PHLEGM is gross. It’s a juicy, snotty bit of body fluid that makes us pray to God for a stray napkin. But phlegm is not just mucus. It is a response to inflammation produced by the lower airways. It is an indication of a more serious infection. Similarly, this zine is a response to frustration and curiosity. We want to represent and showcase. We want to educate and inform. We want to sneeze out our irrefutable anxieties about our experiences, and we hope you embrace PHLEGM as much as we do. As part of the SPIT IT OUT collective, PHLEGM wants to get nasty, deep down and personal.
PHLEGM is a zine that aims to give people a space to express themselves through art that centers on difficult topics. In particular, we want to reserve this platform for a large diversity of artists, with an emphasis on those in the LGBTQIA+ community, especially those trans/enby/gender non-conforming and QTPOC folk.
who are the spit it out collective? SPIT IT OUT is formed by team of people who aim is to build connections and provide a platform for discussions about sexual trauma, mental health, sex positivity, and healing though creativity. We wish to spread awareness of our project through a variety of art forms and creative events with live performances to challenge people’s perceptions about sex and consent and get people talking. Through our work, we hope to challenge popular narratives about sex and diversify the discussion about consent and trauma involving sex by providing a safe and inclusive space, as well as educate the community about consent, trauma, healthy sexuality, and pleasure. Find us on:
ISSUE #4
Dear readers, Welcome to issue 4 of PHLEGM zine by the Spit it Out Collective! This months issue is all about miscarriage, motherhood, abortion, ectoptic pregnancies and more. The issue is packed full of amazing artwork, photography, poetry, facts and essays. If this is a triggering subject for you, there is a page of resources for you (pgs 42, 43), feel free to skip straight to there. Thank you for reading, you are great and have a lovely day PHLEGM TEAM x
Let us head into the deep woods made up by hairs, bones and veins to finally Are you ready? I think I am. This journey is not entirely about me, this reach the seas of subconsciousness, that is a shared trip, across the centuries, vast waters, a forever sonata with the perhaps the aeons. From country to moon cycles. country, across the nations, a totally The internal moon, the womb, that dark space where life is forever created. Every mutual experience. month, the possibility of something new: birth. It connects the sisterhood as blood sisters, no need to cut our palm as the boys do. Nature simply provides It is like life itself is holding her breath, until the full moon, to, later on, exhale. us with that flow. This thing that Sometimes the exhale is in relief; someexpands beyond class, religion and nationality, tying us all together like a times the breath doesn’t flow out of our bodies, that easily. tightly knitted cloth. A similar experience of birth, death and life. It is the choices we make to Something has changed. create or let it go; that is, where you I have held my breath many times and find the magic. as many times I paused that flow, I had reasons for it. You are welcome, on a journey; A forever changing desire of what would through and over my body. be. I will take your hand. The first time was the summer I turned thirteen. Something within me started to tick, like a tiny clock – of life. The smallest wheel began to turn, tick tock tick tock. No strong emotions were involved, just an acknowledgement between me and nature. I held my breath for a couple of seconds, in excitement. I was different now, older. By the age of seventeen, nature did what nature does best, plant seeds and grow. I become aware that we humans have forever believed that we could
this time, I held my breath. First, I swallowed my breath in fear. Slowly this feeling changed to something else, like a new chapter, a new cycle. I was different now; I was ready. Perhaps it wasn’t planned, but more so fitting into the plan life had for me. University was about to finish and I remember buying pots for plants, I planted and potted for a few months and then the wheel turned again. This master it, we still can’t. time my breath stopped flowing. What was growing inside me had stopped My breath was flowing, and so did my breathing long before the blood started decision to remove what was placed to flow out of me. in that sacred space. Like the sky, without stars, a holding area for not That is what the doctor said. only life but also power. A high seat It was nothing left of life, even if just of complete knowledge. The womb. that, left so much inside me. Something was created. Grief and despair. My whole system No strong emotions were involved knew something new. only the belief that I wasn’t ready to carry a child, I was a child. Cycles, moons and seasons, that is how time is represented in nature. School, exams, university degrees and relationships, that is how time is illustrated in life. I was sitting on a toilet; it was my mother and me. I still remember that long and white piece of plastic. After a few attempts, I managed to wet it with my urine. Those lines again,
