For male eyes only…

Doesn’t that sound intriguing?

This question comes from a long rant I have about an infertility book I just read that demeans the male experience during IF. I will save that rant for another day…just in case I’m wrong in my assumptions…

I’d rather ask my question first than eat humble pie later. I’m not a huge fan of pie in general.

Women have their lady-when-waiting: a special friend that they turn to for support during their IF journey. Do men speak about infertility with their friends? Do they turn to other men (or a close female friend) for support or do they speak about it merely to inform the other person? Do they find that they want to talk about it or would they rather have a male friend take them out for a round of golf to keep their mind off of it? Would men rather not speak about infertility at all and only be told when to go to appointments, have sex, etc?

If you’re a man, weigh in with your opinion. If you’re a woman whose husband doesn’t read this blog, ask him tonight. Or answer for him! I always find that I like to put the words in my husband’s mouth (I love you, sweetie)…

I am still thinking about this book (The Year of Magical Thinking)–mostly because I am spending large portions of my day reading about loss. Your losses. And the rawness of the book is reflected in the rawness of your responses. It doesn’t matter how much time passes from the event. You may be able to discuss it without crying, but it doesn’t make it any easier. Any less of a loss.

I was reading another blog last night (http://asomewhatordinarylife.blogspot.com/) and she covered the exact topic I was going to bring up today! A terrible little piece of magical thinking I love to do: figure out the due date. At the beginning of the cycle, I check the little chart included in one of my numerous pregnancy books (because there is nothing like reading about infertility through a pregnancy when you’re trying to conceive). And, of course, you can’t help but dream harder when the date lines up with an event that already holds meaning in your life–your anniversary (you imagine the romantic celebration dinner where you’re staring into the eyes of your husband and say, “it’s time to go to the hospital.”), your birthday (big bite of birthday cake and then…whoosh! Your water breaks), or Halloween (okay, this was stretching it, but it’s one of my favourite holidays).

The question all this raises for me (especially when my husband tells me to stop checking the due date) is how this dreaming differs from the games of House we played when we were little (men who are reading this blog–perhaps you have engaged from time to time in a game of House. If you haven’t, you may want to ask your wife to dig out the costumes and Little Tykes cars so you can experience the fun that is House). House was essentially a developmentally-appropriate game where little kids dream and practice the life they plan to lead when they are older. It’s a way to try out the relationships of husband and wife long before you are married. And in role-playing, you’re essentially stating the kind of wife or mother you wish to be in the future as well as the kind of husband and father (father to your children–not your daddy) you hope to attract.

When I look at these due dates, they help me visualize myself in the future. The winter baby who will be wrapped in a snow suit on the way home from the hospital. The summer baby that I will push in a carriage around the neighbourhood. Seeing myself in these activities made me realize what kind of mother I wanted to be. Are these visions always true–especially when you add into the equation the realities of life? That you may not be able to breast feed or you may have to return to work? Do they have to be true? Don’t they give hope in a space that desperately needs hope?

Isn’t hope the oxygen we desperately gasp when we’re drowning in IF?

I think these dreams are important. I think looking up due dates or whatever you need to do in order to visualize yourself in the experience and stay on course is important. These thoughts grow the hope that help you keep moving so you can make it to the other side.

Joan Didion speaks about her need to be alone on the first night after her husband’s death. She needed to be alone so he could come back to her–in dreams, in visualizations, and–more importantly her emotional side hoped–in reality. I don’t think I’m ruining the ending of the book for you when I tell you that he doesn’t return. She makes it through the year with magical thinking. If it helped her process her loss, how could it ever be a bad thing? And unhealthy thing?

How could looking up a due date be construed as unhealthy thinking?

How could rocking in a chair and pretending I’m holding a child be unhealthy? (okay, so I am crazy. So what? That’s not the point…)

Especially if it was what we were encouraged to do when we were little.

The games of House. The games of marriage. The games of parenthood. Our preparation for the future.

What great advice! You’re right, all I do need to do is “just relax” and I’ll get pregnant in an instant. Relaxation sounds like it can overcome low progesterone, poor eggs, and lack of sperm! Thank you for the thoughtful suggestion.

And…since you’re suggesting it, I’m assuming you’ll foot the bill for my fantastic, baby-making vacation.

So, to answer all those people who told you to “just relax,” where would you like them to send you?

I can’t wait for my trip to the Azores! I’m packing tonight.

My mind has been on the concept of magical thinking lately. I recently finished Joan Didion’s book that covers this topic–The Year of Magical Thinking–as she discusses the year after the loss of her husband. Since so many of the emotions of infertility mirror that of death–the mourning the loss of our vision of motherhood/fatherhood, the mourning of actual children, the mourning of each failed cycle–it was impossible not to apply some of her ideas forward. Especially the title concept of magical thinking.

Magical thinking is usually used to describe how a child views the world. Since they don’t understand true causation, they build their own. It’s raining because I’m sad. If I walk down the hallway touching this wall I won’t have to go to bed. This stuffed animal keeps me safe at night. Adults also engage in magical thinking–as proven by the stuffed dog and bear on my bed that were purchased over the journey to parenthood. Because buying a stuffed animal will certainly bring a child into your life. Right? Well don’t rain on my parade because I believe it will work for me. And my mother confirmed this by placing her own stuffed animal that was purchased thirty years earlier for this same purpose in my bedroom. As if generations of stuffed animals were going to be make the injectible medications work their magic.

