Thoughtful Thursday: Role

In honor of many of you who have just sat through an awkward holiday meal with extended family…

People in families end up with roles. Among children, there’s often The Smart One, The Athletic One, The Pretty One, The Fuck-Up, etc.

As children grow, roles change into adult versions. The Successful One, The Unemployed One, The Dutiful One, The Drunk One, The One Who Never Grows Up, The One Who Ages Too Fast, The Fuck-Up, etc.

Family-building also seems to play a part in forming the roles. A friend of mine comes from a blue-collar family. He is the only person in his family ever to have gone to college, and he went on to obtain two advanced degrees. Formerly The Smart One, he grew to become The Successful One. His siblings all had children at a young age and all work at make-ends-meet jobs. For a while, it seemed like my friend would focus on his career and might never get married or have children. When he met his now-wife and announced that they were getting married, his parents panicked. They were afraid that The Successful One, on whom all of the family hopes had been pinned, would give it all up and become “just” a family man. Their fears were unfounded, and he now has children and a successful career. He doesn’t make his siblings look very good by comparison, but the roles remain intact.

In DH’s family, several of his younger siblings are too young to have fallen into adult roles yet. The oldest sister, about whom I’ve blogged extensively both before and after she got pregnant, has taken on the role of The One Who Can’t Make Up Her Mind. By age 30, she’d had several careers and gotten several degrees in different fields. But, even before getting pregnant, she made it clear that her real intention was to become The Stay-at-Home Mother. This is not the role that the family would have selected for her (including her future husband, actually), but it is the role that she has chosen for herself. This explains some of her overzealous rush to get pregnant: you can’t be a SAHM without a kid.

In my immediate family, since I have no siblings, I am the conduit for all expectations and holder of all roles. Among my extended family, as I’ve mentioned before, there is a split between breeders and achievers.

The cousins who have not been successful (poor or no job prospects, little education, debilitating mental illness, serious substance abuse) all have children, and all are divorced. Those of us who have gotten educations and pursued big-shot careers are all currently childless (actually, now that I think of it, all of them are divorced too except for me – my family doesn’t do marriage very well). In my family, my job is to be educated to an unprecedented level, and extremely successful, and well-traveled to places that others can only dream of, and fabulously happy in my marriage.

(Don’t get me wrong. My “unsuccessful” cousins are mostly really good people, and by no means are their problems related to having had children, and in fact I think most of them are better at parenting than they are at the rest of their lives. My “successful” cousins are even better people, some of the very kindest people that I’ve ever met in my whole life, in addition to being smart and ambitious and athletic and unbelievably attractive and humble… the kind of people that you would hate except that you absolutely can’t because they exude goodness yet are also wonderfully sarcastic.)

In the time since I wrote that over a year ago, my role has now been expanded to Mother of Twins, an over-achiever variation on breeder. Can you call someone a breeder if they are married more than a decade before having children in their mid-30s? If they endure 7 years of infertility? Perhaps not. So, apparently, my role is Achiever Who Achieves Career Success and Just Barely Achieved One Successful Pregnancy and Now Gives the Impression of Juggling Everything Better Than She Actually Is.

What is your role in your family? How does family-building (or lack thereof) affect your role?

Murphy

I knew it. I just knew it.

Less than a week after predicting that the eldest of DH’s younger siblings would probably have a baby in 2010, and that I’d win the baby race by only the tiniest margin, I found out she is pregnant after all. I found out one day after she POAS. She got pregnant the first cycle after going off the Pill. The Pill that she’s been on since I first met her, over 15 years ago. And I am the only person she has told about the pregnancy. Now I must counsel her daily on pregnancy symptoms and crib safety and how long her wedding dress will still fit and when she should announce to the family and which hand-me-downs I will be giving her. Did I mention that she is 4 weeks pregnant?

After DH read my Dibs post, he said, “Not 2010! Maybe 2011.” And I corrected him, “No, 2010.”

