Year End

2013 was overall a better year for us despite going through our fourth miscarriage which ended quite early. Our second IVF cycle was very successful and I had worked through many issues about feeling quite alone and abandoned in this process. I now have a very small, close group of people who I can talk to about not only the status of where we are at but how I am feeling. I was always on the introvert/extrovert border as I am quite shy around new people but had a large social circle. Over the past few years I have become more introverted around some people who I do know, and less outgoing even around those I'm close to. But...I'm okay with that.

Gerry and I are on the island having a mini family vacation with Moshi at a beautiful bed and breakfast. Our family may not be as big as we had wanted at this point in our lives, but I'm happy it's just us.

So on NYE, I know that with our remaining frozen embryos, 2014 is either going to be a good year or very difficult. Either way, all I hope for is the strength to get through it.

Oh, that...

Yesterday I defended my Master's thesis. After four years I finally finished it and I am very proud of that accomplishment. Then it hit me today that it is time to look at when we are going to try implanting our latest batch of frozen embryos. Oh, that...

Cohorts

Today, I landed in the next age cohort illustrated in the countless infertility graphs found online and at our clinic. Age 38-40 tends to be a common cluster where the pregnancy success rate lowers, but not as drastically as when you hit age 40. Apparently I'm a 38 year old with fabulous eggs, and with the infusion of my husband's hand-picked-magical-sperm, they produce spectacular embryos. But, it's been 4 years now of trying to conceive a viable pregnancy and I've got a couple decent years left before it might be time to call it a day. On Friday I made sure to touch up my grey hair before this blessed event to reduce the sting of being moved into this cohort of even higher-anxiety-prone women. So as much as I was dreading my birthday, I also started to embrace it. No crying on your birthday!

A couple days ago I was chatting with a friend of mine who was approaching age 50. We talked about how much we thought we knew when we were in our early twenties and how we challenged things via our actions, conversational debates, and mannerisms. I reflected that I've mellowed a lot over the years, and it wasn't until my early thirties where I started noticing that I did not care much for, or chose purposely to not overly exert my opinion in discussing politics, family squabbles, unhealthy conflict, etc. My energy was best used elsewhere. My friend said,  "See, THAT comes with age". I agreed.

I think this patience and purposeful energy redirection (for lack of a better phrase) comes from aging in regards to "this issue is really nothing compared to some other shit going on", and also due to our infertility roller coaster which requires myself to give up having much control over my life direction, thereby learning to be patient and somewhat accepting throughout the journey. THAT will make me either a better parent one day, or a childless woman with other fruits to bear.

Picture of Moshi this morning: I was playing peek-a-boo with her with our bedcover (don't judge, this is my blog) and on the third one she made a giant leap from sitting position on the floor to the edge of our very high captain's bed, a place she is not allowed unless invited up only a few special times of the year. 

I guess she knew today was special and didn't need an invitation.

Sunrise

October is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness month. Local bereaved parents were able to get BC Place stadium to recognize this day by changing their lights to purple and blue on October 15th. We woke up this morning to this beautiful site from the view of our bedroom.

p.s. Big day - I copied this post to my Facebook account. Trying to be a bit indirectly open about myself.

BC Place glows purple and blue to raise awareness for pregnancy and infant loss

By Jens Locher

Sunday, October 13, 2013 6:07:42 PDT PM

For immediate release

BC Place glows purple and blue to raise awareness for pregnancy and infant loss

October 15, 2013 has been proclaimed Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day by the Province of British Columbia. This is an important acknowledgement of the trauma and grief that hundreds of families face after the devastating tragedy of the death of their baby. Vancouver will join other major Canadian cities in marking this day thanks to BC Place, which will light up the stadium roof in purple and blue on October 15 in remembrance and honour of the children who have died far too early.

In 2011 BC Vital Statistics reported 441 stillbirths and 167 infant deaths in British Columbia alone. These statistics do not include the high number of miscarriages that occur before 20 weeks of pregnancy. Despite the technological and medical advances in other fields of medicine, the rate of stillbirth in developed countries has not declined significantly over the past 20 years and often the cause of a stillbirth remains unknown.

Additionally, the death of a child is a stigmatized tragedy. It is only rarely talked about in public despite a growing number of bereaved families who blog about their experience or speak up publicly to bring awareness to these tragedies. "To me one of the big shocks was how many people came forward and told us about their own story of loss after our first son had died. We would have never known otherwise." says Jens Locher who initiated the BC Childloss Support Network (BCCSN).

