You know you're infertile when...

From the "Finding a Resolution for Infertility" on the Resolve online support community:

You know you're infertile when...

You use and understand more acronyms than the government space program.

You know that cycling has nothing to do with a bike.

You list your IF stats like a pro baseball player.

You hate at least one person that's pregnant.

You have long since learned to check your pride at the door (stirrups anyone?).

You think of expenses in terms of IVF cycles (i.e. 3,750 Starbucks coffees = one IVF try).

You readily admit that you're a powder keg and nothing you say should be taken personally.

You'd like to throttle your parents for how easy they made it sound when you were 16 and they wanted to scare you out of having sex.

At one point or another you want to smack just about everyone you love, but then we cry over the failed fertility treatments of perfect strangers.

More than 100 rude responses jump to mind when people ask why you're not pregnant yet. And some of them make even you blush.

And here's mine:

...almost two years after you throw in the towel and decide you're "over" IF, the news of yet another birth can throw you into an unexpected tailspin.

(More on that later.)

Got a good "You know you're infertile when..."? Send it to me. Or join this Resolve board. There were many more funny, moving and heart-wrenching contributions. Many thanks to Laura143 for starting this thread...

Watch the book trailer for Secret Seductions.

The book trailer for Secret Seductions is online! Take a look.



Many thanks to Ben Hess of Bay Area Pictures for the great work!

How I became a sex writer.

On Saturday, I read a pared-down version of my essay "Following Anais, or How I Became a Sex Writer," as part of LitCrawl, which is the climax of San Francisco's LitQuake literary festival. I read in an alley. Really. With the obligatory drunk crazy person and everything. Evan Carp from the San Francisco Examiner posted an article, here.

Here's the video. We only had 7 minutes, so I'm reading pretty fast.

Thanks to Evan Karp of the San Francisco Examiner for this video!

Funny, you don't even notice the dry mouth that afflicted me halfway through. I was in a state of abject terror all day about the reading, but once I got on the BART train headed to SF, my anxiety vanished, and I had a great time. Thanks, Amanda Coggin, for inviting me!

The original essay appeared in HerStory: What I Learned in My Bathtub...and More True Stories on Life, Love, and Other Inconveniences.

And the second giveaway winner is...

...is Miah! She wins the bottle of FertilAid for Women from FairHaven Health from my August 12 giveaway. I selected her name totally randomly using--what else--a website called Random.org.

Sorry it's taken me so long to announce the winners. In addition to having to put my cat to sleep last month, work has been nuts, I've had health problems, and well, life has been a bit challenging. And my dear son, bless his heart, is going through what one friend suggested is a "transitional period." This seems to involve much defiance and screaming from a normally happy, sweet and loving child.

Transitional period: right. I call it an AFGO. Which stands for, Another Fucking Growth Opportunity. I continue to have a lot of those, especially this summer.

Watch this blog for the third and final FairHaven Health winner from the September 3 giveaway for a package of FertiliTea.

I'm in the October issue of Cosmo.

...And it's one issue of Cosmo you can share with your man, because it has Megan Fox on the cover, and from what I understand, guys think she's hot or something. In the article, she claims to be really insecure. Yeah, whatever.

But Megan's not important right now. (Really.) See that headline on the cover that says "Bad Girl Sex"? Yeah, that's the article I was interviewed for. It starts on page 126--"Get Naughty Tonight!" is the name of the actual article--and I'm quoted a couple of times, talking about why bondage and role playing are so exciting.

Oh, and you'll note that the article mentions my forthcoming book, What Women Really Want in Bed, which I wrote with my dear friend Dana Fredsti. I found out the other day that it's not coming out until April 2010. Which is a huge bummer, but not that far off. Gulp.

If I had one request for Cosmo, it's that they make their articles available online to subscribers. It's an idea whose time has come, don't you think?

Great post on living with infertility.

Jump over to SexIs for a great article on living with infertility. I wish there was a way to respond to the author to tell her how much I related to what she describes. Maybe I'll post to the forum.

I'll be on Sex Drive Radio tonight.

I'll be a call-in guest on Dr. Ava Cadell's Internet radio show, Sex Drive Radio, tonight at 7:10pm PST. Dr. Cadell is a renowned clinical sexologist. I'll be talking about boundaries in relationships (I think). I'll only be on for about 5 minutes, so don't be late!





Update: I was on for all of 1 minute...three other authors called in before me, so by the time I got on, even though I followed the producer's instructions, Dr. Cadell was ready to talk to someone with real issues. Little did she know that I could oblige her there...

Final giveaway: FertiliTea. And the first winner.

Here's my final Fairhaven Health giveaway: FertiliTea, an herbal tea "designed to support the entire reproductive system and help increase your chances of conceiving." It contains chasteberry (vitex), red raspberry leaf, green tea, ladies mantle, nettle leaf and peppermint leaf. Just leave a comment on this blog. I'll select a winner at random, and announce him or her at the end of the month.

Sounds so good I'm tempted to try it myself, even though I'm no longer TTC. Although in a cruel irony, my boobs hurt so much right before my period that I actual went and bought an EPT. I was filled with dread; my husband, not so much. But as soon as I took the test (literally as I was waiting for the result), my period started. It was like my body was saying, "Ha! Got you again!" Anyway. Back to FertiliTea.

Again, my standard disclaimer: I'm in no way endorsing or suggesting you use this product; the kind folks at Fairhaven sent me a free sample and asked that I give it away to one lucky reader. Consult with your doctor before taking this or any other supplement.

DVD Winner!
Back at the end of July, I offered up a copy of the Bend, Breath, and Conceive Fertility DVD. I'm happy to report that the winner of my random drawing is The Single Hussy! So if you're reading this, Single, send me your email and snail-mail addresses by going to my website, www.cwgentry.com, and sending me a note through the Contact form.

A trip I'd rather not have to make.

I got a call from the vet's office yesterday. Isabelle's ashes are ready to be picked up. It's funny--I had been wondering whether I should call. I told the vet I would pick them up today, thinking I'd swing by on the way home after picking up my son from preschool. But how do I explain to him the purpose of our errand? He thinks that she's in Heaven, where God is playing with her.

On Wednesday, I came across some of her medications in our downstairs medicine cabinet. I thought I'd given them all back. I suppose reminders of her will keep cropping up. I keep thinking I see her out of the corner of my eye.