Last weekend at this time, BlogHer '15 was wrapping up. I registered for my non-refundable pass in December, before I had any guarantee that we'd end up pregnant by the time July rolled around. I didn't appreciate how gusty? illogical? that was until I was at the Hilton, walking around and sitting in on panels.
Since I've been going (2009), the BlogHer conference has always been geared to what used to be "mommy blogs" and what are now usually "parenting blogs." (That shift is all to the good, by the way.) So I could hardly feel surprise that sponsors were heavily parent/kid-centric. There were multiple baby food brands, Medela, Merck for Mothers, pediatric vitamins, the Today Show "Parenting Team," and more.
If anything the panel topics were less parent/kid centric than they used to be. For instance, this year there was also a marked uptick since 2012 (the last year I went) in panels solely for the business, revenue generation side of online work-life.
But here's what stuck in my mind:
- There was a single panel on disability and blogging. There was a single panel on mental health/illness and blogging. These were the closest panels that would've approached anything touching on infertility.
- The Saturday lunch keynote included a short film and a "fireside chat" with professionals and activists (the head of Merck for Mothers, and Christy Turlington Burns, a doula, and the moderator) discussing maternal mortality in the U.S. During this panel, someone onstage made sure to appeal to the crowd by reminding us that "most of us" there had experience (or would do) childbirth.
- The Voices of the Year keynote on Friday almost exclusively featured a heavy contingent of parent voices. (Including, I should note, an honoree who built her family through adoption.)
- The conference has become, from my privileged perspective at least, consciously inclusive. The panel speaker groups this year were better balanced than I'd ever seen them, in terms of not being 80% straight white ladies. But in every panel I saw, no matter the topic, there was a parenting site whose pictures were put up on the projector. Or there was a moderator breastfeeding her daughter throughout the panel (which is awesome, by the way, where can you do this if not at BlogHer?). Or there was a Voices of the Year installation featuring a piece on adoption and the piece's picture of an 8-month pregnant belly.
So what stuck, not just in my mind but in my throat, was how completely impossible it could be to attend BlogHer as an infertility blogger. Whether actively pursuing treatment, waiting out finances or health issues or life issues on the bench, or whether making your way to redefining yourself as child-free not by choice, BlogHer could be just. completely. impossible.
I can't describe what it's like to be bombarded by pregnancy and parenting while you're not sure you'll ever get to be a part of them. If you want to participate in something like BlogHer, you either muscle through it, coping moment to moment as best you can, or you don't. You don't go. You skip family birthday parties and holidays. You stay away from places where parenthood and children are bound to come up, or you steel yourself when you can't get out of it.
You try to explain to people who've never been where you are just what it feels like, and sometimes they get it, and sometimes they don't, and you just have to deal with it. You live, either temporarily or maybe forever, with the fact that the culture just doesn't include you in this important way.
This is nuts, when you think about it. 1 couple in 8 goes through infertility. 1 in 8! That's not exactly rare. There are plenty of blogs chronicling parenthood on the other side of infertility treatment, so this isn't a blanket ignorance thing, which makes it even harder for me to parse the complete lack of safe space IF/CFNBC bloggers might find at a women's blogging conference, run for women, by women.
Anyway. If sheknows media sends around a post-conference request for opinions, you can be sure I'll respond. (They acquired BlogHer early this year, so we'll see how they handle post-conference outreach.) But in the meantime, do me a favor and think a little about the ways in which we take pains to make spaces safe and welcoming for different histories and experiences, and how one in eight people can relate to this particular experience, the numbers involved in a space like BlogHer, and how those things come together.
7/26/2015
7/06/2015
Super Funtimes With Pregnancy Weight Gain
Pregnancy weight gain. From what I read, it's not particularly comfortable for a lot of people, eating disorder history or no. But I think we'd be kidding ourselves if we said that ED history doesn't potentially level up the challenge.
During my first trimester, initially I lost weight (once the free fluid from OHSS finally cleared out) and ended up almost even, maybe a little over baseline. Now solidly into my second trimester, I seem to have hit a weight gain stride.
So that's been interesting.
It spurs an intimately familiar thought pattern: "I gained X. At this rate, that means I'm going to gain X+infinity." Except that's not how it works. That's never how it works. But it sounds reminiscent of ED thought patterns. "They want me to gain X. I know I'm not going to stop at X. I'm just going to keep gaining and gaining and it'll be totally out of my control. You'll see. I can't trust my body. It has no idea what it's doing. I have to keep it under control."
The concrete difference here is that I have no desire to control in a disordered way. During my eating disordered years, even when I wasn't engaging in disordered behavior, the fierce pull to do so was always ready to spring. But now it's not so much as whispering to me. I mean, thank goodness, don't get me wrong. But color me surprised.
Anyway. For now, I'm just rolling along doing what I'm doing. I passed the early glucose challenge screen (with PCOS you take one around 14-16 weeks, in addition to the normal one, which is next week for me), so, so far so good on that end. We had two normal anatomy scans at 16 weeks and 22 weeks. Everything's clearly going okay so far. (Except the heartburn. It can fuck right off.)
So really I'm back, in this new strange way, to a very familiar spot: Trust your body. It can do this. You can do this. Other people have done this! And they did just fine! The more things change...
During my first trimester, initially I lost weight (once the free fluid from OHSS finally cleared out) and ended up almost even, maybe a little over baseline. Now solidly into my second trimester, I seem to have hit a weight gain stride.
So that's been interesting.
It spurs an intimately familiar thought pattern: "I gained X. At this rate, that means I'm going to gain X+infinity." Except that's not how it works. That's never how it works. But it sounds reminiscent of ED thought patterns. "They want me to gain X. I know I'm not going to stop at X. I'm just going to keep gaining and gaining and it'll be totally out of my control. You'll see. I can't trust my body. It has no idea what it's doing. I have to keep it under control."
The concrete difference here is that I have no desire to control in a disordered way. During my eating disordered years, even when I wasn't engaging in disordered behavior, the fierce pull to do so was always ready to spring. But now it's not so much as whispering to me. I mean, thank goodness, don't get me wrong. But color me surprised.
Anyway. For now, I'm just rolling along doing what I'm doing. I passed the early glucose challenge screen (with PCOS you take one around 14-16 weeks, in addition to the normal one, which is next week for me), so, so far so good on that end. We had two normal anatomy scans at 16 weeks and 22 weeks. Everything's clearly going okay so far. (Except the heartburn. It can fuck right off.)
So really I'm back, in this new strange way, to a very familiar spot: Trust your body. It can do this. You can do this. Other people have done this! And they did just fine! The more things change...
find in:
PCOS,
pregnancy,
weight gain
6/07/2015
On Caitlyn Jenner, NY Times Linkbait, and HOW IS THIS HARD???
Off topic to pregnancy, eating disorders, weight gain, recovery... but very ON topic to another of my favorite categories, feminism:
What Makes a Woman?
by Elinor Burkett
Oh, NY Times Sunday Review, no.
This strikes me as one of the most mean-spirited op-ed contributions I've read in some time. I mean, good lord.
First off, we're not even going to get into the repeated, incorrect use of the name "Bruce" in this op-ed, and we're not even going to address the horrible analogy between transgenderism and some fictional person transitioning from white to black. We're not even going to waste the space. (But just quickly: o_O)
After painting a dismissive picture of Caitlyn Jenner's general entrée to the world, the piece begins with this assertion:
Sure, Larry Summers of Harvard, I follow for this argument. Larry Summers was essentially arguing that tiny ladybrains aren't equipped to handle complex maths and sciences, because apparently it's 1950 and colleges are for Mrs. and Early Childhood Education degrees.
But with regard to Caitlyn Jenner, Burkett seems to be deliberately misunderstanding transgenderism. Jenner's statement to Diane Sawyer about her brain wasn't rooted in science, and Jenner isn't at the head of an internationally lauded research institution, nor is Caitlyn Jenner is not the neuroscientist quoted later in the piece. Caitlyn Jenner is a celebrity, and a transwoman, and she was speaking to Sawyer about emotion and lived experience, not about the physical structure of neurons and grey matter.
Just for starters, as a delayed amuse-bouche if you will, that feels more worthy of one of XO Jane's embarrassing clickbait entries than it does the NYT (well, maybe not lately, now that I think about it), the author calls Caitlyn Jenner a man:
A transgender woman is not a man. A cisgender woman is not a man. A transgender woman is a woman. A cisgender woman is a woman. How is this hard?
Moving on from there to more esoteric concerns than questions of socio-linguistic respect (because my pregnancy hormones will make my head pop off if I think any further about how easy it is to get man/woman right in a discussion of transgender people)...
Yeah, no kidding. And my female identity isn't your female identity either. How is this hard? (And how did this get space in the NYT Op-Ed page? This is as bad as when they let Sofia Vergara's ex bully-pulpit her about their cryopreserved embryos.)
