After gritting my teeth this morning as I read Rep. Gingrey’s comments on what infertility has in common with “legitimate rape,” I then opened the Stir a few minutes ago to see that a study has found a possible explanation for why miscarriages occur.  According to that post,

In a study, laboratory tests showed that women who had lost three or more babies had high levels of a molecule known as IL-33 in their womb cells. These molecules control whether or not the uterus accepts an embryo.

The study was published in a journal called PLOS ONE, and it seems to go hand-in-hand with an earlier study that came out this past summer in Journal of Reproductive Immunology.  And while I know a bunch of you roll your eyes at the fact that I read the Daily Mail from time to time (but strangely enough don’t roll your eyes at the fact that People magazine is my Bible?), I thought they had a very good, simple explanation of what the study found.

Your thoughts?

Do you know what I love?  When my medical condition is dragged into a Representative’s explanation of rape.  Because nothing does more to help mainstream America understand my often misunderstood medical condition than to have it used to explain how stress shuts down a body and doesn’t allow babies to be made.  So thanks, Rep. Phil Gingrey of Georgia.  You made my morning with your commentary on Todd Akin’s legitimate rape statement.

I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right, wasn’t he? But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, you’re not going to prevent a pregnancy there by a woman’s body shutting anything down because the horse has already left the barn, so to speak. And yet the media took that and tore it apart.

So, put down that Follistim needle and pick up that glass of red wine.  Don’t be such a tense, uptight, Type-A, anal… wait a second.

I think Resolve may have put out a statement or something about this.  What did they say again?

Infertility is a diagnosable medical problem that must be treated by a doctor, and even with treatment, many couples will NEVER successfully conceive a child. Relaxation itself does not cure medical infertility.

So what we’re saying is that Gingrey sucks as a doctor, a Representative, and a man who needs to interact with the women who comprise about 50% of the world.  That he’s an OB/GYN who doesn’t seem to have a grasp on factors that cause anovulation (Rep. Gingrey, here’s a nice article from the NIH you can familiarize yourself with.  You may notice that “relaxation” isn’t under one of their recommended treatments for anovulation, but what does the NIH know?)  That he’s a politician who doesn’t seem to realize that technology exists to record his statements even if he attempts to backpedal after backlash. And he’s a person who doesn’t seem to realize that talking about rape in these terms is not just “a little over the top.”

Rape is rape. And leave infertility out of it.

Learned the greatest word this week from the @mental_floss Twitter feed: “Kummerspeck (German): Excess weight gained from emotional overeating. Literally, grief bacon.”

Grief bacon.

Mental Floss recently had a list of 21 emotions to which there is no English word but which exists in another language.  One example is “koev halev” (they have it as koev li halev) which in Hebrew means to internalize the other person’s news so deeply that your heart hurts.  Sort of a fitting term since I have often experienced koev halev while reading someone else’s blog, since we all come to know each other’s hopes and dreams so intensely that it’s hard to read the words on the screen when they’re dashed.

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The ChickieNob and her friend started their own magazine.  They take it very seriously and write their articles at my kitchen table.  My job for the magazine currently is chief speller (though I have been informed that this is an unpaid position).  And fixer.  And can-you-do-this-for-us-er.  And they just decided they wanted a website for their magazine, so I’m now the webmaster.  It’s really cool to watch two kick-ass girls kicking ass on the page.  Being creative and smart and funny and thoughtful.

I was washing dishes this week while they worked, and they were discussing the opening of an article.  The ChickieNob was trying to explain to her friend that a person needs to grab the reader with “a great first sentence.”  They were trying to come up with something that would grab the reader, and her friend was becoming doubtful whether this was necessary.  The ChickieNob assured her that she often listens into our conversations, and her parents have discussed how most readers will not give an article more than a sentence or two of attention if it doesn’t grab them and make them feel something in their stomach.  The other girl finally agreed to try this since it sounded serious, and they went back to working on their first paragraph of the article.

Being reminded that little ears are listening in at all times and retaining, I must remember not to say things to Josh such as “that story totally grabbed me by the balls” anymore.

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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:

• “For What It’s Worth” (A Single Journey)
• “The Key to Failure” (Enjoying the Small Things)
• “Altruism: the Hard Truth about Helping” (Too Many Fish to Fry)
• “Moving On” (Mommy Odyssey)
• “Cycle 21, CD 23(ish)” (Submerged)
• “Holy Shit, I’m a Mom” (Waiting for Little Feet)
• “Post Partum” (MissConception)
• “Gaining” (Queen of the Slipstream)

Okay, now my choices this week.

It was nominated above, but it fell right on the line on a Friday, so I am claiming Submerged’s post about her blog title as well for this week.  The image is haunting, the story behind it is emotional, and the telling in and of itself is powerful.  A gorgeous read.  The story will stay with you for many hours.

In Search of Motherhood has a post about kicking off the year; looking forward and looking backward at the same time.  She writes about a New Years party: “I love my family more than life itself, but at the metaphorical dinner party, I have outgrown the kids’ table and haven’t quite made it to the grown-up table.”  But it was her thoughts about her baby cousin, about this child aging out of the ability to fill a void that really got to me.

Ladyblogalot has a post about anxiety that comes with the best title.  It begins: “Hello, anxiety.  Back again, I see.  I let him in so he doesn’t just smash through my glass front doors to get to me.”  Because isn’t that exactly it?  Doesn’t anxiety just come in if he pleases with or without your permission?  And this time he has brought with him a lemon-throwing Hope.  It’s a great read.

Me… Plus One has a very honest post about parenting worries.  I highlight it because each stage is either easy or hard, a delight or a struggle, and when we’re in the valley, we forget that it’s not the only landscape.  And because I think that other people will be able to relate.

Life As I Know It also has a post about parenting worries, admitting that what she thought years ago is not what she is feeling now that she has reached a milestone.  It’s sort of the flip side, in a way, of the post above it.  What we think we know before we get there, and what we can’t remember once we reach a space.  I loved this post because it brought me back to a moment in time.

Lastly, Getting There has a post about an adoption support group meeting that conflicts with another meeting.  One could help her family directly.  One could help her community and her family indirectly.  She writes of discussing this with a friend, “Parenting is hard, parenting is relentless, but adoptive parenting has an additional layer that not everyone always sees. Today she saw.”

The roundup to the Roundup: Wake up and smell the grief bacon, or words that lack an equivalent in English.  The ChickieNob listens to my conversations and has started a magazine.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between January 4th and January 11th) 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 got an email this morning that the time has come for Barbara Meade to retire from Politics and Prose.  I knew this was coming; that new owners were lined up to keep the store going in the same direction it has always gone, and retired doesn’t mean gone entirely — she’ll still need to buy her books somewhere.  But it was a bittersweet message to read, especially after the death of her co-owner Carla Cohen a few years back (here is her fabulous advice).  That bookstore shaped my childhood and adulthood and gave me a receptacle to pour in my love of books.

I love going to Politics and Prose, and the email triggered a memory of a day I spent wandering the store and then reading in the cafe.

A few months after the twins were born, I woke up one morning and Josh announced that I was to take a mental health day.  No work.  No errands.  Just go out and take a day for myself, and he’d take care of the kids.  I was so stunned, I didn’t really know what to do at first.  Then I realized that something I really missed was going to Politics and Prose as if I had all the time in the world.  So I drove downtown, ate lunch at a favourite restaurant, and then went to the bookstore to browse, buy, and read.

Best. Day. Ever.

We stay home and nurse ourselves back to health when we are physically ill.  We take vitamins and vaccinations to stop ourselves from becoming ill in the first place.  We exercise, eat right, get sleep.  We take care of our physical bodies.  And then we completely ignore our emotional health.  We force ourselves to go to work even when we’re miserable.  We don’t make time for therapy.  We keeping racing along without break even when we’re stressed beyond belief.  And all of that is because we suck as humans.  We place a value on one part of our body over another.  We somehow collectively agree that brains are only important when something is affecting them structurally such as a tumour and cease to be important when something is affecting them chemically such as depression.  We shouldn’t let ourselves get to breaking points; to get to tears of frustration.  We should just stop every once in a while and read.

So Josh, I’m going to take a mental health day soon.  And give you one as well.

What would you do on a mental health day?  Read?  Sleep?  Eat out?  Spa?  Go to an amusement park?

I recently was trying to find out the origins of a name (to decide whether or not to use it for a character who is slowly forming in my brain), and I ended up looking up my own name on the site.  I discovered that there is a feast day in France on September 21st for Melissa.  And there is an Edward Gorey (I love Edward Gorey!) book called Saint Melissa the Mottled.  Melissa is the sorceress in “Orlando Furioso,” and lemon balm is also known as Melissa officinalis.  My name pops up in Greek mythology — which is where it originated in the story of Zeus — and the original Melissa has been depicted in visual art and poetry.

Once, I was at a David Malouf reading with a man who really didn’t appreciate me.  In fact, if we were being polite, we’d call him an asshole. (If we weren’t being polite, we could call him a whole host of other words.)  After the reading, I went up to the desk to have my book signed, and when I told Mr. Malouf my name, he looked up, so excited, and said, “Melissa!  The Queen Bee!”  And we had a talk about the origins of my name.  It was such a stark contrast, this stranger willing to get excited over my name and this boyfriend who wasn’t even excited about my actual being.

And while I like people to actually like me, I am willing to settle on people liking my name because I like it very much too.

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A long time ago on a blog post, Delenn brought up this mind-blowing question.  In Judaism, we only name children after someone who has died.   She writes about her father-in-law who died 17 years earlier.

Certain things would have been different if he had lived. (He died at 51 of heart attack). For one thing–my son would not be named after him. And that brings a lot of questions concerning would my son be MY son or would he be a different version of my son with a different name?

Are we ourselves if we have a different name?  I mean, would I have still grown up to have the same personality and have the same accomplishments and the same life experience if my name had been Jennifer or Anne or Emma?  Or would the Jenniferization of myself transform me into a very different type of person?  Do names matter; charting our fate?  Could I still be the same person I am today with a completely different name?

I don’t know.

I feel rather Melissa-ish.  In all the Melissa-ish meanings of that word.  And I can pick up honeybees with my bare hands, and it doesn’t frighten me.  Would I be able to pick up bees or allow them to land on me while I’m outside with no fear if my name was Cassandra?

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Stacie sent a really interesting article into Prompt-ly about an Icelandic teenager who is fighting to be able to keep her name.  Iceland has an approved list of names that parents can choose from when naming their baby (1,712 male names and 1,853 female names), and if the name you choose isn’t on that list, you can apply to have your name considered.  But if the name is rejected, you are simply called “Stúlka” (which means girl, and I’m assuming there is a boy equivalent) on all official forms.  This teenager is fighting to have the name she has been called for 15 years by friends and family — Blaer — to also be used on official forms and in business instead of being listed as the generic Stúlka.

I tried to imagine how I would feel if I couldn’t be called my name.  If all my forms said “Girl Ford” and I was called back at the doctor’s office as “Girl” and my mail came addressed to “Girl.”  While many other people usually share our name unless our parents invented it whole cloth, our names are something that make us unique, that set us apart from all the other people in the room.

In Margaret Atwood’s dystopia, The Handmaid’s Tale, removing the women’s names and making them the property of their Commanders (Of Fred and Of Warren, or in the book, Offred and Ofwarren) is one way the government takes away your individuality.  And the way they women hold onto their individuality is not by fighting against the uniform but by whispering their original names, cot to cot, in the dark.

I am not bothered by nicknames — I introduce myself by my nickname (and sign off notes) more than my full name — but I am uneasy over the idea of someone removing my name from me, of not allowing me to be a Melissa anymore.  Even when I’ve been called a nickname I haven’t particularly liked, I’ve always known that deep down, my name was still my name.

I tried to think about the inverse: what if I changed my name legally to Courtney, so my driver’s license and mail and medical records were all under the name I wanted — Courtney — but my friends and family all still called me Melissa, refusing to utilize this name I chose for myself?

And what about offensive names?  And who determines offensiveness?  I tried to imagine how I would feel if the twins had a classmate named Adolf Hitler Smith.  Would I be able to interact with the Smith family?  While I think the government can make a strong case against a name that is not suitable to be spoken over television or radio (such as Fuck Smith), we get into grey areas when we start determining what is an offensive name and what is a reasonable name.  Especially when we cross cultures.

Anyway, I hope Blaer gets to keep her name, by which I mean that she gets it recognized by the government as an acceptable name.

How do you feel about your name?  Does it define you, or do you define it?  Meaning, do you think you’d be the same person even if you had a different name, or did your name shape you into the person you’ve become?