From FN: The Real Meaing of Christmas

Once upon a time, I had this great gig blogging about fertility issues that actually gave me a little cash. To vent, to share, to talk about fertility in the media, on the news, in the blogosphere. those days are past and all the old links are dead. But every now and then, it feels nice to resurrect some old, yet relevant posts. You can find them here under the header "From FN:"

This was originally posted December 9, 2007. Happy Holidays, everyone:

No, I am not going to talk about material vs. spiritual, Santa Claus vs. little baby Jesus. Even though my mom still insists on buying a birthday cake and singing Happy Birthday to Jesus every year (a holdover from our childhood which she thinks we all embrace), we all know this holiest of holy days has actually been around long before Christianity took hold.

Here’s a great article on AlterNet that gives a history of December 25th from its pagan beginnings to it as a shared celebration with Christians and on to its current incarnation. Decorating homes with evergreens probably started with the Roman celebration of Saturnalia. Rob Boston reminds us that,

Evergreen trees had long been viewed as a symbol of fertility by Pagan peoples.
When winter came and most trees lost their leaves and appeared to die, the
evergreen was a reminder that life would endure and that long days, warmer
weather and a harvest would come again.

The Good News says thank German immigrants for bringing the concept of a Christmas tree to America:

Nineteenth-century German immigrants to the United States were among the first
to use a recognizable Christmas tree in this country, so it is often assumed
that the Christmas tree hails from the traditions of northern Europe. In fact,
it is more authentically a product of much older southern traditions. Ancient
Egyptians viewed the evergreen tree as a fertility symbol.

I wonder if this explains why we bought our tree early and if the past is any indication, will probably have it up well into the new year? I love the look of it, the smell, the fact that we keep unearthing ornaments from different places and times in our lives. I love having a huge piece of the forest taking over my living room. I love that that’s not seen as odd. Maybe I just love being reminded on the dreariest of winter days that life will endure and that long days, warmer weather and (hopefully) a harvest (of sorts) will come.

F*rtility N*tes

Now that I'm spending some serious time on my blog I realize that my links and sidebar desperately need updating. One thing I was NOT expecting was to have my beloved blog project F*rtility Notes redirected to a site that I am not too crazy about.

Just so you know, I had written F*rtility Notes - All the News Your Womb Can Use for over a year using my real name. It was a fact-based blog focused on fertility news and events as well as highlighting lots of you here in the IF community.

When the blog network decided to "retire" the blog, I knew there would be a chance they would merge the content into another blog, but I had been hoping for inclusion in certain ones and not others. Just so you know, if you had a link to F*rtility Notes on your blog, where it goes now is NOT ME. It is NOT F*rtility Notes; it is a completely separate and different blog.

Bummer. This totally bums me out.

But reminds me that f*ck. I still know how to write. I can still gather information. It seems I have some time on my hands and that I will indeed, be back on the IF wagon. My life is still affected by medical research and development, by the emergence of the oncofertility field and the continued ignorance of others. I bet yours are too.

I hereby proclaim that F*rtility N*tes will be resurrected here on this site. Not known by the same name, but certainly the same spirit.

H*ll, I bet I even still have some prizes to give away...

I've Been "Retired."

Not me, but two of the blogs that I write for a certain online media company. D*mn.

I'm telling you because one of them was Fertility Notes, a little project that I was pretty proud of. And while I didn't have the highest number of readers on the channel, my readers were the best. I really don't think that (with a few exceptions) the other blogs had the kind of personal and, sorry advertisers, sometimes painful points of view FN had. We laughed, we cried. We shared free stuff.

But apparently, our wombs and what's (not) in them don't translate to big online ad money.

Which is a little shocking to me. I thought us infertiles were cash cows.

Part of me is a little relieved. While I turn here to cleanse my soul. To rant, to rave, to find you, FN was feeling more and more like a job, and that's really not what I had wanted. Not having that added responsibility gives me a lot more time and mental energy to dedicate to some other things abrewin' right now....

There are still a few more days of limping along. August 11th will be the official last day.

After that, I'm sorry, I think I'm going to have to bug you all here with stuff I would usually post over there (along with the usually b*tching and moaning, of course). I've got it in my system.

Maybe I'll add a special page or something. Can you do that in Blogger?