the one where we talk briefly about buckets

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: Ted and I have been, like, really lucky that (especially for people who share personal stuff so publicly) we haven’t gotten a ton of unsolicited advice. We do know that this is something that a lot of people deal with, and we have had to figure out healthy ways to handle both unsolicited advice and the mountain of rabbit-hole research I bring upon myself. That said, this piece is gonna feel a little rant-y….so! We just wanted to say, y’all have been cool, and we’ve also asked a lot of you guys for advice, and this isn’t, like, a backhanded blog about anyone we know. It’s a rant about mental health and overwhelm! That’s it. We’re good. Promise. 

Okay, so, we know that people hate unsolicited advice. It’s kinda the bane of everyone’s existence, particularly in the fertility world. No matter whether you’re struggling with infertility, growing a kid inside of you, or navigating parenthood, people are gonna step in and tell you precisely the best way to do things. 

That’s a given. We expect that. We put up walls against it happening, we complain about it to our friends and our families, and (let’s be real) we turn around and do it to other people. 

We’re human. We like to feel involved. We want to help. We want to tell our stories and pass on our experiences. It’s the circle of life (insert obvious musical cue).

SO it’s clear that there’s not much we can really do about unsolicited advice EXCEPT FOR PERHAPS manage the way we respond to it. 

Here’s my thing: I’m an ambitious perfectionist faced with a condition that doesn’t make much sense. I’ve got a wall that I’ve gotta climb over, and it doesn’t have any foot-holds, and I can’t see how tall it is. 

I’m also a researcher and a storyteller. Both anecdotal and hard evidence are, like, my bread and butter. 

Here’s a weird thing that’s sprung from that: 

Unsolicited advice has kinda been my jam. 

Let me explain and OH BOY oh BOY don’t come at me. 

Ted and I are going through a weird, desert-y season of life. (We all are.) 

I seek ways to skip through that. 

I crave the advice of others who have climbed this wall before me because I can’t do uncertainty. I seek out magic tips and tricks from those who hold their rainbow children because I can’t stomach the fact that Ted and I don’t know what the future holds. I’m trying to tape together the pieces of our family dreams with promises that other people can’t make. 

To be clear, this is an unhealthy thing that I am doing. To myself. 

The advice and the stories of others make me feel hopeful at first, then overwhelmed, and then completely let down and depressed. The fact that I’m letting that happen is a) on me and b) is something that’s gotta stop. Why? 

Because, as aforementioned, I’m an ambitious perfectionist who doesn’t do mysteries IRL. If somebody tells me that they’ve figured out what works (for them), I’m hooked. It’s almost an addiction thing. In not-great notebooks over the past years, I’ve compiled Lists of Things That, If I Just Remember to Make Myself Do Them, Our Family’s Gonna Be Okay. 

That’s UM not been great. 

I mean, it’s resulted in a lot of great research. I’d like to think I’m relatively informed. The thing is, though, I’ve had a hard time separating out the ‘oh, that’s a nice thing that you’re doing that’ things from the ‘omg, I need to do that now or I’ll remain childless forever’ things. 

See: I don’t think it’s actually an advice thing. It’s an overwhelm thing, and an unrealistic expectations on myself thing. 

If nothing else, it’s really not been great for my psyche and self-esteem and sanity and things (like my marriage and my career and my health) that depend on those things. 

Particularly as…………….completely opposite things work for different people. Fertility is a) personal, b) specific, and c) highly weird. When you’re addicted to fertility advice, you’re gonna have a super odd and varied list of guaranteed solutions. 

I can’t tell you the number of times that someone’s told me (or posted/linked me a convincing online testimonial) that keto (e.g., eat all the cheese and meat) and veganism (e.g., eat none of the cheese and meat) are the reason they have children. 

I’ve (as a result) neatly inked ‘eat keto’ and ‘eat vegan’ on my to-do list (because hot dang I want that confidence, and the kid, too, I guess) and tried both and my body likes neither and it’s confusing and exhausting. 

