Letter to Clayton

Dear Clayton,

as much as you really hate me, have contempt, there is something I have to thank you for a million. Please don’t take this offensively. I have been abandoned and abused all my life. From the cradle, I was not valued, school professionals had an idea of what behavior I should be emulating, I would not. Like you, I turned everything on its head, but society says girls should never question authority because we’re girls. You questioned authority but you and I need to be able to do this together. Alas, I feel you have gone too far. You are the very reason, however, I will be starting college in the fall of this year. You are the inspiration behind my major of social work, emphasis on family and gender violence and gender studies, all manner of IT, and my skills will be put to work fighting online extremist ideologies like the ones you somehow got sucked into. I can’t save you, but if I can save our son, so be it. For every abuser I counsel and every victim I can help, for me that’s pieces of me you tried to grind up that I can restore to my inner being. For every person who says women must submit, don’t dominate and all, all that I would be able to smash to the ground, that’s another you I bring back. … IF it’s the last thing I ever do, remember I do this in love. If not for you, for our baby son. I can’t save you directly, but I will save whatever I can. We can’t save everyone, but at least I want to try and stop this from becoming the norm. I want to be sure a Gilead society never materializes, even if it meant having to share our story. … I have to do this because otherwise, more money and pain will happen. More taxpayer dollars spent on restraining orders, victim services, coparenting nightmares, social workers, child abuse, … can we also at least alleviate the pain of many? Please let me help those who could be hurt by the forums you’ve probably read, by the secrecy you now keep, … let the women go. I hope you get something out of the coparenting course, and take care of our little boo boo. But furthermore, if you come back to being a real man, maybe you’d probably realize how you hurt me in so many ways, and I’m turning my pain into my career. I will fight back, and in time, you could become an ally, join my side. It’s the only way we as a society can move forward.

I love you even if I can’t hear you say it back.

Beth

Online Abuse and Radicalization: What We Must Do As a Community to Heal Victims and Sway Radicalized Men Away from Such Activities

It seemed like an ordinary day in July, 2023. Holding his three-month-old infant son, Clayton Jacobs and his partner were engaged in a routine visit with Rachel Eddie, a social worker with guardian ad litem alison Jensen’s office. Rachel’s job is to protect children, and she and Alison work together to help kids at risk where a family is concerned. Alison is a lawyer, and she represents Malcolm Jacobs, and when he was three months old, it seemed that during this day, Clayton Jacobs, his father, was in his element. He sat there, possibly just visiting with Rachel. She and Guadalupe Project representatives Sera Treston and Sarah Stark had a handful of a case to deal with. When asked about parenting planning, Jacobs spoke up that he wanted his infant son to”from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM” much to the chagrin of the child’s mother. The professionals weren’t buying it. Then, Rachel left. Jacobs and his partner began talking, seemingly an ordinary conversation filled the room, that is until Jacobs spoke up, “You’re not getting back your WIC card. You lost it once, that’s quite enough.” The partner spoke up, “Do you know what the W in WIC stands for? Instead of acknowledging the reality of the WIC program, a supplemental nutrition program aimed at women, infants and children, Jacobs spoke again, “Your neo-feminist tricks do not work on me.” The rets of the next thirty minutes were a blur. Jacobs became escalated, and his partner asked him to leave, but he demanded, “Not without my son.” This was followed up by the partner rushing into her three month old son’s room, closing the door, but jacobs entered and attempted to drag her back, but the assault happened so fast she recalls only two times but they were highlights. She tried to fight back, but then she recalls Jacobs placing his hands up toward her neck, then seemingly putting her in a chokehold. For two seconds, she thought she was going to die. She was lifted off the floor a couple of inches, but the last thing she remembers was Jacobs shoving her face down on the carpet, leaving her with an abrasion on her upper lip. This was later photographed, but she could not have charged Jacobs with this assault. Sadly she and jacobs were found responsible for the abuse of a child, “interfamilial neglect” was how the paper worded it. This sadly was strongly linked to some online radicalization. Jacobs would later write on an X post dated August 26 using the username @eqmusicofficial “My baby mama wants all the smoke, so as far as I am concerned, she can get it. I have had enough of her raggedy ass running my name through the mud. I bent over backwards for this woman, who is mentally deranged and a disciplinary problem, to say the least. I can’t wait to here my dear her ass like Marvin Gaye.” This post was the most derogatory he’d written about his partner. This contains rhetoric strongly linked to misogynist jason Black, owner of YouTube channels supposedly promoting healthy relationship dynamics, or not.

I was Mr. Jacobs’s partner, but the horrible thing was that since that derogatory post was written about me, Clayton has gone on to block all my socials, instagram, X, Tiktok, and denies me access to everything of his so much that I’d like to see him take his anger management seriously. Our son Malcolm is now eleven months old, a huge bundle of energy and so much love, he does not need to be taught that women, including his own mother, who don’t know how to bake a cake are worthless. Clayton has used multiple avenues to hurt me, including manipulating all my friends, Trenton Matthews included, into taking away a cell phone and the number in it, now it’s an AT&T number owned by someone else, I can’t get it back. Trenton tried to also side with Clayton when he tried to pose a sob story about how using a taser on me for not paying rent is permissible because in his words, “She could have made us all homeless, and we could have all been dead.” However, it is known that violence is not the way to solve problems, and I honestly hope that anyone who says otherwise will realize the psychological impact is costly. you will have to drive your children to therapy sessions, and you will as a nonabusive parent have to contend with manipulations by an abuser. clayton has also questioned every single professional watching Malcolm and trying to protect his interests, and at one point attempted to shift parenting responsibilities to Clayton on a primary basis, but I knew this was a bad move. I had to plead for this to be stopped because all of the reasoning had to do with questioning mental health and stability. However, abuse of the magnitude Clayton did had an impact on my mental health, and the professionals saw right through Clayton’s foolish behavior. He attempted to state that I was noncompliant with my deferred judgment, a contract specifying each parent who signs it to undergo treatment plans tailored to their needs, by stating I withheld the baby when he had done so on October 21, 2023, claiming I was unsafe. He has made repeated statements about me being a safety concern. He has also tried to manipulate the courts into believing his sob story about disregulation and total instability after an incident on February 4, 2024 in which Malcolm fell off a changing table at an IHOP, then a ticket was issued by Lakewood Police in Jefferson County for child abuse. This ticket became a sad and failed opportunity for Clayton to plead with the judge for full or sole control of Malcolm’s living arrangements. Abusers like Clayton use things like tickets for child abuse and every small thing they can about their victims to attack them. He did so in a court of law, but the judge, the Honorable Judge Laurie clark, acted against this. She saw right through Jacobs’s foolishness and said clearly he must be kind and understanding, but his response to the diaper changing table incident left me no choice but to do two things. First, I thought about committing suicide, leaving Malcolm far away and safe with someone who would tell him that his mother loved him and did what she had to do to protect him from the abusive whims of his father. But that wasn’t a possibility, so I resorted to writing really frustrated texts to a buddy of mine, Jennifer Cleverly, who later filed a police report with Denver Department of Public Safety but the report was tossed. Clay demanded I be prosecuted, and in follow up conversations I strongly recall him gleefully looking forward to my arrest, which in his mind should have been guaranteed, his safety being priority over my own. The judge, however, ripped him a new one. While he interrupted her speeches, she kept on saying, pressing, “Mr. Jacobs, Mr. Jacobs,” and rightly so. But she made another point too. His behavior, she stated, was unacceptable, and she posed a good question, “Are you going to act this way when something doesn’t go your way at your son’s school or daycare?” I was wowed by her tenacity in the face of this patriarchal show of hatred. But the last statement he made about this woman, I have to record here for posterity, and I beg of my beautiful son Malcolm never ever to utter such a statement to someone with J.D. or other government responsibilities of any kind, and yes, females in all professions, and he sid: “You’re a piece of shit for a judge, do you know that?”

This man sadly was probably likely radicalized on “Father’s rights” and “men’s rights” pages. On closer study of his former twitter and X posts, Clayton, under the username eqmusicoficial and the Blind Savage among others, extolled virtues and values that scream safety concern. His postings speak of a man troubled by women and their progress in society. I’ve heard him spout this off at a doctor’s appointment, at home, and in public settings and with female professionals. He used his unsafe male authority to fire Sarah Stark, a social worker with the Guadalupe Project, and thus thereafter the organization closed Clayton’s case. Sera Treston made the right move, and I stand by it.

Under other usernames, including Blind Guerrilla, Esoteric Quality and Clayton’s Music, this man has been trying to paint women as liars, painted me as an incompetent parent even though a mediator told us clearly we made this baby so let’s work together, the mediation failed. But where is it all originating? How did it all begin?

the answer is that Clayton Jacobs comes from a very dysfunctional and abusive family. He tells of a mother, Stacia clarke, having family dynamics that did not favor Clayton’s own personal safety as a child. Clayton recalls growing up with a violent brother, Justin, who would scare him to the point where young Clayton would have to sleep with a blade beside him in case Justin should attack. Justin Jacobs has since been incarcerated for myriad crimes involving minors and sex trafficking and other things I am probably not privy to. Clayton also had a small dose of jail life when he assaulted his first wife, a woman in her fifties and later her sixties named Kimberley. HEr daughter Christina was Clay’s friend from school, but how she became Clay’s stepdaughter I’ll never get. Kimberley was said to not be that smart, but her injuries necessitated a restraining order for Clay, but he was let off on unsupervised probation. I’m not counting on this another time.

