Author: paulette_kamenecka

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Episode 62SN: Suddenly Blindness–a Run in with Preeclampsia: Diana’s Story, Part I

Today’s guest grew up with a mother who is something of an earth goddess, meaning that she was involved in a movement toward empowered birthing long before it’s a main cultural current. So the seeds of an idea of what a birth should look like were planted early in my guests life. In the course of her first delivery, preeclampsia fell on her out of a clear blue pregnancy–one that was normal and healthy up to that point. This condition can come with insults to any number of organs, and in her case it dramatically affected her vision. She was struck by blindness.  Her story of coming to terms with the differences between her image of this process and the actual process is inspiring and so too was the way she and her husband managed the large number of obstacles they met along the way to creating their family. What follows is part one of her story. In part two, which will be released next Friday, the ninth we’re joined by a neuro ophthalmologist who explains what’s going on physically when preeclampsia includes blindness.

To find Diana’s writing, click here

Prodromal labor

https://www.healthline.com/health/pregnancy/prodromal-labor#seek-help

https://www.webmd.com/baby/prodromal-labor-overview

Audio Transcript

Paulette : Hi, welcome to war stories from the womb. I’m your host, Paulette kamenecka. I’m an economist and a writer and the mother of two girls. Today’s guest grew up with a mother who is something of an earth goddess, meaning that she was involved in a movement toward empowered birthing long before it’s a main cultural current. So the seeds of an idea of what a birth should look like were planted early in my guests life. In the course of her first delivery, preeclampsia fell on her out of a clear blue pregnancy–one that was normal and healthy up to that point. This condition can come with insults to any number of organs, and in her case it dramatically affected her vision. She was struck by blindness.  Her story of coming to terms with the differences between her image of this process and the actual process is inspiring and so too was the way she and her husband managed the large number of obstacles they met along the way to creating their family. What follows is part one of her story. In part two, which will be released next Friday, the ninth we’re joined by a neuro ophthalmologist who explains what’s going on physically when preeclampsia includes blindness.

Let’s get to the story. 

P: Hi, thanks so much for coming on the show. Can you introduce yourself and tell us where you’re from?

Diana: I am Diana Whitney, and I live in Brattleboro, Vermont. 

P: Oh wow. That’s cool. How far are you from a place I would know how far are you from the Capitol? 

D: That’s a good question. We’re at the very southern border of Vermont. So like the little stuff called the banana belt for people who go up to the mountains. 

P: Oh, nice. 

D: Three hours. from Burlington. 

P: Oh, that sounds lovely. We’re here to talk about family. So let’s talk about your family. Did you grow up with siblings? 

D: I did. I’m the oldest of four and my mom was sort of an earth mother type She was tall and radio with long flowing red hair. A hippie if you will. She got married barefoot in 1969 went to Woodstock. And my parents lived in England in a cottage for a while I was born there. My mom taught childbirth classes when I was little Yeah. So she actually studied with she like hit singer who was sort of a pioneering natural childbirth teacher from when my mom lived in England. And Sheila and her books and her natural childbirth theories were really influential for my mom. we lived in Washington DC when I was little and in the evenings these huge pregnant ladies would come into our house you know, so this was in like, the 70s and early 80s. And I remember kind of being on the stairs looking through the banister. And there is you know, my mom resplendent and they were all sitting on pillows in the living room and they were learning about about natural childbirth and Lamaze breathing. So I kind of give this because I like to say that important to my own birth story was was like a very idealistic vision of childbirth that I think was planted in me really young. And then the other thing that was really influential is that when I was 10 years old, so I was the oldest. My mom was pregnant with my sister. And my sister was accidentally born at home and in a in a wilderness cabin in northern Maine on the Canadian border. 

P: Wow. 

D: Yeah, and it gets better by by candlelight during a northeaster when the power went out. 

P: I was just gonna say delivered by an elk?.

 

D: I mean, you know, my grandfather was there who’s MD But he was a psychiatrist so you know whether he’d ever delivered a baby but my mom as a former birthing instructor, and someone who had already had three babies, basically they they knew they couldn’t make it. The hospital was like over an hour and a half away and given the storm, they knew they couldn’t make it without having the baby in the car. So 

P: Wow. 

D: Yeah. So it wasn’t a planned homework the way you hear about it now where if they’re siblings, they know what is up so we were upstairs and I remember listening and being scared and kind of falling asleep and anyways and then meeting my newborn baby sister by candlelight, just after midnight on August 9, and it was incredibly beautiful and miraculous and romantic. And I think that was kind of the origin of my very romantic vision of childbirth.

P: I was gonna say it’s a double edged sword to have a mother who’s like an icon. Yeah, I mean, it’s amazing to have those experiences at the same time. It’s a pretty high bar.

D: It was and I didn’t even understand it, you know, because then life went on, and my mom didn’t think about herself in that way. But I think it was being able to give birth like that is a kind of superpower right? I think a lot of women could I don’t even what I’ve been through now like that, to me. It sounds really terrifying. But But she did it. She was amazing. And that some of the photos we have of like right after birth are holding the baby. It’s, you know, with my dad there. It’s just incredible. 

P: That sounds amazing. And I’m guessing coming from that context. Also, you imagined you’d have a family.

D: I did… we were really close family growing up, you know, so it was me and two brothers, and then my little sister, you know, and so I babysat and kind of Yeah, just always thought it’d be something that I would do. And in in college, I remember saying, Well, I’m going to have three kids. That’s the perfect number. Four is too many, too. They just fight with each other out and I had all of these, you know, the way you do when you’re like, 20 that you think you have the world figured out, but as life would have it, you know, there was there was not it was not possible for me, given my physical limitations and what I went through with both of the births of my two daughters that I could have had a third.

P: I also said six and we have to so I hear Yeah, that’s a common you know, who doesn’t want camp at their house all the time? 

D: Did you come from a big family? 

P: I’m the third of four. 

D: :Okay, 

P: and we’re you know, three of us are really tight together and my little sister’s eight years below me, she’s the best one by far. So I think what would happen if we continue the line? So I’m sympathetic to this. So you you’re walking into birth with this very idealized and beautiful oily so before you got pregnant the first time was it easy to get pregnant? 

D: Yeah, I mean, let’s be honest. Yeah, I I was really blessed with fertility. Actually got pregnant accidentally in college with my boyfriend who was very serious with and you know, had to make the hard but necessary decision I was 19 to terminate and think I learned then how easy it was for me to get pregnant. And that was a trauma that I had to heal from. And then when I did I got married. We don’t want to stop here for a second. 

P: Do you want to walk fast by that one? 

D: No, I can talk about I was sort of like, oh, I don’t know who your audience is. And I don’t want it like if there’s like anti choice people who are gonna be like, pissed about that. You know, I think as long as we talk about respectfully, it is right or no, and I actually I just testified in front of the Vermont House of Representatives about it because they’re voting on a reproductive rights bill. So it’s a story that’s very open that I’ve written about. I was really lucky because I actually had a really wonderful, supportive, loving boyfriend, who was devastated and scared and looking out for me, and we’d made a dumb mistake. I was using a diaphragm and he’d come to visit me over the Christmas break. And I’d left it at school when there was a big snowstorm and it was like, Oh, should we drive and buy some condoms? Oh, we’ll be fine. It’s just once you know, it was that sort of invincibility syndrome. And it really was like, the one time and then I felt so stupid. And yet, I had people around me giving reassuring me that I was human. That it like not to blame myself. I told my parents I mean really had amazing parents. So I called them and told them and they were supportive, and they paid for it. I mean, all of these sort of shame pieces that the culture puts in that I could have experienced from my family. I didn’t. And then the health care that I got at the local hospital was amazing and very compassionate, which is really what every woman every person deserves, is to have like compassionate care as you’re trying to make a make a really painful choice or B goes through with, you know, a painful procedure. I went to a lot of therapy to help with it. I’m a writer. So I actually wrote a lot I wrote poems, I’ve written essays, and that sort of helped me move through. And I did sort of rituals on my own. I mean, there’s there’s a whole story about what happened because actually the college when I was looking for when we were looking for a pregnancy test to confirm the one we’ve taken at home, the college health center didn’t have any pregnancy tests, which come on

P: that’s bizarre

D:. I mean, that’s, yeah, like 5000 college students. So it was sort of a fluke. And they actually sent us to one of those crisis pregnancy centers, which was its own crazy experience in New Hampshire, where they tried to where they told me the due date of the baby and told me about prenatal vitamins. And so that was its own really weird thing. I just feel so lucky that I was. I had those supportive people around me. And I even like I told some of my friends, my closest friends. I was a varsity ski racer. I had to tell my coach, she was supportive. She told me to, you know, take the time I needed but she believed I could keep going with my season. So like, I was really privileged. I’m really lucky. And so I don’t feel like I carried around this burden of of trauma. You know, I think that said, I felt like I needed to be very respectful about around my fertility. So then when I got married in 2004, and it was only a few months after that we got pregnant and it we weren’t really trying. We weren’t being super careful. But we were, I don’t know doing some kind of loose rhythm method II thing, you know, I’m not, you know, having intercourse during the fertile times, but obviously it didn’t work. So I I got pregnant, not sort of trying hard. And I was I was 32 when my first baby was born. 

P: Wait, so let’s talk about that pregnancy. Yeah, you get Pregnant Easily and then and then. Are you imagining that you’re going to be like floating on a cloud all nine months?

D: Yeah. Yeah. So I actually I had a very healthy pregnancy, like I really was, you know, I had the usual morning sickness, see nauseous stuff, but I stayed very active. You know, I was a ski racer and a lifelong athlete and I stayed active. I was a ski coach. I kept hiking and skiing and and I sort of jogged as long as I could, but then I, you know, I just I kept moving and kept doing yoga. I’m also a yoga teacher. And I really believed that those things that I was doing, were going to guarantee me that there was going to be an equation like, you eat healthy. You do all the exercises that are good for prenatal women. You read the books, you read the right books, and that will equal this natural birth. That you have dreamed of. And let me just tell you, like, that’s not true. I mean, I learned that birth is a mystery, and there are no guarantees and there’s no formula and that because this was something afterwards that I wrestled with, I blamed myself for so long. I went back over and over what if, what if I done this? You know, the books that I was reading during pregnancy? Some of them were she looked like the ones my mom had given me. Sheila kids singers guide to natural childbirth. Oh, I read ina may Gaskin spiritual midwifery and all about those women on the farm in Tennessee who have these natural blissful births. They may be even orgasmic during labor. And then I took hypnobirthing and I was in a class that I joined here in Brattleboro, Vermont called Conscious pregnancy, where we did art projects and visualizations, and it was very beautiful. It was very idealistic, and it frankly was total bullshit when what happened to me ended up happening. There was nothing nothing from that class that actually prepared me for the reality of what happened to my body. 

P: Well, biology is messy, right? That’s like, that’s what we learn. I like the way you described the equation because I think that is exactly how most of us are thinking about it. I do a and b and I will get C and that’s how it works. And it may be that you have a better chance of getting C if you do a me but you still don’t know where are you as an individual. Why in that whole, the realm of possibility. 

D: Right. And I think one of the big things that I think a wise midwife told me at some point was the experience of of motherhood is one of surrender. And that is you know, that may have that happens in your pregnancy. It happens during labor or it happens with your you’re trying to nurse your newborn or deal with colic or your toddler or your teenager like it’s gonna happen, it’s gonna bring you to your knees and you’re just gonna have to surrender and be it face that you’re out of control at some point. And I think for different people, different women, it happens at different stages. And I think, for me, my pregnancy really did was pretty damn great. And so I yeah, I think that’s why I was so blindsided. And that’s an interesting word because of what ended up happening. But there’s one other piece that was really important to what happened is that my baby was due I think her due date was like August 14, and in early July, my dad died suddenly of a heart attack. So this was my beloved father. My family very, very close. He was he was just turned 61 So I was actually at conscious pregnancy class in the evening like doing the painting exercise or the visualizing the green light, healing light or whatever it was, and the phone rang. They found me there and it was my I don’t know who calling from the hospital to tell us my dad was dead. So everything that happened in those last I think it was like five weeks so I was probably like 34 weeks, maybe, maybe maybe more 3435 weeks. But that last like month of my pregnancy was absolutely suffused with the experience of shock and grief. And there’s no science. There’s no obstetrician who can prove that there was a connection between my dad’s death and what happened in my labor, but I know I know and actually had one like one of the doctors who hadn’t attended my birth but who was like talking to me at one of my follow up appointments and I wanted I said, why why did this happen to me? And we talked about what happened with my dad and he he kind of said something like that, that we can’t draw an exact correlation. And there’s nothing about preeclampsia that. I mean, it’s a mystery to science. But he said but you know, inside of you that there is a connection.

P: Yeah, I’m so sorry about your dad. That does sound shocking. And it’s hard to imagine that something that’s that powerful wouldn’t have an effect somewhere 

D: some effect, right. I looked for reasons for so long afterwards. And at this point, like, you know, almost 17 years it’s sort of just you know, come to an acceptance about that was my particular karma to have kind of birth.

P:  I also think my birth was visited by many mysteries as well. And it ultimately it worked out and everyone was alive, all good, but that wasn’t obvious for many months that it would have been that way. But I think this search for a reason, at least in my case was even though I can accept, I can accept intellectually that I have no control. I think viscerally my attempt to try to get a story that makes sense about how this happened is some attempt to feel like oh, it would have been impossible to control it if I had known because real, like bodily acceptance of the fact that you have no control is a tricky thing to manage. 

D: Absolutely. I mean, we do have aspects and that’s why we study the breathing and birthing positions. And there is an aspect right that we can bring our our awareness of our bodies into this experience, right? But then, like you said, there’s there’s a whole host of other factors and biology and so another thing that feels important to me when I talked about the conscious pregnancy and the hypnobirthing that I was taking, is the the sort of culture I was living with in here in Southern Vermont. In hippy crunchy I call it like more organic than thou the it has shifted. Now I feel like maybe I’m also just give less shits, because I’m like a woman in my late 40s But then in as a brand new pregnant. You know, I felt young and naive and starry eyed and I was a yoga teacher and I was into, you know, rituals and and natural, natural and the whole culture was so frankly so judging about any kind of intervention that a woman might have in her labor experience. So everything that I learned not just from reading Ina may Gaskin but from going to these classes or talking to Inishowen, I wanted to have a homework. I up until the point where my father died. I was planning a home birth with a tub in my living room for my first baby and I heard all these ecstatic stories of women who did that and that to me seemed like I mean, it sounds so ridiculous now, but it seemed to me like the crowning glory of like the divine feminine power is like to push out a baby through your vagina in a tub in your living room. And the exact opposite end up happening for me. 

P: although I’m gonna stop you there for one second to say it’s, I think the first part of what you were saying still holds true.there is something divine and unbelievable in the act of, you know, birthing a baby carrying a baby all that stuff. 

D: Yes. 

P: Whether it gets you to the 11th level of heaven in a tub in your living room result is each person has experienced but so take us to the How do you know today’s the day like take us to the birth? 

D: Yeah, well, I so I had decided after my dad died and the midwife sort of flaked out. She was like, Oh, I think I’m going to be traveling around your due day and here’s my backup midwife. And I at that point was like, I need to know who my people are, you know, my dad just died. So I switched to a birthing center at the local hospital which also had broken tabs. So that was important. But what happened was, my due date came in went. And I was huge. it was late August and it was like hot and sweaty. And then people kept calling on the phone to ask if the baby was there yet. You know my mother in law, my mother and I didn’t want to see anyone. I was so grumpy and I wasn’t sleeping much as at the end of pregnancy. You know, it’s really it was maybe a combination of discomfort and being enormous and hot. And maybe also really impatient for the baby. So I kept going and I was so had been basically warned not to do any sort of intervention, any kind of even mild induction you know, just wait natural, natural natural. And then we got to this point, probably like over a week past the due date, where I would I went into what felt like labor at night, and the contractions are pretty strong. Like coming like three minutes. Apart, not able to sleep, having to breathe and do all the stuff during them. And then when we were like okay in the morning, we’re gonna go to the birthing center and this is it and then during the day, it would just stop and this is what I mean by like nothing in my birthing classes prepared me because I did not know that that was a thing. And there is That’s true. It’s called prodromal labor, I guess. And that went on for almost five days. 

P: oh Wow.

  

So prodromal labor is quote, real labor and that the contractions are real and very much like the contractions in active labor. But in this case, the contractions start and stop and they don’t cause changes in the cervix. In active labor. The contractions are opening the cervix. We don’t really know what causes prodromal labor and its arrival doesn’t necessarily mean that active labor is on the near horizon. It can come a month before the baby is born. 

D: So during that time, I could barely eat and I wasn’t sleeping and I was getting weaker and weaker. And I was really scared and confused. You know and this is where the what ifs come in. Why didn’t she go to the hospital and maybe get an induction she’s 10 days pass or you know well, it was almost 42 weeks, but I was so frightened. And I’d had the like fear of God burned into me about Pitocin or whatever the like these dangerous things were that were going to result in an intervention and a C section and all these horrible outcomes. So I didn’t I didn’t. And then I actually was on the phone with a midwife who had taught me the Hypno birthing and she wasn’t my midwife.

And she said, I’m really getting scared for you, Diana. You’re not sleeping and you’re just at the beginning of this. You need to eat and sleep and gather your strength and like you should go to the hospital. And so I went and I think what they did was you know, they checked me out to see if I was dilated and maybe it was like one or two centimeters but like really not things had not really gotten going. So I think they gave me like they actually gave me a sleeping pills so I could sleep a little through the contractions and then they did an induction they did a something called cervadil which I didn’t even know was a thing. It’s you know, the little cert you know, put the stuff on your cervix. I kind of slept through it I think maybe and and now when I think back I’m like that if I had done that five days earlier, like who knows I was so exhausted by the time things really got going. 

P: Yeah, 

D: but that did get things going. So there we were, and we were in and out of the job. And to be honest, I don’t know how other women like I don’t know if you remember I my memories of that birth are very blurred. Maybe it was due to just the sleep deprivation for like the days leading up to it. Maybe it was just in the zone. But what happened was I had the baby was what they call op or sunnyside up occipital posterior, which was also not really a thing that I’d known about was that your baby could be in a position, which means you’re gonna have excruciating back labor and things aren’t gonna progress. 

P: Yeah. 

D: So I was like they said I was doing great and they kept checking me and I was like only at six centimeters you know? And they’re like your baby sunnyside up. You have to go try to shift her otherwise this isn’t going to progress. And I don’t know how many hours we’ve been at it. I mean, but basically this is the culmination of like a whole five day thing. 

PI’m not sure what shift her means. What does that mean?

D: they were they told me to go out and stomp up and down the hall.

You know in my I was delirious to try to get the baby to roll or something. You know, I guess she wasn’t low enough yet that so her she wouldn’t be like face up. 

P: These seem like crazy instructions for someone in your situation like they might as well have asked you to go jump rope. 

D: Like exactly. I know but I was like okay, you know, because I remember they kept checking me like still only six centimeters like it was stalled stalled stalled. This is why it stalled because your baby’s in this position and the thing about back labor, which you know, I learned after this whole experience that this is very similar to what my mother had with me. 

P: Oh, wow. 

D: Like she never told me that after I gave birth and she said yeah, you were occipital posterior. You were sunnyside up. I had back labor. It was excruciating. That was the word she used.

 

And this is what goes unsaid between mothers and daughters because there’s me right in the candle light with the homebirth baby and reading the Sheila kids singer and like thinking my mom was this goddess and her first baby. I was a low forceps delivery in 1973 She says she knows that if she didn’t give in in England if she had given birth in like the US today I would have been a C section no question. 

P: Yeah, yeah, 

D: you know, anyways, you know, I came out with my head all squeezed from the forceps. Yeah. And she she tore like that she just ripped her whole perineum after that forceps delivery. I mean, she said it was excruciating. So I’m not. I kind of wish maybe you don’t you can’t tell a woman that ahead of time. 