"The story of each family is unique with its own challenges and there will likely never be simple guidelines how to support bereaved parents. However, many parents seem to struggle with the lack of acknowledgement of the existence of their babies." October 15 provides an opportunity for everyone to reach out in a sensitive way to friends or colleagues who have lost a child. A little note that a candle is lit in memory of a child, or mentioning their names are just two ways to remember the children.

If you would like to make a financial contribution there are many fantastic initiatives and organizations in British Columbia that provide invaluable support to bereaved parents, such as Canuck Place Children's Hospice, Still Life Canada or Little Spirits Garden.

Poolside

We're on vacation in Palm Springs for a week before we head to San Diego for the second week. We were happy that our room at the resort was 20 feet away from the pool, so it was really right in our backyard. Then we found out it was the family pool. There was another family pool and two other adult pools in the resort and we thought about whether we should head somewhere more quiet, especially because I need to work on my Master's project this first week. Gerry said he'ld rather choose kids over drunken adults, and I agreed albeit reminding him that years ago we too were drunken adults at the pool. He nodded.  No wonder the hot tub was empty at night, they were all putting the kids to bed. Woo-hoo!

Despite the front desk saying they were at full capacity, the resort was very quiet. The first day at our pool had three young families and a couple of seniors. I knew all the kids names just by overhearing the conversations: Cameron, Dylan, Mason....  One 31 year old mom of two kids who was a couple years older than her husband was called a cougar by another dad. Then I would overhear the moms talk of pregnancy stretch marks, breast feeding dilemmas, and then tales of their friends who have bad morning sickness. One had responded "that's soooo sad". I bit my lip and put my headphones on. Another mom, when responding to joining them on vacation next year, said she should be pregnant again by then so they cannot commit yet. I turned up the music some more.  The dads multi-tasked between football updates on their ipads, and picking up a towel a toddler threw in the pool then covering the toddler with the wet towel. Why can't the dads just be at poolside?

Then for the rest of the week, no more kids....just 2-4 senior couples. One couple was skyping with their grandchild. Another had just retired. We were the youth of the club. Despite my happiness for peace and quiet and my ability to relax as much as possible given the qualitative data coding in progress, I then realized we didn't fit in with either group. So, where do the childless couples vacation? Aren't there more of us?

This is Water

Here is a link to an excellent video based on a commencement address by David Foster Wallace. Not sure how long this will be up because of copyright issues. What I liked the most is the part in the grocery store where it shows how we often judge others for their behaviours and actions without knowing their story.

Some people, as I have encountered, judge others about their family status, decisions they make in order to have a family, or their behaviours or actions in social situations - again, without knowing the story.

Well worth nine minutes:

http://www.upworthy.com/the-earth-shatteringly-amazing-speech-that-ll-change-the-way-you-think-about-adulthood-4?g=2

In the news...

Sometimes I hate reading the paper or watching the news. This story is horrific. Our system is so screwed up that these poor children could not be placed back with their parents or adopted. There is more on this story I couldn't bring myself to read about adults who knew of the childrens' endangerment, but did nothing.



http://www.theprovince.com/news/Jeffrey+Baldwin+father+sobs+recalls+last+visit+with+emaciated/8930377/story.html

TORONTO — Jeffrey Baldwin’s father sobbed in the witness stand as he remembered the last time he saw his little boy.

Despite Richard Baldwin’s evident distress, or more likely because of it, his tears came as welcome relief: At last, a witness was weeping for the right person.

The 37-year-old was testifying Wednesday at the Ontario coroner’s inquest into his son’s Nov. 30, 2002, death from the lethal trifecta of pneumonia, septic shock and starvation.

“I gave him a hug, in the living room,” Richard Baldwin said.

“How did he feel?” coroner’s counsel Jill Witkin asked.

“Very small,” said Baldwin, his voice breaking.

“Did he say anything?”  Witkin asked.

“He just called me Dad,” Baldwin said, sobbing.

This last visit was in the spring or summer of 2002, months before the five year old died.

By that time, Jeffrey and his three siblings had been in the custody of their maternal grandparents, Elva Bottineau and Norman Kidman, for years, their own young parents deemed inept by both family courts and child-care workers.

