This week I was teaching my first session of the Birth DIY Childbirth Education course, and we reviewed the principles of wild pregnancy:
- A self-directed approach to prenatal care
- Not anti-information, but pro-discernment
- Centers the mother as the ultimate authority
This differs from the official definition of wild pregnancy—which, according to the Free Birth Society, is “the intentional choice to not be engaged in or managed by the industrial prenatal care system, meaning no doctor appointments, doppler usage, ultrasounds, testing, medical assessment or management of any kind.”
I’m excited about wild pregnancy for two main reasons:
One, I will avoid misinformation given to so many parents in their vulnerable state of incubating life that leads to stress, increased reliance on external sources of validation, and interventions in the pregnancy that have nothing to do with my actual health.
Two, I will rely on and therefore become more attuned to my physical state and intuition, which will do more good for my pregnancy than any test or ultrasound could.
Still, I am engaging with “the system” in general: I’m planning to register the birth, my partner is planning to get paid family leave, and we’re planning to give at least some vaccines to our children.
This month, I got to define an even clearer, more precise line between my wildness and the system’s technological invasiveness.
At week 14 of this pregnancy, theretofore wild, I decided to get a blood screening for Down Syndrome, by way of the generically-termed “Non-Invasive Prenatal Testing,” which screens for likelihood of trisomy 21, 18, or 13 in fetal DNA via maternal blood.
I got the test because, due to some of my partner’s life experiences, we were not entirely sure that we wouldn’t force-quit the pregnancy if the fetus turned out to have one of these mutations. In California, apparently, that’s an option up to 20 weeks or so.
Given how much my uterus has been through already (two IUDs and a miscarriage, to start), I both didn’t want to entertain the possibility of a forced evacuation and imagined she might be okay. In any case, it wasn’t a decision to do it, but rather an opportunity to get clarity on whether to even consider it.
This screening is more accurate, apparently, than the one normally taken in the first trimester, so I got to skip that unnecessary part and still get the sweet reassurance that comes from an all-caps “NEGATIVE” on a test results page.
To my pleasure, I also got to sneak in a little forbidden knowledge: since this was a blood test, I had the option of finding out the chromosomal situation of the fetus. As soon as this occurred to me, I got excited for the test.
The process was smoother than I expected.
Not wanting to attract attention to myself from obstetrics and gynecology staff, I called the general nurse line and told them that I wanted a blood test for trisomy 21.
They clarified that I hadn’t had any prenatal appointments up to then, and let me know that I would need to come in for an appointment, which would include an ultrasound—to which I responded, “I’d like to decline ultrasounds.”
They said ok, but then that, actually, I’d need to have an ultrasound to determine dating—to which I responded, “Oh, I don’t need one.”
I’d have liked it if that had been it, but they asked if I was seeing a midwife, to which I said yes just to end the questioning.
When it came to the appointment, I saw a lovely nurse team who admitted that since I wasn’t doing the usual prenatal appointment schedule with them and only wanted the blood test, out of respect for my time, they didn’t need to go through my whole health history.
My blood test was ordered, I went to the lab and gave up two vials, and I got the results within the week.
Afterward, I explained to everyone I talked to that I had learned the sex of the baby after all, because I’d decided to get a trisomy test, and it turns out there are Y chromosomes!
Most people would then ask about the trisomy part of the test, which by this point I’d forgotten all about, and I’d say, “Oh, yes, those were all clear, but I wasn’t worried about that.”
(It’s both that I secretly believe that it’s not necessarily such a terrible thing to have a baby with Down Syndrome—either because if it’s associated with other complications and they die right away, I’m prepared (as I can be) for that; or because if it’s not over-medicalized Down Syndrome can be livewithable—and that I secretly believe that trisomy mutations aren’t entirely random, because if they were truly random, why would incidence increase with maternal age? It sounds a lot like infertility with age: the story is that aging eggs are fewer and worse, but I know that overall maternal health affects eggs more than age up until menopause.)
But the Y chromosomes—having at least one male in my womb, in other words—presented a more specific direction for my meditations on my future children and, especially, what their names might be. Now our household has something to focus on, to replace the question of genetic mutations.
I had a wonderful session with my therapist before the test, in which we explored my excitement over it.
If I was getting a test that I had originally not planned to get, thus engaging with the medical system I so disdained, why was I excited?
“I think because I’m excited to say ‘no.’ I know what I want and don’t want, and I’m ready to say what I want and don’t want.
“Ah, so can you think of a time when it didn’t matter what you wanted?”
And so we came across my ~6-year-old self, who had no say in matters of her fate.
Now, grown up, I got to show her how I speak to authority with my authority.
And it did feel good! I didn’t even have to get argumentative or combative; but I was certain of what I wanted, and that was respected by a potentially antagonistic force of authority.
I loved this experience as a birth worker and pregnant person, because it was a microcosm of what’s possible as a sovereign consumer in relationship with the medical production industry.
I could have stepped into their prefabricated conveyor belt of billable visits and tests.
I could have taken the folder with all the information on “pregnancy centering groups” and whatever else was in there. (I left it on the paper-covered exam table.)
I could have informed the company of my pregnancy and asked “What next?” and received ultrasound and given up much more blood, earlier and often.
I could count the days between appointments, anticipating the chance to hear a heartbeat or see a skeleton.
Instead, I asked for what I wanted when I wanted it.
Instead, I live in conversation with the changing sensations in my uterus.
Instead, I accept Schroedinger’s fetus for the physical and spiritual conundrum that it is, daily: is there life or death in there? Both? Oh, right. Always.
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