(NEW YORK) — Here are the scores from Thursday’s sports events:
MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL
AMERICAN LEAGUE
Tampa Bay 2, Seattle 1
Minnesota 7, Detroit 1
Houston 3, Texas 2
NY Yankees 10, Baltimore 5
Kansas City 5, Chi White Sox 2
Toronto 1, Boston 0
LA Angels 4, Cleveland 1
NATIONAL LEAGUE
Milwaukee 3, Pittsburgh 2
Miami 3, Washington 2
San Diego 7, Cincinnati 5
Philadelphia 7, Colorado 1
Atlanta 5, Chi Cubs 1
St. Louis 8, Arizona 3
NATIONAL BASKETBALL ASSOCIATION PLAYOFFS
Philadelphia 132, Toronto 97 (Philadelphia wins 4-2)
Phoenix 115, New Orleans 109 (Phoenix wins 4-2)
Dallas 98, Utah 96 (Dallas wins 4-2)
NATIONAL HOCKEY LEAGUE
Florida 4, Ottawa 0
Carolina 6, New Jersey 3
NY Islanders 5, Washington 1
Columbus 5, Tampa Bay 2
Boston 5, Buffalo 0
Minnesota 3, Calgary 2 (OT)
Edmonton 5, San Jose 4 (OT)
Nashville 5, Colorado 4 (SO)
Vancouver 3, Los Angeles 2 (OT)
(NEW YORK) — Kristyn Hodgdon is a professional writer, voracious reader, and proud mom of IVF twins. After her own battle with infertility, Hodgdon co-founded Rescripted, a media platform for fertility, providing technology tools and resources for wherever you are on your family-building journey.
I’m embarrassed to admit this, but when my husband and I started trying to conceive, I didn’t know that I needed to ovulate in order to get pregnant.
As someone who has always struggled with irregular periods, I still thought that if we had unprotected sex I would get pregnant right away. This was five years ago; I was 28-years-old. That’s a big problem, and I know I’m not the only 30-something who feels that way.
My story is, unfortunately, a common one. For years, whenever I brought up my irregular menstrual cycles to my doctor I was told to either go on the birth control pill or to “wait and see.”
It wasn’t until my husband and I decided we were ready to grow our family that I was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) and referred to a fertility specialist, entirely unaware of what I was getting myself into.
Being diagnosed with infertility at 28 years young, there was so much that I didn’t know. I didn’t know what having PCOS meant for my fertility. I didn’t know anyone else who was going through fertility treatments. I didn’t know that committing to IVF would be like having a second job.
I didn’t know how lucky I was to have fertility coverage, unlike over half of all patients, who have to pay tens of thousands of dollars out of pocket for the chance to have a baby. I didn’t know the toll infertility would take on me, physically, mentally, and emotionally. No one warned me about any of it. I’ve never felt more alone.
Despite all of the pregnancy announcements on social media, having trouble conceiving is surprisingly common. Yet many people are completely blindsided when they receive an infertility diagnosis, leading to feelings of guilt, shame, and thoughts that their body isn’t doing what it’s supposed to. I know, because I’ve been there.
Visit a fertility clinic waiting room, and you’ll find no shortage of patients; and yet, they are almost all avoiding eye contact with one another. In fact, in the years I have spent regularly undergoing fertility treatments, I still rarely see anyone looking up from their phones. If that doesn’t paint a clear picture of the stigma that surrounds infertility, I’m not sure what does.
But, I have also noticed something pretty amazing. Nearly every time I have opened up about my fertility journey to someone — and, in turn, given them unspoken permission to do so as well — I have been surprised to find out that infertility has either affected them or someone close to them.
That’s powerful. In sharing our stories, however uncomfortable they might be, we can begin to rescript the conversation around fertility so that no one else ever has to feel as alone as I did on the road to parenthood.
Now, after five years, two IVF babies, and more blood draws, ultrasounds, and injections than I can count, I have discovered that while so much of infertility still remains out of my control, there are ways to be proactive rather than reactive when trying to conceive.
Here are a few ways I have learned how to advocate for myself on my fertility journey (and how you can, too):
1. See a fertility specialist, early: While I was initially uneasy about starting fertility treatments, I will say that in hindsight, I’m happy I sought help when I did. Being proactive about getting information and advice about your fertility potential can make a big difference when it comes to treatment and outcomes.
