Of woman born
Pregnancy gives life; it can also bring death. Forcing it on anyone is an assault.
Note: I’m sharing a personal experience of pregnancy because I can’t stop thinking about how much it risks and transforms a woman’s life, even when it is something desired and planned for. But I also want to be sensitive to those that might find discussions like this triggering in any way, and extend respect to all who have made whatever choice they have needed to make for their own bodies and lives. So feel free to skip this one if it’s all too much right now—because it is all too much. And above all, I want to offer tenderness to all of us navigating the threats to bodily autonomy we find ourselves facing.
I’ve always felt that I learned the full reality of a patriarchal society when I became pregnant. Of course, I’ve been treated differently than a man my whole life, but pregnancy pushed it into a new clarity. It focused the lines of my gender into sharp relief, drawing boundary lines around my body.
When I became visibly pregnant, assumptions and questions arrived from all angles. People asked questions, wanted to touch me. I was no longer asked if I wanted to order a drink at restaurants, and was looked at with side-eyes when I might take a sip of my partner’s in public. Society began making stark, even everyday decisions for me.
I had to have awkward conversations that forced an intimacy I would never have dreamed of sharing. I will always remember how much I dreaded having to tell my male boss—someone whom I barely liked, let alone knew—the most intimate details of what was happening in my body. And that it would eventually affect my ability to work. Soon after my pregnancy was public at work, male colleagues stopped by my office, announcing it had been nice working with me. When I asked what that meant they would reply ‘well, no woman who has a kid ever comes back full time.’ I was incredulous and angry. It was a patriarchal dare. Of course, I would work full time—I had a career, I wasn’t going to give in to being a just a mom—I could and would still work. Just like a man. Because I had pursued a career, an education. I wasn’t going to just stay home.
I cringe thinking about the internal misogyny I carried—that somehow being a mother at home was incongruous with being of value, or that it reflected a lack of seriousness about a career, or that it would imply a giving up. Maddening. But childbirth does implicate a woman’s right to equality and freedom—because the patriarchal systems we’ve been steeped in have made it so.
The truth that was shown to me again and again as a woman with a child, working while also caring for a child, is that I in fact could not work like a man. I worked like a woman. I had a growing human within me that was affecting my body in what felt like a new way each week. Work quickly became a new multitude of tasks, thoughts, plans, ideas, as a mother. Yet I was thankfully still able to earn an MFA and work full-time while he was young, with the help of other women and a partner who cared for my son when I needed to work. Because we all have to make it work in a system that does not prioritize or value care, but has no compunction in forcing women into roles that deny their humanity.
I was always afraid of having a child. I’m small and wasn’t sure what that boded for my body, carrying another body within it. It all seemed kind of crazy—to risk death, pain for something that ultimately I was unsure about. I loved animals—I thought I could perhaps see having a squirrel or dog… but a child, a human baby from my own body—it scared me in so many ways. I didn’t know what it would mean for my own life, and that made me fearful.
When I became pregnant, I was 34, and M and I had decided to just see what happens, to let fate decide for us for a few months. It was surprisingly quick. We wanted our child without question, but it did settle in that we were now on a ride that we had never been on before and didn’t know where it would lead. I remember that I had had two cocktails the evening before I realized I was late and took the tests—I asked my doctor, panicked, have I already ruined my child?? Because everything—the warnings on bottles, the news articles, the pregnancy guides, the public service announcements—we are bombarded with warnings that alcohol will irrevocably damage a growing child. I was scared I had already ruined my child’s life.
When I had my second ultrasound, I learned the gender of our child as it could be recognized physically. I started telling people that yes, amazingly, my body was growing a penis—maybe I would finally be treated like a man, I would joke. But the idea that my own body was capable of growing an entirely new one is still something that is so surreal to me, particularly as I age and see my body changing now—slower to heal, to keep up.
When I was pregnant, I kept thinking to myself that I had an alien growing within, so I started to call him the alien. My mom did not understand nor especially like that. But on the ultrasounds images that were never that clear, what was growing within me looked like an alien soybean—and given that I didn’t know him, but he had taken over my body, it seemed to make the most sense.
