The Importance of Honesty in Mixed Faith Relationships

All told Andy and I have been together in some form or fashion for twelve or thirteen years. We met in college, started dating about a year after that and things quickly progressed once we were dating. So here we are now, 8 years of marriage, two kids, a cat and a dog. And most days the fact that we’re also a mixed faith couple doesn’t come in to play. We’re too busy living life to notice. But other times it does.

If you’ve met someone who has different religious belief than you do and want to pursue a relationship with them, let me share with you what would have made this journey a helluva lot easier. Honesty. Even if it’s difficult, even if it hurts, even if it may mean ending the relationship. Be honest. Because while there are a lot of good things in our relationship, it could all come crashing down because of the dishonesty that was sown at the beginning of it.

Wake Me Up When September Ends

This has been a frustrating month.

I made several big decisions, and life seems o be enjoying sending every obstacle in my path, as if testing me and asking if I really do want to continue on that path. Take the genetic testing for Buddy. I called the place that does genetic testing, and they told me I’d need a referral from his pediatrician. So I call his office and they tell me to just walk into the clinic and get it done.

Why We Need Planned Parenthood

“Do you know where I can get cheaper birth control pills?” she asked. “I can’t afford them at the local clinic.”

“Have you tried applying for Medicaid?” I asked. As I live in Texas, and our governor in his infinite idiocy refused the Medicaid expansions. So if this young woman lived in another state she would likely have access to Medicaid and free birth control. As she lived in Texas, though, this was not a guarantee.

“I tried, I was rejected.”

The nearest Planned Parenthood is over an hour away, a prohibitive distance for a lot of my clients. I explained this to her and she asked about the local crisis pregnancy center. I explained they do not provide medical services such as prescriptions for birth control. What I didn’t say was that the only thing they do is employ scare and shame tactics to sway women away from abortion.

I felt the frustration and anger I’ve been feeling all year. Earlier in the year I had several clients become pregnant at the same time (we joked about there being something in the water). All of them had wanted tubals after having their last child, but were refused for reasons that weren’t explained to them, even though one of them had five children. And though they had attempted to take care of their reproductive health, they were labeled irresponsible for getting pregnant. Even though none of them had planned their pregnancies they accepted them, even as they worried about supporting another child.

Usually a woman can get on pregnancy Medicaid quickly. At the time this happened the system was overwhelmed, and it took several months for them to get on Medicaid. A month is a long time when you’re pregnant. One, due to bureaucratic errors, had an even longer wait. Worse, she was starting to suspect something was wrong with the pregnancy. She looked ill, with a greyish tint to her skin. She was worried about gestational diabetes, something she nearly developed in a previous pregnancy.

But her Medicaid was delayed. And she lived too far away from Planned Parenthood to go in for a check up. The crisis pregnancy center couldn’t help her. She waited and waited, looking more and more ill each time I saw her. Her life, and the well being of her fetus was at risk because she could not get to a Planned Parenthood!

How in the hell is this pro-life?

Planned Parenthood provides a vital service for the community. The clients I see are impoverished. They qualify for foodstamps and other assistance. In the three years I have worked here I have NEVER seen a client have kids for the benefits. Like the group of clients I had at the beginning of the year most try to avoid becoming pregnant again, but due to a lack of access to reproductive healthcare, are unable to.

What I see is women wanting to get on birth control but being unable to afford it.

What I see is women having reproductive health crises and being unable to afford care for it.

What I see is women who are pregnant and unable to afford to see a doctor.

Texas is not expanding Medicaid. Planned Parenthood is under attack and there is nothing to support it in its absence. Where I work women do not have reliable access to reproductive heath care. And I see the harm of it. Every day.

End of Life Musings

It was November. Buddy’s birthday was approaching. I was midway through my pregnancy with Sissy and the big gender reveal ultrasound was scheduled for the next day. I wasn’t feeling too good. In addition to being pregnant I had some sort of respiratory infection. And I got a call about my maternal grandmother. She wasn’t doing too well. She would need surgery and there was a good chance she wouldn’t survive.

It wasn’t a big shock. She’s in her 80s. She’s been on a downward spiral for a long time. Dementia, strokes, and now a fall that shocked her weakened body. Besides, I’d been lucky to get into my 30s with all four grandparents alive. I told myself this was bound to happen eventually.

