My name is Amelia, and the day my husband left for a beach vacation with his friends was the same day I learned how lonely marriage could feel.
Three weeks earlier, I had given birth to our son, Oliver, through an emergency C-section.
If you’ve never had one, let me tell you what it’s like. People often call it a “routine procedure,” but nothing about it feels routine when it happens to you. One moment you’re in labor, terrified and exhausted. Next, you’re being rushed into an operating room while doctors speak in calm but urgent voices.
I remember the cold lights above me, the tight pressure in my chest, and the strange numbness spreading through my body.
Then Oliver cried.
That tiny cry cut through everything. Fear, pain, confusion. For a moment, nothing else mattered.
But recovery after a C-section is no small thing. My abdomen felt like it had been split open and stitched back together, because it had. Standing up hurt. Sitting down hurt. Laughing, coughing, and even breathing too deeply sometimes hurt.
And yet, there I was at home three weeks later, learning how to care for a newborn while my body still felt like it belonged to someone else.
My husband, Jason, was supposed to be helping.
Instead, he was packing a suitcase.
