Regret-free Abortion

Today is Roe V Wade's anniversary. The other day our shithole president addressed March for Life (butlolfuckyouifyouarealreadyalivingchildorwomanonthisplanetespeciallyawomanorchildofcolor) protest, claiming he gives a shit about the lives of children and women. Women called bullshit, of course.

Women aren't going to stand for his dumbass bullshit, trying to drag us into back alleys for our abortions. And in case you didn't know Dump was a flaccid flip flopper, here's proof he is lying to his redneck anti-woman base.  

So if you believe Dump is anti-choice, you're wrong. I bet there are dozens of women who have expelled Dump's nasty cell clumps from their uteri. I mean, christ on a cracker, we can't have more Don Jr and Erics and Ivankas running around. That's fucking disgusting. 

I have had two abortions and I have not had a single moment of regret. The first guy who impregnated me was abusive, and he was excited about the pregnancy. He wanted the baby, way more than he wanted me. He wanted to marry me. He also barred me from leaving a room when we got into a fight, and pinned me to the wall. He also cheated on me during our brief summer fling. I had no doubt that I would be having an abortion, and I did. I dodged a big bullet with him.

The second time was with a boyfriend that I later married. He supported the decision, and I don't know if he really wanted me to have the baby or not, but it doesn't matter, because I didn't.   No regrets, not a single moment wondering what if I hadn't. Two regret-less abortions. 

The situations were quite different but my decision was not and I am happy I made those decisions. The most harmful thing about the process for me was when I naively went to a Crisis Pregnancy Center expecting them to provide what they advertised, referrals for abortion. Instead a nasty old woman in polyester pants tried to convince me to keep the baby, even sent me a postcard at home, a clear violation of privacy, and called my house as "a friend." She gave me booties for my precious baby, which I threw in a dumpster.

Still Lucky

Wow!  It's been four years. I am a bad, bad blogger!

We did get pretty busy with having four extra kids. My last post detailed all the wonderful ways in which we were blessed after we took in my nieces and nephews. We were given a good queen size bed. People brought us groceries. We got help with Christmas presents through two different charity organizations. We'd just gotten stable enough to get off food stamps, but soon figured out we needed that back, so I reapplied and we were able to get about $500 a month in food stamps, which was amazingly helpful.

When we took the kids in, I was not working much; my medical transcription job had been cut severely as doctors began to use voice recognition technology and did not need transcribers. I was down to an hour of work a day or so on that. I got some work doing freelance writing, but it took tons of time and brought me very little money.

A few months later, I went on an interview for a company my best friend worked for.  It is based out of our teeny tiny hometown, and I get to work from home still.  I do have a set schedule, though. The job is in customer support, so I answer phones, emails, and chats, and as we are a pretty small company, I wear a lot of other hats too; proofreader, trainer, organizer, spreadsheet maker and editor, special project manager, etc. Most days I really like my job.  Most customers are fine people, and my coworkers remain cooperative, funny, and amazing in many ways.

To train for the job, which requires me to do support for seven different websites we own, I had to be out of town for weeks.  I'd train for a week with one customer support rep, go home for the weekend, and then train the next week with a different person. I'd rotate back to the start when I had been to everyone's houses. It was difficult to get through, as we only had one van, which I had to take, and my husband was left with seven kids to take care of. Luckily, it was summer by this time and he didn't have to worry about getting them to school, but he did have to get to work five days a week and get them to appointments (when we took in the kids, their teeth were terrible and each one needed at least three visits to pull teeth, fill cavities, etc). My in-laws were instrumental and we could not have done it without them. They babysat, took my husband to work, and helped deal with an outbreak of lice that lasted for months because I simply did not have time to comb through seven heads every night.

It wasn't long after the kids moved in that their mom went to Georgia. I am still not sure why she went, but she rode along with some friends and eventually they left her there, and she's been there ever since, no ID, no car, no possessions.

We organized our large basement so that the younger kids were on one side and the older on the other side.  As they got older, we divided them with boys on one side and girls on the other side.  the basement is sort of separated by the stairway, so they have their own spaces, sort of.

We made do. Eventually, with my job, we stopped getting food stamps. The kids are still all on Medicaid, thankfully. It is still difficult to feed the kids on our budget, but I menu plan and we do go to Family Services when we need to, such as now, right after the holidays. You never know what you're going to get from them; one time we got an entire cheesecake. Usually we get a lot of cube steak, but one time we got sirloin and New York steaks. One year my father in law was able to get a buffalo permit from the tribe and both he and my husband got a buffalo. That fed us for a whole winter and boy did I get spoiled on buffalo burger; it's quite a bit tastier than beef. We just had to pay for the processing of the meat.

The help we get has slowed down, but the school still asks us sometimes if we need snow boots, if we need help paying for instrument rentals, etc.We are still grateful. We are still a family. We are still very, very, lucky.

Is anyone counting the waves?

I had an interesting conversation today on the Facebook.  A page that I follow, Evolutionary Parenting, posted an interview with Dr. Mayim Bialik (That’s Blossom, yo!).  Dr. Bialik is a strong advocate for Attachment Parenting, and she has a book out on the subject.  I read the transcript, and it was a great interview.  She talked about her parenting philosophies and why she chose to circumcise her son.  I found this part interesting:  Dr. Bialik said “I think especially in a productive and kind of feminist society it’s not valued to surrender that way to the needs of a child.”  I’ve read a little about AP, and I think it’s a sound philosophy involving co-sleeping, breastfeeding, babywearing, and basically listening to your child, learning them, and learning to respond to them in the way they need.  Not all of the tenets work for every AP family, I’m sure (I couldn’t co-sleep because I am a light and crappy sleeper and would not get ANY sleep if my baby was right next to me), but basically I think it sounds like a great way to raise a kid. 

                I wondered on the Facebook why Dr. Bialik would say feminist society doesn’t value surrendering yourself to the needs of your child.  I had thought, as a feminist, that I did value that.  I surrender to the needs of my kiddos every day of my life, happily.  The owner of the page and blog pointed me in the direction of a post she wrote last year, called “Feminism v. Mothering.”  It’s sort of a summary of what the first wave of feminism fought for, and how she feels the second wave (Betty Friedan, etc) got it wrong.  Instead of pushing to have mothering valued in a significant way to society, the second wave of feminists devalued motherhood by eschewing family for career:   

The crux of the modern-day feminist movement has been to fight for women to have the chance to make it equally in what they themselves have called the patriarchal society. By doing this, they have placed immense value on the traditional work of men, making it the pinnacle of success and fulfillment in life. Indeed, according to these feminists, the only way women can be fulfilled is to pursue one of these masculine endeavors; to not do so leads to depression and resentment.

See, I just don’t think that’s right.  I think, in this—what, third?—wave of feminism, us feminists are trying to be inclusive, not divisive.  I see us opening our circles to respect choices.  One of my favorite bloggers, The Feminist Breeder, is a perfect example.  She chose her blog name very purposefully, because she believes that choosing to be a mother is valuable and fulfilling.  I agree.  Being a feminist today does not mean you have to give up having a family.  It does not mean you have to give up having a career.  It does not mean you have to “do it all.”  It means you get to do what you want to do, and other feminists will respect your choices, regardless of whether they would make the same choices in your position.  That’s what feminism is all about to me—choice.   I want to be a great mother, a great writer, a great medical transcriptionist, and a great wife.  And I fail every day at something; but even if I chose just one of those things to be, I’d still fail every day, a little.  Because I am just one woman, one feminist, one mother, trying like hell to raise these little people to be solid grownups, and trying like hell to be a solid grownup myself.