The following is printed on the wall at my son's high school:


Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realise we cannot eat money.
~Cree Indian Proverb


I just thought it was appropriate for our times.

I know my story is long...very long. If you read to the end, I promise to entertain and educate. If not, suffice it to say that if abortion had been illegal I could be, at best, unable to have borne children, and at worst, dead. If abortion BECOMES illegal, my daughter will suffer.

-------------My Story------------------------

I have a balanced chromosome translocation. Without going into too much detail, it means that a piece of one chromosome broke off and traded places with a piece of another that also broke off. And it didn't just "happen" to me. I inherited it from one of my parents, probably my dad. For purposes of procreation, this means that with any pregnancy, I have way more than the normal risk of miscarriage. My risk is 50% over and above the normal 20% risk. So, not surprisingly, my first four pregnancies (that I knew about) ended in miscarriage. And it wasn't until after the third that we figured out what was going on.

Fortunately I had a GREAT doc. When we discovered the first miscarriage at just over 10 weeks, called a "missed" abortion ("abortion" being the medical term for miscarriage), because while the fetus was dead and all of my symptoms had gone away (I thought I was just lucky), I had not begun to bleed. I began to cry on the table during the sonogram when they couldn't find the heartbeat. My doc inserted one of those seaweed sticks that would open my cervix so I could bleed. Then he invited me, sobbing, into his office where he explained a little more about what was happening. He then gave me a big, tender bear hug, and sent me out the back way through his office so that I didn't have to walk past all of the pregnant women in the lobby.

Because I was so far along, it was pretty imperative that I have a D&C to make sure all of the tissue was expelled. Otherwise, infection was too likely, and an infection could have scarred me to the point that I would NEVER be able to conceive, much less deliver a healthy baby. It could also kill me.

After two more miscarriages, one of them also requiring a D&C, my doc finally found an infertility specialist to send me to. She was very methodical, if a little on the nutty side. She talked a lot. She once kept me on the phone for about thirty minutes, the phone I was borrowing from the diner where my husband and I were eating (this was slightly pre-cell-phone). But she was the one who sent my husband and me to a geneticist.

About this time my brother and sister-in-law began having miscarriages also. With that information and some other info about my extended family, the geneticist told us that it sounded like, if there was a genetic problem at all, it was likely a balanced translocation. After about three months of waiting, we got the news that that was exactly what was going on. We even got a picture of the chromosomes. Kinda' cool in a nerdy sort of way. My brother didn't bother being tested. We just assume that he has the same thing I do. I felt so sorry for him, because it was his wife who was suffering the most, at least physically, and he felt it was all his fault. It broke my heart.

Armed with this information, we made a consultation appointment with one of the most famous, well-respected, fertility specialists in the country. Sitting in the conference room at his Denver office, I couldn't help crying as we told him our story. He was used to it, and was very patient. His advice was to take fertility drugs. We could start with Chlomid, commonly referred to as "PMS in a bottle," and move up the complexity scale on drugs if we needed to. The theory was that if we conceived more than one pregnancy (i.e. twins or triplets or more), very common on fertility drugs, there was a much greater likelihood that at least one of them would "take". The next year or so was filled with Chlomid and other drugs, well-timed sex, and a whole lot of tears.

During one particularly frustrating month, we took our medication to another of my brothers's house in Arlington Texas. By now I was on Metrodine (sp?) as the Chlomid had made me "hyper-ovulate" and develop a cyst. My husband had to inject the drug into me, and the drug had to be kept refrigerated. Well, my husband had a cold, my brother's guest-room bed was so squeaky that having sex on it was out of the question--they would have heard us in Dallas--so any possible sex would have to be on the floor, and THIS is when I decided to ovulate. Needless to say, we didn't conceive that month, and had to go get another month's worth of Metrodine for another $1000, and try again in January.

I had one more abortion, this one also requiring a D&C. Fortunately, for this one, they put me under completely so that they could also do a laparoscopy and clean out any possible endometriosis. By this time I had joined a support group for women with infertility issues. The big difference between them and me was that at least I had a diagnosis. All of the other women in the group faced "unexplained" infertility. I felt bad for them. They felt bad for me. It was a great group, and I still exchange Christmas cards with a couple of them. But we largely sat around crying for each other and for ourselves.

