the roundness of life...

let's get one thing straight:

(caps lock, please) I AM SO EXCITED.   ! ! !

 (AKA: cuz i'm all there, baby....and other pregnancy musings...this will be a long ramblerific post, and i don't care...this has been half written for months and i am determined to get it off the docket.)

ICAN hooked me up with a free photo shoot, the photographer was looking to expand her maternity portfolio.

(or: the journey to try to comprehend everything in about nine months...)

home birth. i am planning one.

i'll try to keep this simple: to me, a home birth just makes sense...this has nothing to do with my supposed distaste for the mainstream, nor is it a conspiratorial rampage toward the birthing preferences of other women. every woman has the right to choose an epidural, or a cesarean, or a water birth, etc.. we all do what we feel is right, and i appreciate the many choices. (and for that i apologize now for the biased approach this will soon take toward birthing attitudes/ locations...let's just say i've found myself within the intriguing world of "normal birth.." i'm not going to go into the politics, statistics, or try to convert anyone. i'm trying to steer clear of the "debater" blog; this is just my story. )

an amateur face painter was also looking to expand into the growing world of baby belly painting. made my bathtub blue.

with that said, the past few months have been an incredible learning journey for me, along with the pregnancy.


most of my readers (me, tyler, and a choice few others) know that teddy was delivered via c-section. at the time i was disappointed, but looking back i know that i was wildly self-uneducated about birth.

this was probably the only book i picked up with the subject during that time, most likely due to my ambivalence/ denial. i believe that my culture has been trained to fear and mistrust birth. it's rarely "felt" beyond the discomforts of heartburn and the vanity pains of preventing stretch-marks.

 here's your typical go-to: a cutesy, surface spit shine on the pregnancy experience. (but if you are curious about heart burn, hemorrhoids, etc, it can be useful.)

this is a small sample of the different books i've picked up/borrowed this time around , motivated initially with merely avoiding a repeat c-section for when i would deliver in the nearest hospital.

a few months into this pregnancy i found myself dragging my feet about the most typical aspects of the "pregnancy experience." finding an ob, going to check-ups, and getting blood work all stopped containing relevance. the prescribed monthly check-ups and dna screening was beyond tedium for me; i felt like my pregnancy was being forced through a narrow, "everyone has to conform to this protocol" tube.  i felt like an outlaw when i quit that business altogether...




my ob told me that a vbac (vaginal birth after c-section) was unlikely for me, and to not get my hopes up.

pregnancy and child birth for a healthy woman is about as complicated as digestion, in it's own miraculous way.

i think that was the first time that i realized something was wrong, about everything, but i didn't know how to explain how i felt because i didn't know there was an alternative (even with my own mother birthing 7 of my siblings at home..) it made me really mad. and sad. i went home and tore up the typewriter with some p.o'ed lady poetry, writing about my pelvis that she deemed irregular.

jokingly i told tyler that i was just going to have the baby at home. at the time i was mostly teasing, because i knew how he'd react, and also because i knew so very little about home birth.

i hated going to the doctor's office. it seemed to turn a miracle into a medical routine. i wanted to reclaim my pregnancy.

finally this whole birth thing was making sense to me:    
"one cannot help an involuntary process. the point is to not disturb it." -dr. micheal odent

one is part of the natural continuum of life, and the other is a sad deviation from it.

the way i feel about home birth to a medical birth is like seeing an old forest over a sprawling gray strip mall.

which brings me to one of many valid conclusions: NATURE CANNOT BE IMPROVED UPON.
throughout my life this has been my subconscious motto. and of course it would follow me into my pregnancy and birth preferences.

i thought i was huge then... elle oh elle.

MANIFESTA:

to sum it all up:

1. all women have the right to sacred, fantastic, profound and loving birth experiences. childbirth must never be viewed by birth attendants as routine, cumbersome or insignificant.

2.childbirth must happen in physical and emotional privacy. women's vaginas in birth are as sacrosanct as they are at any other time; routinely penetrating them with fingers, forceps, scissors or hooks is a severe violation against the most fundamental rights women have to privacy and protection of the self (amen)...women's bodies are never to be regarded as learning aids. no institution has the right to impose spectators on any woman's birth.

3. it must be recognized as a criminal act to mutilate women's bodies in childbirth.

4. all women must have easy, free access to information that illuminates the natural childbirth process for them, and helps them prepare for their births, and assists them in preparation for care of their newborns. this information must be given in a way that does not view birth as a dangerous, biological anomaly, but as a natural, joyous rite/right of passage.
(numbered points courtesy of leilah mccracken, birthlove)

deborah the midwife let us borrow a fetoscope. this is what a midwife appointment is like. simple, easy, with plenty of time to ask questions and learn. at the moment she's loaned me bunches of material on breastfeeding.

this pregnancy has been somewhat of an anthropological study of the american birth culture. deep, i know.whatever.

