It’s the ungodly hour of 6 a.m. and I am driving through small town America thinking about the bicycle I left behind when I moved from Massachusetts. Her (because every hot pink bike is a “her” in case you didn’t know) name was Amalia Skofeld. And she was gorgeous. Rescued from the side of the road. Rebuilt by the commune (yes, I once lived in a group house/commune). It was an indoor bike and I liked to ride it around the top floor of the commune, thumping on everyone’s door. Why wasn’t it an outdoor bike, you ask. Because we rebuilt it. Which means it was hardly safe. But I loved it.

I was thinking about Amalia Skofeld this morning because I was driving (at 6 a.m., in case you missed that fact) to a massive, indoor yard sale. I am a huge lover of the indoor yard sale. This particular one was run by a twins club and contained only baby items. I go to two or three a year. We’ve been trying to practice sustainable living and commit to having a certain percentage of our toys and clothes recycled. I also love vintage toys–the old Fisher Price people who looked like tubes with knobby heads. The Playmobil sets BEFORE they changed the horses from blobs into…well…horses.

So I spent an hour sifting through some godawful clothing (last night, my husband gasped and said, “we don’t know how they dress in Columbia! What if the clothes are hopelessly out of style? What if they’re from…2005?” But I’ve watched enough television lately to know that everyone, across America, has got their “fash” on. Thank you, Old Navy commercial) and toys to find a fantastic pair of black velvet bellbottoms for my daughter and 85 pieces of fake food for our toy kitchen. I’m going to be cooking up a delicious meal of plastic peas and rubber eggs tomorrow night. Come. And. Get. It!

I left the sale and made my booty call (you know, that phone call you make after you leave a yard sale to let everyone know what you found. That’s everyone’s definition of a booty call, right?). And drove home still thinking about Amalia. Partly because of Murray’s post the other day about what we can do to protect the environment–I think bringing Amalia back to life somehow fits–but also due to Bea’s post about the photograph and why she doesn’t want to take it.

I was really thinking about the day I left this bicycle back in Massachusetts. I didn’t have a bicycle rack or room in my car so I decided to leave it with this family who had taken me in for meals many times when I was an impoverished graduate student. They were extremely poor themselves and had ten (I’m sure it’s more by now) kids. I knew they would be embarrassed if I offered them the bike so I decided to leave it in their garage while they weren’t home with a note explaining that her name was Amalia Skofeld and I hoped they would love her as much as I loved her. As I was leaving the house, the father came home unexpectedly and I froze. He looked at me and he looked at the bike and I just said, “you didn’t see me here today.” I jumped into my car and drove off. And that was the last time I saw my bicycle or this family. My mental photograh of myself during grad school involves resting the kick stand on the floor of that garage and saying goodbye to that bike.

So how does this tie in to Bea’s photograph? One of the points of her post is that she doesn’t want to remember herself like this–she doesn’t want photographic proof of herself childless when she was supposed to be a mother. When she had been trying to be a mother for so long. When she expected to be holding a child in the next family photo. And I was just thinking about all the old photographs of myself and how they capture how you wish to remember yourself. You usually take photographs during special moments–days that you want to remember forever. Rarely do you ask someone to photograph you while you are sitting on the bathroom floor, sobbing your eyes out after seeing yet another negative pee stick. You hand them the camera to record happy moments or things that were important in your life or places that you’ve been. So your photographs aren’t really an accurate remembrance of life–they’re just a recording of happy moments.

There are all of these photographs of me on top of Amalia Skofeld. And when I look back at those photos, I think about how happy I was–just riding my bike around the top floor of the commune with no inkling as to how much misery we would go through a few short years later when we tried to have a child. In Bea’s last photo, she was sipping tea at the Ritz in London, oblivious to the fact that by the time the next photo rolled around, she would be enduring IVF cycles.

One of the only photos I have of myself from those years trying to conceive the first time (that wasn’t taken on a trip) is a photo that was snapped at a dinner party. A few minutes before the guests arrived, the RE had called with bad news–either it was a negative beta or a cancelled cycle because my estrogen was too high. I locked myself in the bathroom, sobbing hysterically. I could not calm down. I heard the first person arrive and my husband tell him that Mel was just getting dressed and could he take coats and pour drinks? Later in the evening, someone took my camera and snapped a picture of us. And I look like I’m faking it. I’m smiling, but you can see something is truly wrong. How do I feel about having that photograph now?

And is it important to take those pictures and keep those pictures and record all the events of our life–not just the good ones? Remember how we looked when we were in that terrible space of limbo–not a newlywed with marriage rolling out in front of you nor a parent cradling a baby. You’re in limbo, between those two happy places. And the camera keeps rolling. And recording. And you have to remember.