We visited my brother and sister-in-law in Austin that year. One night out at my favorite pizza-place in the world, Conan's Pizza, only in Austin, we sat around commiserating about our problems conceiving. My brother broke out with "Have you guys had to try to have sex at {our other brother's} house? The damn bed is so squeaky you have to do it on the floor!" My husband and I burst out laughing.

When I got pregnant again, i braced myself for another miscarriage. My nutty Doctor, to whom I will always be grateful, had me get blood drawn every three days during the first trimester so she could monitor the hormones and make sure i didn't need a supplement. When the HCG (Human Growth Hormone) failed to increase at one point, I was positive I would have another miscarriage. But lo and behold, the HCG began to rise again. We think that I had indeed conceived two pregnancies, but one of them wasn't viable. At fifteen weeks I had an amniocentesis procedure to check on the chromosomes. Not until we got the results--I was almost twenty weeks along--did we find out for sure. It was a boy, and he had no translocation. I balled.

My son Andy was born on June 13, 1996. He's fifteen now.

Jim and I decided that we would continue to try to conceive again, but without the drugs. If it didn't happen, Andy would be an only child, and that would be fine.

But we really wanted one more child. I had another miscarriage and another D&C. We almost gave up. But when I got pregnant again, and made it to the fifteenth week, we went in for amniocentesis again. This time the results showed that I was carrying a baby girl. She would be fine, but her chromosome mapping showed that she, too, has the balanced translocation, meaning she will have the same difficulty with pregnancy that I and her aunt and uncle have had. She was our miracle baby. She's thirteen now, and the absolute light of our lives along with her brother.

About a year after Leejay (short for Natalie Jane, named after both of her grandmothers) was born, I got pregnant one last time. When I went in for my seven-week appointment, they did the first sonogram. They couldn't' find a heartbeat. I began to cry, but they assured me that it was still early and hearing the heartbeat is not always possible that early. I told them that I had noticed some of my symptoms going away, so I knew. But still they assured me that every thing was probably fine. But I knew.

When I began to bleed, I called the doc--not the nutty one; a different OB. She first apologized profusely for not comforting me during the appointment. I certainly did not hold a grudge. She was only doing what her training dictated. She said I was right on the border of needing a D&C, as opposed to just "letting" myself expel all of the blood and tissue. D&C's are no fun. They are painful and emotionally draining. I had never been this far along without a D&C, but I decided to try it. I told her I would prefer not to have the procedure this time.

BIG MISTAKE. As painful as the D&C is, the miscarriage was ten times more so. I woke up in the middle of the night with horrible cramps. I went into the bathroom, but didn't quite make it to the toilet before all of the blood and tissue began to come out. I knew I would need my husband to watch the kids the next day, so I let him sleep. My pelvis cramping, crying uncontrollably, my nightgown stained with blood and tears, I got down on my knees and cleaned up all of the blood and expelled tissue off the floor. Then I put in two maxi-pads, and went back to bed. I didn't sleep at all that night.

After we mourned a bit for the last miscarriage, Jim and I sat down and talked seriously. I told him I would love to have another child, but it was just too painful to go through another miscarry, another D&C, another roller coaster of emotions. I wanted to enjoy my two beautiful children without having to worry about another pregnancy. He was so relieved. We actually cried together, but decided that I would go on the pill, and we would be happy with what we had. And we are. Very.

A year later my sister-in-law gave birth to a healthy boy. Two years later they had a girl. Then they, too, stopped. My sister-in-law had had TEN miscarriages, and I don't know how many D&C's, although I do know there was at least one.

Two of my friends from the support group also began to conceive. One of them now has two kids, the other has four. I'm still in touch with both of them.

My daughter knows about her translocation. She already talks about the possibility of adopting children. She's so smart and so brave, a true inspiration to me.

Without access to the "abortions" that I had, it is very likely that I never would have been able to have children. In fact, I could have died had I developed an infection from unexpelled tissue. In case you lost count, I had four D&C's, and probably should have had a fifth. They are, as I have said, no fun. But I am very grateful that the option was open to me.

It makes me very angry when people talk about abortion, and just assume that everyone who has one is a fifteen-year-old who wants to fit into her prom dress. Never mind that fifteen-year-olds generally have no business bearing children.