P: This is a good thing that I am trying to get to the heart of in kind of recasting the narrative of what pregnancy is, is like and includes for people who you know, for your your daughters or my daughters.

I want to inform without scaring you to say like this is a panoply of things that might happen or none of that happened but but just don’t be a you may have felt differently if you knew Oh, back labor is a thing. And it’s really challenging and like it’s supposed to suck like this much. Right, 

D: right. And even I feel like that sort of glorification of natural birth which was in my community. For example, when my sister had her first baby. She was at a different kind of community in San Francisco, like a more urban one. And I don’t know, she just was like, oh, yeah, and then I got my epidural. 

P: Yeah.

D: Like here that was considered failing. You know, going down this terrible slope of interventions, like, you know, they’re just so many choices that I felt like I wasn’t presented with maybe because of this idealization of a natural labor, which for all the things that were going on with my body, so the position my baby was in…. So so let’s go back to the chronology, they told me to go stomp down the hall, you know, and it’s late at night. I’ve been inactive laborers, you know, for at least 12 hours, maybe longer, but also I’d been in that prodromal labor for days of contractions that stop and start but literally very painful contractions. They just weren’t doing anything. And I’m stomping.

And like, half naked I mean, I must have been looked absolutely insane. And then I went blind. I couldn’t see 

P: out in the hall while you’re stopping. Yeah.

D:  And I started screaming. I can’t see anything I can’t see.

P: I’m going to stop the interview here. Midway through Diana’s story. At this point, she’s fully and completely left the realm of a delivery that bears any resemblance to her expectations. Preeclampsia affects five to 8% of pregnancies. And as it did in Diana’s case, it can come on suddenly. It’s hard to fully appreciate the extreme stress Diana and her husband felt when she lost her sight.

  

Many women seem to have encountered high blood pressure on the way to preeclampsia or other things in pregnancy report that having high blood pressure doesn’t really feel like anything. So even though it’s dangerous, it doesn’t feel scary in the same way that complete

so even though it’s dangerous, it doesn’t feel scary in the way that complete vision loss would. Even when the doctors told her she had severe preeclampsia, the uncertainty of how her case would develop loomed large: if she’d regain her sight, if the baby would be okay, if she would be okay were unknowns for long enough to leave a lasting impression. Pregnancy is often referred to as a stress test, and more often than not I’ve thought about this in the context of the physical challenges of pregnancy but Diana and her partner experience a whole other dimension. It’s an important story to hear both to recognize the amazing resilience and grit Diana displays, and to better manage our own expectations of all the things that pregnancy can contain.
 
Thanks for listening. We’ll be back next week with the conclusion of this story and commentary from a neuro opthalmologist. 

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Episode 60SN: Managing Abortion and Postpartum Depression as a Psychiatric Nurse: Nina’s Story, Part I

Today’s show features a guest that can give us some perspective on the current climate around two important topics: abortion and postpartum depression. She’s a psychiatric nurse practitioner, who experienced an abortion in the 1970s and peripartum and postpartum depression in the 1990s. She’s written about her experience. In a piece, titled “No Stranger”. Here are some excerpts from her writing. First, she writes:

“How do you know?” the patient might ask. I lean forward a bit in my

office chair, a magic mix of science and empathy, or so I would like to

think. The woman sitting across from me may be dabbing at her eyes

with her fingers. If her nails are chewed to bloody shreds, I will fold my

own more tightly in my lap.

“I’ve been a nurse practitioner for a long time,” I will say. “More

women than you think go through this. It’s hormonal…”

And a little later in the piece she writes:

Early on I figured that postpartum depression was

a risk for me, but expected I could balance my emotional happiness and

stability against my physiological tendency towards clinical depression,

if I was ever so lucky as to get pregnant. And besides, I was a

professional. With training and resources.

So here’s the thing with training and resources: Depression robs

you of the clarity to use any of those skills or supports.

One note to add: I’m changing the format of the show a little: sharing people’s stories in more manageable pieces. So you’ll hear the front half of the story right now, and the back half next Friday…and with that, we’ll get to the story

You can find Nina’s published work here

Information on the newly approved drugs for postpartum depression

https://www.zulresso.com/about-zulresso

This episode includes the interview with the UNC MD researcher working on PPD drugs

Audio Transcript

Paulette: Hi welcome to war stories from the womb. I’m your host Paulette kamenecka. I’m an economist and a writer, and the mother of two girls. Today’s show features a guest that can give us some perspective on the current climate around two important topics: abortion and postpartum depression. She’s a psychiatric nurse practitioner, who experienced an abortion in the 1970s and peripartum and postpartum depression in the 1990s.

P:  Here are some excerpts from her writing. First, she writes:

“How do you know?” the patient might ask. I lean forward a bit in my

office chair, a magic mix of science and empathy, or so I would like to

think. The woman sitting across from me may be dabbing at her eyes

with her fingers. If her nails are chewed to bloody shreds, I will fold my

own more tightly in my lap.

“I’ve been a nurse practitioner for a long time,” I will say. “More

women than you think go through this. It’s hormonal…”

And a little later in the piece she writes:

Early on I figured that postpartum depression was

a risk for me, but expected I could balance my emotional happiness and

stability against my physiological tendency towards clinical depression,

if I was ever so lucky as to get pregnant. And besides, I was a

professional. With training and resources.

So here’s the thing with training and resources: Depression robs

you of the clarity to use any of those skills or supports.

One note to add: I’m changing the format of the show a little: sharing people’s stories in more manageable pieces. So you’ll hear the front half of the story right now, and the back half next Friday…and with that, we’ll get to the story

P: Hi thanks so much for coming to the show. Can you introduce yourself and tell us where you’re from?

Nina: Oh, my name is Nina gaby long i Long A I am originally from Rochester New York and I now live in Central Vermont.

P: Oh wow nice. Oh is that cold for colder? Is that the trade

N: cold for we came to Vermont like got a on an adventure.

P: Nice Vermont’s Nice. So do you will you define your profession?

N: So I am a psychiatric nurse practitioner and clinical nurse specialist. And you know some of your listeners may know that that entails being an RN and then becoming an advanced practice RN with additional clinical experience and a master’s degree and many are getting doctorates now to become nurse practitioners. and it’s a state by state kind of certification. So in the state of Vermont, I have prescriptive authority. So I can prescribe medications, I diagnose people, evaluate them, give them complete workups psychiatric works up workups and then I, I prescribe medications and then I follow them. And I do psychotherapy, when time allows

P: Okay, so that’s a that’s a pretty broad specialty. And I imagine you’ve seen a lot of things in no small part because of the writing that you sent me which we will get to because I have read your piece called No stranger. I know more than I do going into Most interviews. So why don’t you tell us about the first pregnancy first just to kind of set the stage.

N: The first pregnancy was in 1974 and it was an unwanted pregnancy. And I forever will be so thankful to Roe v Wade it allowed me to go on with my life. I would not have been able to have been a good mother. At that time. I was in a relationship that it had been an International Love Affair once we were speaking the same language it it wasn’t working well at all. I had just graduated with my first degree, which was a bachelor’s in fine art. And I had already set up a studio and I already not even out of college had orders for galleries. From again, I was very fortunate from Hawaii to Cape Cod, fine, fine craft galleries. So I was just on the precipice of my life and despite significant birth control. I found myself pregnant in a relationship that I could not handle. I was drinking heavily and there was no way I could have been a mom and I

P: Yeah, was looking for. I saw you said two forms of birth control or something like that.

N: I had you remember to remember the old Dalcon shield.

P: You know that’s before my time. So I’ve heard of it but I don’t know how it works.

N: So it looks like it’s like a little bit like a scorpion with lots of legs coming off of it. It is a an evil looking thing and hurt like hell all the time. And I don’t want to get pregnant i mean I knew I thought I knew what I was doing. So we use, you know, condoms and we were so incredibly careful. And nonetheless, you know, pregnancy happens no matter how careful we are. And so yeah so that was the first pregnancy and then the second pregnancy.

P: Wait, so wait before you before you get to the second one. You say Can I quote your piece? Yeah, say I recall. Now my preoccupation with how how maybe because I’d had an abortion at 23 I would never be allowed by the powers of the universe to ever get pregnant again. This is not normally the way I think and finding it crazy. I mentioned it to no one.

I think I think a lot of people do carry that with them.

N: I also think that people don’t talk about it. Yeah, I mean, I think we would have to, so when I was thinking that way I was in you know, kind of throes of depression leading up to the pregnancy and I was I was already depressed because I was turning 40 And I wanted to have a baby and now I was I was so stable now I was sober for some I had been sober since I was 29 years old. I had a wonderful solid relationship of, a really solid marriage. I had a career a career that, being an artist was a wonderful career but, moving into healthcare was significantly more stabilizing. So I had decided I wanted to have a baby because I could be a great mom

P: yeah

N: and provide for that baby and it was a whole different thing. And then it wasn’t getting pregnant and pro and prone to depression and anxiety anyway. And so, as that was happening, I was just I was approaching 40 I was really depressed and that’s when that’s that’s kind of crazy cause and effect, thinking, you know, that magical thinking stuff starts happening where it’s like, oh, I’m being punished by the universe, which is not not what happens. that’s not why we don’t get pregnant. There’s a lot of reasons why we don’t get pregnant and that’s not one of them.

P: I 100% agree, right. that’s not scientific. I just think I’ve talked to a lot of women who get an abortion for one reason or another, and then condemn themselves and feel like, come up and say or whatever happens, right, they’re joining to things that are unrelated 

 

N: easy to do, isn’t it? Because, I think when we first you know had access to safe and legal abortion, we were kind of on a high from that, and when we didn’t really, think that much about it. I mean, I really don’t know that many people who didn’t get abortions at some point because they were, women who were thinking through their lives, and this is what I need to do right now and I can’t do this right now and you know, just, make these decisions and then probably you remember more and more, like Saturday mornings, you’d go to the farmers market and there’d be, people protesting abortions and then people lining up in front of the abortion clinics and, screaming and shaming people and more and more it got no, it it got much more difficult to ignore the fact that there was a faction. I don’t know if you recall Dr. Bernard Slepian. from Buffalo, New York, but he was an abortion provider and in in Buffalo, and he was shot through his kitchen window and kill and I was still living in Rochester at the time. So it was,right next door of city right next door to us and route called, the lambs of God took some responsibility for that, for that murder. Although I don’t think they actually were ever charged would have nobody was from that group was ever charged with doing it.

P: According to his Wikipedia page, Dr. Slepian murder was the climax of a series of five sniper attacks in four years in Northern New York and Canada. In 1988, he was the fourth doctor in the United States to be murdered for performing abortions. He’s killer James cop went on the FBI 10 most wanted list and was ultimately found hiding in France in 2001. That cop was extradited, tried and convicted of second degree murder in Buffalo and is currently serving a 25 to life sentence. cop was also convicted of federal charges and sentenced to life in prison without parole.

N: But they came to Rochester and threatened another doctor Dr. Wartman we’re applying a whole bunch of us went to Dr. woman’s house and we circled the house to protect him you know and have the like these anti abortion people on one side of the street and then the news people were in the middle of the street and we were on the other side of the street. And I’ll never forget it was it was so interesting because the news people really wanted a story. And you know what happens? You know, I walked across the street and I started chit chatting with one of the anti abortion people and somebody else came across the street and started talking to us and before you knew it, we were all in the middle of the street talking. There was no news there was no shootout. But more and more of those things kind of started to happen. And so we really started to realize that maybe there was something to all this you know, I don’t know, I I think I changed my mind every few minutes about what all that means. But yeah, 

P: that’s a lot. The politics around this is so loud, it’s hard to have a real conversation. Okay, so now flash forward, you’re 40 you do get pregnant. 

N: I get pregnant. Yep. On my 40th birthday. 

P: Oh, wow. 

N: It was really I mean, I I bought up pregnancy tests because all of a sudden I realized, oh my god, I haven’t gotten my period. I feel like I’ve been PMS thing but I don’t have my period and so I woke up on my 40th birthday and, and the you know, the little pink lines happened and and so well that was great. Until Until a lot of the hormones started to kick in. It wasn’t it wasn’t a fabulous pregnancy.

P: So what hormones kick in pretty quickly. Does that mean the first trimester was hard or

N: the first trimester? I was working a very intense job. I was working on a crisis team. It was my job to work with people with very, very severe mental illness who were very symptomatic. And nobody wanted to use up the hospital beds for for psychiatry. So they created the crisis team and I was just immersed in it. I mean, I was working so so so hard, and so I didn’t really think that much about too much. and we were buying a house so that we would have a nice house and a tree lined street because we’ve been living in a in a strange little place. So we were like, we’re gonna get a real house and the closest picket fence, I think. Um, so the first trimester it was like really exciting because everybody you know, had a lot of colleagues and everybody was really happy for me and,then I I just really started to get more tired and I didn’t want to admit that I wasn’t going to be doing the Stairmaster on the day of my delivery date. And I think I mentioned in the, in that piece that I wrote that I did know a lot of women who we’re having these beautifully filmed births, home births, and like literally expensive mascara and French lingerie, and,it’s like, I was getting more and more ungainly. I was gaining all this weight. I was so tired and then I took on more and more I was teaching a class as well as working full time and we had just moved into a house and we hadn’t even gotten it. the inside rooms painted and, it’s really, I was going about 20 hours a day and then my my body just said no more. And I had a case manager who was my teammate, and she said, Something’s very wrong. And I said, I’m fine. I’m fine, I’m fine. And she said, No, something’s really wrong. And she said, you’re short of breath and you’re just not yourself. And so she, she came into my office, she locked the door behind her. She sat down, she shoved the phone over at me and she said, you’re going absolutely no place until you call your OBGYN and she and she was right. I called my OBGYN and he said I don’t want I don’t like the way this sounds come on over. What was holding me together was work. Like work was work with holding me together. I mean, these patients and they needed me and, I was so vital and you know how it is. And I went over and he said, you’re starting to efface. And what you experienced the other night probably was losing your mucus plug. And so I’m at seven months, right seven months, and he said, so. I’m gonna go lie down and you don’t get up again until I tell you you can put this like his little plastic basket up against my cervix to hold my cervix shut. 

P:Wow. 

N: And, and that was that I was on bedrest. So these are all

P: he’s putting on divers to prevent premature delivery. And what you mentioned that he said, Oh, that thing that happened before was probably the mucus plug. Did you have something that happened that alarmed you? 

N: Yeah, well, I was totally in denial about it. Like oh, what’s that? Well, you know, I don’t know. And so here I was a health care professional. And I was just not, you know, ready to pay attention to my own fallibility. And, and that’s you know, that’s when the the postpartum stuff the pre postpartum stuff really started to kick in because there I was, you know, lying on the couch. Living for Geraldo Rivera Rivera. I mean, that way, he was just, you know, he was he was my guy, and I, you know, I’ve always it’s my guilty pleasure. I love soap operas.

I have since I was a child with my you know, in what would watch them with my grandmother.

N: So, you know, I would I got like, totally, there was soap operas then on all day long. And so if anybody called me while the soap operas around to see how I was, I wouldn’t answer the phone. You know, I mean, I got I was really getting crazy. And then

P: that sounds pretty difficult to go from the whirlwind of all the cases in the crisis center to bed.

N: Bed, right. That sounds pretty bad. Yeah. Yeah. So it was it was it was a very, very difficult time and of course, we don’t know how different I mean, I would hope that it would be different now. I did not feel as though though I was part I was I was in a good OBGYN practice. I mean, they’ve been around forever and, and an artist for so long and the reason I knew my OB GYN was because his wife was an artist and they used to buy my work. So I felt a connection and you know, it wasn’t like I was completely dismissed. But I think the emotional, emotional component of what someone like me a woman of you know, high powered woman, like me goes through when suddenly dreadful I don’t, I don’t I don’t think that I was not tended to. Well, I was I afterwards, but I refuse to let anybody know how bad things were afterwards because I was convinced that once I told anybody how crazy I was, that they would take my daughter away from me.

P: Well, we’ll get to that because it’s totally interesting. And it is. I mean, it highlights how difficult it is to find someone’s postpartum. You know, even even therapists and people who are trained in this field, don’t necessarily recognize it in the most in themselves. So it’s a really difficult thing, but why don’t you take us to the birth I guess it sounds like you were not imagining a home birth with French lingerie and a video camera. But But what were you hoping?

N: No, I actually kind of was initially and then my, my OB GYN said, Don’t you be thinking about none of those births or nurse midwives or anything like that because I had shared with him that when I went into when I went to nursing school, I had thought about becoming a nurse midwife. That’s a whole other story. And so he was like, that’s not happening. You are going to do exactly what I tell you to do. You’re going to have amniocentesis, you’re going to have this you’re going to have blood glucose levels. You’re going to you know, you’re going to do you know, your elderly primigravida And you’re going to do what I tell you to do. So, the birth was two weeks late, because once I settled down, nothing happened. And so they actually, they actually lied to me about my water. Having broke I asked them if they thought my water had broke, because you know, when when the baby is lying very heavy on your bladder, you can leak urine, or you wonder did my water break in? Is it slowly very slowly leaking out? So he told me yes, that’s what he thought. He thought my water had broke. So then I knew enough that you know, baby had to be born with in a certain amount of time. And when I didn’t progress, labor wise, told me I had to have a C section. I didn’t want a C section. More than anything I didn’t want to see section.

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Episode 59SN: Experiencing a Late Term Abortion: Kate’s story

Today’s episode features the story of an extremely challenging pregnancy that ended in a late term abortion, which was difficult for many reasons, and made more so by the politics and legal apparatus around abortion. My guest was well into a pregnancy that felt off to her in ways she could describe, but which didn’t trigger any particular medical action, because first, the diagnosis when it came was for a very rare condition, and secondly, she made it past the 20 week screen with no visible issues on ultrasound. That my guests first pregnancy was visited by a significant hemorrhage and was By comparison, the easier pregnancy gives you some sense. One thing she says that I think bears repeating upfront is that extreme circumstances sometimes lead to extreme actions. 

To connect with Kate:

TFMR group support at Ending a Wanted Pregnancy

Coaching and blog at Nightbloom Coaching

Esquire Magazine article about Dr. Hern

https://classic.esquire.com/article/2009/9/1/the-last-abortion-doctor

Statistics on Dandy Walker Malformation

https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/condition/dandy-walker-malformation/

https://www.ninds.nih.gov/health-information/disorders/dandy-walker-syndrome

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diseases/6002-dandy-walker-syndrome

CDC numbers on abortion

https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/abortion.htm

Audio Transcript

Paulette: Hi, welcome to war stories from the womb. I’m your host, Paulette kamenecka. I’m an economist and a writer and the mother of two girls. Today’s episode features the story of an extremely challenging pregnancy that ended in a late term abortion, which was difficult for many reasons, and made more so by the politics and legal apparatus around abortion. My guest was well into a pregnancy that felt off to her in ways she could describe, but which didn’t trigger any particular medical action, because first, the diagnosis when it came was for a very rare condition, and secondly, she made it past the 20 week screen with no visible issues on ultrasound. That my guests first pregnancy was visited by a significant hemorrhage and was By comparison, the easier pregnancy gives you some sense. One thing she says that I think bears repeating upfront is that extreme circumstances sometimes lead to extreme actions. 

I’ll let her tell her story. 

 

Hi, thanks so much for coming on the show. Can you introduce yourself and tell us where you’re from?



Kate: Yes, my name is Kate Carson, and I’m from Massachusetts. 

 

P: Okay, wow, fun. We’re going to talk about families and so maybe we should start this conversation talking about the family you came from and how that may or may not have influenced your ideas about the family wanted?

 

K: Absolutely. 

 

P: Do you have siblings? 

 

K: Yes, I have a younger brother. He’s like two years younger than me. I grew up in a family with both my mom and my dad and my brother. And I have a pretty great family of origin. You know, we would eat dinner together every night at six and we did family vacations together and it was a really solid place to get a start.

 

P: And did you think growing up I want to be a mom.

