Yesterday was all about survival. Making it through the day without breaking down. Making it through the day without losing control. Making it through the day.
For the most part I managed.
My sister and I attended a movie as part of the Toronto Hot Docs film festival. This is a fabulous festival for anyone who likes documentaries. We went to see a film called Rent a Family Inc. which tells the story of a Japanese man who rents himself out as a stand-in father, uncle or husband to people who need a family for some reason. One woman rented him to give her and her boyfriend permission to live together before marriage so she didn't have to tell her own father that she was doing this. It's a fascinating film. But it still begs the question how do you break that to your partner one day. Surely he will realize that the man granting him permission to bed his daughter is different than the one he meets to wed the daughter. Another woman rented 32 guests for her wedding. She had no family and no friends of her own. It was interesting, and most importantly distracting.
We had brunch, we went to the movie and then we went for ice cream. My strength cracked while we were out for a moment. My sister mentioned something about children, about losing a baby, she was about to talk about a friend of hers, someone who had had a loss and how tragic it had been for them. I've heard the story before, and my sister, perhaps because of a strong sense of empathy will take on the pain and suffering of her friends as though the tragedy was her own.
I had confided to my sister in December about my miscarriage but it was clear she had forgotten my story. So I said, "Today would have been my due date." I needed to stop the barrage of someone else's tale of woe.
She looked sort of surprised and then you could see the pieces click in her brain.
"Right. Sorry babe. That must have sucked."
"It did."
She doesn't acknowledge anything else. The topic shifts, probably because she feels so uncomfortable. She begins to discuss vacuums in the store we are walking by.
I regain my composure it is clear that my sister isn't prepared to be my confidant on this day. She isn't prepared to hear the tough and the nitty gritty side of my loss. She just wants ice cream.
Showing posts with label pop culture. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pop culture. Show all posts
Monday, 6 May 2013
Friday, 19 April 2013
Still surprising me
A few months ago we had dinner with a good friend of mine who is engaged and due to be married his summer. Hers was a world wind courtship. They were engaged after 3 and 1/2 months. Thankfully the engagement period has lasted longer and allowed them to catch up to most couples in getting to know each other. They will have been engaged for 18 months by the time they get married.
At the dinner my husband revealed something about himself that I didn't know... it was inconsequential really, a type of food he liked or a country he had visited... hardly earthshattering really in it's revelation. My friend was suprised. "Don't you know everything about each other yet?" There was a certain condemnation in her words... like we don't talk enough to each other to get to know all of the details about each others lives. I shrugged my shoulders "I hope I never do know everything".
I don't know about everyone else, but I really feel this way. There's a certain joy in finding new things about the man I love. Whether they be small and unimportant like a flavour of ice cream or even more significant i sort of love it.
My husband surprised me last night twice and it makes me love him even more. I had written a post earlier this week about helicopter parents. I had written the post because I wonder if i am going to end up like that, and I hope not. I hope I will teach my children how to succeed and the consequences if they fail. I think I am a better parent that way. I was complaining to my husband about how much of my week had been consumed by the cleaning lady and her quest for graphs for her daughters math project and made him promise that we will never be like that. This is where he surprised me: "Actually, I've found a few articles I think we should read on raising children". I was sort of floored. I guess I expected that, like with our fertility treatments where i am the one taking the lead, understanding the tests, figuring out what the next step should be that parenting would be like that. I had assumed that my husband was keen to "HAVE A BABY"... but maybe hadn't actually considered all of the implications straight through to raising a teenager. But my husband is in it for the long haul. He has ideas on family time, and homework and punishments and it was exciting for me to watch him unfold his parenting plan.
The second time my husband surprised me last night was for date night. Thursday night is always date night and we decided to go see The Croods. I didn't know what the movie was about but I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, the movie made me cry. My father is quite ill and watching the relationship between the father and the daughter made me reflect on the difficult relationship we have often had. It isn't a surprise to my husband that I would cry. I cry to express a lot of emotions. When I passed my comprehensive exams for my PhD I cried so much my supervisor asked me if I understood that I had passed... but it was the only way I could express my relief!
By contrast my husband has never cried, not since I have known him. But he cried at The Croods. If you are looking for a nice date night movie I recommend this... but bring tissues.
At the dinner my husband revealed something about himself that I didn't know... it was inconsequential really, a type of food he liked or a country he had visited... hardly earthshattering really in it's revelation. My friend was suprised. "Don't you know everything about each other yet?" There was a certain condemnation in her words... like we don't talk enough to each other to get to know all of the details about each others lives. I shrugged my shoulders "I hope I never do know everything".
I don't know about everyone else, but I really feel this way. There's a certain joy in finding new things about the man I love. Whether they be small and unimportant like a flavour of ice cream or even more significant i sort of love it.
