Kristyn Hodgdon
Everything you’re feeling, but didn’t know how to say.
What Prenatal Screening Actually Tells You (and What It Doesn’t)
Last week, I wrote about what I wish I’d asked my doctor during my first pregnancy. By my second pregnancy (with my third baby), I finally asked them.
With the twins, I had no PGT-tested embryos, two babies on the way, and a notebook full of questions about weight gain. Genetic screening never came up, mostly because I didn’t know to bring it up.
The second time around, I asked for both chromosomal screening and carrier screening. I was still anxious, because I’m me, but it was a different kind of anxious. I knew what I was working with and what I carried, and I could plan around that instead of just bracing for whatever came next.
What I wish had existed then: FirstGene®, a new multiple prenatal screen from Myriad® Genetics that does all of it in one blood draw, as early as eight weeks. Chromosomal conditions. Carrier screening. Fetal recessive disease risk. RhD compatibility. One sample, one report — and no paternal testing required, which matters more than it sounds, because only about 41% of male partners actually follow through on carrier screening when asked separately.
Prenatal screening doesn’t tell you everything will be okay. What it gives you is information early enough to actually do something with it: to ask better questions, to take specific diagnostic tests, to prepare, to not be blindsided by something that could have been caught sooner.
I would have wanted that the first time, but I’m glad something like it exists now.
Maui Babe, Tanning Beds, and the New Melanoma Vaccine
If you were a teenager in the early 2000s, you probably remember the smell of Maui Babe. I slathered it on at Rockaway Beach every summer with the confidence of a girl who’d never heard the word “SPF” from anyone but her mother, and kept the bronze going the rest of the year with a Beach Bum tanning package.
I’ve since had more than a few moles removed, and these days I’m diligent about the dermatologist, but I still can’t believe I ever laid in tanning beds on purpose.
So when news broke last week that a new personalized melanoma vaccine from Merck and Moderna cut the risk of the cancer coming back by 42%, I did a little happy dance. It’s made from each patient’s own tumor and given after surgery, alongside their usual treatment.
For now, it’s meant for people who’ve had melanoma, and it’s waiting on FDA approval. But that’s more of us than you’d think. Melanoma is more common in women than men before age 50, and plenty of women my age grew up thinking a base tan counted as sun protection. Researchers are also testing similar vaccines for other cancers, so this could be the first of many.
None of this undoes the tanning beds, and a vaccine doesn’t mean any of us get to skip the sunscreen. But for someone with several nasty scars from atypical moles, it’s hard not to feel a little hopeful.
I’ll keep going to my skin checks either way. It’s just nice to know my teenage self might end up with more options than she ever deserved.
Christina Applegate Doesn’t Have MS, and She’s Not Celebrating
Speaking of chronic illness, can we talk about misdiagnosis for a minute?
In women’s health, everyone’s (rightly) up in arms about how long it takes to get a diagnosis. Across 770 diseases, women are diagnosed an average of four years later than men. For endometriosis, it’s 10 years ON AVERAGE, which is a full decade of being told it’s probably just a bad period.
But what about when it takes that long, and then the diagnosis ends up being wrong?
That’s where Christina Applegate is right now. She went public with an MS diagnosis in 2021 and became one of its most visible faces, even co-hosting a podcast, MeSsy, with fellow MS patient Jamie-Lynn Sigler (my doppelgänger, according to some). Then last week, she shared on the show that a doctor had told her, “Congratulations, you don’t have MS.” But she wasn’t celebrating. “This may come as great news,” she said, “but to me... I’m back at square one.” She’s not better. If anything, she’s gotten worse, and she still needs a wheelchair to get through a doctor’s appointment.
I feel for her, I really do. Misdiagnosis means starting all over again, and that really sucks. As someone who’s collected a few conditions of my own (PCOS, ADHD, Hashimoto’s), I know having a name for what’s wrong is more than just a label. It’s a treatment plan, a specialist who actually remembers you, a community of people who get it, an answer for your aunt who keeps asking at Thanksgiving. Lose the name and you lose all of that, in a body that still hurts.
So when she said she feels like she let everybody down, it broke my heart a little. Five years as the face of a disease she didn’t have, answering everyone else’s questions while still waiting for answers, and somehow she’s the one apologizing.
Somewhere out there is a doctor who will finally figure out what this actually is. I hope it’s soon, and I hope they skip the congratulations.
