Irish Hospital Prepared to Forcibly Perform a C-Section on Non-Consenting Woman

Irish Hospital Prepared to Forcibly Perform a C-Section on Non-Consenting Woman.

Slippage

Slippage. I suppose thats a good way to describe it. That slowly sinking in feeling, no, realization that actually you have little worth beyond putting food on the table and yelling at people to put clean clothes on.

Nearly 16 years of back breaking hands on motherhood and I feel like little more than a glorified, if even that, slave.

The house is a mess. Why? Because I didnt clean it.

It’s 8pm and there’s no dinner. Why? Because I didnt make it.

The kids are late for school. Why? Because I didnt force myself out of bed at 5:30 to force them out of bed at 6:00 to get ready without spending an hour playing video games.

And after weeks of beating myself up for not doing the above things well enough or often enough I finally get fed up because hey, I am taking care of an infant and trying to build my own business as well, and have a go at the husband and adolescent children for their complicitness. (What? I gotta hold your hand to feed the flaming cats?) Suddenly, I am no longer lovely,wonderful,amazing mumsy- but an awful, hateful mother who does nothing but yell at them.

I feel guilty. Usless. A terrible wife and mother. I think and think of new ways to manage the family completely on my own, to avoid any bad feeling. I get inspired, I will do A! And B! And C!

But then the baby is crying again, she wants a feed or just doesnt want to be put down. The bank account is empty again and I cant buy the kids new shoes. I am exhausted and fall asleep nursing the baby, only to wake and discover half the day is gone. I feel lazy and useless.

More and more I feel it, slippage. I no longer feel like the driven, aspiring mother, working through the rough patch on her way to a bright future for her and her family.

I feel my dreams slipping through my fingers, like fine silk, so perfect, so wonderful, so close but I cant quite grasp it.

I buy my daughter a £6.99 pair of horse riding gloves and have to ask if they have any cheaper ones. They don’t and I realize this one minor purchase equals over 5% of our weekly income. I feel like a fraud standing there, next to Ms. Range Rover with her stylishly muddy wellies and perfect hair. My trainers are just muddy. My hair is a mess. My daughter is pointing at Harry Hill riding helmets and excitedly asking about back protectors. I am nearly in tears as I nod and smile. It cost £15 for her to go riding that day. And £6.99 for the gloves!

She is glad for the gloves and hugs me tight.

A few hours later she is unkind to her brother and when I am cross with her about it, I am once again the awful mother who hates my daughter.

I am tired and feel beaten, no longer up to this battle. I take the crying baby and go to bed, sure that closing the door and retreating into the cool darkness will make everything else dissapear, will make it stop slipping.

2012 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The new Boeing 787 Dreamliner can carry about 250 passengers. This blog was viewed about 1,100 times in 2012. If it were a Dreamliner, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Overheard

Devon, 14: So, if I can create my own reality, then when there is a zombie apocalypse all the food in the store cupboard will turn into AK47’s. Plus, at my cadet sqaudron we have gas masks and loads of number 8 rifles and I’m going to buy lots of tomato soup, even though I don’t like it, because that stuff lasts forever.

Me- Devon, please could you stop telling your sister who is prone to nightmares and sleepless nights all about zombie apocalypses?

Devon: Oh. (looks at his 11yr old sister) Maybe they’ll be NICE zombies?

——————————————————————————–

Devon,14: (in the kitchen making his lunch) If your name is Devon, clap your hands
“clap, clap”
If you’re makin’ some beans, clap your hands
“clap, clap”
If you’re trying to get some brown sugar for the beans out of the jar while making beans and clapping your hands, clap your hands.
*silence*
If you’re really cool, clap your hands
“clap, clap”

—————————————————————-

Olivia, 11- Stop it, Devon.
Stop it, Devon.
Stop it, Devon.
Stop it, Devon.
Stop it, Devon.
Stop it, DEVON.
Stop it, Devon.
Stop it, Devon.
Stop it, Devon.
Stop it, Devon

A renewed sense of joy and purpose. Or, not.

Traditionally, women who are experiencing a, perhaps, less than pleasant, pregnancy find themselves taking solace in the prize at the end. The beautiful baby.

However, instead of feeling a renewed sense of purpose and joy at this thought, I instead find myself thinking
“Really? I mean, that’s nice and all, and I want the baby, but, you know, I’ve got three of those already. You got anything else to sweeten the deal- a pile of cash or an all inclusive trip to Jamaica?”

I think, perhaps, I’m in for a long trip to October…

Overheard

While the eldest children are making pumpkin pie in the kitchen…

Devon (14)- “WHAT! WHY are you biting my sleeve?”

Olivia (11)- *laughs hysterically* “I don’t know!”

Devon- “You can’t just go around biting other peoples sleeves!”

Olivia- “Well, you can’t just go around biting other peoples wrists!”

Devon- “I don’t.”

Slightly maniacal laughter from both follows

Mom- (from the other room) “Have you two been drinking?”

Adjusting (or not)

I find it difficult to get used to this place. The next door neighbor is a single mum with three young kids, and from my point of view the kids are out of control, the whole family constantly screaming at each other (and worse on occasion). Though her youngest and mine rarely play together- the pervasiveness of their life is starting to affect my kids. Rafe, who is normally incredibly good natured, has started screaming at me. I have long learned how to handle that type of behaviour and can nip it in the bud with a stern word of warning, but it disturbs me just the same. My daughter,11, occasionally plays with the other girls on the street, and afterwards she is belligerent, demanding and snotty. Trying to manage these new behaviours is demanding as they are not part of my kids normal makeup, and are the result of influence. I find that I have to be even more strict than usual and can’t let them get away with it for a second. My eldest is son is thankfully not yet affected, he is not allowed to hang out with the few boys his age on the street as I know they smoke and drink. He’d like to go to the skatepark but the kids there are nasty little cretins and Dev finds that instead of just being able to play, he has to spend his whole time arguing or standing up for himself. Never mind that he is bigger than the kids and could easily lay them out if he decided to let them have it, that’s not in his genetic makeup and I think they see that.

The nights are difficult. Though we are fairly tucked away, our road is some sort of bus through-fare and they come and go at all hours. People come and go all night as well, usually loud and drunkenly. The dogs of the neighbourhood wake me up early every morning with collective howling and barking. During the day the street is full of kids, normally just playing, but when the neighbor kids are about you can be sure their mother will turn up soon and they will all start screaming again, usually just outside our windows. The little one, only 6, will inevitably start crying and there will be more screaming and I end up pacing the floor, wondering what I can do and usually just taking my kids to the park so they don’t have to listen to it anymore. Once I could hear her sobbing through the walls with occasional screaming at the kids and I gathered up all my courage and went over to ask if I could help, maybe by taking her kids to the park or something, she pretended not to be there, and when I pressed said she was fine, thank you.

Her behaviour disturbs me, especially as I worry about her kids, and the effect on mine, and initially I was very judgemental about her. I softened though when I remembered being a single mother for 8 years with two kids, one of which would later be diagnosed with a “social communication disorder”, which just means he screamed a lot as a kid, and occasionally jumped out of moving cars on busy roads because he couldn’t control his anger. It took me a few years to get the hang of this parenting stuff, and I remember being so hard on my son for silly things. I want to help my new neighbour, but she clearly does not want my help. She struts around the neighbourhood, wine class in hand, screaming at her kids or sobbing about some transgression to the adolescent girls that make up her entourage. I find myself less sympathetic and understanding and more irritated and disgusted. When the screaming starts I twitch the curtains, worried she will strike one of the children and knowing that if, when, it happens I will not be able to stay out of it anymore. My family knows this, and while I don’t think they would truly want me to stand back if she were beating them, I know they want me to be quiet, mind my own business, not get involved. I feel embarrassed that they feel this way, that I am some big mouth always getting involved in things that they don’t think concern me. I feel ashamed of them, too. We once came across a man and a woman fighting in the back of the van at a red light. We could see him punching her, could see the blood on her face and clothes. Instinctively I got out of the car, started to shout at them but was dragged back in by the sounds of my family shouting at me. I knew it could end up with me being hurt and didn’t want my kids to see that, so I got back in, and called the police instead. I thought perhaps I had taught my kids an important lesson that night, but now I wonder. Could it be that I am raising kids, and am married to a man, who can stand back and do nothing while others are hurt or treated badly and worse, believe that is better somehow than getting involved?

I long for our detached house in the tiny little cul-de-sac, where the cats could sleep all day on the road outside without ever being disturbed, where the nights were mostly silent and the only noise on a Sunday morning are the church bells in town, which I opened my windows wide to, so that we could hear them better, especially in the winter, when they chime Christmas carols.

Supermarket Fury

Going to the supermarket. Christ, is there anything worse? They just get bigger and bigger and when I finally leave I’ve lost 3 hours and wonder if I’ve been abducted by aliens. I know, I know. I’m lucky to have a supermarket to go to. Nonetheless. I feel like I am there every single day of my godless life. And you can’t just go in and buy the one thing you actually need, or at least I can’t, there are always half a dozen other things. Ooh, that’s on sale! Ooh, that’ll be good for dinner! Ooh, my favorite piece of junk food that is not at all good for me but I like to eat anyway! So, even though all I freaking needed was a loaf of bread that I can buy for 40 pence- I end up leaving with £35 worth of groceries. Granted, I buy a lot of reduced stuff that can be frozen and used for future meals, so I save money in the long run. I’m trying to bring my family round to trying the paleo diet, which I gather is just meat and veg and the money I’d save by shopping at the green grocer and the butcher and never setting foot in a supermarket makes me giddy with possibilities, I might finally be able to fix my sons bike! Lo and behold my family likes their carbs, thank you very much, so I may have to employ the use of stealth when making the switch. Though there is always the possibility of the old “I’m paying for the groceries, if you don’t like what I’m buying, get a job and buy your own.” That tends to stop the whining in it’s tracks…

What annoyed me recently (well, ok, a month ago) at the supermarket was the cashier. Usually they just ring the stuff up and make small talk (occasionally with me, usually with a colleague or the customer in front who won’t pick up their damn bags and GO already) but this one decided she needed to comment about what we were buying. Grrr. We’d gone in for only a few items but I’d come across quite a few sale items, of course. So we had three boxes of ice cream bars at 50 pence each for the kids, an apple tart that I thought would be a nice dessert one night for £1. Two boxes of my favorite cornettos, 2 for £2. And some other bits and bobs. Yes, there was a bit of junk. I joked about it to my husband. Yet this cashier decided she need to tell me all about weight watchers. And how half her grocery shopping is always vegetables. I tried to keep things light, and said something about how it’ll be nice when the kids go back to school and arent clamoring for ice cream all the time. To which she replied “Well that’s when you tell them they can have a piece of fruit!”

Sorry, guys. Kids with fat mommies aren't allowed ice cream!

This annoyed me. I didn’t say anything to her, other than just a “Oh, I do!” but the sheer audacity pissed me off. Why pass judgement on my purchases? I have three slim, healthy, active children. One of which prefers to snack on carrots more than anything else, and two who love salad and always have seconds. They arent allowed to drink soda, fast food is a rare treat and all their regular meals are homemade. They get told “If you’re that hungry, have a carrot or a piece of fruit” six times a day. The only one who eats to much junk in my household is me. And clearly I am an adult and perfectly capable of deciding for myself what and how much I eat. I have one child who hates fruit and veg and would prefer to eat junk all day. I don’t allow this. His favorite breakfast item is cereal, which I rarely buy. He has to eat more healthy food. If he doesnt eat his carrots at dinner, he gets no dessert, etc.

