For the First Happiness Challenge, I chose to read for a half hour between 10:30 and 11 p.m. One of three things happened each night. (1) I would forget entirely. (2) I would start reading at 9 p.m. and continue reading past the designated point, so it wasn't a conscious decision to take a half hour for myself. (3) I would sit down to read and then remember something I forgot to do. So I would pop up and take care of that thing and then sit down again. After reading one page, I would decide I want a cup of ice cream and I would have to bother Josh for 5 minutes on my way to make the ice cream. Finally, I would sit back down and read another page, but my mind would wander so I'd have to read it again. Then I'd have to jump up and write myself a note so I wouldn't forget something. Finally, the buzzer would go off and I'd announce, "I am definitely happier."

Ben-Shahar warned me that starting a new ritual would be hard to do. And I didn't believe him. I am a damn fool.

I think part of my problem was choosing something that felt like one more thing I had to do in my day rather than feeling like a break. I wanted to choose something that I could do for free and could do easily. Reading is a lot of fun when it isn't a task you need to cross off of a to-do list. It's sort of like baking bread. When we need bread, baking bread is a chore. When I just decide to spontaneously throw together a pouliche and make a baguette, it's relaxation.

I am going to go another month with this first challenge and switch over to Calliope's ritual to take herself out for coffee once a week. That will make me feel special and happy. At least, I think it will. And if it makes getting coffee out feel like a chore, all the better for my wallet to have that ritual taken away.

Which brings us to the Second Happiness Challenge: meditation. This one is a little bit easier to schedule into your day. In order to participate, you need to commit to meditating for at least ten minutes a day, everyday. Close the door to your office, stretch out on the floor and deep breathe. Or get home from work, lie down on the sofa, and take ten minutes not to think. Try to pick the same place and time each day. You can do it at any point in the day: right when you wake up, during lunch, or before you go to bed (though it's sort of cheating if you just call the ten minutes before you go to sleep your "meditation time").

If you already meditate, keep doing what you do. If you want to begin, the Wikipedia--that amalgamation of all knowledge--has a decent article. What may work best is to picture a happy space or to allow your mind to go completely blank. According to Tal Ben-Shahar (the author of Happier) the point is not only the immediate stress-relief of meditation. It is also the idea of training your mind so you can use this stress reliever during stressful situations. For instance, the next time I'm over the Bay Bridge, I will go to my happy place (while driving?) and use that meditation muscle to relax even though it technically isn't my meditation time. Does that make sense?

If you want to participate, leave a comment below or email me at thetowncrier@gmail.com and I'll add you to the meditation list. The challenge runs from October 3 until November 1 (30 days) and you need to commit to trying this for all 30 days. Keep notes on your progress over the month and on November 1, post about your experience with the Second Happiness Challenge.

Click below to see more tales of happiness from the First Happiness Challenge:

1. Stirrup Queens (Melissa)
2. Clumsy Kisses (Rebecca)
3. Flutter of Hope (Dianne)
4. Looking for 2 Lines (Lindsay)
5. BagMomma (Shelli)
6. My Journey to Mommyhood (Courtney)
7. Diagnosis Unexplained (Jenna Sais Quoi)
8. Sticky Feet (Jamie)
9. Motherhood (Grad3)
10. Road Blocks and Rollercoasters (Me)
11. Sticky Bean (Kirsten)
12. Southern Infertility (Samantha)
13. Miss E's Musings (Ellen)
14. Vacant Womb (A B)
15. My Many Blessings (Tina)
16. All Things Deb (Deb)
17. Waiting... (Sandra)
18. Creating Motherhood (Calliope)
19. A Someday Mom (Kim)
20. Reproductive Jeans (JJ)
21. Serenity Now (Serenity)
22. A Sibling for Celia (Shelby)
23. Are We There Yet (Kami)
24. Dead Baby Jokes (Niobe)
25. Are We There Yet (Teamwinks)
26. Fortune Cookie Follies and Cats in the Cradle (Beagle)
27. The Idle Mind of Beth (Beth)
28. The Other Shoe (Joy Suzanne)
29. Taking the Statistical Bullet (Katie)
30. TTC with DH... (Trying2007)
31. Baby Step (Baby Step)
32. Baby Steps to Baby Shoes (BStBS)

Sometimes, you need a sad movie or television show just to open the sluice gate and bring on the cry. When you're feeling like shit, it can feel good to let out the tears and have a cathartic moment. Sometimes, it's the whole movie (like Schindler's List) or a scene (think Sally Field in Steel Magnolias) This list has been compiled by bloggers in the IF/pg loss blogosphere. Feel free to add to the list via the comments section. In time, I will move comments onto the list.

It was a sad week in the blogosphere. And strangely, last year, I was leaving for Chincoteague when Cancer Baby died. And this year, I was also leaving for Chincoteague when I read that Lisa had succumbed to cancer. If you never read More Than My Share or conversed with Lisa off-blog, you missed out. I have been sitting in front of the computer for quite some time now, trying to pull out words. And in the last 45 minutes, the only way I can describe this loss is that in the middle of this bright, buzzing blogosphere, there is a small corner of emptiness where a light just burned out. And I'm so sad that there's no way to relight it again. There was only one Lisa P.

I don't have the heart to take her name off of the peer counselor list. She was the person who gave me the questions to ask the hematologist and she is the person who told me to push for the Folgard that I take every night. And I can't stand the thought of not having her name there. So I removed the link to her email address and left up her name. Because she was here and she was in our community. And she will be missed.

It is really hard to write anything after writing that. It is probably very hard to read anything after reading that. There is no pause long enough.


Two weeks ago, I asked for songs that made you feel good. That made you feel like rolling down the car windows or marching into the RE's office and grabbing the dildo cam like a microphone (wait...what? Mel never said anything about grabbing the dildo cam. I don't even do karaoke...).

This week, switching gears. Because sometimes you need a good cry. This list is the absolute best movies to bring on a cry. A loud, cathartic, entire-box-of-tissues cry. I will kick it off with Steel Magnolias. Say what you want about Dolly Parton and Julia Roberts and big hair, but that scene after the funeral? I still cannot watch Sally Field in anything else without thinking about that scene. Brokeback Mountain almost killed me (especially when he visited the parents). Late Summer Blues (and I've seen it 3000 times so I always know what's coming). Contact (when she sees her dad). Run with it: what do you watch when you need to have a good cry and get it all out? Put down as many as you can think up before you hit "post" on your comment.

It feels very strange to take two days off from doing Lost and Found. It almost feels like there needs to be a weekend edition when I'm back to unguarded Internet access.

