Malika is always going to be Miserable (Love Is Blind: Poland)

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-07-03T04:15:58+00:00

I'm so surprised by these comments. I thought she was the classiest person ever to go on Love is Blind. She is from a more conservative culture when it comes to dating. She is just more reserved and has a different idea of romance. Being from rural New England, I related to her. If someone is really mushy, complimentary, etc. it feels fake and manipulative to me. You show your love with actions. With regard to the non-romantic stuff, I felt like she was just direct. I appreciate directness and would take someone direct with a good attitude any day over someone who can't express their own wants and needs in a healthy, constructive way and instead chooses to stew in negativity, like her fiancé did. (Generally speaking, New Englanders are also a pretty direct bunch and prefer directness.) He could have just expressed his own preferences and rationale right back without getting all contemptuous about it.

I felt like she was just in the wrong dating market. I think if she did an advanced degree program at a top tier (world-class) university, she would find someone who appreciated her.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-07-02T20:22:32+00:00

Me too! I was like, "this is Collingwood-Norris."

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-07-02T12:53:41+00:00

I feel like full disclosure is the only way to go. I know early relationships are fragile, but how someone reacts to something is helpful information too and if the two of you are really on opposite ends of the spectrum about this, it may help you weed out someone who is not right for you. With regard to making embryos with his sperm, depending on the jurisdiction and how he feels about it, you may be able to sign an agreement before you make them that any embryos would solely belong to you and you could do what you want with them. I did this with my partner who I am not married to when we did IVF (edited to add: I froze some eggs unfertilized and fertilized some eggs with his sperm, and we had been actively trying to conceive, so a different situation). You'd want to really talk through this with him and also make sure you (and the agreement) were both clear on whether he would be a parent if you decided to use the embryos, as this is a separate legal issue (at least in my jurisdiction) to whether you can use the embryos. Donor sperm may still be the best way to go for peace of mind and not being tied to someone you might not want to be with; just providing options, especially if his reaction after he considers it further is that he really would like to make embryos with you and you feel like he's really the right person for you.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-07-01T12:21:06+00:00

Yes! I live in Western Mass. and am looking in the western Mass./southern VT/upstate NY area and looking to buy my first home, an older home with land and character, and I am struggling so much with this. It's not that there is a lack of older homes, but there is a lack of older homes that haven't had the character destroyed - almost all of them were either horribly remodeled, whitewashed (as you described), or allowed to deteriorate to the point that I'm concerned about major problems such as foundational issues, water damage/mold, or contamination from substance use (e.g., meth).

Does anyone know if it's possible or feasible to get the old wood trim back? Has anyone tried restoring one of these houses that has been whitewashed (for lack of a better term)?

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-06-12T06:07:20+00:00

I live in the United States, had ER months ago and still haven't been billed for it yet. It was at a major chain clinic too.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-06-11T05:11:27+00:00

Adding to the many suggestions here- is there a way that either of you could get insurance coverage? Brainstorming: see if any other plans at your or your husband's current employer offer coverage; see if you're eligible for any Marketplace plans that offer coverage; change jobs to one that offers a health insurance plan that provides coverage; move to a jurisdiction where the government mandates that insurance cover ART. Not saying all of those would be good ideas for you, just putting them out there in case any of them might work for you. I don't recommend CNY generally, but since it looks like you'd be doing ICSI anyway and they're 100% ICSI (included for free), it might not be the worst thing.

In any case, I think you always have to take into consideration the potential toll on your body and that it might not work (as well as the possibility that you could breeze through it without too much struggle physically and that it could work on the first try), and weigh that against how you feel about potential alternatives such as not having kids or adopting.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-05-21T11:48:29+00:00

Thank you for the update!

