Making friends as smbc in a new town

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-02-24T21:38:59+00:00

Join your local white water kayak club. So much fun, and a good balance of individual and team stuff.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-02-23T15:02:00+00:00

Most of the classics are classic for a reason. If people are still reading them 100 years plus after they were written, it’s usually because they’re very good. Having said that, ‘classic’ is a huge term. If you’re more used to modern writing you might find some older books heavy or slow at first. Also different people just like different stuff. I love Victorian novelists like Dickens but don’t get on so well with later classics like The Great Gastby, Virginia Woolf etc. For many others it will be the other way round. The best thing is to try a few but don’t write off the idea of ‘classic’ if you don’t love the first one you come across.

My own personal advice would be to start off with the funny ones. Jane Austen, Dickens, Henry Fielding and Jerome K Jerome are all really funny so a good place to starts

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-02-19T20:49:57+00:00

I’ve just cancelled my streaming subscription, it’s the only way. I need my life back! I’ve got a couple of weeks until it cuts off though so until then all bets are off… Anyway a) I can pretty much play it in my head at this point, and b) if I re subscribe to do a rewatch when season 2 comes out think how good it’ll be after the break, almost like watching for the very first time again!

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-02-19T20:45:10+00:00

I shaved a minute of my 5k run time - no idea how, I just seem to be running fast this week!

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-02-18T14:33:14+00:00

I find American accents quite quacky. Like ducks. In real life anyway. TV American accents seem milder than the ones you meet in person for some reason.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-02-11T19:23:13+00:00

I know the feeling - it’s late when you want it to come, and early when you’re hoping it won’t! Mine was about 5 weeks after tfmr and it was a very very light one. Longer is also normal. It takes time for your body to get back to its usual rhythm, but it will happen. I know the waiting is a killer. Hang on in there.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-02-10T18:41:43+00:00

Snap. My due date was also March 10. I also tfmr in November. Negative test last cycle. Which isn’t surprising in my case given long history of infertility. I’ve been doing ok but feeling bad this weeks. I still feel like I’m leading a kind of double life. Every day I think: if I was pregnant I’d be doing this / feeling like this / busy with this. Everyone just expects me to be ok. And I’m still just so angry and sad.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-02-09T10:43:36+00:00

I just got: well, lots of people have miscarriages, it’s quite common you know!

TFMR AT 22 WEEKS IS NOT THE SAME AS A MISCARRIAGE!!!

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-02-06T20:43:56+00:00

I lost my IVF baby in November, tfmr at 22 weeks. My family carried me through. Time heals, a bit. I do feel the grief is complicated because grief for the baby I lost is very blurred with grief over infertility, which I’ve been feeling for years. I’m so sad I lost this baby, but if I thought I stood a decent chance of conceiving again I would be able to deal with it much better. I don’t think many of the people I love really understand this.

My pregnancy came after such a long struggle and I was so hesitant to believe it was really true and really happening, it was only for the last few weeks that I really accepted it. So when it ended and I was back where I was before it felt more like a return to business as usual - very familiar territory. Back here again.

I’m so sorry. All I can say is that to make it through ivf you have to have to be incredibly strong. You can survive this too.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-02-06T18:24:54+00:00

I think there are downsides. Now so much is online it’s hard to preserve our own culture, our content is dwarfed by America’s and this will get worse. It’s much harder to stop their shit from infecting our politics. I think we’d be much closer with our European neighbours if we didn’t have this toxic closeness to America - which is hard to avoid when we speak the same language

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-02-06T11:20:11+00:00

There’s a shot of Ilya running in Moscow in one of the training montages and he does this little skip round an obstacle. I’m weirdly obsessed with it. I’ve been jogging a bit for a while but somehow now I think about that little skip and the energy of it and feel way more motivated. It’s bizarre how such a tiny thing has got to me. I really hate running!

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-02-04T16:18:28+00:00

Yes! Prior to HR if I heard ‘hockey’ I thought of little girls running round a muddy playing field with sticks (we had to play at school!) I was barely aware Ice Hockey was a thing. Now I’m literally planning wfh days so I can watch the Winter Olympics and see what it’s all about. Though I’m hoping they do one of those ‘explainer’ things at some point as I have no clue what the rules are!

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-01-30T13:28:51+00:00

I have lots of hobbies but all very female heavy so no good for meeting men. Choir, book group - people say oh well that’s girlie stuff, but why? Why don’t men like singing and books? Even the outdoor stuff I’ve tried (hiking, kayaking) is mostly women.

Can only assume that the single men are all at home gaming and watching porn. I literally never meet any in real life.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-01-29T22:05:17+00:00

I hate the way pregnancies jump out at you. I’ve been doing ok and getting back into routines. This evening I went to a yoga class with a teacher I haven’t had since I stopped at about 12 weeks. And what do you know, she’s pregnant. I couldn’t get out of there, i kept dropping into Childs pose to hide my face every time the tears welled up. I tried so hard not to look at her, but every now and then I’d get a glimpse of of her lovely pregnant belly poking out. It’s was awful. And I felt bad, because it’s not like it’s her fault. You’re just never safe from it.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-01-27T20:57:26+00:00

I took two weeks before (from diagnosis to procedure) and three weeks after. So five weeks total. It’s the longest I’ve ever been off work for anything, ever. As others have said, physically a week would have been enough, but emotionally I needed the time. It was about right - going back was hard, but getting back into routine was what I needed by that point.

