I'm Sorry, This Uterus Has Been Closed Until Further Notice

Copyright JSH 2011

"You're not having more kids? That's not right. Are you sure you know that's what you want?"

Those words came to me in an email after I had stated that I do not intend on having anymore kids. Am I sure that's what I want? No, I'm not sure. At this time, it's the right decision. Unless I have some life-altering epiphany or God personally chucks a dove through my window, I am done getting myself knocked up and pushing babies out of my body. When I tell people this, they think I must be insane. They think I must not know my own heart and my own body. It's not an easy decision to make.

As I write this, my news feed on Facebook is blowing up with news of a pregnancy announcement. I am happy for the person, but I will be honest and tell you that it stings my heart a little bit. I secretly have been jealous of people announcing pregnancies and having new babies. It's because I know those days are done for me. I'm done charting temperatures and obsessing over gobs of cervical mucus. I'm done peeing on sticks to determine fertility or pregnancy. I'm done carrying secrets for a few weeks before surprising everyone with a happy announcement. There are so many things I will miss about being pregnant. I see preggoids every day and jealously gaze upon their bellies knowing I won't ever experience a gloriously large belly with brand new stretch marks again. I will miss the feelings of my little baby kicking, rolling and dancing within me. I will miss keeping my hand on my belly and telling my little one - through my heart - that all will be well and mama loves him/her. There are so many joys in pregnancy and I will miss each one and I long for them when I see other women experiencing it.

I always wanted at least 6 kids for as long as I could remember. I didn't come from a large family - I have two older brothers and that's it - but I just loved the idea of large families. If you told my 20 year old self that her 33 year old self would be writing a blog about being done after three pregnancies she would have told you to fuck off because that's just dumb. And here I sit, writing about being done after three pregnancies that resulted in two live children. Me...the girl who has been so involved in birth activism since she was 16 years old. I was born to have lots of babies on my hip. That's what I always told myself. It wasn't just one thing that changed my cards and gave me a new deck entirely. It's been brewing. I've slowly had to realize that something I always dreamed of won't come to fruition for me.

My first pregnancy was relatively smooth. I had a hiccup here and there because a few things nearly risked me out of a birth center birth and my birth plan was eventually  fucked up by my own midwife, but things were pretty smooth overall and the birth could have been much worse. I had a glorious and giant belly. I was happy and secure and didn't worry much about pregnancy or birth. I started to show symptoms of pre-eclampsia in my final week of pregnancy, but my midwives helped me manage that with diet. I was able to give birth naturally. Breastfeeding came easily and so did mothering. I like to think I did a splendid job during the first three years of my son's life. I was the quintessential gentle mother and attachment parent. I was calm, happy and I loved my role as a mother above all else. 

I got pregnant again in 2010 and things rolled along perfectly fine until 8 weeks when I discovered that my baby, River,  died and I ended up miscarrying. I don't know why it happened. Maybe it was from low progesterone. Maybe my thyroid was wack. Maybe I was exposed to something scary at my job in a veterinary clinic. Maybe God hated me. I don't know why and I never will. That miscarriage kicked me down a giant negative hole from which I have barely escaped. Gone were my days as a gentle mother. My poor son was caught in the crossfire of my grief and my inability to control my emotions. I became depressed, withdrawn and enraged. My family, my friendships, my job and my sanity suffered big time. Horrible thoughts about the death of my baby would invade my mind at all hours of the day. I couldn't escape it and knew that, if I survived, I would never be able to get through something like that again. I was lucky to have the strength of my family and a few good friends to pull me through and push me back towards some passable semblance of sanity. I question whether I would ever be pregnant again. I ached to carry a child once more and to successfully bring that child into the world, but I was wrapped up in a fear of loss and ashamed that I had lost my sense of serenity in my parenting.

Despite my fears, I charted, temped and progesterone (Progest-E) supplemented my way into getting pregnant again in November of 2010. I told myself and my hubby that there was at least one little spirit who was still waiting to make her way into the world. I knew I was meant to have a little girl. When that line showed up I was excited and terrified. When I first got my positive preggo test with my son, I was terrified of becoming a new mom and being good enough. With my 2nd, I was terrified of having more than one kid and loving more than one. With this third pregnancy, I was terrified of loss. From the day I peed on that first stick (I probably took a wee on 10 in subsequent days, obsessing over the darkness of lines even though I know that it means nothing) to the moment she flew out of my vagina, I could not relax. That fear of loss was stuck right there in the back of my mind at every moment. It was completely palpable.  I was afraid to truly bond with my baby because I felt like I was always sitting on the edge of tragedy. The fact that my pregnancy wasn't as smooth as my first did not help matters. By the time I was 8 weeks I was experiencing a lot of pain in my tailbone. This left me in a panic because I experienced the same symptom just days before my miscarriage with River. After breathing some calm into my brain, I told myself it was likely due to the fact that I have a retroverted uterus and the weight of the growing baby was putting pressure on my tailbone. This does happen to some reason and it usually resolves itself by the 2nd trimester when the uterus is large enough to tip into a more forward position. From that time on, I had near debilitating pain in my tailbone and pelvis. I did yoga. I walked. I stretched. I belly danced. I whined. It didn't help. Granted, it would have been worse without all of that. There was constant pain on my pelvis' part and constant worry on my brain's part. There were many days where it felt like my vagina was being stabbed by at least a thousand knives. Now, that may sound kinky and perhaps it's in the pages of Fifty fucking Shades of Grey, but I assure you it isn't a walk in the park. Speaking of walks in the park, those became limited. I am a very active person and I like to be out and about. We take frequent walks and hikes, but those activities became limited when I was pregnant. I was not able to keep myself in the proper shape. By 20 weeks, I realized it was never an issue of my uterus dry humping my tailbone. I actually had symphasis pubis dysfunction (SPD). That's where the little bit of cartilage that holds your pelvis together (feel your pelvic bone right by your clitoris - that's where it is) just says, "fuck it," and gives up on it's job and makes you all out of whack and painful. I need to write a separate post on that one of these days. While it is agonizing for some women, including myself, it is not threatening. Doing my job became more difficult and I stupidly did my best to work through the issue and not complain about it. Because when you complain about it to women who have not suffered with SPD you are met with eyerolls and comments that, "of course your back and your crotch hurt when you're pregnant. Suck it up." So, that sucked. In the middle of my second trimester, I developed the flu from hell. I was sick for three weeks straight. It ended in a trip to the hospital where they diagnosed strep throat and Scarlett Fever on top of the flu. My mind was washed in anxiety over losing the baby due to my constant 102 degree fevers and the stupid illnesses. I recovered from the flu and started to feel more definite and regular baby movements. I was happy. Then, toward the end of my second trimester, I apparently decided to have high blood pressure one day. My BP spiked to 158/70 one day at work and continued with an erratic pattern for weeks. The initial fear was placental abruption, which wasn't the case. Then we ruled pre-eclampsia out. Turned out I had iatrogenic systolic hypertension - translation: we really don't have a fucking clue why your blood pressure is high, so take it easy. My midwife was frustrated for me. I managed the pressure with diet and acupuncture (it literally dropped the day I got my first treatment and never came back) and I faithfully check my pressures through the day, gave in to many blood and urine tests each week and was ordered to restrict my activity. I was placed on desk duty at work and had to keep my feet up at home. After my pressure got under control, my feet started to swell to the size of small toddlers. I had pitting edema and deep calf pain. Oh fabulous - now we had to worry about the possibility of deep vein thrombosis, which does run in my family. Another hospital trip. No DVT, but I was given more orders to stay the heck off my feet. Because that is easy with a 4-going-on-five year old. Wait, we're not done. I then ended up with a ruptured ear drum and was completely deaf for two weeks. So, my crotch hurt, I was worried about blood pressure, my feet were fat, I wasn't allowed to be up for more than 15 minutes at a time and I couldn't hear the people who were talking to me and asking me if it was normal for a human to have "ankles so big." Oh, and I was anemic. Geez. I was constantly worried that the other shoe would drop throughout the entire pregnancy. Here I am, some birth activist who tells other women to truth their bodies and I was unable to relax, exhale and truly trust in my own body. I was always scared.

