We went through some shit

I’ve been thinking about trauma and how we suppress it so much that we almost forget about it. I started asking my husband about it because I almost forget. I almost feel like I’ve suppressed all of those memories of the miscarriages, and honestly the labor and delivery too. Sometimes those memories snap back into my brain. I’ll be having coffee one morning and think, Holy shit, that happened. That’s real.

We have a baby girl now. Olive is almost two, and we have what we wanted so badly. But that still doesn’t dismiss — pardon my French — the fucked-up shit we went through. I think I pushed it so far out of my brain that only recently I’ve been thinking, Oh yeah. Okay. This did happen. And this is crazy.

I

Mike and I have been together seven years now, and it really was love at first sight. A total fairy tale. We met each other and were like, Oh yeah, this works. This is really awesome.

At that time I lived in Boise and he lived in Salmon. I came to visit him and was just in awe of what this town is. I’m not sure if you’ve been to Salmon before, but you’re surrounded by wilderness. You’re surrounded by deep, deep Native American history. It talks to you and calls to you in ways some places do not. Not only did the person I loved live here, but I was really falling in love with the land. I moved here quickly — literally in the blink of an eye. I was like, I’ve got to be in this place.

Our relationship kept growing stronger and stronger. When we first met, we had the conversation: Do we want kids? Mike said, “I’ve never really wanted kids.” And I said, “That’s okay. I didn’t think I wanted kids either.”

It was one of those topics you have in relationships: Do we want to get married? Do we want to have kids? And the more our relationship grew, the more we started to realize that maybe we were the right kind of people to procreate. We felt like our moral compass, our hearts, and what we were able to provide to this planet and to each other as a relationship was good soil for it. So we started asking, Should we do it? Should we start trying?

We called his mom and said, “We think we want to start trying, but we’re not sure.” Her advice was that whenever she and Mike’s dad, Larry, had a hard topic or a hard decision, they would make a decision but know that it could change — just to see how it felt. She said, “Sit down at the table and say, We don’t want kids. Maybe in a week you say, Actually, this has changed.”

So we said, Okay. Let’s just say we want to have a family. We went on with that idea, and it built, and it felt right and good. We decided we wanted to start trying.

We got pregnant pretty quickly, which was really exciting. But I had never had an OB-GYN before getting pregnant. I was completely unaware of what miscarriage rates were and how common they are.

I think we were around twelve or thirteen weeks when I realized I was having a miscarriage. Mike and I weren’t married yet, and we went to the hospital here. I had just reached out to an OB-GYN in Boise, so I was talking with a professional about what was happening. They explained the types of miscarriages, including ectopic pregnancy, and said that because I was a little farther along, they were worried. They wanted me to go to the hospital or local clinic and get checked out.

I think it was right at 2023. Salmon had an OB-GYN for years and years — this older man who had been the OB here for a long time. Then he retired, and they could not hire somebody at Steele Memorial to be an OB. Whether the pay was incredible, whether the location was amazing, they couldn’t find someone who wanted to work in Salmon because of the strict laws that were happening.

So we went to Steele Memorial. This was my first miscarriage with my husband, with somebody I love, after we had created life. I was so excited. Then this happens.

I told them, “I’m actively having a miscarriage. My OB in Boise told me to come here because it could possibly be an ectopic pregnancy.” This was in February, the middle of winter in Salmon, Idaho. It’s cold. There’s snow everywhere. It’s three hours to Missoula, three hours to Idaho Falls, and six hours to Boise. In winter conditions, you can easily double those hours. I could not go to Boise. So we went to the clinic.

I told them, “I’m actively having a miscarriage. My OB in Boise wants my blood drawn. She wants to check my HCG.” And they said, “We’ll get right with you. Someone will help you in a minute.”

We sat down in the lobby. We sat there for two and a half hours. I walked up to the front desk and said, “I’m actively having a miscarriage. I don’t know what’s happening.” At that point, I didn’t know that when you’re having a miscarriage, you’re having contractions. I was in a massive amount of physical pain. My heart hurt. I was emotional. I was trying to tell them, “I need to see a doctor. I need to see somebody right now.”

They said, “We’re sorry, we’re backed up.” They brought out someone like a patient advocate. He talked to me while I was crying, and I said, “I just want to see a doctor. I want someone to talk to because I’m really confused about what’s happening.”

