So this week included negotiating the government services for pregnancy assist. First, a trip to the Health Dept to get certified pregnant, and then a couple days later a trip the the Dept of Human Services to apply for TennCare/Medicaid. The two trips were very different.
The Health Dept is a local branch in the neighborhood. We didn't make an appointment, but just showed up. The whole encounter was highly stressful. The building was ugly and cold. There was no one to greet us, only a few signs in not obvious places directing us to a sign in sheet. There were two different waiting areas, and it was not clear which one was best. We ended up waiting and watching to see what was going on, and then choosing the smaller room with the chairs around the edge, since that seemed to be where people on the list we signed were being called from. Sitting in the chairs, it became obvious that there was one woman dealing with everyone on the list. Her cubicle was open to the waiting area, so there was no feeling of privacy. Everyone had to talk softly so that the entire waiting room didn't know their business. The woman was obviously stressed out and her back hurt, but she kept having to get up and walk to other parts of the building.
After 45 minutes, we were finally called up. Five minutes later, we've been initially entered into the system, stated our need for a proof of pregnancy, and then told to go sit in the other waiting room. That one woman that we waited so long to see just seems to greet and sort people. I felt relieved that we had signed the right paper and ended up in the right place after all. I had spent the whole 45 minutes feeling nervous that when we got called up, we would be told we did something wrong and have to go wait all over again somewhere else.
Another 15 minutes later, a nurse came and got us out of the second waiting room, just as cold, the chairs just as uncomfortable, and this one more cramped and with a high-pitched children's show on the tv. We are taken down a hallway, talked with, weighed, given a cup to pee in, iron is checked, etc. She gave us a bottle of prenatal vitamins and a package of name brand baby advertisements along with the slip of paper that certifies the pregnancy. On the way out, she told us to stop and make a WIC appointment, which took another 10 minutes since no one behind the windows she directed us to seemed to actually know how to do it. I think it took 4 different people to make the appointment for us.
In the end, it took an hour and half to pee in a cup and get officially declared pregnant, and the whole experience was nerve-wracking and left me stressed for the rest of the day.
In contrast, DHS is a cattle call. We had filled out our application online, and then been mailed an instruction sheet telling us to come within 20 days to their central office between 6:30 am and 9:00 am. Ungodly hours! I chose to stay up all night in order to make it in time, because waking up with minimal sleep is a very bad thing for me. We pulled in at 6:40. There were two lines in front of the doors, each about 50 people long. A security guard was briefing everyone about what would happen. I had to go back and put my apple and water bottle back in the car since it wasn't allowed. The doors opened at 6:45, people who had applied online went in first, the guard took my official paper with my name on it, and told us where to all sit. We were then briefed on what to expect: we can come and go outside, they will start calling names at 7:30, when they call our name we will get our appointment time, any questions?
I felt much more relaxed about the whole thing. There was a person who could answer questions. I knew when we might get called. I knew I was in the right place, and was given information about timetables and what to expect and where to go. We were called up a little after 8:00 and given an appointment time of 8:30. At 8:10 we were called to the appointment early and followed a completely disinterested man into a huge room of cubicles. I could not see the far walls, it was so huge, full of head-high cubicle dividers for as far as the eye could see. His cubicle was not too far into the labyrinth, and without any greeting or smile we were asked for specific documents while he tapped things into his computer.
After a few minutes he said we were not eligible for food stamps at this time. I told him we already knew that, that the online eligibility screening said it would be TennCare only. He said there were no TennCare slots open. Not even though we're pregnant? Oh, you're pregnant? Do you have proof of pregnancy? Yes, here. Five minutes later, that's been entered in, we're approved, it will be a letter in a week and the card in three weeks.
The whole thing took 2 hours, but it was so much easier. The seats were cushioned, the room was not too cold, there were no annoying tv shows, and there was a loudspeaker so we could hear who was being called. Also, I felt much less nervous about being in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing, or being judged for being there. The man who helped us couldn't have cared less about us. He was completely deadpan. And while that lack of compassion might be disturbing, it was also reassuring, because he wasn't going to say anything personal. He turned us down for food stamps in the same deadpan way that he approved us for TennCare. And when we left, we got to the car just before it started raining and it only took another 2 hours for the residual stress to leave my body afterward.
Showing posts with label babies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label babies. Show all posts
Friday, September 10, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
And Now For Some Blind Panic
So, obviously, I took a week off from blogging. Sorry about that, but my head just does not seem attached. Early last week I took off for the woods of East TN to try to get my head back on, and it lessened the panic somewhat, but I am still in a place of deep inward focus with strong internal pressure to get everything external figured out NOW. And I've been watching a lot of Eureka, the tv show. It makes me laugh, so it helps.
Ever read Harry Potter? In the last book, they have to figure out something impossible and keep repeating to themselves, over and over, what they have to find. That's my head: a home, a job, a car, maybe another car, a midwife.... I haunt Craigslist, wrack my brain for doable steps to the monumental, and begrudge myself down time like naps and reading books. In other words, still panicking.
On the flip side, I am so very happy. My partner and I both are. We look at each other every so often, smile real big and say, "Babies!" Belly rubs are crucial. I don't claim that any of it actually makes sense.
In a general progress kind of way, last night I emailed a resume to a Craigslist employer who wants exactly what I have to offer. And tomorrow I have a meeting with a potential housing lead. We'll see if something comes out of those. I am affirming ease of transition and manifesting plenty of divine appointments, perfect timing, and clear opportunities. I have written my spells for housing, cashflow abundance, overall family abundance, and the pregnancy and birth. It is good.
I much prefer being able to make sense of things (this is Philosofishing, after all), and this not making anything make sense due to emotional turbulence of happy-induced blind panic is disconcerting. Very disconcerting. But I will continue to trust my navigational instruments through the storm and hope the horizon reappears to my sightline soon.
Ever read Harry Potter? In the last book, they have to figure out something impossible and keep repeating to themselves, over and over, what they have to find. That's my head: a home, a job, a car, maybe another car, a midwife.... I haunt Craigslist, wrack my brain for doable steps to the monumental, and begrudge myself down time like naps and reading books. In other words, still panicking.
On the flip side, I am so very happy. My partner and I both are. We look at each other every so often, smile real big and say, "Babies!" Belly rubs are crucial. I don't claim that any of it actually makes sense.
In a general progress kind of way, last night I emailed a resume to a Craigslist employer who wants exactly what I have to offer. And tomorrow I have a meeting with a potential housing lead. We'll see if something comes out of those. I am affirming ease of transition and manifesting plenty of divine appointments, perfect timing, and clear opportunities. I have written my spells for housing, cashflow abundance, overall family abundance, and the pregnancy and birth. It is good.
I much prefer being able to make sense of things (this is Philosofishing, after all), and this not making anything make sense due to emotional turbulence of happy-induced blind panic is disconcerting. Very disconcerting. But I will continue to trust my navigational instruments through the storm and hope the horizon reappears to my sightline soon.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Pregnant!
We're pregnant! I've been waiting weeks to say that. Turns out we had to wait until the 6-8 week mark before it was safe to tell people, but now we are at 8 weeks and we can spill the beans. We are both very very happy, but scared. A friend of mine once told me that it wasn't worth waiting until everything was figured out financially, logistically, etc. because there is never enough money or stability or anything else. I keep thinking of the movie Idiocracy, where the smart couple keeps saying no, not this year, not in this market, while the stupid people just keep popping out kids. We didn't want to wait forever, indeed waited longer than I really wanted to, so now it's on and we will just figure it out. Because we are smart, resourceful people with a lot of love and support from our family and friends. Dammit.
But I will say I keep obsessing over where we are going to live and on what. We have to move, so I have been compulsively checking the Craigslist listings to see if there is anything in the right size and neighborhood that we can afford. They seem to be very few and far between, but they exist. I also keep checking the vehicle listings since my truck will no longer be adequate.
I've also gone out applying for jobs waiting tables. Cash money is good. Gives me income a little more reliable than my healing work. Haven't had any luck yet, but I decided I would just go apply and not be attached to the results. We'll see what happens.
I am so excited. Babies! This week they have little flipper arms and start to wiggle for the first time. Hey, flippers beat arm buds! Next up, fingers!
But I will say I keep obsessing over where we are going to live and on what. We have to move, so I have been compulsively checking the Craigslist listings to see if there is anything in the right size and neighborhood that we can afford. They seem to be very few and far between, but they exist. I also keep checking the vehicle listings since my truck will no longer be adequate.
I've also gone out applying for jobs waiting tables. Cash money is good. Gives me income a little more reliable than my healing work. Haven't had any luck yet, but I decided I would just go apply and not be attached to the results. We'll see what happens.
I am so excited. Babies! This week they have little flipper arms and start to wiggle for the first time. Hey, flippers beat arm buds! Next up, fingers!
Monday, August 9, 2010
Brooding (RetroPosted)
(Date adjusted to when this should have been written, though I was quite late with it.)
I lost this week. I don't know quite where it went, but I have been on the equivalent of a juice fast for media. I have been playing mindless games on my computer instead of reading my now glutted blog subscriptions and webcomics. I haven't updated this or any of my other blogs. I've been hiding.
Or perhaps I have been processing something big, or maybe just brooding. A lot. Okay, whatever I have been doing, it has definitely included brooding. When I think about things, it all seems hard and complicated and panic-inducing. When I meditate and connect with the Divine, it all seems like it is toodling along just fine, I only need to hang on to the wooden slats on the sides of the little red wagon and enjoy the suburban scenery. But then I go back to mundane life and brooding.
Perhaps the brooding is reproduction-induced. The term (as I understand things) comes from chickens who want to hatch chicks. They get broody, as in moody and anti-social, and just want to sit around working on their eggs. Perhaps people get this way, too. It is hard to make a conscious choice to have kids. They are expensive and life transforming, rather like skydiving. Only more permanent. Perhaps brooding is only natural. Perhaps stopping life in order to brood is a necessary process of slipping cognitive gears in order to better adjust to an impending complete and utter paradigm shift.
Interesting note: Brooding is associated with female animals like broody hens and brood mares, but is coded masculine when referring to human activities. Its feminized human counterparts include fretting and worrying. Just thought I'd point that out.
I lost this week. I don't know quite where it went, but I have been on the equivalent of a juice fast for media. I have been playing mindless games on my computer instead of reading my now glutted blog subscriptions and webcomics. I haven't updated this or any of my other blogs. I've been hiding.
Or perhaps I have been processing something big, or maybe just brooding. A lot. Okay, whatever I have been doing, it has definitely included brooding. When I think about things, it all seems hard and complicated and panic-inducing. When I meditate and connect with the Divine, it all seems like it is toodling along just fine, I only need to hang on to the wooden slats on the sides of the little red wagon and enjoy the suburban scenery. But then I go back to mundane life and brooding.
Perhaps the brooding is reproduction-induced. The term (as I understand things) comes from chickens who want to hatch chicks. They get broody, as in moody and anti-social, and just want to sit around working on their eggs. Perhaps people get this way, too. It is hard to make a conscious choice to have kids. They are expensive and life transforming, rather like skydiving. Only more permanent. Perhaps brooding is only natural. Perhaps stopping life in order to brood is a necessary process of slipping cognitive gears in order to better adjust to an impending complete and utter paradigm shift.
Interesting note: Brooding is associated with female animals like broody hens and brood mares, but is coded masculine when referring to human activities. Its feminized human counterparts include fretting and worrying. Just thought I'd point that out.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Kids Are a Very Expensive Emotional Luxury
There are no logical reasons to have children. If we were all Vulcans, we would not reproduce and therefore die out fairly quickly. (Actually, I wonder WHY Vulcans have kids.) Not only are there no logical reasons for having kids, they also come with quite the expensive price tag. The (fully consensual) decision to reproduce is entirely emotional.
Having children is a tremendously expensive emotional luxury (and/or obligation, depending on the level of reproductive consent). If fertility control were perfect and widespread, kids would be nothing but a luxury. But because reproduction also comes with a biological imperative and our fertility control is not perfect due to flaws in access, education, and the technologies themselves, the luxury and cost of children is not something accorded only to those who explicitly consent to reproduce. One could argue that there is an implicit reproductive consent that comes with (consensual) heterosexual coitus, but given the number of after-the-fact fertility control technologies and the number of people who use them, it is clear that many dispute the validity of that implicit consent by their very choices.
Given this murky context of implicit and explicit (or coercive) reproductive consent, it is really no surprise that the moralists have colonized this issue. The idea then becomes that there is a MORAL reason why consent can often become irrelevant to whether any given person reproduces. Various religious dogmas support and encourage the production of more Christian or Jewish soldiers to populate the world. Many of those same dogmas also condemn the single and/or teenage mother for her pregnancy, couching it as the price of her slut-itude (the attitude and lifestyle of being a slut, in case you were wondering). Children then become both the goal of the morally righteous and the price of the morally bankrupt.
Of course, these musings only really apply to modern developed society. Before widely effective fertility control methods became available, there was a much closer coupling of the consent/coercion of heterosexual coitus to the consent/coercion of reproduction. Also, in agricultural and early industrial revolution society, children were of economic benefit to their families. They could work on the farm or earn wages at child labor (albeit in often horrific working conditions). (There is quite the possibility that kids were also an asset in pre-agricultural society, but I don't know as much about it.)
I do not condone nor advocate a repeal of child labor laws by any means, but it is worth pointing out that our current economic system is set up so that a child is nothing but a drain on their parents' resources until they become working age and begin paying their own way. Not only does it cost resources for clothing, food, housing, etc., but there are other costs as well. There are the childcare costs, the time and labor of potty training, and the general incompatibility of the corporate workplace (with some notable exceptions) to the demands of parenthood.
Furthermore, women carry the majority of the burden for childbearing. Not only is there is biological cost of gestation and labor (and possibly lactation), but there is also the added economic cost of missed work, a glass ceiling effect due to being shunted onto the "mommy track," and the "second shift" burden of being expected to shoulder the majority of the caretaking and housekeeping regardless of other breadwinning accomplishments.
Perhaps it is this very lack of economic viability of reproduction that will be our salvation as a species on this planet. Perhaps as the global levels of education for women and overall access to reproductive planning services and technology increase, and more of the world moves to a "developed" economy, the luxury of kids will become less and less of a viable choice and worldwide fertility rates will continue to fall until we move into negative population growth. Perhaps lessening our ecological footprint via negative population growth will be what keeps humans from destroying our global habitat.
Or perhaps we just need to realize our gross sexism and institutional hostility toward parents and fix it.
Having children is a tremendously expensive emotional luxury (and/or obligation, depending on the level of reproductive consent). If fertility control were perfect and widespread, kids would be nothing but a luxury. But because reproduction also comes with a biological imperative and our fertility control is not perfect due to flaws in access, education, and the technologies themselves, the luxury and cost of children is not something accorded only to those who explicitly consent to reproduce. One could argue that there is an implicit reproductive consent that comes with (consensual) heterosexual coitus, but given the number of after-the-fact fertility control technologies and the number of people who use them, it is clear that many dispute the validity of that implicit consent by their very choices.
Given this murky context of implicit and explicit (or coercive) reproductive consent, it is really no surprise that the moralists have colonized this issue. The idea then becomes that there is a MORAL reason why consent can often become irrelevant to whether any given person reproduces. Various religious dogmas support and encourage the production of more Christian or Jewish soldiers to populate the world. Many of those same dogmas also condemn the single and/or teenage mother for her pregnancy, couching it as the price of her slut-itude (the attitude and lifestyle of being a slut, in case you were wondering). Children then become both the goal of the morally righteous and the price of the morally bankrupt.
