Choice, Infertility and Reproductive Rights

Last night, sometime around 9 pm, I set down the leftover beer and pita chips I was carrying, kicked off my shoes, sat on the couch and let out a "phew" And meant it.

I threw my very first grown up party. For a cause. At the fancy B&B next to our place. Catered and everything. And people came, despite the rain, despite the jillion other fundraisers and events that go on in a capital city on a session night. And we did grown up things like networked and shared business cards and made donations (!) and most importantly, made a commitment to identify pro-choice women that could become viable political candidates in 2012, to encourage them, to support them and to get them to this amazing 3 and a half day training event in January.

The best part about last night, I mean, besides the artichoke dip which was banging, was M whispering in my ear before he slipped out to let me "do my thing" - I'm really proud of you.

Asshole. He always makes me teary.

**
About a year and a half ago, when I started to feel somewhat human again, when I was willing to take a chance of venturing out into public again and believed I could probably carry on a conversation without sobs, at least most of the time, I sat down with a colleague of mine - someone who's considered a bit of a grand dame of lobbying for women's issues in these parts - and asked her, basically, what am I supposed to be doing with my life?

At that point in time I wanted to run away from my job, define myself as something other than someone that people whispered about (you heard what happened right? poor thing.....). I wanted to prove to everyone and myself that I was greater than my grief.

I just had no idea how.

She asked a very basic question: "What is important to you?" Find it. Define it. Immerse yourself in it. Volunteer.

So I did.

The chance to create and shape my family is important to me. To know that other women have this right - that is important to me. To know that no one will take away my ability to make the choices that are right for me and the people I love - that is important to me. Choice - this is what matters to me.

And some people got it. They really did. And supported me 100%. Others were baffled.

After all you are doing to try to have a baby, why are you doing this?
You've seen heartbeats - how can you support something like this?
You want to be a mother - what mother would be ok with this?

And on that last note, by the way, you might be surprised.

But what it comes down to, as I said in a post I published for the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade back in 2008, is this: Choice is not just about the “choice” to have an abortion.

Mississippi's attempts to redefine "personhood" reshaped this conversation for a lot of people. What's worse than learning that your attempt at IVF or a frozen embryo transfer resulted in yet another negative? What hurts more than knowing you are still so far away from the child you want so badly? It might be knowing that some people would classify you as a murderer for jeopardizing the "lives" of those little blastocysts.

What do you mean only 2 of 4 made the thaw? Why did you choose to risk that little embryo knowing your womb is less than hospitable? Who are you to choose which blast gets a shot?

Which one of us doesn't torture ourselves with these decisions each time we venture back into trying to conceive? Which of these decisions are done carelessly or without thought?

Which one of us would want these options taken away from us? Which one of us would want to be punished for "choosing" alternate methods like third party reproduction to build a family?

Not me, homey

So this is why I fight for Choice. This is why I give my time and my money and my efforts to groups like this one. Mississippi is why I think it is so critical to get more progressive women into office. Who do you want representing you when your state goes weird like Ole Miss?

I am in my state's capitol building almost daily. I can tell you who I see in the halls. Who I meet with. Who I plead my case to. Who I try to convince. I can tell you not many of them look like me. Or think like me. And as kind as they are to me in their offices, as nice or as smart as they tell me I am, I know many of those very same people don't trust me enough to make my own reproductive choices.

I know. I've seen the votes.

Let's fix this.

**

Stats show that the average female legislator needed to be asked six times before she even considered running. Six times! Look around you. Look in a mirror. I bet you know some smart women. I bet you know a lady or two that would kick some serious ass in a statehouse. Have you ever thought of asking her to run? Have YOU ever thought of running? I'm just sayin'

I think you should consider a run.

What if....

Dudes, I've got some real angst over this.

I've spent all week debating whether or not I want to open my mind again to questions that begin with What if.... after spending well over a year and some significant mental energy training myself to knock it off. Started and stopped more posts than I can track. Tried different angles, different questions, positive spins. It's not that easy.

Of course I want to do something for National Infertility Awareness Week. Of course I want to support my community, my peeps, my strength. But...the what ifs, they slay me.

What if I realized I was going into pre-term labor sooner?
What if we would have been able to save baby J? At least buy her some more time?
What if my babies, my daughters, my children didn't die in our arms?
What if the two daughters we always wanted were here with us today, turning one. Together. With us?

