Birth Vlogs

I once had the marvelous honor of being my best friend's vaginal cinematographer.  She had asked me to come to the hospital when she had her baby, but warned me that they had strict rules about how many people could be in the room.  I said I'd be happy to sit in the waiting room and just be distantly supportive if that was what she wanted.  She offered to lie and say I was her doula.  As I had no prior experience with child birth in any respect, this seemed to be a stretch (though stretching is part of the doula's métier).  So I packed myself a satchel of books and prepared to enjoy the delights of a hospital waiting room.  To my surprise, I was allowed in the room, an eventuality for which I was not prepared.  My friend had had her epidural and was napping.  I sat in a corner feeling useless yet desiring to be supportive.  Then suddenly it was time to push.  The lights were dim.  My friend said "get the camcorder out of my bag!" I assumed she was kidding.  She was not.  The other non-hospital people present were her husband (useful for encouragement), Bianca (useful for at that point moderate levels of medical knowledge and support) and me (useful, apparently, as a key grip).

I did my best.  We had not discussed this in advance, but do you say no to a friend in need? Also I had never really worked a video recording device before.  I wasn't sure what footage she was hoping for so I did my best to balance tasteful shots of her perineum (is there such a thing?) and views of her beatifically miserable face, while not getting in the way of people who actually needed to accomplish medical things.  My unexpected vantage gave me a front row seat (so to speak) to the miracle of life, and the no less miraculous but much grosser placenta.

The crowning glory of my film career was that in the dark and unfamiliar with the device, I had not actually recorded anything.  I had just stared with uncomfortable fixity at an acreage with which I was not familiar.  It brought us closer as friends, and I have certainly offered to return the favor via FaceTime or Skype.  I am sorry I didn't get the video she wanted, though possibly my footage wasn't what she would have wanted in any case.

This experience has returned to me in the last few weeks as I've found myself watching a new (to me) genre called "birth vlogs."  Apparently cute couples make money by making video diaries of their lives and as with all reality shows, childbirth makes for a blockbuster episode.  I've been watching them to try to get in the mood for parturition.  I figure if I remember feeling excited or weepy or seeing what a newborn looks like this will be helpful to me in an unspecifiable way.  The vlogs differ from my career behind the camera in at least two ways -- there is actual film footage of the event, and the camera is always angled in a tasteful and discreet way to maximize action without revealing from whence the baby emerges.

The thing is, these videos also differ significantly from what I remember childbirth being like.  At the most, these women seem to experience mild discomfort, then they get the epidural and everything is sunshine and rainbows and sometimes they nap and then there's a baby.  I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.  I remember being clenched in pain so bad I couldn't speak, move or effectively communicate in any way except intermittent gasps or gestures before the epidural.  I remember contractions being essentially relentless, coming on top of each other so the possibility of having a cheerful one on one interview with a camera was non-existent.

I remember getting the epidural, but I also remember it not working entirely, and maybe that is why the idea of napping or smiling or talking seems so foreign.  At first it only worked on half my body so the nurses tried to get me on my side so it would drip in that direction. Or something.  I just remember being in too much pain to roll and needing a prying paddle.  I remember round 2 of the epidural working a bit more, but leaving a "hole" the size of a dessert plate where I could still feel everything.  And I remember sitting there trying to survive each contraction that the dessert-plate-hole-from-hell was inflicting on my body.  This does not match with what I've seen on vlogs.  Maybe I looked dainty and sweet and only mildly discomfited by the whole business and that can be my comfort.

A glimpse into our utopia

Motherhood is endlessly fulfilling, as any mom could tell you.  It's also easy to be a nice human being while raising live young and performing basic household tasks! Ha ha ha.  Here's a glimpse into our little piece of heaven on earth.

I have had piles of laundry sitting on the couch and in hampers for several days.  Portions of at least five loads lingered around.  I had sorted and folded into tidy little piles two or three loads, but these had gotten shoved to the end of the couch to make space for sitting and playing and so they were essentially back in their natural state of chaos.  There is little point in trying to fold laundry while Pip is on patrol as he feels strongly about his role as hamper trampler and clothes unsorter.   Of course I could use his nap time but it turns out nap time needed the following activities as well:

• Call insurance to disagree with their decision not to pay for a test my doctor ordered (of course time on hold)
• Call doctor's office to ask for their assistance, transfer to billing and repeat request
• Answer work emails and provide feedback to students preparing to turn in a paper tomorrow
• Exercise on ye olde treadmill
• Lift weights
• Work on a paper cutting (yes I am going to enjoy a hobby for once!)

