A few nice help to get pregnant images I found:
Harbingers
Image by jakevol2
Bird Folklore & Superstitions
ALBATROSS
Perhaps known to most of us through Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s poem ‘The Ancient Mariner’ (1798). The poem reflects a majority of beliefs associated with the albatross, as the bird is seen to carry the soul of dead mariners. If a sailor kills the bird, bad luck would fall upon him for the rest of his natural life. Yet this was not a universal belief as it was also known that the feet of the albatross were once used as tobacco pouches. When seen flying around a ship the albatross was reputed to indicate that stormy weather was imminent.
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BLACKBIRD
If this bird makes a nest on your roof, this is said to be a traditional sign of good luck. In fact most people believed that if this bird nests anywhere near the house it a positive sign. Seeing the sight of two together is unusual and a sign of good luck as the blackbird is very territorial.
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DOVE
Seen by many as a sacred bird since ancient times as the dove is the one bird into which the Devil cannot transform. The messenger of ‘Venus’, Goddess of Love, the dove is associated with lovers. For Indians the dove is traditionally believed to contain the soul of a lover, and that to kill one would bring misfortune. Miners though see the bird as one of ill omen and it is reputedly too dangerous to go underground after seeing this bird near a pitshaft. To have one tapping on the window or flying near the room of a sick person is also believed by some to be an omen of death, as is to see one circling a house. Today the dove is an international symbol of peace and also a Christian symbol of the ‘Holy Spirit’. The dove is one bird into which reputedly a witch cannot transform.
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DUCK
If this bird hisses or quacks more than normal it is said that rain is on the way. If the bird lays any dun-colored eggs it should be destroyed, along with the eggs, according to a traditional English belief that indicates that misfortune will follow should this event happen. At this and any time hanging a duck upside down is asserted to assure that negative energies and spirits can fall from it.
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KESTREL
Also known as the Sparrow Hawk, the Kestrel takes its name from the Latin word crepitare which means to rattle or crackle — this describes the call made by the kestrel. The Old World name for the Kestrel is the WindHover due to their effect of hovering like a helicopter rather than having the swooping and diving actions as other birds of prey.
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KINGFISHER
Seen as a very lucky bird, it is said in Europe traditionally that to carry feathers of the kingfisher will protect the carrier from negative energies and act as a good luck charm, bringing good health. The amazing color of the bird is reputed to stem from biblical times when the grey kingfisher was the first bird along with the dove and raven to leave Noah’s Ark in the search of dry land and therefore caught the red rays of the sun on its breast and the azure of the sky on its back. Another name for the kingfisher is the ‘Halcyon’ that stems from Ancient Greek times and figuratively means ‘conceiving on the sea’. It was once believed that kingfishers nested (made of fishbone) and laid their eggs at sea, hence the name.
‘Halcyone’ was also a faithful lover according to Greek legend. She was the daughter of the God of the Winds and married ‘Ceyx’ who was the son of the Day Star. He drowned at sea but the couple were pitied by the gods and so turned into these birds. The expression ‘Halcyon Days’ stems from this, reflecting days filled with pleasant and fond memories. It is also thought to stem from Greek legend, as for 14 days each year Halcyone sits on her nest whilst her father restrains the powerful winds of the sea. To see a kingfisher sitting on the eggs indicates that there will be no storms at sea and to have a dead kingfisher hung on a ship will allow you to know the direction of the wind. To hear the call coming from the right is a positive omen of imminent success in business (while the opposite is true from the left).
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MARTIN
Seen as a lucky bird perhaps because the martin has been viewed in the Christian faith as serving God, being God’s ‘bow and arrow’. The martin is thought to bring good luck to any house where it nests and rears its young.
