On work

I go back to work in four months. A little less now. I go back full time. Wolfman is quitting to stay home with BunBun.

I. Am. Fucking. Terrified.

On feminist mothering

10 Questions from bluemilk about feminist motherhood. I came across these when I was pregnant with BunBun and they’ve always stuck in my mind and it’s something I do contemplate on an irregular basis. Moreso as the moment since we’re struggling with how we’re going to make my decision to go back to work not fail miserably thanks to my stupidly underpaid feminised career.

1. How would you describe your feminism in one sentence? When did you become a feminist? Was it before or after you became a mother?

Women are people. I’ve been a feminist since I was a child and learning just how little I was supposed to do or learn or get or give because I was a girl, not a person. Which was well before motherhood. Obviously.

2. What has surprised you most about motherhood?

I can be this vulnerable and still live. Hell, I thrive in ways I haven’t previously. I’ve managed to spend 8 months not working and I haven’t dropped into serious depression (an amazing record for me – my mental health has always been inextricably linked with routines provided by employment). That vulnerability may make me cry more often (i.e. at all) and may make the simplest of things excruciatingly painful but it’s worth is for the amazing joys and incredible moments. Some people can cultivate this point of view – I needed the hormonal and spiritual change of motherhood.

Angry pants

I keep going to write a post, but end up writing something terribly cranky. Either railing against idiotic ’sex advice’ that boils down to “buy stuff!!! Ignore comfort!!!” or the new years round of ‘let’s lose weight, fatty fat fat mamas!’. I was in fact complaining to Wolfman yesterday that everything I wrote came out far more “rar you’re all fuckheads” than “I am legitimately disturbed by these articles and blog posts”.

He wanted to know if I had indeed simply written ‘rar, you’re all fuckheads’.

It made me laugh (which was his original agenda I think) but also made me step back a bit. Rage is not in short supply. I don’t need to point out how irritating vapid and shallow ‘wear a thong’ is when you’re attempting to get back into having actual sex with your partner. I don’t need to point out that the societal obsession with mothers erasing all evidence of motherhood from their bodies is obnoxious and dangerous. You all get that. I simply need to breathe. Write. Breathe some more.

On Duty

I met Wolfman for lunch this week, at the shopping centre next to his work. BunBun was as cute as usual and we garnered a fair few ‘oh how adorable! type comments. We sat down and began to eat – I got myself a roast vegetable panini so I could pick out some of the pumpkin to feed BunBun, since she’s starting solids. As I sat there, BunBun squirming on my lap, pumpkin smearing my jeans, I looked at the woman across from me. She too was feeding someone, far more expertly than I, far more prepared. She had a giant bib for starters.

I got smiles from everyone walking past. Their eyes slid over her in the familiar ’see-me-not’ gaze.

I was feeding a child, she was feeding an elder. Eventually Wolfman tired of watching me stuff things up and took over, feeding our daughter with far less mess. He got even more smiles, occasional laughs. My eyes met the woman across from us, she smiled at us too. I smiled back, and smiled at the woman she was with. They’d finished up and were packing away lunch. I felt obscurely sad. I was being silently congratulated (and Wolfman even moreso) for doing my duty as a parent. For teaching our daughter the joy of food – textures and tastes and the how of it all. People smiled at us. Our families volunteered to help. People were overjoyed at pictures.

Yet this woman, performing the same actions, the same duty, was socially isolated. Was offered nothing, not even a smile. Her duty was no less than mine, probably more. I would mourn the loss of my mother’s ability to eat, to feed herself. I do not mourn BunBun’s inability. She has the potential to learn. I mourn nothing but the fleeting days of babyhood when I feed our daughter. Yet I receive so much more support. I am not ignored by the community. I am offered breaks and relief. This woman, presumably mourning far more than I, under far more pressure, doing a much more difficult job (physically and probably emotionally), gets nothing.

My duty is considered a gift, hers a burden. Yet I receive the support?

On homebirth

I’m a feminist, I support reproductive choice. Which means I support a shitload of choices I don’t personally make. Like homebirth. I totally support a woman’s right to make her own choices when it comes to reproduction.

