Book review, part 2

I recently finished reading Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein. Unlike other IF books, the author and her writing was already familiar to me. Many years ago she did a study of early adolescent girls and their experiences in middle school. Several years later my mom's book club decided to read Orenstein's book about that research, Schoolgirls. As I was just getting interested in education, they invited me to read the book and join their group. As it turns out, I was in middle school when she did her research. Through reading about the experiences of these girls who were my age and my growing passion for education really connected me to the author.

So when I learned that she wrote a book about IF, I had to read it. And it did not disappoint. Orenstein is a feminist who, in addition to researching girls' schooling experiences, also has written about the difficulties professional women face in the work/life balance. Parts of her book deal with her conflicted feelings about both believing women should not have to make professional sacrifices while at the same time going to great lengths to conceive. She describes fighting for women's right to not be defined by their uterus while she is wondering if her dedication to her career meant she lost her chance to be a mother. I also identify with her frustration that she has been able to achieve everything else she set her mind to but pregnancy.

I would recommend this book to anyone in the ALI community. Through her journey, she experienced three miscarriages, several IVFs (including one with donor eggs), and went through the adoption process. I'm sure there is much we can all identify with.

I would not, however, recommend this book to those not in the ALI community as a way to gain insight into what we experience. Orenstein's journey, while touching on many different aspects of ALI, also conforms to the myth that if you just relax, not try so hard, or look into adoption, you'll get pregnant. Her several attempts with IVF all failed, but then she would get pregnant while on a break or while filling out adoption papers. I don't think this detracts from the story she has to tell, and she did not write it to highlight this fact, but I couldn't help but notice it.

Nieces and nephews

I posted yesterday about some thoughts on the child-free/childless blog. But there was something else that bothered me about that post. She dismissed the joys some of us get from our nieces and nephews.

Logically I know of course that my love for my nieces and nephews is not that same as the love my sisters have for them. But that does not diminish the joy they bring to my life. And they do bring real joy. Take just my oldest niece, for example. I remember being at work the day my sister started having labor pains. I called home every 20 minutes to see if it was time to drive to the hospital. I remember reading to her for the first time. I remember feeling lonely while studying abroad halfway across the world and hearing her say my name for the first time. It was a misprounounced toddlerized version of my name, but it still made my heart soar. And it brought even more joy when I learned she remembered those phone calls and started saying my name every time her mother was on the phone.

I laughed when she was three and clomped around in my way too big for her tennis shoes. We laughed together when she was 11 and gave me a pair of too-small-for-her-but-just-right-for-me tennis shoes. (yes, her mother has really big feet as well)

There are moments of sadness, though, when I think of my nieces and nephews. Not because of what they do, but because they remind me of the joy that children bring and that I wish dearly could be in our house all the time. I get sad when I think that any kids we do eventually have won't have same age cousins to play with. I enjoy seeing my youngest niece and hearing her updates, but I also remember the despair I felt when my little sister gave birth to her after we had our IF diagnosis.

My sister called me a few days ago and asked me to babysit her kids overnight. She works at Starbucks and when my BIL is out of town, it makes more sense for them to spend the night at our house rather than have her try to find a babysitter who is willing to show up at 4:30am so she can open the store. Usually that is fine, although this particular weekend I have a big event on Saturday and she also needed me to take my nephew to his soccer game so I wasn't sure the logistics would work out. We each needed to double check some times, so we agreed to talk again the next day. In the meantime, I started thinking of the fun I could have with the kids: playing games, making blueberry pancakes. When she called the next day and said it might too much work and she would find a babysitter, I was disappointed. I want to spend this time with them. I don't want to miss out on this fun. So we worked it out and the kids will be here in a few hours.

And then I read the blog about how nieces and nephews just don't cut it in terms of providing joy in our lives. That is something I won't accept.

Child-free?

Some of you may have seen the discussion about being child-free or childless started by a blog post explaining the virtues of motherhood. I find that post very short-sighted even if we don't focus on how insensitive it is to many of us who want children very much but remain without.