As a general rule, you may want to see a fertility specialist if you are under 35 and have been trying to get pregnant for 12 months without birth control, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The same applies if you are over 35 and have been trying to get pregnant for six months, if you are 40 or older, or if you have had one or more miscarriages.
Even if you aren’t ready to have kids yet, it never hurts to make an initial appointment to find out more about your ovarian reserve, hormone levels, and overall reproductive health so that you can make informed decisions for your future.
2. Don’t be afraid to ask questions: Whether you start with your OBGYN or jump right to a fertility specialist, don’t be afraid to bring up everything that’s on your mind.
Do you have irregular menstrual cycles? Ask the question. What about pain during sex? Ask the question. It might seem embarrassing, but if it could potentially help you get to the bottom of an underlying issue that could be preventing you from getting pregnant, you’ll be glad you inquired.
When it comes to your health and fertility, no question should be off-limits.
From how to interpret test results to what a potential treatment plan could look like, your provider’s answers will help ensure that you feel comfortable and at ease with your care team and their strategy for moving forward. If not, don’t hesitate to get a second opinion.
3. Be as healthy as you can be: This might go without saying, but a healthy lifestyle has been shown to have a positive epigenetic impact on eggs, sperm, and pregnancy outcomes.
So, make sure you are getting good quality sleep, eat the rainbow, take a quality prenatal vitamin, and exercise regularly, according to the CDC. It really can make a difference when it comes to your fertility; just try not to drive yourself too crazy.
4. Find support: Dealing with fertility challenges is extremely stressful, and you don’t have to do it alone. Join an online fertility community, find a therapist that specializes in infertility, or start a new hobby. You can’t pour from an empty cup, so be sure to take care of your body and mind during this time, even if that means taking a break from treatment.
If you’re struggling to conceive or grieving a miscarriage, I feel your pain.
I also promise that despite what it might feel like right now, you are not alone. If I could go back and tell my 28-year-old self anything, that would be it.
There is an amazing community of infertility warriors who have made it their mission to support others through this heartbreaking, expensive, and often overwhelming process. There are millions of us who get it, and we’re rescripting fertility, together.
Comedian, F-Boy Island host, and Dancing with the Stars first voted off of season 27 contestant Nikki Glaser has a new reality show, Welcome Home Nikki Glaser?, premiering Sunday night on E! and it came out of her moving back home to St. Louis during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I was really like, what is the next step? You know, comedy clubs are closed…And then I found myself watching reality TV more than any other TV, and I go, ‘Why am I trying to get on scripted shows when I don’t even watch scripted shows? I love reality. Why don’t I try it?'” she tells ABC Audio.
“And then I was kind of noticing around me. My parents are funnier than any comedians I hang out with,” she continues.
In fact, the 37-year-old comic says that where she got her sense of humor.
“My mom is extremely honest and will say very cutting things, not even knowing that she’s being that honest and hilarious…And then my dad is like an intellectual…And I think I learned from both sides…And so it is a perfect combo.”
And if you’re looking to this show as a replacement for The Kardashians, Nikki warns “There’s not as much drama on this show… But what you are going to get on this show is like authenticity and like real honesty and like hilariousness because I’m funny and so are my friends and family.”
“I really made an effort to make the show and be myself, the flawed version of myself that I’m still working on and that it’s okay that I’m not perfect,” she admits. “And I really, I really am not perfect on the show. Like, it’s the real me.”
HELLYEAH frontman Chad Gray says the band has “two or three” songs still left over featuring drums from the late Vinnie Paul.
Gray shared that info during an appearance on Avenged Sevenfold bassist Johnny Christ‘s Drinks with Johnny podcast while speaking about the potential future of HELLYEAH.
“We’ve talked about [the idea] to keep writing some music,” Gray said. “We don’t know what the touring plans would be, ever — maybe ever again — but we could still release music.”
“I think there are, like, two or three songs that Vinnie actually tracked drums to…that we didn’t end up writing for whatever reason,” he goes on. “So, I mean, there is a potential for us to write maybe a couple of more songs with Vinnie’s drums.”
Paul, the older brother and band mate of Pantera‘s “Dimebag” Darrell Abbott, died in 2018 at age 54. He’d originally joined HELLYEAH in 2006 as a way to get back into music after Dime’s murder in 2004.
