Invisible M*ther

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CW: reference to pregnancy loss, sexual assault,
poor mental health, suicide, drug mis/use, breatfeeding,
abortion, medical neglect.

I had to say goodbye to my kid today after they came to visit me for the weekend while I'm away for work for a month.
Rosie Jennings writes in her book, ‘Mothers Who Leave’, that the world has made conceiving of a mother without children like speaking with
incorrect grammar...

…it just doesn't make sense.

It’s a metamorphosis, shedding the scales of a reckless child to reveal
the tender touch of
a loving creator.

I thought about everything I would have to
sacrifice if I was to have met my baby. 

Being with friends in those early-ish months and holding on to some semblance of my life
before my kid
felt more important to my well being
than the risk of loud music to their ears felt.

I have a photo of me with a tinnie in my hand and holding my baby with the other
to breastfeed.

Today I much prefer being in a beer garden at 9pm surrounded by pissed up friends and laughter
pint in one hand and roll up cig in another.

When I told my best friend he said “oh for fuck sake” and that’s the moment I knew our friendship was over.
He saw me in that moment as a chaotic young person

When I got pregnant as a single, young person and without trying to conceive
people responded in a whole heap of ways they wouldn't have if I was in a relationship.

So many of my friends assumed I'd be getting an abortion.

someone who hadn’t longed for this very moment their whole life.

I did let myself explore the option of abortion, mostly just to make sure
I did really want this baby and
I was really ready.

I wonder, if I had lost you, by choice or not,
if
and how
people would have supported me through that.

At my first antenatal appointment, I’d been completely honest when I answered
all the questions.
I’d experienced mental health problems.
I’d taken recreational drugs within the last 12 months.
I had tried to kill myself.

A bad mother. A shameful mother.

A trauma fuelled mental health episode
drenched in drug use
led to the nonconsensual conception
of this baby.

Put that on mumsnet. 

I tried to write about how I got pregnant.
It feels like something I need to exorcise but I probably never will.

It was fucking rough...

how do you make that something people want to read?
Sometimes there is no beauty in the pain of it all.

There’s nothing poetic to write about the way I was neglected
by the hospital staff and there’s not
the will to paint a pretty picture of
the grief of it all.

I think I think about it all

every day

and it's
years ago

It's like an obsession.

now.

Sometimes you just have to sit in it all and
allow yourself to feel the sadness.

Sitting alone.

I wonder if I will ever be able to get my bloods done
and not think of the day I waited for hours to hear the news

I had to say goodbye to my baby.

I think it was the most difficult goodbye I've had.
I missed them with my whole body.

When I lost the pregnancy
a lot of people told me

My doctor told me 2 weeks ago to arrange an appointment to get my bloods done and I haven’t done it.
I have dialled the number several times but the thought of going back to that hospital

Sitting in the same corridor and waiting
the same painful wait.

“this is a good thing”

I wonder if they also were choosing to see chaos
in that moment too
instead of seeing

a decision to be

a mother.

Invisible M*ther is a collaborative piece by Rebecca Livesey-Wright and Indra Wilson, commissioned by the Mental Health Foundation for the 2024 Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival. The piece uses polyvocal writing techniques to to visibilise hidden maternal narratives whilst affording an element of anonymity important for preserving a safe space for both ourselves and those who are adjacent to our stories.

Invisible M*ther