An unexpected ritual

An unexpected ritual

Postpartum care on my journey to recovery

“You’re complete. It’s time to push.”

The first time I heard those words was almost three years ago when I was in labor with my first daughter. After a 12-hour medication-free labor, my baby’s heart rate was dropping from the trauma of the birth process. I had to make a decision: continue my planned natural labor while constrained to a hospital bed with an intravaginal heart monitor, or opt for the epidural, get my baby out as quickly as possible and kiss my birth plan goodbye.

I decided the epidural was my path to delivering a healthy baby. Six more hours and she made her debut after an hour of pushing. I distinctly remember having my baby on my chest, soaking in the moment this strange new human entered the world. Yet, even with the numbing of my spinal drip, I could feel the tugging and wiping of the doctor between my legs. “Level two tear,” she calmly communicated while the nurses handed her more towels, “not bad for a first-time mom. She burst a blood vessel coming out too, so that’s what I’m wiping before I get the stitches going.”

My husband and I were that couple. We went to every birthing class, looked up child rearing tips and had all the baby’s necessities set up for our welcome home. I was grateful for a partner who was willing to put in the work to bring our baby into the best environment we could offer. Still, there was one thing we weren’t prepared for, and that was the care it would take to put me, the mother, the vessel of this new life, back together again.

I was handed a perennial spray bottle, witch hazel wipes and the largest pads I’d ever seen—all tucked clunkily into big mesh underwear. After birth, the nurse who I had just met after a shift change took me to the restroom to watch me pee. “Ouch! Is it supposed to burn,” I thought to myself. I felt those four stitches immediately after my first stream. The nurse swiftly assembled my lady diaper before I even had the chance to ask out loud.

After the nurses could trust me to take myself potty, I was in for the unexpected ritual I would perform every time I went to the restroom for the next two weeks:

Pull my pants down. Find the witch hazel wipes that stuck to my labia and vulva to toss in the trash. Get rid of the icepack that condensed and left my lips numb. Change my pad. Oh, shit, did I bleed through the mesh underwear? Change those too. Wince while I pee. Fuck, I forgot to fill the perennial bottle with warm water before sitting down, waddle over to the sink. Fill the bottle to spray my lady bits clean. Pat dry. Reassemble my undercarriage sandwich—mesh undie, enormous pad, ice pack, three witch hazel pads in a line—and try to pull it all up without spilling any ingredients.

As I repeated the process hour after hour, day by day, for weeks, I was glad to have mother nature on my side, healing me from birth with her unacquitted wisdom. Thanks to her, held it all together.