Pregnancy Alone Quotes

But I am, personally, not a gambler. I wouldn’t spend £1 on the lottery, let alone take a punt on a pregnancy. The stakes are far, far too high. I can’t agree with a society that would force me to bet on how much I could love under duress.

There was real plasure to be had eating ice cream out of container and pickles out of a glass jar, standing up at the counter. I wondered whether the cravings associated with pregnancy were really only a matter of women feeling empowered to admit their odd longings to their husbands, to ask another person to bring them the eccentric combinations they'd long enjoyed in private.

In a perfect world, pregnancy would be an intimate experience shared by a woman and her partner alone, but for various reasons that is not possible. Pregnancy is an experience that invites public intervention and forces the female body into the public discourse. In many ways, pregnancy is the least private experience of a woman’s life.

Motherhood seems to be a no-win battle: however you decide to do (or not do) it, someone’s going to be criticizing you. You went to too great lengths trying to conceive. You didn’t go to great enough lengths. You had the baby too young. You should have kept the baby even though you were young. You shouldn’t have waited so long to try and have a baby. You’re a too involved mother. You’re not involved enough because you let your child play on the playground alone. It never ends. It strikes me that while all this judgment goes on, the options available to women become fewer and fewer. I’m not even (just) talking about the right to choose—across the U.S., women have less access to birth control, health care, reproductive education, and post-partum support. So we give women less information about their bodies and reproduction, less control over their bodies, and less support during and after pregnancy—and then we criticize them fiercely for whatever they end up doing. This

It isn't about the welfare check. It never was. It isn't about sexual permissiveness, or personal morality, or failures in parenting, or lack of family planning. All of these are inherent in the disaster, but the purposefulness with which babies make babies in places like West Baltimore goes far beyond accident and chance, circumstance and misunderstanding. It's about more than the sexual drives of adolescents, too, though that might be hard to believe in a country where sex alone is enough of an argument to make anyone do just about anything. In Baltimore, a city with the highest teen pregnancy rates in the nation, the epidemic is, at root, about human expectation, or more precisely, the absence of expectation.

About a month after she found out about that, I got pregnant for the first time. I knew I didn't want to have a baby at all, and wanted to get an abortion. But the day I found out, I wasn't sure what to do first. I felt alone and lost and needed someone to call who I could tell. I needed help. I wasn't sure if she would talk to me again so soon after what had happened. I decided to take a chance and try calling her. When I told her, she said, "Well, an abortion is only like $500, so go turn a couple of tricks and get it taken care of," before she hung up on me. I probably should have called someone else, but I didn't know who else to call.

In his letter, he’d written three different words. 'You’re not alone.' They swirled inside her head, solid and deep and resonant in a way that ethereal 'I love you' could never be.

We've been here dozen of times since we met, but this precious month before the baby is born feels like a last first date. There's a different kind of romance beginning. We will never again be entirely alone in the world

I feel the swelling energy, the inexplicable, restless hunger, rising in my own innocent life. I don't care at all about the music or the drinking or the gathering together of teenagers for fun and the thrill of belonging. But my father is gone. He has a new life, a new wife and daughter, and never calls or visits. I miss him badly. My mother is inaccessible. My older brother and sister have moved on to their own lives, leaving me alone at home and on the beach while my mother works and plays with Peter.

A very distinct pattern has emerged repeatedly when policies favored by the anointed turn out to fail. This pattern typically has four stages: STAGE 1. THE “CRISIS”: Some situation exists, whose negative aspects the anointed propose to eliminate. Such a situation is routinely characterized as a “crisis,” even though all human situations have negative aspects, and even though evidence is seldom asked or given to show how the situation at hand is either uniquely bad or threatening to get worse. Sometimes the situation described as a “crisis” has in fact already been getting better for years. STAGE 2. THE “SOLUTION”: Policies to end the “crisis” are advocated by the anointed, who say that these policies will lead to beneficial result A. Critics say that these policies will lead to detrimental result Z. The anointed dismiss these latter claims as absurd and “simplistic,” if not dishonest. STAGE 3. THE RESULTS: The policies are instituted and lead to detrimental result Z. STAGE 4. THE RESPONSE: Those who attribute detrimental result Z to the policies instituted are dismissed as “simplistic” for ignoring the “complexities” involved, as “many factors” went into determining the outcome. The burden of proof is put on the critics to demonstrate to a certainty that these policies alone were the only possible cause of the worsening that occurred. No burden of proof whatever is put on those who had so confidently predicted improvement. Indeed, it is often asserted that things would have been even worse, were it not for the wonderful programs that mitigated the inevitable damage from other factors. Examples of this pattern are all too abundant. Three will be considered here. The first and most general involves the set of social welfare policies called “the war on poverty” during the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson, but continuing under other labels since then. Next is the policy of introducing “sex education” into the public schools, as a means of reducing teenage pregnancy and venereal diseases. The third example will be policies designed to reduce crime by adopting a less punitive approach, being more concerned with preventive social policies beforehand and rehabilitation afterwards, as well as showing more concern with the legal rights of defendants in criminal cases.

Until they arrived, while everyone else was transitioning to winter, putting on coats and sweaters, I was going to stick with my summer dress and my usual work blazer. Dressed in the dazzling flowers of some tropical island adrift in an ocean of deep pink, there I sat, in a season and place all my own.

