Wow–I’m really floored by the great response to the book. I’m still reading through comments and I’ll put answers to questions in the Roundup on Friday. But we have something else to celebrate…

Like the sign says, The Virtual Lushary started serving invisible drinks in 2007, which makes it a year old. In fact, it turns one tomorrow on the 17th. The idea that kicked it off remains the same idea that keeps it going: that people need a space where everyone knows their name and even if it is their first time sitting down in the circle, a space is created to include them instantly.

It’s a sucky world where terrible things happen, but it’s also a wonderful world where people jump in and help one another simply by letting a person know that they’re not shouting their hopes and fears into the ether. On that note, it has been a very sad time in the blogosphere. It feels sometimes like things go in waves–we’ll have this rash of good news and then this period where you don’t even want to turn on the computer to read about the next loss. And this is my thought: I want to support all the people who are in the majority–either during a good wave or a bad wave–but I don’t want to forget the minority who are experiencing the opposite news at the same time. It’s a fine balance, walking through the bittersweet.

There are many other communities in the blogosphere and they all have their core group and a sense of cohesiveness–especially those that focus on an issue. I think what differentiates us is how close-knit and organized we are. And on that note, I read a post this week that spoke about how the person felt like they had lost this community and how this is where they drew all of their strength from while they were trying. It’s hard. We’re a community based on what we don’t have therefore, it seems to follow that once you obtain that goal, you would step into a new community. But it’s not that easy. I think because we are so close-knit and supportive, it is impossible to ask someone to build a life elsewhere simply because they have achieved the thing that brought them here in the first place. What a strange idea–it’s like prisoners who want to remain on Alcatraz! But I think you all know what I mean. You are the voices I trust now, the people who give me advice.

Which is the reason for the divided blogroll–so people can find their smaller niche within the group–but the divisions are not meant as banishment. When you move over to the pregnant or parenting categories, it is for the greater community who wants the heads up before they click on a blog but it is also for the people who have achieved that goal–so they can find one another, still draw their support from inside this group, and remain an integral part of the community. Hopefully, readers easily cross over category borders. Without the elders, information would be lost or have to be rebuilt again and again. So as we shift around at the bar, always offering a seat to whoever walks in the door, I ask that you keep doing that even if the patron walks in with a child or a pregnant belly. If they’re walking into this bar, trust that they need to be here.

January is a reflective time. I like looking forward, but I’m a sucker for looking back too. So, indulge that side of me as we celebrate a full year of imaginary drunken debauchery.

If you commented at the first Lushary, I’d like you to click here and read what you had to say one year ago this week. And then, as you update the group below on your current situation, add what was happening this time last year and how life is the same or different. If you joined along at a later bar session, the same idea holds. You can scan old sessions here and then state when you found the bar and what has changed since.

As always, it has been a less than a month since we met, bitched, cried, comforted, and caught up each other on our cycles and lives. Pull up a seat and I’ll pour you a drink. Let everyone know what is happening in your life. My only request is that if a story catches your eye, you follow it back to the person’s blog and start reading their posts. Give some love, give some support, or laugh with someone until your drink comes out of your nose.

I have a ton of assvice in my back pocket and as a virtual bartender, I will give it to you unless you specifically tell me that this is simply a vent and you do not want to receive anything more than a hug.

So if you have been a lurker for a while, sit down and tell us about yourself. Remember to provide a link or a way for people to continue reading your story (or if you don’t have a blog–gasp!–you can always leave an email address if you’re looking for advice or support. If not, people can leave messages for that person here in the comments section too). If you’re a regular at the bar, I’ll get out your engraved martini glass while you make yourself comfortable. And anyone new, welcome. I’m glad you found this virtual bar.

For those who have no clue what I’m talking about when I say that the bar is open, click here to catch up and then jump into the conversation.

Happy Drinking. Raising a glass to another year of imaginary drinks!

Oh…and check BlogHer tomorrow morning for another new post about our corner of the blogosphere.

I’d like to preface this post by telling you that I’m not pregnant since I know that’s where your mind will go. As well it should. You know I’m trying and I know that you’re trying and we’re both going to hopefully have that kind of announcement to make one day. But this isn’t that announcement.

I am really good at telling people other people’s good news. For instance, if you happen to be related to me and you happen to be getting married, I may have gleefully shared that with the hairdresser this weekend when she asked me what was happening in my life. I love writing the Lost and Found every day, not just for the knowledge that it helps people get the support they need but because I love sharing the happy stories. I am a glutton for a good story.