Furthermore, Burkett reeeeeeally missed the flashing-lights memo that's everywhere about how demeaning it is to insist on cisnormative beauty/handsomeness standards to qualify as a "successful" trans person. This is what approximately 65% of her argument is staked on: That it's taken as read that we should reward only traditional standards of appearance, rather than remember that not all transpeople have access to the treatments and procedures that Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox, etc., have availed themselves of. (A point on which Cox was very concise and poetic recently, to great social media effect; I saw it everywhere. If Burkett had been paying attention to anything trans before picking up Vanity Fair, I suspect she would've seen it, too.)
Look. I fully acknowledge that I am not a first-wave feminist. Nor am I really a second-wave feminist. Having been born in the early '80's, I'm in that weird sandwich generation that wasn't always concerned with intersectionality (assuming you got started on your feminism young, as I did) but also didn't have to scour ads for "help wanted - female." I acknowledge that. (Because, again, it's not hard: my lived experience is not Burkett's lived experience. Yet somehow we're both women. How is this hard?)
But that there are ciswomen out there who have gone through the wringer of early feminism does not make transwomen any less women. And the idea that speaking to one's lived experience as a transwoman somehow "undermine[s] almost a century of hard-fought arguments that the very definition of female is a social construct that has subordinated us," is like saying the strawberries for the shortcake are moldy, so we have to throw the burgers out. Transgenderism is only possible because the very definition of any gender is a social contract that subordinates people.
You don't even have to agree that "vagina" is an exclusionary term (in the context Burkett discusses, I don't think it is), or think pro-choice groups should omit the word "woman" from their mission statements (I don't think they should), or hold an opinion about whether The Vagina Monologues could stand updating with a transwoman's story or read as a period piece (I vote period piece) to understand that equality and respect are not zero-sum.
As a parting thought:
Ms. Burkett, I think you need to meet some new women, because I know plenty who agree with your cohort, but I know plenty who don't, too.
Someone find me a gif of somebody screaming to the sky, "HOW IS THIS HARD?!"
What Makes a Woman?
by Elinor Burkett
Oh, NY Times Sunday Review, no.
This strikes me as one of the most mean-spirited op-ed contributions I've read in some time. I mean, good lord.
First off, we're not even going to get into the repeated, incorrect use of the name "Bruce" in this op-ed, and we're not even going to address the horrible analogy between transgenderism and some fictional person transitioning from white to black. We're not even going to waste the space. (But just quickly: o_O)
After painting a dismissive picture of Caitlyn Jenner's general entrée to the world, the piece begins with this assertion:
People who haven’t lived their whole lives as women, whether Ms. Jenner or Mr. Summers, shouldn’t get to define us.
Sure, Larry Summers of Harvard, I follow for this argument. Larry Summers was essentially arguing that tiny ladybrains aren't equipped to handle complex maths and sciences, because apparently it's 1950 and colleges are for Mrs. and Early Childhood Education degrees.
But with regard to Caitlyn Jenner, Burkett seems to be deliberately misunderstanding transgenderism. Jenner's statement to Diane Sawyer about her brain wasn't rooted in science, and Jenner isn't at the head of an internationally lauded research institution, nor is Caitlyn Jenner is not the neuroscientist quoted later in the piece. Caitlyn Jenner is a celebrity, and a transwoman, and she was speaking to Sawyer about emotion and lived experience, not about the physical structure of neurons and grey matter.
Just for starters, as a delayed amuse-bouche if you will, that feels more worthy of one of XO Jane's embarrassing clickbait entries than it does the NYT (well, maybe not lately, now that I think about it), the author calls Caitlyn Jenner a man:
And as much as I recognize and endorse the right of men to throw off the mantle of maleness, they cannot stake their claim to dignity as transgender people by trampling on mine as a woman.
A transgender woman is not a man. A cisgender woman is not a man. A transgender woman is a woman. A cisgender woman is a woman. How is this hard?
Moving on from there to more esoteric concerns than questions of socio-linguistic respect (because my pregnancy hormones will make my head pop off if I think any further about how easy it is to get man/woman right in a discussion of transgender people)...
Their truth is not my truth. Their female identities are not my female identity.
Yeah, no kidding. And my female identity isn't your female identity either. How is this hard? (And how did this get space in the NYT Op-Ed page? This is as bad as when they let Sofia Vergara's ex bully-pulpit her about their cryopreserved embryos.)
Furthermore, Burkett reeeeeeally missed the flashing-lights memo that's everywhere about how demeaning it is to insist on cisnormative beauty/handsomeness standards to qualify as a "successful" trans person. This is what approximately 65% of her argument is staked on: That it's taken as read that we should reward only traditional standards of appearance, rather than remember that not all transpeople have access to the treatments and procedures that Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox, etc., have availed themselves of. (A point on which Cox was very concise and poetic recently, to great social media effect; I saw it everywhere. If Burkett had been paying attention to anything trans before picking up Vanity Fair, I suspect she would've seen it, too.)
Look. I fully acknowledge that I am not a first-wave feminist. Nor am I really a second-wave feminist. Having been born in the early '80's, I'm in that weird sandwich generation that wasn't always concerned with intersectionality (assuming you got started on your feminism young, as I did) but also didn't have to scour ads for "help wanted - female." I acknowledge that. (Because, again, it's not hard: my lived experience is not Burkett's lived experience. Yet somehow we're both women. How is this hard?)
But that there are ciswomen out there who have gone through the wringer of early feminism does not make transwomen any less women. And the idea that speaking to one's lived experience as a transwoman somehow "undermine[s] almost a century of hard-fought arguments that the very definition of female is a social construct that has subordinated us," is like saying the strawberries for the shortcake are moldy, so we have to throw the burgers out. Transgenderism is only possible because the very definition of any gender is a social contract that subordinates people.
You don't even have to agree that "vagina" is an exclusionary term (in the context Burkett discusses, I don't think it is), or think pro-choice groups should omit the word "woman" from their mission statements (I don't think they should), or hold an opinion about whether The Vagina Monologues could stand updating with a transwoman's story or read as a period piece (I vote period piece) to understand that equality and respect are not zero-sum.
As a parting thought:
Many women I know, of all ages and races, speak privately about how insulting we find the language trans activists use to explain themselves.
Ms. Burkett, I think you need to meet some new women, because I know plenty who agree with your cohort, but I know plenty who don't, too.
Someone find me a gif of somebody screaming to the sky, "HOW IS THIS HARD?!"
find in:
feminism,
to opine or to STFU?
5/28/2015
Pregnancy Weight Gain, Post-Eating Disorder
Pregnancy weight gain. From what I hear, it's not particularly comfortable for a lot of people, eating disorder history or no. But I think we'd be kidding ourselves if we said that ED history doesn't potentially level up the challenge.
During my first trimester, initially I lost weight (once the 10 lbs. of free fluid from OHSS finally cleared out of my abdomen) and ended up almost even, a little over baseline. Now about four weeks into my second trimester, I seem to have hit a weight gain stride.
So that's been interesting.
It spurs an intimately familiar thought pattern: "I gained X. That means I'm going to gain X+infinity." Except that's not how it works. That's never how it works. But it's reminiscent of ED thought patterns. "They want me to gain X. I know I'm not going to stop at X. I'm just going to keep gaining and gaining and it'll be totally out of my control. You'll see. I can't trust my body. It has no idea what it's doing. I have to keep it under control."
The concrete difference here is that I have no desire to control in a disordered way. During my eating disordered years, even when I wasn't engaging in disordered behavior, the trap of wanting to was always ready to spring. But now it's not so much as lurking underfoot. I mean, thank goodness, don't get me wrong. But color me surprised.
Anyway. For now, I'm just rolling along doing what I'm doing. I passed the early glucose challenge test (with PCOS you take one around 14-16 weeks, in addition to the normal one later on). We had a normal anatomy scan a week ago (for some reason my practice does two, the next one at the standard 20-22 weeks). Everything's clearly going okay so far. (Except the heartburn. It can fuck right off.)
So really I'm back, in this new strange way, to a very familiar spot: Trust your body. It can do this. You can do this. Other people have done this! And they did just fine! The more things change...
During my first trimester, initially I lost weight (once the 10 lbs. of free fluid from OHSS finally cleared out of my abdomen) and ended up almost even, a little over baseline. Now about four weeks into my second trimester, I seem to have hit a weight gain stride.
So that's been interesting.
It spurs an intimately familiar thought pattern: "I gained X. That means I'm going to gain X+infinity." Except that's not how it works. That's never how it works. But it's reminiscent of ED thought patterns. "They want me to gain X. I know I'm not going to stop at X. I'm just going to keep gaining and gaining and it'll be totally out of my control. You'll see. I can't trust my body. It has no idea what it's doing. I have to keep it under control."
The concrete difference here is that I have no desire to control in a disordered way. During my eating disordered years, even when I wasn't engaging in disordered behavior, the trap of wanting to was always ready to spring. But now it's not so much as lurking underfoot. I mean, thank goodness, don't get me wrong. But color me surprised.
Anyway. For now, I'm just rolling along doing what I'm doing. I passed the early glucose challenge test (with PCOS you take one around 14-16 weeks, in addition to the normal one later on). We had a normal anatomy scan a week ago (for some reason my practice does two, the next one at the standard 20-22 weeks). Everything's clearly going okay so far. (Except the heartburn. It can fuck right off.)
