Goddess

"In ancient times women were considered Divine because we were known to bleed without dying and gave birth to new life. There is power in our bellies and wombs that deserves our honoring." (ALisa Starkweather)


I am feeling extremely sentimental and emotional today. There is so much I want to say that I can't figure out how to say any of it.

That quote up there? That is SO TRUE. And I think it has a lot to do with my disdain for the patriarchial religion I was raised in. I know it takes male and female to spark life, and I don't want to sound...superior? But really, how can one discount the power of our wombs? The ability of our bodies to nurture and birth life?

I am feeling sad and guilty today about wanting so badly to be done with this pregnancy. What if this IS the last time I do this? Will the magic fade? Will I forget the wonder and power that is the held within the female body and will I slowly forget to honor myself as the Goddess that I am?

I think not, and yet I am pondering these things today.

Will I do right by my children? Will they grow to be intelligent, caring, concious, open, accepting, compassionate, productive human beings?

Will they look at me with respect and pride when they are grown and becoming parents themselves, will their love be pure and white - or will their love for me be always intertwined with feelings of shame, disappointment, sadness, anger...love that is tainted, as my love for my parents is?

Will I be strong enough to finally FINALLY be open about my spiritual beliefs - although I am not sure exactly what they are, I am sure I do not have any intention of raising my children with in the church to be taught that we should love everyone and that god loves everyone, but that REALLY those who believe differently than us have it wrong - so although they are ok and we should love them, we should also try to convince them that our way is the right way. Will I be able to convince W that these are OUR CHILDREN, OUR LIFE, and we do not have to do anything because it is 'what is expected'. That in fact, that is EXACTLY what we should NOT teach our chilren?

I am starting to get nervous. I *am* very much looking forward to labor and childbirth - there are just not adequate words, or my brain is just not capable of forming them right now, that can describe the power that is contained in that act - but I AM getting nervous about it all going well. Regardless of technology and medical intervention - and maybe even because of it at times - childbirth is still a dangerous prospect. And I DO trust in my body's ability to do this physically, in MY ability to do this mentally, but that does not mean that I am beyond feeling fearful of something going wrong.

And then there are all the little superficial worries that are plaguing me lately...financial worries, and thinking that I will not be able to give these children more than I had; will we be able to afford the annual trip to the cabin that I SO have envisioned being a part of their lives? Will we lose our house? Will W find work? Will we be able to do things like send them to camp? When they want to play the violin, will we be able to scrounge together the money to buy the instrument so that they CAN?

Will my own shortcomings and flaws and neuoses be passed on to them, affect them, hold them back? Will *I* be strong enough to overcome these traits of mine and make choices and live my life in a way that will allow ME to be the best ME I can be, to be TRULY happy, to REALLY appreciate and honor and focus on what is REALLY important in life, which in turn will help them do the same and be the best that THEY can be?

And yet, I am confident that I *WILL* give them more than I had growing up. Because I think, I HOPE that I can nurture in them that pure, white love that is really so much more important than anything else I could give them. And I hope and think that I can help guide them be intelligent, caring, concious, open, accepting, compassionate, and productive human beings.

This post doesn't in any way come close to doing justice to all that I am feeling today, and came out as I expected it to - jumbled and not eloquent what-so-ever and insufficient, and I don't know, I just wanna cry and rejoice and scream all at once and I am feeling overwhelmed by all the damn emotions that I am feeling today.

This and that

I had a checkup last night, and all is going well with the pregnancy; blood pressure is good, I gained 6 pounds (not awesome, but not horrible - that makes 32# to date. I am aiming for less than 40). My fundal height is measuring 2-3 weeks ahead, so my doctor wants me to have an ultrasound to make sure that this is not because of too much amniotic fluid, and to check on the baby's size. Iam not really concerned that there is anything wrong, and am fine with doing the ultrasound just to make sure, but I DO know that I don't believe that estimating the baby's weight or gestational age via ultrasound is very accurate at this stage, so I am a bit concerned that they will think this baby is going to be large and that could potentially influence my doctor's opinions from here on out. But, I trust her, and I trust that she will be receptive to my desires no matter what the US shows. The ultrasound is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, and I must say I *am* a bit excited to see the little one moving around in there again :0) I am enjoying the 'non event fullness' of this pregnancy compared to with L, but it IS fun to see the baby at this stage as they are all formed in there and look basically just like they do when they arrive!

