10 Years With a Guy I know

Today is the first day of the 11th year of my partnership with Dave.
From the very first day, our relationship was our own, to do as we pleased with.
In spite of the rough patches, I believe we have done that.
Those familiar with me know of my tendency to process via the written word, so here are my thoughts after a decade, take 'em or leave 'em.

We are married, but because we didn't seek permission from anyone, not a church or a government or a parental unit, we are Common Law married, and so there's no certificate or church register or any of that bullshit. I should thank my digital calendar, I think I would have forgotten our anniversary date a dozen times by now if it didn't remind me every year! LOL I loved our little ceremony at Ledges, with family and friends and food. It was a great start.

It hasn't gone all to plan, of course. In fact, the plan didn't even last the first week. We certainly didn't plan on getting pregnant with our eldest child before we even had our honeymoon. That honeymoon is still waiting to happen. I won't say I regret it's lack, a marriage is not the honeymoon. I wonder sometimes though, what a honeymoon would be like.
I digress.

We've loved, we've fought, we've forgiven, grown and loved some more. We had one kid, and thought, "that was intense, but cool, lets do it again!" And had a second. That effectively cured that bit of madness, and we've stopped.

The kids are pretty cute, if I do say so. Expensive fuckers though. America has lost it's damn mind, and every pregnancy and birth set us back so far economically, that it's not an exaggeration to say we've still not recovered, and they are 6 and 9 now. That's added stress to our marriage, in ways I've not enjoyed. It was tempting to take the frustration out on my partner, "If you just made more money, if our insurance was better...." But the truth was always that the deck was stacked, and not in our favor. #SinglePayerNow

In spite of that, we kept on. Whether it was walking off a job, pregnant and on the other side of the Mississippi, or starting a small organic farm with toddlers strapped to me, I always knew Dave had my back. Because he always does. That's not nothing.

We chose to keep our own names, for various reasons. The kids have the my last name, it's come up in discussions with them as they've come into contact with other families and learned about the "norms." The youngest has indicated he may change his last name to Dave's one of these days. He's got time yet to think it over and make the best decision for himself, we'll support him either way.
(No, kindergarden isn't too young, I changed my name in Kindergarden and have never gone back, but I never legally changed it.) Anyway, I highly recommend keeping your name, for anyone considering it.  Neither of us had the hassle of a name change, which it is a hassle ladies, don't believe for a second you'll get it changed and things will go smoothly and you'll never have to think about it again. I entered into a contract with another adult, there is no legal reason to change names to do that. The common practice of changing names to do that seems weird to me.

Our contract is unique to us. Another practice I highly recommend.
"Love is patient, love is kind.."
*BARF*
Here's a snippet of our vows:
BECKY: David, will you cause her anger?
DAVE: I may
BECKY: Is that your intent?
DAVE: No
BECKY: Jennie, will you cause him anger?
JENNIE: I may
BECKY: Is that your intent?
JENNIE: No
BECKY: *To Both* Will you take the heat of anger and use it to temper the strength of this union?
BOTH: We Will
BECKY: And so the binding is made.

We promised to cause pain and add burdens to each other. We have done so. We promised also to ease the burdens and share the laughter and love of life with one another. We have done so. Privately we promised to stand back to back against zombie hordes if the end of the world comes. Don't mess with us, we're both trained in weapons.

I speak lightly of pain and violence, but I want to be clear that we have never let our anger spill into physical violence. One or the other of us may walk away, far away. But we always circle around and come back and talk some more. That's not nothing.

I will say we've definitely gone to bed mad.
Hi, my name is Jennie, I have a temper and hold a grudge forever, (Leo.)
We go to bed mad all the fucking time. Usually though, it's the same bed. From the twin mattress on the floor of our first house, through co-sleeping with milk/pee covered babies, through surgeries, illnesses and fights and everything else, we sleep together. Sometimes, I wake up still mad, *shrug* I don't owe anyone de-escalation, and if it's not right, it's not right, and I'll hold on to my anger till it is.
I thought I was marrying someone who could handle the heat. And mostly, I was right. Sometimes, I wake no longer mad. Love has a way of crowding anger out of a heart when it blossoms. And sleep has a way of showing the absurdities of arguments based on toddler-parents-being-tired.

I'm trying to think of other tips to share. Our arrangement is so unique in some ways...
Most of our baby-time was spent with Dave as our stay-at-home-parent. I feel like American society has come a long way in that department. The kids' docters and schools have always handled it gracefully, I thought, Dave may have other impressions. If anything, it was parenting support groups that didn't support the arrangement. So many were "Mom" specific, that Dave often felt isolated. Reach out to your Dad friends, they could probably use a kind word from a friend.

We eat together a lot, as a family as often as we can. Although, this is another spot where America stacks the deck against us. Most of the time there's only one of us feeding the children the meal in question, and the other of us is working. Dave feeds them Breakfast and first lunch, I feed them second lunch and Dinner. Because, the only way we can make ends meet is to work opposite shifts. That reached its peak right before Logan started school, with Dave working overnights and me working days. I cannot stress enough how horrible that was. If there's anything the past 10 years that I can unequivocally say it almost ended our  marriage, it was that period. If you are considering such an arrangement, don't do it. Find any other way possible, and don't do it.  I'll go even farther and say that as a country we need to seriously reconsider how many of our workers we're asking to work overnights. It's not just emergency folks anymore, and it's not healthy for a society to stress so many workers in this way. But I was speaking of dinner. Our family dinners don't look like the ones I had as a child, but we work with what we've got. And if I walk the kids down to Dave's store for dessert afterwards and good night hugs, that's America for ya.

