Two thumbs Up

I've always believed that the best kids' movies are just as appealing (if not more so) to adults as to kids and so, despite not having any kids of our own as an excuse, we have braved the hordes at the local Cineplex several times over the past several years to see some of the best kids' movies, including "Wall-E" last year, "The Incredibles" a couple of years ago, "Toy Story," "Enchanted," and even "Freaky Friday" with Jamie Lee Curtis & Lindsay Lohan in the role I remember Jodie Foster playing when I WAS a kid.

I had heard the new Pixar movie "Up" was very good. Then I read, in Pamela Jeanne's blog, that it included an infertility/childless angle. I was intrigued. So we decided to go see it on opening weekend. (Both 3-D & non-3-D versions were playing at our local cineplex -- the 3-D version was sold out, and we really didnt' care anyway, so we went to the regular version. Probably a wise choice, since there were already more than enough toddlers in the audience -- not to mention their parents, with BlackBerrys & cellphones annoyingly glowing in the dark, despite the request to turn them OFF that came with the coming attractions.... grrrrr.....).

Before I get into the movie itself, I should warn you that there's actually a short that precedes it. (Yes! an actual short/cartoon feature -- which used to be a regular thing at the movies, when I was very young...). I couldn't believe my eyes when I realized it was about... STORKS. And how babies are made (in the clouds, of course!!). That was one "eek" moment. The story follows one particular little grey cloud cloud who, shall we say, is having trouble in the babymaking department, & feeling, shall we say, inadequate? Not an infertile cloud, mind you, but while the other clouds are effortlessly popping out adorable human babies & lambs & kittens, etc., this one is coming up with crocodiles & snakes that present challenges for the dogged stork assigned to deliver them. In the end, I was laughing, but I felt sorry for the little cloud all the same.

The movie proper finally started. And even though I had been forewarned of the plot premise in advance, and had a rough idea of how the first 10 minutes of the movie would evolve, I was not prepared for the emotional wallop it packed.

The opening introduces us to Carl & Ellie as children, and shows us how they met. Then, wordlessly, we follow them through the next 60 years, from their marriage, through what seems to be either a miscarriage or a diagnosis of infertility, through the years as they grow old together, to Ellie's death. It's an amazing, moving, perfect little piece of filmmaking.

And it made me bawl. Seriously. I was trying not to cry TOO loudly (because there were children all around me), but it took enormous effort to suppress my sobs & I was shaking like a leaf. At the same time, my dh was squeezing my hand so tightly I thought he was going to crush a bone. Once I pulled myself together, I had to take my glasses off to clean them because they were so waterlogged, I could not see the screen. Had to bring out the Kleenex again toward the end of the movie. I should add that besides being involuntarily childless, I'm a scrapbooker, and there is a scrapbook that figures prominently in key points in the plot.

Despite the tears -- I thought it was an absolutely wonderful movie, for so many reasons. Obviously, being involuntarily childless, dh & I couldn't help but relate to the characters of Ellie & Carl. Their emphasis on the "adventures" they would have together made me smile because, although dh & I have never wanted to go to South America, whenever we're going somewhere new, one of us is likely to say, "A new adventure for Sammy & Lori!"

And, as childless woman, I appreciated the movie's message hugely -- that it's possible to have a full & happy marriage without children -- and that you don't necessarily have to go to Paradise Falls to find adventure -- there may be adventures to be had in your own backyard, if you know where to look. Kind of reminded me of "The Wizard of Oz" in that respect. (I can remember bawling my eyes out as a kid when the wizard took off in his balloon from Oz to go back to Kansas, leaving Dorothy behind.)

Melissa of Stirrup Queens just wrote a wonderful review of "Up" on her BlogHer blog, including links to other posts about the movie (this post is an expansion of my comment there). I had no idea that some parents were objecting to the suggestion of miscarriage in the opening. I have a feeling they're probably making a bigger deal out of it than most of their kids ever will. I'm sure the kids will be focused much more on the adventure itself, Kevin the colourful, chocolate-eating bird, and the talking dogs. (There's a sequence with dogs playing poker that's taken straight from the classic picture -- dh & I totally cracked up, but I think we were the only ones in the entire theatre who got the joke.)

I have read some IF blogs & message board posts in which people said they would not go to see the movie because the subject of infertility/pregnancy loss & childlessness hit too close to home. I can understand that -- and that maybe I'm in a different place now than someone who is still going through infertility treatment -- but I would encourage people to see the movie. You should definitely bring some Kleenex -- but ultimately, I think the message of "Up" was uplifting.

Have you seen the movie and, if so, what did you think?

No fairytale endings

I've been struggling about whether, & what, I should write about what happened in Kansas recently. (I've also been really busy at work, and blogging generally has taken a back seat -- boo, hiss...). While I have always been staunchly in favour of a woman's right to choose, I've also never been one to carry signs & chant slogans either.

I felt the first stirrings of a blog post when I read Judith Warner's Domestic Disturbances blog last week, about the murdered doctor, in which she makes the case that, by remaining silent and avoiding the sad & unpleasant stories behind the statistics, we've allowed opponents of the right to choose to shape the debate.

There was a quote that leaped out at me -- one sentence fragment in particular, that seemed like it could apply just as equally to pregnancy loss & infertility as to the A-word.

From Eleanor Smeal, the president of the Feminist Majority Foundation:

“We’ve made pregnancy a fairy tale where there are no fetal complications... These are the realities of the story. That’s what Dr. Tiller worked with — the realities.” (Emphasis mine.)

Later in the same post, Warner writes:

"We have to face the fact that sometimes desired pregnancies go tragically wrong."

From commenter #28:

"For years we’ve left the ugly side of pregnancy... while we get all soft and warm about babies."

Commenter #103:

"He... understood well the complexities of pregnancies that do not fit the fairy tale image."

The tendency to sweep nasty (but very real) topics such as pregnancy loss, infertility and involuntary childlessness under the carpet -- while at the same time glorifying all things (conventional) pregnancy & mommy-related -- has long been a thorn in my side. Even if you've never had an abortion or a medical termination, if you're reading this blog, you probably know, firsthand, that pregnancy doesn't always fit the fairy tale image.

Miscarriages happen. Stillbirths happen. Neonatal deaths happen. Adoptions fall through. Some couples who very much wanted a child find themselves with none.

And some couples find themselves faced with a heartbreaking decision to make.

Dh & I were almost one of them (see these posts, here and here). And we have met many of them over the past 11 years, just in our one small pregnancy loss support group alone (a group which emphasizes that everyone's loss is signfiicant, regardless of the baby's gestation or the circumstances of the loss).

I've been thinking of them all, a lot, this week. The grief these parents feel over the loss of their child is the same grief that other parents in the group feel -- perhaps with an added layer of guilt on top of it. Some are "out" to their families, some aren't. All their babies were very much wanted. Many were initially shocked when the option of termination was offered to them. It's something you just don't read about in "What to Expect When You're Expecting" (or, if it is in there, you certainly never expect you're going to need to remember the information in those pages). These pregnancies weren't going to end in a fairy-tale way, no matter what decision the parents made.

Even though she knew dh & I would be sympathetic to the truth, it took one woman (who has become a close personal friend) several YEARS before she could bring herself to tell me she had actually terminated her pregnancy. I have been thinking of her, and of the other parents from our group, a lot this past week.

Some good reading on this subject:

The website A Heartbreaking Choice has been running Kansas Stories.

Andrew Sullivan has also been running readers' stories on his political blog, The Daily Dish, under the header "It's So Personal."

And I found this thoughtful article at Salon, with this observation:

"The stories are painfully similar: A couple is thrilled to be expecting a baby, only to see a doctor's face turn grim during a routine ultrasound. Something is terribly wrong."

Whether your story ended in miscarriage, stillbirth or a termination, this scenario is all too familiar to far too many of us.

I find it all too easy to put myself into the shoes of Dr. Tiller's patients.

Which is why I could never insist that they walk only in mine.

Multiple musings

Multiples have always fascinated me. I think it stems from three things: first, all the Bobbsey Twins books we read when we were kids (we inherited my mother's & uncle's old volumes -- complete with watermelon-eating black servants!!).

Second, my sister & I were close enough in age (21 months apart) & looked sufficiently alike (especially when were little, although we never really saw it -- and our personalities were certainly not the same) and, when we were younger, dressed alike, that many people would mistake us for each other & ask whether we were twins.

Third, being Canadian, I was brought up hearing stories about the Dionne Quintuplets of North Bay, Ontario. I read The Dionne Years by Pierre Berton (perhaps Canada's greatest popular historian), as well as the Quints' own memoir, We Were Five.

When I was in journalism school 25 years ago, and looking for story fodder, I spotted an ad in the newspaper for a meeting of the local Parents of Multiple Births organization. I called the number and wound up doing both a print and a radio feature on the challenges of raising multiples. I attended several meetings of the group (the kind-hearted women who ran it even gave the carless student rides to & from the meeting place), including one that featured a panel discussion. The panellists included (older/teenaged) identical boys, identical girls, fraternal boys, fraternal girls and fraternal boy-girl twins on hand to talk about what it was like growing up as a twin & what they wished their parents would have done differently. One of the women attending was pregnant at the time with triplets. She herself was one of quadruplet sisters, local celebrities when they were younger. It was fascinating stuff.

When I was doing infertility treatment, I knew that multiples were a distinct possibility. I felt that I could handle twins, but anything else, I wasn't so sure about. Like so many other people, I figured I would cross that bridge when we got there. Leading up to one IUI, I had four promising follicles. After the IUI was done, my excitement turned to horror as I realized that I could possibly wind up with quadruplets. I sobbed all the way home in the car. What had we done??

I'm not alone in my fascination with multiples. Case in point: the Gosselin family of Pennsylvania, i.e., Jon & Kate Plus 8. Dh & I have watched on & off for the last year or two. The kids are adorable & while I know many people can't stand Kate's bossiness, I keep thinking that you probably have to be that way in order to manage a household with 8 very young children and still retain some semblance of sanity.

Much has been said this past week about the show and the couple's marital problems, being played out on the TV screen for the world to see. Earlier this week, the Toronto Star ran an article about the stress that multiples place on marriages.

The Globe and Mail's acid-penned television critic, John Doyle, wrote about the show's season opener on Monday night, calling it "A sick freak show you must stop watching... reality TV of the vilest sort." I'm not sure I'd go quite that far... but I think he hit the nail on the head in several respects. For instance:

Jon, who looks like someone on the verge of a breakdown, said he never “cheated” on Kate. Then Kate said, “this is not where we're supposed to be,” and wept. And she described the couple as “two very different people.” Right now, she told the cameras, “life is just so hard.”

What both are talking about is the fame, and the attention. They're not talking about raising eight kids.

And also this astute observation (although I would say that public obsession with pregnancy & babies is certainly not limited to the United States):

In the U.S. popular culture there's an abiding, sick obsession with pregnancy, babies, families and the accumulation of as many cute tykes as possible.

The infamous Octomom understated this intuitively when she decided to become famous by having a whole passel of babies. Those tabloid magazines currently obsessed with Jon and Kate Gosselin usually spend their time telling readers – and there are tens of millions of readers – about some female celebrity having a “bump,” which suggests she's knocked-up. There is a continuing obsession with Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie and their large brood of kids.

(He noticed!! lol)

Coincidentally (or perhaps not?) the Dionne Quintuplets were born 75 years ago this week. No fertility treatments back then. The odds of giving birth to naturally conceived identical quintuplets is estimated at one in 57 million. The odds of their survival in northern Ontario in 1934 were astronomical. The babies were born two months premature and were kept alive by the midwives placing them in a wicker basket by the open woodstove to keep them warm.

A few months later, alarmed by their father's plans to exhibit then at the World's Fair for money, the Ontario government made the girls wards of the province -- and then, bowing to public demand to see the famous babies, put them on display in a playground that attracted three million visitors between 1936 and 1943. Eventually, the parents won custody of their daughters back -- but the long separation had caused irreparable damage to the girls' relationships with the rest of their family.

Only two of the sisters are alive today, & today's Globe & Mail had an interesting article about the Dionnes & our ongoing obsession with multiples -- albeit with some modern twists.

