Signposts

My midwife brought us dinner last night and did a quick postpartum check.

"Are you getting any rest and are you bleeding a lot?"

"No...and no."

I'm recovering remarkably well. Isn't that ironic. My bleeding is less than most of my regular periods. I have no tears, no vaginal pain at all anymore, and only had a slight initial soreness anyway. Aren't I lucky?

Of course, I would have taken the recovery that comes with major open abdominal surgery, if I could have taken my baby home alive. I would have taken that trade-off in a heartbeat.

She also asked me if my milk had come in yet.

"No. Not yet."

Not until today. Today my body is making milk for a baby it doesn't know is dead. I'm overflowing with it, my breasts tender, sore, stinging, aching to be relieved. Nature knew just what she was doing, creating breasts that fill to bursting and babies who root and suckle to find nourishment.

Nature didn't plan for dead babies.

Today I read everything I could about suppressing milk production - some say cabbage leaves or ice packs (to soothe the burning pain). Most say to wear a tight bra, or to bind your breasts. Right. You try wrapping ace bandages around two bowling balls and tell me how well that works out for you, k? There are sites that swear by huge doses of vitamin B6, and others that claim that pseudoephedrine will help dry up the supply. Some say to drink sage tea and eat sage in everything.

So there I am... I'm reading, and weeping, and leaking milk down my belly and I can't decide what to do to make it stop. I can tell you what I want to do - what my body wants, what my breasts want, what every feminine inch of me wants with all the life force I possess - I want to nurse my baby. I want to cradle the soft, unformed bones of his still-slightly-molded head in my hand and guide his hungry, open mouth to my breast. I want to see his tiny fingers curl around mine as he feeds, his eyes - the eyes I never saw open, and never will - searching my face as he swallows.

I took a warm bath this morning. instead of a hot shower - because they say hot water makes your breasts fill faster. And then I bound my breasts. That hurt like hell. Then I tried ice packs. They provided a little relief. But still. Nowhere near enough. I became obsessed with stopping this process. There had to be something. Me, Ms. Non-Medical-Everything, I searched for medications, a prescription, something, anything to stop this pain.

And found so very little relief.

It wasn't until I put pads in my bra, because I was leaving wet stains on my shirt - I had to change twice before I found that brilliant idea - that I realized... my body was mourning. It was doing it, all on its own. It wasn't just me, intellectually, or even just emotionally connected to the memory of what happened. I know I haven't stopped crying since he was born. My face is sore and dry from tears. Emotionally distraught doesn't even come close to how I'm feeling.

But this, what my body is doing, isn't about feeling. This is about being. It isn't a betrayal. That's what my mind wanted to believe, at first, as I searched and searched for a way to make it stop. My body had betrayed me, I thought - had let me carry a healthy, beautiful baby and then had taken him away somehow at the last moment. And now it was punishing me. The pain of pushing him out, the blood, the hard, angry swell and sting of my breasts...

But like labor pain...this pain has a purpose. My body is showing me the way. It isn't a betrayal - it's a signpost. This way. This is the way down, this is your descent. This is the way you must go now. There is no other way out except to pass through. There is pain here. There is death here. There is grief beyond comprehension and unimaginable depths of despair.

This is my body just confirming what my heart already knows. I have no choice.

Now my breasts are red and raw and tender, weeping milk for my dead son... and I can't stop them. My body gives me no choice. This is an experience I must have, and like birthing my baby still, I can't choose not to be here, I can't choose not to do this. This path is set, there is no exit, no way out, no way but forward into the darkness.

My body has its own agenda. Showing me the way. There is no easing this pain, no relief. I am on someone else's timetable - forces much greater than I can possibly comprehend. Groping my way, stumbling through, this is where I must go.

The darkness around me is deep.