mother's day. mothers' day.

rich. complicated.

May 2019
i've been pregnant 3 times.
the first was the result of rape. i miscarried in my parent's home. 18 years old. sometimes i wake still, sweating out the nightmare, and my imaginings of what would've happened if i hadn't miscarried. that rape left me ragged, with gonorrhea, and shame i'm still unraveling.
the second was by choice. i was one of the earliest lesbians i knew who figured out how to get pregnant in a creative and delightful way, far outside the medical system.
the third also was by choice. my lover and i made that miracle happen under a full moon, lots of magic and tiny white lights.
i've helped lesbian and straight friends become pregnant, and have been unable to help lesbian and straight friends become pregnant.
i've helped babies be born in brooklyn apartments, in brooklyn hospitals, in city taxis, in hospital hallways, at homes up in the catskill mountains and down deep in the hudson river valley.
i've helped babies be born that are well and strong, grown up.
i've helped babies be born that were dead before labor got started.
i've helped babies be born that died within hours of being born into their parents' arms.
i've assisted at hundreds of abortions, including those with the pregnant ones sobbing with relief through the healing moment when the fetus, result of rapes like and unlike mine, was released.
and have assisted at abortions because the parent had learned their fetus wouldn't live through childhood.
and assisted at abortions because the parent was too young to care for a baby.
and assisted at abortions because the parent was too old.
this is the second mother's day since my mother died. i've been crying. i miss being mothered, even weakly.
i have friends who've also lost their mothers, and live in mourning.
i've had several friends, who also were mothers, die in these last few years. the loss their children carry is immense.
i've had friends die these last few years who regretted not becoming mothers.
i know fathers who used to be known as mothers.
i know mothers who used to be known as fathers.
when friends and family call to wish me a happy mother's day, i receive the blessing. it doesn't come in easy, which seems just as it should be.

my mother’s hands, on her last visit to my home, wearing my father’s shirt.

Jan 9, 2020:

The post, above, from May 2019, is circulating right now because an anti-abortion hacker with fake name Ivy Marie went into my FB account looking for abortion-related content. The hacker made anti-abortion comments on the post, above, that I wrote last May.

I am and always have been 100% abortion-supportive, including helping plenty of women through their abortions.

My pregnancy loss that Ivy Marie referred to as an abortion actually was a miscarriage, a miscarriage that followed a pregnancy that was the result of rape. I am grateful I miscarried. I was 18 years old, and was not in a family that would have supported me having an abortion. I would've had to carry that child, result of rape, to term.

How would my life have turned out? Hard enough to have had a life that has included rape. I feel lucky my body rejected that pregnancy. I've spent countless nights waking in sweat to the possibility that I might've carried that child. And, of course, countless nights awake because of the memory of rape.

We survivors are powerhouses. We hold up the earth, and the sky.

photo taken by dear one, h hawks. dancing in my synagogue.

Mother's Day, May 2022

This day is a challenge for so many of us.

For all of us who've lost our kids, in all the ways that happens, from pregnancy on throughout.

For all of us who've struggled through the end of relationships, with kids involved.

For all of us who never wanted to parent...and did anyway.

For all of us who never parented, by choice, and are grateful for this choice.

For all of us who can't get pregnant, and have tried for years.

For all of us who parent and aren't mothers, for all who parent and aren't women.

For all of us who parent while incarcerated...a world I don't yet know but think about.

For all of us who have kids we can't see today - or ever - or who see them rarely, and would love to see them more.

For all of us who will duck and dodge our way through today.

For my disabled community, who may not be able to see our kids today.

For all the lgbtqia parents who've lost kids because of being who we are, because parents have taken our kids from us, because the state has taken our kids from us, because our kids have left us for being queer, because we've had no legal rights to hold onto our kids.

Blessings on us all.

And, flowers.

Mother’s Day, 2024

Blessings on all wombs, and all the blessed varieties of bodies that hold them.

And also that several friends just raised enough money to help a friend who lives very far away get an abortion, in a place where it is illegal (Like much of our country, of course.). Together we raised the $500 that paid for the abortion, and also paid for some food, and and some gas for their cookstove.

The new friend who got the abortion needed an abortion because he'd (no pronoun mistake) been raped, blindfolded, by 10 or so cis-men, over the course of almost a week.

Endless rape, in other words.

My friend thought he was going to die, from the extreme, extreme, extreme on-going pain, and also from the extreme, extreme, extreme fear.

Soon after the rape, as we met and got to know each other, and as I tried to soothe and counsel him, and as I worked to raise the money for the abortion he wanted/needed, he told me that he would not have survived birthing a child, would not have survived being forced to be a "mother."

Mother's Day is complicated.

On this eve, I'm grateful I'm a lesbian who got to choose to be pregnant, and got to choose to birth at home, and got to choose to raise my two babies with lesbian lovers - these babies who've grown into wonderful, wonderful men.

And I'm grateful that I also have a daughter-in-law.

These are endless blessings, each and all.

Mother’s Day, 2025

I’ll see my grown kids later this evening, for take-out dinner and togetherness in one of their apartments. Filled with looking-forward, and with acknowledgement that each of us, easily, might not have been here this year.

Plus.

There are so many people working underground in our country to help folks decide whether or not to parent, helping folks achieve their desires. You have my loving support, my awe, my deep hope for your safety.

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