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Mother’s Day from a Formerly Infertile Myrtle
May 11, 2012 | By: Elizabeth
As I started to type this Blog, I turned on Pandora radio for some happy listening while I typed my blog. Mother’s Day is a very, very difficult topic for me. Mother’s Day and infertility. Well that is, it used to be a difficult topic. And no, it’s not a better topic for me now because I have children. Having children didn’t fix it.
So I wanted some inspiration from song writers and I typed in an artist that usually has some words of wisdom for me. The song that popped up when I entered the artist (who shall remain nameless) was all about love and family. And so was the next, and the next, and the next, and the next. Every song that has followed as I have typed and deleted, has been about love and family. I didn’t pick that initial track or any that have followed it but clearly the Universe was telling me I am on the right track to have chosen to stop my day and talk about what it means to be infertile at the holiest of holy days for those who are struggling to conceive.
I have wanted to write all week and have been suffering from horrible writer’s block. My colleague Amy Demma pushed me (check out her blog http://www.eggdonationtoday.com/). My clients asked me. My meditation quieted my mind so I could figure out what I wanted to say. Even if only to myself. And the music is telling me to share this with you. To share something very profound that happened to me recently and has changed, finally changed how I feel about Mother’s Day. And no, it’s not about my children.
How many times today have I been asked what do I want for Mother’s Day? Countless. I have not had a single response over these many years than to ask that I be permitted to wear my pj’s all day and not have to face the world (sound familiar? I think I’ve said the same thing all but two years out of the last 15). But as I sat down to write this, I realized something. I finally got my Mother’s Day present, a little early. And no it’s not my children.
My infertility has changed my life but it hasn’t changed me. I have wonderful new people in my life because of my infertility. I have a wonderful RE with whom I still stay in touch after 10 years and who held my hand through what were then the darkest days of my life. I have a new career that I love and that revolves around my barren uterus. I have published two books, one of them a best-selling cult classic that 8 years and 9 printings after its initial publication still moves people to write me letters, send me facebook messages, or email me how much my words helped them get through what were their darkest days. But Mother’s Day still sucked. Having children did NOT make Mother’s Day better for me.
I just underwent a transformation of epic proportion and that’s where we start this blog. I thought my infertility transformed my life. The new friends, the career. Nope.
I am talking about a different kind of transformation. And that’s not to say my infertility didn’t transform me. It was a f@##&^%g awful gift but man what a gift it was. And what gifts it gave me. And no I am not talking about my children.
The gift I am talking about is how my infertility started to open me up. To learn to open up to me. To realize me. It was the first of what became a series of events that have shown me who I am and who I want to be. And no I am not talking about being a mother.
I recently went through another experience that was almost as painful as my miscarriages, my HSG, my laporoscopies, my countless IVF cycles, and the despair and fear that I felt throughout that time.
And in the middle of this more recent experience, I let go. I didn’t give up. I didn’t surrender. There was nothing defeating about the letting go. In fact it was completely the opposite of all the negative emotion I felt during my infertility. I sat still after a meditation in which I had begged and pleaded for someone or something to help me take away this pain, this constant pain and ache I felt in my heart. In my soul. And as I sat in the stillness there was a voice. A Voice that told me I didn’t have to feel pain. I had never had to feel pain. I didn’t have to feel sadness. I had never had to feel sadness.
I questioned this voice. Not feel sadness when I lost a child growing inside me? Not feel sadness when a birth mother requested her child be returned to her? Not to feel sadness that I still haven’t had a baby grow inside me? Seriously?
The lawyer in me came out and argued with this Voice but the lawyer, she did not win.