So really I'm back, in this new strange way, to a very familiar spot: Trust your body. It can do this. You can do this. Other people have done this! And they did just fine! The more things change...
find in:
pregnancy,
recovery,
weight gain
5/06/2015
Onward (and Upward on the Scale)
First and foremost, thanks for the well wishes both here and elsewhere, everyone. They really mean a lot ^_^
I appear to have hit that early second trimester phase of "What do you mean I just ate breakfast? No, no, I'm sure it's lunchtime. I'm so very sure." I've also reached the stage where I'm meant to gain on average a pound a week from here on out (weird completely not weird how those coincide).
The eating isn't a problem, pleasantly, maybe because I'm still very much in the phase of "don't eat every two hours? get horribly nauseous." And the scale number right now isn't so much of a problem. But if I'm at 15 weeks on Friday, thinking about a pound a week from here on out is daunting, I'm not gonna lie.
It's actually quite comforting to be connected with other women* who have come through the other side of infertility** and have the exact same reaction, with no eating disorder history at all. Yes, this is hard won for all of us, but yes, it's still an uneasy if joyful adjustment -- in the way it probably is for most pregnant people, and that's comforting all over again.
Having said that, this seems like a time when I would be well served to employ some of those CBT coping skills I have cultivated over years and years and thousands of dollars worth of therapy.
* If you google Then Comes Family you'll find us. It's far from just infertility-centric. It's the entire spectrum of family and community, in pretty much every flavor you can think of.
** "for now," my mind always supplies, "you've come through it for now." Shut up, asshole.
I appear to have hit that early second trimester phase of "What do you mean I just ate breakfast? No, no, I'm sure it's lunchtime. I'm so very sure." I've also reached the stage where I'm meant to gain on average a pound a week from here on out (
The eating isn't a problem, pleasantly, maybe because I'm still very much in the phase of "don't eat every two hours? get horribly nauseous." And the scale number right now isn't so much of a problem. But if I'm at 15 weeks on Friday, thinking about a pound a week from here on out is daunting, I'm not gonna lie.
It's actually quite comforting to be connected with other women* who have come through the other side of infertility** and have the exact same reaction, with no eating disorder history at all. Yes, this is hard won for all of us, but yes, it's still an uneasy if joyful adjustment -- in the way it probably is for most pregnant people, and that's comforting all over again.
Having said that, this seems like a time when I would be well served to employ some of those CBT coping skills I have cultivated over years and years and thousands of dollars worth of therapy.
* If you google Then Comes Family you'll find us. It's far from just infertility-centric. It's the entire spectrum of family and community, in pretty much every flavor you can think of.
** "for now," my mind always supplies, "you've come through it for now." Shut up, asshole.
find in:
pregnancy,
weight gain
5/01/2015
Team Pink
If it seems like I haven't been around much the past couple of months, it's because I painted myself into a bit of a corner by mentioning IVF.
Much as I love my longtime readers (luff you), a good number of you know more or less who I am in real life, so I straddle that weird line of internet pseudo-anonymity, within a certain infinitesimally small circle.
Basically what I am saying is, our IVF cycle was successful, and I didn't want people in real life to know until we hit the second trimester. Because when you go through infertility, it is next to impossible to just sit back and assume that everything's going to go all right from here, that you get to keep this wonderful change in your world.
We hit the second trimester a week ago. We're having a girl. We're unspeakably excited.
We found out it was a girl on Monday, and yes, that's pretty damn early. This was thanks to a test called Panorama, type of NIPT (noninvasive prenatal test) that is slowly but surely becoming more widely used in prenatal care, although for the most part they're still not covered by insurance if you're under 35. These tests look for various potential chromosomal issues -- the Trisomies, various micro-deletions, and in Panorama's case, triploidy -- including assessing the sex chromosomes.
We got Panorama not because we were in high risk categories, but because (here comes more of my entitled feeling toward healthcare) we felt we deserved to know. Because when you go through infertility, it is next to impossible to just sit back and assume that everything's going to go all right from here, that you get to keep this wonderful change in your world.
So we know, not based on an sonographer's say-so, but on DNA, that we're having a little we nymph with two X chromosomes.
Our first anatomy scan is coming up in mid-late May, and hopefully that shows everything continuing apace. I can't quite let myself settle into that idea. The closer it gets, the more afraid I am. Because when you go through infertility, it is next to impossible to just sit back and assume that everything's going to go all right from here, that you get to keep this wonderful change in your world.
In the meantime, I have a lot of thinking to do about this girl. Knowing my family at large, and especially my in-laws, I've got to do a lot of thinking about how to talk about and healthily live in body and food. Knowing me, I've got to do a lot of thinking about how to model assertiveness and confidence. Knowing about the world at large, I've got to do a lot of thinking about... a lot.
But first I gotta go buy some pink stuff*, and hope to hell everything's going to go all right from here, that I get to keep this wonderful change in my world.
*she said, appalled at herself, for truly, she totally had a unisex nursery planned either way, she swears. It's just... pink!
Much as I love my longtime readers (luff you), a good number of you know more or less who I am in real life, so I straddle that weird line of internet pseudo-anonymity, within a certain infinitesimally small circle.
Basically what I am saying is, our IVF cycle was successful, and I didn't want people in real life to know until we hit the second trimester. Because when you go through infertility, it is next to impossible to just sit back and assume that everything's going to go all right from here, that you get to keep this wonderful change in your world.
We hit the second trimester a week ago. We're having a girl. We're unspeakably excited.
We found out it was a girl on Monday, and yes, that's pretty damn early. This was thanks to a test called Panorama, type of NIPT (noninvasive prenatal test) that is slowly but surely becoming more widely used in prenatal care, although for the most part they're still not covered by insurance if you're under 35. These tests look for various potential chromosomal issues -- the Trisomies, various micro-deletions, and in Panorama's case, triploidy -- including assessing the sex chromosomes.
We got Panorama not because we were in high risk categories, but because (here comes more of my entitled feeling toward healthcare) we felt we deserved to know. Because when you go through infertility, it is next to impossible to just sit back and assume that everything's going to go all right from here, that you get to keep this wonderful change in your world.
So we know, not based on an sonographer's say-so, but on DNA, that we're having a little we nymph with two X chromosomes.
Our first anatomy scan is coming up in mid-late May, and hopefully that shows everything continuing apace. I can't quite let myself settle into that idea. The closer it gets, the more afraid I am. Because when you go through infertility, it is next to impossible to just sit back and assume that everything's going to go all right from here, that you get to keep this wonderful change in your world.
In the meantime, I have a lot of thinking to do about this girl. Knowing my family at large, and especially my in-laws, I've got to do a lot of thinking about how to talk about and healthily live in body and food. Knowing me, I've got to do a lot of thinking about how to model assertiveness and confidence. Knowing about the world at large, I've got to do a lot of thinking about... a lot.
But first I gotta go buy some pink stuff*, and hope to hell everything's going to go all right from here, that I get to keep this wonderful change in my world.
*she said, appalled at herself, for truly, she totally had a unisex nursery planned either way, she swears. It's just... pink!
find in:
feminism,
girls!,
infertility,
pregnancy
3/14/2015
Flaunting My Entitled Feels: Why IVF Coverage and Mental Health Coverage Are One and the Same
Several years ago I got a little flak around the Interwebs (I mean, in the extremely limited sphere of influence I had here then; even smaller now) for asserting that I had a right to coverage for eating disorder treatment: that coverage of mental health issues ought not to be treated any differently than coverage of physical health issues.
At the time, the awesome (retired) bloggers Pepper & Paprika shared the post on their FB page (this is when FB was still social-medially [not a real phrase] relevant) and some dillweed hopped on there and called me entitled.
Damn skippy, I'm entitled.
In years past it's probably come up here that the husband's family is Jewish. I bring this up because, if we had really wanted to, with some measure of hoop-jumping (since I'm not Jewish) we could make aliyah to Israel if we wanted.
Why might we want to? Well, IVF is subsidized in Israel (for citizens) up to two take-home babies, up through age 42. (This also goes for egg preservation.)
Without getting into any political debates here about the country policies in other areas, because this is not that discussion: you want to talk about a "pro-life" sort of stance? I will point you right over there, to the country that makes it possible for the people having the most trouble bringing life into the world... to bring life into the world.
Joining Israel in the list of countries that include significant IVF coverage: Argentina, Germany, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, France, Italy, Finland, the U.K., Quebec... I could go on.
Guess what the average IVF cycle cost is in the U.S.? $15-30K, when all is said and done. We have states that "mandate" coverage, but it's laughably easy for employers to opt out of said mandate. And I can tell you firsthand that being in a state with mandated coverage means zilch for plans purchased on that state's healthcare exchange. My plan doesn't even cover Lupron, a drug used in some IVF protocols but originally developed for prostate cancer, endometriosis, and precocious puberty. So if the husband develops prostate cancer, I guess we're shit of out of luck?