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Last night we got L to bed, and W decided to go play one more round of Frisbee golf with his friends, so I sat down at the computer. W couldn't have been gone for 2 minutes when I thought I heard a knock on the front door. I looked out the little window in the front door from where I was sitting, but didn't see anything, so just went back to the puter...Then I thought I heard a knock on the side door, and figured W had forgotten something (and he always locks the door when he leaves us home in the evenings) so I went to go let him back in. I saw a woman and a man standing on our sidewalk outside the side door and totally groaned, thinking "Great, the damn Jehovah's Witnesses are here...not in the mood for that!" and opened the door feeling very irritated, only to have the man ask if our last name was -----, and that he thinks my husband lost his wallet, which he handed over to me! Indeed, it was my husbands wallet! They had found it down at the park where the Frisbee golf course is, where he had been earlier in the day. I must say I felt a bit bad for being irritated with them for interrupting my Me Time...Thank goodness THEY found it and not someone else who was not so honest. There was no cash in there to be had, but there was a bank card, credit card, driver's license, etc...Would not have been good.

I was telling the story to my co-workers, one of which is a Jehovah's Witness, and after hearing the part about being irritated when I thought it was the JW's and the rest of the story, my JW co-worker said "They probably WERE JW's, as that is EXACTLY what they would do if they found some one's wallet"...which is probably true, but irritated me to no end in the sense that he was acting like JW's had the trademark on being honest people. Whatever. No offense to the JW's, I just can't handle people that go door to door and, unsolicited, try to feed their beliefs to everyone. (Ms.Moon - if you read this, I thought it was funny that you were talking about the same thing that I was thinking about today, and was planning to share my little story...Although your post was all deep and mine was just a regurgitation of what happened last night!)

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There's this older gentleman in my town (a town with a population of about 4300 people) who walks every morning. And most every morning, L and I pass him on our way to L's daycare. And everyday, this gentleman raises his hand and waves hello to EVERY CAR that passes him...whether they come from in front of or behind him. And I just find it heartwarming, and funny, and I actually look forward to it, and I actually raise my hand in return now. I don't know, it is just NICE, ya know?

My poor W and how the hell do you make THAT decision??

W has been working on replacing the trim in hour house lately, and his current focus is our little entry hall...I told him the other day to just let me put a fresh coat of paint in there before he does it, as it definitely needs a coat.

He was off work yesterday due to the insane cold, and decided to surprise me by applying the coat of paint himself and putting the new trim up...

Well, I was surprised, alright, to find that he had painted the walls GREEN in lieu of the cream color that was in there prior.

I walk through the door to find him kneeling down working in there...

"OH, you painted it green." OMG, why in the hell did he paint it green??! That is HORRID, there is no way I can live with it being GREEN!! How can he think that looks good?!?

"No, what do ya mean?"

"It's GREEN, honey"

"No it's not, it's the same color as it was before; I compared it to the walls to make sure, I even checked the color composition listed on top and it doesn't say anything about GREEN"

My poor color blind W tried his best, but alas, his eyes could not tell the difference between the cream on the walls and the light shade of green that he was painting over it with! He was so bummed. I was so bummed for him.

It continued to baffle him throughout the evening how that could possibly be a different color. I continued to praise him for his efforts, although I don't think it helped.

I can't imagine living like that and not being able to see those differences in color...

