Barren Mare

Shadow puppets

Oh my friends, do you know how cute and amusing you all are? Your reaction to the word "secret" is very endearing indeed.

"Secret!" you gasp, bouncing gently in your seats, waving your tiny paws in the air. "She said secret! What could it be? What oh what?" And I imagine you conjuring up all sorts of delicious possibilities. Cotton candy! A box of puppies! A positive peestick! The explanation of what is going on in that hatch on Lost!

Sadly, I fear it is none of those things. I hate to dampen such sweet and uplifting enthusiasm, but in fact, the secret is nothing nice at all- quite the opposite. I was not mentioning it to tease as much as I was trying to allude to the fact that all is not completely well here, but I can't- and won't- go into the specifics right now.

Let's just say I have looked up from the path to find that somehow I have wandered into a very, very dark and scary part of the island. I expect to be stumbling around in the blackness for awhile (literally, since the power in my building keeps cutting out for no apparent reason, causing me to scramble for candles).

Perhaps to ward off the darkness, we could all hold hands; maybe sing a few Cheering and Rambunctious tunes. Perhaps although things keep getting worse and worse, we could dream of something better. Not to go all Julie Andrews on you, but it would comfort me if you could tell me something nice. Tell me three things that make you happy- little and inconsequential things or grand and awe-inspiring.

I'll be over here, striking a match, and trying to remember how to make a shadow puppet.

Seatech Astronomy

There was a movie called Sneakers on TV here, a couple months ago. It's a charming, slightly silly film. One of the lesser Robert Redford efforts, admittedly. However, I found it worth watching, partly because I couldn't remember how it ended and partly because I felt a swoony nostalgia at seeing River Phoenix again on the screen. Ah, River. River, River, River. Alas, we hardly knew ye.

I won't bore with you the plot of the movie, mainly because it's too complicated; not to mention that I have already forgotten what it is about (again). But in one pivotal scene, Le Redford and that actress Mary McDonnell (you know, "Stands with a Fist" to Kevin Costner's "Dances with Wolves") decode the meaning of the mysterious words "Seatech Astronomy". They do so during a friendly Scrabble game, shuffling and rearranging the tiles- until they realise that in fact, Seatech Astronomy itself means nothing. It is an anagram.

An anagram for: Too Many Secrets.

This weekend, E. and I played something of a Scrabble game with our relationship. It turns out that there is a very great deal more going on than meets the eye. I learned that when unscrambled, one of the anagrams of our life together amounts to the same thing: too many secrets.

My biggest secret from E. has heretofore been the existence of this blog. I've been writing it for the last seventeen months (gosh, has it been that long? Do I get a gold watch or something?) and never breathed a word to him about it. Initially, I kept it from him because it was simply an experiment; one which I didn't imagine would amount to much, since hey! I was going to get pregnant any day now and then why would I need an infertility blog? Oh irony, you minx.

I felt from the outset it would easier to write if I knew it was a private endevour, not something I had to discuss or share. But then I wrote more and more, becoming increasingly drawn into not only the realisation that I was card-carrying infertile but that there was a fascinating online community of others like me. I began to worry that he wouldn't like it at all. That he would in fact be monumentally pissed off at me for telling the Internets all our personal stuffus, even though I have always striven to maintain as much anonymity as I could muster. In the end, the more I wrote, the more I fretted that eventually, he would find out- and that he would murder me and then break up with me.

But by that point, it was hard to think about 'fessing up, because I kinda felt like I had hit my stride a bit; that writing was working for me, and had become an important outlet for all the damp, murky fears. However, I think it also began to take its toll. Writing, reading and commenting on other blogs began to take up a massive amount of my limited spare time and energy. If I've ever annoyed one of my lovely commenters by not responding to you personally, trust me when I say that it's about all I can manage time-wise, just to write the damn thing, and to keep up with the events of others.

I suppose at some point, I was so into telling my story here that I pretty much stopped talking to E. about what I was feeling/thinking about our situation. Gradually, the blog became the kind of secret that fortifies the wall, rather than an outlet that builds bridges.

Well, he knows now, since I told him. To my utter astonishment, he was completely unfazed by the whole thing, or at least he appeared to be. Whether he'll read it in full or just skim it (Hello, E. Put your dishes in the dishwasher, please), or take no interest whatsoever, I don't know. Either way, I'd like to think that I can keep on writing it as honestly, unselfconsciously, and freely as I have before. Because I suspect in the coming months, I'm going to need to be able to do that.

