Them first. Me second

We walk out the hospital doors together.

He carries our baby, and I carry my body.

Them first. Me second.

It’s the start of a new chapter, although it can still feel like I’m in the pages of the last.

I’m still processing what’s already happened.

The birth.

My body.

Everything that changed over the course of a few hours.

My mind replays it all, often.

So much happened.

It always does when you bring life into the world.

I think about the intensity.

Then the joy.

Then the aftermath.

I want to forget some parts, and relive others.

Maybe I will some day.

But not today.

Today I need to re-enter the world outside of the four walls that gave me more time to live where we were all born.

Today I need to keep walking forward while looking ahead, unfinished processing or not.

Today I need to mother myself into mothering on.

Because despite the healing my body still needs,

And the emotional and physical toll that pregnancy and birth has taken on me,

That little baby, my whole world, needs me.

And I would do anything to be there.