The Girl Who Couldn't Say No: Memoir of a teenage mom

by Tracy Engelbrecht

  Then somebody called, “One last push, Tracy! One last push, we’re nearly there!”

  And I did it, just when I thought I could do no more. One last push.

  And there he was. My baby. I laughed and I cried. He was quiet.

  “It’s a boy! You’ve got a little bo8"> a litty, Tracy!” the midwife called as she wrapped him in a blanket and handed him to me.

  “A boy… my boy…” I held him on my chest, my arms so wobbly I was scared I’d drop him. I looked at him so hard, wanting to sear his image into my brain forever, in case it wasn’t real and somebody came and took him away. But they couldn’t, could they? Nobody could take him away. He was mine. And I was glad.

  “What’s his name?” asked the nurse. I thought I’d say Ethan. That was the name I’d chosen, after all. But that’s not what I said.

  “Steven. His name is Steven,” I replied, without the slightest clue where that had come from. Steven. Of course, Steven. He wasn’t Ethan at all. He was Steven – you could tell that just by looking at him.

  Steven lay on my chest, quiet, not crying, his big eyes open and absorbing everything around him. Even then, he was so aware. Oh, I was overcome by how lucky I was. Surely nobody else in the world had ever felt this amazing. The pain was forgotten, vanished in an instant (another thing I hadn’t believed possible), and what was left was invincibility and joy. In those moments, I knew what it was all about. I knew what it had all been for. I knew that it had all been worth it.

  Is there something else out there for me? Now I knew, and here it was.

  When they took him to be cleaned up, I cried, half thinking I’d never get him back. But that’s just silly, I guess.

  Then came the stitching up of the episiotomy cut, which took longer than the delivery and wasn’t half as much fun. I kept asking the midwife whether she was finished, and she kept laughing and saying she’d only just started. My toes still curl at the mere thought of those damn stirrups.

  The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur. I was still high and woozy from the gas, and it had knocked me out completely. They wheeled me back to the Recovery Ward and I slept all the way, waking only briefly to scream when they mashed my fingers between the wheely-bed and the door as they were moving me into the ward.

  While I was being stitched up and resting, the nurse had found my mother and asked whether she wanted to hold Steven. And she did. Mom stood alone with him in a tiny room, the two of them together, getting to know each other. That’s when my mother realised everything would be okay. She understood that she loved him; she really did, even though she had been worried that she wouldn’t. She realised he was part of our family, he belonged. With us. Not an outsider, not a burden, not a constant reminder of pain or disappointment. Just a special little person with a place in our home. Our boy.

  I always get a lump in my throat when Mom talks about the time she spent with Steven on his first day in the world. It sounds so special, so private.

  I had so much to be grateful for that day.

  But the first night was truly awful. I’d never felt worse in my life. The pain, the tiredness, the absolute yuckiness of all these unfamiliar bodily functions. I came around at about nine, and I heard a TV in the background somewhere. Some big debate was going on between Nelson Mandela and FW De Klerk. Frankly, at that point I couldn’t have cared less. All I wanted was to be clean, warm and not so damn oozy. And to sleep, of course. I wanted to go home.

  When I needed the loo, I was too exhausted to get out of bed and got all panicked. I tried to ring for the nurse but couldn’t remember which button to press. I pressed them all and nothing happened, except for my bed jerking up and down a few times, causing further panic and adding seasickness to the mix. Either the buttons were out of order, or the nurses were simply ignoring me. I looked at a little white buzzer marked “Chaplain” and reflected on the horribleness, yet comforting practicality of that idea. Eventually, a nurse came around and helped me to the loo. She helped me get cleaned up and changed, and twice caught me as I fainted. Something to do with blood loss and anaemia – damn, I wished I’d eaten more liver.

  The nurses fed Steven that night. Earlier, they’d given me instructions about collecting formula and bottles and timing of feeds, but I admit I didn’t catch any of it. I was just so tired, so very out of it – in no state to look after Steven. I was in no state to look after myself, either. I was a wreck, crying (of course), leaking and aching all over the place. Perhaps it was a reaction to the gas, but my age probably also had something to do with how messed up I was.