I don't even consider that pregnancy to have been complicated. It was just colored with a lot of ups and downs, and the downs really affected my psyche. I knew by the end of that pregnancy that I will likely never have another baby. It's been almost a year since I gave birth to my daughter and my feelings are pretty much the same. I don't think I can do it again. It's not just the physical things that worry me, the fear is incredibly overwhelming. I've had constant anxiety about terrible things happening to my children since my miscarriage and to have that heightened during pregnancy is rough. I don't want to put a sweet, developing little baby under so much stress in what's supposed to be the warm and nurturing environment of my womb.

I also think I'm a crappy mother. My emotional life has changed drastically since my miscarriage. I have been working hard to rid myself of so many negative feelings and rage. It's a constant battle on some days. I miss the super gentle and laid back person...mother that I was before losing my baby. I yell way too much. I get overwhelmed too easily. Perhaps I can't emotionally handle another child. I feel weak to admit that.

Maybe I'm a wimp. Maybe I should suck it up. Maybe I wasn't truly meant to be a mother. Whatever it is, I think I'm done with the pregnancy and birthing phase of my life. It makes me so sad to type those words out. There is a large part of me that feels like I failed myself. I won't ever be that glorious fertile Goddess, always beautifully pregnant. My dream of a large, happy family is dashed by my own emotional, physical and even financial short-comings. It's not an easy decision to make. My husband is saddened by this. He wants one more and he feels a bit bummed when I tell him that I feel like we are done. He is very understanding of my reasoning, though, so it's not an issue that causes a rift in our relationship.

It's other people. I constantly get, "oh come on! You love preggos and babies. You can squeeze out one more!" As if it were really as simple as "squeezing out one more." I've also gotten, "you can't let a couple of bad experiences get you down." Really? A dead baby isn't a bad enough experience? Really? I know people aren't trying to tell me what to do and they don't intend harm when they make comments. It sends a bit of a pang through my heart when I am constantly reminding folks that, yes, the uterus is closed for business.

It goes without saying that we must always be careful when we advise other people on their reproductive happenings. We never know what is really going on inside a woman's heart. For many reason, the decision to have more children is not at all easy and takes a lot of thought. It's definitely not always an easy decision to stop having more kids, especially when you have always planned on having a big houseful of them. Of course, the moment you change you mind and say, "sign me up for 6 more kids," the world will then accuse you of being a "breeder" with too many kids and ask if you realize that your vagina is not a clown car. Sometimes, you just can't win.

What about you? Did you originally intend on a gaggle of babies, but ended up scaling back on those dreams? Has the decision whether or not to have more children been hard on you and your family?

P.S. looking through some pregnancy photos of mine to choose for this blog was sad. Just sad. I will miss that part of my life.

With A Little Help From My Friends

Image Copyright JSH August 2010

Two years ago, my world was nearly finished. I had just learned that the baby I was carrying, River, died. I was waiting for my body to release her. If you have been following my blog for a while, you know I have gone through many ups and downs. Lots of downs. Down deep. My emotions and sanity were flung so far down to a level I never knew existed. When I step back and look at myself, I wonder how I am even here. Truly, if it wasn't for my little boy, I may not be here. Th love for my little boy is what kept me holding on and the support from some amazing friends kept my head above water as I was drowning.

During my miscarriage, I experienced all levels of support. As I have written in the past, being a mother who has miscarried puts you in a weird place. Society doesn't know what to do with you. A lot of people are uncomfortable with the idea of someone losing a baby. A lot of people are uncomfortable with the grief that accompanies such a loss. As such, many parents who lose babies feel very alone. There may be an initial burst of support, but that quickly wanes. Many experience an outright shunning. People no longer want to deal with your grief. YOU inconvenience THEM. I certainly experienced this. I have never, ever felt so alone. I have never felt so guilty for being a human and having those pesky emotions. I am so thankful for the love of my family and some friends for reminding me of the light. I lost friends because of my miscarriage. I lost my own respect for certain people in my life after I heard things they said about me not two weeks after I found out River died. It was so hard to grasp at those leftover pieces of sanity after all of the bullshit that I heard and read about myself. Thankfully, there were a few people who helped me.

