July 7th, 2010

Turning a (Big Fat) Negative Into a Positive

Well – here I am.  13 days past ovulation on Cycle Number 5 of trying to conceive (yet 6 months in because my cycles are stupidly long.)  Another Big Fat Negative, accompanied by declining temps and a bit of spotting, means that Aunt Flo is headed in my direction.  Now, I sit and wait.  *tick tock*

Each month it gets a little easier seeing the lonely singular pink line on the stick.  Don’t get me wrong — I’m still fairly crushed, and having a hard time shaking the suffocating melancholy, which is of course aggravated by the impending PMS symptoms.  I’ve been listening to James Iha and Nina Gordon songs while laying in bed moaning as my Mother In Law watches my children.

But I also know that my body is probably being a lot smarter than my brain right now.  I’m doing too much.  Way too much. I just decided to open a business four days before I leave for BlogHer, all while finishing my CBE certification.  A few weeks after the business opens, school starts again, and I have to figure out how to juggle my writing gigs, my CBE classes and studio, and my senior year of university, all while taking care of the two children I already have.  Oh yeah, AND, I need to have law school applications in by this October.  I have no idea what I was thinking.  I’m sure my uterus is asking the same question, which is why she said “Uh-uh, Gina… you don’t need to deal with a pregnancy right now.”

So, my womb remains empty, along with that little space in my heart.  But I’m trying to trust that my body knows what it’s doing, and it will choose to keep a pregnancy when I actually have space in my life to dedicate time to one.  In the meantime, I think I should try to enjoy NOT being pregnant, so I’ve made a list of all the Positives to that Big Fat Negative.

• I can eat and drink whatever, whenever I want
• I don’t have morning sickness
• I don’t have to pee 42 times an hour
• I can sleep all night (when my kids do).
• NO HEARTBURN (omfg, pregnancy gave me the most excruciating, debilitating heartburn.)
• I can take OTC medications when I need to
• My clothes fit, and I’m feeling svelte
• I don’t have to squeeze prenatal appointments into my schedule
• Other than the few times a day Julesy still nurses, my body is 100% my own

This is all I can do.  I’m trying to play Spin Doctor to drag myself out of this empty-womb depression.  I’m sure it’s nothing that a million other moms haven’t already experienced after a few months of not getting pregnant.  This is, of course, all new territory for me though.  I suppose each month I’ll get a little better at handling it.  I hope by next month I have my sense of humor back.

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Help me out… other than what I’ve listed here, what are some other benefits to the lone pink line?

July 5th, 2010

A Letter to My 27 Year Old Self

Dear 27 year old Gina,

You are only 5 years older now, but that may as well be a lifetime. What you know at 27 is absolutely nothing compared to what you will come to know over the next 5 years. If I told you now that in 5 years time you would be opening your own childbirth education business, breastfeeding a 2 year old, and using the words vaginal birth in every other sentence, you would have thought I was crazy. By the way, you’re still working on your pre-law undergrad, which also means you STILL haven’t started law school yet. BUT, you also still have your 4.0 GPA, so, you’ve got that going for you.  Well done there!

In 5 years time, you will hardly have any of the same friends. Most of the friends you have now will become completely foreign to you, and you will find it difficult to have a conversation with anyone that does not involve talk of toddlerisms or toilet training. You will have joined a Mom’s Group and loved it.

Yes. You are that person.

Speaking of toilets – let me blow your mind: In a few years, you will be so thrilled by the sight of child-sized poop in a potty that you will photograph it and email it to your (now) husband. Then, you will brag (yes, brag) about it on Facebook (which is the new MySpace – yeah, MySpace is dead… bet you didn’t see that coming!) If resources would allow, you’d probably take out a full page ad in the paper to show off your son’s bowel movements. But, since you can’t afford the full page ad, you’ll just post a blog about it instead. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention – you write a whole blog dedicated to poop and vaginas and lactating mammary glands.  Also?  Feminism has an entirely different meaning to you now.

Are you terrified yet?

Well don’t be, because your 32 year old self is so much cooler than your 27 year old self.  Remember how you thought that playing in a band with Courtney Love might be the most exciting thing that would ever happen to you?  You will be wrong. Remember how you thought being featured on British television may be one of the most thrilling things you’d ever experience?  That’s small fries compared to what you’ve seen now. And remember how playing on stage in front of thousands of people gave you an intoxicating adrenaline high?  Well, that is nothing compared to the Oxytocin rush you will get from having a freshly-squeezed baby placed on your chest; a nearly 10 lb baby, by the way, which just exited your vagina in what will come to be known as one of the single most powerful things you have ever accomplished.

By the way – not to freak you out or anything, but you haven’t played a show in 4 years, and you will probably never play one again.

And unlike all those other events that relied on reporters, or fans, or famous musicians giving you a big break, the event I described above was something that your body did on its own. It created a whole human being, then pushed that human being into the world where your breasts then went on to feed that baby the only food it would need for months.  At 27, you may consider yourself a feminist, but you have no concept of just how much power your femininity holds until all of this goes down.