We don't get a lot of date nights. All the marriage advice says to make time for them. We would have loved more dates, but there was often not enough money to pay for a sitter and a meal out. So they often didn't happen. I'd like to say, we did stay-at-home dates! They were wonderful! But it's not true. If we stayed at home we had an often-interrupted tv show, perhaps a drink for one of us, and one or both of us passed out asleep before finishing either the drink or the show. That's not a date, that's Tuesday night. This continues to be a challenge as we pass the decade mark. America doesn't value child care or parenting breaks, so as a society it supports neither. When the high schoolers want 10$ an hour to watch the kids, and one of us doesn't make much more than that at work, it quickly becomes absurd to try to go out when we realize we are spending most of a week's pay to go out for an evening. We joke that it would be nice to get a divorce, so we could go out more often. But it's half way not a joke either. The parents we know that have time for dates, have an ex-spouse (or two) to drop the kids with. (Or retired, healthy and close parents.) That's not a sustainable way to save a marriage. It's a struggle.
I'd love to explore more non-nuclear-family living arrangement and see if my hypothesis about more adults bears out. Co-house with another family. Add another adult to our marriage. Live with an adult sibling or cousin or nephew.  Something, anything, that increases that adult to child ratio and see if that eases the raising-children burden enough to allow for healthy marriage upkeep. If I get the opportunity I'll keep y'all in the loop.



Finally, speaking of family arrangements, I know some of you clicked through because you are curious if I would say anything about the open part of our marriage. We consider ourselves Polyamorous. We've both had other partners over the last 10 years. Some more serious than others. I was poly before I started dating Dave, and he had had poly relationships before me. I've never really been monogamous as an adult. More than that, I am a woman who spends most of her time with men. I work as an engineer in the construction field, it's a rare day when I'm *not* the only woman on the job site. I'm the only woman on my engineering team. I'm a dancer, and I mostly dance with men. This was true before my marriage and I was clear that all of that would continue to be true after marriage. So jealousy and possessiveness are not traits I have the time or inclination to deal with. I love freely, bigly, and muchly. My love for my second child doesn't decrease the love for my first born. It's the same with my adult relationships. Does it make things more complicated? Yes, it occasionally does. Is it worth it? Yes, I believe so. Love is always worth it. It has gotten more interesting as the kids age. Now they ask questions and want to know what's going on and they form their own relationships with our metamours. I find it endlessly fascinating.




Life will of course continue on. Our eldest will hit 10 next spring, the crushing weight of baby care and toddler raising are behind us. (While my body may occasionally ache for another baby, I refer you to the previous mention of the economic disaster that is childbirth in America. As science is my witness we will be having no more babies.) The more cerebral challenges of middle school and teens are ahead of us. Hopefully we have at least another decade of loving and laughing together to look forward to. Even if we don't, if one or both of us grow away from this partnership, I have no regrets about loving Dave.

It's been a hell of a ride babe. 💓💖😍

Why I Won't Move to Oklahoma, or Kansas, or Texas..

The list is actually quite long, of states I won't be moving to in this great country I call home. Some folks might be curious about why. So here's the break down.

Some are for religious reasons. Did you know 6 states still have laws on their books that bar atheists from holding office? I'm not going to fake an interest in a make-believe being just to get involved in civic governance as is my right as an American citizen. So that takes the following states off my list.

• Texas
• Tennesse
• South Carolina
• Mississippi
• Maryland
• Arkansas

Oklahoma gets a special mention in this category because GOP lawmakers there have recently introduced a bill that would restrict marriage to Christians and Jews. HB1125, check it out. As in, atheists, muslims, etc need not apply for marriage; so sad, too bad, you weren't needing that status for health insurance or tax purposes were you? Better find yourself some jesus and get to a church. Because, in addition, the bill would bar all judges and other secular officials from performing marriages in Oklahoma. So people who just need a quiet, quick ceremony are out of luck too.  That does not endear the state to me, no matter how many of my relatives are there.
Kansas likes to shove religious nonsense into school curriculum so they get an honorable mention too.

Some are off the list for reasons that are tangential to religious reasons, namely their war against women's reproductive rights. And, no, I don't buy for one precious second that these abhorrent laws are based on safety for women. You want to look at women's safety? Check out the rates of death by botched abortion and note the point on the graph where women finally had court mandated access to safe legal abortions. (Hint: Roe v Wade was decided in 1973.)
Women's safety is certainly not maintained when researchers say nearly 200,000 Texas women have lost access to contraception, cancer screenings, and basic preventive care, especially in low-income, rural parts of the state. All in the name of "safety." So spare me that.

So, with that little bit of clarity behind us, here are the states that I won't move to because I'm a woman of reproductive age and controlling my fertility is of vital importance to my economic and physical well being.

•  Oklahoma - Yes, unfortunatly OK tops this list, as it has the highest number of laws restricting women's access to abortion and that has affected the number of women's clinics, making all other health services hard to come by.
• Kansas is high on this list too, so in spite of its close proximity to family, it's out.
• Louisiana has family in it, but again it's out. (Plus, they like to elect felons, what is up with that?)
• Missouri climbed this particular graph in a dramatic way this past year, it was in consideration before that happened. Oh well, too bad. 
• Texas .. oh Texas.   When I say this state is a war-zone, I'm not just talking about the 100 mile radius surrounding the border. They are waging war against the health of half their population. Texas Health and Human Services estimates that the state will see almost 24,000 unplanned births in the coming year because of the cuts to services.  That will cost taxpayers a pretty penny, up to $273 Million is what the THHS says.  I'm so not interested in joining that party.

