Elisa Albert - After Birth

It’s in your blood , my mother said, and laughed.

Rest for a while , Paul would say.

No, there would be no rest for me. There was no rest to be had. There was no escaping the brutal enormity of it: I had had a baby. I had been cut in half for no good reason, and no number of dissolving stitches was ever going to make me whole again. The hysterical imperative was to Feed Him from Myself continuously, no compromise. I had to be vigilant. Omnipresent. I had fallen victim to a commonplace violence, and now I had this baby and there was too much at stake. I had failed him out of the gate. Deprived him the vital, epic journey through the birth canal, my poor doped-up kitten. Poor helpless boy.

We found a grandma stand-in finally, hired her for a couple hours a week. She was kind, the mother of two grown girls. She did whatever I asked, obedient and efficient, but I didn’t want to ask. I yearned to be told. I needed to be shown. Also she was not my mother. She politely left the room whenever I bared a breast. Made terrible small talk when all I wanted was quiet. And me sitting there so wrecked, unable to give a straight answer about the kind of detergent I prefer she use for a regular load.

Why so jittery, so jumpy, so on edge, so upset?

Paul tried. He couldn’t figure out what was wrong. We had a beautiful, healthy baby, did we not?

He got up with the baby every single morning at dawn. That kind of man. Dawn after dawn. Every single morning, when it was still dark out and I couldn’t move, could not leave the warm enclosure of bed, the safety of that metaphore, uterus.

But inevitably he’d have to go teach or go to the gym or something, and there was this way the sound of the door closing behind him would thud in my chest, leaving me alone with the baby, a dark dread panic rising. How could he?

Okay, monkey. Mommy’s going to open the fridge now, everything’s okay. Mommy’s getting an apple. Yes, an apple’s what we need. Then Mommy’s going to sit down on the couch, okay, yes yes, nice and easy, sure, sure, no problem, hey little bug, no problem at all, all is well it’s a Tuesday! I don’t know what happens next. Precious baby. Okay. We’ll figure out our next move. That’s right. Okay, let’s have some boobie, settle down there little fella, all will be revealed to us soon, oh yes, yes indeed, that’s it, nice and easy, okay, okay, okay.

I’d be downright frantic by the time Paul came home. Panicked and relieved and guilty and downright frantic.

Thank God , I would say, my voice taut. He’d take the baby and soothe and coo and smile and nuzzle as I watched from across the room, feeling very strange, very outside, apart from them. On a loop: you’d be better off without me. I should disappear. You don’t need me. I don’t deserve you. You deserve a well-adjusted little woman who undergoes major unnecessary surgery without complaint. Gets on with things. Knows how to nap when her baby is napping. One of those itty-bitty compact little uncomplaining bitches who never even have to buy maternity clothes. Whose periods get lighter and easier as she ages. No body hair, no mood swings. A happy wife. A baby-food maker, a clothes mender.

You hate me. Admit it. You think I’m a terrible mother. You do. Admit it. Admit that you hate me.

I hate what you’re going through.

Fuck you, Paul! I’m not stupid! I’m not dumb! Be real with me!

Baby, I don’t think you’re dumb.

Admit you think I’m a fucked-up headache.

Which is what my friend Subeena used to call “Being a Bad Girlfriend.” As in: I really like this guy. I’m going to try and not be a bad girlfriend and see if it works out this time. We both got dumped a lot.

Paul encouraged me to get out of the house. We took a family field trip to the local bagel place, a terrible franchise. Walked there slowly and sat in silence eating bad bagels while the baby snoozed in the sling. I couldn’t take my eyes off this ugly cherub calendar on the wall, looking at dates — December 8, 10, 12, 19—wondering when I’d finally have the guts to end my life, exit the only possible way, leave Paul to raise the beautiful boy in peace. I was dead weight, poison, disease.

Sounds about right , my mother said.

The bagel place was grim and cold, air-conditioned in the middle of December.

Chicken spaetzle , the girl at the counter kept telling people was the soup of the day. Her name tag read SISTER KATE. Her boss was Brother David. I imagined them a cult, the bad kind. But isn’t any mildly cohesive, somewhat happy family a kind of cult? The good kind?

I found myself pleading with my mother one icy night.

Could you please, please be a little bit maternal for a few minutes?

I didn’t know how I would make it through the next few hours. I feared I might not make it through the next few hours. Her face went momentarily soft.

Yes, darling , she said, and cocked her perfectly coiffed head.

There was still a small openness in my heart for her, it was true. A pinprick from which blood or love or whatever still flowed. She was part of me, after all. I was part of her. No matter what, it was true. She was in me. You can’t disown what’s yours, no matter how hard you try. What’s yours is yours is yours.

Thank you , I mewed, dropped a tear, two.

She came closer, spoke softly.

Could you maybe just explain to me what that means?

I bring cupcakes from the co-op.

He’s had, like, seven wet diapers and there’s no pink. And he slept for seven hours last night. It’s a miracle. Is this weird for you?

No. It’s great. Is that weird?

I was lying awake last night thinking is this weird?

But it’s not weird.

It’s not weird at all.

The thing is women have always done this, just not since formula and advertising were invented.

Which came first, formula or advertising?

Advertising. I don’t know.

I nurse while she pumps to encourage supply. She says something about it being difficult to get out when the weather’s so shitty and I say something like yeah, winter’s a shitty time to have a baby and she says something like it’s always kind of a shitty time to have a baby though isn’t it?

I hated the pump. Vile machine, real torture device, with its awful rat-a-tat wheeze. Mina absently rocks the empty vibrating bouncy chair with her foot, sips from a clay mug, stares out the window at the icy dark.

The rat-a-tat-rat-a-tat starts to sound like not-alone-not-alone-not-alone , and then it becomes I-don’t-know-I-don’t-know-I-don’t know , and soon it’s right-at-home-right-at-home-right-at-home. Then you-don’t-know-you-don’t-know-you-don’t-know.

Oh , I say. By the way. I love Muriel Rukeyser. I forgot.

Look what my sister sent , she says, almost three ounces bagged in the fridge, a really good sign, means she’s producing nicely. She holds up a swath of fabric. Floral pink. She reads from the tag. “Hooter Hider. To meet the needs of modern, active nursing moms.” It’s a burqa. This perfectly sums up my sister. And this .

Another contraption, designed to fit over the seat of a supermarket cart. So your baby never has to touch a supermarket cart. To protect your baby from the evils of supermarket carts. She balls them both up and stuffs them behind the couch.

I’m fond of this baby, her baby, the swirls of his fine black hair, the weight of him against me, newborn smell. Our baby.

I had no idea how fucked up this was going to be , she says.