Discrimination?

"God gives us dreams a size too big so that we can grow in them. " ~ Unknown

Okay, I think I noted pretty much from the start of this blog that I'm not really a "feminist," at least not in the sense of what I think a "real" feminist probably thinks. Like, unless I thought hard, I don't know that I've ever felt discriminated against on the basis of my gender; never feeling like being a girl held me back from anything I wanted to do, nor that I was over-looked, or my talents and ability any less appreciated than some guy. But scanning those nooks and crannies of my memory, I do recall there was a time in high school - it was my junior year so that would be the late 70's - when the student body was allowed to have an a novel thing called an "Open Forum."

The Open Forum was set up for the entire school - about 600 students - to gather together, fill up the gym's bleachers and be able to ask questions or share grievances with the school's administrators, teachers and leadership. A podium, with a mic, was set up at the far end of the gym and you could get in line and when one student finished speaking about what was on their mind another student could walk up to the podium and express whatever it was they wanted to say. Other than a few Student Government Association leaders, kids weren't clamoring to be in that line. I mean, it was high school, if you got up to the mic you were going to be in front of - and judged! - by every single freshman, sophomore, junior and senior in the place. I sat in the bleachers with the rest of the school ready to snark and laugh at whatever "goodie-two-shoes" had enough nerve to put themselves out there for the ridicule that was sure to follow.

But outside of any other consideration, everyone was excited to be in the gym sitting at the Open Forum because it meant we weren't sitting in our math, English, history or religion classes (I went to a Catholic school); the Open Forum had been highly anticipated on our school calendar because of the welcome disruption to our schedule. 

So many years have passed since then that I can't recount exactly the turn of events - I think it had something to do with our Athletic Director, Coach E., enthusiastically discussing the brand new weight room that had been added onto the boy's locker room and how great it was going to be for our loser (he didn't use that term) football team. But however it happened, I must have felt he was giving out one too many accolades to our inept gridiron boys over the back-to-back-to-back State Champion girl's basketball team that I played on. All the sudden I was no longer just a bored student body member in the gym; my ears perked up enough to actually listen and then I had heard enough wherein I believe steam started coming out of them. The next thing I knew I was stepping over people to climb down from the bleacher and be the next student in line for the podium!

I was a shy girl back in high school. I was a star athlete in three different sports, but outside of sports I'm not sure if I could have clearly enunciated a thought, much less an opinion. But when our Athletic Director started droning on about the boy's sports teams and their beautiful new locker room all I could think of was how pitiful the girl's locker room was. Girls just didn't take showers after P.E. class because all we had was cold water. I don't know if our cold water misery was because the water heater was over on the boy's side of the gym so that by the time it reached us all the hot water had been used up, or because the boy's had a hot water heater and we didn't, but the fact was the fact: they had a nice new addition to their locker room AND hot water!

When it was my turn I stepped to the mic, looked around the packed gym, turned to Coach E. and asked him if he had ever heard of a law enacted a few years earlier called Title IX? I didn't wait for his answer. I just explained to the assembled students what it was - a comprehensive federal law that prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in any federally funded education program or activity. I reiterated to the student body that because we went to a private Catholic school our Athletic Director and leaders didn't need to adhere to the letter of the law, but that their blatant dismissal of the intent of the law shouldn't be anything to be proud of. I bluntly asked him to explain to all the students why the girls seemed to be treated in a second class manor? Though, I continued, we would probably overcome it - just like we had been doing - and bring home another State Championship! The gym erupted in cheers! As I turned to walk back to my seat in the bleachers I saw Coach E. turn a nice, burnt red and heard him fumble through trying to spin an answer to my question. With each high-five a kid gave me, as I took my seat, I thought, game. set. match.

But, yeah, outside of having to dig deep to recall that story of gender inequity - of which I never felt me, or our championship winning team, were ever really victims - I've never thought too much about gender discrimination. Until now. Until I read this article about the fashion designer, Tom Ford in the Hollywood Reporter magazine. 

