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The American Fertility Association Blog
When Death Comes….
November 29, 2007 - Thursday
Posted by Pamela
I have always been a person that lives fully. But I have gotten better at it as I have gotten older.
I have always had a sheer determination of spirit. It was born to me...it was how I landed out of my Mother’s womb.
But it still needed cultivation. I still had to work at facing my own fears..my own broken places...and the places where the fear of failure..the fear of that particular pain...held the danger of me not trying at all.
It took a sheer determination of spirit to have my kids. They did not just come to me. I had to believe them into existence...and open my heart to the possibilities....I had to face fears in order to conceive them...IVF was new when I was trying to have children. There was a lot of trust involved...and a willingness to go when I had never gone before...and I also had to face my own shame over not being able to conceive my children on my own.
And I had to find the money to pay for it all...but I didn’t want to miss having children for anything in the world...so I did what seemed impossible at the time...and it took huge amounts of courage...and I had to drag my husband Kai along with me every step of the way…
He would say to me..."Why do you want this so much?” “I would never put my body through what you are putting your body through”...and I remember my husband, Kai...holding Tyler...born premature...at four pounds five ounces in the delivery room...tears streaming down his face...sheer joy and amazement in his eyes...and I remember him thanking me for leading him to his son...because he would never had done it..all the steps involved with creating his son...because he didn’t know...couldn’t know...the joy he was feeling in his heart in that moment of holding that child. In that moment, Kai knew that missing this child would have been like not living at all...it would have been worlds missed.
There are so many parts of our lives like that...so many challenges that we all have to face everyday...illness...relationship and job issues...parenting issues...there are so many opportunities to decide whether we are going to live fully...and reach for that brass ring...or whether or not we are simply going to be spectators in our own lives…
I challenge you to look at those places...perhaps you are in one right now...perhaps for you it is whether or not to take the risk and fly to China and adopt a child...and the entire process feels incredibly overwhelming…
I don’t know what it is for you...perhaps it is working to raise the money for an IVF cycles that feels out of reach...perhaps it has nothing to do with reproduction or fertility at all!
But what I want to say to you is… go for it...deep dig...go where you never thought you could ever go...because this is not a dress rehearsal...this is it..your life. You have arrived...and in Holiday Season....I find myself looking deeply at my own life...and the joys and dangers of playing full out...full court....and yes...it can be complicated...and difficult...but oh yes...it can be filled with incredible joy…
My youngest Spencer is rolling out of bed...my CryoPreserved IVF Embryo...we played full court to have that kid...he won’t get a hair cut right now...his hair is in his eyes...I try not to notice...not to say anything...Spencer is playing his own full court as a fifteen year old right now...a part of that is not cutting his hair...I find myself grabbing him...holding him....I breathe him in...so much joy. I would not have missed him for the world.
So...it’s Friday...I am feeling sentimental...can you tell? And I am full of wanting for everyone...for all of you to find that place in yourself to take you to live your life fully...to face things that scare you...that may be preventing you from getting all that you want in this life...and to move through that to a place of having what you want.
A good friend just sent me this poem..it sums it up beautifully..it is by the poet Mary Oliver..
When Death Comes
When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn;
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse
to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox
when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,
I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?
And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,
and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,
and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,
tending, as all music does, toward silence,
and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.
When it’s over, I want to say all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,
or full of argument.
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.
Have a Wonderful Weekend…
Pamela
Categories
Adoption •
Fertility •
IVF
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Mirror, Mirror On The Wall…
November 28, 2007 - Wednesday
Posted by Pamela
So...the pictures of The Kokopelli Ball are on line.
Take a peek...it’s an opportunity to see all the wonderful people that supported The AFA that glamorous November evening. I am sure that you will recognize many faces...But don’t go yet...take a minute..and read the rest of this...I have an invitation to all of you...so read on…
First a personal disclosure...I always have a love/hate relationship with the pictures...and that is really about me. I think that I have been every size through the past ten years of this Ball....I have been smaller...and I have been larger!!!