I took a day off work and drove up to the hospital. When I walked in my grandma was vibrant. “I’m so sorry I’m not going to live to see Buddy’s birthday.” She said.

The Ups and Downs of Autism

Today has been easier.

Since Buddy started pre-school, we’ve seen exciting developments in his ability to speak. He’s requesting things well. He’s labeling things. He’ll point and name the cat, then he’ll point and name the dog, and then his baby sister. He’ll narrate what he’ll see characters in books doing. “Wash hands. Brush teeth.” He’ll tell people bye-bye. Sometimes I’ll have a small conversation with him. He’s still not where a kid who is nearly five should be, but it’s progress.

All the same, his behavior has taken a huge backslide. He’s been extremely clingy with me, throwing things, and constantly harasses Sissy. It seems if I set her down he runs over to push her. The only way we can get him to stop is to fuss over her. “Oh no, Sissy, someone pushed you! You poor sweetie! Why don’t you walk with Mommy for a bit?”

Seeing Sissy get all of the attention takes the fun away. But this Saturday he really escalated to attempting to bit her. We held firm with giving her the attention, and finally this morning he’s back to being gentle with her.

Autism is baffling. These last three weeks have been so hard because his behavior has backslide so much. Yet there’s the excitement over new words and his improved ability to communicate. But living with him has been so much more difficult.

Hopefully Saturday was the worst of it and things will settle down and improve from here on out. Today he’s even been entertaining himself, playing with some baby dolls and saying “Baby! Baby sleep!”

I Stand With Ahmed

I’m sure most people can remember what it was like to start high school. I remember I was nervous about making friends and fitting in. Considering I’m not very outgoing and rather introverted, this was doubly so. As the nerdy, geeky type, I would often wear “Star Wars” shirts and keep my books out in the open in the hopes that people with similar interests would notice and find me.

Ahmed Mohamed was starting high school. He was wanting to show his teachers what he could do and find a group similar to the robotics club he was in in middle school. Think about this. He was wanting to find encouragement and a group he belonged to. This need and want to fit in is extremely easy to relate to.

Instead he was accused of building a bomb, handcuffed, taken away from school, interrogated and booked. I nearly cried when I saw this picture. This look on his face is heartbreaking.

Here is a kid who has a wonderful hobby, a hobby he can make a career out of. And instead he was treated like a criminal.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t schools supposed to be a place where teachers encourage creativity and learning? Or, in additional to racial bias, are we so accustomed to teaching to a test that teachers are no longer able to think and instead make outrageous accusations? Think of how this could have been different if this teacher had asked about how he built it, or what the wires do, or tried to understand what he had built rather than assuming it was a bomb. This teacher blew a precious opportunity to encourage a child’s interests.

I am so glad that President Obama, Mark Zuckerburg and others have stepped out to support Ahmed. Hopefully this will counteract any damage that was done. I’ve seen people minimizing this saying that this was “character building” or “people are falsely accused all of the time.” While something good can come out of a bad situation and “build character”, it does not mean it was right or okay for it to happen in the first place! And while people are falsely accused, it does not mean that they were not damaged by the false accusation. As someone who recently was on the receiving end of some false allegations I can personally state it hurts a lot and I have lost a huge amount of trust and am still recovering. I wish everyone who has ever been falsely accused had people rise in support of them like Ahmed did.

Which is why I am adding my voice to those who support Ahmed. Keep inventing, keep pursuing your passions!

Social Inequities

This article about fairness struck a nerve with me. I’m a counselor, and my clientele consists mostly of people who live in extreme poverty. Working with this population is frustrating for many reasons, but by far the biggest challenge is that the system is so stacked against them. As a counselor, I work with the individual, and I have to believe in an individual’s ability to change his or her life. But when I see people constantly being pushed back by a system that does a better job of keeping them in severe poverty than lifting them out of this, this gets challenging.

Hope

I’ve been feeling frustrated and defeated all day. Buddy started a new pre-school a few weeks ago, and while we’ve noticed improvements in his communication and the way he is playing, he’s been very aggressive with his baby sister. I think it’s the change in routine that has set him off. Children with autism do no react well when their routines are changed. I keep telling myself it’s the autism, it’s the autism. But it’s still frustrating.

