Out of Avalon

October 25th, 2007 by Ascelyn

I got a flu shot today.  I’ve never gotten one before, but they were free at work and I’d read that it’s smart to have one if you plan to get pregnant during flu season.  Then I read that it’s not good to have one during the first trimester, which is of course tricky, since I won’t know I’m pregnant until I’m over a month (or two weeks, depending on how you count it) into it.  I’m also overdue by a few weeks for my second HepA vaccination, but didn’t want to have it done when I still thought there was a chance that last time might have been The Month.  Since the health clinic only does vaccinations on Wednesdays (and there’s no way in heaven or hell I’m paying for an office visit to have a nurse shove a needle in my arm and send me on my way), I guess I’m waiting until next week.  Again.

I want a baby.  I mean, I *really* want a baby.  The desire to see those two little lines on a urine-soaked piece of plastic morphs me into a tear-soaked, incoherent ball of hormones curled up on my favorite chair at times.  This feeling probably isn’t all that foreign to any female who’s ever had to wait more than a month to get pregnant after coming off birth control.  Considering that I’d been dealing with it for quite some time before stopping the pills anyway, I feel like I’ve been waiting FOREVER.

But you know what I really want?  I want a son or daughter.  Not just a cute, cuddly, spitting-up, diaper-messing ball of wailing cuteness, but a child.  Like, one I can tell stories to, and help plant his own little garden, and sing with.  One I can show how to fingerpaint pictures for Daddy and play dress up with.  It hit me again yesterday in the new grocery store, which has–for the first time in this town since County Market went out of business almost a decade ago–a bulk candy aisle.  I was in heaven.  It brought back memories of teaming up with the boy child and begging for those disgusting wax bottles while grocery shopping with our dad and going to the Fruit Bowl to restock the candy jar at Grandma’s house after our uncle ate all the good stuff every time he was there.

I got two rather exciting 6″-long gummy snakes for Michaal’s son, who’s been home sick from preschool all this week, but what I *really* wanted was to be taking my own child by the hand and wandering down the row, picking just one or two of her favorites for a special treat.  And then Jason pointed out the candy molds on the other side, and I wanted to do that with her, too.  Who is she?  I don’t know yet, but she’s going to be mine.

October 22nd, 2007 by Ascelyn

Growing up, I was a tomboy.  Even while I decorated my room with kittens, adored the color pink, and took ballet, I still liked building forts in the woods and playing with anything that moved and was slimy (”Hey Mom, look what I caught!”).  Many of my friends were male.  As time went by, though, I gave up the dolls and moved steadily into boyishness.  I shopped in the boy’s section of the clothing and shoe stores, loved action movies while abhoring chick flicks, and read more sci-fi than any girl I knew.  The hardest thing for me to accept as I grew older was that I could no longer hit as hard or run as fast as the guys.  However, as I spent more and more of my time online, I discovered that people automatically assumed I was male until specifically told otherwise–even when using what was, to me, a feminine-sounding screen name.  When comparing colleges, I ruled out most schools that had a disproportionate number of women, but fell in love with those whose student body was mostly men.  I applied to Navy ROTC.

All this time, I reviled feminism.  Every woman I saw who claimed to be a feminist went well beyond championing women’s rights and crossed over into the belief that women were better than men.  I wanted equality.  They wanted men shoved face-down into the dirt.  The very idea seemed foul to me.  Sure, women can best men in some things.  But then, there are some things at whichmen are better than women.  In many other ways, it’s about equal, disregarding individual differences.  And really, isn’t it those individual accomplishments that should be lauded, not a chance result of chromosomes?  Women shouldn’t be forced by men to act in a certain way.  Nobody should be forced by anybody to be anyone but themselves, as long as being themselves doesn’t interfere with the liberty of anyone else.  While I know I can be better than a lot of my friends–a lot of my guy friends–in a lot of different things, I don’t think it has anything to do with being female.  I don’t think I’m due any special priviledges due to my gender.  Feministm seemed to go against everything I held dear.

But lately, after discovering this blog, I’ve been wondering if I’ve been a feminist all along.

