So far, so good? (knock wood!)

I'm probably jinxing myself by writing this, but -- we're already almost 1/3 through November and -- so far anyway -- it hasn't sucked.

I'm not saying it's been a fabulous month. (It hasn't.)

But it hasn't totally sucked either. (Yet.)

This is unusual for me. In the three years I've been writing this blog, my annual "November sucks" post has become something of a tradition. ; ) (See 2009, 2008 & 2007.)

Of course, the month is far from over yet. Ask me how I feel on Nov. 30th. Or even after the 14th, this weekend (which was Katie's original due date in 1998).

But so far -- I won't go so far as to say "so good" -- but I'm hanging in there.

It's a busy time of year for me (which is why I haven't posted in more than week). It's year end (again), & I'm mired in the usual year-end stuff at work.

But it's not entirely business as usual, because this year, I have a new boss. Overall, we're getting along fine -- but she's new, & after 16 years of working for the same person (my former boss, now enjoying early retirement), it's a challenge adjusting to someone new. Someone who doesn't know the lay of the land and has lots & lots of questions & needs a lot of help, and relies on me for lots of stuff that I don't always have easy answers for.

It hasn't been easy -- but it hasn't been totally awful either. I think I've been too busy to analyze too much. (So far.)

The weather hasn't been fabulous, but hasn't sucked either, & that's helped. It's been a little on the chilly side, but not too cold yet, & no snow, which is a plus. (Christmas is not Christmas without snow -- but there's still plenty of time for that, lol.)

The time change kicked in over the weekend, & while it's been nice to have an extra hour of sleep, it's not fun coming home in the dark. But what little daylight I do get to see (mostly on the weekends) has been full of clear skies & sunshine. That makes a big difference, I think.

I got my hair cut, coloured & highlighted on the weekend. It's amazing what a little peroxide can do for your ego, lol. I may be pushing 50 and packing a few extra pounds (OK, more than a few...) but I don't think I'm a total frump. Knowing that I look (reasonably) good makes me feel good too.

And -- I'm off work on Thursday (Remembrance Day), & having tea with a girlfriend.

And -- I'm heading home for Christmas in less than six weeks.

And -- I've even already bought a Christmas present or two.

And -- my birthday is coming up. And even if the number of that birthday kind of gives me pause -- strangely enough, I'm kind of looking forward to it. It's still a good excuse for presents & cake & a steak dinner -- and maybe a day off from work to spend getting pampered at the spa : ) -- & maybe even a special trip somewhere that's nice & warm. : ) : ) : )

So even though it's still early going -- right now, November doesn't totally suck.

(Knocking wood here.)

Blogoversary #3

Has it really been three years since I started this blog?

Three years, 1,095 days, 462 posts. On average, that's about 154 posts per year, 13 posts a month, 3 posts per week or 1 post every 2.4 days. Not bad, really. ; ) (Can you tell I like stats?) I've enjoyed every moment of it -- not only getting my own thoughts out there, but getting to know so many of you & your stories. I'm particularly happy that the voices of the childless/free-not-by-choice segment of the blogging community seem to be growing louder. It's nice to know there is company on this road less travelled!

Thank you all for reading & commenting!

First post

Blogoversary #1 (2008)

Blogoversary #2 (2009)

Living outside the norm

Earlier today, blogger Andrew Sullivan responded to a comment about his recent posts on gay issues with some reflections on what coming out has meant for him.

I read his words -- & while I don't want to distort his meaning, or start a new round of the Pain Olympics-- on a certain level, a lot of what he said could apply to those of us who are also living outside the norm, albeit in a different way -- struggling with loss, infertility & childlessness in a world where most people become parents, take it for granted that they will have the family they want when they want it, & and usually get what they want with little effort or angst (& certainly without having to shell out vast amounts of money just to have a shot at realizing their dreams).

