Posts from — June 2009

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Welcome back to IComLeavWe. It stands for International Comment Leaving Week, but if you say it aloud, doesn’t it sounds like “I come; [but] leave [as a] we”? And that’s sort of the point. Blogging is a conversation and comments should be honoured and encouraged. I like to say that comments are the new hug–a way of saying hello, giving comfort, leaving congratulations.

Here is the vital information, pure and simple (a more detailed set of rules follows below the list):

• The list opens the 1st of every month. It remains open until the 21st. You can add yourself at any point. The list is open to everyone in the blogosphere–blog writers and/or blog readers.
• Add yourself to the list by filling out this form: The list is currently closed and will reopen on August 1st.
• Click here to cut-and-paste this bit of code to add to your sidebar (if you have the old code from another month, remove it and replace it with this one). You need to add the icon or a link to the current list on your blog (see below) and will not be added until it’s up.
• Commenting kicks off every month on the 21st. Please mark it somewhere (calendar, post-it note taped to your computer…), though I will be sending out an email reminder on the 20th. Commenting week runs from the 21st to the 28th. Every day, leave 5 comments and return 1 comment for a total of 6 comments. You are highly encouraged to choose the blogs you comment on from the participants list below, but this is not required.
• I will send a second email on the 28th to remind you to remove the icon from your blog.
• Read below if you want to find out about Iron Commenters.
• The commenting ends on the 28th. We catch our breath and the whole thing starts again the next month on the 1st. Drop in and out according to what is happening in your life between the 21st and the 28th.

