Yawning, she woke up and rubbed her eyes. Still wobbly from her sleep, Nelya lifted the duvet and threw it haphazardly. She dragged her aching body and sat on the edge of the bed. Looking down at her elephant-sized feet, she stepped on their bedroom carpet and wiggled her stone-sized toes. Nelya sighed.

“Don’t worry, edema is normal for postpartum mothers,” she remembered her doctor telling her. “You will need to take short walks ….”

Her thought process was cut short when her husband brought in fresh sheets. Her gaze shifted to the blood stains that were brightly smeared all over the bedsheets.

“I am sorry,” she started apologizing. “Don’t you dare say those words,” her husband quickly interjected. “This is totally normal hun. They’re just bedsheets we can always buy new ones.” Sudi assured her smiling. “Now go take a shower so that we can have our breakfast.”

Nelya forced a smile back at her husband. She knew she had to. She dragged her weakly body to the bathroom mirror and stared. Her eyes were puffy from the previous night as she cried herself to sleep. Cracked were her lips with dried white saliva on the corners. Her breasts engorged with milk slowly seeping through her night gown. She sighed again.

She brushed her teeth, took her towel and turned on the shower. Lifting her legs carefully -not to tear open the stitches embedded in her – she undressed. With the towel she squeezed her left breast and milk spewed in all directions. As she did she once more she recalled the doctor.

“Expect normal milk production as the body is expecting you to breastfeed a baby. You must pump it out and take the prescribed medication to prevent mastitis.”

There goes that word again normal. What is normal? Nelya wondered.

Was it her feet, lips, the blood on their sheets or the tight painful stitches. She started weeping. Sudi joined her. He took her delicate fingers locked them in his and gently squeezed them as he placed her head on his broad-chest. Towering over her, they sobbed together . As the shower ran, the water merged with his tears and like a stream found its ways to hers. It swiftly combined with the milk from her breasts to forge a blood river that flowed on her legs to the bathroom drain.

“We are going to be okay hun,” Sudi told her. “Our baby was too perfect to come to this world.”

“Babe,” Nelya faintly called Sudi as she looked up to him smiling. “Why are you bulging down there?”

“It appears I want your belly swollen with many Sudis”.

They both laughed as the bathroom drain gulped down their pain.