The Question, Part II

If you haven't read the first part of this piece entitled "The Question of Abuse" scroll down and read it immediately. Then come back here, to part two, an entry so difficult to write even now with the events muted by four months of (hopefully) good parenting.

So I left you at the end of that first bad Sunday. Eliza was three weeks old and I had my first day of a screaming, sleepless, uncuddly baby. That day ended, C came home to find Eliza and myself in bed together, he moved her to her crib and she slept until she woke for a feeding. The next day, Monday, C came home from work early but Eliza had morphed back into her original self overnight. She nursed, she slept, she sat in her swing. It seemed like the prior day was only a mirage and now I had my little "angel baby" as Kate called her, back. C left work early so I could go to a meeting for a walk committee I hoped to serve on and after a wonderful day with my babe I attended the meeting as a proud mama, complete with a pile of photos and a face-breaking smile. When the meeting ended and they asked me to go for drinks with them, I declined, desperate to get home to my little baby.

She was in such a deep sleep when I got home around nine. I pulled her out of the crib to try to wake her for a feeding. She wouldn't wake so I held her on my lap, convinced she'd wake up soon. 9pm turned to 10 and then 10:30. Finally I woke her and she nursed for five minutes maybe, before she fell back asleep. Giving up, I retreated with her to bed around 11:30.

Eliza woke about an hour later, ravenous. I took her into the living room so C could sleep and we were up for a while. I don't remember when we went back into the bedroom but I do know it took me a while to fall asleep. Not too much later, C's alarm went off waking us both. He took her into the living room for a while, then handed her back to me before he left for work.

"Go easy on your Mom today," he said. "She has a long day."

"We'll be fine," I said, all smiles. C had a work dinner to attend so he wouldn't be home until late. I was confident the horror of Sunday was a one day occurrence.

I don't remember how the day started but I think the morning went easily enough. At some point, I decided to do laundry which was a big mistake. I put her in the stroller, packed up a laundry bag and took the elevator down to the basement. Sounds easy enough and for the most part it is except--for security, the elevator stops in the lobby and the doorman has to press a button to let it continue down to the basement. The doorman is usually nowhere near this button so the elevator stands open and buzzing in the lobby for two minutes before the door closes and we head down. Then you walk through a narrow, twisy corridor that leads you to the 23rd side entrance of the building to the laundry room. The laundry room boasts that it's air-conditioned and to protect this cool, decadent status, the door weighs a ton and snaps closed seconds after you open it. Getting in and out with the stroller and the laundry bag is no easy feat. Throw in a crying baby and a frazzled,sleep-deprived mother and suddenly this picture gets more disturbing.

"She doesn't like doing laundry," one of the random maintenance workers I always pass on laundry day said. He peered into the bassinet to look at her angry, tomato colored face.

"She doesn't like anything," I said, pushing past him and at the time I believed it to be true.

She screamed all the way down the hallway to the laundry room, back up to our apartment, back down the laundry room and back into our apartment. I left her in the stroller crying and emailed another mom friend of mine who fortunately emailed me right back. She urged me to try turning on a hair dryer. Apparently this was the only way they calmed her baby. "I know it sounds absurd," she wrote. I agreed but I was desperate. I dug the hair dryer out of of the bathroom cabinet, went into the bedroom, plugged it in and turned it on.

Back in the living room, I wrote that even if the hair dryer didn't work, it drowned out the noise of her cries. I replied to a few emails suddenly happy I couldn't hear her crying. After about two minutes, I peeked into the bedroom and was shocked to find Eliza fast asleep, her mouth wide open. Suddenly I was so happy. Knowing I would be unable to sleep with the hair dryer going, I went back into the living room to continue my email correspondence. I wrote back to my savior friend and thanked her for the hair dryer trick. Before I could even send the email, Eliza woke and started wailing again. I ended the email by writing, "She's wailing like a banshee."

We went back downstairs to get the laundry. My hair was probably a mess, I had baby puke on my shirt and my eyes could barely focus. I passed one of the doormen in the hallway and he said, "Are you alright?" I nodded, barely able to speak. I was sure he thought I was a terrible mother. He looked down at Eliza did the typical baby babble. Eliza replied by opening her mouth in a big yawn that turned into a scream.

