These days the word mother can mean a lot of different things. As today’s guest shares, she sought out the birth of her first child, but the second pregnancy was unintended. Her preference for family size clashed with her partners, Although she may have been open to terminating the pregnancy, her partner was not; she was living in a state whose majority is not particularly supportive of a woman’s right to choose, and she was brought up in a religion in which abortion is not considered a reasonable choice. and so began a very emotionally taxing pregnancy and birth. She shares how she managed these challenging circumstances which I think is an important story to share, especially right now when such black and white ideas about pregnancy and birth are in abundant circulation.
You can find Jennie’s writing here
Average Time for Labor
https://www.verywellfamily.com/length-of-labor-how-long-will-it-be-2759011
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4982443/
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.
These days the word mother can mean a lot of different things. As today’s guest shares, she sought out the birth of her first child, but the second pregnancy was unintended. Her preference for family size clashed with her partners, Although she may have been open to terminating the pregnancy, her partner was not; she was living in a state whose majority is not particularly supportive of a woman’s right to choose, and she was brought up in a religion in which abortion is not considered a reasonable choice. and so began a very emotionally taxing pregnancy and birth. She shares how she managed these challenging circumstances which I think is an important story to share, especially right now when such black and white ideas about pregnancy and birth are in abundant circulation.
after we spoke I talked with a fantastic OB who has much more exposure to ambivalence about pregnancy than most of us and she shares her insights
and one other note to add: Everyone in this conversation has dogs at home, and it seems all dogs were desperate to be a part of this episode..so you’ll hear everyone’s dogs at some point.
Let’s get to this inspiring story.
P: Hi, thanks so much for coming on the show. Could you introduce yourself and tell us where you’re from?
Jennie: I am Jennie Case and I am currently in Conway, Arkansas.
P: Oh, wow. Wow. Cool. Excellent. Jennie. We’re going to talk about the family you and your partner created but sometimes the family you came from influences some of those choices. So I’m just wondering, Do you have siblings?
J: I do. I’m the middle child of three. So an older brother and a younger sister,
P: Are the three of you close in age?
J: my brother is 14 months older than me
P: Oh wow
J: and my sister is four years younger. So he and I are very close in age. Oh, yeah.
P: So did that influence your thinking at all about how many kids you want or how close you want them
J: it did when I was growing up? I was close with my brother. Until we both became teenagers, which I think is pretty typical, especially male female siblings. And I wasn’t very close with my sister. She was four years younger, right? And so my brother and I, kind of excluded sometimes from our childhood games. So when we were contemplating having a second child or thinking about having more than one, I worried about the age difference and my kids I have two are four years apart, and I worried that they wouldn’t be close as a result and four years might just be too too large of a gap.
P: Well, I’m interested to see how that turned out. So when you walked into pregnancy, what ideas did you have about what pregnancy to be like?
J: I was just curious about pregnancy I wanted with my first child in particular, I just wanted to have that bodily experience that seemed significant, something that it seemed like experiencing life meant, or the fullness of life for me meant also trying to experience the fullness of a pregnancy so I was really curious. What that would be like, and I wanted to hopefully, feel grounded and whole in my body and have it be really a kind of embodied experience for me.
P: That’s super interesting. And did you get pregnant easily.
J: I did. Yeah, I was one of those lucky people, I guess.
P: So you found out with a home kit.
J: uh huh
P: And what was the pregnancy like?
J: The pregnancy it was pretty smooth. With my oldest who’s my daughter. I didn’t have many complications except for the high blood pressure. At the end. I had my blood pressure. I think during the third trimester just kept going up. And so I worked with a midwife and she started to get concerned, which made me start to get concerned. So otherwise, you know, I was interested in an unmedicated birth and I was fairly active you know, kind of a green crunchy vegetarian, so I thought I was doing everything right and was really interested in being as healthy as possible and doing prenatal yoga and then to have my body seemed to rebel by just having a high blood pressure was a strange adjustment.
P: So it sounds like you hadn’t had that experience before. There’s no high blood pressure. No,
J: I usually have pretty low blood pressure.
P: So so let’s get to the birth then. How do you know today’s the day?
J: That’s with with both my pregnancies that’s a really interesting question, right? Because how I approached pregnancy I wanted to feel my body I wanted just to be really present in that experience. And I was really frustrated near the end of my first pregnancy because I kept having Braxton Hicks contractions every night from like 2am to 5am
P: Oh, wow.
