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Disclaimer: if what I am sharing isn’t helpful to your journey, please put it on a shelf! As always, I am revisiting practices/teachings of my evangelical cult and how those have affected me. You will also learn how I feel I found healing from mental health issues! Be blessed abundantly!
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Skipping briskly across the lawn to the growing pile of leaves, her blonde, wavy hair whisks along the curves of her cheeks, lining the grin ever-present on her face. Old torn jeans- one of many ripped and destroyed from countless hours of bike riding, tree-climbing, and mud-pie making- hang down along her scrawny preschool legs and butt-less thighs. How she loves raking the autumn into the largest mountains her scraggly little arms can manage, only to trail-back several feet, pause for a moment, and race toward the colorful peaks, pouncing into the mess of twigs and bugs, as ungracefully as possible, of course. As she stands up and brushes herself off, she slightly adjusts the lacy pink bow in her hair before preparing another pile to demolish. But what happened to this child of yesterday? Where did her joy and innocence go? How did a few years of mental, emotional, and spiritual abuse rip it all away, never caring for the pain and scars left behind?
Late last year, I walked into my therapist’s office, planning on giving a general overview of situations growing up, a mere highlight reel of sorts to give a baseline understanding of the overwhelming issues and struggles left from three years with my mentors in high school and early college. Certain questions were bound to come up and I simply wanted to get them out on the table in order to move forward with working through the trauma of the abuse. What I did not realize was that all of those situations left huge wounds that were never fully healed, seemingly leaving me open and vulnerable to the abuse to come. I did not realize that I would have to go back through each one and soothe that hurting inner child, which is, as I understand it, the subconscious halted at various stages of maturity because of the wounds inflicted and endured.
My hurting inner child in high school, probably fifteen or sixteen years old, is the first one I could see and connect with. She is the one in the middle of the abuse with my mentors. Anytime I see her, she is alone on her bed, often siting with arms wrapped around her knees, deep in thought, or hands attempting to cover the tears streaming down her cheeks. She has told me often, “It is never enough” and “the crazy never ends. There’s always more.” In frustration, trying relentlessly and desperately to simply do right, she feels like a failure, constantly the reason for the pain of those around her. She feels betrayed by those closest to her and the hurt runs deep.
My preschooler, approximately four or five years old, made me extremely hesitant. I knew the pain she would suffer and endure, but more than that, I was ashamed of her. She kept telling me she did not know it was wrong. In the mind of an innocent four-year-old, she did not know the turmoil to come from those actions, yet she was continually blamed for them.
My middle-schooler, about seventh or eighth grade, is hurting. She is the one that is ashamed. She feels like a failure who already ruined her life before it even started. I tell her she’s beautiful, and yet she hits my hand away. She does not think she is attractive. She does not believe she is intelligent anymore. And she does not think anyone would love her for who she is. She feels confused, overwhelmed, and alone. She longs for an understanding friend.
I am learning, slowly, that it is my job to be “mom” to those parts of myself growing that still need comfort. It is my job to be their best friend, protector, and guide. They need to be told that they are loved and lovely, that God made them perfect. That I am sorry I did not protect them before, but I am here now and I am not going anywhere, ever. I am teaching them healthy boundaries, and that their privacy is a boundary to be respected. I am teaching them about self-worth. One of the biggest things right now, however, is telling them that no matter what happens, I am right here, and always will be.
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We trudged up the winding apartment steps: left, flight of stairs, left, second set of stairs. The trail led up to the shadowed door. Entering the tiny kitchen, the nauseating smell of dead mice hit us in the face. They ate the rat poison and crawled under the floor space to die and rot in the summer heat.
Large pale sunflowers danced on the old wallpaper, long forgotten without the sun. Trinkets with the yellow flowers on the counter attempted to brighten the room with their billowing petals, faces staring back, witnesses to the cries and screams within those walls.
On the table lay my mentor’s Bible and journal, accompanied by a blue pen and yellow highlighter. Always yellow, her favorite color. Did you know October has multiple birthstones ranging from the traditional pink, to a mystical burgundy or Indian orange, or even an aqua blue? But her favorite was the beryl stone, a tame yet exuberant yellow. Every year, October creeps in and I wonder how she is doing. My heart yearns to call her or send a letter just to know that she is well.
