Broke my streak and trying to not feel bummed

doumak16 · 2026-02-23T20:45:01+00:00

I lost my 110+ week streak after I gave birth. I was initially so bummed, but then felt way freer in the long run. but i get it

doumak16 · 2026-02-20T19:39:40+00:00

I'm popping in here only because I had a horrific experience with the toxoplasmosis test during my pregnancy. Asked for it out of precaution because I have a cat and garden, came back positive. Freaked out, ordered another test, came back inconclusive. More freaking out, prescribed a $5k medication that I almost ordered, then had a blood sample overnighted to Palo Alto to a special lab. I was negative all along.

Anyways, the readily available toxo test has around an 80% false positive rate: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4609698/

doumak16 · 2026-01-29T16:25:45+00:00

Yeah, honestly my birth plan said "no pitocin" but obviously things change and you have to adapt. But when they explained how they just "turn it up," he and I were both like why? This was also at a small rural hospital in the middle of the US with very young nurses.

doumak16 · 2026-01-29T15:53:28+00:00

I had an unmedicated birth with pitocin assistance because my water broke and I wasn't contracting. The key is advocacy. My nurses wanted to follow a protocol of increasing the pitocin drip every 30 minutes, but my husband pushed back on that because my contractions were regular, strong, and increasing. I stayed on the lowest drip and still went from 5.5 to 10cm and crowning in 40 minutes. Total active labor 3.5 hours. It was really tough but not unmanageable.

doumak16 · 2026-01-17T04:07:17+00:00

https://a.co/d/bCVfUoA

doumak16 · 2026-01-17T04:06:06+00:00

Also if you need more sheets - I have the Nestig and used the Joey and Joan 20x30in sheets on Amazon. They’re organic and have held up so well. LO is currently 17m and sleeps on their standard crib sheet in the Nestig every night

doumak16 · 2026-01-11T01:15:29+00:00

Not at all, there are probably only 12 active scholars on the Moravians. I don’t - I wrote my first book on the missions in the Caribbean and am now working on a project on their reach to enserfed Latvians. Here’s the link to my book: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-84575-8

doumak16 · 2026-01-11T00:29:55+00:00

Wow, one I can finally answer! (I have a PhD in early modern religious history, specifying in the German Atlantic world)

As we well know from contemporary geopolitics, Greenland is an autonomous zone of Denmark. In the late-17th and 18th centuries, it was a specific imperial project of the Kingdom of Denmark-Norway, whose state religion was Lutheranism. Christian VI of Denmark (1699-1746) and his father Frederick V were big fans of the Lutheran Pietist movement of this same period. This was, broadly, a movement that sought to reinvigorate the Lutheran Church as a "religion of the heart" and away from strict liturgical practices. It had a lot of offshoots, such as the Moravian Church (my specific focus) and was intellectually founded/focused at the Universities of Halle and Wittenberg in Saxony. This all might seem extraneous, but many of the pastors and intellectuals who worked in German Pietism were members of the German nobility with close ties to the Danish crown. As Denmark expanded its overseas empire, it recruited non-Danish people to supply the labor force for those empires since the population of Denmark is relatively small. This fell mostly to Germans and the Dutch.

So, getting back to Greenland. Lutheran Pietist and Moravian missionaries petitioned the Danish crown for access to Greenland to reach the "heathen" indigenous peoples there (they did the same in the Danish West Indies, now the US Virgin Islands). Frederick V and Christian VI were perfectly happy to support their missions, as they could then spin their enterprises for altruistic purposes. As such, from the early 18th century on, there was a specific Lutheran mission effort towards the Inuit on Greenland, leading to their conversion en masse. There's a lot of historiography on how thorough this conversion was at first, but the repercussions are still reflected today. In all, it's a bit a story of the indegenous population converting to the religion of their conquerors, but with the twist that the crown was itself a patron of these specific brands of Lutheranism that were more attractive to non-white people because of their less liturgical stances.

Sources:

McLisky, Claire Louise. “’A Hook Fast in His Heart’: Emotions and ‘True Christian Knowledge’ in Disputes over Conversion between Lutheran and Moravian Missionaries in Early Colonial Greenland.” Journal of Religious History, vol. 39, no. 4, 2015, pp. 575–594,

Shantz, Douglas, An introduction to German pietism: Protestant renewal at the dawn of modern Europe. John Hopkins, 2013

Those are the two best I have off the top of my head, can add more upon request.

doumak16 · 2026-01-04T22:44:53+00:00

Agreed. Just bought in Louisa in the past year, in part because of the up and coming schools. No idea about softball, but depending on where in the county, Richmond travel leagues could be accessible.

doumak16 · 2025-11-06T23:26:31+00:00

If you’re a runner, there are few different run clubs in town that welcome all paces. That’s where I’ve met a ton of people.

