no boys allowed in the room!!!!

gyaaaaaa

there's this hilary mantel interview where she talks about having endometriosis and people thinking it was just some psychosomatic hysteria* thing and putting her on antidepressants instead: http://www.guardian.co.uk/theguardian/2009/sep/12/hilary-mantel-booker-prize-interview

terror.

* after all, as we all know, hysteria is caused by the floating womb

yeah she said she had undiagnosed pain for a long time before they figured it out. my mom had it so i guess that means i will have it :(

oh hi, thread.

Laurel, hope you figure this out. I remember being totally struck by the feeling of WTF i'm meant to change my NAME?? when I got married - not so much any expectation, more that people do it all the time and yet to me it felt like this massive deal. It's your *name* ffs, one of the most personal things you have!
That said, I changed it to my husband's name even though changing it (to anything) felt weird. My old surname didn't fit too well with my first name and looking at it completely analytically I wanted to do the thing that would cause least hassle - I didn't want to be Mrs "Maiden name" because that felt like I was my mother (considered "Ms Maiden name" which I think would have been my second choice), and I didn't want my husb & I to have separate names just because I can't be bothered to correct the inevitable wrong names people will give us in the future, or work out what to call any future kids. It didn't seem like there was any perfect option - which sucks- but I quite like my married name now.

A friend of mine kept her maiden name professionally but her married name personally but ended up changing to the married name after a few years because of having a bebe (and general simplicity, I guess).

i had a lot of hassles travelling internationally, recently, bc my passport is still in my maiden name. my husband booked my tickets in my married name bc he figured the most important thing was being able to get back into the US (my gc has my married name). but now i realise it was all backwards: leaving the country and getting into plus exiting new zealand, they wanted to see that my passport matched my boarding pass; coming back into the US they just really only wanted to see my GC and it was totally fine that my passport was still in my old name. i carried my marriage cert with me, but it was all a real pain in the ass.

btw, I made the orzo thing mentioned upthread with a few additions and subtractions and it was tasty!

gonna get my hair cut

aha http://bitchphd.blogspot.com/2010/05/against-name-change-polemic.html
Come on, we all know tradition sucks.
*hits submit, runs away*

why does someone always have to win here? i find that very annoying.

The other thing about taking names, or not taking names, is how the end-product name scans. If it were to look clunky on the page I would not go for it, but if it was a cooler name I'd have some of that.

Other than that, I made cream cheese brownies today. Took the last batch into the fashion magazine so I wouldn't eat them all, and this batch is going to the farmers' market tomorrow (picnic after, also response to brownie throwdown). Do not want to blow up to Nigella Lawson size so will probably knock the high-cal recreation on the head.

Nigella is effing gorgeous!

Yes, but she can carry off the Rubenesque thing so much better than I ever could!

She can definitely carry it off, so I know what you're saying. She is so sure of herself, and naughty!

question: have any of you ever stopped taking hormonal bc (i was using nuva) and experienced near constant migraines after doing so?
is this normal? i don't want to be jacked up on hormones for the rest of my life, so that's why i stopped using it. i just need a break.

Estrogen levels have been linked to migraines, but studies have shown that Nuvaring users have the lowest blood-estrogen levels of any of the combined BC method users.

Yeah, that's part of why I was using it -- I get migraines every month anyway, so the low estrogen was helpful. I'm just wondering if this is going to stop at some point. I'll give it 2 weeks.

The nice thing about monophasic hormonal contraception is that you don't really have the fluctuating hormone levels of real life. On or off BC, you're still jacked up on hormones.

I get (possible sort of*) migraines on my week off the pill, which seems related. Was sort of wondering if the light oestrogen levels of the nuvaring wd give me fewer side-effects than I get from the pill - have tried a bunch of different types of pill and had a bunch of different bad reactions, but am keen to keep not ovulating as that hurts too. Ehh.

* tldr version of "possible sort of migraine" = "an aura-less one-sided headache which coincides with nausea and lasts for most of the day for about 4 days in a row but is a lot less severe than the things I have occasionally which I know are migraines because they come with aura" - instead of needing a day off in a dark room I can sit at work and pretend to be working with only occasional trips to lean my forehead against the cold wall of the bathroom and go "unhhhh", but I am probably not actually doing any work, just silently cursing the universe and striplighting and office noise all day

re: surgery padma was talking about, my sister has had that multiple times

how old was she when she first got the cysts?

or whatever they are

its not cysts, its uterine lining that comes out of your uterus and gets in the rest of your body

i dont know, mid-late 20s

yeah yeah i know, sorry

i'm mid-late 20s :(

I was mid twenties when I first started having weird pain. it really sucks. although it is genetic, nobody else in my fam has had it that I know of. I worry about roxy sometimes but hope she avoids this.

