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Seriously. National Advocates for Pregnant Women is, in my experience, unique--and uniquely well-positioned for this moment in history. It brings together pro-choice organizations, women working in and for birthing and mothering rights, gay and lesbian family activists, advocates for incarcerated and addicted women, academic feminists, grassroots and national organizations for women of color, and other groups to bring into focus our common goals and the common threat to women's autonomy posed by those who want to legislate how, when, why, and where we can (or cannot) be pregnant, and what we can (or cannot) do with our bodies.

Let me begin by describing the room I walked into this morning. Standard conference plenary setting: round tables filling a large room, speaker on stage with podium at front, women sitting at tables with coffee cups, a few people with breakfast pastries. We're a little late; I park Pseudonymous Kid with some markers and paper next to a side table with water jugs, out of the traffic flow, grab a chair from one of the round tables nearby, and pull it over to the side of the room next to him. "Mama," he whispers. "Are all the people here women? Or are some of them men?" "Mostly women, I think. This conference is about the rights of pregnant women and mamas, so I think it's mostly women who are here." Later, a speaker made a similar observation and joke--Tayesha Aiwohi, whose story I'll get to in a minute, said "I had no idea how many wonderful women--and men, I saw you," she said, gesturing to a man in the audience who I, too, had noticed (later he turned out to be a high-risk obstetrician whose name, unfortunately, I didn't get)--although, as the day wore on, I noticed a few more guys.

So first of all, like a couple of other conferences I've been to--Hipmama, Emily's List, and the National March for Women's Lives--this stood out by being mostly women, which is not usually the case at the academic conferences I attend. As always at women's (feminist) conferences, I wasn't the only person there with a kid in tow, which right there led me to musing on the "conflict" between children and work. One reason I only have one child so far is because I keep putting it off--the career/work/relationship anxieties. But what is it, exactly, I'm afraid of? Dependence? Or a loss of independence? Do we overvalue independence; that is, is our model for independence essentially the stereotypical unemcumbered male? As I was thinking about this, another speaker whose name I am kicking myself for not having caught or been able to figure out online--a woman who if memory serves was one of the first women in Alabama to be elected to state? Or federal office? Someone will tell me, and I'll update this post--talked about a couple of women having breastfed on the house floor, and how that opened a few eyes, and I thought yes: there are women here, at the conference, with kids. I've brought PK along to professional things before. It really isn't an impediment: and yet we talk and worry as if it is, because we (all of us) make it one when it doesn't need to be.

But even more importantly, I think, the women in the room weren't all professionals. They weren't all moms. They--we--were one of those groups that feminist organizations fantasize about: black, white, Latina, Filipina; old, young, rich-looking, poor-looking; punky young moms ala Hipmama and polished women legislators; hip middle-aged dykes and earthy middle-aged doulas; obstetricians and mothers in recovery from addiction.

And it was the only conference I have ever been to where a plenary session consisted in large part of a series of stories, anecdotes from different women about how they came into being: through politics or parenting, as academics or activists, as workers and as women. There were microphones placed in two or three places in the room, and different women took turns being introduced by Lynn Paltrow, whose baby this organization is, and telling their stories. I've never seen a plenary speaker making the introductions rather than being introduced, or ceding the floor to the subjects of her work. In the most honored and right-on feminist tradition, though, *this* plenary emphasized subjectivity, and the ways that the work of feminism is subject to the lives of women.

Following their lead, when she came to speak Paltrow said that "having asked people to talk about their personal lives, this is not something I usually do," for the reasons that professional women usually don't: because talking about one's person is personal, unsuitable for public discourse. But she went on to show pictures of her with her partner, who was pregnant with twins, a boy and a girl, and to say that her now mostly grownup son had done the slide show we'd just seen on the myriad different organizations that sponsored this summit, and that her daughter was the very young photographer I'd noticed and been impressed by working her way through the room. And, as she pointed out in closing, we need to start "working to make sure that if we're going to have and honor a culture of life, that we make sure to value the women who give that life."

So, along those lines, one story from this morning's plenary. Tayshea Aiwohi is the first woman in Hawaii to be prosecuted for the death of her son. Treyson Aiwohi died two days after his premature birth, and because the city medical examiner's office found methamphetamine in his body, Aiwohi was held responsible for that death. With NAPW's help, the Hawaii Supreme Court overturned her conviction. She has since gone on to establish a foundation to help drug addicted women recover and stay sober, and to help them gain or regain custody of their children. It was she who said that she had "no idea" how many women and men were working for women's reproductive rights, and when I spoke to her briefly during a break between sessions, she was exceedingly gracious (despite being obviously very busy), handed me her card, and thanked me for being interested in blogging about her story. As Paltrow said, pregnant women in this country don't have the right to health care, safe housing, good nutrition--but they're somehow supposed to provide all those things to their unborn children. Aiwohi closed by saying she is "very very proud to be a woman in recovery." God knows she should be, given how hard the state fought to give her any number of reasons to fail, on top of the death of her baby. And God knows we should listen to and respect women like her, whose stories tell us why these issues matter.