Posted By Christina M on May 17, 2006

It’s been a rough few weeks, with a new baby needing the usual attention and with Hypertot discovering new levels of mischievousness; but yesterday we had a spot of encouragement to light up the challenges. We discovered that Hypertot is bilingual. Well, about liquid in cans, anyway.

I and three kids moved from California to Washington when Joel and I married. Little did I realize at the time that we’d crossed the Soda-Pop line. We are firmly soda people, and I married into a Pop family. Andy, who was at the time nearing fourteen, adjusted quickly. Shannon, two years younger, was more stubborn. She still clings to her soda like a puppy to a soggy tennis ball. I admit, Shannon inherited this trait from me.

That’s the background. Yesterday, two year old Davy picked up a can and held it up to Shannon, saying “pop!” “Soda,” she corrected him. He held it up again, and repeated “pop.”

“Can you say ‘soda’?” she urged. “Doda!” he repeated, to much praise and hugging from big sis.

Then he did something unexpected. He carried the can to Andy and said “Pop!”

Then he came back to Shannon, and said “Dadoo [Andrew] pop. Nan-nan [Shannon] doda.”

Now if we could just teach him not to put toothbrushes in the toilet…

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Posted By Christina M on May 1, 2006

If you are a “left winger” or a “right winger,” it’s easy. For the extreme left, most things already are radical causes; but the extreme right also manages to turn many issues into radical causes. Let me give you an example.

Immigration. Need I say more? On the left, we have those who would open the borders to all, with no paperwork. Radicalism demands naivete, that we assume that anyone who crosses a border illegally has good reasons. Never will they be terrorists or drug dealers, and anyone who implies that some of them might be is a right wing reactionary who wants to kill Mexican and Iraqi babies. There can’t possibly be a middle ground, where moderates stand.

The right, however, manages to do its share, also, to turn immigration into a hot-button radical cause, by its reactionary opposition to people with varying shades of skin color. By assuming that anyone who crosses illegally must have criminal motives, merely by virtue of having crossed illegally, the “right” also manages to knee-jerk this issue into the radical realms of unrealistic thinking. In the process, those who think that “Americans” inherently have greater worthiness of human rights tend to cause otherwise moderate people to start waxing leftward.

Today, we see a good example of that. The right has controlled our immigration thinking for so long that our primary way of handling it is first, to close the borders to all but those who don’t have any significant need to cross, and second, to attempt to catch any who cross without permission. As a reaction, the left decries any efforts at limiting or monitoring immigration, and urges a shut down of the American economy to prove a point.

Once again, we make the mistake of “siding” with one political ideology or another. Too many Americans are thinking with the right or the left, with the conservative or the liberal, instead of asking what is sensible and humanitarian. I’ve got a clue for you: conservative and liberal, though each is sometimes right, are both really about choosing loyalties to a “side,” not about figuring out what is right. Neither really addresses the issue with both the logic that good sense requires and the the compassion that grace requires. To achieve that, we have to think outside the boxes that have been constructed by partisan political ideologies.

Both sides have a point. The conservative view is right to acknowledge that people with criminal motives are crossing the borders, and must be stopped. The liberal view is right to acknowledge that people are entitled to human rights, regardless of where fate placed their births. And both sides are right to ask what the economic implications of illegal immigration are.

But some points rarely get made, and the conservatives in particular need to think about some facts that they’ve previously ignored. For one, we need to examine what illegal aliens put into and take from the “system.”

We know that either a social security number or a green card is required to obtain work in this country. With the law being enforced more strongly than in times past, even the illegal worker is required to present a number in order to work. In many, if not most, cases of illegal workers, they provide some random social security number, because without putting some number, they can’t be hired. So taxes and other deductions are removed from their pay, just like any other worker’s pay. The only difference is that they don’t file tax returns and get credited for what they’ve paid. They don’t get their tax money back in April, and they don’t get the earned income tax credit. So when we hear that they don’t pay taxes, but receive welfare and all sorts of other benefits, it just isn’t true. They pay taxes, but they don’t pay them on their own accounts. They also pay sales tax, gas tax, car registration, and other fees that we don’t call taxes but which really are.

