The Post that Gets Me Unfriended by Everyone I Know

The Post that Gets Me Unfriended by Everyone I Know

I wasn’t going to make any sort of statement. I prefer not to delve into anything controversial. I like humor but today I had enough. 

Most of everyone that lives here knows what’s going on. I’m not going to rehash the details. 

Most people don’t realize this storm has been brewing for a while and the national attention is not helping. I have heard accusations of bullying and harassment from both sides. I do know the teacher and several of the kids involved and I also know students that have commented from the shadows and don’t feel inclined to choose a side.

Make no mistake I DO NOT CONDONE an anti-gay day. 

The simple fact that McGuffey didn’t foresee a backlash from the National Day of Silence was incredibly naïve. 

There are people that do not believe in a homosexual lifestyle. They believe this is wrong. They are allowed to have that opinion. 

I also read 2 major complaints from students at the High School. One - there are cameras everywhere. If you are being bullied go to the office, report it and they will pull the tape and punish the offender.

The other complaint is a complaint that would only occur in a predominately agricultural area like ours. “No one cares that the farm kids get called names and bullied.” You only get protected and they only care if you are gay. 

On a completely side note…I also keep hearing about the mold at the High School? What’s up with that? 

I understand school are trying to stop bullying as they should. As an adult however I also know that your boss, your spouse, your in laws and your neighbor are all going to try to bully you at some point. That’s life.

There is also the question what’s the difference between bullying and standing up for yourself?

I’ll use a story to illustrate this. Back in the 80’s there were shops in West Alexander. The shops were so well known that charter buses would come to the town with lots of ladies so they could shop their little hearts out. In this town there were also two high school boys. Okay there were a lot of high school boys but we are only concerning ourselves with these two. Every day after school the bigger boy would throw the smaller boy’s trumpet into the weeds. Well one day the smaller boy had enough and he proceeded to beat the daylights out of the bigger boy. A tour bus was going by and the little old ladies made the driver stop the bus and three old ladies hopped off the bus and pelted the smaller boy with their purses for being a bully. 

They only observed one small fragment of those boys lives.

Just like the media is doing here.

If you are gay, lesbian, bi, transgendered and you live your life openly and proudly then more power to you. I admire that.

However there are people that are not going to agree with your decisions and choices. You are going to be called names and bullied. In a perfect world this wouldn’t happen and I truly wish this was a perfect world but it’s not. 

If you are going to put yourself out there and take a stand for your faith then by all means stand by your convictions. You are going to be called names and they are going to post your picture.

The thing about names is, it’s usually more about the person doing the name calling. 

I go to church. There are several sermons that have stuck with me over the years. “The church is in sales not management.” God loves everybody. Forgiveness is for everyone that asks for it. God does not discriminate.

The New Testament says to “Love thy neighbor as thyself” there is no footnote that says except if they are gay, or Muslim or a different ethnicity or they vote for a different political party. 

I don’t have to agree with you and you don’t have to agree with me. 

I really debated writing this next part. I’m going to out myself.

I am a Christian Feminist Liberal Democrat that is pro-choice and pro- gun control that works in the oil and gas industry and has an IVF baby. 

There are whole sections of the internet devoted to being against what I believe in. Call me all the names you want and unfriend me. 

I’m still me and no argument in the world will change my stance on any of my self-imposed labels so don’t even try. I have my reasons.

I’m not going to change your way of thinking and you aren’t going to change mine. But we can begin to see that underneath the labels and the opinions is a real live human being that deserves respect.

I also believe you should be able to do business with whoever you want. Not that you should discriminate against anyone for their beliefs or gender or orientation but because we had a neighbor who liked to show women his penis and I refused to let him into my place of business. I reserve the right not to have to see old man penis. 

So this brings me back to today. What happened that set me off? I have been responding to some of the national posts with the phrase, ”Please don’t believe everything you read.” 

Today I was told by a stranger that I should apologize for our community.

I only apologize for the things I do. 

The truth is we aren’t all good or all bad as a community. 

We are complicated and complex and most of us are just trying to get through the day. 

I will not apologize for being part of a community that I love.

Love and peace to all of you that understand why I wrote this. 

Everyone else? 

Piss off.

If you are reading this then I am still being held hostage…

If you are reading this then I am still being held hostage…

    I am being held hostage in an undisclosed location. I am unable to establish communication with my captors and so I am unsure of their demands.
   
    The first few months are a bit hazy and I suspect that my captors are using sedatives. A side effect of the sedatives seems to be a failure to control my arms and legs enough to escape. When I have attempted to escape I am dragged back to the main area that my captors prefer. Attempts to acquire objects to aid in my escape are quickly removed from my grasp and a stern warning is issued. I have finally mastered rolling from side to side to propel myself around. If only they would stop watching me so closely.
   
