I Know That You are Pregnant and Afraid

I’m writing this post today for a mom out there who might stumble upon it.  It occurred to me, after reading this letter written by a woman to the unborn child she was planning on aborting, that maybe, just maybe, someday a mom might stumble on my blog when she needs it most.  I don’t know if it’s too late for the mom who wrote that gut-wrenching letter or not.  It is probably too late.  But, it might not be too late for another.  And so today, I’m writing this letter in the hopes that someday, someone like me will find it.

I’m not going to debate abortion.  I’m not writing this to shame anyone who has chosen an abortion, or to try to convince people to change their political position.  No.  That’s not what this is about.  

This is just a letter from one mom to another.

Dear mom to be,

I was you once.  Long ago on a college campus in Iowa when the leaves were just beginning to change from green to gold to red.  I remember the smell of the leaves that day, because my sense of smell, like everything else, was heightened.  And not in a good way.  Everything smelled awful to me…food, perfume, smoke, even my own strawberry shampoo.  And those smells made me throw up…a lot.  I didn’t know it yet, but it was because my hormones were raging.  I was pregnant.  I was also unmarried, clueless, and probably pretty irresponsible.

But the smell of the leaves did not bother me that day.  The wind was crisp, the world around me was gold and red, and I was invincible.

And then I wasn’t.

Just two little lines on a test stick…..two little lines that changed my world forever.

I know what you are feeling.  A fear that rises up inside you like a cold winter wind.  It inches through every crevice of your body and settles into your heart where it churns violently.  Regular pregnant women…those who conceive in marriage and who are met with hugs of joy when those two little lines appear…those pregnant women know nothing of the fear that we feel. 

Everything that you have planned in your life up until now seems meaningless.  Everything you have planned for the future…that feels meaningless too.  The fear and the worry that are consuming you will wrap all those hopes and dreams into a black void that is untouchable.  Nothing anyone can say, (if you have mustered up the courage to tell someone), will make the fear subside.  It won’t even make it manageable.  The fear has become another live thing inside of you.  It is growing, alongside that little life in your belly, and soon, that fear may devour you to the point that the only conclusion you come to is that in order to get rid of one you have to get rid of both. 

Choose wisely.

I have a very happy ending.  But it was almost not so.  My then boyfriend and I almost sabotaged that happy ending.  It was a close call.  I almost chose to get rid of the wrong thing; thinking that the fear could not exist if the little life was removed from the equation.  That was almost my choice. 

But then, someone who I trusted very much pulled me aside.  She pulled me out from a bustling school building where I’d been working a part time college job….pulled me into the warm Autumn day with the gold and red leaves fluttering from the sky.  She grabbed my hands and said to me.

“You are stronger than fear.  Fear comes from within and it can be destroyed from within. I believe in you.”

It sounds so clichéd…so….cheesy.  I realize as you are reading this you must be thinking that you are wasting your time.  Please, don't stop yet.

Maybe you have no one who will support you through this.  Maybe the man who is the father of the little life inside you is out of the picture, or, maybe you don’t even want him in the picture.

Perhaps your family will disown you if you tell them the situation that you are in.  Or, maybe, you are just too ashamed to tell anyone…even though there are people in your life who would help you get through this. 

Maybe all of these things are true.  But listen to me now.  You are stronger than fear.

Choices are funny things.  It’s easy to believe that because you can make a choice, that doing so must be an act of free will.  But it’s not true.  A choice made out of fear is not free will.  That’s being driven by something other than your own wisdom. 

Remove the fear.  Close your eyes and think about your situation.  Now take the fear away.  If you had nothing to fear, what would your choice be? 

I am not going to tell you that you are wrong or right.  I’m not going to tell you that you are a terrible person if you choose what I did not.

But I will tell you this.  9 months from now, or maybe a little less, the fear will be gone.  Either you will have no fear because you make a choice now, to remove the little life inside you, or, you will make a choice to let it grow.  In either case, you will be looking at the world, 9 months from now, through a lens devoid of fear. 

At that point, the ramifications of the choice you make today will be clear. 

Being a parent isn’t always easy.  No, it is not.  Further, I can only imagine the heart ache of giving a child up for adoption…something that I have never experienced.  I don’t know you, or your situation.  And I don’t know that you will have a happy ending the way I did.  I am not writing this letter to tell you that your life is going to be easy and free of pain or worry.  No one can guarantee that. 

But I know this.  You are about to make a decision because of fear, and that is not a choice.

