Whats wrong with a cheese sandwich?

Over at the Motherlode there is a discussion about whats going on in the New Mexico school lunch program. It turns out that if a parent can't pay for their child's lunch and they have yet to qualify for free or reduced lunches, then their child is given a cold cheese sandwich, a piece of fruit and a carton of milk. Big deal right?

I have to admire the fact that the school district is doing something about hungry children, but then again, isn't that the whole point of the school lunch program? Wasn't it developed so that children would at least get one decent meal a day regardless of their home situation?

What really has me riled up about this is the comments to the post. There are those in the "you shouldn't have children you can't pay for!" camp. Never mind that we're in one of the biggest economic downturns since the Great Depression. Never mind that the children we're talking about were conceived 7+ years ago, before we started dumping all kinds of money into needless wars and tax cuts for the rich. None of that matters, just ask them. They think that elementary school children just magically appear, already formed, with outstretched hands, demanding food of all things from the society that is going to depend on them to take care of them in retirement. The audacity!

Then there are the commenters out there that say, "I just don't understand how anyone can not afford a $1 per day to feed their child!" This is an example of just how fragmented our society is. New Mexico is not New York. Like much of the central and western part of the country it is poorer, sicker, and fatter than the richer parts of the nation. There are people out there that prior to the economic downturn were likely able to afford the dollar a day for their two kids in school. That would have come out to roughly $40/month. But lets say mom was laid off from her job as an agency nurse. Or dad got hurt on the job. Now $40/month is out of the question. They're trying to figure out how they're going to keep the lights turned on. Sure they can get unemployment or workman's comp, but I wonder how many of these people making these comments have ever had to deal with those two institutions. I never have, but I've watched friends and family fight tooth and nail for their unemployment and workman's comp all while the bills pile up. Even if these families do get these benefits its going to take awhile before their paperwork gets processed for the free/reduced lunch programs.

The next variety of comment that gets me riled up is the "Why don't they just send their kids with a brown bag lunch?" The same people that don't understand how people can't afford $1 per day can't afford that same amount to buy food. Most of the people in this country have grown up in a time where there has been very little poverty. Few people know what its like to really be in need. I would encourage these people to go read the letters people wrote to Mrs. FDR during the depression. Here's an example:

Granette, Ark.
Nov. 6, 1936

Dear Mrs. Roosevelt

I am writing to you for some of your old soiled dresses if you have any. As I am a poor girl who has to stay out of school. On account of dresses & slips and a coat. I am in the seventh grade but I have to stay out of school because I have no books or clothes to ware. I am in need of dresses & slips and a coat very bad. If you have any soiled clothes that you don't want to ware I would be very glad to get them. But please do not let the news paper reporters get hold of this in any way and I will keep it from geting out here so there will be no one else to get hold of it. But do not let my name get out in the paper. I am thirteen years old.

Yours Truly,
Miss L. H.
Gravette, Ark.
R #3
c/o A. H.

This is what real need looks like. It has happened here before and there are parts of the country where it can still happen today.

The above letter also demonstrates one of the greater problems of this whole cheese sandwich tier of school lunches. These kids whose parents can't pay are being singled out. Yes its great that they're actually getting to eat (why is that the minimum standard anyhow) but they're being forced to trade their pride for their lunch. The kids who qualify for free and reduced lunches are able to eat the same hot lunch as those who pay so why are these kids stuck in the middle forced to be different. The girl who wrote the letter to Mrs. Roosevelt was worried that word would get out that she didn't have enough clothes. This girl wasn't complaining that her clothes weren't as nice as the other kids, she just wanted clothes in the first place.

The tone of the comments on the piece at Motherlode smack of elitism and show a sincere lack of compassion. These people think that the cheese sandwich parents aren't paying because they're deadbeats, not because they may actually suffering. They liken the kids who have to eat cheese sandwiches to the kids that complain because they don't have $100 jeans like their friends. They accuse the parents of having kids they can't take care of. They think the kids should just be grateful that they're being fed at all. Some of the posters have admitted that they don't have children. I can see why they wouldn't understand. What worries me is those who have children. What message are they sending about compassion to their own kiddos? When are these people going to realize that we all need to take care of one another. Its not that child's fault that his parents can't afford to feed him. Regardless of what these people crying about their tax dollars think it is our job to make sure every child has enough to eat. Where is the compassion people?