There was the understanding that I can have a barren uterus and find happiness in this moment, in every moment. There was the understanding that I could choose to live through what I was going through fighting, crying, screaming, and arguing. Just as I had through my infertility. I could choose to live through my current experience resisting it. I would probably make lemonade out of what I had been going through. I could create another best-seller perhaps? I could knit another afghan? I could develop another business? The options were endless for fighting my way through the experience and even put a smiley face on the end result. But the realization was that it wasn’t worth the fight. Why was I fighting? There was no more trying to make lemonade out of lemons for me. There was the simple reality that lemons exist and that it is okay.
So I sat there mulling over this concept. Call it Acceptance. Release. Trust. And I realized that I hadn’t accepted my infertility. I hadn’t released my demons. They still ruled me. My current experience was controlling me. I was not controlling it. Suddenly my world was upside down. I had everything I ever wanted. I HAVE CHILDREN. I am a MOTHER. And I wasn’t happy. The Voice was telling me how unhappy I was and how pointless and needless it was to be unhappy.
What?
No, I argued with the Voice, I wasn’t happy because of my current situation. I was justified.
No.
No shouted the Voice.
The Voice laughed at me. I was speechless. Now for those of you who know me, me being truly speechless is a rare event. A very rare event.
So I sat in the speechlessness. I decided to listen to the Voice and not argue with it. I figured that anyone who can render me speechless is worth listening to.
When was the last time you were ever truly happy it asked me. Do you even know what happiness is?
I did know what happiness was. Through meditation I had felt it. Through meditation I had felt joy. Pure unadulterated joy. yes. Yes.
I then told the Voice I know what feeling it is to which you refer.
And then it hit me. Or should I say it washed over me.
I didn’t have to wait for anything to happen to feel that joy. If I could feel joy in meditation, I could feel joy or happiness in any minute of any day and in any situation.
I could have felt happy while waiting for my children instead of frustration, anger, and all that pain.
I could choose to feel happy now instead of dreading what was going on around me. I had control over how I felt. I had control over my thoughts.
And that’s when the Release came. The feeling of utter calm, serenity and peace. I have never, EVER felt that before. Not even as a child. Not even holding my children. This was something so completely and utterly NEW.
And I suddenly trusted that was going on around me was okay and I would be okay and it would be okay. I realized it was okay that I had been angry. It was okay that I had judged myself for being angry. It was okay to have a barren uterus. It was okay. Everything was okay.
It was all gone. Everything. No hurt.
No I hadn’t taken any drugs. No I wasn’t hallucinating. I am not sure whether it was the result of my meditation or whether it was the culmination of years of anguish but I suddenly no longer wanted to feel anything other than what I was feeling in THAT moment. I didn’t have to fight to feel this. I didn’t have to “win” to feel this. I didn’t have to have a baby to feel this. I could simply choose to FEEL this. Feel Happy.
So where am I going with all this? Mother’s Day is a sacred day for a woman. Any woman. A woman with children wants to celebrate. A woman without children wishes she could celebrate. A woman who chooses not to have children wants to celebrate other mother’s on mother’s day. This Sunday is ALL about being a mother and if you aren’t a mother on Sunday when you want to be, the pain is overwhelming. It is. Really it is. Or is it?
It doesn’t have to be. Can you try to let it go? Can you try to break through to a slightly better feeling place? I know you can’t jump from where you are today as you fight with a NOvary. But you can choose to let go of the emotion you are feeling right now and find a feeling that is just a little bit better than where you are. You could even choose to stretch a little further and trust that there will be a happy ending and you don’t have to make lemonade to have the happy ending. You can just trust that the happy ending is coming and then let it come.
Know that YOUR Mother’s Day is coming. I promise.
One day this holiday isn’t going to hurt. You aren’t going to want to curl up in your pj’s and escape. And you can even let THIS Mother’s Day be the first time it doesn’t hurt.
I have been to hell and back, just like you. I was going through hell again and I was able to just let it all go. Let it all go and feel the quiet, the stillness, and the peace wash over me. From there came the better feelings and then the joy. I smile now. Every day I smile. I laugh. I used to have a constant scowl. Now people don’t recognize me when they see me. Even my mother didn’t recognize me after this . . . this release.
