The Oregon Women's Report - Women's News from Oregon

Oregon State University Extension Service
Garden Hints

SALEM, Ore. – You don’t need a backyard or other piece of property to grow a tree if you have a porch, patio or balcony – and a large gardening container.

You are likely, however, to need information on how to choose and grow your container tree, according to Neil Bell, Oregon State University Extension horticulturist in Marion County.

“Pay attention to the expected size of a mature tree,” Bell said. “For obvious reasons, a tree whose mature size is small will be most adaptable to container growing. The size of a tree is usually proportional to the size of its root system, and containers will restrict root growth.”

January has seen some celebrities become the focus from the sidelines, Below is a video of Brenden Fraizer’s awkward clap at this month’s Golden Globes which became a top 10 You Tube most requested entertainment video. Also below is Chief Justice Samuel Alito quietly mouthing disagreement at President Obama’s State of the Union address.

Decade of Decline in U.S. Teen Pregnancies Ends

HealthDay News – After more than a decade of decline, the U.S. teen pregnancy rate increased 3 percent in 2006, which led to a 4 percent rise in teen births and a 1 percent increase in teen abortions, a new study shows.

Between 1990 and 2005, there was a 41 percent decline in pregnancies among females aged 15 to 19 — from a peak of 116.9 pregnancies per 1,000 girls to 69.5 per 1,000. Between 1991 and 2005, births among teen girls decreased 35 percent, while teen abortions declined 56 percent between 1988 and 2005.

However, all three trends reversed in 2006, said the report from the Guttmacher Institute, which focuses on sexual and reproductive health research, public education and policy.

By Erika Weisensee
Milwaukie Mom

We started IVF (In Vitro Fertilization) at the end of August. The first step of IVF involves several days of injections designed to super-charge ovulation, and hopefully, create a lot of viable eggs for “retrieval.” The “retrieval,” or the extraction of eggs, is a minor surgical procedure. After that, the eggs are combined with sperm and then watched in Petri dishes. The healthiest looking embryos (sometimes one, commonly two, and sometimes even more) are then implanted in the uterus. This is a simplified summary of a very complex process, but that is essentially how it works.

IVF is the most advanced option available for people seeking fertility treatment. Obgyns and fertility doctors often prescribe fertility drugs like Clomid or recommend artificial insemination (a less drastic, more affordable option) before trying IVF. I had, in fact, tried Clomid for six months with no success. My own mother had conceived with the help of Clomid back in 1974. She had been trying to get pregnant for a year and took only one dose of it. The result was triplets—my sister, my brother and me.

From the Fat-Burning Zone to the Cardio-Zone—It’s All About the Calorie-Burning Zone
By Olivia Rossi, RN, MSN
Your Personal Trainer:

Do you have a “fat zone” you’d like to burn?  I do.  It’s located south of my waist and north of my knees.  Other common fat zones are known to reside between the shoulders and the elbows, from the chins to the shins, the chest to the hips, or any combination of the above!  Wouldn’t it be nice if we could get on a machine, dial in our own personal “fat zone” and say “Be gone”!!!

Unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.  The best way to begin and to continue burning away your excess weight is to move.  Cardiovascular exercise, also known as aerobic exercise, will burn off your fat as well as provide you with long-lasting health benefits.  Excess calories, stored as fat, are shed slowly but surely when caloric intake is reduced and caloric output is increased.

Oregon Women’s Report survey results;

Survey on
(1) Who Should fill the NBC 11:30pm time slot
(2) Favorite over all host Late Night Host

Compulsive Dogs Yield Clues to Human OCD, Autism

HealthDay News- A study of obsessive-compulsive Dobermans might someday help explain similar repetitive behaviors in humans. Scientists have identified a region on chromosome 7 in obsessive-compulsive dogs that may correlate to the human version of the psychiatric disorder.

The gene is the same in humans, said Dr. Nicholas Dodman, first author of the study, which appears as a letter to the editor in the January issue of Nature Molecular Psychiatry. In humans it resides on chromosome 18, the same chromosome which holds all of the psychiatric genes identified thus far, he said.

By Evergeen,

I saw this story and was amazed. This 6-foot 10 inch tall teen girl is a High School basketball star. She is taller than much of the men in the NBA and she is still growing! Check out the video below.

Oregon Women’s Report Movie Review,

The movie Extraordinary Measures carries a special gift from Oregon and to Oregon.  The film starring Harrison Ford and Brenden Fraiser is a story of an iconoclast scientist who teams up with an entrepreneur dad desperately trying to save his two kids with Pompe disease.  It is inspired by true events which makes the movie more real and fascinating to watch.   It was filmed in Oregon where our beaches, mountains and cities are in full display. The Oregon setting helps you feel like these heroes could be our heroes and these kids with the Pompe disease could be our kids.  Your heart cannot but help feel more connected with the story of these real-life people.  I highly recommend seeing it in the theater to share this experience.

More review below.

How My Fertility Struggle Became An Adoption Journey: Part 1
By Erika Weisensee,
MIwaukie Writing Mom

It is odd to find yourself in a place you never expected to be in. That’s how I felt last June when my husband Alex and I sat waiting in the lobby of a Portland fertility clinic. To be clear, I never thought childbirth or pregnancy would be easy for me, but I guess I never imagined it would be this difficult to get pregnant. After all, isn’t conception supposed to be the fun part?

