Inclusive Infertility Awareness

I used to participate in RESOLVE's NIAW (National Infertility Awareness Week) all week. Of course, it used to be more blog-focused and less influencer-focused, which made it somewhat easier for me to participate. It does feel like so much now is based in social media like Instagram and TikTok, and I am on neither. (Although I am increasingly considering Instagram.)

I am on Facebook off and on, and this past week I was doing a weeklong training in a structured literacy program that I could do from home, so I had a little more time to diddle around on my phone. 

I saw things about NIAW, and one thing that really stood out to me was a post from my former fertility clinic. The post was lovely, a picture of staff and how their mission is to help people, but it was the comments that got my wheels turning. Every single one was someone posting pictures of their children. Things like "my Day 5 blast is graduating this year" which is incredible, and fantastic for the people who a) had Day 5 Blasts and b) had viable pregnancies and births. No shade on that at all. But when I saw comment after comment thanking the clinic for the existence of children, I felt like the narrative was skewed. And of course it is -- who is going to thank them for not succeeding? 

Um, I did. 

Because I need there to be representation that IVF DOESN'T ALWAYS WORK, despite media coverage to the contrary. Soooo I posted, "Thank you for your compassion during our journey -- we were not successful but are so grateful for the care you showed throughout every treatment and every loss. You are a special place! Special thanks to [awesome nurse and doctor here]." 

And then I thought, Hmmm. I have a complicated relationship with the "not successful" statement. 

So I posted my own post on my own page, that said this: 

On this last day of NIAW (National Infertility Awareness Week, sponsored by RESOLVE), I would like to share some lesser-posted things: 

- You can do fertility treatments, even IVF, and NOT get pregnant. 

- You can do fertility treatments, even IVF, and NOT have a live birth.

- You can do all the things: supplements, yoga, acupuncture, steam your lady bits with a witchy herbal brew you squat over and hopefully don't burn your inner thighs, do positive intentions and cyclical guided meditation, take wheatgrass shots daily, do experimental protocols...and STILL NOT END WITH A BABY. 

- You can feel like you've made your whole life revolve around doing everything "right," oozing positivity between clenched teeth, and STILL NOT END WITH A BABY.

- It can take a long time to realize you weren't at fault, you didn't "fail," and what worked for others doesn't work for everybody. 

- You can suffer loss, and NOT end up with a Rainbow Baby, a Miracle Baby, a Dreams Do Come True Baby.

- What you can do is create a Rainbow LIFE. 

- It is insanely hard to buck the "never ever give up" cult of positivity. To face comments about how you "gave up." 

- It is not GIVING UP to choose the life you have over the life that you've hoped for. To say ENOUGH at any point in the journey. To remake your life into a new vision. To accept that everyone doesn't get everything. 

Living a life without children when you really, really wanted them is not always easy, but it can be wonderful, fulfilling, and meaningful. It is for me, for us. 

NOTE: Adoption is not "fertility treatment part II." It is its own process, and is often fraught with ethical swamps and a distinctive un-centering of adoptees, who have zero choice in the decision most of the time. Adoption can build a family, but usually that is by splitting up a first family. There are complexities that often aren't fully disclosed. You can also enter the adoption process and leave without parenting for a ton of reasons. Please, for the love of all that's holy, do not ask people if "They've considered adoption" or "Why don't you JUST adopt?" 

I was overwhelmed by the response. So many people (several I was unaware of having these shared experiences) said YES. This. This is how I feel. Or, I understand more now. Or, sending love having gone through processes but parenting through various means. 

I worry sometimes that when I put out my caveats about adoption, that it looks like sour grapes. That it didn't work for me, so I'm critical of the process. For me, it's not THIS DIDN'T WORK FOR ME, IT'S A BAD SYSTEM. It's that the more we learned about adoption, the more I spoke with and listened to adoptees and birth moms, the more I felt uncomfortable with the adoption process. I did go into adoption as "Fertility Treatment Part II." I really respect the countries that make you wait a year after fertility treatment before entering the adoption process, because that separates the two processes a bit more and encourages time for healing before starting another process. I was first shocked at how hard the adoption process was, then horrified at how adoptive parents were centered and how transactional everything felt, and how financial disparity figured in SO MUCH. It became very uncomfortable and while I still wanted to become a parent through adoption, I was not some sort of saint who left because it was unethical, I do think our increasing awareness about the ethical swamp of adoption made us unwilling to follow the agency's suggestions for how to "get more opportunities" to be seen and possibly matched. It's important to me that I am not presenting myself as some sort of "I'm better than you" person when it comes to adoption. It's just when you know more about a seriously flawed process and how it impacts those with the least agency, it makes it really hard to look back at the rosy-colored-glasses that we were given by the agency on how it's "when, not if you'll be a parent" when a) that's not true and b) it is SO much more complicated than that. 

