Wiped!
Page 6
“I can’t believe you just did that. God, what’s wrong with you? We’re here for her, not you!”
“I’ve been walking on the treadmill and everything, and nothing is happening!”
“Beck, it took nine months to put on, so it—”
Thank God the doctor walks in so I don’t have to hear the rest of that sentence. The doctor is a very affable man who checks out the baby and tells us she’s at the fiftieth percentile of height and weight.
“Do you have any questions for me?” he asks.
The Fiancé and I look at each other. Fuck. I forgot to take diapers, and I forgot to come prepared with questions.
When I was pregnant, Ronnie had warned me that obstetricians were impossible to get a hold of and I should come to each appointment with a list of questions. I guess this was the same idea. The problem was, again, I really didn’t have any questions. Again, I feel like a bad mother for not having questions. I should be worried about something, shouldn’t I? But the fact is, she eats okay, she goes to the washroom okay. She was okay. There doesn’t seem to be a problem with her weight or height.
“Um, when do they start sleeping through the night?” the Fiancé asks. I know he’s just asking so it makes us look like we’re concerned about something.
“Good question,” I say, even though I don’t think it’s a good question at all.
We hear, for the millionth time, that at around three months the baby should start sleeping through the night.
I slip her back into her used diaper, and we pack her up. I want to hop on the scale again, but the Fiancé drags me out.
“Well, that’s pretty good. She’s at the fiftieth percentile for her age in weight and height,” I say to the Fiancé while he’s driving us back home.
“Yes, we have a perfectly healthy, average baby,” he says.
“Nothing wrong with that,” I say. “Nothing wrong with that at all.”
10:15 P.M.
The Fiancé and I have sex. Is it scary because we haven’t done it in so long and I am not completely convinced that I’m healed properly? Only a little bit. And afterward, lying together naked, it’s nice. Very nice. In a way, I feel like it was celebratory sex. Not just because we were finally doing it after so long, but because we have a perfectly healthy, average baby. What more could two parents hope for?
One week later, my perfectly healthy baby is not.
November 28
“So, when are you coming home?” I ask the Fiancé.
“Soon.”
“Like how soon?”
“Soon.”
“Okay, it’s just that the baby seems to have a really bad cold and I don’t know what to do. I’m kind of freaking out here. I really think she’s really sick.”
It’s five o’clock on Friday.
“Well, didn’t the nurse who came to our condo give you an emergency number to call if you had any health questions?”
“Right. Do you know where that is?”
“I think it’s in the kitchen somewhere.”
“Okay, see you soon,” I say, hanging up.
I can’t stand watching my poor baby. She’s so congested that she can barely breathe. It breaks my heart to hear her cry because I know she doesn’t understand she just has a cold.
Luckily, I find the 1-800 number that is still in the folder the nurse gave us, full of baby information we had never bothered to read. I dial the number.
“Hi, I have a question about my baby,” I say when a woman answers the phone.
“Okay. Have you ever called here before?” she asks.
“No.”
“Okay, first I just have to ask you a few questions,” she says.
After what seems like twenty minutes of inane questions, like what’s my phone number and where do I live and when did I give birth and do I breastfeed, and after biting my tongue to stop myself from screaming at her, “My baby is in trouble! Can’t this wait?” the person on the other end finally asks the reason I’m calling.
“My baby has a really bad cold, and I don’t know if she can breathe properly,” I say. My voice is wobbly. I might cry.
“Is the area around her mouth purple?” she asks.
I look at my baby’s mouth. I don’t see any purple. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Okay, what I want you to do is undress her and take a look right under her rib cage, as she breathes,” she says.
“Okay, hold on,” I say as I unbutton her sleeper and unsnap her onesie. “I’m looking,” I tell her.
“Does her breathing seem labored?”
“Yes,” I say; when she tries to breathe in, her rib cage rises slowly.
“Well, she could be in distress. I’d suggest you go to the closest emergency room,” the woman says.
Distress? My baby is in distress? MY BABY IS IN DISTRESS!
“Okay, I’m going to go right now,” I say, and hang up. I call the Fiancé on his cell phone.
“I just called that number and the woman said she could be in distress and we should get to the nearest emergency room,” I say. I’m hysterical now, and in tears.
“Okay, I’m just pulling up to our building now. I’ll meet you out front. But traffic is really heavy. It’s rush hour. Should we wait awhile before going?” the Fiancé asks.
“The baby could be in distress!” I yell at him, and hang up. What the fuck is he thinking wanting to know if we should wait until traffic lessens? Why isn’t he concerned? MY BABY IS IN DISTRESS! I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off. Bottle. Diapers. Health card. Fuck. fuck. FUCK!
We’re in the car, stuck in rush-hour traffic.
“I can’t stand this!” I cry.
The baby is screaming and snorting in the backseat, and I feel a migraine coming on.
“I can’t go any faster. I’m going as fast as I can!” the Fiancé says.
“I know,” I snap. “You said that already.”
“Don’t snap at me,” he snaps back, and I start to cry.
“Don’t talk to me like that! Why are you doing this now?” I cry out. “Don’t be such an asshole now. I’m worried. Can’t you understand that?”
