Holy Thursday - The Pope breaks with liturgical rules

I'm overjoyed, delighted, touched that Pope Francis decided to continue the tradition he started in his home country to wash the feet of juvenile detainees (including women!) in Italy on Holy Thursday instead of what popes traditionally do this day which is, "carry out the foot washing ritual in Rome's grand St. John Lateran basilica.  The 12 people chosen for the ritual were always priests to represent the 12 apostles whose feet Jesus washed during the Last Supper before His crucfixion." 

This act apparently got a Canon lawyer all hot and bothered because he said, "liturgical law expressly limits participation in that rite to adult males, and I have consistently called on Catholics, clerics and laity alike, to observe this pontifically-promulgated law in service to the unity (dare I say, the catholicity) of liturgy (c. 837)."  He went on to say that he found the Pope's actions "inspiring."  But, as a fairly new Catholic, I guess you can find a Christian act inspiring but still know it violates some Church law and be OK with it all.  Huh.

The Vatican spokesman we all know and love, the Reverend Frederico Lombardi said, what I found terribly interesting, "in a 'grand solemn celebration' of the rite, only men are included because Christ washed the feet of his 12 apostles, all of whom were male.

'Here, the rite was for a small, unique community made up also of women,' Lombardi wrote in an email. 'Excluding the girls would have been inopportune in light of the simple aim of communicating a message of love to all, in a group that certainly didn't include experts on liturgical rules.'"

Am I reading this right?  If the feet washing on Holy Thursday would have been in a grand solemn celebration, of course we would and should exclude women because Jesus clearly only favored the service of men, the Twelve Apostles.  But, because the new rogue Pope wanted to go to a kiddie prison, we had to wash girl feet because well, we are the one, true Church, heirs to St. Peter, and excluding girls would be majorly inopportune in light of those facts and we should be all about love here (that's what Jesus preached), and besides, there were no Canon lawyers in the jail to stop us.  Or, maybe I'm just cynical this week (in some arenas).  I'm terribly grateful God has given me a lively, happy Holy Week.

Why are infertiles being swept into the gay marriage debate?

Yesterday, I started a letter to Archbishop Cordileone.  I'll post it here once it's finished.  The first version was quite aggressive (my natural tone) but in the shower this morning had some ideas spring to mind to make it more diplomatic.  Not that I feel diplomacy is necessary but I figure I should give him the benefit of the doubt that he wasn't trying to hurt infertiles' feelings.  The same can't be said for a few people over at Little Catholic Bubble.  In the latest post (as of an hour ago) I think Leila buries herself into a deeper hole by saying this:

Because fertility is not required for marriage (never has been), only the ability to complete the marital act. Sometimes, due to defect, disease or age (effects of the fallen world), children do not come from acts which are by their nature ordered toward procreation. (Of course, many couples deemed infertile later do conceive… as the Bible says, "God opens and closes the womb". The creation of children is ultimately in His hands. But the act that makes children is the principle act of marriage; it's what separates marriage from friendship.)

First of all, I'm again glad to know that our infertility is because of the "effects of the fallen world."  That's strange because God Himself said in Genesis 3:16 (NIV version) because Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children.  Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

I remember from last Sunday's (Palm Sunday) gospel reading (the Passion) Jesus says in Luke 23:29, "For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’" 

And I do appreciate Leila proclaiming that God's favor might fall upon me and I will conceive but I think for most of us infertiles, we've become blue in the face telling fertiles not to tell us that it's "All in God's time."  I've always rejected this crazy notion some bloggers have that because they are fertile God favors them more or because they can't get pregnant, God's punishing them for something they did.  I categorically reject that theory.

I also contend that sexual intercourse is NOT the principal act of marriage.  You might need to initially consumate a marriage to make it a legal marriage.  I think you used to be able in some countries or some states to nullify a marriage if you NEVER had sex.  But, you don't need to keep knockin' the boots to retain your status as a married person.

If Catholics want to base their argument against gay marriage on procreation i.e., you have heterosexual sex, you get pregnant, you carry a child to term, you give birth to that child, and then you raise that child until age 18 (well, now it's to 25 or more), as the only thing distinguising marriage as a sacred union and in the Church, a sacrament, Houston, we've got a problem.

I think a very mature attitude about a Christian marriage is that it's not about sex.  You heard it here first: If you are basing the quality of your marriage on the quality of the sex or having any sex at all, you're shallow.  Christian marriage is a vocation!!!!  It is one of the greatest opportunities for ministry.  If you are encouraging, supporting, and lovingly challenging your spouse in their Christian faith, you are a good husband/wife.  You are in a good, holy marriage.

I get that the Church wants to enter into the debate against civil gay marriage.  But, why are you divorcing your argument from your faith and making it all about sex, conception, birth, and parenting?  Isn't it enough to say that God says homosexual acts are wrong, bad, etc. and then say He ordained marriage between a man and a woman as a symbol of the relationship between Christ and His Church?  That's good stuff for me and it prevents everybody from having to tap dance around (or just stomp on) the infertile and elderly. 