it is not cysts. it is just a tissue growing where it is not supposed to be - not really growing out of or seeping out of the uterus, just ALSO growing somewhere else in the body. the tissue swells causing pain and also wraps & spiderwebs around organs.

i had a few of those surgeries mentioned above and then had a presacral neurectomy where they cut the nerves at my spine that lead to pelvic pain. that one was the worst one to recover from because I had to relearn how to pee because the sensation to go felt different.

my mom had it & had to have a hysterectomy. i am wondering if having kids has any influence on it either way but it seems like a lot of people have it who have never had kids.

because it requires estrogen to grow, and estrogen drops during pregnancy, having a baby can make it shrink into not existing anymore since your level drops for 9 months. all the drugs they have come up with so far that make your levels drop are too dangerous to take for longer than 3 months at a time. having a baby would most likely rid my body of the disease, which is very weird.

i am participating in a study right now to get better drugs/cure for this, btw

that is weird, my mom had 3 and still had it. i don't wanna have any. i'm just gonna cross my fingers

I close friend of mine had a hysterectomy at 27 because her endo was so bad. She had even tried chemo to get rid of it but it was completely debilitating and that was the last resort.

Yeah. The presacral things was a last resort for me. I would get stuck in the bathtub and not be able to stand up to get out.

harbl - did your mom have the endo before the kids or just after? was she relieved from pain during the pregnancy at least? that is sad!

i dunno i think it was after. the hysterectomy was when i was like 22, 19 years after 3rd kid. i could be wrong. fwiw i have not experienced any symptoms, not even bad cramps.

i really have no idea. i just never want to have my uterus removed, it didn't seem like fun.

being newly single after a very long time, i've gotten plenty of dating/relationship advice, a lot of it conflicting. But a lot of it is of the "don't worry, it will just happen when you're least expecting it" variety. It seems like this type of thing is something that women get told a lot about various things...it just feels so passive.

Have personally told it to a lot of men too, tbh. Think this is more of a universal truth about trying to make your life run in directions that require the involvement of other people and/or chance opportunity.

but compare it with what we're commonly told about looking for work - another example of something that requires the involvement of other people and/or chance opportunity? I'm not arguing the truth of it, because I obviously don't know.

My advice, as someone who was habitually single until recently, is just to make your life totally awesome. If you already like the life you have, it will be more fun every day AND make you a more interesting/engaged and happier person, which is a great set-up for potentially meeting and/or being attractive to another interesting and happy person.

Also, and you must already know this from yr recent events, never underestimate the pleasure of going to bed when YOU are tired, watching a movie of your choosing that no one criticizes, not worrying about food until YOU are hungry, getting up when you wake up and leaving the house at your leisure and not returning until you run out of fun things to do, and other delights of the single life.

being not-single sounds shitty

being not-single has a lot of enjoyable aspects

it's just interesting how advice/perspectives on love and romance differ from other things in American culture. But maybe not?

So far the most pragmatic advice I've gotten was the suggestion that I invest in a quality eyelash curler so that my eyes will appear larger and more "bambi-like"

That's completely bizarre.

the theory is that by appearing more like a defenseless woodland creature it would activate the male protective instinct - or something like that.

Being not-single is a big adjustment for me, I complain about it rather a lot because my life before was built on being free to commit my time to all my friends and other hobby-ist activities like biking, reading for hours, being gone from home all day for days in a row for dance gigs or practices. I spent very little time actually relaxing at home, and I only involved other people in my activities when it was convenient for me.

This is your prerogative when you're single and childless but it does result in no one being there for you and you alone when you want them. I want someone to miss me, someday.

Sorry, not trying to unleash any universal truths on anybody else with that last two lines. Just to say that my previous life was extremely busy, even over-scheduled, and possibly an extreme of independent. Would NEVER have gotten a pet, for instance, b/c it would need something from me and cramp my schedule.

Would NEVER have gotten a pet, for instance, b/c it would need something from me and cramp my schedule.

Getting a pet was a frequent piece of advice - but I just don't have the time to devote, plus i don't like cleaning up poop.

I want to get a pet but schlepping a small poodle (what I'd get, I like a dog to be smarter than the other dogs) between countries, even with pet passport, or having to leave her for long stretches is a giant pain in the arse.

offended that deer have been described here as defenseless

I was almost attacked by a deer once. Had to run up a hill to escape, truly terrifying.

ps. what guys look that closely at your eyelashes?

pps. what guys are attracted to defenseless woodland creatures? ew

It's a well-known fact that deer can't run up hills. Always head for high ground.

Eyelash curlers scare me.