Tag: postpartum

Childbirth is the Magical Undoing

There is magic to be witnessed if you visit someone who has just given birth. A deep primal magic.

Indescribable power and strength marrying brokenness and unmatched vulnerability. It thickens the air, new mama drenched in the union. You can’t help but stare, in awe, at her. Sitting on a throne of bloody pads and swollen body parts, she is regal. She is breathtaking.

Animalistic energy sweats off her, adrenaline retreating to make way for the fiercer chemical etching new pathways in cortices that cannot be unmade.  Disheveled, in pain, exhausted – radiant. Beauty like nothing you’ve seen before.

She may resemble the person you had lunch with a few days prior, chatting excitedly about how she hopes her baby comes soon…but she is not the same. You feel it. She feels it. Something has shifted.

She has been undone.

And it is in the undoing that she’s become.

The unraveling of what and who she used to be, has spun a new being into existence. Nine months in the making, coming to a beautiful completion in the matter of hours.

The juxtaposing experiences of every muscle of the body being strained and pushed to their limits, intense pain, possibly even trauma, giving way to life and a new form of love impossible to describe.

Terrifying. Beautifully soul wrenching. Glorious. Sacred.

The every day event of giving birth is inexplicably miraculous. And the birth giver… that new Mama you are visiting?

She is pure magic.

The sanctification process that is the postpartum period

sanc·ti·fy (v)

present participle- sanctifying

Webter’s Dictionary defines this word as:

“set apart as or declare holy; consecrate”

“to impart or impute sacredness, inviolability, or respect to”

“to purify”

I gave birth to my third baby two and a half weeks ago so I am in the throes of the postpartum period – or the 4th trimester, as it’s often called.

Diapers overflow the trashcans in basically every room.

Spit up is on virtually every shirt I own, and every onesie he wears.

Giant pads still grace our bathroom, alongside the squirt bottle sitting next to the toilet.

Stitches, not yet dissolved, a physical reminder of the force a 10lb6oz baby has when making his way through the birth canal and into the world head-first.

Lanolin cream stashed in all the common nursing spots, to hopefully prevent the cracks and blood that accompanied my previous two nursing journeys.

Sleep coming in two to three hour stretches, bleary eyes half open as I answer the midnight cries of the babe by my bedside.

This is not my first time experiencing the postpartum period.

But, it is my first time seeing it as sanctifying.

“To purify.”

As I rock my sweet babe in the middle of the night, clad in giant pad and spit-up crusted nursing tank – I am being purified.

As I sit out from the pool until my stitches have healed, with my guy strapped to my chest, perfect lips trembling in the way only newborn lips can – I am being purified.

As I do the tenth load of laundry in a week, in between cuddles and snuggles, the scent of laundry soap mixing with that distinct baby smell that only lasts so long – I am being purified.

As work is put on hold, the general busyness of life comes to a slow crawl, but the hours in the day are long and repetitive – I am being purified.

As I have to tell my daughters I can’t play with them right now, but witness them dote lovingly on their brother – I am being purified.

Purified from selfishness. My body, time, and energy are devoted to caring for the wee one that depends on me for survival.

Purified from pride. Motherhood is the ultimate humbler, reminding me I can’t do it all and help is to be accepted.

Purified from busyness. Slowness is forced upon me, and it is a gift.

Purification and sanctification.

So, yes, this 4th trimester? It is intense. It is messy. It is painful. It is exhausting.

But, oh. It is healing. It is beautiful. It is love-filled.

It is sacred.

And for it, I am exceedingly thankful.