When my daughter was less than eight weeks old, I had to call 911.
To be honest, up until that point in my life, I had never
really had to call 911, save for a few times when I had witnessed a car accident.
Those prior times had been moments that I can barely recall because of their
lack of impression on me. But this time, when I had to call because of
something personal, because my almost eight week old daughter needed immediate
emergency assistance, I recall very well.
It started out as any other normal day, as normal as could
have been expected, since I was still learning the inner workings of being a
new mom. It was the day after my birthday and I was running on very little
sleep, very little food, and fairly high amounts of normal, new mom anxiety. My
mom was visiting for my birthday and to help with the baby, but in my limited
experience with having a newborn, it seemed that there was only so much she
could really do.
And then it happened, all of a sudden, like those stories
you hear about on the news. My cooing, newborn baby went from suddenly alert to
not very alert at all. Her skin was ashen and she wasn’t responding to anything
I was doing. And naturally I panicked, tears stinging my eyes, worried that in
just a fleeting moment this could all be taken away from me. “I’m calling 911,”
I spoke as calmly as I could through tears to my wide-eyed mother.
I remember all of it so vividly and if I’m honest, it’s not
the most fun event to recall. I remember that I got over my hatred of
firefighters that day because the men who came out to assist us were absolutely
amazing. I remember that the drive to the hospital was probably the longest
ride I’ve ever endured and I can’t even remember how many times I asked the
paramedic, “Will she be okay?” I remember, if there’s any humor to this, how
well-endowed I was thanks to breastfeeding and how all the [seriously
professional] firefighters tried their hardest not to look at my chest. When we pulled into the ambulance bay, I
zipped up my hoodie and whispered to my mom, “Thanks for telling me I looked
like a Hooters girl…”
And if I’m honest, I couldn’t help but be super proud of my
little babe during that entire hospital stay. From the time we rolled into the
ER, to the time we checked out, my girl gave ‘em hell. She screamed as loud as
I think I’ve ever heard an infant scream when they tried to get her vitals and
she fidgeted and spit out the barium bottle when they did her barium test. She
even spit out the binky one of the nurses tried to give to her that was covered
in sugar water. “She’s not a binky baby,” I chuckled to the nurse when she kept
trying to offer it. But after she left, I whispered in my daughter’s ear,
“That’s my girl.”
If I’m super rational about this entire situation, it
probably wasn’t as bad as it seemed.
It was absolutely terrifying, and don’t get me wrong, I was well within my
right to call 911 because something was
wrong. But although they aren’t one hundred percent sure what really happened
that day (… do they ever? I would kill
for a concrete answer to any medical ailment, wouldn’t you?), what they
concluded was that my daughter had a touch of reflux that caused her to retch
and faint or hold her breath from the
pain and then faint.
Either way, friends, I’m not a fan of any of it. It was the
single scariest day of my life and
although my husband loves to make me feel better by saying things like, “She’s
a tough kid; she’s been through a lot in her short life,” it’s not really a
modicum of solace. I hope to never relive it and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst
enemy. And although all is completely well now, although it wasn’t something
that we couldn’t handle, I swear to God, those few days in the hospital, I aged
forty years.
Ask my forehead wrinkles.
A worried mother does
better research than the FBI. –unknown
The first few days home, I think, were probably the
scariest. Of course, when you discharge, the hospital gives you a stack of
paper that’s your “discharge paperwork” and you’re supposed to read through all
of it as if you can fully comprehend their medical jargon. I kept thinking to
myself, Yeah, okay sure, so what the cuss
word do I do when it happens again?
Well, one of the things suggested by her hospital doctor
(which, pretty big disclaimer and I probably should have mentioned this
earlier, but the entire staff at our local hospital is phenomenal. Literally zero complaints. Even their food is off
the chain!) was to keep her upright for forty-five minutes to an hour after she
ate.
Yeah, so let me give you a rundown of my experience as a new mom. At almost eight weeks old, my daughter
ate literally every half hour to an
hour, on the hour (#Italianproblems,
am I right…?) and I don’t want to get too personal because I know I have a
variety of readers but I breastfed. And I’m going to be real with you, for a
few months after this happened, I didn’t sleep. Like, not at all.
Nurse. Disengage. Turn the baby up right. Sit up for about
an hour. Start to doze off. Baby wakes up. Nurse, disengage, etc. REPEAT.
I remember when the incident in Vegas happened, where all
those poor people lost their lives, I was up at something like four in the
morning. I was clinging to Brooklyn as I held
her upright for an hour, praying that their families would find peace, that
this world would figure out just how to treat each other, that unstable
individuals would stop using guns on innocent bystanders to solve their
problems.
Ugh, but I digress.
Then the baby would wake up and it would start all over
again. Upside was I was way below my pre-pregnancy weight; downside was I was
too tired to care.
But what happened during that time was I lost track of a lot. I became a crazy introvert
because I was afraid that with one wrong move, I would be back in the hospital
with my daughter. I would just start to relax in the moment and she would make
a face or spit up a little bit and I would fly off the couch and try not to
cry.
It’s crazy how when you have children, the world becomes a
terrifying place.
