It's not that everything that happened in my life before her doesn't matter now; far from it… it just feels like it all happened to a different person. Like a fever dream, an alternative reality. Another life. Maybe that will change but for now my pre-motherhood chapters, and all the chapters before this moment, are closed. I try to skip back a page sometimes, just to get that feeling back, but the words on the page are blurred and I can’t read them clearly anymore. The beginning of this new chapter starts with the tugging and pulling of my abdomen. It begins with the doctor lifting her over the screen that they put up for my c-section, it begins when I saw her crying, red and purple, mouth wide. This tiny screaming person placed on my chest as they stitched me back together. Birth, death, rebirth. My shock was silent, hers was a tsunami of tears. I spent the first two weeks in that state of shock.
Sometimes I desperately want time to myself, or I just want to sleep. But the funny thing is when I do get time to myself, I spend all of it wondering what she's doing, how she is. Does she miss me, too? I hope she’s happy. Is she smiling? When it's late into the night and she finally falls asleep, I know I should make the most of it and get to bed. But I stay up looking at my favourite pictures of her on my phone. Must remember to get these printed, I say as the phone slips out of my fingers and my eyes close. This week she giggled for the first time and I keep re-living it in my head, this indescribable moment.
Pregnancy was a period of grieving the loss of my physical abilities, getting frustrated. Trying to get them back now is a slow journey, but it's finally feeling positive. Lunges with the buggy, jogging with the buggy. Abdominal weakness and tummy gaps and warrior pose and mum and baby groups and a deep, deep loneliness - before pregnancy, and afterwards. The sciatica and terrible sickness I experienced as I grew larger disappeared in one moment on an operating table. Labour. All the possibilities she has ahead of her; her future give me hope. Legacy. A girl! Pain is temporary. This is forever.
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I remember being five months pregnant and hiking to the top of an extinct volcano in Scotland. The yellow gorse flowers that sprouted from the terrain like weeds smelled like coconut, peculiar and addictive. Treating myself to an ice cream when we climbed back to the bottom (I have one at least once a week now). Missing sushi (I have some at least once a week now). Climbing gigantic rocks and chasing waterfalls on Butterfly Valley island off the coast of Turkey. We counted 52 butterflies there. The water felt soft under my fingers and the feeling of accomplishment of climbing to the peak of the waterfall filled me with euphoria. Watching sufi dances under the stars in 30c. My second trimester was wonderful.
I miss feeling her kick from the inside. I moved house at eight months pregnant and said goodbye to everything I had ever known. Had lived there my whole life. A lot of anger about having to leave. At times tittering the line of depression. I’m walking on a tightrope, just about keeping my balance. The floor is lava. Knowing I’d never had a consistently reliable mother figure, knowing that made it all the more important that I’m one to my daughter. Absolute depletion during pregnancy, and for the first six weeks after. Just about stable now. Crying at TV adverts? Embarrassing. Never been this tired. Wanting intimacy but not having the physical capacity for it. Wounds still healing, scar tissue thickening. Feeling guilt for resting. Staying in bed anyway. So many boxes to unpack. Will this ever feel like home?
Everybody told me it would be like this, but nobody told me it would be like this.
So many health check ups in the lead up to birth, and then completely abandoned by the healthcare system afterwards. Women don’t matter in this world. Will they in the next?
Got my first period seven weeks after birth and the heavy bleeding gave me flashbacks. Then later that week she started to hold her own head up, splashing away in the bath with a smile. She recently discovered she has hands and she stares at them for ages before trying to touch things with them, tiny tiny fingers reaching out, so many things yet to touch. Watching her discover the world with such curiosity fills me with something unexplainable. It's too complex to class as joy. It’s too big a feeling.
Extra notes for fourth trimester survival:
1. Get a changing table. People will say you don't need one and fair enough, it's not a need, but your back will thank you for it.
2. Sign up to any baby activities you might want to do with baby while you're pregnant, because they will become fully booked. For example: baby sensory, baby massage, etc.
3. Look at pictures of you and your co-parent when you were in your honeymoon phase. Remind yourself of the moment you fell in love, frequently. Remembering these times will help improve how you speak to one another when you're both tired.
4. Accept support wherever it's found. Even if its going to a local children's centre or a breastfeeding cafe. Talk it out whenever possible.
5. Remember this feeling is temporary and it shall pass.
6. Remember this moment is precious in its own right and embrace it for what it is.
7. Batch cook healthy meals and put them in the freezer... seriously, prepare as many meals as you can, especially if you won’t have anyone cooking for you post-birth.
8. This one can be frustrating to hear, but just once in a while, please... sleep when the baby sleeps.
9. Do something every day that makes you feel human. Ideas: brush your teeth, have a shower, go for a walk, scream into a pillow, dance in front of the mirror, sing out of tune with abandon, maybe even to the baby.
10. Remember your body will one day feel like yours again.