In this episode we explore the bond between a mother and child in the context of one of the most constructed and unnatural experiences in modern America: incarceration. We travel back to Minnesota’s Shakopee Correctional Facility to see how women experience birth and motherhood from inside the facility - something Dascha Polanco’s character, Dayanara Diaz, navigates in Orange is the New Black. Dasha and Piper are in conversation to dig deeper into Dascha’s role and her personal story. Learn more about the Poussey Washington Fund and get involved at www.Crowdrise.com/PWF
In this episode we explore the bond between a mother and child in the context of one of the most constructed and unnatural experiences in modern America: incarceration. We travel back to Minnesota’s Shakopee Correctional Facility to see how women experience birth and motherhood from inside the facility - something Dascha Polanco’s character, Dayanara Diaz, navigates in Orange is the New Black. Dasha and Piper are in conversation to dig deeper into Dascha’s role and her personal story.
Learn more about the Poussey Washington Fund and get involved at www.Crowdrise.com/PWF
Dascha: I am a child of an incarcerated parent and playing a mother incarcerated and having to give up their child. Not only was it complex, but there were so many emotional barriers for me. My name is Dascha Polanco, and I play Dayanara Diaz.
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Piper: This is From Where She Stands, a podcast connecting the storylines of Orange Is The New Black with stories from real women whose lives have been impacted by prison. I’m Piper Kerman. Episode 4. Rebirth.
Amanda: They brought me to the room. I got to see the baby. They were just like checking her over and making sure she was okay.
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Piper: Amanda Rodey [phonetic 00:01:01] gave birth to her daughter while incarcerated here at Shakopee Women’s Correctional Facility in Minnesota.
Amanda: And then I got to hold her, and that was probably the most—that was the most amazing part of my whole prison experience here was to be able to see that little bundle of joy.
Piper: She’s been here since December 2018, and giving birth while being in prison is a story that she shares with another woman here. It’s a friend of hers, Sarah Schalker.
Sarah: I never let her down. I held her the entire time and tried to bond with her as much as I possibly could before I had to let her go, and that’s what I did.
Piper: Both Sarah and Amanda are here on drug charges. About 400 out of 600 women in this prison are here for that reason. They aren’t violent offenders, but both of them had a meth addiction. Amanda remembers the absolute shame. She’d been in and out of this place, and she found herself back again while pregnant.
Amanda: Well, I was about seven months pregnant, and I didn’t really know what to feel except for that I had just lost everything I’d worked so hard for. And then coming back here, knowing that I had to give birth here, and for another four years, I was going to miss out on everything of my children’s lives. It was devastating.
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Piper: Coming into a prison, all of the women go through a holding area for them to wait before being admitted with the general prison population.
Amanda: So they asked me all types of questions like, “When was your last use? Is the baby going to be born dirty?” And I told them, “No. I didn’t use. I have not used. I’ve been sober.” And you could see it in their face. Like, they’d already judged. So I was just ashamed. I was irritated.
Piper: Later, this room becomes the same room that women go through again when they’re in labor, before they’re transferred to a hospital to give birth. Sarah remembers it well.
Sarah: There was just filthy, dried puddles of fluid all over the floors and walls, and there was hair everywhere, and it was just filthy in there. And I was sitting in there by myself thinking they expect me to have this baby today.
Piper: Here’s one thing about prisons. The rules are different in all of them. Prisons are run exactly the way people in charge want them to be run. There are prisons that allow moms to pump their breast milk and have it sent out to whoever is caring for their babies. There are prisons with doula programs, like here at Shakopee, where people from the outside come to the prison to talk women through what’s expected and mentor them through childbirth. The doulas function as proxy for families because the women aren’t allowed to have their families present. And there are places, still, to this day, that shackle women to the gurney while they are in labor.
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Piper: Giving birth is complicated and amazing and terrifying. It’s everything. And for these women, every detail is tethered to the fact that they were pregnant and went into labor in prison.