Just in case you’re wondering, because I know you are, your vagina and breasts have escaped this all just fine. In fact, after two children (oh, didn’t I mention, you have TWO of them now!) you don’t even have a single stretch mark on your belly.  You do have a cesarean scar though. That’s a long story, suffice to say, your 27 year old self thought elective labor induction was a good idea. Your 32 year old self knows better.

The last 5 years have been good to you. You’re a little wiser and more self-assured now. You are still as painfully insecure as you have always been, but the difference now is that your 32 year old self has the confidence to stand in front of a room full of scientists, surgeons, and experts at the National Institutes of Health and voice her opinion on a topic that your 27 year old self has never even heard of.  You’ve also appeared on national television again – this time not for anything music-related – but just for being a feminist parent.   I told you that feminism would look different to you!

All of this sounds insane to your 27 year old self, but you won’t have to wait long to see that I’m right.  If I could go back and do it over again, I’d do very little differently.  I’m pretty pleased with the way things have changed for us.  This time, I’d just try to enjoy it all a little more.   In fact, that’s probably pretty good advice for my 32 year old self, too.

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This letter-to-self is something many bloggers have been doing over the last month, so of course I had to jump on the bandwagon.  What would YOU say to yourself 5 years ago?

June 23rd, 2010

If You Link It, I Will Come

Okay, it’s time for me to explain something to those people who are not blog-nerds like me or my many cyberfriends.  I probably could have let you all in on this secret months ago, and I have tried talking about it on my Facebook page, but it needs to be said in more than a few sentences – so here goes…

If you link to The Feminist Breeder, or if you even type the words The Feminist Breeder, anywhere on a message board, your website, or even your scarcely-protected Facebook page – I will see it.

I’m serious. I will see it.

Live Feedjit Feed Screenshot

How? Well, see that little thing down there in the bottom left-corner of my blog called “Feedjit?”  Okay, that thing shows me where all my traffic is coming from.  So, if you, say for example, copy an entire blog post of mine and place it on The Bump (which is BTW copyright infringement, illegal, and sucky) then I will totally see that.  I know that many people do this without even realizing it’s actually stealing, so I don’t get too upset about it.  However, word to the wise… place a LINK… I LOVE LINKS!!!  You don’t even have to ask me to post a link to one of my silly stories.  Just don’t use my actual text (at least not all or even most of it…  if you have to quote a sentence or paragraph, that’s fine, but copying the whole thing is no bueno.)

Also, If you, say for example, post a link to one of my blogs on a message board and talk about how stupid/awesome/ugly/hot I am – then yes, I will totally see that too.  Just know that if you’re going to call me “uneducated” on DC Urban Moms — I can see that.  Yep.  Saw it. *ouch* The only way to stop me from seeing it is if the message board is password protected, which most aren’t.

Or, maybe you think you’re being extra sneaky by just talking about me, but not actually linking to me.  Well, my friend, Google Alerts will tattle on you.  Every single day I get an automatic email from Google telling me every single time someone mentions the words “feminist” and “breeder” in the same place.

There is no place to hide.  Linking to my site or saying my name is like practically hand delivering me an invitation to come over and see whatcha chattin’ about.  Is that creepy?  I dunno… No?  All bloggers and website owners do it.  It’s how we understand our traffic.

So I’m just lettin’ ya know…  If you link it, prepare for me to come*.

Duhnt, duhnt, duuuuuhhhhnnnt.

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(oh get yer freaking minds out of the gutter already, you heathens!)

May 28th, 2010

And Maybe I Could Be a Better Hostess…

On the heels of my post the other day about blog commenting etiquette, the sequel to that post should really be me pointing out the shortcomings in my blog management.

A year or two ago, when I would get a comment, I would reply to it.  I replied to just about every one of them.  I was so thrilled to have someone on my blog, interacting with me, complimenting me, or even questioning me.  Back in those days, I felt like a post had blown up when there were 15 comments on it, and I was grateful for every person who took the time to hit “Submit.”

But things have changed since then.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m still grateful for the commentors, and I’m still thrilled that people take the time to hit “Submit.”  The quality of my commentors, I feel, has become so much richer in the last 12 months.  The quantity of them has also multiplied greatly.

But things have changed for me personally in that time.  During the last year I spent at my corporate job, I had a lot of “free” time on my hands.  I can say this now that I don’t work there anymore, but I spent a WHOLE LOT of company time updating my blog and replying to commentors.  I was also pumping breastmilk 3 times a day back then, and for the hours a day I spent in the Mother’s Room, I was always pumping hands-free so I could type away.  If I wasn’t doing my homework in the Mother’s Room, I was most certainly plugging away on TheFeministBreeder.com.  For a solid 8 hours, 5 days a week, I worked free of almost all interruptions aside from the occasional co-worker drive-by, or the meetings I couldn’t get out of attending.  I had mentally checked out of that place, and wouldn’t allow the stress of a totally meaningless job invade my mind anymore.  Looking back, I’m surprised I made it there as long as I did.

