Day Nine

by Amanda Munday

  With an emotionless gaze he said, through my sobs, “I’ll hire a graphic designer to get the tactical work done for you so you can focus on the more strategic media and content work that you’re great at.” I was still a junior employee, not yet ready for strategy work. It was permission to reduce my workload. “This is your job, Amanda. It’s not life or death. I’ll make things easier on you however I can.” He looked stoic throughout my whole outburst, and he didn’t once call me crazy.

  When the meeting was over, he hugged me and suggested I take a walk around the block to catch my breath. But I’m not sure he ever saw me as the same professional after that morning. It seemed that once I’d revealed my inner turmoil out loud, my professional reputation was questioned. He stopped sending me update emails as often, and I started getting fewer invites to art shows in other cities, especially ones with longer travel stints. I knew I had cast doubt on my capabilities. But that morning I was out of energy to protect my professional image.

  There have been other similar episodes. Before heading to the airport on my way to Austin, Texas, for the South by Southwest conference that same year, I booked a last-minute appointment with my then psychologist, who I’d seen off and on to work through managing stress, especially after that outburst with my boss. I explained to my psychologist, who doesn’t prescribe medication but works through formal talk therapy programs, that I was consumed with all the ways I’d be in danger while alone at the conference. I showed up to my appointment erratic, with a long list of things that might harm me on the trip.

  “I’ll have to take the bus, alone, way out to the suburbs of Austin because my organization couldn’t afford a hotel closer to the convention centre. How am I going to get to the hotel at night from the bus stop? Do you think it’s unreasonable to ask the shuttle bus driver to drive up to the sliding doors of the Holiday Inn Express? What if other people figure out that I’m staying by myself?”

  I went over my safety plan more than once in our hour-long session. It was cognitive behavioural therapy, where we reviewed the likelihood that anyone would hurt me during a very busy conference with so many people around. Each time she’d ask me to estimate the likelihood that someone would assault me while I stepped off the shuttle bus, I’d work to rationalize why a small percentage is not a zero percentage. If there was a risk I could be hurt, I told her, then the worry was justified.

  “I’m terrified someone will grab me and pull me into an alley and slaughter me.” The words startled me as I said them, and I was overtaken by the graphic nature of my own thoughts. I felt like I was losing trust in my own protective tactics. Whether or not my business-travel fears were justified, what I remember from that session is how my paranoid thoughts and preoccupation with danger overshadowed what should have been a really exciting professional opportunity. I was going to the conference as a reward from a community foundation that had recognized my work with women and technology. I had earned the reward but paid the price with anxiety.

  I’ve had other intrusive thoughts about safety that have distracted me from being fully present in whatever I was doing, but none as severe as those few months at work in 2012. And although I remember feeling unsafe before, the thoughts have never been as loud or as persistent as the voice telling me the baby is not safe alone with me.

  What will happen to me this time, now that I’ve revealed my crumbling mind to others? What happens when other people find out I’m not managing parenthood well? Without the option to sleep or take a break from my responsibilities, the threat of death seems more real today. It’s probably because I’m about to die.

  The sense of urgency to get to the hospital and have someone confirm my broken mental state is palpable. I feel the rush to be seen and diagnosed rising behind my ears. My back is stiff and my stomach is in a nervous knot. If I go to the hospital, I’ll have a few hours where I can’t hurt the baby. Where I can’t lose control. Maybe there will be air conditioning in the ER, too, and I can get some relief from this bloody humidity. I will be safe there.

  Once we’re packed up, with my sister in the front seat and me in the back with the baby, I realize that this is the first time I’ve been in the car since we brought her home from the hospital. It’s 9:30 p.m. on this hot summer weeknight and the sun is just starting to set. This tiny baby has to come along to see her mother be assessed for madness. I realize I’ve missed the summer solstice. Irony lingers between the longest day of the year and the longest week of my existence.

  We drive along the quiet side streets and the city exhales. Being out of the house feels almost whimsical, like resolution. I lean my head against the window and I sway side-to-side with each turn onto a new street. The baby sleeps in her bucket seat beside me. I grab her tiny hand.