Lori has yet another cool idea that will reveal the interconnectedness of our blogs. Click here to read more.

So...we're almost at that time...the 30th...and the end of the First Happiness Challenge. I'm going to be frank; I really sucked at this. Next month, I'm stealing Calliope's idea and taking myself out for coffee once a week. But if you are participating, starting looking through any notes you took over the course of the month and post about the Challenge starting on the 30th (Sunday). Here are the original directions from the post:

Keep a running post about your ritual that you will publish on September 30th. Keep it in your draft folder, but add to it over time to talk about your ritual--how it makes you feel, whether or not it is bringing you happiness, whether you had to change your ritual mid-challenge, whether you'll keep at it indefinitely. If you don't have a blog, keep your thoughts on a Word document that you can send to me right before September 30th and I'll post it for you.

Hope you have had more luck that I have in keeping to the Challenge. Next month's challenge is maybe a little easier? Harder? Easier? I'm not sure. More about that next week.

Do you know what would make me happy? To win this. You should enter too. There's still time. A warning before you click over, the blog is called 5 Minutes for Mom. But the ladies there are very very cool.

Now, the blogs...

I was absolutely transfixed by Kami's recounting at Are We There Yet? of her egg donor's retrieval. Not the actual procedure since that was pretty textbook, but the emotions behind a known egg donor cycle. It was so moving, the friendship that has grown between these three people, and so honest, raw, emotional. She writes: "Sometimes it is hard to take in - the things you have been willing to do, the unwished for events that you learned to embrace, the next best option you decided was no longer on the "will not do" list - all in a quest to have a child. A quest others achieve by simply falling into each others arms in a moment of passion. It boggles the mind." Even more moving is the end of the post where Kami and her husband repeat a ritual they have done for every IVF cycle: "That night, Brad and I drove to our clinic so we could wave at our embryos from the parking lot. It has been a ritual to visit our embryos every day between retrieval and transfer since our first IVF. I don't think that they can sense our warm thoughts and expressions of love from five stories below, but maybe they can. Either way, it helps us feel more connected to them. Last night was no exception, but it was different...[but] those embryos know us. They know Brad because it was his body that grew the sperm. They know me because the eggs felt the love and support I had for Belinda while they were growing. They already know our energy and now they are waiting to come home." And if that doesn't make a cry catch in your throat, you have no heart. Go over and read the whole piece. It is long, but well worth it.

Also on the egg donor front is Bylthe's post on Over Hard about choosing an egg donor. Or, as she states, her replacement. She goes through numerous traits and why they are important to her, adding, "Again - my understudy should be as close to the original cast as possible, no?" It was an entirely new way of looking at donor eggs that I hadn't considered yet. The idea of finding a "you" out there in the ether. At the end of the post, she is on the brink of hitting send. It really is a moment of holding one's breath, the possibilities of finding yourself out there.

GirlH at More Than a Tata has a post I like this week that promises to be continued once life settles down over in Tataville. It is about the friendships that don't make it through infertility and loss. You should read this post now so when GirlH updates soon, you'll know what she's talking about. You will probably spend at least part of the post nodding your head in agreement.

Jenn at Adventures In-Fertility had a great post about the hurry-up-and-wait nature of infertility as well as the idea of time moving too fast to slow down or too slow to speed up. The waiting waiting waiting is well-known in infertility. But Jenn writes about the waiting that takes place even after the long-awaited baby arrives: "And yet, somewhere along the way, we want that baby to reach its 'milestones' as quickly as possible. So we hurry up and wait. And while we were hurried, and while we were waiting, we find that the baby is only five weeks away from her first birthday. And I am typing through tears as I realize that her whole life is going to be lived in fast forward from this point forward. I cannot slow it down. I wish I could 'freeze frame', slow-mo, whatever you call it. I want her to reach those milestones, I am so excited for every single one of them. And yet, with each one that she reaches I realize she is that much closer to her independence. One day she will be completely grown, and I will have to hurry up and wait for grandchildren to start the cycle all over again." She really captures the bittersweet nature of watching a child grow, the sense of life moving on fast forward.

Lastly, this post at The Maybe Baby cracked me up. I think it was the graphic. But still, that dream...

Wait...I said, wait...give me your sad movies. Your clutching-an-entire-wad-of-
tissues-while-sobbing sad movie. The one that made you feel like you had been cleaned out from the inside by the time the closing credits rolled. Anything that brings on the cry.

Pictures from Chincoteague (including deer that were five feet away from my camera--yes, mum, I walked that close to tick-infested deer while on vacation) coming soon. Including another ode to why I love this crazy island and how Josh has scared the SHIT out of me by quoting An Inconvenient Truth since we arrived, reminding me with every breath about island erosion.

As I was crossing the 4.3 miles of the Bay Bridge, doing my deep breathing exercises and trying to unclench my hands from time to time to keep them from becoming permanently gripped to the steering wheel (thank you, adrenaline-induced strength), I learned a little bit about myself. Something along the lines of an After School Special on understanding and overcoming fear. Making my trip from Rehoboth back to D.C. one to grow on.

I operate best with an escape route.

While I enjoy the idea of carpools, I'm not really into participating unless I am the driver. I like knowing that I could leave at any point--that it's firmly in my control. Back in graduate school, as I was sulking one night in my dorm room (why oh why did I agree to the graduate dorms that first year?), my friends talked me into going out to the usual Thursday night bar extravaganza at the local VFW. The promise was that the moment I wanted to go home, they would drive me back.

One drink and a game of pool later and I was ready to leave, but they continued their conversations and held me off with "just another minute, Mel" and "we just got here!" Being car-less and stuck in Northampton made me feel a bit like a wild animal. I ended up slipping out of the bar and walking several blocks to catch one of three buses that took me close enough to the dorms. An hour and a half later, I was back in my dorm room, only a few miles from the VFW, but finally breathing easily. I hate being stuck.

My fears of flying, my fears of bridges, my fears of tight-confined spaces, they're all fears shared by many other people. And the commonality between all of these fears is not only the relinquishment of control (wait...how do you relinquish control with a bridge? Or a tight-space? Can you just run with me and not look too closely at the argument?), but the lack of an easy escape.

