Second Baby, Second Trimester

Well helllooooooo, DOLLY! 

Man oh MAN, has it been a while. My last post was shared sometime in…the fall?! Oy. That’s not a good look. 

I’m comforting myself in the fact that the reason I’d taken a break was a good one: I was a miserable, first trimester pregnant person. The other big change in our house was that in September, Mac started pre-school (really, more of a “Mother’s Day Out”), and while that’s left me with 3 mornings a week to myself, it’s oddly thrown off my writing routine. For a while, I was using those mornings to come home and lie down on the couch to wallow in discomfort. 

Are you sensing a theme? This pregnancy has been different! 

If you’ve been hanging around this blog for a while, you know that my first pregnancy was a BREEZE (you can read more about that here and here!). The Lord saw fit to humble me this time, though, and so I spent the first trimester plagued with all the most cliched and unsavory symptoms, from bloating and lack of...regularity, shall we say?...to migraines, bad skin to nausea. And the mood swings. And the CRYING.

Poor. 

Jordan. 

But now, blessedly, we are out of those woods - actually, almost all the way to third trimester! So I thought it’d be fun to document a little of what has been going on. 

How far along? I’m 26 weeks as of Sunday the 19th, due in late April! 

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Are you finding out the gender? We already know! But we’re keeping it to ourselves. :) We chose not to know with Mac, so we thought we’d have one of each kind of experience. It’s been so fun to have this little secret. We’ll share both gender and the name we’ve chosen when the baby is here! 

That’s Jordan’s man thumb, not mine. Just needed to make that clear.

That’s Jordan’s man thumb, not mine. Just needed to make that clear.

Total weight gain and body changes: Your girl has a LOT to say about this. 

I’ve definitely 20+ pounds. I honestly have no idea. I don’t look at the scale at the doctor’s office because I don’t really believe in knowing unless there’s a problem. 

My body is completely different this go-round. With Mac, I carried all my baby bump in the front. This baby is spreading out and taking up all the real estate possible, so my entire torso, both width-wise and front-to-back is full. Of. BABY. My legs are much bigger, my face is much fuller, and that definitely poses a threat to my confidence on some days. 

HOWEVER,

I’ll tell you this: bodies are amazing things. Everyone is different, looks different, gains and loses weight at a different rate. It’s a tricky thing to talk about because it’s such a sensitive subject for women generally, since most of us already have self-image issues prior to carrying a human life. It’s especially interesting in this culture of the “postpartum snap-back,” which lifestyle bloggers seem endlessly fascinated with publicizing. And while I want to “You go, girl!” anyone’s self-confidence in posting photos of themselves in a crop top 11 weeks after giving birth, I also feel like it’s super important to talk about the fact that pregnancy is not a competition. It was not made for Instagram, it was made for procreation. There are lots of unglamorous parts of this ball game and the slower recovery many women have to feeling like themselves again. I was lucky to lose a lot of my baby weight breastfeeding, but I could be a completely different recovery this time around, and that’s okay! 

Alllll of that to say, 

I don’t hold any judgments about how much weight people gain during pregnancy, or how long it takes people to fit back into their pre-pregnancy pants. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter unless there’s a health concern. It’s nobody’s business but yours and your healthcare provider’s! Unless, of course, you want to put on a public blog how much you’ve gained. Like I clearly do. It’s not a contest. Live your life, eat your truth, gain your weight, or don’t. Whatever. 

This is pure #secondchild-ness because this is a…lovely shot. I mean really. Just quality. And yet, it’s one of the only even semi-full-length photos from the last SEVEN MONTHS that I have!

This is pure #secondchild-ness because this is a…lovely shot. I mean really. Just quality. And yet, it’s one of the only even semi-full-length photos from the last SEVEN MONTHS that I have!

Favorite moments of the pregnancy so far: Like I said, since we didn’t find out the gender with Mac, finding out and telling our families has been SO FUN. Getting Mac to understand that there’s a “little baby” in my belly as opposed to our “big boy” (him!) has been so sweet. I remember one specific moment when I was reading a book to Mac, who was sitting in my lap, and the new baby started kicking. So sweet! Although I will say - there’s not nearly as much time to document, enjoy, and rest when you have another child to chase after. 

Food cravings: First trimester, it was anything beige. Truly. I would eat bagels, potatoes, cereal out of the box...that was all that sounded good and all I could stomach! Now I’m eating ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING, honey. I’ve never been a big meat-eater, so that’s still true, but if it’s in front of me? It won’t be for long. 

How we told our families: This time around, my favorite thing has been how casual everything has been. Don’t get me wrong - I live for a “big moment” and a surprise - but telling Jordan, my parents, and his parents was so fun, and part of why it was fun is because it was so simple. That’s also why I waited until much later to share on Instagram or Facebook - it was fun to have a secret to ourselves, just telling the people in our very close circle of friends or people we see every day. The old-fashioned way! 

Full disclosure: right after I found out, I experienced some feelings of grief. I felt a wave of sadness pass over me that my special time with just Mac was drawing to a close! That may seem unusual to read, but I wanted to share it just in case anyone else had experienced it. You’re not alone! Eventually, the more I talked about it and further along I got, I developed a lot of excitement. But it definitely took a few weeks to sink in because I love my boy and I had to do a little mourning of this “just the two of us” phase coming to a close.

