About a month ago, I found out that my niece is pregnant, and I’m not proud of how I reacted to this news. In hindsight, maybe it is because when she was a teenager I told her, "Don't get pregnant or I'll break your legs." Granted, unlike Alaska Governor Sarah Palin’s daughter, my niece will be 23 next week and a college graduate, but despite living with the father of her child, she is unmarried.

As many of you know, Senator Barak Obama was formally announced as the Democratic Nominee last evening.

While wondering today how I would segue into writing about model Christy Turlington and former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell's recent campaign for maternal health, I unexpectedly came across a blog post about that very subject that stopped me in my tracks and left me in tears. The post was on Single Mom Seeking by guest blogger Matt Logelin who lost his wife and mother of their child just hours after she gave birth.

So there I was, feeling sorry for myself for having sustained extensive nether-region damage during the birth of my son ten weeks ago AND having the surgery to correct that damage BOTCHED (don't even ask), when I came across this: a Wall Street Journal report from Cindy McCain on the state of things in Rwanda.

If you had asked me a few days ago what an obstetric fistula was, I'd have shrugged my shoulders and told you, "I don't know." Thanks to advances in modern medicine and in obstetric and midwifery care, fistula has been eradicated in North America for over 100 years. Although the condition has been long since forgotten here, there are at least 2 million women in Africa, Asia and the Arab region living with fistula, and some 50,000 to 100,000 new cases develop each year. These estimates are believed to be low.

On Thursday, May 15, Blogcatalog.com is challenging bloggers to Unite for Human Rights by posting words, pictures and/or videos. While the words might change from country to country and are sometimes taken for granted, human rights represent one of the universally agreed upon ideas — that all people are born with basic rights and freedoms that include life, liberty, and justice. This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the United Nations.

Since I became a mother over seven years ago, I've been called a lot of things related to my parental status -- Forever mom. Adoptive mom. Mean mom (yeah, you know that one was from PunditGirl).

It's been just over two weeks since Lisa Stone announced that BlogHers Act was teaming up with Global Giving to make a difference on the issue of maternal health and asked, "How many women's lives can we save with donations from the BlogHer community, between now and Mother's Day?"

When I was building the landing page for our BlogHers Act - GlobalGiving campaign I went ahead and made my donation before we officially launched. It's always good to test these things, I like testing things.

Disclaimer: I don't have children. And quite frankly, after the past year of watching various news reports about increasing violence among kids, I am unsure whether I will ever have them. Don't get me wrong - I don't think that all kids are evil - actually, I don't blame the kids. I blame the parents. As a self-absorbed metalhead black militant who loves to partaay, I sometimes wonder if I have the goods to bring a child into this miserable world.

Yesterday Lisa Stone announced that BlogHer has teamed up with Global Giving in an effort to save as many women's lives as possible between now and Mother's Day. There are several worthwhile causes to support, one of which is helping Afghan women safely birth healthy babies.

This past week as I wandered, or you might say stumbled, around Stumble Upon familiarizing myself with the layout and realizing the potential to find a lot of great blogs, I came across an article that stopped me in my tracks. I wish I could say it was a fabulously uplifting story, but the reality is that it was the complete opposite.