Knocked-up movie stars love showing off their burgeoning bellies on the red carpet. Demi Moore began the trend of posing naked while pregnant. People followed Angelina Jolie’s pregnancy as carefully as they followed the crisis in the Middle East. So where are the infertility stories?

There is Courtney Cox, who has been open about her numerous pregnancy losses and IVF attempts. I was reading a recent issue of People (because, I’m not ashamed to admit it, I read People Magazine. And not just in my doctor’s office. I read it at my house. And I love it. And I relish it. And I would shout it from the rooftops. I love People Magazine!) and there was a short article about her. The headline ran “Ready For Baby No. 2?” and underneath it was this insipid passage:

Courtney Cox, the star of F/X’s upcoming series Dirt, has babies on the brain. On July 25, when asked about having a second child with husband David Arquette, she confessed to Insider, “We’re hoping it will happen.” Five days later, at the premiere of her animated flick Barnyard, the acress (who’s usually not one for personal chit-chat on the red carpet) added, “We’re thinking about it.” Now the question is, how does 2-year-old Coco Arquette feel about an addition to the family?

No, the real question is how does she make it through the day with numerous reporters completely disregarding how hard she worked for the first pregnancy and rubbing her face into her infertility while she’s trying to attend a movie premiere. Why can’t they ask her in such a way that reminds the reader that her first pregnancy was a miracle? “Hey, Courtney, it was wonderful that IVF finally worked for you two years ago. Do you think you’ll try to conceive again?”

And there is Brooke Shields who could begin robbing little old ladies and I’d still watch her because she uses her celebrity status to bring attention to two stigmatized conditions–infertility and mental illness.

Babyfruit has a post on celebrity miscarriages–some with quotes from the actress and some from tabloids. There’s Kirstie Alley, Tori Amos, Valerie Bertinelli, Joan Crawford, Audrey Hepburn, Nancy Kerrigan, Jane Seymour, Emma Thompson, and many others. There are a few people on the list who admitted to using fertility treatments to get pregnant or using adoption to build their family. But if infertility is affecting 1 in 8 people, shouldn’t we be hearing stories about infertility from 12.5% of the celebrity population?

Except that why is it our business? Well…it somewhat becomes our business when celebrities pick and choose what they reveal, creating a skewed view of their reality. When one does not admit to having plastic surgery after a tummy tuck (though they are completely open about other aspects of their personal life), they create a false reality for teens who look up to these celebrities and believe their bodies are naturally like that. And it’s frustrating to see people in a position of power who refuse to use their celebrity status in order to draw attention to a cause (I think fewer people would have misconceptions about A.R.T. if celebrities spoke as openly about fertility treatments as they do about their bodies during pregnancy). And even more frustrating is that the hypocrisy upholds the stigma. If Elizabeth Edwards deems it “unladylike” to talk about infertility (though it’s not unladylike to talk about other personal aspects of her life), she sends any advances we’ve made towards speaking openly about infertility back into the dark ages. It would be as if after women had fought long and hard for the right to vote if the next wave of women milled around shyly, refusing to enter the polling booths because it just wasn’t ladylike.

People are entitled to privacy–and we’re each entitled to decide how and when (and how much) we speak about infertility. But it’s difficult when someone is open to speaking about other aspects of their personal life. When I mentioned my sliding scale a few weeks ago, someone brought up Julia Roberts. And she’s someone who frustrates me because she spoke openly about her pregnancy and shared intimate photos of herself with her children with the world. She talked about what she deemed to be stigma-free discussion topics. But she would never be open about whether she conceived her twins through fertility treatments. And her lack of admission–one way or the other–points to the idea that conception is a stigmatized topic. It subtly plants that idea in a newly trying-to-conceive woman’s head so that she too chooses not to be open about her infertility struggles. And then we end up where we are now. In or out.

How does a child process their parent’s denial over their conception? Do they take a large leap and think, “mom is embarrassed about how I was conceived hence why she won’t talk about it though she’ll talk about the pregnancy itself?” It’s something that I’ve always been careful about when I speak about my children in front of them. I want them to hear me tell people how they were conceived so that they never have any shame about their conception. I want them to hear how I’m proud of it–as proud of their conception as I am about the subsequent pregnancy. I don’t want to murmur about fertility treatments and have my children think that there is anything less “natural” about them (since you know I think natural is only nice–not better).

