Published by | | | Lilia Hadjiivanova doesn't speak to her parents. It's a devastating reality the 32-year-old is still trying to process, she said, and a far cry from the strong bond she once shared with them growing up in Bulgaria as an only child. But that relationship began to strain in her early twenties as Hadjiivanova came to terms with her queer identity and opened up to her parents about it. In response, they grew dismissive and gradually stopped asking about her personal life, she said. Her parents weren't there in 2020, when Hadjiivanova married a woman named Terry in a small ceremony in their friend's backyard. And as the newlyweds began thinking about having a baby, Hadjiivanova worried she had no connection left to her Bulgarian roots. No grandparents who could teach her children about their culture. No one else they could learn to speak the language with. | | | Lilia Hadjiivanova and Terry Hadjiivanova on their wedding day in Perushtitsa, Bulgaria, in August. (Veselin Trachev) | "How am I going to pull this off?" Hadjiivanova recalled thinking. "Like, I need a village. I need a community." So last May, she decided to start her own online community for others who could relate to her plight: LGBTQ Bulgarians living abroad and struggling to make connections or find support. The Facebook group started with just two members, but within a couple of months, it grew to about 150 people, she said, connecting to other Bulgarians around the world and increasing her involvement in LGBTQ activism within her community. In a full-circle moment, Hadjiivanova and Terry flew to Bulgaria for a second wedding ceremony in August. Surrounded by friends and family, they took part in Bulgarian wedding traditions, and Hadjiivanova's friends stepped in to assume the role of her parents for one of the events. "In the process of sort of losing my parents, I gained a chosen family," she said. "And it's really turned upside down my concept of what family means." Amid the ups and downs of another pandemic year, we asked other Lily readers to reflect on their personal victories of 2021. | | | | Three need-to-know stories | | (iStock; Washington Post illustration) | 01.MIT artificial-intelligence expert Regina Barzilay, 51, and a student protege have built an AI that seems able to predict with unprecedented accuracy whether a healthy person will get breast cancer. Assuming that validation happens — trials are about to begin — the AI, Mirai, could transform how mammograms are used, open up a whole new world of testing and prevention, allow patients to avoid aggressive treatments and even save the lives of countless people who get breast cancer. 02.Joan Didion, a renowned prose stylist who published novels, essays, criticism and memoirs for more than four decades, died Thursday at 87. Condolences have been pouring in from many women writers and readers who admired Didion. 03.As omicron cases continue to rise, pediatric hospitalizations for covid are surging in many parts of the country, with about 800 new admissions each day. U.S. doctors interviewed last week said that while they are seeing record positive results from children's coronavirus tests, the vast majority of cases so far have been mild and look a lot like the common cold. | | | | | A story to make you smile | | (Courtesy of Susie Troxler) | Millennials may be delaying having children, but 50-year-old Susie Troxler, who is in Generation X, is part of a different trend. She and her husband, Tony, began their pregnancy journey when she was 47, using an egg from an anonymous donor. Their first embryo transfer failed in 2019, and when the pandemic arrived, "we had to hit pause mode," Susie Troxler said. They had one viable frozen embryo left in late January and decided to go for it, as she had just turned 50. A few days after that Feb. 1 second attempt, the couple learned that her pregnancy test was positive. Although such pregnancies are "very unusual … and it's certainly not for everyone," according to one doctor, the Troxlers' daughter, Lily Antonia, was born via Caesarean section on Sept. 29. "A healthy baby girl! She had a little learning curve with the breastfeeding, but then she started gaining weight like nobody's business," said Susie Troxler. Read more from Cathy Free in The Washington Post. | | | | But before we part, some recs | | Monique WooPhoto editor, The LilyWhat I'm using:This eyeliner, which you can find at the drugstore, does not come off. I use eyeliner almost daily, and I'm grateful this one doesn't leave me looking like a raccoon at the end of the day. Another plus: It's $10! How I'm having fun:I've found karaoke to be a great way to get the party going at home, especially because many of us are trying to avoid crowded places right now. You don't really need equipment, although there are affordable microphone speakers you can use along with videos you find on YouTube. Right now, my favorite song to sing to is The Fugees' version of "Killing Me Softly With His Song." What I'm watching:"Pen15." If you haven't watched it yet, this show will transport you back to your cringey middle school days, when low-rise jeans and tight polo shirts were all the rage. But it also touches on serious issues a lot of us had to deal with, such as body dysmorphia and family drama. | | | | |
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