just being

atheists in foxholes

2012-01-22T23:28:00.000-08:00

So I wanted to say this, and this post better be short because it is late and I am mildly unhinged (once I stay up a certain amount of late there cease to be any limits imposed by right reason, and I don't have to work tomorrow as I took the day off, thank God, but that only leaves a one-day buffer between this present insanity and reality, and I suspect that Tuesday will therefore be a mean day at work).

I complain a lot about the attitudes of Catholics (see interspersed through my last post); I think I am well justified in this. Catholic "former infertiles" seem to be some of the profoundest hypocrites; Catholic "homeschooling mother" types (excuse me, moms. It's not a vocation, it's a cultural trend) are the most profoundly vapid and obnoxious; Catholic institutions started recently and still run by the overtly pious are the most inept and corrupt. That is to say, not all Catholic former infertiles are hypocrites and insufferable; not all Catholic homeschooling mothers are insufferable either (there I think it's a majority, but then I suspect that I am such a rare species in their worlds that they can't even imagine what to say to me and in the absence of rational thought, the brain somehow switches into the "talk about junior's giftedness" gear); but I think pretty much all Catholic variants of worldly institutions are ineptly and corruptly run.

So while I have a mountain of evidence for all of this and believe that, if anything, I should complain more loudly and more often until or unless these messes are cleaned up, the contrapositive is also true.

Specifically: I know from my citizenship in blogdom that lots of IVF/typical fertility clinics are unhelpful, annoying, unprofessional, uncivil, and otherwise unpleasant. But it has been my experience that the most pleasant interactions I've had in the fertility-treatment-seeking nightmare that is still (but not for long!) a part of my life have been with decidedly secular institutions. Even when they're just about to tell me that they've never heard of treating someone without considering IUI or IVF and can't really imagine what that would be like, the phone-answering gals at IVF clinics are polite. They answer the phone when I call. They call me back promptly if for some reason they missed me. They give the overall impression that they want my business and my good opinion - rather than that they will be judged only by God Almighty, and they can consequently step on whomever happens to be in the way of their achieving what they perceive to be their divinely anointed purpose.

And I specifically want to give credit to one institution. Prosperity Specialty Pharmacy in Fairfax, VA is one outstanding institution. When they say "specialty," they apparently mean "fertility," and unlike just about every other institution I've encountered that deals with infertiles qua infertiles, they apparently don't see infertile women as a waste of good oxygen that could be used by expectant mothers. They answer the phone when you call; if you are on hold while you wait to talk to a pharmacist (yes! A real pharmacist!), you hear their marketing message, which is that specialty pharmacy requires specialized patient care. We all know that this is true; if you have to take your drugs on p+3, 5, 7, and 9, you need them today, or at latest tomorrow. Everyone understands this with cancer patients (of course) and pregnant women, but we are the black sheep in that fold and nobody cares if we ever get pregnant, or while our lives away wishing - just as long as we're not pregnant now. But Prosperity means this. (And BTW, they're not a Catholic pharmacy - the first gal I spoke to assumed I was using HCG as part of an IVF cycle, and was confused by why else I would be taking it. This assumption does me no harm, of course.)

I called them because my regular compounding pharmacy (which is also awesome, but less stunningly awesome) had no Novarel in stock and it was on back order, and I needed it in just a few days. I panicked. My regular pharmacy (which, again, is pretty darn good) told me what other pharmacies in the area carry the stuff. One had none in stock, but Prosperity had some. (Already a point ahead.) They weren't open late enough for me to pick it up, but they told me that they ship it. To my house. It arrives the next day. At no charge. Then of course my doctor (who wrote the scrip) had to tell the insurance company that she really means it and I should really have the drug before it could be paid by insurance. They suggested that I bill it to my credit card up-front, and then as soon as the insurance company had things straightened out, the pharmacy would refund the insurance company's payment to my credit card. So logical and helpful it's astounding.

I was really worried about trusting all of this to shipping, because what if they sent the wrong needles? What would I do? But they sent the right needles. I thought it hadn't shown up when I needed it, but it turned out to be tucked inside the door where I hadn't seen it. They were patient with this panicked phone call, too. I usually get Novarel, but they recommended I use Pregnyl (different brand, still HCG), because it costs less after insurance pays. I didn't even ask them to check. Then they sent me the 10mL bacteriostatic water instead of the 30mL I've been getting. Since I get 3mL syringes, and I take 2000 units per dose (10,000 total units of powder in an order), the most water I can use is 15mL, and I usually have to spend twenty minutes slowly draining exactly 15mL from the water before I mix it. This time, no such problem. Also in the bag of syringes they sent: a set of little alcohol wipes (one each for the top of the bottle and the injection site, for each day). For free. So I don't have to fetch out a bottle of rubbing alcohol and a tissue.

After all this, I was sure they would forget the insurance credit, so I figured I would call back in a few days to check, after checking my credit card charges. Not only did they remember and refund me the money, they called before I did - just to make sure I knew.

God bless the secular culture - sometimes the clearest reflection of divine love and respect for human dignity out there.

rage?

2012-01-20T10:33:00.000-08:00

So today is p+17, and it appears likely that it will also be CD1. Two more months of HCG, and then I'm going to ask my doctor about depo shots. As previously mentioned, I am planning to retire from IF treatment around my thirtieth birthday (if I hadn't been moving and busy and that sort of thing, and had done all six months of HCG as soon as I got the scrip, I could have had my little retiring-from-treatment party on my birthday). Also as previously mentioned, I've already had two surgeries and don't plan on making that a regular thing; I promised myself that my very next surgery would be a hysterectomy. (And because some of these responses are just reflexes in the IF community at this point...no, another surgery would not help my fertility; no, the problem is not simply that the last surgery was done by my doctor rather than your doctor; and in fact, after the last surgery, my cycle didn't return for five months...five of the six months that would be my "best window" - for life, no doubt - in which to get pregnant. The only basis for more surgery at this point - other than a hysterectomy - would be insanity.)

But I'm only turning 30 - this is one of the few arenas in my life in which I wish I were much older - and I have a lot of time to go before menopause and (presumably) the natural remission of the endometriosis. As it is now, it is getting steadily worse - worse than it has ever been before. (SEE ABOVE ABOUT SURGERY. I WILL DELETE COMMENTS FROM PERSONS WITHOUT MDs RECOMMENDING THAT I HAVE MORE SURGERY!) Having a biological child is for me, at this point, not remotely realistic. I'm not particularly interested in adoption; my husband and I continue to discuss it, but while we're being relatively sporting about pursuing our waning options, both of us are expecting to live the rest of our lives childless.

So - please try to wrap your head around this; if you are infertile but have children, you might want to accept that that's just too difficult and go read another post (and no, I would not take this tone without a MOUNTAIN of evidence about people's inability to use their brains on this subject), by someone who has children or expects to have them - so: my future medical endeavors need to be directed to preserving my health and improving my quality of life, not having children, because I am not capable of having children. It's OK, go back and read it again. As many times as you have to. (It is difficult for me to accept that this is where I am headed, but it appears that for third parties, it is impossible. So, I'll wait.)

What I need to do, then, is halt the growth of the endometriosis before it gets far enough to cause uterine cancer, and put a stop to the cycle of inflammation so that I am no longer in daily pain for the first two weeks of every cycle. My life is not going to include children, but it includes a lot of other things, and none of those is improved by being in pain. Generally speaking, the way to halt - maybe even revert - the growth of the endometriosis is to stop one's menstrual cycle, since the upsurge in estrogen levels at the beginning of every cycle cause the endometrial adhesions (and the endometrial cysts - I would warrant I have several on my right ovary, since that area is frequently painful) to swell, causing an increase in the immune reaction that causes scar tissue to form on the internal organs. If I stop menstruating, I stop having estrogen spikes, the adhesions stop growing, and the scar tissue stops forming. With nothing to feed the adhesions, they may even shrink. Best of all, I wouldn't be in pain any more.

Obviously, I cannot be on depo forever (well...some people are, I gather), so I think I would talk to my doctor about doing six months or a year, then coming in for an ultrasound to see what's going on with the cysts. If it appears they have shrunk, I would maybe even consider doing another month or two of HCG; I understand that after knocking out your cycle, there is again a potentially "fertile window." That one might even be non-fictional in my case, in the sense that I might be both in the magic window and ovulating. Wouldn't that be nice. And as soon as the pain came back, I would go back on the depo; wash, rinse, repeat, until menopause, or the hysterectomy.

There are other inane things people say about this. One of which is that I shouldn't take depo (or should call it something else? It's high-dose progesterone, BTW), because it's a contraceptive. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Go ahead, take a look at my URL. See? Up there at the top of the page, in the address bar? I know, there are no spaces, it's hard to read. After the "http://" there's a four-letter word, then a five-letter word, then...you see? Yeah. So, that's what I have to say about me taking "contraceptives."

And for those who have hangups about giving money to the companies that manufacture contraceptives - do you know where your non-ART, super-holy, Catholic-approved drugs come from? What about the over-the-counter medicines you take? Where do you buy your jeans? What about your computer equipment? I took lupron before I was married because I didn't want to take depo shots because I would be giving money to those terrible people. Never mind that the exact same company probably makes both of them. I've never had such a bad reaction to anything ever. Surgery was pleasant by comparison. And I don't need the bone density loss, either. Plus, so far as I know, the sole perk of lupron (besides way more aggressive and harmful levels of hormone drug) is that it's not technically contraceptive - in a healthy person, it would probably prevent conception but not definitely. In the event of conception, however, it would certainly cause severe birth defects. If that seems morally superior to anyone, I recommend a course in basic bioethics. No, forget that - intro philosophy. Just start with logic.

Also, I don't want to hear about my diet. I eat some healthy food and some food that I enjoy although I know it is not healthy. If food makes me sick, I stop eating it. No doctor I have ever visited has suggested that I am allergic to gluten or dairy (or anything else), nor do I have any symptoms that suggest I am (endometriosis doesn't count until you can show me a peer-reviewed, published, duplicated, blind study - I believe they call that "science") and I am not taking medical advice from a non-doctor who has performed no tests on me nor even met me. I'd have to be an idiot - and, if you're taking medical and dietary advice from the internet, you are an idiot. That's not more judgmental than what people (and I mean specifically infertile people and usually Catholics, though there are others) say to me about my diet and health; it's just a whole lot more accurate.

So, moving on. I spend a lot of time concerned that I am guilty of immoderate rage. Things make me really angry on a regular basis. On the phone just now - for example - I was furious that the city utility bill site was incompetent and wouldn't read my address right. It was super-picky, but I had actually missed a digit of my seventy-digit account number, so it was my fault. The real problem is, though, that I was clearly exasperated when the woman picked up the phone, and I was short with her. I felt bad about this after I hung up; I tried to be nice and polite and thanked her after it got sorted out. But, of course, the reason I was so irritated when she answered was because I had then been on hold for over 15 minutes.

And ten minutes before that call, I opened a letter from my mortgage servicing company, telling me that the state refused to allow it to pay my property taxes out of escrow, saying that they were not due. The letter instructed me to call and inform the company if I had not separately paid the taxes, and it would track the problem down. So I called Wells Fargo. Menu #1 was stupid but it offered an option to do with mortgages. I chose that. I entered my loan number and the last four digits of my SSN. I got another menu. All options stupid again; one offered "property tax information." I chose that. It played me a recording that said no taxes had yet been paid and offered to let me listen to the menu again. (I am not omitting any relevant menu options from this narrative, and yes, I called the phone number in the letter.) I dialed zero repeatedly and eventually got a guy. I told him that I got the letter, and I hadn't paid the taxes myself. He asked me to confirm my name and I did. He then said that the mortgage servicing department could help me, and he would transfer me. At this point I informed him that I was not calling to seek his help, but offering mine; I was merely answering a question and I had now done so; I had already been through two sets of menus (following the number that I was directed to call!) and I had things to do today other than be on hold with the bank; and he could pass along the information I had provided, and I hoped he had a nice day. Then I hung up. I inspected the letter to see whether there was anywhere I could email this information. Since there wasn't, I decided to let it go. I may call the state property tax people; I haven't decided. As far as I am concerned they are all in the wrong, and they can jolly well sort it out.

After this I felt bad for being harsh, and pondered my immoderate rage again. And then I thought of something.

What if it isn't me?

Sure, I have an option, as a Christian, to take these small torments and offer them up as mortification. But in my view that is, in fact, an option. Offering them up wouldn't mean that they are just. They are not. It is my perception that I am increasingly surrounded by injustice, absurdity, and plain incompetence and stupidity on the part of many - almost all - of the people and entities with which I am constrained to deal. While I do not do my own job perfectly, I endeavor to be prompt, thorough, and accurate, and I encourage my clients to call me if they need any assistance. I answer my phone, messages (at work - I do not listen to voicemail messages on my own cell phone), and emails promptly. I also endeavor to behave logically; if, for example, I am informed that someone's address has changed, I understand that that applies to all places where I might use the address. I don't require seventy forms to effectuate the same address change.

Regrettably, I cannot say this about all the offices at the place where I work. And I cannot say this about almost any company with which I do business. If they can be reached by phone (which is rare), they will immediately inform you that you have contacted the wrong person and (despite their own representations about their phone system) you must call someone else and wait another twenty minutes. That person will require you to provide again every piece of information you have previously provided, to his colleagues and to his automated system, and he will be unable to understand the spelling of your name on the first three tries, and, ultimately, unable to help you. He will then suggest that you use a web-based system to which you do not have access, and in order to access which you will have to place yet another call for information. Partway through this exercise, it will occur to you that your life would be substantially improved by foregoing this service altogether so that you may avoid dealing with the intractably incompetent - even if that service is water, electricity, a home loan, or health insurance.

In short, what I'm saying is that the world is getting substantially worse, and the problem is not a loss of faith, war, famine, dairy, gluten, "global warming," or any of the other scourges we're taught to fear more than the fires of hell. It's customer service. Which I think is probably actually in hell; and, consequently, whether I'm right or wrong about the rage thing, I'm probably well-prepared for the next life.

a word

2012-01-10T20:22:00.000-08:00

Layla at The Lettered Cottage (which I first encountered by saving pictures of her outrageously awesome house to my ideabooks on houzz, before I ever found her awesome blog) is running a little thing on an inspiration word for 2012. She chose "Up," inspired in significant part by the movie of that name, which I understand is already something of an icon (whether you love it or hate it) for infertiles (and which I still need to watch). Given that their adoption plans are one of the occasional features on their blog, I assume that Kevin and Layla count in our oh-so-exclusive ranks. (And in fact, though Mormon mommy bloggers may be a significant minority among decor bloggers, I am beginning to suspect that infertiles are also over-represented in that category.)

Anyway, I was initially a little skeptical, but I have been pondering whether I would like to have a word for 2012. I already made resolutions, with which I am happy. But, for some reason, when I think about a word, the idea appears in a whole different light. Why this should be, I don't know. I don't think there's anything wrong with my resolutions...but when I think about what words I might like to use, they have just about nothing to do with the list I made.

Maybe it's that the words I'd like to use have something to do with what I'd like to be, but I suspect that even the best efforts in all the world will not even get me closer to there. I think my resolutions represent my sound, sensible analysis of what I ought to do, need to do, and am theoretically capable of doing. (A good basis on which to craft resolutions, if I do say so myself.) When I think about words, I find myself spinning off into what I hope will happen, and it's not things I could bring about by my own action - or, even if I could take actions that would in theory lead to those things, there's not even a remote guarantee of success.

The first thing I thought of was "home." I immediately dismissed that as shockingly uncreative (given a participating audience of almost 100% homekeeping/decor bloggers). Its attraction is that it reflects not only my concrete projects (fixing up our house) but also my more ethereal ones - I have a terrific longing for a home, someplace warm and welcoming and full of people I love. I love my husband, of course, but as the years pass, one of the saddest things about living childless is that there will only be two of us. It's going to be quiet. I am just as happy (actually, might be happier) in the company of other adults as I am around small children (even accounting for the fact that these days other people's children are usually a cross), but try as I might, I cannot get any of the adults I know to let me adopt them. Rarely can I even get them to let me feed them, which would be something.

The next idea I thought of was "joy." That's something I'd like to embrace in 2012. I know someday it will be there. I even know that there are things I could and should do to make it possible in my life. I also know that between me and the "unbearable lightness of being" that one lovely lady just posted about is a very long period of healing still. Sure, God can zap you and decide you're all better in an instant, but He rarely does, and with healing, one good reason is because the process is important in itself. I understand that, and while I do not enjoy it and am impatient for a happier chapter, I accept that I'm here and I'm not getting there for a while. For me, given where I am, "joy" would be farcical as an inspiration word for 2012.

The next idea that popped into my head was far scarier: "family." As far as I'm concerned it doesn't have to be a biological family (and, no, tiresome people, that does not mean I'm called to adopt). I would love nothing more than to have my home open, all the time, to whatever person I know just wandered by. It's the principal reason we bought a house: to have more room to share with people we love - guest bedrooms for visitors to the area, space to entertain. Of course, we also moved out of the heart of the close-in suburb and into the boonies (it's nice out here!), so in some ways we also undermined that goal. And nobody has to hang out at my house to fulfill my unfulfilled dreams. What I have to do is find something that people need me to do for them that will bring me closer to them - not figure out how I can force them into my idealized fantasy of the life I really lead.

Of course, there's also my actual family, and I should see more of them. That would be one way of living out the word, and something I should certainly do in the coming year, but it's not the part of the idea that brings joy. It means travel logistics and dealing with crazy people and needs to happen, yes, but...it's got its significant hardships. It's more an item for my to-do list than an aspiration.

But I do need to do something in 2012 to bring myself closer to the people I love. One big element of that needs to be forging new friendships. I have predicted with relentless accuracy the toll that others' newly-welcomed children will have on my friendship with them. Sometimes it's because of the massive and unavoidable change in time and social priorities that having a baby causes in their lives. Sometimes it's because they're self-absorbed and immature, and can't figure out a way to spend time with me that doesn't revolve around their parenthood and children. And sometimes it's because I just can't deal with their parenthood and children and can't bear to spend much, if any, time around them. And, what the heck, all three of those things often play a role. The bad news is, that has been especially and unexpectedly true of late.

The good news is that this bad news looks like it will finally be enough to shove me into doing something about it. I need to make new friends, already. Preferrably at least some who are (and will for some significant period remain) childless. (My husband points out that we cannot insist only on hanging out with people who will never have children, because that demographic is tiny and how do we know we would get along with them? I think he is totally wrong; the demographic is less tiny than he thinks and we should actively seek it out. Plus, I already know at least one permanently-childless couple in the area whom I really like, but he is unwilling to make efforts to hang out with them because he is a ninny. And he is ignoring that there's at least one marked demographic which presumptively will never have children, which tends to be well-educated, interested in culture, and a lot of fun at parties, and which we've made no special efforts yet to seek out. A good goal in itself...) At least if I make good friends who have no kids now, not because they want to hang out with my husband, if they have children in a few years, we will have a basis to continue our friendship, in that I'll know they actually care about me (and, of course, vice versa). That would be something.

I'm not sure anything will convince my husband that we need to move on from our friends with new babies, and relegate them to people we see sometimes but not all the time. Maybe spending a lot of weekend evenings alone will get the message through. In the meantime, I am going to work on broadening my horizons.

So I am still working on my word for 2012, and will update this when I feel I've achieved some sort of clarity. But I do need to contribute something to Layla's link-up (this coming Monday - gives you a little time to think), so until or unless different inspiration strikes, my 2012 inspiration word will be "gay."

2012

2012-01-01T18:07:00.000-08:00

It feels odd to write that, doesn't it? I'm not going to do a retrospective on 2011. While many had a far worse time of it than I did, and I frankly count myself lucky to have got out of it as painlessly as I did, there are a lot of episodes from this year on which I'd do better not to dwell.

On the other hand, I embark on my ideas for 2012 thoughtfully, but in good spirits, and for that, I have last night to thank. Yes, I am so tired now I'm nearly catatonic; I needed to sleep until noon, at least, after getting to bed not much before 5AM, and didn't get the chance to do that. But I can sleep in tomorrow. Last night, I went to a New Year's Eve party hosted by some friends of mine - several dozen people, party at their house, nothing really out of the ordinary. But in the many hours of that evening, in addition to sampling some delicious treats and getting a kick out of getting all dressed up and seeing others in their finery as well, I got to enjoy a number of blessings on which I don't reflect enough.

One friend turns out to be a truly accomplished pianist, and spent an hour playing accompaniments for every Christmas carol, Auld Lang Syne, and one Journey hit, while a roomful of people sang along - three, four, and five verses of some of the loveliest carols, including the first verse of Adeste Fideles in Latin. When I looked around and realized a good dozen of my friends have those words memorized, it warmed my cold little heart. I got to get to know better some truly lovely people, and catch up with some people I already know to be wonderful. I got to be at least a spectator to little bits and snatches of innocent intrigue as new romances may, perhaps, be formed, which I always find so delightful. And after the bulk of the revelers had gone home, a small group of us sat around and chatted for an hour, making predictions for 2012, pondering our resolutions, and generally enjoying one another's company.

The gathering was notably lacking a number of people - that is, all the ones with children. I believe several of those couples got together to hang out with the kids asleep all in one house, which is just as it should be - babysitters are prohibitively expensive on New Year's Eve, I know, and that sounds like a nice evening too. But the 5AM bedtime, rousing rounds of carols, and tuxedos and gowns were particular to the party I attended. While everyone's favorite comments about childlessness affording blessings like sleeping in and time to oneself are of course empty and therefore obnoxious, there are real advantages that I often forget.

Because I don't have to dedicate my time and energy to raising children, my time is always available for the other adults in my life whom I love. The joy of spontaneous small gatherings is available to me in ways it would not be if I were a mother. I've developed friendships with wonderful people whom I would never even have met were I home taking care of children. I've gotten to remain a part of the lives of my single friends whom I would nearly never see if we had a family to attend to. I'm not sure why the mommy crowd says things like, "Be glad you get to sleep in," instead of, "Be grateful for the opportunity to get to know wonderful new people," but perhaps they simply are not aware of the blessing they're missing in that regard. Today, I am, and I'm grateful.

So, on to 2012. I think I've screwed up every resolution I've had in the past, so quickly and so badly that I've never even gone back to check how I'm doing. I'm sure this year will be no different. Nevertheless, I'm doing it again:

1. Finish my HCG shots, quit fertility treatment, and go on a drug regimen to manage my endometriosis.*

2. Get to daily Mass before work - maybe not every day, but a whole lot more than not at all.

3. Write and submit for publication at least one law review article.

4. Fit into the formal dress I bought in 2008, and find an occasion to wear it.

5. Remodel my kitchen.

6. Persuade my husband to throw a party at our home at least every other month.

7. Be more punctual for work.

8. Be a better wife.

That probably covers enough things (that are moderately within my control) to cover what I'd like to see in 2012, and to ensure that I will make no serious pretense of completing the list.

*If you feel even mildly tempted to suggest that I should consider a third laparotomy instead, I invite you to ponder the fact that only a raving lunatic would find major surgery preferable to medication, and I am crazy, but not that crazy. In some ways, the IFosphere is seriously cracked.

vocation, blessings, and crosses

2011-12-28T18:41:00.000-08:00

I've done a lot of ranting about the problem of Other People's Children in general, and the children of other infertiles in particular - ranted, raged, condemned (sometimes, I note, with entire justice), and generally run off at the mouth. It's what I do best, and I think one should play to one's strengths.

I haven't done a lot of low-rage, intellectual musing, but I think the proper time for that has come.

Obviously others' children are continued salt in an open wound for a barren woman. And more painful still, when other infertile women become pregnant or adopt, we are not only confronted with yet another other's child (and attacking us from within our "safe" inner sanctum, no less), but, even more painful, we lose a friend and an ally. When that crossing over happens en masse, or has been going on for a long time, each new person who crosses over leaves us more totally alone. We childless women are now an endangered species in the infertility blogosphere. The emotional toll of all these things shouldn't even need explaining (but invariably does).

Leaving aside the anger and the sadness, what about the theological implications?

I am certain beyond doubt that God does not guarantee all women - or married women, or married Christian women, or married Catholic women, or any other demographic - a baby. I am certain beyond doubt that, of those who are not able to have a biological child naturally or with medical intervention, not all are called by God to adoption. Any individual woman or couple might suppose they were not called to adopt, and be mistaken, in that God had actually called them to adopt (and it is clear that everyone with children believes this is the case with me). But it is definitely not the case that God calls 100% of the naturally childless to adoption. (It is also not the case that everyone who would like to be married will eventually find a spouse. God is not in the "even Steven" game; this world is fallen and not everything is going to wind up neatly. Or, as my mother always put it, "Life is not fair." If you haven't already - get used to it.)

Along these same lines, there are childless women who lack the financial resources to pursue all the medical treatment (whether morally questionable or otherwise) that might enable them to bear a child, who lack the information to access all the appropriate treatment, whose other health concerns prevent them from securing all available treatment, or who (rightly) determine that pursuing every available form of treatment would be inappropriate for their lives. There are childless couples who lack the means to adopt (because of finances, age, or other reasons). There is not a band-aid big enough to assign a baby to everyone who wants one so that those not afflicted with this problem can call it "solved" and ignore it.

In the abstract, I know - with certainty - that all these things are true. This leads me to some conclusions. If all these things are true, then it may be the case that I will never have a child. It might also not be the case - people do randomly get pregnant after years of trying - but that ending is not guaranteed. So I must accept that a biological or adoptive child could be cast into my path, but will not necessarily be. I might have to live the rest of my life childless, because anyone might have to live the rest of his life childless. In principle, it can happen. God does not guarantee otherwise. Ergo, God has allowed that this cross should be allotted to some of us.

But if this can happen in theory, and therefore could happen to me, then it could happen to other people, too. And the law of averages dictates that it actually will happen to some small but distinct percentage of infertile women. Since I know far more infertile women than the average person (yes, hello), it should logically be the case that some small but distinct percentage of those I know will be childless for life.

See where I'm going yet? I would guess not, but I may be wrong.

Here's the problem. That doesn't appear to be happening. That is, from my current vantage point, it strongly appears that every infertile couple I know will eventually - probably even relatively soon - have a biological child or adopt. (Yes, TCIE, including you. And stop making that face.) I have no desire to see any individual person (even me) live childless forever. I'm not asking that someone else suffer longer or worse so that I have an ally, or in order to prove one of my pet theories.

But.

What if I am the only infertile who is still childless at 40? What if every other infertile woman on the planet who is that old or older has had a child by that time? In principle, my certainties won't change. I did the math carefully and it all checks. But if, in spite of these principles, God has in fact decided to give every single infertile woman a child but me, what does that mean? It doesn't mean the principles are wrong, but it certainly adds a layer of analysis. It means that I'm childless not because God has allowed me to carry this cross, as He allows some infertile women to do; but rather because He has decided that I, and only I, should be childless, that I should be alone, that I should have no friends who will understand, and that I will have to have other people's children forced on me without ceasing - because everyone else will have children.

That's not good.

mixed blessings

2011-12-26T20:03:00.000-08:00

Happy Feast of St. Stephen, everyone. If Good King Wenceslas is not already your favorite Christmas(-ish) carol, get on that, OK?

A few years ago - OK, in college, senior year I believe, which is...eight years ago now - a very wise and emotionally fraught friend of mine ended an angst-ridden debate with the statement, "Sometimes the best we can hope for is mixed motives." His words summed up our whole debate, and so much about the human condition. We had pondered that sometimes we know we have a selfish reason for doing an apparently generous thing - unrequited romantic interest, say - which is really a motive we should be mortifying. But a rational, detached analysis would say that that thing is the right thing to do anyway. But even if we're sure that detached analysis would say, "Go for it," isn't that still a rationalization for the motive that's really impelling us forward? My friend's point cut through all that navel-gazing. We're fallen; we're weak; we can't always sort ourselves out to purity of intention and the mortification of all our selfish desires before it's come time to act. Sometimes the best we can do is choose the best action available, even if tainted by our selfish motives, and be as honest with ourselves as we can about what we're up to.

I think that bit of wisdom has something to teach me in this context, as well - so thank you, again, to my friend, for so many words of wisdom and irreplaceable friendship - mediated through the bonds of all us fallen people.

Yesterday, as you all know, was Christmas Day. On that day, my SIL gave birth to her sixth child - a "surprise" baby to the best of my knowledge. She is 39. He has Down's Syndrome. Hers has to be the best possible family into which that little boy might be born; faithful, generous-hearted parents, and five older brothers and sisters who are already doting and a little over-protective - he will be the apple of all their eye. (And he's a beautiful baby. I've only seen a picture of him sleeping, but had I not been told he had Down's, I would not have known - he looks perfectly healthy.) I have skipped every baptism I was invited to attend this year, and (very dramatically, as you may recall) turned down one invitation to be a godmother at the eleventh hour. I remember there was a time in my life when I was jealous of all my friends who had been asked to be godparents - I wanted to be a godmother. I haven't wanted that in a long time, and for some time now, obviously, I've avoided baptisms altogether. But my SIL asked us to be this little boy's godparents. I thought we'd dodged that bullet, since she's had five other children and my husband and his sister are so close. Of course, I can't refuse to be the child's godmother, because he has Down's Syndrome. I could roll out all the evidence in the world that I've been avoiding baptisms for a year or more - it won't matter. She was crazy stoned on morphine when she called yesterday. So I said yes.

And our IRL IF friends' adopted child was born, I believe, on the 23rd. Their 48-hour waiting period was over the 25th, and now they have to spend another week and a half in the state before the paperwork is finalized - which has the collateral benefit of being a good chance for them to bond with the baby without the pressures of work, family visits, holiday obligations, and so forth. It may be the last vacation they take for a while! When they come back, they'll be no longer the other half of our infertile foursome, but a complete and united family.

And of course there are births and pregnancy announcements in the blogosphere as well - blessings and sources of joy, to be sure, but burdens to carry, in their way, as well.

In some way, I know, I can accept the sufferings that come with being on the other side of these events and announcements, and make efforts simply to be a friend to those who have been so blessed. But I also can't change the fact that these things are bittersweet, for me, at best. With the blessings of those around me, I have lost, if not more than they have gained, at least far more than I have gained from these changes in their lives.

As I noted in a comment on someone else's blog (TCIE's, I believe) recently, I can talk to my husband about our lives, pray about my future, and for a little while hold onto a fragile peace in the knowledge that God has something special planned for us - something so particular it fits with His allowing us to carry the cross of childlessness, likely for the rest of our lives. And then I hear another pregnancy announcement; another baby is born; my life is forced, again, to contort around the receipt by others of blessings I was hoping to enjoy, but will not have. It's that tension, perhaps, that makes for the keenest unhappiness. JellyBelly's infertile island would be a great mercy, but doesn't appear to be forthcoming. At least, not for me. (Perhaps, like those who make a pact to marry if they're still both single at whatever age, those couples who are still ttc could make an agreement to retire together to some remote, child-free locale if we are all still barren at some future date? It would be a little something to look forward to.)

So, here's to the rapidly impending close of 2011, with its blessings, and crosses, and blessings that are crosses. Here's hoping 2012 is joyous - maybe for everyone, this time.

arguing in confession

2011-12-20T10:19:00.000-08:00

I know, it's not a good idea. I haven't done it in years (and that priest was absolutely stating heresy - bad diocese - long story). But last night at the parish penance service, I interrupted the (very holy and pious) confessor three times.

I know that being humble and keeping my mouth shut (even if the priest misses the point) is a viable option, even a superior one, and generally that's what I do - if the priest misunderstood what I said, or suggests something that logically wouldn't help, or whatever. But I take a different approach with respect to matters infertility-related, and I've actually thought this one through.

There's zero pastoral care training devoted to dealing with infertile parishioners. The evidence of this is available to any Catholic who has had the misfortune to discuss this subject with a priest. If they have any wisdom or insight into how to talk to you about it, they've developed it on their own. I assume, by contrast, that much time is devoted to teaching priests how to deal with those mourning the death of a loved one. (If I'm wrong about that, so much the worse.)

As a consequence, most priests will give you a lightly-baptized version of the same absolute nonsense that any layman will give you if he hears you're infertile. "Have you tried standing on your head?" becomes "Have you visited the local Catholic OB/GYN?" "If it's meant to be, it will be" becomes "God will send you a child when He sees the time is right." "I know a lot of people who thought they'd never have children, and just last year they had their third beautiful baby" becomes...the exact same thing. It's no more helpful from a priest. Actually, it's much less helpful, because while you can write off the idiot at a party as an idiot at a party, you're not supposed to write off your confessor at all. Now we're supporting them, even in this role? No. No, thank you.

So now I take this argument to the correct place theologically whenever I hear error from a priest, because I cannot let the next infertile woman receive the same comments. What if she's in a more vulnerable place than I am? What if she's a new or long-fallen-away Catholic who knows very little theology, and assumes the priest is correct? I have enough issues with God myself, and I'm pretty sure my theology is sound. What if I were trying to work from error because I believed an inept priest? I would guess that the number of Catholics who've left the church (to a greater or lesser degree) as a result of their experience of infertility is huge, and I think the absolute black hole of pastoral wisdom and care is substantially to blame.

So, when the priest told me that God would send me a child when He saw I was ready, I said, "Excuse me, Father, but that's not right. God does not promise anyone a child. Some people will never have a child." Five sentences later, I was interrupting again. "I'm sorry, Father. Yes, I agree that all the barren women in the Bible were blessed with children.* But God is not promising that to me. What He wants is my salvation; my fertility may not be His priority. I cannot assume that I will have a child." When I interrupted him the third time, I told him that it was wrong to tell childless women that they should pray and expect a baby, because it gave them false hope and a false understanding of God. All He is certainly offering (I hope) is an opportunity for each of us to have a holy and meaningful life. And when he asked me, "How old are you?" I didn't even wait for the follow-up comment ("You have lots of time!" I've even gotten this from doctors, who should really know better). While I typically spare priests personal information of this kind, I said, "Twenty-nine, but my eggs are a lot older." And he stopped.

He was, really, a good priest. He told me that my theology was absolutely solid, and he hoped that I really believed what I was saying about what God wanted for my life. (I told him that I know it in my head, but I don't believe it in my heart.) He said that I should pray that God would give me to carry around a great faith, and that all those around me would "become pregnant" with the love of God as a result of my witness. (This metaphor is a little graphic, but English was not his first language, and it might not have sounded odd to his ears.) And he said that priests don't know what to say to childless women because they are afraid of suffering.

This is certainly why laymen say these stupid things - they just want your pain to go away, partly because they're sorry you're suffering, but, I suspect, mostly because they can't bear the compassion your suffering would demand from them. They reject your pain, and they reject you. It's why it hurts us so much to hear. We know their motives are benign in theory, but we also hear the underlying message - "I won't bear this burden with you, even for a five-minute conversation."

For my penance, the priest told me to open the New Testament at random and read the verse I saw. I've heard this condemned as a method of making critical decisions (since it's sort of superstitious). But as a method of prayer, it would be fine, and I was told to, so there you are. Before opening my Bible when I got home, I decided I would examine the verse number before reading it (to keep myself honest), then read the verse, then the surrounding pericope, then the verse again. (I tend toward scrupulosity, so I like to set ground rules so I know when I can stop. Not that there's anything wrong with reading more of the Bible.)

The verse I landed on was Acts 7:57: "But they cried out in a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse."

The whole pericope is Acts 7:54-60: "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the quick, and they began gnashing their teeth at him. But being full of the Holy Spirit, he gazed intently into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God; and he said, 'Behold, I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.' But they cried out with a loud voice, and covered their ears and rushed at him with one impulse. When they had driven him out of the city, they began stoning him; and the witnesses laid aside their robes at the feet of a young man named Saul. They went on stoning Stephen as he called on the Lord and said, 'Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!' Then falling on his knees, he cried out with a loud voice, 'Lord, do not hold this sin against them!' Having said this, he fell asleep."

*On this subject, you should really read the article "Childless at Christmas," linked on my sidebar, above right. It's written by a Protestant minister; hence, a focus on the Bible that's more total than Catholics are accustomed to (we'd likely draw on a broader source of examples, not that I can think of any married, childless saints, either). But very well-done, I thought.

the bathroom

2011-12-16T17:32:00.001-08:00

All right, ladies, it's time. You've been very patient.

Some of you may remember way back in the dark ages when I said that I was going to work on our house's only full bath. Yet before that, before even the dawn of time, I'm sure I published (probably repeatedly) this inspiration photo of what I consider more or less the platonic bathroom:

So that was my inspiration. And here's what I had to work with:

That's the only listing photo of the bathroom. And there's a reason for that - the space is below whatever square footage would be required to photograph it successfully, as you will shortly see in my pictures. The former owners had chosen a green-and-bamboo theme (there's also a bamboo shower caddy and a kind of half-hearted green drape thing). The walls were a totally inoffensive shade of beige. I don't like beige.

Oh, here's one more "before" picture I took:

And you all remember the "during":

Hmm...maybe that's just how I remember it. Does this look more familiar?

OK, anyway, before we even ripped off the toilet like insane people, I painted the walls. I settled on Behr's "Fresh Day," a blue so pale it's almost white (and, indeed, it looks white in the can, on the top of the can, on the swatch, and everywhere but on the walls, in person). Don't believe me? Here's a picture of the wall with a bright white piece of printer paper against it:

Right. That doesn't help you at all. Here is a picture of some nice person's room - too bad I've lost the link to the blog post that persuaded me to try the color in the first place. Anyway, doesn't this person's house look nice?

It looks nice in my bathroom too. It has an airy lightness about it - like the bathroom is somehow the color of sunlight. Delightful. OK, so I repainted the walls. I also discarded all the textiles as quickly as I could. That rug had to go. I found this one for about $6 at Ross's:

At this point I have to apologize for all the pictures. I took them all on a camera phone because it was the only way I was realistically going to get them up here, ever. And I took them at whatever angle I could (I told you, the bathroom is hard to photograph), which would have been fine, except that I don't have Microsoft Office on my laptop, so I can't edit the blasted things. Actually, maybe I could open them as .bmps and edit them in Paint...OK, I might try that next time. For now, just tip your head to the side, could you? :)

Anyway, I found this Nautica shower curtain on clearance for $12 at Home Goods:

Also at Home Goods, I found these chrome-finish C-shaped shower curtain rings. I found something appealing about their simplicity:

Unfortunately, I only bought one package when I first saw them, so while I got the first dozen for $6, I later had to buy another dozen for $10 from Amazon when I realized that a claw-foot bathtub takes two sets. Oops! I got real wood Venetian blinds for $25 from Ikea:

The previous owners had already installed a nice hotel-style towel rack (behind the hallway door), so I just put our towels on it, and our laundry basket under it:

What the bathroom desperately needed was storage. Obviously there was a place for the towels and the laundry, but the bathroom only had a pedestal sink (I actually switched the hand holding the phone so I could wave at you in this picture. See how I care! Let's not talk about the fact that I hadn't showered or combed my hair in two days):

(Everything in that picture except the toothbrush holder was there when we moved in - sconces, sink, little shelf, mirror. They did a great job with that, so I left it alone.) There was some wall space, though, so I got this cabinet at Bed, Bath, and Beyond - with my 20% off coupon, it was $48:

Here's where it lives in the room. (Yes, someday I will drop something in the toilet trying to get it out of there. If there's any justice in this world, it will be a rotten HPT.)

It's only MDF, not real wood, but for the bathroom I thought it was fine, and it holds the things we need to use. (I put a crate with things like extra toothbrushes and longer-term supplies in a bedroom closet that's all shelves, but isn't deep enough for coat hangers.) And the finishing touch, which I finally ordered just recently:

It was $15 on Amazon. It's also available at Bed, Bath and Beyond for $30. The BBB version is woven polyester or vinyl or whatever, is opaque white, and has a more photographic-looking version of the tree. Also, the tree is off-center on that version. I do like the off-center version, but I specifically wanted a curtain that was a solid sheet, not woven, because I am concerned that a woven material could wick moisture onto the wall behind it. The Amazon version (in addition to being cheaper) is a solid sheet of PEVA, and is translucent, which I like. The tree has a more choppy, sketch-like quality, but that's OK. I love the look of it - it makes me smile whenever I walk into the bathroom. I did give up on the octopus I really wanted. Apparently my DH doesn't really like the tree; he's just relieved that there's no octopus in our bathroom.

So I'm not sure how much credit I get for "redoing" the bathroom. I repainted it and I added some linens. I did install a cabinet, though, and blinds, so that counts for something, right? So now I'm sort of wary of adding up the total, given that the changes were pretty cosmetic...let's see. $25 for paint. $25 for the blinds. $6 for the bath mat. $6 for the toothbrush holder. $12 for the cotton shower curtain, $6 for the vinyl liner, and $15 for the tree shower curtain; and $16 for the rings. $48 for the cabinet, and about $10 in little plastic trays to put in it to keep things sorted. The hamper, and the towels, of course, I had. That's $169 total. I don't think that's really so bad.

Of course, that doesn't count about $40 for toilet repair materials, or the fact that I'm going to be replacing that floor in the next year or two, but those aren't precisely decor items.

So there you are. The master bedroom may be next - or, maybe, I will need to consult you all about window treatments before that can happen.

Aaaaand...I am participating in my very first before-and-after party, and I am so stoked. It's Metamorphosis Monday, at Between Naps on the Porch!

Go on over and check out the other before-and-after posts that are linked up. (Because it's almost Christmas, there are lots of wonderful inspirations for Christmas decor, and probably some good recipes too - gotta check it out myself next. At other times of year, there are more hardcore renovations. All the previous Met Mondays are viewable on Susan's blog, so check them out if you're looking for some inspiration!)

Ooh and now I've also joined the Thrifty Decor Chick's January before-and-after party! Go check it out!

...through?

2011-12-15T11:59:00.000-08:00

Today I had the most extraordinary conversation.

The building I work in hires a company to come around and take out the trash, vacuum, and dust. Apparently, one of the shifts is after regular business hours (around 6 or so), but one comes through around 8:30 or 9AM. A few months ago they switched up who was assigned to my floor. Now it's a fellow about 30 years old. From stray comments he made, I learned he was a Christian (I assume he is Protestant), and we talk a little bit about that every now and then. He is a devoted family man, and has a little girl and a little boy whom he loves. I know he is supporting the family, so I figured that he and his wife had chosen not to have more children for financial reasons - of course I didn't inquire; it's not really my business.

Anyway, today he was looking at the framed copy of St. Thomas More's "lawyers' prayer" that hangs on my wall. (It's a lovely prayer.) I told him it had been a gift when I graduated from law school, and he was surprised to learn I was a lawyer. (My door and that of everyone in the hallway pretty much says so, but I'm sure he never had any reason to pay attention!) I'm going to guess that he doesn't know a lot of lawyers, because he immediately brought up a legal question that has evidently been weighing on his mind. He told me that with her last delivery, his wife had a C-section, and the doctors put "all her internal organs back in the wrong places." I have no medical training, of course, but that sounds faintly odd to me - I think most of the internal organs in that area are free-floating. But he probably meant something specific that I failed to guess.

He said the hospital had told his wife she "couldn't get a lawyer" because she had signed a waiver of liability. Well, that's not true. People sue for medical malpractice all the time, and all those doctors had waivers signed before. Besides, you don't take legal advice from your opponent! I suggested that he google "medical malpractice lawyer" and go to someone who would offer a free consultation (since this is not an area I work in), and pointed out that the statute of limitations may have run (it has been a number of years).

Then I asked - what I thought might be more helpful - whether she has consulted with a doctor who might be able to repair the damage that was done. It might even be covered by insurance? He said it was too late. After the botched delivery, she had multiple ectopic pregnancies. In addressing those, they removed both her fallopian tubes. She can never have a child naturally, and it's killing her. She feels like less of a woman, she wanted a huge family (which he wanted too), she's basically lost her faith, she's incredibly angry, and she takes a lot of it out on him. He has told her that God must have a reason, and he wishes he could fix her up, but they can always adopt. She's not ready to consider adoption; she's not ready to let go of the dream of a big biological family. Wow...sound familiar?

I told him that I could see how she would feel that way and I know other people in the same situation. (I didn't say, "Including me" - but we may have that conversation another day.) I also said that in time she would probably come around on her faith and might change her mind about adoption, but that sometimes healing could take years. And I told him I would pray for him. And if any of you feel so moved, and you would like to, too, I would appreciate it...I feel like I was probably in the right place to hear that story for a reason. (And not because I'm a Christian. Not because I'm infertile. Because I'm an attorney?)

I was tempted to suggest a lot of things - have her call me; refer her to a chapter of Resolve; send her to some support fora on the internet - but I wasn't sure what was right to do, so I kept my mouth shut on that score for the time being. Maybe I can find a website or two to suggest, something that I find valuable myself, and recommend it in that way. Heaven knows that, if nothing else, I've found blogging helps with all the rage that is more than I can fairly direct at my husband, but not too much for you ladies, bless your hearts.

And while I try not to assume too many of the facts with prospective lawsuits - doctors are demonized by lawyers far more than they should be - I'm pretty angry about what happened in this woman's C-section. If she had two healthy babies and then several ectopic pregnancies, somebody did something really wrong. She almost died, and then they took her fertility for life. And she's 30. And they're not an affluent family, and not savvy about their legal rights, and I wouldn't be surprised if that played into it. That's just wrong.

not getting through

2011-12-11T12:20:00.001-08:00

I have a friend (actually a girl who went to school with my husband) who's of the plain-spoken type. Really, she makes me look diplomatic by comparison. She's also had some fertility-related issues (she had some kind of rather intensive ovarian surgery before she was married - I forget the details), but she's not infertile, probably more like hyper-fertile. I think her younger child is maybe a year or just over, but I imagine she's already expecting number three (early on, though).

While she makes occasionally bizarre statements of "knowing where I'm coming from" on the subject of infertility (since she had medical issues as well, and was worried that she would be infertile), and shares far more details of pregnancy and childbirth than I'm generally interested in hearing, I really do like her. I much prefer someone who overshares because she's blunt, and is equally ready to hear you tell her why you're uninterested in the topic, to someone who overshares because she thinks the world revolves around her and her offspring, and not-so-secretly thinks that your failure to be interested in the miracle of life with which she's been blessed is a sign that you're going straight to hell.

So this girl emailed everyone in her inbox to say that she was very sorry, but she lost her address list in a hard drive transfer, and could we all please send our mailing addresses. We've just moved (you may have heard), so I was happy to oblige. As my DH pointed out that evening, of course she wants it for her Christmas card list. I knew that, but I wasn't thinking about it. She, like most mothers of young children I know, sends Christmas cards with pictures of her children, which generally fail to depict her or her husband (the only family members the cards' recipients are likely to recognize), or Jesus Christ, who, I hear, is the kiddo who's supposed to get the top billing on this particular holiday. (Since I suspect it is easily findable in my posts for previous Decembers, I will here omit the REALLY extended version of my rant about how offensive I find Christmas cards that have been sanitized of all religious references. Ditto well-wishes that have been similarly sanitized. I do not want to receive your "season's greetings" unless you are also going to extend heartfelt good cheer in spring, summer, and fall. I love the snow but I AM NOT CELEBRATING WINTER, IDIOTS. I have no problem wishing Jews a Happy Hannukah; what, other than hatred of Christians and Christianity, could cause anyone who is thinking the matter through to offer salutations that deliberately and elaborately refuse to acknowledge the beloved holiday of the person to whom he is supposedly extending good cheer? I look Irish; they know I'm not celebrating Hannukah, Ramadan, or Kwanzaa. That leaves Christmas or nothing, so say "Merry Christmas" or shut up. And now I am put in the position of responding to "Season's Greetings" with "Merry Christmas" not merely out of the joy and love proper to the holiday, but as a political statement, which is distasteful in the extreme. Go stick your face in a snowblower so you can really experience the "season," anti-Christian bigots. The end.)

Anyway, after thinking the matter through, I realized that I was perhaps being unfair to my friend. It is our house's standing policy to throw out all Christmas cards that are pictures of other people's children (I keep cards that are actual Christmas cards but merely contain pictures of children, which is in appropriate taste, in my opinion; but I still throw out the pictures, because I don't need that crap in my house or my life) immediately upon opening, or before opening, if the contents are obvious. The ones that have lovely religious images we hang on the mantel. So all of these people for whom December apparently contains the holiday known as Offspring Awareness Day are totally wasting their money. While I wouldn't bother raising this subject with most of our acquaintance because they actually don't want to understand where I'm coming from (and will therefore argue with any attempt I make to explain how I feel), this is the blunt friend, right?

So I sent her an email and said, "Hey, I sent our address yesterday, but for reasons I assume are obvious, I actually throw out Christmas cards that are pictures of other people's children. It's not personal, of course. I just wanted to let you know because I wouldn't want you to waste the cost of a card - I know they're expensive. We still appreciate the thought!"

So I saw the blunt friend at book club a few days later, and she said that she got my email, and she actually does the same thing and she's always felt bad about it. Now I was confused. She hates the baby pictures and she still sends them? Then she said something about them taking up space from year to year, and I asked her whether she meant that she throws them out after Christmas. She said yes. (Does anybody - who's not been featured on Hoarders - keep them from year to year?) She didn't take the grammatical cue and ask whether I meant that I throw them out before Christmas. I thought for a minute and decided that my email, while not explicit, was plenty clear; anyone reading carefully would have understood what I meant, or at least recognized it as something I might have meant. She was totally oblivious (and she isn't stupid).

Since she had already said she wasn't hurt by the throwing-out and would send us a card anyway, I figured I would let the matter rest. Why antagonize her by telling her I hate pictures of her kids more than she can imagine that anyone would?

The divide is bigger than I thought, isn't it? I didn't think that was possible.

notes from the field

2011-12-06T09:45:00.000-08:00

I totally left you all hanging there, and I know it was very unfair. No one could achieve any rest or relaxation all weekend, so concerned were they over the status of the misfits' toilet.

Well, wait no longer: the toilet is re-installed, and, as I told my husband Saturday morning, fully operational. (He would have known this firsthand, but for the fact that he was banished from the bathroom after claiming that I had incorrectly affixed the bolts under the flange reinforcement ring, meaning that the toilet would never be bolted securely to the floor, and consequently that his 75-year-old father would fall off said toilet and die while visiting us.)

On the other hand - there is always another hand, with me - the leak resumed almost instantly upon the toilet's reinstallation. Apparently, all the time, the leak was coming from the connection between the toilet and the tank. This explains the lack of sewage smell. And the fact that the leaking water was clean. And the fact that I didn't previously see the leak (it apparently comes and goes, probably depending on whether the tank has been bumped). And the fact that I saw a puddle on the first floor for the first time recently - and yet enough water has made its way below the toilet to warp the bathroom's wood floor and rot the subflooring.

I have now purchased a replacement gasket, and I intend to shut the water off again and do this repair (which will be a lot easier and less gross than the prior one) - but I want a break from toilet-related home improvement projects for, say, a week. (In the meantime, I have deployed buckets. Although the drip has now stopped. Arrghhh.)

This freed up my time for some other things. First I caulked the crown molding I installed in the living room. I turn out to be quite poor at installing molding, and it took a lot longer than I expected. But the caulk really does help - still not perfect, but much better. Of course, the caulking floundered as well, because it did not occur to me that I'd need more than one tube, so I had to go back to the store. Still to do: finish caulking.

And then, by far my favorite project this week (possibly my favorite so far): the wallpaper in the bedroom. You may recall that I decided that I needed to have one "accent wall" of wallpaper in each bedroom, and then proceeded to agonize for months and months over which papers to use. And then I finally settled on several and then, before I got to the point of buying them, scrapped almost all of those decisions and started over.

Well, here's where I am with that. After the sample of my first choice turned out to be a terrible disappointment, I chose this paper for the master bedroom:

Then I color-matched some super-light gray paint to that. It was the second room I painted. Then I pulled the trigger and bought the paper for that room. I also bought the same print, in this colorway, for the dining room above the chair rail (have already painted the wall below that white):

I figured that I would do the master bedroom first, because that's just one wall (and not such a tricky one - just one doorway), and I need to learn something about hanging wallpaper before I attempt the dining room, which has three doorways, a double-wide window, a curved wall, and a mantelpiece. And nine-foot ceilings. But I had no idea my efforts would be stupendously blessed by an offer of assistance from a delightful friend. Those of you who attended the last of the meetings of the DC infertile coffee before its demise may remember a certain lovely young lady, not a blogger herself but the friend of another blogger who kindly put us in touch, who attended. Since she does not have a pseudonym, I shall dub her The Lark. (You're welcome :D.)

Anyway, apparently she wanted to see the insanity in action, and I hate to disappoint - I needed to tackle a suitably insane project. Happily, it turns out that she knows a lot more about hanging wallpaper than I do (plus she read the instructions). So this weekend, we covered the room in tarps and gooey, paste-filled water and got to work. My DH made me go to bed on Sunday night when I had just one section left to hang, because he has some notion about sleep being useful, so I finished last night. And I have this to say. First of all, a huge and hearty thank you to The Lark (should I keep capitalizing the "the"?) for delightful company and timely aid in need. (Also, for mature and wise thoughts on living a full and valuable life with infertility. You really need to start a blog, OK? Then you can choose your own name...)

Second, I am beyond delighted by how it turned out. Yes, I made a mess of the installation by hacking at the edges of the seams and leaving gaps (you don't notice if you don't look too closely - pictures to come when the room is finished), but in theory, the paper looks just perfect for the room, and I am over the moon about it. Even my husband said he really thought it was perfect for the wall. I found this particularly gratifying because originally, he thought that putting paper on just one wall would look inadvertent and peculiar; I then tried to find designer photos in which this was done, and he got tired of looking at them and told me to do whatever I wanted. And then today I saw this ideabook on houzz. Do I get to take credit for thinking of it first-ish?

*Do not ask.

progress

2011-11-30T10:11:00.000-08:00

As of last night:

Have conquered the agonizing selection of a power drill, bought paint for the second bedroom (the only bedroom I haven't painted - yay!), figured out how to use the caulk gun, caulked the (red) flange reinforcement ring to the "flange" (really, end of antique cast-iron pipe that is masquerading as a [non-standard-sized] flange), bolted flange reinforcement ring to floor, discerned that "flange" is wider than standard size and wax ring will not fit (possible cause of original leak?), and did more internet research on how to fix this problem. (Answer: mold 2-3 standard wax rings into a SUPER-wax ring of wider diameter. Molding wax is within my skill level, so moving on with enthusiasm.)

No progress with respect to that second picture. (And I note that I only took the rotten thing because after the several days of pre-cycle spotting that have been my standard for a year or more, I failed to have - ever - the day of hemorrhagic bleeding to which I have grown accustomed. Leading me to believe that ~~I might be pregnant~~ I ought to take an HPT. It was my last one, and I am not taking any more. I think.)

I'm not going into my greater concern with the bathroom, which is that it is pretty clear to me that the subfloor is rotted under the toilet, if not all the way through, then much of the way through. (The water leak only appeared really recently, and the stain on the plaster ceiling on the floor below is quite small. I don't understand how it could have been exposed to water long enough to rot the wood.)

If I were being really thorough, I would rip out the floor and subfloor right now, but I am not ready to learn tiling and replacing subfloor just at the moment. The wooden finished-floor is obviously not up to scratch for a bathroom (it was already visibly damaged around the tub as well), so I have been expecting to replace it with tile, and I am now mentally preparing to spend a few thousand for the tiling (which I would like to do myself), repair to the subfloor, and (big-ticket item) replacement of that cast-iron waste pipe with PVC. It needs to happen in the next year or two.

Instead, I am choosing to focus on happy thoughts. Such as - my new power drill. I've borrowed others' cordless drills in the past (kind others to lend them to me!), so I had some idea what I was looking for. In view of my weak little T-Rex arms, lightweight is obviously an advantage, but I am planning to become a muscle-bound behemoth in the course of my home improvements, and bigger drills clearly have advantages. I've used a friend's lightweight drill with 550rpm max, and that's fine for driving, but I think for drilling more speed would help. I wanted at least 1200rpm. I definitely wanted something that takes an hour or less to charge. I didn't get too far into understanding torque, but I did learn that 18V of power makes a big difference in terms of getting tough jobs done. I understand a 1/2" all-metal chuck is better than a 3/8" chuck with a plastic outer grip, but I wasn't committed to that. Also, I wanted it to be able to go in reverse. The end.

The drill I bought plugs into the wall. This means that I can't take it just anywhere, but then, I've never used a drill outside. And I do have a heavy-duty extension cord. (Its own cord is a decent length, too.) Also, it takes zero minutes to charge :). Further, I understand that for applications like mixing mortar and grout (not that I need to retile a bathroom or anything), a cordless drill simply doesn't have enough power. This one has outrageous power - 120V, to be exact. And 2500rpm max! It's not that heavy (4.1lbs.), but it's large, and all chunky and rough-looking, and its yellow-and-black color scheme even looks menacing. I was frankly afraid of it, but my husband wasn't all excited to do the drilling himself like I thought he would be, so I figured I would be brave. It's my drill, after all. I need to learn to use it.

It accomplished the project without difficulty - it gave off a definitely snide air that it was capable of any task I offered it without experiencing the least strain, provided only I was sufficiently competent. (Not always the case - I aligned one hole wrong and was unable to fix it. I think the drill is losing respect for me.) I've used Ryobi cordless drills before, and while they sometimes take a while to get the job done, they're nice, polite tools. You want to hang some blinds? Yes! Show me the window frame! I'll get through it eventually! The DeWalt has a decidedly different demeanor. I will destroy the window frame. Then I will destroy the blinds. AND THEN I WILL DESTROY YOU.

It's awesome.

insights into my life

2011-11-29T09:07:00.000-08:00

From last night. Today, I am authorized to buy a power drill. (The unused nail gun having been returned, this will be my first power tool.) This evening, we will conquer.

And this, mind you, is after 15 minutes of waiting. I guess I've been moving in this direction for a long time.

the adventure begins

2011-11-27T10:52:00.000-08:00

People who buy old houses because of their "charm" while failing to understand the many other qualities inherent in oldness often refer to them as "money pits." I guess the implication is, "I thought this place would be a bargain - it was $50,000 cheaper than the newer places we looked at - but then it cost $100,000 in upkeep." In my personal opinion, this is not an indication that the old house cost more than it was worth, but that the homeowners failed to budget for what the house should have been expected to cost (and what it was easily worth).

I am pleased to say that this philosophy is intact, though I have now crossed the Rubicon into the "unexpected repair issues" aspect of old-house ownership.

This afternoon when I went to the coat closet to put away a wrap, I was unpleasantly surprised to note that there was water on the floor. After casting about briefly for an innocent explanation (did I leave a bucket out? Did I empty an ice cube tray onto the hallway floor? Has it snowed in the coat closet recently?), I followed the water along the floor to its apparent source. I expected it to be the black-water plumbing stack, which our inspector told us would need to be replaced in the next several years, but that was dry as a bone. I did, however, find a suspicious dark spot on the ceiling a foot away from the apparently-innocent plumbing pipe. A quick trip upstairs indicated that the dark spot is approximately under the toilet - and I realized that the wood under the toilet bowl (yes, the ninnies put a hardwood floor in the bathroom) has darkened a few inches out from the toilet.

I believe this means that the ring that seals the toilet waste-disposal port to the pipe below is not watertight. (The wood around the pipe that feeds water into the toilet showed no water damage, and those are the only two water-bearing connections to a toilet of which I am aware.) Obviously, this is not the best kind of water leak to have, but the damage appears to be limited thus far; I would guess from the condition of the wood that the leak has been a (growing) trickle, lasting a few days to maybe a week. So I shut off the water going into the toilet, mopped up the water and pitched the rags in the washer, and went downstairs to sit on the couch and meditate.

I think I'm going to have to rip up at least part of the floor to see whether the water damage inside the floor is more extensive than the visible damage to the floorboards and ceiling plaster. I think I will also have to re-seal the wax ring on the toilet before replacing the floor. (This is extremely irksome, because that toilet is only a few years old. They paid a professional to redo that whole bathroom. I've lived in houses with toilets installed fifty or more years ago and never had this problem, and the sealing products are supposed to be getting better and better with technological advancement. There's really no excuse for this.) I don't know how to do that, but I'm hoping I can learn - I feel it would be a waste to hire a professional to do this, since so much of it is low-skilled labor (like ripping up floorboards).

I was planned to replace that floor with some hex nice tile anyway, but I had been thinking of that as a project for 2013. I guess I will have my ideal bathroom sooner than I thought?

So to aid in my meditations, of course, I sat down to google "leaking toilet ring." Google auto-complete (which I have never liked) auto-filled after "leaking," to "leaking amniotic fluid."

Really, google? Really?

suffering

2011-11-21T17:33:00.001-08:00

This is, essentially, a follow-up to my (over-long) post on Sophia House. I'm no longer so agitated, and, I would venture to say, more philosophical about the issues it raised in my mind. Though (as so many times in working through the experience of infertility in my mind) it has not presented me with any ideas I had never thought of, the book has, somehow, helped me to look at things in a new light, and understand them better than I did before.

Or maybe this message has been waiting for me all the time, and I wasn't able to hear it, and it finally got so loud I couldn't ignore it?

The world doesn't understand infertility. You know this. To appreciate how much it's a misunderstanding - not just being rotten or unsympathetic, but fundamentally failing to grasp what the experience of infertility is all about - I need only look at my own perspective when I was engaged. I already knew I had endometriosis, and that this causes problems conceiving. I knew I wanted a big family. And I said, "If I can't have children biologically, I will just adopt." I am the same me I was then (if in many ways changed by life), and my values haven't really altered. I wasn't mistaken about the facts, medically or otherwise. But I had no understanding of the experience spiritually, and so my conclusion, thoughtfully arrived-at, intelligently reasoned, was completely wrong. I thought it wouldn't matter whether I could conceive a child or not. I had no idea what I was talking about.

And most of the people out there who haven't been through this don't know what they're talking about either. They can easily imagine what it must be like to be infertile - that's just the problem. The picture in their heads is almost 100% inaccurate, but they think it's quite accurate. So they ponder some data (she's this many years old...they've been married for this many years...her siblings have this many kids...she's got this many years until menopause...they have this many other things in their lives to keep them busy), and they figure out what our lives must be like, and then, with a close eye on that picture, they draw all their conclusions, and formulate the comments they make to us.

And we all know those comments, don't we? Do we need any other evidence that they're proceeding from totally bogus (but apparently sincere) premises?

Other bloggers (Infertile Naomi, I'm looking at you) have done a thorough and brilliant job of examining the breadth of these charming comments, but I have just one type in mind, and this is one you'll probably get from the person who's closest to you, who shares the most values in common with you, in whom you've confided most about what you're going through. The person who can most completely blindside you by fundamentally not getting it. And that's the comment about how you should react, emotionally, to being an infertile woman in a fertile world.

It's based on all the right premises - ethical and religious ideas about what virtue and maturity and selflessness and appropriate social behavior are. Therefore, it sounds completely right - so much so that you can't even argue with it.

"You should be happy that Jane is pregnant."

"You should be grateful that you get to spend time with your sister's baby. After all, a baby is a blessing - you know that better than anyone."

"Sarah's been trying even longer than you have, and she is finally pregnant! You must be ecstatic! If it happened for her, it will happen for you!"

"Since you care about Mary so much, you should feel nothing but joy that she's been blessed with a baby. You wouldn't be happy to see something bad happen to her, would you?"

"I know you would feel terrible if Lisa had to spend another five years trying to get pregnant - you've felt so bad for the first five. You must be so glad to hear that she and her husband are finally expecting."

"You're right - that's been six pregnancy announcements from your friends and family just this month! But I guess it doesn't really matter, does it? They're not reducing your chances of getting pregnant, of course."

And it gets worse. Because we don't just hear these things from well-meaning fertile friends. We hear them from other infertile women, helpfully telling us how we should feel - sometimes, but not always, under the guise of how they think they should feel. And - darkest of all - we hear these things from ourselves.

I don't tend to go the sad route with these sorts of things; I'm a fighter. So I've been saying for years that justice does not oblige me to feel the least bit of joy for the next pregnant gal in my circle of friends, because, yeah, she'd be happy for me if I got pregnant, but there's not a chance in hell she'd be happy for me if I got pregnant and she had to celebrate that pregnancy announcement from the vantage point in which I now stand. Not one of the people for whom I'm asked to make these sacrifices will ever be asked to make a comparable sacrifice to me. And I would never expect it of them. So, no, I don't feel bad if she's startled that I don't want to see ultrasound images or hear about her morning sickness. Because she's a self-centered witch, and I can say to a moral certainty that I would not ask the reverse of her.

The pregnant women on the bus don't deserve my patience or compassion - or my seat. (And, yes, I give up my seat, but with such venom as I can scarcely describe.) They almost certainly got there effortlessly, and some of them probably don't remotely appreciate the blessing they have. And when I get on the bus sick from my medicine, or in pain from endometriosis, or miserable and depressed because life has just asked too much of me today, or two weeks post-surgery with a six-inch unhealed scar across my lower abdomen, nobody gives me a seat. And I never ask.

I tell myself these things, and I appreciate the justice of my position, my flawless reasoning, my beautifully-formed arguments that I could spit at anyone who dared challenge me and my reactions. Nobody gives me that chance, of course.

Because...the argument is always with the voices in my head. They're the ugliest ones I hear. Louder, and more persuasive and more judgmental than the voices of anyone else. They tell me, "To be upset that another infertile is now pregnant is nothing but malice. Are you saying that you would rather she suffered longer so you didn't have to read her pregnancy announcement? Is it worth her suffering so much unhappiness to spare you suffering a little?" And, "You know she doesn't know any better. She goes on and on about her pregnancy because she's happy about it and she's frankly not very bright. That doesn't make her a monster, but it does make you a monster if you hate her for it." "Charity requires you to give your seat to that woman. She must be exhausted. Look at you, healthy and strong. You can stand for 30 minutes - you wouldn't even be tired. It would cost you nothing to stand up, and yet you're looking for a way to get out of it. You should be ashamed." "How can you call yourself a Christian? How dare you look on a stranger with envy or resentment? Her life and her blessings have nothing to do with you. She didn't steal your baby." "People carry heavier crosses every day. Some people your age are dying of cancer, or permanently handicapped, and face every day with grace. You can walk around and you'll probably live for years. You wallow in sorrow because you're self-centered, greedy, and immature. There's no justification for you to act like this." "You count your crosses like a miser, but you aren't grateful to God for one of your blessings. You know plenty of people who would give their eye teeth to be happily married, even without kids - who are afraid they'll die alone." "You said that you wanted to become like Christ, to offer up your sufferings to be united to Him. You know full well this life is a vale of tears, not a bed of roses. And the first serious burden you're asked to carry, you rebel, you complain, you act like it's the end of the world. What kind of a spiritual life is that? You're a fraud, a coward, and a failure."