Amongst all the negative, I had wonderful support from my family and my husband and some of my friends. I don't want anyone to feel slighted because I don't mention them, but I really appreciated their support. Some old friends from grade school and high school shared their stories of loss with me and told me how they were able to regain their strength and make it through. Friends from work also shared their stories and their strength. Others who hadn't experienced such a loss rallied around me, listened to me and gave me their love. A co-worker made me a necklace with River's name on it and that meant so much for me, especially at a time when I struggled to find people there who acknowledged what happened to me and that I was NOT crazy when I had emotional breakdowns. Two friends stand out, Eve and Lauren.

Eve is a nutrition goddess. She's not one of those weirdo dietician people who spout outdated and incorrect diet information from 1967. She has studied for a long time and she really knows her shit. Helping people achieve their optimal health through nutrition and exercise is her business (along with her husband). She knows food is medicine. She is not, however, judgmental. She isn't going to make you feel like crap because you ate a twinkie pizza. She'll just gently guide you to the right resources. She doesn't do this because she wants you to be a robot follower. She genuinely cares about the health of people and our planet. After my miscarriage, she gave me lots of love and good energy. She is three thousand miles away from me, so we communicated via text and Facebook. She was one of the few who would check in on me almost daily to see how I was doing. We talked about the fact that I was emotionally so out of whack and that my depression was scary. We talked about what was going on with me physically that could have contributed to my miscarriage. I'll admit, for all of my hippie, crunchy granola lifestyle, I wasn't eating the best. I tend to take care of others while I neglect myself. I would make sure my son ate optimally. Same for my husband. I won't feed my cats anything without reading all of the ingredients and understanding them. When it came to taking care of me, I wasn't so careful. After lots of talking, she thought I might have an issue with low progesterone and way too much estrogen. It's a common problem for women today, especially due to the piss poor standard American diet. She encouraged me to use a natural progesterone supplement called Progest-E, which is a gel that you rub on your gums. She also counseled me on making wiser choices with my food. She knew that the right foods would heal my body and my mind. For the past two years, Eve has put up with my random texts asking stupid questions about foods, hormones, exercise and  the like. With her help, I started taking the progesterone and changing my eating habits. It most definitely made a difference. My cycles evened out (I had a short luteal phase, which is usually caused by low progesterone and can increase the risk of miscarriage) and I began to feel better both mentally and physically. To this day, Eve is always there when I need nutritional advice at 1am or just plain old emotional support. Everyone needs an Eve.

And Lauren. We all need a Lauren. Lauren is one person who has seen the ugliest side of me many times and she still loves me. Lauren has had many chances to tell me that she is so over me, over my drama, over my issues and that she can't handle me anymore, but she doesn't do that. For me, Lauren is that single set of footprints in the sand during some shitty times in my life. I've known her for about 6 years now. I met her on the other side of my cervix, as she was one of my midwives when I was pregnant with my son. Lauren and I are a great example of how two people with quite a few differences can still be awesome friends. On the surface, we are both natural birth crunchy people, though I take the granola cake here. We have super opposing views on certain things. She is a very conservative Christian and conservative republican. I am a filthy liberal Christopagan. We definitely have different views on some issues, but that isn't what friendship is about. While the rest of the world would like you to think that polar opposites can't get along, we happen to be mature adults. It's about more than sharing common social ground. We share a very similar spirit, even if it's expressed differently. Honestly, we're just both awesome and awesome attracts awesome. That's why we work. I mention all of this because it seems like it's so easy to give up anymore. It's easy to brush people off if they don't fit a certain ideal or behave a certain way. Back to my miscarriage. I have written before that Lauren would always call or text at the exact moment that I really needed her. It would be the middle of the night and I would be crying in bed, asking God if He really listened and was there and my phone would go off with a text from Lauren (working the night shift in maternity) just checking up on me and sending me love. She was always there right when I needed someone. She heard the worst of me. She listened to my sadness, my promises to kill myself, my hatred for myself and other people and God. Like I said, Lauren is a Christian - the daughter of a Pastor - and I would sit on the phone and pretty much tell her that God was an asshole and that I hated Him. Heck, I didn't believe in Him. She never preached. She never told me I was sinning by saying those awful things. She gave gentle reminders that He understood my anger and that He wouldn't be mad at me. After all, He lost a child, too. She heard me say how much I hated this person and that person. I spewed a lot of vile anger at the time in an attempt to pin my pain on anything but myself. Whatever I said, she listened without judgment. She let me get it all out. In those really dark moments, she was right besides me pointing out light. Not to get all preachy, but she reminded me of God's love way more than any Bible, preacher, church or sermon ever could. I was in an awful state and hard for anyone to deal with, but Lauren wasn't going to let me go down. I was drowning in my sea of personal depression and she was my lighthouse, guiding me back to the shore. I've had many dark moments since, especially during this time of year, and she is still there. She has gone through a really horrible time in the past year and I hope that I have been some sort of comfort to her and she finds her own way back to the light just as she has done for me. Even in her rough times, she is still there for me if I need support. She is an excellent example of what true friendship is about.

It can be hard and frustrating to watch people go through shitty moments. Sometimes, it's easy to get angry at them, especially if they wrongly lash out at you in their pain. It's easy to want to slap them and tell them to put on their big girl panties and get the fuck over it. It is easy to write people off as a lost cause. True friends, however, understand that people are not perfect. We all have our dark moments. We all have to sail our little ships on rough seas now and then - those true friends will help you navigate through it. Many times, I have been that person whose hand steadies the wheel at the helm of the ship. I am grateful, then, to have friends who have done the same for me.

