Laughing IS Conceivable

(During our big barbecue bash now thru Memorial Day, May 27, 2013 a few bucks have been burned off the retail price of my ebook to a scant $1.99 Click book cover to the right or http://licthebook.com)

So the question this week, I ask you: Who has been grilling you about your baby-making? And Whom Would You like to See Grilled the Most?
Please do let us know! Perhaps we can roast them in a post.

If you haven’t visited this grilling bash yet start from the introduction below. If you’re just looking for the newest material, scroll down. Each new entry will start with bold asteriks.

If you’ve been following this Laughing IS Conceivable blog (and if you haven’t…I’ll get over it.. and welcome) you know that I love Memorial Day Weekend. If you’re not from the U.S. and you don’t know what Memorial Day weekend is all about, it’s just what it sounds like: Brave men and women fought and died for our freedom in wars throughout the ages so that generations to come could buy bras on sale and eat with plastic utensils as we get 3rd degree sunburns and watch our neighbor drive around the cul-de-sac on his lawn mower with a beer in each hand and a toddler on his lap.

So the reason why I love the long weekend is because the tradition at this blog is to focus on grilling of a different kind. All year, good, hard-working, honest infertile individuals and couples are trying to have a baby. As if it weren’t enough to go through the physical aspect of it all and the emotional aspect of it all…staring at calendars, going through tests, being probed, being referred to a specialist, then a different specialist, being told everything looks fine and nobody knows why you’re not pregnant or everything doesn’t look fine, and needles, surgery, financial ruin….As if all that weren’t enough…NOW you have to deal with people!

People close to you. People almost close to you. People who used to be close to you. People who wish they were close to you. People you couldn’t pick out of a three person line-up.

All of a sudden you’re a Kardashian. Everyone feels entitled to know every minute detail of your most personal business.

“Don’t you want kids?” “Aren’t you trying?” “Do you have enough sex?” “Did you go to the doctor’s appointment?” “What did she say?” “Are you taking those supplements I gave you?” “Your sister has three kids, why don’t you have any?” “Have you called Dr. Oz like I told you? Or Dr. Phil?” “Is it because you’re too fat?” “Is it because you’re too skinny?” “Why, why why?!”

So for the next two weeks as we do every year around here, we’ll use this wonderful American tradition of barbecueing to turn the paper tableclothed tables on those who have grilled us all year long. How sweet revenge is especially with grill marks, slathered in barbecue sauce with a side of slaw. So stack up those styrofoam plates. And get ready to do some serious grilling. There will be some new posts & older ones. And who knows? Maybe this year, we’ll even singe some eyebrows.

And, of All the People Who’ve Grilled You All Year About Your Baby-Making, Whom Would You Most like to Grill and Why? Please Share with Us!

So Here Comes the First Victim/Dinner Guest…. Marietta
Besides the usual BBQ fare: Hotdogs, hamburgers, and ribs… I think it would be a good idea to throw some neighbors on the barbie.
Afterall, a lot of them have no problem grilling us all year long. (“When are you going to have kids? Are you trying to get pregnant? Did I tell you my sister’s pregnant with her third?”)

So, maybe on Memorial Day Weekend, we should invite our nosiest neighbor over for a barbecue, scrape a spatula under his or her ass and flip ‘em onto the grill. (more…)

(Ebook to the right. Reviews. Free at Amazon Prime. Also available here. I’ll stop now. www.amazon.com/dp/B007G9X19A)

What is Mother’s Day really about and what does it want from my life? I mean it. What’s the point?

It was bound to happen. My anger was about to break loose sooner or later over this. My pressure cooker was about to blow. Usually I reserve my ire for those driving in front of me at 43 m.p.h. in a 45 m.p.h. zone. (You can’t do the whole 45? Is it a laziness thing? You refuse to expend the energy it takes to apply a little extra pressure on your big toe?) So this is the state that mother’s day has put me in.

Here are these millions of wonderful women around the world more than worthy of motherhood, more than up to the task, who are struggling to get pregnant.