For wife number two, Clayton was hopeful when his daughter, Vivian Rae, was born on June 15, 2015, but in 2016, courts in Iowa removed Clayton from full custodial consideration. I am now grappling with why. Clayton has never been forthcoming with what actually led the Iowa courts to make such a decision. It had to be that Vivian had been either physically or sexually abused, and usually in welfare cases and divorce settlements, children’s safety is strongly considered. Roxelle (Roxie) Miller Jacobs, Vivian’s custodial parent, was painted as someone who ddid not want a girl. I don’t know how this could be true, as all c children are precious. I do believe though that Clay was not forthcoming enough with me about his past abuse of either his last ex wife or his child or both. This is particularly troubling.

After Clayton lost custody rights to Vivian, there had to have been a path to him becoming a radical masculine rights advocate. I saw posts detailing his support for R. kelly, one of the news clippings where the victims testified had a statement that read, “Fuck the victims, they are liars.” On a charity where Andrew Tate wants to assist in helping men’s lives ruined by liars about rape, Clay says, “this bullshit needs to stop.” Such statements scream male supremacy, which does set off alarm bells with professionals, and sadly I have been questioned about my own mental health and stability to. I had to have said that parenting restrictions for me would only enable Clayton to run and say, “see? Beth is an unfit mother and a lunatic.” He has made many statements about mentally ill people, but this is not his fault. But his brother Justin had to be held accountable for his actions.

The Jacobs family sadly not only has instability on the men, but there are women too who are not acting in anybody’s best interests. stacia Clarke herself is enabling her son’s abuse, and when I have made frequent pleas for her to understand and show support for me, appealing to her own victim status as well, she simply said I wasn’t doing my job. she sided with Clayton, and without being right there in Colorado, she’s bound to do that. However, Stacia also must consider that her son’s abuse is never justified. He justified his abuse even recently, stating that I contribute nothing to his “household”. However, relationships in truth should always be about mutual respect, love and kindness. Understanding and all the rest play a key role in making a relationship solid and healthy. However, Clay’s response was a disparagement of the instructors of any class teaching this. “The classess were taught by women.” However, such things are based on data gleaned by both men and women, and the mutual respect and empathy principles are evidence based, backed by science, and always work. My poor son Malcolm also has to face manipulated individuals, Clayton’s other victims. Christine fogel, a neighbor in a nearby unit on Clayton’s building floor, verbally abused me in a parking lot. Trenton Matthews, my ex, lives now on floor 9, but away from me, having cut me off from having a phone number, used his ownership of a T Mobile phone plan and did not bother to help me stay safe. Instead, he also took all my gadgets, iPad included, and disciplined me by removing my use of data on his own iPad mini. He was outraged, but I hope someday he will recognize his manipulated state of mind. He now joins forces with denizens of the online blindness community, including people who would rather spend their time trashing me. I have heard Trenton and his unsafe friendships are a thing, and a longtime friend has recently added me back to facebook, I didn’t know this, but I told him that it wasn’t about me. Clayton clearly uses others to manipulate them to his side.

Blake Tucker also got ire from his own mother, Kathy Babcock, from all this. She wants him to be “done with her”, me, and would rather Blake be with Jennifer cleverly, who received texts from me because of Clayton’s behavior, it just seemed like I was being attacked at every opportunity.

Clayton sadly will only go down a radical path, and we as a community must stand with me and not clayton to get us both safe. Malcolm and I deserve the support of professionals and family, but we can’t get genuine support here in the West Denver area, so we’re probably going to pack our bags and move to Littleton, a town eight miles south. However, Littleton might offer good deals on things, and broadband internet will have to be considered a utility, not a want or luxury. Malcolm will need the security a camera on my front door would offer. I might get a Simply safe security code. I do want Clay to have a code, but if he does not get his anger together, I might never let him in my house.

People of this world should know what online radicalization does to our young men and boys. I fear if my boy is not properly educated about these comunities, commonly known as the manosphere, he will fall prey to their recruitment ploys. MGTOW, for example, call women liars and vipers while promoting celibacy for all men “going their own way.” MRA movements, men’s rights activists, promote fathers getting priority custody even in cases of a newborn baby needing a mother’s touch. Incels and pickup artists hail as the most violent groups. It was an incel group member, Eliot Roger, who stormed a California college sorority and killed six women, and left a chilling manifesto about his vehement hatred of women, his entitlement to sex and how he’d impose such on the women he hated. It is MRA groups that inspired my own partner, Clayton Jacobs, even from the beginning of a wonderful friendship, to consider the “father’s Rights” movements as his home. Because he lost a custody case with his own daughter, now Clayton feels supercharged to join the Father’s Rights Movement as I saw on his now defunct Facebook pages. Clayton jacobs is in trouble, and so are our boys and young men, oftentimes not being educated in healthy masculinity. Clayton said when confronted about toxic masculinity, “That’s disrespectful to men.” Sadly, it is the opposite. By acknowledging toxic masculinity, Clayton would be actually showing respect, also much love, to his begotten son. I can’t imagine my little baby not saying he loved his mother, he has such happiness when we are together. clay too, but Malcolm in the long run should be learning healthy ways to relate to peers. He needs friends like all kids, but he needs parental figures who can foster his curiosity and help him form bonds, and he’s no different than other kids, blind parents be damned. But I implore Clayton to please take your anger management seriously.

While I do care for clayton, I loved his dark humor, his sexual weirdness, his funny preferences for Seth Rogan films, and his love of The Wolf of Wall St movie with Leonardo Dicaprio, and he enjoyed quoting line after line from that movie. I had favorite lines too, and he and I would joke about those lines. But what kills me most is his disdain for my safety and respect due to his vision of a society built around the household, but it almost aligns with Atwood’s gilead families, blue cloaked wives submitting to husbands by being illiterate and playing with petty point and embroidery, a red cloaked handmaid that would bear his children on demand, be raped by him during a biblical ceremony, her name changed to “ofClayton” to denote she belongs to him, her body is a utility. Dull green Marthas to cook and clean for him, and meanwhile Commander Jacobs is on top, dressed in black, and he has the authority to force somebody to get pregnant, or worse, have a Martha’s eye cut out. Clayton would be able to demand pleasure from anyone he asked for, and his wife could even be way under sixteen years of age. I reminded him of this in some text exchanges, he tried to hide them, but for me, the memory stays within.

Our communities must show our boys and men that love does not mean pain. Respect does not require abuse. If your partner can’t pay the rent, and if she spends weeks crying and wishing you would be more comforting, ask yourself why. Clayton never did. He abandoned me three months into having impregnated me, and now he must live with the consequences. He has made manipulative statements suggesting I should have given Malcolm fully to him and never raised him. However, such statements are manipulations. Abusive men like clayton won’t let Malcolm reach out to me, not on his watch, and that’s contradictory to what he said. He said he would have let him reach out, but I know better. Malcolm must have me as his mother, but his father’s vision of relationships and family dynamics are so unhealthy, yet he still believes Katherine Johnson, a hidden black figure in aerospace engineering, is revolutionary. yes, then why does this not apply to those in your personal life? Women are an untapped many, and we intend to seek justice for our children and our families.

But for Clayton, I will close with this. please distance yourself from harmful thinking. Put away R. Kelly and his lies, and never even touch Andrew Tate and his lies. find some other YouTuber to subscribe to, not Jason Black. I was never a disciplinary problem, and the derogatory postings you wrote about me are just horrible. I have a right to have something in place for Malcolm so he doesn’t get confused. I didn’t deserve abuse, whether I said something about you or did not pay rent. Frankly you should be supporting me, not a radical behemoth like those who are responsible for killing women. I love you, not the harmful values that are trying to all consume the good in you. Like Luke skywalker attempting to sway Darth Vader, I can feel the good in you. Turn back the hands of time and I will show you a me that was never so much hurt that I now have to ask where my friends are, and before you came, I had some degree of hope, but you took advantage of me, my body and friends, and now I have to move.

Clayton, should it ever occur to you that your writings and your views are unsafe, I am just a knock on the door or a phone call away. We can talk, and if you must weep, let me hold you through that. It is okay for a man to weep. Jesus, a male Hebrew did weep with others who lost loved ones. I shall let you weep for anything you need to weep about. Through your tears, you may discover that women do what we must because for how ever long, thousands of years, males have oppressed us, and since ploughing fields became the norm, men retired female goddesses, and in many historical contexts, women fell to the status of thing, inferior, wife. However, today’s women do not play when we say we’re not above children, we’re equal if not a bit above board with you. We don’t like being beaten, we don’t want to be told who we are, we know who we are, and gaslighters never win.

Clayton, while I need to keep me and Malcolm safe, please understand that you are your own worst enemy, and yes, your best advocate. Listen to the pros, listen to the people protecting your baby. They are calling on you to stop and see where you’ve gone wrong.

My heart will beat a song of forgiveness, and I await you with open arms, but if you fail to see the error of this whole thing, goodbye until you do.

With love and understanding,

Beth

Because God Likes It That Way: religious Abuse and Our Communities

It was practically early early morning, predawn and Carolyn Blackmoore was half dead asleep. Her father, Arthur Blackmoore, who had several wives, awoke and shook his daughter awake. HE had her standing in a room facing him and his wife, Carolyn’s biological mother, Nurylon, and they both had a revelation to give her. She was to marry Merrill Jessop, sadly abusive and already married to three other wives. Carolyn Jessop would later recall in her book Escape more than eighteen years of marital abuse, eight children worth, some from high risk pregnancy after high risk pregnancy to a point where her last child required a radical hysterectomy after he was delivered. Carolyn came from a cult in the offshoot FLDS, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Sadly, she’s never been alone in these experiences. Carolyn had to have spent boatloads of time having to shuttle her children to counseling sessions, court fights be damned, and the aftereffectss of Merrill’s abuse plagued her children for years to come. In her follow up to her memoir, Jessop writes candidly about her children and how they now would talk of the other Jessop children, one daughter opting to use a grand expletive to describe Monica, one of Merrill’s favored daughters. the Jessop children I would say by the look of things have pretty much recovered, Arthur her eldest having become a pilot. the other children, except for Betty, from what I’m observing, all went on and lived regular lives. With the eight kids she was forced to bear for Merrill Jessop, it is no small wonder Carolyn had to have some bones against the FLDS. She’s not the only woman in history having suffered religious abuse either.

Many women particularly contend with religious abuse. This comes when the abusive parties use scripture or other religious principles to justify any number of concerning behaviors. Abusers in the FLDS use scripture and a motto of “Keep sweet”, and upon watching the Netflix documentary series Keep Sweet, Pray and Obey, a hymn is heard that repeats this mantra so many times. Cults will use music to make the mind of potential victims liable, and it shows in how the children and adults sing the songs in this docuseries. I’d watch it, and it is worth it.

Religious abuse oftentimes is domestic, so this falls under domestic violence, and in more ways than one, we see children and women affected. Carolyn Jessop writes candidly about her children’s abuse by her husband and a sister wife, Barbara Steed Jessop, who later would die of old age. No surprise,, the children would not attend Barbara’s funeral. This woman abused other wives’ children, and most notably Patrick, Carolyn’s son. abusing kids for religious purposes also falls on the shoulders of evangelical groups, some of which include “The Family”, a cult I read some stuff about, also know as “The Children of God”. this particular cult delves in sexual abuse and uses scripture to justify this. The cult’s leadership fundamentally condones this, and the children sadly pay a price.

Scientology is most notable for many forms of psychological and physical abuse. Jenna Miscavitch Hill writes candidly about the times she had to do work not suitable for children, a form of abuse, and was subject to so much psychological programming that she could break if not for her courage to leave. Scientology and other types of abusive religious cults are costing our children many years of good life, and our women must be able to leave such groups. It is rumored Shelly Miscavitch is disappeared by her husband for punishment purposes. Little is known. There are other types of faith based cults, including Word of faith Fellowship. Jane Whaley, their pastor, appears as a female Jim Jones, but a recent book telling all shows how even females can wreak havoc on communities and the American taxpayer. The Word of faith fellowship has somehow wormed its way into the halls of Congress, but nothing positive will come of religious abuse if it’s voted into our government.

We must as a community and a nation combat religions that condone abuse. While the American Constitution guarantees freedom of religion, it does not condone any type of abuse justified by religious scripture. No religion can condone the death of nonbelievers, abuse of women and their bodies, or the isolation of women and children. No religious group can ever be allowed to wound the bodies and minds of their practitioners, and if Congress and the wider world feels unconvinced, stories of those who survive cults should be more than enough to say no more.

Beth

Broken Bodies and Vicious Scars: the Physical Abuse of Children and Women, How It Plagues Our Communities

**trigger warning, this post contains descriptions of physical abuse, stories of murder and grizzly depictions of tragedy resulting from different types of domestic abuse, so reader discretion is advised.**

It was sometime inn June of 1998 or so, I recall barely getting up many times over mornings to hear this story. Eight-year-old tekiah Innocent had been told by her stepmother, Tansy Innocent, to do a chore for which she had to complete under threat it turns out. Tekiah, according to court documents filed with the Florida Department of Children and Families, supposedly lied about completing or not completing the chores. Her stepmother proceeded to pour scalding hot water over the girl’s torso, resulting in painful second and third degree burns. She had to walk around with these injuries until her grandmother discovered them, and worse still, her father was criminally responsible because he did not report his wife’s abuse of his own daughter. The Florida Department of Children and families had no choice but to remove Tekiah from this environment, and the costs to her were enough to break one personal bank account, compounding the cost of her disconnection from members of her family and ocmmunity in Orlando. Because of her injuries, tekiah was eventually airlifted to Shriners’ Burn Unit in Cincinnati, Ohio where she had no family. She spent months rehabilitating, being tended to, skin grafts placed on the burns, other types of therapy to calm her painful injuries, but the scars will likely stay with her for life. tekiah was eventually released from Shriners, but was then placed with kin who were not her father and stepmother, who eventually lost custody of a baby she was making when she abused her stepdaughter. There are many abusive parents like this woman, tansy Innocent, and I can name many other child abuse stories that both go noticed and unnoticed. The problem here lies with child welfare agencies. They feel they can only do so much but their definition of “at risk child” can also be hampered by the dollar amounts given them by governments and grant outlets.

Attend the sad ballad of Gabriel Fernandez. He had been a vibrant little boy, but at age eight, he died of abuse and injuries sustained by head trauma, likely inflicted by his abusive mother. She and her codefendant, a boyfriend who was probably connected to some drug rings from what I’m observed on the Netflix docuseries about this case, abused and killed this sweet little boy. I keep thhinkinnng about his death a lot, and asking if that had been my son, what would I do. As a mother, nothing pulls at me more than the responsibility to protect my baby boy from everything that harms him. When I sing the song Not While I’m Around, that fabled song from Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of fleet Street, I am reminded of my responsibility as a mother to absolutely keep Malcolm close and let nothing harmful touch him. Abusive partners and babysitters are among the harms that can touch our kids. However, physical abuse does not stop with children.

Many of the women I saw one day at the Downtown Denver courthouse on a sprinngn day in 2014 were badly mauled by abusive husbands. Some were injured in their jaws, others needed to get such an order for fear of an abusive roommate or boyfriend. Females historically have been at elevated risk of physical harm by a partner or friend, even a coworker. Women with disability are at greater risk of the same physical injuries, but emotional abuse also comes with it. Physically disabled women sadly are the greatest risk we talk about when we discuss vilicide. Young girls and women with a variety of disabilities, including neurodivergent symptomology are at great risk of being harmed or murdered by caregivers, and this includes parents or close family friends. Group home staff where such people reside can also prove to be unqualified and can pose a safety risk for women, particularly in vegetative states. One woman in Arizona was raped by her caregiver, resulting in a pregnancy that yielded a baby. She was unable to consent but the baby was born right there in her group home, but the family of this child, the maternal family, took the baby in. The father of tis child was arrested rightfully for dependent adult abuse. Sadly, not every abuser of a dependent adult will get justice handed to them. Society likes to believe these at risk adults are simply disposable, not worthy of safety and protection. Sadly, we deal with police brutality on these selfsame adults. The police were called on the home of danielle Elise Jacobs, later she wouldd be known as Caden clarke, but it ended in their death. The death of a loved one is bad enough, but Ms. Jacobs’s death yielded problems with Mesa’s police force and its handling of welfare checks on disabled residents of the town. Jacobs herself was neurodivergent, autistic and loved animals. She was suffering suicidal thoughts but I don’t think she wanted anyone to do the job for her. Sadly, the Arizona Republic attacked this being’s life, and justified some of the problematic encounter from what I gathered. There are many beings on this earth who are deserving of protections like Ms. Jacobs was, but sadly won’t be granted such.

Physical abuse can leave scars and painful memories for the victim on a personal level, but families also are left scrambling and asking questions about why it had happened, what could have prevented it from going on. When Gabriel Fernandez died, whole swathes of the child welfare system in Los Angeles were left with more questions about how they failed him. Many spousal abuse victims are left with a community siding with their abuser, but if they died, then law enforcement must become involved and solve a murder. The cost overall per capita for physical abuse can range from the very small abrasion costing no more than a few dollars to mend to a high price, let’s say $10k, which includes extensive rehabilitation and the procurement of such things as a wheelchair for the victim, to the $100k plus for a murdered victim, including forensic testing of evidence, crime scene photo taking, a variety of victim advocate services for the family left behind, the detectives who work tirelessly to figure out who is responsible. Some intimate partner violence sadly ends in tragedy. There are a few notable cases of this, and the details are indeed devastating.

In Connecticut, a mother of a few children, Jennifer Dulos, was found murdered in her car, or someplace. Her husband was charged with her murder. He might have justified this murder, but there is never justified reason to murder any human being, including one’s intimate partner.

Laurie vallo, a former beauty and game show contestant, met and married a man from a fringe religious group named Chad Daybell, and sadly they went on a horrific killing spree of each other’s families. Laurie herself killed two of her children, her teenage daughter Tylee, and her sweet son JJ. Both children paid the price, and she also shot her then husband Charles. Laurie eventually was found guilty of their murders.

The most devastating and glaring example of tragedy with intimate partner violence is that of Chris Watts, who sadly resided in Colorado, in the Frederic area. Watts married a Shanan, who bore him two daughters. Bella and celeste, nicknamed CC, were the pride of Shanan’s and chris’s lives. One of the little girls sang of her daddy as a hero, and little did she or anyone else know that Chris sadly became a ticking time bomb. I remember hearing about the whole family suddenly going missing, but it was revealed that Shanan, pregnant with chris’s unborn son Nico, and her two daughters and the unborn son as well, all fell victim to a murderous plot on Chris’s part which involved him choking Shanan to death and the girls as well. All were placed in separate oil drums, and left out back to rot. All the bodies were eventually located by detectives and Watts was rightfully brought in for questioning. He later pled guilty, upon realizing he’d never get his family back, to a number of counts of first degree murder. Physical abuse can sometimes not happen for years, and as with Watts, it’s waiting to happen but you never know it.

How can we prevent physical abuse? Red flags of a physical abuser include statements they may make about the worth of the persons they abuse. Children may fall target to someone physically abusive but not understand it is wrong. Intimate partner abuse can lead to denial of resources, but the physical abuse has such horrific consequences, some victims will need 24/7 care as a result.