Amanda: So, as I was walking out of my unit, I got out to the courtyard, and my water broke. And I thought I peed on myself.
Sarah: They woke me up out of my bed at 5:00 in the morning and made me go to intake, and they told me that today I was having my baby. You do have to go there wearing the orange jump suit.
Amanda: Still had me squat and cough. And they took me to the clinic, and I was in a blaze orange jumpsuit but no handcuffs.
Sarah: They booked me into a regular room where everybody else in this area gives birth to their babies, and it’s very normal from that point on.
Amanda: So they admitted me to the hospital. And then they checked my cervix, and I was dilated to like a three. And I wanted to have a natural birth.
Sarah: So after 24 hours of painful contractions, they gave me an epidural, and my baby’s heartbeat crashed, and my heartbeat did something else. And so then they went into an emergency C-section.
Amanda: A new doctor comes in, one that I had never met before, and my doula was there. And she said that I wasn’t making fast-enough progress, so I was going to do a C-section. And I was very upset. I felt like I was pressured because I know that if I wasn’t in prison, I would have had other options.
Sarah: My daughter’s name is Indigo. She was just a good, healthy little baby.
Amanda: My baby was born by C-section. My doula held the baby right to my face so I could see her, and then I got to hold her. And she was perfect, you know. Yeah. That’s something I’ll never forget.
Piper: Both Sarah and Amanda had healthy baby girls. The moms spent every last moment trying to bond with them. The women are only allowed to spend face time with their newborns for the length of their hospital stay. No more. No less.
Amanda: Because I had a C-section, I was there for three days. A normal birth is only two, so I guess I was lucky enough to be able to spend an extra day with her. And I did. I never let her down. I didn’t sleep for three days. I didn’t put her in that little buggy. I breastfed the whole time I—that we were at the hospital. Some nurses here had tried to, I guess, warn me about not breastfeeding. One lady said that I’ll be more attached to her if I breastfed. I know that even if I wouldn’t have breastfed, like, I still would have been heartbroken. It’s my baby. I just held her the whole time until I had to give her away. Knowing that I had to come back to prison after I just gave birth, like, that was probably the worst day of my life.
Piper: So, while Amanda’s baby went straight home with Amanda’s mom, Sarah decided to have someone care for her newborn until her mother was ready to help out. She worked with an organization called Together for Good. They worked with her to find a family to host her daughter.
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Sarah: But prior to me handing her over to them, I had never met them, and I just had to mentally prepare myself to let her go after the three days was up. And it was hard. It was really hard.
Piper: The hospital actually became a place Sarah and Amanda didn’t want to leave. It was there that they felt some sense of being out in the free world, no matter how sterile it was. It was there that they met their babies for the first time, experiencing tremendous joy.
Sarah: Right before I handed her over, I had to turn back into the orange jumpsuit to await transport. And I just remember holding her, wearing the orange, and it was just—it kind of all set in and—very sad.
Amanda: So I just had a C-section, and I’m balling, crying, and the lady said, “All right. Well, we’ve got to get you stripped out.” I said, “All right. Whatever.” So I went to the closet, and I grabbed my orange jumpsuit and went to the bathroom, stripped out in front of her. I had to squat and cough after just having a baby, put my clothes on, and I had to walk out of that hospital. Empty. I remember I felt so empty.
Piper: Back inside the prison, both Amanda and Sarah tried their hardest to keep it together, but that’s easier said than done.
Amanda: So, for about the first week, I didn’t do much but cry. They put me on some medicine to stop my tears. The women here in my unit were pretty good. The guards, not so much, you know. It’s just another day for them, you know. They do their eight, and they hit the gate. It’s what they do. It’s their job.
Sarah: I was told to go straight to my room, and I just slept and cried. So you can either just suck it up and just do it, or you can fall apart.