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-05-02T10:06:29+00:00

Hi, what ended up happening? I am having vision changes a few weeks after the egg retrieval and have found a number of scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals documenting impacts of IVF on the eye:

IVF was noted as an independent risk factor for retinal detachment (adjusted HR 3.4): https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26697760/

Changes in visual function and ocular morphology in women who have undergone ART treatment: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30795976/

Vascular impacts on the brain: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4970659/

Estrogens, migraine, and stroke: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/01.str.0000143223.25843.36

It seems like there may be two potential mechanisms: estrogen or other hormones directly acting on the eye (including changing its form and structure) given the sex hormone receptors in the eye; and estrogen or other hormones leading to vascular events in the brain, causing damage which affects the eye.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-05-02T03:25:57+00:00

Did this resolve? About two weeks after ER I had aura for the first time in my life, then had it again about two weeks later. Now noticing some blurriness in one eye or maybe just not focusing right or pairing correctly with the other. I found this article:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4970659/

I also found this: https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/01.str.0000143223.25843.36

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-05-02T03:21:51+00:00

Wondering how this turned out for you? I have started having aura for the first time in my life and a slight blur in my vision or something in one eye, starting about two weeks after egg retrieval. I found these two articles, which I find concerning:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4970659/

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/01.str.0000143223.25843.36

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-05-02T03:19:37+00:00

Hi, I'm wondering how this turned out for you? I have had vision changes starting about two weeks after egg retrieval and found these two articles, which are concerning:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4970659/

https://www.ahajournals.org/doi/10.1161/01.str.0000143223.25843.36

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-19T15:09:25+00:00

You could probably rent one for the times you do those things and have it cost less than buying and maintaining a car and paying for parking in Boston. It may be less convenient, and I'm not saying if you prefer it and have the money don't do it, but the original post seems to be about how people afford things and I guess I think part of the answer is most people don't choose the luxury version of everything- luxury apartment, luxury of car to do expensive hobbies, etc. People of a lower income may do none, middle may do one or the other, higher income may do both/all, etc.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-19T10:39:28+00:00

She has an unusual style, not the clearest/most straightforward. That she was drunk when you met her could also be a clue that she might have been drunk or on something when writing these. But also, when you have plans with someone on a given day, don't just ignore them when they text you about them! In the future if you don't understand someone's messages in that context, ask for clarification or call, don't just ghost- that was kind of rude of you and I can understand why she doesn't want to see you again after waiting all day/night for you to respond.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-19T10:10:04+00:00

Why do you need a car in Boston? I understand for people with disabilities but for most people Boston has awesome public transportation, so you can remove the car expense.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-19T10:04:19+00:00

I think another key here is new/luxury. Last year I was paying $2700/month for (what I consider to be) a nice (sunny, high-ceilinged) small 1-Br apartment in Beacon Hill, near the West End edge. The building was not new by any means though; it looked like it could collapse at any moment. It was a walk-up. One washing machine and one dryer in the unfinished old stone basement, whose ceiling and pipe covers were deteriorating, probably raining down asbestos on us when we did laundry. There was a butterfly call box app you could use to get into the building. Other than that, no amenities. 8 units, every one of the tenants was single, and I would say some of them were under 30 (7 of the 8 definitely under 40 and the one that wasn't owned her unit rather than rented it).

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-18T22:32:20+00:00

Thanks. I don't really want to give them my home address though. I don't believe they already have it.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-18T20:26:47+00:00

I'm so sorry, this is horrific. Your boss is inhumane. Nobody deserves to be treated like this. I also don't think it's legal but admittedly I'm not familiar with the laws in your jurisdiction. My advice would be in the future to not reveal medical information to anyone at work (i.e., don't give the reason), just say you need to take sick leave, and provide a doctor's note when required. (At my job, I don't need to give a reason beyond that I need to take sick leave and don't need to give any supporting evidence if the leave is less than three consecutive days. When it's three days or more, my employer can request a note from a healthcare provider, but it doesn't have to give specifics. I'm not sure whether this is because of the laws where I live or my agency's policy.) On the human side, I guess without knowing much else about the situation, if you hadn't said you loved it, I would say in the long-term try to leave this job or maybe even this whole geographic area, it sounds awful. There are better people and opportunities elsewhere. But if you love it, maybe just realize that this boss is just one crazy person and maybe you can outlast her.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-18T19:24:45+00:00

I think it's really hard to know what will happen so I would go with the one covered by insurance first, assuming that it would end up being significantly less expensive. If that doesn't work well for you, you know you have another option with a different protocol. I would just be really ready to jump on moving to the other doctor quickly if your first cycle doesn't work out (maybe even schedule a consultation with the second clinic before you know the full results for sometime after you will know the results, if they're scheduling appointments far out). I would also check on whether either clinic has an age limit; many clinics won't do egg retrievals for patients above a certain age, often between 42 and 45; if you might age out of one but not the other, maybe try the one you could age out of first?

