NatChat July 2017
The July 2017 issue for Chester NCT branch. We look at Mental Health in pregnancy and in the postnatal period.
The July 2017 issue for Chester NCT branch. We look at Mental Health in pregnancy and in the postnatal period.
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Afterbirth<br />
They told me I was faulty<br />
and they took my son away<br />
and they put him in a box with tubes and tape.<br />
I hadn't had a second more<br />
to memorise his face<br />
before all I had were pictures and reports.<br />
Hours whisked away<br />
before they took me to the room<br />
where my son was lying restlessly, alone.<br />
Wires tangled in his limbs<br />
I was told how to touch him<br />
and the space, where he used to live in me, shrunk.<br />
With a mask across his eyes<br />
for the bilirubin light,<br />
with a blanket and a hat that were not his.<br />
And I felt that my first moment<br />
had been well and truly broken<br />
like my body bruised and punctured, beaten in.<br />
"We would let you have a cuddle"<br />
I was told "but we're so busy"<br />
and your bond can surely wait another day.<br />
While I hand expressed colostrum<br />
in a desperate attempt<br />
to feel like the mum I should have been,<br />
I worried that the space I felt,<br />
the absence of a bond I held,<br />
the love that didn't come,<br />
that I had failed.<br />
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