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My Daughter’s Birth Uncovered Secondary Trauma From Representing Women Seeking Asylum

And Why Voting Against Trump is An Act of Sisterhood

Andrea
Modern Women
7 min readAug 18, 2024

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Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

The Birth

It took four days and four hours of pushing for her to come out.

I went to the hospital on a Monday afternoon to get induced. On Thursday at 3:02 am, my strong, healthy daughter was born. Right before she came out, my mind had to sail away into unknown territories for me to endure the exhaustion and pain.

I pushed so hard — and potentially the wrong way — that several blood vessels in my eyes exploded, making my husband wary when they were exposed when I looked right.

I was beyond exhausted.

I would have cried with happiness when I held her if I had the energy. Instead, whatever was left of it was used to keep my eyes from shutting.

Eventually, the excitement of finally birthing the daughter I had been waiting for for 5 years (infertility is a bitch!) was not enough for me to keep my eyes open as my body begged me with all its might to let it rest.

Nurses walked about the room with a tiny being that had come into the world to turn our lives into a rollercoaster of joy, anxiety, happiness, fear, learning, learning, and more…

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Modern Women
Modern Women

Published in Modern Women

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Andrea
Andrea

Written by Andrea

A multicultural mom, wife, daughter, immigration attorney, lover of mother nature, trying to make a difference one word at a time.

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