Looking down at my pomegranate-coloured string and smiling... Spread the word. I can't wait for the first time I bump into someone I don't know and they're wearing a purple thread.

Many more links for Operation Heads Up are in the sidebar. I need to start putting this list in alphabetical order. Keep them coming!

And now, down to the blogs...

Wander on over to Jenny's blog, Jenny from the Infertility Block, and offer her congratulations. She got her BFP on an unmedicated FET cycle. It's pretty interesting to also go back and read the other posts from the cycle. It was the first time I had heard of doing a cycle unmedicated and it made perfect sense. It wouldn't work for everyone, but it's an interesting idea that I had never encountered before. And isn't that the whole point to reading each other's stories beyond not feeling quite so alone? Gathering information that you can apply to your own journey? So congratulations, Jenny!

I'm fairly certain than my nightmare last weekend was a direct result of Hanazono's series of posts about friendship. I'm just going to tell you enough to entice you over to this blog because it's a very interesting series of posts. But this first one begins with a friend announcing her pregnancy. This friend's previous pregnancy came on the heels of Hanazono losing her baby, and this news was dropped on her right before they were meeting up with another person for a night-out. The friend was trying to be sensitive by telling her alone and admitting how difficult she knew this must be. BUT. There's no ideal way to tell this information without causing some hurt because...this information hurts. It hurts to think about how you'll watch your friend's belly grow while you're still waiting. And it hurts to think about other people getting what you want so desperately. Hanazono's initial reaction is implied in this first post of the series--she'll pull away a bit, give herself some space with that friendship. But in later posts, she bravely discusses how she's going to slap that saucy bitch, Infertilia, in the face and remain friends with this person. And why. And how. Take that, infertility. I think it's very brave. And keep scrolling up through the posts because she has a very interesting point about "doing okay" vs. "feeling okay."

Kris and her Baby Proof Uterus have a great post about wishing your life away during infertility. You start living from point to point in your cycle, wishing the days forward so you can find out how you're responding to drugs, how you ovulated, and whether you have the BFP that month. No other time in my life have I wished days away. I was sometimes anxious to find out information--I called the hours of the afternoon after the mail came my "mailbox narcolepsy" time because I was so anxious to hear from grad schools that I would get myself to the point of heart-pounding tension, go to the mailbox, find it void of letters, and then go collapse on the sofa to take a nap. But I never wished away a day because it was also my senior year of college and I wanted it to go slower--not faster. Waiting for a proposal, waiting for the wedding, waiting for...anything--I never wished away a day like I did with infertility. Not that those days actually disappeared, but the point is that you're so focused on the future that you're ignoring the present. Kris makes a beautiful list of other times when she'll be impatient and how she'll never wish a day away then. Mid-post is this wonderful statement: "I need some patience. I need to live in the present. I need to make the following promise to my children who are probably too scared to come to my uterus out of fear I will wish their lives away as well. And I need to keep this promise to them whenever they get here, even if it means I have to post it on my fridge and read it 30 times a day." Head over there and you'll look at your cycle in a completely different way.

Sophia at Journey to an Ewok had a great post about her New Yorker heart longing to make a connection to another woman in the waiting room. Just catch eyes, pass along information, support each other. Because, as she points out, it is such a battle. And we need each other to get through this. It's interesting--we have this gift of support that other people need. Desperately. We have information they could use. When we don't speak to each other, when we don't share our stories, when we don't make those connections, we're really withholding this gift. Does that make sense? I know that I am more open about my experience than the average person, but the only way to remove the stigma is to open up the discussion and let each other into our journey. We wouldn't withhold our experience with another disease if we thought we could help support/inform another person. Nor should we shut ourselves into small islands when we're battling something as consuming as infertility. Just my opinion. Which doesn't count for much. But I'm just throwing it out there.

Off to enjoy a burrito. New question of the week when I get a chance to blog again this weekend...