Here's a few excerpts (comments in bold & brackets are mine). Does any of this strike a chord?:

Being in a massive heterosexual (read: parental) majority where you don't really have to think very hard or deeply about your sexual nature (read: your fertility/ getting pregnant/being a parent), and where it is easy to drift along without examining core premises of your emotional life, can deny people an opportunity to reflect more profoundly about society and social norms or know themselves more completely...

...for me, at least, coming out (read: confronting my infertility/losing my child/resolving to live childless/free) logically demanded a much greater honesty about things in general, a much deeper awareness that established norms may not always be correct, and may even hide great cruelty or ignorance.

Read the whole post here.

Facebook and the great parental disconnect

In light of my recent post about Facebook, I would be remiss in not drawing your attention to this absolutely brilliant post Facebook-related post from Julie at A Little Pregnant.

Warning: may induce fits of giggles & extreme temptation to literally ROFLMAO. Not recommended for a cubicle environment. (I learned this the hard way.)

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Julie's post links to a story (front page in the print edition, apparently!) in the Washington Post about what happens when infertility collides with Facebook. There was more than the usual share of nasty comments about how we all really need to just "get a life" and "learn to be happy for other people." (!) And that got me thinking about a weird world we live in.

Our culture right now glorifies pregnancy, motherhood, babies & families (with two parents, one of each gender, & the minimum 2.2 children, of course)(preferably one of each kind). You can't walk into a newsstand or turn on the TV without seeing "baby bumps," pregnancy storylines, or at least one headline with the word "pregnant" or "baby" in it (often in screaming capital letters). Every other ad on TV features an adorable baby, someone announcing their pregnancy (think iPhone commercials), or kids & parents modelling some phase of idealized family life.

At every social gathering, the conversation of our family members, friends & coworkers revolves around everyone's kids. What they're doing. When they should be doing it. What they're eating. What the stuff in their diapers looks like, & whether that's normal. What they're doing in school. What they're doing after school. The cute things they're saying. Bringing up other subjects is futile. Inevitably, somehow, some way, the conversation will creep back to the subject of the children.

Yep, pregnancy & babies are soooooo wonderful! Everybody's doing it!! YOU should be doing it!

How many kids do you have? Really? Why not? When are you going to get pregnant too? (Better hurry up, you know, you're not getting any younger!!) Come on, my kid needs a playmate/cousin! I need a niece/nephew/grandchild/godchild/friend's kid to spoil. Don't you WANT kids? Don't you WANT to be like everyone else?

(Ummm, well, yeah. Not everyone does, of course, but most of us do. But some of us find that is a little easier said than done.)

What's that? You're having problems getting pregnant?

Well, hey, cheer up, you know, it's not such a big deal. Kids really aren't that great anyway. (??!!) Infertility is not the end of the world. Things could be worse. There are children starving in Africa, you know. (Of course, you wouldn't understand what it's like to watch a child in pain, since you're not a mom...)

Maybe you're just not praying hard enough. Or relaxing enough -- maybe you should take a vacation. Or maybe you just weren't meant to be a parent. (By the way, did you hear that my sister is pregnant again? It was an accident! She says her husband just has to LOOK at her & she gets knocked up! Maybe you should ask him how it's done, hahahahaha...)

Or maybe -- you should just adopt! Biology isn't everything, you know. There are so many kids out there who need good homes! You want kids? -- take mine, please, hahahaha....

Suck it up! Get over yourself!

The people who say these things, of course, are almost always either parents themselves(usually the biological sort), or have no intention of ever becoming parents.)

Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks there is a HUGE disconnect here somewhere???

Either pregnancy & having kids really is as wonderful as everyone says it is -- in which case, you would think people would be more sympathetic to those of us who find it more difficult if not downright impossible to achieve something that comes so easily to the vast majority, and (as most of them will tell you -- in glowing, gushing terms) lends so much meaning to their lives.

