Addendum

Great googlie-mooglies, people, did I get anything right on Friday? Anything at all?

I have been informed that the cell phone - unlock the car door thing is untrue. A myth. An urban legend. However, not being one to merely accept such a statement (again) without taking the trouble to confirm or deny it, I spent the weekend conducting extensive trials. And I can tell you that both my sensible, sturdy, American-made conveyance du sport (with collapsible third row seating! and mud flaps! - a paltry $52 at the pump) and Steve's silly man car (passable fuel efficiency and it can strip the paint from the barn when it really gets moving, BUT you have to fly someone in from Bavaria just to change the oil) simply laughed when confronted with the cell phones. They certainly did not unlock.

The real shame of it all is that I heard this zinger from such a reliable source, too. There I was in the preschool corridor lamenting the fact that I had locked my keys in the car that very morning and a sweet older woman piped up, "I'm Nathan's granny and I used to lock the keys in my car all the time, mercy me. Then I heard about... cell phone... clicker... car door... and it works! Gracious heavens, it has saved me many times indeed! Cluck cluck."

Now, as soon as I figure out which one Nathan is (the blond kid, obviously, this is Minnesota, but WHICH blond kid?) I will have to tell him that his Grandma Bess is a lying whore. Such a shame.   

And, to keep with the theme, apparently the correct term is a "double bleb." Not a blep- a bleb. See the difference? OK, now stand on your head and read it upside-down. Frankly I think both versions are adorable.

So I stand (on my head) corrected. Although, to be brutally honest, the double bleb theory wasn't all that interesting in the first place. It is just that, accepting that there were two visible circles inside the gestational sac and that one was a yolk sac, it does beg the question: what the hell was the other one? The few possibilities that I can come up with include: another yolk sac (right! twins!); a fetal pole (apparently the earliest fetal pole is curved); random tissue (why not?) and the double bleb.

This excerpt from Radiology (Radiology, Vol 166, 97-103, Copyright © 1988 by Radiological Society of North America) defines the double bleb thusly: "The amniotic sac-embryo-yolk sac complex can be seen with ultrasonography (US) as two small blebs of almost equal size attached to the wall of the early gestational sac. We have called this the double bleb sign. Since the developing embryo and its cardiac pulsation are located between these two blebs, the size of an early embryo can be measured."

In other words, there is a brief moment in a developing pregnancy (or non-developing; devolving; interloping) when the yolk sac and the amniotic sac are seen as two roundish  entities, without a visible fetal pole.

No big deal, just the most reasonable explanation I could come up with for how the two moons of Mars wound up in my uterus.

And yes, I know I promised that I would leave the subject alone for two whole weeks but, really, this is more of a continuation of the last post. It was killing me to be oh-so-very wrong about everything without screeching mea culpa.

Speaking of mea culpa, I must get back to my studies.... hoc est faciendum mihi.

Comments

[Karen]

"hoc est faciendum mihi"??

Okay, NOW you're scaring me.

[ManhattanAnne]

OK. Thank God you cleared that one up. Because when I tried to tell him about the clicker miracle my husband (who generally exhibits very little interest in my blog life) actually pulled up your blog and insisted that we scroll through the comments on the clicker post to see if you'd been debunked yet. You almost lost me my street cred! Anyway, hanging in there with you on the other stuff...

[julia]

Okay, I'm coming late to the game, so I am sure I am echoing sentiments from the last round of comments, but TWO WEEKS? You're going to make us wait TWO WEEKS to find out if you're okay, and what's going on?

Hope you're okay, Julia. I mean, really okay, beyond the fact that you're obviously in TOP comic form. I'm just sick that you have to go through this. Doesn't the cosmos know that you of all people should have a zillion babies so that we have more of you running around planet Earth?

[carrie]

Since I work for an engineering company, I had to ask some people if the cell phone, car key thing could possibly be true. They said it could happen, if it was the right frequency. Something about the phone being a repeater and it sending the signal. I mentioned to my husband that I could lock my keys in the car and we could try it out. He patiently pointed out we didn't actually have to lock my keys in the car to see if it would work.

[Mary]

Just had to comment to say that I heard about the cell phone thing from my mother in law who tried it on my sister in laws car and it worked! She was totally excited about this. I haven't tried it yet, but I'll keep this little piece of information just in case I lock Ben in the car (again! YIKES) :-)

[Charlotte]

I made my husband try this over the weekend. It worked when he was a few hundred feet away (in the house while I was in the garage), but I have no idea if it would work over long distances. Carrie's posit about the right frequencies sounds right.

[thalia]

I'm so pleased to have been educated about blebs, double or otherwise. Now I can walk into the world with my head held newly high.

Shit woman, what on earth is your body putting you through? And are you still feeling all the pregnancy yukkiness you mentioned a couple of posts ago?

[Marsha]

Count me among those who googled "double blep" and came away more flummoxed than when I started. "Belb" isn't much clearer, but at this point...well, you see where I'm going I'm sure.

[Marsha]

Ha! Even my very creative variation of "belb" isn't so illuminating. See how confused I am? bleb, belb, blep...what's the diff between friends?

