... when sperm and egg stubbornly remain apart

 

It's never too late to celebrate

NATIONAL INFERTILITY SURVIVAL DAY®

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Breakfast in bed

Spa Day

Mani-pedi

Facial

Massage

Makeover

Sunday Brunch

Roses

Romantic dinner

Weekend getaway

Girls' day out

Girls' night out

Chocolates

Champagne/Mimosas

Shopping spree

Another idea

Redeemable: Husbands, best friends, dear friends, sisters, moms, mothers-in-law, any good listeners with demonstrated empathy and encouragement!

People often ask me what kind of event I’m having or planning to have for NATIONAL INFERTILITY SURVIVAL DAY® each year. The answer varies. There have been years when I’ve teamed up with infertility specialists, other authors and health care professionals to offer advice and encouragement to hundreds of people at a time. There have been times when I’ve joined with local vendors to raffle off gifts to those who need a lift. There have been book signings and giveaways.

But the truth is, NATIONAL INFERTILITY SURVIVAL DAY®, which celebrates its first decade next year, is more conceptual than it is event-driven, although it can be that, too.

Like a happening. Like a Yoko Ono for infertile families. Not the Yoko who in the eyes of some, (still after all these years), is the chick who messed up The Beatles. No. The Yoko who self-published a conceptually compelling book — Grapefruit for those who don’t know — available on Amazon.com (4.5 stars as of this writing). Who, like it or not, made people think differently about all kinds of things. 

Think differently about infertility. Think differently about adoption.

Think differently about what might be by this time next year.

How would you like to celebrate possibilities on May 4, 2014?

Sunday, May 4, 2014

Save the date to save your sanity.

NATIONAL INFERTILITY SURVIVAL DAY®

Is coming for you.

Start smiling now. And start spreading the news.

Each year, more and more people learn about this special day. Help share the power of NATIONAL INFERTILITY SURVIVAL DAY by telling a friend!

It's tomorrow!
Sunday, May 5, 2013

Have you had enough? Mother’s Day is nigh. And I am sick of hearing about it. Not that I would reject a few flowers, some perfume and lots of love. It’s just that every year around this time, I’m reminded of the dark days before I had a daughter. My daughter. The most remarkable girl in the world. The daughter of dreams. This year, National Infertility Survival Day is tomorrow, Cinco De Mayo – May 5, 2013. For those who seek support and sisterhood. For those who don’t know how to comfort a significant other. The sky, as they say, is the limit. Show a little love and a lot of sensitivity. Boost her spirits and spend a few duckets. Sunday the 12^th might be nigh, but it ain’t the end of the world or the last word. And don’t forget Cinco De Mayo. See, we don’t need an excuse to celebrate. Only hope and happiness. Cheers. Salud! To you cheries.

“So, next time you see a pregnant woman, kick back and have a martini. With extra olives. Sashay by with the best body you can muster in the highest heels you can navigate. Wax buff with a Brazilian bikini wax. Let’s see her get into that position…”

Infertility Sucks! Keeping it all together when sperm and egg stubbornly remain apart, page 20.

I wrote that more than 10 years ago. It still helps. It’s a state of mind that says, things are broken. But I am not.

Alas, shoes and martinis and bikinis can be bought. Not so for the kind of body that one wants to sashay and display.  

It’s not just about looking good. A healthy, supple body can also be a more fertile body.

This weighty matter has been another struggle for me and many others, one that I now realize has gone on way too long — since I was a teen, always fighting to be teeny-tiny.

I have always thought that there’s no time for fussing and fighting my friend. And yet I’ve been fighting myself for years. It’s asinine and it’s over. I’m over it.

I’m having fun with it now. I find it interesting and even amusing how our environment tries to lure us into eating and drinking stuff. The way restaurants show pictures of food — pictures taken with the care of a wedding photographer; the way certain ice cream shops create a scent so pleasing as to cause passersby to salivate like Pavlov’s dog. (It’s not always only about The Beatles. Just usually.)

I have taken it upon myself to turn these ploys upside down and inside out. So, here’s an erstwhile eight-inch pizza that at one time, only briefly, had the snake-like power to tempt:

No more.

Here’s a recipe that will enable you to have your ‘za and eat it too. No guilt. Just yummy.

½ piece of Flatout Flatbread (I like the Light Italian Herb.)

Coat lightly with Walden Farms Tomato & Basil Pasta Sauce

Sprinkle with one stick or one slice of 2% cheese

Cover with six pieces of turkey sausage

Heat in microwave oven for about a minute.

Season to your liking.

Fend off the rest of the family or make enough for all.

Now, for that maritini… those olives. Oh, yeah, and the shoes. Always the shoes. 
 

Sarah Lawrence College’s outstanding faculty tops The Princeton Review’s 2013 College Ranking among all colleges and universities on the esteemed list.

Cheers to some of the best, most inspiring years of my life. 

Today is Mick’s birthday. Jagger, of course. “You can’t always get what you want,” he consoled me years ago, as I nursed my infertile soul after a trip to the mall with a friend and her 4 year old son, a story immortalized a decade ago on page 23 of Infertility Sucks! Keeping it all together when sperm and egg stubbornly remain apart. Mick, “singing, it seemed, directly to me.”

What I didn’t know then but have subsequently read is that Mick kind of was singing directly to me. And, perhaps, to you. It seems he wrote the song for Marianne Faithful, who had recently miscarried.
Thank you, Mick on behalf of all of us who have experienced that loss.

Happy birthday. Hope you get what you need. 

Infertility is more like the common cold than the exotic disease it’s still so often perceived as. Not that it’s contagious, of course. Just a lot more pervasive than many realize.

In one day this past weekend, I met one woman who has a close relative who has been struggling for nearly a decade to have a baby. The same day, I reconnected with an old friend who has a close relative just entering the same ring.

May they both find peace and happiness soon. May they find their way, have their way and have their say. May they have the courage to share their stories some day, so the next generation of girls and women don’t take for granted what their lives and their bodies and their relationships will deliver and how.

May Gens X and Y soon be rid of their struggles and meet up at last with chromosomes X and Y in all their glory.