For some in this debate those words are interchangable because despite being a lawyer for the OPPONENTS of same-sex marriage, Charles J. Cooper couldn't be bothered to educate himself on infertility when his whole argument is that gay marriage "will refocus the purpose of marriage and the definition of marriage away from the raising of children and to the emotional needs and desires of adults, of adult couples."  The key to marriage, he said, is procreation. 

He went on to say (and I quoted part of this as the title of my last post) "even with respect to couples over the age of 55 -- it is very rare that both couples -- both parties to the couple are infertile..."  I think Mr. Cooper spends too much time in his office.  As we NFPers know, if even one party is infertile, you are both infertile by definition because it takes two to tango.  Well, three.  Dr. Hilgers tells us that you need good sperm, good egg(s), and good cervical mucus to conceive.  In our case, we need more than that 'cause we've got all three and it's a non-starter.

I'm really secretly delighted this whole debate is swallowing up infertiles and spitting them out like a speck of dust in someone's eye.  I have joined, not by choice or desire, an extreme minority in human society.  I cannot get pregnant, am making zero moves to try and get pregnant through medical intervention, and won't adopt.  I am living according to my principles and my faith.  I am doing the right thing.

I know that there are bad apples in every bunch but it's very sad to me to see so many people who view their faith as pure and their understanding of it - perfect, throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water (I couldn't help myself.) 

I'm starting to realize my voice here on the Internets is important.  If I am going to be apart of that tiny minority, I will not shrink away.  I will defend the life that has been handed to me and I will advocate for my community. 

"...it is very rare... that both parties to the couple are infertile"

What?!?!  WHAT?!?!?!  Oh my gosh.  Holy Week and this is the stuff that's going on?  Did I just hear the word "infertile" uttered in the United States Supreme Court House?  I had to come out of semi-retirement for this.  This is big news.  And I was really dying for some Catholic bloggers to chime in on this issue, and one in particular didn't disappoint.  I was having so much fun being outraged today.

Let's establish some ground rules here.  I live in California.  I vote.  I voted in 2008.  I even voted "Yes" on Prop 8.  Shocker.  Elitist gays don't like that blacks and Latinos tend not to condone gay marriage and they helped Prop 8 pass in 2008 so they take this case to the courts and yo, it ends up in the Supreme Court where it looks likely that the justices won't rule on it.  It makes perfect sense to me that the SCOTUS won't rule on something so momentous to our society so soon into the debate.  Yes, that's good, sound reasoning.

But what has got me all excited?????  It's that the lawyer arguing in favor of Prop 8 tied his whole friggin' argument against gay marriage to the procreation argument.  And then the Archbishop of San Francisco jumped on the bandwagon.  Really?  Is that all these people have?

And holes were punched all through that argument.  Kagan asked if the government could deny a marriage license to couples over the age of 55.  Would that be unconstitutional?  Well, yes it would and the... well, do me a favor and listen to that excerpt of the hearing today.

And Cordileone gets in on the action:

Q: You have spoken of gay marriage as a "natural impossibility." But in terms of procreation, how does it differ from opposite-sex couples who are elderly or infertile?

A: Our bodies have meaning. The conjugal union of a man and a woman is not a factory to produce babies; marriage seeks to create a total community of love, a "one flesh" union of mind, heart and body that includes a willingness to care for any children their bodily union makes together.

Two men and two women can certainly have a close loving committed emotional relationship, but they can never ever join as one flesh in the unique way a husband and wife do.

Infertility is, as you point out, part of the natural life cycle of marriage (people age!), as well as a challenge and disappointment some husbands and wives have to go through. People who have been married for 50 years are no less married because they can no longer have children.

Adoption can be a wonderful happy ending for children who lack even one parent able or willing to care for them. But notice, when a man and woman cannot have children together, that's an accident of circumstances, the exception to the rule. When a husband and wife adopt, they are mirroring the pattern set in nature itself. ...

               Treating same-sex relationships as marriage is the final severing by government of the natural         link between marriage and the great task of bringing together male and female to make and raise the next generation together in love.

It is so comforting to know that my circumstances are viewed by an archbishop as "disappointing."  And "an accident of circumstances."  Gosh.  And all this time I interpreted my experience as an infertile as devastating, life-altering, crushing, against everything I had believed to be true.  My infertility is no more than an accident of circumstances.  That's life, suckers.  And you are being used as a pawn to support an irrational argument against gay marriage.  I can't believe my status as a female, heterosexual, married, Catholic is now tied to gay marriage.

