So I had
plenty of illusions of what motherhood would be like for me. The minute I found
out I was pregnant I became anxious. I was convinced and desperately afraid
that I would unable to love my child, lost
in a cloud of confusion. I looked up options for what I could do and helplines where I could call should I experience such emotions. I was prepared. Luckily, I was not that one woman out of ten who suffers
from postnatal depression. I felt a surge of love when I held my daughter and
that has only grown and deepened with time. I sometimes look at her and wonder
how I ever functioned without her; how my life ever seemed complete without her
in my arms.
What I did
not expect was disability.
I know disability is a big term to use. I am not in a wheelchair. Neither am I so physically
impaired that I cannot take care of my child. But the challenges of dealing
with a post-natal body have caught me unawares and I’m still dealing with them and for the time-being, I am dis-abled, not having the agency to do things by myself for my baby. And unlike post-natal depression, there is no way to get help for this, unless I dish out loads of money.
First it was the episiotomy. For those who don’t know, this is a surgical cut between the
muscles of the vagina and anus – basically to create more space for baby to
come out. It’s a fairly common procedure and usually, after a few weeks of
discomfort, it heals.
My stitches
tore before my tear healed. I waddled around, trying to make sure that there
was no unnecessary friction. The midwife who was supposed to come round to my
house to check on me forgot to do so and I walked around with a wound for two
weeks before pleading with a GP to have a look at me. It was agony to sit. It
was agony to stand. It was agony to walk. And these are all necessary actions
one has to perform when one is taking care of a baby day in and day out. The doctor nodded politely and prescribed pain-killers and told me to get on as best as I could.
Most women go through this, I was told. So basically, shut up and move on.
After four
months and a surgical procedure (folks – an anaesthesia in the vagina has got
to be one of the most awful sensations ever) I had finally recovered. I discovered
the joy and freedom of wheeling my baby out in the pram and walking everywhere
without wanting to die at every step. It had taken four months, but I was
finally there. I had healed.
That’s when
I had my first back spasm. I was lifting my daughter out of her bouncer when
suddenly it felt like someone had jammed a tazer in my spine. I almost fainted. And then followed weeks and weeks of pain – anywhere from dull
throbbing to sharp piercing stabs. There was a point when I was on a dose of
Paracetamol, Codeine and Naproxen which made me nauseous all the time. However,
a few osteopathy sessions and I was healed.
Or so I thought.
I bent down
to kiss my nephew. My neck spasmed and I wore a neck brace for two weeks. I got
out of bed. Spasm. I put Sophia in her pram. Spasm.
Each time I
was unable to do anything except brush my own teeth (with steely nerve). I spent a lot of money to get help and went
to more osteopathy sessions, knowing that my insurance company would refuse to
insure me in the future since, in the words of my osteopath ‘They don’t like
chronic problems.’
All through
this process, I was unprepared for the psychological and emotional toll of constant
pain in my body. I felt and do feel like a failure. I am dependent on other people
in a country where no one has time and sometimes, no inclination to help
someone who appears fit but isn’t. I lost all confidence in my ability to do
the simplest things. Case in point – my current struggle is that I have put my
daughter in the large crib and I have no idea how I’m going to take her out
because I can’t bend. The thought of putting Sophia in a car seat gives me a
headache – it has killed my back before and I don’t want to be in a situation
where I’m on my knees in a car park.
And I feel
guilty – that I’m a drain on my husband’s money –whatever we were supposed to
be saving thanks to my staying at home is going into paying my cleaner to help
around the house. I feel inept because I see
other mums taking their babies to classes, giving them lots of fresh
air, swinging them around and those are things I’m not capable of right now.
Most of the time when I’m too tired of hurting, I plonk Sophia in front of the
television.
But most of
all, I’m angry. I’m angry at the GP who wouldn’t recommend more physiotherapy because I shouldn’t, and I quote, 'overreact' at 'twinges'. I’m angry that while most
women tend to have some degree of incontinence after birth, this is seen as
something to just hush up about and deal with, even though it is a serious issue that needs to be resolved.
I’m angry
about how the seriousness of postnatal pain is minimised. I’m angry that women
are given an invisible badge of glory if they went through a ‘natural birth’
even if it leaves them with post-traumatic stress disorder (and this is real –
a friend I know is undergoing treatment because of the trauma she went through
at the hands of the midwives who were unsympathetic to her suffering). I’m
angry that all physical distress is waved off as inevitable and ‘will heal with
time’ when most of the time, it doesn’t and requires medical intervention. I’m
angry at how people laughingly say ‘childbirth breaks the body doesn’t it?’ I
would love someone say that to a man – a war veteran or a sports player. Yet
the mothers who suffer and try and cover that suffering up in a mask of courage
constantly see their pain trivialized and dismissed by other men and women.
I’m stiff
with pain as I write this – but I know that I will eventually heal. But this
experience has given me a lot of empathy because I have seen how people don’t
really get the deal with chronic pain. How the smallest tasks seem Herculean
and require a will of steel. How the world for someone with a disability can
shrink unless they fight for it not to. I know what it’s like to buck yourself
up every day even though your self confidence is crumbling away every time you
cannot do something basic that other people can do.
Living in
pain takes a huge toll on a person and most women who give birth are in serious
discomfort for a long, long time. They need better aftercare and they need
empathy because they are taking care of another life completely dependent on them. And most of all, they need a different narrative - one that doesn't glorify pain in the name of motherhood but one that sees it as an illness to be treated like any other.