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OWL
A bird with a poor reputation despite being known for being extremely wise hence the expression being a ‘wise old owl’. Perhaps this stems from the fact that the owl leads a nocturnal and solitary existence and that the night has long been associated with the time when darker forces and negative energies are present. To see one by day is unlucky and to experience one flying around the house at night signals that death is present, which is thought to stem back to Roman times when the historian ‘Pliny’ in AD 77 was quoted as saying the bird was ‘most execrable and accursed’ and always brought bad news. Should an owl brush its wings against a window pain or be seen perching for a considerable length of time on a roof then it is traditionally believed that illness and even death is present within. To look into an owl’s nest is reputed to leave the observer with a sad and morose soul. According to an old Welsh tradition if you hear an owl hooting amongst a densely built up area then a female in the locality is said to have just lost her virginity! To hear the hoot of the owl when pregnant, it is traditionally believed in France, means that the baby will be a girl. In Germany if one is heard as a child is being born then the life will be an unhappy one. In the Southern states of America an old traditional rhyme tells of the cry of the owl:
‘When you hear the screech owl, honey, in the sweet gum tree,
It’s a sign as sure as you’re born a death is bound to be;
Unless you put the shovel in the fire mighty quick,
For to conjure that old screech owl, take care the one that’s sick.’
A dead owl has served many purposes including mixing some of the flesh with boar’s grease as an ointment to ease the pain of gout. Owl broth was once used to feed children to avoid whooping cough according to British tradition, perhaps because the owl itself never suffered in pain when making a similar sound. The eggs were also once thought to help prevent epilepsy, bad sight (for obvious reasons) and more amusingly to bring drunks back to their senses.
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ROBIN
Legend has it that the robin received its red breast from trying to remove the bloody thorns from Christ’s head at the Crucifixion, with a small drop of His blood falling on the bird and injuring itself in the process:
‘A Robin Redbreast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage.’
Extract taken from ‘Auguries of Innocence’ : William Blake
It is also believed traditionally that the robin received its red feathers as it was taking water into Hell for the burning sinners.
Said to be extremely unlucky to kill this bird. The hand that does so will continue to shake thereafter. Traditionally the Irish believe that a large lump will appear on the right hand if you kill one, and in Yorkshire if the person owns cows then the milk will become blood colored. It is a reputed fact that whatever you do to a robin you will suffer the same tragedy. Breaking the eggs will result in something valuable of your own being broken. Flying in through an open window or tapping on the window is a sign of death being present. To see a robin sheltering in the branches of a tree indicates that rain is on the way & to see one chirping on an open branch indicates that fine weather is imminent. Some believe that the robin will not be chased by a cat. You should make a wish when seeing the first robin of the season, making sure that you are quick as if the bird flies away then no good luck will be present for the next twelve months.
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SPARROW
The sparrow has a mixed reputation depending on what area of the world you live. According to some, the sparrow hops around because it is his punishment for crying ‘He is alive, He is alive’ when Christ was on the cross, therefore signaling to the Romans to prolong His torture. The hop is thought to symbolize the fact that the legs are bound together as punishment for the lack of sympathy shown by their song. To kill a sparrow or to have one fly into a house is considered unlucky too. For many thought the sparrow is seen to symbolize the gods of the household environment and family, and therefore to be nurtured. Rain is supposed to be imminent if a group of sparrows is found merrily chirping.
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SWALLOW
Also known as the ‘svale’ bird according to Danish folklore, the swallow received its name by trying to relieve the sufferings of Christ while on the Cross by crying ‘Svale, svale’ which figuratively translates as ‘Cheer up, cheer up!’. In Scotland it was believed that the swallow had the blood of the Devil in its veins. The sight of this bird indicates that summer is on the way but watch to see if the bird flies low as this will signal that rain is on the way. If this bird builds a nest on the roof of your home, it is thought to be lucky and to be protective against fire, lightning and storms. Misfortune will follow if it suddenly abandons the nest. The swallow that flies into your home will bring considerable good fortune according to English folklore. Should a woman tread on the eggs it is believed that she will become barren according to an old German belief. A French belief tells that should one land on your shoulder then death is present. An almost universal belief held by farmers is said that to kill a swallow will result in the milk yield being poor & if you disturb the nest then the harvest will be a poor one. It is traditionally seen as a sign of misfortune to see a group of swallows fighting amongst themselves. It was believed that the swallow carried two precious stones within their bodies: a red one to cure insanity and a black one thought to bring good luck. The swallow like the wren is credited with bringing fire to humankind, but both suffered as a result, hence the red feathers.
