Afterbirth – by Payton Hogan
ISLAND | ONLINE ONLY
It comes out writhing and smelling like meat. It abuses the midwives with its surprisingly strong fists, fighting against the ejection.
I know, I know, we all coo to it.
Our nostrils widen to capture more of that pure animal stench. I lean towards the baby, inhaling greedily of the odour. A familiar pang of jealousy and mourning strikes me momentarily senseless. I've turned the scissors around in my hand, the points facing my own skin. The other midwife is busy, but the anaesthetist recaptures my attention, brings me back to the present.
I cut the umbilical cord. The baby's eyes are so dark, so pained by the sight of all our faces, gaping uncontrollably at the harsh world it had been protected from these ten months. My mentor taught me that babies see more than doctors credit them for – they see our souls.
My proximity to the wailing infant allows me to relish in its aura. Hot, angry goodness. If only I could have that again. Sometimes I think I can remember it, remember a time before knowing, before civilisation, before tainting. I chase its glow in my dreams and wake up weeping every morning, certain that I nearly had it in my grasp.
It began about six months ago, when I first started working here. Before that, I worked at a hospital. It was so hard. It was much too hard. The hours were long. The patients were abusive; the doctors even more so, but none of that compared to the hell the charge nurses put me through. Verbal whippings, both in person and within the dozens of texts and voicemails they left on my phone. I was ecstatic to finally get away from it all.
My new mentor – my employer, but she likes us to call her our mentor – advises me to focus on the present, but it’s not easy. Often when I’m with her, I’m like a feral feline backed into the corner of my cage at the shelter, overgrown claws digging into cement. But she is the caretaker, the veterinarian, the animal whisperer. She waits me out. Her company is patient and soft. A short time under her knowing gaze is enough for my hackles to calm. She was the medicine I received precisely when I needed it.
The independent birth clinic focuses on integrative medicine. In the foyer, you can expect to be greeted with the scent of lemon myrtle and a great, big, white smile. You immediately know that this place is different. And you will be pleased to know how sincerely, genuinely, and seriously we take our ethos. Never was there a place of employment that cared so deeply about its employees.
At the clinic, an hour each week is spent in a talking session with my mentor. Our mentor, I should say. I avoid thinking about her connections with all the other midwives.
In our sessions, she asks me about my dream. I mistakenly think the dream is not worth recounting again, but she always manages to highlight a detail that I previously failed to notice. For example, a few weeks ago:
The light you’ve been chasing. Did it have a face? A voice?
Oh … yes. I think it did.
Whose?
Although I had used my dream journal ever since she suggested it, I still found the specifics of my dreams elusive. The smoke of her white sage found me, the puff enclosing my head, encouraging me to shut my eyes and think. I ignored the sounds coming from outside my mentor’s office. Tried to be present.
Is it a baby? A baby crying?
You tell me.
I think it is. A baby.
The corners of my lips tugged into a smile. Awkward. The tiny muscles unused to the motion. It had been a long time since I had reason to be proud of myself for something.
That’s not enough.
The tiny muscles atrophied yet again. The smoke stung my eyes. I’m sorry.
Don’t say sorry to me, my friend. Be sorry for yourself.
It was like something my mother would have said. The classic, I’m not angry; I’m disappointed. It was one of mother’s favourite phrases when she was alive. I felt hot all over. I scrunched up my eyes again. I started thinking so hard that it felt like my brain was swimming in oil. The incense became overpowering. But it worked! I remembered my mentor’s recent rhapsodies about the traumatised inner child and felt a rush of understanding and gratitude.
Was it me as a baby? I sounded so upset; I was crying.
I could feel her approval even before she spoke.
Yes, that's right. You are trying to remember your birth, my friend.
Why? Because I came here to be a midwife?
Think about it. Birth is a trauma. You didn’t just come here. You were brought here for a reason. You were brought here so you could finally process your past. Heal your child-self.
She couldn’t possibly have known what those words did to me. She carved out a key and unlocked a catacomb inside of my mind. A catacomb that nobody else had known what to do with; how to get inside, how to map it out, how to manage its expanse. In that moment, my mentor clasped my hand in hers and promised to see this through with me.