Once that plane is in the air, a passenger can't really call out, "I've changed my mind. This is freaking me out. I really want to get off." I mean, I have called this out before, but it doesn't do anything. You're at the mercy of the flight time. Once you're on the bridge, you can't stop the car and get out of your vehicle until you're on the other side. And while people rarely think about this as they're passing over a wimpy span like the Delaware Memorial Bridge, you have a lot of time to think about the fact that you're stuck hundreds of feet above the water when you're on the Bay Bridge for five minutes minimum sans traffic. Being tied down, being held down, being confined--these are all things I avoid because they tie into that same base fear, the lack of an easy escape route. I am also not a fan of roller coasters (again, I can't stop the ride and get off). And not just for the drops, loops, and general queasiness-inducing motions of a roller coaster. I like control. And not just control. I like having my own personal stop button.

Sometimes, when people are talking about a next step with treatments or paths to parenthood, they feel the need to qualify it with "but this doesn't mean that I don't have hope for X working." You must have a smidgen of hope--if not, why would you put yourself through it? But I think it's sensible to have an escape plan. An escape plan is not just a stop button; it's a segue into the next step, the next path, the next action. It's stopping doing X and starting doing Y. Having an escape plan doesn't mean that you don't like where you are or what you're doing. You just need to know the location of the door so you could leave at any time, therefore making it more enticing to stay. Does that make any sense?

I don't think I would freak out so badly on the Bay Bridge if there was a button I could push and teleport off the bridge if the panic became unbearable. Just knowing there was something I could do would ensure that I felt comfortable.

Which brings us back to infertility and not just the idea of an escape plan for a current treatment (knowing which protocol you're trying next, for example. Or knowing you're doing another FET cycle immediately afterwards if this one doesn't work), but an escape from trying in general.

I don't currently have an escape plan.

I am meandering. I am trying things and thinking through possibilities and I have a general sketch of what will happen here or there. But Josh asked me a few weeks ago, "what will you do if we never have a third child?" and I didn't have an answer. I just cried. And on the Bay Bridge, I realized that my discomfort in general is the lack of an escape route. What if there isn't a third child? What if at the end of all of this, treatments don't work again? Do we walk towards donor egg or adoption? Or close the door on trying for a third at all?

There's a danger in setting up walls because those are meant to keep you in. Limits cause more panic--the internal promise, for example, that this is the final IVF attempt. But escape routes are small windows towards someplace better. Where limits bring about second-guessing, escape routes bring about relief. The relief may be mixed with other emotions--guilt, sadness, longing--but it is relief nonetheless.

And here is the difference. Walls have limits and negatives built into the phrasing: "I will never..." or "we will stop..." or "we can't do..." whereas escape routes follow an if/then formation. "If the RE thinks I have a low chance of conceiving with my eggs, then I will start with donor eggs." The only problem is setting up escape routes that seem unappealing. The other problem is that things sometimes don't look appealing until you've been forced to look at them from a different angle.

At this point, I haven't really put up walls--I mean, I have general limits for myself that are conducive to our financial situation or emotional capital--but I also haven't set up an escape route. And not knowing how I can get off this ride is like traveling over the Bay Bridge, the water lapping below and my hands fearfully gripping the wheel.

Do you have walls or escape routes? If you have an escape route, when did it occur to you and how did you plan it?

This past weekend was Yom Kippur and strangely enough, despite the difficulties I have with fasting (please don't tell anyone about the grapes I ended up sneaking at 12:30), it is one of my favourite holidays. There is little more magical than when Kol Nidre is sung, first as a whisper, then in a normal voice, and finally with the whole heart behind the words. There is little more humble than spending ten days thinking through all the times you've hurt people through the year and asking them for forgiveness.

I admonished Josh for driving like a maniac to Kol Nidre on Friday night, but in reality, it would have broken my heart to miss hearing that opening prayer. I had a lot of fears about switching shuls and one of the reasons was this Kol Nidre service. I wanted to return to our old shul for this single service. But Josh convinced me to move myself fully over to the new shul and I'm glad that I took that leap. This new shul does not end with a gorgeous, aching rendition of Adon Olam like my old shul (though perhaps, next year, the rabbi will allow me to lead it?), but it does begin with the simple prayer that names the service, Kol Nidre, that is sung in every synagogue across the world. My rabbi sang it with hope and longing and humility.

I love Yom Kippur because it is a holiday that focuses on mindfulness. It is about being aware of how our actions affect another person (and in kashrut, another animal). It is about being aware of how we treat community--not just what we get from our family and friends or what we give back, but how we do it and how those actions are perceived.

Josh and I practice sustainable Judaism, meaning that we've combined sustainable living with Judaism. Which means sustainability takes on many forms. We try to lead a sustainable life, meaning, anything we can do for ourselves we do. We bake our own bread, we sew our own blankets, and we mend our own clothes (except for the times when we send the kids over to my mother's house in pants that are obviously too long with the hope that she will hem them...). In terms of sustaining the earth, we recycle and reuse. We purchase a certain percentage of our clothing and toys used. We take the kids to local farms weekly so they can see how their food is grown. We purchase local produce.

(in case you're about to vomit from my piety, also remember that I would kill a cricket in a heartbeat. Actually, I would get someone else to do my bidding because I am NOT going near a cricket. And I pollute the world with bug killer. But enough about my hypocrisy...)

But sustainability also has an emotional component.

It is about sustaining community--not only gathering people near, but apologizing when we do something that fractures community. We are human and we are going to make promises and we are going to break them. We are going to say hurtful things and commit thoughtless actions. All these things are somewhat unavoidable--we aren't mind readers and we can't always predict how our actions will be perceived. But we can apologize.

And it is impossibly hard to apologize sometimes.

Other times, you're not even aware that you need to apologize because the other person hasn't shared with you how you have hurt them. Which is the hardest part about apologizing--when you sense that there is a problem, but the other person isn't forthcoming with how you have hurt them and therefore, you can't truly apologize for the transgression. You can only present a general apology--I'm sorry if I hurt you--and that's not a true apology. Because implicit in the apology is the promise that you will attempt to change your behaviour and not commit the same transgression again. In order to truly apologize, you need to understand how you hurt the other person, accept responsibility for your actions, and then enter a state of mindfulness so that it doesn't happen again.

Sometimes, it's really fucking hard to pick up that phone and tell someone how they've hurt you. It's just easier, less hurtful, less frustrating to not address it at all.

