.. mine is nearly at an end. Thank goodness court is on Thursday.

WE agreed on a 10pm ending visitation time on Mondays and Tuesdays.
WE agreed he would call me when he was picking up our son so he could have an open pickup time.
WE agreed on all the terms of the visitation agreement.

Not ME, not the COURT, not our ATTORNEYS, WE. WE WE WE WE WE!

So explain to me why he is attempting to make my life a living hell.

Problem 1: He wants to take our son to Georgia for eight days. The terms of the decree are no more than seven days at one time. It's only one extra day, but I can see the potential for abuse.
My Solution: Go ahead and go for eight days as long as you have him call me each day before bedtime.
His Response: No.
My Counter-Response: Then you can't have him for the eighth day. Work with me and I will work with you. Don't work with me, and I won't work with you. Simple as that.

Problem 2: He has open pickup times to accommodate his flexible work schedule. He can pick up our son NO LATER THAN 6pm on Mon and Tue and 4pm on Saturday. During the settlement conference, I stated this was acceptable as long as he called me first so I could have our son ready to go and let him know where we would be for him to come get him if I wasn't at the house. This was agreed to during the settlement conference. Now, he NEVER calls first, assuming I will be here just waiting and waiting for him to show.
My Solution: Call me so that not only will our son be ready to go for you, but it will be respectful of my time.
His Response: No.
My Counter-Response: Then I guess we have to go back to court to get the pickup times and possible pickup locations set in stone.

Problem 3: He has DEFINITE end times with our son. 6pm on Sundays and 10pm on Mon and Tue. He agreed to this in the settlement conference. I agreed to this in the settlement conference. To date, he has NEVER brought our son home at the end time, instead returning him 1-2 hours EARLIER than scheduled. This is a COMPLETE lack of respect for the time our son is entitled with his father, as well as a complete lack of respect for my personal time.
My Solution: Officially change the end-times to reflect the average time he's bringing our son back each time or call me first so that I can say if I will be home or where he can bring Aidan to if I'm not.
His Response: No (on both).
My Counter-Response: Then I guess we have to go back to court to get the end times adjusted, the amount of time before a pickup or drop off he can arrive early, and possible drop-off locations set in stone.

Problem 4: I am entitled to one phone call a day when my son is with his father per DR-610, the official child visitation document. I choose to exercise this at my son's bedtime so I can tell him goodnight. I asked the father to have our son call me before he goes to bed.
His Response: No.
My Counter-Response: I tried calling myself around 9pm, but he wouldn't answer the phone, then HE started calling ME around 8pm, WELL before my son's bedtime, to have him talk to me and have that constitute my one call a day.
My Counter-Counter-Response: You guessed, it, going back to court to even have this addressed. I should be able to choose the time I speak with my own son, not him. And our son NEEDS security and routine and what better routine than to say "Mommy always calls at 9" or "We always call Mommy just before bed?" ESPECIALLY on the nights where he might be upset and missing me.

Problem 5: Transportation. NEARLY EVERY FREAKING NON-RESIDENTIAL PARENT IN THE U.S. HAS TO PICK UP THEIR CHILD(REN) WHEN THEY HAVE VISITATION WITH THEM. But for some reason, he refuses to bring him home on the night I have school. His argument? "Our son ALWAYS goes to bed by 9 when he's with me." Whatever. Up until the freaking DAY I moved out, our son always went to bed when the ex could drag himself away from the computer to put our son to bed and this was ALWAYS between 10 and 11pm. Then he has the nerve to tell me to DROP MY COLLEGE COURSE because I shouldn't have scheduled a class on a night he has our son?

Please explain that one to me. I'm confused. So my class, which is from 6:30 to 10, interferes with his parenting time, which is from No Later Than 6pm to 10pm? And the college is CLOSER to the ex than my house, so dropping him off at 10 with me at the college is actually more convenient for him. I'm still tring to figure out how that interferes with HIS parenting time.

My Solution: If you refuse to keep your own child until 10, the time we AGREED on, drop him off with me at the college or with my sister at her house (still closer to him than my house).
His Response: No. If you want him on Tuesday nights, you come get him.
My Counter-Response: Wha?! Ok, back to court.

I am 99.9% certain that he's doing these things just to try and make my life difficult. Why else would he do them after agreeing to them? When he agreed, he had no idea I was starting college. I bet it irks the pants off of him that I am actually thriving after the divorce, but I don't really care. What I care about is preserving our son's mental well-being and my personal time.

There are a couple more things I'm addressing, like his impending move (he refuses to tell me where and refuses to supply me with a new address unless the court orders it), a possible move to Georgia and handling out-of-area visitation, and some other little things.

Two days. Two days and hopefully everything goes well and I can actually stopped being walked all over by him. He's good at finding loopholes in the court document, and I'm truly hoping I closed them all up. We'll find out.

Abortion is to this day still one of the touchiest subjects in social and political conversations. Is it surprising that it was the topic I decided to write a response paper about? Not if you know me well.

In my Women's Studies (WMS201) course at Miami University, the students are tasked with writing an essay in response to one (or more) of the readings we are assigned to do; we have five response papers due for the term. Closing the Barn Door is a response to various readings from Patricia Miller's collection of autobiographical essays called The Worst of Times and Margaret Sanger's, My Fight for Birth Control. This is my second submission to my professor, and it earned a 45 of 50 possible points (an 'A-') in return.