Telling Jordan: I found out very unexpectedly, taking a “just to be safe” pregnancy test before I left for an all-girls trip to Chicago. I was shocked to discover that I was pregnant, which, as you can imagine, drastically changed the nature of that trip - ha! When Jordan got home that evening, he was walking around our backyard, dreaming up landscaping ideas. I told him he’d better make sure the fence was enclosed for Mac and his little brother or sister, who’d be arriving in the spring. He, like me, was dumbstruck, but SO happy. 

Telling our parents: While I was in Chicago, Jordan’s parents came up to visit and help with Mac, so Jordan told them then! This is a cute clip (just the audio) of them finding out - I made him record the audio and send it to me. 

 A week after we found out, we went to Bend, Oregon with my family for our annual family vacation. We told my parents at their house (where we spent the night before the trip) - Mom asked if I wanted a cocktail and I said, “I’d better not, since I’m pregnant.” It is one of the great joys of my life to watch my mother be both caught off guard and overwhelmed with excitement. Parker and Emily got told in the airport, boarding a plane! Cazzzzzual. I have no documentation of any of that because…well, airport. And #secondchild.

All in all, it’s been a crazy experience. The hormones, the yucky first trimester, and chasing after a 2-year-old have definitely made it a different ride than last time and have given me massive empathy for women whose pregnancies are all unpleasant or even largely unpleasant. But second trimester has me feeling GREAT, and if this keeps up, I’ll be a happy camper trotting into the hospital in April! 

Will probably share one more pre-birth update on the blog, just as a last gasp of this pregnancy. I didn’t really intend to write about it, but the more I thought about it, the more I loved having this platform to share. So why not? 

Yahoo, baby number two! 

The Truth About Vaccines.

Deep breath, and here we go!

It started in early April when I was having a conversation with my husband, Jordan, and his parents about vaccines. Our son is about 18 months, and Jordan’s sister has a 6-month-old. We were discussing the measles outbreaks all over the country, and kept asking ourselves, “Why wouldn’t people just get vaccinated?

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Before we go on, I want to say two things plainly and up front.

The first is that I am not a doctor or medical professional of any kind. I am an English and Religious Studies major from a small, liberal arts college in Alabama. The information reflected in this post is a result of my own reading, conversations, and research as a lay person, seeking information and answers to be better informed in my conversations around this issue.

The second is that I am pro-vaccination. I was before diving into this topic for my blog, and my research has only caused me to double down on that stance. My child has received all the vaccines available to him at this age, and I do not agree with or support the choice not to vaccinate unless specifically advised not to do so by a pediatrician because of life-threatening risk factors.

When I originally began kicking the idea for this post around, it was over a month ago. I thought I’d spend two weeks on it, but one conversation has led to another, which has led to e-mails back and forth with award-winning epidemiologists, moms who’ve chosen not to vaccinate, and vaccine experts. I have read and listened to so much - so many hours of work writing, reading, and learning - but what I’ve been exposed to is ultimately a tiny drop in the bucket of the loads of information out there to consume.

To be totally candid, one of the reasons I’ve spent so long working on this post because I’ve been trying to strike exactly the right, reverent chord of stating my opinions and the opinions of medical professionals, while still respecting the women who were kind enough to help me understand the reasons they chose not to vaccinate their children. The doctors I interviewed implored me not to be overly sympathetic to the anti-vaccination movement; the women I spoke to who didn’t vaccinate urged me to make sure I was doing my own research. It has been overwhelming, and so the best I can do here is relay the facts, as plainly as possible, and with the context I feel is important in understanding them.

What this month+ of reading, research, podcasts, and trading e-mails with new friends and with doctors has reinforced to me is that this is a very complicated issue.

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In an effort to actually get a conclusive answer to my “Why not just get vaccinated?” question, I posed it to my Instagram followers. Because of some partnerships I’ve done, I have a few hundred followers I don’t know personally, and I knew I’d have a broad spectrum of young moms with differing opinions. I asked them to Direct Message me if they had chosen not to vaccinate their children. I expected one or two replies and wound up with a little over a dozen.

Two women in particular offered themselves as guides through the mindsets of parents who choose not to vaccinate their kids. I took them up on their offers, and wound up with loads of information they provided to me in the way of explaining their rationale. There were tables, articles, and counterarguments to popular scientific theories. They poured so much effort and compassion into helping me get a clear window into their minds.

As I delved into the resources they sent, it became clear that lots of it was hyper-specific and in-depth. I decided I needed someone who knew more about this than I did to help walk me through the various anti-vaccination arguments.

Through some friends, I was able to hook up with two epidemiologists, one of whom is an MD/PhD and the other of whom is a PhD. I won't mention them by name here to avoid any unwanted attention, but both women teach at major universities and have published very well-known papers, made discoveries, and are considered top-tier experts in their fields. For the sake of this post, we'll call them Dr. Brown and Dr. Jones. I synthesized the basic arguments from my new friends and sent them to Dr. Brown (MD/PhD) first, then Dr. Jones (PhD) a few weeks later. They were both kind enough to reply with articles, data points, and research of their own.

