Cognosco

I cannot help myself.

Every now and then I have to share something that makes me angry. I usually keep these things to myself in blogland because really, there are a lot of things that make me angry, and I don’t want to be an overall downer. I started this blog, mostly, to celebrate insights and precious moments.

I read a lot of shit and am addicted to googlesearch. And there is a lot of rank mess in this world.

Once in awhile something makes me so angry that I want to smash my computer. I wish I could breathe fire, because there’s fire in my chest and it seems like it would feel good to exhale all of that fire and I have always wanted to be a dragon. Seriously. Dragons can fly and breathe fire and deliver destruction. They are also narcissistic and antisocial.

When I read some things, I feel like I’m on the verge of a panic attack. I’m not kidding. And then I just want to curl up under a comforter and hide in a small dark closet. Until my head explodes.

I am occasionally driven batshit nutty crazy by some current event or another. I have to take news vacations now and then. Until I come back. And I always come back. Because my #1 addiction (and there are many to choose from) is instant information.

So, I’ve decided to celebrate this compulsion of mine, and thus I have given it a name. Anger and all. It shall be called, "Random Minutes of Hate". Like in 1984, where the characters engaged in a daily, mandatory, two minutes of hate. Mine’s not mandatory. And there is no number of minutes specified. Swearing at your computer screen is not only allowed, but encouraged. You may also shake your fist at the sky. But please, no spitting. That’s just gross.

It should really be minutes of "anger", but "hate" just feels so much better. Admit it.

The only thing I have to say about this segment is that I can’t believe this is happening in 2008. That, and I am never living in Georgia. 

Here’s the link: 

http://feministing.com/archives/009206.html

but here’s the take-home message:

This was after the judge had dismissed the evidence: Ross could have received lacerations and redness documented in a rape kit from shaving, and “[b]ruises can come with a bump into furniture or from other causes.” As far as the claim that Day gave Ross a rape drug, defense counsel responded, “neither Day, nor anyone else for that matter, would have to use any type of drug to convince Plaintiff to participate in sexual conduct.”

The judge found that since Ross and Day had previously had a sexual relationship, Ross should have known her claims were “frivolous… there was no reasonable belief that a court would accept Plaintiff’s claims…”

The nightmare of this case, for Melanie Ross and for all future rape victims in Georgia, is that she was forced to discuss in elaborate detail her sexual past, and then she had her claims dismissed in part because she wasn’t a virgin. Moreover, not only did Ross lose her case, the judge fined her $150,000 for bringing it in the first place - a fee sure to dissuade other victims from coming forward with their own claims. This case is currently being appealed to the Supreme Court of Georgia, which can choose to hear it or not - let’s hope they right this wrong before it hurts more victims.

 

…I still agonize over when to be pregnant.

I still worry if I will be hired for a job if I am pregnant.

I worry about whether or not I will be able to keep a job or get tenure if I have a baby.

And I am one of the lucky ones. I had my first child while in graduate school, which is actually a great time to have a baby in my opinion. But I’m set to graduate next year with a Ph.D. and get some kind of job in academia. There are few career paths more liberal than academia. Furthermore, my area is psychology, which when combined with academia leads to so much liberalism that you can almost choke on it. I will have my own office so pumping will not be a problem. There is quite a bit of flexibility in the schedule of an academic, so long as you somehow manage to work 50 (+?) hours per week. Doing what you love. Not bad, really. I am incredibly lucky, especially given that I am the first in my family (including cousins ) to even graduate from college with a four-year degree, let alone an advanced degree.

And yet…

…the whole thing has been keeping me up at night. In order to have my kids two years apart, I’ll have to get pregnant in the next few months. Be pregnant on job talks. In academia, job talks can be a two or three day affair, packed with meetings and interviews and presentations and intensity. I wouldn’t want to fly past 34 weeks in a pregnancy. Job talks take place from about November through February for the nicest jobs. For less nice jobs, they can continue through the May. So, we reasoned that if I get pregnant in August, the due date would be in May, which is also the same month I’ll be graduating. Then I’d start a new job the following August. Granted, most programs tend to be a wee bit forgiving in the first year because you are adjusting, but compounding that adjustment with a new baby, sleep deprivation, breastfeeding…what a recipe for disaster. And, I would miss a lot of that child’s first year because I’d be focusing on so many other things.

Sound crazy? I think so too. I’ve been in a constant state of fretting.

So, I decided that I would go for the "easier" jobs. Little or no research. Smaller schools. More teaching. Familiar. Not too challenging.

And then I stopped caring about schoolwork. I couldn’t focus on anything. Writer’s block set in like someone had wrapped gauze around my brain.

Because wait a minute–I love research. I love mentoring. I love teaching too, but to only teach would be like cutting off a limb.

    "For a minute there,

    I lost myself,

    I lost myself."

        –Radiohead

I love my family. But I love my dreams too. 

So, one day, I asked myself why I wanted my kids to be two years apart. Well, my brother and I are 2 years and 3 months apart. I think I never questioned that two years was the best spacing for kids, because it was normal for me.

It would be "inadvisable" to have a baby during the first year or two of a new job. While most universities will stop the tenure clock during that time, you may still be judged negatively for having a child during that time. And really, it would be nice to be settled in first anyway for my own sanity. So, if I have my next child after two years on a job, Albert would be four years old.

I began to contemplate this, and took the same approach to this question that I do most things. I researched it ad nauseum. Turns out that if you ask people what the best spacing is, everyone gives a different answer. There are good things and bad things about any age difference. And it seems that the most important factor in how your kids get along isn’t their age (up to about a 5 year difference), but their personalities. Good luck planning that.

When I let myself accept the possibility that this might be a better choice for our family, a tremendous disappeared from my shoulders. The brain fog lifted. I wanted to do school work again. I felt motivated. My writer’s block disappeared. I felt calm.

The down side is that my future job is not likely to be in the Phoenix area. Even if there was a job here, I don’t want to stay here. Which means that I will not have Connie as my midwife, or Leigh as my doula. And that kind of sucks.

But to be honest, I’ve always had trouble envisioning Connie at my next birth. Maybe it’s because she’s just not meant to be.

And I can accept that Leigh will likely not be there because I can entice her to visit me with the promise of chocolate and the scent of a newborn. And then we can bask in new babyness while we watch the birth video, eat brownies, and laugh.

I think MB can be coerced with chocolate too… 

Nonetheless, I still think it’s bullshit that this whole process has been agonizing. It’s bullshit that I can’t just think about what’s best for our family without worrying about damaging my career. And I am one of the lucky ones.

We have come so far, and yet have so much further to go. 

WTF is wrong with people?

Seriously. This is shameful.

Apparently, this is a video put together by Obama supporters from his New Hampshire primary speech. It made me cry. Even if you’re not voting for Obama, it is still a great video.

So, I totally missed Blog for Choice Day this year. Here’s my post from last year about why I’m pro choice. The topic this year was supposed to be why I vote pro-choice. Because I do. But I don’t know if I can articulate why I vote pro-choice. It’s just such a core value to me because it is related to so many other issues on so many other levels. Gender equality. Respect. Compassion. Trust in women. Trust in mothers. Commitment to help women in other countries with reproductive options. Deliverance from reproductive slavery and the body as a commodity. Access to birth control. Aid for impoverished women. Good prenatal care. Gentle birth. Informed choices. A rejection of Crisis Pregnancy Centers and their intimidation tactics and the lies they tell women about abortion. A rejection of the abstinence-only education that is putting our teenagers in danger. A rejection of all of the blantant lies fed to our children about their bodies.

It is no wonder that women give birth in a hospital completely uninformed. Many of them have been lied to about their bodies since they were preteens. I am of the mind that sexuality is pretty much the be all end all core of our beings in one way or another. If you can control someone’s sexuality and their reproductive potential, you have control over their entire life.

So for me, reproductive freedom must be protected because it is akin to freedom of one’s soul. And it is under constant attack. Even birth control is under attack because it is "anti-woman" and "anti-life" and preventing pregnancy is the same as saying you hate children and having sex for anything but procreation is equating women with whores. Read the article. I’m not kidding.

I vote pro-choice with the hope that the people I elect have the same passion for protecting my reproductive rights as those who oppose these rights. 

And because I am a pro-choice voter, I am voting for Barack Obama. I think this article sums up my justification for doing so. There are so many other reasons, but if I had to point to one, this is it.

Oh, and he also spoke out against this stupid war we’re involved in. Don’t tell me "we didn’t have all of the facts" at the time. I was one of the people who marched against us going to war because many of us knew, even then, that there weren’t enough facts to go to war, and that Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We had no business invading that country. It’s great that Saddam is dead. Fine. So let’s get the hell out and let those people have their country back.

Arizona primaries are Tuesday along with all of the other "Super Tuesday" states. To be honest, I am just giddy about the fact that we got to watch a debate last week and there was no white man on the stage. Pretty amazing. Both of the democratic candidates are great choices. I’ll happily vote for either in the general election. But I’d be just a little happier to vote for Obama.

On Monday I came across this State of the Union drinking game, which was obviously satirical, and quite complicated. But it inspired me to actually play a drinking game during the address. So, we cracked open a bottle of wine, grabbed two shot glasses (they were actually saki glasses), and we took a drink for each of these pre-determined phrases:

• "economic stimulus package"
• "9/11"
• "War on terror"
• "Make tax cuts permanent"
• "Culture of life"
• "Osama bin Ladin"
• "Housing market"
• "Border security" (or “secure our borders”)

The only phrase that didn’t explicitly come up was “culture of life” although he alluded to it. He didn’t actually say it, of course, because he is not campaigning for re-election.

Needless to say, we were pretty tipsy by the end of the speech. I think we’ll do this every year.

The lovely midwife who attended Albert’s birth wrote a really funny post over at Earth Hearth about what she carries for birth "emergencies".

The post made me laugh because number one, I remember being fanned during labor, and seriously, I don’t know if I could have held out without that relief. We had turned the heat high when I started pushing, because we all assumed the the baby would arrive soon. Sooner became later, and so I had some serious work to do while being seriously HOT. Between the fan, icy washcloths, and gatorade, I survived. I hate being hot. Hate it.

Number two, I remember asking a similar question at one of my prenatal appointments. I switched care around 32 weeks, and this was particular appointment was probably the third time I had seen M. I asked whether or not she had a "neonatal transport unit" in case of emergencies. I’m not really sure what that is, but someone had asked me that question, so I asked it of her. She didn’t know what it was either (I don’t think such a thing exists) and then said that her neonatal transport unit was *this* and formed her arms into a cradle shape as if she was holding a baby. She laughed really hard after that. She did go on to tell me about some of the equipment they carried like oxygen, a "space blanket" (which she had not had to use in a very long time), etc. But every once in awhile, she would giggle, make the cradle sign, and say "neonatal transport unit".

It cracks me up every time I think about it.

What does she really carry for emergencies? What is the most important thing a midwife has for emergencies (in my opinion)?

Her hands. It was her hands that helped me push. It was her hands that pushed hair out of my face. It was her hands that gave me strength. It was her hands that brought me gatorade. Her hands that helped me wash up afterwards when I was too weak to stand in the shower.

And what was it that she used to help free Albert from shoulder dystocia?

Not forceps. Not a vacuum. Not a caesarean section.

Her hands.

Period.

I think those hands might just rival the fan for #1. 

I am in love with the Feministing blog. This weekly summary of stories is just a cornucopia of interesting tidbits…

Feministing.com 

I’ve been musing over my birth story, and have realized that there are some things that I left out that should be part of the story. They are the kinds of things that aren’t just about the birth story, but are about the home birth story. Like how M asked me the next day if I had any questions about anything that had happened during the birth. I was actually debriefed about my birth experience.

 Like how the midwives gave me a Wonder Woman mug the day after the birth with tea inside that was for boosting my milk supply. And how receiving that mug helped to eliminate any residual feelings I had that I had done something to cause my labor to be long and hard.

 Like how when M came by on the third day, she noticed Albert doing something with his tongue that I didn’t realize was a problem that could have really fucked up the breastfeeding. She said, “babies are smart”. This was not the first time I’d heard her say that. She said, “if he starts that, it’ll be a hard habit to break.” He was sucking his tongue and I had to actually reach in and pull his tongue out when he did it. He didn’t do it any more after two days of that. Despite the many, many people I would have been forced to contend with in a hospital, I have a feeling none of them would have bothered to notice this problem. Furthermore, if I’d been allowed a vaginal birth in the hospital (not likely), then I would have already been home with no one to notice even if they were observant.

