A Post on Green - in bullet points

• Kiel likes pistachio ice cream, but he picks out all the pistachios. I'm OK with that if I can get to them before the cat does.

• Kiel refuses to eat any green vegetable. He also refuses orange, red, blue, yellow, white, and brown vegetables. He is no more willing to eat the rainbow array of fruit we have in our kitchen right now either.

• Noah happily drinks, and requests more, of my meany greeny smoothies that I make with bunches and bunches of baby spinach and a big handful of mushrooms that I then add whatever fruit we have hanging around, plus some chia seeds and wheat grass powder. He has watched me make them and knows what I put in them, but he still loves them! So do I.

• Rich and I are trying to go more green with our diet and are following a prominently plant based diet. This means we have a shit ton of green leafy vegetables in our refrigerator right now. 

• I'm trying to use more green cleaning products, and have just ordered the supplies I need to make our own laundry detergent, dish washer powder, and cleaning sprays. 

• I'm working with green yarn right now (kind of a sage green) and I'm not thrilled with it. This is for the second of two blankets I am making for my nephew and his wife, who just had twins last week. The first blanket is done and I'm quite happy with how it turned out. The second blanket however, is turning into a major PITA. The yarn I wanted isn't available right now and I can't find anything else that I really like. The yarn I have now feels nice, but it's a little thicker than what I had before, and it pills. I hate pilling. And I can't find a pattern that calls to me. Yarn frustration sucks.

What is green in your life? Feel free to tell me about it in the comments. :)

Playing in the Rain

My good friend Laurie reminded me recently how important it is to give our children memories of having fun. It really opened my eyes and mind when I heard that. Because of past behaviors and difficulties we have had in public, I hesitate to put us out there in public unless I know I can control both boys, and make a hasty exit if needed.

I'm trying to get us out there more and build those memories.

Today Kiel and I had one. We took Sera to the vet and when we left there it was raining. Kiel wanted to go to the playground.

M:  Dood, it's raining. You want to go and get wet?

K: (calling my bluff) Yes!

So we went and Kiel was in hog heaven.

He showed me how much faster the slides are when it is raining. And how if he ran really fast with his mouth open he could get a drink. And how walking the balance board lends itself to jumping off right into a mud puddle.

He ran around in circles with a huge smile on his face. It was awesome!

We were both thoroughly wet by the time we left. Wet and Happy!

 I wish I had my camera with me. Oh well, I will just have to remember it with words.

 

Some light at the end of the tunnel.

Well, it looks like I completely missed the month of June. I do hate when I go so long without blogging.
 
I'm not sure where to start as so much has happened in the last couple months. Lots of it is good stuff though, which is, well, good. One perplexing incident that I do want to share, but it may have to wait until the next time I have a chance to sit down and write.

Rich is feeling better after all his medical issues in March. We see the cardiac surgeon next week to get a final answer on if he needs open heart surgery or if they can fix the ASD (hole in his heart) via a catheter procedure. He plans on getting a second opinion at Penn or Jeff before any final decisions are made.

The GI doctor never did find anything bleeding, so whatever was going on must have resolved on its own. It took a while for his hemoglobin to get back to normal. He had twice-weekly iron infusions for several weeks to get his iron stores back to normal. His last blood test a couple weeks ago showed he was back to normal. He has another scheduled in a couple weeks to make sure he stays there.

I have almost stopped overreacting every time he groans or makes another unexpected noise, and I no longer wake him up to make sure he is breathing if I don't hear him snoring. The whole thing scared the shit out of me, and I know it scared Rich too.

Noah made it through third grade. The awesomeness we were seeing in May has tapered off a bit. I knew it would, especially since it was mostly due to a medication change. Still, he has made some great improvements since this time last year.

We fought his IEP this year. I can't remember if I wrote about that before, but I don't think I did. It was not fun. We are hoping to get some new testing done this summer and be able to use those results to support the need for a more appropriate program for him. I have a feeling we are going to be in for quite a fight and will probably need a lawyer to help us. Do lawyers take credit cards?