They finally got me into a room. Because we had sat in the lobby so long, Mike and I had a timer on our phones. We sat in that room for another hour. A nurse practitioner peeked her head in and said, “A doctor will be right with you.”

I said, “Hey, wait. Come back in here.” I was crying, emotional, and scared. Bless my husband — he’s like the Dude from The Big Lebowski. He is the chillest. There is not an angry bone in that guy’s body. Then there’s me, who is a total spitfire. I’m ready to go to war.

So I told the nurse, “This is bullshit. I’ve been waiting in the lobby for two and a half hours. I’ve been in this room for an hour. I’m having a miscarriage. I’m freaking the fuck out. I want my blood drawn, and I want help right now. I’m really, really scared.”

She didn’t say anything. She shut the door. Then, on the hospital intercom, we heard them say, “We have a code gray in room…” I grabbed my phone and Googled “code gray.” It means combative patient.

I was like, Oh my gosh, Mike. I’m the combative patient. They think I’m combative.

They brought in a security guard. Then they brought in the doctor. The doctor said, “What’s going on?”

I said, “I’m freaking out. I just want anybody to tell me it’s going to be okay, to show me empathy, and to help me with my next steps of healing.”

They said, “We’ll go get your blood drawn if that’s what you want, but you need to be escorted by security.” So security escorted me across the building to the lab, where they drew my blood and confirmed I was having a miscarriage. Then they sent me home.

They said, “If anything gets worse, you can go to the ER, but there’s no OB-GYN on staff. If you’re possibly having an ectopic, you can go to the ER and we’ll fly you out somewhere else.”

That was the first miscarriage. Luckily, we weren’t flown out of Salmon. But the following weeks were really, really hard.

II

Mike and I talked about how I wanted my body to heal before we started trying again. Eventually I thought, Okay. Maybe we’re ready. I got pregnant again, and we were really excited. But now we had this weight: Is this going to happen again? Is this going to be another miscarriage? Are we not going to have the healthcare we need or want?

I decided I would make the trip down to Boise as needed for my OB appointments. I got pregnant, called my OB, and started making appointments. I miscarried on June 13, which is my mother-in-law’s birthday. Mike was on the river. He was gone. I knew I had to make this appointment in Boise because there was no OB in Salmon. There was nobody here who could see me, give me an ultrasound, and check for a heartbeat.

I got in my car and drove six hours to Boise. At my OB appointment, they told me I was having a miscarriage. There was no heartbeat. And I had to be back in Salmon the next day.

So I drove home through Banks, Lowman, Stanley — the route we always take because it is the most beautiful drive ever. Right in Lowman, I started having contractions. Because of what I had experienced before, I knew I was actively miscarrying. I could not drive. I could not handle the pain. I pulled over on the side of the road in my truck, sat against my tire, and just cried.

I thought, Fuck. This is fucked. I should not be in the middle of Idaho’s wilderness by myself because I don’t have the healthcare I need ten minutes away from my house at the hospital in this town.

It blew my mind that I couldn’t go to the hospital in this town and say, “I’m having a miscarriage,” or, “My OB is here and I need help.” None of that existed. It was the most defeating feeling.

But there was also this weird mesh of feeling super defeated and also realizing: I am a woman in the middle of Idaho, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by trees, having a miscarriage. And I had this moment of like, Oh yeah. Nothing is going to fucking stop me. Who else is going through this? What other women are out there in the middle of nowhere, going through something so traumatic and still persevering, still going on to the next day?

I did not want that to stop me. I did not want this very natural experience my body was going through — as sad and traumatic as it was — to stop me.

It took a while for us to get back on our feet and try again, but we did. The third pregnancy stuck.

I drove down to Boise every month for my OB appointments, which was stressful in itself. My OB did not want me driving. She wanted me to move to Boise for a time. Mike and I both grew up in Boise, and our families are there, so we were fortunate. There are some women in places who don’t have family that close. We had places to stay.

Because I had already had multiple miscarriages, my OB wanted to see me consistently. I got on progesterone to help get my body a little more pumped up for the pregnancy. And it went really well.

I mean, pregnancy is gnarly. Bless my mother’s heart. She had twins. My mom is four-foot-eight — she’s a little, little woman — and I’m four-foot-eleven. I looked like I had twins. I was 205 pounds with this belly. What an experience that is. Kudos to all the mothers out there, because that shit is not for the weak.

