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June 2030

Nadia was tired of waiting to take control of her future, but had very little savings. But she wanted a baby so much that she felt it in her bones. What she wasn’t feeling was any meaningful connection with the guys she met on the five swipe-dating applications on her phone. She had read the statistics. Every year she waited, she risked infertility. Why should she wait for a man to have a baby?

On the other hand, Nadia still really wanted to find Mr. Right, even Mr. Right enough. She knew statistically her odds of finding love as a single mom would drop drastically. If she were divorced with kids, it wouldn’t be that big of a deal. But for single moms finding a good, decent human being to love is just not easy.

In addition, she had her career to think about. Women can have it all? That’s been proven to be false. It would be very difficult for her to teach full time at the suburban school where she had recently been tenured with a child.

So she would go to Mexico. In Mexico, the fertility treatments were safe and literally 10 times cheaper. She applied for a Fertility Loan from the bank (since the clamp down on immigration and the decline of the American birth rate, the loans were interest free), and once she had her approval, she set up the meetings with her department chair and principal.

She requested a leave of absence to spend the school year in Mexico to improve her Spanish. Her administrators lauded her decision, as they had recently been fined by the Federal Government for not serving their Spanish speaking population.

“We can put Nadia’s efforts into the report, “ Dr. Martin said excitedly, speaking as if Nadia wasn’t there. He had his PhD or Ed.D, but no one knew exactly in what. They just knew they had to call him Dr.

“Thank you for the approval, Dr. Martin,” she said.

In June, after the last day of school, Nadia found someone to sublet her apartment. She moved in with her parents and after the first day of her menstrual cycle, she flew direct from Chicago to San Diego. She didn't tell her parents what she was doing. Only that the school had given her time to learn Spanish. She crossed the border over to Tijuana which would be her home away from home for the next few months. After checking in at the hotel, she spoke to the Director of International Admissions to confirm her arrival.The next day she would leave her hotel and check into the Tijuana International Fertility Clinic. It was the only clinic in Mexico where the entire fertility process was in-patient. She did not understand the rationale, however, she was happy to be in a secure place. She also didn’t relish taking all of the shots as her hands shook when she was nervous. The staff there would do it for her.

The Fertility Clinic looked more like a spa than a clinic. She imagined this must be similar to the drug rehab facility her college roommate frequented. There were drink stands with herbal teas, water with cucumber, and fruit drinks. After filling her water bottle, she headed to the lab to have her blood drawn and vaginal ultrasound taken. While she waited for the results, she unpacked in her room. It was the size of an efficiency apartment, but that’s all she really needed. Besides, this was temporary. The wifi connection was strong. What else did she really need?

The nurse phoned to say her test results looked good and that she should return to the lab for her first set of shots to stimulate ovulation. Nadia ovulated regularly, but she knew that they wanted to harvest as many eggs as possible to ensure success. For 12 days a month, for three months, Nadia awoke, took a blood test, received a vaginal ultrasound, waited for the phone call from the nurse, went back to the lab and received shots. In the time between, she read, watched Netflix, and selected a sperm donor. Twenty five percent of her eggs she would inseminate and fifty percent she would leave in case she did actually meet Mr. Right. The other 25 percent would probably not be high enough quality.  After each harvest, Nadia felt bloated, but was in good spirits. During her first harvest, the doctor said that he saw at least 10 eggs on the ultrasound. When the anesthesiologist asked her to count down from 10 as he inserted the IV into her arm, she made one last joke: 10 eggs, 9 eggs, 8 eggs, but by 8 she was out.

Nadia finished the process with 60 eggs. It was almost certain that she would become a mother one day. During her last round of IVF, she picked a sperm donor for some of the eggs. In the end, after looking at the quality of the eggs, they would turn five of the eggs into embryos and freeze them, in case she never met someone with whom to share her life.

Nadia left the clinic with 57 frozen eggs and 3 level one frozen embryos - two didn't fertilize for whatever reason. Nadia was thrilled. She signed the paperwork, hugged her favorite phlebotomist Maria goodbye, and headed to the airport for an intensive Spanish seminar in Mexico City.


June, 2045

Nadia met her husband of two months Christopher at a wine bar in Lincoln Park.

“Damnit, I can’t believe this place isn’t handicapped accessible,” Nadia said to Christopher, lamenting her bad choice.

Christopher was in a wheelchair. He had been paralyzed after being hit by an IED during his tour of duty in Iran. On their third date, Christopher told Nadia that he couldn’t have children. On the fifth date, Nadia told Christopher about the clinic in Tijuana. She had spent the last decade or so liberated by the fact that she could have children on her time table, not on anyone else’s. She didn’t treat each date as a man whom she could possibly marry. She could be relaxed and just enjoy her life.

They left the wine bar and headed over to the Mexican restaurant with burritos and frozen margaritas as big as your head.

“It’s a bit dumb to be eating Mexican food the day before we go to Tijuana,” Christopher said.

“The food there isn’t like this. This is American-Mexican food,” Nadia said.

Christopher nodded and sipped his drink. The tequila was making him sleepy.

The next day Christopher and Nadia boarded the plane. They each had two suitcases. Each one cost $100 to bring on the plane, but they would need everything that they packed.

After tipping the Uber driver generously, he helped them to unload their luggage at the Airbnb. On their way to the Fertility Clinic, they held hands, unable to contain their excitement. They had made this appointment ten months ago, the day after their engagement, and couldn’t wait to get started. Then they headed to the fertility clinic. Maria was there to welcome her. She had been promoted to Director of the International Department, and they hugged like long lost friends.

“You must be Christopher,” Maria said.

“The one and only,” Christopher smiled.

“Both of you can put on your hospital gowns and then come with me,” Maria said.

“Why do I have to wear a hospital gown?” Christopher asked, looking uncomfortable.

“We must maintain a sterile environment, Mr. Christopher,” she said.

A tech disinfected Christopher’s wheelchair, and they suited up and went through three steel doors that required fingerprints, retina scans, even a DNA sample. Finally, it was time.

The dark room mimicked the sounds of a womb. It was loud but calming. Maria walked them over to the sealed tank filled with thick fluid.

“Meet Baby Xlh9z56 and Baby Ynotg7h44,” Maria said with a tear in her eye. She had done this many times, but she had always felt a special connection with Nadia.

“Would you like to do the honors, Dad?” asked Maria. “The password is today’s date. Don’t forget the 20 for the year.”

“Ha! That’s the passcode for our Airbnb,” laughed Christopher.

They all chuckled. Then Christopher pressed the code for the first tank and then the second. Within five seconds, the fluids from both tanks came gushing out into the drainage system. Two nurses were ready with towels and scales. They were perfect. She weighed 6 pounds, four ounces; he weighed 7 pounds, two ounces. Beautiful eyes. Beautiful screams. They whisked the babies to the postnatal rooms. Both Nadia and Christopher took off their shirts to hold the babies skin to skin.

“They’re perfect,” Nadia cried as she gave her baby girl her first bottle.

“Yes,” Maria said. “They all are.”

Jewish Man's Rebellion

I've been caught up reading the reactions to Carey Purcell's article (given the green light by editor Lisa Bonos) I'm tired of being a Jewish Man's Rebellion.  Ms. Purcell has been branded by the twitterverse as being at worst a Nazi and at best a terrible writer.

Whatever my thoughts on the article, I would not label Ms. Purcell as anti semitic. I think Ms. Bonos is more problematic for publishing the article, but that's for the Washington Post to sort out.  What I do think Ms. Purcell was trying to do was explain the unexplainable.

In life we have control over almost everything except our genetics and ultimately who wishes to settle down with us. If a break up was as clear as changing car insurance companies (lower price, more coverage), there would be no such title as "my psycho ex" or description of a person as bitter over a prior relationship. The word baggage would simply mean luggage.

I experienced a lot of breaks up during the 35 years prior to getting married, and although I could surmise why men no longer wanted to be with me, I never actually knew for certain. I remember being told:

1. My feelings aren't developing for you at the rate that I'd like.
2. I don't love you anymore.
3. I met someone else and am going with her.
4. I'm not the right guy for you.
5. You are too old and too Jewish for me.
5. And my favorite - (silence).  I guess that's called ghosting these days.

By blaming her two failed relationships on being Christian and on being a "Jewish Man's Rebellion,"  she is simply trying to make sense of loves' endings. Unfortunately for her, and for all people trying to find "the one," she is not entitled and probably will never know the exact reason why her relationships did not work out.

It is an incredibly difficult part of life; one that I found especially challenging to navigate.  It sounds like Ms. Purcell is having a hard time, too.

Jewish Man's Rebellion on Passover. Those bagels looks so good right now. 

