Pregnant Purging 2

I'm afraid that this will end up being quite long, so I'd like to apologize from the very beginning.  I will be using some medical terms/abbreviations. but I'll make certain that for any of the possible lesser known ones that I explain what it is first. 

This is a post to relay my current situation in my pregnancy to family and friends, as I don't have the emotional strength or patience to explain it multiple times. We have plans tonight for dinner, and I don't want to sit in the middle of a restaurant that I've been excited to try out, surrounded by my in-laws, bawling my eyes out between profanity laden Tourettes-like tirades, as I try to explain why every doctor that's been treating me seems like they don't know their ass from a hole in the ground.

On October 19th I went to see my obstetrician (OB), the doctor who's been treating me since sometime in May for my pregnancy.  I was roughly 28 weeks along at that time and the doctor stated that my "fundal height" was off.  Fundal height is the measurement of a pregnant woman's stomach from her pelvis to the top of her uterus while she is laying down.  Once a woman is in her second trimester, for every week pregnant she is, her fundal height should be that many inches.  Mine had fallen short by a few inches so he asked that I go to the hospital to have a Biophysical Profile (BPP), a sonogram or ultrasound if you will, done.  So I did so and the hospital released me and sent my results for my doctor to review.

My doctor called me back to the hospital, stating that my Amniotic Fluid Index (AFI) appeared low and that he'd like to have it rechecked.  Amniotic fluid is the liquid that the baby floats in while they're inside of the uterus.  After twenty weeks the baby begins producing this fluid on her own, and continues to do so by cycling it through herself while she practices swallowing and breathing and then processes it through her body, to be released as urine.  Low fluid can mean that the mother is leaking or that the baby's kidneys, etc are not functioning properly, so this is a pretty serious concern.  I went back again and they re-did the BPP to recheck the AFI.  It again came out low.  At this time I wasn't certain how they measured it or what the measurement scale was so I didn't ask what the numbers were.  The baby looked healthy and I wasn't leaking fluid. 

Their systems find "pockets" of fluid around the baby and measure it in centimeters.  They grid the uterus into four quadrants and try to find the largest pocket that they can that doesn't have any part of the baby in it what so ever.  They find the average between those four measurements and that's the AFI.  It's said that the average AFI is eight through twenty-two, and that low is considered anything five and under.  Six and seven are concerning and should be monitored. 

So I was admitted into the hospital.  They hooked me up to an IV over night and asked that I drink two liters of water to hydrate me. Some studies show that hydrating the mother can help with this.  I drink nothing but water all day long so I doubted that I was actually dehydrated but I understood their reasoning.  After a long night and an expensive stay, they re-did my BPP and discovered that my AFI was back up.  A doctor came in, apologized for the misunderstanding and stated that obviously my BPPs from the day before must have all been wrong and that they're sending me home.  Then what was the point of the IV and the water?  Didn't that bring my AFI back up?  I immediately dismissed this doctor's apology and assumed that the IV had helped and that he hadn't bothered to really look at my charts at all.

My OB set me up with an appointment with a Maternal-Fetal Medicine (MFM) office for a follow up.  He wanted them to do a follow-up BPP on me to check my levels again that Monday (October 22).  I agreed and went to the appointment.  My AFI was in the sevens and they wanted to keep seeing me on a weekly basis to monitor my AFI.  But they also wanted me to get Non-Stress Tests (NST) twice a week and begin seeing my OB once a week as well.  A NST is when they hook a mother up to a monitor that both tracks the baby's heartbeat and the mother's contractions.  My OBs office is a part of a family practice and he doesn't have the equipment to do BPPs or NSTs in his office so I have to go to other offices or the hospital to get this done.  If I go to the hospital, after my insurance, a simple NST is $90 each and I'm not certain how much a BPP is.  There was no way that I could afford to go the next eleven weeks having two NSTs done a week, so the MFM office agreed to see me twice a week and soon I had too many doctor's appointments and not enough money or transportation to get to them.  I saw my OB and the MFM doctor for an NST on Tuedays and then I saw the MFM doctor on Fridays for a NST & BPP.

This went on for weeks and weeks and my employer happily drug their feet on completing my schedule change, happily lapping up my FMLA that was supposed to be for spending with my newborn baby.  They nitpicked every fax my doctor sent in and even forwarded it to the wrong department at times.  They become frustrated with how "unreliable" I'm becoming.  I couldn't sleep, I began having anxiety and started seeing a counselor at my OBs office so that added another appointment to my Tuesday regimen.  Between my job, the gauntlet of endless appointments, insomnia, and my failed attempts at being a wife and mother to my two other children, I felt like I was stretching my self too thin and I was falling apart. 

It got to the point where every time I went to see the MFM office they would ask me why I was still coming to them for treatment and not going to the hospital.  Every single time I would remind them that I see them weekly by their own orders and I get my NSTs there due to insurance/finance reasons.  Can you imagine having to remind a doctor why you're seeing them twice a week every single time you went?  I began to feel un-welcomed in their office.  The reason why they wanted me to begin my treatments at the hospital were understandable.  I am supposed to have the baby at Community East, but I was seeing the MFM doctors at Community North.  If the MFM office were to discover an issue that would need immediate attention I would have to be admitted to North, but my doctor only covers East.  I understood this, but since no one could give me any other options about receiving my BPP and NSTs at an office related to East that would be a $25 copay as opposed to a deductible, I resigned myself to having to repeat my situation twice a week to a well meaning doctor's office with the attention span of Dori from Finding Nemo.

On 12/14 I attended my appointment at the MFM office for my BPP & NST as usual for Fridays.  In order for this next part to make sense, allow me to explain how this appointment usually goes.  When I first arrive I get my BPP done by a nurse/sonogram tech, after they've completed it they have the doctor look over it.  The doctor comes in and then redoes the BPP and rechecks the nurse/sonogram tech's results.  So I get two BPPs from two different people.  I then sit in a chair for twenty to thirty minutes on the NST machine.  The MFM office has two different doctors.  As much as I would love to name names, I'll just stick with MFM Dr #1 and MFM Dr #2 to keep it simple and discreet.  So on 12/07 I receive my first BPP from a very chatty nurse.  She leaves the room and MFM Dr #1 comes back and tells me that my AFI was reading at 4.2 and that I needed to immediately go to East.  She did not re-do my BPP as per normal.  She didn't want me to get on the NST, she just wanted me to go straight to East.

At this point I have read a lot about low amniotic fluid complications and even though I'm only thirty-five weeks along, I understand that with an AFI under five that they could possibly be inducing labor.  I make my husband stop on the way to the hospital so that I can get something to eat, just in case.  We get to the hospital and I'm placed in an actually delivery room, not just a triage room.  Their game plan this time is to just have me hang out for twenty-four hours on the NST machine and drink lots of water.  They're not going to put me on an IV.  No one is going to do another BPP to double check.  They aren't going to do anything at all like they did on my October 19th visit.  But, damn it, they're going to put the IV stint and lock in my hand and make me sleep with it in, just in case.  Sleep being the optimal word here, because nothing says a good night's sleep like being strapped to a NST machine while nurses constantly come in to re-adjust the sensors on your belly, while you're trying not to bump, touch, or rip out the useless needle stuck in your hand.

