"You're not a real woman till you've pushed a dead baby out of your vagina."
I have no idea, and the Mr can't recall, if I actually managed to say that out loud post-birth. But I tried to gurgle it out, slipping into a laughing/crying wail as I thought it, like a silent hilarious delirious scream.
I was sucking on gas as my torn vagina was being stitched up, while looking at my dead baby being held by his father, skin to skin. I could see my baby's skin torn around his neck and cheek, where his umbilical cord had choked the life from him. My baby's mouth was open in a silent wail, pushed up against his fathers chest, as his father wailed out loud for him. They were both smeared with my blood.
With that sight in front of me, after 12 hours of labour during which I knew the whole time my baby had died, and now with a crowd of Dr's and nurses between my stirrupped legs dealing with a post-partum hemorrhage and a torn perineum, what was I thinking of?
A woman that pissed me off years ago. A woman who turned to me once and said "You're not a real woman till you've given birth to a baby".
Forget feminism and women getting out of the kitchen and into the boardroom or wherever they damn well pleased, yada yada. Forget that she said this to me when I was in my 30's with no children, just a horrible miscarriage up my sleeve. Forget that she said it to be mean because she knew I didn't like her current boyfriend.
Forget that I drove home bawling my eyes out thinking of how I almost died when I miscarried just the year before, but apparently, I was still not a woman. Not a real woman anyway. None of the achievements of my life counted. I was faking womanhood.
I just think it was a highly dumb ass (ok, and hurtful) thing for her to say.
Pushing babies out of your vagina, (or having a c-section for that matter), makes you a mother. Not a woman.
Most women I know became women before they became mothers.
But oh, that internal scream, possibly gargled out loud statement; please, let me scream it here-
"YOU'RE NOT A REAL WOMAN TILL YOU'VE PUSHED A DEAD BABY OUT OF YOUR VAGINA". Those words, words that my macabre and sarcastic humour found inappropriately hilarious, words that I channelled rage into, became a tiny thread of sanity for me. Or at least a distraction, something else to think about during that nightmarish reality distorting half hour of stitching and hemorrhaging and seeing my dead baby in my true love's arms.
So thanks..uh..woman, for giving me something to rage about in that moment. It helped get me through. I've never seen you since I birthed my son. Maybe if I do one day, I'll take great delight in telling you all about it. I probably won't bother though, because really, who can bother saying these things out loud. But thanks.
I completely get the rage and the humour and the grasping-at-sanity-ness of that statement. I had a living daughter before my second daughter was stillborn, but my first was delivered by c-section. There is such a culture (where I am) around the sanctity of vaginal birth and c-sections are looked down upon: you're not a real woman if you didn't push the baby out is the not so subtle subtext. So, I had the same types of thoughts as you when I delivered A vaginally and sometimes I am just dying to get into a birth story talk with moms at the playground so that when they do their little 'tut tut oh, you had a c-section' bit I can pull out the ultimate trump card. I probably would never actually do it though.
ReplyDeleteSo very very sorry about your little Jackson.
Glad I'm not alone with these thoughts. Yes, that thing where we'd never actually say these things out loud..just these silent commentaries while listening to other mothers. The things we could say! I don't know tho, if someone gave me the 'tut tut c-section' thing, after having also vaginally birthed a precious lost baby, I'd find it pretty hard to keep my mouth shut! x
DeleteUgh, another post-partum hemorrhage and torn perineum here. As if having your baby die wasn't enough to deal with...
ReplyDeleteOn days where I'm hating: someone or something, or everything, I find myself thinking, "My baby is dead. Thank you, life, for my dead baby and my torn perineum, you unbelievable piece of shit."
On the plus side, I've got proof that I gave birth to my son - a bunch of lumpy scar tissue and lineup of appointments where someone will shove their finger in my ass. See? Proof. He lived, he died. And I am still here, torn to shreds, in more ways than one. Living in a world where a torn piece of skin receives more attention than the fact that my baby died.
Yeah, we're so lucky, the full range of physical birthing trauma to give proof that we actually birthed a baby (including those lovely hemarroids). Just like REAL mothers, but no demanding exhausting crying baby at the end of it.. (you hear the sarcasm right?).
DeleteOn the plus side- I LOVE the stretch marks on my belly, to always remind me that JACK LIVED HERE. I was a bit sad when the stretch marks started to fade. But my boobs now look like stretched lined saggy mama boobies, udderly changed forever..(sorry, bad schtick is my thing), they won't be snapping back to any pre-baby resemblance.. I kinda love it, those reminders, and kinda resent it. A mother's body with no baby, fuck you life! I'm sorry that your torn skin is receiving more attention than your grief.