It's fun. It's been a long time. We took a month off. This is Boris Elise
interviewing Tara Guthrie on August 11th at 2 p.m. All right, so we can go
ahead and get started. OK, so maybe think back to those things that you
were just talking about. I was born and raised in Mesa, Arizona. I lived
here my whole life. You know, you grow up as a little girl thinking I'm
gonna get married and I'm gonna have the baby and you know, I'm gonna have
to be a little housewife and and do the child rearing and, and my life um
did not turn out that way at all, Neither did my pregnancy. It was um Not
expected. It was not planned. I was not even I was with my high school
sweetheart and um it was after we graduated from high school and we were
not exactly living a desirable life. I was a methamphetamine addict and I
, I know the day that I conceived my daughter um because my um. The father
of my child and I, we didn't like each other too much. I mean there was a
lot of violence and arguments and it was just not a, it wasn't a savory
lifestyle. And but I remember the day she was conceived and as I look back
, I did not, however,
know that I was pregnant until I was 4 months pregnant. So, and I went
through the. When I look back, I saw the, I did have the morning sickness
. I did have the cravings. I had the exhaustion. And I just thought, and I
, my drug use actually cut down because I didn't feel good and I was
sleeping a lot. So that was the only reason why that happened, but, and 4
months later, I felt a little flutter. In my in my tummy. And I thought
Either my kidneys are falling out or I am pregnant. That was my thought.
So I did a pregnancy test and I was pregnant and I was, I went to the
doctor and I was 4 months pregnant. So that's where it all began. So what
was it about the conception part that you knew that you would conceive
like at that time? We had not been um intimate, we had not been in
intimate in months. So we were too busy doing. Recreational drugs. So, and
I remember saying it, I was like, hey, Norman, come here. So, and I
remember that, I, I remember that day clearly. So that had been, that was
, that had been the only day. There was no other day. That's interesting.
Mhm. Um, can you think back to the pregnancy? Was there anything that
maybe an event or a time of year or something to kind of paint the picture
of that time when you were pregnant and, um, you know, what your physical
experiences were too. I remember it was hot and I was, I was underweight
and I was a severe smoker. I remember sitting outside, I remember smoking
cigarettes. Um, I had gotten sober at that point. Um, cause, you know, I,
that was the right thing to do. So, and I remember sitting out in the heat
a lot having a cigarette because I wouldn't smoke in the house. I had
moved back in with my parents. It was very stressful. It was very, um,
It was sad. It was a very sad time in my life. It was a very Disappointing
time in my life because I had disappointed my parents. I was an unwed
mother. I was getting sober and. Mm, they, no one in my family believed in
, you know, marriage or pregnancy outside of marriage. So there was a lot
, it was a very painful time in my life because I had disappointed
everybody. I was scared, um. My baby's father left, so I was very alone.
It was one of the most um alone times in my life. That was one of the, I
think that was the most alone time in my life ever. It's amazing to me
because most women, when they're pregnant, they're dealing with the
pregnancy and that's an overwhelming experience period. But then to deal
with the pregnancy stuff and the um recovery part of drug addiction, I
mean, how did you handle that? I mean, what were the, what was that like?
I think when I look back on it, I was in a zone. I was in my own little
cocoon, my own little world. It's like the whole world was spinning, kept
rotating, and mine was stopped. It was absolutely stopped, and I had no
idea what to expect. I had no one to talk to. I didn't know what to do.
And so I, I got a little job and I was cutting hair.
And that's what I did. I just went to my little job and I'm, I, um.
I just kept on going. So you know you mentioned your parents, um, you know
, feeling that they might be disappointed, but they must have been so
proud of you to have gotten clean and kept the baby and they, there's a
kick there. They did not um It wasn't
And a a a great thing like oh terra sober, it was um. It was one of those
things where everyone pretended like wasn't didn't never happened. Never
happened and my grandparents were pushing for um for me to um either abort
or or put the baby for adoption.
So I had a lot of pressure from different people in my family. My mom
wanted me to keep it. My dad was stuck in the middle. My brother hated my
guts because I had left him, I had left the house at a very vulnerable
time in his in his life, he was 14 when I moved out, so he felt like I had
abandoned him. So I was, I was by myself. I was very alone.
