On My Anniversary
Two years ago, on an uncommonly beautiful August afternoon, I got married. I could go for the extra schmaltz and talk about how I “married my best friend,” but they print that shit under embossed castles and doves on terrible wedding invitations. It may be almost impossible to talk about love and marriage without sliding into cliché, but castles and doves are a bit much for me. Even I have some literary standards, so I will stick with an unembellished statement of fact.
Two years ago, on an uncommonly beautiful August afternoon, I got married.
Further details about the day would be superfluous, and would do nothing to tell you more about my husband, or about me, or about our relationship. The details of our DIY wedding and reception wouldn’t tell you anything about us, other than that we are creative and cheap and are lucky to have really, really good friends. While our vows would give some insight to us; I don’t want to share them here.
The truth is, of course, that our wedding was just a snapshot of our relationship. It was the fork in the road where we turned off into marriage. While lovely, it was what happened before and since our wedding that makes us, us.
We started on a sleeting, freezing night in January. I was out drowning my considerable sorrows with a group of friends, and rather than leave early, I made arrangements to stay on a floor in the city. I had crashed with The Boy and his roommate before, and I knew that it was highly unlikely they would chop me into pieces and feed me to the dog.
Oddly enough, this was not part of some grand plan of mine. No, no. It was just a whole lot of gin.
It never occurred to me that maybe, you know, he had some sort of grand plan. Consequently, as he was navigating me back to his house, I was shocked (shocked!) when he presented me with the following options:
“Turn left to go back to my house. Turn right if you want to make out.”
I was flabbergasted. Not angry, or freaked out, just completely blown away. The only flirtation between us had been at the recent New Year’s Eve party, where as I stole his whiskey and searched for music on his computer, he asked, “So, is it too soon to fire on you?” I had recently been through a completely terrible breakup of a fairly terrible relationship, and I would not have called that flirting—I thought he was just fucking with me, teasing me to make me feel better. I thought he was joking–especially since he would never seriously use the words “fire on.”
Despite the pitch-perfect casualness of his delivery that night in my freezing car, I didn’t think he was joking. I just could not imagine that he was serious.
“I’m sorry. What?”
“Yeah, if you want to get back to the house, turn left. If you want to go make out, make a right.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh-ho, yeah. I’m sure. Yeah. But only if you want to.”
It was not that it was a bad idea. It was that it was A Bad Idea. My terrible ex-boyfriend? Worked together with The Boy in theater, and the ex was an asshole. There were so many friends in common; so much interpersonal overlap between The Boy and I and between The Boy and the terrible ex and OH MY GOD THIS CANNOT END WELL. This was a dreadful, dangerous idea clearly marked with caution tape and covered with awful, impaling spiky things.
So, I made a right. Obviously.
I figured, what the fuck? God hates a coward. I know there was a bit more back and forth; I believe I suggested that this decision would lead to Trouble; and was he crazy; and was he really, really, really sure that this was something he wanted to do. In the end, though, the conversation ended with us parked on a street in South City with the windows fogged up, necking like teenagers in a freezing car.
And I was right. Terrible ex-boyfriend reacted like even more of a shit-heel than I had anticipated, and The Boy was forced to leave the theater group. Some friendships, while perhaps they did not end, were certainly and greatly changed. It proved, in fact, A Bad Idea.
Except for the bit about it being perfect.
Our, ahem, first date was that Sunday, just a rainy afternoon at a bar. I drank red wine; he drank PBR and smoked. It was nothing special, except that it was lovely. I realized that his smile was adorable while he told me he had been a Nintendo champion in his youth. We laughed and talked for hours. That evening we went to a potluck dinner with friends where no one knew about Friday, or our date, and where he stole a kiss in the kitchen and my knees went wobbly.
That was where we began, in a crappy January turned wonderful with secret kisses and silly dates. How could I not fall in love with a man who didn’t pause when I asked him to go ice skating? How could I not stay in love with the man who indulged my love of Thai food despite his own indifference to it? How could I not marry that smile so that I could have it in my life forever?
So, today is the anniversary of our wedding. Our wedding was fantastic, but it was just one day. It was not nearly as fantastic as the fact that we stumbled upon one another; that he asked me that crazy question; that I took the risk. Our wedding was not nearly as fantastic as how kind he is to me, or how much fun we have together. Most importantly, it wasn’t as fantastic as us being in this together. When things are bad, we manage to fight together, rather than fighting one another. That is rare; and it is hard; and it is wonderful.
Happy Anniversary, Handsome. I would marry you again if I could.
