Why Zeba Khan Can

be my next great pundit.

Not only is this her short bio:

I am a social media consultant for nonprofits. I have researched women and minority issues in the Muslim World, Islam in America and counterterrorism finance with the U.S. Treasury Department.

but for the love of God - SHE'S FROM TOLEDO, OHIO!

::gratitude and pride oozing from the northeast Buckeyes::

CLEVELAND SAYS: VOTE KHAN!

(Her Ohio-ness is a creamy icing on the cake...she's also an original and intelligent writer who focuses much of brilliance on Detroit. What's not to love?)

The Frontlines of Motherhood

A first time pregnancy is fraught with fears and questions. Existence, as I have known it, changed the moment I realized my life had reproduced another. A raw wonderment framed these fears and questions as the human body illuminated itself with miracle after miracle of unfolding life.

Beyond scientific reasoning, the body simply knows its duties, its problems, and negotiations. It produces milk and ajusts its supply according to demand. The body releases hormones that strengthens hair, nails, and bones while moving emotions around in preparation for a new life.

There are things in pregnancy that simply happen, almost like instructions were written in our bones and our bodies just obey. Decisions around birthing, terminating, breastfeeding, daycare, and health are uniquely assigned to each mother, like DNA. No fingerprints are alike. No pregnancy experience is mimicked or identical.

My own pregnancy, mostly, has been joyous, comfortable, awesome, and reflective. The most difficult terrain to hike has been balancing the identity of a working mother to be and making decisions to work post partum. An almost mother is asked to project. Predict. Assume. Have an answer based on the factors around you.

To be honest, that expectation - the expectation to know what my life will look like, what I will look like in a new role - feels ridiculous. Absurd, even.

It occured to me as more questions about WORK came up in conversation that we really don't allow parents the privilege of adjustment. We give parents the decision making power, the expectations, the information. We give parents enough advice to get through anything. What we as a society DON'T do is give a reasonable amount of time to transition ourselves into our new role as life and caretakers. Supposedly that is what the 9 months of gestation are about. However, the expectation of WORK is to continue along as if we are NOT pregnant, as if we are NOT expecting. The expectation is that we arrive at the places and appointments just as we always had been, regardless of what it took to get there. Even if you had to pull over to vomit, even if you had to stop and eat because your stomach felt like it was concaving, even if you dragged your body out of bed and it felt like it had been drugged with sleeping pills - you still show up and work. Never mind the growing globe underneath your shirt, work is WORK.

Work - our societal structures of financially compensated labor - dictates that we make projections to the best of our ability on what we will do once we birth. We run with the leashes around our neck that dictate much time and space we are able to take, or "be off work," when, ironically, this time will likely be the most difficult, painful, work-filled time ever known.

I have yet to find someone with a story whose work, company, organization, or agency truly and humbly honors that transition.

When we ask for family leave or maternity leave, what are we asking for? Are we asking for time to adjust? Or are we asking for a period of self and familial transformation? Every parent I have ever known has communicated in one way or another that life, as you know it without children, changes from top to bottom. Every layer, every facet of decision making and lifestyle is altered to make room for another person.

Now, I'm not advocating that new parents get an unlimited amount of time and money because of a decision to start a family. Understandably, businesses need to continue. Tasks need attention. Labor needs call. But, in the twisting definition of modern families, how we care for new life is just as important as how we care for new parents. How satisfied and/or stressed new parents are directly impacts the quality of work they produce and the quality of love they can share with their children.

So, when people ask me what I am doing after the baby is born, I answer with the most honest answer I have: I don't know.

I don't know. There is no reference I can pull or a map I've created.

But, decisions have to be made.

Who will take care of the child?

And I also wonder

Who will take care of me as a new parent? Who can I turn to in times of emotional flux? Who will answer at 3am when the whole street has dark houses and mine is only one lit up? Where do I go in my journey to be a good, decent parent?

Despite a floundering job market where feeling anything but gratitude for even having a job is not permissible; flexiblity, understanding, and basic employee trust would be revolutionary these days. We're not robots. There's no formula to know exactly what I'll be ready for and how I'm going to balance that. But the system we've designed, the main street sidewalks we've paved all point to schedules, numbers, and dates. There's no room for adjusting, really adjusting to life's milestones. We're given handfuls of weeks, sometimes even less than that to rearrange our lives. There's no space to truly embrace the beautiful unpredictability of life. There's no space to laugh at ourselves, or our mistakes.

