Parenthood

On our last day in the hospital, while I was enjoying the effects of post-partum hormone craziness and hooked up to an EKG and a bag of IV fluids, the baby photographer trotted into our room to take Rhys' photographs.

Sandy, crazed with the pride of new fatherhood, bought everything she showed him. If she'd offered to sell him a bridge in Brooklyn he'd have signed on enthusiastically. Couldn't REALLY blame him though - as the pictures she took of our wee one were lovely. Or as lovely as pictures of a baby could be, that, as Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman once wrote, distantly resembled Sir Winston Churchill.

And then, you know, we went home. We put the baby in the car seat, and put the car seat onto the Snap & Go stroller, and the nurses insisted on wheeling me out in a wheelchair because of my recent dizziness. A final injunction not to try and walk and carry the baby around until I was feeling "more myself" and off they sent us.

We got into the car, and we drove out into the damp early evening, as the sun broke through the clouds.

And you've already seen the video of us arriving home and the dogs greeting us etc etc so I won't recap that. We took the baby out of his car seat, and we brought him up to the nursery, and I settled very, very gingerly into the giant glider that we had bought from Pottery Barn Kids because Sandy envisioned himself sharing in the nursing duties a month or two in the future and couldn't fit into the smaller, more me-sized chairs, and I held Rhys and stared at him and thought to myself, "holy shit. What now?"

Because no matter how many books you've read and classes you've attended, nothing prepares you for the moment when you realize it's all on you, and you'd better Man Up because this tiny, bird-boned creature lying across your lap has got no one else but you. Briefly, you pity him. You think, "oh buddy - did you ever draw the short straw. I have no idea what I'm doing." And you continue to think that at intervals for the next month or two, interspersed with the much vaster moments wherein you pity yourself.

Dear reader - I offer you this prayer, fervently, and with great passion - may you never, never experience new parenthood the way I did.

Because Rhys was a TERRIBLE newborn. And I'm sure there are people out there who would take exception to that expression, but if I was asked once, I was asked a billion times, by well-meaning family members, acquaintances, and complete strangers at the grocery store, "Is he a good baby?" and I, in my own forthright way, would look them in the eyes and say, "Absolutely not. No. Not even a little. But he is MY baby, and I love him. When he lets me." I don't really know what people mean when they ask "is he a good baby?" but I assume it has to do with being quiet and peaceful and sleeping well and being willing to sit in a car seat, or stroller, or placed down in a crib. Rhys was none of those things.

Rhys was not a lovable baby. He was not a cozy baby. He was not a comfortable little armful to snuggle. When the nurses say "we don't put the batteries in until you take him home" they are not f*ing kidding. We got him home, and he went from quiet little cuddly bundle who made tiny pterodactyl squeakings when hungry to demonic, possessed, back-arching, fist-flailing, purple-faced breathless screaming, psycho-baby monster. I thought when babies were upset you picked them up, held them close to you, and rocked and swayed and bounced a bit while telling them you loved them, and they would cuddle into your chest and hiccup a few times and settle down. I had dim memories of doing so with the baby I once au paired for, back when I was 15. And, you know, pushing him in a stroller until he fell asleep.

Not my baby. For one thing, I could never put him down. Putting him down would result in pyrotechnics I cannot even describe, and I'm a person who is pretty well at home to description. So I would start OUT holding and cuddling and swaying and telling him I loved him. That was our DEFAULT position. It left us pretty much nowhere to go when his hysteria escalated. My baby would punch me in the face. He'd push me away as hard as his tiny little newborn arms could push. He'd arch his back and try to dive out of my arms. He'd scream. And scream. And scream. And scream. Even while eating. Even while sleeping. The only time he EVER cuddled up to me was the time I was trying to clip his fingernails and accidentally clipped his finger instead. Then he burrowed into my neck, screaming and sobbing hysterically. I have never felt so guilty in my entire life. He never looked AT me, either. He'd stare at the wall next to the daybed in the nursery where we were sleeping and nursing, but never at my face. If I tried to put my face in his line of sight, he'd avert his - like looking at my face was overstimulating to him. It was awful.

The only time...the ONLY time...when I could hold my baby, and feel close to my baby, and freely love my baby, was when he was sleeping. A few people indicated some concern about me co-sleeping with Rhys, or said something along the lines of "maybe you'd sleep better in a different room?" and I didn't know how to tell them that those moments when Rhys slept next to me, with his feet shoved up against my legs and his hands resting on my chest, were the only moments in which my love for him could unfold in my heart gently, and naturally. All the times that he was awake I loved him with sheer bloody-minded stubbornness - I loved him against all sanity and against his will. When he was sleeping in my arms...that was the only time I felt like a mother. But how can you tell someone that although you HURT with how much you love your baby, the only time that it feels natural is when he is sleeping next to you? I would always just mutter something about it making him sleep a little better, and change the subject.