Near the end of my pregnancy, we knew we would have to move down to Boise. Olive was supposed to be born around September 9, so we were getting ready to go down there in August.

In late July, I felt super off. I was having early contractions. I went to the ER here and was like, “It’s me — your code gray. You all know me. Something’s up.” I couldn’t go to the clinic. I had to go to the ER.

The ER’s policy in Salmon at that point was: admit the mother, check for a heartbeat, and if anything else is happening, fly her out. They checked Olive’s heartbeat, and I was having contractions every three minutes. They said, “We’re flying you out.” They called my OB in Boise, and my OB said, “I don’t want you there. I want you here.”

There was a big wildfire happening at the time, and it was really smoky, so they couldn’t get a helicopter in. They brought in a plane and flew me to Boise. I was admitted at St. Luke’s and held for about twenty-four hours. They told me, basically, “You need to be on bed rest. Don’t do anything for the rest of your pregnancy. Take it really easy.”

I said, “Okay, that’s fine. I don’t want to be on my feet anyway.” My feet looked like hot air balloons.

III

On August 29, I had an OB appointment and a membrane sweep. My OB accidentally broke my water.

From the very beginning, when Mike and I decided we were going to try to have a baby, the goal had been an at-home birth. We tried, through all the pregnancies, to get doulas. There are no doulas in Salmon. There was one doula in Hamilton, Montana, who comes down and helps with the Amish community here, but she wasn’t taking any more clients. We couldn’t even get a doula. We couldn’t get a midwife around here.

So for my water to be broken so early — my body wasn’t ready. Olive was not ready. I think I could have easily gone forty-one or forty-two weeks and then been ready.

After my water broke, they said, “Okay, we’re going to send you over to labor and delivery.” I said, “No, we’re not. I’m going to my mother-in-law’s house in the North End. I’m going to get my bag and eat something, because I haven’t eaten. Then I’ll go to labor and delivery.”

I did about twelve hours of natural, unmedicated labor. At forty-two hours, I had Olive. They ended up giving me an epidural because my water had been broken so long, her heart rate was dropping, and I was at risk for infection. They said, “We’re going to get this going.” Olive was just so not ready to come out. That kid was comfy, cozy, and wanted a couple more weeks.

They ended up using forceps, which was gnarly. They basically said, “You’ve got four more pushes, and if you can’t get her out, you’re having a C-section.”

I went from wanting a natural birth at home to thinking, What is happening? Friends had warned me about the cascade of interventions, and I was like, This is it. The cascade is happening.

On the fourth push, they got Olive out with forceps. My own OB wasn’t there because, right after she broke my water, she said, “Dang, well, I’m leaving on vacation today.” So I had a new OB I’d never met before. She was great, but she had her foot on the labor table for leverage while pulling with the forceps. My husband was like, “This is the craziest thing I’ve ever seen.”

That is how Olive came into the world.

At this point in our lives, we’re one and done. Who knows what the future holds, but it was a wild, wild experience, and I can’t say I want to do it again right now. Being pregnant in rural Idaho is terrifying.

Olive turns two on September 1, and we’re just reveling in the toddler phase, which is insane. The newborn phase was different for me than it is for some mothers. Some people talk about the newborn trenches, but for us, the newborn phase was cake. We were like, This is great. We did it. I think the endorphins were just rushing through my husband and me. Now we’re in the toddler phase, where she rules the house. She’s a little monster and we love her.

It’s such a weird thing. My husband and I have this conversation because everyone seems really split — left and right, nobody agrees on anything. But the reality of women’s healthcare, in my opinion, is that a lot of Republicans in Salmon are my friends and family. They’ll say, “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry for what happened to you. I can’t believe you didn’t have an OB in Salmon.”

My response is, “These laws people have voted for are affecting people who want to have babies.” People hear “abortion law” and think, You shouldn’t be able to kill a baby. And it’s like, Well, that’s not necessarily your decision. But also, what about all the Republican women getting pregnant in rural America who want to keep their babies? Because of those laws, they’re being put into positions where their lives are at risk and their babies’ lives are at risk.

I think that is such a hard thing for some people to understand. I will never beat someone down about how they vote or how they view the world, but this was a big reality check for me. We wanted to have these babies, and we wanted proper healthcare, but we couldn’t have it because of what was put into place.

