This is the fifteenth installment of Barren Advice. You can ask questions that are fertility or non-fertility related.

Barren Advice is posted each Tuesday. If you have your own question for Barren Advice, click here to learn how to submit. Please weigh in with your own thoughts in the comment section and indicate which question you’re addressing if there are multiple questions in the post.

Hi Mel,

Currently, I have 540 unread posts in my google reader. I feel guilty every time I open it. I feel guilty when I go to one of the blogs I follow and I am behind by a dozen or more posts. Sometimes important things have happened and I have missed them. Sometimes they have come to my blog to support me and I follow the comment back to find I have been gone too long. I have come up with a few thoughts on where to go from here, but I want your advice.

1) Tell everyone I read to stop posting so much. Not more than one post / week.
2) Go through my list and get rid of everyone I don’t keep up with and who doesn’t keep up with me. I have tried this one and found I am still interested even if I am behind, but maybe I can be more brutal.
3) Become more of a lurker and less of a commenter. But then, what is the point?
4) Stop adding new blogs to my reader – doesn’t really help the current situation.
5) Mark all the posts as read and start over – a temporary solution at best.
6) Randomly select one blog / week to completely get caught up on. I feel that if I am going to follow a blog, I should follow it – and comment. Of course this will never solve the problem. It would take more than a year to visit each blog only once. Ug.

You know what is sad? I tend to cover the blogs at the top of my reader better than the ones at the bottom. So if a blog is a DE blog (in a DE folder so at the top) it is more likely to get read than one in “favorites” and if the name of the blog falls farther down in the alphabet, less likely still.

What do I do? What do other people do?

–Kami from The Other Side

We declare blog bankruptcy and start again, tabula rasa. Or we beat ourselves up about it, never actually returning to read through the list until it grows to such epic proportions that Google itself writes us to ask us what is up. Or we start making huge plans on how we’re going to get an organized system and set aside a half hour for blog reading each evening and then never actually implement it.

That’s what other people do.

Including myself.

The reality is that life moves quickly–whether it is online or offline. Friends that I didn’t chat with last week entirely missed out on the twins’ health scare. And unless they happen to read my blog, they will probably never know about it. It rocked our world and was this huge focus for many days. Some people were sucked into it and some people missed it entirely. It is not a statement as to the closeness of the relationship–though certainly, our close friends knew because we speak with them frequently–but more about the speed of life. There is just too much information–shifting and changing information–to keep up with and still live your own life.

I think the answer is to form two groups: a core group that has your focus and a peripheral group that gets infrequent comments and read at irregular intervals–just as you probably have a core group of friends that are always up-to-date on your life (within reason) and some that miss out on things; even the big things. It isn’t a statement about their blog or their writing but simply who you connect with the most–where you draw support and where you want to place your support. The ones on the edge, they’re still inside your life. You’ll keep up with them as best you can.

This probably wasn’t the answer you were expecting since community means more to me than anything. And part of being in this community is reading and commenting. Still, as a community grows, what worked in the beginning may no longer work down the road. In order to keep up with more people, something has to give and that may be commenting for some, putting a cap on the number of blogs for others, or simply choosing a new method for reading.

It’s funny because my Reader also filled over the weekend and I took a break in the middle of writing this to prune. To read and comment, but also to erase a few posts (I am so sorry, Baker’s Banter…the granola bars did look good) off of feeds I want to keep. Because, like you, with the speed of which people post, the desire to keep up with many, and the reality of time constraints–the damn thing is always full.

I think the thing I would most like to know is how people view receiving specific comments from specific people vs. comments in general. I think everyone enjoys knowing their words have been heard or getting feedback on their thoughts. But do they note who is specifically commenting, do they miss the words of specific people who they know are still following their blog (because they comment infrequently or because they’ve mentioned that they’re reading the blog on Google Reader)? And how do they feel about those people when an event passes and they don’t get a comment?

No really, the beauty of a blog advice column is that you get to weigh in with your two cents too. Let the questioner know if you support the advice, add to the response, or dispute it completely.

Leave a comment in the reaction box below–only keep in mind that conflicting advice is embraced and rudeness is not. Want to ask your own question? Click here to see what you need to send in order to be included in a future Tuesday’s installment of Barren Advice.

Welcome back to Show and Tell. 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. In fact, we hope you do go back to your blog and post your own Show and Tell item and then return with the link to your post. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

For this story to make any sense, you need to have a sense of my ex-boyfriend, E. Though he is currently a successful college professor, back when we were dating, he was an opinionated (and often wrong) geography masters student who specifically studied urban areas and the economic impact non-urban trade and policies had within cities.

One day, we were driving and he commented that we were going under the only three-level symmetrical stack interchange in America (wait, don’t interject here. I know what you’re thinking).

