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Several weeks ago, I visited a dr. for the first time in almost a year. My first non-pregnancy-related doctor visit since Nathan was born, really.

It was very mundane, I was there to make sure my cough wasn’t pneumonia after it had been hanging around for over a month. She listened to my lungs, took my history, height, weight, etc. (it was just a regular cough, it turns out).

But when it came time to take my blood pressure, it was high. Really high. They took it three times, and it was higher each time. So after a brief lecture on getting my cholesterol down (though we hadn’t checked it yet, but there was heart disease in my family), she told me to go to several different drugstores on different days and use their blood pressure machines, and write down the readings, if I didn’t think the bp result was reliable.

So I did that…and each time, the readings were lower than normal, as my blood pressure always has been. And maybe it’s medical (and that will get checked out) though weird…and maybe my white coat hypertension has a cause. The last time I was under regular care by a medical professional I ended up screaming at a surgeon who was cutting my abdomen before I was numb.

That kind of memory tends to color your reactions, I think.

And even though this doctor was very nice, and not nasty or judgemental or anything towards me, not male or bigger than me….maybe I’m scared of her. I don’t want to go back and see her again. I need to go to an OB to do the well-woman checkup too, and I honestly don’t know how I’ll get through that.

The last two OBs I saw were after Nathan’s birth, and I was bleeding profusely and more than a little scared that I was going to die. The emergency room OB in Queens was crossly telling me that no, they didn’t know why I was bleeding so much two weeks plus after birth, but it was probably because I’d been overexerting myself. The different emergency room OB I’d seen five days before that in Texas, by the way, told me I was bleeding so much because I had been lying down too much. Either way, mystery bleeding=my fault, somehow.

So that’s one traumatic surgery plus two clueless exams that failed to diagnose a problem that might have been (thankfully wasn’t) life threatening.

I may have some issues.

What made me think about all this was an entry at Niki’s Blog about the uses of bad birth stories–about what they mean in terms of the ways women are treated in the medical culture, and how they shape how women see themselves.

I have to get past my body’s panic response to doctors, because I still need them, much as I wish I didn’t. Just like I have to not mind taking Nathan to the hospital for his surgery, and letting him be handled by people very like the ones who mishandled me. At least he’ll have me there to watch out for him.

It’s hard to figure out, though, how to be unafraid and not deny that I still don’t really trust them. I can’t, knowing what I do. Though I suppose I could trust an individual doctor if I knew them well. The easiness I once felt about going in, getting tested, being examined, though, I don’t think that will come back quickly, if ever.

Even after they’ve been rescued and loved for years and years, dogs that were beaten once still cringe now and then. I think I understand how they feel.

What a sucky day. I have pretty much worked nonstop every day for the last 2 weeks and haven’t really seen Nathan much except right before his bedtime. So today was our day, once I got up, except that he didn’t want much to do with me. Or his dad either. His teeth hurt. And then the construction crews outside made it impossible to get a nap, so I drove him around till he fell asleep, then parked the car and read in a quiet spot. But he couldn’t sleep long even then.

We got back and had a late lunch, but it was all-cranky all-day. Tylenol didn’t help. He bit me and I yelled and he cried. We went to the bookstore to get out of the house, and he was fine until I wouldn’t let him crawl into people’s paths, and he wouldn’t use his legs and walk, and threw a wall-eyed fit, and so I took him home. And he cried. And I simmered and thought horrible things but didn’t lose my temper. We got home and I put him in front of a DVD, and then he was ok, and then I put him to bed, which was the only thing that did go easy.

Neither one of us got dinner, now that I think about it. Oh well. Maybe I’ll just have a beer instead.

Neal has just released his book Alternadad, which probably is mildly funny in its hipster, if doomed to be dated, way. He previewed one bit on Salon.com a week or so ago called “The Unkindest Cut” about the decision to circumcise his son.

And revealed himself an utter tool.

Now I know this chapter was picked because of the furor and links it would generate, which is why I didn’t give you a direct link. If you want to see it, feel free to search, it won’t be hard to find on Salon’s site. No need to feed the monster by linking them directly, I say.