The next day I wait for my BPP to be re-done.  My back hurts.  I have chronic GERD (an upper digestive problem that makes indigestion and heartburn look like fun) and I'm in my third trimester of pregnancy, but I've had to stay in bed, in a mostly laid back position so that they could keep the baby on the monitor, for almost twenty four hours.  The best the hospital can give me is Pepcid, which is like pissing on a forest fire.  It doesn't do much of anything.  They lose my BPP orders and have to resubmit them.  Finally, after three hours of waiting, they do my BPP and lo and behold my AFI is back into sixes.  No IV this time, just water.  They're sending me home.  They take their time doing this as well.  Once they finally release me I have the worst headache ever, my eyes are light sensitive and I feel like I'm going to throw up.

I refuse to miss my husband's family's Christmas party that night and despite feeling like a migraine is coming on I attend it.  By the time we get home that night I'm positive that it's a migraine slowly setting in.  But it's not.  It's a bad headache, yes, but my GERD comes in and kicks the crap out of me all night.  I end up sleeping on the couch so that I am elevated, but also so I don't keep waking my husband up every time I leaped from the bed to go puke my brains out.  Great first night back from the hospital.

I'm angry over having to be admitted into the hospital.  I'm angry with how all of these visits have turned my life upside down.   We we're supposed to spend that weekend finishing up Christmas and baby stuff shopping, grocery shopping, getting my hair cut, wrapping presents and cleaning the house.  I take off Sunday from work to get the shopping mostly done.  I end up taking Monday off to wrap presents, clean the house, set up the bassinet.  I am still not sleeping well and it's beginning to become visibly apparent.

I see my OB as normal on Tuesday, 12/18.  He tells me that if we get another AFI reading under five that he's going to induce labor and that he would speak with me at my next visit, on 12/26, to finalize a date.  My OB's office tries to contact me several times the next day while I'm working but I'm stuck on the phone with customers and can't take his call.  Finally, on my first break I try to call back to see what it's about.  His nurse tells me that the doctor himself has been trying to reach me and that he would have to call me back, but because he's seeing patients she can't schedule an exact time.  I'm concerned about what he would be calling me about when I just saw him the day before.  If I log back into work I could be playing telephone tag for infinity, so I opt to wait.  Over an hour later he calls me back and he just had some general questions about inducing.  He mentions that he spoke with the MFM office and they asked him why I was still seeing him.  I explain this to him and he states that he's going to call his sister office that is associated with East and see if they'll be able to do the NSTs and BPPs for me instead.  He states that he'll call me right back. By the time our conversation ends it's almost my lunch break time so I eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  My GERD acts up.  I can't talk on the phone like this, it's disgusting.  Nothing is making it better.  I try to wait it out.  I contact my supervisor and am told to just take the rest of the day off, in the coldest way possible.

So I do just that.  Again, that night I can't sleep.  I get up to get the kids off to school and my fourteen-year-old son makes certain that before he leaves that he reduces me to tears.  I'm an emotional wreck.  Completely and totally.  He hates that I'm pregnant, he's a selfish person and the baby is going to interfere with his little world.  When he sees me crying he doesn't know what to do.  He wasn't raised to be cruel and selfish, but he's a teenager and he's on the Autism Spectrum.  He's never seen me cry before, because I don't cry, crying accomplishes absolutely nothing.  Neither does anger, but at least I feel better after a good, long rant.  He ended up calling me from school and apologizing.  I reasoned that despite the fact that I don't think children should see their parents cry or despair, that perhaps this was a good thing.  It let him see how much his hatefulness hurts me.  Unfortunately the waterworks had started for the day and I spent the rest of it crying at everything and anything.  My job as a resolution supervisor for a major cellular company requires me to be the verbal punching bag for every piece of shit who's unhappy about an overage or an app that their kid downloaded (because it's easier to call your provider and verbally abuse their customer service agents then it is to take responsibility and punish your fucking kid and make them pay for it).  There was no way that I would survive a day at work.

I think it's safe to say that I'm no longer employed.

By 12/21 I still had not heard back from my OB about this supposed sister office so I went to MFM office as planned.  A nurse did my first BPP and stated that my AFI was in the 4s again.  MFM Doctor #2 saw me today and she came in and did the second BPP just to make certain and confirmed that it was in the 4s.  They were concerned that the baby wasn't very active and no amount of prodding my stomach would get her to wake up.  They did the NST and towards the end she started to perk up, so she was more than likely just very, very deep asleep.  MFM Doctor #2 decided that she didn't think that this warranted a hospital visit and instead insisted that I go to the hospital on Monday, Christmas Eve, for another NST.  Her office wasn't going to be opened again until the day after Christmas, so they couldn't do it.  I called my OBs office and got the information about the sister office myself.  I tried to set up an appointment with them but since my OB didn't treat at their office, his office had to be the one to contact them.  I had to convince MFM Dr #2 to do something to help me with this because she refused to call my OB or their sister office.  When I explained that I couldn't get in direct contact with my OB, she told me to press the button that says that I'm a doctor's office.  My OB had already left for the day, but the MFM office did end up assisting me with getting an appointment at the sister office for Monday morning.

My OB had given me his cellular number.  It was just in case I went into labor over this weekend since he was going to be out of town.  The number was at home.  I hadn't bothered to put it into my cellphone because I really didn't think that I would need it.  These inconsistencies bothered me and when I tried to tell his nurse of the AFI issue, she told me that she would "leave him a note".  I finally decided to call him.  My OB was very concerned with my AFI and stated that he needed to make a phone call regarding it and that he would call me right back.  This time he did and he told me to go to the hospital for induction.  So that's what I did.

The hospital was ready to receive me.  They put me in a room and immediately began discussing what the procedure was going to be like.  A doctor came in and saw me and told me that the MFM office had not put in any of the normal reports regarding my care today before they left the office, and that included my AFI.  They've been trying to get a hold of someone from that office about it, but they hadn't been able to so they would need to redo my BPP to get my AFI.  Over an hour later they finally redo my BPP and find that my AFI was in the nines.

I'm sent home.

I'm sent home after making all of the telephone calls and Facebook posts.  I'm sent home after telling my kids about it, and being treated like shit again by my son and being told to keep that "squalling bag of flesh" away from him, like our confrontation the day before had never happened. 

I sat in the hospital bed and cried.  I didn't cry because I wasn't having a baby today. I cried because I am so exhausted with all of these doctors visits and hospital stays and procedures and tests that really haven't amounted to anything.  I cried because I wanted to scream.  I've lost my job.  Not that I liked it, not that I even wanted to return to it, but because it was something that eased some of the financial stress off of my husband.  I cried because the whole thing is starting to feel like it's all in my head and that if my husband hadn't been with me at the last two MFM office visits and witnessed all of this, I'd start to really question my sanity.  I cried because between the doctors and my son, I feel like any and all possible joy of having this baby has been sapped away from me and now I'm just left in this emptiness that doesn't even feel like any of this is real.  I cried because if I did anything else I would probably have ended up in jail.

