Is This My Beautiful Life?

by Jessica Rowe

  My mobile phone was ringing; eventually I found it right at the bottom of my bag under baby wipes and change mat, but I was tempted to ignore it when I recognised the number on the caller ID. It was work, and I didn’t want to be talking about anything other than my brand new baby.

  Allegra was less than two weeks old, so I knew without a doubt that I wasn’t ready to leave my baby yet. But would I ever be ready? Despite having taken four months’ maternity leave, which Nine had signed off on, I suspected there was a strong chance I would not get my television job back if I didn’t return to work soon.

  I wanted to be left in peace for a little longer before having a conversation about returning to television; I wasn’t ready to be thrust back into the pressure of work.

  After working in television for more than fifteen years, I understood it was a cut-throat environment. And sure, many people work in cut-throat environments, but what made working in the media especially brutal was how it was all played out so publicly. In his 1988 book Generation of Swine, Hunter S Thompson aptly describes the TV business as a ‘cruel and shallow money trench through the heart of the journalism industry, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs, for no good reason’.

  It also didn’t have a good track record of supporting working mothers. At the time there were few senior women in television who had children. I had spoken with Melissa Doyle, who had returned to full-time work hosting Sunrise soon after having her second baby, to see how she did it. I had known Melissa for many years, and she was supportive but honest that some days were harder than others to make it work. So I could make it work, couldn’t I? And I knew of working mothers in other professions who seemed to juggle it all.

  Breastfeeding was still a struggle. My stubborn nature meant I wasn’t going to give up just yet even though my nipples were still bleeding and sore. I also got mastitis because I kept feeding on my damaged nipples. Chris, the midwife, was still visiting and phoning regularly to check on how we were coping with the breast- and bottle-feeding. Allegra was getting topped up with more and more formula to keep her weight up. She was getting most of her nourishment from the formula so I don’t know why I was so obsessed with still being able to breastfeed. My mum kept encouraging me to just bottle feed Allegra.

  ‘Darling, I bottle fed you and you turned out just fine. Please stop putting yourself through this.’

  Allegra was now just over two and half months old and I knew that it would be easier to have her bottle fed for when I went back to work. But it was getting harder to think clearly in my exhausted, sleep deprived state. I still wanted to have time to enjoy my maternity leave before work came crashing back into my fragile new world. Peter and I had talked about extending my leave but I still wasn’t sure if this was a good idea. My dear, constant husband told me he would support whatever decision I made and that he would make it work, for me and for our family.

  My confidence plunged further when I opened the newspapers about ten days later. Allegra was wrapped up in her cot having her morning sleep while I sat on our shabby beige linen couch, the baby monitor and a pile of newspapers on the coffee table in front of me. The white shutters on the living room windows were letting in soft yellow morning light. My cat, Audrey, who I had pretty much ignored since we brought Allegra home, was rubbing herself against my legs, desperate for some attention. Auds managed to get a quick pat before I hauled myself off the couch to walk down our back steps and put on yet another load of washing, a blue laundry basket full of white jumpsuits, miniature singlets and pink muslin wraps balanced between my arms. There was a clean load of washing to be pulled out of the machine first though; a magpie warbled as I pegged doll-sized clothes on the line.

  One of the tips in my baby book suggested resting whenever the baby slept, so I went back to lie on the couch with the newspapers. I flicked through the papers in an attempt to feel vaguely in touch with the news. I was halfway through Sydney’s Daily Telegraph when my heart dropped on spotting an article that read: ‘This time, Nine’s director of news and current affairs Garry Linnell has agreed that Rowe—currently on maternity leave—could be the “fly in the ointment” if ratings dip on her return.’

  I felt sick and angry. I should have thrown the newspaper in the bin, but I had to keep reading: ‘The first-time mother has also reportedly struggled to settle her 12-week-old daughter Allegra, making her decision to leave the child more difficult.’