Sooooo nap time is pretty heavily scheduled.  That left evening when P would plausibly be entertained by his father.  Hahahaha.  Not if Pip hears the clarion call of cloth being folded.  He knows his duty.  After crossly steering him out of the hamper more than once and making several trips up the stairs I finally got the last of it prepped for put away.  First I needed to put the clean sheets back on my bed.  Obviously I'd need a toddler to get on that bed to help the process.  Then I'd need a toddler to repeatedly try to touch a very hot light bulb while I put away my socks -- ultimately resulting in me putting away laundry in the dark because some people cannot be deterred.

As you might imagine, I was in a super duper good mood about my progeny by that point.  I had to pee.  The bathroom door is currently not latching (of course).  So as I try to have 30 seconds to do what must be done, a toddler barges in cackling like a maniac.  He heads straight for the walk in shower, which is still soaking wet from earlier.  Is he in his footie pajamas? Yes he is.  So I lunged off the toilet and grabbed the boy by the scruff of the pajamas and shoved him out the door, cooing in my best motherly dovelike tones "LEAVE ME ALONE DAMMIT!"  Then I sat on the seat abruptly at a weird angle and broke it, and had to hold the door shut with one hand.  Oh and I had pee dripping down my leg so that had to get cleaned and my pajamas changed.  My son was screaming and sobbing in vexation at being excluded from mama's company.  It's moments like this that make me hope to be featured in the Ensign mother's day issue.

After we'd both had some time to recover from the intensity of our mother-son bonding, we snuggled down for stories.   I gathered a large stack of books as a peace offering and read them all while he nestled close.  It was very sweet and lovely.  I read him Caps For Sale twice, because he is very good at doing the monkey part, wagging his finger tauntingly and saying "Tzt tzt tzt!"  When we were done he called for family hug, our little pre-bed ritual of sandwiching together for kisses and good night.  He's learning how to say "I love you."  I tucked him in to bed and gave Bunny and Piddit (Piglet) each a kiss, we said prayers and I turned out the light.  I love him a lot, and he's a great kid, and I love being a mom.

And I put duct tape on the toilet seat because when I sat on it again it pinched my inner thigh and I uttered an obscene word.  I guess on Wednesday we go on a field trip to Jerry's.  I'm really working on not swearing and I feel like I'm getting better, but I also feel like opportunities keep presenting themselves really persuasively. 

But it didn't do anything

I'm still thinking about the backlash over the Women's March, folks. One of the criticisms I've heard quite a bit is that "it didn't do anything."  I think this is a critique that depends heavily on how you're defining "doing something."  Did the March result in Trump resigning in disgrace and Congress joyfully passing a slough of legislation that ended inequality forever? Nope.  So I guess if that's your definition of "doing something" then you're right, it's a failure.  I don't think any of the marchers expected that outcome, though, so perhaps it isn't a fair metric.  I keep mentally framing this in terms of my experience as an LDS missionary, so here goes my thoughts.

I served my mission in Baltimore, Maryland.  For my non-LDS friends, know that you don't get to choose where you go, what areas you're assigned to or who your companions are.  You do get to decide how to spend your days, within a fairly limited framework of working toward your goals of sharing your faith with as many people as possible and teaching interested people about it.  You also get to do some community service.

When you come home from your mission you give a homecoming talk to your ward who supported you emotionally and often financially while you were gone.  You talk about your experiences and share the good parts and everyone marvels that you've become a compassionate adult (hopefully).  Many homecoming talks (and triumphant letters home, and reminiscences etc.) focus heavily on baptisms.  That, after all, is your goal -- to teach people about the Gospel and have them decide they love it and get baptized.  Hooray!

Yeah.  Hooray.  If you serve in South America, where there is a pretty high rate of baptisms, hooray.  However, the people of Maryland already have a church thankyouverymuch.  So here are my statistics.  In 18 months I got to go to one baptism of someone that I had taught.  One.  As far as I know she is no longer actively LDS.  I also taught several people who were later baptized after I left the area.  My online sleuthing has yielded a suspicion that none of them are active either.  I worked with many families/individuals who were LDS but were not active, and after meeting with them extensively they returned to full activity.  Aaaaaand then returned to being inactive, as far as I can tell.  Cool! Great job Sister Gilkey! You're a huge failure and you spent 18 months of your life pouring your heart into something that "didn't do anything."

Aww look at little Sister Gilkey off to share the Gospel on a bike! Incidentally, riding a bike in a long skirt = the worst. When there was no oncoming traffic we'd pedal frantically to build up speed (our skirts hiking up with every pump) then we'd let the hem fall demurely and coast so oncoming traffic couldn't see up the skirt.  Yet another small way being a Sister missionary ain't like being an Elder.

The thing is, baptism is a terrible standard for success because it is entirely dependent on someone else's agency.  I can't force people to listen, to care, to believe, to agree, to change their lives.  I can invite, or persuade, or encourage, but their choices are beyond my control.  I knew that even as a missionary and did my darnedest not be discouraged by the fact that I was routinely reporting zeros for my stats (except for the number of people I tried to talk to.  That number was always high...).

