I got pregnant with my first child when I was 26 years old (and she was born almost 6 months after I turned 27)
Before I was pregnant with my first child, I knew virtually nothing about pregnancy, labor, birth, newborns, babies, children. It just was not my world, not for decades… I was the youngest of 4 children, and two of my siblings are 15 and 17 years older than me, so I spent my entire life growing up, never around anyone younger than me.
During my first pregnancy, my OBGYN was never educational during visits. Quick blood pressure, weight, urine sample, occasionally visits were accompanied by an ultrasound and a “everything looks great, you’re the perfect patient”. Occasionally I compiled a list of questions and brought them in to ask my doctor, but to my confusion, every time, my doctor was very dismissive when I read from my list of questions, saying that’s not really important, or I don’t have to worry about that, or we will talk about that when we get to that point, but I always felt incredibly invalidated during that experience and left my visits feeling like I am a burden on him and I should not ask him any more questions. I started to assume that most women do not ask questions and just trust blindly and that this is the ‘norm’ and that I am a annoyance to my doctor. I still had respect for him for going to medical school, being a well-seasoned OBGYN, I did not want to upset or irritate him, I did not want him to think I am his “needy” patient. So I stopped asking questions and just told myself that I did not need anyone to answer my questions. I did not need validation. I was a burden.
This was the first reason I became too afraid to go attend a birth class during my first pregnancy, fear of being confronted as the woman who didn’t know enough or who asked too many questions. Fear of being put on the spot for being different.
(I am sure that decades of bullying in school did not help this fear either).
At this point of my life, I had lived through a couple of decades of being conditioned into submission, being quiet, being respectful and falling “in-line”
Being conditioned my whole life to believe that I am not important, that my questions do not matter, that I am a burden.
With this low self esteem and submissive demeanor I walked into my first pregnancy.
I had no way of knowing that underneath all these layers of self doubt and self hate that I was going to be the kind of mother that needs to know as much as possible about pregnancy and birth in order to own your experience and make educated choices about pregnancy, birth and post partum.
I didn’t know.
Who could blame me?
I never gave birth before. So how could I possibly know?
I put 100% of my trust in my OBGYN, because he was an OBGYN. He went to school for this, he delivered thousands of babies.
My OBGYN never said "you need to take a birth education class, and also, here are some resources to prepare for birth" or anything.
Of course I was seeing red flags, but I suppressed them, I pushed them deep down.
I went into my first birth completely uneducated and it was nothing short of fear-filled and overwhelming.
My OB asked if I wanted to be induced, I said "I guess?"
130 births in as a birth worker and birth photographer…
I realize what a stupid question that is for a doctor to ask a woman who has never given birth
to a woman who has never taken a birth class and knows nothing about inductions or birth. His job was to either education me with evidence based birth practice, or to point me in the direction of birth classes that he needs me to take, or to a professional labor doula.
He might as well have asked me in Chinese, I had no idea what an induction meant.
After 12 hours of cervidil the nurse turned on pitocin, and the pitocin made my baby’s heart rate decel (it dropped and that was bad) and they said c/section, I was faced with my greatest fear.
This was literally the one thing I was scared of and refused to learn anything about and in that way, the universe made it happened.
But these days I know it’s not that far fetched that this happened. My cervix was completely closed and the risk of c/section starting with an unready cervix is so high, that my story can be retold by millions of women who’s doctors never informed them that if your cervix is completely high and closed, a c/section is probably the most common outcome (if not a long 3 day induction).
One thing about me and my first daughter, when we are out in public, you can’t see it, we internalize it.
No one had any idea I was having a panic attack.
And me, not knowing anything, I thought I was going to die.
I looked at my husband with tear filled eyes as I laid AWAKE FOR ABDOMINAL SURGERY on the operating room table and said "if something happens to me, if I bleed out and I don't make it, you have to promise me that you will make sure our daughter grows up with my parents and my family as part of her life"
I honestly have no idea what was even going through his head hearing me saying that. Maybe he was equally afraid. I will have to ask him.
My OBGYN walked into the operating room, DIDN’T EVEN GREET ME,
and imagine how I am seeing this: I am thinking I’m most likely going to die, I hadn't spoken or seen my OBGYN at all since my last prenatal visit, he immediately talked about 'last night's sports game' with operating room staff.
