So, the laser surgery went very, very, very well. I go in tomorrow for my check-up and were they will remove the bandages (clear contacts) and give me my current vision. I can tell you it is perfect, if not nearly perfect. But substantially better than my -7.00 and -6.00 original vision. I'm really content.
But, I am late! Since I've been away from the computer, I missed something important! And if you all could help me redeem myself I would greatly appreciate it. Mel, at Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters has been nominated for a special blog award. If you could find the time to click on this link and vote for her. Well, it would fantastic! Especially considering the national coverage this could potentially provide fertility patients. So please click and vote. Unfortunately, I'm a little late and we have until November 8th - tomorrow. So if you haven't and you have found this in time - please click. FYI, it is just in time to NIAW (National Infertility Awareness Week), let's increase IF/pg loss awareness by having our community win!
I can see the wonderful potential, can't you?
P.S. I'll be back next week. Celebrating our five year anniversary!
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7 comments:
I'm so glad the surgery went well. I'm too big of a weany to do it!
Wonderful news!!! So happy for you...
I'm so glad the surgery went well! Wheeeeeeeeeeeeew.
Thank you for posting the shout out too.
Yay! Glad it was a success!
That's awesome about the surgery and your eyesight!
dianne: i probably shouldnt post this in your comments section, but i dont have your email. this was written for redbook magazine by julie at "alittlepregnant.com". i thought you might like it. she is currently going through a donor inf cycle. hope im not overstepping.
jennifer
20 years from now, if I am still talking about my mucus, slap me
Take 21 women of no small accomplishment — a master gardener, a world traveler, a hospital administrator, a career military officer, a biologist, an acupuncturist trained in China, a mountaineer from Israel, an award-winning artist, and so on — whose only apparent commonality is a single shared passion, and throw them together for a week. Now quick, guess: What do they end up talking about?
Children? Hey, got it in one!
I recently went to a week-long art quilting workshop, where I spent about eighteen hours a day designing, experimenting, sewing, eating, and talking with this fascinating group of women. When we introduced ourselves the first night, I learned that I was the youngest by far, with the least impressive resume; "I tell strangers on the Internet about my cervical mucus" packs a certain sensational punch, I admit, but ultimately lacks cachet.
For the first day or so, we were cagey, feeling each other out. Because we didn't have a lot in common, we looked for ways to relate to each other. And because we were all women, most of an age to be grandparents, the talk quickly turned to children. "Do you have kids?" someone asked me the first morning, making polite conversation at the breakfast table we were all sharing.
"I do," I said. "I have a son. He's three."
"Are you going to have any more?" the teacher asked, halfway down the table.
"Well," I said, trying to suppress my habitual full-body twitch upon hearing that question, resolving to be honest but still somewhat opaque, "I don't know. It was pretty tough to have the one."
And then she surprised me. "My daughter went through that," the teacher said sympathetically, and told me of their joy and dumbstruck grief when that daughter finally had twins last month — one living and one born still.
Pregnancy, labor, and birth ended up being a popular topic all week, and while such conversations almost invariably make me want to claw my own face off, this time, with this group, it was a little different. "I went early," said another woman later in the week, referring to the delivery of her now-teenage son.
"How early?" I asked, always interested in preemie stories.
"26 weeks," she said, "and now you wouldn't know it. But then…" And she trailed off, warming her hands around her coffee mug.
But it wasn't just the having of children, not in a group this diverse. "I knew from the start that kids wouldn't be in the picture," one woman said of her marriage. From the way she said it, it seemed not to bother her. But her friend, who'd brought her to this workshop as a gift upon her retirement, discreetly touched her shoulder, and I suddenly felt her whole story.
And later, when we were experimentally sewing free-form curves, a woman called the class over to see the extravagant arc her tablemate had made. "Everyone, come see. J. made a pregnant woman!"
"I did!" said J., who'd mentioned several times that she'd adopted her kids. "If I'd known it could be that easy, I wouldn't have taken all those fertility drugs."
Sure, everyone has a story. But that's not really news, not to anyone who seeks them out as eagerly as I do. What struck me that week was that in time, in enough time, it appears that we all get past our particular story. We don't exactly get over it, not if we're still mentioning it 20 years later to women we've only just met. But no one introduced herself that first night as infertile, as a preemie mom, as bereaved, as childless. They were artists, successes.
And they'd still scaled Annapurna, qualified as a sharpshooter, navigated the warren of backstreet Beijing, stayed married, kept growing, moved on.
In answer to a commenter's question from earlier this week, I think that no matter how many children I'm eventually able to have, I'll never not be infertile. I've been changed by what we've endured. But that week I was powerfully reminded that I won't always be living and breathing it. The identity might remain, but the struggle itself will end, and that was a welcome thought indeed.
POSTED BY Julie
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