See, the thing is, this post was written on a blog that is supposedly aimed at working mothers. Obviously I don't know what it means to be a working mother. But I do know what it feels like to think about what motherhood means for my career. I was raised by a single mother who taught me that I can do anything I want. Having a fulfilling career is important to me and part of how I identify myself. I'm a researcher. I still want to be even after we finally become parents. Yes, I want to add "mother" to the list of ways I identify myself. Very much so. But I don't want that be the end of my identity.

This is what I find problematic about this "Moms at Work" blog. The blog purports to be about the "precarious tight-rope act of balancing our jobs and family." But going through the last several pages of posts, very few are about balancing jobs and family. They are almost all about parenting. I'm sure working mothers appreciate these thoughts on parenting. But aren't there a host of issues about this balancing act to talk about outside of how to take time off when you kid gets the swine flu? Shoot, I'm not even a mother and I've thought about these things. I've had senior women (and mothers) in my field advise me to remove my wedding ring on interviews so potential employers don't view me as someone who will jump ship in a maternity leave. They did so because they (and me) have heard others describe new mothers as "less productive" and not distinguished enough if they need 7 rather than 6 years to fulfill tenure requirements. I've heard my sister wonder if her dream of going back to college means it will hurt her ability to give her children what they need. I know women who gave up exciting promotions because they just found out they were pregnant. Or give up new jobs because they needed the health insurance for their new baby. And I couldn't help but notice that my mother, while always respected by her employer, never saw her career take off until after I was out of the house.

These are the struggles women experience trying to balance work and family. I'm sure there are many others, including some of the logistical challenges like snow days and sick children. But these concerns are not the focus of the blog. Instead they focus solely on being a mother. Many of the posts would be of just as much interest to stay at home mothers. And if this was a blog aimed generally at all mothers, that would be just fine.

But the implicit message sent by the totality of posts on this blog is that the important part of being a "working mother" is the "mother" part. Their status as workers or professionals are not really worth mentioning. And that's what bothered me so much about this particular post ranting about women who are child-free. There are many wonderful things about being a mother. And women without children may indeed be "missing" those joys in life. But there are sacrifices that mothers have to make (and let's be honest, even with husbands who take on equal parenting duties, the sacrifices still fall mostly on women). And I'm sure women who are child-free would say that mothers are "missing" out on something as well. We call them sacrifices for a reason after all.

Life is about trade-offs. We make decisions about what is right for us. Child-free women, working mothers, stay-at-home mothers. All have to weighs the joys and fulfillment of one lifestyle with what they may be missing from another lifestyle. I hope all women are able to achieve the balance they want. Some women don't have a choice and find themselves in a category where they feel what they are "missing" all too keenly. My heart goes out to them.

Kennedy

I woke up this morning with DH telling me Ted Kennedy had passed away. It's a sad day. His work has made our country better. I only wish he had lived long enough to see his dream come true that we finally recognize health care as a right guaranteed for all rather than a privilege.

I don't live in Massachusetts and I've never met any of the Kennedy family. I'm not old enough to remember what the Kennedy brothers really meant other than how that period is now portrayed in history. I do think I had a glimpse of what it was like through working on Obama's campaign and the sense that we are headed in a new direction.

But I do have a personal connection to the Kennedy family. I'm actually distantly related to them. It's not like I have my own room in the Kennedy compound (or any of their money or influence). But when I was in middle school and asked my Nana about our family history, she filled me in on this relationship. Terminator 2 had just come out and I quickly worked out that Arnold's kids and I were 5th cousins (Arnold is married to one of Ted Kennedy's nieces). A few years later as I became interested in politics, the relationship to the former president and current senator took on more of a prominence as I tell this story now.


This picture is from the only time I was ever in the same room with Kennedy. He visited my university to campaign for John Kerry in 2004.

Pasta

My husband's grandparents owned an Italian restaurant. I've never met his grandparents and the restaurant was sold a long time ago, but the memory of the restaurant is a relatively big deal in his family. His father would talk about working there. The recipes have been handed down and being able to replicate the sauce or meatballs is considered a feat.

For once we had an un-busy weekend, so we decided to fill it with making big batches of the sauce and meatballs. I've recently gotten into freezing food. Rather than buying things at the store that likely have preservatives, I like to make big batches and either store in a cupboard (for dry goods) or freeze. For example, I've started making my own muffin mix, taco seasoning, and bisquick. I also buy berries in bulk and freeze them because we make a lot of berry smoothies.

