Lots of things I want to talk about today, so this is going to be an awfully random blog.

First of all, it's Banned Books Week. You probably have seen me mention this is one of eighty other places, but it bears mention. I'm firmly against banning books, even - and especially - children's books. You don't like the idea of your kid reading "And Tango Makes Three," a book about two gay penguins who adopt a baby? Don't read it. Don't let YOUR kid read it. But don't stop everyone else from reading it, either. I think you all should take a list at the banned books from the last decade or so, by clicking right here and then here to read why some books are challenged. Then pick up a banned book or two and read them. In honor of freedom of speech. And not being terrified of anything even slightly different than you. And do what your can to support the ALA and the abffe.

Secondly, I'm doing a little better with this second kid thing. Less freaked out, for sure. I know that we'll manage somehow. Thanks to everyone who commented. I seriously appreciate the support and advice.

I do have something to ask you all. We intended to wait until the big ultrasound to tell Rhi. But the big ultrasound can take like an hour, and they actually advise that you don't bring your kid to it. We have a smaller one coming up in October, and I'll be, like, thirteen weeks then. Is that too soon to tell her? I'm concerned only because my mom lost a baby at like 23 weeks. :( And I don't think I could cope if I miscarried and had to explain to Rhi what happened. But seriously, there's a risk the entire pregnancy. And I can't wait til the baby pops out to prepare her out of my own fear. So, advice? Some of you have more than one kid. How'd you tell the youngest? Do you have any book recommendations or anything that you used to help explain?

I'm pretty over feeling sick all the time. It seems like I constantly feel nauseated and tired. I was so lucky with Rhi to not have those symptoms. This one's a whole different ballgame. And nothing's consistent. One day I want comfort foods, one day I want meat, one day something will taste amazing and the next it's wretched. And I have to eat ALL THE TIME. Seriously, a couple times, I've woken up because I was so hungry. After eating right before bed. How weird is that? Sigh. Three weeks left of trimester one. Hopefully it tapers off after that.

I have to mention here that Shane is the sweetest, most supportive man ever. He does literally everything to make sure I feel ok, to take care of me. I appreciate it so much. He's such a great boyfriend, and he's going to be a wonderful dad.

I'm sick of the comparisons of Obama to Hitler. I'm not 100% down with everything Obama does at all, but let's get over ourselves here. It was irritating when people said it about Bush, too. You know who was Hitler? Hitler. No one else. I get that America's in a shaky place. I get that the government has made almost everyone angry in some way. But calling someone Hitler won't fix it. I read a great article today that I totally agreed with on what could vastly help, though. So I'm posting a link to it here, and I sincerely hope you'll all read it. Whining does nothing to fix the American government. Getting involved could.

I've got more, but, damn, I'm nauseated. So I'm going to go drink some ginger ale and try not to puke. Great way to end, yeah? lol.

Until next time.

Baby Stuff

This won't be the longest blog ever or anything. Just kind of a baby update.

We had our first prenatal appointment today. It was pretty much par for the course. When was your last period, don't take drugs, height and weight, that kind of thing.

We're having the baby at Boone, with the same doctor I used for Rhi. She's very ok with me trying to have a vbac, as long as I go into labor on my own and we don't have to use any kind of drugs to push the labor along. So that's good. If I don't go into labor naturally, though, I have to have a second C-section.

My due date is May 11th of next year, and in January, we get to find out if it's a boy or a girl. So that's exciting. I have no real feeling as to which it is. With Rhi, I just KNEW she was a girl, but this one is...well, a baby. Shane is certain that it's a boy.

We did see the heartbeat, which was pretty amazing. We didn't hear it yet, but we saw it. :)

Mean Girls

I love the movie Mean Girls. Love it. I think it's hilarious. I've probably seen it nine or ten times, and the crazy, over the top shit that Lindsey Lohan does in her quest to rule the Plastics always amused me a hyperbole of a normal high school life.