I would tell you exactly why that is so, but, um...it's a secret.

Is that all there is?

Is that all there is ? Is that all there is ?
If that's all there is, my friends,
then let's keep dancing....

- Peggy Lee

Stripping away the reality of having children leaves me with two prospects. The first is a vast expanse of possibility and option. Unencumbered by the responsibility of offspring, the choices sometimes feel limitless.

Once the initial blastwave of the shock of failure had faded, this was very much my mindset. In fact, at one point I was positively alight with excitement about it. We could travel in style! I've always wanted to see the otherwordly ice flows of Antarctica. I could shop til I drop! Without having to set aside all that cash for fertility drugs and then diapers, all those covetous material goods could be mine for the taking. My closet would be full and my house would be grand.

Or more enticingly, we could quit our jobs! Move somewhere else! Take on exciting challenges, like converting a ramshackle farmhouse in the south of France into a B&B before going on TV (like everyone else in this country who does that) to talk about how our venture failed. Or something more worthwhile like building houses and digging wells in third world countries, something that would make a difference.

The other prospect I mentioned is much more mundane- and that is, that without children, things will stay pretty much as before. Oh sure, there will be various fillers in between the daily grind of work, gym and cleaning the house. Occasionally I muse about doing a bit of voluntary work, or taking up a minor, pleasurable hobby, such as rock climbing or playing the cello. We'll eat out from time to time, and see friends once in a while. It will be more of the same. It will be the status quo.

Lately, I think it's most likely that the second prospect will be the way it goes. That's not to say that there won't be adventures from time to time, or perhaps other intermittent upheavals. But what I am coming to realise is that life usually develops a status quo for a reason. Once you're into that set-up, those patterns, these routines- it becomes very hard to start imposing grand shake-ups. It usually takes an act of bravery, or perhaps desperation, to move off from that position of relative safety, however boring safety may be.

That was one thing that always struck me as rather nice about having children- that out of the sheer necessity of having a family to care for (with all that this entails), people suddenly start finding ways to manage new scenarios that they never would have contemplated before. Things change, because they have to. And certainly some of the changes may not be entirely welcome, but it's perhaps easier to look into the eyes of your child, and know there is a purpose behind it.

What I worry most about not having kids is this: that nothing will ever really change. That I will be stuck in this goddamn rut for the next thirty years until I retire. That all the days in between will be a search for something to fully fill the spaces that a child would have taken up. Something to close the gap between the life I wanted and the one I have. To me that always seems the biggest difference between those that want kids and those that do not. For some people, there is no gap- or at least not one caused by the lack of a child.

I also realise that children are not necessarily the final word in giving meaning and purpose to one's life. Last year I was voicing some of these concerns to my mother. What's going to happen to me if I never have a child, I asked. Is this it for me? Is this my life, then? Is that all there is?

Oh honey, she said, everyone thinks this at some point. Even people with children. You get older, and things don't turn out quite the way you thought they would and you wonder the very same thing. Is that all there is?

And I know she's probably right. It's just that I would so much rather be asking the question from the position of mother and parent, than from where I sit now.

Lost in the woods

I was in the middle of a complicated piece of work this afternoon, sitting at my desk and minding my own business- when suddenly and for no particular reason- I had a strange and vivid memory.

When I was a child, we lived in a house in the woods, in rural Nowheresville. Every day I walked down a quarter mile of gravel lane (past the scary dogs at the neighbouring farm) to catch the yellow school bus, and every day I trudged up the lane again, lugging my heavy school bag. Over the years, my parents gradually bought up all the parcels of woodland surrounding the family homestead, until we had our own little forest around us. It was peaceful, but isolated. On winter nights I used to wake up and press my face against the cold window, watching the deer grazing in the front lawn, a raw sliver of icy moon in stark branches against the sky.

My parents being of an environmentally friendly, economically conservative bent, the house was heated by a combination of a coal stove in the basement and a log burning fire in the living room. For my dad, the axe, the chain saw and the coal scuttle was a big part of daily life. Before I became too cranky and wild with teenage hormones, I would sometimes go into the deep woods with him to help chop logs and load the wheelbarrow full of firewood.

