In the thick of Texas winter, on a chilly February morning I walked into Starbucks and found a cozy spot by the window. Looking over my notes, I knew I was meeting a young expectant mother who was planning to have her baby at a birth center in just a couple of months.
After she arrived and we started chatting I realized how I had completely underestimated this young woman. She was determined to have an unmedicated birth because that’s how her mother had raised her and she had thought through and planned all the details for her birth. As we were wrapping up she said something that caught me off guard.
“I have seen the birth stories you have shared of other black mothers, how much of mine will you share?”
Immediately I thought she wanted privacy and wasn’t comfortable sharing the details surrounding her birth. I reassured her sharing is always optional and I will never pressure her to share if she doesn’t want to. To which she replied,
“I want you to share everything. I want everyone to know my story so maybe someone else who is in my position can have hope. I have seen many stories in the past of two happy parents who are excited to be pregnant and have their baby. That’s just not my story.”
She then tells me she had recently lost her mother unexpectedly. In dealing with her grief she had made some questionable choices and thought a move to Texas would give her the fresh start she was looking for. After going to the doctor for what she thought was an illness, she came out with a positive pregnancy test. The timing for all of this to happen was awful. She and her boyfriend had just gotten back together and with her recent move to Texas she felt alone and ashamed. She spent weeks in her bedroom alone during her first trimester embarrassed to tell friends or family, depressed, and weighing her options. Her boyfriend tried to convince her that she didn’t have to keep the baby, but despite the lack of support she knew she couldn’t terminate the life growing inside her after hearing her baby’s heartbeat for the first time. She knew he was the light in the midst of all the darkness she felt around her.
“My story isn’t the happy one that most expect. But that doesn’t make it any less important.”
Just a few weeks later, through the support of her midwives, her doula, and close friends she was able to have the unmedicated birth she had planned and calmly breathed her baby out. Her story is not unlike so many others, where there is disappointment, grief, loss and heartache. She was just brave enough to talk about it openly.