If you weren’t afraid, you wouldn’t be here.  If you were so sure that what you are going to do is the right thing, you wouldn’t have googled something, looking for answers…justification…or hope, that ultimately brought you to my blog.

Let me offer you this.

I chose to not let the fear overtake me.  It meant that, for a little while I had to live with it. Every day I had to live with the fear, push things around inside me to let it find a place to live..temporarily.   I feared the unknown for nine months.  I feared my own capabilities. I feared the reaction of the world.  I feared what my family and friends would think.  I owned that fear for nine months because nothing anyone can say or do will make that fear completely go away.  But I lived with it because I am strong.  And so are you.  How do I know that?  Because you are here.  You are already facing it.  You are already a great mom, whatever choice you make.

Let me pull you out into the warm autumn day, where a canopy of red and gold hang above your head.  A reminder that in a few months, when the winter winds give way, all will be green and beautiful and new again.  We just have a few dark days to get through...just a few.  They won’t last forever. 

Give me your hands.  You are stronger than fear.  Fear comes from within, and it can be destroyed from within. I believe in you.

It’s going to be ok. 

From,

A mom that's been there

Resources:

Immediate Help: http://www.lifecall.org/cpc.html

Pregnancy Housing: http://maternity-home.adoption.com/

Adoption Resources: http://www.americanadoptions.com/pregnant/article_view/article_id/3211

'Feeling Good About Ourselves 2014' is Just Around the Corner!

It's almost that time of year again!... Time to go shopping at Target, buy cheap toys, and prove to the world that we are kind and generous.

I got an email from my kids’ school the other day.  It was about identifying families who might want to apply for the holiday assistance program.  It seems early to be thinking about the holidays, but I suppose it takes a while for families to apply and be accepted, etc.

             

I’m sure that in a month or so, there will be fliers sent home that ask us to start thinking about helping to ‘adopt’ one of these families.  Every year when this happens I start to get really bleepin’ pissed.  I can’t help it.  And every year, I shout about how pissed I am to anyone who will listen…and it NEVER MAKES A DIFFERENCE.

             

 I actually blogged about this once a few years ago, and a lot of people read it.  But, not enough. And it certainly didn’t do anything to change this horrible system.  I’m going to try again this year.

               

So first, I’m going to put this declaration out there:  I know that people want to feel good about helping other people.  I get it.  I also get the fact that we want to teach our kids how to help others, and we get a high when we see them enjoying it.  I get it.  But it doesn't change the fact that what we are doing is ridiculously demeaning. 

So, at our school, and I’m pretty sure in thousands of other schools across the country, parents will get a list sent home in November.  The list will say something like this:

               

                                                             FAMILY 243

           Mom- Size M, Shoe size 8, wants: Mystery Fiction Novels, a blue sweater, socks, underwear..

                

           Dad- Size XL, Shoe size 12, Wants: Leather Work Gloves, A sweatshirt, socks, underwear

               

          Girl 8: Shoe size 1, Wants: A bike,  Craft Kits, A Disney princess doll, socks, underwear..

We'll get this list and  say, “Hey, I can buy some stuff!  And the kids can help me pick it out!  We will feel great about ourselves!”

I love that I bought the most expensive gift on the list because I get to call the PTA president and tell her to cross it off.  I am a hero.

                

And then we'll go shopping, pick it out, wrap it up in paper we picked out, let our kids put it in the box for Family 243 and we will feel so bleepin good about what we just did.  

We are bleeped up.

The most outrageous programs will even let the 'giver' put THEIR NAME on the gift tag.  I can't go so far as to say there is a special place in hell for these offenders, but let's just say it's a good thing I'm not in charge of the 'up' or 'down' department.

               

I wonder, if you can imagine for a moment, what MOM, ( Shoe size 8), feels like when she is watching her daughter open gifts on Christmas morning that she didn’t wrap.  In paper she didn’t pick out.  And she might not even have any bleepin’ idea what is actually IN the package.  I’m sure she feels grateful that her daughter has something to open, but can you imagine how truly undignified this whole scenario is?  

               

Think about your own Christmas. How many of you post on Facebook that you are “BUSY WRAPPING GIFTS!  GOT MY HOT COCOA AND MICHAEL BUBLE CHRISTMAS MUSIC ON!”  I’ll tell you how many…. BLEEPIN ALL OF YOU!  Because choosing gifts for the people you love and then lovingly wrapping those gifts, is part of the experience of Christmas.  You like to anticipate the moment that your kids will open up the gifts you so carefully chose.  When charities let you take the Christmas list for Family 243 and give you the power to choose presents and wrap them, they aren’t just indulging your need to give yourself a narcissistic high…they are TAKING AWAY DIGNITY from the family they are helping.

