Here In Lies the Rub

Sage and I hiking in Redrock Fall 2002

I swear, one of these days I will actually post some cute pics of my kids and give an update about them. But for right now, I'm using this blog as my therapy. Bow-Kay?!

So, it's 12:30 am and I just got done doing a chapter in my book (I know, this is a lame official announcement that I wrote a birth book) at the request of my editor on a short history of childbirth. I didn't want to do this chapter for one reason:

I. Have. A. Headache.

I knew it wouldn't be my most inspiring of chapters, but she insisted it was essential in order to lend myself some credibility in the claims I make in following chapters and also give perspective.

The history of childbirth in America? Ouch...it's a little depressing, sprinkled with a few moments of progress.

I decided to take a break and go on facebook and stalk around a bit. I gravitated to someones page that I know pretty well, but we aren't facebook friends. This girl is nice and all, but she has the typical hang up's about me. You know, she came from a pretty mainstream background, she would like to think she's really open minded, but in actually it scares her to death to think about doing anything that serious when it comes to living outside the box. Hence, she's a little scared to like me too much, for fear of who knows what.

She's my most recent poster child for a small group of women I am acquaintances with who are like this. She's cute, she's bubbly, the type that you know was pretty popular in school and well liked by everyone. Probably voted 'Most Well Liked' or something. Another acquaintance, turned very good friend, who was at one time my poster child, I actually used referred to as 'Pretty Lady' to one of my friends who could never remember who I was talking about if I said her actual name, but who she immediately knew if I called her 'Pretty Lady'.

"Man, D asked me what to do about kids' ear infection, and I told her, but she just gave me a blank stare and fulfilled her antibiotic prescription," I'd say to Jonelle
"Who is D again?" Jonelle would say.
"You know, she's in my ward, 3 kids, from California, she's really pretty," I'd explain.
"Oh yeah, Pretty Lady."

So that's how that happens. Is this making any sense? Anyway.....

Don't even get me wrong, I love this woman, my new poster child. She is sweet and nice and doing her best. I'm over feeling frustrated at people in this position. We are all on our respective journeys, I have no reason to judge her, I'm just sad at the incredibly long arms length she holds me at.

So, I was able to view her photos which were so nice of her cute family, until I came across a few of her holding her baby in a baby carrier.

Nothing was wrong with the picture, but it triggered some memories. I was floored by how quickly and vivid these came to me.

They were memories of women from my past, who were cut from the same cloth as my poster child, who, with thinly veiled judgment, criticized and ridiculed me - sometimes to my face - oh so many years ago for carrying my own babies in slings.

And here 'she' was, doing it now herself. On the one hand, I just want people to carry their babies more, no matter who or what got them there. If it took a few celebs to start carrying their babies in order to give these women 'permission' to wear their babies, than so be it. It's cool because Gwen Stefani is doing it, so I guess I can do it now, too and won't look like a freak like Amy.

On the other hand, I've been gossiped about, laughed at, warned that I was injuring my baby, and down right socially rejected for doing something as simple and instinctual to me as wearing my baby.

"Does she think she's a better mother than me because she wears that contraption?" I overheard one woman say.

"You know, you're cutting off the circulation to your baby's legs with that thing" another lady in my ward enlightened me.

I can still feel the stares I'd get from people in the mall in 1996. Some were very intrigued and amused at the sight of a woman wearing her baby. But most looked on at me very judgmentally. I know...I was a freak to them, maybe thinking I was trying to out mother them, or what ever it was. And it's not like wearing my baby was, or is, the only thing I got picked on for - surprise, surprise - it was just the most obvious.

What they didn't get then, but maybe get now, is that I was just trying to survive and thrive. Make my life a little easier, and my baby a little happier. That was it. There was no social statement I was trying to make. Although, when I'd see another mom slinging her baby, we'd both jump a little and at least smile at one another in passing, if not become instant friends. It was a lonely world in a sea of baby buckets.

So, after going over and over and over and over this timeline of birth trends, and then coming across the photo of this mainstream mom who was doing what I was once ridiculed for, I immediately had a taste of how all of my birth heroes must have felt at one time. Grateful that their efforts have made a difference, even if it meant rejection, but maybe really bitter that it took so long and they were a punching bag for so many.

Pretty Lady taught me many a thing about other 'pretty ladies':
Be patient.
Be understanding.
Be kind.
Be accepting.
(Pres. Hinckley, are you proud of me?)

But above all, be friends.

The original pretty lady actually turned many a mainstream leaf and she admitted to me that my being accepting of her angst over all things alternative was very valuable to her doing so. She's become a great friend to me.

I will try to move out of bitter and into gratitude a little more completely in the morning. Everything looks better in the morning, right? I AM grateful for Pretty Ladies. Now, goodnight.

By the way, my headache is gone. Thank you!