Week 18: Head to rump, baby is about 5 1/2 inches long (about the length of a bell pepper) and weighs almost 7 ounces. Baby's busy flexing his arms and legs — movements that I'll start noticing more and more in the weeks ahead. Blood vessels are visible through thin skin, and ears are now in their final position, although they're still standing out from the head a bit. A protective covering of myelin is beginning to form around the nerves, a process that will continue for a year after baby's born. If we're having a girl, her uterus and fallopian tubes are formed and in place. If we're having a boy, his genitals are noticeable now, but he may hide them during an ultrasound.
Thursday, we get to see our baby for the first time, and hopefully find out if it's a he or she. So for those who haven't entered their guess yet, do it by Wednesday! I can't really see the appeal in waiting to find out. It'll be a surprise for us on Thursday, not exactly the same as it would be in the heat of the moment but still. I want to be able to start calling the baby he or she, not "it," and maybe try out the name we're considering. Plus, the gendered clothes are so much cuter than the gender-neutral clothes. Originally I was really hoping it'll be a girl but now I'm excited either way.
In the baby's room last weekend, I applied some plastic to the window to add some privacy. Unfortunately the baby's window looks right at the ugly fence and the neighbor's satellite dish, and we haven't had the time or money to do anything with the very narrow sideyard right there. This adds some color, plus I noticed when I was last over at their house, because of the height of their deck right there, they could look right into that bedroom. Looks pretty!
Also this week, I was called for jury duty. Here, when you're "on" jury duty, it's on call for two weeks so every evening I had to call in to see if I needed to report the next day. I've heard from a lot of people that I just should've tried to get out of it. Honestly, it wasn't a terrible time in my work life to have jury duty; I could've asked to be deferred til like April, then I could've gotten out by breastfeeding. But I thought I'd take my chances. The only other time I was on jury duty, in Eugene, I was called, sat in a room for 4 hours, then we were all dismissed because the trial had settled last minute. My weeks were almost up when I was called to report.
Jury duty is a lot of waiting. It's boring, really. And I hate to say it but the lame orientation video we had to watch did speak to me- it is our right to have a fair and impartial jury of our peers and I do consider it a bit of an honor to be in that position. Plus, I'm an intelligent and analytical person, someone whom I'd want on MY jury should I ever be in that situation, or have a vested interest in a trial. There were probably about 40 of us, after they weeded through the people who couldn't stay for the next three days. Then it seems like they drew juror numbers at random to put 23 of us in chairs for the jury interview with the D.A. and the defense attorney. I was actually hoping to get on the jury because I thought it'd be really interesting to see a trial and to experience it in that way. Apparently they used to have jurors fill out a survey, which makes more sense to me than the random questioning they did of us. There were questions that tipped us off to what some of the case addressed- questions about feelings about law enforcement, about corporal punishment, whether anyone had teenage children... I offered up that I was pregnant and my dad was an attorney, but I still was picked.
The charges were criminal mistreatment and assault against a father charged with beating his teenage son. The D.A.'s evidence was the son's testimony, photo evidence of the injury, the testimony of a deputy, DHS worker, and medical examiner who repeated the story as told by the son, as well as the deputy and DHS worker's interview of the father on the day of the reporting, and the son's principal and teacher to comment on the son's character and on the father's involvement in the son's education. So, basically, the evidence is the kid's story and photo evidence. The defense attorney put both the stepmom who witnessed the argument and the father himself on the stand, both of whom confirm that the father and son argued but assert that the father never touched the son. The son claimed during their argument, he called his father a disrespectful name, which initiated the attack. The defense attorney suggested that the son had fabricated the story to ensure that he could go live with his mother. Essentially, it's a he-said vs he-&-she-said.
