February 5th, 2010
You Guys are Making Me Cry
A couple days ago I posted a virtual cry for help here, and a request for help here, after feeling an overwhelming sense of uncertainty, anxiety, and apprehension about a third birth ( my second VBAC.)
But you, my dear friends (cyber and otherwise) responded to the call with an outpouring of emotional support, encouragement, and generosity. While a few simple chearleading comments was the most I had hoped for, some of you went above and beyond the call, and responded to my cry with more than I could have dreamed.
♥ One of you sent me your Hypnobabies CDs, along with the VBAC tracks, saving me well over $150.
♥ One of you offered to let me and the Hyphenated Husband attend your Bradley class, at no charge, because you said I deserved it for helping so many other women through their VBACs. *tear*
♥ One of you offered me your Hypnobirthing book and CD, along with a ton of other resources to help me learn about hypnotic birthing methods.
♥ One of you gave me some other positive pregnancy materials to help me get into a more peaceful mental state during this impending gestation.
♥ And many more of you left lengthy, thoughtful, and kind comments and suggestions to help me feel safer and more secure in my decisions.
So what I have learned this week, if I didn’t know it before, is that women in my community care about each other, and they care about me. Each time someone has come through for me, it makes my chest buckle, my eyes well up, and my throat squeeze closed. I’ve been doing a lot of crying this week — in a good way.
When my chips were down, and I was the one that needed the help instead of being the one who gives it, you swept in and lifted me up. My faith in sisterhood, community, and humanity have been restored this week. Thank you all.
Now stop making me cry… It’s ruining my contact lenses. 
February 2nd, 2010
The Scarlet C: A History of Cesarean
Hearing about a cesarean being performed on The Today Show* this morning triggered a lot of traumatic feelings for me. I cannot watch. Just knowing it’s out there is bad enough. Knowing that the Today Show is passing out bad information about the supposed necessity of this operation makes me feel that the odds are forever going to be stacked against healthy birth. It hurts my heart.
One thing I have not addressed so far on our journey toward conception is my very real, all consuming fear that despite my best intentions, this birth could end in another cesarean. This fear paralyzes me. Part of the reason I announced our plans to conceive was because I needed other people to be excited for me. I cannot be excited for myself right now. I’m simply too afraid. I’m trying — desperately — to get excited about conception. I do want another baby, this part I know. But I also know if I never get pregnant again, then I would never be exposed to the risk of another cesarean. It is a 100% avoidable surgery, provided that I avoid pregnancy. When we started talking about conception plans last week, for a few minutes I tried to talk the husband into getting his vasectomy right now (which he has already agreed to do after we’re done having kids). But he wants another baby. And I want another baby. And I’m trying not to let this uterine scar make these decisions for me. But — it’s hard. (<–Boy, if that isn’t the understatement of the year…)
I know that my chances of having a cesarean are dramatically decreased by my education about the birth process. I also know that my chances for a VBAC are incredibly high, especially since I’ve already had one. AND, I also know that I willed my last VBAC into existence by the sheer power of my determination. I can do anything; my VBAC taught me that. I could never let another cesarean happen to me if I had any control over it whatsoever. However, once the doctor cut into my womb, my uterine health was forever changed, and I will never get to experience pregnancy or childbirth with an unscarred vessel.
A friend once told me, as she was trying desperately to find a provider who’d let her have a VBAC, that she felt like she walked around with a Scarlet C on her chest. If we want a vaginal birth after cesarean, many providers won’t touch us. Many providers won’t help us. Many providers treat us like ticking time bombs — or worse — like bad mothers. And even when they do agree to see us, we are often forced or coerced into “mandatory” interventions that other non-cesarean moms can opt out of. It doesn’t matter if it’s illegal and unethical — providers can often talk a mother into anything when they threaten her baby’s well-being. Even when luck is on our side, and we can find a provider willing to treat us like a “normal” mom, we often still carry a fear that makes us envision an exploded uterus and the unhealthiest of outcomes. I believe that anxiety alone is what causes the vast majority of repeat cesareans. How many non-cesarean mothers fear uterine rupture? I’m willing to bet, not too many — even though it is certainly something that can happen to first time mothers.
I carry plenty of emotional baggage from my cesarean, but I also carry scar tissue — The Scarlet C. I hope the Hypnobirthing can help me overcome this fear once and for all, but at this point, I really have no idea what will ease my concerns. I just want to feel…normal, again.
___________________________________________________*I’m not linking to the Today Show video because I don’t think anybody needs to see it. If you do, you can find it with a Google search.
February 1st, 2010
Sex is More Fun When It’s Funny
Tonight I learned some new things about the natural gender selection method we’re trying out. Instead of just the timing of intercourse, apparently the odds can be swayed by diet, and changing the pH in the woman’s vagina to make it more hospitable to either the XX or XY chromosome sperm — whichever you’re going for.
