February 14, 2007
-
Are you Alive?
Sometimes we go about our normal lives completely oblivious to the pain of others. Have you ever been in real pain? I mean the emotional pain of a bad breakup or the death of a loved one. Have you ever stopped to wonder whether the person in front of you at the traffic light who’s not moving fast enough, maybe has a child with cancer, or just lost their mother? I know that I personally don’t think of these things, especially when I’m in a hurry. It’s a terrible quality and it’s something I’m working on, but it really dehumanizes people, and the more you do it the more desensitized you become to its effects. I really have to think about that and make a concerted effort to humanize strangers more.
I have a best friend from college. She’s a remarkable woman by any stretch of the imagination. She got married a few years after the raucous parties of our college days and had a baby boy, my Godson. Through no fault of her own, that marriage ended but she remarried a few years later. They really wanted another child, so she got pregnant. Nine months later she gave birth to twin boys! She and her new husband were elated. Though she now had 2 babies and a toddler, she still wanted to try for a girl. So, THREE months after giving birth to twin boys, she got pregnant again! I still remember the day she called me five years ago after the first ultrasound of her third pregnancy. “Are you sitting down? You’re not going to believe this”, she said, “It’s twins AGAIN”. A few months later she gave birth to two more bouncing baby BOYS! There were no fertility drugs involved at all. She was just very fertile, and apparently very fond of that extra Y chromosome. The chances of having two sets of twins is without using fertility drugs is pretty astronomical. The chance of having two sets of identical twin boys is off the charts. Despite the chaos and the adjustment of having that many babies, she thrived.
Just imagine what every single meal is like in this house!
Me with the 4 of the boys
Forget Super Nanny, she was (is) Super Mom. In fact, to this day, I write a letter to Oprah every year, to tell her she needs to have my friend on her show, as an inspiration to any mother. Trust me, her kids are ALL boy. Anybody who knows me well will tell you how great I am with kids, but even I am exhausted after spending a weekend at their house. I baby-sat for them all once, for about 2 hours, and it was an experience I will never forget. No matter what chaos ensued during the day, my friend always cooked a nice supper, made sure the laundry was always done and still managed to run a little eBay business from home for the women in her neighborhood. TRULY remarkable.
We communicate nearly every day or two via email. Phone conversations of late are few and far between now that the kids are a little older, and all in different activities they need to be shuttled to. It’s rare though that we don’t exchange a short but sweet, “I love you” or “hang in there” email.
3 weeks ago I realized I hadn’t heard from her in several days which was really unusual. I wrote a quick email with the subject line, “Are you alive??” and asked her what was going on. This is the email I received back:
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 5:10 PM
To: Carey
Subject: RE: Are you alive??things are really bad…i left him…can’t take the verbal/mental abuse and occasional physical abuse. started happening in front of the kids….i don’t want them corrupted into doing the same things to me or their wives someday. long, long story but i know i don’t deserve this….i tried to make such a good life with him. i’ll explain more when things settle down. i am with my parents…safe with the kids. i have a protection order against him. unbelievable…never thought i would ever be with someone like this or in a situation like this. i am not perfect but i am not dysfunctional! miss you.
talk to you soon,mexoxo—–Original Message—–
From: Carey
Sent: Wednesday, January 24, 2007 10:17 PM
Subject: Are you alive??What’s going on??? xoxoI don’t know what’s going to happen. I can’t even imagine what she’s going to do. Thank God for her family, but there’s only so much that other people can do. I used to tell anyone I knew that had babies, my friend’s story. It makes even the toughest moments with your kids seem bearable. People hear her story and think that if she can do it with five then they should certainly be able to do it with one or two. Sadly now, I will be telling a different story.
I’m confident that things will eventually get better for her. She’s a trooper (she has to be!). All I can do is hope and pray, and be there for her when she needs me. She’s fond of calling me the “Will to her Grace”, the “Rupert Everett to her Julia Roberts”. That being said, there’s never been a better time to “Say a little prayer” for them all.
Here’s a rather frightening statistic (in my opinion):
These days, about one in 32 births are twin births. This rate has gone up 65 percent since 1980, and it’s more than double the rate among women who conceive without medical assistance — one in 89.
