Owning the Body
My hesitance to take the vaccine in the beginning wasn’t because I was an anti-vaxxer. It was simply because I was not ready. My husband received his first covid jab in April 2021. The first few days, he had a sore arm, followed by headaches and fatigue. As for me, having gone through four days of extreme uterine contraction pain induced by stillbirth labour and Bakri balloon – which had me begging for death weeks before – I was not ready for any type of pain, as little as it may be. I knew however that I would take it when I felt ready. I just needed time. I was in a lot of emotional pain back then and I needed time to heal from my deep emotional wounds. I needed to be physically, mentally, and emotionally ready before taking the shots. On Monday 12th July, President Emmanuel Macron announced that a vaccine passport would be needed to access everyday places. The President said that he was doing so to encourage people to get vaccinated. He used the word ‘encourage’ as though it is a s