Now, back to figuring out who the featured author for June will be.

{write me}

{write me}

Right. Titillation. Sure. I guess we can assume from that statement that sly old Altman is projecting and that he himself has fantasies about, say, Catharine Deneuve being his urologist. Let me tell you, there is nothing titillating about handsome men wielding speculums. Nothing. Really. The evil miracle baby doctor is handsome and it didn’t add an extra little thrill to the process. Pap smears aren’t foreplay. The whole movie read (to me) like one big “I Hate Women” manifesto. Rent it for yourself and see if you agree.

On the other hand, I had a very young and handsome chiropractor last year and that was so titillating that I had to quit going. Think about it: cold metal speculums vs. warm hands easing the pain from your body. Which sounds more titillating to you? Anyway the chiropractor was young enough to arouse interest but too young to inspire confidence (not to mention that once he cracked my neck before I fully relaxed — ouch!) so I don’t go there anymore. I have an appointment tomorrow with a new fellow who is hopefully less Hollywood handsome and more competent.

{write me}

Tonight I’m supposed to start the second round of clomid. I am so discouraged!!! People keep sending me info about herbs but I did that already. I did it for a year. I miscarried three times. I’m not taking herbs now because you shouldn’t mix ‘em with clomid but I’m still taking my vitamins and exercising and working on keeping my diet clean. Well, that’s kind’ve a lie. I’m still eating ice cream.

There’s only a 30% chance of getting pregnant on a “good” clomid cycle and stupid me without CD 21 progesterone results, I don’t know whether or not the clomid is causing me to have a “good” cycle. I should have gone for that damn test. I was so sick that day and it was raining and I had to drop Noah off at preschool and he didn’t want me to leave and I knew I’d be late and it cost $10 I didn’t want to spend and it sure *looked* like I’d ovulated so I said to hell with it and didn’t go. Rats. I don’t know if I should bother to get my hopes up this time around. Man, I’m discouraged.

Someone gave me the recommendation to two books with a Jewish perspective on making sense of tragedy/crisis in parenting. I ordered them from the library. I hope they help.

Speaking of religious stuff, twice this weekend people tried to “witness” to me. I hate that. I sincerely hate that. Most (all) of my animosity towards Christianity centers around that witnessing. There’s this terminology where Christians say they are “convicted” on a particular issue. It means that God has told them that such-and-such is true. For example, should women wear hair coverings?Well, if a Christian woman is wondering then she’ll probably read scripture about it and pray about it and talk to her husband about it but whether or not she decides to do it will depend on whether or not she gets convicted. Then she might say something like, “God lay a conviction on my heart that I should/should not cover.” Ok, fine, whatever. What I don’t like is that they (meaning Christians who will witness to you) seem to think they have the market cornered on conviction. If you say that you have been convicted that Christ is *not* the savior, that just doesn’t fly. A bit hypocritical if they’d ask me. Not that they do. Another thing I don’t like is Christians who think Jews are “baby” Christians, meaning that they have half of it and just need to get the rest. Someone sent me an sent me an article about it once. I told her that with that logic, she must be a “baby” Muslim. She never replied to my email.

Before I became Jewish I labored under the delusion that many people have, mainly that Judaism is Christianity without the Christ. Not so. Judaism and Christianity have some fundamental differences about salvation and sin and man’s relationship to God/G-d. I won’t get into them here so you’ll just have to trust me on that. Or write and I’ll point you to some web sites. Anyway, witnessing. Arghhh. Ironically, what prompted this little spiel is I saw a group of Christian mothers on a parenting board moaning about Jehovah’s Witnesses coming around their neighborhoods. As Phoebe said, “Hello, kettle? This is pot. You’re black.”

{write me}

When my period came, I felt so … unsurprised, I guess. It’s not that I’m not hopeful, it’s just that I’ve been disappointed so often that having another baby seems like a fantasy. I can’t really believe that it will happen for me. Oh my that’s a depressing thing to write.

{write me}

Noah had his last day of preschool yesterday. One of the teachers made a quilt with all the kids that’s going to be in the school hallway but she also made quilt squares for each of the kids to take home. Noah’s is so beautiful! I can’t wait to frame it and hang it in his room. It’s amazing that his preschool experience is over. A little depressing, too.

In infertility news, I’m playing the waiting game, heading into the end of the (in terminology speak) 2WW, aka “the two week wait.” Next week I’ll either get my period or a positive pregnancy test.

One of the women on the Moon & Stars journaling ring I started hasn’t updated in ages. Very frustrating because her last words were mentioning that her period is late. Hope she’s sharing some good news soon.

{write me}

There’s so much to blog about and so little motivation to do it. I’m sorry, folks. Please bear with me.

{write me}

I feel like shit. I have a cold that won’t go away and either that or the clomid is making me woozy and weird. I’m really tired.

I worked a little bit on the proposal for the book idea I have. I’m much more interested in it than in the proposal that’s apparently “at the agent’s.” When I finish it, I’m going to approach my writing group and see if anyone else could hook me up with their agent because this one’s tendency not to keep in contact with me makes me nuts. She got a really good deal for Katie so I’m sure she’s a good agent but I need more contact, dammit!!! The other women in my writing group are all getting book deals or going on book tours or winning huge awards. Me, I’m writing blurbs for five bucks apiece. (sigh)

Peanut caught a baby cardinal today. Noah thought it was cool but I freaked out. I finally got her to drop it and it looked like it might be fine. We saw the mama and papa watching for it so we scooted off and when we came back, the baby was gone. I think it was having its first flight lesson (Brett said, “Well, as a parent that just kinda kills you, doesn’t it?”) and that’s why Peanut was able to catch it. Noah said, “Mommy, don’t be mad at Peanut, that’s just how God made her.” Can’t argue with that, I guess.

I’m having my progesterone test tomorrow. I’m feeling optimistic about the results (which will indicate whether or not the clomid revved up my ovulation) because my breasts were killing me yesterday. Not so much today. More than you wanted to know, isn’t it?

{write me}

I have a thing for showtunes. Ever since I heard Annie in choir in 5th grade I’ve been hooked. I know that every little girl in the late 70s and early 80s wanted to be on stage singing Tomorrow but I had such a rich fantasy life that I even wrote interviews and reviews (all glowing) of my Broadway debut. The fact that I couldn’t sing or dance or even act was not a hindrance to this fantasy and it persevered until my breasts arrived and cinched the fact that the part would never be mine.

I’m pretty sure that one of the reasons I became obsessed with the show was that my discovery of it happened to coincide with my parent’s divorce. My mom went to school then to work and suddenly we were latchkey kids. Then my dad married his secretary and started a new family. (His third; we’re his second.) It was a rotten time in my life and standing in the empty garage belting out Maybe made things a little easier. Or at least allowed me to put off dealing with my disintegrating family for the time it took to sing another chorus.

Anyway, I love showtunes and everyone I know knows that I love showtunes. Brett, however, is the only one who indulges my love of showtunes. Until I met him, Annie was the only show I had actually seen although I’ve got a zillion and one original cast recordings. But Brett changed all that. He gets tickets to the musicals touring through town when our budget allows and even sometimes when it doesn’t. I can’t tell you how much this means to me. You know what else? Sometimes during the show, I turn and see that he’s watching me watch the show. And he’s got a big old grin on his face to see me being so happy.

The other night we went to go see my little sister (my dad’s 6th and final kid) performing in her high school production of Grease. Brett, being wonderful, knew that this would be a little hard for me. Once my little sisters appeared, my dad more or less stepped out of my life father-wise. They’ve gotten all the parts of him that we (my brother, my sister, my eldest half-sister who got *totally* screwed) missed. He changed their diapers, he went to their father/daughter breakfasts. He’s paying for their college (at private schools) when I couldn’t get him to give me the $200 he promised me every quarter for books. So there we were watching my sister dancing around on stage at my alma mater and my dad was glowing, so proud, and as much as I enjoyed the show, I was feeling pretty shitty since this was not a reality in my life. My dad is always calling up bragging on his (youngest two) kids and it’s pretty freakin’ hard not to say (and sometimes it’s so hard that I *have* said), “You know, you never came to one of my tennis games and you never checked my report card and you didn’t give a damn about what I was doing in high school.”

Oh shoot, I was saving the rant on my dad for another day and I accidentally slipped into it. Forgive me.

What I wanted to say was that Brett gets it. He gets me loving showtunes and he gets me crying sometimes when I listen to Annie and he knew just when to lean over and take my hand the other night. And, finally, he surprised me with tickets to Mama Mia for Mother’s Day. I know it’s not the greatest show to hit the stage in recent history but it’s here in town and I get to go see it.

And that, my friends, is just one of the many, many reasons I count myself pretty damn lucky.

{write me}

Just a little humor to liven things up around here.

I planted some of the garden today. Brett isn’t done with all the raised beds so I just did two beds and a few containers. Noah helped in typical 5-year old fashion by spraying his shorts with the hose, freaking out, and reminding me that I had cow poop on my hands. (From the manure we were using to fertilize the garden.) We planted various kinds of lettuce, carrots, sugar snap peas, cilantro, scallions, chamomile, echinacea, hyssop, lavendar then moved the sage into the garden. We’re still waiting to do the tomatoes, peppers, turnips, radishes, and beets.

Clomid update: I must’ve ovulated. Had my surge on the OPK on Saturday, last of the EWCM yesterday. (This is written in infertile-speak, only those TTC will understand it.) The side-effects symptoms are gone. Can’t say that I miss the dizziness. It was like having a permanant buzz and I don’t drink because I don’t particularly like being buzzed. Still, it wasn’t bad considering what I was dreading/expecting. I have my 7 DPO progesterone test next Wednesday. I’ll let you know how it goes.

{write me}

{write me}

Jews do not circumcise because they are a barbaric people hell-bent on sexual mutilation. They circumcise because G-d commanded it. And most believe that if G-d commanded it, then it cannot be wrong and it certainly cannot be harmful. Even non-observant Jews may have strong ties to the belief that circumcision is an important covenant between G-d and the Jewish people. The vast majority of Jews don’t buy the argument that it’s a harmful, dangerous procedure and at my synagogue, the mohels can pull out reams of studies proving that circ’ing is a more healthful choice. But whether or not it’s a healthful choice is besides the Jewish point because, remember, G-d commanded it.

Now these arguments didn’t fly with me because I don’t think G-d/God commanded it and I don’t buy the mohels’ studies so my son is intact and future sons will be intact. In like manner, my arguments didn’t fly with my rabbi because he doesn’t buy my studies or my conviction. He converted me anyway because this ended up not being a make or break issue for him (remember, he’s Reform).

Anti-circ activists have to understand the orientation of people with whom they don’t agree if they want to change their minds. Occasionally I’ll read a post on a bulletin board that says something like, “Any religion that circumcises is barbaric.” This isn’t going to do much to change the minds of folks in that religion; it isn’t going to further the anti-circ cause. I personally think that ritual circumcision is barbaric and the fact that I’m Jewish but Noah is intact is a reflection of this personal conviction but if I was going to launch into a debate with my rabbi (and I have), I would need to remind myself that he’s coming from an orientation that is entirely different than my own and I would need to step into that orientation so that I could understand how best to confront it. Frankly, I didn’t change my rabbi’s mind but I was able to convince him to convert me. Small triumph for the anti-circ movement; giant leap for me.

I don’t think that circumcision is child abuse. I have no desire to convince the rest of you to share my opinion. If I was a non-coercive parent‘er — as I believe Dirtwitch is — I would probably feel as urgently about circ’ing as I do about kids like my mom who were starved, beaten and locked in closets. I appreciate Dirt’s point of view although I don’t agree with it. It sounds like her convictions are such that she can’t appreciate mine. So be it. It takes all kinds to make the world go ’round.

I never said I was more “enlightened.” Enlightenment — like good parenting — is subjective. However, I am grateful to feel the way I do because I’m awfully glad to be a Jew. (By the way, it’s entirely possible that Dirt wasn’t responding to my entry at all but at least *her* entry inspired me to finally post my little circ rant.)

{write me}

“I really don’t understand how someone can say beating a child is an obvious human rights violation but ritual circumscision - cutting off part of their body without consent - is “just a cultural difference”. Sorry human rights come before cultural rites, I hope I’m never so “enlightened” that I accept sexual mutilation as just a cultural difference.” — Dirtwitch

What can I say. It’s a Jewish thang.

