by Mireya Mayor
Watching Roland hold and play with our little angel made me love him and our new life even more. Barefoot, with our infant in tow, we got married to the sound of crashing waves on a beach in Key West. It was intimate and perfect. I loved being a mother and a wife more than anything else. But there was something missing, and I knew it.
I missed the jungle.
Emma was nine months old when I started planning a trip to Madagascar. Though Roland agreed to come along to help, we were apprehensive about taking our baby into the rain forest, and into a malaria-prevalent area. But I felt there was no choice: I really needed to return to the wild, and I didn’t want to give up breast-feeding. I also wanted to share with my daughter the precious animals I had worked so hard to protect.
As soon as we arrived in Madagascar, we realized we’d been rash in coming. Several of my guides had malaria, and there was a typhoid outbreak.
In the rain forest, I was careful to keep Emma’s arms and legs covered at dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes are most active; at night she slept under a net. I worried about her constantly. But then the moment I had dreamed of actually happened. My daughter saw her first wild lemur.
Emma, now ten months old, was mesmerized by the large black and white creature jumping in the trees. Captivated, she looked at the lemur with the same wonder and amazement I felt the first time I laid eyes on one. It was nothing short of magical.
Walking down a path, we stumbled across a long, brown python coiled near a tree. My daughter nearly leaped out of my arms in excitement when I pointed it out. In fact, it was the reptiles and amphibians she seemed to get most excited about, especially the big red tomato frogs. A budding herpetologist, I thought.
I put my Emma on the ground and carefully lifted the snake, something I had done hundreds of times. At once, my daughter began screaming to be picked up. The snake wrapped itself tightly around my right arm, while my daughter tugged on my left. I scooped her up and held them both. The locals almost immediately began to point and scream. I assured them it was OK and tossed them our camera for a family picture. But they continued to point and yell, and when I looked at Emma, I realized why.
My daughter had put the tip of the snake’s tail in her mouth. She was using it as a teething ring.
Even monkey moms teach their young not to do that.
A year later, in 2007, I was back in Washington, D.C., accepting the National Geographic Society’s prestigious award and title of Emerging Explorer. Shortly before I walked on stage to accept the award, I discovered I literally was an “emerging” explorer. I was pregnant again.
Roland and I were ecstatic, and I felt much more confident with this pregnancy. But everything changed during our first visit to the obstetrician.
During a routine examination, the doctor looked concerned. She asked, “Have you been bleeding?”
I was stunned. Taking Roland’s hand, I said, “No.”
“I see a lot of blood. I need to do an ultrasound.”
My eyes welled up. I was frozen with fear. I placed my hand on my stomach to protect the little being I had yet to meet and already loved. I couldn’t believe what was happening.
The doctor squirted cold lubricant on my stomach and began the search. There on the screen was my baby. OK, it looked like a small kidney bean, but still.
As the doctor began to speak, I braced myself for the news. She said, “There is a hematoma separating the baby from the placenta. It’s bigger than the baby itself.” Then she added, “Expect to see blood in a few days. I’m sorry.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“I can put you on bed rest for the next two months, but the chances of keeping the baby are still not good.”
Bed rest for an explorer is like a death sentence. I was only allowed to get up to go to the bathroom, and even so she suggested a bedpan. The days went by slowly, with me terrified every minute that the doctor would be proved right.
But after several weeks, I was still pregnant.
I swore to myself I wouldn’t gain 60 pounds this time around, and I didn’t. I gained 65. But I was so happy the baby was OK, I didn’t really care. I had recovered quite quickly the first time; there was no reason I wouldn’t be able to this time.
Suddenly in the delivery room, the tables turned, and it was my life on the line.
I began losing too much blood, and the doctor was insisting on performing a C-section. I told the on-call doctor I wanted to keep trying. I had already done it once; I could certainly do it again. Plus, I had a bikini line to protect.
I kept trying, but the bleeding only got worse.
The doctor turned to me and said, “You have already lost far too much blood. If we don’t do a C-section right now, you will die.”
