717th Friday Blog Roundup

In an effort to try to focus beyond everything wrong in the world, a story about something very right.  Two women were able to both carry the same baby using a newer IVF technique.  Bliss (wife #1) provided the egg, and the created embryo was returned to her body to incubate for five days.  Then the embryo was transferred to Ashleigh’s (wife #2) womb where it implanted and she carried their baby for nine months.  Their son was born five months ago.

I don’t know the overall success rate of this option, though the cost is lower than traditional IVF.  But beyond the cost, there’s the emotional aspect of having both women get to experience the life inside their body.  That’s a powerful idea.

Science is amazing.

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Stop procrastinating.  Go make your backups.  Don’t have regrets.

Seriously.  Stop what you’re doing for a moment.  It will take you fifteen minutes, tops.  But you will have peace of mind for days and days.  It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week.  In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff…

Okay, now my choices this week.

Jewish IVF also has a powerful piece in response to the synagogue shooting, but I was first moved earlier in the week on her post about keeping score.  She outlines a frustrating situation with her old clinic and explains why she waited to switch to the new one last year: “I had a hard time thinking about switching; not only because of all the retesting we’d have to do and the cost, but also because of the feeling of failure that comes along with moving. It felt like new clinic was a last resort I wasn’t ready for, even though the reality was far from that.”  It was a really interesting post about taking a long, hard look at your clinic.

ANDMom has a post about conversation enders.  It’s a political post, but it’s really about not being able to see beyond your own situation and imagine the world beyond your door.  As we head into voting next week (you are going to vote, right?), it’s important to remember that your situation could change.  That you may need to live your vote, and you need to be happy living your vote, even if you end up in a different situation and now aren’t benefiting from your vote.  Will you be happy if your fortune changes and things are better?  Will you be happy if your fortune changes and things are worse?  It’s an important idea to remember before you cast your vote.  She says it perfectly.

Lastly, The Road Less Travelled is haunted on Halloween by thoughts of the grandfather her father could have been.  It’s a hard holiday, even when you don’t have kids parading up to your door in cute costumes.  She reflects on pictures of her father carving pumpkins with his fictive kin granddaughters and wonders about how things would have been with her own daughter.  It’s a bittersweet post.

The roundup to the Roundup: Science is amazing.  Your weekly backup nudge.  And lots of great posts to read.  So what did you find this week?  Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between October 26th and November 2nd) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week?  Read the original open thread post here.