Sectioned Off From My Sea
Essay by Leesha Mony
By
The place in which my son entered the world is now forever marked by a scar. A red, bumpy, uneven scar that was created during what was called an emergency c-section. It was an unforeseen memento from both the most important day of my life and the most frightening. I often wonder, how in the world can both exist? How in the world can the scariest moment of your life also be merged with the most expansive joy you may ever touch?
It has taken me a long time to embrace the complexity of my child’s birth. The experience of birthing my son through my belly once termed c-section but now referred to as belly birth, still lingers in my bones. This part of the story of my becoming a mother has felt as though it has had to be sectioned off, severed, and silenced. It has felt forbidden, for the fear told me if it was allowed in, I would be seen as ungrateful. Ungrateful because my child and I survived.
Despite my awareness that bypassing challenging emotions for gratitude might create some fragmentation, I still attempted it. This endeavor was not solely my own. It was reinforced by those around me every time I heard, “At least, you and your baby are okay and healthy,” my memento seemed to sting. For they saw the evidence of my “health” in the beeping monitors that told them I was okay. What they didn’t see was what was happening underneath my skin and in the flow of my heart. And that the health in my body — did not feel okay. For the grief and the anger were trying to eat it up as well as the shock and trauma that would inevitably follow.
Yet, in that moment and in the years that followed, I lacked the awareness or space to name it. My task at hand was to quickly learn how to be a mother. That was the call. Everything else felt as though it needed to come later.
With this unconscious plan, I ran away from my wound, as one does. However, no matter how far I could move away, it was always there. It was as if I was running away from my hands. The truth was, eventually, I would run out of places to hide.
The wound, not yet a scar, became a constant reminder of life's delicate and fierce aspects. Its six-inch incision held the essence of the breath and exhale, birth and death.
Due to my attempt of aversion to what happened, I never cared for it. I just tried my hardest to pretend that it wasn’t there. I thought that if I could just ignore it, it would heal, and then I wouldn’t have to think about it again. Oh, how I wished that was the case. Though it was not mine. Every time I took a shower, I would feel a stinging sensation. I would wince and then hurry on my way. After moving a certain way or exerting myself, I would often get a pull that felt like it was coming from inside of me, a pull that felt like, at any moment, I would be torn apart. In the most intense moments, the incision would randomly just begin to burn, a burn that, no matter what I did, would not ease.
Not only was I not able to tend or care for the incision, I wasn’t even able to look at it, for even my eyes seemed to banish it. When I imagined facing it — it being my body— fear would rise in me and tell me that with just one glance, I would unravel and lose myself. When my midwife would ask how it was healing, I would answer, “Great, fine, no problems.” I would not say, “I have no idea. I can’t look at it, talk about it, or even acknowledge it, let alone examine it.”
The it, I would soon learn, was the mountain of grief that was carefully sowed up with each stitch. The incision site — the wound — became a physical manifestation of the terror and shock that followed after my child was born. The trauma that, like most trauma, caught me completely off guard and shook me to the core while I searched for threats in every corner. And even when the incision site eventually healed and the wound mended itself back together, the vulnerability of it and of life was still very much alive in me.
The barriers that I created for this deep and what felt like forbidden pain held their own for a while. Until it was time for me to return. For the holding was becoming too heavy, which was told by my collapsed and restless heart. I knew it was time to re-open the wound. To re-enter the space of what didn’t get to happen and what eventually did during the birth of my child.
The invitation came by way of me writing my birth story, a practice that I firmly believe helps to integrate the experience of becoming a mother. I knew that this was important to me as I tried to make sense of my journey. I knew that eventually, the space would come where I could return, and with the return came the well. The well of rage, of anger, of grief, of disbelief, of old thoughts around my body and its brokenness. A bountiful of experiences that I now needed to tend to. Experiences that I know now make sense, deserve, and are worthy of being tended and cared for. And can, in fact, exist while being grateful.
Years before I entered the realm of healing my birth trauma, I wrote this in my journal, “One day, this scar will integrate itself into my story and my child’s story, for it is his story too. My work until then is to find the salve to soften it, to allow it to be there, and to know that it carries both life and death, pain and joy, love and yearning.
The day did, in fact, come.
And a new story was born.
A story of surviving and healing.
Leesha Mony, a Seattle-based Somatic Psychotherapist and writer, explores themes of motherhood, maternal mental health, survivorship, and belonging. As a mother, perinatal specialist, and birth storytelling guide, Leesha brings a deep understanding of healing through holding others’ wholeness. Her work has been featured on Motherly, The Kindred Voice, and Motherscope.
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