ZOMG The Pro-Choicer is Pregnant!!!

Guess what, Internetz? I haz a fetus in my belly!

Six weeks ago, when I took the pee test and Freddy and I saw the little "+" on the EPT, I was SO EXCITED!!! (We'd been trying for a few months. I was starting to get REALLY MAD at my body for not cooperating.)

But we couldn't tell anyone, until we got medical confirmation form a real doctor and a real sonogram. Why? Two reasons:

• stupid Glee, and it's "hysterical pregnancy." I don't even know if that's a real thing, but I really, really wanted to be pregnant. So what if, instead of actually being pregnant, my stupid body was playing a REALLY MEAN TRICK on me? What if the missing period and hugely swollen and painful breasts were JUST A JOKE?
• okay, let's say I was really, truly, honest-to-goodness pregnant. WHAT IF THE STUPID EMBRYO HAD GOTTEN ITSELF STUCK IN THE FALLOPIAN TUBE and never made it to the uterus??

Paranoid much? Yes, very. Thank you.

Turns out not only am I REALLY actually pregnant, but the fetus is hanging out in the uterus, right where it's supposed to be.

BUT WHAT GUARANTEE DO I HAVE THAT IT'S GOING TO STAY THERE?

Do you have any clue the number of things that can go wrong with a pregnancy? DID YOU KNOW VITAMIN A IS BAD FOR YOU?? (Well, not you -- it's bad for fetuses. If you're reading this blog post you've already made it out of your mother's uterus, so vitamin A is fine for you.)

It's a VITAMIN, for crying out loud! How can a VITAMIN be bad?

You know what else is bad for fetuses? Herbal tea.

Let me say that again:

HERBAL.  TEA.

Bad for you.

(Again, not you. Bad for fetuses.)

Did you have any idea? Because I didn't.

Until I read the section of this pregnancy book about foods that are or are not bad for you, which are myths and which you really do need to avoid. And herbal tea was one of them. AND IT WAS NOT A MYTH.

Sure, it said it small doses it was fine -- BUT HOW CAN HERBAL TEA BE BAD? EVER?? It's freaking tea, for crying out loud! And it's the wimpiest of teas, at that!

And you know what I found out yesterday?

My pre-natal vitamin only has 400 mcg of folic acid.

Do you know how many mcg of folic acid I should be getting, according to Fit Pregnancy magazine? 600 mcg. 

And do you know when is the MOST CRUCIAL period when the embryo needs to get the right amount of folic acid? Weeks 6-10. Which means I have two days to make up a 200 mcg deficiency for the last month. Or my fetus will develop some horrible neuro tube defect, and it will all be MY FAULT.

At least, Utah would definitely say so. Utah would probably call my behavior "reckless." For not double-checking the dosage on the pre-natal vitamins my OB/GYN prescribed. Or something -- hey, where there's a will, there's a way, right, anti-choice?

(Oh, also? Two Sundays ago, at church, I took communion wine. It was just an automatic motion, they gave me the tiny vial of wine and I took it, instead of pointing to the tray of grape juice vials. What would Utah think of that?)

You know those really annoying information-overload bing commercials? I'm kind of like that right now, with pregnancy complications. I've read so many stories of things that can go wrong in a pregnancy, especially in the third trimester, that I'm one big panic ball. I am fully aware of all the things that can go wrong -- actually, I'm fully aware of a fraction of the things that can go wrong. I know there are a bazillion other things that can go wrong that I don't even know about yet. Stuff doctors don't even know about, and can't predict or explain.

This is why we call it a fetus. It's not a baby until it comes out, and it coming out, becoming a baby, is not a given. At all.

I really, really want this fetus to become a baby. You have no idea how long I've been waiting for this baby. Freddy and I picked out names before we were even married. This "baby" has been alive for years, even though it was only (physically) conceived in February. And I have to wait until October to find out if it's going to materialize into a real, live, human baby.

It's going to be a long seven more months.

Hello. My name is Criss, and I am privileged.

But then again, you knew that.

I write a blog. So, like, d'oh! To write a blog, I need:

• to be literate (in English)
• Internet access
• free time

Then again, you needed these same things to read this blog. So I guess we're even on that one.

I received an email that called me out on a few things. Some were valid, some were not. (Please, people, remember what happens when you make ASSumptions.) I want to address the valid ones.

The lovely profile you see to the right, over there --> (um, under the BlogHer ads. So sue me, I'm trying to make a dime off y'all) was written a long, long time ago. Before I knew what privilege was, and how much of it I had. And I hadn't thought about the way I'd described myself, until this person pointed out some things in this email.

My first reaction was the rage, partly because of the incorrect assumptions and partly because of the cranky, due to [thing I'm going to tell you about tomorrow]. So I asked for help on this, and asked if the things person said were true according to other people. Like my good friends on Twitter.

Turns out some of the things were true. So I changed my profile.

I had a line in there that I thought was a clever reference to Charleton Heston's "Get your paws off me, you damned, dirty ape!" line. I kind of forgot that, um, Planet of the Apes (the original) was a long time ago. And maybe I'm not as clever as I think.

