Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Bear Encounters

For three years after we were married, we took one big trip per year. In 2004, we honeymooned in Maui. In 2005, we traveled to London, Edinburgh and Cambridge (this one to visit friends). In 2006, we took a trip to Italy and visited Rome, Florence and Venice. In our minds, the Italy trip was to be our last big trip for awhile because we just KNEW I would be pregnant any day. We love discovering new places and getting away from work for chunks of time (no matter how short), so it was hard to know we wouldn't be traveling for awhile. And as time went by, it got harder and harder because the reward for our sacrifice seemed further and further out of reach.

For my fellow bloggers, tell me what you have given up, no matter how big or small, to deal with IF treatments. What do you miss the most?

By the time summer of 2007 came around with no success, we were tired of putting off vacations for the "what ifs." Last September we were just gearing up for our first IVF cycle. We knew we couldn't go far from home because I was staring Lu.pron and it was the first time we were dealing with injections. But with the Rockies in our backyard, we thought we'd take a road trip through the mountains to places we'd never been before. We did a kind of loop, starting from Morrison (where we live), stopping in Buena Vista, Crested Butte, and Aspen along the way.

For today's photo(s), I'm posting some of the photos we took in Aspen. There are problems with bears throughout Colorado because of human encroachment on natural bear lands and because people just can't seem to keep trash (food) where it belongs. For some reason, Aspen seems to have more issues with bears than other mountain towns. While we were in Aspen, we discovered that the pedestrian mall was roped off with police tape because a momma bear and her two cubs were loitering on the mall. They took up residence in one of the trees, napped, and came down looking for food every once in awhile.

The authorities did not want to harm the bears, but they also didn't want people to get hurt. Their approach was to rope off a large enough area to give the bears their space and hope that they wandered off to safer ground in the middle of the night. Every once in awhile, one of the bears would wander a little too close to the perimeter of the police tape and they would shoot off a bean bag gun. The bean bags are meant to startle the bear, but not hurt them. Those guns sure are loud and they do the trick.

For two days these bears lived on the pedestrian mall in Aspen while people gawked at them and took pictures-B and I included. It was a little freaky to think about how close we were to these creatures in their "natural" habitat. Not in a zoo, from a safe distance with barriers.






11 comments:

s.e. said...

The timing of your travel post is amazing. Feel free to go read my #2 frustration on my bog today. I have to say that even more than travel, I have given up my fear of drawing blood and self-injections. I have given up my shyness in stirrups. I never even went to a male gyno before my RE. But most of all I have given up my sex life. I want to get back to the early days of rolling around just for fun with no reminders of a lack of a baby.

Shinejil said...

My guy and I are saving up to buy a farm. We may have to use all that money, pinched and scrounged from our small incomes, to knock me up. In the meanwhile, we have little furniture, do all our home repair ourselves when feasible, drive an 89 Honda. I go new clothes shopping about twice a year. We cook our food from scratch (organic/local is our one major expense) and eat out once a week max.

So basically, IF has tossed my husband and I into a crazy time warp. We live in the 1940s or something.

Bears are amazing. But truly not to be messed with. It's not hard to see why so many different cultures see them as totemic, as ancestors or former humans.

luna said...

cool bear pix! what an experience.

I feel we've sacrificed a lot in the quest for a baby. our lives, our time, our money, our privacy, our sanity... we used a big chunk of our savings that was a down payment for a home. we refused to do or plan anything else for so long. I'm not even sure if I can travel for my mom's 70th bday...

I agree though, the time away together is hard. we used to try to take a vacation once every year or so. we're otherwise pretty frugal, so we sometimes it would just be somewhere cool to visit friends. planning and enjoying these trips got us through some tough times in our marriage, and the memories are so precious. at least when you have a beautiful backyard to explore there is so much to see and do...

of course it would all be worth it if we had a baby in the end, but not yet... ~luna

Alison said...

What a cool story! It's amazing to see people not far from the bears and it's even more crazy that the bears made a little home in the middle of all that.

We have only been trying for 10 months but the thing that has most drastically changed is our sex life. To think back that it happened whenever. We never scheduled it! And it's so hard to keep it like it was when it's taking way longer than you thought it would for this baby thing to happen.

Maria said...

Wow, those bear pics are amazing. How come I never realized that they can climb trees?!

I haven't really given up anything specific besides just living life. I feel like my life has been frozen in time and I can't go backwards or forwards. I just really want to move forward.

Unknown said...

I'm glad you were able to pick up and take a trip, even if it wasn't too far. I loved the pictures. We also love to travel, and each trip is "maybe the last" but then, it never is. We went to Hawaii in February and were thinking that would be it, but we'll see. We're trying to plan a family reunion trip in July and thinking "can we plan on camping, or will I be 3 months pregnant?" The not being able to plan is so hard.

Jen said...

I feel the biggest thing I've sacrificed is my naivete. Good and bad.

I used to think it would be so easy to get pregnant, even taking the path we are because of our fertility. Obviously, it's been far from easy.

It sucks but I know it's made me stronger, a more compassionate person and one who doesn't take things for granted. At least, I hope that is who I'm becoming...

Maryanne said...

What have I sacrificed??? Sanity, at times optimism and hope, renovating our house, friends weddings out of town (because of IVF cycles/surgery, etc), landscaping our yard, trip to Alaska and Greece, and I am sure the list will go on......

Io said...

Can I just say ditto to what Jen said?
I'm sure I'll give up more, but for now that's it.

Anonymous said...

I missed my one of my very best friends wedding. I felt so bad. She understood that after 2 years, the idea of postponing treatment to fly to Florida was an extremely emotional decision and let me of the hook.

HeidiM said...

The first sacrifice that comes to mind is precious time spent dealing with fertility docs that could have been spent taking my (non-existent) babies to a park. The second is that the joys of life that come so easily to so many are missing from our lives. The third is the sacrifice of not being in the part of our society that participates in parenthood.