I asked everyone who came to visit him if this was normal - if it was normal for a baby to wake up from a deep sleep screaming like he'd been stabbed - to avoid looking at faces when all the books say that newborns are supposed to be obsessed with faces - and they'd all say, while not quite making eye contact, "oh yes...he's just colicky. They outgrow it." And I'd hold my desperately screaming, flailing baby and wonder what I'd done wrong. What I was doing wrong. How the heck I could fix it. Worrying, even though I had no reason to, and I knew you couldn't tell this early, if maybe there was something REALLY wrong with him...some dis-associative disorder. I worried all the time.

It seemed like he hardly ever slept. I read that newborns need to sleep 18 hours a day - Rhys was only sleeping 13, in tiny increments all day and night, cat naps from which he'd wake up howling and purple. Sometimes he'd scream so hard he'd stop breathing and nothing would come out and I'd hold him and count the seconds and say "breathe, Rhys, breathe..." and the eventual inward gasp would be such a relief...

For three weeks, this went on. I could write about how I was doing - the slow healing of all the birth trauma, my discovery that the Boppy really worked better as a haemorrhoid and torn vajayjay pillow than as a breastfeeding assistant, (true story ladies - write that down for when it's your turn. Very comfy to sit on, the Boppy, under certain circumstances), the weirdness of trying desperately to use the bathroom and then complete the VERY long and involved post-partum toilet ritual on oneself with a squirt bottle etc etc within the 5 minutes one's baby is able to sleep in a swing or in his father's arms.* I could go on. The bitch of the thing is, at a time when you really need all of your faculties and body parts working in perfect order, you're uncomfortable and exhausted even BEFORE you add in a screaming infant. But compared to what I was feeling and experiencing with Rhys, none of that mattered. I was obsessed with him, and his misery. I would use up precious minutes in which he slept reading websites and parenting help books and trying to find some piece of advice that would let me help him. People would say, "nap when the baby naps!" all cheerfully and I would try, of course, but a lot of that time I spent trying to figure out what on earth I could do to make him feel better. I read the Happiest Baby on the Block. We tried swaddling - he hated it and would wriggle his arms free in seconds, howling.

Sandy and I became two ships passing in the night. We'd trade off baby duty - one attempting to soothe the baby while the other caught some rest. One night, a few days after bringing Rhys home, Sandy was soothing him while I took a nap. He came into the bedroom with Rhys asleep in his arms and when I wistfully remarked that he was much better at putting the baby to sleep than I was, he showed me how hard he had been swinging him from side to side to get him to sleep. (He was cradling him in his arms and then doing a very fast upper body twist from side to side.) I freaked out, thinking he'd given Rhys Shaken Baby Syndrome. He pointed out that Rhys' head and neck were held totally still, but I reminded him that his wee brain was loose and boinking around in his skull. The evening went by fairly normally but the next morning, Rhys wouldn't wake up. Even when I put a wet washcloth on his neck. Even when I stripped him and took his temperature rectally. I FREAKED out. We brought him to the doctor's where they checked his eyeballs and of course as soon as we got there he woke up just fine. And promptly began "fussing," which is a really cute and polite way of describing what Rhys would do.

There were nights when I just sat on the nursery floor, alone in the dark, and held him while he screamed, because I had run out of ideas for things to try, and I just held him and sobbed and repeated "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." And I thought to myself that if he were someone else's baby, someone who had had a few before, he'd be happier, or healthier, or better taken care of. I felt like a failure.

We asked our pediatrician about his screaming at each visit, and she'd say, "we consider colic to be three hours of inconsolable screaming, three nights in a row..." and then she'd say, "is he consolable?" and we'd say, "well, sort of..." because we'd discovered through trial and error and many, many long days and nights, a few things that would help - (primarily sitting on a large exercise ball and bouncing quite hard while holding him in arms, although you could occasionally distract him by walking around in our living room, that has dark beams on a white ceiling - he would stare up at it and be quiet - and sometimes holding him and shhhhhhhing would work), and she'd say "call us when he's inconsolable" and we'd leave feeling like giant assholes. Giant assholes with a less-than-optimal baby. One of those babies that everyone tells you will "get better" with "time."**

I would hold him, and bounce on the exercise ball, and tell him all of the things he would someday do.

"Someday, you'll wake up and smile at me, instead of screaming and crying."
"Someday, you'll look AT me, instead of away."
"Someday, you'll nurse calmly and peacefully, instead of pulling off, and arching your back, and screaming, and then attacking the breast again, and then pulling off..."
"Someday, you'll hug me."
"Someday, you'll relax in my arms."

It helped, a little.

Then one day he vomited a few times. Not a passive spit up, but an actual vomit - he cleared my shoulder and launched a fair sized amount of milk onto the floor. The next day, he did it even more. Then, the next morning, he vomited 8 times in a 20 minute period. He vomited up so much milk I couldn't figure out where he'd been KEEPING it. We called the doctor and said we were coming in. She evaluated him and then sent us to the hospital. She wanted him to get an ultrasound to test for Pyloric Stenosis. We were at the exact window where symptoms for that disease would traditionally kick in, and she was concerned.

Sandy and I brought him to the hospital, where we met the very nice chief pediatric surgeon, who looked at him and said he didn't see any signs of pyloric stenosis just on examination, (he said normally babies would be much further along in terms of dehydration and general unhealthiness and that Rhys looked quite healthy), but he sent us up to get an ultrasound just in case his pyloris was just starting to harden/narrow.

We waited a long time for the ultrasound machine to be available, and Rhys screamed for all of it.

Finally the tech came and got us, and brought us into the room, and had us lay Rhys down on the adult sized examination table, and put the goo on his belly, and said "okay now I want you to feed him so I can see how his muscles work..." and I said, "oh. Okay..." and I went to let down the side of my tank top. And the tech said, "Oh - you're just breastfeeding?!" and I said "yes." And unspoken behind that "yes" was "are you kidding? This hospital pushed breastfeeding on me so hardcore I'd feel like a monster if I wasn't..." She said, "let me raise up the table then..." but in a somewhat miffed tone of voice. I don't know why she was pissed, I was the one who had to stand and dangle my breasts over the table and into Rhys' face, for all the world like a huge moo-cow, and let him nurse while she wanded his tummy.

She didn't find any evidence of stenosis. We went back to meet with the pediatric surgeon again, who told us that she hadn't found any evidence of stenosis, but that we were to keep watching him, especially any vomiting, because he could be JUST starting with the issue. And if the vomiting didn't improve we were to bring him back for another ultrasound. Then the doctor said, "to me, he's presenting more like a reflux baby." I stared at him. Reflux had come up again and again in my frantic internet searching. I'd actually mentioned it to our pediatrician, and she'd told us if he was, he would grow out of it eventually. I said, "I think so too." Then he said, "I assume you aren't against medication?" and I said, "Yes I am. Very strongly. But I don't give a damn - give it to me anyway. We will try ANYTHING." He prescribed Zantac for Rhys. We filled that prescription at light speed, and we drove home, and we prayed to any god that would listen that it would help our baby.

And thank all that is holy - it did. You would not believe the difference a week of being on Zantac worked on Rhys. He slowly...slowly...slooooowly improved. I think it took a week or two for his esophagus to heal, because we still had some screaming for a bit, and some arching, etc, but by the end of the first week it was like we had a brand new baby. There were actually times when he was awake, and NOT screaming.

He was still a difficult baby - he still wouldn't tolerate being put down - he still slept poorly - he still wouldn't look at me - he still got fussy and gassy and miserable and would have crying jags but...but he no longer woke up from a sound sleep screaming like he'd been stabbed. He no longer fought my breast at every feeding. He was no longer this impossible cipher that nothing I did would please. Sandy and I could start to find humor in our previous, desperate attempts to soothe our baby.



And we started to get to know Rhys.

*and in retrospect the wild way in which I would slather a few witch hazel pads with the haemorrhoid cream the hospital sent me home with, and stuff them into places I won't enumerate here, while hopping towards the bathroom door hauling up my pants with the other hand because the baby had started screaming in the swing, is very funny. In retrospect. At the time, it was all of one piece with the rest of the pathos.

**When I was working on this post, I asked Sandy for his memories of that time, because I was sure that I was remembering it wrong - and that there had to be times when he was awake and content. But Sandy said, "all I remember is screaming. I remember that one night when you needed to sleep so badly I took him into the TV room and turned the volume up on the tv as high as it would go because I couldn't hear it otherwise over his screaming. For three hours he and I sat there, and all three hours, he screamed."

So I guess my memories aren't that far off.