Obsessions

I have become addicted to TripAdvisor and all the unofficial websites for my resort, and every baby travel website out there. Plus the airline and government websites and things like Seatguru that analyzes exactly which seats are good and bad and in between.

Seriously, OCD me has googled until her hands are broken. I found almost all of the sites on the entire internet. Am a control freak my peeps.

Wee Travel Baby Equipment across Canada & her blog Wee Travel - also has links for many other cities all around the world for renting baby equipment at resorts or business trips or when seeing family.

Travels with Baby is a great blog by a lovely mom who has also written a book, with all her amazing travel tips. Lots of links there to lots of resources.

Family of Five Vacations - seriously driving me nuts that anyone who isn't Mom, Dad, and 2 kids over 5 and under 12 is pretty much SOL for vacations, and this site has an entire list of vacation destinations that cater to large families and groups that don't fit the traditional mold. They also have a list of places that have baby clubs and kids clubs and the ages they cater to. Parents of multiples and blended families take note! Someday you will have money again and want to travel somewhere and this site could help!

The Travel Stop - great Toronto store for things for your trip.

These dumb rules about liquids are making me crazy, I must admit. I have a friend who works in a rather shall-we-say "secure type" area, and he has repeatedly laughed his ass off at this set of rules. All of the really threatening people are suicide bombers---so even if we all got onto planes naked and carrying not one thing and starved and dehydrated ourselves---we'd still be at risk from the guys who would just swallow a timer and implants made of Semtex and rub their bits together.

The key to preventing terrorism on planes is the same as any crime prevention. We need to watch out for each other and take care of each other and get to know our neighbors, whether on a plane or a street or a park. We need to be brave enough to get involved and tell someone when we see something suspicious and we sure as hell can't just leave it all up to the government and pretend it's all about whether or not we accidentally put a 4 ounce bottle in our carry-on as opposed to a 3.4 ounce.

Serious eyerolling here---we drive boring ol' people like me up a wall with this, but we still to this day have never secured the rear entrances of airports properly. I can't wear a decent nursing bra because of the metal detectors, but anyone with a pulse can wander onto a loading dock after jumping a fence near the 401.

Why yes, my government is run by a bunch of morons, did you assume otherwise?

Anyway, I have bought all of my mandatory teeny bottles of stuff and am just organizing medication lists and baby supplies, and I will be a good little Canadian and submit to the mandatory virtual colonoscopy aka security inspection all of the law-abiding citizens have to endure.....but I will still insist that it is stupid as shit!

Funny thing about the baby supplies. I never really thought about all the stuff I'd have to bring besides the car seat, but it turns out that I am going to have to do a WalMart run when I arrive. Baby food is not sold or provided at the resort of course, and shipping it involves potential breakage and customs thingies and weight overloads. They have Gerber and other major brands so I'm hoping it will all work out. Diapers are expensive at the resort, so either I bring those and wipes and a bunch of other things, or just pray and hope I can fit it all in. Our Pack and Play weighs 3000 pounds so I'm thinking about buying or renting a lighter one like the new Phil and Ted's portable foldable 8 pounder. (Too expensive for a new one I will rarely use, am thinking about Craigslist?) My very lovely sweet friend loaned me her Quinny Zapp travel stroller; which also happens to work well on beach sand and yet fold tiny! I love my bugaboo but the risk of it being crushed by a stupid airline accident, i-yi-yi. No.

I am busy buying the kids clothes that fit and shoes and I've scheduled a hair cut and color. I'm going for a wax and manicure/pedicure this week. I bought some new lightweight luggage, enough for all of us to be able to pack! I even got another friend to loan me her old iPod Touch so I can surf without risking a $1000 bill from stupid Rogers for international data roaming or risking my laptop getting stolen.

I just haven't bought myself any clothes. No bathing suits. I have some old shorts and tops and things that fit. But except for sandals & water shoes, nothing so far. Mostly because I haven't lost as much weight as I'd like. And what I have lost, hasn't come off of my stomach. My face and back and legs and arms are skinnier, but I think that the slacker muscles are not going to suddenly tighten up prior to my trip. I am out of proportion, you know?

Which means I am really really going to look four or five months pregnant, unless I wear a bathing suit with German engineering so tight, it's like a girdle. Never mind the lifting of sagging things I'll need! Not very comfortable on a beach....

I am trying not to care, but as we've discussed, I am vain. I try to transcend it and be better and even kinder to myself. But in the end, I am obsessed.....

So any more travel advice, tips, ideas, thoughts, offers of free instant painless plastic surgery?

Bloody hell

I am exasperated to the nth degree right now.

My husband has been away and things have conveniently gone nuts in the meantime. The kids have all been sick with stomach ailments and colds and coughs.

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The very expensive crib broke in the middle of the night and thank goodness Julius woke up and cried. Something bad might have happened....I don't even want to think about it. I just never ever want to hear another asshole asserting that cribs are always safer than the family bed. We had it professionally put together, and it didn't matter. Reality is that cribs break all the time and babies get caught between mattresses and the side and BAD things happen. I don't know what we're going to do now. He won't fit back in my uterus, not that it was a safe place....

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We've had more snow than anyone can believe and the city has decided to barely clear any away. I think it's because the private contractor who clears snow for the City of Toronto was made responsible for any snow related road damage this year, and as a result is not letting the plow blades get too near the roads and curbs. Except then the roads still have snow on them. Ooops.

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My Doctor has still not called back, which is bizarre. Dr.J. always returns my calls because she knows me and knows I'm not just calling to chat. I've called her office again for the eighth time and they have the report but she hasn't called. Meanwhile I am still having fibroid related symptoms and am getting increasingly freaked out.

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My brother in law P has finally agreed to come back to Canada, since he has no money, no friends and no family in Belgium. (Ok, technically he has a wife but God forbid she pay for some food or get him a Doctor. Did I ever mention that they are still legally married? Yah, class act there...) We have sent him a plane ticket. He won't be in my city, but instead is going to stay with another set of relatives and hopefully in a place of his own eventually. But since his mental state is a disaster and he is drinking again, he will likely not even get on the right plane, or he will have a breakdown in the air and get tasered by the RCMP. (The Mounties ain't what they used to be.)

Meanwhile he has become a weak sick old man who could hardly hurt a fly. A year of starvation, semi-homelessness and barely treated mental illness will do that to a guy. The Doctors were shocked he was alive a year ago considering the condition of his heart and liver. I can't imagine the state he is in now.

And yeah, we'll have to pay out of pocket for medical treatment for him. He paid taxes in Canada as a citizen and resident for 30 years and later as a non-resident but since he lived abroad, that's all erased. He won't qualify for welfare or disability or anything. Remember, here in Canada we abandon our citizens as soon as they cross the border, so don't let anything bad happen while you are gone!

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Next problem: I am trying to deal with the house reno design all by myself, but that isn't really working. I am pretty practical. I don't want to do a design that will result in a huge legal fight and on our narrow city lot we can't do everything on earth, but we can do a nice average house. But without my husband's input it's useless to go much further.

And he refuses to look at it. And the roof is falling in. Kind of a problem when it is snowing inside the bedrooms....denial will not work forever me thinks.

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My final thought for the day? I'm really hoping hard that Obama fires his new Head Chef for the White House, Sam Kass. Can't link to it right now, (updated: links done )but if you go to the New York Times Well Blog, you will see a quote from him where he asserts "the abundance of high fructose corn syrup in lunches and snacks has been shown to have a direct link to the attention deficit disorder epidemic." Except for that whole pesky issue of SCIENCE. You know the thing that Obama promised to follow? In the Inauguration speech?

Look, HFCS sucks, and it isn't healthy for anyone, but I am really fucking sick and tired of idiots saying that mental illness and poverty is caused by moral failings and if we all just hitched up our britches and ate right we'd all be able to ditch our meds.

So here's hoping Obama decides to google the International Consensus Statement on ADHD and believe what over 100 Doctors and Scientists signed in a scientifically credible peer-reviewed publication.

Cause I don't need this. Just don't.

Heroes with clay feet

So some of you may not have ever really read anything by my heroes. You know how much I admire Dr.Suess, aka Theodore Geisel. Well, he is lovely, but he isn't the subject today.

