My favorite season is fall. The changing leaves, the cooling temps, the crisp air, the sounds of high school bands at football games, pumpkins, scarves, and did I mention pumpkin pie? Fall feels to me like spring must feel to others – like a re-birth. My birthday is in November, the light of my life was born in September and my favorite holiday is Thanksgiving (what’s better than being grateful and eating?). Fall is the quiet before the holiday rush. It is a time to notice change and ponder its place in our world. We do some of that in this issue. If you have an article idea you would like to share for a future issue, please send me an email at ctabel@hotmail.com. I would like to focus on adoption in a future issue, please let me know if you would be willing to share your adoption journey.

Enjoy, Cheri

By Meredith

There are lots of different ways to try to have a baby. But this is the way I am doing it and this is considered relatively low intervention from a medical standpoint. The thing about trying to get pregnant using a doctor’s help is that it takes over every day of your life, even though you can only try once a month. The whole time you feel guilty about caffeine, you avoid alcohol, you can’t take the headache, sinus, allergy or cramp/pain medication you normally take. You taper yourself off all anti-depressants or anything else that makes you feel good. You cut back on exercise so as not to raise your body temperature too much. You try to sleep more, work & stress out less. You might be trying acupuncture, mediation or yoga, but no twists or inversion. It’s tough before it even gets started, but then you want this bad. So here goes:

Prelude:
You browse online for the perfect sperm, order it over the phone and have it shipped to your doctor’s office. On the day it arrives, you wait anxiously for the phone call from your doctor’s lab that the “specimen has arrived safely.”

Part One: The Period
Your period starts. But unlike any other time in your life, when your period starts, you must pick up the phone and call your nurse and tell her that your period started. Sometimes this phone call will include questions about exactly when “full flow” started. Is is just spotting? Is it bright red? The questions are necessary, because if it isn’t full flow before noon, maybe day one is tomorrow rather than today. These are not easy or comfortable questions to answer the first or second time around, of course they’re old hat for me at this point. Then you and the nurse schedule your cycle day three appointment. That’s right, you have a non-emergency doctor’s appointment that you have had two days warning about, if you have a job that does not have flexible hours this can be a problem. My experience is that these doctors are so much better than most doctors about scheduling things before work, during lunch hours and not leaving you alone in the waiting room or examining room too long, but still it is a challenge.

You go in on day three of your cycle, that’s right, you’re still bleeding. Here you are, naked from the waist down, sitting on something resembling a puppy-pad, when your doctor (or a Nurse Practitioner) comes into the room to do a transvaginal ultrasound. This involves moving the probe around in order to look at your uterus and each of your ovaries, including that stubborn one hiding behind your uterus, which requires the doctor to push the probe at an angle against each side of your vaginal wall and you may occasionally feel their fist pressing at an odd angle between your butt cheeks while this happens. It’s not particularly painful, but the first few times this is an incredibly awkward experience. They draw a little blood, give you a few prescriptions, perhaps sit down and discuss (for the first or fifth time) how you are supposed to mix your medication and inject it into your own body. They set an appointment for your next visit and send you on your way. You pick up your prescriptions, willing to pay whatever random number the pharmacist comes up with as the price, don’t bother paying attention to the potential side effects, because you want this and will do it anyway. And the next part of your cycle begins.

Part Two: Ovarian Stimulation Medications
This is in some ways the easiest part of this whole process and in some ways the craziest. PMS is NOTHING compared to the way these medications can mess with you emotionally, but you don’t know whether to blame the meds or simply the stress of trying to get pregnant. You take a pill (or three) once a day for five days, at the end of which you are also to give yourself a shot or additional hormones (because you don’t have enough- ha!). Giving yourself a shot involves actually preparing the medication, drawing a liquid into a syringe, putting it into a vial, mixing it with powder, sometimes with two different vials of powder in the same liquid in the same syringe, changing the needle on the syringe while being careful not to spill the liquid gold medicine in the syringe— which could waste money and ruin your chance to have this cycle work. Then sticking that needle in your own body and slowly depressing the plunger, all the while praying that you’re getting it all in there and not injecting yourself with air bubbles.

