#genetically speaking (caitlin answers)

[drsncw]

@wiishescametrue asked: Send me a ▲ ( alaric)

Send me a ▲ for my muse's reaction to yours: we got 5. hugging from behind when they weren't expecting it

She'd been so caught up working she hadn't realized she was no longer alone, the surprise catching her in a weird position. Although she knew no one was trying to hurt her, or was attacking her because the presence was familiar, the surprise itself almost made her panic. It took a lot for her to not completely freeze up at the action, she took a small breath as she centered herself. "You scared me" she admitted after a moment, knowing he might understand the reaction.

[doctorsncw]

‘ you are the most comfortable person to be around . ’ ( random :3 )

“I would hope you think that” she smiled, “You’ve been drinking far less, but still spending a lot of time here” if Caitlin was honest, she actually enjoyed Alex’s company. She couldn’t help that feeling of happiness that seemed to overcome her when she’d watch the other woman walk into the bar. She couldn’t really be sure of what it meant, but she didn’t want it to stop. 

[drsncw-a]

❝ Just tell me that you and the baby are both fine❞ (From Ronnie, because snowstorm bby)

✗ Pregnancy Starter Sentences!!!

A smile formed on her lips at the obvious worry in his tone. She knew he would have been there if it hadn’t been for the Flash emergency. He’d been there for her throughout the early stages of the pregnancy, and of course he still worried, she could tell. “We are both perfectly fine” she assured him, “The doctor even said that we may be able to tell if it’s a boy or a girl in the next ultrasound” even though there was always a chance she could find out before then using the medical equipment they had in the lab, there was something almost normal about going to the doctor first. “Did you guys get the bad guy?”

[dreadpoetssociety]

Her Over Me

TW: death, verbal fighting

Request:  Maybe can you do a Spence x teen! Daughter where Spencer’s new girlfriend is a total ass to y/n and despite her efforts to convince Spencer that she’s extremely harsh, Spencer brushes her off and ignores her until she finally snaps and gets enough of his ignorance, lashing out on him unexpectedly for caring so much for his girlfriend instead of his daughter and she just runs to Garcia’s or JJ’s or smth and spencer finally realizes the truth when his gf asks where the annoying ‘brat’ is? Thank u!

Note: Okay, hopefully this is alright HAH I’ve never written one with Spencer being a dad before, but this was fun. Thank you for the request!!

Pairings: 

Spencer Reid x Girlfriend 

Spencer Reid x Daughter!Reader

()()()()()()

You never liked your fathers new girlfriend. You weren’t sure what he saw in her, or how he didn’t notice the pure evil that bubbled inside the woman’s veins, considering he was a profiler and a genius and all that. He should’ve noticed her behavior a long time ago. 

But alas, he didn’t. As the saying goes, love is blind. You’d tried to bring it up a few times, only to be brushed off, and gave up once you understood he was never going to believe you. The woman was nice to you in front of him, but became someone else when he was gone. You were convinced that if he wasn’t so head over heels for her, he probably would’ve noticed. It was so out of character for him not to, but for a while you didn’t want to ruin his happiness. He hadn’t been interested in anyone since your mom passed away, and even though he pretended to be happy, you had the genetics of a profiler, and just knew he hadn’t been for so long. Not completely, anyway. 

When she came home, your mood changed, as though you were putting an extra wall up.

“Y/N, get over here and take these bags. I won’t wait.” she said.

“Alright.” you for the most part just tried to be compliant. You didn’t want any issues, or even worse, punishment, which had happened more than once now due to her incredible lying of ‘Y/N said this, Y/N said that, I think it’s because she doesn’t like me’ blah blah blah. She knew which buttons to push. 

“Hurry it up, I have things to do.” she said angrily. You picked up the grocery bags and placed them on the island in the kitchen area. As you did, though, a glass salsa jar fell out and onto the floor, cracking into two pieces. You quickly started picking up the pieces and frantically tried to clean it.

“My God, Y/N! I just bought that! You can’t get anything right, can you? I don’t even understand why Spencer doesn’t just put you up for god damn adoption, you’re such a pain to be around. You owe me three dollars and fifty cents for that, and gas money to go back to the store.” she yelled, “For God sake, if I was your mom, I’d die, too.”

You stopped. You turned so quickly that it would’ve given someone whiplash. This was it. This was the last straw. All those times of her calling you a burden, of her blaming everything on you, trying to get rid of you in any way she could. She doesn’t belong in this family. She’s an outsider. What right does she have mentioning your mother. It hit too close to home, especially since you beat yourself up every day over feeling guilty of your mother’s death, and missing her more than words could even describe. It was your breaking point. 

“You know what, Catherine,”

“Catrina” she interrupted.

“Catherine!” you screamed, “You vile, stupid excuse of a woman. Keep my mother out of your slimy, filthy mouth. You don’t have a place in this house.” 

“Excuse me? How dare you tell me what to do, you stupid brat! I’ll tell Spencer about how awful you are, and maybe he’ll punish you again.”

“Honestly Caitlin, I don’t give a god damn. Put your own groceries away. In fact-“ you turned around and dropped all the glass piece back to the floor, “you can clean them the hell up, too.” the two of you broke out in a screaming match then, throwing insults back and forth at the top of your lungs. 

Eventually, Spencer walked in at some point. You didn’t notice, but Catrina did. Her tone had changed, and she as calmer, and anomy somewhat nicer while you absolutely destroyed her.

“Y/N!” he yelled. You turned around. You’d never heard him yell at you like that before.

“Dad! I swear to you. She is literally so harsh. She treats me like trash! And you just let her! She brought up mo-“

“Really? Because I’m pretty sure it’s you who’s screaming at her. I know you’re upset because you miss your mom, but you can’t throw tantrums like this anymore, Y/N.”

You stopped. Anymore? Tantrums? You had et your father’s girlfriend walk all over you this whole time. All those times she got you in trouble she’d bent the truth dramatically. You hadn’t even yelled at her once until now. 

“You’re really going to believe her over your own kid, aren’t you?” you shook your head, “You know what, that’s cool. Do what you want. I’ll do what Cathy has wanted me to do the whole time and see myself out. You know, for some alleged genius and incredible profiler, you’re too easily manipulated. Have fun on date night.” 

“Y/N, get back here!”

But it was too late. You’d snatched the keys, walked out and slammed the door. Your eyes were blurry as the apartment elevator closed before Spencer could get to you, and you made your way down to the garage. 

You got in the car and just drove. You weren’t sure where your body was taking you, but it was just on autopilot, and you eventually ended up at JJ’s, a coworker of your father’s.

You rang the bell, practically about to pass out from crying so much. JJ answered the door pretty quickly, and her face dropped with incredible amounts of concern that you could almost feel it.

“Y/N, oh my God, what’s going on?” 

“Spen- and- a- an-“ you couldn’t even speak. You’d put up with this witch for so long for him, and you were his kid, and he just believed her so easily.

“Okay, hey, hey wait. Come inside, you have to sit down, okay?” JJ helped you in to her living room. The house was seemingly empty, so you assumed Will must’ve taken the kids somewhere. For a few minutes you just cried on her couch while she sat next to you trying to comfort you. Eventually calming down, you began to explain everything from the beginning. The disgusted looks, the insults, the lying, the this, the that, just everything. 

“Y/N, I’m so sorry, that’s terrible.” JJ said, “Spence really hasn’t said anything about it?”

“No! Literally nothing! He doesn’t even think it’s happening. He doesn’t find it suspicious at all it’s so weird. He gives a damn so much about her that he’ll just like, see past it.” you replied.

“That’s so unlike him.” she said, “Do you want me to talk to him?” 

You shook your head, “It’s just cause more problems with his dumb girlfriend. I don’t even care that he has a girlfriend! He thinks that I hate her because I miss my mom, but I hate her because she’s so mean to me all the time when he isn’t around. The only reason I lost it today was because she brought up my mom.”

“Is that why you got angry at her? What’d she say?” 

“She literally said that if she were my mom, she’d die, too. Like firstly, who says that? What kind of insult is that? Secondly, who would bring up someone’s literal dead mother in any situation, let alone over a stupid jar?” you asked. JJ shrugged, not knowing what to say. You both talked for a few more hours after that, ignoring every attempt Spencer had tried to call you.

“Y/N, you’re genuinely welcome here any time if you need to get away from that.” she said.

“Thanks, JJ, I honestly might take you up on that.” you smiled. You said your goodbyes and made your way home.

When you walked through the front door of your apartment, you saw the two of them sitting on the couch together. Spencer looked at you, you looked back and just walked into your room as though life was normal. That’s all you could do for now. For the following few days, you spent most of your time at JJ’s. Penelope was there too, every once in a while, and once you told her the story, she almost went to straighten Spencer out herself. Garcia wasn’t the type to get angry, but when she was, it was like the day had just suddenly turned to night it was so dark. But, you convinced her out of it, saying you’d deal with it somehow and that you didn’t want anyone else involved.

Spencer had been waiting for his girlfriend to go out when you mysteriously disappeared for the millionth time this week. She walked in a black body con dress, and her beauty almost mesmerized him.

“Hey,” she smiled. She quickly looked around as her and Spencer got closer, “where’s that annoying little brat?” 

And that’s when it finally clicked for him. All of those behaviors he’d picked up on, the way she looked at the top of his head when talking about how you had done something, the way her voice seemed to fluctuate, even just the way she walked around the house. It was almost like a snap back to reality for him, and he regretted ignoring it before. He knew now that you were telling the truth this whole time, and that he’d just looked over you.

“Get out.” he said.

“Spence, what?”

“That’s Dr. Reid for you. Get out of my house. You lied this whole time about Y/N.” his voice was raising, which she’d never seen happen before.

“What? Spence- no, let’s talk this out, you don’t understand!”

“You’re right, I don’t understand. How can I understand someone who treats my kid like nothing and lies about her for no reason? I can understand what you get out of it, a power trip, maybe. Maybe it stems from how you were raised as a child, since you said your mother did the same to you and now you’re doing it unto someone else. So most likely she’s just a surrogate to represent your younger self, correct? You’ve got the same hair color and eye color, so it actually adds up.” he rambled off angrily, but he stopped quickly, “Get out. Take your crap with you. Don’t call me again, we’re done.” 

He slammed the door behind her.

When Spencer showed up to JJ’s house, you, Garcia, and JJ fell silent.

“Y/N, can we talk privately?” he asked. Looking at the two other women, they nodded their heads and gestured for you to go. You both walked out to Spencer’s car, getting in, and starting for a drive.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry, you were right this whole time.”

“Yeah, I know.” you retorted. He sighed.

“Genuinely, Y/N. Catrina’s gone I kicked her out. I should’ve seen who she really was from the beginning. I noticed all the signs and just went anyway. More importantly I should’ve listened to you.” 

You stayed silent. What were you supposed to do in a situation like this? You were still mad at him, but wanted to forgive him.

“I’m genuinely sorry.”

“I’ll forgive you eventually, but I’m pissed about it for now.” you stated.

“Which completely makes sense, you have every right to be.”

“Something that might help your case would be a nice trip to the mall, you know. . . “ you smirked. He laughed. The two of you drove around for about an hour and a half talking things out, and the day ended with you, Spencer, Garcia, and JJ all going out together. Of course, not before Garcia and JJ almost killed him, but once it was somewhat settled, the four of you had a good time, especially with you having the satisfaction of knowing that Catrina was literally kicked out of your house. 