Of course, these musings only really apply to modern developed society. Before widely effective fertility control methods became available, there was a much closer coupling of the consent/coercion of heterosexual coitus to the consent/coercion of reproduction. Also, in agricultural and early industrial revolution society, children were of economic benefit to their families. They could work on the farm or earn wages at child labor (albeit in often horrific working conditions). (There is quite the possibility that kids were also an asset in pre-agricultural society, but I don't know as much about it.)
I do not condone nor advocate a repeal of child labor laws by any means, but it is worth pointing out that our current economic system is set up so that a child is nothing but a drain on their parents' resources until they become working age and begin paying their own way. Not only does it cost resources for clothing, food, housing, etc., but there are other costs as well. There are the childcare costs, the time and labor of potty training, and the general incompatibility of the corporate workplace (with some notable exceptions) to the demands of parenthood.
Furthermore, women carry the majority of the burden for childbearing. Not only is there is biological cost of gestation and labor (and possibly lactation), but there is also the added economic cost of missed work, a glass ceiling effect due to being shunted onto the "mommy track," and the "second shift" burden of being expected to shoulder the majority of the caretaking and housekeeping regardless of other breadwinning accomplishments.
Perhaps it is this very lack of economic viability of reproduction that will be our salvation as a species on this planet. Perhaps as the global levels of education for women and overall access to reproductive planning services and technology increase, and more of the world moves to a "developed" economy, the luxury of kids will become less and less of a viable choice and worldwide fertility rates will continue to fall until we move into negative population growth. Perhaps lessening our ecological footprint via negative population growth will be what keeps humans from destroying our global habitat.
Or perhaps we just need to realize our gross sexism and institutional hostility toward parents and fix it.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Don't Try Too Hard
I got some great advice this week. I took my annual trip to my aunt's tomato farm in east Tennessee to pick up the tomatoes for my parents' church's fish fry. Mom came with me, it turned into a crazy long exhausting trip made worse by machiavellian road closings coming back into town, and I spent most of the next day just trying to recover, but the best part was the tomatoes (I always pull a 25 pound box for my household) and seeing my aunt.
So we are sitting in her office in her tomato packing house which used to be the old garage but has now been enlarged multiple times so that it is now four times bigger than the tiny cabin she and her husband raised their two boys in. (She has dreamed of a new house for about as long as I can remember.) She asks about married life and all that, and the conversation comes around to having kids. I say that yes, we are trying, and she raises an eyebrow and says, "Well, don't try too hard."
I must have looked a little confused (what, she doesn't think we should have kids?), because she added, "Trying too hard to get pregnant can be miserable." And the more I think about it, the more I think she is right. We just need to relax. We've been wearing ourselves out. Haven't gotten to miserable, but we are getting quite tired and our backs and abs are sore. Of all the people I know who have gotten pregnant, the vast majority of them either weren't trying or were actively trying NOT to. Seems to me, we just need to relax.
I have put a PERFECT TIMING spell on the whole procreation thing, it's been on there for years. Well, I'm going to trust in Perfect Timing to see us through. It can take a few months for uteruses to get themselves sorted out for pregnancy, and as we have discovered, fertilized eggs don't necessarily a pregnancy make. So, we will just relax. We will have fabulous relations, enjoy ourselves and the incandescent happiness of our love, and continue to affirm the fact that we will welcome any children we have with open arms, open minds, and big protective teeth.
All in the perfect time.
So we are sitting in her office in her tomato packing house which used to be the old garage but has now been enlarged multiple times so that it is now four times bigger than the tiny cabin she and her husband raised their two boys in. (She has dreamed of a new house for about as long as I can remember.) She asks about married life and all that, and the conversation comes around to having kids. I say that yes, we are trying, and she raises an eyebrow and says, "Well, don't try too hard."
I must have looked a little confused (what, she doesn't think we should have kids?), because she added, "Trying too hard to get pregnant can be miserable." And the more I think about it, the more I think she is right. We just need to relax. We've been wearing ourselves out. Haven't gotten to miserable, but we are getting quite tired and our backs and abs are sore. Of all the people I know who have gotten pregnant, the vast majority of them either weren't trying or were actively trying NOT to. Seems to me, we just need to relax.
I have put a PERFECT TIMING spell on the whole procreation thing, it's been on there for years. Well, I'm going to trust in Perfect Timing to see us through. It can take a few months for uteruses to get themselves sorted out for pregnancy, and as we have discovered, fertilized eggs don't necessarily a pregnancy make. So, we will just relax. We will have fabulous relations, enjoy ourselves and the incandescent happiness of our love, and continue to affirm the fact that we will welcome any children we have with open arms, open minds, and big protective teeth.
All in the perfect time.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Reviewing Transition
I recently got an email restarting the Transition process and looking into Steering Committee type stuff in town, asking for all those still interested to reply. And I hesitated. I still have not replied.
I was excited about it several months ago, but I feel a little sour about it now. I wonder if perhaps our conflict of vision is what caused us all to walk away/take a break for these several months. I think I was one of the main conflict headers. I think that Transition is cool stuff, is necessary, is win-win, and I want to see it succeed. I wonder if my participation would hamstring it, because I would always be questioning some of the paradigm that seems to get a lot of people really fired up about it. I have seen a tendency for those excited about Transition to be folks who believe in the Peak Oil Apocalypse and the Enlightened Few versus the Ignorant Masses, and those are both Mytho-Realities that I actively question and choose not to live.
With my questioning, I do not want to sabotage the very fervor that would lead to Transition success. Or, as the voice of an old friend and activist whispers to me, perhaps they need my voice questioning those paradigms that keep them limited, so that Transition can be successful. My friend would tell me that my input is highly valuable and I would be an asset to the committee instead of a hindrance. I admit to having a little less confidence than that.
Relatedly, I find that my focus of what I want to work on is changing. My projects seem to be contracting into the personal: baby-making, alternate streams of income via drums, growing my healing practice, and acquiring land to raise our family on. On the one hand, I absolutely believe in the bigger picture and its relevance to all our lives. On the other hand, my kids and partner come first. I am conflicted about it a little, but then again, I can feel myself relaxing into my own advice to other friends who became parents before me: You are doing what you can right now, and that is enough. There is a reason most activists are the young and old. They have the time and energy to work on the bigger picture, while the parents are raising the next generation.
I'll have to keep pondering the Transition question. I think I will call a friend who is still involved and see what she thinks about my contributions and how they will play out in the politics of the thing.
I was excited about it several months ago, but I feel a little sour about it now. I wonder if perhaps our conflict of vision is what caused us all to walk away/take a break for these several months. I think I was one of the main conflict headers. I think that Transition is cool stuff, is necessary, is win-win, and I want to see it succeed. I wonder if my participation would hamstring it, because I would always be questioning some of the paradigm that seems to get a lot of people really fired up about it. I have seen a tendency for those excited about Transition to be folks who believe in the Peak Oil Apocalypse and the Enlightened Few versus the Ignorant Masses, and those are both Mytho-Realities that I actively question and choose not to live.
With my questioning, I do not want to sabotage the very fervor that would lead to Transition success. Or, as the voice of an old friend and activist whispers to me, perhaps they need my voice questioning those paradigms that keep them limited, so that Transition can be successful. My friend would tell me that my input is highly valuable and I would be an asset to the committee instead of a hindrance. I admit to having a little less confidence than that.
Relatedly, I find that my focus of what I want to work on is changing. My projects seem to be contracting into the personal: baby-making, alternate streams of income via drums, growing my healing practice, and acquiring land to raise our family on. On the one hand, I absolutely believe in the bigger picture and its relevance to all our lives. On the other hand, my kids and partner come first. I am conflicted about it a little, but then again, I can feel myself relaxing into my own advice to other friends who became parents before me: You are doing what you can right now, and that is enough. There is a reason most activists are the young and old. They have the time and energy to work on the bigger picture, while the parents are raising the next generation.
I'll have to keep pondering the Transition question. I think I will call a friend who is still involved and see what she thinks about my contributions and how they will play out in the politics of the thing.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Holding Hope with an Open Hand
Well, we're not pregnant this go around, so we have collapsed the probability wave of Shrodinger Pregnancy 1.0. Can't say the redo is any great hardship (that much pleasure is great for stress relief!), though the story of conceiving right away was quite tidy and appealing. However, we have had a magical "Perfect Timing" on the whole kids thing for years now, and just because the story would have been tidy does not mean it was perfect timing. Ego makes way for spirit, and that is the way I prefer it, honestly.
I am a little surprised how quickly the disappointment wore off. Yes, it was keenly felt for a few hours, but come morning life just seemed to go on. I feel calmer now that I have a longer perspective on this. I also now understand the cultural norm of keeping pregnancy tries private until everyone is "sure" it took. It is just too difficult to have that many hopeful conversations and then have to give disappointing news. I have never been all that great at keeping my trap shut, though, so we will see exactly how private I manage to stay. I am blogging about it, after all.
It can also be fitting that we conceive after the fertility ritual of the flinging of birdseed at the feast, too. A symbol of community support for our family is highly appropriate. But this time I will hold my attachment to an immediate conception after birdseed flinging loosely, in an open hand, so that it will not be so hard to let go of it if that is divine will. There is, of course, also the issue of the astrological sign of our offspring, and I cannot know nor truly predict what that should be (even if I do amuse myself with calculating sun signs speculatively). Again, Perfect Timing is invoked, and I will trust my spellwork to be effective.
I am a little surprised how quickly the disappointment wore off. Yes, it was keenly felt for a few hours, but come morning life just seemed to go on. I feel calmer now that I have a longer perspective on this. I also now understand the cultural norm of keeping pregnancy tries private until everyone is "sure" it took. It is just too difficult to have that many hopeful conversations and then have to give disappointing news. I have never been all that great at keeping my trap shut, though, so we will see exactly how private I manage to stay. I am blogging about it, after all.
It can also be fitting that we conceive after the fertility ritual of the flinging of birdseed at the feast, too. A symbol of community support for our family is highly appropriate. But this time I will hold my attachment to an immediate conception after birdseed flinging loosely, in an open hand, so that it will not be so hard to let go of it if that is divine will. There is, of course, also the issue of the astrological sign of our offspring, and I cannot know nor truly predict what that should be (even if I do amuse myself with calculating sun signs speculatively). Again, Perfect Timing is invoked, and I will trust my spellwork to be effective.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Obsessing over Shrodinger's Pregnancy
I have got to let go of my obsession with Schrodinger's Pregnancy (like Schrodinger's cat, we have placed egg and sperm in a closed womb. Given a non-menstrual--but not necessarily without bleeding--womb and lack of positive pregnancy pee test, the womb is simultaneously pregnant and not pregnant). I am driving myself nuts. Time will sort it all out. I'm just not a very patient person.
So, instead of obsessing over early pregnancy research and encouraging my partner to engage in yet another round of muscle testing, I have been obsessing over drums. Making drums, finding the right materials for making drums, making last minute runs to evil national chain stores that I have sworn to not give money to in order to find out if they, unlike their fellow box-store competitors, have the right kind of fabric, only to discover that in the many years since I went in there, they have taken out their fabric section all together and the whole compromise of my ideals by setting foot across the air conditioned threshold was an utter waste of time.
Realizing how silly I am being, I have laughed at myself and taken my obsessive behavior to an appropriate arena: very silly computer games. I have a couple that I enjoy that involve matching three objects of the same color, and once the match is made, they disappear. They involve shiny things, tranced out music, explosions and shooting things, so this seems like a harmless way to take out my angst. Once the angst is worked out, I can't imagine I would keep playing, because they do get boring to a non-obsessing not-silly mind.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Is Too Such a Thing as Little Bit Pregnant *blows raspberry*
Well, at this point we are waiting. We may or may not be pregnant, and it is too soon to confirm or deny via pregnancy tests. Muscle testing says yes, but emotional charge can make those results a bit murky.
This is such a strange experience. I have heard that nonsense about how a woman can never be "a little bit pregnant" and I would like to say, here and now, for the record, that OF COURSE SHE CAN. Because if we are currently pregnant, then we are definitely a little bit pregnant. Once we are more pregnant, then there will be more consequences like outwardly visible physiological changes and a definite time line for the life changes we need to make, like moving into a house that can accommodate kids (our goal is to be moved and settled by 6 months along). But right now, we are such a tiny little bit pregnant (if indeed we are at all) that we cannot tell.
Damn all this waiting anyway. Perhaps I should blame it on public education, but I never knew this much flex time was built in to this whole process. I thought a few days, maybe, but not 2+ weeks! And in doing some of the research about very early pregnancy (hoping against hope that I would find a tell tale surefire sign of knowing yes or no RIGHT NOW), I found out facts that I had never stumbled on before.
I learned that it takes a whole 10-14 days for fertilized eggs to move down from the fallopian tubes where they got fertilized and implant themselves to the uterine lining. When this happens, a woman can have implantation bleeding. Which means that she could see blood about the time she is supposed to be having a period, think she is just having a weird one, and not even know she is pregnant until she skips another period in another month. Also, there is no testable amount of the pregnancy hormone that the pee tests test for until after implantation. So no hoping we are special and have extra hormones racing about that will give us an early positive. Grr.
I think I am partially so impatient about all this because the "don't get pregnant/don't get a girl pregnant" messages were always so binary. "Have unprotected sex even once, and then voila! here comes baby!" Well, no. First, there were the 3 weeks we waited for ovulation, and well, that was a lot of baby-making sex with no baby to show for it. Then, we think we may have something on the line, but it's not like it thrashes about and tugs on the line as soon as it takes the bait. No. Two, three weeks go by. We think maybe we are, maybe we aren't. Everyone asks us as a first greeting, "So, do you think you are....?" and we have to answer, "too soon to confirm...."
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Babies are like Waterslides
Slippery and wet?
No, really. We are actively working on the making of the babies this month (and may have been successful, but it is too early to confirm it), and I find myself a little in shock about the whole thing. Yes, we absolutely want children, and yes, we have planned for this, have spent 15 months getting ready, getting married, working on health issues, financial issues, etc. Emotionally, we want kids and the timing is right.
And yet, the morning of Ovulation! we hesitated for a few minutes to process what we were about to embark upon. We had refreshed the altar, lit a candle from the wedding, lit the good Tibetan incense, said a few prayers, cried a few overwrought tears. It felt to me like that moment at the waterpark where you have waited for an hour to get to the front of the line for the Really Big Slide, the one with all the dozens of do's and don't's of where to put your arms and legs and eyelids, I mean down to a warning about not crossing your toes for gosh sake, and as you waited you just kept thinking about how it looks from the bottom landing pool, so curly, so up in the air, the people whizzing out of the chutes like small human missiles making impossibly big splashes, and you longed, you yearned to go racing down the slide so much you were willing to wait in that stupidly long line, but now you are at the top, the little traffic signal to tell you you can sit down and get ready is blinking, and yet, you hesitate. Do I really want to do this? This looks scary, the people down below are the size of ants, that's a lot of freefall, that's a lot of trust, my stomach is going to make a knot in my throat, and you know, I've never really been a big fan of that sensation, what if I just turned around and climbed back down these stairs I have spent an hour inching up, it'll be hard to get past that fat couple, it's narrow there, but I'm sure we'll figure out a way. Or maybe they will let me step to the side, I could let these nice people behind me go down first, just a little pause until I get my nerve up. But then the attendant looks at you, and you stop feeling afraid and just go sit down and wait for the green light to go, you stop thinking all together and do the little actions that will have the big consequences because you know that you wanted this, you chose this, you wanted it with all your heart when you were down at the bottom watching other people shoot out the chutes, and then suddenly, that light, that traffic signal light right there in front of you, turns green.
