no, really. what do YOU think?

A while ago I mentioned that I was invited to write an article about blogging for IAAC’s quarterly magazine, Creating Families. And because I am lazy totally value your opinion, I want to hear from you about your experience in the ALI (adoption, loss, infertility) blogosphere. I may work some of your responses into the article, but I will totally ask you individually for permission before doing that.

For me, blogging has partly been a way to do something I’ve always wanted to do, but never could do consistently: keep a journal. I have probably half a dozen diaries dating back to elementary school (my first one was a Judy Blume diary filled with quotes from her books and photos of cool 70s kids emoting various things ranging from self-esteem-filled to sexually confused to hurt-and-perplexed-by-the-way-girls-gang-up-on-each-other-at-a-certain-age), but not a single one of them is even close to half filled. Of course, most entries are about despair of one sort or another – boy-related, mostly, though lots of stuff that would now fall under my handy, catch-all “my process” tag. When I take the time to read through some of the stuff I’ve written over the years, I’m struck most often by how incomplete it is – how much of the time I have no idea what I was prattling on about and what was causing me such profound distress. And I think that a big part of why I could never maintain a regular practice of writing down my experiences and my emotions was that, somehow, it was a bit hollow for me. It helped to get it out, but then once it was out, I just moved on.

Blogging, on the other hand, offers me a chance to let it out AND have my ego gratified by people reading and commenting. I’m being flip, of course, but it’s true. But more true is that blogging is a way for me to get out of my own head. I can wrestle with the language and figure out my feelings as I write them down, but what comes back in the comments is not just praise or hollow words of comfort. So often, the responses I get from you all challenge me to look at my own situation differently, to get out of whatever trench I’ve just dug for myself and seem determined to wallow in. Pieces of advice or words of reassurance stay with me, and I find myself passing them on to others when I recognize my own experience in their writing.

The blogosphere, at least our little corner of it, is a place where all the journals and diaries have sprung to life, and started talking to each other, trading secrets and insights. They’ve taken to the moonlit streets in the lovely painting you can see on the header of Stirrup Queens, gathering in large and small groups, offering words of comfort, silent abiding hugs, the darkest gallows humour. They’re celebrating and grieving and planning and acting and making friends. And I often feel like I’ve stumbled out of my house in my pyjamas, rubbing my sleepy eyes, amazed by my luck at being able to find such a wonderful place to belong.

The community that exists here in the ALI blogosphere continues to amaze and astound me – every time I click over to the LFCA, or see a new photo of Cali’s sweet boy, or find myself on the receiving end of wishes of love and support after writing a difficult post, I am both humbled and proud of what we are all creating here. We’re forging a new world, sisters, and most of the time it’s a world I desperately wish more closely resembled the real world.

So I invite anyone reading this to chime in about why you blog, about what it means to be part of this community, about risks or drawbacks of blogging – anything. What would you like to say to fellow infertiles who haven’t discovered the blogosphere, particularly those who are feeling isolated either emotionally or geographically?

I’m also taking this chance to invite you to delurk, if you are indeed lurking. Even if you don’t have a blog and just read, please use this as a chance to introduce yourself and tell me why you read.

in the spotlight

How do you know you’ve become a lazy blogger? When you miss your own blogoversary. It was on Valentine’s Day, and I had thought a lot about it before it came and then last Saturday I just completely blanked on it. The last year of blogging has been amazing, and I’m so grateful for all of you. I promise I’ll have a real kumbaya session on this sometime soon, really. But for the moment, it seems I’ve prefered to keep a low profile rather than face my glum mood over the state of my life at the moment. Nothing earth shattering by any stretch, but just the profound weariness of keeping body and soul together. And marriage and family and dog and work and support group and yoga and dancing and friendships.  Despite my best intentions, I’ve become sort of busy lately, and when I’m not busy, I’m exhausted from the emotional work of waiting and of life in general. 

I’ve said it before, and no doubt I’ll say it again. Being an adult kind of blows. 

I’ve sort of tipped over into the state of doing too much and not wanting to just be with myself and my true feelings. The quietness and the fuzzy brain I talked about in the last post seem to be precursors to depression and despair for me, and hopefully next time I’ll pay more attention to that. It’s just that it’s so nice to get a break from anxiety or worry or obsession that it’s hard to catch myself as I start slipping into the funk that inevitably follows those times where my brain is turned off.  And I’ve been so aware lately of how much my life has been taken over by my single mindedness – being unable to plan anything more than a month in advance, our finances, my ability to have a conversation.

In many ways, I’ve been feeling a lot like I did when I returned from Japan. Having lived overseas for three years, coming back was really hard. Much, much harder than leaving. Because when I first went to Japan, I expected to feel out of place – I knew who I was, more or less, but naturally it takes time to figure out how to fit in to a new workplace, new culture, new language. But I was bringing myself into that situation, offering myself to the experience, and extending myself compassion when I didn’t know what to do.  Returning was, in so many ways, the exact opposite. Here I was, in my hometown, surrounded by people I’d known for years, in familiar territory. The problem was that I didn’t know who I was anymore. I felt like who I thought I was had been eclipsed by my experience, by my story, by my circumstances.  I felt like I didn’t exist anymore. 

Lately, I feel like I don’t exist anymore. Like all I am is my desire to have a baby and the path I’ve chosen to try to make that happen. Like all I am is this cycle, and then the next one, and the next one. I feel like I’m in a spotlight, unable to see beyond the little puddle of light around me, consisting of acupuncture appointments and cycle days and morning temperatures and the creased foreheads of worried people around me, checking in to see that I’m ok. But beyond that it’s just darkness. Impenetrable and perplexing darkness. 