The article was about Mr. Ford's transitioning from fashion into making films, but what caught my attention was the following paragraph, "At some point, he might even find time to drop by L.A., where he has made a home with his longtime partner and husband of two years, Richard Buckley, 68, and their 4-year-old son, Jack." That paragraph had followed the one in which Mr. Ford's age was stated as 55 years old. So, I thought, wow, Tom Ford was able to adopt a son at age 51... and, then, his partner is 13 years older! But I was surprised at how "no-news" that information was in the article. I mean, I've seen, throughout the years, when an older woman gets pregnant - even if her husband is considerably younger - she gets crucified for being so selfish as to have a child at an older age, but I have yet to come across the same kind of ageism or gender discrimination against Tom Ford and his 68 year old partner for having a child late in life... and, to me, I feel it's wonderful for Tom Ford and his partner, but that seems like absolute bias. Like, why is Tom Ford at 51 and his partner at age 64 having a child a-okay, but when a women does the same thing she is selfish and doesn't have the interest of the child at heart?

Maybe I'm wrong - I often am! - but it just seems like one of the very rare times where I actually feel like a women is discriminated against for wanting or having a child at an older age and a man is not. Like, the same principles don't apply purely based on gender. What do you think? 

Amen, Sister!

"All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself." ~ Ralph Ellison

This!

God and Babies

"I have learned that success is to be measured not so much by the position one has reached in life as by the obstacles which one has overcome while trying to succeed." ~ Booker T. Washington

This is an inspiring story for any woman that wants to get pregnant later in life. And cheers to God and babies!

Science!

"When it is obvious that the goals cannot be reached, don't adjust the goals, adjust the action steps." ~ Confucius

Well, this is exciting news!!! Hooray for Science!

The Possibility

"It’s the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting." ~ Paulo Coelho

I can't believe nine years has passed since this occurred! I was happy for this woman back then and I'm even happier  knowing more of what her story is about now. 

AARP

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul - and sings the tunes without the words - and never stops at all." ~ Emily Dickinson

This article helped me get out of my five day funk... though I have to say, it kinda freaked me out that it was from AARP!😳 It's a really good and inspiring read, though!

IDK

"Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage." ~ Anaïs Nin

I don't know anymore. I'm lost. For the past five days I haven't left the house and barely gone outside my room. I've treated myself terribly; reminding me - with descriptive detail - of all my failings and flaws .

My oldest sister, knowing that I have been going through a hard time, sent me a video of a little girl loving on her baby sister. She wanted, I think, to let me know she had that same sisterly love towards me. It made me sob, but not because of anything to do with sisterly love.

This is a the video she sent me.

She also left me the following gift:

I haven't talked to her or my two other sisters in these past five days. I usually text or chat daily with each of them. I haven't wanted to do that. But I wrote my sister the following message just now and thought I would post it here because I'm still on the journey. And I still want to share what that journey looks like.

"The video is very sweet, L... so much emotion for me... and cuteness in it! ❤

Also, thank you for my heart "Strength" rock. I appreciate you thinking of me and giving me that gift. I am having a hard time right now because I don't know how to believe my dreams will come true - like the card you gave says you're hoping for.

It is difficult for me to not believe in miracles, but I don't want to get hurt any more by living in a fantasy. I'm sad. I know everybody has their difficulties in life, I'm tired of not being able to handle mine. I'm just tired.

My problem is that I never ever in my life wanted to be by myself. It was never in the realm of my thinking that I would end up single, never married, spending my life without a family of my own. I wasn't prepared for it; I'm not prepared for it.

I'm not some feminist woman who doesn't want a man in her life. I have craved intimacy since I was 12 or 13 years old - for 40 years! - and I only ever had it for six months, 25 years ago. Really all I ever wanted for my life, the thing I thought I would be best of all at, was being a mother. I thought that would be the best job I could ever have!

I can't explain it other than I never wanted anything else besides having a husband and children. I wanted six kids! I've had names picked out to give them since I was 14 years old. I've really tried hard over the years - especially during the past 8 - to BELIEVE that those dreams of my heart, and mind and soul would come true!!!

I concentrated on, and practiced, everything "they" tell you to do to get the life you want: visualization, repeating affirmations, writing your dreams down on paper, listening to the positive-mind tapes I made. I worked on trying to understand the spiritual realm better; looking for signs, talking to my angels and anyone "out there" who could help me; asking for their help. But nothing seems to ever change. I just get older. I just see my dreams passing me by with every year.