J: To where I couldn’t sleep. I thought maybe this is it. Maybe this is it, but then it wasn’t they would go away. You know, as the sun started to come up, and I was so frustrated because I was exhausted from being up for three hours every night. And you know, thinking is this is is this it? So in the end with her I had to I was induced for high blood pressure. So they did Pitocin and everything and so that experience was…
P: wait, so slow down there. So where do you get to the point where they say, Okay, we’re gonna have to induce you and how does that unfold?
J: Yeah, I had, I think I had a, you know, at that point, I was meeting with midwife once a week. And so I had an appointment on Thursday.
P: And you’re like, like 37 weeks? Are you closer?
J: 38 about 38 Yeah. And it was high. Right. So they made me go to the hospital and their kind of triage area for pregnant women and lay there for a while to see if my blood pressure would go down on its own. And then they sent me home and said I need to be on bedrest that weekend in order to get my blood pressure down, and then go back on Monday and they were hoping the two midwives who I was working with at that point, were hoping that my body would just go into labor on its own or my blood pressure would be down and they could, you know, wait it out a little longer, but instead it was still high. On Monday, of course, right? Because I was nervous.
P: Did it feel like anything to you?
J: No, no. it didn’t
P: that feels like a particular cheat for someone who wants to be embodied.
J: Right.
P: that you can’t control and don’t feel
J: Yeah, exactly generating this birth.
P: So you come in on Monday, and they say, we’re just we’re gonna have to induce you.
J: Yep. I said, Well, we have to do this. It’s not safe. And then, you know, I was rushed off. I think I was crying because that’s not how I wanted my birth to be. It’s hard to have an unmedicated birth if they immediately start you on Pitocin right. So it seemed like what I had wanted was sabotage from the start before anything could even happen.
P: I assume they’ll do an unmedicated birth with Pitocin if you have high blood pressure, or no that’s not
J: Yeah, cuz they’re worried it’s preeclampsia, or it’s going to develop into preeclampsia. So I think their thinking is if your blood pressure is consistently high like that, it’s not safe and you need to get the baby out.
P: Okay, so does that mean that they’re you’re definitely having an epidural or what does that mean?
J: They did Pitocin it was up to me and whether or not I’d have the epidural. So what was interesting about my first birth is I was on Pitocin it was fast, right? So I was actually only in labor for about five hours, which I’ve been told is extremely quick for a first time, mother, especially an induction so my body probably was about ready, even if it didn’t start the way I wanted it to so they started me on Pitocin I tried. You know, I kept refusing other pain meds not because I’m against them, but just because my goal was not to have an unmedicated birth. So I kept refusing them.
P: And what’s the pain like how do you how do you feel?
J: It was intense? Yeah, it was intense like I lost. I don’t know if most women feel like this. But I just all the sensations went inward, right? I lost sight of what was what else was happening in the room. Someone could be looking at me their head, two feet away, and I wasn’t entirely aware of them. I was just internal at that point. But so I probably would have asked for an epidural if that part lasted a lot longer but but it didn’t then suddenly. You know, they said it was time to push them.
P: Wow, that is really fast for a first one.
J: Yeah. And I mean, the midwife had come in to check me in the hospital and thought she had more time. So she left to go get lunch or dinner. And then the nurses suddenly had to call her and say no, you need to come back here. She’s about there. So it was unexpectedly quick.
P: It sounds like you’re doing unmedicated, right?
J: Yeah. I had Pitocin. But I didn’t have an epidural. So it was okay in the long run.
P: And was the birth what you expected it to be?
J: It was That’s a good question. I think I was kind of in awe of how physical it was, and how much you don’t control at some point, right. Felt very much probably around the time I was transitioning that your body just takes over.
P: Yeah.
J: What I wanted, didn’t matter. It was my body. I wasn’t telling my body to do things. My body was going to do it and he was going to work to get this baby out whether I was ready or not. And that was a really, you know, for someone who wanted that embodied experience that was a really powerful realization for me to just feel my body do what it needed to do.
P: It feels like the high blood pressure is a bit of a teaser. Yeah, like look, you already have no control.
