This time last year I was in labor. I was part-way through a 68-hour labor that brought a darkness into my existence that I had never known. As the hours passed, dream after dream I had carefully prepared and hoped for in bringing my child into this world was gone. I have suffered multiple dislocations, car accidents, broken/sprained bones, surgery - drops in the bucket compared to the excruciating flood of relentless pain that disconnected me from my human self. I was gone during that pain because to have been present would have been to lose myself. After 54 hours I got an epidural. But between 54 and 68 hours, darkness fell and infection burned. I was hot with fever and my baby’s heart rate was rising and plummeting. It took 67 hours for me to get to nine and a half centimeters but we were not willing to risk any more. I went to the O.R. My skin was ripped from my back while removing the epidural, I lost a lot of blood, and I was covered in bruises from shots. I have never felt more destroyed in my life. And I still struggle with this event. My postpartum had/has continued grief and darkness from everything this birth was and wasn’t. I couldn’t look at my scar for months. It was the ugliest reminder of everything that was lost. Of pain I still can’t understand. Do not kid yourselves about recovery from c-sections. It is major surgery and it was part of my nightmare. It has taken consistent therapy, my beloved partner @jakeinnyc, God, and lots of meditation/prayer/body work but this week during a session focusing on my stomach and scar with @kneading.norashment, I had a shift. I connected with my scar and was able to thank it for the first time. Because that scar gave me my Junho. And without it I’m not sure where we’d be. I share this for my own empowerment but also to bring light to what birth experience is for some people. To have bodies and minds that do not experience childbirth creating legislation around it breaks my heart and echoes tauntingly in the dark hollow of my inner trauma. The less we say, the less our experience is honored. So hear me: I hate my scar. I love my scar. But thankfully we contain multitudes.