Bravo! How One Television Network is Changing the Public's Understanding of Infertility

Confession: I dig reality television. Don't judge.


                  


It started as just a way to blow off steam, a fun little escape into other people's problems. Over the years though, I have come to realize that yes, I truly enjoy it. The (usually manufactured) drama, the silliness, the pretty people in 5" stilettos throwing wine on each other. It's all very, very good.

Way to make me a lifelong viewer, Andy Cohen.

While I typically enjoy reality TV for its entertainment value only, I am recently discovering that it is more topical in my life than I ever could have imagined. Currently on the Bravo network alone, there are several infertility stories being told. My fave's are:

Flipping Out: Jeff Lewis and his partner Gage are pregnant through IVF/Surrogacy. Meanwhile, Jenni is hoping for a successful IUI experience to become pregnant with her second child.

Real Housewives of Orange County: Housewife Meghan King Edmonds is utilizing IVF to become pregnant due to her husband Jimmy having had a vasectomy years ago. In addition, Meghan's cast mate Heather Dubrow went through IVF for three of her four children, and discusses her experience very openly on the show and her podcast, "Heather Dubrow's World."

I know you're all like, psuedo-celebrities having fertility treatments? Please. Why should I care?

I care. And I think you should too.

For one thing, look how far we've come. This side of 10 year ago, if you saw anything relating to infertility on prime time, it was a rose-colored glasses, punch-line driven version. Remember when Phoebe used IVF to get pregnant with her brother's triplets on "Friends"? She had the transfer, took a pregnancy test 5 hours later and had a positive result. Voila!

                                     

Cuz that happens.

While I'm grateful that shows like"Friends" brought infertility to the forefront, the reality (pun intended) is that a sitcom was never going to gain any real empathy from its target audience. Infertility was always just going to be an obscure plot device that resolved itself in 22 minutes so the main character could start wearing cute maternity clothes (that you could purchase right now) and joke about how she felt fat in a size 4.

The introduction of reality television is beginning to change that landscape. Yes it's still through the lens of an ultra affluent, magazine-glossy reality, but at least it's being represented. And if you think about it, infertility is the ultimate in guaranteed drama, which is what reality shows need. The sufferer can promise screen time of pain, suffering, and uncertainty. That's TV gold.

In a recent episode of "Real Housewives of Orange County", we watched as Meghan King Edmonds stood in front of a mirror, pinched a (nearly invisible) piece of fat on her stomach and injected herself for the first time with her IVF medication. It took her over 10 minutes to get the courage to do it.

                                

As an IVF survivor, I was instantly transported right back to my first injection over Thanksgiving weekend of 2014. As I watched Meghan's eyes fill with tears of happiness when it was over and she had done it, I felt mine well up too. In subsequent episodes, you hear Meghan discuss her stomach painfully bloating as the eggs grew, the agitation and raging hormones she's feeling - all of it. It's real, raw, and very necessary that people see how this works.

That doesn't mean it's all rainbows and puppies, though.

                                             

I do have a teeny, itty bitty problem with Meghan documenting her IVF journey through the lens of infertility. After all, infertility is a disease of the reproductive system defined by the failure to achieve a clinical pregnancy after 12 months or more of regular unprotected sexual intercourse. In Meghan's case, her husband had a voluntary vasectomy years ago and therefore Meghan must use her own eggs and his frozen sperm to create a baby. 

Am I splitting hairs? Or cutting my nose off to spite my face? Probably. But still. The biggest issue I have in the portrayal of Meghan's journey is this.  

She didn't go through the hell that many women and men do to discover her infertility in the first place. 

Meghan knew from Jump Street that IVF would be her path to pregnancy. So to say she struggled with infertility  feels at best inaccurate and at worst a little exploitative. It downplays the emotional heartache that one must typically go through before even thinking of going the IVF route. (Unless there is more to the story than she is sharing, in which case, I would rethink my statement.

That doesn't mean I don't feel for her or am less proud of her. IVF is a tough, tough deal. And from what I've seen on the show, Meghan is basically going through it on her own, as her husband doesn't seem to show a great deal of interest in the process. I'm simply not a fan of her using the word "infertility" to describe her experience. 

But I'm just judging from behind the safe space of my computer and TV screen. I'd welcome a conversation with her, because in the end, she is bringing a very difficult and emotional experience to the masses, and for that I appreciate and love her for sharing.

