Welcome back to IComLeavWe. It stands for International Comment Leaving Week, but if you say it aloud, doesn’t it sounds like “I come; [but] leave [as a] we”? And that’s sort of the point. Blogging is a conversation and comments should be honoured and encouraged. I like to say that comments are the new hug–a way of saying hello, giving comfort, leaving congratulations.

Here is the vital information, pure and simple (a more detailed set of rules follows below the list):

• The list opens the 1st of every month. It remains open until the 21st. You can add yourself at any point. The list is open to everyone in the blogosphere–blog writers and/or blog readers.
• Add yourself to the list by filling out this form after adding the icon below: The August list is closed.  The September list opens on 8/27.
  
• Click here to cut-and-paste this bit of code to add to your sidebar (if you have the old code from another month, remove it and replace it with this one). You need to add the icon or a link to the current list on your blog (see below) and will not be added until it’s up.
• Commenting kicks off every month on the 21st. Please mark it somewhere (calendar, post-it note taped to your computer…), though I will be sending out an email reminder on the 20th. Commenting week runs from the 21st to the 28th. Every day, leave 5 comments and return 1 comment for a total of 6 comments. You are highly encouraged to choose the blogs you comment on from the participants list below, but this is not required.
• I will send a second email on the 28th to remind you to remove the icon from your blog.
• Read below if you want to find out about Iron Commenters.
• The commenting ends on the 28th. We catch our breath and the whole thing starts again the next month on the 1st. Drop in and out according to what is happening in your life between the 21st and the 28th.

1. Stirrup Queens (twins, books, writing)
2. Waiting for Baby (pregnancy, PCOS, thyroid)
3. Dangled Carat (love, relationships, marriage)
4. Just Another Infertility Blog (ivf, infertility and life)
5. Baby On Mind (embryo adoption, infertility, FET)
6. Breathe Gently (new-mum, IVF, PCOS)
7. My Lady of the Lantern (parenting post baby loss, maybe TTC )
8. Mommy-At-Last (ivf toddler twins)
9. One Step at a Time (baby after infertility)
10. Stupid Broken Eggs (marriage, infertility, faith)
11. Team Harries Beats Infertility (faith, natural, azoospermia)
12. Life of an Army Wife (army, infertility, crafting)
13. Ready For My Bundle (new mom after ivf, family, smc)
14. Hobbit-ish Thoughts & Ramblings (parenting after IF/RPL, weight loss, diabetes)
15. The Question Now Becomes… (sperm donor conception, twins)
16. It Is What It Is (Or Is It?) (parenting post ART, infertility, navigating life)
17. The 2 Week Wait (infertility ttc motherhood)
18. Feeling Beachie (life, humor, family)
19. The Destiny Manifest (stillbirth loss, family, life)
20. My journey through infertility, pregnancy & loss (infertility, loss, pregnancy)
21. Two Adults, One Child (secondary infertility, parenting, running)
22. InfertilityLand is NOT Like Disneyland (loss, FET, life)
23. Creating a Family (infertility, adoption, adoptive parenting)
24. My Name Isn’t Mommy (personal growth, motherhood, children)
25. The Noona Musings (IVF, university, shenanigans)
26. Learning To Let Go (ttc #2 failure; ivf#6 miracle; lasting infertility impact)
27. Our Journey to Cameroon (wycliffe, faith, pregnant after loss)
28. Dogs Aren’t Kids (infertility, mfi, rants)
29. Sweet Dreams are Made of This (adoption, everyday life)
30. Res Cogitatae (toddler, trying again, PhD)
31. The Lewis Note (pregnancy loss, infertility, adoption)
32. Gypsy Mamas Journey (IUI with donor sperm, infertility, life)
33. Comatised (love, life, family)
34. Recurrent Loss and Moving Forward (surrogacy, recurrent loss)
35. Circle Surrogacy Blog (surrogacy, surrogate, egg donors)
36. Our New Normal with Z (adoption after pregnancy loss)
37. Living Our Miracle (embryo adoption, premature ovarian failure, motherhood)
38. By Lisa, With Love (fertility, food, 40+)
39. No Good Eggs (donor egg, IVF, FET)
40. Premature Ovarian Failure… no… Premature Ovarian Insufficiency (pof, poi, infertility)
41. How I Spend My Dash (twins, parenting, life)
42. Sensitive Ginger (newbie to infertility, alternative medicine)
43. In Quest of a Binky Moongee (TTC, IVF, faith)
44. Stepping Stones (infertile step-parenting, ttc)
45. Baby Makin’ (pcos, TTC baby #1)
46. Penguins of mine (infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth)
47. Not pregnant and PISSED! (infertility TTC life)
48. The August list is closed.  The September list opens on 8/27.

Q: What if I miss a day?

A: Catch up the next day by doubling your comments–12 comments instead of 6.

Q: What if I have two blogs? Can I sign up twice, listing both blogs?

A: Yes, but you also need to double your comments. If you have two blogs listed, you should be leaving 12 comments per day.

Q: What is an Iron Commenter?

A: Not for the faint-of-heart. People who wish to be an Iron Commenter and be entered on the Iron Commenter honour roll need to leave a comment on every blog on the participants list (exceptions are blogs that require you to have a special log-in, such as some LiveJournal accounts or other similar situations). You can spread out this commenting any way you wish over the whole week, but the final comment needs to be left by midnight on the 28th (EST). Reaching Iron Commenter status is done on an honour system. Please email me if you earn Iron Commenter status so I can add you to the wall of honour.

Q: Why do I have to add that bit of code to my sidebar?

A: The code is the latest icon (the icon changes colour every month so you know that you’re on the right list). This month, the icon is purple, the next month it will be red, etc. The reason is two-fold: (1) it enables more people to find out about IComLeavWe and (2) it gives you easy access to the current list once the commenting week actually begins and better ensures that you’ll use it. Too many times, people sign up and forget to actually do IComLeavWe and this icon gives you a daily reminder (with the dates on it) every time you open your own blog. The icon is linked back to the current list. On the 28th, remove the icon from your blog. A new one will be created for the next month.

Q: It’s the 23rd and I just saw this for the first time on my friend’s blog! I want to join the list–why can’t I?

A: Because IComLeavWe happens every month, once the list is closed, it’s closed. If you’re finding out about this on the 23rd, you can’t join the current month. But leave yourself a note to check back in a week on the 1st and you can sign up for the next month.

Q: You said the list closes on the 21st. Well, it’s still the 21st where I am. Why aren’t you moving my information onto the list?

A: All dates and times are U.S. Eastern Standard Time (UTC/GMT -5 hours). The list closes around 11 p.m. EST on the 21st.

Q: What if no one comments on my blog and I have no comments to return?

A: Well, that really doesn’t happen for the most part, but in that case, simply choose another blog and add an additional comment. The goal is to hit 6 comments daily as a minimum. Going over that is fantastic and encouraged.

Q: Mel, my question wasn’t covered at all. What do I do?

A: Email me; I’m quite friendly. It helps to place “IComLeavWe” in the subject line. You could also check this post which contains the history of IComLeavWe and see if you can glean anything there.

Looking for the comment section? It has been closed on this post. Use the form in the directions to add yourself to the list.

I am at a conference where people are in a constant state of trying to convince me of things, and I mean that in the most positive of ways. It is almost all good advice, and it’s floating around me, waiting for me to suck it up like a sponge. It ranges from the amorphous (speak up for yourself) to the concrete (pitch to periodicals like this).

There are two ways of presenting an idea, and I realized at the conference that only one way is palatable, at least, to me.

A person can be pro something without demeaning the other choices not taken. I can choose chocolate and simply say that it’s a flavour that works for me while still leaving room for you to choose vanilla without feeling as if I’m looking down at all other ice cream choices.

Or a person can take the weaker route and put down the competitive product or idea in order to try to grab strength for their own. I can choose chocolate while mocking vanilla as well as the people who choose vanilla. And now, if vanilla had been on your mind, you feel like shit, not focused on how maybe you should consider chocolate but rather how you feel about how I’ve spoken about vanilla.

I listened to both approaches yesterday. In one, a person gently led me towards her ideas, being respectful that in being very much pro her way of doing things that she wasn’t anti any other road not taken. And in another, a person shoved me towards ideas, carelessly alienating people who may have been open to the ideas, and they did this by being anti the roads not taken in order to be pro the single chosen option.

Just an observation that the message of the latter person was lost on me. The message of the former person not only got through but will likely be repeated to others.

It’s funny how that works.

