Full Term Pregnancy After Abortion
This week’s guest is Kim Collins, she’s the co-founder of MommaArts and Doula, Lactation Counsellor, and educator. We talk about how reproductive history may or may not affect future pregnancy, birth, and parenting.
Kim’s Website: http://www.mommaarts.com/
Kim’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doulamommakimcollins/
Show Notes:
Some of my listeners know that I was a doula for 3 years before I had my son and moved into work from home business. They were some of the best years of my life. Holding space for families to evolve into the next versions of themselves never gets old. Even the longest most challenging births expanded my heart in ways that no words could explain.
Early in my doula time I remember learning that abortion history could impact labor. At that point I knew little about abortion beyond having picked sides. What I knew was that there were two options: pro-life or pro-choice. One gave women bodily autonomy and one stripped them of their rights. I picked the one that gave women choice. Other than that I’d never had an unplanned pregnancy and had never really talked with anyone much about abortion. So like a good doula student I absorbed what I learned, and tried to apply it.
I have ONLY one regret in all my doula years, and it’s regarding a conversation I had with a couple about their abortion history in a prenatal. I wanted so badly to be available, to be open and ready to hear their story… to be the good doula... and in doing so I made the whole conversation incredibly awkward. I remember leaving the prenatal thinking I might as well have just landed face first on their dining room floor. That was also the only birth the clients didn’t call me when they went into labor. I have NO idea if my awkward abortion conversation was the reason, but my mind likes to wander back there and wonder.
I find it ironic and divine that now my life’s work in reproductive health care has evolved into daily conversations about abortion. Life is funny like that, you can never know exactly where you’re headed.
Despite my messy prenatal mishap, I do know that abortion history can affect future pregnancy, birth, and parenting in profound ways. Today’s guest is Kim Collins. She a co-founder of Momma Arts and she’s a professional doula, educator, and counsellor, with a lot more experience than me in all things pregnancy, birth, and postpartum.
8:10 Kim started in Law before becoming a doula
13:00 How does reproductive history affect pregnancy
13:55 “We’re all just a collection of our experiences”16:54 How sharing history helps care providers give the best possible care
19:06 NPR Interview regarding the Turnaway Study
20:49 Past history doesn’t have a predictable pattern on future experience
24:41 The importance of holding space for people to talk about and reflect on their experience
27:07 The way we can serve the most is to just hold space for it to be what it is
29:12 “There's so little in life that’s just 100% one way…”
29:43 “You can look at something and know it’s the right decision but that doesn’t mean it’s without impact in our lives.”
31:18 “People want everything to be a no brainer choice and not have there be any fall out or grey area…”
33:29 The way women have been misled in reproductive health for so long is in not following our intuition
34:45 Look to people to gather information, not for answers; the answers will be unique to YOU
35:40 Louisiana Supreme Court Ruling -and how do we frame media
39:08 “People don’t necessarily have the same passion for living beings who are who that they do for the potential for human life.”
40:27 Birthright: A War Story
42:42 Full Spectrum Doulas
What is an Abortion Doula? Episode #12
Documenting and Supporting Medical Abortion- The Abortion Project, Episode #2345:00 A Family Undertaking- Home Death Movement
