When she got a thread and needle and began to sew my episiotomy, the thread which she said would melt away in a few days, I felt a new rush of pain-it was so numbing, so sharp. Matron stabbed a syringe into my thigh and I barely twitched. After Chi was pulled out, the only things I wanted to do were to hold her and to sleep. I bobbed my head, half-listening to her, because I was watching as the other nurse worked on my baby. It would hurt, she assured, but she would administer some drugs that would help me through the procedure. She said I had a tear and that she would have to stitch me up. But I always sat on it with just one buttock, because, you see, sitting had become the most difficult thing to do in the world.Īfter Chi was born, a nurse took her aside to check her for respiratory distress, and the senior nurse, who we called Matron, scooted my butt close and began to clean me up. I loved the way they cared for my baby, the way my mother bathed me and massaged my body with hot water and prepared my meals, how she brought me the stool each time I needed to sit, each time I woke from sleep. I loved that I had women who hovered around me, who worked to make my body heal.
So Mama threw a fit whenever I sat on soft things like my bed or the sofa, because she believed that these would ruin my healing process and make my vagina flatulent. There was an old tale about such women: they were lazy mothers who did not sit on sturdy stools and tighten their butts, who let their bodies spoil and droop, which was why they involuntarily passed gas, and why their husbands chased after small girls with firm bodies. And Mama, as we fondly call her, was always hovering by, always begging me to sit properly, so I wouldn’t end up like those women with “noisy vaginas.”
To achieve a proper sitting position on it, I was required to press my legs together and tighten my butt to fit into this small space. The seat was small and square, as though it built was to fit a child’s buttocks. When we came home from the hospital, I found the stool waiting in my room. My mother-in-law bought me a sturdy, wooden stool right after I gave birth to Chi.
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