About 12 hours after I’d given birth to my son via C-section, I was trying to change pads when a nurse entered the bathroom without knocking. I immediately tried to cover myself up.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said. “We’ve seen it all before.”
I didn’t find her answer comforting. Lots of people had seen me naked recently, and I found their casual demeanor about it unsettling.
Letting so many people see my body was the one part of becoming a mother that I hadn’t really expected and it overwhelmed me. I had planned to share my body with my baby, not the rest of the world.
I’ve always been a little prudish when it comes to my body. It started when I entered puberty earlier than my classmates, which got me more attention and comments than I wanted. I struggled to grow out of that initial unease, and as a result, I don’t wear shorts or skirts above the knee. Later, I became uncomfortable with how certain parts of my body looked, like my legs and arms. My family loves to point out that I will wear long sleeves unless the summer heat makes it practically unsafe to do so. I’ve never been comfortable with people seeing my body, because I’ve never been altogether comfortable with how I look. This only got worse in pregnancy—I felt uneasy about my growing bump and dreaded pregnancy weigh-ins. I didn’t take many bump photos, and even when I did, I saved them for only my husband and me—they certainly never went on social media.
I had planned to share my body with my baby, not the rest of the world.
But then, at 36 weeks, my water broke and everything happened in a flash. Even before my son arrived in the world, I found myself in a hospital robe, hooked up to monitors and IVs, and I couldn’t even go to the bathroom without asking for help. There wasn’t time for me to be self-conscious about people seeing my body: It was a necessity. But it certainly wasn’t easy.
I lay exposed on a hospital bed as a nurse shaved my pubic hair and chatted nonchalantly with my doctor. That same nurse had looked on as my doctor did a pelvic exam too. Then, I was wheeled into an operating room and sliced open while my doctor, anesthesiologist, neonatologist, nurse, and male medical student all saw my insides. I had had no warning that the med student was going to be there. Aside from my doctor, all of them were strangers I’d never met before.
I knew, of course, that there would be other people in the room while I delivered my son, but it hadn’t really occurred to me that there would be so many new faces. My mom wasn’t allowed in the operating room, and it was my doctor—not my husband—that held me still while they inserted the epidural needle into my spine. I certainly had no idea that my cesarean would be a teaching moment for a med student. Or that the doctor and anesthesiologist would discuss TV shows while my abdomen was being stitched up.
It didn’t end there. Once my son was here, I’d let a nurse touch and knead my breast as we worked to get my crying newborn to feed. Over the coming days, several other nurses—and one lactation consultant—would do the same. Every morning, a new doctor would examine my body and my incision—my doctor wasn’t on shift for the remainder of my hospital stay. At different times postpartum, I felt poked, prodded, sliced, and manhandled.
My transformation into motherhood felt visceral and physical, etched into my body with my C-section scar, my stretch marks, and my milk-engorged breasts.
Even after the hospital, family members would assume it was perfectly fine to stay in the same room while I nursed my son.
In the weeks and months postpartum, I struggled with how vulnerable I felt at doctor’s appointments, at meetings with my lactation consultant, and even around my husband. My transformation into motherhood felt visceral and physical, etched into my body with my C-section scar, my stretch marks, and my milk-engorged breasts. And I felt like everyone could see my unease every time I pulled out a breast to nurse.
I knew I couldn’t live in this discomfort forever, though. It was affecting everything: It made me reluctant to run errands, to spend time around family, and to let photographs be taken of me with my son, and it was getting in the way of my ability to breastfeed.
It wasn’t always easy, but I realized that if I focused on my son and my role as his mother, it got easier.
I had to find a way to cope if I was going to be the confident mother my son needed. So, slowly and surely, I began setting boundaries. It didn’t happen overnight—there were times where I still found it hard to speak up—but I tried to not beat myself up when I regretted not standing up for myself. What mattered most was reminding myself that it was my choice when and where I breastfed my son. If I was uncomfortable with who was there, I’d ask for privacy—or if that felt too difficult, I’d leave the room. I stopped answering my parents’ questions about my postpartum weight loss, and I decided what I was comfortable sharing with others about breastfeeding and my recovery. Instead of focusing on how I looked, I tried to put my attention on making sure I was eating what my son needed me to for breastfeeding.
It wasn’t always easy, but I realized that if I focused on my son and my role as his mother, it got easier. When he was born, I didn’t have the time to be embarrassed about people seeing my body. But now, by focusing on him and his needs, I don’t have as much time to focus on my body’s flaws. Instead, I’m choosing to celebrate what my body has accomplished, bringing this little boy into the world, and what it continues to do each day when I nurse him. And when I focus on that, I feel at peace about who sees me do it.
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