A Belly Full of Fire, Part Three: Which Direction Do We Swim?

This is the third post of my five-part series on infertility advocacy. Catch up on Part One: Advocate or Abdicate and Part Two: The Wounded Healer.

Allow me to tell you a story.

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A village by the river is thrown into crisis as babies suddenly fill the river, crying and gasping against the strong current. Being such a small, closely-knit community, the village instantly comes together into action. The villagers run to the banks, using nets and rope to try and pull the babies from the water. Some men cast off their shoes and shirts and dive right into the frigid waters, grabbing as many babies as they can as dozens rush by them. The villagers are only so many in number, and the babies keep coming. They cannot possibly rescue them all.

Some villagers suggest heading upstream to see what is causing all of the babies to be sent down the river. But other villagers shout above the chaos: "No! We must stay here and save the babies we can!" And other weary villagers climb up and collapse on the riverbanks, soaked to the bone and exhausted from trying to save so many babies. "What's the point?" they pant, "We can't save all the babies."

A party heads up the river. Others continue to dive in. Some are simply too exhausted to go on. The party returns from upstream, looking haunted and their faces ashen. "There is an evil king directing his army to throw his kingdom's babies into the river. We could overthrow his tyranny if we get enough of you to join us." The villagers argue about what to do next.

All the while, the babies continue to flow down the river helplessly, some scooped up, others unable to be saved. The villagers keep arguing. The babies keep coming.

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A Belly Full of Fire, Part Three: Which Direction Do We Swim?

The above is a common allegory often used in upstream/downstream engagement models for active citizenship, philanthropy, development, social justice and activism. Is it an absolutely inappropriate analogy for infertility advocacy? Absolutely. But there's a wealth of insight to be found in this story.

The moral of the story is simple: action is necessary. The conundrum is also apparent: what action is most appropriate? Aye, there's the rub.

Let's break the villagers down into their various roles.

There are the villagers on the shore who dive right in and start scooping up babies. In the context of advocacy, these would be your social workers, your counselors. In the infertility community, these may be support group leaders or hotline operators. In the online world, it might be every single person who comments on news posted on the LFCA. This downstream approach suits best those people who feel compelled to respond immediately to the situation happening right in front of them.

Then there is the party that heads up the river and finds the terrible king. To solve this end of the crisis, they require a lot more manpower to fight the king and his army. In terms of advocacy, the upstream approach seeks to work towards solving the root of the problem. And the root of the problem is never an easy one to fix, because you're mostly dealing with cultural biases, social constructs, and institutionalized oppression.

Heavy, right? It's no easy task and should be pretty obvious as to why the upstream approach needs more than just one person to make any kind of noticeable change.

So how do we address the conundrum of which approach is truly the best?

Answer: you need both downstream and upstream approaches to advocacy to make systemic change. Thus, by default, you need one motivated person and then followers and compatriots to join with them. By spreading out your efforts to solve the immediate crises downstream and also sending efforts upstream to investigate and take aim at the root of the crises, you cast the widest net possible for solutions for change at both levels.

Are you more of a downstream advocate, doing what you can on the local, community levels, or are your more of an upstream advocate, fighting for change on a grander scale? It's not always that clear-cut of an answer, and you may be surprised to see how you can transform from one into the other. Take the story of Risa Levine, as featured in the SELF Magazine article I mentioned Thursday:

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When patients do take up the cause, it can make a difference. Risa Levine, a 48-year-old attorney in New York City, endured 10 IVF cycles and four miscarriages, yet remains childless... Instead of withdrawing, she began making calls: Several years ago, outraged at the dearth of funding and research for infertility, Levine approached then Senator Hillary Clinton (D–N.Y.), who went to the CDC. As a result, in 2008 the agency issued a white paper that outlined the very need that Levine and other advocates want fulfilled: more money for more research... The CDC report paved the way for the federal government to develop a National Action Plan for infertility, says Maurizio Macaluso, M.D., chief of the women's health and fertility branch of the division of reproductive health at the CDC... After learning firsthand that the average cost of one round of IVF is $12,400, Levine lobbied her congressman, Anthony Weiner (D–N.Y.), who reintroduced the Family Building Act, a bill that calls for federally mandated insurance coverage for infertility... Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D–N.Y.) has introduced the Family Building Act to the Senate. "One person's passion matters," she says about Levine. (Source.)

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Ms. Levine addressed a downstream need in her own journey. But as she advocated on a greater scale, her efforts swam further upstream, requiring the assistance of larger and higher levels of support. It's no surprise then that Ms. Levine has been awarded a Hope Award for Advocacy by RESOLVE for their Night of Hope Gala in September.

Another way to picture this, to take our minds off of babies rushing down a river, is to watch this short video of Derek Sivers' TED Talk on how to start a movement in under three minutes:



Key points from the video:

+ "The first follower is what transforms the lone nut into a leader."

+ "A movement must be public. It's important to show not just the leader, but the followers because you find that new followers emulate the followers, not the leader."

+ "Notice that as more people join in it's less risky, so those that were sitting on the fence before now have no reason not to."

+ "If you really care about starting a movement, have the courage to follow and show others how to follow."

+ "And when you find a lone nut doing something great, be the first one to have the guts to stand up and join in."

. . . . .

So now that you have an idea of what styles of advocacy exist, you can get a better of idea of at what level you're comfortable participating in advocacy efforts. Tomorrow I'll talk about what would be ideal outcomes for all of the hard work advocating for infertility awareness.

Stay tuned on Tuesday for A Belly Full of Fire, Part Four: In a Perfect World.

Photo by Jennifer Gensch via Flickr.

A Belly Full of Fire, Part Two: The Wounded Healer

This is the second post of my five-part series on infertility advocacy. Catch up on Part One: Advocate or Abdicate.

Before I get started, I need to 'fess up about something kind of embarrassing. I thought I was being wicked creative with the title of this series, A Belly Full of Fire. Turns out, as I've gone through some of my research, this title isn't nearly as original as I thought it was. I need to fully credit Karima Hijane, Carly Heyman, Maureen Bell, and Mary Beth Busby's 2008 article from the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, "From Fire in the Belly to a Boiling Heart: Fuel for Participatory Research." When I went to start working on this post and leafed through my research, I felt like a putz when I saw their article title. But I like it, it fits what I'm writing about, so I'm keeping it.

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"Some women... turn their pain into a passion to help others in similar circumstances. They become what has been referred to as 'wounded healers,' who can help others heal, and help heal themselves in the process."
Source: Amber R. Cooper, A.R., Baker, V.L., Sterling, E.W., Ryan, M.E., Woodruff, T.K., and Nelson, L.M., The time is now for a new approach to primary ovarian insufficiency, Fertility and Sterility (2010), DOI:10.1016/j.fertnstert.2010.01.016.

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A Belly Full of Fire, Part Two: The Wounded Healer

I felt robbed. Cheated. Empty.

I would revisit the email from my doctor: "[The results], if they are to be believed, indicate that premature ovarian failure is the problem, not PCOS dysfunction/follicular maturation arrest as you, I and your previous caregivers had presumed." I thought that perhaps, maybe this time when I read it, the words would miraculously transform into "Nothing's wrong."

I started this blog as a way to channel these emotions, to fill some of the void that had been etched into my psyche. I found myself compelled to educate others as I started sharing research and informational posts. I wrestled with G-d for a little while, fighting battles between the lines, wielding my typed words as weapons and my faith as a shield. And before I knew it, the end of April had arrived, bringing with it my first National Infertility Awareness Week. I had all of this pent up frustration, anger, and anxiety, its kinetic energy boring holes into my spirit. Why not channel this energy, I thought.

