Postmodern Fertility

How Fertility Feels

The NYTimes Fashion & Style section recently ran a piece entitled “Are you as Fertile as You Look?“  In another reminder to younger women that the whole ‘you can have it all’ promise isn’t really working out, the article shares how successful women are struggling with their fertility despite looking and feeling young (read fertile) in their 40ds. 

Advances in beauty products and dermatology, not to mention manic devotion to yoga, Pilates and other exercise obsessions, are making it possible for large numbers of women to look admirably younger than their years. But doctors fear that they are creating a widening disconnect between what women see in the mirror and what’s happening to their reproductive organs.

More and more women are finding out we’ve been sold a bill of goods.  From the time we were in our teens we’ve been told that if we shave our legs, tweeze our eye brows, keep out skin clear, and pad our bras we can look young and healthy.  All the while suppressing our fertility by going on the pill and giving out creative years over to our diplomas, bosses, or other pursuits.  It was the ‘good-girl’ thing to do- the feminist thing to do- after all.  For some the timing works out, and fertility and female reconnect in their thirties to happy ends.  For others, road is much more daunting and disappointing. 

So what about taking a look at how fertility actually feels- rather than how it looks.  Much less talked about, and not always as glam, fertility has a mysterious and very real presence for all of us.  I’m not just referring about the monthly nuances like cramps and mood swings, or heightened sense of smell and libido.  I’m thinking about the slower longer cycles that span puberty to menopause, and subtly inform and guide our decision making in our 20ds and 30ds if we let them. 

For me its been a quiet conversation- finding out that my sex life in my thirties is the best it every has been, coming to terms with the realization that there are windows of time in which I really want to have a baby that don’t always line up with the external factors needed to see it through, getting to channel my creative energies into fulfilling work….realizing that fertility changes with me. 

Its not always easy, but looking up at the full moon, and over at my charts, and can smile knowing that I am ovulating today and I can feel it. 

Hurricane Story: A birth story in photographs

By Katinka Locascio

Jennifer Shaw’s photo essay “Hurricane Story” is a birth story that coincides with Hurricane Katrina.  Just days before she was due, she had to flee New Orleans.  She then gave birth away from her home, the very same day the storm hit.  In the months that followed Shaw returned to her city to document that tragic aftermath of the storm.  Though emotionally trying, she writes, “there was something healing in the act of composing images- finding order in the chaos.”  Ultimately she realized that the Katrina story she needed to tell most was her own.

What followed is a ethereal and chilling series of pictures composed of plastic toys and lovingly shot with plastic cameras.  I find her work compelling because the images and emotions present in her work communicate something that words wouldn’t be able to.  They highlight the importance of art in communicating bigger life moments- be they birth, or tragedy or both. 

I was nine months pregnant and due in less than a week when Hurricane Katrina blew into the Gulf. In the early hours of August 28, 2005 my husband and I loaded up our small truck with two cats, two dogs, two crates full of negatives, all our important papers and a few changes of clothes. We evacuated to a motel in southern Alabama and tried not to watch the news. Monday, August 29 brought the convergence of two major life-changing events; the destruction of New Orleans and the birth of our first son. It was two long months and 6000 miles on the road before we were able to return home.

To see more check out Soucatcher Studios which has a full online exhibit of her work here:

http://www.soulcatcherstudio.com/exhibitions/shaw/index.htm

NPR launches The Baby Project

by Susanna Locascio

A few days ago NPR launched a new blog series called The Baby Project. The blog will follow the stories of nine women through pregnancy, delivery, and (for a few weeks) life with their new babies. An apparent effort was made to include a diversity of subjects and experiences, and the outlook certainly isn’t all cake parties and baby showers—the stories deal with infertility, health complications for both mothers and babies, and even a military father who is deployed overseas.

I read through the early introductions and posts, and was intermittently alarmed, angered, moved, and inspired. I am grateful to NPR for including doulas, midwives, and homebirths in the coverage, though the overall tone still hews pretty closely to more mainstream and medically-managed care. An early post on prepping your body for pregnancy sketchily mentions BBT charting, but is quick to list prescription drugs and reproductive endocrinologists as “solutions” to infertility. I was a bit disappointed in the quality of the research, but I’m willing to keep reading. We’ll see where they go with it…

To get you started, here are some choice excerpts from the women whose stories I responded to the most, though all of it makes for quick and interesting reading. 

Lateefah Torrence, New York, NY

“Finding balance has been my greatest challenge in this pregnancy…I decided the only way to survive the rest of my pregnancy is by making peace with our choices. Laboring at home, yes. Hypnobabies birthing method, yes. Hospital birth, yes. Pain relief, maybe.”

Jolivette Mecenas, Los Angeles, CA

“Family obviously means a lot to me. So for me, as it is for many people, family is a wellspring of vulnerabilities. Thinking about my “new” family, I feel very vulnerable about the legal gray matters of being same-sex parents.” 