Prior to the Al Cheit prayer during the Kol Nidre service, my rabbi recited his own personalized apology to the congregation. It is a way to reach out to those that you inadvertently hurt during the year but didn't tell you. If a person tells me that something I wrote or said hurt her, I can address that apology directly. But I am sure I have scratched someone emotionally and have had no clue that my words or actions have done damage. Therefore, my apology to you:

For the times that I wrote something that made you feel uncomfortable, angry, or hurt and for the times I linked to something that upset you.
For the times that I said something that disregarded your situation and for the times I put myself first.
For the times that you emailed me and I never wrote back and for the times when I emailed back, but I said the wrong thing.
For the times when I read your words and didn't comment on your blog and for the times when I commented and said something that hurt you.
For the times when I missed reading your blog for days and for the times when I checked back way too often and nudged you to post.
For the times when I gave unsolicited advice and for the times when I remained silent even though I had knowledge to pass along.

For these times and for the times I didn't know enough to include, pardon me and forgive me.

And it's baaaaaaaaaaaaaack. Here is the master list for the seventh tour of the Barren Bitches Book Club. What is the Barren Bitches Book Club? It's a book club from the comfort of your own living room. The book club is conducted entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way. And we tend to read books with IF or pg loss as a part of the book if not a major plot point. We alternate between fiction and non-fiction.


Book: Happiness Sold Separately
Author: Lolly Winston
Start Date: September 19
Question Due: October 24
Question List Sent Out: October 25
Post Dates: October 29 and 30
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours.)

Cool addition for this book tour: the author, Lolly Winston, is participating and accepting questions about her book!

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (click on any of the links below on October 29 to take you to a stop on this book tour. Jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. I will keep adding to this list until 11 p.m. on October 24th. The list is currently open)

Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters (Melissa)
The Annex (Josh)
Twisted Ovaries (Vanessa)
Southern Infertility (Samantha)
Beaten But Not Bowed (Drowned Girl)
Sticky Bean (Kristen)
Weebles Wobblog (Lori)
The Dunn Family (Erica)
Candy's Land (Candy)
Mommy Someday? (Michelle)
Blood Signs (Wordgirl)
Precious Little (Carrie)
Coming2Terms (Pamela Jeanne)
That Was The Plan (Ms. Planner)
A Little Sweetness (Meghan)
All Things Deb (Deb)
Waiting for...? (Amy)
Road Blocks and Rollercoasters (R&R)
Where is My Happiness? (Bean)
The Open Door (Deanna)
Baby Steps to Baby Shoes (Baby Steps)
Desperate to Multiply (Portia)
Fatty Pants (Fattypants)
Outlandish Notions (Sharah)
The Infertile Long and Winding Road (Ms. Infertile)
No Swimmers in the Tubes... (Noswimmers)
Fertilize Me (Farah)

Not on the list and want to join? Drop me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. You can add yourself up until 11 p.m. on October 24th.

How the book tour works:

(1) leave a comment or send me an email (thetowncriers@gmail.com) saying that you're interested in participating.

(2) read Happiness Sold Separately by October 24th (or at least enough of it in order to ask a question to the group).

(3) at any point, you can email me questions directly for Lolly Winston and I will pass them along to her and then compile the answers in another post.

(4) create a single question that would kick off a discussion (in other words, any question that leads to more than a "yes" or "no" answer where someone can express their opinion) and mail it to me on October 24th (or any time beforehand). I will send you a reminder email close to the date. Click here to see sample questions from tour #4.

(5) on October 25th, I will send you a list of possible questions. Everyone will choose 3 questions off the list and answer them in a blog entry. You will find out if you are posting on October 29th or 30th (you can choose).

(6) on October 29th, people will begin to post their entry. Each day, I will post a list of all the people putting up their entry that day so people can go around and read the entries and comment (start a discussion back and forth in the comments section). Reading the entries and commenting on the posts is the best part of the tour--by the end of the week, you should have a comment from every participant (and maybe even a few new permanent blog readers).

Josh wants to get me a t-shirt that says: "I gave my word to stop at third" and then tell our kids that the reason we used fertility treatments is because we took that vow so seriously that we didn't even break it to conceive them.

Just say no...

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...

Even though we do not actually celebrate Christmas, you may remember from last year ChickieNob and the Wolvog's* fascination with sparkle lights. They made me drive around town like junkies, grunting with each sighting, "sparkle lights!" Followed immediately with "more sparkle lights."

They have been heavily anticipating the advent of sparkle lights this year, reciting little monologues as we get in the car, "right now it is fall. The leaves fall down. And then it is winter. And out come the sparkle lights! Hello, sparkle lights!"

There is an office complex at a cross section of two major streets and they have wound around each tree in their parking lot a complex series of white lights. It is magical when you are driving down the hill towards this thin forest of light-encrusted trees. The first night the twins saw it last year, ChickieNob sucked in her breath and said, "we found it. This is the land where the bong trees grow."

Sure enough, it looked exactly like the bong trees in the version we own of the Owl and the Pussycat.

And tonight, I am happy to report, the bong trees were lit. And the three Jews, preparing for Yom Kippur, smiled with excitement and said, "the sparkle lights have returned."

It's a good night.

*Michele and Jenna Sais Quoi are correct. ChickieNob and the Wolvog are from Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. The reason why these names fit perfectly is forthcoming.

Though I've had the occasional margarita since my college days, the word tequila usually makes me quite queasy (even Tequila Mockingbird's blog title makes me throw up a little in my mouth--just the title, just the title) ever since an evening during my first week of college that culminated with high kicks on the sink in our co-ed bathroom and waking up in an impromptu (read: passed out) slumber party attended by a large portion of my dorm wing. Somewhat-first hangovers are a bitch.

But it's a stupidity rite of passage. It doesn't matter how self-destructive drinking several times your weight in tequila shots can appear to the rational mind. The rational mind says screw it in the face of adjusting to college life. I think most of us probably have a story like that when it comes to college--the poorly thought-out tequila bender that needed to happen but leaves us with a distaste for the drink for the rest of our life.

Pee sticks are my new tequila.

I went on a pee stick bender the first time I tried to conceive. Tested every day and even insisted that my full-flow period was simply late implantation bleeding. I obviously became smarter in the realm of partaking in pee stick sports, but they still hold the same queasiness when I see that box under the sink. Oh? Did I mention that I keep a box of FRED--not even the cheap internet sticks, but a box of the good stuff--next to my pantiliners under the sink? Like tequila in a margarita, I still pee on them from time to time. But the act always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. And the stick is always starkly white.

So, this month's bar special is margaritas festooned with a pee stick instead of an umbrella. You name the flavour, but you do need to partake in the tequila regardless of the queasiness factor. It's a rite of passage. And it's imaginary. And it's free. Imaginary, free, peer-pressured drinks should be consumed with gusto.

