This week we’re sharing ANOTHER WOMAN from Dispatches from New Motherhood, a great piece from Kat-Sanders Smith in praise of her Doula and the strength of women. The author reflects on a day when she was struck down by flu, but carried on regardless, in that way that mothers do. As she stumbles through the house, Kat remembers the resilience she showed in her home birth, and the wise and encouraging words of her Doula who was there for her, helping to bring focus and rest to the present. It’s a tender and heartfelt piece of writing, and an ode to women supporting women.
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Another Woman
Kat Sanders-Smith
The bathroom floor sends cold through my feet and it seeps straight into my bones. I shiver. A peculiar dark shape in the bath catches my eye. I peer closer, my limbs leaden, my head heavy with flu. There is baby poo clustered around the plughole. My cheeks are burning. My eyes are sore. Why hasn’t my husband dealt with this? Bathtime had been his job tonight. He’s now downstairs, trying to get the baby to sleep. Pacing with her. Rocking her. I muster the strength and in a zombie-like trance I dispense the poo in the toilet and pour cleaner into the bath. My head spins. I clutch the side of the tub. Bittersweet memories bubble up. Twelve months ago, I had another woman in my life. While I laboured in this bath, she was here for me. Our Doula.
I shuffle downstairs and into the kitchen, my husband sits phone in hand and I note the hard-won silence. I glance over at the pram where our baby has finally given in to sleeping. Her delicate toes peek out of the cover and everything is still. I tap the switch on our kettle and it hisses to life, breaking the silence. The baby’s toes twitch. A hot tea would always find my hands whenever our Doula was here. I pour a cup, the brew already stronger than I’m feeling. I check the pram for signs of movement. Stillness. The pram happens to be positioned on a sacred spot of floor. It is where I birthed our baby. Where my husband and our Doula held me and I was enveloped in their love. In that moment I felt like a warrior. Then came fourth trimester limbo. I overflowed with joy and pain, devotion and heartache. I imagined myself lost to a sea of overwhelm, battling against tides of untouched household chores, despairing at my isolation, sinking under waves in my exhaustion. Then our Doula would visit. In she would dive and pull me up to the surface, so I could breathe for a while. She washed, sorted and folded. She held our baby. She coloured pictures with our eldest child. She even gave a gentle fuss to the neglected cat.
A cry from the pram pulls me back to now. I feel a pang of guilt – the kettle had made so much noise. My husband looks at me, he tells me to go and sit down and that I should be resting. His words echo our Doula’s; she too would tell me rest first. I concede and follow him to the lounge as he carries our daughter in one arm and my tea in the other. Our sofa offers up a familiar embrace as I slump down. I have a sip of tea, but it’s already gone tepid. Even warriors want to drink their tea hot.
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Another Woman by Kat Sanders-Smith appears in the Mothership Writers anthology Dispatches from New Motherhood. All 50 pieces from the book will be published here over the year to come, creating an online library of what it really means – right here, right now – to be a new mother.