 

K: Absolutely. Yep. Being a mom is the only thing I ever knew for sure. I wanted to be

 

P: oh well, that’s awesome. So let’s fast forward to the being the mom part.  Was it easy to get pregnant?

 

K: You know, the first child didn’t feel easy to me at the time. But if I known then what I know now I would say yes, that was super easy. It took us five months and then we got pregnant. And it was a beautiful pregnancy. When I was pregnant with my daughter Elsie. I was sick for for the beginning. But then the fog lifted and I was just glowing and I felt incredible. And I loved being pregnant with my first pregnancy. 

 

P: That’s awesome. And how was that birth?

 

K: the birth itself was good. I had planned a hospital birth and again, if I had known then what I know now I might have made some different decisions and different plans but I labored for like 19 hours and then I was tired and I said now I’m gonna get the epidural. So I got the epidural. What’s difficult is I’m a puker, not in life, but in pregnancy and birth, so I was vomiting a lot and that was really exhausting and distracting from the process, because it was also sort of one of those people’s a little afraid of vomit. So they gave me some antiemetics and that helped. And when I did have my baby, I was you know, on my back and they brought a mirror and I really liked that they brought a mirror I just remember her head and merging and there were these decreases in her skull and my husband and I just looked at each other for a second like is this okay? And then we looked at the nurses, and they seemed totally chill and we were like oh it was be normal to come out like a raisin. 

 

And she was born and they had to suck out her lungs because of the meconium. So it wasn’t perfect you know, like she was separated from me for a few minutes at the beginning. If I had been better supported to move around. I might not have needed the epidural that kind of thing. But it was the hospital it was the is the hospital I chosen. It was the birthday of planned for. I had her vaginally. There was a little bit of tearing that much it after a few hours after I had a bleeding emergency and that was not great. That was quite traumatic. 

 

P: Let me slow you down a little bit here. So first question is you didn’t get the epidural till 19 hours in because you were imagining you weren’t going to get one at all. 

 

K: Yeah, that was that was the plan. Okay, 

 

P: you can see the birth is something that’s very hard to plan for because there’s no experience, no experience like it and you have no idea how exhausted you’ll be right until you get there. And then you had a hemorrhage or what happened after

 

K: I did…I had a hemorrhage and it must have been happening in my womb but it was blocked because it was several hours after the birth. I’d eaten I finally stood up to brush my teeth. And it was in the bathroom. I was standing there. It was just like I looked down. It was a small bathroom but I had totally covered the floor was what like the entire entire bathroom was a pool of my blood

 

P: goosebumps. Yikes. 

 

K: Yeah. And I looked at my husband and he looked at me and said call the nurse and he went out in the hall. That was his first impulse was to go out in the hallway and he caught the nurse coming in the hall and he said my wife needs you. she’s bleeding. She needs you. The nurse. Not come. She gave him the Oh, like she didn’t say this out loud. But I know how nurses feel about husbands and blood. You know, she assumed he was being a worse and she went on with her with her. 

 

P: Wow. 

 

K: So I was still standing there looking up at my reflection in this pool of my own blood. And seconds were ticking by and the minutes were and I just looked it up and I was like pull the string. So my husband pulled the string and when they pull the string they have to come so the nurse came back in and she she looked annoyed she was visibly annoyed when she came back in and she took one look at me. And then I could see she was afraid. She was afraid. And I think it was the kind of fear where it was like, um, like she dies on my watch. And I didn’t come you know like it was it was very bad.

 

P: But also scary for you to see her scared. 

 

K: Like totally, absolutely. 

 

P: So how are you feeling physically like are you feeling faint? Are you feel totally fine.

 

K: That moment? 

 

P: Yeah. 

 

K: I was feeling I call it crisis consciousness. So they pushed me down on the bed and they were trying to save my life but to my body to me it felt like quite a violent, extreme thing to have happen where they push you down on the bed. They’re really pumping my body on the womb to try to get it to contract against smaller things are going in every orifice. They’re suppositories going in my anus. They’re like things are putting in my mouth. They’re putting stuff in my veins just to try to get the uterus to contract and stop bleeding. And then the doctor comes in and with love goes on up to the elbow in her hand into my poor body. They just had a baby all the way up to the elbow, and basically wiping out like grabbing for any placenta or anything that was left in the womb. 

 

There was no time so the pain medication was not Kicking in yet. So that was way worse than the birth. When people say birth is the worst kind of pain to me birth has a certain kind of intensity in the body like a really extreme physical power and intensity that sometimes includes pain, but it’s not a pure pain experience. This was a pure pain experience, and so it was scary and it was painful and when I was recovering from my birth, I was also recovering from that. I did not need a blood transfusion fortunately, but it was borderline and they kept waking up the thing about hospitals they wake you up all night long when you’re there. Pretty strange because I really feel that sleep is like the most important thing to healing both physically and emotionally. 

 

So they would take my– they must have been testing my hematocrit or something, testing to see what my iron was to decide whether or not it would get a blood transfusion. My baby, of course had been taken to the nursery during this and my husband had been sent out of the room. When I was discharged from the hospital. We all were invited to go talk to a lactation consultant. So I went down the harmful times that lactuation consulting there were a bunch of all the mothers on the ward were there and the fathers to the lactation consultant asked any of you send your child to the nursery? I raised my hand and she said Did she get any formula? I said yes. They said that they fed her from a syringe a couple of cc of formula. And she pressed me down. She made an example of me in front of all the others. She told me that I would not be successful breastfeeding as I had let them take my daughter to the nursery told her she told me that it was like he would never latch because of that. That that I basically like screwed my entire bonding opportunity. 

 

P: That’s crazy. That’s crazy. What while you’re down I’ll kick you if that’s fine. 

 

K; like he’s like this is supposed to be support for new mothers Right? Like, even have a lactation consultant now to support new mothers. My breastfeeding journey was difficult, but not for latching reasons. And I successfully breastfeed my daughter but even if I hadn’t, you know, yeah, that wouldn’t have been my that wouldn’t have been why all those

 

P: all those things you’re describing suggest weird dissonance between like the medical care that you’re giving the emotion of this whole process, right? They’re like divorced completely and I totally get that they have to save your life in the moment and they need to do the things they need to do but to not have someone there to also be comforting and I understand that kicking your husband out because he’s gonna freak out and it’s terrifying to watch your loved one in this. But then to leave you there as if you’re like, getting a two pulled or something. 

 

K: Yes, 

 

P: on your own. seems weird to me.

 

K: It seems weird to me too. And it’s just even if it was the thing I needed for my physical safety in the moment. feels extremely unsafe in every way like it feels to my body and to my mind, like it is the most violent thing that’s ever happened to me. You know, so it’s so confusing. To have it be like I know my doctor is trying to do the right thing and help me but that’s not my experience of it at all.

 

P: Good Lord. Well, I’m glad you weather that and so sorry that that happened. That sounds like I mean it’s it’s like shocking to hear so I can’t even imagine experiencing it because it’s totally scary.

 

K: I used to be a teacher and now I’m a somatic coach. And so to be a somatic coach had to go through all of these cell processes on myself that I then work with other people, and one of them is a vaginal De armoring process where we do pressure point like trigger point in the vagina and on the cervix. And when I got to the cervix and I applied pressure to the cervix. I got I flashback to this. This is what was in my cervix and I would know enough about my trauma to like usually when I’m dealing with trauma, I’m not dealing with my first birth I’m doing with my second birth but when I went to my cervix versus what was their bleeding event. 

 

P: I mean that’s amazing. I’m telling that like this, this is not the traumatic one. This was not the harder one right? 

 

K: This was not the harder one 

 

P: so you leave the hospital your baby’s fine. So all that is good.

 

K: My baby grew so fast. She was so chubby. My difficulties with breastfeeding were in getting comfortable breastfeeding, but I have made way too much milk. It was super fatty she was thriving. So even the problems they had were not the scary problems. They were uncomfortable problems. I found a really good lactation consultant, really supportive who undid some of the challenge before and the support group and so it was among other moms who are also going through the same things. breastfeeding support. And you know, that part was fine. I didn’t I didn’t have hormonal mood disorders or any I mean, I had some baby blues, but I didn’t have like the postpartum depression. I didn’t have any trouble bonding. I just had trouble figuring out how to breastfeed without pain and eventually with the help of doctors and lactation consultants that settled out 

 

P: okay good

 

K:  yeah, so I would say that it was really good she’s she’s still very strong and bright and calm. And she’s she was an easy baby and she’s very much the same person. Now she was then

 

P: that’s awesome. So how long between the birth of the first child and the pregnancy for the second one?

 

K: Well, there were three miscarriages in there. But I would have been on track to be having a baby like three years later, so two and a half years ish until I was pregnant with the next one that I consider a baby No. First miscarriage was a blighted ovum. And the next one was fairly early, and then the next one was even earlier. So it was hard to go through that and that’s when I sort of learned like, oh, five months of trying and then having a healthy baby is actually not a hard journey to get pregnant. Like now I’m having these losses and I’m afraid what does this mean? What does this mean about my body? What does this mean about my fertility? Right? 

 

P: Yeah, that sounds much more complicated and so interesting, because I think all of us for the first one imagine the minute you start trying to be pregnant because you’ve spent your life until then, like worried that you get pregnant right when you weren’t ready or

 

K: Absolutely my whole life until then. I mean, I can’t tell you how many years I was on the pill. I was on the pill before I was sexually active because of really bad cramps. And then I continued on the pill when I was sexually active. I would sometimes use condoms as well. I had been so careful because it just felt it’s interesting to grow up feeling like my womb is like a ticking time bomb of catastrophe, right? Yeah. Not the relationship I want my daughters to have to.

 

P: That is a really good way to describe it. It is like a tricky, tricky relationship there. So now you’re pregnant and this one sticks. 

 

K: This one sticks, and I’m glad that it’s sticking but I’m also very anxious because of all the miscarriages I’ve had before so it doesn’t it doesn’t feel real for a while I’m very sick for this pregnancy. Second, on second sticky pregnancy. And I’m just like, sick all the time having a really hard time making it through the week. I remember I would take my daughter Elsie was two at the time, take her to the grocery store because she could just like grab up to go meal and I would sit there and eat and I remember there was a week. I could not eat and I know how bad that is. I remember my midwife being like you have to eat but like, easy to say you have to eat. It’s really hard to put food into your body when you’re as nauseous as I was.

 

P: Yeah. And not excited to throw up.

 

K: Yes, I’m fearful of vomiting. But there was this one day at the end of that week where I had asked him not wanting to fast where I just saw the pepperoni pizza and I was like, yes. Nobody asked him a few pepperoni pizza. So I bought one and I ate it and then it got back up and went through bought another one and I ate it and it was like, okay, okay, now I can eat. The pregnancy was a little bit difficult in other ways too. I developed sleep apnea during this pregnancy and that like I was falling asleep on the park bench not just in the first trimester when your hormonal exhausted but like into the second trimester. 

 

You know, I was like 25 weeks and falling asleep at the park because I wasn’t sleeping at night. And I called my family physician. And he immediately referred me to a specialist. The specialist was a neurologist and I went in, he looked at me and he goes you’re pregnant. And he said you don’t have sleep apnea. You have restless leg syndrome because you’re pregnant. I said, I’m quite sure I don’t have restless leg and my husband says I stopped breathing at night. Here hears it. He witnesses it. Can I please have a sleep study and he turned me around and I stood up for myself to a point but not far enough. I did not make enough of a nuisance of myself to get that sleep study and I went home defeated and continued having sleep apnea. 

 

So years later, I did get the diagnosis and I got the CPAP it feels terrible to be discounted that way in your pregnancy 

 

P: yes, yes. 

 

K: Meanwhile, with my obstetric team, I would tell them that I was very anxious about this pregnancy. And maybe because I was using the word anxious. They will be like okay, it’s a problem as anxiety, right? They would take the heart rate they would like measure me they’d be like, everything’s great. And I’d say, you don’t understand like something feels really wrong with this baby.

 

P: No one has explained or understands what led to the repeated miscarriages at this point. 

 

K: correct. My first miscarriage I got a DNC so you go on the internet. And the internet is convinced that everyone has Asherman’s syndrome, which is scarring and adhesions of the womb and there are some women who do so I’m really glad these groups exist, but it there’s a real bias pushing people towards that assumption online. And so I thought I had Ashmans so I got seen by someone who put a scope in my uterus and took a look around in the walls of my womb were very smooth and very pink just the way they should have been. So that was not my situation. I still don’t know why I had those miscarriages. I have no reason why anything that happened to me happened. 

 

P: I was kind of imagining that your anxiety is to some degree related to this uncertainty about what was going wrong before but it also sounds like your body has some intuition that like something’s not quite right.

 

K: Both of those things are true. At the beginning. It was just based on the path of miscarriages I’ve been on and not having any reasons and just like wanting this so badly and feeling so out of control of it. Right. Is very normal. A lot of people Yeah, in pregnancy. The pregnancy progressed, different things felt wrong, like things I could actually point to felt wrong. And I got my scan at like, what like 19 weeks 20 weeks when I got my anatomy scan. They left the room and didn’t come back for like a half an hour. And my husband and I were looking at each other and being like, are we done? They didn’t say goodbye but they also didn’t say to wait. We left and my midwife called and was like, Why did you leave? And they said because I thought it was over. They ended up escalating us for a closer look. I thought they saw something on that ultrasound and they escalated us for a closer look like teaching hospital the level two with the maternal fetal medicine specialist. He took a look and he was like a long look like an hour long like and he said everything looks perfect. I’m so glad to give you this news that everything looks perfect. The genetic counselor was ready to like break out the champagne. And I remember looking at her and saying how short is he? Should we come back for another look like how short is he that everything’s okay? And she said like by overturning that concern. He basically is staking his job on it. That everything’s okay. She’s so sure we said okay, and we went on our way

 

P: and they didn’t tell you what what they saw that caused them to ask for the higher level.

 

K: Eventually they did but no not not when they sent me for the high level they were like just don’t just don’t google it. Just don’t google it. You know, when it was dandy Walker malformation was the thing they thought they saw and they sent me that’s a brain malformation, a set of brain malformations and they sent me to him and he was like No, this baby’s fine.

 

P: Dandy Walker malformation is a brain malformation that occurs during embryonic development and affects the cerebellum area of the brain that helps coordinate movement and is involved in cognition vision and behavior. With this condition, the cerebellum is absent or very small. In some cases, like Kate’s it can also affect other parts of the brain. 

 

K: Well, that hung over me too. 

 

P: Yeah, 

 

K: right. So that was one of the other things that was hanging over me and then this thing I could really point to was the way my baby move was so weird way my baby moved in my womb was so different than her sister. So and Elsie healthy baby was moving around in the womb, sometimes she would be very active and sometimes she would rest. Sometimes she would flutter and sometimes she would like kick her elbow or roll right like there were multiple sensations made sometimes were very active and sometimes there were long periods, hours long periods of rest, while she probably slept. This baby moved all the time. 

 

P: oh, That is weird. 

 

K: No rest. And this baby moved the same way all of the time, and it was spastic tremors and spasms all of the time. So when I would try to say this my medical team I would say something is really bothering me. She moves all the time, and they’d say, that’s great. I will tell you I don’t think there’s any literature on this. It’s been several years since I last looked. I don’t think there’s any literature so they would have no way of knowing what I was talking about. But I knew experientially in my body that it was very, very different.

 

P: So I’m guessing this as a rare condition is a rare condition. It’s really hard to be at the edge of medical understanding where you have a sense that something’s wrong but no one is echoing that back to you because they don’t know what they’re looking for.

 

K: Exactly. They believe it’s one in 10,000.

 

P: Okay, that one in 10,000 statistic may have been what was available and she was going through her pregnancy in 2012. But now doctors estimate that it’s roughly 1 in 30 1000 But Kate’s case is even more rare, given the specific complications that her pregnancy involved. To put them in perspective. According to the National Weather Service, your lifetime risk of getting struck by lightning is roughly one in 15,000.

 

K: But most people end their pregnancies rather than carry when they get this diagnosis. So even though 1 in 1o000 pregnancies may have this not one in 10,000 births.

 

P: Right. Okay. And what is the diagnosis and when did you get it?

 

K: Well, wasn’t until later when I was trying to prepare for my birth at a birth center. And my midwife was asking me how I was feeling and I expressed continued anxiety she said, You know what, we need to get a look at you because I don’t want you heading into your birth feeling this way. So she leveled me up and sent me in for an ultrasound. I was 35 weeks pregnant when I went in for that ultrasound, date of last menstrual period and they did the ultrasound and I was being very chatty. And the technician was being very quiet. I thought she was just having a bad day. She was I didn’t know why. At the very end, I was talking about how having another baby like, I know she’s going to be different but like part of me just imagines that all babies are the same. It’s gonna be just the same as when I had my first baby. And she looked me right in the eye and she said, this one’s different and sort of like froze

 

P: that’s chilling.

 

K: And then she sort of shook it off and she said they’re all different. All babies are different. And she left the room and she got the doctors and the doctors came in. Remember two women clipboards glasses, white coats. I’ve never met them before and they said, you know those problems we weren’t seeing last time you were here. We’re seeing them today. Your baby has dandy Walker malformation, and she may be missing her corpus callosum which connects the two hemispheres of the brain.

 

P: As you can imagine, the cerebellum is already compromised, and now the fetus is missing another part of its brain. As Kate mentioned, the corpus callosum is a C shaped nerve bundle that connects the two hemispheres of the brain allowing them to communicate to be born without this nerve bundle. can lead to a whole host of issues, including seizures, feeding problems, delays and holding the head have racked impairment of mental and physical development and or accumulation of fluid in the skull called hydrocephalus.

 

K: So she has several brain anomalies and they pointed it out to me on the screen. Her brain should have looked all gray all light gray on the screen, but there were big patches of black and that’s where her ventricles had swelled with fluid where you know where there should have been gray matter, but instead there was just fluid. She would eventually probably develop hydrocephalus, but no one could tell when that would happen. If it happened before she was born, it could swell her head to undeliverable proportions. They were telling me all about like, I would need a C section. And I remember I was like, but I want to breastfeed and they were like, Oh, honey, like, I don’t think you understand. You know, I was in such deep denial that I was clinging to things like but I want to breastfeed but I wanted to give birth at the birth center. But if they were like, you’re so far out of that plan right now, but I just couldn’t hear it. And the only thing I heard when they said after telling me all about the plan to stay in the hospital and resuscitate the baby basically told me, We can offer you adoption. We might be able to offer you abortion, but we just don’t know.

 

P: So what’s the prognosis for these kids?

 

K: It’s a really good question. They wouldn’t give it to me that day. But two days later, I had an MRI and I met with a neonatal neurologist. And he said that my baby given the extent of the missing pieces in her brain was not likely to ever walk, talk, support the weight of her head or coordinate swallowing she wouldn’t be able to swallow. I remember hearing the swallowing and saying this is very, very sad, but I know we don’t want a feeding tube. If this baby cannot thrive, we do not want a feeding tube we want her to pass naturally. And someone on my team said you can’t refuse an infant feeding tube. That’s not within what’s legally available to you know, that was when I sort of was like, oh my god, like what? Like, and they kept saying I couldn’t read to hospice because this was non fatal, but they also kept telling me it was going to kill her probably very quickly. So,

 

P: when they say non fatal, though, they may not immediately

 

K: that means I don’t honestly know what they mean. I didn’t know what they mean. From what I can tell. It means 0% of these babies survive more than x number of hours. So not just immediate but complete. And there are so few conditions for which there’s like no question of when a baby dies. You know what I mean? 

 

P: Yeah, 

 

K: but I will tell you that I talked to my friend after later who’s an NICU nurse. She has had a few babies like my baby and she has never seen one leave the hospital.

 

P: Wow….I assume it’s completely overwhelming,

 

K: it was completely overwhelming. And when he just kept saying like all these things, she won’t do this. She won’t do that. She won’t. He didn’t say well, he was very he was very careful with his language. I’m a scientist too, so I recognize what he was telling me. She won’t likely it most likely she will. If she walks it will be after many years of training with braces and therapy. If she talks it will be a few words after intensive verbal therapy for many years. He wasn’t making any promises but he was showing me the spectrum. The outcome was really like this person will have a very limited life if she lives at all.

