#My mother did not go through 12 months and a c-section for this

[sereonhardware]

[ettawritesnstudies]

hey dude, saw your post about abortion, and based on your url i'm assuming you're a woman. you're saying you believe that no matter the consequence you are going to stand with the group that is limiting the rights of women. That if a ten year old gets raped she should be forced to go through months and months of stress her body is not meant to handle that she may die from, but if she doesn't she will most certainly be even more traumatized. If a teenager is too immature to adopt, why are they suddenly mature enough to have a child of their own? That if a woman's preventative measures fail during sex she should have to have a child now (though the man *might* have to pay child support *maybe*). That women should be forced to bring a child into this world even if they *know* they don't have the means to raise the child and it may starve and die, and if it doesn't their childhood will still be deeply damaging and traumatizing. That you support women getting unsafe abortions (because studies show abortion numbers don't go down when it's banned, just the survival rate). Anti-abortionism is getting legislation passed that forces these situations. And all of these are real examples that have really happened. If someone is going to die from kidney failure and another person has a healthy kidney, we don't force the healthy person to donate a kidney to keep another person alive: that would be a violation of bodily autonomy. Telling a woman to not abort a fetus is the same thing - telling her what to make sacrifices to her own body to keep another person alive.

So why did you post that?

Hello Anon,

I posted that because (as I state in my bio) I'm a Catholic, and a scientist, and I believe that from the moment of conception, the zygote/embryo/fetus/infant/child is it's own person with equal rights and dignity. All of those designations are medical terms for a small human at different stages of development: from even the first day, the child has its own DNA. At four weeks the heartbeat starts, which is usually when women have missed one cycle and realize they are pregnant. At 12 weeks, by the end of the first trimester, when most abortions are performed, all organs are fully formed and simply need to grow.

This is an issue of bodily autonomy, but it is the child's life that is being violated. It is a human rights issue, not only a women's rights issue. This is not the same as the kidney transfer example because a child is not a part of the mother's body. A more accurate example would be asking if it is right to kill someone perfectly healthy for their kidney to keep another person alive - No matter the consequence, I am going to stand with a group that acknowledges the unborn child is a person, and wants to protect the rights of both the mother and the child throughout the pregnancy.

That being said, I understand where your concerns come from and I do not want to dismiss your anxiety and frustration. I do care about each and every one of those women you mentioned and so I'm going to provide some resources that may help you understand where I'm coming from and how we all can help mothers in crisis.

Rape is a horrible crime and nobody (man or woman) should ever suffer that experience. The child conceived out of rape did not have a choice in the conditions of their creation. They are just as much a victim as the mother. In the case of any complications, an abortion clinic will not have the resources available to care for both the mother and the child. Any woman in a life-threatening pregnancy should go to the ER instead, and these woman should receive counseling and support, not a surgeon telling them their problems will be gone after they get rid of the child. Abortion is also proven to be extremely traumatic for many women, and there is no way to look at this situation that isn't thoroughly miserable, but performing an emergency C-section as soon as possible is still preferable to making that young woman also suffer the death of her child. I encourage you to read Kathy Barnette's story: she was conceived in rape when her mother was 12 years old and her testimony is extremely powerful.

Less than 1% of abortions occur for cases of rape, incest, or life of the mother. The rest are elective, due to family pressures, lack of support from her partner, financial struggles, still being in school, or a myriad of other reasons. Again, a child does not have any choice in the conditions of their conception. Pro-Lifers support legislation that would require the father to pay child support through the pregnancy, longer paid maternity/paternity leave, and other relief programs to support women in crisis pregnancy situations, and until that legislation is passed, we are setting up women's shelters and resource centers to help by putting our money and time where our mouth is. These services such as pregnancy tests, prenatal and parenting classes, essential supplies, counseling, post-abortive medical care, adoption support and funding, maternity housing, and more are (depending on location) very often completely free. Planned Parenthood does also supply these services, but always at a charge, because they know women are desperate. If you or someone you know is in this situation, seek out help through 40 Days for Life and their associated national organizations.

The pressure to abort and the increased risk of death from "back-alley" abortions in these situations comes from a societal problem that can be solved with proper support structures. Additionally, abortion clinics are not held to the same safety standards as hospitals and crisis pregnancy clinics. In my home state of Pennsylvania - in the very liberal areas of Allentown and Philadelphia, there have been several cases of the department of health refusing to investigate violations because "it's wrong to get in the way of a woman's right to abortion" leading to the deaths and endangerment of minority women. This year, the Allentown Planned Parenthood was cited for violating the state requirement to test women for the Rh protein. Kermit Gosnell was an active serial killer as recent as 2011. The investigative journalist who uncovered this story has produced a film and true crime podcast about this clinic, which I encourage you to watch and listen to.

After Roe v Wade was passed, abortion was supposed to become safe, and rare. It is neither of those things. 60 MILLION children have been lost to abortion in our generation. That's roughly one third of my peers. To top it all off, Margaret Sanger, the founder of PP, was a notorious racist, and most locations today still target underprivileged minority neighborhoods in the inner cities. Sex and Disability selective abortions are mostly still legal, and so baby girls and disabled kids are especially at risk. How can that be feminist? Despite being the most common genetic disorder with 1/800 kids being diagnosed and a very high survival rate and quality of life, roughly 90% of children with Down Syndrome have been aborted. this is eugenics, plain and simple.

Abortion does not help women or solve the problem of a society that does not support mothers and families and the minorities of the world. All it does is hide the problem and perpetuate this broken system behind a veneer of "progressiveness". I apologize if this upset you, but this is my opinion, and if you do not agree, you are welcome to unfollow me. Usually I keep this blog politics-free and post all non-writing stuff to a sideblog, but I accidentally missed that post, and for the sake of completeness, I will post this publicly here as well. My DMs are open if you want to continue this discussion.

[coochiequeens]

So refreshing to see the viewpoint of anti-choice without working for a social programs that support families isn’t pro-life come from someone with a religious background

thin layer of watery ice covered the street between me and my parked car. The slick road wouldn’t have bothered me—except that I was nine months pregnant and carrying a laundry basket full of baby gifts as well as my book bag for teaching. I made it safely across, shuffling slowly in a pair of sandals, the only shoes that still fit. I was exhausted by the time I got everything, including my swollen body, into the parked car.

Four days later, with the wintery weather still lingering, I gave birth to my second child. It didn’t go smoothly. She ended up in the NICU while I had to recover from a C-section. Because I was still teaching two courses that semester, as delineated by my assistant professor contract, I had work to do; it didn’t matter that I was barely post-partum. I remember sitting on my hospital bed trying to finish an online lecture, responding to student questions about an honors thesis, and pumping milk to feed my newborn, all while trying to ignore the burning pain from the staples holding my insides together. It was one of the few times in my life that I questioned my vocation.

I was lucky, though.

In 2010, the year I had my daughter, only two states—California and New Jersey—had paid family leave. I worked for a university in the state of Texas that had not yet implemented a maternity policy, which meant no clear guidelines existed to navigate having a baby without taking a semester of unpaid leave. Yet, I managed to take a few weeks off without missing a paycheck. The flexibility of my department chair and the generosity of my colleagues enabled me to cobble together four weeks of maternity leave. Spring break gave me a fifth week. It wasn’t a fun semester, but I was grateful to keep my job.

I was also grateful for my private office and the means to purchase a breast pump, as neither lactation rooms nor a lactation policy existed at my workplace in 2010. I had good insurance that covered 80 percent of the hospital bills for my surgery, hospital stay, my daughter’s birth, and the five days she spent in the NICU. I had a supportive husband with a moderately flexible work schedule. I had family willing and able to take care of an infant, saving us the high cost of childcare. Although 31,000 pregnancy discrimination suits were filed in the U.S. between 2011 and 2015, my biggest workplace issue at the time was a negative student comment in my course evaluations.

I was so lucky—a white, educated woman with a good job, access to quality medical care, enough medical insurance, and sufficient support networks to alleviate the physical, financial, and professional cost of birthing a baby. When the Supreme Court’s decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization reversed Roe v. Wade, filling my twitter feed with celebratory comments from white women just like me, it reminded me of how lucky my pregnancy experiences had been.

I experienced complications with the birth of both my children. It is hard to comprehend that if my skin had been a different color, my chances of surviving would have decreased significantly. Regardless of income and education levels, Black women are three to four times more likely than white women to die due to pregnancy complications.

I was able to carve out a few unofficial weeks of paid maternity leave when I had my daughter. Yet, I qualified for up to 12 weeks of unpaid FMLA, and if my husband and I had chosen that path, we would have survived financially. I can’t imagine having gone through what I did to birth my daughter and be back in the classroom after only a few days of sick time, but as late as 2018, only 30 percent of Black mothers were both eligible and able to afford unpaid work leave.

Shouldn’t it be telling that Black Christians, who are just as religiously devout as white evangelicals, are less likely to identify as pro-life? According to a recent PRRI survey, 75 percent of Black Protestants support abortion being legal in most or all cases in contrast to only 25 percent of white evangelical Protestants. The Washington Post recently interviewed Black pastors Rev. Cheryl Sanders of Washington D.C.’s Third Street Church of God and Rev. John Fils-Aime of Central Baptist Church in New York City. Sanders agreed the Bible is “absolutely pro-life” but does not want to align with the political pro-life movement, remarking that it is “fraught with problematic racial views and exceptions and blind spots.” Fils-Aime similarly called reversing abortion laws a “hollow victory” without sufficient support to help Black mothers who face greater physical and financial challenges than white women.

The feelings of these pastors resonate deeply with me. The reality is that 67 percent of women in the U.S. support legal abortion in most or all cases. Instead of seeing this majority of women as the liberal enemy, shouldn’t the pro-life movement be asking what they have done to alienate them?

It is true that many anti-abortion activists support helping women bear the financial and physical costs of pregnancies. But it is also true that that they are more likely to funnel their support to local churches and private non-profits than to government-supported programs that can make lasting change. As historian Daniel K. Williams explains:

In fact, nearly all of the political victories that the pro-life movement has gained in the past few decades have attempted to reduce abortion rates by making abortion more difficult to obtain – that is, by transferring the cost of an unwanted pregnancy onto the pregnant woman until the costs of obtaining an abortion outweigh the perceived costs of raising a child.  Whether she keeps the pregnancy or terminates it, a woman in such a situation will have to pay the costs of her pregnancy – which individualistic-minded conservatives think is fair, since they believe that each person is responsible for their own actions.

Rather than voting for affordable childcare, expansive Medicaid, higher and equitable wages, paid parental leave, and free access to contraception—all measures that can help reduce abortion—the pro-life movement has resisted laws that could help alleviate the precarious circumstances faced by pregnant women; instead, it has advocated for laws that restrict women.

I remember, many years ago, watching a conservative Christian family of seven or eight children stand with the eldest son at his home-school graduation. The son spoke proudly of how his family had protested at the local Planned Parenthood, which he called a “baby-killing mill.” While I do not know the politics of that family, I can guess. Strong alignment exists between conservative evangelical Christians, the Republican Party, and the pro-life movement. I can also guess their theological stance on gender roles, as some at that graduation wore pink t-shirts that boasted biblical women (Titus 2) were “workers at home.”

I suggested in my recent book, The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth, that those who identify as evangelical are more hesitant than other demographic groups to support both women’s work outside the home and women in leadership positions such as CEO and pastor. I wrote, “For evangelicals these attitudes are connected: limiting women’s spiritual authority goes hand in hand with limiting women’s economic power.” When we consider that these same evangelicals tend to be pro-life, a pattern emerges between the anti-abortion movement and Christians who are less likely to support women in the workplace, women in leadership, and social safety nets that benefit women. For those who believe that a woman’s place is in the home, the wage disparity faced by women (for white women, an average of 79.6 cents for every $1.00 earned by a white man) might seem a less urgent matter.

Is it any wonder that so many people in this nation perceive being anti-abortion as synonymous with being anti-women? Could it be that in their quest to validate the personhood of an unborn child, the pro-life movement has diminished the personhood of a woman?

“Love them Both” has been a long-standing mantra for the pro-life movement—both mother and child matter. However, consistently voting against social safety nets and constitutional equality for women as well as rejecting the reality of systemic racism speaks louder than words. Life matters, but to many within the pro-life movement, especially those from conservative evangelical traditions, some lives seem to matter more than others.

At another point in my life, I would have joined with my white evangelical sisters in viewing the fall of Roe v. Wade as a victory for life. After all, I have voted pro-life, financially supported pro-life causes, and even volunteered in a crisis pregnancy center. But I no longer see it as a victory. Not because my convictions about the value of life have changed, but rather because they have strengthened. The lives of mothers—Black, brown, and white—matter at least as much as their unborn babies. Yet, while the pro-life movement has fought at the local, state, and national level to save unborn lives, it has not fought with the same vigor to help the lives of women, especially women of color doubly burdened by sexism and racism.

Until the pro-life movement understands how much it has left women behind, it will continue to fall short of its name. It will also continue to lose the support of women like me.

Beth Allison Barr is James Vardaman Professor of History at Baylor University and author of the bestseller The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth.

[veronicaduartes]

Thoughts

So, the thing is... I feel devastated.

I loved somebody, gave him my all and he trew me away like a pile of trash. As if he never cared for me and the last 2 years of my life were just wasted.

I worked so hard on these last 2 years, I come from a broken family, abusive father, emotionally-unavailable mother (she did her best though, she had it DAMN hard all her life). On January 2020 I got into a car crash and no one believed my version of the story, they prefered to believe I was drunk-driving (which I wasn't) and it was all my fault (which it wasn't).

So I got really resentful and decided to get myself a job, stop depending on my mother and having to put up with all the shame inflicted on me. I started working at a call center, barely made minimun wage salary but I was saving as much money as I could to get out of my house (rent a room somewhere since it was all I could afford).

At the same time, I was dating a really nice guy, that I had only met a couple of months prior. He was 6 years older than me and already had a stable job so he decided to move out with me, wherever we decided to go.

It's April now, and on the 24th night of the month we moved in together. I was on cloud 9, we were so happy, I had a the shittiest job but coming home to him and watching TV together was everything I wanted and it was worth every damn second answering the phone.

But as the months passed the guy I loved grew apart from me. Suddenly we were not spending the nights together, all he did was play videogames with his friends all night until 7am in the morning sometimes, while I was growing lonelier and lonelier. Sex wasn't even happening, and I thought he didn't want me anymore. I told him about my discomfort and he promised to make some time for me.

Some more months passed and it was ok, but the situation repeated itself, and of course I was sad again. Many hours of thinking and analyzing patterns later, I decided it wasn't working anymore for me and it was time to call it quits.

I don't know what I expected that night but as the time came, I told him to break up. He seemingly reacted very calm and peacefull so I told him we could stay friends. The next day I had to go to work, I felt really sad but hadn't even realized in my mind that our relationship was over, until I received a text from him that said "I'm moving out on Thursday". That text just sunk into my stomach and as I got home to find an empty house it felt even worse. He had already gone to his parents' house, without even saying goodbye.

I was incredibly dissapointed, I thought that if he loved me he would've fight back, or at least not ran away on the first shot he got. Anyway, so he told me he was coming on Wednesday to organize his stuff into boxes and move out Thursday in the morning. I told him we could have a last dinner together, just to give some closure to me, as I felt I needed closure and so we did. Turns out on Wednesday night after talking a couple of hours he ended up crying and asking me if he could stay. I told him he had made the strongest desition by hiring that truck to move out and getting all his shit into boxes so, there was no backing off now. (By the way, some of the appliances were his' such as the refrigerator which he did not hesitate to leave me with all the food on the floor to rot as he took his damn refrigerator). On the next morning I told him goodbye and we went our separate ways.

Since I couldn't pay the rent all by myself I was left with no other choice than to go back to my parents' house. They helped me with the moving but I still felt like a damn failure coming back, while I still mourned the end of our relationship and cried myself to sleep every night.

Some weeks passed and one morning, I woke up with a text of his telling me "I miss you". I told him I missed him too (which I really did) and so we agreed to meet once again to talk. We met and the inevitable happened: after some crying we got back together. Still living apart though. Months passed and everything was going great! Still had our arguments but by this time we had already figured out how to talk our differences with love and patience.