Today we're going to talk about the funny ladies of the world. Specifically the moms. Erma Bombeck is a woman I have always deeply admired. She and her compatriots in comedy, made it okay to laugh about being a mom and a wife, and not just a stepford clone. We could tell the world about yelling at our kids and chill about it, and no one minded. Hell, most of them got journalism awards and Emmies. I am pretty damn sure that when Erma wrote,"Being a child at home alone in the summer is a high-risk occupation. If you call your mother at work thirteen times an hour, she can hurt you," that no one called the police. In fact, I'll bet that was published in her weekly column and repeated on network television on Good Morning America, and guess what? No one even freaked on her and called Children's Aid. Like twenty years before blogs were invented, and everything!

What's that you say? Oh, that she wasn't infertile, she didn't realize how preshuuss her kids were and that's why she made fun of them?! Yeah, except that she was infertile, and her first child, a daughter, was adopted after they got the news, and her next two boys came as a surprise to her fertility doctor. And her I'm betting.

And she still wrote, "Children should be judged on what they are - a punishment for an early marriage."

But she was sane, right? She didn't have ADD like me, or bipolar illness like certain other moms, or post-partum depression. Weeeellll, except that actually she did have post-partum depression, and way back in the seventies, when nobody on earth was talking about it, she wrote a book on it. Here are some more bits of her writing I like. You should definitely read page 18. Honestly, it's like a manual for mommyblogging. Frankly, that exact column, "Motherhood - Love and Laughter" is the reason I blog. Because if I wasn't making fun of them, I would lose my fucking mind as I flush yet another toilet full of shit, that some mysterious almost teenage boy forgot to dispose of on his own. (You know how you think that when they are toilet trained, you are done dealing with their poop? Nope... every.damn.day.)

(Did I mention that I like to swear?)

(Fuckin A alright baby!)

It really does make me sad that we just don't seem to have that kind of humour nowadays. Everyone seems just so determined to be the perfect professional parent that no one is allowed to make a joke unless it involves puppies or kittens, or muffin recipes. I tried to talk about how I gave ground up adult food to the baby and was just being a whatever mom about feeding the kid, and I discover that you overanxious new mommies have given it a bloody name? And there are books, to take all the slacker fun out of it? Helllooo? What's next? I'm afraid to even guess.... Someday Sarah Silverman will have babies, and please God I pray that she makes fun of her kids and makes videos ridiculing them! Please? Please God?

I love Carol Burnett, and Lucille Ball, and Lily Tomlin, Bette Midler, Roseanne Barr, Gilda Radner, Brett Butler, Jennifer Saunders, and Dawn French. And lots of them made jokes about wanting to strangle their children and yell at them, and guess what? Not only did they rarely get scolded, and certainly no one on the planet ever accused them of abuse, but surprise, they got PAID for it.

Just like a lot of mommybloggers do.

Gee whiz.

In all seriousness, if there is anyone in the blogosphere who does not know what I am referring to, just go here and here. I agree with Tertia and Cecily on this one as you might have guessed. I am not linking to the original woman involved, because she wants the linking to end, but I do support her and hope she is okay. And I wrote this, because I wanted her to know that she didn't need to apologize to me or anyone else, IMHO. Erma never did, so fuck em all.

As a former abuse victim, I get why some people think they need to act, but guess what asshole, you need to act when you see a child actually being abused, not when you see a random writer on the net making a joke.

But I know what you are thinking, better safe than sorry, cause hey, what about the children?

Actually they do better if they stay with their parents, even abusive ones. Concern trolling is not helpful.

Yes, yes, you are not convinced, well, let's link to The Goudge Inquiry Report. There was yet another case filed today for yet another wrongful conviction of an innocent man who disgraced pathologist Charles Smith sent to jail. The man was grieving, in total agony, and he was arrested and told that he must have killed the baby, since well, you know, babies hardly ever die on their own. Dr. Charles Smith was kind of a concern troll in a way. He assumed that if a baby died, someone must be to blame, and he was going to punish them. Any and all off-handed remarks were evidence of a killer's heart. He made up the rest from there. No, that isn't a misprint. He made up all the forensic evidence, and hid anything that would exonerate the parents.

(Did I ever mention that he tesitified all over the US? And that he admitted to making up that stuff as well? And that all over the US there are likely innocent people in jail? Maybe some of the lawyers/prosecutors reading my post might want to do a search on their records. Just in case.)

In too many cases to count, on little more than the say so of gossip, with very little forensic evidence, the grieving innocent parents were sent to jail, and their remaining children adopted out, and never ever told that their parents were forced to give them up. When the parents got out of jail, their fertility was monitored, and if they got pregnant, they were forced to either have an abortion or give the new baby up at birth.

These children's lives have been destroyed, and their parents lives were destroyed, because no one cared about actual evidence of abuse. Instead, they felt like being, you know, "better safe than sorry."

Seriously, to the grieving moms out there, if, after your baby was stillborn, or died of SIDS, or pneumonia, or heart failure, you were arrested, and called a murderer, and sent to jail, and your older kids were taken away and adopted out to possibly abusive foster parents, and you were never allowed to have another living child again; what would you do?

And if it was because of a nosy neighbour, or a tweet, or bit of gossip, or a blog, would that make it okay, cause it was better to be judgemental and safe than sorry?

I don't think so.

I'm letting Erma have the last word.

There is a thin line that separates laughter and pain, comedy and tragedy, humor and hurt.

bury the lede

The government is prorogued and doing absolutely fuck all for the economy because Harper doesn't believe in government spending. I wonder how he'll feel when massive numbers of people on EI drain his damn treasury instead of contributing taxes for it? Or when they get depressed and go to health care providers and charge up the system?

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Also, the vast majority of Liberal Party bloggers, members, and the national media are utterly incapable of reading either the Elections Canada Act or the Liberal Party constitution. They just keep proposing ideas for a leadership process and panicking and shitting themselves. Instead of, you know, READING WHAT THE LAW ALLOWS. I for one, refuse to fucking keep clarifying it for them. Morons. If you ever wondered why I don't feed into Liblogs blog aggregator for my political posts, this inside baseball echo chamber is the exact reason. The national news media? Even worse. Double sourcing? Bah.

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Exams are coming up this week, and I'd love to post about how hard Kaz is working and how great his new school is, but I can't. He barely has to study. The materials, the subjects, hell the entire curriculumn is a joke.

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Julius is nursing a bit more, but really is screaming in terror into my breast as he goes to sleep. Lovely. My baby cries out in fear at the mere sight of his mother's chest. Just what I wanted for Christmas.

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I am exhausted and we have lots to do, but my husband, without asking me, keeps inviting his entire family over to dinner. Without asking me. They are lovely and sweet people and I don't mind hanging out with them, but why can't we ever just order a damn pizza? Why can't we go out to dinner to a restaurant?

Did I mention that he never even consulted me?

Yah.

Hard to slam him though, considering that his brother in Europe will either be dead or in a locked hospital facility by morning.

Say a prayer. Just don't ask me which outcome you should pick...personally I'm leaving it up to God. Let him decide--fucker seems to just want my BIL to suffer.

My son has returned!!!!!!!

I am so so happy right now, because my son Kaz is back in my arms, black eyed, stitched, tanned, taller, thinner, and all in one piece thank the Gods!!!

We picked him up yesterday at the camp drop off, far north of here in the burbs, and yes we were able to avoid that crazy explosion that rocked the city, I guess that's the end of propane stations in Toronto, or hydrogen stations for that matter, and hydrogen cars. Time for electric methinks....

Good news: he had a wonderful time and wants to go back.

Bad news: he had a wonderful time and wants to go back.

Apparently, last year's camp was hell and this one was heaven. His exact words.

I lost the battle on him going to sleepaway camp, and Mr.Cotta won, but at least he is at a good camp this time and not a shitty one, and yes, I am trying to hold my head up high, and make the best of it.

Help!

Anyway, I'm trying to focus on my birthday tomorrow, because lordy lordy I'll be FORTY. I plan on having lunch with a really great old friend, and then shopping. I may still be out of shape, but I need some shoes and my feet have gone back to normal, so like Wilma Flintstone, it's time to charge.

hehe, anyone wanna be my Betty?

It's official

Either my writing sucks, or most of you never click on links, or you have no sense of humour.

I'm going to blame the fact that you didn't click links for the reason why so many of you did not get that I was attempting to imitate the style of the blog-writer for StuffWhitePeopleLike. It's less painful than contemplating the possibility that I suck as a writer, and you do seem to laugh at other things I write....so nevermind.

