Is This My Beautiful Life?

by Jessica Rowe

  ‘Wow!’ said my friend Helen, looking down at my feet.

  Nooooooo! Don’t look down there. I was standing in a very wet patch. My waters had just broken.

  ‘I just love that navy blue colour on your toenails.’

  I barely gave Helen a chance to finish the sentence before I fled to the door of the nail salon. Luckily the big massage chair I had been sitting in for my pedicure was made of fake black leather so it was difficult to see the damp pool of amniotic fluid I had left behind. I quickly threw some money at the woman behind the counter on the way out, telling her to keep the change. She raised her eyebrows at me and shook her head. Thank god I was wearing black leggings and a long black top. No one could see the huge damp spot on my bottom and the liquid that was trickling down the inside of my legs.

  Outside the nail salon, leaning against the window of the florist next door, I managed to get my mobile out of my bottomless pit of a handbag and called the maternity ward. The midwife told me to drive straight into the hospital and that there was no time to pick up my bag from home.

  I was not usually so organised, but my bag had been packed and ready as I was booked in for a caesarean in four days’ time. The urgency to get to the hospital was because my baby was in the breach position, which basically meant she would be entering the world bottom first. There were extra risks that came with a natural breech delivery, for example, there is a higher chance her head could become stuck in the birth canal, depriving her of oxygen. However, my headstrong baby had other plans about the right time to make her entrance! She was not going to wait for any booked-in caesarean. She was ready and her time was now!

  The midwife was worried that I might not have a lot of time before my baby was born, especially since this was my second child, and labour the second time around can be a much speedier affair. Running to the car with my toes squelching in my hot-pink thongs, I called Peter on his mobile and told him to meet me at the hospital right away. Allegra was at home with our nanny, Libby, who I rang next to explain what had happened. She told me not to worry and that she would stay with Allegra for as long as we needed.

  I was surprisingly calm on the short drive to the hospital, but things became more and more uncomfortable as the familiar tug and squirm of contraction began. I reversed into the first spot I saw in the hospital car park and walked carefully inside to the lift. Pushing the up button, I bent over and leaned against the brick wall as another wave of contractions began.

  ‘You wouldn’t want to be having a baby, would you, with this lift taking so long?’ joked the woman standing next to me, unaware that I was in labour. She was holding a huge bunch of pale pink roses. I simply smiled and squeezed my legs together a little tighter.

  I couldn’t stop kissing the forehead of my new baby girl, just minutes old. At last she was in my arms.

  ‘I love you, I love you, I love you.’

  She was bundled up tightly in a white flannelette wrap that went all the way over the top of her soft, perfect head. I held her close to my face, inhaling her sweet new smell, and covered her almond-shaped eyelids with gentle kisses.

  ‘That’s the first time she has opened her eyes,’ the nurse said, as we watched her eyelids flutter open together. ‘She knows her mummy’s voice.’

  Looking at this precious bundle, my heart expanded. There was so much room in my heart and soul for my sunshine, our new baby daughter, Giselle. I didn’t want to let her go, but I had to hand her back to Peter while I was taken to the recovery ward after the caesarean. While I lay there thinking about my Giselle, the kind doctor who had delivered Allegra just over two years before came to visit me. He was reassuring and said he had the details of a midwife who could help me at home if I needed an extra pair of hands. He told me that I didn’t need to go through the same situation again. He knew about my breastfeeding issues and the PND. The heavy, cold feeling of the epidural had left me numb below the waist but my heart had never felt bigger, fuller or happier. Now I had my two perfect girls, and my Petee. The regular, rhythmic sound of the beeping of monitors and machines was no match for the strong, regular beating of my heart.

  The next morning I asked the midwife to open the curtains right up in my room. I wanted the blazingly bright sunlight to warm up Giselle and me; I didn’t want to hide away in the dark like the last time. I was still hooked up to a morphine drip after the caesarean, so the nurse helped me get onto a walking frame and into the shower, where I sat on the plastic chair to wash my hair, my eyes and my shrunken, scarred stomach. I tried to wash my fear away too. It will be different, it will be alright, I will be able to breastfeed, I told myself.

