fashion deals

... to bring you a post from Lori. I swear I didn't get a post from her on Thursday, so I must've missed it (sorry Lori!) and I wanted to get this in. So read this and the last 3 guest posts please (read about ugly men making better sperm, abortion choices when it's not your embryo on board and a sweet ttc success story) and I'll be back tomorrow to tell you all about my fabulous trip, the 2 bloggers (Brandi and Mareike) I met, the celebrity I saw and the fucking fabulous pancakes I ate. Now is the post from Lori ....

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How in the world could *I*, little ole tattoo-less, plastic surgery-free, piercing-fearing, never-even-cussed-on-the-Internet me, how could *I* possibly think I could fill Nancy's shoes for the day?

Nancy will tell you that certain bloggers may not be as sweet (IRL) as they appear.

I've chosen one of my favorite stories from my Weebles Wobblog archives in hopes that you'll find it Nancy-worthy.

The Coffee Shop
So you're sitting in a coffee shop. An independent one, with a personality. Like your very own caffeinated Cheers.

"Truncation-of-your-name!" the barista says as you walk in, already preparing your Americano with room for cream. You chit-chat with her, perhaps not as wittily as Norm does with Sam, and you get your frequent sipper card stamped.

You set up your laptop and check some emails. After awhile, the coffee starts doing its thing, waking up all parts of your body as it moves through your digestive tract. Hello, Large Bowel!

You go to the stall-less bathroom and do your business. No big deal. And, I literally mean, no big deal.

Are you with me?

You press the flusher and the toilet does its filling thing. And it keeps doing its filling thing and keeps doing its filling thing, but without doing its draining thing. As the water level rises, so does your panic.

Crap.

You scoop your satchel off the floor (even though it's way in the corner and most likely out of harm's reach) and step awaaaaay from the commode, to protect your new gym shoes.

Now. What do you do?

After you've contributed your answer below, you may wish to click over for an analysis of the responses I got.

Lori didn't get me a post (booo!) so instead, I offer you Elana ...

"What to get pregnant? Find an ugly man"

Hi everyone! I'm Elana from Elana's Musings (elanasmusings.blogspot.com), and I am Nancy's guest blogger today! I got an email from BabyMed.com the other day, and I just really need to share it with you all. Here it goes:

"Women wanting to get pregnant should find themselves an ugly man, new research suggests. Scientists have found attractive males produce less sperm during sex. Researchers think good-looking males are biologically geared to hold back their sperm in each encounter to increase their chance of impregnating more females. But unattractive males know they are not going to bed so many females -- so when they do get lucky they give it all they've got."

"The findings from the University of Oxford and University College London are backed up by studies of chickens and fish, but researchers think they could well apply to humans too. 'Human attractiveness is complicated and influenced by a number of factors including cultural preferences,' said UCL researcher Sam Tazzyman. 'Nonetheless, ejaculate size and sperm quality are likely to have been molded by similar forces, like attractiveness and the number of sexual partners, that are important in other species.' Reporting the findings on the university's Web site, Tazzyman said, 'The more attractive a male is, the more females will be willing to mate with him, reducing the value of each mating to him. This means it is optimal for him to contribute fewer sperm per mating.'"

I nearly died laughing when I read this. I mean really, do you honestly think a man's "attractiveness" contributes to how good he'll be at getting a woman knocked up? I can't wait to see your reactions to this! Are YOU married to an "ugly man"???? :-)

Many of you have likely heard about this: A couple in Ohio elected to have a fourth child using their frozen embryos. On the day they learned that the woman was pregnant they also learned that another couple's embryos had been implanted. They had the option of aborting the fetus but elected to carry the baby boy to term and then hand him over to his biological parents.

I'm interested in all of your thoughts on this. Could you do this? Would you, after going through so much to conceive a child, abort a viable fetus if you learned it was not yours?

hello everyone- i'm jenn from the oasis here to guest blog for nancy. let me preface this with saying that i never capitalize anything in my blog- so i apologize (especially to nancy the queen of grammar!) if it's hard or frustrating to read. chalk it up to laziness as my blog is really my place to vent all the stuff in my head, both profound (not usually) and mundane (much more typically!). i write about adjusting to life as a new & unemployed mom to pumpkin (but that's a currently evolving story in & of itself) & wife of the hub. i started my blog two and a half years ago as a way to work through my frustrations & concerns with ttc. the super short version is that i married my first love & best friend after eons together & we always planned for kids sometime in the future. after being rushed to the hospital & finding out i had a congenital kidney defect & needed major surgery someday became right this very instant. after waiting to recover & then waiting almost 18 months to see an re- we finally gave it our all (financially speaking) in a hail mary iui + clomid challenge on cycle 20 that miraculously ended in a bfp, uneventful pregnancy, induction 2 days before my due date, 3 really hard hours of pushing & 1 perfect little pumpkin.

i first met nancy on the ttc message boards & knew i wanted to be friends with this super cool, super knowledgeable chic. she always had the stats & the background behind her to alternately calm us down, or ramp us up- whichever was most needed. i first started blogging because of her too. i couldn't go on the boards because of my job & seeing her blog made me realize that not only could i have a virtual diary to vent all my frustrations- there were actually tons of people out there who were in the same (or a similar) boat. i could get & give support all while doing something that i found therapeutic itself. i was hooked.

what i have learned from almost 3 years of blogging is that there is a lot you can give & take from it. there are always going to be people that disagree with you- or who don't want to listen to what you have to say. you could choose to get into petty fights with strangers. you can choose to ignore it. or you can take the braver approach that i see a number of bloggers take. you can be strong enough & brave enough to unflinchingly give your opinion on a subject- but be willing to listen to other sides of it & open up a touchy subject to a genuinely helpful discussion. you can be really strong & admit when you change your mind, or have offended someone & apologize, or just concede that everyone is entitled to their own opinion & open up a forum for sharing.
i am not a very vocal person. in fact- i often will hide or suppress my own opinion especially if there is conflict involved. or even the possibility for conflict. i hate fighting & arguments that much that i will let myself be trampled on (so to speak) just to avoid one. what blogging has taught me is that you can be both vocal & opinionated without being pushy or argumentative. i think the way that nancy approaches a subject that could be seen as controversial is fantastic. i have seen her admit when she has hurt someone & take pause to consider that there is more than just 'her' side to an argument. she has opened my eyes on more than one occasion that i can look at a situation from a different perspective & that a fresh set of eyes sees something completely different. that's why i love the blogworld & my blogbuddies. i know i can count on them for honest yet thoughtful opinions and a new perspective that i may never have seen. The relative anonymity of the internet seems to work in my favor this way. i am not as afraid of conflict since i know i can take time & think carefully about what i want to communicate without having to see all the emotions that inevitably go along with strong opinions. this has actually helped me gather up my courage (somewhat!) in the 'real' world & be able to speak my mind a bit more. i love seeing that it is okay to be brave & take a chance saying what you really think (or want) because even if you get people disagreeing with you, it doesn't mean you have to fight about it- or that given the chance they wouldn't have a rational and productive discussion with you. basically- blogging has taught me that we really can all get along if we just work at it (and ourselves) a bit.

oh- and did i happen to mention that i actually get to go & meet nancy!!!! like next month- holy crap am i excited!!!

First off, I was a guest blogger on Poltzie's blog last week while she was in Vegas. I wrote a post called "Victims of Infertility" and I would appreciate if you read it. If you head over there, don't forget to check out her other posts. She's got some really cute pictures up from her trip to Vegas!

So. I'm going to be out of town tomorrow - sunday. And I'm looking for 3 guest bloggers. If you want to be a guest blogger for me, please comment on this post. I'll need your posts by tonight, let's see, by 11pm MT, and I'll set them all up to auto post on your day.

Please will you be my guest blogger? (I'll take the first three volunteers. That's if I even ~get~ any volunteers!) If I would have thought of this sooner, I would have asked you individually, but I don't have the time now. But I would still LOVE it if anyone would like to post on my blog. Please? Let me know!

Oh. My. God.

My lower back is KILLING ME. Nothing is helping. I sit in a hot bath. I use ice. I'm taking more than is recommended of ibuprofen, tylenol and aleve. Combined. I had some vicodin, but I used that up after my second physical therapy appointment.

Rewind.

