@chailife34 Thank you so much for sharing your story. Given that one of the biggest disagreements this board had early on was whether a person's gender is set in stone at birth, I think its great to hear your experience and hopefully anyone who may not know anyone with similar experiences or who might hold ignorant beliefs can gain some knowledge and perspective. I have plenty of friends across the sexual spectrum (I'm sure that's not the right terminology) but I don't personally know anyone transgendered. I work for a very progressive company and have counseled on issues surrounding employees' transition. So I just wanted to thank you and thanks for being so open!
WOW everyone is so interesting! @chailife34 you and your wife's story is amazing! I can't imagine all the feelings and emotions you two have gone through and its so great you are able to stay by each others side!
I'm boring... my tidbit is I was a competitive cheerleader when I was younger and have 5 national titles. I also cheered for a semi-pro arena football team during high school.
@chailife34 - Thank you for being so open and sharing your story with us and answering everyone's questions. My cousin is considering transitioning and I love hearing stories of people who have or are going through the process.
Wow - all of you have such fun and interesting tidbits to share! I literally have nothing, lol! Grew up in a very small town the mountains of CO and love being outdoors. I was our high school cheer leading captain but never competed beyond the state level. I was really involved in 4-H and showing horses and met DH at at High School Rodeo (he was a bull rider).
This thread is so fun and interesting! My tidbit is that I have a Little Free Library at my home! My husband surprised me by building it when I was away one weekend almost 2 years ago.
Thank you @chailife34 for your openness and sharing! I appreciate being able to learn about others life experiences. I admire you for being so clear with us and helping us grow. And @ShadeofGreen816 Thank you for asking the questions I would have wanted to know, but probably wouldn't know how to word.
Mine is (and I think I may have said this before) between the ages of 2-14 my parents fostered children usually directly from the hospital or under 1yr. So I got to be a foster sister to 13 or 14 children. They stayed with us anywhere from a long weekend to 2 years. If this is a repeat from earlier a different one would be that if DH had not contracted Guillain-Barre Syndrome after we dated for only 3 months we would not have lasted more then a few more months. I actually feel so lucky he got such a scary illness, because he is a wonderful man and I would have been a fool and let him go. We had both just returned to college after summer and had too much on our plates to continue the long distance relationship. He had to drop out of school for a semester so I actually got to see him and I certainly wasn't going to break up with him while he relearned to walk and use a fork. It saved our relationship and he agrees.
Such a cool thread. One interesting fact about me was I was born with a 3rd kidney. It actually isn't as uncommon as many people think. I had bladder and kidney issue growing up and it was found on an ultrasound. It was not functioning and actually ended up breaking up and being re-absorbed into my body by my teen years.
@chailife34 Thank you for sharing your story! It sounds like you have a wonderfully supportive relationship.
My dad has worked in some part of Indycar racing most of my life, and as a result I haven't missed an Indy 500 since I was three. (With the exception of my high school graduation and this coming race.)
My random tidbit is that we have a bilingual home. DH only speaks English to our children and I only speak to them in Spanish. I love seeing them saying something to dad in English and then turning around and saying the same thing to me in Spanish; pretty amazing how the brain works. DH and I speak English between us because his Spanish is rough but he feels strongly about our kids being bilingual so he puts up with not always understanding everything that we are saying.
That's our first and my husband really wants him to be bilingual too, so I guess I'm speaking Russian to him. My husband hardly speaks it. Lol
@schnitz9 my DD has a third kidney, too! It's currently functioning but she has annual follow ups to monitor it with a urologist.
I met my husband in Germany when we were in high school. We ended up living less than 10 miles from each other in the states and kept in touch ever since.
@vrj0522 So awesome that your kids will be bilingual! I studied Spanish for 5 years but I can barely speak it. I can read and write it pretty well and pick up most spoken language, but I would feel really uncomfortable trying to speak it myself! My DH speaks fluent Portuguese but he only teaches the girls a few words here and there.
Married 03.09.09 Sweet Baby H 12.21.11 Sassy Baby P 03.26.14 Little Brother Due 05.22.17
My random tidbit is that we have a bilingual home. DH only speaks English to our children and I only speak to them in Spanish. I love seeing them saying something to dad in English and then turning around and saying the same thing to me in Spanish; pretty amazing how the brain works. DH and I speak English between us because his Spanish is rough but he feels strongly about our kids being bilingual so he puts up with not always understanding everything that we are saying.
That's so cool, @vrj0522! My H teases me by saying he's going to teach our kids Esperanto so he can carry on private conversations. That would drive me nuts, so kudos to your H for being so supportive of your speaking Spanish with them!
@PghMom412@schnitz9 So where is a 3rd kidney usually located? How often are they functioning vs nonfunctioning? I'd go looking it up myself but don't want to fall down a wiki-hole.
