Post-Military Life

                When I initially decided to separate from the Air Force under the pregnancy clause, I decided it would be a brilliant idea to turn around and enlist in the Air Force Reserves. That way, I could retain TriCare for my family and only work part-time, which would be phenomenal with a new baby. After arriving in Washington and speaking with the in-service recruiter at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, however, the reserves unit here decided they wouldn’t take me because my last official physical fitness test was a failure. They didn’t want to set me up to fail again after joining, since I was pregnant at the time—it made sense, so I decided I’d try again a few months after having my baby.

                I stand by my decision to separate. As a breastfeeding mother, I rest easily in the knowledge that I can provide for my daughter better as a civilian than I could have as an Airman—regardless of whether or not my husband had been able to remain enlisted. At the time of my decision to separate, I didn’t know how much longer Randy would be in the military; the mental health clinic was working on the paperwork to have him go through the Medical Evaluation Board (MEB) for separation, which can take up to a year to fully process. He would have been stuck in place at Spangdahlem while I was scheduled to PCS (change bases) in August, 2014 (I would have moved right after Persephone was born). The last thing I wanted to do was get to my next base and have to worry about finding child care; I refused to take my baby to the on-base Child Development Center (CDC) with what I knew about Spangdahlem’s CDC and I sure as hell didn’t want to start screening babysitters. I generally don’t trust people.

                It has taken me some time after separating—and upon deciding to separate and getting the ball rolling to do so, it was decided that Randy’s separation would be much, much faster than an MEB because his would be an administrative discharge instead—but I have finally realized something very important about myself.

                Everything I had done with my life up to that point—short of the decisions to get married and separate from the military—I had done to impress my family and make them proud of me. Joining the military—I wanted my grandparents, particularly my grandma, to be pleased with the decision I’d made post-high-school to move forward in my life and become independent, as I’m a fiercely independent person anyway but hadn’t decided what I wanted to do, really. After joining the military, getting a bit out of shape, and deciding to get back into shape for my own happiness (it was working), I was looking at new clothes in a completely different style from what I really like. I was beginning to replace my wardrobe with jeans, scarves, nice coats (oh, they’re nice and I’m keeping them, but my intentions for how to wear them have changed), and… well, white and generally much less black. In addition to the lightening of my wardrobe, I’d grown my hair out just past my shoulders, which was, suffice to say, very much not me. I really prefer my hair short and ready to spike up at will.

This is an acceptable outfit—would be more so if the undershirt were black.

This is where my wardrobe was going—maroon and white—and the skirt is acceptable but there simply isn’t enough black, here.

                I like having a dark wardrobe. I like having black as my primary color and I like wearing dark makeup. I like looking intimidating and formidable, strong and confident. Since being denied entry to the reserve unit here at JBLM, I’ve realized I don’t particularly want to join the Reserves at all, particularly since my only real reason for doing so is for the insurance—something that we can get with the VA anyway. I’ve begun revamping my wardrobe again—this time, it should be permanent. I’ve bought some long skirts, mostly black but one brown and one green. I’ve decided I want to wear primarily black with some earthy colors as well. I want to look witchy. I want to look like I can walk into the room and cast a spell on you with a look, and I think that look is partially accomplished with long, floor-length gypsy skirts that flow nicely and drag when I go down stairs. I like looking like I could be dressed for Halloween on any day of the year, whether it’s Christmas, my birthday, or actually Halloween (although, naturally, I like to go all out with a costume for Halloween).

                Recently, I used my husband’s detail trimmers on my eyebrows without the guard. I had no idea there was a guard to prevent cutting hairs too short, and ended up nearly shaving my eyebrows off completely. The very next day, I bought an eyebrow pencil and some red lip color since I didn’t have a good one. The eyebrow pencil is dark brown but looks black, and I drew my eyebrows on and took a selfie, which I uploaded to Facebook and subsequently received more likes than I’ve ever received on any of my posts! I also got multiple comments from my guy-friends to the tune of “Wow”, like I’m really sexy and they never noticed, and the way I had my makeup that day really accentuated my look. I looked like a freaking vamp. It was amazing.

                Naturally, because I was truly pleased with it for myself, Mema simply couldn’t approve. She thought my brows were too dark with the pencil, that I’d pressed down too hard or something. The only problem I had with my drawn-on brows was that I’d drawn my right brow thicker than my left. I did much better the next day.

                So, now is the time for the ultimate point of this post.

                I have realized that I no longer care what my family thinks. I don’t give a shit if they’re impressed by what I’m doing or if they approve of my decisions, I’m going to live my life the way I want to so that I’m happy. I married a man who wants nothing more than to make me happy the way I want to be—not in a way that he approves of—because he loves me for who I am and nothing less. So, Mema thinks my brows were too dark and unnatural? Great! I’ll draw them darker and less natural next time! I’ll keep my brows nearly-completely-shaved so that I keep drawing my brows on and I might just wax them off completely to experiment with brow looks! Who knows? It’ll be fun! So, Mema doesn’t like corsets or doesn’t approve of me wearing them? I don’t care! I’ve always wanted to wear corsets and I finally have a couple of them! I’m going to wear them until they freaking break! So, my dad thinks it’s unwise of me to move into an apartment with my best friend? I don’t really care, because I’ve given it an awful lot of thought, talked a lot about it with her, her boyfriend, and my husband, and we’ve decided that it is the best decision for where we currently are in our lives.

                I’m done trying to mold myself into someone or something I’m not just to please my family. I am who I am and if they really can’t accept that, then they can see a lot less of me in the years to come. I’m grateful for everything they have done for me that has helped me in my life—I truly am—but I will no longer lie down and try changing myself to be who they want me to be, nor will I continue living so cautiously that I never take a chance to do what I’m really interested in. I’m going to leap into real estate investment while taking my medical billing specialist course and everything is going to be fucking fantastic, even if it takes a couple of years to get there.

The Happiest Baby

                I’d have titled this entry, “The Happiest Baby on the Block,” but that’s probably a registered trademark, as it’s a DVD of tips and tricks to calm a fussy baby. I gave birth to my daughter, Persephone Anne, on August 11^th—about a month ago, now—and from the very start she has been an absolutely wonderful baby. She doesn’t fuss much, and when she does, she’s very easy to soothe. This entry is the story of having the baby and how I’m doing a month later with her.

