Our crappy healthcare system

The United States spends more than any other country in the world on healthcare. You'd think for all that money we'd have spectacular health care. I mean amazing, comprehensive, bright and shiny health care.

NO!

The US is ranked 36 in infant mortality. The Czech Republic has lower rates of infant mortality at #9. Singapore is #1. Here's the entire list.

And check out this website. It compares US healthcare statistics to Japan, Norway, Denmark, France, the UK, Canada, Netherlands, German, Switzerland, Sweden and Finland.

For the amount of money that's put into healthcare in the U.S. we could have the BEST single payer system in the entire world. We could have every single person in this country with healthcare. Every single person could see their doctor when something felt wrong and not have to wait until the cancer is eating up their body and they have to visit the emergency room. There would be no waiting lists for operations. Everyone could get the medications they need. It could be healthcare utopia.

But no, we cling to a system that is inadequate and expensive. Is it because we want people living in poverty and the marginalized to continue to suffer. Is it okay for us to live our comfortable lives on the backs of their suffering?

It's time to ask WHY we allow this and start working for a solution.

Woke up in the morning with a job to do...

To set the record straight (snarf!), I love Erlend Oye.

Exciting thing today. I actually visited my managers at work and it seems I'll probably be able to return to my floor in the future without any problem. Yay! Although I really, really want to do labor and delivery, I've decided it wouldn't be a bad move to spend a couple years in ICU. Now I have a doorway into ICU nursing and I'm going to take it, baby!

This means I may be preggers and starting in the ICU if things work out the way I'm envisioning.

Did you know nurses are at high risk for preterm labor? Sucks.

Jay Sucksandblows

A quick fertility update. The cervical mucous was creamy yesterday. Okay, writing that even squicks ME out a little.

Now for the main topic, which is somewhat related to having a baby.

Let me establish that I hate Tucker Carlson. He is a conservative idiot who smells like ass. When PBS gave him a show I watched it ONE time and decided it shall never grace my television set again.

In steps Tivo. Which is set to record any program with gay content. So we ended up with Tucker Carlson Unfiltered to watch the other night. His guest was one of my all-time favorites from the religious right cast of wacky characters - Jay Sekulow.

Or as he shall be know from now on... Jay Sucksandblows.

WHAT AN ASS!

He was a guest on the show to talk about same-sex marriage. Tucker started the show by making sure Jay Sucksandblows knew that Tucker was in complete agreement with his stance against same-sex marriage, but promised to play devil's advocate. In Tucker Carlson's world this means agreeing with his guest after every statement. Interesting use of the term "devil's advocate."

Sucksandblows made the usual lame, inane and unintelligent arguments against same-sex marriage. They consist of "it's always been one man one woman" and "think of the children...the babies...the poor innocent souls." These don't stand up because what Sucksandblows really wants to say is "We hate gay people, they should go back into the closet, could you make that a law?"

BUT the best part was yet to come. Why does Jay Sucksandblows really think we shouldn't be able to get married? Well, you see, there are a lot of assholes in this world. These assholes don't like homos and really don't like that the homos are having kids. So if one of these assholes ran into a cute, adorable and innocent five year old child of homos, they would simply HAVE to be mean to that child.

Does Mr. Sucksandblows think that perhaps....maybe....these assholes might want to reconsider their asshole-ish ways? Perhaps they might want to consider being nice to that sweet, innocent five year old?

NO!

He thinks the homos should just NOT have children because it's cruel to expose them to the assholes of the world. Let the assholes be assholes and shame on loving same sex couples who want to start a family.

Yes, this is a little hostile because people like Jay Sekulow PISS ME OFF! His entire goal is to remove any blame from the biggoted assholes of the world and place it squarely on the shoulders of the victims.

End of rant. We are off for a mini-vaca to the beach.

Stalking Dr. Bob

I had a wonderful thing happen to me. I was helping the gal next door in neuro with a patient, I turned around and ran directly into a familiar face. It was a guy I went to school with 10+ years ago. He remembered me because I was his RA (which I had totally forgotten). I remembered him because he was a good friend of a good friend. We'll call him Bob (not his real name). Actually, we'll call him DOCTOR Bob (not his real name).

Dr. Bob (not his real name) is blond and smart and nice. And of course that causes a girl's thoughts to turn to...yes, you guessed it...

SPERM!!!!!

All men have become sperm to me. Don't really care about your hopes and dreams - how's your motility? How's your count? What type of underwear do you wear? Have a thing for hot tubs? How do you feel about signing away your parental rights? What, you just met me? No problem, all I want is your swimmers, not your soul. Bwahahahaha!