Take a look, and let's have a discussion--but remember, keep it civil. Freedom of speech is permitted on my blog, as long as it's constructive and respectful, even if you don't agree.

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“The woman had become pregnant and had taken various drugs and purgatives, as advised by her neighbors. Then, in desperation, she had used some instrument lent to her by a friend.” (Sanger, My Fight for Birth Control, p.51)

“Some had tears along the vaginal tract where they had used coat hangers to get up into the uterus and break things up—like rupture the amniotic sac.” (Miller, The Worst of Times, Coroner Fred, p.12)

“The knitting needle perforated mother’s uterus, and she developed peritonitis and then gangrene.” (Miller, The Worst of Times, Marilyn, p.41)

“The self-help methods I saw were douches with irritating solutions and ‘instruments’—a knitting needle, a straightened-out coat hanger, or literally any kind of implement that they could force up into the cervix.” (Miller, The Worst of Times, Dr. Francis, p.287)

“’At nineteen, this linoleum is the last thing I’m ever going to see, because I’m dying. I’m going to die because I was stupid. I got pregnant and then I went to a doctor with a dirty office.’” (Miller, The Worst of Times, Laura, p.298)

Each of these quotes are at once horrific and the kind of thing pro-abortionists might use to garner outrage and support for their cause. What I do not believe people consider when reading about the terrible things that happened to these women is that even though they happened pre-1973, before Roe v. Wade and the legalization of abortion, they also happened before the plethora of preventative birth control options that we currently have available to us today: abstinence is 100% effective; sterilization, Depo-Provera, IUDs, and birth control pills (taken properly) are greater than 99% effective; and condoms, diaphragms, and birth control pills (average usage) are approximately 90% effective. In addition, we have Mifeprex (formerly known as RU-486) and “the morning after pill” to assist when preventative birth control options fail, are forgotten, are used improperly, or are unable to be used (as in the case of rape).

With such a number of viable preventative options, as well as emergencies measures that can prevent a pregnancy before sperm have a chance to fertilize the egg and create life, it seems immediately clear to me that abortion, while once a necessary evil, is now outmoded and unnecessary. In addition, women of any social class have the ability to receive preventative birth control and education to supply them with the tools needed to make them responsible decisions with their lives and their bodies.

The continued legalization of abortions is effectively making the government and those that provide the abortion services enablers. An enabler, as defined by the Miriam-Webster dictionary, is “one who enables another to persist in self-destructive behavior by providing excuses or by making it possible to avoid the consequences of such behavior.”

If you rob a bank, you are not acting in a responsible manner and are held accountable for your actions, usually by going to jail. If you lie to your employer about taking a day off due to illness, then are caught at the local bar having a drink, you are not acting in a responsible manner and are held accountable for your actions, often by being fired. If you receive loans and credit cards, then fail to pay for them, you are not being responsible and are held accountable for your actions, remuneration received through the repossession of your property, wage garnishment, and a lowering of your credit rating to show to others that you are a risk.

If all of your actions have consequences, and acting responsibly is your duty as a productive citizen, how can abortion be seen as anything other than a way for women who refused act responsibly to escape the consequences of their actions? We are no longer living in an era when wives cannot say no to their husbands’ demands for sex. Aside from rape, every single person that engages in sexual activities has made that choice to do so; and every single person who does not use a form of preventative birth control has also made that choice to do so and must live with the consequences of their failure to be responsible and their desire for instant gratification.

In rape cases, when a woman may be unable to speak for herself due to injury, or unwilling due to shame, fear, or emotional trauma, making a drug such as “the morning after pill” or Mifeprex a standard item in every rape kit can eliminate the need for rape-related abortions. Is it a violation of human rights to give one of these drugs to every rape patient? Not exactly. When a patient is unable to speak for themselves whether due to unconsciousness or emotional trauma so severe that they are considered (temporarily) mentally incompetent to make decisions regarding their medical care, parents, spouses, or other relatives can make the determination for care in the patient’s stead and, barring the availability of those persons, the doctor attending her can make the decision.

The only reason I can possibly see abortion as being an option for any woman is if the continuing pregnancy puts the mother’s life at risk, but even then, there can be other options. Can the mother safely carry the child to the point of viability if put on strict bed rest or in-hospital care? If so, then continue the pregnancy. Will any pregnancies the mother has always put her life at risk? In that case, she should be strongly advised to have surgical sterilization. Is the pregnancy ectopic (within the Fallopian tubes)? If so, then the pregnancy can, and should, be terminated—until such a time as medical advances can relocated an embryo from the tubes to the uterus without harming the mother or child.

Abortion has outlived its usefulness and now it is time for women, and legislators, to start holding women responsible for their actions. It is now time for government officials in direct contact with impoverished women and schools in direct contact with our youth to provide education. It is time for parents to teach their children that their actions and desire for instant gratification can have consequences and to come down from any moral high ground or embarrassment or disgust to explain to their children that if they make the decision to have sex before adulthood or marriage, they need to make the decision to take preventative measures.

Abortion is not a solution, but a temporary “fix” for a deeper problem. Even if you do not agree with the thinking that life begins at conception making abortion, in essence, murder, it is difficult to refute the fact that abortion is definitely “closing the barn door after the horse got out” as well as being an option that has outlived its usefulness in a majority of cases.