What does Yom Kippur, a search engine, and a bunch of posts about infertility have in common? I'm not entirely sure myself, but these things always sort themselves out by the end of the post. So stay with me for the inevitable punchline. ******* Today is Yom Kippur, a day of atonement in Judaism. I have already said my apologies on my main blog:

Though I thought we were doing fertility treatments because we wanted a child, it turns out that we were just doing it for the accouterments of parenthood: the bugaboo stroller, the Kate Spade diaper bag, and the minivan. Actually, who am I kidding? We endured all those injections just for an airtight excuse to play with Legos. Brooke Shields has paired with Volkswagen in their new ad campaign on the "Routan Boom," a baby boom based solely on the parent's desire for "German engineering" and a sleek new minivan.

The Huffington Post reported this week that "swimming in Australian Outback waterfalls may promote fertility." This is based on an extremely scientific study conducted on the movie set of the epic romance, Australia, where seven--yes, you read that correctly--seven sexually-active women got pregnant out of the several hundred cast and crew members working on the film. Therefore, you know it works.

My kids are 17 and 14, so it was quite a long time ago, but I do remember going to one of my first prenatal visits. I remember being asked if I wanted to have a blood test that could detect the possibility of Down Syndrome in my baby. Since the doctor formed this question in a way that made me think that the decision about having this test was up to me, I naively answered.

Naomi Campbell: supermodel, phone thrower, jetsetter...and stirrup queen? News sources are buzzing with Naomi Campbell's battle with infertility, struggle with infertility, and renewed fertility. But it sort of begs the question: if an infertile woman is not actively trying to get pregnant, is she battling infertility?

By the time you read this, I will have hopefully survived the first day of preschool. I say "hopefully" because I truly don't know what's going to happen when I get to that classroom door. Will I have a meltdown in the hallway, throwing myself at my childrens' feet, having them drag me over the tiled classroom floor as they fight my grip, struggling towards that goddamn sand table that is going to create so much laundry for me at the end of each day? Or will I merely slink off to the stalls filled with mini potties and silently weep into the toilet paper?

Is there an expiration date on wishes? For instance, if I wish on a star tonight, at what point do I write off the wish as not coming true? One week? One month? A couple of years? And, if by chance, that wish does come true albeit five years down the road, do I believe that it was simply delayed wish grantification and that the two events (the wish and the fulfillment) are entirely connected? I mean, if you believe in wishes at all.

It's amazing what people will do to get out of work. I heard tale that there are laaaaaaaaaazy women out there who love having their cervix manipulated in order to have a catheter shoved through to their uterus so an embryo that was created out of an egg that they had surgically removed from their body can be transferred back. All just to get out of that 8 a.m. staff meeting. You know that kind of woman also is the type who looooooooooooooooves to waste time with things like having mammograms or colo-rectal exams. Slackers.

Finally! One of the most pressing questions in my life - how on earth did a committed socialist like me end up married to a capitalist finance professional?

Dara Torres: 9 time medalist in swimming, 5-time Olympiad, 41-years-old (and the oldest female swimmer), incredible powerhouse. And stirrup queen to boot. With 7.4 million Americans diagnosed with infertility, it makes sense that a portion of Olympic athletes would need a little help in the non-equestrian stirrups. But certainly Dara Torres's openness in talking about IVF has made her a hero in the infertility blogosphere.

This is the problem with going to BlogHer--it's like exercise. It makes you all healthy and energized. You come home and your thoughts feel cleansed as if they've just done a round of cardio and finished off the workout with a glass of carrot juice.

There I was, my back to the front door, Twittering about the Wonder Pets (what do you guys think about the Ollie character who pops up in the "Saves the Skunk" episode? A little grating...right?) when my husband burst through the door, flinging the grocery bags brimming with half-and-half and veggie chicken nuggets to the ground to brandish the shocking evidence. "It was in vitro!" he roared, shaking the cover of Us magazine in my face. And the world stopped. And that was the moment that everything changed.