The Thing About Forgiveness, aka Indefinite Hiatus

As the new mom of an amazing little girl, I’ve reached a point where I need, more than anything else, to protect myself, and my family, and my heart. And to do that, I'm going on a blogging and internet interaction hiatus. Very specific things have happened that have made me feel completely violated, disrespected, and broken, and left me wondering why I bother hoping that people around me will respect me, my family, and my decisions. And no, I will not be airing any dirty laundry in public (at least until we need to be sunning diapers and it’s warmer than 46 degrees outside, but we all know that’s not the sort of laundry I mean).

But there’s a lot of work I need to do toward forgiveness before I can even think about going back to saying things publicly—here, on facebook, on message boards, anywhere. I simply need to manage the things that I can manage and keep out the toxicity that I cannot handle. My energy needs to go elsewhere—to Michael, Mari, and my own self and self work.

Forgiveness has to be part of that work, and I have to recognize that it’s only going to happen on its own time. It’s not just work, but hard work. I’m sure there’s a labor or nursing metaphor in there somewhere, but I haven’t slept for more than three consecutive hours since the 4^th, so literary technique will have to wait.

I’m grateful that I go into this knowing that forgiveness is work. It’s difficult to think, examine myself, be conscious of my own role in the situation. It’s also difficult to think about why and how I was hurt so badly without giving into the rage that is so close at hand to pain.

More than that, though, I’m grateful that forgiveness is a solo activity, or if you believe in a God/dess , a two-party journey. It doesn’t require anything of the person who hurt me so badly. It’s somewhere I have to get myself, by myself. Forgiveness simply means that I will stop carrying around this giant sack of emotional rocks and move to a place where the pain no longer consumes or defines me at any point in my day. It means getting through this, learning something, and leaving it behind, as part of my past from which I will grow. It does not mean forgetting. It does not mean pretending particular behaviors and attitudes are ever acceptable. It does not mean pretending things are okay. It does not mean I will forget. There are no connotations of trust, or relational healing, or interpersonal re/connection.

Those things require reconciliation. That’s different. That requires actual apology that does not end in “but;” true apology that does not offer self-centered explanations that seek to minimize my feelings, experience, and subjectivity; genuine apology that does not attempt to make me see things from the point of view of the source of my hurt. It requires that someone take him/herself out of his/her own viewpoint and empathize in order to understand how and why s/he hurt another person, and to genuinely regret that hurt and work to prevent doing something like it again. There is no “but I just…” in reconciliation, any more than there is “well I’ll just carry around this one rock just in case I need to throw it…” in forgiveness. Reconciliation cannot start with me, because if it does, it will be read as accusatory, judgmental, punishing, and damaging, and I don’t want any of those things. I just want to live my life and love my family, respected by the people around me, without people trying to change me or my mind, tell me why I’m wrong, or why I should be more like them.

And that’s the thing about forgiveness. It’s an integral part of reconciliation, but it doesn’t require reconciliation. Forgiveness, when I can finally accomplish it, means that I don’t need reconciliation, however much I may wish it would happen. It means that I never need to hear “I’m sorry.” because I will have seen my world change twice—once because of the injury, and once because of forgiving it. I don’t know what that twice-changed state will look like for me. I don’t know how Michael and I will balance obligation with protection and sanity, and I don’t know how I’ll go about my life when I’m not carrying this big bag of hurt. But I do look forward to the day when I no longer cry every time I think about it, when I can go back to talking with people I love and not fearing betrayal and selfishness, when I can go back to being more of the self I want to be. There’s promise there, and hope, and I’m going to go work on myself and my family, and focus on that promise and hope.

Thank you!

An update: Mariana Ruah was born on Saturday, November 6, 2010 at 10:40pm. She was 19 inches long, and 7 lbs. 6 oz. in weight. Mom, baby, dad, and dog are adjusting well to this new reality.

As an addition to my last post, I thought that my praise and admiration for Swedish Covenant Hospital midwife group should continue, and begin to name names. Our midwife on Saturday night was Darcie, and she was assisted by Hannah, a midwife-in-training. Both Darcie and Hannah, as well as the nurses, were fabulous. The picture on the left depicts Mariana with Gina, of whom we spoke highly in the previous post. Gina came to visit us in the Mom/Baby Unit on Monday morning. We hope to add pictures of Darcie and Hannah in the near future. As you can probably imagine, Saturday night was a bit hectic and momentous for us all.

