Caitlin MacIntyre (30 - she/her) and Rafferty (5)
Houston, TX
“The month prior to conceiving Rafferty I had an early miscarriage. It was technically a "chemical pregnancy" which I feel like isn't seen as a real pregnancy or loss, but after struggling with infertility and wondering if I'd ever be able to get pregnant, it was super devastating and I couldn't get out of bed for days. I had already imagined an entire life from the moment I saw those two lines. It felt like yet another failure of my body after the endless heartbreak and frustration that my PCOS had caused, even though I knew logically that wasn't true. We had told a lot of people in our families as soon as we found out, since everyone knew we were trying, and then we had to tell them and our donor that I was actually not pregnant anymore. I couldn't bear to talk to anyone about it, so my partner did all the calling and explaining and shielded me completely from everything, but I know that made her own grieving process more difficult. She was, and always has been, the best partner in everything. I was so relieved to get pregnant right after, but where the first pregnancy had been pure joy and elation and unfettered optimism, it was really hard for me to just be happy and trust we were going to get a baby after losing the first pregnancy. Fortunately, our little Raffe made sure I vomited well into the second semester so I would know he was there before I started to be able to feel him moving around. ;)
How has parenthood impacted your body image?
It's been a long time since I've had any self-consciousness about the way my body looks. I think my body is beautiful and I think it has been beautiful in all its iterations. All the women in my family have this body-- a lot of the people I love look this way, and I think we're all spectacular. When I was trying to get pregnant I did a super intense Paleo diet to try to regulate my hormones--essentially I was eating nothing that I liked eating and a lot of times eating nothing at all because I couldn't find convenient food that was compliant, but was willing to do anything for a baby. I lost a TON of weight and looked almost unrecognizable to myself. Everyone always commented on how amazing I looked, and how much weight I'd lost, which was not a compliment, since I felt like I wasn't living in my real body, it was just this temporary form while I maintained this ridiculous, restrictive, and honestly, disordered eating, and clearly it was the one people thought was better.
But I did eventually get pregnant, and I LOVED that experience. I loved a little human inside of me. I felt radiant and amazing and just ecstatic. I had a great birth and breastfed Raffe for over 3 years, which I also absolutely loved, and then when he weaned I gained all the weight back and then quite a bit. My body is the biggest its ever been by far and I think I look beautiful and sexy. I love seeing the ways carrying and feeding him have impacted and changed and left marks on my body, and I also feel really myself and really comfortable with my body in this form. I also appreciate it so much for doing all the hard work, and it was hard for my poor cystic ovaries, to give me Rafferty.
Parenting has also made me more intentional in thinking about my body --to talk frankly and with affection about my body and the way it looks to my son and also just in general to the people around me, for my son to see that I think my body is great and for him to hopefully learn to love his body and see the beauty in the diversity of bodies around him. Unfortunately, I definitely have struggled a lot with institutionalized fatphobia in a much bigger way in this larger body (even as a small fat with quite a lot of size privilege) and that has made for a lot of challenges and frustrations and heartache in my ongoing infertility struggle.
What was your postpartum experience?
I had a magical (and intense) labor and birth at home in the water. I felt so loved and supported by my birth team--my amazing midwife, my mom, my sister, and my partner. When I dreamed of what my birth would look like, the reality ended up pretty darn close. I felt powerful and strong and so at peace after he was born. I had a great postpartum adjustment. My partner, Jennifer, was amazing at supporting me. I didn't leave the bed aside from bathroom trips for a full week (except to visit my new nephew- my sister who was at my birth went into labor the day after me)-and I was able to heal and choose when I wanted to do more at my own pace. Jennifer even facetimed me from the closet so I could pick Rafferty's outfits without getting out of bed.
Breastfeeding went very smoothly aside from a bout of mastitis a few months in, and we adjusted to side lying nursing and co-sleeping quickly so I was tired, but not super exhausted, even though he nursed essentially all night long. It felt so right to finally have my baby. I felt like I had been waiting for him forever and wanting children was the one thing I had always known to my core I wanted. When I was a kid and people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I knew I was suppose to pick a career outside of the home, but I always could just think "MOM!" So when he was finally here it just felt so serendipitous, like-- finally.
