This delightful object was presented to me by the woman I mentioned a while back who I thought maybe could be my real life IF friend. It reads, The rune of success puts something you have been striving for within your grasp. I had two opposing reactions to this gift. On the one hand, I was genuinely touched. A gift from a woman who's been through hell, that acknowledges the yearning of my heart...really sweet. For someone like her to say I hope you get what you want...it made me tear up for sure. And it's not like I'm above believing in charms or signs. I think even the most rational of us can't help but look for messages that things will go our way. On the other hand, there are a couple of features of the VIKING RUNE CANDLE that I am not so excited about. First, the self confidence message. Little did I know that conception was just a question of confidence. If only I'd belieeeeeeeved in myself all those months ago! And then there's the fact that it's a VIKING RUNE CANDLE, for fuck's sake.
In an oddly symmetrical turn of events, I learned today that the dear friend from grad school who miscarried in January is pregnant again. She's only a few weeks in, so of course I'm terrified for her. But also...god, I'm total scum for having this thought, let alone voicing it...I wish she could have waited for me. We'll be at this conference in Germany together and I was looking forward to commiserating a bit. I'd allowed myself to visualize drinking some beers and talking about the heartbreak of the empty womb. I know this moment of left-behindness will pass quickly, and I hope you guys will forgive me, a lucky, lucky girl who has honest-to-goodness reasons for optimism (not to mention a VIKING RUNE CANDLE), for even having it at all.
Omigosh. I totally want a VIKING RUNE CANDLE of my own.
ReplyDeleteThose Vikings did seem to be a hardy, prolific breed. Perhaps it was all due to their glorious rune candles.
ReplyDeleteWe can mock, but I honestly wonder if many of the things I do to increase my chances of having a baby aren't the slightly less kooky variants of the rune candle. I told myself I would get pregnant if I started yoga (though I'm now continuing with it for other reasons), or if I gave up drinking for Lent, or if I have my raspberry leaf tea every morning.
And I know how you feel about being left behind. I was so looking forward to sharing the TTC frustration with my best friend when she and her husband started trying. I anticipated long chats and mutual commiseration. And the she got pregnant the first month, so that went out the window. At least we have our bloggie peeps. There's always someone at the same stage you are in.
ahh, being left behind is no fun. i often wonder who'll be left with me after the rest of you all get preggers and leave us. *sniff* *sniff*. but enough of the self pity. when is the conference in germany? sooner or later?
ReplyDeletesigns. i read into EVERYTHING. right after my ivf retrieval, i was at the water cooler. 2 cups came out and 1 fell on the ground. i immediately interpreted that to mean that we would end up transfer 2 embies and only 1 would stick (the first part was right, not the second). and that same day, my left buttcheek typed in "NO" on my blackberry during my subway ride to work. what do you think i interpreted that to mean?? tv volume - i never let it get past 32. bc i tell myself that if i do, that's the year i'll get pregnant. and since i'm 32 until january, i want to get pregnant this year. so, even if i can't hear $hit, i sit there with the volume on at 32 or less. *kooky* is me :op
A strange gift for sure. It's all that bullshit of sickness us in your mind and the power of positive thinking. I have visualized myself plenty with healthy baby and alas all I have are nice images in my mind. But, that said. I'd still light it and wonder if that witchdoctor stuff will work.
ReplyDeleteAcupuncture, folic acid, etc., Viking rune candle...I'm about ready to throw it all in the same boat and start with a voodoo doll. Surgery on the other hand is a clear step toward the baby. Also, I fully feel that distance when a friend gets knocked up. No fair getting in the way of your drinking mas biers!
Omigosh, the answer to all of our problems! Rune candles for everyone!! babies for all! Just believe you can procreate and it will be!
ReplyDeleteha.
I wish you could bring some of us with you to Germany and we could all enjoy way too many biers and commiserate on our unsuccessful attempts to procreate while your preggo friend looks on jealously. Would be kind of awesome, no?
Oooh...a rune candle...color me jealous.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, though, it is a really sweet yet strange gift. I can only hope that if someone should consider giving me something like that, I'll be as gracious as you are in accepting it and find a way to quiet the sarcastic comments brimming at the surface. :)
Here's hoping that by the time you get to Germany, you'll both be sipping on Kinderbier (non-alcoholic "kid beer") because you'll both be nurturing kids in there.
