Hieronymo's mad againe.

1) NOTHING sets my blood boiling like people who state in passing that emergency contraceptives and IUDs are abortifaceants. Medically, biologically, a pregnancy is defined as beginning when a fertilized egg has attached to the uterine lining. If you're going to disagree with the medical community's working definition, the burden is on you to explain why. And if your explanation is "fertilized eggs have souls" my next question will be whether you think all women of reproductive age should have their menstrual cycles monitored, to be sure that all fertilized eggs have the absolute best chance of implanting, because that seems like the next reasonable step to me. Followed by causing women to take pregnancy tests daily, so we can monitor and investigate extremely early miscarriages. Because otherwise, I'm not so sure that you're serious about sticking up for fertilized eggs. 2) I'm officially off my maintenance meds. Took the last pill Sunday (Feb 12) Accor

(Every time I log into Facebook, one of my friends has posted something infuriating. I need my blood pressure down, and I need to not engage in pointless flame wars. So I'm going to say quite a bit here, both today and probably later) A few weeks ago, a blog post on the right to decide when and how to start a family caught my eye. This is something my husband and I are pretty serious about. Between two doctoral programs, the assortment of jobs we juggle between the two of us (I think we might be down to just two jobs each now. Maybe), and a newly diagnosed autoimmune disorder, now is not the time to get pregnant. (When you have a whacked-out immune system that likes to attack your own tissues, there's a definite possibility it will recognize a fetus as foreign and just try to get rid of it). If you walked through our house, you'd find my pack of birth control pills in the kitchen, condoms in the nightstand by our bed, and emergency contraception in a drawer in the bathr

I'm starting my third year in grad school, and this has prompted a number of reflections, about things both serious and frivolous. Things are different now, and one of the fastest ways to know things are different is to look in the mirror or open my closet door. I was a biology major in college, and school and work were my life. My standard uniform was a beaten up pair of jeans and a grey t-shirt, or a green button-down with sulfuric acid holes from TA-ing chem lab. I also didn't shower all that much (because, if showers take ten minutes, and you go a week without showering, you've just saved yourself an hour, and those hours add up.). It's also fair to say that especially my last two years, I was carrying a pretty big chip on my shoulder, and the yuck probably resulted in fewer verbal "screw you"s being dealt out. My first job after graduation was interning in a molecular tox lab. So I added showers into my routine and phased out the cruddiest of the jean

In the last few days of break, I've been wrapping up some of the leftover odds and ends from our wedding. I've blogged about it before , and not terribly long ago, our wedding was featured on my favorite wedding blog. It's interesting to me...that in all the note-writing,photo-album building,and smiling acceptance of congratulations,there are only certain reactions that are acceptable. When you talk about weddings,it's acceptable to lightly dance over the stress of planning,but to suggest that anything was difficult or unpleasant about your wedding? Well, that makes you a bridezilla , unless your wedding included some you-tube worthy disaster, in which case you're allowed to tell the story to a room full of people simultaneously laughing and cringing. To say "my wedding was really hard,and I don't think I'd do it again" isn't allowed. That's considered the height of selfishness. I find this even more intriguing after reading a recent col