Laughing IS Conceivable

Every time the statistics on teen pregnancy come out, don’t you just want to hurt somebody?

Apparently the latest data show that while teen pregnancy is down, it’s still higher in the U.S. than in any other developed country.

I think this is why the likes of us can’t get pregnant. We know too damn much.  We have to think more like a schmucky teenager. You know, think back. Remember when you knew nothing but thought you knew everything?

Let’s see if we can key in on what all of those teens are doing right. Here are some tips I’ve come up with: (more…)

I’m an angry bitter woman and I don’t try to hide it. Okay, I brag about it to all who will listen.

A while back, I wrote a post about some break-through in male infertility. Well, there’s just been another one. Great. I mean: “Great!” (more…)

So my last post was all about Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang. Since then, there have already been the Charlie Brown Christmas special and a smattering of lesser known ones like:

“What’s that Rash, Charlie Brown?!”  

Every year at this time, I must see my required programming. All of the Peanuts specials of course, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, all twenty-six versions of “A Christmas Carol” (even though all I have to hear is “Jacob Marley was dead dead as a doornail” and I’m freaked out for the rest of the show… Even in the Flintstones version.)   

And I admit, I probably shouldn’t watch Rudolph. I haven’t lived in NYC for 4 1/2 years now but it’s still in my heart and soul and other internal organs. When they won’t let Rudolph play in any reindeer games, I want to pull every last reindeer out of the TV and, well, fk him up. There’s the holiday spirit for you. 

So tell the truth: Has having infertility made you feel like YOU belong on the Island of Misfit Toys? (more…)

Okay, now I’ve done it. I’ve never hidden the fact that I love the autumn and every corny thing associated with it: Football (not the least bit corny), Macy’s parade (cool with many corny parts), fall foliage.  

So in the past few weeks, I’ve written about going through infertility later in life (“The Autumn of My Fertility”) and spooky infertility stories for Halloween.

I can’t see what could possibly be left to write about that’s autumn-related  except, of course for the obvious: Charlie Brown.

This long lost Charles Schulz classic, “It’s Infertility Charlie Brown!” was shown on TV for years in between the Halloween and Thanksgiving specials. 

I’m not ridiculous enough to suggest that Lucy Van Pelt grew up and battled infertility. With her stank attitude, likely the only men who would even talk to her would be a chiropractor or an orthopedist treating Charlie Brown for ailments caused by decades of her pulling away that damn football. (Then again there are lots of men who seem to adore crabby women: Have you seen “Bridezillas?”).

Here’s the episode in its entirety.  It takes place in the classroom. Hope I don’t give anybody a Peanuts allergy. (ar ar ar):

I present to you: “It’s Infertility Charlie Brown!” (more…)

I recently read a post by a poor woman who was ousted from an online infertility support group. Okay, I’ve been unceremoniously told to not return to a few myself. (You know that sound of a door opening when one of your friends logs on to AOL? Think of someone yelling: “Screw off!” and slamming the door shut. It was kind of like that.)

Of course I might occasionally say something offensive, thus encouraging the “screw off” order in my direction.

But this poor woman, as she tells it anyway (of course there are always twelve sides to every argument but enough about Real Housewives of Wherever) was told to leave an infertility support group because she has a child.

I’m not sure how long she’s been trying to conceive this go ’round but she’s apparently infertile. I mean what lunatic would spend their days kvetching about their infertility to a bunch of other stressed and depressed infertile strangers online if they weren’t really infertile?

I’m not thinking there are dozens of fertile women just clamoring to get into one of those groups. It’s not something you’re likely to put on your resume as a group you belong to, to impress a future employer and it’s definitely not as exciting as hanging with the Kardashians.  

Geez, I know people go to extremes to fit in to cliques but who the hell would be dying to get into this miserable sisterhood enough to fake being infertile? I mean, I’ve met literally hundreds of phenomenal women via this road, but to be perfectly honest, I’d just as soon as met each and every one of them somewhere totally different.

So I don’t think anybody doubts this woman who was banished is infertile. It’s just that she has a child. So apparently she’s not infertile enough.  Maybe if she agreed to ship off her daughter to be raised by relatives in another state, to show how serious she was about joining, she could be let back in the group.

We all get how hard it is when you’re dealing with infertility to hear about kids, so maybe we SHOULD have standardized guidelines that all infertility forums should adhere to.

In order to be eligible to join any online infertility forum: 

1) You must never have been pregnant. (Chemical pregnancies DO count!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

(Okay, that lets out probably 90% of us right there.)

2) You may not have any children of any kind living in your house.

(This includes step-children, adopted children, your younger siblings, foster children, exchange students,  your neighbor’s kids that you babysit at your house twice a week while she’s at work, to help pay for your fertility treatments, or excessive trick-or-treaters .)  