The article notes that, "While adoration for the Dionnes has spanned decades, that kind of easy approval has given way to condemnation for many modern-day multiples... Because modern-day multiples are increasingly viewed as a choice, parents of multiples are facing more criticism from a disapproving public who see their decision as selfish, even immoral." (Of course, if people decide not to have ANY children, for whatever reason, they are ALSO viewed as selfish & immoral... but, I digress....)

While they have not commented on the Jon & Kate situation, nor on the California "Octomom" whose octuplets made headlines earlier this year (& who apparently has expressed interest in a reality show of her own), a recent Canadian Press article noted the surviving sisters did offer some advice to the McCaughey family, whose septuplets were born in 1997.

"We hope your children receive more respect than we did. Their fate should be no different from that of other children," Annette, Cecile and Yvonne Dionne wrote in an open letter published in Time magazine. "Multiple births should not be confused with entertainment, nor should they be an opportunity to sell products."

Another article from yesterday's National Post, titled "The danger of commodifying children," also quoted from the Dionnes' message:

"We were displayed as a curiosity three times a day for millions of tourists. ... We sincerely hope a lesson will be learned from examining how our lives were forever altered by our childhood experience. If this letter changes the course of events for these newborns, then perhaps our lives will have served a higher purpose."

Sound advice from some people who have been there, done that, & know better than most of us that public fascination is not always worth feeding. Are you listening, Jon & Kate? Octomom?

Barren B*tches Book Brigade: "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant

Gather around, book lovers, for another session of the Barren B*tches Book Brigade, the ALI (adoption/loss/infertility) community's virtual book club, organized by Melissa at Stirrup Queens. Participants read the same book and each submit a question to Melissa, who compiles & circulates the question list. We then answer at least three of them in our blog, and post at or around the same time on the same day. Melissa maintains the master list of participants on her blog.

Our selection this time was "The Red Tent" by Anita Diamant -- based (somewhat loosely) on the Biblical story of Dinah in Genesis 34. I was not quite sure what to expect from this novel. But with its stories of mothers and daughters, sisters and grandmothers, aunts and cousins, grief and loss (including the losses of many, many babies), infertility and conception, friendship and rivalry, vengeance and forgiveness, this was definitely a novel worthy of the BB Book Brigade.

While I am not a Biblical scholar by any means, I'm probably more familiar with the Bible & its stories than a lot of younger people today. When I was in elementary school, we had Bible stories read to us every morning after singing O Canada & reciting the Lord's Prayer -- and this was in PUBLIC school, in 1960s & 70s westen Canada. (Definitely not done today, of course... not even O Canada in some schools, apparently.) And of course I attended Sunday school on Sundays, & Anglican Junior Auxiliary -- or, if there wasn't an Anglican church where we lived, United Church Explorers once a week after school.

Anyway, I remembered the stories of brothers/rivals Jacob & Esau (the twin sons of Isaac & Rebecca, grandsons of Abraham & Sarah), and Jacob's wives, the sisters Leah & Rachel, and, of course, Jacob's son Joseph & his many bretheren (as made famous in "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat") -- but I drew a blank when it came to Dinah.

Dinah -- pronounced Dee-nah, not Dye-nah (as in "someone's in the kitchen with...") -- was Jacob's only daughter and a sister to Joseph (by different mothers). "The Red Tent" is Dinah's story -- as imagined/interpreted by the author. (If you read the scant few paragraphs in the Bible about Dinah in Genesis 34, you'll find quite a different tale.) Dinah grows up in rural Canaan, living in a tent community with her extended family, working the fields and tending the livestock.

The Red Tent is where the women of the community spend their menstrual period, their childbirth labours and a month or two after giving birth, bonding with the other women. (Diamant admits there is no historical evidence that women of the Bible used a menstrual tent, although they were common in the pre-modern world.) There is rivalry among Jacob's four sister-wives, but also support, and Dinah learns the craft of midwifery from her aunt Rachel, becoming a skilled midwife in her own right as an adult. While Jacob has vowed to follow the one God of his father and grandfather, the women of his tribe still carry out pagan rituals based on the lunar cycles. It's hard to know sometimes exactly what is fact & what is fiction, but it's a fascinating and richly drawn portrait of early Biblical-era life.

