It's after midnight and the pain has spread, like ivy, from between my shoulder blades to my shoulders, my arms and is now steadily wrapping itself around my head. My left eye has developed an annoying tic that blurs my vision.
My back is out of alignment and the resulting headache is the most pronounced of my pains. The ache of exhaustion is crawling into my bones and making itself at home. A television jingle screams over and over in my head. It's been a long day with little rest. The baby cries, so I pick him up.
Half an hour later, I'm walking in circles around the apartment. The baby turns his head, burrowing his face into my armpit, opening and closing his mouth like a fish. I settle down on the couch and turn on the TV. I flip through the channels, searching in vain for distraction among the infomercials.
I've tried everything – books, nurses' advice, instructional videos, Internet message boards, prescription salves, even a lactation consultant – but breastfeeding is agony and I despise it. The baby is hungry though, so I feed him.
The baby nurses for more than an hour. When he's done, I change him and rock him to sleep in my lap. I place him in his crib. There's just enough time for me to get ready for bed and burrow into the covers before he wakes up. He wants to eat again. I'm resentful but not surprised. It's been more than half an hour since the last feed finished.
At 3 a.m., I call my husband at work at the SkyTrain control centre. I hear alarms going off in the background, chatter on the radio. It's a busy night. I don't know what to say. I want to describe the pain of my still-healing body trying to cope, the need to sleep that's so strong it's making me see and hear things I know aren't there, the overwhelming feeling that I'm a terrible failure. I want to throw a childish tantrum, accuse him of not providing me with a textbook baby. A baby who only eats every three hours. One who sleeps for 18 hours a day instead of eight broken into half-hour naps. Instead, I cry.
“What's wrong?” he asks. I say nothing.
“Listen, I've got to go, but the guys here all said that I can be the first one to leave in the morning, okay. I'll be home by 6:30 and then I'll take over.”
I imagine his feeling of helplessness. I feel guilt mingled with frustration at knowing that even when he does come home, he will be able to buy me 90 minutes of sleep at most. Still, anticipation is high and the countdown begins. The baby's hungry. I hang up.
By 4 a.m., my eyes feel like they're being pushed out of their sockets. The television jingle in my head has become more frantic. I hold the baby with one arm and pull a fruit salad from the refrigerator. My last meal was a chocolate bar roughly eight hours earlier. The baby spits up into my unwashed hair and soaks his sleeper.
Rock bottom comes around 4:30 a.m. The baby has just finished eating and he's fussing, refusing to sleep unless I rock him, but I'm just too tired. I put him in his crib and he begins to whimper. Rage replaces the blood in my veins. “Shut up!” I scream in the direction of the crib. I let loose with a long line of expletives. The baby begins crying in earnest. I join in.
It's after 5 a.m. The baby is in his bouncy chair. I stand before him, waving my arms over my head and kicking my feet, singing nonsense songs with no melody. He seems amused by my antics and is mercifully silent. In the kitchen I discover the forgotten fruit salad and eat it all without first removing the mangos that usually make me gag.
The baby's hungry.
I awake with no memory of going to bed, let alone falling asleep. My mind struggles to surface into consciousness and make sense of things. Dust particles are suspended in the morning sun as it comes through the blinds. My head is silent and free of tension. My husband's snores fill the room. I'm shocked to discover him asleep on his side of the bed. The clock comes into focus and my first thought is one of dismay. It's obviously broken – there's no way it's 9:10 a.m.
It takes me nearly a minute to notice what's been tugging at my mind since before my eyes opened. For the first time in almost five weeks, I have slept for nearly four consecutive hours. It was a sleep so deep that my husband's jackhammer-volume snores didn't reach me. I was awakened by another sound. The baby is in his crib, softly mewing in a way I know precedes a more demanding wail.
I feel a sense of well-being as I make my way to the crib and peer down at my son. I see him clearly for the first time in days. Or maybe ever. I take in the sight of his little fists flailing in the air above him, his chubby cheeks, his deep, dark eyes so like his father's. The tenderness and affection I feel catch me off guard.
“Good morning, sunshine!” I smile down at him and he holds my gaze. Last night is nothing more than a distant memory.
Linda M. Tobias lives in New Westminster, B.C.
Illustration by Josée Bisaillon.
