How Birth Work Saved My Life, Twice
I have been contemplating how to dive back into writing, and nurturing my business. Both of which I have had a strained relationship with as of late. I used to love writing, even if it was just captions to my photos on social media. Or a quick poem in my notes. But two years of trying to survive in the midst of a pandemic & abusive relationship stripped me of those passions, it robbed me of myself and my inspiration. People who create art in extreme situations astound me. I have recently been researching poets, photographers, and mothers who were documenting their experiences during WW2, because for the life of me I need to understand how we mothers can move through the tremendous weight of impossible situations with our hearts in tact. Still able to create, share, love.
My experiences were nowhere near the severity of those in WW2, but even a shred of pain can be turned into insight, motivation, and wisdom. I will share a bit about the pain, to see if that helps transform it for me.
The homes we grow up in shape the kind of relationship dynamics we accept. I saw love and parenting in extremes. I had very demonstrative parents. Celebrated and adored in most situations. That was always on a pendulum, a heavy one. That pendulum swung from extreme adoration to extreme neglect. I was loved, deeply. But I was never safe. We never lived in one home for long. Never stayed in one school. Never had a consistent home life. One parent was kicked out, in jail, or rehab, while the other was catatonically depressed leaving me and my small brother to eat cold green beans out of the can.
It is apparent what that left me seeking. Chaos and passion. Extremity and neglect. Inconsistency and fear. My first husband promised many things, but we were young, and I wanted to be a mother so deeply I believed them all. We had our babies. And beautiful things happened - but I was not happy, nor was I loved sincerely, or my emotional needs tended to. I built my birth business, to save me when I would leave - because I knew I would when I had the resources or was just finally fed up enough to not care. Birth work saved my life once by feeding me and my children when we had nothing. Birth work allowed me, someone with very little academic success because of my childhood - to succeed in something and birth something I could live off of.
Birth work saved my life for the second time during Covid. I became certified to do postpartum doula work. Go into peoples homes and take care of them in their most tender times. I spent hundreds of hours supporting new families, seeing the kindness and tenderness in most of them. The reciprocity, the unspoken bonds that were so apparent through their births and postpartum. I would leave those homes devastated, because I did not know that existed.
I truly did not know you could live in a safe, happy, stable home. I did not know I could ask for and demand that. Once I started holding space for other couples and parents and mothers and helping them to ask for what they need and deserve, I had to start doing the same for myself. I currently had a partner who moved in with me after getting evicted. We had not been together very long but there was a pandemic and nowhere to go. This was my life for two years. The first year was me talking myself into being okay with this relationship. The name calling, the yelling, the bruises he would leave on me. It was telling myself only someone who loved so passionately would also be so passionately cruel. But that passionate side of it faded, and quickly turned into resentment.
I was cornered in my bathroom, not allowed to leave my house or room. My phone was looked through daily. I was kicked away from my newborn. Had pillows thrown at me for not moving off his side of the bed, was called lazy while I worked during a pandemic to support our family.
Birth work saved me - it showed me our worth as people. Everyone - I mean every single person - deserves to feel safe with their partner. In their home. Had I not had the privilege of witnessing that, that almost secret like type of life kept from children of dysfunctional addicts like me, I don’t know how long it would have taken to get safe.
It has now been 6 months since I demanded to feel safe, and I finally feel the pouring in of inspiration and love for my work again. I can finally start giving back again what this work gives me.
