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Well…. Alisha and I are still at the hospital.
We have been here for 17 hours.
She has been having contractions since 7pm saturday night, but isn’t dialated/effaced enough to induce.
With any luck we won’t need a C-Section in the morning but its definitely on the table.
As she does her breathing exercises,
we joke not to worry about them,
Oddly enough, they still seam to be coming.
Good news, either way I’ll be closer to our baby when I wake up.
Its like going to sleep on Christmas eve.
Alisha went in yesterday for an appointment with our OB doctor, as yesterday was the estimated date of delivery for Baby Wiggles.
Fortunately now, Baby Wiggles is in the coveted “head down” position with face towards Alisha’s back and tilted slightly to the left side. The amount of amniotic fluid looks good and the umbilical cord still seems to be functioning efficiently. The placenta is in a good position (not blocking the cervix), so all indicators so far would make a vaginal delivery possible. According to the measurements that were taken they estimate that baby is 7 lbs. 12 oz., but the doc said (at a previous appointment, not today) that at this point the ultrasound measurements are not very accurate because babies vary so much in the amount of muscle they have once they’re full term.
I am hoping for a delivery this weekend, though baby will come when baby is ready.
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As I assembled a bassinet in the section of our house that we have reallocated to the purpose of being a nursery, my thoughts came back to something that has been wondering through my head for months.
The enormity of the miracle that will soon enter the world is astounding.
April 28th.
That’s the date… the expected due date anyway.
For the last several months, we have not had to worry about our little one making it to full term.
The scares we have had with the pregnancies before had us in a constant state of paranoia even before the sub-chorionic hematoma.
After that, we slept on beds of nails just hoping for baby wiggles to make it through one more day.
Give us one more day, before we worry about the next one.
Our worry diminished when we could feel baby wiggles move, and we got further and further along.
Before we knew it, Alisha had a reassuring movement from Wiggles more times then she could count throughout the day.
The nickname “wiggles” could not have been better chosen.
Wiggles is so active in fact that Alisha is completing the fetal movement counts (number of felt movements measured, 10 within 1 hour) in between 2-10 minuets.
We had been so fearful we didn’t want to plan more then a couple days ahead, and now I find myself planning what car I am going to use to teach a 16 old child how to drive a stick, how to work on cars… you know, all the typical father-type stuff.
Then, I think of
one of the questions many asked me during the most active time for our website: :
How are you going to explain this to your kid.
My answer to that, upon reflection, has never changed:
Straight-up honesty.
This will also be supported by records of events I have been keeping since before, during, and after the website went viral, strategy of the propagation of the site, and a book I am witting explaining all of this in great detail.
It is my intent to be able to give a copy of this book to my daughter so she can see what was going through our minds at the time.
Without boring you with all of them, there were components of this that went off exactly as planned like the site itself going viral at the time it did, the breadcrumbs left for some media agencies to test their reputable status, and the start of a discussion on the topic of abortion.
And once again without boring you with all of them, there were also components that did not go where we had planned like expecting people to read into it more then they just on the surface, the international attention was unforeseen, and we expected a deeper discussion.
And before I talk about more of my thoughts, remember that this entire topic requires two too tango.
I may express my opinions in this writing, but there are still the opinions of my wife’s which in some cases can differ from my own.
From the standpoint of one who is classified as “Pro-Life” (yes, believe it or not though .
I prefer “anti-abortion”), I expected others to see the ironic way to argue the hypocrisy of the “Pro-Choice” camp that my comments had illicited.
After all, I have documented evidence by over eleven thousand comments that overwhelmingly show how supportive people within the “Pro-Life” community are verses the bitter vitriol by people within the “Pro-Choice” community.
Even though many are not willing to look into this more then just on the surface, deep down it makes you look stupid if you support a woman’s “right to choose” but then disapprove of HOW the choice is made.
At no point does NARAL Pro-Choice-America tell you what is considered acceptable and unacceptable ways to make the “choice”.
Abortion is Legal, and there is no pro-choice organization willing to limit how a woman can come to the decision to have an abortion.
So, as long as it is legal, you could let a girl-scout cookie bake-off dictate the end of a life.
Those would be some pretty tasteless cookies, but so too is killing your neighbor to make your life more stable, or because its not a good time for him to live.
I submit that there are unacceptable ways to make the “choice”.
Look, those of us who are on the side of Anti-Abortion full well know that “Pro-Choice” does not mean “Pro-Abortion”.
Typically a “Pro-Choice” individual will argue that abortion should be kept legal for medical reasons, rape and incest despite these accounting for only
within the United States leaving about
in the United States as elective, including
socio-economic reasons or for birth control.