In 2019, HELLYEAH released the album Welcome Home, which features Paul’s final drum recordings. The band toured behind the record with Stone Sour‘s Roy Mayorga on drums.
HELLYEAH is currently on hiatus. Gray, meanwhile, has since reunited with his band Mudvayne.
Heart frontwoman Ann Wilson‘s latest solo album, Fierce Bliss, gets its release today.
The 11-track collection was recorded during the last couple of years at studios in Nashville, Seattle, Connecticut and Muscle Shoals, Alabama.
The album features mostly new originals co-written by Wilson, plus covers of Queen‘s “Love of My Life,” Robin Trower‘s “Bridge of Sighs” and Eurythmics‘ “Missionary Man.” “Love of My Life” is a duet with country star Vince Gill, while acclaimed blues-rock guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd plays on “Bridge of Sighs” and “Missionary Man.”
Wilson tells ABC Audio that the Gill duet came about “all of a sudden” while he was visiting Muscle Shoals during one of her sessions there.
“It was so cool,” notes Ann. “It wasn’t even forced. It was just something that happened. It was great.”
As for her “Bridge of Sighs” cover, Wilson says, “[I]t’s maybe my favorite track on the record right now. Kenny Wayne just really succeeded with that one. He blew me away. It’s a blues song incarnate.”
Wilson recorded most of the tracks with a group of “go-to, top flight session musicians [from] Nashville.” She was so happy with the musicians’ spontaneous creativity and her chemistry with them, she hired them as her backing band, christening them The Amazing Dawgs.
As Ann recalls, “[T]here was a moment where all of a sudden we all looked at each other and went, ‘You know, this is really cool. This is more than just a sideman thing. These guys are amazing.”
Wilson also recorded two tracks with Gov’t Mule — “Gladiator” and “Angel’s Blues” — which she co-wrote with the jam band’s frontman, Warren Haynes.
“It was so great working with Gov’t Mule,” Ann says. “They just really get it.”
Here’s the full Fierce Bliss track list:
“Greed”
“Black Wing”
“Bridge of Sighs”
“Fighten for Life”
“Love of My Life” — featuring Vince Gill
“Missionary Man”
“Gladiator”
“Forget Her”
“A Moment in Heaven”
“Angel’s Blues”*
“As the World Turns”
On The Head and the Heart‘s new album, Every Shade of Blue, the band continues to explore the many different colors of the sonic palette.
Following in the footsteps of 2019’s Living Mirage, which spawned the singles “Missed Connection” and “Honeybee,” Every Shade of Blue finds The Head and the Heart experimenting more with different sounds beyond the folk rock of their first record.
“We kinda got our toes wet…with a song like ‘Brenda,’ which we thought was, like, so extreme with all these synths on there and a drum machine,” vocalist/guitarist Jonathan Russell tells ABC Audio. “And then once [Living Mirage] came out…I remember thinking back, ‘I wish we would’ve gone further.'”
That feeling seemed to reverberate among the different Head and the Heart members, even as they were isolating from each other amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In a strange way we were all kind of on our own islands, but kind of mentally preparing for this, like, I don’t know, an approach that just felt a little more bold,” Russell says.
While Every Shade of Blue does follow in Living Mirage‘s sonic footsteps, it takes a more traditional approach to song structures.
“We really did swing the pendulum the other way,” Russell muses. “With Living Mirage, the first half of that record was written in the desert in Joshua Tree, and it was very loose…it’s a little more meandering and almost anti-song structure.”
Conversely, Russell calls the song structures on Every Shade of Blue more “succinct.”
“A lot of my songs were done in isolation from other band members until the song was finished,” he says. “So, I guess there was more of a sort of pre-set blueprint.”
Before GAYLE first released her EP a study of the human experience volume one, she posted some of the song titles on Instagram and captioned each one with a specific color, like pink, yellow and orange. That’s because she has chromesthesia, which means that she sees music as colors.
“Yeah, every time I listen to the song — specifically, even when I make a song — it just has a color,” GAYLE tells ABC Audio. “It just like automatically like pops up into my brain and it’s, like, super-weird and I don’t know how to explain it other than like that! But yeah, so every song that I posted a slide of the color, that’s the color of the song.”
While her experience may be “super-weird,” the “abcdefu” singer has now parlayed her chromesthesia into a deal with Adobe Creative Cloud Express. She’s teamed up with the image-creation software company to design two exclusive templates based on the “colors” of the songs on her EP. She encourage fans to use these templates for their own creations, and then share them on their socials with the hashtag #GAYLExAdobe.