In my case, we’re trying to get the girl spermies to reach the egg before the boys do. This means I need to do some things to get my pH more on the acidic side, so the fragile male sperm can’t survive, which leaves the female sperm hanging around waiting for ovulation.
One of the things I have to do is cut out coffee (somebody kill me now) and bananas (they are one of my all-time favorite foods.) I don’t fully understand the extent of this diet yet, but if I find out that I have to stop eating chocolate, then I’m calling the whole damn thing off. THAT is a deal breaker, my friends.
Oh, and get this — I also found out that if you’re trying for a girl, the woman shouldn’t orgasm during intercourse. That’s right - they say having an orgasm during intercourse makes the vaginal environment more hospitable toward the male sperm.
So THAT is why I have two boys?!? Because I’m cursed with multiple orgasms? Son-of-a-Mother-Effing-Effer!
Okay, fine. I can skip a few orgasms if it means keeping my “environment” just right for conceiving a girl. So I tell the husband that I’m going to have to take a few for the team, and he’s (can you believe it?!?!) okay with that. He’s trying desperately to hide the excitement on his face as I’m standing over the stove, giving him permission to come without me for the first time in 5.5 years, so I say
“But listen pal! You’re paying me back BIG TIME later in the month!”
And of course, he’s fine with that too. The funny part is that sex has now become an act of simply depositing sperm where we needs it to be. This is quite comical to both of us, but alas, once our DVR’d shows were through, HH leans over to take off my pants so we can get the show on the road. This is a whole new feeling for us, and it’s hard not to laugh at the sheer ridiculousness of having sex for the sole purpose of impregnation. We’ve spent most of our adult lives desperately NOT trying to make a baby.
So we’re getting into it, we’re already halfway laughing anyway, so I say to Hyphenated Husband,
“Hey, think GIRL when you spit it in there.”
And he starts howling with laughter. So now we’re both laughing — still doing it, and laughing. Then he says,
“Now I’m thinking of Kevin Smith”
And of course! I mean, who doesn’t think of Kevin Smith when they’re having sex with their hot wife?! Actually, I bet Kevin Smith would be thrilled to hear that we’re thinking of him during intercourse. He is one kinky motherfucker. Then husband says,
“You saying “Spit” made me remember Kevin Smith calling it a Dick Sneeze.”
And the words “Dick Sneeze” send me into hysterics. So now, we’re having what might be the loudest sex we’ve had in months, but not because both of us are calling to God, but because we’re both cracking up so hard that we (almost) lost our rhythm.
And it was fun. Sure, I had to sacrifice my orgasm, but it was still probably one of the more memorable sex sessions we’ve had in awhile. And I know my orgasm isn’t gone forever — it’s just waiting for a time when I don’t have to worry about my damn vaginal pH levels.
I swear, in all my life, I never thought I’d hear myself utter the words “vaginal pH.”
January 30th, 2010
Adventures in (more) Babymaking
Well… there it is. In case you aren’t on Twitter (seriously, why aren’t you on Twitter?!?) then you may not have heard the news that we are officially trying to have another baby.
First I thought it would be fun not to tell anybody and surprise everyone when I started to show, but two things complicated that plan:
- I need support and advice from my cyber-mommy-friends.
- I have a big ass mouth.
We originally planned to wait until this summer to start, but the more we though about it, we thought that was actually pretty bad timing. That would give us a baby late next spring, and that really wouldn’t work. Unlike most couples I know, we have to worry about both John and I being in school and trying to start our careers, so the children have to be timed perfectly to coincide with our full and complex schedules so we don’t get off track again.
With Julesy, we knew we wanted to have him in May so I could have a summer’s worth of maternity leave before school started again. It worked out perfectly. We conceived in August and he arrived May 16th.
This time, we thought we’d like to have another baby next May, however, I’ll be graduating in May, then hopefully will be spending my summer working in a law firm with my paralegal certificate, and then starting law school in the fall of ’11. When I really thought about it, I decided the worst thing I could think of would be to try to start a new job right after having a baby, and then starting law school with a 3 month old who will still probably be up nursing all hours of the night.
Hayell. No.
However — we know we want another baby. That part is easy. But we know we don’t want to have that baby while I’m in law school, or even during my first few years out when I’m trying to get my career going. And if we wait any longer than that, I’ll be in my 40’s, and Jonas will nearly be a teenager. We don’t want to start alllllll over again with the baby stuff in our 40’s, so really, if we want a third baby, it needs to happen by the end of this year.
We also desperately want this baby to be a girl. Of course (and this should really go without saying) we will love whatever baby we get. But seriously. Universe? PLEASE give us a girl. John and I aren’t the only ones who want a girl — Jonas has started asking for a sister. In fact, he has asked me for a sister nearly every day this week. When I said
“Hey Jonas, do you want Mommy & Daddy to have another baby?”
