Tag Archives: red hair

What not to say to a stranger

20 Monday May 2013

Posted by in Diminished Ovarian Reserve (DOR), Donor Eggs, Musings

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Saturday was my 37th birthday. Low key, overall nice day. Sat night was my friends bachelorette party / my birthday party and we decided to go dancing with a group of girls. I didn’t know some of them as they were work friend’s of the girl getting married. So, we’re all introducing ourselves and one of the girls says to me “Is your hair real?”. I get this all the time. So I say “Yes. It was a gift from my mama.” She replies “You know, you could make a lot of money.” I get this all the time too – people telling me how much real hair red wigs go for. So I say “Yes, so I’ve heard.” But then she totally blindsided me and says “You should sell your eggs. I bet a ton of people who waited too long to have kids are dying for some eggs from red heads. I bet they’d pay thousands of dollars.” I stared at her with my mouth open. I couldn’t even believe what was happening. I mumbled some reply and walked away and she followed me still babbling about these sad old woman who couldn’t have babies that would buy my eggs.

As I’m getting into the car to go the club a friend of mine says “Can you believe the nerve of that girl? I mean, Jesus, what if you couldn’t have children or something? Can you imagine how that would make you feel?” Why yes, yes I can imagine EXACTLY how that would make me feel. It made me feel like shit. It made me feel ashamed. I wanted so bad to say to her “You know, I can’t have children, so I am one of those sad old woman who is looking for a red-haired egg donor right this minute and am going to buy her eggs for thousands of dollars, if I’m lucky. And thank you SO MUCH for reminding me of that ON MY BIRTHDAY.” But I didn’t. I hung my head and I ran away. And I’m ashamed of that too. It was an opportunity to educate someone on infertility and I was too weak/scared/sad/ashamed to stand up for myself. *sigh* Maybe one day I’ll be in a better place with this. But until then, universe, could you cut me some slack? Geez.

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50 shades of red

28 Sunday Oct 2012

Posted by in Musings, Uncategorized

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I have red hair. Very very red. New penny copper red. And for as long as I can remember people have been talking about it. When I was a little girl strangers would stop my mother in the grocery store to ask about it – “Did it run in our family? Did all of her children have red hair?”.  As a teenager women would stop me in the mall (much to my mortification) and ask to cut a piece off for color matching at the salon. In college boys would always make snide remarks – “Does the carpet match the drapes?” or “Are redheads as feisty as people say?”. As an adult the comments continue, albeit in a less offensive way. My hair is my defining characteristic.

My sisters hair is dark auburn, if you want to make her mad say it’s brown. My mother has red hair.  She’s the only one of her 4 siblings that has it – they all have dark brown hair. Her mother (my grandmother) had red hair and both of her sisters had brown hair. My great-grandmother was 1 of many, and she was the only one with red hair. You get the point. Since I can remember that’s the other thing people have always said to me – “You B.’s! Always a redheaded! Aren’t you excited to carry your family tradition forward?”. I was. Was being the operative word.

Very red