The Summer of Our Discontent, part 1
Lying down to sleep last night on the air mattress that I knew would be half-deflated by morning, I thought to myself “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
The three times in the night when I rolled off the air mattress and onto the dog, and then clambered from my hands and knees to my feet, so that I could go pee, I thought to myself “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
As I waddled around my empty house, hatefully eyeballing the few remaining things that require packing and the many things that require cleaning, I thought to myself, “I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“This,” for the uninitiated, is my and The Husband’s relocation to Texas.
By late Spring, things were already heading downhill. Sometime after week 20 of the pregnancy I came to the unfortunate conclusion that, despite being physically suited to pregnancy, it left me brutally handicapped by depression and face-clawing anxiety. My sister’s husband, who was always an epic fuckwit of the first order, had gotten drunk and attempted to slap her around. No lasting physical harm was done because while he is a greasy-haired, semi-literate pygmy; my sister is 6 feet tall and, had she been inclined, could have stomped the piss out of him. It did, however, require her oust him from the house and proceed to rebuild her life without him.
I was going Crazy, and my family was in upheaval, and then my work phone rang and all hell broke loose.
My husband was calling. His company–an internet retailer–was being bought by another, much larger internet retailer. Corporate unwillingness to collect sales taxes being what it is, the St. Louis office would be closing. He was given a choice between relocating to Seattle; relocating to Texas; or losing his job. Don’t let us speak about working from home–sales tax laws disallowed anything so sensible, and the owner of The Husband’s company has a thing for having asses in chairs. It would be quaint, were it not so fucking irritating.
My husband? He is a copywriter. His prose is funny, clever, occasionally heartbreakingly sweet. Because his employer is known for their quirky writing, it worked. Unfortunately, the demand for copywriters in St. Louis is small, and the demand for his particular style here in the Lou is virtually non-existent. Not moving, safe to say, would require a career change.
To say we considered our options would demonstrate a criminal use of understatement. We agonized. Neither of us thought, when we set about to have a kid, that we would be having said kid 10 hours away from our support system. At the same time, neither of us thought that either of us would ever be offered the kinds of shiny prizes that were being dangled in front of him. The choice was not simple, but it was plain–we needed to go. It was the right choice at the shittiest imaginable time.
A cursory glance at a the job boards and a cost of living calculator quickly cleared up any questions of which city we would pick. My particular industry is exceedingly well-represented in Dallas; it is virtually non-existent in Seattle. That fact, though, was much less relevant to me than fact that moving to Seattle would require re-embracing a level of broke-assedness that I did not care to do. We’d have had to sell the baby, and we would have had to get a fucking wicked good price.
So. Yeah. Dallas.
At the time, I thought that making our decision would be the worst part of the whole process. I had gone through corporate relocation with my first husband, and it went relatively smoothly. ”What,” I asked myself, “could possibly happen?”
I obviously underestimated what could happen at the intersection of mind-boggling fuckwittery; gross incompetence; and absolutely not giving a shit. If I knew then what I know now, I would have marched into my doctor and demanded he either commit me or place me in a medically induced coma because this process? Has been fucked up from the floor up.
There was the back and forth about the sale itself. At some point, the owner of The Husband’s company decided that he was, in fact, a goddamn genius. He proceeded to engage in negotiations using an equal part of smoke and mirrors, assuming that his tremendous cleverness and charm would certainly trump the Acquiring Corporate Behemoth’s desire to see things like . . . numbers. Oddly enough, Acquiring Corporate Behemoth was not at all impressed by all the fucking shucking and jiving. Instead, they waited until Wiley McDipshit had exhausted himself, and then had its phalanx of lawyers and designated number pimps sit down to negotiate based on things that had not been produced from the crack of Wiley’s sweaty ass.
Had it not been our lives that were being bandied about, it would have been a tremendously fascinating study in hubris. It was our life, though, and this asshole was fucking it up. You see, at the same time he’s got his tongue in Acquiring Corporate Behemoth’s ear and is wildly hoping no one will catch onto his game of hide the salami, he was also the only point of contact for any questions; the only party with whom one could do any negotiating. Wiley needed decisions as to who was relocating, and where, and when, so that he could expedite the sale. When confronted with questions, though, he simply made shit up in an effort to make the asker go away. We’ll never even know what concerns might have been communicated to Acquiring Corporate Behemoth, but smart money is on none.
Eventually, the terms were hammered-out. Predictably, all of Wiley McDipshit’s made up semi-assurances evaporated. Finally, we had to seriously deal with moving.
Let’s just say mistakes were made.
to be continued
Week 20: Observations
I had started a post earlier this week about the being pregnant, and had blathered on about the shit long enough that I had bored myself. I have, however, begun week 20. Today marks the official halfway point of this forced mar. . .er. . .journey. It seems that it would . . . odd. . . to say nothing. Therefore, here follows a brief list of
Observations On Being Pregnant
1. People Are Nosy Fuckers.
Without question my least favorite question from acquaintances and co-workers is “So, are you going to breastfeed?” Motherfucker, that is not your business. My mother hasn’t even asked me that question. I always want to answer, “I dunno. What do you intend to do with YOUR boobs in 4 months?”
I get that in most cases this is merely a throwaway, small-talk question meant to express interest in the clearly significant something that is happening in my life. However, there is always the very real possibility that the person in question is looking for an opportunity to judge you or debate with you, and who the hell needs that noise? Frankly, I don’t care to guess, and it doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t much want to talk about my tits at the office.
Pro-tip: The only people who are allowed to ask that question are people who are close enough to have seen your boobs in the most recent twelvemonth. If I wouldn’t share a changing room with you, then I wouldn’t care to talk with you about my intentions for my bosom.
2. The Internet Is Full of Crazies
I have largely avoided resorting to the web for information or conversation because it as full of lunatics who use lots of capital letters, exclamation marks, silly and childish euphemisms, and tend to spell this condition “pregnate.” The one time I wandered onto a message board I was confronted by the panicked ramblings of a woman who had eaten a Caesar salad that may or may not have contained a raw egg. Considering that she had already eaten the salad, it seemed that absent symptoms, she might just chalk it up to a lesson learned and attempt to put it out of her mind.
“Put it out of your mind,” is not advice you will hear much the internet. Because I am a sensible person who also happens to be in a family way, I find it is best for all concerned if I these people altogether.
3. Not Everything Will Kill Your Baby
But damn. People–and not just exclamation-point addled internet message board loons–will try to convince you of such. Open a book, or read an article in a magazine or online, and you are guaranteed to find a 101 ways to make sure your kid is born without a fucking head. The list of things to avoid is absolutely endless.
I accept that there are certain things that are to be avoided or moderated while pregnant. I have stopped drinking. I have back on caffeine–in my first trimester I was consuming even less. I am no longer storing my shellfish in the cat’s litter box. I have, I assure, you made changes.
However, if I have to read one more time how I should avoid soft cheeses I am going to cut a bitch. It’s nigh unto goddamn impossible to get unpasteurized soft cheese ’round these parts, so I’m not going to worry about it other than by continuing my longstanding practice of not buying my cheeses from the trunk of anyone’s car. Same with the goddamn lunch meat fatwa. I don’t eat lunch meat anyway, what with the not eating meat, but I doubt that some woman’s turkey sandwich is going to kill anyone, provided of course that she doesn’t buy her turkey at Satan’s own deli counter.
Pro-tip: Avoid gross and rotting shit. All. The. Time. If you ate gross and rotting shit before you were pregnant, now is a good time to moderate that habit.
I feel quite confident that the rest of the world does not greet the news of pregnancy with food terror and joyless abstention. I think there is a likely correlation between a more normal attitude of accepting pregnancy as a physical state–rather than a barely managed crisis–and the fact that about 1/3 of women in the United States wind up cut open so that our babies can be extracted.
The problem, in other words? We’re fucking nuts.
Perhaps I’m less risk adverse than others, perhaps I’m unduly cavalier thanks to the relative ease of my pregnancy. Fine. I can accept that, but in return I must ask that you keep your crazy on the d-l for me, mmm’kay?
Priorities. It’s What’s For Dinner.
Okay, St. Louis. Seriously. What the HELL is up with your weather?
Today it never got out of the 50s, and by this time I have forgotten what the damn sun is supposed to look like. This weekend? It’s supposed to be ninety-fucking-two. This shit? Is just not acceptable.
I finally made it a priority to bring my sorry ass home and cook something for dinner that was more involved than tacos. Not that I don’t love me some faux meat tacos, but it been forever since I had actually taken the time to make food. I had reached the point where I was staring at food blogs lustfully not because of any particular foodstuff the author had made, but instead just because they had made something.
There is no way to describe it other than I got out of the habit of cooking. I found out I was pregnant in, what, the first week of February or something? I failed my magic pee stick on Monday, and by Friday I bid welcome to all-day morning sickness. I’m not sure what was more off-putting about cooking: the fact that doing it required standing up, or the fact that it involved food. Either way, that shit was not happening.
By the time the morning sickness worn off, my office had stepped up the ass kickings to the point where I just didn’t feel like I had time to cook. Truth be told, I still don’t. The only thing that has changed is that I’ve decided that I’m going to re-order my priorities so I do more of the things that I enjoy–like cooking and eating yummy things.
Who Owns Your Ass?
Le sigh.
There is just so much that seems to be wrong with this story that I’m just not sure where to begin. In case you’re not much of a link clicker, lemme break it down for you. . .
An anonymous sex blogger, who worked under the pen name The Beautiful Kind, made a mistake at some point in the past and had her real name linked to her Twitter account for about 5 minutes. When she realized it, she went in and changed the profile and removed her name. Eventually, some social media crawler thingy located the cached Twitter profile that had her real name and her pen name. Her enterprising boss Googles the employee; finds the cached page; locates the blog; and fires her ass for being kinky.
You good? Good.
There is just so much fucking wrong with this.
If you read this from The Beautiful Kind, which she posted on another blog as hers has been taken down, she talks in some detail about the actual firing “event.”* Although she doesn’t state as much, her description leads me to the unfortunate conclusion that her boss is a judgmental fuckwit. While the company line as to reason for the firing is that it could make the organization look bad, one can’t help but read the sentence ‘”How COULD you put that stuff out there?’” and wonder if the boss wasn’t just skeeved out because her employee didn’t strictly go for lights-out , missionary position, penis-in-vagina fucking.
Ugh. As far as I’m concerned, there is one acceptable construction for sentences beginning “how could you.” That is, “How could you be so fucking stupid?” And maybe that’s what TBK’s boss was saying–that it was foolish to ever link the real name to the online persona. Without getting into whether or not I agree that doing such a thing is foolish, I don’t think I buy that reading. If the real issue was the risk that someone was going to Google this group’s fucking admin pool (and who has that kind of time), then the boss wouldn’t have freaked the fuck out the way she did. She could have asked the blog be taken down OR, you know, just fired the woman like a damned grownup instead of scolding her like a child.
Instead, I think this particular “how could you” was the more commonly used construction of “How could you do such a thing?” As in, how can you be such a pervert? How can you talk about sex? How can you talk about your pussy on the internet? HOW CAN YOU NOT BEHAVE LIKE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO BEHAVE?
This? Is truly, truly, no fucking employer’s business.
Here’s the thing, I care deeply about the activities of one vagina in this wide-world. It happens to be mine. The sole penis with which I concern myself is attached to the dude sleeping next to me. I admit, I do like to know when hypocrites with a history of hate get caught with their dick somewhere it doesn’t belong , but that has to do with my dislike of hate and hypocrisy and not my feelings surrounding sex. As to the rest, whatever goes on between or among consenting adults is none of my damn concern, and it sure as shit isn’t the concern of someone’s employer (unless one works for a fucking hatemonger, in which case, one has much bigger problems).
The corollary: my vag? No one’s business but mine. Even invited guests don’t get an ownership interest. Of course, this sole pussy proprietorship thing is not a terribly popular idea. Women’s personal and physical autonomy is infringed so constantly that much of the time we don’t even notice when its happening to ourselves. It’s like gravity–that’s just the way the world works. Except, you know, it’s seriously fucked up.
To my mind, this isn’t just another seemingly sex-negative chick shaming story. This also raises the question for me of what, exactly, do we owe our employers? Or, more importantly, what don’t we? Assuming one’s shows up, performs satisfactorily, and doesn’t run afoul of the law–exactly how much control should our employers have over us when we’re NOT on the clock?
I get that it’s not “safe” and perhaps not “smart” to have your real world and online personalities be linked, but I also think that kind of misses the point. It’s ridiculous to me that the legal things one does in one’s off hours is somehow in the purview of one’s employers. Googling one’s employees juuuust to see to what they’re up to is, methinks, a bridge too fucking far. At what point is enough enough?
I don’t know how we’ve arrived at a place where our employers own not only our 40 plus hours a week, but also our “free time” as well. TBK wasn’t writing about how much her job sucked, or how much of a cuntrag her boss was–although lord knows it seems it would have have been a fair assessment–she was writing personal shit about her personal life. It’s stupid to argue that she should have been obligated to keep it all private.
I get that our personalities blur more and more as we all become increasingly connected. We are going to have to redefine and articulate our spaces and boundaries. The fact of the matter is that what I do in my off hours is not my bosses’ business, even if I choose to do some of those things in public.
Oklahoma! Oh No!
What. The. Fuck.
When I stop to think it over, I honestly can’t say which of Oklahoma’s new anti-choice laws are more repellent and horrifying.
On the one hand, OK House Bill 2780 requires doctors show an ultrasound and describe fetal development to each and every woman seeking the procedure. On the other hand, OK House Bill 2656 protects physicians from lawsuits for omitting facts which, if disclosed, could have contributed to a woman deciding to get an abortion. With so much paternalistic, condescending fuckwittery to consider, it’s just impossible to choose.
Well, wait. Let’s just make sure I’m not overreacting.
First, we have a bunch of fucking politicians and anti-choice, anti-woman pussy police inserting themselves into the procedure room and dictating what a doctor must tell his patients, whether or not his patients want to hear it. I find it rather difficult to believe that any woman who finds herself in a clinic actually requesting an abortion doesn’t realize that there is, in fact, a theoretical human floating around in there. On the contrary, that’s the goddamn point, isn’t it? I’m sure that were I say, raped by some asshole on a date, there is nothing I’d rather look at 10 weeks later than his uninvited spawn swishing around my abdominal cavity.
According to Tony Lauinger of Oklahomans for Life, “‘Many women suffer severe emotional trauma as a result of having had an abortion. . . . With this, women will have the full benefit of having all the information. We believe the effort not only saves the lives of unborn children, but it spares women from emotional or psychological distress that follows an abortion.’” It must be nice not have to worry about severe emotional trauma of having a vaginal ultrasound following a rape; or the psychological distress of being forced to carry an unwanted child; or hell, even the psychological distress of being born an unwanted child.
Before ol’ Tony gets his hair mussed in this information free-for-all, though, let’s take a moment to ponder law number 2. THIS law specifically protects doctors who decline to tell a patient bad news about her fetus, if said news might have lead her to get an abortion. So, doc looks into the magic ultrasound window and sees that oops, the baby has no brain? Well, best not to worry the pretty lady’s head about that. She can just find out later, when her doomed child is born.
I guess not all information is created equal, huh?
Who the fuck thought that was a good idea? I mean, not only doesn’t it interfere with a woman’s right to choose; it even succeeds in denying her the right to plan. There are plenty of families out there who would choose to continue a pregnancy under circumstances that I would not–more power to them. Those families, though, deserve the right to plan: whether that be finding the best surgeons; or finding the best schools and therapists; or making fucking funeral arrangements.
Christ on a crutch.
I don’t know that you can say that one law is really worse than the other–they’re both sufficiently disgusting that it makes me want to throat punch someone. I don’t know how a bunch of morons in Oklahoma City all got together and appointed themselves Physicians by Proxy to every woman in their state. I don’t know that I care. I do know that it is disgusting to me that every time a sperm meets an egg the (un)fortunate hostess is suddenly public property–as though being a chick didn’t make one’s property public enough.
Can you imagine a circumstance where a law would be passed that allowed a doctor to omit key diagnostic information about a male patient’s condition? Or a law that required that not only did man have a particular procedure done prior to another, but also required that he receive a lecture on the procedure on the auxiliary procedure?
Yeah. Me neither.
It’s What’s for Dinner
So, I haven’t eaten meat in (quick mental math) over 18 years.
Holy fuck–I am officially old as shit and just the thought makes me all dizzy and verklempt–okay, better now.
As I was saying before I developed the vapors, I haven’t eaten meat in a really long time. Somewhere around four years ago, I began eating seafood, but it’s been the better part of two decades since I’ve dined on anything warm blooded.So
So will someone please take a moment and ‘splain to me the terrible bloodlust that has overcome me of late?
Ever since the first trimester desire to shuffle of this mortal coil has abated, the desire to participate in the coil shuffling of various tasty mammals has reasserted itself with a vengeance. For most of my life as a vegetarian, I have been largely content. Lately, though, I’ve been actively craving meat. And not just any meat, but particularly meaty meat. Preferably something that I have to eat with my hands and then wipe out of my eyebrows.
This turn of events. . .was not expected. I assume the little parasite is trying to leach additional proteins or something, but this shit is ridiculous. What’s even better? I know that if I actually were to indulge this unnatural (to me) desire, I would be rendered so sick by the adventure that it really doesn’t bear thinking about.
Misadventures in Health Care
Once upon a time, I had a blog.
