THE (UNCOMFORTABLE) CIRCLE OF LIFE

Family Planning While Losing My Mom

One week before I flew home because my mother had been admitted to the hospital for what we would later learn was a fatal disease, I saw an invitation pop up on my calendar. It was ominously titled “Discussion” and had been sent by my father to me and my husband.  As an anxious person, my brain wanted to assume the worst, but as my father’s daughter I had a feeling I knew what it might be about.

For the past year or so, John and I have been trying to figure out if we have the resources to responsibly start a family. Given the current state of the entertainment industry and the cost of living in Los Angeles, the reasonable answer to that is: no, not really. But the pull was still there especially after finding out that yet another one of my best friends was expecting. It seemed suspicious that only one day after telling my mom that good news, we suddenly had a date with my parents over Facetime to discuss…something.

So when we hopped on, I wasn’t too surprised to learn that my parents had been talking and decided that they wanted to help support us having a child sooner than later with a “baby fund.” It was a way for them to become grandparents a third time over and a solution for us to not have to worry about medical costs and child-related expenses. While the depth of their generosity is always a bit shocking, even after 35 years of it, it fits perfectly with who they are and how they approach their family. I instantly teared up and started setting up the necessary appointments to get the ball rolling.

When I got a call from my older sister the next morning, I assumed she’d heard the good news and wanted to celebrate. Instead, she was calling to tell me how worried she was about my mother’s increasingly bizarre symptoms. Exactly one week later, I was awkwardly sitting in the waiting area of NYU Langone hospital on a Zoom call with my psychiatrist and husband to discuss changing my medication from Trintellix to Zoloft now that we were going to try to conceive. (There is less research on the effects of Trintellix on fetuses because it is a newer dug, so I decided to switch to be extra safe.) I had not expected to be having that discussion with my mother down the hall in a hospital bed, but at that point there was still the assumption that whatever was going on wasn’t terminal. And it would have been annoying, and expensive, to cancel.

The next baby-related call I made was in the hallway of a medical office building as my now wheelchair-bound mother was talking to her own (new) psychiatrist about the mental toll of her deteriorating health and incessant insomnia. I had called to postpone my preconception appointment with my gynecologist because it was clear I couldn’t return to LA in September as I’d planned. As we settled on a new date and her nurse explained the different “packages” my doctor offered, I wondered what my life would look like in October. I didn’t know my mother would already be dead.

As I monitored and cared for my mother’s worsening condition for six agonizing weeks, I was also slowly titrating myself off Trintellix, starting Zoloft and stopping my daily birth control pill that had prevented me from menstruating for the last decade. I got my first (painful) period a few weeks after my mother’s passing when it was just me and my dad in the house (my husband had already returned to LA). I felt relief that I still knew how to use a tampon and sorrow that I couldn’t tell my mom that my body had bounced back so quickly despite everything. (It can often take people time to get a regular period after being on the pill for so long.)

Two days after I finally returned to Los Angeles, we finally had our rescheduled preconception appointment and I felt myself tearing up on the walk from the parking garage. This was not how I had imagined feeling starting the journey of trying to get pregnant. When the nurse asked how I was, it took everything in me to not shout “NOT VERY GOOD, MY MOM IS DEAD!” (I still managed to mention her passing almost immediately but at a normal volume.)

When it became clear back in late August that we were rapidly losing my mom, I obviously wondered if we should halt our plans to start trying. Wasn’t it inappropriate given our new circumstances and the wave of grief crashing down on us? But when I brought up my hesitation to my husband, father, and sister, none of them felt the same. Postponing what my mom had so desperately wanted for me wasn’t the right way to grieve or honor her. She was a practical person who always pushed forward, and I felt compelled to do the same.

Throughout her dying process, my resilient mother never complained or wailed against the unfairness of her circumstance. The only regret she expressed was missing out on my nieces growing up and never getting to meet my future child, who she affectionately referred to as a “schemegege” (not sure if I spelled that correctly because I am pretty sure it isn’t an official word so much as a Ruth Raskin term of endearment). The idea of going though pregnancy, labor, and motherhood without my mom is almost too painful for me to comprehend. I had always assumed she’d be by my side for all of it, including the really gross parts. I now have to reimagine this entire process as one shaped by grief and loss instead of joy and excitement.

But what is life if not a constant mixture of those things? By the time my mother had me, her mom had Parkinson’s disease. She grew up having no reference point for her father who died when she was three. Her experience of motherhood was always complicated—as mine now will be. And yet, she was incredible at it. She loved me ferociously and without expectation. She modeled a lifestyle of kindness and understanding that I wanted to emulate. And she only let us transition from parent/child to (best) friends once I was old enough for that to be helpful instead of harmful.

My mother might not be alive as I start the process of trying to become a mother myself, but her spirit will live on in me and anyone I raise. I used to never understand people’s interest in their ancestry and lineage, but now I do. Because if I am lucky enough to get pregnant, my child will know every day where they came from and the legacy of love that traces back to my mom’s arms.

xoxo,

Allison

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