But the combination of being home with two little kids, and the increase in blog traffic, contributed to the slow deterioration of my interaction with my commentors.  I no longer have the time to respond to everyone, and I’m sure that annoys people.

I know that I have personally quit following blogs when the author never takes the time to respond to me.  It may seem juvenile, but if she never responds, I wonder if she hates me and wishes I’d stop leaving her comments. And I really hope that none of my tribe ever feels that way.

Most of the time, I’m reading my blog comments on my iPhone while the children are running around the house.  The comments always make me chuckle, or warm my heart, or make me feel connected to someone.  So many times, I’ll think “That was the most awesome comment ever!” but rarely do I come back to tell the commentor that.  I don’t mean to be an asshole – I swear. Life just takes over, I get distracted, and then I forget.  Or, I take for granted that that person already knows what a great comment it was, and don’t think it needs a response.

But if I were the commentor, it would bum me out.  I know how it feels to try to engage someone and not have them respond.  So, in the future, I’m going to consider comment management part and parcel of having this blog.  I need to stay on top of it, so that’s what I’ll do.  I can’t promise that I’ll be able to respond to everyone, but I’ll do my best.

How do you feel about getting a response from your blog hostess?  Does it annoy you when she doesn’t reciprocate, or do you not care one way or the other?

May 14th, 2010

Reasons I’m Not Getting Pregnant

Well, my plans for a 2010 baby are clearly shot to shit.  I really could have used the extra tax deduction this year too.  At this point, I’m worried that we won’t even have the baby before the Hyphenated Husband leaves his job next year to start his very unpaid teaching hours.  There goes the insurance that woulda covered my homebirth midwife.

But when I sit and think about the reasons this probably isn’t happening for us right now, a number of non-biological factors start to emerge.  I’m a pretty big believer that the universe (not god, the universe) leaves me subtle clues to help me navigate this crazy life.  No matter how badly I want something, or how much it sucks when it doesn’t work out, I always discover that there was some reason things went down the way they did.  Everything happens for a reason.

So what is the reason I’m not getting pregnant?  We’ve been trying since January, and so far, nada.  Now, I know that the truly infertile people are probably throwing rotten tomatoes at their monitor right now, and trust me, I know we’re not considered “infertile” yet.  However, getting pregnant has never exactly been a problem for us before.

The first baby was a “my-period-is-late-so-stop-and-get-a-test-OHMYGODHOLYSHIT-PLEASE-TeLL-ME-THOSE-TWO-LINES-MEAN-NEGATIVE!!!” sort of situation.  Our second boy was well planned.  Planned so perfectly, in fact, that we said we wanted to get pregnant in August and have him in May, and that is exactly what happened.  We got knocked up on the very first try.  Yep – we were those assholes.

But now, oh, the tables have turned.  And I figure there could be several non-biological reasons that we’re not seeing the two pink lines.

One of them could be my Outlook Calendar saying,

“Uhhhh, Gina?  Hi, yeah. What are you, fucking stupid?  Do you NOT see that you have NO time to complete all the crap you’ve obligated yourself to do as it is?!?!  Where exactly do you plan on fitting morning sickness and sleep deprivation and childbirth and all-night nursing sessions into this mess?  Snap out of it, lady!  We’ll never make it out of law school this way!”

Or, perhaps, it’s the memory of my second degree perineal tear, along with my cesarean scar, looking up at me saying,

“Uhh, Gina?  Hi… remember us?  Yes, darling, well, we wanted to remind you that if you put a baby in here, it’s gonna have to come out of here, and have you totally forgotten how that worked out the last two times!?!?  In case you need a reminder, just glance down at your lady regions and we’ll wave to you.  Hi!!  There we are!  The violent exits of those children!  Now snap out of it, girl.”

And then, of course Murphy’s Law chimes in with,

“Come on Gina, you knew this would happen.  Why did you go ahead and buy a new bassinett and $90 ring sling before you even got the positive test?  Tsk, Tsk.  Also?  I know you desperately need some new clothes, and you know that I’m obligated, by the laws of irony, to save your positive pregnancy test for the day after you buy the new clothes and throw away all the tags.  Go ahead – go shopping.  I dare you.”

And of course, my waistline throws in her two bitchy cents with:

“Darling – we just got re-aquainted for the first time in nearly 5 years!  We are finally back to a place where your prepregnancy pants will button, and you want to throw it all away?!  How dare you even consider it!  I will not stand for it.  The answer is NO.”

As you can see, all these mother-effers are conspiring against me.  Every month, they take a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to my two pink lines, and turn on the dreaded menses hose.  All I know is that no matter what the universe is trying to tell me, I still want another baby.  Call me crazy. I’m sure I am.  But I also figure if I want it this bad, that must be the universe telling me something too.

Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking…