We had a small field this time, but a great one! Go check out the entries (including mine).

I got an email from someone just dying to get cracking on the next IIFF, so I've just posted the theme! It's a tight deadline - screening from Saturday 29th March - but I know you can do it! Anyway, read all about it on the site!

Whilst you're there, or, actually, in addition to going there, you might want to look at Stars - a short made for Rob's wife after the stillbirth of their son. It's being entered in Rumschpringe: A Very Short Film Competition, and to get anywhere it needs to be rated and favourited by as many people as possible. Go! View! Before Tuesday! Bring tissues...

*I almost forgot - any prizes won by the Stillmans will be donated to Ephrata's Neonatal Infant Care Unit.

I kind of want to write a whole litany of excuses explaining why this effort is so rushed and beyond last-minute, but I'm sending myself to sleep just thinking about it, so just watch and hope you enjoy! It's pretty self-explanatory... and spooky...

Then, if you haven't already, check out the rest at The Third International Infertility Film Festival - "Halloween Special".

...after I wrote yesterday's post. But I can't, for the life of me, remember if he picked up any beer with that juice.

Don't forget the Film Festival is on at the end of next week. Best get cracking! Those short of ideas can always combine the leftovers from Halloween into a Girl-Blogger's Night In film, killing several birds with one stone.

I know I've mentioned a few times that my symptoms are pretty weak - sometimes I have to stick my toothbrush a long way down my throat to bring on any morning sickness - but I've got one more to add to the list this week: tiredness.

I was quite concerned about my lack of tiredness, because it seems such a very common pregnancy symptom, but a revelation struck me as I awoke from my afternoon nap the other day and I excitedly started to share it with Mr Bea. "I think I've worked out why I'm not feeling tired!" I announced.

"Is it because you've been sleeping so much?" he replied.

"You knew," I said, crestfallen. "Why didn't you tell me?" He had the hide to answer by shaking his head in disbelief.

So yes, I have not been tired, but I have been sleeping more - a full night's sleep and an afternoon nap, which is great on the symptoms front and I love having the luxury - but the downside is it's not exactly getting my coursework done. And I have 80% of my assessment due in October. As well as a film festival. All of which is a very long-winded way of getting around to my point, which is that I've decided to delay the third IIFF by a week, until the 3rd of November which is a little late for Halloween, but not too much so never mind.

So! The third season of IIFF and the last for 2007 will still be Halloween, but the new date is the 3rd of November. Can't wait to see your entries, and I will be running the prizes again - audience choice, lucky dip, and the grand jury prize. So go! Go!

Ever since he found out the theme for this IIFF was to be "Seasons", Mr Bea has been singing the following song around the house (to the tune of Feelgood Hit of the Summer):

"Synarel, FSH, clomiphene, ovidrel, heparin, progesterone...
I-I-I-I-I V! F!"

He's also disappointed no-one used this song by Crowded House. However, since he was too lazy to actually put an entry together using either of these ideas, he wonders if you could just imagine them in your mind.

I am not inclined to add him to the poll.

There's only eight more days til the Second International Infertility Film Festival, on the theme of "Seasons"! A last-minute checklist has been posted up at the site, and the entries are trickling in already. To fuel the excitement, here's a sneak preview from my film:

This woman is an infertility blogger, so we can't show you her face on television. But we can show you her scrubbing her kitchen floor with a toothbrush.

Feeling fueled? Well, eight days still leaves you time to compose an entry! Email me if any questions.

First, I have to be honest and say this entry is no-where near as exciting as the one I just posted over at the International Infertility Film Festival site. So please, if you have to choose - go there. I'm secretly hoping you'll come back after you've finished, but I understand if that can't be the case as I know your time is valuable, especially with film festival deadlines looming. I'll make things short, if that helps.

--

It's been two weeks since my blood tests and biopsy, and I think I've held up pretty well so far. The results are now due sometime within the next week, and I just wanted to say, "Holy fuck, what if they find something really fucking terribly wrong and it all goes to shit and this is the end or maybe which in some ways might be worse they say it's bad news but not quite the end because if you just keep trying statistically speaking after thirty-seven cycles of IVF you'll probably but of course no guarantees manage to make it to term and oh good fucking grief what will we do if it's bad news?"

Thankyou. I'm planning to flip out briefly again tomorrow at six. Join me!

I've just announced the theme and date over at the festival site, and it's all spruced and updated and ready to go (except the new banner, which is currently non-existant).

Apart from the front page, you might also like to visit this post: Help Promote The Festival. (Cough, hint hint. I promise it doesn't cost money.)

**Thanks, guys - I have heaps now. You rock.**

**Also - remember our sick dog? She has finally been discharged (as of Tuesday 27/3) and is now undergoing outpatient monitoring. For the next 6+ months. If all goes well.**

---

I haven't had a chance to work out whether or not it's a good one, but with the International Infertility Film Festival now less than a week away, I don't really have time.

I need photos. I would like you to send me some. I'm looking for a diverse range of photos depicting both everyday life and special events. They don't have to be good - a happy snap of a party where everyone forgot to pose and the flash is bleaching their faces and causing red-eye is fine. Good, in fact. You can also send me pictures of your garden, your dog and your car. Your home renovation project in progress. Your handbag collection. That test shot you took in the shop before you bought the camera. Your family at Christmas, or your friend's wedding. Your neighbour's child (who is also your neighbour, I suppose). The cafe where you eat breakfast.

You get the idea.

Please email photos to me at infertilefantasies (at) gmail (dot) com, or tell me where they're posted on your blog and that I can download them myself. Photos will be used anonymously during the film, although I'll credit all contributors collectively at the end - unless you tell me you want to be listed as "anonymous" in the credits as well. I'll credit the nickname you use for blogging unless you tell me otherwise. You can submit any number of photos. Disclaimer: submission does not guarantee acceptance. If I get twenty photos of Christmas, I'll have to choose one or two. I'll be choosing whatever gives the most diverse selection regardless of photo quality.