He says
“YES! I do want you to have a baby — You got to give me a sister!”
And I try to hide the smile when I say
“Jonas, are you sure you don’t want another brother?”
and he says
“No, Mommy! I already haaaave a brother! I need a sister now!”
I know, Jonas. You do. I totally agree.
So we’re trying the Shettles Method this time and seeing if we can time a sister for him. I think we could pull it off, but I really should have started charting my cycle a long time ago. A friend gave me her copy of Taking Charge of Your Fertility:The Definitive Guide to Natural Birth Control, Pregnancy Achievement, and Reproductive Health
Now, onto the really important stuff: The Birth.
I will be having a homebirth this time, provided that everything works out with the provider I’ve chosen. I have a consultation scheduled with one of the few CNMs in Illinois who will take me on now that I have this damn cesarean scar that will haunt my reproductive health for the rest of my life. This midwife only takes on Secondary HBAC clients, meaning moms who’ve already had at least one successful VBAC (and that’s me! Yay!)
Hyphenated Husband and I are also planning on taking Hypnobirthing classes, and if anybody out there has a wonderful Hypnobirth story to tell me, pretty please, lay it on me.
So there it is. All the details I have so far. TFB is adding Number 3.
Holy shit. Here we go!
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And speaking of all this! Make sure you tune into my radio show this Sunday night at 10 pm Central time when I talk to Meagan Francis about her book on raising big families.
January 28th, 2010
TFB Covering the NIH VBAC Conference
In March, I will be attending the NIH Consensus Development Conference on Vaginal Birth After Cesarean (VBAC) in Bethesda, Maryland. The goal of this conference is to examine the reasons that VBAC rates are declining while cesarean rates in the U.S. are consistently rising. The website states that the conference will address the following key questions:
- What are the rates and patterns of utilization of trial of labor after prior cesarean, vaginal birth after cesarean, and repeat cesarean delivery in the United States?
- Among women who attempt a trial of labor after prior cesarean, what is the vaginal delivery rate and the factors that influence it?
- What are the short– and long-term benefits and harms to the mother of attempting trial of labor after prior cesarean versus elective repeat cesarean delivery, and what factors influence benefits and harms?
- What are the short– and long-term benefits and harms to the baby of maternal attempt at trial of labor after prior cesarean versus elective repeat cesarean delivery, and what factors influence benefits and harms?
- What are the nonmedical factors that influence the patterns and utilization of trial of labor after prior cesarean?
- What are the critical gaps in the evidence for decision-making, and what are the priority investigations needed to address these gaps?
Of course, all of this is very interesting to me as a VBACtivist, and as a pre-law student interested in Health Law & Policy. This subject, and this one-of-a-kind conference, deserves to be covered thoroughly. Therefore, during my visit to this conference, I will not only be blogging the event, but I will also be broadcasting my radio show live on each of the 3 days with special guest speakers who work in the field of reproductive health advocacy. So far I’m honored to have representatives from Lamaze International, The Big Push for Midwives, and the International Cesarean Awareness Network coming on my show. If your organization is interested in having a representative speak with me, please write me at gina(at)thefeministbreeder(dot)com and let me know what you’d like to add.
Stay tuned for more details as I get my agenda worked out.
January 27th, 2010
Wordless Wednesday — Anniversary Style
Our Gorgeous “Spa Suite” at Trump Tower
The Bathroom Was So Tricked Out, It Had a TV in the Mirror
The Tub So Deep it Nearly Covered My Head — I Want to Give Birth in Here
A View Looking Down the Chicago River Toward Lake Michigan
Looking South on Wabash
The Hyphenated Husband Bathing in the Luxurious Pool
The $25 Bottles of WATER Available for Purchase in the Room
Sexy Hyphenated Husband Dressed for Dinner
A Non-Mom-Looking Me Dressed for Dinner
Yeah, I Got Drunk Before Dinner Arrived
January 25th, 2010
Women Hating Women on the Metra Train
Each month, the Metra Rail (which is our Chicagoland commuter train) publishes a newsletter called “On the Bi-Level.” Each newsletter contains travel notes, service information, and a special section called “Sounding Off” where commuters write in to compliment or complain about the service they receive, or their fellow travelers.
In December’s issue, a very pregnant woman named Kate wrote in to “On the Bi-Level” to complain that her fellow Metra passengers weren’t offering her their seat, even though they could clearly see she was pregnant. If you’ve ever been a pregnant woman on public transportation, you’ll probably understand where Kate is coming from. I cannot think of anything more uncomfortable, and potentially dangerous, than standing on a moving vehicle that’s flying down the tracks at 50 miles an hour while trying to hold something that feels like a bowling ball in your bladder, as your 25 lb uterus pulls at your back while simultaneously pushing down on your swollen ankles. To put it lightly, it sucks. There are really only 3 things a woman needs when she’s pregnant; food, gallons of water, and a place to sit.
