This is Boris Solis interviewing interviewing Deborah Sussman Cesser on
June 24, 2015 at
6:47. All right, so, um, maybe you could take us back to around the time
that you were pregnant or of the labor and delivery, just something to
situate us? Was it like a hot summer or? So I actually um found out I was
pregnant in Charlottesville, Virginia, which is where I had graduated from
grad school and I met the man I married. There And
We had been seeing a fertility specialist. We'd actually been having some
trouble getting pregnant. And Um, The day we found out we were pregnant, I
think was also the day, if I remember correctly, that he. Passed his
dissertation, they were like really sort of close to each other. And then
within months he had a job in Arizona and we left Charlottesville and all
of our friends. And landed in Arizona in July, I think, and I was pregnant.
And it was a little.
Jarring Um, Looking back I realized just just how isolated I was because I
think it must be really nice to go through a pregnancy with your friends
and your family around you to support you. Um, I was very fortunate I had
.
A couple of names, people I was supposed to look up when I got here and
one of them was a guy named Dennis Gillingwater who teaches in the school
of art. And Dennis's wife, it just so happened. She was an OB nurse. That
was what she did and. You know, I'm not sure how much I believe in this,
but it really was like.
Um, It was really fortuitous. It was, I was very, very lucky to meet her
and so she.
told me, you know, which OBGYN to go to, which hospital to deliver it, the
whole thing. I think otherwise, um, it would have been a little scary.
So, um.
I felt I think pretty secure in that and I, I found a doula because I very
much wanted not to go to the hospital until I had to and I wanted to have
as close to a natural childbirth as I could, you know, short of delivering
in my living room. I did want to go to a hospital. Just in case I, you
know, I worry, um. And um so I found a doula. The interesting thing was.
Most of the sort of doulas and midwives and people that I knew were very
liberal. And this woman was not, as it turned out. I think it's sort of
like the homeschooling movement, like you get some people who are really
liberal and then you get some people who are like fundamentalist
Christians and don't want their children to be contaminated. Yeah, and she
was, so she was a little bit. Right of me on the political spectrum and
she liked country music and, you know, it was, it was interesting getting
to know her, but I felt like she knew what she was doing and she'd seen
people deliver before and. Um, so that was, that was reassuring.
And the whole pregnancy was very smooth. I'd had some depression before
the pregnancy and somehow. When I was pregnant, it's like my moods
stabilized. I was just even keeled. You know, excited about having a baby
, um, excited to meet her. And um Yeah, really no sort of complications
whatsoever, um, kind of effortless, you know, up until the end when I mean
, it was typical, but I also sort of felt like, oh I, I see why. People
are less scared of giving birth as they approach, you know, you just want
the baby out. It's like, OK, it's that your home is too small, you need to
come out into the world. And um and it was 2 weeks late. No, she was a
week late. That's right. The due date was um the Ides of March. March 15th
And she was born March 22nd.
I had about 24 hours of, I don't know if it was false labor or Braxton
Hicks, but my body kind of doing something and um I had a friend who was a
midwife interestingly enough I had made a couple of friends just in the
time that we were here. One of them was somebody in the religious studies
department who was also pregnant and had a baby shortly before I did and
then the other woman was this midwife. She was from the East Coast and she
hated Arizona and she didn't stay here long but she was here just long
enough to help me and she checked me and she's like, yeah, you're, you're
dilating, you know, but you're not at the point where you should go to the
hospital, so. Um, I did a lot of, you know, sitting in the bath and
walking around and then we went for Chinese food because there's an old
wives tale that Chinese food precipitates labor. I thought I'll try
anything, so we went to Chinese food. And That evening, you know, after
about 24 hours of this false labor or whatever it was, I genuinely went
into labor. And I called the doula and she came over to our house and she.
Um, just helped me through the um.
The contractions because they weren't really close enough yet to go to the
hospital and I'd heard stories about women going to the hospital with
contractions and being sent home and I didn't want that and I didn't want
to spend more time in the hospital than I had to. I figured as long as I'm
home. And I'm comfortable and I'm OK. I'll stay here. Um, and I think we
went to the hospital like 4 a.m. something like that, 5 a.m. Um, and then
it took another 12 hours.
I didn't want. An epidural. I had a number of friends who were pretty
crunchy, very lovely people, but. It was all about natural childbirth. It
was all about not introducing any.