Shortly after Dinah's coming of age, she falls in love with a prince of the city -- unleashing a horrific chain of events that dramatically changes her life, and those of her family members, forever. Ultimately, however, despite the terrible losses she endures, Dinah eventually finds happiness and carves out a new life for herself in Egypt.

Here are the questions I've chosen to answer:

"The sight of the baby in Bilpah's arms, day after day, shattered Rachel's confidence again. She was only the aunt, the bystander, the barren one." Did you find the author sympathetic or disparaging of Rachel's barren state? Did she convincingly relate the experience of being barren?

There were a number of questions related to Rachel's infertility/recurrent pregnancy losses, & how it affected her relationships with her sisters. Perhaps someone who has never experienced infertility or loss might find Rachel's reactions somewhat hard to understand. But:

"Rachel could not smile at her sister while her own body remained fruitless... Rachel tried every remedy, every potion, every rumored cure... Rachel grew quiet. She stopped attending Inna and did not rise from her blanket until Leah shook her and insisted she help the rest of the women in their work. Only then would Rachel spin or weave or work the garden, but wordlessly and without a smile."

Sounds pretty accurate to me!

Which character did you relate to most in the story -- Rachel, Leah or Dinah? Why?

Hmmm. Truthfully, I could relate to all three of them, in different ways. I'm the oldest of two sisters, & I recognized myself in Leah, the responsible oldest sister. (I always felt sorry for the Biblical Leah, being passed off as her younger, prettier sister -- the one Jacob really wanted -- at the altar by her conniving father, knowing her husband was expecting to find someone else under the veil.)

While I hope I'm not quite as flighty as young Rachel sometimes seemed, I most certainly identified with her struggles with infertility and loss, and her feelings of inadequacy and jealousy and rivalry with her more fertile sisters.

But I think I probably identified with Dinah most, especially in the Egypt part of the book, toward the end. Dinah was not childless -- she had a son, but he was mostly raised by others, so she was virtually childless. Estranged from her birth family after the violent death of her husband, an onlooker in her son's life, she nevertheless (eventually) manages to create a new life for herself in Egypt, with new friends, a thriving career as a midwife and, eventually, finding new love and happiness with a master carpenter in the Valley of the Kings. When she dies, she is not alone, but with her husband and friends, people who love her.

I've written several times about my struggle with the fact that I won't have any children to remember me or leave my possessions to -- but Dinah's son tells his wife about his birth mother, and the niece she met only once, anonymously, names her own daughter Dinah after the aunt she had heard about. It's a message of hope that resonated deeply with me -- that one can rise above loss and tragedy and still lead a happy, meaningful life -- that people will remember you and that you will remain a part of them (even if they are not your own children).

The family trees shown at the beginning of the book don't include miscarriages, stillbirths, or children who died before weaning. Given the rate of infant mortality at the time, this was a logical method for "counting" children. Now that it's much more rare (but still too common) to lose children both before and after birth, at what point do you think children should be added to the official family tree? At what point should they be added to the parents' personal tally of children?

At whatever point they want to add them. : ) Of course, my personal belief is that all children should be included, whether they live or die -- although I will admit that when people ask me if I have children, my answer is almost always, "No." And I know my mother tells other people she has no grandchildren (which always hurts to hear, although I understand why she would say it -- for the same reason I do). But I would be terribly hurt if Katie were left out of any "official" family trees/counts.

I have seen many subsequent birth announcements in the newspaper, from previous clients of our support group. Some will mention the child they lost, among the relatives welcoming the new baby, which makes me smile. A few times, though, I've read "Husband and wife welcome their first child..." -- hmmmm. (Didn't they learn anything in group??) But it's really none of my business, is it?

In the book, women's relationships to higher power(s) are complicated. Jacob brings with him the one God, but that is not any of the gods of their childhoods. And it is to the gods of her family that Rachel calls with her simple and desperate ultimatum: "Give me children or I will die." In the context of your own relationship (or lack thereof) to a higher power, do you feel entitled to the same kind of an ultimatum?

