Trusting Intuition: A Postpartum Healing Journey

It's time to reclaim and take responsibility for birth and our bodies, rather than surrendering them out of ignorance and fear.

I started bleeding heavily at 3 weeks postpartum.

I called 911, and the ambulance arrived shortly after. They checked my vitals and told me they were quite normal considering the blood loss. They even asked me if I still wanted to go to the hospital, which I did. However, I couldn't bring Willow with me. So, I lay there on the floor, still bleeding, nursing my 3-week-old. I felt scared, but I knew that the best thing to do was to breathe and keep calm.

By the time I got to the hospital, I had stopped bleeding. After some tests, the OB told me it was a retained placenta and gave me three options:

1)Do nothing and ride it out

2)Take medication

3)DNC (scraping of the uterus)

I opted for the medication because I didn't want to risk having any more bleeding spells, especially if I was alone with my girls. I wanted to avoid an invasive procedure.

The medication seemed to do the job, but two weeks later, an ultrasound told me otherwise. My family doctor told me to rush to the emergency and get the DNC. Everything in me told me that I didn't need to—always trust your intuition! She told me to do this based on an assumption and had no other recommendations to offer me. The danger here would have been an infection, but the ancient wisdom within me had something else to say: "this is not the way," she said. I also reached out to a close friend who’s a midwife for some support, and she reassured me that I would be showing signs of a fever if my situation was an emergency.

Something needed to be done, though, because I was still bleeding. I ended up contacting my Chinese medicine practitioner, who got me started on multiple herbs. After about two weeks, the bleeding seemed to be the same, so she upped the dose, and overnight, I stopped bleeding. I was 10 weeks postpartum.

Honestly, it wasn't easy. At times, I thought, "Should I just get the DNC?" I was tired, and I wanted to be healed. But something inside me whispered, absolutely not. I continued trusting my intuition while still being proactive in my postpartum healing journey, and I got there.

If you're reading this and you're going through something similar, I see you<3 You may be in the thick of it now but I promise you there is light at the end of the tunnel.

We live in a world where we are constantly looking for a quick fix on our healing journeys; physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually-always turning to external sources for the answers. You hold all the ancient wisdom you need, you just have to listen.