Hiya, y'all. I haven't been around in a while at all. School has kept me insanely busy, but I love it as I've finally decided where I'm going with it, major-wise and maybe even career-wise. I'm not sure, but I think the last time I posted my husband and I were separated, but now we are back together, working through as best we can. Also, we now co-own a used bookstore together!

My drunk MIL just called me. My 17-year-old brother-in-law just got arrested for shoplifting chocolate syrup from the grocery store. She needs $1,000 to bail him out. We have $1,000, but that's it. I guess we have credit cards that we could put this on. My husband is out of town with friends. His mom has helped us out a lot financially, but she's fucking insane (we won't allow her alone with our son anymore because of how out of control her drinking is). Goddammit...I don't want to deal with this tonight.

When my brother was 19 he was in a terrible car accident. He was speeding, the lady ran the stop sign and didn't have her grandkids strapped into their carseats. Both toddlers died on impact. It was an absolutely AWFUL, TRAGIC accident for everyone involved. My brother was put on probation for 10 years for vehicular manslaughter. He maintained fairly well for a couple of years, but the trauma of the accident (among other things) eventually wore him down and he began stealing and shop lifting.

My husband and I are trying to save our marriage yet again...I'm sure you guys are supertired of hearing about all this bullshit, because I know I'm tired of dealing with it, so I won't go too far into it. He's started counseling (we'll go as a couple once he's worked through some of his personal issues first) and we've both stopped drinking and smoking and we're beginning to work on communicating...blah, blah, blah.

So, it's been a month since we did the screening. We had about 30-35 people show, about 10 of them being midwives or doulas. We had the head of the ICAN chapter for our region come as well (thanks to whomever suggested I look into that...she had loads of information on local doctors and their c-section rates). It was pretty low-key, but once I got the ball rolling with questions and answers, the discussion went on for over an hour and a half!

So...gas is ridiculous, especially in my city, where it is notorious for having some of the highest gas prices anyway. Right now we live in a phenomenal neighborhood that is honestly less than a ten-minute ride to almost everywhere we need to go on a weekly basis (groceries, garden center, restaurants, the list goes on). My son is four-and-a-half and getting much better at riding his training wheel bike around the neighborhood, but he's no where near being capable of riding on some of the busier streets that will get us to where we need to go.

We got way more than I expected on our tax returns, so most of our debt, etc. will be caught up, leaving me more options with this rebate. Not sure where I'll use it yet, but want to have my mind made up before it gets here so I don't blow it on bullshit.

What are your plans for your rebate money?

Ever since my husband and I have been together, my spirituality has slowly been dwindling (over 5 years now). When we first met when I was eighteen I was on a spiritual quest of sorts, but pregnancy kind of interrupted it and I haven't been able to bounce back on that wagon since then. Now that my husband and I are separated, I feel like a have more time for myself and maybe the energy to embark on another spiritual journey, so to speak. But it's been so long that I don't even know where to begin anymore. I want to kind of go back to basics, if it's possible.

My good friend is a nursing student with plans of eventually becoming a midwife. This semester her and her class have been discussing obstetrics and witnessing live hospital births. She herself was born at home and is a huge advocate for the cause. She's been butting heads with her professor over homebirth, natural birth, circumcision, and breastfeeding. She's been so fed up with what is being accepted as fact to the rest of the class that she wants to have a showing of "The Business of Being Born" at this hipster party hall type thing for her classmates and anyone else willing to come.

Thank you, thank you, thank you mamas for smacking me in the face with reality on my last post. Because of your input, long and tearful talks with my mother, and my husband drinking almost every night all night last week, I decided to separate from him for a while. I haven't quite reached the point where I'm saying I'm leaving him for good, I realize that I have my own addictions to him to take care of. But, I do realize now that I can't continue living in some sort of fantasy world and having him make me feel like I'm losing my mind.