Who needs free peesticks?

As part of my search for a new direction for this blog, I have been trying to think of a way to give something to women who are out there and still waiting to conceive... So this is what I've come up with so far - starting this Sunday, each week I'll put up a new blog post announcing a new giveaway. Anyone who wants a chance to get 10 free pregnancy tests can leave a comment by Wednesday.

On Thursday, I'll put up a poll allowing everyone to choose who'll win.

On Sunday (a week after the original post), I'll announce the winner who will get 10 pregnancy test strips sent to her address for free - shipping included, of course. She'll have to contact me to give me her address (though I'll happily send an email, if I have the email address).

I'm allowing sponsorships too - if there's more than one per week, I'll give out that number of sets of free pregnancy tests (see the sponsorship link on the sidebar).

Are OPKs as appealing?

Blog morph

I've on the verge of a blog morph... Any suggestions as to directions I could take this blog would be greatly appreciated.

For now, I leave you with this clip we made for Ohad's birthday, with Abigail singing "Alligators All Around".



I almost forgot - a HUGE congratulations to Aurelia whose baby was born last night after a very scary birth.

Blogged down

Or bogged down... whatever...

I've thought about some interesting things I want to write - the use of lipiodol in women with endometriosis, another take on secondary infertility (or maybe infertility in general). But I never quite get to it.

Ohad's birthday, on the other hand, wouldn't wait and... since it's tomorrow and I am out of ideas (as usual) I did this (click the play button to watch it):




I heard about Scrapblog when I was a BlogHer last year and finally tried it. It's not terribly fast or easy to make something like this, but their user interface is fairly intuitive (though some things just didn't work for me) and it does everything I expected it to do and more. If you like these things, it's worth a try - all you have to bring is your own pictures (or hey, download other people's pictures if you want ;-))

Mother's Day

I think Erin said it perfectly...

I won't be celebrating for two reasons - one is that in Israel they both celebrate sometime in February (I never remember when) and they've switched it to "family day" and the second is that even if there were a Mother's Day in Israel, my kids would definitely forget. They sort-of-remembered-after-being-reminded that my birthday was yesterday... (and even that just means that they said the words "happy birthday").

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In blogosphere news, my mom sent me over to plan-b. For those of you who haven't followed their story (I did, but at some point I stopped reading), they had a really unique surrogacy experience, with a known surrogate who co-blogged with the intended parents. Go check it out :-)

I haven't had a chance to mention Doc Grumbles - she was at the top of my mental list of "most likely to succeed soon" infertility bloggers and is newly pregnant :-)

Happy 60!

Today's Israel's 60th Independence Day.

We just came back from watching the fireworks (I sat in the car holding Yirmi, but I think I had the absolute best view in the whole city). Wow. I love fireworks...

This afternoon, we got everyone together for some pictures, wearing our Israel 60 t-shirts - first just the kids... (yes, even Yirmi had a t-shirt):


and then everybody... This is our first family picture with Yirmi :-)

Happy Independence Day!

Moaning & groaning

I have the lovely pleasure of meeting with the court social worker & my ex once again today. A new report has been at the top of the news in Israel during the past few days - including the recommendation that mothers not be automatically awarded custody of children under 6 (which has been the standard so far). I am sure that in many cases, this is the right thing, but I can't imagine how much more I would have had to give up if my ex had tried to get custody of my kids and actually had a chance. As it was, I gave up a lot (financially) just to get out. I think that there needs to be some sort of labeling for abusive partners so that their ex-spouses don't have to continue to go through hell with them just because everyone naturally assumes they're decent human beings. I mean, the fact that the social worker thinks it's fine for me to have to have my ex agree to the kids going to the scouts - in writing - before he has to pay for it is insane. He doesn't want to pay for anything, therefore he just won't agree. How smart do you have to be to understand that???


It also made me really mad that my ex showed Lilach a piece of blank paper with the bank's logo on it as 'proof' that he has no money. I think it's really slimy to try to take advantage of the fact that he thinks she's not very smart. (She's much smarter than he thinks. She came home right away to ask me if that really means anything or not. I assured her that it does not.)

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Here are some pictures from yesterday:

Yirmi loves being on this blanket and he bats at things - not deliberately, but it's a start...

Nomi, holding the license plate Hadas found and plans to put in her new dorm. Check out her orange shoes...





Ohad and Yirmi in the garden. I love to see them together :-)