impact the extra weight has on your health, never mind the way you look.

Perhaps, too (after 10 years!), I'm finally starting to gain some emotional distance from my pregnancy. I remember another bereaved mom once writing on a board or e-mail list I was on that she thought her inability to lose weight was her body's subconscious way of trying to hold on to the physical memory of pregnancy. I thought there might be some truth in that.

What do you think? Have you found weight to be a struggle since infertility &/or loss became part of your life?