Hungry?” he asks. “The wager?” I remind him. “I’m getting there—it’s related to my question.” He lifts his chin to the meat locker. “They have good steaks here.” And just like that, I’m interested in whatever he’s suggesting. “They do. What’re you thinking?” “They have a porterhouse for two, three, or four.” I haven’t eaten in nearly twenty-four hours, and the idea of a big juicy steak has me salivating. “Yeah?” “So, I say we split the one for three, and whoever eats more wins.” “I’m going to guess their porterhouse for three could feed us both for a week.” “I’m betting you’re right.” His adorable grin should be accompanied by the sound of a silvery ding. “And your dinner is on me.” For not the first time, it occurs to me to ask him how he makes ends meet, but I can’t—not here, and maybe not when we’re alone, either. “You don’t have to do that.” “I think I can handle treating my wife to dinner on our wedding night.” Our wedding night. My heart thuds heavily. “That’s a lot of meat. No pun intended.” He grins enthusiastically. “I’d sure like to see how you handle it.” “You’re betting Holland can’t finish a steak?” Lulu chimes in from behind me. “Oh, you sweet summer child.” *** As we get up, I groan, clutching my stomach. “Is this what pregnancy feels like? Not interested.” “I could carry you,” Calvin offers sweetly, helping me with my coat. Lulu pushes between us, giddy from wine as she throws her arms around our shoulders. “You’re supposed to carry the bride across the threshold to be romantic, not because she’s broken from eating her weight in beef.” I stifle a belch. “The way to impress a man is to show him how much meat you can handle, don’t you know this, Lu?” Calvin laughs. “It was a close battle.” “Not that close,” Mark says, beside him. We went so far as to have the waiter split the cooked steak into two equal portions, much to the amused fascination of our tablemates. I ate roughly three-quarters of mine. Calvin was two ounces short. “Calvin Bakker has a pretty solid ring to it,” I say. He laugh-groans. “What did I get myself into?” “A marriage to a farm girl,” I say. “It’s best you learn on day one that I take my eating very seriously.

As time passed, I began to get depressed and cried a lot. It was not because of my pregnancy. Praise the Lord, I wasn't having any more morning sickness, and I remained in good health, but my emotions were taking a nosedive. In my present situation, I was so isolated, and so lonely, and when a woman is pregnant, she doesn't feel pretty any more. In fact, she often feels ugly and awkward.

When I wasn’t in the barn garden, helping out, sorting seeds or checking hoses I’d spend time alone, usually in the bathroom adjacent to Joel’s room, staring into the shattered mirror as my hand gently caressed my baby bump. More often than not I would cry. Not because my pregnancy upset me, or that my hormones were getting the better of me, but because I missed Joel, my baby’s father. That the baby would grow up without a dad made me anxious. Then again, if he had survived, what irreparable damage would he have suffered and how would his pain translate to his child? Jesus, I was studying myself in the very mirror he’d smashed the night he chose to take his own life. The bump had grown slowly in the last couple of months. With these limited resources, I didn’t have the privilege of eating whatever I craved. Had that been the case, I was sure I would have been bigger by now. Still, I tried to eat as well and as often as I could and the size of my belly had proven that my attempts at proper nutrition were at least growing something in there. Nothing made me happier than feeling my baby move. It was a constant source of relief for me. In our present circumstances, with no vitamins and barely any meat products save the recent stash of jerky Earl had found in an abandoned trailer, my diet consisted of berries, lettuce, and canned beans for the most part. Feeling the baby move inside me was an experience I often enjoyed alone. I would think of Joel then as well. Imagining his hand on my belly, with mine guiding his to the kicks and punches.

Here’s the headline: In the first year alone, women saved $ 1.4 billion on birth control pills. Today we’re at a thirty-year low for unintended pregnancy, a historic low in teen pregnancy, and the lowest abortion rate since Roe v. Wade. These facts are too often overlooked, even though this is one of the biggest public health success stories of the last century. It didn’t happen on its own—it happened in large part due to better and more affordable access to birth control.

She was the first close friend who I felt like I’d re­ally cho­sen. We weren’t in each other’s lives be­cause of any obli­ga­tion to the past or con­ve­nience of the present. We had no shared his­tory and we had no rea­son to spend all our time to­ gether. But we did. Our friend­ship in­ten­si­fied as all our friends had chil­dren – she, like me, was un­con­vinced about hav­ing kids. And she, like me, found her­self in a re­la­tion­ship in her early thir­ties where they weren’t specif­i­cally work­ing to­wards start­ing a fam­ily. By the time I was thirty-four, Sarah was my only good friend who hadn’t had a baby. Ev­ery time there was an­other preg­nancy an­nounce­ment from a friend, I’d just text the words ‘And an­other one!’ and she’d know what I meant. She be­came the per­son I spent most of my free time with other than Andy, be­cause she was the only friend who had any free time. She could meet me for a drink with­out plan­ning it a month in ad­vance. Our friend­ship made me feel lib­er­ated as well as safe. I looked at her life choices with no sym­pa­thy or con­cern for her. If I could ad­mire her de­ci­sion to re­main child-free, I felt en­cour­aged to ad­mire my own. She made me feel nor­mal. As long as I had our friend­ship, I wasn’t alone and I had rea­son to be­lieve I was on the right track. We ar­ranged to meet for din­ner in Soho af­ter work on a Fri­day. The waiter took our drinks or­der and I asked for our usual – two Dirty Vodka Mar­ti­nis. ‘Er, not for me,’ she said. ‘A sparkling wa­ter, thank you.’ I was ready to make a joke about her un­char­ac­ter­is­tic ab­sti­nence, which she sensed, so as soon as the waiter left she said: ‘I’m preg­nant.’ I didn’t know what to say. I can’t imag­ine the ex­pres­sion on my face was par­tic­u­larly en­thu­si­as­tic, but I couldn’t help it – I was shocked and felt an un­war­ranted but in­tense sense of be­trayal. In a de­layed re­ac­tion, I stood up and went to her side of the ta­ble to hug her, un­able to find words of con­grat­u­la­tions. I asked what had made her change her mind and she spoke in va­garies about it ‘just be­ing the right time’ and wouldn’t elab­o­rate any fur­ther and give me an an­swer. And I needed an an­swer. I needed an an­swer more than any­thing that night. I needed to know whether she’d had a re­al­iza­tion that I hadn’t and, if so, I wanted to know how to get it. When I woke up the next day, I re­al­ized the feel­ing I was ex­pe­ri­enc­ing was not anger or jeal­ousy or bit­ter­ness – it was grief. I had no one left. They’d all gone. Of course, they hadn’t re­ally gone, they were still my friends and I still loved them. But huge parts of them had dis­ap­peared and there was noth­ing they could do to change that. Un­less I joined them in their spa­ces, on their sched­ules, with their fam­i­lies, I would barely see them. And I started dream­ing of an­other life, one com­pletely re­moved from all of it. No more chil­dren’s birth­day par­ties, no more chris­ten­ings, no more bar­be­cues in the sub­urbs. A life I hadn’t ever se­ri­ously con­tem­plated be­fore. I started dream­ing of what it would be like to start all over again. Be­cause as long as I was here in the only Lon­don I knew – mid­dle-class Lon­don, cor­po­rate Lon­don, mid-thir­ties Lon­don, mar­ried Lon­don – I was in their world. And I knew there was a whole other world out there.

