No, no, I will not be running the Chicago Marathon - are you insane? I can't even run around the block without leaving moderately-vital organs in my wake. But my friend Jen and her boyfriend Ricky and 44,998 of their closest friends will be!
Jen and Ricky running a 5K
Apparently people are just dying to run this thing, and the spots sold out in a day. After that they went to a lottery system. Jen got a spot but Ricky didn't. But he found a charity that will give him a spot if he raises $750 for cancer research.
Piece of cake. Everybody hates cancer, right?
So Jen had the great idea to ask people to donate a dollar a mile - or $26.20 - to help fight cancer and get him a spot in the marathon. Your donation to the American Institute for Cancer Research is tax deductible.
Jen and Ricky are awesome people. Jen doesn't want me to enumerate all the ways that they're awesome, because she's modest, but they totally are. She and I have been friends for over 20 years. And honestly, if someone awesome wants to run farther than I'm willing to drive in Chicago, I think that we should help make that happen!
Nothing can make me want to go back to bed, pull the covers up over my head and cry like imagining the possibility of one of my kids getting sick. I mean, I can barely handle the stomach flu... I honestly don't know how parents of kids with chronic diseases manage.
There's this family in town, I don't know them personally but they are friends of our friends. They have four children and three of them inherited Niemann-Pick disease. One of those three has died. They have hosted a golf outing for many years to raise money for research into this horrible disease.
Degenerative neurological diseases are very close to my heart. You might remember that when the kids were born I donated their umbilical cord blood for Huntington's disease research. I remain hopeful that research into all of these sorts of diseases will eventually lead to a cure. Time is running out, though, for so many individuals and their families.
I'm asking you today to help support this family. You don't even have to leave your computer, and you don't have to pay a dime. All you have to do is register and vote at ESPN for their Infinity Coaches Charity Contest. You can vote every day. The winning coach will win $100,000 for his charity!
Go to that website, click on "Midwest Region," then vote for Matt Painter, the Purdue coach, who has chosen to support the Smith Family BReaKthrough Fund. Coach Painter is way behind Ohio State as I write this. I am hoping that the legions of Pretty Babies Readers can turn that around.
Thanks for taking a moment out of your day to help fight degenerative neurological diseases.
We haves taken off the Rock of Ages trailer. We are sorry we offended you.
So, wow! I may not be able to change the pervasive culture of premature sexualization and the objectification of women, but I can at least make sure that the rest of the kids (both girls and boys!) who go see Brave at that theater aren't exposed to inappropriate images. And hopefully they'll think a little more critically about the trailers they show with children's movies in the future!
Maybe all it takes is us parents, as a group, standing up and saying, "We want better for our children than this, and we're not going to take this lying down any more."
If nothing else, if our children will see us and hear us when we stand up for them, and that alone is powerful.
Thank you, to the Lake Shore Drive In for doing the right thing!
Yesterday I pointed out absurdity of a bunch of non-uterus-havers making decisions about women's reproductive health and freedom (in 2012, for Susan B. Anthony's sake!) and Ann had this to say:
I enjoy reading your blog and stories about your family, but I couldn't let this one go. It is called religious beliefs and values. You would not ask the Amish or Quakers or any other religion to do anything that is fundamentally against their beliefs why is it ok to demand and force Catholics to abandon one of their core teachings. It is not a male/female issue. It is a religious belief issue. Would it make you feel better if it was a table full of catholic women holding their babies sitting at that table?
Leaving aside the irony of an institution which has sheltered and enabled sexual predators for generations throwing any stones when it comes to sexual politics of any kind... Here's what's going on:
The Catholics don't want to cover birth control for their employees. So, for example, if you're an agnostic or Buddhist or whatever secretary who happens to work at a Catholic university or hospital, or even a private company owned by a Catholic, they have the right, under the law, to not cover birth control pills under your insurance plan. This actually happened to me in my early 20s. Irony of irony, I was taking BC for raging PMS, and not for the sake of contraception, but it didn't matter because the family owned company I worked for at the time was owned by an Italian-Catholic family, and they refused to cover BC. It kind of pissed me off. Guess where I went for my pills instead? (Planned Parenthood) Guess what organization the religious right would love to see wiped off the face of the earth?? (Planned Parenthood) ARGH!
Fine, whatever. Religious freedom, blah blah blah. So Obama said, "Whatever, jerks. We're going to require the non-religious insurance company to extend birth control coverage to your employees for free, so that your non-Catholic or Catholic-light employees who choose to use the pill are able to, without having to go get it for a discounted price at Planned Parenthood and have eggs thrown at them by protestors." Obviously I'm paraphrasing.
Egg Throwing Protestors
And apparently that wasn't good enough. Because it's not just that Catholic companies and institutions saying, "We don't want our money going to pay for something we disagree with." That's not it at all. They don't want you or I to have access to birth control of any kind, period, regardless of what church you belong to or what you believe or whose money you use to pay for it. (Incidentally, insurance companies are cool, because it's a lot cheaper to give away birth control pills than it is to cover pregnancies and to insure children until age 26.)