I kept trying to write an entry that would explain my point of view but then I realized that my point of view is already all over this blog and I’m certainly not going to change Dirt’s opinion about it. But then again, as the t-shirt says, “We Honor Diversity.”

I wish I could write more on this but Noah’s itching for attention. I’ll try to get back to this another time.

{write me}

Six years ago today Brett and I were trying to have a baby. On May 11th (the Saturday before Mother’s Day, just like this year) my temperature went up meaning that I had ovulated. Brett and I celebrated by going to the movies where we saw The Truth About Cats and Dogs. On Sunday, I told Brett he was going to have to help me keep it together because I was mourning a recent miscarriage and feeling pretty despondent about Mother’s Day. But with his help, the day didn’t totally suck and I was sitting at the computer that night feeling pretty ok and content when the phone rang. It was a friend of mine calling in a panic to tell me that she was very unhappily pregnant. It was an extremely difficult call to take especially because if I hadn’t just miscarried, we would have been having our babies at the same time.

Two weeks later I found out that I was pregnant, too, and that my duedate was February 1st. Noah came a few days early but it was a very nice thing to know that his start coincided with that bittersweet Mother’s Day.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of us — mothers or not. Best wishes to you all!

{write me}

I’m feeling much calmer today. Yesterday, too, was a pretty good day. I asked my sister if this was typical with clomid and she said, “Yes” but let me know that really nothing was typical with clomid.

Brett took a half day off work yesterday and Noah was with Gram Pam so Brett and I went to see Spider-man. If Tobey Maguire wasn’t 12, I’d probably develop a terrible crush on him.

Brett and I had so much fun together. I’m crazy in love with my husband and I know that I’m damn lucky to feel this way. He’s working right now to make up for the time he took off and I can’t wait for him to get home. Now if I could only get him to put on some red and blue lycra…

{write me}

I must be getting near ovulation because I’m starting to have the anxiety side-effects with the clomid. Also, I feel one step away from FURIOUS for absolutely no reason. I feel super-electric charged and very, very tense. I’m snapping at Noah and losing my train of thought and I feel like my arms down to the fingertips are thrumming with some kind of nervous energy.

What’s helping is knowing that this is a side-effect and that it’s going to go away. Things aren’t as bad as they seem, the house really isn’t as dirty and Noah really isn’t as annoying.

On a brighter note, I’ve been researching medical stuff for an assignment for the ePregnancy magazine and I recently read that the original study connecting clomid to an increased risk of ovarian cancer has been disproved over and over again. I’ll find links when I’m feeling a bit more patient.

{write me}

Inspired by Holly’s blog where she explains that her “alternative” parenting stance has its roots in her environmentalism, I thought I’d natter on about how my “alternative” parenting stance has its roots in my feminism and then blather a bit about feminism and choice.

I don’t follow a laundry list of parenting choices that make me “alternative” but I align myself with folks who happen to be “alternative” (those damn quotation marks are going to get annoying but I’m using them to convey the “alternative” community’s distress when it comes to labels) because I like to be around thoughtful people even if they don’t always agree with me or I with them. My IRL (that’s in real life) friends are “alternative” in lots of ways besides parenting. Our parenting choices are an obvious extension of this familiarity with thinking outside the mainstream.

My feminism has always inspired me to question the status quo. It influenced my decision to dye my hair green when I was eighteen and now it influences my decision to be an at-home mother. The tricky part about being a feminist is that I don’t feel I have a right to tell other women how they should be living their lives. I may believe that I’m right and that they’re wrong but seeing as how I’m not God, I don’t think that I should be able to make decisions for the rest of the world. (However, I am incredibly frustrated by the lack of information and support for people trying to make big decisions about the welfare of their families.)

There’s a slippery slope argument in the “alternative” community that says that if you’re too tolerant, you’ll find yourself supporting people who beat their kids. And if you say, no, clearly child abuse is an immoral behavior and a violation of human rights, then someone will say, “Well, in my eyes formula feeding is child abuse and ritual circumcision is child abuse and (if you’re a TCS parent) disciplining your child is child abuse and so I have a moral obligation to condemn those so-called choices.” Personally I think there are a lot of ways to raise happy kids with healthy self-esteem and a strong moral center. Thank goodness my point of view is not so extreme that I cannot tolerate folks whose value systems differ than my own.

June Jordan wrote the following in an essay titled On Listening: A Good Way to Hear:

If you want to know how somebody feels or thinks, ask him. If he can’t tell you in words that you understand, ask someone else. Not anybody else, but someone else. A relative of the man. A close friend. Somebody who seems to you very similar. And when you resort to these sources of information, qualify the value of your data: call it secondhand or worse.

{write me}

Yesterday was Brett’s birthday and all he wanted out of it was a good club sandwich so we went to a local dive and got him one. Then we came home for cake and presents.

My mom and I made up — we always do — and hopefully we can now put this particular argument behind us forever (yeah, right). Neither one of us is going to change our opinons about the other’s point of view. Just for the record, however, I’m right and she’s wrong.

I woke up in a bad mood because I’m unhappy with my (lack of a) writing career. Ok, so I have something of a career; I write articles and get paid for them. However, I’m not doing the kind of writing that I *want* to be doing. So why don’t I just do it? Why don’t I do more of that kind of writing? Fear, I guess. I haven’t written anything purely creative in so long that I’m afraid that I’ve forgotten how to do it. Or worse, that I’ve got no talent or already used up what little I had. I don’t know how to discipline myself to sit there and write no matter what.

I always have little ideas about how I could get writing again. I think about joining groups or buying a book of exercises or carving out an hour a day to sit with a nice pen and a blank piece of paper but when it comes to actually doing these things, I fold. I cave. I don’t.

But I will.

Here it goes. Wish me luck.

{write me}

Taking the clomid was like taking acid. Or Ecstasy ‘cuz it looked the same. Anyway, here I took this major sort of pill and then I went to bed and ruminated on it. I knew it was working already, that I couldn’t undo it and that I didn’t exactly know what it was doing. Then I started to panic a little bit, terrified of oncoming side effects and feeling really stupid for taking it. Just like acid. Or Ecstasy.

I only took X once and it sucked. I hated it. And I felt like a damn fool for doing it; what a waste of time and money not to mention brain cells. Acid I liked a little more and did a little more often but nowhere near as much as others of my acquaintance. My semi/occasional/off-and-on boyfriend at the time was dealing so he used to carry sheets of it around in his briefcase. He was definitely doing way more than I ever thought of doing. I keep meaning to write a little bit about him but then when I sit down to do it, I’ve lost interest.

Back to clomid, from what I’ve read, the symptoms come later. I’m certainly not having any now but I’m also on a low dose (50 mg) and have only taken one pill.

There was a tornado warning last night sometime around 4am. Brett woke up when he heard the sirens and then woke us up and we all went to cuddle in the basement/playroom. Noah was really scared. It’s hard to promise your children that they will always be safe, that you will keep them safe when you’re not really sure whether or not you’re lying.

{write me}

The featured author for May is Margaret Wise Brown.

I have read that taking clomid at night lessens some of the physical side-effects so I’m taking my first dose at around 10pm. I also went running because someone told me that exercise can help with the emotional side-effects. I’m excited but nervous, too. What if it doesn’t work? But what if it *does* work, how great would that be? We conceived Noah on May 11th so we’d be looking at another winter baby.

When we were at the last Tot Shabbat, I suddenly thought, “If we have a son, his name will be Avrom.” I’m not sure how I feel about that. Having it come to me like it did makes it seem like a spiritual proclamation that we must obey. But Avrom — while a nice name — isn’t our favorite name. The boy’s name we both like is Simon Robert (Robert is after Brett’s grandfather) which actually sounds a lot like Avrom Robert. Anyway, we’ll see. If we have a daughter, we would like her name to begin with an “E” for Brett’s Grandmother (we’ve toyed with Elinor, Elaine, and Ella) and her Hebrew name would be “Eliana.” It means “God has answered.” Isn’t that nice? And appropriate for a child born after a struggle with infertility. We’ve thought of it as an everyday name, too. Sadly, Christian Slater named *his* new daughter Eliana. Don’t you hate it when the rich and famous (not to mention hardly talented) steal your best baby names?

Well, you can see by my post that I’m actually daring to think positively about the clomid. It feels strange to actually feel hopeful. Strange and like I’m tempting fate.

{write me}