Someone Like Me
By Lindsay Sledge
@lindsaybsledge
“What do you want to be when you grow up?”
Hands fly into the air. The kindergarteners squirm in their seats, eager for their turn to share.
“Police officer!”
“Fire fighter!”
“Construction worker!”
“Ballerina!”
All of the typical answers come out of the children’s mouths until the teacher calls upon my son, Denver.
“I want to be a butt doctor,” he proclaims.
The classroom erupts into laughter. What kid doesn’t enjoy poop humor? Denver’s best friend laughs so hard he slides out of his seat and onto the concrete floor. Even the teacher laughs, this response a first in her twenty-year career. My son laughs as well, but doesn’t understand the joke.
He tells me about this conversation the following morning, my mouth full of Mini Wheats, his bursting with Fruit Loops. My laughter is instantaneous. I envision the look on his teacher’s face as he shares his occupational aspiration. Then I look at Denver’s face. His eyelids droop and his long lashes brush against the top of his cheeks. His mouth molds into a frown. My often ironic five-year-old is completely earnest. Moreover, he’s upset.
My lips slam shut and my fair skin blushes crimson. I want a parenting do-over. Any amusement is instantly replaced with humility.
Denver’s plan to become a butt doctor is not the punch line to some silly, schoolyard joke. His career choice stems from a desire to do something meaningful with his life, something that will help someone he loves.
That someone is me.
***
“You have a chronic anal fissure,” my doctor says. The colorectal surgeon’s hands are gently splayed on either side of my derrière, moving skin around. My need for relief usurps any underlying awkwardness.
“A chronic what?” I demand.
“It’s basically a cut in your butt that will not heal. That’s what’s causing the bleeding, the glasslike pain. Do you know what caused it?”
Do I ever. “My babies broke my butt,” I respond wryly.
He briefly pauses, and then proceeds. “How many babies do you have?”
“Three. In five years.”
He runs his finger along the scar tissue, and I lay still as a statue, wondering how I’m still naked from the waist down at nine months postpartum. I thought those days were over.
“Tell me about the tearing,” he says.
And so I do.
My first baby, nearly nine pounds, was rotated in the birth canal. “He popped out fast and face up.” The bulk of the scar tissue is a souvenir from his third-degree tear debut.
I tell him about my second son, born skinny and scrappy. “He arrived a year and a half after my first.” The tissue was still tender. “I tore again, along the same line.”
The doctor releases his grip and moves away from the table. I pull the white sheet over my thighs and sit up, grateful to continue our conversation face to face.
“And what about your third?” he asks.
With this question, my words get stuck. My heart is still healing, though my butt apparently is not.
“Have you heard of a subchorionic hemorrhage?” I ask.
***
“Mommy, pick up?” My two-year-old holds his hands out, waiting for me to lift him into my arms. Instead, I grasp his right hand and hold it over my twenty-week baby bump.
“Do you feel that?” I watch his face freeze as his sister’s feet kick against his fingers. He lets out a squeal, and I let out a sigh. Each movement brings relief, the only indication my doctor’s strict restrictions are working.
I have been bleeding on and off for twelve weeks.
I look up from my tummy. “I can’t pick you up right now because I’m trying to keep your sister safe. Can we snuggle instead?”
He pulls his hand away and turns toward the Magna-Tiles splayed across the floor. My offer is not enough to compensate for the three prior months of limitations. I mask my despair with a smile. How much of this will he remember?
After my husband and I tuck our boys into their bunks that night, I ask, “How will we survive this?” I gesture towards my left leg, black and blue veins branching in all directions, the compression stocking unable to compete with the excess weight. I point towards the chipped paint and dented plaster on the living room wall, where my three-year-old rammed his Red Rocket into it again, my body unable to move fast enough for my usual redirect.
I angle myself onto the sofa, prop my legs upon a pillow, and open my phone to a video from the recent ultrasound. My husband takes my hand, and we watch my baby girl’s head bounce precariously against a blood clot that is caught between the placenta and uterine wall.
My tears fall.
“We’ve already made it three months,” he says. “We can manage four more.”
***
I birth my baby girl into the world with two pushes. Two pushes—the surprise ending to seven months of misery. My broken body overflows with joy as I cradle her in my arms. “Happy birthday, my love,” I whisper in her ear.
She is here and healthy, my body finally finished with what I feared was impossible. But the damage was done. I tore again.
Bleeding continues, long after the supposed six-week recovery period. The pain pierces like a thousand shards of glass, every morning when I use the restroom, every evening when I bend over to pick up scattered toys.
This time my body does not bounce back.
***
The colorectal surgeon looks up from his notes. “This baby is your last?”
I nod my head, though his question is rhetorical. We both already know the answer.
“The fissure will not heal on its own,” he says. “You need surgery.”
Black dots swim across my eyes. I envision myself nursing my baby while my two small boys tug at my hands, each child pulling me in three different directions. How can I add recovering from surgery to my already overfull plate? I focus on the diagram on the wall, eight vivid images of the inside of a rectum. Is this really my reality at the age of thirty-three?
“What will recovery look like?” I ask.
He tilts his glasses down. “I’m not going to lie, it is unpleasant. The fissure will heal quickly, but I have to cut the muscle. Complete healing will take time.”
It always does. “How much time?”
“Three to four months,” he says. “You will not be able to lift your children for a while.”
My lungs constrict, and my limbs begin to shake. For a moment I forget to breathe. My head collapses into my hands, and I close my eyes, imagining the looks on my sons’ faces when I inform them of a new round of restrictions.
***
Back at the breakfast table, the surgery complete and my recovery past, I place my hand under my son’s chin, tilting it up so that he can see the sincerity in my eyes.
“Denver, you caught me by surprise! Not many five-year-olds aspire to be a butt doctor.” A smidge of a smile plays at the corners of his lips. “I think that is a fantastic idea. Should I start calling you Doctor Denver?”
He lets out a giggle, truly laughing this time. He’s thrilled that someone finally understands.
I do mourn for all we lost during those months of physical limitations. But was there a purpose to that pain? Maybe Denver will actually pursue this career. Maybe he will help someone who is hurting, another mom who needs healing. A butt doctor, for someone like me.
Guest essay written by Lindsay Sledge. Lindsay is a writer from Music City where she lives with her college sweetheart and three charismatic kids. On sunny days, you can find Lindsay chasing her children around playgrounds and promising lollipops in exchange for listening ears. On rainy days, you can find Lindsay trapped beneath a blanket fort and reading books about superheroes, automobiles, and anthropomorphic animals. You can read more of her writing on Substack or Instagram.
Photo by Jennifer Floyd.