This year....I was kind of medium/large. I could almost look at myself without wanting to throw myself from the window...especially if I squinted my eyes…
I have been on Atkins for six months. It’s a part of me becoming whole with myself. I have lost five inches on my waist...I am eight pounds from being the size that I WAS in the picture to the right....So...soon I will look like THAT again! Only with more wrinkles…
My experience with infertility really took a toll on my self esteem...and I gained weight with fertility medications...and then my pregnancies...with kids who are now 19 and 15...I can no longer blame my weight on “I just had a baby!!!”
I used that for years!!!
I have always self medicated with food. I know that I am not alone. And change is not easy...and giving up what helps us cope...is really hard. Especially when we are stressed...and if you are trying to conceive...you might be feeling a little stress....now add in the Holidays! Can anyone say “Let’s gain ten pounds?”
Yesterday I watched Oprah. She was doing one of her inspirational shows on weight loss. You know the ones..the one where people literally lose enough weight to create another human being?
And they do it on their own...or with a book...no surgery...and I have got to tell you...I sat and watched completely fascinated. The sheer determination....and one women lost 200 pounds so that she could adopt a child! In one year!!! And yes...there are weight restrictions for some adoptions...really fat people need not apply.
So...where am I leading with all of this? Well, I hate to say this...but I will...a healthy weight is really important for conceiving...or adopting. And I am talking to all of you REALLY skinny people too! With fertility...you really need to be in a normal weight range...too thin or too fat...and you could really have trouble…
I may be past my child bearing years...but I am still dealing with my child bearing weight issues....so I will partner with you....Once a week I will tell you how I am doing...and I invite you to join me.
Let’s get healthy now...before the ten pounds start to come on...I know that I started a little ahead of you...but that doesn’t matter...I am a really, really slow loser....like...if there was some kind of disaster...I would live for weeks after everyone else...with no food.
It’s really not just about the mirror...even though let’s face it...I am as vain as anyone...it’s really about our health...our heart health...keeping away diabetes...high blood pressure...and yes...it is also about fertility and having a healthy pregnancy....
So..who is in???
And who knows..maybe we will get on Oprah!!!
Until Tomorrow,
Pamela
Categories
Adoption •
Fertility •
Fertility Drugs •
Infertility
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How Low Can You Go?
November 27, 2007 - Tuesday
Posted by Pamela
With you voice....that is!
I have got to tell you...these days all I have to do is open the newspaper to find something to blog about!
Yesterday, in the Science Section of NY Times...there was a report about a study that concluded that men with deep voices had a reproductive edge then men with higher pitched voices!
Apparently women find men with deeper voices more attractive.....and guess what? Men find higher pitched voices more attractive. Oh..that ying yang thing again!
According to the NY Times “The evolutionary reasons for reproductive success are difficult to discover in a society that uses modern birth control methods.” So the researchers went to the Hadza who use no birth control and choose their own partners - which apparently makes them exactly what the researchers called a “natural fertility population”.
I have got to tell you...that term...a “natural fertility population” was worth the price of admission to me!
I guess all these years of thinking that I was organic!
So to make a long story short...the researchers collected voice recordings of the Swahili speaking natives and the reproductive histories from 49 men and 52 women to figure out if voice pitch might affect the number of children that they were able to have.
Once again...who even thinks about this?
Truly...did this even occur to you? I mean in the middle of the night...did you ever wonder about voice pitch and fertility? You have got to love this!
So...these researchers diligently controlled for age..and then found that voice pitch was a highly accurate predictor of the number of children a man fathered. Those with the deepest of voices fathered quite a bit more.
The researchers concluded that men with a lower pitched voice perhaps had more mates...or healthier mates..or shorter spans between births...or perhaps even started having babies at an earlier age…
The authors of the study contended that this is the “first study to examine the effect of vocal pitch on Darwinian fitness in humans”.