Maternal Health Stats

by Susanna Locascio

Amnesty International put together this visual of what they call the “U.S. Maternal Health Care crisis.” I found it via Christy Turlington, who’s become a passionate advocate for improving maternal and child health care around the world. She’s made a documentary film and built an advocacy website: everymothercounts.org. More on that later…

Ani DiFranco On Her Homebirth

photo from Mothering Magazine

by Susanna Locascio

Ani DiFranco was on mix tape rotation when Katinka and I were teenagers. We saw her perform a number of times, and I can still remember the sight of Ani in a leather vest, dreads piled high, commanding the guitar and the stage - she was bad-ass and inspiring. She rocked out, she sang about riding the Subway home with dirty underwear in her back pocket, about sex and love and heartbreak, about New York and being too broke to pay the phone bill. And she made us laugh. Ani on her song Out of Habit: “this one was really big in these little folk clubs in the West Village, they loved me there, yes indeedy. I would go to the open mic night and, you know, alienate everybody, and then try and get a beer out of one of ‘em.” Brilliant.

Ani’s always been one of my feminist icons, so I was thrilled to see that she also wrote the foreword for the new version of Ina May Gaskin’s Birth Matters. Odile sent me an excerpt of an interview Ani did with VenusZine, and a couple of her answers speak to Ani’s experience with homebirth. Excerpts are below, the full interview is here.

How has the birth of your daughter changed the way you see the world and the people in it?  - Sarah Santagata of Tiverton, RI

AD: Being a mom seems to have changed the way the world sees me more than the other way around. Being pregnant really shifts your relationship to society, and then walking around with a baby shifts it again. I love the feeling that I get from other parents — women in particular — of being a part of the club. Club Sacrifice, you might call it. It’s cool to have camaraderie, warmth, and openness with strangers. I wish that dynamic was more prevalent in general, but I am grateful to have it now.

Can you tell us why you chose to have a home birth? Would you do it again?  - Mindy Kufahl of Topeka, KS

AD: I would definitely choose a homebirth again despite the fear mongering of this patriarchal society, which convinces women that they are incapable of having babies without the intervention of men and their machines. I look at societies where women are marginalized and oppressed their whole lives (even covered head to toe in tarps!) but are still in control of birthing practice, in a whole new way now. I mean, who is really more advanced? To take birthing out of women’s hands and deny us the continuum of eons of wisdom and experience is to eject us from the very seat of our power. I believe that women in hospitals are prevented from being able to have normal, healthy birthing experiences because of the intimidation of being on the clock, being pressured to take drugs to make it quicker, being inhibited in their movement and activities, and alienated by a sterile, fluorescent lit, feet-in-the-air type environment. You know the classic “performance anxiety” of not being able to pee or poo because somebody’s watching you? Multiply that by a million! A cervix is a sphincter after all! Then to add tragic insult to injury women are numbed through their great moment of revelation. I believe the act of giving birth to be the single most miraculous thing a human being can do and it is surely the moment when a lot of women finally understand the depth of their power and connection to all of nature. You think it can’t possibly be done, you think you can’t possibly take the pain, and then you do — and afterward you look at yourself in a whole new way. If you can do that, you can do anything. Check out the books on this subject by Ina May Gaskin. She’s one of my great heroes. P.S. I was in labor for 43 hours. Pushed for five hours. It was brutal and scary and prolonged, and if I was in a hospital, they would have definitely cut the baby out of me. I thank the goddesses that I was at home with patient midwives who knew how to go the distance. The memory of pain always recedes. The memory of triumph does not.

South Korean Celebrations

by Susanna Locascio

Katinka and I recently returned from South Korea, where our family traveled to celebrate our younger brother’s wedding. Though they live in New York City, his wife is from Seoul, where her family and many friends still live. It was so wonderful to learn more about her culture first-hand, to welcome her family (and be welcomed by them), and to celebrate the marriage all together.

A highlight was definitely all the delicious Korean food we enjoyed. I got very used to having banchan (side dishes) with every meal, especially the always-unique kimchi (each restaurant and family seems to have their own technique and recipe). It apparently takes decades to really perfect a consistent and tasty kimchi, so we had better get started!

I was also struck by how much respect is paid to elders in Korean culture. There are different names for family members based on where they fall in the hierarchy. Example: to my little brother I am the chagun nuna (작은 누나), or “younger older sister,” while Katinka (as the eldest) is the kun nuna (큰 누나), or “older older sister.”

One of the Korean traditions we learned about was the celebration that happens on a child’s first birthday. A feast is prepared to honor the safe passing of the first year. A special table is also set that includes thread (for longevity) as well as several other objects. It is believed that the object the child picks helps foretell it’s future. There was a lovely little exhibit of this at the National Folk Museum of Korea. According to their placard: “money or grain meant a millionaire; a book or a writing brush, a scholar/official; and an arrow or a bow, a general. When a girl picked up a spool or scissors, it was believed that she would be good at needle work.” The custom has evolved slightly to accomodate more modern times. We were told a computer mouse and golf ball are popular additions (for tech jobs and golf prowess!).

In all it was a great trip and I was really taken with South Korea. No grandkids on the horizon just yet, but (in addition to kimchi) I’m certain we’ll be adding the child’s first year celebration to our family’s traditions!