The Home I Know: Constancy
Chapter 23
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Chapter 23: Constancy
“It was my life — like all lives, mysterious and irrevocable and sacred.
So very close, so very present, so very belonging to me.
How wild it was, to let it be.”1
~ Cheryl Strayed
~ ~ ~
I returned to Ruth’s new home in the Redwood Grove on the day of her 21 week pregnancy scan. The plan was that I would have lunch prepared, so we could all celebrate the good news, see the ultrasound photos, and eat to our belly’s delight. She walked in the door, her shirt tear-stained, eyes swollen, those sweet high cheekbones hot pink.
“What happened?” I said instantly worried as my happiest friend had never presented so sadly.
“We have bad news,” she replied as she continued to cry. She went on to share her story.
The ultrasound photos showed the fetus with the sweetest pointed nose. Both hands wrapped around its large sac full of organs like a big hug. Caring for it. Nurturing it. Clinging to the balloon outside its body, that was also the insides of its body, for dear life. The baby had an omphalocele. Ruth’s biggest dream would be lost, this baby who who literally wore their heart on their sleeve.
“What are our options?” Ruth asked the doctor.
“You can continue with the pregnancy, take the risk of survival, and go through with the surgeries it would require to sew the sack of organs back into the belly of the baby. Or, you can terminate for medical reasons (TFMR).”
Due to the cost of medical care and her home’s remote location from a local hospital, Ruth knew that her family could not afford the expenses that would be required if this fetus survived birth. So, she chose to abort the pregnancy. She had the medically necessary abortion procedure legal in California, a D&C, to extract her beloved baby, then began the long healing period her body needed to resume regular menstrual cycles. Ruth then waited anxiously as she tried to conceive again with the risk of another fetus having fatal medical issues.
“What do you need?” I asked her as my womb ached now not just for me, but for her as well. The harm I had been holding in my pelvis from family abandonment, and isolation, and the inability to live a normal life after serial rape, now compounded and melded with my best friend’s pain. I had always hoped that somehow the wisdom I had learned from my years of trauma and recovery could somehow be passed down. But I admit to having felt pretty powerless in my ability to support her.
Incest abuse was such a specific wound, a developmental trauma so different from her adult experience. She had so much support and so many resources. I wanted to help her desperately in the same way she had been so supportive to me, but I felt flooded with anxiety about how to do so. However, I knew I couldn’t let my fear of saying the wrong thing, of doing the wrong thing, of not being present because I was afraid, get in the way.
So I committed to just showing up. Just listening attentively. Just asking questions. Just witnessing the experience in its complexity. Just learning with her about how to hold the horror, and the harm, and the hope of an entirely different type of hurt, all at the same time. To offer advice only when it seemed right or when she asked. To say sorry when I said the wrong thing. Just like she had done for me in her own attempts to understand the severity of survival after my upbringing after incest abuse.
TFMR survivors are often isolated from social support due to the nuanced nature of the issue in a very polarized political debate around abortion. Incest survivors are often isolated from social support due to the taboo nature of the issue. Suddenly, the solidarity I felt between serial rape survivors throughout history became felt in my friendship with Ruth. Together, we explored the path of her own healing journey.
“I feel like I lost my happy, my naivety. I’m grieving not just the death of the baby, but a part of me.” She said.
I responded. “Get it out, Ruth. Grieve hard, demand support, advocate for yourself in front of family, friends, physicians. Everyone. Be raw, and real, and vulnerable and don’t worry what people think.” So she did.
“It’s hard and it’s helpful. It’s nice to know I’m not alone, but it’s difficult to have this trauma in common. So many pregnant persons don’t have access to safe abortions due to harmful legislation,” she said.
I validated, “Find community, Ruth. Search online groups and chat forums and connect with peers who get it.” So she did.
“It’s empowering to help those going through what I went through and maddening that this is even still an issue,” she said.
I affirmed, “Give your pain a purpose, Ruth. Do you want to get involved in pro-abortion rights to direct your emotional energy toward access for others?” So we did together because TFMR and incest survivors both suffer more under anti-abortion legislation.
~ ~ ~
A year or so later, I returned to the Redwood Grove where Ruth and Oliver were awaiting me at their home with H in hand. Their rainbow baby. I approached and gave them a huge hello, while she passed the tiny baby to me who was only six weeks old. For the next few weeks, we were free to go for walks and take naps. When awake, H loved movement even more than their nomadic friend, so I shook them with my foot while they rested in a bouncer. My own nascent identity developed in me, extending from my nursing tree, as H learned to see, smile, and feel their own body. We felt settled together. At ease. As if the discomfort of this developmental stage in both of us belonged to the time we had together. Everyday, I returned to the baby and returned to myself.
This new time was such an intimate space to be invited into their family’s life. Raw and real, Ruth spent most of her time with her breasts out, sleep deprived and hungry. I supported her by pushing potato chips in her mouth one by one as she fed the baby, making her breakfast and lunch, and washing clothes and dishes. I folded her husband’s underwear and showered with her newborn to ensure both were clean. If I questioned whether or not this family trusted me before, any doubt was lost on me now. Only family gets welcomed into spaces like these, and for six weeks, it was just the four of us.
Then one day we introduced H to the sea. The baby rested in my arms, bundled in a blanket, as we walked down the stone steps, then across the soft sand. My feet found the shoreline. I dipped down and touched the water. Then, very gently blessed H’s hands. One, two, three times. A baptism to belonging to the water and the land. After six weeks, I watched baby H go from googly eyed to focused, from serious to giggly, from disconnected to embodied. In just six weeks, I watched myself become clear about who I wanted to be.
Strayed, Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail