Chapter 35 Homemakers and New Parents

                                     Chapter 35   Homemakers and New Parents

 In time for our new baby, Pete and I had moved into our new home. Wall ovens were the latest innovation in kitchens, and I had insisted the builders put one in. As well, I wanted the luxury of a pantry and broom cupboard. but the building company told us that they could not fit my appliances into the tiny kitchen, so one afternoon after work Peter and I went out there to the half built house and I picked up pieces of wood and laid them out in the shape of the benches, hot plates, and cupboards as I thought they could be fitted in. I measured everything and laid the wood down according to the size it would take up. 

     After the builder reappraised things, he responded, "Oh yes,  I think we can do that." Moral of the story: when it comes to kitchens… just ask a woman! 

    To save costs, we painted, tiled, and wallpapered, doing the work ourselves. Peter hated the bare wooden floors, and took on a second job delivering newspapers in the early hours of the morning to pay for carpets.

     I had a trouble-free second pregnancy, and Ashley was only six lbs. six oz. (about three kg.} But having done midwifery training, I knew childbirth was at the extreme end of the pain scale, and I guess in the back of my mind I was terrified.
   
    The night  before he was due, I didn't sleep at all, aggravated by niggly abdominal contractions. To say I was apprehensive would probably be an understatement. The situation being unchanged by 1 p.m. the next day, I rang the hospital and was told to come in. My doctor performed a painful artificial rupture of the membranes at five pm, which, at least, was effective. Peter stayed with me until 9 pm, itching to get away in case he was ticked off for staying beyond visiting hours! It was not the done thing for husbands to stay with their wives in labour, although murmurings were starting to be made in that direction.

     My doctor returned for a last-minute check of my condition at nine pm. Strangely, as he sat with his hand on my bulging abdomen, the pains disappeared. He went home to bed, leaving no orders with the nursing staff for my pain relief.

    Of course as soon as he was out of the room strong contractions returned. A monumental error on my part during the antenatal visits had been allowing my obstetrician to know that I was a trained nurse, because he’d let the nurses know as well. They all apparently thought that a midwifery certificate was a magic wand to make labour easier. As labour progressed, I tried to assist the busy staff by writing my own observations, pulse rate and timing of pains on my chart. I was in a private labour room. Out in the large public ward, work was frantic, so I rarely saw a nurse. As my contractions intensified, I turned the gas to high and breathed deeply.

    Antenatal classes with a physiotherapist had taught me to huff and puff in short staccato breaths. Unfortunately, the nurses hadn’t done the same classes. I drank a jug full of water to counteract the dryness of my mouth, but the jug was barely empty before I brought it all back.

    By two o'clock in the morning, exhausted from no sleep for over twenty-four hours, I  reverted to yelling. With a disgusted look, the charge nurse left the room to wake up, “Poor Dr Watson... he’s so tired.”  I believe he ordered pethidine, but it was a disaster. After the injection, I fell into unconsciousness between contractions, waking only at the height of the pain, when I continued my throat-tearing roar. During my unconscious state I had terrifying nightmares, or should I say one recurring nightmare. (Down from the only high window in a tiny room tumbled endless snakes and frogs. Backed into a corner, I had no door to escape. It seemed to go on for hours.)  At 4 a.m. the nurse called the doctor again and he came to see me.

    His first words were, "You've been a bit naughty." Again, I was a failure! 

    I could hear him calling my name. “Gayle! Gayle!” I was powerless to answer him. 

    I heard him say to the nurse, "She can't hear me."

    I wanted to yell, "I CAN hear you!"  But no words would come,  and he told me the next day I had collapsed from lack of sleep and exhaustion.

    At 5:00 a.m. an anaesthetist arrived and gave me an epidural. When it took effect, I  was in Heaven. 

    He kept insisting, “She can  push the baby out,”

    But I heard the obstetrician say, "No, she's had enough," and he lifted our son out with forceps.

     A short time later I was wheeled to a postnatal ward, where I heard, “Don’t bring her here! We’ve got no room for any more!” Nice.