I'm writing this to honor special people who have stood by me and who have allowed me to stand by them. I want to remind you all to honor those who have stood by you. Sometimes, we get lost in the chaos of life and we don't truly reflect on the value of friendship. There are times when we don't see ourselves as a value to others. But, you are valuable. Even if your friends suck at expressing it. Most likely, just the knowledge that you are there is what gets them through a rough day or two. They may not need to call on you to fix everything. They may not need you to listen to hours of ranting. Just having the knowledge that you are available to them if they need that shoulder and that you will be there for them with love and without judgment can be one of the most perfect gifts in friendship. They may just need that glimpse of a lighthouse to guide them out of rough waters. While I have had my share of letdowns with people, I take time to remind myself that I do have some wonderful and amazing friends who are nothing less than an absolute treasure. They have helped me keep my eyes on the horizon. I can only hope that I have been able to do the same for them.

Love to ALL.

The Last Flicker

That was my belly on March 1, 2010. I was six weeks pregnant with River. I was just beginning to get hit by the all day nausea that blesses me in all of my pregnancies. Before this, I had been eating 3lb shank steaks as a snack. Obviously, my body was preparing to not eat for a few weeks.

I wanted to share this photo with everyone. I don't have many from that pregnancy. I just have a couple of belly shots, showing wonderful growth, a picture of my positive pregnancy test and the picture the ultrasound tech gave me of my dead baby. I need to share some sort of photo with you. I need the world to see that she existed. She was real. In this picture, she was snug in my womb, safe and alive. Her growth was causing things in my body to move...making my little belly stick out like that. She caused my breasts to swell and my skin to clear up and glow. She was real. You can see that she was a part of my body then. Everything was hopeful and alive.

I have many anniversaries from that pregnancy. She was conceived in the first week of February - probably the 3rd or the 4th. The test turned positive on February 18th. There is this picture, taken on March 1st. Then there is today. March 13th. Two years ago today was the last day that I saw her alive. I was working and decided to pop the ultrasound probe on my belly. Not a good idea, don't do it. It was a bad pregnancy habit of mine. It wasn't the 1st time I checked for her. I had seen her a couple of times. Alive. Heart beating. March 13th...there she was. She was perfect for a nearly 8 week fetus. She was so much bigger than the last time I had seen her on ultrasound. Growing strong. Her little heart flickered the way it was supposed to. Fast. Regular. Perfect. I counted the beats. She was in the 150's. I felt a sense of relief. I put the probe away, wiped the goo off my belly and shut the machine off. I told myself I wouldn't do another ultrasound until about 20 weeks and I would get it done at the hospital. All was well.

March 15th. I was filled with so much anxiety. I felt a horrid little black rain cloud following me around. I tried to shake it away. I told myself everything was alright, but I couldn't focus on work. I did everything to get my mind off it. I went out for water ice to soothe my nausea. My car broke down. Ah, perhaps that was the anxiety - I sensed car trouble. Miraculously, my car started up again within minutes of calling the tow truck. I went about the rest of my day - dinner, belly dance class, bed.

March 16. I had my first prenatal appointment with my midwife. We discussed my plans. I was feeling super nauseous and even wore sea bands. My midwife was happy that I was so nauseous. I declined the 8 week ultrasound, explaining that I had done my own and that baby was perfection. I went to work that night and things proceeded as normal. I had a sudden wave of feeling very dizzy and very unwell. I told myself it was all normal ... I was even happy as it meant things were working. But, I got this nag. Something was telling me that I needed to check myself with the ultrasound. I tried to push it all down, but it didn't work. The nagging in my brain continued. I gave in and took a peek. We all know the story from here. I stared at that screen for so long, willing that flicker to start up again. I jumped up and down. I jiggled the probe on my belly. I prayed, begged and pleaded in my mind to get the flicker to start up again. But it never did.

March 30th - the follow up ultrasound to confirm what I already knew. A day where I was treated like some subhuman piece of trash without feelings. I'll never get over the way I was treated. Never.

April 1 - the day my midwife called after 8am and said, "it's just as you expected." I finalized my decision then to allow my body to miscarry naturally, knowing that it could take weeks of carrying my dead baby until my body and my heart were ready to let go.

April 18th - the day I finally birthed her into Heaven. My first homebirth, technically.

October 27th - her due date.

It's been two years of frequent spirals downward. This time of year is always hard for me because of the memories. It's hard to escape. I have a bunch of sad anniversaries coming up. I'll deal with them as they come along. Today, I'll remember that moment two years ago when my world was right. When I was standing on the edge of the cliff before starting my depressive free fall. Today I will focus on the memory of her being alive. I will keep that flickering heartbeat forever carved onto my own heart. She was alive.

Congratulations! You Are America's Next Top Birther!

If you or someone you know has ever given birth, then you have likely either heard, or even said, the following: "All that matters is a healthy baby. You don't win any awards for giving birth."

 I cannot even begin to express how much I hate hearing that. There is so much judgment in that little phrase. Sure, it may be well-intentioned. It's just an incredibly dumb thing to say. It supposes that women only care about their own personal birth experience and couldn't give two shits about whether the little baby makes it.


This is simply not true.

I recently ran across a posting on The Feminist Breeder Facebook Fan Page. TFB posted a link to what is perhaps one of the most poorly-written articles I have ever seen. I'm not just saying that because I disagree with the author's points. It's just badly written. The article in question was an odd discombobulated stringing together of various ranty thoughts about birth. The author made the following statement:

"That’s worth trumpeting, at a time when the birth experience itself is more fetishized then ever, owing as much to demographics as to celebrity examples. Women are putting off childrearing for longer and having fewer kids, Cassidy points out. Some are treating the long-anticipated day of birth like prom-plus-wedding-squared.

It’s great to have control over the birth experience - that hasn’t always been the case - but there’s also a danger in over-thinking it all. For some women, a healthy child isn’t an adequate goal; the birth has to be “empowering,’’ too. And if it falls short of expectations, for reasons beyond anyone’s control, that can lead to unnecessary guilt or regret." - Joanna Weiss 


I'm sorry, what? The birth experience is a fetish? No dear, wanting to lick some stranger's leather-clad feet is a fetish. Wanting to give birth with RESPECT and with as little medical and psychological bullshit to ensure that my baby is born safely and comfortably is not. It should be a basic human right. And "prom-plus-wedding-squared?" So we're equating the 9 month nourishment of a human life and the following birth of said human life - one of the biggest events in any person's life - to days when we play dress up with formal wear, make-up and flowers? And why the need for the quotation marks around the word empowerment? Is she seriously mocking the fact that many of us would like an empowered birth? Someone needs to clue her in to the fact that women are all about empowered birth because it leads to a better outcome for the baby. DUH.

