Congratulations, guys.

I was privileged to be there yesterday when two friends, M & D, tied the knot. They chose not to get married, for a variety of reasons, even though they legally could have. But they got their family and friends together and had a ceremony on a mountaintop to celebrate their relationship, and it was completely their own, and very cool. No officiant, lots of participation from family and friends. And yes, they really did tie a knot.

I was especially glad that they chose to speak openly in their ceremony about how their relationship has been affected by D's experience with breast cancer. She was diagnosed at 26, with no family history, no risk factors, no reason to believe this would ever happen to her. She has been in remission for 5 1/2 years and is doing very well, but she has been face to face with mortality in a way relatively few people our age have been.

As it happens, one of her big supports through this process was a man who was also going through a life-threatening illness that started at a young age -- he was diagnosed with HIV at 21 years old, 26 years ago I think. He got up with D in the ceremony and talked a little about how it changes you, to live for a while as if you don't have much time, and then realize you might have more time after all, and start to make long term plans again...

I was grateful that they did this on several levels. It gave me a new understanding and respect for what D has experienced (it was before I knew her), for the bond between my friends, and for what this celebration means to them. And also, talking about cancer and HIV on equal footing this way was just one more small but real step towards breaking down the stigma around HIV and AIDS. Everyone present yesterday got a chance to see this man through D's eyes: a fellow survivor, a source of strength, and a much-loved friend. Not an unknown person with a scary disease that people assume you usually get by doing something you weren't supposed to do. It was only one small part of the day, just a couple minutes. But this is the kind of thing that can change the way people think.

Good day with good people. May they have many good years together.

What a singing there will be when I get home

That's the title of Helen Schneyer's last recording, which will come out next month. I just found out yesterday that she died on July 16. Her obit in the Washington Post gives a basic bio; the Mudcat thread tells much more, through all the tributes of her friends.

She was one of those people whose presence is just huge, and love-inspiring. She always wore all white, with long white hair, and a metric ton of silver and turquoise jewelry. And I haven't met anyone who heard her sing who hadn't been moved to tears by it.

Mostly what I know of Helen, I know through her huge influence on my Mom. The songs Mom most loves to sing are the ones she learned from Helen. When she sings those songs she sings them with every cell in her body, which is the way Helen sang. For that alone I am tremendously grateful.

As Garrison Keillor put it, when Helen sang on Prairie Home Companion, "A lot of agnostics, atheists and people of no particular religions sang about the hope of heaven for the redeemed. It was quite amazing for her to perform." It's probably largely her fault that I love singing a certain number of spirituals and Baptist hymns. It's hard to explain, but it's beautiful.

I wish I had more chance to know her.
Rest easy, Helen.

Yum.

Breakfast this morning: yogurt with fresh local blueberries and black raspberries. Life doesn't get much better than that. Happy summer. I love my CSA.

A change of plans

Some of you have been hearing from us for a while that when we start trying for a baby, we have been planning that I would be the first one to get pregnant, and Miriam would have her turn at carrying a baby a couple years later. This past weekend we decided to switch. Which is kind of a big change.

The basic reasoning behind the change is job-related. If I got pregnant anytime soon, I would have to go back to work pretty quickly for us to make ends meet. Miriam, on the other hand, has the power to make money from home as a freelance writer. It has been her plan for a while, that she would use that to be able to stay home with a baby after she has one. She's feeling ready to do it sooner, and if I wait til Robin is done with grad school, there's a pretty good chance that I can have a turn to stay home with a baby too. Which would be really nice.

But of course there is more to a decision like this than just that. We had a bunch of reasons for me to go first. That stupid doctor who got me worrying I might have trouble getting pregnant, and my anxiety to resolve that question, probably played a bigger role in it than they deserved. And Mir had wanted to stay at her job longer and develop her skills there more thoroughly before making her next career move. And especially when we thought my mom had Alzheimer's, we wanted her and her grandbaby to get the most possible chance to know each other, as soon as possible. And Mir kind of wanted to go second, for her own reasons... And I really wanted to go first. A lot.