(The data in this chart is primarily sourced to the Guttmacher Institute).


 It's really too bad. I wish I could move closer to extended family, there are a lot of them I really miss, but I'm not interested in rewarding the lawmakers of these states. If they are going to pass laws hostile to women, and/or hostile to secular Americans, this woman is not going to move there. Period.

They don't deserve my brain power, they don't deserve my skills or my payroll taxes. They don't deserve my sales taxes, my fees, fines or permit dollars. Fuck 'em. 

It's perhaps a small thing in the larger picture of state budgets, but they are my small things, and I still have control over them, so I'll decide where they go.

Oregon, Vermont and Washington, why do you have to be so far away?
-Jennie

Strong Women

A bit of poetry for the end of this week.  It's been a rough few weeks. Our savings has been going backwards, my job has been just as stressful as ever and I'm having to break in new ground for my vegetables because of the crazy lady and the girl scouts.
There have been some bright points though, Rowen got a new bike, a tag along that hooks onto Dave's bike, and he LOVES it. He was a happy little kid.
Logan is learning words, more every day, and continues to be just the sweetest little guy.
I've been painting and running and biking and doing some yoga to try and offset the hard work and stress.
Half of the Mother's Day cards are on their way South. Got to finish the last few though.  :-)

This poem spoke to me, and I thought I would share. I know a lot of strong women in my life, and I'm humbled that some consider me one. Enjoy.
-Jennie



"For strong women"

A strong woman is a woman who is straining.
A strong woman is a woman standing
on tiptoe and lifting a barbell
while trying to sing Boris Godunov.
A strong woman is a woman at work
cleaning out the cesspool of the ages,
and while she shovels, she talks about
how she doesn't mind crying, it opens
the ducts of the eyes, and throwing up
develops the stomach muscles, and
she goes on shoveling with tears
in her nose.

A strong woman is a woman in whose head
a voice is repeating, I told you so,
ugly, bad girl, bitch, nag, shrill, witch,
ballbuster, nobody will ever love you back,
why aren't you feminine, why aren't
you soft, why aren't you quiet, why
aren't you dead?

A strong woman is a woman determined
to do something others are determined
not be done. She is pushing up on the bottom
of a lead coffin lid. She is trying to raise
a manhole cover with her head, she is trying
to butt her way through a steel wall.
Her head hurts. People waiting for the hole
to be made say, hurry, you're so strong.

A strong woman is a woman bleeding
inside. A strong woman is a woman making
herself strong every morning while her teeth
loosen and her back throbs. Every baby,
a tooth, midwives used to say, and now
every battle a scar. A strong woman
is a mass of scar tissue that aches
when it rains and wounds that bleed
when you bump them and memories that get up
in the night and pace in boots to and fro.

A strong woman is a woman who craves love
like oxygen or she turns blue choking.
A strong woman is a woman who loves
strongly and weeps strongly and is strongly
terrified and has strong needs. A strong woman is strong
in words, in action, in connection, in feeling;
she is not strong as a stone but as a wolf
suckling her young. Strength is not in her, but she
enacts it as the wind fills a sail.

What comforts her is others loving
her equally for the strength and for the weakness
from which it issues, lightning from a cloud.
Lightning stuns. In rain, the clouds disperse.
Only water of connection remains,
flowing through us. Strong is what we make
each other. Until we are all strong together,
a strong woman is a woman strongly afraid.
-Marge Piercy

Apparently I'm Still Not Feminine

I've been married to Dave for over 5 years now. This morning we were having a frank discussion about something and I used a turn of phrase that literally made him double take. Followed by a comment on how I still surprise him sometimes with my less than feminine speaking ways.  And a smile, because he loves it, and me. But still, it surprised me.

I speak how I've always spoken. Perhaps with a bit more confidence now than in my awkward teenage years, or bookish childhood. But honestly, I don't feel as though my verbal and written communication has ever been described as feminine. "Strong," or "advanced for my age" were used when the speaker was being polite. (I can remember a conversation with a teacher in 4th grade when she mentioned that she spoke to me like she would an adult, knowing that I would understand what she was saying.)  I was always yelling out answers in class, especially in math and science lessons. It took me years to get in the habit of raising my hand to speak, and by the time I'd figured that out, I had also figured out how to read a different book under my desk or read ahead in the book the rest of the class was struggling to get 1 chapter into, completely uninterested in what was going on. By the time I hit 7th, I was adept at keeping one finger on the page the class was working on, and reading ahead to the things I was actually interested in.

I feel that, as an adult, when I disagree with something and I speak vehemently or passionately about it, I get accused of being mad, or yelling. I can pepper it with smiles and consciously keep my voice tones low, and I still get the accusation. WTF is up with that? And why do I feel like if I was a man my counter points would be accepted without the complaints about my tone?

August is an interesting month for me this year, probably heightening my awareness of these things. I'm turning 30 this month. Control of my fertility is high on my priority list right now. The onslaught of state, national and religious groups fighting to take away my control of my reproductive organs is upsetting. Honestly, I find it hard some days to deal fairly with my Christian neighbors, it can be difficult to divorce them from the larger religious organizations trampling my human rights. But, that's fodder for a whole 'nother post.