Now, as Catholics we don't have to use half-baked arguments to support heterosexual marriage.  Don't get me wrong.  Of course, marriage is intended "for the increase of mankind."  But, it doesn't stop there.  "1605 Holy Scripture affirms that man and woman were created for one another: "It is not good that the man should be alone."⁹² The woman, "flesh of his flesh," his equal, his nearest in all things, is given to him by God as a "helpmate"; she thus represents God from whom comes our help.⁹³ "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh."⁹⁴ The Lord himself shows that this signifies an unbreakable union of their two lives by recalling what the plan of the Creator had been "in the beginning": "So they are no longer two, but one flesh."^95"

I took that from the Vatican's website.  Yes, I know it's terrible citing of sources.  Marriage and the beauty and mystery of marriage has nothing to do with kids.  How a man and a woman relate to one another in a marriage is special full-stop.  Why a prominent member of the Church and Prop 8 cronies had to cheapen my (childless) marriage for their own purposes is disgusting.  To call me an "extreme minority" and toss me aside as an inconvenient outlier to their statistical model is wrong.  Infertiles are not the key to your argument against gay marriage.  Marriage is between a man and a woman can be defended with better and more compassionate arguments than that.  

Break Out

A new Pope from Argentina!!!  How cool is that?

I'm now just two days shy of 15 weeks since my last haircut.  It grows slowly according to the hairdressers because I'm not taking hair growth vitamins.  Heck, if I won't take pre-natal vitamins, I'm sure not doing ones for hair.  And my face is relatively long, so I figure I'll only make it to a chin-length bob after 12 months.

Getting back to Sarah's comment on my last post... how I speak or what I write about my husband is the truth how I view it, so it's entirely biased.  I get that he come across as difficult but that's only because I tend to write out of pain and not good times.  I should probably change that habit, it might make me a more pleasant person, for sure.  My view is that we're all jerks at one time or another.  I'm a jerk.  He's a jerk.  It depends on the situation but I think that progress is all we can hope for.  It's a journey, not a destination and that's something I try to remind DH every time we hike a mountain summit.

Just today I've come out of a very dark grey fog.  But I'm seizing the moment because it feels so good to feel good. :)  My husband pointed out this morning that I've been mercilessly complaining about my life when what we have now is what I said I wanted previously.  And I just realized it today.  And so I'm a jerk.  I apologized to him for hurting him with my inconsistency.  I guess I can place the blame on the devil.  He's been leading me astray for months.  Maybe all of the pain of the last two years has finally come to a head and how I manifested the pain was by dragging my husband into Camp Loony.  I don't know.

But it has to stop.  The Misfit was right on target, along with Sarah, Kat, prayerful journey, and MFAW that the pain I'm feeling is reconciling my real life with what I had hoped for it.  I'm forever an Anne of Green Gables fan.  She says, "I can't help flying on the wings of anticipation.  It almost pays for the thud."  Well, my thud was too damn hard.  I cannot keep up this version that the life I lead is less than or deprived of the real things I should have, and the real people I should know, and the real experiences I should be having.

As any infertile who reads an entertainment magazine or former infertile blogs, the world can be a scary place.  Pregnancies and children are treated like winning the lottery.  I'm not negating the fact that children are a blessing.  Don't get me wrong.  Children are wonderful people.  But they are not the key to personal fulfillment and happiness.  Well, you know, they might be for some women and men.  But knowing what I know about life and risks is that pain exists and you cannot escape it.  So, for me, I think I can be just as unhappy with a kid if I let it be that way.  So, this is actually a comforting thought.  I can use mind over matter.

But what this also means is that I'm quitting the infertile blog business.  A lot of infertile bloggers have turned their blog theme into something really cool like decorating, or recipes and cooking.  If I had a hobby like that, I think I can make this into something.  But my house is already decorated and I only cook from recipes you can easily find yourself in a book or on the Web.  Trust me, you don't need me.  I'm flexible over how long I'll leave the site up.  I'm not sure when I'll post again.  I need to clear my head space and I'm pretty sure it'll be easier to do that if I'm not seeing pictures of babies with onesies on them saying, "Future Pope" or "Ladies Man", etc.

You wouldn't know it by reading my blog but I have lots of incredible things going for me.  I need to reconnect with my husband.  I need to widen my circle of friends (in real life).  I need to hike more.  You can always reach me at airingthechapel [at] gmail [dot] com.  I do check that account sometimes.  And I love to write personal emails so drop me a note if you'd like.  I promise to write back. :)

"Your" Infertility

I've been away from blogging for a while.  It's not due to Lent.  I'm not convinced God think's it's spiritual growth to disassociate from the Net but I'm not questioning somebody who does.  I've been away just because there have been so many bad things happening in my life I didn't want to detail them here and I no longer write at work, so it doesn't leave many opportunities to blog.

I have plans to call Dr. Elizabeth tomorrow morning to sit down and chat with her and get some ideas about next steps with my health.  I keep trying to get better on my own but I slip back easily (even when I take expensive vacations) and it's not getting better to the point where I can get back to a normal life.  Cryptic much?

My husband would not support any part of what I'm about to write but he doesn't read my blog at all-he doesn't know the URL so I need not worry about him judging me here.  Yeah, it's great he's back but life is not a fairy tale.  My biggest problems right now are exceeding pressure at work with no corresponding promotion or raise, the fact that I have no meaningful support networks, and I continue to struggle at some level with infertility.

