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Motherhood Reimagined
RJ Miles
Winner - 2020 Growlife Medical Essay Competition
"Stories of Families"
The birth of my son split me in two. It happened gradually, then suddenly. As far as children go, he was dearly wanted and now that he is here, he is dearly loved. I’ll come back to the part about being split in two – because sometimes it’s fitting to take it back to the very beginning.
June 2016. I was working in a stressful job. A gay woman stuck in a religious private school. After two years of loyal service, and after witnessing many fellow staff members take leave to undergo fertility treatment, I approached my boss requesting the same.
“Sorry, I’ll have to get back to you. No one has done this before.”
“Um… what about Selina, and Amanda, and Jade?”
“No – I mean, as a gay woman. This will be a precedent.”
“Right.”
It took her six weeks and in that time, she deliberated with members higher up in the church to vote on what was the best way forward. They even prayed about it, like the God almighty would provide insight on my personal circumstances.
“I’m sorry, but the best I can offer you is unpaid leave and you have to take it in term three. The rest of the year is too busy. You also have to apply at least a month in advance.”
I looked at her dryly.
“Do you know how periods work?”
Evidently not.
In the months that followed, I timed my IVF appointments cleverly around the school day. My doctor was willing to see me at 5am, which meant I didn’t have to tell my boss.
When the big day of egg pick up arrived, I needed the whole day. I rang my boss.
“Yeah, I’ve got a migraine. I’ll send my planning in. See you tomorrow.”
She suspected nothing.
“When you wake up from the egg pick up, the number of eggs will be written on your wrist,” the doctor said.
“Now just lay back. Soon, you will fall asleep…”
I counted back from ten. When I woke up, there were six circles drawn on my wrist. Six! I was 26 years old and I got a measly six eggs. I was despondent.
In the days following, our little future babies were placed in dishes with donor sperm. There, they made the fateful journey to conception.
Each day, I called to see how my dish-babies were doing.
Six.
Five.
Four.
Three.
Two.
Two! After all that effort, money, time, stress, and hormones, we got two embryos. One barely made it to freeze and was considered unviable for pregnancy but was placed on ice all the same.
“We are not doing part two of this process until you find another job,” my wife, Natalie, had said.
It took me over a year, but I finally found another job – in a state school. I loved it. It was inclusive, and I became part of the furniture.
I took a paid sick day, and we went back to our clinic. When the day of transfer finally came, I laid back comfortably as my doctor readied his implements.
“This is purely diagnostic. It is unlikely to work. Don’t do anything differently, just live your life.”
“Okay.”
He spread my legs and inserted the syringe. As he did, an entire waterfall of emotion washed over me. I sobbed. It was finally happening. But it might not work!
“Are you okay? We’re done here.”
“Yes, I’m fine,” I sobbed.
He patted my back.
“Best of luck!”
As we turned and left the clinic, I realised I had a two week wait before me.
“Don’t pee on any sticks,” was the advice given to me by a friend.
By day four, I caved. I peed on a stick. I sat anxiously on the toilet, tapping the test like I was trying to get ink out of a pen. About five minutes later, a slight line appeared.
I kept my obsessive behaviour to myself. I didn’t even tell my wife about that first pee-stick.
With every day that passed, I peed on another stick. By the end of the two weeks, I had confessed to my wife and we had a bag full of sticks, each line appearing darker than the last. They clattered in the bag, as we emptied them every day and lined them up like assembly line soldiers. It was amazing, the first signs of the miracle of his conception.
My luck seemed to continue after the easy conception. I stayed relatively slim throughout my pregnancy, didn’t have any sickness, and I managed to work until I was 34 weeks along.
Sooner or later, though, I knew my luck was going to run out.
“What I’d really like to do is give birth in water.”
My midwife jotted this down and explained that it may be possible if a bath was available. Perfect!
Mere weeks later, the day finally came. I was four days overdue and it was time to see what was going on.
The sliding doors at the Royal Brisbane hospital welcomed us. We sauntered down the corridor with giddy excitement.