I was probably 20 at the time and didn’t think a lot of it. Fast forward a few years later when I am driving home for the first time from Massachusetts and I am slightly south of Hartford and pass under a three-way symmetrical stack interchange (a term I learned, natch, from my geography-loving boyfriend).

I am driving with nothing else to do but think and I am completely confused as to why I would have ever driven through the area with my ex-boyfriend. Yes, he had gone to school in Massachusetts, but it was close to Boston and I flew into Logan. We had never been out towards Western Mass and certainly not near Hartford. This bothered me for years. Years. Every time I drove under it, I was reminded of the same conversation. There is only one three-way symmetrical stack interchange in America and if I am driving under it then we must have been out this way at some point.

I finally email him: “Hey, I know we haven’t spoken for months, but this is really bothering me. Were we ever in Hartford, Connecticut together? Am I forgetting a whole trip?” He confirmed that we had never been in Hartford which didn’t make me feel relieved. Instead, I now thought that he must be lying to me because I was seeing the only three–way symmetrical stack interchange on my drives to DC and if there was only one in America, then we must have been out here at some point. It just made me feel even better about not sending back his jeans and flannel shirts when we broke up. Ass.

When Josh and I got engaged, we decided to get married in Baltimore. We had no connection to the city, had spent pretty much no time there, had no sense of the place beyond Little Italy and my cousin’s old neighbourhood. But there was a library and we wanted to get married in a library so Baltimore it was. The caterer was also out in Baltimore and one afternoon, we drove down Route 70 to I-695 to attend a tasting. And guess what I saw when we pulled onto the highway?

The photo above. A quick google search of the term three-way symmetrical stack interchange reveals that there are probably dozens of these in America and I just haven’t encountered more than two of them. A simple goal, perhaps, for another summer. A roadtrip to visit all of these marvelous structures.

I thought about this yesterday when we drove under it. My husband and I both smiled and Josh said, “you do know that this is the only three-way symmetrical stack interchange in the world.” I’m so glad I ended up with the man who says that to be amusing rather than the man who says it to be pompous. Oh, and wrong.

What are you showing today?

Want to bring something to Show and Tell?

• If you would like to join circle time and show something to the class, simply post each Sunday (or earlier in the weekend or on Monday if you can’t do Sunday), hopefully
  including a picture if possible, and telling us about your item. It can be anything–a photo from a trip, a picture of the dress you bought this week, a random image from an old yearbook showing a person you miss. It doesn’t need to contain a picture if you can’t get a picture–you can simply tell a story about a single item.
• Label your post “Show and Tell” each week and then come back here and add the permalink in the comments section below (make sure you don’t just comment that you participated: add a link to your blog in your comment so people can click over). I post a new Show and Tell post every Saturday night or Sunday. I usually move people up into the body of the post every few hours.
• Oh, and then the point is that you click through all of your classmates and see what they are showing this week.
• If you want it…
  I’ve now placed a Show and Tell archive on the sidebar that will be updated each week in case you miss it. And click here for the icon code if you wish to have it for your blog. It links to the archives.

Children Mentioned…

Tonight, at dinner, my aunt was reminiscing that this week four years earlier, she had been in Washington and swung through the NICU to meet the ChickieNob and Wolvog. The last time the Olympics were on, we were staying in a hotel across from the hospital on mileage points that our parents had pooled together and given to us. We were exhausted and emotional and the ChickieNob was having dozens of bradys and the Wolvog was only two pounds. It was a few days into the Olympics when I suddenly realized they had begun and I sobbed about missing the opening ceremonies and how I had imagined that we’d be giving them a bottle on the bed while watching the ceremonies as a four-some.

And now, four years later, four bodies sprawled together in a hotel bed in my aunt’s city, we are watching the Olympics and we are visiting my aunt and we are explaining Chinese history to inquisitive and verbal four-year-olds.

It is hard to imagine that we ever reached this point when I think back to four years ago today.

Of course, this is the way things go: I finally have a solid chunk of time to get work accomplished and a huge storm comes through the area, blows out the power, and I am now left without an Internet connection and therefore, without a means to work efficiently. I am currently writing this on my laptop in a word document and I plan on pasting it into a blogger post as soon as the power comes back on. Whenever that may be.

Obviously, since you are reading this, that time is now (by the way, I added in this line after the power came back up). The power has been turning on and off all night. Each time we get the Internet running, electricity goes out again, losing everything I have open. And, of course, the best is that it takes over four minutes to load each page when the Internet is working. Hence why this Roundup will be shorter than usual because it is taking me so damn long to reopen all of the links I’ve saved through the week. I’d love to update this post during the weekend when the power is more stable, but I also know how my weekend looks so that’s not going to be possible.