He is at the same camp as last year and is loving it. It is an amazing camp and I feel good sending him off in the morning. This year they started a new program that is almost entirely inclusion with the "typical" side of the camp. There is dedicated social skills work every day and then an aid that supports the kids doing the inclusion. Noah has a smile on his face every day when he comes home. Even better he comes home regulated and in control of himself. If only he could get that amount of physical activity at school.

Kiel is still my sunshine, but I have to say we have seen intermittent thunderstorms the last several months. He can be one stubborn kid! He still won't sleep by himself and Rich and I still don't have the energy to fight it. More often than not he ends up in sleeping in a sleeping bag at the foot of the steps until one of us goes to bed. I know he's feeling the stress of living in this family. We are all feeling the stress of living in this family. I'm trying to decide if I need to start taking him to see someone or if he is still too young. I don't want to jump the gun on it, but I don't want to miss anything either. This parenting thing is hard y'all!

We have a new addition to our family in the form of a little furry ball of sweetness. Her "official" name is Lady Seroquel the Feliness, but we call her Sera.

She is an absolute sweetheart and I can't help but smile when I see her or think of her. The piece of my heart that has been empty since Ambien died three years ago is filling up again.

It took Thor about three days to accept her, which is pretty fast. I know he has been lonely without Stel. It's good to see him running around like a crazy cat playing again. He got rather tubby the last few months. His 14 pounds of cat flesh look very big next to Sera's 3 pounds of kitten daintiness.

My good news is that I cut back a couple hours a week at work so I only need to go in to the office three days. Officially it is only three hours less a week, and I pretty much have to get the same amount of work done as before. That's OK though, as having an extra day at home is huge in relieving some of my every day stress. My plan is to have Kiel home with me on Fridays so I can spend more time with him. I realized I only have one more year until he starts kindergarten and then I can't just keep him home when I want, so I better do it now.

I'm working on getting Noah set up for an evaluation at the fetal alcohol clinic at one of the children's hospitals by us. I didn't realize until this spring that they had a program for FASD there. Noah will see a team of doctors and have a bunch of tests done. I'm just waiting right now for the coordinator to get the appointment set up. It's a bit tricky with all the people he will see to coordinate it. I will write more about that soon!

Well, Noah just finished up with his reading tutor (OMG, I can't believe how awesome he is doing with her btw!) so my hour of "free" time is done. 
 
 

A little yarn will soothe me.

 

I have always liked to do things with my hands. I like to create. I always wished I could paint, but I don't have that ability - to transfer an idea to paper with a brush.

What I can do is work with yarn, or fabric. When Noah was first diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder I started a weighted blanket and vest business. I worked with his OT at the time to design a vest that would grow with the child. It was fun, but ultimately what I could charge for it was never enough to cover the labor involved. Then I became pregnant with Kiel and by six or seven months I was so tired I didn't want to sew.

It took almost four years for me to get the urge and the energy together to pick up a needle again. Or, in this case, a crochet hook. This is the second baby blanket I have crocheted this year. I found this Drops design on the Garnstudio.com website, and adapted it to baby blanket size. My individual squares are closer to 4 in by 4 in. The blanket itself is made up of seven rows of six squares.

I like the zig-zag stitch used to connect the squares. I need to work on the corners a bit so the connection is a little prettier. I like the edge because it is simple. This blanket is for a boy so I didn't want anything frilly.

The circles inside each square remind me of the sun a bit, so my next blanket is going to use this pattern but with a nice warm yellow yarn.

It feels good to be creating again. Now I just need to learn to balance better so I'm still crocheting, but also keeping up on my poorly neglected blog.

"click"

I should not be saying this. I should not be putting it out there in black and white.

I know this, but I'm doing it anyway.

Something is going on with Noah.

It's hard to describe. It's mostly subtle. But I see it.

His teacher sees it.

It's something good.

I think something clicked!

He's more agreeable. He's happier. He's more tuned in.

He understands his math homework and just needs me to supervise, not hold his hand through each problem as before.

He's reading marginally better. More fluently.

He's turning out his bedroom light with out a reminder. He isn't giving us grief when we ask him to turn the TV off in the basement. 

