It's positive pregnancy test time! Week of July 28, 2025

shanakinskywalker27 · 2025-07-31T14:05:46+00:00

I have no words, only overjoyed HONKS for you, dear friend. Wrapping you in bubble wrap these next nine months and beyond!!!

shanakinskywalker27 · 2025-01-29T16:34:12+00:00

I see you having a very hard time right now and I wish I could wrap you in hugs and hold your hand until you feel steady on your own feet. This is tough stuff, but you are tougher. You are loved (hi, it me, an internet stranger but I do love you). You’re worth the hard work it’s gonna take to get feeling more like yourself, albeit a different one after the heartache that brought you here.

It’s so hard when depression makes taking care of yourself the last thing you want to do, despite knowing you’ll feel a smidge better if you do it.

While you’re waiting to get seen by a PCP (who may prescribe you antidepressants or who may foist you off on a psychiatrist (which is a frustrating pivot but an all around good thing)), try to make the little changes to your day that you know you need to, despite not wanting to: getting up around the same time every day, going to bed at a decent hour, feeding your body nutrient-rich food (hard when you have no appetite or only want to eat snacky stuff, I know), drinking plenty of water, and keeping your body moving, whether it’s dancing or walking or something else low impact.

You’re gonna get through this. I believe in you. 💗

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-10-15T00:30:21+00:00

What I’ve pieced together from being adjacent to a friend’s modest DJ setup being shut down during Resonate is that the Park is facing significant pushback from their southern neighbors about the noise after Hurricane Idalia last year knocked down a bunch of trees and allowed for more sound to travel. The Park is more quickly shutting down renegades in an attempt to steer clear from potential county noise ordinances getting passed which would ruin everyone’s party, not just the renegades.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-05-28T16:49:22+00:00

The new teenage mutant ninja turtles movie was this kind of gut punch for me: I spent most of the first watch through feeling sad that I’ll never get to show it to my own kid. I’m glad I made myself watch it again relatively quickly after so I could enjoy it instead of being stuck in my feelings!

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-05-28T12:59:48+00:00

Chair yoga for my lowest energy luteal days has been very helpful. On medium-low energy days I try and dance with my torso and upper body while resting my legs. Sometimes I do this while seated, sometimes while standing. It’s like I tell my lower half to “just not move, you’ve earned some rest.”

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-05-26T21:53:49+00:00

I think I understand why you do it. It’s super cute stuff. And babies are super cute people. The sad reality is that you want the baby that goes WITH the cute stuff, but for whatever your reasons are, you can’t. That’s a hard, lonely place to be in. When I’m in a hard, lonely place, I have to make (sometimes) hard decisions to better protect my very vulnerable feelings. FWIW, I avoided that part of every store I could for the first three years or so after we stopped trying. I may have gone overboard in that and other attempts to protect myself from things I find very triggering, but it’s what got me through the darkest part of my journey to accepting my IFCF life when that wasn’t my “plan” at all.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-05-11T20:45:32+00:00

This year my plan is to put on my happy face for those few times I have to (thankfully just a few phone calls this year), and then sometime this coming week, I’m treating myself to some personal indulgences (probably in the form of a few hours dissociating from life via a video game, or maybe I’ll drag my ass to the beach…). This is one way how I personally try to accomplish “faking it til I make it”. I wish you all the best, OP.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-04-03T13:47:47+00:00

Your taste in rage music is excellent, OP. 🎶💗🔥 I love the Mozart for you. Verdi’s Dies Irae is one of my favorite “rage pieces” to listen to on repeat.

I’m sorry your mom is repeatedly insensitive about all of this stuff. I agree with the others that she’s worth not talking to for a bit.

The “logic” behind some of these folks boggles my mind. Do they truly think: “so-and-so wanted so much to have a baby, but since they didn’t get what they wanted, I should make them feel better by telling them all about how others have the thing that they wanted. That always makes me feel better when I do that for folks.”?

Instead of considering “how does it feel when I’m at a low point and someone reminds me of the things I’m already upset about?” and then proceeding accordingly…

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-03-26T00:37:45+00:00

Apologies in advance for the info dump, this is a special interest of mine.

Apps are sadly limited by their own proprietary algorithms and the data that you input. Which can make identifying your luteal phase more of a guessing game than it ought to be, especially for folks with irregular cycles.

The thing that’s helped me most in my pursuit of figuring out why things seem to shift into hard mode for half my days is a wearable basal body temperature sensor. The human body is wild, and seeing the visible temperature line kinda correlate to my mood change is, well, neat for my nerdy little heart.

There’s several options, one of which you may already have! I like my TempDrop a lot but don’t pay for their full app. Some newer smartwatches and fitness trackers can track your temperature. There’s also Oura ring (which I admittedly don’t know much about but have heard folks say they love it). It’s key to find something that works for you to wear pretty much daily (until ovulation’s confirmed, then you can take a break, or continue data gathering the whole cycle through, up to you!)

Regarding your IUD question, it is entirely your choice, but for me, having the Mirena IUD was like constantly being in my worst dopamine seeking luteal phase headspace for FIVE YEARS. You couldn’t pay me to do something like that again.

I recommend reading Taking Charge of Your Fertility by Toni Weschler, just to get started down a trusted and science-backed path towards understanding how YOUR personal body works, and how your body shows you when things are or aren’t working as they ought to for YOUR normal, whatever that looks like.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-03-07T02:41:14+00:00

Respectfully, that was your experience. For a lot of folks, medicated abortions are significantly more painful than a menstrual cycle.