J: Yeah,
P: but it’s not painful yet? Yeah. And then after the birth was that look kind of the way you had envisioned that you were hoping for?
J: it was so physical, right? I wasn’t prepared to be bleeding that long and to have to do so much postpartum care every time you have to go to the bathroom and the smells and everything that was just very surprising to me. And I had stitches because she came so fast. I had a second third degree tear, I forget which one so I have stitches and just all that care surprising. I don’t think I was adequately prepped for that part of it. But so the physicality stood out to me there as well.
And then I breastfed both of my kids and it surprised me how long it took to become comfortable with that. Like it was those first two weeks are hard and I can definitely understand why. Many women just can’t make it past those. First two weeks if they want to breastfeed, especially if they don’t have supports. I mean, I remember one night my nipple was burning and I couldn’t get my daughter to latch and I was crying and I was frustrated and my husband was calling the clinic to see what to do because he didn’t know what to do. And you know, his crying wife here who can’t breastfeed at 11pm and so that surprised me.
P: You thought it would be more quote natural and
J: I thought natural easy, right? But natural does not mean easy.
P: Yeah, yeah. I mean, it’s particularly interesting. I just saw some article today about the infant formula shortage. Yeah. And my youngest is 18. And I like it set me in a panic. Yeah, you know, it’s a terrifying thing to imagine.
J: Yeah.
P: And people suggesting you should just breastfeed. Yeah. It seems like that is a suggestion that comes from someone who’s never breastfed.
J: Yes, yes. and who isn’t? I mean, even if you do breastfeed, there are so many challenges you face like, you know, I worked. So pumping has its own issue. balancing all of that, and yeah, it’s complicated.
P: So, how was as the baby in the fourth trimester? She’s fine. She’s,
J: yep. Yep, she she was.
P: And now it sounds like for the second child, it was unplanned. Is that what you’re saying?
J: Yeah, this was unplanned. So he was an unplanned pregnancy.
P: So is that you caught that because you missed your period or how that happened?
J: Yep, I’m missed my period. So we had I had actually told my husband I was done having kids. I didn’t want to have any more and then a month and a half after I hadn’t gotten my period. And then I took a test and it was positive. So psychologically, it was a lot to adjust to.
P: I can imagine what were there. What was your husband? Looking forward to having more kids or were you guys on the same page?
J: We weren’t so that was part of part of what made it so difficult. He wanted more than one kid a lot more than I did. So we weren’t in agreement there.
P: And that child is how old now?
J: He’s now five,
P: five, so obviously, we kept the child Yep. Can you remember that road? How did you how did you sort of get over the initial resistance? The idea?
J: Oh, that took a long time for me. And, you know, I was caught up a lot and questions of choice and questions of bodily autonomy and what do you do in this situation? And you know, that can be a big rift between partners and it certainly was for us and then but what do you do when you’re caught in the middle of it right, and how much do you want to put a relationship that risk?
P: I can look online at places like the Guttmacher Institute or the CDC to see that almost half of all pregnancies are defined as unintended. But to give a broader context to Jennie’s particular experience. I took her story to a trusted OB today…today we’re lucky enough to have Dr. Matityahu on the show a fabulous OB from California who’s got a lot of experience with these issues. So Dr. Matityahu, who thanks so much for coming on.
Dr. Matityahu: Thanks so much, Paulette, I love being on your show.
P: Great. Okay, so today we’re gonna talk about Jennie who’s a writer, and I’m gonna read from her writing about her issues. And she’s a piece called the political pregnancy published in the rumpus, and I’m just gonna read little excerpts here. So she writes the spring that Trump wins the Republican primary I discover I’m pregnant with my second child. The pregnancy is unintended. A surprise. A month after I tell my husband that I want to stop at one child. My urine on a stick reveals two pink lines. My reaction isn’t joy. I’m deeply conflicted. But when I mentioned potentially terminating the pregnancy, my husband walks out of the room refusing to discuss it. Earlier that winter when we were still debating a second child. My husband had said his purpose was to be a father. The fact that I no longer wanted a second child snared The Space Between Us, so that it was me holding him back me stopping him from fulfilling his vocation. I’m guessing that this isn’t Jennie’s experience alone. And I’m wondering if women have brought these kinds of issues to you in your practice?