Even though I'm getting crickets when I talk about IVF here, I'm going to keep doing it. I went into our infertility journey certain I would never agree to IVF. It was "just something I can't see myself going through." It needs to be talked about, and in my opinion, it needs to be normalized.
It's hard to envision this country ever rousing up more universal support for ART (assisted reproductive technologies), largely because of the increasingly vocal minority that lobbies against any kind of control over reproduction.
So the only thing for it is to keep talking about it. You want to be pro-life? You want more wanted children brought into this world? Well, gee, that's exactly what the husband and I are trying to do. We're trying to create a new life, and we can't do it the old-fashioned way. The thing is, we live in this place called the 21st century. It's time to start collectively acting like it.
At the time, the awesome (retired) bloggers Pepper & Paprika shared the post on their FB page (this is when FB was still social-medially [not a real phrase] relevant) and some dillweed hopped on there and called me entitled.
Damn skippy, I'm entitled.
In years past it's probably come up here that the husband's family is Jewish. I bring this up because, if we had really wanted to, with some measure of hoop-jumping (since I'm not Jewish) we could make aliyah to Israel if we wanted.
Why might we want to? Well, IVF is subsidized in Israel (for citizens) up to two take-home babies, up through age 42. (This also goes for egg preservation.)
Without getting into any political debates here about the country policies in other areas, because this is not that discussion: you want to talk about a "pro-life" sort of stance? I will point you right over there, to the country that makes it possible for the people having the most trouble bringing life into the world... to bring life into the world.
Joining Israel in the list of countries that include significant IVF coverage: Argentina, Germany, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, France, Italy, Finland, the U.K., Quebec... I could go on.
Guess what the average IVF cycle cost is in the U.S.? $15-30K, when all is said and done. We have states that "mandate" coverage, but it's laughably easy for employers to opt out of said mandate. And I can tell you firsthand that being in a state with mandated coverage means zilch for plans purchased on that state's healthcare exchange. My plan doesn't even cover Lupron, a drug used in some IVF protocols but originally developed for prostate cancer, endometriosis, and precocious puberty. So if the husband develops prostate cancer, I guess we're shit of out of luck?
Even though I'm getting crickets when I talk about IVF here, I'm going to keep doing it. I went into our infertility journey certain I would never agree to IVF. It was "just something I can't see myself going through." It needs to be talked about, and in my opinion, it needs to be normalized.
It's hard to envision this country ever rousing up more universal support for ART (assisted reproductive technologies), largely because of the increasingly vocal minority that lobbies against any kind of control over reproduction.
So the only thing for it is to keep talking about it. You want to be pro-life? You want more wanted children brought into this world? Well, gee, that's exactly what the husband and I are trying to do. We're trying to create a new life, and we can't do it the old-fashioned way. The thing is, we live in this place called the 21st century. It's time to start collectively acting like it.
find in:
infertility
2/09/2015
The Exciting Intersection of IVF and Body Dysmorphia
An IVF cycle consists of these main steps: suppression (tamping down the ovaries to coordinate their response later); ovarian stimulation with hormones; egg retrieval; and embryo transfer.
Friday we had egg retrieval, a procedure under conscious sedation in an OR. The husband and I arrived at the hospital about 7:30 a.m., and by 10:45 (that wait wasn't nerve-wracking or anything) I was in the sub waiting room with another woman ahead of me.
We watched as the OR techs wheeled out women ahead of both of us, post-retrieval, dead to the world, completely unaware and completely vulnerable. Even knowing it's a 10-15 minute procedure, not even under general anesthesia, that was unsettling to see, to say the least.
When I got to the OR and they had me settle down on the table, I looked up at the lights and started crying. (Just a little, more like the errant tear rolling out of one eye, then the other.) It just hit me so hard in that moment: I don't get to make a baby the old-fashioned way, probably ever. I have to have an entire team of medical professionals extracting pieces of my body to even have a shot at it.
They were all incredibly sweet about it, and the embryologist offered to wipe my eyes for me. It's the little things.
In the recovery room the nurse told me, "Well, you're the big winner today. They retrieved 23 eggs." This is a moderately high number, related to my PCOS. Thanks to that, I developed moderate OHSS (now downgraded to mild, as of today), which, if you Google it, feels every bit as pleasant as it sounds.
The OHSS is where this all ties into this blog's overall focus. I had to head in for a very early ultrasound today to assess the free fluid in my abdominal cavity (again: every bit as fun as it sounds), and part of that exam entailed weighing me.
I was expecting to step on the scale and see perhaps an 8% increase over my weight at the baseline appointment for our IVF cycle. I mean, I haven't been running, I had to stop exercising completely a week ago, and I've been eating more full-fat foods... and just generally eating more of whatever the hell I want, as long as it's healthy-ish. Or not. Bison burgers, real ice cream, broccoli sautéed with a bit of butter instead of steamed (and since Saturday bacon and sausage, because one surefire way to keep OHSS from getting worse is to eat plenty of protein and salt).
Instead of an 8% increase, I saw I'd gained .8 lbs, much of which is presumably free fluid in my abdominal cavity. It was an excellent reality check because while there's no denying my abdomen is distended right now, there's also no denying I was walking around seeing the rest of my body as enlarged, too. Clearly that's not the case, unless I'm packing air in there, or something?
It's a good reminder that no matter how far I get from disordered eating, some piece of the disorder might always be there. (Every Harry Potter devotee reading this just said, "Constant vigilance!" to themselves, quietly.)
With any luck we'll be able to do a 5-day transfer on Wednesday, and then we go from there. In the meantime, wish me luck hobbling around like a 90-year-old (at least I can breathe normally again), and not getting too in my head about looking vaguely 4 months pregnant when I'm actually not.
Friday we had egg retrieval, a procedure under conscious sedation in an OR. The husband and I arrived at the hospital about 7:30 a.m., and by 10:45 (that wait wasn't nerve-wracking or anything) I was in the sub waiting room with another woman ahead of me.
We watched as the OR techs wheeled out women ahead of both of us, post-retrieval, dead to the world, completely unaware and completely vulnerable. Even knowing it's a 10-15 minute procedure, not even under general anesthesia, that was unsettling to see, to say the least.
When I got to the OR and they had me settle down on the table, I looked up at the lights and started crying. (Just a little, more like the errant tear rolling out of one eye, then the other.) It just hit me so hard in that moment: I don't get to make a baby the old-fashioned way, probably ever. I have to have an entire team of medical professionals extracting pieces of my body to even have a shot at it.
They were all incredibly sweet about it, and the embryologist offered to wipe my eyes for me. It's the little things.
In the recovery room the nurse told me, "Well, you're the big winner today. They retrieved 23 eggs." This is a moderately high number, related to my PCOS. Thanks to that, I developed moderate OHSS (now downgraded to mild, as of today), which, if you Google it, feels every bit as pleasant as it sounds.
The OHSS is where this all ties into this blog's overall focus. I had to head in for a very early ultrasound today to assess the free fluid in my abdominal cavity (again: every bit as fun as it sounds), and part of that exam entailed weighing me.
I was expecting to step on the scale and see perhaps an 8% increase over my weight at the baseline appointment for our IVF cycle. I mean, I haven't been running, I had to stop exercising completely a week ago, and I've been eating more full-fat foods... and just generally eating more of whatever the hell I want, as long as it's healthy-ish. Or not. Bison burgers, real ice cream, broccoli sautéed with a bit of butter instead of steamed (and since Saturday bacon and sausage, because one surefire way to keep OHSS from getting worse is to eat plenty of protein and salt).
Instead of an 8% increase, I saw I'd gained .8 lbs, much of which is presumably free fluid in my abdominal cavity. It was an excellent reality check because while there's no denying my abdomen is distended right now, there's also no denying I was walking around seeing the rest of my body as enlarged, too. Clearly that's not the case, unless I'm packing air in there, or something?
It's a good reminder that no matter how far I get from disordered eating, some piece of the disorder might always be there. (Every Harry Potter devotee reading this just said, "Constant vigilance!" to themselves, quietly.)
With any luck we'll be able to do a 5-day transfer on Wednesday, and then we go from there. In the meantime, wish me luck hobbling around like a 90-year-old (at least I can breathe normally again), and not getting too in my head about looking vaguely 4 months pregnant when I'm actually not.
find in:
infertility,
recovery,
weight gain
2/01/2015
Coming Out: Operation Human Pincushion
You may notice I showed back up after a loooong stretch of time, then disappeared again. (Albeit for a distinctly shorter stretch.)
As previously established, the first absence was due to wanting to get my mental ducks in a row, and then to being unsure how to talk about our struggle with infertility here.
More recently, the second, shorter absence has mostly been related to one thing: how do I come out about IVF on my blog?
Anyway, I suppose I just came out about IVF on my blog. (We're doing IVF. Lovingly nicknamed Operation: Human Pincushion.)
But I was also goaded into finally writing about this because we're going to a Super Bowl party. The Super Bowl, we are to understand, takes place around and during the hours of 7-8:00pm EST. My IVF injections, we are further to understand, take place within this same timeframe.