But I didn't cry for long, because crying never accomplishes anything.  I couldn't even let my husband comfort me, so I just shut down and iced over.  Didn't it occur to me that this may be hurting him as well?  I guess not.

I have cancelled all appointments at the MFM office.  I don't care anymore.  I don't believe in AFIs anymore.  I just want to be left alone.  I just want to try to find some joy in this pregnancy, my new baby, and the holidays, if my son will allow me to at all.  I will share my supposed induction date once it's set up, but I'm telling you all now that you shouldn't get your hopes up.  If I could tell all of these doctors to just go away and leave me alone, I would.  Every BPP and NST on this baby has shown that despite the fact that she's a deep sleeper and a bit chubby, she's a healthy and very active baby.  There is no problem, we're fine.  I just want these doctors to leave us alone.

I'd Like a Chicken Sandwich With Some First Amendment on the Side ... And Hold The Private Funding, Please.

      So, Dan Cathy, the CEO of Chick-fil-A is not a fan of same-sex marriage. This isn't big news at this point, everyone has heard about it and most have voiced their “opinions”, normally in the form of re-hashed and re-posted pictures filling up social media feeds. Did you notice that the word “opinions” was in quotes? Good, it'll make more sense in a moment.

      We (the vast majority of the people who will read my lowly little blog) live in the United States of America. While the majority of people complain about our government we tend to crowd around our patriotism a few times during the year whenever there's a possibility of fireworks and/or cook outs. It seems that a lot of people have forgotten what privileges being American grants us, all the while using these same privileges to their fullest.

      Now, you do not have to agree with me on any of this. It won't hurt my feelings if you take nothing away from this blog beyond the fact that I enjoy run on sentences, I'm not very good with punctuation, and that I'm mouthy. But at least hear me out.

      First off, I would like to say that I do support gay marriage. I also, however, support the first amendment'. You know, the one that says that we, as Americans, have freedom of speech and religion. This means that while I don't agree with Mr. Cathy's stance on same-sex marriage, I will not fault him for his beliefs and opinions. So while I see everyday people preaching about Chick-fil-A's intolerance they need to remember that the first amendment is a two way street. You have to tolerate other people's opinions and religious beliefs just like they're expected to tolerate yours.

Yep, that's George Washington, one of our Founding Fathers, facepalming at all of this.

 
      I was surprised when the mayor of Boston sent Mr. Cathy a letter requesting that he not bring his restaurant into Boston because of their conflicting beliefs. I was also surprised by the scathing Twitter updates from the Mayor of San Francisco stating that the restaurant chain could stay away from his town as well.

      I found it odd that Mr. Cathy would come out and directly say that he was opposed to same-sex marriage. I mean, what does that have to do with chicken and cows that can't spell? The only thing he actually said, in a nutshell, was that he believed and supported the idea of traditional family in the biblical sense. While he never came out and said “and by traditional I mean not gay”, I guess he really didn't need to, it was pretty self evident. This really shouldn't come as a shock coming from a company that is closed on Sundays, Easter and Christmas. The company has since issued a statement acknowledging that they should leave the “policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”

      However, they are still an Equal Opportunity Employer. They will not deny a customer service due to their sexual orientation. They do not have LGBT torture chambers in the back of their restaurants with trails of glitter and chicken nuggets leading back to them.

But if they did, I bet they'd use these little guys right here for the nuggets.

      I see so many people insisting that the company change their views. They're a privately owned business. If this is their view, than whether we like it or not, it's their right to have it.

     However, don't think that this means that I'm going to run out and buy myself a chicken sandwich. If you're going to boycott Chick-fil-A, understand why you should. It's not just because the CEO doesn't agree with your opinion and/or lifestyle.

     Chick-fil-A owns an organization entitled the Winshape Foundation. It is also privately owned, so again, it's their own business. However, this foundation donates to and supports many organizations that are anti-gay. While this still touches base on my first amendment stance, some of these organizations are pretty extreme.

     Focus on Family has made a lot of waves in their attempt at stopping same-sex marriage. They're also affiliated with Exodus International which believes that with mental health counseling they can make people “ex-gay”. This hasn't gone very well for them. One of their very founders and a ministry leader both left the group to be with one another. A chairman was caught in a gay bar flirting with men, he was photographed and all. Hmm, on second thought, if their own leaders can't stay “ex-gay” then I'm not certain if I can really take them as a serious threat.

     The Winshape Foundation also donates to the Family Research Council which villainizes homosexuals as pedophiles and sexual offenders. They're against removing the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy because this will encourage the molestation of heterosexual service members. They also want to outlaw homosexuality and that “criminal sanctions against homosexual behaviors” should be enforced. This organization distorts and misrepresents actual scientific research and spreads general slander.

     These are only two … or perhaps by default three, organizations out of the many that Chick-fil-A supports. However these are the ones that actually bother me the most. These are the ones that are extremists and have actually set out to not only abolish same-sex marriage, and in some cases make homosexuality a criminal act. I won't eat at Chick-fil-A because I don't want my money to fund these organizations in any way shape or form. But I will not stop my husband from eating there and I won't fault you for eating there, either.

     So, if you want to boycott Chick-fil-A then I would recommend asking yourself “why?”. Is it because you have taken the time to research the company and you do not want to fund these organizations, or is it just because you're being intolerant to someone with differing opinions and religious beliefs of your own?

'(While I understand that the first amendment protects us from government inhibition, it's this protection by the government that allows us to live in a country where people can believe that God is a woman or an alien and people can openly slander the president without worrying about the government kicking down our doors and dragging them into the streets for blasphemy and contempt.  While I suppose this blog should be more directed at intolerant people demanding tolerance, I seem to want to use the first amendment as a reference since to have your own beliefs and have the freedom to voice them is something that our country was founded on.  You can't sue your neighbor for being hateful and cruel towards you if you both don't agree on a political or religious matter based alone on the first amendment, but you can bet you have the right to post anti-Obama propaganda all over the internet or wear a Kippah or a Niqab as your religious beliefs dictate.)

(I'm going to be honest with you, if I get a nasty, hate-filled comment on this, I'll just delete it.  If I get a comment filled with biblical references as to why same-sex marriage is wrong, I'll just delete it as well.  While I am an advocate for the first amendment, hate-filled comments are a waste of energy on both of our parts and trying to persuade me [or hell, yourself, I don't know] about why the bible says it's wrong has nothing to do with the point of this blog and if you don't understand that then you've just wasted your time reading this.)

Pregnant Purging - Broken

     While I admit that this is a blog pertaining to my pregnancy, it is going to be very different from what I imagine most pregnancy blogs are expected to be. This should be about how hard it is to choose baby names that we both like, how difficult it is to find gender neutral baby clothes and accessories, or even just how different this pregnancy is from my first two that were respectively twelve and fourteen years ago.

But it's not.

     I'm only eleven weeks along and have just had my first batch of prenatal blood work. My doctor had me tested to see if I carry the Cystic Fibrosis gene along with the basic red blood cell count and check for STDs that I suppose are pretty standard. I'm not used to personally hearing from a doctor when it comes to lab results - - it's always been someone else, a nurse manager perhaps, that calls me back and reviews them - - so I was surprised when my doctor himself called me back to review my lab results.