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When I polled Instagram that day, I’ll admit: I did so with a very particular preconception in mind. The only people I’d ever met or heard about in the “anti-vaxx” community seemed to be willfully ignoring important data. I didn’t have much sympathy or empathy for them because I felt they were putting people at large (and now my child specifically) at risk.

Since polling my Instagram followers a few weeks ago, I have learned so much. As is usually the case when I have a strong (if uninformed) opinion about a group of people, getting to know parents of unvaccinated kids personally has softened my heart enormously.

The truth is that these parents love their children. They are nurturing, kind people, two of whom went to great lengths to type out pages and pages of their rationale for not vaccinating. Putting a human face on something that was simply an “issue” before has helped me so much in beginning to understand how people arrive at the conclusion not to vaccinate. It’s easy to call a point of view ignorant when you don’t actually know anyone in that camp; I am very appreciative of the moms who took time out to respond to me. These women are college-educated - certainly not ignorant, as is a popular refrain from the pro-vaccination camp - and have made this choice with that they feel is the best possible information that they can find. It’s very important to me that this post offers a kinder view of people with this opinion. I don’t think they’re right, but in all the cases I’ve encountered, they’re also trying their dead-level best to protect their kids. Like every issue, just because I disagree with someone doesn’t mean I have to demonize them.

And we don’t agree. In fact, we almost categorically disagree. But I have relished the opportunities they each provided: a chance to have respectful, intelligent conversation across lines of difference, especially with fellow women.

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Having said all that, let’s dive into the data. I hope you’re ready to nerd out.

What are some of the major objections to having one’s child vaccinated?

  1. Mistrust of government.

  2. Mistrust of the medical community.

  3. Mistrust of Big Pharma.

  4. Fear of vaccine injury or overwhelming a child’s immune system.

  5. Fear of autism caused by vaccines.

  6. Lack of clarity about ingredients, AKA the “heavy metals” argument.

  7. Ethical issues over “aborted fetal cells” being included in vaccine content.

  8. Believing that natural is best, and that the body can fight off illnesses on its own.

  9. Belief in information dispensed by groups like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Children's Health Defense.

  10. Concerns about vaccine shedding, herd immunity, and lack of adult vaccination.

What does the medical community say?

Mistrust of the government. It’s hard to argue against a feeling, but Dr. Peter Hotez (MD, PhD, and vaccine expert) made a great point in a podcast where I heard him interviewed: “You don’t have to trust the current administration or any of its policies to believe that vaccines are effective and important. Plenty of people who don’t work for the government promote the benefits of vaccines.” The doctors I spoke to for this post are not affiliated with the government. Although it’s possible that they’ve taken advantage of government grant programs I’m not aware of, they both work for private organizations. (Dr. Hotez also works for a private organization: Baylor College of Medicine.)

Mistrust of the medical community. Any parent of a new baby has grappled with the thousands of decisions, both large and small, that come as a part of caring for a newborn. If the first time you hear about vaccines and their benefits is in the first appointment with your 2-week-old when your #1, hyper-vigilant concern is keeping them from harm, the idea of injecting them with live viruses could seem daunting and frightening. I don’t share this concern, but I can empathize deeply. There often simply isn’t enough time in those first appointments to have the types of long, careful conversations needed to satiate the minds of fearful new parents.

Mistrust of Big Pharma. Another great quote here from Dr. Hotez: “One of the things that anti-vaxxers say to pro-vaccination advocates is that they’re being ‘propped up’ by Big Pharma.” For this reason, I specifically chose to listen to or speak with doctors or epidemiologists who have no association to the pharmaceutical industry to my knowledge. Like the government point above, these people aren’t being compensated by the pharmaceutical industry for advocating for vaccines. HOWEVER - it is 100% understandable that people would be suspicious of Big Pharma in the midst of the opioid crisis happening in this country. To those people, I’d say: It’s possible to condemn the over-peddling of painkillers while still acknowledging the benefits of vaccines.

Vaccine injury/adverse reactions. The term “vaccine injury” refers to extreme shoulder injury, encephalitis, and other serious consequences as defined by the National Vaccine Compensation Act. Soreness at the injection site and even a fever for up to 24 hours are perfectly normal as a vaccine stimulates your immune system.

Vaccine injury is extremely rare. According to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), here are the numbers:

  • Between 2006 and 2017, 3.4 billion doses of vaccines were given in the United States.

  • Out of those 3.4 billion doses, 4,328 people brought cases of vaccine injury before the court and received compensation.

  • The HRSA is careful to say, though, that around 70% of those cases were not, in fact, paid out because the court concluded that vaccine injury had taken place. Rather, because the court and the client reached a settlement. (You’ll often hear the number of $4 billion being referenced as the amount of money that has been paid out by the vaccine court; this context is helpful in understanding that that number does not represent anything about the validity of the cases or verdicts.)

  • That means out of 3.4 billion doses, 1,299 led to vaccine courts compensating families.

