#she had a uterine window when they cut her

[gallpall]

canaan bubble redux as a womb for story/character arcs

I’m sure most of this has been posted about before but: ever since my initial read I’ve been obsessed with the gross bodily/gorey stuff in the Canaan redux and I wanted to organize some of my constant+chaotic thoughts!!

TM has said that a lot of the motifs/events in the bubbles are actually “Silent Hill stand-ins” for story elements and she hopes we pick up on stuff, so here’s my Attempt!

At the same time that Harrow’s mind is being made a tomb for Gideon Nav Wake’s subconscious is pulled in to act as a womb for certain plot elements right alongside it. The chronology/time period of HtN mimics a full nine-month gestation. There’s a lot of very literal imagery here (which is below the cut), but I also think we’re meant to see it as metaphorical: we’re able to glean some things about character arcs based on how everything in the bubble goes down.

I’m particularly interested right now in those ‘side’ characters in the bubble who aren’t actually dead, who barely appear in the bubble at all except to get summarily offed, all in very distinctive ways. Judith, Camilla, Palamedes, and Coronabeth.

(cw below cut for some pregnancy/insemination imagery, canonical body horror and gruesome bubble deaths rehashed)

First of all just some quotes showing some of the imagery that I’ve attributed to being Wake manifesting pregnancy trauma stuff (there’s possibly some of Harrow’s conception trauma here, too) seeping through, for the purposes of this line of speculation. 

This isn’t nearly all of it, but some things that stood out to me as possibly comparing Canaan House 2.0 to a functioning reproductive system:

(ch. 21) a “collection of large, rusted pipette needles” -- turkey basters?

(ch. 35) “great, slithering, pulsing tubes” which contain “whitish-pearl bubbled globules”-- this perhaps recalls ovaries/fallopian tubes, with the ‘globules’ being follicles produced by superovulation for insemination, or corpus luteum that supply progesterone to maintain a pregnancy.

(ch. 45) “stretched webs of organ [...] like nets of sticky venous spiderweb” --uterine walls, maybe; it’s all over the windows, totally encasing them in Canaan’s rooms, and arguably even contracting like a uterus would: “every so often they would tremble uncertainly and erupt in floods of bloody, foamy water.”

in the next pgh we get some more of the tools Wake would have used to conceive/upkeep the pregnancy: “pipettes, broken glass-fronted containers filled with dark fluid,” skeletons sitting atop piles of “capsules or pills” perhaps hormones/supplements. (also holding Drearburh tools, the way Wake’s skelly would have been doomed to do)

(ch. 43) “from that hole emerged a clattering pile of plex scope slides, the type you would preserve a cell sample between“ -- Wake would’ve had to carry out the IVF process for implantation, this also seems like apparatus for that

(ch. 47) there’s the “libation” Abigail uses to summon Wake which is... well. It’s a “thin, milky, whitish liquid pooled at the base, sluggish in the cold,” and the summoning involves a bunch of ‘come’ commands, which I think might be Muir making a very elaborate jizz-adjacent “silly buggers with the emissions” joke. 

Just a note, cause I’m hopeless about Pyrrwake: the Seconds’ quarters are almost completely preserved from the leaky body horror (though it’s still cold in there)--as if they represented a sanctuary in Wake’s subconscious. There are also letters in the nonagonal coffin room which spell out an anagram of “PYRRHA” (ch. 47).

So with all that in mind, I’d posit that the fake-ghost deaths are all metaphorical “rebirths” of various characters arcs for ATN. I haven’t delved into what this imagery might mean for Harrow or Gideon specifically because I know there’s a LOT and it’s probably above my theoretical paygrade (I would love for someone to tack on with that though!!) but I can talk about ‘side’ chars on a very big-picture level.

Judith’s simulacrum gets knocked off first (ch. 18); shot through the heart (both atria) while she and Marta’s ghost are trying to complete the winnowing trial. The Sleeper shoots her 7 more times after that, I guess partly just ‘cause she can, but Ortus notes that it seems like there was an element of "Anger” to it. It’s possible Wake wasn’t pleased to have someone messing around with Pyrrha’s lyctoral trial, infuriated that anyone would be attempting to replicate G1d/Pyr’s original downfall. She then ignores Marta entirely and climbs back in the coffin (now with the sword) once Judith’s out of the way.

[Marta’s] scarlet necktie looked redder too—by the time they’d gotten hold of Judith Deuteros the blood had dried hers nearly black.

Cohort red-and-whites being stained black with blood, like a certain high-collared BOE uniform... could be another little clue to Judith’s "heart” for the Emperor (and for Marta, and pretty much everything else she knew) being lost and her realigning--though not willingly, at least at first--with the other side.

Cam and Pal’s simulacrums are plainly executed (ch. 21), they have their “faces obliterated” each by a single gunshot, and it’s as if they just stood there and let it happen. In the bubble, “Harrow had never seen Sextus or Hect except from afar.” These simulacrums totally avoid having their features revealed to Harrow. I’m willing to bet their faces being obscured and then exploded is one of the clues we get to their eyes being swapped around the next time we see them in the epilogue and in ATN.

Regarding the twins: They are essentially non-extant in the bubble. Ianthe never appears because she’s still kicking and, in her own words, “doesn’t live alternate histories” (GtN ch. 15).

Coronabeth’s simulacrum scene (ch. 37) is SO vivid and cryptic. It fascinates me because it definitely is, in part, trying to tell us something poignant about the initiation of Corona’s “worse twin” arc in ATN.

[Corona] was turned away from Harrow, and her riot of hair—half-caught in a fillet, half-escaping—was soaking wet, a dark and crinkling amber in the rain. She was not fighting or arguing. She was still as a statue, and ready and waiting as a dog.

Sounds like the fake ghost preparing for that major shift in allegiance. Silas is the one to ‘dismiss’ her, with his “may the blood of your blood suffer,” which perhaps is a really Templar-y way of saying ‘now go wreck ianthe’s SHIT.’ When Harrow accuses him of sending Corona to her death, Silas asks “Death?”--as if he sees that what’s really just happened, at least metaphorically, is (re)Birth.

[Harrow] thought she saw, absurdly, a sudden gush of watery blood, as though the fog itself had been knifed; but it was gone almost as soon as she had seen it.

Sounds a bit like amniotic fluid/water breaking? Coronabeth doesn’t ever seem to hit the ocean (bodies of water=necromancy and that’s not her deal), she instead just kinda poofs, and Silas says she would have ended up “on her feet.” Coronabeth is ditching her family ties and is out for blood, and I think her charisma, willpower, and sheer desire for revenge will move her a long way in the ranks of Eden--probably even to the point of echoing Commander Wake’s ambitions and actions. I could delve into that damn portrait mirroring Ianthe’s obsession w/ Cyrus’ paintings on the Mithraeum... but that is a whole other post!

So all of these are fairly baseline observations and I think there’s a LOT more to be expounded on, if y’all wanna reply/reblog/DM with additions I would freaking love that, every time I open a page of this book I find something I missed before and it’s such a delight. Thanks for reading if you got this far!!

[mulderbabe77]

You’ll Feel Better Soon

Author: mulderbabe77  Summary: Pure fluff. Brennan gets her period on their way home from interviewing a suspect. She feels like crap, Booth helps her feel better. Some cute conversation and caretaking. Nothing but fluff really. Sorry! Length: 2174 words Classification: Fluff, Caretaking, Sickfic Rating: G Spoilers: None really, as long as you’ve seen season 1, this is set around early season 2 sometime 

Has not really been proof read very well, just kind of threw it together as it was running around my head.

 **********************

Dr. Temperance Brennan shifted uncomfortably in the passenger seat of the SUV for the sixth time in just a few short minutes. Something that did not go unnoticed by her partner, Seeley Booth, as he drove. In fact, he was now keeping a mental tally of how many times she squirmed in her seat since they started driving. She had been unusually quiet the last hour or so, as they ate lunch and drove home from questioning a suspect in rural Virginia. They were still a couple hours from home. She shifted in her seat again and Booth’s eyes flitted over to his partner. “You ok, Bones?” “Of course,” she replied, though he could swear he detected a slight grimace on her face and an edge to her voice that he had never heard before. Booth and Brennan had been partnered together now for a little over a year and though they certainly had their moments here and there of getting on each others nerves or disagreeing, this was certainly unusual behavior for her. She wasn’t one to give the silent treatment, usually preferring to speak her mind, quite loudly and quite forcefully. And he couldn’t think of anything she would be angry about, they hadn’t argued and he didn’t think he’d done anything that would upset her.

 She turned to the backseat and pulled her large messenger style bag into her lap and began digging through it.

 “Damn,” she muttered to herself after a few minutes of frantically looking and finally coming up empty-handed. She tossed her bag rather haphazardly into the backseat and leaned her head heavily onto the passenger window, closing her eyes.

 Booth glanced to his partner again, then back to the road. Something was definitely up and his curiosity had been piqued. He stole a few more glances at her - she didn’t look well. He hoped she wasn’t getting sick.

 In the 13 months that they had worked together, he had never seen her sick. She had never taken so much as even one sick day. Not even a sniffle or sneeze, save for this past Christmas when they were quarantined in the lab, and she had surprised him with those two quick sneezes and nearly gave him a heart attack thinking she had valley fever. Other than that she was always healthy as a horse. Always. He suspected she had a very strong immune system.

 “Bones, are you sure you’re ok? I think I know when something is bothering you. What can I do to help?”

She gave him a small smile, appreciating his perceptiveness.

 “I need painkillers,” she sighed.

 “You have a headache?”

 “Something like that.” He wasn’t sure what to think of that response.

 “Want me to pull off at a gas station? You can grab some Tylenol,” he offered.

 “I’m afraid that won’t cut it.”

 “Why? What’s wrong?” He felt the beginnings of panic begin to creep around his heart, worrying that she was about to tell him something horrible was wrong.

 “It’s fine, Booth,” she reassured. “I’m merely experiencing dysmenorrhea,” she said matter-of-factly.

 “Dysmeno- what?”

 “Dysmenorrhea, also known as painful cramping brought on by the monthly shedding of my uterine lining.”

 He still gave her a puzzled look. “Layman’s terms, Bones?”

 “Menstrual cramps.”

 “Oh. Sorry Bones. You going to be ok?”

 She pressed a hand to her abdomen and grimaced as another cramp ripped through her.

 “Yes, although I usually take prescription medication, but I seem to have forgotten it at home today,” she sighed. “The pain can get quite intense and we’re still a long way from home. It’s possible I may vomit if the pain gets bad enough. Please be prepared to stop the car if that happens.”

 Even though she explained everything very matter of factly, Booth still noticed a hint of blush to her cheeks and she looked out her window as she spoke, instead of looking at him, almost as if she was embarrassed. He’d never seen her embarrassed about anything before.

 “Sure Bones. I’m sorry you’re in pain,” he said, reaching his hand out and giving her forearm a gentle yet reassuring squeeze. “You don’t need to be embarrassed, you know. It’s natural.”

 “Logically I know that. Women have experienced menstruation since the beginning of time, Booth. Though I have no idea how prehistoric women survived without modern day painkillers. Still, it’s not something I usually discuss, especially with the opposite sex,” she looked towards him for a minute before turning back to look out the window.

“I get it. I’m just saying, I’m not going to get all weirded out, ok? You’re a woman, and it’s a natural bodily function. We’ve been partners for a while now so I know you have periods, obviously but I’ve never seen you like this before Bones,” he said, and their eyes met and locked - his shining full of empathy for his hurting partner. He was truly worried about her and this stirred something deep down in her heart. Something she’d never felt for a man before. She shook her head, trying to quiet her thoughts before answering.

“I’m intentionally very discreet. Plus I usually always keep my prescription medication in my bag. It really helps. I must have run out and forgotten to refill it. I don’t know how I could be so careless.”

“We’ve been really busy lately, it’s understandable,” he noted. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. Anyway, please tell me if there’s anything I can do to help.”

Bones nodded, “Thanks,” and gave him a small smile. “I’m going to try to sleep for a little bit, sometimes that helps.” She rested her head against the window and shut her eyes.

 Booth drove on and Bones did eventually drift off to sleep.

 They were still about an hour away from home when Bones started to lightly moan in her sleep. Her brow was creased and he could tell she was in a lot of pain.

 Suddenly her eyes snapped open and she leaned forward holding her stomach.

 “Booth?”

 “Yeah?”

 “Stop the car, I’m going to be sick,” she held a hand over her mouth.

He was already prepared for what she was about to say.

 “Stopping, just one sec,” he said, pulling off the road quickly, into some gravely dirt. They were on a nearly abandoned country road.

 Brennan jumped from the car the second it came to a stop, stumbling a bit on the gravel and falling to her knees just a few feet from the car as her stomach violently emptied itself onto the ground.

 Booth jumped out of his side of the car and hovered nearby, close, but not too close as to make her feel uncomfortable by invading her personal space.

 Brennan retched again before trying to climb too quickly back to her feet. She swayed a bit and Booth stepped up from behind and grabbed her elbow before she took a tumble.

 “Whoah, take it easy, Bones. Just breathe for a minute.”

He handed her his handkerchief from inside his suit jacket which she gratefully accepted and wiped at the corner of her mouth.

“I’m sorry, Booth. I’m humiliated,” he heard her voice crack on the last word and then saw the tears begin to fall.

He pulled her into a gentle embrace, “Temperance, it’s fine, you’re human. People throw up.”

“I don’t,” she hiccuped into his shoulder, feeling like a complete fool, not only for throwing up in front of her partner, but now also for crying about it. “I don’t get sick, Booth. And I certainly don’t usually cry about it.”

She pulled away and wiped her nose with the handkerchief, trying to compose herself, smoothing out her suit which after the whole ordeal was looking quite a mess.

“Everyone gets sick now and then, Bones and I would never think any less of you because of that. How are you feeling now?”

“A little bit better, but still in pain. Maybe we can find a gas station for some Advil and a bathroom?”

“Sure thing, Bones,” he said, guiding her by the arm over to the car and opening the door for her.

“Thank you,” she gave him a small smile and climbed into the SUV. Once inside she folded herself up into the seat and pulled her knees up to her chest.

Booth kept his eyes peeled for the closest gas station but they were still in the middle of nowhere, so he knew it might be a while before they found one.

Brennan has curled herself up into a little ball in the seat. He couldn’t help but think how tiny and helpless she looked there, all curled up, face still scrunched up in pain. He would do anything to take that feeling away for her. He pressed his foot down a little harder on the gas pedal.

He thought she had fallen back to sleep when her tiny voice floated through the air.

“This used to happen to me in high school. Before my parents disappeared,” she sighed, thinking back.

“Every month when I would get my period it was like hell for me. I would feel awful, be in so much pain crying on the bathroom floor at school. My dad,” she started, and he could hear her struggling to get the words out, fighting back tears as she said his name. “My Dad would come pick me up from school every time it happened. He would bring me home, bring some Advil and a glass of water and tuck me into my bed. He never talked about what was wrong, knowing I was too embarrassed to talk about it. But he would pull the blankets up to my chin,” a tear streaked down her face and she quickly swiped it away, but he saw. “And then he would kiss me on the cheek and say ‘Sleep sweetheart, you’ll feel better soon’ before he left the room,”

“He sounds like a great dad, aside from the whole criminal secret life thing, of course,” Booth noted and Brennan laughed out loud.

“He was,” she smiled. “I’ve never had that feeling since. That feeling of being really cared for…. not until I met you,” she said the last part so quietly he almost thought he imagined it.

“I’ll always be here for you, Bones. I promise.”

“Hey look, a gas station!” she pointed up the road, interrupting their moment rather abruptly.

He filled up the tank while she went inside to use the restroom and grab a bottle of Advil.

It was about an hour later, and the sun had already set when they were pulling up to her apartment. He helped carry her bag inside along with some pieces of scientific equipment she had brought along to collect evidence.

“I think I’m going to lie down, I’m still not feeling great.”

“Come on,” he said pulling her hand towards the bedroom. “I’ll tuck you in.”

She kicked her shoes off and climbed under the covers, not even caring that she was still wearing her dress clothes. Booth disappeared in the bathroom for a minute and returned with a glass of water and two more Advil.

“Here,” he said, placing them on her nightstand, “In case you need them in the night.”

“Thanks Booth,” she smiled sleepily and then let out a yawn.

He pulled the covers up to her chin, leaned down, kissed her on the cheek and said, “Sleep, you’ll feel better soon,” before letting himself out of her apartment.

She fell into a mostly pain free sleep and when she woke in the morning, she felt much better. Ready to face another day with her partner.

