sarah

Hormonal IUD users are welcome to chime in, too, but I'm mainly interested in the copper IUD. I've been on birth control pills for about a year now and still have the worst mood swings (thought it might get better with time, but it hasn't), so I've been thinking that maybe it's time to try the non-hormonal route.

What was having the IUD put in like? Did you have any side effects? When you decided to have the IUD taken out so you could get pregnant again, did you have any problems with trying to conceive?

I'm on Mono-Linyah and have been for almost a year now. Up until about two months ago, I always took my placebo pills, but then, I started skipping them and just starting a new pack. This would allow me to skip my period...until this month, when it didn't work. I don't remember the exact day I was supposed to start the placebo pills, but it was about two weeks ago. Since then, I have been spotting/lightly bleeding.

What caused this? Should I take a break from the pills until I stop bleeding?

Also, I did take one dose late during the week before I was supposed to start the placebo pills, but it was only by about 3-4 hours. I have experienced spotting after taking a pill late in the past, but it never lasted this long.

Personally, I do not. If a woman spends nine months swearing up and down that she doesn't want to or can't raise a baby for whatever reason and wants to find a family who can give the baby everything he/she deserves and then is willing to go so far as to actually SEND THE CHILD HOME WITH ANOTHER FAMILY, I don't feel like she should have the right to change her mind. It just seems so cruel to me that an adoptive family can spend months excitedly waiting for a baby, jump through all the necessary legal/financial hoops, then actually take a baby home and begin to bond...and then have it all ripped away in the blink of an eye.

I've never personally experienced this, but a friend of mine recently did, and it made me sick. I guess I'm kind of just curious as to what others think about it.

My mom recently had a stroke and has slurred speech and right side weakness. Is therapy usually able to correct these issues? What sort of therapy is done to help stroke patients facing impairments of this sort?

Over the last couple of days, I've felt occasional little "flutters"...a lot like the first movements I felt when I was pregnant with my daughter. Also, it's been a couple of months since this happened, but I would get pain in my ribs every now and then that felt exactly like when I was pregnant and baby girl would stretch out with her feet up there. What could be causing this?

I know for a fact that I'm not pregnant, and it's been eight and a half months since I had the baby.

So, when I got my braces off 10 years ago, the orthodontist accidentally pulled off a crown when removing the ring from one of my back teeth. Instead of keeping the crown so that I could take it to the dentist, HE THREW IT AWAY, and being the shy little 18-year-old pipsqueak that I was, I didn't raise the hell I should have. Without me being able to bring in the crown, the dentist was going to charge me for a replacement -- totally understandable, but I had no dental insurance

(and wasn't experiencing any pain or other issues as a result of the missing crown), so I didn't pursue treatment.

The filling in the tooth fell out about two years later, but I still never had any pain (or insurance). Fast forward to last night, and about half of the tooth broke off while I was chewing on a piece of ice. I'm still not in any pain, but is there anything that can or should be done to the remaining portion of the tooth? I know a crown probably wouldn't fit over it now, but could a dentist put in another filling?

Did you go back in and check on/comfort them until they stopped crying? Or, did you just lay them down and let them cry it out until they fell asleep?

Also, if the baby woke up during the night wanting a bottle, did you oblige?

My daughter is eight months old, if that makes a difference. She's been co-sleeping with me and her daddy since around two and a half months (he worked out of town until she was six months, so in the beginning, it was mainly just me and her). But she fell out of the bed a couple nights ago (thankfully, she wasn't hurt, it just scared the bejeezus out of all three of us, lol), so we're looking at getting her in her own bed pronto.

My daughter turned eight months old today and makes sounds -- cooing type noises and squeals when she's happy, mostly. She also has this "ayayayaya" noise that she does a lot; she loves to see how loud she can get with that one, lol. However, she hasn't really done anything that seems in line with babbling -- "babababa," "gagaga," etc.

I'm hoping I can get some reassuring answers on here, because the mom groups I've asked this question in were just irritating. Like, no, Susan, I do NOT believe that your six-week-old is babbling, lol.

