Friday Blog Roundup
Whooooooa, Smelly Melly. I thought today was going to be the Roundup Extravaganza. I got my blurb in on time and everything. Why is there a normal Roundup instead of the extremely cool and very emotional Extravaganza?
I’m glad you asked.
Because a lot of people didn’t get their blurbs in at all (are you currently gulping because you are one of the guilty parties?). I write all of the blurbs for Creme de la Creme, therefore, I can always predict correctly when that list will be posted. But when you’re depending on others to get their blurb in on time…well…you can guess wrong.
I am still rounding up the stray blurbs. It will be posted next Friday if I have to write them myself. Oh…but grrrrrrrrrrrrr if I have to write them myself.
I just may be the Wonder Pets greatest fan.
Oh, by the way, this isn’t a show to watch with kids. That would take all the fun out of it. It’s ripe for a drinking game–“whoever is holding the tequila bottle when Ming-Ming says ‘serious’ has to do a shot.”
I know I don’t actually ice skate, but I like to imagine this scenario when I’m driving and listening to Debbie Gibson.
I will most likely be offline tomorrow for most of the day. I have a deadline with work, but we also have an appointment that I have sufficiently googled the fuck out of and scared myself. I know that things generally turn out to be nothing. As I drove to my parent’s house, after I had burst into tears pumping gas (which should have made me happy beyond belief because it was only $3.93.), I told myself that I wasn’t allowed to worry or google until after the appointment. And if I had to be upset, I was giving myself through tonight and I was going to be all male and compartmentalize on Saturday because there was nothing we could do over the weekend anyway.
Bleu told me about giving yourself a time limit for wallowing and really allowing yourself the wallow. But setting a limit. Telling yourself, “you may have the greatest wallow of all time for the next 24 hours. And then you need to stop. You need to blow your nose and get on with it.” Coincidentally, I came to a similar thought in Eat, Pray, Love last night on the section about recognizing and dismissing negative thoughts. Non-helpful thoughts. These things always come together when you need them to.
I say this as an explanation–that I will probably be offline, shitty about returning email for awhile, and remaining as far away from a google tool bar as possible. And generally being selfish for a few days. I know all will be fine. Truly. But I am cocooning today once I leave my 6 IComLeavWe comments. It is the only way I can handle this level of stress. And I won’t be updating because…stating the existence of the appointment was the release I needed and I don’t want to bring anything back towards me. I am sorry to use you like this; to be a receptacle to something I need released. Hopefully, in return, I can hold a worry for you and ask for nothing in return.
Soulbliss had a disappointing trip to the RE where seven follicles were found for her current IVF cycle. She mentioned in regards to AMA a thought that gave me pause: “AMA is a real thing and fertility DOES decline from the late 30’s and even more rapidly in the early 40’s. I know it is true, I do. But watching your ovaries die on a screen month after month is truly more heart breaking than I was previously prepared for.” It is one thing to hear about a decline and know it intellectually, and it is quite another to be so intune with your body that you know what is happening to it at any given moment. I wish the whole world could read this post and understand what women experiencing infertility watch on the screen (that, while happening to others as well, is experienced at a distance).
Indi’s Human had a thought inside the post called “My Moccasins” that stayed with me for days after reading it. An argument with her husband brought her to this statement: “The fact that so many other women are out there walking this path is sad and strengthening at the same time. Their moccasins may be a different style (okay, probably smaller) but they’re similar enough that I can recognize their footprints and their blogprints as they trudge and write and slog through this process, whatever their end goal may be.” Don’t you love that? Blogprints? Can’t you see the next people coming behind you, writing the same thoughts, going through the same emotions (albeit uniquely filters by experience) of infertility?
I think when you read this post by Bio Girl it will become incredibly clear why I loved it so much. I agree wholeheartedly with the whole post. And it’s an important thing to note: the cushions that exist all around you to fall against. Lucky indeed. I love our community.
Lastly, I loved Darla’s attitude in this post about pregnancies at Dear Darla Diaries. She writes: “I’ve determined that my sister-in-law and her bff being prego is no different than all the previous gestational periods. Just another bun in the oven and another person to crochet something cute for. I refuse to let it depress me. I refuse to sit and dwell on it. I refuse to sit and count the days.OK, well I still have to count some days since I’m due for another blood test and a specialists referral.” I can literally picture her throwing back her little sassalicious shoulders and saying, “not going to do it, babe.” Go Darla!
