I cast aside the need to attach words and a structure for that birth story. I instead see the experience as a mix of values; physical undulating dimensions, my body now an archive of my experiences bringing my son to life. Before I would look romantically at the scar where my wrist surgery lies- this marks a place where I fell, it is weak but I do not mind, it occasionally twinges, its white scar a mark of something which I feel neither describes me or defines me. It is there. Plainly and simple. In comparison my relationship to the landscapes of physical and mental changes formed by childbirth are a cavernous ever morphing and moving dimension which I sometimes feel privy to but often feel should not describe me.
I spend hours trying not to imagine that it breathes an existence onto my frame.
Initial findings from the experience conclude that I have a prolapse, it’s ‘within the realms of normal’ (whatever that means) but it’s there. I realise that I don’t think I have ever heard the word prolapse used in a way that I have attached any emotional meaning to it. Thus the word has passed through my subconscious without any cognitive punctuation. The result of this passage sends me spiraling into endless doom searches online. Rewind to weeks before this- I halt dead in my tracks trying to walk a mere 10 minutes, the reason is that my bladder is about to explode and I have never felt more vulnerable. As such I am left unable to truly comprehend myself internally for 7 months and counting- my brain is saying ‘you’re still healing and this area is sensitive’. I have to pluck up the courage to insert pelvic floor trainers and exercise devices which are bought to attempt to regain myself. Equally mirrors play tricks on my mind- I look at my anatomy and question it all. I count urethra, vulva, vaginal...my words trail off, no more can I understand what each moment in that space is. I am not in possession of the correct biological noun. I feel like I am faced with a surface of red hills, tunnels and cubby holes that never existed previously. My body feels like a sad collapsed space, externally people remark on how well I look, how I look great. In my head the red landscape of Mars comes to represent my constant obsession with what changes have occurred. I question in my head on repeat why I was not forewarned- why no one would let me know how it would look and how I would build barriers to stop me feeling and embracing it.
I am told at 12 weeks that my bladder ‘has gone back’ - the fact that it could move in the beginning beguiled me. The security of a functioning body is removed like a trap door- physically I have been left with a DIY identity which holds my parenting function to ransom. I admit wearily that my days often comprise moments when I have to remind myself that I’m not just in the room to grieve my body and that time must be sourced to bond and be the mother to my child, preoccupied I question how this will play out beyond maternity leave. Leaning into this will be a space that I build with each day that passes. Small glimmers of understanding, physical rejuvenation and learning that rest and recovery actually requires graft and thought- the dimension of two opposing ideals ultimately underscoring the subsidence required to comprehend the brilliance of life created, born and nurtured both new and re-new.
Sophie
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