Womb Chronicles

From not knowing if I could have children to now having conceived two. I have gained a lot of insight from my own womb. Ages 13 to almost 23 showed me my strength in three different instances; through surgery, the pregnancy/birth of my first son, to my current experiences with my second pregnancy. All of which tied back to how I've gained strength and insight from my womb. Though many have endured the pain of childbirth and life's curveballs, my experiences were still very unique considering that my life was at stake. 

On May 23rd, 2010, my mom's 30th birthday, I almost died. At 14 years old I was diagnosed with a rare condition called hematocolpos. Hematocolpos caused me to not have a menstrual cycle due to the walls of my vagina being too thick. Without my knowledge, I was having my period for a whole year but the blood couldn't exit my womb. I ended up having to go through emergency surgery to create an escape for the excessive amount of blood. Now having experienced childbirth, the pain I endured that day was worst and showed me that childbirth is just a mental game of chess.

Traumatized by the surgery I had at 14, I was

convinced that I may not be able to have children. I was blessed after four months of trying to conceive. My pregnancy was semi-difficult due to severe morning sickness. The birth of my eldest son Vernile the third was a "piece of cake." My husband kept me calm as we sung along to John Legend's all of me in the middle of contractions and pushing. In 2 minutes and three pushes, my son was born on November 30th, 2016 at 4:20AM. Nothing could compare to the pain I felt that night on my mother's birthday, or so I thought.

Currently, I am pregnant again. With more mental stress than ever before, this pregnancy has been a lot more difficult already. Today I am exactly 23 weeks pregnant and the aches, pains, and morning sickness are 100% worse than my first pregnancy. If I am going through so much now I can only imagine what childbirth this time around would be like. I am currently planning on taking all online classes next semester to be able to prepare for my second son.

Although I have experienced childbirth before, I can say I was lucky enough to have been induced and given the option to have an epidural. I know, again, that these physical pains are still mostly mentally dominated and that I will be strong enough to have a second easy going labor. However, my husband and I can only prepare for so much; the baby can come at any moment, I just hope he comes out in the hospital. All in all, I have learned that I possess impeccable strength, anything is possible.

   

Project HIP-HOP Helped Mold Me

 A moment in my life when I discovered a power or experienced my power at "work" was when I was a part of a non-profit organization called Project HIP-HOP (PHH). As mentioned in my previous post, the HIP-HOP in PHH stands for Highways Into the Past, History Organizing, and Power. PHH was a social activist group that performed creative flash mobs to the public. The flash mobs each displayed a different "ism"; such as racism, sexism, classism, etc. Instead of protesting with signs and marching down roadways, we put all of our protests in our flash mob pieces through the arts of song, dance, and theatre. I was dance captain of this group and the main character in most of the pieces. Although I was a great dance captain, I fell in love with theatre and the spiritual connection I have with theatre especially when it has a heavily important message behind it.  

 
 I was riding on this high of my powers of creativity in dance and theatre, as well as the spiritual journey I had within myself with the help of my mentors. Wyatt Jackson (the dance director), Ferai D. Williams (the theatre director), and Mariama White-Hammond (the executive director). During my 2 years there at Project HIP-HOP. I was one of two people to able to get the opportunity to go on the annual Civil Rights Movement tour twice. My 1st year on the tour I visited and exchanged performances with inmates sentenced to prison due to a Jim Crow law "violation". At one point my group and I were at a black history museum in Mississippi when the museum suddenly received bomb threats from the Ku Klux Klan a.k.a "the KKK". Lastly, and as mentioned in my previous post, I lost my grandmother, whom I called Nana, on the 50th anniversary of the march on Washington; right before my group and I was supposed to perform our civil rights flash mob piece for former President Barack Obama. 

At this point, I started to feel hopeless and became infuriated with tears, anger, and astonishment due to
the emotional chain of events. A year prior to my Nana's death, my grandmother on my mom's side, my Abuelita, passed away and Nana's mother, "Nana- Great", also passed away a week after. As if that wasn't enough my cousin also got shot on my Abuelita's front steps in the same week my Nana-Great passed away. In the case of both Nana and Abuelita, I lived with each of them at the time of their passings and as a result became homeless twice because of my name not being on any of their leases. I was later diagnosed by my high school therapist with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). I was beginning to feel hopeless at this point. I was just receiving blow after blow and funeral after funeral. I felt like we had more family reunions because of the many funerals my families had to attend. In the same. I felt as if I was losing my power and everything I've ever worked for would come to a tragic end away from my family at the young age of 16 years old.

To strengthen my powers and replenish myself, I pushed myself to learn the skills that my Nana tried to acquire, but never got the chance to, such as, American Sign Language (ASL) and knitting. I also continued to practice dance and theatre. Although I suffered a great deal due to mental illness, and still am. I look at the knowledge I instilled in my soon to be 2- year old son teaching him beginner signs to quickly advance his speech capabilities and to be able to communicate his needs and wants to me before he could even speak. It is because of my sons that I am going back to college. I want to lead and live by example and show them the importance of the cliche saying " you can be anything you want to be if you put your mind to it." I want my sons to see their mom conquer and grind her way to a master degree in Speech Pathology/ Communication Disorders with a minor in Hearing and Deafness. I want to let them see their mom be what she wants to be when she grows up. That would be the greatest power of all, the power of inspired determination.