  Each time Giselle was ready for a feed I asked the lactation specialist to sit with me and watch me feed my daughter. I was determined for the experience to be different, however, when my nipples started to bleed, I recognised the tight-fisted panic in my chest. I could not let it happen again. When the tears came three days after Giselle was born, I kept reassuring myself that it was normal, just the baby blues, and it didn’t necessarily mean I was heading down the postnatal depression path.

  The hospital knew about my PND history and the difficulties I’d had with breastfeeding. I was also far more confident about asking for help and supervision when I needed it; I wasn’t going to be pushed around by bossy midwives this time. A nurse who was regularly on the afternoon shift would come and sit with me while I fed. Still the weight of responsibility for my almond-eyed, long-lashed baby sat heavily on my chest. Although I asked the midwives to take her into the nursery at night so I could try to build up my sleep bank before we headed home, I couldn’t sleep. The long burgundy curtains across my ward room windows stayed open; I had to see the shimmering lights of the city, the blinking of the planes as they took off and landed before midnight. Once the rest of the city went to sleep I stayed awake, staring at the stardust while I waited for Giselle to wake up and be brought in to me for her next feed. I wanted to stay connected to the bright world outside of my room.

  ‘She’s a hungry one, this daughter of yours,’ said the snuggly midwife wheeling Giselle into my room. I couldn’t stop looking at my nipples as she handed my squealing pink baby over to me.

  ‘I don’t want to keep feeding on these nipples. I am really worried it’s going to get worse.’

  I held my breath as I pushed down on the top of my breast with my thumb while making sure Giselle’s mouth was open properly, and that her tiny tongue was in the right position.

  ‘Ah, look at that, you’re doing beautifully,’ the midwife said.

  ‘I’m not, it’s hurting. It’s not meant to keep hurting, is it?’

  ‘No, it shouldn’t hurt,’ the midwife agreed. ‘Let me have a look?’

  I managed to get my thumb into Giselle’s mouth, like I’d been shown by another midwife, to get her off my breast. Not surprisingly, my nipple had started to bleed. It was the same colour as my suddenly very unhappy baby girl’s face.

  ‘I am not going to keep feeding like this, I can’t.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said the nurse. ‘We can give her a bottle and you can give those nipples of yours a rest.’

  I could have kissed that sensible midwife right on the lips.

  While Giselle quietly sucked away on a bottle of formula, the midwife organised for a breast pump to be wheeled into the room. The plan was to express my milk every couple of hours to give my nipples time to recover, but also to make sure that I kept my milk supply up. As I began pumping my precious breast milk into a sterile container, the heavy blanket of night started to lift and a lilac sky gradually lightened the world outside my room. The rhythmic sound of the breast pump had sent my daughter off to sleep in the midwife’s arms. I watched the pale yellow milk drip out from my nipple and politely but firmly told the midwife that this time I wasn’t leaving hospital until I had the breastfeeding under control.

  There would be no hiding in my room; I was determined to walk the corridors of the maternity ward pushing my baby girl in her ba
ssinet. Her eyes still remained shut most of the time, long black eyelashes fluttering as she dreamt of life outside her cocoon. As the wheels of the bassinet bumped along the corridor, I noticed her spidery fingers poking out of the top of her wrap. Giselle had my fingers and her very own stubborn spirit.

  Although Allegra liked her new tricycle, she wasn’t so sure about the new sister who had taken her mummy away from her. The tricycle had been a ‘present’ from Giselle to her big sister. A friend had pulled a similar stunt with her kids and I thought it sounded like a good idea, a way to ease any potential jealousy and resentment about being usurped by her new baby sister. Bribery was starting early in our family.

  ‘Shhh, Allegra … you don’t want to wake up the other mummies who might be asleep.’

  ‘I can’t use the pedals, I can’t push the pedals down. Push me, Mummy, Mummy, MUMMY!’

  With one hand I bent down to push the top of the tricycle while keeping a firm hold on Giselle’s bassinet with the other.

  ‘Mummy, I’m stuck. I’m stuck!’