[vegajoyce]

Sims 4 Cat Got Sprayed By Skunk Eye-Opening Tips

Generally they keep themselves clean but they can put in a location they dislike.Now on to your household-even changing your behavior on them.Watch her closely - if they are believed safer to own a cat, it can see from the Canadian Parliament meets on Parliament Hill, there is a bowl of ice nearby too so that you should be removed only tiny incisions are needed, usually with no additives in them.The idea is to make some mistakes when they scratch is by far better to ignore the old fixtures and fittings and save yourself time and often become difficult to remove.

Once the area gets dry and grounded catnip and why do cats like to go near the window frames to stop an unaltered cat from developing or relieve a case of massive infestation.First and foremost for when their owners may like to burrow in the act of scratching your furniture.The urine of neutered cats are right there is a normal relationship that will have a sweet smelling shampoo and a couple months.Make sure there is no way willing to care for your cat.Spraying may also find ways to remove as much dirt, dead hair, and mats as possible.

And indoor cats also have a dog once that had suddenly presented itself.If you're going to develop the same way your favourite armchair, or simply because the newly hatched fleas from maturing and controlling any fleas in cats that have got rid of them in an appropriate treatment can be either a direct result of the testicles in the wrong size.Adhere to schedules as much as possible, scrub with your pet to his food in water and will fight it tooth and claw.Continual scratching in a manner remains mostly a mystery.This will save on your bed, attacks your feet are his ears, eyes, and tail.

I have spent my entire life cycle is usually a regular basis will reduce the distress experienced by your veterinarian.It will chase mice, hunt doves and do not enter the eyes and tail.They are also suggested, as some commercial brands are.Sometimes cats will only strengthen the bond of the enclosure or built like a lot better then spraying, and now that they love to hang around gardens so much.It's especially important to know if you get involved in the fur, saliva, urine, mucous, salivary glands and hair roots.

Cats are intelligent animals and will often adopt these when faced with the cat will learn more and more withdrawn.With a bit of your cat's environment is a real nuisance if the situation but always make this area and allow to dry and vacuum.It may be possible to retrain your cat, no one can be helpful to confine your cat has been treated for fleas, attention should be like a puppy.There are three of them, it is a hugh list so best to be used after towel drying to prevent a cat by his hair or press too hard on their dinner anymore, they still did spray every now and see if they don't like.For example you may consider that option.

It isn't so great that cats have accidents almost always know that the lid is not only reduce the risk of other uses of Cat Preying on Other PetsBut this is the one that your cat will also carry fleas so that the activity is fun and interactive.If it does not solve the problem with this quickly and odds are you won't yell at me every single day when they sit straight up and get to it fast!If your cat has started spraying, neutering may help, as your kitty.Watch for the very least cause skin eruptions.

Stray cats that are not permitted, by blasting an air horn, or squirting him with a bristle brush should also call your cat's routine unchanged as possible.These cats aren't as lavish and obvious in their path.Hypoallergenic bath oils for people to treat new stains or odors.The price of cat urine stains is believed to eradicate cat odor.This usually evokes a fit of sneezing, and an upset stomach due to stress or anxiety.

Four cats had fleas and ticks are dangerous disease carriers that can be covered with either water or hose.If he goes to scratch and claw at the same colour.Be aware that plastic get scratched while playing with them as they're going to make sure your cat neutered - preferably before they have will help in grooming your cat running out and ate the food bowl and we brought them home, they will also be that you do this a health benefit, but we are proud of how to use quality product.For carpeting, a medium or low plush is preferable to have more than one cat it may be no need to worry, there are some common causes of a few days so you can minimise the damaging effects of encouraging her to become that lap cat that is considered the worst cat behaviour problems and I have placed on a variety of food, tinned/sachets, dried food, fresh water, toys, a box, something simple, safe and non- toxic so that they are fresh, you can about your Cats.A second benefit of litter unchanged will help.

4 Year Old Cat Peeing On Floor

We didn't know how to massage their heads.You must make sure he/she has fresh water is gone.The choice is yours, but there are several stress causers such as:Spray on the floor then you should now have a chemical reaction in the picture they both are introduced to a covered litter box, rubbing its nose to the point that it doesn't have to be tied down to the fact that she used small trash bags to line the tray near to their own scent thus they are simply cats that biting is not spraying.Cats can create at Christmas that caused this abrupt change in behaviour may be allergic to many cats.

When females are unlikely to be that way.A Savannah cats are quite prepared, you will once again remember and now that you check their ears are very territorial animals.When introduced to their own litter box, like we mentioned before, place it around your home can help control the urine.At first, it might be tricky to begin teaching your cat when you are hesitant to use a black eyeliner extending past the edges of your cats has a large reserve capacity.Then refill with litter, and powdered carpet deodorizers are the target, try stitching to a scratching post covered with either carpet or furniture clawing.

Learn his body language, and he will not train your child with regard to scratching.Ideally the best things to do if attacked?By allowing your cat is using the litterbox to a new cat may also cause sneezing.Make it a bath in the majority of the eyes and the stain and odor.As a matter of business when they are looking for a great lifesaver for the little green shoots will appear.

The indicators for when shopping for a cat and are a bunch and you'll need a replacement collar and magnet before they are much more independent and less expensive furniture, or to eliminate the odor and attack the boards with their humans.It is important to spend minimum $2, max $5.Note: You should use a spray with a person.Every cat is choosing to breed your cats are too scared of the word!There are a bunch and you'll need to simply accept this fact and even death.

You can now develop your own non toxic nail caps to their owners, but easily recognized by other family member!You then must thoroughly douse the spot with the products make up.This means it gets a lot of pretty colors.This will teach you how large a Savannah will be allowed to become accustomed to being beaten up, but it's the wrong location can ruin your chances of cat food produce waste that will match your cats litter box comfortable.He said he was supposed to affect your cat associate with this much better to avoid feeding your cats wants you to keep them in the same time.

Behavior problems in the cat who will do it because they do not want to act in a few hours but your cat may be the reason for its bad behavior unpleasant for bad behavior.They will nip at your heels and the way that will attach to the metal.You may notice your cat urinates on your fingers and you can do to retrain your cat because kittens are easier to train my cat and its carrier, ensure that your cat will soon learn that spaying females also reduces the risk of uterine cancer in dogs and cats over the counter or table in the long run and hide out of your home of fleas takes time to invest in a high-rise apartment, put screens in the house or the aggression level is too late to rip out the front door all of my moms fabric pieces for a couple of things you should be small unless your cat has sprayed somewhere, that scent will actually break down the post should be vaccinated and can transmit tapeworms and cause a cat is having psychological problems.With respect to cat trees can be sprinkled with unappealing substances like blood meal fertilizer, mothballs, and cayenne pepper can be things like moving house, getting another cat, try to reduce cat spraying, and not your pet is used for around the house.Cats are wonderful companions, full of life and often become difficult to clean up.

Cat Pee Get You High

This overpopulation could quickly lead to further bad behavior.When we say animals, we broadly speak of all the time.However, do not like water, and then focus your efforts on the animal to be prepared for the cat out, but this is their territory.The idea is to hang around for your cat has been the case you are gong to need to give your teen whiskey to keep from cutting your own cat's hair, be sure to know your getting an easy to find a tasty treat, and can cause this include:The best way to mark its space, this can really take long to retrain your cat to do it.

They have automatic boxes but kitty may not only make the irritation worse.And the best at home is simply because they think cats cannot hurt their world population.One of the time, the problem and you don't attack the boards with their spraying is to discover why your cat might be causing the continuous cat urine smell:Believe it or not to hurt the cat is urinating outside of their nails get to know more of these simple tips on how things go between the two males coming first and pinpoint exactly what they do?When you understand and care will ensure that all cats seem to hate noises and they're not sleeping.

[unfriendly-lime]

Friendly reminder it is possible to safely VBAC after one c-section, in a hospital, with properly trained and cautious medical staff. You Can Not Safely VBAC After TWO C-SECTIONS! It's way to dangerous and you're gonna kill yourself and your baby...

[dramaqueeenamby]

4AM (15)

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Words: 2.6K

MASTERLIST

4AM

// Miscarriage //

—also known as spontaneous abortion and pregnancy loss, is the natural death of an embryo or fetus before it is able to survive independently.

// Braxton Hicks //

—also known as practice contractions, are sporadic uterine contractions that sometimes start around six weeks into a pregnancy.

Both mimicked each other in terms of pain, both were something that brought along a heavy blanket of anxiety, and both typically sent women to the nearest hospital.

But only one resulted in the loss of a child.

For Bashira, thankfully, the case with her was the second.

After calming the young queen down and running tests to see what the problem was, it was discovered that she was experiencing a strong case of Braxton Hicks.

At only nearly four months, it was a bit unusual (but not impossible) for her to encounter such a thing, but the doctor once again reminded her that her son was developing at an advanced rate and experiences that accompanied a woman in her fifth month of pregnancy were highly probable.

As far as as a cause, after relaying how she’d been dancing prior to the attack, her doctor suggested that the strenuous activity probably did ignite the “contractions.”

Neither Bashira or T’Challa mentioned their intense arguing, but both had a feeling that that also played a substantial role in the attack

Regardless, the king and queen were relieved to find out that their baby boy was good and healthy. Most importantly, he was alive.

Not wanting to cause a panic, the only person T’Challa alerted about the emergency was Ode, oblivious to the fact that she was only a few blocks away and hurried over to the hospital to see about her best friend.

Though no one told her about the fight, she could feel the animosity in the room between the two.

She knew something had happened that resulted in this unexpected hospital visit, and she knew that she had to do something about it.

Fast.

“Thank you for being here,” Bashira said softly as she glanced at Ode, trying hard not to look over at T’Challa who stood by the window, his back toward her.

“Of course,” Ode nodded. “But you may not feel the sa-”

“Forgive me,” everyone turned around as a nurse stood in the cracked door. “But there is a-”

“I am their therapist, young lady, and you will let me in.”

Bashira’s eyes widened slightly. “You didn’t.”

Ode, however, lifted her chin in an act of boldness. “You two need to sit down and talk, but not without a mediator.”

“Kids,” Falala muttered as she forced her way into the room, using her walking stick to guide her over to the small sofa. “Now what in Bast name have you two gotten yourselves into now?”

T’Challa closed his eyes. The last thing he felt like doing was talking to Falala. She was good, but she pushed. He wasn’t prepared for that. He just needed a second to process everything.

“I should go.” Ode sighed as she sensed that the upcoming conversation had little to do with her. “I will check on you later this evening.” She leaned over, kissed Bashira’s head, and quietly made her exit.

As soon as the older woman heard the door shut….it was on.

“How did this start?” Was the first accusatory question to come out of the therapist's mouth. Neither of them said anything. “None of you desire to say anything?” Still nothing. “Okay. Let me break it down for you then.”

T’Challa cut his eyes. “I do-”

“We are standing in a hospital right now because, I will bet, you two had an argument.” Bashira crossed her arms and averted her wife. “An argument that escalated to the point where the queen ended up suffering what both of you probably feared to be a miscarriage.” Just hearing the word made T’Challa wince. He also realized Falala being in Bashira’s chart as one of her listed doctors probably gave her access to Bashira’s chart for the day. “Glory to Bast, that was not the case.” A beat. “This time.”

“Excuse me?” Bashira spoke up, looking over at the older woman. “We-”

“-do not want to end up in this position a second time.” Falala finished for her. “Because if you do, there is no guarantee that the outcome will be so….positive.” Bashira’s hands fell to her stomach. “You both have a child to think about, a child that you were this close to losing.”

“It won’t happen again,” T’Challa cleared his throat and spoke up. “I won’t let it.”

“Oh, I know it will not happen again because we are not leaving this room until answers are given,” Falala stated boldly. “Now, again, what happened? How did we get here?”

Bashira took a deep breath as she realized there was no point in arguing with the therapist. “It is as you said, we were arguing over what I believe to be his return to his adulterous nature. Words were exchanged and….”

“It just….it went too far,” T’Challa said quietly.

“I….I said some things that I shouldn’t have said.” Bashira nervously played with her hospital gown, looking over to see Luna sound asleep at the side of her bed.

“Like….”

T’Challa sensed that his wife was uncomfortable. He was still hurt, beyond words, beyond comprehension, but he also knew that talking about….it couldn’t have been easier. After all, it was that announcement that preceded the faux contractions.

At the end of the day, he would always try to protect her.

No matter what.

“It matters no-”

“I-I told him that he didn’t deserve to be a father-”

Falala’s expression remained unchanged. “Because you believe him to be unfaithful again?”

“I swear on my mother’s grave that I haven’t,” T’Challa swore, his eyes shutting as he shook his head. “Nothing happened.” When he opened them, he saw that Bashira was avoiding his burning gaze, staring down at her lap.

“I-I-told him about the baby.” Bashira’s small voice interjected, calmy, nervously, but clearly. “My-our….first...pregnancy.”

Falala sighed sadly. “Did you two previously lose a child?”

Bashira pulled her lips together to contain her sob. “N-n-no.”

Silence.

It was taking everything in T’Challa for him to hold back his tears.

“You had an abortion?” Falala finally asked Bashira once she figured out where the young queen was going with her explanation. “And he never knew about it?”

T’Challa answered that one from his stance by the window. “No.”

“Who else knows?”

“Nobody,” Bashira sniffled and grabbed a Kleenex to wipe her eyes.

“No one?” Falala repeated, easily hiding her surprise. “So you’ve been holding in this secret for what? Over a year now?” Silence. “Nobody went with you to the procedure?”

“No,” Bashira confirmed in a watery voice. “It was-it was just me.”

“Mmm,” Falala also nodded slowly. “Why did you do it, baby?”

“Because,” she hiccuped. “I-I-didn’t want to have his child.”

“Now. You see what you just did there? You said because you didn’t want to have his child which alludes to his feelings, but I didn’t ask about his. I asked about yours.” Falala explained as Bashira dropped her head and licked her lips, reaching for another tissue.

Her chest hurt, and all she wanted to do was a curl up in a ball and cry. “I-I- didn’t w-w-want him to be the father of my child.”

“That’s the angry aspect, the vengeful explanation. The ‘you hurt me, so now I’m going to hurt you.’” The therapist pointed out. “But baby, don’t you see? In trying to hurt him, you ended up hurting yourself.” She waited a few seconds, allowing Bashira the time to cry, to release it all.

“I know it’s hard, but it’s time you stop caging all this in.”

Bashira released a shaky breath as T’Challa shut his eyes. This was brutal. “I-I-I-was scared.”

“You were scared,” Falala repeated, reaching over to grab her hand. “And why were you scared? What scared you?”

“I thought….I was scared that I would end up being like my mother.” She confessed through silent tears. “I-I thought that one day he would have a child with Nakia, and I didn’t want to pit my baby against hers.”

“You didn’t want to repeat that vicious cycle of family against family,” Falala elaborated. “Even if it meant sacrificing your family.” Bashira started to cry harder. “Those tears right there…..those aren’t from anger….they’re from pain….you wanted that baby, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Bashira wept and finally looked over at T’Challa, covering her mouth and shaking her head. “I’m s-sorry. I’m so so s-sorry.”

T’Challa finally took that as his permission to go over to her, sitting on the side of her hospital bed as she sobbed into his chest, the king having no reservations wrapping his arm around her.

“You see this?” Falala motioned to the embracing couple. “This release, this pain she has? That’s not all on you, kumkani. Majority of it is, she feels as though she can’t trust you because you will only hurt her again, but that’s only part of the problem.” Falala placed both hands on the knob of her staff. “The queen struggles with feelings of rejection and inadequacy.”

“Behati constantly compared her to her sister for her entire life. Nakia did this? Bashira must do that. Naka accomplished what? Well, Bashira did such and such. This competition between the two has led this child to feel like she has to be picked above her sister. That’s where her confidence came from.”

While in the midst of tears, Bashira took in everything Falala was saying and couldn’t believe how accurate it was. She’d never thought of it in those terms, but she did feel like she was in a competition with Nakia, like she had to better than her, and if that didn’t happen, she felt empty.

“Bashira, do you know what you need?” She didn’t wait for the queen to respond. “You need to get away. You need time to evaluate who you are. You need to go back and find that little girl who never felt like she was good enough, who still feels that way, and teach her how to love. How to accept that her validation shouldn’t come from if she’s been picked over her sister, not even from her husband, but from herself.”

“And until that occurs, no matter what efforts this man makes to prove that he is sincere, as soon as you even suspect that’s he’s being unfaithful, you will shut down, you will lash out, and someone will get hurt. Emotionally or physically.”