                I was worried from the moment I found out I was pregnant and it was too late to terminate that I would end up with postpartum depression after birth. Deep down inside, I knew with a morbid certainty that the mental illness would rear its ugly, tar-black face and there would be no avoiding it. What I didn’t know was how soon it would show up. After all, baby blues are normal and postpartum depression usually kicks in a little later, right? That’s what I’d heard and gathered from all the research I’d done prior to having my baby.

                The afternoon I broke my ankle, I went to the hospital and was in the ER for many hours before moving up to the Labor & Delivery Triage to be monitored. Ultimately, the hospital staff decided to induce my labor and it was decided that I would have my baby. I mentioned this in my last entry, which detailed how I broke my ankle. I was given an epidural and labor didn’t last too long, really. I’d say it didn’t last more than twelve hours, but I don’t think that’s quite accurate, so I’ll say it didn’t last longer than six hours after the nurse broke my water. I didn’t feel it until the baby started moving out—and then she was pressing hard against my right hip and it felt like the hip would split open!

                It was a smooth delivery. My baby was, and still is, completely beautiful and I received a few stitches to aid recovery from a small tear the baby caused. We were later moved, a few hours later, to a different room, where we were to stay for about 48 hours while they monitored the baby and me. Everything was going well…until maybe 24 hours later.

                From the moment I started actively pushing the baby out of my body (a little before that, actually), up to the next night, I got no sleep at all. I might have napped a couple of hours, but it was certainly nothing significant. On top of that, I was beginning to have difficulties breastfeeding. Persephone, my new daughter, wouldn’t take enough of my nipple into her mouth for a proper latch, which left both of my nipples blistered and feeling pinched. Come Tuesday night, I couldn’t latch her on for the pain and I couldn’t manage to make the nipple guard stay on a nipple for her to eat that way.

                With my broken and sprained ankles inhibiting my movement, the pain from childbirth, and the pain in my nipples all piled on top of a baby screaming from hunger, I couldn’t handle it anymore and I was sobbing along with my newborn. Words came out of my mouth and I don’t remember all of them, but among them were things like, “I’m sorry, but you’re hurting me!” and “Why are you crying?!” Looking back, the second quote looks completely wrong; I knew exactly why she was crying and I was feeling completely inadequate and useless with the pain in my nipples rendering feeding her impossible.

                Multiple nurses came in during this episode and tried talking to me. Randy took the baby to another room and a nurse tried talking to me—continuously saying my name wrong, pronouncing it like uh-leash-uh instead of the correct uh-leash-ee-uh. I couldn’t handle it the third time she said it and I yelled at her, “It’s Aleashia!” She promptly got up and walked out of the room. I was later given a breast pump to express enough milk for Randy to feed the baby while I got some sleep; then, I was provided some Benadryl to assist with the actual sleeping.

                When I woke up, I didn’t feel much better, but I’d gotten a few hours of sleep. I immediately wondered where my baby was and pressed the nurse call button to ask. A few minutes later, Randy came in with her and said that all was well. I was still relatively miserable, but it was good to know the baby was doing well.

                It wasn’t long after that—the next day, maybe—that I was getting everything situated to feed Persephone. I moved to get my blanket out of the way so that I could position her properly to feed when all of a sudden she flipped over and off the bed—landing on the floor. It was so sudden, I immediately had Randy call the nurses in. The baby hadn’t landed on her head; she’d landed on her side, maybe her shoulder, but I was worried that she might have hit her head.

                The next thing I knew, we were still in the hospital long after we should have gone home and when we asked what was going on, we found out that the pediatrician had called Child Protective Services.

                Ultimately—long story short—CPS closed our case the day we went in to talk to them. The baby is safe.

                Now, for the best part of this entry: The fact that I have the happiest baby I’ve ever known. Persephone isn’t particularly fussy, but when she fusses, it’s usually really easy to find the problem and fix it. Most of the time, she wants my nipple; popping one in her mouth will calm her down immediately. Every parent knows the checklist: Is the baby hungry? Does the baby need a diaper change? Is the baby hot or cold? Is the baby bored? Does the baby just need to cry for a while? Does the baby need to burp? There’s more to it, though. If you go through the entire checklist and the baby is neither hot nor cold, nor bored, nor hungry, nor dirty, nor gassy, and the baby continues to cry, there are ways to easily calm the baby.

                In the film, The Happiest Baby on the Block, the man I will call the Baby Whisperer has what he calls the five S’s: Swaddle, Side/Stomach, Swing, Shushing, and Sucking. When Persephone continues crying for no reason, I swaddle her. It almost never works by itself, so I put her on her side and begin swinging her. Usually, this is enough to calm her down; other times, I have to shush her on top of it. Other times, I have to pop a pacifier in her mouth on top of it all and simply work with her for a few minutes, but ultimately, the five S’s work wonders. I have an extremely happy baby, ultimately, even though these past couple of days have been a bit more difficult than usual.

                I love my daughter so much more than I thought possible.

Broken!

                Just about everyone I know has, at some point or another, broken a bone. I’ve been relatively proud of the fact that I had never broken a bone, something that seemed a bit funny to me after an incident in 2007 where I broke some cartilage off in my knee. Well, my winning streak in which no bones in my body had been broken during my life had to come to an end sometime, as determined by the Universe, and the Universe decided that Sunday, August 10^th, at nine months pregnant, I was to break my ankle.

                The morning started out fine. My dad and littlest brother came out to visit and the plan was to go to Northwest Trek—my grandparents, dad, and brother. My grandpa was almost determined to keep me at home so that I wouldn’t go into labor while walking the pathways or riding the tram, but I went along while Randy slept (he did not want to get up).

                The tram ride was the first thing we did, which was fantastic, because it meant that I could go into labor any time during the day afterwards and it wouldn’t really matter. We walked the park, though, and I felt no labor pains—no contractions, nothing. I was a bit disappointed; the main reason I’d wanted to go to the park, aside from a strong desire to get out of the house for a while, was so that I could walk around a lot and hopefully move things along to get the fetus out. We came home without incident and I went to the bathroom, which was when I heard Mema (my grandma) rushing through the house and saying something about Liliana, my cat, getting out through the window screen on the back porch.