Jackson blinked again, almost at a loss for words as he ignored the mini Cooper reference, a term the girls loved and had begun calling their offspring. Having four women all entering the second trimester of their pregnancy at the same time was just about killing the brothers. How the hell had he become part of this? He wasn’t married to any of them, and yet now he was the peanut butter bearer. Hell. “Four…four types of peanut butter?” Jackson asked. “Yes. Four. I’m alone in the house with four pregnant women who all want peanut butter of their own choosing. For the love of God, help me.” The panic in his brother’s voice made Jackson smile. Matt had the pre-daddy jitters. In fact, all his brothers did.

Diana” was the first thing out of her mouth. “I’m dying,” the too familiar voice on the other end moaned. I snorted, locking the front door behind me as I held the phone up to my face with my shoulder. “You’re pregnant. You’re not dying.” “But it feels like I am,” the person who rarely ever complained whined. We’d been best friends our entire lives, and I could only count on one hand the number of times I’d heard her grumble about something that wasn’t her family. I’d had the title of being the whiner in our epic love affair that had survived more shit than I was willing to remember right then. I held up a finger when Louie tipped his head toward the kitchen as if asking if I was going to get started on dinner or not. “Well, nobody told you to get pregnant with the Hulk’s baby. What did you expect? He’s probably going to come out the size of a toddler.” The laugh that burst out of her made me laugh too. This fierce feeling of missing her reminded me it had been months since we’d last seen each other. “Shut up.” “You can’t avoid the truth forever.” Her husband was huge. I didn’t understand why she wouldn’t expect her unborn baby to be a giant too. “Ugh.” A long sigh came through the receiver in resignation. “I don’t know what I was thinking—” “You weren’t thinking.” She ignored me. “We’re never having another one. I can’t sleep. I have to pee every two minutes. I’m the size of Mars—” “The last time I saw you”—which had been two months ago—“you were the size of Mars. The baby is probably the size of Mars now. I’d probably say you’re about the size of Uranus.” She ignored me again. “Everything makes me cry and I itch. I itch so bad.” “Do I… want to know where you’re itching?” “Nasty. My stomach. Aiden’s been rubbing coconut oil on me every hour he’s here.” I tried to imagine her six-foot-five-inch, Hercules-sized husband doing that to Van, but my imagination wasn’t that great. “Is he doing okay?” I asked, knowing off our past conversations that while he’d been over the moon with her pregnancy, he’d also turned into mother hen supreme. It made me feel better knowing that she wasn’t living in a different state all by herself with no one else for support. Some people in life got lucky and found someone great, the rest of us either took a long time… or not ever. “He’s worried I’m going to fall down the stairs when he isn’t around, and he’s talking about getting a one-story house so that I can put him out of his misery.” “You know you can come stay with us if you want.” She made a noise. “I’m just offering, bitch. If you don’t want to be alone when he starts traveling more for games, you can stay here as long as you need. Louie doesn’t sleep in his room half the time anyway, and we have a one-story house. You could sleep with me if you really wanted to. It’ll be like we’re fourteen all over again.” She sighed. “I would. I really would, but I couldn’t leave Aiden.” And I couldn’t leave the boys for longer than a couple of weeks, but she knew that. Well, she also knew I couldn’t not work for that long, too. “Maybe you can get one of those I’ve-fallen-and-I-can’t-get-up—” Vanessa let out another loud laugh. “You jerk.” “What? You could.” There was a pause. “I don’t even know why I bother with you half the time.” “Because you love me?” “I don’t know why.” “Tia,” Louie hissed, rubbing his belly like he was seriously starving. “Hey, Lou and Josh are making it seem like they haven’t eaten all day. I’m scared they might start nibbling on my hand soon. Let me feed them, and I’ll call you back, okay?” Van didn’t miss a beat. “Sure, Di. Give them a hug from me and call me back whenever. I’m on the couch, and I’m not going anywhere except the bathroom.” “Okay. I won’t call Parks and Wildlife to let them know there’s a beached whale—” “Goddammit, Diana—” I laughed. “Love you. I’ll call you back. Bye!” “Vanny has a whale?” Lou asked.

After a first date you don't sit on a train and find head your flooded with the forgotten truth about your shared sex life forty years previously. How attracted to one another we had been; how light she felt on my lap; how exciting it always was; how, even though we weren't having "full sex," all the elements of it—the lust, the tenderness, the candour, the trust—were there anyway. And how part of me hadn't minded not "going the whole way," didn't mind the bouts of apocalyptic wanking after I'd seen her home, didn't mind sleeping in my single bed, alone except for my memories and a swiftly returning erection. This acceptance of less than others had was also due to fear, of course: fear of pregnancy, fear of saying or doing the wrong thing, fear of an overwhelming closeness I couldn't handle.

Why don't you think of him as the coming one, who has been at hand since eternity, the future one, the final fruit of a tree, with us as its leaves? What is keeping you from hurling his birth into evolving times and from living your life as though it were one painful beautiful day in the history of a great pregnancy? ... By extracting the most possible sweetness out of everything, just as the bees gather honey, we thus build him. With any insignificant thing, even with the very smallest thing -- if only it is done out of love -- we begin, with work, with a time of rest following, with keeping silent or with a small lonely joy, with everything that we do alone, without participants or supporters, we begin him: the one whom we shall not experience in this lifetime, even as our ancestors could not experience us.