And while many Anti-Abortion people criticize me for saying abortions should remain legal for those 1.8% of the Hard-Case pregnancies, I still consider these cases to be murder.
You are ending the life of an individual for the sake of another.
If I were forced to make a “choice”… between the life of my Alisha or my unborn baby, I would make that choice in a way that would let us try again.
In doing so I would have to live with knowledge that I killed a human being so that another may live.
But this is the 1.8% of cases.
So that said, my wife and I both agree that the other 98% of abortions should not be happening.
Call me crazy, but I do not believe anyone should be aloud to end a human life for socio-economic convince.
My big thing is (And remember, this is my opinion, and may verry from that of my wife)… if you do not want to have a baby, perhaps you should practice some conception control.
Ending the life of another human being for your convince is simply unacceptable.
Every sixth grader knows that mammals reproduce sexually.
And while I am a firm believer of sexual education, we are failing at Sex-Education if there are people who have sex without thinking becoming pregnant is a possible outcome.
Most accidental firearm discharges happen because the gun is thought to be unloaded, or those handling the gun are careless with it.
I would be willing to go out on a limb and say most accidental pregnancies happen for similar reasons.
Choosing to end the life of another human being for socio-economic convince, or so you can go to college, or land that promotion is just as silly to me as choosing to end the life of another human being based on an Internet poll.
What can I say… I am a fan of using irony to prove a point.
Next post, I’ll talk about some of the irony I’ve seen in all of this.
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We went in yesterday for Alisha’s 20 week Ultrasound.
Everything looks good and healthy.
I was very excited to discover the sex of the baby, but “Wiggles” kept legs crossed the whole time, leaving me to assume that we’re having a girl or a Patrick Stewart.
Not that I would doubt Patrick Stewart’s epic manliness, but you have to admit… he pretty much crosses his legs almost all time.
I have even herd he can run with his legs crossed, though I can’t remember the source.
We have another appointment today to see if perhaps we can get a proper “junk inspection”.
I hear there won’t be a problem… epically since the Friday ultrasound tech is rumored to be an ex-TSA agent.
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by Alisha &
For those of you who have continued to ask about us after the final results were posted, we are indeed keeping the baby.
Baby “Wiggles” is kicking and seems to be healthy so hopefully we will be able to bring a new life into this world in the spring.
Thanks for your interest and we wish you all a wonderful and blessed holiday season!
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As promised, we are displaying data from the vote.
One of the most interesting pieces of information we have gathered from this includes the list of top fraudsters.
Out of the list, the top fraudster voted Give Birth.
Out of the top 500, only 4 people, or 0.8% voted this way.
The other 99.2% of the top 500 fraudulent voters voted to end a life.
Of the total fraud count, 83.6% of all fraud was in the Abortion vote.
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First off, if you have not read , please do so.
Remember, there are two people here after all, and we are hardly carbon copies of each other.
talked about us last night, and while I appreciate his comments (and respect him greatly), I feel that much of what is being said is still reactionary.
Watching Bill’s comments though, it felt as if he really didn’t have an opinion that they could convey other than “ewwwww”.
Tell you what, Mr. O’Reilly:
I’ll take the label of “pinhead” as justified if you still think so upon further reflection into this post.
Based on much of the response from the parts of the media that are conservative I want to help highlight some of what I’ve learned from this as well as something I’ve wanted to point out from the start.
This website and the vote behind it was started due to our initial uncertainty with our current pregnancy.
We had two miscarriages before this pregnancy.
One of them ended with a trip to the hospital and Alisha being induced to give birth to a baby whose heart had stopped beating 3 weeks prior.
The second miscarriage actually happened during our trip to France.
The photo of us in front of the Pont du Gard in southern France was chosen specifically because Alisha’s second miscarriage happened two days later.
With the health concerns involved in pregnancy with a couple that is not of optimum weight combined with two miscarriages in a row like we had, Alisha and I started eating better and working out.
Alisha had even gotten to the point where she was feeling like her body wanted to go work out and had lost 55 pounds.
My weight-loss has not been as spectacular, but I am at least losing weight.
This pregnancy came faster than we had expected.
We started this website in hopes to have a discussion with people in regards to our situation and to ask others to vote on what they think we should do based on the information.
Alisha and I had points we wanted to try to get across in addition to having a discussion and allowing others to help us make a decision.
She wanted to point out in the end how many do not take voting seriously, and I wanted to point out the hypocrisy of the labels “Pro-Life” and “Pro-Choice” used when discussing the issue of Abortion.