So this weekend we made his family restaurant sauce and meatballs. For good measure we decided to make our pasta as well. His family never made their own pasta, but we thought it would be fun and figured that was something we are supposed to do as yuppie urban intellectuals.

You know how your spouse can always surprise you no matter how long you've been married? Well, that happened. I mean, I always knew he was a direction-follower, but I never realized before how important some directions were. As we were putting together our shopping list, he mentioned that he doesn't want to get some ingredients at our neighborhood grocery store. He had to get special tomatoes that they only sold at Whole Foods. No problem, I thought. Then I saw his shopping list.

Canned tomatoes. He had to make a special trip to Whole Foods for canned tomatoes? It's not like he's getting specialty organic-grown tomatoes. They are canned!

Once we opened up the cans, his direction-following continued. See, he bought whole, peeled canned tomatoes. And then proceeded to crush them. Now, I wondered, if you are buying canned tomatoes anyway, why not buy crushed canned tomatoes? That is not what the recipe calls for at all.

The sauce and meatballs turned out great. Just like his family makes. The pasta was a different story. Since we wanted enough to freeze, we decided to make four batches. We measured out four times the flour and four times the eggs and tried to make the dough.

Emphasis on tried.

We were not getting anything remotely looking like a dough we could roll out. We added another egg. I re-read the directions. I searched for another pasta recipe to see if some people added water. This recipe had more elaborate directions and read them out loud.

Me: "Knead the dough until smooth, firm, and elastic."

DH: "You mean it's not supposed to be dry and crumbly?"

We added some water and another egg. Finally it started turning into something we could call smooth and elastic. We have made pasta before, a few years ago, and seem to remember having this much trouble making it then as well. After our last fiasco (where we tried to roll out the dough with only a rolling pin and ended up with VERY thick ravioli) we bought a manual pasta maker. Once we got the hang of it, it was pretty easy, although repetitive.

For future reference: making four batches of pasta can be tedious. We had fun making the first half. But we had to keep going and keep rolling. By the end we just wanted to throw the rest of the pasta in the trash.

The ravioli turned out great (we used a spinach-cheese filling). Let's hope the linguine turned out well.

Christmas in August

Since I saw this twice in the space of a few minutes and in between I was reading comments from fellow crafters, I figured it was a sign that I needed to participate in this exchange. Here are the rules:


The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me, especially for you. I don't profess to be a super crafty person, but I know my way around the web enough to find some awesome how-tos! I promise I'll make it worth your while!

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make but I hope you will.

2- What I create will be just for you.

3-They say I have a year to get it to you. But I promise it will NOT take that long (11 months maybe, but NOT twelve ;-)

4- You have no clue what it's going to be. It’s a surprise to both of us at this point.

The catch? You must re-post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog.

So the first five people who post, and are willing to pass it along,will get a handmade gift in the mail from me.

When you get it, make sure you post a pic on your blog!

Book review

I mentioned last week that I borrowed some IF books from the library. I just finished the first one and wanted to give an update. I have to say that I don't recommend it. I feel kinda bad if I give out the name of the book, but I don't want anyone to waste time reading it.

So what was so bad about the book? First, it got some pretty basic things wrong. It had a few sidebars scattered throughout the book. One of them had the usual "when to see a fertility specialist" information. Except it didn't make any sense. First it said see a specialist if you are over 35 and have been trying for 3-6 months. OK, that seemed normal. But then it advised you to see a specialist if you are under 35 and have been trying for a couple months? What?! Why are younger sent to a specialist earlier?

Maybe I should have known then that to stop reading the book, but I'm of the frame of mind that once I start a book I need to finish it. (OK, my one exception is Moby Dick, which I tried to read twice but just couldn't get past all the chapters on whales). Anyway, my next sign that the book was crazy was this description of "dipsticking." Do any readers here partake of dipsticking? Apparently it is a way to check if AF has arrived in public. And, yes, it does draw its name from the dipstick you check car oil with. Think of sticking a dipstick down your pants...in public...in an airplane of all places...with the flight attendent right there. And she insists no one noticed. Maybe she thinks no one notices the way people who pick their nose in their car don't think anyone notices, but they do.

