Purging The Bad Memories

I'm very much looking forward to the end of this Bad Month. I know that I have regressed in my own healing and recovery this month as a sea of bad memories has taken over my serenity-filled mind. Everything Husband is doing lately is suggesting that he is fully invested in his own recovery, but he is not invested in me. So I am re-detaching. And that helps.

But it also helps to keep purging the bad memories...

The first night in the hospital, I had contractions every 1 - 2 minutes, but I was not progressing in labor. I sat in a bed in the dark. Alone. Husband was sleeping. I should let him sleep. I thought. It was the right thing to do. He needs rest so that he can help me later. I could handle this on my own. The nurses were a bit worried with my contractions, so at 5 AM, they let me take a shower and then had me walk. A night without sleep, and I was only at the beginning of labor. I woke up Husband because we were moving to another room.

8 AM, the pain was intense, and the exhaustion was taking a toll. I was sitting on an exercise ball, crying. Husband was watching TV. He's not really paying attention to me. I thought. But it's me who is in labor. Focus on the positive, Eleanor.

They broke my water, and I started to get very sick. I was getting sick, then crying, then getting sick, then crying. The most-wonderful-nurse-ever tried to soothe me. She rubbed my back, she prayed with me, she dimmed the lights in the room. Husband watched TV. The nurse suggested an epidural. I readily agreed.

The pain was subsiding. The nurse suggested that I get some sleep because I was finally progressing in labor. I drifted off. The next thing I remember was waking up in the delivery room alone. Where is Husband? I thought. I asked the nurse. She said he left to go to hang out with his mom, who had been hounding him with phone calls and trying to sneak into the delivery room even though I told her she could not be there.

Hours later, no progress. I was overdue, had a huge baby in me, had exhausted all possibilities of moving labor along, and I started to spike a high fever. The most-unelpful-nurse-ever told me that they were worried about the baby. It had been so long. Something like 30 hours. The baby was stressed, there was evidence of infection. Within five minutes they had me in the operating room, an emergency c-section. Baby was born with a fever, but was treated and looked to be OK.

I was delirious by that point but knew that nursing Child early was crucial to establishing the nursing bond. So I nursed, through the night. Husband slept.

The nurse told me that I needed to get up out of bed and take a shower the next morning. The pain was excruciating. The delirium was making me dizzy. I had an allergic reaction to one of the meds they pumped into the IV that made me really itchy. 

I made it to the shower. I started crying. How am I going to move to wash myself? I thought through tears. "Husband?" I yelled into the room. He was sleeping. "Husband!" I yelled as loud as I could considering that I just had my stomach cut open. The nurse heard me outside in the hallway. "Do you need something?" she said. "I just really want some help from my husband." I said through tears. She managed to wake him up. 

"What do you need?" He said. "I just really need someone to help wash me because I hurt so bad." Husband look confused. "Well, what do you want me to do?" "I don't know, just put some soap on the washcloth for me." I said. "I'm not sure what you want me to do." He replied. I just want comforted! I want you to pay attention to me. Show empathy. Recognize that I feel like I'm dying here and don't know what to do! I thought. "Forget it." I said, and he left the room.

The next night Child wanted to nurse all night long. The nurses tried to help me get him into the bassinet, but he would have none of it. So I sat awake all night holding Child. Nursing Child. Conversing with the nurses to get help. And Husband slept. 

When I think back to our experience in the hospital, I don't remember Husband ever touching me. No wiping away tears, no hand holding, no rubbing my back, no kiss, no hugging. No encouraging words. Just silence. For years, I thought that I was weak in how I handled labor and Child's infancy. Now I know that I was just tired from doing it all alone.