Melissa Ford's blog

Drinking Games

2009-07-03T07:44:41-05:00

I was never big into drinking games--I think my one foray into the world of activity-driven alcohol consumption was the game "I Never" and I only played it to hear what the boys had never yet gotten around to trying. I like to enjoy my alcohol consumption; taste it. My goal is not to imbibe as much as I can as quickly as I can, remembering always what comes next after you start with that goal.

But water consumption is completely different. On days when its warm outside and I'm doing an activity, it's easy to consume a lot of water. But when it's raining and we're all sort of sick of being in the house but too lazy to go elsewhere, a drinking game could be a nice distraction. Not that the twins need to know what I'm doing, but it certainly helps to spice up the 897th round of Chutes and Ladders.

And to help you decide which game to play based on the amount of water you could possibly consume, I've rated the games from misting (1) to flooding (5) with drizzle (2), shower (3), and downpour (4) in between.

Possible games:

Watching My Little Pony: take a sip every time the ponies giggle (even Starsong's half-chuckle counts). Ranging from a downpour to flood depending on the episode and whether they've wasted time with one of their vapid sing-alongs.
Candyland: take a sip every time you get a blue card. Chug it to the count of five every time you get a double card. Good chance for a shower.
Questions: carry a Nalgene bottle of water with you throughout the day. Take a sip whenever your child asks you a question. You can also use this game at the office for anyone swinging by to ask you a question. Depending on the age of the child or the maturity of the coworker, this could range from misting to downpour. In our house, it's a flood. With a preschooler, this game could be the number one cause of hyponatremia.
Chutes and Ladders: whenever you go up a ladder, drink to the count of the number of squares you've bypassed. If anyone gets a chute, it gives you a pass the next time you get a ladder. Definitely only drizzle to shower material if you stack the cards to give the kids a lot of chutes.
Pinches: whenever one child bothers the other, take a sip. Depending on how much together time we've had during the day, this can range from misting to flood.

Your kids don't need to know how you're mentally bringing back your old days of beer pong, just that you're healthily drinking a lot of water while you set up the game board for the 467th time.

Melissa is the author of the infertility and pregnancy loss blog, Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters. She keeps a categorized blogroll of 1800 infertility blogs and writes the daily Lost and Found and Connections Abound, a news source for the infertility blogosphere. Her infertility book, Navigating the Land of If, is currently on bookshelves (May, 2009).

"Help Me Have a Baby:" Resolve Teaches Congress Infertility is a Disease

2009-07-02T08:00:00-05:00

Last week I wrote that Advocacy Day was happening for Resolve. This week, I bring you notes from the field...er...Senate Building, not only to tell you about the work Resolve is doing to ensure that all Americans have adequate infertility coverage during this national discussion on health care reform, but also to entice you to join along next year when Advocacy Day rolls around again.

The day began with training and speakers. People sat with others from their state and received their meetings for the day. Each person met with the staff of two senators and two congresspeople--usually from your own state, but often, we met with lawmakers from other states if they did not have constituents present.

There were three things we wanted every lawmaker to hear:

1. We'd like their support on either House Bill 697 or Senate Bill 1258--also known as the Family Building Acts. These bills both state that insurance companies that offer obstetrical coverage must also offer infertility coverage. These bills will close the loopholes that current affect the states with mandated coverage and would bring coverage for the first time to the majority of states.

2. We wanted them to understand that infertility is a disease and needs to be included in the discussion on health care reform. It isn't enough to work only to bring minimal coverage to the uninsured. If we're talking true reform, we need to aim high and make sure that no one is under-insured.

3. We wanted them to approve funding to the CDC so they could create the National Action Plan on Public Health and Infertility. This line item is for a small amount of money, but it would make a huge difference for the CDC as well as the 7.3 million Americans diagnosed with infertility.

It was incredibly empowering to march through the halls of the Senate or House office buildings and speak with staffers about this issue close to my heart. It is one thing to discuss infertility with other infertile men and women. It is another to ask someone to make a difference for you.

At Advocacy Day 2008, Marisa, a Resolve member, spontaneously grabbed a piece of paper at Joe Lieberman's office and scrawled the words, "Help me have a baby!" She held the sign under his name plate and this image became such an emotional moment in the day, that this year, each group received a copy of the sign in order to replicate this image. It was incredibly moving to think about how it's not just a sign--for many of us with limited coverage, the cost of family building with infertility (either through treatments or adoption) is just too high.

Me, outside of Senator Mikulski's office

Other bloggers also weighed in with their thoughts on the day:

The Long and Winding Road asked others to blog about Advocacy Day and tells her own story: "The fact that we are not allowed to be parents just because the cost of our treatments are so high is unconscionable. Please help us to reach our goals. Please help us to be able to meet our babies."

Cats with Passports writes: "I’m particularly bitter and disappointed that the federal government only provides two insurance options for employees overseas, neither of which covers fertility treatment. Give us more companies to choose from or give us more comprehensive health care through the two available."

