i've done a lot of research lately in two areas: food, and giving birth. i am trying to improve my diet and exercise, but am not (even if no one believes me) interested in becoming pregnant anytime soon.
it was a few months ago that i thought i was pregnant. the possibility of a baby was, to be quite honest, making me worry about my relationship with my husband and the type of partner he'd be to myself and my baby. this is complicated and deep seated. it was a rough time and i felt there was no one i could talk to who would understand. i remember asking heavenly father to please give me more time to improve my marriage, to get my body healthy, to get my mind healthy. i read so much online about conceiving and of miscarriages, of which i have always been especially afraid. i was convinced i was pregnant. my husband was convinced i was not. i spent time alone in my apartment, devastated, knowing it was not the right time and mourning for my body, which is currently overweight and out of shape. i imagined myself going for my doctor's appointments and asking, 'how will my weight affect my baby? will eating clean during my pregnancy protect my baby or will it suffer by the muck already in my body?' it was my central concern. it saddened me so much that it would be the most important thing i'd ask the doctor, trusting for an honest answer and for help, and i think that imagining this and feeling the things i did brought me one step closer to being ready for motherhood. since getting married, my desire to have children has decreased and even evaporated completely, for many reasons.
after watching one night the scene in "the help" where celia has a miscarriage, i read online for hours. i read that many women conceive but miscarry close to when they'd have their periods anyway, so they don't even know it. i did get my period, not especially late either, but remain convinced that i was pregnant, if only for a few days. the way my body felt when my period came, the physical sadness and sense of loss--i will never know if i really was or wasn't, if it was purely psychological instead of physical, but it was 100% real to me. i felt i was given another chance to prepare emotionally and physically for a baby, and it has spurred me to research these two topics.
in all the reading and watching and learning i've done, though, i am sad to find that i have a serious, profound mistrust of the medical industry and the food industry. i researched hoping to find guidance and answers, but i have only been repulsed by the politics and business mindedness of each of them.
hospitals chemically induce pretty much all women who go in to give birth. they have them give birth on their backs (the worst position for giving birth) and do not allow them to move around or take their time. even if women escape being put on induction medication right away, if they don't give birth naturally within a certain amount of time, they are invariably induced without choice or even notification. these chemicals cause the baby distress and make labor contractions much more painful for the mother than they would be naturally (according to mothers who have done both), and induced labor results in c-sections at staggeringly higher rate than natural labor ever does. this is all considered normal in the medical community, and natural birth is considered unsafe even when accompanied by trained, professional midwives. i am terrified by this. in learning about birthing options i realized that one of the reasons i am so scared of having children is the birthing experience in a sterile and unfeeling hospital. i have never been injured or sick enough to go to the ER or hospital, and even going to the dentist terrifies me. i realized that i trust my body to do what it's supposed to, that i don't believe pregnancy is a medical condition, and that i do not, under any but emergency circumstances in which a doctor's help would be appropriate and necessary, want to entrust my pregnancy or my birth to a doctor, even a certified and experienced one. this mistrust also comes from the way the medical community is reacting to obamacare. the medical community is so up priced and so leaching (not their fault, it's really the insurance company's fault) that health care is in crisis as it tries to conform to the well meaning changes instated by obama and other constituents. i feel enraged when people say they hate obamacare or obama or say he is doing a bad job as the president. all of those people should be hating the medical community and the insurance companies, which are bitter and scrambling for their cushy and institutionalized business ways. i seriously do not understand... why can't doctors just make a living more like the rest of us make, why can't insurance companies just do their jobs, and why can't everyone demand this change and see the good it would bring? i know several byu girls who are married to med students, and their husbands are 'seriously reconsidering' being doctors because of the changes that are likely for the profession. to that i say: good. maybe if medicine becomes a field people go into for the love and humanity of it (like teaching) rather than the money, the US would be a better place. i don't trust the medical community, which is full of guys like that and a community that should be caring for and serving people but is interested primarily in money.
the same can be said for the food industry. in trying to eat healthy, i've learned how out of my way i have to go to find naturally grown, local, nutritious, raw foods. everything is processed garbage, and no one should eat any of it on a large scale. when i go to the grocery store, i feel trapped. the only thing i feel i should buy is raw produce, and even then it's ridden with pesticides and imported from somewhere in a truck, losing its nutrients. it disgusts me what the food industry in america gets away with, and when i decline meat and suggest something as simple as that i can get protein from other foods besides meat, i am ridiculed and put down.
that is how i feel about my opinions on the medical and food industries. sharing them always results in someone trying to make me feel snobby, misinformed, and ashamed. like why don't i just go along with the system like everyone else, because what is so bad about it, really? i resent that i'm made to feel ashamed for educating myself and making decisions about things that should be personal choices about what's really best for me.
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