“I’m going as fast as I can,” he says, hitting the steering wheel.
Finally we arrive, and he drops me off in front of the emergency room entrance. I race inside while he finds a place to park.
I’m still in a line in the emergency room waiting to check in when the Fiancé races in. He does look worried. I can’t believe there’s such a line. I’m practically shaking. I hand the baby, who’s in the car seat, to the Fiancé and walk to the head of the line. I don’t wait in line at clubs, and I definitely don’t want to wait in line here.
“Well, I have this bad cough and I’ve had it for a couple of weeks now, but I didn’t have time to see my doctor during the week,” someone is saying.
I can’t believe this. Some dude who’s had a cough for two weeks decides to go to the emergency room? Doesn’t he know that there are actual emergencies? LIKE MY BABY, WHO IS IN DISTRESS?
“Excuse me,” I interrupt. I know there’s a fine line between bitchiness and persistence, especially in a hospital where everyone is so overworked, but this is my baby we’re talking about. The guy with the cough is lucky I don’t punch him. “I have an eight-week-old baby who’s not breathing properly,” I say in a loud voice. The three people in front of me shoot me a dirty look. “Fuck you all,” I think.
It works. Immediately a nurse takes my baby to the back room to take her temperature. She doesn’t seem worried. What is wrong with everybody? I was told MY BABY COULD BE IN DISTRESS!
“Well, she doesn’t have a temperature, which is good,” the nurse says.
In fact, the baby is now sleeping soundly. (It’s like when you desperately need a haircut, but the day of your appointment you wake up and your hair looks fabulous. Although this is way more serious.)
“I swear, she couldn’t breathe like ten minutes ago! I called a 1-800 number and the wom
an told me we should come directly here,” I explain.
“Oh, we hate those 1-800 numbers. You can’t make a good diagnosis over the phone, and they just tell everyone to come here. Just wait over there in the waiting area, and a doctor will see you shortly,” she says.
The Fiancé and I take seats. I can’t help but look at all the other sick people in the waiting room, wondering what their ailments are. What kind of germs is my baby going to catch while we wait?
“I don’t know, maybe we should just go,” I say to the Fiancé after we’ve waited about half an hour. “I don’t want her to catch anything worse than she already has.”
Just then, we’re called in.
A doctor checks out the baby and hands us a blue suction thing.
“She just has a bad cold. Every parent of a newborn should have one of these. First you put saline drops, which you can buy at any drugstore, in her nostrils, then stick this up each nostril and it will suck out all the phlegm,” he says, demonstrating.
I have never seen one of these things before.
“Colds for babies can last anywhere from a month to six weeks,” the doctor tells us.
Six weeks! “Thank you,” I say to the doctor. “Thank you so much. I was so worried. They did tell me she could be in distress.”
“Well, it’s always better to be safe than sorry. You did the right thing coming here,” he says, and I kind of feel like kissing him because I’m so relived nothing is wrong with my baby.
Back at home, I feel like I’ve been through a war. The baby starts crying, and her nose, once again, is clogged. We stopped on the way home to buy the saline drops.
“You do it,” I tell the Fiancé, handing him the suction thing that we’re supposed to stick up the baby’s nostrils, which are smaller than chocolate chips.
“No, you do it,” he says.
“I can’t! You do it!”
“Fine. But you have to help,” he says.
I hold the baby’s arms down, while turning my head and looking away. She’s not happy, and I can’t stand to see her flailing her arms and listen to her screams.
“I’m like a doctor,” says the Fiancé proudly when he sucks out the boogers and the baby can breathe much better again. “And you are never to call that 1-800 number again. Ever!”
“She told me the baby was in distress,” I say quietly. “And the doctor said it was better to be safe than sorry.”
“I know. I know,” he says, wrapping his arms around me. I cry again, tears of exhaustion and tears of relief. I don’t ever want to feel that worried again. How do mothers deal with the worry?
December 1
Now I’m really sick. I feel like hell. My throat itches. I have a fever. I cough. My nose is running. But at least I know how to use tissues. The baby’s nose runs like a nonstop faucet, and it’s pretty disgusting.
December 2
Now the Fiancé is sick. He feels like hell. His throat itches. He has a fever and he’s coughing now too.
December 3
The baby is still sick. I’m sick. The Fiancé is sick. Our house reeks of germs.
December 4
We’re all sick. Even Nanny Mimi is sick.
Babies are very contagious.
December 5
“Okay, we have to divide and conquer this,” I say, after days of feeling like I’ve been swallowing knives. My nose is so raw it hurts. “The only way we’re all going to get cured is if we’re not with one another in the same room,” I tell the Fiancé. “Can you move out?”
“What?”
“I’m just joking. But we can’t sleep in the same room. We’ll never get better.”
Is this how it’s going to be from now on? The baby gets a cold, passes it on to me, then I pass it on to the Fiancé, who loves kissing me, which means he’s just giving me my sick germs back. Of course, I can’t not kiss the baby, which means she’s giving me her germs and I’m giving her mine. This could be a never-ending cycle. We could just keep passing this cold back and forth to one another forever.
