ariel88

I got a newsletter in my inbox today from Beachbody.com a site that I ordered some fitness tapes from when I was in college. I never unsubscribed from their newsletter, and now that I'm older than 21 I actually really like to read them. Often they have excellent articles on why you shouldn't eat preservatives and processed food, or drink soda, or why moderation in your diet is the best policy instead of following fads. Today's newsletter gave a few tips on how tiny changes in your habits may make a big difference in your efforts to eat better, etc. I'll repost them here.

1. Wait 2 minutes. Cravings will disappear after two minutes if you walk away and turn your attention elsewhere.

2. W.I.W.M. When you really crave something unhealthy, answer this question: "What do I Want More," that piece of chocolate cake, or a body I feel proud of? And on rare occasions, it's okay to pick the chocolate cake!

3. No one's perfect. Don't allow one bad choice to result in bingeing the rest of the day, or falling back into old habits.

4. Focus. Make eating purposeful, not something mindless to do while watching TV, driving, or sitting in front of the computer. Whenever you put food in your mouth, try to engage all of the senses in the pleasure of nourishing your body.

5. Don't skip breakfast. Start eating a filling breakfast, but one that's lower in fat. It will help you eat fewer total calories throughout the day.

6. Veggies. Most of your plate should have veggies and/or fruit on it at both lunch and dinner.

7. See what you eat. Eat your food off of a plate instead of straight out of a jar, bag, or box.

8. Don't buy it. Stop buying the food you snack on all day. Just eliminate the temptation.

9. Eat more fruit. A person who gets enough fruit in their diet doesn't have a raging sweet tooth.

10. Watch what you drink. Cut back on or cut out high-calorie drinks like soda, sweet tea, lemonade, and especially alcohol. People have lost weight by just making this one change.


I especially like #1. I'm very prone to craving sweets and I don't even think about not giving into them. Maybe if I distracted myself for a minute, I could keep from eating a lot of the pastries and whatnot that I'm tempted to eat.

I do #4 a lot at work, but fortunately it's mindless snacking on all the produce I bring with me every day (carrots, oranges, apples, etc.).

On an unrelated note, I think I'm going to have to start paying for my gym membership out of pocket, so maybe I should get down there to those yoga classes that I'm so excited that they offer.

Ugh, I'm SO glad the last 4 weeks are over. It's been stressful and life-sucking, but I made it through. And actually feel good about it. :)

Let's recap:

Feb 7th - Genetics Department Journal Club presentation. I have never given journal club to this crowd before, and I wanted to do a good job, since there are some fairly intimidating faculty who regularly show up. I also didn't want to put everyone to sleep. I chose what I thought was a pretty provocative paper, but it was completely outside of my research area, so I had tons of background preparation to do in order to present the paper. This involved a few late nights at Tao of Tea, which I recently discovered. They have the most beautiful teaware! And really good food, with beautiful presentation. It's a shame they are a bit pricey. :( Anyway, the journal club went over famously. I was able to handle all the questions thrown at me, including some by my boss, and no one slept!! I even had people come up and talk my ear off afterwards about how they thought the paper directly related to their research. Crazy. :) I joked later to my friends that for next year's journal club presentation I can totally slack off because people will already have a good impression of me.

Feb 15th - Tartar Fellowship Application deadline. This was so not my finest hour. I was not very motivated to write for this, but I ended up pretty satisfied with the proposal (I looked back at last year's and it was ass). However, through some miscommunication, my boss ended up having to write my recommendation letter, oh, about an hour before the application was due. Yeah. Way to look like you're on top of things. I think I cried in the bathroom for a while after that went down because I felt like such a jackass. Thank god for classmates who can pick you up from a bad situation.

Feb 20th - Lab Meeting Presentation. Let it be known that I hate giving lab meeting. Primarily because my project seems to change so often that I come to lab meeting with very little data and a bunch of shit that I plan to do, because everything has changed since the last time I had to present. Whereas everyone else has all this data because their focus is always the same. Anyway. The point is that it's demoralizing. Until this time! This was my best lab meeting ever. I actually had an interesting piece of data, AND (with the postdoc's help) I had gotten our lentivirus protocol to work (not working great, but working), and had pictures of GFP-expressing cells to show for it. AND people actually talked and tried to give helpful suggestions instead of just staring at each other waiting for lab meeting to be over.