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Where reopening is working (NYT) Across much of the United States and Europe, the coronavirus has been spreading less rapidly than many people feared. Over the past six weeks—as communities have started to reopen, Americans have flocked to beaches and lakes and European schools have reopened—but the number of new cases has continued falling in many places. Across the Northeast and Midwest of the U.S., they’re down more than 50 percent, and often much more, since May 1. Nationwide, weekly deaths have fallen for six weeks in a row. And Europe “seems to have turned a corner,” Caitlin Rivers of Johns Hopkins University says. How could this be? Public health experts gave two main answers. One, the virus spreads much less easily outdoors than indoors. “Summer—being outside, warmer weather, humidity—seems to help, and we may have underestimated how much it’s helped,” Ashish Jha, the incoming dean of Brown University School of Public Health, told me. Two, many people are taking more precautions than they were in February and March. They’re wearing masks, remaining six feet apart and being careful about what they touch. The combination appears to have eliminated most “superspreader events,” like parties, concerts and restaurant meals, where multiple people get sick. Such events may account for 80 percent of all transmissions, research suggests.

Beleaguered and besieged, police try to come to grips with a nation’s anger (Washington Post) The crowds have thinned and the smoke has cleared, with more than a week of nationwide protests leaving in their wake a nation increasingly resolved to change a broken law enforcement system. But they also have left police officers badly shaken, and in some cases physically bruised. Nationwide, police leaders say the rank and file are struggling to come to grips with the level of animus they encountered on the streets, as epithets, bricks and bottles all came hurtling their way. Police have been targets of protest many times before, of course. But never quite like this. “I’ve had members say they feel like a Vietnam veteran returning home to a country that hates them,” said Robert Harris, a Los Angeles police officer and director of the force’s police union. “It’s not that our members expect thank-yous. It’s the difficulty in knowing that the protesters want to be treated with equality and fairness and respect, and what they’re protesting for isn’t afforded to the officers themselves.” “The morale is low,” he said. “They’ve taken quite a beating.”

Federal Debt Tops $26 Trillion for First Time; Jumps $2 Trillion in Just 63 Days (CNS News) The debt of the federal government topped $26 trillion for the first time on Tuesday, when it climbed from $25,960,547,920,986.11 to $26,003,751,512,344.91, according to data released today by the Treasury Department. The federal debt had topped $24 trillion for the first time on April 7, 2020.

A Single Session of Exercise Alters 9,815 Molecules in Our Blood (NYT) When we exercise, the levels of thousands of substances in our bloodstream rise and drop, according to an eye-opening new study of the immediate, interior impacts of working out. The study is the most comprehensive cataloging to date of the molecular changes that occur during and after exercise and underscores how consequential activity—and inactivity—may be for our bodies and health. Over all, the researchers were taken aback by the magnitude of the changes in people’s molecular profiles after exercise, according to Dr. Michael Snyder, the chair of the genetics department at Stanford University and senior author of the study. “I had thought, it’s only about nine minutes of exercise, how much is going to change? A lot, as it turns out.”

United will require passengers to complete health assessments before they fly (Washington Post) United Airlines on Wednesday became at least the second U.S. carrier to ask travelers to answer questions about their health status before they fly, part of a strategy to ease the minds of travelers concerned about flying in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic. United’s “Ready-to-Fly” checklist will ask travelers to confirm that they have not experienced any coronavirus-related symptoms in the 14 previous days or been in close contact with any individual who has tested positive during the same time period. It also will require passengers to verify that they are aware of the airline’s policy requiring face coverings when aboard an airplane.

Are religious communities reviving the revival? Outdoor worship is a US tradition (Religion News Service) Religious communities have been forced to find alternative ways to worship together during the coronavirus pandemic. For some that has meant going online, but others have turned to a distinctly non-digital practice steeped in this history of the American religious experience: outdoor worship. Prayer sessions in parking lots and services in green spaces formed part of an improvised response to the lockdown by religious leaders and they may now be part of the plan as the United States emerges from the crisis. Indeed, a team of clergy and scientists have issued a new guide suggesting, among other recommendations, that baptisms could take place in “flowing streams, lakes or in beach settings.” So are brick-and-mortar houses of worship essential? It is a question that states and courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court, have asked in considering the extent to which states can or should place restrictions on meetings in religious buildings. Religious communities, too, have reflected on whether the term “church” describes a building or a community. While white evangelical Protestants have been some of the more vocal protesters of government restrictions on houses of worship during the pandemic, they actually have a long history of embracing outdoor worship in services and revivals.

Watch kids near water (NYT) This year, with outings to the community pool, day camps and pool parties still on hold, kids cooped up at home will be eager to get in the water as the weather warms. Experts worry that parents are stretched too thin to provide the required supervision, leading to an increase in child drownings this summer. As of mid-May, both Florida and Texas—the top two states for child drownings in pools and spas—are already seeing higher numbers than last year. If you have toddlers and you think you don’t have to worry because you don’t have a real pool—just one of those little plastic or inflatable baby pools—you still have a hazard sitting in your yard. Little kids can drown in less than two inches of water. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics, drowning is the leading cause of injury death in children ages 1 to 4, and nearly 70 percent of the time, it happens when children aren’t supposed to be in the pool.

Zoom censors video talks on Hong Kong and Tiananmen, drawing criticism (Washington Post) Several prominent critics of the Chinese government, including protest leaders in Hong Kong and pro-democracy activists in the United States, have accused Zoom of shutting their accounts and severing live events in recent weeks under pressure from Beijing. The three incidents are reviving concerns about the fast-growing Silicon Valley company’s susceptibility to Chinese government influence weeks after the firm began facing scrutiny over security, including its routing of data through China. Coming in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the episode also highlights the world’s dependency on services such as Zoom and their ability to control speech. Zoom on Thursday acknowledged that “a few recent meetings” related to China have been disrupted. In each instance, event organizers told The Washington Post that they relied on Zoom in lieu of in-person events because of social distancing and travel restrictions. And each of the Zoom accounts and events was created and hosted outside mainland China but appeared to be quashed under Chinese government pressure after publicly advertised.

EU pushes back on Beijing (Foreign Policy) China’s aggressive diplomacy in Europe is now causing serious pushback. The European Union, normally reluctant to speak out against Beijing, has accused the government of running “targeted influence operations and disinformation campaigns in the EU, its neighborhood, and globally,” along with Russia. The move may be a response to earlier criticism that the EU softened a report on the same topic. Meanwhile, Britain’s swerve away from China has been fast, with Prime Minister Boris Johnson proposing a D-10 alliance of democracies—the existing G-7, plus South Korea, India, and Australia—to build 5G networks free of Chinese influence. The Hong Kong crisis has further soured U.K.-Chinese relations, with Beijing warning that it may pull out a British nuclear power construction deal. Since the original nuclear deal was widely seen as a disaster in the U.K., this doesn’t give Beijing much leverage.

Poland troop plan falters (Foreign Policy) After U.S. President Donald Trump said he would remove 9,500 troops from Germany, plans to relocate troops further east in Poland have fallen into disarray, Reuters reports. A plan announced in June of last year to send 1,000 U.S. troops to Poland permanently has been held up over disputes over how much of the bill Poland would cover, where to station the troops, and whether they would gain legal immunity while stationed there.

Lack of beds slows Delhi’s virus fight (AP) In New Delhi, a sprawling capital region of 46 million and home to some of India’s highest concentration of hospitals, a pregnant woman’s death after a frantic hunt for a sickbed was a worrying sign about the country’s ability to cope with a wave of new coronavirus cases. “She kept begging us to save her life, but we couldn’t do anything,” Shailendra Kumar said, after driving his sister-in-law, Neelam, and her husband for hours, only to be turned away at eight public and private hospitals. Two and a half months of nationwide lockdown kept numbers of infections relatively low in India. But with restrictions easing in recent weeks, cases have shot up, rising by a record of nearly 10,000 on Thursday, raising questions about whether authorities have done enough to avert catastrophe. Half of Delhi’s 8,200 hospital beds dedicated to COVID-19 patients are already full and officials are projecting more than half a million cases in the city alone by July 31.

Chinese recovery (Foreign Policy) Some data indicates that the speed of economic recovery in China may be faster than feared, with oil use already back to 90 percent of pre-coronavirus levels. Domestic demand for consumer goods is strong, but a lack of global demand is hamstringing Chinese manufacturers: Reopened factories are struggling to find customers.

Floyd killing finds echoes of abuse in South Africa, Kenya (AP) Collins Khosa was killed by law enforcement officers in a poor township in Johannesburg over a cup of beer left in his yard. The 40-year-old black man was choked, slammed against a wall, beaten, kicked and hit with the butt of a rifle by the soldiers as police watched, his family says. Two months later, South Africans staged a march against police brutality. But it was mostly about the killing of George Floyd in the United States, with the case of Khosa, who died on April 10, raised only briefly. Despite racial reconciliation that emerged after the end of the apartheid system, poor and black South Africans still fall victim to security forces that now are mostly black. The country is plagued by violent crime, and police often are accused of resorting to heavy-handed tactics. Journalist Daneel Knoetze, who looked into police brutality in South Africa between 2012 and 2019, found that there were more than 42,000 criminal complaints against police, which included more than 2,800 killings—more than one a day. There were more than 27,000 cases of alleged assault by police, many classified as torture, and victims were “overwhelmingly” poor and black, he said. And in Kenya, the police force has for two decades been ranked the country’s most corrupt institution. It’s also Kenya’s most deadly, killing far more people than criminals do, according to human rights groups.

[katvontea]

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Most labs devoted to women’s diseases are accompanied by obvious symbols of womanhood: a rose, a tulip, an hourglass silhouette. Not Linda Griffith’s. Tucked away in the building for biological engineering, the M.I.T. Center for Gynepathology Research is marked only by the letters CGR in red and black, the G formed from a curved arrow representing the hand of the engineer.

“We needed something that wasn’t all pink and flowers,” said Dr. Griffith, the lab’s director. “We really thought it should be, like, ‘This is science.’”

Dr. Griffith founded the lab in 2009 with the goal of helping researchers solve endometriosis, a chronic disorder in which tissue similar to that which normally lines the uterus instead grows outside it. The disease strikes one in 10 women, as well as trans men and nonbinary people who menstruate. Its hallmarks are extreme pain and, in some cases, infertility.

Yet it suffers from a branding problem: It falls into the abyss of “women’s diseases” (overlooked), diseases that don’t kill you (unimportant) and menstrual problems (taboo). Researchers often call endometriosis “benign,” as in noncancerous — but doing so, Dr. Griffith believes, lessens the seriousness of a common, painful disease.

Her mission is to change the conversation, from one of women’s pain to one of biomarkers, genetics and molecular networks. “I don’t want to make endometriosis a women’s issue,” she told the M.I.T. Tech Review in 2014. “I want to make it an M.I.T. issue.”

Dr. Griffith, 60, with a fringe of blonde hair and a slight Georgia drawl, is uniquely poised to help effect that transition. She started her career in bioengineering, sculpting organs like liver and bone from scratch by seeding polymer scaffolds with living cells. In 1997, she helped create an iconic creature called the “earmouse” by injecting a human ear-shaped scaffold with cartilage from a cow’s knee, and growing it on the back of a lab mouse.