 

P: And the reason that there’s uncertainty in part is because they’re looking at a scan of her brain in utero, so they can’t quite make out exactly what’s missing.

 

K: and Even if they could the brain is so plastic the brain is amazing. It is totally vital and important to life. So that if there’s a problem that can be a huge problem, but it is also very plastic and that neural networks can form. You know if there’s a normally a message that would go through the corpus callosum across the brain, sometimes the brain can figure out how to make a different network that we were using. Right? So that is how you get your people who really thrive more than expected is that their brains are plastic. Also the brain development is not complete until you’re 25 years old. So if you’re lucky and your brain is able to grow in line with your needs. Best case scenario for my child is that she would have lived, I don’t know maybe to the age of 10 Maybe that she would have been able to do a little bit of mobility for a little bit of time every day after much physical therapy. It’s you would have been able to communicate mostly non verbally. That’s still a very limited life. Right? And when I saw

 

P: it sounds like there’s so many motor functions that don’t work like swallowing and walking was confusing to me is that there are things there that are so limiting. It seems like wild to say in a couple of years. You’re gonna live with a feeding tube for a couple of years with no

 

K: children like my baby would, as long as they live with me either feeding tube or a port right like a child like that would definitely get a port they were also telling me that you know this is a seizure disorder. It will eventually result in hydrocephalus, which will cause further brain damage both the seizures and the hydrocephalus. So if you want her not to get worse as best, she would require brain surgeries. So there was this like really invasive surgery that she would need maybe multiple times over her life. Yeah. would never make her better. It would just slow down the rate of getting worse that would protect against against getting worse. But It’s painful. To all of this and being like all of these things she can’t do. I can put it in my head now because I have a friend who has a child who has survived to to into childhood with this disease or something similar to it. And so I can imagine now because I’ve done my research, but this was really acute early days. And I just couldn’t picture my child and I just wanted a picture in my head of how my child would be not just how she wouldn’t be. I asked him, she won’t do all of these things. What do children like mine do? Do they just sleep all the time? He winced and he said, children like your child are not often comfortable enough to sleep

 

P: God, taking away everything. Good lord. Yeah. So will they will they counsel you about like what to do or

 

K: sort of? It’s tricky. It’s very, very tricky. Now I do this kind of polling. So I understand how it’s tricky. It’s very tricky to hold someone in a values based life and death decision making out, pushing them or shaming them. Right so I did receive counseling from a genetic counselor. And it’s really like just this open space where you’re like, what do you need? And I was like, Well, I need to know how much this is going to cost. And she’s like, Okay, I’ll get you a social worker, who’s going to tell you how much money you need to raise a child like this in the world. I never got that far. That night when we were going home. I call my doctor said I want all my options like I want. I want them all. Please call me back with everything that you have. 

 

And so she called me back I already knew I talked all day with the intervention. Team. So I already knew that like we push for life option, but she called me back and she said, here’s the adoption number. They specialize in medically complex children here and she said, I’m so sorry, but if you want an abortion, we have to hang up right now because you have to call we had a half an hour I had to call in the next half an hour or the week would have been over in the timezone I was calling she said if to call before the end of the workweek mountain time. I remember thinking, mountain time. Right. Now, what is she talking about? But I didn’t want to provide any friction. So I just took the phone number. I said thank you. I called it and the woman picked up in Boulder, Colorado. And she explained to me she’s she again she said I’m so sorry. But if you want this abortion, this was a Friday night she said you have to be on a plane on Monday. You have to show up in Boulder with $25,000 on Tuesday.

 

P: Oh my god. Just being pushed to make a decision that fast already seems like whoa, whoa, whoa,

 

K: I know, I know. But I was 35 weeks pregnant. I did not have time. I did not have time I was 35 weeks zero days pregnant the day that I called the clinic. And she said this is the thing like we don’t have time. It’s a four day procedure. So putting it off till Tuesday is like the latest. We can put it off right this was until 2012 to so Roe v Wade was in place. But the reason I could not be seen at home is because Roe v Wade did not protect my case because it was after these opposing point of viability, which had always legally been measured dates wise and 25 Weeks was about where it was at I was going through this hellscape

 

P: will you just remind us viability just means you can live outside the womb. That obviously doesn’t mean unassisted.

 

K: It’s another one. Fatal where it means nothing to me. Now that I have been down this rabbit hole. What does viability mean? Supposedly it should mean that if you give birth to that baby, you can live without the life support of your body. But my baby clearly couldn’t, right? Because even the feeding tube even though it’s a small intervention, it is still an intervention. So

 

P: well feeding tube forever, right? I mean, it’s one thing to say they’ll need a feeding team for you know, two months until something develops, this is not getting better. So that’s a different thing entirely.

 

K: There’s no getting better from this particular constellation of brain anomalies. There’s only like, you mitigate it, and maybe the brain is plastic enough. To have a good life or like you die real fast. That’s it.

 

P: Well, it sounds like maybe you live for a little while with pain and no way to communicate that well or feel better. And then you die slowly or you die quickly.

 

K: Yeah, I mean, it when it comes down to this, it gets so hard because it’s like, life is beautiful. And even when it’s brutal. It can be really precious and important. And so sometimes people choose to go forward even though they know what the pain is going to be. You know, and I really respect that and I want to hold so much respect for that choice because it is beautiful. Life is a beautiful gift. Sometimes it is brutally hard. And the gift I chose for my baby was peace because in my values for my family. That was the gift I wanted to give my daughter was the certainty of peace. So I always think of it as life and peace and like most pregnancies, most babies, they get to happen both and of course we want to give them both. We all want to give them both. But sometimes like in my situation, I could really only guarantee one of them.

 

P: Yeah I mean for me the hard thing is making that choice for someone else. Right. 

 

K: totally, totally

 

P: So so it’s not I mean, you might choose that for yourself but to choose for someone else to live in out of discomfort is so I mean and I agree with you like it is amazing that other people make a different choice, and I applaud them for that. But I think I would live with guilt of inflicting this on someone else, right knowingly. It’s different when you know, right? 

 

K: Totally. And for me I feel so strongly about it for my baby and for my body. You know, there were 48 hours there between my ultrasound and my MRI. I did not know that abortion was available. I did not know that it was an option they had told me maybe and I had talked to them about it and they had said, No. Where did you use to send women and they say they said oh we used to send women to Kansas but we can’t anymore. And the reason they couldn’t anymore is because Dr. Tiller the abortion provider in Kansas was shot in the face at church because of assassination. Because of domestic terrorism against abortion providers. 

 

P: Oh my God

 

K: Yeah, so and I knew that when she said that, somewhere in my memory, that new story popped up and I was like, oh my god, what am I getting into? So there was this time where I didn’t know there was anyone who would take me I was so pregnant, like I was so pregnant. And yet I knew for sure that I couldn’t do the only path that was legally available to me at home. So I was making all these contingency plans because this is desperation right

 

P: wait, why is it not available in Massachusetts.

 

K: So it used to be you see if I can get this right and please let anyone who knows more about the lock correctly if it’s not believe it used to be that Massachusetts it was legal to provide a termination of pregnancy up to 25 weeks from conception. However, instead of measuring from conception, they would measure from date of last menstrual period. I don’t know why did that bullshit, but it shaved two weeks off. Either way. I was 35 weeks and I was well beyond. Now Massachusetts didn’t have to provide until 35 weeks because Roe v Wade only provided to 25 weeks from date of conception. So they were in line with Roe v Wade. Now I have fought tooth and nail along with several other really prominent activist mothers like myself. We have expanded the laws in Massachusetts called the Roe Act that allows for quote unquote, fatal or lethal anomalies first of all to be determined by the doctor so that we do not actually say what’s legal we let the doctor decide what’s legal, and second of all, to be terminated at any stage of pregnancy, in the case of these legal anomalies. Now, as you and I have discussed, I don’t think my baby would qualify, we thought based on the way they talk about legal anomalies. It was based on the way they talked about them. So I think it still wouldn’t help me but it still would help someone who had say a diagnosis of Trisomy 13. But that’s usually picked up much earlier. Much much earlier. It would help someone who had Oh with something that can happen later in pregnancy like I know someone whose baby had a horrible brain bleed later in pregnancy and she might have been able to access his care. I will fight tooth and nail even if it helps one woman, you know, because I know what it’s like to be cast out of care and right now in this environment in 2012 when this happened to me, to have to go to Colorado was a very rare thing. Right now it’s common in the waitlist to Colorado. I don’t know I haven’t talked to the physician lately, but I would imagine it’s at least six weeks long. And if you’re 35 weeks pregnant, six weeks is too long.

 

P: Good Lord. Oh my god. Yeah. So

 

K: I know if you believe that it is morally superior to get an abortion earlier in pregnancy than later then you have to make abortion early as accessible as possible. Because what happens when men’s produce is that everyone ends up waiting and all the abortions happen later. Even for those of us who don’t think it’s morally reprehensible based on dates, it is unambiguously safer for a woman in her body and your fertility to get the procedure she needs promptly than it is for her to wait. So that’s just my plea for everyone to bring some sanity back to this. But in 2012 I went to Colorado because I was denied care.

 

P: I thought you can’t fly after 28 weeks.

 

K: Oh my god, that was a huge source of stress. For me. That was a huge source of stress for me. So it was in crisis mode. And in crisis. You don’t ask any questions you don’t absolutely have to ask. 

 

P: yeah

 

K: So even though this was in my awareness, I did not ask my doctor. Even though my contingency plans were extremely unsafe and illegal. I do not tell my doctor because if I had told my doctor I was going to do something that might kill me, like go off in the woods and have a medically complex child in the middle of nowhere as far away from the hospital as I can get. She either could have hadn’t. You know like, Okay, now you’re putting your life at risk. And I think you’re sort of suicidal and I’m gonna get you this abortion, or I’m gonna get you put in a mental hospital and then you won’t be able to get an abortion at all right? So like, I knew those two sides of the coin, or this sounds dangerous. We’re going to bring a child protective services and take away the child you have because we don’t think you’re a mother. Right? Like, this is what desperation does, is it gets us against a wall like that. So when I went to Colorado, it was like this door opened. This door opened and I am stepping through it because I can live with myself if I terminate this pregnancy and I might die with my other options that I can ethically live with within myself that are in line with my own values,

 

P: And I’m assuming that your partner is on the same track.

 

K: My partner was so supportive, my husband was incredibly supportive. And you know what? I did not tell him either about dangerous plans. I kept them all the way inside. But he was absolutely like, Yes, I will get the tickets. I will book the hotels. This is a week long procedure. This is not a day. This is like a week of my life. And so he actually was so generous as to say at first when we were driving home from the neonatal neurologist and we were in the car. I knew what I wanted. To do, but I couldn’t say it. It hurts so much to say abortion. And so I looked at my husband, he always wants to please me. And he always likes to say what he knows I want to hear. And so when he looked at me and he said What do you want to do? I said, I need to know what you want to do first and I need you not to try to sugarcoat it. 

 

And he said I think we should ask about the abortion. And it was like I had been in his dungeon and it was like the light just flowed in and like I just felt like fresh air and sunshine when he said that because knowing that he was on my team, and then I didn’t have to do it alone. Something that’s so stigmatized and taboo to at least know that I wasn’t completely alone was incredible. And to know that our values were in line around this. It’s a tricky value situation. 

 

So we went to Colorado and we did not have $25,000 But again, I didn’t ask because I didn’t there are abortion funds and everyone listening should know there are abortion funds and you should ask for money if you need it. However, we do not ask but we did ask my parents so I did tell my mom and I said mom, I think I’m gonna get an abortion and she cried with me and she said I would do the exact same thing. 

 

P: Oh, that’s so nice. 

 

K: Yeah. And she asked my dad because my mom has been you know, she she has run our household and been an incredible volunteer in our town my whole life, but she has not earned money for a long time. So my dad’s the one with all the finances in the family. She asked him and he said this is exactly why these procedures exist. Because when you’re talking about abortion of 36 weeks even there is no safe audience like there’s no one who I can say like would absolutely support that. Right. So I didn’t know what he was gonna say but he said this is exactly why these procedures exist. They pulled money out of the retirement early, because you can do that for medical emergencies. And they able to arrange the finances while we live. 

 

Now Oh, I remember you had said you’re not allowed to get on a plane. So this was a huge source of stress for me. I dressed in my husband’s clothes. He’s much taller than I am. He’s just like a much bigger guy than I am and I dressed in his clothes, so they were like droopy. It’s like when you hear about teenagers who are trying to hide a pregnancy. That’s what I was doing. We were in the airport and just thank God that those counters are so high, you know and that I carry small because right and petite woman and I carry small and we couldn’t sit next to each other because we had booked them just just like the day before, you know so we were opposite ends of the airplane and I just was so afraid someone would stop me because if someone stopped me I didn’t know what I would do. 

 

P: Yeah, 

 

K: I actually told my husband before we did this before we went up to the to the site. I said we need a new story. I’m pregnant with twins. That’s why I’m big. Like I really that was the story I gave him. I Now know women who have asked their doctors for a note of travel that is also an option. So unfortunately you can’t do that if you’re in a hostile state. So if you’re in Texas please don’t ask your doctor for a note of travel because it could get you or your doctor in a lot of legal trouble but I went with the big of made up story. 

 

P: Good, that’s smart

 

K: Yeah. No one challenged me good when stopped me. So we ended up in Colorado. The clinic is quite protected. So I remember we went to look at or it just so we know where we would go in the next morning. And we were like Oh, do you think it’s like the bunker with the razor wire? For us? Yes, it is. We see it in just a nondescript hotel. And again, we don’t want to be seen. So I never came in that hotel, the front door not once I waited out by the emergency exit and my husband would go in and you come up in the door. And then go on stairwell. So every time we came in and out of our hotel I would come in and out the side door. It was a lot of shame. And that particular piece was shame I put on myself like no one made me do that. But I was so afraid. That if I came in this big pregnant lady all week and then one day I came in not pregnant anymore. I was just so afraid. What that would be like to be seen that way.

 

P: It’s so sad and crazy to me that at this time when you need the most support ever and you’re going through so much that you also have to reread this totally that this clinic is fucking surrounded by razor wire, what?

 

K: my physician, Dr. Warren is clinics been shut off before you know and he’s an inspiration. He’s incredible. He used to give obstetric care overseas in a country where abortion was illegal. And he will tell you, you can read it. I think there are articles in Esquire. It’s called the last abortion doctors somebody who’s from a long time ago, but he will he will say like one side of the ward for all these happy women with their babies who wanted to have babies and were ready to have babies on the other side of the board. Were all these women like in dying because they were not ready to have babies and had botched abortions and got really badly. So he gives abortion care at all stages of pregnancy is one of the very few doctors in the country who does and he will say why do I do this? Because it’s the most important thing I could be doing in medicine. And he was there for me in 2012 There were two clinics in the country that would take one of them was closed for the week. So Leroy carhart’s clinic in Bethesda Maryland would have taken me but they were closed. And Dr. Horne Hearns clinic in Boulder would take me there’s also southwest women’s in Albuquerque, but they don’t take women as far along as I was it’s only to 32 weeks or 30 It’s not as far maybe 34 It’s not 36 at that much and then since then one new clinic has opened in Washington DC. So that’s another one to know about.

 

P: I can  imagine that you’re in a particularly rarefied group because your problem is rare. Yes. Right. So they just that’s why they didn’t find it until so late

 

K: and often when people end pregnancies for medical reasons. The problem presents itself early in pregnancy. That’s why we do prenatal testing. So in my next pregnancy, I got a blood test with free cell DNA. So I knew that the most common chromosomal problems I knew my baby was chromosomally normal, right with x and y and 1318 21. Right. So some of these things can be picked up very, very early. And some of these things can be picked up later. Like when people might have a heart defect that tends to be picked up around 20 weeks, but the brain keeps developing. So what I find is that brain anomalies are the most often late detected, 

 

P: under diagnosed, right? Yeah,

 

K: exactly late diagnosed or under diagnosed category of malformations. And of course, problems can come up in a woman’s health as well during a pregnancy. But if I had had a problem with my health, and there was no problem with the babies at 36 weeks, I imagine it would have been crash C section and everything would be a celebration. That was not the situation. Of course though, her having a complicated medical situation complicated my health and safety as well. if her head swelled to those proportions. Her low muscle tone made her harder delivery, right. 

 

P: Yeah, 

 

K: there are things that was no longer a straightforward pregnancy. So the idea of going rogue in the woods was quite dangerous. It was really not a good idea. For my well being,

 

P: I mean going rogue in the woods wasn’t high on the list was it was on the list.

 

K: no, it was a last ditch effort. It was like if nothing else, and I didn’t know them, but I do know now, because Dr. Herring told me that if what you really want is hospice and hospice, you should hit up Johns Hopkins because Johns Hopkins has an infant hospice program, most hospitals don’t.

 

P: God..So much more complicated than politics allows for it to be.

 

K:  It’s extremely complicated. 

 

P: So I’m hoping that people in Colorado are supportive. 

 

K: oh, God, I love them my trauma that I have done a lot of PTSD work on everything. Basically already happened. Once I landed in Colorado, I was so well held that even though this was extremely sad, and extremely hard to not have trauma from my clinic.

 

P: good

 

K: Yes, it is. It’s amazing. Not a guarantee, but that’s the way it was for me it was that I felt so safe and so loved in the care of my medical team. It was enough for me to get through it. So day one is counseling, and then euthanizing. Injection. So at the end of a lot of education and testing, just he won’t treat anyone that he’s not he doesn’t feel can safely go through the procedure. And then there’s a lot of like, this is what’s going to happen. Do you consent to it. I signed my consent. And Dr. Pan was my witness. He removes me from my husband for that because coercion would be a terrible thing in this situation. 

 

P: Yeah, yeah

 

K:  And he really wants to feel like yes, this is this is making a decision and they delivered a euthanizing injection to my baby’s heart, and that was just emotionally devastating. Pain wise, it was it was just like an amniocentesis. It’s just a needle, just one shot. Emotionally. It was so hard. And I remember at the end, he asked, How are you feeling? And I just burst into tears. I said, I’m just so sad, which was great for him because he just wanted to know I wasn’t in some sort of medical shock. You know? 

 

P: Yeah, yeah, 

 

K: he gave me some tissues and have been nurse stayed with me for a long time that day. I thought I wanted dinner. We’ve been at the clinic all day and you can only bring book into the clinic. That’s it. You’re well in the book. Because espionage is such a tactic of the right to lifers. And when we left I thought I wanted dinner, but she moved she hadn’t passed yet. And I was like, okay, scrap that and I went back and lay on the hotel bed until until the movement stopped and she passed away. When I stood up my belly, which had been like so high and so tight was just just drooped like the life has gone. She just drooped so hard. That was emotionally the worst part. After that there were two days of laminaria laminaria these little seaweed sticks that absorbed the water from your body as well. So the first day, they inserted them about hurts, but it’s only 10 minutes of my life

 

P: they insert it in your cervix?

 

K: into the little hole in the cervix, and then they pack the vagina so it doesn’t fall out in the packing has iodine in it to prevent infection and then over the course of the day, it gets bigger and softer. That’s a we took a drive into the mountains we just sort of it was like a weird sightseeing trip. We just went around and we’re in nature went out to dinner the next day. Again, they take the old luminaria out put new ones in that day it started getting cramping and I had to take medicine to make sure I wouldn’t go into labor. I remember taking a little walk in a little park and feeling like I’m gonna throw up now. I’m just taking it easy the rest of the day and then the last day the fourth and final day of procedure. This was a Friday this was 36 weeks zero days from the last menstrual period they induced my labor. 

 

So they gave me Pitocin and the contraction started and I came in four centimeters dilated. Do you remember that first story with the 19 hours of labor? I was four centimeters dilated at 19 hours with my first 

 

P: Wow. 

