Host: Sarah Austin Jenness
Sarah: [00:00:01] Welcome to The Moth Podcast. I'm Sarah Austin Jenness, The Moth's executive producer.
Here in the United States, Mother's Day is just around the corner. So, on today's podcast, we're sharing three favorite Moth stories about moms.
First up is Donna Edwards. Donna told this story at a Moth SLAM in Houston.
[cheers and applause]
And the theme that night was Love Hurts. Here's Donna Edwards, live at The Moth.
Donna: [00:00:26] Okay, this is my first time, and there's a lot of you. [audience chuckles] Okay. I was in this relationship with this woman that I was madly in love with. Five years after the relationship, she came to me and she told me that she wanted to have a baby. And I was like, "Huh? [audience laughter] You don't want me to have this baby?" And she's like, "No, no, no. I'm the oldest. I should have it." And I'm like, "Yes, yes." [audience laughter] She goes, "Will you be willing to go through this for me?" I sit there for a minute, and I went, "Yeah. I really love you. Yes, I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Yes.”
Well, for three years, she tried her best to have a baby and couldn't. We went through in vitro, we harvested her eggs, we did everything. And one day, she came to me and she goes, "We're not going to have a child." And I said, "Well, I'm really sorry that we're not going to have a child, but we'll be okay. I'm a kid for all of us. It'll be okay.” [audience chuckles]
Well, then my best friend had my godson, and I got the privilege of being in the room. When his little head came out and I was standing there watching all of it, thinking I was going to throw up, but [audience chuckles] I didn't. I went home that evening, and I told the love of my life that I would try and have a child for us. And she was ecstatic. She was like, "Are you serious?" And believe it or not, I am the butch one in the family. [audience chuckles] And I said, "Yes, I can do this." [audience applause]
All my butch friends were like, "What the fuck?" [audience laughter] [audience applause]
And I'm like, "Yeah, I was surprised too." [audience laughter] So, I go in to the doctors and we tell our doctor, "Donna's going to try." And he even said, "What the fuck?" [audience laughter] And I'm like, "I can do this. I am a strong human being." Even though I never wanted anything moving inside of me, that was a little gross, [audience chuckles] but I figured I wouldn't get pregnant. She didn't. Well, I got pregnant on the second try. [audience chuckles]
So, she's begging me that morning to pee on the stick. And I'm like, "Fine, fine, fine, fine." I go in there and I pee, and I said, "So how many lines are we supposed to have?" And she went, "Two." And I went, "Oh, fuck." [audience chuckles] And she went, "How many lines are there?" I went, "Two." I sit there for a minute and I thought, oh, my God, can I actually do this?
I didn't have a very good mother. She left me when I was five. You can only imagine the panic that went through me. But I looked at this woman and I thought, wow, I love you. I will do this. So, pregnancy, they start kicking, they start moving, you start peeing everywhere because they've decided to lay somewhere. [audience chuckles] The day comes and the doctor tells me, "You cannot have this naturally." And I'm like, "Well, why not?" He says, "Your coochie's not big enough." [audience chuckles] I'm like, "What?" He goes, "Your baby's head big. It won't come through there." [audience laughter] I said, "Okay. Okay. So, what does this mean?" He goes, "We're going to cut you open." I went, "Oh, hell no." [audience chuckles] I said, "Serious?" And he went, "Serious. Serious."
So, we scheduled a date. Friends gathered around, but only two of us could go in, thank God. So, they cut this child out of me, and they show her to me and it's the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen in my life. With all this little white gook on it and I'm like, "Damn, could you clean it?" [audience laughter] And then, it started crying. And that was the beautifulest cry I'd ever heard in my life. But then, they had to take it, because I got some gestational diabetes and shit, so they had to take it to the NICU.
So, I'm not really good on pain medication. I don't like drugs. I had the baby at 9 o'clock in the morning. 07:30 came around. I'm like, "Where the hell is my baby?" Because every baby that went by and it started crying, my partner would jump up. I'd go, "That's not it. That's not it." Well, at around 07:30, I heard her coming into the room. It was a great experience.
They laid her in my arms and I tried to breastfeed. I am truly a dyke. I had no milk. [audience laughter] So, we had to give her formula. [audience laughter] Well, about two years old, my partner looks at me and she says, "I'm not in love with you anymore." [audience aww] She quit her job. She stayed home. I worked, provided for the family. She tells me one day she's not in love with me anymore. And I'm like, "How can this be?" I've always promised myself that if I ever had a child, I would stay with the woman that I had the child with. Well, that didn't work out.
