| january
6, 2007 |
||
http://www.anacam.com/doc/ana_voog_documentary.wmv
m's journal entry:
child
Ana and i are struggling with the idea of not having our child...we aren't
at all sure what to do. we're trying to be logical about it but also listen
to our intuitions, which have always been very important to the both of us
in leading us to decisions. my intuition has always been my source, what i
listen to all the time before i choose one thing over another. it's my guide.
Ana follows this too and always has, we have that in common. but in this instance,
both our intuitions are silent. it's a muddle. neither of us are being "told"
to go one way or the other. neither choice feels "right". and so
we only have our reason, our logical minds to fall back on, and to decide
purely rationally whether or not we want a child in our lives. OUR child,
that we created together in her womb.
this makes both of us uncomfortable. it sure as hell does me. my "right" brain is o.k. and has it's uses, but i've never trusted it in making important life decisions. i've always used it to help me ENACT my decisions once i've made the. but to let it do all the deciding....it makes me uncomfortable. but what choice do i have? do WE have?
we're thinking. we're mulling it over. we're meditating. trying to suss out what is right for us.
do we ant this baby? do we want an abortion? could we DEAL with an abortion and the trauma of it? but then could we deal with the traumas of raising a child on a very VERY limited budget, and after both of us just lately coming through from a difficult time in our lives. and just the both of us liking our time to be OUR time.
is it selfishness? what is it? what do we do? what CAN we do? what can we best LIVE with? and it's not even MY body. i don't have to deal with it on that level at all. it's Ana who has to deal with the real physical traumas and dangers of whatever we decide to do.
it's hard. hard.
we're thinking on it. thinking on it. it's a 50/50 split, at the moment.
4:19pm
i'm very fucking nervous about my
court date on monday.
i can't wait for it to be over. i'm seriously sick about it even tho i know
i am in the right and have evidence to most likely get this case dropped.
i went to the hospital where in my police report they wrote they took me to
for a psychiatric evaluation that never happened. i got a print out of the
times i had been there, my history of being there. and i was NOT there on
the date the cops said i was for a "psych evaluation".
so that should be proof enough that they wrote a false report on me , which
mena s what they did was against the law and i did nothing wrong. still, iam
nervous as hell.
i've gone over and over in my mind what to wear, what to say, trying to imagine
what the room will look like, how many people will be in the room, if i will
have to face those cops again, how i will be treated, will the judge be a
man or a woman, will the judge be fiair or horrible. the whole scenario makes
me sick.
i wake up almost every day on the edge of vomiting.
i don't think because i am pregnant but because i am so fucking nervous.
yesterday when i wrote about my trepidations about being a mother, i don't
think people got what i meant because all i got was people saying "*rah
rah*, it'll get better in your 2nd trimester, i kow you can do it, everything
is going to be ok, kids are wonderful" ( i know you all meant well, and
THANK YOU)
what i mean is i don't know if i
want to be a mother. in fact i am quite certain i do not. i never have wanted
to have a child. this was something i never had any desire to do.
i have no doubt that if motherhood were forced upon me, i would be a very
good mother. i do not doubt my parenting skills at all.
but i cannot afford a child. i can barely afford to pay for my own way in
life. i can't afford to move into a bigger place.
i cannot pay for my own medical bills let alone another human beings. where
is this child going to play with no back yard?
i have no credit, i cannot buy a house. how will it even have it's own room?
there is no possible way to childproof my apartment unless i decided to give
away just about everything i own.
i refuse to send my child to public school to be brainwashed with a bunch
of silly nonsense but i do not have the money for anything else.
i do not want to give up the life i have now and dedicate my life to another
human being.
i want to work on my art when and where i want to. i want to travel. i want
to be able to go for walks by myself or anywhere i want to without having
to take a child with me.
i don't have any money to pay for baby sitters.
i don't want to sign up for social services and be a "welfare mother"
at age 40.
i don't want the mental strain of having to war the collective societal mind
hive about raising a child on cam.
i don't feel like being crucified anymore than i already have been and am.
the world is already over populated. i don't want to being a child into a
world where the oceans and all of nature is on the verge of dying, WW3 is
about to break out, etc etc ad nauseum.
i like my time to myself. i do not feel a need for a family or for any children
to take care of me in my "old age".
i have no egotistical desire to continue my family lineage.
i don't want to fight society on how i would want to raise my child, which
would be very unconventional.