The rise in triplets and quadruplets is even more dramatic. Between 1980 and 1998, the rate of triplets and higher-order multiple births shot up by more than 400 percent, but it’s crept back down over the past few years as fertility treatments have become more refined. In 2003, one in 535 births resulted in triplets, quadruplets, or more.Nothing against couples who really want to have their own children. But maybe, just maybe, we should leave the “assisted reproductive technology” to the people who really need it…like same sex couples? I sometimes wonder why some people will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to try to have a baby. Do they ever think that maybe they just weren’t meant to have a baby? I suppose the far right could (and will) use this argument against me and maybe I’m speaking out of turn. Think about it though. There are so many children in the US alone that need adopting. And there just aren’t enough Brad & Angelina’s to go around! I actually learned a lot about adoption and foster care recently from Rosie O’Donnell of all people. Did you know that there’s a program called “Respite Foster Care” that allows anyone (without a criminal background) to take a child or children out of a foster care environment for just a weekend? It’s a great way to give foster parents a break, and an excellent way to help these disadvantaged kids by exposing them to something they might otherwise not experience. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a trip to Disneyland every time. They’re like children the world over, they just want to feel cared for and loved.
Since 1997, Rosie’s For All Kids Foundation has awarded more than $15 million in Early Childhood Care and Education program grants to over 1,100 nonprofit organizations that have helped provide important opportunities for thousands of America’s kids in need.
Through the Cutie Patootie™ Centers capital grants program, 26 centers in large cities across the US have received more than $7 million to help them expand their services and provide more children with high quality early education and care.
Caring for young children means being prepared for anything – natural disasters included. When Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast in August 2005, the Foundation immediately responded with an initiative called Project Katrina, a $3 million special fund that operates inside a FEMA-managed temporary housing developments in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.
Rosie’s For All Kids Foundation welcomes unsolicited inquiries for its Early Childhood Care and Education grants program. Each inquiry receives personal attention and a timely response within 90 days. Awards are granted to nonprofit organizations dedicated to helping children and their families through early childhood education and other essential programs. Visit www.forallkids.org
P.S. For all the people who got to this page after doing a Google search for fertility treatments or multiple births or something to that effect, please remember that this is just my opinion and that I’m entitled to it. You’re welcome to comment or argue against what I state here. I’m not necessarily against fertility treatments, I just think that some of the statistics, like those show above, should give us pause and make us wonder about real “natural selection”. That’s all
It’s all about our experiences though, right? Who knows what I would do if I was placed in a situation where I would need to make a decision like that. It’s not really in my sphere of reality. Of course neither is abortion for anyone but women, (if you get down to the technical details, I mean it’s their body. Even though a man may get a woman pregnant, she’s the one that has to carry the baby or not) and many men certainly have an opinion about that. (As do I, but again, what does my opinion matter in the grand scheme of things? Abortion will never be one of my hot button issues. I talked about this recently with my friend Billy. He is ultra conservative and a practicing Catholic and thinks abortion should never be allowed under any circumstance. I told him that I was pro choice, though I never quite understood why the only options were pro choice and pro life. I’m for a woman’s right to choose what happens to her own body (don’t we allow living wills?), but I’m also very in favor of life in general. Do I think an abortion should be the absolute last option? Of course I do. Life is sacred. But just because I believe a woman, not a government, should be able to choose, doesn’t mean I endorse ”baby killing”.
Not every issue is black and white. Even my friend Billy had to really ponder his response when I asked him what he would do if, God forbid, his 11 year old daughter was raped and became pregnant. I don’t know if he had ever even fathomed that possibility, but when he did, he admitted that yes, he would probably make her have an abortion (because she would be too young to decide, and as her father and legal guardian, he would have to do what’s best for her). The bottom line is that the safety and well being of his current child supersedes the safety and well being of her unborn fetus. Wiser men than I have debated this much more articulately than I can at 1:30 AM, and as usual, I have digressed (this was a long “P.S.”). Good night! Happy Valentine’s Day
Comments (1)
Having felt “real pain” – the death of loved ones – I too find myself trying to empathise with strangers. I also feel guilty when I am careless toward or judgmental toward someone who might also be feeling real pain.
How terribly hard for your friend, to have to leave an abusive husband with five young children! I commend her on leaving, though. It takes many women a lot more time, at least she has left before it has really started effecting her children. It also sounds like she has a very nice, supportive friend in you.
I completely agree in regard to IVF. I guess I find it selfish for people to spend so much money on having their own child, when there are so many children who need to be adopted or fostered. Children already living, already hurting, who need loving parents. I plan to adopt/foster.
As far as the pro-choice/life issue goes, I think there is a middle ground too many people ignore. Many pro-life people say that abortion is okay if the woman is raped, or if the woman might die, etc. Most pro-choice people say that there should be a cut-off point for abortion at 20 weeks, or it should only be used for certain reasons, or something. So most of us actually agree that abortion should be an option in some cases – we just disagree as to *which* cases and up to which point. I am all about finding ground where we can agree, instead of extremes where we disagree. It sounds like you take this sensible approach, too.