Once a c-section, always a c-section

When I was 18, I smoked, I drank, and I did drugs. I wasn't particularly interested in having children. In fact, it was one of the things furthest from my mind. I felt that feminism had absolutely nothing to do with me. I'd never personally known anyone who had been pregnant nor had I been involved in the birth process outside of my own nativity. I had no real opinions on childbirth. I knew it happened, people said it hurt. Grandma's only opinion on childbirth was that "its not picking daisies." In my mind when you went into labor you rushed to the hospital for your epidural and at some point you gave birth. Sometimes women had c-sections. When I was 18 years old one of my good friends got pregnant, and she allowed me to experience her journey with her.

Like most women, when she got pregnant she found an OB/GYN she liked. She chose a hospital that was more than an hour away so that she could have the care she felt was most appropriate. From my point of view, her pregnancy was pretty mundane. There was no high blood pressure, no gestational diabetes, no pre-term labor. Throughout her pregnancy we shopped, hung out, went for walks. We laughed when she put her money in her bra at the state fair and it came out wet. We made an ugly cake together for her baby shower. I went with her when she had that big sonogram that told us she was going to have a girl. Everything seemed pretty normal.

This friend was due close to Thanksgiving. Her doctor was going to be spending the holiday in Scotland. He decided that he wanted his patients that were close to term delivered before he went. She was induced at 39 weeks. She was one of several on the floor that day. We trooped to the hospital at 6 a.m. where they got her gowned up and started on pitocin. There were tons of people there. There was me and her mom, and then the baby's father, his parents, and possibly some other assorted relatives. By 9 a.m. nothing had really started so they broke her water. I remember that we were all ushered out of the room for the procedure and as soon as the Dr. left we were all told we could come back in. Afterwards my friend told me that yeah, they had broken her water but everyone came back in so fast she didn't have time to do anything about the new found puddle of amniotic fluid. She just sat there in it because she didn't want to get up all wet with everyone around.

After they broke her water the pitocin induced contractions got stronger. Before noon she was able to get up and walk around but in the afternoon they decided she wasn't progressing fast enough so they started to attach her to things. She had her IV of course, and then the external fetal monitor. They attached an electrode to the baby's head to further monitor the progress. She was a trooper. She hadn't intended on having pain relief but after several hours of enduring chemically induced contractions on her back in bed she finally gave in and got an epidural. She needed it. Her mood improved instantly.

By 9 p.m. all of the other women on the floor had delivered. We were the only ones taking up a room. The doctor came in and announced that if she wasn't ready to push soon then they'd have to section her. He came and checked one last time, and no dice. Failure to progress, time for a c-section! I remember my friend crying. It wasn't what she had wanted. She asked for her mom to be with her during the surgery. Sometime around midnight they wheeled the baby out into the nursery. Red and crying, she was exposed to the cold and separated from her mother for the first hours after birth. Of course there were all sorts of justifications for the c-section. They thought they'd seen a blip on the monitor. Momma was a little bigger than most girls, the baby was probably too big anyhow. The umbilical cord was too short to allow a vaginal birth etc. etc. etc. In the end, baby was a whole 6 lbs. 9 oz. There was nothing wrong with her. There never was. My friend did not need a c-section.

During the day I would be tossed out of the room like all the other bystanders during the doctor's examinations. Then we'd all troop back into the room and wait. I felt so helpless. I didn't know how to help my friend. All I knew was that this was all somehow wrong. I new that the induction hadn't worked because her body wasn't ready. I felt that she was going through all this pain because she couldn't get up and walk around and let her body take over. At one point I mentioned it to the baby's paternal grandmother, I told her I thought all this technology was only making things worse. She then got on my case about how that technology was saving lives, besides what did I know.

None of us were very supportive. When I look back I'm not sure what we were all doing there. We weren't any help. We did nothing to protect her from all the intrusions on her privacy or her body. I guess we just didn't know any better. I can't imagine what it was like to be laying in that bed, in pain, and having the room fill up with people looking at you, waiting to see if you'd delivered their child yet. The room was bright and sterile and basically uncomfortable. I held my friend's hand during some of the most intense contractions before she got her epidural. She never uttered a sound. She just laid there with her eyes closed, concentrating. She is a strong woman.

