I’m back.  Possibly.  The last couple years have been a whirlwind of change, and there was not going to be any keeping up with this blog.  But I may have reached a place where I can start again.  I’ve been thinking about it for a while.

So, I think I’m back, but I also suspect things around here are going to change – because I have changed.  I have evolved as an individual, and Urban Earthworm is going to evolve with me.

Everyday sustainability is still very important to me, but I can’t give it as much focus as I used to, and I’m still not really sure what to do about that.  I mean, I could keep this website nailed down to that focus and seek out other outlets for the other topics I want to share.  But given how little time I have for recreational writing anyway, it seems like spreading things across forums is likely to reduce my chances of staying with it.

So maybe this will become sustainability plus.  Maybe sustainability will become a side topic.  But what would the main topic then be?  Maybe I’ll go back to the scattered, uncategorized version of blogging I started out with back at Cheap Wine and Cookies.  Maybe a quick overview of some of my recent life changes will help cast some parameters around future topics I’m likely to want to cover:

I last posted here in early 2016.  In August of that year, I finally worked up the courage to divorce my abusive husband – a long and difficult process that ended up including a protective order.  My beloved step-daughter who I had raised for 10 years went to live with her biological mother, and her mother and I ended up becoming friends.  I changed jobs to become a legal aid attorney and started representing domestic violence (DV) survivors.  I put my boys and myself in therapy to deal with the backlash from the divorce and the abuse.  I dated.  I had fun.  I came out as bisexual and poly.  I made new friends and strengthened connections with old friends.  I started playing Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: The Gathering and reading comic books.

I started taking master’s degree classes.  My partner and I decided to nest, and we got engaged.  I cut my hair short.

It’s been almost 3 years since that last post, and so much has changed.  So much for the better.  So much has evolved.

So what am I going to write about now?  About being a survivor of domestic abuse?  About being an attorney for individuals in poverty?  Ethical Eating?  My obsession with Buzzfeed quizzes?

Maybe.

I suppose we’ll see how it goes.  I suppose we’ll see how this earthworm evolves.

If there’s anything you want to see covered or want more or less of, let me know!

~

Still a Marine.  Still a Lawyer.  Now a Single Mom.  Now a Survivor.

The post Evolution appeared first on Urban Earthworm.

This article touches on my own horrible treatment by a Naval OB when it came to my oldest son’s birth, the current terrible situation a dear friend has been put in by this paternalistic system, the current legal state surrounding these issues, and resources.

Denial of Informed Consent
My Story

In 2010 when my oldest son was born, I was a U.S. Marine on active duty (I am a reservist now).  Initially, I hadn’t considered homebirth.  I had, however, done a significant amount of research on childbirth and the medical interventions that sometimes accompanied it.  A very close relative suffered permanent damage from an epidural and forceps delivery – damage which, more than a decade later, was still evident.

I determined, based on my own research, which included medical journals, mainstream publications, and consultations with medical and non-medical birth professionals – and with several women who had given birth in various ways – that, so long as my pregnancy continued uncomplicated and healthy, I did not want any interventions during labor and delivery.

As an attorney, I was well aware of my right to refuse any unwanted medical intervention.  Or, I thought I was.  Then I informed the obstetricians at Naval Hospital Beaufort (NHB) of my desire to labor and deliver without drugs or intervention.  I was told in no uncertain terms that such a decision was not up to me.  The head of section at the time told me to my face that HE would decide what interventions were performed on me and my son.  When I offered to provide a written Birth Plan detailing my desire for an intervention free birth, complete with medical citations, he told me such a document was all but worthless, as he would be making the decisions based on what he thought was best, not on what I wanted.

When I then informed him that I would not consent to any interventions (outside of an emergency), he told me I didn’t have to consent to them.  He told me, expressly, to my face, that he would not honor my right to refuse unwanted interventions.

And since my body belonged to the U.S. Government at that point in time, there was essentially nothing I could do about it.

When discussing individual interventions (in hopes of making a little headway), I told him I didn’t want pitocin.  He informed me that I would have an IV, and whatever drugs he or any of the other OBs decided were necessary would be fed through it regardless of what I said.  Just so we’re clear, injecting someone with drugs against their will is battery.  So my OB, who was supposed to be helping me through childbirth, threatened me with battery.  And even for all the noise I made about it, the military was totally fine with it.

End result: I chose homebirth.  In my case, I was 100% confident that homebirth with a Certified Professional Midwife and a Certified Nurse Midwife, was the safer option for me.  With the care of these two amazing professionals (and my husband, of course), I gave birth to my happy, healthy baby boy in my own bedroom at home.  There were no complications, and not a single person attempted to force me to undergo unnecessary and unwanted cutting, drugging, immobilization, etc.

My insurance at the time was Tricare Prime – the insurance all active duty servicemembers carry.  I was ascertained from Tricare’s publications that Tricare Prime would cover the cost of a homebirth.  This fact was affirmed by several Tricare representatives.  But, of course, there was one giant catch:  In order for Tricare to pay for the homebirth, my assigned Military Treatment Facility (MTF), NHB, had to approve it.  To be more specific, the very doctor who had frightened me into a homebirth, the one who had threatened me to my face and told me I didn’t have a right to informed consent, got to make the decision about whether my insurance would cover the cost of my birth.

And, of course, NHB denied my request.  This launched many, many months of struggle attempting to obtain a just result.  It took months to even get ANYTHING in writing from NHB, and when I got it, the letter stated that the decision of whether or not to permit me to give birth anywhere other than the hospital my OB chose (which was Beaufort Memorial Hospital since NHB’s birth center had already been shut down amidst some scary rumors) was solely up to my OB.  The OB that threatened me.

To be clear: THE DECISION OF WHERE AND HOW TO GIVE BIRTH WAS HIS, NOT MINE.

Because I was a servicemember, because I was a Marine, I did not have a say in my own birth.  And to punish me for exercising my own right to protect myself and my baby from unnecessary and unwanted bodily harm, I would have to pay for my positive birth experience out of my own pocket.

I appealed it to the hospital, but got no response.  I was granted a congressional inquiry, but all that resulted in was another copy of the original letter from the hospital.  I should point out that the materials I provided them with to request consideration were 16 pages long and included both legal and medical justification and citations.  What I got in return was a one page insult.

I eventually managed to appeal it up to the Navy Bureau of Medicine (BUMED) Inspector General’s (IG’s) Office.  After a time, this resulted in a conference call wherein I was told the behavior of the OB was completely out of line, what happened to me was very unfortunate, and the Navy was not going to do one single thing about it.  I requested the decision in writing.  Guess what?  Denied.  They wouldn’t even provide me with anything in writing in response.

So, after more than a year, I gave up.  And the desire to have another child was part of what drove me off of active duty.  I couldn’t risk having to go through all that again.  (Did I mention how horribly I was treated by the head nurse at all my post-partum appointments?  Or the fact that they were outright mean to my midwife when she dropped off the required cord blood samples – which they then failed to properly store AT THE LAB, and they were destroyed?).

It was worth it in the end, though, because I got this:

That was all a long time ago.  Why bring it up now?  Because the nonsense of targeting any childbirth outside of the medicalized routine continues.

