Edited at bottom:

I have this low brick wall about the first injections. It’s easy enough to scale–I know I’ll get over it with a little shimmy and maybe some skinned knees–but it’s there, an obstacle between myself, needle-free, and myself, injected, that needs to be overcome. I am a needlephobe. I remember one time that I had to have a TB test and my mother didn’t tell me where we were going until the car was barreling full-speed towards the doctor’s office with me gripping the child-safety-locked door handle in terror. I am the sort to bolt from the car and run willy nilly away at a traffic light. I mean, when I’m a passenger. Not as a driver. That would be crazy.

Needles were the worst part of treatments the first time around (beyond all the negatives. Oh, and the night of the exploding follicle) and I knew needles would be my biggest challenge this time around. I’ve never been the sort who can casually give myself a shot of Follistim as I chat on the phone. I’m more of the gasping-my-way-through-the-injection sort. And I’m not ashamed to admit it. It doesn’t matter how many I do–I never get casual about it. Because I am a big wuss.

My clinic makes you take an injections class if you’ve been away from treatments for a while (or if it’s your first time through). Josh has to come along too and if he choose to forgo the class, he needs to get a notarized document admitting his decision to leave me high-and-dry in needleland as well as his promise not to inject me with any of the substances we are picking up from the pharmacy. We’ve used a notary before–wills, important government documents; he works at our bank. We couldn’t really wrap our minds around the idea of sauntering into the bank in our little town and saying to Bill, “hey, sweetie, let me tell you a little bit about my wonky hoohaahooterus so you can notarize this paper for us.” So Josh is coming too.

I received a phone call from my clinic reminding me about said class with a few instructions including the advice to eat a light lunch because I would be injecting myself with saline solution and this makes “some women queasy.” Suddenly, it felt like the bricklayers had added a dozen new layers to my wall. I was going to have to start injections–even if they’re just saline solution, they still involve a needle–earlier than I thought AND I was going to have to give said injection in front of all the other couples. Therefore, I won’t be able to do my usual ten minute song and dance with an ice cube, eye closing, and gasping. I’m going to have to suck it up. And pretend I’m normal.

I don’t know–giving myself an injection in front of an audience (even an audience who are all self-injecting at the same time) is sort of like asking me to take a dump with the door open. While smiling.

Speaking of taking a dump, can I share the thing I think about every single time I do an injection? There are a plethora of chiasms in the Bible. A chiasm is an inverted story and the term comes from the Greek letter, chi, which looks like an X. Get it? The story is going one way, there’s a turning point, and the rest of the story continues as an inverse of the first part. Do you remember the bomb episodes in season two of Grey’s Anatomy? It starts out with George having a dream where he sees all three girls in the shower and it’s really sexy and then it ends with George actually seeing all three girls in the shower, washing the blood off Meredith after the bomb goes off and it’s decidedly not sexy. Well, if you went through those two episodes, with the turning point being the moment Meredith placed her hand in the body, you’d see the story move as an inverse on itself.

The literary term is only important because it is the reason I wrote a paper in graduate school on the chiasm that exists in Judges 3. The chiasm occurs during the murder of Eglon by Ehud. Eglon, the king, is this fat man, sitting upstairs in a room that could also serve as a bathroom. Ehud asks for a private audience with the king because he has a secret message (apparently, in Biblical times, you could say you had a secret message and everyone just cleared out of the room). Why he asks for this audience where the king defecates or why it is granted sort of seems beside the point to the modern reader. We just accept on face-value that the king’s messengers believed that the king liked a chit chat while he shat.

Ehud’s secret message turned out to be a dagger in the stomach. The king, who wasn’t shitting beforehand was certainly covered in excrement as the dagger disappeared into all of his rolls of fat (apparently–and I’m not making this up because I delivered a lecture on this at university and everyone discussed this with a straight face–if you push a knife far enough into the belly, the anal sphincter will explode). The king’s men have no clue that a murder has taken place and don’t try to open the door because they smell the excrement and see the locked door and assume that the king is holding an audience for one in the bathroom (talk about multi-tasking). Ehud gets away and rallies the troops before the Moabites realize their leader is dead. And beyond that, the dagger is buried deeply in the body so they can’t figure out how their leader died (the enormous amount of blood pouring from his stomach would have been a tip-off for me, but I’ve watched many crime shows).

There is a point to all of this. That dagger entering Eglon’s stomach and the explosive shitting runs through my mind every single time I have that needle in my stomach up to the hilt. I don’t think about this as I have blood drawn, but there’s something about a sharp object and my stomach that makes me think about poor Eglon and wonder how far is “far enough.”

Not because I believe that a sub-cue needle has the ability to make my sphincter explode, but because grad school ruined me and my ability to give myself injections in peace. Or, perhaps, it’s just the potty-humourous image I need in order to scale that wall.

On a totally unrelated to feces or needles side note, I am starting to write an infertility column for BlogHer that will run every Thursday starting tomorrow. It will be somewhat similar to the Friday Blog Roundup (which I’ll still write every Friday here–there will just be two separate roundups now–more bloggy goodness) without my incessant ramblings yet with discussion of current articles and issues thrown into the mix. And sometimes I’ll just talk about some aspect of infertility or pregnancy loss. I see this not only as an opportunity to introduce the greater BlogHer community to infertility and loss blogs but also as a chance to use Microsoft Paint yet again so I can have a linky icon on my sidebar that takes you directly to the column each Thursday. So mark your calendars and check it out tomorrow. And hopefully you won’t mind if I tell the world how great you all are.

Edited:

It’s up…the first BlogHer post, that is…I also created an icon for the sidebar (glance to the right and maybe scroll up or down a bit) that is linked to the current post. Every Thursday, I’ll change the link so it goes to the current column
. Hope you enjoy the new column and that I do well by our community. Thank you for all of the well-wishes. Now I have to go read blogs–double the roundups means that I get to read double the posts!

Darci is holding an online discussion at the Bean Bag Chairs Behind the Couch (one of our two online chat room) Wednesday night at 8 p.m. (American EST). Everyone is welcome to join along and ask questions–even if you haven’t yet read her book, To Full Term.

Because she rocks and because she cares, Darci Klein agreed to sit down and talk to us about her book To Full Term and the boatload of research she did on pregnancy loss and preterm labour as a fellow stirrup queen. Her book is sort of like the most detailed Operation Heads Up entry in the world all the while addressing the emotional side of loss and pregnancy after loss.

Darci’s first child was born prematurely and spent seven weeks in the NICU. She then had two miscarriages and delivered twins at 20 weeks gestation. When she became pregnant again, she was armed with a ton of research that she completed as a layperson. Through self-assertiveness, good doctors, and a lot of luck, Darci brought her son, who is the focus of this book, to full term.

It is a story with a happy ending. While all the precautions and tests in the world are not enough sometimes, it is the flip side that worries Darci–the lack of knowledge that comes from not running simple tests and blood work until too many pregnancies have been lost. Darci advocates for testing and precautionary measures taken after certain types of pregnancy loss. The main purpose of the book is not only to provide the reader with a breadth of knowledge about loss and preterm labour–the book covers not only the emotional side, but how loss affects marriage, family, and home life–but to give readers enough knowledge to press their doctors for certain tests and procedures.

I sat down…well, okay, this is the online life so I sent Darci some questions and she sent back answers…but can we pretend that we sat down at two barstools in the Virtual Lushary? Here’s what Darci had to say about her book and preventing pregnancy loss:

Melissa: At what point did you realize that you should write a book? When did you begin writing it–in your head or on paper? When you were pregnant with Sam? After the delivery?

Darci: I decided to write the book when I realized how many women out there had stories just like mine, and how many others might be spared membership to the club if I shared what I’ve learned. The book started when Sam had just turned one. I finally had a little bit of spare time, so I signed up for a writing workshop called ‘Moms Who Write.’ We were 8 suburban Boston moms who met on Saturdays to share anything we’d written- short stories, essays, chapters, whatever. I wrote the first chapter of the book as an assignment. When the rest of the group read my piece, they began sharing their own stories of loss. Some cried. We all spoke supportively to each other. That’s when I knew I needed to write the book.

Melissa: Was it difficult for you to write about it, even knowing that the story had a happy ending?

Darci: It was difficult, but ultimately cathartic. There were weeks when I stumbled around muttering to myself. When it was done, my head was quiet.

Melissa: At a few points in the book, you discuss how pregnancy loss can strain a marriage. Was it cathartic or helpful to have your husband read your point-of-view in the book? What advice could you give others going through pregnancy loss right now in regards to protecting a marriage and getting support from a spouse?

Darci: Hmmm….my husband wouldn’t read it for some time. When he did, I only had the first half written- when things were the most tense between us. That was really no place to stop reading. He was clearly upset. But you know what? He was great about it. He said he had a much better understanding of the cumulative effect of all of this- years of loss and recovery, when I often felt isolated in my grief, and shaky about my confidence in myself. He was incredibly supportive, and that’s really all I ever needed from him- to know he really understood. So yes, it was cathartic for both of us to read.

See a therapist, or a rabbi or clergyman. Someone who can help you both sort through this. Tell each other what you’re experiencing, and realize that there’s no one right way to respond to loss. In my case, my husband didn’t really show his grief for long- and I assumed it wasn’t there. Big mistake. I should have asked, not judged. We could have avoided a lot of resentment.

Melissa: What advice can you give women about explaining pregnancy loss to children? How did you broach the topic with your daughter and what did you learn from that experience?

Darci: If they’re old enough to realize you were pregnant, you need to tell them about the loss in age appropriate terms, encourage them to talk about it with you, and address their fears.

Maddie was four when we lost the twins. I was twenty weeks, and we had told told her about them. It was so painful that I considered saying nothing to her, but a therapist told me that at four, she knew there was a loss, and if I didn’t give her an explanation for it, she’d create one in her own mind- possibly a scary, scarring one. We did tell her about the loss, and she cried with an anguish I never knew possible for a child to feel. She then continued to ask me, almost daily for months, ‘why did the babies die.’ After a year had passed, she asked less frequently. It was hard, but this is what she needed to work through it.

Melissa: You focus a lot on your particular thrombophilia–Leiden V. Was the tight focus an editorial decision or simply a case of “writing what you know” (since it was, after all, your story)? Does a lot of the same information apply to other inherited thrombophilia?

Darci: I focused on Factor V Leiden because it was relevant to me, and what I know best. Also, it affects so many women- about 6% of the population- and the evidence linking Factor V Leiden to recurrent loss seems exceptionally strong. To date, seven inherited thrombophilias- gene mutations thought to cause abnormal blood clotting- have been identified. Studies have shown that women who carry these mutations have more losses that women who don’t carry them, but the strength of the association v
aries by mutation. In the case of Factor V Leiden, every study I’ve looked at consistently shows that women with this specific mutation are more likely to have losses. With other mutations, the data seems less consistent. Still, some doctors will treat when any of these mutations are present, other treat only specific mutations, and some doctors will treat none of them. These decisions usually occur with no input from the women who have to live the outcomes of these medical decisions. I think that should change. Women should have a voice in their own health care.

It’s back and better than ever with a brand-new icon. The Barren Bitches (and Man-Pie) Book Brigade has started spinning; meaning, we’re now going to switch off between books that contain IF/adoption/pg loss and books that are a complete distraction–from chicklit to mysteries to good old-fashioned literature.

Here is the master list for the ninth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade. What is the Barren Bitches Book Brigade? It’s a book club from the comfort of your own living room. The book club is conducted entirely online and open to anyone (male or female) in the infertility/pregnancy loss/assisted conception/adoption/parenting-after-infertility world (as well as any other related category I inadvertently left off the list). It is called a book tour because everyone reads the same book and then poses a question to the group. Participants choose a few questions to answer and then post their response on their blog. Readers can jump from blog to blog, commenting along the way. We read both fiction and non-fiction.

Anyone can jump aboard–it’s a book club where you can drop in and out as you wish and all in the community are welcome.

Book: The Jane Austen Book Club*
Author: Karen Joy Fowler
Start Date: December 13
Question Due: January 16
Question List Sent Out: January 17
Post Dates: January 22 and 23
(need an explanation of how a book tour works? Click here to go to a list of posts on the past book tours as well as information about future tours.)
*with author participation!

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (The blogs below are participating on this current book tour. On January 22nd, you’ll be able to jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on The Jane Austen Book Club. I will keep adding to this list until 11 p.m. on January 16. The list is currently open)

Stirrup Queens and Sperm Palace Jesters
The Annex
Slaying, Blogging, Whatever…
Beaten But Not Bowed
Road Blocks and Rollercoasters
The Road Less Travelled
The Open Door
The Duchess
Sticky Bean
The World According to Monica
The Conceivable Future
Coming2Terms
The Dunn Family
No Swimmers in the Tubes
Sell Crazy Someplace Else
Our Box of Rain
The Infertile Long and Winding Road
Desperate to Multiply
I Am My Own Person
Best Laid Plans
All Things Deb

Not on the list and want to join? Drop me an email at thetowncriers@gmail.com. You can add yourself up until 11 p.m. on January 16th.

How the book tour works:

(1) leave a comment or send me an email (thetowncriers@gmail.com) saying that you’re interested in participating. I need your blog name, blog url, and email address.

(2) read The Jane Austen Book Club by January 16th (or at least enough of it in order to ask a question to the group).

(3) create a single question that would kick off a discussion (in other words, any question that leads to more than a “yes” or “no” answer where someone can express their opinion) and mail it to me on January 16th (or any time beforehand). I will send you a reminder email close to the date. Click here to see sample questions from tour #4.

(4) the author, Karen Joy Fowler, is open to answering any questions and reading along. Please send me any questions you have for her by January 16th.

(5) on January 17th, I will send you a list of possible questions. Everyone will choose 3 questions off the list and answer them in a blog entry. You will find out if you are posting on January 22nd or 23rd (you can choose).

(6) on January 22nd, people will begin to post their entry. Each day, I will post a linked list of all the people putting up their entry that day so people can go around and read the entries and comment (start a discussion back and forth in the comments section). Reading the entries and commenting on the posts is the best part of the tour–by the end of the week, you should have a comment from every participant (and maybe even a few new permanent blog readers).

I don’t really know how to begin this post.

I’ve started it twenty different ways in my head and none sound quite right.

AMS from Our Own Creation gave birth on Thursday to her twins, Zoe Harper and Lennox Maximilian, at a little over 24 weeks gestation. Lennox died on Saturday in his mother’s arms while holding his father’s finger. I don’t think the word heartbroken can truly sum up where this family is right now.

She turned off her comments on her blog but she gave me permission to collect letters from you–emails to read at a later date when she is ready. I would like to actually collect two types of messages–those for AMS and her husband and those directed at Lennox for Zoe to read when she is older. She has, as AMS writes, lost her first friend.

I think one of the most difficult parts of neonatal death and pregnancy loss in general is that people don’t hold hundreds of memories of the person you are missing. You knew your child–you felt your child or sensed your child and loved your child. But unlike an adult who has held his own relationships with others, your child is remembered solely through you. And that is a very heavy burden to carry–a small group of people: a mother, a father, grandparents, aunts, and uncles–being the only ones who remember that a person was really here. Was really loved.

Therefore, I am going to ask you a favour. Help them carry that burden by writing your letter to AMS but also writing your memories of Lennox in-utero and all of the excitement his parents felt and all they went through to conceive him. I think this could be helpful for Zoe later on and for AMS and her husband now. To know that there are other people out there–even if they are not people they intimately know–who are helping carry this memory. Personally, I think this is a small thing we can do for each other–for fellow bloggers who share a huge part of their heart online–whenever there is a deep loss. We can help them carry a memory.

If it’s a brief note, you can leave a comment on this post. It would be inappropriate to offer advice or any cheering up–they simply need support right now. They are in the moment with Zoe and Lennox–their concentration today is not on the future. If you have a longer note or a private note (that you don’t mind me seeing), email it to me. I will compile all the messages and send them along to her since comments are turned off of her blog at this time.

Thank you in advance for stepping in and helping my friend and your friend, AMS. There is no way to make this any easier for them. Words lack the ability to change time and events. But barring the ability to hug her right now, I want her to know that the world is thinking of them: AMS, her husband, Zoe, and Lennox.

