Unsilenced Woman

Mama said there’d be days like this

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Today is one of those days. I get dressed in thirty seconds, don’t brush my hair, don’t even look at myself in the mirror. Tooth brushing? Ha! When I see myself in the hall mirror as I walk out, I notice my shirt is kind of small and not very flattering—not how I remembered this shirt fitting…Oh yeah, I had a baby four months ago and it shows. How could I have believed that I actually looked good all this time? It was all smoke and mirrors, strategic angles, calculated fits and colors. But THIS is the truth, this ugliness right here.

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The radical hope of planning a VBAC

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Preparing for this VBAC has felt like a radical act of hope.

I say “radical” not because I am putting myself or my baby in physical danger or because a vaginal birth after cesarean is unlikely to happen. Neither is true.

I say “radical” because I am daring to believe again in the power of my body and to have hope amidst the mystery of the birth process. I am trying again. Boldly. Wholeheartedly. With deep intention and awareness.

I am bringing my whole self to this process once again. Vulnerably. Passionately. Adventurously. [Read more…]

My vulnerability in breastfeeding boys after abuse

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I will be breastfeeding a boy again.

This was one of the first thoughts that popped into my mind after learning that I was pregnant with a second boy. 

All of a sudden a different feeling occupied my body when I imagined nursing a son rather than a daughter. It was almost imperceptible, like the needle on a scale jumping side to side before settling on the right number. If I had looked away from it quickly, I could have ignored it. I could logically make my feelings land on the spot that I knew to be true: Nursing any infant–male or female–is a natural process. And a baby doesn’t know its sex or gender. I will nourish and love this baby no matter its sex. [Read more…]

What I want my husband to understand about my motherhood

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Here I am. Third trimester in the middle of a Mississippi summer, where the heat hit me hard and sent me indoors once depression and anxiety finally subsided.

Here I am. Scared for what life with two children under three will mean. Worried about what time and energy I will have for my writing and business in this coming year. Thinking that my husband couldn’t possibly understand or appreciate the magnitude of the changes that I’m undergoing.

Do you know what it’s like to have the insides of your body rearranged, to feel your mental acuity wavering, to experience the rewiring of your emotions, to live in a body that feels unfamiliar? All at the same time. [Read more…]

Embracing my untamed pregnant body

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In a few hours my house would fill with the light of candles, the warmth of women’s bodies, the bells of ritual and the voices of deep connection. Some of my closest friends would gather in sacred feminine circle for my blessingway, or mother blessing, a ritual rooted in Navajo tradition to honor the rite of passage of a woman into motherhood.

I stood in front of my full-length mirror wearing a long skirt and tying a butterly-printed wrap at the top of my nine-months pregnant belly. I turned to the side and pulled at the fabric, giving it more flounce here, a deeper drape there. I adjusted and readjusted. [Read more…]

The gestation of gender in the age of the ‘reveal’

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We closed the last door in the carpool line and made our way back to my darkened, vacated classroom. My teacher friend and I had found ourselves “in bloom” at the same time, as a substitute teacher once described her. I was expecting my first child, and she was expecting her second.

In the afternoons when the halls fell quiet and we could take a deep breath, we often gathered in one of our classrooms to share stories and reflections about our students in an effort to understand them better and to learn new ways to provide them with what they needed to grow.

Today we talked about the tiny beings blossoming within us, still attached by cord and sharing our oxygen and blood. Today we tried to understand them better and to imagine who they might be. [Read more…]