Now she brings those skills to the task of better understanding the uterus. In her lab, she has begun growing uterine organoids — tiny domed droplets, with glands that look like swirling craters — from the uterine cells of endometriosis patients. These “patient avatars” are ideal tools for testing potential new treatments for the disease: Biologically, they are closer to human uterine cells than those of mice (which don’t naturally menstruate). And they enable researchers to sidestep the ethical issues that would arise with human trials.

“That’s really the power of this,” Dr. Griffith said. “You can take patients who we know how they respond or do not respond to therapies, and compare and start to understand and tease apart why that is.”

Her research highlights what a remarkable organ the uterus truly is — and not just during its signature function, pregnancy. Humans, unlike almost every other mammal, grow their entire endometrium — the womb’s inner lining — once a month, whether or not a fertilized egg takes hold. If no egg appears, they shed it.

Dynamic, resilient and prone to reinvention, the uterus offers a window into some of biology’s greatest secrets: tissue regeneration, scarless wound healing and immune function. “The endometrium is inherently regenerative,” Dr. Griffith said. “So studying it, you’re studying a regenerative process — and how it goes wrong, in cases.”

Now, her work “is drawing the interest of those who have never worked on or never thought about endometriosis,” said Dr. Stacey Missmer, a reproductive biologist at Michigan State University and co-director of the Boston Center for Endometriosis. Essentially, Dr. Missmer said, Dr. Griffith is saying: “All you cool kids in the other disciplines, this is a really interesting area to ask questions.”

A name for the pain

Before Dr. Griffith turned her scientific lens on the womb, she spent years trying to avoid thinking about the pain it caused her. For nearly three decades doctors dismissed her symptoms — stomach-turning nausea, stabbing pelvic pain and alarming levels of blood loss during her period — as just part of being a woman.

“I felt like I was being gaslighted,” she said.

She grew up fearless, a tree-climbing Girl Scout in Valdosta, Ga. In high school, she sewed her own clothes, earned a black belt in karate and fixed her family’s car radiator. “There was nothing we couldn’t do, whether we were male, female, whatever,” said her younger sister, Susan Berthelot. “We had a lot of confidence, and a lot of love, and a lot of freedom.”

But when Dr. Griffith hit puberty, her body began imposing limitations. Her period was so agonizing it would leave her curled in the fetal position for days. When she was 13, a gynecologist prescribed birth control pills, a scandalous proposition. “In the South especially, it was not done,” she said. Her mother, at a loss, gave her gin.

Unable to control what was going on inside her body, she focused on what she could control: math, and building things. She went to Georgia Tech on a scholarship to study chemical engineering. But she found herself failing tests when she was on her period, and going to the infirmary to get monthly shots of the opioid Demerol.

By the time she began graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, she had developed an elaborate period regimen: She wore all-black outfits, inserted three Super Plus tampons and swallowed upward of 30 Advil tablets a day. But her pain kept increasing. When she consulted a male doctor, he took one look at her black leather jacket, pixie cut and Kawasaki motorcycle and diagnosed her as “rejecting her femininity.”

Her real diagnosis came by accident. In November 1988, soon after she went to M.I.T. as a postdoc, she checked into the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston to drain a small cyst on her left ovary. She woke up the next day to find a row of staples along her midriff, holding together a six-inch incision.

Her gynecologist told her she had a disease called endometriosis, which had fused her pelvic organs together with a sticky, speckled tissue that resembled the lining of her uterus. This rogue tissue responded to her monthly hormone cycle, swelling, shedding and attempting to bleed; that was the origin of the pain.

Surgeons had burned or scraped off as much of the tissue as possible; there was little else they could do. In 1940, the gynecologist who gave endometriosis its name, Dr. John Sampson, deemed the disease “tantalizingly alluring and elusive.” A half-century later, not much had changed. There was no cure, and researchers still didn’t know exactly how endometriosis took root.

Still, Dr. Griffith treated the diagnosis as good news. “To have someone tell me something was wrong with me, it was a huge relief,” she said.

Her gynecologist presented two options: She could go on Danazol, a hormone-blocking drug that would halt the growth of the disease but would also send her body into a menopause-like state; or she could get pregnant, a common recommendation in the 1980s, and not uncommon today.

The medical reasoning — which has since been questioned — was that by temporarily stopping menstruation, pregnancy could reduce symptoms and slow or reverse the growth of lesions. “It was almost viewed as a two-for-one benefit,” said Dr. Elizabeth Stewart, who performed Dr. Griffith’s first surgery. “It’s clear there was some sexism in the approach to endometriosis then. I think there’s still some now.”

Dr. Griffith recalls her then-husband answering for her: “We’ll have a baby.”

She opted for the Danazol. Eight years later, she divorced the husband.

Soon she was jump-starting the field of biological engineering, developing technologies to 3D-print organ scaffolds and growing artificial human ears on the backs of mice. She was an architect; her medium was the building blocks of life. But it never occurred to her to try to solve her own disease.

“Psychologically, it wasn’t something I wanted to think about,” she said. “I just wanted to pretend like it wasn’t happening.”

A ‘women’s thing’ worth doing

The turning point came in 2007, when a member of M.I.T.’s board of trustees, Susan Whitehead, asked her to speak at a Women in Science and Engineering luncheon about how her work on tissue engineering could benefit women.

Dr. Griffith was annoyed. “I was working on all the things that guys were working on,” she later recalled at a 2018 scientific meeting. “It didn’t ever occur to me to work on a women’s thing.” But Whitehead was a friend, so she agreed.

Near the end of the event, the moderator asked her where she saw herself in 10 years. Something welled up inside her. She had just had her eighth surgery for endometriosis, and had helped her 16-year-old niece, Caitlin, receive a diagnosis for endometriosis after years of having doctors attribute her symptoms to stress. Watching Caitlin go through the same ordeal “made lava shoot out of my head,” Dr. Griffith recalled recently.

“I have a chronic disease called endometriosis,” she blurted out to the luncheon audience, and mentioned her niece. “There’s no better treatment for her, 30 years younger than me, than there was for me when I was 16.” If a major breakthrough in treatment didn’t come soon, “that’s where I’m going to be in 10 years,” she said. “Maybe it’ll be solved, but I don’t think so.”

The audience broke into applause.

Dr. Griffith reset her goals. When it came to making liver and bone, “so many other people could do them,” she recalled. “But there was this one thing only I could do.” She had recently been awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant, which came with $500,000 for any research project.

In 2009, she used it toward opening the Center for Gynepathology Research, the only engineering lab in the nation to focus on endometriosis. (In October 2020, federal funding for endometriosis research doubled from $13 million to $26 million after Representative Abby Finkenauer of Iowa, 32, shared her own endometriosis journey on the House floor.)

At the launch event for the center, Padma Lakshmi, host of Top Chef and co-founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America, lamented the lack of research on such a devastating disease.

“I have to say, I’m really shocked that it’s the first research center of its kind in America,” she said. “That is stunningly bad news on the one hand, that she’s the first one doing it. On the other hand, better late than never. Thank God for Dr. Linda Griffith.”

A window into the womb

Imagine the uterus as an orange, with the lining as the rind: fluffy, living tissue that serves as a plush bedding for a potential embryo. Each month, triggered by a drop in the hormone progesterone, the lining sloughs off and grows anew, complete with delicate, spiraling blood vessels.

This process repeats itself swiftly, scarlessly, without a trace of injury, again and again, as many as 500 times in a woman’s life. “How the body can coordinate that is extraordinary,” said Dr. Hilary Critchley, a reproductive biologist at the University of Edinburgh — and still poorly understood.

But this remarkable dynamism, some researchers argue, is a double-edged sword. “A little thing gets out of balance, and there you go,” said Dr. Griffith.

Dr. Griffith’s models offer a glimpse into what happens when the process goes wrong — for instance, when this growing tissue takes root in places it shouldn’t. Her bits of bioengineered tissue allow researchers to visualize the growth of lesions and systematically parse the role of immune cells, inflammation and hormones in the disease.

“You’re actually seeing in three dimensions what’s going on inside the uterus and this gland formation and nerve formation,” said endometriosis specialist Dr. Keith Isaacson, who co-directs her lab. “That is incredibly exciting.” (Dr. Isaacson, who has been Dr. Griffith’s endometriosis surgeon since 2000, provides the patients’ cells for her models.)

With her background in systems engineering, Dr. Griffith sees the uterus not as an island but as an organ that interacts intimately with everything around it. To capture these systemic interactions, her team connects her models to other organs like bone marrow, gut and liver, and hopes one day to seed them with blood vessels, nerve cells and immune cells.

The insights from this research transcend the womb. For instance, one enduring mystery about the disease is how lesions can appear in places as far-flung as the lungs, eyes, spine and even the brain. Dr. Hugh Taylor, chair of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Yale School of Medicine, is investigating whether stem cells, which are plentiful in the uterine lining, could contribute to this process by circulating throughout the body.

Because uterine stem cells are relatively accessible, they could also be a boon to regenerative medicine. Dr. Taylor has shown that, like other stem cells, they can be grown in vitro into new neurons and insulin-making cells to treat diseases like Parkinson’s and diabetes.

Another area ripe for improvement is diagnosis. One of the most frustrating aspects of endometriosis is that women typically wait seven to 10 years or more to learn that they have the disease, a process that requires invasive surgery. Now, researchers are developing a simple test to screen for genetic markers of endometriosis in menstrual blood and return a near-instant diagnosis.

Just a few milliliters of this blood, collected on a sponge, provides a wealth of markers of health and disease, said Christine Metz, an immunologist at Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research who is developing the test with Peter Gregersen, a geneticist there. Besides endometriosis, it could also help doctors screen for pelvic inflammation, infertility, fibroids, environmental toxins and early cancer.

“We were kind of surprised that it had been neglected as a natural resource,” Dr. Metz said.

They soon discovered why. In 2018, Dr. Metz began approaching male gynecologists to ask their patients for menstrual samples, and “some people said we were completely insane,” she recalled. Others, she added, “had never heard of a menstrual cup. Which was also, I’m going to say, disappointing.” They began asking patients directly for samples, and have since enrolled 1,000 patients in their study.

One might well ask why more researchers have not focused on the uterus until recently. Bioengineers in particular have always taken an interest in tissues that regenerate and self-heal. “And yet it took them how many decades to recognize that one of the most regenerative tissues is found inside the uterus?” asked Kathryn Clancy, a biological anthropologist who studies reproduction at the University of Illinois.

The reason, she believes, is simple: “Because none of the researchers had uteruses.”

Lessons from cancer

Three stone cherubs form an arc above the doorway to Dr. Griffith’s kitchen in Cambridge, Mass. They were a gift from her mother, to commemorate the embryos that she and her current husband, Doug Lauffenburger, a systems biologist with whom she shares a lab at M.I.T., made in 1997 through in vitro fertilization. Endometriosis prevented the embryos from implanting.

She held on to her dream of having children, but in 2001, just after her 40th birthday, the pain in her abdomen grew unbearable. On Sept. 11, as the Twin Towers fell, she rushed to the hospital in a fog of painkillers and underwent a hysterectomy with Dr. Isaacson. (Endometriosis pain is the leading cause of hysterectomies for American women in their 30s.)