In an argument today, my husband was retelling me what I think my problems are and he said the words, "your infertility... uh, our infertility...."  But as any married woman knows, the latter part although it came a mere fraction of a second after the former part, was much too late.  I get reinforcements EVERYWHERE that infertility is MY problem.  My parents continue, mostly from my mother to freeze my eggs, get IVF, do something, anything other than what I'm doing now which is nothing.  Apparently, doing nothing in this, my culture is not acceptable.  I'm not sure that attitude is isolated to the secular community.  Catholicism can dish it out, too with NaPro.  Jeez, it's been forever since I wrote that abbreviation.  How many bloggers are out there that are doing nothing on the fertility front?  Two?  Yes, it's isolating.

And I'm 35.  I'm not idiotic to not think about dwindling chances.  I mean, if I throw in the towel now, have I forever fucked myself over?  When I'm 45 will the crushing regret reveal itself?  The truly sad part about this is that it has nothing to do with a kid, a person, or parenthood.  It's about shedding the stigma of infertility.  I mentioned two days ago to a woman I had just met with six terrific kids which I was lucky enough to hang out with for a few hours that I was infertile.  She offered up the forever reassuring story about her sister that couldn't get pregnant, tried IVF a couple times, gave up, and a couple years later got pregnant and actually gave birth to a living, healthy child.  Wow!  Who hasn't heard that story before.  The mother of six also told me that she had two miscarriages in her twenties, thought she'd never have kids, and look at her now.  Her Marine husband also recently abandoned the entire family, but no matter, the kids are great!

Miscarriage is one of those topics I feel is truly being talked about and women are getting support from lots of different places; friends, media.  In Mass, during prayers of the faithful, you can put in "Baby so-and-so" as a deceased person and everybody understands that, that is a terrible pain.  But at least you can give that pain a name.  Not so with infertility.  It's nebulous because if you never get pregnant, you don't register especially in Catholicism where conception is king.  The personhood movement is predicated on "the moment of conception."  If you never get to that point, what are you?

The truth is that every month we try to get pregnant and fail, I'm having a miscarriage.  It's the thought that counts, right?  If my intention, my whole desire and actions are to get pregnant, and I don't, it's a miscarriage.  I'm often tempted to put in my Baby [ATC's surname] into the prayers for the deceased.  I'm entitled.

Ok, let's get to the second problem.  During the six months that my husband lived elsewhere, not one of his friends called me for any reason; to get-together, to see how I was doing, to check in.  Nothing.  And now that's he's back, we're just back to good!  It's like the whole social experience was dependent on my husband.  I told him last weekend that at least I can now foreshadow what it'll be like when he dies.  Nobody will be around for me (save my family and my handful of close friends.)  Why the hell did we invite anybody to our wedding?  What a waste of money.  If the people who witness this all-important vow in front of God and company don't get around to paying the slightest bit of attention to you, what was the point?  We should have eloped to Vegas and has our union blessed during a regular, week-day Mass.  At least with strangers present, I wouldn't have expected anybody to follow up.

And maybe all of this is because I'm 35.  I'm coming into a lot of awareness about my own values.  Not my husband's, not my family's, not my company's.  Proclaiming self-determination while married is indeed a struggle.  I can list all of my demographic characteristics and that wouldn't tell you who I am.  I'm not an archetype.

Proserpina

Thank you so much for your prayers.  Things have calmed down a bit, I guess.  I shared my concerns about my mother with her doctor's office manager.  We talked on Thursday.  She said she'd talk to the dr. who I should probably name however I don't want a libel suit against me.  However, I didn't hear from the manager on Friday.  I'll try to reach her next week.

My father continues to insist this third party relationship was not physical.  I'm actually starting to believe him.  I think it was a close, albeit inappropriate friendship.  No one is to say what's unacceptable to any person/spouse.  But I think my father was driven to talk to someone sympathetic.  Either way, my parents are not good for one another right now.

I had lunch with my father yesterday.  He said he appreciated that I and one of my siblings had taken his side in this. :)  I said emphatically, we're not taking anybody's side (other than God's).  Everybody's a sinner and both he and my mother have made mistakes and created problems.  So, I told him not to take that attitude that he's in the right and she's in the wrong.

My dad's seeing a doctor on Monday to make an initial assessment of his cognitive abilities.  I guess I'm dismayed that my parents are having problems of this nature at a relatively young age.  Their parents were just have kinda similar problems between 10 and 5 years ago.  So, not hardly a generational gap.  I thought I'd have at least another 10-15 years before I had to deal with elder care issues.

I'm very impressed that my brothers and sisters have all taken significant action.  We all finally agree for the first time in our lives.  I'm happy about that.

My husband gave notice yesterday and will start his new job in two weeks.  He told his parents last night and they were concerned about the "stability" of this new job.  Heck, what's stable anyway these days?  We're meeting in the middle tomorrow for brunch and his brother is at the family home so right now, the four of them are cozy together.  I'll let them have their nuclear family this weekend.