1. Stirrup Queens (infertility, twins, books)
2. Woman Anyone? (primary sub-fertility, unexplained infertility, IF limboland)
3. Heeeeere Storkey, Storkey! (twins, ttc #3, life)
4. The Pitter-Patter (TTC, infertility, MFI)
5. Baby Making Journey (azoospermia, waiting, life)
6. My Pathway to Motherhood (SMC, IVF, life)
7. Conceive This! (MFI, IVF/ICSI, FET)
8. Wishing4One (ivf, ttc, egypt)
9. Sticky Feet (twins, parenting, moving)
10. Building Heavenly Bridges (stillbirth, grieving, writing)
11. The Bear and The Comedian (parenting after loss, sibling grief, sweet humor)
12. Tammy’s Journey (christian, donor eggs/embryos, life)
13. BagMomma (secondary infertility, donor egg, parenting)
14. I’m a Smart One (surrogacy, infertility, parenting after infertility)
15. More Than One Dimension (work/life balance, family health, infertility)
16. Life and Times of Kimbosue (motherhood, baby, randomness)
17. The Yerkes Life ~ Learning to Embrace God’s Plans (infertility, life, family)
18. Slice of Pie (IVF, second opinions, food and cooking)
19. Sell Crazy Someplace Else (marriage, dIUI, weight loss)
20. Dragondreamer’s Lair (parenting, crafts, secondary infertility)
21. Hobbit-ish Thoughts & Ramblings (ttc break, books, life)
22. Weber’s in Action (ivf, family, working out)
23. Invivo (infertility, life, GIFT)
24. Maybe It’s Just Me… (first trimester, PCOS, random)
25. Waiting on Baby Paramore (infertility, PCOS, miscarriage/premature birth)
26. Not The Path I Chose (secondary IF, RPL, IVF)
27. Baby Smiling In Back Seat (infertility, twin pregnancy, pottery)
28. The Great Big If (infertility, loss, pregnancy after infertility)
29. Semi-fertile (miscarriage, grief, hubby)
30. Becoming Whole (emotional abuse recovery, uncertain family-building future, ponderings)
31. All Things Griffin (donor IUI, 2WW, infertility)
32. IF Optimist, then… (40+, humor, IVF/ICSI)
33. Misconceptions About Conception (unexplained infertility, emotions)
34. Ova-EZ (babies, love, life)
35. Creating a Family (adoptive parenting, infertility, adoption)
36. The Baby Makin Chronicles (pregnancy after miscarriage, life, random things)
37. Musings of a Fat Chick (SMC, IVF, life)
38. Hope Endures (infertility, acupuncture, faith)
39. Exploring Chaos (pregnancy, life, moving)
40. Long Distance Infertility (infertility, single parenting, travel)
41. Hope in Virginia (ivf)
42. Babymaking 101 (pregnancy loss, wa
    iting to try again on dr’s orders)
43. Faith, Hope & Poop? (parenting, adoption, books)
44. Making Me Mom (male factor, spotting, faith)
45. Our Jouney To Parenthood (And Hopefully Beyond) (ectopic, ttc, struggles)
46. Life Induces Thoughts, Mostly Random (grief, acceptance, family)
47. Non-elusive BFP (FET, loss, life)
48. Late for a Very Important Pregnancy (DHEA, IF, early menopause)
49. One Little Pink Line Short of Sheer Bliss (infertility, mfi, ttc)
50. My Little Drummer Boys (IVF twins, pregnancy loss, parenting)
51. The Conceivable Future (RPL, infertility, books)
52. Are We There Yet (IVF, acupuncture, travel)
53. Mindful Meandering (RPL, IVF, infertility)
54. Baby To Be (ivf, pcos, life)
55. Our Journey (pregnancy, infertility, IUI)
56. Gotchababy (adoption, parenting, random)
57. The Life of a Firefighter’s Wife (firefighters, food, children)
58. Dreams of a Baby (infertility, honesty, life)
59. Xiolo’s Place (life, expectant-dad, gardening)
60. Finding Her Way: The Story of a Princess (TTC, fundamentalist christanity, life)
61. Grown in My Heart (adoption, special needs, culture)
62. Everyone Else But Me (ICSI, 2ww, future)
63. No Oven For The Bun (gestational surrogacy, MRKH, infertility)
64. FET Accompli (surrogacy, twins, hope)
65. Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Pampers (infertility, loss, military)
66. Unproductively So (infertility, loss, hope)
67. Destined to be an Old Woman with No Regrets (pregnancy, pregnancy loss, life)
68. My World, My Ramblings (male factor, IUI, culture)
69. I never thought it made sense anyway (infertility, life, IVF)
70. Life with Endometriosis and PCOS (endo, pcos, life)
71. Thoughts from an Overwrought Mind (infertility, life, thoughts)
72. Oh Sanity, Wherefore Art Thou? (marriage, TTC, life)
73. Ninapintasantamaria’s Blog (pregnancy, life, snark)
74. Without A Roadmap (donor egg, active military, older parent)
75. Trying for a Baby (TTC, endometriosis, ovary suppression)
76. Life & Adoption! (adoption, life, random)
77. Just Multiply by 2 (parenting, life, twins)
78. Unquestionable Love (pcos, low amylose diet, summertime fun)
79. Will Not Work for Baby (ivf, infertility, life)
80. Gracie in Brooklyn (ttc, brooklyn)
81. 29 and Counting… (attempted humor, parenting, life)
82. Barefoot and (Finally) Pregnant (pregnancy, infertility, food)
83. Wandering Wonderment (life, deep-thoughts, mamahood)
84. My Infertility Journey (IVF/ICSI, male factor, PCOS)
85. Diary of a Stork Stalker (ivf, unexplained infertility)
86. Infertile Myrtle (infertility, iui, pregnancy)
87. Inconceivable (noa, life, next-steps)
88. Learning through the IF Journey (infertility, PCOS, faith)
89. The Big IF (infertility, ivf, endo)
90. To Baby and Beyond (infertility, miscarriage, life)
91. Lifeslurper (40+ ivf donor)
92. BecauseISaidSo (cancer, humor, family)
93. Mama Bear (adoptive parent, domestic adoption)
94. Yes, We’re Parents! (infertility, child-rearing after infertility, humor)
95. The Unfair Struggle (male-factor infertility, good friends, neighborhood rumblings)
96. Chasing That Dream (endometriosis, infertility, hysterectomy)
97. You Call Me a Bitch Like It’s a Bad Thing (dogs, infertility, life)
98. Life, Love, and TTC Mysteries (infertility, ivf, faith)
99. Little Birdhouse (cooking, infertility, cats)
100. So Full of Schmidt (expatriot, mom, kids)
101. Loving Thee… And More (kids, family, life)
102. That’s My Answer (fun, questions, life)
103. It’s Stork Season….And I Bagged My Limit (motherhood, miscarriage, wildlife)
104. Fertility Foibles (infertility, humor, adoption)
105. Once A Mother (grieving, daughter, babyloss)
106. Elana’s Musings (twins, parenting newborns, randomness)
107. Cheryllookingforwars (loss, hope, life)
108. All in God’s Time (severe mfi, donor sperm, adoption)
109. Cyster A.C.T. (life, mental health, pcos )
110. Isn’t TTC Supposed To Be Fun? (pregnancy, loss, infertility)
111. Not a Fertile Myrtle (infertility, life)
112. My Happy Place
     (infertility, teaching, life)
113. My Hope My Faith My Love (secondary Infertility, motherhood, babies)
114. Chronic Pelvic Pain (undiagnosed, doctors, life)
115. Your Great Life (fertility support women)
116. This could be anyones story (life, family depression)
117. Life in the White House (pregnancy, donor sperm, life)
118. Parenthood for Me (infertility, adoption, coping)
119. Dancing with Gaia (infertility, IVF, coping)
120. I Just Want To Be A Mom (IVF, house renovations, pug)
121. Twists of Fate (life after miscarriage)
122. Mustard Seed Baby (endo, faith, ivf)
123. In Due Time (infertility, pcos, life)
124. Teddy Lifeslurper, ttc (teddy, humour, ttc)
125. Body Diaries by Lucy (pcos, if, ivf)
126. Once Upon a Time (infertility, IVF, life)
127. Unproductively So (longterm infertility loss)
128. Eggcetera (infertility, iui, laparoscopy)
129. What If No One’s Watching? (reviews, life, dogs)
130. eye heart internet (ivf, loss, france)
131. Trying…Again (infertility, pregnancies, relationships)
132. Baby, Borneo or Bust… (pregnancy, life, career)
133. Conception Deception (male-factor, stress, treatments)
134. Last American Girl Standing (endometriosis waiting (im)patience)
135. B is for Brown (ttc/ivf, our life in nyc, fashion/diy)
136. Rolling Around In My Head (disability, disphobia, disablism)
137. One Good Egg (adoption, foster care, infertility)
     