Um, chemicals or anything, you know, into your body and. Doing it
naturally, I had a friend who was actually. Shortly thereafter she started
studying midwifery at um Basil in Seattle, and she had been looking into
this and she and another friend had recommended spiritual midwifery by Ina
McGaskins. And I'm not usually a very crunchy person, but this book made
sense to me and. Part of what it talked about is. That We tend to think of
pain as a sign that something is wrong. And the pain of a contraction is
different. The pain of a contraction is telling you that everything is as
it should be. And so what you need to do is Ride it out, so our tendency
with pain is to stiffen up. And retract and what. Um, my friend in the
book explained is you have to see the contraction like a wave and you have
to dive into it. Um, And it's interesting once. Once I, cause I knew
theoretically what I was gonna try and do. And I remember being in the
waves in California when I was a kid and the whole like you really do have
to dive into the wave or it will smack you down so you have to just trust
that if you dive under you'll be OK whereas if you stand there scared
you'll get smacked um. And that it helped. It worked. I mean, I can't say
it wasn't. Painful, but it just is. It's a very different kind of pain. My
daughter's terrified of childbirth. She says, I don't wanna have kids. I
know it's gonna hurt. And I say I know it's hard for you to understand,
but it's just a different kind of pain.
So I walked. And walked and walked, and I think I had a shower and. Um,
Eventually.
They informed me that I was stuck. I was 10 centimeters dilated on one
side and 8 centimeters dilated on the other one and I wasn't progressing,
and so they wanted to give me an epidural and then Pitocin to get things
going again.
So I said, OK, and um.
That at that point, I think I was ready to have. Anna and ready to be done
with it, um. Anna's father said that that was the part where it became
sort of scary for him because there were needles and I was, you know, on
the bed. Like a patient, um. So they gave me the epidural. And about 20
minutes later I gave birth, they didn't even have to do the Pitocin they
gave me the epidural and I guess my body relaxed. I feel like I've just
been working so hard to get this baby out wanting to do it right and um I
need to relax so I had the epidural and yeah about 20 minutes later.
Anna Anna was born, um. And it was strange to be told to push and to not
really know.
Whether I was actual, I mean, I knew I was kind of doing the things with
my body that I would normally do when I was pushing. But it's it's
different. You don't feel that happening. You just have to trust that
you're that you're doing it. And that was strange.
And um
And she came out and. I had been anticipating a small dark-haired child
because I was a small pale baby with dark hair and my brothers were small
, pale babies with dark hair. My mother and father in different. Countries
had been small pale children with dark hair and she had copper hair. She
had like flame. Colored copper Hair and I just realized this, this is a
person, this is not, I imagined. What it would be like, but you, you don't
know until your child is born that.
This is A whole other person. This is an individual who's going to turn
into her own person, so no longer just somebody who's part of your little
projected fantasy about motherhood. Um, this is a person. And that was
exhilarating and. Then I would say within the next 24 hours kind of
terrifying.
Cuz in your fantasy, right, you're still you, you just have a kid and. Um
The reality of I am fully. And almost solely responsible. For this small
person who will become a grown up, that's. That's big and I think for a
woman especially that's. You have to go through a readjustment, you know,
I. I joined a writing group called Mothers who Write. Pretty early on and
I tried to write. About how I felt that.
I had given birth to Anna, but Anna in a way had given birth to to to me
as a mother, in other words, not literally, but. She, she made me a mother.
I mean, this was like a whole different self. And without Anna, that
never would have happened. I don't think it's better or worse, you know,
it's. Very, very different.
And Not for everybody, you know, my father said life without children is
not complete. And I internalized that, but I also at the same time knew I
wanted to be a writer and an artist and. I had never.
I was never one of those kids or girls who played marriage, who wanted
babies. I didn't play with dolls. That was just not part of my dream. And
So having an actual child is a much richer and more complicated experience
, I think, than what.
I thought it was when I was a little girl. Um,
I, I wanted to stay me and I wasn't sure how I could. Become a
stereotypical, you know, mother of what I saw as a stereotypical mother
and still be me. And and that's part of the reason I think that. I took
Mothers who write and then I ended up teaching mothers who write and I've
been teaching it for. I don't know, like 15 years or something, um,
co-teaching it with Amy Silverman.
It's because when you become a mother. You realize I have one thing in
common with other mothers, but I don't have a lot necessarily in the same
way that before you had a kid, you had something in common with women, but.