“There was no decision,” Dr. Griffith recalled. “It was hysterectomy or death.”

Even after that, her disease returned, twice. Then in 2009, just after she had pivoted to studying endometriosis, she faced a new obstacle: cancer.

Dr. Griffith likes to say that compared to endometriosis, stage 2 breast cancer was a walk in the park. “Not like a super-beautiful day — like a stormy-day walk in the park,” she added. “But it was, like, people understood.” Colleagues wrote her cards, sent her food, extended condolences. Her dean offered her a sabbatical semester.

Dr. Griffith soon learned that the way breast cancer research was categorized was far ahead of endometriosis. Doctors used molecular tests to classify patients into subtypes, which dictated which targeted treatment they should receive. With endometriosis, “there’s no metrics,” she said. “This was this huge thing for me that was so crystallizing.”

Dr. Griffith knew that her disease, like cancer, was not one disease but many, a medusa of waving tentacles. She began talking to Dr. Lauffenburger, who had been studying breast cancer for over a decade, about how to take a similar approach to classifying endometriosis patients.

Together, they identified networks of inflammatory markers that tended to be associated with more painful manifestations of the disease and fertility, and published their findings in Science Translational Medicines in 2014. The work was cited as the first step toward creating subtypes of the disease. “That was really us together, because it was his vision of systems biology but filtered through my practical connection to the clinic,” Dr. Griffith said.

For the next year, she held lab meetings from her hospital bed in between chemotherapy sessions. “We transformed our lab meetings, literally,” said Dr. Nicole Doyle, a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Griffith’s lab at the time. “We just showed up for her chemo treatments and would sit there with her. That diagnosis had to adapt to her life, not the other way around.”

Throughout chemo, Dr. Griffith never seemed to waver in her positivity. When she shaved off her hair, she threw a lab party. But Dr. Lauffenburger found it excruciating to watch his wife suffer from this new foe, after battling the old one for so long.

When it came to cancer, “I viewed it as a terrible thing,” he said one evening over dinner at their home.

Dr. Griffith saw it differently: She took a curse and turned it into a gift.

“It was a terrible thing,” she allowed. “But it was a good thing, scientifically.”

[atlroleplay-blog]

—VANESSA ALVAREZ

age: thirty-four

occupation: police officer

sexuality: pansexual

gender: female

neighborhood: virginia highlands

length of time in atlanta: fifteen years

faceclaim: gina rodriguez

—BIOGRAPHY.

trigger warnings: – death, mentions of murder

Growing up, Vanessa lived the very cliché of the picture perfect life: mother, father, obnoxious younger brother, a house in the shadows of Chicago, even the literal white picket fence. Born Caitlin Healy to two white collar workers who seemed to have a moment to spare for their children no matter how busy they were, there was hardly a single thing she wanted for as a child. Her mother worked as a defense attorney, a woman known for being as clever as she was dedicated, a woman who fought hard to be accepted as a Latina in a demanding work force; her father was a financial advisor for some big tech company, the kind of person who knew just how to handle money. Her little brother came two years after she did and as the young children of two rather well off people, all their occasional whims were indulged – various dance classes, music lessons, any and everything. They were the perfect loving family.

But as the cliché often goes, the perfect family is hardly ever just that. But who was Vanessa to suspect otherwise? All her life she’d known a stable, caring home environment – in fact, she’d never so much as suspected any differently until she was seventeen. There is always one day that would stand out very vividly in her memory: the hot night, in the dead of summer, when the FBI broke through their front door and arrested her father without so much as a moment’s hesitation. What started out as an idyllic, fairytale life turned into a horror story all within the course of a couple of hours.

How could they never suspect? How could they never find out? That was a question leveled at the Healy family in the ensuing months after James Healy was arrested, arraigned and remanded to prison. Of course, the question never asked was how could they suspect? How was Vanessa, young and naïve, with stars in her eyes, supposed to suspect that the same father who would sing bad karaoke with her was capable of ending the lives of eight people? Maybe she never wanted to suspect: her father was her hero, the man who protected her from nightmares and monsters in her closet when she was a child. Maybe the signs were always there: the stray dog that mysteriously went missing the day after Vanessa brought it home; the sudden, harsh shift in personality that seemed to hit out of nowhere on certain days, when her mother asked how his day had been; that box of jewelry that she’d been grounded for going into when she was a preteen, after simply wanting to borrow a pair of her mother’s earrings. Maybe she just didn’t want to see.

Life hit a drastic turn once the skeletons had come out from that apparently very large closet. Once a girl who wasn’t noteworthy to the population of her high school, she quickly became the subject of the kind of gossip that was whispered behind hands, the subject of either looks of pity or disgust, the subject of forced sessions with the school guidance counselor. The close friend that Vanessa had comforted through the loss of her mother very quickly became an enemy – it didn’t take Vanessa long to realize how and why that friend’s mother had died.

Once a fairly outgoing, friendly person, the last few months of her high school life, she kept her head down in a very literal sense. Stayed quiet, sat in the back of the room, refused to raise her hand to answer questions or partake in group discussions, no matter how well she knew the material. She even skipped out on her own graduation, dreading how the room would go deathly silent once her name was announced, as it inevitably always did. Living as a Healy, in a small town such as Kohler, Wisconsin, was the equivalent of being a Manson or a Dahmer everywhere else. It was an albatross, a mark of shame that always hung around her neck.

And that was how Caitlin Healy became Vanessa Alvarez, pulling her middle name and her mother’s maiden to create a whole new identity for herself. A new name, a new city, a new life. Now she wasn’t Caitlin, the daughter of a serial murderer – she was Vanessa, an entirely unremarkable twenty-something who never knew who her father was, thank you very much. She visited the man she used to call dad all of once before packing up and moving to Atlanta. All it took was one visit, ten minutes of sitting behind three inches of glass, inside the cold and unwelcoming walls of Menard Correctional Center for her to never want to set foot in there again. She didn’t speak, or at least she doesn’t remember saying anything, all she did was sit and stare and, for the first time in her life, she hated her father.

No, she didn’t hate him. Hate was fear and she wasn’t afraid. Disgusted and horrified, yes, but never afraid.

Her mother supported her decision to move down south, lending her a sizable amount of money to get herself situated. For the first time since her father’s arrest, Vanessa was able to breathe. She was in a town where nobody knew her history, where nobody knew her face and she never put too much stock into that whole ‘starting fresh’ thing until she had actually done it. It took her a year or so to settle in, but once she had a permanent residence – and a dog, which she very much made a point of getting – she threw herself into Atlanta’s police academy at twenty years old. It was slightly perverse, to say that her family situation inspired her to pick up a career in law enforcement, but no matter the wording, that was exactly what had happened. She wanted to serve and protect and if she could prevent anyone from going through the kind of thing she went through, she’d consider it a job done well.

It didn’t take too long for Vanessa to settle into a routine that worked well for her – wake up, take the dog out for a walk, go to work, catch some bad guys, hopefully come home in time to catch an episode of Breaking Bad, repeat the whole thing again the next day. It wasn’t a particularly exciting way of life most days, at least not once she took off her uniform, but it was one that worked for her. What didn’t work, however, was suddenly having a wrench thrown into that routine. On a very rare day off, finding that her habit of patrolling the streets didn’t go away once she was a civilian, she had spent the day simply wandering around the town – and had ended up crashing into and spilling a rather hot cup of coffee directly onto another police officer. A lot of napkins and some very hurried apologies later, the two sat down for a drink – one that wasn’t spilled all over the other – and they found that they had a rather lot in common. Aside from just being officers, Vanessa learned that Joey Benson also had an incarcerated, criminal father and though she didn’t disclose her history right away, the two hit it off. Though they worked in separate precincts, and their schedules were always hectic and conflicting, they always found the time to meet, even if it was just for a quick lunch between shifts.

Somewhere, in between all the crime fighting and the quick, hastily put together meetings, Vanessa found herself falling pregnant at 26. A less than stellar position to find herself in, as an officer, she seriously considered ending her pregnancy – when Joey retired, without question and found a desk job, vowing to be as much support as he could be so she could keep her career to the best of her ability, it put all thoughts of not carrying the baby out of her mind. A short – or incredibly long – nine months later, they welcomed a screaming, crying bundle of blue that they named Samuel. The story of two barely prepared new parents is a boring one, but they traveled the road of parenthood with relative ease, through all the sleepless nights and outgrown baby clothes.

Of course, Vanessa should’ve known better. She should’ve known that the seemingly perfect life could never last. And while she was at least grateful that Joey hadn’t turned out to also be some kind of serial killer, she doesn’t imagine the reality is any better. Her boyfriend, ever the hero, had attempted to break up a casual robbery at the little convenience store he had gone to so he could pick up some extra diapers. This time, when the police came to her door, it wasn’t with guns drawn and anger in their eyes, it was to deliver maybe the second worst set of news she could’ve possibly received.

The ensuing years after Joey’s death became a blur of navigating single-motherhood and throwing herself as much into her work as she could safely manage. And suddenly, she woke up one morning to realize that eight years had gone by, that her son was his own, small little person and that she had been living her life at the bare minimum possible. It took a while, but eventually she learned to come out of her shell a little more, open more to trying to have new experiences and attempting to enjoy her life – all while firmly wearing her bulletproof vest.

—PERSONALITY.

optimistic, maternal, reliable

secretive, distrustful, overly-careful

—HEADCANONS.

While Vanessa loves being a mother, and wouldn’t trade that experience for anything in the world, she’s consistently terrified that her father’s bad genes are somehow going to pass down to her son. It’s a ridiculous notion, probably, but genetics did play a big part in how a person acted. She’s doing her best to be loving, caring, anything she could possibly do to prevent her son from turning into a monster.

Although they’ve pretty much gone their separate ways, Vanessa still tries to keep in contact with her brother. However, since her brother maintains rather steady contact with their father, she finds that, more often than not, she tends to ignore his letters / emails / texts. She’s growing to resent him and even though she knows it’s his choice, she can’t help but feel he’s making the wrong one every time he goes to visit that man.

[thesardonicwriter]

Eddie Thawne x Reader

Request: @damalseer: I've had this idea for awhile, Eddie Thawne and you are bffs you work at STAR as their computer tech but when Harribard kidnaps Eddie and you, he tells you are his great (many) grandparents.

A/N I’m tired and I don’t wanna look for new gifs, I’m going with Harribard gifs. Because I love him.

Warnings: Spoilers, Season 1

Gender: Female

How had you gotten in this situation? Honestly, you had just been hanging out with Eddie and all of a sudden, you were in the basement of STAR Labs. You were handcuffed to a pole, stuck. You’d tried a couple of times to break free, but it was to no avail. You had never seen anything like these before. It was Harrison who had done this. He was standing before you and Eddie in his uniform, grinning, like he had just won something. It was making you angry. You couldn’t believe that this was happening.

“I know that it’s you, Wells, or whoever you really are,” Eddie said, surprisingly calm about this whole situation.

You couldn’t say that you had the same easy confidence that he did. You were terrified. This man had lied to you for years without even batting an eye. He had never once wavered from his charade, even when he had to stay in the wheelchair for all that time. And now, he was just staring at you both with an evil grin that said he knew more than you. You were actually scared of him. He had been your mentor, your friend, but here you were.

