Pregnancy

It's easy to get down on celebrities for the things that they say about, oh, say, pregnancy and motherhood and the like. After all, they're so often saying and doing things that seem incomprehensible to us lesser mortals.

This weekend I was shooting a wedding when sometime during the reception, I farted. I was fortunate that the music was loud enough to mask it, but still. It was enough for me to feel paralyzed at the horror that the pregnancy farting has begun, and I can’t help it. You can’t unring a bell, and you can’t keep that molten air pocket from escaping my massive butt and releasing into the air. Even if it gets trapped in your pants and you have to shake it out because that air bubble is so obvious!

Just as you begin to see pregnant bellies everywhere when you're undergoing fertility treatments, you also start to notice it as a plot device in pieces of fiction. Were characters always experiencing infertility and loss, but I never noticed until it was on my daily horizon, or has infertility exploded onto the page in recent years much in the same way it has made it's way to magazine covers and news stories?

When Mackenzie McCollum was told she couldn't play volleyball at school anymore until she had a doctor's note she was upset for several reasons. First of all, she wasn't telling many people she was pregnant, the mother of a teammate called the coach and informed him. Mackenzie is only 17 years old and a senior in high school. She was also upset that the coach told the whole team that she was pregnant while discussing who would be the starting center in Mackenzie's absence. It gets even trickier.

A woman named Lynsee just gave birth online and I didn't watch. Perhaps it is a testament to how greatly I'm affected by the stories of loss I've read, but knowing what can go wrong in birth, I didn't want to witness a live-feed of emotional anguish. Also a testament to how greatly influenced I am by my own story and those of others in the community, knowing what can go right in birth, I didn't want to witness their enormous joy knowing how out-of-reach it is for 7.3 million Americans.