“I very much sensed that there was no place for me here”
Lucy’s partner Emma had a complicated, painful labour of 70 hours. Their daughter refused to feed post-birth and was expected to have viral meningitis. But what Lucy writes about, is not this part of their experience - even though it was the most traumatic bit. It's the part that Lucy has never read about: how they were treated differently as a same-sex couple.
Note: this story has been shared before on our Instagram feed in a take-over by Lucy
In March 2017 my partner Emma gave birth to our baby daughter Elisabeth. However, they both had a rough ride to get here. Emma had a complicated pregnancy. Two sweeps failed to get her labour started so she went into hospital for an induction. After 48 hours of painful contractions later, her waters were broken for her. Several hours later she was still only just three centimetres dilated. By Saturday night, she was in a lot of pain, and eventually had an epidural, which worked. By the early hours of Sunday morning she was in a lot of pain again, and ready to push. After an hour of pushing, it was found that Emma had a temperature and we were told she had to deliver as soon as possible. After a failed forceps delivery, Emma had an emergency C-section, and Elisabeth was delivered (wiggling and crying!) at 7.58 am, 70 hours after induction of labour.
Separate strand of the experience
Initially, both seemed fine. Soon, however, Elisabeth started struggling. She refused to feed at all. While Emma was in a lot of pain from her C-section and forceps. She was also on a cocktail of drugs which was making her very anxious and managing her pain very unevenly. Tests then came back showing Elisabeth’s viral count was abnormally high. We were warned she might have viral meningitis or a related infection. She was given a nasal tube to feed and she became very sleepy and floppy. Then her viral count increased again, and she was put on more, stronger antibiotics. We felt very lucky that quite soon after that, Elisabeth began to improve. She started to cry (loudly!), and was much more alert and engaged. We were amazed that soon after, Elisabeth went entirely onto the breast and soon they both came home. What I wanted to post about, though, is a slightly separate strand of this experience. It’s not the most traumatic part. But it is an experience which, unlike the complicated labour or Elisabeth’s illness, is one I’ve never read about.
“We became used to misunderstandings and thought we were prepared: we weren’t”
A purely fun choice
Emma’s pregnancy gave both of us a tiny warning call about how most people interpret our relationship. Everyone was loudly surprised Emma was having a baby, not me. A pretty typical illustration of that attitude was our (lovely, and otherwise highly competent) fertility clinic, who made us fill in forms twice as they were sure we’d filled in the ‘wrong’ section for birth mother and partner. Responses from people we knew ranged from casual surprise to outright questioning, and even our midwife (again: otherwise lovely) thought it was perfectly OK to break off in the middle of our booking-in visit to ask why I hadn’t got pregnant. I will say, at this point, that while I know infertility and pregnancy loss attract insensitive comments across the board, I think people are particularly bad at assuming that, if you’re in a lesbian relationship and not pregnant, it must have been purely a fun choice you made. These sorts of comments had made both of us very aware that 9 people out of 10 will assume I ought to be the pregnant one. So we had become a little used to misunderstandings. We thought we were prepared. We weren’t.
“I more or less stopped eating and drinking so that I could stay on the ward”
Barrage of questions
A basic issue was access. In the hospital where Emma gave birth, partners have to leave the ward to go to the loo or to eat. To get back in you press a buzzer, they see you on the camera and ask you who you’re coming to see. Each time, I faced a barrage of questions and misunderstandings. ‘No, you can’t come in, no visitors.’ ‘Who are you?’ ‘No.’ Eventually, I would be let in. But several times, a man would turn up behind me, and the door would be buzzed open for him. Twice, a midwife came hurrying to intercept me at this point, insisting I wasn’t allowed in. The longest wait was nearly half an hour. This was stressful, because I was genuinely worried about Emma while I was gone. She was very upset, in a lot of pain – and when Emma is in pain, she is often silent or incomprehensible, so I needed to be there. I was also, of course, worried about missing the birth. As a result, I more or less stopped eating and drinking so that I could stay on the ward.
Ignored
When Emma had been pushing for an hour, a surgeon came to talk to her. He questioned me aggressively about who I was, and then spoke entirely to Emma (who was contracting every minute or so). This was the beginning of a theme throughout our whole experience in hospital – I was largely ignored. After Emma had her C-section, there was a staff handover and the new staff discouraged me from holding the baby or doing skin-to-skin contact (something Emma and I had discussed, in the event she had a section). One group, hearing Emma refer to ‘Lucy,’ assumed it was the baby and not me; another laughed merrily when they realised the mistake and told me they had assumed I was another midwife.