As some of you know, I stopped shaving years ago. I was/am tired of the media saturation promoting their airbrushed, unattainable version of femininity. One of the best things about the lack of a television in our house if I don't have to see that crap on a daily basis.  Hair, stretch marks, freckles, wrinkles and fat are all part of reality. Yet women embracing those aspects of their feminine reality are scarce. Armpits4August is a group of women doing just that. Encouraging women to grow their own under arm hair and to love it and rejoice in the perfect hair that our wonderful bodies grow. Not to shave it away, wax it away or hide it under sleeves. They are mainly in the UK right now, which is too bad for me, no rallies near enough I could get to one.

Also this month, much nearer to home, is the August 25th National Go Topless Day. I ask you this, my American readers, why is it my male neighbor can mow his lawn topless and I can't? Why is my husband so sure that I would get arrested if I tried something like that? There are no laws about it on record for my town. Just the vague sort of indecent exposure type laws. In New York City, law enforcement and community activists annually remind citizens that such displays are completely legal in that city. Male or female, equal treatment, everyone can show nipples in public.  Does the constitution not extend to Iowa? Does my equal treatment depend on my geographic nearness to one of the coasts?

So, if you hear of my arrest on the 25th, you'll know why.

I guess I should just resign myself to the comments about my less-than-feminine traits. Especially since I flaunt pretty much every societal norm for my gender. Proudly. With one finger in the air.
I have opinions and I'll say them. I have hair, and I'll grow it. With any luck my boys won't grow up with the current bullshit view on what feminine is. Maybe they'll have more freedom in expressing their own uniqueness. Maybe their wives and/or daughters will have more freedom because of it.

Here's something fun to end today's post.


---------------Jennie Fun Fact
Perhaps the single most feminine aspect to my communication is the circle I put over my lower case 'i' in my stubbornly not-cursive handwriting. I learned cursive enough to pass the 3rd grade requirements, and I knew then that I was never going to use it again, and I haven't. But even that circle, has its roots not in girlie doodling, but in logic. It was because of that same 3rd grade class, in our daily cursive exercises, with a teacher who was sloppy about her 't' crossing and 'i' dotting. Because of that sloppiness her cursive 'l', 't', and 'i' all looked a lot a like. I thought, that's just a recipe for miscommunication, I'm going to make sure my 'i' are clearly 'i's and not stumpy 'l's. So I used the forced daily cursive writing practice as a medium for changing my handwriting, and I taught myself the circle over the 'i' and I've never gone back. 

Take care y'all,
Jennie

Breastfeeding - The End

Baby and I are are officially done nursing. I guess I should stop calling him baby. :-(  :-( Nah, I don't wanna, and you can't make me.
We made it till 15 months, that's not too shabby.  We made it through supply issues, work trips, a nursing strike and teething. Whew!

Part of me is sad. I miss our intimate snuggles. His little gurgles, hums and coos. Part of me is happy, my nipples are no longer teething rings! I can wear whatever shirt I want!

Sadly I didn't have enough supply to build up a frozen milk stash for donation. I was really hoping I would, but it just didn't happen. Oh well, no one is perfect.




I'm really happy with how much support I got at work for breastfeeding. Never a derogatory word. Never any problems with customers. I had to find places to pump at two different job sites. Hard hat construction sites. No problem. I'm planning to make some simple little thank you cards for my managers.

The following are some breastfeeding stories I found online, and I liked them enough to share here. Enjoy!

"In Mongolia, instead of relegating me to a "Mothers Only" section, breastfeeding in public brought me firmly to center stage. Their universal practice of breast feeding anywhere, anytime, and the close quarters at which most Mongolians live, mean that everyone is pretty familiar with the sight of a working boob. They were happy to see I was doing things their way (which was, of course, the right way).

When I breastfed in the park, grandmothers would regale me with tales of the dozen children they had fed. When I breastfed in the back of taxis, drivers would give me the thumbs-up in the rearview mirror and assure me that Calum would grow up to be a great wrestler. When I walked through the market cradling my feeding son in my arms, vendors would make a space for me at their stalls and tell him to drink up. Instead of looking away, people would lean right in and kiss Calum on the cheek. If he popped off in response to the attention and left my streaming breast completely exposed, not a beat was missed. No one stared, no one looked away - they just laughed and wiped the milk off their noses.

From the time Calum was four months old until he was three years old, wherever I went, I heard the same thing over and over again: "Breastfeeding is the best thing for your baby, the best thing for you." The constant approval made me feel that I was doing something important that mattered to everyone - exactly the kind of public applause every new mother needs.

By Calum's second year, I had fully realized just how useful breastfeeding could be. Nothing gets a child to sleep as quickly, relieves the boredom of a long car journey as well, or calms a breaking storm as swiftly as a little warm milk from mummy. It's the lazy mother's most useful parenting aid, and by now I thought I was using it to its maximum effect. But the Mongolians took it one step further.
During the Mongolian winters, I spent many afternoons in my friend Tsetsgee's yurt, escaping the bitter cold outside. It was enlightening to compare our different parenting techniques. Whenever a tussle over toys broke out between our two-year-olds, my first reaction would be to try to restore peace by distracting Calum with another toy while explaining the principle of sharing. But this took a while, and had a success rate of only about 50 percent. The other times, when Calum was unwilling to back down and his frustration escalated to near boiling point, I would pick him up and cradle him in my arms for a feed.

Tsetsgee had a different approach. At the first murmur of discord, she would lift her shirt and start waving her boobs around enthusiastically, calling out, "Come here, baby, look what mama's got for you!" Her son would look up from the toys to the bull's-eyes of his mother's breasts and invariably toddle over.

Success rate? 100 percent.