“Will? Or could?”
Shaking his head, Roland said, “Honey, it’s all going to be OK. You tried.”
Again, I knew I could believe him. And with that I was rushed into surgery.
When the nurse came over and handed me my baby girl, I couldn’t believe how beautiful she was. I noticed that her little head was perfect, as was her little nose. Not having to squeeze through the birth canal has clear advantages.
In honor of our meeting at the bird fair, we named her Ava from the Latin avis for “bird.”
At only minutes old, her eyes were already alert and wide. She looked at me as if not for the first time. She was an old soul.
Having lost so much blood, I needed a transfusion, and I experienced an adverse reaction to the anesthesia, making my recovery slow and painful. I wasn’t able to lift Ava, and walking was excruciating. But I wouldn’t hesitate to do it all over again to get this precious little miracle. Giving birth is not unlike going on an expedition. Somehow you forget all the pain and suffering once it’s done and immediately begin to plan the next one.
When Ava was born, I decided to use the time I had at home taking care of two babies as productively as possible. It was time to finish my Ph.D. I had the data; all I needed to do was write it up and defend it.
As any doctoral graduate can attest, writing up a Ph.D. thesis is hard and stressful under the best of circumstances. With a toddler and an infant, it often seemed impossible. The minute I sat down at the computer, they wanted their mommy. I was either up changing one or the other’s diaper or feeding them. I was still breast-feeding, so as I typed with my free hand, Ava nursed. In fact, I wrote while they napped, I wrote while they played, I wrote every spare moment that came my way.
Within a few months, I was at long last a doctor. I know—not the real kind.
When I set out to get my Ph.D., I wanted more than just a diploma. I wanted the opportunity to explore wild places and immerse myself in different cultures. Now that I was a mother, I felt it was my duty to stay home and be with my kids. I felt guilty that my desire to delve into remote and unknown regions and continue protecting animals on the brink of extinction still tore at my soul.
Then I got a phone call from my agent.
Mark Burnett was interested in interviewing me for the series Expedition Africa, to join an expedition that would retrace the footsteps of Stanley’s famous search for Dr. Livingstone in the heart of Africa. Committing to that project meant I would have to stop breast-feeding months before I’d planned to. It meant I’d miss Ava’s first steps. I would miss her first birthday. I would miss Emma’s dance recital. Worst of all, it meant I would have to be away for six weeks, without any form of communication whatsoever.
I wanted to go more than anything, yet I almost didn’t accept.
You see, for me the toughest part about being away on expeditions now isn’t the mosquitoes, or the snakes, or living in wet clothes, or even the starving. The toughest part is being away from my family, especially my two young daughters, and not knowing if I will ever see them again.
Leave it to my mom, the woman who wouldn’t let me join the Girl Scouts and who cried and pleaded with me not to leave on my first expedition, to say that I had to go.
; “But Mami, I feel so guilty about leaving the girls.”
“Your daughters want a mother who is happy and whole. You are a mother. You are an explorer. For your girls, you need to be both.”
She was right. Again.
Being an explorer isn’t my job. It’s who I am. Exploration is deeply embedded in my soul, coursing through my veins. I am convinced that explorers are not made, they are born. Being a mother is my greatest joy, but giving up being an explorer would be a serious blow to my spirit.
Roland understood what an opportunity this would be for me, but as he read Stanley’s journals describing the dangers, he became increasingly anxious about my going. To ease his fears and gain his support, I agreed to better prepare myself by enrolling in a boot camp and taking shooting lessons, even though I had no intention of carrying a gun.
There were still many friends and relatives who questioned my decision. They thought it was selfish of me to travel and leave my young daughters behind. But I knew I wasn’t being selfish. Quite the contrary. Every step of that journey and every journey since I have taken for them.
I want to set the example my mother set for me: a strong female role model, who faces challenges, takes risks, and conquers fears. I want my children to know that as women, they can do whatever they dream, as long as they believe in themselves. More than anything, it is my responsibility to instill in my daughters the knowledge that they can have a family and everything else, too.