Part Three: Ovulation Watch
After you are done with your medication you are on ovulation watch. At this point you’re potentially taking your temperature the second you wake up every single day, you might be tracking your cervix’s position or the appearance of your cervical mucus— definitely not something that you ever watched with such rapt attention and concern. You pee on a stick (or rather into a cup into which you dip a stick) several times a day. And so long as you do not detect an LH surge, you go into your doctor’s office as planned for your next ultrasound and bloodwork. If/when you do detect an LH surge before your doctor’s appointment, you call your doctor’s office in a panic and schedule a blind insemination, for which you’ll have no idea how many eggs you’ve made or what your uterine lining looks; scary, unless your doctor is better than the first one I used. Once again you get a transvaginal ultrasound probe, but this time it’s less awkward and more nerve wracking. You aren’t bleeding, so that is better. But you are anxiously waiting to hear odd compliments like “your uterine lining looks just beautiful” and desperately trying to hear how many follicles you have and what size they are. Too many and they’ll cancel the cycle, but the more you have the more likely you are to get pregnant. If you’re lucky you’ll have a few mature follicles and the doctor will tell you to give yourself an injection that night (see above about mixing medication and injecting yourself) and you’ll come in the day after next for an insemination. If you’re not lucky, your doctor may put off that injection a day or worse have you come back in two days for another examination. Each of these examinations is expensive and requires working into your busy schedule, plus the longer between the medication and ovulation, the crazier you will go, the harder time you will have concentrating on anything else and the more you will worry that you’ve spent all this time and emotionally energy on a cycle that won’t work.

Part Four: Insemination
This is exciting; you’re about to get spermed. You go to the doctor’s office, empty your bladder, sign some paperwork and confirm your “donor number” with the nurse, are given numbers on the sperm count and are never as thrilled with that as you would like. And anxiously await the insertion of this magic pink mix (yes pink- they washed it and mixed it with magic chemicals to make it more likely to succeed in its mission). It sits on the counter while you undress and wonder if it is safe there – shouldn’t it be in an incubator or something?  Also, I paid $400-$700 for THAT little amount?. The doctor comes in, you eagerly take your position in the stirrups (you’ve been there at least twice before this cycle and this is why). Then comes the speculum- you’re used to it from pap smears, plus you want this, so you don’t say anything if it has to be repositioned a time or two to get your cervix visible. You take a deep breath and relax as the doctor tries to thread the catheter through your cervix, but it if doesn’t go easily you get more and more uncomfortable and more and more desperate (Dear Doctor, I promise not to complain if you just shove it the rest the way through, I’m okay with a little internal bruising, you think as the doctor tries first with a guide wire and then with a metal clamp, maybe even an external ultrasound or a dilator rod to get the last bit of your cervix to give way). Meanwhile, you wonder how long the sperm will live at room temperature while the doctor struggles to dig a path through your cervix. Eventually the doctor gets the catheter in to your uterus and before you know what is happening, it’s over. The doctor pulls a little platform for your feet out from under your butt and you are instructed not to move until the little alarm goes off. At which time you can go to the front and pay.

Then you have one blessed day off the roller coaster before it all begins again (unless you’re temperature charting, in that case, you still must temp & chart- see my BBT chart for more info).

Part Five: The TWO WEEK WAIT
As bad as everything else has felt, the 2ww feels like an interminable time. You cannot get an accurate pregnancy test for two weeks after your insemination and you count the days. If you did a trigger shot to prompt ovulation and time the insemination, you will get a positive pregnancy test right away, but it’s a false positive. If you would like to amuse yourself, you can test yourself again and again and watch the trigger as it leaves your system, only to hope that the hormone shows itself again soon, but that really isn’t as much fun as it sounds. Meanwhile, beginning two days after your insemination, you get to shove a pill up your vagina twice a day. The pill is a gel covered cream. The gel part will work its way out onto your pantyliner during the day. Part of the cream will be absorbed by your body, the rest will build up with the consistency of creamy peanut butter in your vagina so that your finger comes out covered in gunk each time you insert a new pill. The pill induces strange symptoms that could be pregnancy or could be PMS. But you gladly do it and feel guilty if you forget, because this will help your body accept the embryo, if you have one.

Every little abdominal twitch makes you wonder if the insemination worked. Every time you pick up a heavy object, get too cold or too hot, you start to worry if you’ve screwed it up. You watch diligently for an “implantation dip” in your temperature chart or for “implantation bleeding” on your toilet paper. (Yup, ttc makes you inspect your used toilet paper like never before). You post on message boards about that strange sensation, only to realize it goes away when you pee or fart. You read depressing things about success rates. Every woman around you seems to be pregnant. And you count the days until you can test if you are in fact pregnant. You test early, using the “cheapie” test strips that show two lines and you realize that you never really appreciated how blaringly white something can possibly be as you stare 12dpo (twelve days past ovulation) at a strip with no second line. And you pray that you have a “late implanter” that will show up by day fourteen. And if you’re me on previous cycles, you’re not pregnant. (I’m only 6dpo today, so I still have hope this cycle). And you have about an 85% chance of seeing a BFN (not pregnant) at the end of your 2ww.

Part Six: The After Wait & PMS
The pill you’ve been shoving up your vagina for 13 days makes it unlikely for you to start your period. So now that you aren’t pregnant you must stop the pill and wait until the pill is out of your system for this whole cycle to start again. All the while in the back of your head, you’re wondering if it’s possible that you really are pregnant, but it just didn’t show up in your urine. It happens to roughly 5-10% of women. Your doctor may have done a blood test and they will do one if you ask or if your period doesn’t start within a couple days. But meanwhile, you’re in limbo, waiting for the chance to try again, mourning the cycle that didn’t work with that feeling that maybe it did and you should have held out hope a few more days no matter what statistics and your own body are telling you.

Never Giving Up:
The whole darn process sucks. It’s exciting to be trying. It sucks that it doesn’t work. And each cycle you and your eggs get a little bit older, a little bit more weary, a little bit more desperate, a little bit more despondent and, sadly, a little bit more resentful of the people who get pregnant accidentally, the people who don’t cherish their kids and even the people who are happy without them when you know in your heart that if you never manage to become a mother, you will never feel like you’ve fulfilled your life’s purpose. Don’t get me wrong, I have several friends who don’t want kids, who are wonderful people and I am a bit jealous that they find happiness so easy though and I know people who have been wonderful parents and people with accidental pregnancies, but, why do they get that happiness dropped in their laps when it’s so hard for those like me. The thing is, I know that not being a mother, to me, will mean that my whole life has been a waist of planetary space and resources. And when you follow that mental road, you realize that you can never give up. You have to keep trying and if this method doesn’t work, you’ll find a way to try IVF and if that doesn’t work, you’ll find a way to adopt. Somehow, someway, you’ll keep going, because failure is not an option

Recently I posted the following to the SMC Forum:

I have a very good friend who has been trying for years to conceive. She and her husband have gone through multiple IVFs, two years of trying to adopt and a recently failed embryo adoption. It is all so devastating. Lately I feel as if I’m out of words for her – I can’t think of a darn thing that can help except to just be present with her pain.

My ttc path was a challenge, but something I rarely talked about with friends. I mainly looked to the boards for support. I was afraid if I expressed fear or doubt to my friends they would question my choice. Highly unlikely, but I didn’t want to show vulnerability.

My friend’s struggles have me thinking about what I can say to help. More often, though, I don’t want to say the wrong thing, e.g. “everything happens for a reason.”

I asked what you DON’T want people to say during ttc. What things have been hurtful? What words makes you grind your teeth?

The one I hated after my ectopic was, “At least you know you can get pregnant!” No, I knew that the egg and sperm met and then implanted in the wrong place. My body didn’t know how to get pregnant, it did it wrong. Drove me bonkers, but people were trying to be positive so I often just smiled and nodded.

I think the most useful thing to say is “I’m sorry, that really sucks.”

I personally think the most useful thing to say is “I’m sorry, that really sucks” and being sensitive enough to know what the person needs to hear right then and that sometimes just sorry is enough. Being given false positivity and people telling you they know its going to happen for you in the end etc is just upsetting and annoying when you are coming to terms with the fact that its most likely not …and you’re also now tot broke to boot.

