I Was Pregnant and in Crisis. All the Doctors and Nurses Saw Was an Incompetent Black Woman

The first dream for my imagined future self that I can recall starts with a sound. I was maybe 5 years old and I wanted to click-clack. The click-clack of high heels on a shiny, hard floor. I have a briefcase. I am walking purposefully, click-clack-click-clack. That is the entire dream. I dreamed of being competent. I have never felt more incompetent than when I was pregnant. I was four months or so pregnant, extremely uncomfortable, and at work when I started bleeding. When you are black woman, having a body is already complicated for workplace politics. Having a bleeding, distended body is especially egregious. I waited until I filed my copy, by deadline, before walking to the front of the building, where I called my husband to pick me up. An hour or so later, I was in the waiting room of my obstetrics office. I chose the office based on the crude cultural geography of choosing a good school or which TJ Maxx to go to: if it is on the white, wealthy side of town, it must be good. For many people I am sure the medical practice was actually good. The happy, normal, thin white women in the waiting room every time I visited seemed pleased enough. The nurses’ hands were always warm when they stuck one up your vagina. The doctors were energetic. It was all I knew to ask for. He glared at me and said that if I wasn’t quiet he would leave and I would not get any pain relief.Until I started bleeding. That day I sat in the waiting room for thirty minutes, after calling ah...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized black women Books health Pregnancy Source Type: news