“Well, allow me to introduce myself. I am Eobard. Eobard Thawne,” Harrison, erm, Eobard said.

Thawne? That was Eddie’s last name, but that would mean... that would mean that Eddie was related to Eobard and that... no. No! There was no way that these two men shared any genetic material! They didn’t even share any features. No. Eddie looked just as confused as you did.

“I don’t understand. Why do you have my name?”

“Why? Because we’re family, Eddie.”

“Funny, I haven’t seen you at any reunions or weddings,” Eddie joked.

This wasn’t really a good time for jokes, was it? It seemed like his timing could have been better.

“That is funny and the reason for that is because as far as those guest lists are concerned, I haven’t been born yet.”

So now he was a man from the future. This was just getting better and better, wasn’t it?

“So that’s why you didn’t kill me that night at STAR labs. This whole thing has been about me?”

“Not a chance.” Eobard turned to face us. “You, my friends, are simply my insurance.”

What the hell was that supposed to mean? You never got a chance to find out. He left before you got a chance to ask him why you were here. You weren’t related to Eddie, which would mean that you weren’t related to Eobard. It would be easier for him to just kill you, something that made your skin crawl. You pulled your knees up to your chest. You were certain that you, at least, weren’t going to get out of this alive. Eddie kicked your shoe to get your attention.

“Hey, (Y/N), look at me. We’re gonna be fine. I promise you, we’ll get out of this,” he said, giving you a small smile.

“Can you promise me that?” you asked.

He didn’t respond. You rested your head on your knees and closed your eyes, prepared for your fate.

You weren’t sure how long you had been there. It seemed like a lot longer than you were sure that it really had been, but that didn’t really matter. Eddie was a lot stronger than you. He wasn’t as scared as you were, at least if he was, he wasn’t showing it. You leaned back against the pillar. You had long since given up on looking for a way out of here. You heard Eobard coming down the ladder. Eddie turned to face him.

“I hope you at least brought lunch,” Eddie said.

“Did you know that humans can survive up to two months without food?” Eobard said in response.

“Is that how long you’re planning to keep us here?”

“You know,” Eobard turned to face us, “I doubt it’ll come to that.”

You could see the look on Eddie’s face. He was showing his fear for the first time in a while. his eyes met yours and it all evaporated. His confidence was back. For you. 

“D’you mind telling me why we’re down here?”

Eobard was busy working on something. He barely even looked at you anymore.

“No.”

Eddie was getting frustrated. You could understand that. You wanted answers, too. As many as you could get, but it didn’t seem like Eobard was going to give you any.

“You told me that we’re related. That you’re from the future. Prove it.”

“Yeah, I don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”

“Well, I think you’re full of crap,” you said, “and whatever you’re trying to do, you won’t get away with it because the Flash-”

Your voice was hoarse from not being used. Eddie looked at you in shock and Eobard looked ready to kill you. He sped over to you, his eyes glowing red and his hand around your neck. Your heart was racing, but you kept your face still like stone, not showing your fear to him. You had a feeling that this was when you were going to die, but you didn’t care. You didn’t know why.

“Stop talking,” Eobard said.

He left again. You didn’t speak to Eddie. He didn’t speak to you.

“You know they’re going to find me,” Eddie said the next time that Eobard came back, “and you’re not as smart as you think you are.”

“Oh really?” Eobard jumped down the last rung, “I’m a genius where I come from. Imagine how smart that makes me here.”

“’Cos you’re from the future? I guess you’d have to be with a name like ‘Eobard’.”

“Well, now, Eobard is a distinguished name for a distinguished member of a distinguished family.”

“That’s depressing to think all of my descendants are as crazy as you.”

“Oh, no, the Thawne line is chock full of influential politicians, scientists, captains of industry, failures such as yourself.” Eobard stopped in front of Eddie. “Even (Y/N) does better than you. Me? I’m just the exception.”

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. He was calling Eddie a failure after all he had done? Eobard was far too full of himself.

“And what exactly makes me such a failure? And what does she have to do with this?”

“Tough question,” Eobard said, backing away from Eddie and moving towards me, “where to start? How about your career as a police detective? It’s spectacularly uneventful.”

“Yeah, well, we’ll see.”

“No, we have seen. I have seen. I am from the future and you are the only Thawne to be forgotten to history.” Eobard turned away again. “Waste of a life, waste of a man and, oh no, you don’t even get the right girl.”

“What are you talking about?” You asked.

He was going to ask Iris to marry him. How couldn’t he get the girl? Eobard sighed and walked to Eddie slowly. He pulled up a holographic newspaper article that you couldn’t read.

“Observe, if you will, the byline,” Eobard said. “Barry marries Iris and not you. You’re just gonna have to give this ring to someone else.” Eobard stood up straight. “You wanted to know how she fit into the narrative. Now you do.”

His eyes flicked over to you. You felt a shiver go down your spine. Eobard threw the box across the room. He turned back to his work. Eddie looked over at you with something different in his eyes. You didn’t know how to describe it. It was like he was having some sort of a realisation. You let out a breath. This wasn’t making any sense. You couldn’t believe any of this. No. It wasn’t happening. Was it?

A few moments later, Eobard had finished whatever he was working on. He picked it up from the table and stared down almost lovingly at it.

“What now?”

“Now I have the key.”

“The key? the key to what?”

Eobard left without answering Eddie’s question, but he didn’t have to. You could feel the ground shake for just a moment. The Particle Accelerator was on. That was what he had been trying to do for so long. And it had worked.

Eddie started to call for help. It didn’t seem like Eobard was going to come back. Ever. He had left you down here to either die or be found. Apparently, you weren’t supposed to die. You were both his, well, his grandparents. You didn’t have anything to say to that. It had never seemed like an option. You had accepted long ago that he was in love with Iris, but now... now you weren’t so sure. You heard footsteps coming down the ladder. Probably Eobard coming to say something else to piss you off.

“Eddie? (Y/N)?”

It was Joe! You looked up. You felt weak. He went to Eddie first, shining his light on the bindings. He used his knife to cut through them, moving onto you. Iris was there as well. She ran to Eddie. They embraced. Eddie looked over at you. Iris and Joe helped Eddie out. Barry helped you. You were both brought to the Cortex, where Caitlin looked you over. You didn’t know what to do, now that you knew what you knew.

A/N What a way to end it. Well, if you’ve read this, then you probably already know how this will end. One hell of a way to come back, isn’t it? Sorry for not writing for so long. Between school and work, I haven’t even had time to watch anything, let alone write about it. Now I just have work and college to worry about. Anyway, I’m sorry that this was late, but it’s here now. I’ve got one or two others I’m going to start working on ASAP, but for now, I have to get ready to go to work. Yay.

[drsncw]

‘  omg another exhausting day of doing the bare minimum  ’

dik what meme this is but ilu

"Mon El, we all know that you don't just do the bare minimum" she told him lightly with a slight eye roll, "Unless you're insinuating I'm doing the bare minimum" which she wasn't, not really.

[anoutlandishfanfic]

Part Two, Chapter Four: Print Shop

Claire has traveled thru the standing stones once again and has been reunited with Jamie. The two are looking at the photographs Claire has brought from the future, discussing the similarities in their two daughters. You can find previous chapters here.

November 1766; Above the print shop belonging to Alexander Malcolm, Edinburgh, Scotland. Claire.

“She had curls like Julia as a lass, aye?” Jamie reverently stroked a photograph of toddler Brianna standing on a park bench holding an ice cream cone, her hair a riotous mess around her face.

“They tamed a bit as she got older, but Bree had that same cowlick just there like Julia did.” My fingers found the rebellious tuft the three of them shared at the back of his head.

He smiled, “She’s fair like the both of ye too.”

“Very,” I agreed. “She burns in the sun easily and often complains of her freckles. I suppose that’s my genetics to blame, though, you tan rather than burn for the most part.”

“What of her voice, Sassenach? Did she sound like her?” His eyes implored me, leaving the photograph for the first time. He seemed to absorb every piece of information I gave him, needing to know every detail about his child.

I nodded, “She does.”

We fell silent for a time, just basking in the newness of being together again.

“Its beautiful, you know,” I whispered.

He turned, placing a kiss atop my head. “What is, mo nighean donn?”

“Julia’s stone.” I answered.

I wanted to continue. My heart longed to tell him how much it meant for me to have her by his parents, how comforting it was to know that she was forever safe at Lallybroch, but my lips wouldn’t form the words. I grabbed at his hands, needing to feel their strong security.

His eyes gleamed in the candle light, “I thought of her often while ye were gone, our beag calman geal. Imagined her playing with Willie and the bairn Jenny lost.”

“Caitlin, wasn’t it?” I asked as I traced the faint ‘c’ at the base of his palm with my thumb.

“Aye,” Jamie answered, clearing his throat. “I would bring a flower for each o’ them when I’d visit my parents graves.”

A lump rose in my own throat. Turning my face into his shoulder, I swallowed past it and added, “I brought her pink tulips. I should have brought flowers for them too, while I was there, but all I could think of was her.”

“She’s at Lallybroch, then?” A hint of a smile warmed Jamie’s voice.

I pulled away from him slightly, needing to see his eyes. “Of course she’s at Lallybroch.”

What on earth did that mean? Why wouldn’t she be?

“I didna want to assume… I wasna sure…  with Frank, ye ken,” he added.

The air around me grew cold. I pulled my hands from his and grabbed fistfulls of my skirt.

“What in bloody hell does Frank have to do with where our daughter is buried?”

Jamie’s brows furrowed in confusion, “What are ye saying, Claire?”

It was one thing for him to have avoided Julia’s grave out of grief, but he was acting as though he had no knowledge of where he had laid her to rest.

“What am I saying? You’re the one not making any sense.” I stood and backed away from him, “You speak as though you haven’t the foggiest idea where she is!”

He tried to reach for me, but I avoided him.  “How would I ken where she is if ye dinna tell me, Claire?”

If I didn’t tell him?

“Why would I need to tell you where you buried her?” I asked slowly, finding it very hard to breathe.

Fear began to creep into Jamie’s eyes. “The two o’ ye went into the stones, Claire. Did she no come out wi’ ye?”

No.

This wasn’t possible.

Spots flashed before my eyes as Jamie lunged towards me, just in time to gather me into his arms before I hit the ground. The noise of the stones roared in my ears and drowned out the sound of Jamie’s voice. I was laying in his arms, the rough cotton of his shirt pressed against my cheek, but the world rushed past me as though I were falling off a cliff.

Wrapping my arms about his neck, I clung to him fiercely as my tears slowly pulled me back into reality. He wasn’t speaking anymore, but wept with me, gently rocking back and forth. The repetitive motion and vibration of his strong heartbeat set me back on solid ground.

If she hadn’t come thru with me and she hadn’t stayed with Jamie, where and when did she go? And how was she buried at Lallybroch?

Jamie was the one to actually put words to the question, once he found his voice again.

A strong spasm ran thru me, making me convulse at the sound of it. His arms squeezed tighter around me, as if protecting me from myself.

“Where is she, Jamie?” I asked after a time, my voice trembling.

“She is at rest, mo chridhe,” Jamie whispered in my ear.

“But when? How?”

“I dinna ken,” his thumb wiped at a trail of tears on my cheek, “but if she is at Lallybroch, that means she was with family, aye?”

