Lucky? Hmmm.

It was lovely to spend so much time with my mum and sister last weekend. They have so many amazing and admirable qualities that I lack, and it's good for me to be around them, to try and acquire at least a veneer of goodness and kindness. But I have to think that in some areas, I won the genetic lottery in my family.

If you are single and male, stop reading now. I mean it.

I don't have particularly strong girl hormones. I don't have much pain with cramps, and I handle it all quite well. I have been blithely and relatively unaffected by such matters ever since, well, I was old enough potentially be affected by them. I remember feeling such pity for all those girls in my dorm, who screamed in pain and took special medication when their periods would come. I felt pity, but I didn't really understand.
Well, this past weekend, we were discussing something regarding weight gain, including birth control weight and all that fun stuff (yes, I can eat whatever I want and still remain on the slender side, but even I have some excess flab from birth control), and the other poor ladies in my family have turned out to be afflicted with much more female pain and stuff than I ever have. Sparing everyone the details, let me just say that I learned something new about human biology. Mom and Mia both complained about "mid pains". Huh? Never heard of them.
Mom: And the worst part is that you have cramps in the middle of your cycle, too.
Me: Huh? What are you talking about?
Mom: You know, the mid pains, when you cramp while ovulating.
Me: Huh? What are you talking about?
Mia: Yeah, the pain is more intense, because it's concentrated more around your ovaries. So it's like, the cramps and pain don't really stop, all month long.
Me: Huh? What are you talking about?
Mom: You don't get mid pains? You don't get cramps in the middle of your cycle?
Me: No, I've never heard of this. What are you talking about?
Mom: Some women get intense cramping in the middle of the month. It happens when your body is moving the egg from the ovaries.
Me: Oh, quit it. You're pulling my leg. I've studied human biology and the human reproductive cycle. There's nothing about any of this in my biology books.
Mom and Mia: Those biology books were written by men!
Well, I went and looked it up on the internet, and it's on all the reputable medical websites. It really does exist, and it even has a technical name (in German): mittelschmerz. How is it that I've been a girl for nearly 3 decades, and I've never heard of such a thing till now?!
So, anyway, I'm guessing that maybe I don't ovulate regularly. How weird is that? [And how weird is it that I can talk about stuff like this on my blog? Well, I'm a biologist at heart. It doesn't bother me.] I'm probably just less fertile than either my mom was or my sister will be. I think it's so interesting that the same combination of genetic material (my mom's and my dad's) turned out two such different end results: my sister and me.
Mia takes after the Kalen (paternal grandmother) side, physically, with darker skin and brown hair; she is naturally athletic, as befits the daughter of healthy Scandinavian immigrant stock. Mia is sensitive, artistic, and compassionate. She wants lots of babies, and she is ideally suited to bear and nurture them.
I take after our mom with my face shape and coloring; I am built like a dancer, with compact torso but long limbs, and not a lot of muscle. I am introspective, sarcastic, and (I hope) logical: a scientist or scholar to the core. I appreciate babies (and I appreciate the fact that other people have them), but don't really want one of my own, since cats are doing well for me right now, and I'd rather have a career (yes, I like books better than babies; deal with it). Pretty much the only thing that Mia and I have in common is our X chromosome!
Way to go with sorting out the genetic probabilities, Mom and Dad!