Passion Sucks


I am really getting sick and tired of passion. It takes a lot of energy. It is draining. It gets my insides in a wad and sometimes it feels a lot like anger, even though I like to call it passion. I’m thinking this because I was in the airport heading back from Colorado and I was so uptight I could hardly talk to my family. I was like a walking time bomb. I’m surprised I made it through security. And what profound and meaningful event stirred up my passion like this? Oh, you know, reading BlogHer blogs….

The first post from Laureism really set me off. It was about having kids when you are older and how this has worked out really well for some people and I’m all great with that because I’m 40 and a new Mom and I agree with a lot of what she is saying until she says, “Oh Please!!” about the critics who say it can be harder to get pregnant when you are older, because fertility problems can happen at any age and I go NUTS!

REALLY!!!! So maybe all of the seven million 35+ year old women I spent the last FOUR years with in THREE different fertility clinics in TWO different states were just MAKING IT UP! I’m SO happy that you got pregnant SO easy when you were 40 but my eggs were too old when I was 35, so you probably shouldn’t be giving fertility advice! It is SOOOOO real that some women who wait to get pregnant DON’T get pregnant and some pay $100,000 to get pregnant and some have risky and complicated pregnancies that scare the entire family nearly to death just from thinking about it!

Well, it went something like that in my mind. I was so passionate (or angry) about it. I only had a few minutes to write a comment and I ended my comment with a stupid sentence, which I’m very capable of writing, something like “If we were being honest, we need to admit that women who wait may not be able to get pregnant.”

I am also very PASSIONATE about STUPID sentences like that. I was able to edit the comment on BlogHer to strike out the sentence and write an ending that didn’t question the personal moral character of the person I disagreed with.

I tried to calm down and not think about the millions of 30 year olds who will go childless after reading that post and deciding to wait to get pregnant. It is amazing that I can have this thought WHILE taking deep breaths.

Later that day, when I read another post, this one from Her Bad Mother, and I went NUTS again, not because of the post itself, but because of some of the comments! It was a post about the AMA making a statement about a hospital birth being safer than a home birth and maybe setting the stage to legislate against home births. And I’m good with the home birth thing and I think women should have the option to do what is best for them and their family and I would oppose legislation against home births. But there was a theme in some of the comments, a theme that makes me NUTS about how women are victims of an evil medical industry that pumps you with drugs that you don’t need and forces C-sections on you and has the nerve to monitor your baby for hours on end.

REALLY!!!!!!! Because the last time I had a baby, my doctor asked if I wanted drugs or not and if I didn’t want them he didn’t give them to me. And who is the doctor who is giving C-sections to women without their consent? REALLY??? He just starts operating without asking first? And “Oh, No!!” about the doctor wanting to monitor the baby, have you heard of a birth plan? You get to have a birth plan where you agree ahead of time how much monitoring and intervention there will be and if you and your doctor can’t agree on the plan, then find another doctor!

I know, doctors can play the authority card and influence his patients about options that might not be best for them. It is true that women need to educate themselves to make the right decisions for them and in some places it might be hard to find a doctor open to a less conservative approach. But I believe that is the exception and I REALLY, REALLY don’t like the story, the one that says women are the helpless victims of evil male doctors so the only option is a home birth. That story makes me NUTS!

So then I was all in a wad again and I could hardly sit down and I couldn’t even read while I was waiting for our plane because I was too wound up and I kept thinking that Passion Sucks.

Is it worth it? Why did I read the blog postings? Why did I bother to comment? Why get so wound up?

Maybe I should be passionless, you know, more bland and less excitable and that would be a better life.

Oh, no, not that. That can’t be right.

I’m looking for a more graceful passion. One that doesn’t have the knee-jerk, gut-level, emotional reactions that are more about being angry than being passionate. I don’t want to feel angry with the people I disagree with. I want to learn and have ideas and share opinions and I want to be able to communicate well and maybe influence others. I want the center of that to be love and joy instead of anger.

Well, those are awfully big words and I’ve got a way to go before I get to that place. But at least I know where I’m headed. I board the plane going back home to Austin with my family and remember to hold hands with my husband and kiss my girls. I hope I can find this more graceful passion, the kind that doesn’t suck.

BlogBurst.com

Mom Blog Network

Parenting Blogs - Blog Catalog Blog Directory

Archives

--> -->

Write a Comment

Take a moment to comment and tell us what you think. Some basic HTML is allowed for formatting.

Reader Comments

Comment Number:
1
Written by:
zellmer
Posted on:
June 25, 2008 at 12:08 pm

Well, I admire your passion. It made me laugh to know that somebody out there gets as worked up as I do.

Now let’s have lunch.

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Jenna
Posted on:
June 25, 2008 at 2:50 pm

It’s so complicated, life. The making of it, the living it.

I must admit that until I observed your pregnancy and Baby Girl’s birth I was pretty clueless about fertility issues. You’ve helped me be more compassionate.

Please don’t kick me out of the family for thinking this, but for most of my life I’ve believed that if a woman is unable to have a child “naturally,” it’s either adoption or radical acceptance of childlessness.

But for some of us, motherhood is a calling. It’s a rite of passage, a passion stronger than anything else.

So I’ve changed my mind. There should always be a choice, for all of us.

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Carol
Posted on:
June 25, 2008 at 6:46 pm

I spent a time thinking the fertility business was too Brave-New-World, an unnatural and bizarre take on what should be very natural. But I’ve known since I was a girl that I wanted to be pregnant and have babies. Yes, it was a calling.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
Clare
Posted on:
June 27, 2008 at 11:43 pm

Carol,
I read the Blogher Blog by “Laureism” and I truly felt that her thoughts and writing were plainly naive. The notion that the lay of ones life is a choice is *fabulously* naive, to the point of arrogance. In my own arrogant way, I wonder how “Laureism’s” life has any genuine passion of depth if she is so short on empathy and experience.

In any case, she hit a very raw nerve in you, and I’m sorry for the hurt. NO one can deny the sorrow and sacrifice you’ve made over the past 4 years. On the other hand, you are a wiser, kinder more compassionate person than she. And you have a beautiful family. Nyah! Oops, that wasn’t very graceful of me! :)

As for the doctor/midwife debate: I’ve been at four births, two of which were my own kids’ births. Three of the births I’ve witnessed had birth plans. One birth had a female physician. One birth had a female midwife in a birthing center. In all four births, the mother/I wound up having things stray from the birth plan against the mother’s/my preference. All four births were not what the mother’s/I had hoped for. Yes, the babies/moms/I were all healthy. But as you know, if the hope/calling craves satisfaction, and if it isn’t satisfied, then there is loss. I tried very hard to have both my kids’ births go as I wanted them to go. But then they didn’t because the midwife/doctor didn’t honor my wishes. If a mother is denied something (by someone she trusted) because decisions were taken out of her hands when she was in a compromised position, then that is a very bitter pill to swallow.

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Carol
Posted on:
June 28, 2008 at 9:03 pm

I see the post by Laurism differently. I disagree on some of the details, but her basic idea is that she doesn’t want to be judged for being an older Mom and I understand that. I’m an older Mom too.

The birthing experience is so interesting, there isn’t anything else in the world like it. My take on it is different than a lot of the women posting and commenting about the AMA issue. For me, if my baby is born healthy, then I’m good. I’m not so particular about the rest.