So being a graduate student, and in literature no less, I bought a slew of pregnancy books early on - this being pregnant thing is after all just another long term form of planning, research and delayed gratification, right?!
Some of the books are amazing:
-The Mocha Manual to a Fabulous Pregnancy by Kimberly Seals-Allers
-The Pregnancy Countdown Book by Susan Magee
-Natural Hospital Birth by Cynthia Gabriel
-Mindful Birthing by Nancy Bardacke, CNM
However, only one of these books talks about the fact that pregnancy is often lonely, filled with self-doubt and worry, and it further complicates already complicated existence. The Mocha Manual, a text for African American women who find themselves prego, actually dares to cross the line of conversation from eating right, feeling the glow of life within, and planning nursery room colors to point out that being pregnancy is kinda hard, especially when combined with other factors.
I welcome this perspective since no one tells you early on what an isolating and overwhelming experience it is to know you are bringing a new person into the world. I have to say, I was happy initially that I was having a girl considering i'm pregnant in the year that Trayvon Martin's death has been deemed completely acceptable in 2013 America - in other words, a young Black male's life is worthless. I had suspected this over the years, worry about the life of my father, uncles, cousins and brother being ever in the back of my mind as one after another of Black men have been killed by police or vigilantes throughout the country.
However, knowing a girl is coming feels no less daunting. What does one do with the recent rash of gang rapes of high school girls - some of which end in the girl being vilified for daring to speak out about the perhaps popular guys in the school having committed a horrible crime? Some of the girls have even committed suicide. What does one do with a world that still feels that women are second class citizens whose needs, desires, claims, choices and decisions are often treated as worthless too? How does one prepare their daughter for protecting herself in a world set against her?
And this leaves unspoken the changing family dynamics that turn seemingly loving family members into monsters. People whose impulses and actions feel as foreign as being dropped on another planet. How does one cope with the mercurial and constantly changing relationships that warp and distort in the face of a change that is transforming YOUR body and mind and life into something no longer your own?? When family laughs at your stress, when family rages over your need to eat at a table with lights on, when your attention to your pregnancy becomes something negative since you should be working harder on your work life... What then?
Mocha Manual author Kimberley talks about the super-woman phenomenon expected of ambitious, successful, motivated Black women, and this is unquestionably how I operate. Before pregnancy I was able to completely ignore my body. I could go 8 hours without peeing, almost as long without eating, and could block out physical pain in part because I had to and in part because as distance runner I am experienced in mind-trumping-body as a good operational mode. I commuted to campus almost 3 hours door to door and prepared for teaching for hours unappreciated by preppy madras wearing 19year olds, and gladly because I showed that I had to and could.
However, as I began plugging my brain back into myself as a whole being, a strange thing began happening. Stress sitting across my chest and neck becomes harder to ignore and feelings of overwhelming despair about what family even means since the two structuring married life now often seem so dysfunctional. And this does not mean there are not moments of joy and pleasure with family. It is just that my bulging 23week belly has now become a prism through which is refracted the whole of family life behind me and seems to color the world laid out ahead.
And the sad truth is, the isolation is intensified by the very factors that would seem to ease things. Being in a happy, functional relationship, seemingly having success in work (or in my case, graduate school life), attention to personal appearance (a MUST for black women who don't wish to be treated poorly in the world*... all these things can make one exempt from any sort of pity, support or compassion from those you might expect it from most. In other words, no one feels you have anything to feel bad about and thus dismiss any sign you may need help. They may even impose some arbitrary idea of how you should feel, behave, operate, that is so far out of accord with how things really are for you that you are pushed further away from them and into a space by yourself.
No one seems to say up front how isolating this experience can be, or the irony of this feeling considering how truly magical it is to feel your baby moving inside of your womb and know the transformative connection being created between mother child and even husband (or whomever your partner may be). But i've said it here, and I think anyone could check out Kimberley Seales-Allers book and find something helpful in her unhampered discussion of pregnancy depression in chapter eight. Anyone else who wants to share, feel free. I've electrified the part of me that acknowledges emotion beyond the drive to do well. I'll not shut it off again.
*The perception of pregnant Black women as brining another welfare baby into the world who will be poorly cared for, a drain on resources, and another "Problem" for society is well documented. And regardless of who is in the White House right now, it is an idea that persists - as I know on the days I forget to wear my wedding ring or dress too casually in t-shirt and shorts or just encounter someone who doesn't pay attention to anything but my race. Up to this point, the only people to show consideration in public - giving up seats, urging me to board buses first, holding doors, making nice comments, etc - have been foreign tourists and elderly Black women.
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