Lonely, Miserable, Pregnant: and totally hilariousAndrea Askowitz has the best life in the world.  She's pregnant and healthy.  She has friends and family who love her.  She has money and meaningful work.  And all she can do is obsess about the one thing she doesn't have: Kate, her ex-girlfriend.  My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy is a funny, whiny, all-too-real account of one girl's true adventure in maternity.  

In week 8, her sense of smell becomes so strong that she can tell what deodorant people are wearing.  In week 28, she plans a pity party, complete with black-only dress code and a violin player: "It isn't an attempt to make fun of myself, because that would be too joyous."

Andrea's life reads like an antidote to sugar-sweet pregnancy guides and memoirs.  Irreverent and whip-smart, My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy is potent therapy for ill-timed break-ups, leg cramps, constipation, and every other downside to a dream come true.

Over the past week, Andrea has bravely served as Jewcy's resident lonely, miserable lesbian (she's not pregnant anymore, but her partner is).  She's wondered about the possibility of having a hybrid baptism/bris, taught us that anyone can perform a baptism, searched for a baby name that will satisfy both her and her Latin lover, suggested that circumcision falls somewhere between ear piercing and foot binding, and finally admitted that she simply doesn't speak a lick of Red.  Check out her posts, join in the conversation, and pick up a copy of her hilarious book.

Hot preggyboy action: Listen, fetishists aren't always the masters of PhotoshopThomas Beatie’s wife Nancy can’t get pregnant—she had a hysterectomy twenty years ago—so when the couple decided that they wanted a child, Beatie offered to make like a seahorse and carry it himself. Beatie was born a woman. He switched genders ten years ago, getting chest surgery and beginning a regime of twice-monthly testosterone injections, but he held onto his uterus. Now he’s legally male and pregnant.

Yesterday Beatie went on Oprah to discuss his delicate condition. There’s been some debate about whether he qualifies as a “pregnant man” since he’s still got a uterus, but—lavender cardigan non-withstanding—the clip makes it pretty clear that he identifies as a dude who just wants to have a baby with his wife. As opposed to, like, a hot slutty preggyboy.

What’s a preggyboy? Oh, you people are so naïve. Preggyboys populate the fantasies of mpreg fetishists—guys who get off on the idea of male pregnancy. You can find more mpreg fiction and illustrations (NSFW, obvs) than you’d ever dreamed of at Pregnantman.net, which has all sorts of stories about people like Matt, a sexy trucker who magically turns into a sexy blonde named Maddie who then gets pregnant by—ooh, an ouroborus!—a sexy trucker named Matt. Not to mention stories that end like this:

I'm 20 years old now. So far I've delivered 57 children. Pretty good, huh? I still don't know what exactly happened to me to make me so very fertile, but I've now come to think that it was the best thing that has ever happened to me. I still absolutely love the feeling of being pregnant, and the sex Dante and I have it nothing short of spectacular…. Of course, looking after all of my children is a challenge, but I love them all just so much that it doesn't really seem like a chore.

Mpreg shows up a lot in fan fiction – you know, Dumbledore knocking up Snape, that sort of thing. There’s even a truly niche subset called Pregfur for people whose secret deepest wish is to be a pregnant badger.

I figured that even though Beatie doesn't seem remotely like an mpreg fetishist, the preggyboys would be totally excited about his existence -- I mean, here's a guy living their dream (minus the 57 babies part.) Sadly, though, the Pregnantman.net forum seems to have been colonized by an anti-Israel, anti-Denmark Turkish hacker. As usual, the antisemites ruin it for everyone.

Today at Limmud, nothing has happened yet -- well, it's 7:30 in the morning and my rabbi from yeshiva just pounded on my door to wake me up, but I asked him to, and now I'm iChatting to my wife and her big expectant belly. It kicks when I talk to it -- and I am feeling uncomfortably like our friend George Weinberg (of John Saffran vs. God fame, if you're Australian -- but, if you're Australian, you probably know George Weinberg anyway), who travels a lot and, when he is home, his daughter runs to the computer video camera to talk to him.

