NaComLeavMo
IMPORTANT: This list is no longer open. The current list can be found here: IComLeavWe.
Blog writing for a month is all good and fine; but what about the other side of blogging–the comment leaving? Comment leaving is an integral part of blogging. Without comments, blog posts are as flat as…Flat Stanley. Blogging is a conversation.
Therefore, in honour of my own blogoversary (since I am so modest. Wait, and because community and conversations are very important to me and a huge reason why I write my blog), I am conducting NaComLeavMo–National Comment Leaving Month (the national refers to wherever you are reading) from May 25th to June 25th. A full month of intense comment leaving.
Want to join along? The details are under the participant’s list.
- Stirrup Queens
- Fertilized
- Growing in Our Hearts
- Child Bearing Hips
- Mrs. Spit Spouts Off
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Cupcakes & Conundrums
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(Un)complicate Me
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Speculum Stories
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Fertility Notes
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Single Mommy by Choice
- Maybe If You Just Relax
- The Daily Doings of Mr. Silly and Little Miss Trouble
- Wishing Waiting Hoping Praying
- Isn’t It Pretty to Think So?
- In Search of Biscuit 2.0
- Ruminations
- Scrambled Eggz
- Unwellness
- Blurb This!
- Off My Mind but From My Heart
- My World
- PCOS Baby
- Weebles Wobblog
- His Eyes and My Nose
- MyBabyQuest
- Thinking Miracles
- The Life and Times of KimboSue
- Will They Have His Eyes?
- Nine Months
- Blood Signs
- My Perky Ovaries
- The I Word
- The Waiting Womb
- Reproductive Jeans
- Still Passing Open Windows
- A Little Sweetness
- Are You Listening?
- Coming2Terms
- Sweet Baby Dreams
- Infertility Bites
- Our Box of Rain
- Life After Infertility and Loss
- Happy Hopefuls
- Barren Albion
- Joyce’s Blog
- Desperate to Multiply
- Alicia
- Nervous Breakdowns are Highly Underrated
- Growing Wathens
- Sweet Southern Knits
- Apron Strings for Emily
- The Road Less Travelled
- Frantically Simple
- Sunny in Seattle
- Sam’s Stories
- Hecticmom – Completely Undone
- Bugged
- Confessions of a Paranoid Parent
- Becoming a Different Person
- Heeeeeeere Storkey, Storkey!
- Teacher, Mom, Mad Woman
- Confessions of a Raving Lunatic
- In Due Time
- Mommypause
- Perchance to Dream
- The Other Shoe
- Our Journey
- Doolittle
- Breathe Through It
- The Johnson Family Journey
- Terribly Unfashionable: Tales of a Geeky Librarian
- I Won’t Fear Love
- Mommy Meryl
- Today’s the Day!
- The Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth
- A Daily Dose of Zen Sarcasm
- Mom of Two Dancers
- The View from the Hill
- A Journey Through
- Back into the Fire
- Nuts in May
- The Surprise of Unfolding
- Twin Peas
- The Idle Mind of Beth
- This is Me
- Three P’s in a Pod
- Communique
- Moxie Mama
- Sassymonkey
- Ramblings by Reba
- Help, I Have a Teenager!
- Good & Plenty
- Masha
- The Life and Times of Me!
- Jason and Samantha’s Journey
- The Whole of Her Sermon
- Fat Fighter TV Blog
- Viva La Feminista
- The Limelight
- Hoping for Another Lovebug
- A Slice of Life
- Infertile Turtle
- Age 30 – A Year of Books
- A Very Open Book
- Letting it Out
- Imagine Alyzabeth An
- Our Journey to Sophie
- No Regrets
- There’s Hope
- When Will Hope and Faith Pay Off
- Twice as Nice
- Couples Living with Infertility
- Operation Baby
- Diary of an Infertile Mad Woman
- Bits and Pieces
- It’s Stork Season…And I’ve Bagged My Limit
- Locker Room Towel Fights
- After 10 Years…Finally…IVF
- Learning to Breathe
- From Here to Maternity–Yael’s Journey
- Solo Trekking Through Recurrent Miscarriage
- Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin’?