Here, have some GFP-expressing cells:



Mar 9th - First TAC Meeting So within 6 months of passing your qualifying exam, you are supposed to form a thesis advisory committee and have a meeting with them to get an idea of whether your thesis project is going in a viable direction. Preparing for this meeting means reading as much literature as humanly possible, writing a summary of your project, along with what you've accomplished, and putting together a presentation of your data and your plans. Problem is, this is supposed to be a helpful forum in which to guide you - but the only reference point you have thus far for being in a room with 5 faculty members and presenting a research proposal is your qualifying exam, a terrifying, fear-provoking reference point. Of course all the reassurance in the world from older grad students did nothing to assuage my crazed preparations for this meeting, complete with not being able to balance lab work and staying up until 5:30am the night before reading papers and finishing my powerpoint presentation. It was, of course, not at all like my qual, and was in fact actually a really good meeting. Everyone had good ideas and questions, and was very supportive. The 3 things of note: 1) if someone asked a question and my boss and I both started to answer, she would actually stop talking and let me answer, which I appreciated; 2) one guy had a really nice model system we hadn't thought of in which we could do some cool experiments, and he's going to help us set that up in our lab; 3) they kept questioning why we wanted to follow this one line of experimentation, but when it was clarified that the mutation I discovered is actually not published yet, they freaked out and said it was imperative that I follow that up (which is what my boss and I had been saying I was going to do all along! :P ).

So I spent all day Saturday in my pajamas (which was fabulous). Tomorrow it's back to the gym (that totally has been neglected since all this stuff had to be taken care of). And I just have some very straightforward things to do this week, and then I get to go home and visit my family! And my best friend happens to be home at the same time - I haven't seen her in almost 2 years! - and I will get to spend an entire day with her. I'm so stoked. :)

I can never pass these up . . . :P




Now back to preparing for my TAC meeting. *sigh*

So I thought I would post a follow-up to my New Year's post, and kind of assess how it's been going.

• the gym. Had a little bit of a slip lately, since I had to give department journal club (which kicked so much ass, btw) and then I had the Tartar Fellowship deadline (I liked my proposal, so keep your fingers crossed), but prior to that I was keeping up with 3x a week or so at the gym. So I need to get back on the horse, now that those critical deadlines have passed. I really lost all balance trying to prepare for those 2 things, so hopefully I can do a little better for the next few school-related things I have coming up and not let them eat my life.


• knitting. Hmmm. Well, I finished cygnusx5's scarf (though I need to get my finishing needle back from BP so I can tuck in the loose ends) . . . and that's about it. I haven't made it to any knit nights yet. I've been working pretty late and I haven't felt like going when Thursdays roll around.


• having people over for dinner. Haven't followed through on this yet, but mnemosyne9 has volunteered to be our first victim! :P


• taking advantage of cool Portland events. Okay, I'm starting to feel like a loser here . . . wait! I took a class at Tea Zone a few weeks ago - the one about pu-erh tea. And I signed cygnusx5 and me up for the Gongfu Ceremony class this month. And we took that massage class at PCC, even though it was kind of a bust. And we're going to Seattle to see Spyro Gyra, which isn't a Portland event, but it's something fun. :) So, ha! Guess I'm doing better at this one than I thought.


• reading journal articles. Ah! I've been doing this too. :) And since I have a committee meeting on March 9th, and I want to write an NRSA for April 8th, I need to keep this up. :)


• getting up in the morning. I was doing really well w/ this until I fell off the gym wagon. Some days I was even in lab and productive at 6:30am! (Which meant that my ass was on the Greeley bus at damn 5:30am . . .) That alone is back-pat-worthy. :) But even after I fell off the wagon, we've still been getting to work at least an hour earlier than before. So this is still a go. But I think I need to add getting more sleep to this plan as well.


• getting a regular massage. I guess the PCC class counts for January, and I have a massage scheduled for next week, so I'm doing good with this as well. :)

Alphabet survey!
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So even though I don't really believe in New Years Resolutions™ I thought I would use today as a time when I could look over my priorities and things that I've already thought about implementing in my life and jot them down.

• the gym. I know, this turns up on everyone's list, but I've already started going a few times a week, now that the march wellness center is open. It's a really beautiful facility, and I have free access to their yoga classes. And they have a fantastic sauna in the women's locker room . . . it smells like warm pencil shavings. :) Anyway, I want to keep up with what I've already started, and eventually bump up the frequency to 3-4 days a week (once I'm not so freaking sore anymore!! I'm at 2 days a week right now). I'm not really going to monitor my weight or whether my ass/thighs shrink from my efforts - I really just care that I feel better, and the rest will follow in due time!