If you’re here for the Creme de la Creme, it’s the post below this one. I also have a hotlinked icon in the top left corner of the blog with the date and time of the last update. Entries are still coming in and the list will continue to be updated as new ones are added. Check back frequently…

January was named for Janus, the goddess who could see her own belly and ass at the same time. The 2007 Creme de la Creme was certainly looking backwards and I’m still working on that part. New links are being added so I placed a hotlinked icon (click on the picture and it takes you to the post) with the date and time of the last update in the top left corner of the blog. I have about 15 right now that need to go up this weekend and I suspect more will trickle in over the month. So keep glancing up there and checking the list when I add new links. We have almost doubled last year’s participation. We had 77 last year and we’re in the 140s this year. If we double again next year, I’ll have to start in November…

The looking forward is a new thing I’d like to do 4 times a year: January 15th, April 15th, July 15th, and October 15th. Or thereabouts. The idea is like giving the blogroll a Brazilian–a complete clean up from top to bottom so that people are in their correct category. Of course, a week after we finish, it will start to get messed up again, but just because the hair grows back doesn’t mean that you forgo the Brazilian (who am I kidding? I’ve never gotten a Brazilian. I couldn’t even pull it together to shave for the sonohystogram).

It’s a Blogroll Lap?

A Blogroll HSG?

Clean out the tubes?

This is how it would work: you would sign up to participate. I would randomly assign you a category (this is easier than people choosing categories–and you only have to click through the category one time). Between January 10–14th, you would click down your category and keep track if someone is pregnant, if they still belong in that category, or if they would fit somewhere better. You would send back an email listing where people should go (and I’d give you guidelines beforehand to determine who should be in each category), I’d make the changes, and I’d upload a new copy of the blogroll by January 15th. Then I would publicly thank you and gush about you and generally love you.

I’m calling these blogroll trimmings a Quarterly Sweeping. So if you would like to help (and gain my eternal gratitude) with the January Quarterly Sweeping, send an email or leave a comment below before January 9th. On January 9th, I’ll send you your category from the blogroll so everyone can work at the same time.

And now, if you’re not completely blogged out from the Creme de la Creme, some more great posts:

This post by Calliope at Creating Motherhood sent chills down my arms. This post was so honest, aching with the truth. And this post made me want to scream with her at the unfairness of it all. Over the course of a single week, my heart exploded with excitement for her and then closed like a tightening fist. And I can only imagine how Cali is feeling right now. But my thoughts go out to her.

Melanie at How to Get From 0 to Pregnant in 365 Easy Steps had a post this week about a phone call from Planned Parenthood. Nowhere else in my life have I experienced such a scorching case of double think than with reproductive rights and infertility. And I just thought that Melanie touched upon something that I had been unable to verbalize too–how those conflicting beliefs and wishes can exist in one body at the same time.

Rather than point out a single entry, I wanted to highlight the fact that Drama 2B Mama has started up again with new posts. I think this blog is amazing because you know the end of Lori’s story and you get to watch how she got there unfold. I think it’s a valuable resource for anyone else on the path to adoption.

Aurelia at No Matter How Small had a post this week about the daily injections she takes due to her clotting disorder. This post touched me because it was so honest and real. This little slice of what pregnancy is like at the end of the needle.

Lastly, Samantha at Southern Infertility has chosen a resolution for this year. She writes: “I have decided that my main resolution for this year is going to be psychological.” Her resolution for the year is “Handle life’s challenges with grace and poise.” It’s a perfect resolution because it can be applied to so many facets of life. As she points out, she can’t control what happens, but she can control how she reacts to it. And that is all any of us can do. A sound post.

Have a wonderful weekend. Don’t forget–big chat with Darci Klein from To Full Term in the Living Room on the 8th (Tuesday). Even if you haven’t read the book, come join in and hear what she has to say. I just read the book and it was great. If you haven’t let me know that you’re joining us, leave a comment so I have a heads up as to how many people to expect at the chat (8 p.m. EST on the 8th).

Oh, and if you can commit to helping out in the sweeping of the blogroll–a small amount of time for you; a huge amount of love back from me–let me know soon. The more volunteers, the faster and easier it will go.