“She finds us,” I murmured.

Jamie’s chin quivered as he tried to smile, “We always find a way back to each other, mo nighean donn. Why should our daughter be any different?”

[doctorsncw]

‘ you deserve someone who puts in the effort to make you feel happy and confident . ’ (e1 after elseworlds)

babies

A smile formed on her lips as she looked over at Alex, the last few months Alex had become very important to her. Hearing her say these things, it made that flutter in her stomach increase. “You deserve that too, Alex” she said as she reached over to lace their fingers together, “I think that you deserve that, most of all”

[newyorktheater]

In honor of Valentine’s Day, here are Broadway plays about love dating back to 1750,  photographs of stage kisses dating back to 1887, and recaps of some of my love and kisses posts dating back to 2012.

  Stage Kisses: When a Kiss is Not A Kiss

The same-sex kiss in The Prom is just the latest dramatic moment on stage involving the artful locking of lips. Much theater has revolved around a kiss, certainly in the title: Kiss Me Kate (a Broadway revival of which begins previews today!), Kiss of the Spider Woman, Kiss and Tell, The Kiss Burglar — 26 titles on Broadway alone. Stage Kiss, Sarah Ruhl’s 2014 Off-Broadway play, begins with the actress about to begin rehearsal; turning to her co-star, she asks whether he would mind if they would actually kiss: “You look young, I don’t want to traumatize you.”

Stage kisses are different enough from off-stage kisses as to require guidance, judging by How To Stage Kiss (Set ground rules, pay attention to hygiene, make sure you know your lines) and Tell and Kiss: A Manual for Actors (Boundaries—to tongue or not to tongue: For me, this is an easy one: open mouth, no tongue…. Make sure your makeup won’t rub off on your partner. ..Use good sense. Be respectful. Speak up for yourself.”)

Click on any photograph to see it enlarged and learn who is kissing whom and in what, e.g. Elizabeth Taylor kisses John Culllum in Private Lives in 1983, and Tallulah Bankhead kisses Donald Cook in Private Lives in 1948. Sydney Chaplin kisses Barbra Streisand in Funny Girl, 1964. Faith Prince kisses Nathan Lane in Guys and Dolls in 1992. Caitlin Kinnunen kisses Isabelle McCalla in The Prom in 2018.

Annie Scott as Rosemary Pillkington kisses Robert Morse as J. Pierrepont Finch, as Rudy Vallee as the boss looks on shocked in How to Succeed in Business without really Trying 1961

The re-enactment of the same-sex kiss from The Prom at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2018 mock-shocked Christopher Sieber (left.)

Ben Whishaw and Hugh Dancy kiss in The Pride, 2010

Ivan Hernandez and Bobby Steggert in Yank, 2010.

Adina Verson and Katrina Lenk In “Indecent,” 2017. Paula Vogel’s play tells the story of the hundred-year-old Yiddish play that featured the first Lesbian kiss on Broadway. The actors playing the troupe keep on referring to the kiss as “the rain scene.” When we finally see the rain scene, it’s not so much the kiss as the rain that overwhelms us.

Jessica Hecht and Dominic Fumusa in Stage Kiss, 2014

Unidentified show and actors

Trixie Friganza as Mrs. Waxtapper and George Beban as Pierre Souchet in The American Idea 1908

Francesca da Rimini. Act V, Scene I, 1887

Louis Gossett as Willie Nurse and Cicely Tyson as Myrna Jessup in Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights 1968

Stubby Kaye as Pooch Kearney, Alice Faye as Professor Kenyon, and John Payne as Bill Johnson in Good News 1974

Donald Cook and Tallulah Bankhead in Private Lives 1948

Has there ever before been such a touching love scene between poultry? In The Year of the Rooster, by Eric Dufault, a young rooster named Odysseus Rex, played by Bobby Moreno like an angry punk with a knife, is introduced to Lucky Lady (Megan Tusing), a hen genetically engineered by McDonald’s to be twice her normal weight, and so virtually unable to stand. At first they don’t get along. He’s all…well…cocky. She behaves in a way that explains where the phrase “hen-pecked” comes from. But swiftly she is able to reach inside his chest and remove the anger he says is there, shaped like an anvil. They kiss, like the French (like birds!), cheek to cheek, and snuggle.

Elizabeth Taylor and John Cullum, Private Lives 1983

Actors Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor in a publicity shot for the Broadway production of the play “Private Lives.”

A 21st century musician kisses a 20th century explorer in Ernest Shackleton Loves Me, 2017

  Most Romantic Theatrical Experience

When asked for their most romantic experience, many theatergoers picked “Phantom of the Opera, but Lourdes Pagan picked Pippin and, after hearing her story, it was hard to disagree. She went to the original Broadway production with a co-worker. He reached for her hand, “and held it for the whole show. “That was just the beginning,” she recalled in 2013. “It was a little like Romeo and Juliet. My father didn’t like him; his mom didn’t like me. “We have been married for 35 years. We had two sons and are now grandparents And our parents said it wouldn’t last.”

Love Lessons from the Stage

Can theater teach us anything about love? Yes, answered theatergoers, theater artists, and theater critics in 2012, with some intriguing choices.  Monica Bauer said she learned about love from “Death of A Salesman.” “It taught me that love survives even after respect is gone: Biff will always love Willy, as Willy loved Biff.”

Theater as Love Song

Can any theater define love the way so many songs do?

The musical “Aida” did for Starleisha Gingrich.  “As an African American woman dating a man who is half Irish and half Eastern European, I connected with the love story between Radames and Aida right away,” she says. “To imagine a love so strong that you’re willing to sacrifice your life to be with that person for all eternity….that gets me.” Gingrich was one of several in 2014 who answered the question, “What play has most defined love for you,”

Some Love Songs in Musical Theater

  One Hand, One Heart from West Side Story

It Only Takes A Moment from Hello Dolly

Bess You Is My Woman Now from Porgy and Bess

Falling Slowly from Once

Never Ever Getting Rid of Me from Waitress

Always True To You In My Fashion from Kiss Me Kate

Seasons of Love from Rent

Do You Love Me from Fiddler on the Roof

Somewhere from West Side Story

  “Love” on Broadway

A list of Broadway shows, alphabetically, that have “love” in the title, more than 200 in all. The earliest is “Love for Love” by William Congreve in 1750, a play that popularized the line “you must not kiss and tell,” and that has been revived on Broadway six times, most recently in 1974. Title in 2015, when this was put together, included Living on Love and Fool for Love. Best titles: “Love in a Coffee Cup,” “Love and Libel,” “Love Laughs,” “Love Kills.”…The longest-running show on Broadway with “love” in the title was: “I Love My Wife,” the Cy Coleman musical from the 1970s, which ran for 857 performances.  Five were performed only once. “Love” doesn’t always last, but it never ends.

  Valentines Day and Theater: Love and Kisses on Stage Through the Years In honor of Valentine's Day, here are Broadway plays about love dating back to 1750,  photographs of stage kisses dating back to 1887, and recaps of some of my love and kisses posts dating back to 2012.

[thoughtfulsharingforyou]

Infertility + IVF

http://bit.ly/2oScE6k

Writing these sentences almost still feels like a dream. Well, I should rephrase, it actually feels like a nightmare. If you or someone close to you has battled with infertility, I wish I could reach out and hug them through the screen. It’s something I would not wish on my worst enemy. The process is like a big rollercoaster filled with ups and downs, and when you are down, not only are you down but IVF punches you in the face. It’s a war on your body and your mind. I am trying to be calm when I write this because my mom reads my blog and she would be upset if I dropped the F-Bomb in every sentence. But let me tell you… I am holding it in.  

I debated a lot about whether I wanted to share my experience with you all. It’s been such a personal and individual journey filled with endless heart break. It was when I first read Caitlin’s posts on the subject and started opening up to the people around me that I found that infertility is much more common than you might think. A big part of my process has been being open with those around me because there is no way I would have been able to endure this process staying silent. The more I talked to people and the more I talked about IVF, the more people I was able to connect with and learn from. I usually don’t get this personal, but the more I thought about it, if I am able to help 1 person with the things I learned from this experience, it will all be worth it. I want those women(and men) going through these struggles to know that you are not alone. It has been harder than I can ever put into words. I am going to try to dig in as deep as I can so if you don’t want to hear about my uterus, it’s probably a good time to stop reading. For those that have any more specific questions, please feel free to reach out. By email, by DM, however you feel comfortable. I am happy to help in any way I can. Please know I do not consider myself a great writer but I hope to share my thoughts and feelings with you as eloquently as I can. While I am sharing my experience, please also be aware that everyone’s experience with infertility is completely different. I am not stating any of these things as fact, only letting you know what happened to me, how I experienced it, and what I learned.

How we got to fertility treatments Rewind to May 28th 2015 when Blake and I got married. It was the biggest and most important thing we had been through together to date and handsdown the best day of my life. After the wedding, we both knew we were ready to grow our family. We visited my gynecologist and got the run down. Get off birth control, genetic blood testing, prenatal vitamins, and time to get pregnant. Sounded simple right? After stopping birth control and letting my body normalize from the years and years on the pill, month by month would go by without good news. I know everyone tells you, “be patient, it will happen” but as the time started to pass, I started to worry. We then made a trip to our Gyno and started to talk about next steps. Before trying any fertility medications, we tried a natural IUI (Intrauterine insemination) where they basically place sperm inside my uterus to facilitate fertilization. Apologies for any and all science speak from here on out… I figure if you are still reading this you want to hear the in and outs so I will try to leave little out. It came and went… negative. At that point, our doctor decided it was time for us to go see a fertility specialist.

Moving onto a fertility doctor I found my doctor through the recommendation of friends in the area. When it comes to the importance of finding the right doctor for you, you have to like this place, and like it alot. You will potentially be spending a lot of time here so it’s important you like the people working there, and especially feel confident and trust your doctor. I had no idea I would have this kind of intimate relationship with a doctor’s office because I never thought I would have to consider IVF (In Vitro Fertilization). We had a consult with our doctor and came up with a plan to move forward with. We would try some hormone therapy medications (i.e. clomid, or femara) and try an IUI again to increase our chances of getting pregnant. Now, what I didn’t do when we met with our doctor was talk about our insurance and what our options were. This was my BIGGEST mistake. If you have recently started down this road or have just started fertility treatments and you have not fully digested whether or not you have insurance coverage and discussed with your doctor, STOP EVERYTHING YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW. While Blake and I had done INSANE research on our insurance coverage, we did not discuss with the doctor or staff fully. I think we kind of got lost in the shuffle in a busy week. While you want to point the finger, it’s really on you to know your coverage and make the most of it. We didn’t realize that our gynecologist wasted one of our coverage treatments on her office services. We wasted away coverage on a small procedure when we could have saved the coverage for IVF treatment. While I never thought I would have needed to save any of my benefits for IVF, I wish that the office would have counseled me better on our best strategy based on what we had to work with. Some people are not even lucky enough to have any coverage but if you have some, no matter how small it is, it’s so important to make sure you are utilizing it smartly. Some offices have shared risk plans where you can pay for a certain amount for treatment and if you are unsuccessful you sometimes get refunded a certain portion of costs. When you are spending thousands of dollars on treatment and medications, it’s important to get all of this information, as overwhelming as if might be, upfront. Trust me, get that info so you can have it in your back pocket.