Moving on...

Meanwhile, can I just say how much I love Jeff Lewis and his partner Gage going the surrogacy route to achieve their baby? Watching Jeff and Gage give their specimens, choose their surrogate, and eventually wait to hear the results from the embryo transfer make me as weepy as the day I first heard we were pregnant.

When Jeff's bestie, Jenni, holds her legs up to her ears after an IUI, willing that sperm to get on up there and do its thing...I am transported back to my IUI. Sitting in a cold gown. Waiting. Wishing. All in the hopes that this time would be different.

So the net is, reality TV is making me a Crybaby McWeepy. But it's all good. If nothing else, infertility is getting exposure, however imperfect that exposure may be. After all, these are hundreds of hours of footage cut down to 42 minutes. But this format is giving people a small glimpse into the life of an infertile, and if that can create a little more understanding and empathy, I'm all for it.

I don't know if Jeff and Gage's baby will make it. I don't know that Jenni will ever get pregnant with her second baby. Maybe things will work out, and perhaps they won't. Maybe one of these stories will end with adoption, or a couple giving up altogether. But it's all being told. In HD quality.

And for now, I'm okay with that. It can only get better from here.

Let me know if you want any of my input, Andy Cohen. I'm always around.

XOXO,

Close to the Chest: Why Infertiles Don't Always Talk About Their Jouney

I get a lot of questions about my infertility journey (and for the record, I love getting questions). They usually range from "how long did it take before you went to the doctor?" to "how much did the medication injections hurt to take?" But every now and again, I get a question that's a little more difficult to answer. 

"Why are you just now sharing your story?"

Since I "came out" on Facebook, I have been so pleased with how many friends/colleagues/acquaintances have reached out to me to share their stories. It makes us all feel better and stronger knowing that someone else has gone through the same thing. They understand how difficult it is to publicly state what you're going through. But when someone who isn't in the infertility world asks me why I took so long to share (or why I did my blog anonymously at first), I sometimes find it difficult to explain.

But I'll try. Here are the top reasons (I feel) that women and their partners are too afraid or too intimidated to tell what they are experiencing.

1. It's not easy to admit

I've discussed this before, but even saying aloud "I think we might have a conception problem" is not easy to do. For one year or more, you and your partner have been having a great time trying for a baby - but after the 9 or 10 month mark, you start to truly wonder, could something be wrong? If you're like me, you went ahead and shared with your friends, family and dentist that you were trying for a baby, acting under the assumption that it would take three months max. So now, everyone stares at your belly every time they see you, or pays close attention to what drink you order on Saturday night. To admit to yourself and potentially a lot of other people that you might need help getting on the baby train is a huge downer. It takes the wind out of your sails, the air out of your balloon...you get what I'm saying.

2. You don't want to jump the gun

Once you've admitted to yourself that you need assistance getting knocked up, that's just the beginning. You still have to find a doctor, assess your health and your cycle, figure out what insurance covers - it's overwhelming and not something that you feel like screaming from the rooftops. Besides, maybe there's a quick fix, right? If you thought you had cancer, wouldn't you first rule out a nasty cold or the flu? You wouldn't go around telling people "I'm pretty sure I have cancer" without info to back that up. Same with infertility. There are a lot of tests to go through before you are truly considered an infertile. 

3. Fear of backlash/judgment

When I was about eight months into fertility treatments, we were nearing the point where IVF was clearly going to have to be the next option. I was feeling overwhelmed and wanting some support and thought about posting something on social media about my struggle. But randomly, two days later, I saw something on Facebook that was posted by a relative. It wasn't aimed at me, but as we all know, Facebook statuses go to everyone on your friends list...and that included me. This relative has very strong feelings about adoption and babies and I knew that. I just wasn't prepared.

Like I said, it wasn't specifically aimed at me, but it didn't matter. I was feeling vulnerable and scared about what we were facing, and this felt like a knife straight through the heart. I deleted my Facebook two weeks later for a period of two months. In addition, any inkling I had of sharing my story went right out the window. How many other people felt this way that I wasn't aware of? Who would I potentially offend by admitting we were considering IVF? It was certainly a deterrent to telling anyone else outside of my close circle.

A lot of infertile's face this. Religion, personal opinion, ignorance...people can be very quick to judge and throw down their opinions without thinking about how it affects the person going through it. 