138. The list is currently closed and will reopen on August 1st
     

Q: What if I miss a day?
A: Catch up the next day by doubling your comments–12 comments instead of 6.

Q: What is an Iron Commenter?
A: Not for the faint-of-heart. People who wish to be an Iron Commenter and be entered on the Iron Commenter honour roll need to leave a comment on every blog on the participants list (exceptions are blogs that require you to have a special log-in, such as some LiveJournal accounts or other similar situations). You can spread out this commenting any way you wish over the whole week, but the final comment needs to be left by midnight on the 28th (EST). Reaching Iron Commenter status is done on an honour system. Please email me if you earn Iron Commenter status so I can add you to the wall of honour.

Q: Why do I have to add that bit of code to my sidebar?
A: The code is the latest icon (the icon changes colour every month so you know that you’re on the right list). This month, the icon is cranberry, the next month it will be red, etc. The reason is two-fold: (1) it enables more people to find out about IComLeavWe and (2) it gives you easy access to the current list once the commenting week actually begins and better ensures that you’ll use it. Too many times, people sign up and forget to actually do IComLeavWe and this icon gives you a daily reminder (with the dates on it) every time you open your own blog. The icon is linked back to the current list. On the 28th, remove the icon from your blog. A new one will be created for the next month.

Q: It’s the 23rd and I just saw this for the first time on my friend’s blog! I want to join the list–why can’t I?
A: Because IComLeavWe happens every month, once the list is closed, it’s closed. If you’re finding out about this on the 23rd, you can’t join the current month. But leave yourself a note to check back in a week on the 1st and you can sign up for the next month.

Q: You said the list closes on the 21st. Well, it’s still the 21st where I am. Why aren’t you moving my information onto the list?
A: All dates and times are U.S. Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT -5 hours).

Q: What if no one comments on my blog and I have no comments to return?
A: Well, that really doesn’t happen for the most part, but in that case, simply choose another blog and add an additional comment. The goal is to hit 6 comments daily as a minimum. Going over that is fantastic and encouraged.

Q: Mel, my question wasn’t covered at all. What do I do?
A: Email me; I’m quite friendly. It helps to place “IComLeavWe” in the subject line. You could also check this post which contains the history of IComLeavWe and see if you can glean anything there.

Looking for the comment section? It has been closed on this post. Use the form in the directions to add yourself to the list.

Welcome to the nineteenth 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.

Anyone can jump aboard–it’s a book club where you can drop in and out as you wish and all in the community are welcome.

Book: Navigating the Land of If
Author: Melissa Ford (that’s me!)
Start Date: May 26th
Post Dates: June 29th
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours as well as information about future tours.)

About Navigating the Land of If: a guide for navigating the complex world of infertility. It will help you understand the lingo, learn the details doctors tend to leave out, and keep your emotional sanity despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. Navigating the Land of If gives the nitty-gritty on injections, rejections, biting your tongue during happy parent-to-be conversations, and trying not to cry over baby shower invitations.