But my own news? I sort of did okay with the engagement announcement but I sucked at telling people I was pregnant when I was carrying the twins. Most of the time, I didn’t tell people at all. I did actually try to keep the pregnancy hidden until I was five months along, and even then, I never made a formal announcement. I just stopped wearing my winter coat and everyone said, “oh…” and that was that.

It’s not that I wasn’t happy; but I think when happiness comes at the end of a dark path where you’ve been dodging and weaving for so long that you walk tentatively. I really couldn’t shout about it because I was too busy holding my breath and beyond that, I knew how it felt to be on the receiving end of a crowing session. When you’re not in a good space yourself, they suck. I mean, you’re happy for the other person, but you’re sad for yourself and even though most people can grasp that intellectually, when they are in a moment of bliss, they seem to forget this life lesson, this strange dichotomy where you can be simultaneously as happy as can be and as sad as can be at the same time.

I’m just really no good at telling news. As a case in point, I’ve started this post three times and now I am filling it with a long explanation instead of actually getting to the point.

I sold the book*. It will be on bookshelves in Spring 2009 (so a little more than a year from now).

I got the call during Chanukkah and I’ve been sitting on it a bit until details were worked out, but it feels safe to tell you. As safe as it ever can. Because, like pregnancy, publishing has not been an easy road for me and you always walk tentatively.

Can I just have a waaah waaah waaah part to this story? While my MFA classmates were publishing, I was trying. They were at conferences; I was at the clinic. I don’t regret my choice for a minute–if I had never published, but I had given trying to get to motherhood my all, I would have still felt like I had fought the good fight and put my hat in the correct ring. It doesn’t mean that I wish I hadn’t had to make a choice. I wish I hadn’t sunk into a two year depression where I didn’t type a single word. That sort of sucked.

Starting this blog was my concession to Josh to try to stave off that depression again this go-around. I love my therapist and I would return to her in a heart beat. But blogging is like self-guided therapy with questions or statements coming in the comments that can be done without the hour-long drive in traffic to the therapist’s office. That doesn’t need to be scheduled. I didn’t always have something to say when I showed up at my appointment, but here I can sit down at the computer precisely when I have something to say. I think even if no one read the words, it would still be helpful to get them out, see them in print, consider them from different angles.

Free therapy is just one of the many reasons I blog.

And, for me, it has worked. I may be bobbing in infertility, but I’m not drowning in infertility. Some of that is probably also the ChickieNob and Wolvog–secondary IF, for me, is different from primary (though, to quote Smarshy, just a different bag of ass). But I think that if I hadn’t started writing the blog, I would have stopped writing the book. That is what happened last time. Life simply stopped. I stopped writing, and, for me, when I stopped writing, I stopped thinking. My thoughts for two years became an endless loop about parenthood.

I know I’m lucky–you don’t have to tell me. I am well aware of all the things that aligned to bring me here. I’d like to think that it wasn’t just dumb luck–that I put in the work and then luck carried me through the rest of the way. But I’m also aware that the way you look at things also depends on where you stand. So…I understand other responses too.

Unlike graduate school and marriage (which for me were straight-forward and semi-easy in comparison to others), publishing a book has followed a path similar to conception where my classmates got to do the 100-yard dash and I was assigned the marathon. Actually, it was more like I was assigned a marathon where observers kept throwing cats at me. I was going to say crickets, but it wasn’t scary. It was just annoying and frustrating and confusing–as I’m sure it would be to have cats thrown at you as you’re running a race. I’ve published articles and online pieces, but this is my first book. Not the first one I’ve written, but the first one that will be sold at a bookstore.

I didn’t conceive and carry a child alone, so it seems fitting that several hundred people also helped out with the conception of an infertility book. Without you, I wouldn’t be writing because I’d be on the kitchen floor crying. Without you, the book would have a single point-of-view. Thank you.

I wrote these next two paragraphs a few weeks ago–on the night when I received the phone call from my agent–and though they are maudlin beyond words, I wanted to include something I was feeling that night. Because I didn’t cry until I started writing about it on my blog–which is a case in point about how powerful blogging can be, emotion-wise, and how important you all are to me.

This book is ours. There. Finally. The tears. I knew they were in there. I didn’t cry when I got the call and I didn’t cry when I told Josh or my parents or my siblings–all people who sat with me through so many years of plugging away at publishing. But I cried when I just wrote that sentence. We have a lot of work to do. We have a lot of chapters to write. We have a chance to get our voice out there–not only to each other, but to the non-IF world too. To REs who may read it or mothers who may pick up a copy to understand.