     Turns out, I am a carrier for the Cystic Fibrosis gene. Now in order for your child to actually have this disease, both parents must be carriers of this dormant gene so our obvious next step would be to have my husband tested. Our insurance will not cover having him tested to see if he is a carrier, only to see if he does actually have Cystic Fibrosis and it will only do that if he is showing symptoms of the disease. My doctor wants us to go visit a geneticist to discuss my husband's family history.  It seems one in every thirty one people are carriers of this dormant gene.

     During the conversation the doctor continued to ask me if I had any questions as I became quieter and more withdrawn. I had tons of questions, but I didn't trust myself to speak. I didn't trust myself to do anything more than politely agree to everything that he said and thank him for his time.

     I got off the phone and tried my best to steel myself from the waves of emotions crashing inside of me so I could go tell my husband. My best was not good enough, I'm pregnant and by this point convinced that I am genetically broken. I'm an emotional roller coaster that is out of control and we've only just begun. I felt powerless and vulnerable, ripe to be kicked. If I wasn't going to allow myself to break down then my emotions had nowhere else to go but to the one feeling that I did understand.

Anger.

     I became angry. I understand anger. I know how to use it. I can wrap it around me like armor, fill myself up with it. Wield it like a sword and shield. It numbs any feelings of sadness or vulnerability. I can rip things apart, down to their foundation, leaving nothing left. I can breathe it down the neck of every living thing I come across. I know how to use this.

     Before I go any further perhaps I should explain what Cystic Fibrosis is and why I reacted in the manner that I did. Cystic Fibrosis is a disease, or a condition if you may, that clogs the lungs and leads to life threatening lung infections and obstructs the pancreas and stops natural enzymes from helping the body break down and absorb food (taken from cff.org). The sufferer's life is normally dotted with multiple bouts with pneumonia before being cut short, on average, in their mid thirties. The affected are normally required to eat a special diet. There are varying degrees of Cystic Fibrosis, and in some cases it may not make its self known until adulthood. There is no cure.

     But even if we are both carriers there is only a twenty five percent chance that our child will actually have Cystic Fibrosis. Those are pretty good odds, aren't they? Perhaps. But here's my take on it. What if we are that twenty five percent and low and behold the child is born with it. It's not a mild case. It's a nasty one, a bad one. The child is in and out of the hospital, sick all the time. Perhaps moving to a breathing machine of some sort way too young. It's on a special diet and takes an array of pills. It mourns the absence of a normal childhood while it listens to the kids in the neighborhood play and watches its older siblings come and go with their daily social lives. And I am to look this child in the eye and know that it exists in suffering because I wanted to give my husband a child of his own. Because we wanted a baby.

I'm being dramatic.

     Of course I am! Because this is an exaggerated scale of what I have already been through with my other two children. I can remember being eighteen years old, ignorant and scared, and receiving a call while at work from my obstetrician that my blood test showed that David could have Downs Syndrome. I sat in my boss' office and cried. David's father had had a step brother at one time who had Downs Syndrome so he was able to give me the strength to accept the possibilities of having a child like this. We agreed to have more sonograms done so they could compare measurements as part of further testing for the syndrome and then they came back to me and told the odds of David having Downs Syndrome and that the only way to know for certain would be by an amniocentesis. The odds of me miscarrying from the amniocentesis was higher than the chance my son would have Downs Syndrome. When, in all of my naivete I asked what we could do if we did get the amniocentesis and it came back positive, the doctor told me that my only option would be to have an abortion. We didn't actually know for certain what to expect until David came into the world early one March morning after I was induced due to Toxemia.

     He didn't have Downs Syndrome. In fact, other then being so jaundiced he looked like a summer squash, he was beautiful and healthy. Five years later he would be diagnosed with ADHD and PDD, and be considered by the school system as mildly Aspergers Autistic. He learned everything later then other kids, from speaking, to counting, to his alphabet to being potty trained. Until he was diagnosed I beat myself up over it, believing that I was just a terrible parent because I couldn't get him to learn. Since then he has seen neurologists, psychiatrists and therapists. He has almost been committed twice and admitted to the hospital once for voicing that he wanted to hurt or kill himself. He takes medication everyday to help him focus and not act out. He never gets sick. He has never had an X ray. He is obsessive. He is absolutely brilliant. He forgets that he's fourteen and not forty. Some days are easy, some days are not so easy.

     My second child had a much less eventful pregnancy. No blood pressure issues. My water broke all on its own one night and Journey was delivered by natural delivery. The delivery did not go as smooth as I had hoped since she was my second child. I'm ashamed to admit that I didn't handle it very well. I fainted between contractions, I cussed at my midwife. I went into shock when everything was said and done. I remember the doctors being concerned over something, but they were so far away. They tried to let me hold my new baby, but I couldn't keep my eyes open or stop shaking. Out of fear that I would drop her they whisked her away for the next nine hours to be poked and prodded by specialists.

     Journey was born with Torticollis, low muscle tone and what I believe they referred to as a “floating” upper palate. She couldn't move her head, it was stuck in one position. Her legs were hyper-extended at the knees. Her first pictures show her legs bent backwards. When she tried to eat her palate prevented her from being able to consistently swallow. Meanwhile, I drifted in and out of a fever induced sleep, waking up only long enough to demand that I see my baby and accusing the staff of not telling me that she was dead. Nine hours is a long time to be separated from your new born baby.

     Once my fever had been gone long enough to satisfy the doctor they brought me my little contorted bundle of joy. I tried to change her diaper by holding her little calves and lifting her bottom up and her legs kept bending until they were bent like a birds and I was left in my hospital room horrified at what I had done. Journey didn't seem to notice.

     The next year was spent with two visits a week to a physical, occupational and speech therapist. I quit my job and became a stay at home mom for ten of those months. I was told that she would never walk and I had to invest in a frightening car seat to accommodate the fact that months and months were passing, but she was still stuck in her lima bean shape with no way to hold herself up or sit up. She couldn't hold her own bottle. Her head refused to come out of its one position on its own. I was terrified that she would suffocate if I tried to put wedges or pillows to keep it straight. One side of her head became and still is flat. I hate myself everyday for it because I could not come up with a way to prevent it. I was prepared for this child to be wheel chair bound. The therapists insisted that she was right on level cognitively so she would only be physically handicapped. I attempted to count my blessings.

     Slowly, and about three months behind every milestone, she began to catch up. She rolled over, held her bottle (with the help of her feet), started scooting, rising up on her hands and knees, crawling, standing and finally, at fifteen months old, she took her first step. She was going to be able to walk and run and dance and ride a bike just like every other little girl should. While she would still take therapy off and on over the next several years, and at times parents of children with Cerebral Palsy would ask if she also had it due to the way she walked and held herself for years, she is capable of doing everything. Including standing up with her feet twisted and facing the opposite direction just to freak people out.