We've also had a few good conversations that he initiated. He asked what "retard" meant, and we had a great conversation about why it was mean to use that word and where it came from. Then today he asked what "suicide" is.

Yesterday he was sitting on the front lawn and two kids across the street were teasing him. He handled it like a champ and didn't take the bait. That is so huge!

It's only been a week. It's mostly in school and for the couple hours after he comes home.

He's still struggling when Rich and Kiel get home and the dynamic changes. He can still be a total butt head. In fact he proved that today after a celebratory ice cream sundae and landed himself in bed at 7pm.

I don't know how long this will last, but I'm going to enjoy it for as long as it does!


 

That post where I give advice but don't take it, make an admission, bitch a bit, then try to pretend I can handle it all anyway.

I just wrote a rather long comment on another blog. The comment was in response to a fellow blogger's post about making the decision to go back to her job after a medical leave, or to permanently resign. She has a son with special needs, different from Noah, but equally (if not more) demanding of her time and attention. She is seriously struggling with his school and getting him what he needs. She also has her own health concerns, that are pretty scary. And much more.

Life is stressful right now. I think I'm dealing with some PTSD over Rich's medical issues (which are still not resolved, or even answered) and incredibly fearful of what the answers might be. We had a contentious meeting with the school last week that accomplished nothing other than the knowledge that we need to keep fighting, and it is going to get ugly, and expensive (expensive to the point that we will have to take a loan or go into debt over it). Parenting Noah is still fucking hard, and while some of the issues may change, I don't have much hope that it is going to get any easier. Kiel needs more of me than I am currently giving him. Rich needs more of me than I am currently giving him. And work continues to get more stressful as my projects continue to get more involved, and that is unlikely to change. My insomnia is nightly, and I am chronically sleep deprived.

(I don't think I've ever really admitted this on my blog before, but I can generally gauge my level of stress by how many scabs I have on my body. I'm a picker. It's disgusting. Usually I can keep it to areas of my body that aren't visible to others. When I move beyond that it is usually my eyebrows that I start pulling on and picking at, until there are sores (in fact, right now as I read this over I realize I am pulling on my left eyebrow). And then I'll dig at any imperfections on my arms, which are numerous since I have some skin condition I can't remember the name for where my skin doesn't shed evenly and I get little bumps on my arms, chest, and legs. But right now it is worse than it has ever been. I am actually picking at my face, and it is nasty and horrible. I have scabs and scars along my double chin line, on my neck, on my nose, and of course my eyebrows.)

(Fuck, I can't believe I just admitted that.)

Anyway, here is what I wrote as my comment.

Like you, there is so much shit going on in my life right now. I have never been so stressed. Not all the same as you, but perhaps comparable in many ways. Sick husband, fighting the school – to the point that we are going to need a lawyer, and much more.

If I had a choice, I would leave my job. My older son needs me to be able to fight for him full time. My younger son just needs time with me. My husband needs his wife back.

I would miss my job, no doubt. I’m good at what I do, and it gives me something I don’t get at home. I think though, that I could figure out a way to get those needs filled in other ways.

For me it really comes down to money. It’s my job that allows us to get Noah the therapies and interventions insurance doesn’t cover. And more and more in this economy it helps pay the bills in general.

If I stopped working we would have to move, probably to a different area of the country with a better cost of living. My husband just isn’t up for that. I’m not really sure what would get him there. And the thought of all I would have to do to accomplish that is so overwhelming that it never goes beyond the thought that my not working would make life easier for all of us…as long as money wasn’t an issue.

I often wonder though if the stress of trying to do it all isn’t going to kill me.

But back to you…if you can at all swing it financially, then I strongly support not working. And by not working I mean not working the “easy” job, because everything else you do is definitely work, and it is fucking hard.

I'm good at giving advice. I'm not as good at taking it.

All I see in my net are huge holes. I'm not complaining much, OK, I am, I totally am, because it is what it is. I try to take it day by day. Maybe someday circumstances will change and doing what I think is best will be possible.

Until then, one step forward at a time. That's what we do as moms. Right?