As always, it has been a little under a month since we met, bitched, cried, comforted, and caught up each other on our cycles and lives. Pull up a seat and I'll pour you a drink. Let everyone know what is happening in your life. In fact, after you've caught us up on your own situation this month, make sure you add in your own freshman year alcohol-related tale. My only request is that if a story catches your eye, you follow it back to the person's blog and start reading their posts. Give some love, give some support, or laugh with someone until your drink comes out of your nose.

I have a ton of assvice in my back pocket and as a virtual bartender, I will give it to you unless you specifically tell me that this is simply a vent and you do not want to receive anything more than a hug.

So if you have been a lurker for a while, sit down and tell us about yourself. Remember to provide a link or a way for people to continue reading your story (or if you don't have a blog--gasp!--you can always leave an email address if you're looking for advice or support. If not, people can leave messages for that person here in the comments section too). If you're a regular at the bar, I'll get out your engraved martini glass while you make yourself comfortable. And anyone new, welcome. I'm glad you found this virtual bar.

For those who have no clue what I'm talking about when I say that the bar is open, click here to catch up and then jump into the conversation.

Happy Drinking.

New List Today:

Did you somehow miss this interview with Ayelet Waldman conducted by the participants of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade? I'll give you a hint...you'll see it if you scroll down a post or two. Or you can click on the hyperlinked text. Wanted to make sure people didn't miss her answers because they added a layer of depth to my reading of the book. And it's pretty cool to hear a writer answer questions about her own work. And Ayelet Waldman rocks, in general. So...

But also, welcome to the sixth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade--a book club from the comfort of your own living room. Grab a cup of coffee and start clicking away at the links below.

Just to explain, this book club is entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way.

Book: Love and Other Impossible Pursuits
Author: Ayelet Waldman
Start Date: July 19th
Post Dates: September 17 and 18
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours.)

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (click on any of the links below to take you to a stop on this book tour. Jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. This list is the second of two groups).

Group B:

Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters (Melissa)--my post is below or you can click on the hyperlinked blog name
Epi-blog (Jenna)
Child Bearing Hips (Cece)
Oscar Wants a Playmate (Jackie)
Our Dance With Infertility (Amy)
Sticky Bean (Kristen)
Fatty Pants (Fattypants)
Anne Imagination (Anne)
Fertilize Me (Farah)
That Was the Plan (Mrs. Planner)

Even if you haven't read Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, you can still add your own thoughts on the blog tour or react to someone else's critique.

Like the idea of being in a book club without leaving your living room? The next book for book tour #7 is Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston. The author, Lolly Winston, will be reading along too for this tour and it will be possible to ask her questions about the book.

The Details: Tour #7 will start September 19th. Participants will read Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston. On Wednesday, October 24th everyone will send one question based on the book (to get a sense of questions, click here to see the questions sent for book tour #2) to thetowncriers@gmail.com. I will compile the questions into lists that will be emailed out to you on October 25th. Everyone will choose 3 questions from the list and answer them on their own blog on October 29th or 30th (we will break up into two smaller groups and you can choose which day works best for you when the date gets closer). Each day of the tour, I'll also post a master list and people can jump from blog to blog, reading and commenting on the book tour.

If you would like to sign up to participate in book tour #7, leave a comment below or send me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. I need the title and a link to your blog as well as an email address where you'd like the two or three book club emails sent. If a spouse wants to participate too and he/she doesn't have their own blog, have them set up a blog solely for book tours (as we did with the Annex) and send me a link to that blog. And if you're a reader without a blog, now is a great time to set up a space for yourself on Blogger. People will be able to find brand-spanking-new blogs because they will be on the book tour's participant list. Want to participate but live overseas and want to order many books at once in order to save on shipping? The next few tours are always listed on my side bar under the book icon. Happy reading.

And speaking of which...the time is coming soon to choose the next few books. Start thinking about future choices and I'll post a running list soon so people can put it to a vote.

Intrigued by the idea of a book tour and want to read more about Love and Other Impossible Pursuits? Hop along to more stops on the Barren Bitches Book Tour by visiting the master list in the post above. Want to come along for the next tour? Sign up begins today for tour #7 (Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston) and all are welcome to join along (see the post above to sign up). All you need is a book and blog.

As much as I ultimately ended up loving Love and Other Impossible Pursuits as well as the grieving Emilia, it was a difficult book to start at first. How does one willingly dive head-first into a tale of loss? Not to mention the tension between the ex-wife and the narrator; the uncomfortable exchanges with her stepson, William; and the all-encompassing grief that is weighing down not only her marriage but her entire web of existence from half-siblings to parents to friends? In the end, I read the book for the same reason Emilia reads stepparenting books. Not for answers per se, but for the company. And Emilia is good company for the duration of the read.

Emilia often describes the intense physical and emotional connection between she and Jack. She often refers to him as her bashert. But after the loss of Isabel, and Emilia's spiral into solitary despair, that connection is damaged. This alteration is noted by Emilia when Jack declines her first offer of physical intimacy since their daughter's death. She becomes "terrified that I have become like Carolyn, cold to sex, unmoved by my husband, uninterested in the passion that once meant everything to me." What sort of relationship do you have with your significant other? Do you feel he/she is your bashert? What effect has IF/loss had on your emotional and/or physical relationship?

I had many fears that infertility would be the end of us. If it wasn't my own anger and sadness pushing him away, it was a fear that he would leave me for someone who could get pregnant naturally and carry to term. It was a pretty small-minded view of our marriage, but I was panicked and weepy so...

I think the fact that together we not only got through a first round of treatments, premature birth, and new parenthood, but we're willing to enter into treatments again is a testament to the strength of our marriage. Infertility is brutal. The ups and downs, the constant disappointment or grief, the internalized anger. The externalized anger. Even the strongest marriage can crumble when you're going through that. I'm thankful that we balance each other. That he makes me calm and I speed him along towards goals. That he helps me put things in perspective and I help him see the big picture. We're a good team.

Emilia has a difficult time relating to other women who have had losses in pregnancy, usually because she sees her situation as different and worse than those women who have had miscarriages. She is particularly hard on her friend Mindy. Do you feel like this attitude was justified on her part? Are mothers of SIDS victims much different and worse off than mothers of miscarriages? Or can we all belong to the same support group?

I'm always wary of those who create a hierarchy of pain. It makes me wonder if they're dealing with their own grief if they're focusing outwardly on everyone else's grief. Plus, I think I've firmly established my own feelings on inclusivity vs. exclusivity (and what can be more exclusive than telling someone in emotional pain that their emotional pain isn't bad enough to garner your support. See ya--go weep in your own Cheerios).