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I watched a show last night and the plot was about a single father and his ± 7 year old daughter and 2 year old son. The mom had died (sometime after the boy was born, obviously) and all three of them (father, daughter, son) had cystic fibrosis...They went into the doctor because the father was coughing a lot...Turns out, the daughter had contracted a highly contagious, deadly (to them because of the CF), incurable bacterial infection that was going to, eventually, kill her. The father, of course, wanted to be with her to console her, etc, but they told him that neither him nor his son could make any contact with her or they WOULD catch the infection and they too would die.

So she is admitted to the hospital, and the closest the father can get is to see her from the corridor through the window and talk to her on the phone. They try some long shot treatment, but find out that it is not going to work. They tell the father this, and he insists that he needs to be with her to tell her, and the continue to tell him no, that then he will die, etc...he is so torn between going to his daughter and being with her while she dies, or leaving her to die alone so that he can live to raise his son.

OMG, how the fuck do you make that decision?

Needless to say, I was BAWLING my eyes out for the entire second half of the show...

In the end, the father hands his son over to the doctors, gives them some instructions on who to contact (he has NO close family) to take his son, and he goes into his daughter's room...

I am going to start crying again...

I don't know how a person is supposed to make it through something like that.

It reminded me of all the things that can go wrong in life and that we never know what tomorrow brings...

It totally made me think about this post by Maggie over at OkayFineDammit, and made me sad for all of the people that are suffering and that endure so much while simultaneously others are celebrating joys...

It made me want to beg and plead with the Universe, or Goddess, or God or my Karma or whatever is out there that I NEVER NEVER have to go through something like that...That I somehow live a life that never knows that type of struggle, because I don't know how it is possible to endure that type of pain, and I never ever ever want to find out...

It made me feel bad, somehow, for living the blessed life I have so far lived while others suffer so much...It made me question, again, why things happen the way they do...

It made me feel so grateful for said blessed life...

It made me so so sad.

Another sign he is not a baby anymore...

My baby spoke a sentence. He did, and it made sense and it was in context! Seems like just yesterday he was barely saying a word and now he spoke a sentence...

We were sitting in church on Sunday (I know, NOT a likely place for me to be, but I have not come completely clean with my family about how my religious beliefs etc have changed, and it was mass for W's grandpa, and it won't kill us, and it was actually a little funny cuz the priest did the sermon on how we should be voting come November, and he did a real good job of letting everyone know who they should be voting for w/o mentioning any names...He didn't have any affect on my decision of who to vote for, however. I now use every rare trip to church to remind me of why we do not attend regularly, but also as a reminder that there ARE SOME good things that can come of it and not to discount it completely) and L was super quiet, just sitting in my lap looking around at all the people and taking it all in while holding on to my neck with a death grip. After we got through the initial part of mass where we are standing and sitting and standing and got to the part where we get to sit for a bit I asked L if he would like to color, to which he enthusiatically said YES! So I got out the crayons and the notepad and he proceeded to draw pretty yellow and blue ("Boo!") and green ("Reen!") circles and jagged lines, and then proclaimed in a bit too loud voice that echoed through the quiet church "Ooooh, I did that!!" as he pointed to the squiggles on the page. Yes you did baby boy, and you just spoke a sentence, too!?!?!

He continued to tell me through mass how "I did that!", as well as on Monday when I picked him up from daycare and he showed me the page of stamping that he had done that day. "Mama, I did that!" as he held the page out for me to see...

**SIGH**

It is SOOO sweet and amazing to hear him speak like this, and at the same time makes me so sad that he is growing so fast. But then today, I was reading Kori's guided journal post in which she has to describe the unique strengths of all her kids and I thought WOW, I can't wait until my child(ren) are old enough that I can see in them unique strengths and weaknesses, and see who they really are and become as people...How cool (hopefully more cool than scary) is that going to be?

So, as much as L speaking a sentence really FREAKS ME OUT, there is SO much to look forward to, and the sentence speaking is just another reminder to me to REALLY enjoy the time I have with L each and every day and never take one day or phase for granted because tomorrow we could be past that and on to the next one.