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The Radical Initiation of Motherhood
Becoming a mother can be beautiful. It can also be miserable.
The journey to motherhood can be one of the most profoundly sacred experiences a woman can have. It can also be painful, jarring and incredibly lonely. I should know, because I’ve experienced all of it.
I was just shy of my 36th birthday when my daughter was born. Her birth itself was relatively painless — my doctor had recommended an epidural before I even felt much of anything, and I remained completely numb from the waist down throughout the delivery. At the time, this seemed like a very good thing. Why would I possibly want to experience excruciating pain?
What came next, however, was a complete and total shock.
For those who haven’t experienced it, it’s difficult to describe how physically intense childbirth and its aftermath can be. Despite the fact that I hadn’t felt anything during the actual birthing process, I was still completely exhausted by pushing. It was almost 3 a.m. when my daughter arrived, and after being examined and bathed, she promptly fell asleep. My husband and I immediately fell asleep, too — then were jolted awake exactly 45 minutes later when she awoke screaming and hungry, a pattern that would continue for the next several weeks.
As the epidural wore off, my body began to ache everywhere, especially in all the places we’re socially conditioned not to talk about. In the days and weeks that followed, there was heavy bleeding. Incontinence. Searing pain while sitting down and while using the bathroom. Cracked, bleeding nipples. Rock-hard breasts that were full to overflowing. Nipples that constantly leaked milk down the front of my shirt (bras were too painful to wear). And constant, endless fatigue.
I’d gotten used to the frequent doctor visits during my pregnancy and, in some ways, had even looked forward to them. It felt good to have doctors and nurses checking on my progress and answering my questions, but all of that stopped immediately after my daughter was born. I had a cursory examination in the hospital the day after her birth, and a…