Now that we have
weeded out the fraud and have the final vote results, I think this is a great time to start this segment of the discussion.
Total votes: 278084
Give Birth: 73.79%
(205,189 votes)
Have an Abortion: 26.21%
(72,895 votes)
This is quite the change from the original vote numbers:
Give Birth 22.37% (448,777 votes)
243,588 Fraudulent votes
Have an Abortion 77.63% (1,557,586 votes)
1,484,691 Fraudulent votes
Now, there is a lot we have learned from all of this, too much in-fact for this post alone.
Let me preface my thoughts first by reminding everyone that there are two minds behind this site.
Mine, and .
As I sit here writing this posting, she is sitting at the kitchen table writing her own.
I find it amazing how much focus there was on me and the history of my thoughts when no one paid attention to what Alisha said.
Even an interview with CNN with both of us left out every word .
From my perspective and my perspective alone, many in the parts of the media that are liberal seam pretty intent on attacking me instead of having this conversation.
I have learned over the decade of my internet ranting that often when one cannot actually stand and hold themselves to a discussion, an intellectually dishonest person will simply try to shut down the discussion or divert attention away from the discussion.
(Yes I admit my online ranting came off pretty aggressive until I grew out of my “I’m in college and I know everything” phase.
Then again, I also started my college life as a democrat.)
While many out there have attacked me, they ignore my wife and completely.
Oddly enough, her opinion is the one that matters most.
In the end, isn’t this whole thing… “Pro Choice”? (Though I hate the labels with a passion, as you will soon read.)
After all, isn’t the definition of “Pro-choice” by “Pro-choicers” say that ””?
Well, perhaps with all the attention given to me, a “Pro-Choice” person should have instead focused on the woman, and the “why” behind the option that Alisha “should be able to exercise”.
Instead, they have refused to have the conversation with Alisha and have taken the intellectually dishonest tactic of finding reasons not to have the discussion in the first place.
As someone who has been pointed out as being a Glenn Beck fan and had others apply that as a core criticism, I find much of this very telling behind the actions of much of the left in general, but I digress.
I would like to highlight the primary thing I wanted to get across with my writings here.
And this is something that can be tracked back in my writings for quite a while.
The labels “Pro-Choice” and “Pro-Life” do nothing but confuse people (I’m talking about my side too here) and divert the conversation away from what the actual topic is: Abortion.
We have seen this too on our site, as many on both sides attacked us instead of actually having a discussion.
First, let me go after the label “Pro-Life”, as this is the part people are going to ignore anyway when they skip over Alisha’s thoughts to blog about me.
Keep in mind too, this is the side that I associate myself with.
Though like most, If given the choice between Alisha’s life and that of an unborn child, if her life were threatened, I would “choose” her.
Also in cases of rape or incest, I would have to go by what the woman wanted.
These are two attrocities that I wish no one would have to go through… though according to the Alan Guttmacher Institute 0.3% of abortions are from Rape or incest and 1% due to the risk of maternal life or health leaving 98.7% elective.
So what does “Pro-Life” mean?
It is difficult for one to hold the stance of being “Pro-Life” when one is not for “life” in all regards.
When one sacrifices a life, weather that be a human being, animal, or plant, one cannot say they are “Pro-Life” but rather “Pro-Specific-Kinds-of-Life-Over-Others”.
Meat is murder, but it is murder to sustain the life of a creature higher on the food chain.
In its most basic form, based on the definitions of “pro” and “life”, it is difficult use such an all-encompassing label when those who use the label do not… encompass all.
Then we can go onto those who are “Pro-Life” but still believe in the death penalty for some who society deems worthy of such a punishment.
Or what about assisted suicide?
If we focus the label of “life” onto that of a “human life”, how can we not be against the death penalty?
Shouldn’t then the label read “Pro-Life-So-Long-As-A-Group-Of-My-Peers-Don’t-Think-They-Should-Die”?
So, the label “Pro-Life” is completely bunk.
Stop using it “Pro-Lifers”.
It’s doing the cause far more harm than good.
Instead, be intellectually honest and talk about what you are really saying:
“Anti-Abortion”.
Now, on to the “Pro-Choice” side.
This label is not only a great distraction to the topic of Abortion, but with it comes a misunderstanding of the word “choice” that strikes straight through the political side that chooses to use the label most: Those who long for a “liberal” use of government.
So what does “Pro-Choice” mean?
Here, it is difficult for one to hold the stance of being “Pro-Choice” when one is not for “choice” in all regards.