After the c-section I know she had problem's breastfeeding, but she was persistent and she eventually succeeded. Since then she has become passionate about breastfeeding and baby-wearing. The first thing she asked me when I told her I was pregnant was if I was going to nurse. I said "of course." She did a yippee. I guess I'm the only one in our peer group, besides her, who is consciously making that decision. When she got pregnant with her second child a few years ago she wanted to attempt a VBAC but she couldn't find a doctor to do it. Out local hospital has a ban on VBACs and her husband at the time didn't support her in her decision. Despite all of the medical evidence that says she should have been able to do it and do it successfully, her doctor didn't want the liability. Once a c-section, always a c-section.

Going through that with my friend caused me to start forming opinions on childbirth and feminism. My friend had made her choices but they weren't honored. We were both young. She had done as much research as she could and made the best decision she could have, but it still wasn't enough. I left the hospital that night ecstatic because there was a new baby but I also felt that something was terribly wrong with the system. Why did she have to go through that? I couldn't be convinced that there wasn't a better way. Yes we had a healthy baby, but we also had a battered mother. I subconsciously decided that if I ever had a baby I would do everything in my power to prevent such a display. In fact, I swore that I'd squat in the woods before I let anyone do that to me. Yes medical technology is wonderful. It saves lives. But in this case all it managed to do was abuse a young mother.

Now, I don't know if this friend I'm talking about shares these opinions of her birth experience. Honestly, we've never talked about it. I'm also going from my own subjective memory. This friend was one of the very first that I told about my pregnancy. The day after I told DH, I gave her a call. She knew before anyone else in my family. I haven't used names because this sort of thing can be very private and sensitive. I suspect that many of my friends have been subject to this sort of thing, not because of things they did or didn't do, but because the system is stacked against them. I still feel helpless when I hear about a woman who was bullied into a c-section. I want to help but I don't know how. When I told this friend I was having a homebirth she was very excited for me. I've asked her to be my labor support person. She said she's always wanted to see a natural birth, (she now works in the medical field herself) but she's never had the chance. When she gave birth to that first baby she was young and healthy woman, by the time the second baby came along she had been labeled by the medical establishment as a "risk" patient. She has had no choice in her own birth experiences.

Over the past, year five of my friends have given birth at the local hospital. Of the five, two have been allowed to deliver vaginally. None have gone into labor spontaneously. Of the two that delivered vaginally, one had a surgical birth using forceps after 30 hours of labor. I can't imagine how she had to fight to keep from being sectioned. The other three women ended up with primary c-sections. When I visit with these women about their experiences, most of them are in denial. All I hear from them is "my baby would have died if I hadn't had a c-section." They tell stories about pitocin induced contractions causing abnormal fetal heart tones. They talk about how their own blood pressure bottomed out when they got their epidurals. In each case these woman feel "saved" by their doctor. When I tell them I'm having a homebirth they just look at me and say "my baby would have died!" I don't know what to tell them. I don't think its appropriate to argue with them and say "yes but . . . " It pains me to know that for all the women out there that are aware they have been bullied into having a dangerous surgery they didn't need, there are even more who are unaware that there was another way.

I got my birth kit today!

My birth kit arrived today! It was on the doorstep when I got home for lunch with DH. We ordered it from InHisHands.com. They are a home-based, Christian company that serves homebirth midwives. My midwife has a standard kit set up with them. A few weeks ago she and I went through the order form and altered it a bit. She had a few extras lying about so she just gave them to me. The whole kit ended up costing $43.88.

When I first started researching homebirth I found it really helpful when people posted their list of supplies, so I'm going to post mine. This is the original list from In His Hands.

20 Underpad 23 x 26
1 Peri Bottle, 8 oz. (its a little squeeze bottle)
1 Povidone, 4 oz.
1 Scrub Brush, Hibiclens
1 Bulb Syringe, 3 oz.
12 Gauze Sponge, 4x4 2-ply (2/pkg)
2 Stretch Briefs - unisize (These look impossibly small . . . )
2 Infant Hat (these are tiny too)
12 Alcohol Prep Pad
12 Lube Jelly, 3 grams, sterile
2 Plastic Cord Clamp - Sterile
1 Amnihook
10 Glove, Sterile, Small, Single
4 Glove, Sterile, Small Pair
6 Glove, Sterile, Size 6.5, Pair
2 Flexible Drinking Straws (DH thought this was odd, I maintain they could be important)
1 Foot Imprinter, deluxe reusable
1 Birth Certificate
2 Plastic Backed Sheet, 40 x 72

This was all put together before hand, all I had to do was call the company, give them my info, make the few changes we needed to and send a check. I sent the check on the 19th and it came by post today.