My Nest, Someone Else's Eggs was part of my group and she wrote about the day: "I am going to Washington D.C. to participate in RESOLVE's Advocacy Day. I am not just doing this for myself as a distraction from the 2-week wait but also to help other infertility patients have greater access to insurance coverage. I am lucky to live in a state that mandates coverage but we still have a ways to go. "

How did you spend Advocacy Day and how did you reach out to help ensure that all people have sound health coverage for all medical diagnoses?

Feeling the Burn with a Clean Home

2009-06-29T17:13:30-05:00

I am not the largest fan of exercise. Prior to having the twins, I ran every morning, but it wasn't something I enjoyed. I mean, I loved the afterwards when I felt smugly healthy. Those who exercise regularly are sort of like hybrid car owners. Yes, hybrid cars and exercise are both better for the environment/your health and you're doing a good thing, but the ownership or activity just makes the person appear so damn smug. I like to think that I became more likable once I retired my running shoes.

The fact is that I don't have time to work formal exercise into my life; at least not if I'm going to work and be the parent I want to be. Oh...and sleep. Sleep would sort of cease to happen if I started exercising. So I needed to come up with a physical activity that fit into my schedule, worked up a sweat, and gave me an added benefit.

What do I mean by added benefit? Well, my old exercise gave me all the benefits of exercise--weight control, heart health, stress reduction--but I didn't go anywhere. I ran in a circle or I ran on a path or I ran on a treadmill. Exercise was its own activity rather than a gateway to getting something else accomplished.

I considered walking to the grocery store daily and doing my food shopping, but it wasn't very feasible in terms of distance, shleping twins, or getting the groceries home. I considered signing us up for a class which would be an enriching activity for the twins and exercise for me, but finances got in the way. I finally settled on an activity.

I would clean three times a week.

I know this doesn't really sound like exercise, but apparently, you can burn 272 calories an hour cleaning your house. And even if that figure wasn't scientifically correct, there were things I could do to add to the general workout.

Keep moving--the key is never to slow down and idle for too long. I don't count some of the straightening up towards my exercise time. I think of the reading and sorting of papers as more akin to the warm-up. So while I'm cleaning, I'm constantly moving whether it's dancing or jogging in place, putting my whole body into the scrubbing, or giving the surfaces a deep clean rather than a surface wipe.
Put away one item at a time. Rather than making your cleaning as easy as possible, make the most trips up and down the stairs as you can handle. Which means fold the laundry and then take it upstairs to put it away one item at a time.
Carry your vacuum up and down the steps a few times. Damn that Dyson is heavy. Move the furniture and vacuum in hard to reach places.

At the end of the workout, you have a clean house and a pounding heart. Which is a better use of my time than running on a treadmill and leaves me more time to sleep.

What are some ways you've creatively incorporated exercise?

What Counts Towards Your 8 Cups of Liquid Per Day?

2009-06-26T16:00:21-05:00

Every morning, I drink a liter of iced coffee--yes, I know this isn't the healthiest habit, but until the twins allow me more sleep, this will need to be the trade-off. My husband and I have a Jack Sprat approach to our daily caffeine intake where he prefers coffee hot and I prefer it cold, therefore, he makes a pot and the leftovers are poured into a glass pitcher to cool so I can consume it the next day. And not a drop is wasted.

I wish we had the same feelings towards plain water. Whereas Josh jokes that I would lick the inside of the coffee cup to suck in those last drops of caffeine, water glasses are often left unfinished on the table and the Nalgene bottle is trotted around without removing a sip of its contents. We are terribly wasteful with water, and until I started researching it on the Internet, I didn't realize how not consuming enough water could affect how I feel just as much as not getting enough caffeine creates headaches.

In fact, not getting enough water during the day can cause headaches, dizziness, and constipation.

I started by reading a Mayo Clinic article which admitted that there wasn't a perfect formula for finding the amount of water you need to drink throughout the day. So much of it depends on the foods you eat and your level of activity. But I am a black-and-white sort of girl who needs a black-and-white sort of formula. Therefore, I decided that even though the Mayo Clinic told me I could count my coffee towards my daily liquid intake--"Even beer, wine and caffeinated beverages — such as coffee, tea or soda — can contribute, but these should not be a major portion of your daily total fluid intake. Water is one of your best bets because it's calorie-free, inexpensive and readily available."--I would only count plain water or low-calorie flavoured drinks such as Crystal Light towards my daily intake and set the bar at an admirable 2 liters (after the additional liter of iced coffee).

But this water intake doesn't need to come solely from drinks. It can also come from water-rich foods. An obvious water-rich food is soup broth, but be creative and look towards fruits and vegetables (cucumbers, watermelon, grapefruit, or lettuce) which are high in water. It's not just about sitting there, eating a straight piece of watermelon either. A quick jaunt through the Food Network site yielded high-water recipes such as Watermelon and Cantaloupe Salad, a non-alcoholic Watermelon Cooler that brings in watery sorbet too, and Cucumber Salad with Dill.