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WREN
This poor unfortunate bird was for many years hunted and killed although today is respected. The main day for hunting was December 26 when the cruel practice was carried out by young boys. The boys would receive money as they paraded the dead birds from house to house. The wren was seen as a sacred bird to the early Druids and therefore was the target by Christian believers as Pagan purges were frequent and all-embracing. This unfortunate set of circumstances may also have come about as the feathers were thought to prevent a person from drowning, and because of this the feathers were very popular with sailors traditionally. A traditional French belief tells that children should not touch the nest of a wren or the child will suffer from pimples. In the same way as a robin is revered, if anyone harms the bird then the person will suffer the same fate. Like the swallow the wren is thought to have brought fire to humankind, receiving the red feathers in the process from being burnt while trying to stifle the flames.
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Valentineās Day was thought to foretell the occupation of oneās future husband. If the first bird a girl saw were a goldfinch she would marry a wealthy man. A bluebird signified poverty. A black bird foretold marrying a clergyman. A robin told of a sailor, a woodpecker an old maid.
Amateur Sleuths Name Anonymous Dead
Image by Renegade98
Far-Flung Network of Volunteer Sleuths Uses Technology to Give Names to Anonymous Dead.
By HELEN O’NEILL AP Special Correspondent
The Associated Press
LIVINGSTON, Tenn.
Four days a week Todd Matthews earns .50 an hour working for an automotive parts supplier. He punches in at 4:15 a.m., punches out nearly 11 hours later, then drives half a mile to his little beige house on a hill where, in the distance, he can glimpse the Appalachian mountains.
He spends the next seven to eight hours at his desk, beneath shelves lined with miniature plastic skulls, immersed in a very different world.
Their faces seem to float from his computer ā morgue photographs, artist sketches, forensic reconstructions ā thousands of dead eyes staring from endless Web sites as though crying out for recognition. John and Jane and Baby "Does" whose nameless bodies have never been identified.
His wife, Lori, complains that Matthews spends more time with the dead than he does with the living, including his two sons, Dillan, 16, and Devin, 6.
You need a hobby, she says, or a goal.
I have a goal, he replies, though he describes it as a "calling".
He wants to give "Does" back their names.
His obsession began two decades ago, when Lori told him about the unidentified young woman wrapped in canvas whose body her father had stumbled on in Georgetown, Ky., in 1968. She had reddish brown hair and a gap-toothed smile. And no one knew her name.
So locals blessed her with one. They buried her under an apple tree with a pink granite tombstone engraved with the words "Tent Girl."
At 37, Matthews is a sensitive soul who has always felt an affinity for the dead, perhaps because two of his siblings died just after birth. Matthews still chokes up when he visits the graves of Gregory Kenneth and Sue Ann. But at least he knows where they are buried.
Tent Girl haunted him. Who were her siblings? What was her name?
Matthews began searching library records and police reports, not even sure what he was seeking. He scraped together the money to buy a computer. He started scouring message boards on the nascent Internet.
In the process, Matthews discovered something extraordinary. All over the country, people just like him were gingerly tapping into the new technology, creating a movement ā a network of amateur sleuths as curious and impassioned as Matthews.
Today the Doe Network has volunteers and chapters in every state. Bank managers and waitresses, factory workers and farmers, computer technicians and grandmothers, all believing that with enough time and effort, modern technology can solve the mysteries of the missing dead.
Increasingly, they are succeeding.