So quick! Go dig up a photo! We don't have much time!

For the longest time I've felt like I'm on hold. I would rather think of myself as on standby. I can't.

I've been brushing up on my first aid this week, down at the Red Cross of Singapore. As things would have it, my partner is a forty-two-year-old childless woman. I've known her for three days. On the second day we exchanged the usual information about age, marital and maternal status. "I look so young because I have no kid, lah," she said. "But really I have fourteen kid. I call them niece and nephew." And she showed me a picture on her phone. "The newest, ah. So small. I spend so much time taking care of all of them."

It's not a new concept, of course. Neither is the lament that our society is becoming too individualistic. "I say to my husband, lah, what if we have no children? He say, no worry, I take care of you, you take care of me, lah. But it's me who takes care of my mother now. She worries for me, because I think now I can't have children and there will be no-one to care for me when I am old. But kids don't care for their parents now. You can't expect, nuh."

That night I have a dream. I am pregnant, but only briefly. When it's finished, I feel empty, devoid of any tangible evidence - even a solid memory - of what I'd so fleetingly known. A woman at the supermarket, passing by in the cereal section, tells me my baby's soul came loose from its body and got caught in another's fertilised egg, and is out there, living in the world. Later, I meet a long-lost friend in a place neither of us have visited since we were seventeen. She shows me her belly and tells me her news. And I'm struck with awe because I realise, as I touch the outside of her rippling womb, that the soul she carries is familiar. And that it belongs not to her, or to me, or to the baby itself, but to our village and our world and the family of humankind.

But she pulls back, and her hands encircle her bump protectively. "Mine," say her eyes. "Mine, mine, mine." I know then, she will hover when I hold the baby. She will decline my every offer of help. And I will resent her for it. I wake up crying.

On the train I see people going about their day, minding their business, taking care of their own. None of them expect to be hit by a truck. None of them imagine they'll collapse. But, says our instructor, we as a society should be prepared for these events. We must be willing to step forward. But most importantly, we must be able. It takes skill to walk into a crowd and convince everyone you can help, and it takes knowledge and practice to direct your actions. When you walk out of this class at the end of the week, I hope you will no longer be helpless. Instead, I hope you will be on standby.

---
There's new stuff happening at the International Infertility Film Festival site. Namely, the team at Imagining Ourselves are calling for submissions on the subject of infertility for their upcoming theme of Motherhood. Anyway, I wrote all about it here. Please pass the details on - I would love to see the subject of infertility represented as part of this project.

But I just created a website for the film festival. It's here. I thought it might be more practical that way.

I've adjusted the cut-and-paste html so it links back to the "official" site, but for all the (wonderful!) people who've already put their poster up, don't stress - the FAQ I posted yesterday is staying where it is, and will contain a link to the site anyway, so no biggie.

For everyone else, check the FAQ for instructions on how to spread the word, and make sure to subscribe to the festival news!

This FAQ is no longer being maintained. Please visit the real FAQ on the official site.

It's on! It's on! The first International Infertility Film Festival (IIFF) on March 31st! How do I know this? Well, because Vee and Max have put together a few logos for the choosing. Go around there and vote on your favourite!

Mel from Stirrup Queens has suggested a challenge be laid down "a la Stephen Colbert's green screen challenge".

So! Who wants to join in? The challenge is to create a short film about infertility and/or pregnancy loss, upload it onto the internet somehow (I used Youtube) and let me know where it is. I will link all entries here (although, of course, everyone will be quite free to link as much as they like as well). I'm going to set the festival date as... let me see... March 31st 2007. We'll watch, we'll enjoy, we'll laugh and cry, it'll be a day to remember.

So that's March 31st, 2007 - mark it in your diaries.

Now, you can make a short film in any way you want, from video, to hand-drawn stills with soundtrack (or even without), to archival footage (naturally used in such a way as to not break any copyright laws, even if you do choose to record it directly from your TV screen using a hand-held camera). But in case you want to do as I've done and use a computer game, here's a quick how-to.

I first heard about this technique through Modern Millie who told us about Decorgal's Standing Alone short on pregnancy loss (2006 release) *Warning* - short depicts near-term pregnancy/baby loss. Standing Alone was made using Sims2, but by following links to Machinima.com I discovered a whole range of computer games could be used this way, and I was struck with a sudden desire to piss about and see what I could do. After some research I decided The Movies would give me the most flexibility and control, and when I saw the game on special just before moving over, it seemed like it was meant to be.

The rest is history. Actually, the rest, as of this point in time, is a tiny short called "A Seasonal Reminder" but let's not split hairs.

Decorgal has a great FAQ all about making shorts using Sims2, and if you want to use The Movies, there's a pretty good in-game tutorial. There's also a forum somewhere, though I can't seem to find it at the moment, but mostly you can work it out by fiddling around and using the help menu. If you want to use other games, well, I can't give you any specific help but someone out there can. My biggest tip is don't try to script the movie first. It won't work. Play the game, build your sets, create your stars, gather your costumes, familiarise yourself with the available action sequences. Then get a basic storyline together, and write the script as you're doing the voiceover at the end. A few sound effects and you're done. It's pretty straightforward really.

Jules just alerted me to this free online taster, in which you can create a sort of online cartoon strip. (If it moves, it counts as a film, far as I'm concerned.)

I've been asked if you need to buy the computer game in order to use it like this, and you do (except if you're using the free online taster that Jules found, see paragraph above).

So March 31st guys - how about it? I reckon a few films is all we need! So who wants to do one?