Vacation Firsts

We came back from our vacation in Vermont and Maine, and it was glorious! There were absolutely zero isolated cabins on islands you have to canoe to that have no electricity. We did familiar things, but also experienced a few firsts. 

First #1: 

We went out on a sailboat! It was a sailboat tour, so we didn't actually have to do anything. No rope pulling or boom-swinging. 

This is a big deal because I am terrified of sailboats. We had originally booked a tour on a bigger boat that went out to the outer islands of Boothbay Harbor, but that boat needed repairs and so it was cancelled. So we had a choice between a mailboat for an hour that went to Squirrel Island and back, or the Bay Lady sloop for 1.5 hours that tooled around the bay, not quite in open ocean. Fun fact that we learned on the ghost walk tour, which was delightfully kitschy: most tours will tell you Squirrel Island is named because it is shaped like a squirrel holding a nut to munch on, but ACTUALLY, it is named after the ship The Squirrel that disastrously wrecked upon its shores. That's not why I didn't want to do the mailboat, though. It was more that a one hour ferry trip sounded kind of boring. 

What I didn't realize is that the word "sloop" means it's a SMALL boat. Like, a 12 person sailboat that's 31 feet long. That sounded terrifying. I have been on a sailboat only one other time, in the Long Island Sound when I was maybe 8, and I remember feeling like we were totally sideways in the water and I was going to die. Or it was a speedboat and I am misremembering, but I did associate doom with sailboats. Additionally, see sailboat disasters in Sleeping With the Enemy and the very upsetting White Squall. Although in Sleeping With the Enemy the sailboat disaster is also an escape hatch of sorts, the idea of tipping over into the sea wasn't exactly part of my vacation dreams. Oh! And Dead Calm, although the sailboat in that one isn't so much the problem as is the the weird water hitchhiker dude. 

Anyway, I was scared but I booked it anyway. I can do things that scare me! 

I did feel loads better when the captain (if that's what you call the head sailor guy at the wheel) said that the keel was 500 pounds or something, and so there was no way we would tip over. Tilt, yes, but we wouldn't flip. With that said, I thoroughly enjoyed every tilt and bouncy wake that we hit. It was delightful! 

First #2: 

The ENTIRE time we were away, not one person asked us if we had kids. Not. One. We stay at an inn in Boothbay Harbor, and breakfast is very bed-and-breakfast-y. Which can be delightful when you meet fun new people, and painful when you meet people that you wouldn't necessarily choose to hang out with (that happened a lot last year). This year, it was a lot of older couples or families, and some talked about their children in passing, but NO ONE asked us if we had kids. It was AMAZING! 

I can't tell if this is people realizing that asking people if they have kids is a mixed bag, or we've reached an age where kids aren't central to your daily existence so it's not like when people had toddlers or school-age children and it's literally EVERYTHING everyone talks about. Or maybe we're also looking older ourselves and that has something to do with it? We had 4 breakfasts there, and only one was just us because everyone else was an early bird. Lots of opportunities for the dreaded question. Not to mention dinners out, and when we were in Vermont (also an inn, but less B&B-y...you get your own table at breakfast). I sure hope this is the wave of the future! 

It was a delightful vacation, lots of reading and walking (good job, new knees!), visiting new spaces and activities, and truly relaxing. Here are a few more pictures -- it was sunny (but HOT) and just gorgeous. 

In a garden in Grafton, Vermont

Reading on the rocks in a cove

The cove

Full moon...best picture of a full moon I've ever taken! 

Reading a book about friends on the rocky coast of Maine while actually on the rocky coast of Maine

Braving the icy water in Hendrick's Head, although the shallow water wasn't bad

View from Hendrick's Head

Cozy Harbor

Shortly before we left for home, that hammock was the best!

Embryo Adoption in the News

A friend in the bloggy community sent me this article, about the baby born recently whose embryo was frozen 30 years ago. I'd seen it in my feed, but didn't click until she sent it to me. She sent it to me because the article mentions Snowflakes, the embryo adoption program through Nightlight Christian Adoptions, and I have a history with them. 

When we had embryos in storage, and knew we weren't going to use them, we were faced with a choice. I wrote about that in this post on My Path to Mommyhood: Embryo Adoption...Beginning the Process. It was very strange, because we were simultaneously waiting in adoption to become adoptive parents of an infant (you know how that turned out) AND placing our embryos with prospective adoptive parents. 

We hadn't chosen a Christian adoption agency because...we aren't Christian. So why, when we had a choice of what to do with our frozen embryos, did we choose the Snowflakes program through Nightlight Christian Adoptions? 

Well, because the ideology, while not ours, supports giving embryos chances to become babies. Even those that are a long shot, like our 6 2PNs from the donor egg cycle (still not sure why they were frozen at that early stage) and the 2 blastocysts from the donor sperm cycle. Those embryos were tricky for multiple reasons: 

1. They were each half donor material, and not the same half in both cases
2. The 2PNs were frozen wicked early and there was no guarantee that they'd survive thawing (Spoiler alert: they didn't)
3. Unlike what it says on the website link above, we were not successful in our treatments and dealing with extra embryos after having successful pregnancies. Neither of the cycles these embryos came from resulted in a pregnancy or birth. 

But, like a 30 year old embryo that was frozen using very old technology, Snowflakes believes that every embryo deserves a shot, and they have a program for "hard to place" embryos. Which I'm sure ours were. 

Despite our heathen status, Snowflakes was delightful to work with. There was zero judgment on our spiritual beliefs or lack thereof. We stated that we wanted our embryos to be available to LGBTQ+ recipients and/or single recipients, and religion was not a factor. They said they do occasionally have people seeking embryo adoption who fit those categories (but I bet it was a very small number). 

We were successfully matched with a couple in the Midwest, who seemed delightful and had a very nice profile book. Yup, we were reviewing profile books while our own profile book was getting very little traction. I don't remember their book mentioning religion at all, which is usually a bit of a tell (most religious couples mention their faith in their books pretty prominently). 