    I am frequently placed in a cage without a top. I hope to climb out of this cage at a future date but until the sedatives leave my system or I develop a tolerance, I am forced to lay here several times a day and for a very long amount of time at night and only dream of sweet freedom.
   
    I have recently discovered that yelling will annoy them and they will retrieve me from the cage. Sometimes I am forced to yell for an entire 15 seconds.
   
    My captors treat me well and I am placed daily in a exercise contraption of some sort. There are lights and what I presume is music. I suspect this device is being used to psychologically experiment on me. I do enjoy the jumping aspect of the machine but solely to strengthen my body for escape.
   
    I am fed by a most peculiar method using long cylindrical tubes but on occasion my captors prefer to feed me a mushy thin gruel of disturbing colors. I however have a hankering for the small brown bits that my captors feed their four legged creatures. I will attempt to satisfy this craving as soon as possible.
   
    My bodily functions also seem to be affected. Drooling must be a sedative side effect. My excrement and urine is collected and I can only assume studied. I am changed regularly by one of my captors in particular. The other one runs away gagging. I am contemplating using this to my advantage in an effort to escape.
   
    I am also subjected to a regular torture of being taken to a different room and placed in warm liquid. My captors then scrub me with a cloth of some sort and splash me with liquid. They attempt to distract with colorful aquatic birds but I continue to be wary.
   
    I am then rubbed with some sort of lotion which I find enjoyable…do NOT tell them!
   
    My captors also insist on placing garments of their own choosing on my body. I am constantly being shoved and contorted into pieces of fabric with what appears to be fuzzy mammals, jungle creatures and small felines. They also insist on covering my feet and seem oblivious to the fact that my toes belong in my mouth. 
   
    I am taken on frequent outings where I am apparently displayed for others enjoyment and amusement. Communications with these others has also resulted in failure. They jabber at me but I am unable to understand the significance of gaa gaa goo goo.
   
    I hope to get this message to the outside world by attaching it my captor’s four legged creatures who are allowed to roam freely and are never forced to endure the indignities that I must.
   
    So for now though I must leave you…the sedatives are kicking in again.
   
                        Sincerely,
                        Cara Grace
   

baby egg mama drama

          I'm not very good with secrets. My father likes to tell people that if I was alive and in charge during World War II that everyone in America would all be speaking German or Japanese. The truth is I don't like secrets. They always have a way of getting out. Plus if anyone is going to talk about me I prefer to get my side out there first.
         So I was told in Cleveland that the only way we would have a child was through an egg donor. Someone very close to me offered her eggs. I will always love her for this selfless offer more than she will ever know! But she has her own child to think about and there are health risks and it's a long way to Cleveland for her to be monitored. So I regretfully declined. If anything happened to her I would never have forgiven myself!
          In actuality we have several choices. We can drop the whole idea of being parents. We can adopt from an agency. Private adoptions have never worked out for us. Or I can suck it up and do what I have to do.
          We have never been opposed to adopting. I know lots of adopted kids and 2 of them are very close to our hearts!
           However....now I will tell you a secret. Sam was married once before when he was young. The first time he went to his first wife's house for their first date is when he discovered that she had a six month old baby. They dated six months, got engaged, got married six months later and then got divorced six months after that. In Sam's heart he was that child's father for almost 2 years. When they got divorced he had no legal rights to the child for visitation. I can honestly say it almost destroyed him. The thought that we could adopt a baby and they had 30 days to take the baby back was more than he could bear.
            If the baby was genetically his then no one could take it from him.         
            Cleveland Clinic set me up with an egg donor agency called Compassionate Beginnings. They have a web site and you go on the site and pick your baby's genetic mother. They have brief bio's, health info and pictures.
            I have never been on a dating site. Wait I tell a lie. I have been on Adultfriendfinder but that is a completely different hysterical story I will save for another time. Sam was busy so I got on the site by myself. 30 women and we have to pick one. I feel like I'm on the bachelor and only one of them will get a rose. Who will have the privilege of being my baby mama? Well technically they suggested we pick three and rank them. I feel like I'm in a meat market...or maybe this is how men feel when they judge women? Hmmmmm?

             I had done a lot of research and some people spend years looking for the "right" donor. I however am not so picky. If she looks slightly like me I'm okay with it. I do have one requirement. If I am going to "genetically engineer" my baby I want baby mama to be taller than me. I am 5 feet tall in bare feet, okay technically I am 5' 1/4" but that last 1/4 feels like bragging.
              I find her in 20 minutes.

            
             Sam sits down with me and we both search the site. Now it really feels like we're polygamists finding a new "sister-wife".  We both agree on her as our number one pick. We shuffled choices two and three around. But we are dead set on her. She is Russian and Irish on her father's side and Irish and Czechoslovakian on her mothers. She is a junior in college and she had just signed up for the agency two weeks before. I also accidentally find out her name. Her name is Allie...and she is 5'6".