Here are some of the things my mission accomplished:

• I changed.  I became more compassionate and loving.  I met people from different economic, ethnic, religious, racial etc. etc. backgrounds and I loved them and tried to help them.  Those changes in me stuck, even if I didn't get anyone else to change.
• I met people that I love and still communicate with and care about.
• I learned a lot -- about myself, about getting along with others (hello being assigned a stranger you have to be with 24/7! fun!), about the Gospel, about self-sacrifice and being happy with less etc.
• I gained important skills that are still valuable to me today.  I'm not afraid of public speaking.  Talking to strangers doesn't freak me out.  Teaching is very comfortable, even relaxing to me. I feel confident in my competence and ability to take care of myself.  I learned how to pump gas (a skill I have not needed since and have therefore forgotten.  Thanks, Oregon! Okay so that one wasn't that useful)
• Perhaps most importantly from a long-term wide-scope perspective, I had an impact on other people's lives that I cannot measure.  It may be that someone I talked to later joined the church and I never knew.  Maybe I gave invaluable comfort to someone in need.  Maybe I helped inspire a teenager to make better choices, or to go on a mission, or to go to college.  Maybe those kids I volunteered with at the Boys and Girls club did better in school because of the time I spent helping them learn to read.  I can't measure that stuff, and maybe it won't be apparent for decades.

Wherefore, stand ye in Holly Places, and be not moved, until the day of the Lord come;
for behold, it cometh quickly, saith the Lord (Doctrine and Covenants 87:8)
A little missionary joke.

So back to the Women's March.  From a very narrow measurement of effecting immediate legislative upheaval, it did nothing.  But possibly six weeks is not enough time to accurately judge the impact of an action on that scale.  Even without that big picture claim of significance, here are some things we can suggest the march accomplished.

• Many people who had never engaged in any kind of demonstration or political activity besides voting did so for the first time, and not the last time.  Protesting once makes it easier to protest again.
• On that note -- the very next weekend there were many spontaneous demonstrations against the Muslim ban, doubtless with many of the exact same people empowered to give up their leisure time to make a ruckus.  The protest put pressure on the judiciary and the administration to reexamine the order, and it also had a significant international impact of sending the message that not all Americans are Islamophobes.  That's a big deal.
• Legislators are being flooded with emails, calls, postcards etc. from citizens who were never engaged before.  You also see this at town hall meetings which have to move to bigger venues to accommodate crowds who suddenly care about this stuff.
• The March spawned many smaller groups where people are connecting for the first time and sharing their experiences and values with one another, communication that wasn't happening before.

Of course the only thing I can really measure and say for sure are the changes in me, just as with my mission I can really only attest to my own growth.

• I deliberately included my son in making my protest sign, even though he won't remember any of it.  I've started thinking more proactively about how I can including my child(ren) in the political process so they grow up to be good citizens.  
• I've called my representatives in Congress to share my views (and emailed and emailed and emailed).  I make those calls in front of my son.  Then after I hang up I practice key words with him so he has the vocabulary to make those calls.  He's too young to do it, but he isn't too young to start practicing the skills of being a good citizen.
• I went to my first town hall style meeting ever.  It was not easy to haul a toddler to that meeting, and I was definitely in the minority as a young-with-kids person, but we were there.  I had never done that before, but I feel a new responsibility to stay engaged.
• I keep making myself do the hard thing.  Speaking up isn't always easy or comfortable, but it's the right thing to do.  And thanks to the march, I don't feel alone.

In sum: The Women's March very definitely made important changes in our society, many of which we cannot yet measure.  Also, stop measuring your success by things that are beyond your control.  I can't force Congress to conduct an independent investigation into the connection between the election and Russia.  But I can badger the heck out of them.  And I will!

It seems as though the adversary was aware, at a very early period of my life, that I was destined to prove a disturber and an annoyer of his kingdom; else why should the powers of darkness combine against me? Why the opposition and persecution that arose against me, almost in my infancy? (Joseph Smith -- History 1:20)

But it isn't nice.

I've had an odd couple of days.  Yesterday I read a news story in which a former church leader said the following about the Women's March in New York: "We were in a cab, and as I watched those women marching and yelling, and should I say, behaving anything but ladylike and using language that was very unbefitting of daughters of God,” Sister Dalton said. “As I watched all of that take place, my heart just sunk and I thought to myself, ‘What would happen if all those women were marching and calling to the world for a return to virtue?"

