Unpregnant

December 4, 2015 3:59 AM

Alexandra Kimball writes about pregnancy, miscarriage, grief and feminism. Women make and unmake our children, not just in the biological sense, but in the ontological sense, too. The fetus is a fetus, and the child a child – only the woman knows. If we deny her the power to define her own pregnancy, we deny the power inherent in womanhood.
posted by Cuke (18 comments total)

This was a really interesting article, thanks for posting it!

I do take issue with the following paragraph, though:

The rise of precarious employment, the evisceration of unions, degree inflation, and an inflamed housing market have all limited my generation’s access to the milestones of regular adulthood. It’s economics, not feminism, that has most altered our patterns of courtship and family-building, consigning us to the extended adolescence of baby-boomer legend.

I for one would like to be recognised as an adult despite not being married or having kids. It's such a stereotypical white, cishet, middle-class feminism that ignores all the reasons someone might have for not wanting or being able to marry or get pregnant, instead brushing them off as "extended adolescence" that might be forced upon someone against their will by economics, but not be inherent to their identity.

Having kids does not make you a fucking adult, and not having kids does not make you a child. Yes it sucks if you would like to do these things but cannot, but you do everyone a disservice by pretending that not having these experiences, not doing these things, excludes you from true personhood, from adulthood.
posted by Dysk at 4:33 AM on December 4, 2015 [37 favorites]

Ontology is too far, surely. You're allowed to have different feelings about fetuses at the same stage of development and have those feelings repected. You don't have to claim a unique maternal power to change the real nature of the fetus.
posted by Segundus at 5:17 AM on December 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

You're allowed to have different feelings about fetuses at the same stage of development and have those feelings repected.

I think the point is that the mother, the person who has been carrying the fetus and gone through the miscarriage, is the one whose feelings should be respected. Your feelings don't really enter into it.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 5:39 AM on December 4, 2015 [6 favorites]

I think in this case, the father's feelings certainly enter in to it.
posted by roomthreeseventeen at 5:42 AM on December 4, 2015

I think, and I will be careful saying this, that the author is probably correct to some extent: feminism doesn't have extensive language for miscarriage, and that is probably in part due to the precarious state of abortion legislation.

I think the way forward is one that uses the foundational spine of feminism: consent.

The difference between miscarriage and abortion is consent; if I am pregnant, I've consented to share my body in this way. If I want an abortion, I haven't consented to share my body in this way.

If we shift the argument from clump-of-cells to consent, then I think feminist women will be able to address miscarriage as the women's issue that it is.

My heart goes out to this author; you shouldn't have to struggle to define your grief before you can process it.
posted by headspace at 5:43 AM on December 4, 2015 [26 favorites]

I admit I started skimming a bit.

I've had multiple miscarriages, an infant loss due to medical error, and I have two kids. I completely sympathize with her feelings and frustration.

If you lose your spouse, you're a widow. If you lose your child, you're at best a bereaved parent. If you have a miscarriage you're...something. Of course the last two are because for most of history "woman" would probably mean you had experienced both.

And yet I don't quite understand what feminism is supposed to do about her loss or infertility. There are feminist issues with healthcare for women, for sure. (The nurse in Toronto who failed to catch my daughter's distress actually told me maybe I wasn't meant to have children. Like: ???!!!) That she had to wait two weeks for a D&C is an issue.

That said, if she experienced all this in Toronto, there was support for her. Bereaved Families of Ontario is pretty amazing as one spot.

But it's not feminism's job to prevent women from experiencing losses without names for them. It's not feminism's job to protect us from losing things in our life we really want, or from wanting things like kids that are traditional and common. Or not wanting them. Feminism is not about her lying in bed mourning. Feminism is about having places to go when you get up.

And her story is her story but...grief does make people assholes sometimes but you don't have to just accept that as a final state. I have laid in a hotel room sobbing at A Baby Story after loss, and then a few weeks later I danced my ass off at Pride because I am a complex, feminist actor who also lives in a place and time where I have an amazing range of experience and choice open to me, thanks to activists before me. I have had a full gamut of reactions to my story from harsh religious-based judgment and bizarre assumptions about my reproductive desires, to incredible care and support. What was feminist about that experience was knowing that I was a bereaved, fertility-challenged person...who also could build a career, have partnerships and relationships of equals, be powerful in my world.

She has a place to publish her story, she has a voice; I honour and respect that space for her. But I'm not sure the promise of feminism is safe from grief and feelings if alienation. Maybe I'm just too second-wave or something. But I feel the same frustration I did about the Sad Girl article...woman are not required to be happy but they are not the sum of their pain, either.
posted by warriorqueen at 6:03 AM on December 4, 2015 [28 favorites]

Implant an egg and a sperm anywhere in a man, and he doesn't have the power to sustain it for 9 months. A pregnant woman does have that power. With great power comes great responsibilities and great rights. She has the right to pursue not using that power, i.e. terminating the fetus. To infringe on that right is an attack on her sovereignity. A sovereignity granted her by biology.
Often the catchphrase "God is sovereign over the womb" is used to justify interference in this sovereign power of the pregnant, but there's an argument to be made that God manifestly delegated that power to the pregnant, and made the fetuses subject to her will. The Republicans won't make that argument because it doesn't fit their agenda, and the Democrats are silent on sovereignity, the right to declare who lives and who dies within a realm, in this case, the realm of the pregnant's body.
posted by otherchaz at 7:12 AM on December 4, 2015

But it's not feminism's job to prevent women from experiencing losses without names for them. It's not feminism's job to protect us from losing things in our life we really want, or from wanting things like kids that are traditional and common. Or not wanting them. Feminism is not about her lying in bed mourning. Feminism is about having places to go when you get up.

I agree with you but at the same time I don't think this is what she was asking for. She raises some specific issues to do with clinical care, but mostly she seems to be talking about silence:

After my miscarriage, when I thought about my abortion, it was with almost-envy for my younger self. I hadn’t fully appreciated how feminism had allowed me to process and eventually come to terms with that event. I had a language through which to express my feelings; I had other women’s stories to help me anticipate the abortion procedure and to realize what would come after.

But in the months that followed my miscarriage, I had none of these things, and my sense of betrayal – in that primal, religious sense – was keen.

Thank you for posting this, Cuke. It's going to take me a while to think my way through it. On the surface of it I'm not sure how much the culture of silence and secrecy around miscarriage in early pregnancy has to do with feminism and the pro-choice movement - I thought of it more as coming out of the earlier generation's attitude to stillbirth and bereavement of children, where women were advised to not talk about it, not publicly mourn, and move forward without really acknowledging it in any way. But I do very much recognise that feeling of "what am I mourning here, and how does this grief fit with my other beliefs?"
posted by Catseye at 7:24 AM on December 4, 2015 [4 favorites]

The 12 week rule is toxic. Asking women to keep what can be intense grief and emotion to themselves (to avoid bothering other people with it? To make things less awkward for those who don't like thinking about blood and miscarriage and loss?) can be a huge burden on top of the event itself.
The first time I got pregnant, I completely disregarded the whole nondisclosure thing, and it made for some upsetting and uncomfortable conversations with relatives and friends when, like this writer, there was bad news at the first ultrasound. And I spent a lot of time in bed afterward, too, like this writer. But the second pregnancy I told almost nobody about, because I wanted to follow the rules this time, and it was partially that combination of loss and secrecy that sent me into a more horrible spiral after the same damn thing happened again. At this point I view miscarriage as yet another thing we tell women to be silent about for the convenience of others. Feminism absolutely has a role to play in correcting this issue and affirming that women's experiences in this area are real and worthy of acknowledgment.
posted by amber_dale at 8:12 AM on December 4, 2015 [19 favorites]

Even if that experience is "lying in bed mourning." (This came off as really dismissive, btw. Echoes of the sad girl thread.)
posted by amber_dale at 8:12 AM on December 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've never been able to wait 12 weeks and have been asked in hushed voices "what if something goes wrong?" validating that it would be uncomfortable for people to hear about. After a stillbirth right after a healthy 20 week anatomy scan, it was impossible to not tell people when I was pregnant again. Mostly I needed to disperse the hope and fear through my social circle.

Where feminism (or society at large) falls short is giving people the flexibility to call their pregnancy loss a baby without the association of being anti-choice. I like the idea that the term switching is about consent. I felt like a problematic feminist when I used the term baby instead of fetus but it felt too callous and foreign to say anything other than baby.

I've noticed that conversations about miscarriage have become more feminist friendly online but that doesn't seem to have found its way into printed feminist literature.
posted by toomanycurls at 9:51 AM on December 4, 2015

A friend and his wife just had a miscarriage after making a fairly public announcement and the process of telling everyone (which for understandable reasons is happening more privately and individually than the pregnancy announcement) is not something I would want to go through to the extent they are. That said, I've been able to be more supportive of my friend because I knew, and I would like to think me knowing what's going on is helpful, though you can never know for sure.

