New list below! We’re onto Group B:

Welcome to the eighth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade–a book club from the comfort of your own living room. Grab a cup of coffee and start clicking away at the links below.

Just to explain, this book club is 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.

Book: The Handmaid’s Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
Start Date: October 31st
Post Dates: December 10, 11, and 12
(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 all upcoming tours and book events.)

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (click on any of the links below to take you to a stop on this book tour. Jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on The Handmaid’s Tale. We’ve broken down the current tour into three groups. A final list will be posted tomorrow).

Group B:

Stirrup Queens (Melissa)–post is below this one (or simply click on the permalinked blog name)
Southern Infertility (Samantha)
We Are What We Repeatedly Do (Yodasmistress)
Mommy Someday? (Michelle)
Our Box of Rain (K)
Northern Grin (Rachael)
Our Own Creation (AMS)
Slaying, Blogging, Whatever… (Delenn)
I Won’t Fear Love (Julia)
Infertile Fantasies (Bea)

Even if you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t read The Handmaid’s Tale, you can still add your own thoughts on the blog tour or react to someone else’s critique.

Like the idea of being in a book club without leaving your living room? The next book for book tour #9 is a non-IF book (otherwise known as a pepper book by the Barren Bitches) The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. The next 7 book tours or so all have author participation so you’ll also be able to interact online with Karen and ask your questions about her book.

The Details: Tour #9 will start December 13. Participants will read The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Fowler. On Wednesday, January 16th everyone will send one question based on the book (to get a sense of questions, click here to see the questions sent for book tour #2) to me. I will compile the questions into lists that will be emailed out to you on January 17th. Everyone will choose 3 questions from the list and answer them on their own blog on January 22–24th (we will break up into two or three smaller groups and you can choose which day works best for you when the date gets closer). Each day of the tour, I’ll also post a master list and people can jump from blog to blog, reading and commenting on the book tour.

If you would like to sign up to participate in book tour #9, leave a comment below or send me an email. I need the title and a link to your blog as well as an email address where you’d like the two or three book club emails sent. If a spouse wants to participate too and he/she doesn’t have their own blog, have them set up a blog solely for book tours (as we did with the Annex) and send me a link to that blog. And if you’re a reader without a blog, now is a great time to set up a space for yourself on Blogger. People will be able to find brand-spanking-new blogs because they will be on the book tour’s participant list. The next few tours are always listed on the new upcoming and past tours list. Happy reading.

Also: upcoming book event! January 9, 2008 at 8 p.m. (Wednesday night): online chat with Darci Klein of To Full Term. Read the book beforehand and bring your questions-OR-simply come and hear this discussion. Information will be emailed prior to the event, so if you plan on joining along send an email or leave a comment below specifying the To Full Term discussion (8 p.m. is based on the American EST which is UTC -5).

Intrigued by the idea of a book tour and want to read more about The Handmaid’s Tale? Hop along to more stops on the Barren Bitches Book Brigade by visiting the master list in the post above. Want to come along for the next tour? Sign up begins today for tour #9 (The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler with author participation!) and all are welcome to join along (see the post above to sign up). All you need is a book and blog.

Two things occurred to me after I sent out my question–both which didn’t necessarily ring true–though I never noticed them before in my thirty-plus prior readings of The Handmaid’s Tale (what can I say? I love a novel with a good rallying cry. I like to alternate between reading The Handmaid’s Tale and Egalia’s Daughters by Gerd Brantenberg).

The first is the idea of the world outside Gilead. Where was Amnesty International? Where were world governments disgusted by this treatment of women? I could believe it if no one knew enough to step in–think completely closed society–but there were Japanese tourists in Gilead. Remember the scene when she was shopping in town and the tourists came to gawk at them (er…sort of like American go and gawk at the Amish…er….)? If they were allowing tourism to continue, where was the righteous anger? Where was the action?

Beyond that, we really don’t know if fertility was affected in other countries–was this extreme taken solely to produce white children in America? I was thinking of it in contrast to the book we read last year–Children of Men by PD James–and that desperation for children in order to continue the human race. As opposed to Gilead which was essentially a hysteria to produce white children who spoke with an American…or Gileadian…accent. Right? Because England was where refuges ran therefore the same system wasn’t in place overseas. What was wrong with little white babies with British accents? The racism was disgusting, but it’s the accentism that is making me wretch (um…just in case humour doesn’t come across in an online book discussion, that was meant to be tongue-in-cheek).

