Julie Pippert: Using My Words

Today I had another appointment with the endocrinologist to discuss the treatment failure and the next step to keeping me functional. No wait, forget functional; I'd like to be well again. You know, healthy, with energy and a mind. In general, as a rule, rather than as a rare exception. See, here's the perplexing thing: my body is acting like it has tumors. But it doesn't. We tried treating me as if I did have the tumors and that stopped the symptoms but created a new ball of problems. So we stopped treatment. My main question is why? My next question is how do we fix it? The doctor visit today was confusing because there really wasn't time to have an actual conversation; it was, instead, a simple exchange of information. He'd been lecturing all morning and was running late, so I felt like I was spinning in a tornado. However, he proposed a new theory, the first time I've heard a doctor mention this although as I've slugged my way through the syrupy thick ba...

A while back, someone asked me why two specific phrases tend to make most people dealing with infertility go postal. As tough as infertility is to go through, it is also difficult to witness. When someone you care about is dealing with it, you want to do the right thing, you want to help. But it's so easy to feel a bit tongue-tied and awkward. When we feel awkward, there is a natural bit of defensiveness, a sort of backlash against the people we feel are making us tiptoe on eggshells. Or, a backlash against them telling us we crossed the line, hurt them or were offensive. It's easy to feel even more defensive when we Just Intended to Help. But there are two things you can advise infertile couples to do, and neither, in my experience, is ever helpful. Both are, in my personal and anecdotal experience, the antithesis of help and are near guaranteed to cause pain when you intended support, and may net you an angry friend. What are these two phrases? 1. just live childfree 2. just ...

It turns out that the human body is a fragile thing, delicately connected through balanced and interdependent systems. If one domino falls, the rest will collapse inelegantly behind it. It turns out that my body has done this. It turns out, that despite modern advances in medicine and many tests, we will not know why this has happened, and my doctor tells me, in fact, we are not even really sure what has happened. We can, it seems, only see the effects, and treat it as best we can, piece by piece, that way, and cross our fingers. Cross our fingers. Cross our fingers that if we shut down the system and reboot, it will come back up working properly. I'm not a big believer in luck. Luck to me is the popular kid who only notices me when she needs answer to homework, which isn't very often because luck is quite bright enough on her own. When luck grants me a favor, she is quick to ask for payment. Have a baby, lose a cat, for example. In order that I see proper balance in the univer...

About a decade ago or so, my husband and I stepped trepidatiously into the land of infertility. We'd been married about five years when we decide to try to conceive. This was, actually, a master plan. While my husband and I were still dating I went to my friend Julie's sister's wedding shower and she shared her master plan for marriage. I thought Holly was about as cool as it got, so I paid attention to every word she said, and logged it in my head like gold. Later, my husband liked the five year plan: play for five, then settle down. And it's true: for five years we played...and played...and played. One day, it felt like time. Let's have a baby. Only it didn't at all work out that way. I've gone through it before, the infertility saga, a la Part 1 , Part 2 , and Part 3 . The latest installment I haven't shared because...well, I am still processing. I want to, though, because sharing is what got me through infertility, and I feel like sharing might help ...

All right so my attempt to break-up the big, weighty posts with a bit of humor fell flat. Boy, nothing half so dreadful as delivering a punchline to dead silence. ;) So I'll get off the stand-up stage and leave the comedy to the comics. Back to the business at hand: having children. In Part 1 , I told you about our initial decison to have one child, and how that was thwarted by infertility until the Patron Saint of Follistim blessed us. In Part 2 , I told you about our decision to have a second child, and how that process was also overshadowed by our archnemesis Antigravida, and how the PTSD of infertility affected so much of our childbearing and child rearing. Now, time for the next bit: today and the future. My second pregnancy was more difficult, as were our life circumstances at the time. We moved, mid-way through my pregnany, to a new state halfway across the country. Our new house, which my husband bought on his own while I was stuck in MA, was a challenge. Even more challeng...

After our first daughter was born, my husband and I floated as if in a cotton candy vision of Heaven dream. I know, get out the insulin, how saccharin was that? Aspartame level, surely. Wink and laugh and nudge. Seriously, though, I don't know how else to describe it. We were dazed in a haze of happiness. I look back at photos of us the first few months. We look tired, a bit bewildered, but our faces are wide open with wonder and smiles. I look at pictures of me, cradling my newborn, and there is such a glow. There is one picture in particular. It was just before Easter, right after Patience was born. She was just a few months old. She had grown round with chubby cheeks, and her eyes had focused and looked intently at everything around her. Old soul eyes. She smiled, too, but only at you, not simply for you. We dressed casual nice and went to the mall for Bunny photos. I wanted seasonal character photos of my daughter, every season, every year. I wanted to click snap trap every mom...

I'm hopping on the theme bandwagon...this ongoing discussion in the blogosphere about onlies and siblings. Last night, as I complained about the stinking Unwelcome Aunt currently visiting me (and yes, I used a euphemism for "menstrual cycle." I often do. My favorite is "surfing the crimson wave." Seriously, you have to have a sense of humor if your Aunt is anything like my Aunt or you'll go crazy. I'll elaborate below.), anyway, last night, as I complained about the Aunt, my husband said, "Well you could always get pregnant again." And I replied with... (crickets chirping) Seriously. I said absolutely nothing. He waited, half joking smile on his face, eyebrows elevated...leaning across the bed towards me. And I said absolutely nothing. I think even my face---usually even more talkative than my mouth---was silent. He said, leaning back, "Uhhh, errrr, oookaaaayy, that fell flat. Nothing to say?" And I shrugged, still pulling an ironic ...