Bullying Providers
Savannah Midwifery

One of the wonderful midwives who attended my homebirth was GeorgAnna Wiley.  She was amazing.  I wish I had more precise words to describe what an incredible caregiver she was for me.  She and Nicole Lavallee knew exactly what I needed at every moment along the way, and guided me brilliantly through the birth.  GeorgAnna in particular talked me through the actual pushing (while Nicole caught the baby) with such skill that I harbor very fond memories of that moment and was quite heartbroken that we lived too far away to use her services when my second son was born.  About a week ago, I saw this story from her organization, Savannah Midwifery (the full text is available here):

[…] I have worked hard to serve hundreds of families over the past 6 years.  I strive to make homebirth a supported, affordable option and worked hard as a change agent facing much opposition to earn respect from the medical community here. I truly try to make the world a better place by safeguarding gentle birth, offering a holistic approach with evidence-based natural methods, facilitating uninterrupted bonding and breastfeeding, empowering women, […]

On October 8th, 2015, I received a letter from Tricare South stating they had made an overpayment to Savannah Midwifery. Upon discussing with Tricare South and Humana representatives, the American College of Nurse Midwives (ACNM), and other homebirth CNMs (licensed Certified Nurse Midwives), it appears that Tricare adjusted their fee schedule (what determines the amount they pay per service provided) for homebirth services in 2015 and ascertained that they overpaid all homebirth CNMs. Tricare identifies “manual processing errors [by] PGBA (the subcontractor who processes claims)” as the reason for the overpayments. There is no statute of limitations for Tricare, so the refund request involves all Tricare families I served in the past 6 years – totaling $22,670.39.

[My billing service] submitted the bills and billed appropriately [for births] as well as itemized fees for other services rendered, such as pap smears, newborn resuscitation, lactation assistance, etc., which Tricare has decided they should not have paid. I submitted an appeal […] and was told the CNMs affected would need to file a class action lawsuit.  ACNM states they do not have the financial resources for a class action lawsuit. If I am unable to refund Tricare the full amount, this debt will be referred to a collection agency, and result in seizure and subsequent sale of my assets (and likely bankruptcy).  The overpayment amount is accruing interest as well.

It is therefore with great remorse that I must bill previous Tricare clients for the difference in what Tricare paid versus my fee, according to their signed contracts.  If I am unable to recoup the funds, I will be forced to close Savannah Midwifery, preventing me from serving other families and helping them have empowering birth options.

I apologize for the inconvenience of this and am truly sorry that this situation doesn’t have a better resolution. Thank you for your continued support of Savannah Midwifery. I welcome open discussion of this matter. Please don’t hesitate to call or email me with questions. I’m so very sorry for all this mess.

So, essentially, Tricare cut what they were willing to pay for Midwife care, then failed to appropriately adjust their accounting, and now Tricare is using their own mistake to force midwives out of practice.

If you would like to contribute to Savannah Midwifery, you can do so here:

Legal State of Birth Choices for Servicewomen

In a word – iffy.  (I can think of more colorful words, too – after all, I am a Marine).

Let me start by pointing out the difference between being a pregnant servicemember and being the pregnant dependent of a servicemember:  A pregnant dependent (ie, the wife of a Marine) has the option of switching from Tricare Prime to Tricare Standard.  Under Tricare Standard, no “approval” from an MTF provider is required to allow the pregnant woman to choose her birth location (within certain perimeters).  Pregnant dependents have a CHOICE.  Yes, if they run into a paternalistic OB like mine who refuses to approve their decision of a birth center or midwife assisted homebirth, they will have to change insurances and pay a bit of a deductible, BUT THEY HAVE A CHOICE.  If a servicemember’s wife is threatened by her OB, she can go elsewhere.

Servicemembers cannot switch to Tricare Standard.  A pregnant servicemember who wanted to have a say in her own birth (when faced with an OB who feels his ego is more important than, say, the right to refuse unnecessary and unwanted bodily intrusions), would have to purchase an entire new health insurance policy or simply pay for the birth out of pocket (like I and many others did).

If this pings your constitutionality meter, there might just be a reason:

UNCONSTITUTIONAL SEX DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THE CHILDREN OF ACTIVE DUTY MILITARY MOTHERS

In a heartbreaking case (though sadly not the only one of its kind), Air Force Captain Heather Oritz gave birth in an MTF.  Due entirely to malpractice by the medical staff, her child was born with severe brain damage.  When she attempted to sue to cover the lifelong medical expenses her severely disabled child would face due to the actions of the military medical staff, a California court found that because the original injury perpetrated by the military medical staff was to Capt Oritz’s body, even though it directly caused the brain damage to her child, the government could not be held liable because the injury was “service connected.”

Bet you didn’t know that severe disability of your newborn (your nonservicemember newborn) during childbirth was a service connected injury, did you?

In November of last year, Harvard Law’s Bill of Health bloggers Alex Stein and Dov Fox filed an amicus brief urging the Supreme Court to hear the case of Capt Ortiz and her baby. The case is No. 15-488 Ortiz v. U.S. ex rel. Evans Army Community Hospital.  “Professors Fox and Stein urge the Court to overturn the Tenth Circuit’s holding that the federal government’s immunity against liability for intramilitary torts extends to wrongful injuries like those sustained by Major Ortiz’s baby. They argue that this holding misinterprets the immunity, misapplies the Federal Tort Claims Act (FTCA), and constitutes no less than unconstitutional sex discrimination.” (citation)

Their amicus brief presents these questions:

1. When government negligence injures the child of an active-duty mother, does the Federal  Tort Claims Act allow that child to bring birth-injury claims against the federal government,  as the Fourth, Eighth, and Eleventh Circuits have held, or should the Feres doctrine be  expanded to bar a child’s birth-injury claim, as the Tenth Circuit has held?

2. Does treating birth-injury claims of the children of active-duty military mothers differently than the children of active-duty military fathers constitute unconstitutional gender  discrimination?

BIRTH INJURIES ARE MORE LIKELY IN MILITARY TREATMENT FACILITIES

The post Military Homebirth: An Attack on Informed Consent appeared first on Urban Earthworm.

Rad and I attended Harvard Law School’s Just Food? Forum.  It was so interesting and fun and left me with a whole new list of prospective projects – all of which need to fall behind the project I’m working on with a professor friend of mine.

In addition to my full time job, the university fellowship I’m in, and my Marine Corps reserve duties, I have also been an adjunct law professor since the beginning of the year.  April was the last month of classes for the semester.  With 4 jobs for the last 4 months, I’ve been spending every spare second with the family.

Flintstone got hit in the face with a ball and lost three teeth in the front (the straggler in the picture as since come out).  He has an adorable gappy new smile.

I spoke about urban livestock at the Detroit Food Policy Council Summit.  I also did 6 million other things that I have no inclination to list out here.

This guy decided he really, really wants to eat food even though he’s not six months yet.  Enter Baby-Led Weaning (BLW).  Don’t be mislead by the title, Rad is not actually weaning in any way.  Until around 6 months, he’s still getting 100% of his nutrition from breastmilk, but he sure as heck likes this new teether!  (Don’t worry, he is watched VERY closely when he has something like this, and he doesn’t have any teeth yet, so it’s very unlikely that he will get any pieces off).

Punky is very much like I was at her age – buried in books all the time.  She also remains a dedicated Whovian.  And a dedicated pre-teen.

Aaaaaaaaaannnd then – even though I was too busy to think straight, I decided to spend a whole day in bed.  Of course, that was because I could not stand up without terrible results.

But even though I haven’t been writing about it, I am still the Urban Earthworm.  I’ve developed several new recipes.  We’ve been out foraging.  I have a major food justice project in the works, but if it comes to fruition, it won’t be for another year or two.

My next project (maybe I’ll get a post up about it?  Ha! We’ll see):

There is a HUGE crop of garlic mustard along our back fence.  I’m thinking pesto!

The post And April Whooshes Past appeared first on Urban Earthworm.

At the same time, I was honored to participate in the Detroit Revitalization Fellows Program out of Wayne State University, increasing cooperation between organizations seeking to do good in Detroit.  It is an amazing program, and I’m thrilled to be a part of it.

And on top of those, I continued my role as a Marine Corps judge advocate in a reserve capacity.

