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10/30/2008
Haiku! (Gesundheit.)
Limber up those fingers, people, and get ready to count some syllables: It's time for the First Annual Infertility Haiku Competition!
Crimson droplets fall
Mournful autumn, maple leaves,
Days before beta
My Fertility Plan is sponsoring a contest to celebrate the many ways infertiles cope with their family-building challenges...
Ominous gray clouds
Smudged on the ultrasound screen:
Follicles collapse
...with real cash prizes and everything!
Cervical mucus
Gleams with promise, dreams stretched thin,
Wishful strings of snot
Entries must relate in some way to your infertility experience, and must conform to the traditional 5-7-5 convention.
Two pink lines or one?
Urine ripples, surging wish...
One. Fuck and alas.
There are two categories, serious and silly, and, hey, even a special award for medication-related haiku! (Hint: gonadotropin, five syllables. Recombinant FSH, seven.)
"Why no children yet?"
Imagine this ass, like yours,
Stabbed with 18-gauge.
Enter as many times as you like — it's free — between now and noon ET on Monday, November 24. I'm one of the judges...
Supplementing hope,
Enveloped so securely:
Suppository
...and I very much look forward to reading your moving, funny, and brilliant creations.
Cycle day thirteen
Winter's quiet cold descends:
Ovary forlorn
Get the full details here, and submit your entries by visiting My Fertility Plan and clicking on "Contact Us." (Send each entry separately, and don't forget to include your name and e-mail address.)
"It's a numbers game,"
Says the doctor, unconcerned.
Christ, what an asshole.
Comments (30)
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Christ, what an ... awesomely creative person you are!
XO
I've already picked my winner:
Two pink lines or one?
Urine ripples, surging wish...
One. Fuck and alas.
I'm already planning to embroider it for my bathroom wall. Thanks!
I can offer you
Eggs, hope and a dry shoulder
My infertile friend
I'm having a hard time deciding whether my entries are "serious" or "silly". I mean the whole subject is serious, and yet absurd at the same time.
Two weeks at a time,
Hope inflates the heart and head.
Blood fills both with lead.
Waiting room at 7
No one speaks, eyes are misty
Why cant we reach out and hug?
six years of trying...
shots, pain, and money galore
having twins? Priceless!
oh my holy god, you are so freaking funny i just wet myself laughing in my office cube.
fuck and alas.
gah! oh, that was good. thanks so much.
Wow - what fun! A contest with a dark side!
I don't qualify as getting pregnant wasn't my problem. Delivering a live baby was the issue. But, I'll sit back and enjoy the laughs!
Hey Chickenpig, haven't I seen that haiku somewhere before? Hmm?
;)
A haiku borne not from the challenges of getting pregnant, but the challenges of staying that way. It's titled "A Description of the Ultra-sound Room at My Wife's OB/GYN"
From countless visits,
Matching the shape of my head:
A dent in the wall.
Hi all -
Julie - I worship at your sense of humor .
Thanks for sharing the contest in such a hilarious way. The picture, however, is now embedded in my head forever...
The contest is open to any form of family-building - so don't feel like your story doesn't fit. And if you wrote a haiku for the comments, please run over and enter it...you've already done the hard work.
be well,
fuck and alas. tee hee
My submission:
"I know how you feel.
It took three whole months to get
pregnant with our fifth."
Love it!! OMFG, Akeeyu, that's perfect!
waiting and waiting
stuck in the gate again, shit
aging ovaries
I love you. Very creative.
Oh this is fun!
Of all the decisions
my future husband could make
why vasectomy?!
:p
A sad one...
Miscarraige of Hope
You have gone, so has my heart
Why could we not meet?
When people tell me
Good things come to those who wait
If only they knew
Cruel stick invading
Counting eggs while I freak out
Effing dildo cam.
Hey, check this out! Jon Stewart on the Daily Show last night bashes McCain for the air-quotes around "women's health". He must be reading your blog...
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=189772&title=bill-kristol
Jon Stewart also did a segment earlier in the week where Samantha Bee goes to town about "women's health." I immediately thought of you, Julie, and gave a hurrah.
Yes Julie! I saw both episodes of Jon Stewart and thought of you! I really hope you get a chance to look at the episodes. Better yet, I hope you are a fan of the show and watch it all the time. His humour seems right up your alley.
Love the caption on the pic. You're an evil genius and I love you. :D
what fun!
here's mine:
Infertility
Is it time to quit? (not yet!)
12 grand a pop, poof
Wow, this takes me back to 2004 when I first began reading this blog while dipping my toe into the ART pool (or rather, when I was rudely shoved into the deep end). I wrote the following haiku while walking home from work through Central Park in NYC.
Walking home today
sixteen babies passed me by
and one homeless man
(Wait the despair gets better)
Man with floppy babe
smiles smugly as he passes
I flip him the bird
Here's another one
three wheeled perambulator
flabby mom joggs past
and finally:
tomorrow it starts
injections, uncertainty
will I loose my shirt?
I'm so confused. Is 'akeeyu' serious? Seems like a pretty bitchy response to me. Yuck.
But Julie, you are incredibly funny and clever. Love it!
Wait, just realized I could put that first part into a haiku:
I am so confused.
Is akeeyu serious?
Rude ones, there's the door.
I wrote this one several years ago after a failed IUI to my best friend, also going through infertility.
Nothing inside me
can break my spitit more than
Nothing inside me
I think Akeeyu used the quotes around her submission to indicate that someone has said this to her, not as a "nyah nyah" thing.
Wow, you are awesome at infertility haiku's. Who'da thunk it?
Eggs and a needle
Slow sperm swim in circles
One lives while four die