Since writing this blog’s first post I have received quite a bit of feedback from my readers. One of the recurring things that I have heard is, “what you are doing is very brave.” Brave? not really, what is particularly brave about it? I am told that most people would want more privacy. Well, my life is Mostly an open book.
People say that blogging about our infertility is brave because most couples who have to deal with this issue are ashamed or embarrassed. That never made sense to me, embarrassing is:
Running away from the microphone in the middle of your speech at your Bat Mitzvah.
Introducing a colleague, one with whom you have worked for over a year, by the wrong name.
Modeling your underwear to everyone at the bus stop because your skirt falls off as you run to catch the bus.
Infertility does not belong on this list.
I understand people who are concerned with their privacy, but I have discovered many wonderful things in my willingness to share my/our experiences. Last week my mother, one of my avid readers, called me after she had learned more about endometriosis and asked relevant questions about my treatment. This was the first productive conversation that the two of us have had on the subject and for a mother and daughter that can mean a lot. A friend suggested I should no longer refer to myself as the infertile half of the couple because it can lead to feelings of guilt or inadequacy. After all, she noted, it takes two. There are also those people who have read the blog and shared their own experiences. Knowing that other couples have been through this makes us feel less alone.
More than anything else, by sharing this experience I am able to gather the strength I need to push through this challenge. The past year has not been easy, but knowing that people out there are rooting us on and hoping for the best makes it a bit easier. So with the support and encouragement of those people who care I become not brave, but strong.
Let’s go back in time. It was June 2008, I had recently moved from Jerusalem to Haifa, and it was time for my visit to every female’s favorite doctor. I asked friends for recommendations and made an appointment.
Here is an excerpt of the conversation that transpired as part of the checkup:
Dr.: Do you have regular periods?
Me: Like clockwork.
Dr.: Are they painful?
Me: Not particularly.
Dr.: Based on my exam and your blood tests, I think that you have endometriosis. Take the pill and come back in six months.
Me: Endometri-WHAT? (well not exactly, I had heard of it before but did not know much and certainly had some questions).
Dr.: You should Google it to find out more.
Did my Doctor tell me to Google my condition for more information? Google, a hypochondriac’s playground! For kicks, let’s try Googling the following search term: “pain in pinky.” There you have it, arthritis – who knew that medicine was this simple?! My doctor could have suggested a particular site (in 2011 a new organization was founded that helps woman with this condition).
Maybe he thought that I would not understand his explanation in Hebrew; though we had been doing fine up until this point. Perhaps, he felt that taking the time to properly explain the disease would have put him further behind schedule – I played many games of hearts as I patiently waited for my appointment.
I wish I could tell you that I gave this doctor a piece of my mind and told him that I deserved just a bit more of his time and certainly better care. Of course that would be a lie, but in all future references in this blog – yes I continued to see him- he will be known as “Dr. Google.”
Unsure about the medical advice I had just received, I spoke to a friend. Luckily, she had a copy of the book Our Bodies Ourselves(it’s not just for prepubescent females anymore). Taking the pill and monitoring the situation seems to have been just about right.
While I wrote this post a couple of days ago, tonight I cannot help but express my sorrow about Friday’s events in Connecticut. It goes without saying that as I am trying to create a new life, the tragic and meaningless death of so many people is heartbreaking.
Today I had a choice: I could either go to work, or not – guess how this one turned out. I love that the university gives me Yimei B’chira (elective days) allotted to certain holidays on which I can choose whether I want to work or not – too bad I only get three a year! The plan was clearly to sleep in, but at 8:00 am I was wide awake (if you think waking up at 8:00 is by any definition late, I assume that you have children).
As I was lying in bed, wide awake, for no good reason, I of course began to think about possible posts. I more or less already have about 30 posts that I would like to share. These are mostly cute anecdotes, with little bits of information thrown in here and there. The blog is meant to serve four concrete purposes:
Keep people posted in a lighthearted manner
Demonstrate that conversations about infertility are not taboo
Perhaps offer perspective to other people facing the issue
Satisfy my constant urge for an audience
This post was not planned, but it hit me that I must put out the following disclaimer to all: I am the farthest thing from an expert about any of this. You already know that I have no medical certification, but the situation is far worse than that. I don’t read blogs on infertility; without a little help from google, I can’t tell you the phases of a woman’s cycle (and I know that many woman out there can recite it by heart). I didn’t even know about the TWW until someone used the acronym in a conversation – her response to me was “Toby, don’t you read blogs?”