My school is going OK.  Keeping up with everything alright so far.  I am thinking about contesting the writing exam requirement since I've already written eight papers and did the first two with a perfect score so why do I need to take a $35 test?  What a joke.

All in all I'm feeling pretty happy.  Just because things in life are bad on a relative basis, I think there's a lot you can be positive about.  So, I'm positive.  I'm grateful for the pain because so far, I and we have always emerged.  And God continues to bless me in incredible ways.  I'm thankful today.

End of the Innocence

On Friday my mother told me my father has engaged in a twenty year affair.  My father has told me and my siblings different stories about the state of my parents marriage and this third party so I don't know what to believe.  I have always considered my father the better parent and really my hero in life just after my husband.  To say I'm devastated is taking it a bit too far but I am very confused and sad for our entire family including the small children who will live with the shame to some extent for the rest of their lives.

What doesn't make sense is that my father was always around.  He's still around.  He has been what I consider a very devoted partner for my mother.  No child, no matter how old should hear what I've heard from my mother.  She's devastated but I think, is only making matters worse.  I think she's in shock.  They are not open to my advice.  I suggested they go to Retrouvaille because, believe me, many of those couple have survived affairs.  They know what the pain feels like.  But it's not really pain, it's insanity.  You lose all sense of reality when your spouse cheats on you.  However, my mother made it freakingly clear in a terribly articulate voice, "This is not a problem with our marriage.  It is your father's problem."  Sadly, this is not true.

So, I feel a tremendous amount of compassion towards both of them, mostly my mother although my Retrouvaille friends suggest I show love towards my father which I haven't been able to do the last few days.

OK, so here's the really dirty secret.  For at least eight years, my mother has been a d.rug add.ict.  Presc.ription dru.gs but dru.gs nonetheless.  She's been practically ho.me bou.nd for the same period of time.    I had tried to do an intervention about five or six years ago but my father would not participate and the interventionist said, "No spouse, no go."  Just last week I asked my father to take some action and he refused.  He always says my mother is too smart to go along with treatment.  Intelligence only gets you so far.

Secrets abound in my family.  I learn something new everyday about what random family member confessed to another but nobody knows if what was confessed is the truth.  I never had a perfect family but I thought it was pretty good.

I called my mother today to ask her, naively, how she was doing.  She said my father needed to see a geriatric doctor.  I asked her who would make the appointment.  "You or your sis.ter.  I've been cheated on for twenty years, why should I do it?"  My siblings, in my view, don't take as much action as me.  I won't detail the ridiculous issue they've chosen to focus on to distract them from real life issues.  I can't bring myself to actually type the words.  Believe me, it's crazy.  But my mother hung up on me and told me I'd said a horrible thing about my sibling.  I guess I'm in the dog house now.

I pray every chance I get.  It's practically every minute.  I resolved not to call them for at least a few days.  I thought about sending a card just to say, "I love you both.  I and lots of other people are praying for you."

I'm open to good advice.  It's been clear just how important God can be to a person.  If you keep God in mind, how can you do wrong?

Thank you! Blogger Angels

You ladies did it!!!!  My husband got a verbal offer today.  And it's very good and we're taking the night off to bask in the glow of success and will discuss the logistics tomorrow.  Besides, I have a paper to finish tonight.  So, your selfless prayers did this.  I'm convinced.

And most importantly, my weekend was horrible.  Really bad.  I couldn't get to sleep last night because I had a hard time forgiving myself for what I'd done.  However, I was so glad I posted Saturday evening.  Because your comments that you so quickly posted lifted me out of an extreme sadness.  You saved me.  You did.  And I love you.  I couldn't believe what being a part of this virtual community has done for me and my faith.  What you do in taking care of your husbands, your kids, your families, and your friends is truly godly.  And the fact that you offer prayers for little ole me is astonishing.  So, I give thanks to God for you.  Despite all my faults and bad deeds, the love keeps coming from all corners.  And I love my infertile blogger corner. :)

I can't get joy

The plans for my husband to take this job closer to home is still in the works.  Maybe we'll hear something definite next week.  Two weeks ago, I started my masters program so my desire to write in my blog has not been so acute.  Learning again how to write a research paper caused quite a bit of anxiety.  Essentially, all my free time is taken up by my classes so this is a definite shift in my life.  I really hope it will be worth it down the road.  I'm still not convinced higher education is not a total conspiracy and I'm just contributing to it.  The thousands of dollars flowing out my bank account doesn't feel good but it does make me work harder since it's our money!

Oh, and a tidbit I thought was interesting.  Apparently, those Americans that take the adoption tax credit are more likely to be audited by the IRS.  Another way to kick a hard-working, loving couples down.  So, you can thank King Putin and the American government for supporting you in your desire to love and raise a child that desperately needs it.

It made me stronger.

Wow, everything's gone to hell and a hand basket.  I don't know anybody who had a good weekend.  If you didn't experience the insomnia of endlessly thinking about screaming, terrified children being murdered, there's definitely something wrong with you.  I'm a proponent of gun ownership but I'm totally behind practical, real ways to get guns out of the hands of evil people who want to terrorize our population, local and global.

I got my period yesterday and although, let me be honest, I prayed not to be pregnant, and I'm happy I'm not, I'm still totally amazed that we can have awesome sex multiple times during the "fertile" time and never a blip in my scheduled period.  Incredible.  We're both technically fertile but overwhelmingly not so.  The reason I prayed so fervently is that the travel insurance I bought for our trip to Africa next year didn't include a pregnancy clause.  Only a pregnancy complication clause.  And of course, living solo doesn't make me a great candidate for motherhood.

Speaking of that, good news!  My husband got a call today from the "local (hey, where I am) company he applied for and almost got the job but their funding hadn't come through" company and said they want to meet about offering him the job!!!!!!!!!  Of course, my husband has salary requirements (who doesn't?) but we are still having a drink this Saturday to celebrate the promising news.  We were going to drink anyway since Saturday is the sixth anniversary of our first real date. I call real when he first kissed me.  That took work and so I have every right to celebrate my victory in landing this guy!

So, I think ATC and her husband deserve to live together again and if you agree please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, please, PRAY for us!  I'd really like to have him back. That'd be very nice.  I always have big things happen to me in January so this feels right.

I kept meaning to write about this but I started running back in August and it felt great until the start of fall but now it feels like maintenance.  I can comfortably run a 5K at a nine minute mile pace.  I think that's OK.  I should have run tonight but I'm on my period, eating nothing but high fat foods, and lots of chocolate so screw it.  Screw it for a week or two.

More news to come....

Every Day Matters

This was a big week for me.  On Monday, I went back to a "regular" work schedule, the one where I don't get two days off per month by working an extra hour every day.  I had just switched to that schedule in August when my husband left for his new job.  I realized working longer hours just for the sake of it (meaning, I didn't have pressing tasks that were keeping me at the office at night) didn't work for me at all.  Because that extra hour a day means a great deal to me.  I can exercise at a decent hour, eat dinner at the right time, sleep a little longer in the morning.  You now know how important sleep is to me.

Besides, if I need a day off to do something special, I'll take a day off.  Easy.

Tuesday night, my husband and I wasted over an hour arguing about stupid stuff on the phone.  And it was a total waste of time.  I've had a lot of "rock bottoms" lately but this one was pretty significant.  I felt horrible afterwards.  And angry.  I journaled in handwriting on paper (really!) about how unhappy I was and how deprived I felt in this marriage.  I even spent some amount of time on Wednesday reading an article on my bank website called "Thinking About Calling It Quits With Your Spouse?"  

After getting through the article and especially reading some of the comments members had left, I was convinced a marital split would compound my existing problems, not make them any better.  So praise God for some of those members who said divorce wasn't worth it and to stick it out.  And God turned my heart around on Wednesday.  I gave thanks to have a view of marriage that isn't all about me and my fulfillment despite subconscious and cultural beliefs that reinforce that idea.  And the pull is strong.

I made a very conscious effort Thursday morning to find ways to cope.  Healthy ways to live my life honorably and to do the best I could with the life I'd been given.  Yes, this sounds sappy but I can't give a better description.  And I'm the first to say that infertility and separation are very hard to cope with.  I'm living proof.  But, I know that some people at my church are dealing with much harder things.  For example, I have a friend whose husband just left her.  He lives in the same town and they talk all the time.  He doesn't make any move towards divorce but she was left nevertheless.  I know this is very painful for her.  But she is a faithful woman who spends a lot of time in prayer to give her husband a heart to love Jesus.

And I realized that my choices were for no one else to judge.  I'm not living a perceived archetype.  My husband went to a Christmas party last night with his parents.  He's known this family (the party hosts) for a very long time and ran into one of the sisters he had a big crush on when they were younger.  He said she said, "it must be so great to be back with your parents.  Your mom must be so happy."

I resolved not to get upset while he told the story.  Because I'd done that already and what's the definition of insanity?  Doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.  So, I listened.  Then he said he was talking to the matriarch and told her I had applied for a job and got pretty close to getting it but no cigar.  She said, "Well, it's important to be near your husband and she might just have to take anything."   :)

Ok, so I got a little upset at that.  Because my husband, when he was looking for a job, wouldn't accept just anything.  He was looking for something that matched his experience, his education, and his ambition.  So, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, right?  I'm not leaving my job that is going so great and interrupt an upward career trajectory.  And that's what we're committed to.

My husband remind me that these people are simple (his word) and none of the women in the family work.  So, respecting a career woman is not on their radar.  I should mention the Crush said in response to hearing we can't get pregnant, "You can always adopt."  So their empathy track record is not so good.

I told my husband that I didn't expect to be counter-culture.  I was going to get married, have kids, work, but my husband's job would always be more important, etc.  You know, what the culture expects of you.  But, now we're working against the system and it takes wisdom (that I don't think I have yet) to live your life and not always argue with the people who want to gossip about you or try to subtly bring you down.  This is going to take work.

