Browsing the "postpartum" Tag

Poetry

Postpartum depression during a pandemic

February 15th, 2022 | by Amy Mattes

The house is living and breathing windows lifting curtains let old air out. An air between seasons. Her body is living and breathing open organs stretching in the


Body

Buoyant Force

January 11th, 2022 | by Sumitra Mattai

I wondered if I would ever be able to approach the deep end without panicking.


Loss

Losing my Father, Raising my Son

November 24th, 2021 | by Lindsey Newman

Among the last things Pa said to me were that he loved me, and he was proud of what an amazing mother I was


99 Problems

Postpartum Dream Sequence

November 5th, 2020 | by Becky Kling

I am surprisingly unashamed I gave birth to an insect, though I am still trying to figure out why my belly got so big for him


Poetry

Ginny Wiehardt on KNIFE SKILLS

October 23rd, 2020 | by Ginny Wiehardt

‘Knife Skills’(After a BBC documentary on postpartum OCD) They gleamed at her from kitchen drawers, reflecting the self she feared,


Comics

Who Needs the Diagnosis?

September 19th, 2019 | by Jericho Vincent

1 in 7 mothers experiences postpartum depression. And yet, naming it still makes me uneasy. Women used to be given the diagnosis of "Hysteria" if their minds or bodies rebelled.



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  • “You’ve already told me that story,” he said. Switching gears, he asked, “Why isn’t my father around?” #breastfeeding #parenting #fuckit #protest #teenagers #sexualviolence “Over time, Anabelle learned to talk about her feelings. She said saw her birthmother in the sky. She drew a picture of grief moving through her body like water. When she had more language, she began to talk about her losses.” “I’m not sure why I read that poster and thought that it applied to other mothers, other people’s children. But it probably has something to do with the shock I felt two years later when a neurologist confidently diagnosed “Autism Spectrum Disorder” and I responded with at least twenty “What about…” type questions. I had described my dynamic, interesting, loving toddler to this doctor, and her response sounded dire and clinical. That poster was the same. All of it seemed so unfortunate.” “Someone hit the call button. No one came. Someone rushed to the nurses’ station; still no one came. The contractions, a creature, twisted my uterus, lancing its nails. I tried to breathe through them, but there was no space, no time.” “But when, one-by-one, natural disasters ransacked too many of the communities we visited, including my home-state of California, I began to spiral into a grief I didn’t know how to support. I came to realize that our climate crisis wasn’t off in some far-flung future. It was here. Now. I’d birthed two perfectly good humans, boys who wanted to set up lemonade stands and play soccer, but who would be tasked instead to worry about rising seas and firestorms.” “I have to say,” my doctor said. We were still in the OR. He seemed saddened. “There was a uterine rupture. A large one. I have only seen something like this four times in my career.” “This is the part where I am supposed to articulate that taking time for myself allows me to be a better a parent, which is true. But the compulsion to footnote derives from accepting the baseline that I should feel guilty at all for taking time for myself, which I do not. I’d meet my pals for dinner, go to a movie alone, or attend a weekend bachelorette trip even if it resulted in worse parenting. Parents deserve pleasures unattached to their children.”

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