I received this great email from Kim Kim Chiu, Assistant Director of Career & Technical Education at Utah Valley University! They asked for a donation of 30 bottles of our yummy smelling For Every Body lotion and candles for their gift bags for young mothers and we are only too happy to help because they are doing some great things for the community. You may read this, like I did, and want to help too!

The holidays can be tough for people at any time but if you are a struggling young mother with a baby to care for the world can sometimes be a pretty cold place. As a mom and grandmother and the owner of For Every Body and For Every Home, I applaude the efforts the Women in Technology Organization is making! Good for them! And, good for you if you can share a little Christmas Cheer to help their project!

Women in Technology Christmas Project

On Friday, December 11, 2009, UVU’s Women in Technology student organization and UVU staff members will be spreading some Christmas cheer at the Legacy High School in Springville. The Legacy program helps young mothers graduate from High School in a supportive environment and provides daycare services within the facility. We will be providing lunch for the students and will distribute presents for the mothers and their babies. In addition to these presents, we will help out with much needed formula and diapers for the high school to use in the nursery.

This is the second year that the UVU Women in Technology has helped with donations for the Legacy High School. Our goal is not only to help out with monetary necessities but expose the girls to opportunities to improve their situation. We emphasize the importance of post-secondary education and provide information on different programs that can help them should they decide to go to college.
Many of these girls think college is beyond their reach, so we start talking about the one and two-year programs which is easier for them to envision. It is our hope that we can inspire them to move forward and become self-sufficient with the right kind of training.

Call Kim Chiu if you want to help too!

Kim Chiu
Assistant Director
Career & Technical Education
Utah Valley University
801-863-8563

My wife and I have recently assisted a young Filipina to deliver a healthy baby boy. We’re now waiting to see what JJ has decided to call it.

Hello,

So I am at my friend’s house on her computer. We are waiting for her roommate to get home so we can go out and eat Mexican! Awesomeness! I want sour cream!! YUMMY! I wonder if I can eat sour cream?

Anyways, so my new favorite website is American Baby. I’ve only been on it for two days and have found some interesting things.

Then first thing that I have found which is kind of fun is this Ancient Chinese Birth Chart. It is suppose to be 93% accurate! Going with the idea that the father and I did the deed on August 31st, that means the baby was conceieved either in August or September (actual fertilization). Well according the month (both August and September) and my age (20) I have a 75% chance of having a boy. I know the father of my child wants a boy so ancient history is working in his favor. We shall see. My sister is predicting boy too. Assuming that I know when my sister conceived, the chart said that she would have a girl… and she had a girl!

I’m not really sure what I want though. At first I wanted a boy… then the father of my child, Fomc, got me really upset, did something really dirty, and I found myself wanting a little girl after my friend had to rescue me. She had her little daughter in the back seat and the baby was just talking and talking. I really wanted a girl at that moment. And when I think about the idea of raising a baby by myself, not with him, I think raising a girl would be much easier… but even little girl’s need fathers… if my father and I had a better relationship I probably wouldn’t be in this situation.

I just want a healthy baby though. At the end of the day I really don’t care. If it is a boy I will be excited, if it is a girl I will be excited. I hope for a boy just a little bit more than a girl because… I don’t know..Tfomc wants a boy and though he’s really hurt my feelings, I guess I would like to see him happy. Maybe that’s silly of me. I know he is going to be happy either way. I know he is going to be a big spoiler to our daughter if we have one.

Another thing that I like on the website is this baby calender. It goes week by week and tells you what is going on!

I haven’t gotten my dates confirmed yet really, I am still waiting my first ultrasound. If my due date though is May 21st though I am 6 weeks pregnant. Today when I looked at the calendar I kinda of screeched!

This week my baby is suppose to get a HEARTBEAT!

A wonderful new sound enters the world this week: your baby’s heartbeat. Although still too faint to be picked up by a doctor’s stethoscope, it’s visible in a sonogram as a tiny, pulsing dot in the middle of your still-transparent embryo’s body. From now until birth, it will beat approximately 150 times a minute, twice the average adult heart rate. The rest of the embryo is working hard, too–it will triple in size this week, to about a quarter of an inch long. parents.com

Wow. Immediately after I read it though I got really scared. This is because I am so afraid the heart wont beat though. Like I said, though this pregnancy is unexpected and definitly isn’t something that I wanted… I’ve already invested in the love to keep it so I can’t go through a miscarriage. No way. I’ve been under so much stress I am so scared. I can’t wait until I have my ultrasound and hear the heartbeat. Hopefully it will come with a confirmation that everything is o.k.

I want to text Tfomc this news but right now we are kind of keeping our distance. We just have a really complicated and somewhat bad relationship right now and we need lots of space. We don’t know what the future is going to look like for us. Basically I am making plans to be a single mother, we will see if we get back together or not. I don’t know. We didn’t really ever have a friendship. Everything happened so fast and now we are trying to attempt a friendship and see how things turn out…. crazy. He called me this morning and asked me how I was doing. We talked for a brief 3 minutes or so. I’ll wait to tell him about the heartbeat if he calls me later.

Anyways, I am going to try to go about and get half descent looking to go to this restaurant. Put a little make up on. I don’t have any clothes because I spent the night here at my friends and my clothes were just something I threw on when I decided to come here.

Much love!

Newborn infant
Hacked and torn
Reckless instant
Now forlorn
Devastation
Empty womb
Null gestation
Born too soon
Bloody-handed
Empty-eyed
Broken-hearted
Child inside
Crying monster
Inside out
No one wants her
Full of doubt
Full of regret
Full of pain
Try to forget
Love again
Nothing happens
Never does
She just laughs and
Is what was

I want to write my poems on the sky so everyone can read them…I like to recite my poems in a big voice, and I like to whisper and sometimes I like to use silence.  Silence in Eastern philosophy is a bigger voice- just one that’s not audible…My poems are about the life process on this planet because the life process never stops.  Like wind and the clouds…

                                                         Huang Xiang (see previous post)

A blizzard was turning all of Toronto white as I sat beside her.  It had taken me two hours by TTC to reach her.  She was coming out of a Demerol haze, the result of the nursing staff’s inability to cope with her.  She was 17 and in labour.  Her blood pressure was extraordinarily high.  She was over two hundred pounds.  Arrested for assaulting her baby’s father the week before,  a court date had been set.  She didn’t want me to touch her.

