Lost Mother: Hospital

In the nursery, DH was able to refuse the bath. She had been literally covered in meconium. I don't know how bad it was "medically," but it was scary. She showed no signs of aspiration, though.

Before we decided to go to the hospital, we had analyzed all the reasons I didn't want to go. One vivid memory of DD1's birth was watching the nurses giving her a bath. I wanted to break down the wall of the nursery and take her away, but I felt powerless. It broke my heart to watch.

So they brought her to me after about an hour, naked just in a blanket. He told them no diaper, too. (I love this man.) He said they were all concerned about her peeing on me. I said give her to me! I nursed her first, then we put on the first diaper. Sadly, the nurse came back really soon to take her away again. She took her temperature, and it was slightly low, I think. She wasn't really swaddled well, so they got upset with me. I tried to put her under my gown, and the nurse freaked out. So I relented and wrapped her up tighter.

I'm a little foggy on the details, but the nurse also started to argue with me about how long she'd been nursing. I said it wasn't long enough, and the nurse disagreed. I said that my other babies had nursed for the first 2 or 3 hours, and that was what I wanted for this baby. She said that 3o minutes was long enough, and any longer would interfere with colostrum. Oh, I was mad. I wanted to keep her with me and never let her go. Then the nurse asked me if they could bathe her. I said no. So, she portrayed my baby as being unsanitary since she was covered with "fecal matter." Leave her with me, then! I laughed and said, "it's just baby poop." Now, the nurse was acting like she was going to bathe her without my permission, so I said that my husband or my mother could do it, nobody else. Of course, neither was in the room at that moment, and I was really afraid the nurse would take her away.

January 14, 2009

Looking backwards now, the surgery seems so far away. My daughter is 5 days old now. A week ago, we were laughing and enjoying my pregnancy. Nothing was wrong. Here I am now. Nothing feels right. Every time I look around, I think of something else that hurts, something else I’ve lost. I have to look into her face to catch my breath, or I’ll cry forever. Yesterday, I told my story to four friends. I’m emotionally drained.

I’ve discovered that I can’t tell people what happened for one basic reason: I can’t bear to hear the words, “at least you have a healthy baby.” I know that people don’t know what else to say, but I really can’t bear to hear those words again. They are like a knife, cutting open the wound again each time. Of course, I am thankful to have a healthy baby. I wouldn’t have done this for any other reason. I heard those words from every person in the hospital, for four awful days. When you say it to me, it reminds me of that place.

Fighting

After that first separation, I was successful at keeping my baby with me. But it was a fight. I can only imagine how difficult such an experience would be for a woman less determined than me. Now that it's over, I think about how it would feel for other women, and it hurts even more. It's not enough that we have to lose a piece of ourselves by having the surgery, but the entire experience is so unbelievably horrible, humiliating and degrading from start to finish. It's not just the mother who suffers, but the entire family and the baby. And the system just doesn't seem to allow for those feelings - never mind actually giving any thought to how or why it might be a good idea to change anything about it all.