Ah, dignity.  Where have you gone?  Oh right, I had a child and I'm pretty sure it came out of me when I gave birth.  I wasn't always like this.  No, seriously!!!  I used to have a bit of class, some modicum of self respect, a sense of pride in who I was and what I had to contribute to society. 

I thought I felt a slight shift when my OBGYN had her hand inside me on a weekly basis during my pregnancy, murmuring "Won't hurt, won't hurt, wont hurt" (and you know what?  It didn't hurt, but it sure as hell wasn't pleasant)... maybe it was a wee glimpse into what was to come...

My labor was induced a few days before my due date, and things happened really quickly after the Pitocin was administered to help me along.  I hadn't yet had an epidural, and was coming out of the washroom when my water broke all over the hospital room floor.  And on my new socks:(  Anyway, I paged the nurse who asked me if I was sure that I hadn't just peed myself.  And you know what?  I absolutely could not say with 100% certainty that I hadn't just pissed myself.  Puddles of dignity right there all over that linoleum floor.

Once my son was finally born, my husband held my son for what seems like forever while the doctor stitched me up.  And her very curious and brown-nosing medical intern, who (poor bastard) had to be talked through the best way to stitch up a vagina after an episiotomy, and muchos tearing.  With my legs up in the stirrups and me shaking uncontrollably as the epidural wore off, I realized that dignity would not be a word synonymous with motherhood.


"I think I just shat on the delivery table, but I can't be sure.  Oh, well!"

During the debacle of me trying to breastfeed, we consulted with three different lactation consultants who all had different techniques and ideas of how to tackle my thousands of unsuccessful attempts to get my poor baby fed.  Each manhandled my breasts in a variety of ways.  One even literally massaged the blockage out of my ducts for ONE HOUR while I had to sit there trying not to scream.  Talk about undignified.

Fast forward three years later, and my son's new thing when he goes to the washroom is to say "Mummy, give me some privacy", which is frankly hilarious coming out of his little mouth.  Not so funny on the other hand, is him climbing into my lap when I'm trying to take a shit.  And it happens at least twice a week.

Now that my son is three, there are less examples of how my dignity keeps losing its battle against motherhood.  But they're there.  Probably every day, but my standards are so low I probably don't even notice, as discussed here: http://bittersweetmommies.blogspot.ca/2015/09/how-low-can-you-go.html.

Maybe a better way of looking at it is not so much in terms of how my dignity is gone, but instead how much I'm capable of as a woman and as a mother.  Maybe my dignity has waned, but I'm hopeful that it will come back as M gets older.  I hope that I can handle the next few years of motherhood with a smidgen of grace and a shit ton more knowledge than what I had before this crazy roller coaster ride began.  Dignity be damned!