I am left with a dilemma. The party is at my brother-in-law's. How to peace out gracefully, since I have to get home at a certain time to take my Gonal-F out of the fridge 30 minutes ahead of use, in order to prepare that medicine (along with the others) within the one-hour window for dose delivery?
For me it's further complicated because this party will be populated by family members who haven't seen me in a while, but who have all seen me very, very thin. And very thin. And thin. And now see me... normal.
No matter how far I get away from eating disordered behaviors, I'm really unconvinced that this feeling will ever leave me: the dyspeptic feeling that arises when I see someone for the first time in a long time, and it's someone who's commented on my weight in the past ("You're so skinny!"). I can't pretend that if someone notices the weight loss, they don't also notice the weight gain. And try as I might, I can't yet move myself to not care that people notice.
Did I also mention that IVF meds cause a pretty impressive amount of lower abdominal bloat the more days you take them? (Sunday is day 10. Average length of use is 8-12 days.) In other words, you guys, I look vaguely pregnant. And I don't fit into my pants.
Here's the skinny. (Ha. See what I did there?) I hesitated to talk about IVF here because I have many Catholic friends and family, and other friends and acquaintances who believe pretty strongly in the "when sperm meets egg" starting point for human life.
But there you have it. We're at IVF, the end of the reproductive road. I've gained weight since seeing the RE, and people have noticed/will notice. And I care what people think. Hi, I'm Cynical Nymph, and I'm an approval-aholic.
As previously established, the first absence was due to wanting to get my mental ducks in a row, and then to being unsure how to talk about our struggle with infertility here.
More recently, the second, shorter absence has mostly been related to one thing: how do I come out about IVF on my blog?
Anyway, I suppose I just came out about IVF on my blog. (We're doing IVF. Lovingly nicknamed Operation: Human Pincushion.)
I was prompted to finally put words to digital paper when the Siamese Prince, for the third time this evening, plopped squarely down on my latest injection sites. Ow.
But I was also goaded into finally writing about this because we're going to a Super Bowl party. The Super Bowl, we are to understand, takes place around and during the hours of 7-8:00pm EST. My IVF injections, we are further to understand, take place within this same timeframe.
I am left with a dilemma. The party is at my brother-in-law's. How to peace out gracefully, since I have to get home at a certain time to take my Gonal-F out of the fridge 30 minutes ahead of use, in order to prepare that medicine (along with the others) within the one-hour window for dose delivery?
For me it's further complicated because this party will be populated by family members who haven't seen me in a while, but who have all seen me very, very thin. And very thin. And thin. And now see me... normal.
No matter how far I get away from eating disordered behaviors, I'm really unconvinced that this feeling will ever leave me: the dyspeptic feeling that arises when I see someone for the first time in a long time, and it's someone who's commented on my weight in the past ("You're so skinny!"). I can't pretend that if someone notices the weight loss, they don't also notice the weight gain. And try as I might, I can't yet move myself to not care that people notice.
Did I also mention that IVF meds cause a pretty impressive amount of lower abdominal bloat the more days you take them? (Sunday is day 10. Average length of use is 8-12 days.) In other words, you guys, I look vaguely pregnant. And I don't fit into my pants.
Here's the skinny. (Ha. See what I did there?) I hesitated to talk about IVF here because I have many Catholic friends and family, and other friends and acquaintances who believe pretty strongly in the "when sperm meets egg" starting point for human life.
I don't share that viewpoint, but I understand it. And my guess is that the impulse that gives me agita about people noticing my weight gain is related to the feeling of not wanting my differently-believing friends and family to think poorly of me.
But there you have it. We're at IVF, the end of the reproductive road. I've gained weight since seeing the RE, and people have noticed/will notice. And I care what people think. Hi, I'm Cynical Nymph, and I'm an approval-aholic.
find in:
infertility,
recovery,
weight gain
11/07/2014
Discomfort as a Skill
I've become more comfortable with being uncomfortable.
I
stumbled upon that realization the other week when thinking about why
this time took, of all my attempts at real recovery, and not the other
times.
Last autumn I started working on assertiveness. I
bought a workbook, like a middle schooler. This was initially more for
my professional persona than anything else, but I noticed the benefits
in other areas of my life, too.
When I was being more
assertive, it was easier for me to identify feelings instead of just
reacting to them. It's not surprising, then, that I found myself able
to be less and less in my eating disorder as it stopped having reactions
to immediately protect me against.
This was all incredibly
uncomfortable. That discomfort has started to pass after many moons,
though I'm not sure it'll ever be gone entirely.
It's
been supplanted by a different kind of discomfort as I've slowly gained
weight since the longtime birth control fully worked itself out of my
system in the spring.
In PCOS, birth control essentially
protects the ovaries and balance the amounts of estrogen and androgens
they produce. When the body has less free testosterone, insulin levels
stay steadier, and insulin resistance doesn't develop (at least with
me).
Off birth control, that protection disappears and the
ovaries (and pituitary and hypothalamus) go into overdrive
producing androgens. The more androgens in your system, the more insulin
your body wants to produce. The more insulin in your system, the more
androgens, etc., etc.
Some of the super awesome signposts
of high androgen levels include male pattern hair thinning (such as at
the corners of the forehead), oily skin and acne, and the growth of
dark, bristly hairs in places you'd prefer they not appear. (I want
electrolysis if I'm not knocked up by Christmas. NYC medi-spa
recommendations welcome.)
Those symptoms aren't fun, but they're not so, so terrible. (Okay, if I'm being honest, the acne is really depressing.)
What's
making me so entirely uncomfortable is the belly fat that has very gradually grown since about April. That's an insulin thing, and it
means I should really get my butt to a doctor to have a fasting glucose
test to see if I need to be on the insulin regulation drug Metformin.
In
the meantime, though, talk about the major fear of most eating
disordered people coming to fruition: weight gain, not due to out of
control diet, right on your abdomen. It is so exquisitely
uncomfortable*.
But being that I have
finally learned how to be uncomfortable, I finally have the
ability to just sit with that feeling of I hate
this so much when it crops up (which is still several times a day).
About a month ago, I surprised myself by realizing that going into
eating disordered behaviors (whether restricting or purging or whatever)
doesn't really occur to me anymore. At some point I took it off the
table.
Which leaves me here, with a belly growing for
upsetting reasons (if the belly fat weren't upsetting enough all on its own), and the ability to sit with how much I hate it. That
may sound incredibly depressing, but I can assure you, it's
liberating. (If uncomfortable.)
Next on the docket:
finding a PCP's office who actually understand whether or not they're in
my HMO network, because apparently no doctor's office anywhere has
fully figured out how to work with the PPACA plans offered on the state
exchanges. But that is a whoooole other post.
*"But CN, when you get pregnant your belly's going to grow anyway." Yes, obviously. But, you know, that'll be a fetus, not just adipose tissue.
find in:
eating disorder,
PCOS,
recovery,
weight gain
11/03/2014
Welcome Back
It's been almost 2 years since I regularly posted. What's the deal? What have I been up to?
I decided to step away because I found myself identifying too much as "someone with an eating disorder" even as I tried to recover fully. At some point I realized that blogging as "someone with an eating disorder" was a self-perpetuating cycle. Identity is a huge part of many people's eating disorder maintenance, and that was certainly true for me. "I'm anorexic," or "I'm bulimic," or "I'm a binge eater" becomes as sure an identifier as "I'm from the U.S." or "I'm an Aquarius."
I knew I wanted to get healthier, finally, for good, largely because 2012 was a crap year, and I couldn't take another one like it.
The bigger reason, though, is that the husband and I realized we both would genuinely like to be parents. We'd both been in denial about that for a few years, for a variety of reasons. But in 2013 we started having serious thoughts in that direction, and it proved a fantastic springboard for a real, true recovery for me.
Maintaining recover hasn't always been easy. In fact, sometimes it's been really, really hard. But it's going very well. Better than I'd ever have thought.
Which brings us to today, or, to begin at the beginning, to January 2014. At the ripe old age of 19, I went on the Pill largely for its on-label purpose, but also because my periods had never fully regularized, and I thought it couldn't hurt to have something to help my acne. (Ortho Tri Cyclen had just become the first official BCP for that.) I stayed on BCP for 12.5 years. When hypothetical family planning came up at annual exams, I'd ask my gynecologist about my irregular periods before, and she'd wave off any worries with, "That's normal; once you're an adult, and exercising regularly, and eating right, they tend to even out."
I went off the Pill in January 2014 and I waited... and waited. By April there was nothin' doin'. I had to find a new gynecologist due to new insurance, and my first meeting with her revolved mostly around my eating disorder history. She sent me packing with instructions to call in 4 weeks if my period didn't arrive. By May she prescribed Provera to jump-start my period (and to see if a period would happen at all; she figured my ED had screwed up my estrogen regulation). Got my period, got told "come back in 6 weeks if nothing else happens."
I was back there 6 weeks later. Since about March my skin had been getting worse and worse; I'd started putting some weight on my belly despite no diet changes (that was particularly fun); and I felt like I was constantly pulling more and more bristly, dark hairs out of my face.