Dr. Matityahu: Yes. And I actually have a couple that I can even think of in particular, because this is a little bit different from someone who’s not in a stable relationship that comes with an unwanted pregnancy. It’s more memorable and sometimes a more emotionally charged conversation when someone who’s in a stable relationship has an unplanned pregnancy maybe has a child already. It’s a really it’s a hard conversation and not I mean, I would say not a hard conversation for me personally, but but definitely I can feel like it’s an emotionally much more challenging conversation and decision for the for the woman
P: and just grappling with all of those and what cultural messages were we bring into the conversations and so that took me I would say, I mean, five years. So work through, I’ve done a lot of writing. I’ve written a lot of essays about motherhood, trying to work through all of the social and cultural and personal issues that came up.
P: talk a little more about the cultural message. What do you mean by that?
J: I think, I guess I don’t think or in my experience, there’s not a lot of supportive cultural messages out there. For women who are experiencing an unintended pregnancy. There aren’t a lot of stories I at least didn’t have access to them. I’m from a Catholic background and there, it’s very clear what you should do if you have an unintended pregnancy, right. There’s no option available. So that’s one cultural message and then I think even within more progressive communities, there’s a sense that you make a choice you want to make and you approach birth or reproduction or pregnancy from as empowered a position as you can. And it was hard to find guidance for kind of that messy middle ground where you know, you just have all these conflicting emotions and you don’t quite know what to do. And it seems like you’re going to disappoint someone no matter what, whether it’s yourself or your husband or your mother, or, you know, whoever voices in your heads and I found that challenging, you know, even especially right now, right, Roe v. Wade is likely going to be overturned or weakened and I’m in Arkansas right, which is I’m now in Arkansas, which is a very conservative area, part of the Bible Belt and most of you know there are a large percentage of the community here is what we’d call pro life. So what happens if someone has an unintended pregnancy surrounded by cultural messages that say abortion or choosing something different is taboo or not something you should even consider? And those can be heavy messages to try and work through especially if you yourself are struggling with what to do
P: outside the doctor’s office, just don’t see the hard conversations that may be happening. I took this issue to Dr. Matityahu And there’s so much cultural baggage around ways to handle unintended pregnancies that you do not want to carry out. So this is very much a struggle for her. So here’s another excerpt. She says, when I say I’m not excited for this child, he says, I’ll be excited for both of us, and something inside of me shrivels and cracks, because what does that mean for him to be excited enough for both of us, for me to become the body carrying your child others want? So when Jennie is living in writing about reflects our larger cultural conversation about bodily autonomy, do patients come to you with questions about abortion and share their conflicted feelings and how do you navigate that?
Dr. Matityahu: So I I have a lot of those conversations. I think those are two two aspects of the of the problem. I often will have the conversation with most women about this decision to keep or not keep the pregnancy will impact you for the rest of your life, no matter which decision you make. This is a life changing decision because for the rest of your life, you will either regret your decision that you kept or didn’t keep the bit you know, like for the rest of your life, you’re gonna say I would have had a one year old at this point, I would have had a two year old I would have had this or for the rest of your life. You’ll say, Oh, I’m so glad I had this baby even though I didn’t want it or you might say I love my child, but I would have completed school I would have kept my job I would have this I would have that. And so it’s an impactful decision no matter which way you go. And I think that most people, it’s about do I keep this life or or do I feel like it’s going to ruin my life either emotionally? Or etc. You know, and then what’s it going to do to my relationship? Like if you’re in a stable relationship, and you’re making this decision, and your partner is against that decision, that has a huge impact on your relationship? Because if you’re keeping the baby because your husband really wants it, but you don’t Okay, now your husband is happy, but you’re feeling resentful and miserable and how what’s that going to do to your relationship is like it’s so charged when you’re in a monogamous relationship. You already have a child together and now, you can’t even have a discussion about a current pregnancy.
P: Oh, I totally agree. And in fact, I’m, I’m working on an episode on abortion. And it’s very hard to get anyone to come and talk about it.
J: Yeah.
P: Because whether you’re from a Catholic background or not, that message is so pervasive. feel shame.
J: Yeah,
P: I keep I keep saying to people, let’s normalize this care choice. Your reproduction has got to be in your control. It’s too dramatic transformation of your entire life for someone else to decide that for you.
J: Yeah.
