Postpartum without your Baby

While I was still pregnant, I heard different warnings about postpartum. Approaching 31 weeks, I started reading a little bit, but didn’t want to go too deep… after all, I still had time!

The first thing I remember about postpartum is how my feet immediately swelled to a comical amount. The straps of my usually loose, wide Birkenstocks were so tight that they were making marks on my feet as I took them on and off. Jordan and I laughed and laughed.

The next thing that I remember is my midwife pointedly reminding me and Jordan that I would be going through the biggest hormone crash ever, post-birth. At that point, we figured it would be a roller coaster. 

Forty-eight hours later, we were in free fall as Nathan had died and everything changed.

For me, the first month of postpartum was torture. Every physical symptom became another reminder of my pain and loss.

I remember sending a text to my girlfriend about this, and she responded:

You genuinely have been cut open. Physically, emotionally, mentally. This is something that leaves you so raw and that makes so much sense you feel that way. You were supposed to have your baby boy with you. You were supposed to hold him and watch him grow. I’m so sorry that’s been taken away from you. You are allowed to not be okay.

That acknowledgement of my suffering was exactly what I needed from someone safe and close. Other bereaved parents may need different words or may not want the intensity of their pain reflected back to them this way. For me, what helped was that she knew me well enough to meet me where I was and not sugarcoat what I was going through.

It has been a slap in the face to go through postpartum without my baby with me. Postpartum can look very different across pregnancy and infant loss. Holding your breath as you remove the Steri-Strips from a C-section scar, cringing through your first bathroom visit after a vaginal delivery, or wearing an adult diaper to manage the blood can all feel especially cruel when the baby your body prepared for is not physically beside you.

I had started pumping too, and received medical guidance about how to handle my lactation. I was offered medicine (“but it will make you drowsy”), natural remedies (“but it might be hard to find and you can’t drive for weeks”), and a gentle suggestion that some women choose to keep pumping and donate their milk (“but you’ll have to go back to the hospital for testing as part of that process”).

I find the donation option heroic, knowing that my baby only ever had a chance to drink donor milk while waiting for me to have enough supply for his feeds. In the end, it was too emotional for me to go through that process if it wouldn’t be for Nathan, and I decided to naturally manage lactation suppression.

It was part of my grieving process to just use ice packs and supportive clothing, allowing my milk supply to reduce without medication while I felt my way through the loss of my son. Consulting my medical team for a full understanding of all the options and making a decision about what was best felt like the right decision for me and my healing. Other bereaved parents may make a completely different, thoughtful, and informed choice based on what is best for them. 

I wondered whether I experienced “baby blues” at all, because I couldn’t separate the ups and downs. I couldn’t distinguish what belonged to postpartum from what belonged to grief. Tearfulness, irritability, anxiety, restlessness, fatigue and hopelessness were all rolled into the same experience of trying to process my loss.

I am shocked at how postpartum is often described as “the period immediately following childbirth, typically lasting six to eight weeks.” One, because they really meant it when they said it would be immediate (exhibit A: my swollen feet hours after surgery) and two, because I’ve heard my sister-in-law and friends describe how they are still experiencing hormonal, physical, and emotional changes well into months and years later.

A mom who I work out with told me that she regained feeling around her C-section scar 10 YEARS later! I mean, at that point, Body, what are we doing? Why even bother?!

My hair is falling out now too, and I’ve been told very gently by my hairdresser that stress makes this worse, and very apologetically by my mom friends that this tends to last three to six months postpartum.

I was always right on schedule with all the new weekly symptoms while pregnant, and it seems like I’m staying by the book in postpartum as well. The reality is that postpartum and grief do not happen in neat, orderly phases. My body kept changing while my mind and heart were still trying to understand that Nathan had died. 

One of the strangest contradictions has been taking birth control prescribed by my OB when what I want most is to be pregnant again. At first, swallowing a pill designed to prevent pregnancy sent me into a spiral of resistance and despair, as though I am working against my own body and the future I want. I have had to rebrand the pill as “Mommy’s vitamin” with an eggplant emoji on my daily alarm to make me giggle. It’s something I’m taking now to keep myself healthy and safe, and to help prepare a healthy, safe home for Nathan’s future sibling. Knowing that I have a supportive medical team and a plan for additional care in a future pregnancy helps me reconcile my impatience with the waiting and healing needed to protect my body and prepare to get pregnant again.

When I can, I find dark humour in the physical indignities and emotional chaos of postpartum without my baby.

I’ve seen what my grief is doing to me when looking in the mirror. I clicked on articles about the physical impact of grief, like my bloodshot eyes, somehow both puffy and fine-lined at the same time. Suddenly, my algorithms recalibrated to send me ads and suggest new serums, boosters, and shots that I could get to not look as haggard as I feel.

I influenced my non-grieving friends to purchase the same emotional-support ice roller that I use when I’ve needed to calm down between work meetings. In the early days, Jordan would find me slumped on the couch doing my best impression of Michael Myers, with various kinds of gifted salmon-sperm and hydrogel face masks melting from opaque to clear on my skin.

At twelve weeks postpartum, my C-section scar felt what can only be described as “on-and-off twitchy.” My first pelvic-floor physiotherapy appointment postpartum confirmed that all is healing normally, including my ab separation, which means that I sadly have no more excuse to skip planks and crunches at the gym. Being back in workouts, spin classes, HIIT, and dance, has been game-changing for my mental health. I never daydreamed about slamming a med ball or going to a hardcore boxing class until being cooped up in my house, missing my son.

My body’s ability to move again has been so important, but it has also brought its own grief. I sometimes think about how I shouldn’t be able to go to all these classes; I should be home playing with my baby.

One of the bereaved mom friends that I’ve made whose daughter died in the NICU four years ago said to me:

It sometimes feels like your body is moving on faster than your mind and heart can.

So, this is postpartum without your baby. It’s living with grief in your heart, but also in your hairbrush, your menstruating body, and your tired face. It’s missing the baby you want with you earthside, but it’s also living inside a body that keeps the memory of your baby alive.

I learned that a small number of cells from pregnancy can remain in a mother’s body for years, sometimes even decades. I find comfort in the possibility that my body carries Nathan in ways I can feel and in ways too small for me to see. Every postpartum change reminds me that Nathan was here. As my body keeps carrying me forward, I will keep carrying Nathan with me.