How was your um home life with your parents? Was that a strong
relationship?
I was, I fought a lot with my mother because we were a lot alike, very
different, but a lot alike. Um, my father was always at work, you know,
the traditional my mom stayed home, my dad worked all the time. So and I
was kind of the rebel, you know, they would say, don't do this, and I
would have to run out and try it, so.
Yeah, but I understand that, um. So Let's see, let's think back. So you
were 4 months pregnant when you found out you were pregnant, is that right
? Yes, I was 4 months pregnant when I found out. OK. And then you, um,
broke up with the boyfriend. My boyfriend, he abandoned me. He just found
out. He just never came home. He just never came home. So my parents came
and got me from my apartment. I did not want to leave my apartment because
I knew it was gonna be painful. I knew I was gonna be by myself. I mean, I
was there, I had people around me, but I was very much alone.
So at that point you moved in with your folks and um you know you got
clean and I just kind of took care of your body, you know, and is changing
stages and my mother would pack me my lunches. She's a, she's a food
nutritionalist, so she would pack me my lunches. I'd go to my little job.
I probably gained. About 1720 pounds, but you could not tell I was
pregnant at all. And I did not go to full term pregnancy. I had my
daughter 2.5 months after I found out I was pregnant. So it was a very
quick, very. I had no, I had no time to actually think about. How I was
gonna do this, or, or even it, the reality hadn't even set in yet. But the
aloneness had set in. That makes sense, yeah. Yeah, I, I can't imagine
what you're going. So, um, maybe talk about that part. Like whenever you
started noticing that you were in labor or I when I when I realized I was
having the baby, I didn't know I was having the baby. I woke up at 1:30 in
the morning because I felt like I had um wet the bed. And I turned on the
light and there was blood everywhere. So I had what they call an
obstruction or abruption, sorry, an abruption. That's where the um
placenta tears away from the in the uterus. So I actually very quietly, my
parents were in the bedroom across the hall, I said. Mom, get up. There's
something wrong. And I said it very quietly, and she, she was very
everyone was very hypersensitive to me and um about what was going on,
everyone was traumatized and so she actually woke up and bolted across the
hallway. I can't even believe she heard me and Mesa Police Department was
called, you know, the Mesa um ambulance was called and then. All of a
sudden, there's a helicopter landing in the middle of our street cause
they had to air vacuum me from Mesa to Phoenix to the hospital.
Nothing about my pregnancy was normal. Nothing. Everything was heightened
and. traumatic and just actually unbelievable. And as I talk about it, it
is still, it's still unbelievable to me, like it was an out of body
experience.
Wow. So you maybe talk about the elaborate on the whole helicopter
experience. I've never known anyone that's. Yes,
the medics, the paramedics were in my room and they were they were trying
to get the gurney down the hallway and the um the chief um medic said, We
don't have time for this. So he just wrapped a blanket around me, picked
me up, and he walked me out to the street and the helicopter was already
Landing, all the neighbors were out and no one knew I was pregnant because
I could, I wasn't showing it all. So everyone's wondering why this girl
was was wrapped up in a blanket, has blood all over the place and she's
being put into A helicopter and my parents had lived there my whole life.
I had lived in that house my whole life. So, except when I moved out, you
know, for a couple of years as a young adult. So the whole neighborhood
was watching. It was very It was it was very exciting for everybody, and I
was just, I couldn't even believe what was happening. So they put me in
the helicopter and we started taking off. And they actually said to me
while we were in flight, you know, they had me, the heart monitors and
stuff and everything on me, and her heart rate was perfect the entire time.
