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Monday, January 10, 2011

Mesmerized by "twiblings"

Forgive me if you're already bored to death of hearing about this story.  I may be a little late to the party with this, but I am still mesmerized by the December 29th New York Times Magazine article Meet The Twiblings. I read that the magazine received more than 500 comments prompting the author to respond to some of the more thoughtful questions, so I'm obviously not the only one who's mesmerized.

If you haven't read the piece, it's about a couple who couldn't get pregnant.  The wife was a little older than her husband and after years of IVF, they were told she probably wasn't ever going to conceive.  They felt adoption seemed too long a process with no guarantees, especially because the wife was older and had a chronic pain disease, so they decided on using a surrogate with donor eggs, and the husband's sperm.  However, they really wanted twins but were told by their (responsible) doctor that there was too much risk with multiple births.  Next they decided that they'd find a second surrogate, and implant the two surrogates at the same time.  This resulted in babies being born 5 days apart: twiblings. 

The egg donor was the only one in the story who isn't involved in the babies lives, and the only one whose identity was not revealed.  Melanie Thernstrom, the wife/mother/author of the story is extremely confident in her position, even allowing one of the surrogates to occasionally breastfeed the baby she carried. 

I applaud this woman for sharing her story, that many people might find controversial.  It brought the surrogacy process, shall I say, out of the the closet. It's pretty clear that surrogacy is so expensive that it's cost prohibitive to most folks, while simultaneous surrogates, is surely only possible for the very wealthy, which seems kind of unfair, since I'm sure there's many gay and infertile couples who would also love to have this option.  They were also very fortunate to find seemingly level-headed surrogates who didn't change their minds halfway through, or do any of the other possible horrifying things a stranger could do while they're carrying your baby. 

At any rate, it made me think of how far I would have gone if I weren't able to conceive.  Maybe we all start out the same: telling ourselves "if it happens, it happens."  I remember that one day my husband and I were saying "maybe we'll start trying" and the next day having sex and then lying with my legs in the air for 15 minutes after.  Was that over sharing?  I guess what I'm saying is, it's so easy to let baby-making become all encompassing.  A friend said that having children isn't what makes you a woman, and you can certainly have a magnificent life without kids.  I think that if I hadn't been able than it would have been quite okay with me, but I haven't had to struggle with this dilemma.  What would you do?

 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/magazine/02babymaking-t.html?_r=1&ref=magazine

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Why i get dressed

Since I've had kids there are only a few scenarios that I actually need to get dressed for.  Admittedly, I don't get out of my bathrobe until 5pm some days, if at all,  so I began to assess my clothing situation and there are only three different things for which I need to get dressed this coming spring, and only a couple of  items I'll need to make it work.

Scenario 1 Days with Kids: this includes going to the library, museums, play dates, and shopping. 
Scenario 2 Date Night with Husband: Most often dinner, and sometimes a movie (The Fighter was fantastic).
Scenario 3 The Gym: Self explanatory

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'd have nothing to wear if it weren't for my JBrand Skinny Jeans and I'm grateful for JBrand for introducing me to their miraculous jeans which I've completely embraced in multiple washes, so I won't be giving these up. However, this spring I'm going to add/invest in their version of my forever fave style: the flare (actually bell-bottom).

JBrand Lovestory, $179 at shopbop.com
As images of Alli McGraw and a non-bloated Ryan O'Neil running around Cambridge dance through my head, I'll wear these with fitted button-downs and tiny cashmere sweaters during the day, and blouses and heals at night.  This takes care of two different dressing scenarios! Now all I need to do is lose 8lbs so I can buy them in the size I want.  
http://www.shopbop.com/lightweight-lovestory-jean-j-brand/vp/v=1/845524441813043.htm?folderID=2534374302031296&fm=browse-brand-shopbysize

Joie Campbell Dress, $258 shopbop.com
 This is the BEST dress for anything!  The style is so forgiving, and it looks great with tights for cool days and nights or bare legs for this spring.  I bought this in a gray paisley and I want to own it every print (it's that great).  This is my date night go-to dress.   
http://www.shopbop.com/campbell-dress-joie/vp/v=1/845524441885647.htm?folderID=2534374302023777&fm=browse-brand-shopbysize

Hopefully with these couple of things I'll be motivated to lose the bathrobe a little more often.