     I was horrified at what I saw in the mirror the next day. A face covered with large purple blotches and black eyes stared back. I was still in shock, and my first few visitors got a blow by blow account of the birth in every gory detail, until I worked it out of my system.

    Within two days I had a heavy head cold. I dizzily sat up in bed, wearing a mask as I fed my baby. I felt so sick, hot one minute and shivering the next, and of course my little Ashley, starving though he was, and despite my painful bursting boobs, couldn't seem to get enough milk. 

    At the time babies were always kept in the nursery between feeds, and the rooming-in method wasn't yet introduced. To make matters worse my painful engorged breasts woke me at 4 a.m. I went to the shower to bathe them in hot water, and as I passed the nursery I could see my son screaming his lungs out behind the glass.  At feeding time he was the last one to be brought in and it distressed me that he was the first one to be taken back to the nursery.  No one came near me to say he got enough feed and I knew something was wrong. 

    I was in a ward with three other women and they didn't stop talking until eleven pm. The fatigue was unbearable. I became depressed, teary and anxious. Finally one of the trained sisters came and sat by my bed. She explained that my baby was becoming exhausted and that was why he was out for only a short time. They had been cot-feeding him in the nursery.

    Finally someone was giving me assistance, but of course her shifts changed and I didn't see her again for some days. When you've just had a baby you tend to be a bit fragile anyway. I was angry and confused with the conflicting advice from the nurses. One told me to express my engorged breasts under the shower. Another scolded me for wasting good breast milk.

    "We need it for the milk bank!" she said irritably. 

    Yes, it was before the days of AIDS and STDs, and breast milk was precious.  Premature and struggling, failure-to-thrive babies were given breast milk from the milk bank if their mothers were unable to supply it. Of course it was always boiled first.

    After five days I was allowed to go home, (although given the choice I would have waited another five days!} The nursery staff dressed my little baby boy in his ‘going-home outfit’ and wrapped him in the shawl that I had crocheted.  Peter carried him, fast asleep in his little carry basket, out to the car. I was apprehensive as I knew that feeding hadn't been established properly. We arrived at our house and we put him down on the floor of the lounge room and looked at each other helplessly. thinking, ‘what the hell do we do now?’ I had no experience of what happened beyond the post- natal hospital period.

    Peter's mother had been staying there while I was in hospital and she greeted us excitedly, but so precious was I in my new motherhood role that I was reluctant even to let her hold the baby for very long. Ashley cried incessantly; she tried to give advice; I resented it; Pete was nonplussed! The situation deteriorated. After days of hungry screaming, me crying incessantly, and buckets of soaking nappies and dirty washing mounting up all over the house, Mum arrived from the island. The first thing she did was take the baby in her arms and sooth him to sleep. Strangely enough I didn't resent her doing it anywhere near as much as I had my mother-in-law. Still, I was disappointed at my failure and depressed, and resented even my own mother's advice, for I wanted so badly to make a success of this on my own. 

    With stress levels rising on all fronts, Mum and I had a massive row and she went off to stay with Aunty Lu. Pete's mother panicked and went home to her house as well. Left on our own, Peter and I did just as we wanted to and finally things settled down. We took our son to the doctor and he suggested formula. It worked a treat. I immediately weaned my baby. 

    Mum came back and bathed my poor embattled boobs in warm olive oil and applied a tight binder. Her cure for everything was still warm olive oil, but it was wonderful to have her soothing, nurturing hands giving me comfort. She agonised over leaving her daughter alone at her time of need, and I agonised over the bitchy treatment I had handed out to my own mother. Stomach full at last, Ashley sleptt. 

    The baby clinic sister commented, "Happy baby--happy mother."

    I never once admitted to her that he always drank at least two ounces, (or sixty mls,) more then she advised. Though he slept all night, I could not leave my nursing behind, and repeatedly got up at two a.m. to turn him, (in case he got a bed sore!) That caused him to start waking at two a.m. (of course,) and I quickly reassessed the risk of the pressure sore and gave the habit away.