SO this is obviously a rant, and I want to make two things clear: Firstly, Ted and I have been lucky. We don’t receive a lot of unsolicited advice. You guys have been super supportive and cool.

Secondly, Ted and I were talking the other day and we found a way less crazy making way to approach this and I thought I’d share, because I KNOW that unsolicited advice a) isn’t going anywhere, for anyone and b) is something that wayyyyyyy more people than just us deal with. 

We call it the bucket method. It’s very simple. Prepare to be underwhelmed. 

The bucket method for dealing with overwhelm

By Ted and Rebecca. Trademark, etc. 

1. Pretend you have two buckets.

2. Now, look at the miles-long list of things that you’d like to do or that people have told you to do or that you found on the Internet one morning at 3:32AM when you couldn’t sleep. It’s a long list. 

3. Into the first bucket, place ONLY the things that your doctor or a similar authority has told you must must must happen. (Examples: Take your meds, be nice to Ted, have sex at the right time, and remember to breathe.) 

4. If you’re feeling strong and decisive and discerning and if someone is around to help you not be an adorable little ambitious chipmunk of self-destruction, put one or two of the easiest, most happy-making, most logical Other Things on the List of Potential Things into your first bucket. (Examples: Eat something green once in a while, try to get some sleep, and move occasionally.) 

5. You now have maybe 4-7 things in your need-to-do bucket. Everything else stays in your nice-to-do bucket. (Put down that bottle of cod liver oil and just walk away.) 

6. You need to do the things in your need-to-do bucket.

7. You are not allowed to be mean to yourself if you don’t do the things in your nice-to-do bucket. 

8. The end. You’re done. Go watch a movie or something and fall asleep and stop worrying about what’ll happen if you give up coffee. 

I’ve found this method of partitioning and pacing to be helpful, too.

I have to remind myself that we are still enduring multiple chronic emergencies, and it’s okay to go easy on myself. Yes, other people are fighting harder battles, but I only have a limited amount of bandwidth and energy. I do not like vague puzzles that may not be solvable, such as making a bio-kid, and analysis paralysis is real…but that’s why we trust our doctors and our battle plan.

Rationing tasks for Bucket #1 (e.g., don’t get sick, spend time with wife, say prayers) is important because I must still be a good husband and help care for our dogs every day. If I deal with Bucket #2 slowly, that’s okay.

this has been a tedtalk.

Why is this important? 

We’ve decided to give having a bio-kid a(nother) one-year go before pursuing adoption. That makes sense for us. We need a framework, and after a couple of years of trying for a kid and months of super fun conversations, that was the framework we landed on. 

Now, I’m quite an insecure person, and (do I need to say it again) am an ambitious perfectionist. Basically the second we started going through those twelve months, I started to freak out, because I had this very long laundry list (like, wayyyyyyyyyyyy longer than anything I’ve publicly mentioned in the blogs) of Things I Had to Do During Our Battle Plan Year. 

This will surprise no one, but those kinds of idealistic laundry lists of best-life habits are impossible. But! 

When you equate failing to complete all of those tasks with ‘I’m never gonna be a mother’, you start to spiral a bit. Like, I’ve spent valuable hours of my life wondering if I’m gonna ask myself come next January if, you know, if I’d just eaten a few more bits of spirulina or did a few more fertility yoga sessions or maybe taken up aromatherapy or meditation or tried a research med or whatever, if that would have been THE THING that would have worked. 

That’s a lot of responsibility to take on, and it’s nonsensical, and it’s crazy-making. 

Hence, the bucket method. I have the six things in my need-to-do bucket, and those are the things I need to do. 

The nice-to-do bucket has a lot of really nice things in it. But! I’m not allowed to be mean to myself if I don’t do those things. 

And it’s maybe sad that that distinction has made a world of difference, but it has. 

That’s all. That’s the method. The end. I quit a lot of infertility Facebook groups and online forums today, and my head has never felt quieter. (Said the infertility blogger. My life is irony.)