Monday, May 24, 2010
Not a Voice in the Wilderness: Male Birth Control
Well, it seems as though I ask, and then I receive. Remember my previous exhortations to science to step up the research for a male birth control pill? Well, apparently someone is already on it. At the University of North Carolina, they have begun human trials to see if a blast of ultrasound could safely stop sperm production for up to 6 months. It would be low cost and effective, if it works out.
Although, as my partner said, "it's hard to trust anything that says 'safe' and 'stop sperm production' in the same sentence." And, of course, once the man has his treatment, he then has to empty his reserves before he is free of the wiggly little guys. I wonder if the treatment centers will offer an appropriate outlet for that, or if it will be homework.
This could be a fabulous innovation, and if not this particular method, something like it. Men should be able to make choices around controlling their fertility, too, and have a better range of options than the two--condoms and vasectomies--currently available. I know that fertility control is often thought of as the woman's burden, because the woman is assumed to bear the burden of the responsibility of providing for any oops babies, but isn't it time to set that kind of sexist thinking aside?
The old tropes of afraid-of-commitment-marriage-and-family-men and baby-hungry-shackle-a-man-for-life-women are tired and worn out. Let's think of something else. Let's finally acknowledge all the young men in the world who deeply and tenderly care about their potential progeny and who often feel helpless in the face of the social story that babies belong to women, all the time. And let's please fully acknowledge those women who have absolutely no desire to breed or beget children at any point in their lifetime. There is a full range of human experience that gets plastered over and shouted down by the binary gender wars, and that is ridiculous.
Let's empower everyone to make their choices about their bodies, fertility, procreation, and life arc for themselves, and stop trying to use these tiny little boxes to fit everyone. It just doesn't work and it leaves too many of us social creatures feeling isolated and alone. Let's embrace and empower each other instead.
Although, as my partner said, "it's hard to trust anything that says 'safe' and 'stop sperm production' in the same sentence." And, of course, once the man has his treatment, he then has to empty his reserves before he is free of the wiggly little guys. I wonder if the treatment centers will offer an appropriate outlet for that, or if it will be homework.
This could be a fabulous innovation, and if not this particular method, something like it. Men should be able to make choices around controlling their fertility, too, and have a better range of options than the two--condoms and vasectomies--currently available. I know that fertility control is often thought of as the woman's burden, because the woman is assumed to bear the burden of the responsibility of providing for any oops babies, but isn't it time to set that kind of sexist thinking aside?
The old tropes of afraid-of-commitment-marriage-and-family-men and baby-hungry-shackle-a-man-for-life-women are tired and worn out. Let's think of something else. Let's finally acknowledge all the young men in the world who deeply and tenderly care about their potential progeny and who often feel helpless in the face of the social story that babies belong to women, all the time. And let's please fully acknowledge those women who have absolutely no desire to breed or beget children at any point in their lifetime. There is a full range of human experience that gets plastered over and shouted down by the binary gender wars, and that is ridiculous.
Let's empower everyone to make their choices about their bodies, fertility, procreation, and life arc for themselves, and stop trying to use these tiny little boxes to fit everyone. It just doesn't work and it leaves too many of us social creatures feeling isolated and alone. Let's embrace and empower each other instead.
Friday, May 14, 2010
Urgent: Must Win Bread
So now that we are married, I am feeling this sudden urgent need to get stable. I want to create a plan, a situation, that will give us at least 5 years of stability, rather than 6 months or 1 year. I have spent this week obsessing about where to move to and how to make the income we will need to raise our kids.
This is, I know, premature. We are not even pregnant yet. But we are trying, the prenatal supplements and nutrition are in place, and at this point it is a matter of time as we wait for the next ovulation. Translated, this means that I have taken all the action steps I can (or that my plan allows at this point in time) towards babies, therefore, I am fixated on the next items on the list.
I would like to say that I find it amusing/interesting/ironic that I am having such a stereotypically masculine response, worrying about the bread-winning. I would like to add the caveat that I am also terrified of committing to 5 year stability, even though I have been decently stable in my current situation for the last 4 years or so. The difference is that I could have left or changed things at any time. I have the trappings of 1 year stability, I have just extended their contracts. Signing a 5 year contract (so to speak, and this is getting almost ponderously metaphorical) seems as daunting as it does necessary.
I have been fixating on the possibility of opening a thrift store as a way to generate stable income and family-friendly scheduling. For two days, I ran through all the reasons I could think of for why a thrift store could be a really awesome thing. Finally, I decided to get serious about it and sat down to write lists. I started with the Why This Is a Good Idea list, and then went from there. Five or six lists later, I wrote the Assumptions I am Making list, and it burst my bubble. Too many assumptions, one or two of them deal-breakers if things don't work out that way. I am not willing to work 70 hour workweeks to have my own business/thrift store. Instead, I want to dabble in it (I can concede 30-40 hours/week) and have it be successful enough that I don't have to do more. NOT the most viable plan right now.
Once I realized that, I started to panic. I don't have a good enough plan, nothing is figured out enough for my comfort, what am I going to do? I decided the best thing was to pull the plug and turn off my brain. Once I got it out of its feedback loop, I could look at the bigger picture. To that end, I went to the library and checked out my maximum allowable number of books, almost all mental-bubblegum novels. I will spend the weekend reading fun romps that don't even leave footprints in the sand of my mind, and then check back in with everything next week.
This is, I know, premature. We are not even pregnant yet. But we are trying, the prenatal supplements and nutrition are in place, and at this point it is a matter of time as we wait for the next ovulation. Translated, this means that I have taken all the action steps I can (or that my plan allows at this point in time) towards babies, therefore, I am fixated on the next items on the list.
I would like to say that I find it amusing/interesting/ironic that I am having such a stereotypically masculine response, worrying about the bread-winning. I would like to add the caveat that I am also terrified of committing to 5 year stability, even though I have been decently stable in my current situation for the last 4 years or so. The difference is that I could have left or changed things at any time. I have the trappings of 1 year stability, I have just extended their contracts. Signing a 5 year contract (so to speak, and this is getting almost ponderously metaphorical) seems as daunting as it does necessary.
I have been fixating on the possibility of opening a thrift store as a way to generate stable income and family-friendly scheduling. For two days, I ran through all the reasons I could think of for why a thrift store could be a really awesome thing. Finally, I decided to get serious about it and sat down to write lists. I started with the Why This Is a Good Idea list, and then went from there. Five or six lists later, I wrote the Assumptions I am Making list, and it burst my bubble. Too many assumptions, one or two of them deal-breakers if things don't work out that way. I am not willing to work 70 hour workweeks to have my own business/thrift store. Instead, I want to dabble in it (I can concede 30-40 hours/week) and have it be successful enough that I don't have to do more. NOT the most viable plan right now.
Once I realized that, I started to panic. I don't have a good enough plan, nothing is figured out enough for my comfort, what am I going to do? I decided the best thing was to pull the plug and turn off my brain. Once I got it out of its feedback loop, I could look at the bigger picture. To that end, I went to the library and checked out my maximum allowable number of books, almost all mental-bubblegum novels. I will spend the weekend reading fun romps that don't even leave footprints in the sand of my mind, and then check back in with everything next week.