DH: She’s not even getting married until the summer.
Me: But she’s already pulled the goalie. She’s just gone off the pill.
DH: How do you know?
Me: Don’t ask me why, but she confided in me.
DH: That’s really weird. You’re not close at all.
Me; Yup.
DH: What is her hurry?
Me: It probably has something to do with me being pregnant. Who knows.
DH: But you have no way of knowing that she’ll get pregnant right away. Maybe it will take 7 years like it did for us, and she’ll have a baby in 2017.
Me: No, it will be the first cycle that she tries.
DH: Why?
Me: Murphy’s Law.

At least I saw you coming this time, Murphy, you bastard.

Thoughtful Thursday: Dibs

Continuing last week’s train of thought(fulness) on picking out baby names…

Many people talked about having names (or a set of candidates) while TTC or even before. A few people mentioned having a name selected but then, as the years passed, reconsidering after it became too popular. But none of the commenters mentioned another aspect of naming that I’ve heard infertiles talk about elsewhere: having the name stolen before you can use it.

Not infertility-related but still relevant… on Seinfeld, George chooses the name Seven in honor of Mickey Mantle’s number, long before thinking about actually having children. His fiancée mentions it to her pregnant cousin, who decides to use it on her unborn baby. George confronts the couple about the theft, and they counter that George and Susan aren’t pregnant and may never even get married. He has no exclusive right to the name.

Back to real life… by definition, infertiles take a long time to build their families. Adoptive parents also tend to have to wait many years. In the meantime, every time you blink, another fertile friend or relative has given birth. There are many opportunities for someone to steal a name out from under you. Some of them might be respectful of requests to hold off, but some like the cousins on Seinfeld might think that you have no right to a name if you aren’t even pregnant.

Has anyone stolen a name that you planned to use? Have you had concerns that a name might be stolen because of delays in your family-building?

One of my concerns about DH’s younger sister beating us in the baby race was having a name stolen out from under us (oh, and the fact that we were married almost a decade and TTC for half a decade before she even met her fiancé). The actual names would never be stolen — our selections are too unusual for that — but the names’ honorees could be. It is Jewish tradition to name babies in honor of a beloved deceased relative. Both of DH’s grandfathers died before we started TTC, one before I met DH and one between the time of our wedding and TTC. Before she died, I explicitly talked about naming a son in honor of the latter with DH’s grandmother.

A few months before she died, she and I had a quiet, intimate conversation. I asked her permission, if we ever had a son, to name the child after her late husband. She said, so gently, “I have thought about that, many times. That would make me very happy.” I cannot convey to you the warmth of her smile when she said that.

I don’t even know if the sister would name a baby in honor of anyone — she’s less into Judaism than DH despite their equally Orthodox upbringing, and her fiancé doesn’t do anything to encourage Jewish practice in their home the way that I have tried to do in ours. But if she did try to snipe a namesake… the naming rights are mine! All mine! We are older and we have been trying way longer and I got permission and her fiancé was around but refused to go to the grandmother’s funeral because he felt “uncomfortable” and he never even met the grandfather and WE HAVE DIBS!

Interestingly, DH’s sister is named verbatim for a deceased relative, whereas DH is not named for anyone. I don’t know if that factors into either of their decisions to name a baby after someone or not. During this pregnancy I offered her the name of the grandfather who died when they were kids, and she said “no thanks.” It could be that she doesn’t want to name a baby after anyone, or maybe she just doesn’t like that name.

As it stands, between the four names that my son and daughter will receive (not counting their Hebrew names), DH’s three deceased grandparents will each be honored. The fourth is just a name that I have always liked. There’s a good chance his sister will give birth in 2010, but whatever her naming intentions might have been, I have managed to sneak in just under the deadline, with both a boy and a girl. Take that! And, phew.

Has anyone stolen a name that you planned to use? Have you had concerns that a name might be stolen because of delays in your family-building?

This could also apply to objects like family heirlooms, birthrights, all sorts of things.

Perfect Moment Monday: Clean-ish Sweep

(Note: Pregnancy mentioned, though the post is ultimately about infertility.)