And so to find a place where there were women who were mothers but who
also wrote who saw the world through that writer's perspective and saw
motherhood through that writer's perspective that was really reassuring
because it's like oh we can talk about the crappy stuff we can talk about
postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety um. You know, feeling like. When
are we ever going to be able to get back to our own creative selves, you
know, all of this stuff that. There's not a lot of room for, I think, in
the traditional. Notions of motherhood. Um, you know, there's no Mother's
Day card for that mother, it's. The selfless Mother who, you know that
that giving tree mother, that's, that's the mother that Um, And I feel
really fortunate to have put together a group of friends. Many of whom are
mothers and. We love our children fiercely, but I don't think we're any of
us. That Tree stump
Um, when I had August, I totally went through an identity crisis, like a
severe crisis. It was really hard, and it wasn't the depression. It was
like.
That's what I, I had, I think it was a kind of identity crisis and I, I
realized.
And maybe it's not true for every mother and every father, but it really
seemed when I looked around that.
For mothers having children, having, having children, right, having a baby.
You You gained something critical but not in the short term you lost
something, right? And so you had to sort of cope with that loss. Whereas
for fathers it was like. Do you know what I mean? I, I had a child, like a
mother gives birth. You give something away in a sense, right? And you get
it back tenfold, but initially. It's losing something, literally the baby
out of your body and then also a sense of kind of who you were, right? Um
, I mean, I remember You know, looking at women's magazines, I don't know
if it was, you know.
All lure, you know, whatever it was, but those were a guilty pleasure of
mine. And after I had Anna, like in the weeks after I had Anna, I just
looked at those like I can't make heads or tails. I don't, who are these
for? They make no sense. It was like they were written in a foreign
language. Because what I was looking for was information that was so much
more kind of primal and. Um, just about how to survive and I did have
postpartum anxiety and um I was told postpartum anxiety wasn't a thing.
That that really postpartum depression, but there wasn't really people
didn't really get postpartum anxiety, so. I had to cobble together my own.
Remedies Um, one or two sort of older friends with kids said, you know,
because it was around the witching hour, it was around 5 when I would
start to get that panic. And Anna was an easy baby. Anna was not colicky,
but I'd get this rising panic and so I'd have a beer. It's like, OK, have
a beer, just relax. I don't know what it was, it was this sense of being
trapped. Um, that was really frightening. And interestingly enough, about
a week and a half after I gave birth.
And uh um.
We still don't know what happened, but she started pooping blood, just
like straight blood. My husband's parents had come to see her for the
first time. They were visiting and the whole day they were there, I kept
saying, Anna seems she's too quiet. You know what I mean? She was really
like she was sleeping. I was like, oh good baby, she's sleeping, but she
was too quiet.
And his parents left to. Get groceries for dinner or something, and I
changed her diaper and there was just blood just.
You know, like raspberry jam, just like in the diaper and. So I called my
husband and said we need to go to the, you know, so we. I must, I'm sure I
called the uh OBGYN or the pediatrician first and they said go to the ER.
And we did And she spent a couple days.
Um, at the hospital, you know, they, they, um, we went in through the ER
but then they. Um, took her into the hospital. And
They couldn't really figure out. What was going on. They said later, after
, you know, a couple of days of testing and X-rays and MRIs and all that
stuff, they thought that either she contracted some sort of stomach virus
and not been strong enough to. Kind of withstand it, you know, because
grown-ups can throw up, right, but babies can't or she was allergic to my
breast milk. And I had been going to Leeche League religiously before
giving birth, so I was like, there's no way she's allergic to my breast
milk. That's not possible. And all the Leleche league ladies I called said
, no, no, no, that's not possible. But um
What I found was that when she went into the hospital. When we had to go
to the ER. I didn't have that panic. I was.
It's interesting. My husband could handle it, he kind of couldn't be there.
And I just I don't know how to explain it, but it was almost like a
biological imperative. It was like, this is my kid. I'm, you know what I
mean, with my kid and we're figuring out what's going on and I'm here for
her and I'm not going anywhere. And
I know it sounds goofy because she was only 1 week and a half, but she was
so strong and so brave.
And so determined not to be there, they put her under a, I think it must
have been an MRI, some kind of scanner, and they had sandbags to keep her
from moving, you know, because she was a newborn. And she was pissed and
she was crying and she wriggled out like at 1.5 weeks, she wriggled out of
the sandbags
and had to take the thing up and like put her back in and I just got a
sense of this person, you know, a really strong sense of this of this
person. Um,
And
They told me not to breastfeed, that I should put her on Alimentum, which
was this very expensive formula that came in a can. And of course all the
Leleche league ladies said, oh no, you can't do that. You can't do that.
