Less than 48 hours before Food Allergy Awareness Week kicked off, I raised food allergy awareness in my own home with my allergic son.

While my husband and I freely educate everyone about food allergies, we chose to hold back one detail with our allergic son. We basically told him everything about food allergies, except we kept the L.T. on the down-low, L.T. = Life-Threatening.

I know, I know, chastise me if you want. Our goal was to tell him prior to starting first grade, this upcoming fall. We knew it was appropriate to provide him with all the symptoms, the emergency protocol, the knowledge that an ambulance ride was necessary and a possible short or long hospital stay. But death, that seemed too frightening for my doe-eyed, sensitive boy. The discussion made even me worry. I think I would prefer to have the birds and the bees talk to telling him food allergies can be life threatening. Here’s why…

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Here we are in the middle of National Infertility Awareness Week 2012. I’d like to share a funny and inspiring infertility story. For those that belong to the exclusive infertility club, where no one wants membership, our story is no different than any other couple.

Trying Once Again
It’s February 2008. We were trying for our second child and growing weary dealing with male and female factor infertility this time around. We did our best to make one another laugh at the ridiculous and always embarrassing side of being barren.

It was the morning of our Intrauterine Insemination (IUI). Bright and early, my husband was at the andrology lab, providing his deposit, where he started to feel like Norm from Cheers.

The Guy’s Etiquette Guide to the Andrology Lab

1. Do not make eye contact in the reception area.
2. Speak barely above a grunt to check-in at the front desk.
3. Refrain from singing or humming the song, “Hav’in My Baby.”
4. Last, but certainly not least Never, NEVER, N-E-V-E-R open a closed door. Can you believe the rooms did not have locks?

I went in two hours later spinning the nurse practitioner (NP) wheel wondering who would grace me with her presence, ask me to disrobe from the waist down, give me a paper sheet the size of a oversized napkin to “cover” myself and then make me wait in that cold, cold room. A NP enters rattling off my husband’s sperm stats like the box score from a baseball game: count, motility and morphology. She completes the insemination, sets an egg timer, how ironic, for 20 minutes and leaves me with my thoughts.

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Being diagnosed with infertility, whether male or female factor, is a devastating diagnosis. I heard those words not once but twice, 2004 with my husband’s male factor and once again with my diagnosis in 2007.

I knew more than I wanted to know about my husband’s sperm: count, motility and morphology…we commonly referred to it as the wicked trifecta. Certainly takes the romance out of conceiving a baby. Then in 2007, I was diagnosed with Elevated Follicle Stimulating Hormone (FSH). In normal “Joe Bag of Doughnuts Speak,” my diagnosis meant that I was running out of eggs and my egg quality was diminished due to my advanced age of 38. As a result of my old and decrepit eggs walking around with canes, my possibility of miscarriage skyrocketed.

Sitting in my reproductive endocrinologist’s (RE) office and hearing his words made my head spin. In my younger years, I could have majored in passing out and I also came from a long lineage of passer outers. Between my sister and I bets were placed at the beginning of every Mass.

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Not too long ago, I saw the movie “The Descendants.” It covered numerous heart-wrenching topics: infidelity, a tragic accident, end-of-life issues, smart-alecky children and an absentee father. However, much like life, it was sprinkled with many beautiful moments, one of which was watching a father, played by George Clooney, awaken and find his true self. Be warned, should you decide to watch this movie, it would be appropriate to arm yourself with a box of tissues; I dabbed my eyes throughout the film.

There’s a quote from the movie that made me think about my sons and a topic that I seriously ponder on a regular basis. How can my husband and I raise strong boys who strive for not only what they want in life, but also what they want to give in life? Here’s the quote:

“Give enough to your kids so they can do anything, but do not give them too much so they can do nothing.”

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Are you having a hard time dealing with daily annoyances?

Perhaps each spring the neighbor’s roaming cat uses the side of your house as a litter box.

Or the neighbor’s kiddos consistently throw landscaping, pea rock into your grass; resulting in you cursing each time you mow the lawn.

And then there’s Bob, the Neighborhood Watch organizer, who lurks around the house, ringing your doorbell after 9 p.m.  This usually happens when your husband is travelling, scaring you, and the “you know what” out of the cat at the side of the house…possibly causing the whole litter box problem. Well, maybe the cat and Bob situations aren’t related to one another, but it added a little humor.

In case you are wondering, all of the above stories have actually happened between the two houses where my husband and I have lived.

What’s the solution to these daily annoyances? It’s challenging yourself to find the humor in a situation and flip the stress to laughter. Let me give a couple examples.

As I listened to my husband rant under his breath, criticizing the neighbor’s parenting skills, while doing his best to pick the pea rock out of our lawn for the ninth time this summer. I think how can I make him laugh? So I say:

“You want me to take care of it? Just think of me out there in my housecoat, curlers in my hair, cold cream on my face and cigarette in hand, yelling in the raspiest voice I can muster, you kids get out of my yard!”

It took the edge off of his anger and gave him a mental picture to reference each time he went pea rock picking before a mow.

Then, there’s the cat that kept using the side of our house as his personal toilet when spring arrived. I did some research for my husband and found three ways to handle this delicate situation:

1. Outfit my husband in camouflage, night vision goggles and a can of spray paint.
2. Scatter a couple of bulk, black pepper containers at the side of the house so that the pepper would adhere to the cat’s paws, a couple of licks later, that cat wouldn’t want to come back to our house.
3. Purchase a super soaker water gun and lay in wait.

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