For those women, all mother’s day does is send them screaming head first into a gallon of Haagen Dazs. I’m so upset I can’t even bring myself to capitalize either “mother’s” or “day”. (And I’m not even sure Haagen Dazs makes gallons. And did you know that just as 50 is the new 40, 14 ozs is the new pint?)

Women trying to conceive who have yet to become moms, are angry, sad, depressed and anxious. Certainly mother’s day isn’t doing them any favors.

Then over here, you have women who are mothers. Most of us have had one of those in our lives. That woman who cooked, cleaned, and yelled at us through gritted teeth in the supermarket aisle. So, in return, once a year we honored her for all of her love and tireless devotion by making her something out of tinfoil, macaroni, and a paper plate.

Nowadays, mother’s day has become more meaningful. We’ve expanded our displays of love and devotion for our mothers by taking them to the pancake house or Cracker Barrel. The celebration to that wonderful woman who has given us life is culminated by waiting/rocking outside the building for an hour waiting for them to call your name or number for the privilege of seating your party of 8 at a table for 5 and the joy of getting to know your neighbor as the back of his chair is flush up against yours. As the family joins lovingly to say grace over the table, you are secretly praying that your siamese twin man behind you doesn’t at some point have to get out to pee.

So let’s sum this up shall we? Women who don’t have kids but are trying are devastated by this day. Women who have kids are treated to a crowded chain restaurant that’s going for the World Record for how many children with the same lame mother’s day plan can be jammed into a room with 15 tables.

So, who is this damn day for again? I’m fed up. I’ve had it up to here! (My hand is six inches above my head, making me a whopping 5′7″)

Buy my ebook. It probably will give you some laughs. That’s it. I’ve had it. I’m done.
www.amazon.com/dp/B007G9X19A

(If you’d like some laughs while riding on the train to work, or curling up in bed, or waiting for the IVF nurse to call you into the room to draw yet more blood, check out the ebook there to the right. Reviews there & www.amazon.com/dp/B007G9X19A)

So What Would J Say About Mother’s Day?
Not that J. Another J.

You see, I’m a talker. If you’ve read any of my stuff that shouldn’t surprise you. I write just like I talk. And somehow by my writing everyone can tell that I talk fast. And I talk a lot. And the problem with people who talk fast and a lot is that eventually they talk themselves into trouble. Enter my friend and coworker Jancy. She is the anti-Lori. I’m the anti-Jancy. And the way we each handle the Mother’s Day debacle is no different.

At one point in time, Jancy and I had a lot in common. A few things, in fact, we had in common with each other that we didn’t have in common with the vast majority of our coworkers. Neither of us had kids. Neither of us was Christian. So we both had Mother’s Day wishes and Christmas wishes to contend with. Jancy did it expertly. I did it like an idiot.

Every year before Christmas, Jancy would be a woman of few words… and of course, Lori would talk herself into a deep, dark, bottomless pit through which she’s still tumbling. Jancy is from India. I think most people wouldn’t automatically assume she’s Christian as opposed to any other religion. Yet people would say: “Merry Christmas” to her non-stop for the entire month of December and Jancy would say: “Thank you. Same to you.” And be rid of them.

I, for some unknown reason, feel the need to enlighten people. Well not really “enlighten”. I always have to set the damn record straight. So people would say: “Merry Christmas” to me and I would say:

“I don’t celebrate Christmas”. Then they’d want to know what I celebrate. Or they wanted to know why I don’t celebrate Christmas. Or they’d say they understood that I didn’t celebrate Christmas but still wanted to know why I didn’t buy a tree. And on and on and on and on. It would have been faster if I’d just converted to Christianity.

Then there’s Mother’s Day. People would say to Jancy: “Happy Mother’s Day” and she would of course say: “Thank You. Same to you.” Then they’d leave and she’d close her door and move on to the next ignorant well-wisher.

Not me. I’d see the greeting approaching and suck in my breath.
“Happy Mother’s Day”
“I’m sorry. I don’t know how to respond to that.”
“What? What do you mean?”
“Well, my mother died decades ago and I don’t have any kids. I mean I’m trying. I mean I’ve been trying for a while. We’ve had all the tests done. My husband’s fine. His sperm seem to be plentiful and swimming in the right direction. I have all my parts, don’t get me wrong, and I think they’re working. Maybe my eggs are just old. Anyway, I’ve gone through four cycles of artificial insemination and had an egg retrieval and we’re doing IVF…”

In the time it took me to tell that ridiculous saga, they could have walked across the parking lot, gotten into their car, and been half-way home. But no, I had to be a schmuck and prolong the agony for everyone concerned. Well at least I know there goes one person who will never say “Happy Mother’s Day” to me again.

As for Jancy, if I show her this post, she’ll tell me it’s good and keep on moving. She won’t even mention that I’ve spelled her name totally wrong so people would know how to pronounce it. Which, by the way…. is driving me crazy. Let me just set the record straight: It’s Jhansi.

As you may know, I typically post here once a week but will be tossing out a few more laughs this week in preparation for that dastardly day we call “Mother’s Day”. So here’s my first poke at “the holiday” and be sure to check back during the week for others. They will be combinations of new material and gently-used material. Think of it this way: It’s spring. Time to spread the fertilizer. (Which brings me to my ebook that’s over there to the right if you’d like to take a gander. See reviews…I mean, I think it’s funny but my opinion of it means nothing. More Reviews/Chapter Previews @www.amazon.com/dp/B007G9X19A)

Mother’s Day was always a great holiday for me. Except in 1988, 1989, 1990, ‘91, ‘92, ‘93, ‘94, ‘95, ‘96. ‘97, ‘98, ‘99, 2000, 2001, and 2002.

You might say, during that time period, which spanned two centuries, I was in a Mother’s
Day drought.

My mom was no longer around (I’m trying not to be morbid. I figured “no longer around” sounds like maybe she ran off to Bermuda with a flamenco dancer.. Go Mom!) and I had no babies arriving in the foreseeable future.

And for those fourteen years, I never could figure out how to respond when random people would say:

“Happy Mother’s Day!”

Being a non-Christian, I’ve always had the same predicament with “Merry Christmas!” So precisely twice a year, once in May and once in December, I was speechless. The rest of the time, if you know me at all, I was then as I am now: Rambling. Words come out of my mouth and off my keyboard in no particular order. But back then, on those two occasions I could only stare and blink.

I’ve created a system of sorts that I think works well in these awkward or at least, pesky situations that I always like to share.

When people wish you well on these holidays that you are not celebrating at the moment, for whatever reason, I feel there are three possible solutions:

A) Be sarcastic/ridiculous/obnoxious – (My first choice for most everything. Surprised?)

Pesky Person: “Happy Mother’s Day!”

My response (preferably yelled across a crowded room): “Are yoooou goooooing to your AA meeting this weeeeekeeend?!”

B) Educate (My least favorite option)

Pesky Person: “Happy Mother’s Day”

My response (against my better judgment): “My mother’s been gone several years and I have no kids yet.”

Now the reason why this is my least favorite option is not only does it garner sympathy from people whom I’d rather have strictly a “wave and walk” relationship with. (You know, when you get into work you wave and walk: “Good Morning!” and on Friday afternoon you wave and walk: “Have a Nice Weekend!”) but now I’m setting myself up for further conversation thereby defying the rules of our unwritten wave and walk contract. It’s a chess game you never win.

So she said:
“Happy Mother’s Day!” then I said:
“My mother’s been gone for several years and I have no kids yet.” And now it’s back to her: Crap! And now she has only 2 possible moves each one as unsettling as the other:

1) The Sympathy Move
“Oh I’m so sorry. Well try to have a nice weekend anyway. I’ll be thinking of you…” (unsaid: …while I’m sitting with my family having breakfast at the pancake house)

or

2) The Comforting as Though We Were Friends Move

“Oh, I didn’t know. Have you been trying? You do want kids though don’t you? They’re such a blessing. How long have you been married now? Have you seen a doctor?

This is the worst case scenario. At least with the sympathy move, she says “I’ll be thinking of you” and I say “Thanks…Bye” and I’m in the clear, free to go.