There are toxins in the air, crazy drivers on the road, and
things so far out of your control that it’s absolutely exhausting. I remember
reading this article about a newborn baby whose parents got married a couple
days after she was born. Someone at the wedding kissed the baby on the mouth,
gave her herpes or some similar disease, and the baby died. The parents were
then speaking out, offering all these warnings to other parents like, “Don’t
let friends and family members kiss your baby on the mouth.”
My heart broke for those people because I cannot even begin
to imagine. But a big part of me was thinking, I’m doing everything I possibly
can to shield my child from virtually everything and you just let some stranger
at your wedding kiss your baby? I mean, you couldn’t put the wedding off a
couple months? I don’t understand.
The more things you
do, the more you can do. –Lucille Ball
But with all these things happening in such close succession
to Brooklyn ’s incident, I became a woman
obsessed. I barely ate, I couldn’t sleep and I became super sensitive to anyone
trying to give me advice. I kept telling myself, they weren’t there, they don’t understand, every time someone would
tell me to loosen up. I would get scared and agitated whenever someone claimed
to have been through something similar, suggesting that I do this or that, per
whoever it was they had talked to about my
problems. “Brooklyn has medical professionals
telling me what I need to do,” I shot back at someone once through tons of
frustration, “I don’t need advice from whomever the hell.”
To be honest, to this day, I still feel bad about it.
But to be fair, it’s just one of those things. When serious
incidents happen, a common way to offer solace or comfort to another person is
to say, “Hey, I’ve been there,” or “You know what, I spoke to so and so and she
went through the same thing!” But in
that moment in time, I just wasn’t hearing it. None of it made me feel better
or less anxious.
Any suggestion bothered me. Any offer for me to talk to
someone else’s doctor got on my nerves. Anyone who said that they would take
the baby for me so I could get some sleep made me to want to staple things to
their head.
I wanted my child to be safe. I wanted to stop being scared.
I wanted to stop hearing advice from people who, quite frankly, really didn’t know what I was going through.
And I wanted let out a breath without thinking that something major was going
to happen the very moment I relaxed.
Moral of the Crazy: It
took me really a long time to come to terms with what I was feeling after that
debacle happened. I’ve always been more of a “mind over matter” brand of
individual, citing that most mental
things could be successfully cured with a good diet, lots of exercise, limited
amounts of caffeine and drama, and tons of positive thinking. I mean, life is
what you make it, right?
[Serious disclaimer: I’m a social worker, so I’m not
insinuating that mental illness is nonsense. I’m referring to people like me
who suffer from what I deem SERIOUS ANXIETY because I have to drive on the
highway. But I’ll save this clarification and more for another blog.]
I kept telling myself that she was fine, the doctors had
cleared her, it had been months since her incident, but I still couldn’t relax.
I would visit my in laws or have friends over and people would say to me, “Just
sit down and relax,” and honestly, I
would get a little pissed about it because they just didn’t understand. They weren’t there, I would tell myself, they
didn’t see her lying lifeless on the changing table, they didn’t have to call
911, and they didn’t have to sit in the hospital praying- just seriously talking to God- for answers.
They didn’t have to spend every moment for the next however
long just waiting for something to happen again.
And while everyday seemed to get better and she got old
enough for her issue to no longer really be relevant, I still stop breathing when she coughs or throws up. I still check 6480967 times throughout the
night to make sure she’s breathing. I still
watch her like a hawk basically every single one of my waking moments.
And maybe that anxiety never goes away. They say that when
you have children you never stop worrying about them and maybe that’s just what
my life will be now. Worrying that something will happen, worrying that
something won’t happen, worrying that
one day I won’t be there to help her through her proverbial crisis. And maybe
that’s just being a parent.
I have to say, to be honest, I never took tons of stock in
the whole “post-partum” depression and anxiety deal. Because I’m a trained
social scientist, I guess I just thought that when you have a baby, your whole
body chemistry changes. I used to think that maybe it wasn’t so much
“depression and/or anxiety” as “hey, your body is WAY OUT OF WHACK!” I hope
that doesn’t sound insensitive because that isn’t to say I don’t believe the
women who claim to have this particular illness. I just think that maybe it’s
more normal than doctors are willing to admit to their patients. Does that make
sense?
BUT NOW, having been through it, having all kinds of new feelings
that I do not recognize, my
perception has been hugely altered. And while I’ll save this, too, for another
blog, I just want to say: Hey, moms, I hear you. Come find me and let’s talk
over some Starbucks. Because what you’re feeling is real and sometimes, it
sucks.
They say that what doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger,
that trials and tribulations only build character. And maybe that’s true. But
I’m not sure where that leaves those of us who can’t control our anxiety.
Recently, someone accused me of being immature, of “not
having grown up” since having my daughter. And to be really nice about it, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the stupidity of that comment and the
individual who made it. But that’s a whole other story and blog worthy fiasco.
And in the spirit of “letting things go”, I’ll go ahead and
drop it because I’ve got better things to do and better quality people to spend
my time talking about. Not to mention, the sweet little girl who’s watching me.
What I will say is
that no amount of “maturing” or *cough cough* college education or *cough cough
cough* work experience could have prepared me for what happened that day. It’s
like they say all the time in movies and on television, you just never think it
will happen to you. Maybe it’s just that sometimes, things happen and how you
handle them, regardless of your process, is what makes you strong. It’s what
makes you the lioness you are.
Chin up, mamas. And I’m always around if you want to talk.
Even if it’s at three am.
She would be the
clock in London
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