The first thing I did was out myself on Facebook. The message stayed up there for about three hours before I chickened out and removed it. But in those three hours, I got three messages from friends of mine I hadn't talked to in years, each saying "I understand your journey because I'm going through it too." It was reassuring in ways that my blogging had not been. So then I reposted it with a sense of purposeful confidence. This was the first time I felt oddly positive about my infertility, in that I realized it could be channeled as an educational tool for activism.

I even wrote last April:

The ol' college activist in me is feeling inspired. I think it's because by involving myself in some kind of advocacy role, I reestablish a sense of control.

I keep pinpointing my video and this year's NIAW that launched my advocacy, but looking back through my older entries, I realize it started a year prior. My repurposed energy has refueled my spirit and sustained me through the darker times.

What I've only come to understand recently is that advocacy has helped to heal me. It's not like the emotional compartmentalizing, the escapist video game sojourns, the instant gratification of buying crap I don't need, or the diversional half-assed attempts to "find a hobby" or get in shape - advocacy has been like a bowl of chicken soup. It doesn't make the cold go away, but it fulfills you, helps you get better, and it's a welcome treat anytime you get sick.

I've had the privilege of being in touch with Dr. Lawrence Nelson at the NICHD, undoubtedly the leading researcher of POF/POI in the nation. He sent me the article containing the above quote and the words "wounded healer" resonated so strongly within me. Wounded healer is such an apt description for patient activists. If you take a look at even just a handful of executive directors of major infertility organizations and companies, they each have some deeply personal connection to infertility. With the silence that surrounds infertility, it only makes sense that former patients rise up to become leaders within the field.

Whether we are lobbying on Capitol Hill or connecting with other bloggers, we are each in our own way wounded healers.

The online ALI community has truly rallied around this concept, even if we don't formally call ourselves wounded healers. Things like the LFCA, blog hops, blog awards, online forums: we celebrate and support one another, we share tips and tricks and recommend books and websites. A friend comes to us and says, "A coworker of mine just told me she's about to do her first IVF cycle. Do you mind if I give her your information?" In helping to heal others, as Cooper, et al. notes, we heal ourselves.

It's about repurposing energy. Advocacy becomes a way of transforming pain into positive action. Suddenly you're finding little victories everywhere: your parents help you out at a volunteer telethon and send your organization a check for $250 (thank you Mom and Papa!). You get asked to guest blog or become a contributor. A senator to whom you sent a semi-form letter actually writes back and responds to your concerns, or their staffer calls you back when you leave a message to let you know that yes, your concerns will be passed on to the senator. An letter-writing campaign that you were a part of produces desired outcomes. These little victories add fuel to your reserves.

Are they an equivalent check and balance for a loss or a negative beta? Of course not. But at least you're not running on empty. And you use up that fuel to propel you forward, to keep you going.

I'll speak plainly: advocacy has saved my life. I don't walk around feeling so effing empty. I sat myself down and told myself if I can't create life, I can at least create purposeful living.

. . . . .

Today I wrote about advocacy as a way of personal healing. Take this weekend and invest in a little healing of your own. Come back Monday when I'll talk about how you can figure out what advocacy style best suits you.

Stay tuned for A Belly Full of Fire, Part Three: Which Direction Do We Swim?.

Photo by Clay Junell via Flickr.

A Belly Full of Fire: A 5-Part Series on Infertilty Advocacy

This week into next, I'm going to get up on my soapbox and talk about something that has really shaped and defined my life in the last few months: infertility advocacy. I invite you to read along and follow this five-part series as it posts each weekday between today and next Wednesday. (And yes, it's deliberately timed with this month's ICLW.) So take a seat and get comfy - I'm not one for brevity when it comes to topics about which I am passionate. Prepare to do a little digging in your soul to find out what moves you, what drives you - what fuels the fire in your belly.

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"We are being ignored."
-Barbara Collura, Executive Director of RESOLVE

"If you're not going to fight for yourselves, how is anyone else going to fight for you?" -Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D–Fla.)

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A Belly Full of Fire, Part One: Advocate or Abdicate

If you haven't read SELF Magazine's article on infertility in their August issue, do me a favor: click on this link, open it in a new tab or window and read in its entirety after you read this post. When I first read it earlier this week, I felt like I had been punched right in the stomach, my eyes bulging, my face red and contorting as all the air escaped from my lungs. Had I been doing all of this advocacy work for nothing?

When I tell people that no, I don't do infertility advocacy for a living, they are shocked. This blog, RESOLVE of New England, my video- I do it all in my free time. I work for a small private college in the housing department. My days are spent dealing with roommate conflicts, programming forms from RAs, and developing a comprehensive new First Year Experience program for our incoming freshmen this fall. I'm in this line of work because that's where my non-committal communications degree lead me. Between working 35 hours a week and devoting every waking hour to my advocacy efforts, I have be blunt with y'all: it's exhausting. I have been running myself ragged for the last couple of months, but I do it because advocacy is vital. Advocacy feeds my soul.

Advocacy is necessary because of the veil of shame and silence that surrounds the 7.3 million people in this country who cope with infertility every day. Jennifer Wolff Perrine raises this same question in her article for SELF: "It’s a strange dichotomy: how can a health issue that gets so much ink be shrouded in silence?"

Infertility is a sexy media topic right now, one that has been taking a substantial amount of heat recently. Take for example yesterday's article in Newsweek: Should IVF Be Affordable for All? After the Nadya Suleman fiasco, celebrity gossip surrounding stars like Celine Dion, damaging trite portrayals in Hollywood like Jennifer Lopez's The Back-up Plan and the public's critical gaze on affordable healthcare in a gloomy economy, this Newsweek article just adds more fuel to the fire of opposition on infertility treatment coverage:

Whether infertility should be classified as a disease or a socially constructed need is a dilemma at the center of this debate... A complicating factor, according to St. Luke’s (Dr. Sherman) Silber, is that up to 80 percent of infertility cases are caused simply by increasing maternal age. “It’s hard to call infertility a disease. It’s normal aging,” he says.

Dr. Silber, I hate to argue with an MD, but infertility IS a disease. Just ask the World Health Organization: "This recognition from WHO of infertility as a disease represents a significant milestone for the condition." (Source.) With distorted media images of wanton career-driven thirtysomethings and desperate perimenopausal women salivating to have their own baby bump, Silber's statement is not only inaccurate, but irresponsible as a cited expert in the field. Thank you Dr. Silber, for setting back 25+ years of hard work in the infertility advocacy movement.

With all of the vitriol being directed by the media at infertility- its patients, its treatment, and its very validity as recognized medical disease- our advocacy efforts are needed now more than ever.

And it requires infertility patients to take the biggest, most difficult step of their journey. Infertility patients need to start speaking out publicly.

Look, I'll tell you right now: it's not easy to come out of the infertility closet. I was diagnosed on March 18, 2009. The first phone call was to my husband. That evening, we called both our of parents and I called my sister. Two weeks later I sent out an email to two dozen of our closest friends explaining the situation and shared the link to this blog. If infertilty was the new game, I wanted it to be played by my rules. Not once have my friends judged me, asked "so when are you having kids" or told us to relax. We receive a bevy of advice- some helpful, some not- but always extremely well-intentioned and expressed with sensitivity and compassion.