So what do celebrities owe us? The intimate details of their fertility? The intimate details of their bedrooms? Nothing at all? It’s a hard question because in part, when someone chooses a career in the public eye, they gain many benefits from being in the public eye. But those jobs also come with several drawbacks. And one of those drawbacks is the fact that people expect you to use your celebrity status for good instead of evil. And when you perpetuate a stigma, you’re using your celebrity for evil. So be good, celebrities. Talk about your conception issues. Talk about your pregnancy losses. Make that 12.5% of the nation not feel so quite alone.

A few weeks back I referred to a post at So Close that Tertia wrote about her sister, Mel. The two sisters are very close, though the experience of infertility took a heavy toll on their relationship. While Tertia was going through numerous rounds of IVF and multiple pregnancy losses, her sister breezed through (okay, no one really breezes through pregnancy, but there is a huge emotional difference between a post-IF and a non-post-IF pregnancy) three pregnancies and gave birth to three healthy children. Tertia would never begrudge her sister that happiness nor would she ever want her to experience a moment of infertility. The point of her post was how infertility affects others, both parallel to your own pain and also uniquely its own brand of poison.

And it’s something that I’ve thought about from time to time–how you can get wrapped up in your own intense pain and forget that others are affected by (1) the same event and (2) your actions or withdrawl. And that is the point that Mel makes in a letter she writes to her sister. She asks Tertia to imagine the tables turned. If Mel had suffered the stillbirth, wouldn’t Tertia be mourning as well? If Mel had been angry and lashed out at her sister during infertility, wouldn’t Tertia still feel stung?

While I do feel sadness when I consider my siblings’ personal pain over troubles in their own life, it is a pain that is certainly dulled in comparison to the intensity of what they are feeling. Mostly because I can cry about their loss and have it affect me for the evening, but then I have long moments of my day when I am not thinking about it. Where it slips my mind. And I’m sure their own pain never slips their mind just as the pain I felt over infertility never slipped my mind. I never got to take a break from infertility. There was always some reminder–whether it was my period or taking my temperature in the morning or an injection or a happy pregnant woman who crossed my path.

And I’m sure my siblings thought about my infertility from time to time. And I’m sure that they felt sad when they heard things were not going well. And they have sat with me many times when I’ve cried. But the pain is both parallel (imagine it parallel roads where one is heavily congested with traffic and the other one has a few cars dotting the pavement–you can’t say the pain of traveling those two roads are equal or similar though both have traffic that slow you down and affect your journey) and unique. Other people heard about my journey second-hand and I’m sure there were times when they felt left-out and brokenhearted too. I’m sure it was hard for the grandparents wondering when they would get to take on that role. Or aunts or uncles who wanted a niece or nephew. I’m sure they were hurt to discover that we didn’t share all of the pregnancy losses with them. There were not-yet babies that they never knew existed and found out about long after the fact. Or not at all. And that’s the unique pain–the one I didn’t get to experience at all because I’m not them.

The two sisters are both fantastic, thoughtful and caring. And unlike many people out there, they’re on the same playing field. There are so many tattered relationships filled with so much bile and hurt that are left behind due to infertility. And they were lucky to discover each other in the same camp after the war of Infertility came to an end (I’m hearing music welling up in the background as they run across the room towards each other with their arms outstretched). Where they are now is fragile ground, where they admit how much they love each other and need each other and want to be close. But they’re hugging each other gingerly. Both bodies are still too bruised by the experience to hug with abandon. Give them a bit of time.

I had been speaking with both sisters via email and suggested that they both do an exercise that I created as a jumping board to communication. I envisioned it for two people who were trying to start a conversation about infertility–two people who were bumping heads or not getting the support they needed or feeling fed up over comments–rather than people like Tertia and Mel who were already on the same page. But it was still interesting nontheless.

In the exercise, both people received the same ten questions/comments. They needed to consider each statement on three levels: what was probably meant by the words, whether someone infertile might find it offensive, and how the person going through infertility heard the words. If you are infertile, the hardest part would be envisioning the first part: what was truly meant by the words and understanding that sometimes people say things without understanding how their words are affecting you. If you are a non-infertile, the hardest categories were the other two. Knowing if something was offensive and knowing how someone infertile hears the words.

Mel and Tertia’s answers were pretty much the same with the biggest difference being that Tertia answered everything confidently. If she liked the wording of something she said, “this would be great to say.” Whereas Mel read the same words and answered tentatively: “I think it may be a good thing to say but I don’t know.” I think that knowing the other person is going to read your answers makes you anxious to answer them all “correctly.” But the point is that there are no correct answers. Everyone will come to their decisions differently. And the point is to use the differing answers or your own word choice as a jumping board into a conversation about infertility. You can explain how something that was said innocently hurt you deeper than words that were intentionally cruel. And you can hear how someone else intended their words to be taken and the impetus that brought them to say those words to you. It may turn out that the other person hasn’t said any of the things on the list, but you can still use the exercise to speak about what you’re going through and how you feel on a day-to-day basis. Unless you’ve been through infertility, it’s difficult to imagine what the person is experiencing.

