After going through the stress of many in vitro fertilizations, I vivdly remember signing a paper giving the unused embryos to scientific research. In my mind, it was the least I could do since, thanks to this modern day miracle, I could possible conceive the child I so desperately wanted.

But I also realized that the pain — both physical and emotional — of this process could also break couples apart. It was right there in front of me, as I witnessed the cumulative strain on people in the waiting room.

What, I wondered, would happen to their embryos if indeed they broke up? A woman on fertility drugs can produce as many as 20 or 30 eggs. Who would get them?

The nurses would smile and tell me not to worry about it, especially since my husband and I were, they said, such a happy couple. Naturally the reporter in me wanted answers. Where exactly did the embryos go? Did they go into one large unpatrolled laboratory where a rogue nurse would sell them elsewhere. And then, in years to come, I'd meet my lookalike in the mall.

Yes, I know, it seems like something out of a Robin Cook medical thriller, and I laughed at how fertile my imagination could be. So did the nurses. Everything, they assured me, was properly monitored and nothing could happen to the embryos without both parents’ consent.

With in vitro fertilization (IVF), doctors usually implant no more than four fertilized eggs to prevent high-multiple births. In Oregon, a divorced couple split on what to do with their six frozen fertilized eggs, and the case ended up in the Oregon Court of Appeals.

Laura Dahl and her former husband, Darrell Angle, had stored their “embryos” with Oregon Health and Science University, where she had undergone IVF. (For the sake of argument, the court called the fertilized eggs “embryos,” although they said that, technically, they would become embryos only once implanted in a woman’s womb.)

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With the country embroiled in a tainted-milk scandal, a Chinese woman is suing her husband for the right to breastfeed her son, and therefore prevent her husband from divorcing her.

What is as pure as mother’s milk, or as safe? That’s a question that even Confucius would have trouble debating. But a Chinese court will now have to.

The couple met online and married quickly, in September, 2007. Clearly they didn’t use eHarmony and didn’t know the perils and pitfalls of online dating.

Almost before they got to know each other, a baby was conceived. But while she was pregnant, she says, her husband took too many pregnant pauses. He was away for long stretches of time.

Once the son was born, her husband snatched the baby, telling her, “If you want to see your son, we have to divorce.”

She looked for her son, and finally found him after a frantic search — and with her breasts and temper engorged — at her husband’s sister’s house, and took him away. The victory was short-lived.

The husband went ahead and filed for divorce, but the court rejected his request because it ruled that when a child is still breastfeeding, a husband cannot file for divorce. Dripping with venom, the husband ignored the court’s ruling, rounded up a group of friends, and took the child away again, by force.

How dare he?

Now the wife is suing her husband to get the child back, and to breastfeed without interruption.

The court has yet to rule on this case. But your FWW scribes will keep you abreast of the situation as it unfolds.

Last week, we highlighted the story of a husband who threatened to divorce his ex-smoker wife if she lit up again; this week, cigars are the point of contention.

An otherwise happy Egyptian wife is divorcing her husband — and his stogie habit — reports Russian news source Novosti. The woman alleges that her partner refuses to smoke outside their home, and, consequently, she has developed a heavy allergy.

In her own words:

"My husband deliberately puts my life to danger. And I am not ready to sacrifice my life for the sake of love for him," she said.

She calls him "inflexible"; he calls her "inhumane":

"I am a draftsman engineer, and I often take additional work home to earn more money for my loved but ungrateful wife," he lamented.

Feels like everything's going up in smoke these days...

"Honey, I've got a headache" could take on a whole new meaning, say Italian researchers. According to expressindia.com, the burden of cheating brings about stress, which leads to a migraine, which can possibly lead to a life-threatening aneurysm.

The researchers studied hundreds of patients. Some of those who reported the worst headaches were also cheating on their spouses.

The funny thing: Instead of backing up the research with additional research material and stats or cautioning women of the signs that husbands may be straying, the President of the Italian Migraine Society, Lorenzo Pinessi, offers helpful tips for the migraine-prone, cheating husbands!

