Finding A Spine

I’ve decided this blog needs a spine. One unnamed BFF has turned all “sensitive” about my diary posts about my life and who is in it - her she says.  She’s right, that’s hardly a movement. So let's find a spine. Since my book review on Betty and fertility created a tweet fest, let’s start there. Sissy, this one is for you...

 I call it the “Feminine Mistake.” One blogger asked if I did something wrong. Yes! Lots! My point is I’m at home on a twelve-week leave from my six-figure job trying to get pregnant at forty. I played by the new rules, Betty! But there’s one problem. You forgot to tell me to remember to get pregnant in my thirties! You didn’t mention any clocks striking at midnight or bibbidi-bobbidi-boo when you granted me my wish to have it all. Is it even realistic to have a kick-ass career when you put babies in the mix? 

For close to ten years I’ve watched my best friends struggle to create this cocktail without a manual. They are the real mavericks who decided to have children and then figure out how much career/art/family they needed to feed their identity. I took the solo career track, which Betty extolled. But she had something I don’t. A child. She wanted her old life back, with a child. Do you feel this way? If you do, tweet me back. My Twitter handle is @RachelZ.

– Rachel Z

A Master Plan for This Thing Called Life

If I knew getting pregnant would be this complicated, I would have followed Sissy and been knocked up a decade ago, likely on a dare, after too many gimlets with Greg at Automatic Slims. Here’s a photo of Sissy, my BFF, at my rehearsal dinner, eight-months pregnant.  Her “cankles” were so swollen we brought her silver ice buckets from the tables, a champagne pedicure. Back then, I thought she made a crazy mistake moving to Boston for his job, giving up hers, and starting a family at thirty. I was convinced she was going to miss out on everything meaningful in being self-sufficient and independently solvent with a closet full of Barney’s newest labels. Now, as I sit here on a six-week leave from my high-octane career, I’m starting to wonder if maybe Sissy had the better master plan for this thing called life. – Rachel Z

The Feminine Mistake as we turn 40

In 1963, Betty Friedan published her famous book “The Feminine Mystique.” She proclaimed, “Women are victims of a false belief system that requires them to find identity and meaning in their lives through their husbands and children. Such a system causes women to completely lose their identity in that of their family…” Blah, blah, blah. But it got me thinking what exactly did Betty and her gal pals sell those of us born post 1963, and did she wrangle up the right antagonist? Because that singular quote keeps haunting me. – Rachel Z

Early Mornings and the After Glow

One of the cardinal sins when you are trying to get pregnant is excessive work outs. We all know friends who are addicted to working out and I often sway between being addicted and being healthy. Do I sound like the drinker who professes wine is good for you?... Albeit there is this sulfite issue we are suppose to know about. Is anything natural anymore!

Ok back to the work out. I snuck out this morning...very early. Greg was so peaceful lying there. I ever so gingerly slid one limb and then the other off the crisp sheets and onto the cool floor. Slowly, quietly I slid into my running gear. Sneakily I tip toed down the stairs avoiding every creak. Finally out the door and onto the golden sun kissed street. It was like a private club. All the runners had the same cheshire cat smirk knowingly capturing the golden glow of the start of the day.

I ran and I ran and I ran. It felt good. It felt healthy. I felt alive. Finally after 45 minutes I forced myself to stop. How can something so liberating, so adrenaline rushing, such escapism be bad for baby? This is harder than I thought. Maybe I am completely obsessed with work and workouts and efficiency. But this morning, it felt great. The glow of a run, the glow of sex, the glow of wine. How bad can it be?

Some People Have Real Problems...

Technology vs. Mind and Body

Today my mind keeps flicking back and forth from left side to right side. From technology to mind and body. From boredom to inspiration. From work to relaxation. It's only 10 am and I'm exhausted! Infertility drugs or yoga? Stay in PJs and read or help my old boss with the product launch? More sex or less sex? I know...Some people have real problems.

While learning how to blog and tweet has been fun, I'm ready for something more meaty. Maybe if I had 1000 followers I might be more motivated but instead there are NINE of you. Yes. That's right. Nine balloons, not Ninety-Nine fans out there. Hello? Hello? Anyone? I figure the least I can do is dig up some research for the nine of us to chew on.

Boom. There it goes - brain catapulted into Tech:  I need to call Dan in Tech because for the life of me I cannot figure out how to set up "subscribe" to my blog and then there are all these tags I can supposedly add to help me pop up the food chain in Google. Not my thing. 

Bang. Back to the right. Should stop blogging, go to yoga and see if the little fish from Greg will make it to beach today if I do enough downward dog. Also thinking that if I volunteer I might stay calm and help others.