A second point that conservatives need to consider when proposing policies regards education. I still remember when Pete Wilson pushed a bill in California that, among other things, denied public education to the children of illegal immigrants. I lived in Texas at the time, but still followed much of the news from my native California, and I could not understand the shortsightedness of such a foolish policy. For me it wasn’t about loyalty to the Republicans or the Democrats, it was simply logic. Education isn’t something we provide to individual children because their parents’ taxpayer status makes them worthy! It’s a service we provide because it makes stronger, healthier community, state, and nation. When children receive a good education, they are better able to contribute to the intellectual and economic achievements of the country when they reach adulthood. They are better able to make a living, and far, far less likely to live in poverty or require state assistance as adults to pay for food, housing, or medical expenses. By denying these children an education, we compound the economic disadvantage they already have, increasing the likelihood that the state will have to contribute to their livelihood later. If we are truly concerned about the financial impact of illegal immigration, regardless of whatever other steps we take, we need to offer the best education we can to all who are within our borders.

The third, and perhaps farthest reaching, point we must consider is what kind of cultural identity America has and wants to engender. The United States was built upon such ideals as the “Puritan work ethic.” Our country was founded upon ideals of equality, hard work, and ingenuity. Our history begins, and moves forward, with people who felt a strong need to improve their world. Who is more likely to keep this spirit alive within our borders than those who make the hard journey, often on foot, to a new country, to work — any honest work? These are the kind of immigrants who embody what keeps the United States a world leader. These are the kind of immigrants who would embody the spirit of true American patriotism, if the conservative “patriots” would stop driving them into the arms of leftist antipatriots, with efforts to keep them from working, learning, or doing anything to rise above poverty and ignorance.

If we would open our borders much more liberally to those with a genuine work ethic, and those with sincere and honest reasons for wishing to be in the United States, we would be morally entitled to take the very harshest measures to stop illegal immigration. If we would offer education as an assistance, both to permanent immigrants and those who wish to return to Mexico, we would see immigrants contributing positively to our economy, and we would see the Mexican situation improve to such a degree that far fewer Mexicans would feel the need to come to the United States to improve their lot.

I tend to identify with the conservative thought line on most political issues; but when I consider how the conservative powers have handled immigration in the past, I am ashamed of both the lack of human compassion and the lack of logical analysis that have dictated policy. Knee-jerk opposition to immigration has not solved anything except for driving immigrants, both legal and illegal, into the arms of knee-jerk liberals. It has led to the kind of anger that promoted a day of walking out of work and school to protest.

I do not recommend walking out, or “joining” any liberal movement. I can’t endorse any political party that thinks lightly of helping illegal immigrants get rights with one hand, while encouraging them to abandon their faith and slaughter their babies with the other. Rather, I urge the conservatives of this nation to rethink their attitudes about immigration and immigrants. If we resent that immigrants tend to join with liberal thinking, we must ask ourselves who drove them in that direction in the first place.

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Posted By Christina M on April 25, 2006

When a professional board endorses a professional rule for its own, it usually will get a fair hearing. That is, unless the rule is related in any way to child sex or abortion. Then, the government will step in offering opinions and legislative hurdles to ensure that child sex and abortion not only continue but continue with or without the full consent of all involved.

This is the case with a recent proposal by the Washington State Pharmacy Board to allow a conscience clause to exempt pharmacists from participating in abortion who have moral or religious objections. It is worth noting that the proposal itself isn’t even very solid, and in fact only exempts pharmacists under very specific conditions: another pharmacist must be available to fill the prescription, and the refusing pharmacist is obligated to give a referral.

Washington state governer Christine Gregoire, however, does not believe that pharmacists should have a right to act within their consciences, nor that they have the knowledge and wisdom to be allowed to act according to their long years of training, and take the liberty of advising patients as to the safety and workings of the medicines they purchase. As a politician she is, evidently, better qualified to make this medical decision than a pharmacist who spent eight years learning the trade.

And well she should be. As a practicing Catholic, she understands that any Catholic pharmacist who dispenses abortifacient medicines incurs excommunication. She no doubt understands, also, that pharmacists of many other faiths also suffer either external or internal consequences from such a violation of conscience. But as a politician in a pro-choice party, she has already come to terms with the question of conscience versus career, and has concluded that conscience doesn’t weigh heavily. The obvious extension of this conclusion is that, as a politician, she has the right to make this decision for other people in other professions, as well.

