Screaming to be heard: My Maternal Health Story (part of it)
I was literally screaming.
I laid on that surgical table as the doctor slowly drew the line across my stomach to start my second C-section. As they moved my organs around, I felt every twinge and pull. The anesthetic was not working. My slight throat clearing of discomfort quickly turned to moans, and then tired screams that went on for minutes. This was not natural. I squeezed my husband’s hand, fighting back tears. “Why am I feeling it? Why am I feeling it? More medicine pumped into me without answers or explanation.
My daughter was born in distress. I remember the doctor saying, “we have to put her under.” No explanations. They quickly whisked my husband out of the room and proceeded to “put me under” to continue the C-section birth of my daughter. 10, 9, 8, 7…I contemplated death as they counted me down. I was not awake to hear her first cry. My husband wasn’t there to witness her initial care. She was born at 2:57 pm. We had to take their word for it.
This was not the first time my pain was minimized. There was the miscarriage six years before. Spotting and cramping at ten weeks, I knew something was wrong. I’d gone to my doctor repeatedly about the pain. “We’ll monitor it,” he said. So, I monitored it. After an entire evening awake, with cramping so bad, I knew it had to be contractions. It was 6 am in my apartment bathroom where I lost my child. When we went to the doctor later that morning, he confirmed what I’d already known. As my husband (then boyfriend) and I sat on the other side of his desk, I began to cry. Sitting upright in his leather desk chair, White face gleaming, he said to me, “Why are you crying? You can have more babies.” My body tingles as I write this. I remember gasping for air, too incoherent to rebut. No empathy for our loss. No discussion of why we’d lost. I was nothing but a machine to this “care provider.” The concept of my pain, hurt and loss was foreign to him.
The physical and emotional pain of Black women has always been dismissed. The fabric of American culture is built on Black and brown folks being told to accept the loss. From separating Black parents from their children during slavery to the school to punishment pipeline that funnels boys and girls into this system as early as possible, it is the existence of a violent system and the toxic perception of Black women as more resilient, stronger, tougher, less soft that perpetuates this terror. A 2016 study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of National Sciences found that Black Americans are systematically undertreated for pain relative to white Americans.
The dismissal of our pain is even more amplified in our reproductive care. Black women have been forced to “breed” capitalism through multiple births, only to have our babies torn from our arms, and funneled into slavery to grow the American economy. Gynecology itself is rooted in the terrorism of our bodies. The “father of modern gynecology” is lauded for breakthroughs in the field with statues across American cities. This recognition at the cost of enslaved Black women who were forced into the research experiments and exploratory surgeries without anesthesia. Centuries of invalidation of our humanity. It is no wonder that the doctor discarded my sorrow.
My story is not an anomaly. I am a Black woman who had adequate health insurance; an “education,” access to food, support, housing — all of the basic necessities not afforded to all Black women. For my sisters who don’t have access to insurance, education, and awareness, how do they fare? For my sisters who had all of this and still lost their life — we want answers. Black women are literally dying to give birth and fighting for power over our bodies. We are resilient. But our resilience will no longer be translated to inhumanity. we are building new narratives of survival, healthy futures, and joy. We will take care of us.
There is so much gratitude. I have two healthy and beautiful daughters. But I share my story in recognition of every Black woman whose pain is repeatedly dismissed and every Black woman we’ve lost, and every Black baby we’ve lost. For those I wish I’d had during my many maternal health journeys — every prenatal, postnatal, miscarriage and abortion doula, midwife, intentional, trauma-informed obstetrician — thank you.