I know Larry and I are the extreme example in this case. I know there are plenty of couples who do not have this same level of support. But you'll never know if you don't try. To this day, I don't regret ever telling friends that I was infertile.

Not only did we find out just who indeed were the folks that cared about us, but just how much they cared. When I uploaded my video and finally blasted it out across the internet, people I never thought would bat an eyelash came out of the woodwork to tell me their stories, to thank me for being so brave to put my name and face out there with this label. I was floored. People I had worked with, gone to high school with, a friend of friend... they picked up on that energy and finally felt comfortable enough to share their stories with me.

I asked in my video: "What if I stopped hiding behind my fear? What if my story can help millions?"

If my story- this one little random woman from Boston- could touch hundreds and hundreds of people (seriously: there are hundreds of emails in my inbox and I'm still getting emails and comments from people who have come across my video)...

Could you imagine if we had 100 people willing to publicly speak out about their experience with infertility? What if we had 1,000 people running a 5K charity race? 10,000 people marching on Washington?

Grassroots advocacy is there for our taking right in front of us and we as a patient community cannot get out from behind our own self-imposed sense of shame and silence.

Oh yeah, I totally just said that.

But so does the SELF Magazine article. Wolff Perrine writes:

Women's silence hurts more than themselves. It ensures that infertility remains an anonymous epidemic, with less funding and research than other common medical problems receive.

She cites Lindsay Beck, founder of Fertile Hope:

Because no one wants to discuss infertility, "nothing gets done about it," says Lindsay Beck, ..."Infertility is where breast cancer was in the 1970s—completely in the closet... For the average fertility patient, there is no united front."

And as a patient community, we're shooting ourselves in the foot when even those who successfully resolve their infertility choose not to acknowledge their past pain:

However someone resolves her infertility, the tendency is to want to put her struggles behind her. "People want to forget," says Collura of RESOLVE... "We do our damnedest to instill in our members that they need to take a stand and help the cause or the same thing is going to happen to the women who come after them."

Infertile couples who have found resolution owe it to their children to speak out, to own their disease and walk with it even after they have beaten it.

So what's an infertile to do?

Take the pledge. Start using your real name. Share your blogs with your family and friends. Talk to the media. Call your legislators. Volunteer with your local chapter of RESOLVE. Write grant proposals. Stop caring about what other people think and instead focus on what other people can do to help.

Ladies and gentlemen: I give you "advocacy in a nutshell." No seriously - that's really all that it is. You don't have to have your advanced degree in public health. Patient activism is pretty simple: just tell everyone your story and why it matters.

If all of this seems like too much, then just start by going to RESOLVE's website and take the pledge to do something. RESOLVE says it best: "It's time to stop, look, listen and act. It's time to pay attention." Then get your support network of friends and families to take the pledge. Don't be embarrassed - just send those emails and I'm sure you'll be surprised to see who's willing to stand by your side in solidarity.

Our stories are long overdue to be heard by the public. But we have to tell our stories out loud if they're ever going to be heard.

The bubble of silence, shame, and ignorance surrounding infertility is ready to burst.

Either we publicly advocate for ourselves or we abdicate the right to demand change.

. . . . .

If this post has moved you, please share it online: tweet it, Facebook it, blog about it... This is how a grassroots movement begins.

Today I wrote about why advocacy matters on the community level. Tomorrow I'll talk about why advocacy matters on a more personal, healing level for infertility patients. Stay tuned for A Belly Full of Fire, Part Two: The Wounded Healer.

Photo by Natalie Lucier via Flickr.

Happy ICLW: 200 Posts, 200 Words

If you’re here from ICLW, welcome! For past ICLW intros check these out: June '10, May '10, April '10 and November '09.

I can’t believe I’ve written 200 posts already. For this celebratory 200^th post, I wanted to commemorate the occasion with something that captures the essence of this blog. So I took the text from all of my important posts and created a word cloud using the 200 most frequently used words in those posts.

I used Wordle to make this. Neat, huh?

200 posts in 479 days... That comes out to about a post every two and a half days. Boy howdy, have I been writing a lot! I've kept journals all of my life, and in times of great crisis, I always find myself writing the most. It only made sense then to write about my greatest life crisis to date. I started this blog as a way of coping; I chose a public online format because I desperately needed the support of family and friends in those early months and I figured a blog was the best way to not only put myself out there emotionally, but to provide a tool for education.

Writing has been truly therapeutic to that end, but my blog has evolved into something bigger than just my infertility struggles. From this very introspective personal journey, my words have spread outwards. On the heels of 200 posts and looking forward to hundreds more, I hope the writing that has soothed my heart can continue do the same for others.

Thanks for reading along. I've hit the first of two milestones I'd like to reach before I do my first giveaway... as of this writing, I'm at 169 followers. Once I hit 200 followers, I'll be doing my first giveaway to really celebrate 200 posts and 200 followers as a way to say thank you for stickin' around to read my crazy foilbles and follies.

And stay tuned this week and next as I have a series of posts on infertility advocacy coming up... I'm so fired up on this topic that it's going to take five parts to tell it all! So keep your eye open... part one will go live this Thursday.

To 200 posts - *raises a glass* - and a thousand more!

The Mass. Infertility Mandate Needs Your Help!

If you live in Massachusetts, you have it pretty lucky when it comes to infertility coverage (unless of course your employer is self-insured). Mass. leads the nation as the gold standard for infertility coverage, but it has built up over twenty years of tarnish on its outdated definition of infertility. As the mandate currently stands, women who experience recurrent miscarriage can be caught in a perpetual cycle of coverage denial because of a technical loophole. MA S. 485 seeks to update this definition and bring it inline with the current guidelines and definitions as issued by the American Society for Reproductive Medicine. The bill is currently sitting in the Senate Ways and Means Committee and desperately needs your help to be passed favorably out of committee.

The best thing to help give this bill a boost is an aggressive email and phone campaign to the committee members. Legislators actually DO care about personal stories, so speaking up by sending them either an email or calling them is one of the most effective and simplest advocacy strategies you can do.

If you live in Mass., please take five minutes to read my latest Examiner article on 3 things you can do to help in just ten minutes.

Photo by Emmanuel Huybrechts via Flickr.

Exciting Announcement in the ALI Blogosphere!

Melissa Ford, author of Stirrup Queens and Navigating the Land of IF, will be the keynote speaker for RESOLVE of New England's Annual Conference in November!

I'm super excited to formally announce this- as a Board member, I've been sitting on the news for just about a week now ^_^

If you're in the New England area November 6, you should really check out the conference. Larry and I went last year and it was an amazing experience for us: tons of resources, lots of great information, and it's nice to be in a room of 200 people who totally understand every single thing you're going through emotionally.

Check out my Examiner article for all of the details here: Leading infertility blogger to speak at RESOLVE of New England Annual Conference.

Photo courtesy of Melissa Ford, taken by Mary Gardella of Love Life Images.

Quick Updates

Short and sweet today:

House hunt updates...

• Inspection passed with flying colors last week.
• We've hired a lawyer.
• We're going with Wells Fargo for our mortgage.
• Purchase and sale needs to be signed by tomorrow night.
• Closing is set for August 12.

Other updates...

• Red Tent Temple on Monday night was awesome. I love my RTT ladies.
• A friend whom I'll call the Librarian Goddess from RTT was just diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma; please keep her in your thoughts.
• I've got bursitis in my right shoulder; it's been bothering me for a couple of weeks and now the doc I saw today ordered an x-ray, 6 weeks of physical therapy and daily course of anti-inflammatories. Fun times. I love the feeling of falling apart one body part at a time.
• Going on a long weekend vacation to a lake house in northern NJ this weekend with Larry and family friends of his. REALLY looking forward to the time to just veg.