And this conversation is stuck in my memory for 7 years now. “So how ‘bout that game last night”
To be carrying around ‘his last famous words’ in my head all these years.
I thought thats it, this is how I die.
No wonder I had post partum depression for a large part of that first year, although I wondered why did I get unlucky and stuck with ppd?
I never connected the two.
I was a photographer and after birth I met a lot of moms with babies. But I didn’t even leave my house to meet other people until my baby was 9 months old. And that is when my post partum depression fog began to slowly lift.
The more moms I met, the more I got into motherhood photography.
I was hearing a lot of stories of women being attacked for breastfeeding and also for doing so in public, and I wanted to be their voice through breastfeeding photography. With each new photograph I wrote a very powerful story of facts and empowerment, to tell people that breastfeeding your child is as normal as bottle feeding, AND in public.
I worked with a lot of pregnant and nursing moms. And all our children were of similar ages.
One of the moms / my maternity photoshoot client welcomed me into her birth space at the time, this was 5 years ago now.
I went feeling curious.
I thought, hey this could be the next natural step for my work, I do maternity, family, newborn, breastfeeding, birth is part of that cycle (I had NO idea what I was in for, birth photography is NOTHING like photography. Now I know that birth photography is first and foremost birth work, accompanied by very high professional level photography, anything less is not professional birth photography)
As I drove to my mommy-friend’s hospital, I wondered what birth looks like, I felt I completely missed out on seeing the rest of the story in a labor and delivery room with the birth of my first baby.
The moment my mommy friend gave birth to her son, not only did I transcend whatever photography meant to me at the time, I was in love with the documentary aspect of birth, and I also healed from the fear that consumed me from my first birth that had been preventing me from wanting anymore children, I was finally ready to shed my fears and try for a second baby.
With my second pregnancy I felt that I was more knowledgeable and more prepared.
I knew from all the moms I met at the playground, (many of them with traumatic birth stories of their own) that in order to have a positive experience it was implied that you need a midwife, a doula and to stay as far away from a hospital as possible. (I could not have been more wrong. You do not need to have an out-of-hospital birth to not experience a traumatic birth but I did not know that at the time)
In route to a home birth (during my second pregnancy) this was the day
The home birth I attended
So at 20 weeks of my pregnancy, I left the care of an OBGYN (who I very much admire now deep into my career but back then I barely knew her) and at 22 weeks I hired the only remaining available home birth Licensed midwife in the community (every other midwife was completely full with clients for my due-month).
So I hired this midwife, even though sitting with her during that consultation I felt like she was so distracted by her own baby that had just been born a few months earlier that I felt like I was not even sure she was fully present for me during that primary consultation
(I didn’t realize at the time that not every midwife is the right midwife for every mom)
I also hired a doula, and I was excited to ‘trade services’ with her, with me being a photographer.
And I decided I was going to have a vbac (vaginal birth after a c/section) at my home.
My husband got me that said "she believed she could so she did" and it became my creed. I was convinced, that it is the power of the mind.
As my due date approached I started having some health related issues that I became increasingly alarmed by. But my midwife became very dismissive of my fears during prenatal visits saying they were nothing too alarming, and while red flags started popping up in volumes for me, I resorted to my submissive self, trying to shut my instincts down.
My fears and my anxiety started taking over my rational thinking at this time. But I was also barely a birth worker at this time. Now, 5 years later, I have attended 130 births and know so much, but back then, I had only attended 5 births before I had my second baby. I still knew barely ANYTHING. And I still did not take a birth education class.
So back then, still being so new to birth and not having much education about options, I began to fear irritating my midwife because I knew there were no other home birth midwives available to take me as a patient last minute, As a birth worker now, I hear a lot about last minute transfers, so I am not really sure how much truth lies in their non-availability, but I can only take that information at face value. I also was unable to truly think rationally and intellectually about my birth to realize I could have a positive experience with a CNM like Boca Midwifery who do vbacs but IN THE HOSPITAL, or with an OBGYN who offers vbacs.
One week as we were firmly in the end of the third trimester, I went to a prenatal visit with my midwife and my doula came with me (so that my doula could meet my midwife for the first time) during that visit I completely faded into the background as they networked and I felt like a 3rd wheel. I thought
“why am I even here? maybe I should just leave”
In their excitement to meet, they were not holding space for me.
