Between
Oh, the heart, it hides such unimaginable things
-Florence Welch
It still doesn’t seem real. Was I ever pregnant? Did I give birth? If so, how come I don’t have that child with me? Why do I have seemingly nothing to show for my months of discomfort and dedication?
There are times that I am proud of what my body did—birthing her without the epidural—but it doesn’t feel real. Everything changed so fast. It is almost like my mind is skipping over the last six months like a DVD or CD skipping over corrupted data. Just as quickly as we thought we were having a baby, suddenly, we’re not.
Do you ever look back and wonder, “How did I live through that?” This is definitely one of those for me. I remember holding her, and how my husband had to hold me up when the nurse came to take her away. I remember how we stood over her, with his arm around me, and my hand on my IV stand like the saddest little nativity.
I don’t understand how I can have so much love and fierce pride and bitter, bitter sorrow all mixed together in one biting pill. I love her more than I’ve loved anything, but I will never be able to have closure for that love. It may scab over, but it will always be there, pulsing below the surface, unrequited and ready to bleed out at a moment’s notice.
There’s a quote that I’ve always quite liked, from Rupi Kaur, “And here you are living, despite it all.” I hope that I am. I hope that I can. I wouldn’t be her mother if I just fell apart, and even though I never knew her soul or personality the way that I expected to come to know it, I’d like to think she would want me to persist.
So I find myself at a strange intersection of wondering how I got to where I am—sitting on my couch seventeen days postpartum—and feeling like I’m still there, in that triage room, receiving the news. I’m stuck between wondering if it was real and feeling the most raw and tangible love for her. I’m paralyzed between a fear that something someone says will remind me of her and I’ll publicly weep, or that I’ll be the only one to shout her name and beg for her existence to be recognized.
I am in the awful between.