In fact, all had been bamboozled by Bottineau, a woman of marginal intelligence but astonishing cunning who pitted family members against one another and manipulated social workers with psychopathic aplomb.

In 2006, Bottineau and Kidman were convicted of second-degree murder in Jeffrey’s death and of forcible confinement in the regular locking-up of both the little boy and his then-six-year-old sister in a foul unheated room.

While none of the six children then living in the east-end Toronto house could be said to have had a storybook existence, Jeffrey and his sister were the dirty secrets.

Largely hidden from public view, rarely allowed out of their feces- and urine-stained prison and treated always with contempt, the two predictably withered in every way.

At the time of his death, Jeffrey weighed a pound less than he had as a healthy one-year-old — 21 pounds.

His sister survived largely, it appears, because she had started kindergarten for half-days and received school snacks.

What Baldwin knew about all this was minimal.

By then, the access he and Yvonne Kidman were getting to their own four children was increasingly grudging and limited.

Bottineau would cancel scheduled visits, claiming one or another of the kids was sick, or the young couple would arrive at the house, only to find plans had changed.

That was exactly what happened that fall, Baldwin said.

Unusually, he and Yvonne Kidman were being allowed to have Jeffrey and his sister for the weekend — Bottineau was complaining she was having difficulty coping.

But when he arrived to pick up the kids, Bottineau told him Jeffrey was upstairs in bed, ill. She didn’t want Baldwin going up there, catching whatever Jeffrey had, then infecting the little girl, who would bring whatever the bug was back into the house.

He left with only his little daughter.

His account of the couple’s two days with one of their own children was wrenching because he was so clearly proud.

At one point, Witkin asked if the child was verbal yet.

“Oh, she was verbal for a while,” Baldwin replied with a huge grin. “She’s like her mother.”

First, he said, he gave her “two baths” because she smelled of urine and “threw her clothing away” because it stank.

They took her to their local park, and the next day, though he had to work, Ms. Kidman took the little girl to the restaurant where she then worked, “to show her off.”

These were obvious clues, of course, to something being awry in the house, and Baldwin wasn’t blind to them.

He was worried, especially so when they had to take the little girl back to the grandparents’ house, and she was inconsolable.

And Jeffrey’s failure to grow gnawed at him.

“He didn’t look very good,” Baldwin said of the last time he’d seen him. “I questioned her (Bottineau) and she’d say, ‘Oh don’t worry, I’m on top of it. He’ll bounce back.’ ”

But he not only felt powerless, he actually was.

He and Ms. Kidman had started popping out kids when they were teenagers — they had six, one stillborn, the others all ending up with Bottineau and Kidman or in care — and it seemed they could do little right.

The Catholic Children’s Aid Society was first called in by a neighbour about their first-born, who was briefly left alone as a baby while her parents had a fight.

Bottineau offered to look after the little girl and at first it seemed a solution — Baldwin and Ms. Kidman needed help, Bottineau had the agency’s support, it was going to be temporary.

But it was the beginning of the end for the young couple.

Bottineau, and two of Ms. Kidman’s sisters, slyly campaigned against them getting the little girl — and later, the others — back.

Not until the murder trial, Baldwin said, did he and Ms. Kidman learn the extent to which Bottineau had undercut their efforts.

As Witkin put it in her opening statement last week, Bottineau “continued to feed information to the Society about Richard and Yvonne’s shortcomings” behind their backs, so they never really knew what hit them.

The young couple surely had shortcomings: Their relationship was volatile; they were, as Baldwin said several times, “young and stupid”; they had trouble managing their money (though he has always worked).

So, while he was worried, he didn’t know where to turn.

Why wouldn’t he have called his worker at the agency, Witkin asked.

“I have hate towards the Catholic Children’s Aid,” he snapped. “(The worker) is the last person I ever want to speak to ever again.”

Later, asked for suggestions that might prevent another death like Jeffrey’s, Baldwin mused about child-welfare agencies.

“To have so much power and have no one checking on them seems wrong,” he said. “Maybe our government will get smarter and build an organization to police the Children’s Aid.”

Bottineau and Kidman weren’t young and stupid when they were pronounced marvy caregivers by the family courts and two child-welfare agencies and, without criminal record or background checks, given custody of Jeffrey and his siblings.

They were just convicted child abusers with a horrific history.

Baldwin said he believes if he and Kidman had received more help and had got their kids back, “I think he’d (Jeffrey) be alive today.”

He rather has a point.

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