I also hate “everything happens for a reason” or “He (whoever “He” is for each person) has a plan”. I hear this SO much. I want to respond with, “Is His plan for me to be in pain or to suffer?” To me it is patronizing. I am not saying it is not true (I don’t pretend to know all the answers) but at the time being told that somehow your pain is planned just hurts more.

My personal favorite when talking about the huge expense, financial stress and lower odds of going through IUIs with frozen donor sperm: Maybe you should just get drunk and hook up with a random guy at a bar.

Editor’s note: Many of the posters in this thread commented that at one time or another during their thinking and ttc process, they were advised to go to a bar and hookup with a stranger. My mother would joke about this as well without thinking of the personal safety consequences and potential future relationship troubles caused by conceiving a child in this way. What does it say about the general population that there is more comfort and acceptance in a woman being “knocked up,” than with a woman who is working towards getting what she wants in a safe and empowered way?

By Cheri Tabel

My son is blessed (and cursed) with my naturally curly hair. This means that his hair tends to look best when out of control, somewhat dirty and fingers just run through it. None of these factors work well on those two days out of the school year I refer to as: Battle over the Hair Day. You might call it Picture Day. On picture day mornings, we’re in front of the mirror, me with a spray bottle, comb and hair gel, him grimacing at everything I do and acting like I’m killing him, one hair follicle at a time. This year, he had enough. I was told, in his firmest 7-year-old voice, that I was fired. I no longer had hair management responsibilities.

We got into the car, and on the way to school he proceeded to mash his hair down, trying to smooth down every curl I had painstakingly put in place. He was sitting in the back and I looked at him and asked him how we would know his hair looked ok without a mirror. He quietly looked up and said, “you’re my mirror.”

Since that moment I’ve been weighing the meaning of his words. In the moment, I know it was literal, of course I would let him know how he looked! But it has weighed on me in a very figurative way – should I be his mirror? What do I reflect? How can I empower him to be his mirror?

I read an article recently titled “The Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto,” by Brené Brown. I highly recommend reading the manifesto. The article reminded me, though, of Toni Morrison’s words on parenting from an Oprah Show appearance:

“Let your face speak
what’s in your heart.”

“Ms. Morrison explained that it’s interesting to watch what happens when a child walks into a room. She asked, ‘Does your face light up?’ She explained, ‘When my children used to walk in the room when they were little, I looked at them to see if they had buckled their trousers or if their hair was combed or if their socks were up. . . . You think your affection and your deep love is on display because you’re caring for them. It’s not. When they see you, they see the critical face. What’s wrong now?’ Her advice was simple, but paradigm- shifting for me. She said, ‘Let your face speak what’s in your heart. When they walk in the room my face says I’m glad to see them. It’s just as small as that, you see?’”

“Let your face speak what’s in your heart.”

What must my son see when I’m wetting, wrestling and combing his hair? What does he see when I’m checking his collar, pulling down his shirt and making sure all the peanut butter is off his face? Does it reek “There’s something wrong with me?” The thought makes me shudder.

So much of being a SMC is about control. From the way you become a mother, to naming your child, to bedtimes, babysitters and everything in between. There are times I feel like if I’m not in control, it will all fall apart. What scares me about a hair out of place or a crooked collar? I’m not sure what it says about me that I want to control the curls on my son’s head, but I do (confession: I still pick out his clothes every day).

Motherhood is a never-ending work in progress, right? So while I figure out my control issues, I have a son quickly growing into his own person. Who should have his own mirror. And be able to see his mother’s pure delight at having a son like him. Doing (or not doing) his hair on picture day is his to own. I would love to hear your thoughts on how to let go and how to help him be empowered by his choices. Join me on the Forum, in a thread in Community called “You’re My Mirror” to talk about it. See you there!

http://forums.singlemothersbychoice.org/viewtopic.php?f=5&t=7821

By NMJ

The green folder from SMC arrived in the mail and I was excited to receive it. I made dinner and sat down at my table to read the literature that was inside. I was flipping through the various pages in the packet, reading absolutely everything. Then I got to the last page and the words that jumped off the page at me completely caught me off guard. The last page of the welcome packet was entitled “Last Call for Motherhood” and right under it said “Calm your panic. You don’t have to decide today.” From somewhere in the depths of my soul came this horribly painful, primal and unrecognizable half gasp, half cry. I immediately covered my mouth with my hand almost in disbelief that the sound had come from inside of me and the tears started to flow.

