Jew Eat Yet?

Not Ready for Their Close-ups

Well, Kendall isn’t pregnant. We found out today that that the two embryos that were transferred did not make it. Sad and upsetting news but we’re still hopeful about future prospects. Is it my fault for naming the embryos Big and Little Edie after the two mentally ill cousins of Jackie Kennedy? This marks the end of my one-post career as a fertility blogger. We so appreciate all the kind and wonderful comments from friends and strangers, but I think in the future I may wait until we have good news to share. I do believe in the end that these things happen when they’re supposed to and it’s clear to me that Big and Little Edie just weren’t ready for their close-ups.

Our house is, though. Kendall and I finally went to see “The Prestige” tonight, the new movie starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, and Scarlett Johansson that was filmed in our house last February. Very exciting to see our living room and dining room in the film even though those two scenes probably lasted less than a minute. It’s astounding to me that the studio craftspeople spent a week transforming our first floor into a perfectly reproduced 1890s London pub for such a tiny part of the film. The majority of the amazing period props were not even visible nor were most of the dozens of extras but it was fun seeing Scarlett Johansson bounding down our stairs. I’m also confused as to how Christian Bale appeared in one of the scenes in our living room because I watched that scene being shot and I don't remember him in it. Ah, the magic of the movies. Kendall and I were only too happy to escape into that magic after getting our news today.

Got back from Chicago last night where I attended my 30th high school reunion on Saturday. I still can’t believe I’ve been out of high school for over three decades. I will probably write more about this soon but here’s my advice to all reunion planners: ditch the suburban hotels and the fancy dinners and go back to your high school cafeteria. I went to my 10th and 20th reunions and this one was light years ahead of the others. Great fun and walking through that building for the first time since 1976 shook up a lot of old repressed memories.

Embryos on Board

Believe it or not, this is a photo of the two embryos that are growing in Kendall’s uterus as we speak. (Did I ever dream I’d be mentioning Kendall’s uterus in a blog post?) We had a scare earlier this week when none of the seven eggs that were retrieved had fertilized but it turned out that like Kendall herself, they just wanted to rest for a day or two before beginning the arduous process of multiplying and possibly turning into a human being. Of the three that eventually started growing, two made it to this morning and they are now safely back home where they belong. The embryologist cheerfully told us the quality distinctions between the different embryos. One of ours is an A, which is the highest quality, one is a B, which is a little abnormal (but can still produce a completely healthy baby), and the other one was a D which stands for dead as a doornail. I’m rooting for the B embryo, I always feel sorry for the underdog. Besides, I think it’s sorta cute with all those random cells going every which way. The A embryo looks a little too organized to comfortably live with us. Just kidding, A, we’ll be thrilled if you decide to go the distance. Is it wrong that we named the embryos Big Edie and Little Edie after Jackie Kennedy’s crazy aunt and cousin from “Grey Gardens?” I think it’s a pretty good photo considering the embryos are still microscopic at this point. As they were doing another ultrasound on Kendall today, I kept wondering why those images are still as gray and fuzzy as an old kinescope of “The Milton Berle Show.” Shouldn’t they be in HDTV widescreen color by now?

This whole process is mind-blowing and I can see why there are so many fertility blogs out there, but don’t worry, I’m not about to turn this into one. I probably won’t mention Big or Little Edie again until they make their intentions known. We are hopeful but realistic about our chances. I remember that awful line from “Terms of Endearment” when the doctor said to Shirley MacLaine, “I always tell my patients to hope for the best but plan for the worst,” at which point MacLaine gives a pitch-perfect reading of the line, “And they let you get away with that?!” For now, Kendall has to stay in bed for three days and then take it easy for two weeks. She’s in heaven. Who wouldn’t welcome doctor’s orders to watch as much bad TV as you want and get three meals a day in bed? But it’s not all fun and games—I just shoved a three-inch needle into Kendall’s butt for her nightly shot of progesterone. I honestly thought I wouldn’t be able to give her those shots but I don’t mind a bit. Shall I change my name to Nurse Ratched?

I just realized that we haven’t yet told some of our closest family and friends that we’re doing this and here I am writing about it on my blog. You won’t breathe a word of it, will you?

I’m Still Here

What are the lyrics of that annoying Stephen Sondheim song that has become a required part of the repertoire of every singer over 50?