There's a part of me that's a fighter and that part doesn't know how to give up on my dreams; that part knows that miracles are real! It feels like both a blessing and a curse. Because I don't know how to give up on believing. I don't know how to let go of my faith. But then the reality is that I'm 52 years old. 52 is young for doing a lot of things in life, but it's not young for the things I want most for my life.

I just looked up from writing this and I see the video image of the little girl loving on her sister. Her small hand placed on her face and I remember how, in the video, she just petted her, just wrapped her arms around that little baby and gave her all the love that she could give and I just cry and cry and cry because I know that's the kind of love that's inside me wanting to come out.

You may read this and have all kinds of things you could think to say to me about how I should be, or what I should do. But right now I just don't want to hear any thing. I feel like I'm mourning and I just want to mourn. Even as I write that last sentence I know it - mourning - isn't what I want, at all. I want to rejoice. I want to be happy. I just don't know how to do that right now."

How Old is Too Old

"Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child." ~ Ron Wild

How old is too old to reach your dreams? 

I'm sure there is a moral or ethical dilemma for many people on this issue, I just don't happen to be one of those people. 

For me, if God didn't want this couple to have a child they wouldn't be holding their child. I also believe that a child, out there in the ethers, gets to pick its parents. Like, it's a two-way street: the parents feel the want and need of a child and the child wants and needs those particular parents. 

Some of you may have heard stories of little children - around ages two or three years old - say some profound thing that they shouldn't know or understand about being born or about life. I remember when I was in high school my father, a dentist, told us that he had had a three year old girl in for her first appointment. The mother, he said, seemed more anxious about the procedure than the little girl. The little girl, my father told us, looked at her mother and said something like, "Momma, don't worry, everything will be fine," and then added, "when I was with God, before I came to you, I chose you out of all the mommas." My dad said the little girl's mother just looked at him strangely like, where in the world did that come from? My dad, who was a believer in the spiritual realm (though he would most likely think of it as knowing there are unknowns) was struck by the child's words but not dumbfounded by them. He believed what she said was probably more truth than not. 

In my own experience, I once had a colleague who had an appointment to show real estate to a client. Something unexpected came up and my colleague asked me if I would show the properties. The client, a young woman, wanted to follow me in her car to the mapped out locations... most likely because she had her three year old daughter with her. I told her I would meet them at the first house and they could follow me to the others.

So I got to the house, opened it up, and shortly after the woman came toward me with her adorable little girl. The little girl saw me, ran to me, wrapped her arms around my legs, looked up at me and stated excitedly, "Mommy!" Her mother and I looked at each other and just laughed. But what ended up happening was that every time they followed me to the next property the minute the little girl was out of the car she would run to me and call me, "Mommy." Finally, after about six times of this happening I asked her mother if she ever called someone besides her - like grandmothers or aunts - Mommy? The young mother was dumbfounded and said she never heard her little girl call anybody but herself "mommy." She didn't know "what has got into her." 

But outside of the pure strangeness of this child I had never seen in my life calling me mommy from the first instant she met me, was that I could not have been more physically different than her mom. I'm 6' tall, her mother was closer to 5'. I'm pretty skinny, her mom was generously full-figured. I was 50, her mother was just over 25. And lastly, I'm white and both her parents were black. 

When I thought about it later, after I had said my goodbyes and was driving home, I kept remembering all those stories I had heard over the years of little children being especially close to the spirit realm. And though I could have put no stock in what was happening between the darling little black girl and myself, I kinda just thought like my dad did: knowing there are unknowns.

The only thing I know is that it would be difficult for me to judge this old couple and their newborn daughter as being anything but God allowing each of them to have a gift. 

And Baby Makes Three

"What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds." ~ Wayne Dyer

Just another older woman having the family she always wanted.

One Good Turn Deserves Another

"Don't let the fear of the time it will take to accomplish something stand in the way of your doing it. The time will pass anyway; we might just as well put that passing time to the best possible use." ~ Earl Nightingale

I was checking my Yahoo email account and, as so often happens with me, I got pulled into an article with the following headline:

Surrogate Mom Gives Birth to Baby Girl with Serious Birth Defects Despite Parents' Order to Abort: 'She Is Everything I Believed She Would Be

I read that article only to be attracted - while reading it - to the headline of another article on the same website. That headline was: 

Parents Shockingly Back Out on Surrogate Mom Pregnant With Twins: 'It's Your Problem Now'

I read with curiosity but then it ended up being interesting for a couple of different reason. 

