no boys allowed in the room!!!!

Six weeks. It was v v small but you can absolutely see a tiny little sac with something in it. It's pretty amazing - nature. I think she also wanted confirmation that that was what she thought it was but it was pretty undeniable even in a texted picture. She's had a doc appt anyway tomorrow so I told her to keep it and go in case there's anything they need to do. :(

Keep the appointment, I mean.

Whew. That's when I miscarried the pregnancy before Ivy. I definitely knew when I passed the "products of conception" as my robot infertility doc called it even though it's just an egg sac w/ a tiny blurb in it.

(I was actually pretty grateful for robot doc's brusque manner at that point so no shade.)

I hope your friend is okay. Early miscarriages are easier but they still fucking suck.

And yeah she needs to go in and make sure it's all out. :( It's tough.

Yeah, that's what I thought. I am glad she wasn't further along but I'm sure it's insanely hard regardless. She's with her boyfriend now and I'm going to talk to her tomorrow. She was so excited but had only told three people since it was so early which is good because having to tell a lot of people must be very hard and make you sort of relive it. :( My college boyfriend became a father today and these two things are giving me strange "circle
of life, man" feelings. It's strange and amazing and horrible sad and wonderful all at once.

Life, that is.

And how.

Yeah, horrifying and grotesque and amazing all at the same time. The sense that you're seeing something nature really didn't intend anyone to see. :-/

(I must admit, when I had my reproductive disaster, I totally looked. I wanted to see. It didn't even look remotely human, but I was just curious, and also wanting to know. I'm quite grateful that smartphones didn't exist back then because I probably would have been the arsehole that emailed photos as casually as other people email sonograms or whatever.)

I don't think it's inherently more gross than any other medical process. It's just that reproductive processes have such a veil of shame and Thou Shalt Not Talk About all over them. I don't know if that is the cause of the squick, or if the prohibition is a result of a natural squick. But squick there is.

I'm sorry for your friend. And yeah, Carl Agatha, it's tough. *hugs*

This is great.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H89QQfXtc-k

ty for posting that!

OK so a friend of mine went home to Pittsburgh this weekend and said she'd pick up a shirt from me to wear next time I see my mom (also from the burgh) Get a text message from her today saying "Do you like tie dye?". Errrr. So I write back that "No, it's not really my thing. Kinda too hippie etc." and immediately get one back saying "Oh. Well, I had to make a quick decision and I took a chance :/". Somehow I think I managed a response that got me out of seeming like a total asshole but now I have to pretend to be into some tie dye shirt and AM I WALKING AROUND PROJECTING SOME KIND OF IMAGE THAT MAKES PEOPLE THINK I WOULD LIKE TIE DYE?! THAT IS NOT OK!

AM I WALKING AROUND PROJECTING SOME KIND OF IMAGE THAT MAKES PEOPLE THINK I WOULD LIKE TIE DYE?! THAT IS NOT OK!

I have been assured that I am not and that it is in fact weird that this friend would ever think that I might so phew. Still, lol.

This reminds me of the time a former coworker brought me back an ugly orange scarf from her overseas travel and while it was super thoughtful of her to think of me at all, her comments that she knew I loved orange* and that this scarf just looked like me had me shook for weeks. So I feel you, and I would not have pegged you for someone who likes tie dye.

*I do not love orange, nor do I own anything orange that I wear, nor had I worn anything orange around this coworker ever as far as I could tell.

is there any chance that it's some kind of like subtle tie dye? lol, probs not

ok we've talked about this before right? when people parrot the things you were saying to them a few years ago back to you - when a few years ago they were putting you thru living hell for saying them - with no acknowledgement of that background

SO ANGRYYYYY

ugh
definitely irritating but you can't let it get you down!

reminds me of when someone who used to be an asshole/mean person turns over a new leaf and embraces the radical concept of being a nice decent kind person and then acts like they invented the concept of being a nice person. that makes me irritated. i'm glad that they are not a mean person anymore but at the same time...etc

on another change-related note, today in my class my students immediately understood when i told them about singular "they" and this woman in her 50s was like "it's for transgender people!" now that's a change that feels like a victory instead of a slap in the face.

thank you for reviving this thread, i missed it!

we did a go-round at girls rock camp this year and said our name and PGPs - the kids were 10x cooler about it than the adults tbh. many said they preferred they/them. made me feel like kids today are so chill about gender stuff, much more so than their parents/my generation.

like the kids didnt bat an eye, they were just like "this makes perfect sense, why wouldnt we do this"

Hello girl thread.