Devastation and Despair

            So my test results were not great. Okay that's an understatement. They are awful but we are going to try anyway.
            IVF consists of three little simple letters. The reality is so much larger. The physical, emotional and psychological toll is immense. We go to Cleveland and they teach us how to do the injections. Small insulin type shots in the belly twice a day and after the egg retrieval then 1.5 inch long shots in the butt nightly for 10 weeks. They call the small shots liquid gold...because gold would actually be cheaper to purchase!
            I start my shots and we make the three hour trip (one way) to Cleveland every three days so they can monitor my progress. Cleveland attempts to hyper-stimulate my one remaining ovary to get it to produce an abundance of eggs that can be fertilized and or frozen. After one week I have 6 follicles. YAY!!!
             We are not telling Sam's family anything at this point. He is afraid they will get their hopes up and if this doesn't work then he doesn't want them devastated. It will be hard enough on us.
             We are scheduled for a BIG appointment on Sunday, June 19th...Father's Day. Everyone tells us this is a great portent. Constant monitoring is required because this is a delicate procedure and over stimulation of the ovaries can be a major medical problem requiring hospitalization. I still have reservations. There is a small nagging voice in mind telling me that something is wrong.
              We have the appointment at 9am on Father's Day. They might need to monitor me the next day but we won't know until the results of my blood work come back in an hour. We stay in the area. No point to drive most of the way home if we have to turn around. We ate breakfast at Eat N Park and sit next to a hugely pregnant woman. I take this as a good sign. The doctor hadn't called after an hour and a half so Sam and I find a little park nearby where we can relax and wait.
             The call comes and the doctor says for some reason my estrogen is dropping. He made them rerun the test and the second time it was even lower. There is no point to continue. It's not working. The only way we will have a baby is if I use an egg donor.
              I am devastated. I never should have gotten my hopes up.
              If we want a child it will not be genetically related to me. I can carry the baby but it will belong to Sam and some other woman.
               I inform my friends and family of the situation.
               It was a tough ride home. The advantage of having a nervous breakdown in rest stop on the Ohio Turnpike is that at least everyone else is traveling too and I won't have to face them ever again. It's not like I lost it in Minteer's in Claysville and will hereafter be known in our community as the crazy girl!
                We stop in Canfield Ohio on the way home and get a motel room. After a nap Sam wants to go see the car show in the parking lot adjoining the motel. I swear every person at the car show had a baby. Babies in strollers, babies in playpens. At one point I think I saw a baby holding a baby.
                 But I am resilient. When I get knocked down I might scream and cry for a few days but I get back up and keep going. I think the gas leases were an excellent preparation for the whole IVF process. I can't count the number of times we had to pick ourselves up and find a new way. The times we had nothing and somehow turned it into gold.
                 Someone once told me, "There is no quit in you." It's one of the best compliments I ever received. Okay it's one of the few compliments I've ever received. Sam says it's not a compliment...it's a critique of my stubbornness.
                 So the big question that I ask repeatedly is, "How do I pick a woman to have a baby with my husband?"
                 No one has an answer for that...not even Bossman.

                  

TMI

I know it's been a while but when last we left the drama...or is it trauma that is my life, Sam and I were getting ready to go to Cleveland to see about IVF treatments. I personally don't know anyone that has gone through IVF. I know people that have adopted. I know people that took shots and got pregnant. I do know however that we will both need medical work ups and in Sam's case that includes a "sample" of his "manness" (insert giggle here).

We've done the "sample" thing before but we that time we just took it to Wheeling. They said it ok. That's all the info we got and because it was 9 years ago I'm pretty sure he's going to have to "give at the office".

We go to Cleveland and they are very nice. They discuss the tests that they are going to run. A Cystic Fibrosis test on Sam, our blood types, STD's, and something I mishear as an Anti-Maleria Hormone. Several things amaze me about these tests. One is that anyone on the street can get pregnant and not have to have all these tests and I know don't have malaria so that should be a simple no...right? HAH

We both go for the blood tests and I get into a fight with the lab technician. We are waiting for our money money from Chesapeake and I am actually emailing the leasing company from the clinic trying to find it. The money is due in our hands in two days and no one knows where it is. I mention to Sam when she is drawing his blood that the money isn't here. The tech starts looking at us oddly so I said to her, "We are waiting for a check from a particular gas company to fund all of this. Have you ever heard of the Marcellus Shale?"

She proceeds to go off on how horizontal wells kill everyone and why would we do such a thing and didn't we read the internet and we should have had a lawyer.