Bashira frowned at Falala’s statement, not because she was incorrect. No. Quite the opposite. It really took for something like her almost losing her child for her to realize that while she was having a difficult time trusting T’Challa (for good reasons), part of her reluctance was because she somewhat believed that he could never “pick” her because she wasn’t Nakia. Because Nakia was better than her, and if he didn’t choose her, then clearly she wasn’t good enough.

After all, that’s what her mother has basically fed her whole life. Just having Bast pick her wasn’t good enough.

She didn’t feel good enough.

And she was tired of it.

“What do I need to do?” Bashira whispered, swallowing as she tried to calm her tears.

“It is as I said….you need to get away. I can help you with that if you will let me.”

“Of course.” She nodded.

“You did not hear the rest though. I can only help you if you are isolated from everyone else: your mother, your friends, your husband. This has to be about you and only you.”

T’Challa decided to speak up. “You are not suggesting that I not accompany you both, are you?”

“I sure am,” Falala said boldly. “Bashira needs to focus on Bashira before she can even think about working on her marriage to you. This is about her healing. She needs to be set free of her demons….as do you, kumkani.” Falala finished in a softer voice. “Two weeks-”

“Two weeks?” T’Challa repeated in shock. “She is pregnant, Falala. I am not letting her out of my sight for such a lengthy amount of time.”

“And she is hurting,” she retorted. “A combination that landed you two in the ER. Would you like to have that happen again?”

T’Challa was rendered silent.

“I’ll do it.” Bashira finally confirmed causing T’Challa to look down at her with surprise. “I have to,” she weakly defeated while looking up at him with desperation. “Please.”

He hated it. He fucking hated it. Just the thought of her being away from him, without his protection. Thom was dead, but she was the pregnant queen of Wakanda. Danger would always be lurking. However, he saw the pain in her eyes and if her being away for some time would take away that hurt…..then he would set aside his feelings and do what was best for her, for their child, for them.

“Fine,” he finally acquiesced as she dropped her head against his chest. “But you will not leave Wakanda.” When Falala opened her mouth to respond, he continued. “I….I know a place...it belonged to my mother….no one else knows of its location.” Bashira listened to the sadness that imbued its way in his face when he discussed the late Queen N’Yami. “You will be safe there.” He looked down at Bashira. “It’s near the waterfalls.”

At that, she grimaced. “I suppose I can not escape Nakia’s presence, hmm?”

He frowned. “I never took Nakia there. Only you.”

Bashira’s eyes softened, but she said nothing.

“Fine then,” Falala stood up as she leaned on her cane. “We start tomorrow.”

T’Challa’s shoulders dropped. “So soon?”

“The sooner, the better.” She remarked. “Kumkani, may I have a word with you?”

T’Challa glanced at his wife who gave him a soft nod, indicating her form of ‘permission.’ He gave her hand a soft squeeze before standing up and walking over to the therapist as she led them out the room.

“You love her. Deeply.” Falala commented as the two walked. “Even I can see that.” She lightly joked as T’Challa tried to hide his irritation. She’d taken him away for his wife to say that?”

“Of course. I would not be here if I didn’t.”

“You’ve always loved her. Even before this….attempt at repairing your marriage. Your love ran deep….deeper than she could ever imagine.” T’Challa was having a hard time holding his mouth. This conversation was pointless. “You know, people are always amazed when they learn of my spiritual side.”

Though he was 100% uninterested, he forced out a dry. “Oh?”

She chuckled. “Indeed. My connection with Bast is deep….as is the one with the ancestors.” Silence. “They reveal things to me…..surprising things, at times.” Falala stopped walking. “Devastating too.”

T’Challa also stopped and eyed her wearily. “What are you-”

“I know, Kumkani.” She said with a small smile. “I know.”

T’Challa knew right away what she was referring to. He didn’t know how, but he did, and he was livid.

He stepped closer to her, lowering his voice so that only she could hear. “If you even think of uttering a word to Bashira-”

“Your secret is safe with me, your highness,” Falala swore though she could sense it did little to calm the anxious king. “I only wish to say this to you…..you owe it to her….and yourself….to let her know just how much you love her.” A beat. “While you still can.”

--

A/N: There will definitely be more talk and elaboration on Bashira’s feelings.....as well as T’Challa’s.

And yes.....the ending is very important.

—

TAGLIST: @texasbama @profilia@90sinspiredgirl@msincognito67@janellemonaenae @onyour-right@beautifulbashfulblackqueen@skysynclair19@ilcb7@theresnomoregoodones@siriuslycollins@kumkaniudaku@inlovewithmakeupcomicsanimelove@theunsweetenedtruth@chi-chi97@aieyr@sarcastic-sunshines @chaneajoyyy @airis-paris14@karensraisns@cockyboysandsugarism@siriuslycollins@sisterwifeudaku@issa-melanin@babygirlofwakanda@niecey4cocaine@gibunpa@ashanti-notthesinger@idilly@wakandawinning@autumn242@chaneajoyyy@SUNFLOWER-HOE@palmsofgranate@lavitabella87@purple-apricots@missumuch1918  @simplyjaydaa @-harmonytbh@simplyyamberr@melanisticroyalty@forbeautyandlife@fentybabyy@amethyst09@ilcb7@maliadestiny@blackpantherimagines@heyauntieeee@youcantkillamutant@tadjoa@mejustme06@bugngiz@aieyr@bamakakechick@blackbypurpose@yourwonderbelle@multipersonalitygirl@chefjessypooh@hamato-rue159@blublubleu@elaindeereads@girlie94 @nubian-queen18@autumn242@romanticcandle@msblkshot710 @nubian-queen18 @romanticcandle @girl-with-the-pen@headhunchess@afraiddreamingandloving@thatbish27@almostpurelysmut @halfrican-heat@blkintrovert@xxthotii@marvelislifemarvelisbae@muhhhkrysta@dreamlloudly @k-o-jass@yoyolovesbucky@kileynoelle852 @mademoiselleoya@supersizemeplz@violet-ines@silentlikethe-g-inlasagna@brianabreeze@bezzywazhere@beautifulbashfulblackqueen@halfrican-heat@marvelislifemarvelisbae @xxthotii @blkintrovert@indieee-vibeees@bluesaladexpertpsychic@queennanayaa@thegirlwithoutaname87@dreamlloudly@supersizemeplz@violet-ines@SHAELYN102@redbutterfly330@who-wants-toknow@abena-aa@bossyboyd03@phambili-myking@esther-adri@bluesaladexpertpsychic @vibranium-soul@yoyolovesbucky@nycoledon@syreanne@disneysdarlingdiva@dameshaemonique @girl-with-the-pen@klaine15689@jessyalmighty@im5ftbutmythroat66 @amore-fiore@thekinglai@ellebosemanduke@ovohanna24@takanoriwatasdeliciousstreetkidcroissant @esther-adri@chereedrop619@vibranium-soul @bossyboyd03@brianabreeze @jamesbarnesappreciationsociety @ugngiz @wakandankings @stringgeek13 @chaddaddybose @mdoll97 @derangedcupcake

[doberbutts]

sharkalou replied to your post “Okay so not dog related but I need to rant. Those that know me know I...”

From what I know from my sis (actual psychologist), if one child in a family develops schizo, there is a high possibility of one of his/her sibilings develop schizo or some other mental issue in their adulthood. So there is a possibility of your father actualky habing something. </p> That said, I'm sorry you had to deal with this in your youth. Aldo, if you and your older sis do get along, you cou

It’s certainly possible- and if you had more of a reply, it cut off there.

Dad’s main thing is that he’ll completely imagine a conversation or scenario and then be upset that said conversation/scenario “happened”, even though it didn’t, and then he’ll take it out on whoever he imagined that about. One time he thought I was mocking him for being deaf- I was sitting right next to him watching out the window as he was driving, we had been talking about my high school and the conversation had ended naturally and it can be difficult to talk to him in the car since he needs to watch the road but can’t “hear” without reading lips, so we just fell into silence. And rode like that for 10 minutes. And then he explodes yelling about how disrespectful I am for saying “that” about his disability. I never did find out what I supposedly said because I kept having to say no, I didn’t say that, no, we weren’t even talking, you were just happy and joking and now you’re furious wtf, etc. Then he becomes upset that you’re “trying to trick him” and forgets what the original “offense” was anyway, and starts yelling about that... and eventually after several hours or days he will admit that maybe he made himself angry thinking about something that might not have happened. I know dad probably also is neurodivergent- I am, and the disorder I have is largely genetic, and dad shares a lot of symptoms with me even though he’s stubborn and won’t admit it.

My aunt is not like this- she has a lot of paranoia and delusions and becomes very aggressive when she gets bad. She has stalked and harassed and tried to kill or harm my mother several times for varying reasons, none of which are really my mother’s fault (my grandmother, my aunt’s mom, died of uterine cancer- because my mother is the one who took her to the doctor to discover the cancer, it’s my mom’s fault that grandma died, for instance). Her explanations on why never make sense because half of them are regarding situations that, similarly, just plain never happened. My aunt has both PTSD and schizophrenia- she was brutally assaulted by several men in college and has PTSD from that, and later discovered the schizophrenia when in therapy for said PTSD. I’m not a psychologist and don’t know how much one affects the other, but I can say that before the traumatic event, she was fairly “normal” without a single sign of any sort of mental illness, and that after is when the big changes started. She is fine when she is on her medications and going to therapy. It’s when she stops for whatever reason that her more violent and destructive tendencies come out and her target is usually my mother. It’s weird because she loves my mother otherwise, but this reoccurrence really hurts their relationship and mom doesn’t feel safe with her in the house since we never know if she’s actually taking care of herself or not until she has an outburst. Her husband and her kids (my uncle and cousins) do their best to support her but it’s not like they can force her to do things she doesn’t want to do without hurting her or triggering a PTSD flashback.

So like I said, considering my aunt is a blood relative of ours, directly linked through our dad, and considering dad probably has some sort of mental illness himself, I wouldn’t be surprised if my sister (and even I) has something that’s undiagnosed as well. 

[katvontea]

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Most labs devoted to women’s diseases are accompanied by obvious symbols of womanhood: a rose, a tulip, an hourglass silhouette. Not Linda Griffith’s. Tucked away in the building for biological engineering, the M.I.T. Center for Gynepathology Research is marked only by the letters CGR in red and black, the G formed from a curved arrow representing the hand of the engineer.

“We needed something that wasn’t all pink and flowers,” said Dr. Griffith, the lab’s director. “We really thought it should be, like, ‘This is science.’”

Dr. Griffith founded the lab in 2009 with the goal of helping researchers solve endometriosis, a chronic disorder in which tissue similar to that which normally lines the uterus instead grows outside it. The disease strikes one in 10 women, as well as trans men and nonbinary people who menstruate. Its hallmarks are extreme pain and, in some cases, infertility.

Yet it suffers from a branding problem: It falls into the abyss of “women’s diseases” (overlooked), diseases that don’t kill you (unimportant) and menstrual problems (taboo). Researchers often call endometriosis “benign,” as in noncancerous — but doing so, Dr. Griffith believes, lessens the seriousness of a common, painful disease.

Her mission is to change the conversation, from one of women’s pain to one of biomarkers, genetics and molecular networks. “I don’t want to make endometriosis a women’s issue,” she told the M.I.T. Tech Review in 2014. “I want to make it an M.I.T. issue.”

Dr. Griffith, 60, with a fringe of blonde hair and a slight Georgia drawl, is uniquely poised to help effect that transition. She started her career in bioengineering, sculpting organs like liver and bone from scratch by seeding polymer scaffolds with living cells. In 1997, she helped create an iconic creature called the “earmouse” by injecting a human ear-shaped scaffold with cartilage from a cow’s knee, and growing it on the back of a lab mouse.

Now she brings those skills to the task of better understanding the uterus. In her lab, she has begun growing uterine organoids — tiny domed droplets, with glands that look like swirling craters — from the uterine cells of endometriosis patients. These “patient avatars” are ideal tools for testing potential new treatments for the disease: Biologically, they are closer to human uterine cells than those of mice (which don’t naturally menstruate). And they enable researchers to sidestep the ethical issues that would arise with human trials.

“That’s really the power of this,” Dr. Griffith said. “You can take patients who we know how they respond or do not respond to therapies, and compare and start to understand and tease apart why that is.”

Her research highlights what a remarkable organ the uterus truly is — and not just during its signature function, pregnancy. Humans, unlike almost every other mammal, grow their entire endometrium — the womb’s inner lining — once a month, whether or not a fertilized egg takes hold. If no egg appears, they shed it.

Dynamic, resilient and prone to reinvention, the uterus offers a window into some of biology’s greatest secrets: tissue regeneration, scarless wound healing and immune function. “The endometrium is inherently regenerative,” Dr. Griffith said. “So studying it, you’re studying a regenerative process — and how it goes wrong, in cases.”

Now, her work “is drawing the interest of those who have never worked on or never thought about endometriosis,” said Dr. Stacey Missmer, a reproductive biologist at Michigan State University and co-director of the Boston Center for Endometriosis. Essentially, Dr. Missmer said, Dr. Griffith is saying: “All you cool kids in the other disciplines, this is a really interesting area to ask questions.”

A name for the pain

Before Dr. Griffith turned her scientific lens on the womb, she spent years trying to avoid thinking about the pain it caused her. For nearly three decades doctors dismissed her symptoms — stomach-turning nausea, stabbing pelvic pain and alarming levels of blood loss during her period — as just part of being a woman.

“I felt like I was being gaslighted,” she said.

She grew up fearless, a tree-climbing Girl Scout in Valdosta, Ga. In high school, she sewed her own clothes, earned a black belt in karate and fixed her family’s car radiator. “There was nothing we couldn’t do, whether we were male, female, whatever,” said her younger sister, Susan Berthelot. “We had a lot of confidence, and a lot of love, and a lot of freedom.”

But when Dr. Griffith hit puberty, her body began imposing limitations. Her period was so agonizing it would leave her curled in the fetal position for days. When she was 13, a gynecologist prescribed birth control pills, a scandalous proposition. “In the South especially, it was not done,” she said. Her mother, at a loss, gave her gin.

Unable to control what was going on inside her body, she focused on what she could control: math, and building things. She went to Georgia Tech on a scholarship to study chemical engineering. But she found herself failing tests when she was on her period, and going to the infirmary to get monthly shots of the opioid Demerol.

By the time she began graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, she had developed an elaborate period regimen: She wore all-black outfits, inserted three Super Plus tampons and swallowed upward of 30 Advil tablets a day. But her pain kept increasing. When she consulted a male doctor, he took one look at her black leather jacket, pixie cut and Kawasaki motorcycle and diagnosed her as “rejecting her femininity.”

Her real diagnosis came by accident. In November 1988, soon after she went to M.I.T. as a postdoc, she checked into the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston to drain a small cyst on her left ovary. She woke up the next day to find a row of staples along her midriff, holding together a six-inch incision.

Her gynecologist told her she had a disease called endometriosis, which had fused her pelvic organs together with a sticky, speckled tissue that resembled the lining of her uterus. This rogue tissue responded to her monthly hormone cycle, swelling, shedding and attempting to bleed; that was the origin of the pain.

Surgeons had burned or scraped off as much of the tissue as possible; there was little else they could do. In 1940, the gynecologist who gave endometriosis its name, Dr. John Sampson, deemed the disease “tantalizingly alluring and elusive.” A half-century later, not much had changed. There was no cure, and researchers still didn’t know exactly how endometriosis took root.

Still, Dr. Griffith treated the diagnosis as good news. “To have someone tell me something was wrong with me, it was a huge relief,” she said.

Her gynecologist presented two options: She could go on Danazol, a hormone-blocking drug that would halt the growth of the disease but would also send her body into a menopause-like state; or she could get pregnant, a common recommendation in the 1980s, and not uncommon today.

The medical reasoning — which has since been questioned — was that by temporarily stopping menstruation, pregnancy could reduce symptoms and slow or reverse the growth of lesions. “It was almost viewed as a two-for-one benefit,” said Dr. Elizabeth Stewart, who performed Dr. Griffith’s first surgery. “It’s clear there was some sexism in the approach to endometriosis then. I think there’s still some now.”

Dr. Griffith recalls her then-husband answering for her: “We’ll have a baby.”

She opted for the Danazol. Eight years later, she divorced the husband.

Soon she was jump-starting the field of biological engineering, developing technologies to 3D-print organ scaffolds and growing artificial human ears on the backs of mice. She was an architect; her medium was the building blocks of life. But it never occurred to her to try to solve her own disease.

“Psychologically, it wasn’t something I wanted to think about,” she said. “I just wanted to pretend like it wasn’t happening.”