The truth is that both of the voices are right, and, probably more importantly, both of them are wrong.

It's not a simple matter of charity for me to give my seat to a pregnant stranger (and God forbid it's someone I know). Standing because no seats are left costs me nothing. It's not difficult to stand. Standing to let her sit - concretely recognizing that I am not what she is, that I never will be - is like a little piece of dying. The pregnant women I see, the ones who talk endlessly about their pregnancies, are not evil, after all. But in their blissful ignorance, in their innocent self-obsession, they're pouring salt in a wound - a real wound and a deep one, though, being invisible, it may be easy to overlook. And, there are crosses that are more dramatic and final, some (but not all) of which are very likely heavier. But there is always the possibility that I will carry those as well. And, of course, the fact that you could have both arms chopped off does not make it painless to have the first one chopped off. That pain is real, and terrible. And while I have at least half of the marriage-and-children blessing that so many are seeking, being barren is a fundamental undermining of the goodness of our selves and our vocation. It's not so much having most of a good thing, as having one very good thing, and one very bad thing. The good thing is not less good, but the bad thing is not less bad, either.

And what did Sophia House teach me about this, exactly? It sounds strange, it's so simple: it told me that I did not have to decide between refusing to carry a cross and pretending that it wasn't there. The book was a long, long excursus on recognizing a cross - all of its terrible weight and its gouging edges and its nasty splinters - as it settles deeply into your shoulder.

The people who say that I should "just be happy" for someone who has been blessed with a child are completely, totally wrong. That they said "just" means that they fundamentally misunderstand what that would mean for me; not that they think it's a smaller thing than it is, a puppy rather than a dog, but that it's a different thing than it is - a puppy rather than a crocodile. If I "should be" happy for someone, then that means that for the sake of bringing her joy - or, maybe, just for the sake of not attracting her notice - I should be in agony. Some days the agony is deadly and some days merely miserable, and some days it's mildly delayed, so that I don't feel it until an hour after I'm called upon to play nice, but it is always there. When people say, "Just smile," or "Just say congratulations," they should say instead, "Just go and cry wretchedly in the dark for two hours," or "Just let go of every dream you've ever had for your life," or "Just go lay your greatest fears and vulnerabilities bare before a stranger who doesn't care about you." They should say, "Just suffer."

In short - and I don't think this is an exaggeration - no one has a right to demand of us our joy or kindness toward a person whose blessing makes stark our cross unless they would be willing to demand that we die for the same purpose. And in that, I include that we don't have a right to demand it of ourselves. You cannot tell yourself that you ought to be happy for someone so that others are happier unless you feel it would also be appropriate for you to die for that purpose.

If that sounds insane, the flip side is more insane: that doesn't mean that it's not appropriate to demand it.

No one else in our lives has a right to ask that of us - ever, ever. But we can ask it of ourselves. And by allowing us to carry the cross of infertility, God has already given us an invitation to ask it. Just as we may be asked to make a thousand thousand sacrifices in this life for those we love, and at least as many for strangers; just as we can offer up every sacrifice, suffering, and privation for the good of another - we can offer this. We can choose to suffer that much, invisibly to others, so that another person will be happy. We can choose to sit silently in agony so that someone lonely or anxious will have a listening ear. We can choose to spend time with others' children although it breaks our hearts. We can do this, if we choose to do so.

And here, to me, is what's essential. Although it doesn't hurt any less, I am willing to take on that kind of suffering if I am allowed to acknowledge to myself that suffering is just what it is. And if I believe that God acknowledges it - which, now that I've actually thought about it for the first time, I realize that I do. God has known all along what this cross really is. I could name it accurately - a mortification - to my spiritual director or a confessor. If I had reason to discuss it with a friend, I could call it what it is - a heroic sacrifice. But it's most important that I can say it to myself: today, in this situation, you have an opportunity to shoulder a cross heavier than all the fasting you could do for a lifetime. You will suffer more for this person than he or she will ever suffer for you. You can give a gift this person is incapable of repaying. If you believe that it's worth it to make this person's life better, or to unite yourself with Christ's suffering, then you can do that. Not, "A decent person would just be happy for her" - because that kind of statement is fundamentally divorced from reality.

And I think that's another aspect of this that's important: we have a right to make that choice, every time. That doesn't mean we can avoid pain by turning it down - we all know that's not true. But we don't have to choose to shoulder the burden. We can decide that we're not interested, or it's unfairly much to ask, or just realize that we don't have the strength just at the moment. We can walk away, change the subject, stop listening, or tell the person how we really feel - or we can listen, smile, "behave," and be furious. And I don't think that any of those choices is wrong. We don't owe these people a sacrifice so great. And we are not in a position to make that big a sacrifice every day, let alone a hundred times a day. We each have limits to our strength, and life demands a lot of us already on a daily basis.

But we have an opportunity to choose the sacrifice - to give a person more than he deserves. To sacrifice more than we ought to. To take on something that costs us dearly. If we want to, we can suffer not because we are weak and defective, but because we are strong.

you again

2011-11-18T17:00:00.000-08:00

All right, ladies. I've been at a conference for work for a week and had no internet except for the Blackberry, so I've been off blogs for a week. And we all know what that means:

WHO'S PREGNANT?

So, also, I have to add here an excursus on Things I Should Not Be Doing. Specifically: watching television. More specifically: five to seven hours a day, because I had cable in my hotel room. I would watch things I was less and less interested in until I was totally physically exhausted - until I could not keep my eyes open any more. Obviously, this is punishment in itself (though I wasn't as bad as usual - I didn't find any Criminal Minds and I changed the channel on objectionable things earlier than often occurs to me of late, so mostly I watched House Hunters and Chopped), but additionally, I was punished, anyway. It was Florida, so there were lots of Disney and theme park commercials, and one of them went on in the rosiest of tones about experiencing wonder and beauty and life (i.e., commercially manufactured consumer experiences - but whatever) through the eyes of one's children. And, you know, the happy smiling parents and whatever.

Obviously I know this is true, not just some phenomenon fabricated by the Disney franchise; back when I was in law school, since I adore carving pumpkins (and getting dressed up in costume and making Christmas decorations and cookies and baking things in general and going out to cut your own Christmas tree and sledding and making my own hot cocoa and singing Christmas carols in the car and making snow angels and forts and nine million other things that are not as fun by yourself and which for some reason my husband does not seem to get into that much), I would borrow someone else's child (we had a friend who was a single dad who was only too happy to have someone else organize kid activities) and buy pumpkins and make an afternoon of it. So I had an excuse to act like a big kid without seeming sad and pathetic, or crazy, or both.

Now, however, since I am married and for a long time and borrowing someone else's child is probably more sad and pathetic than carving a pumpkin all by myself, I generally avoid other people's kids unless socially necessary, and I never carve pumpkins any more.

My point is, generally I'm OK with this - I make the odd bitter comment, but this is my life, and I'm used to it, and there are other sources of joy besides carving pumpkins (many of which are less messy. Also, pumpkins around here are outrageously overpriced). But for some reason that Disney commercial was eye-opening - I will get old, and I will die, and I will be alone, and no one will succeed me. Not that that's a good reason to have children, of course, but it's a natural effect of having them, and a natural part of life. How the world is supposed to work. Except, not for me.

On a more lighthearted (but still TV-related) note, I started watching The New Girl, which just began this season. I never start watching TV shows when they first come out (generally I don't even hear of them for years after they start running), but I checked out the pilot of this one because I find Zooey Deschanel so charming (and I love her sister in Bones). And it's stupid and glorifies a lot of life choices I think are wrong and general lifestyle choices embraced by my generation that I think are harmful, but. It's soooo charming. The "douche" jar (although I hate, hate, hate when people - usually guys - use "douchebag" to describe someone who is a cad, or a jerk, or a scumbag, or whatever. Say that. "Douchebag" is gross, and it's not necessary to be crude all the time) - that alone was so awesome I was immediately convinced to watch another episode.

And it is in fact super-adorable. There are so many delightfully amusing little bits -

"You have gotten so much worse."

"Why do you dress like an old man?"

"...anyone named Patel..."

"Do I need thicker pyjamas?"

So I'm really enjoying that - no doubt yet another vice I will have to extract from my life after I have grown way too attached to it. (But I think I am cutting down the shows in my TV rotation, and likewise blogs. Not infertility blogs, though. Just some of the ones to which I was devoting way too much time.)

Also, there will be before and after pictures of my house, I promise - but, as of yet, not one room is 100% finished. The bathroom still needs a second shower curtain (this part I can probably knock out pretty soon). The third bedroom needs my great-grandmother's antique treadle-foot sewing machine, which is in upstate New York, and several pictures, but I can't hang the pictures until I hang that wall with wallpaper, and I haven't found the right wallpaper yet. And the first bedroom still needs a wall of wallpaper and a headboard, and the wallpaper should really be here by now (it's not) and the headboard - I have not found the perfect headboard yet (for a reasonable price). And the dining room needs wallpaper (that should be arriving with the other wallpaper), and the living room needs molding and a border (this is not what you think it is, I promise). But I have made substantial progress with all of them. You just can't see yet. I'm sorry. I still love you.

enlightening and unpleasant

2011-11-07T17:40:00.000-08:00

This month, my book club read Sophia House, the "prequel" to Father Elijah (i.e., Father Elijah was written first, but Sophia House is set earlier in time). I haven't read Father Elijah, but I thought Sophia House was compelling. My musings here require me to ruin the ending for anyone who hasn't read it, so consider yourself warned.

The basic thread of the story is that the main character, Pawel Tarnowksi, was molested by his great-uncle (apparently repeatedly) as a young boy. He grows up brooding and sensitive, and disappears to Paris as a young man to discover himself as an artist and is taken in and encouraged by a kind author who turns out to have designs on Pawel as a lover; after Pawel rejects his advances, he returns to Poland, but has long since ceased practicing his faith, and despairs of objective reason and the love of God. He has inherited his uncle (not great-uncle)'s bookstore, and is running it somewhat successfully when the Nazi invasion of Poland goes into full swing and Warsaw is plunged into destitution. Pawel is now about 35.

Meanwhile, a 19-year-old David Schaefer, starved nearly to death, flees the Warsaw ghetto where the Jews are imprisoned by the Nazis, and deported daily by the trainload to concentration camps to be killed. Pawel hides him just as he is about to be discovered by the pursuing soldiers, and keeps him in his home/shop for a considerable period, feeding him until he is healthier. David is an ultraconservative Hasidic Jew, well-versed in theology and philosophy and wise and serious beyond his years. The whole time, Pawel is tormented by sexual desire for David, including demonic voices offering to give David to him.

Pawel, who would appear to be actually a heterosexual (his romantic interests are in women, for example, though he has never actually taken the step of pursuing a relationship - he is extremely shy), is horrified by these inclinations and resists them, turning to a greater life of prayer. He comes to accept the temptations and his general internal torment, as well as substantial material privations (hunger, poverty, and cold), as as a suffering that unites him to Christ. He and David have a serial conversation on the nature of God, the truth, and the value of literature, among other things.

Finally, one day when the shop is closed, a Polish count marches into the shop when it is closed and sees David. The count is a homosexual, and believes that Pawel is as well (he is a friend of the Parisian author, Pawel's former benefactor, and believes Pawel was in fact his lover), so he offers to hide David from the Nazis in exchange for "sharing" David with Pawel. When Pawel refuses and throws the count out of the shop, he knows that the count will immediately report him to the Nazis. He sends David to the home of his cousin Masha in the countryside and remains behind, wearing David's skullcap and prayer shawl. He is arrested and loaded onto a train to Oswiecim (Auschwitz), where, it being the end of the war, the Nazis are burning the concentration camp inmates 'round the clock. Pawel goes to his death with a joyful heart, embracing the opportunity to give his life for his friend.

So I have several things to say about this. First of all, I never sat back and thought about whether it was a good thing for me to be reading; it was so orthodox it never occurred to me to consider whether it was nevertheless harmful. I would say that it probably was. I've worked on cases involving children who were raped and molested before, which were profoundly disturbing, but I believe it is worth the sacrifice of a little of one's innocence of heart to help keep a predator in prison and more children safe. But this is only a novel, and I'm not sure it prospers my soul to stare deeply into a picture of child molestation and demonic sexual temptation. If I had it to do again, and were more reflective, I would not finish the book, however noble its point. Take that for what you will.

But my real interior turmoil upon finishing it is for a different reason. By the time I'd reached the part of the story in which Pawel has taken David in and is being tormented by temptation to pursue him, I had realized that I identify with Pawel. By the grace of God, I've never been tempted to lust after a member of the same sex, or someone half my age (though I have many other flaws, which will come as no surprise to anyone who reads this blog). But I saw in Pawel someone whose defects - which he did not choose - stunted his ability to pursue his vocation; inclined him to believe himself vile and worthless, and therefore made it difficult to believe in God's love for him; and made him into a deformed version of the man he should have been, whom others would naturally reject and revile if they knew what he was, even if his exercise of virtue were perfect.

If that doesn't sound familiar, well, I think it should. If you're Catholic and infertile, you've been asked a thousand times when you're planning to start your family, and some people haven't bothered to do that and have just started in with telling you the moral requirements for the use of natural family planning (i.e., trying to avoid conception). After you've been married a few years, they conclude that you're an incorrigible sinner and they stop even asking; they already know you're using contraception. So they try to drop hints about how nice it is to have a family and how much you'd enjoy being a parent, on the off chance that you're not yet entirely steeped in selfishness and materialism and have a heart that can be moved by truth and beauty. But that's not even as bad as the ones who suspect what the problem is; they avoid ever bringing it up, and many of them even avoid you, as if they think infertility were catching - because the deformity of a woman who cannot be a mother is so awful that even being in your company and forced to think about the fact that such things really happen is more than they can take. Your life is too ugly for them to be forced to recognize it for what it is.

And what about you? You know what you are. You're not just a woman with a defective uterus - you're a defective woman. If you were the holy, innocent, virtuous woman God intended you to be, your self-giving love for your husband would bear fruit, like the love of the Father for the Son, in another person; and you would look into the eyes of a tiny child and feel that you would lay down your life in a moment to protect it; and your body, and your energy, and your time would all be formed to the care of this little person who depends on you, and your selfishness would be mortified, and you would live for others, and find yourself conformed to the example of our Blessed Mother, and learn to practice the sanctity that would lead you to eternity with God.

But no. That will never be you, because you don't have that capacity, that God gave even to the animals; and rather than becoming selfless and generous and loving, you've withdrawn, to protect your heart, and now you see all of the people around you as potentially the next to say or do something that will lay bare your pain, which is more than you can bear; so you push them away. You don't know why He would do such a thing to you, why when His creature comes to Him wanting only to give up her time and her youth and her material aspirations to raise children to love Him and glorify Him, He would reject such an offer, and cast her aside; and you realize that when people say that "God loves you," well, everyone knows that it's true, so it must be true, but it must mean something different in your case - God must be capable of a "love" toward you that doesn't really match up with what we all understand that love is, that everyone else experiences, and you'll have to make do with that. And pretend that it's what you were looking for, that it's all that you need.

So when I looked at Pawel, responding with perfect chastity and faith and growing in holiness as he battled an affliction that would make him hateful in the eyes of humanity, that made him appear to be a depraved sinner when he was a saint, I saw an example of someone whose visage was so marred, beyond human semblance, but who had a beautiful soul.

And then Pawel died.

Not long before he died, he had gone to confession, and confessed that he was tormented by impure thoughts; the very wise confessor noted that he did not give into them, that a thousand temptations did not make a single sin, and when Pawel said that he was oppressed by these temptations, the priest said that he was given this trial so that he would grow in holiness very quickly, to do an important work for God. The book's ending makes clear that this was his martyrdom in David's place.

I am not claiming that I have grown in holiness through the cross of infertility, nor even that I've rejected a single temptation to be bitter or angry (well, maybe one or two, but probably by accident). And I'm also not saying that I see no value in martyrdom. I see lots of value in martyrdom. However, when I think that the future for the infertile is to die young, because infertility makes one fit for a great sacrifice (already purified by suffering, no kids to take care of), and unfit for life, I see red. It makes me furious. If some people are called to martyrdom - good. It is often the cost of virtue in a fallen world. If some of those people are infertile - of course they would be, we're 1/6 of the population or whatever, that only makes sense. If one of those people is to be me - I'm sure I'll make the adjustment badly, but that's OK. But if we're called to die young because we're infertile, because this cross means we're useless for anything else, if learning that you're infertile means that you go to Omaha for your miracle or you adopt or you die right now, then no. I check out; I give up; I am not interested in playing the game any more; I will become a Buddhist and hope to be reincarnated as some form of (non-reproductively-defective) vegetation so I can have another entire lifetime to meditate on how angry I am, because it will take that long.

In the several days after I finished the book, I managed to lecture myself sternly into noting that though Pawel was conflicted about his romantic life and his future before, he was not afflicted with temptation until David came on the scene, at which point Pawel's death (and thus the necessity of preparing for it) started looking like a foregone conclusion; that Pawel didn't actually appear to be in love with David (just tempted to lust after him), which would suggest that the temptations were not a product of a spiritual disorder but in fact precisely an affliction for the sake of his purification - in other words, he didn't have to die because he was unfit for life, but rather had to suffer so that he would be fit for death. To me, this distinction makes all the difference in the world.

So I am returning to a more measured point of view on these questions, which I will try to discipline myself not to share with the book club ladies tomorrow. (As this post proves, it would be impossible for me to do succinctly, in any case.) Books tend to affect me rather excessively, and sometimes I wonder how I managed as a lit major in college.

I doubt that a post in which I make conjectural threats to abandon my faith is specially edifying to anyone, or indicates that I have received any edifying myself. I suppose I haven't. I do know, like Pawel, that even when I don't know where I'm going or what I hope to find, if I visit the sacraments, if I walk through the steps of the practice of the faith, things seem to get better (at least a little better) all by themselves. And after I spent several days trying to drive out dark images of people doing awful things to children, I decided that I needed to offer particular prayers for children who are in danger of being preyed on in this way.

And particularly keen in my mind was that fact that Pawel was unable to do what one is always counseled to do with a constant temptation: avoid the source of the temptation. If it's your friend's husband you're tempted by, you see him as little as possible - any good spiritual director will tell you that. Don't overestimate your ability to fight off temptation. But Pawel couldn't avoid David, without abandoning David to die; he embraced every day with Christian love and compassion the person who was the source of his suffering. I am sure this will be the only example of its kind, for this is not the kind of virtue I have in any significant measure, but when my very pregnant coworker came by today to ask a legal question, I made a point about asking her about her children, and listened with interest to her answer, and hoped that my interest gave her a little bit of joy.

That's honestly not the sort of thing I can keep up. And as the Holocaust has been over for some decades now, I don't really know what's to become of me, and difficult though I find it to proceed in darkness on that point, I am frankly rather apprehensive to find out. I don't have a hope for a brighter future, or a bright future, or a future. I don't know. Hope and trust are not my strong suits just at the moment. But (appropriate to my temperament) I will keep putting one foot in front of the other, and God will just have to supply all that is missing - in fact, everything; because this is all that I have.

family

2011-11-04T18:45:00.000-07:00

Thank you all for your lovely comments on my last post. It's nice to know that the blogosphere forgives me for my long abandonment :).

It occurs to me to ponder my philosophy of furniture acquisition - I suppose it would be most accurate to say that if you want your home to have style, you have to either wait patiently for the right thing to come along at the right price (if you're looking for something tricky, like antiques), or you have to know where to look and be willing to pay a fair price. I tend to be a little manic on the bargain-hunting (and a little capricious in terms of the style of the thing - well, I want a bed frame that's carved but not too ornate, sturdy but not too masculine, very tall but not poster...yes, I want to find exactly the picture in my head. For $100. Is that unreasonable?), so for me, patience is definitely going to be necessary, as I suppose it is for others of the truly finicky out there.

I also have received wise words about the making of friendships. I was going to go to a little shindig tonight at the home of some lovely girls on this side of the river whom I'd like to get to know better, but that didn't work out. I've decided that tomorrow, when I go to confession (way overdue!), I will also make a little inquiry into service opportunities at our new parish. I don't actually have any extra time, but even if I have to give up on sleep, I need an opportunity to give something back - far more than any charity pursuit needs my help, I'm sure. I feel alone, detached, and adrift, and when I think about it, I realize I have for a while. I don't feel lonely - I see lots of people, and I don't mind being alone, in fact I enjoy getting things done and having my time to myself - but I haven't felt needed in so long I've almost forgotten what it is I'm missing.

And I realized something sad, but interesting, this evening, moving still-packed boxes around the dining room so I could fit them all under a tarp before I paint below the chair rail (done by the end of tomorrow? Here's hoping!). There's little if anything in the house that I wouldn't give up if I needed to for some good reason; but the idea that any of it should be lost, or broken, for no reason, makes me nearly despair. It's because my things are my people - not that I would sacrifice a human life to keep them, or anything like that, but they are stand-ins for the dead relatives to whom they belonged, or the living ones of whom they remind me; they're the silhouettes who live in my rooms where there are no people; they're my little army of helpers, standing at the ready to invite and welcome and make comfortable any guest who should happen by.

It's tragic, in a way, I suppose; but bittersweet, because truly, they make me happy - not with the possessiveness of materialism, exactly (though I recognize that my fondness for them ultimately is materialism, and something about which I need to be vigilant), but with the warmth of knowing that I am surrounded always by silent friends.

torn

2011-10-29T20:17:00.001-07:00

Hello blog. I have not died.

It's been over a month since I last posted, hasn't it? And we were only gone for nine days. And we got the internet at home again just before we left. Really, I have no decent excuse.

I owe you all a report on our travels through France, and I have pictures of all the churches where we stopped and prayed (and most often got to light a votive candle or two); and had I posted them when we first returned, I could probably remember which one was which, and in what town, and to what saint each was dedicated. We will see whether I can now. (In France, when in doubt, guess all churches are dedicated to Notre Dame - you'll be right 90% of the time.) Also, as I may have mentioned in a comment or two, the "IF girls" are now in the intention book at Mont St. Michel's chapel :).

But because I cannot get my act together and stitch together a post full of pictures (is it just me, or has blogger repeatedly switched the way it loads pictures in the last 2-3 years - finally settling on a method that is worse than any of the prior ones?), I am writing about something simpler.

I have marched into my home projects with a vengeance - you wouldn't know, because the place is still a disaster, and probably will be for a while. But I really have been doing a lot (for me). Every night when I get home from work, I let myself drift mindlessly into the internet for a bit, and then when I have gathered back a bit of my energy (I am by nature nocturnal, though this is rather sapped by having to get up in the morning and go to work), I try to get something done every day. Some days it's just priming the plaster repairs so that the next day I will be able to paint them, but I try to do more. I try to make it so that every weekend I can paint a room, and the wall repair and taping will be done so I can get up in the morning and just start painting. And then I try to add other little things in around that.

Of course there are so very many other things. Here is my list:

1. Paint full bath - DONE

2. Paint master bedroom - DONE

3. Paint third bedroom - DONE

4. Paint over red below chair rail in dining room

5. Rip fake-tile wallboard off kitchen walls

6. Finally get wallpaper sample for second bedroom and find matching paint color

7. Repair and paint kitchen walls

8. Paint second bedroom

9. Paint living room

10. Paper one wall of master bedroom

11. Paper one wall of second bedroom

12. Find replacement wallpaper for third bedroom

13. Paper above chair rail in dining room

14. Install molding below chair rail in dining room

15. Install crown molding in living room

16. Hang textured paper between living room crown molding and picture rail

17. Install crown molding in dining room and all bedrooms?

18. Buy queen bed frame and mattresses (should go higher?)

19. Find vintage gas stove (should go higher?)

20. Have roof resealed

21. Have eaves repainted

22. Replace makeshift Bilco door

23. See about having skeleton keys remade

24. Trim front vegetation

25. Paint living room bookshelves

26. Buy chairs for living room

27. Go to upstate to get mother's and in-laws' furniture

28. Replace kitchen cabinets

29. Move fridge into kitchen

30. Haul dryer under-drawers into basement (sell???)

31. Paint half bath

32. Paint laundry room

33. Replace tile in half bath

34. Paint hallways (pick color first)

35. Tile kitchen floor

36. Paint basement...

37. Scrape paint on porch windows, insulate porch...

38. Deal with landscaping next summer...

39. Finish attic...

40. Semi-finish carriage house...

You see the problem(s). Somewhere around 15-20 I exhaust what I can do in a year. (I was putting them in actual order for a while, too, but at some point I stopped; the roof will be re-sealed very soon. I'm just waiting on quote #2.) And I can only really do that if I keep up a fairly heavy pace. That pace has a few effects. I spend little hanging-out time with just my husband. While I recognize that that is bad, I refuse to feel too guilty about it, because he is sitting on his computer while I paint and patch plaster; in my view, he is the problem. He needs to take on projects with me, and then we will have a mutual activity to enjoy. As it is, I have striven not to nag him about his inactivity, and just try to do more myself. (That's not my typical MO - typically, I nag. I am hoping the guilt will get to him eventually. I actually do need his help.)

The other two effects are that I'm not as flexible with hopping in the car and driving 30-45 minutes to see our friends back on the other side of DC, as I said I would be. And I thought I would be. But doing this much work takes a lot of time, and if my DH and I aren't doing something together, I don't come to where they live just to hang out. I stay home - even on a Friday or Saturday night (well, tonight it was because no one called or emailed me to let me know what was going on, even though I asked. My DH is out of town, and this frequently occurs when he is not around. I could be annoyed if I wanted to, but I have chosen to enjoy the solitude and productive hours instead) - and I work on my house, and go to bed early.

More concerning to me - because part of me was glad that we had an opportunity to get a fresh start as the last few friends were about to hop on the baby train and leave us behind for the umpteenth time - is that I'm making zero efforts where I am now to make new friends. I would really like to have local friends. Maybe some nice girls with whom I have a lot in common! I do worry about new friends - they're either mommies (in which case having things in common is an illusion, and they will sweetly invite me over for 2PM on a Thursday several times, and when I say no each time they will just stop trying), or they're married and childless, in which case they're about to be mommies (heaven help me), or they're single, in which case they will almost immediately get married, and then become mommies. If they're infertile, they'll probably get pregnant or adopt not long after meeting me. That's nice for them, but it doesn't leave a lot of options for me, other than being the permanent cheerleader for life events I can't share. It's not that I think I should never have to be happy for someone else who has something I don't have (and I am in fact happy for other people once in a while rather than just bitter), but that can't be the basis of 100% of my friendships. Somewhere there has to be something where there's something more mutual going on, right? Isn't that how everyone else creates friendships?

Maybe I need to be seeking friendships in the nursing home community. The average member of that cohort probably has more years before senility or death than most of my current friends have before they have a(nother) child (even if they are not now pregnant, married, or even dating anyone).

Anyway, this post was supposed to be about something else entirely, which I'll sort of squeeze in here at the end. It's this. I'm a saver and a penny-pincher by nature. We're in no difficult financial straits, of course. But I've never had to worry about overspending as a pattern, because it's totally contrary to my disposition. But I had prepared myself for the cost of home improvement supplies long before we moved. I get the idea that paint is $20-35 a gallon, wallpaper is $10-30 a roll (well, the stuff I'm looking at), I can expect to spend $5-20 a yard on 54" fabric for curtains, components cost a certain amount even at ikea...and so I'm not worrying about spending the money, and I must drop over a hundred a week (wow - it's way more than that, actually) on stuff for my projects. I could tell myself that that will slow down - soon I'll be done buying paint, I've only got a couple more pieces of furniture that I need - but after that come the really expensive projects!

What if I have found my blind spot and suddenly accidentally become a spendthrift? What if I have just turned around years of financial self-discipline and we start saving at a trickle (even though we make so much more than we need)?

I am starting to become seriously stressed about this. I know there are lots of things other people do much more expensively than I do. I just spent $75 on a solid wood rolltop desk for which it would have been pretty reasonable to spend $200. If they turn out well, tomorrow I'll buy a (used) mattress and box spring for $90; that's 1/10 of retail for a queen set, isn't it? I'm mostly reusing the furniture we have, and in fact I don't think I've ever bought a piece of furniture new. My "new" cabinets, when I get them, will be from craigs.list. My mortgage is less than most of my friends' rent. Some people actually do spend $100 per panel for drapes, and I am going to shop and shop until I can do it for 1/4 of that or less (but I will need 20 panels total!!). I'm keeping all our solid-wood furniture and refinishing it instead of buying a matching set.

But I'm not willing to make do with whatever - I got rid of two ($20) desks before we moved, not because they didn't function, but because they weren't nice pieces. Now I've spent $75, for a very nice desk, but I could have had a desk for $0. The walls were already painted when we got here (well, some of it was falling apart), and I've redone even some that weren't ugly because I wanted something else. That could've been $0, too. I want to add molding where there should be molding because I have a sense of how the house should look...but I could leave it the way it is. I have passed up dozens, if not hundreds, of ads for beds on craigs.list (some at good prices and close by), because they were not what I was looking for.

I have done the opposite before; I have grabbed the first thing that comes along, or the lowest-cost thing, and my home always looked it. I have it in my head that that is what leads to the home that you see in the first five minutes of an HGTV episode - the house is in good condition, all the furniture is new, but they hate their room so much they won't even go in it. And I think that beauty is a product of waiting until just the right thing comes along - not being wedded to the vision in your head, because something unexpected might always improve it, but being committed to it, unwilling to sell it out because it's difficult or inconvenient or costs a little more than you had hoped. And my experience - seeing the places I've lived, and other people have lived - confirms that this is true. Patience, discernment (not to say pickiness) - those are the keys to style.

But what if I'm wrong, and all this leads to is waste and ruin and destruction and death?

Hope all of you have been doing well, too.

hello?

2011-09-27T15:49:00.000-07:00

OK, yes, fine.

On September 26th we closed on the house. Yes we did. Even though my husband decided he wanted to back out of the deal that afternoon, and the bank's approval came in while we were all sitting around the settlement table.

On September 27th we moved in. That's when I saw it for the first time after it became ours. I totally fell in love. It's my house. Yes, I want to change very many things about it. But only because I love it so much.

September 28th I spent five and a half straight hours cleaning our rental. And paid the lawn guy $140 to mow and do outrageous amounts of labor on the weeds and bushes (it's a whole acre, but that's still outrageous) because it was looking like our landlords were looking for an excuse to keep our security deposit, and that would be so much more. When the landlord's agent called the next week and said she was very impressed with the condition in which she found it, I heaved a big sigh of relief. I mean, we deserve it. I repaired the plaster (that was broken when we moved in) and patched and primed and painted every nail hole and repaired the toilet and washed the floors and windows and refrigerator and the woodwork and repainted the fireplace where it was stained with soot (and my DH did some things too ;)). Whew.

Internet is not installed at our new place until tomorrow - soonest they could do it. This is a blessing insofar as we have so darn much unpacking to do. I would say we're 60-70% done with that, which is better than I expected. Last night I cooked in our new place for the first time and everything I needed was right where I was reaching - a good sign. I have done much home-things shopping (and found and purchased relatively little - it will come), and have been trying out paint colors madly. I've got one for the kitchen walls, the full bath, and our bedroom. One more sample, I think, and I'll have the third bedroom. Second bedroom color awaits the arrival of yet another wallpaper sample (settled on wallpaper for our room and the dining room; mostly set for the third bedroom; not going to do wallpaper in the bathroom. Thank you, TCIE. Tough love - I need it). My, oh, my.

Obviously, as a result of this internet business, I have been a bit absent. I'm sorry. I miss you all, really. I will be back more regularly...but not right away. Because this Thursday we are flying to France for nine days. Honestly, it would be nicer if it were, say, a month later, so I could enjoy the settling-in at leisure, and also the trip-planning at leisure (with the internet at home!). But I am not complaining - no, not I. I am going to the flea market at Clingancourt. (!!!) It's OK. Don't feel bad. You can hate a barren woman - I would hate me, too :).

Love you all.

WTH?

2011-09-08T10:09:00.000-07:00

I interrupt my regularly scheduled programming of room redesign inspirations (more to come on that front) to rant pointlessly about matters IF-related.

I want to preface this by saying that I know this is shallow. And petty. And I am so jaded that this particular brand of pettiness does not usually appeal to me (it has to get a whole lot more petty before it captures my attention). But for whatever reason I am making an exception.

I don't watch the Rachel Zoe project (I would like to say that that's because it's trash TV and doesn't appeal to me, but while both of those things are true, there is clearly plenty of trash TV that does. I watched all of Million-Dollar Decorators and I cannot wait for the next season to start). But I do read TLo's recaps. (That's plenty, right?) I understand that, being recaps, they are at least a little editorialized. The show may be a caricature of reality (to say nothing of humanity), but it's also possible that the recaps are largely a caricature of the show. Even so.