Here is the list of stuff we have to gather ourselves:

2 Large black trash bags
3 White kitchen-size trash bags
1 roll SOFT papertowels
1 large box of pop-up kleenex
1 large box Super Maxi Overnight pads w/wings (friends have suggested I just get depends for those first few days)
1 bag disposable newborn-size diapers
1 box baby wipes
cotton swabs
1 large bottle hydrogen peroxide
1 4 0z squeeze bottle (she changed this to a sort of spray bottle that she just gave us)
1 small bottle olive oil
1 very fine toothed comb (this one has a note "only if your babies have lots of hair" this is my first how do I know?)
1 Digital thermometer
1 crock pot (for warm towels, I checked :) )
1 multi-plug extension cord
2 bowls (1 nausea, 1 placenta) (Some have suggested small buckets instead)
6 old washcloths
6 old bath size towels
1 set clean sheets
clean cases for all pillows
comfortable clothes for birth
clean gown & nursing bra
2 clean receiving blankets
2 sleepers
2 pair baby socks
2 undershirts

All of this has to be put together and gathered in one place by our home visit at 36 weeks. Right now its all kind of piled in the nursery. I've got a 25 gallon tote to put it all in but I'm not sure its all going to fit. I'm getting so excited . . . 62 days to go until I'm due!

Aunt Leona

There is a post over here about childless women who have chosen to be "aunts" to other people's children. The guest blogger talks about how some in society look down on her because she doesn't have children of her own. Some have even used the word "pathetic" to describe her situation. That in itself makes me sad. My life would have been drastically different if not for my own childless Aunt Leona.

Leona was not biologically related to my family. Her husband and my grandfather worked in the oilfield together in the 1940s. Leona and Ernie had no children of their own. They had married later in life and at age 39 Leona had a miscarriage that led to the discovery of fibroid tumors. The subsequent hysterectomy ended any possibility she had of giving birth to her own children. Even though that experience must have been very painful for her, she was never bitter.

Leona was born in rural Illinois in 1909. She was one of several children (I know of two sisters and two brothers but there may have been more.) They lived near a convent. She often told stories about the nuns taking their walk at the edge of her family's property. At the age of 16, her mother died. Leona took on the responsibilities of caring for her family. When her father remarried, she left home and moved to Chicago.

Leona spent the late 1920s through WWII in Chicago. She worked as a shampoo girl in a salon. She lived with her two friends Bubbles and Dayle. She had stories of gangsters, bootleggers, and speakeasies. Later in her life, Bubbles and her husband and Dayle and her daughter would come visit Leona. I always looked forward to their visits because of the stories that they brought with them. When WWII broke out Leona and her friends heard about a factory hiring welders. She left her job at the salon and went to work welding stove pipes. Somewhere along the line she met Ernie. Ernie was an entrepreneur and inventor. They were married. He came up with some idea about how to convert an asphalt heater for use in the oilfield and they moved to central Kansas where the oil business was booming. Thats where Ernie and Leona met my grandparents.

When my grandparents were newly married in the late 1950s, my grandfather went to work for Ernie's company. My grandfather was a loyal employee and the two couples became friends. For years my grandparents played cards with Ernie and Leona on Friday nights. Leona knew my mother and uncle from the time they were born. My mother was always scared of Leona. My grandmother had always told her to be quiet and not bother her. I'm sure it had something to do with social constructs at the time, but by the time I came along in the early 1980s things had changed.

By the time I was born, Ernie and Leona had been friends of the family for more than 40 years. They had no family around here and the once a week visits for cards had increased to nightly visits at 8 p.m. to watch Dallas or other TV. My own father went to work for the company Ernie had started, even though Ernie had long since retired. When I was born Leona was 73 years old. She could have been my great-grandmother.

