Today, at school drop off, another mom said, "Oh you had your baby! Congratulations!"
I said, "His name is Teddy!"
She said, "Oh my gosh, so cute! What's his birthday?"
"October 12!"
"And how are you feeling?"
"Oh I had a C-section this time but I feel good!"
"I love C-sections! I had one too."
"I thought the experience was kind of scary but the recovery has actually been easier, honestly."
"The numbness can last for 9-12 months, just don't be surprised. It freaked me out."
Then Sheamus said, "Teddy's home now."
The other mom looked at me curiously, and I just said in passing, "Oh yeah he spent some time in the NICU."
"Oh ok!" she said. "Congratulations on everything!"
It felt so good to just have someone be happy for us. And just be a postpartum woman and not talk about the horror, the horror, the horror, the horror, the horror, the horror, the horror, the horror, the horror, the horror, the dark and terrible horror
To just be a woman with a new baby snuggled against her chest
To just be a new mom with milk leaking
To just be hair frazzled, slightly stressed, getting the kids out to school, drinking my coffee
To just latch him on the breast and not remember the 15 days of pumping every 2-3 hours so that I had a supply for when he was ready
To just go to a birth circle and hold him tight
To just be in the company of other new moms
To just talk about diapering and waking up at night and burping and what kind of wipes are you using?
And I want to not have to talk about the watershed area and brain damage and how the part that's damaged codes for language and memory and maybe he'll be nonverbal and not able to remember anything
And not have to talk about his creatine levels and nephrology and not have to talk about CPAP and SPO2
To forget about the pump that went down his throat and pumped out the gas from his distended bowels
To forget about the edema that made his skin so shiny it looked like he was a balloon about to pop
To forget the words "ischemic bowels"
To forget the words "seizure activity"
To forget the nurse shining the flashlight in his nonresponsive eyes as his head lolled from side to side and his oxygenation went down to 70%
To forget the crowd of people around his incubator, him lying there nonresponsive, his hands thrown outwards in a crucifixion pose, alone
And the doctor with the devices of torture
intubating him
her large body braced against his small crib
for leverage
as she violently
forced her tools
down his throat
to make him breathe
his small perfect head
thrown back
his mouth wide open
his eyes closed
naked except for a Pampers swaddlers
and so many IV lines
I had been sitting right next to him in the wheelchair after the Cesarean
but they grabbed the wheelchair and tossed it backwards
I landed against the couch so far away
across the room
watching them
work on him
To forget that
I say to the mom at drop off, "He weighed seven pounds fifteen ounces!"
"Big boy! Three boys. Wow! I love his name! Theodore! How did you come up with that?"
"It means gift of God."
"So cute!"