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Friday, June 10, 2011
5:00 pm
47 Comments
Tagged: adoption, kianna, mcweanis, parody, recap, sixteen and pregnant, three days, tvgasm
Ok. I know this is really late. I don’t have an excuse though… well, my excuse is that So You Think You Can Dance just started, and both times I had a free hour and was like “Oh I should write my 16 & Preggers recap!” I watched So You Think You Can Dance instead. I can’t help it! This show sucks!
But here I am, better late than never, exploring our first episode that even considers the A-word… no, not abortion, adoption. Our preggers teen this week, Kianna, struggles again and again with whether to “do adoption.” I’m not quite sure why she insists on saying “do adoption,” other than that maybe it sounds better than “give up my baby for adoption.” Also, she might just like adding ‘do’ to things, as illustrated by her first line of the episode – “Do it pretty!”
P.S., why do they always start the show with the girls doing their hair or makeup or whatever? Why? Why? To emphasize that they will never be young or pretty or worry about such shallow things again? To illustrate how young and shallow they still are? Because that’s what girls do? If so, what do boys do? I dunno.
Anyway, back to Kianna. She’s a 17 year old black girl from Texas, with lovely blonde streaks in her hair.She always matches her eyeshadow to her shirt. She was raised by a single mom, who was once a teen mom herself. (Are you a ‘teen mom’ forever, or only til you hit 20?) Her boyfriend is a bangin football player, Zach.
Kianna is looking a little chunky/not so pretty, and I don’t think all of it is attributable to the pregnancy. So I’m thinking to myself, how did she land this football stud? Answer: He’s 15. And goes to another school. Both valid strategies, which I also employed – but usually separately – in my own chunky high school days. Not hot enough to date a hot guy in your grade? Go younger. Older woman points make up for it. Not hot enough to date a hot guy at your school? Go to the next district. “She goes to another school” points make up for it. Plus, if you used to be REALLY fat, nobody at the other school will know and remember you and call you a bouncing ball of lard even after you use lose twenty pounds. A-hem.
Also, I feel disgusting for thinking this fifteen year old guy is hot. Damnit.
Kianna then embarks on a list of reasons not to get impregnated by a fifteen year old, other than that it’s gross. a. He doesn’t have a license, which especially sucks when he lives a half hour away. b. It’s really hard for him to get a job. c. He is (obviously) immature. d. They’d only been together two months before the pregnancy. Oh wait, that has nothing to do with him being 15, but it still sucks.
im bored so here’s the future baby!
As Kianna and Zach discuss the unexpected pregnancy, Kianna asks this gem. “I missed three days of my birth control pill.. who knew that just three days could make our lives change forever?” Well, that me answer that for you. I knew. Every medical professional in America knew. Your mom probably knew. The little instruction packet that comes with your birth control pills knew. The internet knew. Non-abstinence-only sex education knew. Only you didn’t know, because you live in Texas.
Kianna’s taking a bunch of steps to counterract the unfortunate baby daddy age difference. She’s transferring to a new school that has free day care and might let her graduate early – her eventual goal is to become a veterinarian.
After the requisite ‘oops’ boyfriend/girlfriend talk, it’s time for the requisite disappointed parents talk. As a teen mom herself, Kianna’s mom knows how hard it is, an didn’t want it for her daughter. She says she took “precautions” to keep this from happening. Apparently those precautions didn’t include teaching her daughter how to use birth control or a condom.
Kianna admits that her first impulse was to have an abortion, but she couldn’t go through with it, so she is thinking about adoption instead. She rightly (IMO) points that adoption might be the best choice for her, because she fears she can’t take care of him, graduate, and work it out financially.
more baby! them diapers is expensive
Mom doesn’t seem to care either way what Kianna does – which is interesting since she got pregnant as a teen and chose against abortion and adoption – but Zach is adamant. His single mother raised three kids, so he says they can do it. (I think. I can’t understand wtf he’s saying and there are subtitles on most of it.) He’s excited to have a little boy and basically uses whatever veto power he has to shoot down the “do adoption” option. He also accuses Kianna of taking “the easy way out,” to which Kianna responds that “adoption is actually not that easy,” because of all the emotions involved. At the end of the conversation Kianna is still undecided, but disappointed that Zach is so strongly against adoption.