Last night, I hopped between two events -- one of the difficulties of an event like this, where at any given moment you could be having six completely different life-changing experiences. At 11pm was the Y-Love show, featuring guest M.C. Daniel Silverstein (of the band Emunah, until 2 nights ago) and about a zillion screaming girls, and upstairs, as far removed as you could get, was a crowd of people sitting in a nearly-dark room, surrounding Rabbi Raz Hartmann, who was teaching nigguns, wordless Chasidic melodies, and then, between them, giving over tidbits of Rebbe Nachman teachings. Like, for instance, did you know that it was traditional for prophets to not give over prophecies without accompaniment? There's one part of Prophets where someone is literally, like, "Fetch my backing band -- I need to prophecize." And then, like Sarah Silverman, they pop up, ready for a jingle-perfect tune about....well, no, probably not about *that.*

It’s my birthday, so naturally, I’d like to write about sex. Yesterday Laurel posted about how dumb the the OU’s new pro-abstinence website is, and I totally agree with everything she said, with everything Mobius said, with everything Jewesses With Attitude said, and everything Josh Yuter wrote, too. But I have two problems with all of the outrage going on:

1) This is not news. It’s not like abstinence was a secret new policy position that the OU just revealed. Not just abstinence, but a complete lack of physical contact between the sexes has been consistent and heavy rhetoric in the Orthodox community for several years now. There was even a shomer negiah themed shabbaton (on Valentine’s Day, of all times) at University of Iowa Hillel when I was a freshman there. So yeah, all the crap they say on the website is infuriating and insane, but some of us have been rolling our eyes at this BS for years. Welcome to the party.

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Be honest about sex
2) Nu? So now what? Thus far, no one has offered a viable alternative to the OU’s whacky website. The only comprehensive discussion of sexual ethics for teenagers that I’ve ever even heard of came from the Orthodox movement. Everyone else is afraid to touch it, and even if they weren’t, what could the Conservative movement say? The majority opinion says you shouldn’t have premarital sex, but the minority opinion says you can if you go to the mikva and lie to the mikva ladies. Yeah, that’s clear.

So okay, we need something to tell Jewish teenagers that draws on halacha, that points towards an observant lifestyle, but that remains realistic and honest. I can answer half of this problem. Below you’ll find the things I think every observant Jewish teenage girl should know about sex, complete with biblical and rabbinical sources. I feel way less equipped to talk to teenage guys about this for a number of reasons, but I hope someone like Steven Weiss, or Rabbi Yonah will take the challenge.

Anyway, here we go…

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex But Your Chumash Teacher Told You Was Assur

You will love sex. You’re probably not worried about this, but just in case, I want you to know that you will. You might not at first, because it’s not easy or simple, and it can be embarrassing to ask for what you want or need, but trust me when I tell you that after you work at it, you’ll love it.

Sex has serious consequences. Pregnancy is the simplest of these consequences, and it’s not even remotely simple. Do you want to be a single Jewish teenager mother? No, you do not (trust me on this). Neither do you want to have a shotgun wedding. If you think your friends won’t notice that your baby is only six months older than your wedding pictures, you’re wrong.

Besides pregnancy, sex can lead to a variety of sexually transmitted diseases and infections. You can get Chlamydia and not find out until years later that you’ll have trouble having a baby. You can get genital warts or crabs, both of which are painful and unattractive. You can get HPV, which may not cause any problems for you until years later, when you get cervical cancer. And you can get HIV, a virus that will ultimately kill you.

If you want to be absolutely sure that you won’t have to deal with any of these problems, you should wait to have sex until you’ve gotten married, (although of course even then your husband can give you an STD, or infect you with HIV, and there are unwanted pregnancies within marriage). The best method of protection from this stuff is to use a condom every time. Though condoms are not a hundred percent effective, they are simple to use and cheap (often free). The vast majority of the time, using a condom will keep you from getting pregnant, and from contracting STDs and STIs.