In Colorado we have defeated two "personhood" bills. I hope they are gone for good, but the one in Mississippi worries me a lot. If abortion becomes illegal again, my daughter will suffer for it. And it pisses me off that people want to subject her to that suffering.

If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading.

From one old Codger to another, I'm also going to send this to my extended family and insist that if they haven't already purchased something, that nothing they get me or my immediate family come from a Chinese sweat shop.

Another idea:

www. MadeInUSAForever.com

And I know there are some other sites that sell only American-made goods. I mention this one, because they happen to sell my book, "U.S. State Names" (which, by the way, makes a great gift).



Also, ordering stuff mail-order helps out the post office which, I know, doesn't suffer during the holidays, but still...

And if you use FedEx or UPS or your favorite delivery service, you can have a tip or gift ready for delivery man. I love our FedEx guy.

Just a few thoughts.

From the rest of the blog (I bolded some parts for emphasis):



He just doesn't get it that the "crowd" didn't want to cause trouble. Only HE did.



The DEFINITION of "infiltrator". And he ADMITS it so shamelessly.



It never occurs to him that he was the only one who WANTED to get inside the building. He was the only one who WANTED to "confront authority."


It's only "disruptive" because people like him are making it so in order to "get a story".

"Amanda Knox boards flight"
"Amanda Knox lands in Seattle"
"Amanda Knox eats egg and toast for breakfast"
"Amanda Knox takes a dump"
"Amanda Knox 'best shit in three years'"
"Amanda Knox..."

AAaaaarrrrgghhhh!!!!

Amanda Knox again, it will be too soon.

I keep checking CNN's website to see if they'll start to cover the OWS (Occupy Wall Street) goings on. (Yeah, I know. I should know better.) But they've had wall-to-wall Amanda Knox for about three days now. Is that really the story Americans want to read about? Ggggrrrrr!





edited to correct TLA

My family had a marvelous vacation in the UK this summer. We stayed for a few days at a very touristy hotel with lots of international guests.

One morning my kids and I were eating breakfast at the hotel buffet, and having a lively discussion about religion. There was a couple sitting next to us who I could tell were, if not listening, at least hearing our conversation because they were close enough and they weren't talking to each other much.

Now if you've every read my journal you know that my children (now 13 and 15) tend toward Atheism, but still question, study and debate issues of religion. My daughter is a recent convert to the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and my son simply likes to study different world religions, and revels opportunities to debate them.

Well, at one point in the conversation my daughter began a sentence, in an almost-inappropriately loud voice, with "The reason I'm an atheist is because..." and I don't even remember the rest of the sentence. I could feel more than see some raised eyebrows at the next table.

A few minutes later I asked my daughter to get me a drink of water from the buffet station about five feet behind her. When she returned to the table, my son and I noticed that the woman who had been at the next table stopped Natalie to talk to her.

When she got back, my son and I were practically crawling over the table to ask, "What'd she say? What'd she say!?"

"Well," my daughter answered, "I noticed she was wearing a cross on a chain around her neck, so I figured she was Christian. She just told me that God has performed many miracles in her life, so she knows that he is real. She just encouraged me to keep an opened mind about it." Bless my daughter's heart (so to speak) she just nodded politely, and came back to the table. I couldn't decide whether to be annoyed at the woman for confronting my daughter (after all, her admonition to "keep an open mind" was pretty innocuous), or just proud that Natalie handled it so well.

Before I could get another word out, my son fumed, "Mom! Next time let ME get you a glass of water!"

If there is a clearinghouse website where I can find out if a particular organization is truly "bipartisan" or unbiased? Of course, all of them claim to be, but unless they're really famous (Heritage Foundation, Independence Institute, e.g.) it's hard to tell. I kind of figure that if they hide their funders and board of directors, they're probably biased, and most likely biased toward the right.

There was a comment on a letter to the editor in my local newspaper that referenced a bunch of info and a chart. The info claimed as its source something called "The Tax Foundation" at www.taxfoundation.org . The chart used a site called "www.usgovernmentspending.com " which is pretty obviously a tea-bagger site.

