This is part uno in my new series on The Ugly Politics of Parenting. Won’t this be a fun theme!?

Yesterday I sat down to type out the first draft of my birth plan, the culmination of lots of weeks worth of reading, researching, and talking to L/D nurses, midwives and doulas. A lot of my research wound up really turning me around positively on a number of issues. For instance, Matt and I think that next time around we’re going to attempt to have a home water birth if it’s not cost prohibitive (and if this first experience doesn’t change our minds); a type of labor and delivery I used to think was super crunchy crazy and quite possibly dangerous.

But just as I did more reading and learned more about how this natural process has always worked and how we have augmented it over the years, I became absolutely disgusted by parents. Yes, you heard me correctly. I had been forewarned, and had often seen with my own eyes that parents are the most judgmental self-destructive species alive. Mothers are made to feel inferior if they are unable to breastfeed. Women who experience drug-free births get off on thinking they’re Superwomen. Midwives are painted as tribal African medicine-men and OBs as heartless 9-5ers whose own nurses are frightened of them. And then there’s attachment parenting, and Ferbering, and stay at home moms versus working moms, and parents that wind up eating other parents alive at Chuck E Cheese playdates.

I don’t want to be a part of that. I don’t want that to be my identity. I don’t want to feel pressured to live up to a certain identity or label. I just want to do my research, make my decision, and have the freedom to change my mind. And I will change my mind. I haven’t even had the kid yet, and I’ve already changed my mind on a lot of things. And if that alienates me, then so be it. I’ll still have my best friend by my side who last night told me that he continues to be amazed at my maternal intuition about these things – quite possibly the greatest compliment he could ever give me.

So my plan has been written, and it’s a plan that I hope can be followed, but will not be devastated if it cannot. It’s based partially on my desire to allow my body the space to do what it was created to naturally do and feel the natural rush that goes along with that, and partially because I am more afraid of needles and surgery being inflicted upon me by people with multiple medical degrees and years of experience than I am of agonizing internal pain being inflicted upon me by wee little Penelope.

And I’m hoping that maybe, just maybe, I can be the tie that finally binds the two childbirthing philosophies together. Because the woman who will be saying “no” to interventions during labor as a way to experience the natural process will also say “HELL YEAH!” to general anesthesia in the event that she needs major abdominal surgery.

Call it hypocrisy, I choose to call it “reaching across the aisle.”

And with that I leave you this lovely video. Yes, I’m afraid our child will grow up with the entire Monty Python catalog if Matt has anything to do with it.

Something about how the doctors at the hospital would do their darndest to keep my baby alive if she were born today makes me feel equal parts affection for those in the medical field (look! I’m giving them shoutouts!) and equal parts total terror that this is all for real. She is going to be outside of my womb in give or take 16 weeks, and she’s going to have tiny hairs on her earlobes that are even cuter and more snookerable than the tiny hairs on Matt’s earlobes. I know. Hard to imagine.

She’s moving all the time now, and Matt regularly gets to feel her. Sometimes she makes me feel a bit uncomfortable, but I certainly wouldn’t classify any of it as pain at this point. I have had very, very little back pain which is SHOCKING for me. I’d go so far as to say I have very few negative side affects these days, just an undying need to be eating 24/7. I have no stretch marks on my belly… wait for it… but my butt looks like planet Earth from space.

Um, I really don’t know how to say this in an… appropriate… way, but I’ll try. I mean, it’s inevitable. You come to this blog and you know that sooner or later, me being a pregnant woman and all, I’m gonna talk about the girls. So here it is. It’s hard to know when one looks at me which is bigger right now, my uterus or the two gallons of half and half I’m carting around.

I’ve pretty much decided that I would be very happy having two kids, although Matt would like a couple more. We’ll see about how things go, and I might wind up pulling through for him cause he’s such a nice guy. But I tell you what, Matt, if you could somehow arrange for these girls to be sucked dry back to, maybe a B cup after a fourth or fifth kid, SIGN ME UP!!

I had one thing and one thing only that I needed to accomplish today. At 8am I needed to go to the midwife’s office for my regular checkup and get my swine flu vaccine on the way out. It was the failiest fail ever.