 

K: And this labor was I have never had a child without some form of pain management right like I have had the epidural so I was a little bit afraid that I wouldn’t be able to do it. But as soon as I got into labor, I sort of got into that rhythm of the body. I go way inside when I’m in labor, and when I close my eyes, I actually see beautiful visions. When I’m in labor. It’s like this altered state of consciousness just like almost like a trance state. And that happened and it was very supportive. I saw very beautiful things on the inside of my eyelids and I knew it wasn’t real. It was not not confusing or disorienting. It was just beautiful. So I labored for two and a half hours. And then I felt like I had to pee very, very badly, very urgently very quickly. And so they hobbled me over to the toilet and I couldn’t pee. Now I know her head was in the way she was descending. My body started pushing and I had never experienced that before because I’d had the epidural. And my body just started pushing and I was screaming I’m pushing I’m pushing. abductor hurt was like stop pushing, which is so silly. It’s such a silly thing to say. It doesn’t make any sense. 

 

P: As if you can control it. 

 

K: Exactly. This was not voluntary. This was not on purpose pushing…it was extremely powerful. So I did manage to get on the table and I delivered my baby into Dr. Hearns hands and he does a quick little evacuation of the uterus to try to prevent a bleed like the one I had, but it was not invasive. The way the other one was. I mean, I’m sure he took his scope and went in but it did not feel the same. It felt okay. And then I went back to rest. Then after some time, he brought my baby to me so that I could see her body so that I can do and really glad that they gave me that opportunity. Because I really just had to see.

 

P: Yeah, this seems completely humane. 

 

K: Yes. It is humane… It is very sad and very human. And so I got to view my baby and after him was there and he asked me if I’d like more time but what I knew when I saw my baby is that she wasn’t there. My baby. This is just her body.

 

P: Yeah, I can’t imagine a more caring choice than the one you made. 

 

K: Yes, I don’t want was made already. Yeah, it’s so much love. It was the only thing I could do for her. I did the best I could

 

P: Do they Like do they have a funeral? Or how do you manage it from there?

 

K: No, that’s a good question. So I had signed up for private cremation. And I went home the next day and that was non optimal. But I didn’t know it’s not optimal to not even 24 hours postpartum women on a flight home like really not great. However, I was the one who booked the tickets and I had to get home to my child. I’d been away from my child this whole time. So you know even though Dr. Harun didn’t love that I was going the next day. What are you going to do? Right? So we flew home. It was my 30th birthday. 

 

P: Oh my God

 

K: The next day was my 30th birthday. And I didn’t cancel my party because it was only very close family friends and I knew they’d want to hold me so I said yes, we’re going to go ahead with it. And my milk came in at my birthday party. And it was just like so freaking sad. But a couple of weeks later, my baby’s ashes came in the mail. Just like a little like a little handful pouch of ashes. And I hung on to them for a year and we spread them on her first birthday and never had a funeral. But we did go to the beach as a family and spread the ashes. 

 

P: That sounds healing I mean some kind of ritual around fairly tragic ends seems like a way forward. 

 

K: totally. Yeah. Ritual is really important and it’s powerful and it sticks to parts of us that logic and reason you just can’t. Yeah. So I learned to appreciate that I was a scientist. I was trained as a scientist. And so I have learned to appreciate ritual more and more through my grief experience and through the holding of other women and other parents in their baby loss and infertility journey.

 

P: Yeah, I think that the kind of autopilot aspect of it. That tells you these are the 10 things you’re going to do to get through this period and this set of things has come from people who have already experienced this and I think that seems really helpful.

 

K: Totally. Yeah, I found a support group and peer to peer support around something that is as rare and big and taboo as later abortion has been extremely important to my healing. More important than therapy. Peer to Peer Support has been more productive for me than therapy has been.

 

P: That is amazing. And getting a lot out of it. That is for some people, it may be hard to relate to just by definition because we’re things don’t happen often. And so there just aren’t that many people who experienced this. We had a rare issue in our pregnancy. And it is so unnerving to be on that edge where even the doctors don’t really have much for you and they can’t say what’s going to happen. And it’s just it’s a really tricky place to be. So I’m so grateful that you were able to kind of suss out something to do some way to manage it.

 

K: Totally, totally. And now I’m at Space folder, that group so it’s called the ending a wanted pregnancy. It’s just an online support. Group. You go to the website, ending unwanted pregnancy, I come to get into the Facebook group. And it’s, you know, basically it’s non optimal. But it’s a way to connect in with rare things as you know, like

Like if you have to. 

 

P: Yeah, 

 

K: look far and wide. Yeah. Sometimes doing something global like that is the way to go for rare support.

 

P: It seems like a particularly hard space because, yeah, there is so much emotional and political weight, and all these decisions and all these outcomes and those things are so black and white and not nuanced and not helpful. And this is kind of experiential, right? So if you have no experience with this, it’s very easy to say I would do this or I would do that and it just, just like birth, it feels different once you’ve been through it.

 

K; Completely. Like if you had asked me before any of this happened, would you ever have an abortion and like when you’re eight months pregnant? I would have been like, Oh, of course not. That’s ridiculous. Who does that? Right? Then it’s like, in a situation, and that’s the best I can do. Okay, but I do it. You know, so

 

P: also the truth of the better is the people who do that or people in your circumstance.

 

K: What I will say is that if an action seems extreme, and I would argue that getting an abortion when you’re eight months pregnant is a pretty extreme thing to do. 

 

P: Yeah, 

 

K: it is because the circumstances are extreme. And I never want to speak for everyone’s circumstances, because there are many different ways circumstances can be extreme. But I have profound trust that if someone’s doing something extreme, because her circumstances are extreme, yeah. I trust her to know that we’re not perfect. It’s not like everyone does the best all the time, but I really would trust a woman and her family, much more than I would trust the government. 

 

P: I totally agree. Oh, it sounds like your family did a lot around that pregnancy and birth and

 

K: yeah, we did. And I will say that my husband and I very much in stuff and together in our crisis. But in grief, there is no together in grief. 

 

P: Yeah, 

 

K: there’s no company in grief. Grief is incredibly lonely. So sometimes when I would want to ritualize he would need not to be there. What I ended up doing for my family is introducing two days of the year, when I bring them into my experience of virtualizing on is girl’s birthday. Baby’s birthday. The day actually birthed her from my body in June. And so what I do that day, I ask LC her sister and now we have another Sister Lucia. I asked them how would you like to recognize your sister’s birthday? Their kids, so it’s like, let’s eat cake. Let’s go out for ice cream. Let’s go to the beach. You know? That’s great. I just let them invite it. The other day of the year is Day of the dead. You make an altar. You put pictures and tell stories about the people in our family who have passed not just Laurel but definitely she’s prominently up there. And then we paint faces, you know we have a nice meal the beautiful holiday that I have made it into my family space just as a place that feels right for a family to remember together.

 

P: You know I like so much about both of these is that it is a way of keeping her in your life in a positive way. So it’s not I mean the whole thing was tragic. And that’s true and that happened. But there’s something to be celebrated about Laurel. And it’s so nice that you and your family have found a way to be with her in a in a positive way. That’s not painful.

 

K: totally…Yeah, and that’s the way I want it. I don’t want to like put the pain of this onto my daughter’s sometimes what I find is that with LC who was two her understanding of it grows with her every year. I think she remembers actually she may not remember everything but I think there’s part of her that remembers in her understanding gets a little more mature. It really shifts every single year whereas Lucia who was not born when this happened, she came later. Forgets she even ever had another sister which is fine. Yeah, that’s completely fine. So I want her to know about her family in a way that doesn’t like force her to be sad about it if she’s not because she’s  Yeah.

 

P: That’s amazing. Thank you so much for sharing your story. If there’s anything else you want to mention,

 

K: I would love to so what group is my volunteer work I also do advocacy and activism as as volunteer. But I have changed my careers to help women and families who have been through loss like this full time. I’m a love sex and relationship coach because what I find is that the fallout is all in matters of love, sex and relationship coach. So I’m a somatic coach and I work at night bloom coaching.com If anyone hears this and it’s like, this is a person I want to help walk with me through the through the grief or help me integrate my trauma I am not a therapist. I cannot diagnose or treat PTSD. But certainly I have found the tools I use to be extremely supportive of living more richly and fully after loss.

 

P: Sounds awesome. Thank you so much.

 

K: You’re very welcome.

 

P: Thanks again to Kate for sharing her story. Her experience is a powerful example of the nuances that color pregnancy–how complicated it can become in a short time span. Interviewing Kate and editing her story, I’ve listened to it a few times now and still have a hard time getting my head around all the desperately difficult things she and her husband had to do to deal with the sharp turn in the health of her pregnancy–the shocking medical news, the flight, the razor wire around the clinic, the procedure itself, and her milk coming in when she got home. That they did, in fact, manage it with the help of some extraordinary doctors and nurses is a testament to their strength.  According to the most recent figures from the CDC, in 2019 almost 93 percent of all abortions happen before 13 weeks. Less than 1 percent occur after 21 weeks.  I particularly appreciate that Kate shared her experience to give voice to what it looks like to be in this one percent, to show the heartbreaking choices some people have to make and how the burden of society’s judgment and legal obstacles make it even more difficult…I think her story dramatically illustrates the importance of allowing families to chose how to meet and manage very challenging circumstances.

 

Thank you for listening.

 

We’ll be back soon with another story of overcoming

 

Posted on

Episode 58 SN: The Power of Hormones, Hyperemesis & Postpartum Depression Visit a Pregnancy: Laura’s story

Today’s guest had a pregnancy marked by extremely easy things and significantly hard things. Getting pregnant was consistent with the kind of fertility you see in a romantic comedy instantaneous, but the first trimester morning sickness was more like a sci fi thriller, totally extreme and requiring all kinds of medical help. And after a pretty challenging pregnancy, she ran into postpartum depression after the birth but her’s is a story of overcoming. She found help and recovered and she’s deeply immersed in the joy only a five year old child can bring.

(image courtesy of https://www.girlsgonestrong.com/blog/articles/pregnancy-hormones/)

Links to some of Dr. Meltzer Brody‘s work

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=6CCrvBEAAAAJ&hl=en

Audio Transcript

Paulette : Hi, welcome to war stories from the womb. I’m your host, Paulette kamenecka. I’m an economist and a writer and the mother of two girls. Today’s guest had a pregnancy marked by extremely easy things and significantly hard things. Getting pregnant was consistent with the kind of fertility you see in a romantic comedy instantaneous, but the first trimester morning sickness was more like a sci fi thriller, totally extreme and requiring all kinds of medical help. And after a pretty challenging pregnancy, she ran into postpartum depression after the birth but her’s is a story of overcoming. She found help and recovered and she’s deeply immersed in the joy only a five year old child can bring. After we spoke, I talked to a fantastic psychiatrist who’s done lots of research on postpartum depression, and gives us a sense of what the field might look like in the future. One more thing to add. My dogs were desperate to be a part of this episode. So you’ll hear their contributions at certain points, which in no way reflects the many efforts I made to keep them happy and quiet. Sorry about that.

Let’s get to this inspiring story. 

P: Hi, thanks so much for coming to the show. Can you introduce yourself and tell us where you live?

 

Laura : Sure. Thanks so much for having me. My name is Laura Nelson. And I live in San Francisco, California. 

 

P: Nice, lovely. And Laura, how many kids do you have? 

 

L: I have one child and one husband.

 

P: well said and before you got pregnant, I’m sure you had an idea about what pregnancy would be like. What did you imagine it would be like?

 

Laura : Oh, well, I imagined I didn’t imagine it would be magical. I didn’t imagine it would be like a fairy tale. I think I took worst parts of pregnancy depicted on TV and media and went yeah, that’s probably what it’s gonna be like.

 

P: Well good. There’s only up from there. Right? That’s that’s a good way to start. 

 

L: Yeah. 

 

P: And did you get pregnant easily the first time?

 

Laura  2:09  

Oh, yeah. First first try. We pulled the goalie pregnant.

 

P: Good lord. You’re the story we all hear. Everyone. Everyone thinks they’ll get pregnant as soon as they try. But it doesn’t happen all the time. Right? But this is the perfect example. That’s so good. I’m glad that was easy. And you found out with like a home pregnancy test.

 

L: I found out I was I was house sitting for my parents and their dog. And I went to I didn’t know I was pregnant, obviously. But I went to Long’s and I got I was like, I really needed some kulula And why not like a pregnancy test? So I had some grua and I took some more pregnancy tests and all of them are positive. And I was like, well yes, that’s that’s what it is. You know, truthfully, I was like, I was a smoker. And so I was like, I called my best friend and I was crying. So it’s just like such a shock. And I was smoking. I was like, it doesn’t count until the doctor says it right. And she’s like, you’re fine. 

 

P: Yeah, that’s kind of a shock. 

 

L: Yeah, but it was it was nice. It was good. And a good reason to quit smoking. So how about that?

 

P: And how was the pregnancy? How did it start off?

 

L: What was it like? Oh, the pregnancy was in a word traumatic. I think it started off with violence, never ending nausea and vomiting. So throughout the course of my pregnancy, I lost 30 pounds. 

 

P: Wow

 

L:  and then I think, so weeks, six through about 20 is going to the hospital three times a week for IV infusions, because I couldn’t even hold down ginger ale and crackers. I was just unable to eat food without taking. I ended up taking what was called Zofran. I took sublingually as well as intravenously. So if you are experiencing severe morning sickness and you’re worried about Zofran I took it pretty much the whole pregnancy and there were zero adverse side effects other than I could pull down food, which was nice.

 

P: so that seems like a violent entrance into a pregnancy like what it happened once and you thought, Oh, this is just once or like, did you react to a food or it was all food or how does it work?

 

L: It’s all food, all food and all smells and I was throwing up Bile or food. On a good day. 10 times I was throwing up.

 

P: Wow, that sounds unbelievably intense. So did it. It happened one day and you went to your doctor like how did it how did you kind of sort it out?

 

L: Oh, it happened in happened for a few days in it. I thought like, Oh, this is morning sickness. Right? Like This must be what everybody talks about. And then when I was showing signs of dehydration, and I like couldn’t actually function and was feeling very sick. I went to my OB and she said, Oh yeah, no, you need to hyperemesis Gavardiam you need to get fluids we need to give you medicines or you can eat and we need to give you something so you can not be nauseous all the time.

 

P: So they think like oh, maybe you have the flu or because it’s pretty distinct. 

 

L: yup

 

P: So even though they gave you the medicine you lost all my weight.

 

L: Yeah. So I gained again Yeah, back towards months, eight and nine, nine and a half. Right. But But yeah, in the beginning, it was dramatic

 

P: That sounds super unpleasant. And where are you at? Were you working? 

 

L: I was I was working. I was going into the office. I you know once I was able to announce my pregnancy, which I had to do earlier than I wanted, because I was so sick. You know, it would just be I’d be talking with people about plans and then I thought oh lord is gonna go vomit and I’m gonna throw up and then come back and keep working. But yeah, I was a very understanding very parent focused company. So I was very lucky that, you know, the CEO had kids and everyone I was working with was already a parent.

 

P: Yeah, that sounds intense. And so it sounds like it got a little less prominent later in the pregnancy. 

 

L: So weeks 20 to about 32. I would say I was normal. So I was eating food walking around. I had a good normal pregnancy and then weeks 33 to 42. It came back and then

 

P: No, no, is that normal? Was that what they say?

 

L: Yeah, you’ll either have it just for the first semester or you’ll have it for the first semester and we’ve got like school for the first trimester or you’ll have it for first trimester in the second trimester and the third, so I was lucky that it got a little less severe. For the second semester, trimester. But It came back.

 

P: Oh my god, I’m so sorry to hear it. Good Lord. That must have been so disappointing the first time you threw up after you have the break.

 

L: for sure, 

 

P: and so you get to 40 weeks and what happens?

 

L: I get 40 weeks and and nothing happens. You get to 41 weeks may be scraped the inside what’s it called an induction 

 

P: Yeah. they strip the membranes or something or 

 

L: yeah, they stripped the membranes and then they send you home so they gave me an induction I was induced. They said go home out should start happening. When it’s less than five minutes apart. Come back. 

 

P: so this is this exciting. Because you’re done.

 

L: Oh, I am ready to not be pregnant. Yeah. Yeah. So I go home as they’re happening and laboring, and it never retiming them. It never gets closer than five minutes eight eighths and spicy food. And it still stayed farther apart than 4-5 minutes. So I called and they said no, if you if you came in, we wouldn’t be able to admit you. I said okay. So 41 weeks, 2 days, I go back. We’re doing health checks. They’re doing the screens. They induced me again, go home labor. bounce on a ball. again It doesn’t stay closer than five minutes. So finally at 41 and five, said okay, well it’s time to come in. so We went down. We checked into hospital it was so I think the one of the nicest and most surreal things about going to the hospital knowing that you’re going to have the baby is you have this like brand new car seat. That you take with you. And you’re like, Okay, we’re taking carseat with us and like we’re leaving, we’re entering the hospital as just us and we’re gonna leave as a family like that. That’s just like it’s definitely a beautiful moment. So

 

P: let’s talk about your labor for a second. Were you like imagining a natural labor or I want to be in a bathtub or what was your you’re already shaking your head? What were you hoping for?

 

L: No, I took some birthing class classes with liars. They all said they wanted natural childbirth with flowers, and I said, my vision was epidurals just all of the like as many natural drugs as you can give me. Yeah. Was my natural birth vision. Plan. 

 

P: good, I feel like you’re moving in the right direction then.

 

L: Yeah. So we go I’m in. I’m induced, they give me they give me Pitocin. I labor for about 12 hours. So that’s fine. We’re just me and my husband all night or just watching 30 Rock and I’m like, a little bit of pain, but not too bad. Then the doctor comes in and checks on me and she says, All right, you’ve been laboring for 12 hours and you’re not even one centimeter. And at this point, I was like, No, like really? Are you kidding? And so she said very plainly. She was a wonderful, wonderful doctor. She said, we think your baby’s really big. Can you either labor naturally over the weekend, and if things get bad, we’re going to have to do an emergency C section. Or we can get this baby out of you in the next two hours 

 

P: oh wow

 

L: and do a C section right now.

 

P: yeah, I’ll take the door marked baby now.

 

L: I said yeah, let’s get this baby out. Like right now. And so the so it just went from a having a baby in two hours. So anesthesiologist came in and the anesthesiologist assistant who looks like Jessica Alba it might have been the drugs I was on but I swear I still tell my husband I’m like man do you remember that anesthesiologist. She was just she delivered kisses from angels with the epidural and she’s out of this world attractive. So anyway, I had the epidural. Seeing your partner scrubbed up in scrubs is just like, interesting.

 

P:  I sort of felt like it you felt like you want to do an SNL skit 

 

L: a little bit 

 

P: come in with all the blue scrubs in that and hair cover and stuff. It’s so weird.

 

L: Yeah, just like Alright, we’re gonna go have a baby and then I didn’t expect can’t have your husband in when they give you the epidural. So you’re on your own and they’re having you bend over. You’re like gigantic pregnant belly. Yeah, this point I’m like basically 42 Weeks Pregnant I would say again to our baby and me. As the room is so cold, and you’re naked, your butts expose. Just jabbing  you with a needle 

 

P: It’s glamorous. 

 

L: Yeah, then I had what’s known as a gentle C section. So I was able to listen to music which was nice we put on Lyle Lovett and put on allow love it playlist. So I was now they put up the curtain and they tested they said let us know if you feel this and just looked at my husband and said it’d be funny if I said it out. And he’s like, No, it would not be funny if you sat down. So we listened to music. Baby came out beautifully and immediately instead of wiping her off or when her they just immediately her on my chest and I was able to breastfeed her while they sewed me up. 

 

P: Oh, wow. That’s amazing. 

 

L: So that was really beautiful. And then they weighed her. And, you know, whisked us off to the recovery room. Once everything was all done. It was life changing in a lot of ways but I think having that gentle entrance into the world surrounded by so much chaos was just very nice bookend and blessing. 