The point, of course, is to get creative with the water intake because drinking straight tap water day in and day out can become boring and make you stray from the 2 liter path. But that creativity can include not just adding flavour to water with lemon or lime slices, but eating water-rich foods from vegetables to popsicles.

Resolve's Advocacy Day

2009-06-25T08:00:00-05:00

In a stroke of fortuitous timing, Resolve's annual Advocacy Day comes on the heels of the Family Building Act being introduced to the Senate by New York's Kirsten Gillibrand. Which means that today, constituents will flock to the Hill to discuss H.R.697, the Family Building Act, with both congresspeople and senators.

Constituents are spending the day focusing on three main points during their time with their representatives. First and foremost is a focus on the aforementioned Family Building Act and making sure people have better access to treatments. The bill requires that "health insurance plans that include obstetrical services to offer medical treatment for infertility." The bill is merely asking insurance companies to stick to a consistent message: if family building isn't a medical need, let's not cover some aspects of it and not others. It is inconsistent to value family building only in certain situations and not others.

Next up is infertility education--what is infertility, how many people are impacted, and why should healthcare reform also take into account infertility? And lastly is discussing Resolve's support of H.R. 213: the adoption tax credit. This bill will keep the adoption tax credit from expiring in 2010 and will enable more families to be able to adopt.

The catchphrase of Advocacy Day is "I am silent no more" and it certain speaks volumes to the early days of Resolve when infertility and pregnancy loss were a taboo subjects never discussed between women. This is true even today. In my women's group a few years ago, one member admitted during a meeting that she had just experienced a pregnancy loss. Slowly but surely, several of us stepped forward with our own stories until we learned that half the members in the room had experienced a loss. How strange that we didn't know this fact about one another and no one was really clear as to why we kept it a secret when it was happening.

The point of this day is not only to get legislation passed that would aid infertile men and women, but also to gather together as a community and speak out. Remove the taboo. Be silent no more.

Bloggers have been writing about both Advocacy Day and the bills currently being spoken about during Advocacy Day.

Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed has a post about things you can do from home to support Advocacy Day.

Body Diaries by Lucy will be at the event today, even though she has insurance coverage. Check her blog tonight to see if she has a rundown of the day.

A Little Pregnant will be there too and will hopefully providing her funny and poignant point-of-view in the blogosphere.

A Family is Born recently put out a brief-and-to-the-point post about H.R. 213 and why it is important to them.

Parenthood for Me also blogged about the adoption tax credit, why it's important, and how to write your representative.

What can you do from home today if you're not participating on the Hill? Blog about it, Twitter about it, Facebook it--make your stance heard. And check back here next week for a rundown of the day.

Popsicles!

2009-06-22T06:09:50-05:00

Someone in the forums mentioned the idea of make-your-own popsicles after finding a box of Crystal Light popsicles in the store and a discussion ensued about whether Crystal Light could be turned into homemade popsicles.

The main problem with homemade popsicles is that they don't retain the strong flavour of a store-bought popsicle and often taste like watered down versions of juice. According to the Science Netlinks article, the reason is that, "commercially made popsicles are frozen very fast, which keeps the ice crystals small, and the flavor and the color well-mixed. In a home freezer, though, there's plenty of time for the ice crystals to grow." Unless you're going to purchase a new freezer, the solution is to trick the senses by creating the liquid with less water and more flavour. Juices can be boiled down to create a syrup and Crystal Light or a powdered drink mix can be combined with a smaller amount of water.

I turned to the blogs to find good recipes and explanations for making popsicles. The best advice came in the form of containers. Most large craft stores such as AC Moore or Michaels carry popsicle molds, especially in the summer months. Some come with a plastic stick as part of the mold and others require you to insert a wooden popsicle stick.

But you don't even need fancy molds to make your own popsicles at home. Wash out an empty yogurt container or use a disposable plastic cup and fill it with your liquid of choice. After it has been setting in the freezer for an hour, pop a wooden stick (again, purchased at any craft supply store) through the icy crust and continue to freeze for several more hours until the liquid is solid. Or, use Gale Gand's recommendation to use a piece of fruit placed at the bottom of the cup to serve as an anchor.

Simply Recipes has a great post on how to make fruit juice popsicles. She gives the advice, "If you use ready made juice or lemonade, you might want to boil it down first, reducing the juice by about a half, and add a little corn syrup. If you are using frozen concentrated juice, add half as much water as you would normally." Not only does her post contain a recipe, but people left additional tips in the comment section.

Not Just Martha has a recipe specifically for those tri-coloured popsicles often found at Fourth of July celebrations. Not only are they easy to make, but if you use the disposable plastic cups, you can walk away from your celebration with little clean-up.

Chew on That has a recipe for popsicles using pieces of fresh fruit and it can be a nice way to get in a serving of fruit along with a serving of liquid for the day.