Because my mother had little interest in taking care of me, my father struggled to find people to watch me while he worked. My own grandparents did much of the footwork, but when they couldn't, Leona watched me. From the time I was very small I only remember feeling love for that woman. I called her "my Nonie." She was soft and patient. She didn't care if I mixed the playdoh together. She would play cards and checkers with me and she never fussed about the rules. She made the most awesome sugar cookies and she made her own snack mix. We just called them "snacks." She taught me to love celery and radishes. She always had time to hold me. Only once do I remember her getting cross with me. I was playing with her watch and I must have looked like I was going to throw it. She told me "If you throw that then I'll have to paddle you." I threw it anyhow. She then told me, "I told you if you threw that I'd have to paddle you." I ran up to her, threw my arms around her and said, "I love you Nonie!" She paddled me anyhow. It wasn't a traumatic experience, she never raised her voice, but I don't think I ever disobeyed her again.

Throughout my life I could always turn to Nonie. She was the one person that understood my situation with my mother, father, and grandmother. To my dad, she was like a surrogate mother. He had lost his own when he was young. Leona had that sort of mothering quality about her that comes from having true self worth and a heart full of love. Leona supported me in every decision I ever made, even the stupid ones. I still believe that Leona was the only person to ever love me unconditionally when I was a child.

Leona passed away in October of 2007. She was 98 years old. To the very end she stayed at home. Between me, my grandmother, and my father we took care of her. A month before she died she fell and she never regained consciousness. The night before she died we knew it was close. I laid with her on her death bed. I cried with her beside me. I stayed with her until about 11 p.m. She died at 5 a.m. that next morning. I am so thankful that I got to say goodbye like that. After she passed I was able to fix her hair one last time as she laid at the mortuary. Her wishes were to be buried back in Illinois where we had buried Ernie in 1991.

Leona's biological family was flung far and wide. In her waning years they began to resurface. She had a reasonable estate because of Ernie's business and they wanted to be sure they weren't forgotten. Two of her biological nieces came to the funeral here. At the end of the service they stood up and made a little speech about how Leona really did think we were "just like" family. They didn't realize, we were her family. She was my Nonie.

I drove my grandmother, father, and brother to Illinois for her burial. There were a handful of her blood relatives in attendance. They all seemed in a hurry. When they placed my poor Nonie in the ground, my grandmother and I were the only ones crying.

When it all came down to it her biological family got her money. Thats what they wanted. My family came out with a much better deal. We had years of knowing and loving this great woman. Our lives were truly enriched by her presence in a way that money can never replace. She did leave her house to my grandmother, who has passed it onto me. My husband and I live there now. There is something very comforting about preparing to give birth to my first child in the presence of Leona's spirit. I promised Leona that if I ever had a daughter I would name her after her. We are having a girl, but I just can't get myself to name her Leona. It seems too soon. We are giving her Leona's middle name . . . Violet. I'm not sure how Nonie would feel about that, she always hated her middle name. One day I hope to have a daughter to name Leona, but part of me feels that the first Leona can never be replaced.

To those out there who may be childless but still love a child, please know that you're not pathetic or anything of the such, you are God's gift to some child that needs the love that only you can give.

Where have all the children gone?

First it started when the Duggar family announced the birth of their 18th child. Then Nadya Suleman came out as "Octo-Mom." Pro-lifers have praised these two situations as examples of how some value life. They think families like the Duggars should be praised. They may question Suleman's motivations, but ultimately she refused to selectively reduce the number of embryos implanted in her uterus. The other side of the fence isn't so kind. In fact, some of the comments out there have gotten so venomous that Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, of Shalom in the Home fame, has declared "It's open season on large families in America."

You can read any number of the comments posted on these two articles for yourself. Many of them revolve around the idea that the world is suffering from a serious overpopulation problem. The people making these statements claim that it is irresponsible, nay, even criminal to have more than one or two children. They accuse parents who have more than the acceptable number of children of being egoists, or of having some other mental disorder. They've likened Suleman to a cat lady. Instead of hoarding cats, she hoards children.

What really bugs me about this argument is the fact that the overpopulation problem really is debatable. The root of the population argument lies in the 19th century when Thomas Malthus first sounded the alarm. He posited that if humans continued to produce then one day there would be so many of them that the environment couldn't sustain them, and they would die out to a level of sustainability. This theory has hung around and in the late 1960s a group called
the Club of Rome revived it and helped popularize the idea of a Malthusian catastrophe.