"She's really not happy," he said, again shooting a glance that seemed to say I was the culprit. I mumbled something about the laundry and pushed on. I passed more maintenance workers, an old lady and some chick with an purse-sized, yapping dog. All looked at my crying baby, then flashed a tight-faced frown towards me. I'd suddenly become Joan Crawford in the eyes of my neighbors.

I got back to my apartment, nursed Eliza and she fell asleep for a bit. I went back to my computer. My friend had emailed me to say sometimes the hair dryer works, sometimes it doesn't but I had to keep trying. She promised me it would get better. Before I even had time to write her back, Eliza woke up crying. I now wrote an email that said something like, "no, she's unhappy, and she's probably going to stay unhappy." At that moment, I really did believe I'd given birth to a very unhappy little person. I've always had trouble with depression and wacko mood swings, now it was payback time. I tried the hair dryer again but it didn't work. The hum of hair dryers and vacuum cleaners, while annoying to adults, sound like the inside of the womb to a baby. However, these sounds calmed Eliza briefly, as though she could only be fooled to think she was "back home" for a moment. The hair dryer would come on, she'd be lulled to sleep, only to wake a few minutes later, angry that some one had tried to fool her.

I brought her into the bed and nursed her in the side lying position but she'd suck for a few minutes, then cry, suck, cry. I tried to ignore the sound of her crying and close my eyes. Just a half hour of sleep and I was convinced I would feel like a new person. But the crying got louder. I picked her up and started carrying her around the apartment.

I also have to add it was a cold, rainy December day outside and I wasn't supposed to push the baby carriage yet. If I'd just gone out for a short while that day, it would have probably made a huge difference. I thought about wearing her in the Bjorn but I was afraid, at three weeks post surgery, that it was still to early to have her attached to my body. I could only imagine her little legs kicking at my incision. I was starving and slapped peanut butter on bread as she wailed from her swing. I should have called some one, simply asked some one to come over for a half hour but I wanted to handle it myself. This was what parenthood was about right?

Sometime in the late afternoon she fell asleep in the swing and I ran to the bedroom for some shut-eye. I maybe slept for ten minutes or so before her wailing opened my eyes. I nursed her again and she'd feed, cry, feed, then cry. I microwaved some stew my mother had left for me and shoved carrots in my mouth, wishing desperately for food that was pureed so I could eat faster. She quieted around 8p and I thought maybe the worst was behind me. I called my mother and told her I was exhausted, hoping she would offer to come up for another day that week but she didn't. I was alone, really, truly alone. C was at his dinner. Even if I called him on his cell phone, he probably wouldn't hear it. It was after 8, too late for most of my friends to show up and relieve me. C's brother had left his number on Sunday, but I just couldn't call him again and ask for help.

Eliza woke up around 9:30 screaming. I walked her around the apartment but she kept on crying. I nursed her but she didn't want any. I tried to play music for her, sing to her, hold her up in front of the mirror, turn on the hair dryer. Nothing worked, nothing.

I called my mother again, crying.

"She won't stop crying," I said. "I need you to come here and help me. I can't do this myself!"

There was a long silence.

"Mom," I finally said.

"Do you have any formula?"

"I brought some home from the hospital." But I hadn't even tried to give her a bottle yet. And the Lactation Consultant Nazis had advised against a bottle until breastfeeding was firmly established, about six weeks. I didn't want to jeopardize the whole process now. And part of me didn't want to admit that I was the problem, that I didn't have enough milk to feed my child.

"I hate her!" I said suddenly. I wish I didn't remember what else I said to my mother than night but I do, I always will. I'm not going to recall it here, I don't want whoever's reading this to hate me. And I don't want to risk my daughter ever reading it and knowing that I could have felt like that. I was afraid, really afraid I might hurt my daughter. Not because I wanted to, mind you, I just wanted the crying to stop. I just wanted some quiet, some peace. And part of it was I was sure she was crying because of something I wasn't doing. I was sure she was unhappy because of something I did. Every screech out of her sounded like "you're a terrible mom! You're supposed to fix me and you can't."