Sometimes I feel like when I am most honest, I am labeled naive and irresponsible. No, I have no plan yet. Yes, the baby is coming next month. No, I don't know about daycare. Yes, I do want to breastfeed, I think. I don't know. Maybe.

Why is it that when I say, "I just want to see how I adapt to being parent," the persons listening hears that I'm not ready? That I'm not thinking things through?

And then there's my partner...he has even less options than I do in his "family leave" options. Since he technically did not "birth" anything out of his body, he should be able to jump right back into the swing of things after a few weeks.

The war zone in frontlines of motherhood are dry and worn and dirty. Even in the best of circumstances where we welcome and love the changes to our bodies, minds, and memories, we are expected to keep those changes OUT of our workforce lives. The productivity, the race toward an arbitrary goal, the endless monotony and routine must continue as if nothing but pleasantries occured. Never mind if you're stitched up in the center of your body or your chest is aching with battle scars. There's no time to waste explaining how sleep deprived you are - just GET TO WORK.

Unapologetically Me

SO - my new website is underway and I am feel like a kid peering into a toy store that hasn't opened yet. I'm fascinated by any and all glimpses of what could be inside.

I have to say that this experience - co-creating a website with a webmaster - has brought me to a high level of admiration for artists, creators, designers who truly LISTEN to clients, who genuinely desire to incorporate feedback and thoughts into the final project.

My webmaster is this kind of brilliant, listening soul. I absolutlely cannot wait to unveil her work.

Even more, I am excited by how excited I am by her work. Isn't that the synergy of artists and creators? I am inspired by HER work and that makes ME a better writer.

There have been a few delays due to my pregnancy and catching a bug a few weeks ago, but we're back on it and as the time draws closer to its launch, the more eagerness, inspiration, and fear eat at my toes and fingers.

I am going to be writing from the place where I feel most comfortable, the place where I feel most passion, the place I reference as the Unapologetically Me space. It's a place that I was hoping to arrive at as a writer - the place where you know exactly what your voice is and how you want to use it.

My new website will be a place for ALL my readers and audiences to find me. And, unapologetically so, will have to get used to all the facets of my writing that I am experimenting. Family and friends, strangers and critics, bloggers and readers - all will find me at this ONE place. To centralize myself, to stabilize my writing - Unapologetically - has been a long time coming.

It's with blissful uncertainty that I begin a new website and attach a this blog as a cargo behind it.

And, thanks to the many readers and emailers who encouraged me to take the high road, the answer is YES - I will be staying with Ecdysis as its title.

The evolution was A Womyn's Ecdysis, My Ecdysis, and now Ecdysis.

You don't want to miss the molting I have in store for you.

Letter #12

Dear Isaiah,

Sometimes I still wonder what our pregnancy would have been like had you turned out to be a girl. I wonder if you'd have received more letters from me. Frankly, the idea of raising a son is a new unchartered territory - even in my mind!

The closer we come, though, to receiving you in this world, outside my body, the more unspeakably excited and tender-hearted I become. You are going to make me a mama.

We've made it to 32 weeks (and counting), although the doctor says you're looking three weeks ahead of schedule. I marvel at the slow journey of pregnancy, yet, when we reach weekly milestones, I feel like its sped by and hardly feel prepared.

Last night, your father put together a crib for you and I watched him. Sitting on the floor, looking up at him struggle over nuts, bolts, and frames of wood, I laughed and giggled over his frustration. You're so small and the crib seems so much bigger than what you will need. But, your dad shows his love and eagerness for you in so many ways (other than crib assembly) and it has been moving to watch him grow through this experience as well.

Thanks to the advice of so many sage women in my life, I have come to know you as my unborn child, not just a gendered being in my body. I have come to accept that I will make so many mistakes - more than I will care to count - and as long as I try my best and keep fighting, you will learn the things that I most desperately want to teach you: love, faith, justice, empathy, resiliency, and humility.

I hope you to be a prophet. An activist. A person who seeks less to matter in the world as much as realizing how much people in the world matter. I hope you to be a lover of gentleness and truth, unafraid to walk alone on our front lawn, during recess, down the street, across a barrio, with another soul, with a unknown Entity.