But now she’s befriended me. Now it’s back to me to respond. So I’m saying as little as possible…(which for me is a bad scene. Needless to say: I panic when I Tweet “Oh geez, only 7 characters left”). So I say to this one:

“Yeah, I’ll be fine. I’ve been to the doctor.”
The last thing you want to do is encourage more questions or even worse…advice. All the while in my head I’m thinking: (“Why didn’t I just say, ‘Have a Nice Weekend’ when I had the chance?! Fk me! Look at that it’s 5:08. Fk me again!)

And the third option…Also a goody:

C) Don’t Educate…Evacuate…(For those of you who are rock fans: aka “The Bono Method”)

“Merry Christmas”

“U2″

“Happy Mother’s Day”

“U2″

“Have a Nice Weekend”

“U2″

“Good luck at the dentist!”

“U2″
And keep on walking.

Of course there’s one more option: The Bright Side:

“Happy Mother’s Day”
“Not now. But say it again next year.”

(Over there to the right you can subscribe to this blog for frequent updates and check out my ebook & its reviews: Laughing IS Conceivable: One Woman’s Extremely Funny Peek into the Extremely Unfunny World of Infertility. More reviews & chapter previews at www.amazon.com/dp/B007G9X19A)

So most people probably think it’s a mere coincidence that National Infertility Awareness Week happened to run smack into Earth Day this year. Maybe it is a coincidence, but I don’t think so. The similarities between infertility and Earth Day are staggering.

Both are a celebration of all that is natural and beautiful. Well, not infertility. That’s more like a celebration of all that’s possible in an anticeptic lab.

Both are about rejuvenating and replenishing. Except infertility which is all about your internal shit being broken and useless.

Earth Day teaches us that the most wonderful things in life truly are free.

Infertility teaches us that a fertility clinic works like a reverse brothel. Women get naked and invite strangers to probe them endlessly… and then pay them handsomely for the favor. (Then go home to their husbands and boyfriends.)

Earth Day is to remind us to separate our plastic bottles and newspapers and boxes and aluminum cans and take them to a recycling place so we can save trees and stuff doesn’t end up in a landfill.

Infertility reminds us to dig soda cans out of the garbage in a state that will let you cash them in for five cents a pop. Hey, you know the old expression: “Take care of the pennies and the egg retrieval will take care of itself.”

Wait, Earth Day and National Infertility Awareness Week really do have something in common: They’re both about preserving what we’ve got before it falls apart any more than it already has.

And..More Important…They’re both about planting and hopefully growing something… and sometimes it’s about growing the seed in your own garden and sometimes it’s about growing it in someone else’s garden. And sometimes you plant one seed and get two little blossoms and sometimes you use your own seeds and sometimes you use the neighbor’s seeds. But if you use your neighbor’s seeds, make sure your husband knows about it or instead of it turning into your own beautiful fragrant blooming garden that you sowed and nutured and raised from a seedling together, it’ll be just another sordid Maury episode.

Look for more of my National Infertility Awareness Week Humor this week @Fertility Authority: http://fertilityauthority.com/blogger/1013368
Post Title: “Infertility IS…The Most Fun You Will Ever Have!!!”

Perhaps, in the meantime, you’d enjoy my current post there: “I Ask You: Where do the Hollywood Elite Get Their Sperm?”

(Take a look if you like at my ebook & reviews to the right. More Reviews from Fertility Experts & Infertile Folk + Chapter Previews can be found @www.amazon.com/dp/B007G9X19A)

Okay, that tears it. I’ve been writing (and maybe obsessing) for the past several weeks about how infertility in Hollywood bears absolutely no resemblance to the infertility the rest of us have come to know and retch at. Last week, I wrote about Halle Berry getting pregnant as she sees her number of fertile days getting smaller and smaller in her rear view mirror while her 47th birthday is the object which is definitely a lot closer than it appears. And yet, ladies and gentlemen, she got pregnant completely naturally… (Am I the only one whose right eye just winked involuntarily?) This week there’s yet something else in the Hollywood news….This time it’s Sofia Vergara using a surrogate not for the mundane reasons the rest of us seek one -because we can’t get or stay pregnant-, but because she doesn’t want to lose her hot bod. I know this may sound paranoid but: Are these celebs doing these insane, selfish things just to fk with me?