See y'all next week.

A failed experiment

I love things "on a stick." Chicken, pickles, cheesecake, meat in general: these are usually not disappointments.

Peeing on a stick however, sucks.

/begin TMI: So, I'm not one to get up in the night and pee, which means, by the time I wake up, I have the flowrate of a Triple Crown champion racehorse. When trying to "hold the pregnancy test in the stream for five seconds" I usually end up peeing all over my hand. I know, I've read the forums: pee in a cup and dip the stick there. I've tried that, and still: pee all over my hand, as I'm usually still half-asleep while trying to hold an old coffee mug under my lady bits while peeing a small waterfall and not dropping the whole thing in the toilet. I have never been a graceful or coordinated woman.

/end TMI.

"Wait, why are you peeing on a stick?" you ask. Well, I got all Bill Nye with my reproductive system and thought I'd try an experiment.

So, you may remember WAY back last year when I was first diagnosed, my doc mentioned that it was possible for some women with POF to get pregnant naturally on their own. This happens in about 5-10% of women with POF, but unfortunately, there's no set protocol to predict who those 5-10% of women will be. Like regular babymakin', it's a crapshoot. So my doctor recommended trying an experiment: stimulating my remaining ovary with hormones to see if we could get it to ovulate on its own. There are two ways to do this: either using expensive recombinant FSH hormone injections (Gonal-F, Follistim, Bravelle and the like) or the much cheaper alternative, regular old' birth control. With the latter, my doc suggests taking it continuously for 3 to 6 months, stopping suddently, timing intercourse, and playing the 2ww game. Like he said, this works anecdotally, meaning he's only ever seen it happen 4 or 5 times in his whole career (my doc is no spring chicken).

I started back up on the pill in March for my HRT, and I've been pretty good about taking it every day, and having a faux pill-induced period every month. When I ran out, I forgot to get it refilled for a week. I was having some "could I be ovulating?" symptoms for a day or two, so post-haste to the bedroom it was. And I waited. I held out for 9dpo (or, as I now call it, 9dpn - 9 days past nothing) and tested.

One lonely blue line. I didn't even tell Larry I tested. (I did well after the fact, and he was a bit peeved I hadn't told him. Rightfully so, in retrospect.)

After a week of no early pg or approaching period symptoms, this past Friday evening I decided to test one more time, or as I like to call it, throw away $9 - because really, what else was I gonna buy with that money? But I needed to test because I had finally gotten my birth control refilled so I wanted to double check before I started a new pack.

Big. Fat. Negative.

This time I actually told Larry and he was waiting with me for those two minutes, and I think that's what actually added to the momentary sense of disappointment. We hadn't really held out any hope- we'd joked that yes, a pregnancy would certainly make life interesting in the context of buying a home right now, but that we'd take the miracle and run with it.

I've pretty much come to terms with the fact that I probably won't get pregnant, but damn if it doesn't sting when there's just one single blue line staring back at you, even when you've already made peace.

So, there's my failed experiment. I hadn't really posted much about it here in the event that it DID work- a surprise pg announcement is always fun- but since it hasn't and I started popping pink pills again yesterday morning, I thought a little lab study post-mortem was in order.

I wished it had turned out differently, but c'est la vie. Life goes on.

*lingering pause*

The New England Infertility Blogger Network

Do you live or are based in the New England region (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut)?

Do you blog about infertility?

Pull up a seat: we need to connect.

This may look strikingly similar to a post I made last month recruiting Bay State IF Bloggers. The first task given to me as the newest member on the RESOLVE of New England Board of Directors is to start culling blogs to build a New England based infertility blogroll. So I'm ditching the Bay State IF Blog Network and expanding it to become the New England Infertility Blogger Network.

What kind of blogs would be included?

• Patients facing infertility or treatment or parenting after infertility
• Their spouses and partners
• Their friends and family members
• Physicians and nurses specializing in fertility treatment
• Fertility clinics or other organizations that blog about fertility

What are the benefits of this blogroll?

• Promotion and visibility with RESOLVE of New England
• The chance to network with other professionals, resources, and bloggers
• The possibility of a meetup or round table at the RESOLVE of New England Annual Conference
• For businesses and providers: increased online exposure and social media opportunities for the only consumer infertility conference in the New England region
• For the amateur blogger: add credibility with support and visibility from a local non-profit organization

A lot of the details are still being ironed out. For now, I'm in the information gathering stage, and simply trying to find and connect with whose out there right now. As of right now, you do not have to be a member of RESOLVE of New England to be included in this blogroll.

Interested in being a part of this project? Fill out this short survey at the bottom of this post!

Readers and followers: this is where I also need your help. I could do a little Googling, but that will only get me so far. I need you dear readers, to send me links to infertility blogs in the New England region. I need you to dig through your Twitter followers and Facebook friends and colleagues: who out there lives in New England and is blogging about infertility? I need comments and retweets and leads in that same viral spirit that brought over 20,000 pairs of eyeballs to my What IF video. The simplest way is to just link right back to this post directly so they can fill out the interest form below.

Thanks in advance for your help and I look forward to connecting with other infertility bloggers in the New England region!

I'm a Night of Hope Award winner!

I've been holding on to this news for over a month, and now that the eUpdate has been sent out by RESOLVE, I can finally spill the beans...

RESOLVE has awarded me Best Viral Video for their annual Night of Hope Awards! I am floored, honored, and truly humbled. RESOLVE described the award in their email blast today:

RESOLVE is proud to announce the inaugural Team RESOLVE Choice Award for Best Viral Video. A viral video by definition is a video that becomes popular by sharing it via the internet. This year’s winner not only created a popular video, but created a video that captured the essence of the “What IF?” project launched during National Infertility Awareness Week®. Congratulations Keiko Zoll and those involved with the video “What IF? A portrait of infertility.”

Congrats also to the other two Team RESOLVE Choice Award winners: the Best Book Award went to Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos, author of Silent Sorority and the Best Blog Award to Julie Robichaux of A Little Pregnant!

The Night of Hope Awards will take place on Tuesday, September 28th at Gaustavino's in New York City. Larry and I are looking forward to making a long weekend out of it. NOH looks like it's going to be a fabulous evening of celebration, and I can't wait to finally meet some folks in person whom with I've only ever corresponded through blogs or emails. I've been going nuts sitting on this news for so long, but the cat's outta the bag now!

But more importantly...

This video could only go viral because of you.

To everyone who's ever clicked play; to everyone who posted it on their blog, or Twitter, or Facebook, or wherever; to everyone who said to someone else, "Hey, you gotta watch this" and showed them my video - thank you all so much.

The Hunt is Over!

Yesterday, we put in a second offer on the house that we fell in love with a few weeks ago and the seller had until this morning to respond. They came back with a counter-offer still within our range, so we accepted! I think our letter to the seller sealed the deal; they wrote us back an equally heartfelt letter with their counter-offer.

Home inspection this Friday... fingers crossed things keep moving along swimmingly!

Photo by Natasha Collins via Flickr.

Just when you thought you'd seen it all...

We got a package in the mail today, rather unexpectedly. Larry handed me the Christmas decorated box, and we looked at each other quizzically when we saw who it was from: my super Evangelical uncle who made a right ass of himself at his own mother's funeral last month.