Boom. Just read the MGH website and they are testing fertility on monkeys and mice. Turns out those of us who cannot get pregnant, and don't know why, can blame toxins called PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) which are toxic chemicals present at high abundance in the environment and in cigarette smoking and activate the death of oocytes and early ovarian failure.  Maybe I should go volunteer with Green peace. Bloody toxin spreaders.  http://www2.massgeneral.org/vcrb/vcrb_currentresearch.htm

On the same site the Mass General Hospital site talks about the Vincent Fertility Department preaching the merits of holistic, mind-body approach to fertility management. Free workshops, energy clearing, helping couples heal, meditate and visualize to promote fertility and healing ....let's just call it ISSUES you are still harboring. Terms like "supportive, safe environment", "exploring", and "fertility journey" are ubiquitous on this site. Sounds like an ashram.  http://www2.massgeneral.org/vincent/fertility_mindbody.htm

Lane says we just get old and our eggs are old and if you want to get pregnant...start before you're 30. Good old Lane - our Domestic Diva.

OMG. I think I need to go back to work part-time. Three weeks in and I'm already dying for something meaty. It's pathetic. If you're out there and have advice, send it over! Sissy says I should just meet her for lunch. She's been very secretive lately so I might just have to do that. I wonder if she's found a new man. No? Maybe? No? Yes?  You see, BANG. it's that kind of day.

Perfection: It's all about the plate of dessert

It was the perfect balmy summer night you die for on the East Coast. All winter you hurl your body through the ice freezing your ass off for that singular moment in June when it's 85, slightly humid and you're drinking an alcohol laden concoction with your best friends. For men, that's a cold beer and thoughts of sex. For women, it's a crisp white wine or lime gimlet and the promise of sex. That was last night.

Lane, our domestic Diva, invited Sissy and I over for late night drinks when the sun forgets to go to bed. It was perfection. Why then do I feel like perfection is a dirty word this morning? Yes, we are still having hourly sex - three day window and all - but that's not why I feel dirty.

Rather it's the lack of dirt. Lane, mother of 4, dotting wife, homemaker never cracks. She is 39, breeding queen perfection. She makes motherhood look like a Ralph Lauren ad. The toe-haired mini-tyrants run around her perfect playspace with chocolate brownies smeared lovingly across their lips and noses while she arranges the fresh garden picked basil in my basil lime gimlet. It's too much!

Look, I love Lane. I love her soccer/lacrosse/swimming/tap excel spreadsheets (I can relate after 15 years running division at TZ Publishing), I lover her prefect patio and lounging on her perfect lawn with miles of suburbia caged out by her perfectly forged iron fence. But today I woke up and while having baby practice with Greg, all I could think about was that plate of dessert.

Every time we come over for the petting zoo birthday or adult only charades or simple balmy night cocktails...There they are. The gooey, delicious, brownies or dessert waiting for us. It's like she's trying to sell us her house! It smells amazing, looks like the aspirational American dream and then I come home feeling sick, calorie laden and mad at her because I know, in fact, I am positive....She never touched the brownies. Her size 4 little Hudson jean bum never saw one tiny weenie crumb. I wonder if Alex ever eats one? He must love her. She's like mother meets hoar. All in one perfect package. Or is she? I wonder if she ever has dirt beneath her nails? Maybe that's the crack. OK, I'm open that I'm defensive because I could NEVER be like her.

But as I said, I love her. Most of all because in all her perfection she rallies the rest of us to have fun. Last night, her casual invite was a full pre-meditated agenda. We all turn 40 in November and Lane reminded us of our promise. Spreadsheet in hand, she has it all worked out and Sissy looked happy. Happy like the time our favorite yoga guru strolled past us on a similar balmy night last June. That same smirk as we all imagined just one little adjustment from him along the mats we were ready to roll out on the urban sidewalk. That kind of happy. Not the brownie kind of happy that lasts for one gooey second. But the slow yoga stretch kind of happy.

Lane has a great idea and it's perfect for Sissy. Julie will be all over it. I need to text her. You'll wish you were turning 40 with us.

Consistency - Sex, Drugs and Blogging

I spent the week in NYC. That's the only excuse I've got for not blogging. I did tweet once from Julie's hotel pool! We were watching little Frankie dive amidst a room of old ladies doing their water aerobics. So depressing. Use the sex machine now ladies. It looks scary post 60. I don't care how fabulous Susan Sarandon looks. Most of us will be wearing those floaties while attempting water tricks.

Speaking of sex, today is the start of the three day fertility window. That's why I went to NYC. I needed to get the buzz before a week of nothing.  This week I can't go anywhere but to bed with my man. We need to fuck our brains out to get the baby machine to work. I have to remember to take the drugs, I have to pee on the stick, take my temperature, not work out, stay calm, eat carbs. And then pray. I wonder if I pray more, if I will get a shot at immaculate conception? 

I think Greg is starting to feel used. I keep telling him it's better than the next step where he has to perform in a petrie dish in the silent, sterile room at the fertility clinic. At least our sheets have a high thread count! I know many of you can relate to this and it sucks. I am sick of it. I just want to get pregnant. 