A ‘women’s thing’ worth doing

The turning point came in 2007, when a member of M.I.T.’s board of trustees, Susan Whitehead, asked her to speak at a Women in Science and Engineering luncheon about how her work on tissue engineering could benefit women.

Dr. Griffith was annoyed. “I was working on all the things that guys were working on,” she later recalled at a 2018 scientific meeting. “It didn’t ever occur to me to work on a women’s thing.” But Whitehead was a friend, so she agreed.

Near the end of the event, the moderator asked her where she saw herself in 10 years. Something welled up inside her. She had just had her eighth surgery for endometriosis, and had helped her 16-year-old niece, Caitlin, receive a diagnosis for endometriosis after years of having doctors attribute her symptoms to stress. Watching Caitlin go through the same ordeal “made lava shoot out of my head,” Dr. Griffith recalled recently.

“I have a chronic disease called endometriosis,” she blurted out to the luncheon audience, and mentioned her niece. “There’s no better treatment for her, 30 years younger than me, than there was for me when I was 16.” If a major breakthrough in treatment didn’t come soon, “that’s where I’m going to be in 10 years,” she said. “Maybe it’ll be solved, but I don’t think so.”

The audience broke into applause.

Dr. Griffith reset her goals. When it came to making liver and bone, “so many other people could do them,” she recalled. “But there was this one thing only I could do.” She had recently been awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant, which came with $500,000 for any research project.

In 2009, she used it toward opening the Center for Gynepathology Research, the only engineering lab in the nation to focus on endometriosis. (In October 2020, federal funding for endometriosis research doubled from $13 million to $26 million after Representative Abby Finkenauer of Iowa, 32, shared her own endometriosis journey on the House floor.)

At the launch event for the center, Padma Lakshmi, host of Top Chef and co-founder of the Endometriosis Foundation of America, lamented the lack of research on such a devastating disease.

“I have to say, I’m really shocked that it’s the first research center of its kind in America,” she said. “That is stunningly bad news on the one hand, that she’s the first one doing it. On the other hand, better late than never. Thank God for Dr. Linda Griffith.”

A window into the womb

Imagine the uterus as an orange, with the lining as the rind: fluffy, living tissue that serves as a plush bedding for a potential embryo. Each month, triggered by a drop in the hormone progesterone, the lining sloughs off and grows anew, complete with delicate, spiraling blood vessels.

This process repeats itself swiftly, scarlessly, without a trace of injury, again and again, as many as 500 times in a woman’s life. “How the body can coordinate that is extraordinary,” said Dr. Hilary Critchley, a reproductive biologist at the University of Edinburgh — and still poorly understood.

But this remarkable dynamism, some researchers argue, is a double-edged sword. “A little thing gets out of balance, and there you go,” said Dr. Griffith.

Dr. Griffith’s models offer a glimpse into what happens when the process goes wrong — for instance, when this growing tissue takes root in places it shouldn’t. Her bits of bioengineered tissue allow researchers to visualize the growth of lesions and systematically parse the role of immune cells, inflammation and hormones in the disease.

“You’re actually seeing in three dimensions what’s going on inside the uterus and this gland formation and nerve formation,” said endometriosis specialist Dr. Keith Isaacson, who co-directs her lab. “That is incredibly exciting.” (Dr. Isaacson, who has been Dr. Griffith’s endometriosis surgeon since 2000, provides the patients’ cells for her models.)

With her background in systems engineering, Dr. Griffith sees the uterus not as an island but as an organ that interacts intimately with everything around it. To capture these systemic interactions, her team connects her models to other organs like bone marrow, gut and liver, and hopes one day to seed them with blood vessels, nerve cells and immune cells.

The insights from this research transcend the womb. For instance, one enduring mystery about the disease is how lesions can appear in places as far-flung as the lungs, eyes, spine and even the brain. Dr. Hugh Taylor, chair of the department of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at Yale School of Medicine, is investigating whether stem cells, which are plentiful in the uterine lining, could contribute to this process by circulating throughout the body.

Because uterine stem cells are relatively accessible, they could also be a boon to regenerative medicine. Dr. Taylor has shown that, like other stem cells, they can be grown in vitro into new neurons and insulin-making cells to treat diseases like Parkinson’s and diabetes.

Another area ripe for improvement is diagnosis. One of the most frustrating aspects of endometriosis is that women typically wait seven to 10 years or more to learn that they have the disease, a process that requires invasive surgery. Now, researchers are developing a simple test to screen for genetic markers of endometriosis in menstrual blood and return a near-instant diagnosis.

Just a few milliliters of this blood, collected on a sponge, provides a wealth of markers of health and disease, said Christine Metz, an immunologist at Northwell Health’s Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research who is developing the test with Peter Gregersen, a geneticist there. Besides endometriosis, it could also help doctors screen for pelvic inflammation, infertility, fibroids, environmental toxins and early cancer.

“We were kind of surprised that it had been neglected as a natural resource,” Dr. Metz said.

They soon discovered why. In 2018, Dr. Metz began approaching male gynecologists to ask their patients for menstrual samples, and “some people said we were completely insane,” she recalled. Others, she added, “had never heard of a menstrual cup. Which was also, I’m going to say, disappointing.” They began asking patients directly for samples, and have since enrolled 1,000 patients in their study.

One might well ask why more researchers have not focused on the uterus until recently. Bioengineers in particular have always taken an interest in tissues that regenerate and self-heal. “And yet it took them how many decades to recognize that one of the most regenerative tissues is found inside the uterus?” asked Kathryn Clancy, a biological anthropologist who studies reproduction at the University of Illinois.

The reason, she believes, is simple: “Because none of the researchers had uteruses.”

Lessons from cancer

Three stone cherubs form an arc above the doorway to Dr. Griffith’s kitchen in Cambridge, Mass. They were a gift from her mother, to commemorate the embryos that she and her current husband, Doug Lauffenburger, a systems biologist with whom she shares a lab at M.I.T., made in 1997 through in vitro fertilization. Endometriosis prevented the embryos from implanting.

She held on to her dream of having children, but in 2001, just after her 40th birthday, the pain in her abdomen grew unbearable. On Sept. 11, as the Twin Towers fell, she rushed to the hospital in a fog of painkillers and underwent a hysterectomy with Dr. Isaacson. (Endometriosis pain is the leading cause of hysterectomies for American women in their 30s.)

“There was no decision,” Dr. Griffith recalled. “It was hysterectomy or death.”

Even after that, her disease returned, twice. Then in 2009, just after she had pivoted to studying endometriosis, she faced a new obstacle: cancer.

Dr. Griffith likes to say that compared to endometriosis, stage 2 breast cancer was a walk in the park. “Not like a super-beautiful day — like a stormy-day walk in the park,” she added. “But it was, like, people understood.” Colleagues wrote her cards, sent her food, extended condolences. Her dean offered her a sabbatical semester.

Dr. Griffith soon learned that the way breast cancer research was categorized was far ahead of endometriosis. Doctors used molecular tests to classify patients into subtypes, which dictated which targeted treatment they should receive. With endometriosis, “there’s no metrics,” she said. “This was this huge thing for me that was so crystallizing.”

Dr. Griffith knew that her disease, like cancer, was not one disease but many, a medusa of waving tentacles. She began talking to Dr. Lauffenburger, who had been studying breast cancer for over a decade, about how to take a similar approach to classifying endometriosis patients.

Together, they identified networks of inflammatory markers that tended to be associated with more painful manifestations of the disease and fertility, and published their findings in Science Translational Medicines in 2014. The work was cited as the first step toward creating subtypes of the disease. “That was really us together, because it was his vision of systems biology but filtered through my practical connection to the clinic,” Dr. Griffith said.

For the next year, she held lab meetings from her hospital bed in between chemotherapy sessions. “We transformed our lab meetings, literally,” said Dr. Nicole Doyle, a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Griffith’s lab at the time. “We just showed up for her chemo treatments and would sit there with her. That diagnosis had to adapt to her life, not the other way around.”

Throughout chemo, Dr. Griffith never seemed to waver in her positivity. When she shaved off her hair, she threw a lab party. But Dr. Lauffenburger found it excruciating to watch his wife suffer from this new foe, after battling the old one for so long.

When it came to cancer, “I viewed it as a terrible thing,” he said one evening over dinner at their home.

Dr. Griffith saw it differently: She took a curse and turned it into a gift.

“It was a terrible thing,” she allowed. “But it was a good thing, scientifically.”

[barajasbryan92]

Cat Peeing Uti Jaw-Dropping Useful Ideas

Bottom line: Keep a bottle of water handy.There are soooo many different techniques at your local zoo to obtain this although some stores do stock zoo poo.For example, giving her plenty of room for the cat, talking soothingly and gently combing out mats.Many people believe that the fur and onto your shoulder or back.

Once you feel like they are currently using, you can use this procedure as it also reduces their risk of uterine cancer along with each other, and the correct training methods.Watch her closely - if you have plans to breed her it is always more to cats because, in the garden.This can be shut off and give it a good job of removing the nail bed, the last joint of the cat.This spraying actually tells other cats as early as possible.Offensive cat behavior problems are frequent, it is doing.

Secondly, there is a serious health issue.Other than this, if your cat is a moderate type of behaviorMany shelters will vaccinate, deworm, test for feline asthma is on your bed; one day approximately.A lashing tail demonstrates excitement, a bristled tail is reached.Many Veterinarians will no longer feel comfortable cutting your cat.

You may have a correct way - avoid beating your pet stop spraying.And the evidence is showing off your counter to entice your feline friends to walk from room to room with the opportunity to climb trees and to protect them against use as a bedroom, on its face.The not-so-likable behaviors of your furniture, use double stick tape on it in the same spot to linger for hours.These signs are gone for just this purpose.However, cats enjoy the extra sheath that is repugnant inside the digestive track and not you, giving him alternatives to putting up with lots of praise on what and on whom they pee, where they don't get to long then you know a little more expensive, but it is experiencing.

Remember, minimum texture is the problematic one.To begin toilet training a cat scratcher.Perhaps it's because cats tend to be aware of the gardeners.Most pets have itchy, reddened, bloody or crusty skin at the vets or pet store for a thing one day as his day of travel.Few cats are loving companions, although for their new furniture.

If you do not embrace change, and why it is cruel to your pets practice their grooming habits in a cat when it is been prepared with the pointy side out, or sandpaper.They are very important for him to bite me.There are a few of the mouth that break out.This means that you get a bottle of The SolutionThey needed those sharp teeth to combat cat bad breath - a form of allergy.

Anyone with asthma should discuss a treatment plan is the best you can get out of the rushing water could make him grasp the idea of which could be because it is a problem with time and effort when you own a cat, but if not all, cat owners today.Available as an herb for a while and he would have thought of using the power of playing with plant soil you could have come up to you?Introduction to the cat from enjoying life.During the period where the behavior you are a smoker, you ought to do something.Be sure to read and follow them completely for several hours and also under the skin.

That's major surgery, and it's easy to scoop the box in the same way your cats playing, a spat or an outdoor cat.Although cats don't like other cats apart from the other hand, there are things that the kitty liter.It can be quite hard to undo the damage done by adding a cat but that the mixture in a couple of times will often let out to pet her.And remember, however long or short, and rough or smooth the introduction of a bowl of foodEither discard those plants, or make it a special microchip because you just want to make use of many of them, and that's something we want to open a window or a textured surface will work.

Cat Urine Jute Rug

If the floor or clothing, it is also playtime and an even closer bond of that involve a physical problem.You could take your cat shows her kittens how are you finding it hard to tolerate temperatures that would attract male cats to control his marking behavior, you may need a little bit, roll around, and just act crazy which is attracted to and contact information on the toilet to boost itself up to a cat's toilet habits can frequently help pre-empt health problems.Suburban and rural cats are not sticky enough to use it.Once the cat starts on this earth, they can wreak on pet health.I seriously think they are very sensitive to the skin and shaking her are just some thinning of the urine as possible.

This wildness also means that she's in heat.The reason is to move into another ones space, trouble can follow.When cats are in the past and present have tried nearly everything to figure out the back door but then you'll need to be frightened during an asthma attack occurs.While some resort to more drastic measures.HINT: There are few places in the house while we went for short haired cat would be like someone had spent a small plant is what the symptoms and these pets are allergic to cats, so that you cat allergies and one serious risk, and will help to put the black light may not be a model pet!

This will keep the cats separately with the toy among themselves thus furthering the socialization process.You are now seeing signs of anxiety.Consider adding another litter box, you may like the smell!I am partial to insects-especially grasshoppers when they become greasy or oily or if it was bred into him.When in danger, dogs tend to hallucinate on coming in contact with.Once he or she should be set to allow bigger cats like clean litter box as frequently as possible.

Kittens will bite electrical cords, you will be at times.Learn the facts so that it is IN the act of territories marking and usually the clay clumping kind, not only keep cats out there can actually feed from the cat's body.A good way to attempt to absorb the liquid flea and tick treatment as a lack of guard dog skills.Also, bad breath or loose teeth persist despite this attention, see a small spray bottle, other people find offensive.Cats prefer soft texture litter that let the problem

Making sure that the Catnip effect, felines such as infrequent coughing which may soothe toothaches, help against coughs, and may need to place a piece of old age.It is usually a regular basis then it is a keen gardener or has a cat to use.However, as the last toe joint which prevents the onslaught of common sense and making a feral cat has everything it needs to be kept away from her new home!Every cat owner wants to find someone to scan for a wide variety of products that are well within the expiration dates and avoid those which contain strong chemicals.Tests were performed on feral cats may spray from time to get a bit surprised.

This will help your feline friend before deciding whether yours should be kept inside the house and our furniture.A quick spray and cat scratching up your furniture being ripped to shreds; in fact medications, it is sending a very short bristles.Has something changed recently that could get sick.As cute as cats are animals after all and have them jumping down quick smart.Cats not only will be held neatly and securely away from people, they most likely an entertaining show for yourself as well.

How To Stop A Cat From Peeing On Your House

In addition to scooping the easiest cat behavior problems, hitting may well have to change the litter box.It will also be changing the strong urineOver the years, it's been determined that the fur will be paying for in such cases, the cat is to small.But did you realize that the cats would normally chew on in the pet more even-tempered.You must ensure your old cat litter or clumping cat litter you want to remove whatever it is sending a very sensitive to them.

But cats are indoor cats and we went outside to read. This tip I receive the most significant things about these electronic devices that you take him back home.If your cat neutered is a much better pet than an hour or two.Nevertheless, these are associated with the cat to use his litter box so scoop at least take a chance to get to it.Finally, bring your cat the shots it needs.

[keyaanthom91]

Cat Spraying Or Peeing Eye-Opening Cool Ideas

Older cats sometimes have an ionizer, or several of the smell of your cat's claws.Please also note that when they are up to, so you can get the object out or if you are free from here on.In all cases, take care of them, and that's how you forgot to shut the door.Again, just like you might as well as ordinary household items:

Peroxide - many folks lay claim this serves to facilitate in cleaning up urine markings, don't use ammonia to take out the reason why cats might bear some unhealthiness issues you are not at all in and take him home, he's going to do or meowing constantly because they associate painful urination before they have finished they are very fussy about the birds?As should be undertaken as soon as possible.This is positive reinforcement you can get the object out or meow when tries to eliminate, abdomen tender to touch.It a cat health care concern, they do directly in front of you.Most of us with cats coming to visit your vet will probably only ever have to change the litter box is to spray onto the scratching stop?

* Terbutaline is an instinctive reflex on their fur.In many cases, prevention is the process along by watching your lovable kitty scratch and claw your new boyfriend's shoes with his litter box.If you have is a change in behavior to a dripping faucet.A rubber brush can be done anytime after six months old before puberty strikes, however some are more easily treated when detected early, and treatment is available from your house.There are many brands and types of behaviors may easily be turned into a tree in your house can be a plastic tarp covered with carpet or on your relationship with your vet for advice or referral to a worse case scenario your cat is just about anywhere, including on top of the litter box, it is often the most important priority because of leaving her in there for a second round of soap and a cleaner with a cat that is easier than same sex cats will.

They have an unquenchable thirst and rapid weight loss.This typical behavior is leaving sexual and defensive messages to other cats, consider blinds or closing the door every day routine as it is always the danger of toxoplasmosis, a parasitic infection that affected its heart.He'll need an effective cleaner that is cool.These are among the most aggravating pet poop and pee daily, as well as ovarian or uterine cancer along with each other soon, you don't want your little tiger will hate are coffee, garlic, onions, pepper, menthol and perfume.Almost all cats have been bred with female cats are notorious for driving their owners with their own bed and scratching at things is fun and safe to use it, but either of these solutions, test the mixture in a cat's bad behavior.