I had preeclampsia with my first (and only) pregnancy, but it didn't really cause any issues. My blood pressure spiked a few times during my second trimester, but it never got high enough for my doctor to actually get concerned, and all my urine tests were normal. By the time he felt like it was worth worrying about and protein showed up in my urine, I was halfway through my 36th week. He induced me at 37 weeks, 2 days, labor was a breeze, delivery only sucked because baby girl tried to come "sunny side up" and had to be flipped over (worst pain I've ever felt, lol), and baby girl and I were both healthy (she had jaundice, but that's obviously not related to the preeclampsia).

Are there any agencies that would still be willing to work with me? Or, is there a chance that I could be an independent surrogate?

A close friend's nephew is in need of a liver donation, and I've been toying with the idea of getting tested to see if I would be a match. I have a seven-month-old daughter, though, and I'm concerned with how well I would be able to take care of her during the recovery period; between my husband and our families, I would have lots of help, but I want to know about how long it would be before I could be up and moving around and playing with her and all that good stuff.

I'm halfway through a 10-day course of amoxicillin for an ear infection and have been using condoms as a backup. How long do I need to continue doing this?

I did ask my pharmacist this question, but he didn't seem sure and just said that using backup would be a good idea. Trying to get a straight answer because according to my husband, condoms suck, and we have a seven-month-old who still isn't sleeping through the night and are pretty much terrified of ending up pregnant again, lol.

I don't host Thanksgiving dinner, but every year, I listen to family members get miffed at being told, "Can you please bring [insert specific dish here]?" They complain that it's rude to be told what to bring instead of being able to choose on their own, and I don't understand why. To me, it seems like the whole point of that is to make sure that there's plenty of options and not just three people showing up with green bean casserole or two pecan pies and no other desserts and so on. Plus, there's people in my family who have dishes they consider their "specialty" and tend to just say, "Ooh, I'll bring that," even when it doesn't fit with the main course. So, I definitely don't understand how this can be considered rude at all (I actually prefer being told exactly what I should bring, because otherwise I end up stressing about it and scrolling through Pinterest like a madwoman trying to figure it out, lol).

What's your opinion on this? Do you think it's rude?

this is my second month on sprintec, and last month, i started spotting three days before taking the placebo pills and bled for the first five days of placebo week. it is now day four of this month's placebo pills, and i haven't bled yet. i took an active pill every day; a couple were a little late (never more than 2-3 hours), but i used a condom when i had sex (which, due to my husband's work schedule, was only once and then no more until i had been back on my regular pill schedule for at least five days).

should i take a pregnancy test, or is it likely that i'm in the clear?

According to the Kelley Blue Book website, the trade-in value on my car is around 6,500. Is this what I'm likely to get at a dealership, or would they offer less?

One of my dogs rides like a champ, but the other one goes absolutely CRAZY in the car. She likes to bark at everything she sees out the window, and in addition to that, she claws at the door panel. As a result, there are several little "nicks" in the leather under the window. They're not actually scratches, more like just little dots where her nails punctured the material. How can I get rid of them?

My husband travels for work and has already been given permission to come back home whenever my current OB thinks I'm getting close, but I am absolutely TERRIFIED of going into labor early and him not being able to make it back home in time (he'll be either a six and a half or nine hour drive away, we're not sure which one yet because the company he works for is run by idiots who don't understand that people need more advanced notice than 24 hours before the job starts). It's my first baby, and I have no medical reason to suspect that I might go into labor early, but it's a fear that I can't shake. I know there are drugs they can give you to stop labor, but as someone who was born at 34 weeks, I don't have very much faith in those.

My due date is May 26, and I'll be starting maternity leave the last week of April. I'm tempted to just transfer to another OB wherever hubby ends up so that I don't have to worry about him missing the birth anymore. It would suck since our families (who we're extremely close to) more than likely wouldn't be able to make it, but obviously, if I had to choose between having my husband there and them there, they're gonna lose out.

How difficult would it be to find a doctor willing to take me on as a patient this late in the game?