Not to be outdone, I adopted the same strategy. There we were, two mothers flapping our breasts like competing strippers trying to entice a client. If the grandparents were around, they'd get in on the act. The poor kids wouldn't know where to look - the reassuring fullness of their own mothers' breasts, granny's withered pancake boasting its long experience, or the strange mound of flesh granddad was squeezing up in breast envy. Try as I might, I can't picture a similar scene at a La Leche League meeting." source - check out the rest of the story, it's AWESOME.

"The Nyangatom tribe resides in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley.

They are known for  for their heavy (beautiful) necklaces.

Women wear the necklaces with long goatskin skirts.

Breastfeeding is celebrated, and given the culture’s attire, babies seem pretty happy about the easy access to their mother’s milk. " source

WAG-Free Zone

"David Cameron is encouraging Barack Obama to leave his wife Michelle at home when he attends the G8 Summit in the UK this year.
British sources say the Prime Minister wants the summit in June to be WAG-free to ensure leaders remain ‘focused’ on issues like tackling tax avoidance, without the distraction of having their wives and girlfriends in tow.  source"

WAG-free. You can be forgiven for not knowing the meaning of that. I didn't know. I had to look it up. "Wife and Girlfriend Free."  How quaint Mr Prime Minister.
But, of course, we all know women are a distraction to the business of governing the world. Never mind that they are 50% of the population. Their mere presence is a distraction from the manly duties of deciding how best to handle the ongoing defaults in the EU or climate change.  Oh, I'm sorry, Cameron says they will be discussing "tax, trade and transparency." Everyone knows women don't know anything about those anyway.
And what of Angela Merkel? She is a wife. Is SHE expected to stay at home? Or just her husband?  No word yet on what he thinks of being included in the WAG grouping.
The Prime Minister of the UK really can't think of anything that a half dozen of the most powerful women in the world could do during a G8 summit? REALLY?  How sad. What a disappointing thing to announce to the world. What a disappointing message to send to the women of the world.  "You are worthless. Less than worthless, you are a distraction from serious issues."
What a disappointing thing to say to other leaders of the world. "You are the most powerful person in your country, but your wife is a hindrance, you don't actually depend on her for anything do you? Why don't you go ahead and leave her at home."

It's a good thing I'm not a world leader, I have a very explicit response to the Prime Ministers suggestion that the G8 summit needs to be a "WAG-free zone."  Take your WAG-Free zone and shove it up your misogynistic ass.

</ Feminist Rant>
-Jennie

Using Breastfeeding as a Weight Loss Mechanism

I've touted this lovely side benefit of breast feeding, to any of my girlfriends who would listen.
Apparently a couple were listening, because I've had a couple of them complain that it wasn't working!

So, here's the gist of what I'm doing when I say I use breastfeeding to help me lose the baby weight.

First off, it's not going to happen in the first month, or even the first 3 months.  That 6 week Postpartum period really is just for healing.  Some women may need even longer than that to get everything back in working order.  Joints and muscles need time to realign. Your hormones need to settle down and you need to shed all that uterine material.  None of that is conducive to weight loss efforts.  Let your body heal. Gentle walks pushing the baby, walks with the baby in a sling, these are all fine, but anything more strenuous and you risk injury.

3-6 months postpartum, at this point you can start doing longer, harder walks. And low impact workouts. I liked yoga, swimming and dancing. Choose your weapon though.  This is also when baby hits the first major growth spurt.  Ladies, you'll know it's growth spurt time when baby wants to remain latched on 24 hours a day. :-D It's frustrating, and annoying to have to devote that much time to the little imp, but if you can resist the siren call of formula "just this once" and stick with it, baby will pull a lot of calories from you, and your body will respond by breaking down the "baby weight" to keep the milk supply healthy and copious.

After the 6 month mark, I start whittling down the extra food that I had been taking in from the 3rd trimester through the first 6 months of baby. That bedtime snack, or extra dessert, one at a time I do away with them.  I do make sure I am eating enough calories that my milk supply doesn't drop, but I stop taking in 100% of the calories I need for me and baby (or 110% or whatever "eating for two" looks like for you.) If I know I need ~2000, and baby is pulling 500-750 calories.  I try to aim for the 2400-2500 range of intake.  That way my body has motivation to pull from fat stores. I also focus on keeping what I am eating super healthy.  Lots of fresh fruits and veggies, whole grains, dairy and clean protein.  That way my body doesn't have to supply calcium from my bones or anything detrimental like that. I keep on with the exercising, what I can, when baby will let me, to help muscles rebuild so they can get in on the fat burning fun.

The other thing to watch out for is overeating while baby starts weaning.  A one year old baby needs about 900 calories, but is usually eating quite the range of finger foods, and significantly less of the breast milk. So you have to be careful to whittle back your own calories as baby ramps up the self feeding. 

Take away points here: You have to be committed to more than 6 weeks of breastfeeding.  Keep adjusting your calorie intake to keep up with the changes in breastfeeding,whether that means more calories in or less, listen to your body and give it time. It took 9 months to get to the 60 or 70 pounds overweight that full term pregnancy usually entails. Give yourself the same amount of time to whittle things back down.  Round 1 took me almost a full year to get rid of. Round 2 took only 8 months, practice helps I think. (Or the lack of convenient Thai food....) :-D

-Jennie

Breastfeeding Exclusively While Working Full Time

As a full time working mother, creating a new life comes with some very real challenges. Problems of balancing time and energy, as well as managing expectations. There's also the necessity of handling the physical demands of both the job and the baby.  This post is exploring some of the paths I've taken this year and what has worked well for our little non-traditional family arrangement.

