New test Can Predict Fertility Decline

Unlike a lot of people who deal with infertility, I had a diagnosis and an expectation that things would go not so well long before I was remotely interested in having kids. I was diagnosed with PCOS at age 23 and my wonderful primary care doctor was fairly nonchalant about the fact that when I did want to get pregnant, a little Clomid would do the trick.

It didn’t. But at least I was able to tell my now-husband that getting pregnant might not be so easy once things started getting serious, so neither of us were especially surprised when things didn’t go so well. Many of my friends who also faced down infertility said they envied me that, that I was able to tell my partner long before we were formally committed and let him decide if he was up for the challenges we might face.

A new genetic test might give a new group of women that chance. Continue reading »

Is Keeping Your Name Too Inconvenient?

If you’re like me, you probably won’t get around to reading Gail Collins’s new book for a few more months/years. Instead, you have to settle for reading all the articles about and interviews with the author of When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present.

Among the quick-and-easy offerings is this interview with Jezebel’s Doree Shafrir. The two talk about the book, feminism then and now and even stuff that’s not in the book. For example: women keeping their names. Collins’s explanation of why a woman feels it’s necessary to take her husband’s name surprised me. Continue reading »

Cute Kids - The Marshmallow Test

How do you torture a small child?  Put them in front of a favorite treat and tell them, “Sure, go ahead and eat it.  But if you don’t, I’ll give you another one in a few minutes.”

It’s called the Marshmallow Experiment, a famous study from the 1960s that found that kids who can dely gratification (or who didn’t eat the marshmallow) grew up to be well-adjusted and more dependable than kids who just couldn’t say no to that soft, sugary sweetness.

But forget all that scientific mumbo jumbo for a minute and just wallow in the cuteness of little kids trying their darndest not to eat a marshmallow.  They’re sweet enough to eat:

Continue reading »

Book Shows How Babies Are REALLY Made

Ah, the 70’s.

Ah, Denmark.

What?

Jezebel has the pages of a very graphic book by Danish author Per Holm Knudsen called “How a Baby Is Made”. And boy, do they show you how. Continue reading »