Pain

Depression, sadness, blah, blah, blah. Whatever. The pain that I am experiencing now is due to Halloween. Specifically, Halloween candy.

I did not have any candy yesterday (our building did the trick-or-treat thing last night) and have not had any so far today. Can I tell you that I am in physical pain from not eating the candy right in front of my face?!

I've been eyeing the candy and know that I would not be able to stop at 1, or 10. Maybe if I made myself sick. Nah, I'd probably eat more after I threw up.

Kay, so I haven't eaten any candy and it's killing me! Aaaaahhh!

1995

Aside from reminding myself just how old I feel, 1995 is the year that I graduated from high school. Found this meme over at Jill's and just had to do it.

The Rules:
A.) Go to Music Outfitters.
B.) Enter the year you graduated from high school in the search function and get the list of 100 most popular songs of that year.
C.) Bold the songs you like, strike through the ones you REALLY hate.

1. Gangsta's Paradise, Coolio
2. Waterfalls, TLC
3. Creep, TLC
4. Kiss From A Rose, Seal
5. On Bended Knee, Boyz II Men
6. Another Night, Real McCoy
7. Fantasy, Mariah Carey
8. Take A Bow, Madonna
9. Don't Take It Personal (Just One Of Dem Days), Monica
10. This Is How We Do It, Montell Jordan
11. I Know, Dionne Farris
12. Water Runs Dry, Boyz II Men
13. Freak Like Me, Adina Howard
14. Run-Around, Blues Traveler
15. I Can Love You Like That, All-4-One
16. Have You Ever Really Loved A Woman?, Bryan Adams
17. Always, Bon Jovi
18. Boombastic/In The Summertime, Shaggy
19. Total Eclipse Of The Heart, Nicki French
20. You Gotta Be, Des'ree
21. You Are Not Alone, Michael Jackson
22. Hold My Hand, Hootie and The Blowfish
23. One More Chance-Stay With Me, Notorious B.I.G.
24. Here Comes The Hotstepper, Ini Kamoze
25. Candy Rain, Soul For Real
26. Let Her, w Hootie and The Blowfish
27. I Believe, Blessid Union Of Souls
28. Red Light Special, TLC
29. Runaway, Janet Jackson
30. Strong Enough, Sheryl Crow
31. Colors Of The Wind, Vanessa Williams
32. Someone To Love, Jon B.
33. Only Wanna Be With You, Hootie and The Blowfish
34. If You Love Me, Brownstone
35. In The House Of Stone And Light, Martin Page
36. I Got 5 On It, Luniz
37. Baby, Brandy
38. Run Away, Real McCoy
39. As I Lay Me Down, Sophie B. Hawkins
40. He's Mine, Mokenstef
41. December, Collective Soul
42. I'll Be There For You-You're All I Need To Get By, Method Man-Mary J. Blige
43. Shy Guy, Diana King
44. I'm The Only One, Melissa Etheridge
45. Every Little Thing I Do, Soul For Real
46. Before I Let You Go, BLACKstreet
47. Big Poppa/Warning, Notorious B.I.G.
48. Sukiyaki, 4 P.M.
49. I Wanna Be Down, Brandy
50. I'll Make Love To You, Boyz II Men
51. Dear Mama/Old School, 2Pac
52. Hold On, Jamie Walters
53. Keep Their Heads Ringin', Dr. Dre
54. The Rhythm Of The Night, Corona
55. Roll To Me, Del Amitri
56. Scream/Childhood, Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson
57. Freek'n You, Jodeci
58. I Wish, Skee-lo
59. Believe, Elton John
60. Carnival, Natalie Merchant
61. You Don't Know How It Feels, Tom Petty
62. Back For Good, Take That
63. Tootsee Roll, 69 Boyz
64. You Want This-70's Love Groove, Janet Jackson
65. Tell Me, Groove Theory
66. Can't You See, Total
67. All I Wanna Do, Sheryl Crow
68. This Lil' Game We Play, Subway
69. Come And Get Your Love, Real McCoy
70. This Ain't A Love Song, Bon Jovi
71. Secret, Madonna
72. Player's Anthem, Junior M.A.F.I.A.
73. Feel Me Flow, Naughty By Nature
74. Every Day Of The Week, Jade
75. The Sweetest Days, Vanessa Williams
76. Short Dick Man, 20 Fingers Featuring Gillette
77. Brokenhearted, Brandy
78. No More "I Love You's", Annie Lennox
79. You Used To Love Me, Faith Evans
80. Constantly, Immature
81. Hold Me, Thrill Me, Kiss Me, Kill Me, U2
82. 100% Pure Love, Crystal Waters
83. Ask Of You, Raphael Saadiq
84. Sugar Hill, Az
85. Good, Better Than Ezra
86. Brown Sugar, D'angelo
87. Turn The Beat Around, Gloria Estefan
88. 'Til You Do Me Right, After 7
89. 1st Of Tha Month, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony
90. Like The Way I Do If I Wanted To, Melissa Etheridge
91. I Live My Life For You, Firehouse
92. Dream About You-Funky Melody, Stevie B
93. Cotton Eye Joe, Rednex
94. Thank You, Boyz II Men
95. I'll Stand By You, Pretenders
96. I Miss You, N II U
97. Give It 2 You, Da Brat
98. Best Friend, Brandy
99. Misery, Soul Asylum
100. Can't Stop Lovin' You, Van Halen