P: But people are still completely reluctant to talk about it because they feel shame around. Yeah. So what you’re hoping the standard and the ideal is is very much in conflict with Yes, a million other messages
J: And that makes it so difficult in that moment, right when you do have to make a decision. Because I think that decision, many people whether or not to continue or terminate and unintended pregnancy is going to be complicated. Sometimes it’s not right. Sometimes the answer is an easy, yes or no for many women, but I think oftentimes, it’s not an easier yes or no, it’s something people grapple with. And I think it’s hard to grapple with that personally. But it’s especially hard, I think, maybe even impossible sometimes to grapple with that when there’s so many cultural messages and taboos and so much shame associated with with that choice.
P: So unintended pregnancy is very common, as mentioned before, it accounts for almost half of all pregnancies. The lion’s share of those happen when birth control isn’t used properly and the rest happened when birth control is being used properly. In your experience is unintended pregnancy usually a complicated issue or by the time people get to you they’re they’re more settled.
Dr. matityahu: That’s a great question. I would say off the top of my head maybe it’s like half and half and so so I feel like there’s a lot of young women who come in and unintended pregnancy, maybe they’re not in a stable relationship. They’re not sure what to do we talk through what are the pros, what are the cons? What are they thinking what are the consequences? You know, are they in school, or do they have help? You know, and so, so I think that there’s, there’s definitely a number of women that will come in and be really conflicted. And then you know, there’s women who are married and their husband wants another one. They don’t you know, this is unintended, you know, and there’s a lot of conversation around that. And then there’s a number of young women who get pregnant and they are very clear like they call or they send me a message and say, I’m pregnant How soon can we talk about taking care of this and so for a lot of women, they see a positive pregnancy test. They’re like this is not for me, and then they they just proceed without you know, without having much of a conversation about it because they know what they want.
And then there’s there’s women who come in they’re like, this wasn’t planned and they’re, you know, they sort of voice through it, and they say, You know what, unplanned but welcomed and so we have a lot of unplanned but welcomed pregnancies where they’re like, Well, you know, I wasn’t careful. I knew this was a possibility. I was just being stupid, but I think I’m coming to terms with it. it really runs the gamut
P: it reflects that. It’s a complicated issue, right? So there’s a lot of different responses to it.
Dr. Matityahu: Yeah. And I think it’s a hard conversation to have and I and I sort of applaud women who feel comfortable coming to the office and sitting and having that conversation because I think women that come in I think that they anticipate being judged. there’s so many women that come in with an unplanned pregnancy, and think that they’re supposed to act excited. And when they come to my office and I and I say right up front, how are you feeling about this pregnancy, then sometimes they’ll take a step back and say, you know, I’m actually not sure and you can tell they’re embarrassed to even admit that and it allows me to say you know, there’s no judgement here. Why don’t we have a conversation about how you’re feeling about this? You get to decide on what happens with your body and your pregnancy and there’s no judgment. So if you want to have that conversation, we can have that conversation, and it opens up the door for women who are really embarrassed to talk about their ambivalence about the pregnancy. I think that most people feel like, well, I’m supposed to be happy about a pregnancy, especially if they’re in a committed relationship. They feel like well, I’m in a to committed relationship. I was being stupid about birth control. So this is my fault. I just have to suck it up. And I think that there’s a there’s a lot of hesitancy about bringing up whether they feel okay about the pregnancy people. I think women are embarrassed or uncomfortable or guilty if they don’t embrace a pregnancy and I think that there should be room for them to express their desire not to have a pregnancy or maybe to eventually come around to wanting to pregnancy I think there’s there’s a there’s definitely a discomfort with expressing there’s a discomfort with expressing like not wanting a pregnancy. But But mostly, I think the discomfort is if you’re in a relationship. That’s a committed relationship, especially if you’ve had another kid it’s almost like, like, how could you not know and so there’s a lot more judgment for that subset of women.
P: So what was the pregnancy like, given that you were ambivalent?
J: It was hard. I mean, it was really hard. I you know, struggled for someone who wants body pregnancy I felt not very embodied because it was hard for me to feel present in my life at that particular moment. So it was, you know, I struggled a lot with the fact that I wasn’t excited and what that would mean, and if that meant I would be a terrible mother and, you know, if I was ruining his life already, because I wasn’t excited and wasn’t welcoming of the experience. So it was really difficult.
