Member-only story
Being Left Behind
Trauma triggers abound.
I am starting to see a pattern in my life. And it has to do with being the one who was left behind.
As the oldest in a large family, I was one of the first to leave the roost. I was also filled with wanderlust as a child and took advantage of every opportunity to leave, though they were rare. I enjoyed, and still enjoy, adventure. I’m a double cat, horoscopically-speaking; a lion-tiger. I would say curiousity is one of my most predominant character traits.
There was a moment when everything changed, though. It was one warm, late summer day, 23 years ago. It was the moment I had my first child.
He was a gorgeous and healthy male, 7 pounds, 12 ounces. My water had broken at 6 am in the morning, and he was born almost exactly 18 grueling hours later, just 2 minutes shy of Labor Day.
His labor was intensely long, arduous, and painful. I refused to have a needle up my back, so I was alert and alive the entire 4.5 hours of pushing at the end. It all ended with my third push, after the doctor had sat back in his chair. He had been pushing my cervix around my son’s head, to allow his shoulders to emerge. Over and over, for hours, literally, we tried everything to get this child to exit my body.
