Intolerance Wars

Duck Dynasty vs. Same Love

As a lesbian woman in East Tennessee you can imagine my point of view on the anti gay and racist comments made by Phil Robertson. I apparently made the mistake of posting my opinion on the matter on Facebook because the conservatives either got butthurt or rushed to the man's defense.  The issue had been long gone in my mind, though until I watched the Grammys and saw the comments that were made afterwards regarding the mass ceremony performed during Same Love that included some same sex couples. 

So can someone please explain to me why the same sex weddings were worse than the anti gay comments? Because here's what I got out of both of these things..

GQ interview with Phil Robertson:

During a discussion about repentance and God, Robertson is asked what he finds sinful.

"Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there," he says. "Beastiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men."

He goes on to paraphrase Corinthians: "Don't be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers-- they won't inherit the kingdom of God. Don't deceive yourself. It's not right." 

So the guy didn't understand what was more appealing to a gay man about another man's anus.. ok you don't get it. That's fine. Where he crossed the line was when he was asked about what was considered to be sinful. Apparently only things of a sexual nature come to mind when that question is asked. I would think the first things should be worshipping false gods and using the lord's name in vein.. since those are all things that are directly insulting to the god he worships, but no. Apparently any sex other than married, heterosexual, missionary style is repulsive and offensive and on the top of the list as far as sin is concerned. 

 

 

On top of that, he continued the insult by comparing homosexuality/gay sex to beastiality and sleeping with multiple partners.. because all gay people are also sexually attracted to animals, are whores and are just disgusting people all around.

Then there are the ceremonies at the Grammys. During Macklemore's performance of Same Love 34 couples, gay and straight, were wed by Queen Latifah in a mass ceremony. 

 

While supporters of same sex marriage responded, teary eyed, with love and praise, others were not so happy.  Anti gay conservatives referred to the marriages as "disgusting", "despicable" and an "attack on Christianity." 

After seeing both sides of both arguments I can only ask one thing..  Why is it that a Christian man can make disgusting comments about a group of people he doesn't agree with and it is his god given right to do so and anyone who disagrees with him is whiny, intolerant and denying his freedom as an American, but a wedding ceremony that included gay couples, which was not accompanied by any speech at all, is an attack on Christianity? 

Growing Pains

Our little girl will be 2 months old in two days.  Jamie will officially be starting back full time at work on Friday and we are trying to cope with the idea of separation from Sophia.  I can't imagine the feelings Jamie will be dealing with then and I can honestly say that I have no idea what to do to make her feel better about it.  We recently won concert tickets for the 18th of this month and were discussing whether or not we would even want to go and be away from Sophia for an evening.  Since the event is late Jamie suggested that we could go and just let Sophia stay the night with her gramsie so that we didn't wake her up late to bring her home and the idea of spending a night apart from her made me cry like a baby.. in fact it made me sob.  I was embarrassed to be crying so I left the room and started boohooing in the kitchen.. so if I can cry like that over one night away I have no idea how to console Jamie who will now be spending 40 hours a week away from her all while I'm at home with her getting to spend quality time.

I have so many emotions rushing through me that I don't know how to deal with.  The biggest one by far is the overwhelming love I feel for Sophia.  I don't think I knew that I could love her THIS much.  I worry about her every night when we put her to bed, I worry about her future, I pain myself over the thought of her growing up and when I look into her sweet, beautiful eyes I feel a love that I never imagined that I could feel and it just gets stronger every single day.

All while feeling these emotions for Sophia, I'm stressing over our future children.  I get the feeling from our donor that he doesn't want to donate again.  Jamie isn't so sure, but to me it seems pretty clear that this was a one time deal.  There's nobody else in our lives who I would feel ok with asking to donate and with me being unemployed I can't see a sperm bank being a viable option.  I know there are known donor sites, but we checked that out briefly at one point before asking Sophia's donor and neither of us were completely comfortable with it.  All of this leaves me wondering if we'll even be able to work it out to have more children.  We've already made these big plans and I feel like I'm watching them fall apart.  Jamie and I were talking recently and realized that 30 is just around the corner for us.. where did that come from?!!  That only amplified the feeling that we have to get this going pretty quickly if we want to have more children and I just don't know how we would work that out.

Maybe in a year or so we will have more figured out and be able to work on expanding our family so for now we'll focus on our little girl and try to soak up every minute before we blink and she's graduating high school.