Why are we so quick to brush off the experience of the mother as if it's something that is so unimportant? God forbid you actual have any sort of emotion that's not all sunshine and unicorn farts when a baby is born.

A commenter on TFB's post said the following:

"As a l&d nurse, I believe birth should be empowering, but so should everything else in life. Birth is an important thing, but a healthy baby/mom should honestly be more important than mode of delivery. If you don't enjoy your birth, enjoy your child. Women having babies for the experience is like women getting married for the wedding. Look at the long-term outcome. Just sayin."

Grrrrr. It's attitudes like those of the author and the commenter above that actually cause new mothers to have emotional issues after the birth. After all, if the L&D nurse who is entrusted to your care can't see past the fact that birth is a very emotional experience then who will? Here you are, in the throes of one of the most important moments of your life and you are being told by someone who should advocate FOR you that you need to suck it up like a big girl and not complain about a single goddamn thing. Really, you're just as annoying as those women who scream during the birth.  


We've become so accepting of the attitude that we should be so detached from our bodies and our experiences. You are not a woman who is giving birth. You are merely the vessel for the uterus that's holding the baby - a baby who, despite being made up of your own cells, fed from your own blood and protected by your own body - has no emotional attachment or awareness of you whatsoever. Everyone knows babies are kinda dumb and don't know much of anything. They certainly aren't emotional creatures until they are much, much older. Birth does not matter. These attitudes hurt. 


The fact is, women are affected by their births, whether it's in a positive manner or negative. Of course mothers are ultimately the most concerned about the well-being of their babies, but that doesn't negate the experiences and feelings that led up to that moment. You can't expect a woman who had planned for nine months to have something go a certain way, but was then laughed at, pressured, ignored and cut open to just brush it off. Yes, not everything goes as planned. To use the example of a wedding, let's say a bride planned her big day for nine months. All the dresses were picked out and ordered. The flowers were arranged. The cake was baked. The songs and verses were carefully selected. Then, she arrives at the church only to find out the groom has left her at the altar. The congregation wouldn't tell her to just shush now and don't speak of it. Would anyone say, "At least you still had fun trying on dresses. At least you still get to eat the cake?" No! Everyone would rally around the poor bride. They'd expect her to be sad and they would comfort her. Or what about prom. I'll tell you something - I was stood up for a prom. I was supposed to go to my boyfriend's prom in high school. The dress, shoes and accessories were bought. I had meticulously cut out pictures of hairstyles to bring to my stylist for the big day. The night before, I called him and he said he wasn't going. No explanation. I was so sad. Two days later, a friend called and said he had taken another girl to the prom. I was devastated. Looking back, it's small beans compared to kinks in pregnancy and birth. Yet, someone had the audacity to compare proms and weddings to childbirth. Bull. 


Sending this message to women hurts more than it helps. Here she is, feeling down because her birth didn't go as she hoped. Perhaps it was a true emergency c-section and she feels her body failed her. Perhaps it was one too many interventions and she feels her birth team didn't advocate enough for her. Perhaps it was a home birth transfer and she feels like she failed herself. There are many reasons that women are dissatisfied with their birth experiences. Some have the very real trauma of fighting the birth team for the simple human right to make choices about her own body. Some have had medical personnel laugh directly in their faces when they discussed the birth plan. They have physical battle wounds to go along with the emotions. Yet, they get a message from society that is loud and clear - do not talk about your feelings lest you be seen as selfish. After all, at least you have a healthy baby. These mamas are 100% thankful for their healthy babies and they begin to feel guilty. The question themselves. How could I ever be so selfish as to worry about the birth. At least baby is healthy. Oh, I'm so stupid to get angry with my doctor for not listening to me. At least my baby is healthy. And so they push down their feelings out of guilt and embarrassment. They go about their new lives despite that small nagging voice in the back of their head. We all know what happens with repressed emotions. Eventually, that nagging voice gets louder and meaner. You wonder where the depression came from. You thought the baby blues would be quick and easy to get over, but it's staying. You can't think of anything wrong. Yeah, you still think back to the birth and how you were unhappy with certain events, but it's over now and you've got your baby. Besides, you'd be a terrible mother if you even worried about silly things right now. It's a viscous cycle. 


People need to understand that we are not competing for an award in birth. Our decisions are based on research, experience and the hope that we can have the best outcome. I know that when I gave birth, I was not thinking, "Oh wow. This is totally going to earn me some crunchy hippie granola earth mama natural birth cred. I'm going to be a birth superstar for sure! I feel intellectually and morally superior to any other woman who has ever given birth." Nope, not at all. I was actually thinking, "holy fuck this is painful and I just might die." I chose a natural unmedicated birth because I didn't want any drugs getting into my babies' systems. Yes, there are times when those drugs are used safely and are needed. However, all medications have risks and I wanted to avoid risks as much as possible. I had healthy pregnancies and was low risk. There was no need for interventions, so natural birth was the best for me and my babies. There was nothing in my mind pointing to feeling superior to anyone else or wanting some sort of gold medal.

Please, please, please do not discount the feelings of postpartum women. They are not ashamed of their babies. The are not ungrateful for those babies. They are human. They have human emotions. They need other humans to understand them and show them compassion. 

Let me share what I wrote on The Feminist Breeder's page:

 "I am so sick and tired of that crap argument that the only thing that matters is a healthy baby. It implies that women who go against the grain are selfish and would sacrifice even their own babies to get the experience of their dreams. People need to look within themselves and try to understand why they would even entertain such a thought and fix it, because it's certainly not true.