Yes that would definitely be a thing that I have complained about in the past. It's frustrating and annoying to not get the acknowledgement, and really angry making to have your time and effort and emotion just ignored and discounted, because of course all of that stuff just comes for free. But hey. The important thing is, that it got through in the end. Small changes change the world, even if you get crushed under the weight of having to constantly ask for them.

Singular they is, erm, wider than just trans usage. It's long-term gender-neutral usage which has feminist as well as trans implications, but erm, that's an "A is a subset of B" rather than "A is a separate issue to B" or really, to be honest "A and B are both overlapping subsets of C" thing I guess.

Been having an easier time in general with gender recently. But it's all kind of a massive breakthrough "ah-ha" paradigm-change that has happened through therapy, where I've discovered the entire foundation to my entire life is about 50 yards to the north of where I thought it was, and so every single thing in my life I've been seeing from a completely different angle. It's good, though.

I know that about singular they -- I was just glad my student knew about it too, that she was aware of the issue at all.

Ah. Sorry, I'm just getting bogged down by endless details again.

Here, have some semi-naked Germans in a shower:

http://36.media.tumblr.com/73e18927fb9b6414423bc6b65f7131cf/tumblr_mmle1dT0ph1s0ok2po2_500.jpg

You know I really really wish I'd read Female Masculinity by J. Halberstam about 15 years ago. Or 5 years ago or just any point before now, really. But I suppose some books find you when you are ready to read them. It certainly doesn't have all the answers, and its taxonomy is flawed and dated in places (yet still preserves nuances that seem to have been lost in the mainstreaming of certain dialogues. But I just found it such a relief, to read someone interrogating things (even when I disagreed with them) that I needed to see interrogated and discussed. The deep history behind *why* certain trends and political stances happened - things I can remember living through but did not know why they had become that way.

I wish it were longer. I wish it were expanded - updated to include the progressions and regressions of the past 17 years - and broadened to discuss masculinity in bisexual or even heterosexual women and queer trans men (though a deliberate focus on specifically Lesbian culture was pretty important to the book's power.)

But the critical idea of detaching masculinity from Maleness in order to discuss it more closely; that was mindblowing.

Anyway, it was a good book. Are there any threads about Masculinity that aren't toxic wastedumps because it would be interesting to throw it in there?

im late but, i don't think there are any such threads. :/

this book and its subj matter sounds very much up my alley

my old time bff is having some body img probs after 2 kids and a shitload of health probs

recommended reading to get her to stop her toxic self talk ("my body is embarrassing and disgusting") and get her to see the light?

no rush. this place is a graveyard these days!

My coworker went through some pretty hardcore body image issues & swears by Women Food & God by Geneen Roth. And another v cool friend of mine has repped for this book too, swears it shifted a lot of things for her mentally. I have it on my wishlist but havent gotten to it yet.

(God in the title = spiritual, not religious fyi )

idk if this would be useful but: a beautiful body project

I've been really distracted by my belly--which just seemed bigger and weird and uncomfortable--for a while now.

I've been kinda on the fence: like, OK should I lose some weight so my pants fit again or just accept it, get over it, I am 41 with a belly (but not overweight and in excellent health) blah blah

It turn out I have a belly full of fibroids. Which I've know I've had for years, but in the past couple of months I started having lower abdominal discomfort and the belly bloat and a hard abdominal mass that I can actually feel and move around (ewwwwww).

So now I'm getting worked up for surgery. And instead of being like oh fuck, surgery, substantial recovery period, blah blah blah. . .

I'm like, oh hey maybe my pants will fit again!!!!

Which is pretty fucked up.

I mean instead of wishing I didn't have fibroids in the first place, I'm grateful that perhaps I can blame *them* for my belly bloat and not *me* for being a failure at belly control.

So yeah, I could use some work on body positivity myself, obv.

quince! Sorry abut the health ish that are fueling this. But I think if under your thinking there is a base of, like, get this foreign thing that is not me out of me, wanting to set your body "to rights," that's understandable.

^^ also clothes not fitting is uncomfortable whatever and buying new ones sucks, so

Good luck with surgery, quince, and feeling body positive!

thanks for the recs y'all -- i'll pass them along to her.

quincie i know exactly what you mean -- i had a swollen abdomen for like 2 weeks and it was disturbing because not only did i feel like a spider, but everything was uncomfortable and i felt sick and lost my appetite, the whole deal. io is otm -- wanting your body to be unswollen isn't the same as dysmorphia or w/e

"feel like a spider" is an excellent description! Like, I have these longish, thinish limbs, but this protruding belly. I'm just waiting for the "when are you due" question, which will be awkward for both me and the questioner. But I'm still thinking I've got some super internalized "good tummy = flat tummy" shit going on, because I shouldn't be relieved that I have a medical issue. I should have been relieved to find out it was just fat.

also kinder otm about clothing not fitting being The Major Suck, and thanks to all for kind words and support <3

i've gotten back into sewing

Please revive the sewing thread (isn't there a sewing thread?)! I have patterns plus fabric plus notions plus machine and yet have used none of these for a long-ass time.

