What's a sniglet???
Sniglets are funny made-up words/definitions for those things in life that
just don't seem to have any "official" terminology. The world of infertility
provides lots of hilarious inspiration.
General Infertility
Sniglets
Psycho-symptom-atic
Syndrome - a psychosomatic condition afflicting women during the
two-week waiting period; marked by a tendency to incorrectly attribute
every bodily twinge and twitch to the early stages of pregnancy.
Yearnation - the
overwhelming urge to urinate while recording your morning basal body
temperature reading.
Peetience - what
you learn to aquire when starting to chart your basal body temperature.
* Corp-peeing -
anytime a OPK or HPT is taken at work in the company's Ladies Room.
Anyone who has done this, I'm sure, has visions of the looks on their
co-workers faces if they come into the Ladies Room the same time your
watch alarm is going off after the 3-5 minute wait time.
* Stall Talking -
the time between a Corp-pee and test results. Usually things like -
"please, please, please, let's see a plus sign this time" "aw come, on
hurry up", or "Man! not again!". A time you hope your co-workers do not
hear you or recognize it as you in the stall by the shoes you are
wearing.
* Bladder Praying -
praying that your bladder will fill up so that you can take an HPT -
because it's day 29 and you KNOW FOR SURE THAT THE TEST RESULTS ARE
GOING TO BE POSITIVE THIS TIME.
BasalBedBouncing -
the earthquake-like sensation you get while shaking down your mercury
basal thermometer in bed.
Basal Instinct - an
urge to shake down your basal thermometer BEFORE recording your
temperature in a futile attempt to work up a sweat and boost up your
temperature; usually strikes late in the menstrual cycle about the time
your temperature would be naturally plummeting to indicate the on-set of
your dreaded period.
Pregsplotion - the
sudden abundance of pregnant women in your vicinity within hours of your
negative pregnancy test.
Coitus timeruptus -
the practice of timing intercourse to correspond with the timing of
ovulation.
Doggus interruptus
- when your dog interupts sex.
Cattus interrupus -
when your cat interupts sex.
Coinus interruptus
- the impact of infertility treatments on one's pocketbook.
Mucusology - the
inexact science of attempting to determine the timing of ovulation.
"The Sperminator" -
nickname for any friend of your husband's who insists on extended sauna
sessions after playing squash.
Freeballing - the
step beyond boxers taken by truly devoted husbands with low sperm count.
Freeballitis -
chaffing and raw skin associated with freeballing.
Sizzlers - men's
bikini underwear.
Briefectomy -
furtive removal of all tight-fitting briefs from your husband's
underwear drawer.
Rigorous mortis -
loss of interest in sex due to lack of spontaneity in timing.
Get shorty -
mission of women married to men afflicted by rigorous mortis.
Male sex drive -
something constantly in motion, but shuts down completely from his
wife's cycle days 10-16, because, after all, what's the use...
Transfurryence -
treating your pets like human babies.
Furrtility - when
your cat gets pregnant.
Clearpit Easy -
bottomless pit into which women hurl buckets of money while repeatedly
testing for pregnancy way too early or while testing for an LH surge.
"Looteal" phase:
The period of time between cycles when all of the insurance
statements/doctor's bills come in from the beginning of the cycle. Also
a time to save $$ for the upcoming cycle.
Assincline - the
odd-looking practice of elevating a woman's buttocks after intercourse
in order to maximize the sperm's ability to swim for the egg.
Hubincline - the
odd-looking practice of placing a woman's buttocks on her husband's back
after intercourse in order to maximize the sperm's ability to swim for
the egg.
Gluteus Unrelaximus
- side effect of the uncomfortable act of propping up the buttocks after
baby-sex.
Feather-butting -
the ungraceful act of a woman propping her butt up on FEATHER pillows
after sex to improve the chances of conception.
Butt-proposition -
the act of having one's butt up on pillows and trying to look graceful
in that position.
Buttressing - the
act of firmly putting your feet on your lover's back as he lifts up and
shoves pillows under your butt (for the assincline, feather-butting
position). Buttressing often needs to be repeated to make sure you get
the proper assincline.
Flying Buttresses -
the condition of having pillows fly out from under you as you attempt
the feather-butting, assincline position.
Mucuscide - having
mucus that kills your darling husband's sperm.
Hindsight - looking
back to see what is happening as you get your shot!
Bummper Stickher -
a hybrid sport involving a cross between mountaineering and coitus non-interruptus.
Sperm washing -
what you have to do to the sheets when hubby accidently falls off the
pillows at JUST the wrong moment and / or you cough/sneeze/laugh just
after that precise moment.