I didn’t get along well with more than a handful of other girls during middle or high school.  Their obessions–clothes, boys, popularity–seemed trite and boring to me.  Besides, I didn’t understand them anyway.  While the girls in their low-cut shirts and too-tight jeans (how did they bend their knees well enough to walk in those, anyway?) sat in their corner of the lunchroom, the cheerleaders and jocks in theirs, I would sit with my own small group of mostly males off to the side.  We discussed religion and politics, science and art.  We quoted Monty Python and lamented the follies of our school administration.  While the girls giggled over celebrities, we talked about the war in Iraq.

Often enough, I was the only female.  Sometimes one or two others would join in.  Mostly, though, I was surrounded by males.  I’m not implying by any stretch of the imagination that I got along with most guys, any more than I did most people in general.  But the vast majority of my friends, and of people I admired and respected in general, were men.

So what makes me long for another woman to talk to now?  I don’t consider myself xenophobic, but I’ve always felt more comfortable around people who are “like me.”  Usually this means the cynics and intellectuals.  Suddenly, though, I also want to be around people who are like me in more than just my geekiness.  I want to be around women.  Mothers.  Those who can relate to the worries and wishes and emotions that are tearing my poor confused brain apart in my wish for a child.  Looking around me, though, there’s not really anyone.  My tendency to draw towards the male half of the population has left me without anyone who is like me in this way.

There’s Jason, of course, and I tell him almost everything.  He tries, but I don’t know how much he understands.  His thought patterns are very different from my own.  He’s so steady and sensible in comparison to my rapid flames and obsessions.  I don’t if it’s really possible for him to completely understand why his once-rational wife has become an incoherent ball of emotions, ready to unravel at the most inconvenient time.

There are two women at work who have children.  Unfortunately, one works in  my office, and one (much as I like her) has too big of a mouth for my own good.  She’s been telling people that I’m pregnant since before she met me, oh, three years ago….

There are women in the SCA, obviously.  But while I like many of them and am willing to talk to them about a lot of things, I’m not really close enough to any of them like that.

There are women at church.  I avoid most of them.

There’s my sisters-in-law.  But considering the, er, interesting relationship I have with his family, I think I’ll stick to less volatile topics for the forseeable future.  Topics that don’t include religion, politics, or the fact that I’m married to their son/brother.  I’ll have enough battles to fight when they realize that I’m probably not going to raise their grandchild in exactly the same fashion that they would.

And then there’s my own mother.  I’ve talked to her more than anyone other than Jason, mostly the night after the Doctor’s Appointment from Hell.  But much as I hate to say it, she’s never really understood me.  She’s okay now with the fact that I’m different from what she wanted to make me, and I know she loves me.  I love her greatly.  But it just seems strange, in a way, to discuss something so deeply personal with someone who was so adamantly against the way you wanted to live your life for so long.

I briefly mentioned something to Eadric, but it was very brief indeed.  He’s intelligent, I agree with him on many things, and he was a super-cute son whom I adore.  But it would still be awkward, and he’s a guy.  Can a guy really understand?

And so my search online began.  It actually started several months ago, but only in the last few weeks did I discover BlogHer, which makes all the difference.  So what did I discover about women bloggers?

1. You need a certain level of intelligence (or at least competence) to keep an online journal.  This rules out some of the simpering morons I’m stuck with in real life.
2. I still don’t really understand the obsessions of many females with fashion and celebrities.
3. Even in the vast realm that is the internet, I still don’t really have any desire to get to know most people.  Call me antisocial if you will–we both know it’s true.  But even among those whose blogs I’ll bookmark and come back to read again, I still don’t really “connect” with most people.

And then there was the Matriarch.  I first read one of her posts on BlogHer, I was caught up in the wonder of someone who wrote as if she knew me.  Someone else in the world, someone who I’d never met, was speaking the same words I’ve been trying to tell people for so long!  And it wasn’t just “some other person”–it was a smart person, someone who could be expected to have some knowledge in the field.  I was in heaven.

As I read more of her blog, though, I kept coming across that word–*feminist*.  The way she wrote, though, I began to wonder if that was such a bad thing.  If someone I was beginnig to admire could be a feminist…what if it really wasn’t such a bad thing after all?

What if I’ve been a feminist all along, and didn’t even know it?

October 17th, 2007 by Ascelyn

I’m running behind on finalizing the plans for this year’s Harvest Party with the kids.  In order to save what little sanity I have left, it’s going to be much the same as last year.  Just…more organized.

