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(warning; some graphic bodily function descriptions follow).

OK, ya’ll enough. ENOUGH for Christ’s sake.

What did I do yesterday morning? I woke up and started hemorrhaging blood. Yep. Stumbled to the bathroom, hollered for my mom because I was bleeding so fast, then lay down on the rug with a towel between my legs, passing in and out of consciousness while she called me an ambulance. Thinking in a vague fuzzy way, I don’t want to die like this. This is a crappy way to die. Godammit. At one point I had Mom bring me my cell phone so I could call Matt and tell him that I was going to the hospital; poor guy.

The ambulance got there, though they went to the wrong house and Mom had to go flag them down. They loaded me on the gurney and poked me full of needles, though I passed out a few times on the way when my blood pressure crashed.The bleeding slowed down a bit because I was flat on my back. They were nice, kept me talking to try and keep me awake. I impressed myself with my ability to recite my Social, my phone, my address, my husband’s phone, and my birthdate.

I lay in the ER room for a while while they monitored me, completely freaked out, but glad not to be dead. Not sure I was in the clear, though. My brother and his wife came, then my inlaws, god bless them all. There were a few times when I was alone, waiting for the test results, and I talked to God, who I may or may not believe in. I told him/her/whatever I was sick of this crap, that I did not want to die, thank you, and could we please find out what the fuck was wrong with me before they sent me home, and get it fixed. Oh, and it would be nice if my insurance company didn’t crush me and my family with bills after this little out of network hospital jaunt.

I was examined and sonogrammed…nothing, just a lot of blood. At first they tried to send me home, but then Bill the nurse, my guardian angel, talked them into taking my blood pressure when I sat or stood; sure enough it went kerplat if I wasn’t lying down. Thanks to him, I got a bed and observation for the night.

Eventually I saw an OB/GYN, who said he wasn’t sure what happened, but maybe I’d retained some tissue after my delivery (although this is very rare in c-sections, but the way they ran me through the system at NY Methodist, not surprising to me) but that it had already flushed itself out. Of course, usually this doesn’t wait two weeks postpartum to show up, either. But hey, it’s par for this birth.

So I spent a night in the very nice, private room in the women’s ward of this hospital, and the treatment was superb. The nurses were all soft-spoken motherly types, who brought me whatever I needed and checked on me and cleaned me up when I needed it. Wish I’d given birth there, dammit. Stupid NY Methodist.

It’s a 7th Day Adventist hospital, and at first I was a little worried about all the Jesus themed artwork (Jesus watching over surgeons; Jesus blessing a mom nursing her child; etc.). But they weren’t pushy. A nice chaplain came by to pray for me this morning, and I said, what the hell. Well I didn’t say that, but I didn’t stop him. It made him feel better and it didn’t hurt me any.

After a full night of sleep and most of a day resting, about 11 am, it was like a switch flipped; suddenly, I felt normal, in a way I haven’t felt since before Nathan was born. It’s hard to describe; basically, I really had had no idea how bad I was feeling. Until it was gone. The bleeding had slowed to just a regular period level, and the nice OB/GYN came by, agreed to let me go home, and prescribed me some birth control pills to get all back in order. And I felt great; got up, had a shower, got dressed, hopped in the car, strolled into CVS and got my prescription filled. Came home, fed the baby who seemed glad to see me, and sat down to write this. You’d never know I went through what I did yesterday.

I hope this feeling lasts; it feels like it will. It feels like I’m me. Maybe it was the sickness, not PPD or birth recovery, making things so bad for me. I’m not feeling panicky tonight at all. Maybe the bigger fear that I was going to die pushed it away, I don’t know. I don’t care. I’m just so grateful to be alive, and to feel better.

But if I have anything to say about it, Nathan will probably be an only child, unless we adopt. I can’t imagine working up the courage to run this gauntlet again.

It still shows up, the panic, about bedtime. About the first shift for Nathan, I feel it close in on me; a sudden claustrophobia of being alone in a quiet house with the lights dimmed, responsible for the survival of this little person I don’t really know yet. In for a long night, and worse, for an endless series of long nights…a year or more. And I don’t know how I will do it. I see other parents who are worn out but not frightened, and I wonder how they do it. I wouldn’t mind the fatigue so much, but the panicky feeling is making me feel more than a little crazy.

