Happy Birthday Baby Boy!

It's my son's fourth birthday today.

Four years ago today I had never:

• Intentionally caught someone's vomit in my hands
• Smelled someone's head like it was fresh bread
• Found cheerios in my pillowcase
• Almost stuck my hand down the garbage disposal because of lack of sleep
• Held a person's whole head in the palm of my hand
• Been able to make someone's world perfect, just by nursing him and letting him fall asleep on me.

This is my birth story for my firstborn.

I had a natural birth. And yeah, I'm proud of it. So sue me. My second birth was the typical epidural/pitocin/IV thing, so I'm not all nasty about how epidurals are Satan's Curse on babies. But I was a warrior cave woman for one day of my life, and I felt like I could tear up the world with my teeth after that.

When I had my son, I was in active labor for 20 hours. We had to drive for an hour and 15 minutes to the birth center (the only one that had water tubs that my insurance covered). I was in the back of a subcompact car, with a big old baby seat in the middle of the back seat. I was a plump and lovely earth mother at this point, so space was tight. I could barely move.

After I was at the hospital awhile, they kicked me out so I'd progress faster. The wouldn't let me into the birthing tub (oh, glorious water!) until I was at 5 cm. I was at 4 1/2. I was miserable. I wanted to stay in my little nest bed, but instead I had to get back in the torture car for a ride to not one, but two hotels (to find a tub). When we got there, labor got much more intense, and my husband filled the tub. I was so huge at this point, the tub was no comfort to me. The water just sloshed around my butt.

I laid on the hotel bed and asked for Tylenol.

I know. That's silly, right? Except I'm super sensitive to medications. So my husband didn't know if he should obey, or gently remind me that it wouldn't help. (With my second, I took 4 Tylenol during labor and it helped a little. Even if it was all in my head, I didn't care.)

At this point, I had been laboring all night, all day, and it was now about 2 or 3 pm. I was exhausted. And I started to cry. This was the only crying I did, because then I bucked up like the tough bitch I am.

And we went back to the hospital, they got me in that water, and I marinated until 10 pm. I was a prune, but that water was pure heaven. It took the nasty level 10 contractions down to 7s and 8s where I could handle them. It also softens up the girly bits so you don't rip when, say a 9 lb 2 oz human being comes out of you. I'm 5 foot 5, and I typically weigh between 120-130 pounds. My family has normal sized babies. My husbands family has huge monster babies. Guess which kind I got twice?

I still can't quite believe that this came out of me (you can't read the scale, but it's 9 lbs 2 oz). Yeah, that's right. Marvel.
The thing on his right ankle is the Baby LoJack so no one could steal him.

My water still hadn't broken when my son was being born. His head came out, and they told me I could feel his head. It felt like a baby head inside a really tough water balloon. Now, I remember thinking a few things when I was delivering. Like wondering what a jedi would do, and thinking that it was fucking unfair that my giant child got his shoulders stuck after I managed to get his big head out of me.

His amniotic sack only broke after most of his body was out. Then they handed him to me.

This is where the story diverges. My husband was in the water with me. I was sort of sitting crab-style in his lap. He was going to catch the baby, but I needed him to just sit with me (for some reason, humans feel less pain if they're being held. 'Tis true.)

My story:
The baby was out, and as the midwife lifted him up through the water, the amniotic sack fluttered around his little body like fairy wings. The universe paused, except for his wee self and me. I took him and held him to my (totally naked, fat, stretch marked, glorious) body and the nurse sucked the mucus from his mouth. He cried, and it was a perfect moment. My first thought was "he's beautiful, he's so beautiful" and then, "wow, that nose." My husband and I both have big noses.

The Nose

My husband's story:
The baby was out, and I grabbed my husband's shoulders and kept saying "We did it! We did it!" The midwife said "take your baby" and "here's your baby" but I wasn't paying attention. They had to give the baby to me, since I wasn't picking him up myself.

Whatever. Both stories are true. I think it's a testament to the amazing way my husband helped me that in my delirium I said that we had done it. He was miserable the next day from rubbing my back and supporting my bulk all day. He walked with me, got me stuff, pushed his full weight into my back as I begged him to push harder. He was calm as a cucumber from start to finish. The midwife and nurses said he would make a perfect doula, except doulas are always women.

I know I could say that I couldn't have done it without him. But I could, because when that baby is coming, he's coming. But my husband made it much better.

Anyhow, so they cut the cord and my husband took our son. I got up and walked over to the bed to deliver the placenta. No epidural and no IV means I could pop out a kid and then go for a jaunt across the room. Of course, I was bleeding everywhere, which was oddly satisfying. As if somehow all my physical trauma was made undeniably visible for everyone. I was also bare ass naked, and still marvelously fat and stretch-marked, now with a saggy huge tummy. But hey, if you're an OB nurse, you get to see women looking their worst, so I felt no shame. I had just birthed a baby! Rrraawwrrr!

After I delivered the placenta, I asked if they could bring the baby to me. See, my husband was playing with him (as in, holding his head up in the water and watching our guy wiggle around in the body-temperature water). I then got to hold my precious little one, and marvel at his perfection.

I was high at that point. I read somewhere that after birth, you get 30 times the happy endorphines that you'll get at any other time in your life. Been up for 48 hours straight? No problem! I was ready to go. I chattered for another 4 hours, I wanted to eat, I joked and laughed. They made me go to bed at 2 am. But I could have stayed up longer.


This photo of me is not flattering, but it is honest. This was about 20 minutes after the birth. No comb had touched my hair for 24 hours and I was stoned on endorphines. (They're taking a blood sample for some reason)

My son at 3.5. Sorry I don't have any more recent photos.

My son was born in the caul, which means that the amniotic sack didn't break until he was out. It means he's lucky, is immune to drowning (I wish) and will someday see "beyond the veil." Maybe he'll give me winning lotto numbers.

Both my kids were born at 40 weeks and 4 days gestation (4 is my lucky number), were born on the full moon and were 9 lbs 2 oz. They were both cute as hell, but I'm not biased or anything.

My husband sometimes teases me that I'm a wimp, and I ask him if he remembered when the two nine pound people came out of my vagina. Or that I labored for 24 hours unmedicated before giving in to the epidural for our second child. (That was a 27 hour labor). Somehow the "you're so amazing" right after the birth has transformed into teasing me about my wimpiness if I hurt myself or get cold too easily.

But I know better. I know that within my soft suburban mom exterior lies a ferocious bear-woman who can grow, birth and feed another human being just with her body. I finally respected this sort of weak, asthmatic, non-athletic body. And by golly, my stretch marks, baby-chewed breasts and that icky little wattle of loose skin on my lower belly are worth that knowledge.

Do not mock the Mother Goddess. For I will laugh at your ass.

Reader Poll

Just because I'm curious about my readers, and because I have not yet plumbed the depths of blog geekery:

What are you? vegan vegetarian thinking of going veg omnivore

View results

Chernobyl

I remember hearing about Chernobyl when I was a kid. It was 20 years ago this week.

Here is a photo essay. You'll need your sound on. Just a warning - this is disturbing and horrible. But like so many horrors, it needs to be seen.

My 2 year old daugher was with me when I saw it. I was ready to turn it off if it was too horrible or if she seemed disturbed. She didn't understand any of it. She saw the baby with the giant tumor on his neck and said, "stuffed animal." I said no, that was a baby. She saw children lying on the floor and said, "those are animals." No, those are people honey.


Updated: here is a working link:
http://todayspictures.slate.com/20060426/

Scroll down to the Chernobyl Legacy part. The first pic of the child is a good guide of what is in it, so beware.

Easter treats

It was midnight the night before Easter, and I realized that I had not filled our little plastic eggs with candy (dark chocolate covered dried cherries from Trader Joe's). So I dragged my butt out of bed and filled the eggs, hid them around the backyard, put a little stuffed bunny in each of my kid's baskets, and went back to bed.

The next day, after the hunt, we were opening the eggs and eating the candy. After eating the cherry, my husband picked out what he thought was a stray sliver of chocolate and put it in his mouth. It was too squishy and didn't melt on his tongue, and he spat it out.

A tiny baby slug had crawled into one of the eggs (through a tiny ventilation hole in the bottom) and probably got the scare of his life. How he is outside once more, doing his sluggy thing.

Emily's SUV

Sorry I haven't posted lately. I was in Boulder on business.


I know I'm such a nerd, but I think this is funny.

Where Do Baby Souls Come From?

Being a parent requires advanced philosophy. At least this week.

My three year old son has asked me five times in the past two weeks where he came from. I explained the sperm and egg thing, and growing in my womb. I even threw in how he came out of my vagina. But that wasn't what he wanted to know. He wanted to know about where he was before that - before he was a baby growing inside me.

I told him that his soul was in heaven. I later told my husband about it and got a funny look.

My husband and I have some theological differences, but it's not something that comes up a lot. He believes that souls are like bodies - they coalesce and dissipate. I believe in an intact and unique soul. And I have just enough personal experience to feel pretty secure about it.

When I was pregnant with my firstborn, sometimes I would feel him be present. Not the physical kicking or movement that babies do. I mean the way that you'd feel someone's presence if they stood right behind you and you were wearing headphones and a blindfold. But not in a creepy way. Feeling his presence was amazing. Like I had company inside my skin. Beautiful, sweet, wonderful company. Company that made me pee every half hour.

He'd come and go, staying longer and longer until in the last six weeks or so, he was there all the time. I sometimes wondered if I'd feel lonely in my skin when he was born. But with this tiny person stuck to my breast or cuddled against me for hours each day, I did not feel lonely at all.

Then I had my second child. I wanted to see if I felt the same presence with her as I had with my son. Yup, sure enough. She came and went, and eventually came to stay.

It's hard for me to describe it. How do you describe a living being's presence? The best comparison I can come up with is when someone is asleep and then they wake up but they still are lying still. They're sort of not there, then they are there. That analogy doesn't really cover it, but it's as close as I can get.

So anyway, my son wants to know about his pre-body existence. He's three. He creates existential crises all the time now.

Me: You need to eat.
Him: Why?
Me: Because your body needs nourishment to grow.
Him: Why?
Me: Because you can't photosynthesize. You must get nutrients from food.
Him: Why can't we photosynthesize?
Me: We're not made that way.
Him: Why aren't we made that way?
Me: We just aren't. We didn't evolve that way.
Him: Why not?
Me: I don't know.
Him: Why don't you know?


Him: Help me with my sunglasses Mommy.
Me: I can't. I'm driving.
Him: I can't do it.
Me: If I stop turn around, we'll crash. You don't want to crash do you?
Him: Yes! Let's crash!
Me: No. If we crash we might get hurt or die. We don't want to die.
Him: Why don't we want to die?
Me: Because we want to stay alive. We don't want to die until we're very old.
Him: Why do we want to die when we're old?
Me: Because it will be time to die.
Him: Why?


As we were going into the supermarket the other day, he asked me who built all the people. I asked him if he meant how were they grew in their mommies, and he said no. Before that.

He also told me that when he grows up, he wants to pray. He had seen a cross on top of a church and said, "There's a pointy thing on that building." I felt bad that he didn't know what a cross was, so I explained that it was a church, and that people go there to pray to God. Then I tried to explain God and probably screwed up his little brain even worse than before. That's when he told me he'd pray when he grew up. I told him he could pray any time.

So now that my oldest has reached the questioning age, I get to confront my own amorphous theological beliefs, head-on. If I believe in a soul, which I do, then that implies the creator/initiator of souls, which would be God. Unless the souls sort of just floated together, but even that would need some kind of initiator. So if there's an initiator, that means there's probably a plan for the souls. Or a purpose. Or something. It wouldn't make much sense to create all these souls and then just turn them loose with all their longings for goodness, sadness at injustice, burning passions and bruised, damaged, but ultimately beautiful love. It would seem like there would be some sort of, I don't know, a Divine Plan. Or at least a Divine Rough Guideline.

But the plan/rough guideline sucks since it involves children being raped, innocents being murdered and horrible suffering. Unless this plan is beyond my understanding, which I am perfectly willing to concede. But boy, does The Big have some serious explaining to do. Because, in my book, letting children get raped if you have the power to stop it is Pure Evil.

Then there's the Buddist vs. Christian thing. By that I mean, is the ultimate goal of the souls to be absorbed into The Big, thus eliminating any personal, individual identity? Or is it to maintain a personal identity, but be next to, but separate from, The Big. I personally hate the idea of being absorbed into anything, but could that be just an indication of my lack of spiritual enlightenment? Is desire for ego annihilation something to strive for? I certainly desire to be kinder, gentler, wiser, and all of those things are always beyond my reach. But I'd rather be a flawed independant being than an assimilated perfect being.

