Search Results for "2013 creme"

I have a cold.  I refuse to take any cold medicine because it would interfere with having my eyes drip incessantly which I think adds to the visual package when I limp dramatically into a room and moan, “I’m sick…”  I like to remind the kids that I’m sick no fewer than eight times every half hour.  I would do it more often, but I don’t want to be annoying.  I like to remind Josh that I’m sick every time we communicate by text so he has a long string of written reminders of my illness.

And now I’m telling all of you so you will pity me.

I am sick.

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The BBC had a very interesting report on discrepancies in IVF success rates based on race.  The article states:

Overall, 35% of ethnic minority women successfully conceived and gave birth after IVF compared with 44% of white women treated at the clinic between 2006 and 2011.  This was despite all the women appearing to have favourable chances of having a baby, based on factors such as the quality of their egg reserves.

That 35% statistic is an average.  Middle Eastern women have the lowest odds (21.4%) and South East Asian women have a slightly better rate of live birth (38%).

There isn’t a clear-cut reason given for the difference in success rates, and the rates seem to be an average per cycle vs. overall success after more than one cycle.  But even without answers or a plan forward, I thought it was worth pointing out.

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The 2013 Creme de la Creme is trucking along.  There are currently 61 on the list with over a month to go until the hard deadline (December 15!).  So, are you on the list yet?  Extra love to people who submit early!

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Adoption Retrospective: Show Me Despair and Uncertainty” (Portrait of an Adoption)
• “One More Chapter” (Stirrup Queens) — thank you, Lori!
• “I Don’t Know What to Do with My Hands” (A Single Journey)
• “Remembering” (The Barreness)
• “According to the Internet, I Am Lazy…” (Stephanie Snowe)
• “You Are Not Weak” (Grow Baby Grow)
• “Get Over It” (The Koob Triplets)

Okay, now my choices this week.

A Good Mother has a wonderful post about pausing to take everything in, even during the terrible moments in life.  It’s a piece of advice we hear often in regards to happy occasions: weddings, graduations.  Take a moment to step back and soak it all in.  But it’s important to always take those moments: during the awful times and the mundane times and yes, the good times too.  It’s one of those posts that we need every once in a while to serve as a reminder.  Have you paused today?

A Woman My Age has a post about Buddhist chanting and why she does it.  After rolling through the everyday stressors — big and small — she comes down to the heart of why she chants: “And so…. this is why I chant.  Not for deliverance from life’s problems or a magical solution, but for insight for a better way to lead my heart and life.”  I love this post.

Nuts in May is queen of the title.  She is so skilled at framing the post through the title, this time “Not Enough Tea in All the World” before launching into a litany of why she is posting infrequently.  And it contains such beautiful little nuggets as “Fuck 2013. Fuck it exceedingly.”

Lastly, Magpie Musing takes us on riff of leaves, from those of absence to the ones falling from the trees.  She moves from HR to books — both the ones she’s reading, the ones she asking you to donate, and the ones that are free for the taking.  It’s a nice spiral on a theme.

The roundup to the Roundup: Did I mention that I’m sick?  IVF success rate discrepancies.  The 2013 Creme de la Creme opened: is your post on the list?  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between November 1st and November 8th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

I eat my kids’ Halloween candy.  I’m not even discreet about it.  I tell them when they wake up in the morning.  I leave the wrappers at the top of the rubbish bin.  We have a fairly symbiotic relationship in that I like what they don’t (for instance, huge fan of Mounds, whereas no one else in the house likes coconut).  But I also have no shame in taking what they do like.  My feeling is that as long as I am willing to replace said candy by purchasing them more candy in the future, then I should be able to dip into the sweet loot they collected last night.

I do this knowing that I would have been upset if my parents had eaten my candy.

This probably makes me a terrible person.  I would spend some time thinking about that, but I’m too busy eating through their Kit-Kat bars.

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I love the creepy haunted doll reading your mind video:

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The 2013 Creme de la Creme is trucking along.  There are currently 56 on the list with over a month and a half left to go until the hard deadline (December 15!).  So, are you on the list yet?  Extra love to people who submit early!