The journey took me to different plac- I was different now, older. es, with new partners. For some time, Almost too old, tick tock tick tock this urge to create human life subsided. like an alarm clock I couldn’t stop. I even remember pills consumed to stop just this process, my mind wasn’t In the aftermath of my attempts to crethere, in fact, my choices took me so far ate/to get rid of and to lose life, I have off the coast that I completely lost the been granted something. map that was given to me. The exact instructions of the moon’s travel across The woods whispered: Birth as the the oceans and when to raise sails in biggest mystery of them all. the best winds. The waters washed clean this place of shame and taboos calling out for her to always decide. The matter of fact was that I didn’t even This compelling choice we have as know when the moon was changing women, to wholeheartedly invite or shape in the sky and with that ancient reject life and that absolute cognition knowledge lost, I didn’t really feel my- that anything can grow in this womb. self either. A space holding the whole world. A few years went by without a map We call it creation, I call it the ultimate and possibly without a helmsman too. piece of art. Slowly the stars started to glimmer, first just a few and later that night the dark sky was lit up by millions of luminous dots. I steered my body towards a distant port. This place was for wishes, hopes and dreams, to finally move into motherhood. Everyone said IVFs were hard work, for me this seemed to be the easiest option. With instructions given by the captain, I injected and swallowed hormones. I held my breath once. I held my breath twice. I held my breath for a couple of seconds, in despair.
-Jannica Honey
Your precious life unfolding from the shelter of my womb into the blinding light of the world - it makes everything seem accomplished. The grace of your life brought peace somewhere on earth. Hidden somewhere in the French It brought peace to my longing soul countryside, the warmth of the sun on and stripped everything down to the my skin, the naked simplicity of a life burning desire to bask in love and creadictated by the sole purpose of nurtur- tion. Now we are drunk and exhausted, ing my baby. Love like I always craved from a very sober kind of drunkenness, it and feared it would elude me: over- pure and tender, content. Drunk on flowing, exhilarated, intimate, imme- loving you, we are submerged with a diate, something mystical. The promise source that cannot be contained. finally fulfilled of the fullness of life with the fullness of me. I, eternally My baby you ease the unbearable lightthirsty, yearning for an elsewhere, the ness of being. You anchor my caring untameable wilderness of my heart a body deeper into the soil of life, rooting lonely hunter, I, unrooted and unamy perpetual yearning into a love so ble to be fully born – I gave birth. I deep and so irrevocable I could never brought a new life into this world of escape again. In motherhood I found thirst and abundance. I became a root, the most intense and pure passion, a a life-giving spring from which love lust of creation simultaneously fulfilled pours. and reawakened. Birth-giving cracked me wide open and summoned me to an oceanic love deluging almighty over everything that is alive. Sacredness became something so palpably mundane and incarnate.
The Fountain
Could the ageless thirst ever be clenched – even by the magic of Merlin’s birth? Some days I find myself still gasping like a young bird, unsatisfied, for something that might have eluded me. Then I remember the succession of fullness and emptiness, the drunkenness, the fountain that I am, the overflowing. I remember I belong here. And I offered the world a new life of wandering with devotion. -Clara Woolf
abortion story - LĂŠa Luiz de Oliveira
Some people hate hospitals. They find them scary, smelly, morbid. And they are! In some ways. I personally feel safe in hospitals. No matter how many times I brought my friends to the emergency room, I always felt that we were in good hands. Doctors, nurses, receptionists: they knew what they were doing. The NHS funding cuts might have made their job harder but they were still the reason why people lived and survived. “She is at the hospital. She got an abortion and it did not go well. She needs a blood transfusion.� It was 9.30 am and it seemed too early for such news. I jumped on the bus and arrived at the clinic. My friend was in her bed and she was very pale. I started to feel anxious.