And then there's the issue of an pantheistic versus transcendant diety/life force. Up until recently, I had this idea that it had to be one or the other. And the pantheistic seemed supported by my own observations. But perhaps it can be both. And oddest of all, I think I finally "get" the trinity. We have imminent (Father), transcendant (holy spigot... I mean, spirit) and an extra bonus god (son).

Well, whatever. Maybe when the Virgin Mary spoke to me in that dream she should have given me some parenting advice instead of the cryptic rosary stuff.

Next time:
Virgin Mary: This rosary is yours and all that goes with it.
Me: Yeah, well what specifically would "all that goes with it" include?
VM: You must figure that out.
Me: Why?
VM: Because I can't just tell you.
Me: Why can't you tell me?
VM: Because you wouldn't understand yet.
Me: Why won't I understand?
VM: (exasperated mom voice). I don't know. It's just the way it is! Eat your broccoli.

In heaven, there are no diapers.
And apparently baby souls are Caucasian.

News Flash: The Government Lies

How can it be that one president can be impeached for lying about an extramarital affair, and another can lie to the public about war, get thousands killed, and not be impeached?

Two items have grabbed my attention recently. The first is that on 5/29/03, Bush was telling the American people that they had found trucks that were laboratories for the elusive weapons of mass destruction. Too bad that two days earlier, inspectors had already said that the trucks were definitely not used for that purpose. But that didn't stop Bush. They made the inspectors' information secret and continued to tell us that Iraq was a threat to our safety.

Excerpt from this article:
The claim, [that WMDs were found] repeated by top administration officials for months afterward, was hailed at the time as a vindication of the decision to go to war. But even as Bush spoke, U.S. intelligence officials possessed powerful evidence that it was not true.

A secret fact-finding mission to Iraq -- not made public until now -- had already concluded that the trailers had nothing to do with biological weapons. Leaders of the Pentagon-sponsored mission transmitted their unanimous findings to Washington in a field report on May 27, 2003, two days before the president's statement.

The White House has responded by saying that Bush only repeated the information he was given. Since the info saying there were no WMDs was given on 5/27/03, two days before Bush's speech, I guess there was no time to actually verify that what they were saying was true.

Excerpt from this article:
McClellan said information for public reports from the CIA comes from many sources and takes time to vet.

“It’s not something that, they will tell you, turns on a dime,” McClellan said.

I guess it takes a long time to turn on this "dime." For months, the Bush administration was repeating this faulty information. Even today, the findings of the inspectors remain classified. And that makes sense in terms of national security. But if Bush had just told the American people that we had not found WMDs as soon as they knew it, even if it took weeks or months, he'd be off the hook. But they cherrypicked information to base their case on, and then he kept opposing information a secret to further his own political goals.

It's like the Bush administration is sociopathic. They lie, feel no accountability or remorse, and then attack those who expose them. Then when they're caught, they say "no, we didn't lie" when presented with the evidence.

The second item is this:
http://alternet.org/waroniraq/34861/
Colin Powel is a little late to be telling us that they never believed Iraq posed a threat to the US.

Excerpt:
On Monday, former Secretary of State Colin Powell told me that he and his department's top experts never believed that Iraq posed an imminent nuclear threat, but that the president followed the misleading advice of Vice President Dick Cheney and the CIA in making the claim. Now he tells us.

The harsh truth is that this president cherry-picked the intelligence data in making his case for invading Iraq and deliberately kept the public in the dark as to the countervailing analysis at the highest level of the intelligence community. While the president and his top Cabinet officials were fear-mongering with stark images of a "mushroom cloud" over American cities, the leading experts on nuclear weaponry at the Department of Energy (the agency in charge of the U.S. nuclear-weapons program) and the State Department thought the claim of a near-term Iraqi nuclear threat was absurd.


The language of this war has changed over the years. People who support the war say that we didn't go to war because of the WMDs. It was because we wanted to free the Iraqi people from an evil dictator and punish Hussein for not complying with UN rules. But back in 2003, it was fear that drove the American people to war. Evil dictators are all over, and we aren't helping their victims. And the idea of the US sidestepping the UN to enforce the UN's own rules is just silly. We went because we were scared. We had been told there was a terrible and deadly terrorist threat. But it wasn't true.

Now that we're there, we need to fix the mess and try to cobble Iraq back together before we wave our hankies and fly into the sunset. I suggest sending those cute Bush twins to Iraq and see how fast Bush discovers that we didn't need to go to war.