Let me tell you a little bit about what happened last week. As we all know, I have chronic back pain for about, oh, 4 years now. I've been through injections, rfa's, lots of medications, etc. I had a new back doc but I just didn't click with him. I felt like he was listening to MY recommendations on what to do for my back pain instead of him, oh, I don't know, doing doctor work. "what have you done before? Okay, we'll do that." Bah.

So I talked to my PCP and got a referral to their back pain guy. It took a few weeks to get in, but I met with him last Thursday. I ♥ him. Seriously. First thing was he sent me for xrays. I've done xrays and mri's before and only thing anyone says is "facet joints in [particular part of spine] shows inflammation". Okay, yeah, BUT WHY? And how can we FIX it? This new guy, who I'll call Dr Love, and I have this conversation right off the bat:

Dr Love: [looking at xray] "Have you ever been a gymnast or cheerleader?"

Me: "Yeah. I did hardcore competative gymnastics for 9 years."

Dr Love: "Does your pain stem from right here?" [pointing at one spot on my back]

Me: "YES. That is EXACTLY where it hurts"

Dr Love: I would hazzard a guess that gymnastics is what did it. And the two consecutive births aggravated it more. [pointing to xray] See these two white things touching together? Those are your facet joints. And they shouldn't be touching. We should see nice big parts of black, which would be fluid, in between those points. And see all these fuzzy white things? That's new bone growth."

Me: [excited beyond belief that he fucking DIAGNOSED ME yet suddenly aware this is not a good diagnosis] Oh no.

Dr Love: But there have been great strides in facet joint fixes, from fusing your vertabrea together to facet joint replacement, which we would only do on someone young and healthy, which you are.

So. I'm exstatic a doctor, after years of going to different ones, figured out what is wrong. And even more exstatic there are treatment options. I hope nothing gets that drastic, but I'm going to continue to see this guy through it all. He started me with physical therapy, the first diagnostic stop, which I am more than willing to comply with. He even said it probably won't help, nor will the injections that are next, but it will help him in the diagnostic process. What not helps is sometimes a better indicator of a problem than what does help.

Anywho. I've been to two sessions with PT and I'm being a good girl and doing my in home excercises. Problem is, my back HURTS. A lot. More than normal and it's a constant thing, barely getting relief for even a few moments. What can I do, right? but I have my next appointment with him on Monday, which we'll talk about the next step. I'm in pain, but I'm ~thrilled~. There may be hope for a fix yet.

Oh - I'm going to LA for my brother's wedding. I'm flying in butt ass early Friday, wedding is next day 10:30a-2p and then I'm heading to mareike's house. Mareike is a commenter on my blog and you may know her, although she doesn't blog herself. I saw she lived in LA and asked if we could meet up. Looks like I'm going to spend saturday afternoon through Sunday afternoon with her. She's even setting me up on her couch for the night! Yay! We're goingt to have a full on slumber party.

So. On Friday I'm pretty much on my own all day. Is there any bloggers out there who live in the LA area who would like to meet me for lunch?

One of my very best friends, Laurel, told me about the First Response Fertility Test.



I had not yet heard of it when she told me about it. "Are You Able to Get Pregnant?" is plastered in huge letters on the box. "A simple test to determine your ability to get pregnant" it touts. What. The. Fuck.

The commercial oversimplifies EVERYTHING! It makes it seem that all you need to do is pee on a stick and it'll tell you if your infertile or not. Argh! Anyone who knows anything about infertility knows it's just not this simple.

Once I went to their website, I read they were very good in explaining what it's actually testing for. It's an FSH urine test. Which ~is~ a good indicator of your ovarian reserve. But it's simply NOT a test to determine if you are fertile or not. What is this going to do to women? Are they going to use this test, think they are fine and not go for any other testing, thinking "all is good"? There are just too many factors to allow one test be called a "fertility indicator".

It just pisses me off beyond belief. Infertility is FINALLY getting the respect it deserves. People are starting to learn about it. Women are finally starting to understand their bodies. And just when things are going right, shit happens that pushes infertility back about a decade. Octomom made the general public think IVF = 8 babies. And now First Response is making women think one test can tell you if you are fertile or not.

** Update - Read Laurel's (her blogging name is Bay) comment, which is the 7th comment down I think. She talks about how thyroid issues can throw this test off and adds even another layer of pissedoffness about this test!

Have any of you seen this commercial? What are your thoughts?