@chailife34 thank you so much for sharing your story! It is clear how much love there is in your relationship. I have a question if you are willing to share. How did you/are you explaining the transition to your LO? This weekend at Disneyland we had a transgendered waitress and DD being the inquisitive smart little girl that she is asked "are you a boy or a girl?" The sweet waitress said, "what do you think?" DD said girl and the waitress went with it. She was unfazed and told me how sweet DD is, but I'm wondering how to approach this in the future.
My tidbit is that I was a fencer in college. It was short lived, but I bug MH with the fact that I was a Div I athlete and Mr. Football himself wasn't.
My tidbit is that I've been collecting Crown Royal bags ever since I turned 21. I'm going to make a quilt out of the bags once I have enough. It'll be years before I have enough to make a quilt though. I have friends who are bartenders and they get bags for me from their work. I mostly have purple Crown bags, but I also have some green Regal Apple, tan Crown Vanilla, and black Crown bags as well.
@chailife34 thank you so much for sharing your story! It is clear how much love there is in your relationship. I have a question if you are willing to share. How did you/are you explaining the transition to your LO? This weekend at Disneyland we had a transgendered waitress and DD being the inquisitive smart little girl that she is asked "are you a boy or a girl?" The sweet waitress said, "what do you think?" DD said girl and the waitress went with it. She was unfazed and told me how sweet DD is, but I'm wondering how to approach this in the future.
My tidbit is that I was a fencer in college. It was short lived, but I bug MH with the fact that I was a Div I athlete and Mr. Football himself wasn't.
Wow! What a clever child you have! And kudos to that waitress for being calm and inviting the dialogue with your DD.
Our LO is still very young (22 months - this new baby is due the day before she turns 2), so she doesn't understand yet. She flexibly adapted the name she calls my wife (went from Dada to DeeDee to now Mimi), and we tell her she has two mommies. She also has two grandmas (my MIL and her wife), called Oma and Mimzy. I hope by the time the kids become more aware, it'll be more mainstream, considering how much dialogue there currently is in popular culture. It'll also prompt conversations with them about what gender versus sex is and what social cues are used to figure out what someone identifies as. Simply, "this is how our family is, and we love you so much."
@chailife34 thank you so much for sharing you family's story!
I love learning more about everyone, and I'm jealous about all the bilingual speakers here. I spoke French pretty fluently as a child but lost it after we moved away from our French-speaking family. I've been learning Spanish but I'm nowhere near fluent.
My random fact is that I worked as a DJ/Karaoke host for 10 years. The company I worked for did Name-That-Tune, pub trivia, and karaoke at pubs and bars all over the city. During Christmas I would DJ corporate Christmas parties, but I primarily did the karaoke and music for Name-That-Tune. It was an awesome job - I would get paid (poorly) to hang out at bars all weekend and have fun with my friends.
@vrj0522 That's so awesome that you have a bilingual household. My BF is a teacher and has her kid going to a school that teaches in Spanish and tests in English. She is 7 and can converse fluidly. I'm stepping up my Spanish game currently (MH is fluent) since I lost my parents' native language when I started school (back then they wanted English only at home and my parents listened). I've tried to relearn it but without using it everyday, it doesn't stick. So, for now, we get lots of books for DS in Spanish.
My little tidbit - I started Polynesian dancing at age 7 (mainly Tahitian and Hawaiian with some Samoan and New Zealand as well). I competed yearly with my group and as a solo dancer and also preformed at many shows, large and small. I almost became a professional dancer travelling the world but decided I'd better go to college.
@MoshiMoshi7 - I am a native speaker and my parents worked very hard so that my brothers and I would keep the language and now I feel like I owe my children the same. All of us have been able to use it in our respective careers so it's come in handy so many times.
@hp_momma - that's how my DH learned some Spanish. He took it all through high school and college and although I feel like he learned more than most, a full language is hard so he is not fluent but being around it has definitely improved it.
@starphish18 - DH understands too many words to be dangerous so private conversations in front of him are out. Haha.
@mrsrep123 - I love Polynesian dancing! That is so cool!
Me: 38 DH: 36 Married 8/27/2011 BFP #1 9/28/2011 DS born 5/22/2012 BFP #2 4/24/2013 m/c 4/25/2013 at 4w BFP #3 1/31/2014 DD born 10/14/2014 BFP #4 1/20/2016 m/c 2/12/2014 at 7w2d BFP #5 8/19/2016 DS2 born 4/29/2017 BFP #6 3/7/2018 EDD 11/18/2018
@SKZW DDs is on her right side just above where the usual kidney is. A kidney defect was found on her 18 week anatomy scan in utero and had to be followed by a specialist throughout the rest of my pregnancy. (Which made being team green with her so much harder) We went to the Peds urologist at 3 days old and were shocked to hear them say 3 kidneys as we were under the impression she would only have 1 on the left side and a calcium mass on the right. It still functions like a normal kidney, but puts her at a higher risk for things like kidney/bladder infections and swelling because it refluxes due to the positioning of her ureter (drain tube). So she takes/ will take a daily prophylactic antibiotic until 6 mos after she's potty trained and we go yearly for a day of testing at the hospital. She's only had 2 UTIs in 2 years so we're kind of monitoring just to make sure more isn't going on. Her risk of infection significantly increases once we are actively potty training which terrifies me. We have been lucky this far with both the severity of her kidneys and her lack of infection.