A note to children and youth reading this: if you or someone you know is experiencing any type of abuse, please reach out to a grown being you trust. Choose a grownup who can believe your story, a teacher you love, a mentor in a scouting program, a big brother for example. You can voice these things to the grown person of your choosing, and they are bound to report these incidents. Rest easy in knowing these adults are supposed to protect you. If you are experiencing life threatening abuse and an emergency, in the United States, please call 911, in the UK, 999, in australia, 000. Be sure to memorize your country’s emergency code, and contact this code immediately. If you must take matters into your own hands, be sure to seek alternative shelter from your abuser, taking care not to tell them where you are going. Be sure that you are aware that you are not alone, and you do not deserve to be treated with much disrespect as you might have been or still are being treated now. As a mother, I can’t imagine ever laying hands on my son except a loving pat, squeezing and hugging, and always reminding him that he is loved. So if you are someone who knows someone who is being abused, let them know they are not alone.

For intimate partners being abused, if you or someone you know is being abused by a spouse or intimate partner, the national Domestic Violence Hotline is an invaluable resource, and they provide resources for texting or calling if needed. They provide resources on the daily, and if you need shelters, or assistance escaping, there are ways to do this. Please click http://www.thehotline.org, and choose your preferred method of communication. As with the kids, if you are experiencing a life threatening emergency at all, [lease utilize your country’s emergency code, see above. I’d lik to also call to mind that at risk adults are at risk of dying from abuse. IF you or someone yoou know is at risk of abuse, do contact your local human services hotline. Every dHS agency in every state in the U.S. typically has a child and adult abuse hotline for reporting such. Be sure to have documentation of the abuse, and who is doing the abusing.

Thank you all for reading, and I hope you all are able to grasp the magnitude of what abuse does from a physical standpoint.

Beth

The Dark Side of Catholic Education IS Now On Display in Denver!

Dear Readers,

The following are my thoughts based on my personal observation of the Roman Catholic Church and its now bullshit teachings about reproductive justice and special preference for heterosexual families. I can tell you that Parochial school education is so out for our son, I can’t wait to reveal all here. Consider this following paragraphs what could be in a Denver Post op. ed. piece because people need to be fully awake to the fact that the Roman Catholic church is so rife with hypocrisy that Jesus would probably burn the whole thing down first.

My name is Beth Taurasi. I was baptized at Enunciation Catholic Church in Lake Mary, Florida. Later, my brothers were born and baptized at St. Teresa’s Catholic Church. This church, like so many other Catholic Churches and schools, teaches a lot of hypocrisy. It starts with the prekindergarten year. The Roman Catholic Church claims to follow Christ, but recent headlines across our country and especially in Denver’s Archdiocesan area prove this so well. When I entered the fifth grade, I had been transferred to a parochial school, naturally it was that attached to St. teresa’s parish in Titusville. There was a glaring difference between this school and the local public elementary school, Imperial Estates Elementary School, located a short walk away from my former residential base at Oak Trails Meadowridge subdivision. All you had to do was walk around my old street, Little Oak Circle, and there would be a bike path you followed, and there you entered Imperial Estates Elementary. At that school, there had been a wide variety of races and faces, kids were healthy, they played and learned. During this time, my parents insisted my brothers and I attend religious education at St. Teresa’s. Later, about my fifth grade year, it was decided much to my chagrin that we’d be all attending that same school. St. Teresa’s was a bad choice and I can name thousands of reasons why. There were problems from the beginning. Open the STS handbook, and you might find the dress code quite alarming. For girls and boys, you had to don a prescribed uniform. In fifth grade, I was given a pinafore jumper, later I had to wear a puke plaid skirt. The skirts and jumpers were ugly on the outside, only that is subjective. We all had to wear these white polo shirts with the school’s emblem on them. I admit I’d woken up my share of times, then when I would attempt picking out said polo, sometimes I’d end up with a pink polo, my mom jokingly inquiring about whether it was “pink shirt day.” I wish that were the case.

It has become known that STS also did not have a very racially diverse student body. The faculty weren’t so much of a problem, however just about all the teachers were white. The student body was and probably still is a term my partner uses, “lily white.” The students are so white and if not, they are Puerto Rican. From my experience at the school, there were ZERO African American students to be seen or heard. We took Spanish at this school, and sadly, the children did not bother to immerse themselves in the Spanish language. Even my partner Clayton Jacobs, a resident of Arizona for a long time, could do much better at his Spanish and articulate the grammar tons better than these children could have done since kindergarten. It’s pretty abysmal when you have academic curricula also that go beyond elementary schools I’ve attended, Atlantis Elementary and Imperial Estates Elementary both, but yet when it comes to the way this school operated and still probably does today, students who are sexual minorities and who have disabilities better run for the hills. To start with, my parents enrolled me and the brothers in this school not for our own growth and development, but for their own interests only. Both my parents are proud Catholic school graduates and highly Catholic educated. All of us kiddos came out Catholic, baptized and receiving our First Communions at the appropriate times, and later we were given the Sacraments of Confirmation. My brother Danny later received the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, better known as he got married. His wife is a school psychologist I’m told, but my niece, Leah Taurasi, sadly could be strung along an educational war of wars that should never be fought with children in the crossfire. Leah’s whole family is not very friendly to sexual minorities. Had I even spoken one word about LGBTQ+ issues, who wants to bet my adopted father, David Taurasi, or my mother would pull out misguided scriptural passages to justify the abuse or genocide of LGBTQ+ people? Does anyone know how it might even feel for my son, Malcolm C. Jacobs, age four months, when he’s four years old perhaps? Children this young know who they are, and they know what their pronouns are. Malcolm so far goes by the pronouns “he, him, his.” I will probably train him to be an ally for the LGBTQ+ community, even if Dad thinks the whole pronouns thing is quite annoying. It is refreshing though to see Colorado professionals, social workers and teachers included, writing their pronouns in email signatures. No names but these people are showing us the way to welcoming LGBTQ+ people. St. Teresa School however, does not welcome anything that is deemed immoral. I can tell you the dark side of parochial education, and it can be summed up in three words: inadequate sex education.

From the fifth grade on up, the class of peers I was corralled with were expected to read what I call dangerous sexual propaganda. It’s not what GOP parents call “woke propaganda” either. It’s even more dangerous. New Creation textbooks were doled out each year, and we were forced to accept the contents as the Gospel Truth. No sooner than I left that wooden box of dead moral values that put women in a submissive position did I turn 17 and entered eleventh grade at Titusville High, I was subjected to all manner of guardianship abuse due to both my disability and so called naïveté. Sadly, my parents were mistaken to send me to a Roman Catholic school. The academics are above board, I’ll say that, but the moral education is sadly behind the times. The Archdiocesan programs in Denver are not the exception either. they follow a strongly bigoted teaching in the Catholic Church. I’ve heard my share of antigay slurs and excuses written in the Book of genesis, and sadly, more people might chant the hateful mantra of “Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.” Because of this hateful mantra and many others, the Colorado Department of Early Childhood now faces a lawsuit. What is this lawsuit, you might ask? The Archdiocese of Denver claims it has the right under the First Amendment to bully and silence the voices of LGBTQ+ parents and children and staff. The same Archdiocese claims it has the right to be bigots. While we hold these truths, religious freedom included, to be more than self evident, let’s not forget that all human beings are not only created equal, but have value, dignity, and worth above all else. The godhead the Catholics praise daily, Jesus Christ, never spoke one word against anyone, no matter what they did or who they loved. In filing this lawsuit against the DEC, the archdiocese is throwing proverbial stones. Can we remember the passage in your bibles where Jesus clearly states at a public attempted stoning of a promiscuous woman, “Let those who have not sinned throw the first stone.” Everybody left. If we allow the Archdiocese to continue throwing stones at people who are at severe risk of physical and mental abuse of all types, then we are sinners ourselves. The Denver archbishop is nothing more than a bigot who does not care about women and young girls either. One opinion piece following the headlines about this lawsuit was written eloquently by a Catholic man, or some man but he clearly listed all the wrongs this archbishop partook in. All of these wrongs were designed to attack LGBTQ+ individuals. Abortion may be another hot button subject of the church, but let’s not forget that I personally would never abort. even in Wicca, we are told that we must “do no harm” as part of the read. We can do as we please, but we must not harm anything. For me, that included the tiny embryo that later became my precious firstborn child, a boy born to a father who had a prior child. This precious boy is everything I could ever ask for and maybe a lot more. His giggles and smiles delight every childcare professional and everybody around town. Malcolm is the happiest baby I’ve ever had and my first. that doesn’t help matters. But to see a world around us that tells my son that it is not okay to love a man because it’s against a god that truly doesn’t stand in this world sickens me. When Malcolm begins any education, I am hoping that Colorado will not push me to send him to an Archdiocesan preschool program. Private schools are so costly I could never imagine sending Malcolm to one. Catholic education is old and demented in its attempts to wipe out LGBTQ+ students because of a special interest in breeding more Catholic babies. so what does the Roman Catholic Church do to ensure a great big supply of children to indoctrinate in to their antigay and exclusive lifestyle that also looks bad for disabled kids? All they have to do is force young Catholic girls to become the breeders of Catholic babies, marry good Catholic husbands, and if you’re a lesbian, too bad. So sad. go straight to Hell. I do not accept this so called moral objection to being gay or lesbian. I could possibly be bisexual, but I’m revealing this and outing myself if that’s the truth. However, all of us should be alive in a world where compassion and empathy are the norm. Malcolm deserves to play with all kinds of children, and if heaven forbid my dear son tells me he likes boys, he likes girls, he likes both, I’m right here in the wings waiting to sit him down and have a heart to heart. Heaven forbid, if he wants to reveal a true nature of being female, I’m fine with making sure he is so well loved and cared for that … she becomes a blossoming woman. Either way, this being that I gave birth to is my whole world. When I saw that entire hullabaloo going on with the Archdiocese, I simply could not stop wondering what kinds of propaganda had been dumped on the kiddos at so many places in Denver. Regis High School, a Jesuit school, should be teaching true Jesuit values. They must include compassion and empathy, which means you give that gay dude a drink of water. You extend help to a lesbian couple. Give that transgender child a hug. Let us all in the door. Somebody’s knocking at the door now. Jesus said all of us could come to the water, and believing in him should not mean giving up the fact that you love someone different than what’s expected. Jesus loved all the little children and every single person on earth should learn from the teachings of Christ that we are not bound by bigotry and evil, and we will not be here waiting for another christian school to make mountains out of molehills when a gay person makes the news for something positive. My son Malcolm will be a revolutionary icon, but this remains to be seen and revealed. One thing I will be clear about though, this boy will never set foot in a parochial school. My niece, Leah, however, will suffer either stunted growth due to Governor Ron DeSantis’s reckless endangerment of Florida students and their intellect, or she could be indoctrinated into a pool of bigotry and forced to hide a piece of her only revealed when she becomes an adolescent. Our children are counting on the Colorado Department of Early Childhood to put the Archdiocese of Denver in check. These people should not receive funding for a universal preschool program if they think they can get away with bigotry and hate. We are not a society that codifies hate, and should remain thus. Any laws forbidding children from being who they are should all be banished to the history books.