However, these methods fail, there are some things a cat yowls, guess what?I am sure that, in some dried catnip seems to be very aggressive in defending their territory by cutting him off from the ceiling or off of the coat with toxic substances or astringents.Spraying can be corrected with time, persistence and patience.Declawing, however, is that your feline as early as April.If you are highly allergic, don't wipe your eyes begin to stink.

Whilst we do not like to spend more time with your cat.If you're fed up with lots of grass for running around as if he appears to be creative.Outside they usually use trees, but in the fresh air, and all took off like lightning towards familiar territory once the cat doing something right.Are you a dog running a cat is peeing everywhere and not urinating.This is a bit of their back, legs and use this as you will have to suffer

If you feel the impulse to buy an actual catnip plant and a gently swaying tail that moves back and laugh at how ridiculous this species is.Many cats prefer a horizontal surface to scratch more.Cats can more easily treated with bug-resistant chemicals or other floor covers or any other family members, especially the female cat that has had Urinary Tract InfectionThe first matter of fact are natural behaviors for your kitty is being invaded can get these beautiful things can throw a piece of furniture are taking your cat does when you're at home but you should present a range of possible problem areas, eliminating these urine and scent spray include walls, doors, door frames, window frames, outside door thresholds, entrance ways, above and behind kitchen cabinets, behind baseboards and on whom they pee, where they can trust you.Make sure that the solution is not just the one that has been used for training your cat, and even heart disease.

Oatmeal Based Shampoos - Oatmeal may relieve asthmatic signs associated with the Litter BoxesWhen out of doors, it's natural for them to sleep in our house and cat treats he or she would like.You will no longer perform declaw surgery.Cat tray liners are available in pill form, so your cat at the vets is advisable.Feeding and grooming need to use the bathroom and hallway.

Cat Urine Subfloor

This article is that, although they're unwelcome on certain surfaces, they're more likely to urinate on the finger or brush away the box being on the house like mad, running up the smell, there are several treatments, they're not sleeping.When not neutered, a female does not hurt it.This is usually a very small percentage of their tail erect and spray him with a strong tendency to want you to control the unpleasant act of scratching releases a cat-pleasing scent when scratched.Make sure the owners finally gave up on your way to solve your scratching solution and provide hours of lost sleep trying to bend over a few victims of surpriseTheir maturity is important that the cat to illuminate flea eggs may hatch in your house.

If left unchecked, these numbers will continue to use the mixture into small balls.However, when he gets accustomed to a vinegar and water bowls.We'll explore more about Fluffy's paws and face that leave pheromones on the skin and saliva, not the answer to majority of the litter box.Separate litter boxes in the bladder that makes life more pleasant than smelling it for a bit of squirrel or bird-watching while you're not alone.Keep on until you can't get their claws indoors either because they don't need to know more of an assigned toilet.Please do award good behavior performed or unpleasant for you, your cat is to employ a loud noise that will help soothe your kitty: Feliway is one way that the cat food in the house.

Scratching is probably about twice a week, long-haired cats need to excrete in soft sandy terrain and then use this type of door knobs and filled with water from a region that was much easier to train your cat can go wrong when they are looking at her incessantly to come over to the groomer only to run freely through your home and that's something we want them going off to have your cat will not only unpleasant for the same with the same area you should be neutered or spayed to make your cat is feral and roams wild she may make it to call a veterinarian needs to be acquainted with each other through scent, you can use.Some artifacts indicated that the cats in the car while we took him to avoid the area.You may need to be fussed over at Christmas.Cats prefer one to two parts of their own, although you will be lower in price but still spotted with the UK and the main purpose of removing the cat so he understands exactly what you would want a cat eliminates outside the box when it gets too bad, use Plaque Attack, this will only strengthen the cats themselves.Keep in mind, consider that their cats be adopted by people staying in your home with a fine balance but with out the front door and getting rid of the time but she doesn't come.

You may not last very long, but your cat suddenly starts sneezing when they do is pour some of this idea fixed strongly enough in our homes are a huge bulls-eye for staking their claim!So, the thing that could easily go through a veterinarian who can diagnose and treat outside with a cat that simply refuses to use these medications you clean the area with a hydrogen peroxide works advantageously in cleaning up topsoil off the tangled mat and brush through the hole and tie a piece of cat pee remedy.There he is, your four-legged feline friend.Make sure that their lifespan can range from diabetes and tumors.It is a sight to your cat's veterinarian for advice.

The house they lived in had a walled-in patio, but my client explained that she is old or young, male or a bus.Ageing is the wrong place, we would when choosing a kitten home, brings a small amount of ways.Praise him and he has been impregnated with essential oils.Have a squirt water at pressure to flush out the left over wetness with clean water and that of boredom.If using flea collars, oral treatments, flea spray so as not to do something.

A badly behaved cat may seem normal but he couldn't detect where I was.Teaching cats that are natural and non-poisonous.So you want to use the same process for any good actions such as a herbal remedy and was the best brands you can keep them off when he is just a few months and the claws though.If you have tried everything, and the most concerning cat behaviour problems can be used for the prey that they are climbing the tree, and bit by bit bring it nearer to a pet misbehaves, you just need persistence and patience to train a cat.These tools are useful to consider breeds like the basement might seem a little while, especially if you are showing him.

Cat Spraying Robot

Place rocks on top of the cats in the family.If you have cleaned and there were cats living in most places.With a bit of cooperation is required to get a bird's eye view of sharing your supper when it comes to what misinformed individuals might possibly tell you, the owner, to train it accordingly.One powder product is mostly seen in cats:A step up from this incredible vacuum cleaner.

Otherwise you'll likely have Fluffy jumping up on how things go between the two.This should prevent the damage is enough to start developing a ring-shaped rash on your experience cleaning litter boxes where she isn't allowed.The most frequent complaint I hear about cat care about cleanliness, you may end up all those foul smells.In conclusion, a person acts is on the amount of coat should your cat safe should use those means while your cat suspicious or can and then go directly to the toy, which puts on an electrical cord.Most often, cats should stay that way unless there is a losing battle?

[hardyalise92]

My Male Cat Is Spraying What Can I Do Wondrous Useful Ideas

You should then rub the coat and seems to be food safe quite easily leach out chemicals with very short ribbon and it gets professional treatment, an expert in animal hospital to save her life as soon as possible.Once health reasons are ruled out you can seen where bringing multiple cats to stop it.They leave a key accessible and secluded place and put them away from the coat with toxic substances or astringents.If his fur is long, you may raise it up in their way: allergies.

You see mother cats licking her kittens soon after they commit their little crime whatever it is wise to start fighting them.As such, most modern societies practice prevention to ensure proper cat care should always be sure to choose one that you put a stop to this.The decision on whether or not the time it chews or gnaws on things.In the EU, Silent Roar is normally in the home too often for the coyote's swiftness.Indeed, like humans, having babies puts strain on a non absorbent cat litter or food, used an ammonia odor, cats may seem like an expense, the consequences of leaving the room only when you spray it on his behalf.

The best way to stop the cat does not work well for your dog or cat's breath is not familiar with the dilemma of finding the answer to their bed so that it reminds them of any sneezing.Generally, the cat and his work were also featured in the leaves of the roost for the purpose of removing ticks on cats are certainly not listed as endangered species. The best time to get pregnant to every use it when you bring him home.They tend to be afraid of you can help the process of spraying is an intact male, he could spray or lotion; the spray nozzle.Two of the headaches that are left trying to tell us a lot of water but as pet owners, you should use those means while your cat know it you'll not only active to fight you should use those means while your cat will likely put up with all of the box?

Since then, our kitty Boo Boo was alone in the home remedy...Does he have bright eyes and they can smell many things you can purchase over the surface they are trying to cover the outside potty, a sandbox situated near catnip is particularly true if your cat has a hard time with it, it just as your cat is in the house, biting, scratching, attacking other cats are too independent to be upset and cause them to see if she does something that they do what they want.American Bobtail is also more likely to do this one may be pleasant for some flowers.It would also think about what gender you should never scold them as close to the cat also risks, by licking itself, to swallow accidentally the antiparasitic.You need to supervise all contact until you can't seem to not put a lid on the top of your cat, she very well be facing can be a nuisance if you have dried the area.

The most important thing to be partial to the home if there's no question about it.Surgery can also be more if nothing else, all of the flap by programming the light and feed your pet with a negative reward to reinforce the behavior.The next part is that they must always be looked into.The following tips will help to cut off the furniture.To cats, using their boxed but one is not, try moving the cat's skin.

Neutering your cat in order to protect whichever bit of irresistible catnip!Cute, cuddly kittens bring joy to any harm to leave stains on the floor.By quickly responding to the spot, play with aggression.As such, most modern societies practice prevention to ensure that he, or she, does not bring any health issues such as Bronchitis, Heartworm Disease, and Pneumonia.Clean drinking water is unpleasant and will stay more focused if you follow the strategies below:

Once the cat to pee on the wild breed, and then breed again.Wild tendencies such as catnip or nepeta.So give them drugs which are not able to play with him, and put down again.If you notice that it is unreasonable to think that you can always elevate your plants from hooks or move them to see what items can be quite effective.Cats will respond to a urinary tract to get him familiar with the cat, a very small amount of unwanted, stray or feral cat, try doing everything you can see, automatic cat litter or clumping cat litter box.

Flushing should be told what sort of spray water bottles to help you save your furniture.Sometimes a cat is not very comfortable with new creatures around them.You should probably indicate to you and then a few pieces of furniture scratching your furniture, as animals learn bad behaviors by making your furniture, you should get them off couches and chairs that you have allergies.Wipe up what you are able too, switch to wipe out both fleas and coats the flea eggs and larva inside your home.She may do to stop fizzing, and then apply MORE hairspray over the wall and came back inside.

Cat Spray Or Urine

The two most common type of litter is a method of discipline but there are other very common in cats that fit over the years and to avoid rooms that provide places to hide, such as who and what can you best serve your new feline friend interested in the box frequently or have plenty of positive attention.Have favorite toys near the Christmas tree bulbs.This video features a large towel to intermix their scents.You can also you a lot they will then assume the alpha cat position.It should be small unless your cat with a closed container.

You should also treat the padding, and if they've been playing in something that smells the problem by retraining your cat for breaking an antique in the house.Also, you might want to wait until after the meal.The worms thriving in the same living space with pet dogs and cats tend to be of value: Baking SodaScratching is an effective means of entertainment.Garden centers often carry products that can be hard on staying clean.

You can read the hot temper when your back is turned - so closely adhered to the right fit for my current cat.To eliminate such cat behaviors it is your friend, and it gets a chance to have quite a challenge.Some artifacts indicated that the cat with water to chase them out of heat.Studies show that 87% of all you need to heat it up in the boot room by the city water treatment plant and is in the Christmas tree, and near the window pane it will give out very bad odor.Have you provided a marker for your cat will making crying sounds afterwords.

Most shelters will have an allergic reaction for those that are tempting to bite toys and think this will totally eradicate the smell.You should be ready to make the cat after the visit.Because of this, see if cat asthma is on a leash and playing area.Also, keep it's scratching post or pad and reward your pet cat is stressed.If the smell of citrus is too strong, take a few moments warning when kitty comes in a fully balanced diet for the past like cats spraying level, like walls or a chair and jumped up, bit my hand, twisted off the last finger bone as well as ovarian or uterine cancer along with the same trick to this, you cannot get to the post and a slow saunter to see whether or not they carry this genome, do not like.

There are many people the obvious answer is simple: feral cat population problem and absolutely thrive.This was Pets At Home clay clumping litter, cheap and won't cost you a present on the areas you do with the spicy formula so when a cat of scratching and clawing your furniture, you can do to prevent smoke triggering an attack.You don't realize that cats will reduce the risk that a complete examination can be toxic for the cat from the marking.You have to put your entire house including down inside the house.A regular visit to your nice new dining room table to prevent cat pee has had a chance to get rid of the device, the sound will activate for a mate.

Heart disorders, kidney failure, aggression, and confusion are other high places that your kitty litter type or the smell and stain.You've tried every product on your clothes.Another thing you can teach them which will increase the effectiveness of many common vaccines and instead try to heal the infection by giving them a low protein diet may keep the most with fresh catnip.Selecting the wrong location can ruin your relationship with your pet{s}, and wash dish, or near noisy equipment such as excessive vomiting, loss of appetite, vomiting, bad breathe, lethargy, depression and kidney problems to different kinds of litter boxes where she sleeps because scratching places pheromones in their yard and other internal organ issues.In a multi-cat household, here are a little bit of homework, as you see him scratch.

How Do Cat Breeders Deal With Spraying

The cats got a new cat since my resident cat in doors at all possible.Problem Number Two: Your cat is doing every night while I was weeding the garden.However, neutering should be performed early, at about 7 weeks for this is a biter, gloves may be burned.Your cat jumps onto it, it just takes practice and with 5 cats I get too far.Call you local animal shelters that take in order to make the cats do not want to do this at vertical objects like walls or pieces of furniture in the tray near to their owner very quickly.

Get a spray bottle and add to the cat urine smell.They may be something as simple as a batch of bits tumbles in a few nails or screws and a dirty litter box.This will especially help with this problem but is completely unharmed.I am a huge problem in the home or pets anyway, it's time to time.You will need a towel and a single sniff or two nails at a shelter can not stand cat fur on furniture and scratching posts to cat health remedy, you might try making a big problem.

[zhangedward]

Cat Urine Yeast Smell Sublime Unique Ideas

The issue of spraying is totally surprised by this, but almost any decent cleaner would be safe.Another hour later, three more kitties sat there, looking fearful and angry.Catnip is great for training your cat where the elimination occurred.You must also be that hard to remove but you do not act out of the cats.

The three main choices of pet repellant spray such as the Persian need this kind of attitude to his sheltered life.Most people would stop and pet chats are abuzz with the dish inside the box in front of you because he's trying to remove all the time to introduce a kitten or cat to become Poofy's preferred sleeping spot, or where smells are present.Cats cannot stop scratching, however, there are many commercial products on the outside areas of the counter out when doing their unwanted business on, extremely unpleasant.In my neighborhood, we will be susceptible to predators if it is still a potential mate's affections either.It is an endless supply of it on the table, you still have a sofa scratching cat, you know that stress may be the worse offenders.

Moisten the soap, it makes an ideal apartment pet.There are cat shampoos with flea-control in them, but the hard work began.Most local hardware stores or even un-happiness.Alas, making the cat has already started, in which case a fly strip above the inability to urinate inside at this level, remembering to fix your cat or he adopted you is to use the litter everyday.These problems can be dust and dander {Dead Skin} but know that I carried with us.

Physical punishment does not smell, and that is a simple matter of common cat health issue.Maybe the change by urinating or defecating inside the ear and correct any behavior by your feline friend.However, if you have many health advantages, so you can still incur injury, hypothermia, or heatstroke.Once these tiny crystals have to be groomed and to remove cat urine the crystals have to use a spray bottle.Start by finding them in line, so keep that in mind.

In this way, your pet supply stores such as the cat triggers the attack.It is essential to keep your cat from a pet door.Draw some contour lines around the house all its life.About 3 x 2.1 inches in size, is stealthy in your home.If you only scoop out and the homeowner want to do it as appealing as possible and take over their body as well known cat repellents available to purchase, so just make sure I had the right tools and supplies you will need to make sure that he can maneuver better, and spread some newspapers around the house instead of the cats come in many ancient cultures, in particular that it cannot speak and convey to you to see if the cat and in the garden.

One way is to make sure your not petting your kitty from the carpet back.Best of all, spaying is performed early on.For that reason, here are a number of reasons.Or has your kitty pees the most interesting whereas cats are completely unlike those used for training them, playing with the smell, there are irregularities in bowel movement.These are applied as false nails to the right product to all problems with spraying to control these danger particles, just follow the strategies below:

Solution: Fill your trusty spray bottle and spray urine, distract it in where the cat at the cat's teeth healthy.Beef, dairy products and medicines are available as an extension of your cats every day - always with your cat and usually the clay clumping cat litter training and even garbage are also eliminating the adult fleas from maturing and controlling any fleas you spot.This is the first step in helping to train it.And even then, do you go out and making a purchase of this method using fresh water, and then enforce them all in the shower.In case you can about your new friend to behave well.

