another sad post

Last week I miscarried at 8 weeks.
It was a scary and deeply emotional week. foggy. I am still processing my feelings about it -around all the statistics I have read and the newness of expecting, and then not. The giddy-ness we felt as we started to tell people we were yet again expecting a baby at Christmas... (God's great sense of humour-our poor planning) background- I am a Christmas baby who has complained a good deal about the fact. And so my children born dec 21 and january 11 have a pretty big deal made of their birthdays to compensate...
Losing this baby has been a profoundly confusing event. painful, physically and emotionally. I feel numbness-like it wasn't real... last week just went by like a dream. I spent much of it bent over double from crazy cramping that sent me to the floor, crying over blood in the toilet... lying numb in my bed while life went on around me.
I went for blood tests not knowing what they were testing for- hormone levels- normal would have been 400, mine dropped from that to 42 within a few days.
The toughest part was the waiting to know "what was what". Not knowing if I should be hopeful, that this maybe just a scary side effect of this pregnancy... it was suggested early in the week that it was a girl, wrecking havok on our boy world already... or if it could be more serious, one of those life threatening ruptured fallopian tube things...

Today I went shopping for a soccer ball, I cut flower shapes out of balogna for lunch, walked in the rain and splashed in puddles and everything seems like normal... not as though we are recovering from tragedy.

goodbye Kind Rudi

Our special neighbour Rudi died this morning.
He has been battling cancer for a year and they were arranging to take him away from home to Palliative care today, but yesterday they said they didn't know if there would be a bed for him. Fran has been trying to carry him from bed to the couch to keep him moving, but the last few days Rudi has been in so much pain he can't even sit up. Last night Rudi told Fran that he just wanted to die so he wouldn't not be a bother to her anymore, she told him he was no bother and who was going to bother with her if he left her. Then he asked her for a drink and she went to get one and when he took it from her, he died.
Jack and I had the dying talk yesterday as we knew it was coming soon, and have been brainstorming ways we can let Fran know she is loved and that it is okay to be sad. She is going to be so lonely.
I wish I knew how to be of most comfort.
I feel so helpless.

Joining a feminist debate

"feminists proclaim that it's the children who ultimately keep women from experiencing true independence. To become a mother is to become a slave, forfeiting ones work, education, career, wealth and recognition for the sake of raising children."
(an article from Above Rubies magazine, Sarah Brown.)

I am curious of her source in this statement. Her view seems to be primarily that women who fight for reproductive freedom are fighting the wrong war, It's essentially an anti-abortion article. That in itself I have no issue with, but she is making some broad assumptions and generalized claims about feminism and all people who claim the label "feminist".

I don't feel particularily well read or educted in all things feminist... nor do I feel extreme conviction toward any particular "movement" or group ideal, I am on the fence as to whether I claim the label "feminist" for myself. However, this particular article seemed unjust in it's portrayal of generalized feminist belief, adding to the fear and stereotyping of feminism being a bad and scary thing. I think Mrs. Brown's point would have sat better with me had she written something more like... I do not think abortion is the answer to gaining reproductive freedom. Should an individual woman have a need to have that freedom or feel strongly about controlling that aspect of her life... i don't know... but her article made me unsettled.

I personally think society is more to blame for the pressures on women's ideals, for shaping our views of motherhood or roles and responsibilities and the guilt associated with anything we choose to adopt as "right" for me as an individual woman. Not feminism! (nor for that matter christianity/religion) I see that feminism exists to support women in the roles they find themselves in in society, to empower them in the decisions they make for themselves, to create a healthy self-image in a woman who has every aspect of her life challenged daily by a male dominant society.

A society that sensationalizes violence against women (CSI, TOP MODEL), that desensitises us to not even registering the pornography on our bill boards and soap commercials, that teaches our children subliminally that women are objects and produces generation on generation of happiness-seeking, self-destructive, weight pre-occupied girls making poor choices because there's no hope, no support, no one standing up for their rights as humans. AND THEN there are the tragic stories of the "monsters" killing babies... who is supporting those monster girls-hormonal, alone, ashamed, afraid, hopeless? who is empowering them to be healthy- body, mind, spirit? Isn't it easier to put them in the media and make us all jeer at their failures and say to the neighbour 'isn't it just awful what that girl did to her baby?' and hide our own insecurities and fears and scary thoughts of hurting our kids because we don't want anyone to think of us as monsters...

I did say our next topic was vomit... you were warned!

Whether you are pro-choice, pro-life, pro-woman, pro- family, pro-humanity... I believe there needs to be care in the way you portray or place labels. And I think there is a place in feminism for a woman who chooses to release her control of her reproduction to God and looks for definition of her roles and responsibilities in the Bible rather than stereotypes and industrial revolutions...