The real question, of course, is whether these homemade popsicles can count as your water intake for the day and they can if you are using a powdered mix such as Crystal Light rather than fruit juice. The trade-off for using fruit juice is that it is dye-free and can count towards your fruit portions for the day. So either way, a popsicle can be a win-win treat if not laden with sugar.

Weight Loss on the Cheap

2009-06-19T07:27:28-05:00

I want to lose weight, but losing weight feels awfully expensive. Fresh fruits and vegetables cost more than candy bars. Weight Watchers holds weight losing secrets, but wants to charge me a monthly sum for the knowledge. Even picking up a bottle of water to hold me over until I can eat a sensible meal will take two dollars out of my wallet whereas a cup of sugar-laden sweet tea is on the dollar menu.

In a day and age where we are worrying about paying our mortgage, how do we make the decision to take the more expensive, healthier option? It's hard to think far down the line; how we're saving ourselves future medical problems by eating right and staying hydrated--especially when you need that money now.

Therefore, I'm throwing out the top three ways I'm currently saving money on eating well and asking you to provide your weight-loss-on-the-cheap tips.

One: Pick-your-own produce

Yes, it takes longer than running into the food store and throwing a pint of strawberries into the cart, but it's also a lot less expensive and exercise to boot. Most local farms post their picking schedule early in the summer so you can plan out future meals. Next week, we're going to be eating a lot of English peas and blueberries. Later in the summer, it's apple and raspberry time. Our favourite farm has a great stand when you check out where they have prepicked crops for half the price of grocery stores since the produce doesn't need to travel.

Two: Bring your own water bottle

It's a one time investment of $10 if you want to go for a nice, BPA-free Nalgene and you can go even cheaper if you want to purchase a single bottle of Evian and keep filling it up during the week. Not only can you flavour the water with lemon slices or a little Crystal Light to spice things up, but if you get a large enough purse, you can save everywhere from movie theaters to restaurants by supplying your own beverage.

Three: Pack your own diaper bag

You know how new moms bring everything from the house with them as they go through their day "just in case?" Take that mentality with yourself and bring your own snacks. You may not require a change of clothes, but you should have an assortment of healthy snacks--sweet, salty, or savoury--that will keep you from purchasing unhealthy options while out and hungry.

What do you do to keep weight loss inexpensive?

Using Grief: What to do After April Rose

2009-06-18T13:20:28-05:00

As the April Rose hoax unfolded last week and anger and grief unfurled itself from the readers of her defunct blog, this energy has been festering in blog posts and exchanged emails with the question about what to do with the tidal wave of emotions. And my advice is to redirect it.

While people can certainly still focus on Rebeccah Beushausen's lies or her explanation for why she constructed her blog, that energy can be better put to use directing the compassion that was once spent on April Rose on actual families experiencing prebirth diagnosis, stillbirth, or neonatal death.

The ALI blogroll contains numerous loss blogs, but I thought I'd take a moment to highlight a few from the list.

A true story of prebirth diagnosis can be found in the archives of Three of a Kind Working on a Full House, where Kathy compassionately shares her daughter's story of birth and death from congenital heart defects. She carried her knowing that she would not likely be able to live outside the womb, and delivered her prematurely at almost 30 weeks gestation. Kathy is an incredibly gifted writer who generously shared her story for readers to understand, gather information, or find comfort.

Elm City Dad who writes with Elm City Mom are the parents of Silas, who died soon after his birth--a long and arduous labour. Their posts during this first year of grief have been poignant and moving. I have learned so much from reading their story and thoughts.

Certainly Not Cool Enough to Blog tells that story of her son, Thomas, and his birth and death within 20 hours, as well as recurrent loss. Every year on his birthday, she asks people to do a random act of kindness in his memory.

Building Heavenly Bridges has taken the loss of her daughter, Emma, and turned it into activism. She started the Southern Vermont chapter of Share, the pregnancy and infant loss support group.

Awful but Functioning has been my source for talking to children about death after she had to tell her older daughter about the death of her newborn sister. She is a wonderful writer, contributor at Glow in the Woods, and an insightful woman.

These are just a few blogs from the list. If you have anger, if you have hurt, if you have compassion and you are seeking a place to put it, these are all blogs written by very real parents who have experienced the death of their child.

Changing Tastes

2009-06-15T07:00:21-05:00

I'm usually an order-water-at-restaurants sort of girl, not just because it's the healthier option but because it's the cheaper option. I would rather drink filthy D.C. tap water than spend $2 on the Diet Coke I'm longing for on the back of the menu. But last weekend, I was out with people and decided to order the raspberry lemonade at the Cheesecake Factory, knowing full well that it was real lemonade--the kind laden with sugar--and not the Crystal Light variety I've been consuming for days.

And it was undrinkable.

It wasn't the restaurant's fault. The raspberry lemonade tasted fine in the definitely-before-the-expiration-date sense. But it tasted wrong. I have grown so accustomed to the thinness--the flow--of non-sugar drinks that the lemonade felt like something I should chew instead of sip.

