So you do know that beta babies (those babies who grow up knowing their first and second beta numbers) are smarter than CPCBs (co-payment cost babies who aren’t even acknowledged by ultrasound until the 8th week of life or something crazy like that). There’s something in the sperm wash that creates brilliance. And adopted babies, forget about it. They’re like brain surgeons by the time they’re six–I don’t even know what causes the phenomenon. I’m telling you–the children of SQs and SPJs are smarter than all those non-infertiles. With a few exceptions, but all of them are in my family or are the children of friends so…

Sorry.

Personally, if I didn’t think it would completely stunt them socially and if they didn’t need a nap smack in the middle of the afternoon, I would probably enroll the Wolvog and ChickieNob in a few courses in Quantum physics at Harvard. I think they’re ready for college. They can identify all colours and shapes. My daughter lectures me in biology. My son knows how to work iTunes. What more do you need for college?

Oh…reading.

So I’m currently using the Bob Books to teach my children how to read. And I have to admit, I snickered a little when I opened the first book.

But then I stopped laughing when I discovered these books were like crack. Crack that makes you smart for Harvard. I would call “school time” and they would drop their toys and run for the sofa as if I had told them that I was going to let them mainline pixie sticks. They sat on either side of me, sounding out the words. Mat sat and Sam sat. And all was well in the world.

And how do I know that the books are crack and not knowledge itself? Because I tried to get them to use our magnet boards to practice “at” sounds and it was like trying to get lemurs to stop flinging their feces. And the second I dropped the activity and brought them back to the sofa for Bob time, they fell into their trance-like, drooling state. Mat sat. Sam sat. Mat sat on Sam. Drool. Drool.

Just to make sure that the Bob Books were really teaching reading and that the twins weren’t reciting text they had memorized on the 80th read-through, I set the books aside for a few weeks. And I really missed Mat and Sam. I wasn’t laughing now because I discovered that I was addicted. I missed my old friends, Mat and Sam. What were they doing? Having fun without me? Sitting on each other’s laps?

And then they returned and all was well in the world again. Now I’m just freaked out about getting the next set in time. Two thumbs up from the drooling, brilliant, Harvard-bound beta babies.

And I had no idea it was happening…

So leave a comment, will you? Especially if you haven’t left one before…

Profanity wasn’t my choice, motherfuckers. I just go along with it because if everyone jumped off the cliff, I would be diving too.

The Second Happiness Challenge is kicking off today, but there’s still time to add yourself to the list (just work in your first ten minutes before bed tonight or kick off the challenge a day or two late). This is how it works:

In order to participate, you need to commit to meditating for at least ten minutes a day, everyday. Close the door to your office, stretch out on the floor and deep breathe. Or get home from work, lie down on the sofa, and take ten minutes not to think. Try to pick the same place and time each day. You can do it at any point in the day: right when you wake up, during lunch, or before you go to bed (though it’s sort of cheating if you just call the ten minutes before you go to sleep your “meditation time”).

If you already meditate, keep doing what you do. If you want to begin, the Wikipedia–that amalgamation of all knowledge–has a decent article. What may work best is to picture a happy space or to allow your mind to go completely blank. According to Tal Ben-Shahar (the author of Happier) the point is not only the immediate stress-relief of meditation. It is also the idea of training your mind so you can use this stress reliever during stressful situations. For instance, the next time I’m over the Bay Bridge, I will go to my happy place (while driving?) and use that meditation muscle to relax even though it technically isn’t my meditation time. Does that make sense?

If you want to participate, leave a comment below or email me at thetowncrier@gmail.com and I’ll add you to the meditation list. The challenge runs from October 3 until November 1 (30 days) and you need to commit to trying this for all 30 days. Keep notes on your progress over the month and on November 1, post about your experience with the Second Happiness Challenge.

Updated at 10:25 p.m. at the bottom of the post…

So…I know it is only October, far too early to be thinking about Christmas…

Except that (1) this idea will take some time to get set up and (2) people are already stressing about Christmas.

My idea:

I would like to set up a web of etsys or online stores where IF/pg loss/adoption bloggers could sell their wares in order to gather money for treatments or adoption. Other bloggers could do their Christmas shopping at these stores, gaining gifts for their loved ones while knowing that the money they are spending is helping a fellow stirrup queen or sperm palace jester. Of course, my desire is not just to have this be a Christmas thing, but to have this be a year-round idea with a constant link on my blog (of course, drawn in Microsoft Paint). If you’ve been looking for a way to turn the Christmas season into something other than the anxiety-inducing time period it can be, this project (the setting up of the store, the creation of the wares, and the…I don’t know what else would need to happen) could eat up a great deal of your energy. And fund your treatments/adoption.

My caveats:

• The money from your business either needs to be benefiting an IF/pg loss organization OR your own treatments/adoption (of course, you can also set up a store to help a fellow blogger who is not artistically-inclined, but it needs to be clear that the money from the site is going towards someone’s treatments/adoption costs).
• I do reserve the right not to add a store to the list if I deem it inappropriate (a store that sells leftover meds, which nice, is illegal) or too large a portion of the revenue not really earmarked for treatments/adoption (for instance, it’s a non-IF blogger who says they’ll donate a dollar or two to Resolve).
• You can have a cafepress store, etsy, online business, etc (I’m not very technologically-advanced so other options may exist). There needs to be an online portion to the store (though if a local business wants to advertise on the list and donate the money to an IF/pg loss organization of our choosing, I’d be game) so it’s accessible to everyone. Be creative–you can sell anything from books, pottery, jewelry, quilts, cards or clothing.

So, if you’d like to participate or if you want to second this idea as a potential shopper and encourage those artistically-inclined to get creative, leave a comment below or email me at thetowncriers@gmail.com. If you already have an online business, send me a link to the site. And a new post maintaining this list will go up soon.

I’ve set up a post and created an icon. So start creating your store or sell your wares directly through your blog.

The time has come, the Walrus said, to talk of many things. Of future book tours and Jenna’s tale of uterine linings. Of whether to do a Chabon book or read Max Tivoli.

Perhaps that didn’t work as well as I would have liked.

But it is time, my sweet barren bitches, to set up the next few tours to take us through winter. Why set them up now? Because (1) some people like to read ahead and know what is happening next. (2) It gives me a chance to invite an author to participate. (3) Some non-US participants like to purchase all their books at once and save on shipping. And (4) some of us are used bookstore devotees and need the extra time to hunt down copies. Oh–and (5) for popular books or new books, you can get on a wait list at the library in advance. So, that’s why.

I’m going to throw out some books I’ve collected along the way and I apologize, I was keeping a list of suggestions that people have thrown out since the last time we chose a bunch of book tours and now I can’t find it. So if you’ve ever given me a book title, throw it out again in the comments section so everyone can see and I’ll add it to the list. Only caveat this time: if you’re suggesting a book, add why it would make a good selection. In other words, a few words about the book and its general plotline (or, if non-fiction, subject matter).

Guidelines for choosing books: we read fiction or non-fiction and try to do a little bit of each. In the past, we have read…

1. The Ultimate Insider’s Guide to Adoption (Elizabeth Swire Falker)
2. Children of Men (P.D. James)
3. Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
4. Waiting for Daisy (Peggy Orenstein)
5. The Kid (Dan Savage)
6. Love and Other Impossible Pursuits (Ayelet Waldman)
7. Happiness Sold Separately (Lolly Winston)–current tour
8. The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)–coming up
9. Inconceivable (Julia Indichova)–coming up

So, you can see, a wide-assortment of fiction and non-fiction. All of the books contain infertility or pregnancy loss–even if it is only in passing. I’d like to widen this a bit to add books that could be interesting to read from an IF point-of-view. One of the book suggestions below is a non-IF book (as far as I know), but I thought it would be interesting because it explores where our obligations to others begins and where protecting ourselves ends. See–pretty interesting when you compare the situation to what happens sometimes within friendships when IF comes into play…

So, here I’ve compiled a list of interesting books that I’d like to throw onto the voting table. What they’re about and why I think it would be interesting to read them. Keep adding books until the voting post comes out. Then we’ll all vote and take the top vote-earners and make them our upcoming tours.

The Empty Picture Frame (Jenna Nadeau): a book by one of our own in the IF/pg loss blogosphere. I just got a chance to read this book last week and it is wonderful. Interspersing old journal entries with straight narrative and her husband’s thoughts, the book comes together to give a panoramic view of IVF and the day-to-day life of someone struggling with infertility. I think what I loved most about this book is the lack of space between the writer and the reader. I think it’s a difficult task of a writer to bring the reader so close to the words. And Jenna succeeds in conveying the anger, sadness, frustration, and hope tied to infertility. Why I think we should read this book: first and foremost, it supports one of our own. Secondly, it’s a book unlike any that we’ve tackled before in that it gives multiple points of view. Thirdly, a portion of the sale goes back to Resolve. Oh…and fourthly, Jenna rocks.

Gilead (Marilynne Robinson): Marilynne Robinson’s first piece of fiction since winning the PEN/Hemingway Award in 1981 for Housekeeping. The narrator is a preacher who has lived most of his life in Iowa. The book is a letter to his seven-year-old son who may never know his older father due to the preacher’s poor health. The letter serves as a way for this father to leave behind a sense of himself for his child. How does this book tie into IF/pg loss? The narrator always wanted a child, though his first wife and child both died during childbirth. His best friend, another preacher, has a large family and he names his son after our narrator, making him the godfather. But what is a kind gesture can also slice the heart of a man who longs to be a father. He finally achieves fatherhood after a very long wait and it is bittersweet to think about the time father and son could have had together had things worked out according to plan. Why I think we should read this book: Gilead is a mainstream, popular book right now and it will (1) be easy for everyone to find and (2) will make you look smart when you talk about it with other people at your next cocktail party…

The Yiddish Policeman’s Union (Michael Chabon): what if, instead of Israel, Jews were given a temporary settlement in Alaska after World War II? It was a real idea proposed by Roosevelt and Chabon’s imagination runs with this concept, taking us to the possible ending of the settlement in a detective-murder-mystery-many-other-genres type novel. Yes, Jewish bloggers may need to provide insight into some of the in-jokes, but I’ve heard only good reviews for this book. How does it connect to IF/pg loss? The narrator loses his child from a medical termination. Why I think we should read this book: (1) he’s the husband of Ayelet Waldman (who was book club choice #6–see list above) so it could be interesting to hear how the loss they both experienced in real life was processed by two different writers and (2) we’ve done few male authors (only one at this point) and it would be nice to read a male point-of-view.

The Confessions of Max Tivoli (Andrew Sean Greer): another male author creating another interesting read. Max Tivoli was born backwards in 1871. In other words, he was born as a 70-year-old man and he is aging backwards, working his way towards becoming a newborn. A scary thought since he obviously knows when his life will end–1941. Due to this strange phenomenon, his life intersects others at various points, constantly appearing as a new person each time. Though he should be around the same age as his one-time wif
e, he meets her during her youth as an old man, in middle-age as her equal, and towards the end of his life, as her son’s friend. Pregnancy loss in the novel makes it relevant to our book club. Why I think we should read this book: (1) the male point-of-view factor, (2) the coolness of this story, (3) excellent writing.

Embryo Culture (Beth Kohl): I just started reading this one and I’ve already figured out from her website that IVF was ultimately successful for Kohl. But still, I’m drawn into the story, waiting to hear what will be the tipping point that brings her that first child. Well-written and engaging, it is not only a first-hand account of treatments and the emotions of infertility, but a look at treatments as an industry, how fertility is handled in other cultures, and the far-reaching grasp of technology. I think it speaks volumes that I think about this book when I’m not reading it and I look forward to picking it up again at the end of the day. Why I think we should read this book: good, old-fashioned look at infertility.

The Mistress’s Daughter (A.M. Homes): simply put, this book made me think. A.M. Homes’ memoir about her reunion with the mother who placed her for adoption many years earlier and the father who is absent even when present is truly a look at nature vs. nurture–where do our bloodlines end and environment begins? Even if adoption isn’t on your horizon, it will make you consider your own heritage. Why I think we should read this book: I liked reading about adoption from an adoptee’s point-of-view and her electronic anthropology made me want to start googling backwards through my own family.

Songs Without Words (Ann Packer): a non-IF/pg loss book (as far as I know) that explores the friendship between two women. Liz has always been the friend who takes care of Sarabeth. But when the tables turn and Liz is the one in need of comfort, Sarabeth is too riddled with traumatic memories to step up and provide support. Depression (and suicide) figure into the friendship in a multitude of ways. Why I think we should read this book: I think a book about personal limitations and seeing how these women overcome or are paralyzed by their limitations could be an interesting read in comparison to IF/pg loss.

So Close (Tertia Albertyn): again, a book by one of our own, this memoir covers Tertia’s quest to become a mother via IVF as well as her son, Ben’s, life and death. If you read her blog, you know that she ultimately becomes a mother to twins, but even knowing that outcome doesn’t stop you from crying as you read through her story. This book should be available in the US and Canada later this year (perhaps winter) or it can be purchased online from South Africa. Why I think we should read this book: she’s one of our own AND she is an excellent writer.

This is not the formal vote–these are just my contributions. Though feel free to either cheer on these choices and second them OR to tell me to scratch one off the list (and why). Remember, the Barren Bitches Book Brigade is open to everyone in the community, even if you haven’t participated in a tour in the past. Submit your own (and tell us a bit about the book and why we should read it) by Friday, October 5. Formal voting happening next week.