Nana, You've Influenced Me Greatly

To my beautiful Nana,

I am writing to thank you for your existence on this planet whilst it lasted. You have made an impeccable impact on my life. Even though you no longer have breathe in your body, you continually influence me when I think back on the lessons you instilled in me. I hear your voice as my conscience and I strive to be more like you every day. When we meet again on the other side, I want to be there with you knowing I made you proud of the woman, mother, and wife that you've raised me to be. 

Nana, even though you are both of my younger sister's biological grandmother, you have taken me in as your own. Right before you passed away I lived with you and it was just you and I. You sheltered me from my mother when she was a sick and abusive alcoholic and you taught me how to be a responsible and conservative young woman. Our plans were for you to adopt me right before school started and right after I finished my Civil Rights Tour. At that time, I was the dance captain of a non-profit organization called Project HIP-HOP, where HIP-HOP stood for Highways Into the Past, History Organizing, and Power. In that group, we used creative pedagogy to push forth our social injustice messages. Project HIP-HOP mainly focused on using dance and theater in flash mobs to protest to the general public getting people to focus and pay attention to the racism that still exists today. On this particular day, it was the 50th anniversary of the march on Washington. My group and I were to perform for former President Barack Obama. At that time, I received a phone call from your son, my stepdad, saying that you've passed away. In hysteria, I said "FUCK OBAMA, MY NANA IS DEAD!!!" as I hysterically cried in the grass at the White House while it rained. Loosing you was not only the greatest grief I've ever felt, but it coupled with me becoming homeless since you were no longer alive to shelter me.

Since then, I've only become even more motivated and determined. I've learned to knit to cope with the loss of your death, received a $10,000 scholarship to college from Comcast because of the countless hours of community service work I put in at Project HIP-HOP, as well as the great grades I got all in high school all while being homeless. I am now majoring in Speech Pathology/ Communication Disorders with a minor in Hearing and Deafness because of how influential you are to me. You were me, my sister, and most of my cousins' preschool teacher at the Dorchester Salvation Army. I strive to impact people and students the way you have and I want to give my future students a better foundation to life in general. Also,I still have your sign language books from church when you were trying to be apart of the sign language ministry. Even though you never got to finish learning, I continued what you have started and I am now fluent in American Sign Language (ASL. One day, because of you, I will become a pediatric speech therapist where I will strengthen the speech of young tots as I have already done with my first born son.

Get to Know Smii13y (Smiley)

Hello readers, and welcome to my blog. Here is where you will learn about me as an individual while also witnessing me getting to know my inner self better. I'll start off by introducing myself, my name is Marianna Silva and I was originally born in Boston Massachusetts as Marianna McNeil. My Puerto Rican mother, the youngest of 21 children, and my mixed-race father, the eldest of 4 came together and birthed me, their firstborn, on December 13th, 1995 at approximately 3:06 AM. I was birthed in Chinatown at a hospital formally known as New England Medical Center, now renamed Tufts University. Since then, I've gone to college for two months, dropped out, gotten married to my current husband, and birthed a child of my own on November 30th, 2016. Three years later and I am now enrolled back in college and am expecting my second child on January 27th, 2019. 

As mentioned before, I am a former college dropout and there are multiple reasons behind that fact, but the main reason is that I have many interests and hobbies; I usually refer to myself as "the Jack of all trades, but the master of none". My favorite fun fact about myself, however, is that I am intermediate in American Sign Language (ASL), and I plan on using my knowledge of ASL in future classrooms after receiving my Early Childhood Education certificate, I even taught my almost 2-year-old son basic signs to help him communicate with me before he even starting speaking. Additionally, I LOVE participating in rap karaoke or any karaoke for that matter, but I know I am a horrible singer so I stick with rap since I enjoy it and think I am great at it. Since I have so many hobbies, I'll throw in one last hobby and that is that I love to knit and first learned how to knit when I was 16 years old as a way to cope with the sudden loss of my Nana and homelessness. I became so good at knitting that I was even allowed to teach a Friday enrichment at my high school. Students were allowed to take my class to fill their class requirements on having to take at least one enrichment course.  

Most of my friends would describe me as nerdy, smart, and weird because I would dress differently from most, I had different views than most, and I could not stand failure. My stepfather, who raised me,  would even describe me as determined while others see stubbornness; because ever since I was a baby I would have to be told countless times to stop doing something, and I would never stop doing it ha-ha. Same goes for people calling me weird or smart, I was determined to get scholarships and great grades so I honed in on my goals and achieved them. Others couldn't relate at the time because most people that age was more focused on having sex, smoking weed, and hanging out with friends. I had a boyfriend during those few years and still was more focused on school than I was being non-productive. Although I feel as if I lost sight of that determination due to the chain of events that happened after dropping out of college, I know that I still never have. My long-term goal of graduating college has now become a short-term goal and is closer to grasp than ever before! The school year 2018-2019 is all mine, and to the graduating class of 2019 here I come!