So she was under no distress whatsoever. I, however, was hemorrhaging
pretty much to death. So at that point, they couldn't get the bleeding to
stop. So that was, and when you're pregnant like that, the mother, when
you're pregnant and you're, you're hemorrhaging like that, the mother is
actually their main concern. Because that's the first life from what I was
told. So and it never really registered with me. I knew that, but I knew
down deep in my heart that I was not going to die that day. And I just had
this, and that was probably the most calm I'd ever felt when they told me
, you know, you're hemorrhaging. Uh a lot and um. But the baby's heartbeat
is good and for some reason, I knew there was a there was an actual
calmness about me at that moment, and I was like. I knew that I was going
to be OK. And that was probably the most OK I felt through the entire
pregnancy, the the entire everything. I had a moment of calmness. That's
amazing. You know, I mean, you would think that a normal response during
that would be like total terror, you know. Yeah, I didn't panic. I did not
panic and I don't know why I didn't panic. And they said if you if you
feel nauseous or anything like that, go ahead and tell us and we'll open
up the windows. And when you're in an air vac helicopter, when they open
up the windows, they pretty much open the entire sides of a helicopter and
I was like, OK, I changed my mind. I'm not nauseous. Can we please close
the windows? So let's just, let's just get to the hospital and let's do
this. So yeah, so let's talk about getting to the hospital. We landed and
they rushed me into a room and the baby's heart rate was perfectly normal
the whole time and it was kind of funny because the nurses thought it was
funny because she kept kicking the heart monitor on because they put a
belt around you and then the heart monitors on your belly and it was like
she kept playing with it. And it would kind of ding ding ding ding ding.
It was almost like she was playing with it because she could hear it
beeping. I thought that was kind of strange. It was like a toy to her or
something. It was very strange. And every once in a while I'll think about
that, because at one point when I was pregnant, I would put headphones on
my belly because I thought, well, they say that they can hear music, and I
knew nothing about being pregnant. So I put music on her on my belly with
headphones and some of the music that I picked up probably wasn't really
good for her, but Yeah, so I played country music for her. I played um
White Zombie, which Rob Zombie is the lead singer for that group and
there's, there's something really, I'll tell you at the end of the story
about that. There's something really weird about that one. So yeah, they,
so she was playing with a heart monitor. They were, they had elevated my
feet. So I remember watching the Flintstones on TV through my toes. My
mother was very emotional, very upset. She's like, she thought I was going
to die. And I looked at her and I said, I'm not going to die.
I knew I wasn't going to die and I was very calm and peaceful with that
part, yet I knew it was going to be a very hard journey. The other part of
me, the other part of me thought this is going to be the hardest thing
that you've ever done in your entire life. So I had two very contradiction
contradicting feelings at the same time. So So you were 7 months along.
Yes, yes, and it happened at about 1:30 in the morning, my abruption. So
So, um, And you were feeling you weren't, you just had this feeling that
the child would be OK with. I did. Yes, I did. I knew she was going to be
OK. I knew I was going to live through it, but I knew that my life was
going to be very hard. Very hard. During the pregnancy, had you like
imagined, you know, what she would be like and what her name would be and
like really given her. I picked out her name.
Her name was, I picked out the name Taylor. And I knew it was going to be
a girl because I wanted, I wanted to find out the sex of the baby so that
I could start preparing a little bit for her, but still the reality that I
was really pregnant wasn't real. It still wasn't real. I was buying pink
clothes and little things here and there, but it was not real to me that I
was actually going to be a mother. It was terrifying. The feeling was
terrifying that I was actually going to be a mother, and every, every idea
concept or whatever of being a mother, I had no idea, none. No idea. How
involved that was or that meant where it was going to be. No clue. You
only have 3 months. Yes, so it wasn't even real to me and I wasn't showing
, so it really wasn't real to me. I would just feel a flutter here and
there and that was it. Just a little flutter and I would feel her go back
and forth a little bit. Maybe it was the music she didn't like, I don't
know at times. So they had their feet elevated and then they C-sectioned
or? Yes, the doctor, they called in a specialist and he said, we are going
to have a baby. He said, because there, there is a 7-minute time period
where you can go from alive to dead, where I cannot bring you back. And
that's exactly what he said. And I was like, wow, that's pretty blunt. He
doesn't mince words, does he? I'm like, OK. And I was actually OK. I was
OK with what he said. OK, let's do this.
And I actually wanted her out of me as soon as possible, because the whole
time I was pregnant, I had this fear of being huge.