The unnamed dead are everywhere ā buried in unmarked graves, tagged in county morgues, dumped in rivers and under bridges, interred in potter’s fields and all manner of makeshift tombs. There are more than 40,000 unnamed bodies in the U.S., according to national law enforcement reports, and about 100,000 people formally listed as missing.
The premise of the Doe Network is simple. If the correct information ā dental records, DNA, police reports, photographs ā is properly entered into the right databases, many of the unidentified can be matched with the missing. Law enforcement agencies and medical examiners offices simply don’t have the time or manpower. Using the Internet and other tools, volunteers can do the job.
And so, in the suburbs of Chicago, bank executive Barbara Lamacki spends her nights searching for clues that might identify toddler Johnny "Dupage" Doe, whose body was wrapped in a blue laundry bag and dumped in the woods of rural Dupage County, Ill., in 2005.
In Kettering, Ohio, Rocky Wells, a 47-year-old manager of a package delivery company, scoots his teenage daughters from the living room computer and scours the Internet for anything that might crack the case of the red-haired Jane Doe found strangled near Route 55 in 1981. "Buckskin Girl," she was called, because of the cowboy-style suede jacket she was wearing when she was found.
And in Penn Hills, Pa., Nancy Monahan, 54, who creates floor displays for a discount chain, says her "real job" begins in the evening when she returns to her creaky yellow house and her black cat, Maxine, turns on her computer and starts sleuthing.
Monahan’s cases include that of "Beth Doe", a young pregnant woman strangled, shot and dismembered, her remains stuffed into three suitcases and flung off a bridge along Interstate 80 near White Haven in December 1976. And "Homestead Doe," whose mummified body was found in an abandoned railroad tunnel in Pittsburgh in 2000. Her toenails were painted silver.
Monahan was so moved that last year she sought out the tunnel, climbed down the embankment and offered a silent prayer for the young woman whose life ended in such a pitiful place.
"It’s like they become family," Monahan says. "You feel a responsibility to bring them home."
The stories of Doe Network members are as individual as the cases they are trying to solve. Bobby Lingoes got involved through his connection with law enforcement ā he’s a civilian dispatcher with the Quincy, Mass., police department. Traycie Sherwood of Richmond, Mo., joined when her adoptive mother died and she went on line searching for her birth mother. Daphne Owings, a 45-year-old mother of two in Mount Pleasant, S.C., needed something to take her mind off the war when her husband was sent to Iraq. Carol Ceiliki of Whitehall, Pa., was searching for her ex-husband.
And Laura Allen Hood of Fort Smith, Ark., was searching for her brother.
For years, Hood refused to speak about Tony, who vanished without a trace in 1978 while visiting friends in Oklahoma. He was 16, two years older than his sister. Her parents tried to shelter the family from the pain, tried to make life for his siblings as normal as possible. But, she says, "it never leaves your mind."
Hood describes years of false sightings and false hope ā stalking someone in a car because he looked like Tony, picking up hitchhikers who bore a resemblance, her mother wrapping a Christmas present year after year for the son who never came home.
It wasn’t until 2004, when Hood’s own son became a teenager that she decided to find her brother once and for all. Trolling the Internet she discovered the Doe Network. Sifting through its vast indexes, she found new reason to hope.
For the first time in her life, Hood e-mailed a stranger ā Matthews in Tennessee: "Can you help me find my brother?" she pleaded.
Matthews responded with a series of questions. Was the case filed as missing with the National Crime Information Center, an FBI clearinghouse? Did she have dental records or relevant medical information? Had the family submitted DNA to law enforcement?
Finally, Matthews asked for a photograph of Hood’s brother, which he forwarded to one of the professional forensic artists who donate time to the network.
Nothing prepared Hood for the black-and-white image that filled her computer screen a few weeks later. Gone was the long hair and devil-may-care grin. Smiling, ghost-like, but yet so very real ā the artist’s depiction of a middle-aged Tony.
Hood stared at the image, her mind racing. Was he alive? Dead? Did she really want to know?