Last visit to the midwife’s office was wonderful and exciting. We found out we were having a girl and got to watch Penny squirming on the ultrasound machine for a solid half hour. Matt was with me, and held my hand as I laid down and received my regular seasonal flu vaccine. At that visit I had planned on getting both vaccines, but after barely making it through the seasonal flu shot, I opted to get my H1N1 on my next visit which was scheduled well in advance so Matt could come with me.

Well, he wound up not being able to come today. February being a short month and Tennessee being snow-day happy, he had to squeeze in a couple extra hours today with a client, so I went alone. I’ve known for about a week and a half that I would be going alone and psyched myself up for it. As in, not sleeping a wink last night and walking into the office this morning shaking.

When I arrived Brandy took my blood pressure, and her eyes opened so wide I thought maybe SHE was going to pass out and suddenly I’d have to really pull myself together and give her mouth to mouth or something. She asked me to take the standard pee test to find out if I had preeclampsia. I told her I thought maybe my blood pressure was high because I was so nervous, but she wanted to opt on the safe side.

So I waited in the room for what felt like decades before the midwife and her midwife-in-training came in to see me. Before I could even say hello I blurted out, “Do I have preeclampsia?” Midwife Melissa smiled and assured me that I was fine, no preeclampsia, and that they’d try taking my blood pressure later in the appointment.

And that’s when I burst into tears and told her that I was so nervous about coming in and getting a shot by myself, that my husband couldn’t make it (and he’s the one who really wants me to get the swine flu vaccine anyways!), and that my car was in the shop so I’m driving this brand new loaner car from the dealer, and what if I passed out and crashed the loaner car on the way home?!

“You really don’t need to get the shot today. Why don’t you wait until your husband can come with you?”

“Really?”

“Yes. I’d like you to get the vaccine, but you’ll be fine if you put it off another four weeks. We have to do a blood draw at your next visit anyways, so we can get it all done at once. And you get another ultrasound at that visit, which will be fun! You’ll get to see your little girl again!”

This is where I kissed her on the mouth. We finished up all the routine stuff, and she re-took my blood pressure which wound up being perfectly fine, in fact a little on the low side of normal.

I really wanted to be brave enough to get that shot all by myself today. I’ve had my blood drawn before by myself, but the thing that freaks me out about the flu vaccine is that you can feel it in your arm long after you’ve had it done, unlike a blood draw. And for some reason, my physiological response to feeling that sting hours later is to get queasy all over again. But I wanted to overcome it. I wanted to make Matt proud of me, especially because he knows that despite what everyone says, I still don’t believe it’s necessary to have the silly vaccine, but I am willing to do it because it matters so much to him. I wanted to kick this fear in the crotch once and for all.

I have gone to so many midwife visits over the past few months, have been poked and prodded with needle after needle and haven’t passed out once. I have gotten so much better. But then days like today come along, and I feel like I’m back to square one with no improvements made.

I mean, what would you do if you were told you needed to go sky diving once a month to usher in world peace. You’d be scared spitless at the door of that plane, and the only thing stopping you from vomiting would be the sexy G.I. Joe character whose back you’d be strapped to for the free-fall. So you get a little less scared each month cause G.I. Joe makes you feel a wee mite safer. But then one day you have to jump alone. And you start crying and say to yourself, “WHY DO I NEED TO JUMP OUT OF A PLANE TO STOP ETHNIC CLEANSING?!” So the plane takes you safely back to the airport, and you drive home hating yourself because c’mon, what’s so scary about jumping out of a plane?! ALONE?! People do that all the time, right? A BABY COULD DO IT!

That’s basically what it feels like. And now, because of my big needle fail the whole world is going to die of swine flu.

If I had been the type of woman who would have, ya know, read through “What To Expect When You’re Expecting” in its entirety the week I had found out I was pregnant just to know every possible scenario ahead of time, I might have been a little less shocked when I started having all-consuming thoughts and daydreams about pregnancy, labor, delivery, sleep deprivation, breastfeeding, OMG SCHOOLS! and how I could convince Penny to not date that guy with chemical dependencies at age sixteen. Cause that started around week twenty, and now at week twenty-two, being in the throes of all that over-thinking and anxiety, I am reading how very “normal” and “hormonal” it is for this time.

