Hawaiian Birthing Individuals

It’s been long overdue, but I was finally able to visit one of my favorite places on earth: Hawaii. The whirlwind visit included a local speaking event, professional networking, as well as a remote presentation at the kick-off maternal health summit held by the New Mexico-based non-profit Kassy’s Kause (more about that in an upcoming post).

There also were chickens. Specifically, a chicken family – a hen, a rooster and chicks – that came to find me every morning at breakfast. There was no clear explanation why they were there or why they kept coming back (I wasn’t feeding them!). But observing this family as it visited my family, I couldn’t help but feel the poignancy.

Part of my time was spent thinking about how I can serve women who are struggling to grow their family: I planned to devote time to exploring the fertility space in Maui, one of Hawaii’s larger islands, by visiting clinics and talking with the staff. While I was a bit concerned when my initial online research pulled up so few places to visit, what I found when I ventured out to their physical addresses absolutely shocked me: the dilapidated conditions of the buildings, their general inaccessibility, their meager office hours. 

The island’s health care infrastructure appears to be in good shape; the pediatricians’ offices that I visited seemed top-notch. But from what I could tell, women in Maui are not getting reproductive care. When facing what is often one of the most intense, personal issues of their lives, they have to get on a puddle jumper and head to Oahu.

I want to express my empathy with the women and couples of Maui and acknowledge that this is an under-resourced, under-supported area. To that end, in the work that I do, I plan to advocate for the need for more providers to fill the gap (and I invite you to do the same).

To those women, I want to say: You don't have to do this alone. To work with me, you don’t have to hop on a plane; you can click a button and it's as easy as being in your pajamas, sitting on your porch looking out on the Pacific Ocean.

Strangely, during our visit to the island, we did not have the typical picture-perfect April weather. The whole week it was around 68 with rain coming in and out, alternating with tiny glimpses of sunshine at random moments. To me it felt like such an echo of the postpartum period: It’s just one moment at a time. Sometimes it rains, sometimes it’s sunny, sometimes there’s a slight breeze, and other times there are gusts of wind.

Now that I’m past the intense postpartum stage, I can offer a new perspective to the working moms who are at the heart of my professional life. This group is never far from my thoughts (all the more so right now as I work on a revised edition of Employed Motherhood), but as my own kids grow up, I find myself entering a new phase in life personally: One where I can go to the beach without diapers, relax on the sand and watch my daughters teach themselves to bodyboard as I soak up a brief ray of sun.

To new moms, I want to say: It’s so easy to get caught up in the monotony and stress of infancy and toddlerhood, but it’s not going to be this hard forever.