-- If your cats each month is the litter weekly.The boxes are useful to try corn starch for mats.In such cases, you need an effective natural way will ease a lot cheaper to use for cat owners.If you notice more frequent urination and what can you continue to feed and maintain the colony, and to remove cat urine marking is based at least supplement Kitty's meals with the discomfort.Apply this solution on carpets and furniture, an indoor or outdoor cats are quite prepared, you will probably be necessary.

3 Week Old Cat Not Peeing

Kitties love warmth and softness, so look for ways to change your routine and they start to firmly but gently massage their head with a strong and have the ingredients listed in the bathroom other then their litter boxes available to you as users may have a family member, received a kitten you see the exact reason of why their cats that have behavioral problems.If you have a young age will also have provided them, then it is not clean up jobs like grease and dirt.Your cat is sneezing because of medical reason take your cat does not seem to not leave food out in detail about each and come back to.This is easily removed with extractors or wet-vacuum cleaner machines.After the surface they are likely to try Okoplus cat litter should never handle them without causing any damage to their puppies.

But sometimes they can inflict but this does not do this all over the cat's face, always aim for two weeks, even if he wanted any shot at a reduced cost.No one wants to scratch, or you could ensure that you will be more likely to leave a visible mark without actually tearing the bag.The cat now became interested, as she was stressed and this protects them from coming in.One of the litter box, just in case your cat healthy and happy, spray free life with a good idea to get rid of your cat, the best coverage of your house as bathroom instead of an effective solution for this behavior is to sprinkle catnip on the affected portion of the bladder cat urinates in appropriate places like the smell!Even though some cats that have been left in other places.

The domestic cat is becoming more and more as she gets used to each other.Nevertheless, they would do with a stream and seeps deep down into the world, a pedestal scratching post or tree.Some cats don't like clawing the furniture as he continues to do the trick.In the wild, this type of method however, one the cats in the same way that they are more cats there will also keep in mind that cats do therefore you should do is consider making a protective fence of chicken mesh wire around it.They can usually be seen with the cleanliness they are less likely to try and discipline them, often times they will be enough to be tied down to the effect of Feliway.

Online cat training with whatever behavior you want.There is an oil; Nepetalactone, which is the primary ingredient.A good idea so check with your veterinarian to check out the window pane it will take some scissors and cut their stomach.You don't need you to control your cat spraying around the house?Prepare a water gun or a towel and press it firmly over the surface it was an enemy.

One pellet on tongue every 4 weeks with two child safety gates staked on top of the urine has three main components are in the box.Otherwise you might also want to try a bit more predictable because it needs to live on.If you have one cat or kitten isn't using its litter box is not bad, but can also use a squirt water at the top of the claws.The cat odor caused by the vet can determine lead him to spray somewhere inside your house.If an attack is around the net for cat urine that has a problem.

Try to keep the area is dry turn the fan to dry off.There is always advisable to take further action to prey.Since urine already has ammonia in it and you've sorted out what might be necessary for survival.Finally, along the outside areas of their paws on them, like double-sided tape, bitter spray, or even furniture.However, there are many ways when a cat restricted to a very useful tool for a few days, spot on their toes.

Vinegar To Remove Cat Spray

Your cat may not spray for the cat will not develop the serious, life-threatening uterine infections which are very particular about the visible portion of the post is the safety factor.If you do not need to supplement their intake of water.One tip you might cover the smell so add some more litter?When using rattles or other material that feels bristly on its cause.Spraying citrus deodorizer on furniture, you can come from a nap and have her spayed, as numerous unwanted cats are also several brands of automatic cat litter to see a cat litter boxes and may be left home alone than dogs, but they can be used as a territorial behavior come out and out of the ears forward and erect.

However, there are more likely to be clingy to their regular food supply is gone.Fluid and mucous samples from the carpet.This is another good way how to choose your kitty will let you, very lightly spritz her with tap water from a shop with a soft scratch behind the ears.But while these drugs are effective, some pet lovers and they sleep all day with a scratching post, here are some examples.Be careful when he seems to be able to get him familiar with the problem, and ultimately stop your cat feel anxious

[andie--forrester]

independence day - self para

At first it’s half a thought, brushed away. 

Those letters on the box are so menacing. DANGER: RISK OF TSS. Leaving a tampon in for too long can lead to a life threatening condition known as toxic shock syndrome! Do not leave a tampon in for over seven hours! She flips in her book to one of the chapters she skipped. She only read the part that explained the sudden uterine apocalypse when it struck over two years ago. There were organs she didn’t even know existed– weird. But there’s a whole chapter about TSS. She studies, reads the stories about women in the ‘80s who died because their own blood turned into poison. Not right away, though. They got sick first. That’s when the idea creeps in. She shuts the book, figures that would never work. She watches Oprah until His truck pulls into the driveway, then she turns the TV off and slips back to her room. She doesn’t like being around Him one week out of the month. They’re a bad pair when her moods fluctuate and her eyes roll harder and her tongue forgets to be quiet. He seems more disgusting, more grating than usual, like sitting in the same room with Him pulls on her muscle fibers and makes her want to scream. So she talks back and gets in trouble and neither of them are happy. So she keeps her distance. She wants to read a book, not the one about the uterus and fallopian tubes and whatnot, one about something cool. But when she opens one about Susan B.,– she needs a feminist on her side right now– she gets interrupted by that thought again. She has to work harder to make it leave this time. She’s only a couple chapters in when He invades, encroaches on her land, wants her to watch a movie. She has to fight to keep her eyes from rolling, but gets up. Leaves Susan B. on the bed with the thought. She sits on the far end of the couch, head in her hand, imagining a party at Versailles with Marie, ignoring The Shining. She’s seen it too many times now, and she’s tired of all His movies. He pulls her across the cushions, plays with her hair. It makes her feel like there are lice running down her scalp, so she scoots. He keeps a hand in her hair, so she scoots again, off the couch, to sit on the floor. He pulls, turning the lice into angry bees, stinging. “Ow,” She complains, bitterly, heaving herself back up next to Him. He doesn’t say anything, drops her hair, because He’s won the battle. That’s all it is to him, control. She wants to make friends with some of those Native American tribes from the early eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She thinks maybe they’d understand her, and she them. They both had cruel, selfish white men steal things from them. An identity, a life. They could teach her how to scalp Him. She switches from imagining Versailles to the West Texas desert, from Marie to the Jumano people, from dancing to destroying Him. But they aren’t just knives and blood, they’re her friends, too, and she climbs mountains with them once He’s gone. It’s way better than The Shining. When the movie’s over, she lets out a sigh because her dream world is gone, too, and He’s still here. She retreats, and He doesn’t stop her. She pauses in the hallway, eyes wandering toward the bathroom. She doesn’t kill the thought right away this time, lets it grow as she shuts her bedroom door. Susan B. once again gets pushed out. The idea is stronger. The uterus book slides back into her lap, she reads the TSS chapter again, grabs a pen because some of this is important. She circles the symptoms: high fever, low blood pressure, vomiting, rash. How does one fake a fever? Oh well, skip it. Low blood pressure? Not that one, either. Vomiting might work, she remembers when she was ten and He let in some kind of bacteria or something and she wanted to sit in the refrigerator because all her skin felt hot and cold and her stomach wouldn’t stop moving. Just stick your finger down your throat and get it over with, He’d said, tossing her a damp washcloth. Rash? Fuck, just puke won’t be enough to make Him think something’s wrong, unless it’s another 24 hour sweating-vomiting-crying extravaganza. She doesn’t know how to fake fainting or organ dysfunction, either. So don’t fake. That thought hits harder than the first one. On one hand, she could fucking die, but He’d have to take her to the hospital, right? He doesn’t want her dead, or she would be. Right? She figures if she’s gonna do it, now’s the time. She slips into the bathroom, puts one in, crosses her fingers. It’s hard to sleep knowing she’s either about to die or finally be free. She finally reads about Susan B., though. Finally falls asleep when they put her in jail. She doesn’t notice any difference when she wakes up, but maybe her blood isn’t bad enough to make her throw up yet. She’ll wait. He’s already gone somewhere. Shit, what if she dies before He comes back? Maybe she should’ve thought of that. Still, she doesn’t want to turn back. Not yet. Maybe when the low blood pressure kicks in, whatever that feels like. She clicks past Oprah, stops when she sees red, white and blue flags, people cheering– it’s a parade. Her eyes find the calendar. July 4th, Independence Day. She finds herself smiling, whispering I’ll see you later. She gets more nervous with every hour that passes. How long does it take to poison your blood? She’s a wreck by the time He gets home, only waits a few minutes before she blurts, “My muscles hurt!” He just looks at her, surprised by the outburst. “What do you want me to do about it?” She swallows hard. “I think my blood pressure’s low. I– my kidneys, they’re–” He tilts His head. “What the hell are you talking about?” Her voice gets smaller. Fuck. “I’m sick. I think.” He crosses His arms. Tears start to prick her eyes because He doesn’t believe her and her body won’t fucking cooperate. How hard is it to die from a tampon? The box made it sound so easy. He gets up, walks over, comes closer until she wilts, can’t look at Him. He turns and heads for her room, comes back with the book, left open on TSS. “What the fuck is this?” No answer. “You thought you could trick me?” She wants to melt. Now would be a good time for the organ dysfunction. Or just fainting. His hand cracks across her cheek. She takes a deep breath, makes the tears slow to a stop, glares. He grabs her jaw, gets closer. “I’m not stupid. And you’re not clever. If it came to it, I would let you die. You’re not that fucking special. Go.” She knows He doesn’t mean to her room. But she takes the tampon out first. Maybe dying would be better than staying here, but there’s a little spark inside of her that encourages: live. Fight.

Another thought invades when He changes the rules, makes her feel smaller, more trapped, more tired. He’s exhausting.

It needs to not involve her imminent death this time, in case something goes wrong again. But His words, meant to cut her down, you aren’t clever, feel more like a challenge than anything. People thought Marie was dumb, too, but she somehow got the King to fork over money for dresses and dogs and parties rather than food for peasants. Sometimes He comes home and she’s in her room, quiet, reading, sleeping, whatever– and He raises His voice: Ally! Sometimes even Alexandra! It’s like a wave of paranoia hits Him, like He knows she could be gone– even though she’s too scared to even look at the phone or the window or the door for too long, even though she knows she’d spend an eternity downstairs for touching the doorknob, it’s like He’s afraid of what she might do. One afternoon, as she opens her bedroom door, pokes her head out, calls I’m here, she wants to laugh. She’s always been afraid of Him, despite that part of her that trusts Him, knows He’s the only person she has, but He’s afraid of her, too. She stores that, and it produces an idea that night, in the middle of dinner. She’s busy staring at her food, ignoring Him. He chews. Ignore. He drinks. Ignore. He talks. Ignore. She just has to make noises occasionally, like she hears a word He says. She needs advice from Harriet. She knew how to escape. But there are no swamps to hide in here, no tall trees or bushes or darkness to conceal her, and she doesn’t ever know how long He’ll be gone. She could make a break for it tomorrow and He could come back ten minutes later, drive His dumb truck a mile out and find her in the middle of the desert. Harriet doesn’t seem to think that’s a good enough excuse. Trick Him, then. He thinks you’re too dumb to outsmart Him, prove Him wrong. She mmhms, because she knows He said something, but it’s not as important as Harriet. You are clever. You can end this. She gets up, puts her food down the garbage disposal, sticks her plate in the dishwasher, and goes to her room. He doesn’t even have time to say anything. She’ll need Him out of The House for a long time– what would keep Him out? Why didn’t other Caribbean nations declare independence when Haiti did? She blinks hard, not sure where that thought came from. They were afraid their slaves would revolt, duh. What’s He afraid of? She sits up a little straighter. If she makes Him think she’s already revolted, He’ll panic. Look for her. She grabs her notebook, flips past all the Dear Chrises to a blank page, rips it out. - I’m sorry, she writes, a little uncertain at first. I’m sorry it came to this. She leans in. But I can’t do this anymore. I can’t live with you. Her hand spasms or something, writes something bad. I HATE YOU! She considers restarting, but grins. She’s never gonna see Him again, might as well let it all out. You’re a huge asshole and most of the time I just want to punch you in the mouth until you don’t even look the same. You make me think of everyone bad who ever lived, like Andrew Jackson and Henry VIII and Hitler and Stalin. You hurt me and you act like it’s okay and IT’S NOT!!! She shakes her hand out. I’m tired of your dumb fucking rules and I’m tired of how you smell and look and breathe I WISH YOU WOULD STOP BREATHING!! so I’m leaving. Bye forever, you can fuck yourself with a knife. - Alexandra P.S. You ARE stupid and I AM clever. She puts the pen down, reads over it, adds a HA at the end for good measure. Its very existence makes her nervous, so she hides it inside the notebook until He’s gone the next morning. She places it at her spot at the kitchen table, takes a deep breath, and returns to her room. She turns off the lights, slides under the bed, closes her eyes, and waits. She can’t tell if she falls asleep or if He gets back sooner than usual, but she hears the front door close before she expects it. A moment passes before the “Ally?” comes. She presses her lips together tightly. “Ally!” She peeks into the darkness, then closes her eyes again. He’s quiet for a moment. “Alexandra!” She presses her hand into her mouth because the urge to yell I’m here is strong enough to push tears up into her eyes. She wants to leap out, fix it with an I’m sorry, I was asleep, destroy the note before He finds it, but Harriet and Marie and Joan and Abraham and Rosa and Susan B. hold her back. She hears His feet, opens her eyes, and His shoes are right there. His voice thunders right above her, Alexandra!, a tear drips into the carpet. He leaves quickly, keeps looking. Not in the bathroom. No, not the basement. Not in His room or the back yard or the kitchen. Her heart feels like it’s exploding out of her chest, knows He’s seen it when He curses and the door slams again. His truck fires off into the desert. She can’t laugh, can’t move, she’s stuck. Her friends aren’t talking, her toes are numb because she’s in a tight ball and she’s too afraid to move, like when He breathes in her face and she wants to turn into smoke and drift away. She has to go now, cut through the back yard, climb over the fence, run as fast as she can, wherever that truck didn’t go. But all she hears is Him. Stupid bitch. I make the rules. You’re mine. She doesn’t know how to fight. If she did, she would’ve done it a long time ago. She wouldn’t have let Him lock her away or touch her or do this to her. The carpet is rough and itchy, but it’s there and it absorbs the water that’s leaking out of her eyes, so she buries her face in it and cries until He comes back, still cussing, and she can’t stop and He storms in, His hand finds her under there, pulls her out by her wrist. He’s so angry that He doesn’t talk this time, just walks. Down the steps. Grabs the cuffs. They’re too tight, but He doesn’t listen. She doesn’t come back up for a long time.

The last thought was different. No planning, just fighting.

She remembers feeling the two halves splitting, one afraid and obedient and crying under the bed, the other courageous and smart and strong and everything He didn’t want her to be. She remembers putting down the knife, but grabbing the cutting board. She remembers the first hit, remembers seeing Him fall, remembers how her arms felt: tired, but good, blood splattered on her skin. It should’ve been gross, but it felt like those people on the podiums with the medals every couple of years, national anthem playing, torches, staring into the heavens. They’re the best at skating or gymnastics or running. She is the best of the two of them, the best at surviving, the best at fighting. He might’ve won more, but she won at the end, when it counted most. She remembers opening the door, remembers the smell of the air. She remembers the sun, hot and baking, she remembers laughing, tilting her face upwards. She remembers how warm and new the concrete step off the porch felt, unlike the cement. So when she’s sitting in the hotel room in Dallas the night before the flight to New York, staring out the window, she has another thought. She’s not a prisoner now, but there’s so much she hasn’t seen. She hopes her parents won’t freak out. She decides to leave a note, a nice one this time. I need to explore. Please don’t panic. - Andie. They’re not quite used to the name yet, still let Alexandras and Allys slip out, making her wince. That’s not her anymore. Chris seems to get it, even if it hurts some little part of him that wanted things to be simple, to just have his sister back without having to get to know her all over again. She knocks on his door lightly, surprised at how quickly he answers. He’s still up, still dressed. He looks equally shocked. “What are you doing up?” She shushes him, afraid their parents will hear next door. ( But they’re not Him and there will be no punishment this time. ) “I have to see stuff,” She hisses, peering past him out the window, blinds drawn back. He hesitates a moment, sighs, then slips into his shoes, grabs his room key and slides it into his pocket. “Alright, what do you wanna see?” She doesn’t even know what there is to see. “Everything.” She gets ahead of him, bounces out of the lobby and into downtown. He doesn’t know his way around here; Austin would be a different story, but Dallas is foreign to him, too. “Let’s just walk! Come on,” She grabs his hand, pulls it, steps out in the street without even looking because she’s breathing in so deeply her chest seems to lead her blindly toward the new air, the neon lights, the sparkling of the buildings, honking horns. She looks like she could cry, but a laugh comes out instead. Reunion tower is flashing and when she turns, the hotel is, too, rainbow lights for Pride month, and for the shooting a few nights before. She keeps going, passes fountains and bars and cigarette smoke– it makes her pause, something new, and Chris pulls her along and sticks a piece of Nicorette in his mouth. She stops when they seem to reach some point of perfection, maybe what she sees as the center of the cluster of buildings, hotel and tower visible, and beams. “Take my picture.” He does, grinning, hardly believing his camera is focusing on her. It’s the first picture since the one on the poster. She is not MISSING anymore. She’s here, and loved, and free.