Monday, April 26, 2010
A Family of Children and Trees
I went to hear Joy Harjo perform and read her poetry Friday night. My friend Thandiwe Shiprah has been dreaming of bringing her to Nashville for years, and finally managed to get the art grant money to get it done. I did have a moment of disorientation when I walked in and found out it wasn't free like a Facebook friend had said, but since I was already there in the beautiful new space of the W. O Smith Community Music School, I decided to spring for it.
Some of the lines of her poetry struck me like blows to the chest or hammers suddenly released from their moorings to ping inside my skull. One line in particular that stuck with me talked about drops of blood falling to the earth and springing up into daughters, sons, and trees. As someone on the cusp of making babies and obsessed with getting to the woods, it really resonated with me. That is exactly how I feel about life. The trees are as close to me as children, and the longing I have for them in my life is very similar to the longing I have for kids. I have also seen my partner mourn a beloved shade tree that fell in a storm, and I understood completely.
What I long for, really, is to be in full intimacy with the lives of my children and the land. I yearn to be in long term relationships with trees, to get to know kids and trees and earth as they grow ever closer to being their fullest selves, to protect the womb, the soil, from whence they come, and to nourish them with nutrients and love even as they enrich my life.
It is the same hunger, the same bone-deep longing, but until I heard that line in that poem, I had not realized. I had not seen that my yearning for land and my yearning for children are at their heart the same yearning for family of my own.
Some of the lines of her poetry struck me like blows to the chest or hammers suddenly released from their moorings to ping inside my skull. One line in particular that stuck with me talked about drops of blood falling to the earth and springing up into daughters, sons, and trees. As someone on the cusp of making babies and obsessed with getting to the woods, it really resonated with me. That is exactly how I feel about life. The trees are as close to me as children, and the longing I have for them in my life is very similar to the longing I have for kids. I have also seen my partner mourn a beloved shade tree that fell in a storm, and I understood completely.
What I long for, really, is to be in full intimacy with the lives of my children and the land. I yearn to be in long term relationships with trees, to get to know kids and trees and earth as they grow ever closer to being their fullest selves, to protect the womb, the soil, from whence they come, and to nourish them with nutrients and love even as they enrich my life.
It is the same hunger, the same bone-deep longing, but until I heard that line in that poem, I had not realized. I had not seen that my yearning for land and my yearning for children are at their heart the same yearning for family of my own.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Reproduction is Psychologically Messy
Gloria Steinem also said, "every child has the right to be born loved and wanted." This and the Dr. Tiller quote of "Trust Women." have become the cornerstones of my opinions of reproductive rights.
I also found this article from Sociological Images about young adult attitudes about unplanned pregnancies. I find it interesting that of the young adults (ages 18-29) who say it is very or somewhat important to avoid pregnancy right now, an overall third of them would be pleased (very or a little pleased) to find out they were pregnant. Also, the men are much more likely to be pleased than the women, and that holds true in every categorical breakdown included in the graphs. The analysis in the SI article really just points out how the data contradicts some of the stereotypical assumptions our society makes based on gender and race and then asks for ideas about why.
This all goes back to my growing suspicion that we as a society feel terribly conflicted about reproduction, above and beyond the "abortion debate." Gloria Steinem also pointed out how our society very much withholds support for parenthood and creates a hostile environment for it. So on the one hand, we would love to believe the fiction that all babies are blessings, loved and wanted, and on the other hand, we hate having to face the fact that there is no logical rational reason to have a child because in our society they are a financial dead weight for at least 2 decades and have far reaching consequences on our social lives, living arrangements, health, and every other aspect of our lives.
So, sure, all babies are good little blessings, IF they have the right timing: right parents, right financial stability, right circumstances for love and welcome, etc. Not that any of us potential parents are ever going to get those circumstances exactly right, but given the proper impetus (hormonal urge to procreate, emotional/spiritual desire for kids, terror and excitement over an unplanned pregnancy, falling in love with your biological child that is in your arms), if we have the right tools to work with, we can figure a lot of it out.
It is just hard to admit, I think, that there is that much play in what is right and wrong in these reproductive situations. It would be easier on our psyches if there were a clear cut rubric of Yes, have baby, No, do not have baby, or even better, Yes, you may be fertile, No, you will be temporarily infertile until the timing is good. But that's not the way our evolution-programmed reproductive systems work, and I think the best way to deal with that is to Trust Women to best decide if their pregnancy will produce a child that is Loved and Wanted, as is that child's right.
I also found this article from Sociological Images about young adult attitudes about unplanned pregnancies. I find it interesting that of the young adults (ages 18-29) who say it is very or somewhat important to avoid pregnancy right now, an overall third of them would be pleased (very or a little pleased) to find out they were pregnant. Also, the men are much more likely to be pleased than the women, and that holds true in every categorical breakdown included in the graphs. The analysis in the SI article really just points out how the data contradicts some of the stereotypical assumptions our society makes based on gender and race and then asks for ideas about why.
This all goes back to my growing suspicion that we as a society feel terribly conflicted about reproduction, above and beyond the "abortion debate." Gloria Steinem also pointed out how our society very much withholds support for parenthood and creates a hostile environment for it. So on the one hand, we would love to believe the fiction that all babies are blessings, loved and wanted, and on the other hand, we hate having to face the fact that there is no logical rational reason to have a child because in our society they are a financial dead weight for at least 2 decades and have far reaching consequences on our social lives, living arrangements, health, and every other aspect of our lives.
So, sure, all babies are good little blessings, IF they have the right timing: right parents, right financial stability, right circumstances for love and welcome, etc. Not that any of us potential parents are ever going to get those circumstances exactly right, but given the proper impetus (hormonal urge to procreate, emotional/spiritual desire for kids, terror and excitement over an unplanned pregnancy, falling in love with your biological child that is in your arms), if we have the right tools to work with, we can figure a lot of it out.
It is just hard to admit, I think, that there is that much play in what is right and wrong in these reproductive situations. It would be easier on our psyches if there were a clear cut rubric of Yes, have baby, No, do not have baby, or even better, Yes, you may be fertile, No, you will be temporarily infertile until the timing is good. But that's not the way our evolution-programmed reproductive systems work, and I think the best way to deal with that is to Trust Women to best decide if their pregnancy will produce a child that is Loved and Wanted, as is that child's right.
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Having Babies
Having children is not a logical choice. I have said it before, and I am sure I will say it again as more of the consequences of choosing it strike me again.
I have always thought I would have kids. For a while I thought I would adopt, and then I decided that really, I wanted to have my own. I want the physical experience of being a part of pregnancy, birthing, breast feeding, parenting. I have had visions of my kids. I have met different potential kids as I have been with different partners. And I have had those beautiful kids whom I was already in love with pass away out of the realm of possibility as time and partners moved on, and I have grieved them.
I just read this article critiquing the media presentation of Celine Dion's struggles to get pregnant again via IVF. Holly Grigg-Spall writes:
The Celine Dion story not only equates fertility with female worth and the social value of women, it also presents the desire to have a child, or the maternal instinct, as a kind of mania. Many a time have I been told that some day, I too, will want a baby - not as though I will make conscious decision to have a child, but that I will be overcome by my womanly instincts and be unable to resist this impulse....[T]he media interpretation of her experience suggests women are incapable of choosing when it comes to children and must, like Dion, pursue pregnancy and motherhood at all costs.
I think one of the problems here is about the idea of Choosing. Yes, emotions play a central role in choosing to have children. Emotions are also influenced by hormones in women, men, and everyone else. I would not be a very thorough decision-maker if I did not take my emotional state into account along with evaluating all my other goals, ideals, circumstances, resources, etc., and part of taking emotional states into account is to recognize hormonal influences. Hormones that increase an urge to procreate are hardwired in by evolution, I would think, and for all genders and sexes of people.