Or (as I have heard some childfree-by-choice folk suggest) it's really NOT that great -- & all this talk about baby bumps & orgasmic births is really just propaganda -- an evil delusional plot cooked up by (a) corporations, who realize cute babies are good for business, & want to sell us more stuff, &/or (b) religious types who take their "go forth & multiply" instructions quite seriously. And when parents realize the truth, they go along with the sham because misery loves company, & heaven forbid we don't suffer dirty diapers & 3 a.m. feedings & teething pains (& later, stuff like teenage house parties, as per my previous post...!) along with the rest of them. In other words, their loud protests about how we the childless & infertile are infringing on their parental joy is simply a mask for a serious case of the green-eyed monster.

Or maybe people are just so unknowing & uncomfortable with anything that falls outside their own limited frame of reference, that challenges their vision of the norm -- that even smacks of something unpleasant intruding on the periphery of their rose-tinted glasses -- that they automatically shy away from it and fall back on platitudes to mask their discomfort.

Or maybe some people really are just idiots. (Another distinct possibility.)

What do you think?

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After writing this, I found a brilliant response to Julie's post this morning from Msfitzita. Go read it now.

Babies grow up to be TEENAGERS...

There are certain times when I'm actually glad I don't have kids -- especially when I read articles like this. Yikes!!!

Keith Richards, bereaved father

I picked up the new issue of Rolling Stone to read on the commute home tonight. The cover story: an excerpt from Keith Richards' upcoming memoir, Life.

(As I mentioned in a previous music-related post) While I've loved the Beatles since my preschool days, it took me awhile to appreciate the Stones. Their music had a much harder edge, of course (especially to the ears of someone whose tastes ran to the Partridge Family, the Osmonds & the Bay City Rollers, lol). Their drug use during my teenage years (and Keith's in particular) was notorious... and then there was that business of the heroin bust in Toronto, where the prime minister's hippie wife, Margaret Trudeau, partied with the band at the Harbour Castle hotel.

But I started to like the band more in my high school years. I know most critics think their best stuff came from the 1960s -- but their three late 70s/early 80s albums, Some Girls, Tattoo You & Emotional Rescue, were an important part of the soundtrack of my life at that time.

These days, I think of the band, and Keith in particular, with affection. (One of my favourite episodes of The Simpsons is the one where the family sends Homer to the Rolling Stones Rock & Roll Fantasy Camp. At the end, Homer wants to know why they can't stay longer. Mick says, "The lawn isn't going to mow itself," & Keith adds, "And I have to put up the storm windows. Winter's coming!" At the very end, you see Mick mowing the lawn while next door, Keith is on a ladder, hammering in the storm windows, cigarette dangling from his mouth, of course, lol.) There's something likeable about the guy. He's so completely honest about himself. There are absolutely no pretentions about Keith Richards. He is what he is and he makes no excuses for himself.

Anyway, I was already looking forward to reading his memoir, which is due in bookstores next week. (You KNOW this guy has some stories to tell...!!) I knew he had two daughters with his wife, supermodel Patti Hansen, as well as an older son & daughter with Anita Pallenberg. But then, reading the Rolling Stone article that prefaced the book excerpts, I was stunned to read that Keith had another son with Anita -- named Tara (after his friend, Tara Browne -- heir to the Guiness fortune -- who died in a car crash & was the inspiration for the Beatles' song "Day in the Life") -- who died in 1976. Subsequent Googling tells me that baby Tara died when he was about 10 weeks old of SIDS, while Keith was on tour.

“Leaving a newborn infant is something I can’t forgive myself for,” says Richards in Life.

“The first time we talked about that," Fox [James Fox, the co-author of the book] says, "Keith couldn’t get out more than five words. Then we realised we had to go back to it. He told me that he thought about it every week.”

Who knew? Keith Richards is "one of us." I will definitely be adding this to the top of my reading list.