Soda feels the same way. Diet Coke feels right, regular Coke feels wrong. I bought myself fancy root beer at our local organic market and felt like I was drinking something more akin to a real beer than soda. It was thick, dark, and sat in my throat. Back when my daughter drank whole milk, I tried her milk a few times when I ran out of my own skim milk. And it tasted...wrong. Not like milk at all, in which it wasn't cold and creamy and thirst-quenching, but it felt warmer and thicker and something more akin to a liquid dessert than an accompaniment to my morning bagel.

I don't know when things changed because I certainly didn't grow up drinking diet drinks. Even now, there is a squeamishness over the amount of chemical sweeteners I consume on an average day and I certainly don't allow the kids to partake in them. I have such a sweet tooth--one that comes out not in needing actual candy, but in needing a sweetener in my coffee, diet soda, even the Crystal Light.

Sometimes my mind is screaming at me that it needs more than water or sweeter coffee, and then the question always hangs in the air--do I go the more natural route and risk the intake of calories leading to other health problems or do I go with the artificial sweeteners and risk whatever problems arise from drinking chemicals?

And, at the heart of the question, is this new preference for Equal over sugar, for skim milk over whole. That there is a thinness to non-sugar products that make them feel more drinkable in my mind, thinner, more thirst-quenching and refreshing.

Do you consume diet drinks, or drink soda or juice with sugar/corn syrup? And do you have a preference if both were equally healthy?

Bloat

2009-06-12T15:56:26-05:00

I know the reason given for why men are more successful at losing weight has something to do with the way our bodies hang on to fat, but really, I think our periods come into play more than discussed. Namely, the cravings for certain foods, the lack of desire to exercise, and the inability to drink copious amounts of water because you are already bloated beyond belief.

Every period is different, and this one seems to be more low-key. I'm drinking my water through it and eating well and while not really exercising, at least I am not lying on my side in bed, moaning into the phone to my friend, "can we discuss my water weight."

But there have been other times where I have felt so terrible by the end of the day, that I did not have the energy to cook a healthy meal much less drink my last two cups of water. It is hard to think about taking care of your body when your body is giving you so much trouble, albeit temporarily and for good reason.

What is a woman to do? You can give up the healthy habits for a few days once a month and jump back on down the road. Or you can fight through the sludge and stick to your routine of healthy eating, light exercise, and drinking enough water. I have to admit that while I lean towards stopping and starting, I also know that this is my downfall--why I don't stick to any routine for too long. It is too hard to get started again, too easy to tack on one more day of poor habits, justifying it with something happening physically or emotionally.

This month, I tried to work through it rather than around it. I started taking Alleve before the cramps began (if I'm going to end up taking it anyway, I might as well take two extra ones and start early) and even woke up to take it an hour before I intended to wake up just to start the day cramp-free. I drank water when I could, being as mindful as I would if I were trying to break into a game of Double Dutch. Whenever my body told me that it would accept a little water without bloating, I dropped what I was doing to drink. Even though I didn't have the energy to make dinner the first night and was stressed about using work time to cook, I sat myself down on the sofa for two minutes and convinced myself that cooking something healthy instead of grabbing what was easy would be time well-spent because I'd cut down on the regretful thoughts later in the evening.

I limited the salt, made sure sweets were out of the house, and kept to frequent small meals instead of big ones.

That's how I've gotten through this period. Let's see if I can repeat the trend next month.

Infertility and Up: How Pixar Tackled Living Child-Free after Infertility

2009-06-11T10:21:53-05:00

It started with an emailed warning: Pixar's new movie, Up, contains a scene that depicts either pregnancy loss or infertility. It continued with posts--both embracing Disney for sensitively portraying the inability to build a family and condemning Disney for introducing yet another topic that parents don't wish to cover with their kids. Finally, I went to see it for myself.

And I sobbed.

Perhaps I cried because I had my period when I walked into the theater. Or I may have cried because I was anxious in knowing that my emotional buttons were going to be pushed. I was on edge through the short film that came before the main feature that showed how babies are created on clouds. But I think I cried because Pixar did such a fantastic job with the topic and it touched me so deeply, especially when you can't help but project your own life onto the screen and lay it over Carl and Ellie's.

The topic is tackled both in the first few minutes of the movie and then subtly throughout, in such a way that adults will pick up on the hidden messages whereas children will most likely gloss over the fact that the couple is childless. And since reading all the blog posts about it, it seems as if many have missed the fact that infertility is covered throughout--much like infertility or loss which is not neatly contained in the moment, but affects the way you see the world from that point on.

Carl and Ellie, childhood sweethearts, promise to go on adventures with one another when they're older. After getting married, they start dreaming of their life together as they are lying together on a blanket outside, and their music-scored dreams include visions of babies.

