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09/17/2007
Jaded
Our local diner has a big table in the front right near a picture window that faces onto the street. A sign on the table warns patrons that the table is designated for parties of 5 or more "or those who don't mind sharing." I never mind sharing, especially when I'm with Charlie; if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a busy New England diner to distract Charlie from the fact that starvation is setting in, he's beginning to feel positively lightheaded from malnutrition, vision...blurring..., and his silver dollar pancakes should have been here days ago.
Yesterday morning we shared the table with an older woman who had three young boys with her. They were nice kids, enthusiastic without being rowdy. This could have been because as they joined us, the woman reminded them to be on their best behavior "to set a good example for the baby," meaning Charlie. Unfortunately, that worked both ways; with the kids there I had to scrap my plan to hop up on the table, take over the place Pulp Fiction-style [YouTube], and demand the goddamned pancakes already. All polite-like, Honey Bunny.
I am happy to report that all of the young people behaved beautifully. When the two oldest boys had finished their meal, they left the table to visit the restroom. I took advantage of their absence to ask the woman whether they were her grandchildren. They were. "Lucky you!" I said, meaning it. "They're great kids."
The youngest boy, who was probably about six and who'd stayed with us at the table, piped up, "Do you have any grandkids?"
"No," I told him. "Charlie is my son, and he's not even three yet, so I can't have grandchildren until he's much older." (And if he's not infertile, I did not add.)
"Oh," said the kid, and thought about it. Then, "Do you have any other kids?"
"No," I told him.
"But you could," he said. "She could," he insisted, over the protest — "Joe, that's private!" — his grandmother was making. "She probably has some in her belly that she could just push out whenever she wanted!"
And there are people who would have felt terribly hurt by this. It is kind of horrible, I guess, not only having that knife slipped swiftly between your ribs and then viciously twisted, but having it done by a freckle-faced, gap-toothed moppet with impeccable table manners.
But, God, I am so jaded that it didn't hurt at all. Instead it made me laugh. Because all I could think was, Thanks, kid. You don't know what a favor you've done me. Now I have something to blog about.
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Ah, the innocence and positive nature of kids. Kind of refreshing - he has total faith that you can have another. Kids always seem to have a sixth sense that we lose as we get older...
If only Joe. If only.
From his mouth to God's ears.
First time comment, but I recently spent a couple of nights reading your blog from the positve news of Charlie up to the present day.
Julie, you are an amazing woman. I've faced different challenges than yours, but we've got many things in common (Factor V, anyone? 2nd pregnancy was monitored VERY closely). I keep hoping and praying that the donor eggs bring you the child you so deserve.
Oh, and can I say I have a huge laugh at your adorable child singing the Roche's "the Married Men" and "We". Too funny.
You know, I never minded comments from children. They were so innocent and the comments were often so funny, that I just couldn't get bothered.
Yeah, comments from kids are so funny and straight that it's hard to let them bug you.
Glad, too, that it gave you fodder.
Ah, if only it really were that easy!
A friend's child recently informed me that our upstairs bedrooms were rooms for kids ONLY. They were KID SIZED ROOMS, and adults shouldn't live there! It WOULDN'T WORK, KATE!
Yes, darling. I couldn't agree more.
Can one push out those forgotten babies and relax at the same time? If not, which should you do first?
Also, do all women have spares hanging around in there? It would explain a lot about my side view.
I was struck mostly by the grandmother's comment. Wouldn't most people have just said "That's right. She could."? Makes me wonder what her experience with infertility is.
when a stranger gives us a reason to smile when preparing for a cycle it is always a good thing.
cheering for you here in maryland.
God Julie, you may not believe it, but to have your take on the world - to be able to see it with such humor and grace - is such a gift. Thanks for sharing it with all of us.
What a story!
Sounds like the grandmother actually handled the situation better than many other people might have. I wish I could tell the kid to send us all some babies to push out of our bellies...
