This is what they’d told her all her life.

The test is positive.

You write the rest of the story.

A pregnancy test detects even small amounts of a hormone called…

hCG – human chorionic gonadotropin

For a detailed explanation of the chemistry of pregnancy tests, see the following wikipedia article, and read it with a grain of salt, as with all wikipedia articles. Think about whether or not what you’re reading is plausible. If you do not know enough about the topic to even be able to tell whether or not it’s plausible, well: you need to do some solid foundations research. This page seemed to me (on April 3rd, 2010) fairly plausible. More about wikipedia as a tool to develop one’s critical consumption of media skills…later.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_chorionic_gonadotropin#Testing

This hormone is produced after the fertilized egg attaches to the wall of the uterus. Production of hCG continues and levels will double or triple every few days.

The following is a list of hCG levels:

• 3 weeks since LMP: 5 – 50 mIU/ml
• 4 weeks since LMP: 5 – 426 mIU/ml
• 5 weeks since LMP: 18 – 7,340 mIU/ml
• 6 weeks since LMP: 1,080 – 56,500 mIU/ml
• 7 – 8 weeks since LMP: 7,650 – 229,000 mIU/ml
• 9 – 12 weeks since LMP: 25,700 – 288,000 mIU/ml
• 13 – 16 weeks since LMP: 13,300 – 254,000 mIU/ml
• 17 – 24 weeks since LMP: 4,060 – 165,400 mIU/ml
• 25 – 40 weeks since LMP: 3,640 – 117,000 mIU/ml
• Non-pregnant females:
• Postmenopausal females:

The home pregnancy tests available at drug stores and used in clinics or doctors offices the presence of hCG by a chemical reaction between the hCG itself and manufactured antibody (want to feel underinformed, check this out) specific to the chemical structure of hCG itself.

Hormones are chemicals our bodies make.

They can be as powerful as any outside chemical we may introduce into our bodies’ chemical sea.

They make organs grow!

Serious power.

A force to be reckoned with, for sure.

****************thesearehormones********************************************************************

There is nothing quite like a chicken in Spring.

(They stood in this spot for 20 solid minutes – watching and listening and looking con-fused.

Yes, I watched them for a good long while.)

It’s been a busy week. The chickens are synchronized standing in the middle of the yard, wondering what is going on with their world.

Here are some things I thought about this week:

vomit in kindergarten, and then in the middle of the night, t-ball, snacks, work stuff, needing to empty the ill-conceived pond and actually figure out something to do with the concavity in the yard, pregnant teenagers in general and specific, homemade prom dresses at the Goodwill bins, parents, pea seeds, dry soil, open windows, a rat, spray painting my banister and trim gold (began this morning, looks primo) (really, primo)…oh and fiber diagrams of human anatomy…that’s why I was looking for the prom dresses, they were all homemade.

I am feeling appreciative of garish interpretations lately.