The people over at Negative Population Growth think that at this point the earth should only hold about half of what we have now. Most of their work centers on the population problem of the United States. They seem to focus on immigration, and they make a point to explain that their opposition to immigration isn't about xenophobia, its about science!

At Overpopulation.org they claim:

Population is not of concern if there are enough resources to go around. Important resources like water of suitable quality for growing crops, drinking, cooking, and cleanliness, fertile soil for growing food and trees, and fuel for warmth and cooking. Depletion of important resources leads to poverty, disease, [sic] malnutrion and often death. Impoverished people are usually forced to destroy their environment in order to survive.

That statement makes sense, but in places like Africa, where many of the world's most impoverished people live, aren't overpopulated. This nifty map shows the population distribution. The most populated areas, like India and China, are consistently improving their standards of living. If you look at the map, you find that some of the most populated areas have some of the highest standards of living. For the claims made at Overpopulation.org to be true, one would have to believe that those living in Europe are having their water piped in from Africa. While I don't know that situation is NOT true, I suspect that it isn't. In fact, I suspect that our overpopulation problem isn't one of too many people or not enough resources, but rather that its one of disproportionate use.

In this country we consume resources at a ridiculous rate. I can evidence this by the number of trash bags I personally place (well that DH places) on the curb for trash day. I'm bad about recycling. While we've sworn off bottled water, switched to a smaller car, and filled our house with compact florescent light bulbs, there's still a lot more that we can do. The people out there railing against women for daring to have more than one or two children are likely just as guilty. I'm sure more than a few of them drive SUVs, drink bottled water, live in a bigger house than what they need, or otherwise consume more than they should. What really scares me about these people is that they seem to believe that taking choices away from women is an acceptable path to reducing our "population problem."

Many of the commenters on the articles I linked to above argue in favor for either a one child policy like that in China, or forced sterilization for the "breeders." I suspect that these are the same people who oppose limits on abortion because it would take away a woman's "choice." It seems like for the pro-choice sector, choice only extends to killing babies, not letting them live.

Now, before I get accused of being an abortion basher I need to clarify. I could never abort my own child. Never. If one day my daughter faced a situation where she wanted to abort her child I would strongly counsel against it. HOWEVER, thats where my activism stops. If another woman has different beliefs, or is faced with a situation where she feels that is her only way out, then more power to her. Its not my business and I would never judge another woman for making that choice. I firmly believe that the government has absolutely no business in the uterus of any woman. What I do believe is that every woman, no matter where she lives, has the absolute right to control her own fertility. That means that every woman on this planet needs access to affordable, safe, birth control. Woman also need access to abortion services, because in the absence of affordable and safe birth control, abortion may be the only choice.

So what does all of this have to do with that article in the New York Times today? Well, it turns out, contrary to the alarmists commenting on HuffPo, that less than half of all households in the United States have children. It seems that (surprise!) not every woman wants to have 14 or 18 or 8 or 2 children. Some women out there, (possibly like me) will have more than the politically correct one or two children, and thats our CHOICE. The world population problem may or may not exist, but I imagine that it would be less of a concern if those of us in affluent areas would use less and help those in impoverished areas gain better use of their resources. Those on the side of negative population growth imagine a sort of reverse Logan's Run scenario where the young are forced to limit their horizons for the old. The human race depends on children, it always has, it always will.

In the beginning . . .

Prior to becoming pregnant I assumed that when the time to reproduce came, I would go find an OB, he/she would do whatever it was they do and in the end I'd have an infant removal in a medical setting. I didn't think women these days took more than a few weeks off from work so I imagined that after healing up I'd dump the child in daycare and move on. That's modern mothering right? Sure I'd heard that the "breast is best" but I never gave breastfeeding much thought.

I've never had any real mothering role models. My own mother wasn't very good at what she did. She was fairly young and newly married when I came along. In this part of the country, the trend is to have your children young, really young. At age 26, I'm considered an "older" mom by my peers. Many of them already have children in upper elementary school. Most of these moms quit drinking long enough to have the baby, a few quit smoking, some even stopped smoking pot. Many of them are single mothers, though not all. A few of them married the dads and they're trying their best at forming the foundations of the next generation.