So, that's how I participated this year. On the last day. Putting out there that you can go through all that and have no baby, but you can advocate and share with people that your life is not sad, that while it's a huge loss it also opens other doors to other opportunities, and that you can figure out some way to remake your life after the loss of a dream. 

These are the photos I attached to the post: one on our wedding day (such YOUNG people!) and one at our 16th anniversary weekend getaway this past October (such HAPPY people!). 

Two Sides of "As a Parent"

I am on this committee for school improvement since I am a lead teacher. My subcommittee is Grading for Equity. Grading is one of the worst parts of teaching. It can feel subjective, it can pile up, you can use rubrics and checklists and STILL feel like you're not quite capturing things... but one thing that has come of this series of meetings is this -- how we have graded for years and years makes no sense. For instance, the 0. On a 100 pt scale, 0-64 is failing, and 65-100 is passing. So there's like 2/3 more failing than passing in that spectrum, and a 0 hurts your grade significantly. It can halve it. So making 50 the lowest grade isn't "giving something for nothing," it's making the floor 50 and the ceiling 100. It's making the math make way more sense.

Anyway, this isn't about the grading part. 

I initially had a draft about one of the meetings from February, where there was a chorus of "as a parent" conversation, but it actually made sense. A bizarrely large percentage of the teachers in my district are also parents of students in the district. So, when talking about having a more consistent grading policy, there were many opinions due to experiences their children have had or are having as students. OK, I thought. This is one of those rare situations where "as a parent" is not about showing just how much more empathy you now have for horrific events because you are parenting, or how you now know what love is whereas before parenting you were a selfish bastard, apparently. It is LITERALLY a perspective as a parent on school functioning. I felt like, "ahhhh, I don't have to be judgy about this anymore!"

Except. 

Last week I had another subcommittee meeting, and it was very, very different. The thing that sucks about these meetings is they are during the school day, which means I need to have sub coverage and I miss teaching to talk about homework or our grading projects based on the research for the umpteenth time. So I was pretty cranky to begin with, because it's always the same classes that I keep missing, which is vastly unfair to those students. And school is ultimately supposed to be about the students, right? 

So when the meeting started with "a reflection on self care and coping strategies for stress" I started losing it. When the facilitator, an administrator, said, "think of your stress, what's taking up space in your brain, and then exhale it all away," I (somewhat loudly) said "um, can I do a primal scream instead?" 

It got worse when we were sorted into groups by color cards, and my color card matched with two very parent-centric individuals. We were supposed to get together and talk about where our projects are, what we did differently from last year, and what we might do next year. 

That did not happen. 

One person, a guy, talked about his project, and then veered into how his three sons are different and would react to these changes differently. And then the other person, a woman, started talking about her kids. And then the two of them were just talking about their kids, and parenting, and how we don't focus enough on The Family anymore and why aren't more people having kids?

I happen to know that one of the individuals went through IVF for at least one of his kids, so I was like (but in my head), "oh, you're an infertility amnesiac. Cool." 

Outside my head, I said, "well, you know, there's the financial landscape, where children (last time I checked) are super expensive and EVERYTHING is super expensive, so young people (and not so young people) don't feel that they can responsibly have children right now. And then there's the environmental landscape with what kind of future is there, and the environmental impacts on fertility, which makes it so people like me who really WANTED kids can't have them. Not everyone wants kids, and not everyone gets kids." 

They kept talking about their children while the administrator facilitating sat at our table, smiling and nodding (and to his credit, did seem to hear what I said and seem a bit surprised and appreciative about my stance). 

And then, the guy said, "you know, why do we shame young women when they say that their ambition in life is to be a wife and mother? What's wrong with that? That should be enough." 

Ummmmm, what about self-sufficiency? What about yes, great to be a wife and mother, but what about BEFORE you find that husband and father? How do you support yourself? And what if that husband and father is a dick, or something happens to him... how do you support yourself and your kids when there isn't that "breadwinner" person? AND WHAT CENTURY ARE WE IN??? (Also, this whole thing is insanely heteronormative.)

I have no problem with people who want to make family their central part of their life. But I do not think it is responsible to encourage young women to forever be dependent. ALSO, what about the men? Are you encouraging young men to be husbands and fathers? Oh, right. That's just for the ladyfolk. 

Enter serious internal primal screaming that may have become external once I got to my car. 