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “The Weight of Being Interesting, and Pumpkin Spice Cookies” (A Half Baked Life)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Bits and Peaces has a post about the fear that comes at the end of a pregnancy; both for the labour and delivery, but also that time after when you are responsible for this other person’s life and you don’t know if you’ll be up to the task.  Her son was born since she published this post, so it makes for an even more interesting read since she is now in that next stage she feared.

A Little Bit More has a great post about actually rescuing a kitten from a tree — yes, it really happens!  I loved this post just because it’s a really good story well-told with kitten pictures to boot.  Enjoy!

Birds, Bees, and Medicine has a post about her world slowing down during a power outage.  I bookmarked it, thinking, “maybe I should declare certain evenings ‘power outage’ evenings and act as if we have no power.”  And moments after thinking that, I heard a strange snap and then OUR POWER WENT OUT.  This post must be extremely powerful because it cut out power to my entire town for about a half hour…  And guess what? Being without power is really hard, especially when you have stuff you need to get done.  So rethinking power outage evenings.

Cracked up reading Sweetest in the Gale’s post about the art in her RE’s office.   She writes, “Paying out of pocket for my monitoring appointments is so worth it because it’s not just a trip to the doctor–it’s like a trip to the museum. It’s a chance to experience art, people.”  It’s worth clicking over just for the mer-family.

Lastly, I read two posts back-to-back about the same idea: that not every parent has a birth story.  A+ for Effort and Family Building with a Twist both talk about being with other parents bonding over their birth stories and not being able to participate.  Both posts serve as either a great reminder or a brand-new way of viewing that bonding practice, depending on your life experience thus far.  And both are incredibly well-written.

The roundup to the Roundup: I eat the twins’ candy, and I feel no shame.  Love the creepy mind-reading doll.  The 2013 Creme de la Creme opened: is your post on the list?  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between October 25th and November 1st) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

We got tickets to see Broadway Idiot at the AFI before it was announced that the movie would be out on iTunes.  We decided to keep the tickets so we could see it with a crowd of American Idiot lovers, but Josh joked that I’d probably download it beforehand so I could determine what were my favourite parts before the viewing.  For your information, I waited a solid half hour after seeing the movie to download it.  See, restraint.

Afterward I turned to Josh and said, “great documentary or greatest documentary ever?”  He looked at me wild-eyed, a picture of disbelief, and then I smiled and said, “trick question because ¡Cuatro! was also released this year.”  He found the movie very enjoyable but ultimately without any conflict.  And I loved the lack of conflict because it meant that the movie was like a 90 minute hug with a life-size Gund teddy bear; albeit one that was cursing and thrashing about on a stage.

Michael Mayer’s parents were in the audience at the theater, which was nice because I got an answer as to which high school he went to since we grew up in the same hometown.  I wondered how odd it would be to watch your child in a film.  To have them grown up and living their life a few states away, but then go into a theater and visit with them in this roundabout manner.

So I loved Broadway Idiot.  With my whole heart.  Enough to buy a copy, but only after we got home from the theater because I am a good girl.

And even though it’s not really my favourite sort of music, I will end up with Foreverly too in November.  Mostly because the Wolvog had a huge grin on his face when I played him a song.  I asked him if he knew who was singing, and he shook his head.  And then I told him it was Billie Joe, and he got this look of disbelief on his face, as if I had told him that the pizza he was eating was really made out of cauliflower.  But he decided that he still really liked it because it reminded him of Johnny Cash.

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The 2013 Creme de la Creme is trucking along.  There are currently 53 on the list with over a month and a half left to go until the hard deadline (December 15!).  So, are you on the list yet?  Extra love to people who submit early!

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “My Postpartum Body” (Scrambled Eggs)
• “Pumpkin Competition” (Barrenbetty)
• “The Daisy Effect” (Sweetest in the Gale)

Okay, now my choices this week.

An Unwanted Path has a post about the cool symmetry that happened during the cycle when she conceived her first child, and now the symmetry that is aligning during this cycle to conceive her second child.  Adding my wishes to her wishes that this cycle works because it makes such a cool story.

The Great Big IF has a post about being a square peg trying to fit into the round holes of infertility.  She feels as if she’s reliving 2008, albeit now with a child.  But the emotions are rolling around again.  She writes, “I am sitting here lamenting that I haven’t gotten the chance to pump myself full of hormones. Seriously. Sometimes I wonder what reality I’m sitting in. But it is a reality that has me feeling trapped and hopeless.”  Let’s just say that this post hit very close to home for me, and I’m sending her a hug.