Young Logan was born in April. My employer was great about making sure I was weaned off of projects and prepared for my team to step in and take over anything I was working on when baby's timer went off. That part of maternity leave went really well. There were very few hiccups after my water broke early Weds morning and I asked my team lead to take over responsibility for the work I had planned for that week. I had no hesitation about making that call, and nothing but excitement about meeting the young lad that I knew would be out soon. (Well, excitement and a good dollop of fear and anxiety, but I'll save that for the birth story.) I know I'm blessed to have those privileges. I say blessed here, only to use a word other than "lucky," as I don't believe I'm lucky. I'm not happy with blessed either, as it implies that the blessing was bestowed on my by a deity, which I also don't believe in. The family friendly practices of this company were the main reason they lured me out to the middle of nowhere NW Iowa.  There was no luck involved, I worked hard for my engineering degree and was extremely picky about the job I accepted here. There are lactation rooms, fully supported FMLA leave policies, my boss is a woman and has had 4 kids with this company.  These were all things I verified before taking the position, even though at the time, I wasn't expecting to need to use them.

Anyway, I wanted to be clear on where I'm coming from with this post. I know I'm fortunate in the facilities and the support I receive, and it saddens me that not every woman in America has at least this much support. There's no right or wrong way to be a good parent, and I don't want to imply that this is the only or best way for anyone other than us.

I had 12 weeks off in total.  There were 5 of those weeks where I received 50% pay, from the temporary disability insurance the company carries.  The rest of the time off was without pay.  As the main income provider for my family, this required a lot of advanced planning. For the 8 month prior to the delivery, I sent 400$ a month towards the Health Savings Account (HSA). Plus I transferred a good chunk out of our savings into there, something on the order of 1 or 1.2K. We have a $4,000 deductible on our current health insurance and I knew I wanted at least $3,200 in the HSA before baby came, in order to have enough money in there to cover most of the medical bills.  I also tried to get every monthly bill paid up or paid ahead so that the first month after baby we could ignore the mail without anything getting shut off.

Jennie, what does any of this have to do with breastfeeding? Well, I'm getting to that part.  All of that work ahead of time set us up so that I could take the maximum allowed time off. I didn't want financial pressures pushing me back to the office, before baby and I were physically ready for it.  12 weeks is barely enough time to ensure that, 5 weeks or 6 weeks would have been really hard.

At 10 weeks out, boss lady and I decided that I would come back part time on week 12, using the last week of FMLA, over a 2 week span. I worked a MWF schedule my first 2 weeks back, using FMLA (unpaid) leave for T/TH.  This helped ease both baby and I into the work routine. On my end there was the pumping regimen to endure, and the desk schedule of 7:30-5pm.  On baby's end there was adjustment to bottle feeding with Dad.  Once I knew my start day, I had to make sure that there was enough milk pumped and frozen to sustain baby for that day.  This was a bit of a guess on my part. I knew how many feedings he usually had, and I tried to make sure there were enough bags in the freezer to cover the number of feedings I expected to miss. I didn't really know quantities, so I tried not to worry about it, and I had an extra bag to cover a bit of guessing error.

A few words about pumping at work.  I have to pump 3 times a day at work. (I work the aforementioned schedule of 7:30-5 in a cube.) My company has 50+ employees, so we have a lactation room. (It's also a server room, but not high traffic.) My boss leaves my pumping breaks up to me to schedule and follow and work around. I try to stick to a schedule, I use my calendar and repeating alarms to help. I have found that it's not critical though, I can swing one feeding by 30 minutes in either direction and not have any problems.  It takes me 15 minutes to pump. I usually combine my pee break/coffee refill and pump break, so I'm away from my desk for 20 minutes each time.   By the end of the first week of full time pumping, my nips were hurting enough that I had to break out another set of Soothies pads to ease them a bit Friday and Saturday. Second week of full time went a little better.

A few words about the pump. I bought a double electric pump, with letdown programming. I got the cheapest brand in that tier of pumps. Lansinoh's. It didn't come with a bag, or with icepacks but it came with everything needed to pump. I made a bag, because I'm cool like that.  It does help to have a bag for it, that way I can easily and discreetly carry it to work on Monday mornings, and home Friday evenings.  I use my lunch box to carry the milk home in.  It's rare for me not to bring my lunch, so that works fine in my situation.  If you know you need a bag, and you know you need a specific ice pack/cooler solution, make sure the pump you buy comes with those. Otherwise, save your money and buy just the pump.

With each pumping session I pump both boobs, simultaneously. (Ha! It took me 9 paragraphs to say boobs. You're welcome.) I expected that to be difficult the first time, but it really wasn't. Letdown has always happened in both, when one is stimulated, so that part didn't feel any different. I always have one lady that lets down a little quicker than the other. It varies each day, depending on my nursing habits the night before.  I just keep the pump in letdown mode until both have letdown, then I send it into pump mode. Usually there's only 5-30 seconds difference, so it's not a big deal.

Along with the differences in letdown timings, there's also a difference in quantity. Every day is different, but there's always one that's producing more for whatever reason.  Then as the day progresses, the quantities lessen.  I can pump 7oz total in the morning session, but my noon session is usually only 5-6 oz, and the afternoon session is usually only 4-5 oz.

So, I usually pump 16-18 oz at work every day. That's still matching up to what baby eats at home with Dave. I know there are some days he wishes he had an extra bit, but he's usually able to keep baby calm (if hungry) until I can get home.  There is an extra bag for emergencies in the freezer, but we both do our best to leave that one there for true emergencies, and not just to calm the baby because we can't deal with another 10 minutes of screaming.