  Nameless sources were now questioning my mothering ability—how dare they! I had told absolutely no one about my worries and fears for my daughter. I wanted to be the best mother I could be; I also wanted to be the best I could be at my job. But I needed to have a break, time to catch my breath. And I had to get this breastfeeding thing right.

  Two days later, the network rang to tell me that I no longer had a job on the Today show. People who know me well understand I’m not the cussing sort of girl, but the language I let fly after that phone call was enough to make a truckie blush. Just as well the only person who heard me unleash the most extreme of expletives was the cat, Alfie. He might have been hiding under his paws at the time. I screamed through the house. Thankfully Allegra snoozed on through my rage, dreaming of a kinder world, asleep in her cot, blissfully unaware of what her mother was unleashing in the living room. Hell hath no fury like a new mother who has lost her job. Deep down I knew I didn’t have the mongrel energy to fight back. I just wanted some peace and uninterrupted time with my new love.

  While Allegra kept sleeping my head whirred with a peculiar mixture of rage and relief. I had known this would happen but I knew I could now stay with my baby.

  Although I was exhausted, I barely slept that night. When the alarm went off at five o’clock, I got up in the darkness and dressed carefully for the morning ahead in a white silk shirt and black suit, squeezing my feet into my favourite peep-toe heels for the first time in weeks. I had organised for one of the midwives from the hospital to come and babysit Allegra. My mind was racing. There were two ice cube trays of frozen breast milk in the freezer and I had sterilised ten bottles and five pink dummies. I didn’t want to leave Allegra with a babysitter but Peter insisted he would take me into the meeting with my lawyer, wait for me and drive me home afterwards. The diamond strap over my toe winked up at me as Peter and I walked out the front door together. I looked back to see Allegra happily nestled in the arms of the midwife.

  The morning sun was just starting to light up the harbour as I waited for my solicitor to arrive in the travertine marble–floored reception area. I kept gazing out through the massive glass windows at the Sydney Harbour Bridge and kept my hands firmly on top of my black pants to stop my fingers shaking with anger and exhaustion. Strung out on adrenaline, my heart was racing and, despite the cool air conditioning, patches of sweat formed under my arms.

  But I left the first meeting eager to get home to Allegra, my head whirring with thoughts of legal statements and my professional life. Again, I didn’t sleep much that night. I’d already learnt that in life I had to pick my battles and I realised I didn’t have the stamina for this one. I was fragile and needed to focus on my baby girl and family.

  As part of the ultimate settlement nutted out over long and stressful meetings with Channel Nine and its lawyers, I agreed not to discuss the final terms or even the details of the negotiations.

  After the final meeting, I arrived home, so exhausted I dropped down onto our front lawn in my suit and began to sob. I didn’t want to get up—I couldn’t get up as my world was spiralling, spinning and crashing down around me. Harriet slipped off my high heels and held my hand while Mum stroked my hair. My tears fell onto the soft green grass and the smell of dirt filled my nostrils. The make-up I had so carefully applied bled down my face in a black, streaky mess. And still my precious baby slept, wrapped snugly in her cot, oblivious to the despair of her mother.

  Who was I now that I didn’t have a title, a job description? I was a failure, a joke, a laug
hing stock. My shooting star had crashed and burnt, proving all the naysayers right. I was a fraud and a fake and I had been unmasked. Now I was just a mother, and not a very good one. I wanted to be the perfect mother and the successful career woman who wouldn’t take any nonsense from men. But I couldn’t even breastfeed properly, my baby wasn’t putting on weight, and I had lost my job.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I struggled to haul Allegra up to our front gate in her baby capsule, balancing the awkward carrier without losing my footing on the wretchedly steep stairs. Allegra and I were meeting Harriet and her family for Sunday breakfast after waking to the front-page news in the papers about my sacking from Today. The press release had been leaked a day early. It was three brief sentences, including a statement that ‘Jessica Rowe would not be returning to the Network and that Nine and Jessica had reached an agreement that would allow Jessica to take up other opportunities for her career’. Peter was away in Melbourne for television’s so-called ‘night of nights’ to present an award at the Logies. What a difference a year makes; only twelve months earlier I had been hosting the red-carpet coverage of the awards, with my darling Allegra, no bigger than a fingernail, secretly keeping me company.