Give Charlie a hug for us in the meantime. Hope he got his pancakes!
That's funny, because when we were trying so hard for our second, I always felt like I had one more in there, waiting to be pushed out. It's partly why I didn't look into adoption.
That had to hurt.
Sorry , Julie.
Sounds like a good laugh and seeing as how you have a biological child, it seems that you did beat the infertility odds, at least partially. A comment like that would make me feel less bad about what I didn't have and more happy about what I'd already achieved and proud of the struggle I'd been through to make a family.
Well, way to go, Grandma. She's right, it IS private, and six-year-olds need to know there are subjects you don't discuss with strangers, even over silver dollar pancakes.
well, having someone so much faith in you is at least refreshing. I'll take that over my RE's opinion any time...
I agree with the commenter that said you are full of grace. You are. Kids say things like that, though. My husband's brother came home from Germany with his wife and sons, for Christmas. His older son kept asking me where my kids were. For a whole month. Whenever he saw me. Finally, on Christmas Day we were all gathered round the fire, and he asked me again, where are your kids and I explained again that I don't have kids, I'm too young yet, and I DON'T HAVE KIDS. He looked at me, puzzled, and said, just as the room went silent....
BUT YOU HAVE BIG MOMMY THINGS!!!!
Ah, kids. ;-)
I'm laughing because it's happened to me, too. Only instead of having the grace and sensitivity this grandmother had, the parents will agree and ask when we're having another one.
Ummm... yeah. Kids are funny.
Heehee that's cute. Kid comments don't bother me either. My mother and my sister make up for it.
After awhile I found it almost refreshing when I'd get something like that thrown at me (aside from maybe the implication that I looked fat) - that people couldn't see the icebergian trash heap of infertility-related heartbreak on which I was precariously perched. To them, I was "normal", fresh-faced, full of possibility and good eggs. I didn't know I could look like that anymore.
The moppets get a pass from me too.
Great. Now I have to worry that all my efforts to overcome infertility have created an infertile child. But then again, this could mean he'll have trouble knocking up his high-school girlfriend, which will ultimately extend my own life by sparing me from a heart attack. So I'll still be around by the time he's really ready for kids, when IVF with ICSI will cost about twenty bucks (the co-pay for the superb national medical plan that will hopefully be instituted during his lifetime). So as long as he has SOME sperm, he'll be good to go.
We've been ttc#2 for 3 years and I've still got the 4 months pregnant belly from #1. A couple weeks ago I had a little girl ask me about my big baby belly. I smiled and explained no baby, just belly. You can't really get mad at kids for stuff like that.
Aha! I now know where you live! I too have had breakfast at that front table. My husband and I shared breakfast with all the local regulars there when I was 5 months pregnant with my twins.
Unless there's more than one of those tables in New England...
Oh, and the kid comments can sometimes be uncomfortable, but at least they are innocent.
The adults don't get that benefit of the doubt.
I can totally relate ... my husband now has a "blog disclaimer" when we get important news. Hee.
p.s. People say the crappiest things sometimes.
What a thing to say!
Hopefully she meant it as a compliment.
If you need something to blog about, what's your opinion of this?
http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/lesbian-pair-sue-for-cost-of-twin/2007/09/18/1189881494736.html
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/lesbian-sues-over-ivf-twins/2007/09/18/1189881493520.html?page=2
Julie
I'd love to see your take on this article...
too funny that heather and I sent you the same article (sister publications, the Age and the Sydney Morning Herald)
Very funny that we see an IVF story and think "what's Julie's take on this?"
not sure why but when I tried to comment again it deleted my initial comment which was to ask your opinion of this: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/lesbian-sues-over-ivf-twins/2007/09/18/1189881493520.html?page=2
I always take comments like these as good omens. (superstitious as I am). Much better than a kid saying "Noooo she can't have more kids...she's ooooooold"
I was re-reading early entries of your , the ones about the methotrexate termination of the tubal pregnancy. I was moved to tears. "That poor woman," I thought. "She has no idea that as bad as this is, it isn't even going to be the worst of it."