They are shown painting a nursery and preparing for a baby and then for a brief moment, we see them in a doctor's office, with Ellie crying into her hands and her husband rubbing her shoulders while they both face the doctor. Afterwards, we see Ellie sitting outside, her eyes closed and she projects a deep sadness that still has me crying as I write this.

Because who hasn't sat still with the diagnosis, after all the tears are gone, and felt like there was no movement in the eye of the storm? In a film about movement--aptly named Up--she is sitting motionless. And finally, they begin moving again, planning out a life of adventure that never quite takes place as they planned, but like all the unplanned moments in life, is even better than Carl could see as it happened. It took, once again, a moment of not moving; of sitting still in a chair, to see how much adventure and happiness and joie de vivre he had in his life with Ellie--even if it wasn't how they hoped.

Infertility keeps playing out later in the film when Carl encounters a little boy whose father doesn't appreciate his child. It's interesting that the people up in arms mention the opening montage, because this is the part of the movie where I thought the infertility dynamic came more into play. Who hasn't felt bitterness in seeing a parent obviously not parenting their child when you are unable to build your family? And in the end, it comes back to a truism that anyone child-free after infertility knows quite well: there is the family you are raised with and the family you choose; and while all are familiar with fictive kin in the form of brothers or sisters, we also may form fictive kin with children.

It is easy to tell when his past is informing his present because the character literally stops moving. After the diagnosis, Ellie sits still in the chair. After he hears about how the boy's father isn't parenting him, Carl stops walking. When he is remembering Ellie and the life they thought they'd have, he sits. It is easy to see how often infertility subtly plays out in the film if you count the number of times the characters pause from movement, a very clever way of showing the stagnation of infertility or loss in a movie that is entirely about directional movement.

Maria wrote about the film earlier on BlogHer and I wish I had taken her warning to bring tissues. I cried in the beginning and throughout the middle and at the end; I cried for the walk out of the theater and sniffled in the car. And then cried writing this post as I thought about the movie again.

Like Punch Drunk, I disagree with the commenters on that post who think that loss or infertility has no place in a Pixar film. As DD states: "Who knew having a miscarriage was so…offensive? So…disgusting and ugly and ironically, so child- and family-UNfriendly, whereas (spoiler alert) the old man falling to his death from his dirigible after his failed attempt to cut the old hero in two with a sword was perfectly sanitary."

Personally, I'm thankful that Pixar finally gave my children a vision of a family grappling with infertility. Our losses took place before the twins arrived, and while they know why we light a candle in the house on October 15th each year, I don't think they understand that we're not the only people who had trouble building our family. Unlike parental death in Finding Nemo or the idea that there are people out there who want to hurt you (in every Disney film), this was presented in such a way that families in the know will appreciate the ability to use it as a jumping board for discussion and those who have thankfully had no trouble with family building will miss this point entirely.

For more reviews:

Trashed Ideas states, "Pixar manages to take very serious, adult themed issues, like infertility, and manages to not only keep the intensity of such delicate issues but paces it so that these things don’t detract from the childish innocence of the rest of the film."

Adventures of a Struggling Comic Book Writer says, "It tackles some extremely important issues about relationships (child rearing and infertility for one), and although they approach them in a kid friendly way, I for one was devastated when there wouldn't be a little Carl in this film."

And Lights, Cameras, Action explains, "This movie deals with a lot of complex issues - losing a spouse, parent-child relationships, friendship, and even infertility (the man and his wife wanted children but couldn't have them). I felt that the way the movie deals with these subjects was appropriate for the ages of ALL viewers and actually rather sophisticated."

What was your take on Pixar's Up?

Diet and Visitors

2009-06-08T16:17:53-05:00

There is nothing that throws your good intentions out of whack quite like visitors. First and foremost, festive, I'm-so-glad-you're-here foods run the gamut from fats to sugars. This past weekend, we ate a salad with dinner, but we also ate pasta and hand-tossed pizza and chocolate chip cookies the kids made for their grandparents.

We ate at restaurants and we did activities that were not conducive to drinking copious amounts of liquid (have you ever tried to walk a street fair with a full bladder?). We kept odd hours and finished off meals with desserts that I was too weak-willed to pass. I had helpful people tidy up the kitchen by pouring out the glasses of water I left for myself on the counter. My only golden moment was when I forgot the cup of Crystal Light I poured for myself prior to leaving for the street fair and turned the car around to go get it.

Somehow, making it more of a pain-in-the-ass moment made it feel like I had overcome a great obstacle to stay on course.

The fact is that I never wanted to do a diet because I didn't want to go on and off a program. I like Weight Watchers because it has the proper idea in place behind it (it's a lifestyle, not a diet), but since I lack the funds to do Weight Watchers properly, I am left constructing my own lifestyle change based on the information we all know: eat more vegetables, eat less fat, drink more water, get some exercise.