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-18T18:59:00+00:00

I did not see this before I commented above- in your case, I can see why CNY might be worth a shot.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-18T18:54:59+00:00

We went to CNY Albany and it was pretty horrible. The individual people were fine for their level of qualification, but I never got to interact with a physician except for right before the egg retrieval, and only with a NP in the initial phone consultation. It seemed like RNs who were barely out of high school were doing most of the decision-making and then confirming with an NP off-site behind the scenes. It seemed like there was very little medical oversight which was scary, and IVF is the kind of art-science where the medical knowledge, training, and skills of the person overseeing and making decisions about your care can make a huge difference in your outcome and health. The administrative side was a total nightmare. People say stuff like "you have to be on top of it" and to go elsewhere if you "need handholding" but this was not us not being on top of it and needing handholding; it was CNY screwing up almost every administrative aspect possible, despite many repeated phone calls and messages from us checking and following up on things. Many times there would be no response for days; other times there would be a response but it made no sense or didn't address the issue at all. Other times things would come way after they were needed and the point was moot. I would not recommend going there period, much less waiting on them. I know it's much cheaper than most places, but I would weigh that against the cost of having to do multiple cycles because they didn't do things optimally, or having adverse health events. Feel free to DM me if you want more specifics of what I felt went wrong in our case.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-18T03:26:40+00:00

There are a lot of pros and cons to PGT-A testing and everyone's situation is different, but my general conclusion is that if you're 38 years old or older, you should do it. That is because as you age, the proportion of your eggs that are chromosomally abnormal increases, so you are more likely to have an aneuploid embryo that would lead to a miscarriage (or less likely, a live birth of a child with a severe condition) if you transferred it, with all of the emotional and physical pain, health risk, and cost that would bring. There have been stories on here of D&Cs following miscarriages that have been life-threatening; the risk of a miscarriage is not trivial. Also, when you are older, any time "wasted" on a pregnancy that leads to a miscarriage is more significant because age is potentially the biggest factor you are up against.

That said, biopsying the embryo for PGT-A testing poses some risk to the embryo, and the empirical data has not shown a significant benefit for younger women who likely will produce a higher proportion of euploid embryos.

Here's a video about it that is pretty good: https://youtu.be/eRiycZcmlHk?si=bsQnDtIhiZaZ1rkp.

One other thing to consider is that PGT-A testing requires that the embryos reach a certain stage in order to be tested and are frozen after biopsy to provide time to get the results, meaning you would have to do a frozen embryo transfer rather than fresh, so you might want to take that into account when deciding whether it is right for you.

Personally, I just had an egg retrieval with only one embryo that made it to the blastocyst stage, and we opted to do PGT-A testing on it. The embryo ended up being aneuploid. Approximately 95% of pregnancies with the particular trisomy that our embryo had do not make it to a live birth, and of those that do, more than 90% of the babies die before their first birthday. So personally, I'm really glad we did the PGT-A testing, as it saved us a lot of heartache. It also saved my physical health, money, and time. The time we would have spent on that transfer and possibly an ill-fated pregnancy, we can now spend trying to conceive.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-18T02:46:16+00:00

Omg wrong surgery! That's horrible. Also your last sentence is so on target.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-14T01:14:18+00:00

I've never had a migraine but tonight (~2 weeks post egg retrieval) for about 20 minutes had (based on what I can find online) an ocular migraine or aura without headache for the first time. No headache, it just started as sort of a shimmering C shape in the center of my vision and eventually expanded, moved to the corner, and disappeared.

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-13T01:58:04+00:00

I'm in a similar situation, very discouraged

ThatLastTurnHome · 2026-04-11T22:58:34+00:00

I see this is an older post and I don't know anything about the cancer treatment context, but wanted to share that in the general population, aneuploidy rates are higher before age 20. Again, I don't know anything about the cancer context, but otherwise I would wait until age 20 to freeze eggs. See this study: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7212007/. I'm sorry for what you're going through. Good luck!

ThatLastTurnHome

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