I'm pretty sure our lack of mentioning religion or church or prayer hurt us in our own adoption journey. Adoption seems to be a pretty religion-heavy process, even if you don't have an agency rooted in faith. Not hard to see, given that in the article above, the woman who donated the embryos said "[her] preference was for a married Caucasian, Christian couple living in the US. 'I didn’t want them to go out of the country,' [she said]. 'And being Christian is very important to me, because I am.'” 

I really loved working with Snowflakes and didn't feel othered at all for not being in the fold. 

What sucked was that eventually, all of the embryos crapped out. The 2PNs didn't survive thawing. The blasts thawed, but only one survived, and it resulted in a negative pregnancy test. We were so very sad, mostly for the couple who had taken a chance on very, very long shot embryos (we were so super transparent that our journey was a clusterfuck), but also for us. Had they been successful, we would have gotten updates, we would have gotten pictures if there was a birth, and we would have possibly been able to meet someone else's baby with my genetics. Which would have been real weird, but also, in a way, amazing. Especially because by the time that news came, it was September 2017 and our own journey to become parents had come to an end.

It also gave us an answer in a sense to whether or not a gestational carrier would have made a difference. Which was, in a way, also very sad -- there wasn't a piece of us that could have worked. 

It was interesting that in the article, they mention that many clinics don't take adopted embryos for transfer, particularly the hard-to-place ones. The couple we matched with had to travel over several states to get to their clinic, which I only recently realized was probably not because there wasn't a fertility clinic in their metropolitan area, but there wasn't one willing to do the transfer. You know the reason... the almighty success rates. 

Our doctor that we followed from one clinic to another was very down on embryo adoption as a concept -- he felt that it was a slippery slope and contributed to the "personhood" argument that continues to threaten IVF today. If you regard every embryo, every fertilized egg, as a human baby with rights, then IVF becomes a very risky business. That case where the couples sued the clinic for wrongful death (and then dropped it) over destroyed embryos is one example. But, for us, the choice to engage in embryo adoption made sense. 

Not because we are pro-life -- I believe in the right to choose because every situation is individual, it's not my business, and I don't enjoy the policing of women's bodies. And as people who believe in the right to choose, we also chose to try to give these embryos a shot -- not because we saw them as "extrauterine children" as the courts in Alabama decided, but because we saw them as having potential. Additionally, we created them on purpose, with a lot of love and effort, so why not give them a second chance elsewhere? 

I mean, couldn't there be secular embryo adoption programs, based on the Second Chance idea? (Per the hospital-based clinics we worked with... um no.)

I am grateful that Snowflakes was inclusive and nonjudgmental. I am grateful that they were behind open adoption practices. And, I am grateful that they were incredibly compassionate to everyone involved when our embryos didn't work for anyone. It was a wild chapter in our journey, that's for sure.  

What The Body Knows

I had a dream two nights ago that we were trying to get pregnant. It got real weird, and at the end my wonky subconscious was like, "you've been pregnant with twins this whole time!" I woke up unsettled. 

Later, in the evening, I was telling Bryce about it (even the weird parts), and he said, "is it some kind of anniversary, maybe?" 

Huh. I don't hold anniversaries in my memory. I have the blog record to tell me if I want to know, and frankly, most of the time I don't. But Bryce's question made me curious. 

Holy crap. THIRTEEN YEARS AGO (how is that even possible?) from when I had the dream, I was pregnant. Thirteen years ago yesterday, I was pregnant. And thirteen years ago today, I started to miscarry. 

That's just freaky. 

The summers were terrible in 2011 and 2012. I had two losses two years in a row, and because I tried to time cycles during my big chunk of time off, they were always around that July/August timeframe. It really sucked when people asked "how was your summer?" and I was like, "well, I thought I was finally going to be able to say I was expecting my first child, but um, nope, just more personal tragedy. How 'bout you?" 

I found the post, Hello/Goodbye, in My Path to Mommyhood, where I'd very helpfully put a timeline of my short-lived happiness and then devastation (maybe skip the photo if a timeline of someone's miscarriage is distressing): 

It brought me right back. It put a shadow over the evening yesterday, but I was already feeling inexplicably "off." 

I am so grateful that that part of my life is over. It was just one trainwreck after another. It's insane that the 7th graders I'll have next year will be the age that baby would have been. The 8th graders are the age my ectopic would have been. It's a weird feeling. Also weird -- with people retiring and lots of new people in the building, there aren't that many people who know about my saga. I'm coteaching with someone new who is a younger teacher Bonus: no kids on the About Me slideshow! No "as a mother" nonsense! No waxing poetic on the joys of grandchildren! Danger: she's been married for two years and bought a house last year, so it's not out of the realm of possibilities that she could be in that stage of family building relatively soon. Or not. Only time will tell. 

How odd that the body has memory, and will remind you of anniversaries even if you are trying not to hang on to that dark time. 

The Question That Must Not Be Asked

I had a dentist appointment today. It was rescheduled to today, actually, because now that I've had a knee replacement I have to take antibiotics 1 hour before any dental work including routine cleanings. I was halfway to the appointment last week when I realized I had completely forgotten not only to take the pills, but I hadn't even ordered them. Ooops. Now I have an alarm before the reminder for the appointment, TAKE YOUR DAMN PREMEDS!

Anyway, I took the 2,000 mg of amoxicillin (which made me feel crappy the rest of the day), and off to the dentist I went. 

The hygienist was someone I hadn't had before, and she was lovely. Chatted for a while before, asked about the knee replacements, asked about summer plans, and then got cleaning. 

While we were chatting, she mentioned that she and her husband are the only people who live in this area, that everyone else lives in the DC area. She didn't mention kids at all. 

I had an insane urge to ask, because I suspected she didn't have kids, but...

I TAMPED THAT SHIT DOWN. 