We were nervous opening it - I've never received mail from either of my uncles ever. I thought it was either some memento of Granny's that he randomly decided to pass on to us or quite honestly, a New Testament only Bible. You know, because we're Jews.

Oh no. It was neither of these things.

It was a pink onesie and a green jumper. And a card that read, "Welcome to your new baby girl."

Way to go Uncle S, you sent it to the wrong niece. You know, the one who just happens to be unable to have her own children.

I called my mom and she was as speechless as I was. We both agreed that my uncle is just one dumb redneck and to not bat an eyelash at his ignorance. I decided that I will indeed pass the gift on to my sister, but I just can't let this go without some kind of response on my part. This is where I need your help, dear readers: how should I respond?

Do I...

+ write them a thank you note saying, "Thanks for the lovely gift. I'm sure my niece will enjoy these!"

+ write them a thank you note saying, "Thanks for the lovely gift. I'm sure the adopted child we hope to have in the future will enjoy this. Let's hope we're matched with a little girl!"

+ send them a blank donation card to RESOLVE of New England and a copy of RESOLVE's Infertility Etiquette Guide.

+ send them a note with just the URL to my video (or better yet, a DVD of it).

+ send them a picture of my sister and I, with our names clearly labeled and descriptions reading, "Keiko: Can't have children" and "Jasmine: Just had the baby, dipshits."

+ just let it go.

What do you think? Do you have other creative ideas or responses? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

Happy Birthday, America!

It never hurts to be reminded that we're pretty blessed to be living in the country we do, for those of you that do live in the United States. Are we a perfect nation? Hardly. But what a colorful history and how fortunate we are to be alive in such colorful times.

Declaration, you're lookin' good for 234 years young.

Happy July 4th, everyone.
Be safe out there.

House hunting, volunteering, and 2 blogs you should read now

This post is a whole mishmash of stuff. The house hunt continues, although things just got interesting with the house we made an offer on two weeks ago. They had their open house on Sunday, but no takers. Our agent talked with their agent and thinks we can make another offer on their recently dropped price. We really thought we needed to walk away, but it looks like we have a few steps back and a look over our shoulder to make first. There's just something about this place that keeps bringing us back there.

We've got 3 more homes to tour tonight, one of which Larry is particularly drawn to. I'm still on the fence and need to see it in person. We're cutting it close... we have to be out of my dorm by August 15. We've given ourselves until July 15 to have a solid lead on a house, or we're going to look at some month-to-month rentals in the area and trying shopping again in the winter. House hunting is just like getting engaged. At first, you're excited and you can't wait to start buying everything and imagining what it's going to look like, but once you get neck-deep in the planning, it's a beast. Other updates after the cut.

Other updates... Willow is still being adorable, doing that whole "less than a week old gee the world is new and shiny" thing. My sister is doing better. Brother-in-law is still beaming. I'm now incredibly impatient for when I can start taking my niece on mall runs and start talking about boys and getting mani/pedis.

Today starts the official first day of my job promotion. Lots of great planning sessions at work for this coming year. I haven't felt this energized about my work in nearly 2 years, so it's a good feeling. Only thing I'm not looking forward to is working two hours Saturday morning and three hours Monday afternoon... yes, we're closed and yes, I still have to be there. Bummer.

Volunteered at the RESOLVE of New England Annual Fundraising Telethon and helped to raise $555 last night! My numbers were totally boosted by a very generous contribution from my mom in honor of her new granddaughter. Still, it was the first volunteer event I've been able to do in my new role as Board member, and I had a lot of fun doing it. If you feel so inclined to donate, you can do so here online. No amount is too small and even $1 can help and your support is always appreciated. *takes off her fundraiser hat*

Two other important blog posts I'd like to promote as well.

1. A Half-Baked Life writes:

Today, this is what I'm thinking: we need to be kind to each other. We need to be able to talk about (or at least be present to) sad, unimaginable things in the way that we celebrate the joyful ones, to remember the losses as we remember the birthdays, not because we should dwell on what is depressing, but because death is a part of life. We are such strange, half-invisible creatures sometimes, hiding our shadows.

The rest of the post is really stunning, and gives us pause for reflection. I feel like I've been reading so many loss announcements recently and in the wake of the loss of my own grandmother, I found her post really comforting. Go read the rest.

2. My friend Jessa of Two Big J's, One Little E is running a card drive for a friend and fellow blogger, Kim. Kim was diagnosed with cervical cancer during her pregnancy last year and had to deliver her son early. Son is fine, but mother is not; the pregnancy saved her life in that her cancer would never have been detected otherwise. Kim is currently undergoing cancer treatments with no insurance- she lost her job just before her diagnosis. Jessa has all the details here of how you can participate in the card drive. Cards will be mailed to Kim on July 15. If you can send some love to her, it would be some seriously good karma.

That's all I've got for now. I'll probably take a break from posting this weekend for the holiday, but I'll be back up and running next week. Until then, for my readers in the States: Happy July 4th! Be safe out there and enjoy the weekend.

Photo by WoodleyWonderWorks via Flickr.

Wordless Wednesday: Nerd Alert

One was amazing. I cannot wait to see the other.
 

Team Edward or Team Harry? Which is better? Discuss ^_^

Anyone else hear that ticking sound?

EDIT: Thank you to whoever submitted my good news to the LFCA this weekend! Much appreciated :)

Finally home after a crazy busy weekend. We spent Saturday in the hospital with my sister and her husband, oohing and aaahing over my little darling niece and watching the USA v. Ghana game. It was crazy to realize that we were meeting a brand new human being who wasn't even 24 hours old yet! My sister was definitely tired and sore, and my brother-in-law was quite the doting father. They all look so absolutely happy to finally meet the little lady they've been waiting for nine months.

There is infinite joy to be found in a growing family. But then that old green-eyed IF monster rears her ugly head from time to time. In these moments of happiness are also these deep, instinctual longings, something I thought I'd squelched a bit. This highly emotional weekend certainly brought up a lot of emotional baggage from the last year. It's this yo-yo-ing that gets to me more than anything.

Friday, I could hardly sit still. We all knew that my sister was getting induced first thing Friday morning, so we were all waiting patiently for updates. My mom drove up there to meet them at the hospital and offer moral support from the waiting room. I got the phone call when she was induced, when they broke her water, and when she got the epidural. My mom filled me in about about 6pm when it was go time. Larry and I had 3 home tours scheduled for Friday night (and all three were a bust... I don't know if we're too picky or we need to start looking in a different area). I didn't hear anything for two hours; I was starting to get worried. I finally called my mom at about 9pm and she told me the good news: Willow was here, my sister was fine, and I was an Auntie!

At first, relief - I was so glad nothing was wrong. And then excitement - I couldn't wait to meet her this weekend. And then all of that baggage that comes with infertility, all of those feelings I'd thought I'd really worked through and processed. Like every birth announcement, there's a rush of joy followed by this overwhelming jealousy and self-loathing. I got up from where I was sitting and marched into the bathroom, overcome with emotion. Larry followed right behind: "You don't have to hide from me." I cried, I rambled, I was so excited and embarrassed with myself for feeling this range of conflicting emotions. After a few minutes, I was fine. It was just a total emotional overload for a few minutes, but I was worried how I might be at the hospital the next day.