P: As you can imagine, it’s a real struggle for Jennie throughout the pregnancy, and she develops Peri Partum Depression, and she writes, I get counseling and try to think positively about the birth. But a journal entry of mine written in early November is full of fear, fear that I won’t bond and I won’t be happy that something will go very, very wrong. I won’t be a good mother to this child. So I’m imagining, you know, fear of not being a good parent is normal enough. And you know, every first time mom probably has that is a very different situation. And Jennie’s conflict is that she feels so negatively about this baby, that she’s worried about what the consequence of that is. And I’m wondering if you think there is a consequence or is she creating a chemistry that is somehow affecting the baby?
Dr. Matityahu: A couple of different things in that so women that are depressed, anxious having mental health issues during pregnancy? There have been some studies done to try and parse out what kind of impact does that have on the unborn child? I don’t know that we have a great answer for that. But I think in addition to women feeling depressed and anxious, now they’re worried is my depression anxiety impacting my unborn child and so now it just magnifies their depression and anxiety. That’s that’s one thing. Well, I don’t think we have a good answer for that. You know, I wish I could just wave my magic wand and say, Fine, then don’t be depressed and anxious. But that’s not a reality. You can’t just wish that away. You can’t just can’t take that out of the equation. On the other hand, I do have a lot of women who are ambivalent about the pregnancy or just have depression, anxiety and then have concerns about bonding, not feeling excited about the pregnancy, not feeling connected to the pregnancy, worrying that they’re not going to be connected to the baby. And that’s that’s a real concern. That is a part of serious depression and anxiety that needs to be addressed. And so you know, to be able to see a therapist and potentially they need to be on medication during the pregnancy. I mean, that’s one aspect. I have a number of women who after the birth having postpartum depression a huge aspect of that is I don’t feel connected or bonded to my child. I bonded with my first one and I just don’t really feel much for this one. I feel resentment or I just feel disconnected or I just feel tired and aggravated or there’s so many different things that a mom can feel and then they feel guilty. So in addition to not feeling what they think that they should feel, they feel guilty that they’re not feeling what they think they should feel, and then they feel depressed and anxious about what they’re feeling and it just spirals. It’s a form of pretty intense postpartum depression when you’re not bonding with the child not feeling attached to the child not feeling happy about the child. I mean, it’s, that’s pretty serious. And so, again, having mental health support is is incredibly important. And it’s really challenging to get mental health support in this day and age and so there’s that and then feeling maybe ambivalent about taking medication when you’re feeling depressed. Then going back to Jennie, of you know, her peripartum and and postpartum depression has a very strong basis in But the whole lack of communication with their husband and lack of desire for the pregnancy and lack of ability to have that conversation with him in a productive way and come to an agreement where they both feel like they’re heard and and getting their needs met. And so there’s so much baggage behind the postpartum depression that she writes about. That’s not just something that an antidepressant is going to fix, right? And then there’s the religious guilt. So you are adding a whole new dimension of guilt, you know, in addition to society and husband and culture and religious guilt is is pretty intense in real.
P: I’m so sorry to hear it. That sounds really hard to manage. What was it like at your house? Was your daughter excited? At some point when she she was
J: yeah, she wanted a sibling. We ended up my second pregnancy had a boy and she she wasn’t excited about a boy. When we found out the sex of the baby, we told her and she threw herself onto the couch and started sobbing because she really wanted a sister rather than a brother. And then she was playing with her stuffed animals later that day, and she had them go to the hospital and have a baby and then return the baby to the hospital and exchange him for a sister. So she had to work through something.
P: so I’m wondering for and my sister is eight years younger than me. And I completely remember saying to my mother, don’t come home from the hospital with a boy.
J: Yeah.
P: And it was, you know, kind of probably, I wonder if it was probably on the cusp of ultrasound, so maybe they didn’t know the sex.
J: Yeah.
P: So I have all sympathies for your daughter. Yeah. thing to do. Was the pregnancy physically relatively straightforward.
J: Yes, that one was physically fairly straightforward mentally and emotionally. It wasn’t. But physically, it progressed pretty smoothly.
P: Well, I’m grateful for that. Because if you had, you know, high blood pressure in the second trimester, yeah, you’d be like, Are you kidding this? Yeah. And it’s hard and really my body. Yeah. So then let’s go to the birth and how does all that unfold?