Julie told me to drink more. She swears she was drinking and partying every night the week she got pregnant with Frankie. But that's Julie. She was born with a horse shoe up her ass. I met her in NYC where one of her clients was recording a new label. Her life is unbelievably cool. She shows up with Frankie on her hip in her baby James Perse t-shirt - indigo- and the cutest little sneakers and jeans. Julie as usual was sexier than ever. She kills me. Baby, agency, music industry, adoring husband and still drinking and cavorting until 2am like a teenager.  She did confide about their finances. They go through it like water.

I stopped by the head office. It was unnerving. They stared at me like a bizarre species. They used to fear me, revere me and now they didn't know what to say. I told them to read my Blog. I think I'll build a media empire post baby.

Sissy says they're just jealous I can sit at home all day in my PJs and have sex. Sissy also loves to make everyone feel good. That was the hard part when Max died, Sissy was still trying to make everyone else feel good when she was dying inside. It was this awkward role reversal. Her consoling us about her becoming a widow. I think she was lonely this week. Thus my pledge to consistency this week...

Consistently take my drugs, consistently screw three times a day, call Sissy daily and blog daily. I hope you can stand the sex updates? It's all I'm thinking about this week. Gotta run. Greg just walked in... Best two out of three?

The Feminine Mistake circa 2009

Sorry for the missed post yesterday followers... How the hell does one work from home without tech support! And that whole Twitter thing....Took me the whole afternoon. Mindless. Success! You can follow me on Twitter: search.twitter.com under Rachelblogsbig. Ok here's the view from the kitchen island. 

In 1963, Betty Friedan published her famous Feminine Mystique. In it she wrote,

"Women are victims of a false belief system that requires them to find identity and meaning in their lives through their husbands and children. Such a system causes women to completely lose their identity in that of their family."

One of my wisest pals sent this to me recently. It got me thinking...what was this bill of goods sold to those of us born in 1969?

I call it the "Feminine Mistake". Many of you asked about it. One blogger (see comments below), asked if I did something wrong! Yes, lots. But that's not what I call the mistake. PS. Good girls go to Heaven, Bad girls go to Paris, London and LA. 

My point is I am sitting at home trying to get pregnant at 40. I've actually quit the high exec job to slow down because I want a baby of my own so badly.  I played by the new rules Betty encouraged me to follow, to have a career, see the world, support myself and have an identity outside of my husband. Now I'm childless. She forgot to tell me to get pregnant while I was still 30!! That's the mistake.

She also generalized. Some of my friends LIKE being defined by their husbands and children and choosing that is not a false belief system for them. Thanks to her maybe, it's a choice now rather than a suffering singular option for all women with kids. We just have to glam that option up post feminism. It's got a bad wrap. It's mocked at like the kid with the bad haircut. She forgot to warn us that the hardest choice would be to try and be her feminist goddess and June Cleaver in a drink mix. Singular stay at home and singular career track...much cleaner. It gets messy anywhere in between.

For close to 10 years I've watched my best friends struggle to accomplish this cocktail without a manual.  They are the real mavericks who decided to have children and then figure out how much career/ art/ family they needed in the mix to feel in control of their identity: I was on one track called career that Betty and her friends missed. But they also had something I now miss.

My role has been listening to my friends from my desk hovering over the glass ceiling as they duck body punches, juice spills and disaster babysitters. I have to admit, some friends like Lane are really happy at home with spreadsheets of soccer practice and scrapbooks (even though it would bore me to tears) Lane makes me afraid to have children but Sissy doesn't. Sissy, well, her tragedy is a rare one and Julie's got it going on. Julie makes you want to have a child faster than a Botox injection. I'll tell you more about them next time.

My point is: Betty you forgot to mention that if we also want kids as part of our identity, we have to pencil them into a realistic timeline while we nurture the alternate identity. I know you meant well but my friend who scrapbooks her kids and husband is pretty darn happy. That's a choice too. It's easy post feminist movement to judge her as wasteland but as I sit here without kids...her life looks pretty darn fulfilled. 

By the way, Julie's looks even better - 3 days of work and a kid. Perfection for me. And if she has a direct line to tech support from her B&B Italia sofa she drapes her gorgeous paws over, its going to put me over the edge!

I guess I just start writing...

I cannot believe this is what stay at home mother's do to find a voice. OMG..I've always wanted to type that. Lane uses that term every time she texts me... I can do this. I can NOT work as an executive and NOT need a team and NOT need a 300 person filled auditorium and NOT need to wear Christian L's all day. I can find something interesting at home, taking it easy, in my lulu lemon.... 

So here I am, trying to get pregnant. No more running, no more coffee, no more 14 hour work days. I see the merit in standing back from it all and this blog is about just that. Come on baby! It's fertility drugs and me and oh, yeah, my man. Who said it can't happen at 40....I'm only two months away from the big 40. But so are my friends and I know first hand how screwed up their lives can get....Let's just call this stage I'm going to write about -  the Feminine Mistake.

Rachel