As for Earth Hour, I do believe in being Green, I just hate the guilt industry that has built up around making individuals, especially women feel shitty and sad about their environmental obligations. Governments and corporations have total control of what kind of things appear in the marketplace, and we can only buy what is available, mostly lousy products that harm the environment, yet events like this are designed to make us feel like we CAN do something.

When in point of fact, events like this do nothing.

For example, a little while back, I had a chat with Glen Murray at a political event, (he is considered a sustainable cities expert, green guru, yadda, yadda), and according to him, there is not one family car on the market that is friendly for the environment. The Prius is too small for the average family to drive in and fit groceries or school bags in, and cannot be used by anyone who has to drive elderly parents or whomever around. And it has bad mileage on the highway.

There are no minivans that get decent mileage, and most so-called hybrid SUVs are only designed to get better acceleration. In his words...."Stop feeling guilty, you can't do anything as long as there is nothing on the market to buy, and it's unfair to blame families and consumers."

Now, can I do a few things around the house? Sure....but none of them add up to dick. A few kilowatts here and there is not going to do anything even across multiple homes and cities. Not compared to what industry and government can do. They have refused to upgrade our electrical infrastructure for years and years, and megawatts now leak from the power wires that transport electricity from the grid so badly, that we could literally not bother to build an entire nuclear station here in Ontario if we just upgraded those alone. Same exact situation for water and sewer lines. (Did you know clean water makes us healthier too? And leaky sewer lines spread disease and bacteria like E.Coli? Some people believe that leaky power lines cause cancer-can't confirm that rumour? And all that leaking from every where increases health care costs.....)

But fixing that might mean increasing taxes and spending on boring things, like sewers, instead of *cool* *exciting* stuff like MRIs and fighter jets and tanks.

It's like so many other situations in life....media makes us feel guilty for being shitty evil consumers who need correcting and neglects to mention the real bad guys, the corporate bastards who refuse to pay taxes, and his buddy the cowardly politician who is afraid to tell the voter the truth to their face. Much easier to beat up on Larry Lunchbox and his family.

Much easier to placate the masses with bread and circuses.

Like Earth Hour. Nice Circus, huh?

Dr. Suess, my hero

The name of my blog, No Matter How Small, came from a saying that you are about to see in the media a lot right now, "A person's a person, no matter how small" from the new movie "Horton Hears a Who", recently released as a full length feature.

Well nowhere on that official movie site will you read the real truth about Dr.Suess and his very very political background. The movie studios like to sanitize everything, to make it all shiny and perfect and boring. But that's not a good idea for a guy like this, or an issue as complex as the ones he devoted his life too. You see Theodore Geisel, or Ted, as he came to be known, was a true believer in human rights, a strong advocate for the little guy and the best all around subversive the world has ever known. Subversive because he spread his message through children and mothers and nursery rhymes. He was the master of subtlety.

All his books are political, because they sprang from his first creation, the political cartoons he wrote. There is a PBS special here all about it. Just check out the gallery, or this site. He started as an advocate for African-Americans who were being treated horrendously in the US under Jim Crow laws and Jews who were being exterminated by Hitler. His position was that he wanted to get the US to declare war on Nazi Germany and the Axis, since it was the only way to save the Jewish people and all the other minorities who were being victimized. Conventional war, not nuclear war, by the way. He didn't like war, but knew that unless someone stood up to Hitler, the atrocities would never end.

Interestingly enough he had a bias against the Japanese people in his early career and his cartoons about them and the Empire are not merely antagonistic, but outright racist. The caricatures he drew were outrageous by today's standards. But that all changed after he went to Japan and met the people who lived there, the people who really were persons, after all.

When Dr.Suess wrote "A person's a person, no matter how small" in Horton Hears a Who he was referring to the unending American occupation of Japan after WWII, during which the Japanese people were treated like dirt, lost all their human rights, and disrespected as potential warmongers and terrorists in the eyes of the occupying forces. (Can anyone think of a modern day example, oh yeah...that Iraq thing.....couldn't be that lovely lefty Hollywood influence coming out?) It also refers to the atrocity of the nuclear bombs that were dropped on the people of Japan at the end of WWII, and the horrendous damage they did.

The dramatic change in his attitude is because he went to Japan and learned about the Japanese people through the friendship of a man named Mitsugi Nakamura, to whom the book is dedicated. He learned he was wrong, and he told the world. Horton Hears a Who is his mea culpa, the ultimate story of why we should never vilify an entire group of people, because after all, they just might be----just like us.

Not many people can publicly admit to making such a horrendous mistake, but he did. Having feet of clay myself, I never cease to admire my fellow life travellers who stumble and fall and have to pick themselves up.

To quote "The Political Dr.Suess" - "Yertle the Turtle, for example, is a cautionary tale against dictators. (Yertle is Adolph Hitler.) The Lorax contains a strong environmental message. The Sneetches is a plea for racial tolerance. (Some sneetches wear yellow stars, others do not.) Horton Hears a Who is a parable about the American Occupation of Japan. And The Butter Battle Book pillories the Cold War and nuclear deterrence. Even the Cat in the Hat's famous red-and-white-striped hat has a political predecessor in the top hat Uncle Sam wears in Dr. Seuss's wartime cartoons."

I have to say that I have always found it curious that the pro-life movement could have mistaken so totally his intentions, and assumed that no matter how small could refer to their movement. Fools---his wife set them straight, she has always guarded his legacy, and used her lawyers and considering my history, yes, I am very very glad of that.

I do wonder why he never had any children. His wife has discussed this slightly, but I've always wondered if they were infertile as well? Perhaps there was history of pregnancy loss with his first wife? Unfortunately, not an answer we'll ever know, but such a curiosity of mine.

Interestingly, even though the movie site has been thoroughly blanded by the movie executives in charge, Suessville has not. It is a very good retelling of his history as an ad executive, his history with PM magazine, Life, & Vanity Fair, his creation of cartoon training films for the troops (Private Snafu was the main character), and his history of authorship. One of the best stories of all time is about the creation of Green Eggs and Ham. Children's literature, and especially primers for children learning to read were very boring at the time, thus Cat in the Hat was created. Bennett Cerf decided that they needed more books this interesting, and wagered a bet that Ted could not write a children's book that rhymed with less than 50 words. The result---Green Eggs and Ham with it's repetitive phrases, and fabulous illustrations. To this day, if I want my kids to try a new food, I know which book to read!

My other favourite story from the site---Art Buchwald in his ignorance, chided Ted for never having written a political book, and Ted promptly picked up a copy of Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now!, crossed out Marvin K. Mooney, added Richard M. Nixon, and presented it to his friend. Buchwald put it all in his column the next day, and the day after that, Nixon resigned!

Who knew a children's author could be so powerful?

As for this blog, I have always believed that every person counts equally, whether it be the starving citizen of the Third World, or the wealthy and powerful. We cannot simply exclude others existence, simply because of our North American standard of worth. This was brought home to me when I attempted to get one of our national newspapers to accept as a submission an obituary for one of my lost babies. They had taken the entry for the paid obituary, but told me that any submission for an column obituary had to be of a living person, and one who have lived a life at that. Since he had never done anything with his life, never achieved anything, to them he didn't count. The overwhelming impact on my life---irrelevant. The fact that funerals and obits and grief are for the living---irrelevant to the horrid woman on the other end of the line.

This crushed me beyond words. I vowed right then and there that I would prove that my son did matter, that his life and death, however brief had changed me and the entire world. I would do things in his memory, I would make laws and change hearts and minds, all to let the world know that he had mattered and so did I. I still live by this, and every time I talk to a politician, every time I email a journalist, every time I write a post, I make that vow again.

I am a person, I count. Mothers are persons. We matter, the women and men who remember our babies. The world may think that we are nothing, just a few scattered individuals to be ignored or used but I know the truth.

Someday my very own version of Horton will come along, and instead of being treated like specks of dust, the world will know that grieving parents deserve better. The world will hear our voices ring out loud and clear.

And they will know that grieving mothers are persons too, no matter how small.

Just the distraction I needed

My leg cramps did calm down after that post went up, and then I took some sleeping medication, the stuff my doc gave me----happy sane momma = happy sane baby right? Had a good sleep last night, now I just need to replicate that for a week or so and life will seem less freaked out. Not gonna think about the rest.