Oh, and I had a baby while I was doing all that.

And MacGyver and I were asked to be in the “Michigan’s Sexiest Vegetarians” Calendar.  MacGyver was on the news this morning for their Meatless Monday feature.  Alas, I had to work…

(I’d like to note that I was 7 months pregnant when we did this shoot)

So, yeah, busy year.

It is my hope that in the coming year, I will be able to devote a decent amount of time and energy to this little blog.

Of course, I still have all those jobs listed above…

And a newborn…

Oh, and did I mention I’m also an adjunct law professor now?

So lots of time to devote to this blog…

We’ll see.  If you see a post from me in January, that will be a good sign!

Happy Holidays, All!

The post Looking Back on 2014 appeared first on Urban Earthworm.

As a devoted chocolate lover, I was horrified to discover that many of my favorite seasonal treats – treats that bring so much joy to children here in the US – are produced using cruel, abusive child labor.  The bigger the brand, the more likely it is to contain chocolate harvested with the sweat and tears of child slaves / child slavery.

Boycott Hershey’s, Mars, Reese’s, and (in the US) Cadbury this year, and instead choose from one of the many brands devoted to ending this horrifying practice (see the list at the end of this post).

I was disgusted to discover that  according to an investigative report by the BBC, hundreds of thousands of children are being purchased from their parents, or outright stolen, and then shipped to Ivory Coast, where they are enslaved on cocoa farms.  Destitute parents in these poverty-stricken lands sell their children to traffickers believing that they will find honest work once they arrive in Ivory Coast and then send some of their earnings home. But that’s not the reality. The terrible reality is that these children, 11-to-16-years-old but sometimes younger, are forced to do hard manual labor 80 to 100 hours a week. They are paid nothing, receive no education, are barely fed, are beaten regularly, and are often viciously beaten if they try to escape. Most will never see their families again.

Over a decade ago, two Congressmen, U.S. Rep. Eliot Engel, D-New York, and Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, attempted to remedy this issue.  They introduced legislation mandating a labeling system for chocolate. After the deep pockets of the chocolate corporations protested, a compromise was reached that required chocolate companies to voluntarily certify they had stopped the practice of child labor. The certification process would not involve labeling products “child-labor-free,” as initially proposed.  In my opinion, the movement lost its teeth at that point.

Instead of the “Child Labor Free” label, it called for public reporting by African governments, establishment of an audit system and poverty remediation by 2005. The deadline had to be extended to 2008 (read Fortune Magazine’s report on the state of the protocol in 2008) and again to 2010. Today, many aid groups say some of the provisions have still not been met, and it is the biggest corporations who refuse to comply.

Why should they?  Child slavery allows them to sell cheap chocolate to a clueless US American public.  Heaven knows I was a sucker for Reece’s Pumpkins and Easter Eggs before I found out about this epidemic of slavery – not to mention a cookies and cream bar once in a while (this was also before I quit dairy).  The CEOs of these corporations make millions upon millions of dollars off of children suffering and dying.  And so many people are completely unaware the problem even exists.

So the next time you reach for a candy bar, when you go to buy candy to hand out to trick or treaters or to stock your holiday candy dishes or include in your cookies, consider the price thousands of children are paying to bring you that chocolate.

Am I telling you to swear off chocolate?  Absolutely NOT!  Thank heavens!  All you have to do is be aware that your dollars have a voice, and your support of various brands sends a message.  Make that message a positive one, and buy chocolate from an ethical source.  There is a whole list of chocolate companies who use ethically sourced chocolate below, or you can simply look for Fair Trade or Equal Exchange on the label.

Not a fan of chocolate slavery, child slavery, corporate douche-baggery, and what-have-you?  Here’s what you can do (some of these are excerpted from Is There Child Slavery in Your Chocolate?):

* Purchase chocolate products from companies who only use cocoa that has definitively not been produced with slave labor. These companies include:

Clif Bar
Cloud Nine
Chocolove Dark Chocolate bar
Chocolove Cherries and Almonds Dark Chocolate Bar
Chocolove Crystallized Ginger Dark Chocolate Bar
Chocolove Orange Peel Dark Chocolate Bar
Chocolove Raspberry Dark Chocolate bar
Dagoba Organic Chocolate
Denman Island Chocolate
Divine Chocolate
Equal Exchange
Gardners Candies
Green and Black’s
John & Kira’s
Kailua Candy Company
Koppers Chocolate
L.A. Burdick Chocolates
Montezuma’s Chocolates
NewLeaf Chocolates
Newman’s Own Organics
Omanhene Cocoa Bean Company
Rapunzel Pure Organics
Shaman Chocolates
Sweet Earth Chocolates
Taza Chocolate
The Endangered Species Chocolate Company
Theo Chocolate.

Sure, some of these brands can be a little more expensive than chocolate provided by slaves (not exactly a shocker there), but the extra few cents is worth it every single time.  If I can’t find ethical chocolate, I will just not have chocolate.  It’s not worth the price otherwise.  And if you order in bulk, you can save a lot.  We recently ordered a TON of Equal Exchange chocolate miniatures for Halloween that even come with little cards about the benefits of ethical chocolate, and we’re encouraging everyone we know to hand out cruelty free candy this year.

A few weeks ago when MacGyver gave a lecture about Ethical Eating, during which I also spoke, one of the topics he covered was the chocolate slave trade.  A week later a friend of ours who had been at the lecture walked up to me and said, “I hate you.  I was going to grab a chocolate bar in the checkout line this week, and I remembered those poor kids and I just couldn’t do it.”  I think I’m totally ok with her hating me for that!

* In addition or alternative to ethical chocolate, consider purchasing something from this cruelty free candy list:

Airheads taffy
Brach’s Cinnamon Hard Candy
Brach’s Hi-C Fruit Slices
Brach’s Hi-C Orange Slices
Brach’s Root Beer Barrels
Brach’s Star Brites
Chick-o-Sticks
Cry Babies
Dots
Dum-Dums
Fireballs
Hubba Bubba bubblegum
Jolly Ranchers (lollipops and hard candy)
Jujubees
Jujyfruits
Laffy Taffy (some varieties)
Lemonheads
Mambas
Mary Janes (regular and peanut butter kisses)
Mike and Ike
Panda Licorice
Runts
Smarties (U.S. Brand)
Sour Patch Kids
Super Bubble
Swedish Fish
Sweet Tarts
Twizzlers
Zotz

* Hershey has asked the public to give feedback on their corporate responsibility via an online survey. Let them know what you think. They’re asking for it. Urge them to work toward Fair Trade certification of their chocolate products. Tell them there’s nothing sweet about manufacturing 80 million Hershey Kisses a day, using cocoa is often produced using abusive child labor.

* Get a free DVD copy of the film The Dark Side of Chocolate, along with information about Fair Trade, from the dedicated people at Green America. Watch it, show it to your friends, and spread the word.

* Tweet about this article, pin it, and post it to your facebook page. Tell your friends to read this article and take the Hershey online survey. The more people who do, the greater the chance Hershey will realize that the time has arrived for it to take responsibility for its actions.

* EDUCATE YOURSELF AND OTHERS.  Here are some excellent resources to read and share on the topic of chocolate and child slavery:

Is There Child Slavery in Your Chocolate?
The Bitter Truth About Chocolate
The Human Cost of Chocolate
Equal Exchange Farmers – the way it should be done
Tulane University Assessment of Child Labour in the Cocoa Supply Chain
The Dark Side of Chocolate – Spread the Word, Host a Screening with this Free DVD and Kit!

The post Chocolate and Child Slavery – Say NO This Holiday Season appeared first on Urban Earthworm.