The other thing that didn’t ring true were the men. I am so done with the portrayal of men as indifferent during infertility. From the books that imply that men enjoy infertility (they get to have all that sex!) to the ones that simply dismiss them outright (infertility is a female issue). It’s not just that infertility itself is 30% female-factor and 30% male-factor (with 40% mixed or unexplained), but the emotions are 100% shared between men and women. In this book, only the women give a shit about infertility. The men could care less about children and parenting with the exception of the power they gain from having a handmaid succeed. The men aren’t anxiously asking her what’s up or encouraging her along. The Commander doesn’t seem interested in children at all nor does Nick. It’s definitely a female-centric book, but the narrator gives us the thoughts of people that she couldn’t possibly observe (the conversations between the Wives, for instance) so why not make some assumptions that take male emotions into account?

Men and women may express their feelings differently, but I don’t believe for a second that I care more than Josh about having a child. I don’t believe that infertility hurts him less. I think we process our emotions differently and I think I may discuss mine more therefore it appears as if it is affecting me more. But all I need to do is see the bow of his back or the lines that appear between his eyes to know his true emotions. I have yet to meet the man who wanted to parent but was indifferent to infertility. I just get so cranked out when male feelings are dismissed or belittled. And I don’t even have a penis, so I imagine men become even more cranked out than I am right now.

So…your thoughts on that?

I’ll keep my answers to my questions brief since I’ve gone on and on about small discrepancies (after throwing the whole list out of whack!):

People very often cope with death or uncomfortable situations by resorting to euphemisms. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood quite deliberately chooses instead to refer to infants with disabilities, or infants that have died, through the use of a dysphemism (an unpleasant or derogatory word or expression substituted for a pleasant or inoffensive one) – “shredder.” How did this term affect you? Did you even take note of it? Why might Atwood have chosen such a word? How does it reflect or not reflect the contemporary discourse around pregnancy loss, still birth, and infant death as you may have experienced it?

Someone in Group A (I’m sorry, I’ve forgotten who) had a quote from Atwood that said that she didn’t include anything in the book that wasn’t easily imaginable based in today’s society and I think this is true too. I think that general society knows how to act when a woman loses her husband yet at the same time, can’t wrap their mind around mourning the loss of a child. While younger widows are encouraged after a mourning period to “date again” no one thinks twice about saying to a woman who just lost a child (whether it was a miscarriage or late term loss or stillbirth or neonatal death) that she could try again or “just adopt.” Until the child has been living for a bit, I don’t think our society knows how to mourn. And with that, I think you get this concept of the shredder–that children can be lost one day but found the next and the gain cancels out the loss. Anyone who has lost a child (in utero or out) knows that this isn’t the case at all.

Aunt Lydia promises the girls that “Ordinary is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will be come ordinary.” Has infertility ever become ordinary or commonplace to you? Do the shots and procedures and blood draws feel more familiar than life before this time? Can a person truly get accustomed to anything?

Yes and no. The first time I had to give myself an injection, I was panicked. It never became commonplace, but it became easier after that first time. So yes, I became accustomed to it. And certainly, there is a rhythm you enter where the morning blood draw becomes one more thing on a to-do list (until you’re waiting the results around noon). But at the same time, no. No, I’m still not used to treatments and all it brings. If I was, I wouldn’t be so panicked about my appointment next week.

I was quite bothered that the Handmaids took on the names of their Commanders (Ofglen, Ofcharles, Offred). Seems so domineering, de-personalizing — another tool in taking power away from women in Gilead. So archaic, even. Then I realized that we do the same in our culture, but with last names. Does this make it okay? Even women who keep their maiden name (no pun intended) after marriage tend to refer back to their father’s name. Do our customs continue to de-power and de-identify women? What would a culture that values the matrilineal look like?

In Judaism, which is matrilineal in a sense (Judaism is passed through the mother), there is still this patriarchal naming system (more for ceremony than for day-to-day life): It’s Melissa daughter of R. Which means my siblings and I still share this same formal name even though my day-to-day last name has changed due to marriage. It has never bothered me–I’m someone who changed my name with
marriage–but then you ask the question and the wheels start turning…

I’ve always felt as if names have this great power and it’s strange how women go through life with their identity tied to this one name and then they shed it–they shed that identity in a way–to take on this new name that doesn’t feel quite right. It’s like putting on someone else’s clothing.

We made this really conscious choice to only give our kids a single name even though it’s popular in America to give Jewish kids an “American” name and a “Hebrew” name. Our kids only have a single name, a Hebrew name, that is easily spelled and pronounced in English. I felt like it gave them a chance to create this single, great identity without feeling this pull to have to fit a single identity into many names. Does that make any sense? I mean, Moon Unit Zappa was bound to have a personality that formed somewhat out of this name and how the world interacted with that name. But what if she was Moon Unit sometimes and Sarah at other times? How could the Sarah and Moon Unit sides of her personality exist?

