Numbness.
There is a pale scar just above my pubic bone that marks the location of the incision doctors created the day Erik came into the world after nine disappointing hours of pathetic, inefficient labor. I witnessed my contractions enthusiastically spike on the monitor by my bed while the nurses flushed generous waves of Pitocin, a labor-stimulating drug, into my blood, but the pain never came. Eventually my baby grew tired and weak in my womb, and we were quickly wheeled to the operating room, where we were surrounded by masked, anonymous faces and my body was rocked with strange, involuntary shock-shudders.
After my baby's birth, my scar was punctuated with shiny staples. The nerves had been rudely severed and were no longer able to communicate with my brain.
Numb.
It was then that the baby on my chest began to cry. He cried and cried for months with no end, and that numbness spread throughout my entire body via each tiny, exhausted capillary. There were no coos or smiles from this baby. He drank from me, cried, and slept. I cried, too. When I dared to look down into his scarlet, suffering face, I was horrified. I felt absolutely nothing at all.
The numbness was complete.
As many months came and went, our lives changed. The crying subsided. One day without warning, a smile appeared like an upside-down rainbow. A tiny, beautiful promise of more.
And there was indeed much more to come.
The scar on my body is barely visible now. It has healed more efficently than any of my previous scars have and threatens to disappear entirely, which, quite honestly, makes me a little sad. I'm proud of that scar because it reminds me of the very beginning of this journey. It reminds me of the very last day I was filled with the innocence that will never return and the very first day I met someone who would forever change life as I knew it. Someone who would eventually teach me what it means to feel each experience in this life.
It's amazing.
Today when I run my fingers over that scar, the numbness is completely gone.
After my baby's birth, my scar was punctuated with shiny staples. The nerves had been rudely severed and were no longer able to communicate with my brain.
Numb.
It was then that the baby on my chest began to cry. He cried and cried for months with no end, and that numbness spread throughout my entire body via each tiny, exhausted capillary. There were no coos or smiles from this baby. He drank from me, cried, and slept. I cried, too. When I dared to look down into his scarlet, suffering face, I was horrified. I felt absolutely nothing at all.
The numbness was complete.
As many months came and went, our lives changed. The crying subsided. One day without warning, a smile appeared like an upside-down rainbow. A tiny, beautiful promise of more.
And there was indeed much more to come.
The scar on my body is barely visible now. It has healed more efficently than any of my previous scars have and threatens to disappear entirely, which, quite honestly, makes me a little sad. I'm proud of that scar because it reminds me of the very beginning of this journey. It reminds me of the very last day I was filled with the innocence that will never return and the very first day I met someone who would forever change life as I knew it. Someone who would eventually teach me what it means to feel each experience in this life.
It's amazing.
Today when I run my fingers over that scar, the numbness is completely gone.
Labels: birth, emotions, labor, motherhood, Williams syndrome
posted by Nancy at 10:24 AM
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