My Introduction to Motherhood
Starting Out
Growing up, I never specifically thought much about getting married or having babies...
If anything, I mused at the opposite.
As a person that spends the majority of my time as a prisoner of sorts in my own mind, I found it freeing to let the wind carry me in my teen and early adult years.
When I did elope hundreds of miles away from my family and friends, the deep thoughts of pregnancy never so much as crossed my mind.
As a black girl growing up in the southern Bible belt, there was a lot of emphasis on abstinence and pregnancy prevention. I cannot think of a single lesson or talk about what happens of you do indeed get pregnant. Or WANT to...
Needless to say, no one ever talked to me about miscarriage.
I would later come to find that there have been multitudes of studies that show the increased risk of miscarriage for Black women...
My first lesson was a personal one.
I had found the love of my life in a whirlwind fairy-tale. Run away with him across the country to start a family and in no time we were pregnant. But the pregnancy was hard physically and emotionally. Our fairy-tale had settled into a long distance marriage and I was pregnant for the first time without any family and not even my husband. We made a way, because that's what we do. And the pregnancy progressed.
So, it felt like my literal soul shattered when my husband and I went to find out the sex of our baby, only to be told they couldn't find a heartbeat.
At 20 years old, I broke. Literally. I couldn't even stand. My husband had to carry me in a weeping puddle out of the doctor's office.
We had no clue what to do or how to feel... we could only hold each other in the stewing pot of sadness, helplessness and rage.
Looking back, the memories seemed glazed over in a fog. And somehow they are so sharp, they still bring tears to my eyes and that sinking feeling to the pit of my stomach.
My most vivid memory is of me sitting on a bench at the door of the hospital. I was waiting for my husband to pull the car around. I sat with a beautiful white plush box the nurses made for me in my lap. It held the only things that would ever belong to Our Son. His hospital bracelet... his name and birthday... his footprints.
I held the box tightly, as if it would blow away in the wind... And I wondered, now what?
I took leave from work and went back to Texas so my mom and sisters could help me gather myself. But when I got back home to Washington and had to be alone with myself, I was not okay. I went to work. I thought I was working but I was actually just crying at my desk. Most days, I was asked to go home. I was ordered to counseling by the military. I felt they just threatened to kick me out if I didn't get it together... One day a girl that worked with me came up to me in the break room at work and pulled out a paper picture of a newborn baby. It was her baby. In a beautiful dress, seemingly asleep. She told ne about her stillbirth and hugged me. Suddenly, I didn't feel so alone.
Piece by piece I was able to function more normally. Visits from my husband filled the gloomy spaces with love. I poured myself into a friend's children. Soon, I was able to move to where my husband lived and kind of start again.
All that to say that I was was completely unprepared. Sometimes, and many times for Black women, part of becoming a mother includes loss. I want to open that communication channel for us. I think that this should be part of the conversation so that if it does happen, more moms have a place to turn to talk about it and build or join a support system.
In that time, I was so enveloped in grief that did not take care of myself. I didn't address my mental health at all. I didn't even have the presence of mind to acknowledge that my husband was suffering through a very similar grief and battle with his mental health as a result of our loss.
I'd like to open the forum on our IG @confessionsofablackmom to share your stories and ask questions.
https://www.ericammcafee.com/community
https://www.verywellfamily.com/miscarriage-support-organizations-2371339
https://www.fertstert.org/article/S0015-0282(14)00903-0/fulltext