Gifts of Infertility Series - #7 - Blogging

I've been a blogger since about 2006, and have worked through a progression of blogs. When I started this blog, I was actively maintaining two others. One of those has been sadly neglected (but I hope to resurrect sometime soon), but the other is still going strong. So I already knew that I could meet like-minded people through blogging. Likewise, my experience with an on-line support network and charity meant that I already knew how useful on-line support could be to learning, healing, and surviving.

So when I started this blog, I knew what I was looking for. I wanted to link with women who had been through similar experiences, and who were still dealing with the issues of living life with no kids. And I wanted to be able to talk about my own experiences, to help to formulate and consolidate my own views about this life. But I also wanted to talk about my own experiences to make sense of them, to to feel that those experiences weren't pointlessly painful, but could help others. And I have achieved all this, I think.

But what I didn't expect to find was a blogging community, and to learn so much more about blogging. Much of this is a result of Mel’s blog, where she actively talks about blogging, about community, , BlogHer, and the importance of good commenting. But it’s also about a community that cares about blogging and awareness, and specifically it is about the people who contribute. Mel I've also mentioned, Pamela’s example of deep thought and awareness activities, and Lisa’s Life Without Baby community (amongst many others, not least Loribeth, and more recent arrivals) take our experiences, put them in context, and give them a wider voice. Most importantly, they make them matter. As part of this community, we reach more people than I could ever have imagined. (Through Pamela (originally) and Nicole, my own Huff Postarticle is an example).

If I hadn't been part of the ALI blogging community, I wouldn't regularly be challenged to think deeply, to think about my life specifically and in a broader context, to think about new ideas, to consider other people’s perspectives, to understand how other people live.

Likewise, I wouldn't have this desire to turn up one day at BlogHer - though I’ll have to earn some money first.

Gifts of Infertility Series - #6 - New adventures in exotic lands

I have enjoyed a number of very special opportunities and experiences as a result of my infertility and loss. They range from simply meeting people I would not have otherwise met, to some fun experiences overseas:  

• That first raucous evening in an Italian restaurant in London back in January 2005, or a more recent meeting with friends at a pub in Reading
• My adventures in Coventry, Gloucestershire and Leicester, where I threw caution to the wind and stayed with people I had only ever met on the internet ... having invited myself!  (“They could be axe murderers for all you know,” said my slightly concerned husband.)
• A cream tea (I LOVE clotted cream) after exploring Warwick Castle with two of the axe murderers 
• Not-as-civilised-as-it-sounds-but-way-more-fun wine tasting in London with Sarah and Ruth on a warm summery day a few years later
• A day with the lovely Laura, exploring Westminster Abbey, pretending to shop for 4000 pound handbags in Harrods, and a champagne afternoon tea at Claridges (now one of my “must-dos” in London)
• Discovering the charms of English village life with Kathryn and her family, including a little one who shared a due date with my second lost little one
• Walking through a market in France with my internet friend who had flown in to Geneva specifically to spend a weekend with me and my Kiwi friend who was living there
• Discovering Slovenia, a country I may never have visited if it hadn’t been for Klara (and enjoying the delicious Lake Bled cream cake that it turns out is very similar to the Denheath custard square near my home town)
• A spectacular detour through the Dolomites a week or so later, as recommended by Klara’s husband.

One of the most special experiences, though, was attendance at the ectopic charity's ten-year birthday party in the House of Commons in London. It was very cool to be allowed into the Houses of Parliament, to stand in a room and look out of those windows at the river Thames, when normally I am on the other side, with a camera, photographing it from within. I loved emerging from the House of Commons as night fell, to take a photograph from inside the walls. And I was amused to see how the English love an afternoon tea, tucking in with relish! But of course what made this experience so special was that most (not all) my special friends were there. Some of us had a drink in the ancient pub on the corner beforehand, and later some of us squeezed into a taxi and headed off for dinner.

These are special memories, experiences I would never have had otherwise. And I hope for many return visits. But I hope there will be new experiences too, in the future, with some of you, in Canada and the US (California, Oregon and the East Coast), or Amsterdam, Sweden and Finland too.  And I have hosted visitors here in New Zealand too.  The fact that I hope to do this more in the future might seem obvious, but I have to say it too.

The key thing though is what brought us together.  We were more alike than we were different. Infertility and loss has made the world seem smaller. And that’s a wonderful thing.   

Gifts of Infertility Series - #5 - Knowledge

I like learning. I have a Master’s degree in Political Science. I speak (well, dabble in) several languages. Development assistance (aid programmes) has been an ongoing career interest of mine. As a result I've learnt a lot about a lot of different topics, including areas about as different from Political Science as you can get. For example, I was once asked by a World Bank engineer if I was an engineer too, after talking to him about civil engineering and road maintenance management! And more recently I've learnt a lot about tertiary education, and about corporate governance. But due to deficiencies in my primary school education, I was never really into science. Biology was an elective subject after the age of 16, and there were other subjects that I was keen to pursue at the time. (Also, I didn't want to have to dissect a rat.)

But through infertility and ectopic pregnancy, I have learnt so much about human biology and reproduction. In fact, I can guarantee that I know more about this than most of my friends and relatives who have actually had children. I know I knew more about ectopic pregnancy diagnosis and treatment than the junior doctors or emergency clinic GPs who were dealing with my case during my second ectopic. And that was before I started volunteering, when I had access to world leading research on ectopic pregnancy, and daily I learned more from the medical professionals (one in particular, she knows who she is) I was working with. 

I know I'm not alone in this. Every woman who has been through infertility or IVF will come out knowing much more about their reproductive biology than when they went in. I've seen many cases of women having to explain to their own doctors the details of their own cycles, and the implications of these. The misnamed 21-day test to check if a woman is ovulating is a classic example. It is only accurate if a woman ovulates on cycle day 14, and many don’t. My own GP looked at my results and said “I'm sorry, I don’t think you’re ovulating.” But I was charting my cycle, and there was strong evidence that I was. A few weeks later, I printed out my charts and presented them to my fertility specialist at our first appointment. He looked at them and said, “there’s no doubt that you’re ovulating.” I felt vindicated. And I have to say that the more I learnt about my cycle, the more empowered I felt, even if I was in fact learning how powerless we are when it comes to reproduction.

Knowledge is power. In my case, it wasn't power enough to conceive or carry children, but it was power. It helped me understand why further IVF cycles would be a waste of money. It helped me understand why I had ectopic pregnancies, and how to keep myself (and others) safe. Knowledge gave me the understanding, and the freedom, to accept the hand I’d been dealt. For me, knowledge was empowering, and I loved learning more and more, regardless of the implications for my own situation, and for years after my own fertility journey was over.

It makes me wonder whether, if my education had been different, I might have considered medicine as an occupation. I’ll never know. But I appreciate that my infertility and losses sparked an interest that lay latent within me.

Seven thoughts on ICLW

I have just finished participating in ICLW for August. It has been a long time since I joined ICLW – it was almost as if I was a newbie doing it for the first time. Every day, I have left at least six comments on other blogs, and in particular I made an attempt to comment on the blogs of the others who had signed up.

The experience has made me think, and has brought up a few questions too.

1. For the first time in a while, I was pulled out of my niche within the ALI community, and exposed to the wider community. There were a couple of us who are living life with no kids, there were women who were still trying to conceive through assisted reproduction, women who are adopting, and women who were parenting after infertility. It was good for me to remember how broad this community is, and how we all started from the same place – whether a week ago or fourteen years ago - and to participate in their lives on-line, even if briefly, even if we have ended up with very different lives.
2. But on the other hand, it also reminded me how separate I am from most of the community.  I don’t deliberately isolate myself, just reading bloggers who are Not Kidding. I read bloggers who are trying to conceive, or are adopting, or who are now parenting.  I read them because we have a connection. But let’s face it, I am way further on in my life journey than most ALI bloggers, and so finding something in common, making that connection, is perhaps more difficult.  As I reflect on this, I realise it doesn't bother me at all, and that I am very comfortable with where I am in the ALI blogging world. I blog elsewhere too, and that fills a lot of my needs too.
3. There was a small group of bloggers on the ICLW list that I could not relate to at all. It was a tone and approach and philosophy issue, and I'm afraid to say these blogs didn’t receive any comments from me. I didn't have anything to say to them, although I tried to think of something.  But in the end, I just didn’t see the point - for them, or for me. It would be “tick the box” commenting, and to me, that’s a waste of a comment.
4. There were some bloggers who had signed up whose blogs were inaccessible – the links didn’t work or were private, for example – and there were other bloggers who had signed up, but who had not blogged for several months. Others made no effort to blog during the week at all, so there was no conversation going on. Why would these people sign up? They never participated – as far as I could see (though I fully accept that maybe they felt about me the same way I felt about the blogs in #3). So again, I decided that this would be “tick the box” commenting, and that’s not for me. It goes against the principle, as I understand it, of ICLW in the first place.
5. With the above provisos, I happily commented on most of the blogs on the list (most of them new to me) for the first few days. But I struggled to find blogs to comment on during the last few days of ICLW, when there were few new posts.  So for the last couple of days, I found myself going through my own list of favourites rather more carefully – those in my reader, rather than those on the ICLW list. I commented on blog posts that I’d read a while ago, but had never commented on (I blame reading my iPad in bed for this). I appreciated the blogs I regularly read (and often who read me) by ensuring I commented.  And commented well. It was an exercise in mindfulness, in gratitude, and that was good for me.
6. But this exercise also made me think about some blogs where I read and comment but never (NEVER) get return comments, or even acknowledgements of my comments. I have decided that I will delete these from my reader. I guess I feel I’m being ignored. I make an effort, but it is never returned in kind. I offer support, but it is never even acknowledged. So is it appreciated? I don’t know, but I suspect not. I reach out, in an effort to make a connection – after all, there are not that many of us who blog with no kids – but I am essentially rejected. I don’t comment simply to increase my own readership, or the number of comments I get. That’s not the issue. A feeling of personal connection attracts me to a blog. If, even after months or years, there is no reciprocal connection – whether through reciprocal comments, or a response to a comment, or even a message in a post that commenters are appreciated, then I get the message. I’ll stick with those who care, who engage in a conversation, who connect – for whatever reason – with me in some way. It’s better for my self-esteem, after all. And it is important for me to show my appreciation to bloggers who value it.
7. So this brings me to my final thought. If you comment here, don’t ever doubt that you are appreciated. I respond to comments (sometimes but not always), and I try to visit your blogs too. I don’t always comment (the awkwardness of holding an iPad in bed and typing with one finger, and the contrariness of Blogger freezing on the iPad when editing a comment, all make it harder), but I try to do so regularly enough that you know I care. Because I do.  And I'm grateful.

Gifts of Infertility Series - #4 – Saving Lives

Infertility, or loss, helped me save lives. Literally. I got involved in volunteering after having two ectopic pregnancies. The volunteers at our website were largely women who did not go on to have pregnancies after our ectopics. A couple did, and one woman adopted, but several of us never did. The reasons were twofold. One was that we wanted to make sense of our losses, and by helping others we were doing this. The second reason is more practical. We had the time. If I’d successful got pregnant and had a child after my ectopics, then I doubt I would have volunteered. It was a big commitment, and had I been working full-time (rather than self-employed) or been caring for a child, I would never have had the time.

You may (or may not?) know that ectopic pregnancies are life-threatening, and even now, in 2014, there are women dying in developed and developing countries because they are not properly diagnosed, or don’t know to seek medical help. I was lucky. I had an alert GP who didn’t make assumptions, and even though she thought I probably had had an early miscarriage, she sent me for serial bloodwork to ensure that this was the case. Other women are not so lucky.

I have, over the years, seen countless examples of women who had exactly the same presentation as I had, or even more serious presentations, who were sent home multiple times by their doctors, or by the emergency departments at their hospitals. I've talked to an American who had very concerning symptoms, but who was reluctant to go back to the hospital that had already sent here away, because her insurance didn't consider ectopic pregnancy to be an emergency. I have counselled many women who have been sent away, their concerns and instincts dismissed by busy doctors, and who are then embarrassed to go back in case their concerns are invalid.  I've said the words “I would far rather you feel silly for worrying and keeping yourself safe, than a few days later you (or your doctors or I) feel silly when you collapse because you’re bleeding out or worse.” I've had to say those words multiple times.  I've had to tell women to "go to the hospital.  NOW!"

I have, with my fellow counsellors, under the leadership of a very dedicated medical professional, worked with women who have been at their wits end, women who didn't know what to do, women who didn't understand what was happening to them, and women who didn't know if they should seek medical help. There were times, just a few, when it was very clear that one of us, or all of us, had saved someone’s life by sending them to the hospital, giving them the right questions to ask, and the confidence to insist on answers and investigations and treatment. 

Knowing that I did this? It feels good. Having the ability and opportunity to do that? It was undoubtedly a gift.