The Fiancé sleeps on the couch. I think our relationship can’t possibly deteriorate any more than this. We’re now sleeping in separate rooms? I know mothers who breastfeed sometimes sleep in separate rooms from their husbands, so as not to wake them up when they have to feed. But we live in a two-bedroom condo. Even if I would allow the Fiancé to sleep in a separate room from me, where would he go? I guess he could sleep in the bathtub.
December 15
10 A.M.
We’re all better. Physically, that is. But something is still wrong with me. I just feel…wrong. I can’t get out of bed.
11 A.M.
I’m just so tired. I should get out of bed to say hi to the baby. I can’t.
1 P.M.
My cell phone has been ringing all morning. I know it’s the Fiancé wondering where I am and why I haven’t called. I don’t want to call him back. I don’t want to do anything.
3 P.M.
I’ve been dozing on and off all day. I should get out of bed. I just can’t. My body feels like concrete.
5 P.M.
The Fiancé comes into the bedroom.
“Beck, what’s wrong? Mimi says you haven’t been out of the room all day. Why haven’t you called me? Why haven’t you answered your phone? What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know? Are you sick?”
“I don’t know,” I respond. I’ve been in bed all day, and I still feel exhausted. I haven’t eaten all day, but I’m not hungry.
“What can I do? Do you want to sleep? Do you need me to get you something?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Beck!”
“I think I just want to be left alone.”
Days later
I can’t fight it anymore.
Though I’ve tried, I’m miserable.
I feel like I’m a failure at everything. I’m failing at my career, which has basically come to a complete halt since I gave birth. I’m failing at being a mother, because I need a nanny. When I do spend time with the baby, I wish she was sleeping. I’m failing at being a good wife, because everything the Fiancé does annoys me, and I annoy him because he knows he’s annoying me for no reason and then he gets upset. And I’m just so, so tired.
“Something, uh, something’s wrong with me,” I cry to the Fiancé. I called him at work. I started crying this morning, and I haven’t been able to stop.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” he asks.
I just feel like I’m a big, fat failure at everything and that life sucks, I think that’s what I’m feeling, at least. “I think, uh, I have, to, uh, see a doctor. Something is wrong with me,” I cry.
For the past few days, I could barely get out of bed. I can’t eat or sleep either. I can’t stop crying. It’s not that I want to kill myself, but I have had thoughts that if I didn’t wake up ever again, that would be fine with me. Maybe it’s purely exhaustion. Maybe I’m having a nervous breakdown.
“Okay, stay right there. Don’t move. I’m going to call the doctor and make you an appointment.”
The last time I bawled this hard was when I was four months pregnant and I realized for the first time that none of my clothes fit and I had a party, in honor of my birthday, to attend. I’m crying ten times harder now.
I sit there bawling, waiting for him to call me back. What is wrong with me? Why have I cried for hours every day for the past week? If someone looks at me the wrong way, I cry. Did Gwyneth Paltrow, after she had her baby, cry for hours because she hated her life? Had Courteney Cox not showered for days after she gave birth? Why am I the only mother who feels like a bad mother? I have a good life, I know that, and yet I’m more miserable than I’ve ever been. Ever.
The Fiancé calls back. “Okay, the doctor can fit you in at one today. I’ll come pick you up. Do you think you can wait?”
“No, I think I have to go right now,” I say, sobbing.
I walk into the doctor’s office still crying. I tell the nurse I have an appointment in three hours. Apparently, no one wants to have a bawling woman sitting in their waiting room. They take me immediately.
“I can’t stop crying,” I tell the doctor.
“Any changes in your life recently?” he asks. “Career? Home life?”
“I had a baby,” I say. I don’t mention that I’m now living in a new city, with barely any friends, and that I am homesick too. I don’t mention that it would be okay if I didn’t wake up.
“You don’t want to harm your baby, do you? You don’t have any feelings like that?” he asks.
I don’t. Not at all. Even thinking about harming my baby makes me cry harder. I know I don’t want to kill myself—how could I do that to my beautiful baby, the love of my life? I would never do that to her. But if I just didn’t wake up one day…
“And your home life is okay?” the doctor presses. I’m not an idiot. I know what he’s asking. The doctor wants to know if the Fiancé abuses me.
“It’s fine. I just, I just can’t do anything. I can’t think straight. I can’t stop crying. I don’t know what I’m doing, and I can’t do anything right. I sleep for hours and I’m tired. I’m just so tired.” I know my parents love me, I know the Fiancé loves me, heck, I’m sure even my baby loves me, but I feel completely alone and unloved.
The doctor explains what an antidepressant is. He thinks it would be good for me. I think it’s a good idea too. I’m not the first person I know to be on antidepressants. In fact, I’m practically the last of my friends to go on antidepressants. And many of them have gone on antidepressants after a breakup. This is much more serious.
“When do these start working?” I ask.
“They take about two weeks to fully get into your system.”
Two weeks? Two weeks? Two weeks seems like an eternity for me to continue feeling like this. I don’t know if I’ll last. The doctor tells me to come back in a couple of weeks.