Baby Trauma Drama.

Raise your hand if Mother's Day grants you something other than happiness and overpriced brunch.

For many women, motherhood comes easy.  Let me rephrase that. 

For many women, the path to motherhood comes easy.  I can say that because I used to be one of them. I can say that because I'm not anymore.  

When our first child was born, I passed him around the room in a perma-smile stupor.  I asked for steak and I griped about a 21 hour labor and I shuddered when the doctor asked if I'd like to see the placenta.   I floated home in a blissful, anxious exhaustion and for nearly four years I lived there; essentially, maddeningly ignorant of any other outcome potentially happening ever.  

Then, my body killed my baby.  

I don't mean for this to sound any less awful than it is.  My body, the one that I'd once entrusted with nose rings and crop tops, the same body that had grown me a son and kept me alive for 29 years, actively, purposefully, killed my baby.  

I didn't know that's what it was doing of course, when it was doing that.  I walked around oblivious, buying white lace curtains and second helpings of tiramisu.  And then one day, I learned why people look at placentas.  

It's hard to exist in a body, after such a thing.  It's hard on birthdays and Mother's Days and Wednesdays.  And I don't just mean because you feel sad, or angry, or betrayed, because you do.  Or because people will still invite you to baby showers and gender reveal group messages, expecting you to press the buttons and eat the cake and partake in their happiness, alongside your super legit reluctance, because they do.  I mean because you have to walk around, every day, bathing and noticing and oxygenating and using,  this thing that killed your baby.  

We could talk about how difficult it is, to live somewhere your baby didn't, and I have.  A lot.  But today I'd like to talk about how I've learned to live here.  How I've gone on to endure this shared skin of hatred and gratitude, in this purgatory of middle ground, on this day that annually, nauseatingly forces such analyses. 

During my subsequent pregnancies I mentally separated myself.  From sanity and any hint of optimism/peace/zen, sure, but also from my own body.  Why would one do this, at precisely the time when one should be most in tune with one's body?   I'll explain. 

Imagine someone kills your child.  Maybe they did it on purpose, maybe they didn't.  The outcome was the same.  

You're heartbroken.  You're walking around like a zombie, leaking tragedy down your sleeves and scaring everyone around you.  You ask for another chance, another baby.  You'll do anything.  Okay, someone says.  

Place this baby, this next one, in the care of the murderer.  For nine months, they will live together, in the same house.  You can live next door, that's fine, and you can listen.  And sometimes you can take a picture, but you can never enter the house.  Would you do it?

For some reason, I said yes.  Twice more.

And I waited outside that house, day and night.  I stood on the porch and I spoke softly to the ones inside.  I bartered.  I prayed.  I listened, (and listened and listened.)   I counted kicks and rolls and hiccups.   I traced and Google'd and over-analyzed every picture I was granted.  I ran crying from family outings and Christmas dinners and grocery express lanes.   I injected blood thinners and swallowed baby aspirin and reason and a fear the size of Texas, every second of every day for nine months.   And by the end of it all, both times, I was on my knees, the softest of pleas from the ground.  

I'm not alone.  There are millions like me, reduced to a beggar's heart.  Quietly praying for, or mourning from, or waiting on their porches.  Carefully stepping and prepping and hedging, under the illusion that we've any control at all.

And I don't know why I'm writing this, except to say we mothers are something. Foolish, certainly.  Or maybe masochistic.  But brave, too.  

The bravest.  






Comments

  1. My ex-husband and I had always managed to stay friendly after our divorce in February 2017. But I always wanted to get back together with him, All it took was a visit to this spell casters website last December, because my dream was to start a new year with my husband, and live happily with him.. This spell caster requested a specific love spell for me and my husband, and I accepted it. And this powerful spell caster began to work his magic. And 48 hours after this spell caster worked for me, my husband called me back for us to be together again, and he was remorseful for all his wrong deeds. My spell is working because guess what: My “husband” is back and we are making preparations on how to go to court and withdraw our divorce papers ASAP. This is nothing short of a miracle. Thank you Dr Emu for your powerful spells. Words are not enough. here is his Email: emutemple@gmail.com or call/text him on his WhatsApp +2347012841542

    He is also able to cast spell like 1: Lottery 2: Conceive 3: Breakup 4: Divorce 5: Cure for all kinds of diseases and viruses.

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is so perfectly written, Nora. All of it. Existing on birthdays and Mothers Day and Wednesday. And coming to grips with a body that doesn't let you control the outcome.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular Posts