At their next meeting (they only see each other on the weekends because Zach has to get rides from his mom..) he claims he’d “give up anything. I just don’t want to see someone else raise my son.” We’ll see if that means “I want to raise my son” or “I want to sit back and watch Kianna raise my son and not help at all.” Kianna grills him pretty hard about getting a job, getting his license, being around more, etc, and finally says she’ll keep the baby IF he helps.
This decision gets a little easier at the next doctor’s visit, where she goes with a friend. She sees pictures of her little baby boy and makes the enchanted new mother face, so we know right away she’s going to keep him.
lovey face
I honestly don’t know what I’d “recommend” in this situation. Adoption would definitely make Kianna and Zach’s dream-following easier, but it might not be best for the kid – it’s REALLY hard to find adoptive parents for dark-skinned babies! There aren’t enough black adoptive parents out there for all of them, so it’s down to foster system or a family of a different race – which I’m sure can be completely fine and wonderful, or isolating and awful, depending on the family. Also, Kianna feels so ambivalent that I think she would be haunted by guilt.
Kianna’s mom seems okay with this decision, but not okay with being the source of financial support for the baby. Since Zach doesn’t have a job and Kianna has $130 dollars in her bank account, this presents quite a problem – one that is never really resolved in the episode. I assume Zach eventually gets a job and Kianna’s mom decides to take more of the heat.
When Kianna is only a few weeks away from birth, she gets an assignment in her school’s parenting class. It’s that awesome fake baby we have seen in so many sitcom episodes. She has to carry it around and comfort it and stuff. You know… that really would have been a lot more useful before she got pregnant. Now, it just serves as a terrifying harbinger of what’s to come!
dude let’s get it stoned
At the next doctors appointment, Kianna asked about her swollen feet and learns she might have precclampsia, (SP????) a condition that can put both baby and mama in danger. She has to pee in a jug for an entire day, which results in a hilarious montage of her lugging pee in and out of the refrigerator, then bring it in for tests.
Finally, Kianna gets her test results on the phone (is that allowed? They always make me come find out about my STDs in person!) and is in fact at risk for preecclampsia. They want to induce labor immediately – as in, that same day, even though she’s not due for three weeks, and her and Zach don’t have a crib or anything yet! Now that is scary. Even better, Zach broke his arm right before she had to go get her labor induced, so he’s rocking a pink cast.
At the hospital Kianna gets the labor inducing drug and sits to wait. Eight hours later, and there’s lots of pain but no baby. She gets pain meds (her mom, hilariously: “Kianna, this is probably the only time I’m going to ask you if you want some drugs) and gets a little loopy: “My head feels like it’s freee…” hahahah. After like 17 hours, though, she still isn’t dilated enough, and the baby is in danger and its pulse is dropping. After her emergency labor inducing, they now want an emergency c section. This poor girl. Luckily, her mom is being very calm and supportive and explaining everything to Kianna. Everyone puts on hilarious smurf blue scrub suits and does a prayer. What? That would scare me, like they’re prepping me for last rites or something!
Finally, a big, white lookin baby is c-sectioned out. Tada.. it’s Kay’Den!
That really sounds like a superman-esque alien name, but okay. I guess it looks kind of alieny too.
Kianna and her baby bond for a few days while she recovers, then they finally take the owey bumpy ride home, where Kianna’s guts really hurt from being dumped out and then sewed back in.
Kianna’s friends – who, I haven’t mentioned yet, are really sweet – come over immediately to meet the baby. Zach comes over too, but not before stopping… to get a hair cut, which leads to the first post-birth fight. With his inability to come any time but the weekend anyway, she’s pissed he would take time out for that.
first physical confrontation over the baby.. get the baby book someone!
We then get the traditional ‘baby wakes up crying all night’ montage. At some point, Kianna gives up on her wig in frustration and works her hair au natural for the rest of the episode. Get it girl!
sleeepyyy
When Zach comes over, Kianna just wants to complain about how exhausted she is taking care of the baby alone – which I totally understand! They’re still together, so it’s his job to listen to her. Then again, he’s not listening because he’s completely captivated by his son, which is sweet. Not sure where to come down on this.
how can you be mad when theres feet on the face!?