I asked her to imagine she was a cloud and the contractions were the wind.  When the wind blows, clouds shift their shape.  She should do the same.  I would make the sound of the wind and she could join me.  This would help with the pain.  Over the next five hours our voices merged.  I will never forget the image of her standing with her eyes closed, undulating her arms as we filled the room with sound and silence.  This is how she gave birth, a sky dancer of infinite grace.

YOUNG mothers: Calm hysterically crying children in the supermarket by firmly slapping their legs and then tugging them along by the wrist

The following article came through my inbox and I thought I’d give it a share. As a person commonly thought of as a “punk-rock weirdo,” it seems against the grain that I have always held contempt for MTV. Especially once they actually stopped running music videos and propagated reality shows which glorify the troubles society has had to deal with more and more. In an effort to grab attention, the sociological messages MTV – and media as a whole – have damaged this country’s youth beyond repair.
That might sound like a bit harsh of a statement, unless you can open your eyes and look at the country around us and see the sagging of our moral character and the lack of any real substance. It’s all fluff and thugs, drugs and drinking, tattoos and ass-cracks hanging out. Instead of social responsibility, we have social raping. And this country is getting used to taking it in the cornhole.
All them years ago, when I was in high school, there were a few pregnant teenage girls. Haven’t there always been? Teenage years are a time for an exploration of sexuality. And it wasn’t just the girls from the wrong side of the tracks that got knocked up either; the girls from the good families could end up with a bun in the oven too, and then everyone would say what a shame it was. Predominantly, it is the poorer of society which ends up with the majority of teenage pregnancies. This may be due to a lack of educational resources on sex, it may be due to the lack of strong parental influence, or it may be due to the fact that fucking is fun and it is a comfort against the hardships one has to endure.
Whichever…
Social media, though the rise of the reality show, has glorified and poked fun at the social flaws that the media has helped propagate and helped prevent any real solutions. We can now see people at their worst, in roles of housewives, roommates, love objects, island castaways, dieters, cooks, singers, dancers, loggers, superheroes, and washed-up celebrities, among so many others. And there is no actual commentary brought to these shows, there’s no saying what may or may not be wrong in these situations, it’s all just heaved at us in pretty, bright colors with pretty, bright people, with advertisements for sex aids and beauty products.
The below article brings up a new reality show : Sixteen and Pregnant. MTV’s newest addition of social endeavors. And what is such a show going to really do? Show the ugly side of teenage pregnancy, show the harshness of kid having kids and what their life is truly going to be like? Is it going to advocate for responsible sex education, for the idea that there are consequences young pregnancies have on a teenager’s life well into adulthood?
Or will the show glamorize another of society’s harshnesses, making it popular to get knocked up so one doesn’t have to take Phys.Ed.?
Let me put it another way:
I am tired of seeing single mothers who have used motherhood as a vocation. I am tired of seeing mothers pop out three or four or five (or more) illegitimates  in order to collect a nice healthy sum off the government, which comes out of my pocket in the log run. I am tired of standing in the check-out lane with ramen noodles and Dr. Pop, behind some baby factory and her army of brats and her two full shopping carts and see what foods I cannot afford but I paid for. All the while, the little bastards have no discipline or real parentage and will grow to propagate the cycle over and over again.
Why are we, as a nation, rewarding these people for irresponsibility? Why do we give more to the woman who is just going to spread her legs again for another thousand dollars a month? How is the cycle ever going to come to a halt if we award this irresponsible breeding with more money and more benefits and they’re out buying shiny SUV’s off our taxes?
Yeah, this isn’t the image you’ll see on MTV. Instead, you’ll see the pretty ones who are trying to work and raise their child and get through school and maintain a healthy relationship with their man. You’ll see women who, however naive, are trying and are worthy of respect on most levels.
And it would be nice to think that is the personification of teenage pregnancy, of single mothers. It would be nice to think that the show is aimed at getting across the realization that teenage pregnancy has its consequences and its tough times and responsible sexual relationships are needed in order to avoid such a plight.
Instead, what is the likelihood that teenage pregnancies will increase, seeing the pretty ones with their swollen bellies laugh and go shopping and hang out with their friends? What is the likelihood that the message of an easy ride is more absorbed by young women who see celebrities made out of other women for doing what is both natural and responsible while, at the same time, understand that there is more to be gotten from being a breeding factory than there is from working hard and being responsible?
And perhaps I am ranting on a hypocritical cusp here, if you know my history. You might think so, but nada. Aside from paying taxes which support this epidemic of teeny-bopping teens, I pay out a hefty sixty percent of my pay in child support. I lived through the shoes of young pregnancy, from the male’s standpoint. I don’t belittle the young and single mothers who go through what they go through, nor do I fault them. Way I was told, it takes two to make a baby (though I hear soon Cap’n Crunch will be offering a free pregnancy kit in boxes of specially-marked cereal…) and I carry a share of the weight of my own irresponsibilities. It’s just upsetting that, instead of teaching more about sexual responsibility and trying to prevent another generation of our country to feel such weight and hardship, we are glamorizing it, making it all the more attractive and popular. And it won’t be just those women that take it in their minds that getting in a family way is cool that will have to bear the weight of this social irresponsibility – all of us will be responsible for the children of tomorrow and all of us will be held responsible for the hardships that await.

16 and Pregnant? No Big Deal
MTV’s new documentary normalizes teenage pregnancy.

By Sarah Knoploh
Culture & Media Institute
June 15, 2009

http://www.cultureandmediainstitute.org/articles/2009/20090615142518.aspx

Some statistics: According to the National Center for Health Statistics, 86 percent of mothers who give birth out-of-wedlock are teenagers. According to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, only 40 percent of teenage mothers ever graduate high school; two-thirds of families begun by an unmarried teen mother are poor; and “Virtually all of the increase in child poverty between 1980 and 1996 was related to the increase in nonmarital childbearing.” So what does MTV do? It shows how cool teen pregnancy is with a new reality series called “16 and Pregnant.”
Airing this summer, the show normalizes teenage pregnancy, following  pregnant sixteen year old girls throughout their pregnancies and after they give birth.
The first episode, which aired June 11, followed the life of Maci and her baby’s father, Ryan. Maci introduced herself by stating, “I’m a total overachiever. I get good grades, I play softball, and I’m even on the cheerleading squad.” The second episode, which will air June 18, focuses on Farrah, a sixteen-year-old described by MTV as “a popular cheerleader.” The show should have been named “Pretty, Popular and Pregnant.”
Getting pregnant has it perks for Maci. She and Ryan moved in together. Maci described how, “My high school friends still live at home with their parents so they think it’s really cool I have my own place,” Maci said. She also related how Ryan “even put a ring on my finger.”
To MTV’s credit, it didn’t turn the camera away when things became less “cool” and the couple struggled after Bentley was born. At one point Ryan even stated, “If we didn’t have a kid we wouldn’t be together.” That statement must be magic to the ears of some teenage girls, who believe pregnancy is a way to cement the affections of their boyfriends.
Maci and Ryan considered splitting up, but were still together at the end of the episode, with Maci speculating about a beach wedding the following summer.
In a 2004 survey, the Parents Television Council reported that MTV is the most watched program for those between the ages of 12 through 19. Studies showed watching MTV created a more liberal attitude toward pre martial sex. Teenagers who watch MTV receive messages about sex that are likely to sway their own behavior. So the network is guilty of originally helping to foster the situation and now for exacerbating it by normalizing and even glorifying teen pregnancy.
Of course, it is no secret that MTV has a history of airing controversial material: “Tila Tequila” is a reality dating show for a bisexual; “Real World” “The Hills” and “True Life” all have questionable content.

Browsing the parenting stacks at any book store can turn up lots of advice you don’t need or want: potty train your infant, calm your crier, discipline without disciplining.  It’s a rarity to find something that actually pertains to your experience that doesn’t follow along some catchy shtick about drinking and mothering or cushy moms with cushy jobs who are having a really tough time getting their husbands to, well, change a diaper.  Because I’ve suffered through too many of these and beach season is upon us, here’s a list of mama books from women and men who get that motherhood is all about surviving the trenches and finding a good joke to escape with your life.  Plus, there’s some fiction too. 

Operating Instructions: A Journal of My Son’s First Year:: Anne Lamott
By far the most hilarious and heartfelt memoir about motherhood. Lamott goes at it alone (with a slew of help from her eccentric friends) and you’re convinced she’s going to throw up the white flag of defeat, start drinking again, and maybe hand off her responsibilities to her beloved cat.  Of course she never does.  Her humor is infectious, her first year observations dead on, and the end will leave you wondering how one person could withstand so much loss 

The Big Rumpus:: Ayun Halliday
Forget the soccer fields and sprawling McMansions, Halliday is a city girl with quirkiness to boot.  Squeezing a family of four into a tiny NYC apartment pales in comparison to her adventures in the delivery room, playground battles, holiday mishaps, and a battle with lice that’s truly legendary.  Honest and self-deprecating, this former waitress and current zinester is always good for a laugh.   

Hipmama Survival Guide :: Ariel Gore
Definitely not your run of the mill motherhood guide and I’m eternally grateful for that.  I’ll never forget reading her “Cool Things About Poverty” list.  She had me at “nothing left to lose.” 

Mamaphiles 1,2, 3
At first, a collection of 33 mama zine writers sharing their poignant stories about bringing up baby, two more editions gave rise to a melting pot of experiences and voices that eventually spawned the momoir. Read Andrea Buchanan before she co-wrote the Daring Book For Girls.  Inspiring every woman to find and maintain their creative outlet, I’m thankful I found these women when I did.   

Midwives  :: Chris Bohjalian
With an ending I’ll never forget, this heart wrenching novel will have you grabbing your towel for some warmth.  Set against a frigid and dangerous Vermont ice storm, a midwife must make a life or death decision to save the unborn child of a client.  With the power lines down and the roads frozen, will her choice be the right one?  One of Oprah’s original book club selections and who wants to argue with the Big O? 

Angry Housewives Eating Bon Bons :: Lorna Landvik
Follow these housewives through three decades of friendship.  They drink, they smoke, they read books, raise children, and lash out.  An activist, a sex kitten, an abused wife, and a widow begin their friendship in 1968 and form unbreakable bonds through divorce, joints, and illegitimate children. You may be thinking Ya Ya or Tomatoes, but honestly, Angry Housewives is good in its own right. 

Little Children:: Tom Perrotta
Dark, sexy and suburban, Perrotta’s description of playground conversation had me feeling like he was following me around.  Not that I have those banal best preschool, eating / sleeping habit conversations, but that I openly don’t know how to fake my ambivalence.  Sure Sarah is flawed and neglects her own child, but she sure has one hell of an affair.  Juicy, disturbing, and captures the heart of suburban contempt. 

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall :: Anne Bronte
Anne always gets the shaft because of Charlotte and Emily, but this novel is not only incredibly modern, but stands alone as one of the best mama reads, ever.  Don’t let the time period scare you — it’s easy (I promise).  This is the story of what would happen if Heathcliffe and Catherine were able to marry.  A good woman marries a bad boy who can’t keep it in his pants, becomes and alcoholic, and verbally abuses his wife.  The wife leaves her husband (completely unheard of and revolutionary) with her son and creates a new life for herself as an artist.  You’ll never daydream about that sexy / mysterious man the same way again. 

Brain Child Magazine
This bi-monthly magazine is smart, comical and a must read for mothers who want to look beyond ditzy advice columns about your grocery budget.  Always ahead of the curve, it’s a good day when I find this in my mailbox.

The following fragment is taken from the field notes of Neil de Reybekill of Life Research, who conducted a study of attitudes to risk among young people in the Bletchley area of Milton Keynes.

“Freezing cold and gloomy again, but the grass and shrubs have been trimmed.
My previous visit left me with three images. First, a mother and baby outside a block of flats, mother squatting down in the sun smoking, the child asleep in the pushchair. Second, on the walkway between the low-rise blocks: litter, broken glass – were there syringes? And a dead rat.
The spaces between the blocks are paved and planted with all the appropriate bushes and defensive groundcover, but it is overgrown to such an extent that low growers were at head height or above. But that is not the third image. Third is the path which had been broken and beaten through these high bushes from one point on the paved way to a ground floor window – a regular escape or entry route.
Two of these elements figured in this visit. The bushes and paths had been tidied up. The access route was still evident although the bushes had been trimmed and bark chippings laid as a mulch between the patches of vegetation.
The mother and child are still living there, although in the middle of winter they were as happy to be indoors as we were to come in from the cold. Or, perhaps not. Sharon and Sam – her two year old son – have a bed-sit some 8ft by 10ft plus facilities, to live in. A double bed fills much of the space. That, a cot and a huge television (what more can a modern family want?) mean there is little room left for visitors.
Sharon is a Somalian refugee and aspires to better for herself and her child, but she is very isolated. Milton Keynes roads do not have pavements around here, so a mother and pushchair are in danger from cards bombing around the through routes. Granby residents are transient (“and criminal”, says Sharon), so she does not have much to do with them.
There are no facilities for children as this was not designed to be a block for young parents. Twenty-five year old Sharon sees only an isolated housing development that backs onto a modern industrial estate (whatever happened to zoning plans?) and lots of young parents who don’t speak to each other. Sharon has no social life beyond caring for her son. She has no more space than her 10 by 8. But she is positive about the SRB project that has set up a drop-in centre for parents and toddlers. “The most we’ve had so far is five mothers and children, but we are going to change the day and date to a more convenient time and hope that will help to get more to come.”
Not only Sharon is totally isolated for weeks on end, so is her son. Sam is unable to meet children of his own age in the complex as there is no space for children to play. In fact, there is no functioning social group for pre-school children whatsoever. If you are the only child of a single parent in this housing development, you are not going to learn to interact with other children or adults. This is not a good preparation for life in primary school. But what is the option?
Since my last visit I am sure that more windows have been boarded up. Sharon’s son has language delay – he stands six inches away from the TV screen and is over-powered by images – very intense interaction. Sharon mentions that Sam had never seen another baby, so, when he was around younger toddlers, he was quite forceful with them and had to be shown how to be gentle with babies.
For most parents, the environment of this small, seemingly attractive development, is too threatening to allow their children to play outside at all. Is this part of a paranoia bred of TV news and short, cold, dark days and all too little space? Only the cluster of wreaths and bouquets beside the newly trimmed rosa rugusa tell what no-one else would say. The inscription on one bunch of flowers reads: ‘For our darling son Andrew, who died here.’ Maybe the mothers are right not to let their children out to play.”

Over at Motherlode, a young woman about to enter a prestigious graduate program is seeking advice from readers about being single and pregnant.  Essentially, she wants to know can she continue on her chosen life path while diving head first into single motherhood?  Or, should she terminate the pregnancy? Adoption is also something Emmie is considering. 

 Reader comments have proved surprisingly insightful and supportive while offering an incredible range of guidance, personal narratives of success, and, more importantly, a sketchpad of the different ways we come to parent or not.  On an infuriating side note, I do have to point out that the blog has a ridiculous amount of people who like to reference their “successful careers” and wonderful lives.  A few readers questioned if a NYT blog was an appropriate place for someone like Emmie to seek advice.  In short, I think it is.  Comments on blogs can be largely insensitive, but Motherlode seems to be an exception. 

On my 21^st birthday, as I sat in a semi-circle of friends and wearing a leopard print maternity blouse expanded across my pregnant belly, there was absolutely no one I wanted to take advice from.  I knew my mother’s story and all of my friends were absorbed in their own lives of freedom, which ultimately lead me to my own thoughts.  I had already decided to have my daughter, but I was still completely unaware of what motherhood would be like and who I would be as a mother.  I was currently working toward my B.A. and had a full-time job, adding a child seemed like a logistical nightmare.  My partner lived in another state and although I lived with my father at the time, my daughter’s care would rest largely on my shoulders. 

The truth is that whatever you set out to do, it can be done with a child – that’s a no brainer – but it takes a lot of creativity, sleep deprivation, patience, and endurance.  If someone is game, then go for it.  If not, sit on the bench and wait for your call. 

 After giving birth, I started looking.  I went online, started reading and began to find mothers like myself.  These women were not necessarily young, but they were all creative. While I Spray ‘n Washed formula stains, I would read their stories. Although each shared a common bond, all of them were clearly unique.  There was a doula, an anarchist punk, a published author, a former teen mom, and many more women who lived beyond the realm of What To Expect When You’re Expecting. These women were diverse and their stories were comforting.  Before I started looking, my idea of motherhood involved lots of embroidered sweaters and desperation.

 It’s only now that I’m hitting the home stretch of a motherhood comfort zone, which continually surprises me.  Finally, after almost eight years, I have a mama network of go to gals, a healthy dose of single friends, an on-line community were I can unleash my crazy, and my degree.  To cut right to the chase and have your questions posted on one of the most read parenting blogs – to me – is like hitting the proverbial home run.  What Emmie sought was advice – a glimpse—into our lives.  She’s trying to visualize, schedule her days; see if she can really pull it off.  Or, if she even wants to.  I can understand that. It’s how I found the way to my decision.  It just took me a lot longer. 

Life happens, just like shit happens.  There’s wipes and creamy balms, ointments and Diaper Champs, disposable and cotton varieties, which all amounts to choices, choices, choices.  Game plan is key, coupon clipping will get you farther, and no matter what, you’re left with a pretty rosy bum.

Early childhood memories look like Clay-mation blobs that you can’t squish and remodel, no matter how much you want to. The big blobs are adults. The big blob with a dark blob on top is Mrs. Rex, the head of the daycare. The many little blobs are children. Blobs of sunlight come through blobs of windows. Mattie sits on a blob of carpet and plays with blobs of toys.

All the kids there had been left there. They’d fallen off the shoes of parents who were supposed to love them above all else, but instead, smugged themselves up by saying “it’s for their own good” while hoping such thoughts would drown out the truth that they, the parents, had ambitions, and that children had just happened. At least children had their parents’ excuse built into them: needing to make more money for college by chasing more ambition.

Daycare babies crying for love aren’t crying for college education. College is not children’s ambition. Paying the bills is not children’s ambition. Putting food on their tables is not children’s ambition. “Their own good” is not children’s ambition. Whose ambition is it?

We love those who depend on us. We love our flowers. We love our jewels. We love our punkins, our sweeties, our babies, our cutie-pies, our little ones. But who they actually are, who they actually want to be, could be a Clay-mation blob for all we care.

Whenever I go down town with my husband, people are lovely to me. They’ll hold open doors for me, smile , and they’ll get out of my way. When I go down town on my own, its a very different story…

Older women glare at me like I have leprosy, and men are blatantly rude to me. People will block my path even when I’m struggling to control my shopping trolley and I’ve nearly been ran over on crosswalks. I have never been asked if I would like a hand out to the car by the staff at one of the local IGA’s (Which I used to work for, so I know its something they should do); in fact the most help I’ve received is having half of my bagged shopping dropped into the trolley. I come home feeling like there is something wrong with me, like pregnancy is some kind of disease.

Please don’t get me wrong, I most certainly don’t expect to be treated like some princess when I go shopping, it just really gets up me when people will be so nice to me when my husband is visible, but totally rude when he isn’t. I think I’ve figured it out though. I’m treated like shit when my husband isn’t around because I’m being stereotyped. I’m young, I’m heavily pregnant and there isn’t a man in my immediate vicinity. Well, I must be a single mother! Quick, where are the rotten tomatoes?!

What I can’t work out is why there is so much hatred thrown towards young single mothers. A vast majority of people lump them into the dole bludger category. ‘That girl is 16, clearly she got knocked up for the baby bonus and the welfare payments she’ll be entitled to!’ Yes, every single unmarried mother has babies simply for the welfare payments, it has nothing to do with the circumstances or their views on abortion. Oh, and because there is no father in the picture and they’re so young, they’re automatically the worst parent in the world. Just like those heathens who have children out of wedlock!

I’m really over such archaic and backwards opinions. Yes, teen pregnancy isn’t exactly ideal, but these women have chosen to do what they consider to be the right thing. Instead of taking the “easy way out” and terminating, they’re stepping up to the plate for their child. They are sacrificing their education, their career, and even their youth to become mothers. To me, that is admirable. Its sad that they found themselves unexpectedly pregnant, but they’re taking responsibility for their actions. Parenting as a team is hard enough, so I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it would be doing it on your own.

I know that there are some people out there who really do see having babies as a way to get out of work, but its just stupid to believe that every single young woman who is pregnant is a dole bludger. I don’t like being treated like a single mum when I’m in fact happily married and self-sufficient — but it makes me 1,000 angrier that such prejudice exists in the first place. How about we as a society stop being so judgemental and start exercising a little common courtesy, and not just mums-t0-be who have a man in tow.

I have been a fan of Law and Order: SVU ever since I found I needed some down time at the end of the day (that discover came when my son was about six months old). A couple of weeks ago, Hilary Duff made a guest appearance on the show as a mother who’s baby dies of measles. Duff was playing a girl about eighteen or nineteen, I guess, although she looks older than that. Although half of the story focused on Duff’s poor parenting skills, it turned out she wasn’t actually responsible for her child’s death.

What’s the point of mentioning this? Well, you can watch a recap of the episode on the NBC website, I believe. The reason I mention the episode has to do with the representation of young mothers in popular TV drama series like L&O.

To be totally honest, I think it’s hugely unfair to assume:

a) a young mom is a bad mom

There are hundreds and thousands of irresponsible parents well past the age of thirty.

b) a mom who wants to go away for the weekend with her friends is neglecting her child.

It’s crucial for parents to be happy in themselves if they are going to do their kids any good. We all have to get a little bit of ‘me’ time once in a while. For young moms, it would seem the need for ‘me’ time is potentially even greater and, so long as it’s moderated, it should not be condemned.

c) all young people make bad parents.

It seems utterly implausible that any teenager would actually deliberately want to have a child. Kids are a heck of a lot of work, they’re expensive, and that part about unconditional love, well, remind me of that next time my son has a tantrum in the supermarket. Okay, some teenagers do want kids and go to the extreme of getting themselves pregnant deliberately, at a young age, but then, we live in a free country. So long as a parent is capable of caring and providing for their child in a safe and loving way, I don’t think anyone has the right to pass judgment, even if they don’t think girls under the age of 21 ought to be having sex, let alone having kids. And I don’t think it helps to vilify young mothers in media and other forums for popular opinion.  It’s time to show positive examples and offer positive role models to the millions of mothers out there. You always get farther with the carrot than with the stick, right?

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The twenty-eighth installment in our peripatetic new series.

What, do you think, is the greatest threat to the Enthusiast in today’s society? Joblessness? Terrorist threats? Republicans? Well, actually, it’s none of these. Rather, it’s to sit at the cafe beside a threesome of women feverishly dissecting the psychology of their children. And I should know, people: I’m doing it as I write this, and my strength is rapidly diminishing on account of it.

I’ve been writing so much about being pregnant for the second time and how it feels to be a young mother and college student balancing all of that and babies, so I guess I need to let you all see what it is I’m talking about, just how I look going through this whole pregnant thing AGAIN!! well here goes, me at about 6 months with baby number 2!6 months pregnant, valentines day

yeah I look pretty gross in this picture!! But, you get the idea, you see how I try to cover the belly up with all black, and still get to be comfortable and stylish in leggings and a flowy top?  Unfortunately, the picture doesn’t include my knee high black sexy boots that really turned up the look so maybe instead of seeing my stomach people were just looking at the big buckles on my boots? probably not but now you get an idea of how I try to stay young and fun and still be pregnant!

Ok i started writing this in my hey Im a writer wording but what the hell im so slamming down candi style

I am working towards my associates in General Education and i hope to one day have at least a bachelors in Psychology, most likely with a minor in buisness. Here is why and what I hope to accomplish with these degrees.

Before my life comes to an end I hope to begin my own organization assisting young single mothers who truely need it and deserve it. I hope to work with the school systems to prevent teen pregnancy and help those who do become pregnant with their life altering decisions. In the end I would love to destroy any young womans thought to ever consider abortion, maybe one day it will be completely illegal across the globe, we can only hope. Yes I am PROchoice, however removing the choice is my choice….

I want to help young mothers by opening daycare centers that do not require payment, strictly volunteer teachers with good outlooks on life, and great religious influence, not just christianity but of all sorts. I want actual teachers at heart not just babysitters. I want several languages taught to the children I hope to one day call my own through spirit. I want my children to grow up to be knowledgable and capable. I want to inspire young mothers to take part in the lives of their children. I want to influence mothers to make the right decisions throughout all aspects of life. I want to be a hand to hold and a shoulder to cry on for all my mothers and my kids. I want to give ppl the safety and security I have yet at the same time helping them to live strong independant lives. I would love to open homes for yung mothers who have no place to go.

i have to take a shower I shall finish this later

This tactic didnt work, I had to take it all back to IKEA.

