Show and Tell is wasted on elementary schoolers. Join several dozen bloggers weekly to show off an item, tell a story, and get the attention of the class. In other words, this is Show and Tell 2.0. Everyone is welcome to join, even if you have never posted before and just found out about Show and Tell for the first time today. So yank out a photo of the worst bridesmaid’s dress you ever wore and tell us the story; show off the homemade soup you cooked last night; or tell us all about the scarf you made for your first knitting project. Details on how to participate are located at the bottom of this post.

Let’s begin.

Warning, a NICU picture below…

I am still pouring drinks at the Virtual Lushary, but now it’s time for a little showing and telling.

My big project this summer is making scrapbooks for the twins. I have things written down in a multitude of places and thousands of pictures, but I’ve never taken the time to put it all together in a book and I want them to have the stories and milestone dates from the first five years of their life. My goal is to complete them before their 5th birthday. I have one book for stories and pictures of the two of them together and then the ChickieNob and Wolvog both have their own.

Please indulge some photos/memories this summer as I find them.

I had forgotten about this picture until I found it on an old disc. I am stroking the ChickieNob’s head. I think she was under the bili lights, hence the eerie lighting. Josh took the picture. I look so young, so concerned, so unsure.

In my journal I wrote about their early birth, “It would be like planning a wedding for August and then being thrust into the experience in July. It’s not that you wouldn’t be happy to be married (and being married is obviously the point of the wedding), but you’d feel cheated out of the end of the wedding planning experience. I still had a lot of dreaming to do before they arrived, and I was really sad that I wouldn’t get to feel them inside me anymore even if I was also excited to see them.”

What are you showing today?

Click here or scroll down to the bottom of this post if this is your first time joining along (hint: link to the permalink for the post, not the main url for your blog and use your blog’s name, not your name). The list is open from now until late Tuesday night and a new one is posted every week.

What is that pool of yellow you just stepped over to get to the bar? That? It’s just a puddle of urine. I literally peed myself because I’m going to be speaking in the Community Keynote at BlogHer.

I’m not allowed to tell you what I submitted, but I’ll give you a hint. It has to do with infertility, my wonky ovaries, or my clot-happy blood. Or maybe all three.

The urine is both from excitement (my cousins had a dog that you couldn’t pet when you first entered the house because if you did, it would go crazy with excitement and pee on the carpet. I’m sort of like that dog) and nervousness. I am not the best public speaker. I have a tendency, like that dog, to pee on the carpet. I mean…get anxious in front of large crowds.

So if you’re coming to BlogHer, you’ll know why I’m wearing water-resistant dark slacks on Friday.

Actually, are you coming to BlogHer? I know Briar will be there because she is leading a panel. And I think Aurelia will be there and Alexa. Who else? Who am I missing? Can we all make a list of ALI bloggers so we know who will be there and make some sort of plan to meet up for lunch on the first day? If you will be there, leave a note in the comment section (whether you are a blog writer or a blog reader) or send me an email and I’ll put a plan in place so we can all meet up (please include your blog url if you write one so I can link to it in the list). We were somewhat successful last summer and had a great dinner/dessert one night. This time, we’ll plan it earlier and close to the hotel so a lot of people can plan to come.

Wait, back to the bar. Please make sure you sidestep the urine and let me know what you’ll have.

As always, it has been about a month since we met, bitched, cried, comforted, and caught up each other on our cycles and lives. Pull up a seat and I’ll pour you a drink. Let everyone know what is happening in your life. The good, the bad, the ugly. My only request is that if a story catches your eye, you follow it back to the person’s blog and start reading their posts. Give some love, give some support, or laugh with someone until your drink comes out of your nose.

I have a ton of assvice in my back pocket and as a virtual bartender, I will give it to you unless you specifically tell me that this is simply a vent and you do not want to receive anything more than a hug.

So if you have been a lurker for a while (or if this is your first open bar as someone who found this space through IComLeavWe), sit down and tell us about yourself. Remember to provide a link or a way for people to continue reading your story (or if you don’t have a blog–gasp!–you can always leave an email address if you’re looking for advice or support. If not, people can leave messages for that person here in the comments section too). If you’re a regular at the bar, I’ll get out your engraved martini glass while you make yourself comfortable. And anyone new, welcome. I’m glad you found this virtual bar.

For those who have no clue what I’m talking about when I say that the bar is open, click here to catch up and then jump into the conversation back on this current post.

So have an imaginary cocktail and tell us what is up with your life.

Warning: contains movie background more than movie spoilers…

It started with an emailed warning: Pixar’s new movie, Up, contains a scene that depicts either pregnancy loss or infertility. It continued with posts–both embracing Disney for sensitively portraying the inability to build a family and condemning Disney for introducing yet another topic that parents don’t wish to cover with their kids. Finally, I went to see it for myself.

And I sobbed.

Perhaps I cried because I had my period when I walked into the theater. Or I may have cried because I was anxious in knowing that my emotional buttons were going to be pushed. I was on edge through the short film that came before the main feature that showed how babies are created on clouds. But I think I cried because Pixar did such a fantastic job with the topic and it touched me so deeply, especially when you can’t help but project your own life onto the screen and lay it over Carl and Ellie’s.

The topic is tackled both in the first few minutes of the movie and then subtly throughout, in such a way that adults will pick up on the hidden messages whereas children will most likely gloss over the fact that the couple is childless. And since reading all the blog posts about it, it seems as if many have missed the fact that infertility is covered throughout–much like infertility or loss which is not neatly contained in the moment, but affects the way you see the world from that point on.

Carl and Ellie, childhood sweethearts, promise to go on adventures with one another when they’re older. After getting married, they start dreaming of their life together as they are lying together on a blanket outside, and their music-scored dreams include visions of babies.

They are shown painting a nursery and preparing for a baby and then for a brief moment, we see them in a doctor’s office, with Ellie crying into her hands and her husband rubbing her shoulders while they both face the doctor. Afterwards, we see Ellie sitting outside, her eyes closed and she projects a deep sadness that still has me crying as I write this.

Because who hasn’t sat still with the diagnosis, after all the tears are gone, and felt like there was no movement in the eye of the storm? In a film about movement–aptly named Up–she is sitting motionless. And finally, they begin moving again, planning out a life of adventure that never quite takes place as they planned, but like all the unplanned moments in life, is even better than Carl could see as it happened. It took, once again, a moment of not moving; of sitting still in a chair, to see how much adventure and happiness and joie de vivre he had in his life with Ellie–even if it wasn’t how they hoped.

Infertility keeps playing out later in the film when Carl encounters a little boy whose father doesn’t appreciate his child. It’s interesting that the people up in arms mention the opening montage, because this is the part of the movie where I thought the infertility dynamic came more into play. Who hasn’t felt bitterness in seeing a parent obviously not parenting their child when you are unable to build your family? And in the end, it comes back to a truism that anyone child-free after infertility knows quite well: there is the family you are raised with and the family you choose; and while all are familiar with fictive kin in the form of brothers or sisters, we also may form fictive kin with children.

It is easy to tell when his past is informing his present because the character literally stops moving. After the diagnosis, Ellie sits still in the chair. After he hears about how the boy’s father isn’t parenting him, Carl stops walking. When he is remembering Ellie and the life they thought they’d have, he sits. It is easy to see how often infertility subtly plays out in the film if you count the number of times the characters pause from movement, a very clever way of showing the stagnation of infertility or loss in a movie that is entirely about directional movement.

Like Punch Drunk, I disagree with the commenters on that post who think that loss or infertility has no place in a Pixar film. As DD states: “Who knew having a miscarriage was so…offensive? So…disgusting and ugly and ironically, so child- and family-UNfriendly, whereas (spoiler alert) the old man falling to his death from his dirigible after his failed attempt to cut the old hero in two with a sword was perfectly sanitary.”

Personally, I’m thankful that Pixar finally gave my children a vision of a family grappling with infertility. Our losses took place before the twins arrived, and while they know why we light a candle in the house on October 15th each year, I don’t think they understand that we’re not the only people who had trouble building our family. Unlike parental death in Finding Nemo or the idea that there are people out there who want to hurt you (in every Disney film), this was presented in such a way that families in the know will appreciate the ability to use it as a jumping board for discussion and those who have thankfully had no trouble with family building will miss this point entirely.

What was your take on Pixar’s Up?

Cross-posted with BlogHer

It seems eerie now, in retrospect, that I wrote about emotional fraud on the Internet about one month ago in response to Niobe’s earlier post on the same topic. Who was to know that one month later, almost to the day, I would receive an email from a concerned blogger asking if I had heard about this website disproving the existence of Little April Rose. She didn’t know what to think, unable to wrap her mind around the idea that someone would use the death of a child to garner attention.

Beccah Beushausen said that she started the blog to process a prior loss and “to express her strong anti-abortion views.” And I wonder, in a week where we are still reeling from the death of Dr. Tiller, when murder, lying, and emotional manipulation became a proper way to spread a message.

I didn’t know the site beyond the badges I’ve seen on people’s sidebars and a blurb someone placed back in April in the LFCA. Anti-abortion bloggers and I don’t really mix. But it still makes me feel ill even if I hadn’t been taken for a ride. My heart goes to the very real people, like my friend, Kathy, who have lived through a very real loss especially those who knew before the birth that their child was gravely ill and you ache for what they must be thinking this moment.

Many people have come out with statements about Rebeccah Beushausen, both condemning her for her actions and offering sympathy in the face of someone who is unwell. But my statements are for the men and women who have lived through the loss of a child. My heart is with them tonight. For the men and women who have held their child, either knowing prior to the birth or afterward that they would have to say goodbye. For everyone who appears in the loss room, for all the people I inadvertently missed.

My advice, for anyone who is upset by the April Rose manipulation, visit one of the blogs in the loss room–the stillbirth/neonatal death/infant death blogs are towards the bottom–and leave them kind words of support. You can either curse the darkness brought on by Beccah Beushausen or you can light your way out of it by embracing the members of community who are hurting right now from this.