Who wouldn’t want some company at the postpartum checkup July 15, 2008
Posted by erinfrances in It's how we roll, The baby.Tags: baby, depression, motherhood
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“No. Nooo-ooooh. I’m not taking her,” I said into the phone to Dave, who was at some conference for work. Yup, at some conference when he was supposed to be at home, watching Alice, so I could make it to the doctor’s office.
“I can’t, I’m sorry. You’re going to have to bring her. And I need you to pick me up and bring me back here,” Dave said.
I’d like to say this is where I calmly said “OK, sure” and hung up. But really, I just hung up, angry-high-school-girlfriend style. I’m not proud of this. But, in my defense, I also had to get a kid ready to leave the house in 10 minutes. WHICH I DID. Boo-ya.
I’m not the first person to bring their newborn to a six-week postpartum checkup, and I know there’s an army a million strong of women whose baby-daddies were supposed to watch the offspring and at the last minute bailed on them. I know I’m not the only one without a babysitter on standby.
But I wanted to go alone. I’d been sickly looking forward to this visit — for the chance to talk rationally with the doctor about my feelings of being trapped, to sit under that hospital gown shivering in my lonesome, instead of doing all that while calming a screaming baby. Oh, and let’s just lie back for that exam!, shall we! WHILE CALMING AN ANGRY BABY.
OH. I was fuming.
But what do you do? You suck it up, and you go. Because it’s not about you. And when she cries, you rock her. And when she wails and sounds like a raptor and people stare, you just smile and say, “It’s OK, she does this all the time.”
While rocking her in her carseat on the floor in the exam room — in the very room where I’d listened to her heartbeat on the Doppler device just a few months earlier — she spit out her pacifier and wailed. I teared up, my nose dripping, while I tried to calm her down. I just felt so tired — because of this morning, because of all the long mornings before it, and because these long mornings are drawing to a close now that my work-clock is ticking, and I’m trying to explain this to the doctor, all while feeling a little like MacGyver trying to dismantle a bomb with ONLY A PACIFIER. While holding closed that flimsy hospital gown. And rocking her carseat with my bare foot. While blowing my nose.
MacGyver has nothing on new moms.
The doctor nodded, noted my inability to keep it together when asked “How are you?” and said, “You know? Medicine may help … you.” Ah. Yes. Another desperation-smeller. I’d say I felt relieved, or even upset that I can’t do this and be this magically happy mom. But I’m too tired to feel that. So instead I just took her advice and prescription, gathered my fatter-fat clothes and left nearly content and completely tear-free.
And of course Alice was sleeping when I put her in the car. Naturally.
Even in the midst of what you are going thru, you have such a way with words!!!! I think that is half the reason I am addicted to reading your blog, and the other reason is so you know you are never alone in what you are going thru. I brought our daughter to my 6 week check up appt. too….I remember watching each minute pass on the damn clock in the waiting as she squirmed in her seat just waiting to let out the loud piercing scream…and i’d rock her so much that i think the other ladies thought I was going to damage her!!!! I swear I could almost picture what you were going thru!!! And as Alice stars getting better, now mom can too. Who cares if you have to be on some drugs for awhile. If it makes you feel happy again, that is ALL that matters. Plus with going back to work soon, it may help take the edge off of that hurt. There is part of me that enjoys my time at work. I love my daugther, but its time for me to breath, to talk with other adults…to think about myself and have my own thoughts! Hang in there Erin!
((hugs))
Better living through chemistry, I say. Seriously, you had an epidural. You get anesthesia for work on your teeth — it’s no different. Take the help and know that someday you probably won’t need it again. No biggie.
I had to bring both my daughters to my six-week checkups. Many moms do. It’s not ideal, but you do what you have to do.
Also, are you experiencing the profuse sweating a new mom has to experience? The kind that occurs doing the most inopportune of times? That was another aspect of postpartum I found annoying as well.
Someone needs to write a real book on the indignities of it all. And with your talent, I think that person is you…
Stay stong.
Good point, Jen.
(And yes, oh my God, I sweat all the time until about last week or so. There’s nothing pretty about “postpartum.”)
I completely agree with Jen!!! YOu have the most spectacular way with words to turn these situations into something woman can completely relate to. Its so the truth that its scary, and someone DOES need to write a book about that, instead of all the books that try to make it all “so wonderful”. PLain and simple….its not, sure, it can be, I am sure there are mothers out there that have had that, but the mothers that don’t, are certainly looking for that book!!!!
You two are too kind. But if you happen to be a publisher, I’m all ears.