Climbmax - what you
say to hubby (if his name is Max) as he prepares to ascend the mountain
of pillows before him.
Punjab - Cracking
jokes to take your wife's mind off the fact that you are about to give
her a shot. Pokejoy - The _imagined_ glee wives think that husbands get
from sticking them in the butt with a needle.
Darts - the art of
throwing a lethal weapon in the general direction of your darling wife's
rear end with your eyes half closed from sleep and hoping that you hit
the bull's (or should I say cow's?) eye.
Pokeher - a game
much like darts, only it involves a little more thought and it appears
to be a little less random.
Shotting the Breeze
- a game of darts or pokeher where Bec (aka "a breeze") is the target.
Flying buttress -
an architectural feature, consisting of an elaborate constuct of
cushions and pillows designed to maintain the would-be mother's
posterior in the optimum position for fertilization following darts or
pokeher.
Lubiscus -
embarassingly goopy wet feeling after an uncomfortably intimate
examination or procedure.
Multiplous avoidus
- the act of reminding the nurses yet again (!) to avoid the
"infertility" diagnosis on insurance forms.
Indifferent
costimulus - the need during intercourse for her to concentrate on
fertilizing and him to avoid all thoughts of fertility/infertility and
just come.
Buttcushion - where
you store your fertility shot needles.
Monthus offalus -
taking a month off from baby-making sex, trying to remember what exactly
"birth control" is, so you can be poked and prodded mercilessly with no
hope of getting pregnant.
Posistick/Negastick
(noun) - the urine-filled ovulation predictor kit or home pregnancy test
stick.
Posistickly/Negastickly
(adverb) -- example of usage -- "I am posistickly sure that I will
ovulate so please come home immediately!"
Piddlesticks - an
exclamation made after mistakenly splashing on the window of an
ovulation predictor kit or home pregnancy test urine-stream stick, as in
"Oh piddlesticks."
The-Mom-meter -
instrument for determining best time to get pregnant.
Day-one-dering -
wondering why oh why you have to deal with "day one", yet again!
Fanta-sizing -
Dreaming what you would look like nine months pregnant.
Laparophobia - in
intense sense of dread preceding laparoscopy, marked by last-ditch
efforts to get pregnant and avoid having the procedure (like you weren't
already trying your hardest).
Misconception - the
pathetic belief that you might actually manage to conceive naturally the
month before a laparoscopy.
Missedconception -
the pathetic belief that you actually would have conceived if you and
your partner hadn't avoided sex while you were having a MASSIVE fight;
also the pathetic belief that you actually would have conceived if you
and your partner hadn't avoided sex in spite of being toooo tired
because you both had worked 15 hour days for the previous three.
Mythconceptions -
what happened on Mad About You and any urban folklore about people who
got pregnant on vacation, after they adopted, etc.
Preconception - the
insane belief that you will get pregnant before you have to do IVF.
Preconceived notion
- the idea (before trying to get pregnant) that one will get pregnant
within a month or two, three at the most.
Hormonophobia -
dread fear of saying the wrong thing to your wife when she is on
fertility drugs. Follow-pee-in Tube - the little glass vial into which
one puts her urine for an ovulation predictor kit, in order to determine
if an egg is about to make its trip along the fallopian tube.
Pitspermitis - the
crick in your armpit which arises from carrying that plastic bottle of
semen from home to the clinic.
Pregtember - name
of the month you hope to be pregnant by.
Preggozone - the
magnetic area around all infertile women that draws expectant mothers
into close viewing range; the first day of any cycle has the greatest
magnetic field, closely followed by any day on which an infertile womans
fails a pregnancy test.
* Pregnorance - the
inevitable brain shrinkage that occurs in pregnant women making them
seem less intelligent.
* Pregnesia - the
way pregnant women forget everything, sometimes even the fact that they
were infertile.
Multiple Dwarf
Syndrome - a state caused by the ups and downs of fertility treatments,
characterized by describing oneself as some combination of grumpy,
sleepy, dopey, bashful, etc; especially effective descriptor if you
include what we like to call the "alternative dwarves," such as horny,
bitchy, barfy, crampy, etc.
Prince Charming (or
Hubble without a Choice) - the name for a sweet husband who is
infinitely patient and kind while you have Multiple Dwarf Syndrome.
Snow White Complex
- the mental state following your careful examination of white undies
and panty liners for indications of mucus or menstrual flow; any hint of
red on white or confusing mucus signs gives you the absolute right to
take on any or all of the emotions in the Multiple Dwarf Syndrome.