I was shocked at how hard these words had apparently hit something inside of me so deeply that I, without thought and warning had cried out. Those words said to me yes, if I wanted to become a parent, I better get moving as I may not ever have a partner to start a family with. So indeed, the route of becoming a SMC may be my last call for motherhood. How ironic that just a few years ago ‘last call’ meant something very different than this last call.

How ironic that just a few years ago ‘last call’ meant something very different than this last call.

I now find myself two months after receiving the welcome folder from SMC with tears in my eyes again. But the tears are definitely different than the ones that came just a short while ago when I saw ‘last call for motherhood’ for the first time. The tears are different because they are not tears of sadness, now the tears are hopeful tears as I read the responses to my laundry list of questions from other SMC’s on the adoption forum. They are tears of absolute joy and hopefulness that so many other women have pursued this journey. They’ve pursued adoption both domestically and internationally and they have these wonderfully rich stories of their journeys and of their children, each unique, none without a few bumps in the road, but that’s parenthood.

I believe that I have always known in my heart that I couldn’t imagine myself not being a mom, but now I’m starting to believe that I will be a mom, that I can make this happen if I want it to.

Yes there will be sacrifices and compromises and lots of changes in order to make this happen, but if I find I really do want to do this, I can. I realize that becoming a part of this community, taking the time to read as much as I can about this process means that this may in fact be my “last call for motherhood’ but the emphasis in my mind is no longer on the sudden sadness I felt relating to the words ‘last call’ but instead I can now relate to the joy and invitation of the ‘call to motherhood’ that I now believe is possible.

The Things Kids Say!

No doubt about it – our kids are adorable and funny. Need proof? Just read the things they say.

This one is from when Ruthie was just past 5 and I let her type on my computer keyboard while it was turned off.
Ruthie: “Let’s pretend that you’re the baby and I’m the mama.”
Me: “Okay.”
Ruthie: “Okay baby, I’m going to work now. If you need anything, ask daddy.”

When Christopher was 4, he was evaluated for OT, PT, and speech. The evaluation “exam” was pretty exhausting and took about two hours for him to finish. When he was done, he emerged from the testing room wearing a sticker that said “Great job!” When I congratulated him and fawned over his high-achievement sticker, he noted, “ALL the stickers said ‘Great Job.’ There were no stickers that said ‘Bad job.'” As if that weren’t funny enough, I asked him why he thought that might be. He said, “Maybe because some other kids got all the Bad Job stickers.”

The very first conversation I had with my child…
Me to impatient child: Hold your horses.
Her: Neigh-neigh

I keep a file of these on my blackberry.
Claire, 2, at dinner: “I think I’m going to be a mommy. After I’m a girl.”
Anna, 22 months, several times this week. “Jump in the muddles!” A hilarious word that I can’t help repeating back to her because it is just so perfect. She’ll never learn they are really called puddles.

One time when C was little:
Me: PU! Do you have something in your diaper?
C: Nope.
Me: Are you sure you don’t have something in your diaper?
C: No.
Me: I dunno. I smell poop.
C: I smell flowers.

This one was told to me by an SMC member a long time ago:
Children on the way home from school, one an SMC child. One child asks, “Do you have a dad?”
SMC child: “No, I don’t have a dad. I have a donut.”
Other child: “What’s a donut?”
SMC child: “A nice man who wants to help a lady who doesn’t have a husband to have a baby.”

I tend to think that I’m really the only one who will find stuff my daughter says (I mean sentences, etc) to be cute, although I have enjoyed some of what others have posted (like the poop smelling like flowers). But since others commented on mispronounced words, there I can’t help myself. My two favorites for Nora on that front (and yes, I too, adopted these words) were: she called the stroller the “croakers” and upside down was up-iss-down, which in fact makes a lot of sense.

Me: Sophie, no sleeping!”, trying to reach and shake her foot in the car as we are really close to home.
Sophie (2 years): “Hold the wheel, mommy!”

I have a couple of fond memories from when Katie was about 2. One time I did the grownup thing of “I got your nose”. Katie said ‘You no have my nose; you already have your own big nose!” Another time she was eating a popsicle and said” Mommy it’s cold. Can you put it in the microwave so it gets warm?”

