As a healthcare provider, my work is to listen to the unique experiences of people throughout their lives. My favorite visits lately have been witnessing teenage daughters attend the prenatal visits of their midlife mothers. I have spent some time trying to figure out what makes this experience so special for myself and for the other women in the room, and I share a bit of that thought process here.
I am a midwife, serving women in an inner city. Many of my patients are non-English speaking, birthing in a new country and living at a crossroads between teaching family tradition and learning new approaches as their children grow.
Often, families attend healthcare visits together, in support of the main woman in their life as she seeks routine screening, birth control counseling, or pregnancy care. Mothers will attend visits after picking up their children, namely daughters, from school, pulling them into the rooms with them as I follow behind. I learned this was their way of planning for an adequate interpreter, if needed. Thus, two women, two sentient reproductive individuals, are attending a visit together, in one way or another, engaging in the visit together.
When a woman becomes pregnant later in her fertility, if she was also pregnant earlier in her life, her child or children are likely teenagers during her newest prenatal care. Some of my favorite visits are when an older, often teenage, daughter attends a pregnancy test or prenatal visit with her mother. This event can only occur when a woman in midlife becomes pregnant, again. And in my community of patients, the automatic inclusion of both mother and teenage daughter initially begins under the guise of needing to ensure interpretation. Since I speak Spanish, both attendees of the visit are relieved and rest more comfortably in their chairs in preparation of an easier conversation. What this allows is a whole-room understanding of the visit, a connection with all of the people in the room, talking about bodies, health, and care.
When this happens, when an experienced mother embarks on a new pregnancy and involves her teenage daughter, there is a different feeling in the room. An electric feeling. As a young woman witnesses her mother, pregnant with a sibling, engage in healthcare, as she herself is finishing junior high, entering high school, and thinking about her own sexual and reproductive life, there is a magic that happens. As I try to describe exactly what that is, I am reminded to consider what happens for women during their prenatal care.
What conversations happen during a pregnancy test visit?
Planned, unplanned, desired, unsure, known, unknown, contraception, hope, excited, scared, thrilled, drug use, nervous, shocked, relieved, secret, shared, choice, domestic violence, limits, life, change, love, family.
What conversations happen during a first prenatal care visit?
Planning months ahead, nutrition education, normal body changes, warning signs, hopes for it to be different, desires for it to be the same, when to share news with others, heartbeats, laughter, tears, relationship and family dynamic changes.
What happens when a pregnant mother brings her teenage daughter with her to these visits?
Understanding outcomes of both plans and surprises, comprehending what may come months ahead and not just what is moments away, learning about fertility, discussing risk, making informed decisions, reviewing past experiences and changing paths to change outcomes, respectful healthcare, correct information about contraceptives and reproductive health, intentional planning of a family throughout one’s life, and a starting place of empowerment through education.
As a provider, I feel honored to be in those moments. To witness the understanding of a growing family shared between a sentient daughter and her empowered mother. To discuss the inner workings of the body, to answer questions for both mother and daughter, to open a door of knowledge with perhaps unanswered questions by both women in the room.
There is such vulnerability of this shared knowledge at each age. One planning for pregnancy, another with pregnancy possibly far from her current plans. One understanding what it means to be close to the end of fertility, another understanding what fertility means and just embarking on that journey. Each realizing the other considers these events, ponders these concerns, and experiences the difficulties and joys that come with reproductive health.
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Then, it happens. I witness the daughter see her mother in an entirely new light, as someone other than her mother, as a woman, as a person creating her life and her own path forward. And then, the reverse: the mother realizes that a new line has been drawn between them, connecting them, and integrating their shared experiences, past, present, and future.
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I love, respect, and support women of any age who choose to bear children. As a provider, I find particular joy when women choose to share that experience with their maturing daughters, and when those daughters, those young women, can come to a place where they see the growth in that shared experience. When that happens, there is such beauty in how they move forward with their relationship, their friendship, and their humanity with each other.
In the working hours, Stephanie Tillman, 28, practices full-scope midwifery in Chicago, IL. All other spare moments are spent writing for her blog, Feminist Midwife, guest blogging for other midwife and feminist sites, and loving life with her supportive partner and their goofy dog. She completed Nurse-Midwifery graduate school at Yale University. Her undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan focused on Global Health and Medical Anthropology. She has worked in public health, nursing, or midwifery in Africa, Central America, the Caribbean, and Europe. Stephanie believes in the power of women, and is an advocate for equality, respectful healthcare, and midwives. She can be found @ http://www.stephanieNTillman.com