We were welcomed into one of the consulting rooms, where I lay flat on my back, wondering when they would suggest an induction. I had desperately wanted to go into labour spontaneously, but nothing had worked – vigorous sex, running, time in the bath.
The midwife poked and prodded my belly.
“The baby’s head is displaced, and I think he or she may be quite big. Had they told you that during the ultrasounds?”
“Yeah. They said the baby is measuring ahead.”
“How would you feel about being induced now?”
I paused.
“We don’t even have our bag packed.”
“That’s okay, we can send your wife home to prepare everything. We can take you up to the ward shortly.”
“I see you’ve expressed a desire for a water birth. Because we’re inducing you, that option will no longer be available.”
I lay in a ball, awaiting the next step. Any time my stomach hardened with Braxton Hicks, I became excited that this could be it.
“Nope, not yet.” The midwife shuffled in and out, checking on me, then going to do her rounds.
The Earth inched towards evening as the sky lit up an intense orange, and then darkened; not that I could see it overly well through the hospital shades. As the darkness of night crept in, my labour was induced.
My body had let me down – but I was not done. The contractions started and I knew I could do this.
I crinkled my nose, proud of myself for how well I was handling the contractions.
I laboured on for hours, with cervix dilating on schedule. As I started to become tired from a lack of sleep, the contractions intensified. It was a consequence of the induction hormones and it became unbearable very quickly. Nonetheless, I stayed strong.
“Hold onto me.” Natalie said, as I stood in the birthing suite, leaning forwards every time I contracted.
Time passed and I waved one midwife off as the next came in and wasted no time checking my cervix.
“It’s 8cm. You’ll have a baby in t two hours.”
I beamed! It was finally coming together.
I continued to feel the tightening of my body with each contraction as they became more frequent. Soon, I felt a sharp, choking feeling around my middle. It knocked the breath out of me.
“Is this normal?”
“Here do you want some gas?” The midwife passed me the inhaler.
I breathed in.
“Ugh, it’s not working.”
The midwife asked me to spread my legs so she could check my cervix. She looked inside me, then paused.
“Your dilation has regressed…” she trailed off and walked out the door to get another midwife.
“Hi, I’m Cheryl.” Another midwife walked in, accidentally brushing my forehead with her fingers as she turned around.
“Holy smokes, you’re hot!” she exclaimed. She took my temperature.
“Forty degrees!”
About five minutes later, a doctor arrived.
“You have an infection, which is why you have a fever and regressed dilation. Your baby’s head is still displaced. We need to call time on this labour for everybody’s safety.”
“Just sign this consent form and we will take you off to the theatre.”
I signed rapidly and a midwife came to remove my hormone drip.
“Your contractions should stop now.”
As soon as she said that, my contractions went from lasting around thirty seconds, to a continuous sensation.
“Ahhhh!!! It won’t stop!” I screamed.
They started to wheel me down to theatre, ready to prepare me for a caesarean section. When we got there, the doctor started to explain the spinal block.
“We’re going to insert some fluid into your spine. Then we’ll put some water on your belly to see if you feel it. Then we’re going to cut just below your bikini line to deliver the baby. Do you want your wife to say if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“Oh my God, stop talking!” I writhed in excruciating pain. The contraction that started when they took out the hormone drip hadn’t stopped.
The doctor stabbed my spine and I remained curled into a ball with an oxygen mask on.
I leaned towards Natalie and the doctor leaned into her ear.
“You have to stay strong, for her.”
My forehead was sweating and I couldn’t move.
“Can you straighten out, please?”
The doctor rolled me onto my back and patted just below my bikini line. The nurse poured a few drops of water on the area.
“Oh my God, don’t operate!” I yelled.
“Okay, we’re going to have to do a general.”
The anaesthesiologist leaned in and inserted a needle, which I couldn’t feel above the contractions. It all happened so quickly. This was all completely out of my control now. I had to let go. I inhaled sharply and expressed my only wish.
“Don’t tell her the sex of the baby before I wake up!”
That was the last thing I remember as the curtain of unconsciousness fell down around me.
The next thing I remember is that my eyes were too heavy to open and I felt disconnected from myself, like a butterfly outside of its chrysalis.