Which goes back to the same idea–how can we be one name until marriage and another after? Unless we change drastically with that ceremony so we fit our new name?

For many, many more mind-blowing questions and answers, jump up a post to the list and go to another blog. Better yet, join along too for the next book by signing up through there and read along next time with your own contributions!

Welcome to the eighth tour of the Barren Bitches Book Brigade–a book club from the comfort of your own living room. Grab a cup of coffee and start clicking away at the links below.

Just to explain, this book club is 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.

Book: The Handmaid’s Tale
Author: Margaret Atwood
Start Date: October 31st
Post Dates: December 10, 11, and 12
(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 all upcoming tours and book events.)

Barren Bitches Book Brigade List (click on any of the links below to take you to a stop on this book tour. Jump from post to post to read a plethora of opinions and thoughts on The Handmaid’s Tale. We’ve broken down the current tour into three groups. This is the smallest list since I messed up the balance by not posting with my original group. I take all the blame. A new list will be posted tomorrow).

Group A:

Everyday Stranger (Helen)
Sticky Bean (Kristen)
Road Blocks and Rollercoasters (R & R)
Weebles Wobblog (Lori)
Beaten But Not Bowed (Drowned Girl)
The Open Door (Deanna)
Anno di Consolation (Beruriah)

Even if you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t read The Handmaid’s Tale, you can still add your own thoughts on the blog tour or react to someone else’s critique.

Like the idea of being in a book club without leaving your living room? The next book for book tour #9 is a non-IF book (otherwise known as a pepper book by the Barren Bitches) The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. The next 7 book tours or so all have author participation so you’ll also be able to interact online with Karen and ask your questions about her book.

The Details: Tour #9 will start December 13. Participants will read The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Fowler. On Wednesday, January 16th everyone will send one question based on the book (to get a sense of questions, click here to see the questions sent for book tour #2) to me. I will compile the questions into lists that will be emailed out to you on January 17th. Everyone will choose 3 questions from the list and answer them on their own blog on January 22–24th (we will break up into two or three smaller groups and you can choose which day works best for you when the date gets closer). Each day of the tour, I’ll also post a master list and people can jump from blog to blog, reading and commenting on the book tour.

If you would like to sign up to participate in book tour #9, leave a comment below or send me an email. I need the title and a link to your blog as well as an email address where you’d like the two or three book club emails sent. If a spouse wants to participate too and he/she doesn’t have their own blog, have them set up a blog solely for book tours (as we did with the Annex) and send me a link to that blog. And if you’re a reader without a blog, now is a great time to set up a space for yourself on Blogger. People will be able to find brand-spanking-new blogs because they will be on the book tour’s participant list. The next few tours are always listed on the new upcoming and past tours list. Happy reading.

Also: upcoming book event! January 9, 2008 at 8 p.m. (Wednesday night): online chat with Darci Klein of To Full Term. Read the book beforehand and bring your questions-OR-simply come and hear this discussion. Information will be emailed prior to the event, so if you plan on joining along send an email or leave a comment below specifying the To Full Term discussion (8 p.m. is based on the American EST which is UTC -5).

This is the tale the song wove.

If you wait long enough, the meaning becomes clear.

These are the words that kicked off the tale the song wove.

I’ve always loved the version of “The Welcome Table” arranged by Dan Zanes. I remember exactly where I was when I first heard it. I was returning to one of my location casualties for the first time. My brother sent the ChickieNob and Wolvog a copy of Catch That Train for the car ride and I spent the ride with my heart in my throat. It really doesn’t matter sometimes if you finally have kids and they’re in the backseat.

And this is the blog
that brought out the words
that kicked off the tale
the song wove.

I finally opened some mailing list emails tonight and discovered that Dan Zanes had started a blog and it was aptly titled The Welcome Table.

And this is the singer
who wrote the blog
that brought out the words
that kicked off the tale
the song wove.

We are a Dan Zanes family. We are also as of late a Michelle-Shocked-Liz-Phair-Pixies family too (the Wolvog choose our car music and you haven’t lived until you’ve heard the ChickieNob warble “Polyester Bride”) but Dan Zanes and Elvis Costello are the only two musicians loaded on the music phone that I’m expected to cough up whenever I’m not using it for a phone call (who am I kidding? I’ve used that phone exactly twice since I got it). It means a lot to me that he means a lot to them. His music has the lessons we’re trying to teach to our children–sustainability, inclusivity, sensitivity.

The Wolvog was singing “The Welcome Table” as we walked through the mall (accompanied by an intense dance that didn’t necessarily match with the tempo but included many side kicks and jumps) and we started talking about the song. What it meant and how we should treat other people and animals. It is emotional ahimsa; never making another person feel unwelcome, never turning your back. If you’ve read me for longer than an entry or two, you’ve probably figured out that inclusivity is an important theme in my life. I hope you have all felt welcome here. I hope no one has ever walked away from this blog with the sensation that they couldn’t sit here or weren’t welcome.

It’s funny because I have such a strong sense of emotional ahimsa as it relates to others and such a poor sense of it for myself. I’ve spent more time barring myself from things than others have ever done to me. I think that was incredibly true during our first round of trying to conceive. For the longest time, I stood over here, watching “them”–those who could conceive and carry to term on their own. It wasn’t until this time around that I really found the “us”–the 1050+ people on my blogroll and the thousands more who I haven’t found yet. It makes for a very different experience.

And this is the tradition that soon was born
that came before the singer
who wrote the blog
that brought out the words
that kicked off the tale
the song wove.

Judaism has a running theme of cups. Kiddush cups for Shabbat, four glasses of wine for the seder, shot glasses to kick-off Simchat Torah (what? You don’t do shots at your shul? Then you should come to mine). At Pesach, a cup is left on the table for Elijah. Pesach seemed the perfect holiday to borrow from–the bitter with the sweet. And the idea of waiting–we’re always waiting for Elijah. That empty place setting, the door open. As a couple, we were waiting for this child who would deliver us out of…well, at the time I thought it would be the exit strategy from infertility. I had the “just one child” speech down pat.

And Pesach, of course, is the ultimate welcome table. It is the first welcome table by which all other welcome tables from Jesus to the deep South came. On Pesach, the stranger is invited inside; the person who has no place to go. It was the perfect marriage of my two needs–wanting to be welcome at the motherhood table and waiting for that child to come.

And this is the cup, striped and adorned
that we used for the tradition that soon was born
that came before the singer
who wrote the blog
that brought out the words
that kicked off the tale
the song wove.

During Shabbat, we added pomegranate juice in a stripey cup as well as a prayer. I thought I lost the words, even though we swore that we’d never stop saying them even after having a child, but the prayer resurfaced during the Great Basement Clean-up of ’07. It was like finding an old friend from shul who you haven’t seen since your Bat Mitzvah.

And this is the couple, both forlorn
that held the cup, striped and adorned
that drew comfort from the tradition that soon was born
that came before the singer
who wrote the blog
that brought out the words
that kicked off the tale
the song wove.

Obviously I’m sitting at the motherhood table, but I feel like I’m holding onto the edge of my plate while they’re cleaning up, worried that I won’t get seconds and not wanting to relinquish my plate because I’m still hungry. I don’t know if others experiencing secondary IF feel the same way–staring at the other tablemates who are laughing easily while I try to figure out how I’m going to get a second chicken leg (and I don’t even eat meat–that’s the bizarre part of this analogy. But it seemed more apt than saying a second cucumber slice). It’s not my tablemate’s fault that I feel like this–I don’t expect them to stop their easy laughter. They know how to ask for more food if they want it and they also know how to get dessert before eating their vegetables (I’m not even sure what that second part of the analogy means; don’t feel badly if you don’t either). It’s a strange place to be, sitting at the motherhood table, but on the edge of my seat.

And this is the woman, who deeply mourned
she was part of the couple, both forlorn
that held the cup, striped and adorned
that drew comfort from the tradition that soon was born
that came before the singer
who wrote the blog
that brought out the words
that kicked off the tale
the song wove.

I’ve thought about bringing back out that prayer, starting it up again. We’ve replaced that ritual with a wish jar. Sometimes I wonder how many small rituals you can place on the table before it starts cracking under their weight. Perhaps less is more. Maybe that ritual belongs to another table.

So we return to the ukulele and horn
heard by the woman, who deeply mourned
and was part of the couple, both forlorn
that held the cup, striped and adorned
that drew comfort from the tradition that soon was born
that came before the singer
who wrote the blog
that brought out the words
that kicked off the tale
the song wove.

I never really knew why I liked that song so much until I clicked on Dan Zane’s blog and saw the title and thought about the song. When I remembered the first Welcome Table, the seder space, and the welcome tables we long to sit at throughout life–the places we wish to sit and can’t gain admission. How much easier we could make life for each other if we opened each space, and at the same time, knowing that we also need to be willing to take that seat if it’s pulled out for us at the desired table.

And this is the tale the song wove.

Jack built a house–you would think the rest of us could be capable of setting a table.

If you are anything like me, you receive a boatload of spam. Usually, I glance at spam quickly and hit delete, gulping right after the deed is done and wondering if I’ve lost something important in my careless need to speed delete. This week, I’ve noticed that a lot of email messages for the Creme de la Creme (have you gotten your link in yet? What are you doing this weekend? Hopefully reading your archives?) have ended up in my spam filter and I’ve been carefully fishing them out, going through the spam messages with a fine-toothed comb in order to not miss a drop of bloggy deliciousness.

Most of my spam messages are of the penis-enhancing variety (how did they know that I’m ashamed of my “one inch baby carrot?”) but during one of my fishing excursions, I came across one that seemed worthy to pass along to you just in case this spammer hasn’t gotten a hold of your email address yet. I placed periods throughout the message to stave off googlers though knowing my luck, the spammer is also a regular reader.

As if spam doesn’t waste enough of your time, now I just needed to waste more of it discussing spam.

Ignore me; here is lots of bloggy goodness:

Square Peg, Round Whole had an amazing post this week called “Woulda Coulda Shoulda;” the ultimate what if. During graduate school, Squarepeg considered becoming an egg donor. They ultimately decided against it, but the Squarepeg with hindsight wonders if she had done that, would she have known about her egg quality issues early on? She writes: “Maybe this is the other way that story would’ve ended – I produce a lot of eggs, they are fertilized, and beautiful embies are transferred to another woman’s uterus. She achieves pregnancy, and I assume fabulous fertility. We would still be in the position we are in today, surprised and confused as to what the hell our problem is.” It was a post that left me thinking all night.

Loribeth at The Road Less Travelled had a post about being busy. She was out with women from her pregnancy loss support group, she describes them as “women who intimately know & share my life’s deepest pain — the loss of a baby. Some of them also have had infertility problems. I can say my daughter’s name and talk about “when I was pregnant” freely with them and without fear of a negative reaction. I feel more comfortable with them than with many other people who have known me a lot longer.” Three years down the line and she is the sole member of the group without children. During dinner, they started discussing how busy and tired they were–this exhaustion always tied back to balancing parenthood with the rest of life. She notices that “there is still this automatic, ingrained assumption (which I’ve obviously absorbed as much as anybody else) that people with kids are busier than people without kids — that if you don’t have kids, you have oodles of free time on your hands to kill — and that somehow, their tales of busy-ness are more “legitimate” than any story I could tell to try to match them.” The whole post is interesting, but the ending is particularly poignant and would be a wonderful message to embroider on throw pillows for the conversation nook of the house. “In one of the online grief groups I belong to, we have a saying — there is no “grief-o-meter.” Pain is pain, grief is grief, regardless of whether you lost your child via ectopic pregnancy, miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death or medical termination. And busy is busy, and tired is tired, no matter how you got there.” Just an excellent, excellent post.

The ever brilliant Bea presented a reason for the way she processes loss at Infertile Fantasies. It was Jester’s unfulfilled due date a few weeks ago. She writes about the passing of these dates: “For every due date that passes, there has been a slight release, as if I have to bring each embryo to term in my mind, if not my body, and once that’s done, my responsibility is over. I mean, clearly he’s not here demanding feedings or nappy changes – my work must be finished.” I love the idea of bringing an embryo to term within the mind. Poetic, yes, but also emotionally filling, a view that takes into account that just because the body ends the pregnancy doesn’t mean the mind has followed suit. And both need to be considered in terms of closure.

The acutely uncomfortable feeling of being unable to find your way back to happiness was summarized so eloquently by Michell at I Want to Be a Mommy. It was the day before she tested and everything was wrong–from the patient she needed to care for to the nurse who doled out the assvice. The post just seethes with raw emotion–it is the perfect vent. I guess it is always amazing to step back and read your way through someone starting a post in one emotional space and ending it on another. It reminds you how powerful a tool writing can be.

At Redbook Magazine, Julie from A Little Pregnant has a post about announcing a pregnancy and how even if someone follows the ideal path to a T, there is still the potential for the receiver to walk away miserable. I think what I like most about this post is the frankness; the way the information
is placed in front of the reader. If your hoohaahooterus is anything like mine, you will read this post and nod. And then think about creating a secret gmail account so you can anonymously mail it out to people who will potentially be pregnant soon.

That is it, my fine friends. I’ve noticed as I write this that my spam folder has filled up yet again. Must go read about more penis-enhancing products. You know, for my one-inch baby carrot.