I know a lot of people struggle with feeling like they're losing themselves after having a baby, but for me I felt like, "There she is." Like this is where I've been heading all along and I've finally made it. I felt like I knew what to do intuitively and I loved figuring him out and getting to know him, and I loved seeing my partnership and relationship grow and shift with the addition of this tiny, perfect person. It felt like such a relief to have finally arrived. Writing it down it seems like an overly polished fantasy world, and it certainly wasn't (and isn't) without its emotions, challenges, and frustrations, but I feel like my postpartum time was one of the best times of my life, and certainly the start to the best chapter of my life (so far).
What is your truth?
My truth is that I am a powerful and confident and talented woman. I feel parenting is my calling and I feel so lucky to be able to do it, and I am also very good at it. The work I do as a mother to my child and a caregiver to the people in my life is incredibly valuable. Even if people can't see all the things I'm doing, I can, and I don't have to play small or downplay my value. I want new parents to know that the work you do day in and day out, the slog, the invisible unseen labor you are constantly holding is incredible, and just because we live in a society that doesn't value caregiving labor, doesn't mean its not indescribably, immeasurably valuable. You don't have to downplay yourself and your skills and your talents, just because they don't come with a paycheck, and you don't have to hold yourself to impossible standards of perfection to know you're doing an awesome job.
Why did you choose to participate in this movement and share your story?
After struggling with annovulatory PCOS and some known donor complications with Rafferty, I knew it might be hard to get pregnant again. With R I managed to get pregnant with DIY at-home insemination with a known donor both times I actually ovulated after a year and a half of stringent diet, twice weekly accupuncture, and Chinese medicine. When we were ready to try again I decided I didn't want to restrict my eating in a way that didn't feel healthy or life-giving for my body, and I especially didn't want to severely restrict my eating with my child watching me. So I decided I would take fertility drugs and then I would certainly ovulate and when I was able to ovulate, I would get pregnant easily.
We started the process almost 3 years ago and I'm obviously still not pregnant. I fully believe that if I had a lower BMI or I wasn't queer I would have a baby by now. Doctors assume if I just lost weight all my problems would magically be solved. Instead of making habit/behavior based suggestions (or making them but assuming I'm not compliant because I'm still fat), trying different medications and protocols, or reassessing when things don't work all they can talk about is losing weight or doing IUIs or IVF which I can't afford instead of just concentrating on working on getting me to ovulate.
My first OBGYN said I would NEVER get pregnant, refused to prescribe anything but Clomid, which I am resistant to. He also wrote on my actual medical chart that I didn't want to try IUIs at a fertility clinic (which cost $3,000 a pop) and wanted to "continue using a turkey baster." My last OB/GYN stopped prescribing me letrozole, which had been working for me, because I hadn't gotten pregnant after 3 ovulatory cycles and one where I didn't ovulate. The last cycle, he actually told me that this was "really frustrating for [him]." For HIM. The fertility clinic I visited wouldn't give me meds and monitoring if I was doing DIY cycles at home, which is the only thing we can afford because our insurance doesn't cover fertility. Every clinic in my major city we called said the same thing. They cited STI risk, even though I have used our donor before so I have already been exposed, would be doing the inseminations myself so they would not be responsible, and straight, cisgender couples can also be at risk for STI transmission and do not face similar scrutiny.
In short, Rafferty is almost 6 and it's becoming clear we are just about out of financial resources and I am out of emotional resources to keep trying, and am now in the position of trying to come to terms with the fact that I will almost certainly not be having another baby. It is sometimes hard to love my body when I can't get it to do this one thing, this most important thing to me. I want to have these pictures of my beautiful baby and my beautiful body to remind myself that this life I have is wonderful, that my body gave me him, that he is the most magical person and it could never have given me anything better.
I want to remind myself that my body is not a failure and I am not a failure. Capitalism is failing when it puts parenthood out of reach to people who don't have significant class privilege. The medical industrial complex is failing when it says people's complexity can be boiled down to a number on a scale and when it calls itself LGBTQ friendly but can't accommodate the ways queer people build families. I hope someday I stop bursting into tears when I see siblings fighting at the grocery store. I hope I can slowly let go of the overwhelming grief that I can't expand my family. I hope I can let go of the vision in my head of a house full of kids, and just love all the wonderful things about it being just the three of us and all the love we could possibly imagine. I hope one day all the pregnancy announcements and birth pictures are only sources of joy and wonder, and not tinged with jealousy and longing. I hope I can someday look at my body and say, "It's ok. You did great. You did just what I needed you to." I hope this can be a little bit healing for me, and a first step.