His advice for frazzled adulterers was to "take a time-out from the affair and have a brain scan."

And, according to him, headache-prone cheats should "avoid the Karma Sutra and stick to simple sexual intercourse" to limit pressure on the heart.

"The sexual position chosen can also have affect as the more physical the more pressure on the heart -- it is probably best to avoid positions where the male is on his feet," Pinessi said.

Right. Of course! Please, guys, stick to "simple sexual intercourse"...with your mistress.

It’s one of those good news-bad news kind of things, especially for women going through divorce who have chosen to hit the chocolate aisle in the supermarket rather than the liquor store. It has now been conclusively proven that dark chocolate prevents heart attacks. The bad news: it doesn’t take that much.

The study, reported in the September “Journal of Nutrition” and in “Science Daily,” traced the amount of C-reactive protein, which indicates a chronic inflammatory state, in 20,000 Italians. The protein, which can be found with a simple blood test, is a marker for the risk of cardiovascular disease, including myocardial infarction and stroke.

“People having moderate amounts of dark chocolate regularly have significantly lower levels of C-reactive protein in their blood,” said Romina di Giuseppi, the lead author of the study. “In other words, their inflammatory state is considerably reduced.”

The beneficial effect is due, she said, to the antioxidants in dark (but not in milk) chocolate, in particular the flavonoids and other polyphenols. Decreasing the C-reactive protein level, she added, would reduce cardiovascular disease for women by one-third and for men by one-quarter.

The Catholic University in Campobasso, Italy, which sponsored the study, said that while chocolate has long been assumed to be heart healthy, this is the first time it was proven conclusively in a population study.

So how much is good for you? Let’s put it this way: maybe it’s better to eat dark chocolate as a reward for filing a set of papers, rather than as a way to get through filling out those papers. To achieve maximum effectiveness, women should consume about 3 ½ ounces a week. There is no further benefit (other than pleasure) after that.

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An Indian woman's smoking has lead her husband to the brink of divorce, says The Times of India. In fact, after several attempts to quit, the woman's husband has taken matters into his own hands. Namely, the prospect of divorce without alimony.

The unnamed woman has given up smoking several times over the course of her two-year marriage, but nothing has stuck. Her husband has even "returned" her to her parents to detox; she came back to him six months later ready to remain nicotine free. Unfortunately, the woman's in-laws detected smoke in various areas of the house and found the incriminating evidence: cigarette butts.

This time around, her husband has submitted an affidavit pledging divorce, without any spousal support, should his wife light up again.

C'mon, now. You'd think she were shooting heroin the way her family is reacting. Were those cigarette butts or syringes they found strewn in the front lawn? I completely understand the desire for a happy, healthy spouse, but is issuing a legal doc against her "wayward ways" the right manner to do so?

How about picking up a patch or some gum first?

Research by a marketing company in England shows that nine out of ten women “cheat” in some way to look better. Cheat? That’s a bad word around here, but this is what the Telegraph newspaper in London meant: here’s what women do when weight loss (women in Great Britain are losing weight, while men are gaining), facials, and makeup aren’t helping.

• Some 50 percent of the 1,300 women interviewed wear push up bras and 10 percent used “chicken fillets” to help elevate their attributes.

• Women deploy “shapewear,” like Jennifer Lopez, right, in what the English call “Magic Pants.”

• They put Vaseline on their eyelids to look more chipper, and use hemorrhoid cream to relieve puffiness and circles under the eyes.

• Another 40 percent wear oversize pants to hide bumps and bulges.

• When in doubt, one third of the women seek dark corners or dim the lights.

The survey was carried out at the giant Lakeside shopping center just east of greater London, a shopping destination with offerings ranging from Costco to Mercedes Benz. The survey also listed the women’s pet peeves: visible panty lines, the need to deal with hairy legs, streaky fake tans, lipstick on the teeth, and runny mascara.

So, once these women have donned their pushup bras, squeezed into shapewear, and used under-eye cream that is meant for somewhere else, what do they think they should wear in order to attract men?