I am today a different person than I used to be. I can’t change the past and I don’t want to. But I can change today and tonight and this weekend. I can change this Mother’s Day. I can be happy this Mother’s day. For the first time. The Mother’s Day demon is gone. In fact they are almost all gone. And those that aren’t gone are being released one by one. Because once you figure out how to release and accept what is going on, how to allow things to unfold around you with excitement instead of fear, the demons don’t have a chance. I am not saying that once you find how you can release and accept what is going on you’re going to get pregnant or adopt tomorrow . I am saying none of it will matter. Because you will know in your heart that your Mother’s Day is coming.
Just like I know that this Mother’s Day, I am going to stay in my pj’s. And I am doing it because that is what makes me Happy. I am going to lie still and listen to my children’s laughter and probably some fights and tears too. And I am going to know that whatever is going on it’s going to be okay.
Do I still want another baby? OF COURSE.
Do I still want to TRY to have another baby? OF COURSE.
But I am not sad. I am not fighting. I am not angry. I am not feeling any of those horrible emotions that have been eating me up since . . . since that first HSG? I am content. I am free. I am okay. I am okay if I don’t even feel a baby kick inside me. I never thought I would ever, ever be able to say that. But it’s true. I have every desire and expectation that I can have whatever I dream about, whatever I want. But I don’t have to fight to get there. It will come when it’s time. And if it doesn’t come?
It’s okay.
And what about the Voice? That was me. The Voice is me. The real me. The me who knows more than I do. There’s one inside you too. Go find her. Grab her. Hold her. Thank her. And then celebrate your FIRST Mother’s day with her. She’s a pretty awesome person.
She’s you!
Love,
Liz
p.s I am not proofing this post as I believe that if I proof it I will change it and it won’t be honest anymore. I am not perfect. I make mistakes. I makye typos. And that is okay too. And by the way it’s okay if you can’t be Happy this Mother’s Day. Just try to find a better feeling. Anything better than what you feel right now. Because that is the beginning of finding your path to acceptance, peace and happiness.
Happy
Mother’s
Day
to YOU!
Filed under: Uncategorized
Why non-gestational moms should consider breast feeding their baby(ies).
March 9, 2012 | By: Elizabeth
I saw the most amazing picture of a woman simultaneously breast feeding twins, her husband’s arms are wrapped around hers, which are wrapped around the babies. I will try and post the picture. It was sent to me by someone in the reproductive industry so I assumed that the twins were conceived through assisted reproduction. But as I looked at it, the photograph got me thinking about all my clients who are using third-party reproductive technologies, surrogacy, to conceive their children and how many of those clients conceive twins. I then wondered whether any of my clients chose to breast feed their baby, or babies. I kind of stopped talking about non-gestational breast feeding unless someone raised the topic with me. I don’t know why I don’t talk about it as much as I used to. I talk about it every day with my daughter (adopted) whom I breast fed for nine months (and her older brother for six months). My daughter very much misses the closeness we shared when she was nursing – how the heck she remembers it is beyond me, I assume she thinks about it because there is a picture of her breastfeeding in her baby book and there is one on my desk in my office – and we often talk about what a wonderful thing it is that we got to have that special relationship. I also don’t know why I don’t talk about it more because almost every day I pass a bus stop that has a billboard from a breast feeding center and they mention “adoptive breast feeding” on the billboard. For the record, I think it really should be called non-gestational breast feeding because anyone can do it. It’s not a process that is somehow exclusively tied to adoption and in fact the most successful protocol for inducing lactation when you didn’t deliver was designed by a woman whose child was carried and delivered by a surrogate (her name is Lenore Goldfard and the protocol is the Newman-Goldfarb Protocol for inducing lactation, and it is what I used to get my milk a flowin’).