I was so used to being in this really tiny thin emaciated body that I was
afraid to be. I have a fear of being heavy. So that was, that was more
real to me than anything. I'm going to be heavy. You know, not many women
say that, but I think almost every woman experiences that like the idea of
your body changing and you're not really being in control of it, and so
much of our self-worth is based upon how we look and stuff, and then
that's just going to change. You won't feel like who you are, who you
normally are. Yeah, the thought of gaining all that weight and being that
big was terrifying to me. Cause how does your body recover from that? How
you know how and I hadn't. Never really none of my friends had ever had a
baby, so I was like the first one. This was like it was a totally un.
Uncharted territory for me. I had no idea what I was before. I was 21, 21
years old.
And I think with my um maturity level that was much too young for me, much
too young for me. And I found out as time went on that this was not a
puppy. This was much more difficult. Then I had even imagined. So have the
doctors told you about what what the experience would be like post
operation, you know, that she would be premature and we were all, they,
they gave me the saddle block, so I was numb from, you know, my waist down
and there was a mirror on the ceiling and they told me that I would feel
some pressure. And then all of a sudden I saw this purple, they were
holding this purple object and I said, What is that? And they said, that
is your uterus. And I thought, oh my goodness, oh my God.
And so that was like, that was, wow, that was when reality really started
setting in. I was like, wow, that is my body part. So, and then they slice
that open and they started pulling out a baby. Here comes some little feet
, here's some little legs, here comes a little bottom, cutest little
bottom I've ever seen in my life, really. And they were twisting her
around like she was stuck in there and I'm like, I actually at one point
said, I'm afraid you're gonna pop her little head off. And the doctor said
something to the point or to the effect of, we're just hoping she has
lungs.
We're just hoping she has lungs. She came out, they pulled her out and she
was screaming and crying and everyone was excited. I'm getting goosebumps.
Everyone was so excited that she was, she had lungs, she had a full head
of hair. She was absolutely perfectly pink. She was a beautiful, healthy 3
pound baby. There was absolutely nothing wrong with her whatsoever other
than the fact that she was 2 pounds underweight, so she wouldn't be able
to go home right away. So I'm actually one of the luckiest women walking
the planet. And and she is too. So I'm actually very lucky that there was
nothing wrong with her. She had to gain 2 pounds before she left the
hospital. But when babies are that little, they'll gain 3 ounces and then
lose 2. But it only took her 2 weeks. So, and being a female child, she
was, she was a fighter. She was a very strong little girl, so. Yeah. Wow,
that's truly miraculous. Um, did your grandmother, whom you were saying
was kind of pushing for, she,
they had had a friend, an older friend that was in the hospital, um, she
was an elderly lady, she was having some kind of kidney problems. She was
in the same hospital as me. I was on the 6th floor. She was on.
I think she was on the 1st floor or the 2nd floor, and my grandparents
actually were at the hospital visiting their friend, but they were so
against unwed mothers that they didn't come and see me or the baby.
So that right there was a very shaming, very shaming for me. So, you know
, here comes all those feelings of disappointment and shame and guilt and
almost remorse, you know, that I had. Disappointed everybody so much. And
when I, as soon as I could feel my my legs after the saddle block wore off
, I was. I was up in the um ICU looking at her where the preemie babies
were, and I remember thinking.
I was just Stunned I thought she's the cutest thing I've ever seen in my
life, but I was terrified of her. Absolutely terrified.
And at that point, I, I didn't even think about my body because all I knew
it was purged. I wasn't going to be heavy. And I that was a relief to me.
I wasn't gonna get fat. Out of everything that had happened, I wasn't
going to get fat, and she had lungs.
Ironic So were you nursing or bodily feeding her? What do you do with a 3
? Um, if I were to bottle feed her, I was going to have to live on a
breast pump because they were sending me home after 3 days and she would
have to stay there. So I had to travel from Mesa to Phoenix to visit her
and At first, I visited her, and then after a while, I stopped. I couldn't
, I couldn't handle it. I was scared of her. I didn't know what to do. She
was a very Complicated baby. She had to eat every 2 hours because she was
a preemie. Um, she wasn't as complicated as the others. There were very,
very sickly babies in there. I was, I was the luckier one. Um, my mother
would actually go visit her more than I did. So therefore, my mother
bonded with my daughter and I did not. Because it still wasn't a reality
to me. It wasn't real to me. It was like an out of body experience.
