Quite the same after having a baby.
After breastfeeding, any time I feel turned on I immediately think oh shit, I’m going to start leaking! And have to find some way to run to a bathroom and check. And then it’s dead.
No one told me what it would feel like to have a baby, to breastfeed, to smell your baby, to hear your baby cry, to think you heard your baby cry, to wake up in the middle of the night out of dead sleep to realize your body heard your baby cry- and you’re instantly leaking milk everywhere. And, it doesn’t matter if you wear pads. It just doesn’t. It sprays out. And it’s way too much for any kind of absorbency. The only thing that ever “worked” were those plastic cups that felt like they had edges made of knives and had HOLES in them anyways. So if you fall asleep they leak regardless of momentary capture.
I remember that after 3 months in with my first, I was struggling really quite badly with ferocious pain. I didn’t think the pain should be so bad that far out. It hurt to sit. It hurt to lay down. It hurt to get up. It hurt to walk. You know what didn’t hurt, was standing. But, I was anemic as hell after a hemorrhage and couldn’t stand. Definitely not with a baby. And my baby was not okay without me holding him. He was a “hold me” baby. He only slept on me. Not contact sleep. On me sleep.
So I went in to the obgyn who I was assigned to at the hospital. They left me waiting for about a half hour. And then another half hour in the patient room. When she finally came around, she gave me some jolting news. “Everything looks fine. You need to wait another 6 to 8 weeks.”
I stared at her. I nearly burst into tears right there. Another 6 to 8 weeks?
“No infection.” She remarkeas she snapped her gloves off in that distracted, practice manner that doctors do. She wasn’t really speaking to me, just the room.
But, I almost pleaded with her. Why does it hurt so bad?
“Oh, you had just about the worst laceration possible.” She opened a folder and jotted something. Wicked it in front of me. “3rd degree. Another millimeter and I’d be 4th. Don’t worry, you had one of the best surgeons to stitch you. Everything should heal up.”
There was a boulder in my throat.
She looked at my face, finally. “Don’t go off the stool softeners.” She said. And left.
I got dressed, cautiously, gingerly, in a daze. I walked out slowly, holding onto the railing when there was one. Moving slow and deliberate like old women do. I got in my car, wincing as pain like lightning shot through me. I sat there and sobbed.
The only thing I was really looking forward to was riding my horse. I felt strong, free, sure, when I was riding. Not only that but it exercises all the same muscles in the pelvis that were in such sad disrepair in my body. I felt weak. I felt I had no muscle to hold myself together. My back and pelvis were like 2 different sets of bones waggling next to each other. I couldn’t do much about it because of the pain. The one activity I was granted for those long 4 months was standing in front of the stove to cook an egg. Just one.
I longed to get outside and see my horse. To be somewhere and so something that wasn’t holding a baby against my body in agony.
Eventually I did feel better. I started to venture outside for walks. Then I even carried my baby outside for walks. Then I was ready to go see my horse. Just change of scenery. I wanted to drive out to the barn, hand over the baby while I visited my horse in the barn, and brushed him a little. The first contact of something other than baby- and pain- since the most traumatic event of my life to date.
Then my mom told me she would get rid of my horse.
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