Unless????

I was driving home the other day and I notice a bumper sticker on the car in front of me:

Unless You’re A Hemorrhoid
Stay Off My A$$

Hmmmm…. I had to wonder. Why the “unless”? I mean, if we’re talking about keeping things off our a$$, why make an exception to anything… especially a hemorrhoid of all things. I don’t know if any of you have experienced hemorrhoids but after the joy of pregnancy and childbirth I can assure each and everyone of you that a hemorrhoid is not something you want to make an “unless” to on the list of things to keep off your a$$. I would like to see the bumper sticker revised to something like “Unless You’re Toilet Paper” or “Unless You’re Underwear”. It just makes so much more sense. Those are things I would make an exception to.

That bumper sticker really got me thinking about hemorrhoids, which then got me thinking about childbirth and post-partum in general. I write this knowing I have several friends who are pregnant for the first time and to you first time preggos, if you would like to continue to view the introduction to motherhood as rosy as a picture on a Hallmark card or the cover of American Baby Magazine, I would suggest you stop reading now (and thanks for reading this far). Childbirth really wasn’t that bad for me. Granted, I didn’t like being induced and the contractions cause by the Pitocin were really painful, pushing was totally and completely exhausting especially since I was starving, and having my rear ripped end to end wasn’t exactly pleasant but overall, it wasn’t that bad. I’m actually going to try and go natural this time by using Hypnobirthing. This sort of sucks for Lloyd since he will have to be my coach and actually do something whereas during my labor with Gavin, once the epidural was on place, he was free to go on as many Chick-Fil-A and Starbucks runs as he wanted and he didn’t even miss the Simpsons. I’m afraid that I’m going to be ruining Lloyd’s birth experience but as I always say, his sperm, his responsibility.

I also had really bad post partum depression after having Gavin. Perhaps a side-effect of the rear ripping from end to end and the subsequent hemorrhoids that ensued. Never mind one of the cruelest ironies of childbirth and for the rest of your life post partum is that it hurts to sit down- hurts really, really, really, really bad- yet all you do 23 ½ hours out of the day for the first 6 weeks is sit on your split, hemorrhoid-having a$$ and breastfeed a child. Add that to the fact I had the world’s most insane milk supply (La Leche League refers to is as overactive letdown…. I refer to it as geyser boobs) and had to slide down my ripped a$$ to lay on my back while I breastfed in the Australian hold where mom is “down under” to control the flow of milk and my a$$ was on FIRE!!!!!

Truth be told, fire a$$ and all, I can’t blame all the post partum depression on my rear. I’m sure it can be chalked up to any number of things. The one thing that bugs me the most about post partum depression is when people refer to it as the baby blues. Baby blues???? Telling a person who has post partum depression they are just a little blue it like telling a smoker cigarettes are just a little bit bad for them. In other words, it is a vast understatement. There were days and weeks after Gavin was born that Lloyd feared for his life. Rightly so, if you ask me, since it was HIS SPERM that started all of this! I feared for lots of things… namely the ability to ever feel happy again or feel normal or to just be a mother. Not that I’m really sure what normal feels like but I wanted to feel like I did prior to September 5- prior to the child being ripped from my body and taking with it every hormone that worked appropriately in my body and gave me the will to live… prior to the a$$ fire and the hemorrhoids and the bloody nipples… prior to me being so totally RESPONSIBLE for the most perfect and lovely child in the whole wide world who made me feel equal amounts of love and fear and desperation and left me so confused, sad, insecure, and very, very unworthy… and prior to my ever making the most wonderful husband in the world fear for his life.

I never have gone back to feeling how I did prior to September 5th and I couldn’t be happier. I feel so much better than I ever dreamed I could. I never knew it could be this wonderful and granted, like everything else in my life, I had to go down a somewhat crooked road to get here, but hemorrhoids and all, it is so totally, utterly, and completely worth it.