A Chronic Illness Girlie Takes a Weekend Getaway
I spent last weekend in Charleston with my mom and sister, wandering cobblestone streets and weaving in and out of shops hunting down pieces for my 70s Halloween costume. I wasn’t planning on going (because three kids), but I booked it kind of spur of the moment, as is on brand for me.
We ate, we drank, we danced, we laughed, we shopped — all while my kids’ weekends were meticulously coordinated, from carpools to trunk-or-treats. I’d planned on getting back early Sunday for my daughter’s soccer game... and then I opened my eyes to the 6 a.m. text every mom dreads: flight cancelled, zero direct options.
Such is life.
I’m usually a glass-half-full girlie, but a weekend away in peak sports season was already stretching it, and thanks to JetBlue, my best-laid plans had gone to shit. I also got my period that morning (of course I did), and my only way home was Breeze Airways via Norfolk, Virginia, a city I’d never thought about until it stood between me and my own bed.
Home at last, I woke up this morning in a Hashimoto’s flare. Or is it a plane virus? That’s the ever-question when you’re living with a chronic illness: is it my thyroid, my cycle, the recycled cabin air, or am I just a woman in my late thirties who went a little too hard in Charleston?
Nearly 80% of people with autoimmune disease are women, so plenty of us are stuck asking which kind of sick this is. Either way, the fun usually comes with a tab, and this one I’m paying off by not leaving my bed (which isn’t easy when you have actual humans to take care of).
Was the trip worth it? Yes. Will I be traveling again anytime soon? No. Until the next time I decide to go somewhere on a whim because YOLO.
The "Lost HRT Generation" Was Sitting Next to Me at Lunch
I’m in NYC at a conference today, and when I told the woman sitting next to me at lunch about Rescripted, she immediately launched into her own health story. I love this, by the way. I happen to be one of those people who, the second I say I run a women’s health company, gets everyone’s health trauma laid on me. What can I say? When you share your story, it gives others comfort to do the same.
Anyway, she’s 64, finally just went on HRT, and told me she was part of the “lost HRT generation” — the women who went through menopause after the 2002 Women’s Health Initiative study, which was so badly misread that doctors were nervous to prescribe hormones and women were scared to ask for them for over two decades. She struggled with hot flashes for more than ten years before being offered the solution she could have used all along.
The timing is wild, because just last week, ACOG updated its menopause guidelines for the first time since 2014, giving hormone therapy a strong recommendation for hot flashes, night sweats, and the sleep problems that come with them. The guidelines also say it’s best to start before 60, or within ten years of menopause, which is basically the whole time this woman was dealing with it on her own.
I’m 37, and between PCOS and IVF, my hormones have been through a lot already. But I’ll probably hit perimenopause with doctors who aren’t scared to help me, and she had to wait until 64 to find one.
Honestly, I think she told me because for ten years, nobody asked.
What I Wish I Asked My OB Before My 10-Week Appointment
When I was around ten weeks pregnant with my twins, I sat in my OB's waiting room with absolutely no idea what I was supposed to ask. I had a notebook. I had anxiety. I had a list that was mostly logistical — is deli meat really off-limits, can I still take Pilates — and zero real questions about genetic testing. Not because I didn't care, but because I didn't know what I didn't know.
What nobody had told me: there were two tests I could have asked for by name.
The first is the Prequel® Prenatal screen, a noninvasive prenatal screen from Myriad® Genetics. It's a simple blood draw, available as early as eight weeks, that screens for chromosomal conditions like Down syndrome. It delivers results to 99.9% of patients, including those with twin pregnancies and high BMI. With two babies and no PGT-tested embryos, knowing what I was actually dealing with would have meant everything.
The second is the Foresight® Carrier screen, which tells you whether you carry an inherited condition you could pass to your baby. It screens up to 274 genes across serious, inherited conditions, with a detection rate of 99% for the majority of conditions across ethnicities. Most of us are carriers of something without knowing it — the question is whether your partner is too.
Both screens are from Myriad Genetics, both can be ordered together, and both are the kind of thing you want to know about before you're sitting in that waiting room (not after).
Walking in informed isn't the same as walking in without fear, but it's closer to walking in ready.
We're All as Tired as Post Malone Right Now (per the CDC)
I was driving to get coffee with my husband the other day when he turned to me, completely out of nowhere, and said, “Why am I always tired?”
I almost laughed, because same (Post Malone has that tattooed on his face for a reason), but he picked a good time to ask. The CDC just put out a report on exactly this, and about one in six U.S. adults said they feel fatigued most days, or every day. Not regular tired. The kind that doesn’t go away with sleep. And for many of the people in that group, it wasn’t mild; it was a lot. I used to think more sleep would fix it, but apparently that’s not really how it works (even if you use a silk pillowcase).