Was I dead?
I opened one eye. I could see the most perfect looking baby on my chest. No blood, no fluid, no bruises.
“He’s perfect.” I exclaimed, making an assumption about the sex of my baby before drifting back into the woozy stream of unconsciousness.
The next time I woke, someone was holding my baby up in front of my face. They swiftly yanked the nappy down to reveal the sex.
“It’s a boy!”
We had already named him Soren, for a boy or a girl. It hurt so bad, but I smiled.
“Why are you crying?” I looked over at my wife, confused.
“It was just a C-section. They do these all the time.” I assured her.
“You don’t get it. I almost lost you.”
“You lost almost half of the blood in your body. They had to stabilise you. It took a long time. Soren was fine, but you nearly died.”
I felt like part of my emotional self was anaesthetised. I could see and hear my own mortality being shared around me, but I couldn’t feel myself hurting. It was completely numbing, as if I’d been sliced through the chest and I was watching my heart exist outside of it weeping and bleeding, but not feeling so much as a twinge. It was almost like my brain was dismembered from my body and I was merely a spectator.
The mental impact of his birth raged on and I still feel it today. However, I could not have had my son under any other circumstances. This was his birth. As traumatic and as violent as it was, it brought him to us.
Sometimes I still feel split in two, but together, we are family. Felix culpa.
Make Sure you vote in the Grow Medical 2020 Essay Competition
by going to our Facebook Page, and liking and sharing your favourite Story of Families. If this one is your favourite, tell us why in the comments, and share it by clicking one of the circle icons below.
Otherwise, read on with this year's finalists entries...
Read This Year's Finalist Entries
Answers by Yvie (4 years old). Questions by mum, transcribed by mum. Who is in your family: Mumma, mummy and Anjou. Who is Anjou: My sister. What makes our family special: We are kind to each other. Who else is in our family: Chopper (our dog). Anyone else: No. Well, our chickens, we used to have more but they died. And, our bees. Anyone else: No. Any other people in your family: Oh yeah. Yia-yia, Nen-Nen, Ha-Ha, Nanny, Dee [all the grandparents], Henry, Charlie, Jacob [all the cousins], Auntie G, Uncle James, Jo-Jo and Paulie [all the aunts and uncles].... And Didi and Lulu [their donor and his mum]. How do you know who is in your family: Because they love us. And we love them! Make Sure you vote in the Grow Medical 2020 Essay Competition by going to our Facebook Page , and liking and sharing your favourite Story of Families. If this one is your favourite, tell us why in the comments, and share it by clicking one of the circle icons below. Otherwise, read on with this year's finalists entries...
My toddler recently told me that our family is special because we dance together. I think what makes a family is a sense of belonging. I have several families. My first family was my 'childhood family'. My childhood family is the family I grew up with. We have remained a family throughout my life and despite separation, because we hold similar values, have a bonded history and because we look out for each other, often to the point of agitating each other... I still have a sense of belonging with my childhood family not just because of the times I catch glimpses of my mum, dad or sister in my features, but because we have each contributed to the sculpting our individual identities and continue to mould our interpretations of and interactions with the world around us. My second family is my ‘friend family’. My friend family are the people who, together, we survived the hilarity and horrors of puberty and beyond. We have seen the full gamut of each other through our teens, our twenties and now into our thirties, and we still crave each other’s company. I have a sense of belonging with my friend family, not just because they gave safety and perspective to me in facing my hurdles but because I have also been able to offer a sense of security and kindness to them in facing theirs. Together, we have powered through ‘growing up’ and are pleasantly surprised to be fully functioning adults. My third family is my ‘pride family’. My pride family are the other women, men, non- binary and gender fluid humans of the world who understand what it is like to grow up inside childhood and friend families, and still not fully belong to the culture of those families. My pride family have helped me navigate beyond the social, political, religious and cultural judgements of not identifying as hetero-normative. I have a sense of belonging with my pride family as we unite against ideologies that threaten and hurt us. We are determined to claim a better future for rainbow children, paying our achievements forward, in the same way our rainbow ancestors have paid their achievements forward for us. Some in our pride are out and proud, others are neither, but we survive by belonging to our pride family. My favourite family is the family I helped to create. It is a combination and culmination of all my familial belongings. Born from the healthiest love I have ever known are my two spectacular children who challenge and extend me every day, in every way. My best friend is also my adoring partner, the apex of nurturing and support for whom I strive to be a better person. All together we are a rainbow family who are connected by our love, our laughter, our fears, our tears and our experiences. And, in our family, we dance together. There is so much more that can define ‘family’. My families are where I have a sense of belonging. Make Sure you vote in the Grow Medical 2020 Essay Competition by going to our Facebook Page , and liking and sharing your favourite Story of Families. If this one is your favourite, tell us why in the comments, and share it by clicking one of the circle icons below. Otherwise, read on with this year's finalists entries...
