I realized in the craziness of putting together the Creme de la Creme that December was going to pass without a Virtual Lushary and that cannot happen because this is not only the final Lushary of the year–2007–but it is the final Lushary of the Year–12 months since the Lushary threw open its doors and I started pouring invisible drinks.

Unfortunately, I’m also madly reading over 120 entries (and more keep coming in) and writing blurbs so I’m setting up all the invisible alcohol bottles on the counter along with an instant espresso machine and other beverages and you can come in, help yourself, pour drinks for others, and enjoy each other’s company. It’s a week for checking in on each other and leaning on each other for support or celebration.

So I raise a bottle of beer to you and sing (in a drunkin’ warble):

Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should auld acquaintance be forgot,
and auld lang syne?

And surely ye’ll be your pint-stoup!
And surely I’ll be mine!
And we’ll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.

Next month will be a huge celebration of us–a catch-up of where you were in life when the Virtual Lushary doors opened. We’ll have our own award ceremony with the Creme de la Creme where everyone in the community is celebrated. Today is simply for taking a break from Christmas, taking a break from family time, checking in and letting everyone know where you are in life. Some people are finally having the Christmas they’ve always wanted. Others thought this year would be different and they are holding their breath in fear. Still others are sadly looking around the room and thinking, “when the hell will it be different?” And some of us are not celebrating Christmas at all and are just sending out good thoughts to friends who we know are going through a hard time.

As always, it has been just about 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. The good, the bad, the ugly. 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. Keep sending your links for the Creme de la Creme. I’ll trying to get everything that comes in on the list in time, but if not, it will be up a day or two after the list posts in January.

This is the night where I admit defeat; where I need to pack up all the cookies and brownies I made over the last week and set them by the front door for Josh to deliver tomorrow. The STW won in the end. I think I only hit 25 dozen.

This has been such a strange Christmas and it’s not even my holiday so it feels a little wrong to be feeling down tonight. It is the first year where I didn’t burn out on Christmas by December 14th. I rationed my Christmas music and I never even got to the gingerbread fertility clinic I was planning on making (complete with a sugar art sonogram machine and tiny cookie phlebotomy lab as well as much frosting squirted in the shwanking rooms. Just kidding. I mean, y’all know it has to be a clean specimen…right? I like that Josh is reminded each month just in case he forgets and accidentally scoops his sample off the wall). I feel like Christmas sort of passed me by with this latest balagan*. I wish Christmas season could be extended by a week, but I feeling that now that I’ve said that, I will receive quite a few smacks from those actually celebrating Christmas.

*A word in Hebrew that means chaos and sort of sums up the STW perfectly.

I really wish I could say more about what happened this week. My impulse is to speak volumes on it–bore you with thirty some-odd entries on the Shittiness That Was (STW). Instead, I will tell you that prior to the STW, I was on target to deliver 100 units of 12 cookies to Josh’s friend’s program on Monday. She delivers desserts to shelters for Christmas since it is the one part of the meal usually missing (you know, that whole “healthy food” thing where people want to eat protein and vegetables and starches rather than just chocolate for the meal). I am a non-Christian Christmas fanatic so it seemed like the perfect fit.

We were trucking along, baking several dozen each night and placing them in the freezer for the big delivery. In fact, Josh was supposed to be picking up 3 pounds of butter when the STW occurred and he needed to leave the purchase at the food store to come home. No cookies that night. The STW threatened my cookie baking and when other people threaten my cookie baking, I become a rabid, ass-kicking mother fucker. I am going to bake my 1200 cookies, damn it.

When we left our clinic appointment, I made Josh drive to the food store before we headed home so I could load up the cart with chocolate chips, butter, and marshmallows. Oh yeah, it’s on. I may be behind due to the STW, but I will make those damn cookies if I have to stay up all night doing so. Why? Because I’m not going to let the STW stop me from providing dessert. Because this world needs a little sweetness. And I have Martha’s double chocolate cookie recipe as well as an Epicurious brownie that will literally make your teeth ache with its goodness.

The clinic appointment was non-eventful. We parked in the same space where we parked the day the car battery died while we were trying to get to Starbucks between a shwanking deposit and an IUI. That made me cry. Very little changed in the four years since we’ve been back except that the bathroom no longer contains this absolutely insane air freshner. It’s notable because I wrote down the name of it in my palm pilot when I squirted it. It literally sucked all scent out of the air. I couldn’t even smell the rubbing alcohol from the alcohol wipe I had tried out moments earlier. Josh claims he doesn’t remember it, but I have a distinct memory of going back into the waiting room afterwards and whispering to him that he had to try it out.