All of the reading and thinking has led me to one definite conclusion: I am most certainly going to screw this kid up. But I take comfort in knowing that I had the world’s greatest parents and the world’s greatest childhood and still found myself needing about a years worth of therapy in my early twenties. And a swift kick in the pants. I could probably use another one of those.

So Penny, I apologize that I’m going to make lots and lots of mistakes, and that lots of those mistakes will be made on you, being the oldest child. This will not be the only time I apologize to you, it will be the first of many. And while we’re breaking the bad news, let me assure you that your father is not nearly as superhuman as you will wind up believing he is. He is also not Sting, but it still drives me wild watching him play bass on stage.

In the midst of all of this ANXIETY! I determined it would be a very good time for me to start practicing all of those quacky breathing exercises and relaxation techniques that the midwives are telling me about. You know the routine, be in a calm environment listening to Bob Marley while visualizing your natural labor with ocean waves crashing over you, and basically everything needed for a very mellow vegan evening except for the weed. Might relax you so much the baby would come prematurely, that’s all.

So last night I drew myself a nice hot bubble bath, lit some candles and headed into the bathroom for some one-on-one time with my little girl. I had read how great it is to just think about her and talk to her, to ask her to cooperate with me throughout the remainder of my pregnancy and into labor, and that she would respond. Ha! If it’s not apparent to everyone who has ever tried to draw my blood, I am the Queen Of Not Being Able To Visualize My Way Out Of Panic Attacks, so I had very very low expectations. Except that maybe my back would stop hurting a little bit.

I asked Matt to put on my “Moondance” vinyl, and I kid you not, as soon as the first strains of “And It Stoned Me” wafted to my ears, I was instantly at ease. My mind wandered to the two Van Morrison shows that Matt has taken me to in Boston and feeling him look over and grin when he saw the enormous smile plastered across my face. As the band broke into each and every next song I would lean over and whisper to Matt, “No, THIS is my favorite song!” And he would whisper back, “I wanna be his organ player!”

And there I was, enormous and immersed in our (newly caulked!) tub with the same huge Van Morrison grin on my face. I started humming along and thinking about labor and delivery, and dude, bring it on! As long as I have Vanny I can make it without an epidural! All of a sudden, Penelope started dancing along. Because of my placenta previa I haven’t been able to feel her much other than slight blurps, and now out of nowhere she was banging her little arms and legs all around.

“Moondance” came on, and I imagined Matt dancing with his daughter in a classy piano bar while the band covers Vanny, just like my dad did with me once. I called him over, and after a brief wait she belted my stomach as stinkin hard as she could allowing Matt to feel his daughter move for the first time. I think she’s gonna have sweet moves out on the dance floor, just like her daddy.

I flopped in the water until the album had been flipped over and slowed to a stop. Last night was a rush. Like you know the moment that guy that you’ve only ever ogled from afar for a solid three years finally takes your face into his hands and kisses you for the very first time? That was last night. I know I talk so frequently about how pregnancy sucks, and the majority of the time it does. But last night rocked my soul.

Penny Cate, I’m gonna make mistake after mistake. But I promise to never go a day without loving you. And I won’t go a day without forcing you to listen to some Van Morrison. You’ll thank me one day.

You can take all the tea in China
Put it in a big brown bag for me
Sail it right around the seven oceans
Drop it smack dab in the middle of the deep blue sea
Because she’s as sweet as tupelo honey
She’s an angel of the first degree
She’s as sweet as tupelo honey
Just like honey from the bee
She’s my baby, you know she’s alright…

Expertise is a funny thing. You can gain it from the school of hard knocks or from years of continuous education. I don’t know where I got my instinct to trust expertise, but 9 times out of 10 I will trust the guy with the experience or the degrees over the armchair observer. I may enjoy being a contrarian, but what are my hunches if I have no research to support them?

I was talking on the phone a couple weeks ago with one of my former bosses who had a lot of practical experience with reputable organizations and also claimed an Ivy League education. She was smart. Smarter than most people. And one of the things that made her such an awesome boss was the way she trusted me to do that which I knew about. I knew more about websites than she did, and she let me just do my thing. She’d ask me for advice, and she’d take my advice. She respected my expertise, and you know what? I really respect that she respected it. I went on to realize that this is a pretty rare trait – trusting other people who know more about something than you do.