- One Day Two Day
- The Idaho Smiths
- What Was I Thinking?
- Your Kiss is On My List…
- Seeryus Mama
- Rational Irrationalities
- Adventures of a Bad Ass
- Dirt and Rocks
- A Lady Scientist
- Psych Post Doc
- Postcards from the Edge
- Living with the Cards I was Dealt
- Monogrammed Mom
- …And the Rest is History
- Gotcha Baby
- Kore Chronicles
- We’re Barren, How ’bout You?
- Scientist Mother
- In 2 Me See
- Small Town Girl in a Big City
- A Woman and Her Blog
- Kicking You From the Inside
- Raspberry Chip
- Acqua Cheta Rovina I Ponti
- Mr. Buttertoes
- The Hairy Farmer Family
- Antigone Lost
- Ramblings and Everyday Amusements
- Mommy Needs Therapy
- Hearts Wide Open
- Candid Engineer in Academia
- Stop the Train, I Wanna Get Off
- High Land, Hard Rain
- Production, Not Reproduction
- Grad Ovaries
- A Soldier’s Girl
- Lupus Pie
- There’s Weenie Juice on my Cookie
- Mommy Wants Vodka
- Sam’s Feet
The list is now closed–12:01 a.m. Sunday, May 25th. Let the commenting commence!
This is how it works:
(1) leave a comment below saying you would like to participate in NaComLeavMo. Leave your blog name and url. I will add you soon after to the list of participants above. Everyone is invited to join NaComLeavMo (you do not have to ask because the answer is yes. It is always yes. It is open to everyone in this whole huge blogosphere). My goal is actually to get non-IF/adoption/loss blogs participating too and get conversations going between different corners of the blogosphere. Therefore, if you have non-IF blogging friends or straddle two communities, encourage them to join along too. But be forewarned, there will be blogs on the list that are about knitting or politics or cooking, but there will probably be blogs with babies or children as well.
If you do not have a blog, you can technically still participate in NaComLeavMo. When you leave your comment, just state that you don’t have a blog but will be participating. Um…though this may be a good week to start that blog you’ve always been meaning to start.
(2) mark somewhere on your calendar that you are going to leave 5 comments a day and return one comment a day between May 25 and June 25. In other words, you will do your normal blog reading, but you will make sure that you leave at least 5 comments a day and regardless of how many comments you usually receive, you will return at least 1 comment by going to a commentor’s blog and leaving a comment there. If you do not have any comments that day (perhaps you didn’t write a new post or your blog falls into a strange, other-worldly commentless abyss), simply jump to the participant’s list below and pick a new blog and leave a comment.
New people who have never commented
on your blog before take precedence over usual commentors. All commenting is done on the honour system–if you tell me you left the requisite amount of comments each day, I’m going to believe you. Try to spread your comments around–it’s okay to comment on the same person’s blog each day, but it’s better to hit new ones continuously. Please try to visit once all of the blogs listed on the participant’s list at some point during the course of the month. Even if you don’t leave a comment.
(3) those who wish to step up the commenting and enter the wall of honour, leave a comment on every NaComLeavMo participating blog at least once a week (in other words, if there are 100 blogs on the participant’s list below, you would click down the list once a week and leave a comment on each one). These bloggers are called Iron Commentors and they will be placed on the wall of honour at the end of NaComLeavMo. You must do this once a week (4 times during the month) in order to get on the wall of honour, though even if you only do it once, let me know.
(4) take the code listed here back to your blog and place it somewhere on the sidebar or in an easily accessible post. Encourage your readers to participate in NaComLeavMo. The more, the merrier. Please leave this code up throughout NaComLeavMo because it gives people easy access to the participant’s list.