Another important point to consider: it’s impossible to say how many of those cases were caused by an unidentified and underlying immune deficiency. Roughly, the odds are 1 in 1 million that you will experience vaccine injury. For context, the chances of being struck by lightning are 1 in 700,000. So - yes. There is a risk in getting vaccinated. But it’s very, very small. For further interesting reading, the New York Times just published a piece on this topic.

Overwhelming a child’s immune system. This was a really interesting and important set of facts that I came to understand. Babies are exposed to hundreds of antigens from the second they’re born, which means they’re perfectly capable of handling the immune response triggered by vaccine antigens. However, a child’s immune system is NOT strong enough to withstand an infectious disease, which is why they’re vaccinated so early for things like measles. For a deeper understanding of how scientists have combined vaccines to make them more effective and even safer, this article is a great read.

Fear of autism caused by vaccines. The idea that the MMR vaccine (or any other vaccine) causes autism has been definitively and roundly debunked. Andrew Wakefield, the former MD who alleged that there was a link between vaccines and autism, has been stripped of his medical license and the study he published has been discredited for a number of reasons (both scientific and ethical). Interestingly, Andrew Wakefield is also the person who directed and starred in the popular anti-vaxx documentary, Vaxxed. (The not-so-subtle subtext I’m trying to get across here is that Vaxxed was created by a man who’s had his medical license revoked, so the material in it is questionable.)

Lack of clarity about ingredients; concerns about “heavy metals” or aluminum. The most helpful piece I found here is this great article that breaks down exactly what’s in a vaccine and how vaccines are made. I won’t even try to paraphrase it here - she says it best.

For parents concerned about thimerosal, From Dr. Jones: “Some vaccines did contain thimerosal, a mercury salt, but that's like saying that table salt = chlorine gas. Basic chemistry demonstrates that compounds have different properties than the elements from which they come. And thimerosal was removed from childhood vaccines almost a generation ago. It is present in some multi-dose flu vaccines but one can ask for those to be thimerosal-free, and it has never been demonstrated to have caused any harm. Aluminum is not a heavy metal, and again, is in the form of salts and not metallic aluminum in vaccines.”

From Dr. Brown: “Aluminum is not a heavy metal. Aluminum is used in vaccines as an adjuvant – meaning a substance that is added to vaccines that stimulates a stronger immune response.  There is no aluminum in any live vaccines, including MMR. Aluminum is naturally present in the environment. There is normally a very small amount of aluminum in (the) human body.  The amount used in vaccines is so small that it does not make an impact on the total.”

From Dr. Hotez, when asked, “What’s in a vaccine?”: “Liquid, like saline or saltwater plus antigens.”

Ethical issues about aborted fetal cells being used:

From Dr. Brown: “No, there are no fetal cells in the vaccines. Viruses require human cells to grow in the lab, and some grow better in fetal cells. Also, fetal cells divide well, which means that they can be preserved long term to grow the vaccine virus – because every batch you make you need to make it the same way.  The original fetal cells which were used in vaccine development came from elective pregnancy terminations. These cells have resulted in medical products that have saved the lives of millions of people.”

From Dr. Jones: “Many viruses can only be grown in human cells, so fetal cells are the best way to grow these. The cells are removed during processing--think of it like the dirt in which we grow carrots or potatoes. Even religious bodies have demonstrated that they are fine with these types of cells, though of course would prefer an alternative (that does not currently exist).”

In response to information cited by RFK Jr. and Children’s Health Defense, particularly the data about “wild measles” being preferable to the MMR vaccine:

From Dr. Jones: “There is just no evidence to support what he claims. We know wild measles is associated with deaths in around 1-2 per 1000, encephalitis, pneumonia, and years of immune amnesia, not to mention the chance of SSPE which is universally fatal and horrific. Yes, there was a clinical trial that showed measles eliminated cancer in *one patient*--but they gave her a megadose of a *genetically-modified measles vaccine*, not the wild virus. There also is one epidemiological study that suggested fevers from measles is protective against later cancers but it's pretty poorly done and doesn't have other support (it has not been repeated or supported by other investigators).”

Vaccine shedding and questions about herd immunity.

The concept of vaccine shedding simply means that for a few days after a person receives a vaccine, they threaten to expose immunocompromised people around them to the diseases for which they were vaccinated. In the end, this concept is one that doesn’t hold water. This article was recommended to me by Dr. Jones and does a great job of addressing that concern, even including a tweet from Johns Hopkins stating specifically that it’s okay for recently vaccinated children to visit immunocompromised patients in their hospital.

Herd immunity is a simple enough concept: vaccinated people (or people who have naturally encountered and survived a germ or disease) protect immunocompromised people from contracting a particular disease. It’s important for exactly that reason - there are lots of people who are vulnerable. (think: children who are too young, chronically ill people, and people who can’t be vaccinated for a specific medical reason) and rely on the rest of us to vaccinate ourselves in order to protest them.