Joe Pesci Syndrome
- the overwhelming urge (which occurs around day 12 of a Metrodin/Humegon
cycle) to attack someone rude with a pen, pencil, or whatever's handy.
Reverse
Pharmacology - taking Birth Control Pills in the month before your IVF.
Ticklesticles -
extremely ticklish testicles!
Miss Mannerism -
the habit, when people ask you nosy questions about when you're going to
get pregnant or make rude comments like "want my kids?" of looking a
combination of shocked and puzzled and saying something like, "Why ever
would you say such a thing?"
Graphic Imagination
- tweaking, massaging, reorienting, or redrawing your basal body
temperature graph/data in an attempt to see either a temperature rise or
the magic triphasic pregnancy pattern.
Inferguilty - how
you feel when you're having a bad day and you read someone's post
announcing their pregnancy and you are overcome with the urge to kill
them.
Clomidfiend - A
woman under the influence of Clomid-induced mood swings; someone who
wants to blame anything and everything on the drug.
ClomiWITCH - a
woman uner the influence of clomid. She can becoime the WICKED WITCH OF
THE WEST!!!!! Also ClomiBITCH.
Clomidbuddy - the
invisible but very useful "nobody" who is TRULY responsible for all the
awful things mistakenly attributed to a woman on Clomid. ("It wasn't ME
who smashed those dishes onto the floor in Clomid-induced anger ... It
was the Clomidbuddy.")
Metrodinner - the
evening meal preceded by a shot in the tush.
Perganol-tory - the
two-week, in-between waiting time
Laying the PIPE
DREAMS - the vain hope that if you just relax and enjoy the ride you
might actually get pregnant.
Wining and
complaining - drinking LOTS of red wine while whining about another
negative pregnancy test.
Class-preppanoia -
the irrational thought which strikes a first-time university professor
(while doing class preparation) that a student in one of her classes
might do a usenet search on her computer id, finding all her silly
postings to alt.infertility; symptoms include madly removing all
personal references from her web page (cats, husband, all signs of
having a real life) to avoid the students thinking she might actually be
*human*.
Justwaition -
1. the two weeks between ovualation and a pregnancy test.
2. a period of time just before gestation.
Hormotional -
easily rattled emotional state brought on by hormone surges; especially
symptomatic of women on fertility drugs.
Barbe shower- a
baby shower disguised as a back yard barbecue.
Indijection -
getting sick to your stomach while getting metrodin shots.
Naturalism - the
pathetic belief that any egg produced when your doctor wasn't expecting
it (e.g. not induced by HCG, not induced by fertility drugs, etc.) is
miraculously more fertile than the rest, as though somehow your medical
care is specifically causing your infertility. (Also known as "A watched
egg never fertilizes syndrome".)
Cruisin' for a
bruisin' - driving one hour each way in rush-hour traffic to have blood
drawn by a technician who's blind in one eye and has arthritis in both
hands.
Hormonally
Challenged - the politically correct term for a woman who is having mood
swings due to infertility treatement.
Pregnition - the
act of starting on fertility treatment.
Hockey puck season
- that time of the cycle when your breasts are sore and feel like hockey
pucks; coincident with a desire that your partner relieve his desires by
playing hockey with his buddies rather than get his hands anywhere near
your breasts.
Hystericalsingogram
- A singing telegram performed with wild gyrations by a wife when
telling her husband the pregnancy test is positive.
Postcoital Nest -
the secret vaginal hiding place where sperm hide when they are faced
with fertilization-anxiety; especially frequented by sperm avoiding the
cervix-swab during a postcoital test.
Petri dish - a womb
with a view (for IVFers).
Inputty - what your
brain turns to after reading too many newsgroup messages at one time.
* Totsicles -
frozen embryos waiting to be transferred.
* Popsicle - the
straw containing frozen sperm, from a husband or donor, that will be
used in an insemination.
Egg Theme Infertility
Sniglets
Egg Retrietal -
what some eggs do at the mere mention of sperm.
Eggstatic - what a
woman on fertility drugs hopes to feel.
Eggspurt advice -
what all the fertility books write about ovulation.
Egg poaching -
indulging in extended hot tub soaks during ovulation _or_ having frozen
eggs stolen from an IVF clinic.
Eggsplotion -
hyperstimulation of ovaries induced by overdosing on fertility drugs.
Eggsploitation -
what drug companies do to women who need fertility drugs to ovulate or
to produce enough eggs for IVF.
Eggsplanation -
instructions on the label of a fertility drug bottle.