Piper: Back in her cell, Sarah remembers her breasts being engorged and using ice packs for the pain. She went to a support group for women who had been through the same thing or were about to go through it, but sitting in the room with other pregnant women was too hard, so she stopped going. Amanda says she kept to her room and kept to herself. Instead of focusing on the trauma of letting her baby go, she tried to think about the day her mom would bring her daughter to visit. And for Sarah, it’s the same.
Sarah: I called her every single night, but it’s hard to call a baby. I do get my visits every other Saturday with my daughter, who is now one years old. And during that visit, I can hold her the whole time, feed her and play with her and change her diaper and interact with her. And even though I only see her once every other Saturday, she still knows me.
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Piper: Now, for both Sarah and Amanda, the only thing that keeps them going is knowing there is a day when they will be on the outs, back in the free world with their children.
Amanda: She just rolled over yesterday for the first time. My mom was like, “I put her on her stomach, and I came back in, and she was on her back. I thought I was going crazy, so I put her back on her stomach. And sure enough, she rolled over.” It made me sad because I missed it. I said, “Well, just hold her from now on so she don’t start to walk.” So, hopefully, I’ll be out before she walks.
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Piper: Inside the Shakopee prison, there’s a plastic container full of tampons and maxi pads in each housing unit. “Take only one,” it says. It’s something minor, but to imagine that one pad would be enough for a woman on her period is a small reminder about who makes the rules in these places. The reality is that prisons and jails are places built by and for men. Since 1980, the prison population for women has increased by over 700 percent, and the criminal justice system just hasn’t dealt with that reality. Early on in Orange Is The New Black, we watched the character “Daya” Diaz become pregnant and give birth in prison. It’s a storyline that I talked more about with actress Dascha Polanco.
So, when I was incarcerated, I was not a mom yet. I am now, but it was apparent to me, even as an observer, that in a women’s prison, the most important relationship is the relationship between mothers and children. And I think that the storylines that are important and relevant to your character, to Daya, really, really reveal that. Because Daya enters the prison and is incarcerated with her mother, which is a truthful reality. But, also, in the course of the seven seasons, Daya becomes a mother. And so there’s something particularly special about this character because the complexity of those relationships is really front and center over the course of all those years that you played this character. And I wonder, you know, how that affected you, you know—I know you’re a mom yourself—and what it was like to sort of navigate those relationships even as a fictional character.
Dascha: Well, I think that I’m—you know, I never speak about that publicly, but I am a child of an incarcerated parent. And playing a mother incarcerated and having to give up their child and being a mother, not only was it complex, but there were so many emotional barriers for me. Because I felt that, as a woman, as a young mom, growing with your child and having that ability and that freedom to raise your child and being in situations where I could have made the wrong choice and ended up not being there for my child, it’s a true blessing.
But imagine if I would have made the choice to—who knows?—risk that. Because, sometimes, we do things to the extreme, not thinking of the consequence. How many mothers do we know that say, you know, “I needed money. And in order for me to get money, I had to take”—and I met so many mothers that—they were doing it for their child, not having the resources for their child or being put in a situation where either it’s that or going to a shelter or not feeding the child. So the circumstances lead you to take risks, and sometimes those risks cause like huge consequences. Whatever I have to do to put food on the table for my kids and whatever I have to do to get them to have their basic needs, I’m going to do.
Piper: There are some amazing programs that focus really specifically on women in the system and their kids. Can you just talk a little bit about what you know that they do for those women and why it’s so important?
Dascha: Well, they’ve been able to work with women that have been incarcerated, provide housing for them and for their kids. They also have daycare programs. They do job trainings for them when they come out. They take this taboo that we never knew—because I never even thought about incarcerated women with kids, right? I only knew that I was a child of one, but I never thought that actually happens. You know what I mean? Like, you don’t really pay attention to that. You don’t hear that as much growing up.
Piper: Yeah, though we know that the majority of incarcerated women are moms, and most of them are the moms of kids under the age of 18.
Dascha: Exactly. So we don’t hear what happens to them after. In New York, they’re giving mothers the ability to spend one day with their children to go to an educational trip. Like, they go to the museum, like, a select few mothers—and they rotate them—that are incarcerated, to have quality time with their children.