The dreaded HSG test First things first, when you see a fertility specialist, they require an HSG test. This is the first of many uncomfortable things to come. Basically, they inject dye into your uterus while you are sitting on an x-ray table, legs in stirrups mind you, and they shoot the dye in to see whether it flows through your uterus and fallopian tubes. They take x-rays of this process to confirm or deny any structural problems you may have that could be an obstacle in getting pregnant. This was the first time that I went to trusty old GOOGLE and asked, “What is an HSG test?” what I read… was terrifying. This was my first lesson. The internet is a scary place and to take it with a grain of salt. I read horror upon horror story of the pain of this procedure. The whole reason it’s painful is that when the dye is injected it causes your uterus to cramp. I am not someone that takes a lot of medication, but I popped a valium or I would have likely had a panic attack in the waiting room. It helped me to relax and while the experience was not comfortable, it was not nearly as bad as I had read. We got the results of our test and found that everything was 100 clear so there were no issues. So we were sent back to our doctor for treatment.

4 Failed IUI’s The whole process is beyond overwhelming. I am lucky that Blake was able to come to so many doctors appointments with me because you have super limited time in each appointment to ask the important questions you have because everything just moves so quickly. I feel like when you are dealing with any health issue, you really have to be an advocate for yourself because it’s easy to lose track of your questions and get sidetracked when you are in a busy office. I started to keep a document where I would jot down questions for my doctor and track my progress. I am someone who is soothed by information. I want to know everything about what is happening in my body as scientifically as possible. I have had other friends that would rather be blissfully unaware. Everyone has their own way of coping so find what keeps you focused and centered and do it. I tried clomid for 1 cycle and that medication thinned my uterine lining so we switched to Femara. Femara is used off label in a similar way as Clomid to stimulate ovulation. You start by taking pills to stimulate egg growth and around the time of ovulation, you take a trigger injection to “trigger” ovulation. Then the next day you go in for your IUI procedure which is usually compared to the discomfort of a pap smear. I tended to get insanely bad cramps during this procedure so my doctor recommended 1 low dose valium to relax the muscles in my uterus and this was a life saver. After my second IUI at the fertility doctor, she wanted to take a closer look inside my uterus to make sure she didn’t see anything that would be hurting my odds of getting pregnant. I had a hysteroscopy, which is where they put a tiny camera inside your uterus to take a look around. Everything was clear which was great but I still did not have any answers on why I could not get pregnant. For our last 2 IUI cycles, I did injectable medications instead of oral meds. These “stim meds” are used to stimulate egg growth and egg quantity. So you do this carefully to get more than 1 egg growing to increase your chances. This was my first introduction to injections. I will talk more on that later (I HATE NEEDLES). After 4 failed attempts, thousands of dollars, you don’t even realize how much time just flies by. Our insurance coverage was flying out the window along with prescription medication coverage was filling up fast. Not to mention, our spirits were down. Way down. While friends were getting pregnant left and right at an almost comical rate, I was still not pregnant. We knew we would have to think about next steps.

IVF, I can’t believe we got here Before I started on this journey, you would hear the term “IVF” thrown around so easily and casually. While it’s true that many women go through the process, it’s not casual… NOT AT ALL. I think the fact that it’s so commonplace now takes away from the fact that it is an incredibly difficult, taxing, emotional, physical process that can have the most amazing rewards or the most deeply painful results. It took me a minute to wrap my head around the fact that I was indeed in this position. When you want something bad enough, it’s incredible the kind of strength you can find to pull you through. While I was down I was not out. I was ready. I was insanely nervous, read 3 books and was back to my dear friend google on all the forums reading everyone’s experiences from the good and bad to the ugly. I had also started acupuncture to prepare for my IVF cycle. Which was a whole other can of worms that I am happy to elaborate on at another time. I was as prepared as I could be. After all this waiting, I was finally ready to move forward.

It started again with a big talk with the doctor and making a treatment plan. Blake and I were SO excited after so much failure to finally be taking a more aggressive approach to getting pregnant. While I was excited.. I was completely terrified at the same time. As a 33 year old woman, I was in a good position for treatment. Blake is 31 and had everything tested and was perfectly healthy. We were lucky. The odds were with us. Some people are not that lucky including a lot of my personal friends and family. But, we were ready to start… the most expensive experiment of our lives. In the quickest way of explaining the process, you “stim” or stimulate follicle growth with injections and turn your ovaries into what I have come to call “an egg factory.” The goal being to create as many mature follicles for Egg Retrieval surgery as possible. You will then take a trigger injection to trigger ovulation and then the follicles will be harvested through surgery and fertilized with sperm. Then you sit and wait to see if they develop into embryos. Not so simple, but for those unfamiliar with the process, there you have it. From there on out, it’s an INSANE whirlwind. The doctor orders your medicine and there on your doorstep you get the scariest package of your life. A box filled with needles and medications. The box (well boxes) that came were filled with vials of meds, the scariest long needles you have ever seen, bottles of pills and other things. Overwhelming is an understatement. We piled our medications into a huge cooler and brought it to the doctors office. Nothing to see here, just a box of terror… no big deal. The nurses at the doctor’s office showed us how to mix and administer all the medications. Blake and I decided it was best for him to take full control of the medications so I could just swoop in, get my meds, and run back to the couch so I didn’t need to prolong the experience. The best piece of advice someone gave me was to put on my favorite show and have a sweet treat waiting to get me through shots. Make the experience as positive as possible. My shows of choice: The Office + Friends. Some people ice their injection sites so it causes less pain but I didn’t find that to help me and adding another step was not for me. You use these stim meds for anywhere up to 10-14 days depending on when you typically ovulate. (For most women this is day 14) As each day goes by, I became more fatigued, and more uncomfortable. I remember it being explained that it was the equivalent of having a bunch of grapes hanging in each ovary. Doesn’t sound very fun does it? What I didn’t mention previously is the side effects from all the medications even going as far back to the clomid. Again, please remember these are my personal experiences and everyone reacts different to the medications. I just want to be as transparent about my experience as possible. Even when it’s less than inspiring. The medicines made me INSANELY bloated. This was a constant. No matter what I was taking whether it be stim meds or hormones, I would be incredibly bloated. Weight gain came from also doing treatments for a year. Again, just what someone needs while going through this experience. More on that later. It’s all kind of part of it. I think the emotional part of the process is one of the biggest side effects of it all. I can’t begin to explain the kind of emotional place I was in. Crying at literally everything. So many hormones coursing through my body. It was a lot to endure without even taking into account the physical stuff. Poor Blake… and anyone that had to be around me at that time. It’s honestly all a mind game. I remember 2 days in right before my injections I was crying because I literally could not believe we had to do two injections in a row. I was just unraveling. Thankfully Blake is so calm and was able to put my mind back into perspective. Each injection was for a greater purpose. Getting us to our goal. While I am very much a realist, I fought hard to get and stay in a positive mindset. Toward the end it all became part of our routine. A day or two before surgery, I had to take naps during the day because I literally could not stay awake. I was wearing gym pants everyday because none of my pants would fit my insanely bloated stomach. I could barely reach down to tie my shoes. I was exhausted, but I was ready to get these eggs out!

Egg Retrieval Day I have only had 2 surgeries in my life so I was VERY nervous about the surgery. I know everyone thinks it’s so routine but I felt like I was going to have an anxiety attack the night before. I just NEEDED everything to go well. It had to. The biggest thing the day before was prepping what I would need during my recovery. Now, it all might be a little TMI but, we have gone past playing coi here. Stool softener was a must to prepare for those not so fun post surgery side effects, lots of electrolyte drinks (gatorade + pedialyte), BRAT diet foods, and one of the most important things, my heating pad. I ordered this one because it reminded me of being in acupuncture. I was as ready as I could ever be.

Surgery day went smoothly and easily. Before I knew it I was in the recovery room still woozy from anesthesia demanding how many eggs were retrieved. I probably asked the nurse like 5 times. We got 12 eggs. I had 20 brewing in my ovaries so the doctor said she felt this to be a little low but still good. So we did it. I was sent home to recover.

Post Egg Retrieval Recovery When you go through the IVF process, you read packets of information about the process etc in great detail. When I say packet it might as well be a small book. TONS of info that you need to read, digest and sign off on that you have understood everything. Again, more overwhelming experiences. On some of the last pages you find the complications due to surgery. I should have paid more attention to those. After surgery I was confronted with a lot of discomfort. Basically the follicles are removed from their shells and the shells remain in your ovaries and fill with fluid post surgery. This means, insane bloating and discomfort. I still have photos on my phone where I literally look 5 months pregnant because I was so bloated from fluid. I will save you the visual. I was basically laying flat for most of my recovery with alternating heating pads. The heating pads really soothed the ache and I highly recommend having multiple on hand. A few nights into recovery, I woke up in the middle of the night at 3am. I started to feel more discomfort and immediately felt sick and started to sweat bullets. I ran to the bathroom and before I could even get there I had sharp excruciating pain. The worst I have ever felt in my life. Blake had been sleeping and he finally woke up when I was laying on my back on the bathroom floor screaming from the pain rolling back and forth. I had no idea what was happening or what was wrong. Blake asked if we should go to the ER but I literally was in so much pain I could not move. What seemed like an eternity passed and somehow it lessened and I was able to make it back in the bed. I was now terrified to go back to sleep. The next day, we made an emergency appointment at our Doctors office. My doctor explained that we likely had a Ovarian Torsion. What happens is when your ovaries twist, it cuts the blood supply and creates the immense pain. What is really scary about Ovarian Torsion is that it is a very serious complication and if the ovaries do not untwist on their own, you need emergency surgery to untwist them and in most cases, you have a high chance of damage to your ovaries. The percentage of this happening is small, but, of course… it happened to me. I still have nightmares about it and after it happened I swore I would never do IVF again. Time passed and after a week at home resting, I finally left the house. Some women bounce back after just 1 or 2 days of recovery but this was not the case for me. I don’t know who those women are, but teach me your ways.

Embryo Results In the meantime when we were dealing with the after surgery complications, our embryos were developing and by day 6 the embryologists know which have developed to the farthest stage successfully and which ones have not made it. I remember I was home alone on the couch while Blake ran to the store to grab more food for dinner. Our doctor called and said she had some bad news: We only had 1 embryo that made it. Was this really happening? One embryo. I was hysterical. I desperately called Blake who didn’t have reception in the supermarket. I then called my sister who could not even understand me through the hysterics on the phone. I remember her voice that day… it was so filled with sadness. I can’t explain the feeling of having your future just flash before your eyes like that. It was clear from this, and from what the doctor told me, that the reason we were having problems getting pregnant was because of my egg quality. So insult to injury, my eggs are bad, and now we only had 1 chance from this whole process to get pregnant. We were devastated.

Blake and I had already decided we wanted to do genetic testing to ensure a safe and healthy baby so cells from our 1 embryo were sent off to get tested. We waited and we hoped that our one chance would be a good one. Weeks later, we got the call from our doctors office and our embryo was healthy. The best piece of news we had received in a long time. We were ready to start the process of our Embryo Transfer.