Excavation Part 2

So first of all, I can't believe I wrote about this in April. I thought I last wrote about this last month. I think since I've been traveling so much lately that months and dates mean little to me. This may seem funny to my friends who know that I throw away food the second it says that it is expired.

I can honestly say until I looked down at my computer date clock just this second I had no idea what the day was.

Another reason time is unimportant is because I'm in my own purgatory right now. My coworkers will laugh at that term. "You're so dramatic. You're such a drama queen." And I am in my own way. I don't cause drama, or seek drama, but I tell stories or recall events in a very dramatic fashion. Just last week (exactly I think) I was at the airport in Warsaw, Poland telling a story. A random man stopped me and said, "I can tell you are a great educator because you are so dramatic in the way that you speak to your students." Then he gave me a thumbs up and went on his way.

Maybe he was my guardian angel, but I don't really think I have one, and if I do, it's not a random guy in Poland, rather my grandparents who I sometimes envision at my side holding me up.

I had that kind of vision was when I got engaged. He and I were walking around Lakeview, telling various  people who were most important to us in person. Through my smile I was terrified. Of what exactly, I don't know. Or maybe I do know and I did know. But through that terror, holding his hand, I could feel my Bubbie and Zadie holding me up. I know it sounds freaky, but it's what I felt.

There was a time during our engagement when he told me he didn't know if he wanted to get married anymore. It was an awful time. It was, well, purgatory. But every day I went to work, and every afternoon (almost) I went to the gym, and every week I talked to trusted friends who supported me every step of the way.

In the end, when it didn't work out, as I said in my previous post, I fled my apartment into a condo where I put boxes and boxes of things without sorting them. Since last July, when the relationship I am in now, was progressing, I began cleaning out those boxes albeit fearing what I would find that I haven't seen in seven years.

So I took down a plastic storage container tonight. It looked innocuous. Bills, and such. And then there it was. The book he made me. A bound book with emails from our relationship that ended with "Will you Marry me?" Inside the book were three pictures. I remember why I saved the pictures and the book. I remember thinking that one day, when my son or daughter's heart was really broken, I would tell them the story of my heart being obliterated (dramatic) and let them know that they would be better some day, just like I am.

One of the pictures is of him telling me something at a family bar mitzvah, and me laughing very hard. The second was of us at a friend's wedding. In both pictures I look very, very happy and beautiful. There were other pictures, too. One of me signing a friend's ketubah and me at her wedding. They are some of the few pictures I have of myself wearing the engagement ring that I gave back to him on a beautiful May day seven years ago.

Finding the book and  finding the pictures were something I feared for the last seven years. So how did I feel?

I felt like I was looking at artifacts. I liked seeing that smile. I liked the evidence that what happened to me was true, even though so many people encouraged me to forget about it. I'll never completely forget about it, even if should. I won't. For those who have memories that fade easier than mine, perhaps you are blessed. Although I don't think of myself as cursed.

Right now, this very second, I'm going through something similar that I went through when I was engaged and my exfiance told me he wasn't sure he wanted to marry me anymore. Actually, it's not similar at all, but in my head it feels similar.

I am waiting to hear from the U.S. government if my potential roommate will get his Visa. It is totally out of my hands. I am completely powerless. The decision is in a sealed envelope. When it is opened I have no idea what it will say.

Every single person (including him) is confident that it will be positive. I have spent the last 10 days carrying the same feelings I carried seven years ago: preparing for the worst. I've been increasing my trips to the gym, I've been meditating, and sometimes I will let someone know how much I'm suffering (dramatic) with anxiety

As for  that book and those pictures, I put them away. Because deep in my heart I know that I will someday have that conversation about heartbreak with my son and daughter during another excavation, at another time, in another home filled with love.

Excavation

In July or August, God Willing (sorry to get religious on you, but I’m not certain it will happen until it happens) I will have a “roommate.” And although I have had roommates before, I haven’t had one in seven years and never one of this sort.

To prepare, I have been going through old things and throwing out what I need and don’t need to make room for said roommate and his belongings. However, he won’t have many belongings, so this task isn’t actually physically necessary, but more spiritually so.

Cleaning for me is like losing weight. If I plan to do it, I never will. So I take advantage of spurt of energy and motivation (which is usually just procrastination of something else I don’t want to be doing) and go through the large plastic cartons I must have bought from Target years ago.