It is the seventh anniversary of the Friday Blog Roundup.  Seven years ago this week, I started doing a roundup of posts I found because I wanted to have a conversation with more people about the things I read.  On average, I highlight four posts per week. (I obviously read a lot more than that, but I grab 4 from the ones I bookmarked.) With very few exceptions (maybe five times EVER), I post 52 times per year.  I’ve done this for 7 straight years.  That is 1,456 blog posts that I’ve highlighted.

Thank you for reading the roundup, but moreover, thank you for clicking over to read what other bloggers wrote.

I miss a lot of good stuff, and I have deep regrets about that.  I’m glad you guys contribute to the “second helpings” section to remedy that.  I also sometimes think about highlighting many more than four posts, but I also know that everyone has limits, and the more I choose to highlight, the less chance that people will have time to click over to read.  So I keep it to four, hoping that is manageable.  And I send a very huge thank you out to the people who click over, read, and comment.

Everyone wants their words, their experience, their emotions to be heard and acknowledged.

I’ve talked a lot over the last 7 years why I don’t like to be called a leader, but I have no problem with being called a chief pollinator.  Someone who spreads around information, bringing people together that they may otherwise have missed, or introducing them to someone who might help.  A connector.  After all, my name means “honey bee” in Greek.  It’s fitting that a Melissa would be a pollinator.

This week will be one of the rare occurrences when I don’t post a traditional Friday Blog Roundup because I’m at BlogHer.  But I hope you’ll take a moment to celebrate this community with me.  Please let everyone know in the comment section one post you read (whether it ever was featured in the Roundup or not) that you’ll never forget.

I got a chance this morning to sit down with Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, and chat one-on-one about the Affordable Care Act.

You can read the whole post on BlogHer.

But of course I wanted to talk to her about infertility. The Affordable Care Act touches many facets of reproductive health — from birth control coverage to pregnancy visits. Ensuring a healthy, well-timed pregnancy is a priority of the new plan. The one aspect of reproductive health missing from the conversation is infertility, a disease that affects 7.3 million Americans or 12.5% of the child-bearing age population.

With such an emphasis on preventative services, and mandatory coverage of infertility could mean also setting regulations that in turn help reduce the premature birth rate, why is infertility missing from a plan that covers everything from preventing pregnancy to protecting the health of pregnant women and unborn babies?

Secretary Sebelius pointed out that the conversation is far from over, and there is room to bring infertility into the health care system in the future.

Infertility is a huge health issue and lots of couples are dealing with it. One of the discussions was what should be included in an insurance policy. There are 10 categories of services that have to be in every policy, essential benefits. And then rather than people in Washington picking and choosing what should go in a California policy or what should be in a Connecticut policy, we allowed the state market and the debate that had often taken place at the state level around state mandates to guide what was available in that marketplace … The first two years that the market is up and running, this discussion will go on about whether or not there should be some more uniform coverage across-the-board. But at least to get started, it was thought to be better to capture the state structure.

So not off the table, but perhaps we all need to shout a little louder that mandated coverage should be included in future incarnations.

Sometimes when you come to a big conference aloneness feels like anathema. Everywhere you turn, people are standing in groups, sitting in groups, moving in groups. But I’m not a big group person. I’m a one-on-one person. I’m a handful of people person, preferably meeting in a quiet space. Sometimes I’m a solitary person.

I chose to spend my first day at BlogHer alone. The conference hadn’t begun yet, but I was in Chicago with 10 hours of uninterrupted free time. I got coffee and sat by the river reading. Then I went up to my room to Skype with Josh and the kids. And then I took myself to dinner, reading To Kill a Mockingbird at the table. Finally, I went back to the hotel room to read and watch a movie on the iPad in my pyjamas. There was a big fireworks display that started inexplicably at 10:30 pm.

If I can’t be with Josh and the twins, being alone is the next best thing sometimes. I really love going out to dinner by myself. I like asking for a table for one and then setting my book on the table beside me.

I usually like myself, so I guess it makes sense that I like being alone with myself.

Though there have been times in my life when I haven’t liked myself very much and I needed to be around other people just to not be alone with myself.

I like now better than then.

Though, of course, there are some people who like themselves and thrive in big groups, and others who dislike themselves but still prefer their own company to everyone else’s company.

Do you like eating alone in restaurants too?