This also isn't about Catholics' closely held religious beliefs - because according to recent polls, 98% of Catholics have used birth control themselves (that link contains a very good description of what's going on, by the way, if my little lecture hasn't been enough for you). This is about a very small group of (celibate) men trying to dictate the terms of what goes on in your relationship, your marriage, your bedroom, and your body.
If that doesn't piss you off, well, I don't know what will.
Reproductive rights rest on the recognition of the basic right of all couples and individuals to decide freely and responsibly the number, spacing and timing of their children and to have the information and means to do so, and the right to attain the highest standard of sexual and reproductive health. They also include the right of all to make decisions concerning reproduction free discrimination, coercion, and violence.
If it's true that "every sperm is sacred" for you, fine. Good for you. I hope you have a great job because I don't know how we're going to put our three pretty babies through college. Assuming that you get married at age 25, like I did, and that you hit menopause at age 50, you've got 25 years of fertility there - and let's assume you have a kid every 18 months - we're talking 16 or 17 kids. You must either come from money or plan on winning the lottery, or maybe you have different goals for your kids. I don't know. But it doesn't matter. When YOUR religious beliefs start infringing on MY right to determine the size of my family, we have a serious, serious problem.
And furthermore, this planet just passed 7 billion people. We can't all be Duggars. Where are we supposed to put all these people? Who is going to pay for them? Two cats, if left to their own devices, can have over 80 million kittens in just 10 years. Now, can you imagine how many people 7 billion people can have in the same time period? Who is going to take care of all of them? A bunch of celibate Catholic priests? HARDLY. (On the other hand, we may need all those people to take care of all the cats).
And what about the people, like my good friend Julie, who would dearly love to have more children but who can't because a pregnancy would literally kill her? She has a heart condition. She's a non-Catholic Christian. Should she have to risk a pregnancy, and risk leaving her husband a widower and her children motherless because some celibate man thinks that his God is going to be pissed with her if she doesn't? Should she and her husband have to endure a sexless marriage because of someone else's religious beliefs? Why does the religious freedom of the Catholics trump her reproductive rights? (Hint: it doesn't).
(And we haven't even touched on the whole abortion thing. I do not have it in me to go there today. Migraine. Ugh.)
Even if it had been a table full of Catholic mothers, Ann, it wouldn't matter. It would have been marginally less offensive, but frankly I get offended when any person of any religion tries to impose any of their religious values on anyone to whom they haven't personally given DNA. And honestly, if you have a functioning uterus, I think you should too. Because they aren't going to stop at not allowing their own employees access to birth control. This is just one step in a systematic plan to strip all women everywhere of their basic right to determine the course of their own lives.
Why? I wish I knew. Maybe someone can explain it to me. I welcome open discussion in the comments.
(And since they haven't thought of this, maybe the Catholics ought to start their own insurance company - Lord knows they have enough money - so that all the Catholic churches, universities, and companies can be insured by a Catholic insurance company which would therefore be religiously exempt from providing birth control. But until they smarten up and do that, they're just going to have to STFU.)
Oh crap, one more thing. Amish and Quaker people pay taxes, right? And those taxes go to fund all kinds of things like war and electricity, that Amish and Quaker people don't believe in. That's called "being a part of a society." Sometimes your money gets used for things you don't personally approve of, but unless you're also willing to give up roads and police departments and fire departments and national security, you just have to freaking deal. Personally, I choose to believe that all of the money we pay in taxes is the same exact money that comes back to us in research grants and contracts, which makes paying taxes a lot less painful. I suggest that you adopt a similar belief. If you're a really big fan of NASA, imagine that all your money goes directly to them. If you hate NASA but love farmers, imagine your money being redistributed in the form of subsidies. See how easy it is?
Please go to this link and read about Habiba - a woman whose 15 month old child was removed from her custody by authorities in Morocco. Her mother's crime? Breastfeeding her child.
I am horrified. Just sickened. I breastfed my girls until 28 months and 22 months. I don't intend to stop nursing Jack until around the same age. Please sign the petition and join the Facebook group, and spread the word. Let's use the power of the internet and the power of mothers to help this woman get her baby back.
Thanks to PhD in Parenting, one of my favorite blogs, for getting the word out.
I went to Planned Parenthood for reproductive care from the time I was 17 until I obtained health insurance when I was 28.
During that time, I obtained birth control, STD tests, yearly pap smears and breast exams, all the standard "woman stuff" that most of the folks who are so anti-PP don't have to worry about because they don't have pesky things like vaginas, breasts, uterusses, and ovaries.
Every time I went there, they asked me if I felt safe in my current relationships (in other words, was I being abused). They counseled me about safer sex, AIDS, and other STDs. They asked me if I was addicted to drugs or alcohol. They had dozens of pamphlets on the walls about a range of women's health and women's safety issues. Everything from where to go for WIC to how to deal with menopause.