But instead of understanding Kate’s frustration, her fellow passengers took the time to write in for the January newsletter to tell Kate to go fuck her whiny, pregnant self.
In response titled “No Sympathy Here,” Liz writes:
A big BOO HOO to Princess Kate, the pregnant passenger who was very upset that no one offered their seat. My my, since when was pregnancy such an enormous disability issue?
You seemed to be able to muster the strength to walk two full car lengths to take note of the seating situation; and you sound a little irate that nobody literally jumped up to rescue you by offering their seat. Sorry, toots, this was a situation you chose to be in… there are people out there who can’t have kids, such as me, and I’m NOT going to give you my seat. Tough out the discomfort for nine months. Some people will never experience it.
And Liz wasn’t the only one. Here Adrienne writes:
This is for Kate and all the other pregnant women who whine about not being offered seats on public transportation. They somehow feel they are more entitled to a seat than anybody else, and every seated passenger should feel guilty for not jumping up and falling all over each other giving up their seat. Yes, it would be courteous, but it’s certainly not mandatory. How are we supposed to know you are pregnant and don’t just have a large stomach? Perhaps you should either walk through the car with a sign, make an announcement when you enter a car or simply walk up to someone and tell them to get up. Also the handicapped seats are designated for “customers with disabilities.” As far as I know, being pregnant is NOT a disability or a handicap. It’s also very possible the seated passengers might have a disability that is not obvious.
If the roles were reversed and you saw a woman you thought was pregnant, how likely would you be to offer your seat?
Thankfully the Metra took this opportunity to put their $0.02 in and offered the following:
We got a few letters in response to Kate. All of them were from women. All of them were entirely unsympathetic to her plight. Be we don’t think Kate was wrong to expect a little courtesy. We should all expect it, and give it, too.
Knowing that women, and only women, wrote in to rag on Kate makes me really sad for the political state of my gender. Just sad.
Listen Liz and Adrienne, get off your ass and give Kate your seat, or you will have more bad karma than you can shake your nasty attitude at.
Do you have any stories like this to share? I’m sure they’re out there.
January 24th, 2010
Guest Post: Girls Have Eyelashes
by Danise Cardona…
My daughter, 3 years old, has figured out the difference between girls and boys (the whole penis-vagina thing notwithstanding). Yes, it’s true: girls have eyelashes and boys don’t.
About a year ago she began to differentiate illustrated non-human characters by sex, usually pointing out “the girl one.” Really, though, how CAN you tell a male from a female cartoon flamingo? As a feminist parent my first question to her was “How can you tell?” Originally she found it hard to explain but as months passed she gave voice to the all-important difference: eyelashes.
Me: But doesn’t Daddy have eyelashes, too?
She: No.
Me: Yes, he does. He has long, dark eyelashes just like you.
An in-depth investigation soon followed. We discovered that not only does Daddy have eyelashes, but boys do and a lot of animals of both sexes do, too – even cows. And birds don’t have real eyelashes at all, but special bristles! Eyelashes help keep dust out of our eyes and tell us if something is too close to them, two things that are really important for both boys and girls. So why eyelashes for girls?
Me: A lot of people think eyelashes are pretty.
She: They are.
Me: Well, the illustrator used pretty eyelashes to show which one is a girl. Even though both boys and girls have eyelashes they made it seem like eyelashes are just for girls.
She: Daddy has pretty eyelashes.
Me: I know.
In the end, we learned the best way to tell a boy flamingo from a girl flamingo is to get clues from the story that explain the illustration… and that Daddy has pretty eyelashes. Mission accomplished. Sort of.
Ok, so now I want to put in all the feminist-speak that makes a quick, entertaining story totally boring but also specifically relevant to living the life of a feminist breeder. Identifying feminist issues in everyday interactions with our kids opens children up to potential epiphanies counter to non-feminist cultural norms and makes each object lesson relatable to others down the line.
In a nutshell the opening story addressed a gendered expectation of an arbitrary beauty standard. Of course, for a 3 year old it sounds more like “eyelashes are an important part of our body, not something to decorate our eyes” and “eyelashes are for boys and girls” and “how weird they drew eyelashes on one and not on the other, too.”
Keeping with the eyelash theme, we recently viewed an animated short of a Russian children’s tale, Here Comes the Cat, in which all mice had long eyelashes (but still wore gendered clothes because a kid just can’t see a town of mice, they have to see a town of anthropomorphic male and female mice – but that’s another post I suppose). From here we recalled our flamingo chat and praised this artist for drawing eyelashes on both boys and girls. Hopefully as more of these episodes pop up in daily life each tiny, offhand, feminist comment or quick analysis builds on another creating a critical thinker and fostering a questioning mind. In other words, cultivating a future feminist.
And that’s nothing to bat an eyelash at. Now please excuse me while I go apply some mascara.