                Quite concerned, I finished my business and headed outside, wanting to help find the cat, which was likely long gone by this point. But I hated feeling useless—being nine months pregnant renders a woman relatively useless in a lot of ways. I headed down the porch steps and on the last step, rolled my right ankle. My left ankle followed as I tried to catch myself, and I heard a pop and felt a snap in my ankle as I fell flat on my butt—screaming. My dad and grandma came running and out came my grandpa, everybody trying to get me to calm down, which simply wasn’t going to happen right then. I knew my ankle was broken, but then Mema said something about the possibility of only having pulled a tendon. Somehow, with much help, I scooted back up the porch steps using my now-sprained right ankle.

                I sat for a while as Beba—my grandpa—wrapped my left ankle in a bandage. I repeated a few times that I needed to go to the hospital, and finally I was helped out to the car by my dad and Beba. The ride to the hospital was excruciating, every bump in the road jarring my broken ankle despite its being wrapped. Finally, we arrived at the emergency room and a wheelchair was brought out for me. With some help, I managed to get into it and I was wheeled inside, where they stuck me on the bed in a room for trauma patients.

                This all started around 2 in the afternoon, which was roughly the time of the fall. I was sitting around in the emergency room for hours, going from the trauma center to radiology and back again as they took X-rays of my ankles and spine while using multiple shields to protect the fetus. The next thing I knew, it was extremely late—like, 10pm late—and the orthopedics had finally shown up to splint my ankle, which had been determined to be broken. Nobody said anything about my right ankle except that it was swollen—as if I couldn’t see that for myself. After getting the angle of my foot wrong in the first splint—and causing me to scream-cry uncontrollably like a newborn (literally)—the orthopedics finally got a splint on correctly, but not without other doctors coming in and giving me pain meds through my IV despite my protests that they were ineffective and I didn’t want my baby being all drugged up.

                At last, the splint was finished. They left my right foot and ankle completely alone, though, which was rather annoying, considering how swollen it was.

                Why, yes, my right ankle was swollen, thanks for pointing that out… and leaving me to know that it’s sprained without a professional determination. That swelling got worse over the course of the next week and a half, swelling so that my toes no longer resembled my toes and instead looked like tiny, fat sausages at the end of a really fat… something. I’m really not sure what I would call what my foot looked like at its most swollen.

                I was stuck in the hospital for the week. After having my left ankle put in the splint shown above, Randy wheeled me upstairs to the labor and delivery triage of the hospital, where they monitored me for several hours, beginning around midnight when I arrived. I had Randy take Mema home at that time, since I didn’t know how long they would keep me there. Around 3am, the doctor came in and began telling me how and why he believed that they should induce my labor to have my baby. I was surprised and felt a bit of victory—when I had arrived in the triage, I’d mentioned having the baby to the first nurse who came in and she told me why they prefer not to induce labor until after a mother had gone the full 40 weeks of pregnancy. This turn of events, I thought, was rather convenient; I wouldn’t need to return to the hospital later to have the baby.

                I was induced Monday and had the baby that afternoon… I had an appointment back with orthopedics on Friday and as it turned out, I ended up having to stay in the hospital for the week, so when the time came, I was wheeled down to orthopedics, where I received an actual cast.

                I’m supposed to be non-weight-bearing on this ankle for 6 weeks. It’s been two weeks now and it feels like eternity, since this is the same leg in which I broke part of the cartilage off in my knee and I’d had to go 6 weeks non-weight-bearing then, too. I’m sick of my right leg getting so much exercise over my left!

Dealing with Becoming a Mother

                The third trimester has brought with it more difficulty, discomfort, and moodiness than the previous two trimesters of pregnancy combined. At this point, I am about 29 weeks and a half along, which is a little over 7 months. My birthday was two weeks ago—right around when I had just begun the third trimester. Since that day, things have gone downhill in many ways.

                My moods have been worse. My first two trimesters were rather unmarked by changes—I didn’t feel particularly depressed, I was comfortable and could move around easily, and for the entire first trimester, I didn’t even know I was pregnant! In fact, I was absolutely convinced that I was not pregnant, particularly because I’d had a pregnancy test in January and had been told it came back negative. Since my birthday and the start of the third trimester of pregnancy, however, my moods have been generally negative. I have struggled with depression for the majority of my life, and for the first two trimesters, my depression was in remission. I didn’t feel depressed anymore; things were okay, even after discovering I was pregnant. Yes, dealing with the fact of being pregnant in and of itself was difficult, stressful, and terrifying, but overall, I didn’t find myself thinking badly of myself. Since my birthday, however, that has been changing. The depression seems to want to be sneaking back into my life and a recurring thought is this: Postpartum depression is inevitable. I am going to have it. That thought alone isn’t the most disturbing, but when combined with other thoughts, which seem to be only reinforced by aches, pains, and discomfort in my body, I have become overwhelmed more than once. I never wanted this. It’s only getting worse and these are the reasons why I never wanted this. I didn’t ask for this. I did everything I could to prevent this from happening. I never wanted to be pregnant. These are the thoughts most prominent in my mind as it seems to be overcome yet again with depression.

                Everything hurts. Everything is uncomfortable. Sleeping is difficult; trying to position pillows around me in bed so that I might get comfortable is a chore, and some nights, it’s impossible to get comfortable no matter what I do with the pillows. In addition to that, I wake up three or more times every night, regardless of how comfortable I may or may not have managed to get before falling asleep. Getting out of bed every morning is a chore; it’s an uncomfortably slow process and it is painful. Standing causes pain in one or both of my feet and walking around causes pain in one or both hips and sometimes my back. Everything hurts! It’s too difficult to try going for a walk when my feet and hip are killing me, so I sit around as much as possible so that I don’t hurt at this point, but the sedentary lifestyle only increases my depressive thoughts.

