The heroine of the story was a girl who had not one, but two birthdays. Why? You got it. Because she was adopted. The first was to celebrate her true birthday, the second to celebrate the day she joined her new family. AM Homes talks about this dual celebration briefly in her memoir The Mistress’s Daughter. I remember it in theory, but not practice.

I am a birthday-celebratin’ kind of girl. I love them. I am mad at myself that I only started focusing myself and others on my birthday within this last week. I usually try to give at least a month’s notice.

So why, oh why, have I never taken advantage of my second “birthday”? I need to go check the back of my charm bracelet to even remember when it is. Oh, here it is, it’s July 18th (no, I’m not giving the year.) As someone who takes full advantage of any holiday to have a little fete, why is mid-July such a non-event?

As someone trying to have a baby of her own, I can see so many milestones: “Look honey, here’s the day your egg donor said yes!” “Oh, and here’s the date of when mommy and daddy watched you being put into mommy’s belly. Why of course we have pictures…” So many dates that we could build into historical markers. Or not. Now that we are moving towards our third attempt, I am leaning towards not.

And I guess that coincides with my thoughts on life and work and things in general. At work, I don’t really care to hear how hard you are trying or the steps you took to get there, give me a call when you have a finished product that you want me to review. At home, my ears will close if my dad starts to details all of the traffic issues encountered while making it over for a visit. You’re here now, right? All is well, right? Conversation over.

So maybe that’s it. Maybe I don’t care to dwell on the process of most things, or worse, start down that spiraling path of questions that the three month delay between today and July 18th brings up in my mind. The second “birthday” is a formality, a signing of papers, a part of a process that eventually led me to my family and who I am today.

Today is the day that I celebrate. Along with the rest of my life. With gusto. Especially now as we work towards adding another real birthday celebration to the calendar.

Post from: Blisstree

The Girl with Two Birthdays

I was also gratified to see the America Fertility Association (AFA)’s response to its members and to the show. Here it is in full:

As many of you know, The AFA makes every effort to assist the media when reports, stories and programs deal with infertility, reproductive difficulties, fertility preservation and protection. We were approached by the Tyra Banks Show senior producer who pitched one segment about women who pursue ART despite repeated let-downs and perhaps impossible odds. We sent a notice to you asking if you’d be interested in participating in that show. What we’ve subsequently learned is that the taping revealed another agenda entirely. We are furious. There is no excuse for that duplicitious solicitation. Below is the open letter we’ve sent to the Trya Banks senior producer.

Ms. Radecki,

The American Fertility Association is writing in response to the numerous calls, emails and blog links we’ve received about the Tyra Banks Show you’ve produced about “infertility.”

We gladly assisted you in your effort to recruit people who’ve stuck with Assisted Reproduction despite long-shot odds and the painful difficulties associated with compromised fertility for an installment of your show. Your detailed query asked for contact with women who could speak emotionally and articulately about their determination and their struggles (see below). It is your right to interview willing and informed participants as you see fit. Here we underscore informed. Your show is not a news show, but rather planned entertainment. Nowhere in that initial letter or in numerous subsequent conversations did you even hint that what you were intending was a set up for “spontaneous” interventions and the subsequent damaging conflagrations.

Let’s be clear. If you’d honestly put forth your mission, stating that the Tyra Banks Show was interested in emotional confrontations, people willing to defend to family, friends and the world their particular quest for biogenetic children, we’d have put out your solicitation to our membership just the same. We believe in the intelligent decision-making capacities of the people The American Fertility Association serves. However, it now appears you were running a bait-and-switch operation designed to exploit well-meaning and, apparently, the most vulnerable among this group of patients simply to re-create a by-now tired and trite TV rite of public humiliation. That is simply reprehensible.

It is unfortunate that the prism through which The Tyra Banks Show chose to view the delicate and complex subjects of reproductive difficulties and associated medical treatments yielded very little about those topics. Instead, we are told, the focus was on manufactured conflict and hysteria. You could just as well have targeted any other poorly understood condition or disease and produced the same segment.

We regret that we have exposed our membership to such tactics. Despite urging that you treat reproductive difficulties with sensitivity and thoughtfulness — even if that yielded tough grilling and a feisty give-and-take, you chose to tread the same histrionic ground that’s pretty well trampled by now.
The Staff of The American Fertility Association

Word.

Post from: Blisstree

AFA Response to the Tyra Banks Show

If you are looking to learn more about personal experiences with assisted reproduction techniques, adoption, surrogacy, in vitro fertilization, third party reproduction, pregnancy or living with infertility, I can’t think of a better cheat sheet than Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters’ Creme de la Creme of 2007.

Each year, Melissa invites bloggers to nominate their favorite post from their own blog. This list represents what bloggers themselves have chosen as their most meaningful, most relevant, most heartwarming and/or heartbreaking post of 2007. While some of the blogs are familiar to me, many aren’t. I have just started working my way down the list and I am already in search of a warm and quiet place in my apartment to curl up and read the rest.

Speaking of reading, Cindy Margolis’ book Having a Baby…When the Old-Fashioned Way Isn’t Working: Hope and Help for Everyone Facing Infertility is finally available for sale today. I was lucky enough to score an advance copy – look for a review tomorrow!

Post from: Blisstree

The Best Infertility Blog Posts of 2007