We just had the most rockin’ time EVER at the Dan Zanes concert. For those of you who don’t know Dan Zanes, he is a children’s musician who was formerly one of the Del Fuegos. He sings both standard classics like “Erie Canal” and “Over the Rainbow” as well as original songs like “Thrift Shop” and “Smile.” And I have been known to listen to Dan even when there are no children around. It’s just good stuff. And I love his voice.

And now I love Dan because he ended the concert by walking out through the audience and into the back lobby. So as you were leaving the show, he was standing in the front lobby with his entire band, continuing the last song. And it just made me love him even more. Oh–and because he warned everyone when it was the last song and he told them that they should get up and dance because he didn’t want them to go home with regrets that they hadn’t done something that they wanted to do. He’s like, “too many times, you get home and you’re kicking yourself because you just wish you had gotten up and danced. So I’m saving you that regret by telling you that you should just get up and do it. And you’ll go home feeling at peace.”

And that just seemed like sound advice. To jump into things you want to do without regard to how it looks or what other people think. We, of course, had danced through every song anyway (and I had deep regrets about wearing such a heavy shirt to the concert). But if I hadn’t, I would have hauled myself out of my seat. Because he’s right–there are too many times that I didn’t dance because I was more worried about whether or not I was a “good enough” dancer to move in public rather than just focusing on having a good time.

Today, I just had a good time.

P.S. You can go on his website and listen to clips of songs. May I suggest Hop Up Ladies, Smile, Thrift Shop, Brown Girl In the Ring, and Mingulay Boat Song. Just click on the link that says “song sample” on each page.

Guess what came out on newsstands? The latest issue of Playboy, complete with nude photos of Cindy Margolis, “posing for a purpose.” The purpose being to promote infertility awareness. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the magazine are earmarked to go to RESOLVE, so get out there and purchase your porn today.

We mused last night whether sending our two-year-old son up to the counter with the magazine and having him exclaim: “I want this!” at Barnes and Noble was funny or just poor parenting. Don’t worry, mum–Josh deterred me from that one…

The blogs…

I loved Josefina’s post this week at My English Blog about the incredulousness she felt when the Clearblue Easy Monitor told her that her peak fertility days are day 13 and 14 of her cycle. It was a case of if-I’m-so-freakin’-regular-then-why-am-I-still-not-pregnant? It’s not that you want something to be wrong, but wrongness can at least be an explanation. And having sex on the wrong day of your cycle is something that you can at least do something about. If anyone knows anything about fertility monitors, head over to Josefina’s blog and help answer her questions. She also ended with an interesting question: how does one count how long they’ve been “trying?” For instance, if you have to sit out a month or two due to a cyst, do you count that time? What if you miss ovulation due to a business trip? It was an interesting thought. I personally count the time from the first month we consciously began trying. I also cycle so frequently that I get more than 12 tries per year. So in 18 months, I may cycle 24 times. How does one count that? Your thoughts on the idea of counting time?

Mary Scarlet at Mary Scarlet came up with a brilliant idea. Rather than switch paths to parenthood or try something more drastic, she is simply switching REs. Getting a new pair of eyes on the case with new ideas about protocol. It was a such a simple idea and such a brilliant idea–and perhaps someone else is reading this and feels like they’re at the end of the line. Well, this is one more step that you may not have considered. Head over to Mary Scarlet and read more…

On the same topic of perspective, Piccinigirl over at Kir’s Corner has a fantastic post this week about where she’s “at.” She has a beautiful way of describing how infertility affects her life: “Infertility is where I am right now. It’s my path and many days, it obstructs the way I view others and the world. It is always at the edge of my consciousness, waking with me in the morning and tucking me in at night. It is the ‘thing’ I see all the time and it is the ‘thing’ that I view the world through. I say this because there is much more to me than infertility (well at least I hope there is) but for the past three years it is the spectrum that I see everything through including just everyday life, never mind things like holidays and other family gatherings.” She illustrates the point by telling a story of looking through a catalog that her mother thought she would like. In it, she finds onesies that say things like “No More Silent Nights” as well as other cute baby paraphernalia. She begins crying and her mother says, “where were those things when I looked through that catalog? I didn’t see any of those things, but they were [obviously] there.” The point being that sometimes we miss seeing things because they’re just not in our frame of reference. And other times, things loom large because of the emotions that come into play. She finishes the post with a gorgeous sentiment that she found within that same catalog: “Impossible is not a definite…it’s a dare.”

Lastly, through a slip-of-the-fingers, the Anonymous Infertile at Random Ramblings has coined a new term: infertiority. It’s that feeling of inferiority one (irrationally) feels when they consider other women’s ripe, plump ovaries. And gorgeously formed uterus. And baby-making hormone levels. My new campaign will be to get this one in the OED by 2008.

I’m posting the Friday Blog Roundup later this afternoon, but this post absolutely couldn’t wait. Jessica over at Getting Pregnant the High-Tech Way has pretty much the best IVF conversation in history written out on her blog. You need to go read it and laugh hysterically. And then come back here and tell me the best thing you’ve ever heard someone say about IVF*.

*And by “best,” I mean “funny.” I’m not talking about those conversations where the person tells you that you’re going to hell or you’re going to end up with 17 babies. I’m talking about little-baby-faces-pressed-up-against-the-side-of-the-test-tube stories. And it can be any form of ART–not just IVF.

When the twins turned one, Josh made a video montage from their first year and set it to the song “Waters of March” by Antonio Carlos Jobim. It’s a favourite song that we played many times during our first round of trying to conceive and summed up my feelings on infertility after we finally became pregnant and carried (mostly) to term. A few weeks before the children were born, I made a wall-hanging to give Josh for Father’s Day and the picture now hangs in their room.

Because the song was originally written in Portuguese, there have been many liberties taken with the translation. The version we like is sung by Susannah McCorkle (you can hear a clip by clicking on her name and then choosing the first song on the list). I have bolded the phrases that spoke to me the first time I heard the song and the day Josh played it for me towards the end of the first trimester when he promised that we were going to carry the twins to term.

All these details swirling around the central metaphor of “the waters of March” give the impression of the the passing of daily life and its continual, inevitable progression towards death, just as the rains of March mark the end of summer and the beginning of the colder season (Wikipedia).

Carolyn, who–by the way–rocks the IF world, came up with a brilliant idea to create a new category giving information on the various common diagnoses for infertility. She tweaked the format a bit. The new four categories:

1. What ________ means and its impact on fertility (eg. what luteal phase defect means and its impact on fertility)

2. Diagnostic process

3. Treatment options

4. Personal experience

Carolyn wrote the first one for infertility caused by scar tissue from PID. I’m writing one for a luteal phase defect. Anyone else up for writing about your diagnosis? Fibroids? Uterine anomalies? Male factor? Anovulatory? Clotting factor? Diminished ovarian reserves? PCOS? Endo? Thyroid? The list is endless.

The other new category was created by the divine Ms. C. She posted the list of questions she asked the RE during the first appointment. What other lists of questions need to be made? First visit to the OB when you become pregnant? First visit to the OB after a loss? Questions to ask prior to a delivery when you’re high-risk? Tell me your ideas or any lists you can post that could help other stirrup queens and sperm palace jesters know the right questions to ask.