![\"\"](\"http:\/\/farm4.static.flickr.com\/3215\/3000346208_f5fd4ed6e6_s.jpg\")
Introducing, Tallulah!<\/p>\nIntroducing, Tallulah!<\/p>\n
I rarely blog about this stuff, but I just HAD to kitten blog today because on Friday, the day after we learned our first attempt at IVF didn’t work, Marco and I brought home the sweetest little cat.<\/p>\n
Our loved ones’ reactions to our news ran the gamut.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maybe you should have started sooner,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said a loving but disappointed mother-in-law.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0 Little did she know, bless her expectant heart, we did.\u00c2\u00a0 My mother responded with sympathetic tears.\u00c2\u00a0 The woman knows a thing or two about fertility woes (cue my book Only Child<\/em>).\u00c2\u00a0 My friends responded with the requisite \u00e2\u20ac\u0153oh shit,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u0153am so sorry,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s always next time.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what we Chicagoans used to say about the Cubs.<\/p>\n Marco and I mourned, each in our own way, taking a break from our 24\/7 fixation on the election.\u00c2\u00a0 I miss those 12 cells, said my sentimental husband, who mourns a little each time he leaves a place he knows he won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see again soon.\u00c2\u00a0 What happens to the embryo? he asked.\u00c2\u00a0 It gets reabsorbed into my tissue, goes back to the Mother Ship, I joked.\u00c2\u00a0 He found that reassuring.\u00c2\u00a0 I want a kitten, I said.<\/p>\n And after two days of sadness, we headed to Kitty Kind adoption center after work.\u00c2\u00a0 It was Halloween, and I happened to fall in love with the first black cat I saw.\u00c2\u00a0 Clich\u00c3\u00a9, I know, but I felt uplifted by that purring ball of fur.\u00c2\u00a0 Its bear-shaped face and kittenish exuberance melt me, make it hard to feel self-pity.\u00c2\u00a0 Marco and I passed the adoption test with flying colors (thank you, Davy!) and brought the kitten home.<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not exactly a baby, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ours.<\/p>\n I’m sad.\u00c2\u00a0 But we’ll keep trying.\u00c2\u00a0 I am a Chicagoan after all.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m grateful for the deep happiness I’ve found with Marco, for an incredibly satisfying career as a working writer, and for being born at a time in history where technology can sometimes work miracles–even if it can’t turn back the clock.<\/p>\n To all you other mid-to-late-30somethings-pushing-and-just-over-40-women-trying-to-have-a-child: solidarity.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t doubt your choices.\u00c2\u00a0 There are good reasons we’ve lived non-linear lives.<\/p>\n Like Tallulah, to whom the world still seems new each day, I have little truck for regret.<\/p>\n And now, back to the election, and MSNBC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Introducing, Tallulah! I rarely blog about this stuff, but I just HAD to kitten blog today because on Friday, the day after we learned our first attempt at IVF didn’t work, Marco and I brought home the sweetest little cat. Our loved ones’ reactions to our news ran the gamut.\u00c2\u00a0 \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Maybe you should have started […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1902,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[8959],"class_list":["post-1303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-families"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1902"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/girlwpen\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}