4. We heard what you said about us or someone like us

This is basically a continuation of #3, and it happens more than you think. You're sitting in the break room, minding your business and pondering whether your most recent check to the fertility clinic is going to bounce, when you hear Carl from accounting say to the copy repair guy, "Did you know they're giving some chick on the 3rd floor two weeks off so she can go make some fancy shmancy science baby? I guess they're paying like, 40 grand to get pregnant. Hell, she can have one of my kids!"

Maybe Carl wasn't even talking about you. Maybe that chic on the third floor is someone you've never even met. Who cares? People throw their opinions around about things like IVF and infertility without stopping to think about who might be listening - and hurting. It's just one of those subjects that the general public isn't familiar with unless they've read an Octomom story. The education level surrounding infertility is super low...ironically, because not a lot of women talk about it. It's a vicious cycle - and round and round we go.

Keep in mind this is also true for infertiles who have dealt with miscarriage or still births. For some reason, the general consensus is you can have three days to recover physically and then, like, get over it. I mean, you were only 8 weeks. It's not like it's a big deal.

Wrong-o. Until you've walked in those shoes, shut your face.

5. We're afraid to jinx it

You will never meet a group of people as superstitious and paranoid as infertiles. Every cramp is a sign. Every song that comes on the radio with the word "baby" in it is a sign. Every billboard is a sign (literally and figuratively). We take it all very, very seriously. So it should come as no surprise that when it comes to our treatments, we don't want everyone to know. Even if we have that gut feeling that this time it's going to work, we're terrified that even whispering that little layer of hope out loud can make the whole house of cards come crashing down around us. Is it logical? No. Do we care? Not really. It's survival. And so we sit quietly, scouring the internet for signs that pregnancy occurred this month, freaking out every second of every day. But we don't dare tell you what we're doing. Because dammit, you might jinx it, and we just can't risk it.

So if you have a friend that's finally admitted to you that she is having a hard time getting pregnant, be honored. We don't usually tell many people unless we're sure we can get the support we need from you. Listen to our story, tell us it sucks and then offer to get us the biggest decaf mocha frappucino money can buy. What do you get out of it? A fantastic friend. Not to brag, but infertiles really do make the best buds. We're super patient, we rarely complain, and since we usually can't drink alcohol we can be your DD for the night. Win win for everyone.

XOXO,

you poke the mama bear, you get your arm ripped off

NEWSFLASH: I am not a perfect person. I make mistakes, I goof up, and I admit when I do.

However, I will not be bullied. Ever.

A few weeks ago I wrote this blog post about the mom whose son got into the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo. I defended her as a mom myself, who often worries that I might look away for just a moment and see my child harmed. I also defended her as an empathetic person, not just as a parent. I chose to believe she was a good mom, who had a strange twist of fate befall her and her family. 

From the 1200 words that I wrote, I have recently been called out for like, 28 of them. In the original blog post, I said:

"For those that aren't parents, let me just inform you. Kids are smart. as. hell. They know when a parent is distracted and they take full advantage. Can we offer a little kindness to this mom whose son is laying in a hospital bed and whom she had to watch be dragged by a 400-pound (innocent yes, but still 400-pound) gorilla? Can we have some compassion, for f*ck's sake?"

Several weeks have gone by since this blog, and last night I was surprised to find a comment on the post from a fellow infertile Twitter friend that read:

" 'For those of you who aren't parents'. What are those of us who aren't parents, fucking retards? Of course the Mommy Mafia came to that woman's defense because parents today are never accountable for anything."

                

                   

First of all - I'm reasonable. I write a public blog and spoke about a controversial subject. Surely there are going to be differences in opinion. However, this comment was uncalled for. To come in guns hot and use the phrase "fucking retards" is NOT okay. It is childish and belittling and demeaning to a group of (amazing) people who aren't here to defend themselves against your BS. Already you're not okay in my book if you are using phrases like this to make a point.

Secondly, my Dad always used to say, "engage your brain before you engage your mouth." This person would have been wise to heed that advise. If you want to comment on an opinion you disagree with, do it like an adult. Because guess what? On some level, the comment was correct. In hindsight, I should have worded that portion of my blog better. 

What I actually meant to say was that people who don't spend a lot of time with children may not realize how just crafty they can be. I shouldn't have said "those that aren't parents", because that's inaccurate. There are many people, parents or not, who don't realize how quick and crafty kids can be. (I used to be one of them.) But instead of making a point, the comment made this person look like a douche noodle.