  At the top of the stairs, I suddenly noticed the stretched shadows of many pairs of shoes slipping under the cracks of our front fence. Shoving my knee into the gate, I opened it to find myself and Allegra surrounded by journalists, bright artificial lights, TV cameras and photographers.

  ‘Jessica, how are you? Anything you would like to say?’

  ‘Jessica!’

  ‘Jessica?’

  ‘I’m feeling good, it’s a beautiful day,’ I grimaced, desperate to shield Allegra from the flashes.

  The wretched baby carrier was letting me down again. I had opened the back door of the car but could not clip Allegra and her capsule into the seat. The frozen smile on my face was making my cheeks ache, while the panic kept rising inside me. I wanted to flee. I wanted to keep my baby girl safe, away from this scrutiny.

  ‘What will you do?

  ‘I just want to get my daughter into her car seat.’

  My hands finally stopped shaking enough to clip Allegra in. Taking deep breaths, I walked around to the driver’s side and fumbled my key into the ignition. Breathe, breathe, I said to myself, looking into the rear-vision mirror and slowly reversing out into the street. How I wanted to put my foot on the accelerator, turn the wheel sharply and run down the media crews! My baby girl had been exposed to their bright lights, flashes and oversized camera lenses. Just breathe, breathe. Once I was out of the street, I stopped and, crying, turned around to my baby girl to stroke her head.

  ‘My darling, I’m sorry. I am so sorry, my darling girl. Mummy is so sorry,’ I whispered again and again.

  Despite my permanent sleep haze, I managed to put on my happy mask each time I was out of the house. Harriet and I walked side by side, pushing our sleeping babies in their prams. The air on my face felt good; perhaps I was just imagining the pane of glass between me and the world. The sun toasted my back as I struggled with the cover of Allegra’s pram to protect her from the harsh morning light. As I clipped the sun protector to the top of the pram’s canopy, I noticed the tiny purple birthmark on her eyelid was beginning to fade. Both of her eyelids started flickering and I wondered what my baby girl was dreaming of today. Her eyes stayed closed as the rhythm of the pram’s wheels on the footpath lulled her back to sleep.

  ‘How are you going with the breastfeeding?’ I asked my sister.

  ‘No problems,’ said Harriet.

  ‘So it doesn’t hurt? I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. I can’t do it.’

  ‘It’s okay—it used to hurt me, but just keep going.’

  I didn’t want to keep going. Although I was tempted to open up to Harriet about my fears, I wasn’t ready to admit them to myself. If they just stayed in my head perhaps they would disappear. Putting voice to my anxieties might make them become all too real and I didn’t know how I would manage that. Adrift, my mind started to stray further and further from the reality and routine of my day. And the days were never-ending; the time between dusk and dawn and dawn and dusk seemed endless. I stumbled through, dividing my day into two- and three-hourly feeding slots as well as changing, snuggling and settling Allegra back to sleep. It all blurred into one big mess of exhaustion. I fantasised about going to bed like Sleeping Beauty and not waking up for a long, long time. How much sleep I was getting, or not getting, became an obsession. Was anyone getting enough sleep? I was ready to slap mothers who told me their baby breastfed easily and quickly then slept deeply all night. Who were they kidding? Or perhaps I really was the odd one out.

  I isolated myself even further. True to my word, I didn’t go back to that mothers’ group, and I cancelled my appointments with the community nurse who had been running that group because she chastised me for using a dummy for Allegra. The only thing I kept doing was walking the streets with my sister Harriet, somehow thinking this would keep me connected with the outside world and I could walk my way through the fear, pretence and anxiety. Some days, when the sunlight warmed my face and brought colour to my cheeks, I believed I had managed to keep the vampires from the door. I grabbed those moments, hoping they would lengthen into an hour or two. But once I closed the front door, no light came through. I was stuck, trapped, observing the world without me taking part in it.