       With this slew of announcements, I’ve also gotten a lot of email, facebook messages, and phone calls asking about our homebirth and natural pregnancy and childbirth in general.  I’ve ended up promising a number of these friends that I would put my h0mebirth story back online for them to read.  Flintstone was born at home in September 2010, and this is how it happened (the birth part; get your mind out of the gutter):

 Disclaimers:
This is long and may be graphic at points.  It was written more for my own memory than as a blog post, so I’m pretty sure at least half of it constitutes the definition of TMI.

You’ve been warned.  Read at your own risk. 

      Just over a week before Flintstone’s arrival, certain activities brought on some very consistent and persistent Braxton Hicks contractions.  Because we really wanted the birth to happen while our friend, Scathing Lawyer (SL), was in town from NYC to watch Punky, we reluctantly decided to forego those activities for the next week until she arrived. 

      I woke up Monday morning and excitedly told MacGyver that as of 7:15 that night, when SL arrived, we could resume activities and try to bring about labor.  Then I was off to work. 

      I spoke to the midwife early in the day to let her know that I was pretty sure I had lost the mucus plug over night and to see if the anticipated “activities” could still take place.  She assured me that they could.

      Over the course of the morning and early afternoon, I became increasingly bothered by what felt exactly like first day menstrual cramps.  If I didn’t know better, I would have been certain I was having a period.  I have a number of friends whose labors had started with this very feeling.  I was a little excited, or, I suppose interested to see where this went, but I didn’t let myself get too excited.  I had no real pain, and not even many BH contractions.  Plus, my mom (and just about everyone else) had assured me that my labor would last at least 14 hours – more than likely 24.

      So I went about my work, focused on finishing two certain opinions in anticipation of going into labor sometime that week.

      In addition to the menstrual feeling, I had no appetite.  I completely forgot to eat my usual breakfast, and didn’t even realize it until almost lunchtime.  Then the thought of eating just did not sound good at all.  For lunch I went out and treated myself to some sushi and a vegetable bowl (a favorite dish of mine) because I knew I needed to eat even though I didn’t want to.

      I only managed to eat the sushi.

      At 14:00, Capt PaperClip (my boss who I did not exactly see eye-to-eye with) came into my office to discuss one of the opinions I was working on.  I told him that I suspected I might be in the very early stages of labor, just so he would be aware, but assured him that I wasn’t sure yet.  I remained seated while I was talking to him.  I knew exactly what I wanted to explain, but I kept loosing my train of thought, then I felt a gush.  And I really lost my train of thought and just stopped talking midsentence for a moment.  But I recovered and finished explaining whatever it was to him, even though there were two more gushes over the course of the conversation.  I was very glad when he left on his own.  I really didn’t want to have to ask him to leave.

      I called the midwife again, who informed me that “activities” were now soundly out of the question.  Suck.  I called MacGyver and told him I thought my water had broken, but that I just wanted to tie up a couple loose ends before I came home.  He wasn’t exactly thrilled with that plan.

      I changed out of my cammies and used napkins and a clean boot sock to catch the continuing leak of water since I didn’t have any “supplies” with me – because I am just that motivated.  And I managed to finish up one of the tasks I had been working on while the contractions started to become apparent.

      I talked to SL, who was about 5 hours away from the train station, which was another two hours from our house.  I was worried we wouldn’t be able to make the 4 hour round trip to go pick her up.  The midwife agreed, and offered to pick up SL for us since the train station was only 20 minutes from her house.  (Now there’s a service you won’t find from any OBGYN)

      The contractions continued to become clearer and MacGyver told me that if I didn’t leave right away, he was going to come get me.  Snarky Paralegal agreed.  So I packed up my office, told my bosses my water had broken, and headed for home.  I forgot to set the automatic out-of-office reply on my email, which has been bothering my ever since.

      My mom was in Ontario for Girls’ Weekend – sort of an all female family reunion we do every year, though I haven’t been able to make it for a few years.  I called to let her know I was in labor, and she was super excited.  She may have even squealed a little, which is not my mom’s style.  She told me to walk through the contractions, and not to let anyone make me lie down.

      At home, things progressed quickly.  I changed clothes a couple times, and even took the 39 week picture, but was quickly distracted from all that.  The contractions felt pretty close together, and I found myself pacing the length of the house, back and forth, at a very quick walk.  The midwife had told me to call when the contractions were an average of 60 seconds long and 6 minutes apart.  They certainly felt closer together than that, but I got very frustrated trying to time them using the stopwatch on my cell phone.  Really, I needed two stopwatches (note to self for next time – and note for any pregnant women, learn how to time contractions before you’re actually having them). 

      MacGyver and I went for a walk around the block, and he tried to help me time them.  We never really managed to time 5 in a row, but the ones we did time were 45 – 90 seconds long and 3 – 4 minutes apart.  I called the midwife again when we got back to the house and told her that I felt like things were progressing quite a bit faster than I would have expected.

      I tried lying down and relaxing through a few.  Turns out, my mom was right about the not lying down thing.  That method didn’t really work for me.  The urge to curl into a ball was just too strong.  So I paced a little more.  MacGyver filled up the birth pool (twice, since the first time the water coming straight out of the hot water heater had sediment in it; don’t worry, we reversed the liner so it was still sanitary).

      The next time I talked to the midwife was probably around 6 pm at the latest, maybe it was 5 . . . – only 4 hours since my water had broken, and, listening to my contractions on the phone, she told me she was going to come then.  Unfortunately, SL was going to have to rent a car to get to our place from the train station.  The midwife was about an hour and 45 minutes away, and the other midwife coming to help her was about an hour away.  She told me not to get into the pool unless I wanted MacGyver to deliver the baby before she got there.

      The contractions were quickly becoming more painful than I had expected, and MacGyver was not enjoying watching me squirm.  He wanted me to get in the tub right away because he knew it would make me feel better, but I was really worried about Flintstone’s safety if he was born without someone there who knew what they were doing.  (Sorry, Honey)

      For some of the contractions, I stood holding MacGyver’s arms or bouncing on the corner of our bed, then he brought in a “birth ball” (Punky’s bouncy ball covered with a clean towel).  I bounced gently on that while MacGyver sat on the bed in front of me.  The wait for the midwife felt soooo long.

      I have a pretty high tolerance for pain.  I’ve put myself through some pretty painful and physically demanding things in my life.  I have pretty good control of my body.  I know the power of relaxing through pain, and hadn’t been too worried about any part of the labor before the pushing stage.  But I had also failed to ever go to the chiropractor and get my back and pelvis fixed like the midwife had told me, and I had assumed, incorrectly, as it turns out, that Flintstone would come out in the same way most babies do.

      The contractions, pressing his head down strongly against my pubic bone, were very painful and came very fast.

      The midwife actually made really good time.  I’m pretty sure I was in the tub by the time she made her way from the front door to the bedroom.  The warm water was a huge relief.  For a while. 

      The baby sounded good, and I started just riding out the contractions, waiting for the urge to push.  But the contractions just continued becoming more painful, and not at all where I had expected them to be.  The pain was all focused directly on my pubic bone.

      This is what I get for conceiving a baby while going through TBS.  If you’ll remember, I sucked at Land Nav – a lot.  Stumbling around in the woods with a compass and largely inaccurate map in freezing cold rain for 8 hours was easily one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life.  I have no sense of direction or navigational skill.  Apparently, neither does Flintstone.  Because he was trying really hard to come out through my pubic bone.

      After a while, the pain turned me into a simpering, whining, at times shouting, big baby.  I did not deal with the pain gracefully.  I spent quite a while leaning over the side of the tub, facing the wall, and throwing up – because throwing up during the contractions seemed to make them hurt less.

