It was an exciting week–I sold the book, launched the Resolve project, and I saw my worst date ever man–Abortion Man–at a restaurant.  Just to relive the experience because the date was just that good:

I’m on a great first date on the National Mall. We’re watching an outdoor movie at Screen on the Green. We’ve spread out a picnic blanket and we’re half-watching the movie, half-talking through the movie. Afterward, we get back in his car and he starts driving me home. We’re stopped at a light and in typical D.C. fashion, a group of protesters are standing close to the Mall. These happen to be Pro-Lifers.

“We should get out and join them,” the man tells me. We can call him Adam.

I laugh. “Yeah, sounds like a great idea.”

“Do you want to?” Adam asks, turning on his signal so we can get over one lane to park.

“To heckle them?” I ask in confusion. “No. Why would we want to do that?”

“Not heckle them. Why would we heckle them? To join them. To spread the word.”

“Oh…wait. No. I’m not. I’m actually pro-choice.”

“I didn’t know that,” Adam says tersely. He turns off his turn signal and begins driving again.

“It’s not really first date conversation,” I say.

“I actually think it’s something very important,” he says. “So, yes, I think it’s first date material. So, Melissa, I guess this means that you don’t care about the lives of poor, innocent babies.”

“I do care about babies,” I say defensively. “But I also care about each person having a right to say what their body endures.”

“And you believe the solution is to allow women to be murderers. Cold-hearted, ruthless, irresponsible murders.”

“You know, it always bothers me when men have an opinion about this considering they will never have to carry the child in their body. Until you are biologically equipped to be affected by the situation, I don’t know how you have any say. I really think we should drop this topic. Why don’t you just drive me home.”

He purposely makes a wrong turn and loops back through the Mall several times, passionately explaining why women who have abortions are murders, asking about my reproductive history, and telling me all of the plans he has to work towards overturning any protection afforded to doctors who perform abortions. He rabidly spouts a 45 minute monologue about abortion while I stare out the window. We finally pull up in front of my apartment and I have my hand on the door handle before the car has come to a complete stop.

His voice softens and he smiles for a moment. “The whole abortion thing aside, I had a really good time tonight. Can I call you again?”

“No. Definitely not. Please do not call me.”

“A goodnight kiss?” he asks hopefully.

I slam the door.

A few days later, I get an apologetic phone message. He truly is sorry. He was so nervous that night that he couldn’t stop himself from going on and on about it. And he didn’t even have any strong feeling about abortion in the first place. He totally didn’t care. But he was so nervous that he heard himself spouting all of that garbage and he couldn’t believe how he drove me in circles around the Mall. Please, could he make it up to me.

I call him back and he apologizes again. He is really really sorry. Did I want to go to the county fair this weekend. We’d go on the ferris wheel, see some animals, eat some funnel cake. I agree.

That weekend, he takes me to the fair. He buys me cotton candy. We go on some rides. I get to hold a baby rabbit in the 4-H barn. Adam is actually quite sweet. We wander down the fairway and he says, “I have a friend over there. Let me introduce you to him.”

We go over to a table towards the back and I am immediately greeted by large posters showing pictures of aborted fetuses. The man behind the table smiles at me and asks if I’d like to get involved in the Right to Life movement. “I just want to save you,” Adam tells me as I begin to walk away.

Instead of being saved, I get mono. From the kiss I gave him after he bought me cotton candy.

*******

Wasn’t that the BEST worst date ever?  I was giddy seeing him across the restaurant, eleven years later.  I almost went over to talk to him, but it seemed out of place to go clap my hands excitedly by his chair and say, “do you remember our godawful date?”

Your turn: tell your best worst-date-ever story.  The date that just begs to be retold. And what would you do if you saw them eating pizza eleven years later?

So…Project IF has been brewing for about five months.  I am so relieved we can all actually talk about it finally.