I've watched my friends give birth and raise their children in the face of poverty. I'm not talking abject poverty, like what you see in Africa, but the sort that goes on in the center of the country. These women generally don't have health insurance, they have to rely on state benefits for their pre-natal care. Around here the word "choice" is a euphemism for abortion. The closest provider for such services is several hours away. There is a hospital in my town, but they don't have an obstetrics program. There are two "women's clinics" within a half-hour drive. They comprise the only choice women have for childbirth in this area. The closest free standing birth center is 188 miles to the south.

Ok . . so what does all of this have to do with me or this blog? I promise I'll get there.

I was married when I was 16. It wasn't "normal" by any standards, but it wasn't completely unheard of either. The biggest shocker to everyone was that I wasn't pregnant. I never had any intention of bearing children with that man, I just wanted a way out. In fact, I was convinced I never wanted children. I came to my senses when I turned 21. I left that husband and enrolled in college. I devoted my time to school. I ended up falling in love with one of my good friends and we were married this last spring. At age 26, I'm now an anomaly. Most of my old friends are lucky to have their high school diplomas. They have several children, they're on welfare, and most are single. I have a college degree, a husband, a house, and as of yet, no child. My husband and I have chosen to stay where we are because the cost of living is reasonable and our university is near by. We're both going back in the fall to complete our master's degrees. In the mean time, we've decided to procreate.

Prior to becoming pregnant, DH and I convened what we call a "fact finding commission." Its what we do whenever we're going to make a major decision. I'm still struggling with the fact that we treated the decision to have a child much like the decision we made to buy a Toyota. DH and I both researched everything we could about cost and medical insurance. We questioned our motives for conceiving. We both talked with friends and strangers about their childbearing/rearing experiences. DH never let me in on what the guys had to say about being a father, but it must have been positive because he decided it was something he wanted to do. I was surprised by some of the reactions my friends had to my fact finding commission. There were more than a few that were absolutely offended that DH and I were actively planning a pregnancy. I've discovered that this is part of the mommy wars. They felt like because I was planning my pregnancy, that it was a personal criticism of their own unplanned situations. In the end DH and I decided that we wanted to start a family sooner rather than later. We are both working towards our doctoral degrees one day but we felt that it was better to do this now while both our bodies were primed for reproduction. Our finances are ok, but they're not stellar. What we do have is a stable home that we own outright. DH has a steady job that pays the bills, but not much else. We do have health insurance. We're not lacking for gadgets and we spend too much going out to eat. Rather than being frightened by all the online calculators that demand someone have $10,000 in the bank before conceiving, we decided to throw caution into the wind and go for it. I threw out my birth control Memorial Day weekend of last year.

Part of my research for the fact finding commission involved things on how to actually conceive a child. Going into this I figured penis+vagina=sperm+egg=baby. Turns out its not nearly as simple as that. I delved into all the information on conception. I learned that I have a luteal phase and that my cervix actually does stuff. We decided that we would actively try to conceive by using the Fertility Awareness Method (FAM) I signed up for Fertility Friend and started charting my basal body temperature (BBT) and cervical mucous (CM). I didn't actually expect things to happen as quickly as they did. They always say it takes 6 months of being off birth control for most people to conceive. I had my period the last part of May when I threw out my birth control. The cycle in June was short but relatively normal. I learned what it was to freak out about a possible luteal phase defect. My last menstrual period (LMP) was on July 24. On August 21, at 9 days past ovulation (DPO) I got my very first big fat positive (BFP) pregnancy test. It took us 3 months to conceive this little bundle of joy.

I had all of these ideas on how I was going to tell DH but I couldn't keep it under my hat. I called him at work immediately. I peed on a stick (POAS) every day for five days to make sure it had stuck. It didn't take long for the feeling of "now what" to set in.

Lots of my friends have children. Some were born vaginally, some were born by c-section. I have only had the privilege to attend one birth and it sticks in my mind to this day. I'll post my version of the birth story on here later, but the short version is that my perfectly healthy friend was induced at 39 weeks for no real medical reason and she ended up with a c-section. Throughout her whole labor and birth I had this feeling that something was just out of whack. It seemed wrong. I swore then that I would run off into the woods rather than let someone stick wires on my unborn babe. I hadn't thought much about these feelings until I was in a position for it to happen to me. I told DH about my friend's experience and that I was unsure as to whether or not I wanted to give birth in a hospital. We set out on yet another fact finding commission.

