I Had an Abortion

Posted on by

I Had an Abortion in 1983. I was 20 years old. I was a junior in college. I had the right to choose and determine my future. I had human rights.

It is May 2, 2022 and I will remember exactly where I was when it was leaked that abortion rights will most likely be overturned. Five people will decide the bodily rights of women in America. Reproductive Rights in America will be decided by the government. Women know what is best for their body. Women know what is best for their families.

November, 2021

This cannot be procrastinated any longer. I turn to the screen.I see my reflection looking back at me before the computer comes to life.

It’s time. I am doing it. My fingers are flying. I’m going to take all the introductions and conclusions out of my mind and put them to paper. A month ago I wrote: 

# I Had an Abortion 

on a poster for the October 2nd Reproductive Rights March. It was the first time the words ever flowed from finger through the ink of a pen. I carried those words, on the sign, next to:

# I Had a Miscarriage

# Infertility

I felt empowered. I felt liberated. But still I wasn’t ready to write the story a few weeks ago. I had said the words before. I told a select few. That was practice for today. I twirled the words around to a college friend last week. I corrected her memories. 

It is time. The accountability moment is now. The words are bubbling and ready to burst out. I suppose it has taken this long to cut open the story I told myself at the time. And perform the autopsy to find the truth. There are as many versions to this story as there are decades since that night. 

When I got dressed that night I had no plans to do anything but walk down the street and grab a beer at the bar at the end of street.  As I walked out the door of my sorority house, I was not looking to go to a fraternity house later that night.  When I walked out into that February night, I was not planning to have sex and end up pregnant with a guy I vaguely knew for a couple years.  Saw in a class maybe once a semester.  He was a friend of a friend of a friend of mine.  

There are so many things that are simply missing from this story almost forty years later. Did he walk up to me or did I walk up to him at the bar? Did he buy me a beer and assume there would be payback? Did I buy him a beer because I still felt bad about turning him down for a date freshman year? (I doubt it) Who’s idea was it to leave? What was the invite? What were his expectations? (I doubt I had any – I am betting I was just happy with the attention).

I do remember I had just lost some weight and was feeling good after New Years resolutions. The funny little details we remember and the bigger details we drop off. I know I didn’t agree to “get out of here, go back to his room, and have sex”. 

A vivid memory is a friend of both of ours standing on the sidewalk, swinging a baseball bat, and saying to me “Don’t go up there with Him”.  

How I would replay that moment in my mind over and over again in those moments of our lives that we wonder what if I had made a different decision.  

  • Stayed at the bar.
  • Listened to the warning.
  • Not gone out at all that night.  
  • Oh the multiple What Ifs.
  • Why did the friend warn me? 
  • Had He declared his intentions to his peers?  

I was open to getting to know him better, maybe kissing and making out. Connection. Maybe the start of something. Not having sex. I did not have birth control. I was not sexually active.  I wasn’t a virgin. That was the year before. That is another story. Another tale without a happy ending.  

  • Was I drunk?
  • Did I consent?
  • Did I agree when I knew the direction it was going?
  • Did I struggle to find my voice?
  • I thought I used it.
  • I know he was much bigger and heavier than I thought he would be.
  • I was stuck. 
  • I know I didn’t scream. 
  • I didn’t make a fuss. 
  • That would have drawn other unwelcome attention and drama.

It would have been said that…I went into that room…even if my eyes were not wide open. 

It wasn’t what I had planned for the night. I assumed he must have had a condom. Wasn’t that his responsibility? At this time and place, no one discussed contraception in my orbit. Good girls didn’t use birth control, because good girls didn’t have sex. I have taught my sister, and then my daughter differently from my learned experiences.   

  • It was not romantic.
  • It all moved way too fast. 
  • It was not lengthy.
  • (Is there a used condom?)  
  • It all happened so fast…. and it would completely change my life.  
  • It would impact my self image.
  • Only now can I come to terms with it being part of the thread that wove me. 
  • What had I gotten myself into?
  • Did I have to date him now?
  • He liked me once before, did he still like me? 

In reflection….As I stuffed my shame and embarrassment and inexperience and guilt into a narrative

In those after moments…

  • Did I wonder where it would go – others slept with guys on the first date. 
  • Would I have to try being with him for a bit to justify all of this?
  • But this wasn’t a date.  
  • It was hook up at a bar.  
  • Was I that kind of girl?
  • Was I trying it on to see if that persona fit?
  • Was it a dare?
  • All these years later I still am not sure how we decided to leave that bar together.

The odd things I remember…A phone rang in his room soon after. I could hear the caller and He was asked who He was with. He lied. At the moment, I thought he was protecting my virtue. Protecting my reputation. Or so I thought in my confusion. I do remember just wanting to get out of there after that call. Did he sneak me out? I don’t remember walking a couple doors down the street.  

I don’t remember anything much until …The next night walking into the lobby of my sorority house and seeing him standing there. I ridiculously, and incorrectly, thought he came to see me. My cheeks are red with shame when I discover he is picking up my sorority sister for a…

A Date!?!?

She is an underclassman and friend who has been set up on a blind date with Him. I’m pretty sure I muttered under my breath that he was an asshole. Maybe I was too embarrassed and mortified to say it out loud. I don’t remember. It certainly puts the lie on the phone into question.  

That was Valentine’s Day 1983. In early March I havent started my period. My breasts are starting to ache. I have never been late. This is long before one can purchase a Home Pregnancy Test. 

On St. Patricks’ Day, I am at party and see a friend, and whisper to her:“I think I am pregnant”. She looks me square in the eye and tells me “We will take care of this”. I believed her.  I had temporary relief.  

  • Did I tell her because I knew she had had an abortion.  
  • Did I tell her because I knew she would get me through this?
  • Did I tell her because I knew she would not judge me?  
  • Did I care if I was judged?

