Tiffany York
“You can grow through these times and seasons, this journey of what your body just went through, and your mind, and your spirituality, and your identity. There’s got to be some gifts that come from this, and I think I'm seeing them now.”
Tiffany York is a third generation Mexican American, reclaiming her ancestry, spirituality, and career through telling her story and advocating for racial justice. Tiffany owns Blue Foot Consulting, LLC, which focuses on projects and conversations centering antiracism, accountability, and radical love (and is open for new contracts in 2023!). She is a sister, mother, auntie, and wife to her biological and chosen family across the states and loves to write hand written cards, read mystery novels, and sip pumpkin spice lattes all year long. Her journeys of infertility, miscarriage, perintal and postpartum, and practicing allyship supports organizations such as PSI-MA, Mass PPD Fund, and community conversations in Watertown where she resides with Eric, Nora, and Isaac. She can be contacted via Linkedin or by email: trosewhite@gmail.com.
This blog is made possible by a sponsorship from Sage Therapeutics. All content on this page has been curated by the Mass. PPD Fund without input from Sage Therapeutics, Inc.
December 2022 | Interviewed and edited by Jessie Colbert, Executive Director, Mass. PPD Fund
We are happy to cap off a year of important Amplifying stories with the journey of Mass. PPD Fund friend and colleague Tiffany York. Tiffany courageously shares her and her family’s journey through infertility, postpartum depression and rage, surprises, and coming out the other side. For Tiffany, a challenging postpartum was both very painful and a blessing – a chance to heal and grow from the family-building process and much further back. This healing took time, and new findings about a longer postpartum transition ring very true for her. Tiffany also speaks beautifully about her love for her family and the reconciliation that can happen after postpartum depression.
Did you have expectations about bringing home a new baby? What were your hopes and fears?
I'll back it up big time. Because I think my story really starts with how I was parented. It was kind of a toxic, confusing marriage that brought me and my sister up. I can remember from a young age not wanting to be a mom. I didn't dream about getting married. I didn't dream about having babies. When I met my partner I was a little bit more mature to really understand, Okay, this is a partnership, this is a relationship. It helped me understand that my marriage wouldn't turn out to be my mother and father.
There’s so many messages about, well, if you get married then the next thing you do is have children. I really wasn't about all that. I went straight into work at my career at Travelers. We traveled – we love to travel. We went to Germany, we went to Mexico, we visited family in Virginia and California two or three times a year. It was really a special part of our marriage. So, it really kept the whole having a baby conversation [on hold]. And then I remember it was kind of like, Well, do you want to have this conversation? Do you want to have a baby?
It quickly became something much more challenging and hard for us. We were trying to get pregnant and we realized we weren't getting pregnant. It was about six, seven months. We went to the doctor and we said, Is there an issue? You know, we didn't even know what questions or expectations to have. And so thus began our fertility journey.
Can you share more about your fertility journey and that process?
His sperm got tested. They were A++. He reminded me of that every time! You have to laugh at something when you start the fertility journey, because you’re in the labs twice a week getting blood; they're trying to time everything out. And another aspect that was totally foreign to me was the insurance. Usually insurances are only offering like a $20,000 lifetime [benefit]. We were thrown into conversations like, How much does IVF [in vitro fertilization] cost, versus how much does an IUI [intrauterine insemination] cost? It really took all the romance out. It was tough.
By three months in, nothing had taken with the IUIs. We could only afford six rounds with the insurance. The fifth or six round, we got the call that I was pregnant. So that was lovely. I remember I ran a 5K Turkey Day race with my friends. It was the first time running with a baby inside me, and I learned my friend was also expecting, so that was very fun.
And then we lost the baby, just that first or second week of December. Just a regular miscarriage, no heartbeat at nine or 10 weeks. We had to call all the family and let them know. It was the first time I saw my partner cry.
We were done by that point. We had no more energy, no more feeling. We decided we’re going to just take a six-month break. No more IUIs, no more meds. Just reset. We decided we were going to go to Hawaii. We had two wonderful weeks – in the sun, margaritas every night, just living it up. And then the last day we did paddleboarding. Well, I got up and I was like, I’m gonna get seasick on this thing. [My partner] Eric was just laughing at me. And then we had a stopover in California and my sister met us for breakfast, and I remember not feeling well.
When we got back, we went to the clinic and said, Let’s do a checkup and make sure everything looks good if we want to try IVF. I got a phone call that afternoon and they said, Well, you're not going to need to follow up. And I said, What do you mean, did something go wrong with the insurance? They said, Well, you're pregnant. We had a stowaway! Nora Bean was born eight months later, January 22, 2017. And we became parents. So, no expectations! [laughs]
Did you have support during that pregnancy? When did you start to face mental health challenges?
Once you have a miscarriage, you really don't breathe out a sigh of relief until you pass the week you’d miscarried. It was a very fear-based pregnancy. I didn't have the baby shower until a month before the due date. And on top of that, Nora decided to go into a flip phone position, so I was in pain the last 15 to 20 weeks. I did not get much of my birth plan because of her positioning – a C-section was the only option. I was also out of fluid. I didn't understand what that meant or how nobody told me to prevent that during the pregnancy.