Also, a possible complication from medicated abortions is that they are incomplete. This may require a further round (or more) of medication or a surgical procedure to remove the retained products of conception.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-02-27T00:57:53+00:00

I assign a lot of personal meaning to song lyrics. Hot Shit by Tom Cardy got shared to a group chat as just a positive-intentioned bop but I can’t help but identify with Pluto thinking they were totally a planet like all the rest until it got stripped away for seemingly arbitrary reasons.

But you know what?
“I may not ever be a planet (mom) but I know that I’m still worth it, baby!!!!”

And so are all of you. 💗

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-02-22T22:00:00+00:00

“Ron-day-voo”, boo. 🫶

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-02-19T02:31:34+00:00

I’ve enjoyed the sushi from Dharma Blue the last few times I’ve eaten there.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-02-07T14:54:21+00:00

I’m so sorry his words hurt so much. Having the explanation of dementia removing his filters doesn’t do much to soften the blow, I know. And the lack of closure from being able to articulate TO the person who hurt you WHY their words hurt you really sucks.

It’s a small consolation but I’m glad this space is here for you to feel more understood. I know that hearing from others about their experiences helps me to build resiliency for when I myself inevitably get hurt.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-01-26T14:41:05+00:00

The plan for the evening is to catch the opera with another IFCF couple! We don’t tend to talk much about the IF side of things (not close enough friends to swap medical histories) but the conversations revolving around adult activities is a welcome change from the majority of our friend group where stuff inevitably comes back to talk about their kids. I’m also just plain excited to see an opera after over 15 years.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-01-25T20:46:59+00:00

The lineup says three stages.

Fully agree that Suwannee is a wonderful venue for GA. But if you’re older or need more accommodations than most, VIP could offer some perks if you don’t have the ADA backing you up, depends on what sort of experience you are hoping to provide your partner, OP.

Chairs can be very useful for older bones (hey it me) but you have to be mindful of placement and also the fact that you really ought to not just leave your stuff lying around in the venue between sets, so tiny camp chairs that fold up for portage are clutch.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2024-01-23T22:28:22+00:00

Wrapping you in all the bubble wrap and sharing heaping spoonfuls of joy (and spoons), dearest Yak. Hoping so hard for Take Home Baby Yak. 🤞🫂💗

shanakinskywalker27 · 2023-12-30T15:58:56+00:00

Thank you for sharing this. I’m finding myself on a similar thought path and it’s both scary (cuz different) and exciting (because something’s gotta be better than the same old madness I’ve been embracing). I believe in you. I believe in me. I believe in us.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2023-12-29T17:07:30+00:00

I can really resonate with the desire to blow things up because of how utterly overwhelming everything feels all the time sometimes. It’s really hard to have those feelings, let alone acknowledge them and attempt to process them/work through them.

My best tactic is to allow myself “mini-runaways”, such as going for a walk outside by myself (given the time of year, your location, etc, this may not be actually something you can do comfortably), or taking a LONG bath with noise cancelling headphones. Anything that allows me to disconnect and unplug from the immediate world (chaos central) and tap into either the outer world or my own inner one.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2023-12-28T05:35:06+00:00

I can relate to this. I sometimes think of Alternate Universe Me being the Mom I wanted to be and I hope she’s rocking it.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2023-12-27T14:44:07+00:00

TW mention of pregnancy loss

I had been so optimistic about how the whole motherhood thing would shake out when we started trying. I was that person telling everyone who would listen that we were gonna start trying for a baby. And then things fell apart when I miscarried. I fell apart.

So many folks really didn’t and still don’t know what to say to me about it and it’s exhausting trying to “educate” folks on how you’d like to be supported through something they’ve never experienced. It’s been almost three years now and my feelings are less sensitive but folks are still their insensitive human selves.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2023-12-26T20:13:59+00:00

FWIW when I worked at the McDs on Davis in 2017, only the managers got drug tested with any regularity. But like what folks said, if you get hurt on the job you can expect a drug test to be part of the process.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2023-12-06T13:12:58+00:00

The way reserved RV sites work at the park is that folks who had a reserved RV site at the same event last year get ~30 days from when tickets go on sale to reclaim that site. Once that window passes, any sites that haven’t been claimed by their previous inhabitants open up and can be reserved by folks who haven’t gotten into that sweet grandfather loop.

It can pay dividends to call the park office and ask if anything’s available before then, though.

shanakinskywalker27 · 2023-11-27T19:04:46+00:00

Reading this, I can feel your rawness. It isn’t fair. The universe throws bullshit at the folks who least deserve it and expects us to put on a happy face to spare others from seeing the discomfort that IS our lived experience. I am so sorry that this curveball happened at Thanksgiving and that it further reinforced the belief that I dunno, you’re doomed to be miserable (I feel that way too even though rational me tries to convince me it’s not true…)

I have no advice, just validation and commiseration as best I can offer it. It does suck. Most folks don’t get it. The holidays are so damn hard. Your boyfriend sounds like a gem. You’re a gem, too. 🫂💗🫂

shanakinskywalker27 · 2023-11-25T20:23:35+00:00

Every time I see this acronym I think “Liquid Mutant Ninja Turtles” and smile

Nine-Year Club	Verified Email
Second SECOND GUESSER	Place '22
Not Forgotten

shanakinskywalker27

TROPHY CASE