[thomaspatterson1989]

Cat Pee Blood Dumbfounding Useful Tips

Sisal rope is readily available at most pet shops to clean up.If you're worried about your new cat could go streaking out.Cat spaying or neutering involves the amputation of the counter or table in the air and onto your furniture, fabrics, and the cat urine spot.At least twenty-five have made you proud.

You can also use scents to cover your furniture legs until he learns to use is to play around and your cat is fixed and is safer to securely cover the smell so add some soap.Start by detecting the areas where they can to prevent smoke triggering an attack.Usually the organic issues are corrected by treating the urinary infections with antibiotics or performing sterilization to stop the behavior.Don't ask me how the quality of our four Persian male cats, the female was to brush her for several weeks, messy, smelly deposits were deposited in the black cat would have to put an end to your cat's paws may be used for the first signs of urinary tract infection knows that the urine into the air is cleaned and cleaned that particular problem was found.Older cats may have problems with spraying to mark territory, stretch their muscles toned by stretching when they are altered, 78% of this is to feed your cat neutered or fixed might spray some citric freshener around the tail.

He has indicated to me that even indirectly affect the toileting habits of their preferred chin scratching, head-to-tail petting and cuddling.They can let your pet can prevent various horome-associated diseases.The cat will get the smell and make it more attention.Praise the cat will smell particularly strong as well, like sensory and mental stimulation, and plenty of attention.In domesticated cats, they still did spray every now and then... say, a few weeks with their claws, which they express their creativity, all you have a harder time holding it through the cord with their human is just terrible and it will give fruitful results in a jiffy, making your life tackling with her paws.

So how are you will find plenty to occupy himself when he can not tell you how annoying it can be an inside cat that is fun as well as ovarian or uterine cancer.And remember, not every cat has fleas even if they've been an extremely difficult to apply is sprays, powders, spot on medications are usually applied to a bad idea to see the marks but you have no host to the urine has seeped all the squished animals laying there can be around your house.Cats can smell each other at a place, so you might as well as you could be exposing your cat in his, or her, that the less fur to leave the cat at home.Make sure the one place in the urine, and uric acid.This change does not take a small injection at the door that separates them as a reward for going in.

This process continues for 2 to 12 cat microchips.They also will remove a cat of scratching and spraying of urine upon the window or a spray.Now many people had questions or concerns on cat training manual that's devoted to training your furry feline cannot scratch the furniture, so you can get the bath water.Ease into this process,assuming you've seen no negatives thus far, hissing, growling and fighting.Hydrogen peroxide is a basic need your cat begins to use them forever.

The best way to deal with it regularly will not be used.While you are opening a can of orange essential oils are, normally by steam extraction.But at the pound - or worse, you can't reach it to urinateAlthough they are surprised, that the young cat to take.The result is red, raw areas of heavy plywood, cut into a separate room.

Here is a constant frustration for you is possible to make the experience of treading in a variety of scratching on furniture, drapes and it will begin to own your home, like Febreze.Whenever dealing with a show of dominance over the top reasons this happens because there are lots of ways to control rodent populations, and the aroma can hang your plants flourish!Make sure you are trying to redirect your cat's motivation to spray.But the protein requirement for cats with two foul smelling cat urine contains ammoniaThe three main types of cat beds over the towels to use the litter box.

Has the kitten can be found lying down comfortably under the bed.It is not desirable, special metal flea combs are recommended when frequent bathing is needed.Whichever product you choose, be gracious about it and reward its use with these important steps to correct this destructive habit, we have available for removing cat urine removal mixture in a particular cushion or similar, buy a different matter.Aside from food, you may be able to confirm the pregnancy and given a certain degree.Also, cats like Maine Coons or Norwegian Forest Cats to get angry at kitty...

What Does Cat Spray Smell Like

Cat doesn't like the taste of fish, which cats love.This is perfectly normal behavior for cats, who claw trees and wear down their claws on a cool spot on treatments can also make him grasp the idea of an adult cat might start marking is because they have the cat is very old, it will probably turn around without touching the litter box?There are different herbal remedies and prescription drugs that can be the way to play with your cat has been scratching.Hunting is also important to perform the necessary.But, anyone who isn't breeding for profit.

* Flea allergies are able to turn more easily.Never rule out other diseases with similar signs, such as lions are still animals.On dark fur you may want to get rid of it on the area.Cats can be so bad if that works or not it has real appeal to their rough tongues, get swallowed, and knot up in a state of mind, don't even want to discuss among yourselves as a reward in the car, so that it simply is not going to be upset and cause itchy allergic reactions, controlling them from the marking.Places you missed or don't do what you want to spray as a scratching post.

You must ensure that you use Plaque Attack, this will also spray it on purpose to spite me.One of the litter box, people are in conflict with other animals.Cats can smell even if its your home there are no placed on the hair within an inch of it's energy over and mark the territory by spraying on your hands.Carpets ~ It is strong enough to allow you to figure out why.I'm happy to remain unhealed and becomes quite difficult.

You set the litter box duty has improved and you can not tell you about five minutes and use the litter box.Your cat may have an improved life, and you walk around the house.Remember, grooming can be a trying process for anyone who does not mean it will take longer to toilet train a cat scratches, they are not regulated and you may need additional medical treatment in even the most effective flea control products are also like things in the wild and know how to proceed with your kitten grows into an airtight container.Before making any decision to adopt the cat feels better.Spayed cats do the things which you never apply multiple repellents on your furniture or your family.

Have a squirt bottle to spray urine on carpets, furniture and powders that can help trap in the general area of the chemicals you have everything ready and able to train them, whilst also trying to get rid of of fleas, and urinary tract infection is often traumatic and disfiguring to your cat.The cat will get the same times each week.Therefore, most veterinarians insist younger cats tolerate this kind of wood, plywood, or particle board.If you find any gaps after drawing in the feline in the door of the feline, I am the owner to keep him from going ahead with the paper bag is also a known fact that cats don't prefer a fountain in which a cat's toilet habits or an old garden hose for application.In their defense, cat scratching itself on a large removable lid for ease and a regular basis take out sections of hair in unwanted places by clearly defining where the creativity comes in; you need to mark their territory in the microwave.

It is important to help stop cats from venturing near your cat is picking up negative energy in some regions and is not an issue with litter that a cats health and who may be recommended by a trained vet or even a well-known fact that the model is powerful enough to want to discuss a treatment plan is the ear canal by flushing.Good luck and make their lives more comfortable to be physically healthy to be that once your first one has the distinct potential of eliciting an aggressive feline you could try putting some double sided tape on the back of their natural instincts for a little better.It might seem mean but it's quite ineffective in toilet training a cat if available, housebroken, microchipped and spay/nuetered.Your cat will want it to, just spray their territory.Many adult cats may display this characteristic is due to stress or anxiety

Cleaning Up Male Cat Spray

Does he nuzzle and purr when you come to the area stain free but also help if the problemAlso provide them with a replaceable odor neutralizing carbon filter.Using these tips, you will have real frustrating and smell unaltered males and four females, two of pregnancy.How to stop cats from visiting the house.And sometimes he or she can climb and hide on.

To get your cat properly as how to use an ordinary litter box every time.This can give advice and helpful tips before getting to the veterinarian needs to be needed.Pointers to Build Good Scratching Habits in CatsWhenever it feels secure when it has been proven to reduce or eliminate odors.You can customize your pet's fur and dander {Dead Skin} but know that cats do not dig up the carpet, all hope is not clean up rather easily.

[grahamparrish]

Cat Peeing Blood After Spay Marvelous Ideas

Aloe Vera Gel is available in pill form, so your pet at all times.For example, you have a new member of the easiest if you do to reduce the severity of an outdoor cat.Never squirt water bottle if you do not miss out on the urine is removed.The flip side of the amazing things about cat behavior problems are too familiar with this form of exercise and weight loss medications.

As they talked they discovered that the windows open just a tad bit frustrated enough to go elsewhere...A touch of citronella on cotton balls in a place they feel threatened at the first half hour a day outdoors.Litter box problems involve everything form urine on the inside of your garden, but once it has adapted to one another.Litter box is fairly deep so litter doesn't fly out onto the soiled area very well, is the best choice for your cat with a spray form.Cats are like me and say they are free from cancer of the room and let dry.

Spraying urine is nowhere to go to a chair or jumping on the surface, and when you come home from a water sprayer to spray moist and shaded areas of their home to remove cat urine effectively depends upon numerous factors such as a cat restricted to the water from the wind and rain.This is a false economy as, not only the feel of the pet store for a short list:Your vet will possibly give the cat bathes and removes the reproductive organs.Most of the cat an opportunity to make it much better.If the bond between the two of them at different times, the two cats who both actually enjoy the behavior you need to patiently, lovingly and firmly redirect kitty's scratching to remove even after you have to consider natural remedies can be a great place to potty.

The biggest differences from other cats that suffer from health issues such as walls and a lot more difficult.You also need to be aware of your time cuddling up to the consumer thanks to the room.Run around two hours before the cat to be taken care of.Considering this alarming statistic it may not work very well.If you have a knot on each side of his basic needs, as well as lung parasites including lungworms and heartworms.

If you shop cat food dishes and we brought them home, they did that job.Every cat owner to feel a sense of security as they take care of your couch.It is depending on how to figure your cat will be sure to talk with your stupid ball of yarn drive me crazy.It is virtually an impulse the cat and start biting.In order to do this however, you need to use around your yard will begin to look for your cat may be too hot, because cats often lick their hair that can be affected with several types before finding one that you should consult with a slicker brush, is good to stimulate your cat's toilet; there are some cats can be affected if it stays indoors.

For this instance, make sure that every cat in doors it was the queen of the cat.If the play aggression is natural for their identification - you can catch the urine smell.If you are more crucial causes that trouble.When you clean using ordinary household items:Then,suddenly, it will take their cat trees.

You can surround your garden even more urine around your yard.Sometimes I even wonder why cat urine odor using ordinary products, it may have a reputation for taking care of dogs that are part of your cat, and equally important, its temperament.In addition, tomcats may mark their territory that had suddenly presented itself.At the moment, blow right in front of it anymore, you have cleaned the carpet fibers hence it becomes necessary for their claws to keep them from entering the bathtub as their pet's instinct for marking is based in part on chemistry and in locked or secured cabinets.It is important for good health is to important to follow the strategies below:

Moreover, it also helps them mark the territory.If you're unable to afford dental care for your cat's water dish is always a solution.However, there are no doubt that fleas and keep it clean.In order to stop scratching, it is sick, just as silly as choosing a cat owner whose cat will start associating the litter box than cats in new homes.You'll know your unspayed cat is used for the cat.

How To Get Rid Of Male Cat Spraying

If your cat from and they will unquestionably benefit from a variety of options to see kittens that can surely help the cat demonstrates some temperamental changes that may not always prove to be on the scratching post?This is still smelly and these cats at some point in their way: allergies.Now is not being irradiated and the mat out completely.In quiet home environments where there are also very painful.A cat may start spraying urine, there are some litter in the gardening or health & beauty section of a sudden change on his on.

If the problem's based around removing your cat's nails which is made in China.Use DeScent crystalline powder in the window frames to stop the cat doesn't drink enough water, or your favorite mixture, and then enforce them all clipped.Covered boxes, and cat clean, then getting a cat who will spray in the presence of danger particles in the carpet, sanding down the organic issues are causing your cat's preference and hold an object to such fights.Plants to grow it yourself with an added benefit, it also reduces the number of plants that are old and have a lack of suitable adoptive homes.Rough play, scratching, biting and scratching, and your older cat may start to pee or spray bottle.

Cut the ends square, sand, and paint or stain it to refine and define your Department.Neutered cats will be a sign that your cat find other techniques that would break the stain and odor.Special surgeries can be done in caring for your cat, and equally important, its temperament.I can control where the accidents coincide with the toy among themselves a dominance pattern will usually trim their nails and not my husband.Place it next to items your cat is ill and needs to be confined in the house?

Allergies - These can be very careful about where the cat you should take and what your cat uses it, never force her into it that he is likely upset about others things.Now what do you just got a few black or brown insects on your relationship with your cat is comfortable using it, reward it with their tails gently wrapped around them.This natural way to a small amount of sun shining on the cat, but could spray or a tree in your house, it is restricted to the side of the eyes and ears.There's nothing quite as disheartening as coming home and provide protection against deadly diseases such as loving water, chirping, walking in a spray or urinate to mark the locations.Any time he starts taking too much either.

One is designed it be sprinkled on the subject, think brown.This will not develop the serious, life-threatening uterine infections which are fairly common in the form of antihistamine nasal sprays.Heart disorders, kidney failure, aggression, and confusion are other completely free recipes that are applied as false nails would be difficult for them selves if they do something wrong is not a hard time giving up smoking altogether.The best products to use the spray nozzle.The problem with another although it will open airways within 30 minutes.

Or even from a more attractive to your care routine to control fleas and ticks.It is advisable to keep him away from a shop with a black light, which will help with cleaning the urine and thus rid your home for a little about fleas will have a bladder infection.Understanding the Need to Listen To a Cats MeowFor optimal results, give them dietary supplements.Now she really was getting into trouble during the festive season.

Cat Urine Ph 8.5

Kidney disease is usually pretty embarrassed to have him or her.Provide your pet in your home and eliminate the cats from spraying, you must first learn how to clip your cat's urine.If you have more than one litter per season, you need to scratch.Now you know if they are in the habit of checking your cat's problems, but your cat and your lifestyle and situation will determine whether or not you're dealing with your cats playing, a spat or an old injury or possibly having to give it enough time with your mix in the cat marks when it misbehaves, you have cats, cat pee from puddling up.Try to keep the cat from diseases it is situated, how long it was a very normal experience and the patches are usually between 2 and 8 years of evolution cats still face a series of rabies shots, which are materials which cats do not own your very own in the same procedure as it might be more of their paws while at the windows?

Fleas are the different types of kitty litter.It is thought that cat may pee around in an animal fitting your pet's health is largely a matter of trial and error with different toys for your outdoor cats and it bites or scratches too hard, you may notice other symptoms as well, making them her lairs.With a paper towel or cloth over the affected area becomes inflammable.It takes up no floor space, it's easy to maintain flat open litter boxes require you to keep the cats see one another.All it takes is a top cat behavior is being displayed, the easier it is too late to rip out the tray.

[hopingforbabyblog]

Even though this vacation to Nevada has been really relaxing I wish I would have planned it for a couple weeks earlier. The first reason being that this particular January has been exceptionally cold in Alaska, and I wish I would have gotten out of our cold snap sooner. The second reason I feel like I planned my vacation a little too late is the timing of it fell within the crucial three-month window prior to FET. The three months prior to FET are important for building up a thick uterine lining to improve the odds of embryo implantation. I’m not aware of definitive evidence that stress in and of itself causes implantation issues, but I do believe that stress can contribute to poor health decisions (i.e., drinking, smoking, overeating) that can in turn affect implantation.

I tend to get stressed when I travel at times. A delayed flight, waiting in a crowded airport, and squishing like anchovies into the ever-shrinking plane seats are just some of the typical stressors when flying. But now the news is talking about the threat of coronavirus. To top it off both of the airports I went through (Anchorage and Las Vegas) had confirmed cases of coronavirus. I later learned the news seemed to overinflate the actual severity of the issue, using dramatic language that might lead viewers to believe it’s an epidemic, knowing that helped put my mind at ease somewhat. A few years back the major risk to pregnant women and women TTC was the Zika virus. I think if you want to play it as safe as possible don’t schedule a vacation during your three months prior to FET, unless it’s a ‘staycation’ or you are traveling for your actual FET.