I will spend years judging myself and finding ways to justify and unravel the events of that winter night and days that would follow. She called in the expertise of another friend of ours. She took me to Planned Parenthood to confirm.

  • I don’t remember who drove. 
  • I don’t remember how we got there. 
  • I don’t remember walking in.
  • I obviously took a urine test.  But I don’t recall any self-talk. 
  • I doubt I said a wish.  
  • I knew.  
  • I remember the nurse walking into a room – but I don’t remember the room. 
  • Did she invite me back?
  • Was I already sitting in an office?
  • Was my friend with me?

I vaguely recall her saying, “You are pregnant, do you know what you want to do?” Was there a movie moment when the music stops and the camera zooms in on my face? There was zero hesitation. I was going to have an abortion.

#I Had an Abortion before Easter that year.  

Funny how I remember all the holidays those two months, but so many other details are muddled. 

  • I was a passenger.  
  • My friend took me to a government building to get paperwork for a free abortion.
  • I was a student. I had no income. 
  • They asked me if I knew the father, I said yes, and had no hesitation saying his name out loud.  

I didn’t tell him at the time that I was pregnant. That the one night stand, the one half hour stand, led to this series of unfortunate events.  

Years later, I ran into him at a bar and asked Him, “Remember that night in college” and he got a sly grin on his face and then I whispered, “I got pregnant that night and had an abortion”.  There was a bit of satisfaction as he dropped the beer from meeting his mouth as that smile was wiped from his face.”  I turned and walked away and never looked back.  

She picked a clinic near her home an hour away.  I would recover overnight away from my college room. I took a night off from a rehearsal.  We were to perform that Saturday night. I had an abortion on a Tuesday.  That day fit the very tight schedule. I took books for a Finance test. I would fail my first class at the end of that semester.  

I remember the whiteness of the room. It was not a private room.  It had a curtain around it.  I remember counting backward. I remember waking up and immediately feeling the cramping.  Both of my friends drove me away. I don’t remember getting in the car.  

I woke from my nap. There was a pack of birth control pills in a bag next to me.  A parting gift from the clinic I guess. Or maybe that was a month later at a follow up visit. They took me out for drinks that night at a restaurant on the water. I remember being pensive and serene. Interesting that I pick those descriptors.  

Isn’t it odd that I remember that strange and dreamlike moment of calm. It was probably the anesthesia. It’s one of the clearest memories of that entire experience. I twirled a stir stick and I was calm and I was quiet and I simply sat there as everyone else around me chatted and asked for a refill. I was changed.   

I told myself that he had forced himself on me. (Good defense for the guilt ridden Catholic girl who isn’t supposed to have sex before marriage). He was on top and pinned me down and I couldn’t avoid it. If I had yelled, I would have been the girl that agreed to go upstairs.

Hadn’t I sent the message that I was open to anything and everything. (I would be that slutty sorority girl who was easy) I broke the rule, I went to a fraternity alone, so what did I expect? Or maybe…that was message enough. His green light. I told my future husband I had been date raped. I think I believed it at the time.  (And who would marry a Catholic girl who had an abortion?) I was violated.I was taken advantage of. 

At the very least, I was worthy of being told he was dating a sorority sister soon after. But what if he hadn’t gone on that date. What if we had connected and discussed the event? Given it clarity – defined it – made us both accountable to our part in it?

This is long before society would introduce the concept of Consent. 

  • I would teach my boys that No means No! 
  • I would teach my daughter that she can change her mind at any time!
  • No one can consent when they are drunk.  

It was too easy to erase my humiliation and embarrassment by erasing Him from my mind. To simply handle it myself and then self-destruct over the years to come. I would blame myself for it when I had recurrent miscarriages. I would finally tell my mother in the parking lot getting the news that the IVF failed. I would declare myself being punished.  

To end the shame I will join others who are telling their stories. To lessen the stigma. It is easier to come out of the secret shadow. I am shining a light. I am writing the truth. 

  • I got drunk.
  • I walked on my own two feet to a fraternity house.
  • I had no contraception and had unprotected sex.
  • I got pregnant.

I’m stronger now.

I have developed more courage.

I have learned to set better boundaries.  

  • I should have made him accountable. 
  • I should have made it his problem too.
  • But then I couldn’t create a tangled messy secret. 
  • Everyone would have known.
  • The stigma would have been worse. 

My tight circle – the other abortion warrior women – held me up.

They got me through it.  

But a hidden wound…would fester and poison my self esteem.

  • I’ve learned that secrets do more damage.
  • Hiding is dark and lonely and destructive.
  • Did those no longer friends make it too easy for me?
  • Would I have gone to my parents?
  • Would I been given better post abortion care and counseling?
  • I stayed in the darkness too long…
  • Would I have found the light sooner? because…

I had an abortion.

In the Goop: Trusting My Imaginal Cells

Posted on by

It feels like I am in a cycle of transformation. The plant and animal worlds provide examples, but it is the journey of the butterfly that resonates with me as I develop my first book. Metamorphosis, in the Greek “meta”, or change, and “morphe” or form, is a biological process in which a body’s structure changes through cell growth and differentiation.  The butterfly experiences a complete metamorphosis because it looks different in each of its four stages: egg, larva, pupa, and adult.  

The pupa stage of a butterfly is called the chrysalis and while the outside looks like a hard shell, inside the body of the caterpillar is “digesting itself from the inside out”. The body is breaking down into imaginal cells, a soup of liquid goop, which like stem cells can become any type of cell. These imaginal cells can put themselves back together again into new shapes. It is not destruction because some of the old will pass onto the creation of the new body. The DNA is the same, the form is different.  

I am in the soup. 

