A body this defiant.

Audio Transcript:

During our recent stay at the hospital, I had to give my medical history to something like five different medical staff – lines of data quickly piling between my pregnant belly and this person frantically typing all the gory details into their computer. Somewhere between the third spinal surgery and hypertension, I started to feel embarrassed. Again and again, I repeated the details. Yes, I was diagnosed at 14 months. Yes, I also have that disease. And that diagnosis, too. Yes, I also take that medication, and also those ten, yes. The more I repeated the details, the more foolish I felt. Like, who is this ridiculous person who thought she could carry a whole baby in this warzone of a body??.

My feelings weren’t born in a vacuum. Women with disabilities have long been framed as unfit for motherhood. From coerced and forced sterilization, pressure to terminate, and gross misinformation, pregnant disabled women have been met with skepticism, dismissal, and criticism. To be clear, this is NOT what I’ve experienced. I’m grateful most of my time with medical staff during this pregnancy has been very supportive, open, and empowering. But that doesn’t mean history isn’t lingering in the rooms I occupy — that we’re not all aware that my swollen belly sitting atop my paralyzed legs challenges the default narrative of motherhood.           .

Eventually. The repetition of medical details turns in my brain. It starts to sing like a chorus – an anthem, even. This body of mine is a warzone, a pulverized landscape, a crumbling machine, yes. And also. It remains. It continues. It seeks and builds, reaches out tenderly and holds on hard, heals and keeps going, swells and leaks, screams and persists, gasps and swaddles. This warzone is covered in rubble and sprouting with blossoms. It lives, and it creates life. .

Here we sit, tucked into one another. I send oxygen to your brain so you can practice using your budding lungs. I lend you my iron, and you open and close your mouth. Preparing for this place. It turns out I am proud to hold my baby here – in a body this defiant.