I was fine, actually. Larry was too. We were so happy to meet our niece and so glad to see just how happy Jasmine and Neal were. The only thing that made me uncomfortable was seeing a nurse come in with a needle in hand for some vaccine for my sister. I high-tailed it out of the room: Keiko don't do needles. But it was a lovely visit and the love that filled the room was really just beautiful.

And then, on the ride back to Larry's parents' house... I started hearing it: this incessant ticking in the background of everything. Even though we're pretty much decided on pursuing adoption, it was like my uterus and ovary just started screaming at me: "Baby. Now." This often happens in baby scenarios like showers or after friends announce their pregnancies. As much as I've resolved that yes, I can still be just as much of a woman without experiencing pregnancy or birth, it doesn't mean that my biological clock shuts off. It had been dormant for months now, and all of a sudden my niece's birth wound it right back up again.

This isn't necessarily a bad thing, just frustrating and annoying. I'm daydreaming about names and nursery colors. I see these big round bellies on women walking down the street and think to myself: I would look cute with a little bump like that. I'm thinking about what time of year it would be nice to be four months or nine months' pregnant, or what zodiac sign our baby would be if I were pregnant right now. It's this crazy, hyper-feminine alter ego that crawls up out of the depths of this otherwise confident, assertive woman and starts to henpeck away at my brain. Gah! Enough already!

And yesterday, we went to a wedding of very dear friends of ours. Larry was in the wedding- what a beautiful ceremony and evening. We were surprised at the emphasis on procreation at the ceremony (I think the bride and groom were just as surprised as well!) - there were a few moments where Larry and I exchanged knowing glances at one another. A few of the blessings and wishes for the couple and their future children just landed very differently to our ears. It's a marked difference from Jewish weddings, where wishes for children aren't typically mentioned. Thankfully, a night of libations, dancing, and merriment drowned out that relentless tick tock.

...but in those quiet moments, I can hear it, feel that butterfly in my stomach idyllic hopefulness and excitement, and feel a deep longing in my chest. That Biological Clock - she is one harsh mistress.


Photo by Alvimann via MorgueFile.

Meet my niece!

She's just stunning. Mommy and baby are just fine. Daddy is beaming. And my niece is the cutest newborn ever. And boy howdy does she have a set of lungs on her! Just wanted to post a few pics since we're on the road. We were home for a good friend's wedding as well, so we are whirlwinding back to Boston as I write. In the meantime, soak up the adorableness that is my new niece, Willow!

EDIT: I've put the pics behind the cut for sensitivity. Forgot that BlogPress doesn't include my span=fullpost html. And thanks for stopping by from the LFCA!








- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

I'm an Aunt!

My niece Willow was born at 8:40pm on Friday, June 25th. She came in at 7 pounds 3 ounces and 20 inches long. I want to say a huge thank you to all of the people cheering for her online as I tweeted updates like a fiend. We're on our way to fly down and meet her today. Stay tuned for a more detailed post with some pictures this evening! (For those of you wondering, that's Aunt Bea from the Andy Griffith Show.)

What IF: Two Months Later

It all started two months ago with #ProjectIF.

Two months ago to the day, I posted my What IF? video online.


What IF? A Portrait of Infertility on Vimeo.
Two months ago, I thought I would merely post on my little corner of the internet and let the blogosphere pass me by. Two months ago, I came out of the infertility closet. True, my friends and family were more than aware of who was writing this blog. Yet, I put my name, my face, my contact information to these What IFs, to a story that's told over and over and over again in the infertility community. Two months ago, I became an infertility advocate the moment I hit "record" on my digital camera. Standing here, two months later, and looking back, I marvel at the distance I've traveled in just two months' time.

I'm writing this post as part of WEGO Health's June Blog Carnival: Your Best Health Activist Moment. Click the link to read more and to find out how you can participate! This post has allowed me to explore some of the true highlights of the past two months in my health advocacy. It's hard to just pick one: so much has happened and I've been deeply affected by them all.

The first moment was when my video went viral. In just 11 days of publishing my video online, it received 10,000 plays. Currently, it has about 17,500 plays, and grows little by slowly. A lot of that initial momentum has dropped off, to be expected. That was when I realized my advocacy work was generating buzz: people were talking, tweeting, sharing.

The second moment was when I received a call from Rebecca Flick at RESOLVE's national headquarters in Washington. You often think of national organizations as nameless, faceless giants with no real person-to-person connection between Organization with a capital O and its members. All of that bias I held was erased the moment Rebecca and I began talking. RESOLVE really is here for its members, and they work tirelessly for them whether it's providing education and support or lobbying for change. The work alone to keep RESOLVE current with social media trends is exhausting enough. When Rebecca told me I had RESOLVE's full support to spread this video to the masses, this was when I was first beginning to realize that I had embarked on something much bigger than I had originally thought.

The third moment was when I was contacted by Dr. Lawrence Nelson of the NICHD. Dr. Nelson was the first resource I turned to after I was first diagnosed with premature ovarian failure: a quick Google search brought up much of his literature and even an informational video that I posted as one of my first handful of posts on this blog. Dr. Nelson has become one of the leading experts on POF/POI in the nation, and his passion to develop comprehensive and compassionate treatment for the disease is inspiring. We have since been corresponding on ways I can bring my experience with post-diagnosis coping and healing into some kind of treatment protocol for other women diagnosed with POF/POI. Apparently, I've handled my diagnosis remarkably well for a woman of only 26 at the time. In this moment, I realized that my experience mattered to other people.

The fourth moment happened right here in my own backyard after meeting with a networking group of regional infertility professionals. I made some great connections and contacts and had a chance to brainstorm ideas, raise issues, and get feedback. The real honor came when I was asked last month to apply to the RESOLVE of New England Board of Directors, of which I was unanimously voted in last Thursday. This was when I realized the possibilities ahead of me with local advocacy efforts.

But of all the moments in the past two months? My childhood best friend sending me a message on Facebook telling me she is a three-time egg donor. A work colleague of mine (who I just goof off with 90% of the time I see him) closing the door in my office and confessing that his son was a miracle after recurrent miscarriages. The blogger who reposted my video who works in the healthcare field who changed her mind about mandated infertility treatment coverage and how it really should be covered by insurance companies. The dear friend who I had no idea was having trouble conceiving a second child. A friend of mine who I'm still getting to know who pulls me aside after a gathering one night and thanks me for posting on my blog that it's okay to feel mean and jealous and spiteful of all those big round bellies that aren't hers. The long emails from strangers telling me their stories: all of their heartbreak, triumph, and waiting- finally sharing it for the first time with someone other than their partner.

Like a sudden rain across still waters, the ripples growing and colliding with one another, the water a network of waves and movement - it was these moments of personal connection that have impacted me the most in my activism. These personal connections begin lacing and crossing one another, creating a network of support, education, activism and research that grows stronger and tighter with each connection.

What a different place at which I stand two months later... and I cannot wait to see from where I stand a year from now, so see how far the ripples have spread.

Photo by Hiroyuki Takeda via Flickr.

"And Room to Grow..."

House hunting has come to a stall. We submitted an offer on Tuesday and it was rejected by the seller that same day. Rock on. There's an open house Sunday, so we're waiting to find out if anyone else bites. If no one does, we might submit a new offer, but we're also thinking about walking away if we must.

Walking away is the hardest thing to do when you're house hunting. It's so easy to fall in love: you find the house. You start imagining paint choices, furniture, little knick knacks and lamps and pictures and then you start preemptively filling in the memories you plan to make in each room of your house. But, it's not your house, not yet at least.

