Now I See You

by Nicole C. Kear

  All of a sudden, the enormity of the enterprise before me slammed down on my shoulders. Holy Mother of God. There’d be things I would fail to protect him from. And not just the stuff I’d already, very diligently, worried about like clipping off his fingertips instead of his fingernails because I couldn’t see details that small. There was a whole world, a whole galaxy, of other stuff that I couldn’t protect him from, stuff that hadn’t even occurred to me, stuff I didn’t even know about. What the hell was I going to do now?

  What I was going to do was hang my head and cry, which I did right there in the hospital hallway, in my no-slip socks and pink polka-dot pajamas.

  “You mean he’s going to do it again?” I sobbed. “And there’s nothing I can do to stop it?”

  Without missing a beat, the nurse put her hand on my shoulder and ushered me back to my bed. She seemed so unfazed by my sudden crying fit, it gave me the strong suspicion that that hallway had seen far worse mental breakdowns. Working in maternity was probably pretty similar to working in the psych ward, except with bigger maxi pads.

  “It’s going to be all right,” she promised. “It’s really harmless, you know. A little gagging won’t hurt him.”

  “But what if—” I sputtered, “what if he chokes so much he can’t breathe?”

  “He won’t,” she replied. “I’ve never heard of that.”

  That wasn’t sufficient reassurance for me. There was all sort of shit you never heard about until it happened to you and then it was too late. I’d never heard about retinitis pigmentosa and yet, here I was, unable to see the tissue she was holding out to me until she finally shoved it right in my hand.

  I blew my nose and took a deep breath. Too late to back out now.

  “Tell me what to do, exactly, if it happens again,” I pleaded. “Step by step.”

  “There’s only one step,” she replied. “Just give him a good old whack on his back.”

  “But how will I know for sure that his airway is clear?” I pressed.

  The nurse looked over in the direction of my roommate who was buzzing her call button insistently from behind the room’s dividing curtain. I’d been privy to my roommate’s every sound for the last twelve hours and despite the fact that I hadn’t caught a glimpse of her, I’d put together a pretty detailed profile: Polish, first baby, C-section, not much luck nursing, prone to sudden meltdowns herself. From the sound of the call button, there was another breakdown in the works, which meant mine had to be wrapped up.

  “Look,” said the nurse, “if the baby’s crying, you know he’s not choking. So I guess if you really wanted to be sure his airway was clear, make him cry. Give his big toe a good squeeze—that’ll aggravate him.”

  “Okay,” I affirmed, “got it.” If I have any suspicions that the baby is choking, any at all, I should make him cry.

  Which is why I spent the first month of my infant’s life annoying him relentlessly.

  I’d look over at the bouncy seat, where Lorenzo lay still, silent, and peaceful. Though this is most mothers’ dream, it was my call-to-arms. Why was the baby so preternaturally still? Clearly, he was not breathing. Likely, it was that damn amniotic fluid causing trouble again. Who knew how long he’d been like this? As I sat pondering, his brain might be losing oxygen! No time to undertake the subtle investigative measures I’d learned in infant CPR class like watching his chest rise and fall; I couldn’t trust myself to see the ever-so-slight movement of his chest anyway, my vision was so poor. No, no, this emergency called for the squeeze-the-toe test, approved by medical professionals as the quickest, most effective way to confirm baby’s respiratory health.

  I’d squeeze the toe. He’d scrunch his placid face into a scowl and commence caterwauling. Mission accomplished. The baby was breathing. And, now royally pissed off.

  Over and over again in the first weeks of my baby’s life, people were assuring me that if I trusted my mother’s instinct, I’d be fine and over and over again, I was finding that was a load of horse crap. Maybe other mothers, ones with all their primary senses intact, had functional maternal instincts, but worry and a severe lack of confidence had caused mine to short-circuit. None of this mothering business was coming naturally. I needed a detailed instruction manual to do everything and sometimes, even that didn’t work. Like with breastfeeding.