Piper: And have sort of a normal day.
Dascha: Yes!
Piper: Like a normal—a normalizing situation.
Dascha: So they’ll take them to the museum. They take them to the library, and they get to have these moments. Because, honestly, for me, the most traumatizing part of these relationships is the fact that when you go visit with your parent, you suffer the consequences of your parent’s crime. You’re not only treated like a criminal, but you’re also antagonized. That’s how I felt going to see my family member. It’s like the moment you walk in there—
Piper: You’re punished.
Dascha: Yes. And they make it very difficult for you. I mean, you come from miles away, you know. You bring your kids so that they get to see them, and the environment is very—and I get it. The whole idea of punishment, I feel, like should be not extended to the kids. I think you’re causing more of a trauma than in any way setting an example.
Piper: We know that the repercussions for kids of incarcerated parents when it comes to challenges in school, problems with their peers, all of those things—
Dascha: And just the disrespect—because I really disrespect the authorities. You just feel very angry towards them, and you feel like—the thoughts that have crossed my mind have been, you know, I have no respect for you because you have a family. And I’m not saying that the behavior should be justified, but what I am saying is that you shouldn’t extend your sense of punishment and retaliation towards the people that are bounded to this individual by blood without choice. Yeah.
Piper: Absolutely. So seven seasons of playing this amazing character, Dayanara, and really I think bringing to light sort of the impact on families that incarceration has. We thank you for that.
Dascha: I’m very proud of being part of a project that we can take how powerful, how relentless, how much change it has caused, and how much platform and exposure, and I feel like I am an incarcerated parent, and he’s not a bad person, you know. So the thing’s they—they go in there. I feel like we forget about them, and it’s not right. So I’m so happy that I get to have a platform and be part of these, like—this revolution, where we’re just more awake. We’re just changing shit, you know. So thank you.
Piper: Yeah, and recognizing each person’s humanity.
Dascha: Thank you.
Piper: Even people in really—the most difficult circumstances.
Dascha: Thank you.
Piper: Oh, thank you.
Dascha: Yes.
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Piper: Being a part of Orange Is The New Black was so much more than playing a role. For Dascha, it meant becoming more involved with the organizations that support families who are affected by prison, and this is something that we’ve felt strongly about. Orange Is The New Black has launched a fund to support organizations that help women and families, and you can help too. It’s called the Poussey Washington Fund, and here’s what it does. The money raised from this fund will go to help eight organizations fighting to end the epidemic of mass incarceration of women in America. When you donate, you’ll contribute to the fight for criminal justice reform, immigration rights, and helping women integrate back into the wider community after their sentences. To join us, you can visit Crowdrise.com/PWF.
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Piper: Next week, it’s our final episode, and it’s about a life in and out of prison. Meet Susan Burton.
Susan: When I was first incarcerated, it was for the misdemeanors of prostitution, but then I got it together, and I didn’t go back to prison for a long time.
Piper: I’ll also be talking with Danielle Brooks.
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Piper: From Where She Stands is a production of Netflix and Pineapple Street Studios. From Netflix, our executive producers are Nia Lee, Tori Glyker [phonetic 00:23:11], and Brooke Reese. From Orange Is The New Black, executive producers are Jenji Kohan, Tara Herrmann, and myself, Piper Kerman. This series was created by Pineapple Street Studios. Executive producers are Jenna Weiss-Berman, Max Linsky, and Leila Day. The senior producer is Leila Day with lead producer, Justine Daum, and producer, Josh Gwynn. Production assistance from the incredible Jessica Jupiter and Sophie Bridges. Our sound engineer is James Rowlands. Music throughout the episode is by Salami Rose. At Shakopee Correctional Facility, special thanks to Warden Tracy Beltz, Michael Ojibway, and Jeff Spies. I’m Piper Kerman. Thanks for listening.
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