I think it would have been interesting to have Emilia come face-to-face with a mother who had her child murdered and the body never found and another who lost her five-year-old to cancer. Truly, when you start creating a hierarchy, what is the top of the pyramid?

Beyond that--I'm not sure what is accomplished by exclusionary support. It didn't solve Emilia's grief and like the stepparenting books that she found long after the fact, she could have perhaps found comfort or received words that changed her outlook from one of the women for whom she felt disgust. Grief is grief and while I think it's helpful to separate out reasons for grief--loss of a child from loss of a pregnancy from loss of a spouse--in order to focus the support, I don't think it's helpful to start pointing fingers and saying, "that's not as bad as what happened to me."

All of that said, I think Emilia's words come from a place of anger. There have been so many times that I've painted myself in a figurative corner due to a level of anger that opens the door for emphatic statements that I don't necessarily mean in my rational mind. I'd like to believe that the Emilia of ten years from now would look back on those words and say, "I was so angry back then" rather than, "it's true! I still believe that to this day."

We all have had someone in our lives like William who innocently says the wrong thing more often then we would like. How has your infertility experience helped you respond better to those "innocent yet wrong" comments/questions?

When these things are said, they're painful. And they get under the skin. And it's hard to smile and reeducate. But I think we have to forgive the questions that are asked not to force an opinion ("can you tell me more about IVF?" vs. "do you really think IVF is safe?"). And my feeling is everyone gets a put-your-foot-in-it-for-free card. Once you use it once and I've commented on the thoughtlessness, I expect all future interactions to be a bit more circumspect. And I do get cranky when the same crappy comments are repeated a second time.

But what do you do with a child? You know that he's not trying to be cruel and you know that he doesn't have the life skills to be more thoughtful and circumspect. But still...damn...I don't think I would have handled myself well in those situations.

The Barren Bitches Book Brigade has suddenly become as tangled and thematic as a ride on It's a Small World. Our second online interview took place a few months ago with Peggy Orenstein when we read her book, Waiting for Daisy. Our third online interview features a writer who popped up in Waiting for Daisy during a Yom Kippur scene--the very same holiday coming up this weekend on the Jewish calendar. Allow me to introduce you to the divine and daring Ayelet Waldman.

If you're looking for more coincidences, Ayelet is a blogger herself--first of the now-defunct Bad Mother and later a columnist for Salon. She is an ardent feminist, interested in women's health issues. She is a former lawyer and a current writer of not only Love and Other Impossible Pursuits and Daughter's Keeper, but the popular Mommy-Track Mysteries. She is outspoken and confident--she speaks her mind and says what many of us think privately. She is, in my opinion, the human embodiment of that old strange description: "a breath of fresh air."

For the sixth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade, we read her recent novel, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. Emilia's life is coming apart after the death of her infant daughter. Her grief consumes her work and marriage. Simultaneously, she is step-parenting the precious and precocious William, who always seems to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. Throw in a furious ex-wife, a couple of well-intentioned friends, and a mother who is rekindling a relationship with her own ex-husband and Emilia's life seems like it is on the verge of imploding. An intense novel with achingly beautiful moments, Waldman hits it out of the park with Emilia's loss and rebirth.

Like Waldman herself, Emilia is smart and sassy--she speaks her mind and has definite opinions. You may not always agree with the character. She may make you frustrated beyond belief. But if you're open to the experience, she will also make you think. She will make you ask yourself hard questions--not to change your mind to match her own, but to strengthen your own internal arguments.

Participants in the book tours can ask the author their questions as they read. I sent along this list of questions to Ayelet and she got back to me in an extremely impressive hour-and-a-half. How much do I love this woman? A very public thank you to Ayelet for reading along with the book club, commenting on our posts, and answering our questions:

You have been the subject of controversy due to your openness about taboo subjects such as suicide and abortion on your blog, "Bad Mommy." How has this affected you and how you write? Do you ever feel you should censor yourself or do you feel honesty is the best policy?

Michael, my husband, describes writing as the process of making a golem out of clay. You create this creature, and then you write the word "life" on its forehead and it comes alive. Now, when the Jews made the golem, they did it to save themselves. And the golem did that to a certain extent. But when you bring a golem to life, he is alive. He does what he wants. Maybe he saves you, and maybe he turns on you. Writing is like that. If you're not in danger, then you aren't doing it well. If you're not in danger, then your golem is dead on the page.

Was writing this book therapeutic for you in some way? As I read the book, I wondered if you, the author, were grieving a significant loss, adjusting to being a stepparent, or working out some dynamics in your family of origin. It seemed as if you were to close with your characters, that I wondered if in some way, you also sensed that figurative closeness with them.

I don't have the step-parenting issues, although my mom was, like Emilia's, a step-mother. But I did lose a pregnancy in the second trimester. I've written about that on Salon, too. That experience was so profoundly miserable, I grieved for so long and so hard, that I had to write about it. I wrote about it again and again. I wrote a short story about a mother haunted by the ghost of her dead baby. I wrote Love. I wrote essays. It was only when I wrote it out enough that I felt like I could move on.

First of all, I really enjoyed the book. At the same time, I really had to fight the urge to dislike Emilia through a lot of it. What is your take on Emilia? If she were a real person, would she be in your inner circle of friends?

I love Emilia. I love her sass, I identify with her self-loathing and self-pity. I think the fact that she's funny makes up for a myriad of flaws. At the same time, I can understand why people sometimes don't like her. Hell, people don't like ME and I think I'm pretty great.

I'd love to know how you came up with the idea for this story. What was the first spark? Your depiction of grieving a child and avoiding mothers with babies rings so true, I'd be interested to know how you acquired such a delicate touch of a subject which is very difficult to portray well.

I knew I wanted to write about a dead baby. And the story arrived in my head like a gift from somewhere outside my brain. I wrote the first draft in two weeks at a writer's colony. I wrote so fast that I wore the fingerprints off my fingertips. It was the most incredible experience of my life. Flow, baby. It's all about flow.

Emilia deals with the concept of bashert in this novel. Your love for your husband is well known. Do you feel like you and Michael are bashert?

Yes, I do. We were meant to be together -- or at least we are so well-matched and in love that we might as well have been. But you know what? None of that matters. Life is HARD, marriage is harder and bashert only gets you through so much. You have to work at it. We work on our relationship and our family every day.

Since your husband is also a writer, do you find that it is easier (since he understands the ups and downs of a writing life) or more difficult to have the same career? How did you balance writing and children in those early days of babyhood?