There is no true roundup to the Roundup. If you want to help me compartmentalize, I am using ice cream as my visualization technique. I am picturing an ice cream parlour with 2000 bins of ice cream behind the counter and the four of us are in line, discussing which flavour we will each get. If you would like to help me visualize by throwing out
the greatest ice cream flavours you have ever seen/had, I would appreciate it. Only ice cream flavours; no other wishes, if I can make that request. I will begin at the first bin. It is filled with chocolate ice cream with cayenne pepper. I know it doesn’t sound good on a computer screen, but the ice cream flavour was called the chocolate coyote in Madison and it was divine.
I will see you in the virtual classroom for Show and Tell on Saturday night.
July 24, 2008 Comments Off on Friday Blog Roundup
Pre-Funeral Notes
It should not be strange that I found this story because I was googling a phrase my old professor used. I left graduate school in 1999 and finished my degree from DC. I didn’t know he was ill until about two years after I moved away. I got word again when he died through an email exchange that went around through the former students.
The author of the essay, his friend, Amitav Ghosh, wrote about an exchange he had with my professor before he died:
I heard him thumbing through his engagement book and then suddenly he said: “Oh dear. I can’t see a thing.” There was a brief pause and then he added: “I hope this doesn’t mean that I’m dying …”
Although Shahid and I had talked a great deal over the last many weeks, I had never before heard him touch on the subject of death. I did not know how to respond: his voice was completely at odds with the content of what he had just said, light to the point of jocularity. I mumbled something innocuous: “No Shahid—of course not. You’ll be fine.” He cut me short. In a tone of voice that was at once quizzical and direct, he said: “When it happens I hope you’ll write something about me.”
Because isn’t that how we truly live on?
I was standing on Steve’s porch, unsure of how I was going to get home from the party, when my professor stumbled out from the kitchen surrounded by a few poetry students. He was drunk. We all were at the party. He pointed at me and said, “you are a naughty girl. Naughty, naughty. That is what I will call you. Naughty, naughty.”
“Me?” I asked. “What did I do?”
“I can tell,” he laughed. “You are naughty, naughty.”
The name stuck for my remaining time in graduate school. People who know me from that era still call me that.
I loved being blessed with a nickname from him.
I love the thought behind my old professor’s words: it wasn’t enough that he was a writer himself. He wanted someone to write about him. Isn’t that how we really know ourselves? When we hear how others remember us?
I’ll give you a story about my grandfather.
He was angry and disappointed and packed hastily when we got back to his apartment. He gave me the keys, directions to the local grocery store, and told me he’d return in a week. I walked down to Vigeland’s Park and sat by the Monolith until it was getting cold. I walked back and bought two potatoes from a street vendor that were coated in dirt. I cried all night.
I didn’t want to go to Israel because I was afraid that once I got overseas, I would feel that same terror from being so far from home. It didn’t matter that I was going with a cousin to see other cousins.
He couldn’t sleep that night and came into the living room to sit in his chair. His legs hurt when he would lie in bed. He asked me what I was worried about and I told him. He promised me that it wouldn’t be that way. That I was a different person from the girl who went on the trip.
He told me to carry a picture of myself that was taken during a time when I felt brave. I tucked one into my journal. I replaced it with a photo that was taken on the trip.
I still always carry a photo of myself as a reminder whenever I travel.
I realized around 5 in the morning, when I was up for an hour and a half for my daily morning worry, that I never came back to the reason for the title. I think it’s such a shame that he waited to write about him until after he was gone and that my professor never got to read the essay. In the vein of a Secret Ode Day, how amazing would it be to get to read the funeral notes and essays before you die?
July 22, 2008 Comments Off on Pre-Funeral Notes
Barren Advice: Thirteen
This is the thirteenth installment of Barren Advice. You can ask questions that are fertility or non-fertility related. Baby stuff is mentioned in this post.
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.
Dear Mel:
We are starting to think about furniture and other gear for the twins and I was wondering if you have any sage advice for me? I think we are convinced they should each have their own crib and we are thinking of putting them in the same room, although we do have room to give them each their own room if we decide to. Is there anything you wish you had done differently or that you found worked great (with nurseries, baby gear, etc.)?
–Denise from Freezer Buns
Let me start by saying that less is more. Having fewer things in your house to navigate, utilize, and store later will make you happier in the long run. The goal of the baby industry is to get you to buy a lot of stuff. Your goal should be to ignore them until you need to listen.