Little did we know she would spend two days in this section, bleeding constantly. Waiting for an operation that would fail. And that when she would have her fifth panic attack, the nurses would look at us, sitting in the middle of the corridor, refusing her the private room intimacy she deserved. What do you say to a friend who just felt the foetus of the child she still has to grieve, passing through the toilet? How do you make her laugh when babies are surrounding us while waiting for her echography? Why do you even try to find the good words when you know that this is a new trauma that she did not need? No matter how hard I tried not to judge and condemn the medical staff around us, I was shocked by the way they treated her through this difficult moment. I am still trying to process the fact they never asked her if she was suffering from PTSD (she was), if the abortion was a relief (it was not) or if she was okay with being surrounded by pregnant women all day (she wasn’t). I left soon after her mother arrived. There was something so precious seeing two generations trying to overcome this gendered experience together with love and respect. I did not want to intrude.
soon as I could. Today, I know even that is not enough! Most unwanted pregnancies happen while women are on contraception. Ironic, isn’t? So many of my friends, of my friends’ friends, of our mothers, grandmothers were faced with this decision. Generations and generations going through a similar experience, in different contexts. And still today, it is taboo to mention it. A few days later, we were about to launch the Spit it Out project with a live performance event at Paradise Palms. But Bee was back at the hospital. The doctors had forgotten some thing in her uterus. The bleeding was getting worse. And she was getting weaker. I think I’ve never wished to be angry more. To feel rage, directed to someone or something. But all I could feel that day was sadness and tiredness. I had never been as conscious of the real consequences of toxic masculinity and patriarchy. I remember the time these were just words. For years, the aggressions, the disgusting words, the stares and the bruises were automatically linked to my personal experience and not to the gender, both society and Biology, bestowed upon my friends and I at birth.
I never had an abortion. I am so afraid That afternoon my friend Emma, who of getting pregnant that I got a coil as is a midwife, called. She was back
from a night shift at the hospital. I joined her at this little café in the meadows we love so much. It did not take me more than a couple of minutes, to start crying. “How do you do it? How do you see all of this, every single day, and keep going?” She smiled and started telling me about this baby she helped deliver that night. About the happiness she had seen on the new parents faces. “It’s not all bad, you know. We tend to forget how powerful and strong women are. Childbirth is the extreme representation of what the female body can do. The Important thing is that is stays a choice. No matter what you decide to do when you get pregnant, you should feel respected and cared for.” I started thinking about how amazed I am by the strength of the women around me. How could I not be? I see women who take life changing decisions and go back to work the next day, I see women being mistreated by their partners, their doctors, their bosses and smiling through humiliations and aggressions because they know they have no other choices. I see women holding entire families together with love, compassion and care. Women who struggle with pain every month being disregarded by the entire medical community. Women who give speeches, create powerful pieces, take time to help others.
On the evening of the launch, Bee walked in the bar with a fierce look on her face. “What are you doing here? You can’t perform like this!” She looked at me, as she does when she wants you to know that it’s useless to try to convince her. “I told the doctor to let me go. I’ll have the operation tomorrow. I want to be here.” That night, I watched her perform her new poems about bleeding out her dream to become a mother. I could see the audience, profoundly touched by the way her words expressed the feelings she was processing in front of their eyes. And I could not feel any prouder.
Us for All Women – a visual art project about abortion by Camila Cavalcante
As a visual artist with a background in journalism, I have an interest in investigating how art can connect personal and social issues, how it creates empathy. Through the use of documentary photography, my work intertwines embroidery, the written word and installation to create a place in which the idea of ‘private’ and ‘public’ overlap and complement each other. I am particularly interested in exploring women’s issues and how I can transform intimate and personal stories into collective narratives.
protected. I have taken nude self-portraits holding and hugging these women in their homes, with their back to the camera, while I reveal my face, exposing my body and my identity in their name. I photographed a total of 50 women between 2016 and 2019 all around the country. If prosecuted, these women could go to prison for up to 3 years. As a result of the project, I have created the bilingual book For the Lives of All Women, published by Break the Habit Press, in 2019.