I felt so invisible during that visit, or maybe even like an annoyance.
But I shut down my intuition, because I was well into the last month of my pregnancy and I felt I had no options.
The night before my due date I was so fearful that I wouldn't go into labor and would have to be transferred out of home birth midwifery care and into OBGYN care to my midwife’s backup OB 1 hour from my home, so I went to get ‘acupuncture to try to naturally induce’
I called my mom that evening and I said
“Mom, can you please pray that when I go into labor, my water doesn’t break until the last minute”
I knew what happens if you’re a vbac at home, and your water breaks before labor even starts. You have no chance if labor doesn’t promptly begin then, and you’re on the clock. Then you get transferred, and who knows how that will end.
At 5am the next morning, my water broke. My labor didn’t start until 5 hours later at 10am.
My worst nightmare.
This was my first birth all over again. Everything I feared was coming true.
By 2pm, I knew my midwife would be coming soon to check my progress, and I started to panic. I called my doula and told her that I need her. I wasn’t in active labor and if I didn’t do something to stimulate stronger and closer-together contractions, I was afraid I would have to be transferred.
My doula relayed to me her frustrations
that school pick up time was coming up at her kids, she’d have to arrange that and also get the tub from her house
Me thinking: WHY ARE YOU TELLING ME THIS?!
As a professional birth worker, you know NEVER TO talk to a client in labor about your own personal life problems when your client needs you in labor. This is a huge violation of holding space for your client.
And then my doula completely abandoned and stripped down all my security with saying:
if you’re not even in active labor, by the time you do get to active labor,
I may be completely exhausted and unable to support you for active labor,
so you have to choose if you want me there now or labor,
I can’t do both.
And I thought “but what if I never get to active labor if you don’t come help me with spinning babies or rebozo or something else to strengthen my contractions?”
And then I thought, she clearly doesn’t want to be here, why would I push someone to come who doesn’t want to be here. So I told her not to come.
Don’t come.
By 5pm, my midwife arrived and checked me and I was only 3cm dilated, but worse, I wasn’t anywhere near active labor. My contractions were weak, erratic. She told me she already called her backup OBGYN who told her she needed to transfer me.
Laboring for at least 24 hours at home prior to transfer went out the window. She never told me that if my waters were ruptured prior to active labor, I would get cut down to 12 hours at home.
My midwife failed to communicate what ultimately took my power away
And so here I was, driving to a city an hour away, to a hospital I had never set foot in and I was put in a really gross room in Triage that looked as old and destroyed as if it had not been repainted or repaired since 1960, with a cold and rude nurse who didn’t care about the fact that I was barely holding on emotionally.
She didn’t care that my first birth was extremely traumatizing.
This was suppose to be my redemption, a healing experience.
The nurse painfully checked me for dilation.
I was left in Triage for hours alone, without being told any information
I felt like a prisoner who was meant to be subdued through lack of communication into a state of fear and lack of voice.
I kept asking the nurse any time she would walk by the room when I would get to speak with the doctor.
I wanted to know if I could move around, if I could continue to try to labor.
The nurse had no answer for me.
The nurse did not know where my doctor was
The nurse said she did not know when he would come to see me.
After hours in Triage, once I was in the room, the OBGYN called me on the phone,
This was my first and only interaction with the OBGYN before the birth of my child. This cold, impersonal phone call.
The doctor began explaining there was a situation, he was needed at another hospital that night to be on call for incoming VBACs, for his own patients, and he gave me the option, he said I could have a c/section now, or sign an “against medical recommendation” form that released them of any liability if my baby or I died as a result of me turning down a c/section now.
I was horrified.
To me then, to me now, whether this was me or another woman, this was not a choice. This was barbaric. A trick to fool patients.
I said to him: “If I am understanding correctly, if I don’t consent to a c/section right now, I have to sign this form, and then if my baby’s heart decels or gets stuck, no one will come to deliver or help me?”
He responded with: “That’s correct”
I agreed to the c/section.
Then I finally called my doula, to come pick up my 3 year old and take her to my parents house. I thought this is the least she could do since she did nothing else. She did not even communicate with me at any stage to know what was happening between the transfer to the hospital.