I told her that I'm going to have to leave. And she's like, "No, we can be roommates." And I'm like, "No, I don't think I could spend the rest of my life being with a woman who's not in love with me." She looked at me and she goes, "You're going to leave the baby, right?" I went, "No, I'm the bitch with the scar." [audience laughter] Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Sarah: [00:06:05] Donna Edwards is a plumbing and medical gas designer. She works in hospitals all over the United States and has lived in Houston for the past 20 years. These days, Donna co-parents with her daughter's other mother. And she wrote to tell us that her daughter is 15 now and a perfectly well-adjusted young lady.
Up next, we have a story from Rachel Ollerenshaw. Rachel shared her story at a SLAM in London, where the theme of the night was Celebration. Here's Rachel, live from London.
[cheers and applause]
Rachel: [00:06:38] On the 24th of June, 2011, when I decided to celebrate my daughter Molly's eight years of life, we had a sort of party, if you want to call it that, where all of her friends came and lots of people came, but they weren't invited. [audience chuckles] And it goes back to probably three months earlier and maybe even five years earlier, where if you can imagine, in March before that, my husband and I decided to pick my daughter up, Molly, from school early, and take her out of school, and take her somewhere and have a chat with her. And this chat wasn't your average chat. This chat was a chat to say, “Actually, Molly, you've been fighting cancer for the last four and a half years and we've got to the point where we can't do anything more."
Can you imagine having to tell your eight-year-old daughter this? We were always very honest with Molly. Molly was a very bright little girl. And so, we said to her, "Molly, you have three choices. You can either have some more chemotherapy. It's not going to make you better this time, it's just going to give you a little bit more time.” Or, “You could be part of clinical trials." She very quickly turned around to me and said, "Mum, I don't want to be a guinea pig." Or, “You could do nothing.” Molly, eight years old, you think, how can an eight-year-old make a decision about life? But she did. She came to me two days later and she said, "Actually, I've decided I don't want anything more."
You have to understand, Molly had four and a half years of all sorts of different treatments, stem cell transplants, she'd had all sorts of operations, blood transfusions, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, everything and anything. So, she came to me and said, "I don't want to do anything more. I've had enough of hospitals, I don't want to do it." So, for those three months, basically, we celebrated a life. And Molly chose different things that she wanted to do within that time. This is a hugely humbling experience as a parent. She did all sorts of things, like she did an awards ceremony, an Oscar ceremony, for her friends to celebrate her funniest friend, her most sportiest friend, and all sorts of different things like that. She had wonderful days out and did many fantastical things, but small things and simple things.
Suddenly, when you get faced with those decisions in life, actually, you realize how precious it is and how much you need to celebrate life. And so, actually, on the 24th of June, 2011 is the day of Molly's funeral. You find yourself in a position where you're celebrating a life with lots of friends and kids that don't quite get it, and yet it's really special and really important. I always thought, can she really get this? Actually, when we told her these three choices in life, we were on the way to a party, because the bizarre thing is when you're actually terminally ill, you still look fine, you can still do lots of things.
We were on the way to a party for her friends at a leisure center near to us. We were driving along talking about everything and anything, and Molly turned to me and she said, "Mum, when I'm gone, can you make sure that Maeve, her little sister, if she has children, can you make sure they get my Flower Fairies book?" And as a mum, I was obviously streaming with tears, thinking, oh my God, my daughter completely gets it. I'd never have thought that an eight-year-old could comprehend life and death so simply. And in the next breath, she said to me, "Now, can you make sure you look like you haven't been crying when we get to the party?" And I'm like, "Yeah. Okay, fine, fine,” trying to compose myself.
So, really, my story is about celebrating life. And from that moment on, I thought, if Molly can do it at eight years old, if she can celebrate life and get on with it, then so can I. Actually, that's hopefully what we go on and do. I have two other lovely children that actually, rather than dwell on what we haven't got, hopefully we can celebrate what we have got. So, my story is about a celebration of life. However short or long it may be, it's very precious.
[applause]
Sarah: [00:11:08] That was Rachel Ollerenshaw. Rachel is a mom to three children, Ben, Molly and Maeve. She's also co-founder of the charity Molly Ollys Wishes, which supports children with life-threatening illnesses. To date, Molly Ollys Wishes has raised over £1.6 million and has helped thousands of children by granting wishes, giving them therapeutic stuffed animals named Olly the Brave and two books, Olly The Brave and the Wigglys and Olly being Brave and Chemotherapy. For photos of Rachel, Molly and the rest of the family and info about Molly Ollys Wishes, please visit our website, themoth.org.
Before we go, we have time for one more story. This comes to us from Alexandra Rosas by way of our Madison, Wisconsin SLAMs. The theme that night was Love Hurts. And to close us out, here's Alexandra Rosas.