Finally, in late June, I strong-armed my gynecologist into ordering an ultrasound for me. I suspected, after some basic Googling, that I had polycistic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), thought to be one of the most common endocrine disorders in women.
If you're not familiar with it (I wasn't): PCOS is essentailly a hormone imbalance: your body makes excess androgens such as testosterone. This in turns leads to ovulatory dysfunction and other reproductive disruption, as well as to fun inflammation-related things like cystic acne and (later) higher heart disease risk. Jackpot!
"I don't think you have PCOS," my new gynecologist had said at our first appointment in April, solely based on my weight.
She called me the evening after my June ultrasound, clearly surprised, to tell me that I did, in fact, have polycystic ovaries.
Isn't being right just the best?
She put me on Clomid (unmonitored -- something I learned is a reeeeeeally bad idea) in July. By early August we started seeing a reproductive endocrinologist, and are still.
So NOW that brings us to today. PCOS is diet-sensitive, in that it's directly related to insulin levels in the blood and insulin resistance. Having to rewire diet and operate from the mindset of not eating certain foods in certain amounts is a tough adjustment for anyone, I imagine, but having an eating disorder history complicates it further.
I debated for several months about whether I'd open up about this here, having known for a good year+ that I wanted to come back to blogging. After several failed medicated cycles, I find I'm ready to write about it.
As you can imagine, the focus of this blog is going to shift a bit from what it used to be. I still plan on covering timely topics related to eating disorders, food, feminism, the portrayal of women in our media, and all the things you're used to seeing here. I feel I'm ready to do that again from the identity of someone who's recovered, not someone who's in an eating disorder.
But I also plan to focus on the journey of infertility; on what it feels like to be diagnosed with and then try to live around PCOS; and on the intersection of all these themes, old and new. Because boy howdy, do they ever intersect.
So there you have it. Welcome back, [hypothetically-still-here] readers. And welcome back, me. I've missed you!
I decided to step away because I found myself identifying too much as "someone with an eating disorder" even as I tried to recover fully. At some point I realized that blogging as "someone with an eating disorder" was a self-perpetuating cycle. Identity is a huge part of many people's eating disorder maintenance, and that was certainly true for me. "I'm anorexic," or "I'm bulimic," or "I'm a binge eater" becomes as sure an identifier as "I'm from the U.S." or "I'm an Aquarius."
I knew I wanted to get healthier, finally, for good, largely because 2012 was a crap year, and I couldn't take another one like it.
The bigger reason, though, is that the husband and I realized we both would genuinely like to be parents. We'd both been in denial about that for a few years, for a variety of reasons. But in 2013 we started having serious thoughts in that direction, and it proved a fantastic springboard for a real, true recovery for me.
Maintaining recover hasn't always been easy. In fact, sometimes it's been really, really hard. But it's going very well. Better than I'd ever have thought.
Which brings us to today, or, to begin at the beginning, to January 2014. At the ripe old age of 19, I went on the Pill largely for its on-label purpose, but also because my periods had never fully regularized, and I thought it couldn't hurt to have something to help my acne. (Ortho Tri Cyclen had just become the first official BCP for that.) I stayed on BCP for 12.5 years. When hypothetical family planning came up at annual exams, I'd ask my gynecologist about my irregular periods before, and she'd wave off any worries with, "That's normal; once you're an adult, and exercising regularly, and eating right, they tend to even out."
I went off the Pill in January 2014 and I waited... and waited. By April there was nothin' doin'. I had to find a new gynecologist due to new insurance, and my first meeting with her revolved mostly around my eating disorder history. She sent me packing with instructions to call in 4 weeks if my period didn't arrive. By May she prescribed Provera to jump-start my period (and to see if a period would happen at all; she figured my ED had screwed up my estrogen regulation). Got my period, got told "come back in 6 weeks if nothing else happens."
I was back there 6 weeks later. Since about March my skin had been getting worse and worse; I'd started putting some weight on my belly despite no diet changes (that was particularly fun); and I felt like I was constantly pulling more and more bristly, dark hairs out of my face.
Finally, in late June, I strong-armed my gynecologist into ordering an ultrasound for me. I suspected, after some basic Googling, that I had polycistic ovarian syndrome (PCOS), thought to be one of the most common endocrine disorders in women.
If you're not familiar with it (I wasn't): PCOS is essentailly a hormone imbalance: your body makes excess androgens such as testosterone. This in turns leads to ovulatory dysfunction and other reproductive disruption, as well as to fun inflammation-related things like cystic acne and (later) higher heart disease risk. Jackpot!
"I don't think you have PCOS," my new gynecologist had said at our first appointment in April, solely based on my weight.
She called me the evening after my June ultrasound, clearly surprised, to tell me that I did, in fact, have polycystic ovaries.
Isn't being right just the best?
She put me on Clomid (unmonitored -- something I learned is a reeeeeeally bad idea) in July. By early August we started seeing a reproductive endocrinologist, and are still.
So NOW that brings us to today. PCOS is diet-sensitive, in that it's directly related to insulin levels in the blood and insulin resistance. Having to rewire diet and operate from the mindset of not eating certain foods in certain amounts is a tough adjustment for anyone, I imagine, but having an eating disorder history complicates it further.
I debated for several months about whether I'd open up about this here, having known for a good year+ that I wanted to come back to blogging. After several failed medicated cycles, I find I'm ready to write about it.
As you can imagine, the focus of this blog is going to shift a bit from what it used to be. I still plan on covering timely topics related to eating disorders, food, feminism, the portrayal of women in our media, and all the things you're used to seeing here. I feel I'm ready to do that again from the identity of someone who's recovered, not someone who's in an eating disorder.
But I also plan to focus on the journey of infertility; on what it feels like to be diagnosed with and then try to live around PCOS; and on the intersection of all these themes, old and new. Because boy howdy, do they ever intersect.
So there you have it. Welcome back, [hypothetically-still-here] readers. And welcome back, me. I've missed you!
find in:
eating disorder,
infertility,
PCOS,
recovery,
weight gain
6/21/2013
A Temporary Goodbye
182 days late, I am popping in to say [a temporary] goodbye.
You'll still see me on Facebook (where I share things/post occasionally), Twitter (where I mostly favorite or retweet), or Tumblr (where I exclusively hit the "love" icon). You'll see me in comment threads here and there.
Thank you for reading, for commenting, for emailing. The words of encouragement and commiseration, the jokes and the stories, have meant and still mean more than I can adequately say.
A summer and fall break is/was the thing. More soon...
You'll still see me on Facebook (where I share things/post occasionally), Twitter (where I mostly favorite or retweet), or Tumblr (where I exclusively hit the "love" icon). You'll see me in comment threads here and there.
Thank you for reading, for commenting, for emailing. The words of encouragement and commiseration, the jokes and the stories, have meant and still mean more than I can adequately say.
A summer and fall break is/was the thing. More soon...
12/21/2012
Helpful Holiday Eating Disorder Support Ideas
The other week, I sent [redacted] an email asking her, in all caps, WHY, WHYYYY I ever go to Blisstree? So often that site is a miasma of body-negative, food-freaked-out bleh that I just can't even go there. (And yet, I do.)
However, here's a piece there that really, for me at least, gets it right:
How To Cope With Holiday Weight and Eating Stress... Without Triggering An Eating Disorder Relapse
Non-AP capitalization style aside, this is finally a Blisstree piece to which I am happy to direct some traffic. Doubtless that fact is buoyed by the author's being in recover herself. Regardless, it's short, sweet, and written in accessible yet not dumbed-down language.
Something else about it that specifically stands out: the piece outright discusses purging, which so much ED-related media doesn't. Anorexia being the daintier disease (in popular culture, at least), bulimia and the other disorders that typically involve purging are sort of the ugly stepchildren (despite the fact that their sufferers are much more numerous).
And I definitely second the suggestion to audit the media you consume over the holidays, though frankly, even at this experienced stage, that hadn't really occurred to me.
Anyway, give it a read, if you like. It's stamped Cynical Nymph Approved.
However, here's a piece there that really, for me at least, gets it right:
How To Cope With Holiday Weight and Eating Stress... Without Triggering An Eating Disorder Relapse
Non-AP capitalization style aside, this is finally a Blisstree piece to which I am happy to direct some traffic. Doubtless that fact is buoyed by the author's being in recover herself. Regardless, it's short, sweet, and written in accessible yet not dumbed-down language.
Something else about it that specifically stands out: the piece outright discusses purging, which so much ED-related media doesn't. Anorexia being the daintier disease (in popular culture, at least), bulimia and the other disorders that typically involve purging are sort of the ugly stepchildren (despite the fact that their sufferers are much more numerous).
And I definitely second the suggestion to audit the media you consume over the holidays, though frankly, even at this experienced stage, that hadn't really occurred to me.
Anyway, give it a read, if you like. It's stamped Cynical Nymph Approved.
find in:
eating disorder,
recovery,
weight gain
12/15/2012
Mental Illness, "Overmedication," Us
I'd like to say a word about psychopharmacology. This word's been percolating for a couple of busy weeks and today presents my first opportunity to express it here.