 

P: I was thinking gentle C section was marketing, but that sounds like a gentle C section. That sounds really nice.

 

L: Yeah,they  just give you the baby right away. 

 

P: That’s awesome. 

 

L: Being able to breastfeed even though like I couldn’t feel my arms was nice.

 

P: Maybe the best way to do it. So you up, you’re in recovery. And then how long do you stay in

the hospital? 

 

L: I was in the hospital. She was born on the 10th and went home on the 13th. 

 

P: All right. And how do you feel when you go home? 

 

L: Oh, I was loopy for sure. I think one thing that I was grateful for from just another friend who was a mother was I was taking the stronger pain medicine. It wasn’t Vicodin. I think it was Percocet and was actually causing like panic and me taking such a strong as soon as my friends had stopped taking Percocet, only take Motrin and so I switched to Motrin, and immediately the panic went away.

 

P: Oh good. I’ve never heard of that. That’s interesting to know that. It’s like well known enough that someone could give you a nice,

 

L: yeah, it was very good advice. Yeah, went home. tried to figure out how to be parents, and it was it was nice, but it was also very hard because I had a C section and I was on the I lived on the third floor walk up. And so the doctor says don’t do don’t take any stairs or I live on a third floor walk up. You know in retrospect, they after the kid is born, they have you come back or the next day or two days later for a sort of wellness check to weigh them and make sure they’re eating and maybe even get another shot. In retrospect I should not have gotten to that appointment into that with my husband. And if I had to do it again. I would say I’m gonna lie down. You can take the baby to go get a check up

 

P: because it was painful to manage the stairs and all that.

 

L: Yeah, the stairs were just brutal. I ended up popping a stitch. 

 

P: Oh No. Oh my god. 

 

L: but, that’s okay. I mean, the grand scheme of things. It was worth it. 

 

P: What’s it like in the fourth trimester when you’re home? 

 

L: Oh, yeah. So the fourth trimester be brutal for me, who loved my daughter? I think know that I had a lot of unhealed trauma from both the pregnancy and the birth that I didn’t address and being isolated in apartment–not that I couldn’t go outside but that going outside meant downstairs and eventually you know popping a stitch and hurting myself. A lot my husband took two weeks of paternity leave and to care for me and and us and the first day he went back he was let go. 

 

P: Oh, my God that is crazy. Yeah. 

 

L: So I had, I’m a mom, and I’m the sole breadwinner and I feel literally trapped in my apartment. So I should have seen The chips stacking up earlier than I did. But it wasn’t until it was about six or seven months old. I realized I was not well, I had severe postpartum depression. And I just had a breakdown one day where I just could not stop crying and it wasn’t that I didn’t love my child because I did I loved her so much was that and I thought of postpartum depression. The only things I thought of were very black and white. It was you had it or you didn’t. There was no gray area of you have it a little bit and then drawing on media and growing up. The only postpartum depression that I’ve ever seen talked about was that woman who drowned her kids in the bathtub. 

 

P: Oh, wow. Yeah. 

 

L: And I thought well, I don’t want to drown my kidney bathtub. So I obviously don’t have it 

 

P: I brought the topic of postpartum depression to an expert. Today, we’re lucky to have Dr. Samantha Meltzer Brody, a psychiatrist who’s the director of the UNC Center for Women’s mood disorder, and the author of many, many scientific papers on the topic of perinatal, and postpartum depression. Thanks so much for coming on the show Dr. Meltzer-Brody. 

 

Dr. Meltzer-Brody: Thanks for having me.

 

P: Harming your children is one small one small aspect that might present but there are probably many ways many things that postpartum depression can look like. So maybe you can define it for us.

 

Dr MB: Absolutely. So postpartum depression is a mood disorder that occurs in the postpartum period. However, it comes with often many co occurring symptoms, including anxiety, also, according to the DSM can start during pregnancy. So oftentimes, hear the word Peri, partum, or perinatal, used to define symptoms of anxiety and depression. That occur either over the course of pregnancy or postpartum. If we’re talking specifically about postpartum depression exclusively, oftentimes, you’re not seeing symptoms creep in until late pregnancy or they start in the postpartum period. They can have a range from very mild to very severe with everything in between. So if someone is having the most severe symptoms, they may have suicidal ideation and tenor plan. Most rarely, you have co occurring psychotic symptoms that can be associated with postpartum psychosis which is not postpartum depression. It’s a severe postpartum psychiatric disorder that is thankfully because it’s so devastating, more rare and can be associated with thoughts of harm to the baby. But then can have a range of symptoms that can include anxiety, worrying, or being able to sleep even when the baby’s sleeping because of worrying about the baby not being able to enjoy the baby feeling keyed up on edge, feeling overly tearful, feeling completely overwhelmed having difficulty concentrating. Again this can be on the more mild side to the to the severe side but in general, they are going to last more than two weeks it is not the baby blues, so most women immediately upon giving birth are going to feel more emotionally exhausted because birthing is very powerful, profound time. Most moms will get their sea legs if you will, but for the one in eight women that continue to have clinically significant symptoms or up to 15% of women postpartum. It’s much more complicated. So what you will hear the terms, perinatal or postpartum mood and anxiety disorders. You’ll hear the term maternal sort of mental health, maternal mood and anxiety disorders to sort of be more broadly inclusive. So we’re not having any one woman gets stuck on one particular symptom as you stated that doesn’t resonate with her

 

L: but I did and I think that there’s so many different layers of postpartum depression that people don’t talk about. People don’t understand there wasn’t even you know, the right level of support even now, looking back that I was able to get, you know, I broke down i i called my doctor and I said, I’d like a really need help. And so I did three months of intensive outpatient therapy. So I was going in three days a week to the hospital to get talk therapy and medication and art therapy and group classes and group therapy and it really just only let me heal and focus but just realize that I wasn’t alone and that there’s nothing wrong with me as mom. There’s nothing wrong with what I was doing as a parent or how I was loving or how I was living. It was literally a cat, something’s wrong with your brain and you just have to fix it or work on it. So eventually, I found the right mix of medicine

 

P: One tricky issue with postpartum depression is it seems like it might be hard to identify in yourself or to rely on someone else to identify for you. I’m wondering if something like biomarkers might help here

 

Dr MB: well the use of a biomarker is, you know, variable depending on what biomarker you’re talking about. But for example, ideally there’d be a biomarker that would show women who are either at risk or to have someone start treatment in a preventative way or start path that would prevent symptoms from happening. Or biomarkers can be used to track response to different treatment or you know, indicate that someone’s going to be differentially responsive to a certain antidepressant or whatever it may be. So they can be used in lots of different ways at this point We do not have a reliable biomarker that’s ready for primetime. And so that’s an interesting area of investigation, both looking at genetic signature, but then looking at other types of biomarkers that can either help with diagnosis or help dictate treatment to be most targeted and effective. And that’s often when we think of precision medicine, or precision psychiatry, rather than saying, you have postpartum depression and we don’t know what treatments going to be most effective for you. So we’re going to, if we say pick an antidepressant that may or may not work for you, biomarkers when they are more sophisticated, can really help guide a specific line of treatment to be most effective.

 

L: I’m A huge fan of Lexapro I’m like a lexa pro cheerleader. But yeah, the days are brighter and heart is healed and I’m just so full of love and of being a parent, but I think one thing I would say to everyone who’s either expecting to have a child or just had a child and it’s in the fourth trimester is there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you. If you are feeling a little sad if you are feeling like you can’t make it if you’re feeling like things just aren’t adding up to help because it’s really easy and there’s nothing wrong with you. You’re doing a great job.

 

P: I think that’s a great message and I’m impressed that you were able to see it in yourself. And I’ve talked to a lot of women who have talked about postpartum depression and a lot of them don’t recognize it or think this is just what motherhood is, or I’m just a bad mom, or some version of that. 

 

P: I talked with Dr. Meltzer Brody about some of the challenges inherent in identifying PPD: I’m imagining we don’t have a biomarker and we don’t know which medication would help you if you require medication because postpartum depression is really a constellation of things. And there are many, many roads lead to postpartum depression. So it’s not this this one thing. In the same way you’re describing all these different symptoms that could be sort of a postpartum depression diagnosis. Because there are many ways to get there. Is that Is that accurate?

 

Dr. MB: I think that there’s not going to be any one reason a woman would have postpartum depression. So in the same way, that there’s not any one type of breast cancer either, so I think one of the things we’ve seen as we get much more sophisticated in other fields of medicine in terms of precision medicine, as we get very tailored and targeted on the specific treatment, that’s going to lead to the best outcome. So 25 years ago, most women with breast cancer you may have gotten the same treatment. It turned out that didn’t work very well at all. And we now are much more specific and targeted based on you know, receptor type and hormonal responsiveness and any number of things where I hope we can get to with postpartum depression and all forms of depression is similarly so that there’s not one form of depression and that people are going to become depressed for any number of reasons and that there’s going to be obviously the psychological psychosocial factors that render someone more vulnerable, but ultimately, it’s going to be the biologic processes, right? So is it immunologic in origin? Is it inflammatory markers in origin? Is it genetic in origin? Is it epigenetic, you know, or dysregulation of the HPA axis or dysregulation of a specific neurotransmitter system? So all of these are hypotheses. It’s very likely going to be an interaction of those but also that some people differentially are going to have a specific sort of past that’s driving there’s for which a specific treatment may be most effective. Now, we are not there yet at all, but I think the hope will be that we can be looking forward to that in the next I would, I would like to say aspirationally decade,

 

P: generally speaking, it seems like postpartum depression is thought to arise from hormone shifts, during or after pregnancy, in particular, a big drop in progesterone but it sounds like all these other bodily systems are affected immune system HPA access other systems. So it does that contribute to why it is tricky to establish a link between hormone drops and postpartum depression.

 

Dr. MB: So I think that we know that all women who give birth have rising and then falling levels of estrogen and progesterone, female ganando hormones, that’s a normal part of physiology. They rise dramatically during pregnancy and they fall at the time of delivery and that is part of physiology and so there’s no difference in the rise and fall in any particular way that’s been studied for someone that has postpartum depression or not, what the current theories are, and you’ll hear the the expression, differential sensitivity meaning a woman who gets postpartum depression may be differentially sensitive to the rising and falling the normal, rising and falling in a way that someone else is not. Now, we haven’t necessarily gotten able to refine that exactly, not even close. And it’s very likely that some women are differentially sensitive to the rising, falling and they have postpartum depression for that. rising, falling and they have postpartum depression for that reason, it’s also very likely that other women have postpartum depression because of a different trigger. So, the dysregulated system is not necessarily going to be hormonally based it may be something else and so this is an active area of investigation is understanding what are all the different factors and how they interact and what may be driving that for any you know, individual person

 

P: In Laura’s experience she have really significant hyperemesis I’m wondering if someone like Laura, who is presenting with evidence of a sensitivity that’s really strong to changes in hormones is more likely to get something like postpartum depression because obviously her system is sensitive to these fluctuations.

 

Dr. MB: So there’s there’s some data and we actually looked at this in the Danish registries and published out there is data showing that women that have hyperemesis gravidarum are at higher risk of having perinatal mood and anxiety complications than women that do not have it for an individual person who experiences hyperemesis gravidarum. It’s an extremely miserable experience, and I think it is just psychologically miserable. The second thing though, it also makes sense that whatever is happening in that individual person that makes them more sensitive to have the severity of symptoms in that way. There may be something happening in their body that works differently, that may make them more susceptible to other things. So I think it makes sense in a number of different ways. But we don’t understand deeply and at the biological level, exactly what’s going on. And I think that that’s what’s exciting right now is trying to get much more precise and dive deeper into the underlying pathophysiologic processes. So if I looked back over the last number of decades in our field, it it took decades in this country for even routine screening to take place and for us to move towards seeing this as a one of the greatest complications of pregnancy. And the postpartum period to do routine screening and all pregnant and postpartum women, to have it become part of public awareness to you know, work to decrease stigma so that people could talk about it. So we could get more women screened and more women into care and over what we’ve seen in the last 20 years is pretty remarkable in terms of a positive sea change in that direction. So where we need to go next is taking our understanding of what’s driving it, what’s the underlying pathophysiology, what are continued to be novel ways of diagnosing and treating, how can we be more precise and targeted and doing that and there’s a lot of work being done, which makes me encouraged on what may come next.

 

P: I have spoken to a couple of people at UCSF I don’t know if that’s where you were but they were saying that they are making an effort to have way more postpartum visits that aren’t normally scheduled because it is pretty spare.

 

L: Once you have a baby, it’s all about the baby and then six weeks, six week checkup, they’re like, Okay, hey, mom. You know,

 

P: and it does seem like it’s almost entirely physical. Have your wounds healed, and then we’ll send you on your way. 

 

L: Yup

 

P: You know, having been through it, which seems bizarre.

 

L: Great. Yeah. UCSF has they have a really good postpartum depression group. I wasn’t able to join it. But I would have if I could have,

 

P: Yeah I’m guessing where and from whom you get care may make a difference because there’s a lot going on in the field of postpartum depression. 

 

The future of postpartum care may not look much like the past I asked Dr. Meltzer, Brody about new medications. One thing she talks about is GABA, which if you’re not familiar with it is a chemical messenger in your brain that has a calming effect. 

 

It looks like in 2019, the first drug was approved specifically for postpartum depression. Is that right?

 

Dr. MB: Yes. So in 2019, the drug Brexanalone was approved for postpartum depression. It was the first FDA approval for a drug specifically for postpartum depression. And it’s a novel drug it’s a neuroactive steroid. So it works on GABA, which is different than other drugs. And it’s actually a proprietary formulation of allopregnanolone, which is the neuro active metabolite of progesterone. So you have levels of allo that normally rise very high during pregnancy, just like progesterone does, because it’s a metabolite of it and then fall rapidly. Postpartum. And so we were able to do the first open label study and then proceed through the double blind placebo controlled studies of using brexanolone for treating postpartum depression at at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It’s an IV drug. It’s a 60 hour infusion. It’s powerful. And you see this rapid onset of action within the first day and so we continue to have a robust clinical program. We’re continuing clinical trials and then there’s also an oral being drug being developed by Sage therapeutics, which is the pharmaceutical company that’s developed brexanolone And now is arann. Alone. Saran alone is also a neuroactive steroid, but it’s different. It is not an oral form of bricks and alone. It’s not an oral form of allopregnanolone it’s a bit of a different interactive stereo. And there’s been multiple positive studies showing its effectiveness after a two week course for postpartum depression, that that could be a new tool in the toolbox available in a year plus.

 

P: Well, that’s super exciting.

 

Dr. MB:  it is a really nice example of using pathophysiology to develop treatments leading to new treatments and a new tool for postpartum depression. And I think that approach hopefully, can be used in lots of different ways. Who’s going to be most responsive? For whom is this drug going to be the best fit? Or drugs like this and as we get much more refined understanding what treatments are going to be best for an individual patient that will lead to the best outcomes and brexanolone works fast and it works really fast. And so that’s so important in the perinatal period in the postpartum period, and having a rapid acting antidepressant that can work within a day is powerful and unlike most things on the market, a number of current therapies that we have take time. take days to weeks to months or longer, and then we unfortunately have people who don’t respond to the current therapies. So having new tools and new treatments that can act quickly and more quickly than what we’ve previously had, and then can increase effectiveness or be more effective to peep for people that haven’t responded to other treatments is really important.

 

P: How old is your daughter now? 

 

L: She’s five and a half.

 

P: That’s so fun. That’s a great age what she into.

 

L: So if you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up, she will tell you she wants to be a mom, doctor, astronaut scientist. So she’ll go to space, but she’ll still be able to drive her gets to school.

 

P: well that’s the dream isn’t it? Seems like the right ambition. She sounds busy. is very busy. 

 

L: She’s very smart. She’s I think she’s smarter than me. She’s five and a half and I’m pretty sure she’s smarter than me. She’ll be like, Mom, do you know what the biggest magnet on Earth is and no one should be like it’s Earth. Like okay

 

P: I feel like she needs a YouTube channel. These are just some real nuggets.

 

L: We’re not gonna stage mom her yet. We’re gonna try to keep childhood in its little bubble 

 

P: is she goes to kindergarten or is it high?

 

L: So we did distance learning we did like a week of online kindergarten, because we live a half a block away from our public school. We found out very quickly that Zoom learning is not the way to go. It’s just not she hates it. enforcing it was not worth it. So we are in another year of transitional kindergarten, which is private and falls under the preschool rule so it can be in person rich, she’s thriving. And moms are think of

 

P: I think of  kindergarteners socializing. And so that’s a hard, hard thing to do. So I’m glad that you guys have worked it out so that she can be out.

 

L: Even in the core things to work on like she’s an only child so sharing can’t can’t even do that in person preschool now because they all have their own pieces of art supplies and paper so they don’t contaminate.

 

P: Hopefully next year, 

 

L: fingers crossed back to normal. 

 

P: So if you could give advice to your younger self about this process what do you think you would tell her? 

 

L: Oh, I would say two things. One, I would say Laura depressed get help. So okay. Yeah, because if I got help sooner, I just think it wouldn’t have been as bad as it was. The other thing I would say is, you’re going to be a great mom, don’t worry about messing her up. In 2020 it’ll all make sense. Because I feel like everything I could have done and did do like once we had to just pause and have her home and be a family and just sort of figure it out like it’s really mattered, you know? 

 

P: Yeah, it is nice to have her home at this age. Right because five is so fun. I remember my when my oldest was five or went to kindergarten, I missed her so much. 

 

L: uh huh

 

P: And she got she had walking pneumonia for like a week and a half and it wasn’t like that was technically the diagnosis but she didn’t seem very sick. And I was like, walking around with my arms in the air like this is the best week ever to get her back. So it’s kind of nice. 

 

L: It was sad to knock at the end of preschool when she was turned five during this when she was four and a half. And we were lucky to be like Okay, let’s see, like there’s no, there’s no school. You’re gonna stay home with mom and dad. And she’s like, great. No school home. I get to stay home with you and dad. Cool. 

 

P: that’s Awesome. Well Laura, thanks so much for coming on and sharing your story today. I really appreciate it.

 

L: Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

 

P: Thanks again to Laura for sharing some of the challenges in her pregnancy and the really really about her experience in the postpartum period, her recovery and her ultimate joy. And a big thank you to dr. meltzer brody for sharing her insights on the current state of PPD and what the future may look like.  I’ll link to some of Dr. Meltzer Brody’s work in the show notes if you want to read more about these new medications for PPD.

 

Thank you for listening.

 

We’ll be back soon with another story of overcoming



 

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Episode 57 SN: Secret No More, the First Baby: Cathryn’s story

Today’s episode features a moving story from a woman who recalls her first pregnancy in the late 1960s. The pregnancy was unintended. She was 18. Her parents, her social setting, and the cultural expectations of the time suggested that she had two options: either to marry her then boyfriend and start a family or have the baby in secret and surrender the newborn to the social workers who vaguely tended to her in the Home for Unwed mothers where she spent the end of her pregnancy and birth. Raised in the catholic faith to strict parents, abortion was not something she’d think to pursue, and it wasn’t legal or easily accessed, especially for a women who wasn’t married.  My guest reflects on how dramatically cultural views of sex and marriage have changed since she was first pregnant, and how her feelings about these topics have changed as well.

To find Cathryn’s work:


cathrynreadsandwrites.com

facebook.com/cathrynvogeley

https://www.instagram.com/cathrynthewriter/

To find Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh’s work:

 babyscoopera.com

and her book, is here

You can find more about the baby scoop era at

You can find more about the baby scoop era in this interview with Karen and Dan Rather: https://www.danratherjournalist.org/sites/default/files/documents/2012%20DDR%20715%20on%2005%2001%20Adopted%20or%20Abducted%3F.pdf

Audio Transcript

Hi welcome to war stories from the womb

I’m your host Paulette Kamenecka. I’m an economist and a writer and the mother of two girls.

Today’s episode features a moving story from a woman who recalls her first pregnancy in the late 1960s. The pregnancy was unintended. She was 18. Her parents, her social setting, and the cultural expectations of the time suggested that she had two options: either to marry her then boyfriend and start a family or have the baby in secret and surrender the newborn to the social workers who vaguely tended to her in the Home for Unwed mothers where she spent the end of her pregnancy and birth. Raised in the catholic faith to strict parents, abortion was not something she’d think to pursue, and it wasn’t legal or easily accessed, especially for a women who wasn’t married.  My guest reflects on how dramatically cultural views of sex and marriage have changed since she was first pregnant, and how her feelings about these topics have changed as well.

I also spoke with an author of many books on adoption who experienced her own version of pregnancy in the 60s outside of marriage.

Let’s get to this inspiring story.

Paulette:

 

Hi, thanks so much for coming on the show. Can you introduce yourself and tell us where you’re from?

 

Cathryn: Hi, I’m Cathryn Vogley. And I was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and have lived in Portland, Oregon for the last 21 years.

 

P:  Oh my god, I’m so jealous. I love Portland. Thank you. I feel like that’s the home of good ice cream and coffee 

 

C: and beer and see 

 

P: oh my god, why would anyone leave?

 

C: Well, the thing is you can be you can go to the mountain. You could go skiing, which I don’t do anymore, but you could go skiing and then go surfing because you can go up to the coast in the same day. That’s people save it. I mean, it was a very strenuous day, but you could do it

 

P:  Oregon has a lot to offer, for sure…so we are here to talk about pregnancy, so Why don’t you walk us into your story? 

 

C: Yeah, I raised two daughters. They are now in their late 40s and I’m one of five children myself. I’m a middle child. My I think my place as a middle child as part of why. Part of my story of why I wanted to be a mother so much, and I actually I wanted to my mother was super stressed and I wanted to do a better job than she did.

 

P:  Are you third of 5 Are you four or five?



C: I’m the third of 5. Yeah, yeah. My mother had three children in three years. Wow. I was the third of those. And they had very little money and catholic and constrict. And they were young and she was so stressed and it was my father and and being the third and my older sister. 18 months old. I mean with colicky and so I once I had my own children, I realized how time consuming and how tiring it is to be the parent of a little child, the baby under a year, but then to have three under three years. 

 

P: Yeah, 

 

C: you’d have one of them screaming all night long. You know? It dawned on me No wonder she was acting nuts  that I was always being pushed to the side and be quiet.

 

P:  Yeah, there’s nothing like your own babies. To make you more sympathetic to your parents. Right? Yeah. So so were your daughters your first pregnancies?

 

P: No, my first pregnancy was baby and I kept secret. Most of my life. I was pregnant at 18 I was in nursing school. And you know, I look back on it now. And 18 doesn’t seem so terribly young, but I thought I felt childish and felt like I had no choice and what was happening. My boyfriend of two years didn’t want to get married. And he walked out. And my parents kind of went nuts and and there was a burden of shame. That was so strong, and it just kind of covered my whole being.

 

P:  So this sounds like an unintended pregnancy. 

 

C: Right 

 

P: As the mother of an 18 year old, I can say 18 Feels pretty young. I think 18 is young, right? 18 is high school.

 

C: I was through my first year of nursing school.

 

P:  So you may have been a little bit ahead. So that seems pretty young to me. Yeah. So it was unintended. And then you find out because you missed your period. That he found out

 

C: Yeah, I missed my period. Yeah, I started to feel funny, you know, sick to my stomach and so on. And I mean, I feel like I knew pretty quickly when I missed my second period. I know you know, this is I’m pregnant. I’m sure I am.

 

P:  Did they have those kits they have now where you can test?

 

C: No, there was no way to tell for sure. No way to tell on your own. And by the way, there were no birth control pills back there. It was illegal. back then. It was illegal to prescribe birth control to an unmarried woman. 

 

P: Wow

 

C: and birth control pills really had just come on the market and they were considered dangerous because they people suffered blood clots. Anyway, so you couldn’t get birth control pill and so the choices were limited as far as how to protect yourself.

 

P:  Today, we’re lucky to have Karen Wilson butor bow on the show. She’s the author of a number of books about adoption, including most recently the baby scoop era, unwed mothers infant adoption and forced surrender. So today we’re going to talk about Katherine’s experience. Her pregnancy and birth took place in 1969, which is in the baby scoop era from post World War Two and 1873. And Katherine is telling us that birth control was illegal unless you were married, which is hard to get your mind around. Maybe you can tell us more things about this period. What did the world look like for a woman who was pregnant outside of marriage?

 

Karen Buterbaugh: I always describe that era of time as black and white with no gray. It was either or so it was a very judgmental time, especially for women. you didn’t have any information, especially during the baby scoop era. So this was a time of of not having any information about sex about birth control. They locked all those books away. You weren’t able to get any birth control methods. Even if they had the pill. They kept it behind the counter. You were not able to get it unless you were married. Same thing with other methods of birth control condoms do we did not have sexual education in our schools. It was considered a taboo topic. So we didn’t have any information highway like you do today. And the baby scoop era is, you know, a very short window of time as you said between the end of World War Two and the beginning of 1973. There are certain criteria during that period of time that existed that that does not exist before or since 

 

P: Ok

 

KB: the baby scoop era and the reason that it ends with 1973 is because early 1973 We had choice. 

 

P: Yeah, right. 

 

KB: You know, it begins when it does because the end of the war brought home many soldiers who had STDs and render their wives unable to conceive not to mention the fact that that’s when baby boomers mostly were born. And we were the ones caught in the web. Because we came to sexual maturity during the baby scoop era. So if we did not have information about pregnancy, how could we prevent it? So there are certain criteria that only applied to that timeline, and there were more babies that were given birth by baby boomer, unmarried females, of course, they call this unwed was the term of the day during that period of time than at any other time before. Since then, we were automatically expelled from school, removed from our neighborhood and removed from our family home. We were deemed inferior.

 

P:  That sounds fairly traumatic. I remember as a young person, even though I was on birth control being spasmodically nervous if you know my period was a day late. 

 

C: Yeah. 

 

P: So I can somewhat relate to the stress of you know, this is not a time in which I want to be pregnant. And if I do get pregnant, like many things will follow. 

 

C: Yeah, 

 

P: I’m sympathetic to 18 year old you. 

 

C: Yeah, well, it wasn’t just this is not a time when I want to be pregnant. I didn’t want my mother to know that I had had sex. I mean, that was huge. For me, it sounds these days. It sounds kind of almost unbelievable. But you know you were expected to be a virgin until you’re married my mother really stressed that it was the highest value to be a virgin and, and, you know, she acted like sex was dirty unless you were married, she seemed to have this aversion to woman’s physicality. Marilyn Monroe was you know, she would tisk and shake her head and my parents were just really pretty tight. And so the shame the fear that I had around pregnancy was primarily in the beginning was that my mother would know that I had had sex

 

P:  and do you think that’s also a kind of religious message or just wider culture in general?

 

C: I think both. I think both, you know, I had loads of friends who were not Catholic, and yet it was pervasive. If you were pregnant back then, and you weren’t married. You had a shot on wedding. And if you were pregnant and not married, nobody knew about it. You know, if you didn’t get married because you went away. Girls in my world didn’t have babies if they weren’t married.

 

P:  So what year is this?

 

C: This is 1968. 

 

P: So it’s before Roe v. Wade. Oh, yeah. So also the idea of an abortion, which maybe because of your Catholic upbringing is not even in your universe. It’s also just not accessible.

 

C: both Yeah. And my boyfriend’s mother suggested that I have an abortion. And It startled me. My parents certainly never suggested that in my 18 year old mine. It was number one scary number two, murder. And, you know, I thought I could, I could die for heaven’s sake, and I didn’t want to I always heard about quote unquote, back alley. Abortion was and I could picture myself going into a wet dark, dirty place and having my insides ripped out. That was my 18 year old thought so that I was offended when she suggested an abortion. And I just said, No, I’m not going to do that.

 

P:  Well, this sounds very stressful. So So at some point, you decided to tell your mother or how does this all unfold?

 

C: Yeah, you know, I finally went to the doctor and he confirmed it and I told my boyfriend while we have to go on. And tell my parents

 

P:  Let me ask a question: Is the doctor kind to or are they judgmental?

 

C: very judgmental. I actually, I didn’t know any doctors and a OB GYN doctors. I had never had a pelvic exam. And, you know, I was pretty scared. And the only OB I knew the only gynecologist I knew was my mother’s doctor. 

 

P: Okay, 

 

C: you know, she had had five kids, and she talked about him. And so I knew his name, and I knew he was in Oakland. So he’s the one I went to. And of course, he had delivered me so and he knew my mother, you know, for five children. He knew her. And so when he said I was pregnant, he was disgusted. And he said, So what are you going to do? Are you going to tell your mother or should I tell her should I call her? And I felt like I was in grade school. And you know, he was the principal and I said, No, you know, I was crying and terribly upset that no, I’ll tell her. And he said, Are you sure? Yeah, I will. So yeah, it was humiliating. From the very start. It was humiliating. And

 

P:  do we look back on that conversation now and think differently about the way that the doctor treated you and the way that you were made to feel,

 

C: you know, I could go on about how everything that happened and how I was made to feel or how I felt, and I can dish out a lot of blame. But you know, things were different back then. And it really, everything it fit, it’s how it was. I couldn’t ever have imagined that my world would change as much as it has. there and now. To think that a young woman would want to get pregnant and not have a husband is just, it’s just, you know, back then it was just incomprehensible. And my feelings have changed toward abortion, for sure. And maybe that’s a whole other program. I don’t know if you want me to get into that or not.

 

P:  Well, we can we can talk about it at the end because, I mean, I think the show is about the transformative process of pregnancy and how it’s different experienced than it is described. And I think abortion is part of that story. You mean you have to tell the whole story, right? It’s all these things that can happen when you’re pregnant. And so many people come and talk about the physicality of pregnancy that’s unanticipated. All the things that come with it. And so, abortion is part of that, right? Like, you can’t, I mean, you could tell half the story, but that seems counterproductive. But let’s, let’s focus on your experience right now. you’ve decided you’re going to tell your mother and do you feel like you’re gonna tell your mother because it’s either you or the doctor or you just think I don’t have any other choice?

 

C: There’s no way out. You know, I mean, I didn’t have a driver’s license. I didn’t have a job. I was in school. My boyfriend was a junior at Notre Dame I think or sophomore, a junior at Notre Dame and he you know, we were both from Pittsburgh. So we had to go away to school and so on. Once you’re pregnant, there’s no way to me there was no way to undo it. And so there was no you know, I couldn’t run away. There was no place for me to reach out to and really, the shame was, like, a straightjacket around me. I just didn’t feel you know, I look back on it. I think I really did have a lot of options. My grandparents lived in Fort Lauderdale. I could have gone and stayed with them. My sister was married. We were very close. I could have reached out to her for help. But I was so ashamed. I didn’t want anybody to know.

 

P:  do you think your sister and your grandparents would react differently than your parents? Oh, my

 

C: well my sister would have for sure I know that. My grandparents. I don’t know. I honestly don’t know. My my family. My parents, the adults in my family work so straight laced and proper that again, for my grandparents to know that I had had sex. I mean, it’s just sex just wasn’t there wasn’t such a thing, you know, and and to admit that it was human. It was I can’t express how humiliating and shameful it was. And and I was so afraid and afraid of what I don’t know. I was just afraid.

 

P:  Well, it sounds important, like afraid of judgment, which seems reasonable, but I’m wondering if your boyfriend felt the same way or you scot free.

 

C: He was a fairly responsible individual. And I don’t know what went on between him and his parents. He was the oldest in the family. of three boys. And he would be the first to graduate from college. The grandparents were immigrants; Italian…. And my mother said he’s gonna pay it and so it ended up he did. Time and whatnot. He comes back in a week and says he can’t get married. She jumps up and screams at him and said get out, get out and don’t ever come back here. So then I ended going to a home for unwed mothers. And it cost $2200 and my mother said that he’s going to pay for it. He shouldn’t get away scot free. And he did pay it and that was a lot of money at that time and he did pay it. He earned it At the railroad. I think the median income that year was like $7000.

 

P: oh Wow. oh my god

 

C: He was, but he definitely totally shut down. I mean, I didn’t get any support from him. He was just gone from my life

 

P:  that sounds unbelievably hard. Also. $2,200 Sounds like a luxury resort which I’m guessing it was not.

 

C: You know you are right. I thought that the hospital delivery, the cost of meals, etc. And I came to the conclusion. I’m remembering right.

 

P: Wow. 

 

C: So I went in November 1, and I was three weeks overdue. had a terrible, terrible labor and delivery.

 

P:  Wait, wait, let me slow you down. You’re per second. What’s the pregnancy like and are you spending your entire pregnancy at this place? Or?

 

C: No, they don’t take into take girls until they were seven months pregnant. And so I had to find a place to hide between five and seven months. I found…

 

P:  so you’re not in school anymore?

 

C: Correct. Things kind of just fell in place so to speak. I found out I was pregnant in them within like may 1 part of May and my term was coming to go I finished the term. And then we had a break, like three weeks. So this is nursing school, not college. So I had a break and everybody cleans out their dorm rooms. Because when you come back after the break, you will move up to a different form level. Right? So it was a three year program. So anyway, I had finished my freshman year, and I waited until everybody cleaned out their rooms. I didn’t go when everybody else went and once everybody was on then I went in in the empty dorm and cleaned out my room and I didn’t tell anyone and so people didn’t know what happened to me because  I didn’t come back

 

P:  This sounds incredibly hard and incredibly lonely 

 

C: Oh, it was. It was. I’m going to start crying

 

P: this is such a weird way to treat young women. Intellectualy I understand was a different understand that this really it’s very hard not to feel angry on your behalf and all these things. All these like larger cultural pressures that you’re being forced to bear

 

C: Yeah, yeah, it was it was such an unjust and cruel thing to put on young women. And the thing is, I’m just one person and there were, you know, the numbers vary. I’ve read 400,000 I read a million, etc. I can’t get a tight grip on statistics And what I’ve read is it’s difficult to get statistics on how many women gave up programs secret during that period during the baby era, the 50s and 60s.

 

P: Let’s talk about the numbers here. So Catherine was saying she’d seen all different kinds of numbers about how common this was. And that it was tricky to get reliable statistics so for sure I have an opinion on both of those

 

KB: yes I do have some statistics the number of illegitimate live births married mothers 700 These six 756 68 and 6972. Numbers have surrendered just years they call them the numbers increased because it was such a ready supply and such a huge demand

 

C: But I’ll tell you there are a lot of people around in writing my book or the writing classes. Somebody would come up with me often, really often and tell me in confidence and still keep the difference. And so that you know as time went on, and I was working on this book, it became clear to me that this is a story that people like me, you know, we’re all older now. We had babies in the 60s. People like me are holding on to their pain and they’re story and not letting it out and doing this writing their story. The way I kept saying, to my writing group. I don’t know. Nobody’s gonna care about this you know, it’s my thing. Its’ what happened to me… And there was one person I might have actually told me in confidence that that was her story and if it wasn’t for my writing group, I probably would not have published my book. But to me to do

 

P:  It is a time capsule in some ways and it is kind of a an incredible story which I’m glad that you shared because even today while Roe v Wade is being challenged in a significant way. It’s hard to believe that this is where we are. But probably from your perspective we’re so lightyears ahead of the what you experienced in this world of pregnancy and secrecy and it just it’s such a lack of awareness and understanding of what pregnancy is and does to a person. Even at 18 How was the pregnancy?

 

C: I had the normal you know, morning sickness, which I had to hide of course. Yeah, I think that the first the first part of my pregnancy was fairly easy. I’m a person who swells up so I had a lot of problems with my feet swelling and being you know, feeling all the time. But then I was my baby was overdue. And, you know, my, let me back up. There were things that happened that I didn’t know. Were going to happen like quickening. For example, you know, I felt the little twinges and they didn’t know what was going on. And I talked to the woman I was living with for those few months, and she kind of cleared it up for me. But as an 18 year old girl with a body a young body like an 18 year old girl. It was the stretch marks that got me that stretch marks. I have dry skin though. You know they started as these line is vertical lines and on my belly and they just kept growing and more of them came and it was it was very disfiguring and very hard for me to see. And to know

 

P:  I can relate to this actually…you have spent your entire life with society telling you that part of your worth is what your body looks like. So it’s impossible to just drop that once you’re pregnant when all these changes happen, right? It’s the all these things in such dramatic conflict. Of course you’re gonna feel unhappy with that. Of course she well that makes perfect sense. This is the most human thing you’re gonna do. And

 

C: I have a double whammy. I was hiding and having the stretch marks and my mother saying you’ll you’ll have a baby and then you’ll move on and then it will all be behind you but not only emotionally wasn’t never behind me. But then I had a young woman you know who was brought up to believe virginity is you know the most precious thing you have that now not only did I not have that, but my body was disfigured and I mean my baby was 3 weeks late and 40 hours of labor. 

 

P: Oh my God 

 

C: alone. And

 

P:  so let’s talk a little bit. Are you getting our OB visits while you’re pregnant?

 

C: You know, I cannot remember that. In writing my book. There were certain things that I just could not get a hold of. In my mind. I can’t you know, I could remember a lot of moments but my OB visits I can’t remember a lot of punch ball moments but my OB visits I can’t remember

 

P:  So before you give birth, how do you know today’s the day?

 

C: Well, like I said, I was always in a home for unwed mothers. Everybody who had come in when I was there when I first came in, was already gone. People came in after I was there already gone and I thought I was never going to have a baby. So finally you know I was having a lot of Braxton Hicks a lot of pains, but I was not dilating enough for them to send me to the hospital. So finally, my water didn’t break. I started having pains and I think I feel like I just willed it into happening. I was going to break apart if I don’t get this baby out. The baby was actually, I think, borderline stressed. I know I was distributed and they didn’t want to do a C section because I was an unwed mother and there will be a scar which, you know, I this is what they told me but as an adult in retrospect, I tend to think that and this is just my opinion, that it didn’t have so much to do with the scar as in with the cost if they didn’t want to do a section because that would mean that’s as much as a surgery. It is. 

 

P: yeah Yeah, 

 

C: and so they let me go and kill you know, they couldn’t let me go anymore I guess so how did I know? I guess just the pain has finally got regular you know when they’re not regular every X number of minutes then you’re not in labor. That’s what I was told

 

P:  What is the home for unwed girls like Is it is it a church? Is it a its own building? What’s it look like?

 

C: It’s his own building. It was fairly modern building for the time was Rosario family home Catholic Charities place run by the Sisters of Charity in Pittsburgh. It reminded me very much of my nursing dormitory. You know, there were you know rooms and there were two people in each room. There was a lounge where you watch TV and play games and things like that. There was a chapel where they had mass every day and we were encouraged to go to maps. There was a dining area and there was a an outdoor area but we didn’t go outside. Some girls would leave but I never did. I did one time my father came over. They were only 20 minutes away. And they came over my dad came over and took me for a ride after dark and I was there for Christmas time. To see the lights and the windows downtown Pittsburgh. That’s something we used to do as a family. Right around Christmas time. We’d looking at the light. And my mother didn’t come she didn’t want to see pregnant. Yeah. So what I remember about Christmas was that everybody else left. I don’t know where they went but they left and I was there alone. And I ate dinner by myself in the dining room. Everything was shut down because it was Christmas. So



P:  they’re really taking this hiding away things seriously.

 

C: Well, I did you know, I I have heard other stories from women like me whose parents would come and get them. Women who they’ll communicate with people but I didn’t. And I my mother suggested that I that my dad take me downtown to look at the windows, but I said I didn’t want to because somebody would see me and we went back and forth. Well then he said nobody will see you to be after dark. And as a matter of fact, you know, she didn’t come because she didn’t want to see me. So it was a constant message from her that she couldn’t handle it

 

P:  did you become friendly with other women who are in the home with you?

