What the Body Becomes

“Fit as a fiddle,” said my doctor, “you can put your feet down.” She taps the top of my knee twice absentmindedly and turns away. I try but fail to elegantly scoot my hips up on the table and remove my feet from the stirrups. The paper on the examination table rustles as if it is saying, “this isn’t the body you know.”

“So,” my gynecologist starts as she throws her nitrile gloves into the waste basket, “everything is healing as it should. I’m putting in your chart that your six-week postpartum appointment is normal. You’re free to have sex again, just go slow.”

“Sex?” I raise my eyebrows. “I…that’s not really on my radar.”

“Well, when it is,” she replies, “you are healthy enough to do so. I’ll step out of the room so you can get dressed.”

“Thank you,” I tell her, “should I schedule a follow up?”

“What? Oh, no follow up needed. Call when you want to get pregnant again.”

She smiles and checks her watch before bustling out of the exam room. I sit there, momentarily stunned. After dozens of appointments over the course of my pregnancy, I am left with one fifteen-minute examination post-birth to ensure I am well enough to have sex again. I quietly calculate the time spent on this exact table over the last nine months. First appointment a few weeks after my missed period, then every four weeks until the halfway point of twenty weeks. Then what? The pregnancy was moderately high risk, so I came in every week until birth. The whiplash makes my head spin. Did my doctor ask how I was feeling after Sarah arrived screaming into the world? I can’t remember a single question asked about me, only my body. “There’s a difference,” I whisper to an empty room.

Baby blues are normal. Not feeling yourself is normal. Is this cracked skin behind my ear normal?

After I am dressed, I leave the doctor’s office through the waiting room filled with women in every stage of gestation. A feeling I can’t quite articulate boils in my gut and threatens to bubble over.

I make my way to the parking lot, alone for the first time since Sarah was born. My husband, Derek, watched our newborn and our two-year-old son Harrison so I could visit my doctor in peace. Peace usually doesn’t include a gynecologist and a speculum, but things are changing. I am changing.

The drive home is quick even though I try to miss every green light. Once I’m parked in the driveway and open the car door, I can hear muffled cries emanating from inside. I am already overstimulated and I haven’t even entered the house.

“There you are! What took so long?” My husband says this as a greeting and immediately puts my crying daughter in my arms. Harrison is sniffling in a corner, a broken banana in his little hands.

I say out loud, “I was only gone an hour, what happened here?” But what I really mean is, “You can’t do this for one hour?!”

I turn to my oldest in a tone reserved for little ears, “Harry, baby, let me get you a new banana. This one looks like it broke.”

He sniffles once more, then hands me his banana pieces. Sarah is nestled into the crook of my left elbow so I take the banana with my right hand. I lead him into the kitchen where I place the old banana on the counter and pick up one unpeeled. I’ll freeze the broken one for a smoothie later.

“Come on, love, follow me to the couch and we’ll get you this snack.”

“Otay, mama,” Harry says in his small voice.

Sarah is still crying, so once I sit on the couch, I lift my shirt to nurse her, then I position myself so I can open the banana. Derek is still standing where he was when I came home, but now he’s looking at his phone. That unsettling feeling is bubbling again. Harrison takes the banana, says “thank you” which sounds more like “tank hoo” and runs off down the hall. Within two minutes of my arriving home, both kids are happy.

Later in the evening when both Sarah and Harry are sleeping, Derek and I finally get a moment to ourselves on the couch. Today was his last day of parental leave and I am nervous about doing this alone all day.

“Derek, I want Harry to go back to daycare, it will be too hard to care for him and the baby while you’re at work.”

Derek looks up from his phone and furrows his brow. “I thought we decided since you’re home on leave he could spend it with you? Get some quality time with you and the baby. He’s not going to be little forever, you know.”

I look down at my hands before replying but they seem off somehow; slight green scales now cover my knuckles. Alarms ring in my ears but I shake it off as a trick of the light and say to Derek, “I was uncomfortable with that plan from the beginning. I am too tired with Sarah waking every ninety minutes to feed and Harry coming into our room at night. We have daycare and he loves it — I think it would be good for all of us if we tried to get back to a new normal.” I glance back down at my knuckles, hoping that it’s just sleep deprivation making me see things. The scales catch the light and my breath hitches. I start to ask Derek if he can see what I’m seeing but I’m interrupted.

“Fine, fine, fine.” Derek’s gaze darts back to his phone. I guess the conversation is over. I feel like yelling but before the thought can fully formulate, I hear Sarah’s cries from her bassinet. I get up, feeling like I never really got to sit down, and check on my baby girl, knowing I will be getting up every hour and a half until dawn.

—

The next morning, Derek is in the kitchen making more noise than he should when the kids are still asleep. I’m in bed, cringing at each cupboard closing and each drawer slamming shut and praying he stops before he wakes Sarah. Is he really making that much noise or am I simply in a constant state of overstimulation? He comes back into the bedroom and says quietly, “Where’s my travel mug?”

After no more than five hours of broken sleep I snarl at his question. “It’s in the cupboard where it always is!” My chest is tight, like an invisible hand is winding my insides taut. “Jesus, Derek, I can’t do everything!”