Guess I'm just neutral on most of the songs from my graduation year. I just remember listening to a lot of The Beatles back then.

Cut the Cheese

As I wrote previously, I just started seeing a nutritionist connected with my fertility clinic. I'm hoping that her advice will help me lose weight a little bit faster and more effectively when done in conjunction with the Weight Watchers program I'm currently following.

I met with the nutritionist for about 2 hours and she talked to me about my goals, issues, what I was eating and what I thought I could change.

She helped me to lay out several basics:

1. Dairy: reduce the amount I'm eating, eliminate cheese, switch from skim to whole milk.
2. Starches: only whole grain varieties (basically did this already), eat at breakfast or lunch, no starch at dinner.
3. Timing: eat every four hours, make sure that you are actually hungry when you do eat. NO eating after 8 PM.
4. Protein: make sure to have protein with every meal and every snack.
5. Natural Foods: closer to nature is best, so no more artificial sweetener, go back to sugar; choose organic whenever possible.

She told me that I really needed to increase the variety of the foods that I was eating, and that I should only repeat a menu item once every four days. We also worked to come up with several ideas for each meal:

Breakfast
-2 scrambled eggs on whole wheat toast (my usual breakfast, but without the cheese)
-Oatmeal with fruit and whole milk
-Cereal and flax seeds with fruit and whole milk
-Smoothie of fruit, whey protein powder and whole milk

Lunch
-Tuna on whole wheat with veggies (a variation on my usual lunch, a tuna melt)
-Salad with grilled chicken and balsamic vinaigrette
-Salad and soup
-Fage (Greek yogurt) with fruit and nuts

Dinner
-Protein + Veggies

Snack
-Fage with fruit
-Luna Bar
-Apple with nut butter (almond or cashew is preferable to PB)

Today's Hits for the Depressed and Downtrodden

I want to change the world; instead, I sleep.
--Ingrid Michaelson, "Keep Breathing"
What I'm Listening To Now:
"Who Knew?" - Pink
"Hero" - Nickelback
"Song Beneath the Song" - Maria Taylor
"Where Does the Good Go?" - Tegan and Sara
"Perhaps Perhaps Perhaps" - Doris Day
"Fools In Love" - Inara George
"Daughter" - Loudon Wainwright III
"Grey in L.A." - Loudon Wainwright III
"I Let Myself Fall" - Rosie Thomas
"Sunday" - Sia
"You Wouldn't Like Me" - Tegan and Sara
"Edge of the Ocean" - Ivy
"Bound by Love" - Gran Bel Fisher
"Keep Breathing" - Ingrid Michaelson

I Done Been Tagged

The lovely Jill has tagged me, so I'll do this meme while you're waiting for the info on my nutritionist's teachings.

1.Do you have the same friends since childhood? Nope, BFF is from college and most of my current friends are from law school or fellow stirrup queens.

2. What do you value most about your friends? Their ability to calm me down from my craziness and to make me laugh.

3. Are your friends sounding boards? Definitely.

4. What is your favorite activity to share with friends? Talking, eating, laughing.

I tag anyone who wants to do this meme.

Bulleted

--Just feeling meh. Who knows why.

--The Saturday before last, John Dear, BFF, my mom and I went out raspberry picking and got pumpkins too! We met up with my sister, her friend, and her friend's parents at Chicken Out. A lot of fun, but JD was not well-behaved most of the trip. Lots of whining and a tantrum near the end. Not fun.

--Wanted to freeze the raspberries so we could use them over the winter, but I didn't get to them and JD didn't do anything with them but leave them on the counter. He went to move them this past Thursday and they had melted and spilled all over the counter and floor. He did not clean this up.