The gist of Pollack’s piece was that he, as an unobservant Jew, was not committed to circumcision, and his wife was horrified at the pain they’d be inflicting on their son. But Pollack’s equally-unobservant family were horrified that they WOULDN’T mutiliate their kid for some meaningless ritual that they no longer believed in. So they had it done. And the end is kind of a shrug “yeah, it looked like it hurt, but the kid won’t remember it, so…whatever.”

Let’s try this out, Neal. How about if we schedule you to undergo some other sort of “minor” scrotal mutilation (perhaps a few random slices and stitches in sensitive areas) but tell you the pain isn’t important because no matter how much it hurts, we’re going to wipe your memory afterward. You’ll never even know it was done. So…hop up on the table, then?

Yeah, I didn’t think so. Circumcised baby boys aren’t able to carry that painful memory into adulthood, but that says nothing about how much pain they go through at the time. Pain for absolutely no cause, against an innocent who cannot even tell you how much it hurts or ask why you are letting this be done to them. Somehow I think if they could, we might hesitate a bit more with the scapel.

I forgive the generations before us, by the way; their doctors told them, and probably believed, it was a health issue and had to be done. But it’s not, it doesn’t, and most insurance plans won’t even cover it anymore because there’s no measurable benefit, and lots of chances for something to go horribly wrong.

You remember: first, do no harm. It would be nice if more parents took that oath, too.

Over at one of the midwife blogs I read, a commenter went off on a rant about her son’s birth; she’d planned a homebirth perfectly, heroically labored for 28 hours without meds, and then her midwife discovered the baby was breech, there was no safe way to deliver him, and they had to rush to the hospital and c/sec. She was devastated, and swore, next time, an OB! To make sure it never happened again!

And I was compelled, as I seem to be by this topic, to leap into the fray. She was hurting, she was angry, and she wanted guarantees it would NEVER HAPPEN AGAIN. She’d done everything right; why had this horrible thing happened to her?

Boy, do I understand that one. And I’ve done my share of thinking what I would do if I could go back and redo Nathan’s birth, protecting myself from the bad things instead of depending on untrustworthy people to protect me.

But as clearly as I can see my mistakes now, I couldn’t then. And if I was in a birth situation again, I would still just have my own brain to rely on, with all its faults. Combine that with the unpredictability of birth and the humanness of even the best midwives and OBs, and you find there are no guarantees. Not one. At home, in the hospital, even with Ina May Gaskin herself attending you, something could go wrong. Homebirth is not any less safe for a healthy mom than a hospital birth*–and if you count the superbugs drifting around hospitals, it might sometimes be safer. Babies die in hospitals too. Ask any OB about surprise breeches…better yet, ask a nurse. They’ve seen it all.

The system we have is more imperfect than it should be, but it can never be perfect anyway. Given that, pregnant women have to understand that giving birth takes courage, toughness, and survival skills most women don’t know they have. Sometimes it may be a walk in the park, or a tough hike up a mountain. Sometimes it may be a deadly battle. You don’t know which you’ll have until the day arrives.

* and if we had a British style system with OBs allowed to support midwives, it’d be even safer.

My baby is going to have two operations in his near future.

One is “minor”, for a blocked tear duct, but anything that involves full anesthetic doesn’t feel minor. He needs it fixed, but I hate that he has to.

Much bigger and scarier is the fact that he has a mild case of craniosynostosis, meaning two of the sutures that mark the spots between the plates of his skull, which are supposed to still be open so his head can grow, are prematurely fused.

Fixing it means a neurosurgeon and a cosmetic surgeon operating on his head to free the bone and reshape his head so it can grow normally. Before his CT scan (and that was a super fun experience) we thought it was just the metopic suture, the one in front in the middle of his forehead, that was fused. He has a little ridge there. But the scan revealed he had another fused suture (I’m not sure where, we forgot to ask), so leaving it alone would endanger his brain as he grew.