The scoop is: Sofia Vergara desperately wants to have a baby with her fiance but desperately doesn’t want to be pregnant. So she’s having a friend carry the baby for her. I guess some people have friends like that. I, myself, can’t get anyone to come into work an hour early so I can go for my annual mammogram but what can I tell you?

At age 40, Sofia has opted out of allowing a person to grow inside of her, so as not to wreck her sexy contours and thus possibly cutting her career short. Since you don’t get fat from the egg retrieval, she did apparently suck it up and go ahead with that. (If you’ve ever had an egg retrieval, you may see “suck it up” as an unfortunate choice of words.) She said in a magazine that she was eating well in anticipation of the egg retrieval. What’s that got do with anything? I don’t remember being told to eat well. In fact, I remember going through a drive-thru the night before and thinking: “Yes! Maybe all the grease will make those eggs just slide right out!”

As in the Halle Berry ordeal, I believe Sofia Vergara owes us nothing. She has the right, in my mind, to do whatever her conscience and the law allow. Who knows if this whole story is even true? Maybe Sofia Vergara does have fertility issues and she needs a surrogate. It’s possible… She’s 40. She hasn’t had a baby in 21 years. Maybe her uterus was taken out in the ’90’s and has been in a museum in Colombia ever since. Maybe this whole “protecting my curves” is just a better PR story.

(Oh, we’re far from done here. Keep on the lookout for next week’s Part 2 of “Go Ahead, Sofia Vergara, Use a Surrogate for No Apparent Reason” And, in the meantime, remember to get my ebook..Wow, I bet you didn’t see that coming. Neither did I frankly. www.amazon.com/dp/B007G9X19A)

If you haven’t read my version about the Halle Berry debacle, it follows below.

(If you have a sec, glance at my ebook over there to the right. It’s been downloaded by about a thousand infertile people (& fertility professionals) to put some humor back into their lives during this trying time. Check out reviews to the right & more at www.amazon.com/dp/B007G9X19A)

By now, you’ve probably heard that Halle Berry’s pregnant. And I’ll be honest. I’m not in the mood to join the festering mob of angry infertile people who want her newly publicly pregnant self to come out and wear a scarlet “E” down every red carpet marking her as the proud recipient of a younger woman’s egg.

I sort of understand how kids might get sucked in by what they see on TV and in movies and magazines. But by the time we’re old enough to start worrying if our ovaries still have any worthy occupants shouldn’t we have caught on to one very basic fact of TV, movies, and magazines? That there are no facts. Hollywood is one big magic show. It’s all illusion. It’s all smoke and mirrors. Nothing’s real. Not the hair, not the boobs, not the nose, not the skin, not the ass. And often not the sobriety and not the marriage… Shouldn’t we accept the one truth in Hollywood?: That all of the above is bullshit.

So, why does everyone always fall for the ol’ “I’m 46 and I’m pregnant with my own dusty eggs” story? Maybe because it works for us to believe it. When we’re feeling all out of hope, it’s another place to find some even if we suspect it’s imaginary. And not just infertile women. Every woman over thirty who wants to get pregnant “someday” has a deep-vested personal interest in it turning out to be true as opposed to not really giving a fk if Heidi Montag had a chin reduction or not.

I definitely think that gynecologists everywhere and those of us who have waited too long to try to get pregnant and then sat and watched our fertility crash and burn need to keep getting the word out there that fertility starts to decline as early as 30 and keeps picking up speed as you get older. By the time you’re 40 it’s like a wheel chasing Fred Flintstone down a hill.

But I don’t think it’s the celebrity’s responsibility to tell us anything. Yeah they’re out there in public but they’re also just a poor slob trying to get pregnant like us. They’re one of “them” but now it’s likely they’re also one of “us”.

For years of writing this blog, I have strongly recommended us regular infertile folk lying and skirting the issue. My position about dealing with everyone from close family and friends who really care about our trying to conceive situation to random coworkers and neighbors who mean nothing to us has always been: Tell them as much or as little as you feel comfortable telling them. But really you owe nothing to any one of them. Screw ‘em.