Eating for two is a bit of a hassle at work.  I eat as much as I can for breakfast, and I bring a jam-packed lunch bag for work. Lots of fruit and veggies to help me feel full and keep me away from the vending machines. Lots of water, to keep hydrated. Lot's of whole grains and lots of dairy.   It would cost a fortune to feed me 700 calories at a fast food place, and it wouldn't have the required range of vitamins or whole grains, so I don't even try.

After lunch I toss my ice pack in the freezer to get chilly, and then when I'm headed home for the day I put my 3 bags of milk in the now empty lunch box.  At home the milk goes straight in the freezer.

Evenings and nights Logan and I nurse as often as he wants it.  Well, as often as I can mange to sit my butt in a chair and let him nurse.

Really, I think that's the hardest part, giving up my night and weekend freedoms to care for this little proto-human. Which is a selfish thing to admit, but I'll admit it.  I didn't magically become unselfish or less independant-minded because I birthed spawn.   Hubby, who knows me better than I know myself sometimes, was the first to put a finger on it when my frustrations were getting the best of me. Now, I try to be mindful of the transient nature of this bond between baby and I.  30 years from now it probably won't matter if there was less garden produce or a few less salsa dances. I'll have more garden seasons, I will dance again, I won't have another year of breastfeeding Logan.
Some days that mantra works better than others.
But, that's life, yea?

Women Should be Taught More Self Defense, Earlier

A word of caution, this post contains an adult discussion of rape, of both men and women, and may contain triggers for those of you suffering from PTSD. This post will build upon an earlier post of mine, "Should Girls Wrestle"  which, a year later continues to get comments.

For those that haven't read that post, I'll recap: High Schools should not only allow girls to wrestle, they should encourage it.  A recent report from the CDC on the widespread instances of rape and abuse in this country grabbed headlines for a day, and then of course, vanished from the the collective conversation. The newscasters tsk-tsked the results and then quickly went on to other, less depressing news. Why no discussion about how to stop or mitigate these findings?  Oh, that's right, it's just women, they are weak, and men who get raped, well they are like women right, weak, so who cares.  As you might can guess, I care.

On average, 24 people per minute are victims of rape, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner in the United States, based on a survey conducted in 2010. Over the course of a year, that equals more than 12 million women and men. Those numbers only tell part of the story—more than 1 million women are raped in a year and over 6 million women and men are victims of stalking in a year. These findings emphasize that sexual violence, stalking, and intimate partner violence are important and widespread public health problems in the United States.

1 MILLION women, in the US alone, EVERY YEAR.  So, no, I don't want to hear about how uncomfortable it makes high school boys to have to fight with or wrestle with girls.  I don't want to hear about how they are taught not to hurt girls, so they are at a disadvantage with a female partner.  That's clearly Bullshit.  While I don't doubt that there are boys being taught that lesson, clearly, as men, they either forget it, or the numbers that never learn that social nicety are far too large.

Women are disproportionally affected by sexual violence, intimate partner violence and stalking.
• 1.3 million women were raped during the year preceding the survey.
• Nearly 1 in 5 women have been raped in their lifetime while 1 in 71 men have been raped in their lifetime.

The majority of this victimization starts early in life.
• Approximately 80% of female victims experienced their first rape before the age of 25 and almost half experienced the first rape before age 18 (30% between 11-17 years old and 12% at or before the age of 10).
• About 35% of women who were raped as minors were also raped as adults compared to 14% of women without an early rape history.
• 28% of male victims of rape were first raped when they were 10 years old or younger.

 HALF of women rape victims are younger than 18.  That means that there are as many as 500,000 girls a year that could be learning valuable self defense lessons in JR HIGH and HIGH SCHOOL that might help them in escaping a rape attempt before they head for college.

Pushing them out of wrestling clubs, or sparring groups is short sighted and harmful.  Jr High Schools and High Schools on that path should do an immediate about face, and not only allow them in but encourage it.  Even if it means forming female only leagues.  Even if it means making male wrestlers uncomfortable.  Help these girls find ways to fight back against being one of these statistics. Don't just shuffle them through Home Ec, Sex Ed and Gym and delude yourself into thinking you're sending them out into the world prepared.

Sadly, I have no daughters, and no connections with the local Jr High and High Schools. (Yet.) If any of my readers do, please feel free to use this post in it's entirety to start conversations with your school district about this issue.  The CDC report is linked at the top and again HERE if you want to print out some of the facts and figures. Please PLEASE teach your daughters about the realities that face them.  Ignoring it or hoping it won't happen to them are terrible ways to deal with this issue.  If you daughters are old enough, enroll them in a self defense class, not one of those hour long once a year sessions, but something on a weekly basis, learning hands on grappling, breaks, throws and disables. While you pray they won't need it, someday they may thank you.  Send your boys too of course, the need isn't as dire in a personal protection sense, but they'll get other very useful benefits from it.

News From My Womb

This is a personal blog, I'll be back to politics, peak oil and TEOTWAWKI soon enough, but allow me a slight detour.
We found out last week that baby #2 will be a boy.  He's healthy and happy, which are blessings, I know. I can't stop mourning though.
Let me explain, I can pinpoint the exact moment I realized I wanted children.  I had always been lukewarm about the idea as a child and teenager. I knew I wanted a career, I knew I wanted travel, and love and all those things, but I wasn't sure about bearing children.  At most I thought perhaps I would adopt a couple when that time came. I had a dream when I was 21, that changed my mind completely.
Dreams, I know, very illogical.  Trust me, I don't spend a lot of time thinking about my dreams, they are usually vivid, and I always remember them in the morning, but I know they are mostly brain dumps and subconscious thoughts.
This dream was different.  Very short and to the point, for me. I held my daughter in my arms. She was new, tiny, a nursling. She had dark hair.  She spoke to me, and said, "Mommy, I love you."  I explained that she couldn't be talking to me, she was too young to be talking.  She said, "Mommy, I know you needed to hear it."

