Can I admit something really lame? Having blogger's comments arriving in html this week literally made me unable to think when it came to email. Which, of course, is pathetic to admit. And I mean, every email--not just comments coming in from Blogger. My inbox just looked...wrong. I can become so weighed down in my internally nagging "this is the way it should be" that I'm unable to switch to any other system--even if it's better. Receiving comments in html wasn't a better system. But still.

Josh calls this tendency my wheat branniness. It is the same impulse that makes me ask him to do things right now. As in, I know it's midnight, but let's take apart the sink and clean out the filter right now because if we don't do it right now you will leave this task on your to-do list for the next twelve weeks and it will never get done.

My wheat branniness.

Am I the only person who had trouble thinking in html? Am I the only person who was affected by this bizarre blogger event? No one else seemed to be talking about it in the blogosphere. Is it that you're all over it and it's Friday and you can't believe I'm still thinking about this?

There is a new poll on the sidebar. Just look over to the right. See it? You can answer it too, if you're so inclined. It's for the book.

Speaking of the book, I am finally at the chapter on treatments since I'm writing all chapters out-of-order. Which means another round of online interviews. If you are currently undergoing treatments OR you have undergone treatments in the past--anything from IUI without injectibles to IVF with ICSI--and wouldn't mind chatting about your experience with me (and, in turn, anonymously with anyone who reads the book), please email me at thetowncriers@gmail.com and I will send you the question sheet (or if it's easier for you to leave a comment below, leave your email address in the comment). It's not a lot of work on your part, you get to choose your own pseudonym for the book, and you get my eternal gratitude. Did I mention my eternal gratitude?

I want every single person's story--the more point-of-views, the better the guide--and I want your voice heard. So please please please say you'll let me interview you. Oh--and if I've already interviewed you for the pregnancy loss chapter or donor gamete chapter, this is a whole different set of questions, so please volunteer again. And I promise I'll stop bothering you with requests for interviews for this chapter the moment I hit 100 interviews...

I still need more Clickers for the Lost and Found. What do Clickers do? They're journalists for the 21st century (wait, we're in the 21st century...right? I always get mixed up). Actually, you--the blogger--are the journalist. They are the collectors of information. Clickers go through a section of the blogroll once a week or so, clicking on and off blogs to see if there's any information for the Lost and Found--pregnancy announcements, adoption news, needs for support. The blogroll just got too big to do this myself. So it has become a community effort and the point is that no one should feel alone in this journey. If you need support, you should get support from a group of individuals who have a sense of what you're currently experiencing. And as a community, we should also celebrate together. I need a lot of Clickers because we're creating many new categories (and some weren't taken the first go-around and some just need an extra person or two because they're large). So sign up for one or more of the following subsections of the blogroll (and multiple people can and should take the same category to lessen the workload):

• Clotting and Immunology
• Female Factor (PCOS and endo are about to be split out from this category into their own subsections, so whoever signs up for this today will probably be redirected to one of those new subcategories when it happens)
• Gay and Lesbian
• IUI/IVF (probably needs at least one more person to share the load)
• More on the Plate
• Parenting After DI/DE/Surrogacy
• Parenting After IF/Loss
• Pregnancy After IF/Loss
• Pregnant or Parenting Multiples After IF/Loss
• Single Parent By Choice
• Uterine Anomalies
  

I really ask a lot of you and I'm thankful any time someone pitches in. If you've ever felt the warm fuzzy glow of community--that feeling that you're not alone in all of this even if you feel like the only SQ or SPJ in town--this is a way you can give back. And pay it forward. And stuff like that.

And thus concludes the begging portion of this post.

A new list will be forthcoming next week (or, it will be created next week), but the first list is up. What list you ask? A massive project of distractions. There is a new icon on my sidebar called Distractions. If you click on it, it takes you to a menu that will house all the different lists. The first list, feel-good music, that we made two Friday's ago is up. Next list will be compiled soon. All are welcome to distract. I know I am making a mix CD this weekend with songs from the list that I had forgotten about until people mentioned them (Traveling Wilburys!).

Last bit of business--candy exchange lists going out this weekend. Yum.

Now, the blogs:

Amy at Inconceivable has a gorgeous post about new motherhood. I'm having a hard time finding the right words to describe it, but "a must read" probably sums it up. It is the quintessential post covering all the highs and lows of new motherhood--the fear and the awe and the joy and the sadness. "I find myself stopping to watch him breathe a lot. Not because I'm worried he's stopped doing it, but because it fascinates me that he started out as nothing more than a dream. Something we wanted so badly, and now he's for real and I don't want to miss a moment." The writing made my heart ache and I'm so happy that she's finally there.

Msfitza at Certainly Not Cool Enough to Blog has a post that made me cry this week about the aftermath of taking down a nursery. For over two years, her son's baby items have been tucked into a corner of the basement. After this last loss, she has come to a feeling that she describes like this: "I found myself thinking more and more about the possibility of the days of baby making being behind me. Not because I want it to be that way, but because it probably is. No decisions have been made and no medical opinions are leading us in this direction. It just somehow feels like it's over in a way I can't exactly describe, but know I've never before felt." For over two years, the containers holding Thomas's baby items have been sealed and with the birth of her friend's child, she opened the containers to face those baby items and give them a new home. She writes, "What was also surprising was how easy it was for me to separate Thomas from a pile of unused baby clothes. They were his, but they're not him. Keeping them entombed in the basement won't bring him back. " It was the ending that made me bawl: "I hold him in my heart. That's where the most important part of him lives. It always did, I just didn't fully realize it until last week - until another little boy came into the world and helped me heal." Tonight, when I was driving home, I was behind a truck that had a bumper sticker about organ donation. And somehow, even if Thomas's clothes didn't actually give life--even if they're not necessary to sustain a person--somehow the passing of the clothing feels a little like that. The realization that we can part with these tangible items--the sweaters and onesies, the heart and liver--because they are not the person. Thomas will always reside in her heart. But his clothes will keep another baby warm. And this post moved me beyond belief. Please go over there and marvel at it.

Another sad post, brief and moving. KLTTX at Life in the Phisch Bowl speaks about her mother who died 3 1/2 years ago. The things that her mother is missing out on (knowing grandchildren) as well as the reasons KLTTX still needs her. The post is like a small, sad sigh.

Maybe I was drawn to the heavier posts this week. Carrie at Life in the Soupbowl has a great post this week about wanting another child. Which is not remarkable except that she conceived the first time with donor eggs and suddenly something that should be the right of any family is out of reach because of cost (not the raising of the child--the conception of the child). And it (1) breaks my heart and (2) makes me want to take action. Call up NIAW early and have everyone write a mass appeal to insurance agencies and clinics. It is a slap of unfairness. It isn't just a matter of getting to have one child, it's about getting to create the family you want. And that should be a right of all people.

And those are just some of the amazing things I read this week.

Wait, wait, before you click away to distant blogs, please let me interview you (thetowncriers@gmail.com and put "interview" in the subject line). And volunteer to be a Clicker. And take the poll. And...