R.I.P
- Dr. Janell Green Smith
The news of Dr. Janell Green Smith’s death reached me this morning, a painful rupture in the fabric of the day but also a reminder of how much there truly is to fear, being a Black woman and Mother.
Dr. Green Smith was a midwife, a mother-to-be, and a leading voice in Black maternal health in the U.S. She died in childbirth while delivering her firstborn, and her death was unnecessary. Her death is devastating news, on an individual level and profoundly traumatic in our collective sphere.
I didn´t know Dr Green Smith, but I don´t need to have met her to truly know her and the passion for justice, human rights and the sacredness of life, that she carried. She spend her time tirelessly reminding us about something that should be clear from the beginning: Black women should not have to fear dying in childbirth. Not when the fear is rooted in racist prejudice, discrimination and stereotypes, something that is still relevant in the world and in the United States.
The grief I feel, is layered.
I grief in my position as a Mother, remembering my own fear of losing my child or my own life, the moment(s) when I gave birth to my firstborn. I grief, as a Black woman, feeling the collective rage and sorrow formed through centuries of displacement, surveillance and violence, sanctioned by institutions, society and the healthcare system. Dr Green Smith was robbed- of dignity, safety, of a future. Her life was stolen from her, and her family was shattered.
As an adoptee, I grieve, because I see the intersecting harms that systematically have been brought upon us; the neglect of sexual and reproductive health and rights woven together with racialized capitalism and the leftover unhealed wounds left by colonization itself.
When I gave birth to my oldest child, I remember being terrified, but without truly understanding the extent of my fear. Not only did I fear becoming a mother for the first time, without close friends or parents being at my side, but I was also missing lineage. My partner-at-that-time was there, but he is not linage. He is not one of the wise women, one of the elders, of the ones that could give my medical history and tell the staff that ‘all of us have given birth at 42+ weeks, and therefor no induced labour is neccessary’, or whatever wisdom that would of helped.
Giving birth is special when you are adopted, many times it´s the first opportunity we have to feel and have the right to be in relation with a biological relative, and in the same time it comfirms the lost of linage, while representing the future.
I felt strong fear, because I was also a Black woman giving birth in an institution staffed with only white personnel. I was without my traditions, rituals and rites, lost since the beginning, and the echo from that void was extreme.
Labour was induced at 42+2 weeks, and I left that experience deeply traumatized and with a feeling of being robbed. The depression that followed me giving birth was dismissed and I was told to be happy because of my healthy child.I had a hunch that the level of trauma and the layers of my distress was relating with my background and adoption but I couldn´t articulate it with words.
When I became pregnant the second time, one thing that became unmistakably clear was that I could not, in any way, give birth in a hospital ever again. I tried counseling at the hospital and I told her that my entire body went numb and tensed the moment I entered the building. Her message was clear, although wrapped in more words: I was the problem and I need to get over it. There we’re no alternatives anyway, so why are we even talking about it?
Now, it´s pretty hard to not listen to your body when every cell feels like it´s twisting itself until it breaks into a thousand pieces. I had given it a chance, 3 sessions with this… representant from the system.
At week 33, I made the final decision to have a homebirth. My expartner and I bought a larger bathtub and an amazing journey rooted in agency, intimacy and love arised from my decision (promise to return to this in another blogpost).
Your body remembers and your intuition speaks with clarity - if you know how to listen. Giving birth teaches you that what truly matters is the present moment and not your birthpaln, a lession that Dr Green Smith got deprived.
As much as Dr Green Smiths dead pains me, I also remember my own journey and transitions into parenthood with humility and grace.
Studying Sexology, and working within Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, means standing at the intersection of maternal health, human rights and mental health. It means, that I professionally take a stand for Sexual Liberation, but that this always, always need us to work for everybodys human rights.
Our rights must be protected.
For everyone that came before us, walks besides us and who will come after.
For Dr Green Smith and in her name.
For me, and in my name.
The collective holds the grief. I choose to continue to take it personal. It´s a calling.