Apparently all last season Rachel's husband Rodger was on her case about how they should have a baby, and Rachel was not sold. (If this were a sitcom, it would make perfect sense to do this, because the writers could ordain that the character would get pregnant the next season, making the nagging part of a coherent storyline, rather than just an annoyance to the audience. But the characters in this show are supposed to be actual people, so that's my foreshadowing of the first thing about this that really annoys me.)

Several of TLo's catty but hilarious commenters pointed out that it probably is biologically impossible for the woman to get pregnant in the first place. She's over 40 and may be older than she admits to, and she appears to be starving. I understand that it's snarky to say that a skinny 18yo is anorexic (she may just be thin), but when it's a woman in her 40s (when metabolism slows way down), she looks like a death's head, she works in the fashion industry, her hair and skin are processed into oblivion, and there are cameras following her around documenting that she never eats food, the safe money is on some sort of rather serious eating disorder. And though yours truly has never been that skinny (or looked that scary), I've done the JV anorexia thing and I can attest from experience that it will absolutely mess with your cycle. The system shock from excessive diet and exercise will screw it up in individual instances, and more generally, once you drop your body fat far enough, you don't produce enough estrogen for a healthy reproductive system.

No one here would be familiar with the effects of hormone imbalance on fertility, by any chance?

Just checking.

Frankly, if a grown woman well into "advanced maternal age" who probably has been sexually active for decades but never open to life and is wedded to her career and at least mildly horrified at the thought of having a child can't get pregnant, then everybody wins, right? Most of all the baby, and the woman second, and after that, the rest of us.

Apparently this season of the show started the other day and Rachel is pregnant. Six months pregnant, and apparently (you can go and look up the pictures) barely looks pregnant at all. I know, first pregnancies don't show as much as early, but if you're a stick, your lunch shows (assuming you eat any). A six-month fetus would be plainly visible. Apparently several of her lines in the show indicate that she is continuing the thinness obsession into pregnancy (i.e., "you can't suck your stomach in when you're pregnant" - apparently that was a lamentation), which raises a significant question about what is now termed "pregorexia," or at any rate, malnourishment of her unborn child. Given that AMA increases the risk of pregnancy complications already, who in her right mind would take the additional risk of undereating?

So now you have the entire picture that has provoked my fury. This woman didn't want a baby; her husband did, and she probably enjoyed the idea of some attention accompanying the pregnancy announcement, but the idea of being continuously pregnant for nine months is clearly not her cup of tea. And it seems clear that she does not want a child (apparently she was extremely upset that it would be a boy, and thus not likely to attend the couture shows with her. That doesn't even qualify as a "first-world problem"). Children tend to result from babies; first they're infants, later toddlers, then preschoolers, then school kids, then teenagers, and later college students and then independent adults. All of those stages have the potential to create significant inconvenience for the parents. I know I did.

I know I have been highly ambivalent about the baby thing lately (while ttc), prompting questions from the more consistent-minded among you. But I feel that I have cause. After so many years of IF, I've tried very hard to get accustomed to my life without children. While that hasn't been a complete success, the alternative seems to be perpetual unhappiness, and that, at least, I would like to avoid. Paradoxically, getting pregnant now, while a blessing, would also be a major disruption of the little peace I've acquired. I don't think this woman's ambivalence is a product of dealing with the grief of IF, though she may have had other painful experiences about which I know nothing.

Also. I get a lot of exercise and I eat relatively healthy (plus dessert and snacks) and I take my medicine and see a doctor and wear sunscreen and I don't tan artificially (beds or spray) or smoke or drink or use controlled substances (prescription or otherwise) or consume much caffeine or even dye or perm my hair. I don't "eat organic" and I don't try to be a pain in the neck to others about their health and the only Gospel I preach (and I try to do so judiciously) is the Gospel, but I think I live a pretty healthy life.

I know I go on about pregnant crack whores (I find they help people to work out complex theological points without having to sit down with Aquinas and Augustine and a course in basic logic for several years), but that's crack whores in general. That is, some women who are selling their bodies to pay for illegal drugs become pregnant despite probably not wanting to, and obviously not maintaining their health in an optimal way to get and stay pregnant. Many of these carry their babies more or less to term (albeit often with compromised health). But any given crack whore probably has less of a chance of conceiving than a normal person (though likely a far greater chance than I have, and I have not sold my body for drugs even once. See that restraint!).

But Rachel Zoe is just one person. Just one apparently physically unhealthy person whose lifestyle (with high stress and limited sleep, and a schedule that likely makes ttc inconvenient, in addition to everything else) is not conducive to getting pregnant. And that person - that person who is not taking care of her unborn baby and appears not even to have wanted a baby - made a big deal ON NATIONAL TELEVISION, for A WHOLE SEASON LONG, about a storyline that would blow up in her face if she turned out to be unable to get pregnant. She gambled that she would get pregnant, even though the average person has a 1/6 chance of losing that bet, and even though her chances had to be a lot steeper.

And she won.

I don't know whether "didn't deserve it" is the right mode of analysis here, especially given that she probably would have been secretly (or openly) relieved if she could not have had a child. Embarrassed, maybe, but relieved. But I guess this absolute nonsense is really galling because it flies in the face of even what the moderate, sensible, non-vengeful me would like to establish on the subject of infertility. I would like the populace at large to have a real idea of how common infertility is. I would like them to think seriously about what 1/6 means. ONE SIXTH. I would like them to be forced to confront the fact that that sixth isn't just professional prostitutes and extreme athletes and people with an extra chromosome and those who started ttc over 50 - it's normal, healthy, risk-averse people with no STDs and no prior abortions. IT COULD BE THEM.

And even though it must be somewhere in our DNA to believe that infertility will never strike us personally, I would like normal people to start saying, before they start ttc, "It might not happen." Or, "we're hoping to have a baby" instead of "we're planning to get pregnant in October or November." To say "if we should be so lucky" and mean it. I want people to believe and understand that it could be them, that there are no guarantees. (And yes, I did. I was 21 and 22 and unmarried and even before the endometriosis diagnosis, I said, "I want 12 kids. But if I can't have my own..." Not being [that big of] an idiot doesn't protect you. And being an idiot doesn't hurt you, even though I ardently believe that it should.)

And then Rachel Zoe goes out on her TV show and demonstrates to the world that getting pregnant is effortless; it happens the day you stop arguing with your husband; it's a trend, a fad, a brief hobby to get you airtime, not a serious life-changing responsibility; it's not something women would be wise to prioritize when they are younger (not that that helped me), because it's just as effortless at whatever age; it has nothing to do with your state of health and it's totally compatible with being emaciated; and it doesn't require you to undertake any efforts for the health of the unborn child.

There is no justice. And there really should be.

(And I do not want her baby to be born with birth defects or ill or dying - I don't. But I do want her to spend at least one week in her third trimester in mortal dread that the baby will really not be OK, with a visceral awareness that this is because she cared more about being a maternity size 0 than her child's life. I don't think that's uncharitable - I think that would be an indispensible benefit to her life, and her child's.)

WTH?

the powder room

2011-09-06T17:02:00.000-07:00

I'm afraid that after the kitchen and the bath, I start to get onto ever shakier ground. I have ideas...but...I'm not sure. Maybe you can help.

I'm afraid I don't actually have pictures of the room. But it's fairly simple in concept. It has beadboard on all four walls and the ceiling (currently painted white, and in need of caulking some fissures and repainting). It has a vintage sink, like this one:

It also has tile on the floor that I don't really like. It's ceramic, and square, and an odd-ish size...maybe three inches square? And a strange color...a sort of gray-violet. It's in good condition, although it appears to be going un-level - it's actually pulling away from the baseboard a little bit.

And it has a little older built-in electric heater, and an older white toilet, and a door and a window with a nice sash. It has a teeny bit of extra room for a half bath - not enough to add a shower, but maybe enough to add a little chest and store some things in it. So here are my much-conflicted thoughts.

First of all, the room desperately needs color. I tend to think that I can't paint the beadboard a color other than white, so that the color would have to come in from elsewhere. I didn't find many inspiration photos with floor-to-ceiling beadboard, but this one offered an interesting way to introduce some color. I think I could do brightly-colored trim paint and maybe a piece of brightly-painted wood furniture:

And then I had another inspiration. I could bring in some awesome color in the floor! A while back I had a fascination with these penny-round tiles:

They're bright, right? I think they'd make the bathroom so lively...but maybe too much so? In general I like white ceramic tiles, but white tiles with white beadboard on every surface would just be too much. And then, today, I was flipping through the posts in Thrifty Decor Chick's before-and-after party and I was immediately hooked by the title of one transformation - "Grand Hotel Mackinac Island blue." DH and I honeymooned on Mackinac Island (though we were too poor for the Grand Hotel!) and the reminder of it made me smile. I'll admit that I don't recall the hotel being painted that color, but it is an absolutely magnificent color:

It looks to me like a variant of "haint blue." So that means, if nothing else, when the ceilings of the porches need repainting (the front porch ceiling is already light blue! Yay!) I will use that shade.

In addition - thus far I have resisted the increasingly popular distressed turquoise furniture trend. If offered either the stained or the painted version of that little occasional table, I would definitely take the before - I love the look of the wood and it would fit beautifully in the picture of the living room I have in my head. But she did a wonderful job and even though it's trendy and it pains me to say this - I do love that color. And the shade is just pale enough for me to think...maybe I could paint the bathroom's beadboard walls that color? Maybe? Too much? If I kept the ceiling white???

And then maybe I could use white penny round on the floor:

That really doesn't leave a lot. I may switch out the mirror (I remember it being generally unimpressive but I can't conjure up any specifics), and I guess I need to think about hand towels. I'm mostly set on a light gray shade that can't really be discolored (I'm committed to my bright white bath towels - they always get back to white with a nice bleach wash - but I unwisely put out both white hand towels at a huge party we had a few years back and I've bleached them a dozen times and they will never be white again. Lesson learned). So just before our latest party (this past Saturday) I picked up a Cynthia Rowley hand towel in "graphite" at Home Goods. This is not my house, but this is the towel:

It has already been washed once and used repeatedly, and it is still soft. And no discoloration. So, maybe I'll grab a few more.

Hmm...that's all I've got. Would be delighted to hear your thoughts!

in the kitchen

2011-09-01T10:10:00.000-07:00

I continue my home-redecorating series. To gather the giant unwieldy pile of inspiration images into my arms all at once, I ran a google search on my own blog, and realized that I have been going on about this stuff for years. (Is it cool that I can say that? Or just weird?) I'm happy to report that some of my ideas have actually evolved, and equally happy to report that some old favorites are still favorites. Onward.

First, the raw materials. They're not much, folks:

...and...

Right. OK. We have lots of work to do. With apologies for any redundancy with prior posts: the floor is a new vinyl peel-and-stick tile in good condition. It's going. It will be replaced with something like this:

(My excellently-priced source of slate tile is here.) Yes, I know, slate breaks plates. I cry crocodile tears for the plates that will be dropped there. I just don't want hardwood floors in my kitchen. For the sake of feet, and possibly plates, I will distribute a few of these (the blue):

The cabinets are not solid wood. As you see, they stop well short of the ceiling (which is nine feet high - the only major score in a small room), and in fact they start oddly high above the counters. (That's not an illusion in the photos; it's actually even more pronounced in person.) Since the cupboards that you see are the whole lot, their size needs to be maximized. And since they're not real wood, I feel no qualms about ripping them out. My plan is to reserve a facing pair of upper cabinets to install above the washer and drier (after I paint them white), and to find a set of cast-off real wood cabinets on Craig's List. With so few cabinets total, finding the right pieces to fit the puzzle together should work OK. I'm not picky about the design - anything basically traditional that I can paint and will not look "soooo 2011" in a decade will do nicely. Obviously, 42-inchers would be great to eat up that height, but that's custom and may be hard to find. I may be able to get the requisite height by stacking. I do love the stacked look of older built-in cabinetry:

My principal kitchen inspiration image, because it simply inspires me, in a kitchen-related way, is this one:

But my pet color scheme comes from here:

I don't have an island; rather, I'm thinking of that creamy white color for the upper cabinets, and the slate blue/gray color for the lower ones. I continue to debate paint colors for those. For the walls, my favorite is Behr's "provence cream" - a blogger shows off how it looks on her walls here.

Let's see, what does that leave us with? Well, I think I should replace the sink - its angly placement is not maximizing much of anything. I love vintage ones - wouldn't this be cool? (From Craig's List.)

Oh yes, and stoves. You know I love the Chambers 1950s copper one (upper left corner):

But they are rare and difficult to find, so I have decided that I am willing to settle for a white or other less-flashy Chambers one instead. The first one that falls into my lap in working order at a good price, since the 1970s (that's almost vintage enough!) stove that the kitchen currently has...does not work on the "bake" setting. It does broil, but as the weather cools down, I am going to want cookies. And bread. Hot from the oven. With butter. Mmmmmm.

Sorry, where were we? Oh, yes. There's also the question of countertops. Supposing I go for a sink (like the one above) with a built-in drainboard, I will still need a water-resistant material at least on the sinkward side. I think that may call for a bit of soapstone (and here is a source I found for discounted soapstone remnants. "Remnant" includes pieces five to ten times my size AFTER a KitKat binge, BTW). For the other run of countertop, a little further from the splashing, I would like butcher block. Ikea sells a nice low-priced option in birch. [I never understand why Designed to Sell installs laminate instead of butcher block when butcher block can be so affordable!]
And I'm keeping the dishwasher.

That leaves a few logistical points; the kitchen is not only small, but oddly shaped, and though I don't go in for "gadgets" much, I have a lot of pots and pans, and dishes, and platters. (I am in many ways my mother's daughter - and in still further ways, the current custodian of much of her servingware.) So some space planning is in order.

First, you may have noticed that neither photograph reveals a refrigerator. Presently, the refrigerator is in the laundry room (just off the kitchen). In the second photo above, you may notice a tall cabinet with a reddish stain, and a kitchen table. Neither is in the kitchen now. On the wall where that cabinet once was I will place the refrigerator - after tiling the floor, of course.

Next, if you will refer to the second picture (waaay) above, you will notice that in the upper-left corner you can see into a room with shelves. That's the laundry room (more on this to come). On the wall outside that room is a framed something and a wooden sort of furniture thing below. (These also departed with the former owners.) I intend to place on that wall - the entire wall is blank, except for a window - a very nice vintage built-in looking cabinet from my husband's grandmother's house. My in-laws saved it for me especially (it was my favorite piece in the house, so I was delighted). It's wood, painted white, about five feet tall and almost as wide, with two glass-paned doors and shelves inside. It will hold LOTS of dishes and glasses.

Next to that, under the aforementioned window (not pictured), I am contemplating putting a little table that folds down against the wall. Maybe I could build the top with a bit of butcher block, or a piece of marble (World Market had little marble slabs for $30, and I need to check whether they still do). Under that, I could tuck a stool or two. I love these:

But they are designer and they are expensive. So maybe a knockoff. Or maybe something else simple and sort of industrial-looking.

I am also contemplating a simple white-painted wood shelf along that blank wall - about the height of the top of the window casing. OR, alternatively, perhaps above the window I should hang a pot rack, so that the pots hang over where the little foldable table would be. Here's where you can help me. Pot racks don't have to be expensive, and I've found several that I like. But which one?

To further maximize the usable storage, I'm thinking of some of those rails along the backsplash from which you can hang cooking utensils by S-hooks. At present, I'm not planning to tile the backsplash or anything, just paint it. And while we're on storage, there's the pantry idea. Here is the laundry room:

The sellers took those wooden ikea shelves with them, so that wall is now blank. You see the washer and drier (which I would keep there), and the fridge that will move into the kitchen itself (I would like to put a coffin freezer in its place), and then on that blank wall I think I would like to build in wood shelves, with nice wooden corbels, which could hold noodles and raisins and brownie mix and cookbooks. And things.

I think that might actually hold all my stuff, and leave a wee bit of room to navigate. Whew. Are you exhausted too?

the bathroom

2011-08-28T15:51:00.000-07:00

As you may recall, I posted on my plans for our (possible) future back yard space here, and some assorted interior decor ideas here. (And most recently I noted how my wallpaper ideas have evolved following my receipt of some samples here.)

It seems like as good a time as any to resume the redecorating planning posts, yes?

There are 1.5 baths. This is the only photo I have, of the full bath (obviously). As you see, it has a nice claw-foot bath. This also has a shower attachment. My DH hates it (he wants an enclosed shower and believes this one is unsafe); I, of course, love it. The sink appears to be a clam-shell one in this photo, but it actually isn't. The sink and toilet are new, but in a sort of older style, which I'm happy with. As you can probably tell, they redid it relatively recently - those are real hardwood floors (not my first choice for the bathroom, but they're in good shape so far), but of course not original to the house. So it doesn't need any major renovation or anything.

It is, however, very small, and maximizing space will be necessary. There's already a hotel-style towel rack behind the door (which of course is invisible in the picture). I think there should also be a cupboard or shelves over the toilet (outside the frame on the right-hand side). I also have a little bitty three-drawer chest that I use in our bathroom now. I may paint it a color that matches the new bathroom better (currently it's off-white), but that will help to hold toiletries and so forth.

I am still debating about the walls. I've been thinking about wallpaper, obviously. This was my absolute favorite print:

But the factory was out of stock and they won't even send me a sample. After I finished sulking, I decided it was just as well. I'm looking at one "accent" wall of wallpaper for the bedrooms (and all four walls above the chair rail for the dining room - but that will make a bigger impact, so I think it's worth it), but all four walls for the bathroom. Though the bathroom obviously is not large, I think that adds up to about ten rolls of wallpaper. The favorite print is about $28 per roll, but there are a number of prints in the $11-12 range, so I've decided to focus on some of those. (The one I got a sample of and hated was $11.) Currently I'm looking at this one:

Although it's a little bit fussy. I like damask, but I would prefer to go with a damask with cleaner lines for the bathroom (since the space is small and I don't want it to look overwrought). This one has much cleaner lines:

...but maybe it's too modern? And then there's this one:

A bit cleaner lines, not too modern, but the print is on a very large scale. I don't know whether that will look awesome or insane. (I have yet to order samples of these. Soon.)

And then, as before mentioned, I am still thinking about just keeping it simple and painting -something like this color:

So that leaves textiles, which make for fairly dominant decor in the bathroom, I think. To balance my eye-catching wallpaper, I plan to go simple there. I have white fluffy bath and hand towels. And I recently bought super-pile white cotton bath mats:

And I am (have I mentioned this before?) kind of oddly in love with this shower curtain:

I don't know why, I just think it's completely awesome. It's designer, so it's way too expensive, and also, my husband hates it. But I do also like this one:

I think in view of the fact that I showed him the octopus first, he said that the tree is not so bad. I know, contemporary design is not usually my cup of tea. But I just find them charming. And I think it's reasonable to buy a few textiles with a more contemporary bent, since they wear out so quickly - the more durable things will be more traditional. I originally found the tree on houzz.com (love!), but it's available here.

And then I had a brilliant inspiration: the clawfoot tub requires two shower curtains to go all the way around. I can put the tree one on the back most of the time. On the front I can put something plainer - I just bought this on clearance:

(Mine is white.) And then when I'm feeling a bit more whimsical, I can switch the tree to the front. I also bought these shower curtain rings (that's chrome):

OK. I think I'm pretty well squared away here. Maybe more of a rainshower head for the bath, but that's about it.

your awesomeness

2011-08-25T20:21:00.001-07:00

This morning I stepped out of the shower, with 20 minutes to check out of my hotel room and meet some colleagues to drive to the airport. I wouldn't usually answer the phone when I was in a hurry, and I never answer 800 numbers, but for some reason I did - towel in hand, dripping all over the carpet. It was my buddy at the VA, who told me that he was waiving all the conditions of the appraisal. Not pending verification that we made all the improvements as soon as we moved in - just waiving them, period.

Now, of course we are going to take good care of this house. Of course we are going to make sure it is in good repair, and make sure there's no water in the basement, and fix all the peeling paint, and resurface the roof, and repaint the eaves before winter. Of course. But, as he pointed out, all the issues identified as conditions were very small things, and the house is substantially sound, and they were saying it was unsafe on account of these little issues! God bless him.

We're not out of the woods yet - we still have more paperwork to do (even before closing), and wretched BoA still has not responded to our request regarding the appraisal price (not even to say no. They just haven't responded, in an entire week. And they know closing was scheduled for tomorrow). So who knows how that will go. But this time yesterday, I thought this deal was all over but the crying. And now it really looks like this could still happen.

(Also, as my DH points out, moving during a hurricane would be other than ideal. So maybe the date change will work out for the best.)

And I want to thank all of you from the bottom of my heart. Even with little things like a house, I'm not that good at praying for myself...maybe I do a little...but I have a hard time believing. And you guys are hoping for me, and invested for me, and praying for me (even though this is just a house, and not the life-and-death situations that affect a lot of the other bloggy ladies), and I can't tell you how grateful I am for that.

Bank of America can kiss my @$$

2011-08-23T19:44:00.000-07:00

So you know this house we're supposed to close on this Friday, and move into on Saturday? No. No, we're not. It's a long story. It exhausts me emotionally. Here is the short version (really): after all the insanity and the six months since our offer and assorted nonsense, we were scheduled to move and had done all our inspections. Thursday last, we got the appraisal report. Came in $10,000 under the contract price. I was surprised, since the contract price was about $40,000 under the tax assessment. We asked the sellers' lender (BoA) to take $10,000 off the price. Have they answered? No, of course not. Why do that?

Worse, the appraisal came with all sorts of "conditions" - things that must be fixed or the VA will not guarantee our loan, as these conditions make the property unsafe, unsound, or unsanitary. Take a moment and think of conditions that you think would rise to that level. Keep thinking. No, really, come up with a few really good examples.

Did peeling exterior paint make your list? No? Really?

Yeah, it made our list of conditions. So did adding a handrail to the service stairs (because they're missing a step, so that first one's a seam-splitter). But those stairs are redundant - there is a main staircase. Also, there's some water in the basement...and the eaves need repainting...and the roof needs resealing. And they think we need a handrail on the front porch stairs (I disagree). But here's the kicker: in a normal sale, the seller would get all these things done quick-fast so the sale could go through. In this (SHORT!) sale, the seller has no money; the approving bank (the aforementioned Bank of America that can kiss my @$$) is not going to pay for it; and I am not going to pay for repairs to the place until I live there, because before that it is not my house, and I do not undertake repairs to other people's property. For the record, there's a potentially serious liability issue there - do not do this.

So we requested a waiver from the VA...they denied it in two hours, but we didn't hear for three days...today I called and heard that they had not denied (or even received) it and I don't understand this news; we've extended our current lease a month; we're scrambling to get estimates for these repairs; I've re-submitted the waiver request to the VA; everything we have is in boxes. I've absolutely had it - I was at the limits of my patience before the latest round of drama started. I don't even want a house any more; I just want all the people connected to this transaction to be repeatedly run over by a truck at low speed.

And then my realtor told me that Bank of America has, on previous occasions, charged buyers $100 a day for delaying closing. (They can't do so here, because as the closing date approaches, they haven't even responded to our request to drop the price and therefore as of yesterday our contract is technically void. Nice job, geniuses at Bank of America. You have an entire legal department; I have a senile realtor and no experience in real estate law. NOT IMPRESSIVE.) I have heard that BoA recently lost an outrageous amount of money in what even I think was sort of a frivolous lawsuit on behalf of foreclosed-on homeowners in the Pacific Northwest. Good.

At this point I am open to renting until we move out of the DC area altogether and take up teleworking from an island off the coast of Maine (I would also consider an island in the Chesapeake. I'm very open-minded).

Moving this post to a lighter note, I am also courting small disasters in the shape of the foiling of some of my home decor plans. You may recall my endless wallpaper debates, and, as I mentioned, I've actually started ordering samples. They finally arrived - quite a few of them. Some are winners; some, not so much.

Let's see...for our bedroom, I've been set on this for ages and ages:

It totally doesn't work in person. I want something very crisp - sharp edges, with solid, even color - and this is almost "painterly," with watery color and feathered edges. Plus it's not as greenish/turquoise as it appears on the screen. It's out. Unfortunately, hours and hours of searching through wallpaper images have not revealed to me a worthy substitute. Woe.

I had intended this for the upstairs bathroom:

In addition to being a great price, I loved that the print was relatively simple and clean for a damask. I also thought that it was a faint gray-on-gray. Tragically, no. While the sample had the crispest printing anyone could ask for, it is a horrendous beige-on-beige. With apologies to anyone who feels the opposite, I loathe beige for home decor applications. A really resonant ivory seems appropriate to me in some circumstances, but beige I cannot countenance. And this one is a shiny, almost pearlescent, beige on matte beige. It's truly horrible.

Almost as long-standing as my (now abandoned) choice for our bedroom is my preference for the dining room:

That had one flaw that was foreseeable even from the on-screen version - namely, the background color had a parchment-y tone, rather than completely even color. And I absolutely loathe faux finishes on wallpaper - cloudy prints, "aged" finishes, any kind of thing that's supposed to look like bricks or wood or whatever. And sure enough, in person, it's parchment-y...but not really moreso than it appeared online. And from a distance of even a few feet, I don't think that would really be visible. And I think it's still a great choice to go above white wainscoting. So, I'm sticking with it. One room down.

For the second bedroom, I ordered a sample of this:

I loved that it had insects. That really said "Victorian grotesque" to me. I was concerned about the luridness of the background color. Again, the sample was a surprise in person. The background color was very toned-down and totally workable. The print was also much larger than I realized. Some of those flowers are the size of saucers. I think maybe the scale alone makes the print seem more modern, and that troubles me. I still love all the bugs. And I love the greeen. And I love all the different intense colors in the flowers - it would make it easy to bring in other colors in the room as accents. But...now I'm second-guessing whether it has the feel I want. I want wallpaper with a really historic sensibility, without making it look like the house is inhabited by 90-year-olds. I know that to most people's eyes, any wallpaper automatically reads nonogenarian, and I'm OK with that - I just have to get it to read artistic and interesting, rather than "museum," from my point of view.

For the third bedroom, as you may recall, I am working from this inspiration photo - I want three walls in this apricot color:

And then the fourth wall will be some wallpaper in the right color. And as I've mentioned, my point of inspiration is this paper (I need to find an affordable version, in a lighter shade):

I ordered two different shades of what seemed like a likely print, figuring they were both approximately apricot and I would pick the better one. One was ivory and the other was metallic gold. I'm not sure how that happened. My exhaustive search for a replacement has been largely unsuccessful, but tomorrow I am going to order this:

I think it has potential. HOWEVER. It also turned out to be a portent of disaster. You see, it's made by Pierre Deux, which company makes some of my very favoritest home decor prints. Wonderful things. And it is going out of business. It looks like there is still some stock in a lot of the papers available to buy - but only for a short time. So I was thinking that maybe I should look harder at Pierre Deux prints for the rooms as to which I'm still undecided, but I haven't really had much success with that.

My husband likes this print:

And I see where he's coming from, but it's very dark, too dark for a house with little rooms. And I love this print:

But I think it would be too much for our bedroom, and I want something with a lot of green for the second bedroom. So I am torn.

I have settled on a few other things. I want a warm, light-to-medium, yellowy-gray color for the living room. I'm not going to use wallpaper in that room at all. It has the uneven plaster that would be difficult to paper, and I want to use a lot of different vibrant colors of vintage velvet-upholstered furniture, and I need a neutral background.

I'm also thinking that I might just need to paint the upstairs bath the color of my Platonic Bathroom (and skip wallpaper there altogether - sad though that makes me):

I've got some ideas on specific paint colors, but still working on it.

And, in answer to your obvious question, if we don't get the house, I am just going to break into someone else's home and repaint and paper their walls.

hi again

2011-08-11T11:22:00.000-07:00

First of all, do you remember Jerry Seinfeld's stand-up routine on moving? People don't get Seinfeld references in the way they used to (and should). This is iconic, and brilliant, and everyone old enough to read an IF blog should remember it. "I love the smell of cardboard in the morning!"

We have plenty of boxes now, by the way.

Not much to report. We got the termite inspection done (no living termites and prior damage was repaired), roofer comes out tomorrow to give an estimate for re-sealing the roof and probably claim that all sorts of other things need to be done too (which I will conclude is fraud and ignore, like I do with my car - I've never been wrong, BTW). As previously mentioned, the regular inspection is done.

Got all of the paperwork done for the loan - plus apparently my plan to lock in a low interest rate early before they climbed was not as ingenious as I thought. Because - the rates dropped. And the nice lender "floated" us down to the lower one! (Which is really low. I am impressed.) I believe the appraisal is also done. The bank ninnies (not our lender, the current owners' lender) still have some paperwork or other to do, but we are scheduled for closing on August 26th and they have been advised of this.

We reserved a moving van (at a good rate - I was surprised) for August 27th. My husband found some local guys to help us move stuff. (I would much prefer we do it ourselves and am willing to move every box myself if need be - we are renting a little hand-truck so I could totally do this - but my DH absolutely insists that we are never moving without hired help again. He is not as sporting as I think he should be.)

I also ordered wallpaper samples (almost a week ago - why haven't they come?!) and I've started picking out paint chips at the big orange store. I haven't bought sample paint cans yet because we'd just have to move them, but they're only $3, which I thought was quite good. I also have to narrow down my color choices before I buy sample paint; but I show my husband sample chips and he acts like I'm trying to get him to read Sanskrit. So I will give him veto authority, and other than that, you guys are going to have to help me decide, OK? Also, I only got six or seven wallpaper samples (I probably needed more like 12) because they are EXPENSIVE. It was $42 for just the ones I ordered! Annoying wallpaper people. The other site from which I want to get wallpaper doesn't even offer samples. I need to call and harass those people.

I have worked on restraining my furniture-shopping ways since we found out this was actually going through. Every night I come home from work and pack a few boxes and it seems like there's more left to pack than there was before. (And it's also a problem that there are so many things I won't pack because "we'll need them" - toiletries, pens and pencils, ALL my summer clothes, baking ingredients, spices, pots, pans, and most of the baking dishes - and we're moving in 16 days [!!!] and I just need to reserve the bare essentials and pack it all already.) So even the amount of furniture we have (which is sort of a lot) is daunting. And with boxes everywhere there's no floor space left. I need to be patient. It's difficult.

I'm also being sort of good about IF stuff - I haven't taken my temperature in months (possibly in all of 2011?) but whatever. I started my HCG shots on time this cycle (last cycle I couldn't pinpoint peak day and gave up), so after this I want to do them for four more cycles - six total. I'm months overdue getting my blood drawn but the lab is open Saturday (p+7) so that will be good. I suspect I need more thyroid - I feel more tired than I should, and diet and exercise don't really do much to my weight. All summer I have been trying to fit into a cute summer suit. Sigh.

And I need to get off my seriously obsessive What Not to Wear marathon on youtube. If I didn't watch...well, several...episodes a night, I would get a lot more boxes packed.

...and

2011-08-05T07:58:00.000-07:00

At around 10:30 last night, we heard from our realtor that the bank and investor approved our offer - or, more accurately, our attempt to paraphrase the bank's counteroffer (which it refused to make in writing, forcing us to do our best job of drafting on the bank's behalf. Weirdos). Of course, I haven't heard anything from the seller's realtor yet today (she and I are in regular contact), so I'm starting to worry that our realtor hallucinated it.

Assuming our realtor still dwells in reality, this means we just need to finish up the appraisal (which is already underway), get a termite inspection (scheduled for Monday - apparently we don't have to be there), and get a roofer out to take a look at the roof.

Oh, and move. Today I will be reserving a moving van, getting a bunch of boxes from a friend who just moved, and, ah, packing. I started packing last night, and after I'd gotten about 75% of the crystal, china, and linens into a tub and packed all my winter clothes, and my DH had packed several boxes of books, I sat down to make a list of all the categories of things that will need to be packed. It was almost two pages. Good grief. I thought I'd been downsizing these last few months (and in reality, that list would have been so much scarier if not for that), and I can't believe we own all that crap. I really need to get to work.

Of course, I could tell myself that I won't have to move again for a very long time, but for some reason I suspect that's not true. I do think I won't have to move lock, stock, and barrel again for a while, and might get to enjoy a permanent address for a good long time - but somehow I don't see being stationary in our future.

Anyway...thanks all of you for your kind words and well wishes. I am so delighted this insane short sale process is finally (mostly) over, and I am looking forward to having a space to decorate in real life! (And, yes, there will be pictures!)

still not dead yet

2011-08-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

Redundant, yes, but it seemed appropriate.

So I am still alive and faintly less delinquent about blogging and commenting. But, not so's you'd notice.

My pregnant friend is no longer pregnant; she had her baby on Saturday. To celebrate her transition out of pregnancy, my husband and I went and got ice cream with the folks whose wedding we attended in May; I believe she's in her second trimester? Or just about? No, no, that's not really why we got ice cream with them :). He...the husband...was/is a good friend; the wife I'm fond of but know far less well.

Of course I vividly remember a year or so ago - well, March of 2010, actually, because he and I went shopping for the party we were all co-hosting, at which he met his wife - when he was talking about how difficult it was to be single still, and how you don't know that God's plan for your life will actually include marriage, and I made some very general comment about having kids being the same, and I got the standard "oh please God no don't bring that up I swear I will fake a heart attack right here in Costco" face. OK, bud.

