u/whatcatisthis

Wife and I both break out in hives from tide. For our main laundry, we use Kirkland free and clear but sometimes I find that it really doesn't do that good a job on just regular laundry so I have experimented with amount and sometimes for heavier loads like towels I wash twice. We don't use any fabric softeners in our machine as I break out in hives from those as well. Wife can do most non-tide detergents, I've always had to use free and clear options. We have a water hardness around 94 mg/L or 5.1 grains per gallon or 87 ppm. PH is 9.04.

Looking for a good option for washing cloth diapers. I know tide is the gold standard but it cannot go in my machine. I break out from using laundromat machines unless I pay for an entire wash cycle before putting my own clothes in. This isn't an ask for a more natural alternative. Give me all the chemicals, but make it not Tide and then let me pray that it doesn't make me break out.

Very excited to be expecting a baby at the end of May so baby's first season will be hot. My house is old (built well before climate change) and stays hot in the summer despite our best efforts and HVAC so I want to make sure that we consider that when we're buying diapers and clothing. Planning to cloth diaper and am planning to try to get as much stuff secondhand/upcycled as possible so I have time to figure things out and stalk the secondhand groups.

By my thinking, because wool is more breathable than PUL, wool diaper covers are likely to be easier on a tiny little baby during the heat of summer? Does that sound right or is wool more insulating? I'm also thinking muslin flats or prefolds might be the 'coolest' but still absorbent option?

If I'm wrong, please please please correct me because I want to take this time to plan and prepare rather than being frantic at the last minute.

I live in an area where I am admittedly spoiled for choice for LYS. But. My favourites are constantly adding more Knitting For Olive. The redhat LYSs? StevenBe? No knitting for olive.

Got an ad this morning that my favourite destination shop for cool and unique imported yarns (and the only one that regularly carries a large selection of laceweight) has started stocking knitting for olive. I know what this means. The same thing it means at every store that carries knitting for olive. Huge displays of mohair and dwindling stock of everything else. Increased prices on everything that's not knitting for olive. Does knitting for olive have some kind of contract saying you have to make it the forefront of your store to carry it at all?

If you like knitting for olive, then cool. You're allowed. I'm not mad at you.

I've never seen a single skein of knitting for olive that made me go 'I need to find a project for this, oh my god.' Even though my favourite nearby LYS is roughly 50% knitting for olive. I'm not going to impulse buy knitting for olive. I'm not going to get excited by their yarn. I'm not going to hold mohair double to get a sweater that looks totally different after a couple washes. I'm not going to ever buy knitting for olive because it's nothing I want in yarn. It never will be unless they fundamentally change everything about their yarn.

It has enough square and linear feet of the LYSs. We don't need more of it.

My spouse and I (she'll carry) have been diagnosed with complete male factor infertility secondary to homosexuality, which is hilarious to me since I'm afab. We're working on selecting a donor which is a trip and a half. We had our initial testing this past month and our consultation this week. Given that we're both well over 35, we expected to be told our options were very limited and that IVF was our only option for a baby. We were prepared for this and expecting that news.

Lo and behold, her ovarian reserve testing came back way, way better than expected. Better than the reference values for someone under 35. We were jubilant, and grateful for our privilege in coming to the table with this enormous advantage we weren't expecting at all.

And then the doctor revealed that, because her results are so good, basically everything is on the table. Doc doesn't recommend home insemination which I'm fine with because we don't have a known donor, but we could do iui in three different ways and have approximately a 20% chance each try, which is the best odds she gives anyone with frozen donor sperm trying IUI. We want to be one and done, so IUI seems like the best option for us since it's much cheaper than IVF and we'd love to put the extra money into savings for a baby if possible.

The first method is for my wife to get to know her body and go in when she feels she's ovulating. We both agree that's not for us--we're science minded creatures and would prefer data that she's ovulating before we squirt 2k USD into her.

That leaves us with serial blood draws (a monitored cycle) to determine ovulation, or we can do more science and use meds to regulate and trigger her ovulation.

We honestly aren't sure which to choose. The doc says in our specific case, with her numbers, either of those options will have very similar outcomes for us. The difference is really an increased risk of twins on a triggered cycle versus a monitored one as well as the side effects of a triggered cycle and its hormonal effects on her mood and feelings. We're leaning towards triggered because it 'feels' like the best odds, though the doctor did say she felt the difference would be minimal in our case.

We're planning to be one and done, but agree that twins would be fine. I'm a bit risk averse to twins due to a family history of my younger brothers who are identical twins having severe complications. The risks would be lower for twins born through iui since the odds are better they'd be fraternal, so I can live with that and she thinks twins would be fun if it happened.

My question is this: if you had monitored or triggered cycles for iui and had the option for the other on the table for you, which one did you choose, why, and do you have any regrets about that choice?

I am not looking for medical advice, just personal views on how people choose and feel about those choices.