That was it.

In my heart I always hoped I'd get to hold that little girl.
Maybe it's egotistical, but I think I'm a pretty unique woman.  I hoped I'd be able to pass that on in some way. Whether it's hunting or fighting or logic problems, I wanted another female to bond with and send into the ranks of Strong Women Battling the Hordes of Injustice. Lately that's mellowed to include cooking and sewing and dances and cute dresses with flowers in our hair.

Maybe this is better though. I've never gotten along well with most women. I don't seem to have much in common with a lot of them, and I have little patience for the bizarre things they find compelling.   Even with my own mother, it took awhile to find common ground.  We've found it, with sewing, and of course mutual love, but even so I know we don't look on things the same way. Maybe that daughter would never have been the woman I wanted. Maybe we would have been just as estranged as I find myself from most other females.  That would have been hard, so maybe this is kinder.

Maybe I can use that energy to take care of myself, and make pretty dresses for me.  Maybe I can mentor or foster or adopt. Maybe there are girls out there that will need that space in my heart.  I can't know, there's no way to know.

I do know 2 biological children is all I want.   We could try again and again, but there's no guarantees, and it would probably ruin us financially.  We'll do one of those more or less permanent birth control options as soon as he joins us.  We will be happy with our boys, and I will love them fiercely.  If I shed a few tears over their Y chromosome, they'll never need to know that.

Wild Women Weekend 2

Saturday was the second in the outdoor series at the local state park. The weather was a little cloudy, but it was not too windy and a nice 25 degrees.
We met at 10 at the park office. (Well ladies who were on time were there at 10, I was fashionably tardy...) There were a lot more women this time. Instead of 8 there were more than two dozen of us. This necessitated splitting the group into two. My group went cross country skiing first. The other half was snowshoeing first.
We got all the skis and boots and poles organized and into the van, then we walked to the start of the trail, where the van met us. Amid much laughter, we all managed to get clicked into the skis and down the first couple of hills. In spite of a couple of falls, I ended up close to the front, with some of the ladies who had cross country skied before. The 5 of us soon pulled away from the others, and we went quite a long ways before turning back to head back to the van and lunch.
I have to say, I really liked the skiing. The skis attach to the boots under the ball of the foot. This meant that a lot of the muscles in use are the ones that I exercise when I salsa dance. It was also the beginning of the day, and I was fresh and excited to be out. So, I caught on to the motion pretty quickly and was able to keep a good pace for most of the hour. Tricky parts included learning how to get back up after falling, learning how to get up hills and learning how to slow down. I'm still not really good at most of those, but by the end I was getting better. I think I fell down 6 times on the way out and only once on the way back in.

So, after an hour of skiing, we were all very ready for lunch, me included. Victoria, the conservationist, had once again made us a dutch oven feast. Last time was the dutch oven pizza, which was delicious, and she didn't disappoint with the Hungarian Goulash this time.

After lunch we spent some time learning about dog sledding, from a couple that do it for fun. They have a few Siberian Huskies and a little sled, which they brought to show us. After a discussion about safety and the realities of the sport and the dogs, they hooked the huskys to the sled and a few ladies got to try it out.

Fully rested, we split up again and I got my chance to try snowshoeing. Now, I don't know about you, but when I think snowshoeing, I think this:

But in reality, modern snowshoes have evolved a bit. They look a bit more like this:
I got really tired, really quick. :-) The snowshoes were great, don't get me wrong. I liked them. It was fun and pretty easy. I was at the end of my stamina though, having spent all week down with a cold, and all month hiding in the house to stay warm.
I pushed through for most of the hour, lagging a bit, huffing and puffing a bit, but still having too much fun to stop.

I called it a day after the snowshoeing. There was another hour scheduled of winter shelter building but I was done in. I didn't want to risk relapsing back into sick, so I bowed out of shelter making.

With both the skiing and the shoeing I couldn't help but think about how much harder it would be with 40 pounds of gear on my back. Or a gun on my shoulder or anything else really. Much more practice would be necessary to be able to do feats like that I think. Mad respect for those that can.


Gear Report: I invested in some long underwear for this event. Justin Charles merino wool pants to be specific. They come in men's sizes, but I found that a small fit me really well. (For the record ladies, I'm a curvy size 12.) If you're a smaller woman, and looking for wool base layer, this maker won't work for you, because Small is as small as they go. Which is too bad, because I really liked them. They fit well, they feel GREAT, and temperature regulation has been wonderful from the first day outside, through a week sitting at the office. (Yes, I've been wearing them every day since buying them. I have a 30 minute drive to and from work on a country highway, I prefer to wear clothing that will handle any kind of emergency, and with -30 windchills this week, I wasn't messing around.) I got them on sale for 40$, down from the original 120$ the big box store wanted. They are definitely worth the 40, I'm not sure I would say they are worth 120. The manufacturer sells them for 60 online, I would say yes to that too.

I realized I need some sunglasses. I like the sun, I've never felt the need to own sunglasses, but even with the cloudy day we had Saturday, I was still dealing with a bit of snow-glare and I would have really had trouble on a sunny day.

All in all, a great weekend. I'll be doing more of those sports I bet.