I for one, am a Monster Mom...(just look at the blood on my kids hands!!!-that was a good day) and to tell the truth I am probably a Feminist too... Oh and I claim the Label of Christian child of God, pro-life, pro-woman, pro-human, pro-kids (lots of them) I could go on...

Dream sanctuary

I have been participating in a pretty intensive training to become a volunteer mentor to new mom's through the Sherpa Mother's Program (Women's Health Clinic)
The past few weeks have been heavy topics identifying our biases, stereotypes...domestic abuse and violence against women...media and women's body image and I have been having a hard time dealing with all the information and emotional processing involved.
At our last session we ended the session with a relaxation technique intended to help us find our "sanctuary" to de-tox from all the heaviness.
I had my image figured out and entered the breathing excersise sure of what I would experience. (something like this scene of the wild flower garden at the lake)

To my surprise I was transported somewhere else entirely and filled with an unexpected deeply moving sense of colour, detail and even smell of a familiar but no longer existing place. It greatly saddened me as I sat and experienced all that this room was to me and realized it has been a VERY long time since I have experienced the complete sense of peace, the sense of being believed in, loved and heard and completely safe and able to rest in that knowledge.
I looked into the symbolism at a dream web site and was affirmed in some of the feelings I have been processing since...

Bedroom-aspects of self that you keep private.

purple-indicates devotion, healing ability, loving kindness and compassion

bedspread-sexuality and outward beauty

window-bright hopes, vast possibilities and insight

breeze-represents movement of ideas and minor changes.

smell-indicates past experiences and feelings associated with the particular smell...conveys feelings relative to the familiar scent.

It has made me connect with many lost emotions and feel nostalgic for relationships long gone, and thankful for the love I receive daily from my family and friends.

identity fraud frustrations

today I was a victim...
of ebay identity fraud!
someone was having a blast with my account changing the password and switching up the email account info and in general making me feel stress and frustration.
I spent ALL morning on chat help getting it all straightened out only to come back to manage my account this afternoon to find my new password changed and more strikes against my "good name"
so the whole thing revisited again and this time with a hold on all activities to do with my account and a switch up of email id and hopefully a settled non-issue for the future...
my advice... read the ebay security information. inform yourself of the reality of phishing emails, don't give out any information and keep the chat guy or girl on line till you absolutely know that you understand and the issue is settled. write down the time and name of the ebay employee you spoke with so you can reference them at your next visit AND...change all your passwords to everything regularily!
BAH!!!
Some people suck!!!!

therapy

My sister in law and I discussed gardening as theraputic today.
She is in california planting her wildflowers in her new yard.
I am in the dead of winter up in canada, remembering my garden from last year, envious of her account of new growth and promise of colour soon.

This has been a good reminder, the power of planting, of having growth, life come from the dark of the earth.
We are dealing with a reminder of loss, a deep mourning for a good friend killed in an accident a year ago this week.
Aleksa's words have released me to think more and drink deeply from the fountain of memory, to weep openly and process...and plan my own garden for the spring, with more colour, a place for healing and memory. a place to rest.

mothering

"it was from you that I first learned to think, to feel, to imagine, to believe..." -John Sterling (1806-1844)

What an awesome responsibility to our children we have.
Does this realization cause me to step up to the plate? Do I feel strengthened and encouraged to be more involved, more determined to succeed as a parent?
Truthfully it makes me afraid.
My kids cause me the greatest joy and the greatest fear. They show me who I really am... unfit, unprepared, lost, lazy, selfish...
they bring out in me all the ugliness I wish i didn't have, rage, panic, discontent, resentment...
I have crazy expectations of them despite that I have good knowledge of age appropriate behaviors and I am so easily brought to a state of unbridled emotion (usually negative) by little things... like toys in the hallway, videos out of their cases, the 40 minute boot dance...(getting ready to leave the house)
Joyfully, I am struggling with joyfully today.
I am "joyfully" in my p.j's still at 11 a.m. (I was up at 6) I haven't had a moment to make my bed or dress myself but the kids have been dressed, fed, the littlest put down for a nap, the laundry started and turned over...not folded! (waiting for the made bed to sort and fold the laundry) I did manage a cup of coffee...phew!
mostly I have been biting my lip trying not to go monster-mom as I put away the same dvd's off the floor, step over the baseball bat in the hall, scowling at the toys that have migrated into my sanctuary...
what are my children learning from me today? what am I encouraging them to feel, imagine and believe?
sigh...
I better go get dressed and take out some finger paint...and a smile.