If it doesn’t let up, I guess I’ll need some kind of mild sedative that will calm me down enough to nap without knocking me out so I can’t hear him when he needs me. Or even an antidepressant, which my midwives have already offered to prescribe me. When I’m home again, Matt will help me I know, take his half of the shifts, and that’s good. But only if I can relax enough to let him. Our apartment for me is still the dark, shabby, claustrophobic place I fled for Texas. I need another way to think about it than as a cage; I need this fear to lift.

I know it’s hormonal, or depression related, or what have you, because one of the things I could count on before I was pregnant was feeling fairly confident with babies. I did a lot of babysitting for my family and for pay, including newborns, including long nights. There’s nothing that complicated about diapers and feedings and lost sleep, and eventually, you can adjust to not quite enough sleep and get to know the baby’s patterns, etc. Lots of people do it, it’s hard, but it’s not that hard.

But it seems to me now that the minute I got pregnant, my feelings switched from confidence and longing and joy to free-falling panic. I think I may have been afraid all along, this whole pregnancy, and just didn’t know it until now. I guess it’s dangerous to get what you wish for. And now that he’s here, and it’s all Real, well, the panic is out of its cage and I can’t push it away.

I miss how I felt when we were just trying for a baby; that hopefulness, that anticipation. Where did that go? Why didn’t it hang around? It certainly felt real enough at the time. I didn’t know it would desert me the minute the real thing showed up. Makes me feel like an idiot, frankly. You’d think I’d know myself better than that by the time I was 33. If I’d known I was going to lose my shit so utterly, I might have approached it differently. Or just said, the hell with it, though I’m already attached enough to Nathan that I don’t want to really consider that.

So here I am, typing away in the dead of night when I’d prefer to be napping, because laying down on the bed next to his bassinet makes my heart race and my breath come faster. Until I get really tired, then I keep passing out while trying to hold his bottle at the crack of dawn, until Mom wakes up and rescues me.

I think I am getting better, even though it’s still bad; at least, I can analyze it more, instead of just sobbing while I rock Nathan or lie awake. It can’t get better fast enough for me, though; I want my brain back, and my emotions, and whatever scraps of sanity I can still lay legitimate claim to. That’s why I keep writing here, even if it benefits no one but me.

They cannot do iced tea in New York; inevitably, they make it in the coffee pot, giving it a lovely stale-coffee overtone. Or they chichi it up with herbs and fennel and god knows what. And tea is so simple: brew large pot. Add water. Pour over ice. Serve. Provide sweeteners. Allow free refills. Not rocket science, people.

So that was really my goal today: eat somewhere that served iced tea, and take the baby along. We did pretty well. He still prefers to sleep through all his outings. And I got to get me some new sweaters.

It was a bit hard trying on clothes; there’s still a lot of baby weight hanging around, and it makes me look odd and lumpy in the wrong tops. Also the stretchy jeans I’m still wearing are too big and give me a gianter ass than I actually have. Not flattering. Not that I worry about impressing the Kohl’s clientele. Lucky for me we’re into winter, so I don’t have to do form-fitting anything.

I’ve had some brief moments of regret since my bottle-feeding decision; not enough to make me reverse myself, just little flashes of sadness about it. I suppose if my milk made a surprise late appearance and I woke up bursting or something, I’d reconsider. But this seems unlikely; it’s only supposed to take max 5 days, and we’re two weeks in as of tomorrow.

And I do cheer myself up by thinking, “Hey! Beer!” because, yeah. I can drink now if I want to, or take cold medicine. My body is technically my own again, in all its lumpy glory. It feels strange for it to be unoccupied by anyone but myself; I find myself sort of wandering around a little lost now that I’m not gestating or trying to generate food for another person.

But then I’m also still feeling the shock of becoming a parent; if the responsibility is less crushing now that I’ve gone easier on myself, it’s still there. I have to not think about that all the time, just sort of let it settle over me, gradually. To part of my brain, this is still just an extended babysitting assignment. The rest of my brain is too tired to care either way.