Kianna finally gets back to school, which she admits to the cameras – but not her friends – is very overwhelming. She does, however, continue to find the strength to match her eyeshadow with her shirt, which makes her look nice and disney princessy.
purple!
In the end, Kianna doesn’t get as much help from Zach or her mom as she had hoped. Her mom pretty much has the attitude that Kianna made the baby so she can handle it herself – she’s already been through that crap. Zach is just young and immature and probably has no idea what to do.
Kianna says she wishes her and Zach had waited to have sex, since she was a virgin until then. She wasn’t ready to have a baby, it was really hard, blah blah. She probably would have chosen adoption if it weren’t for Zach. Hm. In the aftershow, we learn that she and Zach are still together – and that they are waiting until marriage to have sex again. Seeing as they made it about two months into their relationship, I have serious questions about their waiting skills – especially since Kianna is now on the shot for birth control. Hmm..
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47 Comments
About the thing with her “only being off the pill for 3 days.” It seems if you don’t want to get pregannt those pills are ineffective the minute you think about forgetting a pill, but if you go off the pill and try to get pregnant it can take up to a year to conceive. It’s baffling to me how there are so many unplanned pregnancies. My daughter Scarlett was very unplanned because i got the pills and immediatly had unprotected sex and on top of it it was the pills that you don’t get your period for three months so i didn’t know i was pregnant til 3 months later and then sort of ignored it til I was 6 months along. After her she was so wonderful and life changing beautiful blah blah blah I wanted another one. So I went off the pill and tried to get pregnant and it took us 4 months of diligent trying before I got pregnant with Violet. It’s a crap shoot, it leads me to believe every conception was meant to be considering there is really only a 12 hour window the sperm has to reach an egg before it absorbs back in the body. So that’s my argument against abortion.
@heatherF: after just finishing my round in OB/Gyn as long as the sperm makes it to the woman’s cervix. The sperm can live for several days in the fallopian tubes. This explains why the Plan B pill must be taken within 72 hours after unprotected sex for the pill to be effective. I am not sure if you are talking about the sperm or the egg being absorbed back into the body because neither of those things happen. Conception is often a difficult processes as intended by nature, but there are also ways in which the female and male body have evovled that support the process of conception. It is difficult to say if every conception was meant to be. Meant to happen by the laws of nature, yes. Meant to be based on the intent of the two humans involved highly suspect. I think that every action is neither good nor bad, meant to be or not meant to be, the moment just is and we as humans should act in every moment as humanely as possible. A birth, an adoption, an abortion they we are all meant to be. I wish this show would feature a girl who gets an abortion that is a discussion that seriously needs to take place.
Also I am little suspect about her stating she missed three pills. Now depending on when she missed them like say around the time she ovulated and she missed three in a row at that time then I could understand how she got pregnant. Back in my girls go studying days. I would miss three pills, sometimes more, but never all three in a row and I never got pregnant. I am completely fertile as well. So I have a feeling she missed more than three or didn’t wait a week after taking the pill to have sex. When I was younger my doctor stressed that on 3rd week of the pill that I would be ovulating and I could even use a condom if I wanted to be safe. My doctor always had his patients start the pill on the last day of your period, so we would know when we were ovulating. I was very concerned with not getting pregnant so I paid attention and follow every direction and instruction from my doctor. Are doctors not telling this stuff to kids? Or do the kids not care? Or did this girl want to get pregnant? So it wouldn’t have matter if she was on the pill or not. It is very rare that science fails. Almost always human error is at fault.
I read a lot of books and talked to a lot of doctors too Bridget and the egg does get reabsorbed. But it’s all moot, obviously no one is having a hard time getting pregnant, on this show anyway.
I’m from Texas (Dallas) and I remember having fairly explicit sex ed in 6th grade. I don’t remember it being abstinence-only. Or at any other time after that. I know that there are school districts around the country that try that approach though. (And that the stats show that they are ineffective at reducing teen pregnancy or STDs). Hmmmm.
I don’t get it. It took me two years to get knocked up in my mis 20′s having sex several times a week. Talk about taking the fun out of it, totally stressful. Little did I know if I was 16 in the backseat of some losers car it would have happened right away. Who knew?
Anyways, where is the baby daddy parents in all of this? They should be helping financially with this baby. Also, are these girls able to collect welfare, food stamps, Wic?