If the kid comes out with three horns, I'm sure I'll hear I told you so from someone in the real world, so only the entire internet's gonna know, okay? You guys can keep a secret right? Good...
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Now for some amazing news! I woke up this morning and saw the National Newspaper Awards. Turns out that the Globe and Mail and Carolyn Abraham had a nomination under long features, for a story about the recent trend in people having funerals for their miscarried babies. (Behind a firewall since it was so long ago---let me know if you want a copy, I have it as a .pdf, and yes, you just might recognize a few people you know...(grin)) You all know that this is a subject and a story near and dear to my heart? One that I know is controversial, but so what? In the end, I am pro-choice, and I firmly believe that we can't suck and blow on this one, either we all believe in a woman's right to choose to get pregnant, stay pregnant, end an unwanted pregnancy and mourn the loss of a wanted pregnancy, or we don't. How a woman decides to view a pregnancy is her business, it's not for others to dismiss her feelings on the subject. We as a society have to start respecting other's personal choices, even the ones we may not agree with, otherwise, we may as well live in a dictatorship, right?

So to any members of the press reading this post, please vote for the story!!! It's up against a story about spring cleaning, and another about a shooter in Montreal. Fine stories I'm sure, but this is 25 times better IMHO.

Not that I'm biased or anything! chuckle
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I'm off the see a movie tonight with the family. We're going to see our favourite new anti-war anti-occupation of Iraq political movie. We're going to see Horton Hears a Who! What, you didn't think it was political? You silly people, you actually thought Dr.Suess was all about children's books and amusement? Oh my, you need to read my next post then. Just putting in links, it should be up in a few minutes.

Yes, a multi-post day....it's amazing what a good night's sleep can do. I am feeling embarrassed by the fact that I am sitting here blogging while others work around me, they know I'm high risk and can't do my usual painting, helping, sorting, but still it does feel rather odd, rather lady of the house, you know?

Oh well, I'm working too right? I'm making a baby. It just involves less outer work, more inner work.

48 hours

Lots of things to think about and say.

Monday morning we went for another growth ultrasound and checked the baby. And since it was a day off school and too early in the morning for a babysitter, we had to drag the kids along. I made them sit in the hall, luckily there were hardly any other women in the waiting room.

Anyway, Dinkypie was 22 weeks gestation, and ta-daahhhhhh drumroll please---measures 23 weeks, 3 days. They think he is already 1.3 pounds. Amazing! I know that growth measurements by U/S can be off, but still, he's a big baby. Just like my other guys. My BP is 110/65 and my his heartrate and mine were both good. No protein on the peestick. One little concern?

He's breech and apparently likes it that way because every U/S shows him that direction. I'm know we have lots of time and he will likely move several times, but I have to admit, I hate the thought of breech because here every breech baby is automatically a c-section after the term breech study the hospital participated in. And c-sections aren't risk free walks in the park either. Complications for baby and me mean a worse recovery and well, you just know I wouldn't be the woman with the section that goes like a zipper! More like a jagged butter knife. Personally, I think that babies can turn, even during labour and I don't want to schedule anything and make assumptions, but gahhh....after 2 vaginal births, I know I could successfully do this, sigh....getting ahead of myself again, aren't I?

I spent the rest of the day with the kids, and Mac had a little friend over for a playdate, so we all went tobogganing in the park. Okay---technically I stood in the cold in my big boots all bundled up and watched them go down the hills. I kind of feel guilty that they haven't been doing very much outdoors since I'm wiped most of the time and my husband has been very busy with work so he hasn't taken them anywhere.

I'm trying to register them for some good March Break & summer camps this time, give them a better time than last year. Maybe make a few playdates with parents who actually let their kids go outdoors or something. Yes, between the horribly wet icy slushy weather and the cloudy doom and gloom---it's been crappy to get out, and I have made zero effort. Too tired. Bad mommy award.

Couldn't help but notice this and this in the news. Read them....I'm not sure whether to be amused at the rewriting of facts in the first article, or confused about the last bit in the second article. Apparently she is writing "two adult novels, the first of which will be about the shenanigans of parents of private-school children". Well, on behalf of private school parents--trust me, we're not that different from public school parents, kind of normal actually. Based on what I know of parents at other private schools---they'll be a lot of made up stuff, exaggerated, overblown. I know the real life people who love their kids and actually want to take care of them won't make enough "shenanigans" for her, so I assume some very nice people will get hurt. Shameful, IMO.

Mac's appointment in the urology department of Sick Kids to followup on his testicular torsion was this morning. I insisted on seeing the staff doctor, not that there was much point---even after I explained the whole crazy story, they kept telling me that at this point they have no idea whether it will ever happen again, or if there is any diagnostic test that can predict it, or even if he is fully okay and recovered now. They think he might be fine and they think he has no scar tissue, but no one can tell for sure.

I'm so glad my tax dollars are at work. (frustrated grinding of teeth....)

I need to find another pediatric urology department at another hospital and ask them a few questions. Maybe get some different answers---so I can sleep at night.

I want to stay up and watch the Super Tuesday results roll in, but I have a feeling I'll be drooling on my pillow by that time. I hope I can anyway.

Living Coffins

Apologies for the lateness of this post, but I've had a slight crisis around here. Owning a home is like burning money sometimes. But I digress...

Today is Blogging for Choice Day in Canada. Yes we're using the A-word today people. Antonia Zerbisias started it in honour of the 20th Aniversary of R.v.Morgentaler. I've always admired Dr.Morgentaler because he truly was willing to risk jail to protect a woman's right to choose, and how many doctors do you know honour a woman's medical wishes to that extent?

Not many, in my experience.

Now, technically this case was the first and most historic....but the case that came just a short while later, Tremblay v. Daigle was a hundred times more important IMO. You see, the Morgentaler case made it clear that the government could not interfere with decisions between a woman and her Doctor. This resembled the mushy Roe v. Wade in the US and as such is a decision more easily overturned. Sort of like when SCOTUS screwed up royally recently.

Daigle v. Tremblay on the other hand, was definitive. A fetus is not a life in Canada until it is born live, and the sole person who may decide it's fate is the woman who is pregnant and best able to make that decision. Chantal Daigle for those of you who have never heard of the case, was a woman who tried to get an abortion after her boyfriend beat and abused her. (Most women who are abused by spouses are beaten for the first time while pregnant.)

She knew that if she had the child, it would never stop. Wife-beaters don't do it just once and repent. Is she ran, he would find her, stalk her, and eventually kill her. If he couldn't find her, he would sue for visitation and custody, and then, as now, a man guilty of spousal abuse is not considered to be bad parenting material. You know, until after he beats the child a few times. Sometimes he kills the kid before authorities are willing to step in.

After all, they have to be sure he really is a violent person before they save the kid. (I guess the bruises and broken bones on the woman don't count as evidence for that----eyeroll.) The solution of locking him up for life, well, I'd vote for it in a second, but since convicting a man of beating or killing a woman is unheard of in this country, or just about any other country on the planet---fat chance of getting a sentence longer than pre-trial custody.

You can read the whole story on the link above, but in the end, the Court closed off any avenues for a future abortion law. Most Canadians are quite content with that since they assume that most abortions are first trimester, and 90% of them are. A few go over that limit to the second trimester, women like Ms.Daigle who are beaten and abused but can't get one before then.

And then there's the women like me, the Bitches with the scarlet A on our chest. The ones no member of the public ever wants to discuss, the women who get a fatal or severely disabling prenatal diagnosis and make the hard decision to end the pregnancy of a very much wanted and loved child. We make that decision for the same reason that people decide to stop life support on the elderly, on the fatally ill, on those suffering in agony. Doctors like to pretend that they can save everyone, but sadly, they have limits too. The Catholic Church even recognizes this and allows live born people to decline extraordinary medical measures and simply die in peace, without tubes and machines in every orifice of their body.

But for some odd reason, this kindness and logical acceptance of a dignified death all stops at the door to the womb. Women like me are supposed to become living coffins waiting for the moment when the wrecked and barely functioning hearts of our babies stop. We are supposed to risk dying from preeclampsia and HELLP syndrome to birth dying micropreemies. We are supposed to risk our future fertility and our future children's lives to give birth to chromosomally damaged ones who be stillborn or die shortly after birth.

