Alice Legendre: My postpartum and that of all mothers

Alice is the mother of Marthe, 3 and a half months old. After giving birth, she took 2 slaps in the face, the love slap and the post-partum slap. She would have liked to have been informed, she would have liked to have been told that the aftermath of childbirth can be so hard, so painful. Alice has poured her heart out for Le Journal d'Élhée, telling us about her post-partum experience in the most poignant and accurate terms, but in common with so many other mothers!

My postpartum and that of all mothers

"Marthe was born on December 14, 2020. The slap. The punch in the face. The sunshine in my life. Her lopsided smile, her big eyes of wonder, almost as big as ours. Her orange smell, her milk smell and all the indescribable things, all the things that go through my body, my head. Joy, true joy.

The arrival of a baby and the tornado that follows. Emotional. Physical. If I didn't expect to feel so many new things - love, pure love, the kind that takes hold of the gut, visceral, that sometimes hurts the heart so much it's vivid, that brings hot tears to a hospital room - I also didn't expect the suffering that follows childbirth. Postpartum. The things I hadn't been told, the things I hadn't been told about.

I spent hours glued to Marthe in our room at the maternity hospital, trying not to let her feel my pain too much, not daring to tell the others, smiling even though I was in so much pain. I just didn't know. I didn't know that you could have such discomfort trying to get up after a Caesarean section, I didn't know that I wouldn't be able to urinate after the anaesthetic, that I'd be wearing a catheter for three days, I didn't know what trenches were, that you could still have contractions after giving birth, I didn't know that the drop in hormones could be so violent, so sharp. I didn't know that breastfeeding could be so painful. That the cracks could be so severe. That sometimes distress gives way to dark days and wondering when you'll resurface. I spent hours feeling guilty for not knowing, stupid, alone. Hours of fear. Long minutes looking at myself in the bathroom mirror, not understanding that belly that still looked like a pregnant woman's, looking at my net panties, and all that blood pouring out of me. I wondered why I hadn't been told, why my mother hadn't told me, why women don't talk to each other about this.

After giving birth, I had pancreatitis. An inflammation of the pancreas due to biliary lithiasis. This is rare. What's not so rare is women's voices not being heard. My attacks were immense. In my chest, in my back. I went to emergency twice. The first time, an intern huffed and puffed when I tried to tell him I knew something abnormal was going on. When I tried to tell him about the fire in my body. The second time, I was told I was having anxiety attacks. I had to insist. Talk to my GP. Say I was on all fours in my bathroom. That I felt like I was dying. That I was going to die if we didn't do something. I was finally hospitalized, far from Marthe, far from her smell, her warm skull, far from her skin and breath, I lived twelve days with a nasogastric tube, I had my gallbladder removed. I felt like I'd lost my body.

If pancreatitis is a personal experience, what is common is the lack of psychological help, the difficulty of the medical world to listen to women who say they are suffering, the abandonment of mothers during their postpartum period. I met kind people, wonderful midwives, magical nurses, my partner, my parents and my friends were a huge help, but I was alone, terribly alone.

I don't blame women. Not my mother. Not my girlfriends. Not to that whole army of warriors who are asked not to talk too much about their suffering, who are made to understand that we can't really see what to applaud, when they're at home with the kids, when they're looking after them, when they're feeding them, washing them, changing them, educating them, who are made to understand that now that they've given birth, it's time for the baby, that their needs are less, that their health will wait. To them, I send all the strength I can. To them, I say, let's talk. Let's talk about our maternity, our maternities. Let's talk about post-partum. Let's fight. "