Be honest with yourself about your sex life. If you’re uncomfortable with something, it’s your responsibility to speak about it, and it’s your partner’s responsibility to listen. Here’s a good rule of thumb: if you’re too embarrassed to tell your partner that something he’s doing doesn’t feel good, then you’re not ready to be in the situation at all.

Waiting to have sex until you get married can seem arbitrary and even impossible. When you’ve found someone you love, someone you think about all the time, someone you want touch and be touched by, the idea of holding back seems ludicrous. But within Jewish law, a marriage constitutes a certain kind of privacy and oneness that you can’t get without some wine under a chuppa. Being married entitles you to a secret that only you and your husband will know. Sex is a big part of that. It may also help to know that in marriage a man has an obligation to satisfy his wife sexually. The gemara even sets out a minimum number of times a man has to satisfy his wife per week (once a week for scholars and mule drivers, twice a week for laborers, and daily for people who can afford not to have a job, (Ketubot 61b)). The Shulchan Aruch adds that a man is obligated to satisfy his wife if he notices her hinting towards wanting intimacy (Orach Chaim 240:1). These obligations are great, but they only apply within marriage.

It can seem even more difficult to hold by these rules when you don’t have anyone special in your life, when you’re just lonely or sad or bored, and an opportunity for sex presents itself. In those times I hope you’ll remember that sex is a holy thing, and that casual sex means treating kedusha, holiness, with a lack of respect. It’s not an ethical call here. It’s not about premarital sex being wrong, it’s about premarital sex not being holy.

More than likely, you will have regrets about choices you made in regards to sex and relationships. In a few years, you’ll look back on these days and shake your head. Tanach is full of people who learn from mistakes they make in relationships, and even from mistakes they make in their sex lives. Judah slept with a prostitute (he thought she was a prostitute, at least), and faced possible public humiliation, but from it he learned humility and responsibility. King David took Batsheva as a wife, and tacitly sentenced her husband to death, and from this he learned about jealousy and greed. Jacob took two sisters as wives, and from their competition and resentment he learned the importance of peacemaking and compromise. If you get hurt, it’s worth it to spend some time thinking about where you went wrong, and trying to figure out how you can avoid it in the future.

Regardless of when you decide to have sex, I hope you’ll observe the laws of niddah. They, too, are part of our tradition, and they help create a rhythm and a flow in your relationship that will, I hope, keep the connection between you and your partner strong, and maintain a sense of desire and intensity.

Continue reading...

Yesterday in my fiction workshop we talked about a story I wrote in which a Jewish woman has a miscarriage. The two other guys in the class, who aren’t Jewish, were really surprised to find that Judaism doesn’t have a set ritual having to do with infertility. We mourn for adults, but when a woman miscarries there’s no set liturgy, nothing she has to do or say, even at a time when she’s likely struggling with her faith and her connection to God.
Infertility: Sucks
While there isn’t a traditional ritual that women have been doing for thousands of years, there are plenty of recently written resources and guides for women (and their partners) who are having trouble conceiving. Daughters of the King: Women and the Synagogue, edited by Susan Grossman and Rivka Hunt does actually have a prayer/meditation that’s been composed for women who’ve lost a pregnancy. It’s beautiful, and the book is very useful for all kinds of other situations. Well worth a look at your local Jewish bookstore.

Other books that are more specifically about Jewish infertility are And Hannah Wept: Infertility, Adoption and the Jewish Couple by Michael Gold, and Tears of Sorrow, Seeds of Hope, A Jewish Spiritual Companion for Infertility, by Rabbi Nina Beth Cardin.

There are tons of great resources online, too. The Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance has an awesome site full of links to everything from transcribed lectures on Jewish infertility, to message boards and blogs. Check out Chana’s Prayer, which bills itself as “a refuge for Jewish women who are experiencing the challenges of infertility and/or pregnancy loss. In a community that places great focus on family life, the pain associated with difficulty in conception and childbearing are often profound and unique. Here, you will find women who can relate to your experiences.” Pretty great.