We haven’t met with the neurosurgeon yet, but from what I can tell, he’ll be in the hospital a few days. They’ll shave off his lovely hair, and he’ll have stitches on his little head, and it’s not something I like to think about. And the surgery itself is certainly scary enough, though I feel less worried than I expected to.

What’s weird, if you go to that link, is that it’s more common in first born boys, and boys in general. Why the heck would that be? It’s not considered inherited, but a random mutation. My poor little mutant.

In the meantime, he has no idea there’s any problem. He walks, but only if we’re not looking at him directly. Does it embarrass him? It’s very mysterious.

He says Mama now, which I love, because for a while it was Dada and Not Dada around here, and I was starting to feel like the substitute parent.

Sometimes* I’ll look up and he’ll be sitting quietly looking through his well-chewed picture book, turning it upside down and back and forth, trying to figure out how to see the backs of the people in the pictures.

During the week we only see each other about 3 hours a day, and I am not liking that at all. I miss him, and his grubby little face (forget superglue, use baby sweet potatoes–that stuff will stick forever). His daddy gets too much of him and I get not enough, because we don’t have sensible work / life arrangements in this culture, and it’s stupid. Anyway.

I’m taking the days of his surgeries off whenever they are, because I have to be there waiting when he wakes up, even though I don’t want to see him stuck with needles or drugged and confused or scared or hurting. All of which he will have to go through.

I hate hospitals, and I never used to. If you read here much, you know I have my reasons. But we have to do this, so we will.

*Not often.

As a woman, that’s a pretty ambitious goal. How much of most women’s conversation consists of diets, food, weight, and body topics? 60%? It seems like too much, however much it is. Getting a “good” body is presented as the Holy Grail all women should strive for, our biggest goal in life, more important than being rich or successful.

I use to hate my body, like most teenage girls do; I used to think not looking like whatever model or actress was in front of me meant I was unloveable, a freak, a nonperson. I’m glad not to feel that anymore, not to feel that panic of feeling I would never make it to Perfect Bodytown.

Because I never really wanted to go there, honestly. I wanted to be approved of by the world, men in general, but women too, and it’s true that being skinny and pretty will get you that. But to fight your body to that extent is a tremendous task; you literally can’t think of anything else, or you’ll slip up and eat too much. If you stay up late reading, you won’t get up early to jog. If you spend all your time with your family and friends, or working on your own projects, you won’t make it to the gym, won’t have time to make lowfat smoothies and drink 8 glasses of water a day. Looking the way you’re supposed to is work–which is why actresses and models do almost nothing else, and still hire trainers and have surgery and Botox.

I don’t diet. I eat what I think I should, sometimes more, sometimes less. I could stand to lose a few pounds, but I’m trying to get there by walking more and not buying things with high fructose corn syrup and other nasty stuff in them. I need more exercise but don’t live in the right place to get it (no sidewalks), so I’m hoping to improve on that at our next move.

I don’t hate my body anymore. It does its best, with the genetic recipe and the over rich American diet it’s been handed. It keeps on chugging every day, is pretty healthy, and I’m grateful for that. I don’t hate my old pregnancy stretch marks, or my chunky build that I’ve had all my life; I work with them as just facts about who I am, like my eye color. I will never look good in a bathing suit; but then I never have. Because most bathing suits are idiotic bits of bondage wear, frankly, and if you want something to swim in, you’d do better with a good racing back tank suit and some men’s shorts. Going for a simple swim should never require a Brazilian.

I’m stronger than I once was. I can lift my 35 pound son and flip him around a couple of times in a row, and I pick him up at least 10 times a day. I can walk a long way in good shoes. My blood pressure is usually low.

I also have a family history of heart problems, though every one of them were people who had appalling diets and for the most part, smoked heavily. So I don’t know how doomed I am without being a smoker or eating franks and beans for dinner every night. I might be doomed no matter what I eat or do. Or I might be fine. Or I might get hit by the number 10 bus next week.

Whatever my last day on Earth involves, I don’t want my thoughts to have been busy counting calories instead of thinking about the things I really care about.