Right.

But if you have an extra pair, please send gloves. My face thanks you.

He needs Peoples in his bed, people!

We finally finished cleaning out Kiel’s bedroom (thanks Bella!) and he is just thrilled! I’m trying not to feel too guilty that it took so long, considering his excitement level. Even Noah was impressed and I’ve had to explain more than a few times why the room can’t be his and why it IS fair that Kiel gets it. (This is what Noah’s bedroom looked like when he was three. Someday I should do a blog post about what it looks like five plus years and a few dozen rages later. It isn’t pretty.)

Kiel was very excited to go to bed in his own bedroom the first night.  We never really expected him to sleep in it all night, but were shocked when he made it until about 4am before he crawled in bed with us.

Since then he has rarely made it past midnight, but he still starts out in his own room, which I think is huge progress!

Although happy to read stories and snuggle in his bed, he doesn’t actually want to sleep in it by himself. I have rarely been successful leaving the room before he is asleep. If he does fall asleep he does it with at least one hand holding on to my arm, which makes it very hard to get out of bed without him waking up. We tend to do better on the weekends when he is more tired because he doesn’t get a nap.

Most nights though, even if he does fall asleep, he ends up begging one of us to get in bed with him. He needs Peoples in his bed, he tells us.

Despite watching that English nanny do it on that TV show, I don’t have it in me by that time of night to keep taking him back to his room. I’m tired and I need some time to do my own work, and the only time I have is after the boys are in bed.

So, we have come to a compromise.

If Kiel will not sleep in his bed alone before Rich and I are ready for bed, he also can not come down to the family room. Therefore, the stalemate position is the staircase. He can’t get off the stairs, but we aren’t going to force him to his bedroom and make all of us miserable.

So this is how he ends up more nights than not.

 

Comfy huh?

More. Big. Hairy. Balls.

After my last post I really thought I couldn't handle one more thing. The big hairy balls had done me in.

Well, I guess Karma had something else in mind for me, that bitch.

Turns out I can handle more balls

Especially when they come in the "my husband is in the ER with a cardiac condition" flavor. AKA the biggest, hairiest ball of them all.

So, instead of my husband telling me he has been feeling his heart race and do weird things for a few months and getting it checked out, he decided to wait until it was not only racing and jumping, but he was dizzy and short of breath. Fortunately, he works at a hospital and one of the nurse practitioners listened to his heart and immediately sent him to the ER.

I was in the middle of a meeting with Noah's behavior specialist last Thursday afternoon when he called to tell me where he was headed. 

I told him I was on my way and on the drive managed to call our neighbors and ask if they could get Noah off the bus, call school and let them know so they could tell Noah to go to the neighbors and let the bus driver know who was going to meet Noah, and call daycare and let them know I would be getting Kiel later than usual. (juggling those balls)

To make a very long story just as long a little shorter, Rich was in the ER with atrial flutter, a hemoglobin of 9.1 (normal is 14 - 16, 8 is when they start to transfuse) and a positive test for blood in his stool. The initial thought was that he had a GI bleed. The GI doc came though and said his anemia was not consistent with an active bleed and whatever was going on was a chronic condition. One doctor was telling us the atrial flutter was from low blood volume from the bleed, but then the GI doc said there was no low blood volume and the flutter was something separate. GI doc did do an upper endoscopy on him the next morning.  The endoscopy did not show anything clinically significant.

Cardiologist was brought in and sent Rich for an echocardiogram right after the upper endoscopy. The echo showed the right side of his heart was enlarged, which the cardiologist couldn't make sense of, so he sent him for a CT scan to check for pulmonary embolisms. If he was clear of blood clots in his lungs the plan was to do a cardiac ablation to zap out the bad signal that was causing the flutter.

At this point I freaked out and called my mom and told her I needed her and my dad to come out and help. They were surprised, but thankfully they packed up and drove from Michigan to help with the boys. I don't know what I would have done if they hadn't been able or willing to come.