3) Your husband’s sperm count must be no greater than 1/2 of a tank full at any given time.

4) If you are over thirty-five, you must have gone through menopause. (Please provide proof that there’s not even one stray egg rattling  around in there)         

5) You must be having unprotected sex at least five times a week (wow!) for a minimum of 6 months before you are eligible to join a group.

Let’s face it: The whole thing is ridiculous. As long as you’re legitimately a self-declared infertile person and not just someone trying to infiltrate an infertility forum so that you can get women to buy your new invention: The Egg GPS that tracks the egg on the way down your fallopian tube (“Continue South 1.3 millimeters. Make a slight right to stay in the fallopian tube. Your destination will be…Nevermind. Just stay where you are and let  that swarm of squiggly guys with lust in their eyes find you.”)

I am also ready to give the woman who banned her from the group the benefit of the doubt. Once the infertility hormones, anger, stress, and frustration set in, I like to think we’re no longer responsible for either our actions or our foul mouths.   

So either “fertility brain” is the culprit or it’s like what my father used to say about the pesky 80 year old security guy at the senior facility in Florida where he lived: ”See Lori: This is what happens when you give a moron a little authority.”

If you’d like more Laughing IS Conceivable, please do subscribe to this blog. Also check out my latest at Fertility Authority: Some info about surviving Halloween followed by my post “The Season of My Infertility” http://fertilityauthority.com/blogger/1013368

It’s easy to love a fairytale. Some of them we love so much, they seep out of the book and into our bloodstreams and live with us for decades.

At ten years old we think:

“I don’t want to get married young. I’m going to wait until I’m at least twenty. And I’m going to have a big wedding on the beach and Marcy in my class is going to be my maid of honor because we’ve been best friends since third grade.

I’m going to marry a man named Michael because I really like that name and we’re going to have two kids, one boy and one girl, Michael Junior (I REALLY like that name) and Marcy after my best friend since third grade. I’ll probably have my boy first so my daughter will have a big brother.”

And then, of course, since most of us don’t live in Oz, reality rears its ugly head and the fairy tale turns down a less rosy path.

We find “Mr. Maybe” at seventeen, “Mr. Possibly” at twenty-two, “Mr. Definitely Not” at twenty-eight and “Mr. Right” at thirty-five. Then, as all too many of us know, the pregnancy fairy tale doesn’t always pan out either.

(Maybe that’s why you never see Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty or Snow White knocked up. The stories always end at the wedding kiss. It’s goes: Wedding–Kiss–Happily Ever After–The End. Maybe that’s the key to living “Happily Ever After”…Quitting before things get ugly.)

And, believe it or not, when infertility starts, so does the beginning of a new fairy tale… in our heads anyway. (more…)

So, for all of you out there preparing for that wonderful moment of someday being able to have a baby to name, all I have to say is: Don’t blow it! In commemoration of World Contraception Day, here are some very basic rules to follow:

1) Nouns are not names:

     “Susan” is a name. “Wood” is not. “Jeffrey” is a name. “Pencil” is not.

2) Anything that sounds even remotely like how the baby was conceived is not cute and will be even less cute if he/she grows up to be a lawyer, doctor, or stock broker:

     “Accidenta”, “Orgyra”, “Drunkenstuporino”

3) Stripper/Drag Queen names are not cute:

     ”Pussy Willow”, “Lady Chantilly”, “Daisy Delight”  

4) Apostrophes don’t belong in names, especially in the middle of nowhere for no apparent reason:

      “Da’vid”, “Jo’Hanna”, “Nan’cy”

5) Idiotic spellings are not allowed. And then, on top of it, getting pissed because we said it wrong…is REALLY not allowed.

“Mykill”, “Staysee”, “Genknufur”

“Hi, can I speak to Genk New Fur?”

“Her name is Jennifer!”

“No it isn’t. What are you talking about? There’s no “k” in Jennifer. I mean I’ve seen it spelled with one “n” instead of two and I think I’ve even seen it a few times with a “G” instead of a “J”, but there’s definitely no “k” in Jennifer. Did you consult a baby naming book before you named her or a dictionary or a relative or anything?”     

If they get a recording contract, they can spell their names that way. But while they’re a baby it’s just ludacris…I mean ludicrous.

6) Don’t add a letter to the daddy’s name to make it a ridiculous-sounding girl’s name: It looks like you’re trying too hard to make the daddy like you.

“Marcusa”, “Stevena”, “Marvina”

I’ve heard all of those names on Maury during baby mama drama paternity tests…so that can’t be good. It just can’t.

7) Don’t give all the kids the same name.

