We come home, emotionally wrecked. Waiting for us is my mother. Truthfully, she has never really been behind the idea of breastfeeding. I was a formula baby, as were she, her sisters, and her brother. When I’d told her my plans and launched into the spiel about the benefits of the breast, she did listen and seemed to understand my point even if she didn’t agree. Still, she couldn’t help but mention how much she loved her bottle when she was a tot and how much I enjoyed mine. “I didn’t want to deprive you of that experience,” she said. And we leave it at that.
The reality of breastfeeding is something else entirely. Deep, deep down, she is suspicious of it. All she wants to do is take the baby and a bottle and bond with her first grandchild. Instead, I am standing in the way of that, with my newfangled ideas about child rearing that spring from having liberal friends who read too many books. She must have been thrilled to see us carrying in formula, dreaming of the hours she can spend feeding this child.
I am feeling unkind at the time—exhausted, worried, spent, fearful, and isolated. My mother is not a shrew; nor is she deliberately mean. My perceptions are colored by years of us not knowing how to deal with each other. If you met her, you would love her. Really. But you are not her child. You don’t have to deal with your own anger about your inability ever to make her happy. You don’t have to live with the knowledge that you were the one thing that kept her from following her bliss, that you were the one who kept her in a city she hated simply because you loved your father, too. You don’t have all of this baggage.
I retreat to the early-tenement bedroom with the baby and the bottles. Scott hangs back to explain the situation to my mom, who is making a big pot of soup. The baby is pretty much out of it. I put her in the portable bassinet that’s been living next to our bed and give it a push to start it rocking. I open the blinds, since the pediatrician mentioned that sunlight can help break up bilirubin. I look at the formula, premixed in an easy-to-open jar. I pull up my shirt, pull out a breast, and pick up the limp child. She opens her eyes and opens her mouth. We go through the motions. I expect a miracle, flowing milk and a full child. Nothing. I start to cry.
Then I open the formula, pour some in the bottle, and stick it in her mouth. I want her to reject it, if only to offer me some small assurance that I am worthy. She sucks the formula down like a cold lemonade on a hot day, eyes wide and limbs flapping in ecstasy. An ounce is gone in no time. I burp her and put her back in the bassinet. Doesn’t she know that breast is best? How can my own child reject me so soon? I cry harder, convinced that just four days in, I’ve already failed completely at the mom thing and that my relationship with my mom will look ideal compared to how my relationship with my daughter will turn out.
Instead of doing something sensible, like going for a brief walk to clear my head or trying to take a nap, I pick up my copy of The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding, the La Leche League’s unofficial handbook. I found mine in a used bookstore, but can’t imagine that the information has changed that much since 1963. After all, women have been doing this for eons.
“After you have brought your baby into the world, the first important step in your new role as a mother is putting your infant to your breast,” the writers insist. “The fact that you choose to take this step shows that you are already prepared to accept the obligations—and the joys—of motherhood. Having come this far on the road to maturity, you will find the experience of giving yourself unstintingly to your child will bring you even further along. In other words, one of the ways in which breastfeeding will benefit you is by helping you become a real, more loving person, in relation to others as well as to your child.”
Finally, I have proof that I am not real, nor am I loving. This isn’t a huge surprise.
Beyond this, the biggest fear I have is calling my doula to let her know that we have failed. Scott is willing to take the bullet, mostly because he doesn’t see this as a breastfeeding failure yet. Of course, he also hasn’t spent the last hour reading about how formula-fed babies are more likely to be sick and stupid. Clearly, he is the more levelheaded member of our union.
Our doula wants to talk to me, to let me know that all hope is not lost. There is a device called a Supplemental Nursing System, or SNS, frequently employed in situations like this. After explaining that we are far too sleepy to be trusted to take on I-40, which is what we’d have to do to get to the one store in Knoxville that carries these devices, our doula offers to drive one out to our house that evening. Again, I am stunned by the willingness of people to give up a day off just to help us.