Never mind the first amendment. Never mind being pro-choice, in fact. The moment that any individual is forced to participate in an abortion, it ceases to be a “choice.” The politician is superior to the constitution, and to choice, and to God Himself.

You go, Ms. Gregoire. But where I suspect you’re going, I hope you have a portable fan handy.

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Posted By Christina M on April 15, 2006

I have a special prayer request for you today. The Spokane diocese recently passed their deadline for claims of sexual abuse, and of course a slew of people turned up at the last minute to claim a free thirty pieces of silver. Please join me in offering prayers to St. Nonnatus, patron saint of the falsely accused.

At 2Hearts Network, we find a collection of prayers to St. Nonnatus, including a novena. I ask that we join together in praying for the innocent who have been accused. I can only imagine the feelings of hurt and betrayal a man must feel after devoting a life to serving Jesus and His followers, only to be sold down the river by someone who claims to be (or have been) a faithful member of the flock.

The men who give their lives to serve… we owe them at least our prayers.

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Posted By Christina M on April 12, 2006

Well, it’s been a week, and I guess it’s time to tell the story for those who are interested. Parts of it are beautiful, parts scary, and I’ve finally reached the point of being able to put some of it into words. I apologize if I get too emotional, and ask you to chalk it up to post-partum hormones or something.

Last Thursday, as many of you know, I was scheduled to have labor induced. It was less than a week after my due date, but the doctor was concerned about the baby’s size, and I was concerned about what I felt was an abnormal amount of pain from this long kid. So I agreed, putting aside the dire warnings I’ve heard from many quarters about how doctors love to induce for their own convenience, and that there’s no such thing as a “too big” baby. I have what one doctor once referred to as “birthing hips,” so I wasn’t worried about delivery; but I did worry some that she was outgrowing me in length, leaving me in pain much of each day.

Well, as has happened with several previous pregnancies, the mention of induction seemed to be enough to “scare the baby out.” I went into labor naturally early Thursday morning, a labor that seemed to be progressing very quickly. After only an hour or so, contractions were four minutes apart, so my plan to labor at home as long as possible had to be changed. Laboring at home is one thing; but I did not want to risk having to deliver at home.

Of course, as many women can attest, labors sometimes slow down as soon as you get to the hospital. This is exactly what happened to me, so they went ahead and started a slow pitocin drip to restart things, about 5:30 AM. It worked, and very soon contractions were coming steadily and manageably.

By around 9:30, I used the bathroom and my water broke. The contractions were harder and closer, and although I was still able to manage them, I suddenly changed my mind about trying to avoid pain medication. By gum, I’ve had my share of hard labors, I decided, and there was no shame in asking for an epidural before the pain became out of control, instead of waiting until I couldn’t handle it, and then having to wait for help. A little before 10:00, I was hooked up with the epidural, which brought instant relief, and was laughing through contractions.

That was when the nurse came in to do a second cervical check. (The first had been hours earlier, when there had not been a lot of progress yet.) She checked, and her forehead furrowed a little, and she checked again. “Uh oh,” she said.

“What does ‘uh oh’ mean?” I asked.
“I felt two limbs,” she explained. “You’re going to need a cesarean.”

She called the doctor in, and told him she thought she’d felt fingers. He checked, and verified her conclusions. He told me I was going to have a c-section, then left the room to find the on-call obstetrician. My doctor is a family practice doctor, so the OB would do the surgery and my doctor would assist.

It was a very good thing I’d requested the epidural, because it was already in place when it was needed. Otherwise I might have had to have a general. At any rate, the anesthesiologist was still there, so he was able to adjust the dose of the epidural higher, to make sure I wouldn’t feel anything, and to manage the anesthesia end of the surgery. All of this was determined and arranged within a mere couple of minutes, and then I found myself wheeled into an operating room.

This is where things first began to get scary, or at least overwhelming. Nobody had asked me about doing this surgery. They told me she was breech, and it would not be possible to turn her. But I felt a little steamrolled as I got wheeled into this without ever having given any actual verbal consent. I wouldn’t have argued, but having the decision made without my input did make it more frightening.

My biggest fear was that I might feel something, so the anesthesiologist did some tests to demonstrate that I wouldn’t. By this time, the epidural (which is supposed to numb from the chest down) had numbed all of my chest down, and also parts of my hands and face. Then a sheet went up between my head and my tummy, and the surgery began. It had been less than ten minutes since the cervical check.

