I had my six-week postpartum appointment today. My doctor asked me how I’m doing, and I waved my hand “so-so.”
I told her, “I should have a six-week-old right now.”
The appointment went really well, and physically, I feel great. My energy is coming back after my c-section. My incision is healed over. I haven’t (knock on wood) experienced any hair loss, and I’m excited to start exercising again.
But I should have brought a six-week-old with me to that appointment. My daughter’s absence is enough to suck all the air out of my lungs.
When I lifted my shirt for the doctor to check my incision, my stretch marks—my dark purple evidence, my proof, that a baby was once there—were all perfectly visible. I have all the physical markers that I had a baby—the incision, the stretch marks, the extra skin, the leaking, the arms that just want to hold their baby. I had to deal with all the same postpartum recovery checklist items that every other mom has to: the bleeding, the colossal-sized pads, the pain meds, the breast pads to try to keep leakage from ruining my shirts, the fatigue, the hormones. But unlike most mothers, at my six-week appointment, there was no crying, no snoozing, and no squirming from the corner of the room.
When I got up to leave, I grabbed my purse and the keys, but no carseat.
When we got in the car, it was just Daniel and me; we got home, there was no one to tuck in for a nap.
Six weeks have gone by without her here, but time feels like it’s on an entirely different plane. It makes no sense to me anymore. Minutes feel like hours, and days feel like centuries. At times, I feel like she’s been gone for years. Other times, I will feel my stomach twitch, and I’ll forget for a moment. I forget that she’s not here, and forget that I’m not still pregnant. In those moments, my hands still instinctively reach for my stomach to wait for another kick. But of course there aren’t any. My body knows that Eleanora is no longer here, but my mind hasn’t caught up yet.
On the subject of postpartum bodies, I need to mention this: I’m so heartbroken that every day, I see moms on social media who are so angry at their postpartum bodies for not immediately shedding the weight they gained when they carried a baby. Their arms are different, their hips are different, their faces are different. They are frustrated. I understand. I know exactly what it’s like to have a baby and feel like you aren’t living in your own body afterward.
But what a blessing it is to be carrying those extra pounds and stretch marks when they are the only evidence you have that your child was once with you. What a blessing it must be for mothers with living children to be able to kiss those babies good night, to dry their tears, and to see them grow up big and strong instead of frozen inside a picture frame.
If you are a mother whose baby got to come home with you from the hospital, please, I beg of you, do not speak ill of your own body. It gave you the greatest gift—a gift that I, and so many others, only wish to have. Please do not tell your children, or anyone else, that your children “ruined” your body. Did they change it? Sure. But isn’t that a small trade-off to be able to have your child in your arms?
I never intend to sound resentful. I just want to urge you, mothers whose children are living, to never take your body and the children it’s given you for granted.
At the end of my appointment, my doctor told me that my scar—the place from which my daughter entered this world—should start to become less noticeable with time. Honestly, I wish that it wouldn’t. I hope the stretch marks always stick around, too. They are the bittersweet reminders that for nine very special months, my daughter was as much a part of me as my own breath. And now I have to learn how to breathe alone again.
