can someone else choose motherhood for me?
i wished an ultrasound tech would tell me i was baren so i wouldn't have to "choose"
Hello! I really hate when artists preface their work, introduce it or caveat it, like shut up and get to the art already. It drove me nuts in critique in art school, especially when they’re making excuse for it being generally shit.
But this is my substack and I get to be as annoying as I want 💃. The following is a chapter of my manuscript I’ve been workshopping for the last year. It’s annoying to me how long this shit takes. And by this shit I mean sitting in cafes looking out the window pretending to write.
Also happy fucking mothers day I guess? Lmao I did NOT plan on this but 11/10 editorial cal vibes to me I guess. This is all I seem to write about these days. I wish I was so much less obsessed with should I or shouldn’t I but it takes up so much of my brain space, and I think thats largely in part to being so chronically ill with so many mystery chronic illnesses all. the. time. I don’t know how a child folds into this, I catch myself googling “how much ibprohen can you take when you’re pregnant” at 2am regularly. Because you can pull that shit (400mg of ibprophen) from my cold dead hands (you shouldn’t btw and I am not raw dogging 9 months of extra pain on top of my current 5 month long migraine).
Anyyyywayyy 💃 Enjoy! In the past I have been paywalling my sample chapters but idk im generous so if you want to chuck me a fiver for my oat mylk latte ways I canee complain.
Felix walked in on me in the kitchen with Margot hunched over in pain. They both told me to go to the doctor “it just happens when I ovulate” as if crouching on your kitchen floor in pain is any kind of measure of normal.
I complained to my doctor about irregular periods, general tiredness and feeling like I wanted to fling myself off a bridge 9-5 days before my period. She took me seriously by way of sending me for some scans. A Trans vaginal ultra sound. A machine that took photos of all around my uterus, I laid looking out the parking lot windows trying to determine where I was inside the winding building I stepped into. The technician shook the almost empty bottle of goo and sprayed the jelly on my stomach in a way that got on my clothes and hands holding up my shirt, it dripped down the side of my sweater as she took photos of my uterus.
Then she showed me the probe and explained how it was lubricated, a cover slipped over it and more lubricant applied after. Double bag the probe, got it. I nodded appreciative of the thorough mounts of information and I put my feet in the stirrups. “scoot down a little more”. She stuck her gloved hand under the paper cover over my knees pulled my left labia aside and pushed the probe inside me. “You might feel a little pressure”. I felt like crying. The a formality of medicalization of vaginas doesn’t serve doctors, nurses and technicians well. I feel more comfortable having an esthetician stand back and staring down the barrel of my butt hole to make sure my wax is even, more than I feel comfortable with this thin tiny women operating a probe inside me. The woman that has been waxing me for years has got to be mid 30’s but looks much older. She gossips to me about her teenage son and growing up in a trailer on the east coast. She always calls me “hon” and tweezes stray hairs with precession and speed, I think she chats so much to distract me from spending $70 to have a stranger rip hair out of your crotch quarterly, it works. A perfect art form and dance of womanhood. What is more sisterly than having someone platonically part your labia?
A second technician comes into the room. I learn the technician that is currently shuffling around inside me is new here. She’s called for back up. The grey cold room I am stuck in feels cold, a series of water colour flowers are painted on the door and a set of curtains for modesty. I feel sick starting at some calligraphy words that look like they belong on a wedding Pinterest board. Not the room where someone might find out they have cancer or learn the sex of their baby.
The two technicians point at the screen and take more photos. There’s a hand off of the wand while its still inside me which feels like someone changing shifts operating a compacting truck, gears grinding inside me. I imagine the wand sticking out of me like a control stick, something to puppeteer me with. I wonder if I left my body now if it’d just keep going. Operated by two women inside a small dark grey room, eyes on the monitor in front of them. They say the words “irregular”, “thats an odd position” and “mmmhhmm?” To each other as if I weren’t here. I detach myself from my pelvis, leave it on the table and let the rest of my body walk back to the waiting room while they continue to rummage around inside the parts of me I left behind. I hope I don’t run into someone I know in the waiting room.
I wake up the next morning with the goo stuck to my legs and stomach still. I sit on the toilet with my phone and try not to google symptoms. This is my routine for the days waiting for scan results. Hold phone in hand, open browser, type in a series of words pertaining to the pain in me “uterus” “irregular” “sudden pain” “rare vaginal diseases”, I catch myself each time. Right before finger lands on button. There was nothing to worry about yet. I breathe with myself. I try to imagine what the bad news would feel like inside my body. I imagined the doctor telling me there was certainly something very wrong with me. Something rare, or something common but bad, or something rare and common and bad but not life ending. Serious at the very least. She would tell me I could never have children. I feel really hard into those moments. Dread doesn’t soak my body like I thought it would. Relief came in a sense. In a way that a decision was taken from me.
I couldn’t have children! A choice was made for me by two women in a grey room and a Doctor reviewing my charts. Everyone would feel bad for me. When the topic of children came up at the dinner table people would strain there eyes and jerk their head in my direction. Lips pressed to wine glasses to tell people to shhhh. It would become a sensitive topic, one I couldn't talk about and therefore everyone would pity me. I felt the same way I felt one day at the top of of a ladder one day at a job I hated. If I just flung myself off the ladder I’d certainly break both my legs and everyone would feel bad for me. I wouldn’t be expected to come into work for weeks. Such a relief.
The Doctor sent me a message five business days later through an app their office used where they could contact you with convenience but you still had to get on the phone and ring the office and get put on hold if you wanted to make an appointment. “We got your ultrasound results back and it demonstrated a tiny fibroid which could be responsible for your bleeding changes on your period. These are benign and nothing to worry about.”
Nothing to worry about.
Ugh.
Thanks for reading the Weird Girl. Here I write about being an artist, human, angry woman on the internet and breaking up with the wellness industrial complex. If what I say here inspires you (or pisses you off 🥰) share my work with the group chat, or your best friends neighbour. Word of mouth is the most special and radical way of sharing 👼
I am still iterating on this piece to turn into a book on feminism, motherhood and autism. I am currently looking for a literary agent, if you are one or have any words of wisdom you would like to pass on please email me here
Other stuff I make on the internet
New
ep on THE ROMAN EMPIRE LMAO We don some robes and sip the sweet nectar of some canette du barbet and travel back in time to the ROMAN EMPIRE DIVAS!The DYE Cosmic Stacks 📚 // A resource for artists sharing their work with the world
xx
Phoebe
*typos are left to reflect the fury passion and 3D humaness of being a passionate freak in the world – and you know not a robot *beep boop* I am just a human girlie living on earth with a mortal brain 🤸♀️(and also like, don’t be an ableist freak🥰)
Beautiful essay <3