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Modern Fertility Launches Annual Fertility Tracking That Puts Women In Control


Cheryl was 23 when she got married and always assumed she and her husband would have kids down the line. “We talked about having two to four kids. There were all these different periods where we set an age or a stage but then we would get there and it would be like ‘oh not yet,’” she says. “We had originally said for sure when I turned 30 we’d start trying—and then the year I turned thirty he decided to get his MBA.”

By the time Cheryl hit 32, kids still weren’t on the horizon. “He asked to wait another three to five years, and I was like oh my gosh, that’s not a part of my plan and now I kind of feel like it’s never going to be a part of our plan together,” she says.

As every cliche about biological clocks will tell you, fertility declines with age, dropping sharply around 35. But the curve doesn’t look the same for every woman—your individual hormone levels and factors like when your mom went into menopause all help to create a more personalized view of your fertility future. But historically, getting this information about your body has been out of reach unless you’re actively trying (and failing) to get pregnant. That means women like Cheryl who are trying to be proactive about making major life decisions have been left without all the info. “I was like this information is there, and it’s mine, and it’s my body,” Cheryl says. “So why wouldn’t I have it?”

Cheryl heard about Modern Fertility, one of a handful of femtech companies (and Glamour’s partner in the Modern State of Fertility survey) who are putting fertility insight straight into the hands of women with an at-home test that gives you a real time look into key measures of egg quality and quantity. “Let’s be realistic—as much as I can climb a career ladder, I only have certain years that are my fertile years. So why aren’t I learning more about my body and what’s possible and what my options are?” Cheryl says.

Modern Fertility’s at home blood test measures key hormones that can tell you if you have more or fewer eggs than the average woman your age, when you’re likely to hit menopause, and give you insight into potential egg freezing or IVF outcomes. Cheryl’s test results were promising—she could likely have kids if she wanted to. So she had a choice to make: stay in a marriage where kids were uncertain or take control. Eventually, Cheryl and her husband got a divorce.

At 33, she was back on the dating scene, armed with new insight into her reproductive future. For the first time in over a decade, she was dealing with all the uncertainties that come with finding a partner but now there was one other uncertainty: how long could she wait before trying to have kids?

A fertility test like the one Cheryl took is a helpful tool—one data point that gives you a good idea of your chances of getting pregnant right now. But the real power comes from understanding how your body is changing over time. This is where Modern Fertility’s latest resources, launching today, come in. To give women like Cheryl the information they need to make major life plans, the company overhauled its fertility reports to support annual testing, allowing women to get specific insight into how their reproductive curve has changed from the previous year. “We periodically check up on our daily steps, nutrition, and financial savings, not to mention cholesterol and blood pressure—why shouldn’t we routinely check in on our reproductive health?” Afton Vechery, co-founder and CEO of Modern Fertility, said in a statement. “This isn’t just about planning for kids or having them, it’s about owning an important piece of our body that impacts our overall health and future.”



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Selena Gomez Puts Instagram on Private After Posting and Deleting a Message About Her 'Billboard' Profile


When you’re the most-followed person on Instagram for two years running, you can pretty much do whatever you want on the social media site—including making your account private. That’s what Selena Gomez just did, at least. The “Fetish” singer turned her Instagram account private early Tuesday morning, a few hours after she had posted and deleted a cryptic message on her Instagram Story. (If you’re one of the 130 million people who already follow her, don’t worry: You still have full access to all Selena content.)

People first noticed that the world’s most popular Insta had locked out new followers around 7 a.m. ET, when major fan account @SelenaHQ tweeted out the news. Selenators reacted with shock and worry: “So Selena Gomez made her insta private. Guys am shook and happy at the same time. Like I want someone else to take that most followed title. So they can leave my baby alone. All the slander against her is just too much,” one concerned fan tweeted. Others, however, found it funny that an account followed by hundreds of millions of people was now “private.” “Selena has half of ig following her, what’s the point of putting her account on private ?” one wrote.

Gomez flipped the switch shortly after posting and deleting a message seemingly criticizing her Billboard “Woman of the Year” profile to her Instagram Story, according to a screenshot captured by JustJared. “Never will I let another human guess my words ever again. Or invite them in my home. That is so hurtful. The most ‘ridiculous’ part of that is no one knowing my heart when I say things,” she captioned a zoomed-in screenshot of the Billboard article, which was published last week.

The section of the article in Gomez’s photo also uses the word “ridiculous,” which was attributed to the “Wolves” singer. Here’s that part, from the article’s opening paragraph, in full: “There’s a five-foot teddy bear sprawled across the kitchen floor in Selena Gomez’s North Hollywood home. ‘I know, I know,’ says Gomez, rolling her eyes, acknowledging that the stuffed animal doesn’t quite blend with the trio of armchairs nestled in the inviting, marble-accented nook. ‘It was a gift, and at first I thought, ‘This is so ridiculous, I can’t wait until I give it away to another person.’ But Gomez, 25, hasn’t let go of it—yet.”