What the hell was I thinking? NO! BAD! Even if I would be asking out of kindred spiritship (that may not even be accurate), it's not okay to ask. Probably, if she had kids, she would have mentioned them. People with kids tend to lead with stuff about their kids. Also, she didn't ask me if I had kids. I feel like people without kids don't tend to lead with that, either. 

Either way, it was none of my business. But man, it was weird to have the urge to ask the question that I myself dread! I'm glad I resisted. 

Periods and PCOS

This week, I read a book and listened to a podcast that made me sad for my younger self, but hopeful that things are (mostly, maybe) changing for the better for today's young girls/people who menstruate. 

The book was Period. End of Sentence.: A New Chapter in the Fight for Menstrual Justice by Anita Diamant (if that name sounds familiar, she wrote The Red Tent so apparently she has a theme). If the title of the book sounds familiar, there was a short documentary with the same name, connected with The Pad Project, that won an Oscar in 2019 and is available on Netflix. The book was inspired and connected to the film, with a Foreward by Melissa Berton, an English teacher who is the founder of The Pad Project. 

It's a really great book. I learned SO much. It explores the stigma behind periods, indigenous rites of passage that were squelched by colonizers, how people are addressing period poverty in the U.S. (1 in FIVE girls experiences it) as well as globally. I learned about early period products: I had no idea that the first commercial menstrual cup was invented in 1937 by an actress named Leona Chalmers, so it's not a new thing (although it fell out of favor for decades). Tampons became commercially available in 1931, but with all sorts of misinformation about how they break the hymen and make you not a virgin (what?!?!) or promote promiscuity (oooh, don't you feel so sexy and turned on when you're changing tampons? RIDICULOUS). I learned that in prison, most period products are available in the commissary, which means you have to have money, and if you don't, and your makeshift TP pad leaks blood onto your uniform, you can be in violation of rules about uniforms and LOSE ACCESS TO THE COMMISSARY. WTF. There's the (completely logical) thought that if toilet paper, soap, and paper towels are provided for free in public restrooms, why on earth wouldn't period products also be provided, since they are a NECESSITY and not a luxury item? Also, that there should be no separating by gender for health discussions about puberty, because boys should learn about menstruation so they don't think it's unmentionable, and girls should learn about nocturnal emissions so it's not a mystery, and trans youth should not be put in the position of deciding which class to go to. I thought that practice wasn't happening any more, but I guess, per the book, depending on where you live it is still very much the case that boys learn about boys and girls learn about girls and everything is shrouded in mystery and shame. 

My favorite part was a blessing in the Jewish faith for your first period (menarche): 

A meditation for menarche before immersing

I welcome this stage of Womanhood with a mixture of 

emotions.

I don't know what the future will bring or how this great change 

in my body 

will bring changes to other parts of my life. May I always respect 

my body and the potential it holds. 

I would love if someone could explain "immersing" to me in this context, but apart from that, I absolutely love that this blessing does NOT assume that a period means children. I absolutely love "I don't know what the future will bring" as opposed to "every period is a potential for life and will bring children/a baby/pregnancy." How refreshing. How amazing. I love that potential is in there, but it can mean many different things. So, it's not setting you up to believe that period = fertility. Because...it doesn't. Clearly.

Which brings me to the podcast that I listened to, This Podcast Will Kill You, and the episode (181) on PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrome). Entitled PCOS: Beyond the Cysts, it delves into what PCOS is, what we know about it, what (sad and shoddy) treatment there is, and longtime impacts. It is so well researched, and I absolutely loved that the intro, which is always a first-hand account, was a story told by a trans man -- not the PCOS story you often hear! The hosts are two women named Erin, who are disease ecologists and epidemiologists, and one is a family medicine practitioner. 

One of the Erins (Allmann Updyke) started by saying that she was diagnosed with PCOS, and in researching this episode found out all kinds of things that she did not know, and that she will use as a primary care physician moving forward. 

They talk about how the cysts mentioned are not necessarily the kind of giant ovarian cysts that burst, but the "cysts" that are follicles in various states of development that arrest before they are released. They also talk about how it is not an ovarian disorder, it's an ENDOCRINE disorder. Which means, it impacts so much more than fertility, which is usually when diagnosis happens. Grrrr. There are lifelong consequences: propensity for Type 2 Diabetes, higher risk for stroke, higher risk for heart attack, higher risk for obstructive sleep apnea. How interesting to find that my high cholesterol and high lipid count are likely thanks to my PCOS! How infuriating that my diagnosis didn't come with that information, and nobody seemed to give a crap about it once I wasn't trying to get pregnant! 

So, my diagnosis didn't come until my fertility workup at 33 that involved discussing how a) my period is wildly unpredictable and without birth control could happen only 2 times per week and last for EVER and be super heavy and painful, and b) my ovaries looked like "chocolate chip cookies" and had tons of follicles that had started and then paused. Which meant that IUI was difficult, because PCOS tends to respond very enthusiastically to fertility injectibles that make lots of follicles mature since some have a head start. Also, apparently that doesn't mean that egg quality is awesome, probably because of the follicles that were paused, which is probably why once we did IVF I had 20-something follicles and retrieved eggs in the high teens to 20s, but then only 3 or less were typically mature and viable, which is super confusing and disappointing when the initial news is YOU'RE AN EASTER BUNNY!, an actual statement by one reproductive endocrinologist in my journey. Sigh. I always wondered why it was a Great Whittling, from zillions of eggs to very few that would fertilize. I guess I know more now. 

Meanwhile, my entire early days of my period were a nightmare because of the unpredictability, heaviness, and length. Counting did not work. Ever. And, as I learned in the podcast, within the first 3 years of your period starting, it's typical for your period to be irregular. But after 3 years, if it's still irregular, it is a red flag (haha, red flag). For me, it was interpreted not as a medical issue, but a character flaw. I couldn't track properly. I wasn't prepared. I was lazy and inattentive. When actually, I joked about my "immaculate miscarriages" since I was absolutely a virgin until college, but if I wasn't, what a stressful time that would have been. I finally got on birth control before going off to college, and for the first time I could predict my period (although I definitely had breakthrough bleeding and horrible periods didn't end, which was likely because of the adenomyosis discovered when I excised that uterus in my 40s). 

