Maternity Leave (9781466871533) (3 page)

Have I mentioned that my boobs are like boulders right now? Gigantic and rock hard. I look like I might float away at any minute, but their density makes me think I'd sink like a stone if dropped into an ocean. I've been told that cold cabbage in my bra might help, so I'm sending Zach to the grocery store for a head as soon as we get home. And then demanding that he make me some coleslaw.

All of this teat trouble makes me question if my goal of nursing for Sam's first year is complete madness. Isn't all of this complete madness, though? I am still baffled that a human being came out of me, a “human being” who can't do a single thing on his own. Scratch that—he seems to be highly capable of both filling his diaper and crying so people in neighboring counties can hear his nuanced shriek. Does it fill their bellies with panic, too? Do other moms feel this way, or am I completely evil?

I look at Sam, and, yes, I am in awe that he is a real, live baby.
My
real baby. But he is also a complete stranger to me. I knew him better when he lived inside my body, waking me up at night with his hiccups and kicking me as I drove my car listening to speed metal. I was certain I was going to spawn an adorable little headbanger. I looked supercute in my maternity clothes, and everyone gushed at me when they asked what I was having and I answered, with a loving pat to my belly, “A boy.” We had a good thing going.

Now they're trying to kick me out of the hospital, as though I'm actually ready to raise a person from start to (my) finish! People do this all the time, yet I never thought about how terrifyingly fucked up it is that before I came here I just had myself to think about and less than three days later I am completely responsible for a human life. How the fuck do people do this? I don't know how to comfort or feed or cuddle him as well as I did when he lived inside of me, perfectly contained and cozy, drinking his own pee. We are strangers, and yet I am wholly responsible for his well-being. Everything I do from now on will be fodder for his therapy as an adult.

Aside from the midwife checking the state of my union (all good, she claims), no one has given me a second glance since Sam was born. Even though I am still wearing my adorable maternity clothes. So this is what it means to be a mom.

Later

Sam is sitting in his car seat. Correction: Sam, the tiny humanlike form, is slumped in his car seat.

“Is he supposed to look like that?” Zach asks.

We stand over the car seat, which is sitting on the floor of our hospital room, and assess the situation. I spent weeks researching safety ratings, weight, and color patterns of every car-seat brand known to womankind, and none of it will matter when Sam stops breathing the second the car starts moving because his head is too flopped forward.

“I think we did it wrong. Oh well. I guess we can't take him home.” As much as I want to escape from the land of gigantic ice-water refills and too many vitals checks, once we leave this joint we're on our own. Who will help us every time we need to get Sam into his car seat?

For the first time since we checked in, there is no one in our hospital room but the three of us. Why hasn't anyone stopped by to send us off? To check his car seat placement? To offer us permanent residency and a wet nurse?

“I'm going to call someone,” I say.

“Isn't that for emergencies?” Zach asks as I approach the all-in-one nurse/remote/bed-adjusting protrusion that dangles violently from the bed.

“The red button is emergency. This orange one is for other things, like picking up room service trays or calling someone to look at what I did in the toilet. They love to look at what I did in the toilet.”

I press the button, and a voice answers, “Nurses' station.”

“Hi. We're ready to leave, and I was wondering if someone can help us check the baby's car seat.”

“Just a minute,” the nurse answers.

Fifteen minutes later, a nurse shows up and looks down at Sam, who we hope is merely dozing.

“Looks fine,” she assesses.

“But his head…,” I point out.

“We did a car seat test on him, and his breathing was normal.”

I forgot about the car seat test. They took Sam and the car seat away for an hour, presumably to go on a joyride with a baby in the backseat. He came back unscathed, so maybe that means he will make it home unscathed, too.

“Ready?” Zach asks.

“No,” I answer.

But he picks up Sam's car seat, and we're off to the never-ending tunnels of the hospital parking garage. It seems like months since we've been in our car, and I'm surprised that it hasn't sprouted ivy when we manage to find it.