I don't like it when it's reality, though.

Today at work, some craziness went down. A co-worker of mine that I've always respected and liked went off on another co-worker that I again respect and like. It was a horrible bitch out fest that involved a lot of four letter words but no real explanation from the yeller and a lot of confusion and hurt from the yellee, who had no idea what she'd done to merit such a verbal smackdown. She was upset enough that she spent most of the afternoon crying, on and off. Not really like her at all.

It was bad, it happened, and that was the end. Right?

No.

The woman who got yelled at was confused and upset, and ruminating on what happened, trying desperately to understand what she'd done. Meanwhile, another co-worker...one who works closely with the woman who got yelled at but is close friends with the woman who did the yelling (sorry, I know it's confusing, but I don't like naming names in public blogs) was going around, running her mouth to everyone on Earth about why her friend had screamed at her co-worker. She told everyone except for the person who was yelled at, myself, and my two closest friends at work.

So the rumor mill swirled and swirled, until it came to rest on me and my friends. When we found out the alleged reason behind everything, one of us told the co-worker who'd been yelled at. Why perpetrate the rumors? Well, this girl was killing herself thinking about this, and if you've ever had a situation like that, you know it would have plagued her all weekend. So, we told her, but we also all agreed that there had to be some other reasoning somewhere there. What we heard seemed like a really dumb reason to go off on someone, and the person who did the yelling...well, that behavior is highly uncharacteristic of her. We hadn't noticed any real tension before, and she had some personal shit going down. I believed it likely that come Monday, the women involved would talk it out, and everything would be settled.

But what's happening until then....it's outrageous.

My entire workplace seems to have taken sides, like this is some great battle of the ages that requires them to be soldiers. I would not have been surprised to hear that someone had shown up in a "Team (unnamed person)" shirt. Grown women (we are all over twenty, and the people doing most of this are in their late thirties to early forties) were essentially hazing anyone there that they thought weren't on the side of the yeller. And the yellee? They spent half the afternoon plotting ways to make her last few hours at work totally miserable. Even worse, one of my friends...who is as neutral in this as Sweden...was treated like a pariah simply for not taking up the flag of the yeller and refusing to be an ass to the yellee. It's gone beyond loyalty to a friend and into the realm of psychotic religious fervor, almost. And it's ridiculous. Some of these women are IN THEIR FORTIES. We can't figure out a less shrew-like way to act by then?!?!?!? Seriously?!?!?!?!?

Worst, I don't think that the woman who did the yelling would want everyone to be taking sides and showing their asses. I imagine that, if left to her own devices, she would probably end up feeling like she should have handled it more maturely, come in Monday, and dealt with it more maturely. Unfortunately, I believe that her friends will do her the disservice of telling her that she was totally right and perfect and nothing she did was at all wrong, and it will bolster her up past her thoughts of "Jesus, maybe I fucked that up by letting my emotions get the best of me." It will instead turn into some self righteous nonsense on her part, all because of an over-zealous group mentality. And that's ridiculous.

You know, I can't think of a single time where I've seen men behave this ridiculously. They may bitch someone out, but they don't feel the need, generally, to gang up and take sides and act foolish over it. They deal with it and move on. Since women are supposed to be more mature, why the hell are we the ones acting like idiots? Well, I swear, I'm done. I'm sure I've been as stupid before as everyone acted today, but, you know what? I'm not going to be that person anymore. Because seeing it from the outside in just reinforces to me how ugly it is. And I never, ever want to be as ugly as the women I saw today were. Externally, they could have all been Giselle, and that behavior would have twisted them into cracked out, makeupless Amy Winehouse with Rosie O'Donnell's body and Paris Hilton's wonky eye.

Calgon, take me away

I'm seriously freaking out tonight.

It could just be pregnancy hormones and stuff, but it suddenly hit me. I'm going to have a second child.

What the fuck am I going to do with a second kid?

