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Officially, Recovered

Life six weeks after giving birth

Kelsey Breseman
Modern Mothers
4 min readJan 2, 2025

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A pram in the foreground, inside of a climbing gym. In the background, a man is halfway up the climbing wall.
Photo by Kelsey Breseman

Two weeks postpartum, I was summarily discharged from midwife care. It’s a projected six week recovery from episiotomy stitches, but the maternity team isn’t checking in anymore.

“Just don’t go running any marathons,” the midwife laughed when I asked what I was cleared to do.

Robert met my eyes, because he knows I would. But even I can recognize the need to recover from this one.

The injuries of birth are pretty severe. I got cut through a muscle in my pelvic floor. My abs are shot from carrying a baby. Any existing health issues tend to compound with lack of sleep. Plus, weird new things have been happening to my body. From breastfeeding? As an aftermath of birth?

For a while, my only two orifices not medically diagnosed were the eyes. My left ear stopped hearing. I finally stopped coughing, but my teeth got sore spots.

I developed an intense fear of a regular bodily function: I started passing tree-trunk-sized stools, which creates anal tearing and also pulls on the vaginal stitches. I dreaded the daily rite of re-tearing, blood enough to make the water red, unhealed episiotomy aching for hours after. I finally talked to a doctor, but they took a week and a half to call in my prescription.

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Modern Mothers
Modern Mothers

Published in Modern Mothers

Dedicated to exploring motherhood through articles, personal essays, and a bit of fiction.

Kelsey Breseman
Kelsey Breseman

Written by Kelsey Breseman

An adventurer, engineer, indigenous Alaskan writing the nitty gritty. See my recent posts for free on Substack: https://ifoundtheme.substack.com/

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