Prepping for Embryo Transfer The actual prep for the transfer is a lot less intense than the retrieval but it’s equally challenging with all the hormones. I spent a few weeks loading up on estrogen and taking other injections to find out right before my transfer that my lining was too thin. GREAT. If you don’t get your lining to a certain thickness, your embryo won’t be able to implant. Having a thick uterus lining is key and it was terrible news to hear everything we had done did not prepare my uterus to where it needed to be for implantation. Yet another obstacle in our journey. I remember the day our doctor told us we would have to start all over with our transfer medications. Right after I had scheduled an acupuncture appointment. This was not smart timing on my part but I tried to suck it up and head to my appointment. I got on the table and tried my best to relax. I had needles all over my face, arms, legs and my acupuncturist went to put my final needles in my feet and I felt a sting. Now, keep in mind, when your muscles are tense, sometimes the needles might sting a bit but they can adjust them no problem. It was not the day for a painful needle. I started balling uncontrollably and I couldn’t move because my whole face and body was covered in needles. My doctor started to clean my tears with cotton balls. It was a disaster. I was so overwhelmed and totally defeated having to start the whole embryo transfer process again. But, here we were. Round two. IVF can be one struggle after another and you just have to keep on pushing forward as best and as hard as you can. I was so close to the finish line. I had to pull it together and get back down to business.

For the second transfer attempt, we decided to use the same medications I used to stimulate my eggs to help my body increase it’s hormone levels more naturally. So we did what they call a “light stim cycle” while being careful not to encourage too many follicles to grow but enough where it would grow my uterine lining and raise the natural levels of hormones in my body. All of the estrogen I was still taking was giving me massive migraines but after some time they would pass. All the same side effects came with these meds including the bloating and emotional messiness. I was finally getting closer to my transfer and got cleared to start my progesterone injections. This is major! It means you are locked into a date and time and there is no turning back. Another injection hurdle: the progesterone injection. This was one of the scariest things to come in the mail. Since they are an intramuscular injection, they are long. 1.5 inches to be exact…. I know. Can you feel the trembling……….. I texted and called all my IVF friends to get their suggestions on how to get through it. The injections go into your butt so Blake did these as well. The first time, I was psyching myself out bouncing back and forth in the living room. Blake goes, “JUST DO IT!” I had to face my fear… it was going to happen. I stood up for these injections and squeezed a pillow and in the end, it wasn’t that bad. I mean, it’s not great, but I think I had built everything up so badly in my head. After the injection I immediately massaged it and sat on a heating pad. This helped ALOT. Apparently when you are doing these for a while, the progesterone can form little lumps from not distributing so it can make things more painful. It’s no picnic and I had a sore ass. But what are you gonna do. It was game time. We were getting closer to our transfer day.

Night Before Embryo Transfer I feel like the whole process made me nervous but this night I was the most excited. Everything was becoming very real. I could potentially be pregnant tomorrow. Well, not specifically but soon. Since my doctor wanted me on couch potato status for 3 days post-transfer, I wanted to get everything prepared the night before. I went shopping for my favorite snacks, picked up some books and magazines, cleaned the house, and laid out my favorite pajamas to be ready to come home and relax.

Embryo Transfer Day! This day was so surreal. I had scheduled my acupuncturist to come give me treatment before and after the transfer so I would be at my most relaxed state. We had a nice private room where the procedure was taking place and I got my treatment and Blake played some soothing music on his phone. (We actually played SirusXM Spa Radio. It makes me feel like I am getting a massage at a Spa. You have to check it out!) After my treatment was done, my doctor came in to give us the run down on what was going to happen. Before I knew it, our embryologist rolled in this crazy machine that was housing our embryo. It was WILD. His microscope projected onto the tv and we were able to see the embryo on the screen. Science is such a beautiful thing and it’s still a miracle to me that people are able to be helped in this way to have children. The embryo goes into a catheter and is then implanted via guided ultrasound into the uterus. We watched it all on the tv. I was so euphoric from my acupuncture, and so at peace, I felt so incredible good about the whole day. And just like that, we were done. I layed down for another 20 minutes and I was sent home to rest.

The Two Week Wait The first part of IVF is hard but when you get to this point, the Two Week Wait or “TWW” was the longest two weeks of my life. Like the whole process, it’s all about waiting and waiting some more. So it only makes sense the last part of the step is WAITING AGAIN. I know. Those who have been there, you know. The first couple days we spent having Blake wait on me hand and foot. I did start to get antsy on day 2. But I binge watched my favorite shows, read my books and stayed off my computer as much as possible. I was drinking and eating as many warm things as possible. It’s said to help with implantation and to keep your uterus warm and happy. Once I was off bedrest, we decided to take a couple day trip down to San Diego. Blake had to work and it was a nice time for me to just get away and take a break. During the TWW, you are also still taking progesterone shots so that was part of our process along with the other hormones I was on. I was desperately trying to distract myself so stop looking back at my calendar to see how many days were left until my blood work. Our friends, our family, and everyone around us were so excited to hear the happy news. Our fingers were crossed. It’s funny writing this now because I am forgetting some of the small details and medication we did during this step. I think it’s fair to say that sometimes, you kind of just block out some of your experiences because of how hard you struggled through them. While some of my memories are vivid, I feel like some moments I completely blocked out. I am digressing, but this wait was just as torturous as I had read in every fertility book and on every forum. But, if I had a bit of advice, keep as busy as possible. I know my busiest days and moments helped me to stop from obsessing over everything.

Blood Day The day of your pregnancy blood work, I headed in early in the morning for my blood draw. I remember telling the nurse how nervous I was. I was… freaking out. We give them our cell phone number and they would call us as soon as possible most likely in the early afternoon. I spent the whole day glued to my phone afraid to even hop in the shower in fear I would miss it. Now I know I said this earlier, but I am a realist and always try to be open to the realistic possibility that things could go good or bad. We are really talking like 50/50 chances here of whether we got pregnant. While you think about those outcomes, all our friends and family were throwing as much love and positive energy at us as they could. It almost started to annoy me because I knew that it was not a 100% done deal. I guess that is the realistic side of me talking but, I had to face the fact that there were two outcomes possible and I needed to at least be aware of that going into this.

My phone ended up ringing and I feel like it was happening in slow motion. I picked up and while I put the phone on speaker Blake came running into the room from the office. “Hi Kimberly, I have some very sad news…” I fell into my hands and I became hysterical handing the phone off to Blake who had to finish the phone call with our doctor. I was crying so hard I couldn’t see or speak. Lola came over and started to lick the tears off of my face while Blake finished talking to the doctor. Our IVF had failed and it was over. That has to have been the darkest moment of my life. The words seemed to linger and it was like someone closing the doors on our hope to have a family. Devastated doesn’t begin to cover what we were both feeling. I was inconsolable. If you had looked into my eyes, I likely had a blank stare on my face for the next few hours. We sat together on the couch and through the end of my hysterics, I said, “We have to try again.” The hours and days following were hard. Everyone that knew we had our transfer was waiting for the news. Everyone knew we would have answers, and were waiting for news from us. Not only having to process what had happened between the two of us but we would have to be vocal and let our families and friends know what we had just found out. Living that devastation over and over again. I decided that I could not be faced with anyone directly asking me about it or I would have broken down. So I started to send texts out to everyone in the loop to let them know what happened, that I didn’t want to talk about it, but that I would reach out if I needed anything. Everyone was so respectful and gave us the space and time we needed to heal. I wouldn’t say you ever fully heal from those experiences but, we grow and we become stronger. Writing and rereading these results have tears welled up in my eyes. But I have learned that through this process, I have found this hidden strength and resilience. IVF can also be terribly hard on relationships and I am so happy to have Blake in my life who has been the most supportive person through my wild and crazy moments, and through some of these really messed up times of struggle. We are stronger together.

Moving on to our 2nd IVF Cycle After our failed IVF, Blake and I decided that my body and our minds, and our calendars needed a break from the rigorous doctors appointments, injection schedules, acupuncture appointments, and constant stress on my body. We took some time off to just be together and to live. It’s been about 2 months since our bad news and I have to say I feel like my soul has had a refresh. Since Blake and I decided to do another IVF cycle, we wanted to fully let go and give my body a break before we started again.

I have spent a lot of time thinking about what i could have done better to get better results. I was thinking back about my realistic approach to the process and always balancing the fact that this was never a 100% solution to my fertility problem. While everyone deals with these struggles in their own way, I realized that maybe I didn’t let go 100%. Maybe I wasn’t as positive as I could have been. Could it be my fault that I had such bad results? Is this on me for not doing my best?? I consider myself a very positive person. If you ask my friends, they will back that up. But this process was much harder on me than I ever could have imagined.

Having the opportunity to go through IVF again, I feel a shift inside. Because this WILL HAPPEN for us. I know deep down that Blake and I will be be able to grow our family one way or another. And something has shifted inside me. We can never give up. We are strong. Much stronger than we can ever imagine. The strength you pull from to get you through these hard times is truly a miracle. After my time off to clear my head, I am feeling so focused, and feeling so much love. I am going to hit the ground running with a positive spirit and I know that we are going to make it through again. I actually started to read this book and found it’s words to be so helpful preparing for my next cycle. The powerful message of turning fear into faith(whatever that means to you) is something I am working on. Love over Fear. It has been a good read so far and I am only 3 chapters in!

I am an open book and while it’s very hard for me to put myself out there like this, I hope that my experience can help others open up about their struggles with infertility. Know that you are not alone. We are all here going through this together. I have found it so helpful to speak up and not feel so alone in it all. I have several friends going through IVF right now and I feel like we all hold each other up when we most need it. Whatever you are dealing with, no matter how big or small, NEVER GIVE UP.

While we gear up for another IVF cycle soon, I hope to share bits and pieces with you. Maybe that is just on instagram stories, maybe it’s some more blog content. I don’t really know what it will be. I am just going to go with the flow, and live the best life I know how to. I sincerely thank you for taking the time to read this post. It has taken me weeks. I am nervous to press publish, but I feel like writing about it has been a cathartic experience to me. I know it’s all over the place, and I know at some points it probably doesn’t make any sense. But it’s me and now it’s here. To all of you out there fighting the fight, I am with you.

The post Infertility + IVF appeared first on eat.sleep.wear. - Fashion & Lifestyle Blog by Kimberly Pesch.

from http://bit.ly/2o6G8jM

[drsncw]

‘ don’t look at me like that. ’ (from frost)

look it's mah wife

"Don't look at you like what?"

[drsncw]

‘ i know i’m not the person you want, but i’m here. ’ from iris

Random Dialogue 2.0

"Don't say that Iris, I just thought that you'd want to spend time with Barry tonight, after all you've both been insanely busy" she told her friend with a smile. Caitlin's plan had been to order some take out and drink some wine and possibly catching up on some of the non superhero work she had piled up. "I was just planning on heading home and eating dinner and maybe finishing one of the papers I've been working on"

[drsncw]

‘ you look like you just saw a ghost.’ from barry

Random Dialogue 2.0

She put the picture back in the drawer where she'd found it. It had been in a box of things that she vaguely remembered putting there once they'd been let in after the particle accelerator explosion. She'd stashed it away in the back of the supply closet when she'd been in mourning and now she was finding it again. "Just cleaning some things" she said as she shook her head, trying to brush the feeling away, "I found some things from before the particle accelerator, I just wasn't expecting to find it"