A year ago, I wrote about the clean sweep I had to make of my house in advance of a visit from DH’s family.

I hid it all. Books on fertility and pregnancy. The few baby items I’d purchased or made over the years. Prenatal vitamins. Basal body thermometer. Stupid piece-of-crap ovulation predictor watch. Syringes. Sharps boxes. RE paperwork. Fertility medications, unrefrigerated and refrigerated. (The latter required a bit of creativity, as I described last year.)

The family is back. Just before they drove up, I made another sweep of the house (a rather cursory sweep, since I’m on bedrest and not supposed to be roaming around the house).

• Books on pregnancy displayed prominently on bookshelf. Fertility and infertility books scattered among them — I will not hide them anymore.
• Baby items are everywhere. We did have to move some of the bulkier items to different rooms so that the people sleeping in the babies’ room can actually get through the door, but that was tidying rather than hiding.
• Prenatal vitamins out in the open.
• BBT and ovulation predictor still hidden wherever I left them — they were useless to me, so who knows where they are.
• RE paperwork left in the same pile in the office, under the mounds of OB and MFM paperwork.
• Syringes, sharps boxes, and meds cleared out of the bathroom cabinet. They filled a grocery bag to overflowing, mostly with unused needles. Hundreds and hundreds of needles. Infertility aside, it would be a little weird to go into anyone’s bathroom and find a giant sharps box and hundreds of unused needles. More an act of courtesy than subterfuge.
• Refrigerated meds haven’t been in the refrigerator for months (only a few leftover progesterone suppositories remain). I had stuffed them in a drawer somewhere during a prior clean sweep when I was pregnant but not yet telling people. This time, I am leaving them wherever they happen to be. Anyone who goes digging around the deep recesses of drawers deserves to find vaginal suppositories. Too bad they don’t have VAGINAL written in big letters on the package.

The perfect moments?

1. I don’t have to hide my pregnancy, nor the intention to become pregnant, because I am finally pregnant. My giant belly and I are on bedrest; I couldn’t hide it even if I wanted to.
2. If someone wants to snoop around and learns about our infertility history, fine. I am okay with that. I’m still not going to advertise it, but after 7 years of secrecy, if someone wants to ask the question, I will tell them the answer.

See what other perfect moments people have to offer on Perfect Moment Monday, hosted by Lori from Weebles Wobblog.

My Mother Talks About Infertility

For those who aren’t regular readers of my blog, a little background on my mother. Most of my posts are of the “My Mom Says the Darndest Things” ilk, such as her views on politics, her relationship with my cat, and daytime television. These wacky exchanges are a combination of long-standing characteristics (at the best of times, she’s “absent minded” and has a short attention span, to put it nicely) and more recent memory decline. Last week she actually forgot that I am pregnant with twins.

(On the phone at 10:30 p.m.)
Me: I can’t talk to you right now, I’m eating.
Mom: Why are you eating so late at night?
Me: I have to eat all the time.
Mom: Why?
Me: Because I’m supposed to put on as much weight as I can.
Mom: Why?
Me: Because of the babies.
Mom: What babies?
Me: I’m pregnant with two babies.
Mom: Oh! Congratulations!

Since then she denies forgetting (or has forgotten about forgetting).

Then, today, a different conversation. Like the rest of our families, she doesn’t know anything about our infertility.

(Talking about a specific friend of hers)
Me: Have you told her that you’re going to be a grandma?
Mom: Yes. She said her son waited 5 1/2 years to have a baby. They had problems.
Me: Then they weren’t really waiting for those 5 1/2 years.
Mom: What?
Me: They weren’t trying to wait.
Mom: What?
Me: Never mind.
Mom: They had to do artificial insemination or something. That’s bad, right?
Me: It’s neither good nor bad. When people need help, it’s good if they can get that help and if it works for them.
Mom: I think your father and I had problems trying to have you. I don’t really remember.

Personally, infertility is not something I could ever forget, no matter how bad my memory got.

