"FUCK YOU!" *

I don't curse. That is to say, I don't use what are commonly referred to as expletives, cusses, or bad words. Ann once told one of my work friends how I had gotten into an argument with someone in the past and had become so angry that I used the phrase "who the hell do you think you are?" My friend responded aptly: "I would have to be standing outside, arms raised, screaming to the raining and thundering night sky, illuminated only by lightning, naked, and covered with blood to reach that level of intensity." Which is, kind of, the point.
I, therefore, found it rather alarming when an innocuous ballad came on the radio last night lamenting the singer's uncertainty about being able to raise his children and I discovered I was so angry that I spat out the title of this post with a vehemence more suited to a torture chamber. I was angry... incensed... livid. I should not have been imposing myself on the public at that time.

There is, of course, back-story. If you've read my profile, you know that Ann and I were expecting a child. We are not anymore. This is sad and upsetting, but it is not so uncommon in the first trimester; there is ultimately nothing to do but accept it. But there is more back-story. Without going into too many details, Ann's pregnancy started out a little bit strangely; enough so that when she spoke to a doctor or nurse about it, they immediately wanted to find out what was going on. Okay, fine. There are a couple things that can go wrong this early in a pregnancy that could cause health threats for Ann. Ectopic pregnancy or psuedocyesis are two remote possibilities that might need to be treated. Might as well be safe about it, right? First thing's first; doctors want to test your blood to see if you are pregnant because four weeks is too early to see anything on an ultrasound.
So they schedule Ann for the blood test; she tests pregnant. The hormone levels are a little low for how far along they guessed that she was. So they schedule another test for two days later. Her hormones are supposed to double in two days; she has the test and the levels almost double. The nurses, or doctors, or the great Oz behind the curtain find the fact that the hormone didn't quite double slightly anomalous, so they schedule another blood draw for another two days later. And another. This is annoying, but not alarming; although it seemed to me that they could have taken only two tests a week and a half apart and achieved the same result. Whatever. Eventually they decided that Ann was pregnant enough to have an ultrasound. Let me stop the narrative here to make a small point that you can keep in the back of your mind; if any of these blood tests had shown anything out of the ordinary, they would still have to wait the same amount of time for the pregnancy to be far enough along to do an ultrasound.
So, Ann has a very early ultrasound. What they can see in such an early ultrasound is an amniotic sac and a yolk sac in the uterus where they belong. They can see that everything else looks normal. They think that they may be able to see a faint heartbeat. This is all good news... but it is not enough for the nurses/doctors/midwives. We are now under their microscope, and they want more information...

This story in all its detail is too long for a blog; to make it shorter:
Every step of the way they wanted more information, and it was never clear what purpose this information served. If something goes wrong with a fetus in the first trimester, there is nothing to be done. It survives or it doesn't. There is, then, no reason check up on what might be a very minor and fairly normal placental hemorrhage, or a possibly slow heartbeat, or an unexpectedly small fetus. Time will make the end result perfectly, patently clear. And now I can tell you from personal experience, that knowing all the things that might be going wrong with the life you hope is healthily forming does nothing good for you (or it) at all. Nothing.
After the third ultrasound in as many weeks, it became clear that the fetus was not viable. Although it is tempting, I am not going to blame that on he stress that was developed through all of these test. First trimesters are tenuous times. But in retrospect, had Ann never spoken to a doctor or nurse about her pregnancy, it would have happened, progressed, and ended just the same. We would have been excited, hopeful, and sad just the same. What we would not have had was the stress, the wasted time, and the massive amounts of worry in between. The only benefit ever possible from any of those tests was to make sure there was no (very unlikely) ectopic pregnancy; and only one test is required for that.

And now, after a fourth ultrasound, with pressure for a fifth possible tomorrow along with other tests, drugs and possibly surgery, I am furious and without a thunderstorm or a blood covered body to vent my ire.





* A few weeks after I wrote this, I wanted to censor the title badly; but I decided not to, for now. It reflects who I was that day, and perhaps will trigger Google and other parental filters to warn off more sensitive readers.

Gender/Sex/Species Ambiguity and Incarceration.

The backstory:
Somehow I had infuriated people with power. The details of how I had done so were not very clear to me, but there was a lot going on in the country that offered ripe suggestions. Congress was trying to pass a series of terrible laws that had the potential to hurt a lot of innocent people, authorities all over the country were finding legal excuses to obliterate Constitutional rights, and the Senate wanted to contribute. In any case, whatever I had been fighting against had gotten the power brokers mad at me. So now Ann and I were going to jail. It wasn't fair that she was involved; but none of it was fair.

The story:
Ann and I were talking about the fact that we were going to jail. We discovered a number of things that might end up making our sentence bearable. Most importantly, we had been assigned the same cell (room really; it was awfully swanky as far as prisons go) in the women's prison. In fact we talked a whole lot about what prison would be like during our sentence. We were worried about the jailhouse culture of bullying and threats and sexual strong-arming. We had read that this was less of an issue in jails for women, but that it was still an occasional problem. We figured if we could keep to ourselves, we could weather the storm.

So, we were taken to jail and processed. During the processing of my transfer and the confiscation of my belongings, the head warden came by to greet me. Everyone was immediately aware of who he was, of course, because he was the only man in the whole complex. I have probably made his visit seem congenial, but no. It became clear very quickly that he walked the same circles as the people I had so mysteriously offended. He didn't hate me, but he had it in for me, and he made sure I knew it.

When Ann and I were finally deposited in our cell, we spent some time commiserating about our situation and the injustice of it all. I told her about my run in with the warden and how I was worried about what he would do to make my life hell. We talked about it and decided that he was limited in what he could do to me. We were all women being held against our will by this man; so Ann and I figured we could build up enough support amongst all the women, that he couldn't do anything too serious without invoking the ire of the whole jailhouse. Eventually our conversation came to an end. I went over to my cot on the other side of the room to lie down and Ann went to her tree to roost.

Shortly thereafter, an announcement was broadcast that I was to be escorted by the warden to another occupant's cell. This woman was known to us as the buffest of the sexual strong arms. The warden had wasted no time in exercising his power over me; I was to be soiled the very first night. Resigned to my inevitable fate as the only other man in the whole place, I went back across to tell Ann that I would probably be forced into a sexual encounter with the other woman; I was not thrilled. When I got to Ann (who was also my cat Sydney, and a dove) she told me she had come to the same conclusion and was hoping I would be okay.

Then I woke up.