Category — Friday Blog Roundup

Anyone else having trouble accessing my blog?  Though I guess if you can’t access it, you also wouldn’t see this.  One person told me: “Lately, your posts will show in my reader, but when I click on them to go to your blog, I get an error message about the server. I can go to other web sites, just not yours.”  Are you having the same issue, and if you are, could you screenshot it and let me know which browser you’re using?

*******

I tried to give myself a day or two to step back from the election results before I fully processed them.

I’m happy that Democrats took the House because it’s never healthy to have one political party controlling every branch of government.  We need checks and balances, and not an echo chamber of ideas.  Actually, the healthiest situation would be not having political parties at all and having people state their personal platform rather than conforming to a party line.  But… since that won’t happen, the next best thing is to have more than one political party in power.

There are some people who I would have loved to see win, but they didn’t.  Some people who didn’t win, and I was relieved.  A few moments of diversity.  A lot of frustration at voting conditions.  A sense that the chasms between us are getting wider.  Appreciation for the people who put in the time and effort to get voices heard.

Thank you.

So… I left the night feeling like expectations were met or exceeded.  Not happy that I had some of those expectations in the first place, but very little happened that surprised me; good or bad.

How about you?

*******

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 in order 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.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Reading Diverse Books” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Mali and Jess!

Okay, now my choices this week.

Magpie Musing has a post about a tiny plastic baby that lives in a jacket pocket.  She’s thinking about the things she carries (and her post made me look at the things I always have with me: phone, book, bullet journal, hand sanitizer, cinnamon mints) and she moves to the items that inexplicably have a certain space.  She writes, “It is a comfort to me that tiny plastic baby is still in the pocket and ever will be, even though I can’t remember where tiny plastic baby came from. But every time I wore that coat, or moved it to a new closet, I checked for tiny plastic baby, ‘ah yes, there she is.’ Carried.”  Not about infertility, but… well… it made me think.

By the Brooke has a post about how the difficult time of day has moved from morning to night.  After her daughter died, it was morning, when her eyes opened and her brain remembered everything that had happened.  But now it is the worries that come in the evening hours, that look manageable by morning.  She explains, “I just needed to write out this reminder that no matter how terrible I feel at bedtime, life is generally more endurable in the morning.”  So true.

Lastly, RisaKerslake has a post about her new cycle.  She begins: “So I sat, peeing on yet another pregnancy stick, watching for that second line to appear, and giving yet another disappointed sigh when once again, only one line showed. Doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. I was officially going insane.” They’re doing something different this time — endometrial receptivity array — and transferring two embryos.  Click over and read about it.

The roundup to the Roundup: Problems accessing this site?  Your thoughts on the midterms?  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 November 2nd and November 9th) 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.

In an effort to try to focus beyond everything wrong in the world, a story about something very right.  Two women were able to both carry the same baby using a newer IVF technique.  Bliss (wife #1) provided the egg, and the created embryo was returned to her body to incubate for five days.  Then the embryo was transferred to Ashleigh’s (wife #2) womb where it implanted and she carried their baby for nine months.  Their son was born five months ago.

I don’t know the overall success rate of this option, though the cost is lower than traditional IVF.  But beyond the cost, there’s the emotional aspect of having both women get to experience the life inside their body.  That’s a powerful idea.

Science is amazing.

*******

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 in order 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.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff…

Okay, now my choices this week.

Jewish IVF also has a powerful piece in response to the synagogue shooting, but I was first moved earlier in the week on her post about keeping score.  She outlines a frustrating situation with her old clinic and explains why she waited to switch to the new one last year: “I had a hard time thinking about switching; not only because of all the retesting we’d have to do and the cost, but also because of the feeling of failure that comes along with moving. It felt like new clinic was a last resort I wasn’t ready for, even though the reality was far from that.”  It was a really interesting post about taking a long, hard look at your clinic.

ANDMom has a post about conversation enders.  It’s a political post, but it’s really about not being able to see beyond your own situation and imagine the world beyond your door.  As we head into voting next week (you are going to vote, right?), it’s important to remember that your situation could change.  That you may need to live your vote, and you need to be happy living your vote, even if you end up in a different situation and now aren’t benefiting from your vote.  Will you be happy if your fortune changes and things are better?  Will you be happy if your fortune changes and things are worse?  It’s an important idea to remember before you cast your vote.  She says it perfectly.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled is haunted on Halloween by thoughts of the grandfather her father could have been.  It’s a hard holiday, even when you don’t have kids parading up to your door in cute costumes.  She reflects on pictures of her father carving pumpkins with his fictive kin granddaughters and wonders about how things would have been with her own daughter.  It’s a bittersweet post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Science is amazing.  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 October 26th and November 2nd) 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.