The man seemed not to have heard him. ‘At this life-giving time of the year, Professor Scrooge,’ said the pastor, clicking his pen, ‘it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight contribution to babes and adults, who lie languishing in hospitals and care facilities, standing on street corners and under bridges, or living alone at home during this time. Many are in need of blood transfusions or food or pregnancy care every day in our large community; many others – especially the elderly – are in want of comfort and cheer.’ ‘Are there no abortion clinics?’ asked Scrooge. ‘Plenty of clinics,’ said the pastor, clicking the pen tip in again. ‘And Euthanasia facilities?’ demanded Scrooge. ‘Are they still in operation?’ ‘They are. Still,’ returned the gentleman, ‘I wish I could say they were not.’ ‘Welfare and Food Stamps are in full swing, then?’ said Scrooge. ‘Both very busy.’ ‘Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course,’ said Scrooge. ‘I’m very glad to hear it.’ ‘Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,’ returned the gentleman, ‘a few churches are endeavoring to raise a fund to provide those in need with medical care and food as well as the comfort of a human presence and the message of eternal life through Jesus. We choose this time to sow into others’ lives because it is a time, of all others, when we rejoice in the life God gave to us through His Son. What shall I put down – in time, money, or blood – for you?’ ‘Nothing!’ Scrooge replied. ‘You wish to give anonymously, then?’ ‘I wish to be left alone,’ said Scrooge.

Attention All Students, the following is a safety notice and we advise you take all of the information in this notification seriously. Tonight is the LUNAR ECLIPSE. All Fae will be struck by the urges of the moon and will be guided by their most base instincts and the truest desires of their hearts and flesh. As such, the faculty have made the following recommendations: 1. Remain alone in your rooms throughout the evening with the door locked. 2. Turn off your Atlases to avoid the temptation to send provocative messages to your fellow students via social media. 3. Take a sleeping draft or two to try and bypass the night without succumbing to the urges. 4. Make sure you have cast your monthly contraceptive spells so that when rules 1-3 fail to work you will not come crying to the faculty about unexpected pregnancies. Please try to remain safe and enjoy your evening. - Principal Nova.

After that came more injections, pills, low-quality eggs, toilets and screens with naked women on them and the pressure to fill the plastic cup, baptisms they didn’t attend, the question “So when’s the first child coming along?” repeated ad nauseum, operating rooms he wasn’t allowed to enter so that he could hold her hand and she wouldn’t feel so alone, more debt, other people’s babies, the babies of those who could, fluid retention, mood swings, conversations about the possibility of adopting, phone calls to the bank, children’s birthday parties they wanted to escape, more hormones, chronic fatigue and more unfertilized eggs, tears, hurtful words, Mother’s Days in silence, the hope for an embryo, the list of possible names, Leonardo if it was a boy, Aria if it was a girl, pregnancy tests thrown helplessly into the trash can, fights, the search for an egg donor, questions about genetic identity, letters from the bank, the waiting, the fears, the acceptance that maternity isn’t a question of chromosomes, the mortgage, the pregnancy, the birth, the euphoria, the happiness, the death.

Please don’t go,” Mom said to him. She was generally too proud to ask anyone for anything, including her own husband for support. But she pleaded. “I can’t do this alone.” There were houses to build, though. My uncle was outside honking the horn, and Dad left—believing, to some extent, that it was his job to provide and her job to take care of the kids. There was no paid leave for him either in such a moment. Once Dad was gone, Mom lay in their bed trying to sleep through her pain as Matt cried from his crib. I crawled up a chest of drawers in her bedroom and tipped it over. The dresser crushed me against the carpet. Mom ran from her bed and somehow lifted the chest off me, straining so hard she tore her stitches. Blood ran down her thighs. I don’t think we went back to the hospital. When she told me the story, it was about a day she barely survived because of my dad’s absence. I see it now as a day she barely survived because society valued productivity and autonomy more than it valued women and children. Pregnancy slows you down, so pregnant women lost their jobs; mothers were alone in their nuclear households while fathers worked extra hours to make up the difference.

Many mothers don't want to appear vulnerable, both our of fear of being diminished, infantilized, or threatened with unwanted interventions, and because they know they are almost solely in charge of keeping a new human being alive. Who the hell has time for vulnerability? It is a profound testament to the strength and resilience of women that so many of them suffer from debilitating fear, sadness, and confusion and yet they soldier on working, taking care of their families, getting the myriad everyday chores done. The fact that they're asked to do so, to carry and bear alone not only the child but the chemical and biological shifts, the solitude, the loss, the grief, the complex questions of their own transformation, reveals a society that values mothers only as passive, docile, keeping their motherhood safely tucked in the sentimental cultural space reserved for it. The idea is not to study the mother, to listen to her, to recognize her in her fullness, to explore her becoming, but to keep her contained: prevent her from causing harm, encourage her to follow the rules. Anxiety is an excellent weapon for containing women; it needs only to be gently stoked in the context of pregnancy and women will weaponize it against themselves.

Total neglect of women in pregnancy and childbirth had been the norm. Among many primitive societies, women menstruating or with child, or in labour or suckling the child, were regarded as unclean, polluted. The woman was isolated and frequently could not be touched, even by another woman. She had to go through the whole ordeal alone. Consequently only the fittest survived, and by the processes of mutation and adaptation, inherited abnormalities, such as disproportion in the size of the pelvis and the foetal head, died out of the race, particularly in remote parts of the world, and labour became easier. In Western society, which we call civilisation, this did not occur, and a dozen or more complications, some of them deadly, were superimposed on the natural hazards: overcrowding, staphylococcal and streptococcal infection; infectious diseases such as cholera, scarlet fever, typhoid and tuberculosis; venereal disease; rickets; multiple and frequent childbirth; the dangers from infected water. If you add to all this the attitude of indifference and neglect that often surrounded childbirth it is not hard to understand how childbirth came to be known as “the curse of Eve”, and how women could often expect to die in order to bring forth new life.

