SCARS

This is the very first photo of Freyja (pronounced Fray-Uh), that's what we named our Ninja Baby.  I still can't believe she is here.  I still can't believe I am still here, that I get to watch her grow.  I think making it through my pregnancy and her labor and delivery is the biggest miracle I've ever been granted, and she....she is my every dream come true.  I am so very blessed to even be here right now, much less to be about to celebrate our daughter's very first Christmas.  I am in awe of this life.

I will never be able to fully express my gratitude, even as I grieve my horrific and traumatic birth experience, my wounded body, and my somewhat battered mental faculties.  This body of mine was cut hip bone to hip bone.  It battled a horrific uterine infection that damn near took my life.  It was sliced open and a foreign object was placed inside it, right over my heart.  It has yet to heal fully, if it ever will.  My hormones are not under control yet. I have postpartum depression and a recent diagnosis of post-traumatic stress disorder.  I was ashamed of those things, but I won't be ashamed of them any longer. 

I went through something terrifying beyond all description.  My body was a war zone.  These scars, these red, puckered, angry looking scars bear witness to that trauma and to the miracle of life I brought into this world.  The tears I cry for what seems no reason are yet another scar, a scar left on my mind...and I am beginning to realize that I am no more culpable for that scar than I am culpable for my inability to give birth to Freyja vaginally or to continue breastfeeding.  At some point I must accept these scars as part of who I am, as a small price to pay in a much larger picture.