And later recycle and reuse how strong you were during this time period to get through a different, unrelated struggle in life. Because that’s the other way you can view the pictures you take right now. You were at your saddest point, but you were also at your strongest. What is the saying? Women are like tea bags, you never know how strong they are until they get in hot water. And you are freakin’ boiling right now. This is the hot zone. And if you are slogging through, if you are still trying, if you are making decisions, if you are filling out paperwork or waiting for your referral, if you are giving yourself injections, you are possibly the strongest you’ve ever been. Remember that and record it.

As you all know, my favourite infertility distraction is cake decorating and if you have to dump a lot of time and money into classes to stop yourself from sitting at home and poking your sore ovaries, then I suggest taking up something that you can utilize down the line. And what better skill to have than cake decorating? Everyone loves a cake. Everyone. Except for the people who don’t. But they don’t count.

Yesterday, I made a vanilla cake stuffed with raspberry buttercream and covered in vanilla buttercream. And painted pale pink cherry blossoms over it for a couple in my husband’s office who had just gotten engaged. Really–I’m that nice. I bake cakes for my husband’s coworkers.

Last night, we were watching Ace of Cakes on the Food Network and I couldn’t help but notice how steady Duff Goldman’s hands were as he painted an outline on the side of a cake. I enviously pointed this out to my husband who replied, “you never see a cup of coffee in his store, do you?”

At that moment, we both looked down at our shaking hands and I thought, “whatever. I am not trading coffee for cake decorating.” I’ve given up quite enough, thank you. Including that second 16-ounce cup. Great–leave it to me to choose a skill that sucks away all the joy from life…

I mean, except for the joy of eating homemade cake.

In regards to torturing the LBWWMTDASADFFIHAOTAC on Halloween, we need to aim for things that cannot fly through my front window. This punk wouldn’t help a hysterical middle-aged (am I middle-aged yet?) lady with a cricket. He’s not above throwing a potato through a window (by the way, I love the idea of a potato. One sprouting things). We still have a box of Christmas candy canes in the pantry that can be put to good use. And a half-eaten dum-dum…

Can you believe how much energy I’m putting into thinking about this?

Ba-blogs-ba-blogs-ba-blogs…

Domesticated has officially turned into an adoption journal. As you know, I am deeply indebted to JJ for introducing me to the beautiful world of IM this week. In addition, I love her recent post on her MIL. Okay, so I don’t love it in the sense that I love how much stress she brings. But JJ writes so eloquently. I think it was A Few Good Eggs that had a chapter about cutting out the stress in your life. And treating IF like the crisis it is and cocooning yourself for optimal relaxation during a cycle. And it’s an interesting idea–especially once everyone starts coming out of the closet about who is causing the most stress in their lives. Obviously, there are friends that you can avoid for a cycle or two. And there are friendships that don’t survive the crisis. But what do you do with the relationships that can’t be shut off (like a familial one) but are the straws that break the camel’s back–those moments of stress that are more than you can endure in an already grueling cycle? And do we have a right to hold certain people (like you own parents or a sibling) at arm’s length for the sake of self-preservation? It’s an interesting idea–I’d love to hear your thoughts. In a little over two weeks, her home study begins! Good luck 🙂

In other adoption news, Steph over at Mommy’s Adoption Journal proved my point again that you’re a mother long before you start the actual process of recognized mothering. She was read a post about a category 4 hurricane headed right towards Vietnam. And her son, Dylan, who is currently 6 months old, is still in an orphanage in Vietnam, one mile from the coast. The story has a mostly happy ending. The children were evacuated farther inland and the babies were fine. The orphanage itself is a different story. The roof and windows are gone. Her post felt like one of those slow-motion scenes where the mother is watching her child in danger and is helpless to reach him in time. It was a maddening experience, with your child halfway across the world and unable to cradle him close. I hope he’s in your arms soon, Steph and Chris.

The Muriels has a great post about being your own advocate. And this new wave of patients that know more than the doctors. Okay, at least more than the GP. Here’s where the frustration lies–you know just enough that you can’t walk away from the possibility, but you don’t know enough to interpret results or assign treatment. By being thorough, she got her GP to test her NK cells with a Lymphocyte Subsets Test. But now she’s waiting for the immunologist to interpret the results. It’s such a different world from even our parent’s generation. People don’t blindly follow their doctor–they research, they request, they know. And you know that I’m all for passing along information and using the Internet to our advantage. Sometimes I feel like if you don’t know the right questions to ask or you’re not pushy enough with your health care, you can end up taking this meandering path through the fields of Infertility. And I’m all for anything that shaves even a few months off the process.