I waited to have my freakout until I was in the parking garage of the hospital getting ready to go pick up Kiel from daycare.  As I left the garage I handed the attendant my ticket, which he handed right back to me and said no, I need the blue ticket, this one is for the other garage. Of course I was crying, and that just sent me over into the ugly cry. I tried to find the ticket, but could barely see. By this time I was holding up cars behind me and the attendant was looking at me with a mixture of horror and disgust. He finally just said to forget about it and waved me on through.

The CT scan showed no clots in his lungs so they decided he could come home for the weekend if he wanted, and go back in to the hospital Monday morning for the ablation.

He came home for the weekend and I held my breath the entire time. Every time he moved he was out of breath and he could feel the funny rhythm in his chest. When he was sleeping if he stopped snoring I woke him up to make sure he was still alive. I was a nervous wreck.And I also realized just how much he does do around the house between taking care of the boys and cooking.

Then the next ball came along and Friday night I realized it was time to take "the cat that would not die" to the vet where he would lose the word "not" in his title. :(

Fortunately a friend of mine took Noah to karate Saturday morning and he spent time with her son, while I took Stel to the vet.

The vet sucked, as it always does when you are putting a loved animal to sleep. It was time though, and I knew that. 

They sent me home with a paw print made in "clay" that I had to bake to harden.

A friend of mine, Bella, my angel, came over to help me crisis clean for my parents visit. I can't even describe to you how awesome it was having her here with me and how much she did to help! 

As the paw print was cooling on the counter Noah thought he would help by microwaving it. The in house fire alarm went off as the house filled with toxic black smoke. We were all upstairs and raced down to figure out was what going on (including Rich, who should not have been running). We sat outside on the deck for an hour and a half as the house aired out.

Bella and I stayed up late drinking wine and talking. It was very nice!

The next morning we woke up and our neighbor knocked on the door to tell us I had a flat tire. All I could do was laugh, really laugh. I mean really. Karma was losing her touch if that was all she could give me.

My parents arrived Sunday afternoon and the boys were just thrilled. I think they were happy to see the boys as well.

Monday morning we were back at the hospital for Rich to have the ablation. The procedure went well, but they found an atrial septal defect (ASD) during the procedure. It is a congenital condition, but since his heart has started to enlarge and he had the arythmia, they suggest he have it corrected before anything worse happens. We are waiting to find out if he can have it done via catheter (non-invasive) or if it will have to be done as an open heart procedure.

A hematologist came in to talk about Rich's anemia and they determined it was due to chronic iron deficiency from malabsorption.  They gave him an iron infusion and will again weekly for another four or five weeks.

He came home Tuesday morning, well tuned up, but with future repairs needed, which we will figure out.

I realized through all of this that even when I think I've reached my limit I can manage what I have to.

I ain't afraid of no BALLS!


 

Big. Hairy. Balls. That require juggling.

There are so many things I want to write about, but finding the time to actually do it has been difficult lately. Instead, I find myself writing just the titles for a blog post, with a short bit on what I want to say so I'll can come back to it. Unfortunately, by the time I get back to it I either don't remember what I thought was so funny/interesting/important about the topic, or it is no longer timely.

I want to write about last weekend, my second year at the Early Trauma and Attachment Meeting (ETAAM)in Orlando, with the most awesome mommas ever! But I'm still decompressing and I'm not ready to share yet. I need to keep the awesomeness close to me for another day or two. 

Today I need to write about stress and mental and emotional health.

I remember a graph in pharmacy school when we learned about mental health disorders. It was a very simple graph, with stress on one axis and depression (I think) on the other. Essentially it was describing the linear relationship between the two, and in very simple terms saying that when the stress gets high enough everyone eventually has a breaking point.

I always thought I had a lower breaking point than most, considering I've been dealing with depression since I was a teenager. Recently though, in one of those "light-bulb moments" I realized that I generally deal with stress just fine as long as it is the life is busy, lots of deadlines, too much to do kind of stress. It is emotional stress that really gets me.

I actually do better at work when I have the pressure of deadlines and an over-full project load.

I do just fine juggling Noah's appointments and therapy, and managing to get all of us to karate at least once or twice a week.