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (The blogs below are participating on this current book tour. You’ll be able to jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on Navigating the Land of If.)

The Road Less Travelled
Baby Smiling in Back Seat
Weebles Wobblog
Baby Steps to Baby Shoes
Secrets of an Infertile Mom
Weber’s in Action
The Dragondreamer’s Lair
Clio
Hannah Wept, Sarah Laughed
Baby Shmaybe?
Baby Making Journey
Sticky Feet
Here We Go Again
Tears are for Babies
Hello, My Name is M…and I’m Infertile

Even if haven’t read Navigating the Land of If, 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 current group chooses the next book. The 20th tour will be Moose by Stephanie Klein (with author participation). From Amazon: “Whether Klein is describing her life as a chubby adolescent camper–getting weighed on a meat scale, petting past curfew, and “chunky dunking” in the lake–or what it’s like now as a fit mother, having one-sided conversations with her newborn twins about the therapy they’ll one day need, this hilarious yet grippingly vulnerable book will remind you what it was like to feel like an outsider, to desperately seek the right outfit, the right slang, the best comeback, or whatever that unattainable something was that would finally make you fit in.” Not an infertility-related book, but it will be a great jumping board to a discussion on body as it relates to infertility.

The Details: Tour #20 will start June 30. Participants will read Moose by Stephanie Klein. On or before August 12th, 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 me. I will compile the questions into lists that will be emailed out to you by August 14th. Everyone will choose 3 questions from the list and answer them on their own blog on August 17th. 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 #20, leave a comment below or send me an email. 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. The participants on the Moose book tour will choose the book for tour #21.

Happy reading.

children mentioned…

They may have entered as always with their hands over their ears and they may have ducked out of a few lines after waiting in them for a few minutes, but the twins actually went on the rides at Funland (a series of carnival rides at the beach) this year and we didn’t even need to ask the operators to stop them mid-ride this time around.

I was that parent who was jumping up and down and cheering on their child every time they slowly came back into view from the ferris wheel. And yes, heavily-tattooed woman who made fun of us for being so excited, it is amazing to watch someone who started out at two pounds wave at you from the top car of the ferris wheel or from the mermaid boats.

I was crying with happiness because they were so proud of themselves.

Oh…and the other excitement was that the Wolvog found a snake in the house today, but they got rid of it before they woke me up. And no one took a picture. And the other perfect moments this week all came with Advocacy Day, and I promise that post is coming soon.

What perfect moment did you note this week? Swing by the rest of the list to see what others stories people are telling…

Last Sunday night, as I was brushing my teeth (please don’t ask me why I was doing this next act while I was brushing my teeth), I was feeling my right breast and paused from completing the circular motion my periodontist taught me to explore the no-man’s-land between arm pit and areola.

I found a lump.

It felt like the end of a pencil eraser. Like someone had made a tiny replica of a volcano and placed a pebble inside and I was feeling that tiny pebble, with a millimeter of space between the rock and the lip of the volcano.

I tried to show it to Josh, brought his hand around my breast but he didn’t know what he was feeling. Isn’t it strange–they can cup our breasts every single night for nine years and they still don’t know them as well as we do from our monthly self-breast exam. I just know every inch of breast tissue.

I spent the night going to the ends of every possibility–from having it disappear by morning to having it be just a stray Cheerio that somehow made it under my skin (you know, much in the same way that we find things in the sofa even though no one placed it there) to having it turn out to be a cyst to having it be a tumour to having it be a tumour that has spread to every major organ.

Like pregnancy scares (remember those–back when you didn’t want to get pregnant and you foolishly thought that having sex and having a late period meant pregnancy?), I think a lot of women have had a breast scare (and I hope you post your story in the comment section to both make me feel better and to show the wide-spread nature of finding something in your breast). You feel something; you don’t know whether you should be worried or not. It doesn’t feel right, but you can’t remember what your breast felt like the cycle before and you don’t want to seem like the crazy woman who worries about every knot of breast tissue.

In twenty-plus years of self-breast exams, I had never found anything remotely worrisome. My breasts are strange islands unto themselves. They don’t really ever get sore. They didn’t get larger the one time a pregnancy continued. They didn’t change at all during pregnancy. They didn’t produce milk after the twins arrived. They’re islands in both the good sense and the bad sense. They don’t ever change, but, at the same time, they don’t ever change.