I must retake an injection class, which is probably a good thing since I haven’t actually given one in 4 years and it might be nice to have a refresher. We can’t really say what will happen next until I do my first day 3s. Oh…and I have to have a sonohystogram this time. Which sounds like all kinds of suckage, the least of which being the actual sucking sound as saline drips from my body onto a sanitary pad like a long, slow, three-hour pee. But I have a week or two until I have to stress about that.

That is my story. In case people are leaving town this weekend and won’t be checking back again between now and Christmas, Merry Christmas for all of my Christian friends and Happy Christmas for all of my British, Christian friends (I learned that from reading Harry Potter). May people bring you figgy pudding and much happiness. And if you are dreading the holidays, simply cut-and-paste this note into a Word document and print it out and carry it in your pocket:

It really sucks to be here right now. Maybe there are people in the room who are making you extremely uncomfortable. Not addressing the white elephant is exhausting. This really isn’t how you hoped Christmas would be this year. But it won’t always be like this. I don’t want to make you an empty promise and tell you that next year will be different, but I can promise that not every Christmas will be like this one. And hopefully, the next one will be better. Regardless, I’m your liminal friend, down here in your pocket. Know that I’m not only here with you in paper form, but I’m ready for a bitch session when you get home.

When feeling sad or seething through one more time of having someone brightly tell you that you just need to relax, place your hand in your pocket, take your stress out on the paper, and remember that there is a whole blogosphere who has your back.

And now, the blogs:

Bea at Infertile Fantasies (by the way, head over and learn how you can vote for her because she has been nominated for a cool award!) had a series of posts that blew my mind and it’s not too late to get in on the discussion. She asks whether or not you’d be willing to give up years from your life in order to have a child. If the answer was yes, you also needed to say how many. Needless to say, the discussion is fascinating–especially the reasoning behind the choices. Go over, read along, and add your own thoughts.

Sarah at Sarah Solitaire had a simple yet moving post this week about what happens next after her recent chemical pregnancy. She writes: “But he may say that we could try another cycle, and you know what, it would not be the end of the world if I decided to do another one, even though I said I wouldn’t. I have been spending all this mental energy basically telling myself that I HAVE to end here, that everyone will think I’m crazy for keep trying to flog my poor old ovaries into submission. But if that’s what my heart wants to do, then it is worth considering. ” I love that attitude. I think it’s the one that creates the good stories–the person who paused and listened to their heart and followed it. I’m fairly certain that whatever road it leads you down, whether it takes you to the place you want to be, it was (at the very least) not the wrong road.

If you haven’t seen it yet, you need to go see the Impatient Patient’s Christmas card.

And the other very cool visual from this week is from the new blog, The Art of Being Infertile. She is making these great images including angels serenading you from atop progesterone and Santa with a syringe. She will continue keeping up the site after Christmas, but I really love the current postcards. Nothing says “Merry Christmas” like PIO.

On that note, have a wonderful weekend. I’m around; doing mad baking and clearing out my inbox.

I intended to write an amusing recap of my appointment at the clinic. I intended to write the Lost & Found post as usual. I intended to read and return the emails in my inbox. I intended to do a lot of things today.

Instead, I have been digging out of a family crisis that has left me feeling extremely tiny and extremely unsafe. It has made me want to bubble wrap everyone I know and love. It has absolutely sucked. And I can’t really say more than that about it except that everyone is okay and no one is hurt. It has eaten up every minute of my day that was not spent catching up on the work I missed yesterday, sitting in the clinic waiting room, or crying in the front seat of the car.

Instead, I give you a post that I wrote and saved prior to having this enormous crisis poured into my lap. It feels very strange. I’m talking about community and all being welcome. All are still welcome; that isn’t what I mean when I say it feels strange. Maybe it’s the tone? I don’t feel light and bubbly right now. I feel like flat champagne. I’m not even champagne. I’m the dregs of coffee at the bottom of the pot that have been on the burner for the past 24 hours.

So, I apologize for the missing Lost & Found–it will be there tomorrow. And I apologize for the unreturned emails. I have to return to work stuff tonight. But I wanted to post this because I intended to post this before the crisis began. And then…well…my world sort of imploded. It is being fixed now, but…you know how taping things back together feels for a bit. Until you forget there was ever a time that there wasn’t reinforced tape on the object to begin with…

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Old Title: So Close

We are so close to my extremely arbitrary goal of having 100 entries on the Creme de la Creme list. 100 entries isn’t even 10% of the blogroll list and the blogroll list is just a small percentage of the actual number of infertility/pregnancy loss/adoption blogs out there. There are probably hundreds that I haven’t found yet and, unfortunately, hundreds more that will be started this year (barring, of course, a huge virtual foot coming down to stamp out infertility).

This is the final nudge–hopefully the one to push those on the fence onto the list rather than shutting down your computer. The due date is somewhat as arbitrary as the goal of having 100 entries–if you send in your entry after December 23rd, it will still be on the list–but it is the deadline where I can guarantee that it will be on the list when I put it up rather than being added after the fact.

