When There Is No Light

I distinctly remember the first time I was acknowledged as being a mother. I had just endured hours of hideous, screaming labor, the kind that all the professionals in the room attribute to a first birth and a low pain tolerance, and the kind that none of those same people expect to end in chaos.

I begged and pleaded for a c-section, between throes of vomiting and weeping. A nurse said matter-of-factly that the doctor was scrubbing in, and so he didn't think I needed surgery, and I bellowed something about him not having a vagina, and therefore being unqualified to make such a decision.

This man performed my D&C when I miscarried two weeks before becoming pregnant with my daughter. He called me at home while I recovered, and helped mend my broken heart by educating me about how common and random miscarriage is. He gave me unscheduled ultrasounds when I had nightmares about miscarrying again. He was compassionate and kind, but at that moment I could have ripped his eyelashes out one at a time for refusing to take this child out of my body that very second. As it happened, my baby was just too big, and sometimes nobody knows the limits of a vagina like the owner and operator. My daughter's birth was complicated by Shoulder Dystocia, occurring in less than 1% of births, which essentially means that her head, cord, and one of her shoulders were born, but her other shoulder was caught up in my pelvis. Her cord was being compressed, and she was not breathing. Nurses surrounded me and pushed on my stomach while my OB pulled her out by the arm. At the time I had no idea what was happening, and at the moment of her delivery I cried, "OH THANK GOD," and sobbed. A nurse showed her to me, and then everyone was gone, and it was just me and the vag repairman.

Hours went by with no word. Finally, a nurse told me that my sweet baby's breathing was labored, and she was coughing up blood, and she needed to be transferred to a bigger hospital with a NICU. And I could not go with her. A special NICU ambulance team came to pick her up, and they strolled her into my room in her little traveling intensive care isolette to say good-bye, and one of the EMT's gently asked, "Mom, do you have a cell phone number so we can reach you?" I looked at my mother, who was standing at my bedside and totally expected her to answer the question. After a few awkward glances, I realized he was talking to me. I was mom. I was somebody's mother.

I spent the next two days alone. A special kind of alone, where a mother is in one place, and her baby is hours away. Her dad went to Boston to sit by her side, and I stayed back, and wept until my face swelled like a balloon, and I mourned the loss of the experience I had not just hoped for, but expected. My mother came to sit with me for awhile, and brought me lunch, but I had no other visitors. It seems people don't quite know how to visit a new mother, when there is no new baby. My first lingering moments of motherhood, the first few days of my daughter's life, were the most heinous, and lonely days of mine.

Until two years later when I had my son.

His arrival was scheduled and surgical, to avoid the same type of complication. He was born uneventfully on Leap Day, and I brought him home two and a half days later. As long as I kept up on the meds before the last dose wore off, the pain was manageable. And yes, that was a lesson learned the hard way. As was this:

Darkness, in the metaphorical sense, is a crawling and sneaking thing. It takes on the shape of exhaustion, and pain. Impatience and guilt. It is a chameleon, turning the predictable colors, and blending in with it's surroundings, but even if you don't see it, its still a lizard. Sometimes it morphs into an ugly thing of violence. Tears are surface things, the kind that can be wiped away, and masked. Violence is primal, and deep.

I felt like I was trapped at the bottom of a well, with my son. Life was continuing to happen above me, and I was slowly drowning, and over time I couldn't see the light anymore. I wanted to die. When my children cried, I didn't want to nurture them. My face got hot, my fists balled up, and I wanted to Shut Them Up. My infant wanted to breastfeed, and my muscles lurched under my skin, my hands shook, my toes curled, and I wanted to stuff balls of socks in his mouth to Shut. Him. Up. I imagined hypothetical mothers leaping from tall buildings with their arms full of children in suicidal desperation, and I empathized with them. I knew this, that I felt that way, and that it was mental illness. I had PPD with Mackenzie too, but not like this. I felt psychotic, like any second the neighbors would find me in the street, bra-less, and cackling, yanking unbrushed hair out of my own scalp in clumps, and throwing cats at people. I felt violent all the time. I never hurt my kids, and I never would have actually harmed them. But the point was, I didn't want to want to hurt them. I didn't want those thoughts intruding in my head in the first place. I was a mean, hateful, soggy, hysterical mess. I was constantly in a mental back and forth between wanting to die, and being terrified of dying unexpectedly. Between wanting to be away from my kids, and being terrified of being away from my kids.

Everyone I knew pleaded with me to call the doctor and get some help. I was afraid if people knew what was going on inside my head, that my children would be taken away, and I would be locked up somewhere, and that admitting that I was losing my shit, would be proof that I was losing my shit. But the night I shut myself in the garage with my car engine running, vodka and vicodin in my passenger seat, that was my breaking point. It was me or the illness. We couldn't both win.

I learned later that the visiting nurse who came in the first few weeks, had called my OB with concerns. That phone call slipped through the cracks. Ultimately, I had to phone in, spill my guts, and hope for mercy. And what I got was mercy, and kindness, and compassion. And zoloft. Eventually, I overcame, though not unblemished. I still wear the scars, in the form of memories, and guilt, because Mackenzie remembers. She remembers the unrelenting sadness. She was two and she hasn't forgotten that mommies aren't superheros all the time. Even mommies have their kryptonite. I wish she didn't know.


Looking back on it is painful, and it is hard to share. I'd like to say if I had to go back to the Darkness and relive it, that I would have acted sooner. That I would have worn my fingertips bloody trying to claw my way out of that well. That I would have put on my cape, and leapt tall buildings in a single bound. But that is the bitch of hindsight. Its illuminated. Truthfully, if I ever have more children, preventative measures would need to be in place for the PPD. It would need to be part of my birth plan, and I'm sure it would be since its a documented part of my history now. My history. Because I survived. If I could go back, I'd show the 2008 version of me that there is hope. If I would have listened. Hope doesn't exist when there is no light.

This post is part of Theta Mom's bloggoversary challenge: What makes you a Theta Mom? You can view other submissions by clicking here.