We foolishly did all of those things, filling up the pictures in our minds with all of our stuff, with all of that potential. Walking away is going to be so hard from a house we've fallen in love with.

Hunting for a house is the most grown up thing we've ever done in our adult lives. For me, it's unsettled some emotions I thought were put to rest over this last year. It all started when we set up our search parameters: 3 bedroom, 1+ bath. Since Larry works at home, a three-bedroom house makes sense: a master bedroom for us, an office for Larry, and "room to grow."

"Room to grow..." We've defaulted to this phrase at each home tour and open house. And every time I say it, I won't lie: it's tinged with sadness.

I know we'll be parents. I know we'll have a family. And I know we will probably never be able to do it the old-fashioned way, short of a miracle. Even after a year, even after all these positive, hopeful, advocacy-driven posts - it still hurts. It still cuts deep. I wander through these houses and these empty rooms, envisioning nurseries painted in soft pastels and knowing that Team Zoll #3 will never be half of Team Zoll #1 and Team Zoll #2. It doesn't matter. If it did, we'd never consider adoption or IF treatments in the first place.

But just because it doesn't matter doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt sometimes. It's in these rare, unguarded moments these feelings seep in, a heavy air of doubt and sadness.

All of this money we're pouring into buying a home pushes back our family building timeline substantially. I know we'll grow, I know we'll fill that third room. But now we have to wait even longer. Life happens. You make the best decisions you can in each moment. I know I can't live my life wanting for the future or weeping for the past. Life must be lived in the moment. I get that. I know that. Logical Keiko totally understands that 100%.

But damn if it doesn't just knock you down to your knees with worry and hesitation, the wind sucked clear out of your lungs and you find your self clawing at the air just to breathe.

"And room to grow..." This empty room we don't even have yet. This room whose descriptor lingers unresolved, hinting wryly at possibility but laced with uncertainty - hanging uncomfortably, the sentence unfinished and trailing off into the unknown.

I know we'll get there. I know it is going to be a hell of a lot harder and more expensive than we ever thought it would be. I know it's going to take time. I know I have to be strong. I have to be hopeful. I have to be positive. I have to live in the moment. I have to focus on what's in front of me and making it through each day before I can worry about ten tomorrows from now.

But sometimes I need to feel afraid. I need to feel sad. I need to feel like there isn't hope for a few moments, let all of those demons and grief fill the empty room in my head. I let them rush in like banshees and spirits and spectres.

And then I cast them out.

The room is empty, quiet again for a bit, waiting to be filled.


Photo by Christian Kadluba via Flickr.

Wordless Wednesday: Garden Snoop

Shhh! Don't tell... I'm the Garden Snoop!

Come see the rest of my garden snooping at gardensnoop.tumblr.com!

I like to take pictures of flowers and pretty plants in my travels. I don't trespass: everything is in public view. This new blog is mostly for my own amusement, but also to crowd-source plants and flowers I don't recognize, like this clematis above. (I twitpic'd it and got the answer in a matter of minutes. Ah, the power of social media.)

This brings my blog count up to three now: HWSL, Thinking Deliciously, and now, Garden Snoop.

Team RESOLVE Choice Awards: Best Infertility Blog & Book

The annual RESOLVE Night of Hope recognizes leaders making strides in the infertility fields, from doctors, nurses, and clinics to advocates, researchers, and employers. Hope Awards are given in a variety of categories, for Service, Advocacy, and Innovation, to name a few. There are also two awards voted on by the community: Best Infertility Blog and Best Infertility Book. Excerpts from each nominee in each category are available. Voting ends this Thursday, so make sure you go vote now, and spread the word via Twitter, Facebook, your own blog, and wherever else you post. It's an incredible award and I know the very deserving nominees would appreciate your votes!

The Best IF Blogs were selected from over 185 entries to Melissa Ford and RESOLVE's collaborative blog project during National Infertility Awareness Week back in April. #ProjectIF asked ALI bloggers to put their "What IFs?" of infertility out there, and then answer those questions. From those response posts, five blogs were chosen as nominees for the Best Blog category. Their What IF posts, and I have read each of them- are powerful, moving, relatable, beautiful. Do take the time to read them before you vote.

The Best IF Books were selected by nominations from the ALI community. A call from RESOLVE was put out for Best Book, and bloggers, readers, and everyone in between submitted their favorites for RESOLVE to select five nominees. Excerpts of each book are externally linked from the voting website- again, really great nominees and totally worth the read and vote. I have a couple of books now to add to my reading list this summer.

By voting, you're helping to support not only an organization that does so much for our community, but helping to recognize those leaders within that community that stand out and have made substantial contributions to the community as well.  Like submitting news to the LFCA, voting for the Team RESOLVE Choice Awards is just good karma in the ALI blogosphere.

Have I inspired you enough? Well, get out there and vote already! ^_^

June ICLW: Elementally Speaking

Howdy! Thanks for stopping by for June's ICLW. (Learn more about the ICLW here and see how you can sign up for next month.) I've got a few previous ICLW intro posts to get you up to speed: ABC's of Me (November 2009), April 2010, and May 2010. For this month's intro, I think I'll try something a little different: looking at my life right now through the Four Elements. Intrigued?

The Four Elements of Me

Earth: What Grounds Me ~ Roots and Foundation
+ My husband, Larry: totally my rock, my love, my soulmate. We've been married for 2 and a half years. We were high school sweethearts from 1997... do the math. We've been together a long time and are still madly in love with one another.
+ My family: My mom, my papa, my sister Jasmine and her husband Neal - these are my core. Then Larry's mom, dad, and sister - just as much family as my own blood. And soon, probably sometime this week: Willow! My niece-to-be, the first grandchild, the little darling we've been waiting 9 months to meet. You can count on a post about her later this week since my sister will be induced on Friday :)
+ My faith: I'm Jewish. But I put an equal amount of faith in the goodness of humanity, the beauty that surrounds us daily we often take for granted, and in the sovereignty and power of the collective creativity of women. I ground myself by redefining the world around me, and walking forward with faithful steps in the world I've created.

Water: What Moves Me ~ Transition and Flow
+ My health: it's been in a varying state of flux. I have premature ovarian failure, diagnosed in April of 2009. I have Hashimoto's thyroiditis. I recently learned I've got degenerative arthritis in my lower spine. Oh yeah, I'm 28. Thankfully though, my thyroid appears to finally be stabilized after a year of ups and down, my my POF is being treated with HRT.
+ My job: Recently promoted.
+ My home: We are house-hunting, and hope to have a formal offer in to the seller by COB today.

Air: What Lifts Me ~ Joy and Celebration
+ Food, music, the arts, photography, flowers, Hell's Kitchen, Weeds, LOST, Radiohead, indie music, Vampire Weekend, MUSE, art house cinema, Bach Cello Suites, cooking, our trip Japan last year, camping, fishing, reading, writing, writing my book, RadioLab, The Moth, This American Life, taking the time to literally stop and smell the roses.

Fire: What Consumes Me ~ Passion and Perseverance
+ Having a family: The timeline has been pushed back significantly since we're buying a house, but we plan on adopting an infant domestically. We're skipping fertility treatments altogether.
+ My advocacy: I've recently decided that I am an health advocate, fighting for infertility treatment coverage and research. It all started with this video. The content of my blog has shifted slightly from mostly about me to more about the greater ALI blogosphere and what we can all do to be everyday advocates. I am also RESOLVE of New England's newest Board member on their Board of Directors!
+ My writing: I do it all the time. I've been keeping a journal in print or electronic form since I was in 7th grade. This blog is a continuation of that, but I'm starting to branch out to other places like Examiner.com and hopefully more paying opportunities. I'm also writing a book about my experience of converting to Judaism three years ago.