Obviously that wasn't just my paranoia, because though he said nothing at the time (other than changing the subject), when first he saw us after their wedding (they've been all over visiting family this summer), he didn't tell us. And then later that night when her old roommate (and a friend of ours) was about to stop by where some folks were hanging out, he made his announcement in a great hurry. Points for recognizing that you'd look like a prize jerk if we heard about your wife's pregnancy from her friend with you sitting right there. Points for recognizing it was a sensitive subject with us. Some leeway for not knowing how best to broach something like that. But I have to say...he therefore announced it in front of a dozen people (as you may recall, that's my pet peeve, having to be on display with my initial reaction); he was too uncomfortable to announce it to just my DH and me. Because, what, we'd outnumber him? You have to be in the fertile majority when you drop a bombshell on these poor people?

And I had already figured out that she was expecting (I mentioned this in a prior post), so when it was just the three of us hanging out and my DH said something about it probably being for the best that we don't have kids (because so much of our lives is up in the air - but our friend is about to be between jobs and is stressed about it, so I would take that hard if I were him), I said something to make him feel better, to the effect that there are bad things about not having kids, too. Maybe I should just try to make other people feel rotten about having kids? (If I'm going to do that effectively, I need to get on a better fitness program. Note to self...)

I whine a lot. There are some good things too. This week I had discussion groups on both The Poem of the Cid (on which El Cid was based - it's an 11th century epic poem, I believe), and the Iliad. That was awesome. I only got through book IX (of XXIV) of the Iliad, but I finished the other. I am promising myself I will finish the Iliad soon - and work more on my law review article, and on the painting I started but made very little progress on. But all this is difficult, because I really need to be packing (my husband and I have a packing date tonight, which I'm actually looking forward to).

This is because it looks like we're finally moving on this house. Every milestone we've looked forward to as "this will mean it's a done deal" has come with an "oh OK, now that we've done this we can get it to the final approval," which of course is only the prelude to a different approval. However, we've signed and initialed piles of documents in the past week, and we've chosen to behave as if this were actually going to get resolved. This Monday we gave notice to our landlords that we were vacating effective August 31. Saturday we had the new house inspected. I started processing the final approval on our loan ten days ago, before we even got word from the bank on the short sale (the non-final final word; we're still waiting for the slightly-more-final word which I'm sure will also not be final), and we locked in a 4.5% interest rate. (Yes, I am VERY proud of myself for that. They went up the next day.) We've requested the appraisal, and next I shall begin agitating for the termite inspection and a roofer to come out (we know there are some issues, we need to know the extent). We're hoping to close August 26. Actually, that's really about the only time we can close. Prayers for cool weather that weekend for our move would be appreciated.

So maybe soon there will be posts of me decorating my house...maybe. We'll see.

the matrix

2011-07-27T20:45:00.000-07:00

I know I've written before about my pregnant friend. She's the one who got married in 2010; I predicted she and her husband would be expecting within six months of the wedding and I was accurate almost to the day; she and her husband, and I and mine, and another couple (infertile) spent a lot of time together, and I knew those days were numbered as soon as they got married. Of course they wouldn't be infertile. Because I have the Gift, like many of you. And she's also the gal who wrote the very kind and sensitive email after her mother invited me to her baby shower.

Anyway, her due date is July 24. Er, was July 24. She was having contractions already a week earlier than that, and her doctor had predicted she'd go within a few days and she had made it a week when I saw her last. She was obviously uncomfortable but behaving with her typical grace; after a few days at home she had cleaned every inch of the place twice and felt useless, so she went back to work. We haven't heard from them in a few days, so it's possible they've delivered already. Or, it's possible they'll be really late; this is her first child, after all.

But of course when I think, "Oh, has DH gotten a text message from her husband that he hasn't mentioned to me?" I always think, has the baby not yet been born and I have a few more days of limbo, in which I don't have to worry about how I'll react - or has the baby already been born, and I am behind, other people already know, their time in the hospital and settling in at home is already wearing down, and soon I will be required to behave in some socially normal way, and I'm not even preparing mentally? And the other day I realized that I never think - never - "Oh, dear, has she had the baby yet? What if something goes wrong? She's huge, the child is obviously full term, but what if he doesn't make it?"

This is because of the Matrix. You and I are a tiny minority, living within a world of people totally unlike us. They're all plugged into their reality, and assume that we are too; they have no idea that we're visitors from another plane of understanding, who realize that life is truly sinister, that death is lurking around every corner. Our attention is finely tuned to things they would consider tiny, things they would ignore; but we see these small things and know that danger lurks around the next corner. We walk between them as they go about their business and fight an evil they don't even know exists. They may even meet it face-to-face on rare occasions, but they probably won't recognize it if they do; and if they do get a nasty, shocking glimpse of it, it's rapidly erased from their memories. For them to remain viscerally aware of our reality would be much too dangerous. It would threaten their existence in their world, and that can't happen.

And though there's an apparent interaction between our world and theirs, in many ways, there's really no connection at all. For those in our world, pregnancies do happen; some of those even end in live births. They never get there easily or peacefully; there is always fear, and the fear is usually well-founded, because there is almost always real danger. And no live birth is a promise of another pregnancy, let alone a promise that no future pregnancy will end in death. Life can happen here; but death is never really banished. It's always hovering just around the corner. Their world is not like that. If I hear no word late in the pregnancy of a fellow infertile and I haven't myself been absent from blogdom, I worry. But I'm not worried about my friend, and I have absolutely no reason to be. The possibility of a miscarriage in her corner of the matrix is as remote as her being infertile in the first place. It just won't be that way.

That's partly because of the Gift, of course. I guess it's sort of a corollary to the Matrix. It works like this: to my knowledge (and I don't know everything but I do pay careful attention, so I would probably notice), I have never met anyone who later turned out to be infertile. Every infertile woman I know either was eligible for an infertility diagnosis before I met her, or knew perfectly well she was headed for one (got married and already had Stage IV endometriosis, for example). As a result of the gift, no one to whom I ever say something like, "Well, you may not have to worry about getting pregnant right after you get married," or, "Yes, I know you know the facts of life, but that's actually not all there is to it" will ever have occasion to see any meaning in what I say. I don't need to say any of those things, ever. I can just say, "Of course you'll have a honeymoon baby, silly!" I'm not going to jinx anyone. Because I have the Gift, they have babies.

I have really mixed feelings on the Gift.

Anyway, I'm not dead, still here, better on some scores, same on others. How are you all? By the way, I am reading, but have commented somewhat less because I find myself uncharacteristically at a loss for words lately. Gotta work on that.

IF: still annoying, after all these years

2011-07-04T08:18:00.000-07:00

For those of you who are somehow still keeping track of my treatment schedule around my various other IF-related crusades (this group doesn't even include my husband, FTR), this past cycle was my first with HCG shots. My DH turns out to be an extremely competent administerer of intramuscular injections, so that part went off without a hitch, despite my lingering fear of needles. Of course, as those of you who've taken HCG (as well as those with any sort of reasoning ability) know, there is a downside.

Peak day this cycle was perfectly timed at CD14 (any earlier and I couldn't have started the HCG in time). Dr. L/C's nurse really pulled through for me and called the insurance company the day I needed her to so that it would be covered (saving me about $200). I usually have a 10- or 11-day luteal phase, but this was a real winner - a 15-day luteal phase, making for a 29-day cycle; my usual is 24 or 25. And until day 15 I was really being good - I knew that shots as late as p+9 could hardly help but lengthen my cycle; I knew that one of the things the HCG is supposed to do is improve my hormone levels, and that one of the negative side effects of my screwy hormone levels is the short luteal phase; and I knew that there was no point testing early because HCG shots are the only force on earth capable of giving me a positive pregnancy test, but in a way that would do me no good. I decided to wait till Sunday (p+16) to test, but I needn't have worried - it didn't turn out to be p+16, but rather CD1. Well, now I know what to expect next time.

But as others have wisely said, that CD1 (or BFP, for those who march bravely into the breach) hurts that much more if you have to wait long enough that you actually get your hopes up. That's just no good.

Of course, in the continuing evolution of my screwed up approach to IF, I wouldn't exactly call my response hopeful. I woke up early on Saturday morning (CD15 - and still no spotting. I have to admit to being very impressed with this HCG so far. Not only a healthy [albeit irritating] LP length, but I skipped the days and days of premenstrual spotting!) and probably needed a few more hours of sleep - but I couldn't get back to sleep. All I could think of was the possibility of a BFP the next day, and I was horrified. I went over and over all the implications. Probably we would still buy the house, but it would be irresponsible to buy any new furniture. No wallpaper, I could only paint. What if I were pregnant when the house deal went through, and therefore still working - would it be fair game to remodel the kitchen if we could afford it then? Or would I be obliged to save that money? Even if the kitchen would be even more awkward in which to cook for more people? We could survive on my DH's salary alone (I know we are fortunate in this respect), but losing my salary would be a HUGE hit. If we had multiple children, how would we pay for their college? If we had only one, I could go back to work in a few years when the child was in school - but what if I couldn't find anyone to hire me then? I could try to go part-time, but what if my employer wouldn't allow it? And who would I find to watch the baby on those days? Buying a house (especially an inexpensive one, as this is) would be smart, but it's further than we live now from most of the SAHMs I know. It might be hard to find someone I know to watch the baby. Would I feel bad about leaving the baby with someone else, even if it were just a few days a week? I could pursue a career track that would make me more flexible, and teaching would be perfect - but although I'm trying to pave the way in that direction, it's going to take a while to get there. No way I could pull it off in nine months. And what if we actually had a large family? The little house we're buying (we hope) isn't big enough for that. And it's not like we can just "buy a bigger one later" - with a baby (let alone babies), our buying power will be slashed, not improved. And we'd need to start saving more and spending less right away, but no way I could convince my husband, before the baby even arrived, that we didn't need to go out to eat so much, or that we don't need to spend a week or two in Europe this year. (I'm afraid that trip will cost thousands, and he already seems totally closed to my suggestions that we spend just a week, or pick a hotel in a less expensive location, rather than eight different B&Bs. Instead of looking forward to it, I'm dreading it. I know I shouldn't always be uptight about money, but if he indicated that he wanted to have a good time but also not break the bank, I wouldn't worry so much. People have nice getaways all the time without spending a fortune!) And of course my DH in general is an issue. I can tell myself that if we'd had a family in the normal time, he'd be heathier and happier, not miserable about his job and convinced that he needed an extravagant price tag in frequent getaways just to preserve his sanity; that he wouldn't think he needed things to "look forward to" just to get through the days, and could just enjoy our daily life. (That's my goal - to have my source of peace and joy be the circumstances of my everyday life. I'll let you know if I ever succeed at that.) But that didn't happen and this is where we are, and the things he insists are necessary to preserve his sanity (I can't say for sure that he's wrong) are not cheap. That's merely irritating given we're both working; if I weren't working, it would be financially ruinous. How would I go about fixing that problem? And what if our marriage does fall apart? Most days it doesn't seem like that's an immediate risk, but children are stressful - having a baby could make things worse, rather than better. In that case, I'd have to go back to work - but the baby would have divorced parents and a working mother. And no siblings. How unfair is that! And I thought about how I would think it was unfair that all my recreational shopping would be ended; in Michigan, even when we were broke, I could go to the Salvation Army and spend $5 on a few shirts as my little outlet. But here, at the Goodwill, the cheapest item usually costs more than $5. (If the second-hand clothes are noticeably more expensive, you know you're living in an obnoxious area.) And I've been waiting to replace my car until the house and our final mortgage approval go through; but if I were pregnant, would it be irresponsible to buy another car? I was planning to buy a cheaper used one, as I always do, but would even that be an unjustifiable extravagance? Obviously, the things I'm attached to instead are not as valuable intrinsically as having a baby, and I should be ashamed that it would bother me to lose them.

But.

It's been a long time. When I was single, and when I was first married, like every other Catholic girl, I clamored to hold other women's babies, and gushed over how beautiful they were, and how I couldn't wait to have one of my own. I imagined the joy of sacrificing everything for some tiny little person who meant the entire universe. I thought about that being all of who I was - being someone who could tell the hungry cry from the angry cry; who kept a lovely tidy home and had a hot meal on the table for my husband every night when he came home, all while keeping the baby happy, loved, and clean; who volunteered in the parish, started every morning with Mass with the baby, helped at the local crisis pregnancy center, and knelt beside my child's bed every night to say prayers with him; who had the angelic temperament and patient disposition that I was then cultivating, or trying to; who brought casseroles to new mothers and raised my children in a community of other children from loving and faithful families; and who was a mother, first and foremost, as a definition of who I was and what was important.

None of that happened. None of that will ever happen. Even if I should get pregnant, which also will not happen, most of those things are no longer possible; some because the logistics have passed me by, and some because I've changed too much. I think somewhere inside, the girl may still be there who could look at another woman's baby with shining eyes and see there the hope of the bundle of precious joy that I'm looking to hold in a few months myself. I don't inquire too deeply, because it doesn't matter. If I could kill that girl, I would definitely do it. Barring that, she will remain in the securest of prisons for the rest of my days. I can't afford to let her out, not even for a moment. Every stupid thing every unthinking person says, every beautiful baby who belongs to someone else, all seventy-plus months of loss of her opportunity to be the person she dreamed of being, would kill that girl, and me with her. Because she's weak. She doesn't have the skills that I have, to have pity (not to say contempt) for the stupidity of people who make asinine comments about parenthood because their hearts are invulnerable to the harm; she doesn't have the wisdom to push the self-absorbed (that is to say, most of the) mothers and their children away, so they can't disturb her fragile peace of mind; she doesn't have the cynicism and the bitterness and the anger to laugh off another CD1, another failed treatment, because what do you know, they don't make effective treatments for people like me; and she doesn't have the toughness to take on directly the appalling comments of people who have figured out that my childlessness is my fault, who are so smart they know just where I should seek treatment and just where I've gone wrong, or, even better, who know exactly why God is clearly indicating that it's not part of His plan that I have a child right now. I wanted to be that girl, not this girl; but that girl wasn't made for this circumstance, and I've had to adapt. If it is God's opinion that that girl is morally preferable, the type of follower He's looking for, then He's screwed up royally, because I've done what this mortal coil allows to cope with the garbage He's allowed I should have to contend with, and what's become of me is His fault. I hope He's happy with His work.

And in the meantime, while for several years I had my life arranged so that at any moment, I could take up all the pieces of it and rearrange them, like so many legos, into a life perfectly fitted for a baby, and ready to shift again promptly to accommodate another, I eventually let that go. What with two of us working, there was a difference between what we could have afforded if the second income was just a quick opportunity for savings before the baby comes, and what we could afford, in terms of recreation or early retirement or anything, if this is how it's going to stay. And since my DH always sees the current ten seconds as how it's always been and how it always will be and I am the saver in the marriage anyway, I lost the energy for fighting him over every nickel and dime. And why bother? Why not enjoy it if it's all I have? People who say it's OK you don't have kids, you get to enjoy sleeping in Saturday mornings are really stupid, but if you can't have kids, why not enjoy sleeping in on Saturday morning? And spending the afternoon shopping? And grabbing dinner with friends? If those little consolations are what you have, is it wrong to enjoy them? If you don't have a nursery to decorate and little ones with whom to enjoy Christmas morning and Hallowe'en costumes and the fall leaves and fireflies and popsicles, what's wrong with enjoying decorating your house so you have a place to welcome the loved ones you do have? And if you put all your eggs in that basket because it's the only one you've got that doesn't kill off at least one egg a month, why is it wrong to be sad if those things are taken away?

This is longer than I was planning to devote to the downside of HCG. I think you get the idea.

In other quasi-amusing IF news: for one thing, my preg-dar is awesome, even for an infertile. Just this weekend, let me tell you, I successfully translated a friend's "yeah, she's fine" into "my wife got pregnant on our honeymoon." I don't need to tell you that this was 100% accurate. I certainly don't need to add that the friends whom I console because they are still single, and who do not in fact get married until their 40s (18 years older than I was, for those keeping score), will lap me like a wheelchair patient falling from a Medivac onto the tracks at the summer Olympics as the pistol is fired. I know you all have this talent too; I just wanted to say, you know, I've still got some serious fertility-related skills. Just not any actual fertility.

Finally, my mother-in-law, who is 77 and absolutely adorable and exactly the sort of no-nonsense Catholic lady I hope to be in a few decades, told my husband on the phone the other day, "I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. I keep praying novenas for you, and your sister keeps getting pregnant." God bless her for not telling us she was praying that novena, first of all. Second, she's done this more than once? My SIL really has a legitimate complaint about that, I would say. I believe she and her husband thought they were good and done at 5 kids; she's almost 40, is stretched about as thin as it gets with the five she has (they're a handful - runs in the family - and one or two have health issues), and her husband lost his job last year and had to take another one that doesn't pay as well, and they're living on a shoestring budget as it is. She's pretty freaked out - she hasn't complained to me about being pregnant, fortunately, but I expect she has to other people. And I would too if I were her. In summary: my MIL is hilarious.

point(s) of clarification

2011-06-28T18:18:00.000-07:00

I often feel that the anger makes me incisive, but it's possible it makes me overshoot my point. In this case, I had a number of points, so perhaps it's easier to muddle them than usual.

Point Number 1 is the simpler point. If a group of infertile women, most of whom have children, are trying to arrange a get-together, two things should happen. Number 1: the women should immediately and expressly recognize that some of the still-childless women may feel (at minimum) uncomfortable if the meeting ends up approximately eight women and six kids. Number 2: immediately upon that recognition, the goal should be set that, because of this possibility, the gathering should be organized so that the childless infertiles can attend without feeling uncomfortable - not so that the women with children can attend without having to make alternative arrangements for child care.

Some of you (not any childless infertiles, though!) will think this sounds selfish. It isn't. Why not? Well, we're all called to put up with logistical inconveniences in our lives all the time. Even me! And most of us cope fairly well. There's a difference between logistical inconvenience and real spiritual suffering. Especially when a gathering is being offered as a means of fellowship to lighten the burdens of that spiritual suffering, avoiding increasing someone else's serious suffering (not even comparable to inconvenience) should be a priority that dwarfs all others.

The thing is, I could never explain what I mean by "serious spiritual suffering" in this context to someone who doesn't already know. Unfortunately, that often seems to include a lot of women who are parenting after infertility. To anyone in that position who is reading this and thinking how unreasonable I sound (I am unreasonable all the time. This is not one of those times), I invite you to pick the three different months when you were childless that were the darkest in your life (post-marriage, during ttc), and read every blog post you wrote during each of those times. (If none of the posts discuss mothers, other people's children, and pregnant women, go through your sent email or your personal diary as well.) I am sure your words will convince you in a way that mine never could. And if you think those thoughts of yours don't matter because you've since recanted them - recantation doesn't count unless it happened before you had a child, before you were pregnant, and before you were matched. Anything else just gets you hypocrisy points...sorry.

Probably like all of you, I have seen firsthand how emotionally raw and sensitive infertile girls (not just me. Not even me; actually, I'm talking about other people) are when they're in an environment that's billed as nurturing, where they can let their guard down. And then someone - a well-meaning someone! - ambushes them with an unwittingly insensitive comment. I saw a room full of girls crying over what was intended to be encouragement at the first of the DC Catholic IF support group meetings (this one was an "open" format, not the infertile coffee). I'm not crazy, and it's not just me. There's the game face we wear to smile through coworkers' "When you decide to have children, you'll find it changes your life too," and, "But you wouldn't know, you don't have kids," and, "So how many kids do you have?" at parties and all the other unpleasantness that's just daily and we have to smile at. And then there's the face we wear when we don't have to pretend. They're just not the same.

At a gathering of mothers, any topic of conversation (if there ever can be one besides the kids) will constantly be punctuated by, "Oh, can he play with that?" "Now, Susie, it's his turn with the toy!" "Does Sammy need changing?" "My Billy was doing that exact thing while he was learning to walk!" And so on. Notthatthere'sanythingwrongwiththat except that when a childless woman is required to sit there as an audience to a whole group of other women who get to be insiders to that conversation - then, yes, there is something wrong with it. How would you like it if that were you?

And the real bottom-line problem with that is that an invitation like that, a social situation constructed like that, a set of assumptions like that, from other infertile women, who either do know better or did know better before they allowed themselves to forget, sends one very succinct message:

I don't care how much you suffer.

I don't think that's melodramatic or an exaggeration. Read it again; think about it. I don't believe that infertiles with children are composing their inconsiderate emails and whatever else with the thought consciously in mind, "I hope you suffer." No, it's, "I've got this priority, and that priority, and this would be convenient for me, and wouldn't that be nice, and - oh, the childless women might suffer. I could change all of...? No, you know, I wouldn't enjoy that so much. Maybe they won't suffer? Well, I don't know...but surely they can't expect me to...no, no, that would be too much. I don't have to do that...really, if they suffer, it's not my problem. If it's going to require me to do different things, well, that's not fair of them to ask, and if they expect me to put them first, really, I don't care how much they suffer."

This makes me angry, and, I think, justifiably so. If I were some sort of melancholic person, I suppose, I wouldn't write a blog post about how rotten and insensitive people are; I would cry and I would accept that none of them care about me and probably I would go to the stupid play group but I would experience that it offered not one iota of support or fellowship for me; on the contrary, I would cry all the way home, and I would spend a week depressed, and I would think, "If this is how the people who are supposed to love me and understand me treat me, then what little must I be worth?"

This segues beautifully into Point Number 2.

Infertility blogging is obviously an excellent resource for infertile women who carry a cross that no one around them seems to understand, and which it's generally taboo even to discuss. But it has one fatal flaw: me. No, really - me, and people like me. People who "graduate" to parenthood at around the average time for an infertile blogger get a lot of support from other childless infertiles while they are childless themselves, and then they have a substantial cohort of other recently-graduated infertiles with whom to giddily share milestones and baby pictures and new-mama thoughts. Maybe this insulation within a group of other people in the same stage at the same time is an enabler of the forgetting - the forgetting how they themselves felt just a few short months ago.

Those who graduate early don't have much of a cohort going through the same thing at the same time (and maybe they learn to be more sensitive as a result?), but they have a strong support structure while they are childless, and, since they are kind of an anomaly when they first become parents, they have tons of well-wishers from the still-childless, because they are a "sign of hope."

What about those who graduate late - or, God forbid, not at all? Well, as the "average" time passes and they're still childless, their support structure of those in the same boat dwindles down to zero. At the same time, they are confronted with more and more people with children - not only a constant reminder of the blessing they don't have, but a suggestion that there must be something wrong with them if everyone else (even other infertiles!) can achieve motherhood when they can't. And these aren't just any new mothers and children they're confronted with - these are their infertile friends and their kids. They're practically socially required to be consumers of information regarding these children, even if it hurts them. The "right" thing to do is to pretend that it doesn't hurt to have others' blessings thrust in your face, and that insofar as it does hurt, that's because you're a bad person. After all, that woman would never begrudge you a baby! But, of course, she'll never have to.

Since I'm more or less headed there already, I might as well tackle this analysis in economics terms. Infertility blogging offers effectively an exchange of valuable goods - receiving support and friendship in return for offering it yourself. It's a worthwhile bargain as long as what you receive is at least as valuable as what you give. As a general rule, mutual friendship is a good bargain - it's better to give away some of your affection and energy and receive that of others than it is to hoard all your resources and be alone. Man is a gregarious animal, as they say.

In the infertility equation, the analysis gets a little bit more complicated. First of all, fellowship is a bit more specific - it's support for a particular difficulty. People with the same difficulty are uniquely qualified to provide that support. If you didn't know that to be true, you wouldn't be reading an infertility blog right now. But there is no guarantee, once you start the project, that the people in whom you make an investment will be available to make an investment of similar magnitude in you!

Now, I'm not suggesting that we should all sign contracts to remain childless for some minimum period of time before we're, say, allowed to have blog followers. That would be funny, but it wouldn't be helpful. And of course I'm not suggesting that the people who had kids "earlier" in this adventure were pulling some sort of swindle on those of us who are left. Obviously in general we hope for ourselves that we'll get pregnant (or adopt, or both) as soon as may be; we generally hope for others to make it to the other side as well, but we are our own first priorities. (I'm not sure that's true in every case - I think it would upset me more if I got pregnant and left others behind than if they left me behind, which happens all the time as it is, and I may not be the only one who feels that way.) And some people's hopes pan out and others' don't; there's no way, really, to know whose number will come up first. Some people have won spectacularly. Some people have lost tragically. I don't think there's much rhyme or reason in it.

However, whether fault for the system's inequities can be assigned or not, the inequities persist. It's like what people don't understand about taxes: if Congress offers a refundable tax credit, the people who get the credit will pay less in taxes, no taxes, or possibly pay nothing and get money back. Where does that money come from? The federal government. Where does the federal government get its money? Principally from tax revenue. But it's not being paid by the guy who got the credit. That means that if you don't get a credit (and someone else does), it's not just that you don't get a credit - you also have to pay for someone else's.

One proposed solution for this is a flat tax rate; to extend this metaphor back to infertility blogging, it would mean that no blogger is ever allowed to have a child (so no one benefits, but no one has to pay through the nose for anyone else's benefit, either). I am, again, not proposing this as a good thing. For one thing, spiritual benefits are unlike financial benefits; even I would be unhappier if nobody among us had kids. We do benefit, at some level, from one another's blessings. (Which is not carte blanche for those who have the blessings personally to decide that they don't need to be sensitive to the fact that others don't have them. If you're totally convinced that it's just as good for me for you to have a baby as for me to have one, then maybe you should give me your baby and see whether that's as good for you as having the baby yourself. No? Okay.)

Okay, so, I've established that the simplistic solutions won't help and that I can't usually blame anyone (that always makes me feel better. You?). Now what? Well, first of all, I for one would find it at minimum refreshing if once in a while someone would acknowledge that it's not only rotten that a few of us still don't have kids (nota bene: this is not the same as saying that if I "really" wanted children, I would go to Omaha. Just in case you were confused about that), but especially rotten that we're now basically alone. There is, indeed, a new crop of childless infertile bloggers (thank God), but it's hard to lose the immediate support of friends in whom you've invested a lot of your heart and start over; and we can't expect people new to this experience and just getting their bearings to be ready to prop up those of us who have been taking a beating for years and have now been left behind by all of our fertile friends and now all of our infertile friends too. Good grief.

And what are the rest of us to do? I guess the answer is, very little. We could stop blogging, if it's gone from a source of support to mostly sadness, and I have thought about that a lot and probably will do that in the not-too-distant future. We could try to find a cohort of women who are just plain childless, and that's something else I've thought a lot about. I find those women so inspiring - not focused on treatments and pregnancies, but just on living their lives and being themselves, and being women, obviously and really and truly, even without motherhood. So refreshing.

But I've refrained from throwing my allegiance in there totally because I know that, while I am still in treatment, I don't really belong there. I haven't yet taken permanent childlessness really seriously, though I am getting closer and closer. And those women are offering a rock-solid bargain: I'll be childless. You'll be childless. God willing, we'll both live a long time. And we'll inspire and encourage and support one another. Right now, I can't fairly offer that bargain, because I am still rolling the dice with treatment that could (but probably won't) get me pregnant. If I pretended to be a member of the graduated-from-infertility, childless-not-by-choice crowd, I would risk betraying someone's trust in my fellowship, and that's something I don't want to do.

So this meandering reflection doesn't end with a solution. But it does end with a request: the next time a now mommy-blogger wants to dismiss a left-behind childless infertile blogger (maybe another blogger, but probably me) as depressing, unreasonably angry, faithless, unpleasant, or otherwise to be blamed for her own suffering and ignored, I'd like her to remember this: because I'm here, virtually alone, you'll never have to be. And because you are snug (maybe even smug) with your babies in your hoped-for mommydom, you never have to find out whether, if you had been in my situation, you'd have been as ugly and unpleasant as I am. Or maybe, God forbid, even more so.

let's be honest

2011-06-21T11:27:00.000-07:00

One of my little exercises is to keep a sheet recording how I respond to anger. Well, I may have an entry. I told Father at one point that I generally avoid actually attacking people who say insensitive or even appalling things to me on the basis that they're just too stupid to know any better - and they wouldn't learn anything even if I Told Them Things in no uncertain terms. But that doesn't really sound like compassion, does it? And he said, what do you think, "Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do" means? I'm sure our Lord said it with a better attitude, though.

The problem with my strategy (well, one major problem) is that it does not work on infertile women. No matter how I try, I cannot convince myself that anyone who went through the pain of infertility for so much as a minute - let alone for years - is too ignorant to know how offensive her comments could be. Restraining myself from responding usually involves deleting a blog from my blogroll and never reading it again, because the response would probably start with, "Do you remember even one second of the pain you felt? What gives you the right to increase that for someone still in the middle of it by so much as one iota?" and get a lot more hostile from there.

So I've deleted bloggers who said, "I felt guilty for ever being sad about infertility, because it was not a faithful response - all that pain is worth it since I now have my child." That's great, dear. That's not the spiritual value of suffering, by the way. Also, if you can spare a moment from celebrating your bundle of joy, should those who will never have children feel guilty for grieving that fact? Should they just feel perpetually guilty in case they have children later - so they can potentially spend their whole lifetimes grieving and guilty?

And I've deleted bloggers who said that just seeing their babies was a source of joy for everyone in the world. Funny, then, how they wanted to have their own babies, and they weren't contented by the contagious joy of just seeing other people's. They may even have uttered comments now and again about how they didn't want to attend baby showers, because others' blessings actually made their lives harder. They must have realized that they were mistaken about those feelings once they had children of their own.

And I deleted the blogger who went from being interesting and having a lot of hobbies and personality to (she said) becoming obsessed with keeping her page reads up after she delivered her child. Apparently she wasn't able to get her head around the fact that the childless infertile community might need to lower its dose of all baby pictures, all the time. And I believe she said almost in so many words that it never crossed her mind to post less and comment more - invest her energy in supporting those who were still struggling rather than in developing a fan base.

This charming sampling would give a cynical - maybe even a reasonable - person a basis to believe that, far from being taught compassion and generosity by their experience, infertile women become so much more selfish than other women that once they have their own children, they take self-absorption and maternal vanity to olympic heights of which the normally fertile could only dream. But my friendships (online and in real life) with infertile women who have gone on to become mothers make clear to me that there are some out there who are capable of being self-aware, compassionate, selfless, and sensitive. I just think they're in the minority.

And I haven't even shared my Exhibit A. Exhibit A breaks one of the IF blogging commandments: you can complain about anything on an IF blog except other IF bloggers. You know what? So few of the IF women I "met" when I started blogging are still childless (and therefore still read my blog - the number of women who have children and still comment here is vanishingly small, but I treasure each and every one of you) that I have just about nothing to lose. Oh, a tip: if you haven't commented here since before your child was born and you return to comment just on this post to defend women with children, I'm deleting your comment. This is my blog, as you should be able to tell by the total lack of baby pictures.

So my Exhibit A is the DC women's Catholic infertility support group, a cumbersome name oftened shorted to the "infertile coffee" (I liked to say that there was nothing wrong with the coffee, actually). It was started by Jeremiah 29:11 in maybe 2009ish. Jeremiah has many traits I do not share - she's energetic, organized, personable, charismatic, and sweet-tempered. These were all excellent traits for an organizer of an infertility support group. Unfortunately for the infertile coffee, not that long after she started the group, she adopted Tommy.

Oh, sure, she invited the ladies over to meet Tommy several months later (and I gather several women went - I didn't), but there's something about "meet the baby" and "support for infertility" that sounded not-synonymous to me. Not that anyone should not also meet the baby, but I have days when I handle other people's babies well and they are not numerous and that was not one of them. It should go without saying that that's not personal - or, to mangle a quote, "It's the infertility, stupid," but apparently that doesn't go without saying (as we shall soon see).

So at some point I took over organizing the infertile coffee. This project was doomed from the start, partly because I am not remotely as personally pleasant as Jeremiah, partly because so very many of the ladies had adopted or delivered babies in that interval, and partly for another reason. When I picked the organization back up, I opened a discussion of what the group's format should be. Pretty much everyone sent back typically female answers - "Oh I like people let's be nice won't it be nice to meet nice nice nice." I don't understand why women can't just say what it is they mean once in a while. I have other women tell me in whispers all the time that they actually agree with whatever controversial perspective I have just aired, but they would never have said it that way (or, obviously, at all). Of course, they wait until after the storm of debate is over, so that I cannot possibly cite anyone else as agreeing with me. Cute.

Finding this discussion almost entirely unhelpful, I demonstrated my broad-mindedness by saying that I thought anyone affected by infertility should come - Catholic or not, childless or not - but not actually bring their children. Let's be honest (it would be a refreshing change) - there are homeless people walking around this city talking on imaginary cell phones who could reason in ten seconds to the fact that there can be no "infertility support group" with babies in attendance. Conjure up in your mind for a moment a picture of the last conversation you had with a group of women in which one (or more) brought her baby. Now, picture an environment in which you felt free to share your emotions and struggles with infertility honestly. What do those scenarios have in common?

Right.

