Sunlight beamed through colorful stained glass windows Saturday over seven men who would soon become first-time fathers.
They were there for a dad-to-be workshop, a safe space to open up about fears surrounding birth, from before labor to postpartum care.
Across town, a community baby shower welcomed more than 20 fathers who joined their partners in learning about breastfeeding and postpartum depression.
Neil O’Sullivan, who attended the shower with his wife, who was 29 weeks pregnant, said he prefers culturally Black-centered spaces.
“You’ll have more people there with relatable experience, and through those common perspectives, you can find a lot of support and advice,” said O’Sullivan, an Army service member based in San Antonio. “You find people like you understand where you’re coming from, so it helps out a lot.”
In a series of interviews, several local Black fathers told the San Antonio Report that the city has few Black-centered spaces for men to talk about fatherhood and be vulnerable.
“There [are] no avenues for us to escape to. Who do we vent to? Nobody feels sorry for us. We’re not allowed to take breaks, we’re not allowed to rest,” said Carlos Smith, a veteran and father of three.
So he founded the San Antonio-based nonprofit ManCave SA with seven friends during the COVID-19 pandemic to create a space for Black men to bond over mentoring boys into adulthood.
ManCave SA recently hosted an event focused on the mental health of Black men, an “Adopt-A-Son” Day, where members “adopted” 13 boys who have absent fathers. They used that day to teach them about Black history in San Antonio as well as life choices, like going to school and being a good father in the future.
“Our goal is to teach,” Smith said. “We all have a firm belief that it takes a village to raise a child, and one of our main focuses is that we believe that as the father goes, the family goes.
“That’s why our passion is to ensure we form these little boys from scratch into fine-tuned adults.”
A voice in medical decisions
Veronica Simpkins’ baby boy Caleb was born at 2 pounds and 20 ounces via a rushed cesarian section due to complications from hypertension.
“I felt like the maternal-fetal doctor just brushed it off,” she said. “They were passing me off and didn’t want to address the issue. … Even advocating for myself, I still feel let down.”
Her story mirrors an issue that hasn’t improved, especially in Bexar County, which has a 7% Black population — and where 50% of its Black women are more likely to have newborns with lower birth weight.
“We’re a minority in the numbers, but unfortunately, the inequities — when we talk about health care — even though the Black ethnicity is the minority, those disparities are still affecting us the most,” said Simpkins, who co-founded Latched Support, a nonprofit working to provide services, materials and educational resources to families in San Antonio.
Latched hosted Saturday’s community baby shower and dad-to-be workshop.
Simpkins, a former nurse, believes that her knowledge saved her baby from developmental delays or other health complications.
However, she felt like she had to defend her recommendations. She also was faced with insensitive comments like being called a “smart a–- nurse” for making suggestions to hospital staff and being sent home when there were clear red flags, she said.
But she wasn’t carrying the burden alone.
“Going into that situation, everything isn’t happening as we expected it to be,” Josh Simpkins said of the moment he learned his wife would need an emergency C-section. “[We were] in unknown territory. Within that, there’s a lot of anxiety, fear, sadness, anger. Helplessness is the worst one.”
He asked nurses to explain medical jargon, but he still felt hopeless that his only option was to believe everything the nurse said was the best way to handle his family’s life-threatening situation.
“I just really had no idea what was going on within a lot of the situations, and because of that, I can’t even think of solutions or alternative ideas to come up with,” he said.
He recalled a time when a nurse ignored him, speaking only to his wife about Caleb’s health.
“That was very frustrating. This is not a situation where I was not present; I was asking the questions,” Josh Simpkins said. “It’s very apparent that things were geared toward the mother.”
His company offered only five days of paternity leave, but he managed to stack paid time off to get two weeks off once Caleb came home.
Being taken seriously
Olutomi Odukoya felt the same way through both of his wife’s pregnancies. The first time, he thought he was treated differently because they weren’t married, but the second time around, “it was pretty much the same thing,” he said.
