The Boundary Lines of My Broken Body by Brittany Allen
Somewhere between rage-cleaning the kitchen and a ten-minute tidy, I decide it’s time. I reach into the bin and grab the avocado rattle—the one my first son shook around as he giggled when he was 4 months old. I place it in the donation pile. A few teething toys go in right after, including the mint green one with the wooden circles—both of my boys loved that one. I notice the little lion toy nearby, and tears start to gather on my lashes. I look up to see my almost one-year-old spin the wheel of a truck and stare at it in fascination. He’s still a baby, but somehow in this moment, he looks like a whole toddler. My last baby is growing up.
I’m crying when my husband walks in. “I’m just having a moment,” I tell him, my voice shaking. I gather the rest of the little baby toys and place them in the pile. I peer into the googly eyes of the lion and suddenly I’m pulled backwards in time. It’s three years ago and I’m sitting on the couch watching my son shake it aggressively while kicking his feet in the baby swing. Then I’m jolted forward closer to the present. I’m at the dining room table where my oldest tosses the lion into the air to entertain his baby brother. Their giggles echo in my mind. Somehow, their delight is forever attached to this toy now. One day, I’ll get rid of it.
My baby turns one in a couple of days. Unless God intervenes, there will be no more newborn snuggles, no monkey stretches, and no more of that fresh, sweet baby smell. Soon, his chunky thighs, massive cheeks, and arms that give Hawaiian sweet rolls a run for their money will thin out just like his brother’s did. The baby stage is my favorite, and it’s coming to a close. I don’t want it to.
I know that it has to, though. My body is breaking.
***
“Is it time for lunch?” My toddler hugs my leg, quickly following up with his order. My extra-large baby bump and I limp across the laminate floor to the refrigerator and grab ham, dairy-free cheese, and a cucumber. As I prepare his lunch, I’m forced to lean over and rest my head on the counter. My heart seems to think I’m running a marathon, and stars blink across my eyesight.
I’ve been pregnant before. But this pregnancy? It’s on steroids. This pregnancy looks like singing Taylor Swift lyrics in the car without care, only to end up having a panic attack for no reason. It’s popping another Zofran and ordering Doordash for the fifth time this week. It’s sciatic pain and head pain and pubic bone pain and sacrum pain and why is there so much pain?
Evidence of survival mode is found in the indentation of my body in the couch and the heaviness of my husband’s eyes. “I think we’re done having kids,” he says. At the moment, I agree, but my heart is saddened by the thought.
***
I’m 38 weeks pregnant as I vox a friend through monster-tears, crying out words like “overwhelmed” “miserable” and “so scared.” My first full-term pregnancy would most likely have never ended if you ask me, considering I was induced a day shy of 42 weeks.
“I want this baby out.” I cry in exasperation. But said baby does not come out. It seems my body either miscarries or holds onto a baby until a team of nurses and doctors pry my child from the fingers of my womb.
I schedule an induction just before 41 weeks. After 14 hours on pitocin, my body is as inconsistent at picking up contractions as a politician is at honesty. My doctor breaks my water to help my body along.
“Maybe I won’t get the epidural,” I say to my husband. I wobble to the bathroom feeling fluid gush with each step. You can smell my confidence (and probably my body odor) from a mile away. Within seconds, I am sure I will die. Labor pains hit my abdomen like a bomb—sudden and explosively intense. Opening the bathroom door, I manage to get out the words, “I need–the–epidural.”
Somehow, I manage to have the best and worst epidural experience. When the anesthesiologist places it in my lower back, none of us know I have inflamed and bulging discs. Different from the tiny jolt that makes your leg kick out, it feels like someone is electrocuting my entire lower back, hip, and right leg. All my nerves light up one after the other, like a crowd doing the wave at a football game. But the pain is gone, praise God, and I can still feel my baby moving as he journeys toward his first breath.
A few hours later, my son is nursing in the crook of my arm. One nurse grabs another, “Come look at these clots.” They examine me, making notes. A rush of dizziness floods my head when I try to stand as they prepare to move me to recovery. The concern on their faces is evident, but I would do it all again for this. For him.