As usual, I had several people (some of whom may be excused for not participating because they apparently didn't read email for several weeks and missed the entire discussion - ?) tell me later that of course they agreed that the group would be a total failure if people brought their kids.

So we started it up, with the few wretched childless stragglers who remained. But our numbers were not impressive. And though I had grand plans to conduct a canvass of all the area parishes for infertile women who had no idea about the group but would have loved to participate (I know these women exist), with only 2-4 people showing up at a time, and invariably at least one complaint about the location (but no actual alternative proposals), there never seemed to be a good opportunity to do that.

Eventually, I got sick of writing tons of emails to which almost no one ever responded, and I quit altogether. Because, you see, when I had the audacity to suggest that the infertility support group be a baby-free zone (since God seems to have ordained it that way for most of us already - har, har), I had to be punished. In several months of emails, I could count on one hand the number of responses I got from women who have children (remember, I said they were welcome to come). I could tell they were angry. But I will never understand how it can be mysterious that childless women might want to seek some support for their struggles that does not constitute cooing at someone else's child.

We're moving right along in Exhibit A. I don't check my blog email every day, but relatively recently Jeremiah, bless her heart, sent out an email saying that she missed the blogger meet-ups and would people be interested in meeting? I can't remember all the names of those responding, but inallthingsgood, who apparently still remembers that she used to be infertile AND childless, said that it might be good to have more than one - one with all the kids, and one for just the adults. And then, let's see, we had some responses from people who wanted to schedule on a weekday morning, and then somebody else I think said she could never possibly swing any event to which she did not bring a child.

So there were a couple of childless women still on this email list. Ostensibly, Jeremiah's invitation was directed to all of us. (She may just have been trying to be polite, though.) Like most childless infertile women, I work full-time. God knows I don't want to come to the play-date in any case (and He also knows that after the play-date happens, there will be no remaining interest in a meeting of just the ladies, to talk about actual infertility), but can't people pretend to remember that there are childless women in the world?

I considered deleting the email and never responding, which would be sort of fitting, but wrote a very pointed response instead. I am well aware that it will open exactly no one's eyes to the missed opportunity to learn from their own suffering and show some modicum of awareness of the existence of people who haven't been fortunate enough to start families of their own yet (or ever); it will just be another indication that they're all saints (as God demonstrated when He blessed them with children) and I'm a monster.

But I still get some satisfaction out of knowing that I'm right.

all the things in my brain

2011-06-19T19:45:00.001-07:00

...or at least the ones that occur to me as I write this post.

Today I was reading an article in Old House Journal about this couple who remodeled their historic home to make it wheelchair-accessible for their son, who has cerebral palsy. The first sentence of the article - you know, the introductory bit with extra-large text - read, "After years of trying to conceive, [she] and [he] discovered they were expecting the same day they made an offer to buy their dream house - a stately Italianate farmstead located an hour outside of Chicago."

I don't think I've ever seen anything other than a feature on infertility make a prominent mention of infertility. Once in a while, you hear adoption plans mentioned as a proxy for acknowledging infertility, but that's about it. (And their house is gorgeous. Given how infertile women in particular are typically portrayed in literature and the media as completely unstable, or evil, or both, it's nice that the infertile couple has incredible taste!) By the way, don't get any ideas - we put our offer on the house on February 27; I wasn't pregnant then, and I'm not pregnant now.

Regarding the house - our original offer was valid through May 27; we extended it through June 30; the ninnies who are selling the house are continuing to try to persuade the evil BoA to approve the short sale; and we are now negotiating with our less-than-flexible landlords to let us have at least a few months of month-to-month rent following the expiration of our current lease on July 31. I decided to make the St. Anthony novena for an IF-related intention (no, not "a baby" - akin to the fact that clearly no one in this county sells the variety of HPT that comes with the two lines, that prayer does not get answered around here), and started a St. Joseph novena regarding the house as well.

By the way, I think I like the St. Joseph novena even better than the St. Anthony novena. Lines like "in the hard choices I must make, help me follow the Spirit's guidance and believe when I cannot see" and "O God, ever faithful, you remember us always and in time reveal your blessings. Help me trust in you, as St. Joseph faithfully trusted" seem to be written just for me. Of course, I was a wee bit irritated by the prayer for day 5. Assuming that the prayer was originally written for someone trying to sell a home (though it doesn't say anything about that), why assume that all such people have children? Why do even my novenas exclude the childless?

In other news, I have some more hopeful indications on the possibility of teaching a writing class for a local law school in the evening. I think it would pay less than minimum wage, counting by the hour, but if I'm honest with myself (which obviously I try to do as little as possible), my dream job is to teach law. I am not a competitive applicant for such a job, but maybe with a wee toe in the door...?

And one of the things I can actually work on to improve my credentials for such a thing is to publish a law review article (actually, I'll need a bare minimum of two). That may have made it onto my resolutions for 2011. And, um, I think 2010 as well. (I'm not checking. And don't you go back and check. Seriously. I mean it.) But last week, I actually started one. I got a kick-start when I heard of a fact pattern that would make the best possible hook for a topic I've been batting around for a while (I even ran it by my boss, forever ago). I need to get the article written by the time that fact pattern makes it into the public domain. So that day at lunch I started typing. I am going to work on it every day at lunch until it is done (I think it will take me most of the summer, which is fine, because law reviews don't really accept article submissions until the semester starts again). I also have an idea for a second article - the minute the first one is done, I'm starting in on the second.

Another thing I've been talking about doing for a year plus is getting back into painting. In May of 2010 when we came back from our trip to Austria with all kinds of great pictures, I bought $40 worth of art supplies - two canvases, a huge piece of watercolor paper, and oil and watercolor paints. Some time in 2010 I picked out a photograph for a watercolor and marked off a grid on the digital picture, but that's as far as I ever got. But now, I have picked a picture from my trip to Poland in February, actually ordered an 8x10 copy of it (it arrived this week), printed a grid on some old transparency paper at work, got a canvas out of the wrapping, drew the grid onto the canvas in pencil,* and started drawing the image for the painting. Once I started drawing I suddenly remembered how agonizingly slow that part of the process is (and not fun like the painting step). It may take me weeks before I open the oils.

But to me this is huge - for several years there have been projects that I only ever talked about. And admittedly I haven't finished any of the big ones yet, but I am starting with some serious momentum and I am very hopeful. Since I haven't done enough patting myself on the back, I must point out that I deliberately waited (since early 2011 - before that was just procrastination) to start the paintings until I had finished all the throwing out processes of my spring pre-packing; done all the home repairs in our rental; procured boxes; gotten several collections of little-used items into Rubbermaid containers; and finished all the mending and alteration projects that have been piling up here for several years.

Yes, you read that right: I am completely caught up on sewing. Some of that is because my DH lost patience and took a suit and a blazer to the tailor (that wasn't all of his stuff - I did some too), but I found that out while they were still at the tailor, because they had come up on my list and I was ready to polish them off that very night. I'm so current that I finished the hem on the suit we just ordered for my husband mere days after he tried it on; and finished button alterations tonight on a shirt I bought yesterday.

I've also taken on a number of other less intense improvements; we got some of that UPS flower seed paper at work, and I've already brought in an extra pot and planted and watered. I've kept up with my plant watering at work (slightly less diligent at home). I finally ordered all of the family pictures I want, and this week I will put up my photo collage over my desk at work. (Something else I've been planning since 2010.) I might even replace the cushions on our porch glider before the end of June. Somehow, all these little projects that I typically would (and in some cases already had) put off for months or even years because just sitting down and getting them done seemed like too much - don't seem so daunting at the moment, and so I'm able to get them done.

Don't get me wrong. I haven't become some sort of super domestic person or anything. Most of the rooms in my house still haven't been swept in over a month; the cobwebs are seriously starting to take over; I can't find the new bottle of Lysol I bought two weeks ago and apparently even a week of mislaid bleach cleanser leads to some seriously unsightly bathroom tile grout in Virginia in June; I haven't done dry cleaning in ages; and I can't remember when last I sat down and made dinner for the same night. (I have made salads for my husband, and cooked meat ahead for the salads, and put frozen pasta in the oven, and gotten homemade soup out of the freezer to thaw...)

Oh, and I waited until the second-last minute to pick up my HCG prescription, so of course it was the second-last minute when I found out that it needs to be "pre-approved," which apparently means that the doctor needs to call the insurance company and answer some questions. (I am trying to imagine what the doctor would say that would mean it should not be covered when it otherwise might be. "Yes, I wrote the prescription. What? No, no, she doesn't need it. What? Oh, well, just for kicks, really...what's that you say? You don't cover that sort of thing?") Tomorrow is p+3, which means that tomorrow I need to get Dr. L/C to call the insurance company, answer whatever questions they are satisfactorily, call the pharmacy to report that she has done so, and get to the pharmacy before it closes. Which is before I get home from work. Oh, and take my first HCG shot.

Speaking of which, this would be a good time to ask you all what your favorite how-to-give-IM-injections sites and video tutorials and tips and tricks are. Something about ice? Will I be able to sit down at work?

The cobweb issues in particular are starting to get under my skin. And that bit about the HCG, I guess. But life will continue, somehow or other, and the anthills that annoy me will recede into the distance; and, I fervently hope, the great looming mountains that block out the sun will someday be the ground under my feet that I see when I pause for a moment to look down.

Maybe.

*This is a somewhat remedial way to start a painting. However, I am very rusty, and it is a landscape shot with a lot of geometric forms - getting the perspective and proportions right will be essential to a good finished product. I can always loosen up once I start putting paint on.

St. Anthony

2011-06-13T06:45:00.000-07:00

The brilliant and inspired TCIE recently revealed to the astonished blogosphere (or at least this ignorant IF blogger) that the beloved Catholic saint, Anthony of Padua, is a patron against sterility and barrenness. In my mind, St. Anthony simply received visions of the child Jesus (yes, yes, I see the connection now), and is the patron of lost things.

He's also the only saint who consistently answers my prayers these days.* God Himself appears to have better things to do than listen to me, but if He listens to St. Anthony on my behalf, then that works too. Consequently, I never have any trouble finding lost things, but a lot of my other intentions languish. So it was very interesting to me that one of the big items on my list of concerns (not on my prayer list, for myself personally, for a long time; but I change my thinking about that periodically. I'm still trying to decide whether I want to stick with my original intention today - finding us a way to get into our house without a big hassle with our lease! - or switch to something about fertility) is within the patronage of the saint who actually likes me.

Anyway, I checked it out, and sure enough, you can find a little explanation about St. Anthony here. And here is a more expansive hagiography. That first site also has a nice prayer to St. Anthony, which looks to me as though it would be a good novena prayer:

St. Anthony of Padua, Glorious for your miracles
And for the condescension of Jesus
In coming as a little child to repose in your arms,
Obtain for me from his bounty the grace which I ardently desire.

You who were so compassionate towards sinners,
Regard not my unworthiness, but the glory of God,
That it may be magnified by you
In connection with the particular request
Which I now earnestly present to you.

(Name the request.)

As a pledge of my gratitude, I beg you to accept my promise
To live more faithfully in accordance with the teachings of the Church,
And to be devoted to the service of the poor whom you loved
And still love so greatly.

Bless this my resolution, that I may be faithful to it even until death.

St. Anthony, consoler of all the afflicted,
Pray for me.

St. Anthony, whom the infant Jesus so much loved and honored,
Pray for me.

Amen.

I mention this because today is his feast day. (Happy Feast of St. Anthony!) Traditionally I believe novenas are ended on the saint's feast day (though they may be prayed at any time), but I have decided to start one today instead. Feel free to join me. (For those unacquainted with novenas, that just means praying the prayer every day for nine days. Not forgetting is the difficult part.) And don't forget to offer up a particular prayer to St. Anthony for TCIE, who is undergoing her clear passage therapy this week!

*I occasionally take a shot with another intercessor anyway.

in lighter news

2011-06-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

I had my first appointment with the counselor gal on Friday. Too early to tell whether it's helpful, I think; I see some good things and others that I question, so we'll see. I have two assignments (one is keeping a log about things that make me angry and how I react. This strikes me as pointless, because as a general matter the problem is that I feel angry so much of the time, not that I do destructive things when I feel angry. The log is designed, I believe, to train people to see that doing destructive things is bad and they should stop. But, I will be good and fill it out).

Oh, the other assignment is to work on using "I feel" statements with my DH. Of course everyone has heard this suggestion before, and I do try to do it (doesn't seem to make much of a difference when I do), but I default to "you were wrong because" by nature and this obviously would be a change. Maybe it will help.

Last night we went to a dinner thing for an organization my dad has been a member of since before I was born - at its annual meeting (this weekend), he takes over as its next president. So he invited us to come, and we even sat at the head table with him and the outgoing president and the VIP keynote speaker (really a VIP - I think most of you would know who he is). And a couple of embassy folks (!). My DH knew it was really important to me that we put on a good show - appear on time, be gracious, make a good impression. Because it's important to my father, and my family is such a disaster, I want to do the things right that we can do well.

On the one hand, this is something my DH is very good at - networking, making a good impression on people, all that. I also always forget that we have now been working in a city for years and we both wear suits to work - it probably comes more naturally to us to get dressed up for the evening than for most people. (I imagine I will always think of myself as a disheveled misfit.) And my DH is interested in foreign policy (a relevant area for the evening), and is a huge fan of the keynote speaker (I suspected, but wasn't sure, that we would sit at the same table, and my father introduced us, which was very cool. And he is such a nice guy - not at all snotty). On the other hand, this means dealing with a lot of people he doesn't know (many of whom I've known since childhood but not seen in years), almost all about twice as old as we are, and I thought he might be aggravated and bored.

I needn't have worried. We had our best evening in a while. We ran into (or maybe were tracked down by) the only other young couple there (who had just gotten engaged the day before) - her mother is part of the organization, and the fiance is the coming-along-for-the-ride party, like my DH. They were really interesting, well-traveled, and thoughtful, and we had a great chat with them late into the night - batting around the speaker's ideas (which were really insightful), talking about travel and the difference between American and European culture.

My DH is now re-inspired to get moving on his career - not on the I-need-to-quit-this-hateful-job-Monday path (THANK GOD). Rather, he just got a promotion, and then transferred to a different (much bigger and more prestigious) company, where he will be doing the same work - but since the company is bigger, he will have an opportunity to transfer into a different area down the road, including some of the areas in which he is really interested. So now (FINALLY) he is seeing his current job as a step on the path to doing what he really wants. (I have believed that it would work out that way since he got the original job in 2009, though I can't claim I knew it would work out this way.) So today, he's been looking into graduate programs in the area, and planning to pitch it to his company that it should pay for him to take a course or two. And planning to start studying for the GRE.

I am so relieved at this development. I don't want to be the dream-crusher, but he tends to articulate dreams that are so wildly impractical I can't sign onto them. I am so happy to encourage something that will make him happy, and we can accomplish sans disaster. (Also in that vein, he mentioned wanting to do the pilgrimage to Compostella next year. It would mean a month off of work, so it's really not feasible, but I have always wanted to do it. So I figured, why criticize the idea? It's something we both want. So I said, sure, let's figure out the logistics later. And then a week or so ago, he suggested we do it one leg at a time, a week per year. Something we can do!)

I didn't do much last night other than give my isn't-this-charming smile and try to look pretty, but I like to think my efforts in that direction were worthwhile. I wore a pretty dress my husband got me for Christmas (this one, but in black). It had gotten a bit snug, and I had to work hard for a week so it fit, but it was worth it. And when I had a bad evening on Thursday, I courageously responded in the way that God intended, and went shoe-shopping. I originally bought these (I loved the idea of a sandal front and a shoe back, and they were on clearance for $25):

But I had to go back and return them, because I realized I really had my heart set on this pair:

They were $40, and it goes against most of what I believe in to buy the $40 pair when there is a good-quality $25 pair that would work just as well for the occasion, but they were so beautiful and I HAD to have them. The heels have got to be 4" (stiletto, as you see, and no platform in the toe), so I can only walk a few steps in them; mostly stand (briefly) and sit. Perfect for a dinner with drinks afterward! I put them on in the elevator as we went up from the parking lot to the hotel, and barely even scuffed their beautiful leather soles.

And I gave myself a French pedicure (since my toes would show) and curled my hair (total failure - I had to comb it out and put it up. I can never curl my hair properly!) and did my makeup - quite a bit of makeup for me, but not outrageous for evening - and wore a necklace that was my father's mother's, and I was given after she died when I was 12. And one of the ladies came up to me at the end of dinner and told me I looked like a movie star. It was silly, of course, but that made me feel good :). And my DH looked dashing in his best suit - I was very proud of us.

no

2011-06-09T16:47:00.000-07:00

I know this probably reflects poorly on me, but I think one of the reasons I got married was because I desperately needed someone in my life who could tell me, "Everything is going to be OK," and mean it, and I would believe him. I'm independent and opinionated and very unlikely to want anybody infantilizing me 95% of the time, but once in a great while I absolutely need that and there is no substitute.

I never had it growing up. Of course my father would say it, in the gravest of tones, and he made lots of very serious promises that were meant to reassure us, his children. That didn't work, because when he originally made most of them we were way too young to understand them, and by the time we did understand them he generally had broken them. (Oops.) My mother never made promises; she was just a walking disaster.

So insecure was my experience of growing up and so little hope did I have for a stabler future that at some point during the twelfth grade I realized I had shied away from all those shiny magazine spreads about kids decorating their college dorm rooms for the first time and the like - intoxicating stuff for high school upperclassmen - because I truly did not believe I would ever go. I didn't believe I would ever be anywhere I wasn't a social outcast and a freak, I didn't believe I would ever be anywhere more fun or exciting or free or even normal than in my unhappy existence. Fortunately, I was wrong about all of that, and college was, as I expected it to be even then, the happiest four years of my life.

But I was afraid of how things would go, and hated a lot of things about myself, and by spring of my senior year of high school I had gotten all the way up to 117 pounds (gasp), so I started starving myself. Oh, I was never a really hardcore anorexic, not the kind they put in the hospital, and I ate every day, but by the time I started college I weighed a mere 108 (I claimed 112). I did it for another summer (to get rid of the freshman 15) before I stopped (though by the next summer I had taken up ascetic fasting, which, judging by the health results, was worse). I didn't start dieting again until the end of my senior year of college. I was afraid of where I was going next. My family had long since proven entirely unreliable as a source of support, and had no idea what I was even up to. I was debating between entering the religious life immediately (for which I was outrageously unprepared) and going to law school, and I was still heartbroken over my sophomore-year boyfriend, who was even then clearly the wrong person for me, but whom I had convinced myself (as a college sophomore) that I would marry. Trying to give up the dream of marriage and a big family for a religious vocation was killing me. (God got the last laugh there, of course.) I was having anxiety attacks from the stress of all the campus organizations I was supposed to be leading (well, two, but with a full course load and no support system, that's a lot), and I started curtailing my food intake sharply. I started thin and rapidly got thinner. After a few months I stopped myself, but I realized slowly that I had been terrified of the changes in my life, and thought that if one of my two best guy friends - my only real emotional support - noticed and said something about my unhealthy weight loss or my obvious depression, then I would feel safer.

Of course neither of them said a word. They were struggling with their own issues. I'm not sure they even noticed.

I got married just two years after I graduated from college. I believed that God had blessed our marriage - two dysfunctional crazy people who couldn't live without each other and were somehow going to work through all their dysfunction through their marriage, as they'd already healed from some of their long-standing wounds through their love for each other - and I received my precious sign from the Black Madonna of Czestochowa that this was to be my vocation.

But I calculated wrong if I was looking for someone who could make everything OK. Maybe if I had looked for someone even-tempered, someone placid, someone whole, someone unlike me, maybe someone like that could have been the rock in my storms. But with the arrangement I chose, I returned to my childhood role, the one I was ill-equipped for then and am ill-equipped for now - the person who, when push comes to shove, must make everything OK.

I am 29 years old. In a few short months I will be 30. And it is well past time to stop harboring the delusion that someday the instability of my childhood will be rectified, that the world will be safer for me when I am 35 than it was when I was 5, or that other people will be able to give me what they manifestly do not have for themselves. I am a big girl now, and when I look at myself in the mirror, I have to tell the truth: it's never going to be OK.

oh, hello there

2011-05-28T14:51:00.001-07:00

I am annoyed about many things. The sellers' stupid bank still has not gotten back to us about our offer, which was good for a whopping 90 days and has now expired. We have signed a 30-day extension (until June 26), because a few days before the original 90 days ran out, the sellers' realtor transferred the matter over to someone in her office who has done a lot of short sales and is a bit more aggressive (we hope).

The evil, hateful, inefficient, not-even-capable-of-pursuing-its-own-self-interest-competently bank in question is none other than Bank of America. Do not ever buy a home from Bank of America.

Also, do not ever bank with Bank of America. That is currently the personal bank of Mr. & Mrs. Misfit, but not for long. Yesterday, I went to the bank to order more checks (I didn't realize I was on my last book). And they charge $12 for checks, which I think is ridiculous. The teller had a look of anxiety as if I had just asked to close out all of my accounts so I could buy a boat, cash, in small, unmarked bills. Then he proceeded to tell me that I could either pay $10 apiece for cashier's checks (postal money orders cost, what, two dollars? And I don't have money on deposit with the post office), or I can get them for free if I join the BoA "Advantage" customers, which merely requires me to have a minimum bank balance that I already have - and sit down with a customer service twit to listen to an explanation of the exact same terms the Terrified Teller had just explained to me. But first, I would have to wait in line for half an hour for the privilege. And no, you can't do this online or over the phone. I was in a huge hurry, so I said no to the explanation/signup process, and so of course the fellow realized that I easily qualify and $10 apiece for cashier's checks is extortionate and especially in this time of reduced availability of credit, they want to keep the business of someone who has a lot of money on deposit with the bank (still not as much as the student loan debt, though), and that not yet having signed up was just a technicality, so he gave me the Advantage customer discount on the cashier's checks anyway.

Wait, no, that's what happens in the alternate reality in which BoA is a competent institution that trains its employees in good business practices. In actual life, the Terrified Teller, looking even more terrified, pawned me off to one of his colleagues (he was emotionally incapable of providing the cashier's checks), who told me that I would still have to pay the $10. After I waited another ten minutes to find this out. I should clarify here that at no point during this circus was I brandishing, or in possession of, any weapon or anything that resembled a weapon.

So, who has a bank they actually like, with offices in a lot of locations (including DC and VA), tellers who are both efficient and helpful, no foreign-ATM fees, and free checks? Maybe even some percentage of interest available on savings accounts?

Also yesterday, I had my RE appointment. In summary: femara doesn't really seem to be helping, so I will be doing HCG shots starting next cycle. Okey-dokey.

Things in the misfit household otherwise continue to be difficult. Some things are better and some things are worse. I finally got an appointment with the counselor who works with Father, for two weeks from yesterday (i.e., on my day off). Sooner would have been better. Mr. Misfit has gone from generally not well to generally not well plus, specifically, very very depressed. While I have to give him credit for doing a lot of constructive things - trying to eat a bit healthier, working hard at his job, getting a lot more exercise - it is very hard to live full-time with a really depressed person.

I also know that the fact that I am now totally tapped out is not helping. I am worn out by all the negativity. After being the chipper princess (so not my personality) and uttering "but on the bright side" statements in the face of everything for days, I lose it completely, and scream and swear at him for being a horrible person. I have cause, but I am not helping the situation, and that is no way to talk to someone I love.

Finally, though I am frustrated over (STILL) not knowing whether the house will go through, I continue to decorate in my head. Here is today's inspiration photo:

spaces design

I just love the feel of this outdoor space. I have to have it - or at least my version of it. Here's what I'm planning to do. I'm not going to use a deck (partly because the house doesn't have one). But in the backyard there is an ancient tree so enormous I couldn't possibly get my arms around it. Sadly, it's just outside this picture, off the lower right corner:

The giant tree will form one corner of my little area. The other three corners will be made by these arches:

Then I'll use some of that inexpensive tension curtain-hanging wire between the arches (and tree), and hang painter's drop cloths from them as inexpensive, rustic curtains, tied back with some fabric.

Since I don't have a deck to serve as a floor, I'll need an indoor/outdoor rug. Now, while I love the inspiration photo, I don't want to go too literally Moroccan, as that's not consistent with my personal history or the rest of my style. So I'm going to stay away from a really Eastern textile palette, and stick with something simpler - maybe sort of nautical colors. Something like this might work:

I just found these chairs on craigslist for just $50 (for both!), and I'm hoping they're still available. They can go on the glassed-in porch during the winter and rainstorms, but for hanging out outside, they are going under my tree.

I think I'd also like a pair of these ($70 from ikea):

And I have one of these chairs (though this is not my photo), and I am on the lookout for another:

That makes six chairs, which seems like plenty. Maybe a little weathered wooden bench would be a good idea to expand the seating in a pinch.

I would be happy to find a heavy wood vintage dining table that's seen better days (as in the inspiration photo) and varnish it to give it some protection from the elements. I also like the idea of a zinc-topped table, which has a similar rustic feel and is also somewhat weather-resistant:

And finally, I think a smattering of pillows could bring in some more intense color.

And finally, the crowning touch. The minute I saw this rustic sort of outdoor chandelier (on Design Sponge), made out of Mason jars and tea lights, I knew I was eventually going to copy it. I'll hang it low enough to pose no threat to the tree, of course, but still overhead.

There. I think I can be patient for a few more days, at least.

it would be funny, if...

2011-05-19T22:06:00.000-07:00

So you all are bored stiff of me whining about how difficult it is to make an appointment with a therapist. Last week, I suddenly had not one but two specific referrals (one from the non-fertility-doctor, which has yet to arrive in the mail; one from Father, my spiritual director).

So I called the counselor Father recommended on Sunday and left a voicemail; his suggestion was that when I drive out to see him I could see her back-t0-back. She called back on Monday when I was in the airport about to board the plane and I didn't have time to have a (first) conversation with her, so I let it go to voicemail. That evening (after the airline lost my luggage and it took forever to get to my hotel) I listened to the message, in which she let me know she had an opening at 8:00 Wednesday if I was interested. I meant to call her back Tuesday but completely forgot. (No need to call her back immediately anyway - I was in Texas all week, right?)

She called again on Wednesday when I was standing in a crowd of coworkers about to head out to dinner. Definitely not a time to take that call! I listened to the voicemail message today over the lunch break, and she said, "hello, [misfit], it's 8:05PM Wednesday evening. We had an appointment for 8:00PM...I don't know whether you forgot, or maybe you're lost - please give me a call and let me know where you are."

No, I haven't left out any phone calls, emails, or events in this sequence. I have to say there's just a teeny bit of amusement value in the fact that after I've spent four months trying to get a therapist to just offer me an appointment, a therapist with whom I've never spoken gives me an appointment I never scheduled. A few years ago I would probably have left a sincerely and profusely apologetic message in response; several years and a significant number of anger issues later, I had to discipline myself to say, "I'm so sorry I missed you last night - I didn't realize we had an appointment," etc.

The work conference has actually not been bad. I appear to have started my fertile phase this week (typical), and this cycle I didn't take femara CD3-7 as I did the previous two cycles. The femara appeared to have reduced the ovarian pain I'd been having approximately CD7-10 pretty substantially, but it also made it look much less definite that I ovulated - my temperature spiked high but very briefly, and well before p+7 it was as low as my pre-peak temperatures. I suppose it's possible that it somehow prevented me ovulating, and that (as the radiologist speculated) I have scarring around one ovary (the right one, I suspect) and it tightens when my ovary swells prior to ovulation. (Of course, that wouldn't explain why I had really bad ovarian pain every month.)

Anyway - I was too dumb to see it coming, but off the femara, I've been in an awful lot of pain for the last two days, and I'm really hoping I don't wake up in pain again tomorrow. My next plan is to start HCG (this cycle, if I get the prescription filled fast enough), and I wonder whether, if my theory about the femara preventing me from ovulating is correct, the HCG will increase the ovarian pain. Because in that case, I might spend my fertile phase every month at home on narcotics. At least, until I figure out what I can take to prevent me ovulating so I don't have to be in pain every month or have another surgery (ad infinitum until the endometriosis decides that it would prefer to be in remission).

The principle of double effect has never been so fascinating...

Texas, ho!

2011-05-13T22:16:00.000-07:00

So this next week I will be in San Antonio for work. I know there are lots of Southern belles among our reproductively defective ranks, but I'm not sure any are actually in Texas (and I hear tell Texas is on the large side, in any case). Just in case, though, I thought I'd see whether anyone will be in the area. I believe I am free Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday evenings. Drop me an email if you'll be around and would like to meet up!

In other news, apparently today is CD1. It appears that the femara has, on the whole, increased my early-luteal-phase temps, but decreased the temps in the second week to basically the same as my pre-peak temps. (Of course, this implies that there quite likely was no "peak," which is interesting, because usually my charts are reasonably indicative of ovulation. Yes, I know, charts are not conclusive in this respect.)

Anyway, the first appointment I could manage with Tep.eyac to go over my HSG results and my blood draw results will actually be around CD15 of this cycle (when I made the appointment, I thought it would be around CD13). I consider that a stroke of luck - it should be p+2 or p+3, which sounds like a good time for an ultrasound to look for a ruptured follicle. (Yes, I know, I could have other ovulation defects, but it would be handy to rule out LUFS, at any rate.) Also interesting is that because peak day this past cycle was on a weekend, it looked like I was going too have a p+8 (or p+9?) blood draw this past Monday. But I wasn't able to get to the lab Monday, and I didn't want to wait another cycle (I was supposed to do the draw the cycle before), so I went in Tuesday - p+9 (or p+10?). I would generally consider that a waste of time, but since my temperatures have been dropping too early since I started the femara, this might actually have been the ideal time to see whether it's working right. We shall see what the doctor says.

I also realized that while I was surprised that CD1 wasn't a day or two later, I was not one iota surprised that it happened. This is my second femara cycle (and we definitely gave this one a good shot, unlike the previous one - though that couldn't be helped), so you'd think I'd have been really hopeful that this was the miracle drug and worked out for us. I admit, the day or two after my HSG, I was more optimistic than usual - I thought maybe the HSG would clear a nice easy path for the sperm! But when I realized yesterday I was spotting and that today was CD1, I entertained not one second of denial, or of hope that the spotting would never progress into anything else and would simply be one of those confusing early pregnancy signs that fertile women get. I took it as a matter of course and popped some naproxen sodium and thought happily that it would be basically over by the time I left for Texas on Monday and I might even drop a pound or two in water weight and fit into a pair of pants I like.

I know the hope will rear its ugly head again; I haven't won for good yet. But if I can have even one cycle - a medicated cycle - when I don't even delude myself that I might not start a new cycle, I'm gaining ground. Someday, I will conquer it for good.

too much rage?

2011-05-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

OK, saner infertiles. (In other words: all of you.) I need a sanity-check here. Well...I already know the "sanity or no sanity?" answer, more like where I go from there.

Many of you have encouraged me to get a second opinion, as my regular (Catholic) RE has a few practical deficiencies, such as the odd failure to answer phone calls or emails for two months. And in November or December, I contacted a doctor near my work to get an appointment for an initial consultation. She's not Catholic, and she was actually recommended by a coworker who has no fertility issues (AFAIK) and saw this doctor as an obstetrician. (The doctor delivers babies and deals with the infertile - no regular GYN work. Interesting.)

Anyway, the doctor requires both "partners" to show up at the first appointment, and each to fill out a voluminous medical survey. So far, I'm a fan. She takes forever to get to see, as evidenced by the fact that their first opening (and thus, our initial appointment) is tomorrow. So last night I broke out the survey and hammered it out.

Filling out a detailed survey about my infertility (and my life - more on that later) is quite upsetting all by itself, as I realized on later reflection. So I was already provoked. But I found the survey itself enraging, which is blindingly clear in my answers. I don't have it in front of me now, but I remember most of it quite distinctly. A few of my major complaints:

The heading says that the survey is for an infertility consultation, but the first page asks for the condition I would like to address. (This makes sense if the doctor is a generalist, or it's your first non-annual visit to an OB/GYN who doesn't know why you're there, but in this case, the condition would be...infertility.) And then the outcome I'm interested in. For all doctors, all appointments, any specialty, the answer is, "Remediation of condition above." Just asking the question is insultingly stupid, giving the impression the person who wrote the form (who I assume, in the absence of contrary information, is the doctor) is not paying attention and doesn't care. In answer to the first question, I wrote, "Infertility. (Do you get a lot of, 'I'll give you three guesses'?)" For the second, I wrote, "Finish all reasonably non-invasive treatment by my 30th birthday and resign myself to dying childless." Ask a stupid question...

Then the next page was two giant fields of boxes to check for all sorts of symptoms. The first one was moderately useful (included depression, fatigue, sleep issues), the second one not even remotely useful. It looked like it had been lifted straight from the sports medicine department's intake form, and included a great variety of items about joint pain and bone and muscle injury (not including the reproductive organs). Some hint of its profound irrelevance is provided by the fact that, with my dozen infertility-related diagnoses, I could check not a single box in the section. I wrote a note next to it: "Is this for the right specialty?"