I do have some sewing blogs that I check in with periodically.

i have this idea (inspired by Sassy magazine "make this" features) of making a t-shirt dress out of a t-shirt plus target leggings that ripped at the inner thigh seam. That is next in line to the dress I'm making atm

I have yet to sew with knit fabric, so I salute you on this sassy endeavor!

Tangentially related: I got a bunch of blood tests done, and it looks like I don't have PCOS after all. I immediately sent a 'Fuuuuuuck you'-style email to the terrible gyn I had last year. She told me I most likely had PCOS within 2mins of meeting me, solely based on the fact that I have heavy periods.

She sent me back a non-apologetic apology.

Have you had an ultrasound? Could be fibroids, they are well-known for producing heavy periods.

My periods are kinda but not *terribly* heavy, but my big-ass fibroids are outside of my uterus, so they don't play into the period thing.

oh i forgot to put irregular as well. yeah mine aren't super heavy either. i only had ultrasounds done before and after IUD placement, and then a month later - vaginal one. is that the same kind they use for looking for fibroids? i was having a lot of lower ab pain as well, but it started after my IUD, and seems to have mostly ebbed away. i was really hoping to get the IUD yanked and get a TL, but i have to be on BCP anyway to prevent uterine cancer :/

ugh I mean uteri are awesome for what they can do, but since I never wanted to make babby, my uterus just seems like a useless pain in the ass/abdomen.

Ultrasound for IUD would pick up fibroids in the uterus, but I'm not sure about outside the uterus. I hope you find a non-horrible gyn! I've been with my (great) gyn for over a dozen years, and she has been ace. We argue about mammograms (I want to do every 2 years because SCIENCE, she is more conservative and is all "insurance will pay for it why not do it annually?" Uh, because SCIENCE). But anyway you need a good doc on your side when shit goes bad.

yeah i've been with an NP since the first gyn dr, but i have to actually pick a dr, preferrably a one who performs surgery, if i'm gonna go the TL route.

Catching up a bit here but... Good luck with the surgery!

Yes, good luck with surgery!

it looks like I don't have PCOS after all

I've given up on knowing whether I even have PCOS. I was sent for some tests in 2009 with no mention of PCOS and told that the results were inconclusive, and then 4 years later a different GP said "oh I see you have PCOS" because apparently (she said) the results from 2010 were sufficient to conclude PCOS, and I was annoyed that I hadn't been told at the time. Then a month ago I saw yet another GP and said "oh yeah, I have symptom x bcz PCOS" (the main symptom that got me tested in the first place) and she basically went "pfft, that's not even a symptom of PCOS, u mad" or something.

So it was all a bit frustrating until I decided that since I wasn't offered any specific treatment anyway I might as well ignore the question of Do I Officially Have This Thing and continue to mentally blame any and all possible symptoms on it or not, whichever seems more comforting at the time.

Good luck quincie! I know what you mean about the strange relief of it turning out to be 'spiders' and not fat. But perhaps part of the reason that 'fat' felt worrying to you is that you're good at feeling the connection between your habits and your particular body and knew that the sudden belly appearance didn't seem caused by, e.g., a few weeks eating more than usual, letting go of some dietary restriction (not that I think you have any, I follow you closely on the cooking borad), etc. Then there's this 'how did this happen' disconnect. If it had been the result of extra eating, it might have been a non-issue. iirc you have made very happy and positive-seeming decisions in the past re: not attempting to force yourself back into the pants of yesteryear.

Also, any thoughts about fat that seem hurtful can be dismissed. I think most of us would struggle to be fully rid of them after a lifetime of anti-fat messages. Practicing being good at dismissing them seems more important than not having them. I've been practicing but sometimes I forget.

APSC - yeah the problem with pcos is that i think it requires a differential diagnosis? like, there are lots of pcos symptoms that are actually symptoms of something else. and they keep changing the diagnosis criteria.
if irregular periods are a symptom, and you aren't on the pill, that might be something specific to inquire about. it thins out the lining of the uterus and helps prevent uterine cancer. insulin resistance is another thing, too.

p.s. i was prepared to totally ignore it too, the only reason i got tested was bc the hormonal IUD i'm using is giving me shit skin and also has put me in a basically permanent state of pre-period food-craving and i wanted to go hormone free. now i just need to find out if i can take a low-androgen pill instead.