Page 70 of So Thrilled For You

Again.

I was so lost.

I thought the birth was the end of the nightmare. Woody didn’t even need to go to NICU in the end. We had our delayed ‘golden hour’ as I came to in the recovery room, machines gently pumping my legs, Tristan taking off his top and gazing down at his son. Modern man. Skin to skin. I watched it with this detached peculiarity I felt towards the baby. Did I love this squirming thing? Were they sure it was mine? Sun streamed in through the window as a midwife came in and plopped Woody onto my breast, latching him without asking permission first. My baby glubbed down his colostrum greedily.

‘He’s a natural,’ she told me, smiling, like everything she’d just done was OK. ‘Well done.’

I hadn’t planned to breastfeed. But now, I guess I was breastfeeding. It was my sixth morning in hospital. They brought me marmalade on toast. I hoovered it up, was allowed more. Maybe the worst was over. Maybe I would be OK. Maybe, with some rest, I could recover, and . . . .

‘Right, come on Lauren.’ The midwife took the last piece of toast away. ‘We need to get you walking.’

‘What?’

‘We need the room. You’re to join the ward.’

They heaved me up roughly. The epidural was wearing off and sharp pain sliced through my torso. ‘No,’ I whimpered. ‘Ow . . . OWW.’

‘Into the wheelchair.’

Two of them manhandled me as I screamed out. ‘Come on. You need to take a few steps before we can move you.’

My feet stumbled all over the place. The pain. The pain. ‘One step, two step.’ The midwives hoisted me across the lino with my feet half dragging. ‘There you go. Right, let’s take you to the ward. I’m sorry, but visiting hours are over so your husband needs to leave.’

‘Excuse me?’ Tristan and I both said.

‘He can come back later. And then tomorrow morning. You’ll probably need to stay two nights, so we can keep an eye on you.’

I was wheeled away, Woody wheeled in a Perspex cot next to me, waving in shock as my husband, my life raft, was left behind. I was heaved onto a hard thin bed and left alone.

The ward was worse than the birth . . .

I can’t.

I don’t want to remember. I can’t remember most of it.

There’s the sound of ripping wrapping paper. Women all around me gasp. Jeanie’s kid, bored, starts yelling to the right of me. Nicki’s holding up a present. Everyone coos. The air is too thick in this room – it’s all mass-recycled breath. I’ve not been around this many women since those days and nights on the ward.

So many babies crying. All the time. My baby crying in his plastic thingymajiggy. I knew I needed to get to Woody, feedhim, comfort him, but the thing is, I was sort of paralysed. You know, from the major fucking operation, and all.

I needed Tristan.

I needed painkillers.

I needed the medication they’d promised would stop my skin itching from the epidural.

I needed someone to help me feed this creature that wouldn’t stop crying. He wouldn’t latch well again. I couldn’t lift him. I needed someone to help me change him as black oil-like shit spouted from him, getting all over me, all over him. I tried to bend over to clean him but I cried in agony. I’d been sawn open only hours ago and now I had to look after this thing, all alone? In chaos? In agony?

Pushing the red button for painkillers. Button down. Wait for help. Help will come . . .

Too understaffed. Help not coming.

Ringing Tristan, begging him to bring ibuprofen when he came. ‘They keep forgetting to give me my pain medication.’

Ringing him again, telling him to come and get me. I can’t do it. Can’t stay here. Everything hurts. So much. Why does nobody care about how much it hurts?

No sleep. I hadn’t slept for six days now. I was in agony. Baby kept clamping onto my nipple. That hurt too.

TheBreatheItOutaccount said breastfeeding doesn’t hurt if you do it properly.

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