Monday Musings on Motherhood: Give Me 2 Minutes

I know I spend a lot of time here on the blogosphere bitching about Motherhood.  Heck, if you're looking for someone to tell you all the reasons you shouldn't become a parent, I'm your gal.  I can come up with at least 100 valid examples of why being a Mother sucks, but in the end I am truly and completely blessed to have the opportunity to experience just how crappy it is to no longer get a chance to sleep past 7am or to have a social life that consists solely of birthday parties for toddlers.

This year, 287,000 women will be denied the opportunity to complain about their kid because they will not survive pregnancy or childbirth.  To put that number in perspective, that means that every two minutes a woman dies because she does not have access to adequate maternal care.  During the time it took for the Barista at your local coffee shop to prepare your decaf soy latte this morning, three children lost their Mothers to preventable complications.  Every Mother Counts is working to change this troubling statistic through their work educating caregivers, providing desperately needed supplies, and even offering transportation to women who live several days travel from the nearest health clinic.  In the United States, we have the luxury of debating the merits of home birth versus hospital birth, natural versus medicated labor, and the comfort of knowing that if something goes wrong, clean, well-staffed facilities exist to assist in an emergency.  I'm sure many of the women who give birth in huts would laugh uproariously were they to read my birth plan which revolves mainly around my refusal to have  an IV and not wanting constant fetal monitoring.

In order to help EMC raise awareness about this issue, I'm going to be doing something a little bit different this month here at MiM (that's my new, super dorky, moniker for the blog).  Every Monday during the month of May I'll be bringing you a post related to the theme "the day I became a Mother".  I'm going to be kicking off the party today with my own tale of Motherhood madness, but I have special guest contributors all lined up for the next three weeks, and I think you're definitely going to dig what these awesome ladies have to share.

In the meantime, please join me in spreading the word about Every Mother Counts 2 Minutes Campaign, and Take 2 Minutes to Take 2 actions.

Upload 2 photos of the day you became a Mother on the EMC Facebook page.

Run 2 miles using the Charity Miles app, which will donate $0.25 per mile to EMC.

Share 2 facts about maternal health on 2 of your social media networks.

Donate 2 dollars to Every Mother Counts.

Give 2 gifts by making a purchase that also supports maternal health programs around the world.

Invite 2 friends to take two actions of their own.

It really only takes 2 minutes of your time.  Besides, just think how great it will make you feel knowing you've helped make it possible for some other woman to bitch about how much her kids annoy her.