When we started planning Project IF, I was so focused on the logistics that I didn’t think about how hard I would cry reading down the list.  Reading other people’s fears.  Stating my own.  Reliving some that are past.  Thinking about ones I hadn’t considered.  It is a really powerful list.  I am incredibly moved by everyone’s participation.

The project has been a long time coming, though it has taken various incarnations over the last few months.  Some more expensive than others (um…sorry, Resolve, for suggesting that we lease elephants and parade them down to the Capitol with clever slogans about IVF coverage painted onto their hide.  I can see now that requesting that Independence Avenue be closed for the elephant parade just isn’t feasible).  And the ever brilliant and ever patient Rebecca Flick talked out each idea, helping this one come to fruition.

My hope is that–more with the second part (which will start April 21st, in time for NIAW)–that it changes the way the outside world thinks about infertility.  That they understand that there is a very real human with very large emotions on the other end of this situation.  Which is not to say that the obnoxious comments that run beneath every New York Times online story connected to infertility will instantly change to supportive and nurturing, but hopefully, it will help those who wish to understand have a window into the experience.  It will be a doorway for lawmakers, a doorway for friends and family, and a doorway for the newly diagnosed.  I cannot even tell you how moved I was by TexasHeather’s beautiful comment.  And hopefully, everyone will walk away feeling more connected with the realization that no one needs to be alone during this fight.

There are others out there who have your back.  Who understand as far as someone who has not lived your particular life can understand.

And I’m excited that they’re using Project IF to determine the Hope Award for Best Blog.  It was an amazing experience to get to go to the Night of Hope and receive that last year and I’m honoured to get to pass the accolades onto someone else.

You are definitely encouraged to add more than one “what if” if you are moved to do so.  The “what ifs” for the second part of this project will be chosen from those left in the comment section on the post.  So spread word; encourage others to place down their what ifs.  The list will remain open indefinitely, but the what ifs will be chosen from those left between the 7th and the 16th.

*******

I have been going through boxes at my parent’s house and in addition to a series of Ann Landers booklets and a stack of Onions from 1992–1996, I found three Guild report cards.  This one was the first one, from age 5.  I showed it to my mother and said, “this was the time I urinated in my underpants on the stage and started crying.”

Meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeemories…

*******

The Weekly What If: What if you could relive a single day of your life?  You couldn’t change a thing about it–you would simply be playing out the script of what occurred that day.  Which day would you experience again?  Would you go for a random, ordinary day or something traditionally special such as a wedding day?

*******

Adventures in Infertility-Land has one of the most heartbreaking posts I’ve ever read.  It is a beautiful tribute to the child she was about to lose.  It begins, “I am not sure how to write you this letter, but I could not let you go without making sure you know how I feel about you.”  This is about a mother’s intense love; doing the only things she can for her child.  I was so moved by these lines: “Please, my little baby, never doubt my love for you and love of your daddy. I know he cannot talk to you like I can and cannot carry you around like me, but his love for you is just as strong. Right now, I feel like I need to speak for both of us, as I am not sure if feels ready to yet or knows what to say.”  Please go read the full post, but be prepared to cry with CGD.  And while you are there, please give her support.

Alex’s Adventures has a post about mouse IVF and it’s $138 price tag.  Seriously, isn’t it making you wonder if you could be rodentized?

I got all weepy reading this post by Creating Motherhood on W’s first birthday.  Maybe it’s because I’ve read Cali for years, back before W was conceived and now he is a year old.  W, for me, has stepped through the screen (okay, it’s more like he crawled through the screen), but even before that point, his birth was such a celebration.  So raising a glass to W, on the first anniversary of his birth.

Lastly, Fertility Challenged in Florida has a post about a girl at work who says crappy, judgmental things.  I love Barb’s take on whether gaining the empathy balances out the terribleness of going through infertility and depression.

The roundup to the Roundup: more on Project IF.  Darling little peeing Melissa’s piano report card.  Answer the Weekly What If about what day you would relive.  And lots of great blogs to read.

Beyond the book news, the other exciting thing I’ve been sitting on is a project I’m working on with Resolve that actually involves all of you.