This scene from the movie My Cousin Vinny has stuck with me over the years:
I laughed and understood that Marisa Tomei’s sentiments were those of most women. The accepted narrative being that women are in this big race against time to fulfill their purpose of bearing children. Once you hit your mid-20s, the clock starts ticking. So naturally, one day I too would hear that same dreaded tick-tock.
Lo and behold, that if the alarm on my biological clock has gone off, I must have hit snooze. To clarify, I am not referring to my body. If being 34 means that I am supposed to feel a time crunch to have children, then I must be young at heart because I feel no pressure. I am not in a race, not against my own body and certainly not against anyone else.
Let me explain, I grew up in the Jewish Modern Orthodox world and imbibed in my childhood was an understanding that I was meant to meet a man, marry and start a family-in that order, please; I spent a lot of time struggling to find my place in this world as a single woman. So I dated, A LOT. Blind dates, during which I learned the crucial lesson that you must, must Google people before accepting a date and that one little cup of coffee can actually be a form of torture. I willingly shared the details of “what I was looking for” with every new person who asked – remember I talk a lot. Sure, I had fun too, but all of this was towards the fulfillment of my destiny. At a certain point the word beshert made me want to vomit.
Then the most dreaded of events suddenly happened, I turned 30- as a single woman- oh the horror! Surprisingly, I was overcome with a sense of freedom. I could hardly believe that my world did not crumble in front of me, but instead it got so much better! I picked up and moved from Jerusalem to Haifa, started a new job, and added some more friends to the wealth of great people in my life. I felt liberated, and I stopped behaving as though I was waiting for a partner to come around so that my life could begin. I still dated, but I was not afraid to be fulfilled by and grateful for the wonderful people and elements that my life comprised. It was also around this time that I thought about whether I would want to parent a child on my own if I didn’t end up meeting a partner. For me, it was clear that the answer was no; I would only embark on all the challenges involved in parenthood with a partner. Make no mistake, I still wanted to have kids, but the alternative did not feel like a compromise or some inferior existence; I had visions of the things that I would do independent of who was in my life. Quite simply, I was happy and content.
Enter Tommy, the love of my life. In the blink of an eye we were envisioning our lives together, talking about a family, and I was moving back to Jerusalem (the things you do for love). I knew that most people must have assumed that we would want to have kids immediately. After all, we were in our early 30s, so tick-tock, tick-tock. In fact, we were, and still are, so happy that we wanted to take time just enjoy each other and our new shared life without all the common “joys” that go along with pregnancy, preparing for a child, and then having an infant. The rest of our lives was, and remains, ahead of us and we chose to cherish the moment. We knew that if infertility was an issue that we would face then so be it, but we would not allow our lives and every decision to be dictated by that possibility.
I have yet to hear the clock, but I do have a condition known as endometriosis; I had it ten years ago and I refuse to consider that I could or should have done anything differently to change my situation. Tommy, on other hand, could have asked me out years ago when our paths crossed for 30 seconds in 2005! Here’s a reality check, both men and women hear the clock ticking away when it comes to their lives. I refuse to spend precious moments obsessing over those things that are missing in my life, because let’s face it, there will always be something. Instead, we make the best efforts to move forward towards all of our goals, but we are sure to enjoy all the wonderful things that we have together. No regrets.
It was a day like any other and in my world that meant that I found myself talking. Anyone who knows me, knows that I talk a lot. I like to think that I am both funny and engaging and that people like to listen, but the truth of the matter is that I don’t really care that much. After all, I laugh.
So there I was in a traffic jam, a given in Jerusalem, and my colleague and I are passing the time talking about life. Well, more specifically, my life, and these days that means that I was telling her the most recent and hilarious episode in the quest that my husband and I began, a little over a year ago, to bring a new Galili into the world. As my friend laughed hysterically she said, “Toby, you should blog about this.”
And so this blog was born and we can all hope that it is not the only thing born out of this whole process!
Futile or Fertile 