🎧 Sound On: A conversation about queer birth and motherhood
How a lot of honest self-reflection, an unyielding willingness to take on heteronormative bureaucracy and approaching donor selection like an Ivy Park drop combined to make three extraordinary mothers
I am the most cautious and methodical hype(wo)man you will ever meet. Like, if you’re looking for someone to support you going on a very reckless trip to see someone you probably shouldn’t go see but still really, really want to go, I will ask you all the hard questions you need to answer and once you have committed, I will help you plan every foolhardy detail.
It’s a very specific personality type, and I think it’s a major reason I feel so cut out for doula work: it’s really about choosing to ride with someone into wildest adventure of their lives, cheering them on from the sidelines but never disrupting their main character narrative. I’ll be focusing on fertility and conception support, so I think a lot about the specific scenarios where I can be most useful, and a lot of them include supporting folks who are pursuing nontraditional and/or queer birth experiences, where intervention (ie, IUI or IVF) is necessary to get pregnant.
With NYC Pride being this weekend I thought it was a poignant time to share this recording I did earlier this month with some of my new mom friends, Amani, Jess and Rebecca, all queer moms who are pregnant, have given birth and/or plan to give birth.
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Their incredibly heartfelt and joyful conversation about their steadfast journeys to motherhood and the precarious balancing act between methodical intention and total leaps of faith and love that it takes to be a queer birthing person really enlightening and inspiring for me, as a doula in-waiting.
But I think what they shared is valuable to everyone, even if you’re not queer or haven’t given birth (or plan to), because their experiences are a reflection of what’s possible when we let love (and science) lead the way, which ultimately benefits everyone. Making bureaucracy easier to navigate, building families out of love and community, improving health outcomes for everyone giving birth and their babies…these things make life better for EVERYONE.
And if you are queer and have given birth or plan to one day, I hope this conversation gives you some useful insights for your own journeys or at least makes you feel seen!
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