But it didn't end there. 

In a maddening tornado of verbal diarrhea, this person then accused me of ignoring the infertility and childless community since having my son.  

                                         

Let's just break that down:

Unless you are monitoring my activity on Twitter (which is freaking scary), how can you possibly know who I am interacting with and who I am ignoring? Right, you can't.

Also, this is Twitter. I have a living, breathing, active life in the infertility community in the real world. I have friends struggling with infertility, all of whom I would drop anything for if it meant making them feel supported. I have offered my eggs to friends who cannot have children. I have offered my support to anyone and everyone I come in contact with. You, sir, have no right to judge my activity level in the infertility community. 

How dare you.

I love all my infertile friends on Twitter. I love my infertile friends who have become mothers and fathers that I've met on Twitter. I even love hot heads who  get brave behind a keyboard that are on Twitter.

That's right, I still love you. You clearly know not what you do. You are hurting and you are sad and you are angry, and you are lashing out. I forgive you.

To wrap up, my blog is not always going to be about infertility. I've made that clear by blogging about everything from ex boyfriends who give terrible gifts to gorillas. So, if you're coming to my blog expecting every post to pertain directly to you, you are in the wrong place. If you are looking for support specific to those that are not able to have children, there are places where you can get that. I am not obligated to provide it for you.

I am still going to proudly post pictures of my child. I am still going to post about the struggles I faced when I was infertile. I am going to post about the times I still wake up, covered in sweat, terrified that my child isn't real. That he is still just a wish and a dream and a "maybe someday". This blog is not about you. 

I am hear to offer my support to anyone who needs it. You can email me, comment on my blog, or reach out to me on Twitter and Facebook. I am here for you. I just can't be here for you in a way that you choose and dictate. Because that's like, communism. 

XO to all of you, fertile or not. 

What a Zoo: My Unasked-For Take on Harambe and the Little Boy That Could

I'm taking a minute away from the infertility world to talk about the Cincinnati zoo incident from the weekend. I feel like we need to discuss this.

I don't usually take a stance on controversial issues because I typically have friends and family with their feet firmly cemented on both sides of whatever topic is trending. But something about this particular issue stuck with me.

First of all, I am a huge animal rights activist. Cecil the Lion being shot absolutely gutted me. I hate puppy mills. I think Pit Bulls are lovely creatures who are misunderstood and raised by the wrong people. I don't like to kill Lady Bugs. I would never wear real fur and I've tried 29 times to become a vegetarian. (I'm still working on that one. Bacon, people. Bacon.)

However...

This was a child's life. An innocent little four year old boy who was doing what four year old boys do. Crawling, playing, testing boundaries. He managed to, according to the zoo, get "under a rail, through wires and over A MOAT wall to get into the enclosure."

Ya'll, he Mission Impossible'd himself in there. (The CIA should maybe recruit him after this hubbaloo dies down.) He wanted in and he was going to find a way to do it.

Reports have varied, but it sounds like at the beginning of the incident, the gorilla wasn't interested in harming the boy. Until the crowd got involved and understandably started to freak out. Then it agitated the gorilla and he became more violent, as the video shows. 

(Also, what kind of asshole takes a video of this happening? More on that later.)

All this aside, the fact remains, that little boy was probably going to be killed. Was the gorilla doing what gorillas do? Yes, it is a wild animal. Does that mean zoo should have sat by and let the little boy die? No. This was a total and complete freak accident that probably wouldn't happen again if you tried to recreate it three million times. 

What bothers me the most is the public outcry toward the mom of this child. I don't know her, and I don't know her story, but let me tell you a little story about me this weekend. 

My son is eight months old. He's essentially immobile, except when he's in his walker that he loves more than me. While cooking lunch on Sunday, I opened the pantry door to get out some bread. As I shut the door, I notice it was resisting. I thought maybe one of the hinges was broken. It never occurred to me that in the 2.3 seconds I had the pantry door open, my son had waddled over in his walker and stuck his meaty little fingers in the opening of the door swing. I HAD NEARLY CLOSED THE PANTRY DOOR ON MY SON'S FINGERS.

Incidentally, he's fine. There were tears and for a solid twenty minutes, I contemplated hurling myself off a bridge while screaming, "I'm a terrible mother!" on the way down. The fact that the one thing I love more than anything was hurt because of me was almost too much. And this was just some bruised fingers.