               

 Let me ask this question.  If charities decided that instead of actual gifts from an actual list, that they’d instead ask you for gift cards to a certain store, like Target or Walmart…would you still feel warm and fuzzy about donating?  If your answer is no, than you have proved my point.  If you only go shopping for these families so that you can get some ridiculous rush from picking out their gifts…then you aren’t doing it right.  If you’d rather give a Disney princess doll instead of dignity, then you need to reexamine your own priorities and world view.

I can't think of a witty caption here. Satire can only do so much.

               

  I’ve heard all the arguments.  “THEY’LL BUY BOOZE AND CIGARETTES”.   To which I say, “Shut the Bleep up”.  Do you realize the screening process these families go through?  And further, a shopping trip with a representative of the organization would be an easy fix to any potential problems.  Let mom and dad pick out gifts for the kids and each other.  Let them buy wrapping paper and bows.  Let them listen to Christmas music and imagine the delight on the kids’ faces when they see what mom and dad picked out.  LET THEM GIVE THEIR KIDS  A CHRISTMAS. 

              

I don’t understand how not everyone "gets" that this is about dignity.  I don’t understand why every year when I yell about this I am met with blank stares and frowns.  This isn’t about you.  Giving is never supposed to be about you.  It’s not supposed to make you get a high.  It’s supposed to be about giving someone else a high.

Kids are much smarter than we give them credit for.  We don't need to take away someone else's dignity to teach our kids about giving.  Talk to your kids about this.  Tell them that you want to help a mom or dad be able to go Christmas shopping for their kids.  Ask them which they think the mom or dad would rather experience; handing their child a gift you pick out or picking out those gifts themselves.  If you are of the Christian faith like my family is, read about how Christ wants us to go about our giving.  It is in this example that we will truly understand that giving secretly, is the right way to go:

Matthew 6:1-4

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.

2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

Far be it from me to try to put words in the mouth of Jesus, but I'm guessing that Jesus was really trying to teach us that giving is not giving if it takes away dignity.  Jesus never once, in all His ministries, treated the poor or the less fortunate with any less dignity than He did anyone else. You don't have to be Christian to understand that this example is one we should all follow.  

A better mom than me would know what to do to fix the fake giving that happens every year around the holidays.  I wish I was that mom.

Attention Moms: We Need to Get Over Ourselves

Right after this picture was taken this mom blogged about her very difficult life.

I want to talk about the types of stuff I see us  out there sharing.  By "us" I mean moms. The things on social media that we post gleefully without a second thought.  

Articles Like This

And This 

And Maybe Even This

I want you to know that I love you, and I value you, and...I'm here to stage an intervention.  

But Mrs. Drug, you say, you WRITE ON A BLOG WITH THE WORD MOM IN IT.  Yes, you’re right.  However, if you look closely, you will see that what I am really doing is being facetious. Because this blog implies that most people reading it are the type of people who are expecting advice on how to be a great mom.  I’m not going to provide that advice because clearly you are all better moms than me.  That’s great!

However, and that’s a BIG HOWEVER.  I am sick to death of reading about how honorable and selfless it is to be a stay at home mom, or conversely, how horribly difficult it is.  This is not to say that we can’t commiserate with each other…but let’s not do it so passive aggressively.  There’s a big difference between saying, “Has anyone else dealt with a kid who wiped their own bleep on the walls” and saying, “I’m here to tell you that I have chosen to walk the path of waging the battle of being a stay at home where, every day,  I am forced to deal with Bleep on the walls.  I hope you realize how much of a sacrifice I’m making by subjecting myself to this challenging season of life.”

I don’t really care that you decided to have kids, and then made the decision to stay home with them.  Yay for you.  I think it’s great.  But you aren’t a superhero.  We all make decisions.  Wiping bleep off the walls is part of making the decision to have kids to begin with.  I don’t need to make all my working mom friends feel like utter failures just because I decided to stay home and wipe bleep off the walls and they didn’t.  Further, I realize that me choosing to stay home with my kids has less to do with my high morality and world view than it does with the fact that Mr. Drug is my sugar daddy and lets me.  Hey guess what?  A lot of moms don’t have sugar daddies.  So bleepin bleep it up your bleep if you are trying to make the sugar daddyless moms feel like crap. 

"Being a stay at home mom is sooooo exhausting...last week I only had time to make one Pinterest project. Now I need some validation that I made the superior parenting choice."