  It was a good thing that Steven was kept in the nursery that night, because he wasn’t keeping any of his feeds down. They told me this the next morning, when I’d eventually woken up and they brought him to me. Obviously I panicked.

  “Why? What’s wrong? Is he sick?” I asked, terrified.

  No, no, they assured me. They’d just change the formula and he’d be fine.

  But he wasn’t fine. He didn’t keep any feeds down at all over the next day and a half, and eventually they moved him to Paediatric ICU and put him on a drip. You can imagine what that did to my fragile nerves. The sight of my helpless baby with a nasty-looking drip attached to his little shaved head just broke my heart. I felt completely powerless. I couldn’t do anything to help him and it was probably somehow my fault that he was sick, too. The nurses and doctors didn’t do much to make me feel better. They seemed vague and nonchalant about the whole thing. They certainly didn’t keep me informed about what they were doing, or why they were doing it. Perhaps they thoheyaps theught I wouldn’t understand their fancy medical terms, or maybe they thought I didn’t care. It’s my fault too, though. I just accepted things and was too intimidated to ask questions. Another symptom of the Grown-Ups Know Best disease, which had plagued me all my life. I’m cured these days, of course, but only because I’m a grown-up myself and realise I don’t know shit.

  Every day I walked (staggered) from my ward to the ICU where Steven lay, to feed him and be with him. I’d sit next to his bassinette in the stifling heat of the ICU, hold his hand and sing funny little cartoon theme songs to him. I told him about his home, the bedroom that was waiting for him, and his family who loved him. I told him I needed him to get better, and if he only would, I promised to never let him down. I promised him the world, then cried because I thought I might not be able to deliver on my promises.

  Nobody could tell me what was wrong with him. Whatever it was, it couldn’t have been too bad. Compared with the other poor tiny babies in the ICU – premature and sickly – he looked solid and healthy. He was awake most of the time, and the nurses had moved his bassinette to the big window, so that he could look out and see the sky and the trees. I know it was way too soon for him to focus, but I’d swear he was aware. He was a quiet, calm baby who didn’t cry much. He just lay there watching with his big, blue eyes and you just knew he was taking it all in.

  At least three times a day I trudged along the corridors to the ICU in my dressing gown and gigantic panda slippers. And at least three times a day I fainted while doing so. I lost count of the number of times I had to be rescued and taken back to my bed in a wheelchair. Most embarrassing. Especially the time I passed out directly underneath the window to the nurses’ station and lay on the floor for ages before anybody noticed.

  Eventually they figured out that I’d lost too much blood and a transfusion was scheduled. Which meant I had to stay in hospital another day. Bugger. But rather that than constant swooning.

  Transfusion was a nightmare. Two bags of saline and some crazy amount of blood. Of course, this being me, the drip got blocked and stopped running. When the nurse removed the drip, the blockage was released and a giant fountain of blood shot up out of my arm and hit the ceiling. I kid you not.

  And the food. Oh my God. Never have I seen such lumpy porridge, such desiccated, wrinkly gem squash, such grey boerewors. And don’t get me started on the eggs. Or the unidentifiable white, gelatinous mass
presented as pudding. It was criminal. I couldn’t bring myself to eat much and I lived on oranges and chocolates from visitors.

  The food was gross, the blood and guts were awful, but these weren’t the worst of my hospital horrors. The very worst misery came in the form of a tiny, wrinkly nun with a giant score to settle.

  Spiritual counsel must have been part of the

  Sister Maria Enchilada scuttled into my room one morning after breakfast and I put on my Talking To Official Grown-Ups Face. She was very, very old. Very short. So very, very Catholic. But I wasn’t scared. Nuns are supposed to be wonderful, special, enlightened people, right? Full of God’s love and all that.

  Well, now. I’d been misinformed. She didn’t get the memo re God’s love. She was still working on the eternal damnation specs. And why not? Stick with what you know, and she was good at it.

  “So, are you going to marry this man?” she asked haughtily. She’d been checking out my file and had noticed a big blank space where “spouse” should have been. I admit, I laughed. God, I laughed at a nun! There must be a particular punishment regimen for that. Ten Hail Mary’s just ain’t gonna cut it.

  “No, of course I’m not going to marry him. That would be a very unwise decision.” I tried to look serious, but she was not amused.

  The second time Sister Maria Enchilada came around, she was steaming with anger.

  “You’re only fifteen years old!” she yelled. “I thought you were about twenty! How can you even show your face here? You’re a disgusting example to your younger sister! The shame you’re subjecting your family to! You’re going to hell, my girl…”

  And on, and on. She yelled at me in her squeaky, old-lady voice until I thought her wrinkly, walnut head was going to completely unscrew and fly across the room. Where I would catch it and stomp on it a bit, until I felt better.

  What can you say to that? You can’t argue with a nun. So I bit my tongue and waited for her to disappear.

  The third time she visited, I spotted her beforehand and hid in the toilet until she went away.

  I went home five days later, but Steven had to stay. Going home without him was the hardest thing I’d ever done. But they wanted to make sure he was okay. They were waiting until he’d gained back a little weight, which he did that weekend. They called me on Sunday to say I could fetch him.

  I dressed him in his special homecoming suit, which was miles too big. I even managed to put his nappy on straight, and he weed on me only a little. I was doing well. I said goodbye to the nurses, wrapped him in his little elephant blanket and very, very carefully carried him out to the car.

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  I was taking my boy home. He was really here now. He was really mine. No going back. Wow.

  Chapter Six

  1994: In which she figures out which way is up, eventually

  Bringing Steven home from the hospital was surreal. I walked outside into the lemony April sunlight and the whole world seemed completely different. It was a different planet, as if I’d woken from a coma after thirty years to find that men had walked on the moon. Or something. The world in my head had changed so dramatically, so permanently, I was sure I’d see the change outside, too. After what I’d just done, how could anything in the world still be the same?

  We were all on cloud nine and, in our excitement over-ambitious, which led to a grave error in judgment. Why not go straight from the hospital to visit Gran and my great aunts and uncles? What a lovely idea, we thought. Everyone wanted to see Steven, and I wanted to show him off. Big mistake. Huge.

  There is a reason why the books say you should limit visitors in the first few days, and it’s not only because you’ll be a red-eyed zombie with baby puke for hair gel. Of course you will be. Or because you need the time to bond in private, although you need that, too. No – it’s actually so that you don’t scare friends and relatives by revealing what an absolutely bungling disaster of a useless, reject mother you truly are. The books should quit beating about the bush and say this directly. It could save many an over-confident new mother the embarrassment of being dragged off to the Child Welfare offices by concerned mothers-in-law who have witnessed the first solo, nurse-free attempts at breastfeeding. Nobody likes to look stupid. But believe me, you are guaranteed to look monumentally stupid. So best you do it in the privacy of your own home, without any witnesses besides those directly involved and as inept as you are. Or ones you can send to sleep with the fishes without arousing too much suspicion.

  I didn’t know this then, obviously, so off we went to visit the relatives. What can I say? It seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course, so did the second George Bush, and we all know how that turned out.

  I’ve never been on a more terrifying drive than that day, not even the time an angry policeman ex-boyfriend drove me home ten minutes after me dumping him. As always, my mother drove perfectly, but now we seemed to be surrounded by danger on every side – crazy, reckless road hogs, stray cows, drunk pedestrians, crater-sized potholes. Perils ngeles. PeI’d never noticed before. They seemed to have come out especially for the occasion, hell-bent on our annihilation. I held my bundle of breakable porcelain in my arms and sat with my eyes screwed shut all the way there, bracing myself for the moment of impact. I was surprised when it didn’t happen and we arrived in one piece.