Apparently these findings mirror those studies showing that acoustic signals play a role in influencing female choice of mates in animals.
This morning as I offered my husband coffee....I couldn’t help noticing the pitch of his voice as he offered me his morning ritual conversation...."Did you get the kid up yet?”
Not bad…
Categories
Adoption •
Fertility
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Watch That Lap Top!!!!
November 26, 2007 - Monday
Posted by Pamela
Okay...file this under the obvious....but that didn’t stop a study from being conducted! This came across my computer screen this morning..."Lap Tops May Affect Fertility in Men”!!!!
“Prof Yefim Sheynkin and his fellow researchers at the State University of New York came to the conclusion after studying 29 healthy young men aged between 21 and 35 for two, one-hour sessions in a climate-controlled room.
Participants were all similarly dressed in casual wears. After having their body temperature taken and standing in the room for 15 minutes to adjust to the room’s internal temperature, they sat down and were given working and non-working laptop computers.
The men balanced the computers on their laps. The researchers then removed the nonworking computers, instructing the participants to hold the position for the rest of the session. Participants with working laptop computers kept the computers in place throughout the session.
The men’s scrotal temperature was recorded every three minutes. The temperature on the bottom of the working laptops was also monitored.
According to their findings, scrotal temperature rose with the working and non-working computers. The working ones prompted a greater increase in scrotal temperature- around 2.7 degrees Celsius, enough to cause infertility”
Okay...there is a part of me that wants to say something really sophisticated...like..."Duh!!!"
Heat related effects on fertility in men have been known for a very long time...we have been telling guys not to wear tight underwear..stay out of hot bathes and saunas..and even watching bike riding...it would seem like common sense that putting a hot lap top computer directly on your lap would set sperm on a rolling boil!!!
So..if you are trying to conceive...sperm do not like heat. That is why the testicles are outside of the body...they need a cooler temperature...that is where the boxer shorts concept comes from....
You know, I always thought that the lap top computer was bad was for conception....but it was the hours spent in front it instead of coming to bed that I always complained about......
Categories
Adoption •
Fertility
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Talking About Sex in The Arizona Desert
November 25, 2007 - Sunday
Posted by Pamela
So...I took a little break when you weren’t looking....I spent a week in Arizona at a professional conference on human sexuality...and there I met the extraordinary Betty Dodson.
Betty Dodson is now close to eighty years old and she is still rocking...my Mother who is eighty one years old says that she hates the word “still”. So Betty...forgive me....
Betty became famous for teaching women how to self pleasure...or the more common word...masturbate. She has taught thousands of women about their orgasm...and how to find it!
Masturbation remains controversial....remember that just talking about masturbation cost Dr. Jocelyn Elders her job! So Betty was hot stuff when she jumped into the Sex Education scene in the early seventies. And I will have you know...she is STILL hot stuff!
Sexual pleasure is also controversial...but Betty is now seen as main stream in the Sex Education world..something that I just love...considering that just writing the masturbation in my blog is making ME uncomfortable!
Maybe I should type the word 100 times so that I get over it!
Sex is a part of fertility....I know that this may seem obvious...but to some it is not....
Safer sex including masturbation protects our fertility by helping us to avoid infertility causing Sexual Transmitted Diseases....
Having a loving and open relationship with our own bodies supports us in being healthy as human beings...and later in our relationship to another....and the creation of a child....which....under most circumstances...involves sex.
And somehow...it is universal...once we decide that we want to conceive a child..whether we are having difficulty or not...sex can become objectified..a means to an end..and fraught with tension.
Sex for procreation can blow our sexual selves out of the water...and close us down as sexual beings...and it can be hard to relate to our partner (if we have one) in a sexually open and pleasurable way....
Sometimes...we may need to go back to basics...and get to know ourselves again as sexual beings...not as people who perform sex with a singular purpose…
Check out Betty Dodson....you will be glad you did.
Until Tomorrow,
Pamela
Categories
Adoption
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