How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Posted on September 15, 2016 by admin

How I Spent My Summer Vacation
A post by Elizabeth

You haven’t heard much from us this summer. We’ve taken a bit of a break from our regular social media posts to work behind the scenes. It’s been very busy.

After working as a photographer for the University of Michigan’s Department of Pathology for just over 16 years, I accepted the new position of Communications Specialist early this summer. I’ll be spending less time on imaging and more time managing the content for the department’s website as well as Inside Pathology magazine, and our annual report.

Dressed for the morgue.

Within minutes of accepting my new roll, my partner unexpectedly announced his retirement. They don’t plan to back fill my old position and haven’t yet filled his, so I’ve been trying to manage it all since June 24^th. This has meant that I’m on call for autopsy service every morning and get little else done!

A job to cover autopsy photography has finally been posted and closes on Friday. I’m hopeful that we can get someone in to relieve me soon and I can spend more time on the new job that I’m excited to dive into.

I worked with a delightful high school student this summer to get our artwork and supplies organized at our storage unit. It took us some time but everything is so much easier to find now. It looks like it might not be much longer before we need a bigger space. We’re all paid up through March but this will be one of our upcoming needs for sponsorship.

Artwork and supplies in an orderly fashion.

We’re hard at work on our 501(c)(3) paperwork. Our articles of incorporation have been filed and it won’t be long until we’re a full-fledged non-profit. We’ve started assembling our board and are excited about what our non-profit status will mean for the sustainability of the project.

My sisters, my mom, and I went to see Dolly Parton in concert in August. Seeing Dolly was on my mom’s bucket list and attending the show induced tears of happiness. Dolly is an amazing performer and I view her as a great child free role model. It was great to spend an evening with Dolly and some of the nearest and dearest ladies in my life.

Waiting for Dolly to take the stage.

My nieces came to Michigan for their annual summer visit. This year they stayed with us for 3 weeks. It’s never long enough. There were play dates, night time glow parties at my parents’ pool, and we tried our hand at our first batches of French macarons.

Our first attempt at macarons. Not too bad!

I have to admit that the macarons totally intimidated me. I only agreed because my middle niece really wanted to try making them. It ended up being a great project that we all enjoyed doing together and I learned that I shouldn’t be afraid to try things that scare me. Well, at least recipes that scare me ;).

I took a trip to the REACH Art Studio in Lansing where we’ll be showing some work from the permanent collection during the Cultural Rhetorics Conference at Michigan State University at the end of this month. Maria, Robin Silbergleid, and I will also be presenting at the conference. I hope you’ll come see the exhibit on Friday September 30th from 6 – 8 pm.

We’re teaming up with the University of Michigan Center for Reproductive Medicine for a cigar box art workshop on October 10. We’ve also been prepping for a wind chime art workshop with the Utah Infertility Resource Center and the talk we’ll be presenting at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Scientific Congress in Salt Lake City on October 18. We have another exciting trip and exhibit coming up in November and we’ll be announcing the location once we have our travel finalized.

We’ll have a variety of materials available to create wind chimes for pregnancy and infant loss remembrance day.

This summer has brought some challenges for me in navigating my infertility. Mainly, how it’s affecting socializing with my fertile friends. I’m finding it hard to spend time with the families who have kids around the same age my twins would be had they survived. It’s made for some cancelled plans and afternoons in tears. Fortunately, my friends are willing to stick by while I try to figure out how to handle these situations.

Between this and the crazy work schedule, I’ve been utilizing all of my tools for self-care. Many days, on the way home from work in my vanpool, I color. I love the images in the Coloring Conception adult coloring book. Don’t forget that we’re going to be doing an online exhibit of images from the book this fall and you’re invited to participate. You can download the pages from a link in creator, Buffy Trupps’, blog post. Just scroll down past the video and enter your name and email address and the files will be mailed to you. Those who participate have the chance to win a Mindful Fertility Journal.

I recently finished coloring this page of Coloring Conceptions.

Finally, over the weekend, I took the first non-work vacation in, well, I can’t actually remember the last non-work trip I took. I met up with my friend Jo in Chicago. Our friendship is one of the many I have infertility to thank for. We spent time exploring the city, eating great food and getting inspired by exhibits at the Art Institute of Chicago.

With Jo in the Windy City.

Maria and I are in the process of hiring social media interns so we can get back to bringing you some great content every day of the week.

We’re always looking for those interested in sharing their stories through our blog as guest posters, those who would like to do an oral history interview, and those who would like to share their artwork through our exhibits. We invite you to learn more at our website. Feel free to contact me via email at elizabeth@artofinfertility.org or tweet us @artofif.

Elizabeth

Healing through Reading – Eight of our Favorite (In)fertility Books

Posted on March 2, 2016 by admin

Recently, Maria and I were reflecting on some of the books that have helped us at various stages in our journeys. We thought we’d share just a handful of them with you today.

Elizabeth

Maria’s Picks

Empty Cradle: Infertility in America From Colonial Times to the Present by Margaret Marsh and Wanda Ronner

Infertility around the Globe: New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies edited by Marcia C. Inhorn and Frank Van Balen

These were the first “academic” books that I found when I first became interested in studying infertility for graduate school I remember feeling excited that I could take all of the pain I was feeling by TTC and try to make arguments for changing the stigma that surrounds infertility. Today, as I write my dissertation on the rhetorics of infertility, I continue to rely on these authors and their arguments about the silence, shame and stigma surrounding infertility.

Taking Charge of Your Fertility, 10th Anniversary Edition: The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health

This book immediately takes me back to when I was first TTC. I had finally shared my struggle to get pregnant with my family. On a trip back to WI, my parents hosted a family dinner. At the dinner, my grandmother pulled me aside and gave me this book. She told me that a few of my relatives had also struggled to get pregnant and that this was a book that they highly recommended. I remembered feeling loved by my grandmother because of her thoughtfulness and I was reminded that it wasn’t just me that wanted to have a baby – my whole family did.

What He Can Expect When She’s Not Expecting: How to Support Your Wife, Save Your Marriage, and Conquer Infertility!

I first purchased this book about a year and a half into TTC. I was depressed, angry, and unhappy. I loved my husband but being in a marriage seemed like a constant reminder of something that we were missing out on – a baby, a family. I knew that my attitude and sadness had taken a toll on me and, importantly, my husband. I bought this book and gave it to him as an apology. He was trying to love me the best that he could, even though I didn’t know what I wanted or needed. Seeing this book today reminds me of all the trials and obstacles we faced throughout our 5 years of marriage. Today, I know that the deep love I have for my husband is due very much to ability to face infertility.

Elizabeth’s Picks

About What Was Lost: 20 Writers on Miscarriage, Healing, and Hope Edited by Jessica Berger Gross

Although only one of the stories in this book deals specifically with infertility, reading it was essential to me beginning to process the grief around my own miscarriage. I had put off dealing with my emotions about losing my pregnancy because I was still dealing with the trauma from the emergency surgery that was required after complications from my egg retrieval caused ovarian torsion and internal bleeding. As I read the stories of other women through the essays in this book, I thought of my own story and how I could interpret my experience and make sense of what had happened to me.

The Baby Book by Robin Silbergleid

There’s something just so incredibly powerful about the experience of infertility expressed through the format of poetry. For me, sitting down with this book creates a quiet space to reflect on my own journey, and it has helped me come to terms with my diagnosis and how it’s made me who I am today.

Infertility and the Creative Spirit by Roxane Head Dinkin and Robert J. Dinkin

One of the themes that I’ve been interested in exploring through ART of Infertility is the many ways that we can contribute to our communities and leave legacies without having children. I love this book because it explores the ways that seven prominent women in history found creative outlets for their journeys, impacting the world we live in today.

Silent Sorority: A (Barren) Woman Gets Busy, Angry, Lost and Found by Pamela Mahoney Tsigdinos

While those of us with an infertility diagnosis all have our own unique stories, we experience the same kinds of emotions. I read this book quite early in my journey and felt I had truly found someone who understood me. Pamela was speaking my language! I wanted to make it required reading for all of my friends and family so they would understand what I was going through.

2015 Year in Review

Posted on January 26, 2016 by admin

In January of 2014, I was gearing up for my final frozen embryo transfer and curating ART of Infertility’s first exhibit at Ella Sharp Museum in my hometown of Jackson, MI. A month later, my reproductive endocrinologist transferred a gorgeous, grade 5AA blastocyst into my uterus. Unfortunately, it didn’t implant and our final attempt at a pregnancy, at least one using our own biology, was unsuccessful.

At a time when I wanted to curl up on my couch and ignore the world outside my front door, I was forced to finish interviews, write exhibit labels, and coordinate artists dropping off artwork. I was both resentful and relieved to have something to do and had no idea then that it was just the start of a project that would bring so many amazing people into my life and save me time and again.

2015 was an amazing year for ART of Infertility. We wrapped up a large scale exhibit in Michigan in January and did 8 pop-up art exhibits across the country. We held 7 art and 3 writing workshops and presented at 3 national academic conferences. Events were held in Michigan, Iowa, New Jersey, California, Arizona, Illinois, and the District of Columbia.

Creating art at our event at Busboys and Poets in Washington, D.C. in May.

The ART of Infertility blog was launched during National Infertility Awareness Week and Maria and I have used it to share our own reflections on infertility along with stories and artwork from the project. We also welcomed 16 guest bloggers.

We conducted 39 interviews of 45 people, lobbied for infertility legislation during Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill, collaborated with Professional Writing students at Michigan State University, and hired our first intern!

Our team of Michigan delegates at Advocacy Day 2015. Left to right, Elizabeth’s mother, Judy, Elizabeth, Maria, and Maria’s husband, Kevin.

35 new artists participated in the project, contributing 94 pieces of artwork, and we now have 122 pieces of art in our permanent collection.

The Smallest Things by Leanne Schuetz. First displayed at our pop-up in Arizona, this piece is now part of our permanent collection.

We are incredibly grateful for those of you who have shared your stories through interviews and artwork and to our many volunteers and sponsors. The project would be impossible without you.

Infertility Objects by Lauree Schloss.

This year is already shaping up to be every bit as fulfilling and exciting. We have many possible projects and collaborations in the works but here are some of the items that are definitely on our calendar for 2016.

We’re working this month to digitize the art in our collection, making it more accessible to the public. We’re also getting our paperwork around and officially filing for our 501©(3) non-profit status. Next month, we’re teaming up with the University of Michigan Center for Reproductive Medicine, Author Robin Silbergleid, and the Ann Arbor District Library by holding a book reading and art and writing workshop.

We’ll be in Houston in early April to present an art workshop at an academic conference and collecting oral histories for the project while there. Of course, we will have something special planned for National Infertility Awareness Week. We are working on our schedule and hope to have an exciting line-up to share soon.

Our event in Calabasas, CA during National Infertility Awareness Week 2015. Photo by Chrystal Starr Photography.

On May 11, we’ll once again be on Capitol Hill for Advocacy Day with RESOLVE: The National Infertility Association and, in October, we’ll travel to Salt Lake City for the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s Annual Conference and events with the Utah Infertility Resource Center.

Maria and I are excited to see what the third full year of the project brings and hope you’ll join us for the journey. We’d love to share your story through the project via your artwork or an interview. If you are interested in sharing your story, or in hosting an ART of IF exhibit or workshop in your community, please contact us. We’d love to work with you!

-Elizabeth

ART of IF

The official blog of the traveling art exhibit and oral history project, ART of Infertility.

Tag Archives: Robin Silbergleid

Healing through Reading – Eight of our Favorite (In)fertility Books

2015 Year in Review