My husband looks taken aback at my outburst, which only makes me more enraged. He backs off to the kitchen. Another minute later he peeks his head into the bedroom, lifts the mug and says, “Found it,” and then, “I’ll see you tonight. Love you.”

When he leaves the house he shuts the door too forcefully and mere seconds later I hear the pitter patter of toddler steps and the unforgiving cries of a newborn baby.

—

Harry will go back to daycare on Monday. That is the agreement Derek and I made once he got home from work. The hours between his departure and arrival home were a chaotic swamp of crying, pooping, spilled juice, and pulling hair. I am touched out, overstimulated, and have the aching requirement for no one to NEED me for at least five minutes. Tears pool at the corners of my eyes, waiting patiently to rip apart my face. I can feel the heat in my neck and ears. The volume of my body is turned up to maximum and I don’t think anything can turn it down. The sickly green scales have spread from my knuckles up my arms, but Derek swears I look normal, even glowing, but he said this while he placed his hand on my thigh.

I look at him, mortified. How can he think of sex right now? I had told him the doctor cleared me, but I am not ready. I go to the bathroom for a second of quiet and stand in front of the mirror with my hands resting on the sink. I haven’t seen my reflection in days and what is staring back at me is unfamiliar and strange. Why is the skin under my eyes sagging and bloated? My hazel eyes have appeared to darken so that my iris and pupil nearly share a shade. I open my mouth and inspect my teeth. Are my canines… sharper? Certainly not, but panic starts to set in. I turn off the light and go to the bedroom, hoping any amount of sleep will help me feel more like myself.

—

Today is Saturday. Do all parents dread the weekend, or is it just me? Harrison wakes me up with slobbery kisses at five-thirty. I get up with him, pour him some milk in the blue cup, not green, and let him watch cartoons while I make myself coffee. Sarah wakes shortly after at six and I nurse her, change her diaper, place her in the living room bassinet, then make Harry some breakfast. The kids are already fed, changed, and playing quietly when Derek gets out of bed at seven-fifteen. I am rigid with irritation and rage is buzzing through every cell. I try to massage my neck to find some relief but when I touch the place where my neck meets my shoulder, the skin is rough, flaking, and irritated. I run my hand down my shoulder and across my chest and every inch is chapped and raw. What is happening to me? When I lift my pajama sleeve, I see the scales have multiplied overnight. This is real. This is real. Is this real?!

Derek picks up the baby then sits next to Harry, snuggling the both of them all while I stand there, unmoored. They are oblivious to my anguish.

“Do I look different to you?” I ask him, perhaps more sharply than I intend. He lifts his head above Harry’s and to me and replies “You look a little tired but you look the same to me. Why don’t you go brush your teeth and shower?” Another wave of rage cascades down my spine snapping me out of my stupor. I didn’t have a chance to brush my teeth yesterday and I don’t remember the last time I showered. I know my husband is trying to be helpful, but all I hear is, “Your breath smells. You look gross. Clean yourself up.”

Showering does nothing to calm me. My nails are growing too long too fast and I violently scrub at the scales on my hands. I don’t feel refreshed when I wrap a towel around my body. The weight inside my chest is pulling me down and I will circle the drain just like the water from my shower. I put on loose clothes and then a smile as I come back to the living room where my family is playing on the floor. Derek is playing trucks with Harry and Sarah looks content to be next to them. Maybe today will be easier. But then Derek speaks:

“While you were in the shower Clint from accounts texted and asked if I wanted to go golfing tomorrow. Kind of like a welcome back thing, so I can’t really say no.”

Immediately, I feel the blood rushing to my head and pumping violently in my ears. In an instant, my soul cracks in half and I come undone. I open my mouth to say something, anything, but instead a horrible cry comes out. It is animalistic and grotesque. My vision blurs but I see a wave of fear crash over Derek’s face. Is he growing smaller or am I growing bigger? I feel my head scratch the ceiling but my feet — toes once pedicured and pink — are now gnarled stumps digging into the carpet. The scales have spread like a virus up my arms and down my legs and I claw at this dangerous body. He sees them now. The stretch marks on my stomach pulse and elongate, creating deep ravines that crisscross over their landscape. I scream then, a loud and painful sound. I clamber out the back door to the yard and slam my fists to the ground.

The cracked skin behind my ear now carves down my neck and back, red and raw. I run my tongue along my teeth, each one as sharp as a predator’s. My hair, once long and chestnut-brown, is stringy and falling out in my taloned hands. When I drop the clumps of hair to the grass, birds swoop down and pluck it up, no doubt to use for their nests. Even when I am a beast, my body is still being used in service of others. How did this happen? What do I do?! Dismay floods my nervous system and every emotion rushes in all at once.

Suddenly, I feel a small hand inside the palm of my monstrous hand. I look down with my black eyes and Harrison is there. My little boy with his gentle nature and kind heart. Harry looks at the birds, then at my hands. “I like your long nails, mama,” he says slowly, each word an effort. I take a deep breath, and the tears fall.