Oh, damn.
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This post was written by Danise Cardona as part of The Feminist Breeder’s Guest Post Series. To submit your own for consideration, please write gina(at)thefeministbreeder(dot)com
January 21st, 2010
Wordless Wednesday — Surgical Style
**taken from my stats book this semester:
Freedman, David, Robert Pisani, and Roger Purves. Statistics. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007. Print.
January 19th, 2010
For You Blue
Last week, we said goodbye to one of our FurChildren, Blue Dog. After much consideration, Hyphenated Husband and I decided that we were no longer the best family for him to be with, so we gave him to a very appreciative disabled family friend.
John and I got Blue Dog from the Anti-Cruelty Society about a month after we started dating. We knew we were going to be together, and we knew we were going to move in together relatively quickly, so we adopted Blue Dog and made him the first extension of our little family.
He is a Border Collie-Black Lab mix, and has a personality that melts everyone’s heart. He’s great with children, so gentle and loving, and everyone who ever met him fawned over him. Blue was in our wedding, as pictured here, and during the entire reception he walked from table to table greeting our guests, as if to say “Hi, I’m Blue Dog, let me give you a snuggle and welcome you to the party.”
But Blue also came with some special challenges. Part of what made him such a lover was his intense separation anxiety. He needed constant attention and constant companionship. Where ever we were, he had to be there as well. I could not leave a room and shut a door between us or he would lose his mind and yelp like his foot was caught in a vice. If left alone behind a door for too long, he’d rip through it. When I bathed, he laid next to the bathtub. When I cooked, he laid under my feet at the stove. I was always on the verge of tripping over him and breaking my neck.
This separation anxiety was so bad, when we first brought him home from the shelter, Blue Dog ruined most of our apartment. After leaving him unattended while we went to work one day, he ate through the couch. We thought we learned our lesson, and put him in a steel crate the next time we went out. Later that evening, John met up with me at a bar, and he says to me
“Why in the world did you shove my entire comforter in the crate with the dog?”
And I say
“Um, I totally did not do that — why would I?”
We go home to find that Blue Dog had chewed his way out of the steel crate just enough to grab John’s comforter off the bed, pull the entire thing into the crate with him, and rip it into little snowflakes. When we walked in, pretty much all we could see was Blue Dog’s eyes peaking out from under this mountain of shredded feathers and fabric.
Blue had many more hilarious feats like that one. After the crates failed, we tried barricading him into the kitchen with a wall of gates. A few days into that experiment John calls me up from work and says
“So, why did you leave Blue in the living room when you left?”
And I respond with
“Um, I totally did not do that! Why would I?”
As it turns out, the dog scaled the barricade — which was upwards of 5 feet high — and climbed through to the other side.
Finally…finally… one day Blue’s anxiety settled, and we no longer had to consistently contain him anywhere. We also got him a plastic crate that he had a little harder time ripping through for those few occasions when we did still need to crate him. Blue came to trust that we wouldn’t abandon him, and he stopped ripping through couches. However, he never really stopped trying to destroy at least ONE thing when we left him alone.
Blue Dog came to love the garbage. Ripping through the garbage became his payback tool any time I had the audacity to take Jonas to school, or run out for a coffee. We always tried to make sure there was NO garbage to destroy before we left the house, but invariably there comes a time when we’re rushing out in a hurry, and one of us forgot to put the garbage outside.
On those days, I would come home to whole house carpeted in trash. And then, I would want to kill me one dog.
It was very difficult coming to the decision to give him away. He was our family, and I’m not the type of person who would usually give up any animal. Before I had children, I was an active supporter of the ASPCA. When I originally decided to pursue a career in law, my dream was to one day work for them. I even interviewed on of their attorneys and wrote about it. Animal welfare means a lot to me, however, it has taken a backseat to the Mother’s Rights that have come to rule my career goals now. The reason for that is, animals have a few high profile nonprofit agencies working for them. Mothers have almost none. At least none that are on par with PETA or the ASPCA. So, this was the reason my focus shifted, but I still love animals just as much as I did pre-baby.
But ultimately, I knew that the reason Blue acted out the way he did was because he had become 3rd fiddle in the house. I have two sons to shower with affection now, and the dog just got lost in the mix. He needed someone who could love him all the time, whose lives weren’t as hectic, and who would be home with him more often.
Thankfully, we found him that very person. A family friend has a disabled cousin who lives with a brother that takes care of him. The man needs a companion, and he doesn’t leave the house enough for Blue Dog’s separation anxiety to cause a problem there. So we decided to let Blue go and live a better life with someone who could devote lots of love, affection, and attention to him, and he could return that favor to his owner. As far as we’ve heard, they’ve taken to each other beautifully, and I’m really very happy that Blue is getting what he needs.
The boys haven’t even asked where the dog is, so all our worries that this would totally traumatize them turned out to be much ado about nothing.