At that same ultrasound, the technician looked a bit concerned and asked me to wait so that he could speak with my doctor. I waited for about a half-hour, not knowing if I should be worried. I had no idea what was going on, or if it was routine. My doctor came in and told me that while the baby looks healthy, I had a large ovarian cyst that would have to come out—it’s in danger of exploding, and if that was the case, it could risk damaging my child and my own body. And it could be cancerous—unlikely but there was that small chance, she said. I was immediately scheduled for surgery, but we had to wait a month so the alien could develop into a form that could be strong enough to make it through the surgery, and hope that my body didn’t explode in the meantime.
But women are told that it’s bad to be stressed during pregnancy.
I had never had surgery before. I was told that despite all of the information and daily news admonishments about how a woman should prioritize the health of a growing fetus by not drinking, smoking, taking drugs, eating soft cheese, etc. that the anesthesia and painkillers I would be given would not harm the baby. I had no idea what to think or believe and I was scared.
My body was going to be opened while I was around 18 weeks pregnant. I had never felt the baby kick, so I had no idea how we would really know if he was ok after surgery, other than to ‘wait and see.’ So despite doing everything I could to grow a healthy human, I was now either risking my own life and his with an exploding ovarian cyst or risking his development with drugs and being knocked out. I wonder now if my doctor would have to question operating on me when it might put the pregnancy at risk. It’s a maddening, scary, infuriating thought.
Luckily the surgery was successful and whatever had begun to grow errantly in my body was not cancerous. When the nurse later came in to administer painkillers as I was waking—being sliced open is surprisingly painful with muscles split open beneath the skin—I looked at her and said ‘but I’m not supposed to, won’t it risk impacts to the alien?’ She looked at me with jaded eyes, impatient, saying something like “you need them, the baby will be fine.” I tried to use less than I needed, so worried about all the admonishments, guidelines, and stories of what a pregnant woman is supposed to do.
I recovered after a while, and the alien was luckily doing fine, apparently. But I was uneasy until I finally felt him kick weeks later—a feeling like a butterfly is living within you, flapping its wings. Maybe he would be alright?
I remember later traveling for work while I was nearly seven months pregnant, resting on the hotel bed, and watching as I could see the outline of a heel through my stomach, pushing on it and moving. I hoped he wasn’t a chest buster. But it really was bizarre—to know that this person I’ve been growing, whom I’ve never met, that has come from my body, is just beyond the layer of skin and muscle, almost but not quite in the room with me. And that for some people, my life had no meaning anymore because of that unknown life within me.
By the seventh month, I was so ready to be done. Cohabitation in one’s body is exhausting, hard, and begins to feel endless. The veins in my arms were noticeably enlarged, trying to accommodate all the extra blood pressure and oxygen the alien needed. My legs were so swollen and uncomfortable, I could only wear one pair of shoes that still fit. My body felt like it was pushed beyond what it could take and I was still climbing a mountain with each step. M says I was like a caged tiger in those months—angry, uncomfortable, pacing. And the only relief to the situation was birth. I was petrified of birth. I knew it had to happen, and that somehow I’d get through it or not, but it was an enormous cliff that I was only getting closer to.
I then had to go on bed rest, given that my blood pressure was higher than normal. By the 38th week, my blood pressure was sky-high. I was having vision problems and my legs looked horrifying. I went in for my weekly appointment—because the medical establishment makes pregnant people come in weekly for appointments, or some such similar schedule—and my doctor had that same concerned look as when she told me about the cyst. My body was spilling protein, and my blood pressure was rocketing. I had preeclampsia. The only remedy is to get the baby out—now.
I went home quickly, called M and arranged friends to watch our dog. We went to the hospital that evening uneasy and not really knowing what kind of risk I and the alien were facing, or how dangerous preeclampsia can be. I now know that many women died from it and still do, and it can escalate rapidly. Cause strokes, and blood clots, head trauma and organ failure. I only knew I felt odd, like my body was unable to contain my blood, feeling like I needed to get out of my skin.
Then as they prepped me for surgery—because it had to be a c-section, rather than induced which I was thankful for—I had my one and only contraction. Apparently, the alien knew it needed to emerge as well. Not quite through my chest, but through my belly. I remember that ‘the first cut is the deepest’ was playing as my anesthesia was kicking in below my chest, and I asked my doctor really? and she said it’s a good sign if I’m making jokes. She soon after held up my son so that I could see him before she worked on sewing me back up. I haven’t forgotten the surprise of seeing his tiny face as she held him up above the curtain that kept me from seeing my open abdomen. He was lovely and healthy, not xenomorph, but human. At 38 weeks he was already eight pounds and ready to breathe on his own, thankfully. He later held my eyes as I held him, seemingly as surprised as I was at being together in the world successfully.
After the birth I still had to be monitored and in the hospital for nearly a week, given drugs to expunge all of the work my kidneys had been doing, working to get my blood pressure down. Luckily it worked quickly.
There are many who begin to take a downward turn after birth, despite seemingly being fine soon after. It’s a matter of luck that my doctor—who knew my history, and was able to attend to me that evening—immediately recognized the signs of preeclampsia. Weekend births are notorious for higher risks of maternal death in preeclampsia situations, I later learned, because different doctors who haven’t been involved with the pregnancy and woman’s health can miss the signs.
And for years maternal death rates are consistently increasing in how the medical establishment prioritizes care in the US. A report by ProPublica and NPR states:
At the federally funded Maternal-Fetal Medicine Units Network, the preeminent obstetric research collaborative in the U.S., only four of the 34 initiatives listed in its online database primarily target mothers, versus 24 aimed at improving outcomes for infants (the remainder address both). Under the Title V federal-state program supporting maternal and child health, states devoted about 6 percent of block grants in 2016 to programs for mothers, compared to 78 percent for infants and special-needs children. The notion that babies deserve more care than mothers is similarly enshrined in the Medicaid program, which pays for about 45 percent of births. In many states, the program covers moms for 60 days postpartum, their infants for a full year.
Death in childbirth is now the sixth highest killer of women. Not abortion, but giving birth.
The entire experience of breastfeeding was also something wholly new and surreal as well. I was lucky again—it was painful at first but worked—something that can be incredibly fraught and difficult to do for many new moms. I had never been so hungry in my life. It felt like nothing in the world could satiate. I also had to learn how to pump—to treat my body as if it was an industrial machine to produce milk—something I would have to do in order to return to work. Because breastfeeding, we are told, should be done for as long as possible if we want our child to be the most healthy, if we want to do right by the child. Yet another pressure placed on a woman’s body, and guilt on those for whom it simply doesn’t work.
And I was lucky that when I returned to work, I was still a senior staff member and had an office with a door, and could request blinds for my window so that I could pump milk in private. But that was after I spent a month waiting for those damned blinds, pumping in a dark, small utility closet, because there was no other privacy available. I later learned other new moms had to do the same until they also decided to request blinds—but those without offices had no other option.
Is this the way?
My alien had recurring ear infections, and spit-up constantly to the point I was worried about him retaining the right amount of weight, worried that he was in pain or something was wrong. It was nerve-wracking and a new fear that becomes like a worn groove in how to help heal or comfort your child. I was dismissed by a few pediatricians as a crazy new mom—told ‘maybe next time you’ll have a baby that’s easy’—until I found a doctor who was practical, a mom, kind, and respectful, who understood my worry and helped.
My alien never slept, and sleep deprivation was also an experience that I’ve completely forgotten because I felt like I was barely registering time, barely present. I do remember collapsing in tears, wondering how to do it all, how to be enough for my baby, let alone myself. Just trying to make sure that somehow we could all survive. And I only had one child. I know from other friends how exponentially harder it becomes with more children.
Then there’s the new world of trying to find reputable care for this new creature that I never wanted to leave my sight, to somehow find a way to accept that this is just what we have to do as modern people—find care for the most precious thing that just spent nine months in your growing in your body, give it over to someone else and hope for the best. So you can work to try and afford to give your child what they need.