  While the family oohed and aahed, Steven was a little angel and didn’t fuss at all, even when passed from one cooing old lady to the next – another big Miriam Stoppard no-no. I was ordered to sit down and relax. (Ha ha! Tell that to a new mother on her first day home with baby and see where it gets you.) Meanwhile, various interchangeable aunties mollycoddled and reminisced on days gone by, when you stayed in bed for two weeks after giving birth. The word Confinement was mentioned a lot. Sounded like scarlet fever to me, but I was too polite to say so. (Oh Marmee, it’s Beth; she’s caught the consumption… Why do the words quinine and ipecac spring to mind? What the hell is quinine anyway? Not sure I care to know about the ipecac. Actually, I don’t think it was Beth. I think it was Amy. Jo was the one who cut all her hair off, I do remember that. It’s been a while. I may even be confusing Little Women with Anne of Green Gables. God, I loved Anne. So much cooler than that wench Pollyanna. And Gilbert… wow! Unfortunate name, but yummie boy, all the same.)

  I soon realised the visit had been a bad idea. It was fraught with tension. I was touchy and took every offer of help as a condemnation of my as yet non-existent mothering skills. Hey, it’s not paranoia if they’re really after you, right? Oh, but I was wrong about that. So wrong. Nobody was after me then, and they still aren’t (except a select few – you know who you are). It’s taken me years to get this. And I still find it hard to remember.

  Do you know how much time I’ve wasted obsessing over what people thought of me, staggering under the weight of the giant chip on my shoulder – so tightly wound, always on my best behaviour, because you never know who might be watching and making notes in the Bumper Compendium of Bad Mothers. I’m sure living on cigarettes, vodka and Big Macs for thirteen years would have been a healthier option than spending all that time dissecting every look, every inflection in every word, even those of perfect strangers – people I’d never see again. Scrutinising every move from every angle until pretty soon you forget what you’re looking for, or looking at. I should have a bleeding stomach ulcer by now.

  I held it together until it was time to feed and change him. Bear in mind this was my first time outside the hospital. And I’d be staging the performance in front of half a dozen extremely helpful elderly relatives whom I didn’t know all that well. Mom could tell my nerves were shot, so she rescued me from my embarrassing, emotionally-scarring nappy fumbling. She bustled in and took over, straightening the pitiful nappy and wiping the rogue Fissan Paste off the upholstery. That done, she began supervising bottle-making, telling me how to measure out the milk powder correctly (level spoonfuls, Tracy – don’t forget!). Again, big mistake.

  Formula: take
one anal-retentive, perfectionist Good Girl, add enough rampaging hormones to float a small bal"at a smarge, nine months’ worth of corrosive guilt and fear, performance anxiety too large for any little blue pill to overcome and the absolute knowledge that your child will soon die of starvation, because the lumps in the formula just won’t go away. Into this heady mix, throw an audience of Old Wives and a jittery mother trying her level best to make it all better by doing it herself. What do you get? Nuclear meltdown, that’s what. I was spitting mad with everybody. I felt the beginnings of a tantrum coming on (I recognise the signs when my throat clenches up and my temples throb). I was close to shouting at everybody to bugger off and leave me and my child alone, interfering, patronising old crones, the lot of them. I should have done it, too. It would have been terribly rude, but it would have made me feel better for a minute. As it was, the most I could manage was – gasp – shooting a very withering glare in their direction, accompanied by bonus passive-aggressive sigh.

  Strained and jumpy herself – she could smell an outburst at a hundred metres – Mom caught my ostentatious sigh (as she always does), and asked what was wrong.

  “Nothing!” I snapped, unconvincingly. “I’m fine! There’s nothing wrong!” Woof. Communication had never been my thing, I admit. It was always, Nothing, or Fine, neither response ever being true. They just served to stand in for the things I couldn’t say. Like blank Scrabble tiles. They can mean anything you want them to. Oh man, I’ve done it now. I should never have admitted that. If you ask me again, I’ll blankly deny it. Deny, deny, deny. It’s the Area 51 of emotional dysfunction; we just don’t go there. But this is one admission I know will come back to bite me in the ass before long.

  While Mom changed and fed Steven, I hovered like a waitress on her first day. He didn’t seem particularly interested in the feeding part of the process. This was an ominous sign, one I should have paid attention to.