Karma

[ailbhe]

I had another flashback last night - this time to contractions. The relentless, hard, 30-120 second contractions I had for a month before Linnea was born. The ones I was told were Braxton Hicks until someone actually felt one and expressed considerable surprise that I could still talk. My abdomen would get so hard I couldn't make an impression with my fingers, and I couldn't walk or breathe - but because I could still talk, the medics were led astray. Oopsie.

I spent a while the day before - interestingly, before I read Radegund's birth story - remembering how I'd asked the midwives, somewhere after daylight on Friday but before the last midwife to deal with my labour came on shift, if I was going to hate my baby. I remember being very worried that, if the baby existed at all, which I sincerely doubted at that time, I would resent the 30 hours of hard labour I'd been through at that point.

I don't know how I got through that month, the 38 hours of labour, the 21 minutes of serious in-theatre melee, the three days afterwards when I couldn't walk unaided. I don't know. I'm sitting here, having done it, and I can't imagine how. I think it must be as I said three months ago - I just didn't die, over and over again. And the flashbacks and panic attacks are coming back, and bringing hot rage with them, over and over again.

Someone said to me, on a mailing list, recently, "It's about time you had some good luck, after all that."

I answered, "She's asleep upstairs."

She's asleep again now. She knows how to kick a ball from her door-bouncer. She can almost sit up. She can roll over both ways, and crawl backwards or in 360 degree circles with her tum as the mid-point (what's the technical term for the middle of a circle? epicentre?).

She tries to feed herself with the spoon when she's being given her two teaspoons a day of mashed squish. When she's hungry and placed in a nursing position, she pants like an eager puppy until she can grab me in both hands and eat. She has two teeth, but she only bites when not feeding. Her left lower front tooth is a little crooked; the right one appears straight.

She has some more consonants - goo, buh, tha. She likes to blow raspberries to express pleasure or what sounds like irritated swearing. She sings when I sing, sometimes, and beats her hands in time to music. She loves to watch me dance, particularly "Head, shoulders, knees and toes" which will, no doubt, be very good for my abs. Sometimes, when she's eating, she pulls away and looks at me; it looks like awe, though it can't really be awe. Perhaps it's love. Maybe that's what knowing where your next meal is coming from looks like. I don't know; it makes me sure and certain that it's all worth it, ten times worth it, forever worth it, if I get to keep her strong and safe and happy.

Comments

dr_lovely's comments.

[(Anonymous)]

Nice? NICE???
You think it is all very nice?
and that labour was 'frightening'?
Motherhood is the most amazing, overpowering all encompassing obsession. It has to be, for the survival of the species, as well as the individual baby. The mother-baby bond is like no other. It makes one get up in the night, feed, clean, change, comfort, hug and adore this helpless little bundle, who makes it all worthwhile by just 'looking at' one. In this case, obsession is nature working properly.
As for labour, well, I have had 3 kids, 1 of whom died within hours. The other 2 are in their teens. The last time I started labour at 23 weeks, off and on for 12 weeks, until I settled down to the last 24 hours in labour proper. Four hours later I was walking round the ward about as well as Ailbhe was walking 24 days after Linnea was born. I know - I saw her, and had seen her a week earlier, too. I cannot imagine how bad she had been just after birth. There is frightening, there is tough, and there is downright traumatic. In my opinion and experience, talking and posting about these traumatic events is the best way to heal the mind, but the body needs to heal first; this is why it is taking so long for Ailbhe to stop having nightmares. Constant pain is not conducive to happiness or shrugging off your worries.
Diz