So now I have to say…Screw us. No celebrity or anybody else owes us anything about their trying to conceive situation either. They are we. We are they.

Do I believe that Halle Berry is pregnant with a baby from her own egg? Coulda happened. I don’t know. I do know that the chances of having a baby with your own eggs over age 45 are about 1 percent and the stats get uglier from there. Halle Berry will be 47 in August. She probably has a better chance of her Fiancé and her Ex who despise each other getting married in a state that will permit it, adopting and going on Elton John’s yacht with Neil Patrick Harris. But that’s really not my business.

(Lori Shandle-Fox is the Author of: Laughing IS Conceivable: One Woman’s Extremely Funny Peek into the Extremely Unfunny World of Infertility (Click icon to the right or www.amazon.com/dp/B007G9X19A to order or see reviews & chapter previews))

(If you have a chance, take a look at my ebook: Laughing IS Conceivable: One Woman’s Extremely Funny Peek into the Extremely Unfunny World of Infertility. Hundreds of fertility patients & professionals have used it to help de-stress from the suck of that which is infertility. Also, check out a new Laughing IS Conceivable post: “Where do the Hollywood Elite Go for Sperm?” over at Fertility Authority. http://fertilityauthority.com/blogger/1013368)

There’s a page in every issue of Us Magazine –Stars: “They’re just like Us!” With hard journalistic proof to back up the theory that celebrities are indeed “just like us”: Photos. There are the celebrities and look: They eat ice cream! They tie their own shoes! They embarrass themselves in public! Just like us! But when it comes to making babies the new-fashioned way… Celebrities: Are they REALLY just like US?

The latest trend in Hollywood is to tell all about your fertility struggles. Nearly every reality show has somebody going through treatments and some are even brave enough to say they not only went through treatments but they actually used a surrogate. Now I can understand if they’re coming out to the general public and announcing it, but sometimes they’re actually coming out to their inner circle. I don’t get it. Let’s say their kid is four. So why didn’t their friends already know this big surrogate bombshell 4 years 9 months ago? Do they have different friends now or just dumb friends?

I mean, didn’t her friends ever notice that she never appeared to be pregnant? You’re probably right. How could they know? She was doing Pilates 9 times a week, working with her trainer 4 hours a day and eating organic, non-processed seaweed every meal so they figured she just maintained her double zero bod like every other pregnant Hollywood celeb.

Then one day, the friends went to visit her house for a theme party and suddenly there was a baby there and nobody asked questions (I mean clearly it was a private family matter and they wanted to respect their good friend’s privacy…To her face anyway. They talked behind her back to each other of course…and maybe to a tabloid or two…but never to her face…Classy people just don’t do that.)

The only thing I have yet to see (and I probably just missed an issue of US when the story broke) is a celebrity using a surrogate to carry the baby and actually faking her own pregnancy. And there she would be in the magazine: “Daisy (46) has said she’s happy the morning sickness has passed and now all she wants to do is eat chocolate pudding and potato chips! Lucky her 1980’s sitcom star husband, Daniel (64) doesn’t mind running out at 2 am! He dotes on her!”

“A source close to the couple says that Daniel (who has son Hiawatha, 42 and daughter Igloo, 11 with ex-girlfriend Polish Supermodel Irina Reclusiva) is totally over the moon about this pregnancy. They are both super super super super super excited!!”
(Sorry for all the yelling. US magazine is very fond of exclamation points.)

Then after this charade goes on for several months, a private wing of a major LA hospital will be reserved. The celebrity parents-to-be will be whisked down in a private elevator from the heliport on the roof while the surrogate will be shoved into the freight elevator with the laundry and the dinner trays. She’ll be tossed into the delivery room and a pillow put over a face to keep the noise down so as not to arouse suspicions of the press hovering about.

Due to the surrogate’s inconvenient labor pains two days before her due date, the celebrity parents-to-be had to cut short their babymoon in their private villa in Bora Bora and are now consoling themselves at a cozy candlelight dinner for two prepared by Wolfgang Puck while mom-to-be has her hair done by Vidal Sassoon and has requested a loud blow dryer and a mariachi band to further muffle sounds from the sweaty episode down the hall. (At press time, it was not determined whether or not the couple’s insurance would be paying for the evening)

Naturally all the “regular” women who were unlucky enough to give birth that day in that wing of the hospital were sent home within twenty minutes of delivery to ensure there would be time to convert the recovery room into a chic bistro.

