A phrase to ponder

"People who have information about an individual case rarely feel the need to know the statistics of the class to which the case belongs".  ~Daniel Kahneman


And so I get to hear about so-and-so who gave up on trying to get pregnant, but got pregnant anyway later on. I am very tired of this story. This has happened to many infertile couples, but I am pretty sure that there's plenty of couples who never made it. It's just that nobody talks about them.


Too bad that just a few days ago I promised not to get mad at people who blab some nonsense trying to make me feel better. How does someone else's unintended success is supposed to make me feel better about my own failure after six years of trying?


Oh, right. I am not supposed to lose hope. Yeah, got it.


But you know what? Maybe it's time to move on and hope for something different.

The spoils

The knitting convention went well for me. I did not miss the classes, and I enjoyed the shopping. I was jumping from stand to stand, admiring designs and yarns, complaining with  my friend about the prices and searching for bargains. Infertility and miscarriage did not cross my mind for hours.

Only when we were leaving, as we crossed again the halls of the convention center, was I reminded of the bleeding episode that sent me to bed rest a year ago. And, because we were leaving, the sadness did not last long.

So here you see a bunch of yarn. It will eventually translate into a shawl, a tank top, three hats, five pairs of socks, two pairs of mittens and one big unknown that I just could not resist because it was cheap and beautiful. I am talking about the hank in the bottom, the one that is blue with a little purple in it. It's rayon, and there is enough in it for a tank top,  a shawl, or a scarf.

Please note the absence of baby colors (well, there's the turquoise blue, but that's for my mother). I have enforced a moratorium on knitting baby items. The last baby item I knitted was delivered four months after the baby was born, and it was a mere bib, which shows that I am not even good at finishing baby items anymore.

Some people say that knitting an item for a loved one is like saying "I love you" with every stitch. That's a lot of "I love you's".

When you're infertile and you're knitting a baby item, what you're saying with every stitch could be "When will it be my turn?", "Why was it so easy for them?", "When will I knit something for my own baby?" And so on. It's very unhealthy and I am done with it.

So, I don't care who gets pregnant next, she'll get a $2.00 walmart fleece.

Anna Netrebko

I saw this movie a couple of days ago. Unlike many opera DVDs, this was not recorded live, this was all filmed on movie sets. It offers a very refreshing version of what is a very popular opera.

I was surprised to see Anna Netrebko looking so thin. I saw her in 2009 in a production of La Traviata. She was wonderful, but, let's say, a little chubby. Still, she was a very convincing consumption victim. She's that good.

So I started wondering how she could have made this film in 2008 and then go on to put on so much weight in one year. Was she having a difficult time? Experiencing health problems? Like I said, it really does not matter much, many opera singers are heftier. But I was still curious, so I made a few searches and found out that she had had a baby on September 2008. So that explained her chubbiness in 2009. It was "baby weight". All of a sudden the concern I was feeling for her health evaporated and turned into pure green envy. Why? Don't I still want her to keep on singing and to go back to her slim figure? Will I love her less if she does not? Of course not.

Ugh. I really need to work on my issues.