So…any other takers? Have someone that you want to talk about infertility with but have no idea how to broach the topic? Fighting currently with a family member or friend who just doesn’t get it? Ask them if they’d be your partner for this experiment. Email me directly if you want to try it out (thetowncriers@gmail.com) and have questions. If you’re certain that you and a family member both want to do this, send one email with all three of our addresses in the address line so that all members get all the future emails. But make sure they know that you’ve included them in the exercise. And if you can’t even figure out a way to broach the subject with them, write me as well and I’ll help you figure out how to start this conversation.

There are the amusing Google searches (amusing, at least, to me) that lead to my blog: pee in my ass (as well as knowing that the next time someone conducts this search, they will find my blog at the top of the page).

There are the bizarre Google searches that leave me puzzled over their intended meaning: stirrups insert slowly speculum.

And then there are the Google searches that make me run onto Blogger to post some additional information and ask the rest of the Stirrup Queens to chime in some more with their own experience.

There has been a heavy run on Prometrium questions as of late, especially ones connected to Prometrium affecting betas and periods. This is my own understanding/experience: Prometrium does not affect a beta whatsoever or a pee stick. A beta is measuring the level of hcG in the blood and a home pregnancy test measures the amount of hcG in the urine. While a trigger shot of Novarel (hcG) would affect this test, Prometrium or any extra progesterone would not.

I’m not sure if Prometrium can delay a period. The first time I took Prometrium, I got pregnant and promptly miscarried, so yes, my period was late. But it was because I was pregnant. That one particular cycle, I was taking Prometrium with the directions to keep taking it until I got my period. I assume from these directions that if your period was meant to come, it will come and you will have break-through bleeding. At the same time, after that initial cycle, I started seeing an RE and he told me to come in for a beta, stop the Prometrium if I wasn’t pregnant, and I would get my period a few days later. Which sort of flies in the face of that whole idea that Prometrium wouldn’t affect your period. Why not just have a person keep taking it? Why do a blood test? So…in my humble opinion, Prometrium probably could delay a period.

I also believe this next fact is the fault of Prometrium (though my RE has said this isn’t possible). Almost every natural cycles (non-medicated) that I’ve had after taking Prometrium has been anovulatory. So I’d take Prometrium one cycle, not get pregnant, and then not ovulate the next cycle. Strange coincidence. This, obviously, wasn’t the case when I was doing a medicated cycle because the drugs overrode my body’s tendency towards anovulation.

Another problem with Prometrium is that the day after I went off of it each month, I had terrible mood swings. Terrible anger and deep sadness. Not that any day is a holiday with infertility, but I truly felt more out-of-control emotionally on that day after I went off of it. Be forewarned. And it wasn’t just because I had gotten a negative beta the day before or because my period was coming. I was just extremely emotional for a day or two and it felt hormonally-driven rather than circumstances.

Lastly, if you are pregnant, you will keep taking Prometrium through the first trimester. Around week 12, you stop taking it. I was a huge freak about my pregnancy and I asked my OB if there was any problem in taking it for a few more weeks. He said I didn’t need it anymore and I repeatedly asked if there was a problem if I took it for a few more weeks–any detriment to the babies. When he finally gave into the fact that I am a freak, he admitted that there was no problem in taking it if it made me comfortable. So I stayed on it for another three weeks. Just wanted to make sure those babies were in there–good and tight.

Anything else I’m leaving out, Stirrup Queens? And for anyone who is searching–check the side bar under Operation Heads Up. Kris wrote a great write-up about Prometrium with pictures and more how-to information.

A little while ago, Christy posted a link to a great article in the comments section of my post on people who ask loaded questions in regards to twins. The article first appeared on Literary Mama and it was called Covering by Robin Aronson. The section of the article that Christy posted also applies to this discussion of being in or out and the larger idea of coding that Royalyne broached in her response to this question last week…

“Covering, as defined in the brilliant article by Kenji Yoshino in the January 15 issue of The New York Times Magazine, is what you do when you’re not part of a dominant group but don’t want to stand out. You don’t hide the thing that makes you different –- say being black or gay -– you just keep it from being too obtrusive. If you’re one of the hundreds of thousands of women who’ve had trouble conceiving, you’re not alone but you’re not in the majority either. And if you’ve conceived because of fertility treatments, you have not conceived the real way. You have something to cover” (Aronson, “Covering”).