J: Yeah. So you know, and here, it echoes my daughter’s birth in interesting ways, because I didn’t know what my body starting labor would feel like I just didn’t know. So as the due date, actually was well, he was born about a week early before due dates, you know, they’re all hypothetical anyway. But as the due date neared, I started to have those Braxton Hicks contractions again for like two to 5am and so I was like, is this it? Is this it again and frustrated with that? Once again, and then one night, you know, I was having these Braxton Hicks contractions. I couldn’t sleep but that had been the case for the past three nights. So I was just walking laps around inside the house and you know, eventually they became stronger but they weren’t consistent yet. So sometimes we’d be two minutes apart, and then there’d be 10 minutes apart and it just, you know, I was like body, what are you doing? But then all of a sudden, it just switched. And, you know, they were consistent and they were strong. So it’s like, Okay, I think we need to do something so I woke up my husband, but we aren’t from Arkansas, so we don’t have family nearby. So we needed to call a friend to come watch our daughter’s so that we could go to the hospital and she lived 30 minutes away so we allow for her to come and in the meantime, it’s like, we don’t have 30 minutes. So you know, he was just coming so he ended up being born and in our bedroom.
P: Wow. What so that sounds like a fairly stressful, a fairly stressful thing to understand in the moment like, Oh, we’re not going to get to the hospital. are you doing all this figuring out or your husband is doing it or
J: it was mostly me. But it Didn’t it feel stressful to me it felt like all right, this isn’t happening, right? Are this is happening? Not going anywhere. And again, there’s no choice right? So it felt once again, like, you know, my body wasn’t giving me the option was saying this is what’s happening right now. So let’s do this. I think it was a lot more stressful for my husband than it was for me. He was very nervous. And I was like,
P: it almost seems like the universe heard you say I didn’t want the intervention I wanted unmedicated and they’re like, no problem.
J: Yeah. Yeah, I did. I had I had hired a doula. Who I was working with for that pregnancy. And she ended up saying afterwards, I think you were just in labor denial, because you didn’t want to go to the hospital, which I don’t know maybe, you know, deep in my subconscious that was the case. But I, you know, I was actually pretty pleased with how that birth occurred. I felt more empowered in that situation than
I had expected to just somewhat the
P: do midwives arrive after the baby’s born or how does that all work?
J: Yeah, the baby was born in July arrived at our house and then eventually we called in the hospital and ambulance transported me to the hospital to have him checked out and everything.
P: But you guys cut the cord and you deliver the placenta and all that stuff by yourself.
J: Yep, yep.
P: Wow, that seems incredible to me. And then you like walk to the ambulance or they carry you out or hearing me out. As the baby was totally fine,
J: and the baby was fine. Yeah, he was a little cold. So they warmed him in a heated incubator for a little bit after we got to the hospital. But otherwise he was fine.
P: And given your entrance into that delivery. Are you feeling in any of the euphoria of having delivered once it’s over?
J: I think I think a great deal of relief. Yeah, I think I felt a great deal of relief, and I was impressed with what my body did and that my body was able, you know, was able to do that on its own really,
P: and are you happy to jump back into breastfeeding or what’s your relationship with that?
J: I was, it’s so strange because you forget a lot once that time period has passed. I feel like I forgot a lot from my daughter after that time period to hip cast. And then when my son was born, it was like, oh, yeah, I remember this part. I remember what it’s like to wake up, you know, every hour and a half throughout the night and have one half of your shirt soaking wet from milk, spraying out of the other breast while you’re trying to breastfeed on the other side and be wet from those nights so that you get those first few weeks afterwards and yeah, familiar in an intense way.
P: Yeah, yeah, I bet. I know. High blood pressure this time. No high blood pressure. Yeah. Well, that’s good. That’s excellent. What was this postpartum like?
J: It was? I mean, it was a challenge. Mentally and emotionally much more than it was with with my daughter. So I definitely struggled with some postpartum depression afterwards, just because of how physical that period is and how much work it is right? You can’t half time being a parent of a newborn. Or, you know, it’s it’s demanding physically, mentally, emotionally. And since this wasn’t an experience, I felt I had signed up to do a second time. That was a challenge for me. So I struggled with that adjustment. But persevered I guess.