My other piece of advice is to buy along the way. Don’t commit to big ticket items until you need them and only then after you’ve tried them out. Take your baby/babies to the store and try the item there or go over to a friend’s house before you plunk down $40 for a swing or bouncey seat. Remember that each child is different and one may love the swing while another hates it. Therefore, hold off on buying two of any non-essential item.
NOMOTC is the umbrella organization of local twins clubs. Make sure you get involved with your local branch for at least the first year simply for the sales they hold each fall and spring. While you’ll want to purchase some items new, the sales are a great place to pick up gently-used items for low prices. I purchased our car seats new; I purchased the snap-and-go frame through a sale for a quarter of the price. This is a huge point since you use so many of these items for a short period of time.
If you’re buying as you go, you only need a few items to kick off life with twins. Everything else can be purchased during a Target or food store run as needed. In fact, it can make guests feel helpful to be sent on an errand. Hospitals often give you some items to help you start life with your baby/babies too.
Essential:
- Place to sleep and essential bedding (plus a super-sheet or the like): I don’t want to say crib because I know many who started out using pack-n-plays or co-sleepers
- Two car seats
- A few night gowns, onesies, swaddling blankets, and wash cloths.
- One or two bottles if you’re planning on bottle feeding (hold off on buying many until you see which nipple your child likes)
- A pack of diapers
- A bottle of dreft
Nice to Have:
- Snap-and-go frame or a carriage
- Play mat
- Baby carrier (bjorn, ergo, or the Maximom which is specifically for multiples)
- Bouncey seats–lots of them. We had many throughout the house because they’re a safe place to put down a child.
- Baby tub
- Glider or rocking chair
- Diaper bag (though we used just a regular backpack most of the time)
- Mobile
- Monitor (depending on the size of your home)
- Boppy or breastfeeding pillow if you plan to breastfeed
Do Not Buy Until You Know You Need It:
- Breast pumps (they’re non-returnable, you don’t know how breastfeeding will go, and hospital grade pumps are a better use of your money until you establish a supply)
- Swing
- Highchairs (you won’t need them for a bit and take some time to think out whether you’d like a free standing chair or a booster that snaps onto a regular kitchen chair)
- Lots of toys
- A lot of clothing (especially because you won’t know your child’s size at each season)
- A lot of diapers (same reason)
- Exersaucers and that ilk
- Gates (unless you have pets)
- Gadgets (wipe holders, bottle warmers, and the like)
It’s hard to hold off when you’re registering, but gift cards (or a lot of store credit) is more helpful down the road so you can purchase things as needed rather than having a lot of clutter. Some things will also fit your lifestyle though they’re not important to someone else. For instance, you may want a backpack carrier, though we rarely ended up using the two we owned. On the other hand, I was a bouncey seat fanatic and other people found them useless.
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. I would love people to add to the lists above because I’m probably forgetting some important items.
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.
July 22, 2008 Comments Off on Barren Advice: Thirteen
Stuff
The IComLeavWe list for July closes at midnight. Let the commenting begin! Make sure you’re leaving 5 comments and returning 1 (or leaving 6 comments) every day from the 21st until the 28th. If you are reading this and you missed IComLeavWe for July, a new list opens on August 1st so check back then.
The Roundup Extravaganza blurb is due tomorrow (Monday). Please email it to me if you haven’t yet.
The 21st is the actual anniversary of the Roundup. Happy second birthday, little Roundup.
You can still Show and Tell things. Anyone have something for the class?
Read the post below. Please. I know it’s long. But it has a cool idea at the end.
July 20, 2008 Comments Off on Stuff
The BlogHer Diaries: Wrap Up
This is a loooooooooooooooong post. A long one. But I think (immodestly?) an important one. If you can’t stand hearing one more thing about BlogHer, skip to the bottom where you read about the next bloggy thing. But…the reason why you should join for the next bloggy thing may not be clear until you read the rest of the post. Just saying.
The word “emotional” has been overused in all of my posts this weekend. But it’s true. BlogHer has been a very emotional experience for me. I had never been to a conference before. Josh would go to conferences and I didn’t quite understand what he got from them, why he wanted to go, and why he was sad every time I begged him not to go to a conference. And now I get it. I may still beg him not to go to a conference in a future, but at least I’ll know what he is missing out on.
I am now home. After the keynote, I had a tearful goodbye with Lori, Luna, Millie, and Frenchie, and we caught our shuttle to the airport. It was really hard to leave. It was hard to stay and be so far away from the twins, but it was also hard to leave. Yes, they announced that I won the BlogHer hero award at the keynote. Which means a lot to me in light of the compassionate blogging movement I want to help out with that grew from the panel I attended at the conference. Due to the award, I had an interview printed in the Blogging Heroes book at the conference but I haven’t gotten a chance to read it yet. I asked them to use a screen-shot of the blogroll. Why the blogroll? Because this community is about us. And we all deserve the recognition because the ALI chickies and man-pies rule.
I use the analogy a lot, but the conference was a lot like taking a trip to Wonderland. It goes by at warp speed. You meet so many fantastic people–those you already read incessantly and those you never knew existed in the blogosphere. And you bond with them intensely but briefly. I wanted to spend hours with each person I met, but you end up having these twitter-like meetings. You bump into someone and chat for a moment and then get dragged off in another direction and you’re constantly mindful of the panels and suites and activities that are filling the schedule.
And the ideas–the ideas are shooting past you at lightening speed. I had so many people tell me about so many cool projects and I wanted to be involved in EVERY SINGLE ONE. And I will be involved in every single one. I will somehow make that happen. I feel like going to BlogHer gave me an extra tank of energy. It made me so proud to be involved with the organization and to be part of this incredible group of women. And I always think about my daughter and how I’ll tell her about this time in my life. How I’ll tell her that I was part of a group of women who made a difference and left their mark on areas of the Internet. And in doing so, they changed off-screen lives as well.
And I cannot write without crying how incredible it was to meet people face-to-face. You know their words, but imagine your computer screen opening and the author climbing into your living room and enveloping you in an actual hug with their arms rather than just their words. Sometimes the chance meetings were funny and I was so star-struck (that’s Her Bad Mother in the elevator! Heather Armstrong! Stephanie Klein in the lobby!) and others were emotional. I wanted to hug Cecily through the whole conference. She is such a powerful, amazing woman and she’s beautiful and bright-eyed and intelligent. And she rocked the panel with her thoughts on engaging negative commentors to build bridges. I could sniff Chookooloonks all day long–her perfume smells so good–and she had the greatest posture I’ve ever seen. She is so amazingly kind and thoughtful and beautiful. Seeing WhyMommy–who has changed the off-screen world so tremendously with her breast cancer information campaign–and getting to hug her in the elevator. I got to see Lesbian Dad’s son and even hold him for a brief second before stranger danger kicked in and the tears flowed.
Before I go into more people, can I just talk also about something unique about this conference? I’ve never been to another conference, but I have to assume some of this is unique. On Thursday night, we had a couple hundred women playing Wii boxing (I made it to the third rounds!) and drinking beer. In three inch heels and sassy dresses. Can you imagine that at a male event? We had the movers and shakers of the Internet world all playing Wii in heels. And kids–there was childcare, but people also brought their children to the panels. And as much as it may have annoyed some, I actually thought it created this really beautiful vision of women who were not leaving home behind in order to discuss hard topics and make a change in the world. There was a kibbutzim mentality where I felt comfortable holding anyone’s child or stopping them from racing into an open elevator when they toddled off from their mum. I didn’t even know their mother, but there was such a feeling of community that it felt like we truly all were pitching in to help each other out. And that women share the load.
Which, also speaks volumes about processing this conference as an infertile woman. It was certainly child-friendly. It was more than child-friendly. It was somewhat child-focused in terms of the sponsorship room and the childcare suite. It was also Christian-centered and was held over Shabbat so anyone observant couldn’t attend. It was also omnivorous-centered and the boxed lunches were of the ham-or-turkey variety. The vegetarian options weren’t vegan therefore, I had to go out of the building to eat lunch.
And that is fine.
Truly.
The timing of the conference didn’t bother me and the menu of the conference didn’t bother me because I also know that it served the majority even if it didn’t include me in the minority. It would have been great if the conference could have reached even farther with inclusivity, but I also didn’t think it had to because perfection doesn’t exist. Get it right for me and it screws it up for someone else. Attending the conference would be a very different experience (from my own) if you were in a wheelchair or single or deaf or a recovering alcoholic. Or any of a number of situations. I just don’t think it is humanly possible to make the conference comfortable for everyone.
So, that said, you should know before heading over that the majority of attendees either have children or are not in a place where children bother them. I think of it in the same way as a baby shower. The baby shower should go on and be a big raucous event regardless of me. And I should attend when I can emotionally. And I should be able to tend to my own needs and step back when I need to without offending anyone. If you’re in a great space emotionally, you should attend BlogHer and perhaps avoid the Sesame Street suite and the swagaganzas. If you’re not in a great space emotionally, the conference may not be the best space for you.
And, that said, I think for me it always boils down to sensitivity or insensitivity in determining my comfort level. And the fine chickies of BlogHer were damn sensitive. They were certainly thoughtful towards the ALI crowd by providing not one but two relevant panels (the IF one and women without children). That goes a long way for me. And it also reasons that it would be an easier event for me because I have my feet in both the parenting world and the infertility world.
Being able to stand on that bridge and look both ways made it a lot easier.
The reason I went to BlogHer was to meet the ALI bloggers face-to-face and I got to meet so many of them. And I will use the term aga
in–that was very emotional for me. There were a lot of tears because I think we were all so overwhelmed to finally be sitting in the same room after reading each other for so long. Frenchie stopped by at the end, Rachel Inbar found us, and Amber came to our panel. I got to see Dramalish twice even though she couldn’t come out with us Friday night. She is as sassy and fun as you imagine. And so pretty–did you see her picture? Michell drove up from Sacramento Friday night and I got to spend the whole evening with her. And she is just as warm and friendly and caring as you imagine. Millie came to both the Friday festivities and the conference on Saturday. She not only made me laugh hysterically and reminded me off cool writers past, but she traded baking tips…
And I am crying now.
Bleu drove up with Bliss to catch us before the panel and being with her was so incredibly special. It made me feel like I was home when I was so far away from home. Pamela Jeanne was so poised and confident. It was amazing hearing her thoughts on the panel. Monica was just as fun and vibrant as she is on her blog. I am going to start dragging her to the DC get togethers.
And you know when Dorothy has to leave Oz and it means saying goodbye to the Scarecrow and Lion and Tinman? And even though she wants to be home (because there is no place like home), she can’t imagine also saying goodbye to these people who she spent so much time with and who shaped her experience?
I would say there was a big collective scarecrow–every ALI blogger was a piece of straw creating this collective brain that threw so many fantastic ideas in my head (see below). The Lion was definitely Luna. She has such a ferocious and beautiful spirit. The well is deep–she may cry deeply, but she also cares deeply and hugs strongly. She has so much courage and she doesn’t even know the depth of what she possesses already in her heart. She is such an amazing woman.
And my tinman…perhaps, more aptly, my tinlady…Lori. She has a heart that is more enormous than her body and it spills love out in all directions. We spent the whole weekend alternating between laughing and crying and teasing each other incessantly. I think I spent equal time talking to her as I did trying to convince her husband all the reasons they need to come to DC. It was not my first time meeting Lori, but she was a large reason why I went to BlogHer. Because I just wanted that time. I wanted that time with everyone hence the idea you’re going to see below.
I am not trying to make you jealous if you couldn’t go; but perhaps the incessant talking makes you want to get involved. If getting to a conference physically isn’t possible, there are still so many ways to get involved from home with the various projects that have come out of the conference. And on that note, I am going to hold off discussing our panel until Thursday when I do so on my BlogHer post. Because there were a lot of great ideas that we should all unpack.
But this is the next bloggy idea:
On October 13th, BlogHer is holding a one-day conference in DC. That’s a Monday. It’s also Columbus Day weekend (which doesn’t affect me but may affect some?). Lindsay and I (and Lori will be dragged into this for suggesting it if we can get her out to DC) would like to invite you to our pre-conference: O.V.A.R.Y.*. It would begin Saturday evening around dinner time and run through Sunday evening (or, if you’re going to BlogHer, through the Monday formal BlogHer conference as well). Lindsay and I are waiting to see a number before we start throwing out conference ideas–serious breakout groups based on topic? 24-hours of debauchery?–but would people be interested in attending?
Actually, here are the questions:
(1) would you drive down or up or east to get together with other ALI bloggers (and every single ALI blogger is invited)?
(2) would you be coming to BlogHer and already staying in a hotel or would you need a local blogger to put you up for the night?
(3) what would you want to see in the gathering? Just a social event where you get to meet up with other bloggers or small discussion groups?
(4) *what does O.V.A.R.Y. stand for? I know I’d like to use it to match with U.T.E.R.U.S., but what the hell does it stand for that screams, “this is a party!”
A side note–I would like this to be inclusive, but I apologize in advance that it will not be able to take everyone’s needs into account. I think it should be a child-free space, though everyone is welcome: those still building their family, those pregnant after IF/loss, and those parenting after IF/loss. Gay/straight, young/old, single/married, crusty ovaries or problems with the man-pie hardware…every single person is welcome.
July 20, 2008 Comments Off on The BlogHer Diaries: Wrap Up
