My daughter died a little over a month ago and most of the time all I’m thinking about is my body. Yup, I said it and it makes me feel selfish and horrible. I may hear a song on the radio and get weepy-eyed in the middle of the day, or I’ll see a new baby and want to run away and hide, but for the rest of the day I’m thinking about my body. I want it back. I got pregnant with Logan in 2014 and I nursed him until I got pregnant with Ava. Between pregnancy, nursing and then another pregnancy, I have given up my body to nourish another being for two years. A lot of people think that just means I gave up alcohol, and sushi, and hot tubs. It is so much more than that. I gave every part of my being for my child and all I got was a big belly, a new scar, and a broken heart. 

At 26 weeks I followed doctor’s orders and checked myself into the hospital for monitoring and bed rest. All I wanted to do was get up and go but I stayed confined to a bed for her. To save her. I thought about how quickly my body was already atrophying after just a few days of not moving. At the time we didn’t know how long I was going to have to stay. It was all up to Ava and I relinquished all control to her and the doctors. I would be there until she showed signs of distress and needed to be delivered. I wanted to throw up my hands and run back home, but I kept telling myself it was for her. I was poked with needles, had IVs put in and pumped full of fluid when her heart rate was making everyone nervous. I slept with monitors strapped to my belly and without my husband in bed with me or my son under the same roof, but I endured it for her. The night before Ava was born, when things started going wrong, I had nurses running in my room, one strapping an oxygen mask to my face and two more hooking up fluid to my IV. I had to go to the bathroom but they told me her heart rate was just too unstable. Getting out of bed was no longer an option, so I held it. For her. I knew a c-section was imminent even though no one was saying it. They came in with the IV drugs for me that were supposed to protect her brain when she was born. They warned me the medicine would make me uncomfortable. Uncomfortable was an understatement. It burned as it went into my veins and the muscles around the IV started to cramp and spasm. I cried out in pain and I imagined ripping that thing out of my arm again and again but I didn’t. I left it in, torturing me for her. Soon after, the nurse came in and told me that the medication they gave me would make me too unsteady to walk so I would no longer be able to get out of bed to go to the bathroom. I wanted to scream at her, to tell her this was not what I signed up for, but I lay quietly while she put a tube in my bladder. I felt everything. I felt it go in and I felt it sitting there for the hours before my c-section while the urge to urinate never ceased.

The doctors came and prepped me for the c-section, had me sign consents, and then casually informed me that due to her extreme prematurity and small size there was a possibility that I would need a classical incision. The big, vertical, middle of your belly incision. And then I cried. I don’t know if it was because dawn was approaching and I hadn’t gotten any sleep that night, or if it was because the c-section and the preterm baby, both of which I had laid awake thinking about for 5 days, were about to become a reality. Maybe it was just the idea of being gutted like a fish, but I said nothing, rolled over and finally cried. The next day when they removed my bandage I saw my incision for the first time and I selfishly breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the small line of staples hiding inside my pubic hair.

For almost 2 years I have given my body to someone else and now I want it back. Everyone likes to remind women that our bodies will never be the same after pregnancy and now that rings true for me more than ever. Every time I go to the bathroom I see that crooked, curved incision that almost seems to be laughing at me, mocking me, reminding me of everything that I’ve lost, everything that was taken away from me. The fresh red and pink skin screams at me that I have lost all control of my life. I do not have a baby to hold or feed or soothe, and there is nothing I can do about it. I am trapped in a postpartum body and at this moment there is nothing I can do about. I have this overpowering need to take back my life and move on but I can’t yet. I am still healing physically and that has halted my emotional healing as well. I can’t exercise to lose the weight or find solace in some release of endorphins because I am still healing. Because I let them rip my body apart to save my baby. I can’t breastfeed to release this milk, or burn fat, or get my brain to release oxytocin (the happy hormone), because I don’t have a baby to feed. I feel fine when I am sitting still, but as soon as I get up there is pinching and pulling on my insides that constantly remind me of what has happened. My physical discomfort is a constant reminder that I was cut open and my baby is dead. Sometimes the pain briefly subsides so I’ll try to run an errand or do some light cleaning around the house but a few hours later my uterus will cramp up and I start bleeding again. My body’s way of scolding me for trying too quickly to move on. I have all of the post-partum misery without the reward of a baby. I have night sweats, my boobs are leaking milk, I’m at least 20 pounds overweight. I have a strange pad of swelling above my incision that is numb and uncomfortable like the way my face feels after a dental procedure. I still look pregnant. I’m still wearing maternity clothes. These fucking clothes that used to bring me so much joy and excitement for the future have become the uniform of this horrible prison that has become my body. 

This is all normal postpartum and post c-section recovery but its something I wasn’t prepared for. I’d probably love the way my body looked if I had a baby in my arms. I’d probably look at my incision admiringly as the window that brought me my little girl if she was sleeping soundly next to me, but she’s not and she never will be. I don’t want to look in the mirror and see my bump. I want people to stop asking me when I’m due. I want to erase the physical reminders because the weight on my heart is heavy enough. I keep reminding myself to be patient. I will heal with time. I will lose the weight. I will fit into a pair of jeans with a real waistband. My breast milk will dry up. As time goes by my scar will lighten and fade. I will take my body back and eventually I will take back my life too.

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