In addition to the expert care provided by the SCH midwives, we were accompanied by Andrea Bukiewicz and Amy Ortega. Andrea and Amy are doulas, women whose job and passion is to assist the woman with the birth process: before, during, and after the birth. Andrea and Amy were caring and excellent. They truly love their vocation. We are blessed by their lives.

Our childbirth educator was Holly Barhamand, who taught our course through Birthworks International. Holly was not only our teacher; she has also been a mentor, friend, and companion through this entire process.

Of course, absolutely none of Saturday's fireworks would have been possible without my fantastic and powerful partner, spouse, wife, best friend, and baby-mama - Krista. She labored for seven hours without pain medication. I was able to bear witness to her inner strength, beauty, goodness, and fortitude.

I'm sure that Krista and I will soon co-write and post the longer story of Mariana's birth, but I couldn't pass up this opportunity to thank the caring professionals for their assistance and presence last week.

To Darcie, Hannah, Gina, Andrea, Amy, Holly, and Krista -- Thank You!

Swedish Covenant Hospital: Midwives are cool!

A few months ago, one of my best friends, Sol Neely, and his wife, Kerry, gave birth to their daughter, Mila Rain Neely. Sol, a fellow graduate student in the Philosophy & Literature Ph.D. Program at Purdue University, was extremely impressed and existentially transformed by the care, love, and compassion of the midwife group with whom they worked. After Mila was born, Sol informed me that one of his current activist issues is to raise awareness and appreciation of midwifery. Today I join him (and many others) in this effort.

(P.S. Sol, Kerry, and Mila have since been infected with the zombie virus, and they are in the market for some tasty brains. Oh well, you can't win 'em all.)

Krista and I have been visiting the midwife group at Swedish Covenant Hospital since June or July, once we moved from Pennsylvania to Illinois. Krista had done her homework and research, seeking to locate a group whose values and philosophies complemented her own. Anyhow, since our first midwife appointment, we have been able to meet each of the seven midwives whose job it is to care for the woman/mother first and foremost. While we composed a Birth Preference Plan, we do not anticipate any awkward scenes or medical tugs-of-war in the birthing center.

One of the midwives in particular, Gina, quickly emerged as our favorite. This past Wednesday, we had another appointment, and after the meeting was over, we ran into Gina in the hallway and struck up a conversation, which ended up with me snapping a picture of Krista and her. It was a great morning-turned-into-afternoon.

I will have more to say about the awesomeness of the Swedish Covenant midwives, but that story remains to be completed...in a matter of days or weeks.

In a future blog post, I will also praise the virtues of doulas, including The Barefoot Doula and the Chicago Volunteer Doula network.

October 33, 2010

On Sunday, Oct. 31, I joked to Krista that tomorrow (Nov. 1) would be renamed "October 32." Given that line of reworking the calendar, today is Oct. 33. We're doing this because it doesn't totally seem real that we will most likely meet BugBear in the flesh before this month is over. While this is not the actual end of the pregnancy, reality is slowly but surely setting in: we are going to be parents...soon.

In the immortal (and undoubtedly intoxicated) words of Chicago Cubs announcer Harry Caray, "Holy cow!"

I have contacted a few professors at my school to see if they could cover my classes for the days/weeks around the kiddo's birth, and for the most part, my colleagues have been generous with their acceptance of the invitation/request. It will be weird to be away from the classroom and students for a little bit, but this is probably one of the best imaginable reasons to skip out on work.

We have constructed a list of possible dog-sitters, and are very grateful to have family, friends, and neighbors who are willing to help out.

What's left to accomplish? We're putting the finishing touches on the Birth Preference Plan, seeing the midwives on a weekly basis, composing a list of things to pack for the "big day(s)," and attempting to plan for those sorts of things that cannot be planned for. In short, we're expecting the unexpected.

What is that Bugbear doing, and why aren't you telling me about it?

Bugbear is...
wait for it...
putting on fat.

And getting into position to be born.

That's it.

Kicking, dancing, hiccuping, amusing friends and I by visibly wagging back and forth during exceptionally boring lectures, sure, but compared to growing ears or gaining the ability to open his/her eyes, s/he's not up to to much.

S/he's kinda squished in there, though in true medically accurate science terminology fashion, I'm measuring either 2.5 cm behind or 1 cm ahead of where I "should" be. But really, it's just time for him/her to put on that baby fat.  Though s/he's technically full term now, the longer s/he continues to cook and practice breathing, the better. For all of us. And since there's nothing abnormal about or wrong with pregnancy lasting 42 weeks, when people ask when I'm due, I just respond with "I'll be a mom before December!" because that's really as exact as I'm comfortable getting, even in my head.