Women DIE as a result of interventions and unnecessary c-sections. Yeah, you have a healthy baby, but that baby is now left without a mama. That kinda matters. Women end up with PPD and PTSD as a direct result of pretty bad birth experiences. The baby may be healthy, but he or she may have a mama who is unable to care for baby, who is detached, who doesn't want to hold or touch or nurse the baby. That's not ideal. Birth IS powerful. Humans are highly emotional creatures and something like bringing a life into the world via your own body is kinda important - and way more important than a prom or a wedding (seriously, WTF?). But, if you want to talk weddings, let's say you spent nine months planning for your wedding. You had your list of guests, you knew what you would where, you knew where it would be held - you had an ideal event planned our in your mind and you were expecting a great day. Then, your fiancé leaves you. Who wouldn't expect a bride to be upset? For Pete's sake, there is a whole reality industry fashioned around brides who don't get what they want. Hello, Bridezillas. And you expect a woman who nurtured a life, had a birth plan, had hopes for the birth and planned for the best outcome to just wave a white flag when things go wrong? Anyone thinking so must be off their rocker.

 I gave birth to my first child in a hospital. It was a natural birth, attended by a midwife and I rocked it. What I rarely talk about is how much I hated it. I was walking out the door to go to the birth center when the midwife called and told me the birth center would be closed for a few days because the other midwife who owned it was not available. As per the law in their area/their policy, two RNs/CNMs had to be present for a birth in the birth center. There was nothing the other midwife could do. Maybe someone stronger would have said, "fuck you, get your ass over here and let's do a homebirth," but that wasn't me at the time. I was an hour from home (had gone to my parents during labor because they lived really close to the birth center) and I had not prepared for or entertained the thought of a homebirth. You know why I had to go to the hospital? Because the midwife I trusted and who knew how much a peaceful birth center birth meant to me (she had been my midwife for well women care for 8 years!) decided she wanted to go to a fancy fucking horse show the next day and didn't want her sleep disturbed. She figured I'd be up all night in labor since I was a first time mom and she just wanted to go watch fucking horsies (no disrespect to the fucking horsies). My other midwife, who is now one of my best friends and attended my homebirth this past summer, did EVERYTHING she could to keep the hospital staff away from me and make it as much like a birth center birth as possible. Still, I was distressed. I had to call my two friends, who I desperately wanted to be at my birth, and tell them they weren't allowed to call because of the hospital's two person rule. My midwife bent the rules a little so my dad could be there by claiming my mom as a doula (we were allowed two regular people and one labor support person). My mom had made a ton of food to bring to the birth center that now we couldn't take. We smuggled cheese-its, recharge and raisins. I stalled my labor. I broke down. I was so angry about my experience and so distressed I was there with lights on my vagina and a hospital nurse screaming, "pushpushpushpushpushpush" (I ended up "accidentally" kicking her) that I pushed too hard and ripped myself and ended up with a third degree. My midwife, who had been up for at least 36 hours (for office hours and delivering another baby before me) and was pregnant herself was bleary-eyed and exhausted and had a hard time stitching up my bitch of a tear. I was in so, so much pain from the tear because my vulva and perineum would not numb no matter how much lidocaine they used (and they used the maximum dosage). I felt every single fucking stitch. They called in an OB to come stitch me and she was a nasty bitch. She didn't even acknowledge my presence. She roughly rubbed at my vulva with DRY guaze pads. She put the needle to me and I screamed in pain and accidentally kicked her arm. She said, "She's out of control. I'm not touching her unless you take her to the OR and knock her out." She said that, with her hand on my vulva - talking about me in third person. A hospital staff midwife came in an was able to get me stitched quickly and as gently as possible. I tried to get up to pee and the pushpushpushpushpushpush labor nurse kept saying, in a panic, "are you going to faint? You look like you're going to faint. You are REALLY pale. Do you think you will faint?" So, guess what? I fainted on the toilet. Then I couldn't pee. So they pulled me to the bed and the nurse ripped off my beautiful bathrobe from home and put me in a hospital gown. The put in an IV and a urinary catheter. And the entire time I had to fight tooth and nail to get them to allow my husband to go down to the nursery with my son while they did his exam. The pushpushpushpushpushpush nurse tried to use all these scare tactics on me to get me to relinquish my son alone no matter how much I yelled NO. Finally, my dad spoke up and got nasty with her, telling her that he is a respiratory therapist who works in a level III NICU and he knows all the hospital bullshit and that she was lying out of her ass to me. My midwife HAD to leave eventually and I was wheeled to the maternity recovery ward where the hospital staff FORGOT I was there. No food for hours. No lactation consultant (which was fine, because my mom IS a lactation consultant and I'd been very educated on the subject my whole life). The food I did get was cold and was thrown at me because I had bitched about being forgotten and starving. They tried to take my son away from me again...saying his temp (which they took while he was naked and in air conditioning) was 97.5 and they'd have to take him to the nursery and feed him formula to warm him up. Yeah right. They wouldn't treat me for my PUPPS rash which had spread like wildfire after the birth (I asked for a mere benedryl). They lost my bloodwork and had to re-sitck me. It was a pretty crappy experience. I did end up with PPD, half due to the experience and half due to the prospect of going back to work (where one of my co-workers made it a point to laugh and make "Told you so" comments because I was such an ardent natural birth advocate). I kept quiet about my birth experience for years. I felt like I didn't have a right to complain because I DID end up with a midwife-attended natural birth and my boy was perfect. I felt like I had no room to complain in comparison to women who had highly managed births that ended in surgery. So I kept it in like a good girl as it ATE at me. It took me years to finally open up about it, with some trepidation. Obviously, it bothered me because what was supposed to be a single paragraph response has turned into a novel.

And you know what? I hate pain. I think birth is painful. I wanted to be the type who would smile and laugh her baby out, but that isn't me and never will be. I'm a wimp with pain. I HATE pushing. I say that after a mere 15 minutes of pushing with my homebirth. I hate it. It would be REALLY easy for me to just get some drugs to make myself comfortable. Really easy. However, I refrain because I feel it's not the best for MY children. I don't want to pump their bodies full of chemicals if I can help it. For me, giving birth naturally has nothing to do with getting myself a fucking gold star and EVERYTHING to do with providing the best experience possible for the little lives entrusted to my body and my care. If anyone wants to take issue with me and tell me that women need to get over it, or just enjoy their healthy baby and be glad I wasn't planning a wedding because that'd be so much more important, I would be happy to "accidentally" kick them, too.