i don't have the strength for it. i'm sick of fighting just to live my own
unconventional life.
if i get an abortion i am also not prepared for the onslaught of hate mail
and death threats i will most likely receive.
i've already been called every name in the book and "baby killer who
is going to fry in hell" is not exactly something i'd like to ad to the
list. but if that is what is going to happen if i should decide that, then
so be it.
it had been interesting how, because i am pregnant, i have gone up a few notches
in people's minds. like now i am more "noble" somehow and fulfilling
a higher purpose (finally).
it's subtle, but i am looked up to more as an actual human being who is "doing
something" miraculous, noble, and "right".
i was not prepared for the intoxication of that since i have always taken
the queer path and not the straight and not much i have every done has every
gotten the collective mind hive "stamp of approval". relatives are
finally taking notice of me. i suddenly feel more "special" because
i am now carrying a potential second life.
it would be hard to give up the "nobleness" of motherhood and be
automatically swicthed to babykilling selfish whore within 2 seconds flat.
but such is the world and it is a struggle.
maybe i will still have it. it's about 50/50 right now and it's down to the
wire.
i have cried many days and nights about this. i have agonized about it. it's
hard to make such a life decision in only 4 weeks of knowing.
i have considered all my options as thoroughly as i can and how i would be
able to hypothetically deal with each scenario.
all the abortion precedures are horrendously traumatic.
whenever i try to just get a fair and balanced look at them, i am taken to
some pro life page filled with photo after photo of mutilated fetuses and
massive guilt trips.
they are effective as they tel lme my child is now sucking its thumb and swimming
around happily like a little goldfish in my womb, bouncing around in total
glee and innocence.
yet when i try to "access" this in my body i feel absolutely nothing.
i don't feel a "soul" in me. i don't feel the presence of a personality
or being. i don't feel love for it or dislike either. i do feel protective
of it and i do everything to assure it's wellbeing while it's in there.
i do not feel a glowing sense of motherly love, since i have not even met
this a "person" yet, if indeed this thing is a person yet. but i
do feel the primal mother lion thing of protectiveness. i hold no animosity
towards it.
and i hold my hand to my belly and try to send it anything positive i can
muster, although it's hard because i am scared shitless. and then i guilt
myself out that i am not glowing 100$ love towards this thing in me. i wonder
if it can already sense my anxiety and i a somehow negatively effecting it.
it's constant worry and not knowing.
i asked the universe to give me a sign...anything....which is the "right"
decision?
the answer i get back is no decision is the wrong decision, any decision will
be the right one.
i received this message with loving compassion.
i must be compassionate and loving with myself.
i find that hard to do right now.
my head says, logically, i should not have this child.
my heart is all a muddle and i do not seem to have access to it.
nothing seems like the "right" decision perhaps because all the
choices are "right".
there is no wrong choice, there is only what i want and where i want to go
and what i want to do with this life.
it's up to me.
and , of course, M. we have talked about this together for this entire time.
we are making the decion together and we are both about 50/50 split at the
moment. torn.
this is extra hard because i am 40 and if i do not have this child, i will
probably not have another one.
whereas for M, he really does not want a child at the age of 25 but now the
seed is planted in his mind that maybe he would like one when he is older,
and i will not be able to give him a child then. but on the other hand he
knows he would love this child very much. i know he would be a good father,
as hard as that would be at age 25, working in retail.
but we can still adopt. which is always what i thought i would do anyway,
if i wanted a child. there are so many who need adopting. i feel selfish to
bring another child into this world. but i feel selfish to not bring it into
this world.
i feel damned if i do and damned if i don't.
it's hard enough just to make this decision by MYSELF let alone the pressures
of society bearing down upon me in a way i was not prepared for.
this is the most intense, emotional, and politically charged thing i have
ever been faced with on every level.
i think it is easy for everyone with
a child to tell me that they are so glad they had theirs and all the pain
and suffering and sorrow has been opaid back in spades and it's changed their
life for the better and on and on.
and i think that is great.
but i do not feel a need to create in this way.
for me, i have other things to create that are just as "important".
i do not subscribe to the idea that the most inmportant and noble and miraculous
thing a woman can do with her life is to give birth to a physical entity.
there are infinite ways to create, and infinite things to create, each crucial
to "being" and "purpose".
stil, i do not know what i will do
yet. these are just my thoughts on it today, and they change hourly.
+++
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