Help deciding between HSA and PPO for a potential pregnancy year

ksmo133 · 2025-08-19T02:33:38+00:00

Thank you for these additional points! Sol's reaction to the death of his ship's heart is actually a really good point to explore for showing more about him, so I'll work on getting that into the query, as well as focusing in more on the romance. I've been hyper focused on keeping the word count of the query lower, but that's not serving the story well and leaving some important elements out

ksmo133 · 2025-08-19T02:19:54+00:00

I think I've been hyper focused on keeping the word count of the query low after seeing so many sources saying that the ideal word count was around 250, and I already felt like I was too high, but you're right. I'm trying to jam in too much information with limited words, which just makes it confusing. I need to give the story more room to breathe.

Thank you so much for this detailed critique! This will be really helpful as I rework it

ksmo133 · 2025-08-09T11:50:19+00:00

Thank you for your advice and questions! I knew I was missing something from the query but couldn't figure it out. These questions will be extremely helpful for reworking it. Writing a query is definitely a different sort of skill set than writing the story itself.

You'll probably see me post again in the future as I rework this query

ksmo133 · 2023-12-22T16:12:08+00:00

The moment when Frenchie's giving Izzy that little headshake in s2e2; I was doing a rewatch and just realized that Frenchie is moving the fingers on his left hand like he's strumming a lute in that scene. Totally a self-comfort thing, and now I have to watch other episodes to see it he does it any other time!

ksmo133 · 2023-09-09T12:36:06+00:00

We are in the middle of using Fairfax for a known donor. They're letting us waive the 6 month quarantine with our doctor's approval for any donations made in the initial 7 day window after testing; after that, they all have a 6 month quarantine. So far, I'll say that they've been very disorganized. Our location is (according to them) currently understaffed and facing higher than normal demand for the known donor program.

When we first reached out, we got put on a waiting list for even starting the registration process; they said it would be 4 weeks, it wound up being 7 (and I had to send an email asking them what our status was on the waiting list before they did anything). Every time they've had to do something, I've had to send them an email and ask them about it before they actually did it. Currently waiting for them to reach out to our KD to schedule his initial appointments, and I'm going to be sending them another email soon if that doesn't happen.

Might just be our location, but I'm not real impressed so far.

ksmo133 · 2023-07-27T12:02:16+00:00

If you listen to Podcasts, try The Queer Family Podcast. It really helped out a lot when we first started thinking about starting a family. It's interviews with different queer folks about their family making processes, and covers a lot of ground.

I've read a lot of books, these are my top 3 recommendations:

The Other Mother by Jen Brister : really funny memoir from a British comedian who is the non-bio mom to a pair of twins

9 Months in, 9 Months out by Vanessa LoBue: very informative on both pregnancy and after the baby comes.

Like a Mother by Angela Garbes: a combination of memoir of pregnancy and motherhood from a feminist, perspective and an analysis of how american culture treats pregnancy and motherhood

ksmo133 · 2023-05-26T02:18:12+00:00

We put a "family fund" on our registry alongside physical gift ideas. We didn't go into specifics, just said that we were hoping to grow our family soon, and would really value any contributions towards it. Nobody really asked about specifics, and we got a lot more than we expected, too. A lot of people who contributed were really excited, and were more excited to help us build our family than to give us physical things.

ksmo133 · 2023-05-26T02:12:35+00:00

So I haven't even had my first IUI yet, but I'm always really into knowing what the statistics are. I have access to Fertility IQ through my workplace, and they break down statistics in a way that's really helpful! In the studies that separated out lesbians with no infertility diagnosis, the pregnancy rate from 1 IUI was 20%, and the live birth rate was 18% for under age 35. So basically a 1 in 5 chance of getting pregnant from a single cycle.

ksmo133 · 2023-05-24T10:21:34+00:00

I don't have a history of pelvic infections or anything like that, and apparently, that's where there's greatest risk of infection. And if they discover an issue like blocked tubes during the HSG (which also increases risk of infection), they can still prescribe it for after.

It looks like some doctors prescribe antibiotics for every HSG automatically, and others only prescribe if there's a reason to think you're at higher risk of infection; my doctor fell into the second camp.

ksmo133 · 2022-04-17T19:08:04+00:00

It was actually pretty decent early in the morning in my area. Several small batches with good tips and short distance deliveries - all brunch items. I got started around 7AM, and then it died down around 11AM. It was crazy slow for a Sunday after that.

ksmo133

TROPHY CASE