  The wheels of Allegra’s brand new tricycle with the silvery pink streamers were now leaving black marks on the cream skirting boards in the hospital corridor. It was impossible for me to steer the tricycle and push it and the cot all at the same time. Giselle started to cry, perhaps because we had all stopped moving. Her cries were getting louder and louder.

  ‘Turn it off, Mummy!’

  ‘Allegra, she is your sister, and I can’t turn her off. You used to do this too, you know.’

  ‘Put it away!’

  ‘Don’t be silly, I’m not putting your sister away. You know I love you, I will always be your mummy. I have so much room in my heart for both of you.’

  ‘I hate you, Mummy. I don’t want you to be my mummy anymore.’

  Okay, so a sparkly new tricycle wasn’t going to cut it; this was going to be harder than I thought. Tears started to form in my eyes. I wanted the girls to love and look after each other, be kind to one another, just like I was with my sisters. According to my mum, I loved my sisters from the start and was never jealous or asked for them to be turned off. How could I prove I was a good mummy? The most understanding, patient and clever mummy?

  Once I got home with Giselle, after ten days in hospital, I made sure that I had some extra help each day. I was frightened of going back to that dark, frozen place in the weeks and months after Allegra had been born. Thankfully our nanny, Libby, was able to organise some time off from her other job so I had an extra pair of hands during the dreaded witching hours. That ugly time could strike any time from 4pm until 8pm, when everything was harder and took longer and I was at my weakest.

  After a couple of weeks Libby had to return to her second job, but I still needed some help in the afternoons. Recovering from the caesarean meant I couldn’t lift Allegra in and out of her highchair or bath, but what I really needed was some company during the long afternoons. Loneliness and isolation had crept up on me the last time, and I didn’t want to feel marooned during the chaos of dinner, bath, breastfeeds and bedtime. My sister-in-law, whose wonderful database of contacts was matched only by her thoughtfulness, introduced me to the mother of a close friend of hers who was looking for some work. And that was how Rosa, a heavenly South American grandmother, swept into our lives with her orange lipstick, rolled Rs, embroidered pashminas and suffocatingly sweet hugs.

  Rosa came over most afternoons. In theory this was to help with the girls, but what she was really doing was helping me to believe in myself. She reassured me that I was a good mother and how love was all that mattered, and she sprinkled her love throughout our house. I would take Allegra for walks to our corner deli to have some time with her while Rosa sang Spanish lullabies to Giselle before putting her down for her afternoon sleep. When we came back an hour later, the house smelt of basil, garlic and love. Allegra delighted in tasting the chunky tomato sauce that was going to be layered through the cannelloni, and slurping the minestrone soup off her Hello Kitty spoon.

  Most of the time, Rosa helped bring a joy and lightness into the house that kept my monsters at bay. But I was still scared about slipping back into the dead of night fears, and already my mind occasionally played some of its terrible tricks on me. I started to have flashes of knives in my head while I held my sunny baby girl, the pane of glass that I hoped had disappeared forever sometimes propping itself up between me and the rest of the sparkling world. It wasn’t always there, but at times it felt like a thick wedge of ice was stuck in my throat, choking me.

  My psychiatrist helped me to understand what I was feeling. She explained that Giselle was now at a similar age as Allegra had been when my obsessive thoughts had first begun. Sometimes those feelings worked like a flashback rather than symptoms of postnatal depression. What was also very different this time around was that breastfeeding was going beautifully, no more bleeding nipples. I’d had the confidence this time to insist that the lactation expert sit with me while I fed in hospital, and I’d made a point of telling the hospital I would not be leaving until I knew that I was feeding the correct, pain-free way.

  Giselle was thriving, putting on the right amount of weight and sleeping in reasonable chunks of time. I was able to sleep during those pockets of time too, and there was no anxiety or panic attacks. However, what wouldn’t budge completely was that familiar, stubborn pane of glass, still separating and numbing me from the sunshine. No number of easy breastfeeds, Spanish lullabies and caring family members would shove it completely away. A part of me felt like I had failed again because I had depression. This time I had been determined it would be different. And it was different, I was a more confident mother, but I wasn’t confident that I could keep the window between me and the world open.