And that's all I have to say about that."

As you can see, I was one of those women. I held my feelings down. I felt so ashamed for mourning my birth experience, especially since I did have a natural birth. Thankfully, the midwife who delivered my son talked to me about it years later and I finally felt validated. I no longer felt selfish and ashamed. My heart breaks for mothers who feel they must suffer in silence.

Mamas, don't feel ashamed. Don't feel guilty. There is nothing wrong with you for hurting over your birth experience. Those feelings don't make you a bad mother. Please, accept those emotions as natural and find a way to acknowledge them and share them with others so that you can heal yourself.  


P.S. Now that you've read this, you may feel free to laugh hysterically at the graphic. I won't even tell you how long it took me to "craft" that in Paint.

Somewhere Around the Rainbow

 I am a master of being fake.

 Not a fake friend. Not even a fake person. I mean, I usually tell it like it is. But, I faked so much when I was recovering - mentally, spiritually and physically - from my miscarriage. 

 I've written a bit on it and how it made me feel. I had a lot to process. I was so depressed. So angry. I was writing to let it out. And then, I stopped. Not because I was healed. Not because anyone told me to stop. I just wanted the thoughts to stop. I was turning into a different person, someone I didn't ever want to be.

You could say that I have rage issues. As a child, I was bullied and tormented in school. No, really tormented. Things happened that would shape my psyche forever. As a result of what I went through, I lost my ability to trust other people. I became insecure and unable to have confidence in anything about myself. I felt rage. I was never able to feel like I got any justice for what was done to me in school. I wanted so badly to hurt the people who hurt me, but I kept it in. I didn't want to worry my parents and I didn't want my friends to know the truth about what I was going through. My rage has always been on the back burner, just waiting. If you watch Dexter, he talks about his "dark passenger." That's rage for me ... a dark passenger, riding along in my cerebral depths, waiting for just the right time to stop the car, get out and make a grand entrance. I was able to suppress it for years. I acknowledged it, knew it was there and told myself it would always stay buried. In my heart of hearts, I'm a pacifist. I don't believe in wishing harm. I believe our thoughts eventually lead to reality and I didn't want to open that box. Until my miscarriage. Every restraint I had placed upon my rage just snapped. Broken. Unleashed. It was here and it wasn't leaving.

  Losing a child - there are no words to describe the pain. No one can understand what you are going through. Our society has made it a stigma, keeping grieving parents quietly tucked away in a corner lest our grief cause anyone to become uncomfortable. I have a wonderful family and wonderful friends who were my rock during that time. They read my woeful status updates, they talked to me, they acknowledged me. My friend Lauren heard the brunt of it. She took frantic phone calls from my husband, who was worried I was going to harm myself. She listened to me ramble psychotically. She stayed on that rocking boat with me in my sea of fear and wild emotions, dropping her anchor and steadying me when I needed it. Who knows where I'd be without my hubby, my little boy, Lauren and my other friends and family. It wouldn't be a good place.

I had never felt anger like that before. As I've written before, anything would set me off. Work was especially hard on me. Things were said that really hurt me, even if it wasn't meant to be that way. I felt so caged up, like I was going to crack at any moment. I raged on in status updates, on this blog and on online forums. That was only the tip. No one saw the real me. The once gentle mother who screamed at her little boy every hour of every day. The mother who believed so much in gentle discipline spanking her little boy. The mother who believed too much TV was bad for her child's brain letting that little boy watch TV for 4 or 5 hours straight while she lay catatonic on the couch. The mother who was gung-ho about a natural and organic diet for her family giving in to buying fast food and allowing more junk food in the home. The mother who would go outside and play and hike and run with her little boy just laying on the couch while he watched TV and destroyed the house. The wife who would listen to her husband and support him now cut him down. The wife who used to be loving and playful became verbally abusive and hateful. The wife who wanted to keep a happy and semi-neat home just letting the house go to shit. The woman who loved peace and non-violence punching and denting the car of a stranger. The employee who cared about her job and her co-workers would violently snap at them at random moments. I was nothing. I became so absorbed in my hatred of this world and all the happy things in it. Friends were announcing pregnancies and I wanted to punch them. How dare they have what was taken from me. I was more apt to spew venom at cashiers with attitude or strangers who looked at me the wrong way. My fuse was short and ablaze with all of my sorrowful anger. I wanted people to hurt. I wanted people to feel my pain. I was suffering and I needed the world to suffer, too. I didn't care who or what I hurt. I didn't care if I hurt myself. I need to feel that rage and let it burn.

  Is this the part where I tell you that the clouds parted, the sun shone through and the angels sang? Not exactly. There is a little sunlight, but it's a mostly cloudy day and the only angel singing is tone deaf - worse, he only knows one Justin Bieber song. Yes, the rage subsided somewhat, but allowing it to come out has made it harder to stuff back in. Kinda like those old gag "snakes in a can." You'll eventually get that bastard back into the can, but it takes a lot of pushing and shoving and the snake springs back out at you from time to time before you finally stuff it back in. I'm working on it. I became pregnant in November of 2010, 7 months after River died. Pregnancy kept the anxiety flowing. I never had a moment where I relaxed. Loss was always in the back of my mind. I had a few moments where I snapped. I had a health issue here and there and the fear of loss would slap me in the face and I'd flip out. And then I would get anxious about flipping out, worrying that I would hurt my little baby girl. It was a viscous cycle. I didn't relax until the moment she slipped out of my womb and into my arms.

  Why am I writing this? I've been reading comments here and there on Facebook. I won't get into specifics, but they involve judging a mother for the angry way she has been dealing with the loss of her baby. I understand  that the anger must eventually subside for the sanity and health of the mother and all involved. You don't want to use hate and anger for your baby's legacy. I get that. But, I get the pain. I get the rage. I get needing to lash out at people and make them feel as bad as you. Not everyone grieves that way, but I certainly understand those that do. My heart breaks for mothers who lose their sweet babies. It breaks when I see them judged in their grief. While their emotional outpourings may be hurtful towards others, it's still no excuse to berate them. These mamas need support so they can make through the rage and work on putting their peace puzzle back together. If we feed into their hate - and there are those who do - then we don't do the mama or her sweet baby's memory justice. I know I needed to feel that anger, but I didn't want it to become River's legacy forever.

  I'm trying to climb my way out of this fog. The sun is beginning to shine through the rain and I can make out the faint colors of my own symbolic prism. I am ashamed that I lost myself so badly in the last year and a half. I am ashamed that I disrupted my son's happy childhood because I could not adequately deal with my emotions around him. I'm trying to pick up all of those broken little pieces and put them back together again and I can only pray that the damage isn't permanent. I need myself back. I know I'm out there and I'm getting closer to finding me again. I'm waiting for myself.

Cracked Actor

I don't know why I do it. A few times a week I look at the October Due Date 2010 message boards. I was once a member. I once shared symptoms, stories and belly photos. Now, I'm a bystander, watching other women having the experience that I'm supposed to be having right now. Watching their bellies grow in the photos, like mine should be growing. A few babies have made their way into the world already and I know I should be sitting here, hand on my belly, reading those birth stories with the knowledge that my own should be in a few weeks. Sometimes, I forget for a moment and I rest my hand there anyway and pull it away when I realize it's empty, small and not the 35 week belly that should be there. My due date should be 29 days away. October 27th, 2010.
I'm so empty lately. I don't know how I'll pull through this next month. The date is in front of my eyes all day long, getting closer and more real. I try to sleep time away, but insomnia rules and I just lay awake thinking and thinking and thinking and thinking. It's becoming so real. No matter how many times I close my eyes and wish and pray that it was just a bad dream....hoping to feel a swollen belly with feet, arms, knees and elbows poking me...it doesn't happen. It's so unescapable and I'm just being hurtled forward into that day. And I have to smile. I have to pretend that it's okay, that I'm okay. I'm not okay. Everyday at work I am so numb. I feel nothing. I know they expect me to put on my brave face, be quiet, don't yell at doctors who make stupid comments about my tattoo, and act like the dumb, ditzy, sarcastic Jenn that everyone expects. Otherwise I'm "whiny, over-sensitive, over-reacting, looking for attention, not over it." I have to be concerned that my feelings make everyone else feel uncomfortable. I have to take care of others. It's my responsibility to keep my emotions in check so that no one else has to deal with me. I must carefully craft my little bullshit show of fake, happy emotions. If an unacceptable emotion rises up, I must push it down. It's an act I can't keep up with. I've cracked on occasion. Do you know what it's like being a woman who has miscarried who is experiencing a mini-breakdown? It's like being radioactive. People may stare at you all wide-eyed for a moment because that radioactive glow sure is odd. But then they step away, avert their eyes, keep their distance and take cover. They don't want to suffer the fall-out. If you bury yourself deep in your grief fall-out shelter, complete with non-perishable cans of avoidance, you can be sure that the annoying radioactive sobbing mother will eventually go away. How dare she shed her tears? How dare she feel awful, especially 6 months later. How dare she ... how could she ... why would she want to make US uncomfortable. Those sad people are so annoying. If you roll your eyes and sigh when you think she might not notice and turn around so she can't make eye contact she will probably comfort herself and just go away. Whew! Bad situation avoided. Oh dear, there's sarcastic Jenn. She's writing right here. She's back! Life is normal.
Fuck that shit.
There are days when I will be standing in line somewhere and I just want to scream, "Does anyone here have any clue what's going on with me?" To the cashier, I want to yell, "Do you know I lost a baby? Do you know what's going on inside of me?" Why was I the only one who noticed that the world stopped it's orbit on the day my baby died? Oh, but we can never be so up front about our sorrow. I hear you. You are thinking it right now. I wish she would just shut up about it already. Stop jamming your 'feelings' down our throats.
I'm tired of shutting myself up for people. I'm tired of hiding my discomfort for the sake of other people's comfort. I'm tired of being ashamed because I flipped on someone for saying the wrong thing. Tired of being ashamed because I NEED TO FUCKING TALK ABOUT IT. I'm tired of the expected silence. Tired of the deep sighs. Tired of the eye rolls. People think they are so clever. So hidden. They aren't. I've seen and heard it ALL. I'm fed up with being PUNISHED for so many different reasons. I have suffered the ultimate punishment - my child was taken away from my life, from her life. The supercedes all punishments available. Just an FYI. You think I'm not hard on myself? I could make a career out of being hard on myself. I do it well. And it's eaten at every single last fiber of my being. There is nothing left to me. A few sparse threads that you couldn't even weave through a needle. I've torn myself down. Others have torn me down. I'm tired. I'm tired. I'm tired. I can not put on a show any longer. The reality is bitch-slapping my ugly face day after day. Every dark bit of energy is trying to bring me down and I'm losing all the strength I had to resist it.
Let us all take a moment to thank God that Monkey is here. Without him....it would be so easy. So easy.
So easy for me to take the next exit. To leave a letter saying, "Thank you for shutting me out. Thank you for making me feel ashamed of my grief. Thank you for trying to box up my emotions and send them to a storage bin out of your sight and mind. Thank you for using my grief against me. Thank you for finally pushing me to the edge, for giving me that one last little nudge I needed to let myself go and join her." Bang.
And what would be done? People so surprised? I can't believe she really did it. Would you be happy with where we left off, permanently? Would you wish you sent that card or collected a few pennies to send us flowers or called and offered to help while clots of blood were running down my legs? Would you wish that you would have spoken up when you saw me cracking? Wished that you didn't join others in judging me and the way I am handling this? Because I don't need your fucking judgment. I don't need your bullshit "well this is how I would handle it stories." I needed understanding. I needed people to realize that I'm fucking serious. I needed people to step out of their comfort zone and say, "hey I know it's been a few months, but I know it still bothers you. Are you okay?" I needed people to say, "hey, cool tattoo" instead of, "that's not organic." It's all adding up, being etched onto the trigger.
So easy.