Why is it that we all think we know everything best? We all think we’re experts at every field of life. And we really really don’t like taking advice from “experts.” I bet you’re wondering why I’m going on about all of this. It’s because in the circle of motherhood there’s this weird vibe that a mother’s instinct is always best. That moms will just inherently know what is right for their children. And they question teachers and doctors and grandparents and people with way more experience or degrees than them. BECAUSE THERE A MOM, DAGGONIT!

Listen, I’m all about questioning the status quo to find improvements. I became a moderate Libertarian because I think the other two options suck. I’ll go ahead and boldly state that I believe ALL women should start trending back towards the healthcare model of midwifery, and that OBs should be around for complications and specialization. Having babies is not akin to having cancer. But you know what else? I also think that your kids teacher has a degree and a state certification for a reason. And yeah, there are plenty of sucky teachers out there. But ya know what? There are pretty sucky content management systems out there. Doesn’t mean you should build your own. Why not try to find a good one to use?

All of this to say that I am realizing I don’t want to be the mother who doesn’t take advice from the Behavioral Analyst who comes to my house with a proven methodology to potty train my kid. I want to be the mother who does my research to find the best Behavioral Analyst from the best company in the country to come and potty train my kid. Because that person straight up knows more than I do. Sure, I want to trust some of my instinct, but why reinvent the wheel?

I am a lucky woman because I have two sisters (and a mom!) who have gone before me and raised their kids really really well. Sure, I’ll do a few things differently (like not driving a minivan! ), but goshdarnit, if I can follow their advice and have Penny turn out half as good as their kids, I will be one proud mama. And then I have some dear friends, the cloth diaper sage, the expert on getting your kid to eat anything, the mom whose child plays really well with others, and the girl who sleep-trained her kid into the third dimension. And of course the husband who can stop self-injurious behavior in the kids with the most intense diagnoses. These people, along with my trusty midwives, my pediatrician, and the teachers at the school that we will eventually find for Penny after agonizing research, they will be my experts, and I will need to trust them.

Of course, if you have a PhD in psychology but your kid is in juvie, I’m liable to ignore much of what you say.

And on that note, sleeping patterns: nature vs. nurture. If you have a great sleeper, did you sleep train them into it, or do you think it’s just in their genes?

Over the past few weeks, really since we found out that we were going to have a girl, I’ve been doing a lot of reading and thinking and pondering my upcoming identity change. Half of me is really excited about the new aspect of being a mom, and being a mom to a little girl. I’ll brag. I think I’m going to be a good mom because I’ve noticed that the best moms are actually the ones who were never baby snatchers to begin with. Something having to do with maternal separation anxiety. I’m sure Matt has a psychological term for this. But then there’s the other half of me who is cautiously preparing myself for the myriad challenges ahead.

There are so many things that will make this shift to motherhood a challenge. I’ll have to live more selflessly than I ever have before. I’ll have to give more of myself to someone and find inherent reward in doing that – no thank yous or pats on the back from the little nugget. In fact, I’ll wind up having my love and selflessness responded to with grumbles, frowns, tears and “I hate you!” (Assuming she has any of my DNA.)

I’ll also deal with new social challenges that I haven’t faced before – kids who pick on my kid, the constant competitiveness and judgment of other moms, and my own expectations or hopes being shattered.

In preparing for this new identity, I’m realizing that it’s pretty similar to the change that happens when you get married (or perhaps committing yourself to a life partner… to be all equal opportunity whatnot). On the one hand, you learn who you really are and, hopefully, increase in confidence. But on the other hand, you realize your personality baggage to the fullest and need to make steps towards becoming a better person. Both of those things, growing your confidence in who you inherently are, and making changes towards being a better person are strangely tough. And I think that while you’re on that journey, the people who have always loved you will continue to love you, and the people who have always hated you will continue to hate you.

Which is actually pretty encouraging. I mean, I’m cool with the people who hate me. And I’m becoming increasingly thankful for the people in my life who have always loved me and will continue to love me even as I evolve out of the box I used to live in. And then there are those new friends – that new community of people who are loving on me and supporting me because they can see the trajectory my life is about to take. Maybe they see my potential as a mom? Or just as a person on a journey.

I automatically like those people a lot. Because there’s nothing I love more than new people and new experiences laced with potential. And whooo-boy, aren’t we in for a new experience!?