Musings - KINETIC MOTIONS

May 26, 2017June 20, 2017

Our Tiny Miracle

I believe in miracles. If you had asked me two years ago today, May 26, 2015, if I believed in miracles, my answer would have been a firm no. But on May 26, 2016, a tiny miracle appeared in my life and changed me forever.

Until today I have been very private with the struggles that my husband and I faced with infertility. Today I’m ready to share my story, in the hopes it can inspire even just one couple who still hope to bring a baby home. Mine is not the typical story that you hear because our infertility challenges only began after we had two healthy children.

Some people may react with shock, anger or confusion, wondering how a couple with a so-called “million-dollar” family needed to put themselves through what we did just to have a third child. But we knew, after our first miscarriage in 2011, that something was missing in our life. We knew our family was not complete and we were determined to go to the ends of the earth to bring another child into the world.

After another miscarriage in the spring of 2012 we decided, with the guidance and careful advice of our fertility specialist, to try a round of IVF. I didn’t respond well to the drugs, it cost us a lot of money, but we were excited to see a positive pregnancy test two weeks after two embryos were implanted. I miscarried four days later.

I was devastated and felt lost. I also felt that I was let down by the fertility clinic I trusted after a senior technician, during a follow-up ultrasound, looked at me and told me I should just enjoy the two children I had because many women at this clinic weren’t even lucky enough to have one child.

I went home feeling guilty about my despair, that I had my two young children at home to hug and kiss and give me love every day while so many women would give everything they had for just one child. I feel for those women every day, but I was so angry that someone could look at me and make me feel ashamed for wanting another child.

We took a fertility break for a while, went to another specialist who gave us hope and then had two more miscarriages. By early 2015 we didn’t know if we would ever be able to complete our family with a third child. Late that winter my aunt, who faced infertility and the devastating loss of a baby just after he was born, asked me a question that was game changing for me: Imagine yourself in ten years, when you probably can no longer have more children. Are you satisfied with everything you have done to have a third child or do you feel you need to keep trying?

My husband and I immediately knew the answer – we weren’t satisfied, and we decided to give it one more try. If one more round of IVF failed then we knew we tried everything and could move forward comfortably with life.

After much reflection and hours and hours of conversations into the night, my husband and I returned to our original fertility specialist. He admitted that after every test he and his team had done over the past four years they could find nothing wrong with me, but with my history and the fact that I was 38 years old he was honest that our chances of success were low. I admired his frankness and we went ahead. The IVF failed, and by the end of the summer we decided that we had done everything we could and that our family was complete.

Just when you feel it’s over, when you have moved on and accepted defeat and the stress that goes with it, a miracle can happen. When I found out I was pregnant in the fall of 2015 I didn’t believe it was real. I cried, with my sister by my side, when I saw the baby, with her strong heart-beat, at 8 weeks in utero, and every week after.

On May 26, 2016, our tiny miracle was born. We named her Nessa, the Hebrew word for miracle, to remind us every day of the miracle she gave us, that she filled the missing piece and completed our family.

Happy first birthday Nessa, our tiny miracle.

one of the first photos taken of our miracle — Our beautiful miracle on the day she was born

May 23, 2017

Overwhelmed on a Tuesday

Today I am feeling overwhelmed, and I’m having trouble staying focused. The main issue that’s keeping me from accomplishing my long list of tasks is the news from Manchester from Monday evening. Beyond the horrifying thought that someone would blow himself up, intentionally, in a crowd of people, what makes me feel particularly sickened is that he chose to kill children. The people of Manchester, my family in Manchester, and those families in Manchester who are suffering today are all on my mind.

I’m also suffering from the post long weekend blahs. It seems that every time we add an extra day to the weekend I need an additional day to get back on track. The kids got off to school late this morning, the baby and I were slow to get dressed, there are still dirty breakfast dishes in the kitchen sink and I only arrived at the grocery store after noon.

What also is causing me to be overwhelmed on a Tuesday is that I am falling into the trap of reading too many websites and blogs about how to blog, how to create the best blog, how to optimize my SEO settings, what tags I should include in each post or the best keyword strategy. As I stated in my first post, I’m new to this. I have so much to learn, so much so that it overwhelms me on a Tuesday and I can’t move forward.

Instead of becoming increasingly frustrated I am going to take a step back today and turn my attention away from the “how to” websites on “how to create the best blog.” I am going to think about the great city of Manchester and the great people who live there who have opened up their homes to many scared and helpless youth and children who did nothing wrong except go out for a night of music.

I will raise a cup of coffee (I’m in no shape for wine today) to the great citizens of Manchester (thanks to my Mancunian cousins Sarah and Jacob who provided my featured image today) who will persevere and won’t let terrorists ever terrorize them.

May 22, 2017June 23, 2017

Growing Old Gracefully

I am scared to get old. Old age is still years away, but it’s something that’s on my mind quite often. I’m not talking about retirement, grandchildren and winters in Florida. When I think about old age I think about frailty, illness and nursing homes.

Why should someone my age (I don’t hide my age – I’m 40 years old) be concerned about old age? Shouldn’t I take joy in my young family, my career ambitions and great friends? Well of course that’s where I focus most of my attention, and every day I am grateful for the life I feel privileged to lead.

But it’s still there – that nagging reminder that someday I may be old. I grew up in a large close family, and all four of my grandparents played a big role in making me who I am today. My Bubby, who had a heart of gold and kindness and love seemed to emanate from every part of her, died at the age of 72. I was only 19 at the time and was still too young to understand what old age was. My other three grandparents lived to be old, and one of them, my Poppy, is 96 years old.

Poppy has been one of my biggest cheerleaders since I was a child and I love him dearly. Poppy has aged gracefully and has overcome tremendous challenges with his health. He is a colon cancer survivor, lives with angina and over the past few years has developed dementia. This is a man who was a practicing Chartered Professional Accountant well into his eighties, golfed and skied for decades and traveled the world.

Baby Matthew playing on the floor with Poppy

My grandparents always told me they chose to live life to the fullest, and I believe they did. But then they grew old, and I mean the cruel side of old age that included frailty and illness.

Last night, while many members of my family were enjoying a long weekend up at our country home north of Toronto my father got a call that his father (my Poppy) was in an ambulance on his way to the emergency room. I won’t go into the details here and I’m happy to say that Poppy is fine, but I could hear the strain and stress in my father’s voice as he spoke with my grandfather’s caregiver about what was going on. My father and sister jumped in the car and drove back to the city to be at Poppy’s side, advocate for him at the hospital and get him back home safely that night.

My Poppy was a strong and charismatic person throughout his whole life, who loved my grandmother with all his heart every day of their 69-year marriage. He was sharp, confident, smart and successful. And now he is frail and depends on his children and a whole host of dedicated and amazing caregivers for everything.

All I could think about last night, as my father raced to the hospital and my grandfather sat on a stretcher in the emergency room, was how scared I am of old age. I hated the idea of my beloved Poppy sitting alone with chest pains in the emergency room and no longer in a position to advocate for himself. Without the dedicated support of his children, grandchildren and caregivers I don’t know what kind of life my Poppy could lead in his old age. And yes, that scares me.

I hope to grow old gracefully, like my Poppy. I hope that life is kind to me, especially old age. But that doesn’t mean that I’m not scared.

May 19, 2017April 29, 2018

Life is a Leap

Life is a leap of faith. I heard this phrase in a song from the show Strictly Ballroom on Wednesday, the day I launched this blog. My mother and I are long time subscribers of the Mirvish theatre season and love going to see plays together. I sat in the theatre and enjoyed the show after a long, exciting and yet stressful day. Some of the words in the song that close Act 1 struck me and those words were timely:

When you feel you’re flying blind that is when you know you’re fine

Something deep down inside that’s never ever ever crossed your mind

Even though it scares you to lose control

Take a chance and just let it go

When you feel it take your breath away

Just keep walking towards it anyway

‘Cause life is a leap of faith

Life is a leap of faith

Even though it’s hard to trust let the armour turn to dust

I say I say you must unless you want your heart crushed

Even though it scares you to lose control

Take a chance and just let it go

When you feel it take your breath away

Just keep walking towards it anyway

‘Cause life is a leap of faith

Life is a leap of faith.