777 - it's the Magic Number

The USDA has released statistics on how many cows have been tested for BSE. From these numbers, it has been calculated that 777 BSE-positive cows have now entered the human food supply.

Be sure to check out the chart at the bottom of the article which shows how often we can expect to find a BSE cow now that testing has been radically scaled back. Don't test, don't find. It's pure genius.

A typical burger contains meat from 50-100 cows. Eat 8 ounces of ground beef a week (which isn't really much for a typical meat-loving American) and you have eaten parts from 5,200 to 10,400 cows. (Here's my source for these numbers). The ruminant feed ban went into effect in 1997, but they have found BSE positive cows from before that time. Conservative estimate - BSE has been in the US for 9 years. If you have eaten beef all that time, you have eaten parts of 46,800 - 93,600 cows.

Downer cow.

Vegan Girl Scout Cookies

Yes, Virginia. There are vegan Girl Scout cookies. Ooooh yeah. My favorite are the Thanks-A-Lot cookies.

They are shortbread cookies with fudge. And they say "thank you" in one of five exotic languages.

Plus they're trans fat free, if you care about that sort of thing.

As always, read the label yourself. Here are the websites that the Girl Scout webpage points you to if you want ingredient lists:

http://www.littlebrowniebakers.com/cookies/nutrition/nutrition.html

http://www.girlscoutcookiesabc.com/atc/default.asp


As a public service, I will list the vegan and not vegan cookies.

VEGAN: Cartwheels, Thanks-A-Lot, Lemon Pastry Cremes,

NOT VEGAN:Caramel Delights, Peanut Butter Patties, Classic Shortbreads, Thin Mints (so sad!), Peanut Butter Sandwiches, Trefoils, Samoas, Do-Si-Dos, Tagalongs, All Abouts, Cafe Cookies, Lemon Coolers

Happy Birthday to Me

Today is my 31st birthday.

In the hobbit tradition, I give you this gift.

And in the human tradition, if you want to give me a gift, please watch Meet Your Meat, if you haven't already.

I Love Ebeneezer Scrooge

I love the Patrick Stewart version of A Christmas Carol. I also love the Muppet version with the singing fruit, but all in all, I prefer Stewart's.

I got to watch it again last night because my husband was digging through our old VHS tapes to see which ones to get rid of. Since I'm still sick, my son and I sat on the sofa and watched it.

I must say, that's some fine storytelling.

This is one of the few instances in which the movies are better than the book. The book sucks. I like Dickens, and I certainly don't mind wordy writing, but dang. He spends pages just telling us that Scrooge is a bastard. It's dull.

So why do I love this movie so much? Is it because, at its heart, it's a story of redemption? Love cracks open old Scrooge and he goes from being greedy to generous. I'm not as mean as Scrooge, but I guess I kind of identify with him.

Here's this guy, who has worked hard all his life to try to make something of himself, and all these perky people are always asking him to give away what he has earned. He lives in these dark, miserable chambers, eats cruddy food, and scrimps on everything just so he can have a sense of financial security. All he wants is to be left alone.

As Scrooge tells his nephew, "What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you?"

Then you have to spend time on Quicken to figure out how to pay for presents without having the power turned off. And then, when you discover that you have to make homemade gifts for seventeen people, you spend hours on your feet cooking from scratch and snapping at your children to stay out of the kitchen. Salvation Army Santas jangle their bells in your face and your mailbox fills up with requests for donations from every charity under the sun. It makes one want to be left alone.

Yes, Scrooge and I are old pals.

The audience loves all this though. They all get to shake their heads in self-congratulatory condemnation at Scrooge's selfishness. Because they're not like that. I mean, maybe a little. But not really. They're all participating members of society.

And then Scrooge gets his ghostly visits and, after facing his own eminent death, decides that people are more important than money. He runs through the streets, goes to sing in church, joins his nephew for dinner and is Redeemed. His sin wasn't only greed, but his desire to be separate from the rest of humanity. He joins the people and by throwing in his lot with theirs, finds happiness. Hooray.

I love Scrooge before he converts, because he's deliciously terrible. And I love him afterward because he gets all crazy and runs around being too nice to people and freaking them out. He's a non-conformist from start to finish. People think he's a nut.

And that's the real moral of A Christmas Carol - looking crazy and drinking Smoking Bishop.

Bob Crachit grabs a poker from the fire to defend himself against his insane boss after The Transformation.