A Postpartum Reading of ROSEMARY’S BABY
Content Warning: Discussion of harm to pregnant women and threatened miscarriage.
I spent much of 2023 pregnant. This was my first pregnancy, and I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about the experience except that I’d be excited since children were planned and wanted. Of course, I couldn’t have predicted the nuances of my personal childbearing journey — the enduring cloud of vulnerability that followed me; the fixation on everything I ate, drank, and did; the paranoia that my and my babies’ (twins) health could be compromised by something as small as a microorganism on a leaf of lettuce.
I’ve always had a trigger for stories about imperiled pregnancy and babies, and that trigger has only heightened as a result of actually being pregnant, giving birth, and realizing the bottomless depths of love I feel for my tiny, fragile daughters. So you would think I’d cross the street to avoid Rosemary and her baby, but in the haze of leave, after having read nothing but scattered chapters of books on parenting and pregnancy, I found myself borrowing the audiobook from the library.
If you’ve somehow managed to miss this story, even through pop-cultural osmosis, it follows poor Rosemary Woodhouse, whose excitement for her firstborn turns to terror when it becomes apparent that those around her, including her nearest and dearest, are unspooling sinister plans that turn a long-awaited pregnancy into a nightmarish trap. Not sure what gaslighting looks like? Read Rosemary’s Baby.
In my defense, I’d been on a horror kick prior to delivery–in fact, horror had pulled me out of an almost year-long slump that had me convinced I’d forgotten how to enjoy reading. Knack back, I had imagined myself happily making my way through my TBR during quiet moments in the hospital and at home while on leave (I recall this pipe dream from memory every time I need a good laugh). I had also finished and enjoyed Flowers for the Sea by Zin E. Rocklyn while undergoing IVF and The Deep Sky by Yume Kitasei during my third trimester, both harrowing stories involving pregnancy. You see, the caveat to my trigger is that it has tended toward real-life stories. I have to deploy coping mechanisms to emerge from the chasm those particular stories drag me down. With fiction, I’m usually able to skate by as long as we’re not talking trauma porn, which I’m not at all here for. So when the chaos of my day-to-day was beginning to twist itself into the rough shape of a schedule and an Instagram Story posted by Cree Myles, book influencer and curator of All Ways Black, reminded me of the novel’s existence, I skipped on over to Rosemary.
I’ve watched the adaptation of Rosemary’s Baby I don’t know how many times, but I haven’t supported the work of Roman Polanski since I learned about his crimes (look him up if you don’t know but warning for sexual assault), so that’s permanently off my viewing list. We get to decide for ourselves how we approach works by heinous individuals and this is how I do. It occurred to me, as I laid my heavy, bloodshot eyes on Instagram that I knew the story like the back of my hand, but would I find the same story in the book? The short answer is yes, but the real question is: what possessed me to choose this moment in my life to pick up that book?
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