Six weeks before our third round of IVF this fall, I literally woke up one morning and decided I needed to do something completely out of my comfort zone. For three straight years, every decision I'd made revolved around beating my infertility rap and turning into a fertile Myrtle.
In no particular order, I stopped running, stopping drinking alcohol, stopped drinking Starbucks short nonfat lattes, stopped drinking soda, stopped eating anything cold out of the fridge ('cause The Infertility Cure told me that my particular deficiencies demanded warm or room-temp foods), stopped using beauty products with potentially bad crap in them, stopped eating refined sugar, stopped eating anything with white or wheat flour, stopped doing sit-ups, stopped drinking water out of plastic bottles, stopped accepting new freelance projects so that I could keep my stress level down, stopped, stopped, stopped.
After all that stopping, I was ready to go, go, go. So, I jumped out of bed, went to the computer, found a tennis club near my house and signed up for private lessons. Why was this so monumental? Because I've never been what you'd call a super sporty gal. Heck, I wouldn't even say that I've been a mildly sporty gal. Sure, I go to the gym, but that's about fitting into my $200 jeans. Competitive athletics that require score keeping, where there is a winner and a loser, not my bag.
My first memory of sweat-inducing fear around sports is from 3rd grade gym class. One word sums it up: Dodgeball. I just don't think that a game where kids throw balls as hard as they can at each other has any place in civilized society. Especially when you're the kid that everyone tries to hit first because you can't dodge the damn ball. From there came softball and kickball and basketball and volleyball and all kinds of other games with balls. The panic was never ending.
Whether my sports trepidation was (is) about a fear of losing or a fear of winning or a fear of people yelling at me because I did something wrong doesn't really matter. But if I had to guess, I would say it's all the above.
The truth is that I don't like to do things unless I can do them well. Scratch that. I don't like to do things unless I can do them perfectly, even if it's something I've never done before. Talk about setting myself up for failure from the get-go. But I'm working on it. And that's why tennis was so huge. Not only was I going to willingly pay money to play a sport, but I was also going to walk straight onto a court of imperfection. It seems my desire to hit the crap out of something was trumping my fear of failure.
Knowing myself like I do, I was quite aware that I had to have a tennis coach who understood my fragile state and knew how to keep my confidence up. Someone who would follow the pro-con-pro approach: Great swing. Don't forget to follow-through. Good job on the footwork. Lucky for me, Terry showed up for work on my first day of lessons. Talk about patience. I wish I could record Terry's encouraging voice and carry it around with me all day long.
In so many ways, my tennis lessons are the best therapy I've ever had. Did you know that the reason people try to hold their racket so close to the head is because they're trying to control the shot? I didn't. Can you guess where I like to hold my racket? Yep. I play tennis like I play life: If I hold on tighter and with all my strength, I'll control the shot. But, guess what? When I let go of my iron-grip, my shot improves. In fact, the ball actually goes over the net. Fancy that.
Sunday, December 20, 2009
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Away we go...people like us.
Flying back from a long week of meetings in Seattle last Thursday, I settled into my roomy seat (I heart Virgin America) and decided to clear my head by watching a movie. Preferably a lighthearted comedy that required no thinking whatsoever. Something that would have me floating off the plane and into our first adoption workshop that night.
Scrolling through my options, I realized pretty quickly that the cards were stacked against me. While I loved The Proposal, watching it for the third time in a month sounded like a waste of 8 bucks. No matter how much I loved Ryan Reynolds' abs. So, I clicked on the one movie that the Mr. and I had been consciously avoiding since we first saw the trailer this past summer: Away We Go.
Going through IVF, the last thing I wanted to do was watch a quirky little film about a couple that got pregnant without trying. I mean really, when my bloated belly looked like a pin cushion from all the shots and my boobs were the size of the Good Year blimp times two and my moods were a swinging pendulum, is it any wonder?
But there I was. Staring at the screen. Before I knew it, I clicked "buy" and the movie was mine. For a solid 98 minutes I was going to follow Burt and Verona and her pregnant belly. From the start, I noticed something amazing. I didn't care if she was pregnant. Not that I didn't care about the character. I did. I actually loved the character. I loved the writing. I loved the story. But I didn't care that she was pregnant. This was their journey. Not mine. Until they got to Montreal. That's where they stayed with their friends, Tom and Munch (that's a girl btw), and their adopted children.
To set the scene: Burt, Verona, Tom and Munch were out on the town for a little adult fun. Tom and Munch seemed so in love with each other and their children. Their life seemed perfect. But that would be too... perfect, right?
Tom: She had another miscarriage.
Burt: What? When:
Tom: Thursday.
Burt: This Thursday?
Tom: Yeah. This is her fifth. I know she loves all those kids like, like they were her own blood. But, I wonder if we've been selfish. People like us, we wait 'till our thirties and then we're surprised when the babies aren't so easy to make anymore and then every day another million fourteen-year-olds get pregnant without trying. It's a terrible feeling, this helpless feeling. You just watch these babies grow and then fade. You don't know if you're supposed to name them, or bury them, or...
People like us. And there's the rub. But you know what, I don't think Tom's people and my people are the same people. My people, we're ready to stop pushing our bodies to do something they simply don't want to do. That's why my people and I get along. That and we all have a deep appreciation for Ryan Reynolds' abs.
Scrolling through my options, I realized pretty quickly that the cards were stacked against me. While I loved The Proposal, watching it for the third time in a month sounded like a waste of 8 bucks. No matter how much I loved Ryan Reynolds' abs. So, I clicked on the one movie that the Mr. and I had been consciously avoiding since we first saw the trailer this past summer: Away We Go.
Going through IVF, the last thing I wanted to do was watch a quirky little film about a couple that got pregnant without trying. I mean really, when my bloated belly looked like a pin cushion from all the shots and my boobs were the size of the Good Year blimp times two and my moods were a swinging pendulum, is it any wonder?
But there I was. Staring at the screen. Before I knew it, I clicked "buy" and the movie was mine. For a solid 98 minutes I was going to follow Burt and Verona and her pregnant belly. From the start, I noticed something amazing. I didn't care if she was pregnant. Not that I didn't care about the character. I did. I actually loved the character. I loved the writing. I loved the story. But I didn't care that she was pregnant. This was their journey. Not mine. Until they got to Montreal. That's where they stayed with their friends, Tom and Munch (that's a girl btw), and their adopted children.
To set the scene: Burt, Verona, Tom and Munch were out on the town for a little adult fun. Tom and Munch seemed so in love with each other and their children. Their life seemed perfect. But that would be too... perfect, right?
Tom: She had another miscarriage.
Burt: What? When:
Tom: Thursday.
Burt: This Thursday?
Tom: Yeah. This is her fifth. I know she loves all those kids like, like they were her own blood. But, I wonder if we've been selfish. People like us, we wait 'till our thirties and then we're surprised when the babies aren't so easy to make anymore and then every day another million fourteen-year-olds get pregnant without trying. It's a terrible feeling, this helpless feeling. You just watch these babies grow and then fade. You don't know if you're supposed to name them, or bury them, or...
People like us. And there's the rub. But you know what, I don't think Tom's people and my people are the same people. My people, we're ready to stop pushing our bodies to do something they simply don't want to do. That's why my people and I get along. That and we all have a deep appreciation for Ryan Reynolds' abs.
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