You must breastfeed her. So, um. I started with the elementum, but I was
pumping breast milk too, right, because you know she was going to need my
breast milk like that. So I was. And the Laleche League ladies, I mean,
God bless them. I'm sure they meant well, but they said, Oh, well, you,
you need to pump, you need to mimic the baby's feeding cycle, so you need
to be pumping every 2 hours, like even at night, right? So. So I'm trying
to feed the baby. The bottle and pump every 2 hours and my husband is like
, yeah, and I'm going out of town. I was just like.
In the end, somebody, maybe his mother talked him into canceling that trip
was just like you, you, you can't do this right now, yeah. And then my
mother was the one who said you're making yourself crazy. You Need to just
give her the bottle and she's OK. Um, And and she was, but I continued.
Pumping breast milk and occasionally trying to put her back on the breast
milk, and every time I did the blood returned. They had given me a little
kit so that I could test. Her feces to see if the blood was there and it
was microscopic, but it was there. And eventually I just thought, you know
, it's not worth it. It's not this sort of stubborn insistence.
That, you know, breast milk would be better for her. I need to let go of
that. So, but we had breast milk in the freezer for oh months, months
because I was like, it's liquid gold, we can't just throw it away. And uh
, you know, 3 months after I gave birth, my sister-in-law, my brother's
wife gave birth to twins. Very difficult pregnancy. She had, I think,
preeclampsia. I mean, it was scary, and she came home from the hospital
with the two babies and we went to visit and. My mother was there in
Boston helping out, so my mother was giving the babies, you know, a bottle
at night and I've been so brainwashed by the Lieche league that I had the
temerity to say to my mother, who had delivered, by the way, me and then
twins, right, and raised us, you know, pretty capably. Yeah, uh, should
you really be giving them a bottle? Like, what about nipple confusion?
Like really should breast milk, it shouldn't they? OK, so here's this
woman who's come out of the hospital, she's very, very sick and she's got
twins, and I'm trying to convince my, yeah. And I, I look back and I
realize.
Especially that first baby, I mean, I didn't. I had a miscarriage. I
didn't have a second child, which in the long run was a very good thing,
but. That first baby, you're just grasping. You have no clue really, and I
didn't have that village around me of, you know, friends who'd had babies
or aunts or none of that. And so, you know, you're looking for gospel,
right? And so you kind of take it where you find it and then I think if
you parent. Well, you sort of realize. No
Baby should be parented by one.
Gospel or with one approach, you need to tailor your approach to the to
the child and what the child needs. And
My mother being English was very sensible. I mean, she really was sensible
and my mother breastfed us in the 60s when that really wasn't done. And
she said, I don't care. I'm gonna breastfeed them. I mean, I don't think
she did it for very long, but you know. She sort of
Very rational. And it's really easy in those early days of motherhood.
To lose that rational. Sense of yourself, of the world perspective, the
whole thing just goes. Upside down, it really helps to have.
Other people there you trust. We had one neighbor who had two older girls.
And she would come by and check on me, and she loved babies and she. You
know, would take Anna. And so to see somebody holding Anna and delighting
in her, you know.
That helped me ease up a little bit, that helped me relax a little bit.
And she was one of the people who said it'll go really fast. Which of
course you don't believe at the time, but here I am 17 years later, so. I
think somebody said the. How did the How do the weeks go by so quickly
when the days go by so slowly, you know, it's that weird. Bubble gum time
, you know, of early. Motherhood. Kind of none of it, none of it makes
sense. And my guess is the second child, you kind of know a little bit and
you're more comfortable with it, but. Everybody says being a grandparent
is great because then you could just enjoy it. So you know, someday I, I
hope. If we're lucky enough, I'll get to. You know, really revel. In
Having a baby in my life and. Instead of sort of fighting that encroaching
panic. Um, Which interestingly enough, I don't, it comes back when I
remember the specific details. Of giving birth, but
You know, describing it for Anna or talking to Anna about, you know, her
birth and delivery and. The doctor who delivered her was named Doctor Moon
, and that became like a story in our family, Doctor Moon, and then when
Anna was old enough, you know, she's a teenager now, so when she was old
enough to need to go to, you know, the gynecologist, you know, she went to
Doctor Moon and it's sort of amazing to say like, OK, this is the doctor
who delivered you and and now you're going to have your first Pap smear.
