Santa? Snowflakes? Savior?

"Happy Holidays." I wrote this at the top of our "Annual Family Letter" to slip into this year's Christmas Cards. This is the first time we've done a letter, and I'm hesitating. I'm worried that it's not pithy and funny enough, but it seemed convenient to remind everyone where we work and how old the baby is. We're also sending everyone a picture of him. And like every year, I've bought three sets of cards. Religious ones (Mary and Jesus from Gerard David's The Rest on the Flight to Egypt), for religious relatives and art lovers with an affinity for Christian tradition. Wintery ones (snowflakes), mostly for Jewish friends. And Secular Christmas (a cat wearing a Santa Hat), for everyone else.

Every year I consider sending the Cat in a Santa Hat to our Jewish friends. Because the Santa Hat is not a symbol of the same magnitude as Christ on the Cross. They know I observe Christmas. But I know they don't. Not even the contemporary American, Santa Baby, Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer, "9 days til Xmas" Christmas. To those who are alienated by the mainstreaming of Christianity's Major Holiday, Santa is a symbol of their marginalization (as in the joke from the Simpson's, Santa Claus is beloved by everyone, "whether you're Christian, or simply not Jewish.") I know mixed-religion couples who have debated less about bris or baptism and more about whether they could ever have a Christmas Tree in their house. So, I skip it -- and anyway I don't mind the Un-Santa cards: I love snowflakes, or wintry cityscapes, or birds on snowy branches. In a way, it's an opportunity for me to broaden my experience of all that is festive about winter.

And of course, I don't send Mary and Jesus to everyone else. I do value religious worship as part of a community (one reason that I'm Catholic). But Within my Church, an image Mary and Jesus (She is feeding him grapes -- adorably evocative of my own relationship with my own toddler) is precious. Between us, the symbol says: Here is our Mother, and here is our Lord. Here is an painter circa 1510, honoring them with this artistic image. Here am I, sharing them with you.

But with non-Christians, I'm more guarded. Even though I'm fairly bold about sharing my faith, I see it as just that -- a personal faith, that in the context of my culture will always be subjective. I can't prostelytize. So when my Christian symbol might be heard differently, I keep them to myself. Because I'm not saying: "This is what I think Christmas should be about . . . .I am more religious than you . . . You should be Christian. . . I don't care if you don't agree with me."

I hate to make it political. And once you take your faith beyond your faith community, it instantly implicates politics. If I believe Jesus is Right, then it logicially follows that un-Jesus is not right. And what do we when everyone can't be right? How do we incorporate our various faiths into our legal and cultural symptoms? Who's in charge? What happens to minorities? All fascinating questions. I won't stop asking them for fear of being offensive -- and I won't use the phrase "politically correct" to describe anyone who would rather talk about politics than holidays -- But sometimes, I'd rather just say "Merry Christmas."

One of these years, I'll get too busy or bored, and it will be snowflakes for everyone. But for now, I have fun with it, and I have fun thinking about symbols. It's easy to analyze symbols pedanticly. For instance, does the origin of Christmas Trees in pagan nature worship, makes them less potent a symbol of American Christianity? Is "Santa Claus" less religious than "Saint Nicholas?" When people want to come together as a community, holiday traditions and symbols seem like a festive and inclusive way to bring people together. The debates about the removal (and reinstalation) of Christmas Tree display at the Sea-Tac Airport show how important this is to people -- but also remind us that, once symbols have become marginalizing (if not oppressive), their meaning won't go away so easily.

This reflects the core tension of the First Amendment: Free expression of religion and freedom from religious establishment. There's no easy way to respectfully celebrate holidays in a diverse society that values plurality. The reader board by my house ("Happy Holidays, to everyone not offended by the suggestion") is too snarky. But I don't care if it's not easy. If I know whether someone prefers a snowflake over the Santa Cat, or the Santa Cat to Jesus, I'll try to reach out in whatever way helps us celebrate what we share about the season. And when I don't know, one way or another, I might just say, "Merry Christmas." And if someone doesn't want to say it in return, I'll consider myself lucky if they tell me why.

The Price of Discretion

So I've fallen behind, and still need to catch up the latest chilling news -- a women kicked off an airplane for breast-feeding. The buzz on this is already fading; In the time it has taken me to assemble my own thoughts, the airline has already apologized and a number of “nurse-ins” across the country are proceeding with little controversy.

But the message to me, and to women everywhere, is still sinking in. It’s a message about discretion and exposure – our social obligation to protect other people from seeing too much of our bodies. The woman kicked off the airplane (seated by the window with her husband on the aisle) was first asked to cover her child (and breast) with a blanket. When she refused (or failed), her family was ask to leave -- no small request for a family who has spent hours hauling baggage, stroller, carseat and gear through an airport's gates and crowds. Removal from a flight is a serious measure. A group of Muslim scholars removed from a flight out of Minneapolis yesterday have called for an investigation because of the humiliation (and presumably they needed to get where they were going, too).

But even among dedicated lactivists, the outrage and disappointment at the news never sounded like shock and awe. Because we’re not really that surprised. Even if we agree that it was wrong to kick the woman off the plane, we understand why it happened -- or at least we have the vocabulary to discuss it: was she "discreet" enough? Does it matter? We can debate it, but we knew this kind of thing could happen. As much as we rail against it, for years we’ve been hearing that same message about our bodies and babies: Be careful. Your breasts are dangerous, and feeding your child is risky.

And so, in its first apology, the airline expressed its support for breast-feeding women – if they are discreet. I’ll assume that, in light of national news headlines and a complaint filed with the Vermont Civil Rights Commission, even the first apology (later revised) was vetted by at least one team of lawyers, publicists and managers. All that expertise, all that consideration, came to the decision that it’s necessary to draw the line when a breast-feeding woman exposes too much of her body. In essence, they reiterated that women have a duty to protect society from an inadvertent view of our breasts.

I won’t be the first to point out how ironic this is, in an age of breast-intensive advertising and entertainment. If breasts are offensive, why are they everywhere? It’s not enough to blame the media – if mostly-bared breasts weren’t appealing to most consumers, they wouldn’t be plastered across billboards and beer commercials. Boobs are good. So then, we assume, the threat lies the prospect of “too much” breast – along the lines of local strip club ordinances that define "nudity" as including "the breasts below and including the areola." Therein lies the difference between an episode of BayWatch (appropriate) and the moment when I quietly shift my drowsy son off my breast and reach for my sweater (not). Is it all about the areola? Too bad for babies that the business end for milk is the same part considered the most taboo for display -- because it is usually not displayed (a tautology?) -- and therefore takes on a more private and forbidden association. As the argument goes, because breasts are obviously sexual, and sex is private, breast-feeding must be private.

But it’s really not the slight slip of nipple that instantly repulses an otherwise breast-appreciative public. In fact, it’s not the “breast” in the “breast-feeding” that's offensive – it’s the feeding. I think of this as the "don't ruin them for us!" argument: It’s the lactating woman, not the sexualized one, that must protect the world from her body. As observed by the characters on Friends, while watching a nursing mother, "It's such a beautiful and natural thing. . . / Yes, but there is a baby sucking on it!" Or comments like those of Ken Schram, a local news commentator who compared public breast-feeding to "urinating in the middle of the mall.” Boobs are pretty and sexy; Lactation is an intimate, even disgusting, bodily function.

In practice, I can tell you that discretion is no small challenge. It’s hard to nurse a busy and curious baby while maintaining the crucial inch of coverage that could change a peaceful and cuddly feeding into an offense, a confrontation, even a ruined cross-country trip. A slip of blanket or bra, a little distraction, and there we are exposed. Even with laws protecting public breastfeeding, many women feel too vulnerable to ever nurse in public. This is not simply out of modesty (I'd argue that anyone has the right to protect their body from view) but out of fear. What if we're next? Why risk it?

So we suffer a chilling affect. We hide ourselves in a safe “quiet” corner, cover up with a blanket, and spend hundreds of dollars on pumps, bottles and formula – all because we feel vulnerable. And what is our vulnerability? A nursing mother doesn’t shield her breasts out of fear that a sexual predator will notice and direct his violent attentions upon them. We’re really protecting our babies, out of fear that someone will disrupt the feeding. We protect the fragile eyes of the public from the uncomfortable truth of lactation. And in doing so, we complicitly agree that our bodies should be protected -- for someone else's prurient fantasy.

50-State Summary of Breastfeeding Laws
Militant Breastfeeding Cult

Waning Crescent: Birth Stories

I went into labor two years ago today. I've written tons about my labor and delivery -- in email, in a Baby Book, and all the journal entries, messages and posts in between. And now, looking back on it all, I can see how I've changed by the stories I've told. When my son was 8 days old, I wrote out a long timeline, hour by hour. Here's a quote:

Hour 22: Still at 6 cm. The doctor (new one on rotation!) came in and said we could deliver now by c-section, or we could wait and see if things changed. I had never thought about a c/s, no one in my family has ever had one, and my pregnancy had been so healthy and easy. The doctor said the baby wasn't in distress, but didn't say "get the c/s or wait for a vaginal birth." It was more like, do it now or do it later because all the pitocin hadn't worked and my water had been broken all day. They couldn't figure out why I wasn't dilated despite good hard contractions, whether it was the magnesium sulfate or what.

We talked about the c/s. They answered all our questions about breastfeeding, time together right away after the birth etc., and it sounded manageable. The doctor and nurses and my mom left the room so D and I could talk it over. We understood the risks and benefits of situation pretty well, it was just overwhelming to be faced with such a huge decision about our baby in such an exhausted state. We decided to go ahead with the c/s.

This is accurate, but I notice the tone. I was so careful not to place blame. The surgery was inevitable. At the time, I thought I was confident and competent. Now, I hear defensiveness and denial. When I wrote this, my son was so young he still had the stump of his umbilical cord. I had only felt a fraction of the pain the cesarean would eventually involve. But I insisted that I had "understood the risks." I had heard about women who were ignorant and manipulated into cesareans -- I was not one of them. I was better prepared. I chose. In these stories, I am savvy and empowered.

If anything, I told myself, I was unlucky -- I had been diagnosed with pre-eclampsia in labor, and was treated with magnesium sulfate. This made my labor both unpleasant (vomiting, sweats and chills, double vision) and slow (an effect of the drug). I'm the one who "failed to progress," but the deck was stacked against me. If I was sad, it was because it had been so bad. My writing began to emphasize all the difficulties, as if I need to justify my pain. I had never been hung up on childbirth (I wasn't some granola-cruncher who wore hemp maxi-pads.) I thought it was healthier to be flexible and not set my heart on natural birth. If my heart felt broken, it wasn't because I had set myself up for disapopintment -- I had low expectations in the first place. It must be because my labor was so very hard. I was one of those women talked about at baby showers with sadly shaking heads. In these stories, I am a victim.

But I knew women with “worse” trauma who weren’t as upset as I was, and I hate to feel competitive. I tried to move on -– but without much "blame" or "regret" to hang my hurt on, I became listless and conflicted. Whose fault was this? I had chosen a cesarean, but the memory haunted me -- the pounding, slamming anonymity that violated me, despite my consent and my numbness -– like a teenager who thinks she's "ready for sex," realizes too late that she's not, but tells herself she's okay and that she can't complain. So many, many other women had been through identical experiences and they were fine. I wondered why I couldn't get over it: Was I hypersensitive? Melodramatic? I read, wrote and argued with women who had cesareans and women who hadn't. In these stories, I am confused.

I began to doubt and wonder. What had I really done to prepare for childbirth? What if I had been more patient -- even let the epidural wear off, and sit or stand enough to let my son's head dilate my cervix? On the day I finally Googled "mild pre-eclampsia," I found a reputable medical source say that magnesium isn't standard treatment. Had my cesarean been avoidable? And if so, who was responsible? I ordered my 147 pages of medical records, sat down to read them, and wrote about what I found. In these stories, I am searching.

I face my son’s second birthday tomorrow. In the past, when anyone has asked me "what date he was born," I've had trouble answering. I had labored through the night and day of November 9; The nurses in the operating recorded his delivery as "00:50" on November 10th. But I didn't like that date – what kind of time is "00:50?” The middle of the night, or the early morning? The end of one day, or the beginning of another?

And this is how I felt about it all: A gap surrounding my son’s entry into the world. When I saw “State of Washington” on his birth certificate, I thought no, not my Washington. The "place" was a sterile operating room, forbidden to anyone not trained and scrubbed (or being cut open). When I hear “November 10,” I think no, it was not that day. It doesn't have a date. It’s taken me two years and thousands of words to help me articulate what the gap is. Maybe it wasn’t a birth.

So how can we commemorate that? Yes, we'll buy balloons and cupcakes, he'll open presents, and we'll all sing "Happy Birthday." But for me, it doesn't feel quite right. So I think of this: I recently told someone how my son loves the moon (he calls the outline of a naked pregnant woman on my "Birthkeeper" shirt a "moon and stars.") She asked if he'd been born at night. I flinched but said yes. Then I thought about it, did a little research, and here's what I learned:

When my son entered the world, the sky was dark. That morning at 4:45, the sliver of a waning crescent moon rose for its short journey across the wintry southern sky. Imagining this, I can imagine those moments. I can remember that what happened did happen, and even if it will never be "okay," it will always be part of something bigger. Maybe that is what we will observe this year. Tonight I’ll take him outside and we'll look at the moon. He will say "Oh LOOK! The MOON!" like he does every time. I will think about the eternity and rhythm of its phases. We can live in the blackness, and we can live by a sliver of light. We can rage against loss, and love all of life with the same heart.

Happy Life-on-Earth-day, Malcolm.

International Cesarean Awareness Network
Birth Truth
Phases of the Moon

What's Hempenin' Mama Cloth

Hearts without Names

All over Seattle, there are billboards and buses showing bodies -- the insides of dead human bodies. This is not a metaphor; it is advertising for a science/entertainment exhibit of preserved cadavers called "Bodies: The Exhibition." It is hard for me to get past the "I see dead people" aspect of this, but on reflection it's pretty amazing.

The exhibition website describes it as an educational exhibit that tells the story of ourselves "with reverence and understanding." I would hope so. These are the real remains of real human lives: The muscles, bones and skin that grew with these people from childhood. Legs and backs that worked for a living. Lungs that breathed and brains that dreamed. Arms that held lovers and cared for babies. These bodies aren't just artificacts of life -- they were life itself.

In every culture, human remains are treated with some kind of ritual and reverence. Even when they are destroyed through cremation or funeral pyres, it is not because they are so much waste -- it is because they have so much relevance. For the people who became the "Bodies" exhibition (all former Citizens of China), their funerals consist of a transportation across the United States for public education and viewing. The exhibition is their final rest.

I love science -- in fact, I love anatomy -- and find myself staring in wonder at the complex interplay of tendons and muscles on display I see on the side of the Metro Route 15X bus. Perhaps the exhibit itself (like others, such as the display of ancient Egyptian mummies in Chicago's Field Museum) lists the dead by name and respectfully asks for prayers in their memory. But the advertising (which is everywhere) doesn't. I see a skull without a face; I see a heart without a name. I know science and education are public and social goods. But is this?

I'm happy to find, on doing some quick research, that it's not just me: The Seattle P-I has written a cogent editorial about consent; unlike human cadavers used in medical study (which I have seen, in educational settings), there is no evidence that the people exhibited intended to donate their remains to public display. The Exhibition has affirmed that it has a "contract with a Chinese university" which, while it apparently guarantees the bodies are not from political or religious prisoners, doesn't say much else about the source or intention of the remains. The Stranger's article, "Unrest in Pieces," includes an article written by an employee there who describes the moral and political ambiguities of law and death in China.

So at least it's a "controversy," in the headline-grabbing sense. Yet I'm still kind of surprised that this is this where our standards are: It's socially acceptable to display tastefully flayed dead bodies on billboards, as long as they weren't executed for political reasons by a totalitarian government. Apparently, under our American values system, the victims would be much more sympathetic if they were killed for exercising their civil rights. Perhaps it would be okay if they were criminals, executed for morally reprehensible crimes like rape or muder. Or best of all if they'd simply died "naturally" from malnutrition, disease, poverty or unsafe work conditions.

I wonder whether the cause of death even matters. Or is it that, in contemplating the specifics of individual human deaths, we must see these as individual human lives. And maybe the issue of "consent" distracts us from the real moral question of whether there are some things just too intimate to buy and sell, no matter who consents. Anna Nicole Smith, for instance, has apparently sold the video of her cesarean section to Entertainment Tonight (sorry, not linking to that one). Like the Bodies Exhibition, it speaks its own truth (yes, that is a "section" cut out of a real woman, knifed in half and bleeding, crying through drugs for her baby). It is indeed educational. But the fact that we can view it so casually (even unwittingly -- be careful clicking on links that read "Anna ET Video, TMI") raises questions of exploitation, profit, and dignity.

When it comes to prostitution and pornography, our culture draws the line -- too much potential for abuse, too much exploitation, and at some point, just "too much" -- consent or not. Yet when it comes to death, we tend to deny its intimacy. I remember being so disturbed by the decaying flesh of the Pirates of the Carribean Zombie-Ghosts. Why is it cinematically appropriate to represent the inner structure of a human arm as it loses its rotting skin, but a healthy woman breast feeding a child is quickly criticized as "too much?" Death, violence, injury, surgery -- these involve our vulnerability, privacy and humanity, as surely as sex does. But we're supposed to act tough -- to turn away -- to shake it off -- to see it as tecnical, academic, and scientific. What have we lost?

Tricks, Treats and Tantrums

I was going to start by saying, "Our child has never had a temper tantrum." But that would be obnoxious, if not dishonest. This morning, for instance, went something like this:

Me: It's time to go! Here is your coat!

Child: No coat. NO no no no no nooooo cooooooooaaaat!

Me: Here is your coat [forces coat on child]. Now it's time to go. Let's get in the car. Here we go! [uses fun voice]!

Child: No car nocar nocarnocarnocarnooooooo!!!!!!!! [lays down, hits head on the floor, screams]

Me: Time to get in the car. [carries to car, buckles carseat]

Child: No carseat no buckle no no nooooooo [Kicks. Screams. Defies consolation. Cries for ten solid minutes].

And so he proceeded with "an irrational fit of crying, screaming, defiance, and a resistance to every attempt at pacification in which even physical control is lost," which is Wikipedia's definition of a "tantrum." I'm pretty sure he wanted to bring his Halloween Candy in the car with him, and is angry that I stashed it on top of the refrigerator (he may even suspect, correctly, that I'm eating most of it myself). But since I recently came across the suggestion to avoid using the word "tantrum" at all, I can say he didn't have one. And though this may sound pedantic, or semantic, or even absurd, I’m amazed to find myself really feeling better about the whole morning.

No, I haven’t lost my mind from getting hit over the head with sections of toy railroad track. I’m serious: Letting go of the "tantrum" label has separated my child’s irrational, screaming behavior from my own desperate need to snap him out of it. I've read about all different ways to prevent, control and react to the dreaded Big T, and so far this one little trick has helped me the most.

Labels matter: They're little bits of linguistic shorthand that reduce entire categories of behavior, expectations and perspective to a few short syllables. Since the moment I became pregnant, I've had labels to define all my parenting fears and achievements: When is my "due date?" Will my son hit the "terrible twos?" Is he "potty trained?" When we use labels enough, we take them for granted -- and forget, for instance, that a pregnancy "due date" represents an entire body of research, tradition and cultural expectations about what should happen, when it should happen and how we'll react if it doesn't.

But children operate without language – a gestating baby can’t count to 280, and an overwhelmed toddler doesn’t self-identify as an autonomous person who’s exhibiting a specific behavior pattern called a "tantrum." When my child loses it, he is so saturated with fear and anger that he’s hardly capable of protecting his own body from harm. He might be raging for a variety of reasons – exhaustion, confusion or experimentation, to name a few. It’s only when I choose to label these behaviors that they coalesce into a recurring "event" called a tantrum.

As soon as I let go of the label, I'm free to focus on the bigger picture -- in a way, the conscientious use of language is part of a powerful paradigm shift away from adversarial parenting and toward a mindset of helping my child. So when he goes into an irrational rage, my priorities are something like this: 1. Keep him safe. 2. Keep myself calm. 3. Keep our lives on track. 4. Help him calm down. And, in the long run, I will 5. Teach him the skill of behaving appropriately under stress. For instance, if I’m carrying him through a doorway, I’ll 1. Protect his head (or try to, oops, bonk.) If I’m about to lose it, I’ll 2. Leave him alone and go take a few deep breaths, for my own peace of mind. After that, 3. What we do depends on what needs to be done: If it’s time to go, we’re going out the door, even if he’s got big feelings about it. If it’s time to relax and get in the bath, I’ll devote more time to calming him down. 4. Depending on the child and the situation, this could include rocking, nursing, a bear hug, or leaving them to unwind alone.

Of course, I’ve tried tons of things that don’t work, too. Sometimes it’s easy enough to leave the TV on for five more minutes instead of dealing with the screaming because he can’t watch the end of Little Einsteins. I’ve been known to regret this, but I don’t worry too much about spoiling my child by occasionally accommodating him – I think it’s fair to say, "I didn’t realize this was so important to you," give him a spoon instead of a fork, and quietly move on. On the other hand, I won’t agree to "no diaper" just because he wants to keep playing with his pee-pee (okay I confess I stole that one, but I love it because it is SO TRUE). Some things aren’t optional around here, no matter how upsetting this might be for someone who loves being naked but is too young to clean up his own undiaperedly mess.

And this is where Number 5. comes in -- that we're in the process of teaching him how to behave appropriately even when we're overwhelmed by big feelings. I’m not interested in instigating good behavior by making my child feel bad when he fails. And I'm not all that concerned about "rewarding" his meltdown with some calm attention and help where it's needed. And looking at the big picture, there are lots of things I can control (our routine, meals, rest and exercise) to avoid us getting so burnt out that we become utterly unable to cope.

On the other hand, I don’t go out of my way to be sure he never has bad feelings at all. In fact, when we step back and realize that big, loud feelings aren’t a failure – that they are, in the end, "just feelings" – it’s much easier not to take it personally when a child is overwhelmed with emotion. In fact, simply labeling the emotion (instead of the tantrum), in a calm voice, can be powerful: "You are angry. You want to stay home. So angry." Sometimes, as silly as it sounds out loud, wrapping my calm words around his raging feelings helps me believe that it really might not be that bad.

And I know that as he gets older, my child might start to "tantrum" more strategically. Kids do tend to experiment with the power of their big feelings over the adults around them. It's my hope that, by modulating our own reactions to his outbursts -- and by accepting our own frustration, without using anger to threaten or manipulate our child -- we can set a tone in this family that honestly helps each other through the hard times without being scared of our emotions.

I'm sure it will be an adventure. I have bad days, where I forget all this and we both end up crying on the floor anyway. But on a good day, it’s almost as if I can look down on the whole scene: A screaming and confused little boy soaking wet on the bathroom floor, and an exhausted but calm Mama who's finding her authority and managing to be in control. Who knows she’s strong enough to dry off a thrashing toddler, clean the tub, and find pajamas -- while making a mental note to herself that next year, Halloween candy won't go in the bath in the first place.

I owe my perspective on tantrums, as I do many things, to the work of Crystal Lutton.

With Love and Without Fear

I haven't forgotten that I have a blog. I met a new coworker yesterday, and when she introduced herself with ". . . and I'm a knitter," I heard myself say ". . . and I'm a writer!" So time to get to it. I've been away on vacation, taking my toddler to visit family in Alaska. This is a trip that, a year ago, I would have dismissed as impossible. My husband and I couldn't both manage the time away from work, and a thousand miles of air travel with an almost-2-year old seemed beyond my solo parenting capacity. But as my son has grown from a baby to a toddler, I've grown too. And part of my growth includes a determination to avoid the phrase "I can't" whenever possible. (Not that I'll do anything -- I still reserve my right to the phrase "I won't.") So with his second birthday (and the mandatory full-price airfare that goes with it) looming large, I decided we would go.

But realizing that "I can" fly my son to Alaska didn't solve my anxiety of "HOW on Earth can I?" How could I manage taking his little shoes off when we go through FAA security? How will I know whether to pack new books and toys, or comforting old ones? What if he refuses to eat? Or sleep? How can I be sure he doesn't get lost, or hurt? What if he screams, and screams, and doesn't stop? These kind of fears startled me awake, in the nights leading up to our trip, with my anxiety screaming in my head: "How will I do it?" And at some point, I unbelievably got an answer -- from my intuition, from the depths of my soul, from the universe or God Itself I don't know. And the answer is, "With love, and without fear."

Which wasn't exactly what I was looking for. I had hoped the universe would give me more specific directions. Maybe along the lines of "you will take the second elevator down to the L-2 gate, and then feed him goldfish crackers until he falls asleep." But instead, I got a rough outline that reminded me how I will cope: I will mother my son with love. I will not let fear overwhelm me. When things get difficult, I will rely on my love to calm me and guide my decisions.

So off I went. My newfound conviction found me hauling 30 bundled pounds of little boy up the steep stairs to a little 12-seat prop plane, too small inside for anyone to stand upright but him. And so (after our long trip from Seattle and a longer turmoil of baggage, security and lost stroller issues), we finally took off from Anchorage, across the Kenai wilderness, over the glaciers to chilly-yet-cozy little Homer, Alaska. And the whole trip turned out fine -- to keep my son calm, I found myself affecting a calm attitude even when I didn't feel it. And my "message," or whatever it was, was right. I did it all With Love and Without Fear. It wasn't easy, but we managed. Even bedtimes away from home (which I was dreading without husbandly assistance) went smoothly, with the substantial assistance of my loving and fearless sister who enjoyed the moments of snuggling her sleepy nephew while I enjoyed emptying and loading her dishwasher. With Love, and Without Fear.

And now I'm noticing all the ways this applies to parenting. How will I cope if my son screams and hits when I'm running late to work and straining to buckle him in the carseat? With love, and without fear. How could I ever manage another pregnancy and childbirth? With love, and without fear. How will we get him to sleep tonight? And the next night, and the next? Same answer.

I have a lot more mom-thoughts I'm trying to get down this week: one mess of ideas about "tantrums" and one about "praise." But today I'll stick with the theme: That with my son facing down the Tender, Terrific Twos, I've found tremendous strength in believing that "with love, all things are possible." And that this is ultimately enough -- no matter how much I might personally prefer "all things are easy." In my more difficult moments, I'll try to remember pressing my cheek against my son's silky blond head as we watched out the window of our little plane -- over the trees, I told him, over the mountains and above the clouds -- each of us amazed, for our own reasons, that we really can fly.

Books:
Your Two Year Old
Easy to Love, Difficult to Discipline
Unconditional Parenting

Websites:
Dr. Sears on Why Toddlers are Difficult
Crystal Lutton on Tantrums
Get off Your Butt Parenting

Evidence instead of Evidence

The Washington Port is reporting concerns about the use of magnesium sulfate in preventing early labor. This fascinates me for a few reasons. I was briefly monitored for possible "early labor" at 34 weeks gestation (my baby would have been born 7 weeks early). I thankfully avoided magnesium, (but got a shot of terbutaline, which is a story for a different day). At it happened, I didn't go into labor early -- in fact not until 10 past my "due date" (41 weeks 3 days, which I'm now learning is exactly average). But I ended up finding magnesium sulfate anyway, when I was diagnosed with mild pre-eclampsia.

The Post article doesn't challenge magnesium’s use to prevent seizures. But no matter why it's used, the drug's side effects still "range from highly unpleasant to lethal." I guess this doesn’t surprise me, even though no one told me this before they started pumping the Epsom Salts into my veins. I’m sure I had signed some intake paperwork that waived my right to be informed of drug dangers when something critical like a seizure (maybe, possibly, until we get your bloodwork back) might be on the line.

I can vouch that an IV of magnesium, even without a severe complication like "life-threatening pulmonary edema, in which the lungs fill with fluid," is no walk in the park. Reading the article brought it all back to me: nausea, blurred vision, headache, profound lethargy, [and] burning sensation[s]. They don't mention the mad craving for ice cream (especially acute after going without food and water for 20 hours), which can be tolerated only by playing slightly delirious games where you demand that everyone in the room help you name all 31 Flavors of Baskin Robbins Ice cream (I still can’t believe we couldn’t do it – but then we were all pretty tired).

The Post article is noteworthy for another reason: it quotes obstetricians blatantly admitting what I'm always suspcicious about -- that they are more concerned with malpractice liability than patient safety. As Dr. Michael Gallagher, a specialist in maternal-fetal medicine, or high-risk pregnancy, puts it:

. . . jettisoning a long-standing practice [magnesium for preterm labor] in obstetrics involves factors other than evidence, some doctors say. They note that the standard of care -- a benchmark of evidence in malpractice cases -- as well as patients' wishes and the desire to prevent a bad outcome such as premature birth -- all contribute to continued use of the drug . . . "Suppose we don't use it [to stop pre-term labor] and a patient delivers [early and the baby dies]," Gallagher said, noting that might violate the prevailing standard among OB-GYNs. "You find yourself in lonely places."

Oh, those lonely places. So even when the hard, scientific evidence casts doubt on a drug’s safety and effectiveness, the "standard of care" still won't change because each doctor is afraid to stand out from the crowd. They're more concerned with the potential "evidence" that might be brought against them in a malpractice lawsuit -- the testimony of trial experts who tell a jury what "all the other doctors do." They are safe from liability as long as they act consistently with each other -- as long as they all do the same thing -- regardless of whether it protects patients.

It makes me wonder what Dr. Gallagher would do if all the other obstetricians jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge. Would he follow them? (Maybe if they threatened to raise his insurance premiums?) Or is this beside the point – since it’s the mothers and children, in this metaphor, being asked to line up and jump.

On the other hand, maybe all the doctors are desperate for some sensible freedom from the viscious cycle of standards and liability. It reminds me of Cass Sunstein's hockey helmet theory -- hockey players always knew they'd be safer with helmets, and wouldn't have minded wearing them. But no one wanted to be the first person to be different, so they didn't wear helmets until it became mandatory. According to Sunstein, there's no bright line between what's "rationa" (ie, evidence based medicine) and the "social norms" (how you'll be judged -- literally -- compared to all the other obstectricians). In fact, peer pressure can influence our beliefs until the "norms" become intertwined with our deepest levels of thought. It's easy to imagine this happening in medical education, where new doctors learn not just from research but from the practice, anecdotes and experience of other doctors -- even when this becomes distorted (perhaps through single a dramatic example, like a fetal death) from what what evidence-based medicine would tell us.

Things become even more distorted when we bring "patients’ wishes" into the discussion. Patients know nothing about magnesium – or any medical intervention – until their doctors tell them. And patients facing preterm labor surely pressure their providers to do whatever they can to help. But perhaps this is just another symptom of our inflated faith in what medical technology should do for us. Who’s to blame for that?

As far as the Post article goes, I did find myself touched to read that another OB/Gyn, Gary Cunningham of University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, had the empathy to once take magnesium sulfate himself to see what it was like. "It was scary," he said. "You feel like you're burning up."

Yep, scary. A burning arm where the IV enters. Double vision, flu-like symptoms, sweating, chills and vomiting. Enough to scare a healthy, symptomless man in controlled research conditions – even scarier for a woman in labor who is fearing a premature birth. And scariest of all -- it probably doesn't help her.

Lonely places.

Simplify a Change of Season

For some reason I was charmed to read yesterday that more parents are becoming open to large families. I grew up in a family of 6, but have never had any particular conviction about the "right" family size. In fact, I'm pretty noncommital about the whole thing -- especially when it comes to deciding when to have more children of my own. For some reason, I find it reassuring to read of contemporary, urban professionals expecting another child (their sixth) with a warm "why not?"

A family larger than four (mom, dad, two kids) is virtually unheard of in my circles. All the lawyers I know have a pair of children, almost as if they order a stair-stepped "Zach and Molly" set from the American Girl catalog. Families with three or more kids seem to have suffered some unexpected accident (an older lawyer, whose second pregnancy led to twin daughters, told me that women lawyers tend to have more twins "because we're OLD.") Obviously, busy city people like us have limited time, money and real estate -- as well as goals for career, travel and personal achievement to pursue when our children are grown. But the logistical considerations aren't enough to describe the small-family epidemic among professionals. It makes me wonder what we've convinced ourselves of, and what we might be missing.

Why not have children? It’s such a refreshing question. My parents had four children because they didn't want five. Yet I've always had to ask myself all the hard questions: Why have children? How many? When? I understand all too well the burdens of adding more people to the family. And it's our responsibility to decide to have children (right?) Yet no matter how I put my mind to it, my intellectual and intuitive capacities have failed to guide me.

How do I know I'm ready to have a child? I think that women of my generation, along with our powerful right to control our own reproductive destinies, feel an acute responsibility to determine, rationally, when to have each child. If our careers or finances are not in order, we are to use artificial contraception until we are ready. This is true even of women who are fully capable supporting whatever children they have. When women expose their fertility to chance, they're perceived as sloppy, even negligent -- Britney Spears being a recent example of this.

The concept of "birth control" promises more than it can deliver. Having babies is both mundane and mystical. It's not a simple matter of ordering up Zach or Molly for a scheduled delivery date. These little people, running around your house yelling about bananas and tipping over the dog's water, are an obvious yet enigmatic result of our biological and social sex lives. Conception is a curious alchemy of physiology and intimacy. It can happen in an accidental instant, or it can evade months of concerted effort. Yet I'm asked, and ask myself -- How did we decide to have this baby? When will we have more?

In other times and places in global history, parents have had far less luxury and leisure time to dedicate to their families. But here, in our relatively wealthy culture, it's socially acceptable to have children only at an appropriate time: Planned Parenthood, for example, supports individuals "to have children when and if they are ready." The idea of "reproductive self-determination" (intended to describe our fundamental privacy rights) can pressure us to "determine" each and every choice we make. Each day, each month. And who decides when we’re "ready" to have a child? I just reviewed Planned Parenthood’s "readiness" checklist and learned that I've got a ways to go before I'm ready (I still need to "come to terms with my own childhood experience," and "cope with tighter budgets"). And my son turns two next month.

This dilemma isn't just for pregnant teens who suffer problems of domestic violence and drug abuse. There's no "them" and "us." More mothers than I can count – women I admire and consider mentors if not role models – originally became parents in difficult or accidental circumstances. And many of us -– financially stable, established, deliberate parents –- jump confidently into the cold water of motherhood only to flounder, overwhelmed, in its cold, black depths. We're a continuum of women, from young to old, conflicted by our desires, our means, and cultural messages about what is expected of us. How much of successful parenting is maturity and preparation, and how much is inherent to our character? How much is luck?

Of course, this implicates religion, too. Yesterday Pope Benedict XVI exhorted Catholic families to be missionaries of love and life (which I like). Protestant fundamentalists, while less doctrinal about contraception, often describe themselves as "quiverfull" (from Psalm 127) in giving their family planning over to God. It's easy for the secular mainstream to dismiss these kind of "open to life" attitudes as irresponsible or even oppressive. But it's not that family is a religious issue – it's that family is important. In any paradigm, our fertility is a critical – even sacred – part of who we are as people, both individually and in relationships. If faith deals with anything relevant to our human experience, it must speak to families and the mystery of new life. And maybe the underlying value of fertility, if not the exact paradigm, is an important one for our culture to keep hold of.

When faced with the question of having children, I haven't found any analytical framework much more useful than religious doctrine. No matter how I calculate the months, the hours, the dollars and the square footage that would be required by another child, I'm left feeling less capable than when I began. With all due respect to Planned Parenthood, maybe there is no "ready" to have a child (although there is surely a category of "not ready," perhaps that's less obvious than we think).

So I wonder if a pregnancy is something I can "decide" on at all. I don't believe in fate or think my family size is preordainted. But I still don't understand how much control I have over it all. And even if I have another "well-timed" pregnancy, the entire process is a cascade of growth and change over which I have little direct control. When our modern reliance on technical management of gestation and birth has resulted in so much risk and pain, it makes me wonder. What would happen if we just let go? What if our "reproductive self-determination" is a determination to set down the calculators and calendars, and live our lives as they come to us?

Why not?

How can you have too many children? That's like having too many flowers -- Mother Theresa

Yes, more of this

I wrote a letter to the Editor of the New Yorker today:

For Publication

Editor:
Atul Gawande's article about birth and modern medicine raises the bar for birth journalism -- his historical treatment and surgical descriptions are eye-opening -- but I find myself deeply disappointed by the ending of Elizabeth Rourke’s story. Dr. Rourke’s misery and debilitation following her cesarean section were not “stupid feelings.” As one of the many women who suffer from what Gawande calls medicine’s "tyranny" against birthing mothers, I observe that mixed feelings after a cesarean, while varied and intimate, are far from stupid. The pain of women like me– from IV bruises and infections, from confusion and anxiety – is real, even if it is usually invisible to institutional healthcare.

It’s not just medicine that lets us down. It’s our culture and community – often other mothers like Rourke – sending the constant message that all that matters about birth is a healthy baby. As if, were our child only “gorgeous” enough, our gratitude only deep enough, then we could ignore these “stupid feelings” of pain and regret. Like all mothers, I value my healthy son more than my very life. But I’m not alone in grieving a birth I never knew I wanted (I being one who yelled for my epidural before I had my shoes off) until it was lost.

When the most recent evidence (perhaps published after fact-checking for this issue) suggests that cesareans nearly triple the risk of maternal and neonatal death, the damage we face is not just sentimental. The prevalence of cesarean delivery is threatening every doctor’s ability to treat patients and every woman’s right to choose the safest birth for herself and her family. Only with accurate information, and honest emotional support, will this begin to change.

Robin Grace
Member, International Cesarean Awareness Network (ICAN)

The Wretched Refuse of Your Teeming Church/State Paradigm

Lou Dobbs writes today on Keeping Religion Out of Politics. He's apparently getting some hinky feeling about houses of worship violating Federal tax laws (which prohibit endorsing or opposing candidates). This I get; I don't want my church to be a cog in a political machine. That's an important moral issue, and not just because it affects Mr. Dobbs' precious tax dollars (in the macroeconomic sense that he's ultimately affected by my church's tax-exempt status).

But Dobbs gives only one example -- the Mormons "helping a pro-amnesty incumbent with a get out the vote campaign," where a church is accused of supporting a particular candidate. His argument is much broader: No religious organization, apparently, should participate in any activity within what he has deemed as a "political" sphere. He mentions that the IRS has dozens of investigations underway, and snarks that, "apparently nobody in the federal government is too concerned that the Catholic Church has repeatedly lobbied on behalf of millions of illegal aliens and their supporters for wholesale amnesty and open borders." And he says it's "time for all of us to examine closely, both in our communities and in our Congress, just what separation of church and state really means to us and to the nation."

Okay, I've examined it. How about this, Lou? Keep your politics off my immigration issues. Maybe the reason "nobody in the federal government is too concerned" here is because you're wrong.

This is my religion: "for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me…. Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of my people, you did it to me." Jesus Christ. Immigration isn't just a footnote to Christianity; it is one of its core themes and defining values. What kind of government would deny me my right to study this in a Bible group, announce it to my fellow parishioners, and minister to immigrant peoples? On what theory does my personal religious practice become a government "establishment" of religion to the extent that my own right to free exercise -- in fact to free speech, to free assembly, to free press -- can be abridged?

I'd say "we were here first" -- that immigration has been a religious issue far longer than it's been a political one -- but that buys into Dobbs' polarization of "Church" and "State" as two institutional spheres that should never influence each other. But "religion" isn't simply an institution. Religion is a paradigm; a set of values; a defining premise that guides the lives of individual men and women of faith. Whether these people meet in a church or synagogue, worship their God by name, or pray together or separately -- their faith is an innermost, private process of the human heart. Likewise, "politics" isn't a disembodied activity that occurs only in campaigning, in voting, in the activities of our legislature and judiciary. "Politics" are the very processes by which we argue, buy, discuss, read and spend according to what is most important to us. Political process and religion perspective are each part of all of us. How can one be ever kept wholly distinct from the other?

Yes, I hold the establishment clause as dearly as I hold my right to free exercise. But telling my parish to stay silent in the face of massive social oppression, as if we must shut up and stick to singing Kumbaya on Sundays, is unconscionable. If immigration is political, it's because of the way our government uses its economic and military power to control its borders and deny its privileges of citizenship to outsiders. This threatens the life and safety of the thousands of men, women and children who their lives for a chance to come join (and be exploited by) our society. This is a tragedy and an epidemic. And if my heart and soul tell me not to look away -- to help, to reform, to fight the tragedy -- does it matter that this particular heart is informed by a particular faith? It cannot.

Give me your tired, your poor

Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore

Send these, the homeless tempest-tossed to me

I lift my lamp beside the golden door.

Inscription on the Statue of Liberty

For Reference: C-section risks

I'm gathering all my links together for easy reference . . .

Vaginal Birth after Cesarean in California: Before and After a Change in Guidelines. The 1999 ACOG recommendation on VBAC resulted in a marked decrease (from 24% to 13.5%) of vaginal deliveries of women scarred from previous cesarean surgery. Neonatal and maternal mortality rates did not improve.

Cesarean Delivery Triples Maternal Death Risk. French National Perinatal Survey as reported in Obstetrics & Gynecology, September 2006. Yes, I'm sure you don't know anyone who has died from the c-section. Thank God, neither do I. But when we look at the numbers -- not just our personal anecdotal evidence -- we learn what we're missing: Deaths, resulting from blood clots, infection or complications from anesthesia -- at 3.6 times the rate of mothers birthing vaginally.

Cesarean Delivery increases Infant Death by 2.85x. Infant and Neonatal Mortality for Primary Cesarean and Vaginal Births to Women with "No Indicated Risk," United States, 1998–2001 Birth Cohorts. Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care, September 2006

The Risk of Adhesions after Gynecologic Surgery. Dr. Gregory Fossum, September 2006. Those little side effects that are usually ignored by the larger studies of mortality and complications: Adhesions are bands of tissue that form between organs in response to injury caused during surgery. in one report, adhesions formed in 73% of primary C-section patients. Resulting injury includes small bowel obstruction, chronic pelvic, and infertility.

Cesarean Spike Drives up Medicaid Costs. Study by Health and Human Services' Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, August, 2006. The epidemic of surgical delivery isn't just the pet issue of birth fanatics like me. It's your problem, too.

A Role Model for Water

This week's Newsweek features "The New Generation" of women leaders -- profiles of political, athletic and artistic women and their achievements. It's a good read, if a little canned. All the women seem to have been asked about their role models -- many of them cite role models, or wrestle the idea in general. As racecar driver Danica Patrick puts it, "I learned from people that I knew along the way, but I didn't have somebody that I wanted to be like. I wanted to be the first Danica, not the next somebody else."

I wonder about role models. Of course, girls need exposure to diverse and inspiring examples of adult womanhood -- in family, in work, in matters of personal character. But the idea of a "role model" is so limiting: As if we must choose our role, then imitate those who model it for us. As if there's one way to be a good racecar driver. Or a good Secretary of State. Or a good mother.

The "mother" role is, of course, one of the hardest to define. It overlaps with all the other categories of what it means to be a woman, to have a family, to work. Even those of us with admirable "role model" mothers are bound to struggle against fulfilling or rejecting the role as we imagine it to be. It's worth asking the question: Why is motherhood a "role" at all?

Looking lately at some studies of ancient Hebrew "word pictures" -- the original characters used in Biblical scripture that eventually involved into our own alphabet as well as modern Hebrew -- I’ve recently learned that the ancient Hebraic word for mother -- "Em" -- means "strong water." Which makes sense: The symbols for "father" (strong house) embody the structured, formal, property-bound family entity: Man's solution to the problem of rain and wind. The mother, on the other hand, is elemental and ubiquitous. Nourishing and necessary; everywhere, doing everything. And not just any water -- the strength of water, the first among the waters. A strong river. A deep wellspring. The first rain.

And "Em," while consistent with a traditional, life-giving mother role, immediately transcends the entire idea. Water is fluid and dynamic. It is vital to everything around it, but true unto itself. "Em" isn't just the spring in the center of oasis. It's not a source that might one day run dry. It is the water itself, flowing over the ground, rising to the sky in steam, and raining back to earth. We can consume water -- but while it lends itself to our nourishment, it always retains its own unique character.

We're mothers, by definition, when we have children. We mother them regardless of where we work, how large our family is, or when and what we feed them. As we lend our nature and our strength to our family, we do not disappear. And in straining to be the mother we think we "should" be -- to imitate others, to try to reproduce what we see as the productive elements of someone else's life and role -- we can lose ourselves in the process. Karenna Gore Schiff, in her Newsweek interview, tells of getting married in lawschool and pregnant soon after. She describes being one of the youngest mothers she knows, and mentions that she left the practice of law after a year, but declines to make a larger political or social point about this. She simply points out that "women in particular gain strength from operating in different spheres." And maybe this is all there is to it. A woman can be fully a mother, yet must be fully herself.

So what is the role model for water? Water doesn't need anyone to imitate, or any books to read, to show it how to be what it is. Maybe it takes an image like this to remind us how futile it is to compare ourselves to each other, or to a Motherhood Ideal. Despite our commonality, we are incomparable: The nature of water is constant, but its forms are infinitely varying. Water it always just as watery and wet as it is supposed to be. There's no "better" water or "wetter" water. It’s just water – falling from the sky, tumbling down a mountainside, washing up the beach with a rising tide.

No wonder, when mothers compete with each other, we’re left confused and frustrated. Any competition is only futile and distracting. But we can nourish and inspire each other. Perhaps (at times) we do so by "modeling" healthy behaviors and attitudes through all our challenges. But, regardless of our role models, each one of us can only be herself. Strong water, on her own course, vital and strong – washing away our roles and stereotypes. As fine as mist; as right as rain.

You Go, Girl.

Today is Washington's Primary Election Day. If I hadn't already sent in my absentee ballot, it would be exhilirating to go to the polls and celebrate my suffrage on the same day that the Thai government is being overthrown by a military coup because its democracy is failing. I was going to mention last week that the most inspiring thing I heard Ann Richards speak about was the right to vote and run for office -- that she was elected governor only a mere generation after women had to fight for the right to cast a ballot. It's a privilege to vote. Not because, as a woman, I ever needed special permission. But just because we live in a safe and free country, and voting is what ever and always can make it so. Even the abuses, failures and weakness of our electoral process serve to remind us of this -- to not be complacent, keep our standards high, and remember that we value democracy.

The results of the Primaries matter in quite a few races -- in legislative districts, such as the 43rd, that are so dominated by a single party that the primary winner is guaranteed the seat in the House of Representatives. In reading the Stranger's endorsement of Stephanie Pure, I've only recently learned about the "Feminine Critique" controversy: This past summer, The Stranger reported that Lynne Dodson -- the other female frontrunner -- along with representatives from NARAL and the National Women's Political Caucus -- approached Stephanie and asked her to drop out of the race. Not because Stephanie is a lesser champion for women's rights or, if elected, she would be any kind of threat to their platform. But because, as the candidate with (in their assessment) a lesser chance of winning, Stephanie should step aside -- so that the "women's vote" is undivided among multiple qualified candidates, and a woman is more likely to win.

In theory, I comprehend the rationale. As NWPC's Mitchell said: "I want to see a woman win that seat. And when voters are offered a choice of two great women, then it limits each woman's chances of winning." Political strategy makes sense in certain contexts: For instance, in the Nader v. Gore v. Bush 2000 Presidential race, there were long-ranging implications of Nader staying in the race (and voters voting for him), instead of strategically backing Gore to provide him undivided support in defeating Bush. But Nader, and many of his 2000 supporters, will still argue that a person must stand by their position, regardless of the ultimate outcome.

I'd say that was a close moral and political call. But Stephanie Pure isn't Ralph Nader, and Lynne Dodson is no Vice President Gore. Oh, and "women" aren't comparable to the nationwide 2000 Electorate. We're not a troop of girl scouts all marching in uniform, either. We're a diverse and dynamic array of voters who simply have in common our XX chromosome. To act as if women are an interest group, who only deserve one qualified candidate to choose from, stinks with the cheap perfume of quotas and tokenism. Would a "wait your turn, little girl" attitude be tolerable in reviewing applications for medical school or NEA grants? Electing law firm partners or Union Presidents? It would be annoying if it didn't chill me to the bone.

I would agree that Stephanie had an obligation to assess her chance of winning and consider the strategic impact of her candidacy. And believe me, she did -- and she is as serious and responsible a candidate as you'll find. Opposition candidate Jamie Pedersen has been criticized for trying to make the 43rd Representative position a "gay seat" -- but the Dodson coalition has done us one worse -- acting as if there's only one "pink seat" in the legislature. Apparently the ladies of the 43rd must politely wait in line until Ms. Dodson has finished her term, washed her hands, and moved on.