In Brazil, abortion is only legal to save the woman’s life, in case of a foetus without a brain and in cases of rape. Despite this prohibition, research made by the Anis Institute suggest that one in five women between 14 and 40 years old have had at least one abortion in their lives. These women risk their lives undergoing unregulated procedures with pseudo doctors and no psycholog- The title of the images refer to the year in which each woman experienced an ical support. illegal abortion. The images are always accompanied quotes of their own Within this context, for the three years, I have worked on a project that testimonials. explores the idea of the female body If you would like to know more about as a confrontational space, bringing people together in the fight for women’s the project, please visit reproductive rights: Nós Por Todas – in www.camilacavalcante.com/usforall English, Us For All Women. I developed a network of women in Brazil that If you like to buy the book, please visit joined the debate and shared with me tinyurl.com/ftloaw their experiences and opinions about illegal abortion, with their identities
Us for All Women in 2005 You face judgement from other people at all stages. On my journey, I did not find a single person who understood me and no one gave me support. When I found out I was pregnant, I knew I didn’t want to have the baby. The father was the first person I talked to. I told him I didn’t want it and asked for his help. His reaction was, ‘It’s not my problem, there’s nothing I can do’. After that, I cut all ties with him. He was an idiot who didn’t have any empathy for the human being in front of him. I didn’t know who else I could talk to. My family was putting a lot of pressure on me not to tell anyone. I couldn’t talk to my friends or anyone else. I talked to a doctor and he only spoke to me about the moral side of having an abortion. He told me that what I was doing was wrong, as if any part of this hellish process was easy.”
Us for All Women in 2017 He said that he wanted to have a family with me and that he loved me. Then, unexpectedly, he told me that wasn’t what he meant, that he was not ready to be a father, and that the choice to have the child or not was up to me. What choice was that? Have a baby alone again while he would be a father when it suited him, or not have a baby. I see that as an appropriation of feminist speech: it was convenient for him that the ‘choice’ was mine. The moment I found out I was pregnant was when I nee ed him most. I made the choice to have an abortion because he said that he didn’t want to be with me anymore. I wanted to have a baby with him by my side, with his support. I didn’t want to change my life completely and end up on my own with a child.”
Us for All in 2006 Between 11 and 18 years old I was part of an Evangelical Christian congregation and they were very intolerant. That weighed on me, but I had to have an abortion for myself. Sorry, but I’m not going to consider God in that moment; it’s my decision, it’s my problem, it’s my life. I didn’t feel anything about the pregnancy at the time. The only thing I could think about was what I had to do to get out of the situation. I could not have a child. I had to find a way out of that nightmare. Although I was adamant that it was what I wanted, I spent a while blaming myself for the abortion. I thought I had committed a terrible sin because everyone around me viewed abortion as the taking of a ‘life’. Yet, if I had chosen to have the child, no one would have helped me. It’s hypocritical.”
Fearing the uterus, fearing the outside world Dreams can be our subconscious’ way of nudging us to explore what goes on in our psyche. There are the common ones, of course. We fly, fall down from heights, or our teeth crumble. Some feel like we’re forced to gulp down a revolting soup straight out of a Gargantuan casserole. We feel nauseated and can’t understand what the hell we’ve just ingested because it’s composed of unrelated pantry ingredients. They don’t work well together: sugar, cumin, marmite, jam. But they’re all in the same cupboard. And you, the clumsy chef, decided to mix them all up as a midnight snack. Some dreams, though, come with impressive timing. Your ever-simmering psyche presents you with a picture so precise that it leaves you no choice. You feel the need to confront and understand it.
Literal reading: the fears The first reading is that the man in the room is a husband, any cishet husband. Him asking me if I’d like to peel him a pomegranate is a trope borrowed from real life. I had one of those dreams (well, nightmares) related to a discussion with a person who’s no longer in my life. They had spoken about childbirth in a context that I didn’t consent to, and which was the violation of a clear boundary.
Picture the Turkish household. Not mine, but the one I saw on TV as a kid. The breadwinner comes home tired and eats the meals that the wife has prepared. The parents and the children, all cishet, then gather in front of the TV to share apple slices as a family In my dream, I was in a room with a bonding activity. Not a single meanman. The man asked me if I’d like to ingful word is spoken between them: peel him a pomegranate. I said, “sure.” just the lurid screen, some loud voices, He got up and said with a sneer, “but and the peeled fruit. Perfect harmothis is a different kind, it’s called white ny. A bland cocoon of patriarchy that pomegranate. You’ll see.” He went into doesn’t seem fundamentally harmful, another room and came back with a just dull. But then comes the lurking massive, white python. He told me to calamity. The trusted, docile man has cut it. I refused. He insisted, saying something in mind. And he won’t let that this “snake pomegranate” was go until he gets what he wants… good for my health and that I must have some. Sickened, I refused once This reading of the dream shows three more, so he took his knife and cut things. 1. What a traditional, patriaropen the snake. To my surprise, luschal cishet marriage can do to somecious white pomegranate grains came one, especially to a woman, scares me. out of its belly. They looked appetizing, The dull life, the coercions, the lack of but I still felt revolted. He forced me to freedom. 2. The reproductive potential eat them. of piving*, and all its baggage feels too much to handle. 3. Trusting someone Despite the glaring phallus, this dream enough to allow them in my private isn’t just about sex or pregnancy. I space only for them to violate my trust have a few takes on it that relate to one and assault me is a terrifying prospect. another. Rather than being afraid to commit to
someone as a lifelong partner, I fear that the person I trust will turn out awful. Is there always a potential for domestic violence and sexual abuse? Can good people become terrifying monsters? Can you allow anybody in?
