I am processing a lot of things these days. Normally I would write here to help me process, but while I am very honest here about adoption and parenting, these current topics are a bit too personal to explore in public. I have been using this blog for so long as my one-stop-shop for exploration, confession, and mucking my thoughts about, that not having it be an appropriate place to process leaves me feeling a bit displaced. I might have to dust off the paper journal and pick up a favorite pen.
So, in general summary, we are pretty settled on having this baby by c-section. I had a wonderful, natural birth experience with The Sprout that was everything I wanted it to be: empowering, revelatory, deepening, spiritual, and...well, words fail, really. Also in my birth experience with her, some complications developed that resulted in a lot of trauma and a long and painful recovery that was both physically and emotionally difficult. I didn't write about it much, as it was so personal, but it was a very difficult time.
To make a long story go longer, I ended up with an OB here, rather than a midwife, even though a midwife would be more my style. The OB has emphasized his strong opinion that the safest way for me to have this baby is via c-section. My General Practitioner is in full agreement. Wanting to have the opinions from "both sides", I consulted a home-birth midwife with 30 years experience. Her council was that I could try for another natural birth and with months of preparation and the prospect of some intervention, she thought we could minimize the complications that arose last time.
So, after mulling it over for several weeks, and talking to God about it, I think having a c-section is the best choice for me, and our family, in these circumstances. I am not comfortable with the idea of surgery, never having spent any real time sick or in hospital. But, I'm processing it. Believe me, I've only given you the surface skimmings, though it may not seem like it.
The other thing I'm processing but not discussing (hehe), is the role of our faith in this move, and what we expect to happen here. I realized this week that it's like we were following the pillar of fire/cloud in the dessert, and then it disappeared. Sometimes there's nothing like asking "why are we here?" to start to remember.
In other pregnancy news, I'm starting to remember things about pregnancy that I'd forgotten. Last week I was just a little fat. This week, I am surely pregnant. I "popped out", as they say. It's little things that I forgot, like the way sometimes you bend over and your muscles catch there and when you stand up, they don't release! Then you're kind of stuck half bent over, trying to get the muscles to un-glitch. So graceful.
Oh, and the shifting of the center of gravity. I've nearly toppled over a couple times this week because I leaned, and didn't expect the extra pull of this apple-sized baby to be so strong. There have been a couple times where I really felt movement, though technically, I shouldn't yet. It wasn't kicking or anything, just this feeling of my uterus, occupied. And the eating! Today was a switch from eating to keep from throwing up, to eating like a ravenous little scavenger. Things I wouldn't have dared two days ago, I was scarfing down, fearfully, but as one compelled. The fresh grape tomatoes and young cucumbers from my garden were particularly satisfying, as was the fresh squeezed orange juice the Captain made. (Did I fail to mention the mac'n'cheese, brownies and ice cream, and heavily salted nuts? Oops.)
Lastly, I feel like I've surrendered my voice for adoption here lately. I am not in the process of adopting, nor do I live in the States where my opinions on adoption reform are relevant. Sometimes I forget that as an adoptive mother, I have a permanent stake in the world of adoption, even if I am not currently engaged in it. I've read two pieces lately that really moved my heart and reminded me of what I am passionate about in adoption. The conversation about adoptive parent's "claiming" a baby in a pre-birth match, over at Dawn's, and Heather's discussions of creating inventive ways to make sure adoptive parents are meeting their own ethical standards when adopting in states that have Termination of Parental Rights and Revocation Period time-frames that they don't feel are adequate and ethical.
Reading these two discussions has been intensely engaging and I am reminded of how much I care, and how interested I am in being involved in adoption in America, and the world. I think I had to shelf that for awhile, after finding out we can't adopt right now. But I think I might rejoin the conversation soon.
So there you have it: there are the visible tips of the icebergs. Now I'll have to go plumb the rest of the depths on my own.
1- "choosing to minimize or disregard a person's color is part of white privilege.": A person saying they don't "notice" color does not mean they are minimizing or disregarding their race. It may simply mean it is not foremost in their impression or their opinion of that person.
2- "Ambivalence about race is the luxury of a person who does not experience discrimination based on their race": Ambivalence about race is not a bad thing. These people mean it in a way such as they have no preference for one over the other. They are not all discounting the race of a person as in the culture and heritage of their ethnicity that makes up who they are. They are simply saying they don't think of them as being different as a person. There is nothing more to it than that. They are saying that they see a person, a human being, who may have a different color of skin, but is living in the same country, in the same world, as anyone else; white, black, tan or whatever. Skin color is not the total of who they are. Not the total. Not "noticing" skin tone does not equal parents not noticing who they are as a person, ethnicity included.
As much as you have stereotyped people who are not in your position and may misspeak things (according to you), I think you are just as guilty of jumping to conclusions and only looking at the way you see things as anyone on any side of this difference.