I tried not to think about what was happening, and I did not feel any pain. But I felt myself getting fuzzier and fuzzier. I was a little confused; epidurals aren’t supposed to mess with your mind, are they? I don’t remember if the fuzziness set in during or just after the surgery, but there was a sinking, smothering feeling growing inside me. I heard the anesthesiologist say something about morphine, and I said “Is that why I’m so woozy?” I think he answered with a yes.

As quickly as it began, it was over. My baby was taken to the nursery, and my husband with her, while I was left to recover for an hour or so. That was when the real nightmare began. The nurses were still there, but were relatively helpless. I fell asleep under the weight of the drug, and woke myself up with the realization that I had forgotten to breathe. I took a deep breath, and couldn’t stop; more and more deep breaths, and the nurses told me I needed to calm down, I was hyperventilating. I fell asleep again, and again forgot to breathe, and again woke up hyperventilating. Then the thrashing began. My head couldn’t stop violently swinging from side to side, as my arms tried to lift from the table extensions where they rested, waving wildly. If I hadn’t been under the effects of the epidural, I would no doubt have thrashed my body off the table entirely. Meanwhile, the entire time, I was alternating between hyperventilating and forgetting to breathe. I was terrified that I was going to die if I fell asleep again. The thought kept going through my head that after all I’d gone through, I might never be allowed to hold my baby, to nurse her even once. I feared for my husband, that he might be told that while he was peacefully holding our newborn, I had died on the operating table. I can honestly tell you I have never been more scared or upset in my life.

About an hour later, I finally managed to stop hyperventilating and thrashing, and my breathing got back to normal. The nurses transferred me to a gurney (with me still feeling somewhat paranoid, terrified that they were going to drop me), and wheeled me to a postpartum room. As we passed the nursery, I saw my husband rocking the sweet baby I’d soon be holding for the first time. I had a moment of thanksgiving, knowing that she had such a good father. The nurses transferred me to a bed, arranged pillows comfortably, and set the bed at a good angle. Joel came into the room, pushing the isolette in front of him, and I got my first glimpse of little Mona. The nightmare was finally over.

Well, as it turned out, Mona was indeed breech, bottom first. She was also indeed large: 10 lbs, 7 oz. It was a good thing the doctor had urged induction, and a good thing he decided for a c-section instead of attempting a regular birth. I can’t fault the doctors for anything in how they handled Mona’s birth.

Still, recovering from a c-section is a lot harder than I anticipated, and adjusting to it mentally is also a challenge. I was the one once labelled by a doctor as having “birthing hips.” I was from a family that had never seen a c-section. When I read about childbirth, I’d always skipped past the parts about c-section, because I knew I’d never need one.

Now here I am, reminded of what I wrote not all that long ago, about letting God be in charge. After months of enforced inactivity, I was ready to recover quickly and get back on my feet and busy, but God had other plans.

When I was still pregnant, I couldn’t wait to be free to move about again, so I could finally make up to Joel for all he’d been doing for me. I wanted to be able to wash dishes, so he wouldn’t have to. I wanted to bring him his dinner, and meet him at the door with a kiss. He had so genuinely earned the epithet “Charming and Patient Husband,” and it was going to be my chance to be as good to him as he’d been to me.

But major surgery has a way of changing things. What should have been a simple recuperation became an exercise in additional dependence. “Honey, will you please help me sit up?” “Can you please take my arm and help me to the bathroom so I don’t fall?”

God is reminding me, even more forcefully than before that sometimes we are called to do, but other times we are called just to be. Even when it’s difficult. Maybe it’s to humble me, or maybe it’s because of all the grace and kindness it gives Joel a chance to develop; but for one reason or another, our Father has seen fit to repeat his message. “Sit down, my child.” Ok, what next? “Nothing. Just sit down. I have my reasons.”

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Posted By Christina M on April 12, 2006

As I recover from childbirth, I offer a guest post from my daughter, Shannon.

Love is More than Three Words

As a teenager and high school student, you can bet that I hear the words “I love you” thrown around a lot. For a teenager to say “I love you” is just as normal as a cat drinking milk, or a soccer mom biting at games. But what does it mean when a person says it? And what is it supposed to mean?