I am in a chrysalis period of transformation.  

I experienced a writing workshop called: “Embodying the Aging Body”. In March 2022, Gayle Brandeis and Laraine Herring presented this hands on writing and soul retreat for women. In one of the first experiences, Laraine asked us to draw a picture and start with: “Draw an ‘X’ to mark where you are” and without prompting I labeled my X with the eighteen month age range of 58-59 years old.  The exercise asked me to look forward to “Where Do You Want to Go?” and backward to “Where Have You Been?” Then it concluded with asking me where I can no longer go or where I no longer want to go.

Exercise from Laraine Herring from Embodying the Aging Body – March 5, 2022

Later in the workshop, Gayle presented the two words that for weeks continue to sing to my soul: Imaginal Cells. I can live comfortably in this time period and enjoy the creative space to become what I was born to be. I can write from this place. I can move in and out of metamorphosis over the years to come, just as I have morphed and changed over the past five decades. 

I have heard the call to write a book. With the knowledge of imaginal cells, I am able to release the need to have a formal outline of this project. It does not need my direction. The book KNOWS. It is in the goop phase. The spine will develop. The antennae will emerge and receive and transmit. The wings and legs will grow and transport to places that I do not have to determine today. 

Gayle shares the words of Ranier Maria Rilke, “Be conversant with transformation”. 

The Match

Posted on by

I fell in love

after we ran out of matches while camping on a water ski weekend. 

We met on a blind date.  My roommate from college went to lunch with him and he told her,  “I think I’m ready to meet a normal girl”.  I went to dinner with her that same night and told her,  “I think I’m ready to meet a normal guy”.  At the time, she didn’t think we were a match, but she invited us both to a barbeque.  

He walked in, taking up the doorway with his height and broad shoulders. With a bold and confident declaration, and an equally huge smile, he announced “There she is”.  

In milliseconds, the billboard in my mind flashed the phrase, “He could be a keeper.” 

He began to put sour cream in the guacamole.  

I told him he was making it wrong.  

He told me to just wait.  

I licked the bowl.  

We started dating. We stopped seeing other people. We met each other’s families. 

We planned trips with his ski boat.  He bought me a water ski after the match blew out and that said more to me than those three magical words: I Love You.  We met in May and we were engaged that December.  

We went to Lake Havasu for Labor Day Weekend.  We got out there earlier than our friends to set up camp before dark.  They would arrive around midnight after they got off work and made the drive from California. 

As we pulled up to a beach, we realized that the prop to the boat was stuck in the downward position.  That’s good for driving the boat, it is not good for beaching the boat.  In this position the prop would be crashing across the rocks of the shoreline as the water ebbed and flowed with every passing boat. The wind picked up and the water was sent into more waves of motion.  Tom problem-solved protection by putting a plastic milk crate cube box around the propellor.  It would hold until we went to pick up our friends at the loading dock hours later.   

We were hungry.  It had been hours since lunch and we were losing daylight.  We were looking forward to hamburgers and the pasta salad I had pre-made and packed in the cooler.  With the wind blowing, I tried to create a shield so we could get a match burning long enough to light the propane burner. After many unsuccessful attempts, we were down to the last match.  We locked eyes, as Tom held the last match, we had an unspoken exchange that whatever happened in this 50/50 moment we would move forward together.  

The scratch against the striker strip on the side of the box was optimistic. The chemicals on the red tip did their job and the smell of the burn promised a prosperous start.  But as the match was nearing it’s ignition target, the wind whispered, “not tonight”.  There would be no sounds of sizzling meat on the grill.  We laughed uproariously and joked that at least there was pasta salad.  I opened the cooler and the seal of the lid had broken free.  The spices and melted ice were mixing around and flowing in and out of the leaky container.  Although it would fill us up, it was bland and seasonless.  We decided on alcohol for the next course, and while he mixed up dessert, I fell in love.  I could imagine a future where we would get through any problem that ever came our way.  

Later, as we floated in the lake, waiting for our friends, I knew things had shifted in our relationship.  The words and commitments would come later, but I vividly remember the feel of the breeze on my face as I looked up into the star filled sky. With barely a sliver of a moon shining down on the lake, I felt my heart was blazing bright.  

After getting back to camp, and protecting the prop, we got the grill burning and the burgers cooking.  That simple burger, with only cheese and a bun, next to a crackling fire, with my future husband, is still one of the best meals I have ever eaten.  

*

Photo by: Elia Mazzaro on Unsplash

Hungry for Words

Posted on by

I devour books. When I was a toddler, I pretended to read.  I quickly turned the pages of anything laying around the house looking for pictures to give hints to the storyline.  I speed read and swallow thousands of pages per month. Sometimes I linger and chew the words and other times I gulp them down and probably miss the full flavor.  

My first memory of formal reading is a record player with an official school looking program. I matched the booklet to the record label; dropped the needle on the black vinyl disc and then followed the voice . I was lucky and there was always something for me to read where I lived or visited. Dick and Jane were boring. My grandparents subscribed me to my first book of the month club.  My second grade teacher started a chart and challenged us to earn a sticker and fill it before the end of the year.  I finished it in a month.  She told my parents it was time for me to graduate from picture books with simple lines of text.  

The trip to the Buena Vista Library in Burbank, California, is one of my fondest memories. Besides having alone time with my Dad for one of the rare times in my life, I was introduced to the sight and smell of slivers of color in horizontal and vertical rows.  I was giddy.  Sensory overload at its most comfortable and cozy level.  I was in love.  With my first library card and maximum of three books, I skipped out into the sunlight with Nancy Drew and passion was ignited.  