• knitting. Something else I've already started back doing, since I'm currently making cygnusx5 a scarf, and I bought some yarn for a scarf for me as well as yarn to make scarves to hand out downtown, but mainly I need some help finishing the Hip Hop Coat I started *gulp* almost a year ago! To my credit, I ordered the yarn last January so I could put in 3 months of work on it before qual hell started, but then when it took 3 months for the yarn to show up (stupid fiasco with Blue Moon Fiber Arts, who I will NEVER buy from again), I've made slow progress. The back of the coat is finished, but that's all. And since the knitting involves some techniques I'm not really familiar with, I will need some help. So! The point here is that I have been meaning to go to the Thursday night open knitting at The Naked Sheep, and I will start doing that so I can finish my coat. That will force me to work on it, and maybe I can finally finish it! (and wear it before the summer)


• having people over for dinner. I don't know why this doesn't occur to me, but we *never* have people over! I think that once a month we should have friends over for dinner. I really don't know why we don't already do this . . .


• taking advantage of cool Portland events. Every week I read the Portland Mercury there are really cool theater productions, independent films, concerts (large and small), exhibits, and so on that we never take advantage of. Once a month, cygnusx5 and I should pick a cool event and go to it.


• reading journal articles. One goal for school is to read more. I forget that it motivates me in the lab and makes me think about my project.


• getting up in the morning. This is already partly tied to going to the gym in the morning, but cygnusx5 and I have gotten into a terrible habit of sleeping in on weekdays. I'd like to work harder to rectify that. Which reminds me to keep practicing this cool trick for not hitting the snooze button.


• getting a regular massage. I have been so happy to be able to get a massage after big events like quals, but it would definitely serve me better if I got them on a semi-regular basis. I'm thinking maybe once a month would be good. Plus the march wellness center has a day spa and I get 10% off as a member. One of my friends mentioned their 30 minute "stress buster" neck and shoulder massage, which would totally fit the bill!

Given that quals are hell, I figured it appropriate to see exactly *where* in hell I am.

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Third Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Very High
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	High
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	High
Level 7 (Violent)	Moderate
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test

My husband and I went out to El Gaucho (a very nice steakhouse) for our anniversary tonight. This restaurant is well-known for its table-side flambe, including desserts like Bananas Foster.

So the flambe guy rolls his cart over to our table to prepare the Bananas Foster, and he's very chatty. Nice guy, quite jovial. He asks if we're celebrating anything tonight (the restaurant gets mainly business diners and special occasion diners), and we say its our anniversary . . .

Flambe guy (FG): Oh! You guys look happy . . . you must not have kids. *smiles*

me and hubby: *laugh* *laugh* Oh, that's funny!!

FG: Oh . . .you *do* have kids? *is confused* (apparently laughing didn't mean 'no')

me: no! (in a 'you've got to be kidding me' tone)

FG: Yeah, you guys look so relaxed . . .no cell phone on the table . . .
I was like that once!

me: *laugh* Huh, I never thought about that!

FG: You guys gonna have kids?

me and hubby: no, no . . . *grin at each other* (it's even funnier since I'm sterile now)

FG: more years of being happy then! *smiles* *flambes*


Chalk one up for childfree marriage, my friends! And happy anniversary to us!

Your Linguistic Profile:

45% Dixie

40% General American English

10% Yankee

0% Midwestern

0% Upper Midwestern

What, are we surprised by this? :P

A girl I work with just showed me this website:

http://dailykitten.com/

This is the cutest thing I have ever seen! They post a new kitten picture every day! *squee*

"SWEET!! It's like Christmas!!"

These were my words to the doctor who pronounced me officially sterilized yesterday afternoon, in what had to be the world's briefest doctor's appointment.

I was a bit nervous about the hysterosalpingogram procedure, but I kept telling myself that it was only supposed to take 5 minutes and that the original Essure placement procedure was probably much worse (though objectively, it wasn't that bad anyway). I took 800mg of advil about an hour before the appointment, on the advice of others who have gone before me into the Valley of the Barren Uteri. My husband drove me to the imaging center, where I checked in and sat down to begin the invariably long wait that all doctor's appointments seem to entail.

Surprisingly, I was called back within 5 minutes of checking in. An unsmiling woman showed me to a changing room where I was supposed to undress from the waist down and then put on a mumu-type heavy t-shirt. I did this and then walked into the imaging room. This was the biggest room I have ever seen in a doctor's office. The room held a machine that looked like an MRI machine without the tube. Just a long, flat table and a large panel that they pulled over you that generates the x-rays, plus a large monitor suspended from the ceiling.

Unsmiling woman described the procedure to me, telling me that I would have my cervix swabbed with betadine, then tubing inserted thought the opening of the cervix (no dilation, yay!); a small balloon on the end of this tubing would be inflated to block the opening of the cervix, so that when the contrast medium is injected, it couldn't leak back out and would travel toward the fallopian tubes instead. Then I'd get to scoot backwards on the table with the tubing hanging out to get positioned for the x-ray. The doctor would fill up my uterus with the contrast medium, make me shift from side to side a few times to get pictures from all angles, and then we'd be done.

She asked if I had any questions, and I asked if I could get a copy of the x-ray. Unfortunately I'll have to ask my referring physician for them (Paula Bednarek). :( I also tried to make sure that because I was there to have my sterilization confirmed, I didn't want the doctor to try to flush out my hard-earned scar tissue. "Dr. Thurmond developed Essure, so she knows what she's doing." WHAT?!?! (I looked this up when I got home, and I'll be damned, but it's true! )

Anyway, she brought the doctor in, who shook my hand and asked if I had any questions. I repeated my concern about dislodging scar tissue, and she asked "Do you know that you have scar tissue?" Before I could respond with "I fucking hope so!", the technician piped up with "She's had the Essure . . . "

doc: "Oh! Oh, of course. Has someone told you that the HSG will dislodge *that* scar tissue?"

me: "No, but I know this procedure is used to diagnose infertility and that it can dislodge some scar tissue that may be preventing some women from getting pregnant . . ."

doc: "Oh! Yes, it can dislodge *that* scar tissue, but it cannot dislodge *this* scar tissue. It's very strong. I was afraid you might have gotten some misinformation." *smiles*

me: "Nope, I just don't want to disrupt something I'm trying to keep." *smile*

Anyway, we chatted some more while she put in the speculum (I fucking hate those things - surely they are intended for those of the "hotdog down a hallway" persuasion) and the tubing. She was particularly interested in my graduate studies.

When everything was positioned, I scooted back on the table, and they got everything arranged. The doctor flipped a switch and there was my uterus on TV! She pointed out the tubing and the Essure coils (very starkly black against the shadowy-gray tissue). I asked how long this part would take and she said 3 minutes, taking 5-6 pictures. Then she started to inject the contrast medium. I can liken it to watching Kool-aid being poured into water, all swirly and diffusing. Except the contrast medium was black on the screen, and I don't think they make black Kool-aid. :P.

I could see my uterus filling up with this stuff (live-imaging x-ray is *very* cool), and right about the time that she said "Let me know how you're doing - you will probably feel some cramping", I felt cramping. "Yep, there it is!" I said, and she stopped injecting the dye. At this point they took a photo of the front, then asked me to shift onto my right hip so they could get a good view of the left fallopian tube. So I shifted to the right, and the image on the screen moved (so cool!). They took another picture, then had me do the same thing for the other side.

"Okay, you're protected!"

"SWEET!! . . . It's like Christmas!!"

She removed the tubing and had me sit up. She asked me if I still felt cramping, but no, it had gone away as soon as she took out the tubing. I stayed sitting there while she disposed of her supplies, and she asked me again how I was feeling, making sure I wasn't cramping before she left. She shook my hand, wished me good luck on my Ph.D., and left the room. I went across the hall to get my clothes, put on the pad I had brought along (they gave me a pantyliner, but I decided to use my pad), and went back to the waiting room to collect my husband.

Poor guy can't believe it's real. I'll be sure to get copies of the x-ray so that if he ever needs reminding, it's there. :)

Summation: I can't believe I was nervous. There was nothing to it. The cramping was minimal, barely approaching period cramps. Shit, the stupid speculum was the worst part, especially since it marred our celebratory sex by making me sore. :P

The ER You scored 56 Industriousness, 38 Centrality, and 11 Causticity!

