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IVF on a Fossil Hoarder’s Budget: Selling Ammonites for Embryos
Lighter Side of Infertility series will share some of the ridiculous, roll‑your‑eyes, laugh‑so‑you‑don’t‑cry stories from IVF life. Because sometimes the only way through it is to laugh. Imagine turning your nest egg into embryos while your biological clock sprints ahead. That’s me: over $50,000 down after two egg retrievals, third coming up fast. By day, Continue reading
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Field Notes from an Analytical Optimist
When I read other people’s blogs, I usually know what I’m walking into. There’s a comfort in the predictability—a cozy corner of the internet where each post feels like a familiar flavor. One writer serves up poetic domesticity; another offers carefully plated social commentary. Then there’s mine. A whole buffet. A smorgasbord, really. Some days Continue reading
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Med School, Mystery Acronyms, and the Art of Not Knowing Anything
There’s a special kind of romance that happens when your partner is in medical school. Not the candlelit-dinner kind—more the “I see you every day, but only for 17 exhausted minutes while you inhale food and mumble about biochem” kind. Most nights, dinner is a three-act play. In Act I, I put food on the Continue reading
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The Kind of Reader I Am Now
There was a time when the easiest way to describe me was simple: I was a reader. Not casually, not occasionally, but as a defining feature, like eye color or height. As a kid, books were my natural habitat. Through elementary school, I was always one of the children who read the most every year, Continue reading
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The Little Universe At Stall 23
On Saturday mornings, the city still half-asleep, we drive to the farmers’ market the way some people drive to church. The air always seems a little crisper there, even in the heavy months of summer. A dog barks at the end of a frayed rope. Someone laughs too loudly near the coffee cart. Children wind Continue reading
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Small Miracles from a Secondhand Shelf
For years, I drove past the same little thrift store on my way home from work. Our condo was maybe a mile away, and on nights when I knew I’d be heading home to an empty house, I’d stop in to look around. It became my favorite little detour. The place was small and cramped, Continue reading
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The Job I Didn’t Take
A recruiter reached out this week with the job: higher title, perfect fit, and a raise big enough to make me double‑check the math. You know, the kind of opportunity you’re supposed to say “yes” to before they even finish the sentence. I… declined it without blinking. What have I become?! Let’s rewind. Because if Continue reading
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The Cyst Strikes Again
Lighter Side of Infertility series will share some of the ridiculous, roll‑your‑eyes, laugh‑so‑you‑don’t‑cry stories from IVF life. Because sometimes the only way through it is to laugh. Just when I thought my ovaries and I had reached a fragile ceasefire, another cyst shows up. A hormone-producing menace that strutted into the ultrasound like it owned Continue reading
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Sehnsucht: A Letter to My Future Child
My dear one, There is a German word, Sehnsucht. It means a yearning both tender and fierce—a longing for something unseen yet deeply known. It is the ache for beauty you have not yet touched but somehow remember. That is what you are to me: my Sehnsucht, the quiet pulse of longing that moves beneath Continue reading
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My Oura Ring, POTS, and the Myth of the Elite Rollerblader
When I bought my Oura Ring, I wasn’t chasing fitness glory or trying to optimize my recovery stats. My neurologist had recommended it as part of an investigation into possible REM sleep disinhibition disorder. So when I spotted one at Costco after that appointment, it felt a little like destiny—or at least the kind of Continue reading
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The Beauty of Opening Up
For so many months, our fertility journey lived quietly inside our walls, unspoken and unshared. We learned to master the art of saying “We’re doing fine” even when we were not. It felt safer that way—to hold it close, to keep it ours. IVF is hard enough without the weight of questions or pity or Continue reading
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Tone Down the ’Tism
They say love means sharing everything. In our case, that includes hyperfixations, continuity errors, and the inability to watch a scene without commentary. We can’t get through a single K‑drama lately: Trauma Code: Heroes on Call, Dr. Romantic, Hospital Playlist. It’s not that we want to nitpick; our brains just don’t let things slide. Take Continue reading
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The Singularity of Us
Within a month of dating, his mother took me aside after dinner and told me I could do better. She said it gently, almost apologetically, as though she wished I could see something she couldn’t name. Her perfume lingered long after she left, sweet and cloying. I stood there in disbelief, then in quiet amusement, Continue reading
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Nice Pot You Got There
There are two kinds of people in this world: the ones who can throw things away, and people like me—who see a wounded bird or a wilted fern and start organizing a rescue mission. We even have a budget category labeled Liberty Wildlife Rescue. That’s not theoretical—it’s a real entry in our household spreadsheet. If Continue reading
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You Get What You Pay For: The Cost of Health in a Broken System
Both of my cardiologists ended their practices within months of each other. There’s now only one physician within a hundred miles who specializes in my complicated, difficult-to-treat cluster of heart conditions. And she doesn’t take insurance. When I called to make an appointment, the woman on the phone asked, “Do you still want to move Continue reading
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