I had a blog, and I wrote on the blog, and then I stopped. I might talk about the writing and the stopping later, or I may not, depending on the weather and how I feel.
Now, however, I am back to feeling the writing bug, and if the interwebs are good for nothing else, they are good for allowing–nay, encouraging–the uninformed babbling of the masses.
Indulge me, if you will in a quick disclaimer: The author of this blog is currently knocked-up. She is likely to talk about that fact a great deal because it is one of the weirdest fucking things she’s ever been through. While she is happy to be “in a family way,” she is not a goddamn glitter shitting unicorn about it, so if you’re looking for glitter shitting, you would be well-served to click on down the line. Further, any pro-pregnancy statements she makes are her opinion for her and other people who, themselves, are pro-being-pregnant. Nothing should be construed as advocacy for wholesale universal parenthood, as some people do not choose to have children, and the author is totally pro-childfree-by-choice, too. If you want to act like a fucker about it, please do so elsewhere.
Right. Okay. Glad that’s out of the way.
Right now I’m about 16 weeks and 1 day pregnant, which puts me at about 4 months, or comfortably in the second trimester. If you feel left out because you’ve not heard the blow-by-blow of trimester one, allow me to sum it up for you: it fucking sucked. While I was not encumbered by actually vomiting, I experienced all-day wholesale nausea and unending, unremitting fatigue. That was a magical, magical time indeed.
Trimester 2, though, is eminently more doable. I now have a tiny pregnant belly, which really could pass for a hardcore cake affection, but *I* know it’s baby, so whatever. Sure, my enormous rack is likely to be blamed for gravitational disturbances that have caused all the recent earthquakes, and likely that volcano thing, too, but what I’ve made peace with my boobs and the contraption designed by a statics engineer that now girds them in place.
What I am not at peace with, though, are doctors. In fact, I’ve been through two, and at this point I’m strongly considering my friend’s offer to give birth in her dining room. Right now it seems the most reasonable option currently on the table (pun unintentional, but I did choose to embrace it when I recognized it).
Disclaimer.2: The author of this blog has ideas about her labor and birth experience. HERS. She does not have any ideas about anyone else’s, really, except that she wishes everyone very well in getting as close to what she wants as possible. The author recognizes that she is a first-time mother, and that all her high falutin ideas may, when push comes to shove, take a big swish down the American Standard of Life. When that happens, she will own it, or she will lie about it on the interwebs like a bitch, because she can. Again, if you don’t like it, please to get to clickin’ and don’t be a fucker about it.
Yesterday, I met with my second doctor, who came highly recommended by a friend who had a baby recently. While the meeting started well, I think it safe to say that by that time it was all said and done we had achieved a state of mutual antipathy and disdain. Also, I wanted to punch him in the dick.
Allow me to rephrase–I still want to punch him in the dick.
It was a terrible experience, filled with condescending paternalistic bullshit that I need like a vestigial tail. He had no idea about the kind of birth experience I might have been looking for because once I brought up the idea of a birth plan, he began telling about the birth experience he expected me to have. When THAT did not achieve the desired effect, which I guess was wide-eyed gratefulness to him for sharing his immense wisdom, he went ahead and trotted out the anecdotes intended to frighten me–and my husband, who was at the appointment with me.
As this man went on and on about what I could expect, and what I should expect and accept, the hormone cocktail that I’ve been imbibing for the past 14 weeks or so kicked in, and I began to cry. Great, humiliating, gulping sobs.
Pro-tip: when you have antagonized a woman to tears, especially a pregnant woman, do not ask “Why are you crying?” It only makes you sound like an epic, epic fucking asshole.
I of course could not articulate an answer at that point. Nor, frankly, did Dr. Kingshit actually deserve one. However, I’ve got one now.
I’m crying out of fucking fear. I’m 16 weeks pregnant, and I’m not insane, and my wishes are not unreasonable, and people like you fill me with fight-or-flight fear. It is not beyond the fucking pale that I want to be an active participant in the birth of the thing that I’ve built from goddamn scratch and carried around for 40-ish weeks. It is not unreasonable to expect that you will talk to me like an adult, and respect my wishes, and find out what I want before telling ME what YOU want. I’m looking for a healthcare provider, not a fucking dad.
Screw. That. Noise.
So, the great quest for a healthcare provider without unresolved issues about the high school girlfriend who dumped his sorry ass continues. I may still wind up with the kind of birth Dr. Kingshit had in mind for me, but I won’t be getting it from him. I’ll go to the damn free clinic and then let a resident deliver me, first.
