Healing after birth

Y'all have been leaving a lot of comments in the last couple of days. Thanks! I love comments.


Junia's second birthday was yesterday. We had a lovely evening with Manon, Ian and William, our neighbors up the hill who we meal swap with once a week (and who we also celebrated J's birthday with last year at their house) and one of Junia's Godmothers came for pizza, cake, and wine.

It was a lovely night, and not so much because it was Junia's birthday but because we had wonderful friends with us and it was enough to feel supported and celebratory but not enough that it felt like having guests over for a party.

I've been seeing a therapist this summer. Did you know that? Sean and I together have been processing the birth experience of laboring for so many days and things going array. We've processed together the challenge of everthing that occured. The challenge of laboring for days and days, the disappointment of having a c-section, the horror of being thereatened by a pediatrician that they would take her away. I've dealt very honestly with the pain of being obese in a medical system that demonizes obesity and frankly obese people. Perhaps in another post I'll write more about that.

All in all though, we have been doing some hard work and slowly regaining some of my dignity. Sean, some of his freedom to not have rescued me from the pain. And this all means that when Junia's birthday was approaching and yesterday on her birthday I was aware of "what I was doing 2 years ago today" but it wasn't haunting me in the same way. I wasn't grieving it. I, because of some of the work we have done, am more free to let that history be part of a deeply hard and dark aprt of my past but also let Junia's birthday be about celebrating the gifts she brings to our life and our commitment to seek to love her well.

And that, two years later, is the healing after birth.