I may not be pregnant, I may not be ovulating anymore, I may be going back to the clinic in a few days, I may be doing the exact same thing I was doing four years ago. But this time, I’m in a better place. And I’m about to have a book published. And that is sort of blowing my mind at this moment. So thank you. For letting me get out all of the words that have been inside of me for the last year and a half. And please don’t leave me now because I now need to collected interviews for at least 8 other chapters.

Let me repeat that last part again in case you missed that because it was indented. This blog has been around for a year and a half, but it sort of feels like it’s just getting started. There are many more emotions that need to come out on my end and there are many more connections that need to be made and there are interviews to collect and voices to be heard. And though I may be shitty with email for a bit, I promise not to leave you if you won’t leave me since we’re both still running the race. With cats thrown at our heads for good measure.

*For those who are saying to themselves, “what book?” since they started reading this blog after my last call for interviews, I’ve been writing an infertility and pregnancy loss book. Every so often, when I start a new chapter, I do a call for interviews on the blog. And I hope you’ll add your voice to the book if you fit the chapter. I cannot even tell
you how cool it is to read through a chapter and think “oh, so-and-so said that!” or “this is a quote from this blogger.” Though most are posting anonymously within the text. So…that’s the book.

P.S. (can you have a P.S. to a blog post?): send any questions my way; I’ll answer them in a post because I also have some good stories to already share about the process.

I always thought that when I grew up, I would become less fearful. Adults always looked like they had their shit together whereas I was afraid of not only real things–the possibility of strangers hiding behind one of the emaciated trees on my way to school–but unreal things too–what if aliens had somehow replaced my father with a replica of my father when he went into CVS and the person getting back in the car is really an alien who is going to yank my still-beating heart straight through my chest wall?

The night before my injections class, I was giving myself a pep talk that I learned from watching The State. Captain Monteray Jack was lecturing on something and during the Q & A session, and one of the students asks a “what if” question and Captain Monteray Jack responds, “what if my nose falls off and I can’t smell? What if my pants fall off an everyone’s looking at my weiner? You deal or you die.”

I take sound advice wherever I can find it.

I tucked in the ChickieNob and Wolvog and came into the kitchen just in time to catch a black blur whizz into the living room. I took a different route into the room, jumping up on the sofa to survey the area. When I didn’t see anything after a minute or two, I placed one foot tentatively on the floor and a mouse ran out from under the side table and skittered down the tiled hallway, darting behind the purse I left by the front door.

I screamed and screamed.

I called Josh and left a frantic message on his cell phone even though he was an hour away and wasn’t going to be able to help me. I would have called our neighbour, but I couldn’t bring myself to go into the kitchen to get his phone number nor was I going to be able to bring myself to walk towards the front door knowing the mouse was somewhere in that vicinity. So I called my mommy and daddy.

“Dad, I just saw a mouse,” was all I gasped into the phone before I heard him sigh and say, “I’m getting in the car.”

I spent the next hour waiting for him on top of the sofa, too scared to step down.

I’ve never been a particularly daring person, but I really couldn’t wrap my mind around my reaction to this mouse. I stood on the sofa, trying to talk myself out of it. I had been thinking about getting a hamster for some time–what’s the difference? In college, I would let my friend’s pet rat climb up my arm, pretending I was the drug dealer from that 21 Jump Street episode where Johnny Depp infiltrated the teen drug center, moaning to anyone who entered the apartment, “I’ve got rats.” In Milan, I stood in front of the duomo and let a man fill my hand with dried corn so that dozens of pigeons descended on me, covering my coat as if they were giving it the gift of flight. And what are pigeons except rats with wings? I never thought I’d react this way to a mouse. And as I write this, I am still twisting around in my chair to survey the room every minute or two. Glue traps are everywhere and the wall has been sealed with steel wool. But we still haven’t caught him if he’s still in the house.

I am having the same bashfulness over my fear of needles. I get blood drawn all the time and it’s nothing. I don’t stress about it beforehand. I just go and do it. What’s the difference between a blood draw and a Follistim injection? What’s the difference between a pet hamster and a mouse intruder? I can see my reactions are irrational and yet I still can’t do anything about it.

The class contained three other couples. We learned how to draw the medication into the needle together and then were taken one by one out into a separate room to give ourselves the injection in front of the nurse. She asked me to go last so she could check on my medication order since it changed due to my higher FSH. When we were the final couple in the room, I was murmuring quietly to Josh and looking out the window and I may have had a tear or two escape as I explained how stressed I was between the mouse and treatments and work. The nurse returned to the room for a moment and looked at me incredulously. “Are you crying?” she asked in a tone that conveyed that it was not okay to be crying.