“How the hell did Prince William make this look so easy?” Zach struggles with locking the car seat into the preinstalled base, and I snicker at his royal reference.

“I read that he practiced. At least we don't have that kind of pressure. It's hard enough bringing a new baby home without twelve billion people monitoring it all,” I say from my spot in the passenger seat.

“There,” Zach declares. “It's in.”

“You sure you heard a click?” I check.

“Yes, I'm sure,” he confirms. To double-check, he wiggles the car seat.

“Careful! You'll snap his neck!” I warn.

“Jesus, Annie, don't say things like that.”

“I'm sorry. It's scary, you know?”

“Yeah,” Zach agrees as he slides into the driver's seat. We look at each other anxiously. “Maybe you should sit next to him, just in case,” he suggests.

“I was thinking the same thing.”

I spend the next half hour with my finger perched inside of the massive pacifier cloaking Sam's face. Every time I feel the tug of his hearty suck, I'm comforted.

First Night Home

Everyone manages to arrive home alive, and while I wriggle out of the car Zach removes the car seat.

“Don't bring him in yet!” I order. “Let me say hi to Doogan first. I read that's how you're supposed to introduce younger siblings. First show the older ones how important they are without the new baby in your arms.”

“Not a sibling, but do what you gotta do,” Zach encourages me.

I open the door from the garage to the house, the door where Doogan always sits and waits when he hears the grinding of the garage door. There he is, my soft little pal, mewing loyally and tripping me with his back-and-forth leg nuzzles. I scoop him up for a kiss and snuggle. Purrs radiate from his entire body. “I missed you, Doo. Such a good boy.” We head butt each other a few times, a gesture I never understood but still partake in. Zach interrupts our moment with a jarring whack as the car seat slams into the door. He plunks the seat onto the floor.

“This thing's heavier than it looks!” he declares, oblivious to the romantic interlude he disturbed. “Hey, Doo,” Zach says, and scratches Doogan behind the ears. “We've got someone for you to meet.” On cue, Sam begins crying, that grinding, newborn cry that verifies we are indeed ancestors of wild animals. “You want to meet Doogan, little buddy?” Zach asks Sam, and I feel Doogan's reflexive jerk in my arms. I really hope he doesn't scratch me as he flees for his life.

Zach gingerly unhooks the seat belt and takes another two minutes to weave the belt over Sam's arms so as not to dislocate anything. By the time Zach picks him up, Doogan has most certainly lodged himself firmly in the inaccessible corner of the crawl space.

“You can meet Doogan later,” Zach assures Sam. “Let me show you around.” Zach cradles Sam and familiarizes him with different areas of the family room. “This is where you'll play with LEGOs someday, and here is the TV, where I'll show you all thirty-two seasons of
Doctor Who
.”

The niceties last about ninety seconds until we figure out that we need to change Sam's diaper. And feed him. And put him in his bed. We manage to do all three of these things, admittedly at our own pace, and are feeling almost smug as we eat our frozen pizza dinner at six
P.M.

“We got this.” Zach pats us on the back, and we celebrate our victory with a glass of wine and an episode of
Outlander
that we missed while in the hospital.

Then Sam wakes up. Screaming. We check his diaper. A little pee, so we change him in case he's uncomfortable. I try to feed him, but he wants nothing to do with the nipple shield and only toys with my actual nipple. Zach bounces Sam for a solid half hour until, finally, he is lulled back to sleep, then delicately places Sam in his co-sleeper, and all is quiet again. For about an hour. After that, it's a twelve-hour blur of pee, poo, boobs, shields, tears, and what feel like the least restful spurts of sleep I've had since I tried to stay up all night to finish an essay on barnacles for a mandatory biology class I took in college. I got a C on that paper.

My mind is so shot right now that if I tried writing that paper today, it would read:

Barnacles. That's a funny word. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Barnacles. Now it doesn't even sound like a real word.

At one point Sam slept for two hours at one chunk, but I was so afraid that he wasn't breathing I ended up putting my face up to his in order to check for signs of life, and I woke him up.