[cheers and applause]
Alexandra: [00:12:05] So, there's a phrase that professional organizers use. It's called action prone. Action prone is when you ruthlessly disown, and declutter and discard everything. I am not action prone. I am action resistant.
So, my husband and I were getting ready to move into a bigger house. I was fighting it all the way. We have three kids and there was so much that we had to get rid of. And I understand it, we're not going to use our new house as a storage unit, so I had to get rid of everything. But he was action prone. I mean, he was going through everything. Like somebody told him they stuck a million dollars in the house and he was going to find it. [audience chuckles]
So he gets into the family room and he looks like-- Mark, I'm sorry, I know you're here. [audience laughter] He Looks like a windmill. I mean, he is just tearing stuff off. But when his hand reaches for the Little Bear DVD, I freak out. “No, not Little Bear.” [audience chuckles] He looks at me and he uses that voice that you hear in the movies when somebody's about to jump off the ledge of a building. Moving is stressful. So, he's trying to talk me down and he's like, "Honey, it's Little Bear.” [audience chuckles] I know it's Little Bear. It's all about Little Bear. I know it's Little Bear.
So, we start arguing about Little Bear, because this is what you fight about when you've been married 10 years. [audience chuckles] So, he's trying to get me to get rid of everything. I can't get rid of it, because what he can't hear in my action-resistant insanity is that Little Bear is where I learned how to mother. Now, my mother came to this country, had to work a full-time job, two part-time jobs. She was a single mother with six kids. She was scared. She was so scared that if she was a burden in any way, America would send her back. Her children would have to stay here and she'd be gone. So, she worked.
She gave us everything we needed. I mean, we never ran out of toilet paper. Think about that. All these people in this house, how did she do it? [audience chuckles] There was nothing that we ever needed. But I didn't know how to mother. So, I would put in Little Bear and whatever Little Bear's mother did, I did for that day with my kids. Mud pies in the woods, painting outside, surprise cakes. I mean, I did all this stuff that Little Bear did. It sounds so stupid, but it was the only way that I knew how to do anything.
So, my kids would be broken-hearted if they ever knew this story because [audience chuckles] they're thinking, "I'm this awesome mom." Actually, I would just put in Little Bear's like, “Ah. [audience laughter] I know what we're doing today. We're making pancakes in the shape of your initials." [audience laughter] So, one morning, that's exactly what I was doing. Little Bear's mother had made L and B for Little Bear. So, I was going through my kids, Alexander and Xavier and Augie, and I was making their pancakes and I heard my kids talking about me.
One said, "She's obsessed with us." [audience laughter] I hear another voice, "She needs a life." [audience laughter] The third one, "How can we get her to find another hobby?" [audience laughter] That hurts. I was doing everything for them that I had longed for as a kid. But how do your kids know what you bring into their lives? They don't know you before you are their mother. I had everything for my mom, but I had an ache for her. I was too young to understand the language of providing. She provided, but what I ached for was her. Now that I'm a mother, I realize that as much as I wanted her, she wanted us too.
So, I'm listening to my kids and I'm right at that point where you have to make a decision how you're going to handle it. You either start saving money, so that they're in therapy for the rest of their lives, [audience chuckles] or you talk to them honestly. I try to explain to them I'm doing what I wished I would have had as a kid.
So, I read an article that said that our DNA, our parents' experience is carried in our DNA. I also believe that as the DNA is carried forward, we can pull it back, so that every time I touch my kids, every time I tell them I love you, my mother gets to feel through my hands what she missed the first time around. Love hurts, but love also heals. And if my mother were alive today, she'd say, "Mija, you were right to fight for that Little Bear DVD, because we needed that Little Bear in our lives." Thank you.
[cheers and applause]
Sarah: [00:17:57] That's Alexandra Rosas. Alexandra is a first-generation American and a humor writer whose stories have been included in the columns Aiming Low, Funny, Not Slutty, Milwaukee Moms and others. Alexandra was named BlogHer Voice of the Year for humor, and she's also a cast member of Madison's local Listen to Your Mother show, which is a national series of live readings by local writers in celebration of Mother's Day. Alexandra still has the Little Bear DVD too, something she says she'll never not have. You can see a picture of that on our website themoth.org, as well as other pictures from our storytellers in this week's episode.
So, that's going to do it for us this time. We hope you have a story-worthy week. And three cheers for all the moms out there. We're thinking of you, we love you and we're sending you lots of thanks.
Timothy: [00:18:47] Sarah Austin Jenness is the Executive Producer of The Moth, and is also a host of The Moth Radio Hour.
Sarah: [00:18:54] Podcast production by Timothy Lou Ly. The Moth Podcast is presented by PRX, the Public Radio Exchange, helping make public radio more public at prx.org.