I've always said that the only thing worse than having a dead baby is not knowing you have a dead baby. Well, even worse---knowing you have a dying child in your uterus and being forced to sit in limbo wondering which day, which hour, which moment the death knell will sound. The psychological torture of that is incomprehensible.

And what about the children with serious birth defects who might make it, who might live, who might have a chance if we expend every ounce of our energy and time and money on them? Well, we have a universal hospital care in this country. But we don't have income replacement insurance, or daycare coverage for the pre-existing kids. And to paraphrase one doctor in Walker's story, "We spend a million dollars saving these babies, and then we abandon them and their families."

There is little or no social service supports for the parents of the seriously disabled in Canada. Compared to someone uninsured in the US, perhaps we have a better deal, but quite honestly, not by much. Home care is a joke, OT, PT, travel to appointments, nursing, psychologist coverage, special schools, are only basically covered, even for those of us who live in Toronto and have the access to the best care. And socially? Parents of highly disabled children live very lonely lives, society pretending they put them on a pedestal, but practically speaking, treating them like pariahs.

I'm well-off these days, a fact I'm grateful for every single second I breathe. I'm articulate, well-connected, and smart enough to research what I'd need to know. I have a husband who is supportive and kind and am surrounded by a wonderful community of friends and family, but even I'm not sure I could make it through the 24/7 rollercoaster of raising a severely disabled kid. Could a single mother? A couple living on miminum wage? An immigrant family without much english? A rural family who have to drive 6 hours each way to Toronto for check-ups with special clinics?

If it makes me scared, I can't imagine trying to walk a mile in their shoes.

So, our choice is a sad one at best. Society judges us, no one ever hears our side, and the medical profession tries to help us with the only tool they have.

I pray they always can.

Just call me....

Pee Pee McFarty.

or

The Barf-o-rama Babe

or the Heartburn Heartbreaker.

Sexy, eh? I think so. Or at least the part of me that believes in saying to hell with what others think. Pregnancy is just not like they show it on TV. They either show:

A. The badly dressed exhausted women waddling and shuffling along in slippers, donut crumbs on her shirt

B. Some cute young thing in lululemon pants showing off her perfect baby bump, skinny everywhere else, tiny hips.

Or my pet hate,

C. The fabulously wealthy dressed to kill in 3 inch heels pregnant woman off to close her third deal of the day after eating a few organic morsels for lunch.

In reality, all of these caricatures are non-existent bullshit, all of it designed to make women feel inadequate. With a lot of prep and money and some rest, I could look like C. But after a very short while, I'd have to take off the heels. I'd have a chocolate bar hidden in my purse to eat, because of the heartburn and starvation from the lunch. I have spent some more money on nicer clothes this time, so I might be able to look dressed to kill rarely for this pregnancy. But it will be RARE.

If I was B. I'd be quaking in terror at the thought of a vaginal birth with hips that small, and since pants cut that low rest directly over my bladder, I'd spend most of my time eithering running for the bathroom or peeing my pants. And there's no way you can wear anything like a pad the way they mold to your butt. So cough too hard, and peeing your pants in public is a very real possibility. And christ the skinnies get stretch marks too, so what's with pretending they have smooth lil' hairless scarfree tummies?

Although I may feel like I look like A sometimes that's kind of a depressing vision. I want comfortable pants, but too polyesterish or sweatpantish and I'll feel sloppy. I keep hoping I can find a cut that is nice, and fabric that is breathable/stretchable and maybe washable, but that combo is expensive or unattainable so far. Waddling is unavoidable, but comfortable shoes that aren't butt ugly shouldn't be such a tough request to make of the shoe manufacturers. I'm trying to avoid the donut crumbs, but seriously, on behalf the formerly flat-chested in the world....it's a weird experience to suddenly acquire a shelf. I need a bib I think. Basically it's easier to be comfortable like this, but most of us don't want to have to look like crap. And I bet there is a middle ground.

In real life, I bet all of these women are carrying gas-x in their purse, and tums, and all of them have trouble keeping up with their personal grooming, or at least contorting themselves to reach certain bits. They should show women having real morning sickness, past the first trimester, and not just the polite little version where the genteel mother-to-be lies on her bed with the vapours, or the bad girl version where she vomits like it's the morning after a kegger. Or acckkkk, I forgot my absolute utterly most hated stereotype, the brave morally superior nausea and vomiting sufferer who is told to tough it out, and is admired by doctors and society for never taking "those awful drugs that could hurt the baby." (Last part is uttered with lots of high-pitched judgment, usually by idiots who couldn't read a scientific paper if it hit them in the middle of the eyes. )

Speaking of teenage moms----could the media stop spreading the idea that teenagers all give birth effortlessly and perfectly and have no risks at all. Teens under 18, and especially 15 and under have a dramatically higher rate of miscarriage, stillbirth, preterm labour & neonatal death, birth defects, labour and delivery complications, etc. than the stereotypes portray. And it's not because the teen mother is being an irresponsible mother, or even because of social issues. Sometimes it's just because her body hasn't matured enough to properly carry a pregnancy. Ovulation and periods don't mean the rest of the body has caught up, so yeah, I wish the media wouldn't make it sound like hey, they're young and healthy, blah blah blah...life is all sunshine and risk-free puppies. HA!

I'm creating life here. It's going to get messy. But I shouldn't have to feel ashamed or pressured to live up to stupid stereotypes along the way.

So if we ever meet in real life and I fart or burp, I'm not going sputter with embarassment. If you look in my purse and see some spare undies and gaviscon, there's a reason.

Suck it up Miss Manners, Pee Pee McFarty has moved next door. And she ain't wearing no sailor dress with a floppy bow.

screw it all

Well Desperate Housewives wasn't much of problem, in case any of you are scared to watch. In fact, it was a quick finish in the drama area. All of Lynette's kids are safe and sound and completely okay. So is her husband, Tom. I was freaked out about it a while back because the tornado episode was a real shocker at the end. I thought the acting and writing really was off. Quite odd, usually the actress playing Lynnette kicks ass and I find the show itself to be good for a laugh. But the lack of reality in how a real woman would act upon discovering that her kids might be dead? Gahhhh. I sure as fuck wouldn't have been sitting there standing behind the yellow tape sipping tea. It would've taken 14 firefighters to hold me back from digging them out by hand. I mean, WTF?

For example, I've met a few people who show up to report on fires, and they tell me that whenever a fire happens, if the mother is rescued first and any other kids are still in there, she will rush back in to get them if there is even one breath left in her body, no question.
They actually assign cops and firefighters to hold her back because they know the adrenaline will rush through her body and regardless of size, she will become ten times stronger than she normally is. Becoming completely paralyzed due to shock is perfectly normal as well, it's just very very stark, and looks nothing like standing around.

It's human instinct. If it doesn't happen, it's unusual and you have to ask yourself, are they in physical shock, are they on drugs, are there mental health issues? Seriously, it's that odd. Which is why Lynette, IMO, did not look like a mother. She just looked like any other actress. Sort of ummm, standing there? ?

I thought for sure they would string this show out, emotional p0rn for sale, one commercial at a time. TV shows do this regularly, whether it's on soaps or on nightime, and most especially movies. They use the grief of bereaved parents and the terror we live with to pop their ratings, but never ever actually help the real grieving parents with our pain. We're just the used leftover crap they shun in real life.

But, no they ended it in moments. Like a big fat nothing. All those commercial promos, all those endless reverberating screams, (I'm convinced they juiced the audio on Lynette's scream after I complained about how fake it was.) and then, yayyy they're alive, and they disappear. Pffft. Over.

Now the other movie I watched this weekend, We Are Marshall, is incredible, unbelievable, a really good portrayal of how death and tragedy and grief are handled in real life and how it should be handled. It was in theatres in 2006, but being a football movie, I think it wasn't something on my radar. I could go on and on, but it is the kind of thing that you have to see for yourself. Sadness, anger, frozen denial, rage at innocent bystanders, a willingness to walk through fire to get to your loved ones, an unwillingness to move on with life, a desire to avoid the things you associated with the loved ones, people wondering how others can smile and move on when they are still so so sad, messy awful difficult human emotions in all their glory. All things I've witnessed in the nine odd years I've been dealing with this.

Reality is that people who have been through tragedy and grief aren't going to act as sweetly and as nicely as the public would like. We don't fit the mold that others want to see. We're supposed to crumple gently at their feet, looking like fallen angels, all sad and weeping. If we dare to speak up, we're shrill bitches, if we dare to demand justice, we're "not able to let go", if we keep asking WHY, we're told that we're suffering from an "adjustment disorder."