This seems to be the theme of my summer. I finally get a chunk of work time and something comes to take it away. I am falling further behind and there’s nothing I can do about it. Time is time and it continues on regardless of how hard I pull back on the reins. That’s the part about time that really sucks. Its inability to listen and behave cordially.

How long do you think the average wish has between when it is made and when it comes true in terms of holding the two events as related? In other words, if you made a wish today and it came true three years from now, would you say that the event came true due to the wish or due to just the passing of time and random chance? I know, I know, the rational ones amongst us are currently looking at this question and say, “but wish fulfillment is all just magical thinking.”

Roll with me on this one.

Is there an expiration date to wishes? What is the longest amount of time you’ve ever witnessed between making a wish and having it come true?

My longest wait, if you are interested, is seven month. Well, seven months for one that came true. Probably 30+ years for ones that haven’t come true. But if my four-year-old wishes happened to come true now (will I get that pony?), in the most random, bizarre way (a pony on my doorstep?), would I chalk it up to that old wish? Or was it just a strange coincidence that a pony showed up in my neighbourhood?

Tell me your best story or, better still, write about it on your own blog and then leave the permalink to the post in the comment section below. Um…please? It’s (kicks ground and avoids eye contact shyly) for a future post. So…nu. Don’t make me explain more.

If you haven’t already done so (or even if you have because you can respond to other comments by using the +username system), jump into the open thread on Bridges and give us a glimpse into your world. Connect with another blogger by stepping for a moment into their world and finding those similarities or ask deeper questions. The True View open thread will run every Friday so jot down thoughts throughout the week as things strike you as glimpse-worthy.

This is how I see the thread: it’s like those Christmas advent calenders with the two-dimensional house with 25 windows (though don’t be limited by the number of windows). You peel back the window and get a glimpse inside the house. You know you’re seeing just a tiny portion of the big picture, but it’s amazing just to peek inside and see something you weren’t expecting. That’s how I approach the Friday True View thread.

And now, the blogs…

I know…only two…a weak start to the first Roundup of the third year of Roundups. But that’s what happens when it takes this long for the Internet to drag up each page. Seriously, I sound like a spoiled brat considering this would have been fast back in 1996. But I am a spoiled brat and I’m not sure if I would have ever blogged if it took this long to bring up each web page.

Enough bitching about my connection.

Good Woman-Bad Eggs had a post called “Let’s Give ‘Em Something to Talk About,” a response to the insensitive comments she receives about her family. She is currently pregnant with her third child via donor egg and her first two children came into her family through adoption. She writes: “We named our first son a name that means ‘descendant.’ It was one of our ways of saying, kid, you are our descendant-our firstborn- the carrier of our name and the recipient of our very true and blue parental love. I wish I could make others understand this, in the same way I wish I could impress upon their brains the vast, deep, lasting pain that infertility marks upon a person.” This is one of the most ferocious posts I’ve ever read–a deep intense love drives it and it will kick you in the ass, make you sit up straight, and cheer her on.

Life From Here had a post yesterday about her homestudy (that is taking place today) and the invasive nature of the adoption process and the lack of boundaries it holds in comparison to other paths to parenthood. She explains: “We would expect to be asked about how we came to our decision to adopt, our views on discipline, etc. We would even expect to be asked for proof of finances or income. Yet here are just some of the questions I’ve heard asked, with detailed answers expected: Tell me about your parents; Tell me about your infertility; Tell me about your grief; How do you feel about not being able to have biological children?; What are your fears about open adoption?; Tell me about your sex life. Excuse me?” I think, for me, seeing the process laid bare in her post made me understand the different processes towards parenthood in an entirely new light.

Unfortunately, that’s it for today because I have to get back to work.

The roundup to the very small Roundup: swing by Bridges and give us a glimpse into your world; tell me about the longest wait you’ve ever had for a wish to come true; and bitch with me about power outages.

I am feeling like a rickety blog writer; like a blogger who is wobbling over the words as if the training wheels were removed this morning. Writing a book requires a very different type of writing…I think? And it has been hard to make time for deep thoughts or simply more stories about my period with the final deadline for the book looming. I feel like after September, you’re going to get me totally in your face saying, “have you thought of this?” or “have you noticed this?” or “can’t we all just love each other.” I’m going to start posting six times a day and chewing the ends of my braids (did you do that after the pool? Suck on the ends of your hair? Was that just me? Was that too much information from summer camp circa 1984?).

I think the other thing is that I have had emotional hypothermia. I guess that is the only way to describe it. At first I had told Josh that I was cocooning, but after watching a Wonder Pets episode (Save the Caterpillar!) where an inchworm’s friend emerges from her pupa as a butterfly, I realized that I was not really cocooning at all. Cocooning is like going into sleep mode to emerge better and bigger. I am not going to emerge any different from how I entered. Hence the wrong analogy.