As a 30-something professional woman running for the House of Representatives (who I have, as a disclaimer, known since college), Stephanie has courage, conviction, and energy that are nothing but admirable -- unless you are her opponent, in which case I imagine you'd find it all threatening. Her candidacy is a reminder that a Democrat-only district deserves choice and diversity in a race (and everyone running, for the record, appears to agree on the substantive issues of gay marriage, women's choice, and civil rights -- there's no G.W. Bush to be found). Another bright, qualified woman on the ballot can only serve women. And a greater number of qualified candidates, in this situation, can only further the democratic process.

Stephanie, you go, girl. May the best woman win.

Update: Today's results indicate that Stephanie Pure received 13.1% of the votes cast among all six candidates. The frontrunners are battling for the seat between 23.9% and 22.8%. And yes, if the votes for Dodson (with 11.5%) and Pure were combined together, it would be enough to win the seat . So if Dodson's logic was correct, she should have withdrawn -- and Stephanie might have won.

Tears to the Heart of Texas

Former Texas Governor Ann Richards died this week. A few years ago, I saw Governor Richards speak at a dinner for the Northwest Women's Law Center (and even got to shake her hand when a friend from Texas introduced me). She made such an impression, I talked about her for weeks -- usually choking back emotion and unable to adequately describe what she actually said. I'm the same way today.

I'm so sad. Partly because I'm immature about death and just feel like crying, "but I met her -- and she was alive!" Partly because I'd imagined even greater things for her -- national office, more publications, even farther-reaching service to her party and country. But even if she was the wrong generation to be in Barak Obama's cabinet (or he in hers), she left a great legacy of prison reform and equal rights. She was a sensible, convicted voice for respectful treatment of everyone. She was a commanding and inspired woman who remained true to her own self while holding public office. She was one of the greatest, but she doesn't have to be the last.

Everyone talks about Governor Richards' wit, which makes me reflect on what exactly made her so darn funny. Because humor is so subjective. I once was in a workshop with a group of engaged couples when we were asked to name one thing we loved about our partners. Almost everyone mentioned "sense of humor." But after spending a weekend with these people, I had to respectfully (and quietly) observe that, with the exception of my own fiancé, no one was being particularly amusing. Humor is part of affection and intimacy -- it doesn't just attract us, it grows as we become more familiar. The more we trust someone, the more they share their selves with us, the more we are able to laugh together. The best humor is in those sudden little moments -- that light up with a twist of phrase, a quick insight, shining like a bright flash from the depth of a person's character. The deeper we love someone, the funnier they are.

And that was Governor Richards' appeal. I've been looking up quotes to repost here (some of the best are at her Keynote Address to the 1988 Democratic Convention), but find that -- as brilliant as she sounds in writing -- I can't quite capture the warmth and conviction I recall from seeing her speak. She brought her genuine self into the room as few people do. She loved progress and cared about people. And she was loved in return. And that's why she was so, so funny -- At the heart of her wit was her courageous and humble heart.

Learning to ride a motorcycle on her 60th Birthday


. . . After all, Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did. She just did it backwards and in high heels.
-Ann Richards

Let the Midget Demons Come to Me

Salon.com has a feature article today about Mars Hill Church, in my very own neighborhood of Ballard. The friend who sent me the link described this as "scary." I read it carefully, because I was ready to explain to him why progressive, educated salon-readers like us don't need to be scared of every Evangelical Christian we read about.

But then I read it, and I agree that it's scary.

According to the article, Mars Hill teaches an interpretation of the Bible that requires its married female parishioners to "quit their jobs and try to have as many babies as possible," and "submit" to their husbands about little details like their personal purchases and plans. Their pastor speaks flippantly about his own children as "midget demons" and jokes (or is it a joke) about his childhood of "duct-taping and hog-tying his own siblings." Not surprisingly, the article describes the women in the article as tired and frustrated -- complaining about how one child "talks back" while the other one cries alone in the other room during the interview.

Christians don't have to live like this. And I'm not just talking here about liberal, social-justice minded Roman Catholic Christians like myself. I'm talking about Bible-college, homeshooling, fundamentalist Protestant Christians who live by Sola Scriptura -- upholding the text of the Bible as the sole and only basis for all religious belief. Even within the Evangelical community (or communities), many women disagree on whether Titus 2:5 prohibits work outside the home, or whether Paul's Ephesians 5 directive to "submit" requires that a wife defer to all her husband's preferences. Many Fundamentalist families don't believe that Proverbs 23 or Hebrews 12 require them to punish their children. They rely instead on their faith in Christ's Grace as a model and a foundation to for grace-based discipline.

It's not just Christian parents who see their children as adversaries to be wrested under control. Many mainstream parenting sources -- including the abysmal "What to Expect" series -- describe greedy, selfish children who will overwhelm us if we don't train them out of their natural habits as early as possible. And I can name many feminist mothers who have sighed over their mixed feelings and unfinished masters' degrees -- none of them Fundamentalist conservatives like the one described in the article. These are cultural challenges, not just Christian ones.

Evangelical parents, however, may have an added burden. In their conviction that the Bible contains their entire life's directive, they can become vulnerable to charismatic ministries who, in ironic defiance of Sola Scriptura itself, impose their own interpretations of Scripture that are unsupported by Hebraic tradition and linguisitic study. And a cultural bias, given the authority of God's Word, is a heavy burden to labor under.

Along with their great burden, however, many Christians have a great strength -- their faith in a greater love than all the misinformation, legalism, and corruption both of culture and of church. I've been honored to meet many Evangelical mothers online, debate with them, and learn from them (Yes, I cited the above verses from memory). Despite some critical differences of opinion, I've opened my mind and discovered an eduated, diverse, critically-thinking community (and some dear women that I might humbly refer to as friends).

It is scary when Mars Hill -- or any institution -- becomes an amplified voice that threatens to distort such a powerful message as that of Jesus Christ. At the same time, it's important to realize what we have in common -- just as the Salon article described the movements' camraderie, healthy living, and skepticism about corporate tyranny and consumerism. We might aspire to the same strengths and, as women and mothers, might share the same struggles. And maybe with open minds, we can learn from each other.

He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these." Mark 10:14

For reference:
www.aolff.org
www.ezzo.info

ERCS, She Did it Again

Britney Spears has another son, delivered by cesarean section.

Before having her first child, Spears told ELLE magazine that she "hoped for surgery" because she didn't want to "go through the pain" [of labor and delivery]. Now she has done it again. It's impossible to know whether her experience with her first surgery was everything she had hoped for. I don't know whether she had any interest, or support, to revisit the decision for vaginal delivery the second time around. It's easy to imagine, give the hostile medical climate surrounding VBAC, that like most women she presumed it was high-risk and didn't think twice about it.

And now, c-sections are even more normal than they were when I woke up this morning. Birth anecdotes create our cultural beliefs about birth (where did she get the idea that surgery was preferable to vaginal delivery in the first place?) Hundreds of thousands of young women will read about Britney's repeat c-section and accept it as a preferable and safe course of action. I doubt any of those women will ever hear what I have to say. But I'll say it anyway: It's not. Britney and her babies faced a tripled risk of death. She now faces increased risk of infection, blood transfusion, depression and anxiety. Her uterus will be sewn shut and her remaining layers of muscle, fat and skin will be stapled and glued together. She is likely to scar over with adhesions as the tissue heals.

If she wants more children, she'll have the face the fact that each c-section is more risky than the last. If she wants a large family, she will likely be outright discouraged, because of the increased risk and strain to her uterus each time it is cut open and sewn shut (uterine rupture is as likely during pregnancy as it is during labor and delivery). And if she ever is haunted by regret, by confusion and some haunting rage about it all, she will probably hear what most of us hear -- you're fine. You're healthy. It's normal. Be thankful you have healthy babies.

It looks like her family is recovering just fine. So is mine, Thank God. And neither one of us have daughters (yet) to inherit the legacy that our choices are building -- a world where surgery is normal, birth is feared, and women have little right to choose.

Ethiopean New Year

It's September Eleventh.

It's been almost five years since I got burnt out on the phrase "September Eleventh." I've never liked how the numerical date itself is our actual relic for the terrorist attacks. Of course I remember "the day," and all my reactions to it: Trying to get ahold of friends in New York, hearing their story of watching towers fall and how they walked home for hours through ash and crowds. The feeling everywhere of imminent vulnerability. How some moving boxes fell over in a crash late one night, and I was out of bed in tears before I knew what happened: at once facing my own mortality and feeling ridiculously safe. The patriotism that pretended not to be political, but planted the seeds for years of war and confusion. It's so universal, it's a cliché. There's really no reason for me to discuss my own memories of September 11, 2001.