Don't get me wrong, I already love this kid, and although it was unplanned, it is wanted. I'm just scared. Tonight, I can barely handle Rhi. She's clingy, she's whiny, she's into EVERYTHING on Earth, and I just want to ship her off to anywhere until I can stop being so annoyed with her. If she's not full on jumping on me, she's telling me she has to go potty (for the fifth time in the past twenty minutes,) or she's spitting pizza out of her mouth and onto the floor, or she's beating up Shane, or she's asking me to watch a new movie every five seconds, or she wants a drink (her tenth in the last hour, I swear.) She's ripping up stuff she shouldn't be messing with, she's not listening, she's hungry, she's scared, she wants this, she wants that. She's making me insane. And although tonight is something of an aberration, she is a pretty high maintenance child. She craves and feeds on adult attention. So what the hell is going to happen when she can't get my full attention because I'm giving some to the baby?

Nothing good, that's what.

I have a lot of fear that she's not going to cope with this all well. And tonight, I'm so drained from one kid, that I now have this additional fear of how *I* can cope. I feel like I'm going to be the worst mother on Earth. How can I meter out equal time? How can I figure out how to balance two kids?

Seriously. How?

Also, I'm not gonna lie...it popped into my head tonight that Shane and I are pretty used to have some kid-free time every week. Rhi's day takes her one night, and my mom sometimes takes her overnight, too. So we're suddenly going to not have that, like, ever. We have a lot of family around, but I was damn paranoid with Rhi, so I almost never left her with even my mom until she was one. And I worry that Shane and I will both have issues coping with less time to ourselves, and less time as a couple. I know we're totally solid, and strong enough to handle it, but the adjustment is going to be a hard one nonetheless.

Compounding my insanity tonight is the fact that this house is totally never organized. It was fine when it was just Shane's stuff in his room, but with mine and Rhi's, we're getting so overly cluttered, it's ridiculous. The biggest issue is that we don't have dressers. I *have* dressers, but they're in a storage shed across town, and we have no truck. My mom has a truck, but she's been dealing with a lot of crap right now, and I hate bothering her like that. But I'm coming to the end of a rapidly fraying rope on this lack of organization, and fast.

*Sigh.* Sorry to be so whiny tonight, folks, but I actually feel better having typed that.

Oh! And because it just popped into my head, and I know you read this, Jenna, I still want you to take pictures sometime in the not too distant future. And again after the baby is born. :) Let me know what your schedule is like, ok?

Medical Mysteries with Star

Hey, remember that Medical Mysteries show that they had on ABC for a short time? Where they'd, like, give you this list of symptoms and small backstory on someone and you had to guess what was wrong with them, then they eventually told you?

Probably not. You probably are less lame than me and did things that sucked less than watching ABC primetime.

Well, we're gonna play the Medical Mysteries game, regardless.

Patient Star is 27 years old. Her symptoms are:
-nausea
-fatigue
-light headedness
-palpitations (occasionally)
-irritability
-aversions to certain foods
-peeing a lot

Any guesses on what these symptoms mean?

*commercia break*

If you guessed that Star is dying of a horrible disease, you are so wrong, and also, you should stop cursing people by saying such things. Jesus. What'd Star ever do to you, anyways? She's pretty nice and stuff.

Oh, yeah, if you guessed pregnancy, give yourself a gold star, because you are correct.

Shane and I are six weeks pregnant, and appear to be due on the 19th of May. I'll have my first appointment on the 12th of October, and we'll know more then.

Commonly asked questions:
-Yes, we were pregnant before the breakup. No, we didn't know when we got back together, ergo, we did not get back together "for the baby."
-No it wasn't planned.
-No, we are not getting married right now. Why? Because I'm not letting you all say Shane just married me for the baby, that's why. Also, other reasons. But that's one of the largest.
-Yes, I am the hottest pregnant chick you know. Duh. ;)
-No, I'm not telling Rhi yet. Early pregnancy is fraught with potential for bad things to happen, and while I could explain that to you all if it happened, I couldn't to a two year old. She'll know when we have the ultrasound. And, trust, she won't notice me getting bigger, she didn't notice when I bleached my hair, for godsakes. And if she does, she'll just think I'm fat.

