The Spaces In Between

[Edited to add: This poem and “It Was Snowing” have now been published by Radical Teacher, along with a teaching note about collaborative writing with students. See more here.]

It was Snowing: A Choral Birth Poem

It was snowing that night.
My aunt drove my mom to the hospital.
I was born in June;
Ash Wednesday; October 30th
and my brother visited me
in his costume and got candy from the nurses.

I believe I was born at night.

I was born in a hospital around 4 am. #gemini
On a Wednesday, in the afternoon, around 3 pm, I believe.
December 21st, there was a blizzard.
Monday morning at 7 am.
El Salvador, at the military hospital.

I don’t know much
except the same doctor delivered me and my 3 siblings,
except I was 6 lbs and 7 ounces,
except I was feet first and needed to be flipped.

Dad was a mess.

I was 5 lbs and my mom didn’t have time for an epidural.
It was the day before mother’s day.

Things I know about my birth:
I took a long time to come,
my mom was in a lot of pain.
I was born between two miscarriages.

All I know is I was born at 4:37 pm,
or maybe it was 3:47 pm.

I was a surprise baby, she thought I was the flu.

I was 10 lbs,
I was 7 lbs 11 ounces,
I was 7 lbs 5 oz.
I was 6 lbs even.

My mother had gestational diabetes.

I tried to come out at 4 months,
a week early, first-born,
2 weeks late.

They broke my mother’s water.

She was induced because I stopped breathing;
because my mom had super short labors,
because she didn’t want me born on Christmas,
because I was getting too big,
because of high blood pressure,
because my doctor wanted to leave on vacation.

She was in labor for 17 hours,
for 36 hours, 8 hours, not for long,
didn’t have time for an epidural,
didn’t know her rights,
she was young so no one took her seriously.

No medication; a hard labor.
Too much of the epidural,
she could barely push me out.
I wasn’t coming, they had to use the vacuum.
I had the umbilical cord wrapped around my neck.

Emergency C-Section.

The doctors didn’t believe her when she told them
I had stopped moving. If they had waited another hour,
I wouldn’t have been born alive.

I got stuck and turned blue, but I survived.
First girl in my house after 16 years.
I was born natural and came very fast.

They think I was supposed to be a twin
but there was a rip in the placenta,
the doctors took it away, said “we must study this.”

I don’t really know how to feel about my birth:
I’m just here really,
but my birth was interesting,
because I was born with a birth defect.

In one of the sonograms of me,
it looks like I am blowing bubbles.

My mom had 2 epidurals because I refused to be born.

My mom almost died because the nurses forgot
about the placenta left inside.

My mom was in the middle of eating cheese-cake
when her water broke and I love cheese-cake.

I came out not crying, but laughing.

I have seen pictures of my own birth:
I was fat, covered in liquids, and a full head of hair,
still attached to my mother through the cord.

My grandparents adopted me and the doctors
tried to take me away from my mom,
although we lived in the same house.

My dad said I looked like a lizard
’cause I was purple.

Out of all of my sisters
I have the lightest complexion.

I was born on October 7th,
in hospital, a lot of people were in the room.

As soon as I was old enough to ride on a plane,
we went back home.

I had a lot of hair, I had no hair,
It was snowing.

–Arranged and edited by Jessica Ann Vooris. Poem is based on students’ responses to the prompt “What do you know about your birth?” for an International Women’s Perspective’s class at Towson University, Fall 2017, during the week that we discussed reproductive justice. Shared with my students’ permission. 

Cover image of snowflake by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.