I love my kids, but I hate what they did to my body. There I said it. Call it selfish, I don’t care. What it is is embarrassing. I sit here 9.5 weeks postpartum admiring my beautiful new baby, but also, I’m in pain and it’s not fair.
I’m sure there are some that assume I am talking about the baby weight gain. Sure, is that a thing for some, absolutely. But that’s not what I am talking about here. For our purposes today, I am focused on everything else. The stuff they don’t tell you and the stuff most of us don’t want to talk about anyway.
For starters, I had a C-section this time around. Easy right? A free tummy tuck, right? Nope. The pain of an incision across your abdomen where they move organs around to pull out an eight-pound baby is unfathomable. I would get angry when I couldn’t get out of bed without help. I just didn’t understand that I just had major surgery, but it’s not explained that way. You just had a baby, who cares about the pain.
But let’s not forget the more embarrassing parts of childbirth. Let’s begin with the hemorrhoids. Yep, if you aren’t into the details, stop reading now because we are about to get real. In my first pregnancy with my son, I had my first go around with hemorrhoids. Little hail-sized balls on you know what, wreaking havoc with your body. Fun! This time around they didn’t just come post-pregnancy. Nope. I’ve dealt with the pain of these fun balls for the last nine months and we are still going strong. But I’m not bitter.
And let’s not forget the tearing. I have heard horror stories of episiotomies. Yep, if you don’t know that word…look it up. But for me, it was the tearing.Yep, tearing in “other areas”. That happened or is happening. And now I have to have surgery to repair it all. Can you imagine having to talk to your significant other and telling them you have a tear “down there” or that you can’t go to the bathroom without agonizing pain? There is nothing sexy about that. Or how about having to sit in the bathtub like four times a day to get relief all while trying to take care of two kids, a husband, and a household. Take it from me, maternity leave hasn’t been fun.
So yes, do I love my children, absolutely. But do I hate the pain I’ve had to endure to get them, absolutely. They don’t tell you about the pain and it’s likely because once I’ve recovered I will forget about it too. The end result is just too good. And most times, we don’t mention it either, we just operate through the pain and silently struggle. Moms are resilient like that. We trudge forward through the pain fixing peanut butter sandwiches when standing is unbearable, tossing our kids in the air when we aren’t supposed to lift more than ten pounds, and walking back upstairs for the 100th time when we’ve been put on bed rest because we are moms. It’s what we do. Because like I said, pain or not these kids are worth it.