Beth taurasi

Florida Confederacy?

Dear readers,

I’m going to start a series of posts dealing with Florida’s backward leaning education system, and I want to start out with a post detailing my own Florida schools experience. What could it have done better? You’ll see. Read on.

I was mainstreamed in the third grade just about, being born totally blind meant that I would have to have some way to learn Braille, and I did with the help of a TVI. Every blind child who needs it should be learning Braille after all. Through the learning of Braille, I was able to read many things, including but not limited to books, signs, and documents related to all kinds of subject matter. It became necessary to use Braille in music classes too, and everybody benefits when a blind child learns Braille music so … what are we waiting for!

I was lucky in my Florida school education. Aside from obnoxious religious texts and frameworks dealing with purity and inaccurate and backward views of sexuality and marriage, I still got the bulk of subjects I would benefit from along with my classmates. Examples of literature I was exposed to ranged from things like fairy tales and story novels like those written by Roald Dahl and some written by classic authors like Laura Ingalls Wilder, all the way to William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, now perhaps I don’t feel so bad about that book today but I thought for a few moments back in high school that Lord of the Flies was quite stupid. No, actually, I could think of a much more stupid book than that. Lord of the Flies actually exposes the reality of human nature from the point of view of a bunch of shipwrecked boys, nuff said.

Florida schools back then taught me about things like totalitarian Communism, and we also covered black history as well in U.S. history. Such black figures as Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and even Madame C.J. Walker were all covered. We learned so much in the way of how the antebellum slave institutions affected black and white people, and how the Civil Rights Movement really turned things on their heads for those who did not want blacks in their establishments. I felt like reading books about Rosa Parks, for example, was not taboo. But look, what I am about to write here could be considered taboo, read on.

Today’s Florida schools are twisted evil brainwashing centers. I need not look too far to find such places even out west. Utah’s got a couple, they had someplace called Alta Academy, which is a brainwashing center, not a school. I can tell you why. One, the textbooks chosen for this school do not truly educate, they school girls to be submissive baby factories for men who are of course taught you can have and must have three wives to get into Heaven. Imagine you’re a male from this religious sect, the FLDS as it’s called, but we’re talking many victims of this cult still roam and Warren Jeffs, their leader, is now rotting in prison. Why? Because, should I say this, his voice and errant teachings promoted sexual abuse of many young women, and teaching males that it’s okay to abuse and fondle underage girls is never okay.

Florida schools these days probably won’t teach young women how to bake huge meals for a family of a hundred kids and such, but they are attempting to build something the Boogaloo boys might be proud of. Jefferson Davis and other Confederate officials during the Civil War and antebellum Southern history might be even more so because of the governor of Florida, Ron De Santos and his minions doing a lot to curb Florida students from getting a real education. My dear partner and I had a deep discussion as is often the case when we’re in the mood, and it involved us talking about the true purpose of public schools. It’s ten times worse now in Florida today than it was back in my educational nightmare before. For one, public schools all over the country literally do lots of what we psychologist types might call “Pavlovian conditioning.” Um, ever heard of a curious old Russian scientist called Pavlov? He used dogs to prove a point and if you forgot, here’s the summary. Whenever a bell was rung in Pavlov’s laboratory, dogs would get food after. Later it was found that upon the ringing of the bell, the dogs would salivate because they anticipated food. In human senses, we are a lot like pavlov’s dogs in school, and we know why. Thirty minutes of class, then a bell sounds, and the bell makes kids riled up. In high school, one is expected to go from class to class with a bell and then there are tardy policies. I don’t think I agree with either of these. I have been a victim of Pavlovian conditioning for on time performance in school, and I want to apologize to all the teachers this affected, so yes.

LEt’s get further into why Florida schools are brainwashing centers. One could say that now you have to make the elite kids comfortable. LEt me just say I’m not comfortable because Gideon Brodas smiles, is comfortable and can own someone. I wouldn’t like that. Okay, anyone watched the movie Harriet with Cynthia Arrivo? IF you haven’t, you’re missing out. Gideon Brodas is as white as it gets, and if he were transported to a modern Florida, perhaps he’d ask just one more thing. HE’d want all black children to be owned as slaves, or not allowed to advance in careers. Well? Perhaps De Santos is not far off. This man is public enemy number one for all minority students, and it goes so far when you ban books about Harriet Tubman, but you put someone like the Brodas family on top and don’t even bother talking about Tubman’s contribution to society. What could be worse! One scene in Harriet pretty much spells out what I’m saying here. in it, Harriet is pretty much burning Gideon up like he deserves it, and my favorite words are these, “WE don’t own people, Gideon,” says the eloquent Arrivo as her character is seen with a gun practically all over the son of her master, and she disabled him, glad she didn’t kill him at least, he needed to feel the pain so that he could understand how his father’s estate’s worth of “property” felt. Perhaps such punishment should be instilled on Florida’s governing persons?

Schools in Florida are now no longer able to teach about all black figures, including Rosa Parks, MLK Jr., and my son’s namesake, Malcolm X, and to my absolute horror, it gets worse. All books and literature can’t have anything to do with Diversity, equity, and inclusion. All of this will also make a younger version of myself a target for exclusion in school. Blind girls in literature being depicted doing anything but sit rocking in a chair seems now to have been made illegal. White supremacy doesn’t just hurt black people, it also hurts anyone who does not fit straight definition of male and female. We can’t even read about how to fix this!

Sexuality and gender affirmation is now illegal. Let me tell you this will hurt my dear son. IF he should be somehow a different sexual orientation or gender identity, Florida will say, too bad so sad your child has genitalia assigned this way, so no care or affirmation.

Anyhow, I do plan to write part 2 of this, and hoping I can get some raw data from actual teachers on my Facebook and Twitter that can support or refute what I’m saying here.

Beth

Extrajudicial Guardianship and Medical Apartheid: How Hospitals and Medical Providers Must Treat Minorities Better

Dear readers,

First of all, if any of you attempted to pop on to my blog, I apologize for a server error, and I’d like to thank my big fan Clayton for pointing that out, I’ll jump on that soon as possible. For now, try going to denverqueen.wordpress.com, and browse there. Might even be a hosting issue, as Firestar Hosting, my new web hosting provider, has had some maintenance thingies going on, so I’ll talk to the administrator in charge and I happen to have a pretty good working relationship with this person. Now, on to the meat and potatoes of this post.

Over the last six months, I’m not sure how much time has gone by since I last typed up a post here, it has been quite obvious that because of my low income status, perhaps my blindness, perhaps other factors, that my women’s care clinic finds it within themselves to perform a few subliminal messages that sighted people are a bit or a lot more welcome to receive care without too many hangups at the clinic. As I type this, I’m thoroughly experiencing normal things associated with 34 weeks of pregnancy, and it has been a roller coaster not just for me, but for my partner. We’ve gone up and down, had a lot of twists, turns and embankments, upside down, round and round, and from various sources. I’ll start with something that seems to bother me from the beginning.

The clinic at Denver Health seems to have put the burden on me, the patient, and thrown surprise tests like iron levels, and without warning, they poked me in the arm to see if I was anemic, and out came a prescription for an iron supplement. While this is relatively normal for most pregnant women to have anemia, who knew how much billing that supplement came with? I take the supplement each morning, along with an antibiotic because this pregnancy brought two UTI’s which if untreated, could have become painful. I get that, having suffered a UTI while not pregnant, mind you, but it didn’t help that both my bladder and the rest of me were doing strange things the morning I went for college registration in 2011. Turned out I had a fever in the works, and the doctor in charge of my care basically prescribed an antibiotic, and that was only me not pregnant. IF a pregnancy had been in the picture, however, antibiotics would be inevitable, and the close monitoring probably even more close. Each visit at the OB clinic, I submit a urine sample. There were two samples taht came back infected, thus the antibiotics. So along with my iron supplement, I have to take my antibiotic once daily and I do that in the morning.

