Octo-crazy

I had to follow up on my original post about the Octomom (or whatever the press is calling her now). At that time, we still didn't know who this woman was and what her story was. As it turns out, not only did she use fertility drugs, but the octuplets are the result of her fifth (!) IVF.

I know I shouldn't judge, but I will. This woman is obviously not stable. Julie over at A Little Pregnant has summarized all of the issues quite nicely from the perspective of someone who has - legitimately - undergone fertility treatments. Suffice to say, Nadya Suleman is an unemployed single mother of 14 young children who underwent IVF, not because she had any fertility issues, but because she wanted to be a mother and thought it had a better chance of success than the regular "turkey baster" method. It's not clear how she's going to be able to support her children, although she has suggested that a reality show might do the trick. Imagine - starring in your own reality show is now a legitimate career choice!

I think what annoys me the most about all of this (and believe me, there are a lot of things that annoy me about this) is that there are thousands of women out there for whom IVF represents their best shot at having a biological child. They are in loving relationships and have stable homes within which they could raise these children. Making the decision to do IVF is not an easy one. I don't know anyone who's undergone IVF who really wanted to do it. We would all have rather done it the "natural" way. There's a part of me that feels that people like Miss Suleman and her doctor make it a lot tougher for the rest of us to get society to understand that IVF is not a quick fix. And my heart aches for those people who have gone through several IVF procedures and have no babies to show for it, let alone 14.

I have nothing against big families. My dad had sixteen siblings, so it's something I'm used to. To me, this situation appears to be exploiting a procedure that's there to help people in need in order to satisfy some perverted desire to have as many children as possible, regardless of whether you actually have the emotional and financial means to support them. But then to me, having to do IVF was by far the most angst-ridden decision I've ever made in my life. Being in the position where IVF was an option was the last place I wanted to be and I cannot imagine going through something like that if I didn't have to.

I just don't get it.

She's Ba-ack

Sorry for the delay, but the past couple of weeks have been pretty busy (in a good way). We just got back from a week in Hawaii and it was fantastic! Especially the part where Gavin started puking in the middle of a busy street. Or when he swept his glass bottle off the table at the restaurant on to the ceramic-tiled floor where it shattered into a million pieces. Or when he wet through his pants on the plane and I didn't have an extra pair with me so he was without pants for about three hours, through two airports and one entire flight. Let's just say that travelling with babies is an experience unlike any other I've had. Fabulous and exhausting and I can't wait to do it again.

You are what you Eat

On my birthday I was out for lunch with my boss and a potential referral source. We were at a fairly upscale restaurant downtown, the kind of place you go to have lunch because dinner would be way too expensive. Anyway, I ordered the cannelloni and when it came I finished it all. It wasn't a huge portion by any measure and by the end I was satisfied, but not overly full. When the waiter came around to ask if we wanted dessert, he looked at me first. When I said no, he says: you had the cannelloni. You ate it all. I've never seen that before. No one eats all the cannelloni. You ate it all. Seriously, even big guys don't eat all the cannelloni.

I really didn't know how to respond, so I made some joke about having a prairie girl's appetite. It was weird, and a little embarrassing. I like to eat, but not excessively so (at least I didn't think so). So far, my metabolism has been kind. I still weigh the same as I did when I graduated high school, although my body has become somewhat...softer. I try to eat healthy, but there are times when I stray. Still, it seems that more and more nowadays I'm becoming self-conscious about what I eat when I'm with other people, especially in a work-related setting.

Like tonight. I was at a dinner meeting and there was just one person at my table that I'd met before. The table was evenly-split between men and women. As usual, I ate everything on my plate and, from what I could see, so did the other three women. But when dessert came around, I was the only woman who took it. The other three all declined, and quite pointedly so. Two of the women asked to trade the cake for fruit. Again, I felt kind of odd. Like, am I supposed to ask for fruit too?

I guess I figure that as long as I'm not overweight that I should be able to eat what I want without judgment. But maybe in this age when everyone is becoming more health conscious and aware of what they eat I need to be more careful about the image I'm projecting....before my body does it for me.