Motherhood, Meltdowns and Midwives

It was my second day in the hospital since Erin's birth and things were progressing well - she was sleeping and feeding and expelling bodily fluids at an encouraging rate.

I was introduced to a horde of helpful medical professionals - lactation consultants, midwives, aids, scores of trainee doctors, nurses and baby doctors (that's a thing, apparently) They poked and prodded; they hmm'd and haa'd; they took notes, and rolled Erin's hips, and flashed lights in her eyes, and checked my stitches, and took my bloods and enquired after my toilet habits. 

The parents came in, eyes brimming, mouths overflowing with unrequested advice ("MINDTHEHEAD!!"), praising my hard work and exclaiming over the uncanny likeness the child shared with her father.

Finally, the lights dimmed in the ward and quietness descended. The other two mothers were bottle-feeding; I'd opted for breast. That meant that Erin woke more frequently, and I positioned her close to the bed so I could feed her while lying outright since it was the only comfortable position I could find in my current physical predicament. 

She woke crying and struggled to latch on to feed. 

And the crying didn't stop. 

It was a relentless, high-pitched keening, akin to the kind you'd conjure while reading old stories about banshees. After fifteen minutes of failure, a kind midwife came in, asked whether everything was okay. Wild-eyed, I hissed a refutation, holding the baby out. "She won't stop!" I wailed "She just won't stop!"

"Let me help," she said. 

Erin bawled and bawled. The midwife wrenched my boob - already sensitive from the sudden swell (I'm an optimistic B-cup. With a plunge bra. On a fat day.) - and pushed it towards the baby's little mouth, clucking like a hen and manoeuvring my arm under her head. It was the most uncomfortable I've ever been, but I sat like that, stock still for twenty minutes, being yanked and twisted and man-handled in a way reminiscent of many a hormone-fuelled teenage disco. Erin protested, preferring instead to exercise her little lungs. 

I thought of the other two sleeping babies, and desperately rocked her back and forth, hushing her and cradling her little head. I attempted to burp her -  on the knees, over my shoulder, front-facing, on her belly. Nothing worked, the crying continued and the night midwife eventually left to attend to someone in need, promising to come back and check on me when she could.

"She might have wind, Rebecca -"

"It's Rachel."

"Sorry -  Rachel. Just keep patting her on the back and rocking her. She should eventually calm down."

The midwife pulled the curtain over, hiding the peacefully sleeping other mothers and their peacefully sleeping babies and their ready-made full formula bottles from sight, cocooning us in our own personal hell. I paced the little space around my bed, hushing and cooing and stroking and hugging and attempting to feed her, but Erin kept crying for five hours straight. The sun was creeping through the blinds when she finally tired herself out. I hadn't had a painkiller since the previous evening, and the pain was searing. I had pressed the bell several times for the midwife during the night, but she'd had pressing matters elsewhere, so when she finally arrived back, all I could manage to gasp out was my need for more Difene.

"Here you go, Rebecca."

" - Rachel - "

"Yes, Rachel. Now, Erin is looking a little jaundiced so I'm just going to check her bilirubin levels."

She took a reading with some sort of contraption, and scurried away. I was almost breathless with the pain. When the lady wheeled in the breakfast and proffered more toast and more tea, I couldn't even look at it. I was told that day that Erin was indeed jaundiced - that it happens over 60% of newborns, that we would have to kept in and observed, that I would have to feed her more to prevent dehydration. I broke the news to Himself by text message, unable to bear the disappointment I knew I'd hear in his voice if I called, and proceeded to trawl the internet for any information I could glean about jaundice. 

I was reading up on all the possible horrific outcomes as the other two mothers gleefully dressed their babies for the trip home. I was researching furiously as the fathers came in with carseats to collect their new families. I watched, pained, from the corner of my eye as the second mother belted up her already-too-big, non-maternity skinny jeans while my baggy nightdress was still stretched to testing point across my abdomen. Erin started crying again, and I just pulled the curtains closed, ignoring my breakfast and the endless, endless tea. 

When a midwife's aid called Angela came to check on me two hours later, I was a blubbering mess.

"She's s-s-s-siiiiiiiick," I sobbed, clinging to her white uniform "And I c-can't f-f-feeeed her! And she's got jaundice! And her k-k-kidneys could - could - could - FAAAAAAIL!!!" I covered my face with my hands, dispensing with all illusory togetherness. I was having a full-on fucking meltdown in the now-empty maternity ward. "I JUST CAN'T DO THIS!!!" I wailed, startling a passer-by. "I d-d-don't know what's wrong and I c-c-couldn't get her to sleep last night and now w-w-we're stuck in here F-F-FOREVERRRRRR!!! WAAAAAAAH!!!!"

Angela looked genuinely horrified. She had a lovely Northern accent and little glasses and she was probably as high as my elbow. She had just started her shift and I - in all my snivelling, snotty, roaring, greasy, farting, sweating, leaking, bulgy-eyed glory - was her first patient. 

She patted my on the back, letting me rant and rave. She pulled soft tissues from some hidden recess in her uniform, and dabbed at my face when the wave of terror had subsided to mere gulps for air. Embarrassed, I blew my nose loudly; apologised profusely. 

"Don't you apologise, girl," she said, stroking my hair in a way that made me yearn for my own mother. My eyes welled up again just thinking of her. 

You are losing your fucking mind, a lucid voice said in my head. 

Angela was still talking, so I wrenched my wandering thoughts back to the present. "... will be fine. You wouldn't believe the amount of girls that come in here and have the same doubts. You're not the first and you won't be the last. You go and have a shower. I'll stay here with...?"

"Erin," I supplied, her name catching in my throat.

"I'll stay here with Erin. You go and take your time in the shower. You need a bit of breathing space. I'll make sure you get more painkillers - you're due it soon. And I'm going to move you over to the window, so the baby can get more natural light. And it's all going to be JUST. FINE."

I did as I was told, her commanding confidence almost convincing me. I emerged from the shower a new woman. New, looser pyjamas. Clean hair. Newly-brushed teeth. De-stank of stale milk and perspiration. I held out my arms for Erin, hoping the baby hadn't suffered any scarring from her mother's recent tantrum. 

Angela was making a new bed for me by the window, and had pulled back the blind. A doctor came in, flipping through a chart. Without looking up, he read to the room: "I'm here to check on Rebecca?"

I wilted.

"Her name is Rachel, for Christ's sake!" Angela snapped, scowling at the doctor. "And she needs more painkillers, and the lactation consultant - I think the baby has a bit of a tongue-tie. And she didn't eat her breakfast, so I'm going to get her some toast and a bottle of water."

The doctor raised his eyebrows at her, but then returned his gaze to the chart in front of him and crossed something out. Angela gestured at me to bring the baby to my new bed, and I lay Erin in the natural light and looked out at my new view.

Yeah, I thought. 

I'm Rachel, for Christ's sake.