So goodbye Blue Dog. We will miss you, but we are happy you have a better home.
Love, Your First Mom
January 15th, 2010
Cesarean Moms Mobilize in Support of One Another
Well, my post about Mominatrix’s sex book from the other day caused quite a week’s worth of uproar. This week, I watched the comments section of that post take on a life of its own, with mothers pouring in to share their stories about cesarean trauma, and offering support to other mothers.
Then today, after Mominatrix chose to address those women on her radio show by telling them to “have a giggle and get over it”, I saw women rise up, fight back, and express their hurt and anger over the insensitive comments made.
Tonight, Danielle from Momotics hosted a radio call-in show for mothers affected by cesarean, so they could have their voices heard. The response was huge. Callers from across the country spoke up about their experiences, and how they have impacted their life. I’m so proud of my sisters (and brothers) who recognize birth trauma, talk about it, and help others try to cope with it.
What was absolutely astonishing to me is the speed in which mothers in the activist community, and mothers who need their help, banded together to speak out against an oppressive and hurtful voice. This is the power of the internet, ladies and gentlemen.
If you want to see humanity at work, listen to the podcast of Danielle’s show called “Cesarean Moms Speak Out” below. Featured in the show are myself, Desiree Andrews (President of ICAN), Michelle from Birthcut.com, and a load of callers hurt by Mominatrix’s comments on her radio show.
Listen: “Cesarean Mother’s Speak Out”
And again, to my ICAN and cesarean sisters — you are not alone. I hope this shows you.
January 13th, 2010
My First Radio Show: A Success
This year I’m going to start trying to feel good about my accomplishments, and giving myself credit for the feats I manage to pull off. You can also read that as me justifying the tooting of my own horn that is about to take place.
My first radio show was Sunday night – many of you listened live, and many more downloaded it since. I want to think everyone who listened, and praised me, and gave me the confidence to keep going with it. I was so nervous before the show started, but once it was on, I felt like a fish in water. I’m good in this format. It’s familiar to me. And lord, I can talk – yes, that I can do. I kicked ass, if I don’t say so myself. I’m proud!
Just listen, if you haven’t already:
But it doesn’t stop there. That show was just the beginning. I have so many great shows coming up, and have a heap of fabulous guest speakers waiting in the queue. If any of these topics intrigue you, then please pop over to the show page and set yourself a reminder to listen in. If you can’t listen live, no worries! You can subscribe to my podcast in iTunes, or even subscribe to an RSS feed which drops you a link to the podcast after it’s recorded. But the best part of listening live is that you can call in and get involved in the conversation! We’d LOVE to hear from you!
Here are my upcoming shows:
Breastfeeding Broads – with special guest Melodie Towers from Breastfeeding Moms Unite
Big Happy Families – with special guest Meagan Francis from TheHappiestMom.com
Fat ‘N’ Fabulous – with special guest Cecily Kellogg from Uppercase Woman
Formula Falsehoods – with special guest Kate Gulbransen of Hygeia
Fierce Feminists – with special guest Veronica Arreola from Viva La Feminista
Also, I’m pretty please asking people to review my show in iTunes, if you can. I would LOVE to have some positive comments and ratings on my show. You can really help me out by doing that! Thanks in advance.
~TFB out.
January 11th, 2010
Mominatrix Says: “Consider yourself lucky, you c-section bitches.”
I waited for this book. I was excited about this book. I ordered it from Amazon in the first week it was published. I couldn’t wait to devour it, have an expected good chuckle, and praise it all over my site.
Then — I read it.
Let me be clear here: I really like this author. Kristen Chase helped me a lot in the beginning of my blogging days, and what I’m going to write next pains me a great deal. I wrote Kristen privately on facebook and asked her to be interviewed on my blog about some of the statements she made in this book, but she’s a busy girl and really wasn’t interested. So I’m going to have to try on my own to be as fair as I can about a book that made my VBACtivist blood boil.
I thought we had enough mainstream mommy authors giving us really uneducated advice about the supposed magical powers of epidurals and cesareans, but apparently there is room for one more. I know Mominatrix thought she was being funny and clever when telling pregnant women to “save your cash for more useful items, like an epidural” but as a natural birth advocate, I find that statement highly problematic. Actually, as a feminist I find that statement highly problematic. Why must authors assume that their readers cannot handle labor, and suggest they save up for drugs before they even feel the first contraction? Are we not selling our sisters a little short?
But it’s a flippant book, Gina! What’s the harm?
Well, I’ve got a nice sized uterine scar on my belly right now thanks in part to a flippant mommy advice book like this one. When I first found myself pregnant, I was just like the vast majority of pregnant American women who never get truly informed about the birth process, and instead spend their pregnancies watching “A Baby Story” and reading Jenny McCarthy books. I got my hands on “The Girlfriend’s Guide to Pregnancy” by Vicki Iovine, which told me that Lamaze was useless, as were all other birthing classes, and what I really needed to focus on was how quickly I could get the epidural.