But the chart looked suspicious to me, and here's why: My 15-year-old son just got finished creating a similar (though not identical) chart (yes, he does things like that for fun) but got VERY different results. I think he got his info from the iRS or the CBO, but I'm not sure. I've asked him to mail it to me, and when he does I'll post it here. It's a cool chart.

Anyway, I'm suspicious that the "Tax Foundation" "and the usgovernmentspending site are right-wing producers of data for Heritage and Independence and the like, and thus unreliable. Does anyone know if that's correct?


Link to the comment: http://www.dailycamera.com/letters/ci_1886... (scroll down to the comments by "123commonsense".

When the headline on their FRONT PAGE says "Why Muslims are still mad at America" I have to believe that CNN is just about as stupid they can get. This kind of shit does not help matters. What the hell are they thinking?

(The following URL is to the story, not the front page, because I'm sure they'll update their front page eventually. But this is the story that is there right now, and it pissed me off.)


http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/20...

Every time I see one of these teabagging morons spewing their contempt for Obama, and blaming him for the mess that W got us into, I seriously want to go throw up. It makes me nauseous to listen to them. I honestly don't think I can keep food down every time I hear one of them say "job creators" or talk about wanting to cut "entitlement" programs. Barf!!!! Puke!!! Aaarrgghhh!

The silver lining: I could lose some weight this way!

My son is 15, and very politically aware. My daughter is 13, and likes to spar verbally with her brother. Both tend toward atheism because that's what their parents are, but my son likes to study different religions, and my daughter has recently become a devout follower of the Church of the Great Spaghetti Monster.

Last night, we had the following exchange that I found very entertaining. I hope you do as well:


Andy: When was the first English colony in North America?

Mom: Jamestown. 1603.

Andy: You mean they knew about the Americas but didn't settle them until a hundred years later?

Natalie: I can just see kids five hundred years from now saying, "You mean they knew about the moon, but didn't settle it until a hundred years later?"

Andy: Why would we want to settle the moon?

Natalie and Mom: Why did they want to settle the Americas?

Andy: Religious persecu… Ooooohhh.

I love my family.

So, England,

I'm writing to sort of apologize for that whole revolution thing. What were we thinking?

Any country that can at least TRY to bring down the evil empire of Rupert Murdoch AND have universal healthcare AND really cool weddings tells me that we rebels still have a lot to learn from Mother England. Maybe we were a little hasty. I mean taxation without representation is nothing compared to the pickle that we've gotten ourselves into now:

We still pay taxes, but we manage to elect as our representatives only the stupidest and most crooked among us.

We got rid of slavery over a century ago, but still manage to keep our minorities in abject poverty.

We build cars with TV's and seat warmers, but can't manage to make them run on more than about six miles to the gallon. (oops, I forgot. About eight kilometers per liter.)

We get attacked in a brutal act of terrorism, and then invade the wrong country.

We spend mega bazillions of our dollars on our military, and almost nothing on educating our children.

We fill our prisons with pot smokers, and allow child murderers to go free.

Okay, we've done a few things right. I mean, we did produce Jackson Browne and Krispy Kreme. But in so many ways you have managed to outdo us:

You have Sir Sean Connery. We have Tom Cruise.

You have Doctor Who. We have Two and Half Men.

You have "holidays" in France. We have Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale.

You have centuries-old castles and palaces. We have scrape-offs and pop-tops and prairie mansions.

You gave the world the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Led Zeppelin. We gave the world the Backstreet Boys and Lady Gaga.

Soooo...How about taking us back? I could learn to eat fish and chips. I could even learn to have a monarch now that they've stopped lopping off heads and stuff. Would I have to say "lift" and "flat" and "telly"?

When Anthony Weiner was suspected of--and then confessed to--tweeting his penis (a phrase which really has no business existing in the English language), CNN couldn't get enough of it. They had daily updates on how "some in Congress" were demanding that he resign and about how "even his own party" was asking for his resignation. This went on day after day, often as the lead story with with the obligatory unflattering photo of Weiner standing in front of a camera being asked about the infamous tweet. To me it appeared that this titillating story about a harmless and LEGAL act of stupidity by easily one of the best congressmen in the House, rose to the level of obsession for the gargantuan "news" agency. And of course, as CNN goes, so goes the rest of what passes for media in this country.

