This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I think as I stare into my newborn son’s eyes. This wasn’t the plan.

The nearly foot long cut line across my abdomen still aches when I’ve been lifting Theo and Noah too much.

I still soak through my shirts with milk because I forgot to pump or, more truthfully, chose to sleep instead.

I still wake in the morning half conscious because the night feedings were longer, messier, or harder than expected.

I still cry because I’m living in a body that feels foreign to me.

13 days after my second cesarean section, I made a call to my boss from my bed because I couldn’t walk without hunching from pain. It was a short call as it went unanswered. He was busy–I should’ve understood. I should’ve tried his cell.

Just over two weeks after my delivery, HR called me and told me I would no longer be allowed to work from home three days a week as had been previously promised by my manager. I needed to be in the office five days a week as soon as my FMLA was exhausted. I needed to figure out childcare for an infant and my twin 20 month olds, and I needed to be grateful for even having the chance to do so.

3.5 weeks after I had Oliver, I booted up my work computer and began responding to my emails. I called in to the meetings that filled my calendar. And I started down my to-do list of tasks awaiting me.

I was home, but I wasn’t. I handed my husband, my mother-in-law, my mother, my father, my friends Oliver. He’d had come as a surprise, a wonderful surprise. Our oldests, Theodore and Noah came to us via IVF just 20 months before. We didn’t think we’d ever have an “Ollie,” yet here he was.

I stayed in bed; walking up and down the stairs too many times still made me grit my teeth from the aching.

I have work to do. I said it. I hated saying it as a primal part of me ripped inside my soul as Ollie left my arms and slid into someone else’s.

I prayed for more time first, then I asked for more time. I was answered with silence.

I knew that this is what our family needed from me financially, but I needed time. I didn’t get time and my clock was running out faster than I’d even realized.

I hoped for understanding. I hoped for empathy. My hopes were in vain.

Six days before my anticipated return, I sat at the edge of my frustration having begged, pleaded, and demanded for an answer to my request. I receive an ultimatum–be in office full time or don’t be here at all.

This isn’t how it’s supposed to be, I try to explain Ollie. His eyes big and wandering.

“You won’t remember these days,” I reassure him. “But I will,” my throat tightens.

The thought of leaving him tomorrow shatters me. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I was supposed to be here. I was supposed to get the time with him I’d bargained with myself. Having to share him two days a week would be hard, but I could do it for our family.

This. This. “God, I don’t know how to do this,” I whisper touching my forehead to Oliver’s, my tears spotting his cheeks.

And, while in a few moments I will focus on the heat of anger instead, in this moment, I feel the hurt.

I feel everything, but mostly, I feel the tie between me and Oliver. I feel the freshness of it. I feel the newness of it. I feel the strength of it. I feel it pull hard inside of me.

“I’m sorry, sweet boy,” I say because I don’t know what else to say. I think of Theo and Noah. This will be the first time in their 20 months I’ll be away from them like this. It cuts me.

It’s not that I don’t have a choice, but I don’t have options. Maybe that should make the decision easier; it doesn’t.

I feel stuck. I feel robbed. I feel beaten. I feel targeted. I feel dehumanized. I feel belittled. I feel shamed. I feel so so very small.

I don’t do well in such small spaces, but I also don’t know how to get out of this one.

I find myself praying for justice for my fellow mothers. I find myself praying for justice of any kind.

I pray for things to be as they should, not as they are. I pray for my sons, because that’s what mothers do. I pray for my heart because if I don’t, it might not stay together. I pray for a better place than this, because I’m barely breathing.