They never gave me an abortion. They never needed to, because they gave me safer sex education and birth control pills instead.
And the care they gave me throughout more than a decade as their patient in four different cities was consistently affordable, compassionate, professional, safe, and reliable.
When I was 23 or 24 I found a lump. I was terrified. I called Planned Parenthood in a tizzy and they got me in immediately. Thankfully it was normal. They educated me about the difference between normal and abnormal lumps.
At Planned Parenthood, 97% of the services provided have nothing to do with abortion and everything to do with education, STD care and prevention, cancer care and prevention, contraception. And 0% of the abortions are paid for with federal funds. ZERO. It's already law.
I don't know why the republicans have women and children in their crosshairs. I don't understand how they can justify spending squajillions of dollars to kill people in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya, but not a $300 million on Planned Parenthood.
It doesn't make any sense, because the Planned Parenthood issue is a red herring. They are fighting over something that they know people have passionate feelings about to DISTRACT us from the real issues and to get people too stirred up to pay attention to what's really going on.
It's government theater, and it's shameful.
If the government shuts down, they'll have failed us all, and Congress should NOT receive pay or benefits (health insurance, etc.) as long as they continue with the shutdown.
The whether-or-not-to-pay-the-military thing was probably a red herring, too. They probably intended to pay them all along, but they were able to waste time writing a bill, getting it through, debating it, and then passing it at the last minute to look like heroes even as they're failing us.
I noticed something interesting earlier today... All the people who are against the invasive screening procedures that the TSA have recently adopted are talking about three distinct groups - grandmothers, wives (especially those who are pregnant), and children.
A great deal of the discussion, though, is directed at men, in the form of, "Would you want YOUR pregnant wife or YOUR child or YOUR grannie to have to be subjected to this?"
It reminds me of the rhetoric used to inspire soldiers - protect the wives and children; women and children first, etc.
If I were writing a term paper, I'd go find specific examples, but I'd rather go downstairs and watch last night's Chuck, so I'm just going to leave you with that observation and this thought...
Aren't all of us, whether we are grannies or not, whether we "belong" to a man or not, whether we are pregnant or not, and whether we are minors or not, aren't all of us entitled to some basic measure of privacy and decency? Shouldn't everyone, whether they are a member of one of these vulnerable populations or not, have the right to travel without (literally) being molested?
When Sasha, and Malia have to have nude pictures taken of their bodies, and when they are groped in their bathing suit areas by strangers, I will allow it to happen to my daughters. Until then, I think you are the worst kind of hypocrite - expecting American parents to do to their children what you would never allow to be done to your own.
I voted for you. The way things are going right now, I don't plan to do so again. Heaven help me if I have to choose between you and Sarah Palin. I think if that happens I'll move to Canada (I can drive there, eh?).
I know you're getting bored with the TSA posts - after all, this blog is about the pretty babies, but I really believe that this issue is important for all children - especially after seeing that video of the 3 year old getting patted down while she screamed.
(In non-TSA news, I actually bought a few things for the baby, and I got out the baby clothes from the girls, separated out all the gender-neutral stuff, and it's in the washer now. That sounds like progress to me! I needed to stop living in denial - we've only got 4 or 5 weeks to go!! Also, I'm having a TON of Braxton-Hicks contractions yesterday and today, a few that actually hurt which is a little troubling. I really don't want to go into labor at home. That would be bad. At least it isn't snowing yet.)
There is no way that I would subject my children to this:
None.
I love how the suggestion for how to make it less traumatic for kids is to "make it a game." Pedophiles have never thought of that! I'm sorry but there is NO situation in which it's appropriate to make touching a child's "bathing suit areas" a game. Because how are they supposed to know the difference between the TSA's "game" and the creepy child molester's "game"?? Ugh!
I wish I had more time to rant about this right now, but I'm at work. What do you think?
This guy was randomly selected to go through the Advanced Imaging thing, he refused, then he refused the pat down, went back to the ticket counter and got his ticket refunded, and as he was trying to leave the airport he was told, "...that once I start the screening in the secure area, I could not leave until it was completed. Having left the area, he stated, I would be subject to a civil suit and a $10,000 fine."
Wow.
Thoughts?
Here's what I think: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Benjamin Franklin
The Transportation Security Administration, in its infinite wisdom, has apparently mandated that new Whole Body Imagery "security" machine - the one that takes pictures of your body through your clothes. And if you refuse to allow representatives of the federal government to take nude photos of your body, you get to be manually patted down by a TSA representative. And they will feel your crotch and your posterior and your breasts, if you have them. Because they want the "pat down" experience to be so uncomfortable that people opt to use the machine, instead. It's faster.
There might be a circumstance under which I might decide that the indignities of the pre-flight screening are worth the trip, but there is no way that I am going to allow my children to be photographed (essentially) nude or patted down (more like "felt up") by strangers. And they WILL be patted down. It says so right here. So, as a mother, I get to choose to allow nude photos to be taken of my children, or to subject them to a deliberately-designed-to-be-uncomfortable pat-down. What the hell kind of a choice is that?