I had all the emotions other than pure joy and bliss and what uh what
you're supposed to, you know, what they say that you're supposed to feel,
oh motherhood is so beautiful and so, you know, such a content feeling and
so they felt complete and you know some women say that and I'm like. I
didn't feel that. I did not feel that. Am I missing something? Do I, am I
missing some kind of microchip or some kind of, you know, I, I don't, I
didn't get it. And to this day, I still don't get it.
So how is your relationship with her? Is it? My, um, I made a decision
when my daughter was 8 months old to um give her up for adoption.
My parents are actually the ones that adopted her. And that. It was, it
was a very strained relationship because I didn't want to give her up
because I felt like I've like I was failing again. This was the biggest
fail this is, this was the biggest failure in my life. Um, to this day, I
still feel like I failed my daughter. Um, I failed her and, but I did.
I did the right thing for her, but it took me 8 long months to to finally
make a decision and say out loud, I can't do this, and I don't want to do
this. I don't have that motherly instinct, I guess. Um, I didn't have that
bond with her that my mom did, and I would watch her with my mom and I'm
And I didn't have that. And I had somewhere in there, um, returned to
drugs. So everything that had happened was.
It was such an out of body experience that it didn't really happen yet.
Here was this little baby, but I didn't bond with her, so it was never
real to me.
It was just never real to me and my mom, I, I don't know. I don't, I don't
, I don't know. She just had that. I don't know if it's because she had 2
children previous. Actually 31 of them passed away. Um, But I never bonded
with her, so we went through the whole court thing. And that was the
hardest thing I've ever had to say out loud in my entire life. I don't, I
, I can't do this. I don't, I don't, I don't want to do this. Take her.
So, and then, um, from 8 months old till she was 2, I did not see her.
Because my, my mother at that point, she just, she had bonded with her so
strong that she didn't, she almost didn't want me around. And it probably
was better that I wasn't around because I was using drugs again. When I
would see her though, I wouldn't be on them, I would restrain from them,
and I eventually got sober when she was 2 years old. But no one ever told
her. She knew though, and it was really funny because she she knew and she
told my mom when she was 6, she said, I know Tara is my mama.
She knew. I don't know if she remembered. I have, I have no idea, but she
knew, and I remember she would look at me when they would drive away. She
would, they would come visit me. At either my apartment or um. When I was
living in a halfway house because I did get sober. When she was 2, she
would, I remember her little eyes would be peeking up over the, the
passenger seat. She'd be in the back seat in her little car seat, and her
little eyes would be looking at me and she would look at me and and I knew
, I knew she knew something the way she looked at me, she would just look
at me different. So she knew that I was her mother. I know Tara is my mama.
That's exactly what she said to my mother. I know Tara is my mama. And
today we have a wonderful relationship. However, the bond that my mother
and my daughter have is much stronger than mine and my daughter's. And
we've talked about it, and that's OK.
And it's, she just was married and the funny thing about it is she said, I
don't think I'm gonna have children. She said, I would rather have my dog
and my cat and my rabbits and my chickens. She said, I don't. She was, I
don't think I can. She goes, I don't think I could love a child more than
I love my dog. And I looked at her, and this might sound horrible to
someone else, but I said I totally get that. I totally get that. And not
that I love her, you know, I love her more than anything in this world,
but I'm more maternal with my, my cats than I was with my daughter. So
something Happened or something didn't happen when I was pregnant.
Something that happens to other women or doesn't happen to other women. I
don't know. And I, believe me, I've thought about it for years and years
and years, you know, here and there. What element is it that I don't have
? And what element is it that some women do have?
But no one knows. I agree there's, you know, it's not an obligation by any
means to have a child, and you know some people that drive to have a child
, and other people just don't. My sister definitely isn't going to have
kids. I've got to stop that dryer. Can you hear it? Sorry, it's making me
crazy. I don't know why Eric would put a dryer. Um, you know, it's
interesting too when you talk about this failure in the sense of failure.
Um, is it recording? you know, failing your daughter and Um, but my God,
she has, she owes you her life. You know, I think that's, that's an
incredible gift.
