Healing

When I came home from the hospital in July, I mused about how much I had to blog about. Not just about new motherhood, but about getting there. The days surrounding Oliver's birth were frightening and painful, and I knew I'd be writing about it here. But I found myself wide awake at night, thinking back upon the events that happened, and dealing with feelings that were bigger than I gave them credit for. The experience was traumatic. As most of you know, we went in to be induced, and after a couple of days of labor, I stopped progressing. We ended up having a C-section, and I had minor complications at that point. I spent an isolating day in the ICU and a painful several days following. When we finally went home, we turned around 3 hours later and I was admitted for a high fever. I had developed severe infections that ended up in my bloodstream, and was in the hospital for another week. At home, I treated myself with antibiotics through an IV, and began a tremendously long road of recovery.

It took the greater part of three months to get back to "normal." And while our experiences in the hospital were stressful and scary, I didn't realize how much it affected me until I got home. I had planned to blog all about it, but couldn't go there just yet. The reviewing of events and cloud of post-partum hormones kept it off of the page. I go back to work this week, and looking forward has helped me to look back a bit; it is time to tell the story. So amidst musings of poopy diapers and parenting cluelessness, I will write about our journey. And keep moving forward.

I had written an entry or two in my last trimester about birth stories, how they're like looking at car accidents. People aren't necessarily hungering for all of the details, but we want to look at it through fingers spread over our eyes. And what's amazing about childbirth is that every story is so entirely different. It seems that nearly anyone you ask is willing to share some of their experience. It's part of who they are. We went in for the birth of our child being prepared for any number of scenarios, including the possibiltiy of a C-section, and the possibility of complications related to my cardiac history. But as open-minded as I thought I was being, I was caught off-guard. This was one story I didn't anticipate.

I surprised myself when travelling with Oliver and Michael this past month in discovering how worked-up I could get. I was so organized for everything, but when something didn't go as planned, I got anxious. I got bent out of shape just worrying that something wouldn't go as planned. This isn't me; I'm not a freak-out type-A person when travelling. But I began to wonder: am I a more anxious person because of the unexpected that shook me 3 months ago? How much of this experience defines me?

We'll see. I'm not sure I feel stronger having gone through it. At times I feel a lot more fragile. What I do know is that I have healed, from everything. And because of that, I get to have the sweetest little boy in the world to hold in my arms.