Dear Pedophiles - go get jobs with TSA! You can assault children all day long and get paid! It's like a dream come true!!!
It's clear that this is a Fourth Amendment violation, not to mention a violation of every child porn law in every state in the U.S. But the people in charge don't give a shit about your privacy or your children's privacy. Apparently they don't give a shit about the law or the Constitution, either.
What we need is a cop (maybe one with a passion for protecting kids from sexual abuse... One I've known for 20 years... You know who you are!) to take her kids through security, put them through the machine, and then immediately arrest the TSA agents for possession of child porn. That would get people talking! I'll buy your tickets!
I do have a third choice. I am voting with my wallet. I am not flying commercially, nor are my children flying, until the Whole Body Imaging machine goes away. The metal detectors have worked just fine for years, and I've taken off my shoes and emptied my pockets and walked through them like a good little sheep. I've even thanked the TSA agents for doing their jobs, in spite of the hassle and the delay. But now they've gone too far.
What do you think? Are you going to continue to fly? Are you going to fly with your children? If you are, will you opt for the kiddie porn or the molestation?
(Interestingly, B.J. disagrees with me, so I'm looking forward to his remarks in the comments... Be sure to come back and check on how that develops. It's always fun when he and I argue, we were both on the high school debate team...)
Breastfeeding is a political issue - and formula companies make billions of dollars while compromising the health of our children. Yes, thank God formula exists for women who can't breastfeed, or for women whose circumstances make it difficult or impossible. I agree that breastfeeding isn't possible for everyone, and that it's to everyone's benefit that there exists an alternative for women who must work, women who adopt, women who have to take medication that's incompatible with nursing, etc. etc.
I'm not writing this to judge YOUR individual choices.
However, formula companies have spent years actively engaged in the process of sabotaging healthy mothers who could choose to nurse because they make money when you choose formula over breastfeeding. It's been well documented and it's been going on for years. It's especially egregious in poor nations around the world.
Please take a moment to click through to see how formula companies are currently engaged in breastfeeding sabotage, and then use your voice to do something. I'm sharing this post here and on Facebook, and I wrote a letter to the two Babble e-mail addresses that Ph.D. in Parenting listed, and I told them that they should be ashamed of themselves. What are you going to do?
As a mother who suffered from and was successfully treated for Perinatal Anxiety and Mood Disorder (or PAMD, formerly known as Postpartum Depression or PPD), I am writing to educate you about the disorder, following your offensive comments in the article at
It astonishes me that you're speaking as a medical and psychiatric expert when it is clear from your website that you have no medical qualifications whatsoever. It also astonishes me that you would go on public record saying that "most claims -- if not all -- of postpartum depression are a crock." Statements like that do not help anyone. By saying that Postpartum Depression is "a crock" you are endangering women and children - because why would a woman seek help and treatment for something that's "a crock?"
Your statements belittle the very real experiences of millions of women like myself - women who have been through the horror of PPD/PAMD - a horror which has nothing to do with losing one's body or one's freedom to children, and has EVERYTHING to do with very real hormones and chemicals in the body. In my own case, my husband and I tried for two years and desperately wanted a child. My PPD/PAMD had nothing to do with having an unloved, unwanted burden of a child - she was and remains loved and wanted! I remember saying, more than once, "I spent two years crying because I couldn't have a baby, and now I'm crying because I have one! It doesn't make any sense!" It didn't make any sense because I was sick. I was suffering from a chemical imbalance that caused me to feel anger, frustration, sadness, anxiety... It wasn't the baby that caused those feelings! I loved her and wanted her and wanted to take care of her more than anything!
The medical fact is that there are several possible physical causes for PPD/PAMD, including chemicals/hormones and sleep deprivation. The hormone that is most suspect is hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal hormone or HPA. Levels of HPA in postpartum women were found to be similar to the levels in women who had chronic, non-postpartum depression in a recent study. Women who do not breastfeed produce less oxytocin, which is known to cause feelings of love and well-being, and to produce a desire to care for the child in the nursing mother. Women who do not breastfeed have a higher incidence of PPD/PAMD. Additionally, in the 24 hours following childbirth, a woman's levels of estrogen, progesterone, and thyroid hormone drop dramatically, and some researchers believe that this drop leads to PPD/PAMD.
As with most things, it's probably a combination of several physical and environmental factors that causes PPD/PAMD. The fact that researchers do not know the exact cause(s) of PPD/PAMD does not mean that PPD/PAMD is "a crock." Science also can't explain exactly why gravity works, but that doesn't mean we're making it up and using it as an excuse for our failure to fly!
I do agree with you, however, that Shaquan Duley was probably not suffering from postpartum depression. More likely the poor woman suffered from postpartum psychosis, which is a different and much more severe form of the disorder.