I've never been one to issue ultimatums to God. I've never thought of him as an Old Testament type of wrathful God, mind you, but I've always been of the opinion that you catch more flies with sugar than vinegar. ; ) When it comes to conversations with God, I've always been more of the on-your-knees "please-please-please-please" beggar sort. And when my prayers weren't answered: "You & I are going to have a REALLY good talk about this someday...."

I've never believed that "everything happens for a reason" or that "God needed an angel," or any of the other religious platitudes that many bereaved mothers learn to love to hate. I do believe there is a God, and that he hears our prayers -- but sometimes, the answer is no.

After Katie's stillbirth, someone recommended "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" by Harold Kushner (a Jewish rabbi who lost his teenaged son to progeria) to me. I found it enormously comforting.

Dinah is awaited and welcomed by all of Jacob's wives. The one daughter, the one to carry all their stories, all their voices. In the context of the book it is a literary device that allows the author to tell us stories of Jacob's wives from their own perspectives. But what does it speak of to you? In your own life, have you felt, as Dinah does, a carrier of living memory? Do you feel your own voice to be better protected in the age of the blog, or do you see an enduring need for connection across generations?

Have you felt yourself to be a carrier of living memory? Oh, absolutely. Maybe because I am into genealogy & history (not to mention scrapbooking), but I have always loved hearing & preserving personal stories from the past. This story reminded me of how history has so often been told from the male perspective, and how many women's voices are missing throughout the ages. I feel so very fortunate to have copies of letters written by my great-great grandmother and her daughters, and I feel an obligation to ensure those stories are preserved and passed down to future generations -- if not for my own children, then my cousins' children and their descendants (someone is bound to find it of interest). It makes ancestors more real as a people to be able to read about their day to day lives in their own words.

Certainly, there is more awareness today that women's voices need to be heard and their stories told. As a childless woman, I feel a particular need to record aspects of my own story, since I won't have any sons or daughters to tell it for me when I'm gone. Blogging helps, but I have also kept my old paper journals & letters, etc. I just hope my nephews & my cousins' children will find my life, & what I had to say about the people & world around me, of some interest. Dinah's story gives me hope in that respect.

"The Red Tent" vividly describes the ritual Dinah's mother & aunts perform to celebrate her coming of age. Lately, I've been hearing about young girls being presented with cakes & gifts when they get their first periods. This was definitely NOT done when I was growing up! Describe your first period & your family's reaction (if any) -- how old were you, & how was the occasion marked (if at all)?

This was my question. I got my first period when I was 11. I can remember being excited, since this was a sign that I was growing up & soon to be a teenager (yahoo!)(if only I'd known, right??). But there were certainly no celebrations, or rituals, or cakes. I did mail away for a booklet from Kotex, & along with the booklet, they sent along some samples, as well as a free napkin belt. Back then, kiddies, (showing my age here), sanitary napkins had these long ends, & you had to hook them through the fasteners of an elastic belt -- kind of like a garter belt -- that you wore around your abdomen, to keep them secure. Thankfully, it wasn't too terribly long before adhesive pads were invented, & I was able to say goodbye (& good riddance) to belts.

The booklet I got had a calendar at the back where you could track your periods. I've being keeping track ever since then. 37 years. Yikes!!

*** *** ***

If you're curious to learn more about the book, visit Anita Diamant's website. She has a list of FAQs for The Red Tent that add further perspective to the story.

Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list at Stirrup Queens. You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: Navigating the Land of If by the Stirrup Queen herself, Melissa Ford. Starts on May 27. Questions due June 24th. Posts go up on June 29th/30th.

A decision

I did something today that I had been putting off for awhile now.

I sent a letter (e-mail) to our support group, tendering my & dh's resignation as volunteer facilitators. Our last day facilitating won't be until mid-December -- that's six months for them to find a replacement(s). But the date has been set. The new year will truly be a new beginning in this respect for dh & me.

Dh & I have been mulling over our future with the group for some time. Dh has been quite adamant for awhile now that he didn't want to facilitate anymore, past the end of this year. Ironically, he was initially even more keen than I was to become a facilitator -- and, as one of the few male volunteers with the organization, I can tell you they have loved having him. Our particular group has always had a higher number of dads attending than the other groups, and we know it's because they know another guy (i.e., dh) will be there too.

