jammaker

I had twins. I could tell which one was kicking, who had the hiccups, when one had been asleep/not moving awhile (even if the other one was active), etc. They were positioned vertically left and right and so for the most part it was pretty easy. I also knew how it correlated when they came out because they label the babies A and B based on position (A being lower/first to come out typically). And for whatever it's worth, their early personalities did kind of line up to what I noticed in utero. One of them very laid back/low energy, and the other much more intense. We saw it on many of the dozen ultrasounds I had with them too. Note: I do not hold this against him, but I did find it interesting when they were infants. The problem with Michelle is how she phrases it and acts about it, not that she can state which twin was kicking more. If it was "it was so interesting how different they were even from the time they were in utero" that would be very different than "Jana kicked me a lot (that bitch)".

I actually think I own this same suit and love it. It's a tankini with shorts that go not quite to the knee, so it's pretty impressive for her! It's fitted but not skin tight (which makes it very forgiving of curves), and it's a lot more comfortable for me in the pool with my little boys too. She'd definitely blend right in at the pool or beach with it, which considering where she started from is huge.

Maybe, and I wouldn't fault them for it. Many hospitals are doing away with nurseries and strongly encouraging rooming in with your baby (sometimes giving no other options) even after a c-section. So when you've just been cut open, still have a catheter, and are on some hefty medications, having another adult there becomes nearly a necessity. After my last birth, my husband couldn't stay (other kids to take care of) and the nurses only took the baby to the nursery because I had lost too much blood and wasn't allowed to hold him yet. He was the only baby there that night; I was not the only c-section that day. There are many things wrong with these people, but that I can't judge them for.

Same! I have a medically complex kid. He's had a lot of surgeries, he had a feeding tube for a long time, we see a lot of doctors. (All totally legit, I swear.) I'm utterly fascinated by how she pulled this off. How did she con so many doctors? How did she get it all paid for? Insurance requires so much documentation, and then still denies it half the time. I have so many questions! I guess with Dee Dee dead though, there's only so much they can tell with some degree of fidelity to the real-life events. There's fictionalizing relatively known events, and then there's speculating on what may have come before.

I feel so bad for both of them. Gypsy was so obviously abused for so long and felt she had no escape - but would she have even thought of violence if not for Nick's (Victor's) influence? Would he have actually ever turned violent if not for his love of Gypsy/her influence? The serial nature of the show also has me putting more blame on Gypsy than I would have just based on reading articles, etc, because I'm a week removed from Dee Dee's abuse as I'm watching Gypsy plan and lie and worry about seeing Star Wars. It was an interesting perspective shift for me this week, having to remind myself how she got to this point.

Total lurker here, but I felt the urge to reply to this. When I asked my endocrinologist about the morning drag, she added liothyronine to my regimen. It's T3 already so my body doesn't have to convert it, and it made a huge difference in symptoms. I take a little of that each morning and it gives my body the jumpstart it needs while my body works on the levothyroxine. Also sympathizing with all the weight-gain posts. I've gained 100 lbs in the past 10 years, most very rapidly. I have no thryoid anymore, I'm stuck on hormones because of endometriosis and nothing I do takes the weight off. It's awful.

I've been watching The Act and I really loved how well tube-feeding was portrayed in the first couple of episodes. My son was tube fed for 10 years and I have never seen it so accurately done on television (you know, in the 2-3 times I've seen it at all). The blending, the feeding, the tube changes, and the pile of dishes on the counter. I wish it was done in another context other than the craziness that is DeeDee and Gypsy, but still, I appreciated the portrayal.

Ok, I see this said a lot. As a twin mom - yes, it is possible to tell which twin is kicking. Mine were oriented so one was up the left side and one was up the right. They settled in there early and stayed there. They definitely had unique personalities and kicking patterns. One was prone to the hiccups; the other never got them. Fraternal twins have separate placentas and separate sacs - it's not a free for all in there. And once they get to a certain size (for me, it was at 20 weeks), there's not a terrible lot of room for them to shift around. If you know where they are and how they're situated, it's definitely possible to know which one is kicking. I don't think this is a Michelle hating Jana thing.

It's not just you. It's very minimally bleeped, but not enough for it to still sound exactly like it to my ears. Almost as though they have the shortest of bleeps over the "u" sound and nothing more. And it seems like it runs twice an hour during the afternoon ER runs, which is frustrating when you just want to sneak in some ER viewing when your kids are otherwise occupied but still technically able to hear the TV.