Please refrain, in the future, from speaking to the media on topics which you are so obviously ignorant. You are doing real women and children a tremendous disservice when you minimize their experiences in this way. I would hate to think that there's some woman out there reading about Ms. Duley, who is also feeling the same horrible impulse to harm her children, and reading your words. Because if PPD isn't real, then there's no hope of treatment or cure, and that poor hypothetical woman now has an "expert" telling her that there's no reason to seek help.
The women suffering from PPD/PAMD, and those of us who have survived it, do not need any more blame and judgment. Believe me when I tell you that we blame and judge ourselves quite enough. We need compassion, help, and access to treatment. We do not need to be told that our disorder is "a crock."
I very much look forward to a public retraction of your appalling statements.
Sincerely,
Amy Prettybaby
author of http://prettybabies.blogspot.com where this letter will be reprinted
UPDATE: She wrote back!
I am not ignorant of your argument for PPD and I am not saying in some rare case such a thing could exist based on chemical issues. Generally speaking, I don't buy the chemical imbalance theory for any depression; I believe people just don't want to deal with real life issues and the fact that sometimes life is simply depressing and damn difficult. It isn't about chemical imbalance but tough times and our own issues.
Pat Brown
Investigative Criminal Profiler
To which I replied:
You are not qualified to buy or not buy any explanation for any disorder. You are neither a doctor nor a psychiatrist! You obviously, obviously have NO IDEA what you are talking about, and to tout yourself as an "expert" on PPD/PAMD in the national media is ignorant at best, dangerous at worst.
By the way, you've created yourself a real controversy. Check Twitter - #AOLhurtsmomswithPPD.
Enjoy the attention.
Updated to add - AOL has removed Brown's comments from the original article!
Updated again - this woman just doesn't know when to quit:
So did anyone else catch the birth on the Today show last week? I never watch the Today show anymore, or any TV news for that matter, because it's just depressing and BJ will tell me if there's anything important going on, and if there is I'll go read about it. I don't need talking heads to tell me what I should think about whatever's happening... That's not news, it's commentary, but I digress.
I was getting dressed and I could not take one more minute of the Disney channel or the related music that has spun off of the same, so I turned on NBC and Meredith Viera was talking about how excited she was that the Today was about to show a birth on TV.
Obviously that got my attention, having done birth personally I know that I would deck anyone who came within a mile of me with a video camera during labor, so I sat down to see if the mom broke the cameraman's nose.
It turned out to be a C-section.
Now I need to derail a minute, here, because I know there are a lot of sanctimommies in the world - the kind who think that motherhood comes with some kind of point system, and that if they choose, say, natural unmedicated childbirth over a C-section, they're automatically somehow a more superior mother than someone who, for whatever reason, had a C-section.
I am not this kind of mommy. There are no points, and the measure of a mother is not in how she gave birth. Period. There are some really miserable mothers who have given birth without drugs, and there are plenty of phenomenal mothers who have had C-sections, induced births, epidurals, etc. It SO doesn't matter.
I'm proud of the fact that I gave birth naturally in the same way that someone who ran a marathon is proud of themselves for accomplishing that - it was something that was hard and painful that not everyone tries to do, and even those who try often don't succeed. But I am not a better mother than you are if you had a c-section, any more than you're a better mother than I am if you've run a marathon. Kapiche?
I do, however, have a problem with the fact that about 34% of births in this country are C-sections.
Why?
Because I think that a lot of those C's are done for stupid reasons. (Here's a good article about it, if you want to skip my ranting and read something rational and reasonable with numbers and facts... But I know you come here for the rants and the pictures, so buckle up, here we go...)
I think if doctors would just get out of the way of birth and let it happen, if they would allow women to labor in a more natural position than on our backs (we're on our backs because it's convenient for the doctor to get a good look at what's going on, by the way, not because it's efficient), if they would be patient and not get all antsy if things take, oh, longer than 24 hours from the time the water breaks, if they would stop saying things like, "Oh we'd better schedule a C because this baby is huge..." and so on and so on, we could bring that number (34%) down. Way down. In other developed countries it's more like 10%. (And I'm not even going to calculate what all those C-sections are doing to the cost of health care in this country, but I think we can all agree that it is a LOT cheaper to give birth vaginally than it is to give birth in an operating room).
I think it's important to get that number down, not because I think that all women everywhere should have crunchy granola unmedicated childbirth with Zamfir Master of the Pan Flute playing liltingly in the background while everyone sings Kum-bye-ah... but because I think that interventions (pitocin, breaking amniotic sacs manually, c-sections, epidurals, etc. etc.) have CONSEQUENCES that are non-trivial for mothers and babies.... Consequences that are glossed over. Consequences that were glossed over on the Today show, too.
Any time you tell someone "no" when you're pregnant or in labor, they threaten you with a dead baby. When I was on bedrest with MG, I asked the nurse who came to the house to take my blood pressure if I could go up and down the stairs more than once a day, and she literally said to me, "Sure, you can do whatever you want, if you want to kill your baby!" (Talk about someone who deserved her nose broken...). But in the same culture where we tell mothers that they can't eat COLD CUTS without dire consequences for their unborn children, we seem to think nothing about cutting them open to get those same unborn children out.
Doesn't anyone else think that's a little bit screwed up?
Ok, first of all, if you were that mother wouldn't you be screaming, "Shut up, who do you think you are, Sanjay Gupta?" Forget the camera man, I would've broken the nose of the chatty doctor. I don't understand why they couldn't have had her in the studio with Meredith instead of in the operating room annoying the parents, but whatever...
I thought it was interesting the way the doctor was constantly assuring everyone that things were "orderly," "routine," "normal protocol," and "scheduled." As opposed to vaginal birth? Where things are unpredictable and messy and (generally) unscheduled?
Ok, then they start talking about all the different reasons for c-sections, and they get to my favorite one, "Baby's too big."
My friend Karen was told her baby was going to be "huge," and he weighed less than 7 pounds. They don't know. The measuring techniques are extremely inaccurate in late pregnancy.
I guess this mother was a big baby and so was her husband, and they decided to schedule a c-section. Now, it goes against my personal editorial policy to question the medical decision of one individual mother, so I'm not going to debate whether or not this mother really should have had a c-section for a suspected big baby - that is a decision that is totally between her and her doctor and it is SO not my call. But I know plenty of people who have delivered 10 pounders vaginally and lived to tell about it. If you're pregnant and you're being told that you have to schedule a C because your baby is too big, it is my opinion that you should get a second opinion. Of course, you're probably going to be told that you're going to kill your baby... but they'll tell you that for eating tuna fish, too, so tell them I said to piss off.
I love how Meredith, medical expert that she is, says, "Clearly Mom made the right decision, scheduling a c-section..." when she's told how much the baby weighs... That quote is inexact because I've somehow killed the sound on my computer, but I remember getting all fired up about it several days ago when I saw this originally, and it's close enough.
It just annoys the crap out of me that the Today show is going so far to normalize surgical childbirth... It seems to me that if 30+% of births are already C's, it's pretty normal. I've heard anecdotally that a lot of labor and delivery nurses have never seen an unmedicated natural childbirth, because they've become so rare. Maybe, considering the complications that are possible in any surgery (much less one with two patients!), we should be trying to normalize the old fashioned sort of birth.
I know my next birth is going to be induced (Claire's was, too, and I did it unmedicated after that - unless you count the Tylenol they gave me for the headache I got from pregnancy-induced-hypertension) because I would never make it to the hospital if I waited until I went into labor naturally - I have extremely fast labors. Scary fast. Maybe the Today show should send a camera crew, and they can normalize natural childbirth a little. I would love the opportunity to show other women that it IS possible and you CAN do it (believing that is half the battle, actually). I'd love the opportunity to show women that natural childbirth isn't anything like what you see in movies - it's not all screaming and "You'll never touch me again!" and bumbling doctors and fainting husbands.
I promise I'll try not to break the cameraman's nose.
PS - I fully believe that C-sections should be available to those who truly need them in emergency situations. A very old friend of mine just had an emergency C-section, actually, and both she and baby are doing fine, thank goodness. Edited to add: The FRIEND's not old, but I've known her forever. She's only 29. LOL
If you know me in real life, you know that I've been walking around like a plumber for about a month now. ALL of my pants are falling down. Even my formerly-tight ones!
YAY!
I know a lot of you are on this journey with me, so when I found and tried this product (which I bought with my own money, no one is compensating me in any way to write this, except Amazon Associates if you decide to buy it via this link - I think I get 75 cents or something) I knew I had to share it with you.
Behold, the ADJUST-a-BUTTON!
This is one of those products that I look at and think, "Duh! Why didn't I think of that??" It's a button on a lapel pin. If you've lost weight and you need to tighten up your pants (so you're not lookin' like a fool, right?), all you do is stick the pin through the waist of your jeans a couple inches past where the button is sewn, and then you button the button hole through the button on a pin, rather than the button that's already there.
Brilliant.
I'm hoping that with this product I can buy every-other-size of pants, rather than every size, on the way down. Thus saving myself lots of money.
Money that I can spend on cute tops, instead.
Speaking of tops, have you tried VitaTops? HungryGirl swears by them, but I was skeptical (mainly because of the name, who wants to eat something that tastes like vitamins?). I tried them yesterday, and YUM.
They're only 100 calories, and there's a lot of good fiber and vitamins and stuff going on in there. I got mine at the grocery store for about $1 each, but you can buy them from Amazon for a bit more and get them shipped straight to your door. Note that you have to keep them in the freezer, because they don't contain any preservatives, so before you go and buy a case, make sure you have the freezer space to deal with them, ok? I got the "deep chocolate" that I linked to, there, but there are lots and lots of flavors. Try them and let me know which you like. (FYI, Kroger carries the Deep Chocolate and the Corn Muffin flavors).
Speaking of corn meal, I made mush for my kids for breakfast the other day, because Claire is obsessed with Goodnight Moon ("Goodnight nobody, goodnight mush..."). They didn't love it. It was super easy, though. All you do is mix 1/2 cup of corn meal with 2 cups of water, and stir it and stir it on the stove until it thickens. It looks and tastes kind of like cream of wheat. Like I said, my kids didn't love it, but it was kind of fun anyway. I like to "cook the book." When Mary Grace was obsessed with Peter Rabbit (I must have read that book 1000 times) she really got into having chamomile tea for snack.
One last thing, speaking of corn, have you seen Food, Inc.? Oh. My. God. It made me feel really good about our decision to feed our kids organic milk (Horizon, usually) and organic beef (that we get from BJ's uncle, who is a farmer south of here). I'm currently shopping for an organic pork farmer - the farmer's market starts in April, and I'm 85% sure I remember a pork farmer being there. I have a source for "happy chickens" (coincidentally it's the same person I get happy popcorn from, and it's way better than grocery store popcorn. Please don't eat the microwave stuff with any sort of frequency. The yellow dye in the butter will kill you. Besides, it's super easy to make real popcorn on the stove and it tastes a zillion times better). Anyway, jeez, ramble much Amy?
Food Inc. is about the way our food is made in the U.S., and all the things that are wrong with that system. I really think that we all need to think more critically about what we're eating, and why we're eating it, and what we can do to make healthier, more sustainable choices. You know this is something I've been thinking about a lot, lately, because I wrote this not too long ago.
If you have Netflix you can download Food Inc. and watch it for free. It's also available on-demand from Amazon for a couple bucks - click here - Food Inc. Did you see Oprah talking about this last week? She had Alicia Silverstone on, who is my age and still looks 17 so she must be doing something right, along with Michael Pollan and they talked very carefully about food (because Oprah got sued a few years ago by the beef industry for saying, "I'm not eating hamburger anymore..." Crazy! Isn't this America??).
Anyway, it was very thought provoking, and I challenge all of you to see it, and tell me what you think!
That is enough rambling for today. Go forth and shop!! Let me know what you think if you try (or have tried) any of this stuff.
I haven't said anything about the disastrous earthquake in Haiti here because it's outside the scope of this blog, (and because I can't bear to watch the news coverage of the situation, honestly). However, I came across a blog post (posted on Facebook by a friend of mine) that gave excellent perspective on the situation.
In the past couple of days I have read a lot of backlash (on Facebook) against the money that was raised for Haiti during the telethon last week. People are saying, "We should help our own! Why should we send money to Haiti when people here don't have health insurance, or people here are hungry?"
There's a big difference between being poor in one of the richest countries in the world, and being poor in a country where everyone you know is poor, and everyone they know is poor, and there is no escape from the crushing poverty that surrounds you.
So Claire's sick, and was really sick all day yesterday. She got a cold in late February, and it turned into an ear infection. She did a course of amoxicillin and still had an ear infection, so the doctor (who messes with my head) put her on Omnicef and said, ominously, "If this doesn't work, we're going to have to refer you to an ENT and talk about tubes."
I freaked out when my dog had to be anesthetized for her leg surgery. I'm taking donations of Valium, if anyone has a spare or two for me, just in case Claire needs tubes.
Anyway, yesterday (Sunday, of course - no kid of mine will get sick on a weekday when it's convenient), Claire woke up vomiting and spent most of the day vomiting, having diarrhea, and having the worst diaper rash I have ever seen.
But I didn't take her to urgent care*.
Because they are trying to kill me.
I blogged before about how they gave me a medicine incompatible with breastfeeding when I was breastfeeding, and how I wrote a strongly worded letter about it to the HMO. Well. When I hurt my back a couple weeks ago, and went to the chrio in the morning, but by 4 pm I realized that I wasn't going to make it without some serious Western medicine. I went to the local urgent care.
"Who's the doc today?" I asked the receptionist.
"Dr. MF," she said (I swear, those are his initials, appropriate, no?)
"Ok, bye!" I said, as I ran out the door. I drove myself over to the other side of town's urgent care.
Ah, the false sense of security I felt as I limped to the exam room. Surely Dr. MF is an anomaly. Surely THIS doctor can't also be incompetent.
The nurse and doctor were very nice, and very fast. They prescribed Ultracet and some kind of muscle relaxer. I took them, was fine, and was back to normal in a couple days.
Then I stopped at the pharmacy Saturday to refill my Zoloft prescription. The Zoloft I've been on, with brief exceptions, since May of 2006...
"Are you still on Ultracet?" the pharmacist asked.
"Well, I still have it. It was for a back injury a few days ago, but I'm fine now."
"Don't take it with this, ok?" she said, handing me the Zoloft.
"Um.... What if I already did?"
Apparently Ultracet + Zoloft can = something called seratonin syndrome. And apparently it's bad. As in, potentially life-threatening bad.
Nice.
The pharmacist said, and I quote, "Well, you're not dead, so don't worry about it."
Cue head explosion.
I guess Walgreen's tried to call my regular doctor (who was out with a sick kid of his own) and the prescribing doctor (whose shift was over) before filling the prescription. But no one said anything to me when I picked it up, nor did they try to call me at home (I know they have my number - it's printed right on my medicine bottles!!!). And I know the Urgent Care doctor knew I was on Zoloft, because it was right there on my chart.
I had a first cousin who died of a drug interaction when he was 24 years old. I normally take such things very seriously and read all the product information and so on when I get a new medication... But I thought I was safe. I went to a doctor who had access* to my full medical records. I went to the pharmacy that I've used for years. I was in pain. I didn't take the time to read the product literature.
I'm really, really lucky.
So, as you can probably understand, I was unwilling to subject my baby to urgent "care" yesterday when she was sick. After 12 hours of vomiting, I called the on-call doctor. (It took two calls and over 90 minutes for him to call me back!) I wasn't, and am still not sure if she is experiencing side effects due to the Omnicef and the ear infection, or if she picked up a virus. He suggested that we take Claire to the ER (he pretty much has to say that, or be liable for the consequences), but instead I had Bumpa come over to take a look at her. He said that he thought she was ok, for now, but to take her in if she threw up again before midnight. She did, actually, but it was just a little, and she fell asleep right after, and I didn't have the heart to pack her in the car and drive her 25 minutes to the hospital for an inevitable IV that would've been traumatic for both of us. By the time Bumpa could've gotten here to stay with MG, Claire was fast asleep. (Yes, BJ was home and could've stayed with MG while I took Claire, but there was NO WAY I was going alone if I didn't have to).
She's keeping a little food and juice down this morning, and is currently sleeping. We have an appointment with a real doctor (not Dr. MWMH, he's on Spring Break, but his partner who I've seen before and who is competent) at 10:45.
I guess the lesson to take away from this is to ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS read the product information, no matter what, and if something new is prescribed to you, ALWAYS ask if it will interact with any medication you're currently taking. And Google it when you get home, just to be safe. You really must be your own advocate (and your family's advocate).
I once took BJ's grandmother to the ER for shortness of breath and being altered, only to be told, "She's 86, what do you expect?" Well, I followed that doctor out of the curtain and said, "Look, I understand that you're looking at a chart and seeing '86' and assuming that this is normal, but I assure you it's not. This woman made a five course dinner for 6 people two weeks ago, and this morning she couldn't manage toast and coffee. Something is WRONG, and we're not leaving until you call her regular doctor and ask her what she wants you to do!" (BOO-YA!) Turned out, Grandmother needed a pacemaker. She had it installed a couple days later, and is still kicking at 96 years old.
Anyway, be your own advocate. NEVER take anything unless you've checked it out for yourself.
And stay the hell away from Urgent "Care."
I'm going to write a letter to the Urgent Care folks and Walgreen's, and I'm going to cc my doctor's office, the management of the group, and the Deparment of Health. I love writing strongly worded letters. It's a shame that I have to do it so often.
* Our doctor is part of the A. Clinic, which employs a ton of doctors at various clinics throughout the area, has a brand new hospital that's way too far away from our house, and also runs several Urgent Care clinics in the area. The Urgent Care doctor had access to my full computerized chart, because he's an employee of the exact same clinic that manages my doctor's office.
A link dropped out of the sky this evening so that I'd have something to write about.
You might remember that I had a wee little case of postpartum depression after Mary Grace was born... if by "wee little" you mean "vaguely the same size and shape as Hurricane Katrina." Hey, it was 2005. You couldn't talk about anything after August without mentioning Katrina.
Anyway, I guess there's legislation right now that would fund postpartum research and screening. Here's the text from the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance's form letter I could've e-mailed to you if I didn't have a blog:
Many women have mood swings after birth. While they may have looked forward to the birth of their child, they can be happy one minute and extremely sad the next.
Almost 80 percent of women who have recently given birth experience symptoms of postpartum blues.
Postpartum depression, which is more serious can often lead to suicide.
Legislation has been introduced in the both the House and the Senate that will educate the public about postpartum depression. This legislation will ensure that new mothers and their families are educated about postpartum depression, screened for symptoms, and provided with essential services.
Won't you join me in writing a letter to your legislators about this important legislation?
It is quick and easy and will only take a few minutes of your time. Thank you for your consideration.
As long as we're throwing money that we don't have to throw around at every darn thing on the planet, we might as well throw some at something that matters to me, and thousands of other mothers and babies every year.
So, if you care too, please click here to send a note to your own representative. It only takes a minute.
Did you see Oprah talking about this last week? She had Alicia Silverstone on, who is my age and still looks 17 so she must be doing something right, along with Michael Pollan and they talked very carefully about food (because Oprah got sued a few years ago by the beef industry for saying, "I'm not eating hamburger anymore..." Crazy! Isn't this America??).