Operation Stalk Dr. Bob has commenced. Now we just have to kidnap him and provide him with some porn and a contract giving us rights to his genetic makeup. How many men would turn down a kidnapping if it included porn?

95% kidding and 5% crazy. I'm really too shy to stalk anyone. I'd make a very bad crazy person.

2 girls 2005.03.21

M. is sitting on top of a huge stack of books that all involve pregnancy and concpetion. Do you think I'm kidding? I'm not. Me? I'm fretting.

fertility symbols

The Palm "Because of its height and radiating leaves, it was an early fertility and sun symbol"

Rabbits "rabbits in such diverse cultures as ancient Mesopotamia, India, Japan and the British Isles, were kept as treasured pets, used as aphrodisiacs, worshipped as fertility symbols, and hunted as pests, sometimes all at the same time"

Pomegranate "its Biblical name is Rimmon, meaning 'to bear offspring'"

Cowrie Shell "In some countries, the cowrie shell represents fertility, and is given to brides to guarantee offspring and provide a safe delivery."

Pine Trees and Pine Cones "were incredibly powerful fertility symbols to the Celtic cultures. Everything from needles to pinecones and nuts were used to bring fertility."

cameras in the cats

M. is still absorbed in reading her fertility books. Now she's moved on to Fertility for Dummies. The funniest thing is that she is also covered in cats - they are sitting on her shoulder and her lap. I think they are trying to distract M. because they know a baby means they are no longer the center of our world. They are on a covert mission to sabotage us.

That reminds me of a funny story.

I used to be late to elementary school all the time and we lived close enough to walk. My mum would send me out the door with instructions to run. I would run around the corner, half-way up the hill then walk the rest of the way. Then I started thinking that somehow my mother knew I was not following her instructions to run. That I was in fact, WALKING! Because mums knows all. So I came up with one of my most paranoid explanations for mums knowing all. I decided she must have installed cameras in the cats. Early signs of mental illness or briliant creativity? You decide.

to douche or not to douche...

...there is no question. One should just not do it. In case you have any questions, our government has spent time creating The Douching FAQ. Why is it bad? Well, it destroys the natural flora of the vagina and that's a bad, bad thing. According to the faq: "The vagina takes care of cleaning itself naturally through secretions of mucous".

Once again, I say yay mucous!

This has been your Vagina-minute.

2 girls 2005.3.16

la de da.

Here's a new drawing. I really have a pair of scrubs this color, and I sometimes wear my navy t-shirt underneath. I also hate my hair pulled up or back. Self obsession, they name is Sacha.

2 girls 2005.03.15

I'm still trying to get the hang of this.

Sometimes it helps me to draw what's going on. In a way I hope this will turn into an actual real online comic. Here we are, me and M. As you can see from the drawing, she's a talker and I'm a thinker. I'm much chubbier than depicted, but M. said I'm not chained to realism in this case. Enjoy!

BTW, my shirt says "Incubator". He he.

first post

Welcome to M. and Sacha's blog. We're going to chronicle our adventures as we start seriously trying to have a baby.

Some background. We're a girl-girl couple who have been together for 12+ years. Lucky that we were mere pups when we first laid eyes on each other, othewise we'd be old by now. M. is saving the world as a non-profit worker. Sacha is a nursing student, soon to graduate and become a full-fledged BSN trained RN. She wants to be a labor and delivery nurse. Yay! We live in Seattle and have four cats: Tamu, Mischa, Sophie and Zoe. M. thinks the higher number of animals one owns, the more they need a baby.

Where are we in the process? Sacha wakes up every morning at 5 am to take her temperature, charts it and tracks her cervical mucus. We have 1.5 months of data so far. M.'s job is researcher. She is tasked with finding out all the information possible. And she is also the Project Manager, which means she nags me about checking my mucus at work. Where do I work? I work at a hospital, and not just any hospital, but one that is chock full of disgusting resistant bugs. This means I have to stick my fingers up my vagina and possibly give myself some nice resistant staph. It's a point of contention.

By the way, this blog will be written mainly by me (Sacha) and I don't plan to shy away from terms such as CERVICAL MUCUS or VAGINA.

Anyway, we're tracking. The plan is to start insemination in January. It's been 1.5 months and we're already at each others throats. This is mostly because being in school leave me with little time to think about baby, and M. working part time leaves her LOTS. Clash of the titans.