[Denise]

Hi... I'm just wondering... any possibility at all that this is a pregnancy made by you and Steve and NOT the folks at the Grove?

Stilling thinking the best!!!

[wealhtheow]

I don't know that much about fetal anatomy, but "fetal pole" consistently brings to mind images of a pole-dancing embryo. Work it, baby.

[Jessica]

For what it's worth, I found one appropriate reference to a "double-blep" on Google. Which might be someone else's typo, but anyway--

The thing to be careful about with the cell phone/keyless remote entry thing is that those keyless deals can work a lot farther away than you think, so if the person with the unlocker is within a few hundred feet it will unlock the door, regardless of whether it's pointed into a cell phone.

Cell phones and keyless remote dealies use completely different frequencies (thank god, or you might have dropped calls every time someone opened his car door), and the signal is not a sound but rather an rf signal--and cell phones do not and cannot, at present, relay rf signals. To *really* try it, have the person with the remote drive a mile or so away (or walk, I suppose one can walk a mile or so, I just never do) and then try it.

Would be nice if it worked, though, like if they built programmable car openers into cellphones--except probably they're all really different.

[Alexa]

Oh! Double BLEB! Well, it's all so clear now!

All I can say in Latin is "Hello, Sailors..."
("Salve te Nautae..."). Best said with a raised eyebrow and a "come right over hither" look.

[Jessica]

Husband, who is a physicist, agrees with what my namesake above said - cellphones can't transmit rf signals, but rf signals can work over pretty large distances ... so those who tried sending the signal only a couple of hundred feet away would have succeeded, cellphone or not.

[Jessica]

Ah, yes. "Snopes" knew it all along. ;-)

http://www.snopes.com/autos/techno/keyless.asp

[Amy]

And here I thought we were the only ones who watch Maggie and the Ferocious Beast!! Got to love the pith helmet!

[Charlotte]

Ah, so I'm wrong. That's kind of a bummer, even if I have not (at least to *this* date) locked my keys in the car. But an rf signal is not to be toyed with, I guess. Duly noted--and thanks for the info!

[Sheridan]

thanks Jessica - now you tell us! I went racing in to hubby to tell him this extraordinary piece of knowledge (him being a vertitable encyclopaedia of car trivia) and he said, no way it can't work.

So I made him ring me from the back of the house while I went to the garage (he wouldn't walk any further) and we tried it and it worked!! And then he said hang up the phone and I'll try it from here. And, grumble grumble, it worked even at that distance without any phone.

I must admit, Julia, I did think you had actually tried this before posting, and only because locking your keys in your car seems to be a rather, um , frequent occurrence.

[mo]

on the subject of clicker things, you know, if you are out of range, you can hold the thing up to your head (of all places) and it doubles the range. or something. i know it sounds weird, but my dad - got it off some UK car show, and was so convinced that it wouldnt work that he went out and tried it, and lo and behold it DID. but uh, im not sure that it helps if the keys are inside the car, as opposed to, in your hand.
(something fun to try anyway?)

[Ollie]

I have to admit, I am completely fascinated by all of this. Bleb, double bleb, bleborama, "Once, Twice, Three Times a Bleb". It's strange and fascinating.

Ok, cell phones are out. But what if you loudly chirp "OOT OOT!" at the car--will that work?

[Planet Mom]

I bought that "cell phone--clicker--car door" hoo-ha as well. And like a fool, I held the blasted thing right up next to the lock and instructed the person on the line "to go ahead and CLICK already!" ...only to experience utter shame and disappointment upon its failure. Naturally, passsersby wondered WTF I was doing, aside from having a verbal spat with my vehicle. Just feeling remarkably stupid, I guess.

So don't feel badly. You're not the only sucker out there on the planet. Besides, it really WAS a plausible theory--as theories go.

[Scully]

Standing on my head and reading things on my computer is so much more fun than doing my work the regular way.

[shannon]

See now, I believed you without question about the car thing. I just assumed you had done it yourself. We only have one clicker. But I am definitely gonna try it.

[Samara]

Julia...

Unfortunately I'm joining you in your mass of confused things... My betas went from 17 on 17 dpo (can we all chuckle there) and 20 on 19 dpo... laughable I know... and with a history of ectopics... I've decided to drink heavily just in case my liver can't handle things after the methotrexate AGAIN... if that's what this leads one to think of... talk about nuts...

Seriously hope this resolves itself for both you and I rather quickly. I also hoped the cell phone clicker thing worked... hubby who is a cop and recently locked his keys in his car and had to call and get me to come up to cop shop at 3 in the fricking morning also wishes it were true... but since my car can't be broken into with a slim jim I'm thinking a cell phone isn't going to work either... Wishful thinking it would have made my sleep cycle that much better.

Hope things start looking up and betas start going down for you.

Sam

[Chi Zit]

Can I tell you how much I love you? No? Can I sing it to you? *ahem Mememememe

We don't use a clicker. We just use the stand-by baseball bat for those uncomfortable moments when we've locked keys within the vehicle. Our daughter always thinks we're swining at her. Silly kids.

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