Eggswhiteation -
the incredible excitement one feels when finding egg-white mucus when
not even looking for it!
Eggspedition - the
route an egg takes once it leaves the ovary.
Eggspectation - the
period of waiting prior to oviulation.
Eggsaspirated - 1)
eggs that have been aspirated 2) the annoyed or irritated state of women
on fertility drugs or men having to have supplied a sperm specimen as
they await results, an appointment, or an RE's phone call 3) the way an
infertile feels when forced to listen to another's insesitive comments.
Eggsplosive - what
a woman on fertility drugs is like.
Eggscavation - the
process of removing follicles from the ovaries.
Eggsploited - what
those undergoing any reproductive treatments are by the insurane
companies and clinics.
Eggcessive -
another word for hyperstimulation.
Eggsamination - the
process of looking at follicular development via vaginal ultra-sound.
Eggsuberant - the
joyous way one feels upon finding out that one ovulated!
Eggo - the correct
path which the ova follows through the female reproductive tract, as in
"Eggo through the fallopian tube into the uterus".
Eggstra Sensory
Perception - the *certain knowledge* that THIS time, seuxal intercourse
*will* result in pregnancy.
Eggstravaganza -
the three ring circus which ensues when your doctor, his/her residents,
interns, and medical students (not to mention several nurses and all the
operating room personnel) are working on harvesting your egg(s) for in
vitro fertilization.
Truly Eggscellent -
high degree of egg quality, as in "A truly eggscellent egg is easily
fertilized and results in a pregnancy!
Eggspress - the
route an egg takes through the fallopian tubes - NON-STOP!
Eggscuse Me! - what
a polite egg says after bumping into a swarm of sperm.
Eggsonerated - what
an egg is after being told "You're not good enough to be fertilized,"
"You'll never implant," or "You'll never go to term." and then does all
three thank you very much!
How Do You
Like Your Eggs?
Over Easy -
Pregnancy resulting after only ONE treatment of any kind.
Sunny Side Up -
Checking egg in petri dish under light microscope for signs of cell
division meaning successful in vitro fertilization has occured.
Scrambled -
Fertilized egg which wasn't viable due to genetic defects.
Hard Boiled - Egg
which is impervious to dh's sperm.
Sniglet
Acronyms
HSG - Hot Sticky
Goop
BBT - Big Boob
Tester; Big Bothersome Thermometer
ICSI - If Cows
Sucked Indiscriminately
EMB - Every Man in
Boxers; Extraterrestrial Mutant Booger
POF - Powerful
Orgasm Fanatics
ART - Acrobatic
Reproductive Techniques such as the assincline.
ANA - Aggravating
Nurse Aliens, specifically the kind that lead to Cruisin' for a
Bruisin'.
HPT - Hopefully
Pregnant Thoughts. Includes the kind of thinking you go through with
every stretchy, crampy feeling that happens during the luteal phase.
LH - Lucky Husband
ASA - Another
Stupid Aggravation
ASRM - Activate
Sperm Receiving Mechanism
E2 - Everything
Squared (E2's new album covers everything infertile. Some hits include
"HPT Blues," "Butt-propping Blues," "Probe Me Tender," and "Strange
Boobs.")
IUI
- Icky Ugly
Insects
- Infertility's
Ugly Indeed
IVF
- Imaginary
Vermin Facility
- Infertiles'
Vile Fate
OPK - Overpriced
Pee Kits
PCOS - Patient's
Cup Of Sperm
PCT - Please Creep
Through (spermies!)
PID - Pickled
Insemination Drippings
SPA - Stick Pee-ers
Anonymous
Non-Infertility/Made-Up Sniglets and Sniglet Acronyms
UPS - Utterly
Pathetic Service
PIPPS -
Progesterone Induced Pity Party Syndrome (the intense desire of a
patient on progesterone to get everyone on earth to see how every facet
of her life is much too hard.)
POT - Post-Ovulatory
Trauma . . . the period of time between ovulation and a positive
pregnancy test or one's period. It's trauma. :) An infertility friend
and I have POT often.
Copyright © 1996, 1997, 1998 by Rebecca Smith Waddell and Lisa A. Kramer
All rights reserved. The text from this page may be distributed
as long as copyright is attached and the use is not for profit.
Address:
Dr Malpani, Malpani Infertility Clinic,
Jamuna Sagar, Shahid Bhagat Singh Road,
Colaba, Bombay 400 005.
Tel: 91-22-22151065, 91-22-22151066
Fax (India): 91-22-2215 0223
Email: info@drmalpani.com
About us - * - Contact us
|
