This week I’m celebrating seven years married to my husband and we still have no children. We’re happily married and very much enjoy not having parenting responsibilities, but it’s a part of life that we both want. We thought for sure by now, in our mid 30s, we’d at least have a toddler, but as life happens – and since we’ve been very career focused – that wasn’t the case.
As a Latina woman, it’s been a challenge to answer family members who ask why we still don’t have kids. Every holiday gathering comes with the quintessential comments: “Y los nietos?” or “Donde están los babies?” or the ones that make me blush like, “Are y’all practicing for kids?” I’ve even gotten the unsolicited, “You know, it’s OK if you don’t have kids,” in what felt like a way to press the issue.
My first instinct has always been to say “Mind your own business,” but that might’ve ended with hurt feelings, to say the least, so I’d answer with “You already have grandchildren?” or “Don’t my adorable rescue pugs count as the nietos?”
This past holiday season, we were at my in-laws in east Texas, getting ready to head to my parents’ home for the second half of the celebrations, and I felt so much relief that the questions hadn’t come up. I was happy that this year might be different, and the baby topic would be tabled. I was too quick to let my guard down, because just as we were hugging and exchanging goodbyes, I got the question: “So guys, when are the babies coming?” My heart sank. I wanted to cry. I wasn’t sure what excuse I would make up this time, so in a split second, I followed my gut and decided to be honest.
“We’re terrified to have children,” I said, with a quiver in my voice, forcing myself to not get emotional. I wasn’t sure where the conversation would go next, but I wanted to share how we were feeling. The truth is we want to have children, little brown toddlers running around with dark black hair, giggling and chasing our pugs. We have names picked out for a boy and a name for a girl. My husband has been practicing his dad jokes and I’ve been trying to learn lullabies. But our joy around planning and daydreaming was shattered last November.
The morning after the election felt surreal. I was still exhausted from a previous weekend of working nearly 48 hours straight covering presidential candidate Kamala Harris. She’d come to Texas with a promise of upholding women’s reproductive rights if elected. On election night, I went to sleep early, hoping that the next morning would be history-making, and as a society, we would break through the stereotypical mold that’s kept women from the country’s highest position of power.
I woke up alone that morning. My husband, who was also a journalist at the time, was in Houston covering the senate race in Texas. When he called to check in, I noticed a slight crack in his voice. He said, “I’m so sorry.” I realized at that moment he was emotional. I got teary-eyed too. “I will move mountains to make sure that your life is saved (during pregnancy).” We didn’t say it out loud, but we both felt like our dreams to be parents were paused indefinitely.
Our fears are not unfounded, in fact, for the past 25 years, the U.S. maternal mortality rate has been steadily increasing. Our country has the highest rate among developed countries and is the only country that does not give parents access to provider home visits or paid parental leave in the postpartum period, according to the Commonwealth Fund, an organization that works for equitable healthcare access.
To make matters worse, our country is now under the control of an administration that seems intent on further restricting access to healthcare and information that could help improve outcomes for families. Already, they have cut programs that research why women die during pregnancy. The American Civil Liberties Union warned about a second Trump administration and how it would harm reproductive rights nationwide. President Donald Trump bragged about overturning Roe v. Wade. Since then, 12 states have full abortion bans in place, and another 10 states have partial bans. The research is clear, abortion bans have made pregnancy more dangerous.
Then on top of that, we live in Texas, where more mothers and babies are dying after strict abortion bans were put in place by Republican lawmakers, not medical practitioners. My husband had been watching the news coverage I was working on regarding abortion laws in the state. We both watched Zurawski vs. Texas, a documentary that shows the cruel and dangerous scenarios women are facing due to Texas’ laws. It felt like a scary time. I heard my husband, a man who was stoic and calm, break down. It broke me too.
I’ve spent the last few months wondering what it would be like if I got pregnant and subsequently died because I could not get abortion care for a misscarriage, failed placenta delivery or if my child was destined to die in utero. My chances of dying a pregnancy-related death also go up, simply because of the color of my skin and ancestral lineage. Black women face the highest maternal mortality rate, followed by American Indian or Alaska Native women — and then there’s my group, Hispanic — rounding out the top three groups most at risk of dying compared to their white counterparts.
My sister navigated two miscarriages under Texas’ abortion bans. She was denied abortion care and left hemorrhaging while doctors wondered if her condition was bad enough to help her. I wondered what the cards would hold for me. Would I die in childbirth because it was illegal to get the life-saving care that I needed? Would I abandon my husband because I died and doctors were scared to save me? Would my child survive? Would I be left infertile because I got sepsis?
I’ve found myself crying in our bed with anger and frustration at the possibilities of being pregnant. We’ve done the “right” thing – whatever “right” is supposed to mean. We’re married. We broke through statistics of being poor and growing up with single parents. We went to college and got jobs, we worked our ways up the career ladder. We saved up enough money to buy our own house and even pay for our own wedding, because our parents simply couldn’t help us.
Here we were, the picture perfect image of what conservatives think should be a “traditional family,” and yet it felt like Ken Paxton, Dan Patrick, Greg Abbott and now Donald Trump were all sitting at the foot of our bed in our Austin home, putting a gun to my head, ready to pull the trigger if something went wrong with my pregnancy.
As this was happening in my home life, my work and personal life began colliding. I was asked to cover more stories about abortion care and was assigned to cover an Abortion in America conference in Austin. I was not looking forward to going. I didn’t want to hear more tragic stories of people dying or permanently losing their fertility thanks to Texas’ abortion bans. I didn’t want more fear to build up as I navigated what a pregnancy journey might eventually look like for me.
The first panel I planned to attend was titled “Lessons from the Lone Star State.” Doctors, lawmakers and even mothers impacted by the abortion bans would be sharing their stories. I went there hoping to gather data on impacts and to build some sources. I wanted to learn more about how Texas got here. Part of the panel topic I overlooked promised to talk “about building resistance and resilience from a state at the center of the fight for reproductive freedom.”
As I sat listening to the panelists, I realised I was witnessing a gathering of a sisterhood. One of the panelists, Sam Casiano, shared her story about a wanted pregnancy and how she was forced to carry her daughter who was diagnosed with a fatal fetal anomaly. She said she had witnessed her daughter Halo suffer and die moments after she gave birth. “Exceptions are not real, (abortion) is a right taken from us,” Casiano said. “Abortion is not scary, it’s healthcare.”
Texas Rep. Donna Howard was also part of the panel. She spoke about efforts to help draft a bi-partisan law that would clarify exceptions to the state’s abortion ban. While not all abortion rights advocates are on board, in many ways, laws like this “clarification” bill aim to help clear up some parts of Texas’ laws because doctors feel their hands are completely tied. In November, 111 Texas doctors penned a letter to lawmakers, begging them to change abortion laws for the sake of saving Texans during pregnancy.
One panelist, Nakeenya Wilson, summed up the state of reproductive rights in a way that made me understand where we are in history. “What if this darkness is the womb? What if the U.S. isn’t dying but instead laboring to be born?” It made me think, ‘Wow, these are the people holding onto some semblance of hope during a time when anti-aboriton lawmakers have such a tight grip on Texas policy and laws.’ If there’s anything I know about hope, it’s that it’s a discipline. Hope requires accountability and requires us to show up. In that moment, I felt hope. Hope that things would be OK because there are people championing women in ways others may not see.
The second panel I attended was titled, “We’ve got your back: Supporting abortion seekers.” There were times I got teary eyed as questions were answered that I didn’t even know I had. Panelists spoke on where to find resources if you’re faced with a miscarriage and need an abortion. From that, I wrote an article on how to prepare for pregnancy in Texas for people who may be further in their reproductive journey than I am. One panelist described a sort of underground railroad of reproductive care to make sure that women and men and trans folks are supported in their pregnancy journeys. “There’s always a way,” Becca Nall, founder of INeedAnA, said.
I heard a spectrum of different abortion stories, women who’ve had the privilege to choose abortions, women who’ve been forced to choose abortions, and unfortunately, people who’ve died because they could not get those abortions. I learned about a network of pilots who fly people to other states to get the healthcare they need and hotlines that will help answer questions if you find yourself needing abortion care.
I still live in Texas, though, and I’m a journalist covering abortion. I can’t pretend my fear was just absolved. I talk to my therapist about that fear often and how it competes with my knowledge that my grandmother — my mamá Flor — had 12 children in Mexico with far less access to healthcare than I do. My therapist encouraged me to connect to that ancestral wisdom and to find the joy in whatever decision I will eventually make regarding motherhood. I told her, at least now, I know that if for some reason I have a miscarriage, I have the resources to lessen my chances of dying on a hospital bed at the cusp of my husband and I’s dream. I know there’s a whole network of people who believe women are deserving of healthcare, no matter what it looks like.
I’m a firm believer that two things can be true at once. As Dr. Amna Dermish, chief operating and medical services officer at Planned Parenthood Texas, told me in a previous interview, look at the data as a whole and realize that most people who go through pregnancy are fine and have healthy babies. March of Dimes’ data show that in 2023, there were 3,596,017 live babies born and most of the people who delivered – 47% – were in my age bracket (30-39) and 1 in four of them were to hispanic parents.
“Everyone with a positive pregnancy test, there’s a 20% risk of miscarriage, which implies that 80% of pregnancies proceed without miscarriage,” Dermish said. “My plea to people is, don’t get so lost in this potential, that you lose sight of that (pregnancy) miracle and don’t let them steal your joy, because that is so important.”
What started off as a weekend of dread turned into a beautiful weekend of joy, women (and men) supporting each other and being held up by a movement, a counter culture. I’m not sure what I expected an abortion conference to be like, but I saw people are taking a stance for what is medically right.
“I refuse to let the state of Texas dictate when and how many times I attempt to become pregnant, and how many children I want to have with my partner.”
Dr. Austin Dennard
I came away from the Abortion in America conference thrilled to feel even a tiny bit closer to maybe reviving dreams of becoming a mother. I found comfort knowing and reporting that there are silent players who are fighting despair with their actions. One of the women I met at the conference is Dr. Austin Dennard, an OB-GYN in Dallas who talks to scared patients on a daily basis. She said to me, “I refuse to let the state of Texas dictate when and how many times I attempt to become pregnant, and how many children I want to have with my partner.”
She’s so brave. I’m not sure I’m ready yet to find that same bravery right now, but I do know that I’m grateful to have a life partner who understands my trepidation — not everyone in my family does or some dismiss me as being “too political.” I also have the comfort of knowing my husband will do anything possible to save my life if the worst-case scenario comes true.
It is that support, and strength from those working to provide care to people who need it, that has allowed me to feel somewhat closer to one day adding the little ones we sometimes let ourselves dream about to our love story.