Category — Friday Blog Roundup

It feels a tad on the nose to leak an abortion ruling on the same week as Mother’s Day. (Congratulations, ladies! We’re forcing you into motherhood if you get pregnant!”) But… here’s the thing. We knew this was going to happen. We knew it was going to happen because a ruling was coming this summer, and all signs pointed to this outcome. We knew it was happening when the Court skewed heavily right due to Trump pushing through Amy Coney Barrett’s nomination and confirmation. I mean, even without knowing the future, we knew this was a strong possibility when Trump moved into office. So I’m not shocked. Sad, of course, frustrated, angry, worried. But not shocked at all.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

Cup of Jo has an essay about infertility with a line that hits home: “I saw my gynecologist. She checked for cysts with an ultrasound but found none, told me spotting was common, and said to return in six months if I still wasn’t pregnant. I knew she was wrong, though I wanted her to be right. I wanted everything to be fine so I could have our baby.” Almost every single one of us has a story of “I knew something was wrong, but I was told just to wait.” But what I related to was that idea that we want our doctor to be right. We want that waiting to fix something. There is so much I love about this essay, especially the ending. It isn’t what you expect, and I’m grateful she left the story open.

Lastly, not an IF-related story, but one that resonated deeply. Inkle is a game studio, best known for their game 80 Days. They have a new game out called A Highland Song. They wrote this week about storytelling through letters that applies deeply to blog writing and the comment box. And I love this: “A Highland Song is always going to be a game about being on your own, in a place much bigger than you for which you’re ill-prepared. But even if you’re alone, you don’t need to be lonely. We all carry a universe of voices inside our heads, and there’s plenty to explore inside, as well as out.” Gorgeous.

The roundup to the Roundup: Sad but not surprised. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between April 29 – May 6) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.

I have already completed my arc from excited (a puzzle game!) to not excited (oh… this is feeling like work), so we’re not joining along. But in case YOU were looking for something to do because there are only so many Wordle spinoffs one can play daily, A.J. Jacobs has released a puzzle hunt.

Tell me if you try it. We got stuck on the passphrase and then distracted by more library holds coming in.

*******

Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Telling an Infertile Person You’re Pregnant” (Finding a Different Path)
• “How To Tell Someone You’re Pregnant” (Stirrup Queens) — thanks, Mali!

Okay, now my choices this week.

This brings up one of my favorite things that happened once upon a time on blogs. One person would post something, and then response posts would pop up on other people’s blogs. And you could jump around the internet, reading different points of view. So on that note…

Finding a Different Path has a post about how to tell someone infertile you’re pregnant. She has examples of the best way and the worst way, pulling from the various ways she has been given news over the years. The “worst way” is… awful. Plus I love this advice: “Have a hypothetical conversation — ‘how would you want me to tell you my news?’ — ahead of time.”

Aaaaaand… No Kidding in NZ riffed on the same topic, but covering slightly different ground: the feelings that bubble up after the fact. She writes, “People who should know better judge us, even if we react perfectly decently. (See Jess’s post for an example of this.) We judge ourselves too, sometimes even more harshly.” And ooooof, her worst one is awful, too.

Kveller has a piece about how the mikveh fits in with infertility. This may be too niche a topic, but it resonated a lot with me. Infertility wasn’t my first time going to the mikveh, but it was definitely a point of return. And she describes it perfectly: it’s a resetting.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled reminds us in a roundup of news that it’s National Infertility Awareness Week (NIAW). Which I had forgotten, even though I clearly haven’t forgotten infertility. This is the only mention I’ve seen of it this week. Which feels odd.

The roundup to the Roundup: Go hunt some puzzles. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between April 22 – April 29) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.

COVID cases are on the rise, which means it must be time to get rid of masks. Amirite? Especially in small, enclosed spaces such as cars and buses and planes. We can use those forms of transportation to get to other small, enclosed spaces, such as bars, where we can all hang out, maskless, and lament how COVID cases on the rise. Whatever should we do?

If Year 1 was scary and Year 2 was frustrated, Year 3 of the pandemic feels ridiculous. We know what works. We know what we need to do to keep cases down and continue with — for the most part — normal life. And yet we seem incapable of doing what we know works. We’re like toddlers screaming that we’re not tired while we have a meltdown and fall asleep on the floor.

Luckily, one-way masking still works, even if its effectiveness is reduced. I’m keeping my mask on — for myself, for the immunocompromised, for the people who can’t or are too young to get a vaccine.

*******

Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff…

Okay, now my choices this week.

Finding a Different Path makes a surprising connection with a student’s parent. It was a great conversation about infertility and adoption, and she ends with this thought: “It was a moment that left me feeling connected and understood. Our experiences were different, but with a thread of commonality.” Here is to the connections we make along the way.