I made an appointment with my OB/GYN and he told me as I lay down, a Sharpie-created X slashed across my right breast, an inch or so from the areola, not to tell him where it was. He wanted to see if he could find it himself. He didn’t find it himself, not even when his fingers crossed over my art work, even though I had felt it before he came in the office. I had been feeling it for two straight days. I even found myself driving on Monday, my hands down the neck of my shirt to cop a feel as I drove through suburbia.

He moved my hand to other areas of my breast, insisting that my area of concern was similar in density and feel. And all the areas he brought me to felt like normal knotty tissue, but it didn’t feel like the tiny pencil eraser I felt when I was sitting up or standing (though not lying down). But it doesn’t really matter if he found it or not because he is taking my concern seriously and ordered a diagnostic mammogram. I was scheduled to go in for my baseline mammogram regardless this summer. This is now just a mammogram plus–a baseline mammogram with a purpose.

I will not be able to Twitter the mammogram–something about the lack of propriety in pecking at a hand-held device while a technician tries to talk to you as well as the fact that my breasts are going to be smooshed and even sensationless boobs that never get sore will most likely not enjoy getting smooshed–but I will blog about it afterwards in case there is anyone else reading this who is wondering what a diagnostic mammogram is like.

I am not really worried about this because I know it is most likely a cyst or something benign in nature. It may even be gone by the time we go looking for it a few weeks from now, though I can still feel it today, five days after the initial find. I’m just proud of myself for doing my monthly self-breast exam. And I’m writing this as a reminder for you in case you have become lax with checking your breasts.

I know it happens when you’re ensconced in treatments or the emotions of infertility. You are so focused on your uterus that you forget things like your pap smear or your monthly breast exams. I know I did, at least.

So this is your reminder. If it’s currently not near your period, go check your breasts. If you’ve never done it before, start now. It’s important. Really. And if you are about to have your period or currently have your period, go put up a reminder somewhere to check your breasts a week from now. And if you’re over 35, go get a baseline mammogram. You’ll have another at 40 and one every year or every other year after that.

Truly, I’m not worried (I sound so uncharacteristically calm about this that a friend kept calling me and emailing to ask how I’m really doing. But I really am calm) because my doctor didn’t find it so it’s not as honking large as it feels to me. And it can be one of so many things–it’s sort of like worrying about infertility when you didn’t get pregnant on the first try. I’m just glad that my doctor took it seriously and trusted that I know my body and that I’m getting it checked out.

Consider that your public service announcement for the year and if you have had a breast scare, I, for one, think it’s important for women to talk about it so I would like to hear your story.

Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

So, it’s the eve of my blogoversary. The night before. Three years ago tomorrow, I started this blog because Josh told me it would be a good idea to talk to other people about my feelings instead of just telling him about my anxiety starting at 11 p.m. every night. I knew I wanted to write a book and that the story needed to be more than my own. So I turned to the Web and created the space I wanted to have when I was first diagnosed with infertility. With a categorized blogroll so I could find new stories as my information changed (from dumb-ass ovaries to dumb-ass ovaries and clotting disorders) and a peer counselor email list and support and support and support.

And once I built it, others said, “hey, I wanted this too” and look–we’re all hanging out in my virtual living room. Kicking back with some high fat ice cream (since, you know, milk fat can overcome even having no fallopian tubes or sperm. It is the panacea for infertility). And the little blog has grown.

I love this place. And I love all of you. I am filled with love and gratitude today.

To celebrate the milestone, MLO did the coding on this new badge I made myself (and she can do it for you too). It contains the top community projects that we use daily or weekly. There were others I wanted to include, but they were harder to link to–Creme de la Creme has a new link each year and Operation Heads Up is more sidebar than individual post.

If you move your mouse over the image, you’ll see that it links to the main post for all these projects. Isn’t that cool?

If you would like this badge, you can get the code here. Feel free to take it for your own blog if you want quick access to the main projects. I am so proud of all the stuff we’ve accomplished as a community.

Tomorrow is not only my blogoversary, but also Resolve’s Advocacy Day. And I will be there, speaking at the offices of senators and representatives, asking them to support Resolve’s efforts with health care reform and the adoption tax credit. As technology will allow, I’ll be Twittering all day (click over if you want to follow) and then blogging it afterward. I’ll have my camera and such. Trotting around as much technology as my little back can carry.

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (hint: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name). The list is open from now until late Tuesday night and a new one is posted every week.