It’s no revelation or surprise to anyone to say that this system is fucked up. When I started my job, I had to wait for a year and a half before full benefits kicked in and I could even consider having a child that would be cared for by the healthcare system. I was lucky because I could also be offered disability pay. Because pregnancy is a disease, and women are disabled when they become mothers.
I was lucky that my employer would pay me 2/3 of my salary while I was classified as disabled for six weeks (six! after nine months of bodily transformation, let alone having a new human to care for). I was lucky that we had enough saved that I could extend it for another six weeks. I was furious but everyone I ranted to just kind of shrugged as if to say it’s just the way it is, and at least I’ll be able to have healthcare and some coverage.
I returned to work and juggled what felt like newly endless tasks and needs and wants—to figure out a way to be present in my infant child’s life and give him the care I wanted to give, while also trying to keep up with expectations of a male-centered work landscape that is still based on models from the 1950s—a time the Supreme Court is swinging us back to in earnest within one week.
I had a healthy child—he’s now sixteen and learning to drive. I love him more than I could ever articulate, much to his embarrassment at times. Despite all the changes to my own life, I would never consider changing it—being with my son when he was younger always reminded me—and often still does—of how beautiful this world is, of how many marvels and small moments have meaning all around us. How easy it is to give in to a world that insists it’s not.
But being pregnant and a mother has never become less surreal. It unquestionably affected my body, my health, my career, my work life, my equality and freedom.
I chose to prioritize spending as much time as I could with my alien. As a result, there wasn’t one job that I’ve had as a working mother that didn’t question my loyalty or commitment, given that I asked to pick up my son from school, or work from home some afternoons so that I could care for him at the same time. When he was in pre-school, I gave up after nearly four years of my commitment being questioned, and chose to move to part-time, coming to the realization that I’d rather have money anxiety than parenting anxiety. But it was never part-time work. And when I returned to full-time work at a new job, the fact that I picked up my son from school, despite working 50-60+ hour weeks, was used as an excuse to make me leave—that I wasn’t doing enough.
One of my favorite things about my son is that he has always reacted with sympathy for the monsters in stories and films. And Alien is one of his favorite movies. I’ve always loved science fiction and love sharing that with him—and so his love of Alien seems just right. He likes that I called him that when I was pregnant with him—my chest-busting, face-hugging, ready-to-fight alien. He is all those things and more, and the biggest surprise is the kind of love I feel for him, that rose up in the first few weeks of his life and never left. Tentacles of love that cause intense worry, love, care, do-anything-for-kind-of-love, so magical in its unconditionality. Unlike anything I had ever known could exist.
But that’s because I was lucky. Lucky to have made it through surgery and emergency c-section, lucky that my alien made it through healthily and amazingly unimpacted by anything I wasn’t supposed to do—like the drinks I had before I knew I was pregnant, the drugs I was given during surgery, the soft cheese I ate by mistake, let alone the full-time work hours and traveling I put in while pregnant with him, and when he was younger. Lucky that we were able to earn enough money to support care and a safe home. Lucky that we were able to find people we trust for care when we could not be there, without any family nearby.
I’ve been thinking about my experience of pregnancy with Roe overturned, because I haven’t heard of a pregnancy and birth that wasn’t harrowing and life-altering.
I’ve had friends who had miscarriages, some multiple times—a deep sadness and something that can endanger a future pregnancy—another unknown to process and assess. I’ve had friends whose pregnancies ended in stillbirth—an unimaginable pain that will always be a part of their lives. Nearly all of my friends who had children had incredibly difficult labors that ended up in emergency c-sections and sometimes full anesthesia. Women who had ‘natural’ births but whose bodies were torn irrevocably, injuries that still cause hardship at times. Other friends who had partners who walked out on them and left them to single-parent three-month-old infants because they changed their minds and decided they couldn’t handle parenthood. Others whose marriages ended swiftly because the inequality of care became pronounced and gendered, with career priorities drawn in ways that had never been clear before.
All of this on top of the stresses and fears of birth—that the same capacity we have to grow a new life is also what can take our own.
