Wrong, felt right

It didn’t go as planned.

I planned to be snuggling my newborn baby which I had just birthed, not being taken in an ambulance to the nearest hospital.

I planned to be sending messages to my friends and family of our exciting news, not relying on my husband to tell them our baby is ok, but I’m not.

I planned on being mobile enough to meet all of my newborn baby’s needs, not asking others to help me when I was connected to cords and monitors.

I planned to be home soon after the birth watching my new baby and older ones meet and adjust, not seeing them do so every few hours through a phone screen and a bad connection.

I planned on feeling tired, teary and totally immersed in the initial stages of my new chapter, not numb from the shock of what still feels like “just happened”.

I planned for my first week postpartum to be different to what it was. To be like the experiences I had with my other children. To be testing yet reasonably straightforward.

But it wasn’t.

It wasn’t what I expected, or what I had prepared for.

And it threw me.

As I lay on that hospital bed tied to machines and what “should have been”, I felt robbed of my initial postpartum experience. I felt my body had failed. I felt a heaviness of hurt that was not just from what my body had been through.

It was hard.

Physically and emotionally.

Medicine had saved me, physically.

But do you know who really kept saving me emotionally in those initial days postpartum?

It was my baby in my arms and the children waiting for me at home.

Because although what happened wasn’t all to plan, they made it all worth it.

They made everything that went wrong, feel right.