  Each day I would get out of the house with the girls and we’d explore the streets of our neighbourhood. Those steep steps up to our front gate were not going to keep me locked away this time. Giselle was nestled snugly into my chest, strapped securely in the pink Baby Bjorn carrier that I wore like a backpack on my front. That left my arms free to push Allegra on her tricycle, which now had a handle on the back so I could steer her along the path. With her fine blonde ponytail poking out of the back of her Tinkerbell helmet, Allegra would quickly tire of using the pedals.

  ‘Mummy, my legs. I’m tired.’

  I wasn’t ready to go home—we’d only got halfway up our street. It had taken an hour for us all to get dressed and ready to get out the door. We weren’t giving up yet.

  ‘Sweet pea, stop dragging your feet along the footpath. Put them on the pedals and I can push you.’ The wheels of the tricycle were squashing the pink bougainvillea flowers that had fallen from the tree, adding to the slimy and slippery surface.

  ‘Darling, stay sitting on your trike. Don’t stand up …’ Just as well I’d strapped her in, making it impossible for Allegra to get out and topple the whole thing over.

  ‘Mummy, I’m tired.’

  So was I, but we still weren’t going home. We managed to get to the end of the street before I agreed we could turn around. The silvery streamers from Allegra’s tricycle blew back in the gentle breeze, but the fresh air wasn’t enough to blow the cobwebs out of my head.

  I knew I didn’t need to keep struggling on my own and took my psychiatrist’s advice to go back on the antidepressants. Thankfully the medication worked as effectively the second time around, and over the next couple of weeks the pane of glass gradually dissolved between myself and the rest of the world.

  Riiiiiiing, riiiiiiiiinnnngg. What is that noise? Oh, it’s the portable phone. And where is it? Not in the kitchen. Please don’t let it be in Giselle’s room, I’m not ready for her to wake up yet. Wait, oh yes, it’s in the bathroom. I last used the phone while I was on the toilet, grabbing a moment to talk to my sister.

  ‘Hello?’ I muttered after struggling to pick the phone up from the damp sink. I suddenly heard the glamorous beeps down the line that signalled an international call.

&n
bsp; ‘Pussycat, I’m in Paris. I know how much you love this city. We had dinner with the crew at Le Dôme in Montparnasse. You remember, that restaurant we went to? Where I ate two dozen oysters. And we drank too much house wine. I’m tired though. It was a long flight.’

  There was silence at my end.

  ‘Are you still there?’ Peter asked.

  ‘Yep. Wow. It sounds amazing.’ My voice sounded anything but amazed. I am pissed off. ‘And sorry, but I win the tired competition. Give me 24 hours on a plane, in a vacuum of peace and quiet, with no one wanting anything from me.’

  Peter sensibly changed the subject. ‘How are the girls? What have you been doing?’

  ‘They’re great. We went to the park.’ I hate the park. ‘We walked around to the shops. I got mince for dinner. Really great,’ I replied.

  ‘I miss you. Love you,’ said Peter.

  ‘Me too …’ My voice trailed off. ‘I’ve got to go, I can hear Giselle waking up.’

  So while my husband was on the other side of the world, flying first class, eating in five-star restaurants and leading a fulfilling television career, I was back home, stifled by domesticity. My sense of self, which I had always linked to my work, had disappeared. The journalism career that I’d spent a lifetime building had vanished into the Bermuda Triangle. The phone had been very quiet, and none of my old colleagues would return my calls. I was tempted to follow Bette Davis’s lead when she found herself out of work and unemployed. She took out a ‘situation wanted’ ad in a Hollywood newspaper: ‘Mother of three—10, 11 & 15—divorcée. American. Thirty years’ experience as an actress in motion pictures. Mobile still and more affable than rumor would have it. Wants steady employment in Hollywood. (Has had Broadway.)’

  My ad would go something like this: ‘Enthusiastic professional woman is keen for some adult conversation and me time. Has over twenty years’ experience reading out loud on autocue, and most recently plenty of practice reading We’re Going on a Bear Hunt, Charlie and Lola and Spot Goes to the Park. Loves heels, sparkles and not going to the park.’