My ovaries, my self

I'm feeling very grumpy and claustrophobic today. El Presidente is kicking out the U.S. ambassador, alleging coup plots from every corner, doing his damnest to bring the Georgian/Russian war to the Caribbean and saying to hell with all gringos. Our house in Houston might not have a roof on it tomorrow afternoon. AND my doctor reprimanded me for eating too much in the last month.

So the doctor told me, in front of my husband and a visiting medical student, that judging from a 5-kilo weight gain in the last 4 weeks, I was eating too much and helpfully recommended that instead of ducking into the ice cream shop every time I have a craving to eat a banana. My obsessive eating tends towards gobbling down entire bags of jalapeno chips or chunks of cheddar at 10pm but whatever.

Then the assembled group-apparently it take a village of wise men to usher a woman through pregnancy and make sure she's doing it right- debated whether I can travel on a plane for a trip I would like to make around the end of October or about 6 weeks before d-day. A whole doomsday scenario unfolded in which labor begins mid-flight and brings down the wrath of airline officials and embassy officials on all the irresponsible men who allowed a woman to travel in such a delicate state.

I just barely refrained from ending the conversation with an abrupt Look I'll sign a piece of paper promising to not blame you if anything should happen as a result of my stubborn willfulness.

No such paper will be necessary, though signatures- not A signature but signatureS -will be required if I decide to go ahead and get my tubes tied right after delivery. Apparently in Venezuela, my husband has ultimate authority over whether I have kids again or not. The act of marrying him, it would seem, gives him ultimate oversight over my innards.

God's proclamations and an easily undone civil contract aside, I dare say I have a more personal and permanent relationship with my ovaries than he does and therefore immediately chafe at the idea that altering them in anyway requires someone else's signature.