 Any time I had any tests done the midwives explained to me exactly what was being tested as well as the risks and benefits of the testing itself and the risks and benefits of doing nothing regardless of test results. I knew what my urinalysis results were because I was holding the pee stick and reading it myself. This was an improvement over watching blood and urine disappear from my sight with no idea where it was going, and facing tones of annoyance if I dared to ask.

 When I switched to midwifery care at 34 weeks, my doctor had not palpated my stomach at all yet. It was one of the first things the midwife did. It was as if she was getting to know the baby.

 I was asked permission to do vaginal exams. Rather than being told it was time for one. Not just exams during actual labor, but even exams to check my status prior to going into labor. It was my decision whether or not I wanted someone’s hands inside of me. I don’t have a problem with vaginal exams, but it was nice to know that it was always my decision and there was no pressure to do otherwise.

 Even though I took several hours to push Dude out, no one ever mentioned I had failed in any way. As in “failure to progress”. You know, that phrase that is justification for a whole cascade of interventions. No one said anything had stalled, like a temperamental car. No one mentioned anything about intervening in any way. They just suggested different positions. And M did do some things with her hands—but for the most part they were gentle, and she had my permission to do them.

 I have a friend who said the other day that she wondered “what her water would do” during her next birth. Apparently, she’s had her water broken in both previous births. The first time by a midwife (shall I say medwife) because labor had stalled (damn car!) at 9 cm. I am curious what definition of stalled they were using. Because really, it seems to me that 9cm is far enough along that maybe the body is like, “ok, everything is good, let’s take a teensy break before we push on to phase two”. My labor slowed down right after transition. The total break wasn’t that long. But then I had quite a period of time when I was pushy, but not intensely pushy. If I was in the hospital, the more I think about it, they would have totally said I had “stalled”. I didn’t feel like I had stalled. I was working hard. I worked much harder after that little slowing period, but it doesn’t mean that I wasn’t an active working participant in the period where little “progress” was made.

 Furthermore, during her last birth, when the doctor came in with his glove with a needle at the end of it to break her water, her guy had just left to get some soup. Nothing had been happening except, you know, contractions, and so she said sure, go ahead, go get some soup. I find it appalling that the doctor was not willing to wait 15 or 20 minutes for her guy to get back to break her water, knowing that breaking the water will cause contractions to intensify. Because, I’m sure that waiting 15 minutes would have made all the difference to the baby’s health, right?

 She came away from both experiences feeling like something was wrong with the way she labored because her water didn’t break at the very beginning. Rather than realizing her body was working just fine, great even, because it was retaining a cushion for the baby’s head and for her as well.

 The women that attended my birth didn’t treat me as an inferior—they treated me as an equal. They helped me, comforted me, supported me, nourished me, and cheered me on. The did not “manage” me. They were kind, gentle, and respectful at all times. I do not hear those words used for hospital births. Ever. It is a feat if the doctor even shows his or her face for more than 5 minutes prior to the baby crowning. These women held my hand, let me push against them, put cool cloths on my neck, and brushed the hair back from my face. They were with me in labor, not waiting for me to finish my labor.

 I know plenty of women who get weepy and sentimental about the birth of their baby. But they are referring to just the actual moment of birth. I am overcome with emotion about the entire experience, especially the difficult times.

 And there have been times since the day Albert was born that I felt insecure about something or needed a little courage. And it’s true that thinking of that day makes other challenges pale in comparison.

 And that, my friends, as Paul Harvey would say, is the rest of the story.

So. While my mom was here a few weeks ago, we had intended to take a drive to Prescott Valley to see my know-it-all wise grandma. We ended up cancelling because Albie and I were sick. But when my mom called her to arrange plans initially, she was full of all sorts of advice. She first asked if Albert was sleeping through the night. He was two weeks old at the time. She then proceeded to lecture my mother about how she hoped I was dressing him warm enough because it had been really cold in Phoenix. I answered, via my mother, who chose not to pass it on, that "of course not–I make him sleep outside with the dogs after all". (I don’t really make the dogs sleep outside either).

I actually love my grandmother and in a lot of ways think she is one hip lady. She is 78 years old and still totally has her wits about her and is in fairly good physical health. She is also a raving democrat. She just can’t stop talking. Seriously. And it’s not something that came about with age. It’s always been like that. Sometimes I wonder how she doesn’t pass out because I’m not sure when she inhales. My mom used to just set the phone down and periodically walk back and offer an "uh-huh".

My father is the same way, unless he is "evil-Barry", who is usually brought on by too much Budweiser. Then he will stonewall you in between the ranty periods.

I may have also inherited this trait, but I refuse to say. You could ask my husband. When I’m not around. He did remark that when I was in labor, it was the quietest he had ever seen me. Which is funny because he had been so sure that I would be angry, etc. and I tried to tell him that I would probably get very quiet and he didn’t believe me until it happened.

But I digress.

So then my grandmother tells my mother that when she had my dad (her second and final child) that the doctor told her that her milk was "no good". And to give my dad carnation milk mixed with water (now I understand why I have come across strong warnings not to give this to babies and I was like, "who would do that?…"). And she told my mom that he was really colicky (gee I wonder why) and cried all the time, and so they put his crib in the kitchen so they wouldn’t have to listen to it.

I almost cried. I swear to god I felt like I suddenly understood a huge chunk of why my father is so fucked up.

So I’m thinking about this baby in horrible pain, stranded in the kitchen, probably hungry too, because he should be "sleeping through the night".

And I’m thinking about all the nutrients his little brain missed out on that formula at least tries to replicate. And I wonder how much that has to do with his mood issues. 

And I was blown away that these doctors even thought that evaporated milk could even possibly come close to meeting a baby’s needs.

People wonder why I am skeptical about doctors. Well, it’s because I can’t help but think to myself that there are probably several things that doctors do today that we will look back on as stupid.

In essence, what is our current carnation milk?

I’m feeling lazy today, so I’m taking the easy way out with an interesting link about why you should be terrified Dr. Eric Keroack has been appointed (by Bush, of course) to head the U.S. Federal Family Planning Program. I’ve meant to blog about this for awhile, but someone else did it for me.

About a year and a half ago, I was asked to speak to a group of high school students about the Roe v. Wade case from the pro-choice point of view. I was informed that there would also be pro-life person there. Silly me, I thought that we were going to talk about the court case from our legal perspectives (which I knew little about until I spent the preceding weekend doing nothing but reading legal briefs…and I am not a lawyer).

Anyhoo, things did not stick to legal arguments or anything of the like. She opened her speech by passing around plastic fetuses.

I was stunned, and unprepared, and pissed off because I had been duped.

If there are any pro-choice folks out there ever asked to speak alongside a pro-life person, no matter what the topic is, be prepared to argue against a lot of visceral tricky arguments that have nothing to do with the topic at hand.

She argued that abortion was wrong under all circumstances. She argued that a woman who is raped is not likely to get pregnant because you have to be relaxed to conceive. She argued that to carry a rape baby to term can help the woman heal. She argued that even if a woman already has children to care for and there is an extremely high risk that her life is in danger if she carries another pregnancy to term, that she should say the hell with the other children and not be permitted to have an abortion.

In short, for all of her rhetoric about life, she was one of the most uncompassionate people I have ever encountered. I was disgusted.

I was first pro-choice because that’s just how I was raised. When I faced an unplanned pregnancy and abortion as a teenager, my mother told about her abortion experience. Abortion was legal at that time under some circumstances in California. It was a pre-Roe era. She was forced to come before a panel of 4 doctors, all male, and plead with them to let her follow through on a decision about her body. She was forced to convince them she wasn’t crazy, but that she would suffer mental anguish if not allowed to have the abortion. She was humiliated. She said the worst thing about the whole experience wasn’t the procedure or any residual feelings. It was the memory of having to beg to be allowed her own autonomy before a panel of strange men.

I have been pro-choice for as long as I can remember, which doesn’t mean that I have not questioned my beliefs or tried to see the other side. I am now 35 weeks pregnant. I have been feeling my baby move inside of me for 17 weeks now. When does it become a baby? I say, when it is wanted. I know that pregnancy is magical. I don’t know how this power is called forth from the abyss to grow from a cell to a sentient being. I just know it is amazing. And to me, it is far too precious a gift to be wasted.