i find a great feminist debate over this large aspect of reproduction. generally it starts and ends with birth control, let's see it expanded into birth. u.s. women, in a cultural context, are for the most part offered one choice for birth: the hospital. those who seek elsewhere are seen as fringe dwellers by the public majority, not to mention the opposition with insurance and midwives. it is a struggle to pull from the great gravity of the hospital to more natural choices. i decided to go with a midwife at 35 weeks pregnant. for those of you who aren't too familiar with pregnancy that's pretty late in the game.

birth is as old as the earth

it was a good thing. the week after that my ob dropped me like a hot potato. i was non-compliant, meaning i hadn't gone for a long while. i wasn't too hurt, but it confirmed my beliefs that the hospital wasn't there for me, i was there for them. and then the insurance sent us the invoice: $743 for that appointment where i was dropped. but weighed before hand. yes, it seems a little screwy. 


it is my hope that this attitude slowly transforms as more women learn about their choices and rights as a human and as a consumer. birth is a celebration, to be revered, not just a medical conveyor belt.


and that i'll have a safe, happy home birth, of course.
i trust my body. the baby and i swim in the water to stay strong despite the new girth, joining the Aqua Zumba Ladies Who Pact Never to Stop at a Krispy Kream Drive-thru After Class, as well as the rheumatoid folk at aqua nice n' easy. :) i am so grateful that my husband and i are both on the same page, looking forward for this experience, which could be any day now. .... trust me, you'd be excited too.

it looks a little something like this. :)

i am so excited!

the briefest of flashbacks...

once upon a time i was a single mom...

...to better understand the present.




(all of my teen pregnancy/parenting pictures are on a computer up the hill at my parent's house -trust me, they're good- as well teddy's baby pics... most of the photos seen here have been remotely scavenged from my old blog and fb.)



can anyone guess what happens when word gets out that there's a pregnant teen considering adoption?

answer: she gets courted. called. begged. bribed. and she meets everyone who has tried starting a family but who has yet to be successful. don't think me callous...being on one end of the adoption rope has filled me with great compassion for those folks on the other. i think being a scared pregnant teenager sums up the painful irony of two loving, stable people who can't get pregnant. we all reek of desperation.

life fact # 29: i have survived a teen pregnancy. i do not recommend it.

the weight of stereotypes and instant judgments crash down upon you with deep ocean force, and while the crippling is temporary the hobbling is forever, albeit a strong sort of hobbling. "wutsamatta wich'u?!" kind of awesome new toughness chip on your shoulder. frankly, i'm extremely proud of my self.

i know i sound flippant. there just isn't any real way to describe the hurt and disappointment i felt. i am content simply calling teen pregnancy a night-mare come true.

the fam trekking down sentinel dome..teddy up front on carl...i'm in the back striking an unforgettable pose.

 (i would be remiss if i did not mention my family's total support of teddy and i. how many other single moms do you know take modern dance classes, get full access to a lot of gorgeous land, and eat for free? love you mom and dad. xoxoxoxo.)

this sums it up: there was me, and that means teddy was there too. we were the number one duo.

and we lived in the woods.

two babies!

 with much pain and confusion i choose not to be a single mom. i wanted the baby to have two ready-made parents and i wanted to go on, get over it, and go crazy on this world and start back where the pregnancy began: in school, with a lot of goals and expectations.

man....if there was ever a family to be a single parent in. these are my siblings, their children, and my parents. can you even spot ted and i?

i think there's a reason i can hardly remember this. i was trying to survive and not bond with teddy. breaking the laws of nature.

paradise

 i was so young (still young now, but happily growing in maturity with experience..). and what's crazier than planning to survive this sort of life-long-pain of adoption is the birth father legally coming in (from a lengthy distance) and reversing the adoption. teddy came back to my trembling arms just a few days after i had signed the "dissolving of parental rights" papers and watched the tail lights disappear into the night with my baby.




all of a sudden i was the mother to the baby that my body had grown unwillingly (well, the body willingly, the mind not so much..)



it took a while to get used to people asking me if i was in fact the mother of this child, for instance at the grocery store. well-meaning elderly women went away shaking their heads. i tried my best to keep up appearances in public, so they wouldn't have to feel sorry for teddy. i got over the hype, and teddy and i just...were.

for now it sufficeth me to post at this surface level of feelings. it's a complex, beautiful, and strange story.. .like the traumatic, unnatural way teddy was born, or how it took me months to tell friends at school that i had a baby, and other sensitivities. teddy and i need each other. every single transition has been so hard and yet so easy. accepting my new role that was chosen for me by an old high school boyfriend has been... interesting, and without a doubt am i grateful for his reckless decision that concluded with teddy and i together, growing for life.


if i could change one thing cliche: 
if i could go back i'd try to relax during the pregnancy, and at least attempt to marvel at what my body was participating in; to appreciate the growth and take some of that stress off of a growing baby.


this blog segues me (hopefully) into another one.....pregnancy! pregnancy on purpose! a thoughtful, happy, present pregnancy! sharing this trip with my tyler! and the easy, bittersweet comparison between the two experiences.


 it's interesting that being in such a happy, pregnant place now with my soul mate can dredge up so much unreconciled grief. i am happy to report that i've faced the majority of it, and a part of me always knew that i'd feel the past so fresh once i was again pregnant.

and now onward. forward!!