And my "joke" used the word "ape," which is a highly charged word even when you're making a clever reference to an old movie. Kind of like how even if you put a lower-case "i" in front of the word "pad" it still means something you use five days out of every 28 when your VAGINA is bleeding. (Who knew Apple and I had so much in common!)

Then there's the having a laptop and good grammar thing... my class and education privilege. The fact that I blog regularly (and practically live on Twitter) pretty much tells you about my class privilege, and makes it highly likely that I have a home computer/laptop anyway... right? The "better grammar" thing was supposed to be another clever joke, but meh. It's not really funny, is it?

So, yeah, I have lots of privilege. I am aware of some of it, and I try to stay aware of it.

Having privilege doesn't make me evil, though, nor does it mean my opinions are not valid. It means I have a limited view of things, and I need to watch it to make sure I don't stick my privileged foot in my privileged mouth.

It doesn't mean I don't have a right to speak about certain things, even if, egads, you disagree with me. The fact that I have not lived that particular situation my own very self does not mean I am wholly ignorant of it; I may not be an expert, I may not be able to speak from personal experience, but I may have taken the time to listen to someone who has lived through that experience. And if that person isn't there at that particular point in time, and that point of view needs to be shared, then I have a right -- and many would say a responsibility -- to speak up.

Having all this privilege means I get to speak in places where others do not. And in those situations, I try to speak up for those not welcome or included in those spaces. No, I'm not going to do it perfectly; I can almost guarantee you I'll screw up at some point. I'm going to say the wrong things sometimes, and I'm going to say incomplete things pretty much all the time (since these are not my first-hand experiences), but I'm going to do my best to call out oppression and discrimination when I see it, and to bring up the points of view and experiences that are usually silenced in those privileged spaces.

And so ends yet another rant.

I edited my profile. If you have comments or suggestions, feel free to leave them. I'll listen. (Even if I don't agree with your "tone.")

VAGINA!!! TAMPONS!!!! VAGINA!!!!

This article, Rebelling Against the Commonly Evasive Feminine Care Ad, is worth the read, for the main focus of the article (Kotex's new approach to marketing tampons). But this tiny tidbit has got to be my favorite part:

Merrie Harris, global business director at JWT, said that after being informed that it could not use the word vagina in advertising by three broadcast networks, it shot the ad cited above with the actress instead saying “down there,” which was rejected by two of the three networks.

The ads are selling tampons -- which are things you stick inside your VAGINA -- but they are not allowed to say the word "vagina."


THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO SAY THE WORD VAGINA ON TV.


You can say "bitch" on TV, but you can't say "vagina." You can say "ASS" on TV, but you can't say "vagina." BECAUSE THAT ONE IS DIRTY AND OFFENSIVE.


I have been accused, in the past, of overreacting to things. Of reading too much into it. Of looking for something to be offended about.


Years ago, this must have been in the late 90s because I was still in college (sitting around at home in the morning hours because my classes were in the afternoon) I remember seeing an episode of the Christina Applegate TV show where she worked as a nurse. She had to learn how to draw blood from people, so she was practicing on an orange. Something happened, where a guy got a promotion or raise or cool assignment and she didn't, and she got all up in arms and went to the supervisor or person in charge and said that it was not fair that the guy was given X (instead of it being given to her) just because he had a penis.


They said the word "PENIS." On TV. In a sitcom. In the middle of the day, when children could be at home, watching sitcom reruns.


I remember this distinctly because a few nights before, we had been watching The Big Lebowski on that same channel. At midnight. Late at night. When children and their precious, delicate virgin ears were in bed.


AND IT WAS THE FREAKIN' BIG LEBOWSKI.


Remember the scene where Julianne Moore is painting in her art studio, and she tells Jeff Bridges her paintings resemble VAGINAS? (Or something like that. The point is that the dialogue included the word VAGINA.)

When her character said the word "VAGINA," the word was muted. IT WAS CENSORED.


AS IF SHE HAD SAID A CUSS WORD (of which there are plenty in The Big Lebowski, if I recall correctly. EXCEPT THAT VAGINA IS NOT ONE OF THEM.)


This upset me. 


Why is it okay to say PENIS in the middle of the day in TV but we cannot say VAGINA in the middle of the night on TV?


What is wrong with the word VAGINA??? Can you even begin to explain it to me??


You can say "arm" on TV. You can say "foot" on TV. You can say "nose" on TV. You can even say "breast" on TV.


Why are VAGINAS so scary and offensive and naughty???


It would be one thing if we banned the medical term for all reproductive and/or sexual organs. Now, this would put several marketing campaigns in quite a pickle in October -- how are they going to sell us PINK JUNK if they can't tell us it's for BREAST cancer awareness? Are we going to have to refer to October as HOOTER cancer awareness month?


But when you allow breast and penis, BUT BAN VAGINA, you are sending a clear message that those are okay, but THAT ONE is not. THAT ONE is dirty. And bad. And icky. Ew!!!


No, I'm not okay with that.


And neither is my VAGINA.