People LIke Her(59)
“That’s so moving: honoring the mother goddess in that way is just magical. Ob. Sessed. Okay, another one for you wonderful women. Do you all ever talk about your cycles together? I’m fascinated by them as, really, aren’t they what defines us as women, the source of our power and strength? I like to keep a discharge diary, so I have a record throughout the whole month. I think it’s so important to be honest about our hormones,” says Hero.
“Oh yes.” I nod, dying a tiny bit inside. Imagine thinking the most interesting part of a woman is what you mop up and flush down the toilet each month—and then building an entire bloody brand around it.
“As you know, we are all about honesty,” I continue solemnly. “We want to use our platforms to lift other women up, support them to tell their own truth.” I hold Sara and Suzy’s hands a little tighter. “Of course, we’ve all managed to sync cycles too—remember when that happened in school with your BFFs?—because clearly even my womb loves these ladies to bits!” I laugh.
A thought suddenly occurs to me: It couldn’t be one of them, could it, posting those pictures of Coco? Driving me off Instagram would certainly grow their share of the pie. And it was Suzy who’d told us. Maybe it’s all of them? It’s hard to imagine any of them actually breaking in, of course. But it’s not entirely impossible to imagine them getting someone else to do it.
For goodness’ sake, Emmy, just listen to yourself.
Maybe it’s getting to me more than I thought, all this.
“How do you cope with the changes in your body during your time of the month? As you all know, I founded the #positiveperiod movement because I really, truly believe that celebrating the physical sensations that come along with menstruation is such a radical act of self-care. The patriarchy wants us to medicalize it, but I say we should embrace it. For example, I am wearing a moonstone, which I sell on my Etsy page—link in bio, ladies—as it has been proven to be more effective than painkillers.” Hero smiles, pointing to her necklace. “Then there’s lapis lazuli . . .”
As she drones on about her enchanted rocks, I can see Irene receive a text, her eyes suddenly widening. She winks and motions at me to leave the room with her, silently mouthing, Sorry, to Hero, who’s moved onto the healing properties of sticking cabbage leaves down your pants. We quietly shut the door and, out in the corridor, Irene squeezes my arm.
“It’s the BBC,” says Irene. “They’ve asked me to call them back. Just a second.”
She leaves me in the corridor while she wanders off to find better phone reception, returning moments later with a huge smile on her face. “It’s a yes, Emmy. Your own show. ‘Blown away by your raw honesty’ were the words they used, in fact. You must have really nailed it with that video!”
“You didn’t watch it before you sent it over?” I ask incredulously.
“I didn’t have time! Show it to me now—I want to see what won them over.”
I pull my phone out, find the clip, and press play. There I am. No makeup on, grey T-shirt that only makes me look more washed-out and tired. Eyes downcast. Clutching one of Bear’s teddies, sitting in the armchair by his cot.
I’m Emmy Jackson—Mamabare to lots of you—and I have something I’d like to share. I built my platform, my following, on honesty. But I haven’t been quite honest with the world, until now.
I have been thinking for a long time about how to tell you what I am about to—whether to share it at all. This will sound crazy, but I think I have been a bit embarrassed maybe, a bit ashamed. I have to open up now though as I feel like there is a huge part of my life, a huge part of me, that you just don’t know about. I feel that by denying it, I’m denying the three little lives we lost ever had the right to exist at all, when actually they are as important as if they were here right now.
Three miscarriages. And that pain, the guilt, the desperation, they just don’t disappear. I can be happy one minute, or perhaps not quite happy but not achingly sad, and then it will just hit me. Three people who would have been part of our lives, just gone. The first pregnancy didn’t make it past twelve weeks. A missed miscarriage, they call it. We had no bleeding, nothing. There we were at the first appointment, holding each other’s hands, waiting to see the heartbeat. There was none. It’s amazing how impassive the faces of the people who do the scans are, isn’t it? I guess they must see it all the time.
Then it happened again. We were away for the weekend in Norfolk, and I started bleeding as we were walking along the beach. The next we lost at twenty weeks. Nobody could tell us why it happened. The hope is the worst, I think. The hope that you try not to nurture from the moment that little blue line appears, that finds its way out at night when you start to imagine that you’re lying there with your baby in your arms. Maybe I felt I shouldn’t talk about it because I have my Bear and Coco now, and I know that should make it feel better. Maybe the reason I haven’t spoken about it is that it’s so hard to find the words. Maybe there are no words. Who knows if these are even the right ones? All I know is that I’ve tried everything else—so maybe telling my story, and helping other women to tell theirs, is the only way to heal.
Fade out to black. My voice plays over the dark screen. I allow myself a little surge of pride at my video editing skills, my eyes flitting to Irene’s face and back to the phone.