The next big celebrity trend: Surrogate nannies. You hire a nanny. Then you hire another nanny to take care of the kids for her. Look for it in your next issue of US magazine.

(One final annoying reminder about my ebook: Laughing IS Conceivable: One Woman’s Extremely Funny Peek at the Extremely Unfunny World of Infertility.. Click on icon to the right or See more reviews and chapter previews at: www.amazon.com/dp/B007G9X19A Also, read a brand new related post: “Where do the Hollywood Elite Go for Sperm?” over at Fertility Authority. http://fertilityauthority.com/blogger/1013368)

(Please check out my ebook by clicking the icon to the right or at www.amazon.com/dp/B007G9X19A
Free Chapter Previews & Reviews from Top Fertility Experts and Infertile Folk.)

Maybe it’s just me, but I feel like as every new month begins and each holiday in it approaches, all infertile people collectively suck in a deep breath, hold it and panic: “Oh no, it’s another holiday. Will there be parties and gatherings I don’t want to attend? Will I have to come up with yet another reason why I can’t? Will I have to listen to endless stories about everybody’s kids’ milestones? Will I have to stand there for twenty minutes, waiting for some schmuck to figure out how his SmartPhone works so he can show me pictures of them?”

And here comes St. Patrick’s Day. While I lived in NYC, I went to the St Patrick’s Day parade every year and regretted it every year. It seemed like it was always cold, dreary weather. Hundreds of NYC police officers proudly marched down Fifth Avenue. On the one hand, being a New Yorker I felt incredible pride, on the other hand, being a New Yorker, I wondered who the hell would come if I got attacked on the way back home after the parade and called 911? The cops who didn’t have enough seniority to get the afternoon off to be in the parade?

When you’re trying to get pregnant you live on eggshells from one holiday to the next. At least that’s how it was for me. I always loved August. The one month of the year with no major holidays. Finally! A thirty-one day long break from ill-will towards others. So of course both my mother and my mother-in-law decided to die in August to fk that up for me. Should I have not taken that personally?

I understand that holidays probably don’t affect regular people as negatively as they affect infertile people. I accept that most people don’t have a strong reaction to the lesser ones like Ground Hog’s Day or Arbor Day. That’s because most of the rest of the world doesn’t spend every day and night staring at the wall calendar.

“Look it’s Secretaries’ Day: It’s been 14 days since I ovulated. It’s been 8 days since my embryo transfer. It’s been 26 days since my last menstrual cycle. And in just 3590 more days I’ll be 45 and probably eggless.”

There are only two reasons I can see why St Patrick’s Day would bother infertile people: 1) That fixation I just mentioned about staring at the calendar which makes every holiday seem like a major letdown or milestone to us. 2) When you’re going through infertility you’re so absorbed in all your own stuff, somehow some way St Patrick’s Day must be all about you too. We’re not sure how, but if we obsess on it long enough, there must be some very good, extremely logical reason why we’re dreading St Patrick’s Day. There’s just gotta be. Maybe it’s one of these:

1) St Patrick was the patron saint of fertility
2) St Patrick was the patron saint of insurance that covers nothing
3) St Patrick was the patron saint of slow sperm
4) St Patrick was the patron saint of blocked fallopian tubes
5) St Patrick was the patron saint of relatives who don’t mind their own business
6) St Patrick was the patron saint of paper examination gowns that fit like a big doily.

Or…maybe we just dread St Patrick’s Day because we’re taking medications and can’t go to a pub and get stinkin’ drunk on St Patrick’s Day like all our moronic fertile friends.

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Transparency. President Obama has spoken many times about the policy of transparency. No secrets. Let the people know everything that’s going on. I think we should all adopt the same policy. Of course telling people everything in politics is one thing. Does anyone really want to know everything about our infertility? They think they want details. What’s the surefire way of curing them of that? Give them the details of course… All the details. (more…)