  There are few areas in my life where I have ever been so bumbling. I was a hundred times more skilled at hammering nails into wood than I was at nursing and I had a 90% fail rate there. And—I hope he’ll forgive me for saying so—Lorenzo was no ace himself. It was a classic case of the blind leading the blind. To make matters worse, there was nothing specific anyone could identify as the reason for why the whole thing was going so badly. I believe the clinical term for our situation was “cluster-fuck.”

  “Okay, let’s get ready to nurse,” directed the lactation consultant I hired for a house call on day four, after we took the baby for a weight check and discovered he’d lost too much weight. “Put your feet up. Adjust your pillow. Relax those shoulders. Now let’s just try to get that baby’s mouth wide open so he can get a good deep latch.”

  Already, with one hand holding my breast and one holding the baby’s head, I was out of hands. But I stuck a finger out and attempted to gently caress the baby’s cheek so as to trigger the whatever-the-hell-you-call-it reflex that was supposed to make the kid open his mouth.

  I caressed and caressed, watching his mouth with so much intensity, sweat beaded on my upper lip. And then, finally, it happened—he opened, wide.

  “Now!” yelled the lactation consultant. “Go! Go! Now!”

  Placing her hands on top of mine, she grabbed the baby’s tender little head, with all its terrifying soft spots, and slammed it onto my breast, like she was hitting the buzzer on Jeopardy.

  Unfortunately even the specialist lacked the lightning-fast reflexes necessary to attach the baby to my breast, because by the time the baby’s mouth made contact, he’d already clamped his lips shut again. As much as this failed attempt frustrated me, it frustrated the baby a thousand times more. After all, he was the poor sap dependent on this whole thing for survival. He started bawling, that awful lamblike bray that makes nails on a chalkboard sound like Ein kleine Nachtmusik.

  “Let’s try again,” the lactation consultant urged. “But wait—look at how hunched over you are. No good. And your hands—they’re so tense! Relaaaaaaax. This is a perfectly natural experience.”

  So is getting lost in the woods and having a bear tear you limb from limb but I wasn’t keen on doing that either.

  I started to cry along with the baby.

  “It’s not working.” I sniffed.

  The lactation consultant placed her hand on my shoulder. “There’s always formula,” she offered.

  I knew that before I shelled out $150 for a lactation consultant.

  I was determined to nurse at all costs, not only because I’d read everywhere that Breast Is Best but because it was one mothering skill that had absolutely nothing to do with my eyes. There were so many other things I couldn’t do as well as other mothers because of my failing vision, everything from safely walking down a flight of stairs to reading the dosage information on the gripe water bottle. But here was an ability I possessed that was in no way hindered by my vision, one area in which I could give my child the very best. Unfortunately, the very best came at a steep price.

  Because I couldn’t get the baby to feed correctly, I ended up with mastitis, a breast infection that treated me to a fever, flulike symptoms, and one rock-hard, flame red boob. This, in combination with waking every two hours throughout the night to feed the baby, as per my doctor’s instructions, whipped me into a state of such severe fatigue I literally couldn’t see straight. My already awful eyesight became even more hazy, my field of vision more constrained. Some people get fall-down drunk; I was fall-down tired.

  One night, after I finally rocked the baby to sleep and laid him ever-so-gently into his bassinette, lifting
one finger off his body at a time so as not to rouse him, I tip-toed over to my own bed a few steps away, and threw myself into it. Ever since I’d gotten pregnant, I’d forced myself to take extra care, and time, moving my body through space. Walking, like talking, was something I’d always done fast and I liked it that way, but I’d made the conscious decision to slow down, reminding myself that this excruciating, glacial pace was the velocity at which even nondisabled people moved outside of New York City. Still, I missed the luxury of physical abandon. So, once I’d deposited Lorenzo in his bassinette, I indulged in immoderation, letting myself drop like a stone onto the bed.

  Except that there was no bed underneath me. I belly flopped, face-first, onto the hardwood floor approximately a foot to the side of the bed. The worst part was, the crash was so loud, it woke the baby.

  David came running and found the baby and I crying in stereo.

  “What the fuck?” was his well-formulated inquiry.