I was really into the bright matching eyeshaddow thing. Girlfriend has some pizzaz!
Great recap, McWeanis but I have to point out a wild inaccuracy in it….dark babies can and do get adopted!!! Black babies whose biomoms have made an adoption plan do *not* end up in foster care because noone is willing to adopt them. My own son is adopted and is brown and was a premie and was thought to have cp and clearly we still adopted him. I’m sorry, but this type of misinformation is so rampant and I do fear that it puts people off from either making an adoption plan (and I am looking at just about every teen mom on this series, as well as half the Real Housewives) or from adopting.
Now it is true that there isn’t as many black/brown potential adoptive parents out there. It is also true that not every adoptive parent is a good parent (kinda like biological parents, sadly) but damnit at the end of the day it is better to have a home with parents who are able to support a baby physically, emotionally and financially then someone who is overwhelmed and cannot be the parent that her/his child deserves.
Of course this is not to say that all teen moms should give their children up for adoption. I am just trying to say that it is an option that is overlooked far too often because of misinformation.
Wack, there is a lot of misinformation in some of these posts
The egg doesn’t get reabsorbed by the body; it hangs out in the uterus until it’s discharged from the body with the uterine lining during your period.
HeatherF: it wasn’t a crapshoot in your case. You had sex immediately after starting the Pill and got pregnant. You’d probably ovulated right before starting it, and since you didn’t wait a week or use a condom (which a good doctor would tell you to do, in case you’d already ovulated) you got knocked up. Your body wasn’t technically on the PIll yet.
Trying to get pregnant after you’ve taken the Pill for awhile is a totally different matter. Your body isn’t used to ovulating and your hormonal cycles have been altered. It can take a few months for your body to resume as normal.
I’d go on about how it’s really sad when people make judgements about abortion based on medical misinformation, but I think I’ll just leave it at that.
This episode and the last have me baffeled like never before? If you have been dating for 2 months (3 months last episode) but yet these sotry lines pick up around the 7th or 8th month of pregnancy – should n’t you be “dating” your baby daddy for 7 or 8 months? Somebody better br calling Maury Povich.
If mommy lays off the eyeshadow and weaves for a month – Viola you’ve got diapers for a year. Priorities people priorities!
OMG talk about mis imformation, yes the egg gets re-absorbed, it starts to degenerate and dissolve after 12 hours or so and your body re-absorbs it! I spent a good part of the last 5 years, pregnant or trying to get pregnant i know what happens. lol
@considerthis – Ha! So true on both counts. It always amazes me that they whine about not having any money yet they always have nice clothes, manicures, pedicures, makeup, hair done…and they can’t get pampers. I have a full time job and no kid and I can’t get nice clothes, manicures etc because I can’t afford it because I have other responsibilities. And if I had a baby I would be poorer…but not getting all those luxuries for myself.
They did a thing on abortion. One of the 16 and pregnant girls got pregnant again and she decided to get an abortion. They also had two other girls on there, but they weren’t on the show before.
Totally agree Chicken Lips! I want to know how these girls ALWAYS have fake nails, yet no money for pampers?
I do agree that yes, it does seem like if you’re not trying you get pregnant, but that could be a number of different things. My friend has been off the shot for almost a year and no child, Leah misses one shot and gets twins. But like someone (who I can’t seem to find now) said, depends on how long you were on it.
I am confused why these kids don’t seem to know missing one pill can get you pregnant. There again my 18 year old sister in law couldn’t understand that not being on the pill for 3 months, period or not, would get you pregnant.
It’s more difficult for black babies to get adopted. Period.
@jp25 — no it is not. That is a myth. Period.
Why does it matter? This baby came out white skinned just like his father. So even if they did put it up for adoption skin color wouldn’t have been an issue.
@willow — are you insane?
That has to be one of the most offensive posts I have ever read on tvgasm and that is saying a lot.
If they’re filming My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding in your neighborhood, don’t leave your baby unattended. Period.
@ willow/ohralphie -
it’s not racist on willow’s part, it’s just currently a sad fact in our racist society.