So here I am with this beautiful picture and I am wondering why I don’t advocate for non-gestational breastfeeding anymore? Maybe it’s because at the seminars I have attended and at which I was asked to speak on the topic, very few women attended (this particular seminar always seems to be offered at the very end of a very long day and I would bet a lot of money that if they held the seminar at an earlier time the attendance would be better). Maybe it’s because of my own guilt that I didn’t nurse longer? Last summer I read a great book called The Milk Memos which I gave to a client who did breast feed her child after a surrogate birth. The Milk Memos is more about the transition back to work when you are nursing, but a lot of the issues that come up are issues that are faced by non-gestational breast feeders and I found it really helpful – albeit several years after the fact. After I finished the book I was really angry at myself that I stopped nursing when I did. At the time I stopped, I was going to have surgery that would have required me to “pump and dump” for at least two weeks and I hated pumping (“pump and dump” is an expression that refers to pumping breast milk which you then, for any number of reasons, have to throw out). A combination of the thought of pumping day and night just to maintain my supply until I was no longer taking medication that made my breast milk unsafe for her to drink, and the fact that I would be dumping the milk . . . I don’t know I guess I just decided it wasn’t worth the bother. I also thought it would be rather cumbersome and painful to try and pump after having had back surgery. It turned out to be a big mistake and one that I am reminded of daily by my DD (dear daughter). So here I am this morning, mesmerized by the picture which is reminding me of what a beautiful experience breast feeding can be and I realize what a disservice I am doing by not advocating for NON-GESTATIONAL BREAST FEEDING!
Most people don’t even know that you can do it, or that it can be successful. I think the general assumption is that even if you make milk, you won’t make enough milk to fully meet a baby’s needs so why deal with the hassle? But even when you don’t make a lot of milk and have to use a nursing supplement of some kind (either a Lact-Aid® or an SNS, or formula in a bottle), the physical closeness provided by the experience is incredibly rewarding and some would say important enough not to ignore. Even more so when the baby didn’t get to spend the previous ten months in your belly hearing your voice every day and bonding with you before birth. There are studies that show that if a baby is put on her mother’s chest within minutes after birth and stays there for as little as 20 minutes, that the baby can learn to identify her mother’s smell, thus beginning the bonding process. I believe that for those of us who can’t be in the delivery room we can still achieve the same instinctive bonding through breast feeding, even if it starts days, weeks, or months after birth. Another point is that many of us can be present at delivery (more likely in a surrogacy arrangement than in an adoption) and could ask to have the baby similarly placed on our chest immediately after birth in order to facilitate this immediate bonding. There are also studies about how important touch is to a baby’s neurological growth and development. “Kangaroo care” is routinely used in NICU’s to help at-risk newborns. Thus, the physical closeness and skin on skin contact provided by non-gestational breast feeding can only be a positive for the baby. And the bonding it provides to us moms isn’t insignificant either.
I had horrible post-adoption depression with both my kids. I think one of the things that snapped me out of it was the ability to snuggle and hold them so close to me. I was scared to bond with my each of my babies because I was afraid someone would take my baby away from me. It also was very surreal and I couldn’t wrap my brain around what was really happening after all those years of infertility — it was such a huge leap to suddenly be a parent, I didn’t know what to do emotionally. But having this baby at my breast, looking at me and touching me, forced me to face facts, face my fears, and move past them. It also helped me heal from all the years of IVF and miscarriages. All the parts of me that were broken, the sense that I had lost the essence of being a woman, disappeared when I had a baby at my breast. Breast feeding did more for my destroyed self-esteem than years and years of therapy. I felt whole in a way that I don’t think I ever would have been able to achieve if I hadn’t breast fed.
So there you have it. A quick little piece of my mind about why women who are having babies without a birthing experience can and should consider breast feeding their baby, or as the case may be in a surrogacy, babies.