  “The baby’s fine,” I sniffled, “But I’m all black and blue. I miscalculated.”

  “Nicole,” he chastised, taking the baby. “You have to be more careful.”

  “How can I?” I wailed. “I’m a zombie. Like from your stupid movies.” I liked the way that sounded so I repeated it as I sat on the edge of the bed and cried: “A zombie! A zoooooommmmmbie!”

  “Maybe you wouldn’t be so tired if you didn’t cry so damn much,” David snapped, striding out of the room with the baby on his shoulder.

  He had a point. Not that there was anything I could do about the incessant crying. The postpartum hormones were firing at me with both barrels and I was getting blown to bits.

  I loved the baby so much it actually hurt—in my chest, a little like I was having a heart attack. In retrospect, it’s possible I was having a heart attack, or at the very least a panic attack. Even so, there was no doubt that the force of my love for Lorenzo was unrelenting, consuming, brutal even. It was like when I pushed him out, I also pushed my heart out of my body and now I had to wear it on the outside without any protective barrier.

  I found myself breaking down in tears on a daily basis, like I was training for the Crying Olympics. These sobbing episodes were unlike any I’d ever had. In my life before baby, I’d cried when I was sad, occasionally when I was angry. Now, I cried from a complicated combination of feelings whose primary ingredient was joy. I’d sit on the edge of my bed, staring at Lorenzo’s tiny bowed lips, and then he’d flicker open his eyes and they were the very opposite of blind, they seemed to see things no human could ever see, staring off into space with such intense wonderment. Then his eyes would momentarily alight on me and I would feel an electric jolt, as if I were beholding something very pure and divine, not meant to be looked at directly. And I would weep with gratitude and joy, incredulous that he was mine.

  And if you think that experience is fun, you’re fucking nuts. There’s a reason life pounds us into jaded, hardened assholes. David was right: that much feeling wears you out.

  Of course, it wasn’t all joy to the world and hosts of angels singing. Wrapped around the love, like a tumor on an essential organ, was fear. I was more scared than I’d ever been in my life. Hell, I was more terrified than the time I saw Fatal Attraction at a friend’s house when I was twelve. I was shit-my-pants scared.

  Because as I marveled at his perfection, I couldn’t help but think, I’m gonna fuck this up.

  There was no way I could take care of this baby. I wanted to, all right, and I’d give it my best shot but I was certain that I would screw up somehow and not just in a vague sense, like the kid would end up in therapy one day because I sleep trained him, but in a serious, awful way, like I’d trip on a diaper and crack his head open.

  Lorenzo was so spectacular he deserved to have a professional take care of him. Whoever took care of the Princess of England’s kids should be pushing him in his pram. Get the lady who wrote What to Expect When You’re Expecting in here. Not me—shitty me, with my lousy eyes and my bleeding nipples. I wasn’t good enough.

  I wasn’t just scared of how I’d fuck the baby up. I was also suddenly plagued by the fear that I’d be blindsided again with bad news, the way I was about my eyes, only about the baby this time. I couldn’t stop worrying about how fickle Fate is, how you can be blithely buying bras one minute and hearing the words “incurable disease” the next.

  The baby might be breathing fine now, but you never knew when SIDS might strike, silent and deadly in the night. You never knew whose friendly hand, shaking the baby’s fingers, might be hosting a drug-resistant strand of E. coli. You never knew when a massive belch of amniotic fluid might resurface, obstructing the baby’s tiny airway and causing brain damage.

  In an effort to shield my baby from these misfortunes, I kept him inside, away from people except those I could nag into scrubbing well enough to enter an OR. I followed every guideline from the AAP. And I worried, incessantly, because you can’t be blindsided if you’re always prepared for the worst at every turn. Fate might do something awful to my beautiful baby but I’d be damned if I let her sneak up on me unawares again.

  This worrying annoyed David because, as a new parent himself, he had no barometer by which to judge whether my reaction was rational and responsible or totally loco. We developed a detailed argument routine in seven parts.