**At this point I need to give you some important context: since I come from a broken family, I DON'T want kids. I really don't want to have kids of my own, not as of now or in the future. I don't discard adopting, I believe that's a very beautiful way to become a parent, but I really do not want to go through pregnancy and all those things having a baby comes with. I have always been very honest about it when I'm meeting people because on past relationships I've had this issue. So, since I was meeting this guy I was talking about, back on 2019, I told him I didn't want kids and he seemed to be on the same page as me. He even told me he wanted to get the male contraceptive injection that was soon going to be available on the market. Everything seemed fime.**

So, back to the story. On January 2021, my boyfriend's sister found out she was pregnant, everyone on his family was really happy because, on the contrary as myself, they have a really beautiful, happy and healthy family (everything I wished for). I was really happy for them as well and my boyfriend and I even went shopping some nice things for the baby. We bought the cutest and fluffiest bear costume. It was adorable.

As more months passed, I saw my boyfriend getting more and more excited about babies and the idea of having babies. Since he knew my position, he eventually taked to me about wanting to have babies in the future. I told him my position has not changed and most likely it will not change. I can't predict the future of course and can't know what my mind will think on 5-10 years, but I was honest with him and told him that the odds of me changing my mind are quite low, not to say inexistant. But he was confused, he still didn't know if he wanted kids or not. So I told him "think about it and whenever you have made up your mind, let me know".

On August 27th, about 12 am in the morning, his nephew was born, strong and healthy. I was really happy for all his family, since I know how much they already loved that boy. I sent them my best wishes and since he came out by c-section, they had to stay in the hospital for a couple of days.

Later that same day, I published some stupid game on instagram which really doesn't matter much what it was about but somehow it got us into a discussion and he told me "this is one of the best days of my life for you to fuck it up"... Those words really took me by surprise, I was happy and silly, literally just joking him around but he reacted very strongly and rude.

How in the hell is it ever going to be my intention to ruin his day? I thought he was very defensive. He stoped taking to me and returned hours later. However, I was really hurt and I felt like we really needed to talk about it. He sort of apologized but we couldn't continue the conversation since he was already sleepy and told me if we could continue the next day. I told him it was fine, of course.

The next day came and he didn't remember to get back to the conversation, he just pretended as if everything was fine. Another day passed so I reminded him and he told me it was late already and he was tired, so if we could talk the next day (again). A week passed and he never remembered to catch up with the conversation (or ignored it). I still felt sad and hurt and so, when making plans for the weekend I told him how I felt and that we needed to talk. We agreed on a day and place, but he followed telling me he knew I have been upset but he just ignored me... So basically that started the fight once again. How the hell if you know someone you love is upset and sad you just ignore it? Do you care how I feel at all? Some things were said and I didn't understand where did this sudden hate come from.

Ever since the baby was born he had been defensive and treating me badly like that (something I had never seen before on him). I was utterly confused until he confessed it to me: he was somehow angry with me because I do not want kids..... I had no words, how the hell was I supposed to knew that? It did make a lot of sense though, his behaviour was immediately explained to me. However he started blaming me on his smoking and a bunch of other crap I have no blame on. Turns out he told me: he decided he does wants kids and therefore I no longer had a place in his life. I told him to tell me, to confirm me if that meant we were breaking up, to at least have the guts to tell that to my face (metaphorically cause this conversation was all by text). I begged him for a goodbye, once again, to get some closure. I deserve closure, but he wasn't even able to tell me goodbye. To tell me I was a good girlfriend, to thank me for all the love I gave him, for all the times I had advised him, for all the memories we had together, to thank me for at least giving him my all. He knew I loved him, he really did.

And I respect his reason, I really do. If he wants kids and I don't then there's no point of staying together if we're going on different paths. However, it's been a week from the breakup. I'm still here devastated, crying, stalking his twitter every 5 minutes to see if there's any clue that he might be thinking of me. But all I see is the opposite. He's saying that he's happy, posting pictures with his baby-born nephew, it's almost as if I never meant anything to him. One week with the baby and I'm already out of his life. Am I so damn disposable? Does he not remember any of the happy moments we spent together? All the love that I gave him? How I even fought my own family to defend him? How I cared for him... It sucks, it really sucks.

The next morning after the breakup he had already deleated all his pictures with me on social media. So, on the next day I did the same. Oh how damn hard it was to delete that video I made about us and our adventures... I spent about 8 hours collecting little clips of our trips and I loved the end result so much... and now it's gone... forever, along with our memories.

It really sucks, some days I am ok, with just a little hole inside of me but overall ok... and some other days I feel like I want to die (yes, literally die). I cry everytime I remember. I have no friends. I can't tweet about how damn sad I feel because I don't want any of his friends or my friends even to see me how devastated and dependant I am.

The thing is, I don't believe he understands how much he meant to me... how much I loved him and how safe I felt on his arms. He's got lots of friends, a supporting family, tons of hobbies... while I'm here depressed, no job, no friends, nobody to talk to, living in my parents' house. I literally feel as if this 2 years, I tried so hard and it ended up being all wasted. I'm back to square one: no job, no money, no relationship. Lonely and sad once again.

I wish I could be like those strong women who stay single for very long periods of time... but I'm lonely. I usually need someone to hear me, someone to talk to. I like having someone to share my life with.

Sometimes I hate myself for having this romantic expectation of a perfect relationship that lasts forever and the love flame never dies... I guess Disney channel really damaged me. The dream is slowly dying though, at this moment I'm all out of hope. I know there are some men out there that would like to be with me, but I see no point in that.

First of all, I'm not interested in anybody. I don't like anybody, I don't even want men near me. I'm literally out of hope and I don't even want to meet anybody because eveything will eventually end up this way. I don't believe anymore. And it's dangerous to be out of hope.

Sometimes I'm scared, like, literally scared to become suicidal or something. Right now I'm not, sometimes I wish to die but I don't think I'm brave enough to do it myself. And then I stop to think that my mom doesn't deserve that pain. But yeah, sometimes I'm scared I may end up like Chester Bennington; with so many songs that basically were a cry for help but nobody ever took it that way because he looked so healthy and confident.

And I know I'm a great actress, I know people don't even suspect I have been fighting depression for years now. Every single day is a struggle and I'm tired already. I'm honestly so tired to be battling every day I just want to be free and give up but I can't since my demons are all inside of me.

I quit my job a month ago cause I thought that would give me happiness but guess what? Yeah, it didn't. Somehow it was easier having something to blame, than realizing that the only one to blame is yourself.

My boyfriend knew I was having a hard time with these thoughts already, he told me I should go to therapy. But I have no money to spend on therapy... and also, as I said in the beggining, nor do I have a supporting family, if they know I want to go to therapy they will think I'm crazy.

I have always been very strong, and showcased myself as a really strong woman, who thinks and analyzes and makes rational desitions... but it was always been just an act, when I'm by myself I cry a lot, I have a lot of traumas which I have been working really hard on for years now, but as I said, I'm tired.

I'm so tired of having to fight a battle everyday, I honestly just want peace and I'm scared I will never find it. Cause I can't stay like this for much longer. I know I won't hold up all my life with this sadness.

I quit my job because I wanted to start my own business. At first I was so excited about it but now I just can't find ANY motivation to work at all.

I don't know if he left me because I'm crazy and too much to handle, which reinforces my lack of hope in relationships. It has happened to me before, I don't know if all men are the same and they all forget you once they have you, which really sucks... Or if on the contrary, I keep seeking emotionally-unavailable people, just as my childhood attachment...

At least right now some friends have showed up and I have told them I've been having a hard time with this breakup (haven't told about all the other issues though, but it's a first step)... though I don't know if I'm ready to talk about it. I don't want to burst into tears and dramaticly crying in public, but oh well... We'll see how it goes.

Right now, all these thoughts are making me crazy. Sometimes I'm angry with my ex-boyfriend for leaving me right when I needed him the most... but it was a relationship doomed to end, and somehow deep inside me I always knew it. Still, that doesn't remove all the pain I'm feeling right now. If anything, just makes me blame myself for letting it come this far and letting myself fall so hard in love with somebody I knew wasn't right.

I don't know what to do right now... I'm dying to talk to him, but I know I must not. He doesn't miss me, he never loved me as much as I loved him (I don't know if he even has the capability of loving so deeply as I loved him) and we're not even compatible and I wasn't even enjoying his company so much lately... but you know, my feelings do not act by reason and I HATE them so much because of that. I feel like they dominate me, instead of me dominating them.

I gotta be strong and reasonable... These are the moments where I wish I had faith in God or something to give me strenght but I don't even believe in anything.

Why do we always cry and suffer so much about people that don't even deserve it? People that are no good for us...

Songs in my mind right now:

* Phil Collins - Against all odds

* Olivia Rodrigo - Good 4 u

* Olivia Rodrigo - All I want

* Taylor Swift - Cardigan

* Selena Gomez - The heart wants what I wants

Most likely no one will read this, but it helped me try to organize some thoughts in my head so that's enough for me. Luckily, no one uses tumblr anymore.

[dearfuturehusbandblog]

Welcome To The World, LittleBean: A Life Update

Dear Future Husband,

My sister had the baby! And it made me depressed.

I kind of receded from the world for a couple of weeks and stopped talking to people I enjoy talking to, and stopped doing things I enjoy doing, and kind of stayed in my room unless it was absolutely necessary to leave.

Why, might you ask, would I have done such a thing as a response to such a happy event?

Well, for some of the reasons I've written about previously. The emotional weight of the sadness that comes along with seeing a younger sibling live through something you yourself desire but feel you'll never have, is probably the biggest.

But another reason I've been really down is because of my mother.

Dear old MotherLivelyHeart has problems.

I think I've mentioned this previously, but if/when I marry, I will most definitely be marrying INTO a family and as "out" of my own as I possibly can.

MotherLivelyHeart suffers from anxiety and depression. Shocker, I know.

In fact, my inner voice is comprised mainly of her criticism and negativity. Shocker, I know.

Dear old MotherLivelyHeart has never really wanted to be a mother, as far as I can tell. Shocker? ...I dunno.

When I was growing up, my mother used to always say "I only had children for the grandkids" and everyone would laugh. But HAHA! it wasn't a joke. I figured out pretty early on that she was kind of serious with that statement.

But nothing in my life confirmed that until she was on the phone with her machutanim on the day LittleBean was born and repeated that sentiment to them.

So, all my life, she's struggled with being the parent she never wanted to be in order for us to have offspring that she could love and adore and spoil and then send home to their parents without having to parent herself.

THIS is the "home" I came from.

THIS is the parenting I received.

It's absolutely no wonder I'm so screwed up.

My mother has been overbearing my entire life. And a lot of it comes from her own insecurities and anxieties and lack of the world living up to her expectations. Which is kind of understandable.

The problem comes when those expectations come at the cost of other peoples' comfort and safety.

LilSis had a c-section. The baby wasn't exactly breached, but was flipped at a weird angle and stuck. The baby was also a meconium baby, so while it was already over a week past the due date, LilSis thought she still had time. But as it turned out there wasn't any time because when she went for what she thought was a routine check up, they induced her and after two days of labor and nothing happening, they did the c-section.

Now, LilSis made it clear earlier this year that she didn't want anyone at the hospital with her aside from her doula and husband. No visitors, family included. The rest of us seemed to accept this, but MotherLivelyHeart just kind of smirked and went, "yeah, ok, we'll see about that."

And I get that LilSis is her baby.

I get that it's not easy to see your child suffer.

I get that she's been waiting her whole life to be a grandmother.

I get that she's had expectations about what it would be like to meet her grandchildren, especially her first grandchild.

I. GET. IT.

But when LilSis facetimed and showed us the baby and B"H the baby looked fine but LilSis was clearly too pale and weak and dizzy and needed to get off the phone, but again repeated that she didn't want anyone coming to the hospital, dear old MotherLivelyHeart's response was that she wanted to "surprise" them at the hospital.

"I don't need to ask permission."

"I'm not a 'visitor', I'm her MOTHER."

"I don't need permission to see my own daughter."

"I know what she needs, I'll just drop it off, give her a hug and leave."

"I don't need to see her, I just want to see the baby."

UHM, NOOOOOOOOO.

Your daughter is almost 30.

She's been married for over half a decade.

She has a right to her space and her boundaries for her little nuclear family and YOU ARE CROSSING THEM by even THINKING that would be acceptable.

And the next day, my mother called LilSis and asked her about something she wanted to bring with her. LilSis made it clear that she didn't want anyone to come. When my mother didn't seem to get this, my brother in law texted her a kind "now isn't a good time" message and my mother felt "ganged up on".

She went into a tailspin.

"They don't like me."

"What did I ever do to them that they hate me so much?"

"I've been dissed and dismissed."

"They've cut me out of their lives."

And sooooooo many other thoughts along those lines.

There isn't even enough space here to describe all the insane things she did as a response to this "rejection" she was experiencing.

She was 100000000000% projecting her own thoughts, expectations, and experiences with her own c-section onto LilSis and the whole situation was absurd.

Then LittleBean ended up back in the hospital because of some complications and LilSis and her husband still wanted space.

Now, what MotherLivelyHeart doesn't know, because I will never tell her, is that I saw LittleBean before she did.

Because I'm actually supportive and respectful of boundaries, when they got home LilSis and her husband allowed me to come by and drop stuff off, and run some errands for them (while they were still keeping overbearing MotherLivelyHeart at arms length). So I met LittleBean like 3 or 4 times. And the babes is absolutely precious. <3

LilSis and her husband finally let MotherLivelyHeart over this past week to meet LittleBean and help out and it's like a switch was flipped. Suddenly everything for MotherLivelyHeart is sunshine and rainbows and I legit can't handle the mood swings.

But I digress....

One night last week I drove around and cried and screamed for an hour.

It absolutely sucks when you have no one to talk to.

Which brings me to the next part of my life update:

I finally spoke to a therapist.

So, I thought I was ghosted by the therapist I wanted to speak to. It took a few days, but he finally responded there was an issue with his online scheduler and he needed me to reschedule.

Fine, whatever.

I rescheduled for two weeks from that date (which had already been rescheduled from two weeks prior). So, now it's been a month and a half.

Fine, whatever.

Well, my meeting with him ended up being earlier this week. As it turns out, this therapist I wanted to speak to isn't taking on new clients at the moment, so he was acting more as triage for his practice and had a 15 minute zoom call with me before picking a therapist from his practice he thought I'd connect with.

So the next night I had an hour and a half zoom call with her and she's absolutely lovely and has experience working with children and adults who have experienced similar situations to the one I'm in.

For $120 I had my thought processes and experiences validated.

But that's pretty much it.

She told me I sound pretty level headed and understand what's healthy and what's not healthy in my life and in my past (which is one of the problems with being an overthinker, overanalyzer, and having done extensive research to try and figure out WTF is wrong with me), and she told me there are some exercises to try and reduce stress because it's clear that I'm overstressed and have been since I was a child, and even possibly since birth.

But these are all things I knew already. These are all things I've validated for myself. Yes, it's nice to hear a specialist say the same things, but for $120!?

I literally had to use unemployment money to pay for that. Unemployment that I'm going to have to end pretty soon.

How on EARTH am I supposed to be able to afford continued therapy when it costs so bloody much!?

It's absolutely awful that the people who need therapy the most are the ones who can't afford it.

And I found an organization that claims to help anyone who asks without needing an explanation, so I messaged them a brief "my life is a mess and I need to talk to a therapist. I found someone I think I can connect with, but it costs $120." and they sent me $10.

They said they help anyone who asks without an explanation.

I gave a valid explanation with a specific amount requested.

And they sent me $10.

It just so often feels like I'm banging my head against a wall.

Like I'm a joke to Hashem.

This random organization was like a beacon in the dark. A sign from Hashem that if I reach out for help, I can receive it.

He put this organization into my path and awareness just at the time that I needed it.

All so that He could mock me.

OF COURSE the therapy practice I chose doesn't take insurance.

Not that it would help, because my OBAMAdoesntCARE has been PENDING SINCE OCTOBER.

So OF COURSE I have to pay out of pocket.

And OF COURSE it costs so damn much.

And OF COURSE when I reach out for help I get laughed at.

What did they think I was supposed to do with the $10?

That's literally 1/12 of what I needed.

Even the Torah has us give more than that in maaser.

I legitimately don't understand.

Where do I have to go and what do I have to do to get a sugar daddy to pay for this so I can get my goddamn life in order!?