I suppose people just like to feel superior and I shouldn’t be offended, but it seems to illustrate once again that fat people are fair game for ridicule. I know I’m fat, I promise I’m not stupid and I really don’t need a lecture from the cashier on the value of eating vegetables. Neither do I need random people assuming that since I am fat, I am a simpleton incapable of appropriate parenting, especially as how the 6 year old next door is never without a can of coke and a packet of sweets, though his mom is thin as a rail. Shockingly enough, I don’t sit around eating junk and watching daytime telly all day, either.

So what I’d like to say to that cashier is this: “Look bitch, it’s the middle of August, the kids are off school and if I want to give them some damn ice cream, I will. And, by virtue of not being stupid, I know exactly how to lose weight when and if I choose to, so I really don’t need you to lecture me about weight watchers and fucking vegetables.”

Jason R. circa 1994-6

I imagine that, as with all things we imagine to be unique to ourselves and which turn out to be quite universal, actually, that we all have a connection with a certain name. A name we encounter over and over again throughout the course of our lives. For a long while, that name for me was Jason.

According to the hallowed hall of general knowledge that is Wikipedia, “Jason was a late ancient Greek mythological hero, famous as the leader of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece…” There has also been a King Jason, a High Priest Jason, a philosopher Jason, a cat, a power ranger, a rocket, a government advisory group and perhaps most infamous, an ax murderer, all named Jason.

My first kiss was a boy named Daniel, my 2nd was a friend named Jason Cox, who lived around the corner from me. There was also Jason H., Jason Coffey, Jason R., Jason’s whose last names I have long forgotten and of course, Jaylin Jones, who I always counted as one of the Jason’s.

Jason R. was perhaps the one who meant the most to me and perhaps my first love. He was neither a greek hero, a king or a priest. He had short brown hair, sparkling deep brown eyes, like chocolate, a nose that I’d recognize even now and a smile that was so natural and bright enough to light up a room. I met him at a mall. I was a runaway, and had come to my favorite hangout to get away from my vicious siblings and indifferent parents. I was hungry, and needed a place to stay for the night. I was not the hiding and sleeping in the mall type, though I suppose I would have been up for it if someone else suggested it. Jason was sitting by himself in the food court, eating chinese. I brazenly walked up, sat in the chair across from him and asked if he would share his egg roll with me, which he did. Soon he introduced me to his friends who turned up at some point and these guys became my best friends, who I lied to and hurt repeatedly and for years.

Jason and I played leap frog along the canal as we walked from the mall to the apartments where a few of the guys lived. Three of them took me in, and it makes me very sad to realize that I don’t remember their names. They were from California, didn’t believe in microwaves and had an aquarium. I remember that I was supposed to make breakfast for them as my way of paying rent, but that was quickly forgotten around the first time I tried to make bacon on the stove top, after years of watching my dad cook it in the microwave… They had a black cat named el gato. We once all got very high together and figured out the secrets of the universe in one night, of course I have long forgotten those secrets, though aliens were definitely involved. They were really good guys and I hope they are having excellent lives somewhere.

Jason and I didn’t see each other very often, he was going to school and lived a little distance away, but when we did it was good, like we were drawn together and we fit together like puzzle pieces. The last time I saw him, it was outside the same mall I had met him, he saw me and shouted my name and grabbed me in an embrace that was like being home, the world calm and still and warm, all exactly as it should be. I had to wrench myself away and I might have cried if I had known the next time I saw him would be nearly 16 years later, on the Department of Corrections website, wearing the same orange jumpsuit that all prisoners wear and with the sparkle in his eyes long gone.