--Our jack o'lanterns looked great, but I wasn't able to get a pic of them before they rotted. Oh well. Mine said, "Go Caps".

--Am learning how to knit. Doing pretty good now that I'm working with a beginner's yarn as opposed to the fancy threaded yarn I was trying to start with. Have learned the knit stitch, and will soon move on to start purling.

--My fertility clinic opened up an integrative medicine center. They have acupuncture, yoga, massage and a nutritionist. I went to see the nutritionist last week. It went really well and I promise a post on the specifics this week.

--After a session with his therapist, JD said that he needed visual cues to tell him what to do, i.e., a chore chart. This coincided with my expressing my feelings that I don't give a good G-D D-N that he can't* fold or put things away, if he's home all day, he's responsible for all laundry tasks when he does laundry.

--I made charts and diagrams over the last two days detailing my plan to conquer Europe where Jimmy Hoffa is buried where I put away different kinds of clothes and assigning different chores to JD and myself.

--JD saw his orthopedic surgeon on Friday. The doc doesn't know why JD would be in so much pain and has now prescribed a narcotic to be used every other day to try and break the pain cycle. My diagnosis: JD is in pain because he hasn't exercised in 2 months and all of the good he did this summer is gone. His knees and back hurt because he walks crookedly to accommodate his hurting ankles. Didn't even go to medical school - I'm awesome.

--On Saturday, JD and I attended a RESOLVE panel discussion on Donor Issues. I really wish that the person hosting the event had specified that ONLY egg donation would be covered, as we could have skipped the whole thing. When we saw the sign in back of the panelists read, "Egg Donation, Questions & Answers," JD went to talk to the host soon after we had sat down to make sure that she asked the panelists questions on sperm donation. So, she did, but they clearly weren't familiar with the intricacies of sperm donation and weren't prepared to answer any questions about it. I was a little annoyed. Did learn some good stuff though, I'll share when I fish my notes out of my car.

--JD and I talked more extensively about sperm donation and finding out if that is the right path.

--On Sunday, we went to JD's nephew's 6th birthday party. It was at a mini-golf course. I beat the pants off JD!!!! I won! I won! I won! Two holes-in-one, baby!! My cheer involved the following quote from Friends, "I win! You lose! Holland loves Chandler! Good night!" I'm a tad competitive. (hee).

--After the party, we went back to SIL's house, where MIL was going through some old family photos of JD as a little kid. It was amazing to me how much his nephews look like him as a kid. It made me sad to think that I've sort of been pushing sperm donation and the fact that if we go that route, our children won't have that link. Sure, we'll look for a donor who looks like JD, but we probably won't be able to say, "Oh look, Baby has Nephew 1's face."

If you got this far, CONGRATULATIONS!! You win a gold star!!

*Yeah, he actually thinks that he can't fold or put away clothes. Like he's genetically impaired. I think it's just that his mother is a perfectionist. Also, he's lazy.

S.3142 and H.R. 5979 Stillbirth Awarenesss and Research Act

Today marks Pregnancy & Infant Loss Awareness Day. At 7 PM (your time), please light a candle in memory of those lost and in honor of those remembering. We'll light up the world.

There are no words that I can say that would be more graceful and eloquent than those written by Antigone.

With the presidential election and financial crisis eclipsing all else this fall, the Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act will likely go unaddressed for another year.

Another Year. For another year, thousands of parents will leave the hospital with a list of funeral homes, no living child to cradle, and an unanswered question. Why?

The why will continue to go unanswered and potential treatments left undiscovered for another year. They will go unanswered and undiscovered because current research and funding are insufficient. Until S.3142 and H.R. 5979, the congressional bills for The Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act are passed, the problem will remain unsolved.

My son's name was Henry. His heart stopped beating on January 17th, 2008. On October 15th, and every day of the year, I remember him and thousands of others.

Please write or email your members of Congress and ask them to pass S.3142 and H.R.5979, The Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act now.

Guest Post from John Dear

(Interpreted from utter incoherence and typed by Jendeis)

Hi, this is John Dear, Jendeis' husband. I have a question for those of you dealing with male-factor infertility.

As you know, I have ejaculatory inhibition which makes it very difficult to get samples for an SA. When I can get a sample, the sample size is too small for the lab to say that the test results are a representative sample of my sperm count, motility, etc. (Though, if the results were representative, they show good count and morphology, but poor motility, enough to push us into IVF/ICSI territory).