I just can't picture how this is done discreetly. If any of you do this, please enlighten me.

But the real problem with the book is that she is way too optimistic. Things are going to work out for everyone once we have a plan! There are all sorts of ways to end up with a baby so no need to get worried! Once you figure out what method is best for you things just fall into place! The thing is, the author did go through 5 IVFs (the last one was successful) and then used a surrogate. So clearly she went through a very hard journey. I wanted to read about that journey and know how she overcame those struggles. She glosses over the pain of IF and skips right to how happy she is now with 3 kids.


(And if you've made it this far, I'll reveal the book. It's called "Having a baby...when the old-fashioned way isn't working" by Cindy Margolis. I was intrigued by the book b/c she is a RESOLVE spokeswoman.)

Random thoughts

Here are today's random thoughts:

I don't think I'm meant for yoga. There I was, trying to relax after doing several poses. We just supposed to lay flat, breathe, and relax. Then the instructor came around and said she would move some of our shoulders. Who did she come to first? That's right, me. I hate to think how I looked doing the poses; I can't even relax right!

Another sign that I'm not meant for yoga. As we were laying there relaxing, the instructor kept repeating, "your jaw is relaxing, your jaw is relaxing, your arms are relaxing, your arms are relaxing," etc. I couldn't help but think, "this room is freezing, this room is freezing."

School has started here. Even seeing the school bus makes me sad. On the first day of school when I arrived home from work, I saw a neighbor's kid return from his first day of kindergarten. Everyone in the house came out to meet his bus. A big day in their house. I want that.

My second thought after seeing this kid get off the bus? Why was the the bus dropping him off after 5pm?

I feel like I've finally gotten into a good place with my exercising. We lost power yesterday right after noon. But since it was so close to noon, when the clock started flashing at 12:00, it was only a few minutes off and so I only to push the minute button a few times to get it set again. And then I set my alarm clock so I was all set to wake up early for my morning gym class. But I forgot that the flashing clock assumed AM rather than PM, so while my alarm was set for 5:30 am, my clock said 5:30 pm and so it didn't go off and I ended up waking up 20 minutes late. I still jumped out of bed and made it to my class 15 minutes late. First I was so proud I still made it. Second I was actually glad that I felt odd in the morning because I'm getting used to working out and my body wants it now.

The reason I was able to motivate myself to get out of bed and go to the gym even though I knew I'd be late? Last night we went to the Cheesecake Factory. We had some yummy cheesecake. And there is still half of my slice left to eat today.

Welcome ICLWers!

Welcome to visitors from ICLW! Here's a little bit about me.

The hubster and I have been married for 4 years and trying to conceive for just over one year. We started seeing an RE last January. I have ovulatory IF, which basically means unexplained. Our treatment so far has not been very aggressive, but we are working our way to IUI soon.

And I do have a life outside of IF. My job involves a lot of research, and I like to read and crochet in my spare time. Right now I spend a lot of time on my Wii Fit and watching HGTV.

Another month

Another month, another set of hopes dashed. I guess I shouldn't have really expected anything since we had to forgo the meds these past two cycles due to bad timing. But what is left if we don't have any hope?

I'm feeling very conflicted right now. Our RE has said we can move forward as we wish. She gave me a prescription for fem.ara saying we try that for a few cycles and then move on to IUI whenever we want. On the one hand, I'm scared to move on to more aggressive measures like IUI. It just seems like things will get much more complicated much more quickly. I'm anxious and scared and worried about it. On the other hand, part of me is thinking that I just want the next two cycles of fe.mara to hurry up and get them over with so we can move on to IUI. But if I really wanted to start with IUI, there is nothing stopping me.

Except for me. There's the dilemma.

Categorizing IF

When Mel's book first came out, I went to several bookstores to look for it. First I went to a Bord.ers. I'm not one to ask for help and prefer to find books on my own, so I started walking around the store. But what section should I look in?

To my right was a section called "books your friends are reading." Well, all my blogging friends are reading it, but that probably is not what they mean. Then I passed the romance section-clearly there are no IF books in there. I thought I would check out the health section and on my passed a table with "current interest" books-you know, where they valentine books in early February. That was a mistake. This being spring, the biggest book on the table was What to Expect When You're Expecting. Bleh. It turns out this bookstore was going through renovations and the health section didn't exist. I broke down and went to ask a clerk, who checked their computer and said the book wouldn't arrive for a few more weeks.