It's the best thing you can. There are a lot of, of women that have
children that should not have children, and I, and it's, I don't know if I
have an extra sense or something about it, but I can see it. I mean, you
can see when parents shouldn't be parents, you know. But I can see it in
women, and it's, I can see how hard it is to say out loud. I know how hard
it is to say out loud. I can't do this. And to tell you the truth, I don't
want to. I can't find it in me to want to do this. I can't, and I
struggled with that for eight months. I mean, I literally sat up night
after night after night.
Trying to find it in me somewhere to raise this beautiful little baby girl
, and I couldn't, I couldn't find it. I couldn't find the will to do it,
could not do it. And I felt so guilty and I felt so bad. But at the same
time, it's the best thing that I could ever do for her. So it was success
and failure feeling all at the same time. So very confusing. And I still
can't I, I still almost can't make sense of it in a way. And her and I
have talked about it. We've talked about it. And she knows that and I do
love her more than anything in the world, but I think my mother loves her
more. I really do when I watch them. She has that bond with her and it's
amazing to me how someone that doesn't. She is not her natural biological
mother, and yet she loves her like she is. And that's amazing to me. So we
, I still. I still go through. All these maternal feelings.
And but, but I don't, but I don't at the same time. I don't, I don't know
how to explain that. If that makes any sense whatsoever. Yeah, I think our
emotions around birth are very complex and contradictory and you know,
full of, you know, highs and lows and and just different things all at the
same time, you know, and it's hard to put into words. I think you're doing
a great job though, um. You know, we've been asking people because we're
separating things into themes, these stories into things, and um and so
we've been asking people like, what is there a word or something that you
could, you would say like encompasses the experience that you had somehow
, you know.
The feeling, the, the feeling that I, the, the feeling, the word, the all
encompassing whatever. Is absolutely totally alone.
Alone, I would, I could be in a room full of people and I was alone.
Do you feel, um, now that you've bonded with other women that have similar
experience or anything that you feel less alone, or do you? You know, I
think all women have their own individual story. Um, I've been around
women who have some of the same background as I do with drugs, and they
have lost their children. They have done whatever it took to get their
children back. Um, some women have lost their children forever to other
families because they couldn't do what they needed to do to get them back.
Um, and I think. The feeling is, you know. The feeling is the same. It's
that little sense of failure that you didn't. Because the world, everyone
thinks that it's like women have to become mothers. Some of us aren't
meant to be mothers. You know, some of us just aren't meant to be mothers
, and so there's always that little bit of the feeling that the world's
looking at you like, oh my gosh, you had a child and you couldn't do it
and you lost them and this or that was more important. I don't think this
or that was more important. I just don't have that element, whatever it is.
Or it didn't kick in. And I knew when I, the minute I found out I was
pregnant, I knew I was only gonna have one child. I thought to myself, I
am not doing this again. Oh my goodness. So and I knew, I knew, I
intuitively knew that this would be my only child. I had no idea how it
was gonna play out at that point, but I knew it was my only child.
It seems to me that it's actually incredibly selfless to put a child up
for adoption after making the decision that you're not going to be the
quality of parent you want for your child, you know, that seems like such
an important decision to be made, and it's more sad when kids are in homes
where the parents aren't capable. Exactly. I did not want to ruin her. And
that's That's the beginning and the end of it all. I did not want to ruin
her, and I knew if I kept her, I was going to resent her. I was going to
damage her, and she was going to be in therapy for the rest of her life. I
could just see it and I did not want to have that for her. I want her to
have a beautiful life and she did. She has a very beautiful life. She was
just married in June. She has a a great job and a great husband and. She
lives in Flagstaff. She's a very outdoorsy person. She's very smart, she's
very creative. She's still very small. She was 3 pounds when she was born.
She's only 5 ft. So.
She's very, and she's a fighter. She is, she's a tough girl. She's, she's
, she's a go-getter. She's exactly how she was born is exactly how she
still is today. She's a very strong, strong girl, beautiful, healthy,
strong girl, beautiful person.
Well, I think that's it for me. Thank you so much. That was gorgeous.