Clients often ask me if I have kids of my own. They’re usually not making small talk in their appointments, what they mean to ask is have you been pregnant before? or have you given birth before? or have you breastfed before? or, more specifically, have you, personally, been through what I’m going through?
It’s not a straightforward answer. For people like me, “do you have any kids” is a loaded question. I usually stumble over some sort of response including my two lovely stepchildren and admitting I’ve never given birth myself. They give some sweet smile of acknowledgment. I’m sure they’re not interested in hearing about my struggles with fertility, my multiple miscarriages, or the pain in my body of answering “no” to their question. I’m sure they don’t need to know how tenderly I hold their babies for checkups, wondering if I’ll ever hold a baby that size that came from my own body. Or how often I wonder if the midwifery lifestyle is just not conducive to conception for me and if I just need to quit if I ever want my own apparently fragile body to be able to hold a pregnancy.
I have been pregnant before. My body has attempted to grow six little beings, none making it past the first few months. The first I chose to let go, taking my herbs and medications at home until I bled. I was young, and not ready to mother a little one. I took a total of two days off of my midwifery apprenticeship and concealed my condition and choices from my preceptor. I caught babies and managed others’ bleeding while stepping out of appointments and early postpartum periods to manage my own. At the time, I was confident in the decision and saw no mismatch between my own love and care for my body and my love and care for our clients. I was young, I had time, I thought I would have many more babies.
Since then, I’ve been pregnant five more times, and all have left me early. After the first few miscarriages, I started seeking some help to try to figure out why my young, healthy body could not hold a pregnancy. They couldn’t find anything wrong. Around then I just stopped conceiving too. So now I had two issues: couldn’t get pregnant, couldn’t keep them when I did.
Yes, I tried everything under the sun. I saw all kinds of holistic health practitioners, I adjusted my diet and took multitudes of supplements. I saw a fertility clinic for basic investigations: all were normal. I tried acupuncture, massage, dedicated fertility tracking, the works. But I remained specifically unpregnant.
To say this process has been, is, painful would be a gross understatement. The coupling of being a midwife and being unwillingly infertile is a brutal existence. While I can easily compartmentalize my individual clients’ joys, fears, and experiences from my own, the simple juxtaposition of spending all day around pregnancy and babies feel ironic at best coming home to a quiet house.
The midwifery schedule can be brutal. Long overnights tending to the most difficult and joyous experiences of our clients’ lives and the emotional demands of showing up for everyone with a full heart can drain me. I need to sleep more. Is that why I can’t get pregnant?
I particularly specialize in working with loss. I teach miscarriage and abortion management, I support clients long-distance and in-person, I write and think and rant about loss management and the kind of care everyone deserves and should be getting on a daily basis. I’m steeped in talking about loss. Is that why I can’t stay pregnant?
Humbling myself to the mystery of fertility has been my greatest struggle and greatest teacher as a midwife. The ups and downs and fears and joys and guilt and desperation and glimmers of hope you barely want to honor for fear of losing them, have taught me more about pregnancy and struggle and parenting than I ever could have learned otherwise. And despite my not having any kids of my own to show for it I think that is what my clients really mean to ask when they ask if I have kids. They mean have you been pushed to your limit, to the brink when you thought you couldn’t go anymore and been told, too bad, you just have to push harder, push more, push through that pain to meet your baby? Yes, I do know what you’re going through. Yes, I can meet you where you are with lived experience and resources. Yes, I can hold this place with you and for you. Yes, I know what it is to struggle and stretch and grow. I know what it is to yearn and wait and hope. I know what it is to be humbled at the joy and misery and strength and struggle of parenting. It has made me a better midwife, and hopefully someday, a better mother.