When one sacrifices a the ability for others to choose (whether it be the life of a human being, how much bacon to put on the triple hamburger, choosing an SUV over a hybrid, or choosing to text while driving), one cannot say they are “Pro-Choice” but rather “Pro-Choice-So-Long-As-It-is-A-Specific-Kind-of-Choice-Over-Other-Kinds-Of-Choices”.
I have even been called “Anti-Choice” by those in liberal blogs.
This is most humorous to me as I am not so ignorant to call them “Anti-Life”.
In fact, I am willing to go out on a limb and say those who approve of the increased power of government reek of hypocrisy the moment they claim to be “Pro-Choice”.
I would even say as a Libertarian/Conservative, I am far more “Pro-Choice” then the typical person who labels themselves as “Pro-Choice”.
This is all part of WHY the label of “Pro-Choice” simply does not fit the topic.
For Example:
How can one say they are “Pro-Choice” when they are often for increased laws and regulations?
How can one be “Pro-Choice” and yet “Pro-Seat-Belt-Law”, “Pro-Socialized-Medicine”, or “Pro-Automotive-Fuel-Standards”?
Where is the advocacy group that wants to defend my “Automotive-Freedom-of-Choice” and remove the requirement for eight side Air-Bags and higher fuel emissions?
If I want to drive something that gets 12mpg, isn’t that my “choice”?
Why do so many claim to be “Pro-Choice” and yet restrict my ability to “choose” to own the same firearms our police and military have?
How can someone be “Pro-Choice” and yet side with nearly every single increase in government power when it comes from the side that labels themselves as “Pro-Choice”?
I submit that this occurs because some do not understand what “Choice” is and where the government gets their power.
Government gets their power by taking it from the people.
As they get stronger or as government is applied more “liberally” the “choices” an individual has are further restricted.
I may not dig the ability for a person to have an abortion because they are not economically ready or because they simply do not want children… but as an individual who wishes for a reduction of government power and control over an individual in almost every single other topic, I am far more “Pro-Choice” than most who carry that label on a pin next to their “Che” Guevara sticker.
Keep in mind though that “Pro-Choice” does not specifically equate to “Pro-Abortion”.
Though the population is split on the topic of Abortion by , the vote we see does not reflect those numbers.
This is another example of where the label “Pro-Choice” simply confuses those who apply that label to themselves.
We have had so very many comments from individuals who call themselves “Pro-Choice” that are calling our un-born child a “life” despite the abortion not carrying any penalty like the termination of any other life.
So, like the “Pro-Life” label, the label of “Pro-Choice” distracts from the actual topic of abortion.
Instead of talking about abortion, the labels are a warm and fuzzy way of speaking without actually discussing why removing a life from existence should be legal.
These labels should be aborted.
Instead of talking about a vague word that has little to do with the actual topic, we need to be intellectually honest and talk openly.
The more we use labels that have nothing to do with the actual topic, the more this entire conversation remains “educational” at best.
Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Roe-V-Wade hasn’t been overturned in 30+ years.
We have spent all this time talking about “choices” and “lives”
instead of abortion.
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by Alisha &
The total number of fraudulent votes for aborting the pregnancy is astounding.
I have no idea why people would go to the lengths that they did to submit fraudulent votes towards abortion.
But this all leads back to the reason for voting and how many people don’t take it seriously.
In our poll we asked people to vote on the outcome of one potential life, but at every government election the population votes for officials that make decisions that affect thousands, if not millions of people, often in a life-changing way.
When people vote during elections they often allow a single topic like abortion to determine their choice.
I don’t really care what controversial issu it could be the death penalty, homosexuals in the military, legalizing marijuana, universal healthcare, etc.
But when people vote based on a single topic they aren’t necessarily seeing the bigger picture.
So what if your chosen candidate is “Pro-life” if you disagree with them on every other issue?
We need to take more responsibility for our choices whether that’s choosing the future of a potential child or choosing the next leader of the free world.
The number of fraudulent votes (both for abortion and keeping the baby) made me realize that people were making assumptions about us as a couple.
We did not start the poll to remove responsibility for the decision from ourselves, we merely asked people to weigh in on what they thought our decision should be.
The poll was a tool in which to gather quantifiable data about a two-party vote on the issue of abortion.
We wanted to see how the results would stack up to “Pro-life” vs. “Pro-choice” polls when the subject of the vote was a specific potential life as opposed to just a statistic.
So when it comes right down to it, the poll was useful to us in that it gave us insight into what people were thinking even if they didn’t choose to comment.
There are going to be those who vote just to get a kick out of it.
Others that don’t vote because they don’t truly care about the outcome or don’t feel comfortable weighing in on a decision when they don’t know enough about the people involved.
And there are those people who take it seriously, give thoughtful commentary, and end up swaying the vote (hopefully) in their favor.
So if we knock out the fraudulent votes, people were overwhelmingly voting for us to keep the baby.
This vote has also taught me that you can be for a woman’s right to choose but that doesn’t make you anti-life (as the name “Pro-life” would lead people to believe).
Just like being “Pro-life” doesn’t automatically make you anti-choice, the two ideas aren’t mutually exclusive.
The titles themselves actually distract from the actual topic which is whether or not abortion should be legal and although I am firmly in the liberal camp on the issue of legal abortion in the U.S., I discourage women from using abortion as a repeated form of birth control.
I side with the popular idea that a woman should always be able to have an abortion in the event of rape and incest, or if the life of the mother is at risk (whether that be from medical issues or domestic abuse) before the point of viability.
I also understand teenage girls and other young single women making a “mistake” and finding themselves alone and trying to get through pregnancy and the uncertainty of raising a child.
But I would also like to empower women to take more responsibility for their bodies and the potential life that they may carry.
We all know that sex can lead to pregnancy, so taking precautions is the right thing to do.
Admittedly, even the best precautions don’t always work, which is why abortion is on the table as an option.
But if an individual finds that they need multiple abortions over time it may be the right decision for them to take more permanent measures (IUD, sterilization, etc.), but again it is always the woman’s right to choose and so it’s her responsibility to make the right decision for herself and her potential child.
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by Alisha &
With 2,008,039 votes, we have decided to close the vote.
We will be sending them off to a third party report wizard to have them analyzed and have the fraud removed.
The rules go as follows:
Each IP address gets up to two votes.
(Yes, its possible multiple people live at the same house).
Any IP address with multiple votes weighing heavily in one direction will be reduced to two votes.
Any IP address sub domain containing multiple votes from multiple IP addresses will be reduced to two votes.
Any IP address with a split vote (coming from a college, university, or similar location) will be counted.
We will be publishing the results as soon as we get them.
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by Alisha &
Recently we were quoted by CNN as admitting that terminating the pregnancy was never on the table.
This is simply not true.
My husband may wish that that was the case, but our early disagreement about this pregnancy is what lead us to start the website in the first place.
I clearly stated this to the reporter at CNN but my opinion was not included in the article that was published.
Although my intentions about this pregnancy may have changed over the course of the last few months I definitely didn’t start out feeling confident about proceeding with it.
I was very scared and anxious that I wasn’t healed emotionally from the previous miscarriages to be in the right frame of mind to continue an unexpected pregnancy.
You may think that I have selfish reasons for considering abortion, but anyone who has experienced doubts about whether they want to have a baby surely knows that it’s not an easy decision to make.
The fact that I have had major complications from the start just made me more wary and unsure.
Even this time around I had a threatened miscarriage which could possibly have made the whole abortion issue moot.
I’m the one that lost my job because of the media attention that this website has received and yet my opinions and statements seem to be discounted in favor of my husband’s.
Since I’m the one carrying the baby it seems to me that this is a terrible oversight on the part of responsible media professionals.
Pete and I are on different ends of the spectrum when it comes to our beliefs about abortion.
I’m sure I will receive considerable harassment about this post, but to me until the baby can survive without the mother (otherwise known as viability) it is not a feasible life.
So although my feelings about this pregnancy and Baby “Wiggles” have changed during the time that the website has been up and I don’t believe I could go through with an abortion now, it doesn’t mean that I don’t believe in a woman’s right to make that decision.
Many people have talked about my husband’s conservative/libertarian leanings and have made much of his pro-life and conservative posts on other websites.
But when it comes to abortion I am the one that wears the pants in the decision because in the end it would be me going through the procedure.
Even though my husband’s opinion and beliefs matter to me, I, as the one carrying the baby have the final say about my body and our unborn child.
My fears, anxiety and worries about this pregnancy have been completely discounted in favor of discussing my husband’s opinions about unrelated topics like cars and global warming.
Abortion is a serious issue and my opinion and position shouldn’t be ignored.
Your comments have helped to ease my fears and although I am still cautious about allowing myself to become attached, I am feeling more optimistic about moving forward.
Once again I would like to thank everyone for sharing their comments (even the hateful ones) because freedom of speech and the ability to state ones beliefs is one of our greatest freedoms in this country.
As we go into our Thanksgiving holiday I will be thankful for the continued health of our baby and that I live in a country where dissension and discussion about difficult topics only makes us stronger and ensures our freedoms.
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