That said, regardless of how my emotions and hormones have played a part in my decision, I am still CHOOSING to procreate. I am choosing to pursue a path that will hopefully end in my having a direct biological descendant (or three). Emotions do not negate choice, they inform it, regardless of whether those emotions are around "maternal instincts" or "male sex drive". We can wrap it up in pink or blue or whatever, but we are not victims/pawns of our hormones or emotions, only our decisions and choices regarding those influences.
Therefore, there is no false dichotomy of choice versus what Grigg-Spall calls want, there is only the complex decision that every person makes in weighing all the options and circumstances and deciding how to go forward. Even listening to and honoring the want constitutes a valid choice. Grigg-Spall does a good job with most of her critique, I think, but I take issue with the implied subtext that people (women?) whose decisions dovetail with their hormonal/emotional wants are not making "conscious" choices. Even as she is trying not to fall into that dichotomy, I think her own perspectives and choices when balancing the emotional and rational influences and ultimately reinforces the subtext.
I have always thought I would have kids. For a while I thought I would adopt, and then I decided that really, I wanted to have my own. I want the physical experience of being a part of pregnancy, birthing, breast feeding, parenting. I have had visions of my kids. I have met different potential kids as I have been with different partners. And I have had those beautiful kids whom I was already in love with pass away out of the realm of possibility as time and partners moved on, and I have grieved them.
I just read this article critiquing the media presentation of Celine Dion's struggles to get pregnant again via IVF. Holly Grigg-Spall writes:
The Celine Dion story not only equates fertility with female worth and the social value of women, it also presents the desire to have a child, or the maternal instinct, as a kind of mania. Many a time have I been told that some day, I too, will want a baby - not as though I will make conscious decision to have a child, but that I will be overcome by my womanly instincts and be unable to resist this impulse....[T]he media interpretation of her experience suggests women are incapable of choosing when it comes to children and must, like Dion, pursue pregnancy and motherhood at all costs.
I think one of the problems here is about the idea of Choosing. Yes, emotions play a central role in choosing to have children. Emotions are also influenced by hormones in women, men, and everyone else. I would not be a very thorough decision-maker if I did not take my emotional state into account along with evaluating all my other goals, ideals, circumstances, resources, etc., and part of taking emotional states into account is to recognize hormonal influences. Hormones that increase an urge to procreate are hardwired in by evolution, I would think, and for all genders and sexes of people.
That said, regardless of how my emotions and hormones have played a part in my decision, I am still CHOOSING to procreate. I am choosing to pursue a path that will hopefully end in my having a direct biological descendant (or three). Emotions do not negate choice, they inform it, regardless of whether those emotions are around "maternal instincts" or "male sex drive". We can wrap it up in pink or blue or whatever, but we are not victims/pawns of our hormones or emotions, only our decisions and choices regarding those influences.
Therefore, there is no false dichotomy of choice versus what Grigg-Spall calls want, there is only the complex decision that every person makes in weighing all the options and circumstances and deciding how to go forward. Even listening to and honoring the want constitutes a valid choice. Grigg-Spall does a good job with most of her critique, I think, but I take issue with the implied subtext that people (women?) whose decisions dovetail with their hormonal/emotional wants are not making "conscious" choices. Even as she is trying not to fall into that dichotomy, I think her own perspectives and choices when balancing the emotional and rational influences and ultimately reinforces the subtext.
Friday, January 22, 2010
Overpopulation
My partner and I are getting ready to procreate; we will start working on babies on our wedding night. We will have spent the last year and a day working on our physical health, our financial stability, and discussing plans, parenting philosophies, contingencies, etc. We are both fully cognizant of the fact that having children is not a logical choice. They are black holes of need and expensive. Kids are an emotional and hormonal choice, not a rational one.
We think we will probably have more than two kids, though this is not set in stone. I personally think 3-5 sounds good. I have mentioned this to some of my older friends, specifically friends in their 40s and 50s, who have reacted very negatively. They think having more than one or two children is irresponsible. It will ruin the earth. There are not enough resources to go around. They have reacted with shock and judgment to the thought that we might choose to have 3-5 children.
I recently found two interesting bits of information about world population. One was an Ode Magazine article I picked up in a waiting room (sorry I don't know more details) about how "resources" are not really resources until human ingenuity comes up with a way to use them productively. This means that the earth is not going to run out of resources, but that if we humans want to continue to grow and thrive here, we will think of new uses for what is available to us. With the right kind of ingenuity (like the kind born out of necessity, I would assume), we could conceivably live with tens of billions of people on the planet and do so sustainably. Just because we don't have the ability to do that now does not mean that we can't figure it out.
The other interesting bit of info was a preview for Demographic Winter, a documentary about how our fertility rates are dropping and white people and the developed world are dooming ourselves to non-existence. It looked over-dramatic and racist to me, but it did prompt me to go look up World Fertility Rates. Luckily, Google has great info, based on World Bank data.
The World Fertility Rate overall in average births per woman has dropped from 5.32 in 1962 to 2.51 in 2007 (the data shown ranges from 1960-2007 only). The US fertility rate has dropped from 3.65 in 1960 to 2.1 in 2007. From 1973-1988 the US rate even dropped below 2.0, rising a bit in the 90s. I took a quick tour of the fertility rates of other countries, and though I was not exhaustive, I did not see a single country that did not have a falling fertility rate over the last 50 years. Some countries are still very high, the highest averaging between 6 and 7 births per woman, but there are much fewer of them, and in 1960 there were several countries that were even above the 8 kid mark.
I find myself unconcerned with world population, especially after looking at this data. I also know that data shows the higher the education level of women, the fewer children they are likely to have, and I know that when stressed for survival, humans tend to procreate like rabbits. The key here seems to me to be educating women worldwide and continuing to work for more global stability and prosperity, reducing the number of people who live in horrific conditions. I think Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration have already pledged to pursue these goals and are actively developing international policy based on them.
After having done all this homework, I do not find that I have cause to be worried that our 3-5 kids will unbalance the earth or even contribute negatively to human survival. I am very sorry that my older friends judge our (impending) choice as irresponsible, but I also wonder if they have looked at any of this recent data. If it comes down to it, I suppose I could collect child vouchers from my many friends who have chosen to never procreate, demonstrating that the net population change of our procreation is still less than replacement, but I think I'll just email links to the data around instead.
We think we will probably have more than two kids, though this is not set in stone. I personally think 3-5 sounds good. I have mentioned this to some of my older friends, specifically friends in their 40s and 50s, who have reacted very negatively. They think having more than one or two children is irresponsible. It will ruin the earth. There are not enough resources to go around. They have reacted with shock and judgment to the thought that we might choose to have 3-5 children.
I recently found two interesting bits of information about world population. One was an Ode Magazine article I picked up in a waiting room (sorry I don't know more details) about how "resources" are not really resources until human ingenuity comes up with a way to use them productively. This means that the earth is not going to run out of resources, but that if we humans want to continue to grow and thrive here, we will think of new uses for what is available to us. With the right kind of ingenuity (like the kind born out of necessity, I would assume), we could conceivably live with tens of billions of people on the planet and do so sustainably. Just because we don't have the ability to do that now does not mean that we can't figure it out.
The other interesting bit of info was a preview for Demographic Winter, a documentary about how our fertility rates are dropping and white people and the developed world are dooming ourselves to non-existence. It looked over-dramatic and racist to me, but it did prompt me to go look up World Fertility Rates. Luckily, Google has great info, based on World Bank data.
The World Fertility Rate overall in average births per woman has dropped from 5.32 in 1962 to 2.51 in 2007 (the data shown ranges from 1960-2007 only). The US fertility rate has dropped from 3.65 in 1960 to 2.1 in 2007. From 1973-1988 the US rate even dropped below 2.0, rising a bit in the 90s. I took a quick tour of the fertility rates of other countries, and though I was not exhaustive, I did not see a single country that did not have a falling fertility rate over the last 50 years. Some countries are still very high, the highest averaging between 6 and 7 births per woman, but there are much fewer of them, and in 1960 there were several countries that were even above the 8 kid mark.