I know that there are people who could never choose abortion. I know that there are people who could never put their baby up for adoption. There are women who, against all odds, are determined to keep and raise their babies. And I support those choices as much as I support the right to terminate a pregnancy. I support access to prenatal care and resources for women to keep their babies, which is something many of those who oppose abortion are all too willing to cut funding for.

I have realized recently that choice is about birthing choices too. The right to choose to have an unmedicated birth free from intervention. The right to have a VBAC at home (which is not legal in Arizona if you want to be safe and be attended by a midwife). Being pro-choice, to me, is about being pro-woman and trusting that each woman knows what is best for her body and her reproductive well-being. It is about trusting a woman and her own relationship to her conscience and the divine.

I am pro-choice because I believe that women make tough decisions based on many factors that other people may not understand. Because I believe that no one is more qualified to tell a woman what to do with her body than the woman herself. No politicians. No doctors. No one.

I am pro-choice because I believe it is the compassionate position, and the pro-choice activists I have known are some of the most compassionate people I have ever met. I am pro-choice because I trust and believe in women.

Monday, January 22nd marks the 34th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision.

Thus, it has been dubbed "Blog for Choice" day by NARAL Pro-Choice America. 

You can read more and sign up here.

The topic this year is simply why you’re pro-choice. I think an appropriate alternative interpretation could be why people should be pro-choice, but that’s less personal. Although it’s probably more fun for the argumentative types.

I will certainly be participating this year. 

Ah, the feeling of completion. I just finished the last thing I had to do for the semester, and am really wishing that I could knock back a few drinks right about now. It has been a tough semester. The coursework and grad work wasn’t particularly hard, but DH and I had a lot of family crises to deal with and that made pretty much everything hard. I am not taking any formal courses next semester, so I feel a tremendous lifting of shoulder-weight.

On another note, I went to interview a pediatrician yesterday. Nice lady. Into homeopathic medicine. Talked a lot. I pretty much liked her and thought to myself, well, she’ll probably be okay. Although she seemed to have some outdated notions about breastfeeding…anyhoo…As I was leaving the office, feeling satisfied and like I had one less thing to worry about before baby’s arrival, I saw some pictures on the exit door between the hallway and the waiting room that caused me to do a double take. They were pictures of dear old George W. Bush and his first lady Laura, and there were at least four of them. And below each picture it said something like, "Dear Dr. whom I will no longer consider as a candidate for my child’s pediatrician, thank you for your steadfast support of the Republican National Committee". After reading this, I mumbled fuck under my breath and chalked the last 90 minutes up as a huge waste of my time. I am sure that I give money to people who give their money to the RNC all the time without realizing it. But I absolutely refuse to give my hard-earned liberal dollars to her knowing that some portion of them well go to him. Thus, I am still looking for a pediatrician. 

The reason that I did not consider the free-standing birth center in our area as a possibility between homebirth and hospital birth is because the head doctor of said birth center is on the board of Crisis Pregnancy Centers of AZ. If you do not know much about these little offices masquerading as medical clinics, suffice it to say that they offer free pregnancy tests, prey on young women, and lie their asses off. They claim to provide options, but the only info you will get about the abortion option is a lengthy gruesome video while you wait 40 minutes for your 5 minute free pregnancy test. And they will tell you an abortion will give you breast cancer, which is total bullshit. And if you’ve already had an abortion in the past, look out, becuase they will try to convince you that really, you must have lurking guilt and trauma about the whole eperience. DH and I have often chatted about investing in a large number of pregnancy tests and standing out in the parking lot of these places saying "here, here’s your free test, and here’s a little flyer that actually has information about all of your options". We have yet to actually do this, but I think it would be a hoot. I would also raise all sorts of hell if I was actually banished or arrested from their property, because the protesters over at Planned Parenthood are there every week and are allowed to do continue to do so. Suffice it to say, I could not stomach giving money to a birth center that claims to give women choices, where the lead doctor (despite all of his choice rhetoric) is actually on a board of an organization that blatantly lies to women.

If you would like to know more about Crisis Pregnancy Centers (CPCs), click here