That’s what we do here at the clinic, both for our patients and for each other. The two of us now are bustling around the bed. A bloody flower blooms on the sheets between the mother’s legs. She opted out of an epidural, and we are so proud of her. I find the source of all the blood: a tear in the perineal muscles. I wipe with gloved hands and gauze, sighing in relief for the mother that it didn’t tear all the way through to the anus. Still, it’ll need stitches.
In another of the sessions with my mentor:
I've been taking magnesium to try and sleep better, I told her. I thought she would be proud that I recalled her once telling us about the benefits of magnesium.
Mm … and does it work? Her eyes are half-shut, her blinks drawn-out. It seems like she can see so much more of me this way.
No.
Where are you, in this dream?
I suppose … nowhere. In a vacuum.
Are you sure?
I immediately doubted myself.
She continued. Your aura is very cold, my friend. Clinical, especially when you tell me of this dream. It doesn’t take place in a bright hallway?
I considered it for a moment. Like the hospital I worked at before?
Not quite. Not that hospital.
But I was already hooked on the idea. I hated it there. I would love to talk to you, or someone, about it. I was fatigued today, and I kept thinking about the time I fainted just outside the emergency room there – the charge nurse just –
She silenced me with a subtle motion of her hand. Holding it aloft, palm facing me, fingers outspread as if she was waiting to catch something. You have to be present.
Okay.
And you have to be brave. You aren’t digging deep enough. Have you heard of somatic therapy?
A bit, yes.
An unresolved trauma is trapped inside your body. The fatigue, the tension, the panic attacks, the chronic back pain you talk to me about. You want that to be gone, yes?
Of course.
When did you last feel safe inside of your body?
My eyes welled. My throat felt swollen. All I could do was shake my head, shrug my shoulders. I didn’t have an answer for her.
A long time ago, I bet. So far back that in your left-brain, the digital brain, you can’t even remember it. But your right brain, the intuitive brain, must.
I stared at her in awe.
You have to stop trying to suppress this memory, my friend. You shouldn’t be afraid of it. Your innermost self wants you to remember what it’s like to feel safe in your body.
And the last time I felt safe must’ve been before I was even born. When I was in my mother’s womb.
I tried everything that week. I wrote in my journal before bed. I drank an herbal tea prescribed by my mentor. I drifted off to sleep, ready to embrace the dream, remember, and heal.
Every day, I woke up crying. The next week:
How do I remember a suppressed memory?
Have you forgotten? The somatic method. It isn’t about thinking; it’s about being.
Physically.
That’s it. You can’t mentally hunt for the memory. You have to trigger it in a waking state through physical means. Always keep the temperature of your home or your car to approximately 36 degrees, for example. This will trick your inner psyche into taking you back.
And what then?
She blinked. And then you will be healed.
It was profound. I immediately loved the idea. It wasn’t more of the endless thinking and talking that leads to nowhere. It wasn’t a healing by small, unnoticeable increments. Her method promised to scoop out the guts of my pain all at once.
I did exactly as she said. I even claimed a disused, inoperable birthing suite as a safe space of my own, a place to meditate and come up with further ideas of my own as, every night, that glow evaded me. First, I stopped using deodorant. After no results, I stopped showering or washing my hands altogether. Next, I started eating only soft foods, and then only liquids – I told my co-workers that I was on a cleanse and ate up their praise. If only they knew the real work that I’ve been doing. But it’s too personal to share.
At home, I opt to crawl as much as I can after watching an instructive video on somatic therapy. I found a picture of my mother and propped it up against some furniture. I made myself stare at her face until I was sobbing, reliving the time she reprimanded me for spilling wine on the carpet. I could vividly feel the burning imprint of her hand on my buttocks. I’ve always enjoyed yoga, but I’m focusing the most on happy baby pose. When my dream woke me up in the middle of the night one time, I filled my bath with hot water and tried to meditate and fall asleep there instead. It was no good; I didn't like sinking through the water and feeling the bottom and sides of the tub touching my body because it immediately pulled me from the reverie, reminding me of the present moment when I was desperately trying to go backwards in time. There is a larger bath in my safe space birthing suite that might work better, I thought, but sinking through the water would still be an issue.
The other day, a co-worker sent to pick up some adult nappies for our clients, and in the spur of the moment I purchased an extra package for myself. I've been wearing them every day. It has been so frustrating, trying to convince my body that it is safe to go. My pelvic muscles refused to relax and release my bladder or bowel. After work the first day I wore it, I came home and reflexively rushed to the bathroom, drenched in sweat and gasping from the sharp fire of pain travelling all the way up and down my torso. But I curled up on the cold tiles and there, finally, my body took the cue and relaxed. The sensation of release was euphoric; my eyes rolled back into my head. It was a few more days before I could go without having to be in the presence of a toilet.