“Yes,” I answered, wiping my face quickly.

She closed the door and went back to the other couple.

When she returned, she briskly went through my instructions and decided I didn’t need to do the saline injection because I had already done this before and knew what to do. It was like getting a pardon from the governor. I breathed a huge sigh of relief that I could just do my injection at home in my usual wussy way with my ice cube. What’s the difference? I get through it and if I believe it takes the pain away, why not do it?

As we were packing up, I told her about the mouse as an explanation for the earlier tears–see, too scared to even admit my real fear–and she confided in me that she was worried that I was crying over the injections. Sometimes, she confided, people were such babies about it. But I had been through treatments before and a vaginal delivery of twins so she knew “I was made of tougher stuff.”

Except I’m not.

I’m the patient you just described–the baby who was so worried about starting back up with injections that she threw up this morning (to be fair, my usual response to stress is to vomit. I’m like Stan on South Park. When I developed hyperemisis gravidum with the pregnancy, I really wasn’t sure at first if it was intense morning sickness or my pregnancy anxieties coming back up through my mouth). Who cried a little bit about putting a needle into my stomach even though a needle in my arm barely bothers me. Who stood on a sofa for an hour last night because she saw a mouse.

It feels like as I age, I become more fearful. Fearful of the real things–what I could lose, the worst that could happen–and the unreal things–killer mice who will attack me right when I’m getting into a blog post or nurses who remind me that if you want a baby, you deal or you die.

These are the things I learned this week:

Autologous means using your own cells. I know this because I saw it written on my file at the RE’s and didn’t know if it meant “asks waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too many questions and is highly emotional.” Turns out it’s a bit more medically-descriptive. Who knew. Donor gamete files I assume are tagged allogeneic which means using cells from another individual. Didn’t actually know that word prior to this week either, but it was given as the antonym when I looked up autologous.

Smores and talented bloggers are a good mix. Last weekend, the DC Stirrup Queens got together and we were joined by Lori from Weebles Wobblog AND Beagle from Fortune Cookie Follies. Online support is wonderful–you can grab it at any hour of the day and from any place in the world–but there’s something to be said for ten or so women getting together over cups of coffee and smores. Especially when you’ve been reading their story online for so long. In D.C., we do so at least once a month, though sometimes more.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Lost and Found and I think the bottom post–the actual “lost and found”–isn’t really as helpful (since most of that information ends up in the daily post) as starting a new section of Connections Abound. Everyone talks about our D.C. group and how lucky we are–and we are. We are incredibly lucky that Lindsay drew us all together last summer and we’ve been meeting ever since. That said, if you live in a major city or are willing to drive an hour or two once a month, chances are you could draw a group together too (of course, this isn’t always possible, but it never hurts to try). So I am going to start a new post that will always be up on the front page of the Lost and Found that has a listing of said groups. If you are willing to be a point person for your area, send me an email with this information: your area (either a city: London or a larger span: the North Carolina “triangle” of Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill), your name (blogging name is fine), your email, your blog name, and blog url.

A word of advice: I think any time you’re meeting face-to-face you should exercise caution. Therefore, these groups would be open to other bloggers with established blogs. And I’m going to list a bunch of information they should provide when contacting you. If there are things you’d want to know, let me know so I can work it into the form they should use when contacting you about the group. It will probably take me a few days to create the list and get it up on the Lost and Found site, but hopefully it will help people connect with one another.

It pays to have talented friends. During coffee, Beagle gave me one of her gorgeous pomegranate necklaces which I have worn ever since with the exception of bedtime and to take this photograph (do you like the shmancy background? It’s the pleather of my planner). Thank you, Beagle!

If you are jealous, as well you should be, you could get one for yourself here. Every once in a while, she sells out of them and you need to wait for her to make more, but if you lean on her hard, you could probably get her to allow you to preorder one or get on a waiting list (there’s a space on the etsy that says “contact”). It’s really worth it because it’s a gorgeous, versatile piece of jewelry. Beyond that, it is the perfect gift and while I think others should give it to YOU, you could also get it for a friend or partner or mother or sister.

The Creme de la Creme is still trickling along. More posts will go up soon. I got bogged down with work, but I still have about 15 posts or so that need to go up. I will update the icon when they’re posted. And sorry that I’ve been 10 kinds of suckage about email.

And now the blogs…

This was the week of heavy thinking. All four of these posts made me look at words or ideas in an entirely new way.