with his daughter.” “Incest?” Rainie looked at Quincy incredulously. “Jesus, SupSpAg, how do you sleep with that mind?” “I can’t be sure,” Quincy said modestly, “but it has all the classic signs. Domineering father alone with his young daughter for the first thirteen years of her life. Seems very doting on the outside. I’m sure if you conducted further interviews you’d find plenty of neighbors and teachers telling you how ‘close’ Mr. Avalon and his daughter were. How ‘involved’ he was in her life. But then she hits puberty and the jig is up. To continue risks pregnancy, plus she’s starting to get a woman’s body, and many of these men aren’t interested in that. So Mr. Avalon goes ahead and takes a wife, some poor, passive woman to serve as window dressing and help him appear suitable to the outside world. Now he clings to the fantasy of what he once had. And protects it jealously.” “Does Mr. Avalon have access to a computer?” Rainie asked Luke. “In his office.” She turned to Quincy. “If Mr. Avalon was involved with his daughter, would he have problems with her relationship with VanderZanden?” “He’ll have problems with any of her relationships. In his mind, she’s his.” “That’s it then. He found out, got angry—” “And got an alibi,” Luke interrupted flatly. They looked at him sharply. He was nearly apologetic. “I tried, Rainie. I stayed in town till eleven last night trying to break this guy’s story. I’ve probably pissed off every blue blood in the city and it still holds. Mr. Avalon was in a business meeting all day Tuesday. His secretary swears

On the other hand, some of the family’s impatience with the public is justified. When I use Federal Express, I accept as a condition of business that its standardized forms must be filled out in printed letters. An e-mail address off by a single character goes nowhere. Transposing two digits in a phone number gets me somebody speaking heatedly in Portuguese. Electronic media tell you instantly when you’ve made an error; with the post office, you have to wait. Haven’t we all at some point tested its humanity? I send mail to friends in Upper Molar, New York (they live in Upper Nyack), and expect a stranger to laugh and deliver it in forty-eight hours. More often than not, the stranger does. With its mission of universal service, the Postal Service is like an urban emergency room contractually obligated to accept every sore throat, pregnancy, and demented parent that comes its way. You may have to wait for hours in a dimly lit corridor. The staff may be short-tempered and dilatory. But eventually you will get treated. In the Central Post Office’s Nixie unit—where mail arrives that has been illegibly or incorrectly addressed—I see street numbers in the seventy thousands; impossible pairings of zip codes and streets; addresses without a name, without a street, without a city; addresses that consist of the description of a building; addresses written in water-based ink that rain has blurred. Skilled Nixie clerks study the orphans one at a time. Either they find a home for them or they apply that most expressive of postal markings, the vermilion finger of accusation that lays the blame squarely on you, the sender.

She didn’t know what to do. There was no good answer. She was smart enough to know that. And dumb enough to be in this situation. “Leni?” She heard her mother’s voice, recognized the concerned tone, but it didn’t matter. Leni felt distance spreading between them. That was how change came, she supposed: in the quiet of things unspoken and truths unacknowledged. “How was Matthew?” Mama asked. She walked over to Leni, peeled off her parka, hung it up, and led her to the sofa, but neither of them sat down. “He’s not even him,” Leni said. “He can’t think or talk or walk. He didn’t look at me, just screamed.” “He’s not paralyzed, though. That’s good, right?” That was what Leni had thought, too. Before. But what good was being able to move if you couldn’t think or see or talk? It might have been better if he’d died down there. Kinder. But the world was never kind, especially not to kids. “I know you think it’s the end of the world, but you’re young. You’ll fall in love again and … What’s that in your hand?” Leni held out her fist, uncurled her fingers to reveal the thin vial in her hand. Mama took it, studied it. “What is this?” “It’s a pregnancy test,” Leni said. “Blue means positive.” She thought about the chain of choices that had led her here. A ten-degree shift anywhere along the way and everything would be different. “It must have happened the night we ran away. Or before? How do you know a thing like that?” “Oh, Leni,” Mama said. What Leni needed now was Matthew. She needed him to be him, whole. Then they would be in this together. If Matthew were Matthew, they’d get married and have a baby. It was 1978, for God’s sake; maybe they didn’t even have to get married. The point was, they

The Steyer brothers deplore the Koch brothers’ big-money contributions, as they seek to trump them. That the formers’ money in part derives from coal investments matters little given their green intentions. The media are furious over rumor-mongering about Hillary Clinton’s health, but that is an ad hoc concern, not one born of principle about leaving the private health issues of public figures alone, given that they not long ago gladly trafficked in sick rumors about Sarah Palin’s supposed faked pregnancy.

That experience made it very clear that pregnancy wasn't all sitting in a rocking chair gazing out the window, or letting people make comments like, "You're glowing!" and "Look at you! All belly!" I was a mess. I puked for months, I peed my pants more than once, and on the day of my baby shower, I peed my pants while puking.

Abortion is one of the most commonly performed medical procedures in the United States, and it is tragic that many women who have abortions are all too often mischaracterized and stigmatized, their exercise of moral agency sullied. Their judgment is publicly and forcefully second-guessed by those in politics and religion who have no business entering the deliberation. The reality is that women demonstrate forethought and care; talk to them the way clergy do and witness their sense of responsibility. Women take abortion as seriously as any of us takes any health-care procedure. They understand the life-altering obligations of parenthood and family life. They worry over their ability to provide for a child, the impact on work, school, the children they already have, or caring for other dependents. Perhaps the woman is unable to be a single parent or is having problems with a husband or partner or other kids.2 Maybe her contraception failed her. Maybe when it came to having sex she didn’t have much choice. Maybe this pregnancy will threaten her health, making adoption an untenable option. Or perhaps a wanted pregnancy takes a bad turn and she decides on abortion. It’s pretty complicated. It’s her business to decide on the outcome of her pregnancy—not ours to intervene, to blame, or to punish. Clergy know about moral agency through pastoral work. Women and families invite us into their lives to listen, reflect, offer sympathy, prayer, or comfort. But when it comes to giving advice, we recognize that we are not the ones to live with the outcome; the patient faces the consequences. The woman bears the medical risk of a pregnancy and has to live with the results. Her determination of the medical, spiritual, and ethical dimensions holds sway. The status of her fetus, when she thinks life begins, and all the other complications are hers alone to consider. Many women know right away when a pregnancy must end or continue. Some need to think about it. Whatever a woman decides, she needs to be able to get good quality medical care and emotional and spiritual support as she works toward the outcome she seeks; she figures it out. That’s all part of “moral agency.” No one is denying that her fetus has a moral standing. We are affirming that her moral standing is higher; she comes first. Her deliberations, her considerations have priority. The patient must be the one to arrive at a conclusion and act upon it. As a rabbi, I tell people what the Jewish tradition says and describe the variety of options within the faith. They study, deliberate, conclude, and act. I cannot force them to think or do differently. People come to their decisions in their own way. People who believe the decision is up to the woman are typically called “pro-choice.” “Choice” echoes what is called “moral agency,” “conscience,” “informed will,” or “personal autonomy”—spiritually or religiously. I favor the term “informed will” because it captures the idea that we learn and decide: First, inform the will. Then exercise conscience. In Reform Judaism, for instance, an individual demonstrates “informed will” in approaching and deciding about traditional dietary rules—in a fluid process of study of traditional teaching, consideration of the personal significance of that teaching, arriving at a conclusion, and taking action. Unitarian Universalists tell me that the search for truth and meaning leads to the exercise of conscience. We witness moral agency when a member of a faith community interprets faith teachings in light of historical religious understandings and personal conscience. I know that some religious people don’t do

some patients they experience quite definite symptoms of depression. The available evidence indicates that fish oils that have been exposed to the air may develop toxic substances. My work and that of others with experimental animals has demonstrated that paralysis can be produced readily by over-dosing. Serious structural damage can be done to hearts and kidneys. I have reported this in considerable detail. (4) My investigations have shown that when a high vitamin natural cod liver oil is used in conjunction with a high vitamin butter oil the mixture is much more efficient than either alone.4 This makes it possible to use very small doses. Except in the late stages of pregnancy I do not prescribe more than half a teaspoonful with each of three meals a day. This procedure appears to obviate completely the undesirable effects. As stated elsewhere fish oils should be stored in small containers to avoid exposure to the air. Rancid fats and oils destroy vitamins A and E, (5) the former in the stomach

I'd sooner go through with a pregnancy than spend a night alone in my house knowing there was a snake in the yard.

I don’t hold any ill will. When I was so sick during my pregnancy with my daughter Birdie, I told Eric, “I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy.” And then I remembered, I don’t have any enemies, let alone a worst one. No, the people I want to focus on are Lesa, who was kind to me and went on to become a successful therapist, and you. If you are being bullied, whether it’s because you’re gay or someone decides they don’t like something about you, let me be the Lesa who says, “I see you.” You are perfectly made.

Pregnancy is at once a private and public experience. Pregnancy is private because it is so very personal. It happens within the body. In a perfect world, pregnancy would be an intimate experience shared by a woman and her partner alone, but for various reasons that is not possible.

This is why murder and suicide are both sins. It is God's prerogative alone, as Creator, to give and take innocent life..asserts human beings are the ones who control life and death..A moral duty to honor life supersedes the personal hardship that might come due to pregnancy..Jesus reveals that this man was born blind so that one day he might see, know, declare, and delight in the glory of Christ..If the rapist were caught, would we encourage this woman to murder him in order to get emotional relief?..the God of the gospel has a proven track record of working all things, including evil things, for his good purposes..he has the power, love, goodness, and grace to give you and me all that we need to persevere through difficulty..It's moral silliness and cultural suicide to say that government shouldn't take away people's right to choose. What matters is what we're choosing..Of course we are pro-choice on these and thousands of other things..I plead for you to step out of a muddled middle road that says, "I may not choose abortion, but I don't think we should take away others' right to choose it"..Such thinking is not enlightened tolerance; it is sinful indifference..God does not desire for you or anyone else to live with the pain of regret. It is altogether right to hate sin in your history. The pain of past sin is often a powerful deterrent to future sin, but don't let it rob you of the peace God has designed for you in the present.

The conclusions of this study noted that the possible sources of male michrochimerism included known pregnancies, miscarriages, vanished male twins, or sexual intercourse. This means that through intercourse alone there is a potential for women to hold onto male genes and DNA within their organs and blood stream for

There are many other intense feelings associated with pregnancy, which Gerald Caplan refers to as “a period of increased susceptibility to crisis, a period when problems of an important nature appear to be present in an increased degree.”2 In addition to the external economic and social changes there are internal changes, both metabolic and emotional. For mother there is a new role, particularly if this is her first baby; there is the aloneness of labor and the loneliness of being home with the baby, particularly if she previously had been a career woman; and there is the new responsibility of structuring time. There also is a profound realization for the woman having her first baby that she will never be a little girl again, that she has passed beyond the pale into the older

She was alone, uninhabited, she was herself again, after five months of that strange doubled existence.