There is also the fact that so much wildlife is being threatened with extinction, and I feel a vital obligation to help stop it. We humans have more than doubled our numbers in half a century and are expanding into wildlife habitats for food and shelter, literally squeezing the animals to the margins. Today one bird in eight and a quarter of all mammals—including nearly half my beloved primates—face extinction. There are so few individuals left in the top 25 primate species, you could fit them all into one football stadium.
When I am out there, I think of the strong possibility that my children, their children, and future generations will no longer find the animals I have come to love. There is a wonderful Native American proverb: “We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children.” We have created an environmental mess for our children, and I must continue to do my part to clean it up. Plus, the truth is, I still can’t believe you can make a career of stalking monkeys in the wild.
At lectures women often ask me how I manage a family and a career. The answer is simple. I couldn’t do it without my husband and my mother. While I am away chasing elephants and wrestling alligators, Roland and Mom are home looking after our toddlers. Roland gets them up and dressed, makes breakfast, packs their lunches and takes them to school, shuttles them to ballet class and swimming lessons, and colors with them by the hour. He even gives up his favorite ESPN for Nick-elodeon. And all while working full time. He’s an extraordinary father and husband. Mom helps in innumerable ways. I am so aware of how lucky I am.
Still, as every working mother can attest, my kids don’t like it when Mommy leaves. I try to do things to help them cope. We make a countdown calendar with a picture of me in the jungle at the top and a picture of us all together at home at the bottom. I make them little scrapbooks to look at in my absence. I bring them souvenirs made by the locals. Sometimes if I have a satellite phone connection, I talk to them from the jungle. Often they try to negotiate special gifts, such as when Emma requested I bring home a gorilla. She was three at the time. When I arrived home, she was genuinely surprised and disappointed that I hadn’t brought the requested primate. But she still loves the chair and necklace the BaAka made for her.
Leaving my husband for weeks—without being able to talk or write to each other—puts a certain amount of strain on our relationship. Yet he, still German, packs my suitcases. Inevitably, we argue when I ruin his perfect packing job by throwing in last-minute things, but he still hides little love notes in my backpack for me to find throughout my journey.
And Mami still insists on ironing my field clothes.
There are days I feel like I’m failing a bit as both a mother and a scientist. At times when I’m home, I’m dreaming of the wilds, and on expeditions I have days when I can’t bear how much I long for my girls. I hate missing even one night of tucking them into bed. It’s not simple. But the vast majority of my days are glorious, and I am in the moment, happy to have all that I love most in life.
My daughters have inherited the frilly dresses Mima lovingly made for me. And like my mother, I have enrolled both my little girls in ballet classes. I sometimes meet up with my former cheerleader friends and their kids for play dates. Like their mother, my girls come home, go out in the yard, and spend hours chasing lizards.
Part Susie Homemaker (very small part), part Indiana Jones, I’m not sure I will ever find the perfect balance. I’m not even sure such a thing exists. I think what I have found is the strength to pursue my dreams with the love and support of my family. I have accepted who I am. I do what I love and am passionate about. Once you do that, you just find the way to make it work.
Life itself is an expedition full of beauty and unexpected challenges. I started life a sheltered little Cuban girl; became an NFL cheerleader; and suddenly decided to venture into the Amazon with no camping experience, an aversion to mountain climbing, a lousy sense of direction, and an affinity for pedicures and air conditioning. I am now a Fulbright scholar with a Ph.D., a serious explorer, a TV host, a mother, a wife, and a daughter. Everyone’s life is a journey, and there are endless routes you can take. The outcome depends on your determination and perseverance to keep going for it until you succeed.
I was never the best dancer on the cheerleading squad, and I wasn’t the prettiest. I am not the smartest scientist, and for an explorer I have a terrible sense of direction. But I work hard, I never quit, and everything I do, I do with heart.
So to answer the question I am most frequently asked, “How does an NFL cheerleader end up an explorer?”
I wanted to. It was my journey.