You're the Endoplasmic reticulum! The ER modifies proteins, makes macromolecules, and transfers substances throughout the cell. It has its own membrane, and translation of mRNA happens within it. You tend to have two sides to you - sort of a jekyll and Hyde kind of story. One side of you tends to be rough and tumble, but also very useful. Your other side is less well-defined and slightly more mysterious.

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 54% on Industriousness You scored higher than 59% on Centrality You scored higher than 18% on Causticity

Link: The Which Cell Organelle are you? Test written by fading_shadows on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

I am wallowing in geekiness!!

I was going through my old email and I came across something titled "Reflections on Children" that I had written to my best friend a few years ago (she also is CF). This was before I knew about livejournal or childfree-ness, and it was just cool to read something reaffirming.


The Backstory:

My aunt had a really hard time getting pregnant (fertility drugs, the works), so they adopted, then she turned up pregnant with twins. Long story short, the twins are precious angels and my adopted cousin is the "red-headed stepchild". Which is a fucking shame because he is a really sweet kid, but has been made to feel like an outcast for his whole life. He hates his mom for this, and he should because she's the one at fault for it.

I've always tried to dote on him when we have family gatherings because everyone dotes on the twins, so they aren't wanting for anything. So a couple of years ago I decided to invite him to visit for the weekend, to show him the University (he was a high school junior at the time), spend some one-on-one time with him, and give him a break from his mother. My husband and I took him out to eat, showed him where we worked (I work in a lab, so he got to look at cells under the microscope and stuff; my husband is a computer guy and showed him the machine room that holds all the servers the University owns), walked all over campus, and just tried to show him a good time.

At the end of the weekend we drove him home and then went out to dinner by ourselves.


[cue email]


Afterwards we went to Olive Garden in Douglasville (b/c we didn't think we could make it all the way home without eating), and it was really nice, J and I just having a good time, laughing, and enjoying each other's company, and I realized how we hadn't had fun with each other like that the whole weekend. So I burst out with how I really don't want kids now (not because of anything [my cousin] did, he's a sweet kid) because I really like J! I mean, I love him, but I really like him, you know? We have fun together, and we just had such tunnel vision on [my cousin] the whole weekend that we didn't have a moment to ourselves or with each other. It was horrible! So we decided that the weekend with [my cousin] was a success, but that we also learned something unexpectedly - we really enjoy our time, both together and spent doing things for ourselves individually. And that almost ceases to exist when you have kids! I mean, he was really self-sufficient as far as kids go - he's 17, he can get himself something to drink if he wants, you don't have to really take care of him, and we felt obligated to entertain him all the time b/c he was our guest. But with a small child, you may not be "entertaining", but you are spending just as much time taking care of them, and you end up with the same results: mental and physical exhaustion and little to no time to yourself or with your spouse. And you know what, I don't want that to be my fate! I really like J, and I want to be able to spend my time doing what I like, not what I'm obligated to do. (Can't lock that kid in the bathroom, like [my cat] Tabitha, you know.)

This is probably a cathartic event for me because I've never ever babysat, or I might have figured this out sooner!

The whole thing brings a smile to my face. :)

I got this recipe from Epicurious.com/Gourmet Magazine cookbook. It is without equal. I have made this recipe numerous times and all friends/family/co-workers who have tasted it are stopped in their tracks by its awesomeness. The best part is how easy it is to make - all you need is a bowl, a spoon, and a microwave (well, and an oven!).

These brownies are VERY fudgy - not dry or cakey - so beware if you prefer cakey brownies.

I use Scharffenberger chocolate (I've tried Lindt, Ghiradelli, and other lesser brands - no good. The quality of the chocolate is the most important part of the recipe. I haven't tried Valrhona, but it would probably work as well.). Also, the recipe is easily simplified by melting the chocolate and butter together in the microwave.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/12773

I have spent the last 2 hours reading this page and its related comments:

http://mollysavestheday.blogspot.com/2006/02/for-women-of-south-dakota-abortion.html

I won't post it because it's very long, but it's a personal blog with a detailed post about how to perform a D&C for someone inclined to set up an at-home abortion clinic, complete with how to sterilize curettes and the like in a pressure cooker on the stove.

This post chills me to my very core.

I feel like someone who has looked into the abyss, into the future, and I want to cry.

I went on to read all of the comments (242 at last count), and it didn't get any better. There are people who are saying "If you would just keep your legs shut, this wouldn't be a problem." And this guy:

"I find it ironic about reinforcing that infant killing is a choice that women have with their bodies, but NOTHING is said about the drunken one-night stand that caused the conception, or whatever irresponsible behavior caused the "problem." Yes women have a choice with their bodies, maybe they should be more selective about what and how it is put into them."