For this I missed out on teaching? Ridiculous. We never really talked about our projects, not really. And I felt very, very othered. And angry. 

So, I guess yay that there was an appropriate use of "as a parent" in one discussion, and absolute BOOOOO to the second discussion. Ugh. 

Flashback

The other day, Bryce showed me something super cool that he did at work. It was a highly zoomed in video of a dark screen, and then there was a quick flash and everybody in the lab cheered with excitement. 

Basically, whatever was inside a thing went into a quantum state, and the flash was that moment. 

(Every time Bryce talks about quantum physics, all I can think of is Antman, which tells you just how "science-y" I am...)

"Isn't that cool?" he said, as he played it one more time. 

"Yeah, super cool..." I said. 

Bryce noticed that I looked a little off. "What's going on? This is a great breakthrough!" 

Well. 

Anyone who has done an IVF cycle knows that there is a moment when you are looking at a dark screen, and then there is a quick flash of light. 

It's not something going into a quantum state. 

It's when the embryo is released from the pipette into the uterus during transfer, and the two-week-wait begins. 

The last time I saw that flash, I teared up and said, "I'm so sorry you're going to die in there, but I really hope you don't... good luck." 

That was probably an indication that we should have stopped treatment sooner. It was my last flash, because after that, I couldn't get to transfer because my uterus went on strike. 

I felt bad, because it was this immediate flashback, and I couldn't help the way my lip twisted when I saw the insanely cool thing that Bryce was showing me. 

This early spring season is a minefield of flashbacks. Nine years ago around this time is when everything went spectacularly awry, I ended up in the emergency room, and then I had a mental breakdown...which led to us ending our adoption journey. Eleven years ago in February was our last attempt to complete an IVF cycle. 

In spring, I can focus on other things for the most part -- the flowers starting to pop up and unfurl in my gardens, the joys of Spring Break, our first outside ice cream of the season. I can take that flashback and redirect it to what is here, and now. A season of renewal. 

I just can't quite control the twisted lip and teary eyes that come first. 

Hellebores popping up from the leaf litter I'm still leaving for baby fireflies

My first daffodil! (These are naturalized, which is why there's grass, too)

Space to Breathe

I have felt underwater for some time. Some of it is IEP season, some of it is this year's schedule, some of it is undoubtably the neverending winter (that seems to be turning a corner, finally), some of it is just existential exhaustion from the world in general. Between February break and Spring Break, I pretty much just put my head down and muttered "just keep swimming" like a lunatic. I am pretty sure I feel somewhere in the region of the overwhelm that I feel now every year at this time, but it just feels amplified. 

So, we planned our trip to go glamping in the Catskills mountains. Partly because February break was spent prepping for and stressing about my bonus colonoscopy and so it felt distinctly un-break-like, I really, REALLY needed to go somewhere for this one. 

There is something about going somewhere else, about disrupting your regular routines, that presses a reset button. There were two recent posts that made me think on this again: Mali's The Healing Power of Travel and Klara's Twenty Years Since the Glacier Taught Us to Breathe Again, which was the inspiration for Mali's post. I feel these posts, because we have also used travel (albeit less exotic travel) to heal. We went on our epic 2-week California Coast trip in 2017 when we ended our parenting journey. More recently, we escaped to Vermont for a quick weekend overnight when our beloved cat, Lucky, died. 

This time, I needed to feel...away. I needed to escape a feeling of constantly being behind, of never feeling done, and frankly a rise in anxiety and depression. Instead of hopping a plane to another country (still something we desire to do but feels impossible right now due to current events), we drove less than 4 hours to a glamping compound on a lake. 

It was amazing to plan for -- that alone lifted my spirits. What will we cook? What will I read? Can I finish a 1000 piece puzzle in 2 days? (Um, no.) I went to the website for the place almost daily to review the photos of the domes, of the lake, of the firepit area. We haven't done anything quite like this before, which was also good because we are serious creatures of habit. We find something we like and then BOOM, that's what we do ad nauseum. It's a comfort thing, so I was proud we branched out this time. 

I am struggling with how to describe the place, because there were lots of things we really liked -- the dome was super cool, and we loved the deck and firepit. The short trail by the lake was very pretty and we saw and heard a lot of birds. I think if we had a forcefield around just those areas and couldn't see past it, that would have been the ideal setup. 

It kind of felt like the difference between Instagram and reality. Depending on the angle, it was wild and serene. Or it was a logger's paradise. Clearly the photos on the website were very carefully angled.