So there you go, folks. The big news.

Yay babies.

Birthing in the USA : part one of two

Since we discussed health care, let's discuss one of the most expensive procedures people routinely have...childbirth.

Childbirth in the country has started to go a little something like this: you arrive at a hospital, because you are being induced. You are changed into a hospital gown. You are hooked up to something to cause contractions, usually Pitocin. You are monitored at least once an hour, but sometimes continuously to ensure that the Pitocin isn't stressing the baby. You are made to stay in or near your bed, in your room. A nurse checks on you regularly. If you don't progress quickly enough, you're recommended for C-section.

The number of babies induced in this country is placed somewhere around 40% in most cases. So, let me just reiterate...nearly half of all babies born are brought into this world not because the mothers body, which has grown and nurtured the baby for 40 weeks unconsciously knows that it's time to go and begins the process, but because a mother is forced into birth. Usually shortly after, and sometimes even before her due date.

That's crazy talk.

Don't get me wrong. There are many, many valid medical reasons for inducing a labor. But those valid reasons don't happen in forty percent of births. Instead, women are usually induced out of convenience. Either because they want to know when hey baby will be arriving so they can get time off, or pan it out or whatever, or so their doctor can have it planned. Doesn't seem so bad, when you put it that way.

Except that induced births can have many, many complications. First of all, your due date is a guess. Very, very few people have sex so infrequently that they can be sure of the date. And most women have literally no understanding of when they're fertile, so they can't accurately pin it down to even a few days. So, you could have gotten pregnant earlier or later than you're imagining, rendering that due date totally inaccurate. Also, most women, especially new mothers, "bake" their babies a little longer, often going to 41 weeks. Most pregnancies have no problems with going beyond the due date, as long as you're not beyond 42 weeks, where complications can begin to occur.

Also, inductions are painful. Contractions are worse. The mother often requests drugs, even if she was totally adamant about not getting them before. There's more stress on not just your body, but also on your baby.

And since it's known that extra stress will be on the baby, you're usually stuck in a bed, being constantly or semi-constantly monitored.

This is a bad plan.

When you lie in a bed, your pelvis is actually almost compressed, so the opening is smaller. You want your pelvic opening to be big, so you can get the baby out. Also, you don't get any help from gravity, which, in other positions, helps the baby move down and out. It also encourages fetal malpresentation, and can mess with the oxygen supply to the baby. All of which can push you towards getting a c-section.

Plus, all of this is way, way more expensive than a normal delivery would be.

This is going to, unintentionally, be a part one of two. I'll expound more later, because there's a lot more I want to say on this topic. Until then, I suggest checking out The Business of Being Born, or A Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth.

Healthcare in the USA

Let me tell you about a defining moment in my life.

A few years ago, I worked generating leads for a small health insurance brokerage. The pay was good, I was decent, and I liked doing it. So I decided to get my license and sell insurance.

I was cold calling people one day, talking to farmers and small businesses in southern Missouri when I called a man named Jim. Jim was a farmer, he had two kids, and his family had owned that land for something like two hundred and fifty years. That might be an exaggeration, but it seriously was a crazy number like that. Well, crazy for America, at least. Anyways, Jim had an eight year old son who had cancer. Luckily, Jim had health insurance and always paid his premiums, and Jim's son's life was saved. And they all lived happily ever after.

Well, that's how it should have gone.

Instead, Jim's insurance company, who he'd been insured through for twenty seven years, denied the son's cancer treatments, calling them experimental. So, Jim was actively looking to sell his farm to treat his son. They took up a collection at a local church and had some other fundraisers, but it wasn't enough. Cancer treatments are pricey. They were also fighting the insurance company, but they didn't have much hope of getting anywhere, and they feared it would take too long anyway.