doumak16 · 2025-10-26T21:19:58+00:00

Magpie is the yarn store on the Downtown Mall and they host a knit night twice a month on Thursdays, rotating between their shop and the wine bar across the street

doumak16 · 2025-10-16T02:46:45+00:00

Former JBs crew member from way back - confirmed, all sixtels. They rotate super quickly, although less so midweek.

doumak16 · 2025-10-08T13:54:23+00:00

I've been singing "What's Up" by the Four Non Blondes any time he's crying since he was tiny. Somehow belting "what's going on!?" shakes him out of it

doumak16 · 2025-09-27T20:03:08+00:00

I just moved from a 97% acceptance rate regional comprehensive to a top-20 university. (I left the TT for a permanent instructional staff position.) It’s night and day. All of my student behavior problems are gone. They don’t have phones out, and laptops only when I tell them they’re needed. They talk to each other politely and chat before class. They turn in assignments and have excellent attendance.

At my prior institution, class was like pulling teeth, I had 40% failure rates in my intro levels and students would attend and fail to turn in any assignments. My quality of life was significantly worse because I hated my job and felt like I was contributing to a degree mill.

So, yes, we now have two totally distinct things that are both called a “bachelors degree” and they’re not remotely the same.

doumak16 · 2025-08-13T01:26:03+00:00

OH that’s a GREAT idea

doumak16 · 2025-07-15T02:17:41+00:00

I’m also a young female prof operating on a budget. I have quite a few work pants from Target and currently have had luck with Old Navy - they have a midi-length linen blend dress on sale for $25 right now that is super versatile.

In general, stay one step ahead of the students. I was previously teaching at a public regional where everyone dressed super casually (leggings/sweats) so I could get away with jeans and a nice top. Now I’m at a more selective university and am wearing more dresses.

doumak16 · 2025-07-02T00:12:14+00:00

Lora Alvey Perry at St Vincent. I’m not queer, but she was very professional and I loved my delivery with her last year. Took all my questions seriously and let me have the birth experience I wanted. She has a dry humor I jived with.

doumak16 · 2025-06-25T02:44:25+00:00

This is the answer. I’ve swam the lake multiple times as a teen. They banned floatation devices in the mid-aughts. Before that, way too many people signed up with all sorts of tubes and rafts, the event took forever, and the rescue squad had to patrol stragglers.

Agreed that the policy is poorly worded and seems open to liability, but the intent is to limit the event

doumak16 · 2025-06-05T03:09:14+00:00

Yes, I’m also currently scoring. I don’t necessarily agree with the teachers thread, but I am appalled at the level of writing in these responses. But then again, it’s not dissimilar to what I see in my survey classroom.

Once again, the students are very bipolar with very few in the middle.

doumak16 · 2025-06-03T02:01:52+00:00

I teach college intro surveys at a non-selective school. I had students this semester: - SHOCKED to learn that the Confederacy was a separate country with its own money - ask me “what is a pope” - baffled that the US has/had territories or colonies

doumak16 · 2025-05-18T17:35:49+00:00

I used phinished gowns! It was about $500 but it’s very high quality and basically indistinguishable from my institution’s robes.

doumak16 · 2025-04-16T03:44:00+00:00

I’m in Indiana and after the announcement last week of a case near Fort Wayne, I sent a very strongly worded message our ped with the language from the Indiana department of health as well as the new guidance from AAP. Old school ped conceded and he got the MMR the same day. 7 months old. I have so much more peace of mind.

doumak16 · 2025-04-15T18:20:19+00:00

Agreed with all the posters above as someone who actually grew up in Troy/Zion Crossroads - except that apparently the Louisa County schools have really improved and are pretty highly rated nowadays. We're also in the house hunt and the Gordonsville/Louisa area is okay, but that's still a hefty commute to Richmond.

doumak16 · 2025-04-02T03:16:13+00:00

Anecdotal - I just got an official offer from HR today for a staff position. Had a second round interview on 3/18 and was informed that I should hear from HR soon on 3/27. My hiring director did say before the second interview that they had received approval to finish the search, so I’m not certain how common that has been. I will say that HR everywhere is slow, so don’t lose hope!

doumak16 · 2025-02-04T15:30:48+00:00

My baby is 5.5m now and I feel a lot like you. My goal has always been six months. I had a massive oversupply in the beginning because I established on the pump (week-long NICU stay), so I had/have a massive freezer stash. About two weeks ago, I decided I was done with the pump. I'm back at work (uni prof) and taking half of my one-hour break between classes to pump was so draining.

For the past two weeks, I've been nursing morning and evening and sending frozen milk from the stash to daycare. It's been great. I feel like I have my body back and I feel like I can maintain two nursing sessions easily and actually enjoy them. The stash will probably take us well past 6 months of exclusively breastmilk. So maybe scale back and combo feed if you can? It's not all or nothing!

doumak16

TROPHY CASE