I'm literally drowning out here and God is throwing me half-deflated pool floaties.

On the bright side, I keep making amazing non-Jewish internet friends.

Do you know how much that sucks?

That I'm literally getting more support from non-Jewish internet friends that live halfway across the world than I am from my own community?

And it sucks even more to know that Hashem put those people into my path too!!

He literally keeps giving me things that He knows will make me feel worse because they make me feel better but also disconnected from the Jewish community, and not giving me things that would make me feel better and closer to Him and the Jewish community.

What am I supposed to do with that knowledge!?

I've often wondered if maybe I just wasn't meant to be Jewish. Like maybe there was some mistake and my mother isn't really Jewish and therefore I'm not Jewish and this is Hashem's way of telling me that I just need to separate myself from the Jewish world and go seek a secular life because that's truly who I'm supposed to be.

Except that my parents were married by a really chashuv community rav who did his research and would not have married my parents if there'd been even one safek as to her Jewishness.

And so, I'm stuck.

I'm stuck feeling constantly disconnected from the community that's supposed to be my rock and support. By the God who's supposed to be merciful and kind.

It's exhausting.

Are you out there? Do you feel the same? Are you a BT or ger or someone else who has lived both lives and can explain to me why yiddishkeit is better?

I have too much Jewish guilt to walk away from any of this, but I have too much mental stress to keep striving to be a part of it.

It's utterly exhausting to be stuck in the middle.

I hope you're doing better than I am.

-LivelyHeart

[janeyseymour]

Escape- pt 17

pt 1. pt 2. pt 3. pt 4. pt 5. pt 6. pt 7. pt 8. pt 9. pt 10. pt 11. pt 12. pt 13. pt 14. pt 15. pt 16.

Jane Seymour has stayed with Henry for long enough. Cue Catherine of Aragon and the rest of the girls to save her.

There's a new arrival in the family. But nothing is ever easy.

“Uh Cath?” Kat popped her head into the living room.

“Hm?” She didn’t look up from her book.

“Do you have that hospital bag ready for Jane?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Baby’s coming,” she replied casually.

“Uh, how do you know?” Catherine set down from her book.

“We were watching a movie in your room, and her water broke.”

“Hey Lina.” Jane entered the room with a laundry basket full of the sheets from the bed she had already stripped.

“Uh Jane? Kat just told me your water broke?”

“Oh yeah. I already stripped the bed and put new sheets on. Just let me go throw these in the wash real quick.”

“You’re going into labor, and you’re cleaning the house?” Aragon had started to get frazzled.

“I tried to stop her Cath. She wouldn’t hear it.”

“Janey, honey, don’t you think we should start heading for the hospital?”

“I’ve read some of those parenting books, and labor can sometimes last days, especially with your first born. I want to stay in the hospital as long as possible after he comes.”

“It’s a she, and we should go. Come on.”

“Lina dear, I love you, but it’s going to be okay. I’m going to go put these things in the wash and then rest for a bit. We can take it from there.” She leaned up to where Catherine was now standing, grabbed her shirt, and pulled her into a kiss. The blonde sauntered away.

“She’s weirdly calm about all of this,” Kat said when she thought Jane was out of earshot.

“This,” Jane popped her head back into the living room. “Is the least of my worries.”

Hours later, Jane was in active labor. “Jesus Christ Catherine, this fucking hurts! Why don’t you have to go through this fucking shit you asshole!” The contraction began to subside. “I’m so sorry. You know I don’t mean any of it. I love you,” she sighed.

“I know honey.” She wiped some of the tears away. “I really think we should leave now. You’ve put it off long enough, and I think it’s time we go get you checked out.”

“Just five more minutes,” she grunted and looked at the clock: 11:55 pm. “At midnight, we’ll go. I promise.”

“Well, why don’t we start getting you to the car then? By the time we get all the things in the car and-”

“I already put the bags in the car. Anna installed the car seat for you too,” Kat’s voice was getting panicky. She didn’t like seeing Jane in pain. “Come on Jane. I think it’s-”

“It’s okay. It’s fine. Really, we can just stay here.” Her face began to contort. “I’m fine,” she repeated over and over, gradually getting louder and louder, her eyes being clouded with tears.

“Come on,” Catherine began to lift the woman in labor out of the chair.

“Let go of me!” She blurted out. “I’m not going! I can’t do this. I can’t do it.”

Aragon sighed, wishing she could tell her girlfriend she could just give up and stop or that she would take over. It killed the older woman to see the blonde she loved so much in so much pain.

“Baby, I know you’re afraid, and so am I. But you’re doing great.”

“How are you afraid? You don’t have to push a fucking watermelon out of your vagina!” Jane snapped.

Well,” Catherine thought for a second. “I suppose you’re right, but I believe in you. Just think, in hopefully a few short hours-”

“Hours?” Jane screamed in outrage.

“Well, hopefully sooner. But in a few short moments, you’re going to have your beautiful baby girl in your arms.”

“Boy.” Jane gritted her teeth.

“Seymour, if you wait any longer, you might be having me deliver your baby,” Anna laughed. Jane’s face changed from pained to horrified.

“Okay, fine. Let’s go.” She allowed both Catherine and Kat to lead her out of the house and to the car, the other three wishing her well from the doorstep.

“Let’s go have a baby.” Catherine kissed the younger woman’s forehead before pulling out of the driveway.

“Let’s get this bullshit over with,” An already exhausted Jane muttered.

“Miss Seymour, you’re just not progressing. You’re still only at three centimeters. The way you’re contracting, you should be well on your way to pushing by now.”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Jane shrieked. Catherine shot the nurse an apologetic look.

“Do you want the epidural?”

“Yeah Jane, why don’t we try the-”

“I don’t need it! I’m not weak!” Jane insisted through tears. “I don’t need it.”

“Are you sure?” The nurse looked at her rather uneasy. “It really will help with the-”

“I said no!” Jane snapped at the nurse. Once again, Catherine gave the nurse an apologetic look.

“I’m not having a c-section if the baby is perfectly healthy, and I am capable of pushing! I don’t care how long it takes my fucking body to- jesus fucking christ,” Jane swore under her breath as a wave of pain hit her.

“Jane, I really think you should cons-”

“Catherine! How many times do I have to say I’m not doing it! I’m progressing anyway! I’m at seven!”

“Are you ready Miss Seymour?”

“How many times do I have to tell you to call me Jane?”

The doctor rolled his eyes at her. “Are you ready Jane?” He tried again.

“He’s beautiful Jane. I’m so proud of you.” Catherine kissed the top of Jane’s head.

“Do you have a name?” The nurse smiled at the loving couple.

Jane’s face went from content to horrified. “How did we forget to think of a name?”

“I think I know the name honey.”

“I’m sorry,” Jane sighed to the nurse. “Can we just have a few minutes?”

“Of course. For now, we’ll just call him baby boy Seymour.”

“Baby boy Aragon actually,” Jane interjected, a small smile appearing on her face.

“Really?” Catherine looked at her in wonder.

“I’ll give you two some time.” The nurse smiled and left the room.

“So, what name?” Jane asked casually, as if she didn’t just tell the nurse her baby was to have Catherine’s last name.

“No. Why my last name?”

“Well, I figured we’re probably going to get married at some point and I’m taking your last name, and you’re going to adopt him, so it would just make it easier to have it be Aragon now than have to change it in the-”

“Marry me.”

“What?”

“What?”

“What did you just?”

“Marry me. I mean it.” The hispanic dropped down to one knee and pulled out the ring she had been fidgeting with in her pocket for the last few months.

“Yes. Yes, of course I will,” Jane gasped, tears falling down her cheeks. “I love you. I’m sorry for crying. It’s this whole new mom thing.”

“Don’t apologize. There are a lot of things making both of us emotional right now. But uh, the baby’s name,” she trailed off.

“Yeah?” She looked at Catherine with teary eyes.

“Edward John.”

“You remembered?”

“Of course I did.”

“So, you got engaged... When am I going to be an aunt?”

“Honestly? I’m not sure. I really want kids, but Henry isn’t so keen on the idea yet.” A face of disappointment glossed over a younger Jane’s face before she smiled again.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. But I think I want a little boy: Edward John. I just really love that name.”

“That’s a really nice name.” ‘Edward John Aragon,’ Catherine thought immediately. “Edward John Tudor. No.’ She would never see the name Edward the same.

Then it’s Edward John Aragon,” Jane laughed lightly. “Take your son real fast.” She handed Edward over.

“Why don’t you try to get some sleep? I know you’re exhausted.”

“I am not.” She shifted slightly in the bed. “Just sit with me.”

“That’s a small bed. We won’t both be able to fit.”

“Just wait.” She slowly got out of the hospital bed.

“Jane Seymour!” Catherine all but yelled.

“Eat a dick and sit down. I’ll lay on you.”

“You’re quite the woman.” Catherine’s phone dinged. “The grandparents are here, and so are the girls.”

“Tell the grandparents to come in. We’ll see the girls after.”

“Honey, are you sure? You should really get some rest.”

“After I see everyone, okay?” She stifled a yawn.

“Janey,” Catalina began to protest.

“Not. Now. Lina.” She paused in between each word.

“Okay,” she backed down and told their parents to come in. “Wait, I forgot something. Give me your hand.” She slipped the ring onto Jane’s finger.

“I love you.” Jane kissed her chin.

“Where’s the baby?” Margaret ran in.

“Mom, please don’t yell. But he’s right here. Edward John. Eddie.”

“Oh my god! He’s-”

“Marge, I can’t get all of this shit in here by myself!” John dragged six gift bags in.

“John Seymour, watch it!” She snapped before turning her attention back to the baby. “Oh, he’s so handsome. Looks just like you.”

“Here.” Jane handed her son off.

“Eddie, I’m Nana,” she whispered. “I’m going to spoil you like crazy when you come home.” Jane’s face fell. The couple was thinking of staying near the other girls once things settled down.

“Catalina! Where is he? Where is this beautiful baby boy?” Catherine’s mother Isabella half-whispered.

“Right here,” Catherine didn’t take her eyes off of her fiancee.

“Bella! I got him. Oh, he’s so handsome.

Ferdinand, or Fred, walked in to admire the baby but stayed silent.

While the two older women fussed over the new baby, John greeted his daughter, having finally gotten all the presents into the room.

“Hey Janey honey. He’s beautiful- just like you.” A tear fell down his face.

“Don’t cry Dad.”

“I’m just really proud of you. I’m proud of you too Cath.” John reached over and patted Catherine. “Did she break your hand during labor?”

“She’s going to say I didn’t, but I ‘m pretty sure I felt some bones shift.” Jane looked up at her fiancee. “I’m sorry.”

“Did anything else-” John caught the engagement ring on his daughter’s finger from the corner of his eye. “Nevermind.”

“I’m just so happy he’s out. Being fat sucks.”

“You’re not fat. Come on now.” Catherine kissed her temple.

“Mhm,” she sighed. “I’m heavier than I’ve ever-”

“Because you carried a baby. Your body did the most amazing thing. Mom said the same thing,” John interjected. “I’m going to attempt to get Mom and Bella to let me hold him. The name?”

“Edward John.” Jane smiled. “After you.”

“Rest up now, okay?”

“Okay Daddy.”

“Cath, we have a few things to discuss later.” John gave her a pointed look before breaking into a smile.

“Yes sir.”

After a few minutes, the grandparents left with promises that they would be over to the house as soon as possible.

“Are the girls still here?”

“The other girls went down to get some food, but I’m here,” Kat stood in the doorway awkwardly.

“Oh Kat dear!” Jane smiled warmly. “Come meet him .”

“It’s a boy?” Kat’s eyes went wide. She really should’ve bet with Jane.

“Yes love. Come meet him.” Kat hesitantly stood by Jane’s bedside.

“He’s beautiful Jane.” Kat admired the baby.

“Would you like to hold him?”

“I- I couldn’t,” the pink haired woman stuttered. She was stunned that her friend trusted her to hold the light of her life.

“Do you not want to?”

“No I do!” She rushed out. “I just don’t know how, and newborn babies kind of scare me.” Jane patted the area on the bed next to her. Kat sat down quickly.

“Now, just put your arms how mine look,” Jane instructed. “When I hand him over, make sure you hold his head up. He can’t do that himself yet.” Kat did as she was told, and Jane gently passed her son over.

“Wow,” Kat gushed. “Hi little guy,” she whispered. “I’m Kitty. I’m going to be the best-”

“Big sister,” Jane interjected lovingly.

“I’m what?” Kat’s eyes practically bulged out of her head.

“You already told me you think of me as a mother figure, and I’m more than okay with that. So, you’re going to be like his big sister, if that’s alright with you.” A single tear fell down Kat’s face. “Honey, if you’d rather be an aunt-”

“No no. I’d be honored.” Kat couldn’t wipe the grin off her face before handing Eddie back to Jane.

“Where’s my goddaughter?” Anne came running into the room, Anna and Cathy not far behind.

“It’s a boy Anne.” Catherine rolled her eyes. “And no one told you you were the godmother.”

“What the-”

“That sentence better be finished with a heck Anne,” Anna looked up. “Listen, I may have the mouth of a sailor, but I know when it’s the time and the place. The time and the place is not now or here.”

“Thank you Anna.”

“No problem Seymour. Now hand over that beautiful baby boy.”

“Me first!” Boleyn whined. Anna backed off and allowed the woman in green to hold him first.

Each of the girls was able to hold Eddie and gush over him, claiming they were going to be ‘the best aunt’. Kat held back.

“Kat, do you not want to hold him again?”

“Again?” Anne whisper-yelled. “Are you telling me I wasn’t the first to hold him? What is this shit?”

“I would love to.” This time, Kat easily held the small child close to her. He opened his eyes and stared at her.

“And he looks at her first too? What the hell?” Anne continued to whine.

“He’s just admiring his big sister is all,” Jane slipped in.

“Woah. What?”

“Jane told me I could be like his big sister. Sucks to be anyone but me! I have the most amazing baby brother.” Kat stuck her tongue out towards the others before turning her attention back to Edward. “You are so loved already.”

Once all introductions were made, Catherine shooed the other queens out of the room. Katherine was the last to leave.

“I just wanted to say,” Kat’s tone was full of love. “You two are going to be the best moms ever.”

“Thank you Kat,” Aragon said fondly.

“Thank you love, but we aren’t going to be able to do it without the help from the big sister.” Jane winked. “Come here real quick.” Kat made her way across the room and over to Jane.

“I really have to go. The others are waiting, and Anne’s already pissed I was the first in the room and the last out.”

“I just wanted to tell you that I love you, and thank you for being by my side through all of this.”

“I love you too,” the pink haired woman paused. “Mom.” Jane beckoned for Kat to come close. She kissed the top of her head as Kat looked down at the little bundle of joy in the blonde’s arms. Unbeknownst to the two women at the moment, Catherine snapped a photo of her found family on her phone. Posting it to her social media, she smiled.

The light of my life with the two lights of her life. Congratulations Janey. Thank goodness she had already blocked Henry and Thomas from viewing her page.

“Catherine?” Jane’s voice was panicked. “Catherine, wake up!”

“What?” she mumbled from the chair she had settled in for the night.

“I don’t feel all that great.”

“Love, you were in labor for three nights. I’m sure you’re exhausted. Try to get some rest, okay?”

“Lina, I don’t know, but this feels different. This pain is different than the other pains. I’m really cold, and it’s getting hard to breathe.” Catherine stood up and put a hand on Jane’s forehead.

“I’m getting a nurse.” Catherine walked out of the room for a few minutes, and when she came back with a nurse, Jane was gasping for air.

“Miss Seymour? Miss Seymour!” The nurse yelled when Jane fainted. “Doctor!”

Aragon was pushed out of the room as multiple doctors began to surround her future wife.

Nothing was ever easy.

[shcwclf-archive]

🙌

Send a “🙌” and I’ll introduce you to an NPC related to my Muse.

LITTLE SHIT /  GRADE 3 STUDENT

— October 30, 2012  @  3.33am — born: Cedar Sinai Maternity, Beverly Hills, CA. — connection: Mila’s daughter from her second marriage. — triggers: death (murder), stress, postnatal depression, grief, pregnancy, surgery ( C-Section ). 