I could tell he'd lost interest awhile ago (although he's always perfectly charming to our clients). He's been saying he feels he's being "held back" & wants to "move on." What can I say? If that's how he feels, then he probably shouldn't be there anymore. We're giving the organization six months to find a replacement(s) -- I think that's fair.

I could probably keep doing it for awhile. Probably. Why don't I? For one thing, I have tranportation issues: I don't drive (that far, anyway), & if I were to ask dh to drive me there & then come back two hours later to pick me up, he might as well just keep doing it himself, know what I mean?

For another, group night is Thursday -- which, where I work, is the night most office social functions are held. My department doesn't go out together that often -- and group is only held two Thursday nights during the month -- but inevitably, office social events seem to fall on a group night. Of course, sometimes, both dh & I are grateful for the excuse of a "prior commitment," but there have been times we really would have liked to go. I have missed many office Christmas parties over the past 10 years, & just last night, dh missed out on joining his colleagues for an expensive steak dinner, paid for by one of their suppliers. There have been other times (in the winter) when the weather has suddenly turned ugly on a Thursday afternoon, & we've had to scramble to consult our managers about whether to cancel the meeting, & then contact all of our clients. Or drive on icy roads through pelting snow to get there on time (only to have nobody show up). I won't miss that kind of stress.

For another thing, while I love having a (real-life) place to go where I can talk freely about my daughter, & be among "my own kind" (other bereaved moms & dads), the clients keep getting younger & younger -- & I'm starting to feel decidedly old. And while I know my stories are new to them, I do sometimes feel like a broken record, reciting the same old tales over & over again. I knew it might be time to leave when I found myself grinding my teeth, listening to two moms in their early 30s moaning about how LONG it was taking them to get pregnant again (they'd both gotten pregnant before right away, but had now been trying about four months)(!!).

While I find it difficult to contemplate making the break, I do feel like I could use "a" break. It's not a huge time commitment, but it does require an investment of time, and most certainly emotion. I've heard dozens & dozens of sad stories, & it does sometimes leave you feeling a little limp at the end of a particularly emotional session. We've been part of this group for almost 11 years, if you count our time as clients, & have been facilitating for 10. I can only think of one other facilitator in the organization who has been around as long as we have. Sometimes, it's just time for someone else to take on the responsibility.

I'm reminded of my 8-year membership in a lunchtime workplace Toastmasters Club, back in the early 1990s. Toastmasters was a fabulous experience (I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to develop or polish their public speaking and presentation skills). Eventually, I held several different positions on the executive, including club president. When I got pregnant with Katie, I announced it to the club via a Table Topic, & everyone was thrilled for me. When Katie was stillborn, two of my Toastmasters friends sent me sympathy cards.

When I returned to work, I did not return to Toastmasters. One day I ran into one of my former clubmates, an older woman. We got talking about why I hadn't returned & she said, "I think I know why... it's because of your baby, isn't it? It must be so hard to see people again after something like that." I was touched by her perceptiveness. I said that yes, that was part of it.

But there was more to it that that. I had enjoyed my experience with Toastmasters & was grateful for what I had learned & the people I had met there... but as membership in the club dwindled, it was the same handful of longtime active members who got stuck with doing everything -- including me. I was tired of always being the go-to person, the person people could count on to drop everything & fill in at a moment's notice. I needed a break, & I felt like my time away from work had given me that opportunity.

We have had co-facilitators for most of the time we've been volunteering, which helps. At the moment, the woman we co-facilitate the group with is taking a break of her own for a couple of months -- she'll be back this summer, but I know that she too is contemplating moving on soon, which was another reason for dh & I to think about our own plans . She's a great facilitator, and she's also become a great friend. Not seeing her regularly will be one of the hardest parts about leaving -- although I know we will continue to see her, and other friends, at special events like the organization's annual picnic & butterfly release (which is coming up in June).

I'll always be immensely grateful for everything this organization has given dh & me. It's a little scary to think of not attending group for the first time in 11 (!!) years. But it will continue to be part of our life. Just in a different way. Just like Katie herself.