One day, I got lost. I had wandered off to find the stream which ran through the property to rinse my hands, and on the way back, I somehow missed the vague trail leading back to where my dad was working. In the forest in early winter, all the trees looked the same. Terrified, I tried to retrace my steps, looking for something familar, something recognisable. After an hour, I realised I was simply going around in a big circle, passing the same grey tree stump over and over. I was about to sit down to wait for someone to find me when I heard my father calling me- all that time, he had been so close by, virtually right next to me. We rolled the wheelbarrow home together. But I stopped spending so much time in the woods after that.

When the IVF failed, I lay on my bed with my hands folded across my stomach. E. went to make soothing cups of tea. And I had that dreadful feeling again- of someone who has walked a long, long way. Thousands of miles, through heat, storms and the darkest, blackest woods- only to discover that when I finally looked up from the path, I was right back where I started. That in fact, I hadn't moved an inch. All that pain and time and trouble, but the essential position was no different. Not pregnant. No baby.

I had gone around in a big circle in every sense of the word. It was a horrible, brutal realisation to discover that despite all our best efforts, we were simply, truly, back at square one with absolutely nothing to show for it. And some days, like today, it hurts to realise that this is where I stay- where I may be trapped forever.

I think what I have come to find hardest about infertility is that it's often very difficult, if not impossible, to find meaningful lessons from it. Everything about it feels so stupid and pointless. With many other challenging life experiences, we can sometimes turn around afterwards and say, "OK, that sucked the biggest of donkey balls, but as a result I am a better, wiser person. That which does not kill us makes us stronger, yadda yadda."

But with infertility, I often find it incredibly difficult to put a positive spin on the death of this particular dream. I can't yet find the good in it, at all. I can't see how the end result facing me is truly meant to balance out all the equations of my life. I know I don't want to keep going around in circles forever, but at times, I don't know how to begin to find my way back to safety either.

When you are this deep in the woods, all the trees look the same.

I have you in my sites

And now for something completely different.

I have a question- something vaguely off topic which I have wanted to know for ages, but I could never really find the right moment to bring it up. Thing is, I suspect it might be quite a stupid thing to ask. But then, when you don't know the answer to something, it's often quite easy to assume that everyone else in the universe has the understanding and knowledge that you do not- when in fact they too are sitting home scratching their heads over precisely the same little mystery, and wishing like hell somebody else would pipe up and ask.

My question relates to my Site Meter. For those of you who don't know what this is, it's basically a hit counter that tells you how many people are visiting your site per day. If you blog, and don't have a site meter, then run run run as fast your little fingers will carry you to sign up for one! Here is a helpful guide to get you started.

Bloggers love site meters. Because not only does the counter tell you how many site hits you receive, but it tells you when, and for how long. Plus, you also find out all manner of other gripping little factoids you would never otherwise have known. For example, you can see not only from which countries do your visitors hail, but from which particular cities or towns or lifeboats. You learn what times of day are the busiest for web traffic. You discover how people are coming to you and sometimes what led them there - from Google, from another blog link, from the depths of hell. If you ask it nicely, the site meter site will give you little charts and graphs and forecasts for you to pore over in amused fascination.

It's almost like a blog ultrasound, only without the cold lubricant and the monkeys. And if you look at it long enough, or often enough, or even occasionally out of boredom or passing interest, the site meter can tell you something about the life and pulse of your blog. Best of all, it's deliciously free. Freeeee!

Anyway, what I have always wondered about this: There's a site meter log which records the duration of each visit. So, for example, I can see that in the last hour, there were 13 hits, and that Betty Smith from Pocatello, Idaho logged on at 3.15 pm and looked at 3 different pages within the site for 4.36 minutes.

Ha. Don't worry, Betty, I was kidding. It doesn't give me your name or anything else about you personally. But I do get the rest of that information.

Here's the thing, though - who are the people who visit for 0.00 seconds? I always have lots of these in the records. At first I thought the meter could only pick up hits if the visitor stayed for a certain length of time- like for more than 10 seconds. But then I looked back through the log a bit, and found visits that lasted, say, 4 seconds. Which threw that theory out the window.

I'm not really bothered or worried about this odd, repetitive non-event. I am curious, though. My confusion is twofold- first, if the visit is really lasting only 0.00 seconds, how the hell does the site meter pick that up? Is it just really, really alert and on the ball?

