My Quest to Tell a Story That Doesn’t Have a Neat Ending

When tidy conclusions weren’t serving my essay about the traumatic delivery of my son, I turned to Susan Burton—who ended her podcast about women’s pain leaving me wanting more—to ask her about it.

This piece is the fourth and final in our series, The Art of Narrative Storytelling, a special collaboration from Narratively and Creative Nonfiction that explores how writing moves us and changes us in ways we might never expect. You can learn more about this special series and experience the rest of the stories we’ve published each week throughout June here.

Photo of Susan and Ashley during their conversation courtesy of Ashley Rubell; collage by Yunuen Bonaparte | Story edited by Jesse Sposato

The day I gave birth to my first child was one of the darkest of my life. My postpartum days were not characterized by the bliss of my son’s arrival; rather, they were riddled with discomfort. During my unplanned, nonemergency C-section that took place after two days of what the medical professionals referred to as a “failure” to induce labor, I almost bled to death — which is not as uncommon as many people might think; the complications that followed almost killed me, again. After three days of instability, I would eventually come to learn that there was a 5-inch tear on my bladder causing a nearly fatal kidney collapse and the need for a second surgery. But during those three days, my complaints of pain were dismissed. I was told I had gas, I was eating the wrong foods, that my swelling was normal and my recovery would take time. 

What I internalized was, This is my fault. 

This was five years ago. After living through the experience, I had a newfound conviction to start writing, a vocation I’d fantasized about before but always found one reason or another not to seriously pursue. I was four months postpartum when I attended my first writing workshop and was given a prompt: Write about a table that holds meaning or significance. 

What poured out of me was a scene from my view on that second operating table. It was unexpected. I had not fully healed emotionally, mentally or physically; this was hard for me to talk about, so I certainly didn’t think I was ready to write about it. The story has consumed me ever since. But now I’m 11 drafts in, and the ending has never felt quite right. The pain of it all is not in the past; it still lives inside of me and continues to reveal itself with every birth story I hear, every infection I get along my abdomen’s scar, all paired with my longing for more children. With this traumatizing experience echoing its way down the halls of my daily life, how do I possibly end this essay about a pain that has no known end?