  Although I worried that Allegra wasn’t putting on enough weight, I kept up the pretence of breastfeeding. The midwives at the hospital had told me that breast milk was best, and I had to give my baby the best possible start in life. I was still obsessed with getting my daughter to breastfeed properly. But even before I tried to get Allegra onto my breast she would start screaming; the scent of anxiety, despair and desperation must have been oozing out of me. Come on, come on, why won’t you just open your birdlike mouth and let me feed you?

  The worst was when friends came to visit and I sat on the couch opposite them trying to breastfeed. My stomach and chest felt tight and my throat would start to close up until I couldn’t swallow properly. I felt naked, exposed, and it was getting harder and harder to keep up my daylight performance. When the phone rang I didn’t want to pick it up, detesting the false cheeriness in my voice when I answered. After a while I stopped returning calls from my girlfriends. I didn’t want to talk to anyone, so it was easier to let the phone keep ringing.

  Peter was unaware of my performance because I was an expert at hiding behind masks. I couldn’t admit to him that I was a failure, and that I was letting him, our baby and our brand-new family down. I was frightened when work took him away from home for more than a night, and he travelled interstate and overseas a lot. Peter was happy with our beautiful new family, attentive, caring and besotted with our new daughter. How could I tell him what I was feeling? I was ashamed and drowning in guilt. How could I confess that I was falling apart when finally I had my fairy-tale ending? Peter didn’t sense that anything was awry with his wife as I appeared to be in control and sticking to the routine that Chris, the mothercraft nurse, had been helping me organise.

  I kept writing down ‘useful’ information in a large diary. There was so much to remember, so much to write down, because I had to make sure I was doing everything the ‘right’ way. I had to get it all on paper before I could get any sleep. What side had I finished feeding Allegra on? Was my breast drained of milk? And if it wasn’t properly drained, would I get mastitis again? Did Allegra have a wet or dry nappy? How long had she slept for? Was it time to wake her up yet? How did I know how long to feed her? One of the midwives at the baby health clinic told me I should feed for at least fifteen minutes on each breast.

  I would gaze at the silver Tiffany clock on the side table watching the second hand, tick, tick, tick. Time would slow down, dragging its silver hand through pain, blood and tears. Why didn’t Allegra open her mouth wide enough? How could I get her to attach properly? What was wrong with me? Why could
n’t I do it?

  ‘It’s okay to top Allegra up with formula. My wife fed all of our babies on formula. She had problems breastfeeding. And our babies are all fine,’ the paediatrician, Dr Barry Duffy, said. He had been looking after Allegra since she was born but I had booked some extra appointments with him as I worried about my daughter’s low body weight. Dr Duffy was pointing out to me where Allegra’s weight fitted on a chart compared to other babies of a similar age. She was below the curve and I could feel that panic rising again. He gently suggested giving Allegra more formula to get her weight closer to what it should be. All I could hear was what a failure I was, unable to feed my baby properly.

  Dr Duffy interrupted my destructive daydreaming to ask how I was, and by the way he asked I knew he wasn’t going to be fobbed off with a simple ‘I’m fine’ answer. He suggested in a non-intrusive way that I needed to look after myself and that I didn’t have to put on a show for people around me. I knew as he looked into my eyes he could see the sparkle was just a trick of the light. I put my sunglasses on quickly to stop him looking past my carefully constructed facade.

  I could feel the pane of glass thickening between myself and the rest of the living, breathing world. I was trapped behind it, distant, removed and numb. The world was living, breathing and laughing without me in it. My tears fogged up my sunglasses as I stumbled out of the children’s hospital, still struggling with the baby capsule. Allegra was asleep, dancing in her dreams. I love you, my darling, I love you. I am trying. Please hang in there with me, baby girl, I whispered as we drove home to another long, lonely night.