Category: Breathe and Push

 I didn’t realize I was pregnant until we were moving out of the duplex and into our new condo. After a long day of hauling boxes, I collapsed on the new hardwood floors and tried to understand my exhaustion. It was a new kind of tired—like I couldn’t get up off the floor—and I tried to remember the last time I had my period. That was when I asked my partner to pick up a test. It was New Year’s Eve.

It was the two of us with our puppy and a + sign that told us there was a baby on the way. The condo was new with white walls and no history. It was the height of the real estate bubble, and we believed we were settling into a fresh new start, and our little family was sprouting new life.

So, if you believe a pregnancy is the universe’s way of telling you to stay with someone, to work through things; what exactly is the universe trying to tell you if you miscarry?

It was the beginning of February and the gloom of winter that never usually settles into LA, settled into LA. I was nearing the end of my first trimester. This was confirmed at an appointment with my OBGYN. I was relieved to be happy, to know that I wanted to have kids. I asked the doctor about the drinking I did over Thanksgiving, before I had any idea I was pregnant. Her response: “There’s nothing you can do about it now. Don’t beat yourself up about it. Make sure you’re taking a prenatal vitamin and stop drinking/smoking.”

But I couldn’t stop thinking about the bacchanalia that was that Thanksgiving. It was the year our friend was dating the wine maker and at our Friendsgiving we drank. We Drank. And there was lots of second hand smoke. We ate so much delicious food and we drank some of tastiest wines, but now I couldn’t help but wonder the impact those three days of gluttony might have had on the baby.

So, when I saw spotting toward the end of that first trimester, and then the spotting got worse, I called my friend who was also a doctor, and he told me to go to the emergency room.

Atop the exam room table, the lab tech searched, searched, searched inside me for a heartbeat and he found nothing, nothing, nothing. It was over.

The Urgent Care doctor said I could choose a D & C or allow my body to take care of it on its own. Either way, I already had my next prenatal appointment scheduled; I could decide then. My discharge papers from Urgent Care said “Threatened Abortion.” Abortion. Not miscarriage, abortion. The issue suddenly came into new, sharper focus, because if abortion was murder, I had just killed my baby. The injustice of the loss and this loaded term overwhelmed me. As my partner drove me home, I started to grieve. I had already imagined the timing of this baby, had imagined the future of our family, but I also breathed with relief. Maybe we weren’t ready. Maybe this pregnancy wasn’t meant to be.

When I got home, I looked up threatened abortion: vaginal bleeding when the diagnostic for a spontaneous abortion has not been met. Spontaneous abortion: miscarriage, pregnancy loss. These are all the pregnancies that aren’t meant to be. Despite what anti-abortion activists want this word to mean, pregnancy loss is loss. Abortion is a pregnancy that isn’t meant to be.

That was twelve years ago. I can do the math in my head. I can tell you how old that baby might be, and friends I have who have experienced any of the many types of pregnancy loss hold that math in their bodies.

As abortion access and rights are systematically stripped away from women all over our country, I think of my unplanned pregnancy. I remember my threatened abortion and how sick I was for months after, but when so much was out of my control, I still had a choice. Our country protects that choice, and we will continue to fight for it, for all women.

We are women and non binary creatives. We write our own stories and control every word on the page. We maintain our narratives and we will breathe and push the stories we choose to tell into the world. We choose our words, our bodies, and our lives.

Noriko Nakada is a public school teacher and the editor of the Breathe and Push column. She writes, blogs, tweets, and parents in Los Angeles. She is committed to writing thought-provoking creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.

By Noriko Nakada

When I moved to Los Angeles and escaped Oregon over 25 years ago, I wasn’t just trying to escape the cloudy, dark, rainy, snowy winters. I was also escaping the homogeneity of the white, Christian majority that dominates the Pacific Northwest.

The diversity of LA has kept me here for decades, and the weather is a welcome bonus. I gained sunny skies, temperate winters, and long summers that even sneak summery days into winter, spring, and fall.

But this year, with wet like we haven’t seen in a long while, and a cold snap that gripped the southland so tight it even sent a few flurries down into the foothills, I was reminded of my fragile mental state on cold, dark days.

When the dark of winter sinks in, even in sunny Southern California, I feel like sleeping, hibernating, pulling to covers tighter and longer and keeping my eyes closed to the world. I forget to exercise, to write, to eat green things, and sometimes I even forget to breathe. I wish for a snow day, and dream that, for just a minute, I live somewhere with snow. I feel like I would trade away my entire LA life for a single day off.

I should no longer be surprised when I find myself swallowed in this slothful seasonal state. But each year, it takes three, or four, or five weeks for me to realize what’s happening, that I’ve come off the rails, that I’m stuck in first gear, that even though my foot is on the pedal and I’m flooring it, I can only go so fast, and I’m probably doing real harm to my engine.

Thankfully, spring is here. The days are stretching longer and I am at the page, putting words down, one after the other. Yes, I’m still hitting snooze, and eating cake and French fries whenever I can. I’m not writing or reading as much as I would like, but I am going to be gentle on my winter-hating self.

I will breathe. I will get a column out into the world. I will revise and resubmit some poems and essays. I will watch my kids hitting baseballs and softballs into a blue sky. I will go for a run. I will even get up to Portland for AWP and when I’m there, I will engage with the writing world. I will, somehow, welcome spring.

As writers flock to rainy, gloomy Portland, I hope we can all shake off the winter that might still be clinging. And if you can’t, at least know you are not alone. Depression and seasonal affective disorder are real. Please take care of yourselves as we all crane our necks toward spring. Find the wildflower fields, the cherry blossoms, the sun shining bright for a little bit longer each day. But if it is all too much, please listen to the small voice that knows when you might need some help. Listen to that voice and reach out if you need it, because we need you.

Here are some resources for those struggling with depression.

Noriko Nakada is a public school teacher and the editor of the Breathe and Push column. She writes, blogs, tweets, and parents in Los Angeles. She is committed to writing thought-provoking creative non-fiction, fiction, and poetry.