Waiting...

I have spent the past 18 months in a perpetual pattern of waiting. Waiting for my baby.

I just want the waiting to be over. I thought the DMV and the airport and the checkout line at the grocery store tested my patience. Indecisive people and endless government bureaucracy have nothing on infertility. Nothing. And unlike the DMV and the airport and grocery store line, sighing heavily, fantasizing about mowing people down with my luggage, and rolling my eyes as people fail to do their job in a timely and efficient manner does absolutely nothing to relieve and mitigate my frustrations. 

My test results from the OBGYN were all normal. Everything. Every last bit of the 6 vials of blood drawn reveal nothing out of the ordinary regarding my fertility status. Glucose: Normal. Hemo: Normal. Prolactin: Normal. Insulin: Normal. Thyroid: On the excellent side of normal. Lipids: Normal. MMR: Immune. Pap Smear: Normal. Progesterone: Normal. Normal, normal, normal. Seriously? SERIOUSLY?

Normal is good, I suppose. But it's not helpful diagnostically-there is no cure for normal. 

We are still waiting for my husband's tests to come back, and will likely know those tomorrow. Based on the current trend, I am predicting a "normal" result. 

So once again, I am stuck in a perpetual pattern of waiting. The next slight break in the holding pattern is July 15th, after more temperature charting and a scheduled fertility consultation.

Maybe it comes down to timing. Maybe it comes down to Heavenly Father knowing we have two nickels to rub together at best. Perhaps it comes down to us needing to pursue some alternative fertilization methods. Who knows. Right now, I just wish something were abnormal so I could come up with a plan to fix whatever the heck is going on, because not being able to fix this is the most frustrating thing I have ever experienced. 

So the waiting continues. And continues. Ceaseless and endless and exhausting and normal.

The Gift of Taking "Pause"

Yesterday was Mother's Day.

I spent the past week dreading it's impending arrival. Yesterday morning, cocooned in my bed and down comforter, I talked myself in and out of going to church and attending our family Mother's Day celebration.

I love everyone in my family so much. I wanted to go celebrate and spend time with them. I wanted the spiritual uplift from attending church. But holy crap on a cracker, I did not want to get out of that bed and face the world with my empty uterus, tragically peanut butter and jelly-free hands, and conspicuously child-free hips. 

At 8:05, while my husband was showering and getting ready for church, my phone vibrated. A sweet text from a friend at church who knew that I was probably going to spend the day blubbering like a walrus gave me just enough motivation to hop in the shower (though not enough to wash my hair) and put on a presentable outfit. I knew I could make it through the first hour of the meeting for the young women, and that we would be learning about a non-Mother's Day related topic. I went, and it was good, and then I hit the wall and left before Sunday School and Sacrament Meeting could commence. I knew that if sitting in Young Women's and seeing babies all over, being held and snuggled and cared for by their radiant mamas had almost sent me over the edge, the rest of the day would be an exercise in brinkmanship of the most dangerous kind. I had a very real fear that in the middle of a beautiful, spiritual talk about mothers and their divine roles, I would flip a nutty, start sobbing hysterically, and lob a hymnal at the pulpit. Which probably would just get me committed to the psych ward and not help me get an A+ on Project Baby. So we went home before I could use any hymnals as projectiles. 

We went to my in-law's for the rest of the day. There was something soothing about worshiping in the church of family yesterday. Surrounded by darling little nieces, nephews and cousins, I watched them discover, investigate, laugh, pout, and love. I have no doubt that Heavenly Father blessed me with positive feelings yesterday, helping me to focus on the pure love and joy of these sweet babies, instead of only the heartache and sense of incomplete that was gnawing around the edges of my spirit. I didn't feel resentful, or jealous, and losing those pangs of emotion made it easier to absorb the sadness I did feel and blot it out with the sweet experiences of being with family. And the great stories of cousins eating directly out of buckets of powdered sugar, and the antics of my brothers-in-law always brings a smile to my lips and heart. Just look at these darlings!

I missed my mom a lot yesterday. I wanted her to be with me, laughing and hugging and just spending time together. Living 2,000 miles away from home makes holidays like Mother's Day a little difficult to celebrate in the same city. But I know she was there for me, and as we spoke, I felt the very depth of how much we love and miss each other. Motherhood is an eternal bond, and I know that no matter how it comes about, I will someday experience that bond that stretches it's fingertips into the bright promise and shining hope of forever. 

I spoke with my mother-in-law about catching glimpses of our future that can help us make it through until our dreams become reality. I have had so many glimpses. They have been powerful-bright light piercing the choking and suffocating darkness. Sometimes, they don't feel like enough to get me to the next point, but yesterday, being with family was like drinking hungrily from a cool, desert oasis. Heavenly Father is letting me rest right now, and I have felt the touch of His hand upon my shoulders as He has allowed me to take pause. I never knew that "pause" could be such a beautiful and blessed word. 