@ marissa -
i have always been told that you don’t need to use a backup method after missing one pill, no matter which week, as long as you take it before or with the next day’s pill. Yes, you CAN get pregnant from missing one pill – you can get pregnant even if you don’t miss a pill! but it’s really unlikely. three, on the other hand, is really bad; you’re supposed to use a backup method and restart a pack.
Sorry Mcweanis I call utter bullshit on that. Have you tried to adopt in this country? I have and let me fill you in on how it works.
Option 1 are adoption agencies. Domestic agencies have one policy (at least where I live) and that is if you have two children they will not accept your application because there are so many more potential adoptive parents than there are babies (of ANY race) up for adoption. International adoption agencies have various criteria depending on the country that you are interested in. I should note that most countries are populated by black or brown people.
Option 2 would be private adoption which is prohibitively expensive and tends to have the most disruptions and again, nary an unadoptable baby.
Option 3 is foster care. Foster care is NOT an adoption agency. Their primary focus is family reunification if that takes years than so be it. They do have a program that if one becomes a foster parent then one can have ‘first dibs’ on adopting a child, but this could take months or it could take years before ***a child becomes available for adoption***. Again and I cannot stress this enough — foster care is not an adoption agency. The children in foster care were not voluntarily placed by their parents at birth or hell, at all. They were taken away by the state for abuse or neglect. The parents still maintain their rights and no matter what shitholes they may be parental rights are not terminated without sometimes years of attempts by social workers to ‘put the family back together’. In plain language Foster Care workers believe in the maxim ‘blood is best’. The children languishing in foster care who are available for adoption are usually older and (justifiably) have some serious issues that most people feel inadequate to deal with.
NOT BECAUSE THEY ARE BLACK.
I’m not a doctor but it seems like a condom is recommended as well as birth control to try and prevent STDs. I was given warning about birth control from a medical researcher friend and the fact the long term effect are just coming out and they frighten me. Plus, I can’t remember to take my vitamins everyday and missing those one day won’t have such an adverse effect on me as missing a day of birth control.
This show is scary because it is glorifying being pregnant at 16. No, it might not be making it seem like lollipops and rainbows but the teen parents are getting money and semi-fame from it. I met a women the other day that was only 46 but was already a great-grandmother. Then you can read an article on National Geographic about child brides in other parts of the world, it’s a hard read but a good one.
@ohralphie -
i’ve worked in foster care and studied social work, and that’s why i’m going to law school. your point about being rejected for adoption if you have two kids may be valid where you live, but it is not in the two major metropolises where i have worked, new york and philadelphia.
about the countries of the world, many countries actually block american adoptions because of our supposedly lax policies – people have sent their babies/children back if they find them too difficult. your point about most of the world being ‘black or brown’ depends on your definition of ‘brown.’ you might consider the entire continent of south america ‘brown,’ but technically they are considered white – thus the ‘non-hispanic white’ vs. ‘hispanic white’ on the census box. depending on the person’s personal skin color/tan/accent/national origin etc, different people might identify a ‘hispanic white’ as brown or not. for instance, the baby daddy in this episode is very light-skinned so whether he is considered brown by himself or by others is pretty up in the air.
i assume you’re going to take this at racist, but you need to face the facts. 12 percent of americans are black. 30 percent of children in foster care are black. guess why? because statistically being black puts any given person at a higher risk of drug use, being raised by a single parent, and poverty, all of which could lead to real child neglect or child neglect that we might disagree with but is deemed so by the law. i believe this is because of the structure of our society, not because of anything about black people that causes this. nonetheless, look at foster care and the children are disproportionately black as opposed to white or hispanic. look at the children whose parents have had their parental rights terminated, and it’s the same. look at the kids who languish in foster care and never get adopted, the same.
about foster care not leading to adoption. at any point in time, about 25% of kids in foster care are identified as having a goal of adoption. in the past ten years the percent of black kids who exit foster care each year has actually decreased. read any book about the relationship between the foster care and adoption system and you’ll see systematic racism against black kids – many adoption agencies, especially catholic ones, refused to help place black kids for adoption at all!
finally, your point about parents not choosing to place their children in foster care is false in many cases. some parents purposely abandon their children so the system will pick them up. it’s extremely common for foster children who become pregnant to have their children go straight to foster care. this is not how MOST children get to foster care, most are taken away from their parents because of abuse and neglect. but it is how MOST children who go up for adoption come in to foster care, because these parents are the least likely to fight for custody of their children.
