Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER
Motherhood makes you fight for your identity. Yes, I love my child. Yes, I can’t imagine my life without him. But I never agreed to swap my messy, energetic life for a template.
Pregnancy kicks off the identity drain with every healthcare professional who smiles too brightly and asks, ‘how’s mum today’? Pamphlets tell me to grind my placenta and eat it, and pregnancy blogs advise me to book a doula to realise my dream birthing.
Childbirth pushes control of your body out to others. I can still feel an intense violation of self as I lay naked on a trolley, paralysed from the waist down with drugs. A male orderly staring. An anaesthetist nurse who tells me “we like to spread ‘em all out here,” making jokes about catholics as she pins down my arms and my legs. The consultant who declares “I’m going to do an experiment on this girl” as I lay open and bleeding.
Elderly midwives who grab at your girls, violently clamping on your baby. Midwives who claim you’re putting your child in grave danger because you don’t want to use formula. Midwives who knock your baby’s head hard against the plastic crib as they whisk them away without reason.
And then time. I love daydreaming, but motherhood takes that away as minutes churn into hours and then days. My breastfeeding diary meticulously recording the drudgery. My netflix habit turning my brain foggy with cake design and b grade movies.
Mamma! Maybe I should have swallowed my placenta. At least I’d have an amusing anecdote to share.