Then there was a page asking about family history of potentially genetic illnesses. Definitely relevant, I would say. But still problematic. For example, one question asked me to check whether any relatives had had cancer. (1/4 of American women and 1/3 of American men die of cancer. The answer, for every patient, is definitely yes.) It then provided a two-inch line to specify the types of cancer (I wrote "various - breast, skin, lung") and then what relative had the cancers (also a two-inch line). I wrote "aunts, grandparents," which is accurate, but a sensible doctor would ask whether any maternal relatives had breast, ovarian, uterine, or cervical cancer, and how closely related they were - and request no information about sun-related skin cancer or smoking-related lung cancer.

Same problem with the mental illness question - I check yes, and now I have a two-inch line to state all the mental disorders in my family and another to explain who has them. Maybe this wouldn't be a problem for most of the population, but for anyone with a substantive answer, you'll never get any useful information out of that format. Again, gives a distinct impression that the doctor doesn't understand the matter at hand, is not paying attention, and doesn't care.

Also, delightfully, in the family history section, the survey asked whether the patient's children had any of several disorders. I get that there are people who are secondarily infertile and they need treatment too. Of course. (The survey asked about secondary infertility elsewhere.) But first of all, it strikes me that the portion of the infertile population that has multiple biological children is vanishingly small. The question seems to be taken from a generic family history chart, rather than tailored for this survey particularly. What would it hurt to have an early question about primary versus secondary infertility, and then a page for only the secondarily infertile to fill out, which has all the questions about children? That would be better organized and clearer, and also demonstrate some level of sensitivity to the fact that the doctor is earning her fees from the fact that I can't have children. This seems like a small thing to ask. (I circled the word "children," and in the "Explain" field below, I wrote, "This is an infertility consultation.")

Also on the "clueless and don't care" list is a question about prior surgeries. Not about prior surgeries related to infertility - all prior surgeries. And there are two full lines to provide all these details. I put that I had two laparotomies and the dates, and noted that the first had a bonus appendectomy, but if I had had room, I could have explained that both had companion laparoscopies, the second was accompanied by an HSG, how many cysts I had, on which sides, what type, and how large, and how extensive the endometriosis damage was and from where it was removed. If I were the doctor, I would want to know that. Why not offer a place for me to explain it? And what if I had had more surgery in my life than relates to infertility? Completely thoughtless.

There was also an area that asked about "menstrual irregularities," and it asked some specific questions, but not about estrogen and progesterone levels, nor about luteal phase length, nor anything about CM or temperature change. No questions about whether I'm demonstrably ovulating. Didn't even ask my FSH level! How basic can you get? Obviously, some patients have never been treated before, and they wouldn't know these things, but some of the questions are super-specific (the sports injury ones, for example), and others are so vague as to appear clearly disinterested. Why not a whole page for "veteran" patients with all their test results? And why no HIPAA consent form to obtain all records from prior doctors?

The whole thing gives the impression of being compiled by a bored 11th-grader serving as an unpaid summer intern who was only told halfway through that the survey was for infertility, and didn't know what the term meant.

My answers pretty clearly reflect this impression on my part. They're handwritten, and I only have one copy of the form. I'm still seething because I think the whole thing is so needlessly insulting, but I am thinking I have time to consider the best way to present myself at this appointment. I could turn in the form as-is; or add a cover letter explaining my tone and what about the form upset me (perhaps phrased more palatably than this post); or retype the form and type my answers, explaining that I did not have room to answer many questions in full; or I could retype the form in the format in which I think it should be presented, and either tell the truth ("I think your form is frankly offensive, and it should have looked like this") or be more subtle ("I put it in a format that helped me organize my information better"). I'm not sure I have time for the last option, but I wish I had done this a week ago so I would have.

Anyway, would be interested in your thoughts.

weekend: survived

2011-05-09T18:50:00.001-07:00

Both summer weddings now done - wa-hoo! Both were really beautiful and the bride and groom are, in both cases, just fantastically awesome people. This one was in Gettysburg, so the DH and I decided to make a weekend of it. We came up Friday afternoon, checked into our hotel, went to the rehearsal dinner (the bride and groom generously invited us because - I think - I was asked to bring up the gifts, but I'm not 100% sure. Anyway, it was a lovely dinner, in the historic Dobbin House).

We got to bed at a decent hour, and the next morning we got up, went swimming, met friends for lunch (scored the lunch table with the super-awesome Franciscan friar: WINNING!), and headed to the wedding. Despite the fact that my hips have been, ahem, expanding, I was very happy with my dress, a cute little springy black cotton number with lovely embroidery that I picked up for $10 with the tags still on at a thrift store. Luckily it was only snug around the rib cage, giving me the illusion of a trim figure with no giant tummy (at least until I at my body weight in Skittles later in the evening...don't ask). I even danced (rare for me) but I do not want anybody to see those pictures (very enthusiastic photographer, who estimated she got 4000 shots), because I always look so darn awkward. I can feel myself looking awkward. I'm a terrible dancer. Ah, well. The lovely girlfriend of mine who most vastly outshone me is single, so that's for the best.

Sunday we got up at a decent hour, had brunch at the Lincoln Diner, and then headed to the Lourdes shrine at Emmitsburg, where we said a prayer in front of the blessed sacrament in the tiny chapel, doused ourselves with some non-miraculous-but-still-grace-bestowing water, and lit votive candles. Then we headed to Mass at the shrine, which is gorgeous. Before we left Emmitsburg, I made my husband stop at the antique mall with me. It was a well-priced antique mall (puts the ones in the DC area and even Charlottesville totally to shame in that respect), but was heavier on trinkets (as opposed to furniture) than I would've liked. I didn't find any furniture I couldn't live without, but I did find a full-length fur coat. I generally don't like furs - the Michelin Man proportions, the sometimes garish colors, the occasionally icky texture - but this is an even brownish black, has a trench coat silhouette, and is the softest thing ever. And in perfect condition, with a Saks tag. (It's not an antique - it looks pretty new.) My internet research indicates that it is probably a sheared mink, and would be worth north of $4000 new. I paid $35. I hope I find an opportunity to wear it.

After the antique mall, we hit the Candyland roadside ice cream shop and managed to catch our buddies (who had skipped the antique mall and driven on ahead). Our traveling companions for the day were the other infertile couple we hang out with, and the couple married a year ago who are due in July. She (that is, the gal who's expecting) has been more gracious about the situation than I could have imagined possible - though that doesn't make it easy for me (or our other friend) to see her walking easily through the firsts of marriage and motherhood that we should have had, to have the innocence and lightheartedness that I know now I'll never have.

Today I got this email from her:

I believe my mom recently mailed out invites for a Baby Shower that she is throwing for me. I definitely didn't want to leave you out since you are a dear friend, but I wanted to let you know that I would never be offended or anything if you chose not to attend (and please don't feel like you need to send a gift). I don't know what it's like to carry your cross, but I imagine that attending this type of event would not be a favorite way to spend a Saturday afternoon. Your friendship means a lot to me, and I don't desire to put friend in a situation that would be uncomfortable. Of course, if you'd like to attend, I'd love to see you...but I just wanted to let you know that I would more than understand if you chose to opt out. I pray for you and [my DH] often.

I almost (almost) wish that she were really rotten so I could feel justified in wishing her ill - it's too much that she's so blessed and also so gracious, right? But what an extraordinary friend. How could she know what it's like to be here? I don't know that I would think of it, if I hadn't been through it. I didn't even wish her a happy Mother's Day, and I spent the day with her - I wasn't trying to be mean, I just didn't have the strength to deal with the inevitable hideously awkward conversation. I wasn't planning to attend the shower (and still don't intend to) - she may be gracious, but at least a significant minority of her other guests are guaranteed to be clueless. But I think it's only fair I get her a nice present. On one of the days when walking through the baby section of Target does not fill my mind with tempting thoughts of arson. (It really does depend on the day.) And find some way to tell her how much I appreciate her thoughtfulness, without sounding like a melodramatic loon.

howwsssssss??

2011-05-02T19:21:00.001-07:00

Our realtor predicted that we would hear something from the bank approving the short sale this week. "This week" does not mean Monday and of course it wouldn't, anyway, because businesses, especially inefficient ones, are shaking themselves out of a weekend stupor on Mondays. I know this perfectly well.

Nevertheless I have become unexpectedly antsy.

Now I am suddenly concerned that the bank may refuse our offer. Previously, I figured there was no serious possibility of this (though I always understood that it was possible that the bank would ignore our offer, in which case we would also not get the house). I have also been thinking about the possibility that the bank will ask us to "improve" our offer. My first answer to this is "No," followed by, "Are you kidding me?" I plan to get copies of charts to indicate that in the two months the bank has sat on our offer, interest rates have gone up, and housing prices have gone down (while our offer has stayed the same).

But most of all I realize that I am not entirely emotionally ready to move.

Yes, I have bought Rubbermaid storage containers (and filled a few of them). Yes, we have weeded through all of our collections of things and thrown out or donated substantial amounts. Yes, I have begun obtaining cardboard boxes (and I have an appointment to get more - precious liquor boxes this time, the very best boxes for packing books - on Friday). Yes, I have repaired all the things in our little rental that needed repairing (cabinet door: CONQUERED!). I'm even partway to having the place clean. And yes, I've been working (slowly) toward finding a replacement tenant. But I will be sad to leave.

We inadvertently stumbled on a rental property (the only one we looked at) that was an easy commute to both our jobs and centrally located for all our friends - with the bonus of free street parking and a church parking lot down the street that is empty on weekends (in this area, that is a serious coup - invaluable for parties). And it's over a century old, with original hardwood floors throughout, a working woodburning fireplace, a laundry room with a huge closet area, and an absolutely enormous yard that grows blackberries and daffodils all by itself. It doesn't have a guest room and it isn't really ours, but I will still miss this dear little house. We really made it a home.

Most of all, I will miss the people. We have done very little entertaining in the last six months - before my DH started his job that sent him all over the world, we threw big parties on a frequent basis. Now that he's not traveling any more, we don't really do anything. I appreciate getting a little bit more sleep, but I miss having people to fuss over and feed. And even though we're not doing that here now, this house is still impregnated with the memories of a lot of joy and laughter, and I am afraid that our new house won't see any of that. I will make a genuine effort to be welcoming and fun, but I won't try to force the issue. If people don't want to come visit, I will just let it go.

I realized when my sister was here in the fall for a few weeks that to feel happy and lighthearted and as though my life is full, I don't need babies after all. I want there to be family to come home to, and for some reason just my DH doesn't cut it (I don't know why not) - but it doesn't have to be small children. If I had roommates...or adult family around...or very close friends as close neighbors...something like community, I think, then I would be happy. If I had people with whom to share, not an evening in a bar on Friday night (I spend a lot of time in bars for someone who hates them so), but a normal dinner on a normal Tuesday, like it was just normal to do so, then I would have a family.

This might be even more difficult than procuring a baby, but I am going to keep searching.

praise God

2011-04-28T08:46:00.001-07:00

I had my HSG this morning. The right tube has hydrosalpinx (it also did at my first HSG in early 2009). The left tube does not - it spilled properly. (Same result as early 2009.) I had it done again because during my laparotomy in October of 2009, the doctor also queued up an HSG, and it indicated hydrosalpinx in both tubes (she speculated this was caused by the three months of tamoxifen I took before surgery, which may have aggravated my endometriosis and caused adhesions that fused the second tube shut. Endometriosis sufferers taking stimulating drugs BEFORE having surgery: you have been warned). Her hope was that the surgery would remedy this problem, but I had not verified that this was so.

I know I have a foot in the I quit/permanently infertile/no more treatment camp, but I feel like I've had my sentence suspended on the way to the gas chamber. I didn't know I would be this relieved.

I mean this in no way to attack those whose infertily is medically absolute; I will be joining you there soon (the eggs are aging rapidly). But my resolutions for 2011 included checking a few last things off the infertility treatment list before hanging up my ~~gown~~ hat. Although my infertility is understood to be endo-related, I don't have a little framed certificate with a medical diagnosis, and the surgery that should (could?) have helped didn't help, so I want to resolve my condition intelligibly in my own mind and then move on with my life.

I also took my second round of femara this cycle. I will be doing a blood draw on p+7 to see whether it's improving my hormone levels (it has already improved my chart, clearly). I'll also be trying to make a sporting use of this cycle so I actually get my money's worth out of the drugs (didn't do much with last cycle). And next cycle, I will bite the bullet and start intramuscular HCG injections. (I already have the prescription.) Had the HSG results been bad, I would not be moving to that step.

One other thing I haven't done that I would find useful is an ultrasound series. However, it would significantly interfere with my ability to do my job, and I am not sure I want to deal with that much of a pain in the neck. Since it's diagnosis, not treatment, it doesn't really seem worth the headache. I don't have any reason to believe I am not ovulating (other than my obstinate failure to get pregnant), and some ultrasounds helpfully timed after peak day were consistent with having ovulated (but not conclusive - of course).

We shall see.

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!

2011-04-26T09:26:00.000-07:00

Part whatever.

I just realized that I need to fix the hinge on one of the kitchen cupboard doors, so I want to be clear that I am not done, done. Maybe that will never happen. But.

I rehung all the hateful mini-blinds (except in the double window where I didn't have to use curtain hardware - I can just take the curtain down at the last minute and not have any holes to fill in). I filled in all the screw holes from where I hung hardware for curtains. I patched all the holes in the plaster. I patched cracks in the fireplace mortar. My landlord came and caulked the gap in the bathtub (but didn't do anything about the fact that the bathtub for some reason appears to be sinking. Of course). I painted over everything I had patched. I used tri-sodium phosphate to clean the soot from the fireplace mantel and the bathroom walls and ceiling (from candles). I repainted the fireplace where the soot had stained it. We went through all the books and came up with three laundry baskets full to give away (still need to cart them to the Goodwill), and I went through all the other closets, shelves, and containers that contain things and threw out a significant percentage of said things. We discovered and killed a mouse. That means (other than the aforementioned cupboard doors I just remembered) the "repair" phase is done. Next is cleaning (the house was TRASHED by the time I finished all that stuff), and next is projects (mending, artwork).

So I started cleaning - I got the laundry room, kitchen, and bathroom done before I was derailed by Easter. I've started the guest room/area, and I need to finish that and clean the living room and our bedroom (my husband may not know it, but he's going to help me with those). This past weekend, I also made a lamb cake for Easter, bought wedding presents (with my BBB coupons) for the two weddings we have on the next two weekends (more people who will soon have babies before me. I have already mentally prepared - don't worry), and bought maaaaaybe just a couple of small things for my future house.

It goes without saying that I have also spent loads of time poring over old-fashioned wallpaper for the rooms of the new house (no, no news. Why would there be news?).

AND, I finally conquered my flexible spending account. A flexible spending account is a totally evil impostor version of a health savings account, that your brain tricks you into believing is basically the same because it has two of the same letters. Do not be fooled. The concept is simple: HSA good. FSA evil. Even though it's your money in the FSA (taken out before taxes, which is why it's supposed to save you money), they make you jump through a million hoops to prove that it's for medical purposes, and even when you obviously have documentation, they constantly reject claims that aren't documented in just the way they would like. Because I lie all the time about my medical expenses. You know, as one does.

And, FSA money expires; you have deadlines to turn in (the umpteenth version of) all these receipts that they reject. April 30, 2011, is the deadline for FSA money from 2010 (and believe me, I will not have another one of these after 2010!), and I got in all my documentation as of this past week! I only put $1000 in the account (we spent almost twice that on medical stuff), but I was afraid I was going to lose some of it because they rejected hundreds of dollars in claims. Instead of saving me money on taxes, it was going to lose me money that would just be taken away and never returned. BUT I WON! They paid me the last of my $1000 and now the nightmare is over.

I almost typed, "Bring it on, 2011 - I can take you," and then deleted it (you see there it's in quotation marks - that doesn't count), because I have an HSG on Thursday, and I could have, like, a Cowper's Gland where my ovaries are supposed to be. My victories are small; my enemies are potentially of infinite variety and near-infinite power. But I am not giving up.

Hiya prayer buddy!

2011-04-24T05:53:00.000-07:00

For Lent I got to pray for the lovely Karen at Hope - Pray - Trust. She's had a lot going on lately! In January she lost her beloved grandmother. On March 21st, she delivered her baby girl, Mary Grace. She's also a recent convert to the faith (yay!). I'm generally a pretty lame prayer buddy, so I decided to offer up my Lenten prayers for her. I tried to go to Mass every day, and for each day I didn't, I would pray a Rosary. It doesn't bode well for my hopes of attending Mass daily after Lent, but it came out to about 20 Rosaries and 20 Masses for her intentions, as well as a sprinkling of times I remembered to pray the Angelus.

I also had the brilliant idea that I would figure out who her patron saint for 2011 was and pray a novena to that saint. I was so proud of this little inspiration, but my super-sleuthing was unsuccessful - I'm not sure whether she signed up for a patron saint. But since she had named her baby Mary Grace, I thought a novena to Our Lady of Grace might be in order. Fr. Google is more impressive than Dr. Google, it turns out - I found out about Padre Pio's devotion to a beautiful image of Our Lady (although I think that looks like a pair of wings in the picture, not milk), and a novena associated with the image. (I screwed up and forgot on Palm Sunday, of all days, but I prayed it twice the next day and also tacked on an extra day at the end. I figure it counts one way or another.) Since Karen has just lost her grandmother and she didn't have her own mother around as an example of motherhood while she was growing up, I offered the novena for the intention that Karen become a mother like Our Lady (minus the crucifixion part. I was very specific).

Anyway, since I hadn't "met" Karen before the prayer buddy draw, and I now no longer have to be sneaky, I am adding her to my "with babies" blogroll. Go over and say hi!

And, I have to share one thing from the Easter Mass readings (at the Vigil we attended, they read all seven readings, not counting the Epistle and the Gospel!). This is the fourth reading, from Isaiah 54:

O afflicted one, storm-battered and unconsoled,
I lay your pavements in carnelians,
and your foundations in sapphires;
I will make your battlements of rubies,
your gates of carbuncles,
and all your walls of precious stones.

Alleluia! He is risen!

2011-04-23T21:19:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter, everyone!

sharing

2011-04-22T20:06:00.000-07:00

Last night at the evening Mass of the Lord's Supper (there are two Masses on Holy Thursday - the Chrism Mass in the morning, at which I believe the oils are blessed for the coming year; I've never actually been, as I'm more likely free in the evening and the Mass of the Lord's Supper is the beginning of the Easter Triduum, so I'm biased in favor of that one), the First Reading was from Exodus - God's instructions to the Israelites on how the Passover should be celebrated. There are specific instructions about the food to be prepared, including:

If a family is too small for a whole lamb,
it shall join the nearest household in procuring one
and shall share in the lamb
in proportion to the number of persons who partake of it.

I love lamb, but I've never prepared an entire year-old male lamb, so I don't know how many it would feed. Definitely more than two; probably more than six? And of course one must consider that the Israelites may well have lived with several generations in one household.

But the divine instructions clearly understand that not everyone has the same size family, yet all are to participate in the feast; and for those with tiny families, even what are truly family matters are properly shared in common with other little families in the same boat. It made me think of the many two-person families I know who share one another's joys and sorrows, lift one another up in prayer, and know the most intimate details of one another's lives. For the people of God, large families are a blessing; and those not so blessed join together in fulfilling their roles in the community.

Have a blessed Triduum, everyone.

something else

2011-04-19T20:15:00.000-07:00

As I wait not-particularly-patiently to hear back about the house, I am expanding my home decor imaginings ever further. We know I've picked out paint and wallpaper for a lot of the house. Oh, wait. Did I forget to share every excruciating detail with you? Well, then.

You're familiar, I'm sure, with my chosen kitchen color scheme:

Slate painted wood lower cabinets, warm white upper cabinets, pale creamy yellow walls. I have already allowed myself to bring a few sample paint chips home to pick out the yellow (which will go in earlier, since I have to replace the cabinetry before I can paint it, and I may not do that immediately). This is because the current kitchen is a bit of a disaster:

Off the kitchen, and at the extreme back of the house, is the tiny laundry room. I am starting to be tempted to use this color scheme for real:

Then on the other side (moving toward the front of the house) is the dining room:

You know I still love my peacock mural. But if not that...maybe this wallpaper?

And I would paint everything below the chair rail white, in that case. Or maybe...first I could put up some analgypta, and then paint it white. Too much?

Next is the living room:

I kind of like this wallpaper for it:

And as we know, I like this wallpaper for our room (1-2 walls):

And maybe very light gray paint on the other walls (like so. That is Sherwin Williams's "agreeable gray"):

And then there's the itty-bitty third bedroom, the one that has the maid's staircase:

I have an inspiration palette for it:

Including wallpaper I will never be able to afford:

But perhaps there is an affordable substitute? I'm not sure about the second bedroom yet. Maybe something to do with green.

So I've done some mental work on wall colors. I've also done a good bit of thinking about furniture and other things, which is nothing new. But lately I've also branched out. For example: window treatments. I found an absolutely gorgeous linen drapery panel in an old issue of Victoria magazine, and my search for the manufacturer on the internet was unsuccessful, but did lead me to this place. Tell me all those fabrics are not outrageously awesome. OK, and outrageously expensive. I'm not going to buy them, people. I'm going to think about them.

I may make some linen sheers (I can actually sew pretty well. This turns out to be a closely kept secret in blogland, because I'm, ah, too perpetually unproductive to ever get around to any sewing), maybe from this awesome fabric discounter. Such as maybe this fabric:

And I just discovered that Ikea sells Venetian blinds - you know, the real wooden kind, and at a good price, too:

I would be perfectly happy with some of those (I see them as completely different from vinyl mini-blinds, which I loathe), but I can't figure out in my mind which windows will want sheers, which will want curtains, and which will want blinds. Is there an easy way to sort through this quandary? Blinds upstairs and curtains downstairs? Other way around???

And now I'm also thinking about landscaping. Of course I will only plant perennials; depending on when we get the notice to move, I might harvest some of the daffodil bulbs that randomly grow in the middle of our current lawn and are under constant threat from the lawnmower (in the hypothetical universe in which we actually mow). I will plant them along the sides of the front walk. And maybe another type of bulb as well...such as freesia? And I might want some of that iron fencing across the front yard. With maybe peonies in front of it. And maybe holly bushes behind? And I think I need to plant some azaleas in front of the front porch. And eventually there will have to be lilacs in the back yard. And a cherry tree and an apple tree or two. And a bit of a vegetable garden.

This could end up taking up a lot of my time.

some days

2011-04-11T10:54:00.000-07:00

are just like that.

Might as well be like that during Lent, right?

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!

2011-04-04T11:34:00.000-07:00

This is obviously a posting theme for 2011.

In January I got around to self-cleaning the oven. In March (for February and March) I threw out half the stuff in the shed; donated half my clothes to Goodwill; threw out the dud pens in the pen drawer; threw out all the extra medicine and toiletries in two cabinets, a chest, and a hamper; and re-painted the rusted refrigerator.

It's now April, and I have patched the holes in the plaster in the living room (still to do: plaster holes over the shower, which are at an angle that's much trickier to fill. But I now have all the supplies I need to do it correctly, so my victory is inevitable). I also notified my landlord about the structural oddity next to the bathtub, so that will be addressed. To do: check all the outlets in the house; pack all the stationery supplies; pack my winter clothes; tap into some local sources for boxes; put all the mini-blinds back up; and clean the candle smoke off the bathroom walls with TSP. But yesterday I accomplished something next to which all these other items pale.

About a year or two ago our toilet stopped flushing for some unknown reason. My husband tinkered with the flushing mechanism and it resumed flushing. However, we now had to hold down the handle through about 60% of the flushing time, or it wouldn't flush completely. I became accustomed to this little ritual, and I now forget about the problem until we have a party and half the guests can't figure it out. (I always mean to put a little explanation up and I always forget. But it's kind of ghetto to have an explanation next to your toilet anyway.) Now that I'm thinking about leaving our house, though, I realize that we can't hand it over to someone else without this problem fixed.

Now, I like to be a little bit handy - I can saw wood, and nail pieces of wood together, and I even pre-drill pilot holes sometimes, and I learned to use shop tools at one point, and I can patch plaster and my painting skills are OK (my spray-painting is still pretty remedial, though). But I just do not fix toilets. I was unwilling to call a plumber, though, so I had to be brave.

First I googled and learned all about what causes toilets to behave in this way (possibilities: chain too long; floater worn out). Then I peered into the tank to see whether I could find all the parts they were referring to (some, but not all). Then I went to the home improvement store to see whether an examination of the parts themselves would clear up the remaining mysteries. It did, and I brought one home. But I realized (before I ripped the package open, fortunately) that its fitting was slightly too small for our probably decades-old toilet.

So I brought it back and peered through all the flappers and found one with the same design as ours (a more variable fitting), for a whole dollar more: $5.67, I think. I brought it home. I turned off the water to the toilet (if you have to play with knobs or water lines, that constitutes Serious Toilet Repair, in my book). I removed the old flapper with no casualties. I got the new flapper to attach. I hooked up the chain from the new flapper. I then perceived - all by myself! - that the chain was too long and would interfere with a proper flush. I adjusted the chain several times to achieve the right amount of slack. I turned the water back on. And it flushed properly.

I'm not sure this brief narration conveys how serious an event this is. I have a couple of diplomas from college and law school. Apparently they thought that existing in one place for several consecutive years and showing up for class was some kind of big deal, and I should have some parchment and calligraphy in commemoration thereof. But this - this is an achievement. There should be some sort of serious recognition for an accomplishment like this. No more will I live at the mercy of dark powers, cowering in fear lest the devices on whose mysterious workings I depend should betray me.

I can fix my own toilet.

Continuing my tribute:

"You're whistling up the wrong neck of the woods."

everything changes

2011-04-03T16:16:00.000-07:00

I am always a lame prayer buddy (nothing has changed there - it's one of the reasons I participate so infrequently), but I am really really trying to step up in daily prayer during Lent (preparatory to keeping up better habits after Lent is over), and so my prayer buddy will (one hopes) profit from that.

Today I worked on my substantial Rosary deficit while I cooked a big batch of food for the women's spiritual reflection tomorrow night. Bracketing the issue of doing chores on Sunday (I know it's not good, but I never seem to get everything done; my time is never my own), I find it easy to meditate on the mysteries doing a mindless chore, and with my hands occupied, I become less restless. When I was in college, some friends and I picked up a habit of saying "Jesus, protect and save the unborn" at the end of each decade after the Glory Be and the "Oh, my Jesus" prayer (I had to look the title up - it's called the Fatima Prayer). I never add it when I pray the Rosary with people outside of that group of college friends (I don't mean to imply that I regularly pray group Rosaries - every once in a great while, really), but I realized that when I pray by myself, I always say it.

Back in college, we were all involved in pro-life work (I know this contravenes my no-politics-on-the-blog policy, but it seems essential to the vignette), and I was very passionately attached to that intention. I was well-versed in the facts surrounding the abortion controversy; I knew, for example, that almost a third of pregnancies in the United States end in miscarriage, and nearly another third in abortion. I very much doubt most Americans know that only about a third of babies conceived are ever born (I'm not aware that this statistic is in any way controversial; I think some googling and a calculator would get you there).

It occurred to me as I prayed a few decades today that my pressing desire for our Lord to protect the unborn no longer refers itself to the unborn children who are endangered by the fact that their mothers do not want them. Now, at the forefront of my mind are those unborn children whose mothers lay down every night to sleep afraid that the babies will no longer be alive in the morning. One more way in which I could never have imagined ten years ago that I would be here.

word

2011-03-30T09:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I took my fifth femara pill (out of five. I remembered them all). I don't feel any ill effects so far (not even a high level of irritability). And no abdominal pain. If anything, this month (and last month, I guess) I've felt less abdominal pain pre-ovulation than usual, and it's already CD8, so it would usually have started by now. Isn't that interesting. I also have an appointment with Dr. L/C on Friday, because, according to her nurse, she thought that it had been too long since I'd actually had an appointment and she wanted to get some things straightened out. (I can't argue with that.) And amazingly, she had an opening on my day off.

Because I am angelically good, responsible, and virtuous, I remembered that I had a scrip for a TSH blood test moldering in my handbag, and I nipped in yesterday morning before work to get the blood drawn. That means the lab will be faxing the results to Tep.eyac today, but Dr. L/C likely won't even have noticed they're in by my appointment. But - it won't be my fault. So there!

Other goals for my appointment: get an HCG prescription in a form that I can actually fill. (I need to scrutinize these scrips the minute I get them. But even if I do, the enduring problem is that - shocker - I'm not a doctor, and so I simply don't know what formulations can be, for example, injected intramuscularly versus subcutaneously. Though I eventually learn everything by trial and error.)

(Also, why did my five-pill femara prescription cost $40 after insurance coverage? This is more usually a cancer drug, and cancer patients take it daily. $240 a month, with insurance, for a life-saving medication? Really? Is this a recent change in the efficacy of prescription drug benefits that other people are experiencing too, or just a random blip in my coverage?)

I also need to get a diagnosis and prescription (I don't really care for what. OK, I lied. There's a growing list of medications I will not take) for my TEBB (yes, I have TEBB. I guess I just realized it a month ago, pondering my charts. I can't figure out whether it started recently or not, because there's no place on FF for color, so I haven't kept track). I also want something for the end-of-cycle spotting, but I am sure Dr. L/C will say that the femara and/or HCG will fix this (and she may well be right, so I'll give it a couple of months before I argue). Finally, I guess I probably need another HSG. I don't want one, but I don't really want to go on a lot more (somewhat expensive) drugs when there is a mechanical problem that trumps everything else I could be doing.

Also, there is no word on the house yet. My homicidal tendencies toward my realtor wax and wane, but matters seem to be proceeding, I guess, which is good. If the bank takes long enough to respond that interest rates go up (I understand they are presently going down, which is good, because they were a lot lower in September), I am going to be out for blood, though. We did visit it again and I figured out that I could put the refrigerator in the kitchen (it's currently in the adjacent laundry room. You were worried about this, I know).

I am making some, albeit slow, progress on the culling of my personal possessions, (rental) home repairs, and early packing I have set out for myself for the pre-bank-approval limbo phase. In my view, I must still go through the rest of the items in our house that hold other items, and weed out the contents. Then I must pack my winter clothes, some of the books, things from the china-and-linens closet, and stationery.

I must also repair the plaster in two rooms (I didn't cause the damage in either, BTW), report the structural oddity by the bathtub to my landlord, and make sure all the electrical sockets work. (All this is because a friend has expressed interest in taking over our lease. While this would make leaving our current arrangement much easier, it also means I feel I must leave the house in decent condition - not just in comparable condition to what we found.) And of course I am still amassing a collection of inspiration photos and paint colors and so forth for my house.

Also, I think it's fitting to include a running tribute to a great man, without whom the world is the poorer...

"You might end up dead is my middle name." "But, Frank, what about Jane?" "I don't know her middle name."

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!

2011-03-26T09:49:00.000-07:00

If you remember (don't go and look), in January I made a number of resolutions, including that each month this year, I would do some major housekeeping project that I had not done in ages. In January I self-cleaned the oven, which had needed it for an eon. That was good. Then, I missed February. I figured that if I got two projects done in March, I would be back on track. So far this month, I have donated to the Goodwill more clothes than I kept, gone through our pen drawer and thrown out the ones that don't work (don't laugh. This is a serious item), and gone through all my boxes in the shed, thrown out almost everything, and repacked the remainder more securely. I believe I am now caught up.

I still have a number of things that remind me of my total failure of diligence and housewifely responsibility, and I believe that my weekend social obligations are to blame for my failures. So this morning, I skipped brunch with my husband and friends, and started the second load of laundry (2 out of 2 for the weekend), started cleaning the bathroom, and had lofty ambitions to fold the laundry, wash the dishes, finish cleaning the bathroom, and do the grocery shopping. It was an ordinary, if more than usually productive, day. The sun shone brightly. All appeared safe and serene in my quiet suburban neighborhood.

You know how Lady Macbeth (a choleric, obviously) calls her beloved husband "infirm of purpose"? This unreliable husband of hers is, I would imagine, a melancholic. (I certainly understand what it means to be married to a melancholic who constantly promises to get things done but always seems to be enmired in depression and/or some useless hobby and never actually gets around to them, forcing me to nag him unceasingly.)

I really feel for Lady Macbeth, marching through life amid a sea of indecisive brooders. Like her, I am not infirm of purpose. There may be things I try to get out of doing or whine about for ages, but once I've determined to get something done, I will proceed in spite of all obstacles and, if need be, in defiance of right reason. The task to be accomplished which stymies me is the enemy; and should it put up a serious resistance, I will conquer it even if I should destroy the good I originally was trying to secure. There is no balancing of priorities; there is only winning. Two summers ago, a once very reliable microwave fell victim to this phenomenon when it failed to recover from my washing of it with a violent-spray garden hose attachment. The microwave was weak.

We may hope that the refrigerator is stronger.

The refrigerator was a perfectly ordinary rental refrigerator; white bumpy-surface epoxy enamel, freezer on top, a little shorter than I am. At some point I discovered that it had collected mildew underneath all the takeout menus and church bulletins I had stuck there with magnets. I considered this an unwelcome turn of affairs indeed, and after ignoring the problem for a few weeks, I cleaned it with bleach and moved all the magnets to the side. Problem solved. A few months later, it started showing significant signs of rust. The rust grew progressively for over a year while I glowered at it. Periodically I mused on the can of spray appliance epoxy I have under the sink (never you mind), but I left the refrigerator alone. I thought cleaning agents would probably make the problem worse.