Secondly, and more crucially, how does anyone make up their mind about my site in 0.00 seconds? This causes me continual, gentle bafflement. I mean, I'm capable of some mighty snap decisions- for example, "No, I won't go to the gym tonight but instead will collapse like a beached baby seal on my sofa in front of the TV while nibbling something yummy." And I'm completely down with getting your groove on with some free-flowing web surfing, click click click. But even I usually take more than 0.00 seconds to ascertain if the web site I am on is someplace I want to be.

So what the hell is going on with the old 0.00? Is it only happening to me, or does everyone get these insta-drive bys? Does anyone know the answer?

You can lead a horse to water but...

Blogging can sometimes be like an amateur striptease. If you're not careful, you inadvertently slip the veil just a little lower than you really meant to go, and suddenly, your life is all nekkid and exposed to the world. To the funny, fickle, furry, friendly, freaky Internets.

The difficulty is that when describing a relationship, which by its nature does not neatly compress into a bite-sized Postie Snak, one post on the matter inevitably begets another. Suddenly I find I have opened a veritable Pandora's box about a topic which I never really intended to discuss in any sort of detail with the Internets at large.

I don't want this to turn into a blog about my life with E. and yet I realise in reading your comments that it's sometimes hard to give only a half glimpse behind the curtain (or of my frilly knickers, to extend the striptease analogy further than is in strictly good taste).

What you, the reader, inevitably get is a necessarily distorted picture, filtered through a single, unrelenting lens of infertility. It just so happens that, unsurprisingly, infertility seems to bring out the worst in me, in him, in us. But there's so much more to it, to us and our life together, than the infertility fallout. And it leaves me feeling vaguely uneasy- as if I set out to draw a self portrait, and instead handed over a scribbled sketch that resembled someone else entirely.

I suppose the only way to remedy the problem is to invite you all around for an extended chat over coffee and donuts at my house (or perhaps something a bit more potent, nearer the cocktail hour). But obviously there's a few, um, logistical problems with that, not the least of which I am on a diet and cannot eat donuts.

There is one thing I want to say- in the comments on the last post, I responded to Yellowgirl's analogy about waiting for a marriage proposal- the gist of which is that by not mentioning it, by not pushing it, he came around so much quicker to the idea in his own time. I suppose I was slightly flippant in my remarks, but the nub of what I meant was this: if I have to wait for a further decision to pursue IVF treatment for as long as I have been waiting for a marriage proposal, I could be waiting a looooooong time.

Please understand, I'm not drawing any particular correlation to E.'s attitudes toward wedded bliss and his thinking about further treatment, because that's not really how it works in the parameters of our relationship. In fact, I was trying in my offhand way to make a different point entirely. And that is, when it comes to E., "not mentioning it" is not necessarily a sure fire tactic. Admittedly, it's probably the preferable approach overall- even though holding my tongue about things like this is not my strong suit. But with E., there is no guarantee that leaving him on his own to think about something is actually going to help either.

If we're going to make it through this, I think we need to draw a line in the sand of the no-man's land between us. And then ultimately someone has to take a step toward the other side.

If nothing else, perhaps one day we will manage to meet in the middle.

You say obsession, I say huh?

Things with E. seem to have improved slightly in the last few days. Of course, that's all relative, considering that last week, the state of our relationship felt decidedly touch-and-go. So just because I have been dragged back from the precipice does not mean my legs are not still shaking from the vertigo.

We went out to dinner on Friday night, the first opportunity we had had in over a week to sit down together and have a civilized, leisurely conversation. Somewhere into my second glass of wine, I decided to gently broach the topic of treatment again. Since he was again resembling the old E. I know and love, I thought perhaps this signalled a change of heart on how to proceed.

Well, no. The dreaded "hassle word" did not arise, but the line given was more or less the same. That being, "I've thought about it and I still don't want to."

I pressed, gently, and was rewarded with this notable nsight into the male psyche;

"I can't articulate why I can't articulate my feelings about it."

I toyed with the bowl of olives and sighed. I looked over at E. and noticed how sad and tired he suddenly looked, with dark shadows under his eyes. So I was about to drop it and move on to something less controversial when he said,

"You're just...obsessed with this."