Her doctor did say it's expected to be more common than they see cases of, but unless it would be found on ultrasound you usually wouldn't know unless you had recurrent infections or problems with bed wetting.
@PghMom412: That is so interesting! Thank you for sharing! The human body is so amazing. I can understand the nervousness about potty training and the increased risk of infection, but it truly sounds like she's in good health to start with, which is a really good place to be in, right?
@SKZW DDs is on her right side just above where the usual kidney is. A kidney defect was found on her 18 week anatomy scan in utero and had to be followed by a specialist throughout the rest of my pregnancy. (Which made being team green with her so much harder) We went to the Peds urologist at 3 days old and were shocked to hear them say 3 kidneys as we were under the impression she would only have 1 on the left side and a calcium mass on the right. It still functions like a normal kidney, but puts her at a higher risk for things like kidney/bladder infections and swelling because it refluxes due to the positioning of her ureter (drain tube). So she takes/ will take a daily prophylactic antibiotic until 6 mos after she's potty trained and we go yearly for a day of testing at the hospital. She's only had 2 UTIs in 2 years so we're kind of monitoring just to make sure more isn't going on. Her risk of infection significantly increases once we are actively potty training which terrifies me. We have been lucky this far with both the severity of her kidneys and her lack of infection.
Her doctor did say it's expected to be more common than they see cases of, but unless it would be found on ultrasound you usually wouldn't know unless you had recurrent infections or problems with bed wetting.
Sorry for the novel.
Mine was actually located right above my right kidney. It was a mass of kidney tissue about 3/4 the size of a normal kidney. I was born with renal reflux and had lots of UTI and Kidney infections growing up. The 3rd kidney was found on an ultrasound when I was about 7 or so. We tried treating the Reflux for several years to no avail and when I was 11 I had a pretty intense surgery on kidneys and bladder due to scarring. I continued to have re-occurring UTI's and Kidney infections just not as frequent. In my teens during another Ultrasound they noticed the 3rd kidney was getting smaller and realized it was starting to be absorbed by my body. I continue to get UTIs and kidney infections so have to be pretty careful going forward.
Growing up we had horses, well my mom still has a few, and one of my moms good friends was an occupational therapist. We took the horses all over southeast Tx and would volunteer at big hippo-therapy events for kids and families with special needs. That is what inspired me to go to school to be a SPED teacher, it's a little weird now since I am dealing with everything with DS and the likelihood of his ASD diagnosis but I think my past has helped me not be afraid of everything he is going through.
Re: Kidney issues. Between my sister, mom, and my maternal grandmother, one has 3 kidneys, one has an extra tube from one of her kidneys to her bladder, and one has one of her kidney's laying on its side. As far as I know, I don't have any kidney issues. DD had a UTI when she was 18mos old and based on my family history, we did an U/S to make sure all of her kidneys were regular. They all looked fine.
Re: GTKY - Random Tidbit
May17 Siggy Challenge
Labor
I'm boring... my tidbit is I was a competitive cheerleader when I was younger and have 5 national titles. I also cheered for a semi-pro arena football team during high school.
Wow - all of you have such fun and interesting tidbits to share! I literally have nothing, lol! Grew up in a very small town the mountains of CO and love being outdoors. I was our high school cheer leading captain but never competed beyond the state level. I was really involved in 4-H and showing horses and met DH at at High School Rodeo (he was a bull rider).
Thank you @chailife34 for your openness and sharing! I appreciate being able to learn about others life experiences. I admire you for being so clear with us and helping us grow. And @ShadeofGreen816 Thank you for asking the questions I would have wanted to know, but probably wouldn't know how to word.
Mine is (and I think I may have said this before) between the ages of 2-14 my parents fostered children usually directly from the hospital or under 1yr. So I got to be a foster sister to 13 or 14 children. They stayed with us anywhere from a long weekend to 2 years. If this is a repeat from earlier a different one would be that if DH had not contracted Guillain-Barre Syndrome after we dated for only 3 months we would not have lasted more then a few more months. I actually feel so lucky he got such a scary illness, because he is a wonderful man and I would have been a fool and let him go. We had both just returned to college after summer and had too much on our plates to continue the long distance relationship. He had to drop out of school for a semester so I actually got to see him and I certainly wasn't going to break up with him while he relearned to walk and use a fork. It saved our relationship and he agrees.