(5) check in with me on June 20th (put that on a calendar too, though there will be a reminder that day in the Roundup) to let me know if you’re on track for completing NaComLeavMo. When you email me at the towncriers@gmail.com, I will send you the code for the completed NaComLeavMo icon or the Iron Commentor icon. If you don’t check in, I won’t know if you completed NaComLeavMo and I won’t move you to the final list of participants. So…check in that weekend.
(6) if you miss a day, you can double up your comment leaving (10 comments and 2 returns) the next day. If you miss three days, triple your comment leaving when you return, so on and so on.
(7) the participant’s list closes on May 24th at midnight EST. You can still do NaComLeavMo, but you can’t add your blog to the list. Therefore, get the word out now to your readers and let’s see how many people we can get participating.
May 2, 2008 243 Comments
Friday Blog Roundup
The end of a somewhat hellacious, vomit-covered week. I should have heeded the warning of the Magic 8 Ball and called in reinforcements before the vomit started flowing. I should also mention that the twins only get sick when Josh is out of town. Which means that I should have known that all hell would break loose when I saw a note on the calendar about a trip.
I am always happy to lend out the Magic 8 Ball and therefore, I asked your questions, and here are your answers:
- Nancy: Am I going to make it to transfer? Ask Again Later (which is rather appropriate considering all of the ups and downs, nu?)
- Jen: Will we make our goal for Cali? Most Likely.
- Lori: Will I ever get the freaking post done, the one I’ve been working on for eons? Outlook Not So Good (hmmm…but is it complete?)
- Kim: Wants to know if she will ever get more hours in her day. You May Rely on It (hmmm…)
- Susy: Will I be able to continue with my first IVF? Signs Point to Yes.
- Christina: Will all my IF friends will get knocked up this year? Signs Point to No.
- Kymberli: Are we going to be able to move in 4 years or under as planned? Cannot Predict Now.
So there you have it.
What would you do? This question obviously pulls in every thought you’ve ever had about getting the incorrect change back in your favour or not being charged for an item when you’re checking out at a major chain store.
I tried to take a picture of myself wearing the shirt and gave up. It is very difficult to take a picture of yourself if you are trying to show what is on the t-shirt. My arm kept covering up part of the shirt and then trying to hold the camera at a strange angle that got the shirt made me look like I was entirely comprised of boob. The irony, of course, is that Allison is privy to my long-standing quest to find the perfect bra.
Pictures and thank yous and stories from the walk coming soon.
Baby, Borneo or Bust… has a post about being terrified of becoming a parent. She writes: “Last night was one of those nights when I awoke in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, only to then be inexplicably seized by the fear that perhaps I am a fool to want to do this. Perhaps I would be messing up a perfectly good life by having a child. Perhaps I will be a terrible mother. Perhaps it won’t at all be what I thought. Perhaps I would be happier without children. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. . .” She mentions the idea of being trapped by choices and it’s a valid question–how many times in life have you hit a no-going-back point and whispered, “what have I done?” You know rationally that you’ve pushed through, but in the moment, it’s terrifying. I thought it was a brave post to write.
When One’s Only Hope Fails has a post titled “What Now?” She begins, “I’ve spent most of the last 24 hours struggling to figure out what to do next. Over the last year, a large pile of books on different topics has gradually accumulated on the floor near my side of the bed; books about surrogacy, adoption, egg donors, and remaining childless. On top of them all is a “chick lit” book to conceal them from DH (so he doesn’t realize the level of insanity his wife has reached).” This is an excellent example of that raw emotions I just wrote about. She runs through the different options, explaining the drawbacks and benefits to all of them and finally comes to the same resting place where she began; and yet, at the same time, in a completely different spot.
Losing the Baby Wait has a post saying goodbye to a series of dreams as she starts down the road to adoption. It is an extremely moving post: “I feel like it is time I let some dreams go to make room for new moments… so with you as my witnesses I am going to say goodbye to a few dreams that I have had for myself. Although we never know what the future h
olds… for now I am letting these things go so they can be replaced by new dreams that perhaps I have never even thought of.” I imagine it was hard to write; cathartic to write.
