MÈRE Stories: Margaret Harris
Uncharted Healing
The whirlwind of a precipitous (or rapid labor) birth of my first and only daughter left me shaken, but no one warned me about what came next.
No one told me how I would heal, how long the pain would linger, or that it might not be taken seriously.
I researched endlessly, desperate to understand my own body, but I still felt blindsided. Lonely. Frustrated.
Falling into something I couldn’t quite name—baby blues that teetered on the edge of something deeper, all while trying to navigate how to be a good mom and make sure I was providing what my baby needed on top of being a good wife and employee in a new career.
Five years later, I’m still figuring out who I am in this version of motherhood.
In many ways, I’m not the same person I was before.
My body changed in ways I wasn’t prepared for, and after years of frustration and unanswered questions, I made the decision to have an abdominoplasty to heal my diastasis recti.
Not out of shame, but because I deserved to feel at home in my body again.
And yet, I wish I had known more before I got here.
“I’ve found pillars I didn’t realize I needed—like my beautiful friend who founded MÈRE, along with many other mothers and women in similar stages of life—filling the gaps in a journey that often feels like walking in the dark. The journey isn’t over; maybe it never really is.”
— Margaret Harris
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