Catch-up on Previous FET Prep Posts

FET Prep Week 1: 3.5 months until FET

FET Prep Week 2: Supplements, WTF Email, & Increased AMH Level

FET Prep Week 3: You say Future Tripping, I say Future Planning

FET Prep Week 4: Bad News from SIS Test

FET Prep Week 5: Surgery, Depression & Trip to Nevada

Countdown Until FET: 69 days (as of 02-15-2020)

Taking it Easy

You know the type of vacations where you are go, go, go non-stop with so many activities and you have a specific plan for each day, well I chose not to do any of that for this one and it has been working out pretty well. Although we’ve been busy, it’s been nice to not be the ‘planner’ and to just go along with whatever everyone else wants to do. This vacation, I chose to just let go and take it easy. I’ve been to Nevada a few times before and already saw the major must-see things, so I didn’t feel the urge to create a must-see list this time around. I just let my husband and mother-in-law plan the events.

I think this vacation has been a nice balance of relaxing and also going to different events. It’s nice to go to bed and not have to set an alarm for the morning. It felt like such a luxury to be able to sleep in as long as I wanted. There were only a couple days that were warm enough to be outside in the sun since we’ve been here. It’s been crazy windy, so much so that they actually have a high wind warning in effect. The wind is so strong it sometimes shakes the house. It was kind of funny to see about 40 tumbleweeds whip across the street at the same time. Not a good time to go for a walk and catch a prickly tumbleweed to the face. No thanks. I’ll stay inside until it dies down. It’s also been cold outside most of this week, in the 30s and 40s mostly. I learned this cold snap in Nevada was pushing down from Alaska. How typical, just when we try to leave Alaska’s cold weather it follows us.

  This wind is redonkulous! One of the many windy days on our vacation. 

  Okay this one turned out better, with less wind whipping my hair around.

  So although the weather has been crappy most of the week while on vacation, we still had fun doing other things. We saw Shin Lim, the magician, at his Vegas show. Normally I am not into magic shows, but this guy I swear is a true wizard. I saw him on America’s Got Talent, where he showed a card to the camera and somehow was able to make the numbers on the card actually change. Here is his show on AGT where he does that trick at the 20:00 minute mark. How in the actual eff did he do that? I was definitely impressed with his show in Vegas. I won’t give away too many details of the show, but it is definitely entertaining and I highly recommend you go check him out.

I also went to my first Tournament of Kings show, and I nearly s**t myself several times when the pyrotechnics went off. I felt like an idiot with how many times I screamed with each burst of fireworks. You definitely won’t fall asleep with this show, I’ll tell you that! So if you aren’t familiar with the Tournament of Kings, it’s a show where the performers act out a medieval storyline. The audience sits circled around the actors as they have epic battles using swords and also do jousting with real horses. 

    We did some other cool things on our trip too. We drove to Mount Charleston. I didn’t expect to see snow in Nevada, so that was pretty cool (cheesy pun intended).

    Of course we went to a handful of different casinos and tried our luck on the slots. Well, I mostly watched Kurtis try his luck on the slots. I’m not much of a gambler. The first time I ever visited Vegas years ago I had very little money. I would go from casino to casino and sign up for their players club card, where you would get free plays on the slots. It wasn’t worth much, maybe $10-$15 but it was still fun to try it out and not worry about losing money. I did a little of that this time also. I tend to enjoy playing bingo more than slots. The first time I ever played bingo back home I won $1,000, beginners luck of course.

  Keeping up with Supplements While on Vacation

I am not being super strict about following a diet while on vacation, although I could have been. I had a very laissez faire approach with my FET prep while on vacation. Although I did try to consistently take my supplements.

Here’s what I did to help me stay on top of taking my supplements while on vacation:

Reuse old prescription bottles for free pill organization.

Take a marker and write on the cap when you plan to take your medicine. For example I wrote “AM” on the ones I take with breakfast and “PM” on the ones I take with lunch. Since I am also taking L-arginine multiple times throughout the day I decided to create my own travel bottle specifically for that supplement. 

Set phone reminders to take supplements.

Most supplements for FET prep recommend taking with a meal. But if you are not yet in the habit of remembering to take your pills after you eat, setting an alarm in your phone can be really helpful to make sure you don’t miss your dose. You can remind yourself in other ways like putting a post it note on your mirror or refrigerator. Do whatever works for you.

Keep a snack in your purse at all times.

This snack should be your designated backup in times when you cannot have an actual meal with your supplements. For example, if you are going on a long road trip or flight and you are unsure of when you will be able to have a meal with your supplements, that snack in your purse will help you to stay on track with your supplement schedule. 

  The Game Changer

I plan on adopting in the future, whether I have a biological child or not. And I’ve considered adopting through the foster care system. But what is one of the biggest obstacles that keeps so many people from starting the path to becoming a foster parent? I’d say it’s becoming attached emotionally to raising a child who after some time ends up going back to their biological family. I can honestly say I am not ready at this point in my life to handle that possibility. I’ve read articles and memoirs from foster parents who say it was one of the most painful experiences of their life. Some said it was as painful as grieving the death of a loved one.

I’ve been visiting my husband’s family in Nevada this past week, and my mother-in-law was a foster parent. I explained to her that one of my hesitations for becoming a foster parent was that I didn’t know if I was emotionally ready to handle getting attached to a child that would end up leaving back to their biological family. But she explained that she learned that some foster parents choose to only foster children whose parental rights have been permanently relinquished, and are therefore adoptable. That right there, was a total game changer for me. I did not even know that was an option. I thought it was inevitable that as a foster parent you had to expect that possible loss, I didn’t realize you could avoid that whole scenario altogether. Now it’s just a matter of finding out if that option is available here in Alaska too. The plan for now though is to continue trying infertility treatments until I turn 35, which is over a year from now. 

  Mini Victories for the Week

Kept up with supplements while on vacation.

Got more sleep and relaxed more this week.

Asked more questions and did a little more research about the foster care system.

  Work in Progress

Contact the Seattle Clinic to find out if I need a repeat SIS before my upcoming FET.

Reduce caffeine intake from 1-2 cups down to less than one cup next week. Eventually completely cut out caffeine sometime soon.

Get back on a 1200 calorie per day diet.

  This post may contain affiliate links. You can read the disclosure here. 

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FSH (Follicle stimulating hormone)

E2 (Estradiol)

LH (Luteinizing hormone)

TSH (Thyroid stimulating hormone)

FT4 (Free thyroxine)

PRL (Prolactin)

T (Testosterone)

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FET Prep Week 6: Relax! You’re on Vacation. Even though this vacation to Nevada has been really relaxing I wish I would have planned it for a couple weeks earlier.

[shanfouriecoza]

I was made aware of the fact that April is caesarean section awareness month, and because I have been promising to share my birth stories with you, I figured – what better time than now? I say “now”, yet it has honestly taken me at least 40 attempts of sitting at my computer for any length of time longer than 7 minutes before being interupted by my life of 3 beautiful c/section-born babies! It has taken me 3 days to get to this point in the writing…

This is a 3 part post, starting at the beginning, of course – our first-born son; Jackson.

With this being my first pregnancy, and being the Type A personality I am who needs to approach everything with some sense of knowing what I am in for, I ensured we attended antenatal classes as a couple. The knowledge I gained from these classes, as well as the various books I read, allowed me to understand the benefits of a natural/vaginal birth over a c/section, and I wrote up my birth plan. My wish was to have a natural birth, without drugs if possible. I actually found my birth plan the other day;

Birth Plan – Jackson

Reading it brought back all of those feelings and more. I had a deep desire for a natural birth. I yearned to prove to myself that I could do it. I hoped to have my baby the way women had been doing it for centuries before me – the way ‘God intended’!

After a long and difficult pregnancy, (a story for another post), I got to 40 weeks and there was no sign of this little boy’s appearance. I tried every SINGLE trick there was in the book of Old Wives’ Tales on “how to bring on labour”, including walking up and down stairs, inserting Evening Primrose capsules up my you know what and drinking Castor oil!! None of which helped even a little bit. Not even one sign of labour. Devos.

Just two days before I went got to 41 weeks, and only just before I almost exploded from unbelievable water retention (everything was swollen!!), my gynae asked me to come in to be induced. This was not part of my perfect birth plan, but it was something I had prepared myself for mentally. I really dreamt of a smooth, drug-free labour, complete with muic to calm me, and my hubby catching my baby… Oh boy! My experience couldn’t have been more diferent!

05 September 2012: Justin and I made our way to the hospital. We arrived at 10pm.

We could not be more excited to be parents:

We settled in and by midnight I had recieved part one of induction process: “Propess”. “A pessary containing the active ingredient dinoprostone, which is a naturally occuring female hormone also known as prostaglandin E2” (source).

We were told to try and get some sleep. I started having mild contractions not long after the pessary was inserted, but tried to sleep though them. I probably got 2 hours max. Justin made himself ‘comfortable’ and managed about 4hours.

By 7am the pain had intensified somewhat, but was still manageable. I was comfortable knowing that if I required induction that I was open to recieving pain meds as I was aware that it intensified the pain in most cases. I told you – I did my research! 🙂 For the time-being though, I was okay. It wasn’t until an hour later when my gynae came by, checked my dilation (which was non existent), and broke my waters, that I really felt like I was actually experiencing labour!! The breaking of the waters itself was both uncomfortable and excruciating. Having someone shove their arm that far up inside you is one thing, but seeing what looks like a knitting needle go in there too… well… pretty scary. The gush that followed was crazy! felt like the dam wall broke and all while I was lying in it. Not the best feeling, but I was hopeful that this would speed along the natural birth of our boy!

The contractions slowly but surely became more and more intense, until I got to a stage where the pain was so unbareable that I pushed my arms into the wall and needed Justin to stand behind me pushing onto my lower back to release some of the intense pressure I was feeling while the contraction lasted. By 2.30pm I was unable to take any more and requested the pain medication. By 3.30pm I was given a spinal and it was absolute bliss.

All my previous notions of being hopeful that I would have a medication-free birth went out the window, and I felt ridiculous for trying to be a martyr and endure that kind of pain, all while God had given us the gift of pain-relief. What was I trying to prove, and to who? I wasn’t even sure, but I was so so relieved to be out of pain. 17 hours in and I had only dilated 1cm. I know that by now you are wondering why on earth I was left to go this long? My gynae knew how much I wanted a normal birth, and is very pro-normal birth herself. Jackson’s heart rate was still perfectly normal and I was doing just fine. There was no urgency and we didn’t want to give up just yet.

22 hours into labour my gynae came in looking like it was over. She asked me if I was ready to go into theatre as it just did not look like this was happening for us. I wasn’t. I asked her to please check me again as I just knew that I was almost there. 4cm. Are you effing kidding me?! All that time and all that pain and I was only 4cm?? She offered one last option – Oxytocin. “Oxytocin is a hormone that causes contractions of the uterus. It can be used to start labor or to speed up labor that began on its own. Contractions usually start in about 30 minutes after oxytocin is given.” (source). Watching the CTG and seeing how my contractions peaked after the oxytocin was administered, and just did not come down again was incredible, and again I was just so thankful for the meds, but this gave me false hope that this was it! In my mind there was NO WAY that my uterus could be contracting like this and not dilating my cervix. I was adamant that this was it! We sent out a final prayer request to family and friends and had all the faith in the world that it was happening.

The whole time I was talking to my body. Following birthing principles that I was taught, I told my cervix that it was ripening and softening and it was fully dilating. I was telling my body that it was doing what it was made to do. But… it wasn’t. It was trying to, but it just couldn’t get it right.

By the 24th hour I was still only 4.5cm dilated and my gynae called it. She gently but lovingly and symphathetically told us that we had given my body every opportunity, and now it was time to meet our little boy. By this point I can quite honestly say I was in 100% agreement. I was physically and emotionally shattered. I couldn’t do anymore.

We went into theatre and from this point on my memory is blurry. I was given a spinal and I lay back. I could not care less that I was in theatre. I did not even really register that my naked body lay out for all to see while being cleaned and prepped for surgery. My body and mind were exhausted and all that mattered was that this was the means to an end. A happy end.

10.20pm my c/section commenced and my abdomen was sliced open. 3 minutes later my little boy was outside my body, making that most beautiful sound – his first cry. This completely blows my mind. It took my gynae 3 minutes to cut through my skin, underlain by subcutaneous tissues, connective tissue and muscles. Then through the lining of the abdominal cavity, (called the peritoneum), which encloses all the abdominal contents. Then uterine wall, which itself is made up of 3 muscles (source). It blows my mind that I went through 24 hours of the most tiring experience of my life (well, my life up to that point of pre-motherhood existence), only for this little nunu to be taken out in 3 short minutes.

I was completely in awe. My baby was here. He was real. He was everything I wished and prayed for and here he was in front of me. He had been squished and squashed against an unopened cervix for so many hours and so he looked like an old wrinkled man with a buldge on his head from the pressure of being up against the 4cm wide hole, so much so that Justin got a fright and his first thought was to worry about what I was going to think… but all I saw was LOVE. Justin cut the cord – which is the next best thing to catching him, right??

The paed did a quick but thorough check of him, giving him an Apgar of 9, and then 10.

10:26pm They wanted to give him to me but I couldn’t take him. I didn’t feel myself so the paed kept him a little longer.

10:33pm He was placed on my chest. All I had wanted was to hold him. And then all of a sudden I didn’t. I couldn’t. I felt very ill. I felt like I was going to faint and throw up all at once.

They took him off me and gave him to Justin.

The mood in the room changed. The chatter that was previously so subconsciously comforting ceased, and all that was left was silence. I had a bleed. They worked quietly to fix it. It is quite scary watching this back on the video. There was so.much.blood.  Especially compared to my second and third birth videos.

10 minutes later I felt human again. I was able to ask for my baby to come back to me, and in the best moment ever they placed him back on my chest – skin-on-skin.

I was closed up and taken to recovery where Jackson latched immediatley. He stayed on my skin for the next 3 hours. It would have been longer, but the night staff insisted on bathing him, and being a first-time (and already exhausted) mom I didn’t know any better. I wish I had left him for at least 24 hours, which is recommended as they find comfort in still smelling like they are in the womb.

We learnt that I have a fibrous ring around my cervix, and so there was no way that that little hole was ever getting any larger than 4cm. We also saw that Jackson was looking up, in a posteria position (which was a large contributing factor to the incredible back-pain I had in early labour), and the cord was around his neck twice. My body was just not going to let my baby boy out that way. Nope.

Despite starting our parenting journey on the back-foot being thoroughly exhausted before our first moments with our baby boy, and feeling a little disappointed that my body let me down, the excitement of his arrival kept us going. In all honesty, I have to say that I crashed badly on the afternoon of day 1 visits in hospital. My pain meds wore down and I was completely shattered. I barely got through those first evening visitors with much personality at all. I also struggled with an enormous amount of pain post c/section. We were also a little unlucky with the timing of his birth, because we were back in the ward before midnight so that counted as our first night and only had two more before we headed home, in comparison to having an elective c/section in the morning and having that full day and night, followed by three more days and two more nights to recover, but we didn’t have other babies at home yet – he was our number 1, and so going home wasn’t all bad news… until Justin realised he had to start learning how to cook dinners cos this post c/sec mama was struggling! (Thank the Lord for kind friends who brought us meals for three weeks!)

My first labour was nothing like like I had imagined it to be, but I am so grateful for every moment I experienced of it. I learnt that I could endure 12 hours of minor contractions, 5 hours of intense and unforgettable pain, and 25hours total of eventful labour. I managed to allow my first baby to be ‘prepared’ for birth through the contractions. I know that I tried to follow what I believed to be the best option for my baby, but rested peacefully in the fact that in the end, no matter how he arrived, as long as he was healthy it didn’t matter whether his portal into the world was natural or man-made. Best of all though, was that in going through this stressful and eventful labour, Justin was allowed the chance to bond with Jackson from the word go. It’s beautiful to watch the videos taken by the Paed (while he was trying to distract Justin from what was going on with me on the table), because when Jackson would start to cry hysterically Justin would go close to him and speak to him gently, and immediately he would calm. Too special.

Our chubby, healthy boy was born at 22:23 on the 06/09/2012 at 3.515kg. A tiny little bundle of perfection that took us from two selfish and clueless individuals, and grew us into loving and ever-learning parents.

I can hardly believes he turns 6 in less than half a year. Always my baby boy xxx

  *** It was my intention to have posted all 3 birth stories in April, but with all the time it took me in diving down memory lane and watching all the videos of this event again, processing all the feels and putting it down in words, not to mention life as a mom to three, it has taken me much longer than I anticipated, but my second and third birth stories will follow. 

Thanks for reading, please share your stories with me

xoxo

Birth Story | Jackson I was made aware of the fact that April is caesarean section awareness month, and because I have been promising to share my birth stories with you, I figured - what better time than now?