      And poor MacGyver.  He was so wonderful.  And so desperate to help me.  But I couldn’t stand anyone touching me during the contractions.  I would get so hot, MacGyver’s hands felt like fire.  And not in a good way

      The urge to push was not as obvious and clear as I thought it would be.  Maybe I was a little anxious to feel the urge to push and get things over with.  I thought I had an urge to push, but it was rather vague – it wasn’t until a couple hours later that I felt the real, no-kidding, unmistakable urge to push.  Next time, I’ll wait for that.

       With each contraction, I would bear down and push as hard as I could, but I swore nothing was happening.  I couldn’t feel anything going on at all.  I would simultaneously want to push and to clamp down and hold back – I’m sure because of the pain.  And I did not enjoy pushing.  Eventually, I started whining that it wasn’t working and that I didn’t want to push anymore.  The second midwife told me it was ok, to just relax through a couple of contractions.  Advice I took gladly, though there was really no hope of relaxing through these contractions.  Relaxing between was a bit of a joke, too, because my contractions were super close together the whole time.  After a couple minutes of this, though, the main midwife took over and demanded that I push more.  And really, as much as I wanted to listen to the other midwife and just rest, what I needed was to be pushed.  I am a Marine, after all.  I’m used to people yelling at me and telling me what to do, especially in painful situations.

      Sometime during all this, SL showed up, safe from the train station in a rented car.  I didn’t see her until after the birth.  When MacGyver went out to greet her, Punky, on hearing one of my very loud protests that I did NOT want to do this anymore, asked MacGyver if she had a choice about whether or not to have kids when she grew up.  He assured her that she did, and she decided that she did not ever want to have children, lol.  To this day, she says she’s going to adopt.  Good for her.

       SL said her favorite part was when she heard me declare, loudly and resolutely, that I was done and would not be doing this anymore.  Ha.

      At a certain point, the tub just felt too hot, and I felt like I wasn’t getting enough leverage to push.  Actually, I felt like I was flailing around like a giant clumsy hippo, so I got out.  I tried a couple different things from there.  Lying over the birth ball, sitting on the birth stool, even sitting on the toilet.  And, finally, the bed.  I leaned against MacGyver and pushed in a semi-reclined position for a while.  The midwife checked me and assured me that she could feel his head, and that she had pushed back the little lip of cervix still remaining on one side. 

      I was pushing so hard and so often, and I was sure nothing was happening.  It felt like straining against a concrete wall.  I complained loudly that nothing was happening.  The midwife assured me, tracking his progress, that he was indeed moving down with every push.  She told me the next day that for at least the first hour that she had been lying through her teeth to keep me pushing.  She could feel that he was in a weird position and not coming out the way he should.  My pushing was, indeed, completely ineffectual.  And there may have been some talk of transferring me to the hospital.

      But his heart rate stayed consistent in the 120’s, except at one point later in the labor, shortly before he crowned, I could hear that it was slower when she listened, down to 110 – still safe, but I did not like that.  I didn’t even need to hear the numbers to know it had gotten slower.

      Then she had me do something you never expect.  She had me lay flat on my back with my legs out straight.  When I had a contraction, she had me push in that position while pulling on two ends of a sheet that the other midwife was pulling back on.

      At first, this sucked just as bad.  But then, suddenly, I could feel things start to move.  It made pushing hurt even more – I felt like my pubic bone was going to explode, but things were moving.  That was a good sign considering I had been pushing for at least three hours (though MacGyver and the midwives kept telling me that it hadn’t been that long because I kept getting very upset that it was taking too long – the frigging books said the average pushing stage should last ½ hour to 2 hours.  Bah!  Fat lot of good averages did me ;-))

       The midwife had had me on my back to get him to move under my pubic bone, and it was a success.  After just a few more pushes in that position, she had me move back onto the birthing stool.  I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the idea of moving, but I did.  And then there was a REAL urge to push.  This was much clearer than the urges had been to this point.  It was strong, I wanted to push – at least my body wanted to – and it took so much less thought than the pushing to this point had.

      I held the midwife’s assistant’s wrists (sadly, I still found MacGyver too hot to touch, but he was right there next to her the whole time), and down he moved.  I remember everyone in the room, both midwives and MacGyver, getting very excited when Flynn started to appear.  I could feel him moving with every push, but didn’t yet feel any stretching, so I was really surprised when they said they could see him.

      The midwife had me reach down and feel his head coming out, and I was surprised by how squishy it was (he had a very large caput , which is what I felt).  But I had to brace myself with both hands for the pushes. 

      The whole time on the birth stool seemed to go very quickly – especially compared to the hours before.  He crowned quickly, and the midwife’s assistant talked me through a series of little pushes to ease his head out and minimize tearing.  (And I have to say, tearing always happens at the perineum, but I was surprised by how sure I was that I was going to tear “in front,” so to speak, though I didn’t).  I’m really glad to have been drug free at this point and in complete control.  The midwife talking me through easing his head out did wonders to minimize any sort of tearing.

      Then his head was out, and it was amazing.  It was almost over.  I kinda wanted to be done right there, and I think my wash of relief stalled the contractions, because he stayed in that position for a minute or two while the midwife poked my tummy and MacGyver tweaked other parts to try to bring the contractions back.  I didn’t really want them back…  But it only took one or two pushes for his body to follow his head, and there he was, all wet and slippery, big, dark eyes wide open.

      I had to hold him on my lap because his cord was very short (another reason the labor had been so difficult), while the midwives dried and rubbed him until he started to cry moments later.  Then we moved carefully up to the bed, where he had to lay down by my hip because of the short cord.

      But he was hungry – and seeming has been ever since.  I thought he was going to give me a hickey on my hip.  The midwife wanted to get the placenta out so he could feed, and, while I agreed completely with the desire to establish breastfeeding, I was not excited about pushing anymore, and I had heard some really unpleasant things from friends about how painful it had been when their Dr’s had wanted the placenta out.

      This wasn’t painful at all, though.  The midwife rubbed my abdomen and maybe pulled a little – I wasn’t really paying attention, then there was a contraction, I pushed, and the placenta was out.  It went into a bowl, and Flintstone was able to come up and have his first meal.  He took to breast feeding like a pro, too, even in the face of my uncontrollable shaking

      And that, while it is just the beginning, is the end of the birth portion of the story.  Flintstone was born at 12:24 am Tuesday, September 14^th after 10 hours of labor including 4 hours of pushing.  He weighed 7lbs, 2 ozs, was 20 inches long, and had a head circumference of 13 inches. 

      I felt like a huge pansy afterward, having been so loud and upset the whole time.  I hadn’t expected to deal with the pain so poorly.  But I also hadn’t expected nearly that much pain. 

      A few months after the birth, one of the midwives contacted me to ask if I had ever been a victim of sexual assault/domestic violence (which I have), and said that some of my issues with labor were typical of such a past.  I have yet to research that further, but you can expect a post on it when I do.

      I take a little bit of comfort in the midwife’s insistence that my labor was one of the hardest she’s seen.  That because of his position, my back/pelvic alignment issues, and the short cord, and judging from the size of the caput he had when he was born (we’re talking serious cone head), his was not a “normal” birth.  And that if I had done it in the hospital, there is a strong likelihood it would have ended in cesarean.    She may be saying all this to humor me.  But I think I can deal with that. 

Originally posted Sep 19, 2010 5:57 PM

The post Birth Story appeared first on Urban Earthworm.

      I feel like some strange sort of smuggler when a car pulls up next to the big government pickup truck I’ve been sitting in.  I climb out of the truck and walk toward the back of the car.  As I approach, the rear window rolls down.

      “Mama!” calls the sweetest voice I’ve ever heard, “Mama!”  As I open the door, he reaches for me and squirms against the straps of his carseat.  “Buckle;  Buckle,” he insists.

