My final word on the matter

OK. I'm not checking the links anymore. For those who keep clicking over from Jill's blog, "Hiya!"

But I can't spend any more time trying to explain to people that I have emotions when seeing a photograph of *someome else's* unborn baby which have nothing to do with what they assume my reproductive history is. I wrote this in the comments of Jill's blog and this is where I'm leaving the issue. (Funny how she won't comment here unless she's anonymous. Good thing to know that she's interested in learning all about me. Huh. I do so love the unbridled bravery of anonymous posters.)

Jill, you really do not understand me, and I do not understand you very well either. What I do know about me is that I have a lot of veterinary experience, and most of my human medical points of view grow out of the experience that most shaped me when I was a child: my experiences on a horse breeding farm.

I had to make the decision a *number* of times about what medical procedure would save the life of horse, or ease its suffering. And sometimes that included ending that horse's life. Those experiences are etched on my memory MUCH more clearly than the deaths of a number of my family members. Because I had to assist--it wasn't a separate or clinical experience.

Look at the post above--did you include any of my horse-related comments in that post? Do you think your decision to edit that section out was honest? Do you think that not posting on my blog to engage me in a conversation about your concern for my well-being is honest? If you have questions as to how I came to this point of view about seeing someone *else's* ultrasound pictures, you might want to ask me some questions. Or you can just call me post-abortive and pro-abortion and think you're right.

You know nothing about my experiences as a pregnant mother, but you might be interested to learn that my husband, whom I refer to in my blog as Dear Butcher, was similarly confounded by my complete lack of interest in decorating the nursery or giggling with my girlfriends at a baby shower. I actually sent him to one instead. I didn't particularly enjoy being pregnant--my pubic symphosis hurt quite a bit and I was anemic for my last two pregnancies. I don't understand the gushing over the "coming event", but I was quite happy in private contemplative moments. I dont' appreciate the publicity of the thing. I almost hit a woman who started rubbing my pregnant belly without warning me she was going to. She thought my pregnant body was available to her as a good luck charm, and I thought that my body belonged to me. I don't rub people's noses on the subway for good luck--I thought that I could be afforded the same level of respect. But when pregnant, apparently not.

Yet I deeply love my own children. I breastfed all three until they were one year old. I trained to become a childbirth coach, and I volunteered in low-income hospitals to help prison inmates give birth to children. I was and still am a stay-at-home Mom. I listen to Dr. Laura; can you believe it? And I AGREE with most of what she says. And that bothers Dear Butcher too.

I have had years of therapy, professional therapy, for issues not related to this blog-post. I was in therapy during the pregnancies and births of both of my younger children. Funny how no one in those clinical situations ever assumed I was post-abortive or that my viewpoint was twisted.

I have referred friends to therapists, and I even encouraged another friend to check herself into a psychiatric ward--but I didn't do that by talking to yet another neighbor about my concerns.

So in the end, I don't think you are really that concerned about me personally; I don't think you are at all interested in learning about the lives of people who do not appear to agree with you; and I think you have a very narrow view of what emotions a woman is allowed to experience.

I think you picked up my post because it was well-written enough that you could use it to point fingers at those you do not understand. I do not appreciate the name-calling (post-abortive), and I really wish you had the honesty and integrity to have started the conversation on my own blog before just throwing an edited version out there as an example of horrific thinking. I'm a little more complex than you think.