A Conversation I Can’t Have

I shat my pants while teaching this morning.

You okay?

No. I’m mad.

What’d you do?

Kept teaching.

Text me if it happens again. I’ll take over, even if I have to bring my twenty-five kids to your room.

Thank you. I want to hug you, but you must think I’m dirty. I think I’m dirty.

Stop. You’re not. You okay now?

When the bell rang, I rushed to the bathroom, locked the door, and began the clean up.

This profession is fucked up the way we can’t use the bathroom when we need to.

Right. Because I had to perform a full operation. Pulled the concealed undies and pad out of my pocket. As I stepped out of my pants, I thought: only a door separates me from the rest of the school.

Girl, weren’t you freezing? That bathroom is cold and drafty.

My thighs had goosebumps. Draped my pants over the sink and was careful not to drag the soiled undies against my inner thighs. The room smelled vile.

[Cringes.]

My body repulses me. Barebottomed, I caught a glimpse of the person in the mirror and for a second didn’t recognize who I was. The dark de-silvered spots on the mirror mocked me. But I kept looking until I saw features of my younger healthy self and thought: How did I get here? Do you ever do that? Think back to your healthier self like that?

Hell, yeah. Be kind to yourself. Genital mutilation is fucked up.

Imagine a guy getting the tip of his dick cut off when he went in for prostate surgery.

Yeah, right. Would they sew it back on in the waiting room? Does your doctor know how bad it is?

Sure. She told me to buy Tucks.

That’s it?

Said I could talk to the colorectal surgeon she sends her fourth-degree tear patients to.

How many does she have?

Exactly! You know, before all this, in the delivery room, she poked a knitting needle up my vajayjay to break my water. Didn’t realize I was fully dilated when she gave me the epidural! Made me try to push even though I was numb, so I burst blood vessels in both eyes, looked like a demon, but didn’t expel the baby. After five hours, she snipped my perineum and vacuumed my son out. He had a small gash on his scalp where she’d pricked him hours earlier. Then she drank ginger ale out of a can as she sewed my just-mutilated body.

Sue her ass.

Tried. The lawyer said it wasn’t her fault; there’s an inherent risk in having a baby. I said it wouldn’t be so damn risky if they took more precautions. Do you know, while she sewed me up, she said, “You have a fourth degree tear.” I asked, “How many degrees are there?” I had no frame of reference. And she said, “We stop counting after four” then gave the nurse at her side a knowing look.

Couldn’t they be more precise?

Right. If they measured beyond four, nine might more accurately represent my injury. I was beholden to God that baby and I had both survived the ordeal. But now I can’t run, dance, or chase my kid without an accident. I spend half my days wiping my ass.

With that sandpapery stuff? You gotta be raw now.

It stings. Feel my pulse. My heart is still racing, and it was two hours ago that the warning bell rang while I was wrapping the soiled underwear in the nest of paper towels and rushing to seal them up by knotting the plastic bag before I had to run to my next class. Then the late bell rang. I dropped my mess in the trash can. Scrubbed my hands and wrists. Returned to the classroom. The students had their journals open and pencils on their desks. Will raised his hand when I walked in. I walked over to him and he said, “I just need to color some things and draw a sandwich.”

“Annually, over 200,000 women in the United States suffer from severe obstetric lacerations during childbirth.” These lacerations can lead to incontinence, pelvic floor dysfunction, painful intercourse, and severe depression (SOLACE Foundation).