This connects to Royalyne’s comment about her husband: “He’s pretty much in the doorway and leans to whichever side the people he talks to expect him to be on.” And all of this is a form of coding.

Coding is something we naturally do in conversation. We adapt the way we speak depending on the situation. This is how I explained this concept to my 8th graders: without me ever telling them that they can’t say certain things in my classroom, they figured out immediately when they walked over the threshold into my room that certain words were banned from the conversation. They may use the word “fuck” over by their lockers, but when they get into my room, they drop that word from any conversations that are conducted within my earshot. The words we use when we speak to our partners are different from the words we use when we speak to our parents. I lovingly call my best friend “dirty whore” (because she is…well…a filthy prostitute), though I would never dream of using that affectionate nickname with my mother.

Because without ever calling my mother “dirty whore,” I can tell without trying it out that she wouldn’t find it amusing (and I’m sure my mother is dying a little bit right now thinking of her daughter calling anyone “dirty whore” so I’m sorry that I’m giving her this heart attack because she did raise me correctly and any filthiness is my own fault and not her doing). So I code. I use words that I’ve decided are appropriate with her when I speak with her, and I recognize that other people have different thresholds of appropriateness so I code to them. And then mad-cap chaos ensues when you have multiple people in the conversation that you code with differently.

And this is also what we do when we choose to tell or not to tell (aaah…that is the question!). We code. We somehow naturally know how deeply to answer the questions: when are you guys going to start trying or do you want another one? Either you answer vaguely or you answer boldly, outlining the last three RE appointments and your most recent day 3 blood work results. Or somewhere in between. I think most judgements are quickly made (almost reflexively).

Sometimes we make these decisions and use them immediately. Someone asks a question and you execute the decision on the spot (eg. Mom asks when you’re going to make her a grandmother and you answer with a knee-jerk, “we’re working on it!”). Sometimes we make a decision before the subject has ever been broached and you then spend the next five days wondering on and off why you feel uncomfortable speaking about IF with a certain friend. But I believe that the initial gut reaction you have to speaking openly with a person comes in an instant. And then we’re either comfortable with it and act on it, or we’re uncomfortable because our gut-reaction somehow flies in the face of how we thought we’d feel about speaking to a certain person. And we spend more time thinking about it and sometimes change our decision to fit a certain vision.

Infertility came up a few times this weekend and I can look back and see how I coded. When we saw my husband’s grandmother, she brought up an article her friend sent her that we were quoted in about infertility. We’re never sure how much she knows–including whether she knows the kids were conceived through A.R.T. So when she brought up the article, all three of us glossed over it and moved on. It’s not that I would ever be shy talking to his grandmother or answering her questions. But I just get the vibe not to rock her world too much, and putting it in her frame (80+ and finished conceiving long before IVF was ever imagined), I can understand how she wouldn’t want to ask too many questions. A lady doesn’t speak about her sex life, and infertility is somewhat about sex. So I code. I speak about it only as much as she seems to want to hear.

My brother brought up IF and I spoke to him as if he were a Sperm Palace Jester even though he’s not trying to conceive. He can make jokes about infertility like an insider and he even wears a pomegranate thread in support. So I code with him different than I do other family members of the same age/conception status.

My husband brought up my wonky cycles since T.C. (remember, I divorced Aunt Flo last month and now Truman Capote has taken on the task of bringing in the red tide) showed his chubby little face on Saturday night. Bringing this cycle to a glorious 23 days. I tried to show a brave face through most of the evening and finally broke down into hysterical sobs after we watched a truly terrible movie (warning him beforehand that I was in a space where I just needed to cry). It just sucks. It sucks to see your female factor infertility diagnosis played out in the fastest luteal phase in the west. So I coded with my husband and spoke openly about how scared I was–something I didn’t do when I spoke to my brother because…well…he’s not my SPJ. And while he may get many of the emotions because they’ve been relayed to him through us, I don’t think he would get the magnitude of seeing an 8 day luteal phase when you’re hoping for implantation one of these days.

So you code.

And I don’t think coding is always a bad thing (though in some senses in sociology, coding is used to divide us and keep us apart). I think it’s something that naturally occurs. You get a feeling about how much you should share and you share it. Or you don’t share it. And that always needs to be your choice. No matter how out you are to one person, that may not be the same level of “out” you feel like being with another person. And since infertility is complex and messy (is it sex? Is it medical? Is it private? Is it public?), I don’t think it’s hippocritical to make different choices in different situations. It’s not a matter of being entirely out to the world (even if you’re wearing a pomegranate-coloured string) or entirely in. You can be both. You can code.