For one thing, it says that the surrogate Susan Ring is 54 and gave birth to the twins towards the end of 2001. So that would put her around 39 years old when she was asked to carry a pregnancy! But then it says she went on to be a surrogate for three more families... which would lead me to believe she was acting as a surrogate well into her 40's. And further, the article says that she had her last child in 2012... that would be when she was 48!

But interesting on top of interesting... the final thing she says in the article is that she now is the one looking for a surrogate, "A lot of women know when they're done having babies and I never got that memo."

Good for her!

LOL

"I believe that if life gives you lemons, you should make lemonade... And try to find somebody whose life has given them vodka, and have a party." ~ Ron White

I just started watching this show on Amazon Prime called Catastrophe. It is really pretty damn funny. I'm only on the second episode and I have actually lol'd a few times. lol. It's a about an "older" woman who gets pregnant from a one-night stand... kinda exactly what I was hoping would happen to me. And, truthfully, in my dreams, I always got knocked up with a guy as funny and awkwardly cute as the character Rob in the show. Oh, well, not yet, but at least the show is making my (sorta) dreams come to life! : )

My Policy is to Hope

"Hope lies in dreams, in imagination, and in the courage of those who dare to make dreams into reality." ~ Jonas Salk

This past Wednesday I had another procedure done at the hospital; I'm still trying to figure out what is causing my severe, chronic nausea. But the reason I'm writing about my procedure is because I found the admittance process to be different than it was a year ago when I was last there.

This time, when the nurse came in to do my evaluation, check vitals, etc. she just simply told me I needed to give a urine sample to make sure I wasn't pregnant. That was a HUGE difference from previous times being admitted to this hospital. 

Previously, the nurse would ask for the date of my last period. This time they didn't even bother asking anything at all about whether or not I was still having periods, or if I was menopausal, or anything of that nature... all they cared about was getting the urine sample and making sure it came back negative!

I found this new hospital policy to be very hopeful to any older women who are trying to get pregnant, for, to me, at least, it seems clear that something is going on, some place, and most likely in that hospital group, wherein being 52 is in no way a reason FOR NOT CHECKING FOR PREGNANCY! 

I actually have the feeling that even had I been 54 their policy would still be to do a urine check for pregnancy before allowing a procedure.

So, yeah, I think there is a definite message to all of this, and that is: that some woman/women are 52 - or even older! - and they were found - surprising as it may have been to them, AND the hospital! - to be pregnant. A hospital doesn't just whimsically make hospital policy without there having been a precedent set for needing to make it!

No Coincidences in Life

"There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from." ~ Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

Ever since I was in my twenties I have lived with the mantra that "there are no coincidences in life." Somewhere along my path those words came together for me and stayed, on a gut level. I even have a journal wherein I keep track of "coincidences" or synchronistic-seeming events - however big or small - that come into my awareness. 

My thinking is, that if - with all the stimuli one has bombarding them throughout the day - some one thing stands out in such a way as to make you fully conscious of it, whether it is because you "feel" the "coincidence" of the thing, or the "synchronicity" of whatever has happened - especially because you were made aware of it - it is meant for you to acknowledge, give thought to, and even appreciate. 

In my mind, those events are like messages - signs - that are God's way of "talking" with you. If you ever feel like you only ever have one-way conversations with God, I would encourage you to open your eyes, ears and heart to the way in which he is best able to express vividly his thoughts or desires for you. And, if you ask for that kind of "conversation," I believe you will be astonished out how often it can take place. 

I seem to ask for "conversations" all the time, I suppose because I am one of the "thee of little faith." I'm always - especially when still faced so strongly with the, as yet, unfulfilled longings of my heart and soul - on the look-out for whatever "patterns" come to me to help keep me dreaming in miracles. 

I'm writing all of this because I had, what I would consider, a very synchronistic, "coincidental" event happen from last night to today. 

Last night I read an article with the headline: 

Is Gwen Stefani Pregnant?