Along with the morning meds, I usually have the prenatal things, stuff I’ve been taking since even before conception began. Prenatals are important, mind you, but then came the baby aspirins, which you can chew because why swallow those! They’re just the baby ones, little doses in each tablet, and they help with the preeclampsia symptoms, including … well, high blood pressure. For women over 35, preeclampsia can occur at birth, and the symptoms leading up to it include hypertension, but my blood pressures have been going down with each check, but have stayed consistently in the normal range, the bigger number within 120-130 plus or minus five points along the way, and the smaller number, the little one below it, usually hovers around 70-80 again plus or minus five points. It doesn’t seem to bother me, and sometimes I think the whole blood pressure is overkill. With my little boy, I’ve developed gestational diabetes, which unfortunately is classified as a kind of autoimmune disease and I agree that it is mostly a genetic thing, and it shows. Looking back at my own family’s history, there are members who have consistently had either type II diabetes or in some people, gestational diabetes. My mom’s sister had or has type II, and a cousin or two would develop gestational diabetes, and it further exacerbates things when we add that my mom’s dad has gotten type II and has had it most of his old age. There’s nothing wrong with a healthy lifestyle, but family genes and history don’t help matters either.

My biggest worry about all this, citing the concerns described above, is the OB clinic’s use of what I call “extrajudicial guardianship.” I’ve written posts about guardianship and just how traumatic it is for all adults, especially for those with disabilities and seniors. When a clinic claims that they’re acting in the best interest of the patient, sometimes it goes further than it needs to. My question here is, am I the vessel and do I have feelings? IF yes to the question of feelings, then why aren’t they being taken into consideration? We’ve seen this time and time again. Here are some examples, and before I do the listing of examples, I want to throw in a trigger warning, so TW for medical information and some exploitation, content warning CW for pregnancy related information.

First off, the surprises we’ve seen along the way were just too many to name. WE fought for consistency with providers, and we got a lovely midwife who provides good service so far. She’s not the problem we’ve had a lot with, but we’ve had some medical assistants who’ve tried to pull things on us, a few fast ones, such as failing to work with our daily schedule to best serve the needs of this family. Example, for my nonstress tests (NST’s) appointments, the medical assistant we had on with us failed and utterly refused to give us a time that would work on the day we usually go to appointments, consistently giving us the worst possible times where we’d have gaps between the regular OB visits and then the NST part itself. We’d have been forced to wait long hours in someplace in the megacomplex of this hospital, and there would not have been too many options, being that Subway has some low quality food with too much processed sugars in it, bad for GD patients, and the hours we spend waiting, we reasoned, could best be spent doing other things, and could overlap with other scheduling things, which it could have done had we taken such times at all. We fought tooth and nail to get better times, this way we’d be doing hospital and OB appointments with the other activities we do in mind. This almost would have never been the case with a sighted couple.

Another big example of extrajudicial guardianship over a patient involves determining when life within should begin. At my last NST, while my tiny fetal baby was playing hard with the nurses, kicking as hard as he could perhaps to send the message that “I’m as funny as you think I am” and so on, his heartbeat strong and happy as it should be, a midwife approached me and while she did sign off on the NST test, my partner and I discussed something that she had told me. “We commonly recommend inducing at week 37 for patients with gestational diabetes and hypertension.” I have been repeatedly given the story of the risks involved in having a baby with those conditions, including the possible scenario of a stillbirth, and we both got quite angry. My partner and I will soon have a discussion with the midwives and providers in charge, and we want a clear risk assessment for our baby should this truly be the outcome they predict, which it shouldn’t be. I feel that these clinicians are attempting to in a sense play God, where they get to decide my baby’s birthday based on something out of my control. My little boy should be allowed to be born on the expected due date, which as of right now, is April 30. Extrajudicial guardianship, however, dictates that he be born at week 37, but given my family’s maternal pregnancy history, my mother had me right on time, and both my brothers were subsequently on time to my knowledge. My youngest sibling oddly enough sprang out of my mom’s womb and broke a bone along the way. The doctors put him back together, of course, but in later years, my brother would break bones three times in his youth. Kids seem to have done that quite a bit.

With extrajudicial decision making on my behalf a concern, it brought to mind something else. We are concerned that the clinic, in recommending induction at week 37, would like to get rich by throwing in more medical interventions. I hope to not even. have to have an epidural, and my other options include opiates in an IV which I wouldn’t dare touch. I am trying to avoid plutosin, which supposedly augments the pain in labor. I don’t want too much labor pain, not more than ordinarily felt by an ordinary woman in the ninth month of pregnancy. I’m preparing for the possibility of my water bursting and breaking, which to me will be quite exciting, sort of, and the wetness is one clue. The pain in labor, however, should not be so debatable, plutosin or no. We’re going to be frank here, we want almost nothing in medical interventions, but I will say if I test positive for group B strep, which that’s required so that baby will live, I’m fine with antibiotics in an IV so that this little man will not have to go down with the infection. I want to raise my little boy, I’m sure everybody wants this, but I would rather have a tall and strapping young man in my presence down the road, not have to worry about everything in the newborn years. I read a very informative bit on group B strep, thanks to a fellow pregnant mom who’s been pregnant before, doesn’t exactly help matters there. The group B strep is quite dangerous, but must be sought and found if present at week 36. IF found, the strep could cause some issues with mom and baby, so intervention to fix that is a must. Other than this, I don’t want medicated pain management. We have some wonderful birth team members we’ve recruited along the way, including but not limited to the fine women at the Elephant Circle, the fine peer mentors at Alma, and so many other loving and caring people along the road we’ve taken. Shout outs to our doulas out there, I’d like to train as one because we need more blind doulas in this country, let alone blind midwives/nurses, doctors of course, but blind women are in most need of voices heard. This leads me to what I would like to say regarding my voice being heard. We understand the risks, but if my baby gets too big to fit through my body, I can see the possible induction being at week 39 or 41, but we also understand about the hypertension and gestational diabetes being any sort of factor. What we want here is to be able to make decisions based on the facts, not the concerns or predictions. We don’t want our baby to be born still, born with issues, of course. However, we want to make sure we the parents play an active role in deciding how we’re going to put this child on the road to begin his life. We truly don’t wish for anyone outside God to be playing God. It happens so often, people think they can take the role of Creator and Destroyer, and it happens when a baby is forced out of a woman’s body in labor and by way of induction, or further, when an inmate is executed. Life should begin with nature, end with nature. Both myself and my partner want to be able to experience that nature that was intended for women in pregnancy and birth spaces.

Extrajudicial guardianship is a huge problem for low income and Medicaid patients. It hearkens to a scenario often played out over and over again. In black communities, we see women in OB and birth spaces being at risk of mortality during or after birth. This could have happened to a tennis great, Serena Williams, at the birth of her daughter. It happened, unfortunately, to a dear friend of mine. Crystal Henry-Campbell, who is of mixed racial background, was giving birth to her third daughter, and she completed the birth successfully. However, some hours or so into the postpartum stage, I’m not quite sure if it was hours or days, she developed a very big stroke, and this led to her being airlifted to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where she was later pronounced dead. Her girls will no longer have a mother, and for the youngest, it is heartbreaking and devastating. Could Crystal have received better care if she was Caucasian American? Possibly, which leads to the question of medical apartheid. IF anyone read the book about medical apartheid, it covers many experiments and unethical practices done against black people in the United States, particularly African Americans and those who were enslaved to begin with. LEt us travel back in time a bit, and look at the experimentation done on black women in the mid nineteenth century. A trigger warning, TW, will be in place for the next section as I’m about to discuss some gruesome details about dissection, and the details could make one’s blood boil.

Dr. Marion Sims, the so called “father of obstetrics and gynecology”, was perhaps psychologically sick. HE experimented on female slaves and dissected their body parts, particularly the labias and uteruses so that the world could see how the body worked. Back then, you couldn’t just do painless procedures, but even back then, there could have been better things to do with such front if experiments were necessary. Dr Sims was unethical and besides the purchase of the black slaves, this doctor engaged in things I couldn’t imagine. It goes deeper. Medical Apartheid covers not only this particular doctor, but there are countless others, including the extraction of cells from one Henrietta Lax, on which there is also a stand alone book. Henrietta Lax’s own cervical cells were extracted for experimental purposes, and perhaps without the family’s consent. Thus why I’m outraged about my own care.

Outside of obstetrics and gynecology, the medical apartheid goes into cadavers and exhibiting black people in public zoos and circuses, I could go on. The same treatment given to these people could possibly extend further to disabled patients. IF I die, to be fair, I have recently signed up with Donate Life, but I’m making this clear. Don’t bother using my eyes for anything but research purposes. They are not usable, but my other organs will be a great asset to someone who’s possibly at death’s door waiting for a new set of guts, kidneys and liver, all of it. My heart could possibly give life to someone else, who knows. I am registered as a deceased organ donor, and I did this for the sake of others I would know that need it. My body will be of use after my death, so in a way I’m going to be a tad immortal, even if that means I’m not all the way animated, and you won’t hear my voice or see my writing here after my death, but if someone walks up to you and says, I have Beth’s heart and I have Beth’s lungs, kidneys or liver, you will be thinking that I did something incredible. I have to be clear though about my eyes, but all other organs and tissues will be distrivuted to people who truly need it. When a cadaveric organ or tissue is donated, oftentimes it could be of someone who is low income, and they have no say in it. How many of us have any idea what Donate Life is? I registered as an organ donor on my phone’s health app. iF you all have Apple or Android health records stored, I’d be one to say the setup and registration process is easy, and accessible with Voiceover but I can’t speak to Talkback, the screen reading software for Android users. Donate Life is a very huge national organ donor registry, and I’d rather have signed up with my personal consent, but not if a doctor demanded it because of anything else. My partner would probably be proud of me, and I’d inform him that the registration will for me be a bit of peace of mind, and I would hope for him, it would be a way for me to say that no matter where I am and where my soul is, I’m still going to give myself away as many times as possible. With medical apartheid victims, the medical orgn and tissue donation is not done with their personal consent. Sometimes black and minority patients are cut apart, purposefully killed for their cadaverous bones and such, which begs the question of ethics. Families should not have to beg and sue medical providers for the dead remains of their loved ones.