I'd never have written if it weren't for him. I was a very contented lawyer. He gave me the idea. I think it's easy for us. I don't try to compete -- hell, he's one of the greatest living writers. How could I ever hope to compete? We support each other. We love one another's work. We're each other's best critique and best reader.

Look below if you're here for the Barren Bitches Book Brigade and want to find the master list for Group A. Stay tuned tomorrow for the master list to Group B.

Welcome to the sixth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade--a book club from the comfort of your own living room. Grab a cup of coffee and start clicking away at the links below.

Just to explain, this book club is entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way.

Book: Love and Other Impossible Pursuits
Author: Ayelet Waldman
Start Date: July 19th
Post Dates: September 17 and 18
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours.)

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (click on any of the links below to take you to a stop on this book tour. Jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. We've broken down the current tour into two groups. A new list will be posted tomorrow).

Group A:

The Annex (Josh)
Twisted Ovaries (Vanessa)
Kicking You From the Inside (Kate)
Southern Infertility (Samantha)
All Things Deb (Deb)
Beaten But Not Bowed (Drowned Girl)
Still Passing Open Windows (Carlynn)
Weebles Wobblog (Lori)
Waiting for ...? (Amy)

Even if you haven't read Love and Other Impossible Pursuits, you can still add your own thoughts on the blog tour or react to someone else's critique.

Like the idea of being in a book club without leaving your living room? The next book for book tour #7 is Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston. The author, Lolly Winston, will be reading along too for this tour and it will be possible to ask her questions about the book.

The Details: Tour #7 will start September 19th. Participants will read Happiness Sold Separately by Lolly Winston. On Wednesday, October 24th everyone will send one question based on the book (to get a sense of questions, click here to see the questions sent for book tour #2) to thetowncriers@gmail.com. I will compile the questions into lists that will be emailed out to you on October 25th. Everyone will choose 3 questions from the list and answer them on their own blog on October 29th or 30th (we will break up into two smaller groups and you can choose which day works best for you when the date gets closer). Each day of the tour, I'll also post a master list and people can jump from blog to blog, reading and commenting on the book tour.

If you would like to sign up to participate in book tour #7, leave a comment below or send me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. I need the title and a link to your blog as well as an email address where you'd like the two or three book club emails sent. If a spouse wants to participate too and he/she doesn't have their own blog, have them set up a blog solely for book tours (as we did with the Annex) and send me a link to that blog. And if you're a reader without a blog, now is a great time to set up a space for yourself on Blogger. People will be able to find brand-spanking-new blogs because they will be on the book tour's participant list. Want to participate but live overseas and want to order many books at once in order to save on shipping? The next few tours are always listed on my side bar under the book icon. Happy reading.

And speaking of which...the time is coming soon to choose the next few books. Start thinking about future choices and I'll post a running list soon so people can put it to a vote.

About a year ago, I blogged about the NICU reunion. And that is the thing about blogs--holidays, anniversaries, events: they all show up again. And sometimes you are in a different space--mentally or emotionally--and sometimes you are not.

It had been a full year since the kids were last at the hospital and it was interesting to see that their memory of the place was not the apnea clinic or their neonatologist, but instead, the last NICU reunion. When we pulled into the hospital, my daughter announced, "this is the garage where you park before you go up to the place with the bouncey castle!" I too was thinking in terms of the last reunion rather than our actual time in the NICU. It is strange how that shift takes place, as if the last event at the hospital bumps even the most important threads down the forum list inside our brains.

We only found one of our nurses at the actual carnival, so we brought the kids upstairs to the NICU to see our favourite nurse, N. My daughter always retells stories that we have told her as if she actually remembers the events--even the ones that she was not around to witness ("let me tell you about your wedding, Mommy!") or too young to recall. When she saw N, she told her shyly, "I was so proud when I took out my ng tube" and N told her, "you didn't want a tube down your nose; you wanted a bottle." It was a conversation that I could have never imagined happening when we were actually in the NICU under N's care.

As we were leaving, I showed my daughter the bathroom I locked myself in twice during their stay--once on the night that I had to leave the hospital for the first time and once prior to my son's bris. I opened the door to peer into the single-stall bathroom and my daughter said, "it's empty. Why are you looking in the bathroom?"

I pointed at the floor near the wall and I said, "I sat there on the floor the night I had to leave you in the hospital. I really liked N and I knew she would take good care of you, but I'm your mommy and I didn't want to go."

The whole car ride home, my daughter chirped, "you stayed in the bathroom, Mommy. You were crying. You didn't want to go. You didn't want to leave me." Until we got to a red light and Josh looked at me carefully for a moment. "Do you think your hesitancy to leave them is tied to that night? Before they were born, you always said that you wanted to be like our friend, P, trusting everyone and allowing the hypothetical village to raise her children. And since that night when you had to leave them, you've been uncomfortable leaving them with anyone other than family."

It's possible. It really doesn't matter which threads gets pushed down and off the page on the forum. The important questions and comments still come back to shape your experience.

I leave you with a photo of the newest member of our family, Rog (which rhymes with "log" and not the "raj" sound that shortens the longer name "Roger"). He was given to us at the NICU reunion and he sneaked his way into our hearts immediately. My daughter has already made up a song about Rog and his diapers (potty training on the mind) while we drove home and he is firmly tucked under my son's arm tonight.


But what is Rog? It is a question we have been pondering for the last seven hours. Is he a rabbit? A dog? My mother admonished us when we brought him over to her house for dinner and showed her the latest addition to the family, a cross-bred rabbit-dog. "Rog is clearly a rabbit!" she said indignantly, as if we were parents who had just stated our kids are this side of ugly. "Look at the place where whiskers would be if he had whiskers!" And yet, we all marveled at the elements of pug that mark his face as well. He is as if a pug mated with a rex rabbit.

Which is why I turn it over to you and your brilliant minds. What is Rog? Besides pure love in non-washable plush form?

This is the last post where I refer to them as my daughter and son. It sounds too bulky and it sounds too 1950's-housewife-at-the-PTA ("my daughter tells me that your son wants to take her to the sock hop!"). Therefore, I will use a nickname that marks a certain month in their life--a month when these nicknames fit them perfectly. Those stories are forthcoming in due time. But for now on, I will call my daughter "ChickieNob" which is short for her longer name of "ChickieNobs Bucket O'Nubbins" and my son will simply be known as "The Wolvog." 10 points if you can name the source.