The same report found it’s worse for younger adults than older ones, and that women are more likely than men to land in that most-days-or-every-day group — surprising absolutely no one. Which means, statistically, I’m the one who’s supposed to be asking that question in this car, not him.
Usually when women talk about being tired, it’s the mental load. But my husband is actually good at that part: we split the three kids, the doctor’s appointments, the permission slips, who has practice when, pretty evenly. If he’s doing his half and he’s still that tired, something else might be going on.
So I handed him my coffee and told him to go book a physical, which, for the record, I already did in March.
I Cried at Wicked and It Wasn't About the Witches
I have this problem in motherhood, and it's called grieving-the-moment-while-it's-still-happening.
I'm not sure if other moms can relate, but last weekend I took my daughter to see Wicked on Broadway, and I felt myself tearing up mid-show — not just because of Glinda and Elphaba's unlikely friendship, or the goat professor who could no longer speak (baa), but because I knew I would only get to live in this memory this one time.
You're probably thinking, "obviously, Kristyn, that's how life works," and I know that. But motherhood is bittersweet in so many ways: you want to watch them grow up and freeze time, sometimes in the same minute, let alone the same hour or the same day.
On one hand, it's so much more fun now that she's almost eight and can run through Times Square with me to catch the next train home. But she's also a little more independent, and a little more sure of herself every single time we're out together.
Having multiple kids also makes me feel like there isn't enough time in the world to give each of them the individual attention they probably deserve, so there's that guilt, too. I haven't figured out how to fix it, I just feel it.
There's actually a word for this: anticipatory nostalgia, or missing a moment before it's even over. A psychologist who studied it found it's more common in women than men, which is shocking, I know.
I guess as moms we can't win, but it's also what makes days like this one worth every penny (and then some).
I Haven't Read The Love Hypothesis Yet (But I Know How It Ends)
I haven't read The Love Hypothesis yet (I know, I know), but now that the movie with Lili Reinhart is streaming on Prime Video, it's at the very top of my list. I love a good rom-com, and I'll read pretty much anything Emily Henry, Carley Fortune, or Jasmine Guillory puts out.
So when I looked into whether romance novels are actually good for you, I was a little annoyed to find there isn't much research on romance on its own — which, TBH, doesn't surprise me for a genre mostly written and read by women. There is plenty on reading in general, though. In one randomized trial of nearly 1,000 people, 42% of those who read a book in bed for a week said their sleep improved, compared to 28% of those who didn't.
I believe it, but that's not really why I read romance. I already sleep like a rock (my Oura ring can vouch for me), and a good meet-cute has kept me up late more than a few times because two childhood best friends still hadn't admitted how they felt about each other. Add in faeries and a High Lord or two, and the ACOTAR series nearly hijacked an entire summer.
Clearly, patience has never been one of my virtues. But a juicy romance gives you anticipation and predictability at the same time, which is oddly comforting. You know from the very first page that they end up together, and the only question is how long it takes them to figure it out.
From Pride & Prejudice to a random novel about a couple whose relationship starts as a cover story (she's his bodyguard, he has a corgi-breeding stalker, don't ask), it's the only kind of waiting I've ever enjoyed.
The Urgent Care Trip Your UTI Doesn't Need
If you've ever felt the very specific discomfort of having to pee thirty seconds after you just went, welcome to Girlhood. The burning, the urgency, the sense that something is off before you've even confirmed it — you don't need a lab to tell you what your body already knows.
And you're probably not wrong to want to skip the whole detour. For most women with an uncomplicated UTI, a urine culture isn't actually required before doctors start treatment. Current guidelines list fosfomycin, nitrofurantoin, and trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole, all standard antibiotics, as first-line options based on symptoms alone. And yet, the default is still: drag yourself somewhere, sit in a waiting room, describe the same three symptoms to a stranger, and walk out with antibiotics you basically diagnosed yourself.
What changes the experience isn't more testing. It's having someone who can just listen, hear "it burns and I've been here before," and take that as sufficient information, not the start of a workup. Apios Health treats straightforward UTIs from home over text. No copay for a visit you didn't need, no explaining yourself twice. And if something's actually more complicated, like recurrent infections, pelvic floor stuff, or an STI you'd swear was a UTI, they loop in a specialist.
So much of women's healthcare still runs on the assumption that we need to prove we're really in pain before anyone does anything about it. A UTI isn't a mystery; it just requires someone willing to believe you the first time.