For herd immunity to be effective, a certain percentage of the population has to be vaccinated against or immune to a disease (and it’s different for every disease - measles, for example, requires 92-95% of the population to be immune to keep from spreading. An important note here is that an outbreak can still occur, but it can’t spread if effective herd immunity is in play.) Obviously, in many cases in the U.S., there’s low herd immunity because so many unvaccinated people have contracted measles. Here’s a great piece on Mental Floss that does a deep-dive into the hard math behind how herd immunity works, how diseases spread and at what rate, and why diseases seem to “favor” children.

The TLDR version of this is: vaccine shedding does not pose a threat to the immunocompromised; herd immunity effectively prevents immunocompromised people from contracting contagious and potentially fatal diseases.

My personal takeaways:

  • The anti-vaccination lobby is extremely powerful, and has done a truly remarkable job of making it a challenge to find clear, scientific data about vaccines online. I am now quite clear on why so many people have deeply held opinions that they feel are based in science, but are actually based on misinformation.

    1. The anti-vaccination lobby is also a bit of a mystery. I still have big questions: who’s backing it? Where is all the money coming from? What’s the ultimate goal?

  • There are some things that are black and white - easy to understand and digest. For example: vaccines do not cause autism. Full stop.

  • There are other pieces of the puzzle that take a lot of digging to understand. For example: the truth behind vaccine injury and whether the number $4 billion in payouts is accurate. It’s frustrating to me that this information is so misrepresented and has confused or misled so many people. It shouldn’t take hours of reading to figure out the truth.

  • I understand that time is always pressed at the doctor’s office, but I would love it if it was possible for vaccine education to begin as early as prenatal visits. The pressure parents feel at the pediatrician to just say, “Okay - whatever you think is best!” is heavy, especially for first-time parents. Having the space to talk through and ask any questions you might have is essential to eliminating misinformation and fear around vaccinations, and I think that’s a huge area for growth in our system. (A caveat here that I love our pediatrician, who always gives us time to ask questions. Shout out to Dr. Templeton!)

  • I understand why people are suspicious of Big Pharma. No need to elaborate. It just makes sense to me.

  • It is not only unkind, but unhelpful to assume that people who choose not to vaccinate are ignorant about risks, research, or data. At least in the conversations I’ve had, these parents are dutiful, involved, and extremely caring. If you’re curious or concerned, opening up a conversation can be helpful and informative for everyone.

Okay, folks. That’s it. I ask for your grace and understanding in reading and processing all this, welcome your questions, and am grateful for your time. Hopefully you’re leaving this post with a few more tools in your belt so that you can engage one another in conversation about this stuff. It’s been a fascinating journey for me.

Over and out.

I Love My Body; I Hate My Body.

Sometimes I wonder what it must be like for men who’ve literally never thought for a second about the food they’re eating. EVERY time I eat something, I’m thinking about it.  

Sometimes I’m thinking, “Well this is super unhealthy. But I deserve it. I’m stressed. I’m gonna pack myself full of food and not care a bit.”  

Sometimes I’m thinking, “This is super unhealthy. I kind of hate myself for eating it, but I’m too tired to care.”

Sometimes I’m thinking, “This is so healthy! Good for me! I am amazing and basically an Instagram fitness model!”  

But I am ALWAYS thinking. There is never a meal or a snack to which I don’t ascribe some sort of value judgment. 

This is not to say that I have an unhealthy relationship with food in any kind of catastrophic, life-altering way. It’s simply to say that I am female. And this is what we have been taught to do.  

When I was pregnant, I loved so much about the experience, chiefly how delightful it was to bare my big giant belly with PRIDE. A lot of pregnant women I know choose to wear loose, blousy tops or dresses, but not me. HELL no. Every chance I got, I was wearing something snug and form-fitting. It was both a treat and a relief to have a completely socially acceptable reason to be straight up overweight. It was a dream I’d had for years and boy, did it deliver. 

On the back end, after Mac was born, things were a little different.

The cute little boobs that I’d always been proud of looked quite different (AKA deflated and sad) after nursing a baby for 11 months. The strong legs that I’d cultivated through months of Pure Barre classes had a solid layer of fat from my hipbones to my ankles. And then there’s the obvious midsection trouble: flabbier, softer, and looser-skinned. My hair fell out and regrew, which means short tendrils sprouted from the corners of my hairline and the nape of my neck and have now grown into inches-long-but-still-not-long-enough chunks of weird hair that has to be tended to specifically or else it sticks out. OUT. Straight out of my head. 

It occurred to me during this season of body insecurity that I had never really had any body insecurity before.  

I mean, yes. Obviously I’d been self conscious growing up about certain things - my nose is big, the hair on my legs is so black and stipply and even when I’ve just shaved, you can see the little pores where it grows (like if any boy ever touched my legs I was secretly freaking out). But real body insecurity that’s based on being overweight or something I couldn’t control immediately - that was new.  

And it kind of rocked how I perceived myself. For the first few months of Mac’s life, I was doing my hair and makeup every day just to counterbalance the weight of my appearance. I didn’t hate myself, but for the first time in my life, I dreaded passing a mirror between the moment I got undressed and the moment I got in the shower.  