I even make sure we all have clean clothes despite being so busy that the rest of the house suffers. Let's be honest, a clean house has never been a big priority for me.

But add in emotional stress and I hit the overload wall pretty quickly. And right now, I feel like I slammed face first into it. So much of the emotional shit right now has to do with Noah (big surprise, right?) and how I am dealing with him: problems with school, frustration with his psychiatrist, worrying about his lack of friends, realizing that his IEP is not acceptable and we are going to have to fight the school district over it, accepting that we are seeing more behaviors and learning disorders as a result of the fetal alcohol exposure, and just the general trying to accept that he is always going to struggle and we can't fix him.

I'm also dealing with a dying cat that doesn't seem in any big hurry to actually die, but continues to pee on things around my house. 

And, I'm more than a little worried about Rich and how he is handling all of this, and what it is doing to our marriage.

To put it simply, I'm juggling a lot of big hairy balls right now. I'm usually OK with a couple balls, even if one of them is big and hairy. I can do two if I know it's short term. But when it becomes four and five, and most of them are filled with emotional crap, I find myself wanting to scream "get me off this ride."

It's not easy for me to say I can't do it all, but I know that if I don't put at least one ball down (gently, with assurance to it that I will be back soon) I'm going to find myself either dropping all of them or sitting in a parking lot somewhere yodeling and sending messages on Facebook that I'm not ever going home. 

I know I need to make some decisions, and I need to make them now. Obviously there are balls I can't drop (like work, Noah's therapy, Kiel's speech therapy, getting Noah through school every day, and the big one for me right now - fighting the school district for a more appropriate IEP and the necessary services).

Things I could theoretically drop: bathing, cooking (oh, who am I kidding, I didn't cook before) sleep, testing for my black belt in April (instead I would test next fall).

Considering I drove to karate class today and sat outside in my car crying, and never actually made it inside, I think I've made at least one decision. The one ball that is just about me, is the only thing right now that I can set aside. I feel a combination of guilt and resentment that this is what it is coming down to, but also a little bit of relief.

*It's also about to push me over the edge that I can't figure out why the font is changing when I add a hyperlink to the word.

Facebook, vaginas, and asshattery

 I was an early adopter of Twitter. I jumped on the Facebook band wagon a bit later. Over time I stopped using Twitter regularly and found I preferred Facebook.

I think there was a learning curve as I figured out Facebook.  Instead of my blog friends I was interacting with real life friends and family. I had to decide what I wanted to stay private; I took a couple years before I linked it with my blog. And I made a few comments over the years that I regretted later. 

So now I have a few guidelines I follow:

• I don't criticize people on their own posts, even when I disagree. Even if I have to practically sit on my hands so I don't.
• If someone comments on my post though, I reserve the right to respond.
• If you say something on my wall, or comment on my post, and it includes asshattery I reserve the right to remove it. I control my wall. I control my blog. Kind of like how I control my body.

So imagine the fun I had this morning when this post that I wrote last night:

I missed a portion of the debate. Did anyone ask why the men think they should have the power to control my vagina?

elicited this comment from an old school friend this morning:

How exactly does birth control control your vagina? Are your opinions not inflicting control over others as well? Is there really a difference on what your are complaining about? Are you not in judgement of other women who feel that they should not have to purchase other women's birth control and pay for their abortions??? What exactly is so wrong with valuing life at all stages??

I admit to being a little taken aback considering that really wasn't what I was asking in the question. So I responded.

Oh XXXX, there are just so many ways I can answer this! I'm not sure where to start! You are actually assuming a lot in my statement, but that’s OK. I have no problem responding to your assumptions.

First, you are absolutely entitled to your opinion, but I am also entitled to mine. My opinion is not preventing you from using or not using birth control; nor is my opinion preventing you from having or not having an abortion. I wouldn’t even presume to ask you if you use, have used, had, or have had either one. Therefore, I do not see how your opinion should be able to control my personal decisions. But, in case you wanted to know, how lucky for me that I do not need birth control or will ever have to consider an abortion, because I am INFERTILE. I am so LUCKY!

(And I’m not going to even get into the “who I should be allowed to love” debate. But I think that also has some relevance here considering that 50% of the time that also involves someone with a vagina.)

Second, since it is virtually impossible to get pregnant without your vagina being involved in some way, controlling a woman's access to birth control does indeed (whether directly or indirectly) insinuate control over her vagina.

Third, yes, I think there is a difference in what I am “complaining” about. I believe that I should have control over my body. It sounds like you believe you, and others that think like you, should have that control. Maybe I’m not “smart” enough to have my own rational, well thought out beliefs and values? Since I don’t know better I guess the government needs to make those decisions for me?

Fourth, I am not judging the decisions a woman makes for herself. You do what you want with your body. (See above.)

I’m curious though if you know what it is like to walk in the shoes of women that do have to make hard decisions for themselves and their families, decisions that involve very personal choices about their own body? It’s easy to pigeon hole you into an upper-middle class white family with two gorgeous girls that are both academically and athletically talented. You live in an awfully nice bubble. I’m happy for you! And I mean that with complete sincerity!

But tell me, do you know what it is like to work for a Catholic hospital and have a man in human resources tell you that if you can’t get pregnant that god must not want you to have children? Or that fertility treatment is on the same level of need as elective plastic surgery? Or, that if you do pay for treatments yourself, and do get pregnant, the insurance won’t cover the prenatal care of that child until the second trimester? So really, you should just adopt. But if you adopt, you don’t get to take maternity leave, because, well you know, it’s not like you gave birth. Well, I do.

I paid for my own birth control before I ever knew that there was no need. Oh, the irony. Seriously though, I was lucky that I came from a good supportive family that helped me get an education so I could get a good job. A job where I could afford to pay for the oral contraceptives that the Catholic hospitals I worked at didn’t pay for. I didn’t work at those hospitals because they were Catholic, I worked there because it was what I went to school to do – to help people.

Should we even mention the hypocrisy of insurance that covers Viagra and other ED drugs for men, but won’t cover contraceptives for the women those men want to screw?

I wonder, have you walked in the shoes of a mother with a special needs child that has to fight for every freaking service their child gets just so they can live as close to a “normal” life as possible? Talk about valuing life! And what if that woman gets pregnant unintentionally? Should she be allowed to consider if she can take care of another child? What if that special needs child has a genetic disorder that subsequent children would likely have as well?

Have you walked in the shoes of a young mother with four children already and a husband that can’t find work that finds herself pregnant again and doesn’t know how she is going to take care of the kids she already has? Or maybe her husband is in the military and deployed overseas? We all know how wealthy those military families are.

Or have you been the mother pregnant with a child with a genetic disorder that will not allow the child to live more than hours after birth, and those hours will be full of excruciating pain.

What about the young teenager that finds herself pregnant because her uncle/father/brother/next door neighbor is raping her?

In those examples, I’m not going to tell those women what they should do. But I do believe they have a right to make their own decisions.

And last, you ask about valuing life at all stages? I’ll have that argument with you when you can tell me that the children that are living and breathing in this country right now are all being cared for.

Next weekend I am fortunate enough to be able to go spend the weekend with approximately 90 other women that have adopted or foster children with special needs. Women with children like my son, and women with children that are so far beyond damaged that Noah looks easy in comparison. These are women that have to fight every day to keep their children safe. Women that have to make really hard decisions, decisions like how do I keep this child in my house when he is hurting my other children and trying to kill me? Women taking care of children that have such severe mental illness/FASD/RAD/PTSD/autism/physical disabilities etc. etc. that there is no chance of normalcy for them or their child, ever. Women that are doing everything to get help for their child and the system is failing them. Over and over again. And these are the families that care and have adopted the children that birth parents did not want or could not keep.

What about all the kids that don’t have families and don’t have someone advocating for them.

Yes, when all of those children are getting the love and care and support they need, then come to me and ask me about valuing life at all stages. Because right now, I find it hard to believe that we truly value the lives that are already on this earth.

Then my mother decided to get involved. *big sigh* Debating politics with my mother never ends well. 


But, all ended well, because a friend of mine posted this on Facebook and my day is now complete!