Compromise

After days of arguing discussing, we arrived at a decision.  Because my husband will not entertain a cleaning lady, moving into an apartment, talking about privacy needs and boundaries with his parents, he said he will come home every weekend.  "That way, I won't have to hear you bitch at me the whole time you're up here."  I sound bitter but I'm not.  I'm actually quite happy today.  I consider that progress.  I'm planning on making lasagna and a vanilla cheesecake this weekend.  The weather here promises to be dreary. 

Reflecting on family

Why is it when something bad happens, all the bad, painful memories crop up?  Anyway, I'm sorry I neglected to tell my faithful readers that I didn't get that job.  I found out a couple of weeks ago.  He said somebody had more experience than me which I absolutely don't believe.  But, that attitude will take me nowhere. :)  Life goes on, I guess.

I wish I was one of those Catholic bloggers with the perfect attitudes and ever cheerful posts.  But I'm thankful (see, I can do it too) my relative anonymity gives me more freedom to talk honestly.  Not that the cheerful bloggers aren't honest, of course.  They're just more perfect than me.

That said, I struggle against playing my type.  If I'm paranoid to any degree I tend to believe everybody who knows us is waiting for me to crack.  "Oh yeah, he shouldn't have married someone so much younger."  "Yeah, she's too ambitious."  "Give it a few years, she'll mess around."  I don't so my struggle with my own feelings as I wrestle with what other people think about me and what I'll do.  But, my mother said not to worry, nobody's thinking about me. ;)  She told me that as a teenager, I think, to make me not worry about maintaining a good reputation?  I don't know.  My mother says some very wise things and also some very dumb things.  I guess everybody's capable of that.

I'm beating around the bush, yes!  

To follow up on the comments on the last post....  My husband's family is just very different from my own.  My FIL's age is just shy of what my own grandfather's would be if he were still alive.  It's a generational problem.  It's a cultural problem.  Even though we're all from California, they identify themselves as still part of a culture that keep family close.  I'm from one who considers the individual more important than the family.  We prize fierce Independence.  Not to say we don't love our family.  We do.

There's a really interesting piece in the NY Times today.  It's about a mother who worries about her adult children.  Enlightening to say the least.  It helped me figure out why my husband's situation with his parents bothers me so much.  It's the lack of privacy I so cherish.  I view my marriage as creating a separate family.  We are separate from my family and his family.

But that's not the case anymore.  He lives what he views as not with his parents but he's a stone's throw away.  That's too close for me.  The asking about sleep from my FIL was an invasion of privacy.  The best thing my in-laws can do is kick my husband out of the house.  But should I ask them to do that?  F*ck.  This situation is totally screwed.

Conflict with the In-Laws

About a week or so before Thanksgiving, my husband informed me that he had invited his parents to stay at our/my house Thanksgiving night.  My husband and I were planning on attending my sister's party and my in-laws would be at my husband's aunt's celebration.  I was not happy my husband had not consulted me before extending the invitation to his parents.  I mean, I look at our house as my house at this point.  Shouldn't I be the one doing the inviting since I'm the one doing the hosting?

Cleaning the guest bedroom and bathroom was not exactly taxing.  But I take great pride in my skills as a housekeeper and I want my guests to be impressed by the state of things.  While I complained to my husband, he told me it was just one day out of the year so I could handle it.  That was his dictate to me.  I accept these things more often than not.

I made an appetizer and a side dish Thursday morning and to my husband's credit, he helped out a lot with the prep and cleaning the dishes.  He, however, found time to head out to his aunt's to shoot the sh*t with his cousins and give his parents a house key.  I told him to be back by 12:20 so we could leave our house at 1:00pm.  He did.

We got home that night a bit after nine o'clock.  I was tired.  Since this is my house, I'm the only one that carries a key.  My husband does not.  I get to the door and it's locked.  Like my in-laws thought some bad person would just walk in.  I knock.  My MIL calls our names out to check our identity.  I'm carrying stuff in both hands.  Please open the door!!!

My FIL is sitting in my living room, reclining in my chair, reading a National Geographic magazine that I keep on my coffee table.  He's made himself right at home.  I don't remember either of them asking if we needed help getting stuff out of the car.  So, we're all gathering in the kitchen to watch me put containers and unused bottles of wine away.  My MIL saw the brand new food processor I bought to make the food I brought for Thanksgiving.  She giggles as she asks how I liked using it. (I had never used a food processor before.  And I'm 35.)  I said the cauliflower smash was delicious and she should try a little bit.  I think I just said to taste it.  She waves her hand and says she'd already brushed her teeth.  I didn't bother to check to oral status of my FIL. 

So, I go into my bedroom to change my clothes into my house clothes: a cotton tank top, a long cotton boyfriend cardigan, and velour sweat pants.  When I reemerge in the living room, my husband is now in the recliner, and my in-laws are on the couch.  My MIL tells me I look more comfortable.  She must have meant more physically comfortable because emotionally, I was no where close to being comfortable.