      As draw him out of the car, his older sister chatters excitedly about all the fun she had tonight and how sorry she is I couldn’t be there.  I carry Flintstone around to the front passenger seat of the car while he happily babbles “Mama, moke.  Moke!” Pointing at my chest.  Before I climb into the car with him, I undo all the buttons on my digital cammies and untuck my olive drab undershirt.

      MacGyver and I talk about the day he’s had with the kids and the things we have to do this week, while Punky occasionally interjects.  Flinstone nurses like a champ – much to my relief – but only for about 2 minutes before the buttons and knobs on the dashboard start to distract him.   I repeatedly redirect his attention back to nursing, worried about having too much milk left over.  I won’t be able to nurse him again for more than 12 hours, and I don’t have my pump with me.

       I’m glad to have him take anything, though.  I’m really glad they could make it out tonight.  I hadn’t asked MacGyver to bring Flintstone out to me this time because I knew he had had a really rough day.  I had been worried I was going to have to manually express some milk to relieve the pressure and keep from sending my body any signals that might slow down my milk production.  Just minutes before MacGyver called to tell me he was on his way, I had been trying to decide what to express the milk into and what to do with it afterward.  I was seriously considering putting it in my coffee.

       I’m sure that sounds less than appetizing to some, but if you’ve ever nursed, or, even more if you’ve ever pumped, you know the pain experienced at the mere thought of letting any of that liquid gold go to waste.

      It’s not long at all, only a matter of minutes, before Flintstone has nursed enough and his attention is completely given over to the dashboard and trying to reach the steering wheel.  If it weren’t so buggy out, I might take the kids out to play on the grass next to the parking lot for a few minutes before they go.  Tonight, I have rounds to make and MacGyver sorely needs to sleep.

      As soon as Flintstone realizes that I’m walking him back around to his carseat, he throws his little arms around me and begs, “Nooo,” he says sadly, “Mama,” And he hugs me again.

      I’d rather he just claw my heart out through my ribcage.

      He nurses a little more before I put him in the car, and with that final comfort, he says, “Home,” and points at the car door.  I buckle him back into his seat.  I swear I can feel the distance between us like two magnets being pulled apart.  “Bye!”  He waves and smiles.  Sometimes I wonder if that makes me feel better or worse than when he cries.

      I kiss MacGyver and Punky goodbye, and watch the taillights disappear into the balmy night, and I am sad.  Even though standing duty only lasts 33 hours, it feels like an eternity.  I have been lucky enough never to have been separated from my babies by a deployment.  I don’t know how I would ever survive it.  I have an amazing amount of respect for those who do.

      A deep breathe eases  the depression.  I climb back up in the GOV (pronounced guvee), and make my rounds.  I take stock of all I have to be thankful for.  I’m glad I am still able to nurse my son after all these months.  I’m glad we worked to make it work.  It certainly hasn’t been easy.

      Months and months of pumping two, even three times a day, hooked up to that blasted, painful machine.  With the cow sign on my door informing everyone that I am “indisposed.”  At least I have my own office.  Having to go to a separate room every time would have made it exponentially harder.

      Remember the complete debacle when I went to the Legal Assistance course at the Army JAG school?  Ridiculous. 

       There are dozens upon dozens of studies by respected institutions, universities, and international health organizations emphasizing and reiterating the importance of breastfeeding for the health of babies and mothers, observing the reduced time lost and costs expended by companies and governments that encourage breastfeeding, and encouraging more widespread acceptance of a natural way of life older than our very species.      

        The World Health Organization, CDC, and the National Institues of Health, for starters, emphasize that breastfeeding is the best and most normal way to provide nutrition for a baby.  They also all recognize that the normal weaning age for a human infant is between 2 and 7 years old.

        I am not going to go into the debate about women who can’t breastfeed or who have to stop before the 2 year mark.  We do what we can to be the best mothers we can.  My point here isn’t to say, “this is what I did so this is what you should do.”  It’s simply to provide part of my story as a full time working mom, an active duty Marine, doing the best I can to breastfeed my son.

       Flintstone is 21 months old now, and the 20 months of that since I went back to work have been sprinkled with breastfeeding struggles and triumphs.  But knowing the benefits to the baby have made them all more than worth it – from protecting against illness (for the entire length of the breastfeeding relationship) to huge benefits to brain and cognitive development, the list of benefits to the baby is almost unending.  Don’t believe me?  There are dozens of examples of evidence here (this is, by the way, one of my very favorite breastfeeding resource sites; the amount of information available here is amazing).

      But there are also often overlooked, but very significant, benefits to mothers:  From physiological benefits like protection from diabetes, osteoporosis, and many cancers to decreasing the occurance, severity, or longevity of postpartum depression.  The hormonal responses of a woman who has recently given birth are designed for breastfeeding, as are her child’s. 

       And there is, of course, the whole weight loss thing…

      Sometimes it’s hard.  I sacrifice part of my lunch break to go nurse Flinstone every day.  At least once a month, I find myself nursing him in a dark parking lot.  But it is well worth it.

The post Mom Enough: The Breastfeeding Working Mom appeared first on Urban Earthworm.

      You raise an interesting point, and I think some of your logic is quite accurate on its face. There are two sides to my response:      On the one side, I agree. I don’t like hormonal birth control as I feel it is introducing unnecessary chemicals into my body and disrupting my natural hormone balance.  I have used hormonal forms of birth control, and I did not like the way they affected me, particularly with respect to my moods.  For a few years now, I have used a non-hormonal (copper) IUD, which I love.  Whether you want to consider copper chemical or otherwise unnatural is a judgment call for the individual.

      That said, I wouldn’t necessarily call someone of my – we’ll say “green” – mindset a hypocrite for using hormonal birth control in the same way I wouldn’t call them a hypocrite for taking an OTC headache painkiller. While the goal is to introduce as few chemicals into your body and the environment as possible, that is a goal, and for many people it can be a nearly unattainable one.  Every little step helps and falling short of perfection is not a failure.

      While this isn’t a religious question, I think religion presents a useful analogy. In the same way that a Christian strives to avoid sin but sometimes fails – sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly – the same goes for those who try to avoid chemicals or abide by similar “green” standards – they sometimes fail. Where a Christian might say that the world and our culture are rife with sin, so a “Green” person might consider the world (and our culture in particular) to be rife with chemicals and other non-green conveniences. To avoid any of these things, one would have to remove themselves from society completely.

The post Green Birth Control or Birth Control Hypocrite? appeared first on Urban Earthworm.

       My quest to become more compassionate in some areas of my family life began long before I ever heard of Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life.  A million years ago, back in college, it one day dawned on me what a selfish wench I had been as a child and a teenager.  Sure, I was a good kid for the most part – near the top of my class, deferential to authority figures (ok, there were a few particular exceptions to this, but they were completely justified), rarely in trouble.  I didn’t rebel in any outrageous way*.

      That said, I was still a selfish wench the way most children are and don’t realize it.  I picked on my little brother mercilessly.  I griped about having to do chores.  I was completely focused on my life, my friends, my schoolwork, etc., with little to no regard for what was going on with the rest of my family.  When I was around 16, we moved out of the house I grew up in to a much nicer house.  My parents were very happy about this move.  The new house didn’t need tons of work the way our old one did; it was on a lake; it was great. 

     I hated it.  I felt like a sellout moving to an HOA on a man made lake, and I resented moving out of the house I grew up in.  I’m sure I drove my parents nuts referring to the lake as “the Gay Lake” (which I would NEVER, EVER do now!!!  I detest when people use ‘gay’ as though it’s derrogatory, but I was young and stupid and grew up in a backwoods area where people still think being homosexual is a choice).  For the entire time I lived in that house until I left for college, I complained about hating the lake and the neigborhood, even though it was actually a really good situation and a big life improvement for us.  My parents didn’t have to stress about fixing things all the time.  The lake made my mom so happy.  It signified something really great my parents had been working toward.  It was a triumph for them.