It's that time of the week again when the celebrity weeklies hit the newsstands. To separate what's real and rumor, we turned to our frie…

She's not. But then I read a few of the comments that were made and one struck me: 

Bicycle Girl • a day ago
She's 46 for crying out loud! How can a maternal dinosaur be pregnant when her eggs are nothing but dust in the wind? Her breeding days are over. She has more than enough kids already.
7  • Reply•Share 

Of course, me being me, I felt the need to make a reply. But first I wanted to get my facts straight. So I googled some of the late-in-life celebrity pregnancies. Though numerous names popped up, I used Halle Berry because I felt like she was probably the most well known. And so wrote to Bicycle Girl saying: 

L  Bicycle Girl • 21 hours ago
Umm... Halle Berry had her most recent baby at 47 years old... pretty sure her baby is not a dinosaur! But if you want to spend time being misogynist over age, well, I guess that's what the internet is for!
2  • Edit• Reply•Share ›  

Needless to say, Bicycle Girl's response was less than kind... like, way less! lol! 

But what had happened when I googled the "late-in-life celebrity pregnancies" was that I was reminded of Geena Davis and how she had had her first child at 46 years old and then at 48 gave birth to twins. I thought on that a bit and was like, that's great for Geena Davis, but I'm four years older than that! 

Now, I know I had googled, once before, pregnancy over age 50 - most likely when I turned 50 - but that was two long years ago and last night I had the thought to google it again to see if anything "new" had developed. It hadn't. My browser history highlighted that I had read just about every story of woman over 50 having kids. I think their were two women who had unplanned pregnancies - meaning the babies were naturally conceived - at age 53, but that had now been a couple of years ago.  I decided I better quit that particular search before I felt a sense of frustration and got pulled down by any negative thoughts regarding my situation. And then today arrived. 

Today, I get on my laptop to read my email and thanks to Yahoo! News I saw the headline: 

Swiss billionaire Margarita Louis-Dreyfus, 53, pregnant with twins*

That caught my attention! But for a second I was confused. I was like, didn't I just google last night woman over 50 who got pregnant? Why didn't this woman come up last night in my search? So, I scrolled to the byline to see when the article was written and it read:

Marie-Noëlle Blessig

January 4, 2016

That's when I thought, "there are no coincidences in life." The synchronicity of having googled the night before a search on women pregnant over 50 and come up "empty-handed" without anything new - in the past two years! - only to be faced the next day with a fresh-off-the-press, 2016 headline regarding this latest woman to get pregnant over 50 seemed like a good enough "conversation" with God for me.** 

And then, as if God wanted to add just a bit more to the conversation, I noticed the last name of the article's writer. When I first glanced at it I read, "Blessing" which, upon a double-take, I re-read as it is, Blessig. But that only encouraged me to see that the first name was Marie-Noëlle. Now most people know that Marie is derived from the name Mary. And many are familiar that Noël means Christmas. Well, when I give the name Mary thought, I always think of Mary the mother of Christ, and I also - along with Sarah - always recall that God sent an angel to her to prophecy his birth. When  I add up all of these thoughts that go through my head, I could wonder, "Why did all these strange thoughts just go through my head?" Or, because I have come closer to understanding my own personal relationship with God and the way I have come to feel he carries on a "conversation" with me, I take it all in as a hope-filled sign. It doesn't matter that I don't quite understand the whole "conversation," only that I get a "feeling" of hope that it provides... and at this point in my journey - neophyte sign-watcher and God to L conversationalist-interpretor that I am - I can't ask for much more.

Everybody has their way of talking to God... it just so happens that my most recent "conversation" came by means of Yahoo! and Google!


*I'm not going to dwell on whether or not this woman used donor eggs - though usually I do, because, though that option is the right one for many women, it isn't the option I'm seeking for myself - because now days I do think that there are many more woman - like myself - who have previously frozen their own eggs and thus, though not a "natural" pregnancy still have the ability to have biological children of their own.

**When I speak of God I use the male tense... that's just me... I grew up thinking of God like that and speaking of God like that; I'm used to it. But by no means do I believe God can only be viewed in male imagery or words. As the Bible tells us we - all - were created in God's image... to me, that means, God is representative of both the feminine and the masculine. But even more truly in my thoughts, I doubt we can even comprehend what form or kind of being God really encompasses... only that he encompasses us!

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