Chapter 5 Gwen #3
“I’m sorry, hon, I gotta get going,” he said. “How about you two go outside at some point today? Fresh air might be good.”
Men and their endless solutions. One could never go wrong with fresh air.
“Sure,” she said, because what else was there to say?
He kissed her on the cheek, then kissed June on the top of her head, and then he was gone, reentering the real world. A world Gwen thought she’d never again inhabit.
It was weird with Jeff back to work. Consumed in her bubble with June, Gwen hadn’t thought his presence at home was that beneficial, but his absence revealed that she was wrong.
The days seemed longer without an adult in the vicinity to inquire about her well-being or hold June while Gwen went to the bathroom.
With each sunrise, she felt panic, wondering how the two of them could possibly get through another day—the crying, the feedings, the unpredictable naps.
Gwen could not follow that basic advice and “sleep when the baby sleeps.” Whenever June nodded off, Gwen was afraid to close her own eyes, afraid to sink into a peaceful slumber only to be awakened minutes later by a jarring shriek.
She could not let herself relax. She was always bracing for the next moment requiring her to tend to June.
It was relentless in a way nothing in her life had ever been relentless before.
There were no breaks to look forward to, no daydreams of rejuvenation to sustain her.
She would never be truly alone again. That was what it felt like.
Jeff would tell her that wasn’t true, that these were the hardest days, but he didn’t know.
Mothers are never truly alone again. Physically, yes, at some point.
But a child will forever consume so much space in other ways.
Gwen started to check the Mother Nurture page several times a day. Angeni Luna had started doing these “Ask me anything” stories, inviting followers to send in their queries for her to respond to, and Gwen couldn’t get enough.
Ask Me Anything
did u vaccinate freya
I know this is a controversial topic and I encourage all mothers to trust their intuition.
At the thought of doctors putting needles into my newborn daughter, I had a full-body visceral response and that response was NO.
Absolutely not. I am open to changing my mind at a later date, but this is what my inner wisdom is telling me right now.
Gwen looked down at June, sleeping on her right breast, nipple still in her mouth.
Gwen hadn’t even thought about the needles put into June’s newborn body.
She had been unconscious in the ICU when the doctors did whatever they did to June.
Jeff wasn’t the type to challenge authority.
He would have agreed to whatever the doctors presented as the norm.
Gwen hadn’t planned not to vaccinate June, but she’d planned to ask questions, to perhaps space out the vaccine schedule to avoid any unnecessary overwhelm to June’s little body.
She’d already failed at so, so much.
She couldn’t stop thinking about her insistence on running during her pregnancy, her dedication to this selfish hobby of hers that might have caused her placenta to detach.
Nobody would tell her that was the reason.
In fact, they said that it likely was not the reason, but “likely” was no comfort to Gwen.
In some ways, it was easier to see herself as at fault than accept a reality in which “these things just happen.” If it was her fault, it (and other terrible things like it) could be prevented in the future.
June, this human being literally attached to her, was like a constant reminder that Gwen was not in control in the ways she thought she was.
ASk me anything
how do u and erik nurture ur relationship now that Freya is here?
I would be lying if I said it was easy to maintain a deep partner connection in the midst of new parenthood.
Since Freya’s birth, I have not been away from her for more than 5 minutes.
Personally, I do not understand parents who are anxious to resume date nights and the like.
My commitment is to our daughter and ensuring she feels perfectly secure.
Erik is supportive of this approach. it means we have less time for each other, but it is also beautiful to miss one’s lover at times.
Gwen took mental notes.
Angeni Luna felt like the way back to the type of woman she wanted to be.
After Gwen had removed dairy, soy, and eggs from her diet, June was still having green-tinged diarrhea on a daily basis.
So Gwen removed the next group of items on the list—gas-producing vegetables.
These included broccoli, cauliflower, onions, and green peppers.
She didn’t eat much of these things, with the exception of onion, which seemed to be in almost any cooked dish.
That didn’t have a positive effect, either, so she removed all citrus fruits.
Still no effect. The last item on the list was tomatoes, which she didn’t think could possibly be the problem, but lo and behold, it was.
Just a couple of days after Gwen had removed tomatoes, June’s poops became a normal color.
Gwen felt a rush of accomplishment. She had done it.
“Okay, so no tomatoes,” Jeff said as they sat at the dinner table.
He’d been back at work for a few weeks and seemed like his chipper self again.
Gwen could see now that he’d been miserable while he was on paternity leave. She used to be his favorite person, but she’d become terrible to be around.
“That doesn’t seem so hard to avoid,” he said, shoveling a forkful of pad thai noodles into his mouth.
They were surviving on takeout nearly every night because Gwen still could not bring herself to cook anything. She didn’t understand how these other mothers did it. Angeni Luna was simmering tomatoes—tomatoes!—for homemade sauces and making whole roast chickens.
“Avoiding dairy would have been hard, but this seems totally manageable,” he said.
Gwen was irritated with his optimism, his sprightly okay, that’s solved attitude.
“I mean, tomatoes are in a lot of things,” she said finally, interrupting his cascade of positive thoughts. “Salsa, marinara sauce, ketchup . . . a lot of things.”
Gwen watched him inhale a deep breath, his chest filling and expanding. He set down his fork and looked at her, his eyes pleading with her to just please stop.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” he said.
As if on cue, June started crying, having woken up from her too-short nap in the swing on the floor. She would only sleep in the swing, going at full speed. The thing required D batteries and burned through a set every two days.
Gwen lifted her out of the swing and got her settled on her lap, unbuttoning the front of her shirt with one hand. She had become an expert at this, at least.
“Did you hear me?” Jeff asked her.
Did she? She didn’t know. Had he said something? June latched on to her left breast and began suckling. Gwen stared at her baby’s closed eyelids, her long eyelashes. She’d made this child. It shocked her every day.
“Sorry, what?” she said.
He looked at her like Are you serious?
“I said I. Don’t. Know. What. To. Do. Anymore.”
“With what?”
“You,” he said.
There it was, finally—irritation. All this time, he’d been too kind, too concerned, too focused on solving her problems. This was what she deserved—his wrath.
“I’m sorry my struggling is so inconvenient for you,” she said, her tone completely flat.
He rolled his eyes.
“Don’t do that. Come on, hon. We’re better than this.”
They were better than this. Before. In their previous life. That life was over.
“I’m not better than this anymore,” she said.
“I think you need to talk to someone. Try the support group. Something. You have to take some initiative to . . . improve things.”
“Some initiative? You don’t think I have enough initiative?”
She raised her eyebrows in genuine curiosity. How did he see her now? As a loser, a failure? What was it, if not initiative, that motivated her to tend to their daughter’s every need, with so few seconds between the expression of that need and Gwen’s maternal response?
“I just think you’ll feel better if you take some steps to . . . feel better.”
“You think I’ll feel better if I take some steps to feel better.”
He sighed, flustered. “You know what I mean.”
“I don’t know if I do.”
“This is a hard phase. Everyone said it would be hard. This is the time to call in as much support as we can.”
She resented the “we.” He didn’t seem to be calling in support. He was telling her to call it in, telling her to take initiative.
“What I’m going through is normal,” she said.
He put his two hands up, palms facing her, as if showing her he didn’t have a weapon.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t. Of course it’s normal. That’s my point.”
“Well, you seem to think there are steps I should be taking that I’m not taking.”
“This isn’t a critique, Gwen.”
She felt a chill at the mention of her own name. Not sweetie or hon, but Gwen.
“For one, I think this breastfeeding thing is too much,” he said.
This breastfeeding thing.
“There is no shame in stopping. It doesn’t work out for some people. You’ve lost too much weight.”
She had. She was below her prepregnancy weight.
“It’s working fine now. I just can’t eat tomatoes. You said yourself that tomatoes aren’t that hard to avoid.”
He sighed again. “I just mean this whole process has been . . . a lot. It’s taken a lot out of you, figuring out this diet thing. Nursing her all the time. If we do formula, I can give her some bottles at night, and—”
Formula? Did he not know her at all?
“We’re not doing that,” she said.
He threw his hands in the air dramatically, then let them fall onto the table with a thud.
“This is what I’m saying. I don’t know what to do anymore. You don’t want my opinion. You act like my thoughts mean nothing.”
They did mean nothing.
“I have no say. You are clearly overwhelmed and having a hard time, and I have no say. You just want to dig your hole and sit in it.”
“Dig my hole and sit in it? Is that what you call taking care of our daughter?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t twist what I’m saying. We could adjust certain things, like the breastfeeding, and still be taking care of our daughter just fine.”
“Really? Did you read all the same books as me when I was pregnant?”
He stood from the table, took his dish to the sink, then started walking down the hallway, shaking his head.
“Where are you going?”
“There’s no point in talking to you,” he said from the hallway, his voice getting farther away. “You are hell bent on suffering. It’s like you think that makes you a better mother.”
She heard their bedroom door slam. She had never heard him slam a door before.
She switched June to the other breast. She was becoming so much more efficient at feeding lately. They finally had a rhythm. This wasn’t suffering, was it? If it was, maybe Jeff was right. Maybe it did make her a better mother.