I took them to the park and there was another child slightly older than Buddy. Buddy had no interest in playing with him. Meanwhile this other child was talking very well and very engaging, and eventually came to the conclusion that Buddy was “crazy.”

Ever since I started to become concerned about Buddy’s communication delays, people have been patting me on the back and saying he will start talking. This has been going on for three years. Progress has been made but it is still agonizingly slow, and I’ve yet to have a conversation with him that goes deeper than him making a request. The thing that confuses people is Buddy is obviously incredibly smart, so they tell me he’ll eventually start talking.

But when eventually never seems to get here it is defeatening. Especially when I see where a child his age is, and all of the things that that child is doing that Buddy isn’t.

For a typically developing child, parents have a timeline. He should walk at around a year of age. He should point at seven months. Etc. But with a child with autism you have no timeline. You don’t know when a developmental milestone will happen or if it will happen. A child can be incredibly smart, like Buddy, and still grow up to be so severely autistic that he can’t live on his own. Or he could grow up to be a genius. Or anywhere in between. But since I don’t know I don’t know what to prepare myself for.

Before I had Buddy I did therapy with children with autism, and I saw a lot of parents chase snake oil cure after snake oil cure. When I became concerned about Buddy I decided I wasn’t going to do that. I was going to focus on unconditional acceptance. I found a autism support group in my area and quickly became disenchanted with it because I didn’t hold the extremist views of autism being caused by vaccines. Eh, more on that later.

Anyway, today I was feeling all of the frustration of being a parent with a special needs child, especially when you add the factor of autism where the long term prognosis is so uncertain. He could start talking in sentences tomorrow, learn to socialize and grow up to be independent one day. Or he may not. And after his inability to play with the other little boy, I was feeling pessimistic.

I’ve been aware of research showing that the reason for this uncertainty is not because autism is one disorder, but because it is hundreds of different disorders with differing causes. If we could find which type of autism Buddy has, then we could learn more about his prognosis and even what treatments would be best for him. I’ve been yearning for more research on this, hoping that it would lead to some sort of timeline so I could at least know what to expect.

Which was why, at the end of a long, defeating day, I was so excited to find this article about a genetic study that was doing just that, finding all of the differing genetic markers of autism and linking families with matches.

Finally! The potential for some real answers. Something solid and scientific, not snake oil.

Of course, this research is in it’s infancy so it’s possible there might not be any matches for Buddy. But we could contribute to a growing body of evidence that could help another family down the line. I even plan to submit a sample to see if Buddy’s gene variants are similar to mine. I was diagnosed with autistic tendencies as a child but I grew out of them, which gives me hope that he could. All the same, according to my parents, he is definitely further on the spectrum than I ever was.

This is the hope I have been looking for. Knowing if he’s going to start having conversations at 5, 13 or never. Knowing if I should prepare for a future MIT graduate or to start the process of getting him on disability. And even if we don’t find something that will be helpful for us, it could be helpful for our grandchildren or other family members.

Because the only thing I know for certain now is that Buddy is developing on his own timeline. Where the milestones will fall, or if they ever come up, is anyone’s guess. Anything that can shine some light on the future is greatly appreciated.

One of Each

My son, Buddy, will be five in a few months. My daughter, Sissy, is about 18 months. As I was the first of two girls I guess I always thought I’d have two girls myself, but I ended up having one of each. What interests with having one of each is the question of their differences. How much is personality? My sister and I are complete 180s and we were both girls. How much of it is the fact that Buddy is mildly autistic while Sissy does not appear to be autistic? How much is gender?

Buddy does have some very traditional masculine traits, and Sissy some very feminine ones. Yet what is masculine about Buddy he gets from me, and feminine about Sissy she gets from my husband.

Andy and I are rather open minded. We both want to encourage whatever interests they have, even if those interests aren’t gender typical. Buddy once really wanted a My Little Pony doll and it was no skin off our nose. Sissy loves playing with cars and is fascinated with books on them.

This morning I took them shopping, and Buddy saw some “Star Wars” balls. He really wanted one, so I grabbed it. Sissy saw this and wanted one of her own, and ever eager to indulge them in all thing Geek, I got her one. Buddy saw that she had one and decided he wanted a second one, and even the most devoted of Geek moms have to draw the line somewhere. Overall Sissy is mostly interested in the toys she sees Buddy playing with. She’s not paid too much attention to the sole doll she has, granted it may change as she grows older (I used to brag about how not all boys like cars because Buddy couldn’t be bothered with them, and then BOOM, Hot Wheels were suddenly the best thing ever according to him).

