I Blame This on My Children

My granddaughter, Leona, has a cute children’s book titled Max the Brave. Max is a black kitten and he is fearless and brave. He wears a red-fabric-lined black cape. He wants to chase mice but, problematically, doesn’t know what a mouse looks like. He is challenged because he runs into a monster thinking it is mouse. I feel for Max. I feel like Max.

I started this Substack bravely, telling myself, my family, and close friends that I could write this personal story—the story of my journey with pelvic organ prolapse. And so I began, not really knowing what this adventure would be. And then I froze. I froze because I saw a monster and that monster was self-doubt and fear—writer’s anxiety. I procrastinated. I said to myself I was going to write and instead baked a pie. A week later I said I was going to write and I cleaned out a closet. And a week after that I packed up all our CD’s and cassette tapes. (Please don’t ask, but yes we still had cassette tapes. Notice the past tense “had,” as they are now gone.) It was another delay tactic. But now, I have found my energy and determination and have taken to the keyboard again.

I’ve had the title for my second essay for a while. We parents accept the good, the bad, the very hard—and, on occasion, the ugly—of doing our best to raise children into thriving adults. It was hard work, as I look in the rearview mirror, perhaps the hardest job I’ve ever had. Our children blame us for many things, especially as teens. We ruined their life because we wouldn’t let them go to a party at an unsupervised home. We said no to letting them go to a rave. We denied them hockey lessons that started at 6:00am on school days, a schedule that just couldn’t work for our family. We have all felt the brunt of such accusations. But in this essay, I am turning the tables on the blame game.

I look back and realize now that my pregnancies were hard, especially my second. My first pregnancy ended with a miscarriage at eleven weeks, a devastating beginning to my child-bearing dreams. My second pregnancy, with our son Eric, was challenging because I was carrying a big baby and didn’t really know it, other than that I gained forty-five pounds and looked like I was carrying a beach ball under my maternity dress. The diagnostic tools, especially ultrasounds, just weren’t as detailed as they are today. My obstetrician and all the labor nurses thought I was carrying a seven- to eight-pound baby. I was in labor for twenty-one hours with tremendous back pain. Eric was delivered using forceps following an episiotomy, and out came a nine-pound thirteen-ounce baby. Everyone was surprised that little me delivered such a big baby. My third pregnancy, with Molly, felt easy in comparison. Labor was induced. It lasted about eight hours, and out came an eight-pound eleven-ounce baby. Still big, but small in comparison. It takes the first to have the second, they say.

My pelvic floor prolapse began way back then, even though it wasn’t labeled as such. I recall doing PT for bladder control after those pregnancies. Lots of kegels. Trying to gain back pelvic floor control so I wouldn’t leak when I sneezed, coughed, or laughed. It held for a while and then I would need to go back to PT for a tune up. What I believe, whether true or not, is that my doing Pilates twice a week for over twenty years kept my core and internal muscles tight and strong, working hard to support my uterus and ligaments that were stretched out and sagging. Like everything else with aging, over time body parts just keep on sagging until it is a problem, and PT just wasn’t going to help anymore. And that’s when I was referred to a gynecological surgeon.