When I related the mortifying experience to my mentor, expecting her to admonish me for taking things a step too far, she took me into her arms.
You’ve overcome one of the first acts whereby our vessels are civilised. You must feel so liberated. Come here, my friend.
I fell into her, wishing she would call me daughter instead of friend, for to me she was becoming the mother I wish I had. She paid no mind to the sickly-sweet musk emanating from my body, the sour afterscent. It was a moment much like the present one, where we are pressing the foul infant into the chest of its mother and the mother hardly seems to notice that she holds a mass of meat, blood, defecation and mucus. To her, she is holding an angel.
I think I am getting close. I think I might almost be able to remember, I told her, as the unconditional love I felt in her arms summoned a foggy, dull recollection. A warmth I must have felt long ago.
I needed to recreate the conditions under which I last felt safe in my body. I needed the safety of the womb.
I don't doubt it. This is supposed to be painful. Remembering what you lost all those years ago is going to hurt.
The more I hurt, the more humiliated I feel, the closer I get to my healing.
Now, I am weeping over the infant I have just mutilated with my scissors, knowing that it has been traumatised, that with each second it has spent exposed to this world, it has lost more and more of its purity. Not for long, I reassure myself. I will fix this. I whisper to the baby to hold on. I say it so quietly that the mother doesn't hear me. She is deep in the bliss that follows the agony of birth. Someday I hope, once my work is done, I might be able to experience that.
We have to shake the poor mother from her trance, however. It isn't over for her yet. We midwives tell her to push, push, push. No one takes the baby away from her. It wouldn't be right.
For years it has felt as if somewhere deep within my soul, I have been reliving the agony of my birth over and over again. Being torn away from my mother, from my very first home inside of her. My mentor was overjoyed by this revelation. I am sometimes self-conscious of how much I depend on her approval. I have been perpetually adolescent, ignorant, my growth stumped by my body's blockage of my spirit. But in due time, my healing will fix all of this. Without her, I would have lived my life behind a veil forever, or until it killed me.
Finally, the placenta exits the vagina, and I choke.
Are you alright? the other midwife asks.
Totally fine, I reply. I smile at her and then at the mother, who is practically unconscious. The other midwife immediately gets to work revitalising the patient, forgetting all about me. The anaesthetist digs inside the patient’s vagina for the specific bone that will guide her to the pudendal nerve. She makes quick work of administering mepivacaine with a needle that is longer than the newborn’s body.
I spend the next five minutes preparing needle and thread before hurrying to take care of the perineal tear. I use forceps to grasp the tissue together and a driver to grasp the needle. I puncture the skin to start on the first suture, wishing I could just use my bare hands. I would feel so much more in control if I didn’t have to wear these gloves.
No one but me noticed the placenta. It came out heart-shaped. My mind cannot decide if it is blue or red. My gloved fingers trace over its large veins. To some, it may look like gore, but to me, it is the home of a soul. I press slightly, squishing where the umbilical cord meets the sac. Soul food. I laugh under my breath as I encounter gooey clumps. Soul furniture.
That poor baby is still so distressed. I want to wail with it. I want to say I understand, I know how you feel.
The scalp beneath my unwashed hair has finally stopped itching. The sour sweetness of all my body's folds and crevices has taken on an addictive quality, like ambergris. The heat beneath my many layers of clothing is comfortable. As for the nappy, I only wish I could wear no underwear at all. I am getting so close.
It pains me to lay the afterbirth out on a trolley, hide it underneath a towel, wheel it away. Such a precious material deserves far more respect and reverence. But everything will be okay very shortly. I will fix it.
The clinic's hallways, at least, don't have that sterile feel to them. It is nice and dim. The warm yellow light comes from sconces, soothing. My feet and the wheels of my trolley make no noise as we travel over the carpet. A nurse comes down the hallway and I smile as convincingly as I can. Thankfully, she smiles back and continues past me.
The sign says OUT OF ORDER, but I swipe my pass and the door of the disused birthing suite opens. My safe space. My headquarters.
I push the trolley inside, immediately making my way towards the round tub in the centre of the room.