All the same, Sissy really gets into having her hair done and choosing which hair bow she gets to wear. Obviously Buddy does not wear bows. Well, when she was an infant he would take them off of her and put them on him, but eventually he got bothered with how they felt and stopped. So while she really wants to play with the toys that Buddy does, she doesn’t want to dress like him.

I dropped Buddy off at school and went home with Sissy, and she started kicking the ball to me. Later she hung up a dress on a hanger and walked to the closet and tried to put it up (she was obviously too short for this). I keep saying that in a few years her room will be immaculate and his will be a disaster area. Yet this is one of those cases where like her kicking me the soccer ball (Buddy would not have done that at her age, he just hoarded toys he didn’t actually play with them) I’m not sure if it’s gender or autism.

When you have one of each, it seems as if it would be so easy to caulk up every behavioral difference as gender related. Sissy is good at cleaning because she’s a girl. Buddy loves hiking because he’s a boy. But there are so many other factors it’s really hard to say. And, when dealing with such a small sample size, really hard to draw sweeping conclusions either way.

And at the end of the day, as long as they grow up strong in the ways of the Geek, then it really doesn’t matter.

The Nature of Memory

Last night my husband and I had a disagreement as to whether or not I got mad at him and threatened his life while I was in labor with our children. I don’t remember being mad at him, and I actually don’t remember talking much while in labor. I get quiet when I’m stressed and tend not to talk. Andy agreed that I didn’t talk while I was in labor, but immediately after having Buddy I did, and I was cursing Andy’s existence.

I asked him what he was talking about, and he said that when my blood pressure dropped, I started hallucinating and cursing him.

Now let me back up. After Buddy was born his lungs had a hard time fully expanding so they took him to the NICU as a precaution. Andy left with Buddy. Sometime after that I started to get cold and was shivering. The nurse told me it was normal and wrapped me in some heated blankets. Sometime after that, though, my blood pressure started to drop.

So there I was wrapped in heated blankets and suddenly I was getting incredibly hot and feeling extremely weak. So weak that, wrapped in blankets as I was, I couldn’t even lift my arms to hit the nurse call button. I remember being ALONE, my blood pressure dropping, and getting scared that no one would notice.

Eventually the nurse came in and my blood pressure stabilized without me fainting. Life went on. That’s how I remember it at least.

Andy remembers that he was in the NICU briefly and was sent out and he returned to my room and was there when my blood pressure dropped, and that when it happened I started hallucinating. The way he describes it is like something from “The Exorcist.” Now, Andy is prone to exaggeration. And his memory of how things happen change to justify whatever point he is making. That’s the way I see it at least.

So I remember being alone when my blood pressure plummeted. Andy remembers being there and witnessing quite the show.

And, here’s the thing, we’re not going to be able to prove it one way or the other. And therein lies the fascinating thing about memory. It is highly reconstructive. Meaning that rather than pulling up a blow by blow video tape of how the event unfolded, we’re really retelling the events in our mind, making them prone to errors in the retelling process. Kind of like a game of Telephone.

We like to think of our memories as an accurate tape recording of what happened, but this is not the case, for many reasons. For one thing, how we process the information our senses are receiving may not be accurate. For instance, if I was hallucinating I might remember seeing a floating tree in the room and really it was just the funny angle I was looking at the curtains. So we may not be accurately storing what we hear, see, taste or smell in the first place.

Second we often see our memories through the lenses and biases of the present. So, let’s say Andy thinks that I was cursing his hide, hence he remembers me hallucinating when I wasn’t.

Elizabeth Loftus’ research on memory is fascinating. Yet when I read it, I can’t help but wonder if ANYTHING I remember is anywhere close to what really happened. For the most part, this doesn’t matter too much. There’s no life or death decision in the balance of whether or not I hallucinated when my blood pressure dropped after having Buddy.

Other times this helps to explain why a strange event occurred and, in attempting to explain it, people devised a supernatural explanation. This is also mostly equally harmless. But when determining a person’s innocence or guilt based solely on memory, this becomes more problematic. Think about it. Think about all of the times you remembered something one way and someone else remembered it completely different. Think about it.