The best advice I've ever heard is: share the good news with the people you'd share the bad news with. That makes sense to me.
posted by Bulgaroktonos at 10:13 AM on December 4, 2015 [3 favorites]

the extended adolescence of baby-boomer legend.
Speaking as a member of the baby-boomer generation who had to deal with some of the same economic uncertainty that plague younger people today (in spite of the supposed prosperity of the time) and used it as a factor in the decision not to have children, I think "extended adolescence" is a great term with which to describe a large number (either a majority or a narrow minority) of my generational cohorts (but to use an overworked-to-almost-meaningless term, "not all"). And neither having children nor deciding to did NOT end that condition for far too many of them. It just made them crappy parents. But then, my 'greatest generation' parents weren't very suited to the job either. YMMV.
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:42 AM on December 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I'm currently 8 weeks along and have no idea if I'm still pregnant. I haven't had any symptoms. The nurse just told me I'm lucky, not to be concerned about it. My early ultrasounds looked good -- the one this Monday had a good, strong heartbeat -- but I don't get another one for a week and a half. I'm in limbo until then.

I've already had one miscarriage, at 5 weeks. And we're using IVF. It'll be months before we can try again.

This article hit close to home, being in this state between pregnant and possibly unpregnant. Now I get to worry about D&Cs ruining my uterus. I've also been conflicted over my feelings about these fetuses versus my support for abortion rights. It's been hard to find resources for miscarriage that respect that division.

I had to tell my husband and my mother when I had the first miscarriage -- I learned the test results over the phone. My husband handled talking to his family. We had been so excited, we told them after the first positive pee-on-a-stick test. We waited until last week, 7 weeks, to announce the pregnancy to his family this time. We haven't told any friends. We're waiting for the new year and the second trimester. Assuming all goes well.

I've knit a few baby sweaters and my mother-in-law gave me an heirloom baby quilt. I'm keeping them on the top shelf of the closet so I don't have to deal with them or see them if a miscarriage happens.

Pregnancy, for me, has been defined by worrying and waiting and feelings of impending doom. I've been told it's a good primer for childrearing. But at least a baby would either be there or not. The fetus is invisible.
posted by sock puppet du jour at 11:14 AM on December 4, 2015 [1 favorite]

I would think that you wouldn't necessarily have to announce your pregnancy to announce your miscarriage.

"What's the matter?/Why are you off work?" "I had a miscarriage." "Wow, I didn't even know you were pregnant/Why didn't you tell us you were pregnant?" "Well, I didn't want to announce it until I was out of the danger zone." "I can see why. So sorry."

If they say, "Better luck next time!" "Well, I don't know if there will be a next time or not, but thank you for your good wishes." Or whatever makes sense for you to say.
posted by serena15221 at 11:32 AM on December 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

I wonder how much of this is a function of our culture not, overall, having a ton of good ways to deal with emotions other than happiness. This comes up sometimes when people talk about their interactions with social media - how everyone seems happy there, but that's because overall people are curating for positivity. I think it ties into class stuff - how the less money you have the more replaceable you're viewed as being - but also into the sheer volume of people interacting with each other in a variety of contexts.

There is a way in which a grief as raw as hers brings up my own grief - right now my grief at the possibility I will never be a mother; I don't know if it's feminist work to work on this, per se, but I do think that figuring out ways in which to discuss the individual choices of women in a way which recognizes both our agency and our ability to make different choices is a feminist thing.
posted by Deoridhe at 12:13 PM on December 4, 2015

Implant an egg and a sperm anywhere in a man, and he doesn't have the power to sustain it for 9 months.

(Not strictly true. There are men with wombs, just as there are women with penises.)
posted by Dysk at 2:23 PM on December 4, 2015 [2 favorites]

That said, if she experienced all this in Toronto, there was support for her. Bereaved Families of Ontario is pretty amazing as one spot.

I am currently miscarrying in Toronto and the five health care providers I have worked with did not mention any emotional support resources. Midwives, GP, early pregnancy loss clinic nurse at Mount Sinai, two ultrasound clinic doctors. There has been no follow up, very little information about what to expect once I took Misoprostol, the nurse denied outright that plummeting hormone levels could have any effect on my mood, and no one has mentioned any organizations that would offer bereavement support. I have received vague, inaccurate information and basically been told I was being silly to worry about infection.

I received far better information and emotional support from my vet when my cat died.

So, no, even in Toronto, there may have not been support for her. I'm getting through this horrible experience courtesy of the women at AltDotLife sharing their experiences and tips.
posted by sadmadglad at 2:29 PM on January 2, 2016 [1 favorite]