How do people with babies manage to keep them alive when I can't even make it to the toilet before I start to pee? I almost made it. Does that count?

4 Days Old

I slept for a solid three hours, and that has magically refreshed me enough to go online.

“Are you frakkin' kidding me?” I yell at my computer while Sam flails on my boob.

“He's not latching?” Zach asks, concerned, although I think he's more worried about my mental health at this point than Sam's culinary needs.

“He's fine. He adores his plastic nipple hut. Kelly Shulman still hasn't liked that picture of Sam I posted yesterday on Facebook. The one with his little don't-scratch-your-face mitts on his hands. That picture is fucking adorable.”

“Might want to tone down the language around the baby, don't you think?”

“He doesn't know what I'm talking about. And he can learn from this. People are assholes, Sammy. You like all their stupid, pretentious black-and-white pictures of their kids, and what do you get from them? Jack shit.”

“Do you want me to hold Sam?” Zach asks nervously.

“He's eating. He's fine.”

“And you?”

“I am neither eating nor fine.”

“Why don't you just de-friend her?”

“It's
un
friend. And if I did that, I wouldn't know if she were not liking my stuff, then, would I?”

“Don't go joining the debate team anytime soon.”

“Watch it, or I'll de-friend you.”

“Backing away slowly.”

Later

“I talked to my mom. She says she can't wait to meet the baby, so they booked a trip out here next month.”

“Next month? Your mom is so weird.”

“She wanted to give us some space. Plus she admitted to not really liking newborn babies. I think I traumatized her.”

“Would've been nice to know that before having our own baby,” I mumble.

“They sent a present,” he offers.

“If it's not a new set of working boobs, then I don't care,” I gripe.

I'm griping now?

5 Days Old

I think I've been awake for sixty-six hours. I've lost track of all time and reality. How do people do this? Zach somehow manages to fall back asleep every time Sam wakes up, but after changing him, dressing him, nursing him, and washing the nipple shield, I am more wide awake than that time I drank two five-hour energy drinks in order to finish grading a stack of essays I shirked to watch all of
Orphan Black
over a three-day weekend.

Must try to sleep.

Must fall asleep.

I'm imagining my yoga teacher's voice in my head.

Eyes heavy.

Shoulders relaxed.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Breathe.

Shit.

Baby's up again.

Restart the clock.

Sam's First Doctor's Appointment

Why do they expect us to bring a brand-new baby to a doctor's office? For starters, I look like absolute shit. Second, we just left the hospital. Is this some sort of test so they can see what a bang-up job I'm doing or take the baby away if I'm not? And what about all of these disgusting kids hacking their death boogers all over the waiting room? How is that good for a newborn?

Zach and I (to be clear: Most of the time when I refer to “Zach and I,” I technically mean “I,” with an afterthought nod of approval from Zach) interviewed pediatricians the last few months before Sam was born. I wanted to find someone highly intelligent, pro-vaccine, but understanding of my irrational fears. And funny. And it had to be a woman because I'm completely sexist. We chose Dr. Zale, a short and sharp Jewish pediatrician with a wonderfully calm demeanor and a few years of crazy parents under her belt.

Zach and I enter Dr. Zale's waiting room, Sam resting in his car seat. My paranoid new-mom vision zeroes in instantly on two children: one coughing directly into the air (get off your fucking phone, mom, and teach your kid some healthy hygiene habits pronto!) and another moaning into mom's shoulder as he's curled up on a chair. I consider draping a plastic sheet over Sam's car seat but reconsider when I realize it probably would not be the safest thing to do. Plus, I left my plastic sheet at home. Zach is about to set Sam's carrier down a mere two seats away from Curlboy, so I violently snap at him with my fingers and make a scrunched-up expression that says, “Do exactly as you're told, and you'll get ice cream afterward.” Then I use my best head-jerking skills to redirect him to a chair equidistant from the two sickies. No one else better come into the waiting room while we're here, or I'll have to recalculate our seating.