I have come to accept how much of my life, henceforth, is out of my control. You will learn to first depend then interdepend, then exist independent of me and your father. Those transitions will be painful for all of us, I'm sure, but the strength of my hope and belief that we can do this together is stronger than those impending fears and inevitable struggles.

I am ready to be your mama and that readiness is beautiful to feel.

Love,
Mom

The Revolution Will Be Blogged!

If you want to know the difference between the feminist blogosphere and radical womyn of color, read this beautiful article by Lex. Not many can say it better than Alexis Pauline Gumbs:

The energy transmitted through the radical women of color blogosphere (a.k.a. those of us who are seeking to build community and create transformation across space and time, bringing ancestors and babies every step of the way) is a life-giving force. This magic, this potential is also why we are punished for loving each other. This is not the glorification of a scene, this is a distinction between scene and community, a reminder of what is at stake.

Dr. Tiller's Second Murder on Law and Order

Charlotte Taft wrote a piece, "Dr. Tiller Murdered Again on NBC's Law and Order," critiquing last Friday's episode in which shades of Dr. Tiller's murder became fodder for the "fictitious" storyline in which an abortion provider is assassinated in his own church.

Taft writes passionately, clearly from a place that most people cannot empathize. Most of us are not abortion providers or work closely with abortion providers who see first hand the complex and often heart-wrenching decisions that are often hidden in the shadows in the war between "life" and abortion.

With due respect to Ms. Taft's piece, I didn't pick up anything overtly offensive from the episode. Mildly surprised that it vascillated between the values of pro-choice and pro-life audiences, I was most pleased to see that some parts of the script were encouraging debate and revisiting what reproductive health means today, after almost four decades of Roe vs. Wade, where more women have access to care, where we know more about what women's health is and what is needed. We know more. We still have long miles to go, but what I took from that episode is that the water is murkier than ever. Unfortunately, the ringing question, "When does life begin?" seems to trump the fact that we know more in 2009 than in 1973. Women's roles and contributions have shifted. Our consciousness as a society has (slowly and painstakingly) shifted. We have not arrived at full equality, but we are not in the throes of '73 anymore.

Certainly, I can appreciate and support Taft's piece in RH Reality. If I were on the frontlines of abortion clinics, worked and befriended Tiller or people like Tiller, I probably would have been up in arms, too.

But I am not.

I'm a regular bystander of NBC. I'm a regular person who stayed in Friday night with a virus and ended up watching Law and Order because there wasn't much on TV. In many ways, couched in the heart of America, I am just like everyone else - trying to feel my way through this process of where this country is headed with the most contentious and violent issue in our hearts. And in my opinion, a 1 hour show that has a track record of simplifying issues, making them dance with good script-writing, and long up-close shots of usually Caucasian actors will never make the grade, but it does make a point.

The point I got was good: this issue is only resulting in more violence and staunch pro-lifers and staunch pro-choicers are not going to be the answer. The inflexible pieces of abortion and life keep us in circles, yelling matches really.

It's going to come from the compass of middle America. And middle America is torn.

Weekend Feminist Bumper Sticker

Poetry on Feminist Catholicism

I wrote a poem about Adam and Eve. Well, more about Eve than Adam.

I don't believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis. I don't believe in the apple, the garden, the tree, the temptation, the Fall, or the banishment.

I do believe that oral story telling is a rich part of tradition and somewhere along the way, telling stories began to lose their power of metaphor.

In the literal, vein, however, I wrote this poem and designed a backdrop as I think more about my Catholic faith.

Letter #11

Dear Isaiah,

Yesterday I took a walk outside on an unexpected 60 degree day. My shoes came off and I dug my feet into the lush, autumn green. A tiny ladybug had landed on my knee and I played with it for about 10 minutes, flipping the tips of grass onto its pathway so it changed directions.

I wondered how in the world a God could exist that thought to create an insect with a red shell and black polka dots on its back. I wondered how in the world a God could exist that could create you inside of me.

You, me, and the ladybug hung out for a while before I went back to my office to finish the rest of the work day. But the fresh air and colors of yesterday stayed with me.

Today, I began fearing if I might be sick. A tickle in my throat, dry cough, slightly warm forehead...I began talking to myself, convincing myself that I was fine, you were fine. WE are fine.

