At last the doctor thought to give me a catheter and discovered that my bladder was profoundly full, blocking the passage. All the power of my pushing had only forced my poor baby’s head against my bladder—which may help explain her alertness.
Merely two more pushes and the baby was out. Delphinia bathed her as the doctor gave me morphine and depressed my abdomen gently to expel the afterbirth, then dosed me with quinine until my ears were ringing—the sign she’d given enough. She approached me next with a dropperful of some other draught and I protested, saying I wanted no further treatments. Already the morphine and the quinine were having peculiar effects. I had close in mind what a doctor’s overzealous dosing had done to Mother.
“These unmarried girls lack the common sense of a lady,” Dr. Stevens said to Delphinia, as though I wasn’t in the room.
Delphinia gave a hard stare. “With all they’ve been through, they’re anxious of being harmed.” Then she laid my baby gently onto me.
My body trembles still from its long struggle. The doctor said I would soon forget the pain, but I haven’t forgotten. I awaken from brief rests in a sweat, heart hammering, and recall the hours of fruitless pushing till the catheter cleared the way. I was mad with agony, yet the doctor only yelled to push harder, harder.
That struggle, it turns out, was the easier part. Now the dear person I must keep alive is outside my womb, and no need but air is filled without my effort.
Today was typical. She nursed or dozed with my nipple in her mouth for sixteen hours of the past twenty-four; I counted. The other hours, she had to be in my arms, or she would scream.
A moment may come when I have nothing left to offer—when it will all have been sucked out.
My hand shakes as I write. Oh, for a few hours of sleep! Tiredness penetrates me—as if I were a rag doll, with tiredness as my stuffing.
Fourth Month 12
Charlotte is crying. I can hear her through two closed doors. Yet I’m determined not to respond because I’m furious, furious. I’m seated beside a claw-foot tub in the room across the hall, and Charlotte is in the bassinet, screaming for me, and I have reached the end of my patience.
Here is what has just occurred. The recovery room is on the first story. The furnace sits beneath it, in the basement. The coalman arrived with a delivery as I was reaching to put a dozing Charlotte in the bassinet, aiming to drop myself into bed right after. And do mark, please, that this was one of the few times in her fifteen days of life when she was unwary enough that I might attempt this.
But as I lowered her slowly through the air, the round iron cover on the side of the building slid open, and coal descended raucously through a chute into the basement.
At the first burst of falling coal, Charlotte’s body startled from head to toe. Her face contorted into a mask of misery, and she began to wail. I pulled her to me again, and she affixed her cruel mouth to my nipple, from which she had barely dropped away. The pain shot into me as it does every time, but for once I didn’t clench my jaw and wait for it to subside. I put my finger in her mouth and detached her. I placed her in the bassinet amid the noises from below and ran out of the room.
I’m shaking on the cold floor beside the tub, this notebook clutched to me, while she cries in our room, alone. Of course my flight brings no relief; my muscles clench to hear her. Yet I can’t tolerate her insatiable need. She sucks beyond endurance. I want only to use my chamber pot, to brush my hair and put it up with combs, to bathe, to put food into my body—and most of all to escape the state of nervous vigilance she keeps me in.
Hear me, diary. I meant to keep her the full three weeks before the adoption agency took her. But I won’t. I can’t. Why endure nearly another week of this? I want to go home. I’ll speak with Anne and let her know. I’m ready to give Charlotte away.
*
I continued my mutiny, covering my ears against her cries, and she actually ceased her protest. I tiptoed to our room and found her sleeping and lay in my bed alongside the bassinet! The two of us slept straight through till supper, when Delphinia brought in my tray.
Thanks to a generous food donation, the fare was ample. I devoured the roasted chicken, the bread with butter, the cobbler made with peaches from some steadfast canner’s remaining stores. Delphinia beamed to see such an appetite. And for the first time since her birth, Charlotte looked about calmly and seemed at peace.
I suspect the poor baby has never had a decent rest till this, despite my endless trying. One might be tempted to think she’s determined not to sleep for fear of losing me.
Yet our dearth of sleep has brought that very outcome closer. I’ve sent word to Anne and now must only last through one more night.
Delphinia told me few girls make it to the full three weeks. “The ones who do,” she observed, “are saddest.”
Can this be so? Am I protecting myself from the agony of losing her by parting early—as Nancy did?
Fourth Month 13
There is no protecting oneself from this.
We spent another night nursing and dozing, and the adoption agent arrived in our room early today. She was a tall, frowsy woman who introduced herself as Miss Emmeline Trout. As she spoke, gaps showed in her mouth where teeth had been; apparently her wages are too low for her to afford a dentist. This was sad and discouraging to see, as was her patched and worn clothing—for her sake, and also for Charlotte’s. Because what sort of a family would adopt a child from an agency whose employee’s condition spoke so plainly of hardship? I feared it would be an impoverished one. Would my baby go hungry?
I’d obliged myself to give Charlotte to this agency several months ago, having made an agreement through Anne. Looking at the vulnerable creature in my arms, however, I wanted better.
Emmeline encouraged me to hand Charlotte over. “We got a family what’s eager and willing,” she said, reaching.
But I couldn’t move my arms forward. Do it! my brain commanded, without having any effect.
“Yer a sentimental one,” said Emmeline, baring her gap-toothed smile. “No harm in you carrying the baby to the office in place of me.”
So I clutched my living bundle close and followed Emmeline down the hall and into the office.
On hearing of my hesitation, Anne stood from her chair and brandished the adoption papers she’d signed after I’d verbally affirmed the agreement. I’d been continuing in the way of Friends by not signing any vow of truthfulness—any contract—since claiming special truthfulness at one moment infers that our words are otherwise untrue. But as I watched Anne, the thought went through my mind that because I hadn’t signed, perhaps they couldn’t force me to comply. Anne, too, might have been thinking this.
“Now hand the baby to her, Lilli.” Anne tightened her lips, keeping her blue eyes steady on me.
I remained unable.