My family is a paradox; they are virtual and real, 2D and 3D, potential and actual. Day to day my world is contained within the walls of my house, in the smile of my partner and the purr of my cat, but the rest of me is spread through invisible lines that travel out, orbit around the planet and land someplace else, on a small screen held in the hand of a loved one. Some of my favourite childhood memories occurred in fantasy and imagination, online with people who lived just down the road. Built in a false world where I spent time with real friends, hours spent talking nonsense while achieving nothing tangible, except a connection with people who became another part of my family. Having moved from childhood games to an adulthood spent on the other side of the world, my family now exists less and less in real life and more and more within the boundaries of a screen. Just like my favourite memories growing up. They prepared me well for this virtual community of mine. My partner holds my hand while I talk to the screens. My family may be a pixelated, 2D, five-inch version of the real thing, but they are no less real to me. Make Sure you vote in the Grow Medical 2020 Essay Competition by going to our Facebook Page , and liking and sharing your favourite Story of Families. If this one is your favourite, tell us why in the comments, and share it by clicking one of the circle icons below. Otherwise, read on with this year's finalists entries...
If you were to look at my family, you would just think of them as normal people. But what’s on the inside is unique. What I mean by this is if you have a medical condition like Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), then you look normal, but act differently and feel differently to others. Everybody in my family has a condition. Let me describe to you why my family is unique. All families are unique, but families that have lots of people with conditions of all kinds is more special than what you think. As I said before, most people in my family have something that makes them unique. Take me for example. I have Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and anxiety issues. If you don’t know what that condition is, it means I have difficulty with concentration and following instructions. I may be different, but that doesn’t mean I can’t do great things. Take my Mum and Dad for example, Mum has something wrong with her blood, yet she supports children who have special needs with their education. My Dad has had appendix cancer, yet he helps people to speak and learn to communicate as a speech pathologist. My brother has ADHD, Dyslexia, Dysgraphia, and Autism. The reason my brother and I have problems is because we were born early. I was 36cm and weighed 605 grams when I was born but dropped to 520 grams a week later. I was this small because I was born 3 months and one day earlier than what I was supposed to. My brother was born at 33 weeks and 4 days gestation, weighing 1.53 kilograms. Although being born early is hard, it doesn’t mean we can’t support each other. Our family has learnt to build on each other’s strengths and cover each other’s weaknesses. An example of this is that I’m not very organized but my Mum is, so she helps me be organized by providing timetables and schedules to follow. Also, my brother isn’t the best at writing and reading but my Dad is, so he helps him read and write. Mum and Dad also work as a team to complete all the housework and take my brother and I to appointments and extracurricular activities that keep us active and safe. Our family is a family of survivors. Our medical issues don’t stop us. Despite the challenges we have, we support each other to try our best and never give up. It’s not just my immediate family that supports me. My grandparents also support me by sometimes picking me up from school, and sending gifts and cards to encourage and show their love for me. Other members of my family support me too. My aunties and uncles support me by organizing play dates and babysitting us. My cousins also support me by playing with and treating me like an ordinary person. My family is also unique because they come from all around Europe. My ancestors come from Ireland, Denmark, Wales, France, and Cornwall. Some of my ancestors migrated to Australia to escape from poverty either as a child or an adult. My uncle has Aboriginal heritage. My uncle’s ancestors were special because they were in Australia long before us. They dated back thousands of years ago and shared their traditional ways with others. Their traditional ways have only been passed through because people believed that even though they were different, they could make a difference. All my ancestors supported each other through their hard times in life, and because of this they taught generations after them to do the same, which was finally passed down to me. As you can see, my family is unique in lots and lots of ways, but we still make positive changes in the world. Make Sure you vote in the Grow Medical 2020 Essay Competition by going to our Facebook Page , and liking and sharing your favourite Story of Families. If this one is your favourite, tell us why in the comments, and share it by clicking one of the circle icons below. Otherwise, read on with this year's finalists entries...
