HEARD / WORD | December 17, 2020
This week, Tonya Abari reads “Long Ride Home” - a creative non-fiction essay chronicling her personal experience with Black maternal health disparities.
A version of the essay was originally published in Womanly Magazine.
To find out how your reading can be featured, click here.
By Tonya Abari
Intuition urged me to confide in the nurse because her warm, radiant skin was inviting. A motherly figure–just like what I had imagined the midwives to be. Just like I wanted my own mother to be. She cared. And still, I chose to remain silent. Perhaps this was a conversation I should have with the midwife instead, I thought.
Happy Hearts was appealing–likely because it was the only midwifery practice covered by our insurance. An onboarding pamphlet advertised the clinic to be a sanctuary for Black and brown mothers-to-be. While there wasn’t a single Black midwife, the waiting room was filled with women that looked like the mothers in the pamphlet. Women like me. Situated between two abandoned buildings, the clinic was eerily similar to the OBGYN that I decided against early in the pregnancy. I had only chosen a midwifery practice because I read online that they were generally more understanding.
The midwives, however, worked on rotation–making it nearly impossible to develop a personal relationship with any of the women who would be delivering life from my body. I was to give birth in a hospital and whoever was on call would be the designated midwife. This medical apartheid isn’t what I envisioned, but I didn’t have the resources to choose otherwise.
“Your midwife will be in to speak with you shortly,” said the nurse.
“Ugh, not her,” I mumbled as I saw who the attendant was for the day.
Previous appointments had proven Claire to be the least empathetic of all the midwives. Very short and often rude. Most exchanges were approached with arrogance. Claire grabbed the notes and immediately expressed disappointment in the numbers.
In a condescending tone, she scolded, “You are going to be someone’s mother. You shouldn’t be gaining so much weight; and since high blood pressure runs in your family, you’ll likely need to take something to get it down. Have you implemented the healthy eating plan? Are you at least walking a few times per week?”
After Claire finished wagging her proverbial finger, I snapped back. “It’s not the food or the walking!”
“Then what’s wrong? As your midwife, I can’t do anything unless I know what’s really going on.”
“Well...we both just...lost our jobs...and I think I’m depressed.” Then, I burst into tears. It’s not like me to cry. My pain is buried deep beneath dimples, deep-belly laughs, and shiny Lumineers. But the recent layoffs just two months shy of giving birth had shaken me to my core. I was
unprepared. I was disappointed. I was angry. There was no baby shower or fancy maternity photoshoots. And the only other person I had in my corner was melancholy, too. I wasn’t sure how to unpack everything. And the uncertainty was a zombie feasting on my limbic system.
In the midst of weeping, Claire tried to convince me that losing work and feeling vulnerable was actually “quite normal.” But, if I needed to talk to someone about depression, I should “contact the insurance provider or research free services.” She then handed me two pamphlets–a generic nutrition infographic and a tri-fold explaining the dangers of high blood pressure during pregnancy.
I wiped my tears, tucked both pamphlets into the brown paper bag, and left.
❖❖❖❖
Rain tap danced across the front window as the book Expecting Better played its final chapter over my car stereo. With traffic at a standstill, I felt the front right corner of the car leaning. I got out of the car to check the tire pressure. A flat. Surely, someone would see a pregnant woman on the side of the road and stop to help. And then I remembered how Black women are rarely damsels in distress. One by one, drivers just passed me by–refusing to recognize my existence and splashing muddy water as they sped past.
These feet have walked miles through concrete jungles
Hands holding onto fingers that do not want to hold onto mine
Thighs that have clenched many secrets within
Dark circles are the shadows of my ancestors
Breasts to feed and give honor to the providers of nourishment to mouths of people who grow to hate us
Shoulders carry boulders that even those close may never know
My back, twisted sideways, up, down, and around. It bends, but never breaks.
They tell me “It’s no big deal. You’re so strong.”
But am I? As I fiddled with the tire, I began to sob again. I wasn’t fabricating the hurt. It was there, just like the flat tire. As much as I needed help changing the tire, I also needed a trusted healthcare professional to recognize walking, living, breathing depression. I got neither. This is the Black pregnant womanifesto. Kira Johnson. Say her name. Sha-Asia Washington. Say her name. Mia Stallings. Say her name. America is failing its Black mothers. For all the babies who will never be cloaked in their mothers’ sweet kisses or have their scalps caressed by their mom’s fingers with coconut oil. Say their motherfucking names! As for the tire, I was able to put on the spare. And as for the midwife, she was only right about one thing: I was about to be someone’s mother.