But before there was September Eleventh, there were hundreds of other September Elevenths. It was just a date, in late summer or early fall. For generations, people could discuss it, schedule it, and get up in the morning on September 11-- without the clanging syllables ringing heavy in their ears: Sept-EM-ber! Ee-LEV-enth!

September 11, 1999, for instance, was my sister's wedding day. I was the maid of honor. It was 90 degrees in the Wishkah Valley shade. We wore blue dresses, and had bouquets of delphiniums. My beautiful boyfriend and I flew back from Chicago for the weekend. In addition to all the other great things (love, family, Spencer the dog who kept trying to crash the ceremony) I remember my Grandma being there. In a crowd of people at the reception, she called out to my boyfriend from her table, and asked him to come over and be introduced to more relatives. He proceeded to sit with her and be introduced, and was polite and considerate. I don't know what they talked about. I know it impressed other relatives (which is how I learned of it). Just one of those simple little family challenges where everyone is at their best, and it comes together shining for a moment -- that makes a wedding day what it is.

My Grandma died less than two years later. My boyfriend is now my husband. That's the September Eleventh I'd like to remember.

Using the phrase "September Eleventh" to mean "Terrorist Attacks on New York and Washington" is at once too much and not enough. It's overbroad: September will have an eleventh day, year after year, as long our Gregorian-calendar-using civilization survives. At the same time, it's inadequate -- to refer to the terrorist attacks with nothing but the icon "9/11" serves to somehow veil the actual attacks and the actual terror. In my house, we find it more accurate to refer to "The Terrorist Attacks on New York and Washington." Let's hope there will never be more -- and to call the Terrorist Attacks the Terrorist Attacks will serve, indefinitely, to be the most accurate and the most honest way to describe them.

September 11 is somebody's birthday, somebody's anniversary, somebody's first day of school. It also happens to be Ethiopean New Year: A reminder of an entire people, an entire continent, a calendar, for whom my country and its problems are peripheral to their own traditions and celebrations. Even in our pain, our rememberance, and our sense of community, it's important to keep some perspective.

Happy Anniversary, K and J!

Lunatia on a Friday Afternoon

So I'm loving the blog, but these are turning into long essays that demand a lot of me and anyone reading them. I'm aiming for a post per day, but at this volume it's a lot slower. Every single time, I think I'm going to be pithy and just post a single link and few short quips. And then my ideas expand until I just have too much to say. Some of this stuff is emotionally intense, and I'm trying not to be superficial and go into depth when I want. But it's a big learning process. I have spent an hour or two writing each "essay," and many more hours editing. Then the html slows me down, even those simple little linky-thingies. And there are still tons of typos, I start too many sentences with "maybe," and ask too many rhetorical questions. I'm really trying to let it go, keep moving on, and get better with time.

I really do welcome comments, ideas and discussion. I might experiment with shorter formats, blurbs, posting links, giving myself a paragraph or time limit. In the next few days I'm going to try and write about:

Categories Suck: (I don't care if I'm a "Good mom.")
Love Means Never Having to Say You're Happy
Ten Things I Hate About Scientology
Ethiopean Independence Day
What else?

Before the Seizure that You May or May not Have

Headline yesterday: Two Proteins Tied to Preeclampsia. Big news, because this is a dangerous, mysterious pregnancy complication. It’s really a "symptom cluster" (elevated blood pressure, proteins in urine, hyperreflexia) with no definitive way to diagnose, cause or cure it. "Pre-eclampsia" means "before the seizure" – the eclamptic seizure being worst of its symptoms and effects (it used to be called "toxemia" because it involves toxins in the blood). There’s some good info here: What Happens Biologically During Pre-E. Pre-e causes a "domino effect" in the mother’s blood – some things (diet, minerals or blood pressure meds) seem to help, but they might just slow down the systemic chain reaction long enough for the baby to be born. But nothing is proven to work, and thousands of mothers (and their infants) die of it.

If it’s caught early, pre-e is medically "managed" by bedrest, monitoring, intravenous anti-seizure medications, or surgical removal of the (hopefully healthy and viable term) fetus. In order to avoid the (very low, but real) chance of a seizure, current protocols demand aggressive management. I’ll assume that, on balance, this does more good than harm – although I haven’t seen any stats that show it. Not even hindsight is 20/20 – it’s impossible to know whether any given interventions actually avoided a seizure, or did any good at all.

When a woman shows up in labor (like I did) presenting some clinical symptoms for pre-eclampsia, the protocol is apparently "everyone freak out." I had BP around 135/90, some protein showing on a urine "test strip," and excelled on my reflex test by kicking the nurse in the face (I was momentarily proud, before I realized was not a good sign). I was immediately given an IV (after two false tries which left me too bruised for anyone to hold my hands through labor). For the next 20 hours I was administered magnesium sulfate, a drug so strong it burns the arms on entry and causes "flu-like" symptoms (dizziness, exhaustion, vomiting). Magnesium, coincidentally, is a drug that's also used to stop labor when women are in danger of delivering prematurely. So, not surprisingly, after 12 hours of being "stuck" at 6 cm of dilation (and after pitocin, artificial rupture of membranes, an intrauterine catheter, and other stuff I probably don’t even know about), I agreed to the doctor’s proposal that "we go ahead and section you." Somewhere in the back of my mind was the recollection that "failure to progress" really means "failure to be patient," that c-sections were not an easy way out of anything, and that somewhere inside me was a baby who knew how to come out of my body the way the good Lord intended. But I don't remember thinking much about this. Mostly I remember that they promised me a cherry popsicle when it was over, at my insistence.

I'm lucky, I know: pre-eclampsia stole my birth, but not my baby. I’m also lucky that I did not suffer serious complications from the interventions and surgery. But yes, the birth still matters -- a point I think Gretchen Humphries says best in her essay You Should Be Grateful. I understand that medicine is an art as well as a science, and I believe that the doctors who put me on magensium me did it with every intention of protection me from seizure and delivering me of a healthy baby. I’m not prepared to second-guess their decisions, even when we saw another OB shake her head in dismay at my chart and tell me my pre-e was "mild." Even though I recently checked my labwork and saw that my actual blood draws did not show positive indicators of pre-eclampsia. I still might have been at risk. They might have saved my life. There’s no way to know.

It’s a popular myth that women are healthier and safer now than in "The Old Days" of childbirth where we didn't have operating rooms and anesthesiologists on-call. While nutrition and sanitation have made birth much healthier (especially compared to eras of historic poverty, malnutrition or social oppression) other things haven’t: Skyrocketing c-section rates since the 1970's, for instance, haven’t lowered maternal or neonatal mortality rates in the same time period. In fact (see below), surgical deliveries carry a higher risk of death for everyone. And this is without considering complications like infected incisions, blood transfusions, pain, depression and anxiety (that are not quantified as "serious" complications by most research, or legally cognizable as damage). And in countless other situations, mothers and babies are exposed to infections, allergens, medicinal error, anxiety and post-traumatic stress -- simply by going to the hospital.

It may be too much to hope for a magic pill for pre-eclampsia (folic acid during pregnancy, for instance dramatically reduces neural tube defects). But science has got to lead us (eventually) to more certainty, less fear, and more accurate and specific treatment. And we have to wonder whether so many women's bodies are truly made (evolved, designed, created) with innate defects that can only be cured by modern medicine. Childbirth is not supposed to be easy, but I have to wonder if it's supposed to be deadly. Do we really need science to save us from the danger of own bodies? How much of this is a symptom of our modern lives -- poor diets, exposure to pollutants, and a culture of fear and mistrust surrounding birth? How much are we asking of medicine, and how much do we need to take responsibility for ourselves?

In some cases, maybe mine (maybe), medical intervention saves lives. I’ll never know. What I do know is that, from here on out, I’m classified as a "high risk" birth – not because of pre-eclampsia, but because of the previous uterine surgery that fear and treatment of pre-eclampsia led to. So we'll see what happens if I do it again. In the meantime I’m learning all I can -- about health and disease; responsibility and trust; risk, fear and courage.