Eliza was in my arms, still crying and I looked at her. Suddenly I burst into tears as I saw her, really took in every detail, the perfect face, her little hands, the collar of her pink sleeper poking into her cheeks. What kind of monster was I? How could I think, let alone say these kind of things?

"You're my dream, my dream realized, my girl, my love, my Eliza my girl in pink," I sang to the tune of The Shinn's "New Slang." Eliza cried, but more softly now. She was tired. I placed her back on my breast and she fed quietly, her little hands reaching for the neckline of my shirt.

I called my mother back.

"I was ready to call 911," she said.

"You should have. I'm a terrible mother. All this time I've been so afraid some one's going to take her away from me. Now I know, it's because they should."

"I wanted to call the cops," my mother said. "Poor little baby."

"I'm okay now," I said.

"But for how long?"

"I have an appointment with the shrink tomorrow," I said. Somewhere in the craziness of the day, I'd had the foresight to make that call. "I don't think he can help me. I just can't be a mother."

I started to cry as I looked down at my daughter. I'd never wanted to be anything more in my life. I wanted to be good enough, sane enough, strong enough to be her mother.

"I'm not the best person for her," I said, my voice breaking. "I have to let her go."

When C finally got home around 11:30p, he found me in the middle of a big crying jag. Eliza was asleep in my arms as I sat in the glider.

"I can't do it," I said. "She's better off without me."

"What happened?" C asked. "You're scaring me."

"Nothing happened," I said, of course telling him nothing about the phone call. "She wouldn't stop crying and I hated her. I was thinking all these terrible things."

"That's normal," C said. "I told you, you can understand why child abuse happnes after you have a kid."

"No," I said, still so afraid I'd hurt my daughter. "I don't want to hurt her, I'm just so afraid."

"You won't," C said.

But I didn't believe him. I kept crying, really crying. I thought I'd go to the shrink the next day and he'd tell me I should leave my daughter with C, that I was a danger to my daughter.

"I'll come home before tennis tomorrow night," C said. He played tennis every Wednesday night, usually not arriving home until midnight. "I'll come home around 5:30 so you can sleep."

"Okay," I said, still convinced by 5:30 the following night, I'd be gone.

I started my appointment with Dr. Robert, or Uncle Bobby as he likes to refer to himself, at least as far as Eliza's concerned by saying, "You're not going to like me after today."

Eliza was in my arms, asleep in her trademark pink. So far, she'd been nothing like the crying, frustrated baby of the day before. I told Dr. Robert everything, the crying, the horrible phone call to my mother, how I'd been afraid I was really going to hurt her.

Dr. Robert told me those kinds of thoughts were normal. Maybe those thoughts were normal but I'd had a father who was abusive, not to me but to my brother. Wasn't abuse a cycle I was doomed to repeat? He still argued with me, said that I wasn't like my father. I disagreed, again thinking this shrink was a ninny who liked me too much to see me, the real me.

"Raising a baby is hard," he said. "I love my daughter but I remember she'd be crying and I'd be standing with her in front of the mirror, you know that calmed her down for a little while. But I'd be standing there thinking, Fuck! Shit! Shut-up!"

"But the things I said," I told him. "I said some horrible things. I was yelling at her. I told her to shut-up."

"Well she doesn't know what you said."

"But when she gets older."

"You won't say them then. You're here now. You're doing something about it now."

"Well my mother's going to need therapy for that phone call."

"You didn't do anything, you called your mother, you vented. How did you feel after that call."

"So guilty." I looked down at the sleeping Eliza and relived that moment. How much I loved her and how vastly, supremely inadequate and horrified by myself I'd felt. "I knew then, some one should take her away from me. She's better off without me."

"Did you still think you could hurt her? After that phone call?"

I thought about it for a minute and remembered the calm I'd felt. I thought it was the calm of accepting I was not cut out for the task of parenthood.

"I guess part of me was relieved. I'd admitted to myself I couldn't do it."