  1. I’d freak out about something small: “Do you hear that rattley sound? I think the baby has a snotty nose. Get the aspirator. Or should we look it up on the internet first? Maybe we should page Dr. Frye. God, I hope this isn’t early signs of RSV.”

  2. David would downplay the issue: “It’s just snot.”

  3. I’d question his credentials: “How do you know?”

  4. He’d insist I was being alarmist: “You don’t have to be an expert to know kids get snotty noses. And you freak out about everything!”

  5. I’d accuse him of shirking his responsibility: “You don’t freak out enough! I have to do everything myself!”

  6. He’d go for a low blow: “You’re just like your mother.”

  7. And then, while I was taking a breath in order to verbally rip him a new asshole, he’d bring the conversation back to the baby: “If you’re worried, just call Dr. Frye.”

  Which was always an excellent idea.

  Dr. Frye had been highly recommended by my only friend with kids, Natalie.

  “He’s thorough and careful and great with the kids. And I trust his judgment completely,” Natalie raved. “But I should say—he’s not for everyone. He can be a little, ummm, opinionated.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “It’s just, he’s not one of these low-key doctors who defers to you as the parent,” she explained. “If he thinks you’re doing something that’s not in the kid’s best interests, he’s not afraid to tell you all about it. Like, he didn’t like me using a crib tent with the baby, and he thought I should wait to pierce her ears. And he’ll reprimand you if you let your kids watch too much TV. Stuff like that.”

  Sounded perfect to me: I intended to hold myself to the highest standards of mothering excellence and I was happy to find a pediatrician who’d help me do that. But by Lorenzo’s first check-up it was clear that achieving mothering excellence was harder than I thought.

  I was sitting next to David in a Sesame Street–themed examination room while week-old Lorenzo snoozed in David’s arms and Dr. Frye took down our family’s medical history. I was relieved Dr. Frye was asking the questions verbally; this way, he wouldn’t catch me struggling to make out the print of a medical form.

  “History of cancer?”

  “No.”

  “Diabetes?”

  “Yes, my grandparents had it.”

  “Blood disorders?”

  “No.”

  “Any genetic conditions?”

  I paused, blinking.

  It was a standard question but, somehow, I wasn’t prepared. It’d been eight years since my diagnosis and almost as long since I’d told anyone
about my retinal disease, with just a few exceptions. I was embarrassed, uncomfortable. My mind thrashed around, trying to settle on a suitable answer. Did I have to tell him? I didn’t tell other doctors I saw, like the gynecologist or podiatrist or anything. Maybe it wasn’t relevant here either.

  David looked at me expectantly. Tell him.

  I glared back at him. It has nothing to do with this.

  He raised his eyebrows. If you don’t, I will.

  Dr. Frye looked up from his chart.

  “What is it?” he asked, scrutinizing me over the top of his eyeglasses. He looked suspicious.

  “Oh, nothing, it’s just … I, um, I’m not even sure this is relevant,” I stammered.

  Why was it so hard to share this straightforward piece of medical information with a doctor? If there was ever a place where it should be easy to tell someone about my eye disease, this was it, yet every last atom in me strained to keep the information concealed. I felt like uttering the diagnosis would make it airborne, contagious, and I didn’t want that disease mentioned, even tangentially, in relation to my baby.

  Then, too, I was vain. I didn’t want this doctor, who I was trying to impress with my impeccable parenting, to know about my big, irremediable flaw. What if he judged my decision to become a mother? Couldn’t I wait until he got to know me better before I told him?

  “Well?” Dr. Frye pressed. “Are there any genetic conditions or not?”

  “Ummmm, sort of,” I mumbled.

  “I’m confused,” replied Dr. Frye. “This is a simple question.”

  “She has a retinal disease,” David piped up. “It’s genetic but no one else in the family has it, so the specialist we saw said our kids would have about the same chance of having it as anyone else’s kids, in the general population.”

  “What’s it called?” Dr. Frye asked, and I told him, along with all the other pertinent details. He didn’t look disappointed in me or sorry for me or even that interested, which made sense of course because the guy hardly knew me. The whole thing took about two minutes and then it was in the chart and it was done.