I'd like to note, before diving into this next part, that I breast fed this child. The first one wouldn't latch on and I wasn't able to produce enough and became discouraged early on. Journey and I had no issues. We read about all of the benefits of breast feeding and I'd like to point out that I did not breast feed David and he never gets sick. Journey began her accord with allergies by way of Eczema. Large, weeping wounds on her torso, legs and arms. People would accuse me of putting cigarettes out on her when I took her out in public. I used special clothing and body soap and shampoo with her. Her doctor tried so many different creams and methods but none of them worked. One morning I came into her bedroom to find that it had spread to her face and I became unglued. What if it got into her eyes, ears or mouth? We went straight to the emergency room and finally a doctor had the courage to prescribe something aggressive. I understand anything that has steroids in it is bad for a toddler but the other possibilities were even worse. She still has a few scars from it today.

     Over the next several years she would be diagnosed with asthma and allergies. She is allergic to the common dust, dander and pollen but also to nuts and coconut and an array of other obscure things according to a skin test that turned her into a pin cushion. She lived her life using her nebulizer and inhalers every so many hours a day. A hurricane came through and knocked out our power for a few days and we were terrified that we would need her nebulizer but not be able to use it. She wheezed and hacked, caught pneumonia and bronchitis and influenza a. Finally, at about nine years old, she went in for surgery to have her tonsils and adenoids removed. She had only gained three pounds in three years but she was getting taller and taller. Her adenoids and tonsils were always in an infected state and this is why she never seemed to get better. With her surgery completed, and all complications healed, she gained thirty pounds almost immediately and suddenly never seemed to be sick anymore and her asthma became manageable. She got picked on at school for her sudden weight gain as a lot of it went straight to her belly, but she took it in stride. Her allergist still insists that she take two pills, one inhaler and a nose spray a day, but she seems to be doing even better since we moved up north. She loves to ride her bike and perform in theater productions.

     After my first two children I decided that I shouldn't have another child. That I could not take what God would give me next. I decided that I was genetically broken and that my next child would be a mutant with lobster claws and the ability to levitate stuff with its mind. Does that sound harsh? It's suppose to. Because it's not aimed at the potential child, it's aimed at me and whatever FUBARed genetic cocktail of WTH I have in my DNA that I should not pass along to another living being. I felt like I should have been taken out and sterilized.  Even my completely natural breast milk did nothing to help my daughter's immune system, while my completely bottle fed son is practically immune to everything.

     But people kept pointing out that we didn't know whether or not it was me or their father. Now the asthma and allergies issue with Journey is definitely from my part of the gene pool. While I do not suffer from it, my mother and other family members did and still do. But the rest, well, maybe people were right. Maybe the rest wasn't me. I mean, isn't it feng shui to blame everything that ever went wrong on your ex-husband, logical or otherwise? And while I did have some fairly intelligent points to back up my feeble attempt at making myself feel better I am not going to disclose them here. They are no longer my business to publicly announce and they would only disrespect how much work my ex-husband has put into changing his life.

     So with the hope that maybe, just maybe, it wasn't all me, when my husband admitted that he wanted a child of his own I agreed. I stopped taking all of my medications except the one that regulates my GERD. I began taking prenatal vitamins. With in a month or so we were holding a positive pregnancy test in our hands. I was staggered by how quickly it happened. I added folic acid and DHA pills as well as calcium tablets to my daily dosage. I cut out all caffeinated beverages. This pregnancy and baby were going to be healthy.

     When my doctor originally approached me about being tested for Cystic Fibrosis I agreed. I didn't know anything about it and in some naive and infallible way I was convinced that I didn't have whatever it was anyway so the test was no big deal. I declined the Downs Syndrome testing, I already knew how that story played out and I was not about to go through it again. I wish I had done the same thing with the Cystic Fibrosis now as well.

     So anger was the only way I could react. Crying wouldn't change anything. Anger wouldn't either but at the very least anger did not make me feel weak or helpless. I tried to talk with my husband about the situation and tell him about it, but I was aggressive and abrasive. I wasn't gentle or considerate that this may scare him as well. I groused at any support or comfort he tried to offer me. When he asked me if he was able to get the test to see if he is a carrier would it make a difference my response was open ended and cold. After a bit he finally had his fill of my temper tantrum and let me know about it. I finally broke down and cried and probably made him feel like the biggest jerk in the world.

     I didn't cry or become angry because I felt that I could be robbed of a chance to have the perfect baby. I feel broken and worthless. I feel like there's something wrong with me and my children are suffering from it, whether it be a chemical imbalance or a muscular issue or what have you. My genetic code is scrambled, and I'm selfish for having a child that may suffer from something that I know that I carry. I know that the only way they can have it is if my husband is a carrier, but since insurance doesn't cover the cost of testing him and we aren't paying for it then I really have no way of knowing. At this point I don't want to have him tested. I don't want to know. Not because I'm scared to find out that he may be a carrier; I'm scared to have that confirmation that this really is all from me. That my amazing husband who picked me to marry, love, take care of and to have the child that he never thought he would ever have has chosen a wife with all the Molotov cocktail genetics reminiscent of a third generation lab rat.

(I'd like to close this by saying that I love my children dearly and knowing exactly how they came out in the end would not, in any way, have deterred me from having them. I'm hopeful that there will be no misunderstandings or hard feelings from anyone after reading this. I'm not looking for poor babies or other such sympathy, I'm just purging. This situation happened a week ago, I've calmed down quite a bit since then.)

By Definition

Among the protests in Egypt and senseless murders right here in the U.S., newspapers and Internet articles are blazing with headlines with two specific words: 'redefining rape.' These articles all base off a recent proposed revision of the bill allowing women who have been the victim of rape to have a government funded abortion. This is not Roe versus Wade, abortion has been legalized since 1973. This is not a question of religion or the right to life. This is a question about whether or not a woman raped in one specific manner versus another is any less of a victim and therefor entitled to different or lesser available treatment than another.

A Republican named Chris Smith is proposing to revise this bill to only include a government funded abortion if the conception was spurned from a forcible rape, incest involving a minor or if the mother's life is in danger. That seems like a pretty broad spectrum at first, but then you realize that leaves out statutory and coerced rape. So what exactly is 'forcible' rape? To get down to the nitty gritty of it all, if a fourteen year old girl is groomed and seduced by an older man and it leads to a conception, she will not be eligible for this kind of funding. If a young woman goes out on a date with a man she knows and he forces himself on her, she is not eligible. If a young woman goes to a party and someone slips a tranquilizer into her drink with the sole purpose of taking advantage of her once she passes out, she is not eligible.

This proposition does not redefine what rape really is with in the confines of the law, which is sex without consent. It isn't going to re-write the judicial system, a man who uses a date rape drug or has a sexual interaction with a teenager is not going to have their sentences lessened by this proposed situation. It is not going to change how we handle offenders, it is going to change the options for victims if they're low income. In a sense I feel that in a case of statutory rape the offender should be forced to pay for the abortion. The reality of that situation is that by the time the legal proceedings get to a point that he finally has the blame placed on him and he's being held responsible for his actions, she may be too far along to have an abortion. In any case of rape that results in an abortion, I feel that the assailant should be forced to also pay the estimated average cost for that procedure as part of their legal dues.