Provided I can find someone with a tractor and wagon, we’ll have hayrides around the alley again this year.  Sound pretty lame?  Well, it’s that or around the dismally small parking lot, since there’s no way I’m letting them go in the actual main street.  At dark.  With no lights.  But much to my surprise, the kids loved it last year, so I’m hoping Wendy can do it again for them.  Otherwise I’m going to have to beg some coworkers to help me out…which might not be a bad idea, since they have kids the right age anyway.

There will be bobbing for apples–really intended as comic relief for the adults watching, though the kids had a lot of fun.  I need to remember to bring extra hair ties for the girls this year.

There will be gourd bowling.  Ever tried to knock over those little kid’s plastic bowling pins with something not perfectly spherical?  It’s a blast, even when Jason starts over-analyzing it.

There will be pumpkin ring toss.  I’m even going to get the pumpkins early this year.

Last year, we used fall leaves and markers to make placemats.  It worked out great to let them get started as they first arrived, since some of the kids are always early and others perpetually late.  This year, I’m going to do that this week, well in advance, and give myself plenty of time to deal with tempermental contact paper.  When they arrive, they’ll start decorating….

Terra cotta pots!  I’m hoping to get them cheap now that the season’s almost over.  There’s a decent stock-pile of acrylic and poster paints left from the birdhouses at the Discovery Center last summer, and I fully intend to use up as much as possible before they go bad.  The pots will be used as containers in which to take home their goodies, and the kids can plant something in them in the spring.

Speaking of treats, I’m shying away from candy this year.  The party will be held the day after Halloween, so they’ll have more super-refined sugars than they know what to do with anyway.  Does this mean they won’t be getting goodies?  Of course not!  We’ll be making candy apples again, and each of them will get to decorate two–one to eat at the party and one to take home.  I’m making my almost-famous pumpkin cookies, which they’ve been asking for, and trying a recipe for carrot-raisin cupcakes.  They’ll have all the apples they bobbed for during the evening, plus a few other non-edible gifts.  Add the prizes from the costume contest on top of that, and we’re all set!

The only thing I’m not sure about yet is the scarecrows.  Yes, I’d like to have them break into smaller teams and construct scarecrows from a frame (pre-made at home), straw, and old clothes.  The main problem is what to do with them afterwards.  If fewer kids come than normally do, we can get away with making two scarecrows and putting them out front.  If more show up, I’m stuck with a bunch of scarecrows on my hands and nowhere to show them off.

But hey, since when have little things like common sense stopped me before?

 

October 16th, 2007 by Ascelyn

When I arrived at work this morning, what was waiting in my inbox but…a letter from the Kingdom Chirurgeon!  She recieved my application and copies of my CPR and first aid certificates over the weekend, and now I’m ready to start training.  Since I won’t be needed to babysit at Treasures on the Tides next weekend, I’ll probably do my first event as a CiT then.  The only downfall is that I’d really kind of wanted to participate in the quests.  It’s really not an issue, since I’m not on a team anyway, but it sounded like a lot of fun.

Looks like I need to get started on my Super Awesome First Aid Chest of Doom, stat.

October 15th, 2007 by Ascelyn

So that last post was long, and kind of disoriented.  But I’m not going to change it, because that day was long and more than a little disorienting as well.  I got a packet of forms to fill out for the new, hopefully less demeaning doc in the mail last night.  The only thing that’s got me worried now is that they seem to want me to sign off on a lot of “the doctor can do whatever he needs to in order to help you” sorts of things, and they want Jason’s social security number.

Point #1:  Unless I’m unconscious, the doctor will do what I allow him to do.  If I am coherent and deny treatment, even if not having that treatment could harm me, that’s my right.  I’ll discuss this at the first appointment with him, but I think I’m just being overly wary.  I mean, presumably it’s just giving him permission to treat me at all…right?

Point #2:  Why does a doctor who by definition treats women need a man’s social security number who isn’t his patient and never will be?  Really, why does he even need mine?  (I won’t fight the latter, though.  It’s just not worth it anymore.)