My husband surprised me last night twice and it makes me love him even more. I had written a post earlier this week about helicopter parents. I had written the post because I wonder if i am going to end up like that, and I hope not. I hope I will teach my children how to succeed and the consequences if they fail. I think I am a better parent that way. I was complaining to my husband about how much of my week had been consumed by the cleaning lady and her quest for graphs for her daughters math project and made him promise that we will never be like that. This is where he surprised me: "Actually, I've found a few articles I think we should read on raising children". I was sort of floored. I guess I expected that, like with our fertility treatments where i am the one taking the lead, understanding the tests, figuring out what the next step should be that parenting would be like that. I had assumed that my husband was keen to "HAVE A BABY"... but maybe hadn't actually considered all of the implications straight through to raising a teenager. But my husband is in it for the long haul. He has ideas on family time, and homework and punishments and it was exciting for me to watch him unfold his parenting plan.
The second time my husband surprised me last night was for date night. Thursday night is always date night and we decided to go see The Croods. I didn't know what the movie was about but I thoroughly enjoyed it. However, the movie made me cry. My father is quite ill and watching the relationship between the father and the daughter made me reflect on the difficult relationship we have often had. It isn't a surprise to my husband that I would cry. I cry to express a lot of emotions. When I passed my comprehensive exams for my PhD I cried so much my supervisor asked me if I understood that I had passed... but it was the only way I could express my relief!
By contrast my husband has never cried, not since I have known him. But he cried at The Croods. If you are looking for a nice date night movie I recommend this... but bring tissues.
Tuesday, 9 April 2013
How can you not know you are pregnant?
This would be the TV show "I didn't know that i was Pregnant" that is on TLC, not unfortunately a miraculous revelation about myself. Today's show is a 57 year old woman who undergoes IVF with a donor egg. I'm intrigued to see how this is going to be a surprise pregnancy for this particular woman. I mean honestly, if you pay someone to put fertilized eggs into your uterus then how on earth is it supposed to be a surprise?
I am home sick today. I left work at noon with a horrible migraine and am still feeling the effects. I spent most of the afternoon yesterday completely unconscious because the light was too much for me to bear.
I have always been the victim of migraines, but ibuprofen always used to save me... now i no longer take ibuprofen on the off chance that I get pregnant, or because it might interfere with ovulation or any of the other things that we've heard. I mean if ibuprofen was really working as a birth control method then I am sure lots of teen girls would be popping that when they couldn't get the real pill. But, when you are trying to have a baby then apparently you will listen to just about any rumor that can have an impact on your ability to have a child... at least i will.
Back to the 57 year old she started to hemorrhage and was diagnosed with a miscarriage... and apparently no one bothered to check via ultrasound or pregnancy test?? Honestly... and she hemorrhages for months and no one looks to see if she's had any retained tissue? Who are these doctors?
This show both intrigues and depresses me. As a woman who is trying to get pregnant the idea that you could be pregnant for months and not notice that it was going on is a strange fantasy... and of course it leads me to play mind games every single month. Even once my period has started i ask myself... am i actually having my period? is it breakthrough bleeding? Is this period lighter than usual? It is crazy the number of ways i can pretend that even despite all of the evidence to the contrary I will take any possible opportunity to pretend that maybe, just maybe i will one day be a candidate for this show. That despite the plethora of pregnancy tests within arms reach that i can take at any point in time i might somehow be pregnant without knowing it.
I am home sick today. I left work at noon with a horrible migraine and am still feeling the effects. I spent most of the afternoon yesterday completely unconscious because the light was too much for me to bear.
I have always been the victim of migraines, but ibuprofen always used to save me... now i no longer take ibuprofen on the off chance that I get pregnant, or because it might interfere with ovulation or any of the other things that we've heard. I mean if ibuprofen was really working as a birth control method then I am sure lots of teen girls would be popping that when they couldn't get the real pill. But, when you are trying to have a baby then apparently you will listen to just about any rumor that can have an impact on your ability to have a child... at least i will.
Back to the 57 year old she started to hemorrhage and was diagnosed with a miscarriage... and apparently no one bothered to check via ultrasound or pregnancy test?? Honestly... and she hemorrhages for months and no one looks to see if she's had any retained tissue? Who are these doctors?
This show both intrigues and depresses me. As a woman who is trying to get pregnant the idea that you could be pregnant for months and not notice that it was going on is a strange fantasy... and of course it leads me to play mind games every single month. Even once my period has started i ask myself... am i actually having my period? is it breakthrough bleeding? Is this period lighter than usual? It is crazy the number of ways i can pretend that even despite all of the evidence to the contrary I will take any possible opportunity to pretend that maybe, just maybe i will one day be a candidate for this show. That despite the plethora of pregnancy tests within arms reach that i can take at any point in time i might somehow be pregnant without knowing it.