Yeah — I got the epidural. The epidural that only went down half my body, that caused me uncontrollable shaking, that shut down my labor, that necessitated more pitocin, which put my baby in distress, which then necessitated a nice, traumatic cesarean surgery. Yep. That epidural. I’m so glad I saved my money for that epidural, instead of a birth class which would have informed me of the potential risks to my epidural decision.
Not everyone has my experience though. Obviously Mominatrix didn’t. But far, far too many women DO have that experience, and it is just one of the contributing factors to a major cesarean epidemic in this country.
But Mominatrix doesn’t seem to think that a cesarean is such a bad thing because, according to her, a cesarean means a baby didn’t come through your vagina and wreck it. She complains that birth causes irreparable damage to the vagina and
“Quite frankly, women who have not had a vaginal birth will probably not experience as much of a change as those who have shot a baby or two out of their vag. Consider yourselves lucky, you c-section bitches.”
She also says,
“It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that if you’ve birthed a few seven or eight pounders your vagina will not return to its trim and virginal state without some effort. And even then, it still might be somewhat of a lost cause.”
I would like to let unsuspecting mothers know that I’ve birthed a nearly 10 lb baby, and my vagina is just fine. Actually, my husband calls it “perfect” (on the internet, even!), and I feel sorry for any woman who’s married to a man who expects his wife’s vagina to look “virginal.” Marry better, ladies. I’m sure he doesn’t look the same as you met him either, and you’re not requiring penis surgery over it.
I tell you what really ruined my libido and my self esteem for a really long time were the debilitating, bleeding, excruciating, almost-required-another-surgery-to-fix hemorrhoids I suffered through after my cesarean, which were caused by the way they piled all my intestines back in my body (that’s right, did you know they pull all your insides out of your abdomen during a cesarean?) Now THAT is sexy.
You know what DOES cause damaged vaginas though? Episiotomies, poor birthing positions (like the flat-on-back position so many ignorant medpros push women into), purple pushing (pushing when told to, instead of when your body wants to), and many other avoidable, outdated obstetric practices.
What I want people to get out of this is the understanding that these birth interventions so flippantly recommended in this book come with real risks, and real consequences that should never be left out of the conversation. No, you should NOT be getting your birthing advice from a funny, tongue-in-cheek Mommy sex advice book — but that also begs the question why it’s there to begin with.
I can only hope that the women who read those types of problematic statements are also smart enough to pick up a copy of Birthing from Within
Have you read ? Will you? What do you think about the statements made? Talk to me…
**I cannot express this enough, so let me reiterate: I have nothing against Kristen Chase, her blog, or her work. I hope you (and she) understand that this article was not meant as any personal attack on her, but merely a rebuttal of the problematic statements made in her book. I encourage you to be respectful in your comments. Let’s debate the issue and the sentiments, and not the author herself.
UPDATE: I hoped that Mominatrix would see the pain she caused and offer mothers a heartfelt apology, but instead, she went on her radio show and made the typical “you-have-a-healthy-baby-so-get-over-it” comments, which of course discounts the many women who suffer serious physical & emotional trauma from their cesareans, or epidural-complicated births. Stay strong ladies, many of us DO care about your experience. You are not alone.
January 10th, 2010
In the words of Sally Field: “You Really, Really Like Me!”
Me, and about 40,000 other hilarious, awesome, inspiring mom bloggers did NOT get picked by Babble as the “Top 50 Mommy Bloggers” in their recent list. However, they did throw the rest of us a bone and allow people to “nominate” their favorite bloggers.
So you nominated me. Three times (whoops!) And now I’ve been sitting between #5 and #10 on that list for the past two days. Who’s beating me? Why, some very deserving ladies, of course. Battling it out at the top of the list are The Spohrs Are Multiplying and Dr. Momma (and can I just say how fucking excited it makes me to see a natural-birth advocate top ANY list?? That in itself is freaking awesome).
Edging out the next few slots are some bloggers I don’t know (but probably should), and one I know fairly well — Cecily K. from Uppercase Woman. You may or may not remember but I met Cecily on the GlaxoSmithKline trip and we’ve stayed in contact since. For a number of reasons, she rules. You can hear her on February 7th on my new radio show talking about fat acceptance, body image, and how it all fits into feminism 3.0.
And then there’s me. My top nomination (remember, I said there are three — whoops!) has been hovering either above or below Velveteen Mind, right around 7th/8th all day. I peaked at Number 5 last night, but then the dang Spohrs came from nowhere and blasted us all to bits.