I saw a the loveliest wee baby boy while i was waiting on my friend getting her hair done aaargh!

I’m in third year at Uni now. It’s taken me 5 years to get to this point and a silly amount of student loans all gathering interest by the day. I’m broody to the point of shouting out randomly (in public and at home) “I WANT ANOTHER BABY LAAUUURENCE!” followed by a wee stampy dance like a 3 year old and sometimes I fold my arms and get a petted lip.

It doesn’y work. I’ve been told in NO UNCERTAIN TERMS that there will be no new baby for a while. He’s talking about some serious time here as well, like ‘weans at secondary school’ time. Whit? I don’t blame him though after the nightmare situation after Andrew. I want a wee girl so I’m going for the angle of ‘getting it out the way the now’, but it’s not working. A canny even fall pregnant by ‘accident’ because I have a coil fitted.

If I can find a way to overcome the wonders of modern contraceptives and achieve sex selection of the baby then we are sorted.

It was the end of the summer now. Every day I’d woken up I told myself I wouldn’t need to take speed to get through. Then before long I would feel cripplingly low and tired. The thought of seeing anyone would make my head spin. I was taking more and more every day and by this time I began to realise I was becoming dependant.

The biscuit scruncher strikes again mwahahahhahaaaa!

I’d been accepted back into University as well. I was so pleased that my life was going to be picking up again. I had my full time nursery place back as well and it gave me vital time away from the boys. Time away from Andrew helped me to realise just how scared of him I’d been. He had been all my fears and failings manifest, at least thats how I’d seen him, now I was seeing him as a proper acheivement. He was a lovely wee boy after all.

Why had I turned to drugs to help me? Why did I need it? I was asking myself these questions. If I felt low and useless without them but normal on them, then surely that wasn’t a good sign. Far from the drugs altering me, I started to realise that something ELSE had altered me first so I needed them to get through. I looked up a few websites on feeling like shit after having a baby and realised that I’d been suffering from post-natal depression.

The rush of adrenaline that is supposed to accompany giving birth didn’t happen for me. That’s why I’d felt so detached and unbothered by Andrew’s birth, that’s why everything felt so surreal- that rush of emotion and fuzziness hadn’t come to me like it had with Laurence. I’d been telling myself that I was a bad mother for not loving my baby at first sight, even that Andrew wasn’t as special as Laurence because I hadn’t felt that rush of love. It was nothing like that.

It was a chemical failing. It probably explained why my post-partum pain was so bad, because I wasn’t producing large enough amounts of endorphines highly present after childbirth to help bonding and battle pain. All of these things had served to bring me right down to the ground, to make me resent Andrew, to make me resent myself.

Scruba dub!

I felt a massive sense of relief. So I wasn’t a bad person after all? I made an appointment with my doctor and explained everything that had went on over the past months. It was the first time I had really vocalised all the emotional pain and fear and disappointment that had crippled me for so long. I’m not a weepy emotional person but I found myself greetin ma eyes out as I explained how I’d turned to drugs to help me do simple things like feed and wash the children. Even my GP was shocked at this and immediately agreed I needed proper help. She precribed me anti-depressants and advised me (nicely) that I shouldn’t take any more speed. She understood how I’d gotten to that point though and this made me feel less guilty for sinking so low.

When I got home it was finally time to explain to Laurence everything I had been going through the past 8 months. He was shocked he hadn’t noticed I was out my face for so long but I had managed to conceal it very well, taking enough to appear normal.

When I started back at Uni my medication had already kicked in. I decided that I would take advantage of the councilling service offered there. I had been made aware that now I’d had a prolongued bout of depression (coupled with the drug use) I was more prone to further episodes so I was going to do everything I could to stave that off. I realised that, now I was well again, I hadn’t changed at all. I was still the same person (although a teeny bit wiser) I always was. I made some great friends at Uni as well and I was finally on my way to being a whole person again.

Eyes damaged forever by annoying mum in 3....2.....1...

In January 2008 I was reminded of how close I had come to the brink of self destruction. After giving birth to twins Heather Finkhill became gripped by post-natal depression. She left her house in the middle of the night and ran infront of a lorry. Her twins were just two weeks old but Heather had become so desperate and distressed without anybody being very aware of it. It hit me like a ton of bricks just how serious a condition PND can be and I thanked the Lord I was still alive. Our flat was literally a stones-throw from the M77 and I knew that if the notion had taken me, I could have easily done something like that- or thrown Andrew over the bridge. Having been through it, I realise how people can end up killing themselves or their children- I no longer thought of it as a simple case of being ‘evil’ anymore.

I began to feel a little resentful that nobody had noticed what was happening to me. I had family all around me, why hadn’t someone seen the signs? Well, I discovered that everyone knew as little about PND as I had. My mother, till this point, didn’t believe it really existed and that not bonding with your child was impossible for ‘normal’ people like ‘us’. Well, they don’t call it the Silent Epidemic(oops, turns out there’s more than one) for no reason do they? The Heather Finkill case really cemented PND as a serious problem for new mothers.

Cheeky chappy Andrew

These days I am mostly fine (nobody is perfect are they?) and getting through. I don’t have to say it now but these days I love my Little Andrew as much as any mother loves their child. I wanted to share this whole story because I think it’s important that women (ok and men) know that sometimes having a baby doesn’t go the way they expected whether that ends up being your left with stretch marks like bark on a fir tree or not being able to bond with the new baby. It’s important not to take out the disappointment or feelings of failure on yourself and realise that there IS help out there.

I’m glad it’s become a more widely informed issue and I hope that, in any small way, my (long) story helps that.

First day home: Pictures tell a thousand words

Ouch!

It was New Year’s Eve when I brought Andrew home from the hospital. No big welcome party like I’d had after Laurence (immediate fucken downer). I was breastfeeding so no wee drink at the bells for me. I’m sure I even went to bed before the bells. I had to be up early the next morning for the midwife. My post-partum bleeding was horrific so I couldn’t go out anywhere (having to use nappy’s as sanitary towels isn’t the most happy of experiences). My milk had come in so my breast were in agony. If any one doesn’t know what this feels like imagine having your breasts swell up to maybe twice their original size, become almost solid with milk, tender to the equivalent of a years periods and about 3 degrees hotter than the rest of your body…and leaking.