Obviously you’re going to have to end up calling them different names anyway unless you manage to never have any of them in the same place at the same time.

Only George Foreman could ever get away with it. Let’s face it: If your father was, ever in his lifetime, World Heavyweight Boxing Champion, he can pretty much call you whatever he damn pleases.

There are no numbers in names

“4Eva”, “Loveu2″  

(Those are license plates (or Prince albums) not children’s names.) 

And I’m sorry: For those out there who can’t follow these few simple rules:

Remember “World Contraception Day”: It’s time to zip it, clip it, or dip it in cement.

I wonder if they’d like me to handle their marketing campaign.

You know how everything has it’s own day now?  There’s ”National Peanut Butter Day” in January, not to be confused with “National Peanut Butter Lovers Day” in March.

I wonder if there are thousands of angry allergic protesters marching each year. I suppose they’d have to shake their signs and wave their fists a mile away from the event so nobody passes out.  

I don’t know what’s happened to us. We’re all so frail nowadays. Only a few years ago I’d throw a bologna sandwich and an apple in a paper bag in my sweaty hall locker at school, mid-June, let them sit there next to my sneakers which were just slightly riper than my apple, for five hours and then eat them for lunch… without washing the apple or de-botchulising the bologna. 

Now we talk to someone over the phone, across the Atlantic Ocean who ate  some gluten-filled pasta and washed it down with a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup an hour ago and our throats close up and we fall on the floor.

Getting back: So everything has a day of its own nowadays. And September 26th every year is World Contraception Day. (It’s also my cousin’s birthday. I’m wondering how she feels about that. It kind of leaves you conflicted about how to celebrate your birthday and also makes me realize for the first time in my life how close the words “celebrate” and “celibate” really are.)

The ASRM (American Society for Reproductive Medicine) is having their own “Contraception Day” on October 18th at their national conference.

I’m all for as many contraception days as we can muster. 

I’m just thinking that I’m enthusiastic about it for far different reasons than they are. 

Those who have created these days seem to be interested in informing young people about their contraception options and to make sure all babies are wanted and everyone stays in good health and passes nothing between the sheets but happy, healthy stuff. (Was “stuff” a poor choice of words perhaps?)

I, on the other hand, am thinking that while many of us have been working hard to get pregnant, there are those out there who need to zip it, clip it, or dip it in cement.   

And maybe I’m more critical or pettier than most, but I’m not even talking about people who abuse, neglect or abandon their kids…I think there should be mandatory contraception for those who just give their kids stupid names.

Join me again on Monday for “World Contraception Day-Part 2- Zip It, Clip It, or Snip It” as I give my basic rules on how to avoid ”Idiotic Baby Naming”– a primer course for those working so hard toward that day when there will be a baby to name, and a warning to those who should be severely punished for the monstrous names they’ve stuck their kids with. 

In the meantime, please join my wonderful group of subscribers for weekly Laughing IS Conceivable info, updates, and background stories on each week’s post.

Also, if you’ve had it with mounting infertility fees, come read about my infertility clinic where there are no package deals, no prix fixes, no value meals, and everything is strictly a la carte.   “Infertility Cafeteria” http://fertilityauthority.com/blogger/1013368

I’ll talk with ya again on Monday.

I think one of the hardest things to explain to the “outside world” when you’re dealing with infertility is how ANYTHING can trigger our sadness or negative thoughts and feelings. 

It really doesn’t take much to set us off. Last week I waxed poetic (sounds nicer than “talked sht”) about how truly impossible it is to have a normal conversation with an infertile woman.

And the closer you are to us, the more you’re in trouble. Spouses have no chance at all. Sometimes we’re so stuck in our own heads and what we’re going through, we don’t even want to look at our spouses and there’s probably a million times they’d rather not listen to us.

But we won’t tell him to get lost. We need his affection. We need his support. We need his sperm.

And he won’t tell us to get lost… I have absolutely no idea why.

And while hubby/boyfriend/spouse (I first heard the term “spouse” when I was eight playing the board game “Life”. To this day, whenever somebody mentions their ”spouse”. I picture a blue or pink peg with no face, only a head.) Anyway…  

Whatever you call your peg that rides beside you in that game o’ life… He or she is not the only one who has the privilege of having disturbing, bizarre, hormone-drug induced chats with us. 

Anyone who came into my personal space during one of my frequent spontaneous, anxiety-ridden moments was fair game. Even the sixteen year old cashier at McDonald’s. (more…)

We’re impossible. We are. When you’re going through infertility, there’s no way to talk to us. The first thing to go may be our ability to conceive easily. But then, three of our senses tailgate very closely behind:

1) Hearing 2) Sight 3) Rational Thinking (aka Common Sense)… Not necessarily in that order. (more…)