The Anonymous Infertile at Random Ramblings has a lovely post about weddings. Which seems fitting considering the two posts this week comparing break-ups to infertility/pregnancy loss. Her frustration with weddings comes from looking at the couple and thinking back to that time when she thought everything would be easy and parenthood would follow soon after marriage. The wedding couple is still inside that fairytale, whereas Kel has moved into a nightmare that involves ovulating only three times in the past two years (by the way, sweetie, I love how you look at it–“Even normal ‘fertiles’ sometimes don’t get pregnant in 3 cycles so the way I see we just have to keep trying“). Regardless, it’s a bittersweet post and one worth reading.

Murray at Remaining Products of Conception is obsessing about the environment after watching “An Inconvenient Truth” and muses about the state we’re leaving things in for our children (not to mention that this is all about mothering Mother Earth). She ends the post with a great list of small things she is doing that will make a big difference. And it is true–you can’t wait to have things dictated to you. You need to take action into your own hands. So bring your own bags with you to the grocery store instead of taking plastic ones. Plant a garden. Walk or bike to work. And join Murray in her quest to start Mothers Against Global Warming 🙂

Normally, I am not a huge fan of Internet petitions, but I’m making an exception because this is actually tied–albeit in a roundabout way–to the Internet. Google, as you know, sometimes creates what is called a “doodle” in order to present a visual image for a holiday or to raise awareness for a cause. They’ve had some pretty random doodles in the past. Beyond Halloween, 4th of July, and Thanksgiving (both Canadian and American!), they’ve celebrated Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s birthday and the Lunar New Year.

The March of Dimes is trying to get Google to create a doodle for Prematurity Awareness Day (November 14). Prematurity is a major condition affecting as many as 12% of all births — that’s over 476,000 babies a year. And that rate is rising. As you know, this cause is near and dear to my heart because the twins were born prematurely and spent three weeks in the NICU. Both were IUGR and had stopped growing inutero. Anything that benefits the March of Dimes benefits all of our future children. Because that’s the thing–you never know when it’s going to be you who is affected. So take this time to help out others now so the research continues. And yes, this last part is meant to cause major guilty feelings if you don’t take the three minutes to click on the link…

Click here to sign this petition (Mom–that means click on the hyperlinked word “here”). And pass it along to everyone you know. And raise prematurity awareness. And get the March of Dimes more funding possibly in the process. And go thank Julie at A Little Pregnant for posting this on her blog and raising my awareness as to its existence.

These are the last thoughts on this for a while. Every time I think I’m finished thinking about being in or out, a bunch of people pipe up with more interesting thoughts. Which continues this idea…The reasons why someone is out vs. someone is in. Most people straddle both sides–they’re out to some and they’re in to some. And the exceptions (the group that’s in the minority for you) are what interests me the most.

From what you’ve said so far, there are multiple reasons for being out:

(1) gain emotional support
(2) need to vent
(3) gain important information (I know people have come out to me not because they want my support, but because they want my information)
(4) not ashamed of the situation
(5) feel guilt over not being fertile and want people to know that the lack of children is not for lack of trying
(6) it’s a HUGE part of your life and it’s impossible to hide it
(7) to gain other support (for example, if we want to do IVF, realistically, I would need to tell my mother because I would be asking her to babysit my current children and I would need help if I was feeling like crap)
(8) put a quick end to invasive questions about baby-making
(9) infertility is part of who I am (Lunarmagic said this well)
(10) to pass on information to others (eg. Tina’s comment about how being out has helped others come out)

And there are multiple reasons for being in:

(1) want privacy
(2) don’t want assvice (I loved Carlynn’s thoughts about being lightyears away from the advice the average person could give)
(3) don’t want the whole family discussing you
(4) there is no reason the world should know about your cervical mucous
(5) it’s no one’s business except your own
(6) it could have a negative impact on other facets of your life (such as work)

And both being in or out come with their own bag of ass (I’m sorry, but I can’t stop using this Smarshyism). If you’re in, the person doesn’t know to be supportive and the stupid comments fly (actually, the stupid comments fly either way). If you’re out, you may or may not get the support you need. What are the other drawbacks to being in or out?

But this list is just what I’ve come up with off the top of my head as well as comments on past blog entries. Are there other reasons for being in or out that I left off my list?

Lastly, I love Murray’s comment about not having expectations (this goes back to my question at the beginning of the week about when you share and receive no support in return). I had a boyfriend once who used this idea as his mantra. And I think it’s nice (well, there’s a wishy-washy word if I ever heard one), but not very realistic. Because I don’t know anyone who lives without expectations. Truly without expectations. And once one starts down this road to live without expectations, it’s sort of like that Friends episode where Phoebe attempts to do good deeds without receiving anything in return. It sort of becomes impossible except for a sliver of possible actions. So not a way to lead an entire life, but a way to deal with a small scattering of certain situations.

But wouldn’t it be so nice if we never felt let down?

And wouldn’t it be nice if we could breeze through the entire two week wait without expectations? Eh, Serenity? Hang in there, sweetie.