Being pregnant and giving birth is something that I am wildly thankful for and something my body couldn’t go through again. I love my son more than anything in the world and would go to space for him if I had to (I love space but am scared as hell of being in it). I would never ever not want to have experienced watching him become a person and caring for him and having him be a part of my experience of life.
But the idea of someone forcing that on any woman is an assault and denies the tremendous pain, fear, and discrimination that comes with being pregnant, even in the best of scenarios. It is one of the most physically demanding and life-altering things I have ever experienced. It completely re-arranges the playing field in ways that I still find myself surprised by.
I experienced the harrowing aspects of pregnancy as someone scared but who also ultimately wanted it. The idea of forcing it on anyone—let alone anyone whose life is in danger, who has been assaulted, or a young girl who was abused by a relative or someone who is simply not ready to become a parent—it’s so traumatizing my mind doesn’t know how to grapple with the layers of trauma that are happening in the country to so many lives because of a refusal of bodily autonomy for women, trans people, LGBTQ+ youth. Because it is immense trauma—it is a trauma to feel that your own body, your self, could betray you to a society that seeks to control and exploit—with impunity and cruelty—those who don’t meet white Christian patriarchal standards.
The overturn of Roe wasn’t a surprise, we knew it was coming. But I think I’m frankly still in a state of shock at the lack of empathy, awareness, and cruelty that one week has wrought by a rogue, illegitimate court1.
I thought a lot about my female ancestors as I grew into being a mother—of the countless women who had ten or more children—many of whom also died young—and then died giving birth to their last child. Only for their husband to re-marry astonishingly quickly to have ten more children with a new wife. Women whose bodies were worn out with pregnancies, caring for so many children, and their children who were forced to become adults too soon in helping to care for younger siblings.
I also thought of the lives of children who lost their mother because of a desire to care for the children she already had, but a lack of access to abortion denied her that life and killed her. The many many women who became ghosts far before their time because of a society that enforced birth on their bodies.
I thought about Margery Kempe—that great, crying, loud, demanding 15th-century mystic with a keen mind for seeing through medieval legal systems—who was pregnant for more than half her life, who suffered visions of demons after the birth of her first child and was probably suffering from postpartum depression. She describes how “she went out of her mind and was wonderfully vexed and labored with spirits” for the better part of a year following the birth of her first child, during which time she was tormented by visions of “devils.” She ended up giving birth to at least fourteen (!) children, and was finally able to get her husband to agree to stop assaulting her and allow her to live her own celibate life so that she could be free to go on pilgrimages and to ultimately dictate the first autobiography written in English. To tell about her life and her visions of love.
I’m horrified for the lives that will be lost because of four men and one woman’s pen and utter cruelty this week—those lost in death but also those lost in life, who will experience inexpressible trauma, pain, poverty, and risk—coerced into a fate that was not their own to choose.
Alito and Roberts were installed by George W. Bush, who was handed the election in 2000 by the Supreme Court. Clarence Thomas is a sexual assaulter and married to a woman who tried to overthrow the government. Gorsuch’s mother was the head of EPA under Reagan, and one of the first congressionally appointed leaders to be held in contempt of Congress for trying to dismantle the EPA from within—and also withheld 6 million in funding for toxic waste clean-up in California in order to hinder the chances of the democratic candidate for governor.
Brett Kavanaugh is a sexual assaulter, a whiner on national tv, whose father was also part of the DC establishment—a lobbyist for the cosmetics industry who to fend off health and safety regulations and dueling with activists who wanted to ban cosmetic testing on animals. And Kavanaugh’s debts were paid mysteriously. And finally, Amy Coney Barrett, rushed through, is not only part of a fringe Catholic extreme sect but also the daughter of a senior attorney for Shell oil who helped to silence an internal finding on fossil fuels’ contribution to climate change. It’s all just rather breathtaking.
Of woman born
When a woman choices abortion She does know She decides for sufference,however a woman must even have the right to live pain and troubles when FORCED by life.. abortion Is not a nice walk but It Is a fundame tal right!
A powerful, essential story. Thank you for sharing it.