My doula arrived and said something to the effect of: at least you are being given a choice and it is your choice to make.
I scoffed. That was no choice.
Once out of the operating room, they pumped so many drugs in me (never telling me which or even asking me) and I felt paralyzed and my eyes shut despite me fighting for my life to keep them open. I was in a feeling of desperation, I needed my baby and my husband, but no nurse bothered to stop by my bed, I was trying to call out by the drugs inhibited my voice. I didn’t know what time it was, I couldn’t see anything because I didn’t know where my glasses were and my vision is so bad without them. I wasn’t even seeing a single nurse passing by my bed to stop a nurse and ask questions. No one checked on me.
I didn’t even know how much time passed by with me paralyzed in this bed. Then suddenly as the drugs wore off, I called out for a nurse, begged her to find my husband.
A very long time passed and she returned to say they couldn’t find him.
I never felt so alone and abandoned in my life and I just wanted to see and touch my baby.
I’ll say it loud and clear ^ that was North Shore Medical Center in Miami August 2015.
Finally when they FOUND my husband, who had fallen asleep in a waiting room (he was awake with me for 24 hours) they brought him to me, but he said they didn’t have a room for me, the baby was stuck in the nursery, and I couldn’t get out of bed, the North Shore Medical Center nurses refused to bring the baby to me.
An absolutely disorganized and destructive system at this hospital
Finally my outrageous ‘recovery time’ plus their administrational ‘shift change’ ended and the nurses FOUND me a room
I saw my baby for the first time after EIGHT HOURS.
Months later, I found myself suffering from daily panic attacks.
I did not know I had PTSD at the time
I could not function as a mother and I told my husband, I need to see a birth trauma therapist, this isn’t good.
I was trying to heal from major abdominal surgery with a 3 year old and a newborn at home and my husband hustling at work to support all 4 of us.
This is the birth that broke me.
Completely broke me.
I lost all hope that anyone in the birth world cared about mothers.
I was suppose to have this totally supported and empowered birth experience because I chose a midwife I chose a doula I chose a home birth, and instead
my second birth was FIVE THOUSAND times more traumatizing than my first birth ever was.
Because of this birth, became of my birth team, we are done having babies.
After two horribly traumatizing birth experiences, there is no way I would ever allow myself to be in such a vulnerable state again.
REDEMPTION
Two years later I attended a hospital birth with Courtney McMillian, a Certified Nurse Midwife in Boca Raton with Boca Midwifery.
This was my first hospital birth after having my traumatic birth with my second child.
What I witnessed with Courtney changed my life.
She changed the way I see birth, she gave me hope that women CAN have positive birth experienced.
Courtney changed everything for me.
Courtney stayed with her patient in the labor and delivery room during labor. She was patient. She sat at her bed. She was soft spoken. She was positive, she was loving, she was like a mother, like a sister to her patient.
After the birth, she hugged her patient’s spouse after a tough delivery.
And then as time moved on, I began seeing Courtney at more and more of my clients births as I photographed more births. And my hope started to grow from a tiny little spark into a little flame. There ARE people who care about women’s psychological state during birth. Over the last years now from that moment meeting Courtney, a purpose grew in my life, that little flame exploded into a massive bonfire.
I decided my mission in life is to photograph what POSITIVE birth experiences look like, what empowered women and really damn committed birth providers look like, so that any woman who my work reaches would never ever describe her birth the way I describe my second birth: abandoned, unsupported, pressured, condescended, defeated.
I will damn well make sure the world is aware of what birth trauma looks like
I will damn well make sure women know how to find fierceness within yourself to never have that traumatic experience
I will damn well make sure women know how to build a team of people who will worship and support you as a birthing woman.
I can’t even look at our cell phone pictures without crying, I just looked at them yesterday and it is nearly 4 years later from my second birth.
In these last four years, I have met a few teams of precious individuals who honor the sacred birthing women. I sing praises of these LMs, CNMs and OBGYNS on my social media accounts, because the rest of the world should be ashamed of how they treat birthing women, and these fine individuals represent the change I will damn well make sure the next generation of birthing women will experience.
The only way I heal my trauma
My trauma I live with to this day.
I fight to every single birthing woman in south Florida, that they may listen to their intuition and guide them down the path of empowerment through my work.