I mostly agree with you - from the other side of the fence. At our school, the moms of autistic children seem to largely accept the services the district provide and just kind of roll with it. As a parent of a medically disabled child, I fight, and I fight and I FIGHT for what he needs and deserves, and so I LOVE that about the Maya character. But it's not because I want him to "accomplish more" - I have to fight for it because if I don't, he falls between the cracks because his needs don't always scream PAY ATTENTION TO ME .. so I have to do the screaming for him. Also because in our case it's his actual life at stake (which I think was seen some in the 2nd episode last night on the show) - if someone screws up, he can end up in the hospital needing surgery or with long-term repercussions, so I need to make sure they actually understand the gravity of the situation before I can step away. Honestly the trash/person exchange perfectly sums up how I feel when I talk to school staff. Different context (because my son is mobile and verbal), but same feelings. They frequently put him in with autistic kids for "staffing and scheduling" reasons, when it is directly in conflict with his needs, and I have had to stand there and say "how is this serving MY child" and run through all the ways it should be obvious that it's not. I just want people to see him as a unique individual, and address him as a whole person, with dignity and respect. I want to believe that if I teach him how to fight for that now when he is young, it will become automatic for him to not accept anything less as he gets older - like it seems to have for JJ.

See, but what is the answer? To just abort everyone who has something medically wrong? What of children who can't be diagnosed in utero? Or people of any age who suffer a debilitating life event who then end up needing care for the remainder of their lives? Sooner or later, almost everyone becomes a burden on others, if by "burden" we mean "needing physical care". It's not about forgetting that fact, it's about accepting it. Language matters, semantics matter. When the professor started going off about "eradicating", she was saying that Toby and Lily's son, the baby they were supposed to be celebrating shouldn't exist. Is not worthy of existing, because ... what? Because he will need extra care? And even if no one in real life would say that at a baby shower, people do think it, so in that regards - good on the writers for expressing it (albeit in a very clunky way). Lily of all people is not walking into this blindly, and I'm sure that while she loves her son, she would gladly support research to help mitigate the worst physical effects of DS. There's middle ground between "special angels" and "eradicate", but very few people successfully land there. The woman that really confounded me was the train set lady. If she had known, she wouldn't have purchased a train set? Does she think children with DS can't play with toys?

Oh no, I totally get that when he was telling Daphne. I meant when Lily and Toby are talking about what to do, and neither of them say abortion, just beat around it with like "I think we know what we have to do" and "it makes the most sense". Given that they don't know each other THAT well and come from totally different backgrounds, I was sort of waiting for one to say abortion while the other said adoption. Because it would be another totally valid option to consider and possible given Lily's background that she would find it a better option. But the show already did touch on adoption with Angelo, so obviously they won't go near that again. I can't see this show, of all shows, going the abortion route though, not with a special needs baby especially. Which means they will parent it, no matter how much they don't want it and aren't ready for it.

One the one hand, I really get where Daphne is coming from. Growing up with something different, watching someone come to the conclusion that different = abort, she may truly wonder if Toby / society sees HER as having less worth. I didn't love the way Regina answered her, either, which may be where it all stems from. As a special needs parent, I'm VERY honest with my son that YES, his/our life is harder in some ways. Why would I lie about that? There's more to figure out, and it's harder, and sometime's it sucks - for him, for me, for the rest of the family. But that doesn't mean it's not worth it - HE'S not worth it. We're all willing and wanting to work harder because it means we get HIM. Regina almost made it there with her "you make our lives richer" but clearly Daphne is not confident about it. But that doesn't give her the right/place to try to sway Toby. If she had just said "this is how that makes me feel", that would be giving him information to process as he will, but as it was, she was really trying to push him away from his decision. Meantime, with Toby and Lily's discussion, I was waiting for there to be a big misunderstanding about abortion vs. adoption, because neither of them spoke the word. I sort of wish that had been in the conversation as an option. She's far enough along (probably end of first trimester? Given she's been dealing with it for "weeks" and already had testing done and results back) that getting an abortion will be both harder to get and a more involved procedure, so it seems almost odd that adoption isn't brought up as an option at all, even if it was just in passing.

My issue with the whole Deacon thing, is they acted like the diagnosis meant he automatically went on the transplant list - no, sorry, that's not how that works. You go through a bunch of other physical and mental evaluations, and then a committee meets and decides if you meet the criteria and *then* you go on the list. You can fast track it, maybe, but not an afternoon certainly. And a living donor has to go through the same thing. It takes months, not days. I believe it was on the order of 4-5 months for my mom's living donor (which was turned down at the last minute, and she's still on the list now). Donating part of your liver is a serious surgery with a serious recovery - not something they can just jump at doing in a couple days. I enjoyed the rest of the episode (yay! Nashville is back!), but the medical stuff was really annoying to me.

I wouldn't mind the extra credit if Daphne had taken it upon herself (or even after a conversation with Regina) to go to the professor, ask what she did wrong, and how she could improve her semester grade (i.e. going in thinking how can she work harder, what other resources can she access, etc), and then the professor rewards her initiative with an extra credit assignment. Provided that she applies that standard equally among other students coming in looking for help - that's not unfair OR unrealistic. Yes other people struggle too, but if you don't ask for help, you're not going to get it. But Regina going in first and playing the deaf card ... just no. Daphne is an adult. If she (Daphne) feels her deafness is what caused her to struggle - then by *all means* go address it as an actual issue (preferably before failing the exam). Cite specific reasons, and possible solutions. But Daphne didn't feel that way, and Regina was way out of bounds and gave the whole issue definite negative spin.