A Love Letter to My C-Section Scar

A thin horizontal line on my lower abdomen. I hate this scar—the way it still pulls sometimes, the way it’s raised slightly on one end, the extra skin that hangs over top of it when I sit down no matter what I do. It’s hard to remember sometimes that it’s not just a flaw, a reason to research laser treatments, creams, lymphatic drainage massage, another thing to add to the list of what I hate about my body. This etching on my skin is what brought me my son. Sometimes when I can’t sleep I run my finger over it, remembering the chaos of my birth. When the surgeons cut through my flesh they didn’t just leave a mark, they changed who I was forever.