So yeah, a just fine C-section, no complications. The OB pulled her out and said, It’s a Nora! We didn’t know the sex. She saw Eric first, and they put her in the warmer. I remember I just felt very disassociated. There was no impulse to reach for her. That should have probably been a red flag for me, but no one had talked to me about postpartum mood disorders. It was so funny, because I knew all the miscarriage stuff, I knew the fertility stuff – at that point I was an expert. But I was very much not an expert in postpartum life.
Breastfeeding went okay. That was kind of a lifeline, some kind of physical touch that kept me sane. But the resentment and pain had turned into anger. I didn't know how to narrate it. I didn't know how to ask for help.
I quickly learned that my baby crying was very triggering for me. And the first suicidal thought came, it was Memorial Day. I was traveling with my family. She wasn't sleeping well, just crying at the breast and I couldn't understand why. I'm so angry at this tiny innocent thing! [I thought] I don't want to feel this way anymore, I'm just gonna put her down and I'm gonna walk out into the ocean. I don't know if I truly would have done it, but the fact that I could visualize it so vividly was what was scary. I'd never had a suicidal thought before in my life.
I immediately made an appointment with my primary care doctor. I did the best I could in describing what I was feeling to a male doctor, and he issued me Zoloft. And in two weeks, my partner said he noticed something lifted. That started the journey to healing.
There were lots of tears, feeling like I needed to apologize and re-bond with Nora. And by her first birthday, there was a sense of reconciliation. There was the feeling! Since then, the love has only grown stronger. I've reconciled the guilt thinking I hurt her in an unrepairable way through my postpartum depression. I really love that I get to look at her now and study the shape of her nose and look at her little freckles on her arms, and teach her how to swim. I've really come full circle. So yeah, I think we officially started parenting when Nora was one.
Looking back, what do you wish you had known? What do you wish others around you had known or done?
I really would have liked to not have to look for help. But I think that's how the system is set up in the United States. You still have to find the moms’ group. But you're not in the headspace. I was in a corporate job, I was using the health care benefits. I wish, maybe, that something had been done by Travelers, because that's where I was every day. I got all the [information] about what to get for the baby. But no one was telling me what I needed.
I needed someone to see that something was already awry by the third trimester. My OB didn’t see it, my partner didn’t see it. I think sometimes friends who see you go through a miscarriage and then see you get pregnant, they want to be happy for you. So maybe they don't pay attention to other things. By the time Nora came, then the anger surfaced, and then the first suicidal thought, I really was kind of all on my own.
After such a challenging fertility journey, your second baby, Isaac, was a surprise! Was that pregnancy and postpartum similar or different?
It was so visceral with the pain and the anger [I had felt with] Nora, even though I had been on the medications, had done some therapy sessions and all that. I said, I want my therapist now. And what was great is the midwives at Mount Auburn Hospital had access to a therapist for the perinatal and the postpartum, so she took me on. I got to re-strategize with her. We had a plan. I was at the gym through the whole pregnancy, I traveled. It was such a difference to be supported by the midwife, to be supported by a therapist, but also to just have the challenging experience I had as a reminder.
He came out VBAC [vaginal birth after cesarean], my sister was there holding my hand. Eric was with Nora in a playground, which was totally fine with me! He came out, and I just remember, Oh, thank God! It was the feeling after I run a half marathon -- I crossed the finish line! It wasn't the void that it was after Nora's birth. It was a joyous few moments. I remember a lot more reaching for him once we got to our own room.
But by about a month, I was feeling like I was doing everything I could, and this baby was just crying to make me mad. So I went and talked to the therapist. I said, I’m trying to regulate, but I’m finding every day that I’ve used up all my resilience and the next day is worse. So, back on Zoloft -- huge help. And talking with her weekly helped.
But this time was different with Eric. What I noticed was his emotion around not quite wanting to get pregnant again, and his PTSD around being a partner to someone with PPD [led to what I experienced] with Nora. There was dissociation, there was a lack of relationship with him and Isaac. So at that point I was like, I think I'm gonna have to do double duty here.
I can joyfully say Isaac is three and a half years old now, and he asks for daddy more than he asks for mommy. He and Eric are bonding in a way that fills my heart. So I’m very grateful that I learned so much through the hard pregnancy and postpartum with Nora. I used those lessons and was able to ask for more help, and to find areas in myself I had never accessed before. The postpartum period scientifically now is the three years after birth. You can grow through these times and seasons. This journey of what your body just went through, and your mind, and your spirituality, and your identity. I’m like, I crossed the finish line, and I'm alive, my family's alive. And I have not loved in ways in which I’ve loved these three ever in my entire life. So, there's got to be some gifts that come from this, and I think I'm seeing them now.
Do you think of yourself as a “survivor”?
I don’t know what to call it. I certainly did survive. There’s life in me, there’s life in my kids. There’s still life in my marriage. But I wish for one day we wouldn’t have to say “we survived.” I wish systems would just honor and do the right thing for birthing people, and for postpartum people. For perinatal people! We have to do better.