***
Shimmying myself off the chaise lounge after nursing my three-day-old, I attempt to take a step when sharp, unbearable pain jolts my right leg into uselessness. I sit on the floor where I landed for a long time in a state of shock. The disbelief quickly fades as I try to get up and realize I cannot move half of my body without excruciating pain. The desperation of my circumstance begins to set in. My ability to take care of myself, let alone my children, has evaporated right before me.
I crawl everywhere now—to the bedroom, through the kitchen, to the couch. I crawl to the bathroom as tears drip from my face to the carpet below. In the corner of my eye, I see the fear and confusion on my firstborn’s face. I cry for him too.
Each morning, I open my eyes, hoping this day will be different—that today, I will walk again. I sleep in the same position all night like someone is holding a taser to my hip. The slightest shift sends out a shock wave of pain. The baby cries in the living room, and our toddler runs by, asking, “Where’s mommy?” I try to lift my leg and yelp like an injured dog. My husband finds me looking like an animal caught in a trap, tears pooling in my ears, and frustration building in my heart. He pulls me up quickly as I beg him to leave me be. Finally, I’m sitting up. He rolls my new walker over to the bed and carries my water and nursing caddy to the couch where I will spend my day. He places our baby boy in my arms, and I nurse him while looking out the window, lamenting my wilted cucumber plant.
“Do you need anything else?” my husband asks.
“No,” I reply as I sip lukewarm coffee.
My husband never once complains, but I do. I ask God how long. I ask him why on top of bleeding nipples and second-degree tears and no sleep, and baby blues did he allow this. I try to hold on to hope, but as each day passes while I live life from the couch, I feel the darkness of depression coming toward me as if to suffocate me with a pillow.
Days turn to weeks, and physical therapy leads to an MRI—and no one knows when I’ll be able to walk.
***
Months later, I take short walks around the neighborhood, but the pain still lingers. My pelvic floor physical therapist thinks I have arthritis in my pubic bone.
Sitting on the exam table, I ask her, “If I were to get pregnant again, what do you think would happen?”
She looks away from the computer to look at me. There’s a slight cringe in her expression as she says, “My only other patient with this is pregnant right now, and she is in a wheelchair.”
The room is silent for a moment, but we’re both thinking the same thought. I shouldn’t get pregnant anymore. By now, I know another baby would be unwise, yet I still struggle with the idea of being done. Each new problem in my body acts as a stepping stone to reality.
***
It all comes down to this moment. My eyes carefully read the diagnosis in my hands. I was born with a life-threatening condition and have walked the earth with no major complications for 34 years. I’ve carried two babies to term without ever knowing my colon, small intestine, mesenteric vein, and appendix are not where they should be. More than ever, my boys’ lives and mine feel like a miracle.
Major surgery is on the horizon. I can’t have more babies.
***
For the last six years, I have been pregnant, miscarrying, trying for another baby, or postpartum. It feels mystifying to experience five pregnancies with only two children to show for it. I wanted more. As this season ends, I wonder, Shouldn’t there be more? The pain throughout my body cries out, “No more.”
I write in the office where boxes of baby clothes stand piled behind me. Soon they will find a new infant to wrap around. As each baby item vacates my home, I’m learning to let go—to be content with the perimeters God has placed in my body and the boundary lines that have fallen in pleasant places.
***
My broken body aches while my 22 lb baby clings to my neck as if to say, “I need you mama. Don’t leave me.” I say “okay” to his body language and rock him to the sounds of a fake ocean on the table next to me. His chubby cheek rests against mine, where a single tear begins to slide down in slow motion. Despite the pinched nerve in my neck, my sciatica flaring, and my back spasming, I don’t want this moment, with this baby—my last baby—to end.
My heart tightens as I wrestle within the very body that has brought me to this great “no.”—this death of the dream of more children.
“He’s growing up, Lord. I don’t want to let him.”
Brittany Allen lives in Ohio with her husband and two boys. She's a writer, aspiring poet, and the author of a forthcoming book about miscarriage. She loves coffee, babies, and flowers. Find more of her writing on her blog at www.brittleeallen.com or subscribe to her newsletter on Substack: https://brittanyleeallen.substack.com/.