I wrote a personal response to this as my Facebook status, and shared it with my usual curated group of friends.  Then a friend of mine asked if she could share my post, so I made it public, which means anyone on facebook can see and comment.  Some of the feedback was positive, even surprising.  One of my former students saw it and reached out, not realizing that I'm LDS (since I'm not supposed to bring that up in class) and sharing that she was raised in the church too.  So that was a neat connection.  Some friends offered thoughtful responses that, if not in total agreement with my views, were at least kind and measured.  And then there were folks who were completely disgusted and outraged and made sure to let me know.

What has been strange for me is seeing the nature of criticism I received.  Here is some of the negative feedback:
-"saddened that you feel the need to speak ill of the leaders of the church in such a public forum" 
-"No wonder the adversary strives, even now, to prevent this from happening! Regardless of who is getting the adversary’s special attention at any given time, he seeks to make all people “miserable like unto himself” (2 Ne. 2:27). Indeed, he seeks “the misery of all mankind” (2 Ne. 2:18). He is undeviating in his purposes and is clever and relentless in his pursuit of them.
He fools people like this and makes them look at situations through foggy eyes. Just because they were fooled into believing this way, it's not how our Heavenly Father looks at this. She's wrong and I disagree 100%.
-"No one saw the values you thought you were representing,
for the pussy hat on your head....
That's how you missed the mark by a mile. 
I'm sure as you marched you explained all the values you learned in YWs with a tasteful sign though, right? This is my point. You may have been among the "hundreds" of LDS women who marched, but there were millions who did not. You are among the minority within the church. Good for you for using you free agency, but don't think for one minute that wearing a vagina on your head made any difference that day.

Along with the criticism Sister Dalton offered, here is a summary then of my misdeeds and those of my sisters in marching:

• unladylike
• unbefitting language
• vulgar
• disagreeing publicly with an authority figure (though I might note I was not actually criticizing that leader in any way -- just voicing a different perspective on an event)
• Being fooled by Satan
• Being in the minority, because millions of LDS women chose not to express themselves by marching
• Wearing a vagina on my head 

I want to say right now that I was not wearing a vagina on my head. 

This hat bears no resemblance to a vagina, other than it has a hole at the bottom which is a critique that could justly be leveled at all hats.  Yes, there is a double entendre meant to taunt our vulgar president, but I don't think you can argue the hat itself looks like genitalia.  My mom made it for me and it is very cozy.  I proudly wear it all the time.

As for the other criticisms -- I have many scrappy friends who entered the fray on my behalf and I am grateful to them.  Of these critiques, only one actually seems like a genuine problem.  If indeed I am misled by Satan and God disapproves of my actions then that is a serious problem.  However, the only way to gain any insight into that is through personal reflection, study and prayer.  The fruits of the Spirit include peace and joy, two feelings that I felt very strongly that day as I stood with other sisters and talked with strangers about our values and concerns. I felt unity, happiness and hope.  Those are not feelings that can be produced by Satan and as a result I am not worried that my actions were the result of diabolical manipulation. I cannot speak for anyone else, only for my own motivations and actions.  I do not believe they were the result of evil.

The other critiques are troubling to me because they suggest a set of priorities and values that do not necessarily lead toward moral courage.  Is obscene language offensive? Yes.  However, many people who do not embrace the same language values that I do nevertheless have important things to say.  It is more important to listen and love despite crude phrasing than to shun a message just because it is delivered in a way you'd never hear in Stake Conference.  Many women were speaking out about their experiences with sexual assault using extremely vulgar terms.  Should we dismiss and ignore them because of how they expressed their pain? Perhaps the very vulgarity is necessary to get people to pay attention to a problem that our society routinely ignores and excuses. To me it seems a bit pharisaical to condemn the march on the grounds that the signs were vulgar.  Which is the greater problem to be fought: the word p**sy on a cardboard sign, or the fact that 1 in 4 women in our society is the victim of sexual assault and we continue to celebrate predators while silencing women? 

The other critique is one I have heard often (usually on the internet, not from my ward) as a result of being an outspoken feminist who is also Mormon.  You are in the minority! Most LDS women don't feel as you do! Millions of people don't act the way you do! 

And? So? Since when is belonging inherently virtuous? Since when is fitting in a desirable end in itself? What about our religion teaches us that Christ wants us above all to always feel comfortable and part of an in crowd?  I don't base my moral calculations on whether they'll help me to blend in to my community and I'm troubled that I so often hear a refrain that suggests I should.

Mormons are used to thinking of themselves as a peculiar people, standing apart from the world.  As it happens, I don't think that my views on refugees, or helping the poor, or standing against racism and misogyny make me out of step with my fellow LDS people.  Certainly nobody in my ward seems to think I'm taking an outrageous stand, indeed many have been openly supportive and encouraging.  But even if every single one of them thought it was wrong for me to be politically active on these issues, it wouldn't change my confidence in speaking out.  I'd love to feel like millions of Mormon women were with me.  But if not, I still have a moral responsibility to act in accordance with my conscience and to stand for truth and righteousness.