Thalia's fertility journey: hopefully more comedy than tragedy

Children of men

I finally watched Children of Men last night. Only the second film I've watched start to finish since Pob was born. When it finished, in fact before it finished, I was reduced to wracking sobs. I knew from about 10 minutes in that the film was going to destroy me, but somehow I couldn't stop watching. The bleakness of the world it portrayed got to me from the first minute, particularly that there were no good guys, everyone was in it for their own goals, including the so-called terrorists who wanted to liberate the country. Somehow the absence of children has created a world where either people don't care about anything any more, and hence commit suicide, or where they care passionately, without any barriers, about an ideal and are prepared to do anything to work towards what they think is right. The ideal, for the terrorists, has replaced any concern for individual humans, they have little fear for their own lives, and no care for the lives of others.

But the moment that recuced me to blubber was the walk that Theo and Kee take with the baby out of the building where the battle is going on. That everyone - soldiers, terrorists, fugitives alike - stops what they are doing to stare at the baby, to try to touch the baby - although in a gentle, rather than frightening way - brought home more than anything else in the film the utter devastation that not being able to have children has brought to the world. I wept because I remembered what it felt like to be just one individual, wanting to reach out and touch the babies I couldn't have, although I cannot really imagine what it would feel like if I was one of billions of people who felt the same way. I wept because I know how it feels to have our baby, to love her as much as I do, and to know that I have friends who are still reaching out but haven't been able to feel that love, friends who have stopped trying to have the baby, who ran out of runway. All that pain was beautifully portrayed on film, the hands, the faces, the arms, the eyes, the sotto voce singing of lullabies. It was utterly heartbreaking.

One thing that got to me, which presumably wouldn't have done before our recent issues, was the fact that Kee didn't seem to ever put the baby to the breast. When the baby was screaming, it seemed as if it would have been the 'natural' thing to do. "The baby must be STARVING," I was thinking, "why doesn't she feed her? Please let the baby be ok!" Perhaps the filmmakers felt that breastfeeding was a step too far for the viewing public, perhaps it just wasn't the issue, but I was so worried that this young girl wouldn't be able to care for her baby, having never seen anyone care for a newborn before, that she wouldn't know what to do. It didn't seem to be the message of the film, so I'm trying to take away a message of hope, but it was hard, the whole film was so bleak, I kept waiting for something else to go wrong.

It was a tough, tough film. All night I dreamt of not being able to feed my baby, of not being able to give birth at the right time, of trying to care for other people's babies. A long time ago I agreed with a friend that we didn't need to see films that were just horribly upsetting. I both wish and don't wish I was still following that agreement. Being that upset is horrible, but perhaps it's a good thing, to remember my own pain, to empathise again with the pain of others, to want to do anything I can to avoid a world without hope. Who knows what difficulties the world will get into during Pob's lifetime.  I can't quite imagine an infertile world, but I can imagine a world heading for environmental disaster, a disaster even closer than it seems today. For now I will redouble my efforts to turn down the heating, to recycle, to give up plastic bags, to buy without packaging, the little things I do which I hope will help her inherit a world with hope. Strange the effect that one film can have.

Reunion

Hooray!

Catherine T. Smith

Many of you may be surprised at finding this entry on my blog today. I'm quite surprised myself. When I first read about it on another infertility blog (I've forgotten whose, I'm sorry), I wasn't immediately tempted to get involved. It just didn't feel right, to be focusing on these 2,996 at the expense of all the other victims of similar atrocities who we could be remembering. Then one evening I clicked through to the 2,996 website and thought, "yes, everyone here should be remembered." I don't feel any special relationship to those who died. I didn't know anyone who died, or even anyone who was affected directly by someone's death. But something in me decided I should make some effort to commemorate someone who died on a Tuesday morning in 2001. To recognise that this should not have happened, just as every day, all over the world, people die from violence that they did nothing to cause, from violence that has no end. And to recognise that people who die in such acts are real people, with real impact on the world, as a person, rather than as a statistic or a political symbol.

And so I remember Catherine T. Smith.

Catherine T. Smith had recently been promoted to the role of vice president at Marsh and McLennan. They describe themselves as a global professional services firm, who after 9/11 developed a business in consulting on terrorism risks to businesses. Their offices were in the impact zone of American Airlines flight 11's hit on the North Tower, or One World Trade Center. Catherine worked on the 96th floor. As such it seems very likely that Catherine would have died on impact, or immediately thereafter. At her memorial service, her nephew Michael, who was 12 at the time, insisted that "She did not suffer, she went in peace."

Catherine was 44 when she died, and she lived with her domestic partner, Evelyn Cedeno in West Haverstraw, NY, USA. Evelyn and Catherine had both been regulars at the same bar in Rockland County for over twenty years, but had only become a couple about six years before 9/11. They had met again shortly after they'd both suffered break-ups, and took the opportunity to cry on each other's shoulder. Cathy, as she seems to have been known to her friends, pursued Evelyn until she finally gave in, leading to their description of themselves as Penelope and Pepe LePew. They planned to retire early, making sure they could enjoy the beachhouse in Manahawkin, on the Jersey Shore, which they'd recently built.

I wonder what Cathy's earlier life must have been like, coming of age just six years after Stonewall. She seems to have grown up in surburban New Jersey - what would her High School experience have been like in the early 70s? At least NYC would have been close by. By the end of her life, her sexuality seems to have become a non-issue. She had a happy relationship, she had good friends and colleagues, she had her family. She was close to her family, and spent the weekend before 9/11 shopping with her sister and mother for her mother's birthday. Michael, her nephew, said she was the aunt who was always there for him.