Obviously I haven't been blogging predictably for a while. Part of this is generic busy-ness. Part of it's apathy and self-defeat. But part of it's crippling, numbing depression. (Okay, I admit, that and the apathy and self-defeat might be related. Just a bit.)
Look, it's been a helluva Fall. The past several weeks in particular have been difficult.
And for whatever reason, in the midst of all the difficulty, I made the patently farcical decision to titrate off of my SSRI.
Uh, yeah. Awesome idea. That went about as well as you might expect, particularly given my absence in these parts as of late. (Which usually implies a not-so-hot spell.)
So, I titrated off of my meds. Some vagueblogging-worthy stuff occurred. I ended up in my therapist's office this Tuesday, sobbing.
I started stepping back up to my normal SSRI dose Tuesday night. I already feel better. Everything isn't roses and rainbows and kitten farts, but I feel better.
In a certain slice of our culture, it's correct to conclude that we're an "overmedicated" society. There's this assumption that we're "overmedicated," that we as a greater entity are happy to pop a pill rather than… whatever other option we might have. Even when we're the ones directly benefiting from psychopharma meds, as in the link there, some of us (including me sometimes) are dedicated to the belief that our culture is overmedicated, pill-happy.
But what does that really mean? This month I've been percolating the idea that maybe it's just an extension of our Puritanism to insist, even if we are individual evidence against the theory, that we are An Overmedicated Society and that medication is Usually Not The Answer.
Well, what do we mean, "overmedicated"? What do we mean when we say that?
Do we mean to support the stigma against psychiatric treatment? Because the trope that Americans are ready to pop a pill rather than deal with a "real" problem supports exactly that.
Do we mean that medication should be reserved for "real" problems rather than depression, which we should white-knuckle through? Or rather than personality disorders, which aren't directly impacted by medication according to current evidence? Because medication can mean the difference between having and not having the extra psychic energy to mount a fierce battle against, say, borderline personality disorder, or bulimia.
But, you know, I don't care what we mean. The implication of "overmedicated" is, eventually, "over-treated." The implication is hierarchies, is real struggles and ersatz ones. Is a continued stigma in reaching out for support for mental illness. Is, at the end of the day, continued bullshit.
We're not "overmedicated." We're under-treated.
Please take a second to imagine a U.S. in which psycho-social counseling and other treatments were readily accessible and universally unstigmatized. Really, really take a moment and imagine what that might look like.
Now tell me with a straight face that you sincerely think we'd still be "overmedicated."
I know I don't think so. I don't know - I might be in denial. I might be exactly identical, psychopharmacological speaking, in this alternate reality as I am here and now. But maybe not.
Look at me, write to me, with a straight face and in good faith, and tell me that more accessibility from day one might mean less need for psychopharma medication at day seventy-three hundred (or day two thousand, or day whenever). (I'm at day eleven thousand two hundred eighty-something.)
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11/09/2012
Bloomberg's Food Hangups Officially Cross Line Into Evil
I'm about to use a curse*, so you'll have to excuse me.
What in the fucking fuck is this fucked-up fuck?
New York City, under the aegis of Mayor Bloomberg and his health department, banned food donations to homeless shelters.
Because, you know, he can't assess the nutritional content of said food.
I, just, I.... WHAT? What. Wow. Apparently this occurred in March - MARCH! - and no one noticed until now?
*Does that count as a curse, or four curses, if it's all fuck-based?
What in the fucking fuck is this fucked-up fuck?
New York City, under the aegis of Mayor Bloomberg and his health department, banned food donations to homeless shelters.
Because, you know, he can't assess the nutritional content of said food.
I, just, I.... WHAT? What. Wow. Apparently this occurred in March - MARCH! - and no one noticed until now?
*Does that count as a curse, or four curses, if it's all fuck-based?
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10/18/2012
They'll Probably Write a DSM-V Entry About Me
I just realized, you guys: I have become a Bizarro Toddler.
By which I mean that during this weight gain kick I am going to have to hold over my own head, as culinary rewards, fresh fruits and vegetables.
I was just* sitting here with some shrimp, zucchini, and wagon wheel pasta (yes, wagon wheel, a.k.a. best pasta ever), and I am literally thinking to myself, "You eat your pasta, missy! Yes, all of it! Nooo, you can't have any zucchini until after you eat that pasta!"
At breakfast it's, "No you may not have peanut butter on an apple. You will have it on toast. Then you can have some fruit."
I guess this means I should now hate cookies? Yeah, no.
*last night (sched'd this post due to out of town trip)
By which I mean that during this weight gain kick I am going to have to hold over my own head, as culinary rewards, fresh fruits and vegetables.
I was just* sitting here with some shrimp, zucchini, and wagon wheel pasta (yes, wagon wheel, a.k.a. best pasta ever), and I am literally thinking to myself, "You eat your pasta, missy! Yes, all of it! Nooo, you can't have any zucchini until after you eat that pasta!"
At breakfast it's, "No you may not have peanut butter on an apple. You will have it on toast. Then you can have some fruit."
I guess this means I should now hate cookies? Yeah, no.
*last night (sched'd this post due to out of town trip)
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10/17/2012
The Appeal of Pro-Ana
Late last week the NY Times blog Well profiled a website, Proud2BeMe, the aim of which is to provide an alternative of pro-ana and thinspo sites.
This is the key passage for me:
For a recent study, she and Nicole Martins, an assistant professor at the university, talked to 33 pro-ana bloggers, women ages 15 to 33 who were willing to be interviewed. The study, published in August in the journal Health Communication, showed that participants were motivated to blog as a way to cope with a stigmatized illness and a means of self-expression and social support.
Pro-ana has always been a seeking for peer support. I haven't been on a pro-ana/pro-mia site in a long time (yes, the latter exists, but as with so many things bulimic in the eating disorder world, it tends to get brushed under the media rug in favor of the sanitized view of anorexia). But when I did frequent them (mostly in high school) (yes, they existed then) I can say to the best of my recollection that the participants were never anything but kind, warm, and open-minded.
I don't know if my experience was typical, but when girls went into treatment or gained weight, or started LiveJournals (they weren't called "blogs" then, not quite yet) talking about their recovery? The response I remember was always very supportive. I don't know about now, but then, these weren't sites about keeping each other sick (at least not deliberately).
And to be totally honest, they were a space without men. Actually, scratch that. There were some boys and young men on the LJ pages where I participated or followed. But they were very... how to describe it... funhouse-mirror feminist. Feminist except in that eating disorders are an angry, proud symptom of everything anti-feminist in our culture, much in the way that hysteria can be seen as a symptom within that earlier culture.
They were sites about not judging one another. Yes, in a very disordered way, but there it is.
And that's more than I can say for the commenters on this piece. >_<
- Eliot W. Collins
I rarely see anyone who is obviously anorexic. I do see many people who are obviously obese. They are everywhere.
- Raritan Borough, NJ
Charming.
10/15/2012
Running and Weight Gain
A Quick Word: Beginning with this post, you may start to see Content Notes here on a semi-frequent basis. These will most often appear when I am going to talk about calories, pounds, miles, or other measurable, competitive things. I'll note the specific sections, not the entire post.
I enjoy running, now that I'm into it, and I really don't want to have to stop so that I can gain weight. But I can't afford a nutritionist right now, to sit down and do meal plans with me. So I've got to figure out on my own (with the help of my therapist, but she isn't a nutritionist) what I can eat safely (in the symptom-use sense) that will allow me to gain weight.
[Content Note: Calories and pounds ahoy]
In order to gain one pound per week, you have to consume about 500 calories per day more than you are burning, for a total of about 3,500 calories a week. (This is assuming a normally functioning metabolism and etc.)
The less you weigh the fewer calories you expend during physical activity (again, assuming everything else is functioning with chart-like precision). So if I'm only burning, according to the Mayo Clinic, about 153 calories every two miles I run, I only need to be adding 500 calories a day, consistently, to what I'm eating, and about 153 on the days when I run. I mean, I'm not exactly training for a marathon here. Or a half-marathon. Or a 10K. I could probably handle a 5K. Maybe. Sorta.
(Now you can backwards-math it if you want to know how much I weigh right now, but I'm not spelling it out for all eternity on the Internet, because it is such an embarrassing number.)
[End Content Note]
We're really only talking about padding on some extra calories to meals or foods I would already eat. But add in the emotions and fears and crap that comes with weight gain, or with the idea of weight gain... and suddenly things are complex. There's only a certain amount of "just do it" I really have in me.
But anyway. That wasn't the point of this post. My point is:
DO YOU KNOW HOW BLOODY HARD IT IS TO FIND A WEIGHT-GAIN-FOR-RUNNING MEAL PLAN?
Really, I feel like I broke Google.
You can find, quite literally, bite-by-bite plans for weight LOSS while running. The best you can (easily) find for weight GAIN is on Livestrong.com* and I'm just so gratified to see it exist at all that I won't really get into my disappointment over not finding meals there easily planned out for me, like I can REALLY EASILY FIND on all kinds of WEIGHT LOSS WHILE RUNNING sites. (I mean, entire weeks of meals you can find. I found one with TWO weeks' worth.)
There actually is a page on Livestrong.com that spells out a sample day for gaining weight with nutritionally sound foods, but a) I won't link to it here because in the context of an eating disorder blog I don't want to go, "Here! I'm eating way less than this right now! That's how you lose weight!" and b) the foods listed are things that elicit the following first thought from me: "But once I gain weight I can't eat those foods anymore because they cause weight gain. So obviously I can't eat them now, because I'll never be able to stop eating them, and then I'll never stop gaining weight." Do you see what it is like inside my head?
So. Tuesday's plan: Eat something with peanut butter for breakfast. Don't panic. Take it from there...
* I've actually become a fair fan of the whole Livestrong site, since it does have an overall easy-to-find weight gain category, something that absolutely can't be said of, say, Runner's World. Not surprising, I guess, since Livestrong's origins are in cancer treatment and recovery support, where weight gain can be a significant concern.
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9/28/2012
Weight, To Scale
I did a silly thing. A really silly thing. I used the gym scale wrong.
The gym scale is much like a doctor's office scale. It's got two metal sliders: a little one and a big one.
Did you know the big slider is not just at intervals of fifty? The little slider is by ones up to "50," with clearly marked halves and tenths.
But the big one, as it turns out, marks fifty pounds, then ninety pounds (signified by a "40"), then one hundred pounds, then one hundred fifty, then one hundred ninety, two hundred, etc.
Guess what I just noticed about the big slider this week? Yeah. In my defense, the notches for "40" and for "100" are really close together.
I am not a compulsive weigher (or at least, I'm not since the husband threw out my little digital scale in the winter). Since June I've probably weighed myself sixish times. The first of those, in mid-late June, was when I thought I'd gained a certain amount of weight all of a sudden.
I weighed myself as a reality check about four weeks ago, and my weight was low-ish. (Well, okay, I call it "low-ish." My therapist calls it "still a really low weight.") I weighed myself Tuesday and it was all of a sudden healthy-ish, even though none of my clothes fit differently, and my bras were still too big.
"How odd," I thought. "Just like in June, only this time I don't feel like clawing off my own skin. Yay! I must be getting healthy! I mean, I imagine I've put on some muscle as I've been jogging more quickly, but wow, I never imagined I'd get to that weight and not feel disgusted with myself at first!"
Then, on Wednesday, I looked at the scale again.
Then I said, ".... Oh."
Then I adjusted the big slider to the right. Then I had to move the little slider to the left, left, left some more.
At a remove, I'm fascinated by my reaction in June (when I am pretty damn sure I was doing the exact damn thing with the stupid scale) versus my reaction on Tuesday. In June I felt as if I were going to fly apart, so visceral was my feeling of engorgement. Tuesday I felt.... good.
Wednesday I felt embarrassed, and not just because of the silly scale mistake, either. I felt embarrassed because some larger part of me had finally wanted to gain that weight. Tuesday I felt scared, but proud.
I am having such trouble taking enough food into my stomach at one time to allow for appreciable weight gain. The feeling produces such unmatched anxiety that it is hard to hold on, and to remember that feelings are like waves, with peaks and lulls. At the same time, I am embarrassed about my body.
It feels as though most of my mind is ready to move ahead, but my body has a humiliating hold over some little part of it still. Hm.
Someone bring me the pliers.
The gym scale is much like a doctor's office scale. It's got two metal sliders: a little one and a big one.
Did you know the big slider is not just at intervals of fifty? The little slider is by ones up to "50," with clearly marked halves and tenths.
But the big one, as it turns out, marks fifty pounds, then ninety pounds (signified by a "40"), then one hundred pounds, then one hundred fifty, then one hundred ninety, two hundred, etc.
Guess what I just noticed about the big slider this week? Yeah. In my defense, the notches for "40" and for "100" are really close together.
I am not a compulsive weigher (or at least, I'm not since the husband threw out my little digital scale in the winter). Since June I've probably weighed myself sixish times. The first of those, in mid-late June, was when I thought I'd gained a certain amount of weight all of a sudden.
I weighed myself as a reality check about four weeks ago, and my weight was low-ish. (Well, okay, I call it "low-ish." My therapist calls it "still a really low weight.") I weighed myself Tuesday and it was all of a sudden healthy-ish, even though none of my clothes fit differently, and my bras were still too big.
"How odd," I thought. "Just like in June, only this time I don't feel like clawing off my own skin. Yay! I must be getting healthy! I mean, I imagine I've put on some muscle as I've been jogging more quickly, but wow, I never imagined I'd get to that weight and not feel disgusted with myself at first!"
Then, on Wednesday, I looked at the scale again.
Then I said, ".... Oh."
Then I adjusted the big slider to the right. Then I had to move the little slider to the left, left, left some more.
At a remove, I'm fascinated by my reaction in June (when I am pretty damn sure I was doing the exact damn thing with the stupid scale) versus my reaction on Tuesday. In June I felt as if I were going to fly apart, so visceral was my feeling of engorgement. Tuesday I felt.... good.
Wednesday I felt embarrassed, and not just because of the silly scale mistake, either. I felt embarrassed because some larger part of me had finally wanted to gain that weight. Tuesday I felt scared, but proud.
I am having such trouble taking enough food into my stomach at one time to allow for appreciable weight gain. The feeling produces such unmatched anxiety that it is hard to hold on, and to remember that feelings are like waves, with peaks and lulls. At the same time, I am embarrassed about my body.
It feels as though most of my mind is ready to move ahead, but my body has a humiliating hold over some little part of it still. Hm.
Someone bring me the pliers.
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9/17/2012
Blog Love: Binge Eating Rats and Nutella
I'm in blog love.
This blog has been around for a while, but I only discovered it via Twitter this weekend*.
It's a PhD's brain blog, and she's talking about binge eating rats. And Nutella.
It's basically the perfect blog post (for me).
Here she's describing how a study created binge eating behavior in female rats:
Fascinating. Truly. I find that utterly fascinating -- and not at all surprising -- in the context of animal behavior (including human animals).
She essentially just described the restrict/binge cycle that fuels most eating disorders. (In anorexia a binge is not an objective binge, but subjective binges occur more often than not.)
When I started reading this post, I thought, "Oh no. She's talking about appetite? Does she really not know that eating disorders, including binge eating, have nothing to do with physical appetite?"
I love having my wrong assumptions thrown in my face, times like these.
The post itself doesn't really acknowledge the eating disorder spectrum-wide presence of this same cycle, which is fine. It's not an eating disorder blog, and the post is talking about binge eating rats, not generally about human eating disorder patients.
What she doesn't state and what I'd like to highlight is that reducing or eliminating the binge eating symptom (or whichever ED symptom) doesn't reduce or eliminate the disorder. Rather, like in addiction, once you achieve a reduction in symptoms (or "uses" if you will), you then begin to work on the disorder itself. The disorder isn't the symptoms, but you can't work on it in the midst of symptoms, not really. And that, more or less, is the point of psychopharm treatment in eating disorders.
*Someone was dressing down Naomi Wolf's new book Vagina: A New Biography, and pointed here to argue that if the science Wolf describes were really as groundbreaking and yet sound as Wolf wants it to be, someone like Scicurious would've been going on about it for a while already.
This blog has been around for a while, but I only discovered it via Twitter this weekend*.
It's a PhD's brain blog, and she's talking about binge eating rats. And Nutella.
It's basically the perfect blog post (for me).
Here she's describing how a study created binge eating behavior in female rats:
The female rats were exposed to this palatable food…but not permitted to eat it. They were allowed to smell it and ALMOST to touch it. This caused the rats a certain amount of frustration and stress, and when exposed to the actual nutella mixture, they will then binge eat on it, much more than animals seeing nutella for the first time.
Fascinating. Truly. I find that utterly fascinating -- and not at all surprising -- in the context of animal behavior (including human animals).
She essentially just described the restrict/binge cycle that fuels most eating disorders. (In anorexia a binge is not an objective binge, but subjective binges occur more often than not.)
When I started reading this post, I thought, "Oh no. She's talking about appetite? Does she really not know that eating disorders, including binge eating, have nothing to do with physical appetite?"
I love having my wrong assumptions thrown in my face, times like these.
The post itself doesn't really acknowledge the eating disorder spectrum-wide presence of this same cycle, which is fine. It's not an eating disorder blog, and the post is talking about binge eating rats, not generally about human eating disorder patients.
What she doesn't state and what I'd like to highlight is that reducing or eliminating the binge eating symptom (or whichever ED symptom) doesn't reduce or eliminate the disorder. Rather, like in addiction, once you achieve a reduction in symptoms (or "uses" if you will), you then begin to work on the disorder itself. The disorder isn't the symptoms, but you can't work on it in the midst of symptoms, not really. And that, more or less, is the point of psychopharm treatment in eating disorders.
*Someone was dressing down Naomi Wolf's new book Vagina: A New Biography, and pointed here to argue that if the science Wolf describes were really as groundbreaking and yet sound as Wolf wants it to be, someone like Scicurious would've been going on about it for a while already.
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