I wasted some time this morning looking around some of iVillage’s pregnancy and parenting boards.  There are a good half-dozen boards I could hop into, but none really seemed overly exciting.  Don’t get me wrong–I’m dying for someone to actually talk to about things.  Eadric knows, very vaguely, that I’m kinda sorta trying.  I blabbed to my mum at dinner after the Doctor’s Appointment from Hell the other night, so she knows.  Obviously, Jason knows full well.  But it would nice to have someone not related, preferably female, to talk to.  After my brief time around people who I could actually talk to about anything, I’m really missing having that.  Before my sojourn up to Pittsburgh, IM and boards filled that roll, though for very different subjects.  I guess one of the iVillage ones could potentially do that, but they seem very…narrow-minded.  I don’t care to tell a bunch of people exactly what day my cycle’s on and what my temp was that morning and so on, and I don’t care to listen to dozens of strangers tell me about theirs.  I guess the search continues. 

Of course, once I actually get pregnant, it won’t be an issue.  Once the baby’s here, it will be absolutely no problem at all.  Any adorable, brilliant baby of Jason’s and mine will have people drooling all over him (or her!).  But for now, I wish I had someone to talk to, at least once in a while.

October 11th, 2007 by Ascelyn

And so the rollercoaster continues.

We had Friday off.  Hooray!  Jason had to work in the morning, but should be off by noon.  Okay.  By noon, I got a call saying he wouldn’t be home until that night.  Boo….

I was supposed to be helping at the demo in Frederick on Saturday.  Hooray!  Jason wasn’t too happy that I’d be gone again, so I said I’d think about staying home.  Okay.  By Saturday morning, I was so dizzy and nauseous again that I didn’t want to risk driving that far alone.  I let down my friends and didn’t keep my word that I’d be there.  Boo….

I called Dr. Wolford’s office on Friday like I’d be instructed and scheduled an appointment with the doctor that just started with the practice.  Not only did I get a female doc, like I’d preferred (especially for an ob/gyn), but I scored an appointment at 8:00 Tuesday morning.  Hooray!  Unfortunately, the address given online took me to the wrong office, on the wrong side of town.  I then got rather lost at the hospital, even though I’ve been there countless times since infancy.  Okay.  I then waited an hour in th exam room, even though I was the first patient of the day–and possibly ever in Cumberland–before the doctor even arrived.  Boo….  I was also treated like absolute trash the entire time I was, to the point that I literally stumbled out of the office in tears.  Yes, it was that bad.

It was bad enough that I put off writing this until today because I couldn’t deal with it.  I almost didn’t go back to work, even though I was later than I thought I’d be because of the hour wait.  I crouched sobbing on the bathroom outside the clinic for about ten minutes before I managed to page my mother at work, then finally made it downstairs and out a side door.  Beyond the mass confusing of figuring out how to get from one side of the third floor to the other, a route which involves a trip to the first floor and doubling back on yourself a few times due to locked doors dividing the third floor in half, I know the hospital pretty well.  In my state of mind after the appointment, though, I couldn’t be bothered to try to figure out how to get back to the elevator I needed.  By no means did I want to be seen, red-faced and teary-eyed, by anyone who knew me.  And when you have nurses for parents, pretty much everyone in the hospital has known you since birth.  I made my way around the hospital from the outside and down to the car, intending to head to the other hospital and my mother’s Braddock campus office.

Part way there, I decided that probably wasn’t a good idea.  I’d just start crying again and prolong the whole thing, and both she and I had work to be doing.  I called her back to tell her I wouldn’t be coming, at which point she started interrogating me about what was going on.  Since I hadn’t given her any information when I asked to come see her, she thought I had gotten my blood tests from Friday back and had found out that I had lupus or something equally serious.  Rather than let her worry needlessly, I explained part of what had happened.  Part of it, because the rest of the time was spent choking up too badly to speak and just trying to catch my breath.

Work wasn’t as unbearable that day as I’d thought it might be, but I certainly couldn’t start writing this down.  Breaking down in the office would be a Very Bad Thing.  Instead, I just went straight to the bathroom on my return, washed my face and splashed water in my eyes, and stared at a computer for the next two hours.

Jason, Michaal and Randy, and two new guys (one of whom likes Blindside and Invader Zim), and I went to lunch.  Jason and I rode separately, and he wanted to know how the appointment went.  I told him badly and that I didn’t want to talk about it until we got home.  He kept pressing, and I started crying again just as we walked into Burger King with the others right behind us.  Started, as in a single tear.  But it was close.

So what happened?  Here’s the super-short version.

They wouldn’t believe me about my age.  They assumed from the beginning that I was single, had no education, and was not working.  As in, instead of asking me what my marital status was, they said, “And you’re single, right?”  Harmless enough in itself, but very unprofessional.  But that was only the nurse, and she eventually came around and actually tried to help in the end, to no avail.

The doctor was another story.  It was bad enough that she didn’t listen to what I had to say, didn’t want to answer my questions, and spent all the time not actually doing a physical exam with her back to me, instead of sitting in her chair with her clipboard in her lap like most doctors do.  Even with facing me, she talked at me instead of to me.  But that’s just bad bedside manner.  It only got worse.

She called me a liar to my face multiple times.  She refused to believe that I hadn’t slept with anyone before I got married.  She told me not to believe my husband when he said that he hadn’t, either.  She told me to expect to be divorced at least once by the time I was forty.  When she asked if I smoked, drank, or did drugs, I of course said no.  “Not even socially?”  No.  “Well, lots of people claim that,” she muttered, and turned her back and wrote down heaven-only-knows what.

When she told me to get undressed for the exam, she left the room for all of about thirty seconds.  She then flung the door–which led into a hallway filled with people–wide open without knocking, stared at me half-dressed for a second, and turned around and left again.  When she returned with the  nurse who had done my weight and initial screening in tow (because they couldn’t believe what I’d written on my papers minutes earlier–they had to have a nurse ask me the same questions again–in case I was lying, or too stupid to fill out their forms?), she kept up with her demeaning attitude.  The nurse, presumably to point out that I wasn’t as much of a loser as the doctor seemed to think, asked me about college.  “A bachelor’s degree in biology,” I told her.  Yes, a four-year degree.  Not a certificate or an AA.  And in a science, too!  So she asked what I did at ABL, since she had my papers in front of her from earlier.  I said that I was an engineering technian.  Before I could get another word out of my mouth to tell her just what I did, the doctor cut in.  “Why do you do that, if you claim to have a degree in biology?”  Yes, claim.  Because I must be making it up, right?  Since she’s new in the area, I told her that I couldn’t find any biology jobs around here, especially not in my particular field.  “There are labs,” Evil Doctor of Death said.  “If you’re really have a degree, especially in biology, you would have found a job there.”

No, there aren’t any labs.  Not labs that don’t want people with their degrees in doing medical lab technician work.  Believe it or not, I actually looked into that before I got a job outside my field simply because I needed a paycheck.

She was very rough doing my exam.  Since I was already hurting, it was twice as bad.  The first tears came silently during the exam, though I kept wiping them away.  The nurse just stared at me wordlessly.  When she was done, the doctor glared at me and said, “What, did I hurt you?” then sniffed and turned away again.  Yes, it hurt.  It’s going to when you’re intentionally rough and don’t even bother to use the gel on the cold, dry plastic like you’re supposed to do.  And after the way she’d been treating me, I didn’t want her near me anyway.  I didn’t want her to see me without my clothes on.  I didn’t want her touching me.

When she was done, she told me to put my clothes back on.  Unlike any other doctor I’d ever had, she didn’t leave, just silently watched me climb down from her table (she had’t put the slide-out part back in, so I couldn’t use the little step) and dress myself.  She then turned and left.  The nurse told me to go to the counter and check out, and then she left too.

Unfortunately for me, there are three counters, all in approximately the same place.  The first didn’t seem to be the place, so I headed right past it for the one about five feet away where I’d checked in.  On the way, I saw the sign next to another window that said “Check Out.”  I turned to go back and get in line, but not in time.  Another nurse growled “Over there!,” grabbed me by the arm, and pushed me in the right direction.  I stood there.  And stood there.  And stood there.  There were only two people ahead of me.  The one directly in front was about fourteen, anorexically skinny, and wearing a Guiness t-shirt.  She was pushing a one-year-old in a stroller and reeked of smoke.  She was also four months pregnant.  She told the lady at the counter to schedule her any time, since she had dropped out of school and wasn’t working.  The nurses cooed at the baby and smiled at her.  The girl behind me was probably around eighteen and had the manorisms of a pre-teen.  She was very pregnant and there with her mother.  She couldn’t speak a full sentence without cussing.  She was also convinced that eating chocolate while pregnant was what gave you diabetes.

After quite some time of this, surrounded by a room full of pregant women who didn’t deserve the innocent little children they were being given, another nurse stormed out from behind the window.  “What do you want?” she demanded.  I told her that I had been instructed to wait in the line to check out.  She told me to “come here” and stepped a few feet away to the first counter, where there was enough space for her to lay my file.  “You’re not pregnant?”  I shook my head no, not trusting myself to speak.  I wanted to be, but here were all these other women who were lucky enough to be having babies even though they didn’t want them.  Then again, the doctor hadn’t even asked if I was or not, surprisingly.  You’d think that would be the first question they would have there, especially after I told her I was already late.  She asked if I wanted another Tuesday next year, or a Thursday, or if I just wanted to call and schedule myself.  I was crying by then and couldn’t talk.  I did manage to squeak a no.  She told me I could leave and turned and walked away.  I pushed through the crowd to the door and looked for the elevator, just outside the clinic.  My eyes were too teared-up to see it, but I did notice the bathroom.  I locked myself inside and sobbed.

Nobody in the office had said anything to me.  No “Are you okay?”  No “Can I help you with anything?”  The nurse checking me out had just stared at me and dismissed me.

Now, I know I look young.  And I know that in this area, some assumptions are fairly accurate in most cases.  I don’t mind overly much those assumptions being made about me as long as people don’t insist on sticking with them after they’re proven wrong.  I think you should treat all humans with dignity and respect.  And honestly, I had dressed nicely for the appointment, and kept a very “grown-up,” professional air about me until the very end.  I asked intelligent questions, which were ignored.  It was inconceivable that I might care about an unborn child’s health as well as my own.  It was unthinkable that I could be in my twenties, have a college education, a good job with good benefits, and be planning a pregnancy.  Yes, planning.  As in, not knocked up by some one-night-stand guy while too drunk to care.

I’m never going back there.  Not if my life depended on it.

After work that night, I went out to dinner with my mom.  When I got home, I laid on the couch for a few hours, then went upstairs and fell into bed.  I didn’t speak.  I hugged a stuffed animal.  Childish?  Maybe, but I needed something to hold, and I didn’t want to think about it.  Didn’t want to think about anything.  Jason finally made me tell him, and it did help.  But I’d rather push back my dreams of motherhood for years than go back there again.

The rollercoaster is on it’s way back up, though.  I have an appointment with one of the best ob/gyns in the area now, scheduled for January 10th.  If I get pregnant before then, I’m to call them and they’ll get me in immediately.  Dr. Khachan is male, but I don’t care anymore.  He’s also kind and caring, which is more than can be said about the people at Wolford’s office.

I’m not pregant, by the way.

October 3rd, 2007 by Ascelyn

So the first attempt with dying (black walnut dye on white wool roving) didn’t work too well.  I have theories, but those can’t be tested until next week.

Still sick, and have been for about two full weeks now.  Sometimes it’s all day, sometimes it comes and goes.  Nausea, dizziness, stomach cramps, pain in certain places that aren’t joints, headaches.  The nausea and some of the dizziness and headaches goes away for a little while when I eat, but I can’t just keep eating all day long.  Add to that my knees, hips, and wrists acting up, and it’s been fairly miserable.

Now, there’s always the obvious explanation–it’s just me being me.  Then there are alternative, more hopeful explanations–that I’m already over a week late (though not as late as last time), and the symptoms are pretty much by the book for the stage I’d hypothetically be in.  Granted, I took a test almost a week ago, and it was pure negative.  But then I wonder, did I throw it out too soon?  What if it would’ve shown something, however faint, if I had waited a few minutes longer?  After all, I only gave it the recommended two or three minutes….

Last month was a record forty-four days, well beyond normal for me.  It’d better just be my body readjusting to having the pill in its system.  I’m already at day thirty-six and getting frustrated.  I’ll give it until forty-four again and take another test.  I can wait patiently for eight days…right?

I feel silly posting this online, where anyone could see, but it’s not like anyone’s actually going to read it.  So here I remain, waiting and hoping.