I read three awesome blogs by women with infertility issues. They don’t all talk much about infertility at the moment, since all three now have children, but the archives are full of great stuff, and they’re all excellent writers. There’s Julie at a little pregnant, Dawn at this woman’s work, and the always hilarious leery polyp. And there’s a great essay over at Nextbook about going to the mikveh with a pregnant woman as a therapeutic response to infertility.

If you’re lucky enough not to have infertility issues, but you have a friend who just miscarried, or is having trouble getting pregnant, keep in mind that she’s grieving. She deserves at least some of the respect and help that we give people who are sitting shiva. Make a casserole, come over, and just sit with her.

Too Cute: No really, some of this crap I can do without!It would seem that there are a number of Jewish traditions that accompany pregnancy and childbirth. Traditions that begin long before you have to throw a bris or a naming ceremony. But the only one I'd ever heard of, until now, was the tradition of doing nothing... 

Which is to say, the tradition of NOT preparing for your baby. NOT telling people you're pregnant until they can see fit or themselves, NOT revealing he names you're considering, NOT throwing a shower, NOT getting the baby's room ready.

Evidently, this is a custom particular to the Ashkenazic tradition, a minhag that seeks to avoid attracting the attention of evil spirits. And while I don't fear evil spirits so much, I do fear miscarriage. 

Been there, done that.

Let me tell you, there are few things more horrible than having to call everyone you know to report the unblessing of the blessed news. I can't even imagine having to get rid of unworn baby clothes, or having to paint over the rubber ducky mural in the nursury/study. I'd never want to fight with the good people at Babies-R-Us about returning a crib I'd already taken out of the box and set up.

I think that this particular Jewish tradition makes a huge deal of sense. I think it's instinctive, psychologically sound, practical--like a lot of Jewish cultural traditions, I think it's rooted in the emotional truths that underly superstition, and not just superstition.

So when I had my son, (though I did clean and repaint the room we planned to use for him, and empty it of the random piles of crap scattered around) I insisted that we didn't want gifts until he arrived. When I left for the hospital, I owned no baby clothes, no bottles.

Which was fine. I'm glad I did it.

But now I'm 6 months pregnant again, and big as a house, and a friend asked me if I wanted a shower this time. And I found myself feeling like Yeah! It's my turn!

Because I've bought a lot of expensive presents over the last few years for other people. I've blown up balloons, made sherbet-punch, played dumb games, and felt a little sad that it was never my turn.

But I still don't want to prepare for the baby. I don't want lots of tiny booties and hats that might never get worn. So what to do?

What to do?

What to do!

I told my friend I wanted a shower, but not baby presents. I told her I'd like an un-shower. Or that I'd like a mom-shower, and not a baby-shower. I told her that the invitations should say that I'd prefer gifts after the baby arrives, but that nothing would make me happier than an afternoon with my friends. Because although I don't want to fill a room with toys, I do want to sit in the middle of a bevy of ladies, and giggle and eat brownies and be the center of attention. For one afternoon, before the baby arrives and HE gets to be the center of attention forever.

It might sound selfish, but I want a shower that's about ME, not the baby.

I thought about asking for my gifts to be all things my older son could use, if something awful happend. Pictures books, or kiddie-music, or something like that.

I thought about asking for donations to a Jewish children's organization.

I also thought about (and this just seemed way to tacky) asking for presents for ME! Bath salts and books and music and so on. Things to make me feel special, as I head into this next hard (and wonderful) stretch.

But in the end, I figure the message here isn't about telling people how to spend money. A shower doesn't have to be about gifts. It just has to make mom feel like she has a community ready to support her, as she heads to the hospital, and her life changes forever.

Now if only that same mom could have a glass of wine at her un-shower! Sigh....