Natural Woman

definition of natural:  existing in or formed by nature, as opposed to artificial



Patients of mine, both young and old, will argue the case of hormonal contraception with what I like to call the "natural" argument.  "It's just not natural to trick the body," they will say.  Sometimes the argument is simply that birth control pills are not "natural," as if the Mountain Dew or Red Bull they drink is.  This argument has the corollary of "hormones are bad," but that is a discussion for another day.



What is, indeed, natural?  What is a natural woman?  Can it be argued that any of us today resemble, at least reproductively, our grandmothers and great-grandmothers?  While I believe that there is nothing new under the sun, especially when it comes to sex, I don't believe that my generation and younger are anything like our fore-mothers when it comes to reproduction.  We begin menarche younger and younger, for whatever reasons that may be found for this, and we also begin menopause younger (known euphemistically as the 'perimenopause').  We bear fewer children, if at all, and also begin bearing them when we are a good deal older than was thought possible one or two generations ago.  What was 'natural' to our great-grand-mamas was to marry in their late teens or very early twenties; to begin having children fairly soon after marriage; to breastfeed those children; and to start the cycle again, repeating every eighteen months to three years until they were exhausted.



I generalize, of course, but you see what I mean.  There is an argument that 'modern' woman is not 'natural' in her hundreds of monthly cycles, i.e. having a period every month instead of being pregnant or lactating for several months out of her life.  It's not considered 'natural' to continuously dance that cycle every month for years without pregnancy.  Today we want to be able to control nature, but somehow remain natural.  We want to avoid pregnancy until we are ready, and that may mean when we're fifty, and we expect that technology will be there for us.  We do not expect limits.



Perhaps it is my own aging that makes me realize how little control we have, and the appeal that fate holds for some has seemed a more and more reasonable stance.  We can maneuver out of its way, perhaps, but it always gets us in the end with irony and surprise, doesn't it?  So it was with me and my uterus.  A uterus, it should be known, that has never been pregnant.  An intact, never used, factory model:  vintage, in fact, at forty-five years of age.  I had decided in my dotage and in my desire to avoid being a middle-aged freak show (first pregnancy at forty-six!) that I would get the Mirena intrauterine device (IUD), and maybe, as an added bonus, get fewer and shorter menses, too, in my waning reproductive years.



Alas, it was not to be:  upon examination my uterus, that pristine, still in the package uterus, measured ten centimeters deep, too much to have the IUD placed.  To say I was speechless is an understatement.  I was stunned, and my voice rose with each succeeding, "But how can that be?  I've never BEEN PREGNANT!"  Most uteri (yes, the plural of uterus:  is it not wonderful?) measure between six and nine centimeters, though sometimes, a uterus that has housed many a pregnancy will sound to greater depths.  And then there's my uterus:  a virtual five thousand square foot house just waiting to gestate a fetus or three.



When the shock wore off, and after another contraceptive plan was made, I wondered if I had fooled fate or had been fooled by it.  Perhaps I was designed to have a passel of boys, each a year or two apart, running me ragged but kept in line most of the time by their father, who made them behave like angels once a year on Mother's Day.  Maybe I would have had only one child, after successive miscarriages, my uterus a large, cold room unable to keep hold of a pregnancy.  Maybe that big old uterus was waiting for ovaries that wouldn't, or couldn't, cooperate.  Maybe fate was wise and knew that a uterus that size didn't have a chance of recovering after delivery, and decided not to let me bleed to death.  Who knows what explanation there is for what seems to me to be an anomaly, this seemingly capacious and capable uterus in my never pregnant body.  For a minute I wished I was twenty years younger in order to be a surrogate, because even though I've never wanted to be a parent, I've always fancied that I'd like pregnancy and have always wanted to know what it felt like to push a baby out of my body.



So here I am, waiting out the last of my (supposedly) fertile years, with a wondrous uterus that never got her day in the sun.  I hope she's not taking it too hard.  I hope she still feels like a natural woman.

This Week in Baseball 6/12/08

Well, the last place New York Yankees (okay, they're tied for third/last with Toronto and Baltimore) are in Oakland for a three game series this week.  Let's start with the moustaches, shall we?  Jason Giambi has been sporting his for at least a week, and he couldn't look more like a seventies porn star if he tried.  Every time he's in the batter's box, I have to look away.  Last night their reliever, Russ Ohlendorf, also had the same gruesome caterpillar on his lip, and I'm sure it frightened the A's lineup as much as it did me.  How these atrocities are being tolerated by the clean-shaven protocol of the Yankees, I do not know.  Remember when the Yankees acquired lovable mop-topped Red Sox Johnny Damon?  The burning question was:  is he going to cut his hair?  And, more importantly, is he still going to look hot?  Sadly, the answer is no:  for a man who wore the Jesus look really well, once that hair was cut, you realized his good looks were in his long locks.  Poor Damon:  he just looks unremarkable now, like nobody.  He's no longer the cute guy with the dimples and great hair and, according to some, spectacular ass.  I think his long hair actually enhanced his ass, though I can't really explain how that's possible.  At least he just cut his hair, and didn't opt for the neo-Nazi buzz cuts favored by Rodriguez, Jeter, and Joe Girardi.  Yikes.  We know the Yankees are professional killers:  do they have to look like it, too?  The only look missing in the Yankees dugout is what is referred to as 'date-rapist' hair:  slicked back, eighties style, with stiff, crunchy hair gel.



Well, on to the games.  Chien-Ming Wang pitched the first game against Dana Eveland.  The A's had plenty of chances, and Eveland only gave up two runs, but the A's still lost 3-1.  Last night Yankees pitcher Darrell Rasner went up against Justin Duchscherer, who used to be a reliever for the A's and now is in the starting rotation.  Duchscherer baffled the Yankees through each of his seven innings, especially with his long, slow curve ball that tops out at about sixty-seven miles per hour.  The announcers said a few times that next to the curve ball, the fast ball looked a lot faster than eighty-four miles an hour.  And for once, the A's hitters came through and scored a bunch (eight, to be precise) of runs for Duchscherer.  He's now 5-0 at the Coliseum.  The A's got six runs off Rasner in the third, and the Yankees never really recovered but rallied in the ninth off of the A's relievers, especially Kiko Calero.  But the A's hung on, and won 8-4.



The Twins, on the other hand, finally won a game and broke their six game losing streak in Cleveland last night.  The first night C.C. Sabathia pitched a gem against the Twins, and they lost 1-0 to the Indians.  As much as I need to support my hometown boys, I do love the C.C.  I mean, I love that big man who loves to pitch complete games, whose presence is wonderfully palpable on the mound, who looks so serious all the time, but you know he's just like a big kid on the inside.  Last night Paul Byrd got hit around a little, and the Twins got their win.  The Twins continue to have fielding problems, or should I say more precisely, Delmon Young cannot seem to catch the ball.  I can't tell if he's just not very fast, or if he can't read the ball off the bat, but it feels like I'm watching him chase down fly balls every freakin' game.  I mean, Jason Kubel and his knees were better out there, for god's sake.



Both teams finish their series tonight, and even though Giambi probably hasn't shaved that moustache, and Delmon Young will miss at least one fly ball, I'll be watching.

This Week in Baseball 6/3/08

I know, I know, it's been far more than a week.  Well, let's just catch up then, shall we?  Last Friday, the last-place New York Yankees (the television announcers could not get enough of this:  they repeated it every chance they could and explained:  how often are we able to say that?) came to the Metrodome and split a four game series with the Twins.



Twice Alex Rodriguez was thrown out at third in two different games.  The first time he ran on contact of what turned out to be a not very deep fly ball, and was caught because he didn't make it back to second.  The second time he had already stolen second base, mind you, while his team had a lead, and then took off for third and was thrown out there.  Did he really think Hideki Matsui couldn't hit a single to advance him?  What a moron.



We were supposed to see reliever-turned-starter Joba Chamberlain last night, but his start was postponed and Andy Pettitte took the mound.  I cannot like Andy Pettitte, of course, by default:  he is a Yankee.  But let me just say that he is one handsome man:  all big features with an adorable dimple in his chin; big, pretty dark eyes.  Not too shabby.  Anyway, I cannot like Joba Chamberlain, either, again, because of the Yankee clause in my contract, and he was easy to dislike:  I mean, what's up with that name?  Joba?  What the hell is that?  So I read all about it on Wikipedia, and found out some things that make it harder for me to dislike him.  His niece couldn't say her new brother's name, Joshua, and it came out like "Jahba" and he liked it.  His given name is Justin Louis.  The name stuck and he legally changed it, just like John Paul "Boof" Bonser did who pitches for the Twins.  Secondly, his father is a member of the Winnebago tribe, almost died of polio as a child, and needs a scooter (which he named Humphrey) to get around.  Like I can hate him now!  I know it's reverse discrimination and frankly, I don't give a damn.



The A's have been playing much more like themselves lately, which is to say, losing.  However, there are some bright spots:  they swept, SWEPT, the Boston Red Sox, and they beat Detroit last night in the bottom of the ninth.  Bobby Crosby continues to concern me:  they announced during the game last night that he leads the American League with nineteen doubles.  Once again, in the not too great distance, I hear two of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse gaining ground.  Mr. Hendricks joked that Crosby might be the MVP this year.  "We won't live to see 2009," I answered.  "Better cash out the 401(k) and the stock options, baby."  I was even more sure of it when Crosby hit the game-winning double.



Till next week.