Reports describe Cathy as warm and loving, as well as full of smiles, with a real joy for life. I worried initially that this wasn't authentic, that that is just an easy thing to say about someone who has died so suddenly, but particularly after reading spontaneous comments from those who knew her in high school, combined with all those from family, friends and colleagues, it does seem to have been a strong characteristic. After all, she drove a canary yellow Volkswagen, so she must have had a great sense of humour. She collected baseball cards, and, according to her housemate Jill Aney, she planned to set up a business trading them. I get the impression she might have been a bit shy, even with all the smiles, which makes her pursuit of Evelyn all the more impressive.

The information has run out on me now. Catherine didn't leave any artefacts on the web during her life. The informaton that exists about her are her obituaries, comments on memorial sites about her, and a report of her memorial service. I'm sure those who loved her are finding this anniversary hard, as every day must be hard, living without someone you loved - love - so much. I wish I could give more insight, could more readily convey what she was really like, to live up to what I'm sure they are all feeling. But I can't. I'm only typing about someone I never met. I hope this is enough.

I remember Catherine T. Smith. I remember her as a person, and I remember her because her impact on the world should not go unnoticed.

Circle the Wagons

Liana and Mason have had the worst week imaginable, the death of their longed for, planned for, years-in-the-making baby at about 13-14 weeks gestation, only picked up 2 weeks later. Please please go and let Liana know you are thinking of her.

Petrified

Thank you for all the support in my many freakouts and stresses in the last week. And for the lovely comments on my engagement ring story. I'm glad you all got it. It seems many of us have had similar experiences. That's happened to me a lot on here. I think something is taboo, I write about it, and many of you chip in saying you feel the same way - the best example is probably my Obsession post. Boy did that feel better.

Sadly the stressing is not over. I feel stupid for worrying and being stressed when at the same time LEB's 12 week pregnancy is ending again, and zhl's cycle was cancelled for a response level not that different from mine (please go and pay them a visit if you haven't already). But I recognise that this is my stressful situation and I need to deal with it in the way I can best cope with. For me that means posting, reading, and commenting on your blogs, and watching crappy tv and reading a lot of newspapers. And Heat. But still I've spent a lot of this weekend freaked out about what might happen tomorrow morning. Dr Google has nothing encouraging to say about my E2 levels. I went and read through Julie's IVF#4 story as I remember her not producing many follicles on this cycle - the one that conceived Charlie - but she was ahead of me at this stage, so no respite there. And I can't get over how low the E2 is.

And again, of course there is nothing I can do about it. I just have to go to bed, go to sleep, wake up and go to the clinic. And stay as calm as I can. Please, although I know it's pointless, hope for me that this isn't cancelled. I can cope with fewer eggs, nothing to freeze, but I don't want to have to wait until I'm 39 to do my first IVF.

May you be sealed in the book of life for a good year...

Preparing for Yom Kippur which starts in a few minutes. My best wishes are with you all. You've done so much for me in the last year, thank you. I'll be thinking of you as I reflect on the year past and the year to come. For those who are fasting, Be well over the fast. And for those who are not, if you haven't already, go and show Ovagirl some love.

London, 3 days later

It feels the same. It's sunny today, and we took a two hour walk to a fair that was happening in a local park. It was full of families having fun. We tried a small cafe's home made icecream, which was delicious. We wandered by the river. And every newsagent we passed had signs outside: "Pictures of the missing".

I've now read through these profiles in the paper three times - Friday evening, Saturday morning and this morning. They are very poignant. I remember reading the New York Times obituaries of the 9/11 dead, and being left with a sense of lives not lived, and how ordinary they were, until something extraordinary happened. And I remember the story of the guy from Cantor Fitzgerald who walked his son to nursery on 9/11 and so didn't get to work until 09:15, and so survived. Just like the guy who got off the number 30 bus on the morning of 7 July, because it was going so slowly, at 09:45. He told a guy trying to get on: "There's a free seat upstairs, mate." Two minutes later the top of the bus blew off.

London is determined to carry on. Although the city was quiet on Friday the weekend has been normal. I went on the Tube yesterday morning and it was the same as every Saturday morning. Except that when I got off at Holborn there was no entry to the Picadilly Line. And tomorrow when I take the Picadilly line to work I'll have to get off two stops early and walk. Who knows when they will be able to get the line working again. We'll cope.

I'm struck again by the debate on my post about hierarchies of loss. Is this bombing less awful than 9/11? Than Lockerbie? Because "only 70" people have died. Isn't that an extraordinary indictment of how we feel about world events. The loss that is felt by those 70 people's loved ones will be the same, whether it was 70 or 700. The difference from 9/11 that I can see, is that given the scale of the loss, I imagine that most people in New York were affected in some degree - perhaps second or third hand - but everyone had their lives touched by loss. For me and everyone I know, we don't know anyone who was lost last Thursday. I cry at the pictures in the paper, but it's a distant grieving, not a heartfelt loss. And unlike New York, Londoners are used to bombs. As a teenager I got used to planning longer than I needed for tube journeys to make up for disruptive bomb threats. But mostly when the IRA made a bomb threat, they made it in time to evacuate people. These people are in a different mindset.

Thanks to all of you for the thoughts you have posted on your blogs.

SBIH

Something very sad and bad is happening to Julia right now. I know (almost) no one is coming here, but if you have come here without having visited Julia, it would be great if you could go and give her a hug. Julia I am so very very sorry.