Facebook friends, & raising awareness

Last Friday, October 15th, was Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day. I'm glad that such a day exists, for obvious reasons -- but I have to admit, I really didn't give the day too much thought. I'm not really sure why. I guess it's because it's an awareness day. I most definitely agree that awareness needs to be raised generally about pregnancy loss, & just how many families it affects. But nobody is more aware of pregnancy & infant loss than me, or any other parent who has lost a baby. I don't need reminding that it's an issue. I think about my daughter every single day. Every day, I am keenly aware of how different my life would have been, had she survived. Every day, I am reminded that I am not a mother, at least in the eyes of this pregnancy-&-baby-crazed world we live in.

So I really didn't think much about the significance of Oct. 15th this year. I didn't have a post planned, forgot to light my candle.

However, the night before, I did post one of those status blurbs that was going around on Facebook. One of my friends from our support group had posted it, with her daughter's name, & I just copied it over & inserted Katie's name.

ETA: This is the status update I posted:

Tomorrow on Oct 15th, we will remember all babies born sleeping, or the babies we have carried but never met, or those we have held but could not take home or the ones that came home but didn't stay. Make this your profile status if you or someone you know has suffered the loss of a baby. In memory of Kathleen Maria Lastname --
& all her friends in that big playground in the sky. : ) ♥♥♥

Now, for me, doing something like that is about as open & upfront about Katie as I get with people outside our circle of friends from group. I've always been a private sort of person, & I find it difficult to speak openly about my daughter & what happened to us, for reasons that other deadbabymoms & dads will likely understand. It's most certainly something that I find easier to do online, in writing, versus face to face, especially in a group/family gathering situation.

So, I was pleasantly surprised when my post got 12 "likes" & four comments from my Facebook friends. Several of my lossmom friends, both IRL & online, picked up on my post & reposted to their own profiles, including their own baby(s)'s names. I expected that.

But what I did not expect -- what REALLY surprised me -- was that three of dh's cousins reposted my post, with Katie's name. And our dear SIL, who added, "to our beautiful niece and little cousin you are forever in our thoughts until we meet xoxoxox."

And most surprisingly & touching to me, our 18-year-old nephew, who also added hearts & a little smilie at the end of the blurb. (Pithy comment from one of his friends: "Well said, dude." lol)

I responded to him, "Thank you... it means a lot to your uncle & me that you & (your brother/our other nephew) will remember her."

Awhile later, he had replied: "[We] will always remember her." Well, that had me in tears.

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At the same time, though, I had mixed feelings, both about posting that blurb, & the responses. Awareness can be a double-edged sword. Earlier in the week, both The Globe & Mail and the New York Times ran articles on "pink ribbon backlash" and "pink ribbon fatigue" -- not from the general public, so much, but from cancer survivors themselves. In the same vein, I've also seen articles bemoaning "Facebook activism." The point being that it's very easy to buy a pink ribbon (or a pink teddy bear or lipstick, or whatever), or post a status update for the cause of the day or the week, feel good about what you've done, & promptly forget about it.

As the Globe article points out:

Facebook’s campaign that asks women to change their profile to add innuendos about where they stash their purses may lead to a quick chat about the quirky campaign, but does it get anyone closer to preventing or curing the disease?

Ummmm.... in this case, anyway, I'd say, probably not. ; )

Still, you have to admit, over the past 30-40 years, greater awareness of breast cancer has raised millions of dollars & advanced research on a scale that those of us who have been through pregnancy/infant loss &/or infertility can only dream of. Breasts have long been a taboo subject in polite company -- hence the silence around breast cancer which only recently has started to be broken.

And what's a subject that's even more taboo to bring up in polite company than breasts? Dead babies, anyone?

