Family values are a whole lot easier with money. Blah blah yippee for the Palin family for sticking to their family values, but their family is not the one I'm worried about. So their 17-year-old will soon be a mother. She'll have financial and emotional support and it'll be damn hard but she'll get through it - they'll make sure she gets through it.
But what about the 17-year-old who gets kicked out by her family when they find out, whose boyfriend high fives his buddies because he's proven he's potent and has his eye on the hot chick on the next block, and who has no idea how she'll finish school or support herself and her baby?
What about the 44 year old who finds out she's carrying a baby with a fatal genetic defect? While I realize Sarah Palin could have made a different choice with her pregnancy, many kids with Downs live and live well. She'd make a woman carry a baby to term, even knowing that that child will die shortly after birth. She doesn't support exceptions in cases of rape or incest or to protect the health of the mother.
I'm fiercely pro-choice, in case you couldn't tell. Sounds funny when you know how desperately I want a baby. The idea of a woman making that choice makes my heart sink, but I can't make it for her. I can't tell her that no matter what, she can't control what goes on inside your own body. I don't believe that the rights of the fetus trump the rights of the mother immediately after conception. And I don't believe I can tell someone that she now has to be an incubator when she doesn't want to.
We need to make this choice easier for women - we need to weight the question on the side of life. We need affordable day care, education possibilities, paternal accountability, and psychological care for any woman who needs it. So many of the women who end up in a clinic are between the cliched rock and hard place. What if they were between said rock and a memory foam pillow? Which way would she lean? See what I'm saying?
Have I mentioned yet that we've started again? I'm on day #5 of the stupidly ironic birth control pills and can start the joys and night sweats of forced menopause on Sept 11th. And as annoying as the side effects are, I'm so glad to be moving forward... a friend who knows about the IVF and miscarriage just announced that she's 15 weeks pregnant. She knew as I was confiding in her while still bleeding, and I truly thank her for not telling me then.
I left her house dazed and in tears and went home to an argument with Martin who was too freaked out over our impending home purchase to realize that I needed some comfort. Her news didn't interest him. He didn't get that it interested me very, very much. So we had a bad day.
This home purchase is a whole 'nother basket of crap. (That sounds like the Martha Stewart version of the flaming-bag-of-dog-poop prank, topped with a tasteful gingham bow.) The bank has been too optimistic with their time estimates, so we may have to move our belongings to a storage facility and us into a hotel at the end of the month if the money doesn't come through in time.
Oh, did I mention that my mother is coming to visit? The very same maternal figure who knows nothing about our IVF or miscarriage yet will be here while I'm injecting myself with serious mood-altering drugs that make me twist my face and do the ugly cry at the slightest unhappy thought? Yes, she'll be arriving during the forced menopause stage and will stay through the move and stimulation phase, which means she may also need to be installed in a hotel. It's getting better and better.
I'm somewhat relieved to have to tell her about the IVF (which I'll do after she has arrived). I'm hoping that I might get a little TLC that Martin seems not to be able to give at this moment. He's a good guy and he's worried about me, but he can fly into all-about-me panic mode (many mortgage snafus are not helping my cause) and let's be honest, he's a guy. If I don't tell him specifically that I need something from him, I probably won't get it.
Well. Moving forward. Not feeling so optimistic at the moment, but early days and yadda yadda.
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