Updated at the bottom:

Happy New Year everyone (sloshes a half-empty glass of champagne down her arm and blows a horn). Did you see the ball drop? I went to the best party (emphatically flings the remainder of the champagne into the air). It was fucking amazing! The Torah was there and like...a thousand people. Maybe two thousand or something. I don't know. All I know is the room was packed. And I got so drunk on forgiveness. And introspection. And love of mankind. And then they told me there was a chance that I might die by fire or maybe water. What a buzz kill.

Jews really know how to throw a good party.

New Years was perhaps a little different from its January, secular counterpart. With the exception of my eyes filling with tears as Rabbi Jason intoned, "there is a new year growing in your belly," we got through services sniffle-free. And that, my friends, is an accomplishment. It also helps if you miss the part of the Torah service that contains the passages on infertility.

And all is well that ends well with a little honey.

There has been a blogroll explosion of sorts; many new additions. Which started me thinking about new categories to split things up a bit. This idea continued when I was speaking with a cancer survivor through Resolve and she lamented not being able to easily find other cancer survivors to connect with on the infertility front. It seemed like a good place to start. A category called "More on The Plate--IF and Health" which would encompass all health issues that need to be considered or cause infertility. Cancer, but also diabetes or mental illness. Since the category would contain many different situations, I thought I would add a parentheses after the title to give some information about the blog. That way, someone with diabetes who was undergoing IVF could meet up with other IF bloggers, read their journey, trade information. If you want to be moved into this new category, let me know with an email (thetowncriers@gmail.com). I'm probably going to move a few bloggers over to this category this weekend just because this was the third time someone mentioned to me that they were seeking out advice/another person's journey with IF and another health condition. So I guess also tell me if you wouldn't want to be moved too...

Which brings up the question, what other categories are missing? In order to start a new category, I just need at least one blog that fits under the heading. Any types of blogs you wish you could easily find? Wish to start a new category for your own blog? Since I'm sure this will be suggested, I just want to give the explanation for why I combined IUI/IVF. While some people do IUI many times, most do the requisite three before moving onto IVF. The category would be too difficult to maintain as people would only be in the category for a few months before moving on. So, yes, it's annoying if you're only searching for IUI blogs or IVF blogs and you have to pick your way through each one in the category. But it's too hard to maintain any other way.

So--when suggesting a new category, consider what types of infertility/loss blogs you search for on the blogroll. And if your blog is not one that would fall under this category, at least suggest one that does fit in order to kick off the category. If you're also looking for bloggers in your area that you can meet face-to-face like we do in D.C., put out a message on Lost and Found stating your area and your blog url so people can get in touch with you.

Lastly, on the blog front, Bea from Infertile Fantasies has a fantastic new site. It's called IVF Shoot 'Em Up and it's a collection of injectible how-to videos. Much more engaging and educational than those dry videos passed out at the clinic. You can help in many different ways. At the most basic level, you can spread the word so people know this resource exists. People can also create and submit a video--Bea has up a wish list but she's also taking more suggestions for other medications. You can also tattoo the Shoot 'Em Up chickie across your bicep if you're really committed to the project. But that's not for the faint of heart or fickle...

And now, blogging goodness...

This week brought out many posts about September 11th. Road Blocks and Rollercoasters has a beautiful post about the day called "Humbled." She writes about the passing of time: "Where did the BBQs and parties and hanging out with friends go? Oh, yes, I remember, I spent it wishing for time to go by faster--first so I could just get through the first trimester of my pregnancy and then so I could go ahead and start TTC again after the m/c. And here I am. The middle of September and nothing really to show for the time that I spent doing lots of wishing. It's irresponsible for me to live life this way. And yet, all I want to do is hit the fast forward button to get through this already. But I am humbled. I am humbled that I am able to fret about things like infertility and trying to have a baby while others struggle with life or death situations." That wishing away of time is such a familiar sentiment. And in light of the day, R&R made me see it in an entirely new light.

I loved the excitement in Nica's post this week in Life as a Sandwich about triggering. Not just her own excitement at a cycle that is going particularly well, but the sweetness of her husband. She writes: "When I did my IUIs, it was all me. I did the shots, I went with a cup the the RE. When we went to Argentina, H was far more involved, but somewhat distracted. After all, he was surrounded by family who he hadn't seen in a decade. But this time... this time, it's him and me. We went to IVF orientation a few weeks back, and he made a nuisance of himself. Asking more questions than every other person in the room combined. H was so confident about his medicine mixing and needle skills he gave tips to the couple to our left. He's shy. When the drugs came, he personally reviewed and inspected them. This, he had decided, was his domain. When it came time to inject, he was ready. He spread out a clean towel and placed everything out. He was exacting, he was precise, he was lovely. Our instructions said to inject "about an inch" from the navel and so he measured. I've never felt so loved (and so glad to have an extra roll of fat on my belly)." I want this to work for them not just because their stats look great and damn it, hard work should pay off for everyone. But because this cycle is special. And that should count for something.

Mony at Mrs. Negative has the perfect post this week about renewing her driver's license. Every year, that renewal process is a reminder of how little things have changed on the conception front. Until this year. She is now more than halfway through her pregnancy and she writes: "It will be a genuine watershed moment. I will be renewing my 2007 drivers license during my 27th week of pregnancy. Nobody else will notice. Not the bored, waiting customers. Not the bitch behind the counter. Nor the nervous P-Plater. But I will know. And even if I walk away with the most hideous, unflattering, cross eyed photo on my license this year, nothing will veil the glorious, dazzling beauty underneath my cotton blend blouse." I hope they allow her to keep the license (or at least the picture) the next time she has to renew.

Arwen/Elizabeth has a fantastic ode to the passing of information that takes place in the online community. She creates a list of "several products that [she] wouldn't have known about, or known to get instead of the more common alternatives, if it hadn't been for blogs and [her] own blog readers." And it's so true. Blogs have become like the backyard fence, the trading of information. Except the backyard fence stretches across the world and the information is more varied. This post is perhaps the third impetus to creating new sections in the blogroll and trying to connect more people to each other so you can glean the information you need on one hand and the support you need on the other.

Lastly, I loved this little bittersweet story from the lovely ladies at Addition Problems. May Natalie's wish (oh...and yours too!) come true soon.

Have a wonderful weekend. And leave your suggestions (in a comment or an email) for new blogroll categories or your feelings for "More on The Plate--IF and Health" (I guess my main question is if this helpful at all....)

I've added a few more categories to the blogroll including

• More on the Plate--IF and Health Issues
• Clotting and Immunology
• Uterine Anomalies

If you want to be moved to any of these, let me know with an email or a comment below.