Again, we aren't redefining rape in a sense of legal liability. They're attempting to redefine it to save tax dollars. It's easy to try to cut costs when the ones who are being affected aren't a part of your day to day life. Telling a young woman she isn't eligible for an abortion because she wasn't brutally assaulted by a stranger but instead was drugged at a party and taken advantage of by someone she just met wouldn't be a situation that the politicians behind this revision will ever have to go through. I dare a single one of them to take an hour out of their lives and visit a young woman who has been the victim of an assault. To watch as a doctor breaks the news to her that she is, in fact, pregnant. But I think at this point the opposing politician should step in and have the opportunity to explain to her that despite her low income status, she is not eligible for an abortion because she wasn't raped a certain way. To keep a straight face and an empty heart and tell her that because she wasn't conscious to tell them 'no', that essentially because she went on a date wearing that dress, that because she's underage and was seduced by an older man who took advantage of her, she's not eligible for government funding. That is pretty much what every councilor and social worker is going to have to do. They will have to tell them that in a sense they're less of a victim because they weren't violently attacked or because they weren't seduced by an adult family member.

Rape is defined by the Webster-Merriam Dictionary as : "unlawful sexual activity and usually sexual intercourse carried out forcibly or under threat of injury against the will usually of a female or with a person who is beneath a certain age or incapable of valid consent". That should be pretty cut and dry, don't you think? We aren't redefining what rape is by law or by definition, what they're trying to do is redefine which low income victims are eligible for pregnancy termination. By definition they are still a victim of the same crime, so why should they be considered less in need of assistance?

Rape isn't a poor man's crime, anyone can be a victim and anyone can be a predator. You aren't safe because of your financial status, race, gender or age. Our low income citizens are the ones that are the most susceptible as they tend to live in areas that have a higher crime rate. I've seen recent news articles regarding sexual assaults by a news reporter and two juvenile counselors. From time to time a priest or a boy scout leader is accused of assault. These are people with college educations that have the potential of living in a nice neighborhood. These people are not the ones that we would normally think of when it comes to a sexual predator. For the most part they seem to prefer to prey on lower income citizens. Another case recently in the news focused on men who were videotaping themselves sexually assualting disabled women, some that were so disabled that they had no idea what was going on or that were unable to communicate what had happened to them. What if one of these women became pregnant? They're on social security no doubt and their housing and medical is being paid for by the government, but if this bill gets redefined then this funding would not be available for them.

In the long run the young woman will be denied financial assistance to terminate an unwanted pregnancy resulting from having one too many drinks or being violated on a date. She wont be able to afford an abortion and will be forced to carry the baby to term. She'll be faced with the possibility of putting the baby up for adoption, but at some point during the pregnancy she'll feel it move and there will be that confirmation that she is really carrying a baby. A flood of emotion and hormones will follow and she'll be torn. She'll most likely keep the baby and for the next eighteen years our tax dollars will pay for the medicaid, food stamps and other government assistance that will be needed to raise this baby. This woman's life will be forever altered.

I know for those who are Pro-Life I may sound heartless. I mean, do we really want to end the life of an unborn baby? Honestly, I'm not thinking about the outcome. I'm thinking about the basic rights of the victims in question and I'm questioning the individuals who actually had the audacity to even begin proposing this.

This article was posted while I was writing this blog. It appears they've withdrawn their attempt at applying the term 'forcible rape' to this bill, attempting to explain that they never meant to exempt anyone from the funding at all. They're going to keep it per the language used in the Hyde Amendment. It makes you wonder if that was really the case, but if it was not then why would they have even attempt to revise it to begin with? As T. Bert Lance said "If it ain't broke don't fix it."

Stand Up

At what point does a mother have to step in to defend her twelve year old child from being bullied? That seems like a pretty cut and dry question, doesn't it? Especially when your child has conditions like ADHD and PDD (Pervasive Developmental Disorder), which puts him in the Autism Spectrum. The problem is that I'm attempting to raise a young man who can stand up for himself and by rushing to the school for every incident instead of advocating that he report it himself seems to be counterproductive. What happens when the bullying becomes violent or sexually harassing? That is when every bit of 'mother bear' in you leaps forward, ready to take on anything or everything.

But, what if the bully harassing your son happens to be a girl?

A few months ago, my son began complaining about the outlandish behavior of a girl a grade higher than himself on the bus. I urged him to go to his guidance counselor regarding this right away. His school teaches grades sixth through eighth, each grade has its own designated guidance counselor. His guidance counselor immediately passed the buck and directed my son to speak with the bully's grade's guidance counselor. However, no matter how many times my son attempted to gain an audience with the eighth grade guidance counselor he could never get it. My son goes to a magnet school and all of his classes are gifted/advanced. My son makes amazing grades, rarely does he even bring home a B. He does this all on his own. With the intensity of the classes that he takes missing class time actually hurts. They've got so much to learn in such a small amount of time everyday, taking even twenty-minutes to address this situation means that he's missed something vital.

David came home on January 12th telling me about the same girl on the bus stabbing him with what he referred to as a 'softball cut in half with a thumbtack sticking out of it' and she threatened to send things and people over to his home to molest him if he did not give her ten dollars for 'crack money'. The 'crack money' demand has been an ongoing theme since October of last year.

I, like most people, work. I do have the luxury of working from home, but it is a job where I am required to stay on the phone and to be dedicated to my inbound customers needs so I have a set schedule. By the time I got off of work that day to hear about this I immediately called the school to speak with the guidance counselor. She had already gone home for the day as had most of the other personnel. I left a message with the adult office assistant to have the guidance counselor call me back. The following day I did not hear from her and my son verified that the girl had not lessened her antics in the least. I called the school again, but it was after I had gotten off of work so everyone that I wanted to speak with had already left. This time I was forwarded to her voice mail and I left her a message. She called back the next day. Now we are on January 14th, a Friday, but apparently the girl was not in school that day.

My son filled out four pages full of accusations against this girl. From menial bits of bullying to full blown stuff that really makes you wonder what is wrong with this child. The guidance counselor stated that she understood that this was serious situation and that she would take care of it. In reality, she handed the situation off to the Vice Principle to speak with her. To a certain degree I understand that my son's guidance counselor over sees the seventh graders, so therefor this eighth grade girl was, to a point, out of her 'jurisdiction'.

We rolled into a nice four day week-end after that. Come Wednesday she's still harassing my son as though nothing has been done. I urge my son to give it one more day, that I was confident that it would be taken care of tomorrow. I try to call the school, no one answers. Thursday comes and my son reports that she punched him and kept shrieking into his ear repetitively. I've just spoken with the guidance counselor earlier that day and she tells me she is sending home his 504 plan for me to review and sign. She tells me that the Vice Principle handled the situation so I assume that that means that there will be no further incidents. That evening, after hearing about the further harassment, I sign the 504 plan and I include a note that states if this situation is not taken care of I will be escalating it. I am trying so hard not to be a psycho-mom, not to be irate and out of line and marching in to the school's office and making the situation even worse. The guidance counselor stated that she would pick up the 504 plan from my son the following day so I feel that it will be addressed. Friday comes and goes, the girl continues her behavior and my son still has his 504 plan. The weekend cools me down.

I got off of work half an hour late yesterday. I had one of the most belligerent customers on the phone that just did not know when to stop talking and listen. He'd ask me to explain something to him and then immediately begin arguing with whatever he did not like. I explained the same things to him four times before the call finally ended. I spent fifteen minutes writing up a report for my company's vendor manager regarding this customer. I walk out into the rest of the house and I call to my daughter to let her know that we need to hurry before the post office closes. I am instead met by my son as he completely explodes. He paces, he's frantic, he's angry. He tells me that today, among other things, that she stuck a maxi pad to his backpack.. I am still emotionally drained and my blood pressure is still raised from dealing with my last customer of the day. I am not ready for this sort of emotional explosion. I become angry along with him and I grab the phone and place another pointless phone call to an empty school.

A few decisions follow my son's outburst. I go onto the school website and I log a bullying complaint to the school district. I call my supervisor and tell her to get someone to cover my shift. I jot down the superintendent's name and contact information. I post a witty, macabre mother bear facebook status update. I did everything but smear on some warpaint or sacrifice a virgin. I was ready to do battle.

Today is January 25th, we are now thirteen days from the point when I first attempted to contact the school regarding this issue, nearly two weeks. I made certain that I was dressed nicely with my hair and makeup done. I waited patiently in the front office. I wanted to be taken seriously. I wanted them to listen to what I had to say. I told the secretary that I wanted to speak with the Principle or the Vice Principle, which ever one is available. The Principle walks by me a few times, the secretary says nothing. I ask her if that was the the Principle, she agrees but tells me that I need to speak with the Vice Principle first. A man comes out and tells another parent waiting in the office that the Vice Principle is busy observing a classroom and wont be available for a while. The Principle comes back through the office and stops to ask the secretary who the parents are waiting for. They speak for a moment and then the Principle looks at me.

"I actually asked for either the Principle or the Vice Principle, whichever one is available. It sounds like the Vice Principle is busy right now though," I say. He nods and furrows his brow in confusion. He invites me into a conference room.

I like this man, he loves his job and it is apparent with everything he does. The fact that he is retiring means that our school system is losing a great asset. When I dumped this on him he was flabbergasted by the whole event. He hadn't been informed of it, and really hadn't needed to be if the Guidance Counselor and Vice Principle had taken care of it like they were supposed to. But here I was laying it down for him, he took a long moment to think. He apologized and asked if he could be excused to go get the Guidance Counselor and an Assistant Principle.

The Assistant Principle I felt bad for. This was her second day on the job, but she owned her position. Perhaps it was a good thing it was her second day because she is still in that honeymoon phase of wanting to impress people.

The Guidance Counselor was grace under fire although I know she had to have felt that I was attacking her in some way by dragging the Principle and now the Assistant Principle into this. She attempted to pass the blame to my son, stating that he never came to her about the issues after his initial report of them on January 14th. My reply? He didn't have to do anything after he gave her four pages of accusations. That girl should have been reprimanded based on that alone. Anything else my son reported is secondary.

When I was in eighth grade I shaving creamed a boy at the bus stop one morning. Crying, he ran home to change his clothes and he missed the bus. His mother drove him to school and raised hell about what I had done. I was suspended from school for two days. Shaving creaming someone, while it was still not a good decision on my part, is a prank. It was not meant to be malicious and honestly was the most malicious act I ever did against anyone my entire Junior High school career. The same day I committed the act, I had my punishment served to me. There was not a near two week waiting period. I came home and cried and trembled while my mother screamed at me. This is the same school system and the same grades involved. While I understand that my incident was almost twenty years ago, what has really changed since then? My son's school is plastered with Anti-Bullying propaganda, it's a media topic for crying out loud. You would think that this would be handled swiftly. Maybe if my son had been a girl and he had been harassed by a boy in these manners, they would have acted quicker? Could this just be a case of sexual discrimination?

I 'held court' with these three school officials this morning and the new Assistant Principle took ownership of the situation. I was promised results and that they would speak with the Vice Principle and find out why he hadn't held up his end of the deal.

The one question that everyone had to ask is 'what about the bus driver?' Bus drivers have a job on a whole that I do not envy, especially once you get to middle and high school students. They are trying to drive a school bus full of screaming, obnoxious tweens and teens to and from school. Did I mention the part about driving? I can barely drive with my two kids fighting in the car, let alone forty more. If the school bus driver doesn't catch a glimpse of the wrong doing in his mirror between swerving to miss people coming home from Happy Hour or any other possible catastrophe on the road, he's oblivious. He's most likely just trying to get the little heathens safely off of the bus so he can go home and consume large amounts of Southern Comfort before he has to get up the next morning and do it all over again all the while counting down the days until retirement. While it is a bus driver's job to transport our students safely back and forth to school, it is impossible for them to be both drill sergeant and driver.

I did urge my son to tell the bus driver, to write a note and slip it to the driver in the morning as he is getting on the bus -- Anything! -- but my son never did it. It is difficult to gain a private audience with the bus driver without the other students overhearing that you're snitching. With my son's conditions (I hate that term!) he very much so lives for the moment. I tell him the night before to write a note and give it to the bus driver, by the next morning he has forgotten. It is no longer a compelling situation for him. He has vented to mom and he has slept; he feels loved, understood and safe. Now he's going to go back out into the world optimistic that it is going to be a great day, just to have it all squashed again. The Guidance Counselor wanted to know why when she approached my son at lunch over the last week and asked him how he was doing that he never told her that the harassment has continued. That answer is really simpler than she may believe. You are approaching a twelve year old boy in front of his male friends (and the young lady that he's been trying to impress since fifth grade) and you are asking him to tell you whether or not that girl is still bullying you. Now, my son may be the more sensitive type, but I assure you he is all male and has the pride to prove it. He isn't going to confess to this embarrassing situation in a public setting.

Hours have passed and finally the Assistant Principle has called me with an update. The bus driver and the superintendent for public education transportation have been alerted. A bullying form has been received and the school received a call from whomever I contacted with that website last night. They spoke with my son and with the girl. The girl apparently is a good student without any known behavior problems. She sat in the office and cried and volunteered to write an apology note to my son. Her parents were called. The Assistant Principle assures me that if I had met this girl in any other setting I would not have believed she would have done any of those things. That I would say 'Wow, you're a really nice girl, but boy did you just make some really bad decisions.' I feel a little pang of guilt, remembering my own really dumb decision with the can of shaving cream almost twenty years ago and for all intents and purposes I had been a pretty nice girl myself. Then I am reminded, she punched my son and punctured him with something sharp. She stuck a maxi pad to his backpack. Maybe she is a 'really nice girl', but she wasn't behaving like it. I'm going to hope that perhaps this whole situation was the ounce of intervention that was needed to stop a 'really nice girl' from completely screwing up. Her actions are her own, and if this was unbecoming of her normal behavior or how she perceives herself then she needed this wake up call. But really this girl is not my concern. My own children are my concern.

I'm frustrated by the whole thing; that it was allowed to go this far. That I sat back for months and pushed for my son to be proactive and report her himself. But that is not like him, he is still working on that sort of ... ability? I refuse to ever throw my hands up in the air and say 'It's his condition, he just can't!' and then spend the next fifty years coddling my son, who would become a man-child who doesn't know how to take responsibility for himself. I am raising him to not view his conditions as a disability, but an ability. He has such a unique perspective and feelings about the world around us that he is an asset to our future. He will have to learn to champion for himself because mom isn't always going to be there. When he's thirty years old I can't go to his job and report to his boss that a coworker has been stealing his lunch from the break room. I do feel justified though, once the situation turned physical I had every right to step in. I just wish my son -- and the school system -- hadn't allowed it to get that far.

Left With No Other Choice

There are a few things that get under my skin when it comes to dealing with people on the internet. People who insist in posting in all caps and people who rite lik dis. Other than those, that’s really it. Or at least it was until recently.

So, let me get this straight. An Astronomer makes a big discovery. Our little rock in the universe, the planet Earth, has wobbled a whopping 23 degrees since the Babylonians first began reading the skies. So this Astronomer then declares that this changes our Zodiacs because in affect the constellations have shifted from our perspective.

An Astronomer has made a declaration about Astrology.

Let’s step back into time when we were still in school and we turned our science text books to the chapter about Astronomy. Do we all remember when our science teacher glowered down at us and made certain that we understood the difference between Astronomy and Astrology? They made certain that we understood that Astrology was based off of myths and legends and that Astronomy is based off of scientific findings and fact. These are two different things and should not be confused with one another.

So why do we have an Astronomer who doesn’t understand his place in universe? I have no idea. With that said just because he’s an Astronomer doesn’t mean that he can’t have an interest in Astrology. Much like a professional football player could have an interest in all known works of Chaucer or a professional con-artist may pick up painting while serving time in prison. It’s good to have hobbies. However, before you go on television declaring that you’ve made a radical discovery you may want to cool your heels a bit and read up on what makes the Zodiac that we as Americans follow, what it is.

Because you know that the minute this rubbish was announced there was some woman standing in her Minneapolis bathroom rubbing A+D Lotion on her new Leo tattoo, still raw and healing, when she heard the Astronomer on the television in the next room make this declaration. She most likely burst into tears at the realization that she had another tattoo that just became obsolete. Much like the tattoo of Hank across her left bicep which had originally only been inked three days before she found him in bed with her cousin. These things happen.

Yes, the planet has wobbled, I am not arguing that. But we as Americans use the Western Zodiac, or the Tropical Zodiac. This particular Zodiac is actually attuned to the seasons and not to the actual constellations. Libra is affixed to one solstice and Aries to the other. A solstice happens twice a year when the sun’s apparent position in the sky reaches its northernmost or southernmost extremes. While the Earth 'wobbling' has shifted the constellations by twenty-three degrees it honestly is not enough to slide the required constellations out of the sky, especially when you realize that the dates and zodiacs determined within them are actually not being dictated by the constellations at this point, but by the solstices. This is the same Zodiac that has been in affect since the second century, used by the Greeks. Zodiacs followed by some Hindu and European believers will be affected as they use the Eastern Zodiac, which use the sidereal coordinate system.

Astrologers and Astronomers alike agree that this is old news and have been making appearances on both television and radio talk shows trying to debunk this viral misinformation, but the masses seem to be clinging to the idea of a zodiac change. Some because they didn’t care for their zodiac before hand and some because they must enjoy change or drama or just don’t know any better. It’s become some sort of bandwagon event where any uninformed individual jumps on and proclaims their new astrological identity. Facebook has an application for it now where users grant it permission to access their information and it in turn tells them what their new zodiac sign is. Honestly, it most likely is spamming your information for marketing research, but people love to use these things. Much like the ‘Click here for 300 Farm cash’ or ‘Click here to see why this girl killed herself’. It’s a bot set up to continue to spam your friends. The saddest part is I see the same people doing it over and over again.

Of course these are the same people that don’t seem to want to believe that the zodiac change panic was just that, a panic. Nothing real to be taken seriously. If you try to explain this to them, they normally cling to whatever else they’ve heard from someone else, that the Earth ‘wobbled’. Guess what? Really strong winds can make the day longer by exactly one millisecond, but I don’t feel anymore tired or robbed of sleep because of it.

Do I believe I am who I am because I was born under the sign of a Taurus? No, I do not. I did not take an interest in Astrology until I was in my twenties and by that point my personality, for the better or for the worse, was already established. I did not feel that due to my Taurean natures that I’m suppose to give in to being stubborn and unmoving about everything. In fact, I am very stubborn, but that is a trait that I’ve always had and I strive to learn to overcome. Could I be an Aries? Sure I could, but that’s because the descriptions for Zodiac signs on a whole are painfully vague. There are characteristics in all twelve of the zodiacs that I can relate to and traits that I think are the furthest from the truth.

Twelve zodiacs. That’s right, they’ve also announced the secret, illegitimate, thirteenth love child of the universe, the long lost Zodiac, Ophiuchus! The Babylonians omitted it for a reason, whether it be because it was more Feng shui to have twelve or out of superstition, I don‘t know. Suddenly an Astronomer -- remember kids, they base everything off of science and facts -- comes along and attempts to put some sort of scientific reasoning behind Astrology -- something based off of belief, myth and superstition -- and the whole world is turning its self upside down. Am I the only one that sees that this is like an Atheist trying to prove God’s existence? Are you any less a Gemini today than you were two weeks ago? How about a Cancer or a Pisces or whatever sign you believed you were up until two weeks ago? Did you even know what character traits your sign was associated with before this whole dumpster fire started? Did you even care? Why don’t we just take a nice picture of the zodiac wheel and blind fold you, spin you around and then whatever star sign you stick the donkey tail into you get to keep?

In short, before you join into the mass hysteria and begin plotting to cover your tattoos or get a brand new one, use the internet and do a little bit more research. We, as human beings, have been given the ability to come to our own conclusions. We can learn, grow and even change our minds. The majority of these online and newspaper articles regarding the supposed 'Zodiac change' are really just re-posting what they found elsewhere. Kind of like when FOX published an Onion article with the apparent belief that it was a real article (the Onion is a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek website full of obviously fake news articles). When researching information, how many times do we run across the exact same explanation, word for word, on multiple and unaffiliated websites? Copy and paste, my friends. In 1948 the Chicago Tribune reported that Dewey defeated Truman for presidency. Guess what? It was both printed in the newspaper and yet still incorrect. Truman won. Right now, this media monster is winning because we are feeding it with every Google search, tweet or status update regarding this supposed Zodiac change. We’re feeding the hysteria by not educating ourselves. I understand that some people believe that the stars chart their lives, but for most it seems the media dictates what they believe and do.

Some News Articles to Support My Case:
New Zodiac Signs 2011: Debunking a Zodiac Astrological Controversy.
No, you zodiac hasn't changed.
Zodiac: The New Zodiac Not Accurate.