We're nesting to a certain degree. Things are put together, built, the car set is ready to install, and we really do need to pack a hospital bag. Given the number of "hospital bag list"s that I have, however, if that doesn't get packed until I'm in labor, it won't be the end of the world. I spend a lot more time smiling and nodding as others tell me that we're doing things wrong because we're not doing things like they did. A friend suggested that I imagine advice givers and myself as ducks in conversation, because imagining someone else as a duck allows me to have their words roll right off my back more easily. I like that. Because really, at this point, we're not going to change our minds, and I don't so much care what others think. We may not be completely "ready" for Bugbear to show up, but we're never going to be totally ready, and no number of mini-lectures or amount of "advice" is going to change that. And that's perfectly fine.

I'm also noticing that I'm really drawing inward. I get more tired by people more easily than I usually do, and I just want to spend my time curled up with Michael with my head on his shoulder, watching bad tv or doing nothing. It's a sweet sort of enforced resting, a period where my body just can't do anything else, and I'm grateful and happy that I have a partner with fabulous shoulders who doesn't mind me leaning on them for extended periods of time.

Our Bodies, Our Selves, Our Socio-Political Agendas

I don't usually read msnbc.com because it tends to tick me off.

But I needed a break from class work today, so I clicked over.

And there was this article: "Back off, pregnancy police! I know what I'm doing!"

And my gut reaction was "A-FREAKING-MEN!" without even reading the article. Because I'm not big on the whole policing others' bodies to begin with thing. And pregnancy is a time when my distended belleh seems to mean I am somehow prime for the petting in grocery stores, for the questions about my bowel movements in daily conversation, for the raised eyebrows every time I crack a Coke or put an ice pack on my ribs, or choose to eat three hard boiled egg whites and some carrots with hummus instead of the proverbial pickles and ice cream.

You just can't do pregnancy right for the general US population.

So I read the article.

And then I was annoyed. It's about a glass of wine. BUT it's a well-justified, off-the-books-doctor-recommended glass of wine, so it's okay! If only people would just leave her alone and trust that she knows what she's doing... and while I am totally down with the "buzz off, jerkwad" aspect of this, I am frustrated that the doctor's approval seems to be what makes this glass of wine better than others.

I like wine. I've even had some in the last nine months. Not because I have a differently formed uterus. Just because it tastes good. Same goes for lots of things: sushi, lunch meat, hot dogs (seriously, ew, but when you need one, you need one), three bottles of blueberry beer (turns out I still don't actually like beer), raw sprouts, medium-rare steaks, canned tuna, edamame, and raw honey. And if I could find unpasteurized cheese and it sounded good, I would have eaten that too, but it's really freaking hard to find unpasteurized cheese in the US.

It's not that I got a positive test and decided to do everything possible to flout the system. It's that I truly believe the system is broken, and the system currently in place is one that works to consistently undermine women's intelligence, power, and prerogative to run even the most basic unit of our lives, our bodies. We are watched, and have people attempting control, from every possible perspective--the well-meaning but thoroughly entrenched medical institutions and their representatives that take our blood, urine, weight, and vital signs every six weeks (and then every four weeks, and then every two weeks, and then every week); the well-meaning friends and family who share horror stories and advice and experience without thinking to ask whether we want to hear, or being willing to accept that our choices are different and yet equally valid; even the stranger who lectures us about the triglycerides in bagels and how they make people fat while glaring at our 34-week pregnant stomachs, or the friendly cashier who says "I know who doesn't get to drink this!" as she rings up an alcoholic beverage.

These are not usually people who look at us and say "person with a vagina. Must be stupid, time for me to step in." These are usually people who want to help. Who think they have valuable information that we cannot get anywhere else. Who believe we somehow want or need their stories. Who truly believe the hype around fetal alcohol syndrome and poisonous soft cheese and the evils of "undercooked" meat. To whom it apparently never occurs that I might well know what's going on and choose not to be an extremist in the same ways that they are.

Clearly, there's a desire to protect others going on here. Clearly, there are people who consider fetuses people, and want to protect them and give them the best possible start in life. But since we couldn't successfully use a flash drive to transfer Bugbear from my uterus to Michael's stomach through our navels, we've had to accept that I'm the one carrying him/her. And that means that my choices are the ones that go, because in the end it is my body.