INTERVIEWER: One part that is sticking with me is Lowman — leaning against your car, miscarrying in the middle of nowhere. You don’t want to be in Lowman when you’re actively miscarrying.

No. I wanted to be home or in a hospital.

I had a blanket in the car, so I put it down. I think I have a high pain tolerance. And I think because of the two miscarriages, that’s why I was like, I can have a natural birth. With Olive I thought, I’ve got this. I went through hell and back.

In those moments, you’re in fight-or-flight, especially when you’re in the middle of nowhere. There’s no cell service back there. And I thought, If nobody had my ass the first time, why do I need anybody this time? That is crazy. It’s insane.

It was almost better because I didn’t have to wear this armor of advocacy. You walk into a hospital and you are so weighed down by the advocacy you have to bring to the table just to be heard.

Being in the middle of nowhere by myself was almost lighter. It was like, Okay. This is just me and my body and whatever it is doing. Nobody is going to be here to save me, and I don’t have to wear that armor. I don’t have to be weighed down by trying so hard for someone to hear me, because nobody is around.

It was super lonely. The Lowman drive is interesting to me now because that’s the way we drive. That’s our family’s route. It’s such a beautiful drive, but it definitely holds something now. It has a whole new feeling to it.

There is a sense of mourning there, for sure. But there are other memories along that stretch too. When Olive was a newborn, we were driving back through Lowman and she was constipated. We gave her a little baby suppository, and then Mike and I were these new parents on the side of the road with a newborn who suddenly had explosive diarrhea. We were laughing, she was screaming, and we were like, What are we doing?

So there’s a duality to that drive now. I can’t hate it. I hate the system. I hate what the system does to people. But I’m almost grateful for that section of Idaho. At least that section of Idaho was there for me.

Ponderosas can’t code-gray me.

I think back to Native American culture and the ways healing was connected to the earth — sweat lodges, powwows, red tent ceremonies. As traumatic as it was, you kind of have blinders on, like a horse. You’re in survival mode: drive home, get home.

But it is a part of me. I hope one day I can share that with my daughter and say, “Whatever the future holds — whatever crazy situation the world is in economically, politically, or in whatever community you live in — I want you to know that women are badass. Who cares if you’re code-gray? Who cares if someone thinks you’re crazy? You can do whatever you want. You’ve got the power.”

That part of my story is going to be a conduit for raising a strong little girl into an independent woman. I hope.

There is still angst. Sometimes I am very angry about it. Thinking back, I was a pissed-off person. I don’t think there are many scarier things in the world than a pissed-off woman. I was pissed. I took that and ran with it to survive.

I am so grateful for where I am now and for what my life is. But that does not mean there aren’t women out there still struggling. That is scary and sad, because not everybody has that sense of perseverance, that ability to punch forward when they don’t have support.

IV

The medical system should be there for you. Period. They’re getting paid to do that. We’re paying them to be there for us. But there was such a lack of empathy. Not everybody — there are wonderful nurses and doctors and medical professionals out there. But I wish medical professionals were required to have training in psychology or therapy.

When you have a woman coming in having a miscarriage, there should be somebody there to say, “You’re going to be okay.” That’s all we want to hear sometimes. Is it that hard to hold someone’s hand and say, “You’re going to be okay”? It’s not rocket science.

INTERVIEWER: Do you think they were scared — keeping distance from you and your needs because they didn’t know how to treat you within the confines of the law?

Probably. Surely. I try really hard — and I think this comes from my husband — to be understanding and to give grace to situations I don’t fully understand. I believe there are two sides to a story. Those medical professionals have their own story.

What they saw as a combative patient in a situation they might not be able to legally handle, I saw as negligence, no compassion, and not doing their job. It’s tough. I have to find it in myself to give them grace because maybe it isn’t their fault. But it’s tough to find grace in those situations when you’re the person in need of care.

In those moments, it is heated and it is a lot. I see all those people who work at the hospital around town. This is a tiny, tiny town. They know me and I know them. They see this beautiful little girl my husband and I created. I think they know now that this is what we wanted — we were just scared.

When they see us in public, they’ll say, “Oh my gosh, look at that beautiful little girl. You guys look great. You look like a happy family.” And there’s this symbiosis of, Yes. Okay. We are good now. Thank you. We see each other. Then we walk away and my husband is like, “Yep.” And I’m like, “Yep.” Sometimes you just want to wear a T-shirt that says Code Gray.