"The Ineligible People" I am sure I used to consider myself ineligible from writing such a story about the topic of Family. A sad state of affairs you may conclude, correctly, but let me assure you that this short story has both light and dark, despair and hope.
Nowhere I looked were other families recognisably like mine; all of them seemed so warm, so shiny, so active, perfect and well adjusted.
So Together.
So Normal.
Sure, there’s the thing about “people put on fronts” and “it’s not always as it seems”, but, that all looked a heck of a lot more tempting than mine.
You see the thing about my family, and my parents, is that they’re DEFINITELY human. Flawed. And I do not just mean my Mother or Father likes to go and lose 100 dollars at the pokies once a month, no.
I’m sure like “most” (all) I didn’t get the “choose the ideal family for you” document to fill out before my…um…conception. There were issues of all kinds in my immediate family, and beyond, as temporarily and chaotically as my parents were together, I was made from their…perhaps somewhat desperate, union.
I have learned that my parents, like me, are of course oddballs.
Talented, I believe strange to some, aloof, emotional and at least a little haunted.
My family was and is in many ways very typical.
Too typical in some cases.
I am increasingly learning empathy for my parents from reflecting upon how they were themselves raised.
Among quite a few positive stories are ones of quite less positive treatment, attitudes and behaviours.
I really want my parents to know that they weren’t wrong, as children, to be subjected to such punishments, behaviours and, to be frank in some situations, elements of contempt, carelessness and even cruelty.
And if not exactly carelessness and cruelty, fallout from their own parents being confused and merely human people, also flawed and seeking something.
Not everyone succeeds in life, that’s a fact, some people settle and live out long lives of mediocrity and resentment, confused at how they let it slip through their perhaps too eagerly grasping fingers.
Do I judge the parents of my parents too harshly?
I do not think so.
Nor do I blame them either for merely being human.
At least not so much any more.
It has been very hard to enact empathy, reason and compassion for my family.
Their dedication and support to each other has been questionable.
Judgement and detachment have been present.
But don’t get me wrong, there are many happy memories also; riding in the maw of a tractor in Palmwoods as a young child, the open blue sky and massive rolling green planes of hills all about me, and details of my Grandfathers house there, still very vivid in my memory, despite my very early age.
Many happy memories in Mebbin kayaking with my father in lusciously green creeks, his industrious construction of water efficient and ecologically friendly buildings for the lovely Human inhabitants there.
Crossing that very high and rickety pedestrian only bridge across that same creek.
The time I fell and my legs went through that cattle-grate bridge, less happy, but then my father carried me quite a distance to safety so I could receive some probably minor medical treatment.
I was positively incessant that we stop, any time I saw them, at the sugarcane fields on our journey to…”borrow” a few cheeky stalks for me (and my half-sister, and I think perhaps later on my half-brother too) to munch on.
Given my fathers general disposition he did extremely well considering the near constant nature of those demands.
Playing among many streams in Maleny, the somewhat regular journeys down to the creek at the back of our, my Mother’s, property to check on the water pump.
A whole watermelon hidden away in the rocks and covered with a cloth, if I remember at all correctly. So many hours getting absolutely covered in sand in the sand pit there, the specific toys I played with also, the wooden horse and carriage particularly.
The time we, someone, lopped that large tree down on our property, watching it topple down, and being told so many times to stay back.
Being grossed out by people de-shelling and eating prawns, most likely around Christmas.
These are the crystalline pure years and memories I have.