This wasn’t the worst of it though, the pain of my womb contracting and my organs moving back into place while I was breastfeeding the baby was unreal. I have never felt pain like it. Labour was a total doddle compared to this. It felt like I’d been hit in the abdomen by a boxer. When people talk about the pain of breastfeeding, sure sometimes they mean pain in the nipples etc- but more often it’s the pain of everything moving back into place after a big baby isn’t there anymore. I struggled to feed the baby never mind ENJOY feeding him. Every four hours I could feel the dread approach at the thought of having to feed him. By day 3 at home I was in total agony. I was shaking with pain, going cold….I nearly vomited a few times- WITH PAIN! I still had a lot of blood left in ‘the cavitiy’ which might have been the cause of the pain (they found out after an emergency scan at the hospital) but nobody offered me a D&C to alleviate it. The whole thing was just pure shite, for the first 5 days, I didn’t know if I was coming or going.

A dummy and a bouncy chair set to 'vibrate' kept me sane week 1

By day 6 I was grey with blood loss, lack of sleep and just a general downer on life. My mum visited when I was trying to breastfeed the baby whilst literally rocking back and forth almost 90 degrees to help the pain. I was in tears, and at this point, through that little sweetheart cocktail I described above, I thought my new baby was just out to get me. I thought I was being punished and my new baby was the deliverance. My mum suggested I stop breastfeeding and put the baby on a bottle. It sounded like heresy to me. How could I NOT breastfeed? How? Isn’t that illegal? My mum put it to me that I was not doing myself any good, the baby would sleep better and I could benefit from not having him stuck to me.

The thought of not being ‘tied’ to the baby because of breastfeeding was what changed my mind. I could escape. It was suddenly appealing. After the decision was made Laurence brought in some baby powder, I made a bottle for Andrew and handed it over to my mum while I went in for a long and leisurely shower. As I stood under the water I felt as though a horrible anchor had been lifted from round my neck, a chain released from my ankle.

From then on in my new baby is no longer the source of physical pain but he sure is the source of mental pain. After being mostly quiet for a week after he was born, he suddenly becomes the most greetin faced baby imaginable. A dummy doesn’t help, his sucking reflex just isn’t as strong as Laurence’s was. It wasn’t his desire to suck that made him crabbit- he was just like that. Or so I thought.

I felt as though Andrew was judging me because I was a bad mother

Laurence goes back to work. My mum goes back to work. Suddenly here I am; two babies to look after, a flat to tidy, no friends from my old circle around me anymore…I truly am up shit creek without a paddle. I look at Andrew, and I see manifest all that had been made shit in my life. Not breastfeeding him has almost completely removed any opportunity I might have gained to eventually form a bond with him. He irritates me. I have no desire to cuddle him or kiss him, I don’t speak to him, if he cries I would ignore him other than to check he doesn’t need anything. I do the basics like keeping him clean and fed but that’s it. He feels like another persons baby that I had been left in charge of and now I’m sitting wondering when they will be taking him away so I can be happy giving my full attention to my real child.

I don’t just focus my anger on him, I take it out on myself as well. I am so hard on myself for the smallest thing that eventually I begin to feel as though there is no point in doing ANYTHING, because it won’t be done right. My relationship with Laurence suffers badly. He comes in from a full shift and I will be sitting in roughly the same spot as before he left, he’s having to do all the housework. I’m not getting all weepy and teary like some mothers can be after a new baby, I’m just angry. I’m angry at him, I’m angry at Andrew because I’m frightened of him and most of all I’m angry at myself.

My life had decended into a lonely nightmare

By March I have completely eroded my entire personality. Does that sound plausible? I can’t look people in the eye; I can’t laugh, I can’t leave the house, I can’t really be found outside PJ’s at any hour of the day or night. My life has descended into nightmare and I don’t know why, or how to fix it. I’m thinking that it’s me; that I am was doomed to a life of misery because I’m a loser. I think about ending it, but I shite it. I can’t handle the thought of leaving my little angel Laurence without a mummy, or my mummy without her little angel Alanna. Yet somehow I think it would be better if I just disappeared altogether. I start to day-dream about taking little Laurence and running away- hoping nobody finds us. I’m alone. Nobody knows any of this.

By the end of March, and my Laurence’s 3rd birthday fast approaching.  The pressure is on to have one of those elaborate big family parties where EVERYONE turns up and is judgemental of your child party arrangement skills (not really but did I mention I was para as fuck as well?) I turned to drugs. Yes, I said it, drugs…and I’m not talking the prescription type either.

Drugs helped me see the funny side of little Andrew.

Not even the fact the children needed fed and changed was enough to make me want to leave the little cocoon of bed covers anymore. The worst possible scenario was starting to emerge; I was beginning to neglect them. I needed help so I got my hands on some amphetamine. That day I felt better beyond belief. I felt almost normal, like my old self. I managed to tidy the house, play with the kids and I think I even managed to leave the house for the first time in 2 weeks. The best thing I noticed was that the speed had made me take an interest in little Andrew. Sure, anyone who has tried speed will tell you that you will literally talk to a hairy ear, but this was a step for me. I talked to him, he had smiled at me…it made me feel less like the a piece of shit (yet more of one at the same time).

The morning after I’m feeling fine, there is no sign of this deadly ‘comedown‘ I’d heard people go on about. In fact, I still feel good. I feel great. I feel like Alanna again and it’s top of the fucken morning to you world. I think to myself, “Fuck me, why didn’t I do this sooner?”. I get up and tidied and got everyone ready to go out with energy to spare. I am out and about and getting things organised for Laurence’s third birthday. I am totally determined to make it a good one because he’d had such a shite few months (or so i thought). The day after that though, I start to feel rough. I feel tired and down, just like before- except now I have a little side order of guilt as well.

Drugs? I wasn’t a person who took drugs. I didn’t really drink, I didn’t smoke…I certainly wasn’t a person who took drugs. But, I needed to get things done- the boys needed fed, we needed shopping, I needed to tidy the house…but the thought of leaving my bed/flat made me fill with pure dread. I’m not saying that in the Glaswegian sense as in ‘pure brilliant’…I’m serious when I mean PURE dread. The thought of going out; of having to speak to people, make choices like what direction to go round the supermarket, what to buy- made my palms sweat, my heart rate increase, lose concentration, feel as though people (security guards mainly) are following me. Complete fucking headfuck material. I never thought in a million years I could end up like that.