And so I choose, consciously and with careful thought and research, to give my fetus the best possible start in life. On my terms. Which means a diet of mostly vegetables and whole grains, very little palm oil, hydrogenated oil, or high-fructose corn syrup, and healthy and realistic portion sizes with limited amounts of meat and unnecessary fats while increasing the amount of homemade, local, and organic foods we eat. Which means upping my commitment to get rid of BPA, SLS of both sorts, parabens, and petrolatum (relatively safe, but who really wants petroleum by-products on his/her skin?) in my home and on my body. Which means as few drugs as humanly possible, limited to what I truly need to get through the day.

I'm not perfect. I ate Jimmy John's for lunch, with a Coke and a banana and an apple. Only half of the flour in yesterday's zucchini bread was whole wheat, not all of it. When Bugbear demands a Snickers bar, you best believe I'm going to go "well, if you really want it..." and then eat a Snickers bar because I won't be able to concentrate on anything else until I do so. But I know my choices, my risks, and I'm making my decisions based on those.

Chances are good that our socio-political agendas aren't going to match. If you're concerned about babies being hurt in utero because they're going to grow up to be some variety of less productive and more dependent citizens, then our agendas don't match. None of us are as productive as we could be. None of us are independent. Those of us who can claim true self-sufficiency or community sufficiency aren't reading this because they're too busy producing their own food, clothing, power, and daily needs to be reading blogs. What we're trying to prevent with policing pregnant bodies is not bad pregnancies or unruly children; what we're trying to prevent is the wrong sort of bad pregnancy, the wrong sort of unruly child, the wrong sort of tween/teen/young/adult political subject who will do and say the wrong things. And if snarking at a pregnant woman seems to up our chances of making the world a better place for the children of tomorrow, then who wouldn't want to take a glass out of a stranger's hand and lecture her on what she should be doing?

I kind hope Bugbear is always a thinking citizen who never takes a glass out of someone's hand because it never occurs to him/her to judge others based on appearances. I hope that s/he responds to the inevitable "because I'm your parent, that's why" with "well that's stupid. What's your reason?" I hope s/he embodies my favorite magnet: in his/her own way, with the addition of fighting ageism and ableism and general idiocy and unthinkingness as well. Not because I made the right choices, or the wrong choices, about what to eat and drink and wear and use while pregnant. Not because s/he wants our approval or love or extra spending money or the car keys. But because s/he grows up thinking and knowing that what we fight, and what we fight for, how we judge and how we respond to judgment, make a difference in how we know others and how others know us.

Happy National Coming Out Day!

 (image from this fabulous cloth diaper listing on etsy)

My facebook status has been borrowed by others. Without citation or credit, it's just floating around out there as other people's thoughts. I love this. I love that I said something worth copying. (Copy my papers, thesis, or other material on which I have worked my butt off, and out comes the "why you shouldn't plagiarize" stick, but this is a facebook status. Not the same.)

I am spoiled by the privilege in my life. I am spoiled by appearing to be a middle class 20/30-woman-born-woman who is straight, white, able-bodied, well-educated, and well-mannered. Which of these are untrue or true doesn't matter. Just appearing to be these things gives me tremendous privilege. Bugbear will inherit many of these things. But it is one of my deepest desires that by the time s/he is dealing with who s/he wants to love and how, s/he will not have to ask me why I work for a church that says "homosexuality is fundamentally incompatible with Christian teaching" when we go to Pride and protests and spend our time claiming and living that God loves all people. It is one of my deepest desires that s/he will not know people who kill themselves, or drug themselves, or otherwise harm themselves, as a reaction to others' prejudices. I want him/her to grow up knowing love, in our home and in his/her world.

One of the most amazing parents I know has never asked her son if he has a girlfriend. From the time he was little, she's had conversations with him that involve questions like "Are there people at school you really like?" or "Do you know if you want to kiss boys or girls someday?" or "If you grow up to be a daddy, do you think you want to love a mommy or a daddy?"  I want to copy that. I want no part of my child's home life to assume s/he will be hetero. And I want to be active in the creation of a world where that assumption is done, and the assumption that being hetero is somehow better than anything is also done. I want Bugbear to find homophobia and hating queerness as ridiculous as we find phrenology.  And if saying "yes! Use my words as your own! Enjoy them!" moves us even one iota closer to that, then you can have my term papers as well as my facebook notes.



So, not for the first time, and hopefully not for the last:


Happy National Coming Out day! Here's to the idea that every day should be a day when we love (or have consensual sex with) whoever we want, without corporate sponsorship, violence, fear, hatred, firing, excommunication, or being otherwise treated as less than human.