Mila really wasn’t expecting to have any more children, in fact she had planned on her son being her one and only, so when she discovered she was pregnant, not long after she married Jack (and that she was already 12 weeks along, thanks to a faulty hormone rod in her arm), she wasn’t a hundred percent sure how to feel. Jack had always wanted children however, and while he often joked (was it actually a joke? she really couldn’t tell) about having a large family with 4 or 5 children, fate had other plans for them. It took Mila a little while to adjust to the idea of having another child, and everything seemed to be progressing quickly. It wasn’t long before Jack was deployed again, this time for only a few months. he was expected home just before the due date so Mila was reluctantly fine with that. reluctantly.

Mila wasn’t exactly sure when Jack would return home, but as the weeks went on, she got slightly more anxious. at 32 weeks she got an email, saying that he was fine, but their mission had been extended and he probably wouldn’t make it back in time for the due date. She dealt with it, knowing that she had support if she should need it, but she always hoped that Jack would make it back in time. At 36 weeks pregnant, Mila received word about the accident. She wasn’t told much, but that seemed to sink in was that Jack wasn’t coming back and that he’d never meet their child.  It seemed all a little too much for Mila to really grasp hold of, and as such, stress and other complications saw to her daughter being delivered by emergency C-section at 38 weeks. it took a lot for Mila to even hold her daughter, @calxlucas being there to be the first one to end up holding the infant, the first to see the baby’s face. Mila couldn’t for the life of her look at her daughter and not see her late husbands features reflected in the infant. everything about her just screamed Jack, and Mila just couldn’t deal with it. without Cal there, Freya wouldn’t have been given the love she needed when she was first brought into the world, she wouldn’t have had that connection with someone, or be given the decency of a smile. In many ways, Mila hasn’t forgiven herself for this, but she also couldn’t be more grateful for cal and his involvement in Freya’s arrival.

Mila attempted to do what she needed for her daughter, but the more she forced herself into it the further away from her she wished she were. it was a week before Mila even put a name on the birth certificate, and it was only through the pestering of her mother that she did so. the name Freya wasn’t actually one that Mila had chosen, but it was the name that Jack had mentioned in his last conversation with her, a name that he said he’d really come to love, so Mila decided to give her daughter the name. There were Pavlov traditions she had to follow and without Freya earning an even longer name than she had already been given, Mila had chosen to give Freya a middle name relating to her father, choosing Jacqueline. the French name seemingly upsetting Mila’s mother, but she didn’t let that bother her. She allowed for Pavlov tradition to follow by giving Freya a second middle name, handing down the name Ksenya. If she were to follow her family’s who tradition, Freya would be Freya Jacqueline Ksenya Dragomira Pavlova- Fallon, but Mila chose otherwise, settling on Freya Jacqueline Ksenya Minkova-Fallon. 

It’s safe to say that without Cal, Mila wouldn’t have ever pulled herself out of her depression as well as she did. It was rough enough to deal with the grief of losing her husband, but when evolution had made sure that his genes were represented in every single one of Freya’s features— Mila couldn’t deal. she spent her days in bed, attempting to sleep but never really being able to. she was well and truly numb. Cal moving in didn’t change that at first, but it did allow her time to be able to grieve the way she needed to. He made sure her children were fed, even when it came to reminding her that she needed to do the thing with the pump so that Freya could get a feed, he made sure her twelve year old son got to school and home safely, that he did his homework and that he wasn’t too much of a shit for his teachers. he made sure Mila ate and drank water, that she bathed, washed her hair (even when he had to do this for her) and got outside to get some sun occasionally. He took her and Freya to every single appointment, every single follow up and every session she had to attend and through all of that, he stayed. Looking back at it now, Mila realises that he did all of this not out of dedication to the family, but because he loves her. she didn’t see it then, but maybe she had too much else to focus on to notice. 

Mila found herself slowly getting closer to Freya, watching Cal fall asleep with her on his chest and laying down beside them, just to learn to close that distance between them and then eventually letting her fall asleep on her own chest (obviously making sure Cal was there at first, just in case). Eventually Mila got to know her daughter through Cal, and she’s sworn ever since that she’d never let herself fall so low again. Cal was eventually able to move out, mila functioning on her own again, able to handle a busy life of a single mother of two. the next two years would prove very difficult with the murder of grandfather six months after her birth, Freya wasn’t out of the woods yet and while Mila tried her hardest to be present and there for both her children— losing a parent makes that very difficult. Cal, perhaps without knowing it, stepping into the father role again for both her children, but this time never really stepped out of it. 

Freya became close with her aunt @nadyaxpavlova (even though her mother and aunt’s relationship was strained), her uncle @alexxpavlov and his fiancé Sophie. the infant attached to Sophie with ease, which Mila appreciated. Sophie was a kind woman that Mila was looking forward to having as part of the Pavlov family, especially seeing how she was with her children. The attempted hit on her brothers life resulted in the end of Sophie’s own, and once again, the family was thrown into grief. it was around this time that Cal’s presence maybe lessened slightly. Mila expected this, Alex needed his best friend and right hand, and there was more to deal with in the family. 

Freya grew never lacking in father figures. While she loves her uncle, the bond that her and Cal developed continued to grow. Every holiday, every father’s day, any excuse to make a craft project at day care or school, Freya demanded to make something for Cal. Paintings, key chains, mug upon mug— you name it, Freya has probably made and/or decorated it for Cal, all with DAD printed on each. She also likes to make her brother @timoteixmacgregor anything music related and has been taking piano lessons for a year or so, so that she can learn to play like him. They had always had a special bond, even with the age gap, and as Freya grew, Mila was thankful for that gap. Timo was able to help Mila with Freya more than she ever realised. He loves his sister, and she loves him. 

The family’s influence on Freya’s development didn’t go unnoticed; she’s sarcastic and sassy and enjoys chaos a little too much for her mothers liking. Traits that Cal, Alex and Timo all seem to have. Freya is a very outspoken, multilingual child who is determined, headstrong and independent. Bossy? Sure! But call her that and she’ll turn around and quote Beyoncé’s “I’m not bossy, I’m the boss” quote to you before walking away. She has strong relationships with the family from her father’s side, spending some weekends and holidays with them, which Mila likes because she gets to be with her cousins and still gets to know her fathers family. 

Mila does struggle some times, Freya is coming into that age where she’s beginning to understand things in greater detail and ask more questions than she did before. She’s pieced together the relationship between Mila and Cal, and is very interested in finding out exactly when her baby sister is coming, to which Mila replies with NEVER! Freya’s cousin recently told her that sex is how babies are made, and since she asked Cal if he was “sexing” Mila and he was honest with his reply, she naturally connected the dots.... the semantics of why this isn’t possible aren’t really sinking in yet, but Mila is hoping that it will some time soon. Mila and Cal are always honest with Freya, and Mila as a parent has never dumbed anything down because of her children’s ages. If they asked questions, Mila would give honest answers, and  as such, Freya knows a lot about the world and is very opinionated on topics she feels well educated on. 

[jayeshmuley]

"Exam Pressure Leads To Wave Of Student Suicides"

It's exam season in India and it's also suicide season when students buckle under parental pressure to get high marks and into a top university for the golden chance of a high-paying job. Newspapers carry tragic daily reports of youngsters who have killed themselves or taken what Indians euphemistically call "the extreme step" because they fear the shame of a bad report card. On a single day last month, it was reported that two teenage boys in New Delhi hanged themselves at their homes. One was falling behind in his studies and the other was afraid of an English exam. A final year Bachelor of Commerce student hanged herself in the commercial capital Mumbai apparently because she was not prepared for her economics paper and did not want her family to feel ashamed. A grade 12 student from Surat in western India hanged herself and another threw herself before a moving train in Allahabad in northern India, the paper reported, adding there were other suicides that day too. "Teenage suicide (over exams) is a national disaster," said Samir Parikh, psychiatrist at Max Healthcare, a leading New Delhi private hospital chain. In 2006, the most recent year for which official figures are available, some 5,857 students -- or 16 a day -- killed themselves due to exam stress. Police say thousands more suicides go unreported because parents want to keep the cause of death a secret. Competition to get into higher education in the country of more than 1.1 billion people is fierce with stratospheric averages needed to obtain the few places available in India's "Ivy League" colleges. For instance, the cut-off average mark to pursue an undergraduate economics degree at Delhi University's top commerce college last year was 97.8 percent. "Unsurprisingly only a small fraction of the 500,000 school leavers each year will make it," said Sunil Sethi, columnist for financial daily Business Standard. India has just a couple of dozen top-notch "branded" colleges, seven Indian institutes of technology and six of management. Together they take only 16,000 undergraduates each year. In the last few weeks since the start of exam season, there have been a string of suicides in India's capital by students as young as 12. "Over the years the kind of marks students need to get into 'good universities' has really started touching the roof -- they need 90, 95 percent averages," psychiatrist Parikh said. Also "parents have big expectations and give undue importance to exams and for children the marks are benchmarks of their self-esteem. The combination can be fatal." Many hang themselves from ceiling fans -- ubiquitous in India's hot climate -- but others set themselves alight, consume pesticides or drown themselves. One 17-year-old left a suicide note saying he was ending his "life because the pressure has started to get to me and I cannot take it any longer," concluding poignantly: "I love my family and I hope they will understand." While the global teen suicide rate is 14.5 per 100,000, a 2004 study by the Christian Medical College in the southern city of Vellore reported 148 for girls and 58 for boys in India. The girls' rate is higher because many fear being married off if they flunk, experts say. Educators criticize the exams for stressing memory work over reasoning. "We must make exams in such a way it does not bank on memory but emphasizes thinking capability," said scientist Yash Pal, who headed India's recent curricular reform steering committee. Tutors are called in and parents take time off to coach their children through exams. "Memory pills" are devoured, nutritionists are consulted for the best "brain food" and newspapers devote sections to tackling exams. "You can't imagine the pressure," said student Renu Chanda, 17, who has just done her finals. On top of the finals, there are the university tests. Some students take half a dozen or more exams to try to get into big-name institutions. A 2006 study of 231 teenagers by Anuradha Sovani, a clinical psychologist at the University of Mumbai, showed that the students were more frightened of exams than accidents, earthquakes or bomb attacks. "Somehow we think high marks are the only way our children are going to succeed in life," said Anita Gupta, a mother of two sons and a daughter. Poorer parents make huge sacrifices to afford tuition so children feel an extra burden to succeed. The ones who don't make it into top schools end up going to under-funded second-rate colleges or the booming number of private universities. But the disadvantage of private institutes is that standards vary so wildly many are not recognized by the government. Families that can afford it send their children abroad with an estimated 160,000 Indians studying overseas each year. And even when students get into good Indian colleges, the pressure does not end -- with university suicides also regularly reported. "We have to give youngsters -- and their parents -- the life skills to know marks are not everything in life," said psychiatrist Parikh.

[wendimydarling]

Hiii, If you feel comfortable of course, I'd like to know how was your pregnancies. Where they calm? Complicated? How did you dealt with them? Did you always wanted children? Just your overall experience 😊🤗

HI!!! Oh this is a fun question, I’ll be happy to answer! This is gonna get long so I’ll put it under a cut!

So starting info: I have two children, Sis is seven and Bubba is five. I have always wanted children, ever since I was five years old and got my first actual babydoll. It’s in my blood, I’m phenomenal with children, and my body was designed for it, shaped for it even. My mother always called it “those child-rearin’ hips”. 😂

Now the background of meeting the hubs in case you haven’t read: we met in 2011, got engaged in 2011, got married in 2012, got pregnant in 2012. We weren’t playin’, y’all. 😬 So anywho, my pregnancy with Sis was fairly smooth sailing up until the end; my morning sickness with her was minor, it lasted from 5 weeks to 13 weeks but I only threw up maybe three times? The rest was just occasional bouts of minor nausea, and I had no other complaints besides my wisdom teeth finally erupting.

Around 34 weeks she tried to come out early; I was having minor twinges that didn’t really hurt, they just didn’t feel right, so to the hospital I went. Sure enough, I was having contractions that they struggled to stop. I was kept overnight for observation once they got the contractions to stop (it’s basically a shot they give you and they had to administer it thrice), given steroids to help baby’s lungs develop, and then sent home on mild pelvic rest for three weeks, aka sit down all the time unless you have to use the bathroom and NO sex.

We thought we were gonna have a thanksgiving baby... NOPE. Little Miss got offended that we didn’t want to meet her yet, so she stayed put until two days before her due date. 🙄 Cue 12 hours of walking to get me to progress enough to where we could go to the hospital. I had wanted a natural delivery but her head was tilted at a slight angle and caused back labor instead of typical labor, and I was in so much pain my body was shaking by four cm dilation. Epidural it is! I slept then, and she was born the next day around 4pm. I pushed for three hours, the epidural wore off, and I had a second degree tear. All worth it to see that tiny bundle I’d waited for my whole life. ❤

My son was a different story. He was conceived when Sis was about 15 months old, and his pregnancy was NOT fun, not in the slightest. I had fewer weeks of morning sickness with him, only from about 8-11 weeks, but they were HELL. I was nauseous all day, every day for three weeks. I hated it. I had heartburn with him from about 22 weeks on so I had to limit my diet and go on additional daily medication, and he rode so low that my sciatica was thrown into over drive. 

Now see, he tried to make his appearance EARLY. I first went into labor with him at about 24ish weeks? It was minor, but to this day I cannot tell you the plot of the movie Interstellar, I was too busy counting contractions and freaking out. Fortunately they subsided, and we went on our merry way.

Then came 36 weeks. I went into labor again at the same time that I got the stomach flu. Real deal labor. My husband was in the city at a football game for work, so my Mother-in-Law came over and packed me a hospital bag while I was puking my guts out. The contractions had stopped by the time my hubs got home, so I opted for sleep and would go to the hospital in the morning if they came back. 

They came back. This was different than Sis’s labor though, the contractions wrapped all the way around my belly and they felt manageable. I drove myself to the hospital after my Sis-in-Law came over to babysit, and went from being dilated from a 2 to a 4 in the space of an hour. Unfortunately, because he was only 36 weeks, he had what they jokingly refer to as “white boy lung syndrome”, which is simply that Caucasian males’ lungs do not develop as fast as girls or as other races, and so he needed to cook a little longer. Steroids again, halted labor again, pelvic rest AGAIN. Goddamn, the things I did for these babies. 😂

That lasted not quite two weeks and then I went into labor AGAIN on Christmas Eve. Just make it through the family events, child... you can be born tomorrow. Labor stopped again, and you’re about to find out why. We ended up at my 38 week appointment which was a few days after Christmas; I was dilated to a 5, 100% effaced, I was halfway there, dammit. Natural delivery, here I come! NOPE. My doc is feelin’ around and I could see concern on her face and I’m like wtf talk woman, and she says “Huh. I don’t feel his head.”

WUT.

I go in for an immediate ultrasound and sure ‘nuff, my ridiculous child is butt first, hence why labor never continued. 🤦‍♀️ So that afternoon they attempted an ECV (which I don’t wish upon my worst enemy, that is the most excruciating pain in my life), he wouldn’t flip, and I went into labor AGAIN. My doc made the executive decision to go ahead and pull him before my water broke and he got stuck or further risks occurred, and I agreed. 

I was rushed to an emergency C-section which prep for is supposed to take two hours? They did it in one. Surgery itself is supposed to take an average of 45 minutes? They did it in 22. He was born around 9pm the same size as his sister, and had some slight breathing difficulties but by his second APGAR test he was fine. 

So yeah, those are my birth stories! Thank you for letting me talk about them, I love my children with all my heart and I’d go through it all again if it meant getting to be their mother. I’d go through pregnancy again too if any of my closest friends needed a surrogate; I really didn’t mind being pregnant. ❤

[allie1804-fan]

New Beginnings (Chapter 7)

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New Beginnings Baby Drabble

New Beginnings Baby Drabble No2

Warnings : mentions of loss, grieving and some explicit content

For the first few days Emily convalesced after the surgery and they didn’t leave home.  They had only told a few people about the pregnancy (Keanu’s mum, her parents, Karina, Chloe) but so far Karina was the only one who knew what had happened. 

She’d obviously told their mother and had offered to make the other calls but Keanu said he’d do it. 4 days later he still hadn’t faced up to it. He didn’t quite know how to form the words in his mouth. Just thinking about it made his stomach churn and brought the trauma of this loss AND of his daughter over 20 years before back in living colour. The hospital rooms, the doctors’ words.  