What if I had been that mom at the zoo? What if my squirrely little son had wandered off while I took a moment to ogle at the splendor of an amazing animal in front of me? 

Well, apparently you aren't allowed to do that in this world. The mom from the zoo has become a villain by the peanut gallery of nincompoops. Apparently she should have a leash or string around her child at all times. Because that's not weird or anything. 

Look, I get it. People think she was being negligent because that's an easy dart to throw. I, on the other hand, tend to err on the side of humanity and believe that she thought her kid was right next to her. For those that aren't parents, let me just inform you. Kids are smart. as. hell. They know when a parent is distracted and they take full advantage. Can we offer a little kindness to this mom whose son is laying in a hospital bed and whom she had to watch be dragged by a 400-pound (innocent yes, but still 400-pound) gorilla? Can we have some compassion, for f*ck's sake?

And now, the gorilla. My heart aches that Harambe is gone. This is by and large my main problem with zoos to begin with. We take wild animals and put them in enclosures so we can stare and laugh at them when they throw their poop at us. Then we're surprised when something unexpected happens and the animals act accordingly to their nature?

DID NO ONE READ CHAOS THEORY BY IAN MALCOM?

There's loads of outrage about whether a tranquilizer should have been tried first, but as I understand it, tranquilizers can take time and cause extreme agitation. The zoo had no way of knowing what the gorilla was getting ready to do, nor did they have time to sit around and think about what the Twittersphere would think. They had to act. 

And that sucks. The whole situation is a gigantic hurricane of suck.

I'm so torn. As a mother, I want the zoo (or amusement park, or Chuck E Cheese or Sky Zone) to do whatever they have to do to keep my son safe, even if he is being a little asshole. On the other hand, I know this gorilla  did nothing wrong. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and none of it was by his own choosing. He is dead because we feel the need to capture him and watch him for our own personal pleasure. But at the end of all of this, with the crap circumstances being what they were, I don't feel the  zoo was wrong. My heart breaks for the zookeeper that had to fire the shot. He didn't take that job hoping to get the chance to kill an endangered, beautiful, amazing creature. And yet, here we are. There is no cut and dry answer. There is a lot of drilling down into the nitty gritty that could potentially be explored. But that won't happen. It's easier to call the mom a piece of trash, the zoo trigger happy and the kid a brat.

Welcome to the human race.

I feel like this, along with other stories like fatal gun shootings, will fade into the background as the next news cycle comes in. And that makes me sad. Harambe is gone, but the boy is alive. A little boy who didn't understand the implications of what he did will reap the repercussions of this for a long time to come.

As for the mom in this story, I hope she's the innocent I'm making her out to be. I hope it doesn't turn out that she's a terrible mother who leaves her kid in a hot car while she runs in to the post office to mail a letter. I hope she doesn't sue the zoo. I'm giving her the benefit of the doubt, because I hope someone would give it to me. I hope my daycare provider sees my child's swollen fingers today and knows that life happened yesterday. Messy, sucky, painful life.

Lastly, you better believe I'm not blaming the walker company or the hinge company for my son's injury. And he will still play in his walker. I'm not going to wrap him in plastic bubble wrap. 

Yet. 

Be kind to each other. Be kind to animals. And be kind to yourself.

XOXO,

*flicks microphone* Is this thing on?

Hello. 

It's me. 

I was wondering if after all these weeks you'd still like to read.

Hi, bloggy friends! I hope you all had a wonderful Easter with your families. If that included a new addition to your family, I hope it was magical and full of color and eggs and candy and wonderment. 

I have been a baaaad blogger.

Like, way bad.

I haven't written anything in way, way too long. Like it or not, writing is like a muscle; if you don't use it you start to lose it. For me, baby has taken up a lot of time (though I am quite proud of myself for how many posts I have been able to write since my son arrived) and I haven't quite worked out how to just SIT DOWN and make the time to write. Plus I'm still struggling with being an infertility blogger while looking at my son. It's like having stroganoff on one side of my plate and pizza on the other. Naturally I want to eat the damn pizza because the stroganoff makes my stomach hurt and gives me flashbacks to childhood dinner times when I wanted to just give up on life.

(I once had a teacher who told me metaphors were bullshit and to avoid them like the plague when writing. Apparently I didn't listen.)