P: I’m glad you made it. To the other side, although that sounds like a difficult road to traverse, especially if you’re not if the switch does not flicking you at some point during the pregnancy, right? Because it just gets harder to manage and there’s and you know, you thought your autonomy was being pressed when you were pregnant. Yeah, wait till he’s here.
J: Yeah.
P: So that sounds difficult. Having gone through that, would you have advice for younger Jennie? If she do it again? Or are you too close in time to the birth of a pregnancy? To have a perspective on it?
J: I mean, my advice for younger Jennie would be. I mean, I guess my advice for myself in the moment during those, some of those difficult periods would be that this is normal, right? I think. We don’t always recognize how normal complicated reactions to pregnancy in the postpartum period can be and it is couched or framed as abnormal or pathological when in fact, you know, any, any woman who is pregnant or raising an infant in a situation where she doesn’t have the support she needs, is going to feel strained right? And is going to be anxious or depressed and things like that. So I would tell myself, it’s normal and that you’ll get through it. I would also tell myself that it’s okay. To be more assertive about your choices and your autonomy.
P: It’s such a good point to say that it’s normal because there are no other experiences that you have in your life that are complicated and first of all, in my experience, nothing as physically demanding. As Yes. Yeah. So to imagine that it’s all not even like rosebuds and rainbows, but that you’ll be happy aboutit all the time Yeah. Oh, yeah. It’s such a weird fiction. Yeah, that is present everywhere.
J: Yeah. And, I mean, if you think about childbirth throughout the century, especially, I’d say pre, pre modernization, globalization. Women were never alone, right. If they had a baby they had sisters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts, community members around them all the time helping it was a community you know, it wasn’t like what six what I experienced and what I think a lot of women today experiences. It’s you in the baby in a bedroom at night, right? Or, you know, people come by to see the baby and say hi, but there are long stretches of time where you’re alone in the house with a newborn and that’s not normal, right? So no wonder so many women struggle.
P: That is totally true.like you. We lived not close to family. And so family would visit for a week and be super helpful for a week and then leave. Yeah, you’re alone. Again. Yeah. It is a totally different experience when you’re doing it by yourself. Yeah, yeah. That is a very good point. Now I’m excited to read about all your writing. Tell it tell us a little bit about what you’ve written and where we can find it.
J: Sure. I’m gonna let the dog and quickly so he stops barking
P: that’s fine. I’m excited. It’s your dog and not mine.
J: Yeah, well, as a writer, you know, my impulse when feeling conflicted or about something occurring in life is to research it and write about it and try and unpack and understand it that way. So I’ve written a lot about motherhood, and a lot about evolutionary biology in the context of motherhood and feminism. So I written somewhat political essays. About bodily autonomy in the context of the Trump administration when I had my second pregnancy. And then I’ve also written a lot of essays exploring motherhood from that perspective of evolutionary biology and what kind of environment were most humans raising children and during that long hunter gatherer period, and in what ways do we not have those environments in place right now in a manner that causes complexities and makes it especially difficult, or lonely I guess to be a mother today.
P: That’s sounds so interesting, and and so on point and something that gets lost in the discussion of motherhood and what you should be and what the cultural expectation
J: Yeah, yeah, yes.
P: Do you have a website?
J: I do. If Jennifer L case.com. There are some links to essays there. So I’ve published some pieces. And I have one in the rumpus and one on breastfeeding and evolutionary biology. Currently in the North American review, and I have a piece and literary mama and eco tome so and then I have a short piece actually, that just came out in diagram magazine that’s available online.
P: Okay, cool. Well, I will definitely link to that.
J: Yeah,
P: Jennie, thanks so much for coming on. And sharing your story is so interesting. And I look forward to seeing more of your writing. Yeah.
J: Thank you for having me. It was so fun to talk about.
P: Thanks again to Dr Matityahu for giving us a larger context in which to understand the often complicated set of feelings that come with an unintended pregnancy. Thanks also to Jennie for sharing her story–this is not the kind of thing you’ll see on most social media, instagram and facebook, or Meta now I guess, are for bright shiny moments..and seeing those all the time sometimes makes us lose track of the whole picture. I will include links to Jennie’s website on the War Stories from the Womb website in the show notes. Thank you for listening. If you liked the show, feel free to subscribe and share it with friends. We’ll be back soon with another inspiring story.