17w1d: Infinite Possibilities

Yesterday was my Level II ultrasound. Babies and cervix were as they should be. Wonderfully reassuring, and at times miraculous. It’s amazing that fetuses have all of the body parts that they do, and it’s amazing to be able to see them. After all, most of us haven’t even seen our own cerebellum or watched our own hearts beating.

Leading up to the scan, I experienced a flurry of emotions. As with the nuchal scan, sleeplessness thanks to a combination of Dead Baby Thoughts and excitement. Eagerness to see the babies again and hopefully learn the sexes. And… a bit of sadness at the prospect of finally knowing the sexes.

Huh?

Let’s step back first. Remember when you were a kid, and you imagined what your life partner might look like, act like, be? Tall, average, short? Brown hair, blond hair, black hair, red hair? (Bald probably wasn’t on the list for most of us.) Maybe he would be royalty, and you’d become a princess. Maybe he would be the funniest person ever, and you would laugh all day every day. Maybe he’d be a musician, serenading you by day and singing you to sleep by night. Maybe you would climb mountains together, or debate philosophy, or attend glamorous A-list parties. The possibilities were infinite, and most of us only imagined wonderful possibilities.

Then, when you finally met someone who you thought might be your life partner, you were so swept away by the reality of the person that the fact that the possibilities had just narrowed probably didn’t enter your mind.

With babies, it’s much the same thing — except that it’s quite different. Babies are also infinite possibility — within the realm of genetic reality. Two short parents are unlikely to produce a tall genetic child, for example. Still, the almost-infinite possibilities abound. My children could have any hair colors: brown most likely, possibly blond or black hair (my husband was a blond child, whereas my hair was as close to black as brown hair can get), not impossible but probably not red (though there are gingers in my family). Eye colors are up in the air, though my dominant brown eye genes will probably overtake their father’s blue eye genes. Small butt like me, or bodacious butt like their father? Skinny like their father, or not-skinny like me? Angel babies like I was, or colicky handfuls like their father? Math nerds like me, or math geeks like their father? Sticklers for precision in language like me, or sticklers… apparently some possibilities are not so infinite after all. My children could choose almost any profession in the world — except that they’ll be too tall to be jockeys, too unathletic to be most other types of professional athlete, too cynical to run for public office — though that last one is more nurture than nature, it’s just as inevitable.

The less-than-wonderful possibilities exist too. Will they inherit ADHD, depression, substance dependence from my side? Life-threatening allergies, anxiety disorders, diabetes from his side? Will my daughter be mortified to hit puberty before most of her friends? Will my son be humiliated to learn that he was not conceived the old-fashioned way and that he is not a “natural” twin? Will my children grow up to be infertile?

Every person who has not yet met their child has a broad set of possibilities they imagine for that child. One thing that happens with infertility is that the time for imagining is longer than it is for most — many of my fertile friends had less than a year from pulling the goalie to holding a baby in their arms, and my knocked-up cousins didn’t even get the lead time to think about pulling the goalie. I had two and a half decades to fantasize about my potential someday children, then seven years to imagine my “when they hell are they going to get here?” children. During those seven years, my imagination covered every possibility — good and bad. Mostly good long-term possibilities, but plenty of bad pregnancy and infant possibilities thanks to the shattering of my rose-colored glasses by infertility.

And so, as much as I have wanted to know the sexes of these babies, as the time approached I also realized that the information would constrain my world of possibilities forever. Two boys would mean that I might never get to experience parenting a daughter. Two girls would mean that the first and middle names we selected years ago in honor of my husband’s grandfathers could forever go unused. One boy and one girl would mean that my twins might not enjoy the same closeness that I’ve witnessed in many same-sex twins — and that this would probably be my last (and only successful) pregnancy (knock on wood), because with one of each we would probably never try to conceive again.

Yes, I know, cry me a river. I realize that these are not actual problems. But possibility is sometimes the only thing an infertile can cling to, and contrary to what I imagined would happen for all of those years, setting aside possibility to embrace reality can be a difficult leap to make.

Those were my thoughts leading up to the scan, anyway. And once I learned the reality? Ecstatic. Unequivocally beaming. Anticipation is a mindfuck, but the reality was as exciting as I’d imagined. Unlike my husband, who adamantly has no gender preference, once I learned one sex I was totally rooting that the next baby would be the opposite sex. I know that rooting doesn’t change the DNA that was put into motion over 100 days ago, but in my head I was rooting. Rooting like a cheerleader. A nauseous cheerleader with her belly hanging out and covered with goo.

Oh, you want to know the sexes? See the photos? Okay, since you’ve come this far.

Baby A, my…

…son! The ultrasound technician and MFM doctor both had full confidence. The circle on his chest is Baby B’s head, but they’re not actually crammed together, yet.

Baby B, my…

…probably daughter! 90% sure. She was a little modest and wouldn’t spread-eagle like her brother, but after staring at her crotch extensively and patiently waiting for her to shift, everyone thinks she is very likely a girl. It’s sure enough that I can start decorating the nursery, but uncertain enough that we have ammunition to try to persuade my mother-in-law to put off scouring the garage sales for any more baby items that I didn’t want in the first place. Unfortunately I think we’ve already lost that battle. We can look forward to her bursting into tears many more times over our rejection of the junktreasure she has unearthed, but between learning the babies’ sexes and starting pottery, today I am in too good a mood to care.

16w1d: Going Public

(This post talks about post-infertility pregnancy, but not about actual pregnancy.)

It’s been a week and a half since we told our families and most of the other people we know that I am carrying twins. Mostly individual announcements, except for a big reveal at a family dinner.

For someone who’s not anxious by nature, I was a ball of nerves before each family announcement. I asked DH if he was nervous, and he said, “No, why would I be nervous?”

Mostly, reactions have been extremely positive. A lot of excited screaming from family members. From friends, mild happiness at the initial pregnancy announcement followed by elation or dumbfoundedness in response to “twins.” The best twin reaction, from DH’s step-grandmother: “Wholesale!”

Much less “what took you so long” than I expected. Almost-universal questions about whether twins run in my family. Out of about 40 people told in person or on the phone, only 3 had specific questions about fertility treatments.

• As mentioned last week, one of my bosses: “Do twins run in your family, or was it fertility drugs…?”
• One of DH’s friends, who probably hasn’t dealt with fertility issues himself but is generally more aware than the average person: “So, do twins run in the family, or was it (knowing look) something else?”
• Mr. Dad, husband of Anti-Mom, mentioned previously in detail here and here. Thanks mostly to Anti-Mom’s bitchiness, Mr. Dad has gone from DH’s closest friend to someone who may or may not get added to an Evite when we’re in town. “Did you find out they were twins at the 5-week ultrasound or the 8-week ultrasound?” Nobody would know to ask such a question unless he’d been through fertility treatments himself. I’d suspected, but now it’s confirmed. Although I usually like someone more after learning they’re infertile, this revelation doesn’t change how I feel about Anti-Mom — she’s always been horrible: pre-, during, and post-infertility.

For someone who has been anticipating this announcement for 7 years, there are a lot of things I did not anticipate.

• A few minutes of talk about pregnancy, babies, etc., then moving on to other topics without me directing the conversation there. Most people aren’t as single-minded as I feared.
• The extent to which family members would commandeer the news as their own. DH’s stepmother sent out a mass email to everyone she knows, then forwarded us all of the responses. I stopped counting at 22. I have met 5 of those 22, and heard the names of less than half of the others. Several of my dearest friends still don’t know (because we are not sending out mass emails, and instead telling people as we see them in person unless we are guaranteed not to see someone until after the birth), but some lady from my stepmother-in-law’s yoga class knows. It’s sweet, really, but still weird.
• Insight into secret conversations that have been going on. For example, my mother said, “Last month your dad asked me when you were going to have children. I said, ‘How would I know?’” DH’s unmarried sister (with whom I’ve felt like I’m in a race) revealed that their mother has been pressuring her to have a baby, with or without getting married first, because we were too slow to produce grandchildren.
• My dad’s first question was whether the babies’ last name will be Hers-His or His-Hers. Neither, actually.
• DH’s father doting on me and refusing to let me lift a finger.

Unfortunately, one thing I did anticipate accurately was the extent to which DH’s mother would be a nightmare. I didn’t guess all of her statements exactly, but in many ways she’s been even worse than I expected. DH called her before telling the rest of the family in person (she lives in different city from most of the rest of the family) because he would never hear the end of it if she wasn’t the first to know. Just as I predicted, it’s been all about her.

• Her first reaction: Burst into tears. Then, “I’m going to have my hands full!”
• Her first words to me: “Can I ask you a series of questions?”
• Her first statement when she called DH’s father, waiting a whole two hours after we swore her to secrecy: “We did it!”
• Her instructions to DH’s stepmother: “We have to go to their house together and help out after our babies are born.” Stepmother humored her because she is too nice to say, “Never in a million years. That would be miserable.” I was the one who had to explain to DH’s mom that it would be more helpful if they came separately for a week each rather than together for one week (“Then we can come together for two weeks!” No, just no.). DH says he liked it better when they didn’t get along.
• Elapsed time between announcement and her purchase of baby items despite DH telling her not to buy anything: 14 hours, 8 of which were spent sleeping.

She has called almost every day to ask dozens of questions (“Were the babies conceived in Spain? You could give them Spanish names!”), twist our arms to let her buy things (“Do you know how much a double stroller costs?”), tell us fun facts about twin pregnancy that she’s found on the internet (“African women are more likely to have twins!” Me, completely deadpan: “I am not African.”), and suggest ideas like a baby pool (my comment to dissuade her: “If the babies are born several months early, the person who collects the money for having the earliest guess will really feel like an asshole.”). I thought that scaring her with the risks of twin pregnancy was an effective way to shut her down until she started to believe that something is terribly wrong and that the only way to extract the truth is through constant questioning.

Poor DH fields almost all of the calls from his mother. He has answered all of her questions patiently, except for how we could have known they were twins so early, which he kept refusing to answer until I fed him a line about amnions and chorions (confuse her with science!). My plan before revealing the pregnancy was to come out of the IF closet — I still think that if anyone in our families asked about fertility treatments outright we would tell them the truth. But, we’re not addressing roundabout questions nor nosey questions asked for the sake of nosiness. Given how intrusive his mother has been with simple information, infertility is a can of worms that neither of us is eager to open up.

Barren Bitches Book Brigade: The Red Tent

Welcome to the Barren Bitches Book Brigade, featuring The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.

I have a special place in my heart for Anita Diamant. She wrote The New Jewish Wedding, which I memorized practically word for word when planning my own wedding. Thanks to her book (and the rabbi) I singlehandedly planned my own Jewish wedding, without ever having attended one before. My husband had attended a few Jewish weddings, but he hadn’t been paying much attention and had little to contribute. Having attended a score of Jewish weddings since my own, I can say that mine was much more mindful and thought-out than all but one other that I have attended. My first-timer’s take combined with Diamant’s attention to each detail allowed me to bring a unique focus to elements of the Jewish wedding that usually get glossed over.

Diamant brought that same attention to detail to this novel. Usually-ignored adjectives and bits of verse from Genesis get expanded, elaborated, amplified. I enjoyed this book a lot, but it was hard to draw the line between “fact” and fiction. At many points I was unsure whether something was a fictionalization or whether I just didn’t remember it from the original story. And, of course, the female perspective and focus on menstruation, reproduction, loss, and mothering are a stark departure from the usual story.

“The sight of the baby in Bilhah’s arms, day after day, shattered Rachel’s confidence again. She was only the aunt, the bystander, the barren one.” Did you find the author sympathetic or disparaging of Rachel’s barren state? Did she convincingly relate the experience of being barren?

I found the author very sympathetic to Rachel, and her descriptions of Rachel’s mindset compelling, with one exception – there was a sense, via the other characters, that Rachel was too proud and infertility forced humility on her. She probably was too proud, between her beauty and Jacob’s favoritism toward her, but aren’t we all in our own way?

