My postpartum experience was very surprising. I thought that my extensive preparations for labor meant that my postpartum experience would be ok. Maybe that seems silly in retrospect as they aren’t totally related, but it’s what I thought at the time. And true, thanks to all the preparation I did and a good dose of luck, I had a vaginal delivery like I wanted, emotionally I felt supported and had lots of help through the labor and early postpartum and no interventions were used on me or my baby. But still, I felt like postpartum chewed me up and spat me back out in a shockingly violent fashion.