Jim's son did get treatment, after he sold his farm and collected more money, but by then it was too late. He died.

When you live in a country like America, with wealth and riches and groundbreaking advances in medicine, you don't expect to hear something like that. You don't expect the reality of the fact that to insurance companies, you are an investment, and they don't want you if you're a bad one. You don't expect that someone would aid in keeping a kid from getting healthy, from seeing their ninth damn birthday, just because of the almighty dollar. That all happens somewhere else, right?

Right?!?!?

No. It happens here, way more often than you'd ever, ever imagine. It happens primarily to self insured people who run small businesses and farm, who are supposed the backbone of the nation. And in case you don't care about them, there's also the estimated 45 million Americans who have no insurance at all.

45 MILLION. That's an insane amount of people.

Also, let's take a look at the World Health Organization's ranking of the worlds health. Numbers go best to worst. In the interest of fairness, this was done in 2000. However, not much has improved since then.


1 France
2 Italy
3 San Marino
4 Andorra
5 Malta
6 Singapore
7 Spain
8 Oman
9 Austria
10 Japan
11 Norway
12 Portugal
13 Monaco
14 Greece
15 Iceland
16 Luxembourg
17 Netherlands
18 United Kingdom
19 Ireland
20 Switzerland
21 Belgium
22 Colombia
23 Sweden
24 Cyprus
25 Germany
26 Saudi Arabia
27 United Arab Emirates
28 Israel
29 Morocco
30 Canada
31 Finland
32 Australia
33 Chile
34 Denmark
35 Dominica
36 Costa Rica
37 United States of America
38 Slovenia
39 Cuba
40 Brunei

This is why I believe that we need a government plan of action. President Obama's is explained here, here, and here.

Here's what I like about Obama's plan:
*Offers coverage to all
*Allows private insurance to compete (private insurance, though riddled with corruption currently, is a field that many people are employed through or by. Plus, some people are going to balk at anything involving health insurance and the government, and, hey...they aren't forced into anything. Good call. I also think the competition will help keep private insurance playing fair. They have to do better to hope to compete.)
*I like the idea of funding primarily from repealing tax cuts to the wealthy. The idea is great. But I'm pretty sure it, like everything else, won't be as crystal clear cut as all that.
*I LOVE that you couldn't be denied for a preexisting condition or assigned nine million riders on things. Right now, for me to get private insurance, it'd be about $90/month. I'm 27, non-smoking, 5'9" and 138 pounds, and in good health. That's with a $5000 deductible. Also, did I mention it wouldn't cover anything involving maternity, asthma, or anything related to migraines, since I've suffered them in the past, or anything involving the area where my C-section was? So I'd be paying for, well, not a whole lot. If I wasn't totally denied coverage based on the aforementioned health concerns.

What I don't like:
*It doesn't appear to be addressing medical malpractice. Medical malpractice insurance is RIDICULOUS and a large part of the reason that bills are also ridiculous.
*I'm not sure I really have heard much about the funding besides cutting unnecessary programs and repealing tax cuts. I'd like more information, please.
*I'm very against the idea of mandating that you must have insurance. I'd understand for kids, but I'm conflicted on the rest. I can see how it's better...people being uninsured is a huge issue that makes up another chunk of why we pay so much for health care. But I also think that we have choices, and if you're so against insuring your own health...well, that's you. Obama first said he wouldn't mandate it, but implied later that he wouldn't rule it out.

I don't have all of the answers concerning health care. I think Obama's on the right track, but, like I said, improvements could happen. I also think we need to be given a more realistic, less rose colored glasses view of things. But America doesn't, as a whole, like to hear the whole story. As country, we seem to only listen to a small portion of a plan, generally manipulated by some source (ie, Obama's plan is socialized health care) and then embellish and repeat it, over and over. Until we start, as a country, becoming more interested and less apathetic towards all things political, there's not much chance of us ever easily getting the whole story, though.