A Surprisingly Sane Blog

One of the most controversial topics in history:  Terminating a pregnancy.

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My personal belief on abortion?  I don’t like it.  I think it is wrong.  However, I consider myself pro-choice (*ducking as flying clubs hurdle toward me*). Not because I think putting an end to a beating heart is somehow okay, but because I don’t believe it is my right to tell someone what they can and cannot do with their own body.

Using abortion as a means of birth control?  I’m against that completely.  I believe in educating people about their choices to avoid unwanted pregnancies, and offering support in carrying the pregnancy to term and considering options such as adoption.  However, I’m not going to point my finger at someone who chooses to have one and tell them they’re a sinner.  It’s not my place to judge.

Really, I think what it comes down to is that it’s just not a black and white choice for me.  There are too many “what if” cases.  Like this one:

http://www.babble.com/why-i-had-a-second-term-abortion-the-hardest-choice/index.aspx

Now, if you haven’t heard this from me before, I skipped doing a sonogram during my second pregnancy because the one I had with Julie left me terrified and devastated.   Her test results showed nuchal thickening (like what is mentioned in that article), and the doctor recommended I do further testing because it was a marker for Down’s Syndrome.  James and I discussed our options and decided we would refuse any kind of testing (such as an amnio) that could possibly endanger our baby’s life.  Furthermore, we refused to do another  sonogram at a later date to help confirm the possible diagnosis.  We didn’t want to know, and everything else on our baby appeared to be perfect.

I was heartbroken, and for the next 17 weeks, I agonized over the possibility of my child having a serious disability.  Would my in-laws be accepting and love her if she wasn’t “perfect”?  Was everyone going to blame the fact that my child had a disability on me?  Would I be able to bond with my baby?

The knowledge that further testing might confirm that the life growing inside of me very well could have Down’s Syndrome made me feel worse.  I didn’t want to know.  I knew that God wouldn’t give me more than I could handle, and I made up my mind that I would be grateful for my daughter regardless of any issues she had.  I didn’t want to know ahead of time.  I just didn’t.

I suffered in silence.  Everyone I told let me know how high of a false positive rate tests like that have, and they told me not to worry.   But I couldn’t help it.

Twenty-six hours after a horrifically painful natural labor and birth, Julie was in my arms.  Smashed, bruised, chunky, beautiful, and absolutely healthy as possible.  No syndrome to speak of.  I kept checking her little hands and face for signs that something may be wrong, but everyone kept telling me she was perfect.

Fast forward to almost two years later.  Considering the amount of emotional turmoil having an ultrasound caused during my first pregnancy, I asked my midwife if I could skip doing one unless in the case of a true concern.  She supported my decision completely, and said that she actually didn’t even recommend doing one except for in specific cases, such as high-risk pregnancies.

Baby number two popped out perfect and beautiful as well, and my mental state was much more positive during the pregnancy without the added “something may be wrong with your baby” stress.

However, I know that our choice to not find out for sure is not necessarily a popular one, and as a result, I empathize with women like the one in that article.  What a horrible choice to make.  She must have been heartbroken.

So I’m curious- what are your thoughts on abortion?  Is it ever okay?  Is it never okay?

As always, the results are confidential.  I don’t even know who voted unless you leave a comment.  And I’m not going to judge you one way or the other.

Current Mood: Playful

Remove all tissue boxes from Scooter-Patooter’s reach.

Current Mood: Alarmed

My site has become Google’s playground for the search term “cure for itchy balls”.  That and “strip tease songs”.

I already posted my top 20 drive-your-partner-crazy songs, so I’m going to reveal the solution for itchy balls as well. Because… ta da!… I found it!  I really did.  Here it is:

Chop ‘em off. They won’t bother you any longer.

Okay, but if you’re like my husband, who absolutely refused to do that (as if he’d miss them or something *pffffft*), then here’s the non-mutilation route to CURING YOUR ITCHY DAMN BALLS:

Gold Bond Medicated Body Powder.

It works.  I threw some in the shopping cart at Target recently in a desperate attempt to cure MY HUSBAND’S ITCHY BALLS.  I was sick of him waking me up scratching them in his sleep.

The cure didn’t stop at putting the bottle in the cart, though.  Oh, no, it sure didn’t. I literally attacked his naked ass with an obscene amount of medicated-smelling stuff and wasn’t satisfied until his southern end looked like the victim of a severe snowstorm.

And it worked!  It really did!  He didn’t scratch them ALL NIGHT LONG!

Now if only I could get him to use it every single night. *hint hint*

I should buy stock in that powder now that I revealed its magical powers.

And while I’m on a role, does anyone have a cure for stopping your significant other from farting while you’re trapped together in a small, enclosed space?  This problem is seriously getting out of hand in the Hood household.  And for some reason, my darling husband seems to have NO CLUE why it isn’t funny that I fall over gasping for breath every time he passes gas in the car.

I just may have to tie off a certain-someone’s colon while he sleeps.  And drown his ass in Gold Bond Medicated Powder while I’m at it.

Current Mood: Mischievous

I’ve officially become an old fart, but last night’s insomnia made it clear that my octogenarian ways are for the better.

James and I determined a few weeks ago that we need more discipline in our lives.  We have a tendency to stay up until comical hours of the night and wake up much too late… but neither of us ever get enough sleep.  That worked great in college, but has proved to be an unhealthy choice as parents.  Especially since (I know slap my hand with a ruler) we incorporated our kids into our nocturnal lifestyle as well.

We started with modifying the kids’ routine and have been putting them to bed at what we feel is an early bedtime.  Okay, so 8:00-8:30 may seem late to you, but that’s a small miracle in comparison to the midnight bedtime ritual they were on (*hanging head in embarrassment*).  That did wonders for both of our girls, and they weren’t waking up ridiculously early, either.  Both sleep better at night, probably because they’re not over-exhausted.  Imagine that.

But that didn’t solve the problem of our own adolescent you-can’t-make-me-go-to-bed issues.

As you have most likely already figured out, I’m a shitty sleeper.  I have insomnia most nights of the week, and I wake up feeling like a dead person most days.  If I were smart, I’d have figured out long ago that going to bed at 2:00 a.m. probably contributed to my inability to fall asleep.  But I plead stupidity in the sleep department.

However, since I returned home from Oklahoma about a week ago, we have been trying something very different.  We’ve been going to bed by about 10:00 p.m. and have been getting up “early”… which for us is somewhere in the 7:00 hour.

In addition, we’ve been picking up our endless clutter every single night so that we wake up to a clean house.

And you know what?

It’s been really working for us.  Incredibly well, in fact.  Going to bed early, waking up at a decent time, and keeping our household under control has pretty much cured my insomnia.  Sure, some nights it still takes me an hour to fall asleep, but that’s a remarkable improvement from the four-hour wait for snooze-land that I was suffering before.

We kept up our old fart routine for a week.  But then, there was last night.

We went to bed a little too late, kept each other up for an extra hour (*cough*), and my restlessness and sleep problems returned like crappy magic.

However, although it was insanely tempting to let James get up with the kids while I caught up on my zzzzz’s, I decided my time would be better spent getting up at a healthy hour and resuming my early bedtime tonight.

I’m trying to be a somewhat mature adult.  This is a big step for us.  I haven’t had this sort of discipline since I was teaching a year ago.

Send positive sleep vibes my way… and I’ll keep you posted on how this routine works for me.

Current Mood: Cool

Tell husband to think about you, but that he’s not allowed to touch you before falling asleep again sometime.  For stress relief purposes, of course.

He sucked at following the rules, but it was so worth it.

*giggle*

Current Mood: Flirtatious