From anemia to anomie, via abuse

I. Yesterday I told the midwife I didn't want an IV put in, or a hep lock, until and unless it was necessary. She pulled out my borderline hematocrit from like 24 weeks weeks and said, "Your OB probably didn't tell you, but by midwife standards you're slightly anemic. Have you been taking iron? We're concerned you might need a transfusion if you hemorrage. It's very unlikely, but we'd like you to have the hep lock."

Dr. Pippi-Poisson hadn't said anything about it, although I'd noticed the low number when I read my records. I've just been taking over-the-counter prenatals. We agreed to do another blood workup. Given the engorged pinkness, streaked with blue veins, of most of my body, and my myriad spider angiomas, it's hard to believe my blood is missing anything, but, whatever.

II. Last night, cooking something acidic in a cast-iron pan seemed prudent. I seared a couple of thick pork chops, took 'em out, caramelized onions in the same pan, deglazed with two-buck-Chuck, and threw the chops back in to braise, along with some thyme. Served with rice-cooker quinoa in chicken stock.

This is real Ray food. My grandmother is of the generation that really truly appreciates convenience foods; in her apartment, I learned to love Spaghettios and hate chicken breasts baked under condensed cream of mushroom soup. Ruth Reichl has throroughly covered the risky food that can be produced by bipolar parents; my mother was rarely allowed to cook, and no one ate much when she did.

My foster father Ray, despite his 10-square-foot Manhattan kitchen, cooked. Nothing complicated, and only salads during the summer (I still avoid romaine and feta). But he'd pick me up from day care, and we'd stop at the greengrocer, at the butcher, at the supermarket on the way home. Soups and stews and pasta. Chunks of honest meat with honest vegetables next to them. Chops braised in wine, with rice cooked in stock on the side, and lots of herby pan juices over the rice, appeared at least once a week. Even with the change in grain, yesterday was a madeleine moment.

I haven't spoken with Ray since he didn't come to my mother's funeral. I think about calling him almost every day, but I don't do it.

III. Somehow today is sexual-abuse day in my corner of the blogosphere: Dawn links to a powerfully written and horrifying account, while Tertia's readers offer advice on protecting children.

The paranoia of many of Tertia's commenters upsets me. It seems like a perfect recipe for raising little exurban Republicans who'll drive around in locked SUVs and glare at me 'cause I don't highlight or iron my hair. I am glad that at least one commenter brings up studies showing that not everyone who's been abused is permanently deeply damaged by it. Some are, and we have to respect their experiences.

But it wasn't like that for me, okay? It happened. It stopped after I said something in front of a family friend. (Who later testified at the custody hearing.) I then lied about it repeatedly to my blood relatives, to the social workers, to the judge in the custody trial. It didn't matter; the photographs were plenty evidence enough.

My family let me stay with Ray again the summer after 9th grade—I had a job of sorts in the city. I was worried. But nothing happened. Perhaps I was too old, or too independent, or perhaps he was getting enough jollies from the other little girls whose mothers he had befriended and whom he was photographing. The mothers too—he took stunning pictures of some of them, dancers and artists. I wonder who will get the prints, the negatives, when he dies. He's not doing any photography any more.

It was worth it to me to keep up the relationship, because I knew how much I owed him for getting me away from my blood relatives. Because of how he supported my intellectual growth. Because of how he reassured me I wasn't like them.

IV. One of Ray's real heroes was Stephen Jay Gould. He had me reading the Natural History columns as they came out. I read many of the books when I was way too young to actually understand them. I think nothing would have made Ray happier than my becoming an evolutionary biologist, and I think it would have happened if I'd just had my years with him, then gone back to the suburbs for high school: reasonable SAT scores, focus on a good girly science, maybe a college an awful lot like Granolan.

Instead I made it into the ludicrous high school I actually went to, fell in love with a completely different field, and was driven by peer competition to, well, excel. Top university, yada yada yada, until grad school sapped my soul.

V. Andrew Sullivan today links to a sort of odd piece by Charles Murray, the surviving Bell Curve guy. Covering both gender and race, with an oddly apologetic lead-in and a typically vicious conclusion. Defending Larry Summers, and, in the footnotes, attacking Gould a few times. I don't know enough about factor analysis to say anything coherent about The Mismeasure of Man. I do know enough about the Johns Hopkins talented youth studies to cringe whenever they're taken seriously.

It's a little odd reading about "stereotype threat" in an article that also tells me women don't achieve as much as men do because they're both dumber on average, and, you know, distracted by the whole childreading thing—just as I try to hack out changes on one last subsection of the Dr. Wow project, while wondering if these are real contractions yet or not. I have to assume reading this crap is bad for my work. But I can't make myself stop.

Comments

[Rudbeckia Hirta]

Re: point #5: At my department meetings I always cringe when someone brings up the failed search of years ago when one of our research groups made 4 offers to women that were all refused. The subtext that I hear is that this reflects poorly on women for turning us down and that there is no point in seriously considering female candidates in the future. (95% of our tenured/tenure-track faculty are male.)

[Shamhat]

Don't get too stressed out over a borderline hematocrit at 24 weeks. That's when your blood volume expands, and it's normal for it to drop at that point. In fact, some midwives consider it an early sign of pre-eclampsia if it doesn't drop. (Anne Frye is a good source for the details.)

If you do want to try to pump the numbers up, Floradix (at health food stores) is a liquid iron supplement that has a reputation for not being as constipating as the usual tablets. I think it's about $25/bottle.

[liz]

Speechless...

Thank you for this post.