Yedda Does It - Congratulations!

Congratulations to my friends over at Yedda!

I woke up this morning to the news that they've been bought by AOL. I started using Yedda's Q&A widget in August 2006 (turns out I was their first partner!) and have answered hundreds of questions so far, almost all about infertility, many from my experience & others that I spent time reading journal articles or doing other types of research in order to answer. Some of the questions have given me inspiration for articles or blog posts I wrote. And, of course Yedda also sent me to BlogHer 2007, which was my first time in the US in 13 years... (OK, that may not be related, but it was one of the most exciting things that happened to me this past year.)

Now all I have to do is figure out how to get AOL to buy my website... ;-)

The Weird Thing About Telling So Late

When I was going through IVF, I told people even before there was a chance I'd be pregnant. I didn't particularly enjoy my family & friends going through the 2ww with me, but the whole process was so intense that everyone ended up knowing. Clearly, as soon as the results were in, everyone knew that too...

This time, Ohad & I really enjoyed having a secret (we didn't even really feel any need to tell when we did)... we knew I was pregnant when Yedda offered to send me to BlogHer & we knew when I ordered the tickets to take Lilach to Croatia. I was careful when I tore through the airport in Atlanta trying to catch my flight (I did) and I avoided riding a gondola in Venice because I get seasick easily even when I'm not pregnant... I was also careful not to volunteer for anything at the school...

When we announced this pregnancy at the end of the 16th week, it was still not obvious. I could still wear my normal clothes for a few weeks, but now (it seems way too suddenly) I'm wearing maternity clothes and it's clear I'm pregnant.

I guess a pregnancy becomes 'real' for me at a many different points:

- a positive home pregnancy test

- a positive beta test (blood)

- the first ultrasound when I see a heartbeat

- the first ultrasound when the fetus begins to look like a baby

- when my ordinary clothes stop fitting

- the first time I *definitely* feel the baby kick

- when people can tell by looking at me and...

- when we tell people.

But maybe this one (telling people, especially family) has more weight, because when other people know, it's no longer just a fantasy (that for some odd reason the ultrasound machine seems to believe), it's not only part of my life, but part of theirs too...

In any case, it's fun that it's gone by so quickly, just strange.

On Saturday, we finish 24 weeks.

Doing the jetlag thing

It's 5:37 in the morning and I wouldn't be up (probably) if it were not for the jetlag and for some weird nightmare a certain person I was sleeping next to had...

Yesterday I woke up bright and early and drove to the airport with my parents.

(boring flight story ahead)
I was lucky to have gotten back to Israel in time - all the flights out of Chicago Sunday night were delayed and the friendly people at the Delta check-in informed me that there was no way they could get me to Atlanta in time for my connection. At the last minute, I was able to switch flights to another flight that was running too late for me to get my connection... The stewardess actually asked all of the other passengers to remain seated so that the two other guys and I could zip off the plane as fast as possible. We RAN across the terminal, onto the train, off the train, down the halls & finally, really out of breath, reached the gate, where they greeted me with my name. I was literally in tears getting on the plane - knowing that if I missed this flight, it was a full 24 hours before I could get on the next one. It took me about half an hour to catch my breath, but I have never been happier to be on a plane before in my life (I have no fear of flying, I just hate it). Anyway, aside from the fact that there were a whole bunch of people waiting for me here, I knew that missing the flight would also mean missing the opportunity to greet Kirby & her husband.

Kirby's actually the first person I've met in person after reading her blog. I'm really looking forward to getting to know her.

I keep thinking about Thalia's comment about the BlogHer conference being all about "getting the brand out there" and it is so far from the reason that I or most other people were there. Some of the issues were technical (Did you know that you could use different rss feeds for different tags, for example? I didn't. Have you ever wondered how you could completely change the template without wrecking old posts or export your Blogger blog to WordPress?) Some had to do with handling comments (Do you delete negative comments? Do you turn off comments altogether?) Some had to do with handling multiple blogs on multiple topics (Do you have both a marketing blog and an infertility blog & how do you keep them separate and find time to update both? When is a blog considered dead & should you leave it up anyway?) And then there were others about monetizing your blog (How does it change what you write? Should you allow it to change what you write? In what ways are you obligated to your readers if you do product reviews?) and sessions about "From blog to book" - for women who want to get published - how to do it, what sells, etc. I went there to get ideas and hopefully, once the jetlag starts to wear off, I'll actually figure out if I did and what they are... In any case, I felt there was a lot to learn.
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Oh, weird. I just turned around and it's light out. And here I was thinking it was still night. I'd better go back and try to get some sleep. Today is going to be a long day...

BlogHer Conference

Here I am in Chicago, writing from the BlogHer conference.

It's a great conference and I'm enjoying meeting lots of people and getting great freebies... Being away is exciting and refreshing on one hand, but I'm running myself ragged, so I'm so tired my eyes are practically closing. I'm about to become one of those people who falls asleep in the middle of a session... well, I would be, if I weren't busy networking instead of going to the actual session (oops)... that, and talking to my mother's 2nd cousin on the phone.

Infertility bloggers seem to have no representation here, which isn't that surprising. I met one blogger who blogs about depression, which is similar in the privacy aspects, but not too many who are blogging about really personal topics. Amazingly, during the "speed dating" session (two big circles, 1 minute per meeting) several women told me that they were going to look up my blog and that they were unaware that there are infertility bloggers or an informal infertility blogging community.

The main question I keep being asked is how blogging about infertility helps women, men & couples. The second is what part do men take in the whole process (and no, I'm not talking about the little-cup-in-a-brown-paper-bag part). I gave my answers, but I'd appreciate any insight.

All my best from Chicago :-)