A new family member--premiering in July

It feels like time to let the word out--I'm gestating a baby! Baby's due date is July 1.

Most of you probably know about the fertility problems we've had--it took some migraine-inducing drugs and three pregnancies to have my daughter. This time, it took high doses of more intense (and more expensive) drugs. And it still took three cycles, but no miscarriages.

Now that I'm posting this, I'll probably go back and unlock my earlier posts about being terrified of miscarrying. I'm not sure I really got all my feelings down in those posts, but it's what I have. And I think it's important to share the whole experience. In our culture, the dominant baby narrative is: you get a positive pregnancy test, you barf a bit, you twirl around in a happy pastel haze, and then Baby! Really, it's like no one knows that the miscarriage rate in the general population (healthy people with no reason to expect to miscarry) is 20%. It would have helped me a lot that first time to know.

I've been really, really sick and exhausted. More so than the first time. The whole pregnancy thing has been a lot less fun than last time, because the rest of my life didn't magically stop being a concern.

But! I'm really, really happy. I was getting close to being pretty sure I wouldn't have another kid, and I wanted one. Even knowing ahead of time about the work and all, I'm getting a little bit into a dreamy pastel haze. And it's nice.

Update about that racist song at my kid's school

I talked about the song to my kid's teachers during my parent/teacher conference back in November. I know that's decades ago in internet time, but I was mostly too sick to post and today my sister is taking my kid on a four-hour adventure, so I have time now. Anyway, the conversation was awesome!

Once I brought it up, the main teacher, Patricia, (who is only 23 or so) started expressing her regret about including Native Americans in the Thanksgiving unit at all, and telling me about how they had talked about it (too late for this year) in her community college education class and how genocide isn't really something folks are thankful for. It was totally awesome. Neither teacher was defensive at all about the song, and we had this great conversation about the work they're doing to separate out the really valuable master-to-apprentice type things Patricia learned from her mentors during her Waldorf teacher training from the older, problematic ick that sometimes rides on the carrier wave. One thing I really love about this school in particular is how much the teachers fight against the sometimes-entrenched Waldorf dogma you see in some places.

Anyway, I was really glad I brought it up, and the teachers were eager for my advice and suggestions. I suggested that Patricia see if she could find a tribal elder who was interested in doing community education to come in to the classroom to share a little and she immediately thought of some folks she had already talked to who would probably be into it. Even though my daughter won't be there for it, I'm excited that next year's curriculum will be a lot better.