Emily was facing similar struggles. She spent most of the time in bed but restful sleep was hard to come by and she too kept reliving the pain and the shock of discovering the pregnancy wasn’t viable.

Toward the end of the week he was forced to deal with it though. They were dozing in bed at just after 9 when Emily’s phone rang.

“What?” he heard her whisper as she listened to the voice on the phone.

“No, I’m not there because my baby is dead” she hissed.

He reached over and grabbed the phone from her realising what must have happened. They had been due to go for the first scan that morning but somehow the system hadn’t caught up with the obstetrics department to let them know about the ectopic pregnancy.

“Just what the hell do you think you’re doing calling here?”  he berated the poor woman on the phone, don’t you have proper communication channels, it’s been 4 days!”  

Emily could hear the beginnings of a flustered apology from the woman but it was quickly cut off as Keanu ended the call,  immediately feeling terrible for unleashing his anger on someone whose fault it clearly wasn’t.

He sat up and sighed, pulling Emily to his chest.

“I’m gonna have to make those calls today. Chloe and your mum will be expecting us to check in”

Emily just sniffed acknowledging that this was the next step they had to take.

“Can we go back to the counsellor” she asked “I think we probably need some help dealing with this ……….. rage.”

“yeah, I’ll call her too. If I don’t I’m just gonna hurt someone or something!”

Chloe got a taxi over as soon as she heard the news, leaving Rosie and Jamie with John. She couldn’t drive yet because of having a C-section but she didn’t want to wait to offer some comfort to one of her oldest friends.  When she got there, she just climbed into bed with Emily, wrapped her arms around her and held her friend, letting her cry it out.

OCTOBER

The next 3 months had been tough and sometimes just one day seemed to pass agonisingly slowly but gradually their lives felt like they were getting back on track. Accepting that they’d likely never have their own biological children was a harsh reality to face especially when close friends like Chloe and John had already completed their families, watching their children grow and take on their physical and personality traits.

Babysitting for  Chloe and John had been one of the biggest milestones they’d faced along the way. The image of Emily sitting on the sofa at Chloe and John’s house giving Rosie her bedtime bottle was seared into Keanu’s mind, making him remember the day Emily had held Jake and felt the pull inside to have her own child. They’d talked the idea through with the counsellor before offering to babysit. It almost felt like doing it would cauterise a wound. The counsellor had explained that while confronting their loss in the form of baby Rosie might feel like it would burn them too deeply, it was one way of facing the pain full on. The alternative was boxing it up and not letting it breathe and Keanu remembered doing just that after Ava. The only way his sadness and rage has made itself known for years was through acting. Otherwise it had been boxed away into his early 40s and when he did face it, its power after 6 years surprised and terrified him. He was determined not to do the same this  time

The fact that they were no longer trying helped as did the fact that their time thinking she was pregnant was so brief.  At least she hadn’t started to really think about when the baby was due and the future in too much detail. Having known friends who’d been through loss before, she knew that building a little dream future only to lose it was often the hardest part. Still, they were still letting go of a precious dream and some days that pain hit either one of them like a ton of bricks.

Another aspect of life that helped the clouds to lift was that each had exciting new projects coming up that were going to keep them very busy. In anticipation of having no more free time, they booked a trip back to Italy.  First came a week in Capri visiting Keanu’s sister Kim and then another week back in Taormina Sicily.

They had a wonderful time despite Emily being laid low for a couple of days with a stomach flu but she made a swift recovery and they were able to enjoy their time visiting their favourite restaurant again and discovering historical sites that they’d missed on their first visit.

They ended their trip in what was becoming a sort of tradition with them – a whole morning in bed where Keanu dedicated himself to bringing her to multiple orgasms before finally taking her to the edge of heaven, burying himself deep inside her.

They vowed to take each day as it came, enjoy their work, live in the moment  and love each other.

On her return Emily planned to get a coil fitted so she could stop using hormones and be secure with her birth control until she no longer needed it. After the ectopic pregnancy they’d used condoms briefly and then she’d restarted the pill. For the trip, Emily had deliberately left no gap between 2 courses of the pill towards the end of their holiday to avoid spoiling it with a period. Once she was back she could visit her gynaecologist and move forward.

A couple of weeks after their return to LA, Emily had her appointment about the coil. She explained her circumstances to the nurse who was sympathetic about what she’d gone through. The work up involved some blood tests, a smear and a pregnancy test just to be sure especially since she hadn’t had a period for almost 6 weeks by then. They made a follow up appointment for the following week with Keanu too since she recommended they have a chat with a counsellor before the coil fitting, just to make sure this was the best route for them as a couple. The coil would usually stay in place for a minimum of 5 years and since they’d had a relatively recent loss, they were a little cautious.

The next week they were madly rushing to squeeze in the appointment then run on to a training session for Keanu and a writers’ room for Emily.

The doctor came into the consulting room to Emily’s surprise as she was expecting the counsellor or nurse she’d seen the week before to just run through the results and check in that Keanu agreed with their course of action.

“So, I have the results of your tests here and they mean we won’t be progressing with the coil fitting today”

Emily huffed a little, irritated that this whole procedure was becoming far less straightforward than she’d expected.

“Why not, what’s wrong?”

Actually nothing is wrong at all …… our tests indicate that you’re pregnant”

Their mouths fell simultaneously agape and they looked at each other in shock”

“that can’t be right, I’ve been on birth control ………….” Emily stammered. She was surprised to find herself less than pleased with this news. She squeezed Keanu’s hand as a wave of fear rushed through her. She wanted a baby so much but being pregnant had become inextricably linked with loss and despair.

Keanu’s thoughts were much the same – after all, as far as he knew, he’d got two women pregnant in his life and both times had ended in disaster.

“What birth control have you been using?”

“For the past 3 months I’ve been on the pill and I took 2 packets consecutively  recently as we went on holiday”

“And have you had any stomach upsets or been on any other medication such as antibiotics?”

Emily started to shake her head but then Keanu tugged her hand

“you had that stomach flu in Italy, remember, you were throwing up for a couple of days ……. His voice drifted off and the doctor grinned

“That will likely be the reason” he said “the pill was probably not absorbed into the bloodstream when you were sick causing it to fail.  It’s a very common mistake not to realise your birth control is compromised when that happens. Well why don’t we take a look to check what’s going on” he said beckoning Emily over to the consulting table.  “We want to be sure everything is in the right place given your last pregnancy was ectopic.”

Still in shock, Emily lay on the table and eased her trousers down to reveal her flat belly.  The doctor  rubbed on the cold jelly and pulled over the wand of the ultrasound machine.

Keanu felt light-headed.  He realised he’d probably been holding his breath since the doctor started explaining how come she might be pregnant. He blew out his breath slowly, eyes fixed on the screen.

The screen showed the cone shape image in white generated by the ultrasound waves and within it the black oval shape of Emily’s womb came into view.

“There it is” the doctor declared happily while Keanu and Emily both stared wondering what on earth he was taking about. Then he helped them, pointing to a little peanut shape within the dark circle whose image seemed to flash on an off.

“There, that’s it, do you see now?”

“Yeah but why does it keep disappearing? Keanu asked

“That’s its heart beating – I always think of it like a little lighthouse flashing to tell you it’s still there”

“So it’s in the right place, not ectopic this time” Emily asked, her voice wavering.

“Everything looks perfect” he smiled reassuringly at them both. “I tell you what, why don’t I just give you a minute alone. If you keep holding the wand right there you can watch your baby and get used to the idea. I guess it’s quite a shock”

“I’ll say” Keanu muttered softly.

As the door closed behind the doctor, Emily just stared at Keanu

“Oh my god this is …”

“unbelievable” he finished her sentence

“mmmm” she nodded

“I don’t think I’m gonna make my writers room” she laughed

“nor me my training” he agreed.

They turned and looked at the monitor again and sure enough there was the little flickering peanut letting them know it was there.

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New Beginnings Baby Drabble

New Beginnings Baby Drabble No2

[coffeeandcalligraphy]

Paper Mouth, Opera Game, Beautiful Place | Writing Update

Hey People of Earth!

This is December 5th Rachel here to tell you this has been sitting in my drafts since the prehistoric era and we boutta update on three chapters of Moth Work *cracks knuckles*. 

First, let’s start with chapter seven of the book, AKA Paper Mouth.

I wrote Paper Mouth back in August, and while I drafted it (over a few writing sprints), I was happy with it, but eventually realized I actually... didn’t like her, lol. Though objectively this chapter ain’t my fave, it does establish a very! important! thing! And that’s my shiny new gal, Eliza.

So, if anyone remembers from previous updates, I conceptualized most of MOTH WORK back in January when I was *stressed* at the end of a semester and needed a *break*. During this period of brainstorming where the whole photograph plot formed, I characterized a woman (the woman in the picture) who I knew would be central to the book. I knew I wanted to name her Eliza, I knew what she looked like, and had a loose backstory outlined for her, buuuuut… I started drifting from the photograph plot (it was only meant to be a booster) and without the photograph plot, I didn't have a reason to include her. So I thought I’d actually cut her involvement in the book way down from about 30-50% to 2%.

This changed however, when I added Lonan’s POV to the book (what I’m writing at the moment). Because I was in his head, I quickly realized how important finding this woman (someone who had a previous affair with his father [TEA]) would be to him. 

This is how we end up at Paper Mouth!

The chapter is almost a direct continuation of the last, and starts out as follows:

Scene A:

Lonan makes a phone call to Eliza from a phone booth. They’ve never met, she like new phone who dis, but after an off-screen explanation, we jump into scene two. 

Scene B:

This scene covers the two meeting for the first time outside of a diner. Lonan got dat brooding hoodie energy, and Eliza has tattoo-artist but also your mom friend energy, and we love the dynamic already! From here, she offers to buy Lonan a milkshake as an incentive to speak with him. Me too sis, me too. 

Scene C:

They chat, until Lonan moves the conversation to his father. Things go downhill lol, Lonan gets overwhelmed and heads outside to leave, despite having no way home, but is followed by Eliza. They have a convo that gets heated about his father, tho this sort of veers off abruptly my bad.

I honestly don’t love anything enough to share from this chapter, so let’s move on to the next!

EDIT: y’all this is the second edit I’ve made in this post because guess who forgot chapter 8 existed.

Opera Game took me so long to write, I forgot it existed! I either started it at the end of August, or the beginning of September--it took so long I’m pretty sure I only finished it in November, lol. 

Scene A:

We get more Lonan + Eliza time as Eliza pulls a Fostered book three and stitches up Lonan’s busted face

This goes wrong very quickly when Lonan keeps bringing up the fact that he thinks she’s spooked because he has his dead father’s (AKA her ex’s) eyes. 

Scene B:

We have din din with Eliza + Lonan and she gifts him back his mother’s ring (at last, the OG plot) that she may or may not have had wrapped for months to give back to his dad (yikers). << this causes some minor problems lol

Scene C:

Lonan and Eliza share a cigarette on her apartment’s balcony. They’re supposed to be just friends but let’s just say apparently I cannot write those (see Darren and Reeve lmfaooo).

The end of this chapter was so fun to write. Take with that what you will! I put Nothing But Thieves’ cover of Love You Should’ve Come Over on repeat to write scene C. Take with that! What! You! Will! ;)

And now for excerpts! Sharing this because of the word guileless:

Eliza looks like a girl. She’s a girl with too many tattoos bartered for free in college, convenience store lipstick she bought from the clearance section, a haircut she found in her mother’s mail-order catalogue, rings hand-bent from an age 12+ kit. She cries like a girl, and sits like a girl and wipes her face like a girl, and he sees the same thing in her that he sees in himself—something guileless, something see-through. 

I don’t usually share dialogue, but here is some dialogue from scene B:

“Should I have gotten something different?”

“This is fine.”

“They had chili chicken too. General Tso’s. I should’ve followed my gut.”

“This is fine.”

“There’s even an Italian place just a block over. I forgot about the Italian place.”

“This is fine, Eliza.”

And now, a very on brand excerpt ft. dead bodies:

He can’t remember why his mother died, or when, or why she’s more of a mother than his own mother. He only wants to visit her. Slip the ring back on her finger. She would smell like peaches, hibiscus, almost chlorinated, embalmed, absently pretty, not because she wasn’t beautiful, but because her body would be empty. 

EDIT (again): hi y’all it’s been a month since I drafted this, and so here we go with yet another chapter update because I refuse to do schoolwork! 

Beautiful Place is chapter nine of Moth Work, and is chock full of all the tea you’ve ever wanted! Watch Rachel take a pure friendship and make it *not* because that’s her #1 talent! Pure friendship? lol you THOUGHT.

I wrote this chapter over the course of my reading break. @sarahkelsiwrites​ and I went out to a coffee shop and did a few writing sprints, where a majority of this chapter was birthed. 

After Opera Game, I was a bit stuck with this book. I needed a chapter that shoved Eliza and Lonan closer together, but couldn’t figure out exactly how to go about this. I’d semi established a semi friendship between Lonan and Eliza, but wasn’t fully understanding how they’d go from “lol ur my dad’s ex” to “buds? hi!” to “lol ur my ex” and I toyed around with a lot of ideas in my head before I accidentally stumbled into the scene that defines the entire chapter.

Scene A:

All you need to know is Lonan is chillin’ on Eliza’s couch, she’s making some good ol’ french toast, and then tells him she wants to take him to a “good place” and he’s like ok)

Scene B:

Eliza’s place is a cove she found a while back with someone I cannot name because of spoilers (just know that this definitely changes Lonan’s opinion of being there)

When he asks her about the person who she found the place with, she gets *shady*, he gets *extra*, there is *tea*

Here is an excerpt ft. my most overused verb: starbursting (why)!

“You like the beach?” Eliza turns off the car engine, checks her lipstick in the rear-view.

“Just the water.”

“But not the beach?”

“I like the water.”

They get out of the car together, and Eliza’s sundress catches in the rain. The cotton is patterned with palm leaves, birds the size of his pinkie, and it whirls around her in the wind. He doesn’t ask why the good place is the beachfront, or what’s so good about it. He doesn’t shake her hand off when she takes it and leads him toward the sand. Eliza moves around amber driftwood and rubbery kelp like this isn’t an obstacle course but a regular commute. Her hair blows out of her face, starbursting like a halo. She says something about coming here when the Vegas lights blocked the stars. That it’s magical at night, it’s intoxicating, it’s spellbinding, and all of these words remind him more of his sister than sand, than waves. 

Here’s a description of the beautiful place ooooh:

The first thing he notices is the light. It’s only the sun reflecting off the stone, but he sees constellations, jittering like they’re both submerged in water. Bits of gold catch in Eliza’s hair and the peaks of the waves, and it’s the cove he notices next. They stand in the centre of it, the stone arched over a spread of water, lapping inches from their feet. It’s like being enclosed in a snowglobe, a private hemisphere of light, water, stone, sand. A resurrection. 

And here lies tea:

Eliza is spreading out a picnic blanket while Lonan kneels toward the water. He punctures the current, and lets it stream between his fingers. Even in his hands, the water is gold.

“A friend and I found it,” she says, as water drips into his palm, down his wrist. “I said it was magical.”

“Was it my father?” he picks up a clump of sand, lets it disintegrate back down.

When Eliza says nothing, he turns back to look at her. She’s rummaging through the picnic basket, humming something under her breath, fixing the corner of the blanket.

“Eliza?”

She looks at him, and then back down, glasses clinking. She pulls out two jars—one  orange, one pink. “Which do you prefer—marmalade or strawberry?” She digs through the basket, pulls out another jar, olive coloured, speckled with reds, yellows. “Or tapenade?”

“Eliza,” he says, wringing out his hand as he rises. “Was it my father?”

“I brought red wine, too. Do you drink?”

Lonan approaches, and crouches at the edge of the picnic basket. He plays with the hem, smooths his fingers over the metallic underbelly, the fleecy plaid pattern on the good side.

When she pulls out the wine bottle, he reaches over and places his hand on the neck. Their fingers brush when he secures his palm around it. When she doesn’t look at him, he moves his hand over until it covers hers.

“The friend you found this place with,” he says. “Was that my father?”

Eliza tightens her grip around the wine bottle and pulls it back, placing it into the picnic basket. Her sigh trembles, vibrato like a flute, an opera singer. She smooths her hair back, once, twice. “It’s shiraz. My mother sent it from Italy.”

And at last, I call this: Kind of A Wild Thing to Do But Pop Off I Guess:

On her pulse sits a tattoo of a single crow’s eye, and Lonan traces it with the tip of his fingernail. He touches down, to the dagger following the vein on her forearm, and when he reaches the golden cherub an inch from her elbow, leans down and kisses its head.

Aaaand, what a fun way to end this update!

I’m not sure if I’ll get another update up before the new year, but let’s cross our fingers! If not, here’s to 2020! Let’s finish these books y’all. 

--Rachel

[anagentinwriting]

Subscribe - Part 4

Summary: (Modern AU) Peter was your college sweetheart until a certain event led to your break up. Seven years later another event brings you two back together, but this time a little girl is in the picture. Will listening to your podcasts be the reason you two get back together or be another reason to keep you apart?

Pairing: Peter Quill x Reader

Word Count: 2577

Warnings: Fluff, swearing

Subscribe Masterlist / Main Masterlist

AN: Don’t want this to get confusing, but the podcast is in italics and the flashback is indented and in italics. I am hoping the indention works on all platforms. Fingers crossed!

_____

Today was the day Peter was dreading; it was the first day he wasn’t going to see Meredith since he found out. Gamora had the day off and admitted she missed hanging out with the little girl. Peter agreed, realizing this would be the only way he would get work done. 

Between switching tasks, Peter decided to take a short break and listen to another episode of Everyday's a Monday. He laid on the couch in his and Bucky’s office slipping on his headphones and clicked on episode #12 of 129. He has been trying to listen to them when he had time, but he wanted to hang with Meredith as much as he could. He hasn’t heard anything about himself yet like Meredith mentioned, and he still couldn’t remember the nickname you gave him. You haven’t even talked yet, but Wanda has talked an awful lot about you. He closed his eyes as Wanda began the introductions.

"Hey, beautiful people, today's guest on the show is Dr. Helen Cho, our favorite OBGYN. And you won’t believe it, but YN agreed to join us at the end and tell us a bit about her adorable baby girl, Meredith. Que the intro.”

Dr. Cho spoke about the baby forming, c-sections, and menstrual cycles. Like how the sex of a baby can be better determined at twelve weeks after conception. During c-sections, mothers are awake. Menstrual cycles take a while to come back especially if the mother is breastfeeding. It was a lot of information about women’s bodies Peter never thought about. 

“I want to thank Dr. Helen Cho for coming in and speaking with us.  I hope our listeners enjoyed the conversation and learned a thing or two. Unfortunately, she had to rush off to deliver more beautiful babies into the world, and I hope she will stop by again. Anywho, it’s time for our next part of the podcast talking with my good friend and producer of this show, YN.”

“Thanks for blackmailing me to come on my own show.”

“Ignore her. I would never do such a thing,” Wanda tittered. “With us talking about pregnancy and birthing today, YN does have an interesting story of how she came into the world. Would you mind sharing?”

“Of course not, I mean it fits the topic of the week. My mom suffered from ovarian cysts, and most of the time they got so bad she needed surgery to remove them. My parents started debating if it was even worth to keep trying to get pregnant if my mother continued to suffer from this. Then a few days before surgery to remove them, the doctors were performing an ultrasound, and ‘tada’ found me. They delayed the surgery until after I was born. Then a year or two later, my family decided to adopt, and that’s when Gamora and Nebula came into my life. We might not be sisters by blood, but we did become a family.”

“You’re sisters are the best. Her sister, Nebula, travels the world as a photographer and always brings back the best gifts. Gamora is a badass lawyer who works at Coulson & Associates.  Then you’re the hotshot producer, and you’re doing it all while raising your 5-year-old daughter, Meredith. How do you handle being a single mother?”

“It can be hard, but I’m fortunate to have my parents and sisters willing to help me if I need it. I remember the first year being the hardest, especially the nights I was alone, but somehow I managed to pull through. At the time, I was living with my sisters because all the money I made went to paying for daycare. Most weekends my sisters helped, and forced me to get out, but I would only be gone for a few hours before I had to connect myself to the milk machine, again,” you chuckled. “I don't miss that at all. Around six months, things got easier because she got on a schedule.”

“Schedules are nice. I know with my twins, Me and Vis struggled, and to this day we still don’t know how we did it.”  

“Oh yes, I bet it was like a daze for the first few months.”

“You have no idea. Does the dad know about Meredith?”

“No,” you sighed. “I know it's wrong, but when I tried to tell him I was pregnant it never felt like a good time? The one time it felt right something came up, and I waited which lead to more waiting and more waiting until I never got the chance to tell him.”

“Does she know about her dad? Or ask about him?”

“Yes, I tell her everything she wants to know. I promised I wouldn't keep anything about her dad from her. She deserves to know him, and when I find the courage, I will tell him.”

“At least you’re not keeping her in the dark about him.  Some mothers don’t even share the details with their children because it’s too painful to talk about.” 

“It’s hard, but I’m not going to keep the side of her, that is her father, from her. If that makes sense? Anyways, I make sure to tell her the good stuff about him and keep it simple. Like when I first met him or our first date,” you chuckled. “At least I didn’t think it was a date to start with at least.”  

“Oh, I hear a story coming. Story…story…story,” Wanda chanted.

“Okay, I will share my first not a date date with…him......

There was a knock at your door, pulling you out of your dream. You leaned up, stretching your neck out, and realized you had fallen asleep on your computer. You rubbed your eyes as they adjusted to the soft glow coming from the desk lamp in your dark dorm room. Someone knocked on the door again as you stood up to answer it. When you pulled open the door, you squinted your eyes to try and shield them from the harsh hallway lights.  

“Wow! You look like you’ve seen better days,” he chuckled.

“Thanks, man,” you sighed, leaving the door open for him to enter.

“Oh my god, did a twister come through here? Why are their papers everywhere?” 

“I’m writing a paper, and it’s due in like 25 hours, and I haven't even started.”

He stared at your computer screen. “According to this, you have 537 pages. Is this for a music class?”

“What? Why would you ask that?” You shoved past him to see the screen.

“Because it says aaaaaaaaaaaallllllllll909. It's like you’re testing your vocal cords, but what's with the numbers?”

“Shut up---” you pushed on his chest “-- so I fell asleep.”

“Explains the keyboard marks on your face,” he snorted, making you roll your eyes. He scrolled up to the first page to see the title. “Insert fucking title. Wow, great title for your essay.”

“Shut up. I can't think of what to write about,” you confessed, running your hands down your face.

“I think you need a new perspective,” he said as you shot him an annoyed look. “Maria told me you've been locked in here since Friday. It’s not healthy, YN. She also told me she would like her bed back.”

“What are you---oh my god, I’m a terrible roommate! No wonder why she left last night and didn't stay. I can’t even see her bed.” You stared wide-eyed at Maria’s bed, running your hands through your hair.

“Hey, how about we clean this mess up, and I’ll get you out of here for a few hours.”

“But it's 11 pm.”

“On a Sunday! Come with me, I got a plan.”

He convinced you to leave your paper behind and drove you out of the city. You watched out the window as the city disappeared behind you. “Where are we going?” 

“We’ll be there in about ten minutes or so?”

You sat in silence, staring out into the darkness. He always came up with the best plans, so what could he have planned on such short notice? You knew he wasn’t going to give you any details, so you turned the radio to your favorite station to fill the silence. All of a sudden one of your favorite songs started playing, and you belted out the lyrics. He laughed at you before he started singing along, too. He turned onto a gravel road and into what looked like a parking lot. He turned off the car and told you to follow him. Turning on his flashlight, he led the way. 

“Dude, wait up, I can’t see shit without a flashlight.”

“Shit, sorry.” He grabbed your hand, and you felt a sensation you couldn’t explain. 

He led you up to a small hill to clearing right over a cliff. The sight before you took your breath away. You could see all the stars in the sky and hear the crickets chirping nearby. The moon reflected off the flowing river in the distance as the city lights were shining on the horizon. The slight breeze sent a shiver down your spine and goosebumps to your skin.

“It’s beautiful.”

“This place has always helped me clear my head. I don’t know if it’s the stars in the sky or the fresh air, but I thought it would help you, too.” He squeezed your hand. “And you can blow off steam here, too.”

“Care to demonstrate, Star-Lord.”

“Haha, you’re hilarious. Listen to this--” he let go of your hand and put them around his mouth and shouted “--PROFESSOR FURY OR FURRY, HOWEVER, YOU SAY IT, YOU’RE A REAL A-HOLE.” He smiled, turning back to you. “See now I feel better.”

“Do you really?”

“Yes. Give it a shot.”

You repeated his position and shouted. "WHAT THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO WRITE ABOUT FOR THIS FUCKING PAPER? THIS CLASS IS A FUCKING JOKE?” You put your hands back at your sides and chuckled. “I do feel better for some strange reason. Thanks, I needed this.”

“I know,” he winked, making you scoff. He reached for your hand as you continued to stare out at the view. His fingers intertwined with yours, sending a warm and tingling feeling coursing through your body. 

You glanced over at him, catching him staring at you. “Why are you staring at me?”

“Care to dance?”

“There’s no music,” you commented as he hit play on his Walkman around his waist; you never understood why he always carried it around with him wherever he went. Music started to play over his headphones. “Smart ass!”

He takes his free hand and places it on your waist, sending a spark shooting up your back. He pulls you closer to him as your breath quickens. He raises your conjoined hands in the air, forcing you to roll your eyes. He tilted his head at your arm dangling beside you before tilting it to his shoulder. You obliged and placed your hand on his shoulder. You shake your head at him, trying to hide the smile from appearing on your face. Both of you started to move to the slow quiet music playing through his headphones. When you glanced back up at him, he was gazing at you with this boyish smirk on his face. 

“Is this the trick you pull to get all the girls?” You asked with a shy smile on your face. 

“No, I don't usually need tricks. Most of the time, all I have to do is smile, and girls fall at my feet.”

You scoffed, slapping him on his chest. “They do not.”

“No, they don't,” He confirmed with a quick snicker. “You’re the first and only girl I brought to this place. I knew you were the only one who would appreciate it and see the beauty in it.”

“I do,” you grinned, staring at his chest, feeling the heat rush to your cheeks. 

“If you had the chance to do something you always wanted to do, but you would be risking everything. Would you take the chance, or would you not and regret for the rest of your life?”

Your head snapped up to him, and you could see something in his eyes you have never seen before. He stared at your lips as his eyes drifted back up to yours. He started to lean in but stopped short right before his lips could touch yours. 

“That's a risk I am willing to take,” you whispered, leaning in to kiss him. 

“Wow! Is it hot in here or is it just me? Woo! Damn, Star-lord sure knows how to plan a great date, or in this case, not a date date. How did you two meet?”

“Second semester of my sophomore year of college. I was sitting in class half paying attention and half not. I had one earbud in and was doodling all over my notes. I think it was an economics class with one of those monotone professors. You know the type, where you stare at the clock and wish time went by faster.”

“I hated those professors!”

“Anyways, I was listening to my music and doodling when someone nudged the back of my chair. I ignored it, and then all the sudden I felt a piece of paper slide down my shoulder. I opened it up and it said something like, ‘Enjoying the tunes. Why am I not listening to music instead of this boring professor?' I peeked over my shoulder, and I'm sure I had the look like ‘what the fuck’ on my face. Oh crap, I’ll have to bleep that out later,” you chuckled. “As I said, I turned around, and he smiled and nodded at me. I acknowledged him and went back to doing what I was doing. When class ended, I was walking, and he came up next to me and introduced himself.  He had this boyish smile that drew me in and made him look so carefree. It wasn’t even a full on grin, but it was a little sexy smirk thing he did that drove me crazy. Anyways, we ended up forming this great friendship, which morphed into something more."

“Awwww cute. How long did you two date?”

“A little over two years.”

“Star-Lord seems like the guy who knew how to romance a lady”

“Sometimes,” you breathed a chuckled. “Other times he failed miserably, but he’s a great guy.” 

“When was the last time you spoke to him, if I may ask?” Wanda questioned with curiosity in her voice.

“About 5 years ago,” you stated without hesitation.

“Wow, a dramatic yet romantic way to end this week’s episode. If you like this podcast, please rate, comment, and subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts. Until next time, from all of us here at Everyday’s a Monday, have a great rest of your week.”

Peter zoned out as the episode ended and stared up at the ceiling. Star-Lord. Star-Lord, how did he forgot the nickname you gave him? That night was one of his favorite moments with you, and he even documented it was an out of focus photo taken on his flip phone. It was the same photo Meredith found in the shoebox under your bed; the one with you smiling and laughing at the camera as he gazed at you. It was one of his favorite not a date dates, and he hated to admit it, but that night he knew you were the girl he wanted to marry.

_____

AN: How about that? What did you think about Wanda being the host for Everyday’s a Monday? I think she's got potential, I mean it is only episode #12. You learned a few tidbits about the readers past, but there is still a lot left to uncover. What did you think about their first not a date date or about how they met?  Comments always encourage and as always thanks for reading!

[missmudpie]

I just reblogged a post that brings up the dangers of childbirth, and how this aspect is rarely discussed in the abortion debate.  I don’t want to add to that post, but I do want to share my experience.  The US has the highest maternal mortality rate in the industrialized world, and women of color are the most vulnerable when it comes to maternal care.  Historically, childbirth has been extremely dangerous.  I think we take it for granted that a mother is not just going to leave the birthing bed with a child, but leave it at all, but that is not the case.  I was pro-choice long before I had kids, but having kids has made me even MORE pro-choice, and it’s due to the experiences I had during pregnancy and childbirth with both my sons. 

I want to be very clear here.  I did not almost die giving birth to my firstborn.  Women do die in childbirth, and women come very close to dying.  I did not almost die in childbirth.

I did, though, come very close to having a hysterectomy at the age of 30 because they couldn’t control the post-labor bleeding.  My own doctor called my post-labor experience “catastrophic.”  I will put the rest under the break, as I’m going to be very frank about what happened to me.  When people say, “Just give the baby up for adoption!”, I want them to think about what exactly pregnancy and labor entails, and the risks that go along with growing a person in side you and then pushing it out of your body.

I learned I was pregnant in mid-June 2012.  It was Day 35 of my cycle.  In early July, when I was 8 weeks along, I went in for an ultrasound to confirm the pregnancy was progressing and get the first look at the fetus that would eventually become my son.  During that ultrasound, they discovered I had a uterine fibroid tumor.  These are basically muscular tumors, not cancerous, almost always benign.  Some women have no symptoms; some can have heavier periods.  The concern with pregnant women is the placement of the tumor.  If it’s too close to the placenta, it can impede the growth of the fetus.  If it’s too low in the uterus, it can block the passage out for the baby.  Oh, and they grow exponentially during pregnancy, due to all the extra hormones floating around in there.  I was sent to a specialist, who did a higher-image ultrasound, and then had frequent ultrasounds throughout my pregnancy.

The good news was the growth, while near (and, I think, ultimately under) the placenta, did not harm J’s development in any way.  He was born a healthy 8lbs 5oz and was perfectly fine.

The bad news is the tumor swelled to the size of a grapefruit.

The risk of delivery with a fibroid tumor is that there is excessive bleeding.  My doctor, who was not there for the delivery, later described it like this: After the baby is born, the uterus starts contracting, slowly going down to its normal, pre-pregnancy size.  Bleeding is normal post-delivery.  But the fibroid doesn’t clot like the other little vessels in the uterine wall.  Instead, vessels the size of a pen (yes, pEn, not pIn) continue to shoot out blood with each contraction. 

Think of how many pens you could fit on a grapefruit.

The hospital knew the risks.  I’d been typed for blood when I arrived.  They said I was bleeding a bit more than normal, but not so much as to be alarmed.  I’d given birth without drugs, but now, to remove the placenta and check on the bleeding, they urged me to get some drugs.  

“It would not be right to do the things we’re about to do to you without drugs.”

The drugs, I know Dilaudid was one of them, made me loopy.  I couldn’t lift my head.  By now it was - I don’t even know - 3? 4am?  They took J to the nursery, but kept me and my husband in delivery, where they were better equipped to act if things went wrong.

Things went wrong.

They turned out the lights and Nurse Sue - who had been a godsend - said she’d be back in an hour.

And I FELT it.  I felt myself bleeding.  I felt the blood, too much blood, coming out of me.  But I was so drugged out that I couldn’t react.  My husband was asleep in the fold-out couch, six feet away, and I couldn’t wake him, because in my drug-addled mind I thought it was more important that he sleep.  I tried to use the call button, but couldn’t make my arm move.  And when I did, I later learned I was pressing not a button, by just a random circle I THOUGHT was the button.  I kept passing out and then coming back and trying to press the button.  The only thing getting me through this was knowing Nurse Sue was coming back in an hour. 

And, luckily, she actually did.  

Now, I was drugged up.  So some things that happened I don’t really remember.  The things I do remember are crystal clear.

I said, “Sue, I know I’m on drugs, but something is wrong.”  And she believed me.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened if my skin was a darker color.

She looked and immediately called the doctor.  Lights go on, and suddenly there are a ton of people in the room.  The doctor did something and I remember screaming, which seemed to piss her off, like I could help it that shoving her hand up my vagina and into my uterus didn’t feel pleasant at 5am.  

They took me to surgery.  I am not proud of this, but remember saying (screaming?) repeatedly, “Don’t let me die.  Don’t take my uterus.”  I wish I knew who was in the other delivery rooms.  I’d like to apologize.

They took me to the operating room and told me to move onto the other bed.  “I can’t.”

Nurse Sue said, “Throughout all this, I’ve never heard you say, ‘I can’t.’”

I got on the bed.

The anesthesiologist began to prep me.  The idea of going under scares me, so, again, in my drug-addled state, I tried to bargain.  “Ok, ok.  I’ll take the epidural now.”  I think I shocked him, because for a second he paused, then said, “Uh, I don’t think we have time to do that.”  His assistant was a woman named Marzena.  A Polish name.  I spoke to her in broken Polish, which also surprised her.

My last thought was that I’d mis-conjugated a verb.

When I woke up, I learned they had done a D & C (Dilation and Curettage, which basically just means they scrapped all the crap out of my uterus) and inserted a balloon, which was to provide pressure on the fibroid and stop the bleeding.  It was to stay there for 12 hours.

It fell out.  Again, I don’t remember how soon it fell out - 2 hours, maybe?  But it fell out.

To measure my blood loss, Nurse Sue, still with me, would remove clots the size of golf balls from my uterus and weigh them.  

The chief resident came in and told me, quite dispassionately, that if my bleeding continued I’d be taken to radiology, where they would basically cauterized the blood vessels.  “There’s not really any good research on if you could become pregnant again after that.  Or we could just give you a hysterectomy, in which case you definitely won’t be able to get pregnant again.”

I burst into tears.

Nurse Sue assured me everyone hated that guy.

And then she broke protocol.

You aren’t supposed to let the new mom sleep with the baby.  She could drop him or her, or accidentally smother the baby.  But she took J. and put him in my arms, and told me to sleep.  (My husband was still in the room.)  The picture of the two of us sleeping is one of my favorites.

This is how my bleeding stopped.  I’m sure of it.  Holding my newborn is what calmed my body enough to let it begin to heal.  I don’t care if there’s no medical reasoning to back this up.  Holding J. stopped my bleeding.

We were finally transferred to maternity.  They took my hematocrit, which measures the proportion of red blood cells to blood.  A woman’s normal hematocrit is between 36 and 45.

Mine was 18.

I received two units of blood, and let me tell you, vampires have it figured out.  I felt like a new person. 

And that’s it.  I went in on a Tuesday afternoon, gave birth at 1:45am on Wednesday, and went home Friday morning.  I did all that for a child I wanted.

And that’s why you can’t force a woman to carry a pregnancy, why you can’t just say it’s nine months and a little pain and give the baby up for adoption.  Because childbirth is not all sunshine and roses and Dads fainting and Moms giving three pushes and the baby comes out.  Labor and delivery are grueling, taxing and, in spite of all our medical advancements, dangerous.  I have friends whose labors didn’t progress and were forced to have emergency C-sections.  I have a friend whose baby got stuck and forceps had to be used.  I know one (1) woman who had a completely fine labor and delivery.  Everyone else, something, be it big or small, has gone wrong.  

There’s this Law and Order episode that I found here that deals with abortion.  Jack McCoy says something along the lines of, “My daughter was pro-choice until she saw her first sonogram.  Now...”

No.  Being pregnant, delivering vaginally, experiencing massive bleeding, having a surgery to remove the fibroid, being pregnant with a toddler, having a C-section, becoming the mother of two wonderful, active, curious, pain-in-the-ass boys has made me MORE Pro-Choice.  You cannot not force anyone to put their life on the line for a collection of cells.  You cannot force someone to become a mother if they don’t want to BE a mother.

It is my body.  

It is my life.

[cristinablackthornkingson]

Kit Carstairs, Part 5.

It was a cold, icy day in London in the middle of December and Kit didn’t think he’d ever been so cold, even after 5 years, he still wasn’t use to the cold, dreary English weather. 

A few days ago his parents told him that they were planning on going to London and taking Hazel and Jodie with them and showing them The Institute and Black Friars Bridge in specific, they asked if Kit would like to come too and he said yes instantly, he loved the idea of a family day out. 

In the three years since Jodie was born, Tessa and Jem still had not decided on whether or not they wanted another baby, they were both secretly worried about what would happen if Tessa got pregnant again, seeing as her pregnancy and delivery with Jodie was extremely complicated, so they made sure to always use protection. 

 However a few weeks after Jodie’s third birthday, while Tessa, Jem, Kit and the girls were visiting everyone in LA, Brother Enoch- who had been there to give Tavvy his first rune- pulled Tessa aside and told her she was pregnant. She was utterly shocked, she had felt absolutely no symptoms, other than missing a period, but she had put that down to her body still being a bit out of sorts after Jodie was born, it can take a long time for everything to go back to normal.

She was scared and nervous, but mostly excited.

When Brother Enoch told Tessa of the pregnancy, she was only 2 months along, so she decided to wait until at least 3 months to tell everyone but Jem. Jem was thrilled at the idea of being a father again but was also very worried about Tessa and insisted that she have weekly check ups with The Silent Brothers. Tessa agreed, and each time Brother Enoch checked her and the baby over, everything was fine. 

By the time Tessa was 3 months pregnant, she was still feeling mostly normal and well, she had some sickness and pain, but absolutely nothing like it was when she was pregnant with Jodie, and for that she was extremely grateful. 

Hazel and Kit were thrilled to be getting another sibling, Hazel was desperately hoping for another sister, while Kit didn’t care if it was a boy or a girl, he was just delighted that he would be a big brother again. Jodie though, was not so happy, she was quiet jealous of the new baby and insistent that she didn’t want a brother or sister. Jem was quiet worried that Jodie would never warm up to the baby and would always resent her sibling, but Tessa knew this was just a phase, when Cecily was pregnant with Christopher, at first Anna absolutely hated the idea of having a brother, she constantly told anyone who would listen that she didn’t like her brother and wanted a puppy instead, but when Christopher was born, Anna’s jealously melted away and she adored her baby brother and was extremely protective of him all their lives, Tessa had no doubt Jodie would be the same with her little brother or sister. 

Currently, Tessa was 9 months pregnant, she was due at the very end of December, still 3 weeks to go, and she had a feeling she would go overdue. Unlike Jodie, who had always measured a few weeks behind, this baby was always measuring a few weeks ahead, if they didn’t come soon before or after their due date, Tessa would likely have to be induced, or else she would have to have a C-section, which she would prefer not to, seeing as she already had 2 young children at home to look after, and recovery from a C-Section took a lot longer than recovery from a vaginal birth. 

The little family were currently at Black friars Bridge, trying to explain to their girls how significant this place was for their mama and papa. 

“Mama, can we go swimmin in the water?” Hazel asks her mother in a curious tone, looking from the water beneath the bridge, to her parents, from her spot on Kit’s back. She had been complaining that she was too tired to walk, and since Tessa couldn’t carry her while heavily pregnant, and Jem was carrying Jodie, Kit let her ride on his back, as she has always loved to do. 

“No you absolutely can not.” Tessa says, shaking her head in dismay. She, Jem, Jodie and Kit were bundled up in coats, hats, scarves and gloves but Hazel would barely keep her coat on and now wanted to go swimming in the freezing ocean. She was so like William it was unbelievable. 

“Why not?” Hazel asks in an upset tone. 

“Because it’s absolutely freezing Hazel, if you went swimming in the ocean in this whether you would get very, very sick.” Tessa firmly explains to her daughter. 

“Not fair!” Hazel exclaims. “Kit, you take me swimming?” She adds in a hopeful tone, knowing full well she had her brother wrapped around her finger, and he would do whatever she wanted him to do. 

“If mom and dad said no, why do you think I would say yes?” Kit asks in an amused tone. 

“Cuz you fun!” Hazel exclaims. 

“Well that’s true, but I’m not taking you swimming in the ocean either, mom’s right, you’ll get really sick, it’s way too cold.” Kit patiently explains to his sister.

“Papa, this where you meet mama?” Jodie chimes in, looking up at her father with big brown eyes full of curiosity. 

“No my love, mama and I met in The Institute where we use to live, but this is where I would come to see mama every year, when I was a Silent Brother.” Jem gently explains to his youngest daughter. 

“And this is where we got married.” Tessa lightly says, looping her arm through Jem’s and resting her head on his shoulder. It was hard to believe that was 11 years ago, time was going far too quickly. 

Not long after, they decide it’s time to head home, and portal back to Devon. Once at the house, Jodie and Hazel immediately rush off to play, shedding their coats, scarves and hats on the floor.

“You okay dad? You look lost in thought.” Kit asks, stepping up beside his father. Jem smiles lightly at his son and says

“I’m fine, just thinking about how lucky I am to have my beautiful family, I couldn’t love you all more.” Jem puts his arms around Tessa and Kit, pulling Tessa in for a brief kiss, before turning and planting a kiss on Kit’s forehead. 

“Dad!” Kit exclaims in a horrified tone, pulling back from his embrace. He hated when Tessa or Jem kissed him like that, he was 20 now and found it very embarrassing, especially when they did it front of Ty, or Dru who would then tease him endlessly about it. 

“Typical teenager.” Jem says in a light tone, patting Kit on the cheek. 

“I’m not a teenager anymore.” Kit grumbles, pulling away from his touch. 

“You’ve only been 20 for a few months, you’re still pretty much a teenager.” Jem says in a teasing tone. 

“You’re so embarrassing.” Kit says, turning to hang up his coat. Jem shares a grin with Tessa and says 

“I know, it’s my job as your dad!” 

________________________________________________________________

It was now almost 3 A.M. and Tessa and Jem were both still awake, and had been for quiet some time, they had just been enjoying being together, talking to the baby, reading, and watching t.v. shows. They had chosen not to find out the sex of the baby this time around, but once again had chosen names. If they had another girl, they would name her Jade Cecily Carstairs, if they had a boy, they would name him William Henry Carstairs, after the man they both loved more than anything, and the man who was like a father to them. 

Currently, they were watching The Handmaid’s Tale, one of Tessa’s favorite shows. Halfway through the episode, Tessa feels a sensation of warm water running down her leg. 

“What the hell?” Tessa quietly says, lifting the blanket off her to see what was happening. 

“Tess, you alright?” Jem asks in a tone of concern, pausing the show and looking at her with eyes full of concern. 

“Uh, I think my water broke.” Tessa says in an unsure tone. The sheets were wet and so were her pants, the water was everywhere, but it made no sense, Brother Enoch said it was more than likely that Tessa would go over due and have to be induced, no one expected her to give birth before her due date.

“Are you sure?” Jem asks in a tone of shock. 

“Y-yes, it can’t be anything else.” Tessa stammers, still quiet shocked herself. 

“I’ll summon Brother Enoch and the midwife, and then call Catarina and ask her to take the girls.” Jem hurriedly says. Catarina was staying in Devon herself for a while, she had taken a temporary role at the local hospital to help a young Shadowhunter transition and conceal their angel blood. She had agreed to watch Hazel and Jodie when Tessa gave birth, and they were very grateful, of course Kit could have watched them, but Tessa and Jem felt more comfortable with the girls not being here for the birth of their brother or sister, in case anything went astray. 

Tessa was greatly surprised when this delivery turned out to be her longest, usually labor got shorter with each child, and this being her fifth, she was expecting to labor for maybe one or two hours, but in total ended up laboring for almost 12 hours, this baby was not too eager to come out.

Finally, at 2:30 p.m., Tessa felt the baby slide from her body, followed almost immediately by a loud, sharp wail. 

“Oh my god Tess! You did it, again! You are so bloody amazing, I am so proud of you.” Jem says in a tone full of joy, squeezing his wife’s hand and bending to kiss her forehead. He had never seen her in so much pain, and yet despite that, she managed to bring their baby into the world, he had no idea how she did it, but he was so proud of her and so amazed by her strength. 

“Jem, boy or girl?” Tessa weakly asks, leaning her forehead against his. Jem quickly glances to the bottom of the bed where the baby was being cleaned up, and can’t help but gasp when he sees them. 

“Tessa, it’s a boy.” He says in a soft tone. Both he and Tessa had been so sure they were having another girl, neither of them thought for a second that they would have a boy. 

“Really?” Tessa breathes in a tone of shock. 

“Yes, yes, he’s prefect Tess.” Jem says, just as Brother Enoch approaches and places the baby on Tessa’s chest. 

Peering at her son, Tessa could’t help the tears of joy that started to flow, he looked so much like Jem, even more so than Jodie did. He had a few wisps of black hair, Jem’s pallor, bone structure and eye shape, all he got from Tessa were his mouth shape and nose shape. 

“Oh he’s so perfect, hello William, my sweet baby boy, I love you so much.” Tessa whispers, pressing her lips to her baby’s forehead.

“He’s so perfect.” Jem says in a tone of awe, lightly brushing his hand over his son’s dark hair. 

“He’s a mini you, it’s not very fair, both he and Jamie are the spitting image of their fathers, I literally grow them and make them in my body, and they come out looking like their father.” Tessa says in an amused tone. Jamie was a mini Will and now little William was a mini Jem, even Jodie and Hazel looked more like Jem than they did Tessa, only Lucie looked more like her mother than her father, but she didn’t mind of course. 

Jem chuckles and kisses his wife’s cheek, slipping an arm around her and their son. 

“I had been hoping this little one would look like his beautiful mama, but it seems the Carstairs genes are strong!” He says in an amused tone. Every time Tessa had been pregnant with his child, he had hoped the baby would look just like her, but each time they looked more and more like him, but of course he didn’t mind, Jem would never care about how his children looked, he would just always be thrilled to be their father. 

A few hours later, once Jem and Tessa have had some private time with little Will and Tessa has rested and slept a bit, they have Kit and the girls come in to meet their brother. 

“Oh my god, dad he really looks just like you!”  Kit says in a tone of disbelief when he firsts sees his little brother. He thought it was astonishing how alike Jem and Jodie looked, she looked like a female version of her father, but Jem and Will were like twins, he bore hardly any resemblance to Tessa. 

“He look like me!” Jodie happily exclaims, standing on her tiptoes to peer at her baby brother in her older brother’s arms. 

“He sure does, do you love him now he’s here?” Tessa softly asks her daughter. 

“Uh hu! He my baby!” Jodie exclaims. 

“Oh he is?” Jem asks in an amused tone. Jodie gives him a very serious look and nods. 

“Uh hu, my baby, my Will, love him.” She firmly says, softly stroking her brother’s cheek. 

“What about you Hazel, what do you think of him?” Kit asks, looking at his sister who was snuggled up beside Tessa. 

“Love him, but wanted notha sister.” Hazel quietly says. 

“But having a brother is fun too, you love Kit.” Tessa gently says. 

“And you get to boss him around.” Kit lightly says. Hazel’s mouth twitches up into a smiles and she says

“And I teach him bout my favorite toys!” Jodie had no interest in the same toys that Hazel did, whenever she tried to get her sister to play with her favorite toys (LOL dolls) Jodie would run off.

“That’s right, you can! And you can snuggle him like you did with Jodie,” Jem says. 

“Mama, I hold him?” Hazel asks, looking up at her mother with pleading, grey eyes. 

“Of course sweetheart, sit back against the headboard first okay?” Tessa gently says. 