I am a lifelong learner.  I believe it is in my DNA and passed down from my parents, and their parents, and back and back to whatever ancestors – from whenever time periods – in whichever lifetimes modeled it for me.  In the formal schooling window of junior high through undergrad college, I discovered I like to choose what I learn more than being told what to learn.  I have an independent streak.  

I have earned a Bachelors in Business Administration with a Marketing emphasis, a teaching certificate, a Masters degree in Curriculum and Instruction specializing in Middle School Mathematics.  I started a doctorate in Teacher Education and in my second year, we adopted my daughter.  Three kids came into our lives in less than 3.5 years.  After thirty-one years of marriage and twenty-three years of parenting, I have learned many things. I read and wrote and shared my insights on a couple of blogs.  I published and distributed, and sold, a magazine focused on healthy living and a healthy planet.  I became certified as an integrative health coach.  I became an expert in female reproductive health.  I am a flexible thinker.  I continue to sample new cuisines of topics. 

When my youngest graduated from High School, I applied to NAU to earn a Masters Certificate in Women and Gender Studies.  I am currently taking other courses to receive certificates in Rhetoric, Writing, and Digital Media Studies (RWDMS) and Community College Higher Education (CCHE) in the English and Education departments.  I might wander over to the History department.  

In my almost six decades of life, I still feel the same excitement for a new class as if it is my first day of Kindergarten.  I begged to go to school once I learned there was such a place from cousins and neighbors.  I continue to dig into the vocabulary around me and try to make sense of words and terms in our ever changing and evolving society and world.  

One of the most impactful decades of my life was the pursuit of parenthood.  My three children came after multiple miscarriages, infertility, failed ART (Artificial Reproductive Technology), adoption, and the natural birth of my third child.  It was a journey I would not wish on anyone, but I would not trade away.  My current research and writing focus is a deep dive into the topics around the stigma of menstruation, pregnancy loss, and infertility.  In the United States, neoliberalism influence focuses citizens on the perfect pregnancy and the American dream of the nuclear family. This country doesn’t like to discuss blood and loss and failure.  

I am currently exploring gender stereotypes and the burden of responsibility placed on women to be the reproducers and the caretakers of children. I like to weave in and out and all around many topics.  I am curious, and excited, to see what comes from this experience with all of you. 

*

In looking for fun images, I found this fun and creative children’s book by Oliver Jeffers:

The Incredible Book Eating Boy

Illustrations and story by Oliver Jeffers

Literary Dinnerware is available for purchase CLICK HERE

Gender Roles

Posted on by

Coming off of a few months of summer fun, it’s time for a new year of Reading Writing and Listening (RWL) on topics that intrigue me at the given moment.

Last week, my graduate work at NAU led me back into a live classroom to explore Anthropology of Gender (ANT 556) with Dr. Lisa Hardy and my cohort of diverse and curious classmates.

The first readings were rich with topics for exploration. The one that stands out most for me was The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereo-Typical Male-Female Roles. In this 1991 article, anthropologist Emily Martin looks at the ways writing scientifically about human reproduction assigns gender stereotypes. She argues that Western science portrays male reproduction as “remarkable feats” while the role of the female biology is “passive and decay”. The academic reports write a scientific fairy tale with the metaphor of a damsel in distress (the egg) being saved by the white knight (sperm). Other text presents the egg with spidery imagery and cast the egg as the femme fatale who victimizes the male another wide spread Western theme.

Fast forward thirty years, and our society still struggles with gender stereo-types.

I just finished listening to episode 20 of the podcast We Can Do The Hard Things:

PLAYING OUR ROLES: How does culture’s invention of gender typecast every last one of us? On the podcast, Glennon Doyle, Amanda Doyle, and Abby Wambach discuss:

  1. Women in the business world, like Amanda, are labeled dominant and aggressive and why that is a gender trap.
  2. Abby’s experiences of being misgendered in public and how that makes her feel.
  3. Why do we tell people who they are before they are born and so many days after?
  4. Why Glennon says two women in a marriage, taking care of their business, so rocks the patriarchal boat.

TRANSCRIPT

More to come on this topic.

Beach Day

Posted on by

In June 2021, I took a class with Nancy from The Writer’s Center on Personal Narratives Fiction and Non-Fiction by Aaron Hamburger. The assignment was to write a short, yet sensory rich, memory from childhood. I know I started going to this place before my sixth birthday (since I celebrated it there), but since we did not have a second car until after Nancy was born it could have been the summer when I turned five.

As we waited in the parking lot for them to pull up our 1968 Impala station wagon, with the three tail lights flanking each side of the tailgate, I was giddy that I had settled on the Cherry Charms Sweet Pop as my drive home treat.  I had agonized over the decision, but as much I loved the cold feel in my mouth, from the luscious vanilla soft serve ice cream, swirled into and on top of a flat bottom cake cone, it would have melted before we got all our beach gear loaded up for the drive from Santa Monica to Burbank, California.  With the window down, and the air drying my freshly washed hair, the sucker barely fit in my mouth and would last well beyond the drive home, if I didn’t bite on it.  It didn’t always last until we got home.

At least twice a week, we had the childhood luxury to drive through Los Angeles to the Beach Club, sponsored by my father’s company, to escape the summer heat.  We would pull up and the boys in white shorts and tennis shoes, with matching navy shirts, would help my mom unload her three active beach enthusiasts.  We learned to get out quickly and get behind the white line so the next cars could come in off the busy Pacific Coast Highway.  We walked down the stairs to the sounds of paddle balls hitting rackets and tennis shoes squeaking on the courts.  I was too young to play.  I think you had to be ten.  

We skipped along the walkway to the intersection of choices.  Turn right to go to the indoor pool with the high dive and low boards.  I won swim races in that pool to the sound of echos from different water activities.  No one entered without shuffling your feet in the six inch deep mini pools, tiled with little blue squares, to wash off the sand before the smell of chlorine met salty sunshine.  

Turn left to the stretch of beachy playground and the vibrant blue ocean.  More helpful boys carried umbrellas and beach chairs as we passed the swing sets and monkey bars along the way. The concrete walk ended at the flagpole, the meeting place of many kid activities, and then it was a mad dash to the awaiting waves.

If we had walked straight from the car, a red and white awning entrance welcomed diners to the outdoor grill. I was allowed to get in line and order my own french fries. They were crispy on the outside and soft to the bite with just a perfect amount of salt.  I always wondered if it was sea salt from the watery waves.  

Above all of it was the big deck with the white chain with a little sign that read Adults Only.  We could ask people to send word to our parents that we needed them, on weekend afternoons when we stayed for the evening cookouts. I would not see that mysterious area until I was in my senior year of college. It did not meet my imagined expectations.  

We would start the day at the edge of the ocean with the waves chasing us in and out of shore.  We would collect sandcrabs in our bright colored buckets and keep them watered for the journey home.  We stopped doing that after only a couple times.  At lunch time, we would go closer to the clubhouse so the little ones could go into the nursery for naps.  The bell would ring and I would be sent up to check the board for our last name to tell us when my siblings were awake. I could wander to the area that held the big green craft box that was the source of many lanyard keychains and beading projects. Some days there was more time at the shore, and others we swam until it was time to go to the locker room to shower off any remaining Coppertone sunscreen mixed with salt and sand. 

From hopping towel to towel with bare feet when the sand was too hot, to duck duck goose games, to the smell of Ivory soap and Breck shampoo as I watched sand go down the drain, to the sound of the metal machine that spun the water out of our wet swimsuits, I can quickly serve myself vivid memories to fill my cup with a base of seaside mixed with a splash of childhood sweetness.  

Remembering My Journey

Posted on by

In early 2020, I signed up for a Memoir Writing Workshop with Irene Graham. I came to the class with plans to write the story of growing up in Southern California in the decades following the quest for women’s equality. After an outside the box brainstorming assignment, the story of my daughter’s homecoming came bubbling onto the paper. The pandemic interrupted my scheduled pace to finish my two son’s stories.

The project came back to life as I explored “Sex, Politics, and Reproduction” in a course offered by the Women and Gender Studies department at Northern Arizona University. Again, I planned to write on a different topic, but I was pulled back to my experiences with infertility and miscarriage and the stigma and shame I felt on my journey to motherhood. The culminating project shares the power of storytelling to heal and give hope for those who have experienced miscarriage, recurrent pregnancy loss, infertility, and other reproductive injustices.

Reproductive Potpourri: Stories of Reproduction is the blend of my personal journey, academic literature review, and insertions of all three of my children’s birth and homecoming stories.

Click here to read Three Angelfish in long form. Or enjoy the upcoming posts of individual chapters.

Angelfish One

Posted on by

“Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold.”

-Zelda Fitzgerald.

The October afternoon is crisp and my energy crackles with anticipation and excitement like dry leaves trampled under running feet. I am on my way to meet my child. The changing colors serve as a symbol of my personal transition.  We pull into the parking lot and I observe the cinderblock simplicity of the concrete and glass building and yet, that cold exterior holds my warm beating heart.  I am already in there… with her.  I look at Tom and there are no words. We spent years hoping and wishing for our arms to be heavy with children, our ears to hear the twinkle of laughter, and to smell the sweetness of babyhood.  I exit the car, pregnant with passion for motherhood.  I am not in a hurry.  I savor my wild eagerness to get to that door and have it all begin.  We arrive and cross the threshold to parenthood. 

 
I would not wish infertility on any other woman (or man).  We met and we meshed and we married.  We moved to a new city, started new careers, and got pregnant.  A similar story to our friends and family, but our baby was a blighted ovum.  We were pregnant again by the next change of season. We saw a heartbeat.  And then, later,  I miscarried.  I couldn’t get pregnant.  I would not wish a fertility investigation on any other woman (or man) – yet I would not trade my journey to parenthood. 


My health education began with my desire to be a mother.  A year of gynecological tests and cycles of synthetic hormones taught me I had to take control of my own body.  My intuition reawakened and I vowed to never put my destiny in the hands of others again.  So I did what I do best.  I went to the books.  I hunted for my answers at my safe haven – the library.  
I began to collect personal health tools: yoga, natural medicine, aromatherapy, gluten-free and clean eating, and community.  In my pursuit of answers, I found a quality homeopathic doctor and an internet forum of conversation threading.


 Twenty five years ago, I managed to find, on the internet, a bulletin board of women who were experiencing infertility, miscarriage, heartbreak, and hope.  I found connection within the warmth and safety of my home office.   It was not the first circle of women in my life and it won’t be the last.


I would not wish multiple miscarriages on any woman (or man).  I dropped wheat, milk, corn, sugar, and alcohol and added Chinese Herbs to my diet. Months later, I was detoxed. I got pregnant and I miscarried. Then I got angry.  I found a therapist and Neurofeedback training and I got pregnant.  It was an ectopic tubal pregnancy, and another surgical miscarriage. Months later, I arrived at an infertility specialist consultation and discovered I was pregnant. The heartbeat was there… and then weeks later it was not. I found an acupuncturist, and I naturally miscarried. We did three IUIs and then one IVF and nothing happened in the petri dish. And then  I got pregnant naturally, with twins.   I miscarried. We then found New Hope Adoption Agency.  


I would not wish the adoption sign up process on any woman (or man).  As we waited for the mandatory training, I discovered I was pregnant.  I did not want to cancel our chance at parenthood, so I held this secret inside of me. As we sat through a weekend of education on the topics of: open and closed adoptions, the state laws and requirements, and the statistics and realities of choosing to adopt a child, I felt conflicted. I was hiding my pregnancy and didn’t feel that I completely fit the profile of the barren couple, but it was a good choice.  I miscarried the week after training.  


I would not wish the governmental and agency investigation on any women (or man). While waiting for fingerprinting, home studies, and background checks, I threw myself into creating the “Tom and Mary Color Brochure”.  My career experiences in marketing, publishing, and education guided the creative process. I produced the first impression handout that birthmothers would view, if they want to personally choose adoptive parents for their birth child.  I felt the hope of forward momentum, yet it was mixed with frustration.  At times, I found myself choking on the bile of  bitterness;  I had to jump through hoops to be deemed worthy to parent.  I interacted with women, in and out of my circles, who would never understand any of this process because many couples became pregnant easily and never had a complication. 

I would not wish my turmoil, my tornado of feelings, on any woman (or man), but I would not trade them for anything in the world.  


I came to accept that everyone had their pregnancy (and adoption) challenges regardless of their circumstances.  There were so many lessons I would gather up along the infertility journey. Like pebbles and shells on a walk down the beach, they were treasures to be pocketed and brought out later, for better examination, throughout the years to come. I became a gem cutter.  


I will cut facets and hone my jewels into bits of wisdom.  I will revisit many of these moments as I travel forward into the decades ahead as a wife, parent, sister, daughter, friend, mentor, and more.


From a January phone call I placed to an adoption lawyer, until a crisp day in October, nine months passed in 1998. My intuition told me during that summer, to start getting ready.  I planned a fish theme and made a baby quilt and sponge painted the nursery walls, but I could not bring myself to buy a single baby item. I was optimistic and practical, but I was reserved.  Patience was never a virtue of mine, so I would not call this hesitation a moment of discipline, but rather an anticipatory hold back.  I grasped tightly to the rollercoaster bar as it made its first climb up the steep incline. I knew the minute it crested the top, for that momentary pause, I would gleefully throw my arms in the air and scream with joy the entire ride.  


On Friday, October 9, 1998, I dropped Tom at the airport for a football weekend in Arizona. I had the day off from my PhD studies and met my best friend for lunch. She was to arrive with the gender results of her ultrasound and I was equally excited since she had asked me to be in the delivery room of the birth.  After we celebrated her daughter-to-be, we giggled in a hair salon and later picked up items for a friend’s upcoming wedding shower.  I saw a stuffed kangaroo and remarked that “when we bring home a baby”,  I would come back for that Mama, and her baby joey.  I had transitioned to readiness, and did not know that I was suspended at the top of the coaster climb. I parted ways with my friend, and in less than an hour, I would have the wind in my face on an exciting amusement park ride. All weekend long, I prepared for parenthood. 


We were told in training that we would receive a call asking if we were “together” to receive news that we had been “chosen”.  In the state of Nevada, there is a 72 hour window from when the birthmother declares she wants to give the baby up for adoption and when the state allows her to sign off and terminate the parental rights.  During this time the baby stays in a state trained and approved receiving care home.  When I hung up the phone, I bubbled with the news that we were to pick up our daughter on Monday afternoon.  My husband, my sister, my mother, and the friend I just left, are not available to answer the phone. This is not the kind of news I can leave on an answering machine so I grabbed my keys and headed out to shop. 
I arrived at the doors of the Baby Superstore and it felt  like I was on a game show episode, where the contestant is timed to see how much can fit in the cart before the buzzer ends.  I zoomed to the left, and I encountered “Nipple Wall”. It was an enormous arrangement of pacifiers and bottles in all shapes and sizes. Overwhelmed by the choices, I bypassed that for a later time, and went in hunt of a car seat to bring her home.  It takes only a matter of seconds for me to choose the gender neutral denim (because, of course, this is the first of many babies to come and there might be boys).  I encountered a salesgirl and she is the first to get the news.  Word gets out and the whole store buzzed with excitement for me.  The cart is filled quickly with diapers, wipes, various formulas, bathing necessities, swaddling blankets, gowns, beanies, and booties.  I paused in the middle of the store, for only a moment, to savor the glow that warmed me from head to toe: I am a Mom.  


Tom and I connected and concluded that I would continue to nest and he would be home on Sunday afternoon to put together the crib.  The word got out and my circles from near and far were in celebration mode.  After a full day of shopping and gathering at the specialty boutique, I threw that wedding shower, and got word that a baby shower brunch is planned for me the next morning.  It hit me like a giant steamroller that through seven years, we have gathered an enormous support network of friends and family that were equally eager for us to have this moment in our life.  The joy was abundant.  

That Sunday night, we put various names in a brown sack lunch bag.  We both drew out: Abigail.  I do not think it was luck or coincidence.  I believe the Universe already had her named.  Tom has a sister named Gail.  I have a brother named Joe.  Abigail Jo was born on September 24, 1998.  She weighed 6 pounds and 6 ounces. We were only given a small amount of information about the birth parents and their background.  Her name was Gail; his name was Joe.  She was a single parent with twin boys under the age of two. She had an emergency C-section and named her Joey.  Our baby would have names linked to the birth parents and her new family, but she will become her own unique Abbie.  


I awakened with a start early on that pick up morning and remember the stuffed Mama Kangaroo with the baby joey in her pouch.  It was never for our nursery, it was to be  a gift for the birth mother.  I was flooded with a rush of feelings – of awe and wonder at the love of a mother for her child.  I had only experienced this minuscule moment of motherhood and my love is already so deep for a child I had yet to see.  I suddenly experienced an abundance of compassion for the courageous choice she made to give her daughter more than she could offer at that time in her life.  It would be many more years before I could embrace the anguish of her decision,  but I had clarity of  mind to write her a letter and leave the door wide open for her to be part of Abbie’s life when she was ready.  


I will not wish seven years of infertility on any woman (or man), but I will wish everyone the power of knowing that children can never have too many people loving them.

  • First Family Photo October 12, 1998
  • Abbie 2 Years Old
  • Fish Quilt for the Nursery

Angelfish Two

Posted on by

“If you love someone, you must be prepared to set them free.”

-Paul Coelho.

On a winter Tuesday morning, in January 2001, I was at the office desk preparing my notebooks for the new semester and my return to graduate studies.  When the phone rang, I was able to grab it on the first ring to avoid waking up a napping toddler.  It was the adoption agency, and there were two life-changing statements: a birthmother of a baby boy has chosen your family and Abbie’s paternal birth family wants to open the door for a relationship.  The school binders will remain closed for a later time in my life. 

Just as every live birth has a different story, so does every adoption story.  The Birthmother wanted to meet us. When we arrived at the same agency parking lot a couple years later, it had a different kind of anticipation.  Will she like us?  Will she be ok with her decision?  I walked through the door with a huge and open heart, and I met a woman who was experiencing robust emotions and a young teenager holding her baby brother.  When they put that baby boy in my arms, I locked eyes with him, and he imprinted on my heart.  The birthmother struggled and began to cry and went for a walk with the caseworker, the daughter stayed with us and we got to share a few minutes.  Alex took up residence in my heart too.  

The next two days flurried and flew and settled, like snowflakes in a storm, as we prepared and celebrated and planned for another homecoming. An hour before pickup, as I was folding the freshly laundered baby boy clothing, the phone rang. My stomach dropped and my heart lurched.  I knew before I answered it.  This was not going to be easy.

The birthmother had called to say she was going to be late. The agency would ring us back with an update.  I knew then that there was heartbreak ahead.   I was thrown back into the same uncertainty of infertility. Will the lab results show the pregnancy is progressing? Or, will the phone call reveal that we were back on Miscarriage Main Street? The minutes felt like hours.

 I sludged through the early afternoon forcing myself to maintain a glimmer of optimistic hope that she simply had a flat tire or a dead battery for her ride to sign her legal termination papers.  That was not the case. She never showed up that Friday afternoon. When the agency called at the end of the business day, my bruised soul bubbled with a slow burning stew of uncertainty and confusion.  I had been to this place before, but I had not prepared myself.  I thought the days of my body betraying me were over.  I had not planned for this treachery. This loss of a child hurt more. I had held his warm body and felt his weight in my arms.  

When our case worker called on Saturday with a report it went like this: She showed up with a friend who did all the talking and declared: “She has decided to parent and Alex and I will help her.”  What She failed to share with her helper and 13-year-old daughter is that the baby was a ward of the state.  She and the baby tested positive for a variety of drugs at the birth, so She would have to go to court to petition to regain her parental rights.  The baby would leave the receiving care family and go to Child Haven, a county facility, until further notice. Our case worker did not believe that this story was over and delivered me an IV drip of hope, to be trickled into me, until the court hearing.  She inquired: “Are you done with this birthmother, or if this goes a different way, are you and Tom still open to this adoption?”  There was not a second of hesitation; “he will always be a part of our family”.   My response begins my healing journey.  

Over that weekend, I reflected on maternal love and I gained deeper gratitude for my gift of motherhood.  Although this moment mimicked my previous miscarriages, this time I had a 2-year-old daughter to fill my arms and our busy life passed the time much differently than our other losses.  I was confident there would be another child in our life.  

After packing up the infant layette, I chose a stuffed animal from Abbie’s menagerie and drafted a letter to the birthmother to create space for the future.  My message was simple and vulnerable.  I fully supported her decision and reinforced that the best place for her children will always be with her.  I thanked her for the opportunity to be part of her life.  I closed with a pure and open-hearted message that her son would always have us loving him from afar.   As I dropped it off at the agency door, I released any remaining negativity and looked forward. 

My circle of support was there for me.  I caught them up at our bi-monthly gathering and shared the vast amount of growth and clarity I had gained in a few days.  I felt transformed and illuminated with a peaceful glow.  When I turned my cell phone back on there was a message.  We were told to come pick up our son the next day.

She went to court and the judge was not forgiving.  It would have been a minimum of nine months before she could petition to bring him home, until then he would remain a ward of the state.  Alex would now be observed by the authorities and be subject to the same requirements to maintain custody.  She asked the adoption agency if Tom and Mary would be willing to parent and when she went to sign the papers she was given my letter.  Our case worker reported that after she read it she burst into tears, of relief, and shared that my simple note gave her peace in her decision to choose us.  It is my belief that my feelings were only temporary discomfort compared to the excruciating pain of her journey.  She knew that going to court for him would put her daughter’s future in jeopardy. In reflection, It is easy for me to see now, that a short window of time for me, provided her a path filled with fewer regrets.  

Luke Canyon was born on January 2, 2001 and weighed 7 pounds and 9 ounces.  The three of us brought him home on January 26th and we became a family of four. Luke, in Latin, translates to “bringer of light – luminous”.  His coming home story ignited a part of my heart and it shines brighter.  His birthmother gave him the name Canyon.  Finding our home was a collaborative effort of unselfish love and trust by all.  By letting go and having faith, I learned to keep a spotlight on the here and now. Be Present. Value the chrysalis. Like an iridescent butterfly, the future will unfold and free itself when it is ready

  • Family of Four January 26, 2001
  • Luke 2.5 Years Old

Kokopelli

Posted on by

“Known as a fertility god, prankster, healer, and storyteller, Kokopelli has been a source of wonder for centuries.”

-IndigenousPeople.net

Do I tell him on Father’s Day?  The question did a quick lap around my heart and head as I stared at a positive pregnancy test. I slipped it into a small box and when he opened it at the kitchen table, with Abbie in a high chair and Luke in a bouncy seat, our eyes met and his eyebrow raised with an inquisitive “Really?” 

Since we were leaving for an upcoming camping trip, I got into the doctor to evaluate the pregnancy progress.  By my estimate, there should have been a heartbeat, but there was not.  I had been to this rodeo before, so it was easy to slip on my big girl boots and sigh away the short lived wonder of a fifth family member.  Luke was almost six months old and barely sleeping through the night.  This would be my ninth miscarriage.  

We had not used contraception for a decade, but without hesitation I asked my doctor for options.  I was ready to end my fertility journey to avoid “double-digit” miscarriage statistics in my life story.  He had seen me through the most recent losses, but he still encouraged me to hold out hope.  He gave me his personal cell phone number in case there were any issues on my trip.  Tom and I finalized our decision to have a tubal ligation and I made an appointment for surgery upon our return.  A sense of calm serenity washed over me as I realized a chapter was writing it’s last paragraph.  

A few nights into the trip, I felt warmth between my legs and knew there was probably bleeding.  Like a seasoned war veteran, I put on my combat boots, grabbed rations and a backpack and headed to the campground latrines armed with a book and flashlight.  I internally chuckled to myself that I had always dreamed of a birth in nature.  Thankfully the campground facilities were clean and… empty.  I looked to the sky and thanked the stars for allowing me this private time, during the dark of night, while all were sleeping.  

Many chapters in, I am triaging myself.  Did the spotting stop? Are there any cramps?  Is this a false alarm? Should I call my doctor?  I pack it up and head back to the camping trailer.  I’m well prepared if required. 

We carry on with the trip and head to spend the day at a hot spring pool and spa.  Tom treated me to a relaxing massage and as she prepared she held her hands above my belly and commented that she felt a lot of energy and activity in my abdomen.  I confessed that I am experiencing a miscarriage.  She paused and gave me a compassionate look, and I am thankful that she does not speak her empathy and sorrow. She expresses a wise and calming smile and I quickly relaxed under her spell.  I got a vision that upon my return, I will hold my own personal ceremony to celebrate the end of my fertility.  I felt empowered.  

As I went to check out there is a dish of arrowheads and I decided to choose one to be part of my celebration.  I smiled when I saw the symbol I had worn for years on a charm bracelet; it is Kokopelli, the little humpbacked flute player, the symbol of fertility.  My confidence continued to gain depth and serenity.  The next day was Independence Day and I felt the freedom in knowing that this was my last pregnancy. I felt as if a rainbow surrounded me and a sense of inner glow as I joined Tom, Abbie, and Luke in the naturally warm water.  They are my life boat.   

On the last day of the trip, I found myself in a field of wildflowers.  The sky was bright blue.  The clouds floated by with ease. For a quick moment, my calm inner happiness was briefly interrupted by the need to take a deep and full breath to steady myself in the high altitude.  As I hiked down the trail path, I snapped this picture in my memory bank to hold as a bookend.  

As I headed out to do my pre-op appointment and then go to the hospital to do the blood work and preregistration, I grabbed my list of ceremony items to be picked up on the way home for that evening.  This was going to be one hell of a personal ritual with fire, flowers, music, and maybe even some singing and dancing under the moonlight.  My fertility was going to go out in a blaze of glory.  I shared my “Bye-Bye Pre Tube Tie” plans with my doctor as he rubbed the cold ultrasound gel on the vaginal wand.  As I chirped, like a bird greeting the morning, he told me to look at the screen, there was a heartbeat.  Plot twist. 

In all honesty, I wasn’t all that surprised.  There had been signposts that week: the brief book with flashlight adventure, the look on the reiki massage therapist’s face, the wave of nausea in the wildflower field, and a lack of the old familiar feeling of dread.  There was a thread of hope in the forefront of my mind and I think I used party planning to fill those few days until another ultrasound.  I laughed uproariously as I grabbed my cell phone to call Tom and give him the play by play action on the screen.   “You aren’t Fu**ing with me right?”.  I assured him this was real and we set off on another road to travel, but this one felt like a huge wide highway with multiple lanes for Abbie, Luke, Tom’s and his business, and Pregnant Mary.  

It all felt different which gave me hopeful optimism.  Through all the infertility years, I had grown to value and appreciate my “glass is half full” approach to pregnancy and life.  It doesn’t cost a penny to wish and it doesn’t hurt any less to dream about a heartbeat that keeps beating and then see an empty space on a monitor.  Always Keep Hope in your Heart was my mantra. Rather than worry about what we would see at the next ultrasound, I decided to believe it was progressing perfectly.  And it was.  The screen was alive with a 12-week baby with arms and legs moving like jumping jacks.  In awe, Tom asks the technician how she does it. She replied, “Dad, that is your child, all on it’s own, and don’t let any ultrasound tech you they have the ability to pull that off.  She had never seen this before.” I took it as a greeting: “Hi, I’m here!” For the first time ever, we hear the sound of a strong heartbeat over an audio speaker.  

Three weeks later, there is bleeding.  Rather than panic and throw in the towel, I toss a question to The Universe: “You wouldn’t be this cruel would you?”.  It’s the dark of night, and I tiptoe back to bed to wait until dawn to call my doctor.  As I lay there breathing in and out to Tom’s sleeping body, I felt it.  A flutter.  Reassurance.  Another message: “I’m OK, no need to worry”.  The perinatologist appointment revealed slight placenta previa over my cervix.  An explanation to the one time spotting and something to monitor.  The high tech ultrasound shows a beautiful clear image and when she asks if we want to know the gender, the legs open wide and I reply, “It’s a boy!”.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged