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[jowls]

Leave prompts, you'll get nonsense.

Comments

[rockitlike]

Who would want that painted over anyway? If we were selling, anyone who didn't want that would be the wrong person for the house.

We don't need an internet birth plan. I have the advice of several doctors on this, including one who is intimately familiar with my medical history and has done this before. I'm biased but I think Doctor Scully knows her stuff.

[jowls]

And if the turnip hits thirteen and decides that murals are lame, we'll paint over my artistic masterpiece then anyway.

I like that Doctor Scully, I'd trust her with my life. But how am I going to know which aromatherapy candles to light in the delivery room if we don't write it down?

[rockitlike]

They can paint over it themself. You don't have to destroy your masterpiece over tween angst, I promise.

Doctor Scully says no open flame in the hospital. At home, lavender is ideal, or sandalwood in small doses. Rose is okay if not too chemical. No freesia.

Are you planning to pitch an idea about the placenta? We should get that over with if you are.

[jowls]

Are we doing this at home?


Scully, I didn't like liver and onions as a kid. I don't think placenta and onions is going to be much better.

[rockitlike]

No, we are not doing a home birth. I have earned an epidural and a clean room and all the good drugs insurance can buy. But you can fuss with aromatherapy and calming music as much as you want once we bring our turnip home.


Oh, good. People are doing all sorts of things with them now, I don't know what websites you've been on.

[jowls]

You can have all the drugs you want this time. Potable water, while we're at it. Electricity.

The advice on my Facebook group is to eat it, but there was a discussion last week about letting it rot off the baby instead. You'd think I joined a community run by horses.

[rockitlike]

You sure know how to spoil a lady.

There are much better ways to supplement one's nutrition and I'm not particularly worried about predatory animals tracking us down, so. I think normal medical waste disposal is the way to go.

[jowls]

Let's just say I owe you one.

We could incinerate it ourselves. Give it a Viking funeral in a bonfire out back.

[rockitlike]

I think it might be too little too late, if we're worrying about who has access to my genetic material.

[jowls]

I'm envisioning a post-partum celebration here. Flaming medical waste and s'mores. Maybe a weenie roast.
If it means depriving anonymous men access to up-to-date Scully samples, so much the better.

[rockitlike]

I'm pretty sure burning medical waste at home is illegal, but also I don't really care.

I'm not eating anything cooked over it. That's too close to eating it.

[jowls]

Maybe we skip burning the placenta and just have a celebratory bonfire in honor of little Katherine-or-Fox.

[rockitlike]

Certainly more sanitary and probably easier to light. I vote we do that. Weather permitting, as soon as the turnip's big enough not to be bothered by the smoke, obviously.

[jowls]

If we keep the turnip downwind, the smoke won't matter.

[ At some point later, maybe a few days' worth of 'later': ]

Do you want to baptize it?

[rockitlike]

Would you object, if I did want to?

[jowls]

[ There's a pause of five or ten minutes, time spent genuinely considering the subject (or maybe finally getting a hold of their internet service provider and lodging a complaint, who knows). ]

Not necessarily. But I'd want to know how much of a religious commitment I'd be signing the kid onto.

[rockitlike]

If my mother were here it wouldn't be a question.

Part of me wants to, but maybe that's just nostalgia? There are certainly aspects of involvement with the church I don't want to bring into our lives. Still, there's a part of me that thinks, this is important-- and it's hard to explain. I don't have rational reasons.

[jowls]

I'm not holding you to rationality - at this point, I'm not convinced that anything about having a kid is rational. That's not why we're doing this.

[ they're so lucky he's sort of chilled out about religion. there's a pause, and then, in an attempt to be normal about Things: ]

If you want the truth, I feel kind of weird about it, but I know it's important to you. And I want the turnip to have the things you think are important.

[rockitlike]

[ The fact that he's come to-- not understand, exactly, but to respect her faith and the place it holds in her life is one of the things that makes this relationship work in ways it never used to. ]

I'm going to have to think about it. But it means a lot to me that you're open to it.

What I can say is- I don't expect us to be the kind of family that goes to church every week. That's not what it's about.

[jowls]

Scully, you'd have to pay me to go to church with you. We were never in danger of being that kind of family.

[rockitlike]

You know what I mean.

[jowls]

I know.

You believe, and that matters more to me than the thought of my grandparents spinning in their graves. I want to trust your judgement.

[ which is to say, I'm trying to trust your judgement . ]

[rockitlike]

I'm not sure either of our families would totally approve. I don't care. I just want it to work for us.

And I wouldn't want you to be uncomfortable with it, obviously-- if we did. If you don't want to stand beside me I don't want to force you, but I wouldn't want to do it without you.

[jowls]

[ A long pause. Maybe this would have been a better conversation to have in person! Whoops. ]

I wish I knew what would work for us, Scully.
It doesn't matter to me in any objective way. We might as well dip the baby in silver paint to appease the Robot God QWERTY.
I really don't care if I'm shunning a millennium's worth of ancestors and their suffering by letting a priest pour some holy water over the turnip's head. And I don't care if it believes in God when I don't.
I'm not leaving you on your own with this one.
But I still feel weird. I can't explain it.

[rockitlike]

I think that's fair. I mean it is a little strange to consider it, even for me.

I know you don't tend to put much weight on rituals, but if there's something you want to share with the turnip, I'm open to that as well.