We have what the experts call “secondary infertility.” That means you have had at least one baby but have been unable to conceive or successfully carry another. Our fertility journey began more than five years ago. I had reached my late-20s, had completed graduate school, and knew I best not wait any longer.  I began the baby quest with eagerness to conceive right away. It did not happen.

By “Miss Nelson”,
Salem Elementary Teacher,

It was strange to come home from work today and read about the shooter in Tualatin who came to his estranged wife’s work and began shooting.

My students and I had spent this week talking about Condition drills. These are the school shooter or intruder version of fire alarm or earthquake drills. We have done them in years past, but this year our school resource officer came and presented to the staff about the multiple reasons that schools may be targeted for shootings. These include domestic violence, homicidal students and former students like Kip Kinkel, and most recently, terrorist acts like those seen in Russia and the Middle East. He shared with us that when he first learned that schools were becoming targets for terrorists that he was skeptical, but that same day terrorists targeted a school in Israel and the real danger of it began to hit home.

Sharon Lacey,
Portland comedian

I have a dirty little secret. I’m hooked on reality shows. There.  I’ve said it. I’m an intelligent woman, with a lot on my plate; a fun, full, busy life. But I still make time for Survivor. And I know I’m not alone. Amazing Race wouldn’t be on after all these years if no one was watching.  There must be millions of us staying loyal to Big Brother, not telling our friends, relatives, or employers, lest we seem too…weird. If we’re caught, we say we’re doing an assignment for that Sociology class we forgot to mention we were taking.

To ease my guilt, I ride my exercise bike while watching. Which fit right in when I got hooked on The Biggest Loser.

Compounding the problem, I have very little time to watch any of these shows, since I’m usually on the road performing standup comedy around the country.  So I record them on TIVO. I often have 30 shows stacked up waiting for me to find time to watch them after I get back to Portland.  TIVO has just become one more “to do” list in my life that I can feel guilty about not completing!

I can see the comments pouring in already:  “Unplug the TV!!!”  Easy for you to say; you obviously haven’t gotten sucked into the new season of The Bachelor.

HealthDay News — A new national survey finds that almost 27 percent of girls aged 12 to 17 were involved in serious fights or attacks on other girls within the previous year. “These findings are alarming,” SAMHSA administrator Pamela S. Hyde said in a news release. “We need to do a better job reaching girls at risk and teaching them how to resolve problems without resorting to violence.”

Results from the 2006-2008 survey showed that just under 19 percent of the girls got into a serious fight at school or work, 14 percent were part of fights involving groups and nearly 6 percent attacked others with an intention to seriously hurt them. In total, 26.7 percent of the girls surveyed fell into at least one of those groups, the researchers noted.

Holt International Responds to Crisis in Haiti Following Devastating Earthquake.
EUGENE, OR

Following reports of the 7.0 magnitude earthquake in Haiti, Holt International staff immediately
began attempts to contact Holt staff in Haiti at Holt Fontana Village, a child care center and
compound approximately 40 miles north of Port-au-Prince. Within a few hours internet
communication confirmed that the child care center, the children and staff there were safe and
the facility undamaged.

“We are profoundly grateful that the children and staff in our center are safe” said Kim Brown,
Holt President and CEO. “We still do not have an assessment of the 120 families in our Family
Preservation program and we are doing all we can to determine their safety.”

By Christina Rainey,
Oregon mom

Shortly after Lauren’s single birthday candle was blown out and the strawberry cake was gobbled up with pink plastic utensils, I realized that I was the mom of a toddler – and things will never be the same.  Of course, I should have known that already, every day is different at our house, it seems.  That is, however, what I love most about being a mother, there is always something different.

Where is the road map to child-rearing?

Did I miss the “Welcome to Toddlerhood!” sign?

I don’t remember the specific day that I woke up with the realization that I don’t have an infant anymore.  Now my 15 month-old girl is a fun, curious, sometimes frustrated, determined and creative child. 

I Run Because I Can—My Thirty Year Journey with Multiple Sclerosis
By Olivia Rossi, RN, MSN, ACSM
Your Personal Trainer

It was January, thirty years ago in Richmond, Virginia.  My baby was six weeks old and there was something wrong.  I was going blind in my left eye.  It started imperceptibly like a fleeting, floating bit of gauze until it became an impenetrable curtain, layer upon layer of thick, brown fog, impervious to even the brightest beam of light.

At the same time I held in my arms my most precious infant son, I saw him slipping from my sight.  I held him, I nursed him, I loved him and I cried, probably more than he did.  I was scared.  I began having trouble speaking.  Words in my head either wouldn’t come out or they were halting and stuttered.  My legs were weak and burning with an odd ice-like sensation and it felt like a vice was compressing my ribs.

How young is “too young” when it comes to kids with cell phones?
By Kelli Warner,
KMTR-TV Morning News anchor, Springfield

When we posted those questions on our KMTR-TV Facebook page recently, the responses poured in immediately.

Here’s the reality: according to research from the Yankee group, more than 50% of “tweens” these days have a cell phone.  A “tween” is a kid who’s typically between 8 and 12-years-old. More than 50%.  I have to admit, I was a bit taken aback by that.  As a mom, I repeatedly discourage my 11-year-old’s constant request for a cell phone.  I tell him he doesn’t need it.  I feel like he wants it more for a status symbol—because “everyone else has one…” and not because it’s really necessary.  He doesn’t walk to or from school.  If he really needs to contact me while he’s at school, the school office has a phone.  Or because “everyone else has one…” I feel like there will always be a phone at his disposal, should he need one.