Recovery

by Anna Wayne

Trigger warning for birth trauma

There’s a push and pull between then and now. Then, when my babies were small, helpless, covered in cords and wires and lines. Now, when they laugh with chunky cheeks and baby rolls.

I can take you with me back before now to then. I can tell you of the cream-colored walls and whimsical designs of baby animals decorating the hallways of the NICU—and how I often wondered who on earth thought these designs would be helpful and what I’d like to see instead. I never resolved that question. I can take you to the clear, thick plastic nest with armholes and a tiny baby working so hard to breathe in and out. I can take you back home with me to the silence. Husband away at his desk, the sounds of his computer keys stifled by the walls that no longer echo. I can take you into the cold dark night, a bedroom whirring with white noise, my aching body swaying in poor rhythm as I sing in worse rhythm the song of the five baby ducks—and wonder to myself, how do I keep singing this song? And where did those baby ducks go?—to my sweet firstborn daughter, the one who showed me motherhood was nothing I was ready for and would reveal to me every vulnerability and cracked-up ego. I can take you down the empty highways under a pitch-black sky, to the quiet car rides with still car seats in the back making our way to the hospital parking garage.

I can take you through the front door on that cool and crisp December day, the house one person fuller, though he looks and weighs the same as his big sister’s baby dolls. I’ll show you the counter, the one I ignore to this day, covered in gadgets, pills, bottles, milk, breastmilk, formula, tears, dirty bottles, clean ones, lost lids and visible lids, silverettes, haakaas, a breast massager, and pumping parts, wet and drying on a towel, only to be used again in five minutes. The clothes slowly getting smaller and smaller, the arms growing stronger, the legs reaching longer. The cries getting louder, the smile getting wider. The bassinet moved to the basement, the pitter-patter of baby’s steps following me to morning.

Did you want to go back further? To a warm summer day in June, when the world was ending, but only one parent was allowed in the appointment room. When I waited in the car thinking, “This’ll be a fast appointment,” only to be summoned moments later to wait and watch as my world fell beneath my feet again. Pictures showing a healthy heart, pictures showing my daughter’s heart, trying to make sense that they are not the same—the unequal sign from math class having its moment for the first time in my reality.

Fly with me down the highway to DC. To a maze of a hospital, to doctors poking and prodding, the sounds of forced soothing, the sounds of children screaming, a baby screaming, my baby screaming. Look down with me, do you see her? Her arm poked for blood samples, her face red, your arms envelop her, hold her, and you think to yourself, “I’m not ready, I can’t do this, how did I become the mom?” Leave your body there in that room with me as we float above the room and the nurse, float through the ceiling, and wait for the world to make sense with me up here.

“She’ll recover faster than you,” they all said.

They all joked.

They all laughed.

We laughed, laughed at our recovery.

As if we were undergoing heart surgery…the truth staring us in the face as we walked through it. We were also on the table, though a different one. This table held all of us, my husband and me and her, and the cord connecting her to me. The parts of us that made her.

Breathe with me, go ahead. You’ll need to recover too. There’s more to say and more to see. Breathe in and hold it. Don’t let it go. Good, now completely stop breathing. Don’t let your breath go. Do. Not. Let. It. Go.

Doesn’t that feel so much better? Look outside the window, do you see them laughing in the grass? There they are, he’s so big now and she’s his whole world. You waited for days like today and it's here. It’s finally here. Are you recovered now? Yes?

Huh, I thought you would get it by now: We don’t recover. We’re not breathing. Don’t you see that?

Here, let me show you. Last week, a small building, a long hallway, a small office. Two smiling nurses, a calm doctor with a baby on the way. The cardio tech with the thick, black-rimmed glasses and easy smile. Stickers all over the chest, lines connected, stickers off. Another table, jelly, and a wand, a photo shoot for her heart. Disney princesses sing to us, the minutes go by, and I wonder what is going through her mind. The tech saying, “You have one cool heart,” do you feel that? Your heart bursting a bit? He gets it.

Can you hear the doctor's smile through her mask? Did you hear her call my daughter a princess? I think she’s a great doctor too.

Wait, did you hear that? Did she just say “leaking?” A valve is leaking, don’t lose your breath. Hey, I told you to take a deep breath and hold it. Don’t let it go!

You’re fine.

I’m fine.

This is okay.

This will be every year until she shows signs.

Sorry, you’re right, “if” she shows signs.

Signs to watch for blue lips, low energy, lethargy… You see her dancing and twirling in pink tights and a pink tutu, you see her running and smiling. You see that line embedded on her chest that starts with that first deep breath and ends right before it can burn you.

But that was then, that was last week. We are recovered, we’re all recovered, right? That’s what is running through your mind and their minds. That’s the idea, it’s over. That’s the logic. That’s the fin.

Do you see that line? The one dividing the past and the present. Good, because what you won’t see is the one that records my inner soundtrack, the one that doesn’t show my mind shooting to the memory of her on the hospital table every time the thermometer spikes 99. The one that never stopped recording, that doesn’t divide but measures. A line on a graph tracking every occurrence, the melody of a song on a never-ending loop replaying the anxiety of just how fast the world can slide beneath your feet. A sound that has been playing since you heard “she has a hole in her heart” and that added a chorus with the words “baby is coming today.” The one that always hears, “You’re so strong” and “I’m so glad that’s behind you.”

That’s the line that runs right down the center. The one that makes this story a book to fold into and fit onto a shelf. The one that tells everyone it's over. That says you won’t need help, that the memories of the babies are now memories, they can get hazy with age. An old VCR tape with sun damage. The tape that goes in the basement with high school memorabilia and old wedding photos. That will be a piece of your family narrative. In the line of, “Remember how small she was before surgery?” And the answering, “Oh yeah, what a transformation.” And the tape is turned over to her birthday party.

How do you tell them you're still in the operating room? The NICU room? How do you say I don’t want to be strong? I don’t think you get it.

I’m afraid to love my children because I was so close to losing them. How do you say that?

How do you say I never chose to be strong? How do you say I blame myself and my body for every physical and mental and emotional problem they’ve experienced and have yet to experience? How do you say “I've recovered,” when we’re still on the ceiling of the room with the blood vials, and screaming, and you haven’t come back down yet?

Are you following me?

No, no, it’s okay, thanks for listening.

Okay, so you get it?

This is recovery.

Building identity after trauma