                Things were only getting worse. Earlier this week, I was working on out-processing the base at which I’m stationed—a process which, by itself, is long and grueling, but for me is even more difficult because I’m not simply moving to another base, I’m separating from active duty entirely. The paper I needed to have filled out wanted me to make a 12-month budget and lay out a specific plan for how and where I would find employment outside the military. Here’s the problem: My husband is separating from the military as well and there is absolutely no way we can project a 12-month budget when we don’t know how much money we’re going to be making or when! On top of that, I’m about to have a brand-new baby—I’m not going to be trying to find full-time work outside of the home, I’m going to be taking care of the baby because I don’t trust people to take care of her and I will not take her to a daycare—they’re filthy and filled with nasty, snot-nosed creatures other people have spawned! I couldn’t see past these problems. My overwhelmed mind wanted to focus on how much none of what I was told needed to be done actually applied to me. I didn’t want to sit there and try calculating how much money we would need to bring in.

                That was one of my worse days. Then, things suddenly changed.

                I walked in to the O.B. office for an ultrasound appointment, yesterday. Somehow, I had missed an appointment I’d made for Tuesday, which was also the day I was so overwhelmed with trying to out-process for separation, so the secretary at the gynecologist’s office rescheduled me for the very next day, just an hour later than the original time had been the day before. So, Randy and I went to the hospital to see our baby.

                At our last appointment to check up on the baby and see the ultrasound, all of the images were blurry and I couldn’t make out a single bit of the baby on the screen. I’d left the hospital relatively frustrated and quite disappointed that there were no clear images. Yesterday’s appointment was different.

                The ultrasound images were extremely clear, and our baby’s face was even open for 3D pictures! I’ve never been a fan of 3D ultrasounds—they’re creepy as hell. But seeing the clarity of the ultrasound and looking at my baby suddenly made everything seem better. The voice in my head that kept screaming about how much I never wanted any of this was suddenly quiet. I didn’t mind that I’m pregnant; seeing the baby on the screen just quieted everything.

                Granted, 3D ultrasounds are creepy. But these 4 images, repeated a few times on a disc, show the creature growing inside of my body and somehow, these pictures in their clarity helped quiet the turmoil inside of me that insisted I never, ever wanted any of this.

                I still wouldn’t think less of a woman for aborting upon finding out about her pregnancy at 18 weeks. Part of my depressive thinking has been that I should have aborted when I found out, that things would be easier now if I had. I’ve wondered if I wouldn’t have been so tortured afterwards with the knowledge that in order to abort a fetus so developed, they would have had to cut her into pieces and remove the body that way. Then, I see her face on the ultrasound. I see her long legs—legs like mine—and I remember that the biggest reason I didn’t abort her was because, that day I found out, she had a gender. She wasn’t some raptor-like thing anymore—6 weeks had passed since she’d developed beyond looking dinosaur-like or less than human.

                I’m still dealing with the idea that I will be a mother. The fact remains that this is something I never wanted, that this is something I worked to prevent from happening. Time will tell, but for now, I can say this: My daughter looks just like me.

An Admirable Woman?

It’s common knowledge among those who know me that I absolutely never, ever wanted to get pregnant and make a baby. Ever. Even if I were to change my mind and decide I wanted a kid later on in life, I wanted to adopt one. There was no way in hell I was going to use my body to bring a brand-new human life into this world, especially when our planet is overpopulated by humans and there are so many other people out there who are contributing to the problem.

It has been extremely common during my life, whenever I would express my vehement abhorrence at the idea of making a baby, to hear from family and friends, “You never know!” So often, as well-meaning as they may have been, I would hear, “Stuff happens,” and, “You might change your mind!” My response to this would be to think, and sometimes say, No. I know myself, goddammit, and I do not want to make a baby. Even if I want kids later, I do not want to make one, goddammit.

So, when I found out I was pregnant, I was absolutely devastated. It was too late for me to stop it—I was going to have this baby whether I liked it or not and I most certainly did not like it, not then. In addition to the devastation, however, I was petrified of the idea of all of the friends and family who had mocked me, coming back and saying, “I told you so!” in one form or another. When I posted the first ultrasound photo, I added to it, “No gloating.” My biggest fear was my father—he had been my greatest antagonist.

I posted a couple of text posts about the pregnancy on Tumblr. The responses I received—surprising as they were, considering nobody ever messages me about anything on that site—were mixed. The first told me to abort it. Another told me that I am a “ridiculously abhorrent person” and that I don’t deserve my pets or a child. I responded rather well, I think, but the words still stuck with me. As someone who has struggled the majority of her life with depression, the fact that someone—even a complete stranger—had called me a horrible person stuck in my head and circulated throughout my cerebrum. Never mind that this person knows nothing about me or my life.

I’m not sure how I dismissed that message and managed not to let it bring me down, but I did. Somehow, I brushed it off and moved on.

Despite never wanting pregnancy or anything that comes with it, I decided I wanted to get involved in my base’s New Parent Support Program (NPSP) and take some classes. A nice lady named Tara called me from the program after, while at an orientation related to O.B. visits and available hospitals and so forth, I filled out a paper indicating that I had interest in what the NPSP had to offer. From there, Tara and I set an appointment for her to visit my house and give her “Babies 101” class.

Randy and I found the information absolutely invaluable and I set my next appointment with Tara to learn about breastfeeding. I didn’t think Randy would need to be at this class, so I didn’t have him set the time to get out of work for it. The day of the appointment, Tara forgot her breastfeeding materials and the class became Babies 201 instead. I took the information given to me, as well as a video, and shared with Randy what he had missed. We watched the video—all about newborns—and he was absolutely engrossed.

The next appointment taught us how to swaddle and bathe a newborn, as well as what to pack in a diaper bag. It was great—all of the appointments were great and I loved learning, because I had no idea what it would take to raise a baby prior to having taken these classes with Tara.

What Tumblr might not know, due to my lack of sharing, is that I plan to breastfeed and homeschool my daughter. I don’t trust other people to take care of her and I think daycares are disgustingly filthy anyway, so I won’t be working outside the home (at least not full time). Do I truly not deserve to have her, when I am planning to do everything in my power to give her everything I never had, growing up? Public schools in the United States are a joke, but even if they weren’t—even if they had decent systems of education in place—there’s the fact that there have been at least 74 school shootings since Sandy Hook Elementary School, and I will not risk my child’s life by sending her to a school that could be shot up any day by some crazy kid.

I told Tara I plan to breastfeed and do homeschooling. She told her assistant, who came to two of our last three classes alongside Tara so she could learn the job she was taking on. Both women told me they really admire that I am “opening myself up” to this baby, even though I never wanted any of this. They think it’s admirable of me to plan on breastfeeding and homeschooling.