Kerry had headed up the back stairs of the pub, and even as exhausted as she was, she’d still found it impossible to wipe that image of Cooper from her mind. The sun setting over his back, highlighting the breadth of his shoulders, sending shadows under those cheekbones, made more chiseled by the ridiculously gorgeous, shit-eating grin that had been on his face when he made it clear he was in town to stay. “For another twenty-nine days anyway.” Kerry pulled her pillow over her face and groaned. Part of her was still in utter shock that he was actually there, in her town. Hell, in her orbit at all. Other parts of her--most of them hormonally activated--were still all aquiver from that kiss. She groaned again and ground clenched fists into the mattress on either side of her hips. Damn, but that kiss… How many times had she lain in bed, just like this, only in a bunkhouse at Cameroo Downs, and wondered what it would be like to be kissed by Cooper Jax? Okay, okay, a whole lot more than kissed. But damn…that kiss alone had been worlds better than the best sex she’d ever had. So much so, he’d probably ruined her for having sex with mere mortals. So I guess you’ll just have to have sex with him, then. “Not helpful,” she grunted at her little voice, jerking the pillow off her face and thumping it on the bed beside her. Besides, even if she was willing to have some kind of fling with Cooper, fulfill even a sliver of the many, oh, so very many fantasies she’d had about the man, he’d made it clear from pretty much the moment he’d set foot back into her world that he wasn’t looking for a fling. He’d strolled right in and made it clear he was looking for a--no. She squeezed her eyes shut and tightened her lips, willing her mind to go blank. It didn’t work. She couldn’t shut it out. Cooper Jax had, basically, proposed to her. Then he’d walked all up and down a kelp-covered, low-tide seashore and listened to her enumerate the reasons why they couldn’t even contemplate such a union. Right before kissing her in a way that defied science and made her wonder if she might need a pregnancy test, before pretty much declaring he was going to spend the next four weeks making it as impossible for her to say no to his doing that again, and maybe more, as he could.

At one point when I was in the middle of the first season, I asked myself why I would want to watch a conservative Democrat destroy teachers’ unions and have joyless sex with a woman who looks like a very young teenager. I still had not answered the question when Claire pushed things to the next level in a scene so intensely creepy that it might count as the most revolting thing I have ever witnessed on television. A longtime member of the couple’s Secret Service security detail is dying of cancer, and Claire goes to visit him alone. On his deathbed, he reveals that he was always secretly in love with her and thought that Frank wasn’t good enough for her. Her response is almost incomprehensible in its cruelty—she mocks and taunts him for thinking he could ever attain a woman like her, and then puts her hand down his pants and begins to give him a handjob, all the while saying, in true perverse style, “This is what you wanted, right?” Surely Claire doesn’t have to emotionally destroy a man who is dying of cancer—and yet perhaps in a way she does, because she uses it as a way of convincing herself that Frank really is the right man for her. Not only could an average, hardworking, sentimental man never satisfy her, but she would destroy him. By contrast, Frank not only can take her abuse, but actively thrives on it, as she does on his. Few images of marriage as a true partnership of equals are as convincing as this constant power struggle between two perverse creeps. Claire is not the first wife in the “high-quality TV drama” genre to administer a humiliating handjob. In fact, she is not even the first wife to administer a humiliating handjob to a man who is dying of cancer. That distinction belongs to Skyler White of Breaking Bad, who does the honors in the show’s pilot. It is intended as a birthday treat for her husband Walt, who is presumably sexually deprived due to his wife’s advanced pregnancy, and so in contrast to Claire’s, it would count as a generous gesture if not for the fact that Skyler continues to work on her laptop the entire time, barely even acknowledging Walt’s presence in the room. In her own way, Skyler is performing her dominance just as much as Claire was with her cancer patient, but Skyler’s detachment from the act makes it somehow even creepier than Claire’s.

ChiroCynergy - Dr. Matthew Bradshaw | Pregnancy Chiropractor in Leland, NC Back Pain 30 million people nationwide suffer from neck and/or back pain, and this year alone, they will spend $40 billion to try and solve it. ChiroCynergy can help, whether the cause of your pain is down to a muscle/ligament pull or because of a subluxation (misaligned bone) in your spine. Let us help you get back to a pain-free life – by getting to the root of the problem instead of relying on painkillers and anti-inflammatory. ChiroCynergy - Pregnancy-Induced Back Pain Chiropractors in Leland, NC Back pain is common during pregnancy due to the changes occurring in your body. As your baby grows, the biomechanics of your body and your posture alter to make room for the baby. The additional weight and change in posture can lead to increased stress on the spine. Chiropractic can help ease the pain and prepare the body for a more natural birth process by keeping the spine and pelvis in optimal alignment for your baby’s journey. Let us take care of both you and your baby during and post-pregnancy with safe and specific hands-on care. Call ChiroCynergy the best pregnancy chiropractor in Leland, NC to schedule your free consultation with one of our doctors. We can properly assess any injuries you may have suffered – and possibly save you from years of chronic arthritic pain in the future. Call us: (910) 368-1528 #chiropractor_Leland_nc #best_chiropractor_Leland_nc #chiropractor_near_Leland_nc #chiropractic_in_Leland_nc #best_chiropractor_in_Leland_nc #chiropractic_near_me #chiropractor_near_me #family_chiropractor_in_Leland_nc #female_chiropractors_in_Leland_nc #physical_therapy_in_Leland_nc #sports_chiropractor_in_Leland_nc #pregnancy_chiropractor_in_Leland_nc #sciatica_chiropractor_in_Leland_nc #car_accident_chiropractor_in_Leland_nc #Active_Release_Technique_in_Leland_nc #Cold_Laser_Therapy_in_Leland_nc #Spinal_Decompression_in_Leland_nc

Motherhood seems to be a no-win battle: however you decide to do (or not do) it, someone’s going to be criticizing you. You went to too great lengths trying to conceive. You didn’t go to great enough lengths. You had the baby too young. You should have kept the baby even though you were young. You shouldn’t have waited so long to try to have a baby. You’re a too involved mother. You’re not involved enough because you let your child play on the playground alone. It never ends. It strikes me that while all this judgment goes on, the options available to women become fewer and fewer. I’m not even (just) talking about the right to choose—across the U.S., women have less access to birth control, health care, reproductive education, and post-partum support. So we give women less information about their bodies and reproduction, less control over their bodies, and less support during and after pregnancy—and then we criticize them fiercely for whatever they end up doing. This seems not only unfair to me but a recipe for societal disaster. I don’t have answers here, but I wanted to raise questions about what we expect of mothers and who we think “deserves” to be a mother and who doesn’t—and why we think that question is ours to decide.

Victoria came to understand that her depression was a distinct malady that came and went, but which affected her particularly during and after pregnancy. ... Yet Albert made sure the babies kept coming. "It is too hard and dreadful what we have to go through," Victoria complained. Men ought to "do every thing to make up, for what after all they alone are the cause of.