Or not, I don't think they did a pap smear. I don't think they do that
until, but uh your first sort of vaginal exam, you know, to make sure that.
All your bits are working in case you ever wanna do that, you know. So,
um,
That um kind of the evolution of our identity and character is fascinating
to me, you know, like what you're saying and just imagining her becoming a
woman and, and, um, becoming a mother and then becoming a grandmother and
you know how our identity just changes so much over the course of our
lives in a much more profound way, I think, than some men experience and
secondhandedly. Experience right? And that and and and yet, so my father
was incredibly nurturing and incredibly invested in.
Family and having children and that was a huge part of his identity and
the one thing he would always say about his father was, you know, he may
not have been successful in other ways, but he was a tremendous father.
And yet, even for my father, I feel there was. There was only a sense of
addition, not a sense of of subtraction. And my mother, I don't know, my
mother. Interestingly enough, so my mother, you know, tests. As male on
the Myers Briggs, you know, she was not the touchy feely one, so. Maybe
for her it really was just. I don't mean to minimize it, but I don't know
that she felt that same sense of loss. I think it was OK, and now I have I
mean I'm sure it was difficult, and I'm sure there was probably some
Anxiety. I think, I don't know that she necessarily connected that to
having children, but having 3 kids under 3 and a husband who was gone a
lot, I now understand why her voice sometimes edged toward. You know,
hysteria.
I know, yeah, and uh. But I don't, I don't know. And I've never really
tried to talk to her about that sense of.
Kind of losing yourself. Um, And I don't know whether she would say, yeah
, I. Experience that or you know, oh, don't be silly.
You know, Um, how did you experience pregnancy and your, the physical
changes? I mean, did you feel? Good about that experience. I felt great
about all the physical changes that came with pregnancy. I had one friend
who put on a ton of weight. She was unrecognizable. And, um, you know, she
had 2 kids and it was the same both times, very difficult. Um, I had a
friend who had gestational diabetes, you know, so I had no idea going in.
Uh, and it was. It was easy. It was so.
So easy. I had some morning sickness, if you can even call it that, um,
the first trimester, but what I figured out was I would get nauseous when
I was hungry and I just needed to have some crackers or something and then
I'd be OK. Um. Certain foods I loved, I did not love when I was pregnant.
Like I had to leave a friend's house when they were making sweet potatoes
for dinner one night cause I was just like, and I love sweet potatoes, but
I was just like, I cannot handle that smell. I need to, I had to walk out
into the street, um.
But there wasn't a lot of that. There wasn't a lot of I can't eat this or.
And um, you know, my breasts got bigger, which was delightful because I'm
not a wildly large breasted person and. People would say that I looked, I
was very skinny and, you know, I kind of looked like I swallowed a
basketball like that was sort of the only place where the weight. Showed
And Yeah, I just I just felt, I felt good. I felt really good. I felt
healthy, um. You know, I'm sure not smoking had something to do with that
cause as soon as I found out I was pregnant. I just quit, um. And uh
I had a just a, it was like a project. It was like my body had this really
interesting project and I was kind of following along and I kind of, I
kind of couldn't believe that my body was doing that. And I think
I had some, you know, body image stuff and. Um Like a lot of women, I
think, you know, I, I didn't like my body and. I thought it needed to be
different and. After I gave birth, I was like, no, my body's good. This is
good, my body did a good thing and I also felt much less embarrassed about
, you know, not having clothes on around people. Like I really didn't care.
I grew up very, very shy, didn't really want to wear shorts because my
legs were skinny, you know. Um, And uh
Yeah, after having Anna, it was like, OK, my, my body's a machine that can
do an incredible thing and um, you know, it's also fabulous, but you know
there was much more, I felt much more connected to my body. I think that's
what it was. I don't think I'd ever felt particularly connected to my body.
I wasn't really in it a lot of the time. And having Anna change that.
Being pregnant, I think, changed that.
Cuz I needed to be there. I needed to be in touch with this. Person
growing inside me and it was cool. To be present. And uh Joyful.
That's really well said. I feel like I fought against it the whole way. I
do
so much of it, and I would be like laying in bed and I'd have to sleep
with ice packs because my legs tingled every night and they kept me up
like just just the littlest things I thought were challenging in ways that
were to overcome but that might have been, I mean like I knew women who
had.