Maybe just as you coudn't have known how bad it would be, back then, right now you have no idea how good it will be. Maybe the worst is all behind you. Maybe it will just get better and better and your family will keep growing in ways that make you happier than you could imagine today.
Or maybe the kid is right -- you've got one in there you could just push out whenever you felt like it.
When I was a kid and my aunt had just gotten married, I asked her if she that meant she was a mom now. As far as I knew one equaled the other. Innocence is bliss.
I like his attitude and though it could be hurtful in some ways, what a great attitude for him to have. I hope that doesn't come out wrong...and I agree that it's much better than "you are too old to have kids!"
Julie, how about that new HBO series, Tell Me You Love Me? Have you seen this? It's a drama about couples and, boy, is it explicit. They show near-porn-level sex, and yet somehow I find it completely devoid of the erotic. Anyway, in one of the couples, the wife is played by the actress who was on Lost and Mind of a Married Man, and she hasn't gotten pregnant though they've been trying for a while. Her husband wants to tell people they're trying to conceive but having no luck (and possibly getting advice and support from people who've been in the same boat), whereas she is dead-set against telling anyone anything. He says, "Let's get tested," and then she confesses that she went and got tested (hormone levels? HSG? what? they don't specify) the week before but hadn't told him because she was terrified that there was something wrong with her.
So this show is nuts. I say if she's not going to tell friends and relatives what's going on, and she's not even going to be open with her husband about what she's feeling and doing, hell, sister needs a blog. So far their couples counselor hasn't suggested blogging.
I think it's kind of cute too. My six-year-old asked yesterday if there was any kind of store that you could "buy" baby brothers or sisters (and for those adopting, please don't jump down my throat, this is a six year old that said this). I said "Don't I wish. You'd have a few by now if it was that easy."
Hi Julie,
We have a son, 4 years old and have been trying for another for 3 years, after numerous iui and ivfs we are close to giving up. My son has known for a while that babies comes from mummies tummies, and one day he just asked: But Mummy, how do babies get into the mummies tummies? The explanation followed (much to my husbands chock, but I don't want to tell my son lies) and he was told after the explanation that "and that is called that grown ups have sex". Fast forward a few days: We are sitting in a bus and in comes a mother with a child. My son then asks me in that loud voice that children have: I want a baby in our family to, why dont you and daddy have sex so I can have one?
If only he knew how much sex we have had in order to bring another baby to this family... On the other hand a busload of people had their entertainment that day...
Best
Trine
I thought you were going to say that the woman was actually the mother of the boys. My husband has been asked many times if our boys were his grandsons. Of course they don't know how long it took us to have them (infertility). But I still think it is rude. Adults I mean, not kids. Then again he's also been asked if they are "his" because they are not the same skin color. Kids are kids, and they will ask inappropriate questions. But adults, they should know better.
When my son and I were in the urologist's office last week he asked if we were there to get the baby who died out of me--again, only in the loud voice a child has. I had to tell him that we had already done that, this was to get the kidney stones out of me. Then he asked if he could have a baby sister after I got the stones out...
-Erica
I personally like the trend of older people having children.
Thanks for sharing! I have a mental picture of what that sassy little guy looks like!
I was just over at REDBOOK and wanted to repeat how much I enjoy your writing. It's funny, personal, informative, and brilliant. Also, my favorite line you've ever written is "When a reproductive endocrinologist and a credit card love each other very much". Great to see it pop up again!
When my husband and I were first married, his niece asked "When are you and your wife going to get a baby?" (she asked this like we could just get a baby from a store). He laughed and said "soon" (this was before we discovered that we had infertility problems. This has become a cute story in the family and my husband refers to it frequently during our process of adoption.
The pure innocence/positivity of kids amazes me. Oh to be so un-jaded as we grow up!