Separated at Birth

So I guess I’m officially having a conversation with my pelvis. Last night, instead of writing more from my pelvis to myself (see previous post), I responded.

Dear Pelvis,
Thank you for saying what you had to say. Heart, Gut, Brain and Intuition all agree with you. But right now — as the weather crashes down from 80 degrees to snowing — I can’t help but hate you.

I’ve never truly hated anything. But I feel like you – your willingness to follow the whim of the weather and completely destroy whatever plans we had – are making this life very difficult for me. As I write this, you are slathered in Arnica cream and the heating pad is on you, trying to make you settle down. But no. You are like the raging temper tantrum my son has not yet learned to have. You are obnoxious. You are disruptive. You are inconsiderate, spiteful and mean. You are a mean girl, like the pair from my Brownies troop who said my mom didn’t love me because she didn’t make time to be a leader like their moms did. (Remember what I told them? “My mom loves me so much she works. And she’s an ICU nurse, so she’s saving someone’s life right now.”)

I am doing my best to be patient with you but I’m anxious about so many things and eager to get back to what summer is supposed to be: Hiking, camping and going on adventures outside. (Will we lose another summer?) The professionals told me it could be a year before the healing you are experiencing will be finished. I’ve only given you eight months and six days. They said the first year of nasty weather would be the hardest. And believe me, I know it is not your fault it is supposed to snow in May in Kansas for the first time since 1907. It is not your fault that you separated on one of only two days of snow in 2012 and 2013 has been a year to repair the damage of previous drought. It just pisses me off. How unlucky. How unfair to be at the mercy of the forecast as my own fortitude waivers. But at the same time, how wonderful to have come as far as we have. Yes, I meant to say we.

I appreciate what you did for my son. He is happy, healthy and makes up for whatever vigor I lack on any given day. He is a miracle and if what happened is what it took to make him a part of my life – part of our family – than I would do it all again. I’m just scared, hurt, angry and tired.
I’m scared of the unknown. Will I ever feel like my old self physically? Or will I be so many years older by the time things are “right” again that age will have added aches and pains I think are unnatural but really aren’t at all?
I’m hurt, sometimes physically and other times emotionally, by the daily struggle we face now. If I’m sore and don’t want to pick up my son, I fear he can feel it, that it will cause him guilt that he should not bare. Right now I need someone to blame, and you, Pelvis, are all I have.
I’m angry because of the things I missed, the things I can’t remember about my son and his earliest days, weeks and months. That time all the books and magazines said was supposed to be magical is a fog for me and the memories I do have are filled with pain, not joy. I will never cradle another baby seconds after he or she emerged from my womb. I will never know what it feels like to carry your day old baby to show him off to doting family and friends. I feel robbed and betrayed and you are the perpetrator.
I’m tired because this whole experience has changed my ability to sleep. I used to sleep like a log. Even until the last few weeks of pregnancy I could close my eyes at the end of the day and wake up in the morning. Now, several times a week I wake up in the night, because of a bad dream, or pain. Or I fight to fall asleep because there are crazy things in my head that don’t let me rest. And again, I want something to blame. You’re all I’ve got, Pelvis.

Just like you saved my son the day he was born, you save him – and me – now. I would much rather blame you, and I hope you agree that is the best course. It certainly wasn’t his doing. He would have found another way so he would have had a mother able to devote more to him right away. I will concede that you did what you had to do and it was the right course. But I am not ready to accept it. I’m not ready to forgive you. I’m sorry. I’m just not ready.

Maybe someday I will thank you for opening up a part of my soul that needed to be explored, for giving me new reasons to unpack the baggage I carry related to my parents and their separation, my mom’s struggles with chronic pain and my own understanding of myself as a woman and mother. Maybe there will be a time when you are again completely irrelevant to me and we only recognize each other during the intentional practice of yoga. Maybe when we’ve had three weeks in a row of 80 plus degrees this summer we can try to patch things up. But for right now I need someone to blame and you, Pelvis, are all I’ve got.

Michaela