Читать книгу The Gap Year(s) - Nathy Gaffney - Страница 14

And then, thirty-one years later….

It was the visceral sensation of these three words that hunted me down and found me, alone with Leo, 48 hours after he was born. It was the first time we had been left truly alone together. Andy had gone home, the visitors had departed, the nurses and midwives were attending other duties, and I was, for the first time, alone with my son. This tiny little miracle of DNA, chromosomes, biology, love, and magic.

He was in the hospital-issued bassinet – a clear Perspex box on a trolley, so that he could be seen clearly from any angle. (I tell you, being on a maternity ward is a bit like late-night shopping at the local Woolies… aisles full of exhausted women aimlessly pushing trolleys up and down, with no apparent purpose or destination in mind.)

I was sitting in the chair in the corner. He was sleeping peacefully parked a couple of metres away at the foot of the bed. I had given birth to this little piece of magnificence. My greatest creative venture yet, to be sure. He was perfect. I, on the other hand, was far from it. Pushing 40 (I was 38 when Leo was born), I was already in the realm of ‘older mothers’. After a 30-hour labour and an ‘assisted delivery’ involving a suction cup being attached to Leo’s head by hand (yup, no further imagery required), I was beaten and exhausted. My milk had not yet come in and I was struggling to feed him, so he was being ‘supped’ (supplemented) with formula.

Not 48 hours in, and already (in the eyes of all of the perfectparenting media expectant mothers are exposed to), I was failing at this seemingly most natural of female duties. One of the midwives took pity on me, and secretly went down to the pharmacy in the foyer of the hospital and bought me a dummy. Even as I watched him sleeping contentedly – the round blue disc of the dummy moving imperceptibly as he suckled in his sleep – it did little more than serve as a reminder of how inept I already was as a mother.

I moved his trolley closer to me, so I could watch him through the Perspex. His little face lay just inches away from me, blissfully unaware of my pain. I leant my forehead against the bassinette and the tears I’d been holding back started to spill. They rolled down my face and splashed onto my hands like fat raindrops – the type that, when they fall, you know the drought has broken. Silent at first, and then they start to smatter. My own personal downpour. As the tears tumbled from my eyes, a crescendo of emotion followed, coursing up through my body.

“I’m so sorry!” I sob.

His tiny eyelids quiver, but he sleeps on. “I don’t know what to do.”

Helpless. Hopeless. Useless.

“I’ll do my best, I promise you, but I really don’t know what to do.”

I was 7 again. A baby in charge of a baby.

I was responsible for this most precious of beings, and I had no clue what to do. The fear that I would fail Leo as a mother, as I had failed my brother, reached out to me from over 30 years in my past, rising up and choking me from the inside – threatening to derail me before I had even had a chance to recover from the birth of my baby and experience the joy of the life I had just created.

That I was exhausted both physically and emotionally after the labour and birth, there is no doubt, even after nearly a week in the hospital (I had refused to leave until my milk came in). I was terrified of even taking him home.

Andy was terrified, too, I’m sure. If I knew almost nothing, I’m pretty sure he felt he knew less. I’m not sure we were the best support for each other, either. We tried and we got better at it, but it was hard. I don’t mean for this to sound like we were gormless idiots, but only to express that there wasn’t much confidence in either of us, and that made an already massively life-changing situation even more challenging.

The day we brought him home from the hospital, a girlfriend of mine from the U.S. was in town. She comes from a big, messy, multigenerational family and was desperate to meet Leo. She arrived in full swing, complete with the exquisite baby gift of a Tiffany rattle. Normally, anything that comes in that signature blue box would thrill me; however, that was not the real gift she left me with that day.

Colleen had no sooner walked in the door and hugged me than she swooped in on Leo and picked him up with the confidence of a professional football player scooping a ball up off the ground in the heat of play. I watched her seamlessly and effortlessly hold him, walk around with him, look at him, and inspect his little hands and feet – with no fear whatsoever. I marvelled at her ease and comfort with this tiny, fragile thing. When he squeaked and whimpered and cried, she moved and rocked and patted and cooed like it was the most natural thing in the world – as indeed, for her, it was.

I watched like a hawk whenever anyone who was ‘better at babies’ than me picked him up. People are normally so polite with newborns.

“Oooh, do you mind if I hold him?”

“Here! Hold him, feed him, change him, bathe him, rock him.

Show me how to do it!” I would think.

The fear of ‘getting it wrong’ still gripped me.

I’d like to say it got easier and better, but it didn’t really. I loved (and still love) Leo with a passion that only a besotted parent knows. The depth of my emotion and commitment to him and to motherhood was never in doubt. I wanted this. I wanted him. I loved him. But the terror of not being able to ‘get it right’ haunted me day and night. There were pockets of bliss, to be sure, but when he cried, it triggered something in me from long ago and I couldn’t get past the big three.