Family Rocks has a post that hit me in the gut about the night before the four year anniversary of her sister’s car accident.  She is currently raising her sister’s children after her death in the accident, and more than the day of the crash itself, it’s the night before — that anticipation — that makes her relive the experience.  It is a very powerful post.

Lastly, Inconceivable has a beautiful post about being unsettled.  Running makes her think, but swimming holds the anxiety at bay while she’s in the pool under the silencing blanket of water.  As she stares down IVF, she writes, “Terrifying, because if IVF with ICSI doesn’t work, we’ll have struck out at the biggest game in town.  I’m not sure how to live here, where there’s not one more bigger, better treatment option on the horizon.  I know even IVF can take more than one cycle, if it ever works.  But if this cycle fails, it will change so much for us.”  But it’s the last line of the post that will get you.

The roundup to the Roundup: Got to see Broadway Idiot this week.  The 2013 Creme de la Creme opened: is your post on the list?  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between October 18th and October 25th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

The 2013 Creme de la Creme list opened for submissions this week and we already have 40 on the list.  Thank you to all who submitted early.  It makes writing the blurbs that much easier.  Off to do a lot of reading this weekend…

And if you haven’t gotten in your post yet, just know that the December 15th hard deadline sneaks up on you. (No one will be added after December 15th.  When the list goes up on January 1st, it’s complete.)  Put a note in your calender to remind yourself to submit so you don’t miss out having your voice included.  I’d love to have everyone on the blogroll (or could be on the blogroll) represented.

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I’ve been struggling with my Halloween costume this year.  I am difficult to dress because I will only wear costumes that are warm and comfortable if I have to be outside.  No dresses.  No masks.  No makeup.  No crazy hairstyle.  Usually I just wear a sweater and jeans, and then I tell people that I’m a substitute teacher or a college student.

But this year I came up with something that only requires me to wear a hat.

That’s what the fox says!

Thank you, Ylvis, for my cozy costume.  And for including so many animals in your song.  If I can’t make the fox hat happen, I have many backup plans.

What are you being for Halloween?

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Surviving Hospital Bedrest” (Home Grown Love)
• “An Anniversary of Sorts” (Family Building with a Twist)

Okay, now my choices this week.

The Road Less Travelled has a thought-provoking post on expectations and how they impact our happiness.  But she also asks the all-important question: if those expectations are ultimately detrimental when they aren’t fulfilled, how do we enter something as hugely emotional as family building without expectations?

And then a different The Road Less Traveled (this time with a single L) has a post about waiting and looking for an answer.  It’s about reaching that point where her infertility just is: “I equate it to a little kid who has asked for a toy for Christmas and 37 Christmases have passed without that toy appearing under the tree.   At first it was frustrating, then it was disappointing, then it was depressing, and now it just is.”  It’s a wonderful piece about reframing how she views the wait.

The Barreness admits that she was thrown off by kind words left because it’s pregnancy loss awareness month, touched that someone else remembered her losses.  She revisits who she was back then and who she is now.  I love the end: “As I see that girl who was, I embrace her and whisper in her ear…  you did not do this to yourself.  This was never your fault.  You were never meant to carry that weight.”

A Good Mother has a post about restarting blogging.  I cracked up over the opening: “I debated deleting the handful of posts preceding this one and starting fresh, but I’m a notorious packrat and the thought of throwing anything away, even data, makes me feel…twitchy. So, I’m going to leave them there and just ignore them.”  But it’s really the meat of the post; what this new blog is about after a long time writing about her journey.  All I can say is welcome back.

Thinking Miracles has a lovely tradition of remembering everyone else’s babies on October 15th too.  She takes the act of remembering — something so inward and personal — and extends it outward like a hug.  I love that she does this.

Lastly, Riding the IVF Roller Coaster has a post about how surfaces may not reveal much about the contents below.  Though her life looks perfect on the outside, she’s falling apart on the inside.  It’s a good reminder that we rarely know how much a person is dealing with that they keep tucked away.