Blind and physically disabled people should be making all decisions, including medical on their own. I made the medical decision to conceive and bear a child for my beloved partner, so why isn’t any medical provider apt to respect that? My decisions are essential to my well being, and it just never occurs to medical providers that my decisions are my decisions, from the beginning of my son’s life to my actual death.

Money: The Root of All Evil and How It Rips families Apart and kills people

Dear readers,

Imagine you are slapped in the face by your mother, and then you wonder if you just got slapped hard enough to cause blood to flow. Up to this point, you’re asked to do chores, but under threat of punishment, you have to be in bed, you can’t even read books at night, and also under threat of punishment, you are told to exercise, go to a stupid private school, and furthermore,you are screamed at and punished for four weeks without any relief such as music on the radio for something as minor as flooding a bathroom, or perhaps you don’t get a hot lunch and can’t liten to the radio for any number of minor infractions. This was my reality. Yet the Child Welfare system in Florida, the Department of Children and Families, did not anticipate a fifteen year long stunt with a guardianship, did not anticipate my reality being transformed into a prison. In March of 2006, David Taurasi falsely imprisoned me along with my mother, Patricia, his wife. Their justification was that I was “obsessed with Orien Henry” and at that time, I was nineteen. HE was a bit below that, however, I had zero friends, zero ways to get help, and because of the prior slap from my mother, I was the one being punished not her. My parents assured and duped DCF workers into thinking they’d get counseling as a family, but that counseling was also abusive in that the counselors and therapists were paid for with my parents’ insurance, and these people were coached, perhaps demanded of, to tell me that I was inferior, to tell me to obey parents whose only wish was to emotionally abuse. To this day, I can no longer trust them. Their guardianship did not allow me to marry the men I chose, allowed their emotional abuse to continue beyond the slap and the mocking bullshit they posed about me sitting beside persons I cared to be around, and they cut off all communications with all my friends, and this was in an effort to silence me. This reality was sponsored in large part by the almighty dollar. Insurance companies, social workers, and worst of all, a powerful aerospace engineer were all complacent in emotional abuse of this girl, this woman, me. David Taurasi continues to show little if not no interest in my beautiful son, I won’t reveal his name here on this blog because it’s more public than Facebook, but David and Patricia, my own parents, claiming they love me, have shown zero interest and zero contributions to my baby registry have popped up. They are hurting my son, yet showering Leah, my niece, their legitimate granddaughter, the daughter of Danny, not the son of Beth but the daughter of DAd’s little golden child, Danny, with gifts, love, family time, attention, and respect. My mother nods off and sighs when I want her to help with my upcoming birth, but then jumps on the opportunity to help a strange woman, the wife of her firstborn son. She refuses to let me marry, then I balk and expose her and my adoptive father for the people they are, especially on the FaceUs radio program, Third Eye Visions, all of this in an effort to expose their wicked scheme, so what does this family do? When my beloved partner and I are expecting a child, they close the door. They punish me yet again, not showing interest in keeping my son with me. Instead, they pressure and pressure me to adopt the little guy out to a family. I’ve even gotten judgments like this on Facebook, stuff like because of the partner I chose, I’m not fit to be a mother. WHo’s the fit one? Was it the one who lies about child abuse allegations that are false? Or is it the lioness over here who’s typing this to tell you what people’s actions actually do?

Let me explain what money does to hurt our children. I won’t use any stories but mine and publicized stories in the news outlets and things I’ve been exposed to. Disclaimer: I am not publicizing any answers about any alleged incidents involving my partner or me.

LEt’s start with some happy endings. Eight-year-old Tekiah Innocent was removed from her mother because of neglect. Was there neglect in the Innocent story? I don’t know, but DCF does, and they likely did find a lazy mother playing with herself, the television, or something other than Tekiah herself. She moves in with her father who, besides being “pussy whipped” by an evil monstrocity such as Tansy Innocent, doesn’t report his daughter’s abuse by Tansy when she dunks her stepdaughter’s body in hot water as punishment. I have a few things to point out here. Florida is the child abuse capital of the United States, and there’s one thing that might have stopped Tansy from doing this evil deed. Had she been monitored closely by DCF officials, and this is a sighted nondisabled parent, she would have probably been denied access to Tekiah while she was behind. Tekiah’s prognosis? 30% of her body was covered in second and third degree burns. The grandmother might never see her granddaughter again, but she did the right thing and Tekiah was eventually adopted in a kinship placement to my knowledge. She survived, but the next few cases did not.

DCF doesn’t seem to have its priorities straight. My own story proves that. I had to, however, escape at age 23 to Denver in 2010, and I’ve never been the one to want to be flown back. I have my own apartment, I have a baby on the way, I have a loving partner, and I have friends in the area who care, not only professionals but true soldiers who stand with me, solidarity is key. I have literally fought the shit out of liars, and I know the importance of protecting my nest, my baby, all of this around me. My parents have shown zero to me about helping with Baby, flying over to meet the child, all of it. No money contributions, no items on the registry purchased, this family is pressuring me to give up my son. Well, that won’t happen.

DCF Florida also has a problematic track record with girls who have disability. They seem to have a huge track record for deaths too. My god, DCF allowed Kayla McKeen to die. In other states, we meet a girl called Sabrina, who died as a result of being conditioned not to eat, that food was for people who earned it. We meet a young boy who is so badly traumatized called Demitrius Keye, who kills his poor little brother Lavarius, this poor innocent boy, over something as trivial as dessert. LEt me ask you a question: would you kill your sibling for dessert? what kind of family dynamic is in a home where a little thirteen year old gets to bully and squash out the life of his little brother for food? The answer is a toxic family dynamic. Social workers did next to nothing, nothing to provide this family with counseling.

Then there’s Michaela Senate, the little girl from Missouri who was snatched away from Erica Johnson and her then partner Blake who are both blind. For some months, this girl was growing big in the arms of foster care. It was determined that Erica and Blake were unfit. Why? Child welfare orgs like the ones across the nation who fail at saving lives yet ripping disabled parents away from their children are doing thees backward things so they can fulfill federal quotas, receive more federal funding for the so called care they receive. I will not reveal how this is possible, only to state that given my experience trying to work with DCF, this is correct. Social workers do this failure and falsify allegations against parents with disabilities, poor people etc., and they even failed to stop the abuse of one Kelly Marie Bond. She was raped repeatedly, and her obituary upon her death seems suspicious. Her pets get more attention, and they are the survivors, but she’s not given any credence as to how she died. Her sister Emily doesn’t seem to care she died.

The CPS/DCF workers’ only interest is to kill off those they deem undesirable. Blind people included, also they want to deny they would kill blind parents, but that’s their end goal. It’s all about the Washingtons, Benjamins, all of it. I’m so livid about the way child welfare orgs operate, and for your information, the DCF folks could have killed me. I’m a blind female, who is going to adopt me?

One final thing about child welfare in Florida. One of my friends on Facebook knows a woman who was a rude bitch in the carpool line outside an old place I went to, Coquina Preschool. This woman supposedly was a foster mother in Titusville, but the news outlets like Florida Today report that this woman killed a fosterling in her care, stating the girl was “possessed by demons.” Who does that! DCF did little if anything to stop her. To close this, however, I will try and offer a happy ending story. It illustrates why DCF/CPS arms must do more and make sure that children in dire need are safer, and this means actual physical and emotional cases of abuse.

Tammy and Brad had some kids, stepchildren between them. Little Jordan was living with Brad and Tammy and the gang. Unfortunately, Brad and Tammy thought it was cute and perhaps a good method of their authoritarian abuse and discipline to throw their little Jordan in a so called Harry Potter room. This went on for years, and little Jordan, living now with his biological mother and still visiting his rescuers, hint hint, was starved nearly to death. Tammy tried to hide this asinine act from DCF/CPS and police, but you should know that the older sibs rescued the poor little boy. The brother fucked with Brad, and the stepsister, well, she called 911 and stuff, and she and the brother with her decided to act because the stupid shell of a mother, Tammy, was abusive to Jordan. Thanks to the courage of the older siblings, Jordan survived, but not without refeeding at the hospital, Dr. Phil McGraw reports that because Jordan’s body was emaciated, he was fed small amounts, then bigger amounts, a process called refeeding. It’s something they should have done to Holocaust survivors, but yes. Now, I would hope that Jordan thrives, loves his siblings, but Tammy and Brad are splitzville and history.

All this could have been stopped if CPS/DCF workers would have their heads on straight, and quotas and money bullshit wasn’t a priority. I have a final thought for you on the front lines of child maltreatment. Do your job. Your job is not to be mooching and collecting federal moneys, it is saving children’s lives. It is helping disabled parents like myself and my partner, it is not ripping apart families so you can cash in.

Thank you.

Beth

The Complete Idiot’s Guide for Installing a Baby’s Car Seat, Both as a Blind Parent and With Having to Use Rideshare

Dear readers,

This is not exactly the whole complete idiot’s guide to putting in your car seat, but I want to simplify what I learned about putting in a basic and simple easy to use car seat system for a baby. Yep, here we go, the baby thing is real. I’ll add some asides about the car seat I’ll personally be using to carry my little man around. So let’s start with what the car seat looks like.

First off, any good car seat should have a structure that protects a baby. LEt’s take a look at the model I’ve got: the Even Flow Nurture. I love this car seat because you can pretty much do what you need to and it’s pretty basic, and you don’t have to use a base in cases like with us blind parents, while we can’t just have our own vehicle, we can use this thing particularly for a ride share. The Even Flow Nurture comes with all the basic seat harnesses for baby’s legs and there’s a double thing on the bottom where the crotch belt goes in. Like, you put two pieces into the belt slot. It has this shoulder thing, and a pretty sleek and slick chest clip. You can also secure the baby carefully using a little strap and a button on the bottom of the seat. I’m going to be honest, the h harnessing of Baby in the seat is a piece of cake, once you learn the steps it will be a no brainer. So let me explain in some way like you would in the complete idiot’s guide to anything for real.