“The fact that I can have something that comes from my brain and then people can do what they want, I just think is really cool,” she says in a promotional video. “I’d love to see what you make with my templates.”
Last night, GAYLE joined AJR as the opening act for the “BANG!” rockers’ OK Orchestra tour; she’ll be with them through the end of May.
“AJR and the people that go to their shows, like, they just love music and they’re there for music,” she says. “And that’s just, like, really refreshing and inspiring.”
There’s no shortage of songs about women in mainstream country music, but Matt Stell is aiming for something a little bit outside-the-box with his new song, “Man Made.”
“I love a positive song that is able to get something across,” Matt explains to ABC Audio. “I just love the way that it talks about something that we talk about a lot in country music — which is women, and how great they are — and I thought this was a cool way to do it in a different way.”
Whereas many country songs about women revolve around their external beauty, “Man Made” goes deeper, exploring the fundamental and lasting impact women have on the world. “If a man made anything, it’s ‘cause a woman made that man,” the song concludes in the chorus.
Matt didn’t write the song, but it certainly rings true to his experience. The singer says his mom is one of his best friends.
“We’ve been through a lot together,” he continues. “You get a little bit older, start thinking about having kids one day…she set the bar pretty damn high with how she was with me, because I wasn’t easy.”
Now, getting the chance to tribute his mom makes releasing “Man Made” all the sweeter. “It’s nice to say something that’s nice, that I mean, about somebody I care about,” he continues.
Still, the song wouldn’t be a proper tribute if it was too sentimental. “My mom’s a bada**, so we didn’t get too sappy,” Matt quips.
Check out the exclusive premiere of the lyric video for “Man Made.”
Beyoncé has already served up more than enough Lemonade for us all, but now, the Grammy winner has signed on to support a new venture involving the tangy fruit.
Lemon Perfect, an organic, cold-pressed lemon water brand founded in 2017, announced that it’s closed a $31 million funding initiative with the help of an investment from the “Be Alive” singer.
According to Forbes, the details of Beyoncé’s investment haven’t been revealed, but Yanni Hufnagel, the company’s founder and CEO, says he grateful for the star’s contribution.
“We are honored and humbled that Beyoncé has become a part of the Lemon Perfect family,” Hufnagel said, as reported by Forbes. “She is a worldwide icon whose talent, character, and positivity are unsurpassed.”
The 40-year-old superstar isn’t known for attaching her name to just any business venture. She says the decision join Lemon Perfect as an investor was an “easy” one.
“I don’t typically enjoy drinks without added sugar, but Lemon Perfect is delicious,” Beyoncé said in a statement. “It was an easy decision to invest in something that not only tastes great and is healthy, but also, and most importantly, allows choosing a healthier lifestyle to be affordable and accessible to everyone.”
Other funding investors include Beechwood Capital, Goat Rodeo Capital, Melitas Ventures, NNS Capital and the venture capital firm Trousdale Ventures.
“We have never solicited an investment in Lemon Perfect — we just present our vision for the future and the early data signaling that we can disrupt a multibillion-dollar category,” Hufnagel said.
On Thursday, Ava Max released her new single and video “Maybe You’re the Problem,” the first release from her upcoming new album. And she tells Apple Music 1‘s Zane Lowe that the album documents her feelings about the end of a long relationship that she says nobody knew.
“Early last year is when the album actually really took shape because I started writing very differently,” the “Kings & Queens” singer tells Zane. “I was in a really long relationship and no one knows this about me because I never talk about my personal life…but then it changed.”
“This album is about my life and what I went thought in the last year and heartbreak…it’s basically heartbreak on the dance floor,” she adds. “It’s gonna make you cry and dance at the same time.”
But despite going through that, Ava assures fans, “I definitely feel like a new me and I’ve never, ever felt better. I really know myself this time around and I’m really excited for people to hear the music.”
Ava says the album will be out later this year, and it’ll be very eclectic.
“Every song on the new album is very different. It’s pop but it also has influences from 90s, 80s…not only just one genre,” she explains. “I wanted to mix a lot of genres on this album. I really wanted you to be on a journey.”
When the new album arrives, it’ll be the follow up to her 2020 debut, Heaven & Hell.