ANYWAYS. No, I am not abandoning infertility posts at all. They just take a little more mental preparation than the rainbow and unicorn posts about my son that flow out of me like lava. You feel me?

I am going to be writing a new blog post (infertility related!) that actually has content rather than ramblings in the next few days, so stay tuned.

I hope you all are doing well and staying strong. Keep at it, lovelies!

XOXO,

Forget Harry Pottter, Merlin is my new boyfriend

I don't believe in magic. And I always promised myself I would never do product reviews, because, how totally annoying. I don't want to be an infomercial for anything.

                               

But no one ever said I keep my promises. So allow me to now completely contradict myself and become a walking infomercial for a product I love so much, I've considered marrying it.

Merlin's Magic Sleep Suit.

Dear baby Jesus laying in the manger, this thing is amazing. 

Here's the story: my son is almost four months old. Up until now he has been allll about the swaddle. And when I say swaddle, I basically mean a straight jacket. He wanted to be in that Halo swaddle suit so tight that I worried I'd dislocate his shoulders wrapping him up in it. 

For over three months, he lay swaddled every night and slept well, only waking up 3-4 times (he is a breastfed baby). But a few weeks ago, that all changed. If he were to be a super hero, I'd call him "The Waker". Nothing I did would keep him down, and I began to notice on the baby monitor that he would sporadically kick and wake himself up. This is when I became best friends with Google and learned about the Moro reflex. (Why do they not teach us about this when we give birth?) This lovely phenomenon will cause completely knocked out babies to wake up with gusto.

You can read about it on the link, but let me save you the trouble. It's a reflex that makes baby feel like he's falling.

Dude, I'd wake the hell up, too.

The good news is that your baby will grow out of it. The bad news is that while you're waiting for that to happen, you get no sleep.

UNTIL NOW.

(This is where I'm going to go full infomercial.)

I saw someone mention the Merlin Magic suit on a local Momma's Group on Facebook. She had nothing but amazing things to say. I was doubtful. Look at this thing.

                                          
This snow suit apparatus is supposed to help my child sleep? More like help him body surf down a snow bank.

I was not convinced. There were some hurdles to get past.

Hurdle #1: This looks stupid

It wasn't until I read up on the suit that bells of sense started to ring in my head. The gimmick is, the layers in the suit help to muffle or subdue the jolt of that Moro reflex we just discussed, making it easier for your baby to get himself back to sleep after experiencing one. Instead of fully waking up thinking he's falling, it just feels like a normal "move around", and therefore helps him stay asleep.

So, hurdle #1 jumped. Onto the next.


Hurdle #2: Workin' up a sweat

Won't my baby sweat like a whore in church in this thing?

                              

Answer? Maybe. There are some baby's that run hot, and wrapping them up in additional padding might seem counter intuitive. In that case, I'd recommend having the babe sleep in just a diaper and some socks. There's no need for a onesie underneath because the material is uber soft. You can also choose to get the cotton version rather than the microfleece, which is a bit lighter. My advice is to try it first. And if you're super concerned, turn a fan on to keep the room a bit cooler.

Hurdle #3: Show me the money

The Merlin Magic Suit is not cheap. It's $40.00. If you have Amazon Prime you can get yourself some free shipping, and that helps. Buuuut, to make matters worse, when you wash it, it takes for.ev.er to dry. So you really need two. That's $80.00.

                                                 

Yes, it's costly. Here's where you have to weigh your return on investment, though. I, myself, burned through at least 3 other sleep solutions (Woombie, Zipadee Zip and some other random thing) before I landed on Merlin. Each one of those products was probably $25.00 and they didn't work and I'm kinda stuck with them. The good news with Merlin is, if it doesn't work for your baby I guarantee you can sell it lickety split for very close to what you paid, if not the exact amount.

But you won't need to worry about that because it's going to work.

Hurdle #4: You can't use it forever

This is a sad one for me. My little man is starting to roll over when he's not in the Merlin suit. For the moment, it's bulky enough that he can't quite roll himself onto tummy while he's in the suit, but that won't be the case for much longer. The Merlin Magic website recommends that once your little one can roll over, they need to be out of the suit. 

Well, crap.