Good times and bum times,
I've seen them all and, my dear,
I'm still here.
Plush velvet sometimes,
Sometimes just pretzels and beer,
But I'm here.

My favorite version of that was when Shirley MacLaine sang it in Carrie Fisher’s “Postcards from the Edge” as Meryl Streep’s boozed-up overbearing Debbie Reynolds-clone mother. We saw Elaine Stritch’s one-woman show where she decried the performers who were already singing the song in their 30s and 40s. “Still here?” she screamed. “Where did they go?”

Anyway, just a note from the land of deadlines (I’m within a day of finishing a long overdue article for the L.A. Times) and fertility (Kendall and I are nearing completion on a rather intense treatment we’ve been doing for weeks) to say I'm still here and will be back on the blog soon. At some point I will write about the joys and horrors of fertility clinics. True, I don’t have to give myself shots in the stomach twice a day as Kendall must, but…um…I wouldn’t wish the so-called “Privacy Room” on my worst enemy. That’s where the guys have to produce samples of their “product.” For now I’ll just say that the Privacy Room is neither private nor a room. Discuss…

The Stench of Hypocrisy

Even without watching TV news it’s hard to avoid the non-stop coverage of the Mark Foley scandal. There seems to be a feeding frenzy on all sides with plenty of ugly undercurrents tailored to fit various agendas. I know there’s no need for any more holier-than-thou pronouncements about Foley’s actions but I’ll give mine anyway and say that his creepy behavior with the underage pages makes my skin crawl and I definitely think he should be arrested (using some of the laws he helped to enact as chairman of the House Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children) if it comes out he had actual encounters with those teenage boys. Obviously he’s a sick guy with a case of arrested development and I hope he gets the help he needs. However, if I had sent my 16-year-old high school student to Washington for an exciting experience as a congressional page and then found out that an elected official was coming on to my kid in that way I would be out for blood.

I remember during my childhood that whenever some heinous action by an individual was reported in the news, whether it was murder, kidnapping, corruption, or even someone failing to file their income taxes, my parents would hold their breaths to see if the religion of the offender was mentioned in the story. If it became clear that the person in the spotlight was not Jewish, I could hear audible sighs of relief. All news stories went through my family’s “Is it good for the Jews?” filter. I guess they thought that if a Jewish person was guilty of any crime, it would somehow reflect badly on all Jews everywhere. Crazy thinking, but it still exists, including in my own head. Couldn’t you hear all the Democrats exhaling with relief that Foley was a Republican? And can you imagine the deafening drumbeat of condemnation that people like Dennis Hastert and others would be leading if Foley had been a Democrat?

I probably shouldn’t even be commenting on this story which is mercifully starting to die down but I just read a little item that compelled me to publicly state what an idiot Hastert’s predecessor Newt Gingrich is. The former House Speaker took the opportunity yesterday to condemn the Democrats because “their sex scandals are far worse.” Great, let’s move all focus onto which side has the most pervs rather than looking at how to better protect children from predators such as Foley. “What we don’t have to do,” Gingrich said, “is allow our friends on the left to lecture us on morality. There’s a certain stench of hypocrisy.” Well, I couldn’t agree more with that, and it’s the same stench that for years has been wafting off the Republicans who decided they were the keepers of moral values in the United States.

But cries of hypocrisy aside, why shouldn’t every citizen in this country be full of outrage, not only at Foley’s pathetic machinations and unbelievable arrogance but also at what is clearly a cover-up among the top echelons of the Republican leadership? The same people whose eyes rolled back into their heads and who practically started speaking in tongues every time Bill Clinton unzipped his fly. That is the stench that I’m finding particularly odiferous this week.

One unfortunate side effect of this brouhaha is the way that certain groups are using the fact that Foley is gay as an excuse to promote ugly biases about gay people. As if the vast majority of adult child predators aren’t heterosexual. Some gay groups have said that this is what happens when people remain in the closet. The implications of that seem way off to me although it’s true that Mark Foley reached new levels of hypocrisy and cowardice by his refusal to acknowledge his sexual preference even after being outed several times. During his last campaign, the five-term congressman called speculation that he was gay “revolting and unforgivable.” Huh? What was far more revolting was his pandering to the right-wing bigots of his home state of Florida, the only state in this country that still prevents gays and lesbians from adopting children. I hope that when the smoke clears from this mess that people will see that this is not a gay issue at all but one about protecting children from those who would do them harm.