I hate moving, and for someone my age who is not married, I haven’t moved all that much. But when I moved seven years ago I felt like a fugitive. Very quickly I had to leave a place where I was living with roommates (one who was my brother who was getting married and moving into a house with his wife) find a somewhere to live and settle in. The funny thing about this is that for at least six months prior, I knew I’d be moving, but I thought I’d be moving to Israel with my then fiancé. However, I never made a plan for the interim, which I don’t understand. I had no plan from June 1-September 1.  This makes me wonder if this is yet another sign that perhaps deep, deep down I knew I wasn’t going to be moving to Israel and I wasn’t going to be getting married.

[In honor of the last day of Passover, perhaps the Hebrews deep down knew they would be fleeing from Egypt, but still put bread in the oven just in case Pharaoh changed his mind again.]

So when I moved out of my brother’s condo in June of 2004 I didn’t clean out much of anything, just placed unnecessary remnants in plastic containers, and maintained this pattern since. I’m not a hoarder or anything, but as I sort through the big plastic boxes of documents, bills and sometimes random items, I’m forced to confront my past.

Since I started cleaning (which was embarrassingly enough last August – I know, I know, like I said, it’s not my strength) the boxes are (not surprisingly) stacked in order of years like an archaeological dig. This is accidental, because if I had an organizational prowess, I wouldn’t have the stacks in the first place.  So today I cleaned 2007. What I found (of interest):

1.  My parents’ trusts

2. All of the manuals to my kitchen appliances and car

3.       A pearl necklace. The box makes it look like it’s valuable. Who gave me a pearl necklace in 2007?  

4.       A wrist radio that I worked out with (I know that sounds like 1997, but it was in there).

5.       The medal from riding the M.S. 150.

This week In Israel, my roommate-to-be explained to me the process of construction in the country. (I knew this already, but because he is a tour educator he sometimes adds interesting facts, which he did.) Because there are so many artifacts, all construction is stopped and delayed if any antiquities are found during the process of digging. Once the site has been properly excavated and recorded, construction can continue. This makes the process of building anything in Israel long and arduous (also add in the nightmarish bureaucracy)

It makes me laugh to hear people complain about the amount of time it’s taking to open a Trader Joe’s on Clark and Diversey, just as it makes others laugh that it’s taken me 7 months to go through four years of boxes.

What can I say? I guess I’m on Ramses II's time table.  

In Defense of Men

Boys, I am here to defend you.

You have been attacked in a national magazine by an MD, PHD. And although Dr. Sax is far more qualified to speak on most any matter than I am, it doesn’t make his recent article in Psychology Today entitled “Why are so many girls lesbian or bisexual?” any less sexist (against men) .

Sax’s “wonders ” if more girls are lesbians or bisexual now than ever “because that's truly who they are - or because the guys are such losers?”

Look, I know this hasn’t been a Golden Age for male behavior with Tiger Woods and Jesse James having sex with any woman with a tattoo and a cell phone camera. However, perhaps I’m naive, but I can’t believe all men are dogs, or men turn women gay because of their behavior.

Sax correlated the “Boys are Losers” theory with the rise, access and availability of porn. I agree that porn has a negative impact on boys, but it’s not making them losers who turn women on to other women.

Porn is problematic, as I’ve written about before, because it creates unrealistic expectations for everybody, including girls. The men in porn look and typically perform, um, differently than average guys. Some women enjoy sex less than female porn stars. If anyone expects their sex life to follow the script of a porn, he/she will never have a fulfilled sex life. There is some good news. Probably the music on your IPOD is better than in XXX movies.

However, I don’t think most boys are trading in girls for porn therefore causing girls to turn to each other for love and companionship. I think today it is safer for women to be lesbians or bisexual and therefore they are. There is also societal forgiveness so a woman can be with a female partner one year and a male partner the next, and no one really cares. They just want her to be happy.

My single friends and I joke, “one more bad dating experience and I’m going to switch teams.” But the thing is, we don’t switch teams. Why? Because we don’t want to. Or if someone does want to, they do. Trust me, I have a lot of single friends who are women, if they could be gay, they would be. Being gay is not something a guy can do to you no matter how repulsive a man’s behavior is. You need to be attracted to women to want to have sex with them. Many of us aren't therefore:

Boys, I don’t think you are losers. I do think your dads might need to talk to you more about acting responsibly and ethically in terms of sexuality and not to objectify women as celebrities do. However, you aren’t to blame (or some would say to thank!) for homosexuality. Now get off the computer and go on a real date. Be safe!