When I first saw that picture I felt a longing to reach out to him, write him a letter, tell him I was married, living in England with three children. All grown up, if you will. I suppose I thought it would be important to him, me reaching out from the past, perhaps even comforting. The girl with whom he had once sat in a closet for hours talking about his family, his fears and hopes and dreams, even reciting poetry. Of course he might also not remember me at all, the look in his eyes was one I associated with long time huffers, completely vacant. Though I wanted to write the letter, and did write one, I could see no point in sending it. This was not a person I wanted in my life, and had I sent the letter I probably would not have even included a return address. Perhaps I really had grown up, and grown out of needing these people, who I once adored.

I believe Jason has probably been released now, and I wish him well, though my heart aches that his life has not turned out the way he would’ve wanted.

Thanks for the egg roll, and the memories.

trapped

I feel… trapped. Imprisoned. My chains? No, not the children. Not even the husband. Religion? Nope. Gender? Not in the west in 2011. So, why? How can I feel trapped? I have a roof over my head, food in my ample belly. Opportunities that women in other countries can only dream of. How can I feel trapped?

I think to myself that I am limited by my bank account, that I want to get on a boat or a train and see the world, I want my only limits to what I can do, to what my family can do, to be our imaginations. I think I want to grab life by the horns and live it to the absolute fullest and if only I had a few million in the bank, I could.

Other days I don’t want that at all, I want nothing more than a big house in the country, surrounded by fields and to spend my days pottering around my large kitchen, or lounging in my library, reading or writing. Having huge holiday celebrations and family reunions and just…living a good, content, full life.

Alas, both options require money. I am not sure why my life in its current state cannot content me. My children are healthy, intelligent, beautiful. My husband is caring and loyal. Even on the days when the cupboard and the fridge is full, there is plenty of money in the bank account, the bills are paid and my hair is clean and shiny, I still feel…unfulfilled. As if something is missing and I can’t work out what it is. A sense of purpose? Perhaps. Security? Independence? Perhaps.

I feel as if I am living constantly in the house of cards my teenage son constructed this summer, stuck at home with a broken leg and a pack of cards I had just handed him. He had never built one before and even the slightest hint of a breath would send it tumbling to the floor. I can’t get that feeling out of my head. Every day I become more certain that I never will. No matter how successful I might ever become, or how much money amasses in my bank account, no matter what great things my children persue in their lives, I fear that I will never escape that feeling of everything tumbling down around me at the slightest hint of a breath. That no matter how many pills I take or counseling I have, I will never feel happy with myself or my life.

I wonder why this is? Is it because I was unhappy as a child? Bullied incessantly at school and disliked at home? Have I become conditioned to feel this way? Certain that any feeling of happiness or pleasure is a sign of a great wind bearing down on my house of cards. Is it because there is some fundamental glitch in my programming?

I don’t know the answers to these questions, only that as I get older (Hello, 30! See you soon!) they become more pressing, more relevant. I wonder if it is perhaps a part of growing up, and that perhaps I will grow out of it, as indeed I grew out of my “I know everything, nobody can tell me what to do, it’s MY life so fuck off” teenage years.

On the bad days, the ones where for whatever reason I have found myself lying in bed at 11am, sobbing uncontrollably, the black hole in my chest absorbing light and life and threatening to consume every ounce of me, I find myself wanting nothing more then to go home.

“I want to go home.” I sob in to my husband’s chest hair, helpless and small and wishing I could melt into him, not understanding why I’m saying it, why my heart is feeling it. There is nothing left for me there. I think if I were to die suddenly I would not want to be returned there, to travel 6000 miles in a box and be buried so far from the people that love me the most, so why do I long to be back there in my darkest days? Perhaps what is calling to me is the desert which I love so much, the free and open spaces where I could never feel trapped or confined, where I could climb a mountain and watch the sunrise over the peaks and cactus. Even standing on the shores of Great Britain, gazing into the Atlantic Ocean, where there is nothing but sea and sky before me, I feel trapped. An island full of unfamiliar people behind me, a vast inhospitable sea before me.

I wonder if I will ever leave this country again, if I will ever leave behind the feeling of being imprisoned and lost within myself.