“I was very much aware of a constant sense that there was no place for me there”
Constant justifying
On the postnatal ward, I broke down a few times and tried to say why I was upset, as I was very much aware of a constant sense that there was no place for me there. Many medics simply assumed I was breaking the rules and should not be on the ward, and it was often too chaotic and noisy even to correct them before they moved on. At one point, when Emma had explained to a midwife that I was her partner, I ended up in tears saying that I felt I constantly had to justify that I was the baby’s mother too. It feels peculiar when people ask me whether I feel less her mother because I didn’t carry her. I have never felt I wasn’t my baby’s mother. It just doesn't occur to me. And yet the whole time we were in hospital, I had to justify that I was the baby’s mother. Not to myself, but to all of the professionals who failed to accept it. I actively became angry when one of the senior midwives lectured me about what ‘the mother’ should do, and what the baby needed from ‘the mother’. When I snapped that I was the baby’s mother, she was very apologetic. And things did change then. Not completely, not to the point that I could get onto the ward without justifying myself. But things did change a bit.
More prepared
I wanted to write this post because, although it sounds quite negative, I wish I had been more prepared for what happened in terms of the way we were treated as a same-sex couple. I had been prepared to advocate for Emma in labour. We had discussed a lot of things. We knew, especially, that Emma copes best with pain when she can be allowed to speak as little as possible. We knew she would probably become slightly incoherent. We discussed possibilities, such as C-section and skin-to-skin contact post-birth. In order to be a good birth partner, I should have been hydrated and well-fed. I should have been calm. I should have been able to explain Emma’s decisions. Of course, at times, medics would have had to talk to Emma alone, and to ignore me. Of course, at times, I might get things wrong. And of course, how I was feeling was immensely less important than how Emma was feeling (although, even in labour, Emma was reasonably aware I hadn’t really eaten properly for three days, and because she is a big softie, she was worried).
“If we had been a straight couple, Emma might have avoided a forceps delivery”
Cumulative and avoidable
But, despite these caveats, I came away feeling that the experiences I’m describing was cumulatively quite a big issue for me (and some issue for Emma and Elisabeth), which was totally avoidable. Almost every single person who did or said something I’ve mentioned here, clearly did it without meaning to do anything wrong. They meant well. Some of them even thought they were being comforting and inclusive to us as a lesbian couple or to me as a non-birth mother. None of them could shake the belief that they were seeing a solitary moment of overreaction, or an understandable and isolated bit of stress. Cumulatively, though, there was a real impact. It’s hard to realise that, if we had been a straight couple, Emma might have avoided a forceps delivery she didn’t want (as the surgeon might have listened to me explaining what she was saying). She might have been better looked after in labour, which I feel horribly guilty about. She and Elisabeth might have done better after birth.
These are the practical points I wish I’d known, for people in my situation.
Get used to correcting people and not laughing off the ‘oh, I had no idea you were the partner!’ comments. I was so used to not making a fuss, and not drawing attention to my sexuality, that I wasn’t primed to do it when it mattered.
Be aware that you may forget to over-explain when you’re stressed. When Emma was in labour, I know I sometimes answered the question ‘who are you?’ with my name, or ‘I’m Emma’s partner’ or ‘I’m here to see my partner,’ none of which were specific enough. It’s quite possible that, had I reeled off a fluent explanation ‘I’m a lesbian coming to see my lesbian partner who is a lesbian mother who had a baby,’ people might have understood more quickly.
Don’t trust your birth plan to do the communicating. We had, naively, put down what seemed (at the time) like an exhibitionistic amount of detail about the fact I was Emma’s partner and I was female. No one glanced at the plan, and even people who did actually know I was Emma’s partner, tended to forget in the heat of the moment (including a midwife who asked me to ‘get the dad’).
If you can, please do share this post. I think it matters, and I hope you’ll agree that it does show why seemingly small, trivial, well-meant heteronormative decisions are actually not just funny, coincidental or harmless: they mount up.
If you feel you need support coping with your partner’s birth experience, please have a read here. A great website for gay and lesbian parenting issues is Pink Parents.