I have been on preparation-for-baby mode for pretty much all of this year. I went off the Pill in December and started taking my temperature every morning and charting my cycles to find out if I was ovulating. I have been taking vitamins, and taking strange measures to block out light from my bedroom at night because that's supposed to promote healthy cycles. I have been exercising for several reasons, but not least because I wanted to be in shape for a pregnancy. I have been going out of my way to spend time with the babies of friends. You could say I've had a lot of energy to redirect -- we were pretty much all three ready to get going on the having kids by last Fall, and we've been assuming since then that I would be going first. But we decided we wanted to get the wedding part done before we started trying. So this stuff was what I was doing instead. :-)

Mir and Robin never would have thought to question that I should go first, I think, because it had become so solidly the plan. And to be honest, if they had brought it up, I probably would have flipped. I had so much of my brain wrapped up in getting ready to be pregnant, if I felt like they were trying to take that away from me it would have been bad news. But as it happened... Mir gave herself a vacation for her birthday. She had a long weekend at home first, and then a week away by herself on a writing retreat. She was relaxed, and happy. And I found myself thinking that I would absolutely love to be able to give her the chance to be like that more of the time, sooner than we have been planning on. And I realized that might be in our power to do, if she had the first baby. I talked with Robin about it while she was away on her retreat, and once I figured out I would be OK with the switch if we all decided that made the most sense, I brought it up with Mir when she got home. And then we took a while to think it through... and it really seems to make a lot more sense this way. And it's actually OK with me, which I might not have been able to imagine a couple months ago.

More than that. I feel GOOD about it. Mir keeps being surprised, I think, that I seem as happy as I am with this. I definitely did have to go through some feelings of loss about it, and that may not be over yet. But I think without being aware of it I had gotten pretty self-centered about the whole baby business. I was thinking about my fertility and me being pregnant and me having a baby. And of course my family being there too... but in retrospect it feels like it was too much just about me. In contrast, I'm now looking at a plan where I get to go through the whole process with Miriam and be the best support for her that I know how to be, and she will get to spend some time focusing on home instead of work, and it's about US, together. So much better.

And as a side benefit, the next time I go off the Pill, I think I will just stop taking pills and see what happens. Not so much with the charts and the anxious preparation. I think that might very well turn out to be more fun.

No no no no no.

I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was, when my friend in midwife school told me that student doctors and student midwives in the US are no longer taught how to deliver vaginal breech births. It is assumed from the start that a diagnosed breech should be delivered by caesarian. And if you have an undiagnosed breech, they'll rush you to an emergency caesarian if they have time, and if they don't -- you may well be in a dangerous situation, because there may not be anyone around who knows how to handle this. Even though someone who has been taught the appropriate skills could handle it just fine.

Since she won't get it in school, my friend is planning to travel somewhere else where she can learn how to do it -- but even if she gets enough practice to feel confident, she probably won't be able to get malpractice insurance without promising she'll require a caesarian for breeches. There are no words for how wrong that is.

Lots of research to do about the midwives and doctors in this area. I have heard there are a lot of good resources out there, and separately I've heard that things are a mess. Except for the whole travelling to Tennessee bit, The Farm is sounding better all the time.

Friends with interesting things to say

Quinn on sex, love, kids, and oxytocin: more lab notes on the necessarily subjective research topic of how hormones affect our thinking, desires, identity...

Kif on cachexia: what happens when you're not eating and it's NOT because you're obsessed with losing weight. You're right, Kif, I've known other folks who have this but I never had a separate word for it, and it's a very good thing to have a separate word for.

Ada on BOUNCING! That looks like so much fun. Do they let big kids go on that ride?

Random computer generated thingy #853

Found on A's LJ, which I would link to if it weren't all locked and stuff. Finally got back in touch with A. Hooray for that.
Meanwhile I am still not dead. Today I made a decision about a caterer and bought a strapless bra; tomorrow my mother and I are going for a dress fitting. I think I must be getting married soon.

I am The Empress The Empress can refer to any aspect of Motherhood. She can be an individual mother, but as a major arcana card, she also goes beyond the specifics of mothering to its essence - the creation of life and its sustenance through loving care and attention. The Empress can also represent lavish abundance of all kinds. She offers a cornucopia of delights, especially those of the senses - food, pleasure and beauty. She can suggest material reward, but only with the understanding that riches go with a generous and open spirit. The Empress asks you to embrace the principle of life and enjoy its bountiful goodness. For a full description of your card and other goodies, please visit LearnTarot.com

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