The day passes. Every couple of hours I give the baby more formula, which she laps up, then crashes. I can’t nap when she does and use the time to stare at her or read parenting books. Every few hours, I start sobbing, provoked by absolutely nothing. But I can’t stop once I start. It’s like something else has taken over my body and is just wringing the tears out of it. Fortunately, the Hub gets a chance to get some real sleep, so we’re not both completely useless.
Cindy shows up with a video and a bag full of stuff. The video is about how the SNS works, as well as has tips on bonding with your child. The SNS is usually employed by women who adopt children and by women with low milk supplies. As it turns out, you can breast-feed without having been pregnant, if you can adequately stimulate the breast. The body is a strange and wonderful thing.
The SNS consists of a yellow reservoir on a string, which you hang around your neck. Two tiny tubes that are about the diameter of angel-hair pasta run from it and slivers of surgical tape attach these to the breast so that the end of the tube hits the end of the nipple. The reservoir is filled with formula; the baby sucks on both tube and boob. Et voilà: a full child who is still providing the sucking needed to kick-start lactation.
Our doula sets me up the first time. After having so many people handle my breasts over the last few days, it is no longer odd. I’ll pick my shirt up for practically anyone, it seems. The baby is latched on. She sucks like a vampire on the neck of a virgin. It takes forever to fill her up, because the tubes are so small and my breasts add nothing to the volume. Still, we are bonding, sort of, even though a plastic device needs to be employed in order to do so.
The doula does some math. Given the baby’s weight and how much fluid she needs, we should be feeding her every two hours around the clock. Given that filling her up takes about forty-five minutes and given that the process of cleaning/hooking up the device takes another fifteen, it is going to be a long night indeed. My mom announces that she will be sleeping on the nursery floor. We’re too overwhelmed to argue.
The night passes excruciatingly slowly. It takes two sets of hands to operate the SNS—one set to hold the baby in position and one to open the valve that starts the formula flowing. My mom volunteers to be the one to bring the baby to us and get the baby back to sleep. Scott takes SNS duty, filling it and cleaning it. In theory, I just have to sit there while the pit crew does the hard work and I drive the car.
It doesn’t work out that way. First, my mom is one of the deepest sleepers I have ever known. She can snooze through small bombs and earthquakes. I have, on occasion, jumped repeatedly on her bed just to see if she can sleep through it. And for the record, she can. Expecting her to wake up to an alarm designed for those who aren’t comatose is foolhardy. Live, learn.
Scott performed his job well, which he usually does, especially if said job involves hydraulics or levers.
I was the weakest link. Knowing, at best, that I could get only an hour of sleep at a clip left me unwilling to fall asleep at all. If I couldn’t immediately drift off after the SNS circus left town, it seemed like a waste to sleep for less than an hour. After twelve hours of this, I couldn’t begin even to drift off.
But the larger problem is just the wrongness of three people involved in this whole endeavor. It shouldn’t take a village to feed one newborn. By the wee hours, when the feeding alarm goes off, I start to cry and continue to do so until everyone else falls asleep again.<
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By the next morning, we’re all ragged. The baby has rediscovered that she has lungs and is screaming just because she can. She is, thankfully, less orange and a trip to the pediatrician confirms that her bilirubin levels are falling. This is good.
We keep up the two-hourly feedings. I keep up the crying. By now, I’m just sick of having so many people touching me, of never having a minute to myself to think about anything other than the baby. Rather than sleep, I search through every resource I have. Books have always provided the information I’ve needed to get through life. Something is just not right, but I don’t know what. However, none of the words, in baby books or on the Internet, offer any solace. Everyone seems inclined to chalk up any and all wacky maternal behavior to “baby blues.” I call my OB, who wants me to give it another few days, because tears and sleeplessness are fairly common during the first week.
By midafternoon, I can’t function anymore. The feedings are wearing me out. Nothing is changing, breast-wise. The oft-rumored milk has not come. I can’t strap on the SNS again. It has become the big, yellow reservoir of my shame. So what if my kid grows up to be sick and stupid? So what if I am not giving her the best start in life I possibly can? So what if I will never be a fully loving and real person? At least, if I stop, I can get some sleep. I am selfish and weak.