I was putting around the kitchen.  My MIL was in the back bedroom.  My FIL was asking my husband what time he got home last night (Wednesday.)  He asked what time we got up that morning.  My husband said we got out of bed around 7:00am but we didn't sleep so well.  This set me off.  I'm not proud of my reaction but here's what I said to my FIL.  "My husband is tired because I woke him up at 3:00am to have sex with him." 

I went back to my bedroom for a few minutes and go back out to the living room.  I took a seat in the chair opposite my husband.  So, it's me on one side and everybody else on the other.  They are talking about what they always talk about, other people and commodity prices.  They'll sometimes talk about how much they hate Oba.m.a but it didn't come up.  I sit quietly because they are talking about people I don't even know and I'm tired of making light fun of them.  I've joked in the past that my MIL should write a book about who's fat, gay, and an alcoholic in their town. 

The amount of time they spend talking about the personal problems of other people is disturbing.  Their favorite topic is what women they know that are now fat.  And they have no mercy for their own relatives.  My huband's cousin's daughter is a favorite target.  I don't know if I ever told the story here but on Easter this year, in line in the family buffet, my FIL came up to me totally unprovoked and said, "Don't eat so much.  You'll get fat."  You don't say that to people.  My sister's a (former) an.orexi.c.   

As the time Thursday night approached 10:30 (past my bedtime), my FIL announces that they'll go to bed because I LOOK TIRED.  They'll go to bed because I look tired?????  What kind of logic is that?  They ask what time we get up.  I said, "whenever we get up.  It might be 7:00, 7:30, 8:00."  Who knows? 

In the morning, my husband got up about a half-hour before me.  So, I got into the kitchen about 7:30.  We have no coffee maker because my husband took it with him.  And I don't keep anything in the house for breakfast except cereal.  My husband asked if they wanted to got out for breakfast.  My FIL's reaction?  "After yesterday, I'm not hungry at all for breakfast.  You're hungry?"  Now that was directed at my husband but frankly, I was hungry and not ashamed to admit it. 

They were gone by 8:00am.  They didn't thank me as they walked out the door.  A few hours later, I told me husband that they didn't thank us for staying at our house.  He said, "Oh, yeah they did.  When I walked them out to their car, they thanked me."

You're probably asking yourself right now (if you've read this far) why I'm so touchy about the subject of sleep.  That's because I never was before I got married.  I like to sleep between nine to ten hours a night.  That's ideal.  I can function just fine with less.  I prefer not to.  If I can get to sleep by 10pm, I will likely sleep until 7:30 or 8:00, depending on the time of sunrise. 

My husband hates that.  Literally hates it.  For the first year of our marriage, he would mercilessly annoy me about my sleep habits.  He would wake me up early just to bother me.  When we went through Retrouvaille, you work on conflict resolution skills.  The topic he picked out of the entire list of problems within a marriage was MY SLEEP HABITS.

And why does he care so much about sleep.  Because his parents do.  This is an inherited opinion.  His parents relate the amount of sleep a person gets per night with their overall personal productivity rate and their moral status.  The less you sleep, the better worker you are.  I was not raised that way.  Nobody in my house growing up cared about how much you slept.  And that's because we were all high achieving people (please forgive any spelling errors :))  So, who gives a damn about whether you wake up at 7:00 or 7:00, we all got to school and work on time.

But what this really comes down to, and my husband and I talked about it last night before he left to go back to his parents is this: I don't want my husband living on his parent's property.  I didn't want it before he left and I don't want it now.  But he tells me he won't do anything else.  And why?  Because he doesn't want to spend any money he doesn't feel he has to.  He believes he can live in the guest house rent free because he worked for his family business for no pay for many years. 

I am now intimately tied to a very painful and complicated family problem that is not my own.  The ironic thing is that why my husband defended his parents to me the entire holiday weekend, just before he left, he said he would tell his father some day that my husband might not have accomplished as my work as his father but that he had more fun that his father.  I told my husband not to sell himself short.  He's accomplished a great deal.  I asked him if his father is harassing him.  He said no.  But this statement about speaking truth to the old man came out of nowhere so I suspect something happened.

This situation is not normal.  A man should not live three hours from his wife and 100 meters from his parents.  I'm not sure how this is going to be resolved or when but it's a doozy. 

Recommended reading for the involuntary childless couple

http://bucks.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/the-cost-in-dollars-of-raising-a-child/?ref=your-money

For those of you who are involuntarily childless, I recommend reading the short article linked above.  Essentially, because it takes quite a bit of money to raise children, if you don't have them, you theoretically can save a certain amount on those costs.  I found it to be a good psychological pick-me-up if you're at the stage where you've accepted your situation and are looking for things to be happy about other than being able to sleep in on the weekends or have sex with your husband in the kitchen whenever you feel like it.  (And I consider that a major bonus of infertility.)

Certainly computing the financial costs of having and raising children is not putting an implicit value on the experience.  I think anybody who wants children whether they have them or not believes in the worthiness of the experience.