The space is heavy with that familiar, meaty scent. My nostrils are wide to welcome the odour in. It is as if my nose is pressed against the belly of the newborn, or to the pelvis of the mother.
My eyes are watering, and I'm convinced that it's because I'm on the verge of something. The memory is fighting to come forth, baby fists punching against my brain. My mouth is open in a smile and a grimace. It is going to happen. I am anticipating the healing before it has even begun.
I strip everything off. My mandatory scrubs, my outermost layers of clothing, my shoes. I wear sweatpants over leggings over stockings, a jumper over two shirts over a skivvy. I remove it all. My bra comes off in a warm, damp wad. I do not feel cool with my skin exposed to the air; I left this room's air-conditioning on at 36 degrees days ago. My nappy lands at my feet with a soft thump. I feel waste smeared over my groin but don't attend to the mess I've made. How could it be a mess? How could it be dirty? I have spent the past weeks reacquainting myself with the untouched purity I lost so long ago; there is no such thing as dirty for me anymore.
I pull away the towel on my trolley and admire the heart shape of the placenta one last time before I gather the mass in my bare hands. I have to warm it up. I clutch it onto my chest, hoping the beating organ in my chest revives it. Warm goo. I hug it like that mother hugged her baby. I hug it like my mother surely hugged me when I was born.
Without further delay, I carefully hop up to the edge of the tub. I shuffle back until my toes can hardly reach the ground. And then, scrunching my eyes shut, I push off and fall backwards.
At home the other night, a hot bath had not worked. But I knew the idea had potential. I just needed more.
I needed a simulation.
I fall backwards, but I don't hit the bottom. I'm beaming. I taste copper on my tongue. This is working.
For days, I have been building myself a soul home.
I am suspended, floating in red, blue, and brown. The warmth within me knows no separation from the warmth outside. I cannot discern where my vessel ends and where my soul begins. I cannot feel where my vessel ends and the outside begins.
I am a tiny, insignificant, meaty animal yet again.
I am suspended in a sac, surrounded by the comforting firm-softness of clotted blood and stretchy membranes. There are great, big veins coiling all around me.
Mother, mother, mother.
I am before civilisation. I am before aching joints and stinging wounds. I have subverted neglect. There is no one here to turn away from me. No one to sneer at me. No one to judge and misjudge. No one on whom to depend for advice and support. I am simple. If only I could have known all along that my needs are so hysterically basic.
My stomach is rumbling. A need! I need! And here, I can need without yearning, I can need without suspense. The answer to this need is obvious and met with ease.
The heart-shaped placenta is still on my chest. Melting around a bit, now. I have been moving without even realising, working the membrane around my body, testing how far it can stretch. It only seems right that I should be inside it, even in a simulation.
My stomach rumbles again. I feel around the placenta until I find the umbilical cord.
This is my first encounter with the reality, and it almost tears the whole thing apart. For, the umbilical cord is unattached and un-attachable to my belly button, where it is supposed to go. But I am still hungry. I refuse to fret, refuse to let go of this memory now that I finally have it firmly within my grasp.
I bring the memory right to my mouth. What do body parts matter to a soul, a spirit? Technicalities matter little. My mouth is where I must feed, now.
My heart calms when the umbilical cord is inside my lips. It is still warm, still ready to provide for the infant that I had so abruptly cut away. I am crying, but I refuse to let my sobs interfere. I hold them inside. I do not feel my tears trail down my face. What do tears matter to a foetus? Anything I expel merges straight into the fluid surrounding me. I am finally whole. Safe once more.
There are thundering sounds, threatening to disturb me. It isn't my stomach, this time, because I am feeding. Satiated. I am feeding from the Mother. I try to remain content. I’m sucking on the straw.
The sounds grow louder, nearer. Against my will my weak, pathologised, neurotic, embodied brain is identifying the noises, urging me to be afraid. There are footsteps and voices. There are shouts.
I refuse to submit to fear. My mentor is always telling me thus. Fear can no longer serve me. In my awakening, in my return to soulful purity, I have transcended fear.
I am still suckling. I swallow love. It tastes sour and bloody and I adore it.
They force me out of my home. They tear me away from my afterbirth. Detach my umbilical cord. Against my will I am forced into this new world, a new person, a new body.
I am screaming, and screaming, and screaming. ▼
Image: Pawel Czerwinski - Unsplash
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