The family trees shown at the beginning of the book don’t include miscarriages, stillbirths, or children who died before weaning. Given the rate of infant mortality at the time, this was a logical method for “counting” children. Now that it’s much more rare (but still too common) to lose children both before and after birth, at what point do you think children should be added to the official family tree? At what point should they be added to the parents’ personal tally of children?

Just this weekend I was speaking to a family friend about family size. More than once she referred to the number of children in prior generations in her family with the caveat, “but they didn’t all live.” For example, “My great-grandmother had 12 children (they didn’t all live) and only 3 of them were girls.” I don’t know whether this included miscarriages and stillbirths or only children who died young, but it was interesting to hear these deaths remembered in this way – casually, but still part of the permanent record.
Personally I would count stillbirths and infant deaths in the official family tree, but not early miscarriages (as my own two miscarriages were).

Dinah is awaited and welcomed by all of Jacob’s wives. The one daughter, the one to carry all their stories, all their voices. In the context of the book it is a literary device that allows the author to tell us stories of Jacob’s wives from their own perspectives. But what does it speak of to you? In your own life, have you felt, as Dinah does, a carrier of living memory? Do you feel your own voice to be better protected in the age of the blog, or do you see an enduring need for connection across generations?

In some ways I do feel like a carrier of living memory, because I am good at listening and good at remembering. I can recount in great detail stories that older relatives have told me; others who were there with me at the time of the telling have no recollection of the stories whatsoever. But, even more, most people were not there at the time of the telling, because they do not have the patience or interest to sit and listen to the ramblings and reminiscences of an older generation.

My own voice may be protected in the blog age, but the earlier voices require retelling from person to person. Their stories are not mine to blog about, but they are mine to tell to individuals within the family — hopefully my own children soon.

Hop along to another stop on this blog tour by visiting the main list at Stirrup Queens. You can also sign up for the next book on this online book club: Navigating the Land of If by Melissa Ford.

Perfect Moment Monday: Day for Mothers

Vignettes of three mothers, in honor of Mothers’ Day.

DH’s Mother, last mentioned on this blog when I had a dream in which I called her a “fucking shrew whore”

I had another dream about DH’s mother last week.
She rudely asked me, “So when are you gonna finally have a baby?”
I replied, “November! Ha, in your face!”

Me, a mother by some reckonings but not by others

I received the following acknowledgments of Mothers’ Day this week:
OMG! You Rock Day gifts sent by Kym from I’m A Smart One, including tasty (but not too rich, due to my current food aversions — though I’m told he also makes all sorts of sexy sinful varieties) double chocolate chip cookies made by Frank, whose cookie business will launch soon; a superman/superwoman/superKym insignia; a pair of onesies that simultaneously joke about my blogging proclivities and indicate that I just might actually be someone’s mom soon (times 2). Note that both are blue, even though Kym is guessing boy-girl twins. Also note that Kym sent me many cookies, but they are so huge that I can only fit one on the plate.

A gorgeous laptop briefcase from DH, who previously has been known to ask why I need so many different work bags and briefcases. It arrived on my doorstep with a Happy Mothers’ Day note when he was out of town, and was a total surprise (frankly, I had the odds at 50/50 that he’d give me a card or gift).

My Mother, last mentioned on this blog for creatively naming the presidents

my mom: What is the name of your cat?
me: You don’t remember?
mom: No.
me: I’ve had the same cat for 8 years!
mom: I don’t have a good relationship with your cat.

Happy Mothers’ Day to all mothers and trying-to-become-mothers. If yours wasn’t happy, at least it’s over!

Lori from Weebles Wobblog is celebrating her 2nd blogoversary! And she’s one hell of a mother — trust me, I’ve seen her in action.

Thoughtful Thursday: Announcement

Happy April! It’s time to announce the March Intelligentsia (people who have commented on every Thoughtful Thursday post for the month of March).

First, there’s three-peat member Wiseguy from Woman Anyone?

Repeating their Intelligentsia status from a prior month are Cat; Ernessa from Fierce and Nerdy; Leslie Laine from What You’re Not Expecting When You’re Trying to Expect; and Shalini from By the Pricking of My Thumbs.

We also have a couple of first-timers: Kristen from Dragondreamer’s Lair and Kymberli from I’m A Smart One.

Hooray!

Today’s Thoughtful Thursday is pregnancy-related, but those who haven’t been pregnant are also free to chime in. I certainly had opinions about it before I ever became pregnant for the first time — and then those opinions changed drastically when I became un-pregnant. My opinions changed again as infertility wore on for years and years, and when I became pregnant then un-pregnant the second time.

I used to think it was wise to wait a sensible time to tell the world, but that it was fun to tell lots of individual people. Now, I think it’s best to wait a longer-than-sensible time to tell almost everyone, with the caveat that it can’t always be hidden as long as you’d like (growing belly, morning sickness, etc.). Sensible for normal people and sensible for those who’ve dealt with infertility or loss are not even on the same scale — like comparing a stopwatch to geologic time.

With this pregnancy, I’ve been thinking that I’d wait at least until the end of the first trimester to make the general announcement. This includes family — we’ve told them less than anyone else throughout the past 7 years, why should we change things now? It also includes work, non-close friends, and Facebook. Actually, maybe Facebook will have to wait until the birth.

This all seemed very far away, until I realized that the second trimester begins in mid-May. Every day may be crawling by at a snail’s pace for me, but May also feels very soon. May is next month! Ultimately the exact timing will boil down to who we’re seeing when, and how long we can hold out before we can’t hide it any longer. I’d be surprised if I tell anyone who doesn’t already know about our infertility before the end of the first trimester.

The general consensus seems to be that the end of the first trimester is the sensible time for the big announcement. The reduced miscarriage risk coincides with the burgeoning inability to hide the belly. Dooce had a subtle announcement to the world right around the end of the first trimester.

Our close friends The Other Hosts waited until the day of their nuchal scan to announce it — it happened to be New Year’s Eve, so the announcement was made at the party in front of all of their friends. Their families found out around 8 weeks (except for her mom, who knew from the beginning). Mr. Other Host told DH a couple of weeks before the nuchal scan. As I have mentioned already, Mr. Other Host called and told me the morning of the big day, immediately after the nuchal scan: literally as we were backing out of the parking spot post-retrieval, which was not ideal timing for me, but it was still a kind gesture for him to tell me in advance instead of springing it on me.

A few days later, we received their belated Christmas card in the mail — they also waited until the nuchal scan for the mailing. It was a wedding picture, wishing people a happy new year from Mr., Mrs., and Baby Other Host (with due date). Anyone who didn’t hear the announcement on New Year’s Eve definitely got the message soon after.

Mr. Other Host is an “I’m so excited and I just can’t hide it” kind of guy, and they got pregnant the first month they tried, so I’m not surprised about the Christmas card. At the same time, I would never be so presumptuous to send a Christmas card — even if the pregnancy was 8 months along when the cards went out. I have learned the hard way, through my own tears and those of too many friends, that there are no guarantees.

I’m going to see one of my closest friends today, and another one tomorrow. They’ve been with me the whole way on this journey; how could I not tell them? They seem to be an exception to my “wait a very long time to tell” rule. I’m very excited for those announcements, actually. I’m dreading some of the others, though. The worst: I would bet money that DH’s mother will berate us for not telling her about this pregnancy earlier, for telling anyone before her, for not telling us about the previous pregnancies, for not confiding about infertility… Yet another reason to put the announcement off.

Today’s questions (answer based on what you’ve done, if you’ve had the opportunity, or what you’ve imagined, if you haven’t): When does a pregnancy feel real enough (or safe enough) to tell the world (anonymous billions on the internet notwithstanding)? When would/did you tell your inner circle? When does it feel real enough to “announce” it to yourself? How much do you think that your answers to all of the above are influenced by infertility and/or loss?