I walked into my office and saw a storm of lady bugs on my ceiling, crawling on the window, more flying around on my screen, trying to find a way in. No where else in the building was there a concentration of ladybugs. I frowned, wondering why I would be so unfortunate to inherit all these pesky things. The wonder of yesterday was gone.

A co-worker walked in and gasped, "Look at your ladybugs! They are a sign of good luck!"

I googled it "symbolism of a ladybug," and, sure enough, it means good luck and if one lands on you, it's a sing of impending good fortune. It also means I/we are being protected.

Given my worry and anxiety that I am sick because of this tickle at the base of my throat, a small sign, smaller than a thumbnail, gives me some irrational comfort that you/we are going to be just fine.

Someone recently shared with me, after listening to my worries about becoming a mother, "It's already begun. I can hear it. You want so much to keep this brand new life as pure as possible for as long as possible."

My eyes filled and I nodded.

She laughed compassionately, "We don't have a prayer! Even their first breath is already tainted."

I smiled sadly, knowing it was true, but intuitively feeling like this impossible effort to keep you pure was still attainable.

Her eyes leveled mine, "But we do the best we can. Always. That's what we do."

I am doing the best I can. I hope that is enough for you/us.

Actually, maybe it's more than enough for you and it's ME who is expecting more.

Love Always,
Mama

UTNE Magazine Gets it Right Again: 50 Visionaries Who are Chaning Your World

And the list for the top 50 visionaries are out once again and I must beam that ALEXIS PAULINE GUMBS is on the list! How thrillingly appropriate to recognize this brilliant troublemaker who resides near and dear to my heart.

Congratulations to Utne for keeping their eye on the true visionaries and an even BIGGER congrats to Lex for her pioneering work, compassionate spirit, and bottomless well of activist energy!

Nobody Said Choice was Easy: Pregnancy and Vaccination

It's true when they say that the never unheated issue of abortion is the most visible skyscraper in the cityline of reproductive rights. Many other issues, although not as controversial or heavy hitting, are often left in the cool shadows, lingering on the minds of distressed women.

I'm inching toward my 7th month of pregnancy and the issue of the NIHI vaccine has been monopolozing my mind since flu season descended on my calendar, and straight into my big pregnant heart afflicted with tender worrying about my first child.

To vaccinate or not vaccinate that is the question.

Here's what I want to know: how do you trust ANYONE these days to give you correct information? For most computer literate citizens, there is no shortage of informtion. Thanks to trusty libraries, there is no question left in the dark, but, the question remains in my suspicious mind: How do I trust this information?

Maybe there are a handful of organizations or groups dedicated to unbiased information distribution, but, for the H1N1 issue, I'm pressed to find hard core facts that don't have some sort of agenda to nudge you in a certain direction.

This is my body and inside my body is my first child. The questions going back and forth neutralize my ability to make a decision. There is risk in doing something, there is risk in doing nothing, so I look at the facts.

Fact #1 - in my local community, there have been reported and confirmed H1N1 cases. To be exact, the local family care center 2 blocks from my house.

Fact #2 - 1% of the population is pregnant and yet, of those who have died from the the H1N1 flu, 6% have been pregnant women

Fact #3 - The vaccine is new and although people want to remain positive, the uncertainty of its effects are not known. NOBODY truly knows what the effects might be on pregnant women.

Fact #4 - Pregnant women have a weakened immunity system and those in later pregnancy may have more complications from flu-turned-pneumonia because of lack of sleep, irregular breathing patterns (baby pushing up against diaphragm makes deep breathes more difficult), and overall fatigue

Fact #5 - There is risk either way and regardless of what I do, my choice will be unpopular with someday in my life

My father is nearly sweating himself into dehydration because he wants me first in line for the vaccine. My mother is unconvinced that vaccination is safe. My dear Adonis keeps reading whatever he can, uncertain what is best and afraid to push me into getting the vaccine which he, underneath it all, thinks is the best option for our growing family.

I remain on the sidelines, swaying to the winds of news, gut, prayers, and hope.

So, after you've got choice, after you've got the information, what do you do if you still can't make a decision?

I've asked Isaiah what he thinks and he just kicks and rolls happily inside, his firing neurons building a system that utterly depends on the decisions I make with my body and our health.