Now, things have settled a bit more. My legs are mostly back to where they used to be, through the wonder of genetics. I’ve lost the baby weight and am back in my pre-baby clothes. But I still struggle to feel “beautiful” unless certain boxes are checked: my hair is freshly colored, I have self-tanner on my face, I have undereye makeup on, and I’m under 145 pounds.  

You can add in your own list of things here that you don’t feel pretty without. We all have them.  

Jordan and I are going to Mexico tomorrow, and as I started dreading being in a two piece, I started thinking about how incredible the journey my body has been on actually is.  

I’ve grown a baby to term and endured the physiological trauma of labor and a C-section - one of the very few major, non-laparoscopic surgeries that is still routinely performed. I’ve made food for my new baby and gotten it to him for almost a full year. I gained a little over 50 pounds and lost it again. And this is just pregnancy stuff. 

I’ve endured two rounds of stitches to the left knee and a gnarly high ankle sprain. Wrist sprain. Busted lip so hard my tooth almost popped through. Pink scar on my left shoulder from a bike wreck in 7th grade. Exercise-induced asthma for the first 10 years of life. Caffeine, alcohol, repeat on countless weekends. No sleep. Stomach bugs. Junk food. No food. Too much food. 

Those aren’t traumas by any means, but they’re the things we all put our bodies through. Every day, our bodies serve us in ways that we completely take for granted. This is to say nothing of people who have chronic disease, illness, or pain. 

When I sat down to write this post, I couldn’t decide if I wanted it to be a “Who gives a shit about your stretch marks? You’re fabulous!” post, or an “Okay yeah, we can acknowledge our flaws. But life is about more than that!” post. I couldn’t really land on one or the other.

So here’s what I’ll say instead. When I board the plane tomorrow for our vacation, I’ll go through about 11 cycles of, “Okay - don’t look too bad! Way to go, me!” Followed by a spiral of “I really wish I’d worked out more before this vacation,” followed by, “I deserve to eat EVERYTHING AT THIS RESORT AND I PLAN TO, DAMMIT!” Pepper in some “Oh my gosh my, my thighs are sticking to this chair,” and “My legs will never be smooth,” and “Did I remember to shave my underarms this morning??”

But what I’m really hoping for is to quiet my mind and enjoy myself without being my own constant hall monitor of body talk. 

Maybe the important thing is to have a check on your thoughts and reign them in occasionally. Body mindfulness, maybe? I’m no authority on this subject, because I struggle with it in some capacity every day, like many women do. I don’t have wisdom to extol.

Except to say, at the risk of being trite, that our bodies are actually pretty incredible. And that if we’re doing things right, maybe we can move past a bit of the obsessive self-talk about food and body image and just live our lives. I guess I do have a point to this post, after all. It’s about presence. We only have one life, so maybe you oughta go live your best one in your shorts or your bathing suit or your tank top or your skin tight dress or your caftan or your suit - I’m going to, too. My body has worked so hard for me, so this upcoming week, I’m choosing to celebrate where I am and not fret over the things I find imperfect about myself, like the little bit of extra skin above my belly button that will never seem to go away. I’m channeling pregnant Mary Catherine on vacation for the next 5 days (and maybe beyond!).  ‘Cause that girl?  

She didn’t give a damn.  

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There’s Always Been a Rainbow Hangin’ Over Your Head.

Last week, we delved into biblical rationale defending homosexuality and the church. This week, it gets personal.

I never thought homosexuality was a sin, and because I was brought up in a climate that believed that very fervently, I bucked against the idea pretty hard. My theology was lazy. I didn’t do a good job formulating my arguments. Instead, I relied on the old classic, “God is love, God loves everybody. I think God has bigger fish to fry than worrying about who we’re sleeping with,” or some version of that. You can read more about my beliefs and my grown-up reasonings here. 

 A few weeks ago, the United Methodist Church got together at General Conference to decide whether or not it was going to double down on its stance about gay people and their dealings with the church, which you can read more about here. Ultimately, their decision was that the opinions they’d already held were the right ones. Not everyone felt this way, but enough people did. 

Apart from my biblical reasonings, I wanted to talk about this as someone who is both a person of faith who believes in the important of scripture AND a person who is very close friends with a lot of gay people.  

And y’all, I honestly don’t know where to start. There’s a lot on my heart. So here are a whole lot of things from all the corners of my brain. Which I guess I can do, since it’s my blog. A warning that you are going to get non-sequitur whiplash!

—

The first time I ever knowingly met a gay man was when I was 10 or 11 years old. My parents were close to a man and his partner and they invited us for dinner at their house. My younger brother Parker was 7 or 8, and as we sat around the table eating cheeseburgers, he put down his food, looked up, and  asked, “So, are you guys related, or what?” 

He was trying to make sense out of why two grown men lived together.  

The men looked at my parents, at each other, and then one of them answered, “No, but people do say we look alike!”  

That satisfied my brother completely and we all went back to eating. It wasn’t awkward at all - we just kept on trucking.  

Later that week, on our way home from school (we were without Parker, so I felt comfortable talking more candidly with my mom), I asked, “Are ______ and _______  gay?”  

She asked me why I thought that might be true. And I told her it just seemed like that might be the case since they lived together and neither one was married to a woman. So she told me that they were.  