Several weeks later I tried again at another large bookstore. I headed down to the health section and passed the children's area, right next to the parenting section. Please. Don't let it be in there. I didn't find Mel's book, but there was a small IF section in the health section, right nex to surviving breast cancer.

I gave up on my search for the book during the summer (sorry, Mel). But today I happened to be in a building next to our public library downtown. The library gives free parking if you check out a book, so my plan was to park in their garage and check out a book when I was done with my meeting.

I wasn't quite sure what to get and was browsing through their new books. I saw an IF book and that's when it clicked, I wonder if they have Mel's book or any of the other books I've been meaning to read. I headed on over to the catalog and did some searching. I couldn't find Mel's book, but did find two other that were of interest.

What I found most interesting was where these books were shelved. The IF books seemed to be placed in two different locations. The first was placed some prostate cancer books and a book on viagra. The second was between menopause and breast cancer. I find that interesting. IF is not men's health and not women's health. It affects us both.

Not a fail

I have to share this from Fail blog. But I know from personal experience, this actually does work.

Social security and IF treatments

As you can tell from my recent post, I've been thinking about IF and medical coverage and how much we should require insurance to cover.

Today I thought of a great reason why the rest of the country should care about our fertility: social security. For those of reading from other countries or those just unsure of how social security is funded, this is it works. Current workers (usually those age 18-65) pay taxes that then pay for benefits for current retirees (those 65 and older, but for us young'uns, we won't be eligible until age 67). One big problem with this method of funding social security is that life expectancy is increasing and birth rates are going down. This means the ratio of current workers to current retirees is going down. In just 8 years, the ratio is expected to be low enough that we will begin paying more out in benefits than it receives in benefits. In 2041 (conveniently just as I hit retirement age), the social security trust fund will run out of money and will only be able to pay 78 cents on the dollar for benefits we are expecting.

(By the way, I know this b/c today I received my yearly social security statement, so it's not like I have this info at the top of my head).

So, wouldn't an investment of $15,000 to pay for IF treatments help offset this declining ratio of current workers to retirees? If part of the problem is low birth rates, shouldn't we try to increase the birth rate? I mean, if the feds paid for us to have a baby, in 20 years or so that's one more worker who will surely pay more than $15K over the course of his/her working life in social security taxes to help fund social security.

To be honest, I'm not really sure if I'm half joking with this or not. When I first had this thought, I meant it as a joke. But now it's beginning to make sense.

Blogging community

I guess I've been blogging long enough to blog about blogging. Or more accurately, this is a blog post about blog books.

I bought my hubby "Blogging Heroes" by Michael Bank many months ago. He started a political blog during the presidential campaign. It was a good blog, but he didn't keep at it for very long. So now I get to read it!

I'm about halfway done with the book so far and to me it is missing some key components of what blogging is about. First, all the blogs profiled in the book (so far) are part of a blog publishing group or affiliated with another media outlet. Many of the bloggers are journalists or tech professionals who transitioned to blogs from magazines. I realize the book is about the top bloggers, but it is missing the organic audience growth that defines a lot of what blogging is about to me. It's not so surprising that a blog associated with PC magazine has tons of viewers, but it is noteworthy that so many bloggers start out as just regular people who write about interesting topics.

A second key component of blogging that the book completely misses is the community aspect. Few of the bloggers profiled comment on other blogs and most seem to read other blogs more to get "news" and see if they've been scooped rather than engage in a conversation. But I read the blogs that I do because I care about what these women are experiencing. And while I don't always comment on those blogs, I do feel like I'm engaging in a conversation with them.

One notable exception to this lack of attention to community in blogging was by one of the few women profiled. She made a concerted effort to read, comment, and participate in other people's blogs. Is this just a difference between men and women? Another example of women being the great communicators?

Awards and contests

Hubby and I went to a local festival this weekend dedicated to tomatoes. To honor all things red, they had a redhead contest. Of course, I had to enter. I thought I might need to give myself an edge, so I put my hair up in braids a la Pippi Longstocking. I think it turned out pretty well.