I think it’s closer to entering hypothermia. That second stage of hypothermia where the blood vessels on the surface of the body constrict in order to shunt blood towards the vital organs. Emotional hypothermia is about boiling it down to where all non-essential emotions and thoughts are shutting down in order to best serve the existing necessary anxieties. Anything external and non-necessary quite literally feels as if it is constricting; as if I am constricting whenever someone throws out a new thing to deal with. Today, at CVS, I was charged an extra dollar for a package of diapers I didn’t want to be buying anyway and I could literally feel my stomach churning and constricting while I dealt with the cashier who was sucking away minutes from my day.

There is the work deadline, an illness in our extended family, and a health scare we had with one of the twins. That in the end turned out to be nothing…well…it turned out to be something but somethings feel like nothing when you hold them against what you had thought originally to be a something. I couldn’t come down from that health scare. I cried in the car leaving the doctor, so relieved. But I wanted to cry like an animal. I wanted to do that cry where you are half crying and half screaming but the twins were in the backseat and I had to hold it together. And I didn’t even think I could explain why I wanted to cry like that after dodging the bullet.

Josh said recently that a mother would do anything to give her child what she thought would make them happy and I disagree. I think a mother would take from her child anything she thought would make them unhappy. And there is a distinct difference. I do want my children to be happy–but I always want them to chart their own happiness. And if that means becoming a Catholic, meat-eating, business tycoon, then I would bask in the happiness of their carnivorous and money-making attendance at Mass. Truly, there are few things the kids could become or do that would upset me in any way. I think harming another person falls into that “disappointment” category. But I have such a vague notion of what would make me happy therefore I don’t think I could ever make the assumption that I could help them with their happiness. I can only keep throwing out possibilities and see which ones they take and run with any ideas they throw out into mix as well (such as the ChickieNob’s suggestion that we eat vegetarian bacon and green apples for dinner and that is just what we did on Monday night).

But I would do anything–including harming myself–to help my child because while I have difficulty guesstimating what could make another person happy, I think we all can point to certain things in life and say, “that would most likely make all of us profoundly unhappy.” Being in pain, for example. Or having your heart stamped on. Or being on the receiving end of cruelty or fear or distress.

When we thought one of the twins had a health problem, I didn’t know what to do with myself in that moment. I knew intellectually that I would come to a place of peace where it barely registered as an emotional point in my day-to-day life. We can become accustomed to anything. We can take jabbing our bellies with needles and make it commonplace. We can start with it being this huge mass in our life and then have it become so familiar that we can give ourselves an injection while we watch an episode of a television show and barely register the meaning behind our nightly routine.

But what I mean is that I moved into this state of having emotional hypothermia in order to deal with the thought of having my child in pain. Because I was simply waiting and breathing, not knowing how I could remove this thing from my child’s life; take it on. There was nothing I could trade. I couldn’t hurt myself and therefore not have my child hurt.

This wasn’t the first time we had a doctor ask us to see a specialist to just “check out a concern.” We have preemies–this is par for the course. But I don’t learn. I don’t take on new coping mechanisms or do it better next time. I simply slip into this hypothermic state, feel as if I am this tiny being trapped inside these huge pillars that are looming overhead, threatening to fall. And we walked away having dodged the bullet but I can’t stop thinking about this: the hypothemic way I deal with stress, how little we can do.

I didn’t mean for this post to go to this place. I was just thinking about how rickety I’ve been feeling as a blog post writer. How they’ve felt a little stunted, a little awkward. A little like that guy at the party that you really don’t want to talk to but you know he’s going to make a beeline for you. And how I’m going to this place this weekend that I absolutely hate and I hate that I hate it. I hate it because we ruined this perfectly lovely spot by going there to get away from things when we were in the middle of treatments the first time. And that spot is a location casualty. It simply reminds me too much of a time when I hated myself so deeply. I never thought we’d have to go back there, but now family has begun vacationing in this spot and if we want to see them, we need to deal with this location casualty too.

I spent a lot of time before the appointment hating myself for some of the thoughts and fears I was having and how impotent I felt in fixing a potential problem. And it’s so close to the same–the hate I felt for my own body, its inability to carry a child. It seemed particularly bizarre that we were heading back to this same spot. I pulled into a gas station crying a few weeks ago and I didn’t know if I was crying about my child or crying about that time before they came into our life.

Thank you for letting me unwrap this. I really didn’t know this was where the post would go. It feels like one of those therapy sessions when you walk slowly to your car. And jot down a few notes on a post-it pad before driving. Just because you want to understand these thoughts later. But I truly do feel better after writing this.