…is the confrontational part. In other words, I have to go in and lay it down for my boss tomorrow. I’ve been taking my cues from her, not getting too hyper about the missed deadlines and vague, ever-changing rules for the projects I’m managing, but now I’ve got to put a stop to it. Shit, as they say, rolls downhill, and I am not going to be hit with this particular cowflop if I can help it. And if we don’t get things in line, there will be a whole manure cart full coming our way.

I do not like confrontation, not so much from fear as from laziness. I have to get myself all worked up, line up my arguments, deal with the backlash, and negotiate the outcome. And really, I’d just rather be working and not hassling with it. I end up getting mad…that I have to get mad. I prefer being content, happy, and laid back. Not making waves. I prefer that everybody else know HOW to DO THEIR JOB so that I don’t have to tell them, we can all just get to WORK already.

This place is a start up, and I can handle the fact that confusion and chaos comes with that. What I can’t handle is the inability to make decisions that seems to afflict too many people here. That is a problem. I’m not a total hard-ass, but I do expect people not to keep petitioning to change their assignments when said assignments are already terribly late. I especially need my boss NOT to go along with that, which she has been. Not if she wants to keep that manure cart from tipping over, because it will. It’s my job to track things and get them on time–and that means, at some point, you stop fiddling and declare them good enough and get them done. We are way past the point that should have happened.

This particular project is, quite frankly, a dog, but it still has to be done, and soon. I don’t have the option of grooming it all day hoping for it to turn into a diamond. Not gonna happen. I don’t understand why this isn’t abundantly clear to my boss, but I guess I have to try to make her understand. Ugh.

Man, I love those old Brisk commercials, especially this Rocky one.

But the Karate Kid and James Brown ones also rock.

My brother and I don’t agree on…much of anything. Maybe that our Mom makes a truly excellent potato salad (no mustard! no apples!) He’s the oldest, I’m the youngest, and a long 12 years is in-between.

So yes, I’m going to talk about one thing he said that I disagree with and why. (not just him; I’ve heard this from many people. Anyway). Despite his lack of enthusiasm for W. and his buddies, he still thinks we should be respectful towards the office of president and the person who holds it.

Well..ok, we were raised in the South. Politeness is a big deal down here, probably because it’s so nasty hot so much of the time you need a code of politeness to keep you from killing each other after 30 100-degree days in a row.

But. The people who founded our country came from places where respect for the office of those above you wasn’t just politeness, it was the law. Disrespecting your betters could land you in prison, or at the end of a rope. And you couldn’t do anything to rise above the station you were born to; once a peasant, always a peasant, most of the time, and in the law’s eyes, that meant you were less of a person, less deserving of basic rights to say what you wanted or live your life the way you wanted to, if the nobility were against it.

And much as I think politeness is a good thing, I don’t like people who want me to respect what they are instead of who they are. We don’t have kings, lords, dukes, or earls in this country. What you can do for a living isn’t supposed to be restricted by who your parents were or who owns the land you live on.

George W. Bush and his buddies don’t like that about America. They think people like them, people who start out with lots of money and privileges, are the only important people in the country, the only people the law should pay attention to. They want to read your mail, restrict your speech, and abuse their power over you if you’re not one of them, for any reason that they come up with. Which covers about 99% of Americans. They like the old way, where people with money and power made the rules and the rest of us were just sharecroppers on their lands, there to serve them, not full people at all. No rights, and no future.

They’re trying to change the laws our founders set up, to cover up what they’re doing. They’re eating away at our rights to a fair trial by going after the weak and unpopular people like Jose Padilla, people no one cares about. But don’t think they’ll stop there. Padilla is a petty criminal who got tangled up with some Islamic fundamentalists, but wasn’t the brightest bulb in the box, so never got into the inner circle or did anything dangerous. He’s also a U.S. citizen who has been held since 2002 without access to lawyers for the first two years, or a fair trial, or even the right to know what he’s charged with. None of the original charges against him are being pursued, and any lawyer will tell you, that’s a blatant violation of the law. The government has shuffled him around, changed its mind about how to try him, and finally, kept him in solitary confinement and harsh treatment so severe he may now be completely mentally incapacitated.