Because to me, it’s a reaffirmation that despite my efforts, I’m not seen as me. I’m seen as a bride-to-be, a wife-tobe, and a mother-to-be. By default. Because I don’t go out of my way to appear different, because so far I’ve only been with men in various points Second reading: gender, im- of the cis spectrum though my attracposed tion is not limited to them. And there is another social construct behind In the less literal reading, the man these expectations. If I’m neither wife represents society. A part of it that’s nor mother, and since I’m not getting conventional but that I’ve still allowed any younger, will I be yet another “old in. We try to relax and hang out, but maid” in the family? No way! it just can’t stop pushing its standards on what my body should do down I’m a genderless person in my opinmy throat. Like they do to the geese. ion. But OK, if you want to call me a The more I voice my unwillingness woman because I look cis, do that, I to procreate, the more it tells me how don’t really mind. Of course, because healthy it is for me to be, to act a cer- of the way I present, I’ve had the life tain way. experience of a cis woman, not a trans, intersex or openly agender person. It should be considered rude to bring That’s why, I often feel like an imposter up another person’s reproductive classifying myself as queer, just as I feel system or genitals when they didn’t like an imposter when I say I’m cis. consent to it. So why is it normal for The societal gaze directed at me wasn’t family members to push for babies? “you’re out of the ordinary, who are What’s in it for you, really? Where do you?”. It was “you seem to be a cishyou get the freedom to speculate on et woman, so why don’t you act like my love or sex life? Why do you care one?”. My life’s been easier for many about what I would or wouldn’t do reasons, also because my nuclear family with my existent reproductive system is open-minded. But if I wasn’t me but (that may or may not be working)? somebody more openly queer, would my nuclear family be as open-minded? Every time I get asked when I’ll get I ask myself that a lot. My life has been married or have children, I get upmore comfortable than the majority of set. It’s almost irrational how much it queer people. I can hide my identity for ruins my day. safety if I need to, without betraying
myself too much. My family never coerces me to be a certain way: I can just endlessly roll my eyes at their remarks. It wouldn’t have a significant effect on my life. LGBTQAI+ face a lot of problems, from online harassment to real-life threats, even without the child issue. And of course, in societies where discussions on these vital issues are less common, problems can be even more intense. You could be a lesbian married off to some man who finds it within his rights to repeatedly impregnate you. And it’s not just cis women who get pregnant. Will pregnancy, or the lack of that possibility invalidate my sense of self and identity, despite my efforts to acknowledge and assert it? I’m not out but can conceive and don’t have access to safe abortion; will I ever be able to be myself if I get pregnant either by choice or coercion? Will I be safe? Will healthcare staff treat me well? Will society accept me as I am, without judgment and abuse?
Sex, too, of course. But sex isn’t inherently painful and blood-soaked, whereas the other two are. The pomegranate seeds pouring out of the beautiful animal’s carved belly look revolting and appealing at the same time. I think that’s a perfect image summing up the conflicting feelings one can have on these facts of life. Traditionally, at least two people who can procreate are needed to form a baby. Science is changing that now but the traditional way is very much still in use. Both pregnancy and abortion are physical processes that affect the body and mind of only one party. Unless you’re both seahorses, in which case, fabulous. But this power and freedom imbalance between the pregnant and the non-pregnant feels unfair. Why do I have to endure all that bodily and emotional pain and alteration when the other party could walk out, forgetting anything ever happened?