Yesterday, surrounded by the love and laughter of people who love me and my sweet husband, and touched by the messages of some dear friends, I was buoyed up and given encouragement, and I haven't felt that for a long time. I am especially grateful that the divine hand restrained me and kept me from throwing hymnals at people. Talk about a tender mercy. Love and hugs to all of you mamas, mamas-to-be, and mamas to children that may not have been born of your own, beautiful selves. 

Abercrombie and Fitch and the Delusions of Mike Jeffries

To Mike Jeffries:

I know who you are. You are the CEO of one of the most recognizable and desirable clothing retailers in the nation. Your products live in the closets of millions of young people. Your ideals live in their minds and worm their way into their hearts.

You have no idea who I am. You will never meet me. I will remain relatively inconsequential and insignificant in your life. As an individual, you have little impact on my life, and I have little on yours. 

But I am part of a larger group of people, and we are certainly not insignificant or unworthy of recognition. My experience in life is a microcosm of the whole. A snapshot of what many men and women experience when their beautiful, divinely ordained and created lives smash up against the perversions and illusions constructed to shame their bodies, minds and souls. 

You sit at the helm of a multi-million dollar marketing machine, and you are completely aware of the impact that you have on popular culture. You know that your approval of marketing, in-store merchandising and presentation of your brand can impact and define the choices, desires and ultimately, the self-image of an impressionable group of people. You know your power, and you exploit it in the name of exclusivity. You channel it into a falsely constructed reality that propagates the message that image, thinness, sexiness and improperly defined masculinity are the keys to happiness, success, and value in life.

I spent years of my teenage life skulking through your store, the bass beat of dance music reverberating through my body as I picked at piles of paper-thin t-shirts, slim-cut v-neck sweaters and low-rise jeans, searching desperately for my size. I was disappointed every time. I remember wiping hot tears from my eyes as my friends hauled off piles of clothes to the dressing room to try on, and I stood outside, shifting awkwardly from foot to foot, staring at highly sexualized pictures of flawless teenage girls and men dripping with washboard abs and deep v-cuts. I purchased one item of clothing from your store in 2003, when I had unhealthily reached a size that your store actually sold. I wore it once before it fell apart in the wash. I have since wandered through your myriad of different stores and labels, and found myself entranced and drawn in to your clever marketing that made me wish I was prettier, thinner, sexier and worth more than the little I felt as I looked around your cleverly constructed universe of image-driven perfection. You made me feel ashamed of everything I am. And you do that to boys, girls, men and women, each day, out of a desire for profit, influence and cultural relevance.

I have known people who have worked for your company. I have seen the way they obsess over fulfilling the company standard for appearance. I have worked for one of your competitors that markets toward a more inclusive market, and felt confident, comfortable and supported in my work environment. But I have not once felt welcome in your stores, even when I could purchase and wear clothes you sold. 

To you, I am not cool. I am not attractive. I am not all-American with a great attitude. I don't have a lot of friends. I don't belong. I am excluded. I am totally vanilla. I am large. I am not thin. I am not beautiful. I am not someone to be targeted in a marketing campaign. I am not worth your money, time or service. I am not a person. I am undesirable  You don't even want me setting foot in your store for fear I will mar the image you have worked to so carefully cultivate. And I am only one of millions that have been classified as such by you.

The thing is, I am a 29 year old woman who knows the difference between truth and deception. I have the skills to dig myself out of feeling like a worthless piece of garbage because of media messaging. But that 15-year old girl you target as a customer for Hollister, or that 19-year old burgeoning man that you seek to draw through the doors of Abercrombie probably do not have those skills. You know that. You know that your definition of cool, sexy and valuable is seeping into their minds and hearts, and that you can potentially win the war for their dollars and ultimately, their self-worth. You know exactly what you are doing. 

What you don't know, and don't care to acknowledge, is that I am a person. A human. I definitely don't fit your standards of beauty and social worth. But I am a wife. I am a friend. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a teacher. I am created in His divine image. I am a woman. I am of infinite value and worth that is completely independent of your marketing campaign. You think you can define me by my height, weight and body shape, and others by their skin colors and nationalities, but you ignore everything that makes me who I truly am. But here is the key-I am also a consumer. And as a believer in the free market and enterprise, I know that a consumer has the power.

I will do everything in my power to not only encourage people to read your comments and personal ideals before they shop at your stores but also help people to reexamine their standards of beauty and social acceptance. When we break this entire mess of your insulting and demeaning comments and insinuations down to the most basic level, it lies in a desperate need to be culturally and socially dominant through shaming. As consumers, we can reject this method of marketing. 

You will likely go on to continue making millions of dollars as people throw dollar after dollar at you while chasing image and perfection. But I and others will go on to make sure that consumers know exactly what they are buying when they buy your products. They are buying misogyny. They are buying body shaming. They are buying unrealistic standards of beauty. They are buying bullying. They are buying a membership into a club of false exclusivity. They are part-owners in the campaign to diminish the worth of those outside of narrowly defined standards of acceptability. 

You are only a part of a much larger problem. There are countless companies and people who have the same vision and end goal as you. But you are so open about your beliefs and desire to be uber-exclusive, that you serve as a wonderful primer for people to learn the power of consumers educating themselves and rejecting a shameful and damaging message. 