Ok, I thought the thing was that sperm (not the egg) can live in your body for up to 6 days. Most women don’t know the exact moment or hours they are ovulating. Because of this, if you ovulate anytime within those 6 days, you may get pregnant. If the egg isn’t fertilized, it’s shed in your period, but it is only “alive” for 12-24 hours. This is why older women have a more difficult time getting pregnant- they’ve lost more eggs and have fewer (and potentially less healthy eggs) to chose from.
Mcweanis – I applaud the time you spent as a social worker, there is no other stressful and thankless job on the planet.
But as a social worker you have to agree that the adoptable black children in foster care remain there more so because of their age then the color of their skin….or at the very least their issues play as strong a part of their inadoptability as their race. But then I am completely disgusted by the reunification at any cost that state agencies stress often to the complete detriment of the child. The babies go fast of any race. Adopting parents want a ‘clean slate’ or at least a child with issues that can be managed if not out and out cured. Older children are going to be harder to place. Does race make it even more difficult? Probably, but it is not the only factor. I would also add the failed social experiment ‘black homes for black children’ that turned down interracially adoptions and actually had the gall to say that a black child was better off in an orphanage or foster care then adopted by a white family. The program may be gone, but the attitude remains and the Black Social Workers Union can be thanked for that. On a similiar note, many black families are either not quailified to adopt but only foster (imo for unfair reasons) and/or not recruited as aggressively as they should be. I do wonder about private adoption agencies refusing black children….was this in the 1950s? I know of families who adopted children who are not lily white from domestic religious agencies.
The agency that I used places children from Ethiopia, Uganda, Haiti, India, China, S Korea, Nepal, Phillipines, Vietnam and Russia. With the exception of Russia a pretty brown group, wouldn’t you say? Also, in 2010 the most popular destinations for international adoption were China followed closely by Ethiopia.
http://www.americanadoptions.com/adopt/2010_international_adoptions?cId=66
I don’t know, mcweanis…..clearly we have two very different experiences regarding adoption. It is my fear that this prevailing idea that noone wants a black baby is preventing women from making a very valid and difficult choice of placing their child for adoption and instead keeping a child that they don’t want to parent. That is no way to live for either mother or her child. And I do think that we can all agree that foster care is not the optimal adoption agency a woman should use when placing.
I have worked in human services for the last 10 years and the sad truth is that there are not many couples walking into foster care or adoption agencies saying ‘I want the black one’. Its not their first choice. If by chance, they make a connection with a black child, then so be it. If that was the case, many people wouldn’t be going oversees for adoption. Its apparent that your experience havent been so ohralphie but sadly thats not the truth on a larger scale.
Your perspective as someone who went through the adoption process versus those who have worked in and seen the ugly underbelly of the system is guaranteed to be totally different.
You can’t use an anecdotal reference like “hey I adopted a black child once so all of you are just racist” and think that is the norm. As far as egg and sperm go, THEY TOTALLY GET ABSORBED BACK INTO YOUR BODY!!!! They are starting to do studies and are discovering that 1 in 8 pregnancies is fraternal twins but most the time one twins egg doesn’t make it and it too absorbs back into your body.
2hyper – too true. My experience is different from a social workers and I can only imagine the hideous stories that you could tell.
Out of curiosity, when presented with a black child how many couples said no?
I also think that if adoption practices/procedures were more coordinated throughout the country, a lot of these problems would be taken care of. I’m talking about allowing gays to adopt in all states, and making it easier to adopt over state lines especially for those in foster care.
It has been my experience that when people see my family they either think that we adopted him to get a boy, or that we are somehow playing Angelina Jolie. Neither are true but in the end fuck them – they are coming from absolute ignorance. And maybe that is the key and why I get so worked up about this. People think that noone wants black babies or premies or hep b+ or any number of things. The truth is that sure, some people have lists and at the end of the day wanting a baby that ‘blends’ into your family is not a bad thing. But keeping a child you do not want and could come to resent IS a bad thing, and not encouraging people to open their minds and hearts to adoption IS a bad thing and not utilizing the many, many black couples who would want to adopt but cannot because of perhaps financal constraints IS a bad thing.