Obsessed? Ob-SESSED? Me? No, no, no. My friends, I take issue with that. In relation to the infertility cross I bear, I am many things- but obsessed is not a label I would apply to myself. OK, it is true that especially during the treatment cycle, I was more than a little preoccupied. But who wouldn't be? IVF treatment requires immense commitment and attention to detail. Getting to clinic appointments on time. Injecting medication at a certain hour of the day. Rescheduling or juggling other things in life (work, friends, weddings, family, vacations, cash flow) for the duration of the cycle. And that's before you take into account the emotional and psychological implications.

Embarking on medical treatment costing huge sums of money, with uncertain outcomes and no guarantee of success? Yeah, I think it's safe to say that most people would become a little preoccupied during that time. But in my view, that does not equate to obsession.

Nor does feeling sad, frantic, depressed, angry and scared when the outcome of that treatment was a big fat failure. All those feelings, let us never ever forget, are normal. N-O-R-M-A-L. Besides, all things considered, my thrashing and wallowing was of incredibly short duration, with very few demands placed upon E.

And since when does trying to make realistic plans for our future turn me into a fertility bunny-boiler? I honestly don't think that some pro-active consideration of the way forward at this particular point in time makes me in any way obsessed. I don't agree that a serious, mature, rational discussion about what it means for me and for us, makes me obsessed. I mean, damn. On the obsession spectrum, I am far over into the "relatively chilled out about the whole thing" category. There has been no daily nagging, actively proceeding behind his back, or sticking of pins in the groin area of a little E. voodoo doll.

The irony is that if there was something else I wanted to pursue in life, such as running a marathon, starting a business, learning a language, writing a novel- E. would be applauding my focus. He would commend my goal-oriented behaviour. In all other endevours, he would support single-minded determination. But when we start talking about something with emotional undertones, something where he feels like the riptide of my desire might suck him in and drag him down, then it becomes a bad thing. Dangerous. Worrisome. An obsession.

And yes, I told him all this, fighting the urge to kick him in the shins under the table. I'm not sure if my message sunk in- or at least, that was not something he could articulate.

The Secret History

I'm sure if you are a regular reader of infertility/adoption/pregnancy blogs, you will have seen the game of "tag" making the rounds- the rules of which are simply to go into your archive, find the 23rd post, find the fifth sentence and post the text here.

Well, I've been tagged at least twice (as far as I know). I should explain that I never usually play these sorts of games, mainly because I get so confused about the rules. I mean, are we talking the twenty-third post on my current blog, or on the old site- not that I have gone so far as to check if there is a difference.

Also, in offering a summation of the rules above, have I fully complied with the rules which state that I have to post the tag game instructions? What happens if I fail to follow the rules? Will I be sent to the corner with a big "L" for LOSER on my forehead?

You see, I am far too tedious to play with. I've always been like this. This was why I had no friends as a child, and sat alone in my room reading things like Noel Streatfeild's "Shoes" books and Anne of Green Gables.

Anyway, the tag game on this occasion segues nicely into something else I wanted to write about. So here it is, the fifth sentence of the twenty-third post, (current blog version):

"Given my pathlogical inability to buy envelopes and stamps, it may be a challenge for me to meet that deadline."

I recently disproved that statement by sending off, in a remarkably expedient fashion, for my medical notes for the IVF cycle, the day before we went on holiday. My incentive was that if at all possible, I wanted the records in my hand for when we got back so that we would immediately be good to go on a consult elsewhere. I know, excuse me while I stop typing to hold my sides from the aching, ironic laughter.

Given the number of times that my notes went missing during my treatment, I had figured it would take nine million years to actually extract the copies from the OC. Perhaps rather unfairly, I also thought perhaps they might be a wee bit, um, awkward about giving me the notes in a timeous fashion. I never did manage to quite confirm the deali-o as to whether there was a legal obligation to entitle me to copies- or if they would humour because I am so cute and mailed in my pee sample like a good girl.

But I figured that in any event, I would just cut to the chase and frame the letter in a way that it could also be taken as a request from both of us under the Freedom of Information Act. Because I am a clever bear that way. I had E. sign it as well, offered to pay any relevant fee for the copies, and mailed it off with nary a pathological twitch in sight.

Would you believe the envelope was waiting on the hallway floor when we got back from our trip? They copied the notes and mailed them the next day with a nice letter. It doesn't quite make up for the pee sample fandango, but was a pleasant surprise all the same.

It's a surprisingly thin sheaf of paper. A lot of the records comprised things I already knew- results of blood work, documentation of our communicable diseases tests, what medications I had been taking during the cycle, the number of embryos transferred. Not much by way of revelation.

One small new piece of information was the number of follicles at the final ultrasound, since I was spared clipboard duty that day. By my calculations (including factoring in another day of stims), I reckon I had approximately 14-16 follicles going into retrieval. I don't know what it means that we only got seven eggs out of that, and that only four were mature. I also still don't quite know what to make of the fact that the two embryos transferred were only four and five celled, respectively, and from what I can tell, all four were sluggish in the dish.

It's the last mystery that I find so particularly maddening. What happened there? Was it us or me- poor eggs or some other abnormality? Or is it simply that our embryonic efforts might have fared better in a better lab? Right now, that's the question I want answered- it's the main driver as to why I want to try again at a clinic with a reputation for a good lab.

It's so strange, to flick through those sheets of paper, looking for clues in the illegible scribbles, seeking the key to the riddle of our particular infertility tale. And it's odd to think that the pages reveal nothing of what for me is the real essence of the story- the heartbreaking treatment decisions, the hours of Googling for information, the huge investment of time, energy and money. Of the fragility of my trembling hope and the weight of my final despair.

To realise that the notes, factual and clinical, can never tell anyone about the things that mattered most- the things that I will forever carry with me as my own secret history.

The other side

Oh hell, I am already sort of bored about posting about E., and what may or may not be going on in his furry little head. Suffice to say that he has been rather difficult to live with since we got back from our holiday, and things have been a shade tense around here. Perhaps we just need to have a good pillow fight and get it all out of our system.

For completeness, I should explain that it's not that he doesn't want to have children, though he is not interested in exploring adoption "right now" either. Basically, he's happy to keep trying in the good old fashioned way to achieve a family. That's all good, and certainly we will try. Except I feel like I am the one holding up the score card, pointing out the (literally) bleeding obvious that it hasn't happened after two years and one IVF cycle. So to my mind, trying naturally is not exactly the most optimistic tactic. On the contrary, it's more like the "denial is not just a river in Egypt" approach.

Also, I loathe the idea of going back to what feels like "TTC mode". The quaffing of pineapple juice and green tea, the ingesting of funky herbal vitamins. All that dreary scavenging for cervical mucus and sex-on-schedule. The constant am-I/aren't I feeling, feverishly scanning self for anything resembling pregnancy symptoms. When you're in proper TTC mode, every month has the dreaded two week wait, and every month has the gutting disappointment of failure. Well, bugger all of that. Been there, have the charts to prove it. If we do continue to try naturally, I simply can't bear letting it become an all consuming exercise. I want, dare I say, to relax about it.

Actually, when he said "not right now", my first reaction was "FINE. OK, then. We will simply NOT have children, and that will be THAT. I will....get a dog, and...and...and have nice SHOES."

And for a short space of time, I felt really really good about that idea. I went shopping and bought some new clothes. I looked at booking a relatively expensive trip over Christmas. I drooled over puppies online. I thought about writing a novel and possibly learning a language. I welcomed the feeling of being able to put down this painful burden, about finally being able to stop this neverending quest for something we cannot have. About halting the downward slide into a sad, angry, aching person and to live whole again, being happy with what we have. With what I have. Who needs kids anyway? I have a white carpet, for God's sake, and a selfish disposition.

Well, that train of thought lasted for, oh, twenty four hours, maybe less. It was quite astonishing, really- I was like a heroin addict trying to go cold turkey and failing utterly. I suddenly had an overwhelming urge to fling myself at E.'s feet, begging for a hit of Gonal-F. I secretly started researching clinics, ones which might still meet the need but be less daunting (read: less hassle) than my first choice. And I went to see my GP and had her write to the Ass Con center to get us back on their waiting list. Not that I have any intention of going there, you understand, but it was like the equivalent of a methadone hit.

I suppose what this means is that I'm not ready to completely give up on the idea of doing whatever it takes to have a child. Make no mistake, I'm also still deeply ambivalent about further treatment, and it continues to upset me that I'm faced with having to try to talk E. into it, rather than us pulling ourselves up by our mutual bootstraps and agreeing to do it together, as a matter of course.

But it seems my feet are firmly planted on "keep-trying" ground- even if now more than ever I find myself standing on tiptoe, leaning over as far as I can, to see what might be on the other side of the fence.