just sat, rocking, while I labored. Bill held onto me as I worked with birthing balls and squatting bars. The doctor prattled on about the Red Sox game and other things. Could I ask her to leave? I tried to keep my focus on birthing. She continued her chitchatting. Finally, she went on her rounds.
Moments after the doctor left the room, I started to push out Juliet. A nurse called her back, handing her a box of sterile gloves. The doctor warned me that I was not yet at the pushing stage. But the raw, gripping insistence of my body won out. Despite all of the anti-infection drugs, the general anesthesia during my breast surgeries, and the worries about low fetal movement, Juliet was born perfectly, beautifully— blessedly —intact.
I woke to see a hospital nurse standing over Juliet, and in a surge of panic I attempted a sit-up. My womb paid me back with a clotty gush of blood, my abdomen with a deep crampy pain. Chastened, I twisted and wiggled myself gently to a seated position, put on my glasses, then demanded
to know what was happening. I saw that Juliet was swaddled and sleeping, but with electrodes stuck to her head and blue gooey stuff oozing into her hairline. Before the nurse could explain, I reminded her that I gave explicit instructions that Bill or I be awake and present for any tests they run, especially the hearing screen.
The nurse gave me a measured look and said, “I am just repeating the hearing test to be sure of the result.”
“ Repeating ?”
“Yes. Your husband was with me yesterday when I performed it the first time. You were sleeping.” The white drawstring on her hospital pants had the blue goo on it, too.
Flushing hot, I propped a pillow behind me and leaned back against its cool side . Bill was here this morning. He didn’t tell me. “She failed it?”
“Yes. But I thought I’d run it once more to be sure.”
The crampy pain was back and I shifted positions. “Is she failing it now?”
“Yes.”
At home, I laid Juliet down on a satin-edged baby blanket in the center of the living room floor. The smell of her diaper cream mingled with our wool rug, rough beneath
my knees. My breasts ached under the medical order not to breastfeed Juliet in the wake of the surgeries. Cabbage leaves and frozen peas, fabled to quell lactation, rustled inside my bra.
I tried to meet Juliet’s gaze, but her eyes didn’t register mine. She looked in my direction, but past me, through me, toward the sunlit window. It struck me that she had not yet met my gaze. I leaned over her, positioning my face directly in front of hers, but she still didn’t look at me. She began to arch her back. Little scales of cradle cap flecked from her scalp and floated in the air.
Juliet’s spine formed a perfect bridge, her weight balanced on the soft spot of her head. I rearranged her, bending her knees up toward her belly to force a concave posture, but as soon as I took my hands off of her, she reassumed the arch position. I backed away from her—was she arching to get distance from me?—but she stayed in her backbend, the light from the window bouncing off of her upside-down chin.
My baby couldn’t hear me. And she wasn’t looking at me, either. Whatever competence I felt as a mother the second time around—I was skilled now at newborn feeding and diapering and bathing and swaddling—was undermined by Juliet’s inexplicable arching, by her distant gaze, by the unknown degree of her hearing loss.
I went into the kitchen to make a bottle. As with Sophia during those first weeks, every sound was exaggerated for me now that I knew Juliet was probably unable to hear it: the faucet rush of water, the scooping of the formula powder, the shaking of the mixture—I could make this louder or softer depending on how vigorously I shook—then the second faucet rush of water to heat the bottle. Finally, the sound of the canister rotating on the countertop; I turned it so I didn’t have to see the mocking words
Moments after the doctor left the room, I started to push out Juliet. A nurse called her back, handing her a box of sterile gloves. The doctor warned me that I was not yet at the pushing stage. But the raw, gripping insistence of my body won out. Despite all of the anti-infection drugs, the general anesthesia during my breast surgeries, and the worries about low fetal movement, Juliet was born perfectly, beautifully— blessedly —intact.
I woke to see a hospital nurse standing over Juliet, and in a surge of panic I attempted a sit-up. My womb paid me back with a clotty gush of blood, my abdomen with a deep crampy pain. Chastened, I twisted and wiggled myself gently to a seated position, put on my glasses, then demanded
to know what was happening. I saw that Juliet was swaddled and sleeping, but with electrodes stuck to her head and blue gooey stuff oozing into her hairline. Before the nurse could explain, I reminded her that I gave explicit instructions that Bill or I be awake and present for any tests they run, especially the hearing screen.
The nurse gave me a measured look and said, “I am just repeating the hearing test to be sure of the result.”
“ Repeating ?”
“Yes. Your husband was with me yesterday when I performed it the first time. You were sleeping.” The white drawstring on her hospital pants had the blue goo on it, too.
Flushing hot, I propped a pillow behind me and leaned back against its cool side . Bill was here this morning. He didn’t tell me. “She failed it?”
“Yes. But I thought I’d run it once more to be sure.”
The crampy pain was back and I shifted positions. “Is she failing it now?”
“Yes.”
At home, I laid Juliet down on a satin-edged baby blanket in the center of the living room floor. The smell of her diaper cream mingled with our wool rug, rough beneath
my knees. My breasts ached under the medical order not to breastfeed Juliet in the wake of the surgeries. Cabbage leaves and frozen peas, fabled to quell lactation, rustled inside my bra.
I tried to meet Juliet’s gaze, but her eyes didn’t register mine. She looked in my direction, but past me, through me, toward the sunlit window. It struck me that she had not yet met my gaze. I leaned over her, positioning my face directly in front of hers, but she still didn’t look at me. She began to arch her back. Little scales of cradle cap flecked from her scalp and floated in the air.
Juliet’s spine formed a perfect bridge, her weight balanced on the soft spot of her head. I rearranged her, bending her knees up toward her belly to force a concave posture, but as soon as I took my hands off of her, she reassumed the arch position. I backed away from her—was she arching to get distance from me?—but she stayed in her backbend, the light from the window bouncing off of her upside-down chin.
My baby couldn’t hear me. And she wasn’t looking at me, either. Whatever competence I felt as a mother the second time around—I was skilled now at newborn feeding and diapering and bathing and swaddling—was undermined by Juliet’s inexplicable arching, by her distant gaze, by the unknown degree of her hearing loss.
I went into the kitchen to make a bottle. As with Sophia during those first weeks, every sound was exaggerated for me now that I knew Juliet was probably unable to hear it: the faucet rush of water, the scooping of the formula powder, the shaking of the mixture—I could make this louder or softer depending on how vigorously I shook—then the second faucet rush of water to heat the bottle. Finally, the sound of the canister rotating on the countertop; I turned it so I didn’t have to see the mocking words
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