DS2 5/17
#3 Due 9/20
My dad has worked in some part of Indycar racing most of my life, and as a result I haven't missed an Indy 500 since I was three. (With the exception of my high school graduation and this coming race.)
I met my husband in Germany when we were in high school. We ended up living less than 10 miles from each other in the states and kept in touch ever since.
My DH speaks fluent Portuguese but he only teaches the girls a few words here and there.
Sweet Baby H 12.21.11
Sassy Baby P 03.26.14
Little Brother Due 05.22.17
So where is a 3rd kidney usually located? How often are they functioning vs nonfunctioning? I'd go looking it up myself but don't want to fall down a wiki-hole.
My tidbit is that I was a fencer in college. It was short lived, but I bug MH with the fact that I was a Div I athlete and Mr. Football himself wasn't.
Our LO is still very young (22 months - this new baby is due the day before she turns 2), so she doesn't understand yet. She flexibly adapted the name she calls my wife (went from Dada to DeeDee to now Mimi), and we tell her she has two mommies. She also has two grandmas (my MIL and her wife), called Oma and Mimzy. I hope by the time the kids become more aware, it'll be more mainstream, considering how much dialogue there currently is in popular culture. It'll also prompt conversations with them about what gender versus sex is and what social cues are used to figure out what someone identifies as.
Simply, "this is how our family is, and we love you so much."
I love learning more about everyone, and I'm jealous about all the bilingual speakers here. I spoke French pretty fluently as a child but lost it after we moved away from our French-speaking family. I've been learning Spanish but I'm nowhere near fluent.
My random fact is that I worked as a DJ/Karaoke host for 10 years. The company I worked for did Name-That-Tune, pub trivia, and karaoke at pubs and bars all over the city. During Christmas I would DJ corporate Christmas parties, but I primarily did the karaoke and music for Name-That-Tune. It was an awesome job - I would get paid (poorly) to hang out at bars all weekend and have fun with my friends.
@vrj0522 That's so awesome that you have a bilingual household. My BF is a teacher and has her kid going to a school that teaches in Spanish and tests in English. She is 7 and can converse fluidly. I'm stepping up my Spanish game currently (MH is fluent) since I lost my parents' native language when I started school (back then they wanted English only at home and my parents listened). I've tried to relearn it but without using it everyday, it doesn't stick. So, for now, we get lots of books for DS in Spanish.
My little tidbit - I started Polynesian dancing at age 7 (mainly Tahitian and Hawaiian with some Samoan and New Zealand as well). I competed yearly with my group and as a solo dancer and also preformed at many shows, large and small. I almost became a professional dancer travelling the world but decided I'd better go to college.
DS1 7/24/15
DS2 5/7/17
@hp_momma - that's how my DH learned some Spanish. He took it all through high school and college and although I feel like he learned more than most, a full language is hard so he is not fluent but being around it has definitely improved it.
@starphish18 - DH understands too many words to be dangerous so private conversations in front of him are out. Haha.
@mrsrep123 - I love Polynesian dancing! That is so cool!
Married 8/27/2011
BFP #1 9/28/2011 DS born 5/22/2012
BFP #2 4/24/2013 m/c 4/25/2013 at 4w
BFP #3 1/31/2014 DD born 10/14/2014
BFP #4 1/20/2016 m/c 2/12/2014 at 7w2d
BFP #5 8/19/2016 DS2 born 4/29/2017
BFP #6 3/7/2018 EDD 11/18/2018
Her doctor did say it's expected to be more common than they see cases of, but unless it would be found on ultrasound you usually wouldn't know unless you had recurrent infections or problems with bed wetting.
Sorry for the novel.
Mine was actually located right above my right kidney. It was a mass of kidney tissue about 3/4 the size of a normal kidney. I was born with renal reflux and had lots of UTI and Kidney infections growing up. The 3rd kidney was found on an ultrasound when I was about 7 or so. We tried treating the Reflux for several years to no avail and when I was 11 I had a pretty intense surgery on kidneys and bladder due to scarring. I continued to have re-occurring UTI's and Kidney infections just not as frequent. In my teens during another Ultrasound they noticed the 3rd kidney was getting smaller and realized it was starting to be absorbed by my body. I continue to get UTIs and kidney infections so have to be pretty careful going forward.
Growing up we had horses, well my mom still has a few, and one of my moms good friends was an occupational therapist. We took the horses all over southeast Tx and would volunteer at big hippo-therapy events for kids and families with special needs. That is what inspired me to go to school to be a SPED teacher, it's a little weird now since I am dealing with everything with DS and the likelihood of his ASD diagnosis but I think my past has helped me not be afraid of everything he is going through.
1/7/2015 Twins born @ 34 weeks
May17 Siggy Challenge
Labor