Dené K. Rorie

The baby is only part of the birth. There's another birth that almost nobody talks about. The PLACENTA. For 9 months, your body grows an entirely new organ, an organ with one job keeping your baby alive. It delivers oxygen, nutrients, hormones, filters waste and connects two completely different circulatory systems without ever mixing your blood. Then, minutes after your baby is born that organ detaches from the wall of your uterus, and when it does, it leaves behind a wound roughly the size of a dinner plate. About 10 cm across, that is why you bleed after birth, because your body is healing a wound. At the same time, your uterus, which stretched enough to hold an entire baby, is working around the clock to shrink back down to its pre pregnancy size. Those after pains you're feeling those contractions, they are your uterus, squeezing itself smaller while compressing hundreds of open blood vessels to stop the bleeding. Now imagine this. If you had a wound that size anywhere else, on your body, on your arm, on your leg, your back, would anyone expect you to be back at work in a week? Would anyone expect you you to entertain visitors? Cook meals, carry a baby day and night smile for photos and get your body back, of course not. You'd probably be in the hospital on a drip. People would tell you to rest up. They'd expect weeks of recovery, yet when that exact wound is hidden inside your body, the world acts as though you should be back to normal almost immediately. 6 weeks later, you go for your postpartum, check up. Many women think it's a milestone that says, wow, you've recovered. It isn't. It's simply checking whether the bleeding has stopped, whether the placental wound has healed and whether your uterus is recovering as expected. It is not a certificate that says your body, brain, hormones, identity or even nervous system have all returned to normal. So if you've ever been wondering, why haven't I bounced back yet? Here's the better question why were you ever expected to bounce back from something this enormous in the first place? Your body is recovering from one of the most extraordinary healing processes a human being can experience. Give yourself some time and space to recover.