       Now, looking back on it, I cringe a little thinking of how self-centered I was.  Sure, I can cut myself some slack and say that all kids are like that.  Children don’t develop empathy until they get older, and most teenagers are pretty wrapped up in their own worlds.  Everything is SO important when you’re a teenager.

       NotDonna and I were just laughing the other day about how surreal it is to talk to teenagers and young adults these days, to just want to shake them and say “that doesn’t matter!  Really, it doesn’t!  Not at all, I promise.”  But there’s no point, because they don’t get it.  It’s one of those things you have to learn for yourself.  So we just sit back and smile.  And yes, we still calmly say, “you don’t get it.  This really doesn’t matter.  In 10 years, you’ll see.”  And they look at you like you’re so far out of touch it’s a wonder you can dial a phone.

      Yeah, everyone’s like that when they’re young for the most part.  Still, it makes me cringe.  And when it first dawned on me, it didn’t dawn on me as a humorous reality.  I was horrified.  I felt aweful.  I still apologize to Boo a few times a year for what an aweful older sister I was.  I was plagued with guilt.  I still am a little bit.

       So I started working to be more compassionate with my family, even though I didn’t recognize it as exactly that at the time.  I just knew that I needed to see things from their perspective to be a truely supportive family member and make up for my jackass youth.

      And now that I have a family of my own, that extends even farther.  Because let me tell you, just because I had become reflexively empathetic with my parents, brother, and closest friends, the doesn’t mean it came naturally with MacGyver and Punky.

      MacGyver is such an amazing husband that he makes it easy to take him for granted.  He is always doing sweet little things for me, picking up the slack when I’m overwhelmed; cleaning out my car or filling it up with gas; mailing the letter I’ve accidently left on the counter for a week; ordering the item I keep talking about but never get around to actually getting for myself.  Rarely a day goes by when he doesn’t do something just for me to make my life easier or make me happier.

       I actually have to work to avoid expecting him to do those things.  To appreciate every single thing he does.  To fill up my own gas tank once in a while.

      And doing those same sorts of little things for him?  I suck.  Really.  In my head, it’s because I’m so damned pressed for time all the time that it’s hard to fit in those little things.  In reality, it’s because they don’t spring to mind for me the way they do for him.  I have to stop and consciously ponder, “What can I do for MacGyver today?”  And sometimes, it’s really hard to think of anything.  Sure, that’s not exactly compassion, but it ties in.

      I suppose compassion ties in more not when MacGyver is being super sweet to me, but when he’s totally fed up with me.  MacGyver can be a little gruff when he’s stressed, and he pushes himself to do so much all the time that occassional stress is unavoidable.  Early on, I did not help matters.  When he’d get gruff with me, instead of recognizing that he was stressed out (even though I knew he was), and trying to make him feel better, half the time I’d get pissy, which would only make him feel worse.  Lovely wife, aren’t I?

      Now, it didn’t take long at all for me to make the stress-gruff connection.  But was my first instinct to help relieve his stress so wouldn’t be gruff?  Hell no.  My most serious relationship before MacGyver had been an emotionally and (to a lesser degree) physically abusive one.  As part of recovering from that, I had told my self that I would NOT take any crap from any man, period.  It took a little time (and a lot of patience from MacGyver) for me to clue in to the fact that being compassionate with my partner when he was stressed was not the same as letting someone walk all over me.

      And now I feel like an ass for having gone so far in the opposite direction in the first place.  But I’ve got it now, and that’s what counts.

      Compassion with Punky has been challenging at times, too.  I was never really all that fond of children.  Realizing what a jerk I was as a kid didn’t help.  Children are, by nature, needy, self serving little monsters.  They lack reason and empathy.  Lacking reason is a big deal.  When I first became Punky’s mom, a psychologist friend of mine told me I was going to have a tough road with her because I communicated on an almost completely rational level.  (That sounds good, but it’s actually not really normal; most people communicate with a mixture of reason and emotion; I have been called, by more than one psychologist, “hyper-rational.”  Making communication with kids and very emotional people feel un-natural to me).

      She was right.  While Punky and I got along wonderfully when playing games and running around together, I still found myself getting repeatedly frustrated with her irrational behaviour.  “If you liked peanut butter yesterday, then you like it today!!!”  I also thought she was completely spoiled from having been an only child to a freaking awesome single father.  She didn’t like to play by herself, and she expected near constant attention from me.

       I had lived quite happily alone with my beloved dog for years before this.  Punky was a big change.

       And as it turned out, she wasn’t [abnormally] irrational or spoiled.  She was 4.  And I was an adult.  And I was the one not dealing with it. 

      It didn’t take me too long to figure out just what a great kid Punky really was.  I don’t know how I ever could have thought she was spoiled (well, I do – because I was being unreasonable and probably a little spoiled myself).  She knew what she wanted and she asked for it because that’s what kids do.  But she didn’t throw tantrums.  She was sweet and polite and loving.  Looking back, and having a whole heck of  a lot more experience with kids now, I realize that she was actually an amazingly well behaved 4 year old.  At worst, she had a little bit of only child syndrome, but there’s not much that could’ve been done about that.  she was an only child.

      Being compassionate with Punky meant looking at things from her perspective – her irrational, child-world, need-based, not in control perspective.  I STILL have a hard time with this once in a while.  She’s 9 now!  The thing is, she keeps changing!  It’s hard to keep up with just what her perspective is!  Ha.  I have to remember when she goes on about boys and rants so dramatically about the goings-on between she and her friends what it was like to be that age and to enjoy play-acting these roles and not really knowing what they mean.  I have to remember that maybe when she’s 16, I may want to shake her and say, “None of this matters at all!  Really, it doesn’t!  Not at all, I promise.  It’s not that important.  It’s not important at all.”  And she still won’t listen to me.  But right now, she doesn’t even understand what “it” is.  She just modelling; playing at being the people around her. 

      And I have to remember that I’m the person she models most.  And I have to remember to be something worth modelling.  So I have to bite my tongue and nod sympathetically when she tells me that Emma stole Aspen’s man.  And tell her that he doesn’t sound like a very good man if he’s that easy to steal.  And wonder just how long before I can divert her attention with anything caked in glitter.

      This was supposed to be a post about how I am practicing being compassionate with my family now.  About what I saw the last month when I looked around at my family.  About where they stand on compassion and how we can all get better.

      Guess I didn’t quite get there.  Maybe in the next post.

*I did get a little while my last year or two of high school, drank a lot on the weekends, was serially cruel to boys, worked hard, partied hard, and made it look easy.  But I NEVER got behind the wheel drunk, stayed a virginal, never touched drugs, and didn’t let all this effect my grades.  By most standards in my town, I was a good kid.  I graduated High School with a scholarship to college, excellent SAT/ACT scores, and no babies.

The post Step 2: Look at Your Own Family appeared first on Urban Earthworm.

       I split this up even further because nothing can ever be that simple in my life ;-).  I split the “other” category into other religions and Compassion in general – ie, the value and effects of Compassion as measured empirically, scientifically, psychologically, neurologically, anthropologically (under which heading I placed motherhood), etc.  I pretty much had to split “my own” faith tradition in two since I’m a UU Pagan.  While Unitarian Universalism and Paganism are completely complimentary religious, they are still two separate faith traditions.  Each has it’s own history and it’s own – calls to action, we’ll say.

       I already touched on some of my very enlightening discoveries about Compassion in other religions, especially Christianity, here.  You can find a variety of posts throughout Cheap Wine and Cookies that touch on empirical studies of Compassion/Empathy because it is something I have been interested in for quite some time.  One of my favorite discussions of this was Vegetarians Make Better Lovers.  I also discussed it in the introductory posts of this, the Compassion blog.

       Now it is time to delve into my spirituality; my faith traditions:  Unitarian Universalism and Paganism.  I will start with the latter because, frankly, the presence of Compassion in UU is more than obvious.  I mean, come on, have you seen the Unitarian Universalist National Campaign?

      Please click the button and check it out.  It’s an amazing campaign and full of moving stories and stories to get you moving.  So, yeah.  The Compassion is there, right on our sleeves.  I could (and still might) write a long post about the particular challenges of Compassion in a religion that so heavily touts it, but for today I’m going to touch on the less obvious:

      Compassion in Paganism

      Paganism may or may not be considered an organized religion, depending on your take.  It is definitely a valid and widely recognized religion/faith practice.  I would hazard to say, though, that it is one of the more “disorganized” of the “organized” religions.  With no single creed, work of scripture, or overall text – or even collection of texts – it’s hard to have anything to point to and say “there; that’s it; that’s Paganism.”  Sure, there are 65 million different takes on and interpretations of the Bible and it’s meaning(s), along with all the other major religious texts, but still the texts are there.  They are written out in black and white.  There is some skeleton, some structure to be seen.

       Paganism today – in my opinion – is more of an interweaving of a number of faith traditions from the past.  The so-called “Old Ways.”  Earth, Moon, and Goddess centered spiritualities stretching far back into history, and even pre-history, spanning the globe.  From each of these ancient traditions, a thread, or, more appropriately, a vine, stretches forward to today, intertwining with the others, weaving the loose structure of Paganism.

       Like any other religion, Paganism means different things to different people.  One day, I’ll write a nice, long post about what Paganism means to me, even discussing Wicca.  But that’s not what today’s post focuses on.  To get to the bottom of where I feel that Compassion falls in Paganism, all you need to know about my feelings on Paganism is this:

      Paganism is the modern renewal/re-embracing of ages old Earth Centered religions.  The cycles of nature and the Wheel of the Year are at its center.  It is from the powers and cycles of nature that the most basic precepts of Paganism spring.  The majority of Pagans I know hold two basic concepts near the center of their belief systems.  They are:

      An’ it harm none, do what you will (also called the Pagan or Wiccan Rede); and

      What  you send forth comes back times three (also called the Rule of Three or Threefold Law).

       This is not a lesson in Paganism, but I’m having trouble resisting the urge to explain these things before getting on to the Compassion component.  The Rule of Three is often read two ways.  The first way is as a sort of Nature-enforced karma.  Whatever you put out into the world will come back to you (or your kin or descendants) with three times the magnitude you put out.  The second is that whatever you put out into the world will come back to you in the realms of mind, body, and spirit.  I believe the two interpretations work coincide.

      In the past, I’ve taken a little bit of issue with the Pagan Rede because it doesn’t sound all that moral on first read.  I mean, really, doesn’t it kinda sound like, “If you’re not an ax murderer, you’re good”?  It’s in the application that you discover how truly rooted in Compassion this rule is. 
  
      It’s pretty easy to get behind the first clause, “An’ it harm none,” (“If it harms none,”), similar to the opening of the Hippocratic Oath, “First, do no harm.”  I think it’s a darn good starting point, and if you really think about it, and keep that thought in the front of your mind, it’s not as simple as it sounds.  It’s a lot more complex than simply refraining from smacking around people who tick you off. 

       If you keep that thought, “do no harm,” in the front of your mind you start to question very minor things that might otherwise have gone unnoticed.  That snarky comment.  That little bout of road rage.  Needlessly squashing a spider.  Even buying inhumane meat or shopping at stores with unethical practices.  “Do no harm,” is a pretty freaking tall order when you really think about it.  Sometimes, it can take some real concentration and focus on the moment to fully live that belief.  Sometimes, it can take a full on restructuring of the way we think and live.

      The cycles of nature that Paganism reveres are by their nature free of malice.  One might see the lion eating the gazelle as doing harm, but it is harm without malice.  The lion takes no more than what she needs to survive and support her offspring.  She does not kill out of anger or spite.  Even in fierce competition over mates where there is fighting not for food, there is still a restraint to the lowest degree of force necessary to succeed.  Death and even permanent maiming are rare.  So it is with nature.  So it should be with us.

       But, of course, it’s not.  Our culture sometimes grooms us for cruelty, for spite, for that “me first no matter who I trample” mentality.  I believe that those drives and behaviours are incompatible with Paganism.  They do not fit with “An’ it harm none…”

      “… do what you will.”  Well, that sounds a little selfish, doesn’t it?  Well, yeah.  But if your focus is on the “do what you will” part, you’re missing the point.  You have to fully embrace harming none before you ever get to “do what you will.”  I, personally, don’t think I’m really there yet.  I’m getting closer, but I still have a lot of work to do on harming none.

      Once I get there, though, it’s not a free-for-all.  First off, harming none, as I’ve said, is harder than it sounds at first blush.  But then the Rule of Three comes into play.  It should really say “…do what you will, but be ready to pay for it,” or, put more positively, “…do what you will and it will be returned to you threefold.”

      The Rule of Three reminds us that our actions do not exist in a vacuum.  Every word, gesture, and action has an effect, and we are responsible for those effects.  And whether it’s obvious to us or not, we will face consequences – positive and negative – for those actions and effects.  Perhaps a cruel word uttered to a stranger won’t result in immediate rebuke, but it plants seeds of negativity – both in the life of the person we spoke to and in our own lives.  We may get a little buzz of self-righteousness when we “put someone in their place,” so to speak, but is that really something good for us?  Is that really something that feeds us?  No, slowly, little by little, acting like that eats away at us, it sets a pattern, and it makes happiness and contentment that much harder to find and to embrace.

       But if we act with kindness, with Compassion, if we act responsibly, we plant positive seeds.  We move slowly forward.  We grow.

       Have you ever had a stranger compliment you out of the blue?  Have you ever done something nice for someone just because you were there and you could?  Positive seeds.  Good feelings grow from that in both parties.  Your day is lifted.  More positive things come from those positive seeds whether they are directly related or not.  And the more positive seeds you plant, the more they produce.  The growth is exponential. 

       It is like Samuel Clements (writing as Mark Twain) famously said:  “I could live for two months on a good compliment.”

      Start by refraining from harm.  Move forward from there.  Plant positive seeds or negative, but be aware that you are paving your own path, you will reap the consequences – positive or negative – times three.

*   *   *
      The Compassion in Paganism can further be seen in our reverence for the Earth and the Goddess.  Personally, I see the Goddess and God as aspects of the same overarching power, but different Pagans see it different ways.  The Goddess is also divided into her three personas: the Maiden, the Mother, and the Crone.  While the Maiden represents youth, potential, and exuberance, it is the nurturing, Compassionate Mother and the Wise, Compassionate Crone who are most revered. 

      In each of these personas, she is the bountiful, selfless provider.  As the mother, she is fertility, she is nurture of the helpless, she is nourishment and love.  As the Crone, she is wisdom, caring for the community, family, and world as a whole.  She is enlightenment.

      The Goddess is often seen as synonymous with the Earth.  Whether they are seen as separate entities or the same, the Earth is also the perfect example of selfless love.  The Earth provides.  The Earth gives.  The Earth knows no malice, nor even any defense.

       And as responsible stewards of the Earth, the better our treatment, the better our rewards.  Planting seeds, literally and figuratively.

       Paganism is NOT about cold steel and spell casting and attention grabbing eye makeup.  It is about Compassion.  For the Earth and all living things.  Compassion is central to Paganism.  And anyone who says otherwise, I would hazard to say isn’t digging deep enough.

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