Loribeth at the Road Less Travelled had a post this week called “Who Knew” about the use of the word “childless.” She writes about the times people use it to mean that they have babysitting: “MIL took the kids, so we’re childless for the weekend, woohoo!” And she juxtaposes this usage with her permanent state of childlessness, the loss of her child and the way this word can cut for those who are childless, but not by choice and not with a joyous heart. She writes: “Good grief — we’re already sharing the ‘childfree’ label with the childfree (by choice) crowd (and being lumped together with them by fertiles who don’t know there’s a difference) — now we have to share ‘childless’ with people who actually do have kids, but think that not having them (once in awhile, anyway) is a peachy-keen thing.”

A Uterus Divided wrote about the word “real” and specifically about the way none of us are above misusing a word from time to time. Her example comes from the fantastic New York Times article this week and the use of the term “real babies” to mean “living babies.” She writes eloquently, “So even a woman who has suffered loss and IF herself can mis-step. With just a slight slip of the tongue or keyboard, a single word reveals the pervasive notion of what is real and what is not. And who gets to decide?“

Jennifer at Our Little Penguin had a post about the recurrent conversations that occur after a loss and how asking questions or sharing stories isn’t always helpful. The needs of each person after a loss are unique. She explains, “I’m grateful for everyone who cares about me, my family, and my dead baby. But please. Does anyone have a clue how hard it is to go over the same story over and over again? Ok, that was a dumb question to the audience in this forum. But why can’t they just see the pain in my face when they start talking about it, or the tears that well up when they talk about the details they’ve ‘heard’ thru the grapevine.” And moreover, she explains why she doesn’t want to be the m
agnet for everyone else’s sad tale because misery does not always love company nor does it help to lessen her pain.

Lastly, DD at TKO…more or less will make you look at freebies in an entirely new way with her post on filling out promotion cards. She filled out these cards when she was pregnant with Vivienne and she writes: “A week later I encountered the spotting. Vivienne was dead and probably had been as I was doling out her due date to a stranger who couldn’t care less. After my D&C, I was horrified when promotional items showed up in the mail. Not just that, but I had signed up on a website for weekly pregnancy updates and every time I sat down to the computer, I would get a ‘Your baby is now 17 weeks old!‘” There’s plenty of time for freebies in the future, but DD is trying to save people heartache with this post so please read it.

The wrap-up to the roundup: if you want to be the point person for a face-to-face group, send me your info and I’ll add it to the new page I’m making. Get yourself a gorgeous necklace from Beagle because you deserve it. And autologous means your own cells. Have a wonderful weekend.

Updated at the bottom:

It really takes a lot to make me speechless, but I don’t really have words to describe how I felt when I read this blurb from the Tyra Banks Show:

DO YOU KNOW A WOMAN OBSESSED WITH BECOMING PREGNANT?

Do you know a woman who is obsessed with becoming a mom? Have you seen and heard her struggle for years, felt her unvoiced jealously and seen her desperation first hand? Have you watched silently for too long as she gets her hopes up only to be disappointed and heartbroken when she can’t conceive? Has she tried extreme methods and spent a lot of money to get pregnant with no luck? Do you want to finally tell her she needs to stop the emotional and physical stress on her body and seriously consider adoption or a surrogate alternative? If you know a woman who is obsessed with becoming a mom and getting pregnant, then submit below.

This is juxtaposed with the call for participants sent out via Resolve this week (and is Resolve aware of what they just asked their members to become a part of?):

The producers of the Tyra Banks Show are looking for women and men in the New York City area to share their experiences coping with infertility on an upcoming show. They are interested in hearing from both couples and women and men individually on how you’ve dealt with the emotional ups and downs of infertility and found inspiration to keep trying. The show will be taped on January 10 in New York City. If you’re interested in sharing your story, please contact [contact information removed by Melissa].

Same show or are the producers at the Tyra Banks show holding dueling infertility episodes?

I’d like an explanation and an apology, but rather than ask directly for one that will never be forthcoming from the insensitive and outrageous producers of the Tyra Banks show who feed on the emotions of others, I’m simply voting with my remote control. And spreading word on the garbage you may want to avoid, soon coming over the airways.

Update:

I wrote Resolve last night and got a quick and comforting response back from them. They were just as floored by this and were misled by producers who asked for their help in spreading the word. They’re addressing it with the Tyra Banks Show. I think, for me, the show’s actions mean little and knowing Resolve has my back means the world.

If you haven’t done so yet, go read NYCPhoenix’s write up at Forever Reaching. She was in the audience and spoke during the episode.