I’m not so sure. I just want to do what’s best for my child. I’m actually highly judgmental of parents who do not do research or take classes like I’ve been doing—parents who think they know it all but really don’t; parents who will choose to formula feed when there’s nothing wrong with their breast milk; parents who will willingly send their children to public school even if they know it’s a terrible option; parents who will send their kids off to be taken care of by other people, rather than take care of them personally when they could be doing that. I am judgmental. Am I really an admirable person for wanting my child to have the best upbringing possible? Am I really admirable for wanting her to have all of the health benefits of my breast milk, for wanting her to have a good education that I can monitor for quality?

I don’t know, but it was certainly a wonderful—if uncomfortable and difficult to swallow—compliment.

The Other Side of the Planet

                For the past (nearly) three years, I’ve lived in Germany, working with and for Americans yet alongside Germans. The extremely limited amount of German I learned in high school prior to being stationed in Germany helped in the beginning, but didn’t have much chance to expand a whole lot during my stay, as I was surrounded almost constantly by Americans, many of whom couldn’t care less about learning the native language and conversing with the local nationals.

                This past Saturday, 28 June 2014, I flew from Frankfurt, Germany, to Seattle, Washington. I extremely underestimated the kind of culture shock I would experience in returning to America. Everything is so spaced out, so vast, in this country, compared to Europe—and yet, Europe is by far a prettier country than the United States. Where I would see brown, dead grass—where it has clearly been landscaped and the grass should be green—in the US, I know that if I saw such a thing in Europe, that grass would be green. It’s true that the grass is greener in Europe than the USA.

                I live currently with my grandparents…again. I didn’t want to come back. I wanted to serve a full career with the U.S. Air Force, a whole 20 years, and then retire and do something else. I had big plans and big dreams. My time in Germany served to crush every plan and dream I had—not because of the country or the area; as a matter of fact, it was wonderful to be in Europe—but rather because of the kind of people with whom I had to work. I didn’t want to separate from the military…but I found out I’m pregnant.

                My grandma asked me just the other night why it was that I separated early rather than sticking it out to the end of my enlistment. At the time that I discovered I was pregnant, I thought my husband would be placed before the Medical Evaluation Board for medical retirement from the military. It was coming up on the time that we would be PCSing—moving to a new base—and an MEB could take up to a year to complete. I was afraid that if I didn’t separate, or at least transfer out of active duty into the guard or reserve, that I would PCS without my husband and end up in a new place with a brand-new baby. If that happened, I would have had to find childcare for my new baby while I went to work, and this was absolutely not something I wanted to do! I don’t trust people and I sure as hell wouldn’t trust the Child Development Center on base to take care of her! So, I made the decision to separate. I figured I should have enough time then that if Randy goes before the MEB, I wouldn’t have to worry about anything. I would become his dependent and all would be well.

                Randy’s MEB was turned down. Suddenly, he was going to have an administrative discharge instead of a medical retirement. It was still honorable, but it didn’t provide benefits post-separation. His separation date ended up being effective the day before we were to fly out of Germany—the 27^th of June, when our flights were supposedly scheduled for the 28^th.

                My flight had no issues. I flew with both of our cats, arrived safely, met up with my dad and grandma (and baby brother), and proceeded to my grandparents’ house—only to find out that Randy had been stuck at Frankfurt overnight because SATO, the place on base that schedules the flights, completely fucked him over! They had scheduled his flight for the 27^th, like a bunch of idiots, when we had specifically asked for the 28^th multiple times!

                He made it safely in Indiana…luckily. His mother insisted on keeping him for two goddamned weeks, while I’m in Washington having to hurry up and figure a whole bunch of stuff out. My husband gets to meet up with his friends and have a good old time while I’m trying to get shit done in Washington. I can’t really complain about his mother—she’s doing wonderful things for us, buying us things we’ll need for the baby. It’s just that I want him here sooner than July 11^th and I don’t see why she couldn’t have had him for one week and been happy with it. The only friend I’ve managed to spend time with since I’ve been here is Mary, my best friend. I feel like I have other people who want to see me, whom I haven’t been able to see yet.

                Some good news is, today, I managed to finish my first list of reviews for porn websites. It might not be the most honorable job—at least, it isn’t if you’re some kind of stuck-up prick who’s too good to look at porn—but it will ultimately pay me $245.00. The list I finished today will get me $50 of that and then I’ll have a new list of sites to review. I haven’t gotten back to work with my other client, yet, but I did message him to say that I want to begin work on the company review he wants, come this Friday.

                My cats were traumatized for the first couple of days after getting to the house. I have them in my little brother’s old room—it used to be mine, before I left and my grandma switched all the furniture. The beds are gone, now, and I put in a couple of litter boxes with food, water, a couple toys, and a scratcher. The cats mostly hide in the closet, but they’ve reached the point that when I go into the room to visit them, they come out and give me love. It fills me with a warm and fuzzy kind of joy when they come out for me and start purring, rubbing their adorable faces against my legs and hands and chasing the laser I point around for them. I’ve discovered that Ajani, my male cat, is a catnip addict. I bought a little thing of catnip spray and I use it on the scratcher when I visit the cats, so that they know that’s a good thing to scratch. Ajani goes nuts and smashes his face against the thing, scratches the hell out of it, and even licks it, getting himself high as a kite! Liliana is a little less affected, but she enjoys it as well. I can’t wait to have my own place with Randy, our cats, and our baby—as I don’t expect to move out from my grandparents’ house until after the baby is born.

                It’s weird, extremely surreal, being in the United States again.

Humans are Actually Terrifying

                Many blog entries have been made to illustrate the scariness of nature. Usually, these entries revolve around animals and how terrifying they can be—and many of them have similar themes. You’re afraid of spiders? Here’s a list of the 10 largest/deadliest/scariest-looking spiders we can find pictures of and information for. You like cats? Here’s a list of the most unsettling facts we can possibly find about the feline world. Wait, you think these particular animals are scary? Let me tell you all about the animals that eat them.

Cracked.com's Scariest Animals

                Other blogs have gone the other direction—posting information in order to convince us that nature isn’t scary at all and the world is really a wonderful place full of beauty and mysticism. Such articles include things like the top 10 largest holes in the ground, largest lakes, most strikingly-colored aquatic life, etc.

                A news article covers the “ten scariest animals in nature,” an article that seems to debunk the scariness of some animals while illustrating that others are scarier than we thought.

NBC News's Scariest Animals

                Popular images when one Google searches “scary nature” include deep-sea life and tremendous storms, along with the occasional image of nature eating something like a street sign.

                Still other blogs like to simply post information with no hidden agenda. The best example of that, in my opinion, is a video series by zefrank1 on YouTube called “True Facts About...” The videos themselves are highly amusing and great fun to watch, yet they still cover facts that are, in fact, true (imagine that!).

                However, how often have we taken the time to look at humans as a creation of nature? Religious people like to argue that we are created by an almighty, omnipresent, omniscient, benevolent, just, jealous, vengeful, mysterious “God”, when the truth is that nature “created” us, just as it created every other mammal, reptile, amphibian, sea creature, and plant on the planet. The truth is that evolution is a fact, whether you decide to believe in it or not. The greater truth, as I have come to know, is that humans are by far the scariest creatures ever to come from nature.

                “But what about the box jellyfish?!” one might ask. The box jellyfish minds its own damn business and won’t hurt you unless you mess with it—intentionally or not. Now, let’s focus on what I’m actually saying, please.

                Humans are the only creatures to unintentionally cause serious harm to the environment. Wikipedia hosts a lovely list of nuclear and radiation accidents and incidents (actually the name of the page, if you want to look it up yourself), organized so that you can jump to one category in particular if you’re so inclined. Their list of nuclear meltdowns is one that I find particularly compelling for illustrating my point.

Nuclear Radiation Accidents and Incidents

Images of Nuclear Accidents:

                Those are accidents. Those images and the lists on Wikipedia don’t address what humans do deliberately to destroy the planet. A lot of people think explosions are cool. The Myth Busters are famous for blowing stuff up in nearly every one of their episodes. I have a number of friends who think explosions are really cool-looking; these are also friends who advocate firearms and are great fans of what Americans like to call “air power”. Now, don’t get me wrong, explosions can look cool… but…

                I’m sure we’re all aware of the attacks on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Here’s a look at those explosions.

Nagasaki and Hiroshima

                Those are pretty nifty, aren’t they? Nuclear explosions are famous (or infamous) for their mushroom-shaped clouds and, conveniently, Google has a nice collection of images in stock! But this post isn’t about the explosions. It isn’t about weapons or war or firepower of any kind. This post, I’ll remind you, is about the scariness of humanity.

                Consider, for instance, the aftermath of any given explosion. If you’ve seen images on the news after Hurricane Katrina, you may have an idea. But Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster—not something done to the planet by humans.

                We agreed that those explosions looked pretty cool, didn’t we? Sure, we did. We like looking at pictures of explosions. What we don’t like looking at is the aftermath. Take, for instance, the aftermath at Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

                The rubble and people made homeless don’t look like much, especially when placed side-by-side with pictures of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. The woman’s face, even, could be worse, couldn’t it? Images like these should be far more compelling than they are, but radiation itself is invisible (unless it’s glowing in the dark). We can’t see the danger floating in the air that we as a species created. What we can see, however, are the effects of that danger.

                You may still be asking yourself, “How are humans the scariest creatures on the planet?” to which I respond, “We destroy everything.” Not only do we destroy the planet in every creative way we can imagine, we destroy each other. People are all too happy to be terrified of being bitten or eaten alive by piranhas or sharks. What they don’t seem to be afraid of—as they should be—is an attack from a fellow human being.

                The irony of this is that humans attack people far more often than any other animal in nature. It’s in the news every single day—a school shooting, a serial killer on the loose, sexual predators possibly living in your neighborhoods and preying on your children, a mother who has killed her baby, and kids who have killed their mother. Why are we not more afraid of humans? Humans are unpredictable, dangerous creatures! They come in all shapes, sizes, appearances, rendering judgment by appearance impossible!

                One terrible fact that I, and many others I know, have come to notice is that people are immensely guilty of “bystander syndrome”—an inner voice that tells you, “Someone will take care of it,” accompanied by a feeling of non-involvement and non-responsibility and, perhaps, a twinge of guilt—whenever they see something that they know, ultimately, is wrong. Take, for instance, a man falling down in the street and not a single person stopping to help him for well over an hour, then by the time someone finally does stop, it’s too late. He’s dead. Or, perhaps there’s a situation you see at a bar where a man is hitting on a woman who is clearly drunk; you know the woman doesn’t want anything to do with the man but you do nothing to separate them and ultimately he rapes her.

                There are many things we tell ourselves as bystanders and we are all guilty of bystander syndrome at one time or another. In the situation with a man falling in the street, we may look at his shabby clothing and unshaven face and think to ourselves, “He’s probably homeless,” or, “If he’s really sick, I don’t want to catch his disease,” or, “I don’t know anything about him and I don’t want to put myself in any kind of danger.” We are conditioned from a very young age to think, when we see a stranger, “You never know who someone is.” The problem with this conditioning is that this inner talk is almost always negative toward strangers. We don’t stop to offer aid to a homeless man on the sidewalk because we don’t know anything about him. He could have been a largely successful man before he lost everything due to circumstances outside his control. Or, as we are more prone to assuming, he could be a drug addict just looking for his next fix. In the situation with the man and woman in the bar, we are likely to think to ourselves, “It’s none of my business,” or, “I don’t want to fight that guy,” or, “I don’t know them; I shouldn’t get involved.” We are conditioned from an early age to think that what others do is none of our business and we should never get involved in the affairs of others. We put blinders on, stick our heads in the sand, and mind our own business for fear of altercation with another person, or fear of judgment.

                More than those things, however, we laugh things off that are not funny and should not be made into jokes. The word “rape” is thrown around so often now that fewer and fewer people take it seriously and therefore are less likely to do anything to prevent a rape from happening—due to the idea that it “isn’t a big deal.” It is a big deal. It’s something that the US military is focusing on very heavily, along with drunk driving, to eliminate—and, with it, bystander syndrome, so that those around people who are drinking or making advances on drunk women are not driving drunk or taking home unwilling partners.