Now, fast forward a couple of weeks to the day on which easily one of the stupidest and most linguistically challenged congresswomen in that same House, announces her bid for president by equating herself with a notorious serial killer. Michelle Bachmann apparently didn't realize that she shared a hometown with John Wayne Gacy, and not with Marion Morrison, aka John Wayne, aka The Duke, famous stetson-wearing film cowboy, and he of the most engaging drawl in the English language--the language that Ms. Bachmann can't seem to master.

Ms. Bachmann's defenders (a heavy load to shoulder, indeed) will, I'm sure, point out that it was an easy mistake. After all, she only had HER WHOLE LIFE to educate herself about the difference between the two similarly-named men. One hailed from nearby Winterset, Iowa, and spent his film career entertaining audiences with his portrayal of manly men doing manly things on horses, in saloons, and in World War II combat, being held up as a role model for young men with his tales of heroism and epic cowboyness. The other John Wayne, the one who can be distinguished from the film star by the prominent "Gacy" at the end of his name, didn't so much entertain young men with heroism so much as rape and kill them.

So, yeah, it's an easy mistake. For instance, I too share a hometown with a famous Hollywood movie star. But wouldn't it be confusing for me if it turned out that after forty-seven years of believing that I hailed from the same town as a chick flick hearththrob, Matthew McConaughey GACY turned out to be a serial rapist and murderer. I'm sure you'd all understand.

CNN apparently understands. On the day that Michelle Bachmann made this perfectly understandable error, there was not a peep--nor a tweet--about it on their front page. They did, to their dubious credit, print a short blurb about it in their "Ticker," helpfully pointing out that Marion Morrison's parents DID live in Waterloo for a few years. So...you know...there.

But the larger story about Bachmann which ran on the front page of the CNN website, accompanied by a professional campaign photo, was not about Bachmann's "gaffe". No, it was a fluff piece posing the ever-so-pressing question, "Is Michelle Bachmann an evangelical feminist?" Oxymoron, anyone?

The article begins by comparing the congresswoman to Hilary Clinton...HILARY CLINTON!!!! A woman whose feminist credibility is as well-established as her intelligence, even if she is a lawyer. I'm sure the temptation to compare the two women was strong for an organization that, to provide themselves with some feminist gravitas, holds up none-other than that iconic bra-burner, Amber Lyon. (No offense intended to Ms. Lyon. She is perfectly acceptable eye-candy for those neanderthal channel-surfers who can't afford REAL porn. And unlike Ms. Bachmann, she can at least read.) But let me go on record here...Besides a few generally anatomical similarities, all decidedly south of the brain, Hilary Clinton and Michelle Bachmann have nothing in common. Nothing.

The fluff piece goes on to try to answer the question, "Is Michelle Bachman an evangelical feminist?" I think a more interesting question might be, "Where the hell does CNN get off asking stupid questions like that?" Michelle Bachmann is no more a feminist than I am a pine cone.

But I digress. My point in all of this is that CNN has, in these two emblematic stories, defined itself with blinding clarity: A democrat tweets his penis and gets drummed out of the U.S. Congress. A right-wing moron confuses a famous cowboy with a serial rapist and murderer, and she gets held up as an example for bible-thumping bra-burners to emulate. The next time anyone tries to convince me that CNN is "liberal media," I think I'll throw up.

 
All the Rethugs were saying things like, "It's not about the sex, it's about the lying." I just laughed my ass off every time one of them would say such things. What did they expect? "Yeah, I've been shtooping an intern in the Oval office. And all that stuff about wagging my weenie at Paula Jones and screwing Gennifer with a "G", that was all true. Here, flog me. I resign in shame." Right. If he HADN'T lied about it I would have been concerned for his mental competency.

The difference between the Rethugs and the Dems in these situations is the HYPOCRISY. R's routinely run their campaigns on "family values" and honesty and respect.

Frankly, I don't give a crap if a Congressperson is diddling someone besides his/her spouse, tweeting his penis, or waving his johnson around, as long as he/she is not breaking the law, and as long as the tweet-ee or wave-ee is not being harmed or offended. And that goes for all of them, regardless of party. But when they start calling for the resignation of a colleague, they sure as hell better make certain that their own schlong hasn't been wandering about.

Just my two cents.

 
And I'm not ashamed to say it! (Even if it does sound a little perverted.)