As I lay here bleeding, a time I typically enjoy, I remember lifting my hips so she could push up those mesh underwear. Then I remember everything preceding. I cringe, feeling bruised and broken in ways I haven't confronted before. Feeling scrapes and cuts and gouges that I put away to get by. I remember the first time I held my little being, the son I brought Earthside. Intended to be free, but was robbed.
NO. LEAVE US ALONE.
Cord severed by fearful hands, before he was completely born.
WHY DID YOU HURT US.
Respiratory distress, before he had a chance to even breathe on his own. They said the fault was mine.
I KNOW IT WASN'T.
I sat, naked and covered in blood, waiting for my baby. After being violated with the cold instruments for no good reason, my vagina still shivers.
I was the only one in the room who trusted me.
I sat, separated from the last bit of my baby. It sat in a sterile basin.
My baby came! Almost half an hour later, wiped off and touched by eight other hands. Now tired, he could not feed. The last moment I had to hang onto. I cry.
WHY DID THEY DO THIS.
I remember that space of in-between.
As my son lay limp on the warmer, as his spirit still lived within, as we were not alone.
I felt a rush, as his placenta detached. In that moment I looked at my babe for the first time. That moment, he was born, and his body reflected it.
I stroked his cord, as it lay between my knees. I wished it was my baby, instead of three bleeding vessels.
I thanked it, silently of course. My presence in that room was already too much for them. I've done enough. I held that baby. With his matching end of his cord already trimmed. That piece that connected us taken. Tonight, I grieve my lost birth. Hanging onto the best moments-- but incomplete.
Freedom robbed. Birth robbed.
And I hope my babe feels less pain than I.
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