My retort was coal companies kill more people than natural gas wells, I needed the money for IVF, I read the internet reports, we had three lawyers, and did I mention I NEEDED THE MONEY FOR IVF?

She keeps arguing and I, in my usual pissy way, answer each question with,"but they paid me a lot of money".  All of her arguments are countered by my apparent greed.

Everyone has a right to their opinion. You can agree with Marcellus wells or not. One day I may look back and regret our decisions but I will never regret helping my family or my community. I didn't really do it for greed...I did it for IVF.

She finally gives up after repeatedly banging her head on the brick wall that is my stubbornness (Sam calls me Irish for a reason!)...and we move onto "THE SAMPLE!"  (giggle)

Now I am not allowed to tell you everything that happened. No blow by blow (pun intended) descriptions. I have been sworn to secrecy about some things. BUT I can tell you Cleveland has a room they send you into to get the "sample" (giggle). A room that has a bed and an adjoining bathroom and I get to go in with him. This sounds cozy right?? WRONG Everyone on the whole floor knows what the room is used for and there are people walking back and forth down the hall the whole time chatting about their day. At least block off the hall with caution tape and those wet floor cones. It's enough to put a guy off his game!

Cut to next scene where I emerge from the room triumphantly holding his "sample"...in a cup...I'm still a little confused as to why I had to carry it. It's not like he was tricking them into thinking it was mine.

Call in one week.

 I call to get the following information: Remember that AMH that I mistook as Anti Maleria Hormone? They were actually saying Anti Mullerian Hormone. It's a number that shows your ovarian reserve. They like the number to be 1 or above. Mine is .19....my blood type is O+...as in OH no we're + this isn't going to be easy.

Sam I am informed has super swimmers. They like the numbers to be 20 million. His are 52 million....his blood type is A+...apparently he deserved an A+ for having super swimmers.

It's one thing to think you're the problem...it's devastating to have it confirmed over the phone.

So I guess if I hadn't screwed the lid tightly on the cup then his "swimmers" would have escaped and randomly impregnated women throughout the Cleveland area.

It's like a horror movie.

Starring me.

Bossman and Babies

          So when last we met we were discussing the "Taco Story". In hindsight it's entertaining. While it was going on...It was less with the hilarity but more with the cursing and crying and punching . The reason it irritated me so much was because I was on the verge of getting the money to do IVF. Okay... I "thought" I was on the verge, what I didn't know at the time was that it would in fact take 9 months from the "Taco" incident to work a deal. 9 LOOOOONG months and then 5 more months to get the money.
          Slight back story here. So 3 years ago our neighbor "Bossman" got a lot of the neighbors together and we negotiated a pipeline agreement. After the deal was done he casually mentioned we should all get together and negotiate the next gas leases together too. Casually and in passing he mentioned the biggest thing to take over our lives since...oh I don't know....maybe facebook?
          So February of 2010 during the big blizzard we embarked on a rollercoaster of trouble and torment. It would have been easier to rob a bank. Bossman said the other day we should have have a filmmaker follow us around just so we could remember it all. We should have.
        It had all the elements of a Hollywood movie. Marcellus Shale gas is discovered...boy convinces girl to help...boy and girl and boy and boy and boy get all the neighbors to stick together....girl takes so many notes she gets carpel tunnel...meeting occurs in which girl calls someone a bad name...more meetings...even more meetings...more paperwork...maps...few more meetings in which we become jaded and probably sarcastic...finally an offer to sign with Chesapeake...negotiations...more negotiations...no Thanksgiving or Christmas...signing date...threatened by lawsuit...signed, sealed and delivered. A lease not a baby.
       It would have been easier to rob a string of banks and theft would have required less planning and a lot less paperwork.
       And through it all I never told Bossman what I was going to do with the money. I never wanted it affect any of us while we were negotiating. There is business and there is personal. I never told anyone until the day of the signing when at the end of the night I told Dave and Cindy Hall. They are wonderful people. Our first meeting he had 6 weeks left on his lease and he hung with us all that time. You can't buy that kind of loyalty. I told them and she cried.
        But just like in the movies there were still some twists and turns. Bossman got punished by our deal because he was the only one they could hurt. So he started a company and asked me join him. I think he was bored and maybe he missed me a little. This is where he would say, "Yeah, right, HA!"
        But no matter what happens from here on out we did a good thing...all of us together as a community.  There are still good people in this world who think about more than themselves, people who try to protect those that cannot protect themselves, people who help each other out and not try to knock each other down...and those kind of people I am proud to call my family, my friends, and my community!

How Tacos Saved Me From Jail

   
If you want to read "How tacos saved me from a lengthy jail sentence" then you must request it from me at sassycroft@gmail.com or request it on my facebook page. I had to remove it due to sudden family interest that can have negative consequences. I do however stand by my story and every word of it is true!