She has her 2 month appointment on Tuesday so we should have an update on what's going on. . Until then!

SLACKERS!!

We've been super great at posting since we had this little girl.  Can you tell?  Our little boogs is 8 weeks old on Thursday.. time flies!  At her 1 month checkup she was 8 pounds, 10 ounces.  That's a 2 pound, 1 ounce gain.  Jamie was a chunky butt so maybe she's trying to follow suit lol.  Buttttttt we did find out that Jamie was being fed rice cereal at around 2-3 months so maybe that had something to do with it :p

We had some cutsie bootsie newborn photos taken of Sophia.  Want to see some??

 www.alexbeephoto.com

 www.alexbeephoto.com

www.alexbeephoto.com

We think she's pretty cute :)  Baby girl is doing really well too!  She pretty much sleeps through the night now, with the exception of waking up at around 3 or 4 to eat.  Other than that she's a big ole sleepy head at night.  She's still in our room, but in a cradle instead of her napper on her pack n play because she has pretty much outgrown that already.  We are really dreading putting her in her crib in her room, but I'm sure that's absolutely normal.  I don't know what we'll do when she spends her first night in her room.  Jamie is still on maternity leave and I am still unemployed so we're getting to spend lots of family time together, which is great.  Jamie will go back to work the second week in January and since I'm unemployed I will be staying home with Sophia.  I'm pretty nervous about having her for 8 hours a day all by myself.  I know her routine with eating, sleeping, playing and potting pretty much so we will see how it goes!  

That's it for now, folks.  Hopefully we'll be better about keeping up with the blog from now on.  Until then… Happy New Year!!!

We Had A Baby!!!

She's here!!
Little miss Sophia Ann was born on November 7, 2013 at 7:56 AM. She weighed 6 pounds 9 ounces and measured 20 inches long.

People tell us she's pretty cute and we tend to agree :)

I'll go ahead and do the best I can to give you all the birth story (this is Courtney btw). I'm sure I'll get a few details wrong, but here we go anyways!

Last Wednesday we went to our regular OB appointment and Jamie was 2 centimeters dilated. The doctor stripped Jamie's membranes really well and was hoping that that alone would send her into labor, but poor little Jamie was so ready to meet our little girl that she started crying and asked what they could do about induction. SO we were told to be at the hospital that night at 8:00 and they would be giving her cervidil. Now cervidil is only supposed to thin the cervix out for labor so it was the general consensus that after 12 hours on the cervidil, they would be giving her pitocin to start labor. The doctor informed us that only about 20% of women go into labor after getting cervidil so we were sure that she would be getting the pitocin the next morning. We go all checked in and she ended up getting the cervidil around 9:30. It was Jamie, myself and her mom in the room and we decided to grab some sleep afterwards. We all woke up around 1:00 when Jamie started having intense contractions. They started to be 7-8 minutes apart, but quickly went to about 3 minutes apart after that and were very painful for her. One of the nurses wanted to pull the cervidil, but they left it in so she would continue contracting. The contractions got so intense that Jamie was vomiting with every contraction and shaking uncontrollably and ended up getting an IV injection or morphine for that pain. She figured out that it did pretty much nothing to help with the pain so around 3 centimeters she ended up getting an epidural. Now I was just sure that they were supposed to pull the cervidil when she got the epidural, but they did not do that and quickly after getting the epidural hers and Sophia's stats started dropping. Jamie's blood pressure went down to something around the 80s/30s and Sophia's heart rate dropped down to the 80s. At this point her mom and myself were sure that she would be getting an emergency c-section. After about 5 minutes of that they started changing Jamie's position and put gas on her to try to improve the situation, but ended up pulling the cervidil and everything got better soon after that. Now after this her dilation progressed just as quickly and the doctor came to check on her around 6:00 and said that she was around 7. By 7:00 she was fully dilated and ready to push. She began pushing a little after 7 due to shift change. Funny, huh? She didn't push long before little girl was born and everything ended up being just fine. We should not have been surprised by this little booger being dramatic, but all is well and we got to take her home on Saturday. Now the fun baby updates begin!

Until next time..

40+3

Well....that's right. I am now officially overdue!! This little girl is very comfy in the house I've made for her for the last now 10 (!!!!) months. My last appointment didn't show much change, Dr. even stripped my membranes, nothing happened. We have a stubborn little girl on our hands. Like I said in my last post we have tried EVERYTHING! to get her to come out...she is on nobody's time but her own, she made that very clear.

I have taken today off work to try to de-stress and relax a little...and walk a lot :). Our next appointment is this Wednesday, I have a feeling we will be talking induction at that time...REALLY not the route I'd like to take, but to keep everyone healthy I will do whatever it takes.

Right now, Court is cooking some breakfast and I am having some coffee and orange juice. This is a pretty boring post, I was hoping the next time I updated it would've been with a birth story...oh well :)

Sophia has other plans. Today is my Grandma's 88th birthday. Our 3rd birthday without her. I wholly believe she has had her hand in this pregnancy from the beginning, maybe she has a trick up her sleeve for today too? Either way, I can't wait to tell this little girl all about her great grandma and the amazing woman she was!

Come on Sophia, we are all ready to meet your sweet face!

38+0

Soooo things are moving along swimmingly. Last week's appointment showed I was 70% effaced and still closed, but she was low. This week's appointment showed that I am not all the way effaced yet, but almost (Courtney and I said we are going to tell ourselves that means I'm 90%)...and I was 1cm on the outside, closed on the inside. Apparently that is normal (for 2nd + moms hahaha) oh well, I knew I'd be a little different than the normal First Time Mom at some point. She also felt her body and said she was in a great position.

I have been rocking, swaying, walking and constantly moving to try to get things in motion. I ate a whole pineapple earlier this week (maybe that had something to do with the dilation on Wednesday?) Anyway...I continue to eat pineapple, because it is so darn tasty and at this point really can't hurt. :) I have been drinking some red raspberry leaf tea...not the tastiest thing ever but I don't mind it. Eating spicy foods and drinking sodas...they have the same effect as spicy foods these days haha. Last night I lost part of my mucus plug. That was weird...it wasn't much, so I imagine I will see more in the days to come. My contractions are becoming more regular...still not consistent, but we are getting there. I know she is still really low, and getting lower by how many times she makes me go pee. My back/hips are more achy...also a good sign she is in the launch position :)

Courtney, love her heart, is so anxious to meet this little one! I am too, but I keep trying to tell myself I know this is all on her time...she is going to come out when she is good and ready. Of course, I'd be happy with an early arrival!! I think 10/20/13 sounds like a great day for a baby, what do you say?

Things really are starting to happen...I know that doesn't mean anything at all, but maybeeeeeee I will be part of the 19% of first time moms to have their baby before their due date. Fingers Crossed!

36+4

How many of you made it all the way to the end of pregnancy without those crazy cravings everyone always talks about? I thought I was doing really great about not craving anything too out of the ordinary...until yesterday. I decided at lunch time I'd have some wavy potato chips with my chocolate ice cream. Then last night before bed (heartburn was acting up) I wanted ice cream...with corn flakes on top. Both were dishes delicious.

Our appointment last week went very well. I don't think I was warned that when the doctor "checks you" it will most likely be uncomfortable. I should've known, duh...Baby girl is clocking in around 5.5lbs. She is very low, in fact the u/s tech had a hard time measuring the top of her head she was so low. I was not dilated yet and she didn't put a % to the effacement, but I'm guessing if anything it wasn't much. I have a feeling that since she has dropped down so much this week will be a different story. We made her check again to make sure she is still a she...I had some pretty weird dreams about twins and not being able to tell what sex one of them was. Shew. All in all things are moving along like they should. I have puffy feet almost every single day now...totally normal as long as my BP stays low and no protein shows up in my urine. I am congested most nights, but I am also up to pee more than I can count so I don't really mind sitting up to sleep :) I still have a pretty high energy level, I am waiting for the extreme drowsiness to kick back in. Apparently this whole not sleeping now thing is getting me ready for the not sleeping when Sophia is here!

We packed most of our hospital bag stuff over the weekend. I have been having lots of loose stools, yes I know you love to read those types of things :) I've read that can be one of the first signs of actual labor. I want to start walking more in the evenings since it has cooled off so much here...it is relaxing and beneficial in the baby moving department. My hips have started to ache more, I think that is also her getting in the ready position. I feel pretty great right now...and I am not taking it for granted, a friend of ours is due in just 5 days and is feeling really miserable. I am hoping her little girl makes an early appearance so Momma can start feeling better!!

Our weekly appointment is tomorrow afternoon. I am hoping for a little more progression than last week...maybe I will go for a walk around the building to up those odds :)

Until next time!