Meanwhile, I had embarrassing leakages, ruined many a pant/short/skirt/underpant, and once bled through my shorts to the point that I left a puddle of blood in my chair while taking my Physics Regents my senior year because they wouldn't let me go to the bathroom more than once during the 3 hour test. I was punished while on a cruise vacation for my (ill advised) rage at my mom when she berated me for not bringing tampons and said it was my fault (natural consequence) that I was missing an aquatic preserve that I had so been looking forward to because my period chose THAT MOMENT to arrive. I mean, the rage was I whacked my mom with a wet swimsuit while screaming THIS ISN'T MY FAULT!!!, which could have been handled differently by 17-year-old me, but also... IT WASN'T MY FAULT. I was given very little compassion until I was on the Pill and had a pretend regularity that could be depended on. 

Pretend, because it hid my PCOS until I tried to get pregnant in my 30s. Getting put on the Pill takes care of symptoms, but it DOES NOT CURE THE DISORDER. And, in fact, it masks it, leaving you unwitting about all the health concerns and the infertility aspect. 

For instance, before the podcast I did not know that because your lining builds up and then isn't expelled thanks to the reluctant-to-release eggs, you are at higher risk for endometrial cancer because that tissue just sits stagnant and has a greater chance of changing. Well, more reasons to be grateful that I got a hysterectomy and removed that nasty uterus. Literally, NO ONE has ever mentioned the cancer risk to me. Which I would think would be important information to have. 

Also, I have been told how my BMI is too high (the Erins hate BMI, and SO DO I, it's a terrible measure, invented by a man), my cholesterol is too high, my lipids are too high, and I need to lose weight. I am not a tiny person, but I am not a large person either. I walk and do Pilates and I don't eat a lot of crap. I have ALWAYS had belly fat, even when I was a teenager running track who weighed 120 pounds. While I can influence things to a point, it is ridiculously hard to make significant change in that arena because my body just doesn't change all that much (even less now that I'm in perimenopause). Oh! Isn't it interesting that that's probably in part due to my PCOS! It makes a lady real mad.

No one has talked about the possibility of taking metformin, or that insulin resistance could be a culprit, either. It's like women's health is largely ignored and maladies are too often subscribed to personal choices. Harrumph.

This is why I love the Erins. They are trying to move that dial. They cover all kinds of topics, and speak loudly about the need for research in women's health and including trans people in the conversations as people with ovaries and people who menstruate. 

Between the two -- the book and the podcast -- I was left feeling hopeful that periods are being more frankly discussed with less shame and that more information on PCOS is being put out and discussed openly. I wish that there was more knowledge and less shame when I was growing up, but I'm so glad that things will hopefully be better for young women/menstruators today. 

A 1990s Dystopian Novel Having a Moment

A friend of mine read I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman, translated from French to English by Roz Schwartz, posted a cryptic review, and so...I read it. I love when people find books that stick, that haunt, that make you go hmmmm, and then want to share that experience. 

Without giving away too much, this book is about a group of women in a cage in a bunker underground, guarded by men. It's told by a girl who is the youngest, who was a child when the unnamed event happened, and has no memory of before the cage. She is super curious and wants to know EVERYTHING about life before and how things work. She has questions about sexuality, bodies, all kinds of things. Then one day, something happens and the women can leave the cage. What happens next is most of the book. 

It is pretty grim, and definitely leaves you with more questions than answers. What would it be like to be in a community of only women under apocalyptic, disastrous, tragic circumstances? I flew through it in about 24 hours. I couldn't put it down. 

I do have to say that the author was not pronatalist at all. Some of the women have had children, some haven't, some wanted to but it didn't happen. Motherhood isn't really a big part of the book, and the women are not centered as wives or mothers, except for some discussion about women who definitely had kids when everything happened, and have to believe for their own sanity that they are dead. Most of the book is about...what does it mean to be a human? To be alive? What is time? 

When I was in Rhinebeck earlier this week, visiting my best friend, we went to an indie bookstore (always a bookstore), and I found the book. The store had 15 of them on the shelf! That's bonkers. It's esoteric, literary, translated, and currently put out by a nonprofit publisher, Transit Books, that is usually a print-on-demand publisher. Why was it so popular again? 

It was originally published in 1995, and I feel like that is a time of lots of women-centered, dystopian, speculative novels came out (The Handmaid's Tale, The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents), and it definitely fits in. Well, maybe not definitely, I keep thinking about this book and it is not definitely anything. Very hard to classify. Apparently, this is a product of BookTok. I feel like usually BookTok is a lot of highly popular, prolific romance, romantasy, and mysteries (sort of a Court of Sexy Dragons and Housemaids by Colleen Hoover). I was happy to see that Tender is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica had a popularity surge thanks to BookTok, too. (Hey wait, that one is ALSO translated! Fascinating! And WEIRD, like The Jungle if the cows were humans.) I am not actually on BookTok, or TikTok at all (or Instagram! GASP!). But I hear about it, because friends of mine are on it. 

There were a few quotes that made me think, and ruminate, and I thought I'd share them with you. 

"What are we, without a future, without children? The last links in a broken chain." 

Okay, ouch. I think this is less a commentary on not having children and more a commentary on not having children as a society ever again. But that "last links in a broken chain" image stuck with me. I think all the time about how so many things end with me. A lot of them are perfectly fine (um, my knees, my autoimmune disorders, my anxiety/depression/ADHD, all that genetic soup of doom). But other things make me feel like the end of a chain. 

"I think that time must have something to do with the duration of pregnancies, the growth of children, all those things that I haven't experienced. If someone spoke to me, there would be time, the beginning and end of what they said to me, the moment when I answered, their response. The briefest conversation creates time." 

The first part of that stands out to me. Less the duration of pregnancies (I mean, 40 weeks is not a terribly long time in the scheme of things), but the growth of children. Time works differently for my friends with children than it does for me. I think one reason that it doesn't get mushy is because I live my life in school years, so there are milestones at different times each year. Otherwise, we have our birthdays, our anniversaries (which is why I celebrate so many of them), and milestones like PhDs and things like that, but there aren't things every year. 

The second part is fascinating -- if you never talk to anyone, if you are alone in a cabin in the woods forever, would it seem like there was no time? Is time measured in conversations if there is no other way to tally it? 

Lots to think about. Have you read it? Does it sound like something you'd want to read? I'd love to know what you think. 

18 Years of Teaching

And just like that... my 18th year of teaching is complete! That is bonkers to me. I feel like my life is divided into Before Teaching and After Teaching, because that shift also coincided with the end of my first marriage and the beginning of my relationship with Bryce. LOTS of change, all at once. It was terrifying back when everything was a jumble of uncertainty and upheaval, but wow am I glad at how everything turned out. 

I met Bryce while I was finishing up my field work, and we were seriously dating while I was student teaching. We got married the year I had my first probationary position, and started infertility treatments that same year. 

I spent a lot of my early teaching days wondering what it would look like if I did get pregnant, and being a little nervous about it. How much leave could I take while not tenured? How could I balance motherhood and my burgeoning teaching career? That quickly turned to questions of how I could balance teaching and IVF treatments -- scheduling around the school calendar to try to minimize how much time I took off, knowing that I'd need sick time to get full pay during a 6 week maternity leave. 

All of this proved moot, of course.

I remember my first year split between my current middle school and the 9th grade building, and having to start a week into the year due to my ectopic pregnancy and surgical recovery (and boatloads of grief). I remember being nervous about that falling on my tenure year, until my principal at the middle school shared that he and his wife had endured an ectopic pregnancy as well once upon a time, and he understood. 

I remember years and years of painful beginning-of-the-year slideshows with everyone's family pictures and baby pictures and the feeling that we had a big hole where that should be for us. 

I also remember starting to make sure that my slideshow picture was silly, funny, and otherwise ridiculous to make up for that feeling of being less-than. 

One of my favorites

Thankfully, current administration doesn't do that godawful slideshow. Although, I feel like I no longer feel like there's a hole in my existence. Progress! 

I remember my school baby shower. I remember getting phone calls about adoption opportunities and being declined at school, and trying real hard to pretend to be a normal humanlike substance while feeling like this process was a vampire, sucking the life from me and leaving me a husk of myself. 

I remember telling everyone we were done. 

And now, I work with a whole lot of people who have NO IDEA that this was so entwined with my teaching existence. There are so many newer teachers (or new to our building) who don't at all know that I survived all that while being a new teacher, and as my teaching experience grew, so did my infertility and adoption trauma. 

I am immensely proud of my teaching career. I love my students, and I love finding ways to make learning challenging AND fun. I enjoy very much being the weird teacher. 

T-shirt to prove it!

I love that I can put my mothering energy into helping young humans become critical thinkers and better humans than when they first came through my door (most of the time). I also love that I can come home and recuperate from the stresses of the day, from the vicarious trauma that is a solid part of teaching (special education in particular), from the exhaustion of being "on" all day long. I have no one who depends on me for homework help, or who needs me to drive them to sports or dance. I also don't have the positives of raising my own children, but good gracious I am grateful that I can give everything in my school day and then come home to the couch, a book, a glass of wine, and decompress. 

I love that every school year is a little microcosm and I get to start over and do it again year after year after year. 

I love summers and having time to wind down and then gear up for that new year (and that, since I don't have children, summers are entirely for me and Bryce).

I have 12 more years of teaching ahead of me. I have more years in than I have left, which is a weird feeling. But also, I love that I've grown along with my teaching career. 18 years is a long time, and my life has changed significantly since the beginning. I love what I do. I love where my life has taken me so far, even if it is completely different than what I thought it was going to be at the very beginning of all the change.

Vacation Anxiety

Bryce and I were late planning our vacation this year. As in, we booked our August trip this past weekend. 

We are such creatures of habit. We are going to Maine, but this time we were like, "let's try something different!" 

We searched tiny houses and cottages. We looked at cabins on lakes. The things we saw that we liked were mostly, so shocking, booked up. The cabins looked fun but the words "family friendly" came up A LOT and that isn't really what we want out of a vacation. 

Then Bryce found a cottage that's on its own tiny island in a lake. The cottage looked lovely and it definitely hit the "rustic" and "quiet" buttons. However...
   - you have to paddle your things in on a canoe for 5 minutes to get there

   - there is no electricity, just a small generator to run a small refrigerator

   - you are on an island in the middle of the lake with no electricity and YOU HAVE TO PADDLE IN ON A CANOE. 

To Bryce, this sounded amazing. To me, it sounded absolutely BONKERS. I wanted to be adventurous, really I did. But this, given that I am accident prone and tend to be in the worst kind of 1 percent, sounded like a very, very bad idea. 

I tried to imagine it. All I saw was blood poisoning and serial killers. I tried to say why it was scary, but it sounded so silly as the words left my mouth. I was getting more and more worked up and started crying and then said/yelled "I NEED AN INTERMEDIARY STEP BEFORE THIS LEVEL OF ADVENTURE! THIS IS LIKE ME SAYING 'LET'S GO CAMPING IN THE SUBWAY IN BROOKLYN' TO YOU!" (Bryce grew up in the wilds of Maine, I grew up with streetlights and public transit and sidewalks. Our comfort levels tend to be...different.)

So, needless to say, we didn't book that one. Instead, we are going back to the inn in Boothbay Harbor that we have thoroughly enjoyed, and stayed at last summer for a few nights. It is familiar. There are no kids in the inn. We can avoid "family friendly" places and find a deserted spot on the rocks at Ocean Point to read and sit and enjoy. We know where the gluten free options are (and there are a zillion!). We can walk into town. We can walk to a park with a little cove that we found on our last day last year. 

It is familiar. It feels safe. Maybe it's the way the world is right now, or the stress of figuring out safe food (even if a cabin has cookware, I have to bring my own, thank you Celiac), or the need for some things to be predictable because so much in our life has been so uncertain. I feel so lame saying that I would love to do an adventure (albeit with plumbing and at least some electricity and the ability to be in civilization if needed), but I would need time to plan it properly. Which sort of takes "adventure" out of it. 

Or, we can just embrace that we love to find cozy home-away-from-homes and once we find a spot we like, we go back and explore but ultimately feel like we're in a familiar place, with familiar faces, and a certain level of predictability. I guess I'm more of a "dip my toes into adventure" person.

What do you like? Adventure, or familiarity? 

Urgent Care vs Specialist

Early in May, I had that "severely abnormal" mole and surrounding area cut out with a dermatological excision. Next to and sort of in my bellybutton. Why my body is making these crazy, homicidal cells is beyond me, but what my body did with the wound is really annoying. 

My bellybutton is not an area where I care about cosmetic concerns. It is, however, always in the dark. Always a bit of a cave situation. And so, it's not an ideal place to have a wound with internal and external stitches (ouch). 

Week before last, I decided to put a hydrocolloid Band-Aid on the wound because a) it was just NOT healing and I thought it would help, and b) I needed a barrier because wearing adulting clothes was irritating it. Going back to work has been challenging from a comfort perspective! 

Well, that was a mistake. You leave hydrocolloid bandages on for a couple of days, because they are supposed to be breathable. I took the Band-Aid off after school on Tuesday. I was assaulted with an absolutely HORRIFIC stench. Like, demons from hell were streaming out from my navel. It looked gross. It smelled gross. It hurt. I went to Urgent Care. 

They were like, "oh yeah, that's definitely infected. And it looks like a stitch popped at some point, it's a little open. (ew) You need to go on antibiotics, and we're doing a wound culture. Keep it covered but change the bandage frequently to keep it dry and keep an eye on it." I left, started the antibiotics that night, and the next day called my dermatologist's office to let them know it was funky. They could see me later that day, so I went to get checked out. 

My derm said, "nope, that's not infected. It's regular pus. Regular pus doesn't smell so good either. You have a spitting/spinning (not sure which) stitch, and your internal stitches are trying to come out. Don't cover it, and stop those antibiotics. They're a rough one that kills your gut biome and leaves you with horrible diarrhea. You're good." 

Bryce was like, "WHO DO WE TRUST?" And my answer was, the specialist. The person who sees excisions all day long. 

Whelp, I should have said URGENT CARE. 

We went on an impromptu overnight to Vermont weekend before last, and it was lovely. We went to a kickass bookstore (The Northshire), we ate yummy food, and we walked around. We read in our room. It was a good reset after our loss of Lucky. Sunday morning though, I got a call from "HEALTHCARE." I answered. 

IT WAS A DOCTOR FROM URGENT CARE. He was like, "your wound culture came back positive for staph lugdenensis." WHAT THE FUCK? He said I could stop the other antibiotic because it WASN'T STRONG ENOUGH, and go on a 7 day course of doxycycline. 

Of course. My body is tricksy, and often not in a good way. I took the antibiotics, and it's no longer tender or goopy (although to me, it still looks gross), but HOW FRUSTRATING? I called my dermatologist on Monday to tell her all about this development, and her office was a bit concerningly blasé about the whole thing. Said, "everyone has a tiny amount of staph on their skin, it's probably not a big deal." Argh. I just wanted them to say they were wrong (famously not a strength of most doctors). 

So, the lesson is... the specialist is not always right. The thing that doesn't make a mistake? DATA. Microscope slides full of goo revealing gross infections that could also turn homicidal (but thankfully didn't). 

On a good note, while in Vermont my new knee walked 8.5 miles IN ONE DAY! I hiked! I walked on hard sidewalks! It was amazing. So, at least one part of my body was doing right by me. 

Hiking at the Equinox Preserve

Not gonna lie, I'm a little nervous about having the second excision done where the other dangerous mole was on my back done in June. Although that area is not a cave of doom, so maybe it will be okay? 

Saying Goodbye to Our Lucky Buddy

On Friday, we said goodbye to our cat, Lucky. Lucky was just shy of 19, so he was definitely elderly, and he'd been struggling a bit more in the past month. We noticed some muscle atrophy, boniness, but he was still eating, jumping up on things, playing, and coming to sit on our blanketed laps. We figured if he couldn't do those things anymore, we'd take him in, because if it was more than old age chances are there wasn't much we could do. 

It was more than old age. He had liver cancer, and the day before we took him in to the vet he went to jump up on a stool in the kitchen, and missed entirely. He stopped eating his food (but we bought a rotisserie chicken and chopped it up for him, which he gobbled right up). He started finding places to hide. I was terrified I was going to come down to go to school and find him, curled up and cold, in an odd hiding place. 

But Friday I was at school, in the library for a social studies research project, and the librarian brought me the phone. Bryce had called the office to let me know that he was taking Lucky in at 11:30, that he was completely lethargic and acting weird and it was time. I left to meet him, thinking maybe it would be okay, but more realistically thinking I HAD to be there because it could be the end. 

The vet was amazing. She did a full exam, even an ultrasound (which he didn't need to be sedated for since he was so lethargic), and let us know that he had cancer in his liver and possibly elsewhere in his belly, that that kind of cancer accelerates like mad, and that if we weren't ready they could push fluids but it would gain us maybe a few days. That didn't seem fair to Lucky, to pump him full of things so we could spend more time with him even though he was miserable and things were shutting down. So, we made the decision. 

He was already mostly asleep when the process began, and we pet him and told him how much we loved him and thanked him for being a part of our lives for 13-14 years. And he fell asleep, and then he was gone. It was the most peaceful passing I've ever been a part of. 

We are a mess. He was so special, and there is such a hole where he was. I keep thinking I hear him meowing. People on meetings with Bryce used to think he was a baby because he was so loud. It was sad to open the fridge and see the chopped chicken, and to open the freezer and see the cubes of "jiggly" Bryce made for him (seriously reduced onion-free chicken stock that he'd microwave for him). Having just one station for cat food for Eggi. Having a lap that is bereft, as he was the ultimate lap cat and now I put a blanket on me and...that cozy weight on my thighs just doesn't come. Giving treats to Eggi and realizing I don't have to turn in a different direction to throw Lucky his so he didn't pig out and knock Eggi out of the way (he was kind of an asshole about food). 

Lucky was the last of our Infertility/Adoption Cats. We got him after my buddy Rocky passed in the least peaceful way ever (never went back to THAT vet again), in the 2 week wait for a frozen cycle after our ectopic, right around Christmas. I cried so hard when I lost Rocky that I was sure I dislodged our little embryos (I know better now). It didn't work, so there was extra sadness. We went relatively quickly to the ASPCA shelter and looked at a few cats, but none seemed right. Then they brought us Lucky, a five year old black cat they'd gotten around Halloween with a shortened tail who they'd kept in a different room with other cats and we hadn't seen. They told us he was their favorite. He immediately climbed into Bryce's lap and fell asleep. We were the lucky ones, so we kept his name. 

The shelter gave us a picture of Lucky with Santa, which was our first picture of him: 

He really was so special. He let me hold him like a baby. He let me smother him with love when our world was falling spectacularly apart: cycle after cycle not working, our summer miscarriage, deciding to stop treatment, starting the adoption process, time after time of not being chosen...and the end of our pursuit of parenthood in general. He lay on the floor next to me. He was my only baby to ever grace our crib: 

He loved sitting on top of whatever it was we were doing: 

On coloring books.

On books (guess which is Bryce's)

On grading.

On puzzles.

On things being assembled.

On prep for September.

On me trying to do schoolwork.

On professional development reading.

On my desk, asleep.

On my lap as I read a really good book days before surgery.

He also loved to be ON things:

On the stairs

On my office bookshelf

ON TOP OF THE FRIDGE, totally busted eating cornsilk, his weird favorite

On an herb planter

On the kitchen stools (which are counter height), with Miss Eggi

ON ME

On a giant box of mailorder bamboo toilet paper, living up to the slogan

He wanted to be wherever his people were. He wasn't shy around new people. He let you know when he wanted pets. He made sure to roll belly-up and make his front paws all cute if you had the audacity to ignore him (or just not snap to it right away). He would eat literally anything that fell on the floor, like a dog. Most recent weird item: a chickpea. Bryce's lap was his special lap. Until his last couple of weeks, given the choice between my blanketed lap and Bryce's crossed 4 legs, he picked the hole in Bryce's leg bend. Lucky is the cat who made Bryce a cat person. 

We didn't want to ever say goodbye, but we knew we'd have to, someday. 19 years is pretty old for a cat, but we were hoping for a crazy 20 or 22. 25! We loved Lucky so much, and he loved us back just as much. He was snuggly, and playful, and nimble up until maybe two weeks before he passed. He could jump 4 feet to the top of a tall bookcase. He regularly jumped up on the 3 foot stools. He was naughty with food and we had to make sure everything was put away before eating in another room, because he'd get up there and eat or lick just about anything that was in the kitchen where he could reach it. 

I had to take a break from writing this post because it made me so sad. But also, it makes me happy to remember him. Lucky was a hugely special part of our life. He was there for most of our marriage to date. To find that I had 526 photos of Lucky in my Google Photos made me happy. 

Rest in peace, Lucky. We miss you so much. 

Sunshine was his favorite. Sunpuddles, the deck, and here...in a raised planter like a wild beastie

Just Another Day

Yesterday was the first Mother's Day where I really didn't think about it. I stayed off social media. I had dinner with my mom, sister, and assorted husbands on Saturday. We went to see a movie at noon, Sinners. If you haven't seen it, and you can handle supernatural horror (and historical horror), it is well worth it! No one at the movies wished me a Happy Mother's Day, which was lovely. I was wearing my Mother Of Cats shirt, but I didn't hear it offered to anyone. I did leave the movies with a raging migraine, which put a damper on the rest of the day. I still managed to suit up against the blackflies and plant some Snow In Summer and put half of a border fence up in my birdbath/Jizo garden. Always feels good to nurture the nature on this particular day. 

No blackflies shall pass!!!

Two more arches to go... MAYBE it will deter the deer from what I plant next?

The upper part of the garden, through the screen of my office window. Bluebells, lungwort, daffodils, Japanese Forest Grass, and other fun things

Bleeding heart and brunnera (different garden but so pretty)

Same different garden, creeping phlox

It is delightful to have this day be...just another day. Admittedly, we stacked the deck -- celebrations on another day, no restaurants, and the like. Just blueberry pancakes, movie, gardening, and quality time with my migraine ice hat. 

I hope your Mother's Day was what you needed it to be. 

Magical Mystery Birthday Bookshop Tour

Today, I am 49. A perfect square. I'm out for the gold in these here hills -- I'm a 49er! It's the last year of my 40s... and I'm okay with that. My birthday used to be such a difficult day because it was tied to my biological expiration date, and then my attractiveness as an adoptive parent. Now, it's tied to none of that, and it's celebrating another trip around the sun, without strings. 

Bryce did an AMAZING job with my birthday this year. He asked me what I wanted, and I said, "I don't really want any things, I would love something related to an experience." 