Four years later, Tony Allen has still not been found. There have been a number of false matches, though, and each narrows the search. Hood says she feels a new sense of certainty that someday, someone will click on a mouse and find a connection.
Matches can be triggered by a single detail ā a tattoo, a piece of clothing, a broken bone. It’s just a question of the right person spotting the right piece of information and piecing together the puzzle. The process can be tedious and frustrating; months or even years of endless late-night clicking on a dizzying array of sites can often lead nowhere.
And it can take its toll. Lori Matthews once left her husband for six months because of his obsession with Tent Girl. "He didn’t talk about anything else," she said. "It wasn’t normal."
They reconciled after Matthews agreed to limit the amount of time ā and money ā he spent on "Does."
Still, Matthews and others say the rewards of cracking a case make the time worthwhile. The Doe Network claims to have assisted in solving more than 40 cases and ruling out hundreds more.
Successes are not entirely joyous, says Kylen Johnson, a 38-year-old computer technician from Clarksburg, Md. "On the one hand, you are giving families the information they have been searching for. On the other, you are extinguishing all hope that their missing loved one will be found alive."
Johnson tells of a Kentucky woman who had been searching for her ex-husband for 18 years. The woman described a tattoo on his shoulder ā the initials "RGJ." Johnson, with other Doe volunteers, was able to track down a John Doe with identical markings in Vermont.
Johnson still marvels at how grateful the woman was at the other end of the phone. And at how strange it felt, that someone would thank her for finding out their husband had been murdered.
"Nothing you find can be any worse than something that has already gone through your mind," says Mary Weir of Palmer, Alaska, describing the sickening moment when she spotted an artist’s rendition of her 18-year-old daughter’s face on the Network.
Samantha Bonnell had been missing for 19 months. She was killed while running across a California highway in 2005, and buried in an unmarked grave ā Jane Doe 17-05.
"Her name wasn’t Jane Doe," Weir said, her words punctuated by sobs.
"She was Samantha, my Samantha and she had curly red hair and green eyes and freckles on her face. And she was a real person and she was loved. She wasn’t just a number. She was funny and maddening and she wrote her first resume at 10 ā for a baby-sitting job! And she read Shakespeare for fun. And she was just bigger and brighter than the rest of us, and the world is worse off for not having her."
Bonnell’s remains were exhumed last year. She was buried in her native Oregon beneath a headstone carved with her name.
Today her mother actively lobbies the state government to pass legislation making it easier to file missing-persons reports for people 18 and over ā some local authorities are slow to pursue missing adults, saying they have every right to go missing ā and mandating DNA samples be taken from family members within 30 days of a report being filed. Several states already have such laws and many others are considering them.
"I don’t care who you are," Weir says, "to be buried with no name implies that your life didn’t matter, that you were just discarded like trash. I wanted better for my daughter ā and for all the other missing people out there."
"They do God’s work," says Mark Czworniak, 50, a veteran homicide detective in Chicago.
He first encountered the Doe Network when he was approached by Lamacki, the Chicago bank executive, about potential matches. Unlike some officers, Czworniak has no hesitation about working with civilian volunteers, especially those willing to devote endless hours to cold cases that he cannot get to.
Czworniak says there are hundreds of "Does" in the department files. He is assigned five, including a tall, thirtysomething man found at the Navy Pier in 2003. Czworniak hopes that the man’s height will help Lamacki or another Network volunteer eventually make an identification.
"She’s like a little bloodhound," says Czworniak, who exchanges e-mails with Lamacki on cases every week and has introduced her to other detectives. "She has the wherewithal and interest and time and she searches these sites I’m not even aware of."
Such praise was rare in the early days of the network, when overeager members were more likely to be derided as "Doe nuts" by police and medical examiners. That changed partly as the organization imposed stricter rules on who could join and developed a system of area directors, researchers and media representatives. Now a potential "solve" is rigorously vetted ā and voted on ā by a 16-member panel, and potential matches are submitted to law enforcement agencies only by designated members.