First, make sure there’s slack in the harness, you can push the button on the bottom where the little pull strap is, and pull the harness toward you, provided the car seat is in the vehicle, and rear facing. I’ll get into the placement later. So while facing the car seat, pull the harness toward you, and it should slacken.

Next, place your little munchkin, baby, your precious cargo gently in the seat, taking care to put the baby’s back and all against the back of the seat, and start from the bottom up, see next step.

Take the left leg and be sure to slip it in the left leg portion of the harness, that should be pretty easy. Same wih the right. Then, carefully put the arms in the shoulder spaces.

Now, to clip the harness, start as I said from the bottom. The crotch buckle has two slots, so place the two leg portions in the slot, and let the things clip like a normal safety belt. Make sure the straps there are not ever twisted. SEe next step.

Make sure the shoulder straps of the harness are not twisted or bunched as well. The chest clip goes in the middle between the baby’s shoulders, right on the chest, and so all you have to do is clip the thing right on. Clip carefully from left to right, taking care that the chest clip thing is below the baby’s head and neck, don’t mess with the airways.

Now, to secure the baby properly in the car seat, pull the little strap thing on the bottom of the car seat and make sure the baby is firmly strapped in, you don’t want the harness straps to be an inch even away from baby’s shoulders, so in the event of a crash or fender bender, the baby won’t fall.

Now, myself and my partner have found, for all intent and purpose, that the base of a car seat is a bitch to install, takes multiple steps, but at least we know what it looks like. Because we don’t own a vehicle, we recommend anyone who doesn’t own one just do the following seat belt instructions.

First, look at the bottom part of the car seat, there’s a couple little places to thread the lap portion of your car’s seat belt. Take the lap portion and put that carefully into the threading portion of the car seat. And then, pull slowly across, letting the shoulder strap go free. Then, place the belt buckle into the console on the opposite side where the baby would be seated, then pull the shoulder strap out, all the way until you can’t anymore, then listen for the click as the shoulder strap feeds back in to the belts threading spot in the car, and then it comes right back up to center, so when the clicking stops, your shoulder strap on the regular seat belt should be firmly secure. Note that when you are installing the car seat, check the seat carrier itself so that it’s flat against the car’s seat back. The reclining thing should be upward, and the seat upright in turn. There’s a slight angle on the bottom, that should indicate the recline.

A note about car seat placement: To all parents with all car seats, all children from 0-6 or so should be in a back seat and infants to a certain degree above a certain weight should always be in a rear facing car seat. Always, always place your car seat in the car seat inside the back end of your vehicle, whether it’s yours or a friend’s, and it should be facing you and the baby should be facing the rear of the vehicle, so when an airbag deployment happens, you can always be mindful that your child is safe and secure.

Happy traveling.

Beth

Here Comes Christmas

Dear readers,

As the holidays approach me with their garish and gaudy glitter and glam about Santa Claus and ho ho ho, mistletoe, and a thousand other things, I just want to pause and think about one aspect of Christmas people often want to associate with only Christianity. While I’d been a Christian for years, I can’t help but wonder as I’m carrying my little one how Mary managed to do things, what with no doula, no midwifery attendants, no hospital or relaxing music, not even a birth plan.

Let me begin the story as I should, but let me be clear. Mary was probably not a virgin, although many Christians will say that she was to save face. A woman’s hymen by the way does not diminish her value if broken, not ever at all. So we begin in a time when such a belief about hymens was real, and the reality was that a woman was always judged for even a rape. Judaea, an ancient home later called Israel, was occupied by Romans, people who prided themselves in being conquering antiheroic bastards, excuse my language, but that’s what these people were. Roman soldiers like all conquerors actually did do some damage. They pillaged and raped and robbed, they killed and put up lots of oppressive rules to make their people feel supreme. One of those women who could have been victimized by the conquerors was a peasant maiden, Marium, or we could call her Mary. Mary was approached by an angel, Gabriel, who was probably God’s favorite, and he would later reveal himself to a Prophet of God in Islam, so what this guy did was say, “Hey, you’re going to have a son.” Mary didn’t know men in the proper way of women in those days, but she’d been promised to Joseph, a carpenter in a little place called Nazareth, we all know that. Now I can only imagine Mary’s thoughts at that time, and she being so young and a maiden being transitioned into motherhood, she asked, “Why do you choose me to carry your son?” I question that a lot. Why am I carrying a child in the first place because let’s face it, blind and mentally damaged by years of parental abuse, no money no job no gold sovereigns. What can I do?

God, the goddess, and the universe picks all kinds of unqualified and or less seeming individuals to do huge jobs for them. Mary was one such. She was a maiden of probably about teen age, and in our teenage years, most of us worry about school, friends and the opposite sex. Or perhaps we worry about the same sex, depending on who we truly love. In our modern teenage bodies, there is no promised marriage, no behavior and rigid social classes to the extent of ancient times, and no girl is usually in Western culture forced to marry an old man, except if she’s in some sort of cult or she’s in places where it happens too many times to count. Mary and Joseph, I suppose, were probably engaged to each other long before Mary understood what she would be going through. The two of them probably grew up together, grew up side by side and by turns both families knew each other. Joseph was of an ancient royal line of a king that probably messed up a few times, David, who famously went out with Bathsheba and she bore him Solomon, the wisest king in the world, but I digress. David’s ancient home was a place known as Bethlehem, which is also the burial place of Jacob’s beloved wife Rachel. I won’t go into Rachel and Leah’s big cat fight over kids, okay?

Anyhow, how do we end up in Bethlehem? Mary was withchild by this point, and Joseph being of David’s bloodline went off to Bethlehem because of this Caesar, a Roman emperor king, and this guy was pretty messy with the way he handled the Judaeans. He decreed that a census be taken, not for the same reasons we do a census here in our modern world. Caesar Augustus wasn’t my personal preference for a leader, of course, but he had a big way of going all out counting everybody. This guy made all the conquered peoples go to their ancient base homes, including Joseph, who ended up in Bethlehem with his wife Mary. There was, however, a snag. They needed lodging, but let’s be clear, Mary didn’t have a suitcase and couldn’t just jump in her wagon and head to a real hospital or birth center. It gets pretty good from here.

Many innkeepers and those with proprietary taverns and hotels all turned Mary and Joseph away because for one, they had no money, and for two, no prestige. Mary wasn’t a queen or princess, and by the same token, Joseph, despite being David’s descendant, was not even a king by the title or anything like that. So the keepers of these hotels and inns were all very rude and said things like, “We only take the great people like lords and kings. Get out, you filthy peasant folk.” However, there was a family who probably had a barn cellar down below and it had lots of animals in it. Here’s where it gets good.

First off, when you see the Nativity, the barn is definitely an enclosed cellar, and you have animals all over the place. Horses, sheep, donkeys, you name it. Most families in cities and towns like Bethlehem in that time had these setups, and the animals were a blessing to the baby to come and Mary because according to scripture and story, Mary was probably facing a cold night ahead. Some shepherds were out there protecting sheep, and an angel would later tell them of the news of Mary’s little baby. Well, sadly, Mary had to lay her little baby boy in an old manger, a feed box for cows and goats and such, full of hay. Sounds a bit odd, but I could tell a story of three trees so that you could understand that a bed doesn’t have to be for just any king. The first tree wanted to be a bed, but that old feed box it was turned into became a bed for the greatest spiritual teacher ever, a king in the eyes of his people. The baby lay in this little manger bed and Mary had him swaddled in clothing, much the way we all do with our babies. There were three wise men, and they brought the little guy gifts, including gold to represent his kingship, frankincense to represent his divinity perhaps, and myrrh to represent his sacrifice in later life. Myrrh, in case you guys forget or have forgotten over the years, is a spice used for embalming dead people especially in ancient times. The myrrh would later be used for Jesus’s burial and we’d all know what could happen then after.

Mary’s story proves to me that God and the universe are not out to pick queens by title or gold sovereign rich people to always be the ones to bear children. I am carrying my little one inside me, and I can’t honestly wait to hold the child tightly in my arms, giving him life and love beyond measure. When Mary first delivered Jesus, I bet she kissed the baby and wrapped her arms around the little tyke and just cooed at him and told him how much she adored him. The song Mary Did You Know says it all, that the child she delivered would deliver her from pain. Honestly, I hope my darling boy delivers me a message, but I’m not sure. Even still, the thought of me carrying this big task before me would scare my parents. I am very upset that they aren’t even interested in their grandson, and they won’t understand that this boy is my life, my universe, it’s an unbelievable connection between us, so it was also the same with Mary. When a baby is inside you, the connection is downright awesome. It can be hell at times, what with the little baby sitting on your bladder, making you go and go and go. Sometimes you have scary symptoms, including gestational diabetes, high blood pressure, all that crap. Trust me, however, it will be worth it. My precious child will be more precious to me even now. My mother doesn’t know that this child is staying with me, and the father and I planned a few things, but his future is bright. I have a brighter future and honestly, this child saved my whole life. This little babe saved my entire life’s purpose, and I feel I’ve been put on earth to nurture and love the child that the universe gave me.

Christmas brought me the news that I was having a boy, and I meet such news with so much joy. It’s overwhelming. Although Mary’s story is a bit different, maybe it is the same, my baby is and will be borne of love and made with love. Trust me, I hope that with every child born this holiday, we realize this with the hearts that we carry within our bodies. While my baby will ick my butt a few weeks from now, I would hope that you all will celebrate Christmas with me.

Thank you so much.

Beth