Oh no. I set myself up for surprises! I hate surprises, they stress me out. But, Bryce knows this, and so he made sure that I knew I wasn't going to suddenly be suited up for skydiving. 

On Thursday, we did Part One: 

A few birthdays ago, he got me this Thule bike rack and a trailer hitch for my beautiful pumpkin orange car. Thankfully, the bike rack wasn't attached when I was rearended and my pretty pumpkin was totaled. When I got the new bluebird (which is okay but I loved the orange SO MUCH MORE), I had the trailer hitch installed from the get-go. Our bikes have languished in the garage though. Because... knees. 

BUT, we installed the rack and then loaded our cobwebby bikes up onto it (weirdly because mine is a "girl bike" and so the cross bar is lower, and it didn't fit right, but flipped it was fine). Then we drove to a pro bike shop nearby, and both bikes have an extended stay for service and tune-up, and then we will be able to go for bike rides! And bring our bikes to Vermont! And take interesting trails we drive to! So amazing. 

Saturday was a magical mystery tour. Bryce originally said we'd want to leave at 9 or 10, and we wouldn't be back until 9 or 10. We probably would have made one more destination had we actually left the house "on time," but we had a very lazy morning with delicious cheesy waffle breakfast sandwiches, and left at 11ish. Whoops. 

I am so sad that I forgot to take a picture at our first stop, The Dog Eared Book in Palmyra, NY. Bryce had to use GPS to get there, which threw me off (I could get there in my sleep, but also I go a LOT more frequently than he does!). Then we went in, and he got me three books that he'd ordered ahead, and I got one book that was highly recommended by the bookseller. 

All 3 of Bryce's books have red (all spines are red too), and mine was a tomato orange-red. weird!

Bryce handed me a $20 bill that I could spend at the store, but alas, hardcovers are closer to $25-30, so I used a card and pocketed the cash, ha. 

We hopped in the car and headed further east, landing in the picturesque town of Clifton Springs. Fun fact: we walked a little first, and went over a creek/culvert/aqueduct thing of running water, and immediately our noses were assaulted with the smell of sewage, of rotting eggs, of sulfur. GOOD GOD WHAT IS THAT SMELL??? We said, and then realized upon reading the sign by the old sanitarium that this was a well-marketed boon as a doctor advertised a "sulfur cure" using the sulfur water from the spring to help people somehow. The spa/sanitarium is now apartments and parts of a hospital. 

But, we ended up here: 

 I really wish I had taken a photo of the inside. It had recently moved and was GORGEOUS, with floating shelves (the bookseller built them with her husband, she hated the shelves that went to the floor because you basically had to be on your hands and knees to look through things) and a mix of new and used books. Actually, all three bookshops had a mix of new and used, which was lovely. Bryce handed me another $20, and I got these three: 

Kid Activists is for school, and that was the new one. The other two are used -- All the Little Liars I'd never heard of before but it looked fun and twisty, and Migrations came highly recommended from the bookseller. It's by the same author as Wild Dark Shore, which was amazing. That one took place on a fictional island called Shearwater, between Australia and Antarctica, and Migrations takes place in Greenland. So exciting! 

We then headed further east, to have our picnic lunch. Bryce's original plan was to go to a park in Geneva at the top of Seneca Lake, but GPS did us dirty and sent us on a wild goose chase that ended with us partway down the lake and parking on the side of the driveway to a church camp. It was raining, so we ate in the car, but we were right by the lake, it was quiet, and an oriole ate his lunch on the tree next to our car! 

We went to the actual park at the top of the lake, and unfortunately missed the bookstore in Geneva because it closed at 3:00, on a Saturday. Bryce was worried we wouldn't make the next store, but he called and the bookseller there said she'd stay open if we got there close to 5, so we took a quick walk at the park. 

From there, we headed a bit north and east, and landed in the small town of Marcellus. There we visited That's What She Read, a delightfully shabby chic new and used bookshop in a Victorian house. Each room was a different genre. It was FLOOR TO CEILING books, very overwhelming! But great for the hunt. 

She also let us use her bathroom to change for dinner. I got quite a lot of books for a very reasonable price, however I did exceed my $20 bill. BUT, what bargains! Also, she gave me a discount for my birthday and wrapped up my books, which she does for every first timer: 

I bought 6 books there, one of which I'd had before and put on my Special Shelf, but then it was a casualty of lending it out. Tell the Wolves I'm Home is a beautiful book and super nostalgic for me because it's set where I grew up, at around the same time. The rest are new to me:

They range from hilarious (oddly, I'm Glad My Mom Died is that one) to books I've meant to read/pick up but haven't, to two nonfiction books to aide in happiness and badassery. 

We headed out for dinner, which was 15 minutes away in Skaneateles, pronounced bizarrely close to "skinny atlas", another finger lake. We went to Mirbeau, a spa, hotel, and bistro that I have never been to before, but is VERY fancypants. They have a very Monet courtyard, very "you are not in Central New York, non! You are in FRRRAAHNCE!": 

They were, however, EXCELLENT with celiac. I had insanely good, hot, gluten free bread (almost like a flaky, soft biscuit!), and when I couldn't have the steak frites with the truffle parmesan fries (shared fryer, boooo), they made me fingerling potatoes with the truffle parmesan treatment! It was very yummy. 

Why oh why do we keep forgetting to take pictures of us, TOGETHER? 

It was a lovely, lovely day. Adventure, a little bit of surprise (I really didn't know where we were going), tons of books, new places, and delicious food and wine. It was absolutely delightful. 

Sunday I got my hair done, blending the silver and making it work a little less two-tone as I grow it out with the purple (there will always be purple): 

Before haha

After!

            

Then today, my actual birthday, I opened my presents in the afternoon (from others, not Bryce, as he outdid himself in experiences), and we had pizza and cupcakes with my dad. I am beat, fighting a migraine and allergies all at once. 

But, I am also happy. And loved. And grateful. I absolutely love my life. Here's to the last 364 days of my 40s!