I'm writing this month's newsletter from the dining room table of my beloved sister-friend's apartment in Brooklyn. The air is warm, the patois is all around, collard greens are gloriously vibrant and wilting in the cast-iron skillet and the love is flowing all over her place in little Caribbean.
The two of us met almost two decades ago during my first and only semester at the University of Southern California. We'd both walked on as members of the Trojan's track team and by way of introduction of our lovely sprint coach - became fast friends. From that day forward through the entire Spring of the beginning of our adult lives - rare was the day that did not note our togetherness - with a meal, a bed, a ride, a word, a story to tell. Together we searched for raggedy boyfriends that were “missing” (yes, there was more than one of them) and my retainers (yes, there was more than one of them, too) and all the best food and we were there in our lives and with our lives and through any manner of through and through.
Our reproductive lives met recognition one afternoon in her dorm bathroom - our 18 year-old selves, thinking nothing of babies or uteruses. I grew up with a momma who was not about to authorize the usage of a tampon (Black folks/parents/mothers have their ways, and as I've aged I've come to understand the heart behind many of them, thanks mom) and since I was freshly free of daily parental guidance I asked this new girlfriend of mine to teach me how to use my very first one. I tore the paper to the cardboard applicator, she stepped by stepped me through the process and carried on over the stall saying that “you shouldn't feel it if it's in right” and I probably did feel it ‘cause I feel everything that doesn't belong. And so it was only what is was ever supposed to be when she leaned over my kitchen island last December, mother and auntie, in our late 30’s, revelation of hysterectomy in her near future and tampons soon in her impending past, that I would step-by step her through the going through, that I would be with her for this particular first, that we would journey it like before, same song.
Two weeks ago, we parted ways at a hallway between triage and waiting room. A nurse walked her into an OR. An all-female surgical team, including her Black OB/GYN, took extraordinary care to deliver her of a uterus that was birthing her woes. Reproductive matters are quite complex - as we all know. Biologically, culturally, politically, socially, many ways untold. But what is never complex for me and her, is the being there in the beginning, in the relevant and in the unfold.
To ensure that my travel birth clients have a place within themselves to recall my physical presence in their home, in their life, with their family, before they're nearing labor, birth, and the early postpartum experience - we book at least one in-person prenatal appointment. The intimacy and vulnerability that these extraordinary transitions require - are best navigated with the people one feels comfortable with, so they may surrender and welcome this new life in peace.
Two Sundays ago, I decided to take an indefinite break from writing on my Substack home, but here's a brief + recent post - dedicated to Black fathers, mamas & the parenting.
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