Sure, there are people (a majority - probably 80% of commenters) who applaud Molly's post, who appreciate the guts that it takes to make a post like that and who wish people who lived through the days of abortion being illegal would speak out about how awful that time was.

But the other 20% are the ones who made an impression on me. I cannot express my despair, my sterilization be damned. I despair for myself and every woman I know (and those I don't know, as well) who could be "put back in her place" by being forced to give birth to unwanted children and then struggle to support them.


The person below (signed 'K') had the most eloquent rebuttal to all of the backwards remarks:

* It's not only "skanky whores" and innocent victims of rape/incest who get abortions. It's overwhelmingly married women in their 30s. Some are getting abortions because they live with abusive men they cannot bear having a child with and are trying to escape; some because they find there's a genetic abnormality; some because they carry genetic diseases; some because they are too stretched financially and emotionally to deal with the heavy responsibility of another whole life. They're not Good Time Girls or Victims, they're ordinary women, and that's important to remember.

* People who think that sex is purely for baby-making have never been in love. They've never been in a long-term relationship with someone who is central to their lives. For the past 13 years, I admit it - I have been irresponsible and morally bankrupt enough to have been having sex with my husband because I am in love with him. Yes, sex is about love, and comfort, and saying I love you, and it is (oh, the shame!) also about lust and fun. I have a sneaking suspicion that this is where all those married over-30s in need of abortions are coming from. How dare we make love with our long-term partners, knowing that there is a vague possibility of getting pregnant when properly using hormonal birth control AND barrier methds simultaneously?

Even worse - I am infertile. OK, so I only discovered it a few months ago, after we'd decided to try for a baby, but here's the kicker: we're still having sex. Even though we're not having sex in order for me to get pregnant (no, we're not going down the fertility treatment road). And guess what? My parents are still having sex, even though my mother had a hysterectomy and has gone through the menopause. Obviously, I come from a line of people who have been given the wrong information. I shall make a note: only fertile people who *wish* to get pregnant should have sex. The rest of us are not allowed to be Skanky Whores by making love with our husbands because we have fantastic marriages and are in love after all these years. What fools we've been.

* I would love to be able to bear a child. I can't. The fact that other people fall pregnant unintentionally does feel rather like a slap in the face, but guess what? I believe that pregnancy should be something wonderful, something desired, something that a woman wants with all her heart. It should not be a physical, emotional, and mental torture. Forced pregnancy is as repugnant and morally indefensible as forced sterilization. To take what should be the source of deep pleasure and joy and turn it into an ordeal that may destroy a woman's life is similar to rape - after all, sex too ought to be a source of joy, pleasure, and intimacy, not of fear, pain, and horror. Abortion is a necessary option for some women precisely BECAUSE becoming pregnant and having a child is such an incredibly special experience.

* Few of us commenting here will have lived as adults through the days when abortions were available only illegally. Talk to people who did. Talk to doctors and nurses who dealt with the aftermath of self-inflicted wounds and botched abortions; talk to people about the women and girls who dropped out of sight, got trapped in abusive marriages, who locked themselves in the coalshed all night because they were terrified of their husbands wanting to have sex when they couldn't take another pregnancy.

And this comment speakes to the true root of this issue:

As many anti-choice people here have stated, the real concern is that women actually have recreational sex and worse, like it. Anti-choicers don't care about the babies. If they did, then they do more to help the living ones. As for all those thousands of couples waiting to adopt your baby, lets change that to your Healthy White Infant. There are thousands of other children waiting to be adopted in the US but they don't fit this qualification. Although biological parents will raise their disabled child, most adoptive parents only want to be parents to perfect children.

It helps a little that there are people with some sense, but it scares me worse that the people on the other side of this may soon have political currents running in their favor.

I am shaking. *steps away from the keyboard*

You know which wines go best with which foods, and you can make New York City's finest sommalier feel like a kid at a keg party. You wanna take that Emeril guy and beat him with a stick, but really - you've got more class than that.

What people love: You know the best restaurants and what their specialties are.

What people hate: Every waiter in town wants to mangle your pretentious ass.


