Notes On My Daughter’s Conscious Conception
Everything has its intricate beginning.
Everything except for birth.
When people ask me how many weeks I am, I tell them two answers:
“Eighteen from conception. The medical industry wants me to say twenty.”
We are trained to be unsure of our own conceptions, to leave it in the hands of a profitable industry. It is an example of some other force authoring a contrived and safe narrative for our bodies, like a script that is assigned to us — one we had no hand in writing. I fight back against this conditioning in small ways, like giving different dates of my last menstrual period when asked. I watch with a wry smile on my face as professionals plug lies into their machines, then read the wrong answers back to me. There is an undercurrent to this spirit. As I take joy in rebelling in small and playful ways — like asking obnoxiously why a waiting room filled with pregnant women does not offer healthy snacks — I present to you the real beginning, a departure from the stale tales we have been forced to chew. This is a return to a truth that belongs to the body, the spirit, the heart, and the black brown dirt of this Earth —
You came to me like a vibrant wind along the shore.