But hey, why should we care? He’s just some dumb criminal who tried to hook up with some shady Islamic terrorist types. Why does it matter if he’s denied his rights?

But that’s how it starts, with taking away rights from someone nobody likes or cares about. And once his rights are gone, and the law decides that’s ok, there’s nothing to stop them taking away yours or your loved ones’ or mine. Being a citizen is supposed to protect you from being wrongly imprisoned and denied a trial, even if you’re a dumb criminal with a brown skin. But if the government wins, it won’t anymore.

Think about that. What if Bush or his buddies decided you were a threat, say because you wrote an angry letter to the paper about his Iraq policy, and decided to treat you like Padilla and lock you away without a trial or a chance to defend yourself? Even torture you? If the Padilla case goes the wrong way, there’s nothing to stop them doing just that.

Is that the country you grew up believing in? Is that what Jefferson and Washington and the other founders fought to create? Can you really say a man who thinks the Constitution doesn’t apply to him, that he gets to use the office of President to do whatever he wants to do, even if it means sending thousands of young Americans to die in a pointless war, even if it means weakening America and keeping us dependent on the Saudis, even if it means selling off our ports to Middle Eastern countries with a history of terrorism, even if it means trying to start a war with Iran when we are getting sucked dry by Iraq–can you really say “I must respect that man because he’s the President”?

Let’s face it; George W. Bush is the worst president we’ve ever had. Worse than Nixon. He should be impeached for breaking the law and violating the Constitution, along with Cheney. He is up to his eyebrows in the blood of innocent Americans, he has bankrupted our budget, he has allowed an entire city to die, he has used his power to get rid of people in the government who spoke the truth and install people who will repeat whatever lies he wants them to say. He gets angry and prissy when people dare to ask him questions, because he doesn’t think he should have to answer to the little people who elected him. He doesn’t have a plan, and he never has, because he’s lazy and callous and doesn’t care that his lack of planning means lots of people die for stupid reasons–not enough body armor, not enough troops, not guarding ammunition dumps that can be used to make bombs.

He is a cowardly, mean, petty, narrow-minded, criminal, neurotic little man who has never worked an honest day in his life and has never grown up and assumed the responsibilities of a man, much less of a President.

I respect the ideal of the Presidency, and I respect any President who works hard to live up to that ideal. But i will never respect George W. Bush, because I know what he is. He is not my king, earl, lord, or duke. He does not own me. I am an American citizen, and I am certainly as good or better than he or any of his money-grubbing, lying, stealing, torture-loving cronies.

And so is any honest, decent, hard-working American. I can think of any number of people like that who would make better presidents than George W. Bush. And he and people like him know it–that’s why they work so hard to get you to bow down to them. Because then you can’t see them for what they really are.

I’m surfing the internet while Matt and Nathan sleep, listening to our upstairs neighbors, who like to RUN from one end of their apartment to another while stomping their (apparently) heavy shoes AS HARD AS POSSIBLE. Occasionally they drop something heavy from a great height, just to liven things up, or run their vacuum at 11pm. So far they haven’t woken up Nathan, but when they do, I’m going to get him out of bed as he sobs, throw on my robe, and go upstairs to pound on their door and LET THEM HAVE IT. They don’t speak English (we’ve complained before) but I’m pretty sure they’ll get my meaning.

Anyway, I’m having a beer to keep my blood pressure down in the meantime. And I found some new midwife blogs, yay, now in my sidebar. One of them is Frectis. And Frectis has let me in on a little-known fact that, quote,

Long labors bring out the gas in midwives. I don’t know why. One of my friends says its an adrenalin thing. Another said it’s because we freely fart all day long but when you’re in someone’s house you notice it more because you’re trying to hold them in. Maybe we should commission a study. I’ve never been to a birth with anyone who hasn’t been gassy.

See, THAT’S the kind of info you can never get from a midwifery textbook. Yet, so important to know!