                Bystander syndrome may well be the scariest trait of humanity. After all, while there are rapists, pedophiles, and murderers out there—and usually you can’t identify them by looks alone—think of this: There are more people than all of those criminals combined who sit back and do nothing while these things happen. Think of Jeffrey Dahmer’s neighbors, who smelled the rotting corpses of his victims and heard the sounds of his tools while he went about cutting them into bits—yet who did nothing to investigate. Some called the police, yes—and good for them for doing so, I’m certainly not saying they shouldn’t have—but the police, after very brief questioning, went on their way and thought no more about it. Or—even worse than Dahmer’s neighbors—think of the two cops who went to his apartment with one of his last victims, a teenage boy, after finding said boy trying to run down the street naked with blood on him from being anally raped—a boy found by two girls who called for help and knew something was wrong, girls who did something and were not bystanders—and after brief questioning and absolutely no background checking, the cops left the boy with Dahmer in his apartment and went on their way. Bystanders are literally the reason Jeffrey Dahmer got away with murder so many times.

                What I’m trying to say is this: Rapists of all kinds…

…serial killers…

…and drug addicts…

…might scare you. They might make you nervous. But I have to ask you…

                What about your neighbors who will stand idly by and watch a drive-by shooting destroy your house? What about the people filling a restaurant so that nobody can get in without a reservation, turning away as you choke on a piece of your food? What about the hundreds, perhaps thousands of people in the streets, walking right by you as you fall over, coughing, in desperate need of medical attention on your way to the hospital—and not a single person stops to ask if you need help while you collapse to the ground and cough out your final breaths among specks of blood?

                It isn’t just about what humans do to destroy the planet. It isn’t even about what humans do to actively destroy one another—such as with war.

                It’s about the fact that we do nothing to stop it, and we are doing more and more of nothing every single day.

Surprise! You're Pregnant

                The morning of March 21^st was painfully ordinary. I had been assigned since December to snow removal shift—a special duty during winter time with one focus: Remove any and all snow that falls on the flightline as quickly as possible. Due to lack of snow this past season, however, those in charge saw fit to end snow removal, and I was sent back to my ordinary workplace—my shop. I’d been back since Monday, having somehow shifted my schedule over the past four days from night shift to day shift. I was also assigned to the Unit Fitness Improvement Program—a required program for anyone who has failed a physical fitness test. I’d been on the program, making slow but steady progress, since I failed my first ever fitness test in July, last year. This morning—Friday, March 21^st—was the defining morning of my time in the program. The plan this morning was that I would take a “mock” fitness assessment—basically, a fitness test that doesn’t get recorded officially, as a means of measuring whether or not I was ready to take the official test again and pass it. Upon passing—and I was absolutely certain I would—I would be scheduled for my official test, which I would then take and pass, and I would no longer be required to show up every morning at 05:30 to the gym (although my plan was to continue going for further improvement). I was excited and nervous at the same time.

                Commence the test! I passed my push-ups and sit-ups without problems! It was time to run a mile and a half. As I stood after completing sit-ups, however, I felt a horribly sharp pain in what was undeniably my uterus. My first thought was that something had gone awry with my Intra-Uterine Device—the lovely little T-shaped doodad that acted as a contraceptive. The pain was stabbing, but I thought, if the IUD had moved, then I would simply walk it off so that I could do my run, finish the test, and have the Unit Fitness Program Manager schedule me for my official test before the middle of April.

                As I walked, though, I realized something. First, the pain in my uterus was not abating. Second, trying to jog in order to warm up only made the pain worse. I began to worry that I wouldn’t be able to run for the test, and would therefore forfeit the entire thing that morning. What was even worse was that the plan for Squadron PT that morning was a mile-and-a-half run that involved a very large hill. If I couldn’t run for my fitness test, only to miraculously recover to run for PT, how would that look on me? I’d look like I’d pretended pain just to get out of the fitness test!

                The UFPM came up to the track and I approached him after trying another warm-up lap with no lessening of pain. He asked if I was ready, so I told him what had happened and explained that I had already scheduled an appointment with the medical clinic for the following Monday. I didn’t give him all the details, but I’d scheduled that appointment because I had been missing periods for a couple of months and having strange pains on occasion within my uterus. I attributed these things to a problem with the IUD—not to mention, skipping periods has been normal since adolescence. What’s more, I was told that a pregnancy test conducted in January was negative! So, here I was, in the gym with the UFPM, telling him that I had pain and thought my IUD had moved.

                “I’d rather you be able to run for the PT test. It would be better for you to run the test than to run for PT with the squadron,” he told me. I completely agreed—but my uterus didn’t. So, we made a plan. My husband and I would try to find an opening at the clinic that very morning for me to have the issue looked at. If that didn’t work, we would go to the ER.

                Commence plan A: Find an appointment at the clinic that morning! This plan failed miserably. There was absolutely nothing open—not even for an urgent issue! Talk about useless!

                Commence plan B: To the ER! Now, this plan panned out. Randy drove me straight to the Bitburg hospital and we walked into the ER area and found a nurse. She didn’t really speak English, which left me to figure out how to tell her I had uterine pain… in German. It involved a lot of gesturing, but the nurse managed to get the gist of what I was saying and directed me, with some pointing and a little repetition of the word, to “Gynäkologie.” At least I understood that this meant gynecology and I already had a decent idea of where to go. Randy had recently had to stay a night in the hospital and had been on the gynecology floor. So, away we went.

                We arrived and found a waiting room, where we sat… for a while. Randy went off, got breakfast from McDonald’s, and came back. We ate the food. Then someone asked us what we needed. We told them and then we waited some more, until finally we were told we could wait outside the doctor’s office. We sat there for a while still, until finally a brown-haired man showed up with a strange voice and friendly mannerisms to lead me into the examination room.

                Naturally, the first thing he grabbed when I told him I thought my IUD was having issues was, of course, the speculum. It was terrifying! I’d never seen a German speculum before! This thing looked freaking primitive! It was like two elongated, curved slabs of metal that didn’t even connect. I stared at them as if they were going to tear me apart, rather than just make it possible for the doctor to take a look at what was going on with my hoo-ha. He laughed and told me that they were normal and it would be fine, and then he began an attempt at taking a look to see the IUD and what was going on with it.

                The PAIN! Dear gods, the pain! It felt like there were barbs on the speculum, like it was driving into me like some kind of sick drill—like the drill you see in Atlantis: The Lost Empire when they’re trying to dig through that wall of stone and earth! The speculum—a device made of smooth, round-ended metal objects that ordinarily cause no pain whatsoever—was like the tongue of Hell trying to enter my body via some kind of Satanic induction. My entire body tensed as I tried to let it be, thinking it wouldn’t be so bad, it shouldn’t take that long, the doctor should find what he’s looking for soon enough, or it’ll stop hurting so much soon… My jaw clenched between exclamations of, “Ouch… Ouch… Ouch,” while I made the most valiant attempt at keeping my voice down because dammit, I wanted to know if my IUD was moved! Hell’s tongue or not, Satanic induction or Angelic intervention, I needed to know what was going on with my birth control and I was determined to endure whatever torture was necessary in order to find out!

                After a handful of “Ouch!” exclamations from me, the doctor pulled the speculum out and observed that I was too sensitive for the instrument. I concurred as politely as possible, while secretly thinking, Gee, you think?! What he said after that, though, surprised me. He said he would need to use the ultrasound to see the IUD and check for infection or displacement. I’d had a little bit of experience with ultrasound in that hospital—Germans seem to use it for just about everything—and so I acquiesced. The ultrasound couldn’t possibly be as painful as the speculum, right?

                This time, I was right. The ultrasound instrument was only slightly painful, and only upon insertion! Once in, it was simply cold and uncomfortable—things I could deal with rather easily, considering the Speculum of Death I’d just tried enduring. The doctor moved the stick-like device around, searching my cervix and uterus for the IUD to see if it had become infected or displaced itself somewhere inside. On a screen for my viewing pleasure was what he could see on his computer—the images produced by the ultrasound, as typical of what you would see with, really, any ultrasound, ever. But then, I saw this:

                “What the hell is that?!” I demanded immediately. Seriously, look at that thing! It looks like some kind of tumour! Oh, and I’ll also have you know that all of the information you see there about “19 w 4 d” and “17 w 3 d” wasn’t visible on the screen. This is a print-out.

                “You don’t know what that is?” the doctor asked, sounding equal parts amused and confused—as if he couldn’t understand how I might not know what that image was showing.

                “No. Is it a tumour?”

                “That is a pregnancy.”

                “No.” No. No, it isn’t. “No, it’s not. It can’t be.” No way in hell. I’m here to have my IUD checked. The IUD is there to prevent this! This guy’s messing with me. It’s the only way. That has to be a tumour or something. Definitely. “Is it alive?” I suppose this question was the best thing to ask, considering what was really going through my head was more along the lines of, “KILL IT WITH FIRE!!!”

                The doctor didn’t exactly respond right away. He repeated somewhere in there, “That is a baby,” but then was quiet as he let it hit me that I was, in fact, pregnant. After a few moments, the nurse asked if my husband was in the hall and if I wanted her to bring him in. I said yes, and she brought him.

                Of course, he recognized the image straight away and broke out into laughter immediately. The sudden, nearly-overwhelming urge to either punch him in the face or strangle him rose like a tide within me. He sat in the chair beside the bed upon which I lay prone and laughed into a hand. I wanted to kill him and told him so directly.

                We left the hospital knowing two things. First, I was 18 weeks and 3 days pregnant. Second, the baby was a girl. We had a follow-up appointment Monday with the doctor to determine if we would keep the baby or terminate the pregnancy. Upon reaching the car, however, I already knew that it was too late. I was already in the second trimester and I knew all too well what would go into an abortion at my stage of pregnancy. Just thinking about a tiny female being cut into pieces and ripped out of its incubator filled me with a sense of hesitancy. Could I live with myself, knowing that I had killed something that was most definitely alive, moving, and most likely developing normally?

                The answer was no. I couldn’t terminate this far along. I had stated once, in a discussion with a rather ignorant, “pro-life” friend of mine that I am okay with abortion up to 12 weeks for any reason at all. Here I was, sitting at 18 weeks and 3 days pregnant. 12 weeks was a good 6 weeks ago. At this point, the development was too far along for me to consider the abortion a humane process.

                Decision made! Randy and I decided we were going to have a baby.

                “Now we need to think of names.” The words almost caught me off guard as they came out of Randy’s mouth. Names? It’s a girl, what’s there to think about for names? I had this decided years ago.

                “Oh, Persephone Anne.” The words came out of their own accord, flippantly, without a thought. I didn’t know where the “Anne” came from, but Persephone had been pre-determined for years, despite my desire to never, ever spawn children of my own. I’d always figured, “If I get a chance to name a girl…”

                I went home that day with printed out ultrasound images like the one you see above. I posted them on Facebook, making them visible to a very limited, highly select group of people on my friends’ list, with the words, “Surprise! You’re not allowed to gloat. D:” A kind of dread filled my being the way gas fills a chamber—surrounding, suffocating, creating a strange kind of pressure that is difficult to identify on its own. This dread carried a terror that someone, anyone, who knew that I was pregnant would decide to rub the fact in my face with gloating words such as, “I told you so!” “I always knew it would happen!” “I knew you would change your mind!” and so on. I was terrified that someone would laugh at me. I had done what I could to prevent this situation! My situation was different from all of those parents who say “I’ll never have kids,” and then end up with kids! I had contraception—highly effective contraception that had worked consistently well for a full year! I didn’t want to be pregnant!

                The relief that came when nobody laughed at me was so great that I didn’t quite feel it. Instead of what one might associate with the feeling of relief, the sense of dreadful terror simply crawled away slowly, inching out of my being the way a viscous liquid might ooze through a drain. As more people found out about the pregnancy and still no one gloated in the way I feared they might, I began to relax. It helped also that my best friend and my mother-in-law were beside themselves with excitement that I would have a baby.

                I decided that I would keep the baby. My baby would not be put up for adoption, I would take care of it with my husband and we would raise her as well as we possibly could. It’s hard to come to terms with the idea of having a child, after so long of vehemently denying the very concept and actively working against pregnancy. You really have to evaluate where you are in life and what your own morals are. If someone else ever found herself in my position, I would not think less of her as a person if she decided to terminate the pregnancy.