Um, intense nausea. The whole 9 months. It's like I'm sorry, I don't think
I'd be able to do that. You know what I mean? That just intense. Nausea,
vomiting for 9 months up until they had the baby. And um I feel I just
feel really, really grateful cause I'm. I'm not somebody who doesn't
complain. So
You know, I
And it was an easy pregnancy and, and Anna was an easy. Baby, and I
wouldn't necessarily have predicted that. Um For myself, I don't know that
I was an easy baby. I think I had stomach issues. Very little and there
was um screaming. And I just remember my mother.
Coming to see Anna for the first time and spending time with her and and
holding her and she said, this is a good baby.
You know, and uh she is, I mean, she's.
She has not had an easy time of it, you know, there've definitely been
challenges, but she is the same sort of. Strong, resilient.
Kind of lovely person. She always has been. And sometimes I tell her
stories about that strong resilient. Baby. Because I think it's easy to
remember just the part of the story about having to go into the hospital.
With something wrong with you, which is scary. But the other part of that
is you were strong and You emerged
Healthy, I remember. Saying to the pediatric gastroenterologist, I really
want. Anna to have breast milk. And she said You're being ridiculous, she
said, if this were a third world country where the water was compromised,
you know, of course, breast milk, but The the the differences are sort of.
Minimal and you should feel fortunate because there are other children
who've come in with very, very similar. Symptoms who may not leave here.
Right, so. You know, my kid was in for 2 or 3 days and then was able to go
home.
And yeah, she was on crazy expensive formula that came in a can that we
had to pack in our luggage anytime we went anywhere because we weren't
sure they would sell it where we were going, but
She was fundamentally healthy. So Yeah, we've interviewed women in
different eras and. They did not have formula.
They just made stuff up with like some cow's milk, some cream of wheat,
like mixed in and just the strangest concoctions trying to figure out, and
the kids would, the babies would just be like throwing that up until they
just found the right formula of things just to. To give their child
nutrition so that they survived. I mean it was really amazing. So I agree
we should be grateful for the, you know, the advances that we've made and
that we have something like that for a circumstance like that that you
actually have the ability to use. And I had a friend in New York who was
really insightful, and she's a staunch feminist.
And She, her sort of opinion was that this whole. Breast versus bottle
thing was ridiculous, you know, some women will breastfeed, some women
will bottle, bottle feed. It's a little bit like the stay at home mom
versus the working mom, right? I mean, we're all mothering, we're all
parenting, we're all, so I almost feel like this. This need to critique
the person who's doing the other thing comes from this tremendous
insecurity that I may not be doing it the right way, so I must criticize
the other person. And some of that societal pressure for sure, absolutely
, right? You know, blame the mom. It's always the mom's fault. But I also
think it's up to us as women, as mothers.
To say this person mothers differently.
And that's OK. I mean, they're not beating their child, right? They're
feeding them. Formula. Um And, and
That's their choice and um the sort of looking down the nose or.
It's not OK and it doesn't serve anybody in the long run because the
pendulum swings, right? The pendulum 11 moment the pendulum is, you know,
on the side of the women who are breastfeeding and the next minute, right
, early 60s when women were working it was on the side of. Formula. I mean
breastfeeding was old fashioned. It was backwards. It was why would you do
that, right? So it's always going to swing. And it's My husband's mother
died when he was um just after he was born, and he was completely raised
on formula. He's like the smartest person I know, you know, the healthiest
person I know. You know, so. But the guilt surrounding every decision we
make is really, oh, the guilt about not being able to breastfeed Anna,
that was. Oh yeah.
Terrible.
And I At a certain point, really let go of it. I think I really got, I got
angry.
At the people in the Laeche League who kept trying to push me to put her
back on breast milk because I realized this is not about my baby. This is
not about what's best for my baby. This is about their
Um,
What's the word I want kind of. ideological beliefs about what's. What's
best, which doesn't take into account, you know, my child. Who's pooping
blood? And so I got angry and.
Those people sort of abandoned me like once I couldn't breastfeed and I
wasn't part of the club. You know what I mean, we didn't have anything to
talk about. We really didn't. Cuz I was doing something that they really
didn't think was right.
So
Instead of Feeling rejected, I felt angry. It was good. It just made me
think, well, OK then. Fuck all y'all.
I'm gonna do what's right for my baby and. Which is what being a good
mother is, I think so. I, I write, it's trying to figure out what's right.
For my, for my baby. Trying to figure out what's right for my baby
without completely sacrificing myself, right? So the very early like I'm
going to pump every 2 hours and give my child formula was kind of crazy.