I’ve decided to let myself off the hook for breastfeeding. My milk never really came in, in the two weeks since the birth, and with all that I’ve been recovering from, I’ve decided that this is one thing I can do for myself.

I cried over this of course (but then, hey! I cry about everything these days). I believe in breastfeeding, and my son likes breastfeeding, and I wanted to feed him for a whole year to start him off right. But…my body is not into it. There are ways of bullying the reluctant boob; fenugreek supplements, round the clock nursing/pumping. After several nights of attempts, tears, and anxiety attacks, though, I’ve decided that these things are not challenges I can take on right now. Maybe on the next child, if there is one, I can get it right. But as much as I have nursed, Nathan has always needed a large amount of formula too…and I just don’t have the desire to cut down on his formula and force him to struggle and starve to get enough out of me. If that would even work.

It got clearer to me when I talked to my sister in law today, who did breastfeed, but who was always able to make enough for her daughter. If that had happened even once in the last two weeks, I would have felt encouraged. But it hasn’t. And then she started talking about thrush, and mastitis, and all that comes with breastfeeding much of the time, and I thought, Jesus, I can’t even deal with it now. Thrush would be the last straw.

And in the meantime, I haven’t been enjoying my baby, at all; every time I looked at him, I would instead be worrying, when would he be hungry next? Would I have anything to offer him? And he is such a sweet baby…he only cries when he’s hungry or needs changing, he sleeps easily once he’s tired, he’s incredibly cute, and so tiny. I want to enjoy this time, instead of seeing it as a long hard slog of struggling against my body and his appetite. I want to show him off, take him around, free myself from a constant obsession with my reluctant boobs. And hell, if he’s going to need supplementation anyway, why exactly am I beating myself up here? He’s the Hungry Man of babies; I’ll be spending the next 18 years struggling to come up with enough food to push down his gullet, most likely. Might as well get used to it now.

I haven’t been able to hold on to any of my plans for his birth or his first weeks. But I’m told that having your plans disrupted is par for being a parent, so maybe I should just take it in that spirit. In the meantime, I’m going to go in and make a bottle for his next feeding, then get some sleep. Talk to ya’ll later.

Many thanks to Doctormama, who has been so quick with the comforting on my more sad and pitiful posts. She’s right, of course, it isn’t my fault, baby having is dangerous and has always been, etc. You read enough Ina May Gaskin, you think surely there is some midwife trick to get out those problem babies that we could have tried. And maybe there was (the pelvic press? (see lower right part of page)) but my midwives didn’t know it. Or had restrictions on trying it. Or, maybe that wouldn’t help either. Some of Gaskin’s patients did have to have c-sections, too, after all.

It doesn’t really matter at this point; it happened how it happened. If I tried again, it might happen again. It might not. Maybe I’d go out to Gaskin’s farm if I tried again and let her work her hippie voodoo, with the premise that if she can’t help me have a natural birth, the universe is just against the idea in general. It’s pretty chilling to think that if I had lived 100 years ago, I would have been doomed to die in childbirth, though. Not the kind of thing you want to believe about yourself, or your body. You want to believe it can do what it’s supposed to do, not that some genetic hitch would mean trying to reproduce would, without people like Dr. Slicehappy at the hospital, take you out of the gene pool permanently.

**

Being home is strange. Texas is so familiar, but after 3 years in New York, alien too. So big, so full of white people, who say things like “she married a black man, you know,” as though this were something of importance. But also quiet, also a place where the baby and I can take breaks from one another and he can cuddle with Mamaw while I catch up on sleep from the night before. I felt like shit yesterday after the flight, although Nathan did great, once I figured out how to work the effing sling. I’m still not entirely sure I got it right, he seemed to be wrapped up like a piece of toffee and that looked uncomfortable, but he slept through almost the whole thing. He’s still too small for his Snugli just yet.

Actually, with all the talk of him being a big baby, he’s really just a tiny thing still; my mom has to take back some of the clothes she bought him, they’re just way too big. Today he wore a little blue outfit his daddy bought him that snaps diagonally in the front, like a kimono, making him look like a miniature Chinese emperor.

Mom is teaching me How Not to Be Hostage to Your Baby; she got me to get him out of the bassinet while he was sleeping and go to the grocery store with her. You mean, you can do that? Move them around while they sleep? Somewhere in my head this just something Not Done. “What if he has to eat or is wet while we’re out?” I asked my mom, slightly panicked, and she said, “Take a bottle, and being wet for a few minutes won’t kill him.”

Oh yeah. That would work, wouldn’t it? Huh. And he was fine, slept most of the time, fussed till he got his bottle, and went a little longer without a diaper change than normal. No biggie.

My mom keeps telling me more and more about what it was like when we were small. When my oldest brother was born she was 18, and it was 3 days before she saw him after the birth (they kept you in the hospital longer then)–and she didn’t know she could ask for him before that. She went home and fed my poor brother cow’s milk and nothing but until he was constipated. And then she was told to feed him a mixture of condensed milk, water and Karo syrup(!) to take care of the problem. She would use receiving blankets as diapers at night because they were so much thicker than actual diapers; she never used a disposable until I came along, and they apparently didn’t work all that well. Everything was supposed to be sterilized, and now nothing is; you just crack open the Enfamil and get pouring. Car seats were pretty much optional if you even had one; hell, no one wore seatbelts anyway. We rode around in the back of pickup trucks, played on rusty swingsets with projecting bolts, jumped on trampolines, and generally were lucky to make it to adulthood.

He’s asleep now, we’re about to begin the Night Watch of 3 hour naps interrupted by feedings. I figure about 3 shifts between now and when I can hand him off to Mom in the morning for a nap of my own. Thanks to her, I feel up to it, for the first time since we got him home. Moms rock.

I had forgotten what it feels like to be hostage to your emotions; to walk around raw, without the protective skin you’re used to wearing, the one that presents the image you want it to to the outside world.

After my dad died, it was like this. I felt like there wasn’t one coherent me, just a collection of coping mechanisms and emotions that I kept barely in check. Every now and then, Ilost control of them and they trampled me flat.

Tonight is like that. I don’t even know what I’m crying about, half the time; just a grief I can’t control. A wanting it not to have happened. Pain that it did happen, that I couldn’t stop it, that I couldn’t prevent it. And this time, maybe worse than with my dad, in some ways. I never felt responsible for his death. But I tried so hard–so fucking hard–to have a good birth. It was a statement I wanted to make about women’s bodies, about our possibilities, about overcoming a system that treats us as defective so much of the time. I wanted to be the woman in my family who reclaimed the experience, who proved the truth about the beauty of what birth could be. It was a political decision, a spiritual decision, and it seemed so right.

And I failed. Or my body failed me. I tried so hard, and I failed. I wanted this so badly, and I got the exact opposite–I got worse than a lot of women who never try at all, who walk in wanting to be knocked out and wake up with a baby, who see childbirth as messy and inconvenient.

It’s breaking my heart, that I failed, that I couldn’t do this, that I lost so miserably. All that time reading, and going online, doing research, hiring a doula, taking classes…for what? I feel humiliated, and bitter, and no one can give me answers. Why was my baby too big? Was it something I did? Something I could have prevented? Did the system fail me, or is my body just defective? Or both?

And I look at my baby, and I still cry. I’m afraid I’ll resent him, or just not be able to enjoy him or love him because of all this.

And I think, if I could go back and choose not to have a child, right this second, I might. It’s a horrible thing to say, with my son sleeping in the next room; but when this pain has a hold of me, I want to go back in time and tell myself, don’t put yourself through this. You don’t want this pain.

I know this will pass. I know he is supposed to be here, however he arrived; I wanted a baby for so long, for years we agonized about trying. I was thrilled when we conceived so fast. But I also wanted a birth, a certain kind of birth. Maybe that was selfish of me, maybe it was something I had no right to expect, but I did. I expected it, I trained for it, I fought for it, and I didn’t get it. And now I don’t know how to let it go.

This pain will fade, like the pain over my dad; it will probably make me a better person. Can I say how much I hate that mechanism…that the only way to really grow is to go through a lot of pain? Because that just seems like a fucked-up system to me.

It’s late, and I have to catch a ride to the airport in 7 hours, but crying over my keyboard is the only thing that helps. I’m grateful to have that, and to my readers for understanding. This is the only way I can think of to work this out right now.

And the baby is starting to do those little practice smiles…in his case, toothless grins. Adorable! He even whipped out one for the receptionist at the midwife clinic when I went for my checkup. A smile, I mean. Pervert. He’s also sporting a new double chin, acquired in only a week, and is well on his way to Fat Baby-dom.

Anyway, we’ve decided that while he got his daddy’s build and huge blue eyes with long eyelashes (lucky kid) the rest of his face looks a lot like mine as a baby. Including my overbite, although Grubby (his paternal grampa) thinks that will just help him be a better saxophone player. Though this could be a problem, since Matt was counting on the kid to be his drummer; it’s always hard to find a good drummer.

All of which will probably ensure he becomes an accountant. In which case, he can do our taxes for us.

I love him and his little ways, but am eager for him to be a little older and a little more able to respond and communicate. He has to spend all his energy eating and sleeping right now, though we do make him sit out with us on the couch while we sing him silly songs and pedal his arms and legs around. So far, he’s completely unimpressed with all this and just looks at us with furrowed brows, no doubt wondering, “Ok, whatever, but when’s the next feeding?”

I am patient emjaybee, endlessly pumping, when I can, but I just can’t keep up with him milk wise; Matt’s mom had the same problem with him, so I’m thinking we’ll be supplementing with formula till he starts on solid foods. Which is ok, so long as he’s getting the good stuff also. I think he’s going to be a horse; I just hope he doesn’t have to start shaving in 5th grade or something. He has hair on his back and shoulders, did I mention that? It’s just newborn fluff and will fall out, but it was a little disconcerting, as though I’d given birth to a 40 year old Italian.

Tomorrow we head to Tejas; more posting once we’ve gotten settled in. I anticipate barbeque for me and endless spoiling for him.

From this site:

Could I Have Postpartum Depression?

Do you . . .

–Have trouble sleeping?

–Find you’re exhausted most of the time?

–Notice a decrease in your appetite?

–Worry about little things that never used to bother you?

–Wonder if you’ll ever have time to yourself again?

–Think your children would be better off without you?

–Worry that your husband will get tired of you feeling this way?

–Snap at your husband and children over everything?

–Think everyone else is a better mother than you are?

–Cry over the slightest thing?

–No longer enjoy the things you used to enjoy?

–Isolate yourself from your friends and neighbors?

–Fear leaving the house or being alone?

–Have anxiety attacks?

–Have unexplained anger?

–Have difficulty concentrating?

–Think something else is wrong with you or your marriage?

–Feel like you will always feel this way and never get better?

Mostly, yep to all of the above. Though I don’t think my anger is exactly unexplained, and I haven’t yet worried about my marriage. I don’t think the baby would be better off without me, or think other mothers are better. I do have a hard time seeing happy pregnant women on TV or hearing about other, better births.

I guess it helps to label these feelings. For treatment, well, first of all I’m going home with the baby to TX for a week, maybe longer, and letting my mom mommy me. Matt won’t be able to come because of work, and that’s the only thing that made me hesitate; he hates to be away from his little guy for so long. But last night, after having to deal with a panic attack (they seem to be much worse at night, I’m usually ok during the daylight hours), I just knew I had to do something or I would lose my shit entirely.

My mom had PPD with me, she tells me, though they just called it baby blues then. I need to be around her and lots of other people who can help me and make me feel safe. I guess I want to be sure if I do lose my shit, then the baby will be ok because other people will be around? Something like that. I have lost most of my self-sufficiency, hopefully not for long, but right now I’m just a mess. Slightly weepy all the time, panicky and afraid as soon as the sun goes down. My apartment turns into a prison; the nights are just endless and tense. I can’t usually sleep until the sun is nearly up, no matter what the baby is doing.

When I get back, I’ll look into a support group; I thought about therapy and it could still be needed, but I’m hoping the hormones dropping off will help in its own way. I don’t want to be one on one with a therapist right now. I’d rather feel surrounded by others who can help me.

There are a surprising (or not) number of groups out there dedicated to helping women who’ve had traumatic births, especially c-sections. This makes me feel better, for me, although sad that so many of them are needed.

Wow, I really preferred this blog when I was still writing about feminist rage and funny things about being pregnant. These posts aren’t nearly as much fun.

The baby is sleeping, but I can’t just yet. I did finally read all your comments on my post; I think I have to agree with DoctorMama that I can’t sue them since nothing they did was technically illegal, just immoral.

And I wanted to say, that it wasn’t so much that I had a c-section that upsets me. That’s always a possibility after all, and I don’t feel any shame about it. It was the way things were done that made it bad. Though I do have the normal grief any natural-childbirth believer would have in that situation. It’s hard to let go of the birth I wanted, even without all the other stuff.

Typing this makes me feel better for some reason. Maybe it’s just the feeling that there is still a world outside my apartment. I have to get outside tomorrow no matter what; I haven’t left the house in 4 days and it’s really not helping me.

I am pumping milk like a champ, which is good because Nathan seems to have a grudge against my right breast for some reason and will fight using it. And my left one can only take so much. Still I have to wonder, how am I going to do this for the next 12 months? I want to, but damn. Finally I told myself, just commit to the next month, and at the end, see how you’re doing. If it’s just too much, you can quit, and you’ll have gotten a month’s worth of good stuff into him. Hopefully it will be smoother enough that I won’t want to quit.

I have yet to even buy a nursing bra because I had no idea what size I’d need; in my present daze, just going shopping seems like climbing Mt. Everest, so I’m putting that off for now.

I wanted to give a shout out to our roommate Deanpence, by the way, who makes an excellent adopted uncle for Nathan and who bought us a Snugli, though I don’t just like him because he buys us things. Having him around has helped Matt and me quite a bit.

I see there are a lot of comments on my last post; I’m sorry I haven’t responded to them yet. It’s kind of hard to re-read all of that, and I have to sort of get myself in the right frame of mind. And the baby is doing his demanding thing in the meantime, so computer time always comes second to sleep.

I am feeling better, mentally and physically. I have a good support system, online here and with my family and friends. I take it slow, and the baby keeps me busy enough not to have a lot of time for self-pity. And I know lots of women have had the same or worse experiences than me. It helps if I think just a little bit ahead each day. My body will heal, and I am, deep down, a pretty tough old bird. I’ve been changed by what happened. I can’t pretend there was anything good about it except my baby. But I’ve survived it.

And I don’t want this post to be all about the birth, anyway.

Nathan is a funny little boy; he has the most serious expressions when he’s watching you, although for the first few days, he seemed to be a little hesitant to make direct eye contact, like he was suspicious of you. He’s just starting to do little grins in his sleep, along with a hundred other expressions that he’s practicing. When he gets frustrated, he snorts furiously, like a piglet. He doesn’t cry much unless he’s hungry. His skin looks darker than mine or Matt’s, but that may just be a newborn thing.

He is a devotee of the breast, though, formula-fed or not. Now that I’m catching up a bit and producing, he attacks me with gusto. I think it must taste better than Infamil that we have been using to supplement. Last night I had to take a break from breastfeeding, and I laid him down on the bed next to me. He didn’t fuss, but just furrowed his brow and stared directly at my breast, undoubtedly trying to control me with his mind. “You will give me the breast. You will give me the breast.”

Today he couldn’t seem to settle in his crib, so I put him next to me on the bed and we took a long, lovely nap together. It was only 2 hours or so, but I seem to drop directly into heavy sleep whenever I have the chance these days, so I felt surprisingly better. Though I could probably still sleep for a week if I got the chance.

He’s sleeping now, and I need to go eat again. Thanks to you all for your kindness and understanding. I’ll be back when I can.