It’s unclear what exactly offended Gomez about that seemingly innocent description, though it appears she feels she was misquoted about her feelings toward the teddy bear. The situation is made even more confusing by the fact that Gomez posted her Billboard cover on Twitter and thanked the magazine last Thursday, immediately after the article was published—which would imply that she had read and approved of the article at that time. And over the weekend, after attending the Billboard Women in Music 2017 event on Saturday, she posted the magazine cover on Instagram. “Thank you beyond for your acknowledgment and honor @billboard but honestly thank you more for the event you held for women. That night was so inspiring and every woman spoke eloquently and with such force. I’ll try to continue to give my best to even remotely live up to a title. In the mean time I hope we all continue to give our best when the world wants to give us the worst. We aren’t stopping the fight,” she wrote.

Neither Billboard nor Brooke Mazurek, the profile’s author, have commented on Gomez’s unexplained criticisms. And while the only way we’ll find out what exactly was so “hurtful” about the Billboard story is from Gomez herself, she’s previously acknowledged that she prefers to step back from the spotlight than offer up long, drawn-out explanations when things get overwhelming—so we many never solve the mystery of the five-foot teddy bear in her marble-accented nook.





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Margot Robbie on Playing a Mother Who Puts Herself First in 'Goodbye Christopher Robin'


PHOTO: David Appleby/FOX Searchlight

There’s an adorable moment in Goodbye Christopher Robin—the real life story behind Winnie the Pooh that’s in theaters now—where Daphne Milne (played by Margot Robbie) surprises her son, Christopher Robin (Will Tilston) with a teddy bear. She playfully disguises her voice and delights her son by bringing this stuffed animal to life as only a mother can. Everything about the scene—which takes place in the gorgeous countryside outside of England in the 1920s—is as charming as one would expect of the location that inspired the iconic children’s book.

And yet, there’s an underlying sadness to this moment. It’s post World War I England, and Christopher Robin’s father, the successful humorist and playwright known as A.A. Milne, is quite damaged from the war. He’s also suffering from what we now know is post-traumatic stress disorder. He has moved his family to the countryside in hopes of new beginnings, but Daphne—a London socialite to the core—is lost and deeply unhappy in these surroundings. Her solution? Leave her husband and young son for weeks at a time to pursue her interests back in the city.

“Daphne was passionate about clothes, jewelry, gardening, and decorating,” Margot Robbie says of her character. But was she passionate about motherhood? “No, no, not at all,” the film’s writer, Frank Cottrell-Boyce, explains. “She was terrified of it.”

PHOTO: FOX Searchlight

Although it was actually common for mothers of Daphne’s time—and class—to seldom see their children and let a nanny do most of the child-rearing, Daphne was far from typical. In fact, in many ways Mrs. Milne could be described as the original ‘momager.’ “She encouraged her husband to get his work published and do the publicity,” director Simon Curtis explains. “She liked fame. She liked being married to a famous playwright and author and the mother of a famous [child]. She didn’t see the potential downside. And to be fair to her, no one had experienced the downside before. It was a whole new concept.”

To modern eyes, neglecting parental duties to party and socialize are far from “Mother of the Year” attributes, but part of what makes Daphne—and the film—so fascinating is the purposeful decision not to villainize her for it. “They weren’t trying to make her one thing,” Robbie explained to Glamour. “It was very evident in the script that [the writer] didn’t see her as the bad guy, nor did he make her into this perfect, demure lady. I just loved that she was complicated and had a strong point-of-view. I didn’t want to soften her edges. I wanted to embrace her character flaws and also shine a light on some of her choices and decisions. Though the audience might not like them in the beginning, by the end of the film hopefully they can understand why she behaved the way she behaved.”

Domhnall Gleeson—who plays A.A. Milne—couldn’t agree with his on-screen wife more. “I thought Margot made a brilliant decision not to apologize for her character,” he told us at the film’s London premiere. “She said she’s known people like that in her own life—very strong people who come off as very abrasive, who don’t apologize for themselves—and I love that that’s how she went about playing Daphne. And more so, Daphne weirdly gave her husband more [encouragement and support] than it seems, whether it’s time alone with their child, time alone to write, etc. Dumping him in the middle of a situation where he was uncomfortable was what he needed, and I thought that was really interesting.”

PHOTO: FOX Searchlight

Cottrell-Boyce echoes Gleeson’s sentiment, explaining that “the whole point of her is to make you understand people. She was difficult, yes, and I think you might have judged her if you met her in real life, but the whole point of the movie is to show you that every heart has its reasons.”

Speaking of reasons, “I hope viewers realize how traumatic it was for the women at home from wars as much as it was for the men who were away at war,” Robbie says of Daphne’s decision to immerse herself in a different world. “Just realize for a moment how [that devastation] could affect people’s lives.”

And while most people wouldn’t equate love with seeing your child only for an hour or day, Curtis—who directed the film—says there was no doubt that Daphne truly loved her son and husband. “It might seem strange, but they really did love each other. She was incredibly helpful to her husband. She moved to the country for him, encouraged him to write knowing he won’t be happy unless he did. And then once he [finished his work], she helped promote it. But she was enjoying living her own life, too.”



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