There's really no solution I can offer to this last hurdle, it just is what it is. It's not worth keeping my baby in something that might be dangerous past a certain point. (The concern being that if he gets onto his tummy, he could suffocate face down.) So this means eventually he's going to have to transition to another solution (like a sleep sack). 

All the tears.

Hurdle #5: Your baby might never sleep this good again

For the record, despite all the rave reviews I read, the first night we tried the Merlin Magic Suit, I had my serious doubts. Would my little buddy even sleep with his arms out at his sides? Wouldn't he be uncomfortable? Truth be told, I was so incredibly nervous it wouldn't work that I actually had the suit in my possession for two weeks before I actually tried it. 

I finally decided to bite the bullet on a Friday night. I fed him at 7:30 PM and placed him in the suit.

He looked ridiculous.

        







Anyways.

I put him down at 7:45 PM and went downstairs with my husband to wait. How long until i had to go in and switch him back to his Halo? 20 minutes? An hour?

At 10:40 I went to bed. He didn't wake me up until 1:45.

                                               

After a quick feeding, he went back down again and was asleep until 6:00 AM.

BUT WAIT...THAT'S NOT ALL.

On night three in the suit, he went to bed at 8 and didn't wake up until 4:00 AM.

Yeah, I'm a Merlin Magic believer.

Full disclosure, sometimes he still does get up 2-3 times in the night. But I think that's just how babies are. They're consistently inconsistent. I do know that with this suit I have seen a change in how well my son sleeps, and at the end of the day (or in this case the end of the night) that's all that matters.

So, what are you waiting for? Sleep like a baby because your baby is finally sleeping like a baby.

(If Merlin Magic starts using that tag line, I get royalties right?)

XOXO,

I am not being paid for this product review. I just really, really love our Merlin suit and want you all to get one. I don't have a special code for you to get a discount and I don't get any special swag for writing these words. I'm just a sleep deprived mom that likes me some Merlin Magic.

With All Due Respect: A Response to a Misguided Infertility Article

If the infertility community had a dollar for every inaccurate, misleading, or just plain ridiculous article about infertility, we'd never have to pay for our daily Starbucks fix again. 

Then again, caffeine caused us to be infertile.

(Oops, there's another dollar.)

                     

Last week, @gotnosperm tweeted a link to an absurd article that appeared on The Huffington Post. It immediately lit a match within the infertile Twitter community, and I feel like a response to the article is needed. 

Our voice should be heard.

Here's the article. When I saw the title, "Infertility: The Important Missing Piece in Health Education Classes" I thought, "So true! This is a conversation we should be having with teens. It's not a fun convo, but we can prepare them for what might be coming and where they can go for help if it happens to them."

Then I started reading - and got all kinds of angry.  Right away I noticed that the subject of infertility as it pertains to the health education curriculum is only discussed as an afterthought. The article disguises itself as a conversation starter, when in fact it is simply a vehicle to get the real agenda across, which is hating on adoption and surrogacy. Infertility is just collateral damage. The gist of the article is this: infertility is totally preventable, infertility doctors and clinics are just trying to get your money, and surrogacy is just a bunch of exploitative assholes looking to screw you. 

Oh, and "adoption" is just a code word for sex trafficking.

This article should have inspired a dialogue surrounding if/when we should inform teens about the possibility that they will experience infertility in their life. Instead, the facts and statistics are so random and twisted that the original subject gets completely lost in the alphabet soup. What we're left with is a distasteful and flawed sermon that places the blame for fertility squarely on the sufferer's shoulders.  Here's a disturbing quote:

"Infertility affects both men and women, is devastating, heartbreaking, and often extremely expensive, and many of the risk factors are rooted in behavior that begins in adolescence."

Is this true? Well, it's truth adjacent. Infertility has certainly been linked to age, obesity,  alcohol, drugs, etc. But so has cancer. And headaches. And depression. 

Do we tell people with chronic headaches or cancer that it's their fault for eating too many candy bars in high school and doing too many Jell-O shots in college? No. We do our best to give them love and support and remind them that this random life curve is in no way their fault.

Because it isn't.

Infertility is no different. Of course there are factors that could increase the chances of fertility problems later in life, but it's hardly responsible to tell young teens that if they maintain a healthy lifestyle they can avoid infertility. That's writing a check that nature can't cash.