I remember that my first reaction was to feel a little shame creep through my chest. It was totally involuntary, and was probably the result of growing up the Deep South where homosexuality was very taboo and certainly not accepted socially or in church. It almost felt like I knew something I shouldn’t know; like I had walked in on someone naked. That shame had nothing to do with the way I was brought up, which was in a house where, even in the South, all people and all lifestyles were treated and discussed equally and fairly. I don’t feel that shame now, but that experience showed me that even if you aren’t aware you’re carrying it, shame is a powerful thing.

Over the next ten years, I would become even more deeply involved in my church, First United Methodist in Decatur, Alabama. I was a regular part of the Council on Youth Ministry and attended Annual Conference as a delegate. I went to Camp Sumatanga every time the doors were open and to this day cite it as a cornerstone of my spiritual and social belief system. I was borderline constantly surrounded by gay men, whether it was younger friends at Camp, older friends in the CoYM, men from church, or kids at school who would eventually come out as gay. Gay men have been a part of who I am for as long as I can remember. 

— 

For some of you reading, gay men and women may seem very foreign. What you know of them is what you’ve seen represented in movies and on TV, but you don’t know them personally, and because of that, all you can go by are the stereotypes you’ve been exposed to: gay men are promiscuous, girly, fashion-obsessed, over-the-top scream queens; lesbians are butch-y, masculine, and wear sensible shoes. 

But the real men and women who live their lives identifying as LGBTQIA are much more complex than those old tropes. These are individuals, no two stories alike. They’re academics, they’re coaches, politicians, doctors, teachers, librarians, choir directors, realtors, stay-at-home parents. They’re around you every day whether you see them or not. US Weekly could do a segment on them: “Gay people - They’re Just Like Us!” Maybe the key to de-mystifying the topic is to simply get to know the gay men and women in our lives.

There’s always room in our hearts to un-learn the things we thought we knew for certain.

— 

When I worked for Teach For America in Memphis in 2014, our manager led weekly check-ins. There were 7 or 8 of us on our team, with diverse sexual orientations, races, and ages, from all different places in the United States. Our manager asked that for the first 15 minutes of our weekly meetings, we rotate around the group and allow each person to bring in what he called an “artifact,” or something that represented our lives.  

On the week I was supposed to share, I remember walking around my room in Memphis for a long time deciding what to choose. I ultimately went with a stole that used to be my dad’s when he was an associate pastor at the church where I grew up.  

When I put it on the table that Friday morning, I felt my heart pounding. I said something like this: 

“So this is my dad’s stole, with one color on each side for whatever time of year it was per the liturgical calendar. And to tell you the truth, I’m really nervous to share it with you because of all the things that people who aren’t from the South look at Christianity and think. I feel like you may have a negative association with Christianity based on how you’ve seen it represented on TV or what you’ve read. I feel like I need to qualify right away that I am not a bigot, I don’t hate gay people, I don’t....”  

 ...and on and on I went like that, telling them all the things it DIDN’T mean about me. 

After I felt I had done a decent job telling them what I wasn’t, I went on to say that the Methodist Church has been hugely influential in who I am. All the things I care most deeply about were formed and reinforced by my involvement at church. But I feared my co-workers didn’t know that part of the story. They only knew the scary Christians who frighten everybody to death. 

It was the first time that I had ever acknowledged out loud to them that I was a Christian, and it made me nervous as hell.

We don’t have a particularly good reputation in certain circles. 

 —

Here’s the thing about gay people and the church. The line that’s often repeated to them is that the church “hates the sin,” but “loves the sinner.”

So many Christians who I’ve talked to over the years have compared homosexuality to lying, cheating, or lusting - also things that are identified as sinful, and usually things the person doing the comparing has been guilty of at one point or another. “Homosexuality is equal to all those sins,” it is said, “so I don’t have any judgment about it. I’m a sinner, too. God sees all sins as equal.”  

The trouble with that rationale, for me, is that it never really seems to be true. No one “identifies” as a liar, or chooses a life partner based on the fact that both people are cheaters. These smaller sins, the benign ones that we can admit we’ve been guilty of, don’t seem to equate to the way a person loves.  

I completely understand that using that logic is meant to be generous and open-hearted. It comes from a tender place. The reason this “hate the sin, love the sinner” thing was invented at all was to service a well-intended Christian sentiment, delivered in all sincerity: “I want to be clear that I do not approve. My faith tells me I must communicate my disapproval in order to be true to what I believe, but I will try my hardest to love you fully in spite of the fact that I believe this is wrong.” 

But for gay men and women, the idea that their gayness parallels telling a lie or cheating on an exam doesn’t track. To think that homosexuality is a tendency, one that could be a periodic mistake akin to telling a fib from time to time (as in, “Oops, I accidentally thought that man who I’ve chosen to spend my life with is attractive again!”) seems outlandish to the point of silliness. 

I’m a white woman, so this is the example I’ll use: it would be as if someone from my church approached me to tell me that while they don’t personally support that I’m white, and they never will, they will accept me anyway. That they hate my whiteness, but they can love me in spite of it.