“I’ve heard from a couple other fathers who experienced the same, but people don’t recognize the father until they can see the baby. Everything is mom-focused,” he said. “It’s either you’re not considered, or they say words like ‘we,’ but no one cares about dad’s opinion.”
He recalled sonogram appointment check-ins, when sonogram techs slid the picture under his wife’s purse.
“I would tell my wife I don’t even exist. I’m in the room and instead of telling me, ‘Sir, would you like a picture of your baby?’ she’d rather put it under her purse,” Odukoya said. “I found it quite frustrating.”
That’s why nurse practitioner Tracy Woods teaches her team at University Health’s Dr. Robert L.M. Hilliard Health Center to include fathers in every important conversation, even if they can’t be there.
“I’ll say, ‘Put them on speaker and put them on FaceTime,’” she said. “I’ve talked to dads on the phone when they have questions. Who am I to take that away from them?”
Woods said society prioritizes women during pregnancy, “but a lot of us didn’t grow up in two-parent households,” she said. “Where would he get the example to know what it means to be a father, let alone what to do during pregnancy?”
Ignoring fathers in the room can lead to pregnancy complications and life-threatening scenarios, Woods said, like not knowing the signs of hemorrhaging and high blood pressure, not realizing when the mother is struggling through postpartum depression.
Woods said she uses her own experience as a teen mom and having multiple miscarriages to help parents create and advocate for their birth plans.
As a nurse at several local hospitals, Woods said she’s seen doctors ask fathers to influence or pressure the woman to go with their recommendation, like rushing a C-section when it’s not time to give birth yet.
Randy Lokemba said it taught him to speak up when it was time for his wife, Chanice Scott, to give birth to their third baby girl. While still in the hospital after giving birth, Scott had chest pain.
“I don’t think the nurse took me seriously about my pain,” Scott said.
Lokemba said he refused to go back to work in case something happened to Scott.
“They didn’t want to give me the time I needed, but I told them I’m not coming back until I’m ready to come back,” he said.
Lokemba returned to work after six weeks, but two weeks ago, his brother died. He has a 2-month-old newborn, he’s needed at his job and he’s grieving.
“Honestly, I take it day-by-day, minute-by-minute,” he said. He doesn’t know many fathers in San Antonio, but he said he would like to see “Black roots come together.”
Community support
There is also immense pressure for fathers to do it all.
For example, Odukoya works two jobs while his wife is on maternity leave.
His wife suffered complications with gestational diabetes and preeclampsia, and his baby girl was born three weeks early. He takes the night shift at home since his wife takes care of the kids during the day and describes running on little sleep.
“I go to sleep every day thinking I’m the worst dad and that inspires me to wake up and do better tomorrow, but it’s also a sickness,” Odukoya said. “I don’t know if I’m doing good.”
“It’s like I don’t know what I’m doing and I have to do it all day,” he said. He’s sought support from Latched, but he added that he hasn’t found a dedicated space for Black fathers.
“I’ve been around white fathers and it’s different,” Odukoya said. “I need an example of what good fatherhood looks like day in and day out. Black fatherhood also involves marriage.”
Being vulnerable and admitting that you need support to parent well is crucial, said Rodney Koonce, chairman of the historically Black Omega Psi Phi fraternity’s Phi Alpha chapter.
The graduate fraternity offers one of the city’s only Black-centered programs for fathers. A membership isn’t required to attend events for the Fatherhood and Mentoring Initiative, and any father is welcome to join.
The fraternity partners with other relevant programs, like SA Fatherhood Campaign, an organization that has programs for life skills building, family reunification, education, career training, employment support and child support compliance. It welcomes any dad who wants a mentor.
Through community, San Antonio fathers can find the support they need to succeed, Koonce said.
“It’s OK to discuss feelings and shortcomings and say that ‘I’m not perfect,’” he said. “Even if you had a dad who was not there, [you’re] just breaking that cycle and [learning] how to parent.”