How you do it as an entirely different discussion. I wrote about it in The Ultimate Insider’s Guide to Adoption (Warner Books 2006), and I will post a blog about how to go about inducing lactation. But for today, I am enjoying the bliss that this picture evokes in me, and has made me realize that I should be encouraging my clients and other women who want help doing this to DO IT! And for what it’s worth, I so loved breast feeding that – and I am not kidding – I very much want to have another baby JUST so I can have this experience again. If I am blessed with another child, you can bet that I will do it for as long as humanly possible.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Why you need to begin thinking about the consequences of “Personhood” Amendments
February 16, 2012 | By: Elizabeth
I have had enough. Enuf is enuf.
I want to know what ACID or other hallucinogenic drug was put in the water of every member of every state legislature (heck let’s add congress) which are either proposing or passing amendments which declare that preembryos are to be afforded the same legal status as a full-grown-eighteen-year-old-human being , defining how many times a man may masturbate in furtherance of the donation of his sperm , or defining who can prescribe oral contraceptives, like someone’s boss.
I’d like to propose an amendment to the food and drug law which declares that any person consuming this “acid” or other hallucinogenic drug whether voluntarily or involunarily, be sentenced to life without sex and life without children (the logical result of forced abstinence).
It’s been a long day and I am tired so perhaps I don’t make a coherent point; although I am drafting a more detailed legal explanation of this stuff, (are you familiar with my blog, you know the one you are reading right now and the one the ABA likes well-enough to deem one of it’s top “blawgs”–although maybe not so much after I post this little explanation), but in the meantime,
Doctor’s, paging all doctors: do you realize that with the passage of these “personhood amendments” it is inevitable that the following sentence will one day be uttered : “OOPS I dropped the petri dish, guess I better call my criminal defense lawyer because I am guilty of negligent homicide!”
Guys, Men, Boys, are you out there? Do you really like the slippery slope you are on here? Right now we are just talking about masturbation for purposes of sperm donation but how far off are we — with passage of a law like this — from saying that masturbation ain’t okay because . . . (let me tell you your freedom of religion clause does NOT go here).
Ladies, girls, women, babes, let’s be real now . . . we all take them at one point or another. One study I read said that more than 90% of women of reproductive age take oral contraceptives at some point in their reproductive life. I personally thought this was an issue long ago resolved by the US Supreme Court but I guess it’s an issue again and now our boss gets to decide whether our insurance will pay for them (by the way, they ain’t cheap when you are paying out-of-pocket).
Seriously, where has MY America gone? We are suddenly on this slope which has the potential to erode personal, sexual and reproductive freedom in ways never before imagined. I have to believe the founding fathers would have objected to the masturbation thing. Why is no one saying anything about this? I have not heard one peep from a doctor who is now liable for all the little lives in cryopreservation in their fertility clinic in Oklahoma. Docs, don’t turn to us lawyer’s for too much sympathy — where was your voice in the debates against this law? I didn’t hear you in New York and now we are dealing with this stuff here. New York, one of the States I am proud to live in because of its progressive stance on same-sex marriage. Wow, never thought of this before . . . assuming the slippery slope (that is such a poor metaphor, I am sorry but it is a legal term of art) gets really slippery and this bill passes, then how far away is the State from telling us when and how we can have sex, yet another issue that I thought the US Supreme Court resolved. My wonderful progressive state may not be so progressive. Not so much. No.
Why aren’t people speaking up? Don’t you get how dangerous these statutes/laws are? Every day we are dialing back United States laws by decades . . . what’s next equal protection? No birth control seems like an equal protection issue to me, sounds like there are some potentially serious issues are facing us. SPEAK UP.
Please join me:
“I’m mad as hell, and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
I guess you can ignore me if you’re not worried about being guilty for killing preembryos, in jail for masturbating too many times, or pregnant because you couldn’t afford to pay for your oral contraceptives that your boss wouldn’t cover under your health insurance.
Filed under: Current Affairs, In the News
Tags: constitutional law, federal law, negligent homicide, Personhood, preembryo, reproductive freedom, statutes