Here are photos of the things we really loved: 

View out the window of the dome, taken from the floor for reasons you'll see later

Seating area on the deck outside the dome

The little reading nook -- that chair was quite cozy

The sitting area with cool mod fireplace and what I hope is a fake cow rug

Cute kitchenette with induction cooktop and minifridge

The outside of the dome from the firepit side

The firepit on our first night

Reading by the fireplace, the light did something interesting here

Woods by the lake

The lakeshore

Fun little Adirondack chair spot on the lake

Here's the problem... these photos are very carefully angled. There was beautiful woods and rocks (for March anyway, March is a notoriously unattractive month in the Northeast US), but also the area where the domes were was pretty devastated by downed trees and cut wood that was just left there. Here are some uncurated reality shots: 

The domes were pretty close together. This looks like some kind of space village out of Star Wars to me, but that didn't bother me as much.

Our dome was on the end, so most private in terms of other domes, but looked out onto cut trees galore.

The view from the far side of our deck into the woods. Not quite so picturesque.

More view from the deck. I guess they're building another maintenance shed. And storing a ton of things in the woods in a giant pile. 

This is the door to the shed at night. It was always lit up inside. The first night I might have yelled "knock if you need help!" because it was giving abduction/murder shed vibes.

Slightly different, huh? Also, the lake was way smaller than we thought and you could literally see tons of lit up houses on the other side and hear barking dogs. There was also a small airport nearby. All of which fairly ruined the illusion of being in the middle of nowhere, in the "majestic forest." 

The camp gets most of its guests from NYC and the surrounding areas, so I wonder if all the reviews about how serene and wild it was were in contrast to the concrete jungle? It felt like woods for people who have never been to real woods. Probably because we're spoiled by Maine and Vermont. Or snobs.

To be fair, maybe it is more secluded when the trees leaf out. But also, they said they had tons of trails, and that was definitely an overstatement. I loved the lake trail, and there was a trail that went into the woods (but passed the Graveyard of Adirondack Chairs Gone By and Ethernet Cables of Yesteryore). 

But did we have a great time? Yes, yes we did. Mostly because of what we brought to the place. Bryce loves cooking outside, and we had some amazing meals.

This is the "lobster mac and cheese in a cast iron dutch oven situation" series... jeez that was delicious! 

 

Night #3 was a delicious cheddar burger w/grilled onions & jalapenos with pan roasted broccoli and shingled cheesy potatoes roasted in the dutch oven again. 

I'm glad we cooked, because it added to the camping vibe and was definitely safe for my Celiac self. It was so yummy! (Night #1 was a pasta dish with veggies from Hello Fresh, gobbled so we could have our First Night tradition of champagne by the fireplace.)

We saw interesting things -- a bald eagle or three, buffleheads, Common Merganser ducks... and a variety of "gargoyle" metal sculptures about the property that were various creatures with oddly detailed genitalia (I thought they all had male junk, but Bryce showed me a picture I will spare you of a full on anatomically correct vulva, and we did see one that was a fire entity of some sort with flames for genitals... which is a choice). We heard spring peeper frogs, songbirds, and woodpeckers. 

A catwoman entity by the lake

This one initially scared the crap of us because it was literally in the woods, and then Bryce went to check it out and discovered it was a girl thing. 

Lastly, the best part of any trip is the time we spend together. It was nice to get out of our routine and do something different, clear the head and lungs, and refresh. Our last night had a crazy thunderstorm that was super cool in the dome (rain on the outside is super cozy), but also a bit terrifying (so much wind and rain, but thankfully the 1" hail and 60 mph winds went north of us). It was a lovely time mostly because of the time we spent together. 

Nighttime parallel play -- he's got a Lego knockoff kit, I've got a puzzle...

Trying Something New

February break, with the medical stuff and anxiety about it, felt like a Not Break. One reason is we usually try to go to Vermont for a few nights, and we didn't go anywhere but the hospital. There's something about physically taking a break from your surroundings that creates a space, a dividing line, between Normal Days and Vacation Days. 

So, we booked a few nights elsewhere for April Break. We are going to GLAMP! 

I am so excited because the idea of tent camping (or remember the Maine airb&b Bryce found that required canoeing in and out?) is at best anxiety-producing and at worst turning into a bear meal or a killer's victim. Or, as a friend recently said, "you have to love the outdoors enough to poop in a hole by a tree." I don't understand why when we have the advances of plumbing, electricity, and a locked door, I'd  want to "rough it."

But this, this is a geodesic dome with a bathroom, kitchenette, and thermostat, on a lake in the woods in nearby mountains. It's remote, cozy, quiet, and romantic. They have a gas fireplace in the dome and a fire pit and grill outside. And, it's got a zillion stars. 