I started to realise that my mood had a big effect on little Andrew, not the other way around.

I decide to take a bit more, just to see me through the next couple of days. It’s so beautiful and sunny outside. Little Andrew seems to like the sunny weather. We were getting to know eachother. The speed makes me happy, and I am less inclined to think of him as the devil and more likely to have a wee laugh with him. I can’t let myself get sucked back down now. I would stop after the party and if I end up being back to black then so be it. At this point I don’t see the black mood, or the lack of love for my youngest as abnormal- I see it as it being the way it was for me now, and the speed is there to alter that for me. IT is altering ME to be better because I am totally fucken useless. After I’ve finished everything I need to do to APPEAR like a normal, capable mother to the outside world then I will go back to being a total fucken useless one. The balance of the universe will be restored etc.

Oot ma nut

The day of Laurence’s 3rd birthday party I scooped quite a heavy amount of speed. In fact, I finish the last of it. This was good thing, I told myself, because it mean’t I couldn’t take any more after that day- like I’d already told myself. I started by tidying up, then I blew up about 50 balloons before I gave up so I didn’t lose consciousness. People started arriving; Laurence’s mum, his sisters (all 5 of them), his nieces and nephews, and finally my mum. I had prepared food so nobody  could talk about me (THATS why mums go to Iceland folks). The little flat is stoud to the max with bodies but I was managing to keep my head above the water by buzzing around like a little bee. Little Laurence seemed to have a great day. When everyone left I got tore into more house work. These day’s, I had everything done for Laurence coming home. I was being a good mum. I was feeling good.

Oh you say DON'T get biscuit everywhere? I see!

The day after party was hard and despite what I told myself, I needed more speed. My energy levels were through the floor and it was a beautiful day outside, too nice to miss taking the boy’s for a walk. When I got some I gubbed quite a bit. I felt dirty and wrong and guilty. The paranoia was ripping right out me because I kept thinking that the boy’s knew their mum was on drugs but I put that to the back of my mind. The house was tidy and we were all ready in a whirl. I was loving feeling like a (semi) normal person again. I felt like I could do anything again. The boy’s had the mum they deserved. Little Andrew and I were getting on like a little house on fire. I was starting to notice how cute he was, how like Laurence he was beginning to look. I actually felt a little shoot of love growing for him. I knew that if I stayed like this every day, soon I WOULD love him properly and that made me feel great. I feltl like I have been saved. What I was doing to my body was totally harmful but it felt like I was selling my soul to the devil. I told myself it was worth it for now.

……….To be continued.

Ok, time for another of my midnight philosophical rants. I was on facebook today, and a realization hit me…almost every female I know is either pregnant, or has a baby. This is referring to the females I know/knew from school. I can’t seem to formulate a concise conclusion regarding this. I don’t have an opinion on whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I’m one of the only females from my age group and circle of friends/aquaintences that is not pregnant and/or already has children.

It’s a strange thing I suppose. I was told at 17 (not even a month after a traumatic New Years experience) that I would not be able to conceive a child naturally. I’d been having issues with reproductive parts since I was 12 and this was the end result. Oddly enough, I wasn’t too put off by it. My father was far more emotional than I was, and daddy-dearest isn’t an emotional kinda guy.

I could still adopt, and I was fine with that option. There are far too many kids without caring mums and dads out there. Or even go through invitro, although, I have to admit, the thought of potentially ending up with five, six or even seven kids scares the bejeezus out of me. I just couldn’t do it. I’m not even positive I want one let alone multiples.

What seems to irk me the most, and this seems to have come about with the whole every female with a child realization, is exactly that. All of these people are bringing babies into the world when they haven’t even accomplished what they’ve wanted to in life (University, a stable home etc.) and they’re throwing a child into the mix. Now I’m not saying the parents are unfit, but most, if not all, of them are in their early to mid-twenties. Have they even given this any thought? It’s rude to ask, and that’s usually their parents’ jobs anyways, but I can’t help but be curious.

Also, have they considered the fact that they’re bringing more children into this world when there are thousands that don’t have stable, loving homes and a family to call their own? Those poor children were given up by their creators for various reasons, and some being noble reasons at that, but regardless of the reason, they were still left without families, without the loving touch of a mother or father or even siblings. What about those children?

I think that about clinches it for me. Should I decide to have children in the future (and the distant future it would be) I’ll more than likely choose adoption. To give the gift of a loving, nurturing, understanding family to a child that has never experienced that kind of joy. Just to love them and see them smile on christmas or their birthday or when they get a good mark on an exam. To be there for the scraped knees, the broken hearts or the University applications. To provide for them and hopefully lead them down the right path.

I’m happy for the people I know that have been blessed with children, but I ask if they have blessed the child in return? Because that’s the part that truly counts.

it’s official…the children have gone mad.  i knew when jamie lynn spears county, pseudo-arrived, but still white trash self came up with what is commonly known in the media as a “bump,” i had my fears. 

but, in the midst, i held the hope that one teenage girl couldn’t POSSIBLY influence the right minds of the others.  my bad…

i received an email today from one of college girlfriends, featuring another teenage with the latest fashion accessory for late 2008–you guessed it ladies and gentlemen…the bump.

but it’s only one…right? WRONG!

this has been going on too long, and now someone has the audacity to position it as something trendy…what’s trendy about raising a child?

people are always quick to think of how cute the new baby will be.  but babies become toddlers, and pre-schoolers, and kindergarteners, and high school seniors.  it is the responsibility of the parent to have the wisdom and experience to raise not just a BABY, but a productive member of society.

oooh…sounds sexy, doesn’t it?

it’s bad enough that people who indubitbly should know better find comfort in the titles of “babymama” and “babydaddie,” but c’mon people…are we really that far gone to let these children think that this is the in thing to do?

are you serious? seriously?

i have too many classmates who beared–unfashionable then–bumps during our Freshmen through Senior years (o let me now forget the eighth grader who also gave birth in my teenage lifetime–now that was unheard of).  this isn’t a glamorous life.  in fact, from what i saw, you had to have either lost your mind or became seriously delusional within the 6-15 minutes (if that–sorry) that it took move from un-”bump’d” to “bump’d.”

we’ve got to do better!

don’t we? maybe its just me…

there’s a lot of talk about change these days, but are changing for the better or for the worst?