To put it lightly the many years since were not always quite so magical and awe inspiring, though there must be some experiences of that sprinkled amongst the… rest.
I have been diagnosed with, at least significant elements of, ASD and CPTSD (Autism Spectrum Disorder, Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
Cannabis has helped me greatly in overcoming and combating some very significant issues in relation to my…special brain chemistry and “interesting” past experiences.
Mindfulness, less stress and issues with eating amongst them.
I do not even use Cannabis any more, as I much prefer jogging, conversing, doing things with people, my parents, creating things, writing and the like.
Cannabis - once an illegal escape and my pretty sole solace from so much chaos, isolation and confusion - is now too intense for me.
And you may observe that I’m not exactly Plain Jane as it is, I would much rather put my existential dread, ponderings and effort into writing and the other things I have previously mentioned.
After much distance from my parents and the other members of my family over the years, I am finally finding, now at thirty-three (my “Jesus Year”) years of age, stillness, calm, empathy and enough self presence to see my parents more for what they actually are.
I have helped my father build a fence at his property, a task I would have previously in my awkward, timid and insecure years thought of and found much too challenging to attempt.
It was a task that would have taken “the Old Dog” (lovingly) much-much longer without my fastidious and dedicated assistance.
I am starting to reconnect, or connect rather, to other members of my family too, my loving and to my previous mind “quite too conventional” Aunt and Uncle.
It can be difficult to identify with and approve of such healthy, active and balanced people when one does not exactly feel much at all like that oneself.
So, Dear Reader, please-please-please DO have hope.
Whatever your situation, your family, your experiences, light and dark, keep trying, for your “poor” self, and family, so-so human that they, and we too, are.
If that is too much to suggest, I hope you have the time, peace and prosperity to help you come to some form of closure for yourself, if not also them.
The road is not always easy.
I do hope you can have the presence and self confidence to ask for what you need to make it through - even if that thing (in the case of Marijuana anyway) is considered at some time illegal by the somewhat naive public populi and those profiting from its illegality, and now stigmatised - so you too can see the beautiful and awe inspiring sights this wee life has to, and should, offer us all.
Go With God, or like, whatever.
Affectionately,
Reuben Bristed.
Make Sure you vote in the Grow Medical 2020 Essay Competition by going to our Facebook Page , and liking and sharing your favourite Story of Families. If this one is your favourite, tell us why in the comments, and share it by clicking one of the circle icons below. Otherwise, read on with this year's finalists entries...
Okay so lets get this straight, my dad is a goofy head. I’m going to tell you everything that’s funny about him. Sometimes he is so embarrassing when he is trying to annoy me. One time when he was dropping me at school he started loudly singing things about me and he was very off tune. Then he started dancing. Other kids were looking at him and I was so grateful they didn’t know me. It was the worst. My dad has these silly characters that he pretends to be to make me and my sister laugh. He does a different voice for each character. There is Squirrel, who just makes squeaking sounds instead of speaking. There is Drew, who is apparently handsome and zen and all the girls like him. He says things like “I am one with mother nature”. There is Andy, the party animal who says things like “party on!” and “let’s get this party started!”. My dad thinks that he’s the best at everything. He’s not. My Dad is terrrrrible at drawing. His cats look like dead rats. His self-portraits look like blobs. The best thing he can draw are dive-bomber birds. THEY ARE AWFUL! He once entered them in a drawing contest where he thought they were going to win for sure, but they lost – BIG TIME. I like going on the trampoline. I like having someone to bounce with. I once asked my dad to bounce with me and he said he had to get into his “trampoline outfit”. When he came out, he was wearing a green and yellow onesie that makes him look like a giant yellow telly-tubby. While trying to do a trick, he fell onto his back and couldn’t get up again. His arms and legs were flailing up in the air while he tried to get up. He’s not the best at everything. But I love him and he loves me. Make Sure you vote in the Grow Medical 2020 Essay Competition by going to our Facebook Page , and liking and sharing your favourite Story of Families. If this one is your favourite, tell us why in the comments, and share it by clicking one of the circle icons below. Otherwise, read on with this year's finalists entries...