“I can’t do this anymore,” I tell my husband, who was breastfed, because that’s what his mom and his mom’s mom did.
“That’s…disappointing,” he says. “But I understand.”
He heads out to get more bottles and formula and various whatnot. I tell my mom about my decision and we scour through all of the free formula samples we’ve gotten in the last three months. Life moves on. For the first time in days, I nap while someone else feeds the baby. It is wonderful.
We settle into a routine, as much as you can during those first two weeks. My mom finally leaves, after much protest on her part, not ours. Scott’s mom arrives. During the day, she takes charge, so much so that we’re actually able to skip out and see a movie. Unfortunately, it was Men in Black 2. Fortunately, it didn’t require all that much brain power to follow. I cry during anything too loud.
I’m glossing over a lot here, details of the esoteric sort. One day I start passing golf ball–sized blood clots. I am told to call back if they reach the size of my fist. They never do, yet my body still feels like it is possessed by some demon. I’m also glossing over the day our computer—our sole lifeline to the outside world, at this point—contracted some nasty virus and died. It was like losing a limb. Without e-mail, without the Web, I lose a little bit more of what keeps me tethered to my old life. It’s also an amazing pain in the ass and we’re forced to call a computer guy to come fix it, which he does, at considerable cost and by erasing everything that had been on the machine.
I’m also glossing over the good moments, those brief windows where I am in love with my Madeline, where her fingers and toes just amaze me. I am simply stunned by the fact that my body could create something so perfect. I can’t wait to see her smile for the first time. It’s hard to wait the six weeks or so until your child has the muscular control to smile at you. Right now, it’s impossible to read the expressions that float across her beautiful face.
I take some brief naps, which make up for the fact that I spend my nights listening to the baby in the bassinet next to me. She can now set the whole thing rocking herself by flailing her limbs around and the sound of the metal runners scratching on the hardwood floors is maddening, especially at 3 a.m.
I’m still bursting into inappropriate tears, but seem to do okay, as long as there is a competent adult in the house, either Scott’s mom or Scott, and I can safely retreat to the bedroom when it all is too much. But no one can stay forever. The Hub, after a brief fascination with quitting his job, goes back to work. The next day, his mom goes back to Rochester, New York. I wanted to wrap myself around the legs of both of them and beg them not to go. I don’t, because I am an adult, albeit one who is completely undone by a sub–ten-pound person whom I don’t want to be alone with.
As she leaves, Scott’s mom gives me a hug and tells me that she’ll be down in a heartbeat if we need her to be. She is serious. If I recall correctly, I believe that “job be damned” may have been uttered. The sentiment is appreciated. I try to put on my best happy face and assure her that we’ll be just fine. I’m lying.
I don’t know why I’m so terrified to be alone with my child. We’ve been alone before, she and I, when she was still floating around in my belly. Then, alone was good. Now, my one goal is for both of us to be alive when Scott gets home. The joys of motherhood.
Despite what this litany of failings might have you believe, I am a competent adult otherwise. My job was untraditional, yes, but still involved many normal joblike things. I was in charge of a fleet of freelancers, each of whom was very fickle in his work habits and in the management style he preferred. Most of the time, I was the only woman on the editorial staff and held my own with some very opinionated men. Every week I got my stuff done—usually writing a story or two and editing the rest. We never failed to go to print because of my pages. If I may be so bold, I kicked ass in a work setting.
But the baby is something else entirely. She doesn’t understand deadlines. Schedules are beyond her. Everything happens randomly. One minute she is starving; the next unconscious, or shrieking. I never know how long anything will last. She could be asleep for five hours or five minutes. There is just no way to tell. If she is awake, she wants to be rocked or held or cooed at. I can’t actually do anything that is not related to these mommy duties. Most of the day, I sit on the couch and wait for whatever comes next, my hands folded in my lap, like a preschooler waiting for the next set of directions.
At this point, I give up on napping. Every time I manage to drift off, the baby wakes me up. After the tenth time, I realize that resistance is futile and just stay awake. Strangely, this isn’t difficult. Sure, I’m tired, more tired than I can ever recall being, but actually falling asleep is impossible unless there is someone else in the house to tend to the inconstant child.
As a result, I start to lose my already meager ability to concentrate on pretty much everything. I can’t read magazines, because I can’t make sense of what the sentences mean. The TV is generally on, tuned to no station in particular, because there is nothing on during the day that can capture my interest, but I enjoy the sounds of other human voices. Every now and again, I’ll pick up the baby and hold her to my chest, swaying both of us to the somber sounds of Gillian Welch’s Time (the Revelator). It is quite possibly the saddest album in the world, and I can’t stop listening to it.
Other than that, I spend most of my “free” time either staring off into space or surfing the Internet for advice on how to get through this. Some sites are less than helpful, including one that denounces all postpartum depression as a sign that a woman is too lazy and egotistical to be a decent mother. I start to wonder if the writer is right. All of my character defects are coming home to roost. Soon I’ll be the St. Francis of Fairmont Avenue, arms covered with the shitting birds of my faults. This is just the baby blues, I keep telling myself. Any day now, I’ll snap out of it and understand why everyone thinks a new baby brings such joy.
By day three of my solo confinement with the baby and her thirteenth day of life, I know something is not right. I call my OB, who prescribes estrogen, which is thought to help with postpartum emotional issues, and suggests stocking up on Tylenol PM. The first night, it all works okay. I sleep, mostly, but by now am not really eating. Food holds no appeal and takes too much effort. The next night, I don’t sleep, despite the drugs, and call my OB at 3 a.m. She’d been sleeping.
“The Tylenol PM isn’t working. I have some Xanax. Can I take that?”
“It’s not normally what we’d recommend,” she tells me, voice muzzy from hours of restful sleep. “But it’ll do in a pinch. I’ll call in some Ambien, a sleeping pill.”
So
I take the Xanax, which are left over from when I flew to the U.K. a few years previous. I still don’t sleep, but no longer care that I’m awake.
By the next afternoon, I can’t stop crying. I call my OB again, who prescribes Zoloft and discontinues the estrogen. The pharmacists must love me.
The problem with standard SSRIs, a class of medications which include antidepressants like Zoloft, is that they take at least two weeks to really kick in. It’s not a happy pill, one that immediately lifts your mood and makes the world okay. What it does at first, frankly, is make me jumpy and nauseated. I eat a peanut butter sandwich to try to calm my stomach. It doesn’t really work.
I get the itch to write down things and scrounge up an old red leather-bound travel journal that I’d gotten as a freebie from a book publisher. In it are maps, a chart of the international flag symbol codes, time zones, and dialing codes. I start on the first set of blank pages I come to, which are titled “Notes and Incidents.” This, I think, qualifies as an incident.
Words are penned up inside of me. My usual outlets are gone, now that I’m not at the paper. Writing is how I’ve always made sense of the world, even though my prose right now is both hackneyed and clichéd. Maybe if I write this all down, it will all become illuminated. It feels important to keep a record of this, a guidebook to the inside of my head just in case I do something tragic. I want people to be able to connect the dots, later.
The Ambien doesn’t work as promised. I take it after Scott gets home and sleep for two solid hours, then wake up, groggy and incoherent. For the rest of the night, I drift in and out of a light sleep, startled awake every time I can hear the skritching of the metal bassinet runners against the hardwood floor. Limbs flail up out of the rocking crib randomly, like the baby is practicing gymnastics in her sleep. By the end of the night, it’s no longer cute. They start to look like tentacles from some alien species, one that mimics being human only until you turn out the lights. Then it leaps from its crib, eats your face, and sucks the life out of you. God, I’m tired.
Hillbilly Gothic Page 9