See the original:

Here is my version:





Turns out my Pippi impression was not enough to win the contest. Who knew there were so many redheads in my city? There were about 15 of us in the women age 16 and over category.

They had other categories in the contest, both male and female and kids of various ages. Hubby has dark hair, as does most of his family. So I never thought our chances of having an adorable little redhead was very high (let alone two, as my sister and I always made quite an impression in public). But my wistful feelings watching the little kids in the contest were more about wanting any children without worrying about any particular hair color.

(Oh, yeah, they also had a "not a real redhead" category. The guy with the literally red head on the very left edge of my picture was robbed in that category. He even died his goatee green to represent the tomato stem. That category was won by a pretty-but-not-as-creative woman with nice fake red hair).

I did however get some awards! Thanks to Clare and Katie for giving me the One Lovely Blog award.

The rules of the award are:

Accept the award; post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link. Pass the award to 15 other blogs that you’ve newly discovered.

Well, I don't quite have 15 newly discovered blogs that haven't already received the award (and Katie is one I newly discovered). But here are a few blogs that I've just found recently and have enjoyed. I look forward to following their journey.

Awful, Beautiful Life
The Privileged Infertile
Keeping my head out the stove while waiting for a bun in the oven
Learning through the IF journey

Health insurance and IF

You may have noticed a few people are talking about health care now. I'm a political junkie and have been following it closely. I'll even admit to having my congressman's phone number on speed dial. He hears from me often, especially since he gets lots of money from the health insurance industry.

But in all the time I've spent thinking about health care reform, there is one thing I'm not sure about. How much should we require either a public option or private insurance companies to cover IF treatments?

I work for a large employer and we get pretty good health benefits (although premiums and the deductible do keep going up). My plan will cover the diagnosis of IF, but not the treatment. We have not made the move into expensive treatment yet, but still the co-pays, deductibles, and prescriptions have totaled more than $500 out of pocket so far this year. True, that's not a whole lot of money yet, but as we think about moving forward with more expensive treatment, we get worried.

I believe we need health care reform so that everyone can have access to some basic level of high quality health care. But the question is what do we consider a "basic level?" I have a feeling my definition of basic coverage for everyone would be higher than most people, but still I still hesitate at saying it should include IF treatments. Do we have a moral responsibility to help couples have a child in the same way (I believe) we have a moral responsibility to help people who have cancer?

On the other hand, IF is a medical condition, just as there are many other non-life threatening medical conditions that we seem to think of as worthy of health insurance. We also value health care that increases the quality of our lives, not just those that extend our lives. IF treatment certainly fits that category.

Plus there are a variety of medical conditions that insurance will pay for that are really optional. For example, my cousin is a great high school athlete. She recently had a knee injury, a similar knee injury that I had in college. My doctor told me that for my lifestyle, surgery was not necessary. I've never had surgery and my activity is not inhibited at all. After an initial healing process (in which physical therapy was the only treatment), you couldn't even tell my cousin had a bad knee. She would walk, run around, do all the daily activities she used to. Except she wasn't allowed back on her basketball team. If she wanted to continue playing sports at a level where she can get a college scholarship, she needed surgery. So she had it, and her insurance paid. Why do we think insurance should pay for something that is only necessary if we want a college scholarship, but not for something that is only necessary if we want a baby?

And I can't mention this topic of elective medical treatments without bringing up one important example. Most health insurance plans will pay for viagra and similar pills. How is that any different from covering cl.omid?

So, my blogging friends, what do you think? Where do you think we should draw the line on insurance paying for IF? To what extent is your perspective influenced by whether you have insurance coverage for it?

Casual conversation

I reached a new point of being able to talk about IF without going crazy or breaking down. And it was even with my in-laws. Last night we went to dinner with them. We started talking about baseball and the topic of the various drug charges in baseball came up. My father-in-law said he was willing to believe Manny Ramirez when it was first revealed he failed a drug test, but now it is discovered he was on the steroid list in 2003. I guess he didn't know what drug Manny was on and I brought up that he was on HCG, so it is highly unlikely that this was some innocent doctor's order gone awry. That led to me explaining what HCG was and when I took it. And before I could even recognize that we were on this topic, it was back to baseball and whether anyone on the steroid list would make it to the hall of fame.