I had absolutely no idea that I was going to bleed for six weeks, or what the hormones were going to do to me. I had no idea that my belly wouldn’t shrink straight away. I remember looking in the mirror straight after giving birth and asking the midwife why my belly was still a big balloon, because I guess the media portrays women ‘bouncing back’ straight after giving birth...so that’s what I thought.  

Postpartum in the media is a blissful period with a new mother and her new baby. I don’t think I really saw anything about bleeding, or leaking milk, or healing from scars or stitches – stuff the media glosses over to make it look this this really beautiful period, which it can be, but it’s not the whole reality. 

(TW: infant loss) My postpartum journey in four words? Magic, love, illness and loss. I had a different experience after each of my three births. After my first birth I didn’t have a postpartum journey, my son was terminally ill and I sat by his bed every day until my body was so exhausted I couldn’t take any more. When he died at the age of eight days, both I and the rest of the world no longer thought about my postpartum. There simply wasn’t one. 

My postpartum journey was…downright scary. Like a giant tug-of-war. Constantly being pulled from one fear to the next. The very first night I brought her home, I did what I’d been told and laid her to sleep in her crib. I lay in bed watching her sleep between those wooden bars, absolutely terrified. It all felt so wrong. She’d been living inside me for 41 weeks and now on the very first day outside my body, we weren’t supposed to be together when we slept? 

My postpartum journey was confusing, lonely, embarrassing, magical...and complicated. On the one hand, I was in awe of what my body had done – and I still am – on the other, I felt embarrassed about my piles, my prolapse, my stitches. It’s hard to feel confident, empowered and the best version of yourself when you’re scared your body will let you down, especially in public or during an intimate moment. There’s nothing scarier than the thought of having sex again when you don’t even know if your stitches have healed. There’s that fear that you’ll never feel ‘normal’ again.