heather's compendium of how to annoy new mothers: chapter one: talking shit - the basics
Sunday, March 11, 2007
OK, now I'm pissed off because the book on recovery after a Caesarean I got out of the library is packed with glossy pictures of beautifully coiffed, made-up and flat-stomached women, every one unencumbered by drips, drains, and urinary catheters, easing themselves smilingly (and in five easy steps!) into the accepted position for getting out of bed post-surgery without SPLITTING YOUR ENTIRE FUCKING ABDOMEN IN TWO. While, what's more, wearing WHITE SATIN PYJAMAS.*
(In general, if I were in charge of publications aimed at the pregnant – magazines, for instance – there would be less coiffing and more grainy photoessays featuring bloated yet haggard women with varicose veins on their eyeballs hurling into rubbish bins in public places of recreation.)
So since I'm in a ranting mood anyway, here's another one I've been fermenting (or should that be fomenting?) for nearly three years. It concerns one of the things guaranteed to make me froth the most profusely: unhelpful remarks. You know the ones: the sort of comments to which the only just and true response can be 'Even if that were true, but what the fuck would you have me do about it, precisely?'
An example of this is when Rebecca was an infant, during a hot summer, and was suffering with wet, weeping eczema that caused her to rend her skin with her tiny sharp fingernails until it bled. I well remember a stand-out comment from some well-meaning professional cretin: 'Is she bottle-fed? Because formula's based on cow's milk, you know, and she might be reacting to it.' 'Hmmm, perhaps,' I replied, meaning, of course: 'Actually, I breastfed this baby until I could breastfeed her no more. I would spend evenings in desperate tears on the couch while she sucked at me frantically and painfully for six hours, going from one breast to another without respite. I kept this up every day for weeks, because I had been assured by various professional and amateur LIARS that (all together now!) 'Supply keeps pace with demand!' It didn't, and I eventually had to admit that hours of sucking at my empty breasts was getting neither of us anywhere. I gave in, and began replacing the marathon evening sessions with a single bottle of formula. I wept as I gave her the first one, because I felt such a failure. However she began sleeping through the night, and so did I. I don't remember whether the eczema had started to show up before the first bottle of formula or not because the first few weeks had been such a sleep-deprived blur. No doubt I should have maintained better documentation. But since she is too young for solid food and I am still unable to produce enough breast milk for a whole day's feeds, precisely WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU EXPECT ME DO ABOUT THIS ANYWAY, other than STARVE her until she is old enough to be weaned? And incidentally thank you for suggesting that my incompetence at nursing my child may have caused her to develop a distressing condition for which there is no cure.'
It's a good job I keep a tight lid on my internal monologue. That's enough rancour for today. In our next instalment on unhelpful remarks: 'You should sleep when the baby sleeps!'
*One word: lochia.
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