In another sign of the network’s influence, Matthews was asked to serve on a government task force involved in creating the first national online data bank for missing and unidentified.
The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, NamUS, launched last year, is made up of two databases, one for the missing and one for the unidentified. The goal is to have medical examiners and law enforcement agencies around the country constantly update information on both sites. Next year the sites will be linked and made available for public searching.
No one believes NamUS will put the Doe Network out of business ā there will always be a need for people with their expertise to make the necessary connections.
And so, families of the missing will no doubt continue to rely on people like Todd Matthews.
At his house in Livingston, Matthews has built a little nook next to the living room ā his "Doe office," he calls it. His desk is laden with pictures of dead bodies. He says he gets many e-mails about cases every week. Every night he scrolls down the lists, searching for new information:
Unidentified White Female. Wore a necklace of silver beads and three small turquoise stones, one resembling a bird. Found in a Calendonia cornfield in New York state in 1979. …
Unidentified White female. Strawberry blonde hair and 12 infant teeth. Wearing a pink and white dress that buttoned in the back and a disposable diaper. Found Jackson County, Miss. 1982. …
Unidentified Black Female. Gunshot wound to the skull. Found next to highway ramp in Campbell County, Tenn., in 1998…
The last case is close to Matthews’ heart. Sally, he named her, after a Campbell County police officer entrusted him with her skull in 2001.
The police didn’t have the time or means to pay for a clay reconstruction, and so ā with the approval of the local coroner ā Matthews took the skull to a Doe Network forensic artist. A picture of the reconstructed head was placed on the Network site. The skull sat on Matthews’ desk for over a year, and even Lori, who was at first so horrified she couldn’t look at it, grew fond of Sally. She remains unidentified.
But even Sally cannot take the place of the first Doe, the one who changed Matthews’ life. He still regularly drives to Kentucky, to a lonely plot in Georgetown to visit her.
"She’s family now," he says.
Standing by her grave, he tells of the night in 1998 when, scouring chat rooms for the missing, he stumbled upon a message from Rosemary Westbrook of Benton, Ark.
Westbrook sought information about her sister, Bobbie, who was 24 when she went missing 30 years earlier. Bobbie had married a man who worked in a carnival, and she was last seen in Lexington. She had reddish brown hair and a gap-toothed smile.
Over and over Matthews stared at the message. And in his heart he knew.
Lori, he cried, racing into the bedroom and shaking awake his wife
"I’ve found her. I found Tent Girl."
E-mails were exchanged. Phone calls were made. When Matthews received a photograph of Westbrook’s sister, he had no doubt. She looked just like the forensic artist’s portrait sketched years earlier ā the one engraved on Tent Girl’s headstone, the one that had obsessed him for years.
Weeks later the remains were exhumed. The match was confirmed by DNA.
"It was the best peace of mind in the world," Westbrook says. "What Todd did for our family … I can’t describe it … I don’t have the words. Just to have a grave to visit means everything when you have been wondering for so long."
The family decided to re-inter Bobbie in the place that had been her resting spot for so many years. Beneath the stone etched "Tent Girl" they placed a small gray one engraved with her real name, the name that Matthews had restored.
She was Barbara Ann Hackmann, now and for eternity.
Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Copyright Ā© 2008 ABC News Internet Ventures
ABC News
www.abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=4551673
The Doenetwork
www.doenetwork.org/
Project EDAN – Everyone Deserves A Name
www.projectedan.us/
Raising the Dead – Wired
www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.08/matthews.html
Tent Girl – Barbara Ann Hackmann
www.angelfire.com/tn3/masterdetective2/
Sketches express softer side of missing women
www.missingpeople.net/sketches_express_softer_side_of.htm
that help to get pregnant share them:), I will be very grateful.
Is there a way I can get guaranteed results? I also want to know how I can go about getting a sperm analysis for my husband. He has two brothers who are having trouble conceiving too… So maybe a low sperm count? Is it hereditary? Im confused and depressed. 