Wednesday, 3 April 2013
Baby on Credit
If there is one thing that I knew about IVF before we started on this journey it was that this wasn't going to come cheap. We still don't know exactly what this will cost us of course, we don't know what treatments we will need. We don't know how many it will take before they are successful. So, even though we can look up and see that our fertility clinic will cost us about $1,500 for an IUI that basically tells us nothing.
My husband and I decided to go to the bank yesterday to see how much money we could arrange before our appointment at the fertility clinic tomorrow (Gulp!). I know the clinic offers financing, and no doubt they will pretty give you anything since they are filling a space in your soul and you know you will pay anything to have that baby you want so badly, but we also wanted to know, financially what our other options were. Who knows if the clinic will give you the lowest rate? Maybe it's like a credit card at 20% where you will be required to send all of your frozen embryos out to work just to pay it off.
The woman at the bank was ridiculously happy for us. "Fertility treatments! How exciting!" My guess is she is baby crazy, but still confident that her nubile body will produce the children she is going to have one day... she doesn't understand that fertility treatments are filling me with dread and fear not excitement.
She notices the title "Dr." attached to my file. I hold a PhD and it has been put on my file as such. But she mistakes it for an MD. "I think we can get you a business loan. It has a much lower interest rate."
There is nothing more ridiculous to me than the idea that our baby making be financed by a business loan. This is not an investment that is going to be paid off any time soon. This is a long term investment that is going to require repeated infusions of cash as our child struggles to define themselves throughout childhood and adolescence. Unless our child is the next Justin Bieber (and i really hope not after watching his latest string of petulant tweets) there is little hope that this baby is going to post a profit margin in the first quarter of his or her life.
My husband and I decided to go to the bank yesterday to see how much money we could arrange before our appointment at the fertility clinic tomorrow (Gulp!). I know the clinic offers financing, and no doubt they will pretty give you anything since they are filling a space in your soul and you know you will pay anything to have that baby you want so badly, but we also wanted to know, financially what our other options were. Who knows if the clinic will give you the lowest rate? Maybe it's like a credit card at 20% where you will be required to send all of your frozen embryos out to work just to pay it off.
The woman at the bank was ridiculously happy for us. "Fertility treatments! How exciting!" My guess is she is baby crazy, but still confident that her nubile body will produce the children she is going to have one day... she doesn't understand that fertility treatments are filling me with dread and fear not excitement.
She notices the title "Dr." attached to my file. I hold a PhD and it has been put on my file as such. But she mistakes it for an MD. "I think we can get you a business loan. It has a much lower interest rate."
There is nothing more ridiculous to me than the idea that our baby making be financed by a business loan. This is not an investment that is going to be paid off any time soon. This is a long term investment that is going to require repeated infusions of cash as our child struggles to define themselves throughout childhood and adolescence. Unless our child is the next Justin Bieber (and i really hope not after watching his latest string of petulant tweets) there is little hope that this baby is going to post a profit margin in the first quarter of his or her life.
Sunday, 24 March 2013
DAMN YOU NETFLIX!
For some reason my netflix viewing has become corrupted by my constant thoughts about making babies, infertility and ivf. So far this week I have watched Jennifer Lopez and her transvaginal wand appointment in "The Backup Plan", Heather Graham deliver a board presentation through her labour in "Baby on Board" (ok, technically this was an accidental pregnancy and that like... never happens, at least not for me) and Tina Fey and her hilarious T-shaped uterus in "Baby Mama".
I am not sure if these movies are making me feel better about the appointment or worse. But every single movie has a happy ending. Jennifer Lopez gets impregnated on her very first IUI, and Amy Pohler ends up carrying her own baby and Tina Fey's T-shaped uterus somehow manages to support life.
I also am not sure that it is the best source for my ivf advice - at least not where the statistics are concerned.
What's even worse is since I get these suggestions like "based on your viewing of violent TV (Dexter and Walking Dead) shows we recommend..." or based on your viewing of quirky TV (Bones and Early Edition) shows we recommend...." Now I am getting messages that say "Based on your complete obsession with shows portraying IVF and pregnancy we recommend that you watch"... or words to that effect.
There are the documentaries "Babies", "Pregnant in America" and "The Business of being Born" which I might have to watch next. Then again, that might be looking too far ahead. I have a tendency to day dream about crossing the finish line and I don't even have my shoes on yet.
There's a made for TV movie on the Dionne Quintuplets... for any non-Canadians this is a family that had 5 babies in the 1930's. A heartbreaking story of what being the world's first reality show family was really like.
It does have suggestions for me that includes "The Babymakers", which i had never heard of but with a plot like "Distressed by his failure to impregnate his wife, a devoted married man hires an oddball group of thieves to steal his long-ago sperm bank donations" how could i lose?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)