My daughter, Naomi, does not like to eat meat because she now understands that it comes from animals. But she will eat chicken nuggets. I pointed out that chicken nuggets are made from chickens. She said, “But I only eat the ones that are shaped like dinosaurs. Those come from dinosaurs which are dead.”

If you would like to make a tax-deductible donation to SMC, we are a non-profit 501.3c organization. You can send a check (SMC, PO Box 1642, NY NY 10028) or donate anywhere on the SMC website by clicking on the “Donate” button. We appreciate all donations, large or small and we will send you a letter of acknowledgement promptly after we receive your donation.

Want to be a Contact Person for SMC in your area?

The primary purpose of the CP is to welcome new members of SMC and to let them know what is happening on the local level. The CP assists in setting up organizational meetings for new members and organizes local chapter meetings. The roles and responsibilities of a local chapter are distributed amongst those who are interested in having an active chapter. If you’re interested, contact the SMC office at smc-office@pipeline.com.

Hilary Alexander is a new CP for Los Angeles (wottadoll@gmail.com).

Tammy Silby is the new CP for Westchester County, NY (Mickey468@aol.com).

And Kate Lindstadt is the new CP for Kings Park, NY (Long Island) (plainjuice@aol.com).

Jennifer Whitney is the new CP for NJ (jennl_1998@yahoo.com).

Rachel Orrell is the new CP for Albuquerque, NM. She can be reached at (281)381-8122 (orrachel.orrell@gmail.com).

Tanya Beck is a new CP for the Buffalo/Niagara region of Western New York. She can be reached at (716)228-0978 (tanyabeck@live.com).

Shannon Williams is a new CP for Sacramento, CA. She can be reached at (916)538-2418 (sf_mundi@yahoo.com).

Christine Renner is a new CP for the Madison, WI area. She can be reached at (608)834-2858 (renner.christine@gmail.com).

Christine Tesdall is a new CP for Dallas, TX. She can be reached at (214) 205-0457 (yourhere@juno.com)

SALE! DVDs of Grown SMC Children’s Panel Available!

At our 30th anniversary conference last Fall we had several wonderful panel discussions. The DVDs are now on sale – $25 each or all four for $75. To purchase the DVD of this panel, or to order the set of all four DVDs, including a talk by Jane Mattes about the special issues that we need to be aware of to assure that our children get the best possible upbringing, go to the SMC website and click on “Materials”

I’m so thrilled to introduce my daughter, Jordyn Hannah Snyder! She was born on August 7, 2012, weighing 7lb 7oz and measuring 19 inches long. She’s healthy, beautiful, and just perfect! I’m so in love!

Amy Smith is thrilled to welcome her daughter Rowan JoAnn, born February 15, 2012. Rowan weighted 6 lbs 11 oz and was 19 inches long.

My 2nd son, Leo Mack Van Houten, was born 4 weeks early on July 1, 2012. He was 7 lbs and 19 inches and is happy and healthy. Big brother, Gabriel (4), and I are so in love

From Stephanie Denzel – my daughter Eleanor Anne was born on 6/25/2012.

Amy Smith gave birth to a daughter Rowan JoAnn, Feb, 15, 2012.

It is with much excitement, and a little delay, that I announce the arrival of my daughter, Grace Katherine, who arrived March 31, 2012. Grace weighed 7 pounds even and was 19 inches long. After almost 4 years TTC, I was blessed with Grace through the amazing journey of adoption. Gracie is perfect in every way, growing like a weed at over 4 months old and thankfully, has been sleeping through the night since she was 2 months! I’m humbled, grateful and so very blessed. Thank you to ALL the SMCs who supported me through the journey! Kerry Hackett

Melissa Vogel is thrilled to announce the arrival of Marcus Alexander Vogel on May 24, 2012. Marcus was born in the tub at home, weighing 7 lbs. 15 oz and measuring 21 inches long. He has a full head of strawberry blonde hair, blue eyes and an adorable smile! Mom Melissa feels truly blessed to finally meet her little bundle of joy.

Remember to notify us when you become a mother! If you have someone new in the house please send the information to ctabel@hotmail.com.