So the title of this song is actually “Love is a Leap of Faith” and the female lead’s father and grandmother are clearly singing to this woman and the male lead about love. However, I am choosing to interpret the words as something more generic about life, in particular my life right now.

This blog is a leap of faith for me. Yes it kind of scares me, but I’m taking a chance and I am just letting it go. I don’t know where this will take me, but this new journey excites me.

By the way, Strictly Ballroom was a fun play with great music and fabulous dancing. I felt the plot was a bit weak and definitely Act 1 was better than Act 2. It’s worth the ticket and a night out!

May 18, 2017June 20, 2017

What’s in a Number? I have Favourite – do you?

Many people have a favourite number, a lucky number or sometimes an unlucky number. Numerology plays a central role in many cultures, with some believed to be inauspicious while others may bring fortune.https://www.thespruce.com/is-number-4-a-bad-feng-shui-number-1274542

For example, the number 4 is associated with bad luck in Chinese culture as the Chinese word for the 4 has a similar sound to the word for death.

Gematria is alphanumeric code in Hebrew, in which letters correspond to numbers. The numerical value of a word can be calculated by adding those numbers together. 18 is lucky in Judaism as 10 and 8 correspond to the Hebrew letters for “chet” and “yud,” which put https://www.thespruce.com/is-number-4-a-bad-feng-shui-number-1274542together spell the word “chai.” That’s the Hebrew word for life.

Sometimes a number or a set of numbers can, because of a single event, tradition or a series of events, be associated with good luck (or bad luck!). There may not be a cultural, religious or historical connection and it’s not always logical.

For me it’s all about 17.

I can’t quite pinpoint when I started to like 17 or why, but since childhood I have liked it and have associated it with happy and coincidental events in my life.

As a teenager, when I became a sports fan, my favourite hockey player was (and still is) #17, Wendel Clark and my favourite baseball player was #17, Kelly Gruber. When my brother played both soccer and hockey his coach handed him the #17 jersey, and I was so proud to see my son wearing the #17 jersey this year when he joined his school’s basketball team.

Over 25 years ago, when my parents built our family’s country home, my mother decided to play Lotto 6/49 just as the 1,100-foot driveway was built. As we were a family of five she needed to add one more number to her list and followed my suggestion to include #17. Well, she got five of the six numbers that night (yes of course 17 was one of them!), and the amount she won covered much of the cost for that driveway (which we later named “Route 6/49”).

This year is 2017, and I launched this blog on the 17^th of the month. Somehow, it brings me comfort and a little smile. Do you have a lucky number? Post your comments here, send me an email at kineticmotions17@gmail.com or Tweet at me @AliciaRichler to let me know what number you like.

May 17, 2017June 23, 2017

First Blog Post

Grade eleven chemistry. Most of my attention was focused anywhere except on the lesson at the front of the room. I began to doodle and my pen curved and swirled to create a cartoon character. I looked down at my paper and was pleased with my creation, but he needed a name.

I looked up at the chalkboard, which was covered in mathematics equations and formulas that seemed more like gibberish than my homework. Then I looked around the classroom, a room which was used for science, chemistry and physics, and the name came to me – Kinetic Man: a man of action.

Since that day, I have been drawing Kinetic Man on birthday cards, chalkboards and notes to family and friends. Drawing Kinetic Man energizes me, he gets me up and gets me moving.

Kinetic energy is the energy of motion. While I didn’t realize it that day when I was sixteen years old in high school, doodling on my page and creating this cartoon character, Kinetic Man has inspired me to get in motion and start writing.

For years I have thought about creating an online space to write and voice my thoughts on a number of subjects. The internet is vast, full of countless websites, blogs, publications and pages, and I hope this is a space people will enjoy visiting to read, comment and contribute.

I am going to cover a variety of topics here, including, but not limited to, current events, travel, food and cooking, family and sports (in particular baseball and skiing).

While I have worked in public affairs and communications for many years and had the opportunity to interact with many talented bloggers, writing in this style is new to me. I am truly a novice and have so much to learn. I am excited to take on this challenge and don’t know where it will take me.

I welcome your comments, opinions and advice. Please feel free to share my posts and contact me if you would like to write a post. This is the space that is getting me moving, and I hope it gets you moving too.