When it comes to loss, we all have lists. Only I'm not as brave as Angie to post mine. Lists of things you could have done or not done that would have somehow made the difference in the life and death of your child. There is a lot of blame. Even more self-doubt. It can do a job on you, esp. when grief has made your mind a little mush to begin with.

And I don't even get into the what ifs that are so far removed from our reality. They are less what ifs and more hypothetical wouldn't it have been cool ifs.....

Wouldn't it have been cool if we could have conceived without significant medical intervention and someone else's eggs?
wouldn't it have been cool if we actually had a chance of conceiving again with my own body?
Wouldn't it have been cool if fertility was seen as an important part of surviving cancer?

But this is all old news. That part is past. And now the new what ifs emerge:

What if we can't move forward with our gestational carrier?
What if we do move forward and it doesn't work?
What if we run out of options and/or run through our line of credit - both of these feel perilously close.
What if we never, ever, ever have a child to love?

or, as Mrs. A asks:

What if I have to learn to live childfree with a smile….forever?

I'm not sure that I can.

And then the inner dialog begins because, sorry, I have a tendency to talk to myself:

well, guess what? You might HAVE to.

Ok, but living is very different than living with a smile. Obviously, I can exist in this space. But it doesn't mean I like it, or that its easy. Here's a what if for you, what if every day wasn't a struggle?

But sometimes it's not.

Yes, you're right. Sometimes its not. I bet, if I had to, I could live this life. After all, I've already had some practice. If we had to live without any living children, I suppose we would make it work. There would always be a space, an absence that wouldn't fill. A remark, a photo, an innocuous TV ad that would bring feelings and sadness to the surface. There will always be cliffs and ledges we will need to pull each other from, but we could survive. We'd have to.

For I. and for J., we'd have to. We owe them that.

**

As per Mel's instructions, I'm ending this post with a positive What if.... One that I really haven't allowed to enter my mind just yet.

What if our journey towards a family with our gestational carrier actually works? What if this time next year there is a happy, healthy baby in our arms?

Damn, that's a nice what if.

**

www.resolve.org/infertility101
www.resolve.org/takecharge

Where the Times Finally Get It Right

2009 must have been the year that traditional media sources (aka those that we wish would know better) realized the comment-making (aka revenue producing) machines that stories about infertility, loss, adoption and assisted reproduction techniques truly are.

2009 was the year I stopped taking the New York Times seriously:

Preemie Twins Cost a Lot of Money!
All Infertile Couples Are Octomoms Just Waiting To Happen!!!!
Surrogates Are Horrible People That Will Take Your Money and Keep Your Babies!

Not the actual headlines but they might as well have been. Rather than being all the news that's fit to print, these stories played off the basest of assumptions, perpetuated fears, cultural and class stereotypes and generated the comments and controversy that have editors (and sales reps salivating.)

Why don't these people Just Adopt?!
If G*d wanted you to have a baby, you would!
It's probably better you lost your baby - he/she was probably busted anyway...
Infertiles are bitter, selfish and far too sensitive! Get over yourselves!

That's enough. You know these far too well.

Sometimes you hear people with post traumatic stress disorder talk about triggers. Things, smells, instances, sometimes even thoughts that throw them back into the throes of the trauma that altered their lives.

These stories were my triggers. Heart-racing, tear-streaming, fist-shaking, immobilizing rage inducing triggers.

But damn if I don't love a good acrostic. And the crossword, well, this is what calms us. Doing the puzzles. Together. Every night. In bed. It is our life, our routine.

So the Times Magazine still finds itself in our bag as we wave goodbye to M's parents every Sunday.

This Sunday, I was shocked. Nearly knocked off my feet. Could it be? I do believe the Times finally got it right.

And I am guessing they have no idea.

There, on the last page of the Magazine, tucked away in the last paragraph of Robin Black's charming essay about being chosen for a home repair reality TV show (and then denied), lay the truth about loss:

How did this happen? Really? There were unanticipated losses, grief that enveloped us for years. A stillbirth. A beloved child with special needs. Challenges we never imagined we’d confront. None of it amusing. Nothing like a situation comedy. We’d let go of so many easy assumptions, and in the process we let other things go as well. Gradually, we adjusted, even became stronger. But the evidence of our faltering remained, the facade of our home stubbornly unable to mend itself.

The honesty and beauty of these words take my breath away and all I can say is, yes. Yes, I know what you mean.

Somehow, this little confession tucked away in a larger piece feels more real to me than the shouting headlines, the confrontation and aggression of the comments section. It is not obvious. If you blink you just might miss it. But it is there. And in retrospect, colors the entire story in a new shade.