Looking forward to meeting new folks. Happy ICLW and happy commenting!

Image used with generous permission by the artist, Alida Saxon, copyright 2010.

The Mammogram Primer

Had my mammogram yesterday. When my doc first mentioned last Monday I should get a baseline reading, I kind of freaked out a little bit. No history of breast cancer in my family, but the possibilities of what it could detect are still unsettling, at the very least. I had a pretty chill morning going to NIA dance class (more on that later) and catching up on Weeds and eating leftover Indian food for lunch. By the time I got to the hospital, I decided it wasn't worth getting myself worried sick over a simple scan, so I just let it go with the flow. Since I know many of my readers will eventually have to have a mammogram done at some point (hopefully never at the age of 28), I thought I'd make a little primer out of this. Other general life updates after the jump as well.

Mammogram Tip #1: Take a couple of ibuprofen before your appointment. I'll get to the pain part in a bit, but as a first step: pop a couple of Advil on your drive over to your imaging center. Trust me.

Mammogram Tip #2: Know your family history of breast cancer. They'll ask you both in-person and on your intake form. Other things of which you want to make sure you know the details: any hormonal medication you've taken, including birth control pills, a patch, progesterone supplements, or any kind of fertility drugs (Clomid, Gonal-F, etc.). If you've had a complicated fertility treatment history, it's not a bad idea to just have it all written or printed out with the dates of your treatment and what you took for how long. They also asked me lots of questions since I had no family history of breast cancer and was coming in here at only 28 years old. I had to do the whole "POF/POI - doc wants a baseline" schpiel.

Mammogram Tip #3: Seriously? Don't bother wearing a bra. It's gotta come off anyway, so use the appointment as a chance to swing free for a day (or in my book, no bras on the weekend). Also, wear a comfortable shirt. It'll come off too, but at least when you're done, you'll be wearing something comfortable. I cheated and wore a bathing suit underneath (went to the beach afterward); taking everything off from the waist up was a breeze :) The robe was cute too: I had my choice of pink or white kimono style, opening in the front. Of course I took the pink one!

Mammogram Tip #4: Strike up a conversation with your technician. Mine was kind enough to start it for me- I'm weird with small talk with strangers. She was very curious as to how I was diagnosed with POF and what it meant. We ended up spending almost the whole scan session talking about how adoption works in Massachusetts. And instead of asking me before my scan if there was any chance I was pregnant, she asked if I ever could get pregnant. I wasn't offended either- it was all a very nice distraction to the otherwise very comfortable procedure.

Mammogram Tip #5: Yes, it's going to hurt, but it doesn't last. The mammogram itself is VERY simple. They take four pictures to start, frontal and side views of each breast. Frontal views are the way you're probably imagining mammograms are done: lay your breast on the scan plate, and a top plate lowers down on top of it. As a mammogram is trying to make a 2D image out of a 3D object (your boob), it has to compress quite tight on top. It's definitely painful, but I know it varies based on breast tenderness and size. The scan for each picture only takes about 15 seconds; I found it helped that I inhaled as the plate compresses and exhaled on release. The side view is a bit more painful in that they rotate the bottom plate to about 45° and it compresses from the side. For some reason, on both scans, this one stung a lot more. I compare the pain to anytime you've ever walked into a corner or a door and hit it with your boob. My left breast, for whatever reason, hurt a lot more than my right one. They also have to pull all the breast tissue onto the plate, so that means potentially pulling some armpit fat up there. I know- uncomfortable, but it doesn't last. However, my boobs were definitely a little sore for about a half hour afterward, so I wish I had thought to take an ibuprofen as mentioned in Tip #1 before I left. The soreness was gone within an hour, easily.

Mammogram Tip #6: Don't be alarmed if they call you back for more scans, especially if it's your first mammogram. Since they've never had pictures of your breasts before, they may need more detailed pictures taken. This doesn't instantly mean they've found something. As I mentioned, they're making 2D pictures out of a 3D object, so depending on the compression, some areas of breast tissue may look denser than others just depending on how the breast spread out. My technician explained that they may use weights or other means of compression to help spread out any dense areas that come up. However, for most standard mammograms, such as your annual scan starting at age 40, they'll just be taking those 4 pictures.

Mammogram Tip #7: Do something nice for yourself afterward! My mom makes a "date" out of it with her friend. They both go at the same time and then usually go out to lunch together. It turns something mildly scary into something enjoyable. I ended up going to the beach. Once the scan is done, there's really nothing to do about it, so you might as well spend the time doing something nice for yourself rather than worrying about it.

Mammogram Summary: A few minutes of pain for an important women's health diagnostic, and a great excuse to make a pampered day out of it for yourself afterward.

. . .

Before my mammogram, I went to my NIA dance class. NIA requires a lot of letting go of your pre-conceived notions about aerobics and also your limits of bodily expression. I certainly got a workout (my legs are super sore this morning). But my back doesn't hurt at all. If anything, I have a greater awareness about my body movement and what feels comfortable. You don't have to know dance or martial arts or yoga to appreciate this: there is no "right" way to do NIA. You just do what feels good for your body within a set of given movements. The rest is up to you. I loved it; I wish my next two Saturdays weren't busy so I could go back again. I need to find more NIA classes, because it's a really invigorating, celebratory, expressive workout. Oh, and it won't kill my knees or my back.

Afterward, I hit the beach. Plum Island in Newburyport, MA, is seriously the hidden gem of beaches in the state. Larry is out of town this weekend at a bachelor party on Nantucket, so I thought I'd hit the beach as well. Growing up in NJ, I got spoiled by Atlantic City and Ocean City and Wildwood... NJ beaches are pretty nice and it's amazing how much warmer the water is just 5 hours south of here. Plum Island is the closest thing to a Jersey Shore experience I've had in the 3 years since moving up here. The only catch? The water is FREEZING- like, "I meant to get a tan but I got hypothermia instead" cold.

I fully intended on reading and writing while I sat on the beach: oh no. I passed the eff out. Like, I'm pretty sure I was snoring at one point PTFO'd. It was wonderful. I went for a dip in the ocean to cool off a couple of times, and then realized I was starving. I hit up downtown Newburyport and the River Merrimac Bar & Grille for dinner. Newburyport is so cute and quaint! Lots of Georgian brick-edifice buildings with neat little shops. Parking is a bit of a hassle, but walking around in the nice warm June evening air was just lovely. Dinner was exquisite: a glass of riesling (14 Hands- best riesling I've had), a beet and arugula salad with toasted sunflower seeds and applewood smoked bacon pieces with a red wine vinaigrette and for my entree: wild mushroom risotto, with oyster, portobello, and shittake mushrooms lightly sautéed with garlic, shallot and Madeira wine, served over braised greens & creamy risotto, finished with goat cheese & truffle oil. It was pretty friggin' fantastic. Topped the night off with fresh strawberry ice cream from Gram's Ice Cream and then drove home, sunkissed, tired, and super-relaxed.

With the craziness of the past few weeks, I haven't felt this relaxed in ages. Today: Strawberry Festival, one more home tour of our favorite spot, and a BBQ with friends afterward. It's been a great weekend.

Top photo by: Manuel Cacciatori via Flickr. Bottom photo by: Keiko Zoll ©2010.