 

C: Yeah, they’re my roommate who I don’t write about and my roommate and I became close. And we kept in touch after the births and eventually we drifted apart and with the internet, I’ve tried to find her and I can’t find any anything about her.

 

P:  And does she bear this experience in a similar way that  you did?

 

C: You know everybody’s situation is different. Her sister was who was like eight years old and he was lived in Pittsburgh also, and she would go out occasionally to her sister’s place. But yeah, I think that we were both together in our grief and she was Catholic too in fact I think all the girls there were catholic

 

P:   Wow. So let’s get back to your birth. So you are having regular contractions and and is someone with you or how does that all work?

 

C: No, nobody was with me.

 

P: First of all, her mother didn’t come to the birth right. She had to give birth alone.

 

KB: Oh yeah, me too. Yes.

 

P:  So this is another question about who does this benefit. I don’t understand whose decision this isn’t

 

KB: to terrorize you is to keep you from reoffending. They didn’t want recidivism. They didn’t they did not want you to know what’s coming because they wanted to properly properly terrorized and the parents I think did not want to be exposed to what the reality of what was occurring. So oftentimes, they would even sign the documents in advance that if you get you had a boy, they would be circumcised. I have the signed paper by my mother, and oftentimes the babies were born at night. So so nobody from the maternity home of course wanted to give up their nighttime hours to stay with you. Not even a nurse would be with you. They would just maybe check on you, you know, every hour or something.

 

C: Now they take you to the hospital, you know you’re admitted they kept my door closed. Because I was a Rosalia girl. And so it was all secret. You know, nobody came in. I think one nurse was assigned to me so that it would be limited exposure. I don’t mean that I have private nurse I mean that only one nurse would see me and the doors kept closed. And I was alone and I knew that I had done the wrong thing by getting pregnant and I deserve this. I was a perfect martyr. I couldn’t suffer enough to pay for my sin by 

 

P: God that seems like a lot to bear. And so it sounds like the the delivery was pretty hard.

 

C: Yeah, I you know, after two days, I was pretty worn out and there was a nurse that came in I’ll never forget her name was Lynn, when he came in second evening when I was still there, and she said she couldn’t believe that I was still there and she do as close to me and age. And I remember her crying and saying, You know, I could be I could be you laying there and you could be me. And she said you shouldn’t be alone, and I she said I just can’t I would sit with you myself if I didn’t have to work. So she was one person who showed me some kindness and, you know, real sympathy. My cousin who’s a priest, who arranged for the, for me to go to Rosalia or I should say gave us the information. He came in one day, and he’s the only visitor I had and he said that my mother sent him because she knew I was in labor and she didn’t know what was taking. He just came in gave me a blessing and left

 

P:  That seems incredibly hard. Do you know where the the issue was or service wasn’t entirely in it? Or like Why was the birth taking so long?

 

C: I don’t know. I was 18. I don’t know. I got you know, I was a pain. I don’t know. I just know that they kept saying or not all the way yet. Okay,

 

P:  so that sounds now the way dilated with that sounds like 

 

C: yeah, you know, I think these days they give epidurals so they didn’t do anything like that back then. There was no, there was no sedation at all. And so I was having the baby, you know the final stage of labor and they put me on a cart and put me into the delivery room. I remember being so frantic and holding my hands over my face and saying, Give me the gas. My mother had told me like way before it happened, that they would give gas right when the baby was being born. And they put the mask over my face and I blacked out basically. And when I woke up, the big light was on and there was all this clanging of pans. You know there are people bustling around and I’m laying there and you know trying to I wasn’t wide awake I was still recovering from the ether…you know, it gives you a terrible taste in your mouth and saying you know what? What was going on? And they said, you’re all done you can go back to your room now. Come on over on this car and about the baby. And they said, Oh, you had a girl because back then you didn’t know what you were going to have. Yeah. And so I couldn’t move apparently was a traumatic birth because I went on to bleed for months. And I didn’t have I didn’t have care afterwards. I didn’t know. I don’t know if if something was broken when I was born, or what but I remember I couldn’t afterwards. And my mother said at some point. I don’t know. I think maybe you should go to the doctor. This is not normal. still bleeding after two months.

 

P:And did you go to the doctor?

 

C: I don’t think that’s another piece that I can’t remember specifically. 

 

P: So after you give birth they just send you home or

 

C: no you actually have given birth. A I think most I must have stayed at least one night I don’t remember what time of day she was born. I think she was born the morning but I can’t explain but I know I was sent back to Rosalia very quickly. I don’t remember if it was that same day or if it was the next day. But I was taken out through the kitchen because they you know they go a wheelchair thunking over the floor. And people in the kitchen looking you know, like the only time somebody would be brought through the kitchen I guess is if you’re a Rosalia  girl and you were hiding and there was a cab out back so I went out to service and back to the hospital. And I got into the cab and went to close the door and a nurse comes running out of the hospital. She’s screaming at me Wait, wait, you can’t go yet. You can’t go yet. And she’s got the baby who I hadn’t seen and I had been told over and over and over at Rosalia You can’t see your baby. You can’t hold your baby. If you do, you’ll never be able to give her up. And a nurse went to give her to me. I put my hands up I said no, no, no, no, no, I can’t No, I can’t hold her and the nurse was totally annoyed. And she said Why would you say that? Why don’t want to hold your baby and hoping you don’t ever want your baby. And she said that’s ridiculous how she supposed to get back to the Rosalia and I said I don’t know. Can you bring her in? No. This is the way we do it. Now hurry up. It’s cold out here because in January. She put the baby in my arms and so I held her for the ten minutes or whatever it was from the hospital to Rosalia. That was The only time I got to hold her.

 

P: I’m confused. How is she supposed to get back to Rosalia if you aren’t supposed to touch her. Do you know how it works there, if not at the time, do you know now? 

 

C: So there’s a prenatal section where the young women were waiting and then there was a second area that was nursery and the postpartum section. And the nursery was divided away. So it was the pre prenatals couldn’t go over and see the nursery. Right and I can’t remember specifically but I think that the host part on floor was on a different floor or at least a long ways from the nursery because they wanted to discourage you from seeing your baby.

 

KB: And we of course were oblivious because many of us entering the maternity homes at that point didn’t even know that our babies would be surrendered. Until we had been there for some time and talk to other girls. And we didn’t even get information about what was happening inside our bodies. And that was intentional to keep us from bonding emotionally and physically with our own baby. And we can go into that more about thought reform and brainwashing and how they used it to their advantage to get these babies and kept us away from the new mothers completely separated from them so that we could not learn what their experience was. So keep us properly terrorized.

 

C: So the baby went in the nursery and I went in the postpartum area that was that was a bad time was hard.

 

P: That seems particularly cruel to say you take her over and put her in the nursery. That seems that seems nuts. and then Rosalia is facilitating adoption from the nursery.

 

C: You know, that’s interesting, because my understanding was that the baby would be fostered for a short time like a month or something and then would go to adoptive parents. But I found out afterwards, like during my search, that that’s not what happened that she was actually stayed in the nursery for a long time or something. And then she went into a foster home. And then she was adopted. And she was born in January and she wasn’t adopted until July. 

 

P: Oh wow. 

 

C: And I don’t think I don’t know the circumstances because I don’t know how the adoption system worked. But my understanding is that parents are found ahead of time, you know, not like, you know, a puppy mill or where you go pick out your dog 

 

P: Yeah,

 

C: I don’t know that side of the story. But I know that I was upset and shocked when I discovered that she had not been parented. He had not been with her adoptive parents until so far down you know? Many months later. I think that is an incredible mistake. Or for a baby for my baby. who have not had a mother figure immediately. 

 

P: Yeah. Yeah, 

 

C: talk about the primal wound. Right.

 

P:  Yeah, that’s a well devastating for both he was wearing sounds like

 

taking his babies were actually in foster care. We could have visited them. We could have taken possession of them, had them held them. Reclaimed them had we been told where they were but we were not told we were told in fact that they had gone from our arms to their new family.

 

P:  14:34  

So then you stay in postpartum for a little while then go back to your parents house.

 

Unknown Speaker  14:38  

Yeah, I went back home and my mother was a quitter. Like, you know, it’s just your home now you’re gonna get better you’re gonna get on with your life. You’re gonna forget about a little bit. You just have to keep looking forward. And so that was your mantra every day. Keep looking forward. Look back to think about it.

 

P: One thing I don’t really understand is this press of like move on. Let’s this this

 

KB: forget it ever happened go on life as if it never happened. That’s the mantra of what they said to us all along from the minute they got their hands on us until the minute we were discharged empty handed. Was that you will forget about we promise you will forget that this ever happened. You will go on with your life and you will have a children you can keep you are told do not tell anyone Yeah, they didn’t want what they were doing no to the general public so you know we’re believing them well if you tell everybody’s gonna think you’re you know you’re used dirty laundry you’re you’re in the you’ll never find a decent man who will marry you. You will be able to find a job and you won’t be able to rent an apartment. You won’t be able to feed your baby. Your baby will suffer because of you and what you’ve done. So that was that was you know, to hide the evidence of what was done, don’t tell. And boy did they drill that into our brains. I didn’t tell for 30 years, we were very easily manipulated. And so we were grieving privately and we could talk to no one about it.

 

C; And so I never had a chance to grieve. I never had a chance to talk about it. I felt my shame I was able to push it away and feel like okay, this is what I’ve got. This is I’ve just had to keep going. What else am I going to do?

 

P:  So did you go back to nursing school?

 

C: I enrolled in a different school. And you know, people who wanted to know what happened, why did you leave? Why did you leave St. Joseph. And, you know, well, I wasn’t sure I wanted to be a nurse because I needed to take some time. I mean, that was my explanation in general. Yeah, I started a new school and they allowed me to pick up basically where I left off. So that was good I mean, you know, I lost the year because I was out of school, but I was able to finish. I did a lot of drinking after that

 

P:  God I can imagine. I mean it’s such an enormous thing to imagine putting aside or acting like it didn’t happen or like Academy Award Level stuff you have going there seems unbelievably hard. She did a lot of drinking after that, which I believe is appropriate.

 

KB: Somewhere I came across a syndrome for mothers who had surrender never relinquish. It was a surrender because it was a gun to the head experience. You had no choice at all, except to sign so it’s surrendered and terminology is important. But I read the syndrome where mothers when they returned home, they face drinking, drugs, rape, sleep disturbances, everything pretty much that you would associate with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. We faced when we came home and yet we could talk to no one about it and that’s why they call it disenfranchised grief. So it was no one that we could turn to and yet it felt like our baby had died.

 

P:  And I’m imagining complicated. The pregnancies of your children later.

 

C: Yeah, well, to a point. I couldn’t wait to get married. And I wanted to have a baby right away. I’ve heard and I’ve read other people’s books or stories where they spent the rest of their life thinking about their baby that they gave up. And I couldn’t I couldn’t let myself I just wanted to like my mother said and move on. And so I got married not to the baby father but to a different person. But he I found basically and I think I just I just charmed HimI charmed him into marrying me  like a baby. So when I finally I had a baby pretty quickly, so we were married in April of 71. And my daughter was born in June of 72. And, you know, when I said about, you know about getting pregnant, he said he didn’t want to have kids yet and he knew about my baby, but he didn’t talk about it. He was just like okay, so that happened to you. So I, you know, in the summer we were married in April in the summer I started talking about having a baby and he said it’s too early. I don’t want to have a baby yet. You know, we need to get some money and blah blah, blah. So I got pregnant in September. She was born in June, and I swear it was the happiest day of my life. I just remember holding her and feeling like I finally had what I wanted. I didn’t feel like I have finally replaced my child. I just felt like this is you know, I finally I’m, I’m legitimate. And I can have a baby a real baby that I can keep that I can have a shower for. And people congratulate me and asked me about her and fawn over her and it was it was the opposite of everything I had been through

 

P:  I guess I can see where you’re looking to square what happened previously in some ways. Do you look back at 18 year old you and is the shame dispelled? Do you think now with your experience like that none of that was right. And that wasn’t my fault. And it’s, you know, sex is human and natural. And you know, it was it was an accident. 

 

C: That’s a real interesting question. It really took my whole life up to that point and I think when I turned was when I was about to publish my book, you know, and that’s recent, right? And I put it on social media that I was, you know, I had finished my memoir and I were it was about having a baby at 18 and giving her away, and people in my family, my siblings knew, but people in my family and in my general point, nobody knew. And so when I did that, that’s that’s when I felt like I opened the doors. And like I’m saying it to the world and that’s when my shame started to dissolve. When I first started the memoir, which I never intended public, I used a pen name my name was Susan Siskin. I think is pretty cool name. But I was I was told no, you can’t do that when you write a memoir. 

 

P: Yeah. 

 

C: You can’t do that. And so then I started calling myself Cathy in the book and that was really, really hard. And eventually when somebody in my writing group say that, Oh, you’re going to publish this Sunday and I remember having a flip flop in my chest  like, Ah, no, no, I can’t do that. No. And, you know, as time went on, I’ve been working on for many years as time went on, it became more solid. And you’re not supposed to write a memoir to heal. That’s what I read. that’s not why I did it. But that’s what happened. It’s been a tremendous help me be able to talk about it, you know, in the name of my book is I need to tell you, I still don’t know why I need to tell the story. I still don’t know why. But I think of it is kind of like a whole thing that’s kind of like an abscess, and you know it, it opened and I just have to keep on getting it all out. You know, for to heal. And I don’t know if it will ever go away. I’m not sure I’ve been saying before I got the publisher I said I just it’s just too much for me. I’m just gonna, I’m gonna erase all my computer files. I’m gonna burn all of my paper. I’m just gonna walk away. I’m not going to talk about this or write about this anymore. And you know, my writing group friends. You can’t do that and just take a break and get away from it. And oh, it’s been a hard process.

 

P:  I can imagine there’s so much packed into the year that you spent hidden and the years after when you’re not supposed to talk about it and not supposed to feel it and not supposed to have any emotional energy around it. But it did happen in Israel and you know, you’re a person so that all that stuff lives in you right in some way until until you acknowledge it. What are your girls say? Didn’t you say to girls?

 

C: Yeah, yeah, I have two girls. I didn’t tell them about it until they were well out of high school. I think they were around 20 You know, one was maybe 920 something and they were they were pretty shocked and they just kind of were like, Whoa, go. So what are we supposed to do? And what about us? And of course I haven’t found her at that point. I wasn’t looking for a point I just said, I just wanted you to know that. You know, I was I was through my divorce and a lot was changing in my life and I felt like it was time to tell them they’re grown up. So the baby first child I have has never been discussed. You know, they there was that it was it was very special was very limited. And when I started writing, my youngest daughter was 100% supportive. He said I I’ll help you whatever way you would ask me about the older one, I think sees me strictly as her mother. And not somebody who had a relationship before she was born and had a baby is not interested in a half sister. Yeah. So when I began my search, my oldest daughter said I’m just afraid for you Mom afraid to get hurt. Her she’s always she’s been protective. And the younger one has read the book. The older one has the book, but I haven’t heard a word about the book from her and I don’t want to ask her about it. I don’t want to put her on the spot. So I’m just waiting, hoping that at some point, you’ll have process which she needs to and maybe she’ll talk about it.

 

P:  So it sounds like you found your first child?

 

C: I did. Yes, I did

 

P:  And are you allowed to contact them or how does that work? Is there such a thing as allowed?

 

C: Well, in my case, I discovered that, you know, Pennsylvania had a law in a closed adoption, as do many states. The records were SEALED for 99 years. And so after my divorce in the 90s I started wanting to find her but there was no way before the internet. There was no way to really, really search

 

P:  I’m imagining that it’s easier now with genetic stuff. It’s much easier.

 

C: Yeah. Because the records were SEALED for 99 years and and when I started searching for her when I started writing this book, I was told, you know the records are sealed, etc. And this was like 2016 17. After a long period I discovered kind of by accident that the laws had actually changed in Pennsylvania in 2011. 

 

P: Oh, wow. 

 

C: That with a certain process, the records can be opened. And it seemed that nobody knew that because the baby’s father is an attorney doing works represent located and I contacted him and asked him for help and he said nobody can get into those records. So he didn’t even know that the live change. But I contacted after a year of false leads. I contacted Catholic Charities social service department and I couldn’t believe it that right away. The woman said yes, we could find your daughter. Wow. You know after a year of letter writing and the process is I don’t know what it is today. But this is what it was then you hire or they have an intermediary, a search agent. So costs $300 And they give the service agent the record. The search agent connects with the baby the person and the parent, and so everybody’s still living so that was done a letter is sent out to each of them, letting them know that the first mother is searching and asking, you know why and there’s no obligation obviously, and if they would, if they’re interested, contact the third agent not me, but the agent. And so that was quite an emotional process for me. So some time went by, like three weeks I think it was And finally I got an email from my daughter. And that was it was pretty emotional. So she lives on the East Coast and I live on

 

On the East Coast and I live on the West Coast, and we email back and forth several times a day for a long time, months and months. And eventually it kind of dwindled. And then we were just texting and the cracks dwindled. And now I don’t hear from her.

 

P:  So the original connection, what she said was emotional. Is it emotional, happy or emotional angry or, like what’s the tenor?

 

C: My first thing was to ask for forgiveness to tell her that I do want to give her up and tell her I’m sorry that he didn’t have her mother with her to raise her and she wrote back and said, there’s nothing to forgive. Thank you for giving me a life. And then there was a lot of curiosity. You know her questions and that’s what the emails were questions about her beginnings and what I went through, and I think I was I gave her everything I could. I gave her pictures of my family, who wanted to hear my voice I sent her a voice recording she’s so guarded She would send me pictures. He wouldn’t talk on the phone. I think she’s a natural thing. She’s afraid. She’s afraid to trust. And I was so I went through a period where I was so anxious to meet her that I offered to fly to her airport she’s in a big city, fly to the airport where she lived, and meet her there for lunch, and then get on a plane and go back to Oregon. Like in the same day, just so she wouldn’t have to worry about anybody. You know, her parents were a consideration for her because he’s very loyal to them and didn’t want to upset them. Her father was upset though, I guess he said What does she want after all these years? And you know, she’s I think she was 45 years old or 46 years old

 

Yeah, and I would have loved it. If parents had contacted me. I would have loved was still love to speak to her mother communicate with her mother and find out what she was like growing up. I would just love that.

 

P:  It is incredible story and I I so appreciate you sharing it. And I I can’t help but feel angry for younger you that that this is what you experienced and that this was deemed okay by so many people. So many people thought this was an appropriate way to treat young women who were you know, in a really hard situation no matter how even if you’ve gotten married. It’s really hard to be pregnant the first time. Yes, especially as a young person and it’s not like you could go and get you know What to Expect When You’re Expecting or look something up on the just you don’t have any of those resources. So just the like conspiracy of people around you to say, Oh, this is appropriate treatment of someone in your circumstance. Just I just I maybe I’m not being empathetic enough to those people but I just feel angry. I just feel like that all of that is wrong.

 

Unknown Speaker  3:19  

You know, I really appreciate that. And that if something that started coming out or coming to me and and surprising my awareness when I started writing about people, particularly my mother, people would say, you know how how my mother was and how cruel and I didn’t know that until I started talking about and I started realizing, you know, like you said I started being getting a perspective on everything that happened. And picturing myself as a mother and having an eight year old daughter and having all that happen. And I just can’t connect doesn’t, you know, there’s, regardless of the times or whatever I never would have been able to allow my regardless of the shame and whatnot. I mean, no, I wouldn’t have been able to do that.

 

P:  4:23  

Yet. Well, it’s amazing that you wrote the book. I’m so glad it’s published and will you remind us of the name? Yeah,

 

Unknown Speaker  4:28  

my name is I need to tell you, I need to tell you. Yeah, I need to tell you. Yeah. And it’s funny because people will say, well, what’s the name? overhead and who’s on first? Exactly.

 

P:  4:44  

I’ll put a link in the show notes so people can find it. Thank you. So much for coming on and sharing your story.

 

C: Thank you, Paula. Thank you so much.