Nobody talked about the feeling of being woken up after forty minutes of sleep, on bloodstained sheets, with the dread of knowing what had to happen next. I felt like the only mother in the world who wouldn’t survive it. The only mother who couldn’t recover from having her perineum stitched from her anus to her vagina. The only mother who couldn’t fight through the pain of newborn gums cutting like razor blades on her nipples. The only mother who couldn’t pretend to function with her brain in the vise of sleeplessness. The only mother who looked down at her daughter and thought, Please. Go
...more