Book review: "Silent Sorority" by Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos

There aren't many resources out there for those of us who opt to leave the infertility treatment path and live without children (as opposed to those who are childfree by choice in the first place).

There are a few (very few, mostly underutilized) Internet sites and message boards (some listed in the sidebar on this blog). And also a few (very few) books devoted specifically to this subject -- most of them written in the 1980s & early 1990s. (Most comprehensive infertility guides that I've read dismiss childfree living with a few measly paragraphs; perhaps a page or two at most.)

A lot has changed since those books were written. (What did once-hopeful mothers facing an childless future do before the Internet?? -- I shudder to think...) Whereas once upon a time, the choice for infertile couples was stark & clear -- adopt or remain childless/free -- the options available to them have multiplied almost exponentially -- even in the 8 years since I called a halt to treatment. Thanks to birth control, it's now easier for women who don't want to have children to remain childfree -- and an increasing number of them are doing so -- sometimes quite vocally. At the same time, the public's seemingly endless cult-like fascination with the pregnant bellies and all things mommy, pregnancy and baby-related has, if anything, only intensified -- as has the growing outspokeness of those who are childfree by choice. No wonder it sometimes feels as though the voices of women living in my particular situation are getting lost in the cacaphony, struggling to be heard above the din.

That's why I was so happy to recently receive -- & dive into -- my copy of Silent Sorority: A (Barren) Woman Gets Busy, Angry, Lost & Found by Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos -- better known to those of us in the ALI blogging community as Pamela Jeanne of Coming2Terms.

For me, finding Pamela's blog on the Internet was like stumbling into an oasis in the middle of a desert. I knew, from my time spent on Internet bulletin boards, that even though there weren't many of us posting about this painful subject, there were plenty more lurking in silence, reading what we had to say. When I first started exploring the world of infertility blogs, I found plenty of blogs out there by & for childfree by choice women... and plenty of infertility blogs... but Coming2Terms was the first I found for women like me, who had made the difficult decision to move on from infertility treatment, without children, but were still haunted by the shadow infertility had cast over our lives.

In Pamela, I felt that I had found a "kindred spirit." Silent Sorority describes Pamela's personal journey, from girlhood to the present, the influences that shaped her life choices, her valiant 11-year struggle to have a family, her painful decision to remain childfree, her resolve to create a new kind of meaningful life for herself and her husband as a family of two, and her sharp-eyed, sometimes hilarious observations -- some of them familiar to readers of her blog -- about what it's like to be infertile in a world gone mad for babies & pregnant women.

The hard truth is, not all infertility stories end with a baby. But that doesn't mean there isn't a happy ending. Maybe it's just a different kind of happy ending than we've all been programmed to expect. While this book will bring great hope & comfort to women like Pamela & me, who have found themselves involuntarily childless at the end of their infertility journey (however long or short it may have been), or those contemplating such a future for themselves, it deserves a much broader audience. Anyone who has ever struggled with infertility, past or present, will recognize themselves in the pages of this book, no matter how they choose to resolve their situation. Fertile people also have a great deal to learn from Pamela's story.

You can order your copy of "Silent Sorority" through Amazon.com, or through the book's website.

Today's mail : )

My eagerly-awaited copy of Melissa's Navigating the Land of IF arrived in the mail today. : ) I have already had fun browsing through it.

Unfortunately, a thorough read will have to wait until I'm finished reading The Red Tent, our next Barren B*tches Book Brigade selection, due for discussion on May 25th. :(

Fortunately, this is our Victoria Day long weekend here in Canada, so I will have more time than usual to do some reading. : )

On an ironic, "would you believe" note -- here is a scan of the flyer that came tucked inside Melissa's book.

Not quite as funny as what Baby Making Journey got in her book order (as Melissa alerted us in today's Friday Roundup post on her blog) -- but funny nevertheless, if only in an eye-rolling way. Sadly, my nephews are beyond the kiddie stage & (perhaps not so sadly...) I have no children's birthday parties to attend in the near future. So I'm afraid this flyer is wasted on me, dear Chapters!