Imagine both people orgasmed (ideally speaking) by unprotected piving*. Last reading: the alien body But an accident ensued. One could enand medical fears joy the orgasm with or without guilt, then walk away. The other has two The final reading of the dream points options. They could go through with to disgust. An alienation with some as- the pregnancy or choose not to. pects of the body. It’s a highly sensory dream, in fact: it’s fleshy, slimy, gory. If they choose pregnancy, their jourDon’t these carnal images remind you ney will be difficult. Even in the most of childbirth and abortion? ideal cases where they have social and
familial support. Childbirth, be it traditional or caesarian, is invasive. There isn’t a single case where it doesn’t alter the body. When they have a child, the person will need to make adjustments to their entire life based on the child’s needs. Another risk would be a miscarriage: also burdensome on the mind and body. If the person chose not to go through with the pregnancy and acted early, they could get a pill. It doesn’t always work, messes up your hormones, and sometimes makes you feel like you’ll bleed forever. But it’s an option. Or you could get an abortion. In EU countries, Britain and the US, there are still religious maniacs protesting against innocent women, heartbeat bills and unkind doctors. Abortion is empowering but it can also, at times, be traumatic not necessarily because of the act itself but because of the cruelty of the system. But if this pregnant person wants an abortion in another country, say Turkey (because that’s the one I know), well... Most pregnant people in Turkey don’t know that abortion is legal. On paper, it is. But if you call a state hospital, chances are the doctor will tell you that the ministry doesn’t allow it (even though it bloody does). Private hospitals aren’t much better, and they’re expensive. All hospitals keep records which they may or may not
share with your family. The family may or may not approve of you sleeping around (and may or may not act violently, going as far as murdering you). So what do you do? You go to a semi-illegal or at least unmonitored clinic where you can’t expect niceness. You’ll just have to be grateful that they’re taking the thing away. Abortion in Turkey is a social, psychological, medical, and sanitary minefield. And it’s not even the worst place on earth. So I guess in the end, all things considered... No one can blame an accidental uterus-owner for having nightmares about involuntary pregnancy and the societal gaze on their body and life choices. Right? -Nisan Yetkin
*piving - penis and vagina penetrative sex
dull roots with spring rain
-Nisan Yetkin
Is this the father? You’re filled with a multitude of emo- “Is this the father?” tions, The question echoes through your Not really knowing what to do, mind, But you decide the best thing is to be And in a slight state of confusion, educated, You sit there, On how she’ll be medicated Waiting, So that if needed, you’ll have a clue Ready, About what’s going on. But now, feeling slightly side-lined, Or at least you won’t get lost in a sea of As if someone decided to take your medical terms only line in the movie. You’ve never heard of. As the distance between you, So, now filled with a small sense of And the rest of the room grows, confidence, You think back to your research. Or at least a level of pride in the reBut nothing you read prepared you for search you’ve done, this feeling. You sit there, You read so much about how she Waiting, would feel, Ready, But not you. And as her name is called, In fact, thinking back, You get up and follow, There wasn’t much for you. Giving her hand a reassuring squeeze And as you sit there, along the way, Waiting, And when you get to the room, Ready, You sit there, For your turn to speak, Waiting, Ready, Or at least a chance to use the things To go get some water if needed, you took the time to learn, To answer any question directed at you, It’s hard not to feel like you’re just the To be a part of the process. guy who provided the sperm -Segun Oyebanjo
Some haikus with the title ‘Trying to conceive after loss’ by Carmen Ponce
news one has e m o s ness When and sick c i n a p l me? You fee n’t it be a c y h W
They sa y it is fi But the ne y don’t And dis know the pani c appoin tment
hink not to t y en r t u o Y have be ld u o c t hat i About w why it wasn’t Or
It’s not fair Like yo u are no to feel t good e n To be a woman ough
facts and definitions researched and compiled by Victoria Ponce Hardy
references
1 https://www.mariestopes.org/the-challenge/ 2 https://www.bpas.org/abortion-care/considering-abortion/ 3 https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/im-pregnant/early-pregnancy/how-common-miscarriage 4 https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/pregnancy-complications/ baby-loss/ectopic-pregnancy-information-and-support 5 https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/pregnancy-complications/ baby-loss/molar-pregnancy-information-and-support 6 https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/premature-early-labour/ 7 https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(15)00837-5) 8 https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/pregnancy-complications/baby-loss/stillbirth-information-and-support) 9 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/newborns-reducing-mortality) 10 https://www.sands.org.uk/about-sands/baby-death-current-picture) 11 https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/sudden-infant-death-syndrome-sids/ :
drip tw: abortion
Everything is covered in blood. drip drip gush little Rose petals trace the way from bed to bathroom the toilet bowl is a spluttering mess. just like my head Although, that seems to be floating on through. drip drip gush Every pad I put on is put in the bin from tip to tip wing to wing soaking wet a bloody mess. A bloody mary will sort it out. vodka, pickled onions, cucumber. salt and pepper. Tomato, Tomata. how am i still bleeding... how is there even any blood left in me, for it to be pouring down my leg like a spilt drink. Everything is covered in blood. drip drip gush
My trousers are soaked, you could wring them out I should really keep note of all the pants I’ve destroyed with this eternal bleeding, this infernal bleeding, continuous gush this drip drip bloody thighs, In doctors we trust. I don’t want to go back in there. To where My bairn was cremated and scattered, on the hospital Rose Beds. To there, Where They woke me in the night, my diazepam haze It felt really tight, and I screamed in the pains of not just physical memories of forced entries and fear. To there, Where i’d told them before i’d told them again, just like I’d told him. and it wasn’t passed on Say it once, Say it twice and still be ignored disregarded and left in a muss, in a puddle of blood, drip drip gush.