A large number of infertility issues are unexplained. Mine was, and after four years and the birth of my son, it still is. Besides, infertility can be linked to many sources. An obese woman who loses 60 pounds isn't suddenly guaranteed a pregnancy. She could have been obese with un-diagnosed PCOS. A woman in her 40's might easily get pregnant where a woman in her early 20's struggles. Every single case of this heartbreaking disease (yes, I said disease) is different, and it is never the person's fault that is suffering.

Ever.

This ridiculous article even sights that riding a bike and wearing constrictive underwear can cause male infertility. And therefore, "it is important for young people to know that their present behavior may cause them heartache later in life when they are ready to have a family."

                 

So you heard it here first, kids. Stay healthy and get plenty of exercise, but oh yeah, steer clear of riding a bike, mmmk? And actually, excessive exercise can cause infertility, so maybe just be lazy. But wait, obesity will cause infertility...you're just screwed, so best of luck with procreating.

The most disturbing part of this article for me is the focus of blaming infertility on women who choose to wait to begin a family. 

"First pregnancies over 30 are more difficult to achieve and maintain and also add to increased risk for the health of the baby.", and shortly after, "Since it is never too late to pursue higher education and career, it is worth considering delaying those pursuits instead of delaying childbirth. The infertility industry in America has grown into a multibillion-dollar industry profiting from these preventable behaviors."

What in the actual hell? So we should encourage women to go ahead get pregnant (ready or not, partner or not) because, hey, you can always get your degree some other day. Besides, the infertility industry is just getting rich off of your ridiculously selfish feminism, you Melanie-Griffith-Working-Girl wannabe. Stop trying to break through the glass ceiling and make make your husband some stroganoff, please.

                                         

No no no no. This is all SO wrong and such an ass-backwards approach to family planning. When and if a woman chooses to have a child should be her decision. I don't want anyone (especially an impressionable teenager) being told to give up their dreams of a career in favor of popping out a kid. Hell, why even finish high school? You should just get pregnant now! Your junior varsity quarterback boyfriend Tommy will surely be who you spend the rest of your life with. And if he isn't, oh well, at least you'll have your baby before your eggs scramble!

(My eyes are rolled so far back they can see my hardly-ever working ovaries.)

At the conclusion of the article, we finally uncover what the true agenda is: hating on adoption/surrogacy. In fact, surrogacy is described as, "a controversial practice that is Illegal in most of the industrialized world because it exploits low-income women in the US and overseas." 

What bothers me is how broad a brush is being used to paint surrogacy as this seedy, underground machine that's turning underprivileged teenagers into baby-making slave laborers. I'm sure surrogacy has its problems like almost all large organizations do. But frankly, for some people, surrogacy is truly the answer. For lesbian and gay couples, it's a way for at least one of them to have their DNA in their child. For other couples, it's the only option for them to have a child that is biologically their own. To solely focus on the negatives of a potential path to parenthood is simply irresponsible and dangerous. 

With regard to adoption, the article shares goes for the throat, claiming, "because the demand so outstrips the supply, the adoption industry is plagued by corruption, trafficking, and scams, all with little oversight or regulation."

Hey lady that wrote this article, your bias is showing. 

Like surrogacy, adoption isn't problem free. But it isn't all cloak and dagger awful, either. I can count on more than two hands the number of people I personally know who would be childless had it not been for the selfless and beautiful act of a mother choosing adoption for her baby. I understand that there are those who have had bad experiences, but does that mean we shut the whole system down? Hardly. I mean, I had a shoddy cavity fill in the 9th grade. Do I just let the other cavities that I get rot in my mouth until I look like a cast member for Duck Dynasty? Um, no.

To close out her glass-is-half-empty-and-also-probably-filled-with-cyanide diatribe, Mirah Riben ends with this uplifting thought:

It is vitally important for our youth to be made aware that their behavior may cause them grief and costly, risky treatments later in life. Health classes need to include this important information.

The truth is, the "this is all your fault" approach isn't going to help anyone. I'm all for educating young people on infertility, but let's do it from a standpoint of support and information rather than accusation. After all, when we know better we do better, right? Would it maybe be better to educate kids about healthy living across the board, rather than make empty promises about avoiding infertility if we just stop having an extra doughnut or drinking a soda? 

I think so.

So there.

XOXO, my infertile friends. Just remember, you've done nothing wrong. You are beautiful.

PS: Here's the author's web page. It's pretty clear what her agenda has been from the get go. Maybe Huff Post Education should choose someone else to write about infertility.