I don’t mean to say that I’m in the depths of despair. In some ways, that might be easier. Emotions come and go, I know that. But what about my life? What about me? Will I feel whole again?

hearing the news & an overdue update

So last night I had a long talk with a friend and fellow infertile. Really, she’s more of a friend of my sister’s but I’ve known her since we were all kids. Recently, we bonded over our common struggle to get pregnant (sometimes I feel dumb saying this, since there’s been no way I could possibly get pregnant until a couple months ago, and therefore it’s not exactly like I’ve been trying, but I digress.) While both my sisters and their other best friend and seemingly every single woman we know was getting pregnant, K and I were getting left behind and wallowing in our bitterness and sadness. When we first had a real talk about our respective experiences, it felt so good – it was before I had started blogging, and I hadn’t really talked to anyone else who had experienced this unique pain themselves. And I don’t think she had either, so it was so huge for both of us.

And so a couple nights ago, when I had a message to call her, I should have guessed what was up. But I’m dense, sometimes, and I didn’t really think about it. I just figured she was checking in as we tend to do every so often. But of course she wasn’t. She was calling to tell me that she, after her first cycle of Clomid, was pregnant. With twins.

But before you go thinking that it was a tough pill to swallow, and I had to suck up my rage the way I did with so many other people’s tellings of their news, all I felt was glad for her. Because she was committed to telling me herself and not having me hear it from my sister or my parents or anyone else who knows us both. She, even though we’re only newly establishing a friendship of our own, had promised herself she would deliver this news herself. More than that, she delivered it skillfully and with compassion, yet without apology. I’ve been told of other people’s pregnancies with a sort of cringing dread which, while I appreciate the intention to be gentle with me, always makes me feel hideously pathetic. There was no cringing dread last night, just honesty. Just a knowledge that hearing this news can hurt, but what can hurt more is the judging of the hurt because we think we should be happy, and getting wrapped up in the story about how awful we are because we cannot even be happy for our own dear friend, or dear sister, or whoever. It’s joyful news, after all. So it was kind of all on the table last night, and we both knew it, and in that space, I was able to be happy for her.

It felt good.

As for the update, I’m now 2 days into the 2ww! I was feeling so positive about it until my temps didn’t go up the last two mornings the way the book says they’re supposed to, so I think I’m going to stop temping. Cause it’s just making me crazy, and making me think that unless I’m displaying the perfect pattern of temps that it’s impossible for me to get pregnant, yet all the while my brain is coming up with rationalizations about how the thermometer could be broken, or it’s a weird part of the hcG shot, since my temps were slow to rise last month, too, but not the month before that, which was the first month I ever charted and which was totally textbook, so of course it has become the gold standard for how my body should be behaving, or thoughts that maybe my temps are not showing the pattern because I’m getting up earlier these days, or sleeping with fewer covers because it’s summer, and on and on and on. And frankly, I’m tired of my brain doing this. I’d much rather use my energy for praying, or cleaning my house, or hanging out with friends, or making plans for my garden, or sewing. Pretty much anything other than tending to my anxieties.

And thank you all so much for your excellent comments to my last post. I feel like I need to respond, cause there were some really good questions raised, and they’ve got me thinking about all of this whole healing stuff again, and how it all ties in to infertility and our hearts and the whole of our lives. And, you know, everything. I’ll get to it eventually, but in the meantime, thanks for your great responses and very thoughtful comments. So much appreciated, you have no idea.

Olé! (infertile style)

Well, dear ones. Although my posting frequency has taken a serious dive of late, let it never be said that I don’t keep you all in my heart and on my mind. I’ve been thinking of everyone a lot lately, especially No Swimmers, who is living through a complete fucking nightmare right now. If you’ve not been over to give her some love, please do so. I don’t spend a lot of time wondering why the universe is so unfair, but her news has kept me pondering that question for a while now, and it seems to be coming up again and again for me these days, thinking about what we all have to go through, and how little understanding we seem to get from the outside world. PJ’s article for the New York Times totally rocked my world, but reading the comments just infuriated me, so I’m not linking to them. Suffice it to say that people are even more idiotic than I thought. And of course, they are better and more sympathetic than I thought ,too, but I’m a bit “glass-half-empty” these days.

When I’m not just moping around, thinking of you all, I’m bringing you into my dancing. I started dancing flamenco in January, and one of the hardest things is learning to loosen up and bring some real energy into it. It’s so intellectually challenging to try to understand the rhythm and the music and then get the feet and hands and arms all moving at the same time, so I get uptight and stiff. And if there is anything flamenco is not, it’s uptight and stiff. What made me fall in love with it is the defiance, the pride, the toughness - things that don’t come that easily to the perfectionistic, worrying self that I am a good part of the time. So to get in touch with that strength, I bring you all up in my mind. And instantly, almost magically, my shoulders are further back, my arms are reaching higher, and my feet are pounding the living shit out of the floor. Let me tell you, it feels good. It feels like a prayer that can be heard by G*d and the whole universe. It feels like I’m doing something, something meaningful. It feels like I’m changing this whole miserably unfair world, starting from my bones and working my way outwards.

So thanks, friends. For making me a better person as well as a better dancer.

I have other news, but I will post that separately when I get home from work tonight. It’s moderately good news and involves me getting my own sharps container. I don’t know why, but I really like those things.