2/06/2005

A day of hilarity

I don't believe in segues, as my train of thought is anything but logical. This post will be an assortment of thoughts from today, but there is a uniting theme--that sometimes in life you get so sick of crying that you have to laugh. In the world of infertility it doesn't take long to get this point and I think most of my days contain incidents which might have upset me before, but now I'm so numb to the shocking unfairness of it all that I don't feel like expending the negative energy that is required to rage.

1) I read a magazine article today about a tragic woman that is too fertile. The poor dear got married at 20 and decided to have children straightaway with her new husband. She was on contraceptives and was told by the doctor that it would take awhile for her to get pregnant as it might take 6 months or so for the drugs to leave her system. Quelle surprise, she got pregnant inside a month. After having a second child by the age of 22, she then decided to get her tubes tied to avoid any further pregnancies. For some reason she then chose to have an endometrial ablation, which is the removing of the womb lining, hence reducing her chances of ever getting pregnant to just about nil. She heaved a sigh of relief thinking, "Phew...no more of those little rugrats!". But oh, doesn't fate have a way of kicking us all in the ass, because guess who got pregnant a few months later? The tone of the article was one of, "Oh shucks...isn't it funny how these things just happen!", a light-hearted little story of one woman's struggle with being very fertile. Is there a blogging community of women that are hopelessly fertile?

2) Sisters-in-law. The bane of the infertile woman's existence, as chances are they have no difficulty reproducing. Mine are no different, and I find one of them particulary offensive though I keep these thoughts to myself. The poor girl doesn't try to annoy me, but she's one of those fertiles that (as ordained by the all-powerful me) should be infertile instead of me. She has two children, ages 4 and 10 months. Her husband is the least paternal person I've ever met, and if in 4 years I've seen him play or even hold one of his children 3 times I'd be exaggerating. He'd much rather spend his time at the pub, or finding some other way to marginalise his wife into the stereotypical role that a woman is supposed to fill. Not only that, they have very little income and often subsist on obtaining most of what they own in a rather...unsavoury and perhaps illegal fashion. However, it was apparently a brilliant idea to bring two kids into this life. Anyway, so SIL is complaining today about how she has failed to lose all of her baby weight. This despite the fact she is a slip of a woman and is at most 125 pounds. She is upset that she hasn't gotten back down to her pre-pregnancy weight of 115 and has now vowed to cut out all the fried breakfasts and trips to McDonalds for awhile. I say try living solely on wholemeal pita bread, water, vegetables and fruit for every damn day for months in effort to shift pesky PCOS-incurred weight gain, and then come talk to me about losing weight. It is worth mentioning at this point that I am a UK size 12 (US 8) and The Dude's family tends to buy me underwear and pajamas at Christmas at a UK size 20 (US 16) so clearly they think I have a weight issue...so don't moan to me about not being 115 pounds! Bastards.

3) Thank god, a non-infertility related issue. Today I came across a discussion on a messageboard about Candace Cameron-Bure, who played the oldest sister on Full House. I'm not pretending to not remember her character's name so as not to appear really lame, because I genuinely forget. Anyway, one of the posters actually said, "I hear her brother was an actor, but I've never heard of him", and even included a circled photograph of Kirk Cameron. Uh, pardon? Am I really that old that an entire generation below me has no idea who Kirk Cameron is? Oy vey. I was never a fan of him as I wasn't feeling his white boy 'fro, but he was in the seminal 80s sitcom Growing Pains and graced most issues of Tiger Beat and the Big Bopper! Good lord...For the record, I was a Johnny Depp fan. Even at the tender age of 12 I knew what I liked. Yummy.

3 comments:

Mollywogger said...

Tiger Beat, Bop -- he was all over those things. And all over the ceiling of my bedroom, might I add.

Too bad he's gone a BIT crispy Christian over the past years. From what I've read, it sounds like the sister is joining in on his crusade to prepare the world for the glorious Rapture as well. I guess that's preferable to most child stars, who end up addicted to anything they can smoke, drink, or snort. Maybe.

Queenjulie said...

Poor Kirk Cameron--relegated to obscurity already. Last year I was driving my 13-year-old nephew somewhere and "With or Without You" came on the radio. I asked him, "Do you like U2?" and he said, "Who's U2?" And then I almost cried.

MsPrufrock said...

Damn kids...what do they know? I was trying to tell my 12 year old niece and 7 year old nephew of my pilgrimage to London to see Morrissey and I was only met with blank stares. Pfft...

As for Candace Cameron-Bure, she has indeed hopped aboard the Christian wagontrain, so it's all downhill from here. Her website description is "Growing in God with Candace". Hehe. She is hoping that viewers of her site will be encouraged to "search and seek Him." What would Uncle Jessie do?