The roundup to the Roundup: The 2013 Creme de la Creme opened: is your post on the list?  What are you going as on Halloween?  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between October 11th and October 18th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.

The kids had a square dance at their school.  It’s a yearly occurrence, and I have been waiting for it since Kindergarten when I discovered it was only open to the upper grades.  The kids all wore white t-shirts and jeans and bandanas or hats.  We chose perfect seats in the front row.  The kids were so cute.  It was such a proud-to-be-an-American-bale-of-hay-milk-the-cows sort of event.  It was really a perfect night.

But the best was that when the record started I COULD STILL RECITE IT!  It was the same record they used back when I was in grade school.  There were a few kids missing from the performance, and I wanted to jump up and take one of their slots, but Josh warned me that would be “weird.”  So I sat.  But I totally could have danced.

Promenade the outside ring get all the way around to where the roosters sing go all the way around until you get back home… do an allemande left, do an allemande right…

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I had to go to a Catholic funeral this week, and I’m not sure if this is par for the course for all churches, a practice at this church, or only done during funerals, but they had a lovely exit that I quickly picked up.  Everyone stood.  Then the family of the deceased, who were sitting in the front row, followed the casket.  But then the church emptied row by row rather than a random mishmash of people in the aisle.  The second row from the front filed out, and when that row was empty, the third row joined the line.  Which meant that the people in the back of the church — the people who were likely there in a supporting role vs. the people who sat in the front and were more likely an active mourner — could be comforting each person as they exited.  It made me think of Ring Theory (an article that I actually really dislike for a number of reasons), and how it was the ultimate comfort in as people dumped out.  It was really really lovely.

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We are one month away from the Creme de la Creme list CLOSING.

The 2014 Creme de la Creme list is open for entries until December 15th.  No one will be added after December 15th.  Read the post to see how to be a part of the Creme de la Creme, which is open to every member of the ALI (adoption/loss/infertility) community.

Consider that your weekly reminder.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• “Mommy, Sit” (A New Version of Me)
• “Four Days Late” (Waiting for Baby Bird)
• “Amanda Bynes, Robin Williams, and the Spectacle of Mental Illness” (Let’s Queer Things Up)
• “I Haven’t Posted in a Long Time” (Born Still but Still Born)
• “Unapologetically Broken” (By the Brooke)

Okay, now my choices this week.

No Kidding in NZ has a post about the word “failure” tied to stopping family building, especially when family building itself (at least the vast majority of routes to parenthood) is more chance than hard work.  She writes: “The truth is that achieving anything in life is so often by chance – genetic, parental, circumstantial, geographic, and many other circumstances that aid or hinder us in our goals.”  It reminds me of that old saying: “born on third base and thinks he hit a triple” (or the longer Tweet Josh pointed out this week: “Privilege is born on third base, and thinks it hit a triple. Entitlement is born on third base, and thinks someone stole its home run.”)  I think it is important to note what aids or hinders us in all facets of life.

My Lady of the Lantern has a post about wanting to post about her pregnancy on Facebook.  She explains, “I have wanted to feel what the ensuing two minutes of fanfare feels like.”  It’s interesting what gives you pause after IF or loss, that you likely would have never considered beforehand.

Res Cogitatae has a brief post that made me hold my breath.  It is gorgeous.  It felt like Fawkes crying at the end of the sixth Harry Potter book: the phoenix’s lament, beautiful and haunting.

Days of Grace has a brilliant plan to get herself through the quiet period that always follows the holidays.  I thought it was such a great plan that I started looking at my calendar and wondering if it was worth planning a special treat for myself on the same day of every month, scheduling it in so I know it will happen.

Lastly, Mrs. Spit has a very moving post about her complicated relationship with her mother.  I love how she explains that even as she does the things she lists in the post, she does them remembering who she is.  She doesn’t forget herself in those moments, or the boundaries she has set.  She writes, “My ethics bid me to go to her when she asked, because I could. My faith told me to walk 2 miles when 1 would have been enough.”  Sometimes my instinct is to match my behaviour to the other person; this is a good reminder that we should all just be ourselves regardless of the other person’s behaviour.

The roundup to the Roundup: Square dancing!  A lovely way to exit a funeral.  Your friendly Creme de la Creme reminder.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between November 7th and 14th) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.