I just don’t want to have a homebirth myself. I don’t have a sense of ‘home’ in the places I live and I have no desire at all to birth anywhere in any of the rented houses I’ve lived in. I am not more comfortable at home, and I don’t find it easier to rest at home (hence my blood pressure stabilising once I was on rest in the hospital because I just couldn’t rest properly at home). Towards the end, things started going wrong and even if I’d planned a homebirth, I probably would have transferred (simply for the induction).

So PLEASE stop asking me to base my submissions to government on “… hospital planned birth (and the reason you then chose homebirth!!…”* or my experience “interacting with obstetrics or the ’system’.”* Or assume my hospital birth included an ob. who advocated “Tie a woman to a bed with a ctg monitor or recommend that every 2 to 4 hours a stranger puts their fingers in the vagina of the carrying mother to increase the risk of infection.**” Or that I was induced for social reasons, or so my doctor could go home, or because I was ‘duped’. Because my story doesn’t match what you want to portray. Because I do not want a homebirth. And that’s okay. It doesn’t stop me wanting to advocate for the rights of women to have a homebirth attended by a trained midwife. It doesn’t stop me thinking that reproductive freedom is vital.

It irks me when standards of care are used as reasons for homebirth. Every woman should be able to form a friendly relationship with whoever she has chosen to help her through the birthing process. She should be able to see them on a regular basis. She should be able to choose her labouring position, interventions, medications and surroundings. Access to these things are not restricted to birth attended by homebirthing midwives. Just as denial of access to these things is not restricted to hospital births.

Yes, birth and pregnancy are over-medicalised and pregnant women are infantilised and undermined by the system. Assuming that support of homebirth is restricted to those who either choose it for themselves or wish they had is not the way forward.

This fight isn’t about my choice. It’s about women’s choice.

*excerpted from a forwarded Homebirth Australia email.

**excerpted from Homebirth: Midwife Mutiny in South Australia

Day 174

Day 174, originally uploaded by geekanachronism.

Day 170

Day 170, originally uploaded by geekanachronism.

Day 169

Day 169, originally uploaded by geekanachronism.

Wordless Wednesday

Terror (but she’s okay)

BunBun is five and a half months. At the point where she grabs food out of your hand, but doesn’t eat, simply slobbers. So while I was cooking dinner I have her a thick slice from the pear I was chopping for salad. I continued making dinner, she slobbered on the pear, threw her cup and spoon, and gabbled away. All was well. I turned to put a few things back in the fridge when I heard her choke.

You know, that garbled attempt to breathe. Almost a sob, or a heave. I dropped what was in my hand and spun. She was in the highchair and straining, bright red and no sound. Tears. I pulled her forward and searched her mouth. Nothing. She threw herself back and forth and I yelled for Wolfman. He came running as I drove my fingers into her throat. I found the soggy, tiny piece of pear. I could touch it. I couldn’t hook it, couldn’t grab it.

I started to swear, I tried to get her out of the chair but I couldn’t. The motion jerked her upwards and I tried again to get the pear. I couldn’t reach it at all now. I yelled at Wolfman to get her out of the chair. I tilted her forward.

She whooped an inward breath. Then screamed. And screamed again. And whooped once more. Then coughed. I held my breath, visions of aspiration pneumonia. She screamed and cried and then sniffled, her face buried in my neck.

I began to cry.

Wolfman held us and asked if we were okay. I sobbed and BunBun began to cry again then as well. He rescued the apple and pear sauce still bubbling away, and picked up the teatowel on the floor. I jiggled BunBun as I checked the pizza. Nothing was burnt, nothing was even close to cooked yet. I finished dressing the salad and waiting for the pizza to finish. We ate our dinner and BunBun had hers. There’s not a single thing wrong now.

Except the aftershocks of terror and the guilt. I wasn’t watching her close enough. She’s too young for solids. The chair is antique and refurbished with no bar to hold her in. There’s no harness, just a mess of ties keep her from sliding under and out. I hurt her throat, digging for the pear. My fingernails are too long.

My fingers were too short.

Yes I’ve learnt my lesson. No more slobbery bits of fruit. I’m getting a proper harness and/or fixing the chair. I’m updating my first aid as soon as I can because I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t learnt the fishing around as the first step.