Jendeis and I are thinking that we'll have to move forward to another step, something more technical, like electro-ejaculation. Of course, our fertility clinic does not offer that procedure. We'd have to go to Johns Hopkins or another university-type clinic for that.

Has anyone out there dealt with this issue or with Johns Hopkins in particular? Any advice or resources that we should be looking into?

Thanks for your help!

I Am a TV Show

So, to my total and utter discredit, I watch Grey's Anatomy. Didn't even start watching till Season 3. Yes, I am a teenager.

On orders of my Fairy Godmother, I'm not allowed to watch the show by myself. Someone has to watch it with me because I tend to break down emotionally while watching. Usually, John Dear just sits next to me and plays on the laptop while I watch.

Here's where I have completely become a TV show. If you are not a loser like me and missed last night's episode, there was a patient who had experienced chronic headaches for years and years. His pain level was always at an 8 out of 10. He mentioned to one of the doctors that in the middle of all this pain he was feeling, his wife died. She had stood by him, took care of him, carted him to doctors and hospitals and then just died. He couldn't even feel the pain of his wife dying because he was in so much pain already.

I worry that this will happen to me and John Dear. That he will never stop being in pain. That I'll spend my whole life as a caregiver rather than a partner and die, before my time, worn out from a spouse who cannot/will not pull his own weight or any weight at all.

I'm not really sure what to do with that feeling. I wonder if we could get him on disability or something. He's not working, the job prospects don't look great. I mean at least if he did a majority of the housework instead of playing video games 90% of the day, I'd feel better. I've been trying to encourage him to maybe go back to school. At least he'd be doing something.

It's like living alone, only worse. If I was alone, when I left a room clean, I'd come back to it clean. Now, it doesn't matter, there's always a worse mess. I have to deal with all his crap too.

I'm sorry for this mopiness. I'm just too depressed to comment or post regularly. I am reading everyone's blogs though, so know that I am there.

Nothing to See Here

I haven't been posting because there's nothing really new going on. Everything's just blah.

Tonight marks the beginning of Yom Kippur (y-oh-mm keyPUR), the Jewish day of atonement. It is one of the holiest days of the Jewish year. On Yom Kippur, Jews traditionally fast and pray to atone for the sins of the past year and recommit to the new year.

The service tonight is called Kol Nidre (cole ny-DRAY) after the first prayer in the service. I've always loved to hear Kol Nidre because it is such a beautiful and plaintive melody. The prayer is repeated three times and the cantor (essentially, the prayer leader) sings it softly the first time and gets louder each time he chants the prayer. The room is so quiet, I always feel like this prayer is the closest we get to speaking with G-D.

When we greet each other, we say "g'mar chatimah tovah," may you be sealed for a good year in the Book of Life. We also wish each other an easy fast.

So, may you have an easy fast and g'mar chatimah tovah to you all.

Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act

See those new shiny buttons on the right? They were designed by AK_Sapphire in honor of National Infertility Week (October 19th-25th) and Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Day (October 15th). You can get the codes for both buttons on her blog, Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Pregnancy.

You can help to raise awareness of these issues by reading and following some or all of the following, a gracious plea by Antigone.

October 15th is National Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day in the United States. More than 25,000 children are stillborn in the United States every year leaving mothers, entire families and communities devastated. Estimates of the rate of occurrence of stillbirth make it at least as common as autism.

Stillbirth is not an intractable problem. Greater research would likely significantly reduce its incidence, but good research requires good data. H.R. 5979: Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act is under consideration by Congress. This proposed bill would standardize stillbirth investigation and diagnosis, thus providing more data for the needed research. Better research means fewer children born still.

History and facts about H.R. 5979.
5/6/2008--Introduced.
Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act of 2008 - Expresses the sense of Congress that: (1) more states should enact legislation that allows the issuance of a Certificate of Birth Resulting in Stillbirth; and (2) the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) should increase the allocation of funds and other resources for stillbirth research.

Amends the Public Health Service Act to direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services, acting through the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), to establish and maintain a scientific registry of stillbirths in the United States, which shall include for each stillbirth information on the stillborn fetus and the mother's health and pregnancy as collected and submitted by states on the U.S. Standard Report of Fetal Death.