I find myself unconcerned with world population, especially after looking at this data. I also know that data shows the higher the education level of women, the fewer children they are likely to have, and I know that when stressed for survival, humans tend to procreate like rabbits. The key here seems to me to be educating women worldwide and continuing to work for more global stability and prosperity, reducing the number of people who live in horrific conditions. I think Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration have already pledged to pursue these goals and are actively developing international policy based on them.
After having done all this homework, I do not find that I have cause to be worried that our 3-5 kids will unbalance the earth or even contribute negatively to human survival. I am very sorry that my older friends judge our (impending) choice as irresponsible, but I also wonder if they have looked at any of this recent data. If it comes down to it, I suppose I could collect child vouchers from my many friends who have chosen to never procreate, demonstrating that the net population change of our procreation is still less than replacement, but I think I'll just email links to the data around instead.
Monday, January 11, 2010
Lactation Consultation or Sales Pitch?
A good friend of mine recently had a baby by C-section at the hospital, and though I am quite unqualified for such a role, I ended up being the one to stay with her, question the doctors and nurses for clarity, and even ended up being the one to accompany her into that most alien space, the c-section operating room.
Yes, my partner and I will be embarking on the procreative bandwagon sometime this year, so I am sure it was good for me, but since I will never be going through those same halls as the patient, it was a little odd. I will admit there was magic in hearing the baby's first cry as he was lifted from her open womb. And I will never forget the face of a young new father I spotted as they wheeled my friend into her recovery bay. He was standing a ways down the hall from me, holding his new baby in his arms, and he just looked poleaxed, all his love and terror and awe combining into a stunned, wide-eyed expression on his face.
What I want to write about, though, is the "lactation consultant" who came in to talk with my friend about breastfeeding. My friend's birth is being paid for by the government. She is a single mother who works full time, barely makes enough to keep her head above water financially, and though the father of her 5 year old is an active shared custody parent, the father of the new baby is out of the picture (and good riddance, honestly).
To put it bluntly, the lactation consultant's presentation was classist. She told my friend that she needed either this name-brand make and model pump or that make and model pump, and spoke of the price of each of these pumps as afterthoughts, though they were about $200 and $350. My friend had been thinking of a hand pump she had seen for $10, but the consultant pooh-poohed it because it took too long. When asked about milk storage, she only spoke about the official milk storage bags that get sold by name-brand companies, not any cheaper or around-the-house common sense options (will ziplocks or mason jars work?), and again in a dismissive tone. Finally, she wanted to know how long until my friend goes back to work, 6 or 8 weeks? My friend said 6 (was shamed into saying 6?), though since her maternity leave is unpaid, she has no idea how to pay her rent in the meantime and has talked about going back to work as soon as she is physically able to do so (3, 4 weeks, she hopes) because she has no choice, financially.
The only useful thing the consultant did was give my friend a copy of the law concerning a lactating mother's rights to express milk in the workplace. This will allow her to fight her already suspicious and reluctant employer for time to pump milk while she is at work (she currently only gets a lunch break in her 9 hour shift, but needs at least 2 other breaks for pumping).
I wonder if the name-brand, high-end "consultation" was really a disguised sales pitch, considering that this hospital has a "lactation boutique" that sells such supplies located next door to the nursery room and on the loop new mothers are encouraged to walk as post-partum exercise.
On the plus-side though, at least it was better than my sister's experience when she had her latest baby. My sister left the hospital with a "care package" of free formula and bottles even though she had expressly told them she would be breastfeeding. I was shocked that was even legal, honestly.
Yes, my partner and I will be embarking on the procreative bandwagon sometime this year, so I am sure it was good for me, but since I will never be going through those same halls as the patient, it was a little odd. I will admit there was magic in hearing the baby's first cry as he was lifted from her open womb. And I will never forget the face of a young new father I spotted as they wheeled my friend into her recovery bay. He was standing a ways down the hall from me, holding his new baby in his arms, and he just looked poleaxed, all his love and terror and awe combining into a stunned, wide-eyed expression on his face.
What I want to write about, though, is the "lactation consultant" who came in to talk with my friend about breastfeeding. My friend's birth is being paid for by the government. She is a single mother who works full time, barely makes enough to keep her head above water financially, and though the father of her 5 year old is an active shared custody parent, the father of the new baby is out of the picture (and good riddance, honestly).
To put it bluntly, the lactation consultant's presentation was classist. She told my friend that she needed either this name-brand make and model pump or that make and model pump, and spoke of the price of each of these pumps as afterthoughts, though they were about $200 and $350. My friend had been thinking of a hand pump she had seen for $10, but the consultant pooh-poohed it because it took too long. When asked about milk storage, she only spoke about the official milk storage bags that get sold by name-brand companies, not any cheaper or around-the-house common sense options (will ziplocks or mason jars work?), and again in a dismissive tone. Finally, she wanted to know how long until my friend goes back to work, 6 or 8 weeks? My friend said 6 (was shamed into saying 6?), though since her maternity leave is unpaid, she has no idea how to pay her rent in the meantime and has talked about going back to work as soon as she is physically able to do so (3, 4 weeks, she hopes) because she has no choice, financially.
The only useful thing the consultant did was give my friend a copy of the law concerning a lactating mother's rights to express milk in the workplace. This will allow her to fight her already suspicious and reluctant employer for time to pump milk while she is at work (she currently only gets a lunch break in her 9 hour shift, but needs at least 2 other breaks for pumping).
I wonder if the name-brand, high-end "consultation" was really a disguised sales pitch, considering that this hospital has a "lactation boutique" that sells such supplies located next door to the nursery room and on the loop new mothers are encouraged to walk as post-partum exercise.
On the plus-side though, at least it was better than my sister's experience when she had her latest baby. My sister left the hospital with a "care package" of free formula and bottles even though she had expressly told them she would be breastfeeding. I was shocked that was even legal, honestly.
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
New focus
I have deleted my previous posts (which no one ever read anyway) and am repurposing this blog to something hopefully a bit more sustainable. This will now be an account of what I am working on and how it is moving along, any issues I have stumbled into, thoughts and reflections on it, etc.
I am a busy, busy person with several projects set to hit as of the new year. The agenda as it stands now, just before we move into 2010:
NEW PROJECTS:
I am a busy, busy person with several projects set to hit as of the new year. The agenda as it stands now, just before we move into 2010:
NEW PROJECTS:
- build consensus for a time bank in the local pagan community
- initiate first discussions about the potential uses and benefits of incorporating a pagan church in the community. I think a Grove Temple to serve as an umbrella for the local Circles and Solitaries would be good, but we shall see how the discussions go.
- I have volunteered for the Steering Committee of the local Transition group, which should be interesting. It is not 100% core to my values, but is close enough to be worth pursuing and see how it works out. I am concerned that the Transition movement is too focused on evangelizing people to the cult of the Peak Oil Apocalypse when really the solutions that come out of the Transition process are all win-wins that should be easy to sell, but it may just be a generational bias on my part.
- Help plan our pagan wedding this May
- Work on the whole baby-making process (I want a sign for the bedroom door: Making Babies, Do Not Disturb).
- Move to and set up a new community household, this one being more baby focused/centered and probably a good bit more cooperative, especially regarding finances.
- Continue to build my Energy Healing Practice
- Continue in my Dark Moon Circle
- Continue to hold celebrations of the Full Moons
- Continue to make space for my physical healing
- Revive Red Tent events/Pleasure work
- Co-teach the updated Cakes for the Queen of Heaven Curriculum
- Co-Host and plan Open Space Event/Crossroads Gathering
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