LGBT men and women don’t see their homosexuality as something that can be corrected. It is intrinsic to the fabric of who they are. To “hate the sin” is to hate the person. 

— 

The problem with Christianity is that if we really wanted to follow Jesus - and I mean really, really follow him - it would look so radical that we wouldn’t be able to live our lives “normally.” I am bad at this. I spend lots of time justifying my choices on the ways I’ve chosen not to radically love people on any given day. 

There are a few people I know who understand true Christian living, and their lives do not look like my life. They are constantly, constantly, thinking of and serving others. Their free time is spent tutoring or volunteering at low incomes schools. They recycle any and everything in order to be stewards of God’s creation. They take up donations or collect items for people they overheard in someone’s casual conversation who might be in need. They don’t care about what they’re wearing or who liked their Instagram post. Their eyes are the eyes of God and they see everyone the way God sees them: perfect, equal, precious, worthy.

Let’s say you believe homosexuality is a sin. Let’s say that you can’t get on board, no matter how it’s presented, with the case that it’s not sinful. Okay.

Wouldn’t the radically Christian thing to do be to love the gay person in your life exactly as you’d loved them before they told you they were gay? Because, you know, they were gay. There’s always been a rainbow hanging over their head (thank you, Kacey Musgraves). 

To radically love them (really opening your arms and heart, not polite or “tolerant” love) wouldn’t be a betrayal of your belief - it would be the embodiment of it. 

—

If a gay man has never looked you up and down and lovingly said, “Sweetie, no,” go back to the starting line and begin again.

—  

There is room for doubt. I think saying, “I don’t know,” is one of the most important things we can do as Christians. No one is supposed to have all the answers. But we are called to be in constant pursuit of those answers, and to follow the Holy Spirit wherever it’s leading. And the Holy Spirit is TRICKY. Constantly up to something. Never still. Leading into places where we don’t want to go. Bending our rules and breaking our hearts. When we said, “Yes,” to Jesus, we might as well have set the roadmap on fire. This life of faith isn’t about having one opinion and one set of reasons for a lifetime, I don’t think - it’s about living into the truth that God shows up where we least expect it. Are we humble enough to say, “I don’t know.”? It’s hard for me.  

— 

I was watching an episode of Queer Eye the other day. In it, the guys had a conversation with a young, black, lesbian woman who was finding her footing. They talked about how a person’s “chosen” family can end up being the most meaningful. This young woman’s parents had thrown her out of the house - literally told her never to come back - after she’d been outed as a lesbian by someone else, and the guys were trying to explain that she can build her own family made up of people who love and support her.

While I was watching this episode, my 15-month-old son, Mac, was playing in the floor with his race cars. His tiny hands were turning the cars over and over again, his fat little legs were carrying him from one end of the room to the other chasing after them. His laugh bounced off the walls as our dog tried, unsuccessfully, to escape from the car onslaught. This baby, who I carried in my body, who is beautiful and perfect in all the ways that matter. I imagined this young woman as a baby Mac’s age; the pride and wonder her parents must have felt when they looked at her. And how somewhere along the way, they pledged allegiance to a set of beliefs that had them reject, or at the very least, hold at arm’s length, their own precious baby.

Before long, big, hot tears were welling in my eyes. I imagined Mac coming to me years from now to tell me that he’s gay. I imagined the party I would throw in our tiny conversation; the leaps of joy from the deepest parts of my heart. If we’re destined for that talk, I thought as I watched him, then he’s gay right now. It makes absolutely no difference to me. My job as his mom is to love and support and celebrate. To guide and provide bumpers when I need to. To have him see my eyes light up every time he walks into a room, just like my mother did for me. Just like Maya Angelou said we’re supposed to as parents. He’s the family I was given and will always be the family that I choose.

— 

Between the years of 2004 and 2018, five of my close male friends came out to me. 

The first time a friend came out to me in high school, I told him I’d always known. He knew I knew. We hugged and celebrated, and it was a beautiful moment.  

The second time a friend came out to me in high school, he sat on the couch in the upstairs of my parents’ house in Decatur. He was shaking with nerves and choked out the words. He told he he’d kissed a guy for the first time that weekend and was so racked with guilt and shame that he immediately threw up. I tried to make him laugh and squeezed him tight. 

I wish I could tell you I had perfect responses for these guys. I didn’t. I felt nervous and was trying so very hard to say the right thing, just in case my words were the only affirming ones they heard. 

Last year, I got a phone call from a very close friend of mine who I’d always thought might be gay. He confirmed what I’d long suspected. Even though we were states away from each other, I felt like I was hugging him through the phone. I full-throat sobbed with relief at the knowledge that my worst fears for him - that he’d never fully embrace this part of him and live a life that wasn’t authentic - were assuaged. He is now an even more perfect specimen than he was before, which is saying something. These days, when I hold his hand, I am totally electrified by him. It’s like standing near a firework and having a spark land on your skin. That’s how powerful it is to watch someone be who they are.   

Multicolored and beautiful.  

Dazzling. 

I hope, whoever and wherever you are, you have the chance to bask in the glow of just such a person. 

Because WOW.