Once Hazel is settled back against the headboard, Kit carefully places Will in Hazel’s arms and helps her support his head. 

“He so tiny.” Hazel says in a tone of awe, already having forgotten how small Jodie was, Will weighed a healthy 8 pounds 11 ounces, when Jodie was born she weighed a tiny 5lbs 10oz, even now she was still small and skinny for her age, and probably always would be. 

“Jodie was a lot smaller.” Jem softly says, brushing Hazel’s hair back so it isn’t dangling in her brother’s face. 

“I was?” Jodie asks in a curious tone. 

“Yes, you were absolutely tiny, I use to be able to hold you in just my two hands.” Jem fondly says, remembering back to those early days with Jodie, he had been so terrified of holding her, she was so tiny and delicate, he was terrified he would hurt her.

“You were our miracle Jodie, you came early and I had a very hard time giving birth to you, we thought you would be very sick, but you were completely healthy.” Tessa gently explains to her daughter. 

“I know mama, Uncle Will save me!” She exclaims. 

“How do you know that?” Kit cautiously asks. 

“Him tell me! He my friend, love him.” Jodie says. 

“Do you see Uncle Will a lot, Jodie?” Jem asks. He never had any doubt that Will had been the one to save Jodie and Tessa and that he was looking out for all of his children, but he didn’t think he would show himself to Jodie.

“Uh hu, he tell me stories bout when you and mama lived in London!” Jodie exclaims.

“I see, well your Uncle Will loves you very much, and I’m very glad you talk to him and he makes you happy.” Tessa softly says. Nothing meant more to her than the fact that her children would know Will and would love him just as Lucie and Jamie loved Jem. 

________________________________________________________________

It had been 3 days since Will was born, and currently Kit was keeping an eye on him for a few hours, while Tessa slept and Jem took the girls out of the house for a while. Will was asleep in his bassinet in the living room and Kit was in the kitchen making up bottles for him, so his mom could get all the rest she needed. 

Once Kit has finished making the bottles, he heads back into the living room to check on his brother, only to see a tall man with wild ginger hair, dressed in old fashioned clothes, standing over Will’s bassinet. Another ghost, Kit just couldn’t away from them. 

“Is this house freaking haunted or something?” He mutters to himself. Just then, the man turns his head and smiles at him. 

“No your home isn’t haunted, your mother and father just have a lot of friends who passed on.” He says. 

“Yeah I’ve learned that over the last few years, who are you?” Kit asks. 

“Henry, Henry Branwell, and I must say you remind me very much of my boy, Matthew.” Henry says in a fond tone.

“I-I do?” Kit stammers. 

“Yes, very much so, you look like him and you’re similar to him in how protective you are of your siblings, Matthew was so very protective of his two younger sisters, just as you are of your sisters and brother.” Henry tells him. 

“Oh, so what are you doing here?” Kit asks. 

“I wanted to see this little one, I am very honored that Tessa and Jem chose to give him my name as a middle name, there are so many others they could have chosen, Tessa’s brother for example, but they chose to give him my name and I am touched.” Henry softly says, turning his gaze back to the sleeping baby. 

“Mom and dad said that you were always kind and good to them, I know you and your wife looked after my brother James for a few days when my mom had a miscarriage, it meant a lot to her that she didn’t have to worry about him seeing her in such a bad way and that she could grieve without worrying how it would affect him.” Kit explains. Henry smiles softly and says

“Charlotte had a miscarriage too, years after Tessa did, but at the time I couldn’t have imagined how much pain she and Will were in, they were the least deserving of something so awful, when Charlotte and I lost our baby, well I knew how Tessa and Will had felt, and it was the most awful feeling in the world.” 

“I-I’m sorry.” Kit quietly says, not knowing what else he should say. 

“Don’t be, I’m sorry for rambling, I should go now, you make sure your take care of your mother and father, you’re lucky to have them.” Henry firmly says, and then just like that, he’s gone. 

Kit sighs softly and bends to pick up Will, who was beginning to stir and fuss, he was due a feed soon, and Henry’s presence probably woke him too.

“There’s my boys.” Kit hears Tessa softly say. He turns his head to see her standing in the living room doorway, still in her pajamas, smiling softly at Kit. 

“Mom, shouldn’t you be in bed?” Kit asks. 

“I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to come spend some time with my boys.” Tessa says, walking over and kissing Kit on the cheek, before bending to kiss Will’s forehead. 

“How are you feeling?” Kit asks. 

“Still sore but I’m feeling better everyday, recovering much faster than I did with Jodie.” Tessa says, lowering herself onto the sofa.

Just then, the door opens and Hazel and Jodie comes rushing in, with Jem behind them. 

“Mama!” Jodie squeals, running and jumping onto the sofa beside Tessa, Hazel not far behind her. 

“Hi my babies.” Tessa softly says, putting an arm around each of her daughters. “Did you and daddy have fun?” She asks. 

“Uh hu! But miss you, mama.” Hazel softly says, snuggling into her mother. 

“I missed you too my babies.” Tessa says, pressing a kiss to both their heads. 

“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” Jem asks, lifting Hazel and setting her in his lap as he takes a seat next to Tessa. 

“I couldn’t sleep so I came up to spend some time with my boys.” Tessa softly says, smiling softly at Kit, who was sitting across from her on the armchair, with Will still in his arms. 

“Well the girls and I timed our arrival well then, now we can spend some time as a family.”Jem says, looking around him at all 4 of his kids and his beautiful wife. As he looks at his two sons together, and his two daughters snuggled into their mother, for the first time in his life, Jem feels complete. 

[boobsoverbottles]

My story.

Being a new mom is scary, no matter what age you become one.

Here I am, almost 29 years old. Completely scared on whether or not my daughter is going to turn out okay, or end up damaged by my raising her.

Raegan Jude is my little rainbow baby. About six months before we found out we were pregnant, I had gone through a very painful miscarriage at 10 weeks. I had just moved halfway across the country from a small town in Pennsylvania to Dallas, Texas. I was alone. I only had my boyfriend. My family didn’t know I was pregnant, nor do they still know to this day. I had been under so much stress with the move, the starting a new job, the leavingmy friends, family and everything I’ve ever known behind. I woke up in the middle of the night having the worst cramps I had ever felt in my entire life...

Now, I’ve read about how some women still have spotting and bleeding and mild cramping while pregnant, so I thought nothing of it. I took Tylenol, I went to work and tried to go about my every day life like I had been before. Not even half an hour into my work day, I had to leave to go home. I got in a hot bath to help with the cramping, but I knew something was wrong. I called my boyfriend and told him I was going to the hospital... having to say out loud to the nurse “I think I’m miscarrying” is the most heart wrenching experience. I was thankful to have an intake nurse who had known what I was going through. The helped me feel a little better. That quickly went away. I was escorted back to my own room. Where I had all of these people coming in and out of my room. Taking blood. Taking urine samples. Asking how much pain I’m in. No one stopped to ask how I was doing. We didn’t have a definitive answer on whether or not I was miscarrying at this time, but it still would’ve been nice for someone to ask how I was doing. I was alone. So alone. In a hospital I’ve never been to. In a city I’ve never heard of. In a state I had never visited before moving there. Scared. Completely scared out of my mind.

Then the doctor comes in. He does a pelvic exam and then a nurse puts a glass jar in a paper towel on the cart and leaves. No one had definitively told me that I had miscarried. They told me that I was RH- and gave me a shot of rhogam and a shot of ibuprofen then sent in a grief counselor to hand me a bunch of papers before being discharged. After spending 6 hours in the hospital, I was driving home. In shock. Not fully knowing exactly what had happened.

I can say “I never saw my baby through an ultrasound or sonogram so it wasn’t all that bad”, but I’d be lying. I cried myself to sleep every night. My boyfriend had no idea how to help me because I let on that I was perfectly fine. My friends that knew I was pregnant had secretly sent me baby booties and clothes for when the baby was born. My boyfriend checked the mail for days and days leading up to the day I grabbed the mail first and found them... I had instantly started crying again. He took them and placed them in a safe place for when we eventually became pregnant again...

Flash forward 7 months to the day I found out I was pregnant. We were both ecstatic with the news! Then a huge wave of anxiety hit. Is the same thing going to happen again? Am I going to lose this baby as well? I called the doctor, they can’t see me for another 6 weeks.. at that point, I will be roughly 10 weeks, again... for those next six weeks, I was overly cautious of everything I did. I felt like I was walking on eggshells. We made it to the doctors office. First milestone.

I saw my baby for the first time. I wish I could say that I cried happy tears that you hear people do all the time. Wrong. I just sat there, completely unphased. My doctor gave me prenatal vitamins, a list of do’s and don’t’s, and a little bit of hope. A clean bill of health and I was still certain that I was going to lose this baby, too.

Made it back to the doctors for the anatomy scan. Second milestone. By this time, everyone in my family had known I was having a baby. But this time, I was able to report we were having a little girl! She was measuring perfect. 2 eyes, 2 hands, 2 feet. 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 ears and a little nose. Even though my baby was growing and was perfectly healthy, I personally wasn’t gaining weight. I know, I know. “Wow! Lucky you!” But in my head, not gaining weight meant that my baby wasn’t healthy and I was doing something wrong. I wasn’t, but my anxiety told me I was.

29 weeks. Another shot of rhogam. Sitting in the doctors office, waiting to make the 26 hour drive back home to Pennsylvania for my baby shower. My doctor had known what I had previously had gone through. At this point, she can see that I’m not as excited as most mothers should be. I tell her how I’m not sleeping at night. How I randomly, throughout the day, have my chest get tight and I can’t breathe. How I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop and something bad to happen to me and the baby. At this point, she encourages me to take anxiety meds. “I can’t take them, I don’t like the idea of having to take meds. I’m not the kind of person who needs them”... she turns to me and says “if you were diagnosed with diabetes, would you take insulin to help manage it? Yes. You would. Because you want to be healthy. I want you to be healthy. I want you to enjoy being pregnant. I’ll write you a script and after you come back from PA, decide if you want it”.

No one but me knew how bad my anxiety really was. I had mentioned it to my family and friends and everyone was against it, my boyfriend especially. Why does everyone think that getting help is a bad thing? I came home and decided that I was going to get the script filled. I would “try it out” and see if it worked. Sure enough, it did. I was able to enjoy the rest of my pregnancy worry free, or so I thought...

At my next doctors appointment two weeks later, I was sent to the hospital for fetal monitoring. Her heart rate was too high... turns out, she was just excited to be at the doctors office and have us hear her.... I guess I should also mention that every appointment we had, my blood pressure has continued to go up. I asked if this was normal and they had told me yes. Never to think anything of it again.

39.5 weeks and I go in for an induction. I walked in at 1cm. At 7:47 the cervadil is inserted and I’m told to have a nice night and the nurses would be back to check every few hours. My blood pressure was being taken every hour. And every hour, my alarm went off. My blood pressure was too high for the peramiters that were set on the monitor. I was told I can turn off the sound because everything was fine.

At 7am they come in and ask how I’m feeling... I’ve been having major contractions the last 4 hours and have barely slept. I eat half of a muffin, drink a juice and walk down to labor and delivery where they tell me that I’m only at 2cm! In 12 hours, I have only displayed another 1cm... the pain was already too much for me to handle comfortably, so I got the epidural. Now, what I was expecting was to not be able to feel from my waist down. However, what I had experienced was complete loss of feeling from my breast down. I kept asking the nurse if this was normal. Turns out the doctor was a “heavy dosing doctor” and gave me the epidural that they give c-section mothers. Even though I couldn’t feel a thing, including myself coughing fully, I was comfortable.

It was about 2pm now. The nurse comes in and does a pelvic exam. I am at 4cm, but fully effaced. My doctor comes in and tells me that she’s in the hospital doing a c-section and will be back to check on me a little later since things are going slower.... wrong. Things are not going slower. At 3, the nurse comes in to switch up my position because there was something that showed on the baby monitor. I’m now sitting straight up and down.

It’s now 4:30. Another nurse comes in and asks when the last time I was checked. She does another exam, looks up and says “it’s time to push!”... what?! It’s time to push?! Everything’s been going to slow this whole time... I look at my boyfriend and his face is ghost white. He starts freaking out like I’ve never seen before. The nurse starts prepping the room for delivery and pages my doctor. No response. She pulls my legs up into my boyfriends arms and her arms and says that we’re going to do a practice push. This practice push turns into a full blown pushing session. After 7 pages, my doctor finally shows up.

After 41 minutes of pushing, my little girl enters the world at 8lbs 2oz and 19 3/4 inches long... Raegan Jude, as perfect as ever. Our baby girl was completely healthy! It was the greatest day of our lives. After another short stay at the hospital a week later due to postpartum preeclampsia, we were sent home to start our lives as a new family. This is where our adventure begins. I’m scared. I’m terrified. I’m here to do my best and give my all for my baby. Until next time.

[what-even-is-thiss]

I want to make one big serious post before I go quiet for the protest.

I want to talk to you all about my mother. This is gonna get long and sad so I’m gonna put it under a cut but I feel like saying a few things.

Her name was Erin. She died 12 years ago today on December 16, 2006 at the age of 42 from a rare type of cancer of the uterus that killed her less than three months after she was diagnosed with it. I was 8. My younger brother was 2. He has no memory of her. I have one clear memory of her voice. That is, what she sounded like when she said “I love you” to me before I went to bed at night. Because she always said it the exact same way, in the exact same tone.

She was an artist. She sculpted. One time she spent several months carving out shoelaces from marble for a project she was helping a professor with through an internship. There are very few pictures of her artwork but she worked mostly in the abstract. The one sculpture we have left of hers is so small that it can fit in the palm of your hand, and in fact it was made for the specific purpose of rubbing your thumb on. It feels amazing to rub your thumb on that sculpture. One time, so I hear, she made a quilt with human hearts painted onto it. Had she lived to be old she would’ve likely become a well respected art professor.

She didn’t ever take pregnancy well but she wanted it. Both my brother and I were c sections. She was never very healthy and so had a phobia of germs. Every time I went to the grocery store with her she would attract static and whenever you touched the cart it would shock you.

Her eyes were hazel, she was 5′4″. Had she survived long enough to see me grow up I would stand five inches taller than her. She was naturally blonde but in her mid twenties her hair went brown. I am told that she and I have very similar skin as far as coloring and texture goes.

My father and I often recall the time she was dying with the song “A Long December” by Counting Crows.

She was good at math and a straight A student but she always worried her mother. When she was a teenager she would steal the car for hours at a time while the family was low on money and not say where she was going. When she moved out she only called when she had a problem.

I remember what her hand felt like covering my face because whenever we were watching television she would sit beside me and put her hand over my eyes whenever something frightening came up because I was very easy to scare. She pretended to be surprised whenever I wrote her a letter to tell her how much I loved her. I did that a lot. She was a good mom considering what she knew and where she came from. She never hit me or screamed at me. She bought me books that I wanted and kissed my dad in front of me and I never doubted that they loved each other. A friend of my dad’s once told me that whenever they were together you could just see that they liked being together. That they really were best friends in love.

Erin was loved by a lot of people. Students, friends, family, coworkers. She was quiet but knew when she had to speak up. She often held her hair in place with chopsticks and loved cats and dogs and sang quietly in a way that made you want to stop making noise so you could hear it.

This was a person. A person who was my mom. I loved my mom. I still love her and I am so upset that she never got to see the person/man I have grown into.

Why am I telling you all this? Because, before any of this happened I never ever considered the possibility that one of my parents could die. That’s something that happens in movies. To other people. But it’s not. It’s something that can happen to anyone at any time. No matter where you live or how old or young you are, there is always a chance you could wake up tomorrow with a loved one suddenly gone. So please. Take what you can of people while they’re still here. Listen to their stories, mark how they move, what their favorite color is, the smell of their deodorant and how they use the exact same voice every time they order food. Most of this information about my mother I got from other people. I will never get to know her as a woman. I will never hear her side of any of the stories I hear about her.

I am no longer in mourning. Like it said at the beginning of this post she died twelve years ago. I’m okay now. But, on the 16th of December I’m still always left wondering. I’m left thinking about how much I never knew. And if I can somehow remind you to not take your loved ones for granted, I’ll do that. Seriously. Give your mom a hug, tell your friend you’re not still mad about that fight, buy your sibling their favorite coffee once in a while. People are worth paying attention to. Let them know you love them once in a while.