And hot damn, if we dare to raise our living kids as normally as possible, and refuse to treat them like delicate spoiled flowers, if we dare to bitch about the normal travails of life for even one second, one moment, one tiny slice of time, some of our readers might even unsubscribe from our blog feed, or stop talking to us in real life. I guess they'd prefer Lynette. Well, screw 'em if they'd prefer her current saccharine brand of bullshit mothering.

Even if I pay $100,000 for IVF to have my kids, or pay $100,000 from an unethical illegal adoption mill*, or even bury 14 kids before I get to raise them, my living kids still get to be little assholes who raise mayhem, and I still get to rip my hair out over it, because they owe me SHIT, no gratitude, no debt, no obligation, just normal kid lives. Sometimes the children we have after infertility and grief and loss are going to be less than perfect, sometimes they will be evil little hell-raisers, sometimes they will have learning disabilities, and speech disabilities, and emotional breakdowns, and maybe they will even be ugly and unattractive. (Gasp, horror, ack!)

I owe them the most normal parenting experience possible. Which includes all the bad sides of mothering, not just the sweet and pretty and cute ones that form the perfect Hollywood ending. They deserve to be parented, not treasured like little glass ornaments, and they deserve to know if they screw up, and not just to be lied to. If I tell them they are perfect and adorable all day, it will turn them into characterless little disney clones. And that would be wrong. If I tell them that their mother is perfect and always always right then that would be wrong.

And if I tell it like anything less than what it is, warts and all, then I will be lying to you my dear readers. I'm not going to pretend I live in a diaper commercial. Even if my pregnancies do involve Depends every time I cough, this is not the ideal life after infertility story you've been yearning for.

You need to watch TV for that.

*The point of the comment was to show extremes that we would go to in attaining parenting, and yes, although they are rare, unethical adoption mills do exist, and good potential adoptive parents are revolted by them and try to avoid them.

If any of you want more examples of this, read some birth mother and adoptee blogs, and you will see them discussed.

But really that isn't the point of this post. I actually know people in real life who have paid that much money for IVF, people who have lost that many children, and people who have adopted in less than ideal circumstances who have had to pay huge amounts to complete the adoption. And some of these people, not all, hold it over the kids heads, like "you owe me" for freaking forever.

It makes me sick when I see it, and as an adoptee, it reminds me of all the times I was told how "lucky" I was to have been saved from a supposed terrible fate of being raised by a single mother, etc. by my adoptive parents. Meanwhile, they were lousy parents themselves.

I am not trying to slam adoptive parents, the phrase was meant to show extremes in all parenting, and I certainly didn't single out adoptive parents only.

Desperate for the damn writers strike to be over

So it looks like I'll have to go find some friends who still work in the film industry. I can't stand not knowing what happens to Lynette's family on Desperate Housewives, and until the writers strike is over and Marc Cherry releases the next episode, we're in suspense. At the end of the tornado episode last Sunday, we saw that Wisteria Lane was a wreck, & the entire McCluskey house was destroyed, and Tom her husband, and all of her kids, along with Ida, had been in the basement, leading to the conclusion that they were all killed.

But, supposedly only one husband and one friend were killed, at least according to the spoiler website cache I found. Gabby's new husband, the mayor, who got impaled on a fence post, and Ida, who gets crushed.

The thing is, I don't think that they could kill 5 kids and another husband without any warning, and frankly it ends the entire Lynette story, since she obviously is all out of storyline. (She's already been a drug addict, had mother issues, lost two careers, had cancer, almost had 2 affairs, and caused multiple deaths of strangers, there isn't much else....) My husband calls any and all dead or at risk children emotional p0rn and refuses to watch TV shows like this, and quite often I skip them too. But I have to admit, I wasn't prepared for it, I hadn't seen the promos. Still, it bothered me less than usual and do you know why? Because as Lynette ran to the destroyed house yelling for her family, it just didn't ring true.

When you realize your children are dead, and you scream, it sounds different than that.

I wish I didn't know what I know.

Amazing how your friends can ride to the rescue

I was so depressed this morning I didn't even look at the newspaper. And Megan, who commented on my blog's last post, (second Megan in comments-two different Megans) just mentioned that the Globe and Mail has a story about Infertility Bloggers, and some of my most favourite women are mentioned! Gil, and Mel, and Julie, and Tertia are all quoted. (Megan, by the way, if you do feel like pointing out this story to the PMO and the communications people there, it might be a good thing, especially considering the Feds have a long way to go when it comes to treating bereaved moms and the infertile decently. Email me, we can chat! I am full of good ideas.)

After last night, I felt like I'd been kicked in the head, and after reading this, and all of your lovely supportive comments, (and emails) damn I feel better. After all, if Gil can be brave, then maybe I can be a little less freaked out right? And maybe, just maybe I can try to remember that there are so many infertiles in the Liberal Party that trying to figure out which one is me, might be harder than I thought. (Okay, everyone else is in the closet besides me and Dion, but STILL, it might be difficult. ) And if they do things that are unfriendly, then maybe that makes them the big assholes, right?

Sigh....hoping, but I do feel a touch better.

I have to go see my genetics doc right now, and figure out if the odds of having another Trisomy 18 baby, at my age and with my shitty old ovaries are "maybe", "possibly", or "totally fucking guaranteed." Dr.Eyebrows says DHEA improves egg quality, but who the hell knows, right?

Oh, and bonus! I have to go alone, Mr.Cotta just called to say that he has to go run and urgently deal with a crisis with a client. Nice---I'm facing a firing squad, and he's going to hold some rich dudes hand. Lovely. No where the hell did I put that valium? Fuck, fuck, fuck.

A man stands up

You know what I find mystifying? That Brenda Batisse is still not getting the help she needs, yet her friends and relatives have LOTS of time to google and blog search for their own names and hers. The number of searches with her name or theirs is enormous. Their narcissism is pretty pathetic actually.

Back on this post, someone left a comment, go look and then read my reply.

Anonymous, I assume you are the boyfriend in question, or a friend or an associate, because none of the men I know in real life would ever have the nerve to make such a pathetic excuse. A real man stands up. He doesn't weasel out of his duty to his family.

So, shut up. We all have to work, but if you have to go out of town, and leave your very far along pregnant girlfriend all alone, then you make sure she has people with her who will watch her and take care of her if she goes into labour early, or has, ohhh, I don't know, ANY problem at all. Obviously no one did. Brenda was abandoned.

You can't just have a baby die at home, go through labour & delivery like that, and not have anyone figure it out. Anything past the first trimester----the whole world knows it, either through the pain, or the blood, or the altered mental status of the woman concerned. For pete's sake, my neighbours, my friends, my associates know everything about my pregnancy just by looking at me. They hear everything, know everything, and I'm in faceless, depersonalized Toronto, for pete's sake! Small towns are supposed to be even worse for nosy neighbours.

The fact is that she didn't feel she could depend on this guy and share the truth, or she would have. Even if she didn't want to call anyone, doctors have lists of people they call in case of emergency labour or a mother or baby death, (They may not say it out loud to pregnant women, but that's why they ask for those names and numbers.) The sheer volume of forms I have already filled out this pregnancy alone with names, phone numbers, contacts is ridiculous, and I'm only 10 weeks along.

The Doctor had to have known something was wrong when she stopped showing up for OB visits. You get measured & examined every single time. And pregnant women don't just disappear and not go to appointments, so why wasn't her Doctor trying to find her?

If the hospital did not call the family, or the boyfriend or the emergency contacts, and get her some help when she was obviously in shock, and mentally traumatized from the loss, then they were negligent. At minimum, the hospital would've needed the father's or family's help to make funeral arrangements, sign legal papers, for birth and death registration, and stillbirth certificates, because it's not a like a body can just disappear.

If the hospital simply ignored all that then the hospital and her Doctor should be sued to within an inch of their lives.

But the lawyers aren't doing that, so that tells me that something else, that something awful is going on in that family.

Again, Brenda needs help, and maybe the system doesn't want to hold her boyfriend or her family or her hospital or her community responsible. They just want to heap blame on her head, and escape any moral or legal responsibility.

Well, tough shit, not on this blog.

HERE, the boyfriend and every other jerk who abandoned her in her time of need takes equal blame, and Brenda gets forgiveness.