An anonymous comment stated how sometimes things come right when you need them–the coincidences that jump out at you as if three angels just descended onto your breakfast table and started harmonizing personal hallelujahs. And I kid you not–I posted those thoughts yesterday morning, jumped into the car with my friend and kids, and this is what happened.

We’re innocently enjoying an early morning ice cream cone outside of Ben and Jerry’s and an elderly woman swoops down on us and starts gushing about my adorable children. And my twins are adorable but this woman literally hit the trifecta in offending me. Beyond asking me where I’m from (which is a thinly-veiled way of asking “what is your ethnicity” oh-somewhat-dark-skinned-girl-that-I-can’t-quite-place-is-just-Eastern-European-Jewish) and TRYING TO TOUCH MY CHILDREN (I am currently training them to lash out like a police dog and chomp off hands if one more stranger tries to rub their dirty little fingers through my childrens’ hair. Either that or I will begin fondling breasts of every woman who makes a move towards my children since these women seem to find it acceptable to affectionately touch strangers), this woman who I have never seen before launched into a one-woman monologue about her inconsiderate children who are not making her a grandmother.

Woman: Your children are so adorable! And I want to be a grandmother so badly. But will
my children give me a grandchild? No. And I will be dead–DEAD–before my
grandchildren are born. I tell them, you’re not getting younger. But they need to fly
here and there for their careers. They can’t put their careers on hold for one minute
to give me a grandchild.

Me: Maybe they don’t want children.

Woman: They say, “give me a few years.” But I will be dead before they finally get around to
having children. Dead!

Yes…you will be dead if you don’t stop telling me about your inconsiderate children. And I tried to broach the idea that they may be trying and not telling her, but she went back into telling me–a stranger–about their careers and how they’re too busy to have children. And what do you say to this because in my head I’m thinking: you are the reason why people stay in.

And this is not even a post about whether or not you have a right to expect grandparenthood (because that is a whole different messy topic to cover at a later time–parental pressure compounding your personal pressure towards parenthood. Say that ten times fast). It’s just commentary on the interesting things people posted yesterday about my initial thoughts on being in or out.

And the points I want to return to in later posts (and please comment more on this)…

1. No one posted their own outing story and I know they’re…out…there. Am I truly the only one who has had a family member announce it to the world?

2. Zee’s thoughts on how after a certain age, people stop asking and assume that you can’t possibly be trying to have children. She referred to it as being dead in the water. And the rudeness that not being asked brings as well.

3. Flmgodog talking about how she wishes she could be out. And the stigma that IF still holds. Because someone once commented ages ago on a different post that IF holds the same stigmas as mental illness and bariatric surgery. And this comment made me think about Julia Roberts and she refuses to answer how her twins were conceived. And is that just indicative of the stigma? How many people knew that Nicole Kidman had miscarriages? Other than Brooke Shields and Courtney Cox (along with others that I can’t think of at this time), it seems like most people in the public eye are in, in, in. And how is this a commentary on the trends of society?

4. I loved Mandolyn’s comment: “we can’t ignore it, so it sucks when people close to us can.” And the people that you do tell, but who won’t talk about it with you. We have that as well and the lack of questions/comforting hurts more sometimes than the insensitive comments of those who don’t know. Because you opened up to someone and their lack of connection can either signal discomfort or a true lack of interest in your life. And you don’t know.

5. The reasons why we’re out: to gain sympathy, to stop others from asking about whether you’re TTC (as Piccinigirl says: “I unlit the flame before they struck the match”), to get it out of your head and lighten your own burden of thought.” And the reasons we’re in: “I’d like to be a stronger person and be able to educate more people about it- emotionally I just don’t think I can right now” and “In part we keep quiet because we think that if people knew they would be more likely to think that our adopted children were second best”. Amongst many others.

6. Royalyne’s comment about her husband: “He’s pretty much in the doorway and leans to whichever side the people he talks to expect him to be on.” And thoughts on how we organically engage in “coding” when speaking about infertility.

7. Dee’s story about the lies we tell. And how they can bite you in the ass years later. And when white lies to protect emotions become huge knives later on that can cut deep.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg since I have a feeling that more stories will roll in during the weekend and when I explore these 7 ideas deeper in future posts. And I still have blogs to talk about! What a busy morning… Excuse any typo-s because I had to write this faster than a speeding bullet.