I am diagnosed HSD. I have an extensive history of ankle sprains and collapses starting when I was tiny. I was prescribed in shoe orthotics to help. I've had both custom and over the counter in the 35 years since my first set.

A few years back, I had an avulsion fracture of my right ankle, on the inside. The tendon or ligament (I never remember which is which) is intact, but it of course made my already very very lax ankle more lax. It now forgets it's a joint several times a week and hurts more often than not. My doctor said to go with a light brace to protect it from further damage, then washed his hands of me because while he'll diagnose hypermobility, he doesn't treat it and no one here who's covered by my insurance does. I've been using an over the counter bandage style brace, but it's hard to get on exactly right to put the support in just the right place.

Can anyone recommend a good over the counter brace that's easier to apply?

I got off a cruise around New Zealand on Anthem of the Seas early in April (so over a month ago) and it was overall an amazing cruise despite weather necessitating changes to more than half our ports.

I did have one problem and I felt it necessary to bring it up to the internet because there will be people who need this information for life threatening reasons.

Anthem is not changing LED lights that are going out. This means that the whole ship is covered in flickering lights. They were all over the Royal Theatre. They were all over the corridors. They were all over Guest Services. They were in the dining rooms. They were in the Windjammer. They were in every single part of the ship.

One of my travel companions is epileptic. If you're not aware, a major seizure trigger is flickering lights. My travel companion was forced to walk through the ship with a hat pulled low over their eyes and someone with them at all times so they could close their eyes to walk through huge sections of the ship.

We went to guest services and explained that this was a huge problem. Guest services behaved as if we were crazy. They asked for the location of EVERY SINGLE flickering bulb when we asked if flickering bulbs could be replaced or something so my travel companion could walk through the ship freely. We did not have that, but we could directly point to a half dozen flickering LEDs in Guest Services. We showed them these lights and they said they'd fix it. Those lights were never fixed so every time I went to Guest Services for something (not because I'm a whiner but because of things like them charging me for laundry piecemeal when I had bought a laundry bag's worth before the cruise or because we couldn't book a specialty restaurant due to the fact that we wanted to go at our regular reserved meal time in the main dining room), I had to go stand in line alone because my travel companion could not enter Guest Services safely. Every time I went to Guest Services, I spoke up about the flickering lights in Guest Services. Nothing was done.

So fair warning for epileptics: Royal doesn't care about flickering lights and will not do anything to help make the ship safe for you. They brag about their autism on the seas program, but autistic people are often bothered by flickering lights and have a higher proportion of epilepsy and seizure disorders than the general population (BOTH of my travel companions were autistic). It isn't autism- or epilepsy-friendly to fail to do maintenance so that the ship is actively dangerous for epileptics and a sensory nightmare for autistics.

I got off a cruise around New Zealand on Anthem of the Seas early in April (so over a month ago) and it was overall an amazing cruise despite weather necessitating changes to more than half our ports.

I did have one problem and I felt it necessary to bring it up to the internet because there will be people who need this information for life threatening reasons.

Anthem is not changing LED lights that are going out. This means that the whole ship is covered in flickering lights. They were all over the Royal Theatre. They were all over the corridors. They were all over Guest Services. They were in the dining rooms. They were in the Windjammer. They were in every single part of the ship.

One of my travel companions is epileptic. If you're not aware, a major seizure trigger is flickering lights. My travel companion was forced to walk through the ship with a hat pulled low over their eyes and someone with them at all times so they could close their eyes to walk through huge sections of the ship.

We went to guest services and explained that this was a huge problem. Guest services behaved as if we were crazy. They asked for the location of EVERY SINGLE flickering bulb when we asked if flickering bulbs could be replaced or something so my travel companion could walk through the ship freely. We did not have that, but we could directly point to a half dozen flickering LEDs in Guest Services. We showed them these lights and they said they'd fix it. Those lights were never fixed so every time I went to Guest Services for something (not because I'm a whiner but because of things like them charging me for laundry piecemeal when I had bought a laundry bag's worth before the cruise or because we couldn't book a specialty restaurant due to the fact that we wanted to go at our regular reserved meal time in the main dining room), I had to go stand in line alone because my travel companion could not enter Guest Services safely. Every time I went to Guest Services, I spoke up about the flickering lights in Guest Services. Nothing was done.

So fair warning for epileptics: Royal doesn't care about flickering lights and will not do anything to help make the ship safe for you. They brag about their autism on the seas program, but autistic people are often bothered by flickering lights and have a higher proportion of epilepsy and seizure disorders than the general population (BOTH of my travel companions were autistic). It isn't autism- or epilepsy-friendly to fail to do maintenance so that the ship is actively dangerous for epileptics and a sensory nightmare for autistics.

Is there a way to monitor breeding pod progress for Ironteeth? I'd really like to be able to make it so that if the population is above X beds empty AND the breeding pod is above 99% then the breeding pod will pause. So that I can have the replacement beavers within seconds of requesting them and they can use the time that I have plenty of beavers to gestate. I don't think I see a setting for this, but am I wrong?