Being a teenage girl, there’s nothing in the world I want more than to be in love. Because to us, love is the end goal. It’s the final destination, where we can really be happy. Now, I’ve had my share of boyfriends who’ve said, “I love you” to me. My first was saying it after we’d been dating for a grand total of six hours. But I don’t think that really meant that they did. Each one meant something along the lines of “I love you because you’re here”, “I love you because we’re together”, ‘I love you because you’re pretty”, and one of my favorites, “I love you because I’m supposed to”.

But that’s not what love is.

If you can sum up the whole of your feelings in one sentence, it’s not love. If you can sum it up in one hundred, it’s not love. Because love isn’t just something you talk about. It’s something you do.

Opening the door for her is love. Telling her that it’ll all be okay is love. Showing all your friends how proud you are to be dating her is love. Spending hours in earnest discussion about your favorite topics is love. There are so many actions that express love; it’s no wonder that it just can’t be said through words.

I’m waiting for the day to come along when someone loves me like that. And he won’t have to say a word to me for me to know it. What he does will be enough.

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Posted By Christina M on April 7, 2006

Joel here. I’ve just posted an update. No need to do it twice; Christina will probably fill everybody in when she gets a chance.

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Posted By Christina M on April 6, 2006

Contractions started an hour ago and are five minutes apart already. See you in a few days, with babe in arms!

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Posted By Christina M on March 26, 2006

This past month or two have been difficult. First, I was told by doctor and hospital staff to put my feet up, stop picking up our toddler, quit cooking dinner and cleaning, and rest a whole lot more. Then, I finally reached the point in the pregnancy where I was allowed to do things that might trigger labor, and the pain set in. I couldn’t bend, stand up straight, walk comfortably, or breathe upright for more than a few minutes at a time. All the while, I was experiencing the fatigue of anemia.

Enter Joel, the husband I always dreamed of. I knew he was a catch, long ago. But this pregnancy has really given the proof of it. He’s done all the cooking, almost all of the housework, and essentially everything that needs doing. All while working full time. Knowing that getting up is hard, who do you think got up with Davy when he was sick in the night? Who do you think stops at the store on the way home, and changes diapers because he knows I can’t get back up from the floor anymore?

Today he had to work, because he had an especially heavy workload , with upcoming deadlines. (Ah, the newspaper business.) But while he was away being missed, he posted something to his blog that made me mist up. Read it, and you’ll see exactly why I married him. He is so much more than I could describe here.

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Posted By Christina M on March 24, 2006

… well, just frustrating. But, alas, no news yet.

So I’ll take a little side trip down NFP lane just to keep from being too utterly quiet on the subject.

We’ve probably all heard the arguments against the pill and other chemical birth control. To a lesser degree, we’ve heard the arguments against the condom and other barrier methods. The progesterone only methods are not contraceptive but almost entirely abortifacient, a fact that few providers bother to mention to their patients. The combination pill, abortifacient to a lesser degree, brings with it risks of breast cancer, blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, and high blood pressure. The barrier methods reduce the intimacy of the marital act, to say the least.

But one argument I rarely hear is about how artificial birth control affects us psychologically. NFP gets referred to by its detractors as a craps shoot, because everyone knows someone who had a relative who had a neighbor who used NFP and got pregnant. What they don’t know is how many, like me, practiced NFP till one day they didn’t.

My baby isn’t the result of losing at the craps table. My baby is the result of my love for my husband being stronger than my desire to avoid pregnancy. And that is an effect you rarely get with other methods of pregnancy and birth prevention.

You see, when an NFP couple decides to “take a chance,” they know full well what the “risk” is. When a woman is fertile, and they decide to have relations, they are opening themselves to life; and this can happen any month. Unlike chemicals, and even barriers, NFP never becomes a habit, something that is automatically done. Each and every time a couple must make an individual decision about whether to open up the possibility of conception. There is no overcoming the unthinking habit of using a condom or a sponge, and there is no need to wait for chemicals to clear out of the body. Each time a couple makes their decision, they have full free choice, unhindered by the hurdles that artificial birth control put in the way.

This is how it is that someone like me, at age 39, already in early stages of perimenopause, and in not very good shape for another baby, can practice NFP and then suddenly find herself expecting, without NFP having “failed.”

So the next time you hear about a case of NFP “failure,” take a moment to appreciate the possibility that, rather than failing, NFP simply offered the couple the chance to change their minds because love overcame their inhibitions.

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