Ask others to help you pick it, grab a random post from October, or sit quietly with your archives weighing each entry–there are many ways to choose the link you send to the list. Some categories on the blogroll are woefully underrepresented. Where is the gay/lesbian point-of-view? Where are the secondary infertiles or elusively males (I think we only have one male on our list right now; thank G-d for Smarshy)? Check the list to see if your favourite blog is on it (it’s in alphabetical order) and if it’s not, go leave them a comment reminding them that their voice is important.

All of our voices are important.

Last year, without trying (since no one knew what others sent in), we created the most varied and far-reaching compilation of the infertile experience–from loss to the excitement of seeing two lines, from the bitch sessions about early morning wandings to how one woman knew it was time to step off the infertility roller coaster, from picking up your medications at the pharmacy to a couple wondering if they’re making the right choice to start IVF. And I think we can not only do that again, but do it better. Do it bigger, do it even more far-reaching, make sure everyone feels welcome and represented on the list.

I belong to this women’s group and the way we start every meeting is we go around the circle and everyone states what has happened in this past month or what is about to happen before the next meeting. And that’s sort of how I see this list. It’s our welcome table and everyone is sitting around it and we are going around the circle in turn. Everyone tells a single story from this past year. Something they thought or something that happened. It is a way to mark the year, to celebrate us, and even to hand to someone who wants to understand infertility. To turn to your friend and say, “you want to understand what this is like? Go here and read down the list and you’ll get a small taste of infertility.”

So if you’ve been wondering whether or not to submit a link, the answer is yes. And if you have already submitted your link, you can still help out by nudging others along (check the list first to see if they’re already on it). And if you can’t remember the details, check here.

Lastly, I’ve only found two blogs that have truly “closed down” in the past year. Where the person has clearly stated that they’re not going to post anymore even if they’re leaving their blog intact. Can you think of others? Have you closed your own? Please let me know so I can add you to the list and honour your blog. These are blogs that have stopped–not ones that have gone password protected or moved locations (unless the new blog is a different blog). Any that you’re missing right now?

Um…thank you.

I’m not shy to admit this: I rarely shave my legs in winter. I don’t know why; I mean, I’m pretty damn lazy about it in the summer too and I don’t have the leg-hair colour to be lazy. I was self-conscious about shaving in my youth–my youth being about four years ago–but my thirties have brought with it a laissez-faire attitude towards leg hair. My mother can’t completely understand this: “how difficult can it be to shave your legs once a week?” But when you have limited time and you can use said time to google about Chinese literature of the nineteenth century (that’s what I like to tell people I’m doing. I’m really googling for upcoming tidbits on Grey’s Anatomy, but that doesn’t make me sound nearly as smart), you’re going to use it to read up on critiques of Yan Fu.

But returning to the clinic has made me remove my trusty razor from its lady-like case and sit on the edge of the tub to freshen up for my currently-unnamed RE (I’m trying to think of a clever name for the clinic and for my RE that holds him in complete esteem–he is, after all, the man responsible for getting my knocked up the first time. He deserves a name that is clever and dashing. He really is an all-around great guy who not only rocks the speculum but also doles out good advice and assuages fears).

Which begs the question–why does the RE deserve silky legs while my husband gets the forest? The RE gets the whore and my husband gets the earth mother. Nu? I was really not feeling quite right about this–the fact that I’m shaving for a man that I don’t care what he thinks of a well-trimmed no-no spot but I’m not shaving for a man that I still try hard to seduce on a nightly basis.

But it comes down to this. Josh is the one who shares the carton of ice cream with me. He’s the one who gets to eat off my fork or who gets all of my wilted, rejected vegetables out of my pho placed on his plate. He’s the piece of flatware you save when your mum is redoing the kitchen and orders all new dishes. He is home. He is comfort. He can have strawberries and whipped cream placed on him just as easily as he can a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And a dish like that is love.

Whereas my RE is the good china. He’s the guestware. He’s the formal dinner–the one that is nice every once in a while but never makes you comfortable. You need to go to those formal dinners from time to time and woo the boss; that’s how you get ahead in this business. But you don’t hold warm feelings towards those plates. They’re not home. They’re not slippers and comfort food or baby doll nightgowns and champagne. Not that I wear baby doll nightgowns or drink much champagne. But I’d like to be the type who wears baby doll nightgowns and drinks champagne while wearing tons of gooooooooold. So let’s just pretend.

So, yes, the RE gets silky legs. But Josh gets them entwined through his as we sleep. So I think we all win in the end. Except for me who has to step away from googling Chinese literature in order to shave them.

How far do you groom for your doctor?