And really, don’t tell me that’s not what you are doing…because you are.  It’s easy to see the reason why.  For a lot of years stay at home moms were made to feel less relevant or intelligent because that was their only option.  Now, it’s like a badge of honor that upper-middle class moms wear because they have sugar daddies.  Now I realize that there are stay at home moms who really scrape and sacrifice to be there.  That’s great too.  But it’s still not any greater than the choice any other mom makes.  And to take it one step further…I rarely see those moms blogging in a way that is meant to improve their social standing by making it seem like they are enduring the seventh circle of hell.

This (public domain image..I think) doctor just blogged about how hard it was to be a doctor, and that he had no idea it would be like this.  Then his nurse told him to stop whining, grow up and bleep slapped him.

We all have bad days…in whatever line of ‘work’ we have chosen to pursue.  Some days I think about the path I’ve chosen and wonder what it would be like if I’d chosen something else.  Other days I feel like I am really lucky because wow, I have an AWESOME life and boy do I feel bad for people who don’t.  I’m sure that once in a while everyone feels like having a pity party.  But one thing that I cannot stand is martyrs, followed closely by whiners.  You chose to go to school for 45 years to become a neurosurgeon who is one of three in the world who can operate a robot arm that transplants brains but you wish you were an artist who could paint all day and drink coffee in Paris?  Oh I’m sorry.  Now go oil that robotic arm. 

-Or-

Maybe you got .0005 hours of sleep last night because your 5 month old decided to have a wild frat party with your boobs from midnight to 6 am, and now you feel like blogging about how stay at home moms are so ignored and their plights deserve recognition by the United Nations?....um seriously darling, go take a nap when the baby finally decides to pass out…because you can do that.

We need validation sometimes.  Yes, we all do.  Maybe that means your boss pats you on the back after a big presentation, or, maybe that means your toddler counts to 25 with a pile of green beans, and you share that with your mom friends on facebook…complete with the video to prove it.  Yes!  Validation is good.  Maybe you need to vent…because we all need to do that.  Maybe that means going out to lunch with co-workers who can commiserate with you. Or maybe that means going out to lunch with other moms who have wiped bleep off the walls who will reassure you that you are not, in fact, raising a deviant who is headed to a career as a serial killer.  Yes!  Venting is good and healthy.

Here you go ladies.  Be sure to apply rosin liberally.

But, my darlings, you do not need to, nor are you doing the institution of motherhood any favors, by singing your own praises loudly, or conversely, throwing yourself a pity party of epic proportions by showing every working mother in the world that you have it soooo much worse and deserve the Nobel Peace Prize for rearing up the next, greatest generation. If you are an overworked, over laundried, over tired middle class mom who feels like she needs to make a point to every other mom out there....don't do it.  Put down the laptop, or the smart phone, or the tablet. There are moms in this world who legitimately have a tough time because of depression, post partem or otherwise, or medical conditions, or family issues, or what have you....don't mock them by throwing yourself a the world's biggest pity party.  Just be a mom.  Do it to the best of your ability. Love the good parts, and get through the tough parts.  Embrace the path you chose.   Laugh about the bleep that is too bleeped up to cry about.  Cry about the bleep that is too overwhelming to laugh about, and realize that we all choose our own paths, and we need to own them.  But more than anything else, be real.  Being real means admitting, sometimes, that you need to get over yourself.  It’s a good trait.  One that, most better moms than me, will model for their children as well.

I can hear the critics out there right now…MRS. DRUG YOU ARE BEING HYPOCRITICAL.  Am I?  If so, I’m sorry.  I never intend to make any mom feel like they are less relevant than me.  If anything, I try to show them that no matter what they think of themselves, they are probably a better mom than I am.   Because we all know that I don’t have it together.  And it’s not because it’s so hard being a stay at home mom…it’s because I’m just not that organized.  Yeah, it’s tiring getting up with babies or toddlers in the night..or fixing three meals, or doing laundry.  But you know what?  LIFE IS TIRING. And you know what else?  I got to go out to lunch today where I was able to commiserate with a couple of my mom friends about kids, husbands, and life…and then I got to go home, where I could have taken a nap.  Because, dang, I’m a stay at home mom.  And it’s pretty awesome.

Let me say it again.  LIFE IS TIRING.  The fact that we gave birth doesn’t make our tiring any more relevant than anyone else’s.  SO WE NEED TO GET OVER OURSELVES.  We need to (sometimes) just be quiet and take our kids to Ballet or Violin or whatever activity they have next.  If you really want to make other moms feel better about their choices you can just tell them this.  You are a better mom than me.