Lastly, Bullet Proof Eggs has a post that seems to span all three ideas presented in the blogs above and yet puts her own unique twist on the situation. They have decided to step back from trying-to-conceive because it is financially out of their capabilities, but she writes, “I decided to trip a walk onto the blogs I stalked previously, on a pretty much daily basis. It was like coming into a little family reunion. I know those feelings, that sadness, that longing. I know it all, all too well, and I may also know now and didn’t know before that I am going to have to start thinking in terms of a childless existence instead of believing that faith in this would handle everything for me. I had faith that it would happen. Now I have to hold onto the faith that it might not happen and that I am able to handle it.” That idea–a family reunion–and just the aching beauty of the post as a whole made me read it several times through and return to it throughout the week.
The Roundup to the Roundup: Magic 8 Ball tells it like it is, join U.T.E.R.U.S., and it’s the last chance to donate to the March of Dimes. And answer my what if question of the week. Would you call the store? Let it slide? Let it eat away at you for the next four months?
May 2, 2008 Comments Off on Friday Blog Roundup
Remembering
Updated at bottom
Just like a string of memories that pop into your head as you’re traveling on a long trip, there is no rhyme or reason to any of this.
We found this restaurant listed in a Let’s Go Guide that called it vegetarian friendly. I guess vegetarian friendliness is in the eye of the beholder because the menu was entirely comprised of ham dishes. I ordered a plate of pa amb tomaquet as my meal.
The owner was also the waiter and he brought out a dish that was like a bruschetta–chopped tomatoes and bits of garlic on top of grilled bread. I ate it, even though it wasn’t what I was expecting. Somehow, we got into a conversation with him and when he asked me what I thought of the meal, I admitted that I couldn’t find anything vegetarian on the menu and the pa amb tomaquet wasn’t how I made it at home.
The old man started laughing and he said he only made it that way because that was what Americans seemed to want when they ordered pa amb tomaquet. He went back in the kitchen and made me a few random dishes–apparently the vegetarian thing was something you told him and then he scuttled to the back kitchen to whip up something with whatever vegetables he had on hand. After he served us the second round of dinner, he pulled up a chair and we had a long discussion about tomato bread.
This is the way I make it.
I preheat the broiler. I slice open a baguette and drizzle oil on one side. I rub the other side against it to soak up the excess oil. I half a clove of garlic and rub it against the bread.
I put it under the broiler for a minute and 15 seconds–just until the edges start to brown. I take it out and rub half a tomato against the bread, leaving patches of pulp.
Serve.
Why do some unmeaningful things remain in our head forever when other important events that we want to hold onto are lost?
When someone is old when they die, they had a lifetime to accumulate all the people who will remember them after they’re gone. When someone dies before they are born or shortly after birth, it boils down to a few people–maybe only two people. Maybe only one. And then, without that person, the memory–that final string to this world–is gone.
Therefore, remembering is a responsibility.
I talk to the ChickieNob about her namesake all the time–what he liked to eat, what he liked to wear, stories he told me. He was one of my favourite people in the world and I miss him so much. She will pass along these stories during a school project somewhere far in the future. Maybe someone in her class will always remember something she said. Who knows what causes memories to become reoccurring. That classmate will be added to the list of people who are continuing to remember.
I considered writing Elie Wiesel a note about it; asking him if he had known my great-uncles. They must be about the same age. Instead, I sent Elie Wiesel a poem I wrote for a class project on the book.
Tomorrow evening begins Yom HaShoah–Holocaust Remembrance Day. Zachor, remembering, is a huge part of Judaism. Usually, when we translate, we use the English word “remember,” but remembering means so much more. It is not only mindfulness; it is action.
Zachor is a word often associated with the Holocaust and its meaning in that context is 100-fold. Remember those who have died so that those tiny strings that still tie them here remain fastened. Back in college, a person used to sit in a cage on Library Mall during Yom HaShoah and read off a list of names of those who died in the camps. The names were read all day and all night without pause. I volunteered one year, taking a shift around two in the morning. There were only two or three people standing outside the cage, but someone else was always there to hear the names.
Remembering is about thinking forward; standing up for others who are being persecuted. Begging history not to repeat itself. Taking a vocal stand against genocide.
Remembering is about gratitude that you live in a different time and place. That you dodged history’s bullet.
Sometimes we leave it on our sidebar.
This post about Yom HaShoah summarized perfectly the concept of starting points not becoming end points. Of repairing “a badly broken world.” I take these words and apply them both enormously to Yom HaShoah, and minutely to all areas of remembrance.
If we are doing our job, we are putting remembering into action by repairing a badly broken world.
If we are doing our job, we are putting remembering into action by repairing–no matter how small in scope our actions seem in the moment–a badly broken heart.
Update:
How can we take the candle, though, one step further? Make it a starting point and not the end point? As the post on Yom HaShoah points out, what happens when we use these forwards as the starting point without continuing to the next step and the next step and the next step in repairing the world (or, in this community, repairing a heart). Is the scope too large? Are these small moments all we can do when the need for repairs is so enormous? What can we do beyond the initial candle on the blog? The later loss remembrance note on the Lost & Found. The comments we leave on future posts about the loss?
April 30, 2008 Comments Off on Remembering
Barren Advice: Two
This is the second 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.
Dear Mel:
I want to keep TTC, but I need some dental work. The dental work may not be complete before my next cycle, and I definitely need it done. Should I not keep TTC?
–Queenie from Baby, Borneo or Bust
You didn’t specify what type of dental work–if it would be a one-shot deal or a multi-part surgery such as a root canal, but regardless, the answer remains the same: focus on one medical crisis at a time and take care of any problems with teeth and gums before trying-to-conceive.
If something (and teeth fall into this category) affects pregnancy or trying and you can address it and remove it from your plate, I would simply take care of it and move on. Once you become pregnant, teeth can also play a possible role in some types of loss. I say this with a slight cringe because so many times with loss, you are seeking an answer and there isn’t a clear one. Emotionally, that can be very difficult to accept and leads to many fears in future pregnancies (or can stop someone from trying again). Studies have been done that show a correlation between gum disease and preterm labour (according to the AAP, women with periodontal disease are 7 times more likely to have a preemie). Beyond that, the hormones in pregnancy–higher levels of estrogen and progesterone–can change the way your body processes bacteria and create gingivitis even if you never had dental problems prior to getting pregnant.
You can drive yourself crazy with the what ifs that arise out of each study that states or disputes a correlation between loss and another aspect of your health. I seriously wonder–even as someone who believes everyone should be a key player in the medical decision-making process–if Google Medschooling and reading all of the studies as they come out is emotionally healthy or if it simply leads to more fodder to beat yourself up with when things aren’t going as planned. Regardless, the bottom line is take a break from trying and address the dental problem simply to be done with it so you can return your focus (and give over the enormous time commitment inherent in treatments) to trying-to-conceive. And I give this advice even in the face of time and sensitivities with age and conception. When things go right, we don’t have to deal with the what ifs. But I always lean with the insurance of addressing the what ifs just in case things do go wrong.
Dear Mel:
In real life, I am very open about my infertility with family and friends. As a result, I have a lot of conversations with people about infertility. A situation has arisen recently that I’m not sure how best to approach. I’d like your input: what can I do when someone tells me something about their infertility that sounds medically incorrect? I’m not talking about something like minor variations in IVF protocols, but something that makes clear that this person isn’t understanding or isn’t being communicated with appropriately. How might I get involved, ideally without making a total ass of myself? How can I help encourage someone to take control of their infertility in real life?
–submitted anonymously
Here’s the one silver lining in being infertile in this particular situation. You can take your own experience with infertility and ask yourself what you would want to hear, keeping in mind the unique needs and desires of the other person. If the other person is extremely private and you are open about your infertility, what you would want to hear may not match what she would want to hear or vice versa. But it can be a useful barometer.
It can be painful to read or hear someone you care about stumbling around on a path when there are clear steps they could take to help themselves. Sometimes, those steps are very personal to how we view the world–we can look at someone struggling with a piece of information and think to ourselves “their life would be so much easier if they just came out with the truth rather than keeping it hidden.” Other times, the steps are a different shade of grey–a person may be making choices you would never make such as not visiting an RE after recurrent losses because they don’t wish to enter treatments. And still other times, those steps are clearly black-and-white: their RE is telling them that recurrent loss is okay and not running any tests or encouraging them to transfer 15 embryos at a time.
In the first example, I would always caution a person not to place their own opinions or what works for them on another person. We need to keep in mind that even with the people closest to us in life, we only have a small portion of information–whatever they wish to reveal to us. We can never be inside the head of another person or know how their previous life experiences are affecting this current decision. Therefore, do nothing. If you can’t stand the decisions they are making, remove yourself from those conversations.
In the middle example, the greyer situations bring about greyer answers. I always take a step back and ask myself if they are doing something physically, financially, or emotionally harmful to themselves. If the answer is no, I move these situations into the first category. If the answer for any of the three is a yes, I sit with it longer before moving it into that third category.
The third category does require attention–if not to help them than to relieve your own guilt over watching someone you love doing something harmful to themselves. How would you feel down the line if the worst case scenario happened and you could have stepped in and helped? That said, much like beauty, help is in the eye of the beholder. Meaning, you may see yourself as helpful and the other person may view your actions or words as meddlesome. There is always the chance that stepping in will create a wedge between you and the other person. That said, sometimes I would take the wedge over standing by and watching someone get hurt.
A case in point, I had a student who was cutting herself and asked me not to tell her parents. Of course, it would be irresponsible of me to know that she was hurting herself and not pass along that information to people who could help her and needed to know. The student never spoke to me again, but I’d rather take the wedge and know that I have her eternal frustration than know that I could have helped and did nothing in case the worst case scenario came about.
Often times, people share information with us because it doesn’t quite sit right with them either. Perhaps this person is sharing details with you because
they want your opinion. Or they may be sharing details out of a sense of obligation or because they simply need to vent. Regardless, weigh out which category they fall into on the spectrum and act accordingly.
A handy chart to summarize…
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. Make sure you indicate which advice you’re addressing by numbering your comment with a 1 or 2. 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.
April 29, 2008 Comments Off on Barren Advice: Two
Listen to the Magic 8 Ball
Children and body fluids mentioned…
I have a Magic 8 Ball function on my palm pilot that is never wrong. I asked if the twins would make it to term and it said, “no.” I laughed in the face of this electronic program and look what happened.
I got a new palm pilot this weekend and last night, I tested out the Magic 8 Ball to make sure the program worked with the new machine. “Will I have a good day tomorrow?” I asked the ball.
“All signs point to no,” it told me.
I did not heed the early warning of the Magic 8 Ball and that was my first mistake.
I have been up since 4 a.m. I have done a full load of vomit-covered laundry and I have another one ready to go. We have gone through several towels, pillowcases, and sheets. We have had five clothing changes. A trip to the doctor. A half-hour session on the potty trying to get a urine sample.
As we were putting on our shoes, I asked the twins, “seriously, I should have listened to the Magic 8 Ball. Could this day get any worse?”
And then I opened the door and the skies opened. And it rained from the moment I brought the kids to the car and through the evening. We changed our clothes again, this time because they were soaked from the rain.
The evening ended with a fever and an expired bottle of baby Tylenol.
I swear, I’m offering up the Magic 8 Ball. If you have a question, send it along and I’ll ask it. But you have to be prepared to hear the answer.
I asked the Magic 8 Ball if tomorrow would be a better day than today. But clever minx that she is, the program told me to “ask again later.”
*edited to add: after reading the post, I realized it wasn’t clear who was ill. We will temporarily be renaming the ChickieNob Vomiting Veronica–name that movie.
April 28, 2008 25 Comments