And it comes back to the whole idea. I, I, I remember having this
revelation when Anna was little and we were on an airplane and now people
talk about it quite a bit, right? When the oxygen mask comes down and
you're with a child, what do you do, right? You put it on the kid first.
No, no, you don't. You put it on yourself first because if you put it on
the kid first and you pass out, you're useless. So you have to put your
own oxygen mask on first. You have to take care of yourself. And that too
, I think was another lesson that I learned. I really had to value myself
more and I really had to take care of myself if I was going to be able to
take care of Anna, and if I was going to be able to. Set any kind of
example for her to follow. Right, because
Kids
Do what they see, not what they're told. That's, that's how they learn. It
doesn't matter what you, I mean, you can say to your child, take care of
yourself until you're blue in the face, but if you set an example. Of Self
neglect
Um, Doesn't matter what you say. So that in a way gave me permission to
take care of myself, to value myself. Cause I, I kind of hadn't. Before
then.
Yeah, that's huge.
I'm pretty grateful.
I'm pretty grateful and I do.
The marriage did not end well. Anna's relationship with her father is not
good. But I wouldn't I wouldn't do it differently. I, I can't imagine my
life without. And in it, and I lost my father a few years before Anna was
born, which was.
Really difficult because grandchildren would have meant so much to him. Um
But in parenting Anna and being there for Anna, so much of what I do.
Comes from what I learned from my father. My mother too, but my father, my
father was very nurturing. Very steady, very loving, just unconditional
love. And so I feel my father. With me. In some way when when I'm with
Anna. Just the way I feel about Anna, I kind of feel like I get a sense of
how my father felt about us. And that's really Reassuring and and lovely.
It's almost like having a. Some time with him again.
It's beautiful. I, yeah, I absolutely agree with that. I view my mother
completely differently now that I've become a mother than I did before,
you know. I'm much more forgetting of my mother now. My mother and I did
not get along partly because we're so different, you know, my mother is.
A very practical English economist and I'm. Kind of dreamy ADD. I don't
know about dreamy, but do you know what I mean? Like I'll go off in a
strange direction or I'll Here's a small example that sums us up. I have a
very keen sense of smell, and my mother does not. And so for years my
mother thought I was making it up. If I said something in the fridge
smelled, you know, say, oh, don't be ridiculous, you know. And finally, my
mother has recognized that I can smell things that she can't smell, right
? And so she's come to appreciate that. It's like I. Just because I sense
something or feel something or smell something that she doesn't doesn't
mean it doesn't exist. And
I guess when you become a mother, you realize. Oh wow. My mother was a
person, like a whole, she had a whole life before she had me. I am not the
center of her universe, was not the center of her universe. She did not
exist solely to take care of me and, you know, be a great mom to me. And
she and I were very, very different people, and I had twin brothers 2
years younger. So that's a lot to deal with. And
2, I think the older you get and the more you see how parents fuck their
kids up. I mean radically fuck their kids up.
The more you look back and you think, wow. You know, I had it pretty good
. I mean, I knew my parents loved me. I knew my parents were there for me.
My mother and I operated very differently in the world, but I have a huge
amount of respect for her. And
Anna gets along really well with her. She and Anna Sort of understand each
other and they both, it's very sweet. They, you know, Anna loves horseback
riding and horses, as did my mother. She rode in England. I was never a
horsey girl. That was not. I was like, yeah, horses, horses, horses were
for girls, right? But they have, they have this sort of bond that's,
that's really lovely. Um, so I definitely feel like I understand my mother
a lot better. And, and she and I respect and value each other in a way
that we did not.
Boy, I would say it was a combination of my father dying and Anna being
born that sort of forced us. To recognize each other. And and forge a real.
Relationship
Um, not that it wasn't real before, but A deeper relationship. It's nice
for us to recognize each other. Don't you think? Yeah, I mean, on my
birthday, it's not about me. I call my mother. I'm like, thank you so much
for giving birth to me, right? Because it's, it's her day as much as it is
mine. When you're a kid, it's all about you and the cake and the presents
and you don't even think about like this woman gave birth to me. So yeah,
I love, I love that shift in perspective. Yeah, it was like, you know,
right, I remember right before. Being pregnant and having that I would see
women in the grocery store. They'd have like 3 kids, you know, like
hanging on the carts and stuff and you'd be like, Oh that's cute, or my
gosh, the kids are heathens or whatever my opinions were. And then
immediately afterwards it was like, wow, she has 3 kids. The person with
the screaming baby on the plane, right now it's like, oh, I feel so bad
for you. And when other people complain, you know, about the screaming
baby on the plane. I want to say to them, I hope people were kinder to
your mother when you were a screaming baby because you probably were,
because most babies are at some point, you know, we just lose this sense
of
Kindness or compassion or kind of understanding, right? It's like no
parent wants to be sitting on an airplane holding a screaming baby. Uh, it
does sort of put you in context to the, the whole, um. Length of You know
, Life, you know, I mean, you see everything in context of that, so like
you see the old man, you think of him as a baby, you know, I don't think I
ever felt.
Quite as kind of.
Close to death, right as. I did when when Anna was born, it's because
you're at that. Door, it's the same door I was at when my father died.
3 years before she was born, right? It's the door where you say hello and
goodbye. And you can't be at that door and not think about. Passing
through it. I don't think. I mean, unless you're of the generation of
women that was just totally knocked out and then woke up like with a baby
, although. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how they felt, but. Um,
It's, it's really.
Altering profoundly altering. You know, now I'm married to a. A man from a
Polish Catholic family who had. 8 siblings and I wonder, and his mother is
so lovely and sane and even tempered, and I just want to take her aside
and say, how, how And she lost a child. One of her children was killed, uh
, you know, when he was, I don't know, 8. How the hell do you keep it
together? For the other children. In the face of that, you know.
I had one baby and was just completely upside down.
You know, couldn't make heads or tails of it for a while.
One of the other women we talked to today said that um having a child
really you know. That you find this well of strength. It's reserve that
you just didn't know was there, and I think that situation would be like
that, you know, you just. There's no, there's no question. I mean, I. Hm.
In some ways, I guess I knew I was resilient. You know, I'd I'd had a
certain amount of depression, but not debilitating. Um,
And
Somehow somehow.
Anna brought it out In me, um. I do, I feel much.
Stronger.
Um,
And I don't know whether that's because I can't break down. I don't know.
It's just not an option. It's not an option. It's not, and I don't mean
to denigrate people with mental illness. I mean, you know, breakdowns
happen. But I, I feel in my case. You know,
There there is. I mean, for example, when, when Anna was 2 and I had a
miscarriage.
My therapist had been saying for a while, you know, you might want to
think about going on antidepressants before this, right, because I've been
grappling with depression probably since adolescence, but I felt like that
was a cop out, you know, I don't want to take pills. I don't want, you
know, and I'll change who I am.
And I had
The miscarriage and Anna was 2. And my marriage was not good.
And I just started taking the.
Antidepressants
I thought, OK, I. This is not about what I prefer. I need to be OK. I need
to function for Anna's sake. I need to be good.
I took a very low dose.
But it was enough. And
You know, the marriage did end up collapsing. Pretty spectacularly.
And
I hung in there. I don't know that I was always at my best.
But
I didn't have the option of.
Throwing my hands up or walking away or.
You know, curling up in a ball and crying, I just Needed to figure out
what to do for Anna's sake, needed to figure out what the right thing was
to keep Anna safe.
Yeah, absolutely.
And
Yeah.
We've been um asking people because we're separating these stories into
the themes if there's like a. A particular word or a small grouping of
words that could kind of summarize your experience. It's a really hard
question, but. Yeah, but I'm a writer, so I should be able to do this, um
. A grouping of words.
A group of words that's not like an egregious cliche.
You've already given us like really I mean like specifically really good
that would you know work in you want to tell me what they are and then I
can work around them. God, there's so many.
And she has all the notes of the good, the really good parts. I mean just
like start the moment so. I mean, honestly, it was like. I think 3 or 4
times I wrote end quote, end quote, end quote, like because they were so
good good um.
I didn't write down what they were though.
Um, There's so many, um. Well, when you were saying she gave birth to you
, that was really great, you know.
I think
Connection So Anna connected me. Back to my father. Who was the center of
my world. She connected me to myself. In a funny way, that's where my
father was.
And
She connected me.
Forward in a funny way I feel.
Like in the same way that my father is around, I will be around.
Not literally, right, but. My father shaped me. I've shaped Anna. Even if
Anna doesn't choose to have children. Every life she touches, every person
that she has a relationship with, or, you know. That's the ripple, that's
the ripple out.
And so connected.
Yeah, it's beautiful, it's great. That was, that was like the best way to.