anniversaries

Happy Birthday Louise Brown, From an IVF Mom


I hadn’t thought about blogging again until August but my novel is going so well (I am on a second revision and well ahead of schedule) that when I ran across this article on the first IVF/test tube baby, Louise Brown, I decided I had a few things to say.

I didn’t realize that Louise and BabyDaughter had birthdays so close together. Ms.Brown was born thirty years ago today, and BabyDaughter six years ago this coming Sunday. They only thing they have in common, aside from gender and being Leos, is that they were conceived outside of the uterus. Ms. Brown’s parents experienced infertility due to blocked fallopian tubes. Will and I had trouble due to the fact that his yet undiagnosed terminal illness was destroying his sperm.

Too much information you say? You forget where you are. You also likely don’t know someone who has endured the infertility road to parenthood. We can speak/write with ease, and at length, on reproductive topics that leave the average person squirming.

I remember when the news about the first “test-tube baby” broke in the fall of 1978. I was in 9th grade. It was religion class with Sr. Mary Judgemental*. She yammered on for half the class about the end of civilized society as we know it and the coming of the Brave New World before breaking us into small groups to discuss little Damienette and her nose-thumbing parents**.

In an interesting twist, I clearly remember being quite relieved to discover that science had finally come up with a way to help couples have children they might otherwise not have. Interesting really, given that twenty some years later, I would be half of one of those couples.

Sister was appalled by my lack of moral compass. Clearly I was in need of spiritual retooling. Thankfully I had her***. But she didn’t change my mind about IVF. I thought it then, as now, a good thing.

In 1978 the world yakked on about the possible ethical problems of IVF, and it needed to do so. The potential for abuse and discrimination certainly existed. Today with post-menopausal women using IVF to perform end runs around Mother Nature’s time limits and couples with means by-passing traditional baby-making for reasons that aren’t tied to infertility, the fact that the world gave a nod to ethics and morality when Louise Brown’s birth became widely known should be seen as a good thing.

Without Louise, there would be no BabyDaughter. That is reason enough for me to celebrate the day and wish her a long and happy life.

 

*Sr. Mary Judgemental went on to even more spiteful heights after a summer trip to the Wailing Wall brought her even closer to spiritual enlightenment. The low point of this was reached during my senior year when  classmate showed up during open study hall one morning to show off her new baby and Sister refused to even look at the child because she was “a product of sin”. As a product of sin adoptee, that didn’t sit well and I wish I had been the person I am now because I would have given that woman a piece of mind she’d still be chewing on.

**According to the Catholic Church, which actually turns a blind eye to most things it professes to abhor, infertility is “god’s will” and faithful couples will just suck it up and accept – adopt perhaps – and be good little puppets.

***In the end my time spent with Sr. M.J. helped me begin to define my differences with Catholicism and organized religion in general. If it weren’t for her, I might still be one of the “faithful” who plop down in the pews every Sunday and holy day and then ignore teachings during the week. I would rather object and abstain then be a hypocrite.

Belated


This will sound strange, but I forgot my husband’s 27th wedding anniversary. Yes, that’s right. His wedding anniversary, not ours. Ours was last month. June 26th and it was our first.

Rob and Shelley were married in July. It was a hot day. He was hung-over from partying a bit too hardy the night before. The JP got lost and was late. And the band played the wrong song for the first dance. But overall it was a beautiful wedding.

I have been to the very spot where they wed. Met nearly all the principal players of the day. Seen the photos. Heard the stories. In some ways it has become a part of my history too. Not all that much different from the ancestors I claim on my dad’s side despite my being adopted and not really related to those people at all. Yet my Grandma Cox told me all the stories on those many Memorial Day jaunts around the various cemeteries around the Old Monastery where my Granddad and her family are laid to rest. Those stories connected me in the same way Rob connects me to his past and to Shelley with his stories.

All weirdness I am sure to anyone who is not widowed and remarried/recoupled but the way of it none the less.

Happy Anniversary then to Rob. It was a happy day that led to years and years more and should be remembered as such.

Love and Marriage: A First Anniversary


Rob and I were married a year ago today. I have written a lot about where and how we met, our long, long distance relationship, the whole emigrating thing and ad nauseum about our happiness.

One might think we were the perfect couple, and while we believe we are pretty darn close to that most of the time, neither of us would say that that this first year hasn’t been one of adjustment and learning. Love, good relationships and successful marriage isn’t magic or chemistry or kismet, and don’t get me started on the whole fallacy of the soul mate thing.

It’s about love, attraction, like-mindedness, commitment, shared values and ideals.

And it’s a leap of faith that is made over and over. A belief in the other person and in the future come what may.

The first year of a damn long time comes to a close today, commemorated with gifts from the Apple Store and sealed with many kisses.

I love you Rob and am yours forever (and I am very sorry for forgetting the Becks’ last evening but you know I can’t remember anything if it isn’t on the list).