It’s not something a lot of women experience, and yet a lot of women are experiencing it and not having somebody to talk to about it. Sometimes we carry trauma without understanding that what we experienced was traumatic until there’s a moment of, Oh shit. That’s what that was.

It’s so interesting. I have this conversation with my husband once a year. I’ll say, “Let’s schedule a colonoscopy for you,” and he’s like, “I don’t need that. I’m not ready for that.” Or I’ll say, “You need a yearly checkup,” and he says, “Why?”

And I say, “Because women have been doing this since they were teenagers. They’ve had somebody shoving a speculum up their vaginas. It’s important to take care of your body and have those exams, but they are intrusive.”

I don’t think a lot of men understand how vulnerable it is for women to move through life as if everything is fine when maybe you had a pap smear that day and it was traumatic. Or you had a miscarriage last month and it was traumatic. Or you got pregnant and didn’t want that pregnancy and had an abortion and that was traumatic. There are so many layers to the kinds of trauma women experience with our bodies.

Some pap smears are no big deal to some women, and that’s okay. But for women who have sexual abuse in their lives, it can be a horrible experience to get a pap smear. It is a tough thing to be a woman. Damn it, we’re doing it, but it is tough.

The more we can talk about those experiences, the better. I was pretty open with women about my miscarriages, and women came to me and said, “Wow, I’ve never talked about my miscarriage. You’re the only person I’ve ever told,” or, “I’ve had abortions, and I think I want to have a baby someday, and I’m scared.” Whatever the conversation is, it opens the door to women being vulnerable in a way that is healthy and shared. That is important.

My friend Kate told me, “You should come talk at this thing.” I had just had Olive — literally weeks prior — and I thought it was going to be an intimate thing with five people. There were like forty or fifty people there. I was in a diaper, full postpartum. I remember leaving the house and saying, “I’ll be back soon. I’m just going to chitchat with some women about these experiences.”

I came home shaking. I told Mike, “There were doctors from Steele Memorial there — people who had code-grayed me. There were nurses and OB-GYNs from across Idaho. I did not know this was going to be a thing.”

He asked, “Well, did you speak?” And I said, “Yeah, I did.”

Those medical professionals got to see that vulnerability. They got to see somebody they had already seen in a vulnerable moment stand up and say, “Here you go. This is my story. I’m not ashamed, and I’m not afraid to tell it. More people need to talk about this.”

It takes a while to get there. I think I was still on the endorphin high of having a baby. I was like, Yeah, let’s do it. Strap on my diaper and go to Highlander Pizza and talk about this stuff.

Vulnerability is crazy. After having a baby, you learn a lot about yourself, especially with your husband. Bless Mike’s heart. Having a baby and the amount of vulnerability you go through is wild.

It’s hard, especially for women who don’t have communities, friends, or support systems where they can be vulnerable.

Everything is tense. Everything is on edge. But at the end of the day, as humans, whether you lean one way or the other, we are trying to survive. We are trying to eat affordable, healthy food, put gas in our cars, go to work, and do the fun things we love.

It is a tough time to be alive, and at the same time, we live on this incredible spinning planet that offers so much beauty. That massive duality is something that can bring us together. I hope.

There are [OBs at Steele now]. I don’t know their names. There have been plenty of babies born at Steele Memorial since then. I think I was right on the cusp — the last lady where they were like, We can’t have you here. Then an OB came in and women started having babies there, and I was really happy for them. I don’t wish for any woman to go through what I did. I want women to be able to birth where they can and where they want.

I think the OBs there still can’t perform C-sections. If something complicated comes up, you still have to get flown out. I know of one C-section that happened at Steele Memorial since I had Olive, and it was a pretty scary experience. But women are badass. They are superwomen. They did it.

I wish I could say Olive was born in Salmon, Idaho. I wanted her born at home here. That was sacred to us. The wood stove in our home is sacred because it keeps us warm. I wanted to put bolts in the ceiling and have a labor swing right there. I wanted the whole thing.

It’s okay that it didn’t go that way. At the end of the day, we have a healthy baby and a healthy mom. They got her out with forceps. Do I wish it happened differently? Yes. But the kid is awesome. I love her. I feel good. We did the thing.