What Kind of Elitist Are You?
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What can I say - I really would travel somewhere just to try the food. :)

I finally wrote up how my sterilization procedure went. I opted for Essure, a non-invasive tubal ligation alternative. What follows is my account of the whole thing. :)

Feb 16, 2006

My doc volunteers at Planned Parenthood, and he had me go there for the procedure since they are set up to do it (not to mention if we had done it at the hospital, it would've incurred an extra $7500 in bills!). My husband came with, even though he couldn't promise a strong enough stomach to stay for the whole procedure, but he wanted to be there. I was given the obligatory pee-on-a-stick pregnancy test, and then they took me back to the room. The nurse came in to start an IV (in case I needed extra drugs during the procedure - I'd already taken 800mg of ibuprofen) and I got her to show me the device. It wasn't what I expected - she opened this box and there were these 2 pre-packaged things. The tiny coil was on the end of a long flexible rod attached to a handle with a trigger. The doc will feed the rod through the cervix and with the help of a little camera, place the coil at the entrance to the fallopian tube. After counting the number of turns that are protruding from the opening (they are shooting for something like 3-5 turns), the doc presses the trigger and the coil is released from the rod and stays where it was placed. I'm totally nosy like that, so I wanted to know everything.

2 docs come in and they are very nice, telling me that they will let me know exactly what they are doing and what I may feel (cramping, pinching, etc). I slid down the table and put my legs up, kinda like for a pap, but the stirrups went underneath my knees, not my feet. First she manually palpated my uterus and ovaries. Then she put in this huge speculum (not painful, per se, but really uncomfortable) and they used a needle to numb my cervix. I felt the first stick, but not the second (guess the first one was working!). Then they dilated my cervix about 1cm. This was not cool. Weird crampy pains from that, and I'm not sure what they used to do it. Then things got weird - they're like "Okay, we're going to fill your uterus with saline a little bit" and suddenly I realize what the plastic bucket directly under me is for - it's for when the saline comes running back out. Lovely. :) So they feed the tubing through my cervix, squeeze this IV bag of saline that's hanging up, and then feed in the camera so they can look around and locate the opening of each fallopian tube.

I must say here that nothing was especially painful, just felt like lots of pressure and discomfort, maybe a little cramping like period cramps. But then my arms went tingly-numb from the elbows down. And it was some monumental effort to try and move any of my fingers. So I'm like "Hey guys, my hands are all seized up and tingly - what's that about?" They tell me that the body doesn't appreciate the uterus being manipulated, so it's a normal reaction to what's going on. My husband is right there, telling me to breathe slower and try to relax, but you know - every muscle in my body was taut. And when you are tensed up, things hurt more and it's just going to be that much harder for the docs to work. Then it started to spread to my foot. So I called time-out and asked for the drugs. Now I'm glad there's a line taped to my arm! The nurse stepped up and shot a little Fentanyl into the IV line, and I swear, within 30 seconds I just watched my hands melt open and I was able to relax. I really did think that I could just breathe my way through the procedure, but dammit, I'm not trying to be a hero here.

The rest of the procedure was like butta'. :) I was relaxed enough to roll my head to one side and watch what they were doing on the monitor (come on now - how many of you can say you've seen inside your own uterus!?), and since I felt better, my husband felt better. I watched them place each coil, and even though they said I would feel a reasonably sharp cramp when they pulled the trigger to place it, I felt not a thing. Whole thing took about 20 minutes (from the speculum part to the end).

Recovering from the Fentanyl was a whole different story. I don't drink or smoke and I've never used any drugs, so this was by far the hardest thing I've ever been on (opiate narcotic painkiller - and the nurse was like "I just gave you a little bit, so if you need more, just tell me!"). It took me ages to be able to sit up without feeling like I was going to pass out, maybe 20 minutes? The nurse brought me juice and saltine crackers, since I hadn't eaten since waking up (they told me not to) and it was noon. I eventually got dressed (I took a loose pair of pajama pants - a great idea) and shuffled across the hall to the dimly-lit "recovery room". All told I sat in the recovery room with a heating pad nibbling on food for at least an hour before I felt okay enough to shuffle out to the car. I then took another 800mg of advil and slept off the fentanyl at home on the couch until about 4pm. After that I felt great. My husband and I even went out for sushi that night.

I had a little spotting for a few days afterward (along with leaking saline!), and a few times a day I have little twinges on each side where I presume the coils are, but it's not painful. And I went back to work the next day, where people kept asking me why I looked like I was on cloud 9!