I tried to remain open-minded and fair, waiting to hear both sides before judging, but given that the son told the exact story repeatedly, and stuck to it for over a year, it would've taken some evidence that the son had, in fact, fabricated the story to change my mind. On the stand, the son cried, the stepmom was very meek and didn't answer more than a few words to each question, and the father was aggressive and seemed annoyed. "Beyond a reasonable doubt" in a criminal case is challenging, but without any of reasonable explanation of the obvious injuries the son suffered, how else could you explain it than that the father and stepmom are lying and the son is telling the truth?
So you'd think. But the main thing I learned through this experience is that people are really stupid. And the main reason to try to get out of jury duty isn't that it takes time; it's that it's really frustrating. We only had an hour to deliberate the second day and started out about seven of us saying guilty, three not guilty and two undecided. We almost reached the 10 majority we needed for a decision but had to break for the evening. I couldn't stop thinking about the case, fretting about whether or not this kid would get justice, now convinced of the father's guilt. In the middle of the night, I was preparing my arguments against the jurors for the next morning to try to help them see the truth. What does the kid have to gain at this point by still lying when he's already living with his mother? Why, if the kid was going to make up an abuse story, would he have placed the stepmom there as a witness; and why make the injuries what they were? It'd be much easier to have a friend punch you once than slap you open-handed like 12 times. And how would a kid know which of his friends was left-handed (like his father was), and where would this have taken place in the hour before school when he reported the abuse, and why wouldn't anyone have come forward, gossiping about being involved? And why did the father's testimony on the stand contradict what the deputy and DHS worker reported he said? And just because we weren't told that the father had a history of violence, doesn't mean he 1- isn't violent or 2- didn't commit an act of violence. This is why I'm glad not to be in law in any way. I didn't even have any emotions or reaction to the kid's testimony, pictures, etc, but once all the evidence had been given, I felt really emotional involved and convicted in my verdict that the father was guilty. I struggled not to dwell on thinking about the case.
The part I found the most disheartening is the seemingly automatic reaction by some of the jurors that the kid must be lying. Oh, teenagers are manipulative, I wouldn't put it past him to set his dad up to get his way. Yeh, and some parents ARE abusive. Or I just wish there was more proof. Ummm, there are photos of the kid's face all beat up, AND his testimony ID'ing his attacker. Why is it that victim testimony seems not to be valid enough evidence? I understand that you have to look at the situation critically, and not just take the victim's story as 100% truth automatically but geez, it was pretty obvious what had happened. I had in my mind a friend's comment about her abuse as a child and reading some statement online that there wasn't evidence of abuse ever taking place; she said, "I am the living proof. My story is true. It happened." But I feel like people are so quick to try to discredit the victim. Or say, well I wish they'd interviewed some of the kid's friends to see if one of them had actually done it. The kid told us who the attacker was; why would you go after someone else unless you had reason to doubt the kid?
I'd been named presiding juror, which only really means that I kept us moving toward a decision, and tried to cut short their speculative arguments that had nothing to do with the actual charge. Eventually we had 11 of us agreeing to the charge of assault, but only 9 agreeing to criminal mistreatment, which was essentially the same charge except that instead of "intentionally, knowingly or recklessly causing injury," it said "intentionally or knowingly causing injury to a dependent care." Somehow two jurors could agree that the father had "recklessly" caused injury, but the words "knowingly" and "intentionally" were just really challenging for them. Well if you're angry and in a rage, do you really KNOW what you're doing? Do you really KNOW that you're going to be hurting someone? Are you really INTENDING to? Um, yes, if you hit your kid 12 times, I'm pretty sure you know what you're doing. Intentionally injuring vs unintentionally (like you punch the wall and a picture thus falls, hitting and injuring the kid). Then one asked well what does injury really mean? I mean, is an injury something that lasts a week? The moment you touch someone is that an injury? Did he really even "injure" his son? Oh, the irrational comments went on and on. The kicker was, one juror who just could not commit himself to saying guilty ended up justifying his position by saying this: I just don't think this situation should have ever gotten to this point. Look buddy, that's not for you to judge whether the law is right or wrong, whether or not you agree with the system. Then he said: what I see is a dad who was trying really hard yet his son was being defiant, and, I can't believe I'm saying this, but I guess I just think that sometimes, kids need to be put in their place. What?!? Again, not for you to judge!! Did the father hit his son or not? If so, he's guilty, whether or not you agree with that, whether or not you would agree with whatever the punishment would be.