wee
tw: abortion
Its weird going for a wee and lumps of flesh Not falling out It’s weird that we were a we and now I’m here just on my stout Feeling feelings I ain’t aware of, considering if there should be doubt, or relief or a missing that we were a we. or just sitting here considering all the things that we could have been. I coulda helped you to find your feet I coulda watched you grow from sweet innocent and unaware to courageous, stupid without a care To a fully fledged human, who would know that I was always there there for them. You woulda called me Ma, and I woulda liked that. You would loved your Da, he was a funny sorta cat a real charmer just like you woulda been you’dve had his smile and we woulda been a strong team. You woulda held me when you were sad or I was, an I woulda laughed with you when you were happy but for now I pause. throughout my day to consider who you could have been. I keep sitting on the toilet thinking about the moment you passed through me. I keep considering what could have been just sitting on the toilet thinking about the moment we no longer were a we.
-poems and illustration by bee asha singh
Whatever you are feeling is normal, no matter how much time has gone by. Your feelings are valid and i m p o r t a n t . We have compiled a list of links and phone numbers where you can access information, talk to someone and find support.
Support & resources in Scotland/UK: NHS information on pregnancy and birth https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/when-pregnancy-goeswrong/ The miscarriage association https://www.miscarriageassociation.org.uk/how-we-help/ info@miscarriageassociation.org.uk 01924200799, 9am-4pm, Monday to Friday Tommy’s Pregnancy Hub (pregnancy and baby loss centre, Edinburgh) www.tommys.org/pregnancy Free Pregnancy Line 0800 0147 800, 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday Sands – stillbirth and neonatal death charity https://www.sands.org.uk/support-you – helpline, email, bereavement support app plus other resources to support you 08081643332 helpline@sands.org.uk Lullaby trust (SIDS) www.lullabytrust.org.uk Bereavement support 0808 802 6868, www.lullabytrust.org.uk Information on abortion in Scotland https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/abortion/; https://www.bpas.org/abortion-care/considering-abortion/ Information on abortion in the UK for trans, intersex, non-binary people https://www.bpas.org/abortion-care/considering-abortion/trans-non-binary-and-intersex-people/ Information on terminating a pregnancy for medical reasons https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/pregnancy-complications/baby-loss/terminating-pregnancy-medical-reasons-tfmr Information of Eptopic Pregnancies https://ectopic.org.uk/
Contributors As always, a huge thank you to all of the contributors for telling their stories, for sharing and for being vulnerable. To find more of their work, head to the links below for their instagram or twitter handles. Jannica Honey - @jannicahoney (IG) Clara Woolf - @gigi.antoinette (IG) Camila Calvante - @camilacalvanteart (IG) Nisan Yetkin - @playfully_accurate (IG) Segun Oyebanjo - @shogunshato (IG) Carmen Ponce - @carmen.ponce_ (IG) Victoria Ponce Hardy - @vponcehardy (twitter) Bee Asha Singh - @tupacahontas (IG) LĂŠa Luiz de Oliveira - @lea_luizdeoliveira (IG) Formatted by Aph - @abiponcehardy (IG)