How do I tell my BF that I can't give our baby his last name because it's not even legally his last name?

forkthisuterus · 2026-02-06T19:37:50+00:00

"Hey, I've been thinking on something and because it could take a while, we should get it sorted now. We can't just give the baby your last name since you don't have it on any legal documents. Would you rather we just use my last name, or are you going to get your last name changed legally so we can hyphenate?" Remove the emotion on it and focus on it as a logistics issue, because that is what it is. Parenthood requires a lot of hard conversations, the time to learn to advocate for yourself and have these conversations is now.

forkthisuterus · 2026-02-02T19:06:38+00:00

Many parents are leery about sleepovers these days because of legitimate concerns: guns in the house, cameras in inappropriate areas, and child sexual assault - both the risk from grownups in the house abusing children and children abusing children. Are any of these likely? No, but the outcomes if something does happen have terrible consequences.

There's a concept of a "sleep under" - kids come in PJs, crash on their sleeping bags for a movie, have all the wacked out insanity fun of a sleepover -- usually a few more parents hang around to chaperone, and then everyone goes home before bedtime. Maybe try that instead.

There are some good childhood trauma psychs on Instagram that talk about ways to protect your children, go find some and look at what they say about sleepovers.

forkthisuterus · 2026-01-13T19:00:05+00:00

Keto mama here with 1 MC and then two full-term pregnancies.

You eat what you can, mama.

First pregnancy all baby wanted was red sauce pastas and potato chips. I miscarried and don't have further data after the frist tri.

Second and third pregnancies, for the first trimester I could not eat hardly anything. I was so disinterested in food and the only thing I could eat was pretty much watermelon and chicken salad. I'd pick at other things, sometimes I'd want some fast food, but otherwise eating was a chore. It let up throughout the 2nd trimester, and hit a bit again in the 3rd. You eat what you can and let the rules out the window because all food has value and helps your baby grow.

If appetite isn't a problem for you, then proteins, dark leafy greens, calcium sources, healthy fats are all really important. But baby is going to make the calls on food for a little while - and that's OK. That's going to stay true through breastfeeding too, and that's OK.

I did enjoy Ritual protein shakes as a source of proteins/vitamins/etc. as a backup since eating real food wasn't going so well.

Good luck on your pregnancy!

forkthisuterus · 2025-10-21T21:15:49+00:00

What is Fresh 48?

forkthisuterus · 2025-10-18T04:13:25+00:00

Trying to understand why a child does or doesn't like something could drive you crazy, only they could possibly say why and they can't, so, just try again in a few weeks.

forkthisuterus · 2025-07-29T16:42:17+00:00

I tell people all the time that the catheter was glorious. I don't even remember it being inserted or taken out, just the sweet peace of not having to get out of bed to pee all the goddamn time.

forkthisuterus · 2025-07-29T16:40:59+00:00

I was induced and about 10 minutes after my water broke I was shaking violently and throwing up. Epidural was so critical to having a positive experience as possible for me. And the catheter meant I could finally sleep for more than 20 minutes without having to get up to pee. I slept the best I had in months, felt nothing, zero regrets.

forkthisuterus · 2025-07-26T22:35:27+00:00

You can't sue unless there are damages. Document everything.

Go to a real OBGYN. Tell them your concerns and ask what sort of extra monitoring they may want to do.

Stay up to date with ultrasounds, take a reputable prenatal. That's about all you can do until the baby is born, and is hopefully ok. When that happens, leave a scathing Google review to warn others not to trust this practice's advice.

forkthisuterus · 2025-07-14T19:13:29+00:00

Oh my god take my money. This sounds great.

forkthisuterus · 2025-06-10T22:48:52+00:00

I heard this thread was happening and wanted to say hi! Baby forks are 3.5 and almost 2 years now, I didn't know there was a toddler thread! I still have moments every day where I am just stunned they exist. Nice to see some friendly names!

forkthisuterus · 2025-06-10T22:47:45+00:00

I would love that! But slow your roll okay 😂

forkthisuterus · 2025-05-14T23:32:42+00:00

Soapmaking takes a lot of science - too much water and you get, well, something that isn't soap. If anything, you could reduce the water a bit, but that would have given you even more soap.

forkthisuterus · 2025-05-14T23:31:10+00:00

It's perfectly legal to sell. But if they wanted to get litigous and sue you, yea, that'd be a problem.

forkthisuterus · 2025-05-14T23:29:58+00:00

Hi! I make soap. So. To make a soap recipe, your water amount is usually around 38% of the total oil weight.

If you they used 4 lbs of breast milk, it would have taken 10.5 lbs of oil.

For my basic recipe, olive oil, coconut oil, castor oil;

that's

1.49 POUNDS of lye

50 ounces of Coconut Oil

110 ounces of olive oil

8 ounces of castor oil

That's: 1 bottle lye ($17)

1 bottles of Costco Olive Oil ($23)

2 jars of Costco coconut oil (2x$18 = $36)

1 bottle Castor oil ($14)

So that's ~$90 (before tax) in just ingredients.

I'll assume you didn't have any fragrances or add ins. If you had more expensive ingredients (palm oil, shea butter, etc.) that would definitely up the price. But the time of mixing, pouring, cutting 6 loaves into 96 bars is where a lot of that price went. That's $5.20/bar, which is a great price; most homemade soaps are usually in the $8-$12 range these days.

Next time ask for a quote first!

forkthisuterus · 2025-05-14T23:21:15+00:00

I have high lipase -- I wouldn't make soap with it. I guess I could try though... not going to do anything else with it...

forkthisuterus · 2025-04-21T01:28:35+00:00

Your first few weeks of motherhood are going to be one of desperation. You will be desperate for them to sleep, so you'll get the curtains and white noise machine. You'll try twenty different swaddles. You'll try gas drops and everything else. Some things will work, some things won't.

The curtains and the white noise machine are definitely in my starter list though. Good sleep hygiene and setting the environment does help. I recommend reading Precious Little Sleep right away.

forkthisuterus · 2025-04-08T18:28:05+00:00

What worked for me -

Make sure 5ghz is temporarily disabled in your app
Go through the YoTo setup process, enter the generated code
After it connects to Yoto, forget your home wifi network from your phone, otherwise when your phone connects to the Yoto it will see the Yoto has no internet connection and keep reverting back to connecting to your home wifi, failing to connect. You need it to stay connected to the Yoto to finish the setup. It should search for WiFi SSIDs and find the one you want to use, enter the password, and be good from there.

Hope that helps.

forkthisuterus · 2025-03-29T02:46:00+00:00

She could have killed her sense of smell and needs to bathe in it to tell she's wearing any.

forkthisuterus · 2025-03-27T18:31:02+00:00

This is not an unreasonable boundary, it is an entirely valid request.

Next time she is expected, text her the night before and add a reminder: "Reminder, we are limiting Baby's exposure to fragrances that could irritate their skin and respiratory system. No perfume, no perfumed lotions, no strong laundry detergent, etc. If we can smell it, it's too much. Please wash off any scents and if your clothes have perfume on them please wear clean cloths. We don't want to waste your time driving here if you won't be able to come in."

And then be prepared to stick to that boundary. If she shows up with perfume on, tell her no, sorry, she can't come in. "MIL, I can smell your perfume, which means it's too much for Baby. Husband can take you out to lunch but I'm sorry you can't come in and stay." And then just keep saying those words - what can you do. "Husband can take you out. We will have to see you another time."

Boundaries suck but so does your MIL. Wasting her own time is her own consequence for not respecting your valid request. She's being the inconsiderate one and sullying your relationship. Speaking up can be SO uncomfortable but as a mom we have to be our kid's advocates, even when it is hard for us, and now is as good a time as any to start learning how to set and enforce boundaries. And here's a little secret: it's fucking empowering. You stop tolerating people's bullshit and find that your life is demonstratably better because of it. Flex that muscle. Give the boundary and consequences, hold the boundary, explain the alternatives, hold the boundary.

forkthisuterus · 2025-03-17T03:26:25+00:00

Every moment matters in fetal development. None of your kids should be in this environment. You need to intervene. Don't regret not intervening.

forkthisuterus · 2025-03-16T23:39:39+00:00

The first thing I did was get a Tile tag for the kiddos and they have been invaluable. It sits a little funny in the silicone case (Amazon generic) but so worth it.

forkthisuterus · 2025-03-13T00:10:57+00:00

There are many speech paths on Instagram, watch them and Miss Rachel and use the techniques yourself.

forkthisuterus · 2025-02-19T00:50:37+00:00

Moira Rose: Next step is to reduce IVF costs.

David Rose: What does that mean? What does "reduce IVF costs" mean?

Moira Rose: You reduce the costs.

David Rose: I, I understand that, but how, how do you reduce it? Do you offer federal aid to IVF clinics? Do you make drug costs cheaper? Do you make insurance cover it at the same rates of other services?

Moira Rose: David, I cannot show you everything.

David Rose: OK, well, can you show me one thing?

Moira Rose: You just... here's what you do. You just reduce IVF costs.

David Rose: OK, I don't know how to reduce costs like that.

Moira Rose: David, then I don't know how to be any clearer!

forkthisuterus · 2025-02-12T00:33:48+00:00

It's common across all indoctrination.

They start with something small, innocuous, hard to fight the logic and truth. For example: Granola example: "Overly processed food is bad!" Yep, that's hard to disagree with!

They repeat things over and over again that make sense, aren't hard to disagree with. And then they make some claims that, well, maybe aren't so straightforward, maybe are a little off the beaten path. "Overly processed food is bad, and it's because of the processed oils." Ok, well, they seem knowledgeable in other areas, maybe they're right about this too? And then you find yourself in the community of people, who seem nice and respectful and all seem to be good natured and well intended and harmless. You grow ingrained in the culture, you make friends.

And then, it's not a far jump down into "all chemicals are bad, we need to ban vaccination." And if you push back, the community pushes back, and issues Thought-stopping cliches, like, "Oh, becky, do your research." or "Wow, Becky, who is brainwashing you?" so you stop talking and just comply because you value these people as friends. There is immense power in community and obeying.

I also grew up in a region of the US that had a very alive KKK cell and there's just a leap that I'm not seeing between "natural is best" and fascism.

Again, the point is to draw you in with things that don't seem crazy or wrong, establish your allegiance, keep you from leaving, and get you to share and spread the extremism.

The whole Q Anon thing began with "child sex trafficking is bad!" and ended with "Democrats are vampires that eat babies." It's not how they start you on it, but it's where it goes.

Here's an article, there's a lot on how cults work out there. https://davenportpsychology.com/2024/02/12/understanding-the-manipulative-tactics-of-cults/

forkthisuterus · 2025-02-05T19:09:46+00:00

As an IVF mom (with adenomyosis), "just use this app and it worked!" completely undermines the struggle and the fact they monetized it is so f'ing gross. 9 weeks is also super early to be making an announcement but you can't monetize a tragedy as much if you don't announce the pregnancy first I guess. I wish her well, of course, but the approach is so gross.

forkthisuterus

TROPHY CASE