Yeah, that lady IS crazy. At least she didn't offer to heal you with the power of crystals. Although of curse, I've considered such nonsense myself. Maybe dancing naked under a full moon would help?
ReplyDeleteAnyways, what is the protocol with this heere candle? Do you sacrifice a got by its light? Or what? Just LIGHT the sucker? I say go for it. A little extra self-confidence is always welcome anyways (particularly when standing in front of a crowd of your peers with a bier hangover, trying to remember what the hell your research is all about...), even if IF and confidence aren't related.
Hey, if it works, you might have a little Astrid or Erik on your hands one of these days :)
I don't know what to say about the Viking candle. Except, when you attack remember to always pillage BEFORE you burn.
ReplyDeleteBeing left behind, and then lapped, sucks big time. It's inevitable for most of us, though. I can tell you that the one bright spot is that when your time finally comes, you will have lots of great sideline-experience to draw from and many observations to help you be the parent you want to be. Let them suffer through it first so you can reap the rewards of their trial and error, I say. (There's some lemonade from lemons, dammit.)
I didn't even know such wondrous merchandise existed in this freaking wonderful world in which we live:) Holy crap. But I DID just find them on a website that sells Wicca candles, too! So let's hear it for some good old fashioned mystical thinking. And if all else fails, maybe we can all meet up in some field somewhere, by some standing stones. And, you know, chant. (Yes, I know those are Druids...how about some Druid candles to cover all our bases?)
ReplyDelete(All of that said, I have left the window to that website open and a part of me is saying: come on...order one. You know you want to. It couldn't hurt.)
The intention was sweet, though.
And you're not bad for feeling left behind. Ah, the wonders of IF - you can feel both happiness for another weary traveller AND sadness that such is not your lot (yet!).
I have had more guilty left-behind thoughts than I care to admit. And since you've had surgery AND a magic candle (clearly you're double fixed now), you may find yourselves in Germany together groaning over the woes of morning sickness.
ReplyDeleteWell, I know what I'm asking for this year for Christmas...A VIKING RUNE CANDLE!
ReplyDeleteSorry about the pregnant friend, I would feel left behind as well. And, I think it's perfectly normal/OK to feel joy and sadness about a pregnancy at the same time.
i'm not even sure i can keep reading your blog now that you have a VIKING RUNE CANDLE. my envy may overwhelm me.
ReplyDeleteWell, that is sweet, in its own way. She is the self-nominated nutrition expert that thinks you're underweight, isn't she? You may be getting some pints of ice-cream next time. Not so bad, either!
ReplyDeleteYes.
If only it were as simple as putting on a few pounds, eh, bunny?
And hey, I am descended from Vikings, you know (eh, I presume), and now, hah! I am realising that ALL my problems can be traced back to the lack of my VRC! I bet your friend ran off with it. HUH.
Maybe you're not supposed to light it. :-)
ReplyDeleteI try very hard to take this kind of thing in the spirit in which it was given--if someone is really, honestly trying to help me from a place of kindness, I do try to be open to whatever they feel they can contribute.
But.
Self-confidence? Really? That is some insulting shit right there. As someone else said, it's the poisonous flip side of the Power of Positive Thinking bullshit. If positive thinking can get you want you want / cure your cancer / remove the bugs from your tomato plants / make you fertile, then surely anyone who hasn't achieved those things JUST ISN'T TRYING HARD ENOUGH and deserve whatever they get. It's like after an audition, when someone will say that the winner "just wanted it more." No. No they didn't. They played a little better than everyone else. That is all. Now I am in full-on rant mode and I'm going to stop while I'm ahead because this kind of crap really pushes my buttons.
Self-confidence.
Bah.
(insert incoherent muttering)
I'm a big fan of candles but up till now I didnt realise there was one candle that specialised in self confidence....And to think that all this time all we needed was to light a candle and bam! we'd get pregnant. We have so much to learn don't we? Maybe you could take the candle with you when you next see your RE for a check up and let him know he can borrow the candle to give to other patients of his to avoid them going thru the unneccessary operation that you just underwent.
ReplyDeleteSeriously though... Bunny you are not selfish at all for having those thoughts about your friend being pregnant. I think you worded it so perfectly. I would feel the exact same way and I often wished I had a pause button for my friends lives so I could make thier lives sit still while mine catches up with theirs. It's no fun being in the slow lane. xx
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