Helpless. Hopeless. Useless.

I was exhausted. I’d gone back to work when Leo was just 8 weeks old. My business partner at the time had called me while we were on a family weekend away in Hunter Valley with my inlaws and squealed at me.

“Maternity leave’s over, darl! Time to get back to work!” I died a little death that day.

Leo wasn’t sleeping for more than 30 minutes at one time during the day, and I was breastfeeding on demand at night. I was so sleep-deprived, I was delirious.

My mum had been in town for the first six weeks, which had been a great help. Meals were cooked, laundry was done, and I had cuddles and chats a plenty. I had my in-laws in town for a month, too, and they helped in their own way, but in others just added to my stress and self-doubt as they hovered, wanting to help but not wanting to overstep the invisible boundaries and ‘in-law laws’ of engagement.

I’d had a breastfeeding nurse to help me nail the feeding thing, so eventually I’d gotten that down, but the sleep thing was unravelling me. I would put him down for an afternoon nap, knowing that in twenty minutes he would be crying. I would put ear plugs in to block out the noise so I could get some sleep; I hated myself, but I couldn’t stay awake! The sleep deprivation was killing me.

That, on top of performing at night when I went back to work.

I was a wreck.

When he was 4 months old, I enrolled in Karitane on the advice of my GP. Karitane Nurses is an independent nursing service that deal specifically with babies’ sleep patterns. I managed to get on the programme, which involved going to their residential facility with Leo for four days and nights; this allowed them to observe his sleeping and feeding patterns, and it gives new mothers some much-needed support in both areas.

It was a worthwhile experience. Whilst we didn’t nail the daysleeps (he only ever napped), at the end of the four days, we had managed to get him sleeping through the night, which, the nurses reminded me, was the nirvana of baby sleep goals. According to them, I’d hit the jackpot.

I should have gone home happy.

But this euphoric baby bliss I was supposed to be feeling still eluded me.

I became paranoid about leaving Leo with anyone else.

A day came a couple of weeks later when, with a close girlfriend, I was sharing how I was feeling. I confided in her: “I’m afraid of leaving Leo alone with Andy.”

“That’s not normal, babe.”

I knew it wasn’t. And I didn’t want it to be that way, but the joy had been sucked out of me. I had no confidence in me; I had no confidence in Andy. I was terrified. I was regretting that I’d ever done this. I felt like I was being punished for being selfish enough to ever even want a child and ever think that I could be good at it. It was karma. I’d been a bitch by demanding to be allowed to have a baby, and now, being tormented by motherhood would be the price I would have to pay.

A week later, I was sitting with my GP.

“Have you had thoughts about harming Leo?” She was asking the tough questions.

“Not seriously,” I replied.

My thoughts went back to a night when, at 3 a.m., I hadn’t been able to settle him and, in my desperation, I had asked Andy if he thought other new parents sometimes contemplated flushing crying babies down the toilet.

“Have you had thoughts about harming yourself?” my GP asked.

“Hmmmm, that’d be yes,” I admitted.

I did a quick mental audit of wishing I could do away with myself a couple of times, this being thwarted by a deep desire to live a full and happy life.

“But I don’t want to,” I hastily added. “I want to be happy. I want to enjoy being a mum!”

This last statement had been uttered as a plaintive wail through snot and tears.

That day, I was diagnosed with acute Postnatal Depression, and after lengthy consultation and many tissues, I was prescribed anti-depressants and referred to a psychologist.

Five days later, the clouds lifted. Five days. I kid you not, that was how quickly the landscape changed for me.

I looked at my baby, and where previously I had seen something that filled me with fear and dread, I felt joy, excitement, and anticipation. I looked at my husband, and where previously I had seen a person I was disconnected from, who I couldn’t trust with Leo, I now saw the father of my child, a man I loved so much, who was doing his absolute best to look after his new family.

I was still tired and sleep-deprived, and I looked like crap, but I was okay with that. It felt like it was a natural side effect of being a new parent, but not something that could crush me like it had been trying to do before.

I wasn’t high, but compared to where I had been, it kind of felt like it. I was just… happy. I finally believed I had much to be happy about.

And I did.

No more helpless, hopeless, useless.

I found joy in things again. I gained confidence in my ability to parent. I started this treatment when Leo was about 4 ½ months old, and continued on the medication for 12 months, at which time I weaned off them steadily. It was the saving of me.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom.

After a rocky beginning, Leo and I had our start in life together, and whilst I can’t say it’s all been smooth sailing, my intentions were clear and have always remained so. I love being his Mum. It is the greatest honour and privilege to have stewardship over a life. A responsibility I have never taken lightly, and one that will continue for my lifetime.