Welcome to my Blog!

Hi and welcome to my blog. I'll use this space to introduce myself.

First, the basics! I started as a queer SAHM (Stay At Home Mom). Most of this post is intact from then, so it's a mess compared to where I am now. I have four kids. I'm an alternative"l mom in a lot of ways. I practice attachment parenting (AP). I'm into body modification (ONLY consensual), am a gamer (video games, haven't LARP'ed since high school and never table top RPG'ed), practice a couple areas of natural living, and am a nerd/geek (sci-fi, anime, etc.). I'm a neopagan (for lack of a better term... I'm atheist, too) and yes, I believe in astrology and tarot to a certain extent. I'm also dcience minded. No, I don't find it contradictory, lol. We homeschool.

I am a WAHM (I now have a career as a writer) both by choice and not. I'm disabled, so the choice was taken from me, but we had planned for me to become one. No, we're not rich, not by any means! Not even close. Not in money, anyway. Since what I did was childcare anyway, it made absolutely no sense for me to work taking care of other people's kids while someone else took care of mine, lol.

Having kids wasn't easy for me. The choice certainly was, but it took 18 months to conceive my first. I have endometriosis and was on depo provera, which caused uncontrolled weight gain and possibly the infertility. We had totally given up on conceiving when, though I couldn't remember how late I was (I was 8 weeks pregnant), I was feeling like crap and asked my sister to pick up a pregnancy test, even though I thought I had the flu. Waited for my husband to get home and didn't believe the little + until a doctor confirmed it when I was 12 weeks pregnant. I was sure it was a tumor or something until I heard her heart beat. She was born by iatrogenic cesarean at 42 weeks after a 22 1/2 hour long labor with an hour and a half of pushing. Her sister was preceded by two lost babies and was born by VBAC into my hands at 39 weeks, 6 days after a 23 1/2 hour labor and twenty minutes of pushing. My next two were natural, born at a birthing center and home, respectively.

For AP... I just researched a lot during the TTC time and ended up planning to do basically everything in AP long before I ever heard about Dr. Sears (some of it, I had planned when I was just 15 and thought that I was very alone in disagreeing with mainstream parenting). I start out with the Happiest Baby on the Block stuff because it freaking works. I'm not sure if our first baby was just THAT easy or if it seriously helped.

I breastfeed (despite flat nipples and size 38I breasts that always require the C-hold). I've been through hell and back with it and never supplemented, out of pure stubbornness and faith; I found ways around problems that were supposedly unfixable. We did family bed in a king size bed on the floor. I don't get how anyone sleeps with a baby in a separate room. I sleep great (didn't start out that way, but who does with their first newborn?).

I wear my babies (I don't like slings and start out with a wrap, then move to my well-loved mei tai). I've also got a stroller. They're quite complimentary. I don't CIO. I've walked away to calm myself down, I've showered while baby was comforted by Daddy in the other room, but I don't just let my kid cry because they're inconveniencing me. I probably failed on the first two birth bondings. Whatever--my births were what they were.

For natural living--I do some EC (elimination communication) and part-time cloth diapered. We went with child-led weaning and I tandem nursed. We did child-led solids.

Birth: I advocate for natural childbirth, VBAC, do not condone elective cesareans or bullshit on the truth. I have not HAD a natural childbirth yet and it's one of my biggest regrets.

Politics: leftist; pro-life for myself, pro-choice because not my body, not my choice; intactivist (his body, his choice); lactivist (and happy to offer help to struggling mamas); equal rights activist (love is love and marriage isn't Christian in origin); animal rights activist (but anti-PETA); pro birth options (except unnecessary cesareans); pro-children's rights (anti-physical punishment); for public school reform; for social welfare programs and universal healthcare, etc.

Okay, so, now I think you have an idea of who I am and what this blog will be about. So now you know not to follow it if you don't like it! Let's all get along, okay? I don't like debate, I don't like fighting and I really just want everyone to life happy, healthy lives. Don't troll me. Everything is moderated and you'll never waste comment space.