So, what do we win? What does this nomination and contest mean for us bloggers? Why, absolutely nothing! Nothing at all — except that you fine people will take the time to visit a site and vote for me as a “favorite blogger.” And THAT means a lot. It means the world to me. Like everyone else, I have so many moments of self doubt, wondering why I write, wondering WHAT I should write, and never knowing if I’m just making everyone’s life miserable by blogging at all. But the 100 or so votes I’ve gotten (all nominations combined) makes my heart warm up just a little.
Not everyone thinks I’m a raging asshole. Some of you really like me. Without getting all emo on your asses, have I mentioned how much I like many of you? Gawd, I hope so. As soon as I get a free moment, I’m going to create my own Top 50 list, and highlight all the amazing people I’ve “met” through my blog, why they rule the universe, and how important they’ve been in my life in one way or another.
We all deserve to be on a Top 50 list at some point in our lives.
January 8th, 2010
Mean Girls Grow up to be Mean Women
My feminism aches from the nastiness I see women throwing at other women, especially on the internet. People say things to other people they would never dream of saying to their face. And I’m not just talking about the disagreements – it’s okay to disagree, healthy even.
But WHAT is with the name calling?!! Seriously, are we 12? The name calling starts when you disagree (whether directly or indirectly) with a person’s sentiment, and they turn around and hurl insults and expletives at you instead of formulating a respectful (or at least mature) response.
And the bullying? The bullying occurs when someone doesn’t like something you’ve said, and they write entire blog posts dedicated to what a horrible, stupid person you are, then post links all over any relevant site in an effort to persuade their network of “friends” to come to your blog and harass you along with them.
And my god, the stalking?! Stalking occurs every time we hang around someone’s space who we do not like at all, and have no business even reading. I mean really – if you don’t like the author, what in the world are you doing reading her thoughts? That’s just twisted. Either you’re looking for ammo or you’re a masochist. Either way, not good.
I’ve seen this behavior out of females from early on in my childhood. Attending 26 different schools between K-12th grade meant I was always the new kid, and we all know how new kids get treated. Being poor as hell, having bright, firey red hair, and developing quicker than the other girls made me an especially obvious target. I left school crying many days over the torture I received. One day, after the bullies told me I smelled bad, I shoplifted a stick of deodorant from the local convenience store because my grandparents didn’t have any money to buy me any. And because thievery is not in my nature, I cried the whole way home and promised myself I’d never, ever steal again, no matter what bitch said I stank.
As a result of that treatment, and the nightly beatings I got growing up, I have always been an outspoken advocate for people who are getting treated like crap. When I was in high school, I often came to the aid of girls getting bullied. While the other Mean Girls would stand around the locker room yelling insults at the poor freshmen girls for nothing more than the crime of being younger, I’d stand in the middle and tell those Mean Girls that their behavior was hurtful, and I’d tell the freshmen girls that the Mean Girls were just jealous and immature. Veronica Arreola recently described me on twitter as a feminist who “supports mamas w/a vengeance!”
Damn straight.
Some people – people who don’t know me well – assume that my firey, outspoken nature means that I’m one of those Mean Women. But people who know me see that’s the furthest thing from the truth. I am a compassionate, empathetic, loyal, caring person who simply cannot tolerate the injustice I see in the world. There is a major difference between being the Bully, and being the Person who fights back ferociously on behalf of the victim. I don’t like this Mean Girl behavior, and I won’t take it laying down, whether it’s directed at me, one of my friends, or even a total stranger who I’m merely sympathetic to.
But of course that comes with a cost. This makes some people think that it’s okay to say hateful, awful things to me.
When I stuck up for a homebirth mom who lost her baby, @JessicaGotlieb called me a “raging asshole” and implied that I was stupid. I’m not surprised after the article she wrote about the poor, homebirthing mother. And you guys know how I feel about women who deny that birth rape can exist. *shaking my head*
When I told Elita @blacktating on twitter that I wasn’t going to let her bully me, she called me a “nasty bitch” and a “racist” in response. I guess it really upset her that I wasn’t going to participate in her attack on me.
But I’m just embarrassed for them. No matter how many double birds I’ve thrown at my computer, I don’t make it a habit of publicly attacking a fellow woman like that, especially without any direct provocation. Especially not someone in my tiny, close-knit community of mom bloggers, activists, or advocates.
This infighting has GOT to stop. I’m not saying we should all agree, because we most certainly should not. As responsible, thinking women, it is our responsibility to debate the issues and work on the scary solutions. But, please, if you’re hanging around the blog of someone you hate, close the damn window and walk away now. Or, If you’re tempted to repost somebody’s words all over the internet in order to drum up hatred for some person who couldn’t care less about you, just cut it the fuck out. That’s nutcase behavior. And, if you’re one of these women who thinks that name calling on Twitter (or your blog, or a comments section) won’t come back to haunt you – I’d like to let you know I’ll be at BlogHer ’10 this year. Come say that shit to my face. I triple dog dare you.
Let’s get it together, ladies. We are grown ass women.
