She’s bleeding, wrecked, torn open.
A body flipped inside out.Breasts warming, filling, stretching beyond their boundaries.
There’s ice and heat, cramps and swelling, a long-awaited glass of red wine.
She’s desperate for rest, for precious sleep, cobbling together broken hours, minutes, answering the cry.
9 months sustaining another, months more ahead of continued sustenance.
We look at her, sleeping there,
and we know this, don’t we?
Her body, rearranged, recalibrated – so different.
Her days, no longer following a familiar path.
Her heart, vulnerable and exposed in a brand new way.
Her entire life, spinning on a new axis, pointed in new directions.
This is the 24-hour-old mama.
And she was made for this.
-The Labor Mama