It's something different, but not too scary. It sounds like all the best parts of being in the woods and being in a fancy hotel. I'm excited to try the least rugged camping ever. 

Good Healthcare Experience

I have sooo many stories about crappy healthcare experiences. Being unheard, dismissed, misdiagnosed. However, today, I have a good one to share! 

I am so tired of having to pee in a cup when having a procedure. It is very annoying to keep saying over and over "if it's for a pregnancy test, I DON'T HAVE A UTERUS!" What's the point of filling out patient paperwork over and over and over again if no one reads it? 

I am also tired of having pain dismissed. I had a terrible experience with a colonoscopy a few years ago where my IV failed and I was awake, sentient, and fully aware of what was going on. I said "OW!" and "I'M AWAKE!" and no one listened. I was left with a longer than usual recovery/ I had to take two additional days off due to horrid cramping and pain, and the place I'll never return to said, "It's always a possibility you'll need additional time after," which was infuriating because that was NEVER mentioned to me.

I can't tell you how many times I have been at a doctor's office, particularly related to lady bits, and been told "you'll feel some discomfort." THAT IS A BALDFACED LIE. "Discomfort" almost always means "pain." If you've never listened to the Serial Productions podcast "The Retrievals," or the follow up one about people who FELT their C-sections and were told they didn't, those are great and terrible examples of how women aren't listened to when it comes to pain. (Full disclosure, I listened to "The Retrievals" but couldn't bring myself to listen to the one about C-sections.) 

So, when I had my colonoscopy on Wednesday to see why I had such a scary experience in January, I was super duper vocal that I wanted to be sure I was knocked out. That my previous procedure was the stuff of butt nightmares. 

Two things happened: 

1) The nurse asked if there was any chance I could be pregnant, and when I said NO somewhat forcefully, she asked if I'd had a hysterectomy and when I said "YES!" with an inordinate amount of glee, she laughed. I do not at all regret my hysterectomy. Good riddance, no downsides (for me, anyway). 

2) When the anesthesiologist came over to talk with me, the same nurse said, "FYI, she had a bad experience last time and she wants to make sure she'll be out out." OMG, listened to AND affirmed! The anesthesiologist was delightful and assured me, "oh yes. You will not feel or remember a thing." He also didn't give me a hard time when I continued asking "are you sure I'll be out?" all the way up until I conked out, delightfully conscious-less for the whole thing. 

What a relief. The colonoscopy went well (they think it was a horrid bacterial infection that caused the initial episode) and I have been firmly un-traumatized. I also didn't have to pee in a cup. Wins all around! 

PS - If you go to get a colonoscopy, I highly recommend that you go somewhere that has an actual anesthesiologist. It wasn't general, it was sedation, but anesthesiologists know what they're doing and are absolute angels. 

Bookshop Cutie

The other weekend we went to my favorite bookshop, and just inside the door was an absolutely adorable tiny child. Maybe she was three? Brown curly hair, blue eyes, shoes that lit up. 

I was looking at the turnstile shelf of WhoHQ books (delightful little nonfiction books for kids that pack a lot of knowledge in a easy to read format), and she brought over a rainbow/animal board book that she liked. 

"Look! It's blue!" 

"Sure is, what do you see?" 

"A WHALE!" 

"Yep!"

And I kept shopping around. No joke, this child came and showed me every single book she picked up. She wanted me to know what she saw, what was on the page, that she was "reading." I think this little girl brought me no fewer than 7 books to check out with her. 

Her mom said, "I'm so sorry, feel free to ignore her, here you are trying to enjoy the bookstore!" 

I honestly didn't mind. She was adorable. 

I thought for a moment, maybe she senses that I'm a safe person! She knows I'm good with kids! 

Bryce kind of ruined that thought though when he told me in the car after that she came up to him once, and he just said "ah" and walked away. 

So, either she has terrible survival skills (clearly NO stranger danger at all), or I was the only stranger willing to entertain her show-and-tell. 

She even brought over a little stuffed spider that delighted her, and I agreed it was pretty much the only spider I could think was cute (although that's a lie, I find the little jumping spiders strangely adorable). 

I was just thinking, "aw, how nice that I'm having this interaction with a random toddler!" 

But then she got carted out of the store, wailing, "WAAAAAH, I POOOOOOOOPED! WAAAAH!" and I was like, yep, still enjoy tiny children in small doses. 

It was delightful while it lasted, and didn't make me feel sad at all (despite the little girl eerily resembling a child I could have had).