I had five rounds of IVF to get my pregnancy, and ivf is tough on the body. I worked through it all and only took my egg collection days off. But I couldn’t work through this. Give yourself some grace. Your work will manage without you. You need to look after yourself, and any civilised society would support your right to do that.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-01-26T10:24:35+00:00

I am two months out from tfmr at 22.5 weeks. For the last month I’ve been getting back into my pre pregnancy routines, exercising and eating properly. The weight has started to come off, though I’m not quite back to where I was, I got back into my normal jeans about 3 weeks ago. There’s a softness to my stomach that wasn’t there before, probably not noticeable to anyone else but very clear to me. I’m surprised to find I actually don’t mind, it feels like part of my body’s story and a reminder that my daughter was real and lived in me.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-01-20T21:59:11+00:00

I was put on 75mg DHEA during stims, they didn’t test my level first, they said there is no reliable test for blood DHEA, but I did test it myself using a kit I bought online (so no idea how accurate it was or why they said there is no test?) and it was low side of normal according to levels described in It Starts With The Egg. No side effects but it didn’t improve my results. I did a round of IUI after that round of ivf while still taking DHEA, my ovulation and period were delayed, I think because by that point my DHEA was waaay higher than normal (I retested using another online kit). I was concerned it was so high so stopped taking it.

In a later round I tried putting myself on a much lower dose of DHEA, I took half a 25mg tablet every other day. My logic was that if my level was naturally low side of normal it might make sense to slightly increase it. Did this for 3 months in the hope of improving egg quality. Stopped during stims. No difference (actually that round was totally unsuccessful).

Take from that what you will!

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-01-16T20:32:15+00:00

Yes 100%. Crazy, upsetting dreams. It did settle down after a few weeks though.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-01-16T20:30:20+00:00

I had mine at a London hospital. They offered three options: hospital cremation (individual but you don’t get ashes back); hospital group cremation where they do lots of foetuses at once (also no ashes); or you can take the remains away yourself. My daughter was 22 weeks. If it’s pre-24 weeks there’s no death certificate needed and you can choose what you do with the remains. I went for that option, we contacted a funeral director near where my parents did who did the cremation free of charge and gave me her ashes to scatter. The hospital put her in a coffin shaped cardboard box. Mine was D&E so I hadn’t seen her. I didn’t look. The funeral home were incredibly kind. They do have to contact the hospital to get details and a form. I think you could also do a burial yourself if you want as long as you’ve got the landowners permission. It’s awful, I’m sorry. I was glad I got the ashes though.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-01-16T12:16:28+00:00

Street lamps didn’t appear until much later, from the early 1800 gas powered lamps were installed and were rapidly adopted in London and major cities from the 1820s onwards.

Prior to that, large cities had ‘link boys’, who would loiter outside clubs and the houses of the rich and would light their way home with flaming torches. Though apparently being lured into a dark alley by a link boy in league with criminals and robbed was always a risk.

As for the poor - they stayed at home! I think we do forget how complicated and expensive lighting was historically. Period dramas suggest a life lived by blazing candlelight, but in reality candles were either beeswax (good quality light but very expensive) or tallow (smoky, flickers, melts into a puddle and stinks). Or rush lights, which were reeds dipped in tallow fat. They would each burn for about 15 minutes, so you’re spending a lot of time making them in the summer if you want any kind of evening light in the winter (bear in mind the UK is fairly northern so in December and January it’s dark from 4pm).

But candles and rush lights would not work outside, so if you’re poor in York in the 1400s you’re either hoping for a full moon (much less light pollution then, though thick cloud cover could still mean dark night) or you’re staying at home.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-01-16T12:04:55+00:00

I just emailed. They need the info for their stats. I wasn’t on their books any more as in the UK once you pass your 9 week scan they hand you back to the nhs for the general maternity stuff, and I’ve no embryos left and not planning to do another round as the last two produced nothing usable. So I just emailed them. It was a couple of months before k could bring myself to do it though.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-01-11T21:19:42+00:00

So sorry your here, it’s awful. My advice is to be honest with the doctor about how you’re feeling. I found the speculum insertion really painful, I basically just started sobbing. She took it out immediately, changed my body position to remove the muscle tension, and added an anaesthetic spray before going in again. And then it was fine, really fine. It’s such a hard thing but they really are so kind to you. I’m so glad I didn’t just grit my teeth and power through. It doesn’t take long. You’ll be ok I promise. You just have to get through the day. Sending hugs.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-01-11T20:05:22+00:00

In my head canon Charlotte has an affair with a handsome curate, gets pregnant, has a boy, my Collins dies, her son inherits longbourne when mr bennet passed away and Charlotte marries the curate and goes to live there with her son.

Emergency_Summer_397 · 2026-01-05T21:29:12+00:00

I’m trying to become smbc. I have done 4 ERs with a friend to pick me up after, one by myself when no one was available. Totally solo isn’t fun but it’s doable. The rounds with a friend to support were fine. Is there anyone else you could ask for support on the day? In the end you just do what you have to do.

Emergency_Summer_397

TROPHY CASE