As Mrs. Spit recently wrote so eloquently:

I’m devestated that my son is dead. My heart is broken, even still. But I’m also angry.... I’m angry that babies are dying. I’m angry that my governments award niggardly funding to research, I’m angry that researchers and drug manufactures would rather cure toe nail fungus than deadly disorders of pregnancy....
Women and their babies are dying, all around us, they are dying while we live our lives. All around us are crushed and broken men and women, and no one has any answers for them. We live our lives while women and babies die, and I still don’t understand, how are we not rioting in the streets?
And that, that makes me mad as hell. I don’t want memory, I want action. I want women and their babies to stop dying.

(With all due respect to families affected by SIDS) I'm reminded of another article I read some time ago that pointed out that SIDS affects far fewer families than stillbirth -- and yet the awareness of SIDS, the preventative "back to sleep" campaign, & the research dollars it has generated, vastly outweighs awarenss of stillbirth.

I'm not saying that awareness & research into SIDS is not important. It is. I just want to point out that SIDS babies have the advantage because they were born and lived, if only for a few days or weeks. It's not as easy to pretend that a baby never existed, doesn't "count," when you've been to see them, held them in your arms, maybe even fed & burped them or changed their diaper.

I want that same kind of awareness for babies lost during pregnancy. The babies most people never get to see or hold, sometimes not even their own moms & dads.

I want kick counts (one of the very few tools at a woman's disposal to monitor her baby's wellness) to become the new "back to sleep." None of my doctors talked with me about kick counts; I was vaguely aware of them from reading, but most of the books I read didn't recommend starting them until the third trimester. I never got that far, & Katie was so small, I never felt a whole lot of movement from her anyway. But I know of a few loss moms who, in their subsequent pregnancies, did kick counts, realized the baby's movements were slowing, and got to the hospital just in time.

I want to know why it takes two, three, sometimes four or more miscarriages before doctors do more than just pat moms on the shoulder and tell them to try again.

I want to know why some jurisdictions don't even keep statistics on stillbirths, or do autopsies as a matter of course.

While I have mixed feelings about the effectiveness of pink ribbons & Facebook posts, I've come to the conclusion that they're better than nothing, at least in these early days. It's a start. Raise the awareness and the dollars for research and support will follow, eventually. A Facebook status update may be a small thing, but I'm glad I did it. I'm glad that I took one small step this past week to remind a few people that, even today, some babies still die. Mine did too. (Remember?)

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"See??" dh said to me, reading the reposts and comments my Facebook post received. "Isn't it healthier to let people know these things instead of keeping them cooped up inside?"

Well... I have mixed feelings.

Frankly, it took me a long time to decide to sign up for Facebook. I already spend enough time online as it is ; ) & I was (& still am) concerned about the potential for privacy breaches. And I don't just mean the very real potential for Facebook to sell my personal information (& that of my friends) to one of its clients.

Until just recently, I was able to keep my "real life" and online existences fairly separate. These days, though, I have my relatives, dh's relatives, high school & university friends, real-life & online loss friends, online scrapbooking friends and others on my FB friends list. I don't think I've had a group representing so many aspects of my life all together in one place since my wedding, lol. And there's been a few times in the months since I've joined that my real life and online existence have converged, or brushed uncomfortably close together. It's a small world, & in some ways, the Internet generally and Facebook in particular have made it even smaller.

If one of my "real life" friends or relatives got really curious, they could no doubt follow some of my Facebook "likes" & friends back to my blog. I first got thinking about blogs when a couple of our support group clients started talking about their own blogs. They didn't say a lot on the subject, mostly just that they had them -- but when I got back home, I input a few key words & names on Google, and found all their blogs in less than five minutes flat. It gave me pause -- but obviously, it didn't stop me from eventually starting my own blog. ; )

But when I think about it, I doubt that people are really THAT interested in me, lol. And while I'm not about to rush out & hand out my blog address to all & sundry ; ) & I don't LIKE the idea that someone I know IRL might find this blog, I think I've come to realize that it wouldn't be the end of the world if they did either. I hope I never have to find out, though. ; )
If you're on Facebook, have you also found your worlds colliding in weird (or wonderful) ways?