So how do you keep to healthy lifestyle changes when you also need to roll with social constructs? That while it's not wrong to eat something different from everyone else at the table, it does send a strange message ("oh, no, you guys eat the pizza. I'm just going to have this healthy salad over here while you clog your arteries with this meal I made for you."). That when you're trying to accommodate four adults, you sometimes need to eat at a restaurant with few healthful options.

Sometimes I feel like I'm an ant, trucking along with my crumb on my back and a single task. Well, for the ant it would be to bring the crumb home, and my single task is to stick to this healthier lifestyle, but you get my point. And like the ant, it is all about dodging and weaving--the shoe planning to smash you as you cross the kitchen floor or the change in restaurant planning to smash you as you cross off your healthy menu option in exchange for an old favourite.

And how do you do it? How do you stick to the healthy lifestyle when there are so many factors outside of your control?

Making Dinner Sweeter

2009-06-04T21:18:10-05:00

One of the perks of leading the Crystal Light Water Way Challenge Group is that Crystal Light sent me samples of their product to try. When the box arrived, I immediately needed to pretend that I was wearing a rainbow print leotard, leg warmers, and sweat band and sing the Crystal Light theme song while I danced around the kitchen.

But this is not your Raquel-Welch-aged Crystal Light.

My husband and I cracked up over the first package, a peach/mango combination managing to hit on my only two fruit allergies in a single drink. But I started the hording process--you know the one I'm talking about, where you either lick or write all over the box in Sharpie so the other person can't call dibs--when I hit the pomegranate flavours. Josh and I had an even split of drinks, where he took the ones that contained peach or caffeine (we both reasoned that with my coffee intake, the last thing in the world I need is more caffeine--though it did occur to me that I could probably work in more water if I replaced my coffee. But that is an experiment for another day) and I took the good flavours.

And then the consumption began.

The first flavour I tried was pomegranate lemonade. I liked it because it reminded me of a juice we used to have at camp that I haven't had in about twenty years and it's nearing on summer. It definitely stayed in the please-don't-drink-this-because-I-really-want-it-for-myself pile. It's sweet, but not too sweet. It's funny because every time I've mentioned Crystal Light this week, someone has brought up how much they like this flavour. The other flavour I'm excited to try is cherry pomegranate.

One day, I made myself a pitcher of the lemonade and left out a glass on the counter in order to remind myself to consume several glasses. On other days, I've consumed mostly water and saved a glass of Crystal Light for dinner. It made dinner feel a little more special than my usual water. I'm fine with consuming straight water throughout the day, but at meals, I want something with flavour.

Therefore, I've decided with the exception of the lemonade, to ration out my samples over meals. And also, to only sing the Crystal Light jingle at meals because we're still in the first week and I've already annoyed my family to pieces.

At this point in the challenge, it's still easy. It still feels fun to dance across the kitchen as if I'm in an aerobics video. Consuming the water feels like a game. While I haven't noticed a change yet in my skin and eating habits, I'm trusting that all will fall into place as the challenge continues.

Vacation Impossible: Plans and Infertility

2009-06-04T08:01:01-05:00

There's a Yiddish saying that translates loosely to "if you want to make G-d laugh, make a plan." And the inverse is true for those with infertility currently cycling: "if you want to make an infertile woman cry, ask her to make a plan. And while you're at it, dangle a vacation offer, a fare sale, and get really frustrated with her when she uncomfortably admits for the 80th time that she just doesn't know."

Not that I'm familiar with such behaviour or anything.

As summer approaches and people start pulling together their vacation plans, be sympathetic with the cycling infertile. Whereas others can bring the babymaking on the road, those seeking treatments live their lives in small windows of time, never knowing what the next step will be or when it will occur except in the loosest terms possible.

For instance, we once planned a beach vacation a month in advance. Hopefully, we would be pregnant from the current cycle, but even if we weren't, it wasn't a problem because we'd be in this limbo period of time right after our day-3 bloodwork and ensconced in stims, but still pre-monitoring close to ovulation. We counted out the days, we felt confident, it was only about a month away and we were in that very same window at the moment when we agreed to go to the beach with others.

We made a plan, so it was naturally time to cry.

We remained on stims longer than initially planned, ovulated later, and therefore, got our period later. Calendarwise, I thought I'd be past the day-3 bloodwork, but instead, it was falling on what should have been the first full day of our vacation. Skip the day-3 bloodwork and you skip the whole cycle at my clinic.

We actually got the call from the RE to discuss our proposed alternatives while standing in a Rite Aid on our way to the beach. We'd go for monitoring down there (there were no nearby places), we'd come back early and do the monitoring on CD5 (not helpful in terms of providing the necessary information), we'd cry really hard until a solution materialized. None did. Our two choices were to go on the trip and not cycle or to give up the trip (and have to explain why to the rest of the group) and get another chance at let's-make-a-baby.

We went to the beach and I cried the whole way. And then I cried some more every time we got a few minutes alone. And then I cried on the way home. Quite the vacation.