Magic. That word again. My husband asked me where I wanted to go on vacation right as we began fertility treatments. I told him Disney World because it seemed like such a happy, sunny place. What the hell was I thinking? Children. EVERYWHERE. Parents who didn’t deserve to have children. EVERYWHERE. People saying idiotic things to the infertile couple standing in line: “you guys are so lucky that you don’t have children and you can actually enjoy your vacation.” EVERYWHERE.

I cried at the fireworks–especially when Jiminy Cricket told me that if I wished for something with all my heart it would come true (I think all those negative pee sticks may hold a different story, Jiminy, but I’ll let you have your magical thinking). My sister’s favourite part of the park was a light parade that took place at night and she was in her own sad place so I desperately wanted to videotape it for her. We had tried to see it together the last time we had been to Disney, and despite running through the park at top speed, jumping over benches and ducking around rides, we missed it except for the final float. This trip, I was determined to catch the entire show on video for her. I began believing it was what needed to happen–the final obstacle that needed to be jumped in order for me to become pregnant. So if I missed videotaping the parade, we would never have children.

My poor husband sat on the curb for an hour in the rain while we shivered and tried to give each other hope that the parade would still take place (yes, we were holding out hope that an electrical parade would still take place in the rain. You can imagine the frustrations of the poor employee who had to tell the crazy infertile woman over and over again why they couldn’t send out performers on floats covered in light bulbs in the rain).

They cancelled the parade and I truly believed my fate was sealed. I would never be a mother because I had failed to deliver a videotape to my sister. How is that for magical thinking? As if my womb is directly tied to a digital video tape? But lo and behold, the parade was rescheduled for the last night of our vacation. For the hour before, it threatened to rain and they postponed the parade. My poor heart. It felt like I was climbing Everest, so close to the top and running out of oxygen.

When the parade finally emerged, I spent the first few minutes crying because I truly believed that I could now be a mother. It was now going to happen. The superstition I had created for myself had been fulfilled. A float carrying the three fairy godmothers from Sleeping Beauty passed us and Fauna, the green witch, waved her wand and pointed it directly at me–sending baby magic straight into my body. Because I had to believe that a woman in a costume could do that. Where was I without magical thinking? And you can imagine my disbelief when I wasn’t pregnant that month. I had to be. Fauna pointed her wand at me. Yes, she’s a woman in a costume (or perhaps a man–you can never tell with these costumes), but she’s a magical woman in a costume, imbued with all sorts of powers by my magical ferility thinking.

Magical thinking is the practical manifestation of hope. If hope is the body, magical thinking is the arm that is grasping out and doing while hope moves you along. Once, when speaking about the roller coaster of emotions I put myself through by holding out that hope before each beta–the dreaming, the wishing, the superstitions, the role-playing while standing in the shower and rehearsing how I’ll tell my husband (okay, so it wasn’t just in the shower. It was during every car ride and while I prepared dinner and when I was brushing my teeth. I would literally try out different phrasings of “honey, we’re going to have a baby!”)–my therapist pointed out the importance of that time. She explained that it wasn’t any healthier to “borrow pain.” Because the inverse of hope and magical thinking are negative emotions–the early mourning, the pessimism, the lack of faith. She promised me that if the beta came back negative, there would be time to mourn. There would be time to feel pain and feel sad, but that magical thinking that I did before each beta was a celebration–a celebration that would either continue with the positive or end abruptly with the negative. But since my heart needed to go through one or the other (I was not the type of person who could compartmentalize and approach each cycle with detachment), magical thinking was the route for me. Thank you, Fauna.

When you’re living in the Land of If, you’re constantly trying to buy a house on mainland. But even when you get that house, do you ever truly give up your residence on the island? It’s not a pleasant place to visit, so why would someone want to remain here? Or, perhaps, the real question remains, a Frenchman living in America is still French…right?

Some friends of mine were having this debate. Some people immediately distanced themselves the moment they gave birth (I was infertile, but now I’m obviously fertile because I gave birth–even if it was with assistance). Others never wanted to identify themselves as infertile in the first place. And then there are those of us who feel that our whole identity changed with the experience and will always identify as infertile.

In our case, we’re not finished building a family. Since I will need assistance to conceive (most likely invasive, but at the minimum, with drugs), I consider myself infertile. It’s an identity I’ve struggled with–both the shame of not feeling “like a woman” since I’m not getting pregnant in the usual way and the pride I feel in having gone the extra steps to become a mother. My children will never doubt how much they were wanted. Bins full of used injectible needles prove that–because only a heroin junkie or someone crazy would be willing to put themselves through that if they weren’t completely hell-bent on being a mother.

If you are already living on mainland and have finished building your family, do you still consider yourself infertile? If you have children, but are still building your family (this time either with or without assistance), do you consider yourself infertile? And if you are still living in the Land of If, do you think you will still use this label after you’ve gotten that nice little bungalow on the other side of the sea?

A mini-question of the day…