Requires the Secretary to: (1) provide for the development of a standard definition of stillbirth and a standard protocol for stillbirth data collection and surveillance; and (2) carry out a national campaign to increase public and state awareness of such definition and protocol and public awareness and knowledge of stillbirths.
Information cited from GovTrack.us H.R. 5979--110th Congress (2008): Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act of 2008, GovTracks.us (database of federal legislation). Accessed October 2, 2008

On October 15th, remember the thousands of unfinished children lost and the families who remain to grieve them. Honor them by taking action. Let's help pass H.R. 5979.

Action Steps:

Step 1. Use Your Blog to Enlist Others
-Copy the contents of this entire post and publish it on your blog immediately.

GOAL: Enlist 10 of your readers to spread the word

Step 2. Use Your E-mail to Enlist Others
-E-mail 5 bloggers and ask them (nicely and in an unspammy way) to publish these action steps on their blog. Consider contacting celebrity bloggers, political bloggers, medical bloggers, or bloggers who are not part of your reading community.

GOAL: Enlist 3 bloggers outside of your normal blog sphere to spread the word in other online communities.

Step 3. Help Pass the Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act
-By October 15th, publish a post on your blog supporting H.R. 5979 Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act. For maximum impact, title your post: "Stillbirth Awareness and Research Act."

GOAL: 1,000,000 Google results on October 15th when that term is searched for. Currently, Google only returns 20,400 pages - most of which have nothing to do with the bill.

New Year's Wishes

My rabbi included the following poem in his Shabbat message this week. I liked it so much, I wanted to share it with all of you. My inclusions are in brackets.

In the new year which now begins, these are my wishes for you:

May you experience no earthquakes, no hurricanes, no floods, and no dinnertime phone solicitations.
And if they come, may you have a flashlight, a radio, a cell phone, water, food, and a siddur [prayer book] ready, just in case.

May you see a good play, hear a great opera, and see no flashing police lights behind you.

May strangers greet you with smiles, and little children with sticky kisses.

May you have enough wealth to be able to give to tzedakah [charity], and enough left over to provide you with necessities:

May you have bread to eat and cake as well,

May you have a roof over your head and clothing to wear,
And may you help provide them for the hungry, the homeless and the ragged.

May your stocks come back,
And may your bank stay open,
And may your interest rate fall,
And may the IRS leave you a full 30% of what you earn to call your own.

May you banish all thoughts and conversations about the coming elections
For these next ten days,
So that you avoid fights with members of your family and your friends,
And may you remember that, no matter who is elected,
According to Hebrew National,
They all have to answer to a Higher Authority.

May you forgive the candidates for what they say about each other,
And may you remember that no one is as perfect as he claims to be,
And no one is as terrible as his opponent claims he is,
And forget the promises that they all make---because they will, as soon as they are elected.

May you be able to decipher your electric bill, your telephone bill, your credit card bill, and your income tax forms,
And the tiny, tiny print at the bottom of all these documents,
Which says in essence that they don't mean what is written above in big print.

May you live long enough to be able to drive automobiles which do not run on fossil fuels
And may this happen before you become an old fossil yourself.
May those of us who drive SUVs be blessed with enough wealth
To be able to fill them with gasoline enough,
To get to the corner store and back,
And may we not have to choose between having enough money with which to buy gas with which to get to the grocery store,
And having enough money with which to buy groceries when we get there.
And may our children, for the sake of whom we bought these vehicles in the first place
Never yell or fight but sit quietly buckled up, with their hands folded,
And never once ask us: Are we there yet?

May you learn how to control your television set,
And may you learn to cope with all the new buttons on the controls,
And may there be something worth watching when you finally figure out how to start your TV.

May neither you, nor your computer, ever be infected by a virus.

May peace reign over Israel,
And may its children not have to sleep in bomb shelters any longer,
And may all of its leaders, like Natan Sharansky, be people who have gone to prison BEFORE they ascended to high office, and not afterwards.

May the world become safe to live in for all of G-D's children,
And may some parents learn that it is not necessary to strap explosives onto the bodies of their children in order to attain paradise,
But that instead paradise can be found here on earth, if people will only learn to live together in peace.

May you stop rushing long enough to realize
How blessed we are
To be able to enjoy this amazing planet on which we live,
And may we try hard not to spoil it.

And whether you pray in the words of the machzor [a Hebrew prayer book],
Or in your own words,
May you feel the presence of G-D around you,
And may you love your G-D, with all your heart, and all your soul, and all your might,
And may you know that G-D loves you too,
And may G-D give you a shana tova u'metukah,
A good and a sweet new year.

Amen.

Written by Rabbi Jacob Pressman

Because We All Can

Fell asleep 6 minutes before the debate. Here's my atonement. Pass it on.