The women suggested a classic black dress or tight jeans.

Men, who were also interviewed, had a different perspective. They wanted to see women in short skirts and low-cut tops... stiletto heels optional, we assume, for the full Barbie look.

Talk about a bitter pill. In order to get health insurance, a devoted husband divorced his wife just so she would qualify for Medicaid and could have chemotherapy.

As Rudy Friece, a 72-year-old truck driver, told the “Star Banner” newspaper in Ocala, Florida, he and Emily had been happily married for almost 50 years, had two children, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. But they divorced in order for Emily to have weekly $2,800 treatments for terminal bone cancer.

Through the divorce they wiped out her right to their joint assets, thus making her eligible for Medicaid, which is intended for the poor. It would pay all of the medically necessary costs.

Medicare, which Emily qualified for based on her age, has deductibles and upper limits for hospitalization. In addition, Medicare would reimburse only 80 percent of approved out-patient treatments and doctor bills.

She could stay married and collect Medicare, but it wouldn’t cover enough; or she could get divorced and get Medicaid to cover her treatments.

Isn’t this the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard?

Friece said his wife refused to consider a divorce for a while out of principle. She burst into tears at the thought of dissolving their marriage. But as her cancer progressed, she gave in. “I told her she had no choice,” Friece told the newspaper. “She was getting worse and worse.”

In 2005, the couple picked up a guidebook on marital dissolutions, and marched into an Ohio courthouse, their $75 divorce petition in hand. Do you know what the judge told this loving couple, divorcing out of desperation?

Rudy Friece said the judge told them, “I've never given anyone a dissolution that had been married this long.”

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Ever notice the girls who mature quicker?

It's easy to chalk it up to an evolving society. Everything happens quicker, faster, earlier for the generations that follow. Exposure to the media, the Internet, and an immediacy for information puts our children (or in some cases, our children's children) in fast forward.

New research, however, shows that environmental factors of early puberty might hit closer to home than you think.

International studies have cited divorce as the culprit behind a range of medical conditions, from asthma and eczema to diabetes — in addition to deteriorating the environment.

Now you can add early puberty to the list. The University of Arizona, in conjunction with New Zealand's University of Canterbury, studied the effects of absentee fathers and divorce on adolescent development, and found that young females without a positive paternal influence developed earlier — sometimes as much as one year's difference.

Early puberty has been linked to teen pregnancy and various health issues, including breast cancer.

Researchers haven't determined why this is so, but have suggested an evolutionary biology link. Says the University of Arizona article:

"The idea is that children adjust their development to match the environments in which they live," Ellis said. "In the world in which humans evolved, dangerous or unstable home environments meant a shorter lifespan, and going into puberty earlier in this context increased chances of surviving, reproducing and passing on your genes."

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Now another reason why divorcing parents should minimize fighting – it’s bad for your kids’ health. No, not just their emotional health – we knew that – but stress affects your kids’ immune systems too and could create increases in asthma and eczema.

According to a story by Jane Collingwood at PsychCentral, research in Germany at Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research discovered that stressful events during childhood are increasingly suspected of playing a role in the later development of asthma, allergic skin disorders, and allergic “sensitizations.”

The researchers took blood samples from 234 6-year-old children participating in the ongoing LISA (Life style-Immune System-Allergy) study. The blood was tested to measure levels of a stress-related neuropeptide called VIP and immune markers, such as the cytokine IL-4, related to allergic reactions.

Children with separated or divorced parents showed particularly high VIP levels and immune markers, as did those who had moved. However, severe disease, parental unemployment or death of a family member led to “no remarkable changes.”

As lead researcher Gunda Herberth told Collingwood, “As tragic as these events are, they are obviously of less significance for the stress reactions of children than for example a separation or the divorce of parents.”

The study is in the journal Pediatric Allergy and Immunology.

The link between stress and the immune system has always been suspected — common sense — but science is only now beginning to tease out risk factors.

Another study supports these recent findings. Parental stress can raise the risk of wheezing among children with no family history of asthma.

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