Oh man. It was super frustrating. Had we not reached a majority to say guilty on both counts, I would have dwelt on it for quite awhile, the injustice of it. Given the evidence we had, a not guilty verdict basically says to the kid: we didn't believe you. Your story, and the evidence of your abuse, just wasn't as compelling as your dad and stepmom lying on the stand. We think you just set it up. This didn't really happen to you. And how heartbreaking and unfair would that have been. So, thankfully, justice was served. And I heard through a different source after we had given our decision and been dismissed, that there may have been evidence that the father had beat the son a few months prior, but because it hadn't been reported, the jury wasn't allowed to hear it. I'm 100% sure that would've changed everyone's mind. So, story told, I'll move on now.
I had this artwork from my grandma's house, which I loved because it reminded me of her house, but it is so dated and it just doesn't go with anything in our house. I though maybe I could pull off a version of this lyric artwork with "My Wish" by Rascal Flatts, which I resonate with as I think of becoming a parent. So I set off to try to get a lot of this song onto this artwork. Issue #1: the letters I bought were really small, kinda expensive, and hard to peel off the backing without tearing. Issue #2: it was really time consuming to 1- lay out all the wording to make sure it would fit, 2- make sure I had all the right letters, and 3- then peel and stick. And by time consuming, I mean I've spent hours on each stage of this project. But I finally got it all stuck on. Issue #3: some of the letters wouldn't stick and kept trying to rise up. Matt was right that it would've looked cool to just have the letters over the art, but because I was using black, silver and gold letters (they came in the pack), and I was mixing them because of which letters I needed, it would've looked awful to leave as is. Had I wanted to spend more time and money, I would've tried to get all black letters and be done.
So then I spray painted the entire thing white, after repeatedly trying to get the letters to stay down long enough for me to paint.
Then Issue #4: the incredibly time consuming step of removing all the lettering, which kept tearing. So here's the result, though I need to still paint the frame. In my mind, though I ignored how tiny the font really is, I envisioned that you'd get a sense of the picture behind the letters. Not so. It just looks like faded brown lettering, which in itself looks kinda cool, but being that my idea was different than this, and I've now totally lost the picture that reminded me of my grandma's house, I'm a bit disappointed. But, I guess now there's some sweet little artwork for baby.
The lyrics, which make me cry every time:
I hope that the days come easy and the moments pass slow,
And each road leads you where you want to go,
And if you're faced with a choice, and you have to choose,
I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.
And if one door opens to another door closed,
I hope you keep on walkin' till you find the window,
If it's cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile,
...
I hope you never look back, but ya never forget,
All the ones who love you, in the place you left,
I hope you always forgive, and you never regret,
And you help somebody every chance you get,
Oh, you find God's grace, in every mistake,
And you always give more than you take.
But more than anything, yeah, and more than anything,>
My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish...
And each road leads you where you want to go,
And if you're faced with a choice, and you have to choose,
I hope you choose the one that means the most to you.
And if one door opens to another door closed,
I hope you keep on walkin' till you find the window,
If it's cold outside, show the world the warmth of your smile,
...
I hope you never look back, but ya never forget,
All the ones who love you, in the place you left,
I hope you always forgive, and you never regret,
And you help somebody every chance you get,
Oh, you find God's grace, in every mistake,
And you always give more than you take.
But more than anything, yeah, and more than anything,>
My wish, for you, is that this life becomes all that you want it to,
Your dreams stay big, and your worries stay small,
You never need to carry more than you can hold,
And while you're out there getting where you're getting to,
I hope you know somebody loves you, and wants the same things too,
Yeah, this, is my wish...