When you've been waiting a long time for parenthood, it is incredibly frustrating to take a month off. And at the same time, the lack of ability to plan more than a few weeks into the future means that you either need to miss out on things or take cycles off from time to time. If we hadn't had a cycle cancelled in the recent past, taking off one cycle to go to the beach wouldn't have felt like a decision with huge consequences. But cycles were sometimes cancelled due to a poor response or cysts or elevated day-3 estrogen levels. And therefore, there were plenty of times when we had to apologize and bow out of social events or turn down tickets.

I turned to Cyclesista, the online support site for people who are cycling, to spread out some sympathy with those who are currently in treatments and thinking about their life in small windows of time.

MeAndBaby's Blog is currently in the two week wait before her beta after an dIUI (donor intrauterine insemination). She writes of insemination day: "So far it has been a very good day. I’m having a good hair day, all the songs on the radio in the car were ones I like, I was on-time for work and everyone I see seems to be in a good mood. And I realized this morning I picked out a nice outfit to wear -like I’m going on a “date”- with the soon-to-be father of my child -who I will never meet."

Musings of a Fat Chick recently illustrated this point when she made an appointment with a new RE, doing infertility math in her head to take her to August for her first IVF cycle. Except that she discovered that as soon as she gets her period, she'll be starting her cycle--two months earlier than expected.

And Weber's in Action had the opposite occur where she thought she would be cycling soon and was told not to pass Go until she had gotten an additional appointment with a specific doctor. She writes: "Needless to say, all I could do was laugh. Which after hanging up was followed by cry. Which was followed my more laughing. I'm thinking infertility is the expressway to crazy. IT HAS TO BE!"

Go give these women some comfort and kind words as their schedules are turned on their heads and go easy on friends this summer when they tell you that they just don't know what August looks like right now. They're not doing it to be annoying, they're doing it to try to have it all--the normal life and the chance for parenthood.

Believing in Me

2009-06-02T09:42:54-05:00

Right before Pesach, I made a promise aloud on my blog that I was going to try to lose 20 pounds by the end of August without doing anything more than changing the way I eat. I was going to have one salad per day, limit my daily candy-intake, and drink 2 liters of water. I stated it on my blog because I wanted to be held accountable. I wanted to be publicly embarrassed if I failed.

A few other bloggers joined me in mutual weight loss support and we all had a strong first week. I drank at least a liter of water per day (I was still trying to figure out how to also work in my daily coffee ration with my water intake) and ate salads and lost a pound in that first week. And I was pretty damn pleased with myself.

And then it was Pesach.

Anyone Jewish will immediately recognize the difficulties Pesach plays in the life of a picky vegetarian. I ate a lot of matzah which sort of killed my desire for water. Salads were fine, but I couldn't have my handful of croutons, so that made me bitter. We traveled, so I cut back on my water intake so not to annoy the crap out of everyone in the family with constant pee breaks (we still had constant pee breaks as we drove, so I'd like everyone to imagine for a moment how much worse it could have been if I had consumed the daily liter of water).

I meant to get back to my personal challenge when we returned home, but then I had my period and there is no way to consume salad and water when you're moaning softly on your bed, begging for the Aleve to start working.

So...er...I failed. Publicly.

Except that at the same time as I was going to slink into the corner and lick the new fat I had managed to acquire since beginning my personal challenge, BlogHer asked if I wanted to kick it up a notch; get paid to lead the Crystal Light Water Way Challenge. I would write about my experience on BlogHer, lead the Water Way Group where we could all support each other, and get Crystal Light to sample to boot. And I said yes because it bought me more time to not drink water.

Do you see the problem with this?

The moment I decided to do the Water Way Challenge, I quit my personal challenge completely, reasoning that if I have to do it starting in June, then I might as well start in June. I could take May to be my usual, semi-dehydrated self. Which is why when the Crystal Light theme song from the 90s started playing on continuous loop through my head, I started to question if I was the right person for this job.

Because while I believe in Crystal Light (I mean, it's tangible, so it's difficult to deny its existence), I don't really believe in me. I mean, I've already failed to drink the fabled 2 liters of water per day. Why would I do any better on BlogHer than I did on my own blog? Was I just setting myself up for failure as I attempt a lifestyle change?

But maybe that is precisely why I should lead the Water Brigade. Because I am someone who is prone towards dietary failure, therefore, you can be reassured that if I am sticking to it, with my feeble constitution and penchant for seeking loopholes (But I'm traveling! But it's Pesach! But I have my period!), then anyone who has more willpower than a Twizzler will be able to consume the eight glasses of water dictated in the water challenge.

My goals are simple: (1) lose a small amount of weight by drinking water before eating so that I consume a better portion of food, (2) have better skin by having better hydration, (3) use the numerous extremely cool water bottles we have clogging up the cabinet above the sink. And I'm asking you to join me as well. Sign up for Crystal Light's Water Way Challenge on BlogHer so we can support one another as we change our lives. You can add this little widget to your blog, too.