Inspiration!
We had the coolest day.
Sometimes I'm amazed at how life works. Today we ended up going to a community picnic that we never would have gone to, except I got a bad case of hives and had to go home from work. We met another lesbian couple that we've heard of but never have run into them until now. They mentioned something about injections after I mentioned that I'm a nurse, our ears perked up.
They are TTCing too! And they're Taking Some Time to Get Pregnant. We have found ourselves kindred spirits.
Maybe this is part of the plan, the one that we don't always see and sometimes get a tiny glimpse of. We needed to meet these people. They have been through the TTC wringer worse than us, going from clinic to clinic, having things mishandled, trying over and over again. I'm so excited that we've found ourselves new friends and they live just around the corner.
I had a 'eureka' moment today.
As I was listening to their story it struck me how little power people have when it comes to TTC. If you start down the road of interventions you end up at the mercy of clinics and doctors. You don't see that you are an equal participant in the process and you lose your voice to the expertise of the doctor. You can't see any option but to pour money into the coffers of the infertility industry that promises to give you what you so desperately want and then you still don't get pregnant.
M. and I are lucky. Being a nurse has given me an acute understanding that I do have a voice when it comes to my own healthcare. M. has worked hard to gain a breadth and depth of knowledge about TTC. She could run circles around most people when it comes to TTC information. This has allowed us to take control of our health care and not to be at the mercy of the infertility industry.
What was my eureka moment? It's time to take control. We all must share our experiences and empower other TTC lesbians. We should be teaching each other about home IUI. We should be forming a resource network of providers who will work with TTC lesbians and with known donors. We need to share information and break down the isolation that TTC can bring.
I am talking about an act of rebellion against the medical industry. By sharing our knowledge and our stories we can shift the balance of power away from the experts and the doctors that profit off infertility and back to the patient, where it belongs.
posted by Sacha @ 8:04 PM
7 comments
7 Comments:
Amen! I couldn't believe how hard it is to get some of this information. Why does each of us always have to reinvent the wheel? A waste of time and so isolating!
Yay for finding folks to talk about the crazy TTC journey with IRL!
And, I agree with your vote to get organized and share the info! We should all write a book or organize our own blog with tips, tricks, and lessons learned!
& friends of lesbians too!!
I loved the 1st part of ttc: the charting & studying my body. It made me feel that I was taking charge & in control.
Now over a year later I have never felt more OUT of control. It kills me.
I am so jealous (but of course happy for you!) that ya'll made RL friends with someone going through ttc.
Nothing like changing the vagina monologue into a vagina dialogue.
;o) @ Cali for the Vagina Dialogues!
It's great that you've met some people to share your experiences & frustrations with - sounds like a good start for your Taking Some Time ttc group.
Oh yeah, and that 1st para of your Eureka moment totally sums up how I felt about the whole clinic experience, despite having garnered an awful lot of knowledge about it all along the way and trying to advocate for my/ourselves. I just felt that they simply didn't listen to me, and how I felt that my body reacted to treatment. It was really frustrating, and very hard to hold on to my own beliefs and knowledge in the fact of the so-called clinical "expertise".
You go girls!
You know, I bet we could totally do this on the Rainbow conceptions board. I bet the Chloe would be all into it. It would get the site a lot more traffic I think.
Anyway, I am right there with you. One of the few reasons I still check in on FF is because I am on the look out for folks local to me who may need help and/or advice. It has been great for us to become friends with a couple from FF who live locally and meet a few others as well.
Right so - we should mention this to Chloe on rainbow conceptions and figure out how it might work.
i smell a plan hatching ala Lucy and Ethel
Vagina Dialogues: We have to fit this in somewhere.
Speak to Chloe. Maybe we can get space to put in a page called "Vagina Dialogues from the TTC LAndscape" or something like that.
It can have a bulletin board where we can post info and links. We can organize by subject. Resources can be organized by state.
I have a ginormous expanding file FILLED with info local and national
kick ass plan!
you have to get Shelli & Narda involved somehow. I learned SOOO much from them my 1st few months of ttc-ing.
Post a Comment
<< Home