This morning I learned a number of things. One is that steel wool is, as I suspected, a great way to remove rust and loose enamel from an appliance. Another is that cans of spray appliance epoxy do not remain usable forever if you don't clean the nozzles. A third is that $1 Home Depot all-purpose spray enamel for furniture will also adhere to a refrigerator. A fourth is that my spray-painting technique has not improved since I painted the printer stand. Finally, I learned that my appliance epoxy and my all-purpose white enamel are two different colors; the refrigerator is a third color. All of the colors are also, in some sense, white. And all of them are now on the refrigerator. On the brighter (well, whiter) side, what is no longer so much on my refrigerator is rust. We will see how long this lasts. My kitchen also smells like an industrial chemical lab, but I believe it is now time to wash the dishes.

Be strong, refrigerator. Remember what happened to the microwave...

say "never"

2011-03-24T17:16:00.001-07:00

I had the conversation with my DH's cousin, S, the night before last. It was, of course, horrendous. Not in the sense that she wasn't nice, but no conversation in which you're constrained to say, "My husband told you I am unwilling to be your baby's godmother, and I am calling to apologize for telling you so late and also to tell you that, contrary to what he (for whatever reason) explained, the reason is because I cannot have children and therefore I find baptisms to be miserable," is going to be especially pleasant. Indeed, because she apparently did not understand the email my husband sent her well over a week prior in which he said that I would not be serving as the godmother (I read the email - it was absolutely clear), I had to tell her that she didn't have any godparents (the baptism is this coming Sunday), effectively for the first time. I thought I had just called to give her my miserable song and dance about why I didn't want to do it, and instead I had to be the bearer of bad news, as well. My husband has no concept of how much he owes me for this.

All in all, she was very nice about it (considering the position I put her in), and she wisely pointed out that she hasn't gone through this and can't very well claim to understand what it's like. But she did have a lot of trouble grasping the single fact that I do not want to attend a baptism. Certainly not in the capacity of a godmother. I'm honestly not sure what she thought - I think the idea of someone who is averse to babies was so foreign to her that she was just kind of lost the whole time. But she tried.

This does raise a small pet peeve I'd like to mention, though. I have a couple of girlfriends who share with me the ups and downs of their lives fairly unreservedly. Though I don't actually expect any emotional support, as a matter of policy, I will periodically interject something about infertility into my conversations with them. The reaction that I get is more or less "say as little as possible and wait for her to change the subject." I get that they are in some danger of putting a foot wrong, but I think that response is a pretty profound rejection of me as a person, isn't it? What woman has as a goal that her friends should feel reluctant to share their most personal thoughts and feelings with her? I may not be the most tender-hearted person in the world, but I do everything I can to encourage people to feel good about telling me things.

I have had single girlfriends say that they do not have the emotional stamina to throw one more bridal shower. I was married young and never felt this way about bridal showers, but what did I say? "I'm sure I wouldn't want to if I were you, either." What I want to know is why nobody says this to me. "Of course you don't want to be her kid's godmother. You have enough going on right now." I'm pretty sure what they're refraining from saying is, "Well, you know you can't avoid babies forever, right?" Yes, I know - more's the pity. Would they want that brand of "sympathy" if they were in my shoes? (I even have guy friends who will sometimes say how rough it is still to be single, or that they're lonely, or losing patience. And I listen. However, the unspoken rule that I am forbidden to mention infertility is painted in six-foot letters on their faces. Once in a while I give a tiny push at the edge of the rule, and the subject is instantly changed. What the hell is that?)

Anyway, I have come far afield of my original point. S also said something very odd which I have been mulling over. Early in the conversation, I said, "Obviously, we can't have any kids - well, I don't know whether that's obvious, but - " I always use that wording, simply because a lot of people, principally single people, spend no time thinking about other people's sex lives and have not given the matter any thought. Perfectly sensible approach. But someone who is married, got engaged after we were married, is aware of my frankly obnoxiously public stance on the Church's teaching on sexual morality, and has just had her third child - to her, it can't not be blindingly obvious. But she said, "I didn't know that." I was very surprised, but just said, "well, obviously, we're not using birth control." "Of course not," she replied.

I'm not going to ask her what on earth she is thinking, so I'm left to my speculations, and I only have one guess that makes any sense. Perhaps she has decided that we're having trouble having kids (this seems impossible not to realize), but doesn't think that at this point that equates to we can't have kids. If you have three kids, does trying for almost six years just seem like five minutes' impatience? Would it seem like "can't" rather than "not yet" if I were 39 instead of 29? I had another friend who said "I didn't know that!" when I said that we wouldn't be able to have kids, and I had brought up infertility with him several times, so I was stunned. At the time I thought he was really not mentally well (that is true of him in general) and had somehow not processed my previous comments. But perhaps it was the same thing - he didn't see "having trouble" (no matter for how long) as "can't."

This is a revelation to me. Maybe all of the good Catholic family-oriented people I know accept us as people who have been given a cross to test our patience and who will, when we have finished learning our lessons, finally be joining them in play group. Maybe none of them have contemplated having friends who will never share another stage in life with them - who will be retired early while they work extra years to pay for college tuition, and who will miss all their kids' birthday parties, not just the first few. Maybe they really want to understand us as late bloomers, not people whose lives are fundamentally different.

Maybe that's why nobody can understand when I say "I don't want to hold the baby" or "I don't want to go to a baptism" - why be sour? It will be my kids' baptisms they'll all be attending soon. Only it won't. They'll never buy me a baby shower present; never eat gross frosting at my kid's birthday party; never watch my kid while I run to the restroom, or babysit for me, or hold my child in a baptism photo. That will never happen.

Concededly, I only changed my more public messaging - you know, when people in the office ask inappropriate questions as if they were casual - to "we can't" from "we'll take them any time they're offered" maybe a year or so ago. But the whole "we'd love to have some" message was always a euphemism anyway; it was always "can't." I've just lost interest in sugar-coating it lately. And that sugar-coating is seeming more nauseating all the time.

I don't tell friends that we can't have kids, because everyone already knows we're infertile. But if they're all telling themselves "later" because "never" makes them uncomfortable - if they figure that we'll eventually adopt, like our other friends, and give them some baby stuff in common to talk about - then I need to start my publicity machine again. I have to live with never. A pregnancy at this point would just be the beginning of a beautiful miscarriage [N.B.: I've never been pregnant and don't ever expect to be, but because of my endo and hormone issues, I would have a substantial risk of miscarriage if I were]; but if by some medical anomaly I carried a child to term, it would be an incongruous deus ex machina ending - plucked from the grasp of fate. It would change who I am completely, for good and ill. I'll accept it if it happens, and endeavor to be properly grateful, but I don't get to wait for it expectantly and define my life in light of its imagined inevitability. Neither do they.

limping along

2011-03-22T09:24:00.001-07:00

We seem to have smoothed things over with the realtor and I believe the transaction is moving along (which means the bank still has to approve our offer). Of course, until it does, we won't start any of the inspections or other contingencies (why waste our money on inspection fees before we're sure we'll be allowed to buy the house?), so the deal could still fall through if, say, the roof is falling off and the sellers refuse to adjust the price accordingly. I really hope this does not happen, because if I have to yell at too many more people about this house, I am not going to want to live in it.

I am realizing in life in general that I need to find a way to do confrontation ruthlessly but with entire calm. I know people who have this skill (lawyers, among others), and I can master the behavior in any given (brief) setting (I can drive a hard bargain for my clients without getting angry if I have to), but once I stop paying careful attention and do what comes naturally, I lose my temper very rapidly. I need to work on that.

I've also realized recently - the car accident made this blindingly obvious - that I really lose my temper when I can tell that I feel guilty, but I know rationally that I am in the right. I can't make the feeling of guilt go away even though I know I haven't really done anything wrong, and of course I am angry with myself, but I take it out on the nearest target - the person starring in the little drama in which I feel guilty, generally. Of course I yell about something the person has actually done, so he has no way to know the real reason for the yelling. It isn't very productive, and it doesn't really make me feel better even at the time (I feel more guilty as a direct result, of course).

With the car accident, of course, I felt that I was being punished for running a yellow light like a bad person - even though the traffic convention around here is to run yellow lights, even though it's perfectly legal, and even though I knew that the other driver ran a red light. I was convinced that because I had not behaved well, as my punishment, the police would disbelieve me and I would end up with a misdemeanor record and have to pay for both cars - which of course I also understood was unjust, because the accident was 100% the other driver's fault and I was minding my own business, driving like a competent person, and lost hours of my day and my beloved car as a result of someone else's incompetence. But I still feel like I got away with something when a witness later called the police to say he saw the whole thing and she ran a red light and hit another car (mine). None of this is rational.

Last night we did the second women's spiritual reflection, on "the four temperaments" (a good summary). I think these things tend to be a little reductionist (observing the different ways in which other people approach the world is both useful and a good way to grow in compassion, but people can't be wedged entirely into neat little boxes). But it was interesting to see people start self-identifying and discussing their particular challenges approaching the world. Amusingly, the cholerics (yes? What?) and melancholics self-identified immediately, the cholerics more vocally. The sanguine people spent the entire discussion confused about what type they were, having identified with all of the descriptions. The phlegmatics later acknowledged they had identified themselves readily - but none of them spoke during the entire discussion.

While I don't want to put too much stock in this, already since the discussion last evening I've been making little adjustments in my thinking to account for the fact that my constant state of umbrage at the things that other people do may not be a product either of mental illness or a grossly incompetent world (my typical assumptions), but just my personality. I do think that I've taken on far more anger than I used to have, and I wonder whether I wouldn't have come out as melancholic ten years ago. Although my parents tell bizarre (apparently true) stories about how I had a finely developed sense of moral outrage as a toddler.

It crossed my mind - though I did not offer this at the spiritual reflection - that the biggest danger for the choleric is blogging, and IF blogging in particular. I have a relatively thick skin (easily outraged, not that easily hurt), but even I would rather people like me than not, particularly if I like them. But it occasionally happens that someone I like very much wants nothing to do with me. Probably loathes me but doesn't say so. Sometimes it takes me a long time to figure this out (I'd have to monitor every comment on every blog to know that I was being avoided personally), and there are always other possible reasons - almost everyone who gets pregnant immediately stops reading my blog, for example (though there are a few mommies who still follow me, and of course vice versa, and they are some of my favorite people of all), and I'm wordy and people have limited time.

Once I realize there's a problem, I don't necessarily know what I did (it's possible I didn't do anything, but odds are I said something very offensive that didn't strike me as offensive at all). So what to do? Try to guess what the offense was and apologize? Call the person out for not contacting me directly to clear up the problem? Or just leave the person alone? We're all allowed to have people we like and don't like. Of course, if you hold a grudge against me and never tell me why, it stands to reason that I won't like you...but that probably doesn't matter a whole lot.

I will say that blogging has been very good for me on that same score. I tried to internalize the IF blogging etiquette immediately (thank you, Stirrup Queen), and I know that you're not allowed to leave negative comments, no matter how strongly you disagree; that's contrary to the IFosphere's purpose as a safe haven. (Consistent with this idea, I try very hard never to discuss politics on my blog, as that seems simply to invite discord.) Of course, not everyone follows these exact rules, and I have deleted quite a few blogs from my list because I couldn't keep reading and refrain from arguing. And once in a great while, after considering the matter carefully, I have broken the rule. (It rarely ends well.)

Because I am not allowed to argue in my comments, I initially found it hard to think of anything to say. Therefore, by carefully studying the comments of those who are naturally nice people, I have developed a little vocabulary of pleasant things to say to other bloggers. I started with very small, very innocuous things, and slowly, with practice, proceeded to things that had actual substantive content and reflected my spontaneous reactions to their posts - taking care to avoid attacking them personally. Obviously, I still screw this up periodically.

So, maybe there should be an "introductory guide to IF blogging for the four temperaments." Or maybe only the cholerics need a guide - everyone else already works and plays well with others? Now I am accepting this in too reductionist a fashion.

Otherwise, I suppose, life is not too bad. I think I'm doing OK on my Lenten things so far (always room for improvement), and I'm starting to have hope that I could have an improved spiritual life. I mean - it doesn't feel improved - I don't think my relationship with God is repaired - but I can fix the grave defects in my prayer life. Of course, if I do that and then the underlying issues don't get better, I will not be pleased, but I have to start with what I can do. (As opposed to letting God start by providing grace because I am powerless to make improvements. I know self-sufficiency is a vice, but God is not intervening. [Unless we count my taking initiative as His action, but then the distinction loses its meaning.] Am I supposed to wait forever? He's not fixing my fertility or my health, so I figure He must have a lot of spare energy with which to make other improvements in my life.)

I have also been toying with the idea of starting a non-infertility blog. Not exactly a post-IF blog...just a different one. Of course, I don't favor blogging in general, just for sufficient reasons, and absent IF, I don't have a sufficient reason. Of course, absent IF, I also don't have any connection to a community of readers, so maybe it would be nice just to make a pretty space and put good writing and start working toward being a more whole person. With nobody reading. That could be all right.

In any case, I'm looking for a concrete way to take a step forward in life (and am not enthusiastic about doing so by giving up gluten and dairy and sugar. By the way, I want to find examples of endo sufferers who have jumped on the food-is-killing-my-body bandwagon and lived exclusively on field greens until they shriveled away and still did not get pregnant, because 100% of the anecdotal evidence seems to be to the effect that refusing to eat real food will cure your endometriosis, and I believe that that "sample" set is self-selecting and therefore unreliable. At minimum, I will document that before I leave the IFosphere. People should not be made to feel responsible for their childlessness because of their wanton insistence on having a ham and cheese sandwich and a cookie every now and again. I can live without children, but I refuse to live in a world with no children AND NO COOKIES, and the people who claim that if I would only give up the cookies I could have children are (a) full of crap and (b) ignoring the obvious fact that in order to prove them wrong I would have to live for a time with NO CHILDREN AND NO COOKIES, and that is inhumane).

That's all.

my realtor is an idiot

2011-03-18T08:38:00.000-07:00

Without pasting every email in this exchange, I don't think I could give you all the real flavor of this protracted drama. But it is tragicomic at this point, so I think I'm going to try to sum it up.

My realtor is a little on the older side. We picked him (well, actually, we picked his partner) because she was honest, and we thought that was more important than a young go-getter. (I always found the listings I wanted myself; I just needed someone to let us in the houses and maybe take care of some paperwork.)

When we compiled the offer for the yellow house (on February 27), he forgot some of the documents that had been provided by the seller (and initialed by the sellers). He didn't find them until after the sellers had accepted our offer. So, you know, I get that there's a lot of paper and it's easy to misplace, and we can just initial later, but the sellers assumed that those documents were part of our agreement and in fact we didn't know they existed. If you were a law student in first-semester contracts, you would recognize that as a "failure of meeting of the minds" - if the terms in question are material, it means you do not have a contract.

So our realtor "efaxed" (an incredibly stupid form of communication used by no other company in the first world) them over to us. There were seven, and we were supposed to initial them and return them. One of them was a "Schedule A" that described the property, just as I understood it to be...and then finished with a paragraph that said: "SAVING AND EXCEPTING, HOWEVER, that portion conveyed to the State of Maryland by deed found at liber __, folio __." (Emphasis in original, FYI.) There was also a surveyor-drawn plot plan, but had been reduced from legal paper and then repeatedly scanned by the world's crappiest fax machine (efax - this is going to be a recurring theme) and I literally could not read the written labels on the lines of the drawing. I don't mean I had to squint and guess some words - I mean they were not legible at all.

So I told the realtor that I would either (a) write on both "we agree to these terms as long as they convey no less land than represented in the property's sales listing" and then initial them or (b) I was going to need a legible copy of that map so I could see where the conveyance to the State of Maryland was and make sure it wasn't, you know, the house or something (which means we would pay list price for the house, but we would never own it. That's known as fraud, by the way). During the several days on which I basically wrote him this same email repeatedly, he would respond that he was working on getting a better copy, but could I please initial those documents and send them to him while he was looking?

Since most of you are not lawyers, maybe you can tell me whether that request sounds sane to a normal person. I thought he had to have been smoking something. I want a legible copy of the document so I know what it says, and you're telling me to sign it without knowing what it says? Seriously? You've sold property to people before? At some point I realized that his impatience was because the sellers were waiting on those documents before they even presented our offer to the bank. That's right, the part of a short sale that usually takes two months - hadn't even started yet. I wrote him four different emails (three on the same day) in which I stated that I needed to know, immediately, whether they had presented our offer to the bank. That was last week, and he has never addressed that question. I don't need to keep asking, of course, because I can figure out the answer from his silence. Nevertheless - irresponsible.

Anyway, he finally got us a legible copy of that map. Now we discovered a different plan: the conveyance to the State of Maryland isn't mentioned on the map. Maybe that means that it doesn't form any subtraction from the property we're dealing with, but how can we be sure? I initialed the map and sent it back, but I told him that I was going to need to see the conveyance to Maryland before I initialed the Schedule A. At this point he appeared to become nearly hysterical - he had to have those documents immediately. He told me I should feel completely comfortable because of the surveyor's letter (which I had initialed a week ago) and the map (initialed and sent in) which indicated that the property was with acceptable bounds.

Now, if those are the important documents, why isn't it enough that I initialed them already? Whatever. I wrote on the Schedule A, "we consent to these terms only insofar as they represent no subtraction from the 10,980 square feet indicated by the accompanying drawing." Then we initialed it and sent it in. He immediately emailed and said he would get in touch with the survey company. (They didn't write the Schedule A.) He apparently thought that I would talk to them, and then I would feel all warm and fuzzy inside about how nice the property was, and I would sign documents with secret terms. I am starting to wonder whether he may be suffering from dementia. I told him I didn't want to talk to the survey company as I had no problem with any of the documents they had prepared.

The next day I got an email from him, sounding like he had lost his mind. He told me the sellers thought we were trying to back out of the deal (which can only mean he gave them a misleading version of all events to date - what about my not signing illegible or ambiguous documents means I don't want the house?) and they were really concerned. And that I needed to sign the Schedule A, with no caveats, and turn it in immediately. He also said that he had called the survey company (accomplishing what, exactly?).

I had already sent him several emails in which I patiently explained that I do not sign documents with secret terms. At this point, I was in a blind rage. I sent him the email described yesterday - red text, all caps, bold, 48-point font - in which I described his three options (find me the conveyance to Maryland so I can review it and I will sign; I sign with caveats; tell the sellers to throw the Schedule A in the trash). I told him that at this point I had to assume the sellers were trying to hide important information and I wanted nothing more to do with this unless they would behave responsibly. Then I sent him the follow-up email in which I told him how badly he was representing us and how inappropriate it is to pressure your clients to sign documents against their best judgment.

Then I calmed down (very slightly) and sent a very polite email to the sellers' realtor, copying my realtor and my husband, stating that I do not ever sign documents with ambiguous terms, and we would love to continue working with them, and I could think of three options (find me the secret conveyance document, I sign conditional on the secret conveyance document not being a subtraction from what I'm buying, or throw out the offending Schedule A), and please let me know what they would prefer. My realtor immediately wrote back to me and my husband, copying the sellers' realtor, and stated that it sounded like we had no option but to get out of this deal and for us to get our earnest money back.

At this point, having lost all respect for my realtor, I called the sellers' realtor directly. She said she was in no way obliged to give us the Schedule A and was just trying to be helpful, but if we didn't like it, we could just throw it out. She also said that "initialing" to her just means acknowledgment that we've received a document. I proposed putting the word "received" on it and initialing by that, but she was not OK with it. I tried to explain that if we went into the main contract documents and changed, say, the purchase price, we would initial that (not sign), and it would mean that we'd agreed to it, not just received it, but that message did not get through. (Lawyers and realtors have a historically tense working relationship, I hear. I know I'm right legally, but whatever.) We agreed that we would pretend the Schedule A never existed, and I would ask the title company to look into conveyances to Maryland specifically during that part of the sales process. Oh, also, she was horrified that our realtor hadn't given us those documents before we signed our offer.

I didn't email my realtor last night to tell him all this, because I was still mad. My husband said that he would talk to him when he had some free time, but I don't really care. I want the deal to go through, and I want our realtor to stop emailing me inane things forever.

This morning, I got an email from him (he doesn't cc my husband because as we were looking for houses, I did all the communicating), saying that he was attaching the card of an attorney (he didn't say whose), and would I please call the attorney (he didn't say why). I forwarded the email to my husband - he can deal with this loony bin.

a little bit of this

2011-03-17T20:34:00.001-07:00

So I nearly killed my realtor today. I don't think I've ever sent an email in which I used all caps, bold, red type, and the largest font size on gmail - for the same text. In case I hadn't conveyed how irritated I was with those text treatments, I sent an immediate follow-up email telling him how angry and disappointed I was and exactly how his conduct fell short of the representation I expect from a realtor.

A significant part of me wants to go through life as a nice person, but that never seems to happen, somehow...if it makes you feel any better, I was 100% right that he was being an incompetent twit.

But the deal for the house is still on (so far), since I eventually went around him and called the sellers' realtor and sorted the whole thing out (it was quite easy, because she readily understood what I was saying and offered a solution that was totally acceptable. In the very first conversation. Whereas when I told him the options I would accept, he said we should call the deal off).

In other news in which I am a rotten person, my DH's first cousin once removed just had her - I think her third child. Could be second. No, third. Anyway, she asked my DH whether we would be the godparents, and he immediately said yes. Then a few weeks later he mentioned it to me in passing. The baptism is, incidentally, in Florida. I loathe Florida (apologies to any Floridians), and therefore I never go there. Which means that I will never see this child or contribute to its upbringing in the faith. My DH, meanwhile, is happy to go to Florida for the baptism, but claims NO LONGER TO BELIEVE IN THE TEACHINGS OF THE CHURCH, which makes it absolutely shocking that he would agree to do it, when he ought to know that this would be totally unacceptable to the child's mother if she knew (she doesn't).

All of these are reasons she should not have chosen us to be the godparents. I tried to explain these things to my husband over a couple of weeks, but they were not making any impression. Finally, I was thinking about it, and I realized that, whether she should have chosen us or not, there was something more significant at issue: I am not willing to be the child's godmother. If it were the child of my sibling, or my DH's sibling, then I would do it (with a very heavy heart), because that child will unavoidably be part of my life (even though I would prefer that others' minor children be in no way involved in my life). But this kid I am never going to see. And my DH's cousin and her SAHM crowd and the attendant cutesy religious/motherhood facebook postings - I want that kept as far away from me as possible. It's poison.

So I said I wouldn't do it, and my DH told her. (He told her I was really concerned about the distance, but that he would still go, and though he was sure this hadn't entered into my decision, IF had been very hard for me. Would you believe that whole story if you were her? Me neither. The odd thing is, apparently he believes it. I thought I was very clear at the time, but he said he wasn't lying when he wrote it and just misunderstood. I think he was lying when he wrote it and has forgotten or gotten confused. That's what happens when you think it's OK to lie casually to smooth over social situations...but I digress.)

Here's my real issue with the situation. I don't feel any obligation to be the godmother. However, it is egregiously rude to say no a month after you have been asked (and apparently accepted). If you're going to say no, you have to say no right away, and be polite about it. Of course, I was never asked and I never accepted. From this, and the fact that my husband is actually quite an intelligent man, I have to conclude that all males undergo a lobotomy at birth with respect to matters related to fertility and childbearing. How on earth could he know not even to ask me whether I wanted to go to visit our good friends' new baby a few weeks ago (he just said no for both of us), but not know that I would not want to fly to Florida to be a godmother of a child I will never meet, and just accept for me? (He knows my thoughts on Florida, by the way.)

By the way, the baby's father just lost his job, and the family is apparently having a really rough time. I feel bad about all of this, but not bad enough to make myself miserable to fulfill a role that everyone will be happier to have played by someone else - someone who lives in Florida, sees the family regularly, wants to be part of a baptism, and likes the baby. In other words - not this infertile girl.

So now, because my husband's email was wildly inaccurate and lacking in any credibility, and because (given that she told us to hold off on buying tickets and they are now outrageously expensive) neither of us is going, and because I have no right, whatever else may be the case, to be rude to her, I have to call her. And tell her that the reason I am not going is because I am a bitter infertile and the last time I went to a baptism, just as a member of the audience, it nearly did me in, and it's been almost three years and only gotten harder to bear (crap. That means we'd only just been married three years at the time. Well, no wonder). Do I also add the part that my husband is apostatizing and I wouldn't want him as a godfather if I were her?

Also, at what point do I have to say that I'm lucky not to have my husband as the father of my children because I wouldn't want children growing up with that kind of influence?

This post was going to be cheerful when I started it out. I'm trying to think of something cheerful to write. Um...I've only missed Mass three times since the beginning of Lent (which means my attendance rate is...67%. Well, that's a huge improvement over the 14% I've been maintaining for a year or more. And, I am saying a Rosary for every day I miss, and I only have to say seven decades to catch up). But I still need to look into some things, like who my prayer buddy's patron saint for 2011 is (I figured it would be nice to do a novena to that saint), and also I was supposed to do a morning offering and the Angelus and 15 minutes of spiritual reading every day (I'm not sure I out and out promised that for Lent, but I'm trying to use Lent to get into the habit - you can see how well it's working, I've done practically none of that). Oh yeah, and the other thing I was going to do is volunteer with the Missionaries of Charity. Missed the first Saturday last week, and might not be able to do this Saturday either.

On a lighter note...wait, I've got it. I have the day off tomorrow, and not a minute too soon, because I had forgotten to shop for my friend's bridal shower on Saturday, and now I get to go lingerie shopping :D.

I go through my marriage, my household, and my spiritual life, and the bright spot is...shopping. I'm sure I should feel all materialistic and mean and unspiritual, but would it be better not to have a bright spot?

Lent

2011-03-11T20:04:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life is hard.

I've never had an easy marriage, and lately, I feel like it's taking more out of me than it usually does - or maybe it's taking no more out of me than it has in other difficult phases, but I just have less left over to give. Struggling with my husband's lack of (when not outright opposition to) the faith is probably the hardest part, even though I don't always recognize that when I'm thinking about it. Just look at the difference between a fight over "are you sure it's God will for you to do this financially imprudent thing and He has plans for the direction in which it will take our marriage and our lives?" versus a fight over "I know it's just your morbid obsession with personal failure that makes you want to do this financially imprudent thing, and I see that it's very important to you, but the numbers say it will be a financial disaster and you think it will make you happy but actually a more rational appraisal would say that when you do this thing and life is still hard, you'll be much more unhappy than before, and does selfless love require me to stand back and let you do this to yourself and ruin our finances in the process?" Yeah. Not easy.

I've moved from thinking I probably should get help but not really wanting to take that affirmative step and make some phone calls to being impatient for someone to answer my calls. I've called my insurance company. I've looked through the insurance company's provider directory (twice). I've called two different psychologists. This should already have happened. Why won't someone just give me an appointment to get my head examined already?

Anyway, that's not the point. I'm working on this going to daily Mass thing. So far that just means going back to the church right down the road (I mean, really, three doors down) where they speak no word of any language I understand. But I am bringing my missal so I can at least read the readings. (Then, because I have done this since I was - what, eighteen? - I go through the proper of saints to look for interesting-but-not-too-impossible names for children. I realized that even though I no longer intellectually believe I will have children, and so I don't make nursery or baby clothes purchases in my head, I have not lost my interest in picking out names. It's possible I never will, although as the years pass it will freak people out more and more if I say so. Speaking of which, I was reading this brilliant website today on the recommendation of brilliant and heartbreaking artist Monica Wiesblott, whose piece "I Tried Nesting" has been and probably will be again on my little header, and they had a little "you know you're infertile when" thing and several women admitted to giving friends intentionally bad advice on baby names to steer them away from the names they wanted to save. I never do this because when other people pick bad baby names I get very angry, and sometimes lose all my respect for the parents and don't ever want to talk to them. I know I have anger issues in general, but this really upsets me very much and has for years. However, as a suggestion, it's frankly brilliant. If I weren't so concerned that the deterioration of American baby names was causing an impending disaster in the culture and that just a few more appallingly-named children could push us past the point of no return, I would seriously start doing this. Anyone dumb enough to take that kind of bad advice deserves every Britney or Polycarp he ends up with.)

That is not what I was going to write about.

I've tried to be good a number of times and pray for...well, something delightful and pious-sounding with respect to never having children. But I always get hung up immediately on the caveats because of my previously-discussed conviction that God is playing gotcha with me, and if I say "OK, please send the other suffering infertiles babies first because I can deal with this for another year or two and am indeed already expecting to, and I know there are other people who probably can't," then He will scribble in in the margins EVERY INFERTILE ON THE PLANET and my innocently-phrased little offer will consume THE REST OF MY LIFE.

For some reason, this time, something someone had said recently (my spiritual director? The priest who gave the spiritual reflection for women in my living room? A brilliant blogger or commenter?) sunk in - not some bit of arcane wisdom or inscrutable insight, but something ordinary and obvious that I already knew but wasn't thinking straight about - and I stepped back a half step and looked again. Whenever I pray the "Thy will be done" part of the Our Father, for a moment I feel happy and peaceful. I believe that that is akin to praying for good things to happen to me - not superficial good things, like owning pretty shoes or having a really good cookie - but REALLY good things. The kind of things that are so good I won't even fully appreciate their value at first, the things that take decades or a lifetime to unfold. And I don't see them unfolding right now, but I feel at peace when I ask for them to do so. So how can I feel this way and worry so much about God's "gotcha" petitionary prayer clauses?

And I thought, God does not will infertility for me. Or irritable bowel syndrome or hypothyroidism or knee sprains or myopia or even hangnails. God's perfect vision for my life, as for all of our lives, is that I be healthy and holy and sinless and joyful and never die. That's not going to happen, but that is because His will in this matter is not being perfectly fulfilled, because of man's decisions to deviate from His will. God knew this was coming and He allowed it to happen, but it didn't happen because He wanted it that way. If I confuse what He wills (good things, even if not the selfsame good things that I know I want) with what He allows, and He allows, well, all the things that happen, then why pray for His will to be done? It doesn't need to be prayed for; whatever is done would be His will by definition. But I don't believe that.

So instead of telling God what I was willing to offer (and then setting up a number of caveats and limitations in case he should try to exploit the terms of the offer unfairly), I approached it a different way. I was able to make my prayer without terror - both because I wasn't worried any more about the "gotcha" clauses, and because all these years as I've been railing and complaining and living a life steeped in rage, I've been working away a little bit at the process of grieving my fertility, my dream of motherhood, my hopes for children. I'm not entirely done, but I think I've accepted far more than most women my age that I probably will never have my own children. I know a lot of infertiles roll around the word "never" on the tongue like a foreign thing. "Never" is a near companion to me, and I know that's been an unappreciated blessing.

And so I said, whatever is Your will for my life, I will accept it. If God wills that I deal with this the rest of my life, then fine. I don't want to procure, somehow, children He didn't will for me. Dealing with the ones He gives is hard enough, I know; what would I do with some rogue children I'd conjured up outside the natural order of things? I'd be up a creek. And I don't want my own amateur pastiche of what my vocation should be in my mind; I want the real thing, the path He picked out for me before all time, because He always knew that I would be, and already had in mind what my life should be like. Of course in my heart of hearts I have always wanted that path to be one that includes motherhood. But if it isn't, I would be better off with whatever it is than with some other path, not His - whether that includes motherhood or not. (And it might not.)

I don't suggest that there were angels singing at that little parish tonight, or that I walked out with a step lightened by joy. I am much as I ever was. I do have one care removed that had burdened me, but the crosses I had to carry, I still have. I did toy briefly with the notion of God's will for my life and why He might will for me to live out my days childless. I thought about the fact that one of the things that's so hard for me in losing all my former IF allies is not just that other people have babies to flaunt in my face, or that I feel I have fewer allies, but that there appear to be practically no examples of women who share my faith living childless lives. It gives the impression that if you're a faithful Catholic, you're eventually going to get yourself a baby, one way or another.

I know that can't really be the case - nothing else works that way (people aren't cured of cancer along religious lines, for example), and I believe that adoption is a vocation not synonymous with the inability to have biological children. Being Catholic and married does not mean ipso facto that you will have children. And yet it can appear that way. (I know there are one or two childless Catholic women out there, but even your ranks are being thinned by pregnancies and adoptions, as I'm sure you know.) The paucity of such examples makes this feel like even more of a punishment - a moral condemnation as well as a cross. I don't believe I'm called to adopt, and I don't know how that could make me a bad person, but that is the implication, is it not?

And, of course, the obvious response - I could be intended to be that example. God has done stranger things. I'm no example of any kind, of course; hardly a demonstration of how a holy, virtuous person could still be childless. If anyone is looking for an example of how a woman just crying out to be a bitter old crone got her opportunity early because she was barren, I'm pretty much made to order. I'd note that I was not bitter and angry like this before I was infertile - but who would believe me? People want to believe that I did something to deserve carrying this cross because then they can reassure themselves that it won't happen to them. Such is human nature. But I do share the Church's view of marriage and vocation and children; and if my anger ever wanes, perhaps I will think of motherhood and children fondly once again. Maybe...maybe.

Ah, Lent.