As I stated before, there are very few birth options around here. Eight years ago my friend decided to drive an hour away for her care because she wasn't comfortable with the choices here. Her birth still ended in a less than ideal outcome. I started researching and I found out that if I gave birth in the hospital closest to me that I had a better than one in three chance of having a c-section. The next closest hospital wasn't much better. The closest free standing birth center was far enough away to make it an unreasonable choice. The only thing left to do was look into home birth. I found a midwife that travels online. She's two hours away but she has delivered babies in my town before. I contacted her shortly after that first BFP.

I was a failed home birth. I'm not sure what possessed my mother to opt for a home birth (she's a hypochondriac) but she did. She claims that she had two illegal midwives (midwifery has never been illegal in my state). Her side of the story is that she just "doesn't dilate" and that after being in labor for some ridiculous amount of time (it gets longer each time she tells the story) they had to rush her to the hospital thirty miles away. We live in a small town so I still run into the ambulance driver from her rush to the hospital. His story is that my mother was in labor and that she wasn't going to make it on time so they drove at a ridiculous speed (it gets faster each time he tells the story) and they barely made it. I was born before they could get her off the gurney and onto the labor bed. My dad says that her midwives were two hippie women with no real training (not unlikely given the time period) and that their rule was that after 24 hours of labor, if there was no baby, it was better to go to the hospital. In the end my mother had an all natural birth, I was born before any doctors could do anything to her or me but my first medical records record my birth as a "failed home birth transfer." All of this has caused my mother and grandmother to assume that women in our family just aren't cut out for having babies (they each had two children and both suffered post-partum depression). They have indulged my talk about having a home birth, but they assume that I'm going to fail.

My midwife has eleven children of her own. She home schools them all. She has a thriving midwifery practice. My insurance doesn't cover out of hospital births so we have paid her out of pocket. At first I didn't realize how all consuming home birth was. DH and I have joined a new sort of family. I've been connecting with other home birth moms so that I can have the sort of support I need to navigate this new world. Unlike my friends I am in charge of how my birth turns out. I have to eat right and exercise. I have to make sure I have all of the supplies necessary. I had a hard time securing a backup physician even though I'm not sure about him. I mainly go through his nurses. He wasn't thrilled about the idea of me having a home birth, but he's old enough that he's seen it all. By the grace of God and my midwife, I won't ever have to see him while I'm in labor.

I know this post is long, and possibly unreadable, but I needed to get this part out. So much of this process is a jumble of words and feelings. There's no nice and neat linear story. I just looked at my ticker and I have 64 days to go until I'm due. I'm not a naturally patient person so this has been a trial. Something has changed inside of me. That person who thought she could just have an infant extracted and hand it off to strangers at daycare is gone. Instead she has been replaced by this crazy, loopy liberal, possibly even granola, expectant mother who is ready to fight for her right to have this baby and raise it in the most natural way possible. My fact finding commission has continued and the more I learn the more frightened, angry, happy, fulfilled and stoic I get. It scares me that women are denied their choice by providers who are concerned only with the bottom line. I'm angry that there are those out there that would accuse me of abusing my children if I breastfeed too long or don't get them all of the recommended vaccines. I am so incredibly happy to have this life growing inside of me. I'm looking forward to labor and birth as a fulfillment of my destiny as a woman.

What am I doing here

When I first got pregnant I debated about blogging my experience. I thought maybe it would be a neat process. Then I decided that no one probably cared so I decided not to do it. Now that I'm 31 weeks along, I've changed my mind. Its not because I think people care about my thoughts and feelings, its because I'm pretty sure they don't care. We've decided to have one of those weird granola births at home that (I've discovered) freak people out. Without the Internet I wouldn't have the confidence to do what I'm doing. Finding other bloggers out there that have done what I'm planning to do has been invaluable. I'm thankful that my husband has been supportive from the start. I told him I wasn't sure about giving birth in the hospital and he said "lets look into alternatives." Throughout the past 31 weeks I've found people that are truly supportive of our decision, those who are a little weirded out by the idea, and those who think its their job to convince me that birth is deadly and shouldn't be attempted by anyone anywhere without a team of medical specialists in attendance. I suppose I should start from the beginning, so bear with me.