Why was it so hard for me to imagine a way to say “no” or “please don’t leave”? I’ve thought about this a lot, and the only answer I have is that habit is a strong thing—those words never worked before, and not leaving, for my dad and for Ross, was rarely an option. Plus, I still have this self-conscious horror of making a scene, of letting anyone on the sidelines see me freak out and lose control. Maybe that’s the real fear, losing control. Maybe getting left is just the opening salvo for a far sneakier, more personal kind of pain.
I hate to linger here, on the half hour I spent listening to the whir of little machines at my bedside and making small talk with the nurses. It’s just that in all my planning, all my imaginings of things going right and things going wrong, I never, ever thought I would have been trumped by an appliance. Still, I was more comfortable than I’d been in hours, days even, and I hadn’t been left alone. There was something pleasant about having just women around me, strangers, yes, but professionals who looked not at all alarmed about what was happening to my body. This, in contrast to the previous five hours where Ross and I had reflected the same drained panic back at each other as each new position and massage technique failed to alleviate the galloping waves of pain. Even though several years, another birth, and some therapy have allowed me to gain some perspective on what actually went on—that we were both scared and tired and bad at communicating in a critical moment—I was convinced at the time that this was final proof that I was, and would always be, alone in my times of greatest fear, and that I had no right to expect anything else.
But now we can move on, press play and leave this little interval of doubt and stunned fatigue, because it’s time to push my son into the world, my spinning, squirming little bundle of muscle and limbs whose heart never once slowed as the waves of contractions washed over him. His father is back and the room is buzzing with movement and light. Here he is, crowning to Patsy Cline’s “Walkin’ after Midnight,” the nurse and his father, who is holding my hand, both singing along quietly as I pause before bearing down again, and the midwife says, “Goot pooshes!” The cord wrapped twice around his neck, my body’s last attempt to hold him, Sam trundles out with a jolt like train cars uncoupling and lets loose with the most beautiful, indignant, warbling yell I have ever heard.
My Plan, and all the stories and research woven into it, was in tatters on the floor, and despite the epidural, the lower half of my body felt like it had been savaged by a shark. I was two people, one destroyed and one built anew, and through the wreckage I could see two things: there was my husband next to me, blinking tears out of his eyes and laughing at the same time, and there, pink and raging with his tiny fists shaking the edges of his blue blanket, was my son. I reached for him and held him tight.
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In his first few months, Sam cried. To anyone who’s ever had a baby, or spent significant amounts of time around one, this statement is beyond obvious, like saying he breathed and drank milk and pooped. And if Stella was to be believed, he cried a great deal less than the average infant and was generally a content, alert, and mild-mannered baby. But the mitigating factor here was that the depression had come back for me, and since I had avoided taking my antidepressant for nine months of pregnancy and had never felt better in my life, I became even more convinced that if I were just disciplined enough, if I ate enough green leafy vegetables and drank enough water, I could will myself to stay in my mental lane and keep it together. I had to. Someone tiny and helpless depended on me, and my tandem parenting time was limited.