Oh and HeatherF – I never said all of you are just racist, nor did I say my son is black (though 3 of my cousins are….maybe that’s just anecdotal though). But surely not any less anecdotal then someone who once tried to get pregnant and read a lot about it years ago, right?
And for the record:
“If the egg was not fertilized, it dies and disintegrates and as the corpus luteum also disintegrates its progesterone production falls, and the unneeded built up endometrium is shed.
http://www.drstandley.com/bodysystems_femalerepro.shtml
It does bear reminding that the egg we are talking about is only as big as the period at the end of this sentence.
I actually looked it up to be sure. I think Heather might have learned about eggs that are blocked (through tubal ligation, for example); these eggs, having nowhere else to go, are indeed reabsorbed. Eggs that have made the trip into the uterus are shed when the lining of the uterus breaks down and both are expelled during menstruation. I looked this up through ONLY valid websites (and I triple checked my answer) and I can provide links if needed. Hope that helps!
So even you wouldn’t adopt a black child ralphie????lol
I don’t even know how to respond to someone like you. In light of your misconceptions over human reproduction, maybe I’ll just pretend I’m speaking to Kelly Ben Simon.
I did not adopt domestically (that means in the US) for many reasons. Had I been able to do so, yes I most emphatically would have adopted a black child. Since I could not I went with the international (that means other countries) program that was the best match for my family and it happened to be S Korea. My son was a waiting child who was listed with two agencies due to medical unnkowns and his age. I saw his picture and I saw my son, end of story.
I have more colors, religions and sexual orientations in my family through marriage, birth, and adoption then I can count and I am proud of all of them. Except the assholes, but I’m sure your family is familiar with that feeling. lol.
I’ve adopted four children: 2 through foster care, 1 through an agency, 1 privately. All four systems suck eggs and the one thing that’s consistent through all the processes is that there are people who wait – sometimes years – to become parents. Yes, color matters to some and none to others but they all want a child to love and care for. I was completely open to all races and, ironically, ended up with four lily-white children, some newborns and some not. I currently know at least a dozen women who want to adopt a child of ANY race yet have been waiting months and even years for their chance; sadly, I must agree with OhRalphie that these kinds of shows make potential birthmothers of all races believe no one will ever want their child.
As a result, I can’t watch this show (although I love the recaps) because I fear I would break the screen on the television in anger. *In my experience* today’s teens view a baby as a possession and even a status symbol. I don’t understand how society has come to this point and it makes me sad for these children. I wonder if MTV will have a show in ten years called “26 and Still A Completely Moronic Narcissist”?
Sorry – that’s three adoption systems.
whoa! we’re getting a little out of control here. hopefully we can all agree that all of us tvgasm recappers/commenters are not racist assholes. i imagine the problem is coming from the different amounts of emotional significance vs. facetiousness people are bringing to the topic.
If you’re a mother who is afraid that her child won’t be adopted, wouldn’t you just go through an agency and make sure there are adoptive parents waiting in the wings and that the papers are all signed before you give birth? Surely, that’s smarter than having a child, signing it over as a ward of the state, and hoping for the best.
Caitlin and Tyler found their daughter a family before she was even born. The bio mom of my adopted twin cousins did this, as well. Many people are scrambling for newborns. You can go to an agency, open a book, find and contact a few families, and even watch them duke it out on your lawn for the privilege of adopting your child straight from the hospital. The new Fight Club! I gotta call bs on the bio moms who are afraid no one will want their kid if they haven’t even taken the steps to hookup with an agency while they are still pregnant. For the record, I’m talking about newborns. Foster kids…fugeddaboutit. After two years old, they’re considered damaged goods. Sadly, no matter how much people may want to adopt, some people would rather not be parents at all than take on what they consider the added responsibility of a child who has spent too long in ‘the system.’
About sperm living in the body for six days, that is true. But only female sperm, the X chromosomes. Male sperm only lives for three days, but it swims faster. So, basically, if a woman has sex the day or so before she ovulates, chances are the male sperm will reach her egg quicker. But if it is 4 or more days before ovulation, the male sperm will die off, while the female sperm will wait patiently for a few more days.