Now, get off the net, and go pay attention to your family.

I have someone new to admire

There was a story in the paper recently about a woman who kidnapped a newborn baby from a hospital, and the circumstances of the kidnapper, who turned out to be a grieving woman who had just lost a pregnancy, and has....oh how can I put this? ZERO social and family support.

A lovely quote from a family member:"We think she must have had a miscarriage or lost it somehow, and it really screwed her up emotionally,” Dean Presseault says.

First of all Dean, a miscarriage happens BEFORE 20 weeks, and this woman was close to nine months along, which is a stillbirth. A pregnancy loss, completely unacknowledged by family and friends, and dismissed as nothing, isn't some minor league twisted ankle.

IT'S THE NFL YOU JACKASS.

And last time I checked, "screwed up emotionally" isn't in the DSM-IV anywhere. You know, in case you were thinking of attempting some compassion. Her aunt was talking today about her "difficult"past. Sigh....someone needs to tell these people to stop talking to the media and get her a lawyer, something no one has bothered to do. Reality is that this poor woman most likely knew she couldn't depend on her family or boyfriend to be there for her, or offer any support at all, so she hid the loss and lost her mind. Who can blame her?

The weekend update discusses how her boyfriend is being let out of jail since police think he wasn't involved. Yep, the guy was so close and loving and kind to the mother of his child, that he had no clue she had lost a baby. Hmmm, can any of you imagine your significant other not touching your stomach, not knowing that far along? Or perhaps the hospital she lost the baby at never called him, the most likely emergency contact, because hey, who cares about women with dead babies, right? They don't need compassion or dignity at aaaaaallllll.......

As you can see, my sarcasm dial has been cranked pretty high today.

So it was wonderful to read a Letter to the Editor in the Globe today that actually was brilliant, kind, and intelligent, unlike say...ALL of the media coverage to date.

It was written by Jennifer Cypher, my new hero.

After children die

JENNIFER CYPHER

November 5, 2007

Toronto -- Re Woman Charged With Abduction Was Pregnant (Nov. 3): I have had one miscarriage, and one of my children died shortly after birth. My heart stood still when I heard the reports of the baby abducted on Thursday. I felt sure that the woman involved had had losses of her own.

Supports for parents who have lost children are lacking, and our culture is unable to deal with child death on almost any level. Our midwives and doctors were wonderful, and we had a lot of support from family and friends, but extended professional help was extremely difficult to find.

Most people would rather do almost anything than hang around with people who have dead children.

I loved the last line the best.

I've been cared for after a loss, and I've been abandoned, and trust me, it makes a huge difference in how you react in the long-term. This letter is just about the only thing I've read that has even touched that concept.

I'm very glad the baby is back with it's own Mom and Dad, now I just hope the justice system can treat Brenda Batisse with compassion and decency. Cause both moms lost babies, and only one is getting her own child back.

Fuzzy thinking

Many fuzzy bunnies have been hopping around my head. I'm wiped tired, and unable to string a decent sentence together.

There are a dozen things I want to blog about and comment about, but none of them make any damn sense, because I want to blog about them, but I don't want anyone to KNOW I'm blogging about them. Kind of difficult on the internet, no?

Like some crazy Jesus freaks I found on the net, who believe in dominating their wives and hurting them and the wives think it's OKAY because they deserve it. (And no, this isn't consensual sex play, this has no safe words, it's just creepy.) Stockholm Syndrome personified. The ultimate trainwreck of all time. I swear if I could find these women in real life, I'd call 911 in a heartbeat. Blech, I have to stop thinking about this.

And then there is the infamous journalist wannabe mommyblogger who now has a kid going to school. She blogs under her own name, and unlike with us pseudononymous bloggers, I think she has a certain responsibility to shut up when she blogs about someone she knows, because she and her blog target could be recognized by others. I take great care to not identify anyone by name unless they are a public figure and a fair target. IMO, any logical person would try to be nice to the other parents, and say nothing about the teachers and school on her blog that wasn't perfectly lovely.

But not her....instead my dear friend got blogged about and denigrated for asking this woman to be the parent class rep. and possibly volunteer for various school trips, skating, etc. Now, lots of parents don't volunteer at the school, and lots of people don't want to be involved, but what's the harm in politely asking? They asked everybody else. Like SHE'S so special?

I guess to a woman who truly never wanted to be pregnant or have a child and has written about her disgust and dislike for the entire process in the newspapers for years, it makes sense that she wouldn't actually want to be involved with her kid's school. And no---she didn't write the stuff we write, like wow, I love my kids, but geez this part is hard/frustrating/boring, yadda, yadda. Instead she has used her kid for column and book fodder like so much trash. Like? She hired a nanny full-time right away so wouldn't have to actually change a diaper or make a bottle, and wrote about it. She refused to even attempt breastfeeding because she didn't want saggy breasts. (She has them anyway...she'd fail the pencil test by a mile.) She asked for a medically unnecessary c-section because she didn't want to her vagina to stretch out. (Who cares about the whole dead baby risk of medically unneeded c-sections, having a dead kid is no big whoop, right my friends? *eyeroll*) Once, as a bet, a bunch of us scanned through all her columns and books, and did not read one complimentary, kind, loving word about her daughter until the kid was nine months old!

This woman truly makes motherhood sound worse than the Bataan Death March.

Anyway, some of you will know who I'm talking about, if you want confirmation, leave your email in the comments, or email me and ask. Don't write her name in the comments. I'm not linking to her---because someday her daughter will learn how to use Google, and discover Mommy Dearest never actually gave a shit about her except to make a quick buck. Well, it won't be from this blog.

And yes, in case you are wondering, my daughter Mira would be the same age as her daughter is now, except that she died. The irony.....

Many tasks await me

So, didn't get the phone, or the Ipod Touch because I ran into a moron at the Rogers Store at the Eaton Centre downtown. I should've known better than to go there because that mall is filled with cute little twerps who only use cellphones to figure where the next club night blowout is being held. The salesguy looked like he's just rolled out of a drug den, complete with a nasty bruise on his head, a bleeding cut turning into a scar, and hangover.

Not exactly a corporate star....

I may try a store downtown, maybe one at First Canadian Place or Commerce Court, because those guys wear suits and don't smell like crack, but I am definitely not putting up with anyone telling me that I'm going to have pay some outrageous price plan for surfing the web on a phone, or accessing email. (The hysterical part? He was trying to talk about internet access on a phone, but had never heard of an RSS feed. I don't expect the average person to know it, but a guy selling me a pocket computer or web-enabled phone---duh, of course he needs to know that.) And here in Canada, we have the highest cell phone rates in the world, the most expensive internet access, and a crazy system of oligopoly that would make anyone else in the world file a class action lawsuit so fast it would make these jokers' heads spin.

For example, we now have number portability, and guess what happens? Yep, all three major carriers refuse to give deals to anyone switching carriers and have made it clear that they aren't encouraging it. Does that sound like free market competition to you? Hardly, more like collusion, IMO. Plus, I can't get flat rate unlimited deals at all, even though Rogers quite clearly advertises an unlimited plan right here. Can you say false advertising? Yes, I have a screenshot in case they erase it, so far, they just keep protesting to me that unlimited only means 25 MB, too which I laugh, since the dictionary definition is obviously quite different.

There is no logical reason why I shouldn't be able to buy an iphone here in Canada, but I can't. The ludicrous reason why is apparently because it would work on Wifi access and not just cell sites, and Rogers, Bell, & Telus are quite desperate to make sure I have to pay per kb, or on a permanent monthly subscription for the rest of my bloody life. God forbid Ted lose a nickel of profit. *eyeroll*

So why do I need an unlimited flat rate plan? Simple, just checking Facebook was 472 kb everytime I loaded a page, and 25 MB a month goes pretty fast that way. Getting email synched on a blackberry uses hardly anything, as long as it's text, but add a few attachments, or click on a webpage, or check bloglines and I'm going to run out in 3 seconds flat.

So, I'm stuck with either waiting for the iphone to come to Canada, unlikely in the near future, or getting a crappy phone only usable for phone calls, and buying an iTouch ipod so that I can surf the web for free (I can get a flatrate per month here, but only for the Toronto core) and read my email and blogs without lugging the laptop all over town.

This is very very ummmm inefficient, uncompetitive and totally outrageous. Another item on my large list of things that must be changed in the world, sigh....

