Monday 1 April 2013

#atozchallenge - A is for Acronyms

And so it starts.

The A to Z Challenge, that is (for the purposes of Twitter I'm posting a hastag in the post title). This is my first A to Z Challenge and I decided to set myself the theme of Infertility, coincidentally, National Infertility Awareness falls in the last full week of April (ending on my birthday, ironically).


One of the first things you discover when you decide that you want to start a family, particularly if it's taking you a little while to get results, is that you've got to learn a whole new language. When you start hanging out on the TTC forums, everyone speaks in weird abbreviations. People long for a BFP and mourn when they get a BFN, you learn far too much about CM, stock up on OPKs and HPTs, and share too much information about when you DtD.

Most good websites and forums have a helpful little guide to help you understand what each of these terms means. The better ones don't use them at all and actually use plain English, which is a hell of a lot easier to follow.

It's one of those things you get used to as time goes on, but in the beginning it's a big reminder that once you start trying to have a baby, you're entering a whole new world!

12 comments:

  1. This may be an irrelevant comment but I generally hate working with abbreviations! When I first joined university, people referred to subjects with abbreviations and it was super confusing. Also, where I live, everyone refers to shopping malls with acronyms (because there are too many of them) but I still think it really doesn't hurt to just say the full name and be clearer!

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    1. I know what you mean, it's not like it takes a long time to type out most of those things. It probably doesn't take that long to say the longer version, the acronym probably takes longer once you've had to explain exactly what you me anyway!

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  2. Wow I didn't get most of the acronyms! But yes, it is a crazy whirlwind world this is.

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    1. It took me a while to figure them out, I'm explaining what some of them mean during the course of the challenge. :-)

      Good luck with your challenge.

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  3. Yeah, that would confuse me far too much. I'm really forgetful as well, so I'd never remember what they stood for.

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    1. With repetition you get to learn what they mean, but it's tricky in the beginning. Particularly when you Google them and all the results are things like companies or business terms!

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    1. It really is, until you get used to it. Now I rarely have to stop and think about what they mean. :-)

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  5. I am looking forward to reading your posts this month although I am sure that your topic will be heartbreaking at time.

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    1. Thank you, I'm trying to keep things fairly lighthearted but there are definitely some topics that I've chosen that affect me more than others. :-)

      Thanks for stopping by.

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  6. Look forward to your posts.
    I don't have children either, but my journey through infertility was short and ended in major surgery... the big H, 11 years ago.
    I sure understand the pain :( x

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    1. Thank you.

      Sorry to hear that was how things went for you. :-(

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Let me know what you think. :-)