Oh Wait, I Ordered Blue Eyes...

My pal L. just shared this article with me and wanted to know what I thought.

And this is what I think:

1.) Testing eggs or chromosomal abnormalities and viability seems to make a helluva a lot of sense to me. I mean, why wouldn't you?

2.) Anyone that takes the leap from there to "Both procedures would, in theory, allow embryos to be discarded or pregnancies to be terminated for a matter as trivial as height or eye color" Has never ever ever had a conversation with someone trying to conceive. Never even thought to speak with someone who needs ART to even contemplate being able to conceive.

I think I speak for everyone when I say we want one thing: a live baby that we can take home and love.

[and here's where I mumble, you dumb ass motherfu......]

More on Old Loveless Men

Ok, I thought I could link and be done. Breathe deep and let it go. But it seems I can't. I just can't.

What pains me is the fact that so many wonderful and beautiful women I know struggle on a daily basis to reconcile their faith and their religion with their desire to create and nurture loving families that would also be a part of that faith. Why must there be a dichotomy? Why must these women feel rejected and refused by a god that they want to love and believe in? I love my friends of faith and admire their commitments to their churches even if that is not a path I feel is open to me. And I HATE that this feels like a kick, literally, in their guts. Tell me, other than being women, what have they done to deserve this disrespect?

What confuses me is a doctrine and a dogma that places motherhood as the highest thing a woman can aspire to, yet seeks to dictate how motherhood is achieved and exactly who is worthy of it. Never mind the challenges and obstacles already placed in these women's path that they have already overcome. What, exactly, needs to be done to prove our worth?

What angers me is the Catholic Church's adamant stance that adoption is the one and only option and alternative for unwed mothers, unwanted pregnancies, abortion and infertility. Yet, for years and years and years ruled those adoptions as unquestionably closed and to this day, controls and limits the information available between birth mothers and their children. Adoption is a gift. Yet why was my birth mother shamed into it? My birth father refused the right to see his own child? What did he have to do to prove his worth?

What hurts me is knowing that my mother prays and prays for us, and that those prayers fall not on deaf ears, because that would be more merciful, but on ears that have no interest in the path that we have available to us. I want to tell her, stop! Don't let them in on our plans! It's better if they don't know. But it is her faith and her comfort and who am I to take that from her.

But where is the comfort? Where is the mercy?

Nowhere to be found.

Yeah, What She Said

Thank goodness for Pamela Jeanne, who is able to put feelings into words when those words escape me.

Once again, a big F*ck You to the religion of my youth that is so, so adept at kicking when one is down. So much for compassion.

I could sit here and fume. I could work myself into a frenzy about the misogyny and hatred that has separated me from a faith, or I could direct you to PJ's post which sums it all up nicely and addresses it with a touch of humor.

You old loveless men make me sad. So, so sad.

Am I a Weenie?

If the comments on the NY Times article starring the beautiful and brave Pamela Jeanne make me cry?

Because they do.

Part of me is compelled to speak. To add my voice to the din. The rest of me wants nothing to do with the conversation. Wants nothing to do with this "lifestyle choice" called infertility and the drama and the angst and the anger it creates. Not to mention hostility. Since when was wanting to have a child an offensive and egregious act of selfishness? Since when was adoption this simple, cheap and only morally correct way to build a family? And more importantly, why is medical intervention absolutely applauded in every other aspect of our bodies and our lives.

Except this one?

Look.

I am just trying to make a baby without no drama.

Well, why don't you just adopt?
-I am an adoptee and I don't want to adopt. I just don't want to.

Well, why did you wait so long to try to have a child?
-I didn't wait. I waited until medical technology caught up with and was able to deal with the fact that my ovaries and eggs were destroyed by medical technology 20 years ago. So, unless you wanted me to try to pop some kiddies out at age 12, (which would have brought out a whole different set of condemnations) waiting ain't the issue.

How can you mourn/be sad/bitch about something you never had?
-How can one ask such a ridiculous question? We ALL mourn things that we don't or can't "have." And define "never had." Ask when life begins and you will receive very, very different answers from different individuals. To judge when and how someone should mourn is almost as offensive as judging their desire to be a parent and the path they choose to take.

We could all add to this list. It goes on and on and on. And you know what? For every query or accusation that is thrown my way or in the direction of another woman wanting to conceive, we have answers. A response.

I wish someone would grant us the same courtesy.