I am a person. I am of infinite value of worth. Your success is ultimately fleeting. But the damage you inflict along the way to the top of the crumbling castle of social competition will not be ignored.

We are all capable of so much more than being looked at.

For more on Mike Jeffries and the vision and tactics of Abercrombie and it's subsidiaries:

http://www.businessinsider.com/abercrombie-wants-thin-customers-2013-5

http://abcnews.go.com/US/lawsuit-outlines-abercrombie-fitchs-ceo-michael-jeffries-rules/story?id=17519006#.UYqQ8LU4t8E

http://www.salon.com/2006/01/24/jeffries/

What to Expect When You're Not Expecting

Last week, I was so, so dumb.

On Tuesday, I woke up in a state of slug. Sloth. Turtle. Any variety of slow, almost imperceptibly mobile creature. I lay glued to my bed. I am pretty sure that my yoga pants and husband's t-shirt fused to the sheets. I raised my head off the pillow in order to rotate it enough to avoid a permanent crick in my neck. And I stared into space. For an hour. From 7:30 AM when hubby departed for work, to 8:30 AM when I decided I should do something productive.

Of course, productivity means embracing the miracle of technology by watching Netflix on my phone. Because whoever invented Netflix streaming was a freaking genius. And I love them. And hate them. Because it hurts so good when your pajamas are fused to the sheets and you have 100,000 titles at your fingertips. And when your dog is passed out next to you, allowing you to use her as a phone stand to avoid compromising sound quality and eliminating screen glare. Winning.

As my fingers skittered across the screen, the protozoan recesses of my brain took hold, and convinced me that watching, "What to Expect When You're Expecting," was a smart idea. The height of genius. I am expecting a call from the Nobel Commission next week, in fact. Or maybe the people who dole out the Darwin Awards each year.

As I watched the myriad of couples in this movie experience the joys, trials and travails of pregnancy, infertility, adoption and miscarriage, I chuckled and guffawed and then just began sobbing uncontrollably. Because the couple that I could identify with the most, the always beautiful Jennifer Lopez and her ridiculously good-looking husband, had a tender and touching and ultimately, completely unrealistic story-line that made me crazy angry. After failing to conceive naturally, they turned to adoption, and then, out of nowhere, the soon-to-be unemployed photographer and her model husband were gifted with an expedited international adoption and bliss ensued. Touching, yes. Realistic, no. Blech.

I admit, there were a lot of funny moments. "Dude's Group" was hilarious  It was a decent movie. But believe me, that conclusion has been reached only after a week of coming to terms with the fantastic elements of the story. I spent most of the week in a major fog, exacerbated by the dumb, dumb choice to watch this movie. Honestly, if my friend hadn't texted me about going to the gym just as I was finishing the movie while drowning in a pool of tears and my own snot, I am pretty sure I never would have peeled myself out of the bed. The police department would have had to set up a CSI scene, taping the room off and listing the cause of death as "Netflix-induced body to bed fusion."

But I have learned to expect a lot of things when I am not expecting. Because people with infertility issues need to laugh too.

1. Expect to consider buying or wearing (if you have happened your way into hand-me-downs) maternity clothes when you are NOT pregnant or post-natal. I am pretty sure I can fit in some of the clothes packed into my spare-room dresser drawer, and they are danged cute. Who cares if they all have "Motherhood" tags in them...

2. Expect to come home to pieces of plastic all over the house, and realizing with horror that your dog dug multiple pregnancy tests out of the bathroom trash (from that week you were sure you were pregnant and all of the tests were lying) and ATE them into little-bitty pieces.

3. Expect to be tempted to purchase baby items when you see them on sale. Because it's not enough to have an empty baby room chock-full of generously given baby hand-me-downs to torture you, so why not add a carseat, crib and all manner of baby necessities to your irony.

4. Expect to think about everything in terms of "but I'll be pregnant someday." Like, "I'll be pregnant someday, so I should start eating loads of Dairy Queen Blizzards now so my system will be able to handle that much ice cream later." Or, "I'll be pregnant someday, so I shouldn't bother trying to lose weight because I will just gain it all back." Or my favorite, "I'll be pregnant someday! If I just believe it, I'll achieve it!" Because 90's sitcom inspirational talks a-la-Danny Tanner and Carl Winslow always solve the most difficult problems.

5. Expect to walk through the baby section of EVERY store and have the compulsion to purchase EVERYTHING in sight. Because who doesn't need a breast pump when they aren't pregnant? I am sure it has some sort of culinary application. Hooded animal towels can totally be used as cute bathroom decor for a childless couples. Winnie the Pooh layette sets will be wonderful conversation starters with company and can double as potholders. Because nobody will think you are crazy if you walk to the grocery store, and load everything you buy into an empty Britax stroller to roll it on home.

I've learned that expecting anything when you're not expecting is a dangerous road to saunter down, let alone tip-toe along. 

The good news is, today, I peeled myself out of bed. My skin is attached to my body and not my sheets. And I have yet to view a single thing on Netflix. Winning.