"No, I think you vented and after you vented, you felt better. You didn't do anything. You called your mother and you got some of the anger, some of the frustration out. And then you were okay, weren't you."

"No, I felt guilty, I feel guilty."

"But you probably weren't angry anymore."

"I wasn't. But I shouldn't have been feeling..."

"Look, Mother Theresa would have had some bad thoughts if she'd been left alone with a screaming baby for fourteen hours. Why didn't you ask anyone for help?"

"I couldn't."

"Well you're going to have to and you're going to have to accept that you need it. No one, not the calmest, best person in the world should be left alone with a screaming infant for fourteen hours. You need to ask for help and you need to let C know that you need it."

I nodded, still thinking this guy didn't see me, the real me. But some of it did make sense.

"Do you want to be a good mother to this baby?"

I stared at her content, sleeping face. "More than anything."

"Well the key to that is to ask for help before you get to where you were last night. Get a friend, C, whoever, get them to come over for a half hour while you walk around the block or take a shower. You're trying to be superwoman and you're probably doing a pretty good impression of her but you're not her. You're never going to be her. That doesn't mean you're going to be a bad mother."

I nodded, still skeptical, still thinking this guy thought too highly of me.

"I gotta pee," he said, standing up. "Are you gonna hurt your baby?"

I was near tears now. I wanted so much to be able to answer yes. "I don't know."

He shook his head. "Are you going to hurt your baby?"

"I don't know!"

"Are you going to hurt your baby?"

I know he wanted me to say yes, he wanted a show of confidence from me but I had to be honest. "I don't know."

He shook his head. "You're not going to hurt your baby."

And with that he left the room and somehow everything changed. I looked down at the sleeping Eliza and realized, I was going to be okay.

I just needed some one to tell me.

That weekend, before C went to Boston for the day, I posted an email to a large group of my friends asking for a babysitter for a few hours. Most of my friends were unavailable but my one friend Anne, agreed to come over. I felt supported, grateful, loved. I still don't ask for help as much as I need to, partly from pride and partly from a certain possessiveness I feel, a desire to be with her as much as possible. I feel like I waited my whole life for her and now I'm afraid of missing something. But I also realize she needs to have relationships with people other than myself. I can only be a good mother by letting her go and finding more time for myself.

I write this now to say to any prospective or new mother, don't be afraid to ask for help. I don't ever want anyone to feel the guilt I still feel from that phone call. You're going to feel anger if left alone with a screaming infant for 14 hours, especially if you're still recovering from the birth and haven't had a good night's sleep in weeks. So don't do what I did, don't be alone for 14 hours. Call all your friends, your family, everyone before it happens so you never feel as hateful as I felt. Because I'm telling you, you'll never get over it. I can tell myself until I'm blue in the face that I didn't do anything but still, I'll always hate myself for that phone call. Hate myself for what I felt.

And now there are days, when Eliza won't sleep and she's crying and there's nothing I can do to comfort her, I still wonder if I'll be like my father. But I know now, I'm not him. Maybe if my father had gotten help, maybe if he'd had the friends I have and an "Uncle Bobby," maybe he'd know for sure, Billy's autism is not his fault. But he'll never know that and it must be a horrible thing to live with.

Eliza's asleep in her crib now, her big morning nap as I call it. The nap that allows me the time to write. She curls up in a ball on her side now, her legs tucked against her chest in a true "fetal position." The pacifier moves as she sucks on it in her sleep. I'm so grateful for the things she'll never know. What she does know of me is this--she cries, I'm there. She laughs, I laugh with her. She jumps up in her Johnny Jump-Up and I jump up down and flap my hands like she does. She sleeps and I stand over her, forcing myself not to cover the side of her head with kisses. I was wrong about her that week, she's actually one of the happiest babies I've ever seen. I should have known better, should have had more faith in her even if I didn't have much in myself.

The music from her crib aquarium plays, it's tune unrecognized but it's sweet, so innocent. Eliza stretches her hand towards the aquarium, her eyes still closed. The hand stretches, the fingers open into a starfish and then the hand falls and rests sleepily against the pink sheet of the crib.

My dream, my dream realized my girl, my love my Eliza, my girl in pink.