But it is distracting as I wait for tomorrow. In the meantime, I'm nice and nauseated, and feeling rather wiped out tired, so hey maybe there's still something in my uterus of doom, and not just a puppy?

Distract me, and tell me how much you guys pay for surfing on your phones, or blackberries, or just your cellphone bills? Anonymously if you like, but seriously, how much per month and in which countries/states?

If you ever wondered....

.....why I am so convinced that things have to change with adoption you only have to look at the newspapers to know why.

Yesterday the Ontario Superior Court struck down the new Ontario Adoption Disclosure Act that allows for all adoptees and birth parents to have access to their original long form birth certificate. The Liberal government had worked very hard for a long long time to work out the problems with this law. It included provisions to protect adoptees from foster care who did not want their new identities revealed to people who may have been convicted of abusing them, yet still allowed those same adoptees to know their past history and other relatives if they so chose.

It included no contact provisions for those few tiny number of adoptees and birth parents who wished no contact. It was simple and it was easy and it worked.

And it's gone, (short of an appeal win), all because the judge was incapable of understanding that no birth mothers or fathers were ever promised closed records or privacy. Hell, my adoption order contains my full birth name including my real last name and was issued to my adoptive parents. All the adoption orders in the 60's on were like that. So if we do the math, every birth mother for the last 47 years knew that this day would come. And since many of them didn't put the father's name on the birth certificate, the only way to find out who the father is, is to contact them directly.

The whole court case is completely illogical. I was appalled at the quotes in the paper from Clayton Ruby, the lawyer who took it to the Superior Court to quash it. According to interviews he did, his nightmare scenario is a 35 year old Catholic woman who gave up a child at 15 after after having premarital sex, and now is terrified that she will be found by her 20 year old child. Only one problem with his logic----any woman who gave up a child for adoption instead of ending the pregnancy would be turned into a saint by the Catholic church these days. And let's count back to twenty years shall we? 1987 people, hardly a big deal to be a single mother then. Every girl I knew in my Catholic high school was sexually active by then and not all of them were so careful with birth control.

I had classmates who gave birth that year and got an apartment and welfare and daycare and went to college, kid in tow. (This was pre-Mike Harris years. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't bad either.)

I don't know who these mysterious supposed birth mothers and adoptees are who are "terrified" of being found out, but they certainly haven't done much to protect themselves. Excluding the convicted child abuser cases, there have been few if any "no contact" requests filed. People I know in government are privately laughing at the Privacy Commissioner and her disproportionate concern for these theoretical people. The program has costs hundreds of thousands to set up and yet no one actually WANTS to be hidden.

Duh.....

Even in the child abuse cases, the adoptees so far all want to find other family members, just not the person who harmed them.

But just for sake of argument, let's ask? Don't parents, even ones who have signed their righs away have a natural obligation to help their children, forever? I think they do. If my sons want to walk away and not talk to me once they become 18, they can, and if they come back and need my help, I have to give it to them. It's what being a parent is. And no, it doesn't go both ways, in reality, children owe nothing to their parents once they are grown. If they have raised their children well, they'll get back all the love and kindness ten fold. If not---well guess what? You reap what you sow.

No one is owed a relationship, but all children are owed their identity, their heritage, their race, their religion, their genetic family history. Mine was erased in seconds, at the stroke of a pen by a judge who never even met me. He replaced it with a lie. Any scientists out there want to comment on how accurate it is to transplant medical history, to literally change someone's genes? Anyone think that a Greek Orthodox child can become Ashkenazi Jewish, like my friend Dani had happen? I can tell you she was bloody confused years later. Or the piece-de-resistance---an adoptee I know was told she was Italian, and in reality was one-half African Canadian. The social workers figured it was better that she never ever know "supposed" shame of being biracial, so they even faked her non-identifying information. She figured it out when she grew up and looked different than her family, so she found her birth parents and got a surprise.

Yes, social workers try their best, but unfortunately their best quite often means not telling the truth in a misguided attempt to protect adoptive families. Records were changed, altered, things left out, like the real father's name, especially if he was a family member and the child was a product of incest. Crimes like sexual abuse never ever reported so that generations of women in the same family were victimized and adoptees were left with the medical damage, but no way of figuring out the truth.

Ahh, but Aurelia, you think, didn't you find your natural mom? Yes, I did, but that doesn't mean I can look at my own birth registration, because I can't. And now the Ontario Superior court has denied me equal treatment under the law compared to those raised by their natural parents. I am being discriminated against on the basis of my family of origin, and on the basis of the circumstances of my birth.

This ruling has permanently infantilized my legal identity, even though I am a legal adult in all other ways in Canada. Even mentally incompetent adults can know who gave birth to them, even though they are not allowed to handle finances, or make decisions about where to live. Criminals are allowed to see their own birth certificates, represent themselves in court, and vote, but they have more rights than me, because I only score 2 out of 3.

My right to know the truth about my own life trumps my ancestors right to privacy. Always has, always will.

For the non-adoptees reading this who are relieved that this won't happen to them, remember something, if they can take my right to security of person away, who's next? Which right will you be asked to sacrifice because Big Brother thinks he knows better?

I'm assuming that I'll be trolled at this point or patronized, people patting my head and telling me that it's all for the best that records are closed. You see, some adoptees who have spoken up online at the Globe & Mail have been attacked and had their comments deleted. If you look at this story you will see a full slate of comments in which an adoptee who wanted the law kept was called a "paranoid, mentally unbalanced" & "a psychotic, platinum plated bitch." This was by a "supposed" birth mom who never wants to be found who also referred to adoptees as "ingrates" to their wonderful adoptive families. Good god, she isn't hiding her true identity as an overly possessive adoptive mother is she? Noooooo, they never pretend to be someone else online *eyeroll*.

If you ever wondered why I hesitate to post what I know about adoption, wonder no more. It's because as a infertile mother of loss, I have feet in both camps, and sometimes in real life, people blurt things out they would never say to my face if they knew I was adopted. It really is like being unintentionally undercover somedays. Things just like the phrase that woman used. I know, YOU all behave on your blogs, and say the right things, but your fellow real life travellers aren't always so careful.

So just call me, another paranoid mentally unbalanced psychotic platinum-plated bitch.

Whoever you are out there, adoptees who are being silenced, I am honoured to stand in solidarity. You are not alone. You have the same rights as your fellow citizens, even if it pisses off everyone else on earth.

Yes, Virginia, there is a Harry Potter

I finished the whole book. Amazing, awesome, wonderful writing, loved it so much I am now rereading all of them 1 through 7. Much angst doing this for the last few days because I had to pay attention to my relatives and everyone in Montreal at the exact same time and if we had been at home I would've just read until my eyeballs burst. I love seeing all my in-laws, they truly are the family I've never had, but trying to pay full attention to them while being riveted to this book was soooooo hard.

Since this is the no spoiler blog, I won't reveal anything in the post, but feel free to give me your impressions in the comments. All of you who haven't read it or are still reading it, DON'T click. It is so worth the wait to read it in the right order.

Oh, and to The New York Times editors who published reviews in advance and broke not only their word, but the hearts of millions of readers around the world?

Nice legacy guys.

A quick buck you may have made, but what you fail to understand is just how much your reputation has suffered. Not just with cranky me, but with so many people who read you now and the children who never ever will. When even my 10 year old now thinks the "New York Times paper are cheaters and liars", you know you have a problem. (No, I didn't coach him, he heard it on the radio, knew no one was supposed to be telling the big secret, and realized grownups were breaking the rules and were still getting dessert!! and not sent to their rooms!! in fact no punishment at all!! His sense of justice is deeply wounded.)

You know the kind of journalist I admire?

Francis Pharcellus Church, editor of the New York Sun, waaaaayy back in 1897. When confronted with the choices of ignoring a child's letter, destroying her innocence, or encouraging her faith in the unknown, he did the right thing. There is a wonderful sense of community in the shared experience of anticipation, of surprise, of being in unison, of wonder at all the amazing things that might be possible in the world, even if we have yet to discover them.

From the Newseum website:

"DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
"Papa says, 'If you see it in THE SUN it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

"VIRGINIA O'HANLON.
"115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

By spoiling the surprise, the NYTimes proved it never truly understood the story it was reviewing. It let the selfishness and greed of the Dark Arts take over its soul. And in the end, it will be the worse for it.