Since I was honoured last year with their first best blog award at Resolve’s Night of Hope, I get to introduce and help organize Resolve’s spring advocacy project, which will choose this year’s winner of the Hope Award for Best Blog at the 2010 Night of Hope.

Did that get your attention?

Good.

Participating in the newly created Project IF is quite simple and will be held in two parts.  Today kicks off the first part and the second part will go up on April 21st, just in time for NIAW, National Infertility Awareness Week (April 24–May 1).

All you have to do to participate in the first part is leave a comment below stating your biggest “what if” in regards to infertility: what if I never get to experience pregnancy? What if we can’t gather enough money to fund another adoption?  What if we didn’t choose the best clinic?  What if my child feels strange about being created via IVF?

In other words, take out one of the “what ifs” that keep knocking around inside your heart, keeping you awake at night, and allow the larger community to commiserate, empathize and help you carry your burden by reading your words.

The What IF List (in other words, this post and the comment section below) is open from now until April 16th.  On the 16th, the list will close and 10 what ifs will be chosen to be used in part two of Project IF and directions will be given on April 21st to explain how to participate in the second part.

All blogs and bloggers who participate in Project IF will be eligible to be considered for the Hope Award for Best Blog, presented at the 2010 Night of Hope.

Let the what ifs begin, and may this project bring strength in numbers; in the commonalities that run throughout the community despite our unique diagnoses, experiences, and circumstances.

Please help spread word about this project via your own blog.  If you use Twitter, the hashtag is #projectIF.  Unlike last year’s Advocacy Day which necessitated a trip to Washington, D.C., this project can be completed in the comfort of your home and will hopefully have an effect on changing the way the general public thinks about infertility as well as bringing together our community.

As many of you know, Susan at Toddler Planet, is going in for surgery tomorrow to remove lymph nodes under her arm where her breast cancer has recurred.  Instead of talking about Susan’s cancer, we’re going to talk about Susan herself, and her favourite thing–science–as part of Team WhyMommy’s Virtual Science Fair.

Which is easy for her because she is a brilliant astrophysicist.  But I am a lowly MFA who still insists that Pluto is a planet because the new categorization breaks up my mnemonic device (“My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine” doesn’t quite work and sounds as if my very educated mother has whipped out a sexy Rob Marshall film).  How was I going to celebrate science in a way that honoured Susan instead of embarrassed her with my complete planetary ignorance?

Josh gave me a special day (do you do that in your family?  Declare a certain day your special day where you get to choose everything?) to celebrate the book (thank you, by the way.  More news is coming soon, I promise.  I’m just waiting for some things to be set).  So I picked going to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.  My intention was to go out tonight and look at the stars, but I realized that I could combine hiking in Harpers Ferry with a nature talk.  And turtles and rapids, while not up in the sky, are certainly part of science.

We spent the day talking about why rapids occur in the river, and why water levels are higher in spring than at the end of summer, and facts about bees (did you know that they fly close to the ground when they are about to die?).  And that’s how we celebrated Susan and sent out love to her and a lot of hope that she recovers quickly from surgery, that the cancer never comes back, and that she can go back to inspiring us to be women who embrace science rather than run screaming from it for many many many years to come (many more years of inspiring us; not many years of us running screaming).

And I think my day is best captured in pictures since I couldn’t bring all of you with me.  So a slice of West Virginia…

Remember how I bought myself a ring a few months back?  Um…this one?

And I said that whenever I complete a big project or have a major life change, Josh buys me a ring or a necklace to mark the moment?

So I sort of completed a project and had a major life change last week.

I sold another book–this time fiction.

It’s somewhere resting between women’s fiction and really delicious chicklit.  It’s coming out next winter (hopefully before Christmas), though details like the date are still being set.  It’s about a blogger, rebuilding her life in the year after her divorce and can be summed up with one sentence: it’s the story of a woman who stops waiting for happiness to find her and starts cooking it herself.

More details coming soon…

You’re going to read it, right?