103 days after we got back from our last trip, I organized the photos and uploaded them to a photo printing site.  I’ll admit that I’m a bit slow on the post-trip photo-album-making front, but the pressure was on.  Oh, not because the kids were asking when I was planning on getting around to making the album but because I had a fantastic coupon.  I needed to print almost 400 pictures, and it was going to come out to close to $12 plus shipping.

It took me two hours to organize and upload and order the photos.  I went to check out… and shipping was $34.  SERIOUSLY.  The pictures were $12 but the lowest shipping option was $34.  I could bump it up to $76 and get the pictures in two days, or I could pay $34 and get them in ten.

I deleted the pictures, closed the account, muttered in frustration, and then posted to Facebook.

People suggested other photo sites, so I went with the first name I recognized.  Once again, I uploaded the photos, applied the special coupon they sent just for signing up, and went to check out.  The pictures were $17.  So more than the other site, but that’s fine.  But the shipping was $29.  If I opted to pick them up at a store, the cost of the photos rose to $46, but I had no shipping costs.  So I could pay $46 and have them sent or I could pay $46 and pick them up.  My choice.

In the end, I paid the $46 because it came out to 12 cents a print.  They arrived quickly, and they look gorgeous.  The colours are so vivid.  But I’m really cranky with the bait-and-switch of “5 cent prints!” to “Oh, did we forget to mention $30 in shipping, too?”

Clearly the answer is to do enormous orders at once so I can use a free shipping code.  But I’m feeling really done with photo services right about now.

*******

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 in order 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.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “To Those Who Know The Heartbreak Of Pregnancy & Infant Loss–Your Story Is A Blessing” (An Unexpected Family Outing)

Okay, now my choices this week.

My Perfect Breakdown has a frank post about the financial disparity (sometimes) between birth parents and adoptive parents.  There were rules about the exchange of money during the adoption itself, but there is no formal guide for the years after as both families remain knitted together through open adoption.  Do you help with bills as you would any family member?  Is that not the case with this relative?  She writes, “What I do know is that this all comes back to the fact that open adoption has no rule-book. We have no idea what is right or what is wrong, so we are just doing what feels right to us, while trying to speculate what would also feel right to Little MPB’s birth-mother.”  They’re all good questions without simple, black-and-white answers.

Life Without Baby has a post about navigating envy when a family member is pregnant.  She talks about how your comfort level in dealing with that envy may be tied to the way they conveyed their news.  Are they sensitive to the fact that it may be difficult for you to hear their news and give you the space to ramp up to excitement?  Or do they spring it on you, demanding that you squelch your own feelings and put theirs first?  Join the conversation happening in the comment section.

Lastly, By the Brooke went to her reunion and marvels about how things changed.  She explains, “I think after Eliza died, I felt that I would always be the Worst Case and Unluckiest and Least Successful. And now that doesn’t really feel true–but it also feels like such comparisons or superlatives are pointless. I spent ALL of high school comparing myself to other people and feeling like I didn’t measure up.”  The night is wonderful, and it’s an important reminder that things change.  That how you feel in the moment is not how you’ll feel always.

The roundup to the Roundup: Photo sites are making me cranky.  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 October 19th and October 26th) 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 wanted to see an old BlogHer post, so I Googled a keyword + BlogHer that would have brought it to the top of the search results.  But it didn’t appear.  There were blog posts about the blog post, so I clicked over and used their link.  It looped me to the main SheKnows page.  I tried searching SheKnows but… it was gone.  Every last post was gone.

I mean, it’s not gone-gone because I was able to go into the Internet Wayback Machine and do the same search, finding all the times that particular post had been cached.  I could read the post that way, and I could even send people to the post by using the Wayback Machine’s URL.  But… it’s not the same thing.

I have a list that has the original URL for every BlogHer post I wrote.  I scrolled down that list, looking at the URLs for the thousands of posts that I wrote over 10 years.  Thousands.  I thought about the hours that it takes to write over 2000 posts.  And all of it gone: Deleted or moved to a private space that only the content owner can access.

A chef doesn’t mourn when her hard work is consumed and the plate is empty.  She has been paid for her effort, and she knows her food was enjoyed.  I’m trying to take that attitude.  I was compensated, the posts were enjoyed, and now they’re gone.

But it still hurts.

*******

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 in order 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.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Ignored at the End” (X365 Take Two)
• “Wanted” (Empty Arms, Broken Heart)
• “36 Hours” (Much Ado About Nothing)

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ gives advice to the grieving.  They are mourning the loss of her mother-in-law, and she offers up everything she knows.  I especially love this thought: “Grief brings opportunities, but you have to let yourself grieve first before looking for them.”  So true.

Inconceivable! has a post about Meghan Markle’s pregnancy.  Even though she has resolved her infertility, she writes, “Pregnancy is my kryptonite, though.  Pregnancy announcements still feel like being socked in the gut.”  Yes.  I mean, if I could make a blog post nod in solidarity, this blog post would be nodding in solidarity.  They still hurt after all of these years.

Baby Ridley Bump has a post about Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month.  She writes beautifully about the shame she used to feel about how she processed her early losses, and it took the birth of her daughter to drive home that she should be okay with how she mourned.  “Once I was finally able to see the life that was created, I realized that each one of those ‘chemical pregnancies; could’ve been a potential child just as amazing as the one I was finally holding in my arms.”  We are allowed to feel what we feel, and she captures a truth about how we process pregnancy loss.

Lastly, Jewish IVF has a post about primary and secondary infertility mixing in the same support group.  Their common denominator is being Jewish, which means that the feelings of those with children bump up against the ones without children, sometimes bruising them in the process.  There are no easy answers for her questions, and they’re ones that our blogging community has struggled with over the years.  But it’s always food for thought.

The roundup to the Roundup: 10 years of BlogHer posts are gone.  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 October 12th and October 19th) 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.

And now, after a heavy week, something lighter.  Harry Potter!

Last weekend, we went out to Chestertown to their Harry Potter festival.  We’ve been going since the first year, and it’s something we look forward to every fall.  This year, the ride was extra sweet because we received a review copy of the new A History of Magic audio book (read by Natalie Dormer) a few days before the trip.  We queued it up on Audible and started driving towards the Bay Bridge.

First and foremost, Natalie Dormer has the most relaxing, melodious voice.  Listen:

So imagine having the history of magic and the Harry Potter books explained to you in THAT voice.

The book opens with backstories about the creation of the series, from the idea through querying through publication stunts, and then weaves its way through the voices on the audio books and the book art.

We own the paper version of A History of Magic, too, and I was really impressed with how they presented all the sidebars and images in the book.  It was always clear whether they were presenting the main point on the page, or whether they were exploring an aside.  Part of that is because they looped in the experts quoted or discussed in the book to talk through their section.  For instance, Jim Dale presents the information from Jim Dale, Stephen Fry presents the information from Stephen Fry.  Other times, the background music changed or the sound changed.  In any case, they took what could have been a very confusing book and made it an enjoyable listen.

The book takes you through a history of magic; all the backstories, beliefs, and beings that influenced and popped up in the text.  If you love magic, this is 11+ hours of bliss.

It was the perfect piece to listen to as we drove into a town entirely transformed into the world of Harry Potter.  Cannot recommend this audio book enough if you love Harry Potter, too.

*******

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 in order 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.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff.

Okay, now my choices this week.

My Perfect Breakdown writes about the upcoming visit they’re having with their son’s birth mother.  People are asking nosy questions, and she writes, “I know people are trying to ask if I’ll be jealous about their relationship and how I feel about it. But, my theory is I’ll answer the questions they ask, not the question they are actually trying to ask.”  Love that.  She points out that it is like any visit to extended family, with travel stress and a lot of love.  Safe travels.

Much Ado About Nothing has a heartbreaking and thought-provoking post about the loneliness of miscarriage.  It’s the opposite of pregnancy, when everyone is gathering around you, trying to share in your excitement.  With loss, you’re often alone in your pain, especially if other people didn’t know you were pregnant.  Pregnancy is excitement, a filling.  Miscarriage is despair, a drain.  She could use the circling of the wagons right now because she’s right, loss is lonely.

Lastly, Genuine Greavu about going back on birth control and closing the door on a spontaneous pregnancy.  She explains why they’re no longer leaving it up to fate: “But things have changed. I no longer feel the same open arms feeling of surrender. Instead I feel an itchy, anxious fear that keeps me up at night and makes me second guess intimacy with my husband. And I don’t want to live that way.  The reality is that our life is FULL with two kids… full in ways that are hard to explain.”  They’re finishing off their final FETs and then looking ahead — down the road — to adoption again.  Following their hearts and what feels right, right now.

The roundup to the Roundup: Audio book of A History of Magic is amazing.  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 October 5th and October 12th) 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.