A Separate Life muses on a line in Richard Osman’s book about how we once knew each other’s handwriting. Yes! It’s a strange thing to miss, but I knew all of my friends and family member’s handwriting. That number has shrunk considerably. There are still people whose handwriting I can identify, but for most of the people I interact with on a regular basis, I have no clue what their handwriting looks like.

Lastly, I held this over from the missing Roundup: Bereaved and Blessed breaks down 15 years of blogging with each year’s defining word. It’s an amazing look back at a writing life, and it would be fun to retroactively return to each year and figure out the overriding feeling of your own posts. Congratulations on reaching a huge blogging milestone.

The roundup to the Roundup: Thankful for masks. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between April 8 – April 22) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.

I spent the night before getting my progressives feeling like I made an enormous mistake. I imagined I would put them on, the world would be blurry, and I would promptly vomit in the store. Okay, perhaps not vomit, but not be able to function.

I walked into the store with my stomach in knots.

But they weren’t as bad as I feared. They also weren’t as good as I hoped. I was getting accustomed to a new prescription and the progressives at the same time, which possibly made it harder than it would have been if I had spread out the transition process. The world was blurry on the edges, and I felt seasick every time I moved my head. But when my eyes were pointing forward, I could see far. And when I looked down, I could read my watch — something that hasn’t happened with my glasses on in years.

I decided to wear my progressives from 9 to 5. Then I would switch into my distance glasses. If we went out, I would wear distance glasses. I gave myself the first hour of the day in my old distance frames, and the rest of the day (except for when I was wearing progressives) in the new distance frames.

The result is that three weeks in, I’m feeling okay with the progressives. I can keep them on to read brief things, though I still like to take them off to read books. Headaches from the new distance prescription have mostly stopped. I can see the world again. I probably should re-read this in the future the next time I’m dreading something.

*******

Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff…

Okay, now my choices this week.

Cup of Jo has an essay from a person who was born after her parents experienced two children born still. I’m accustomed to hearing about loss from the parent’s perspective, and it was interesting to hear how a child (now an adult) processes the space that exists between her older sister and herself. She writes: “The babies: this is what we called them. The babies. We — our eventual family of four — knew them as one, though they hadn’t come as one. They were never going to grow up to be anything other than the babies, the big brother and sister I never had.” It is such a powerful piece about loss and families and how we take care of each other and hold memories.

A Separate Life has a most excellent rant about the portrayal of women over a certain age. Think granny. And not even spry granny. She writes: “Over and over again, we see this on our screens; the grandparents of young children are almost always portrayed as extremely elderly. Yet the reality is that most young children have active grandparents in their 50s (give or take a decade).” It creates a weird phenomenon where 60-year-old women are aged up to portray 80-year-olds.

Lastly, Infertile Phoenix gets through a hard month and can breathe easier in April. She writes about something I rarely see discussed: how do you know when you need help? She explains: “There were a couple of times where I wondered if I needed to bring in some more support. I am not afraid to ask for help, but I’m not always aware of when I reach that point. I informally assessed my life but determined I was still functioning. So I just continued to feel and process.” Food for thought.

The roundup to the Roundup: Adjusting to new glasses. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between April 1 – April 8) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.

It’s the most terrible day of the year. Fine. There are holidays that are emotionally hard to get through. April Fools Day isn’t that, but it makes me so cranky. Especially fake pregnancy announcements.

I am avoiding social media as much as possible today so I don’t have to whisper, “I hate you,” under my breath as I scroll on.

My glasses saga also continues. I had to return one of the pairs of distance glasses. The frames were too small for my face, which I probably would have noted if I had been given longer than three minutes to commit to a pair of frames. I learned what all of the numbers mean on the temple of the glasses, and now I am armed with the numbers from my favourite pair and trying to replicate them in a new frame. Like April Fools Day, I feel really done with eyeglass shopping.

Done.

That is the theme of this week.

*******

Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

*******

And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. To read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Putting Our Yearning on a Shelf” (No Kidding in NZ)
• “Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” (Infertile Phoenix)

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Cut has a photo essay about miscarriage. A warning: it is graphic. But I’m including it because I found it very moving. Especially the accompanying words: “I remember being annoyed with Casey for taking pictures. What I didn’t realize was the whole time I was bleeding, being operated on, and recovering, he was photographing. This was his love language, his way of saying, ‘I’m here, I see you and your pain.’” Click over and read it if you’re feeling up to it.

Lastly, Uterus Monologues has a post about Mother’s Day. (UK Mother’s Day is earlier than the US version.) She encourages you to feel whatever you’re going to feel. She writes: “My relationship with this particular day has shifted since I started writing this blog. Every year, my feelings have been slightly different. Every year, I’ve been confronted by something else. And every year, I’ve learnt something.” Love this thought.

The roundup to the Roundup: Don’t get tricked. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between March 25 – April 1) and not the blog’s main URL. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.