  “Your Mama is going to get better, my love. This is how I get better.”

  Doubts resurface. I shouldn’t have asked my family to do this for me. They’re heading to an emergency room on a Thursday night because I begged them to. I feel a bit better. Should I tell them I feel a bit better? Maybe all I needed was a car ride. The relief is sweet but I still sense it’s unstable, like the meringue on top of gelatinous lemon pie. I remember that we didn’t bring anything but a diaper bag.

  I walk into the emergency room and carry the baby to the triage desk. A nurse waves me over immediately and I have to quickly explain that we’re not here because of the baby.

  “The baby’s fine. The baby is fine but I am not fine.” I have tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat. She tells me to sit down beside her desk and begins asking me the basic registration details.

  “What brings you to the ER tonight?”

  I look up at my sister and husband and ask them to walk away from me. Alice is puzzled and Gordon outright refuses to move. I want to protect them from the forthcoming details. But when I realize they aren’t leaving, I tell the nurse what’s happening through a stream of sobs and whines.

  “Please help me. I can’t sleep. I’m so scared. I don’t know what’s going on but I’m begging you to find someone who can help me understand what’s happening to me.”

  I give her the quiet details of the phone cable and of the plastic bag. She asks me when I had a baby.

  “Last Tuesday.”

  She counts on her fingers. “One … two … she’s nine days old? Is that right? Did you hurt the baby?”

  No? “No. The baby is fine. It’s me who is not fine.” I look over to Gordon, who is listening to this conversation with alert eyes, but ones I can see are exhausted. Did he expect his wife to be so crazy so soon after giving birth? My heart shatters looking at how tired he is, while I’m asking him to stand here and listen to my dark thoughts. I look back at the nurse and she’s crying. She bites her lip and turns to face the computer monitor.

  “Okay, have a seat, someone will see you soon. You did the right thing.” I’m telling myself that I did the right thing, but the truth is all I feel is regret. Regret that we’re in the hospital on a Thursday night, regret that I’m not experiencing motherhood the way I thought I would, regret that I’ve stolen Gordon’s experience as a new father. I’m devastated that nothing is going the way I thought it would. Do I deserve what is happening to me? Why didn’t I think this was a legitimate risk when I was pregnant? Why didn’t I better prepare for this?

  Together we return to the waiting room. My husband, my sister, my baby, and me. Alice doesn’t have a sweater. I didn’t put on a bra before I left the house, and I realize my hair, pulled into a haphazard ponytail, makes me look even more erratic. We sit down in front of a man who’s bleeding from his eyebrow. He smells of liquor and is shifting aggressively in his seat. Alice looks at me nervously, and Gordon says he’s going to take the baby outside. I watch him wrap her in our new Moby carrier, freshly unpacked from my late-night Amazon order, and head outside. He walks back and forth between ambulances and taxis and I’m suddenly, but continuously, devastated.

  Alice moves to a seat closer to me and says, “The docto
r will make you feel better. Don’t worry, okay?” She seems less confident than her words sound.

  More taxis arrive to drop off ill patients. Flus, cuts, broken arms, a pregnant woman. Gordon holds both of his hands around Fiona’s tiny ears to shield her from the sirens as he paces out front. A while later he heads back inside, and Fiona is crying. Of course, I have to feed her. This is the first time I’ll attempt to breastfeed in public, and I couldn’t feel more vulnerable and exposed. I’m sitting in an emergency room waiting area about to pull out my breast. This place is full of illness. What if she contracts some cold or flu while we sit here? I am a neglectful parent.

  I struggle to get Fiona to latch. We aren’t in our regular position and the breastfeeding cover I have over my chest makes it difficult to see what’s going on. An older woman stares at me. She’s looking at the nipple shield, judging my failures. The man with the bleeding eyebrow is called in to see a doctor. Was he here before me or after me? I’m losing track of time.

  It’s now after midnight and we are all exhausted. Maybe I shouldn’t have come. I’ve overreacted and don’t need to be here. When they finally call my name, we pack up the mobile baby office and follow the nurse behind the triage area and into the back hallway. We are led to the very back of the emergency area and brought into a small private room with a bed, a separate private washroom, and a side table. Emergency rooms don’t usually come equipped with an ensuite washroom, so it strikes me as a little odd that I’d get this one. Is it to separate the baby from others, in case she cries and disturbs the sick patients? Before I can figure out why we are given the isolation room, a doctor enters.

  “What’s going on tonight?” Her tone is worn and her gaze directed at Fiona. I look to my sister and ask her to leave again. The doctor, without looking at me, agrees that’s a good idea, and asks Gordon and the baby to go with Alice into the hallway.

  “There’s a waiting area across the hall. We’ll only be a few minutes.”

  I launch into the story, again. I explain that I feel like I’m dying. I haven’t eaten in days and I’m not hungry. That I’ve been given opportunities to sleep but it doesn’t happen. That I want to feel normal and I can’t. That I haven’t hurt the baby but I keep thinking I might. Racing thoughts. Intrusive thoughts. Terrible and disrupted nightmares when I do manage to sleep for a few minutes.

  “What is going on with me? Please tell me what’s wrong. Why do I feel this way?” I’m overwhelmed with grief, desperation, exhaustion, and fear. I dissolve into sobs. The doctor puts her hand on my shoulder and I slide away from her grasp. The gesture is kind, but I don’t want to be touched, and I absolutely do not want to be touched by a stranger. She asked me about my labour and delivery, and all about what’s happened over the last week.

  Then she asks, “Is your husband hurting you? Are you here because you’re in danger? Is the baby safe?”

  The answer is yes, I’m in danger. But not because of my husband.

  “You did the right thing coming here.” She’s the second person to tell me I did the right thing, so naturally I question it. Are they saying it because I didn’t really do the right thing and I’m wasting everyone’s time?

  “I need to go and see another doctor; wait here, okay? I’ll send your family back in.” Gordon and Alice come back in with Fiona, and we all sit silently while I gulp back tears, not wanting to outright bawl in fear it will upset the baby. Gordon and Alice let out separate long exhales that sound a bit like emphatic sighs. We don’t have anything to say to one another, so we simply wait. The doctor returns less than five minutes later presenting two pages of paperwork.

  “I don’t think you’re going to leave, because you came here on your own today. But this is a document saying I want you to stay in the hospital for seventy-two hours. You have the right to get a court injunction to allow you to leave the hospital, but I don’t think you’re going to do that. This document says you’re going to stay here and be observed, which I know you want to do to get better. Do you understand what I’m telling you? I will leave you with your copy of this document. Please review it.”

  I nod. What else can I do? I think she’s saying I have to stay here for seventy-two hours. I guess that means I’m not going home tonight.

  Gordon looks stunned and says nothing. I reach for Fiona and try unsuccessfully to feed her. Alice looks tired. This is her first exposure to our new reality, to the sleep deprivation and days that don’t end. When I thought about what my new mother-hood experience would look like, it didn’t include bringing my sister to a psychiatric evaluation. It didn’t include asking for help at all. This is her introduction to the night-is-day cycle and it’s a brutal orientation. With an exhausted plea, I say to Gordon, “Please take these two home. It’s not safe for the baby here. She’s going to get sick. You need to leave.”

  He resists. “I’m not leaving you in this fucking hospital. You just need some medication so you can sleep and you need to come home with me. Besides, you’re her only food source. She wouldn’t take a bottle before. I can’t imagine going home without you and just hoping the baby magically starts feeding with a bottle. No way. You’ve never pumped and now you’re just going to start using a pump? And store the milk where?”

  “Listen,” I say, “maybe if I’m not home, she’ll drink from a bottle. What choice do we have? I don’t know what to do either. The paperwork says I have to stay. We are out of options.” I do my best to take charge of a situation I didn’t see coming. “Go. Please? This is a ridiculous place for the baby to be.”

  We are arguing back and forth when an on-call psychologist bursts into my small shell of a room. When he moves the curtain back from around the bed, I see that I’m in a room surrounded by glass. The private washroom is here because I can’t leave. They can lock me in here. This is not a regular emergency room. The doctor asks Gordon and my sister to leave again, but this time I hold onto the baby. I have to pinch my arm to remind myself that this doctor is a living, breathing human. He looks a bit like a caricature of a doctor. He’s wearing a wrinkled black suit, a white shirt, and a black tie. The tie sits crookedly and loosely around his neck, an indication that he was called in specifically to see me and just threw these clothes on in a rush out the door. He must have been asleep. He drew the short-straw on-call shift.

  He repeats the same questions: “Are you going to hurt yourself? Have you hurt the baby? Is there anyone in this room besides you, me, and the baby? Are you hearing voices? Do you believe the world is going to end? When was the last time you slept? Do you have a history of mental illness? What is your medical history? What happened at the birth? What do you want to happen next?”

  “I’m really scared,” I tell him.

  “Why?” The doctor looks up from his notes.

  “Well, because I’m sitting in a hospital after midnight talking to you about scary things. This is a pretty scary, messed up situation.” He smirks. I’m not sure why. More questions. He makes a few remaining notes, flipping the lined paper on his clipboard up and over.

  “I’m going to go and speak with your husband and see what we can do about getting you a bed upstairs, okay? You did the right thing coming here.”

  I hear the doctor and Gordon talking outside my door.

  “Your wife is still in there. She is not well, but I can tell she’s somewhere inside there. I recommend she be sent upstairs where the doctors can monitor her 24/7 for a few days. You should discuss medication with them.”

  “How long is she going to have to stay here?” Gordon says. He’s demolished; I can hear that much from behind the curtain.

  “I don’t know exactly, but I know it’s safer here for her than at home,” says the doctor. “You want your wife to get better, don’t you? If you want her to get well you need to leave her here. This is the safest place for her to be right now.”

  It’s official: I’m in danger. Now I wish I was home but I can’t leave. I’m a prisoner.

  “Go home,” I plead when
Gordon walks back into the room. “They said I did the right thing.”

  June 27, 2014

  PRIVACY IS A PRIVILEGE for the sane. If I thought I was likely to be harmed before, that feeling increases tenfold when a security guard places a chair outside my door and opens the curtain. Is it right to place a male security guard with a woman in postpartum distress? Who defines what’s right around here? He has an air of aggression, his armoured uniform giving off strength and power.

  “You’re on observation. I need to sit here.”

  It’s been at least an hour since Gordon and Alice left and two — or is it three? — since I fed Fiona in the waiting room. For the first time since she was born, my breasts become engorged and I don’t have a baby to empty them. Liquid runs from my sore, cracked, and bleeding nipples down my shirt, soaking it. The smell of sour milk consumes me. The overhead lights have a subtle flicker and an obnoxious hum. Before we left for the hospital, I grabbed a manual breast pump and threw it in my purse. I’m not entirely sure how it works or what damage I’m about to cause to my milk supply, but I know I’ll need it soon to relieve my swollen breasts. I don’t know how I’m going to explain all this to Rose. If I don’t figure out how to use this pump, Gordon will have to rely on formula to feed the baby, and he may never come back to get me. The last thing in the world he wanted was for the baby to be on artificial food.

  If I can pump, maybe I can find a place to store the milk until morning, and she will still be able to be fed directly from me. Will anyone let me near a fridge? Will anyone respond to my request for milk storage? I’ve absolutely failed my child. I wonder if I’m going to have to stop breastfeeding after this stay. My mind turns dark. I’m alone in a fishbowl and they haven’t realized all the weapons they’ve left with me. Behind my bed are oxygen cables — cables I could use to stop my own breathing. There are outlets I could stick something into with all the liquid pouring out of my breasts. Would this man make it in time to save me before I shocked myself enough to end my life?