There are also other factors..like the ph balance of the vagina. It seems that female sperm can thrive when released at the base of the vagina, while male sperm seems to de better when it’s released closer to the cervix. (This was from an article that said your sexual position could help determine the child’s sex. Deep penetration (doggy-style) was best for male sperm, while missionary was good for female sperm.
So, on a lighter note..let’s put this theory to the test! Tell us about which positions conceived your kids! Who cares if you do at least 20 in one night? All that matters is how you finished!
I am totally an asshole, not racist though, I have a black friend even. lol but to sarcasatire, I know about the male sperm swimming faster but not living as long so in january 2008 we tracked my ovulation, I can to this day feel when I ovulate, if you learn enough about it you know exactly what your body is doing,and made sure we had sex as close to when i ovulated to make a boy, my neighbor was doing the opposite to try and get a girl, somewhere around July I got pregnant (standing up in the shower I believe) and i remember thinking “shit we did it too late” voila we had a bouncing baby GIRL in April 2009. The older child was probably concieved in Nov 2006 missionary in a drunken stupor. (oh and my neighbor trying to get the girl, had a bouncing baby boy 8 days before me,) so science and reading text books got us no where. lol
This is an extremely sensitive topic and I did get bitchier than I ought to have. For the record I did not call anyone a racist, most especially Mcweanis nor do I think anyone that posts here is a racist and I am truly sorry if I ever gave that impression.
Forgiven Ohralphie, sometimes our emotions get the best of us. Now please offer us a snarky comment as your penance.
Ok. I get that some times you are just physically attracted to some one and you may have sex with them sooner than you would have liked, but seriously what’s up with the girls saying that they’ve only been with the guy for 3 months.
I mean in high school (it was a while ago) you were boyfriend and girlfriend in a matter of days, so how is it that you are 5 months pregnant, but have only been with the guy for 3 months.
And sheesh…are none of the high school girls opting to wait anymore? I mean even if it’s just 6 months. Geez.
I do wish this young girl had given her baby up, so that she could fulfill her dreams and her baby could have a better life. Not to say that she can’t but there are people with no kids and a trust fund who have a hard time in veterinarian school.
Okay, I love reading recaps and commenting as much as the next person, but it’s supposed to be light-hearted and snarky. I don’t understand why some people invest SO much in the random opinions of strangers. Unplug. Walk away. It’s hard enough to put someone in their place face-to-face, let alone through a computer screen. Who cares?
Because, JudgyWudgy, my ovaries died on the vine when I was 25, then we tried a surrogate mother, but the stupid doctors let her see the baby in the delivery room, and you know how THAT always turns out, and then I fought with the insurgents and was wounded by shrapnel fighting my way through Guatdmala to adopt a war orphan. AND, I just learned that my 16-year old Guatemalan daughter got knocked up by the gangsta next door, and this MTV casting guy is always sitting in my living room whenever I get home from a double shift at Piggly Wiggly. So yeah, I’m a little …touchy about this discussion.
really? I just argue for sport.
Wow NWMT, that’s rough. I’ll be sure to keep my opinion about Piggly Wiggly to myself, then, but I will say this – it’s no Hinky Dinky.
Heather, unless arguing brings you in a hefty amount of cash a la a lawyer, might I suggest taking up tennis, or perhaps kickball? It’s better for you.
I think I’m gonna start hiking next weekend.
Well, I just have to say, as a former high school fattie, I wish I had thought of the date a younger guy in another school thing.
Can someone please block this fool HeatherF from posting? I used to enjoy reading through everyone’s thoughts on this show, but I don’t even want to read the recaps this season because I know she’ll be on here spouting nonsense in every other comment. For the love of humanity, don’t procreate anymore HeatherF… I feel safer with these silly MTV girls popping out offspring.
I was going to write that I found your comments funny, HeatherF. True, like Mcweanis said, some people take much of the show’s subjects to heart while others just consider it entertainment. Either way, it all has a place here at the Gasm, forming a unique combination of snark and insight.
Closeyourlegs, your post had nothing to do with the show; the only objective was to attack another poster. That was bad enough. But I think the worst part is that your insults aren’t even funny! This is TVGasm, girl! Step up your game.. or sit on the sidelines.
Well I was going to get a kitten but now I think I will have another baby, maybe several, the world needs fewer people born without sticks up the asses.