Abortion advocates often receive help from politicians in their crusade to discredit pregnancy-resource centers and limit their reach. In California, Democrats passed the “Reproductive Freedom, Accountability, Comprehensive Care, and Transparency Act,” which was drafted with the assistance of Planned Parenthood and enforced by two successive state attorneys general, Kamala Harris and Xavier Becerra.66 The law required pregnancy-resource centers to post large advertisements for the state’s free or low-cost abortion program. These centers eventually won a challenge against the law at the Supreme Court, which returned the case to a lower court, ruling that California’s statute likely violated the free-speech rights of the pro-life citizens operating the centers.67 California wasn’t alone in this project. Progressive cities across the country have tried to enact policies requiring pregnancy-resource centers to make disclosures that make them sound illegitimate and unqualified to serve pregnant women.68

rendered the aircraft no longer airworthy and was thereby beyond the scope of human endeavor to control.” The force that rendered the aircraft uncontrollable was unknown. Another report from a similar disappearance said that “no more baffling problem has ever been presented for investigation.” It was obvious to me that my research into the subject of missing planes had become an obsession, which had everyone concerned, because the media frenzy was over. The public’s fascination with the Bermuda Triangle had passed. I was the only one still fixated on it. One friend suggested it was pregnancy hormones, but Sarah thought I had lost touch with reality. A week ago, she’d begged me, yet again, to see a therapist. As I sat at the kitchen table, I felt the sweet sensation of my baby moving in my belly. It was like a flutter of butterfly wings. Was he kicking or rolling over? Or was he a she? I sat back and stared at those crash reports and realized how quiet the condo was. There was no music or television, laughter or conversation. It was just me, alone with the sound of pages turning. It wasn’t so bad in the daytime, but at night, in the darkness, with only one lamp at my desk or with the cold glare of the fluorescent light bulb over the kitchen table and the unbearable silence, I recognized how desperately I missed Dean.

Abortion is one of the most commonly performed medical procedures in the United States, and it is tragic that many women who have abortions are all too often mischaracterized and stigmatized, their exercise of moral agency sullied. Their judgment is publicly and forcefully second-guessed by those in politics and religion who have no business entering the deliberation. The reality is that women demonstrate forethought and care; talk to them the way clergy do and witness their sense of responsibility. Women take abortion as seriously as any of us takes any health-care procedure. They understand the life-altering obligations of parenthood and family life. They worry over their ability to provide for a child, the impact on work, school, the children they already have, or caring for other dependents. Perhaps the woman is unable to be a single parent or is having problems with a husband or partner or other kids.2 Maybe her contraception failed her. Maybe when it came to having sex she didn’t have much choice. Maybe this pregnancy will threaten her health, making adoption an untenable option. Or perhaps a wanted pregnancy takes a bad turn and she decides on abortion. It’s pretty complicated. It’s her business to decide on the outcome of her pregnancy—not ours to intervene, to blame, or to punish. Clergy know about moral agency through pastoral work. Women and families invite us into their lives to listen, reflect, offer sympathy, prayer, or comfort. But when it comes to giving advice, we recognize that we are not the ones to live with the outcome; the patient faces the consequences. The woman bears the medical risk of a pregnancy and has to live with the results. Her determination of the medical, spiritual, and ethical dimensions holds sway. The status of her fetus, when she thinks life begins, and all the other complications are hers alone to consider. Many women know right away when a pregnancy must end or continue. Some need to think about it. Whatever a woman decides, she needs to be able to get good quality medical care and emotional and spiritual support as she works toward the outcome she seeks; she figures it out. That’s all part of “moral agency.” No one is denying that her fetus has a moral standing. We are affirming that her moral standing is higher; she comes first. Her deliberations, her considerations have priority. The patient must be the one to arrive at a conclusion and act upon it. As a rabbi, I tell people what the Jewish tradition says and describe the variety of options within the faith. They study, deliberate, conclude, and act. I cannot force them to think or do differently.

In the first year alone, women saved $1.4 billion on birth control pills. Today we’re at a thirty-year low for unintended pregnancy, a historic low in teen pregnancy, and the lowest abortion rate since Roe v. Wade.

The first few months of life are very demanding on your baby. She's used to living in your womb and having your body regulate all her bodily processes. Her body now has to do it all alone. Her nervous system is forced to adapt and she now has to maintain her own breathing and provide oxygen and nutrients to her cells. During this stressful time, your loving presence regulates her hormones, immune & cardiovascular system and sleep patterns.

For self-control is common to all human beings who have made choice of it. And we admit that the same nature exists in every race, and the same virtue. As far as respects human nature, the woman does not possess one nature, and the man exhibit another, but the same: so also with virtue. If, consequently, a self-restraint and righteousness, and whatever qualities are regarded as following them, is the virtue of the male, it belongs to the male alone to be virtuous, and to the woman to be licentious and unjust. But it is offensive even to say this. Accordingly woman is to practise self-restraint and righteousness, and every other virtue, as well as man, both bond and free; since it is a fit consequence that the same nature possesses one and the same virtue. We do not say that woman's nature is the same as man's, as she is woman. For undoubtedly it stands to reason that some difference should exist between each of them, in virtue of which one is male and the other female. Pregnancy and parturition, accordingly, we say belong to woman, as she is woman, and not as she is a human being. But if there were no difference between man and woman, both would do and suffer the same things. As then there is sameness, as far as respects the soul, she will attain to the same virtue; but as there is difference as respects the peculiar construction of the body, she is destined for child-bearing and housekeeping.

I was still uncertain about how my unexpected pregnancy would affect our marriage. This was supposed to have been our time alone. I wanted to be beautiful for him; instead, my debut as Elvis bride was going to be spoiled by a fat stomach, puffy face and swollen feet (...) I intended to prove that a pregnant woman did not have to get fat

Her former tormenter has become her friend, her companion in a private world, which, until only a few days ago, was untainted by outside words and prying eyes. Her blood thins and begins to flow freely through her body, her mouth softens. She's no longer alone.