But how can she be? Her two boys are grown and married, no longer their father’s punching bags. Who is now the recipient of those blows? He can no longer call the police at night because his teenage son disobeyed him. Her husband, furious with disagreement or disapproval, often left to a hotel for several days and nights, knowing the financial strain of unpaid bills because of his inability to keep a job. He further withheld sexual intimacy for control and manipulation. Who is left to stand up against him?
Mrs. Julie and I would sent thank you cards and get-well cards while I was in college, and I would look specifically for ones with yellow flowers, but not just any yellow flowers, sunflowers. I still have one in my room ten years later, bearing the emptiness left of an abrupt end to our friendship but unable to bring myself to dispose of it.
When I see fields of giant sunflowers, swaying in the warm breeze, I long for our phone calls and days of intricate Bible study and answered prayer, pouring out my heart, a teenage girl, simply longing for a closer walk with the Lord. Wandering through stores, I see them painted delicately on cookie jars and storage containers and I am instantly taken back to hours on the couch, her husband screaming and berating me because I was supposedly a fake. He raged that I could not be saved because I “never repented,” a life unchanged. I see the long petals at a grocery store and wonder if she is alright, still trapped while I am free.
Life still holds many triggers from the past: some weak, while others debilitating. This one, a single flower, intended as a beautiful, intricate, gift from God, slices and stings deep within, protected away in the hidden parts of my soul. Please…. Don’t send me sunflowers.
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Sliding down the beige-colored drywall, slumped down on the soft carpet beneath, a woman weeps bitterly for her life long-gone, faced with the insurmountable complexities and intricacies of motherhood for the first time. Months have passed since the traumatic birth of her son, but she still finds herself searching for the solace of the quiet dining room floor in the dead of night, tears flowing, skin crawling, wondering how to make it through another day. During her extended hospital stay, she discovered the continual flashbacks were a symptom of postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder (P-PTSD), but it provided little comfort to the new mother as she struggled to breastfeed her jaundiced baby who fell asleep immediately after latching on. As she contemplated her decisions during birth, she concluded that her inability to birth her child without intervention led to the newborn’s difficulty in feeding, jaundice, and weight gain. Pediatricians ignorant to the struggles of breastfeeding only amplified the confusion and stress as they continued to push for supplementation and pumping to determine production rate. To the new mother, formula signified that her body failed her once again in what should have been one of the most natural forms of nourishment and care.
Diaper change. Nurse. Diaper leak. Diaper change. Nurse. Baby falls asleep. Lays baby down. Startle reflex. Nurse. Diaper change. Nurse. Baby falls asleep. Lays baby down in the bassinet and baby lies still. She collapses on the bed where her husband sleeps peacefully, his body regaining necessary strength for another day of demanding work. She closes her eyes in hopes of a mere thirty minutes to rest her weary mind, but is he breathing? Will she wake up to find the cold, lifeless body of the one she carried and agonized over for nine months as countless mothers before her? Will God take her baby too? It is not that she is avoiding trying to get her spiritual walk back where it used to be. She managed just enough time this morning to pull her black leather Bible off the shelf. Peeling back the old familiar pages, yellowed from her morning devotions in Bible college, she longed for the peace she experienced those mornings, huddled alone in the brisk stairwell studying before class, pouring her heart and soul to hide God’s Word in her heart. Those words carried her through the days, through the complications of social life and drama, the intensities of college papers and final exams, coupled with the extenuating circumstances of her mentors back home.
Her chest tightened this morning against the air she had left, forcing the darkening pit yet deeper into her stomach as she stared at the black ink, smudged from often tears. Forcing herself to begin, she turned the dried pages to the book of Proverbs, a hidden plethora of crippling landmines yet a well-acquainted guide. She quickly found her mind racing back to her bed at her parent’s home. Peering out the window of the bedroom that day, phone in hand, tears streaming down her face, she wondered when her mentor, Brother Thomas, would forgive her of her most recent transgression. When would his wife, Mrs. Julie, see that she was not trying to mess up again? When would she be allowed to go back to her old church family, rather than searching for one over an hour away? Her body froze, tense with the blanket of emotions she experienced that week, reliving them again and again until her baby let out a shriek, waking up from a few moments of slumber. She failed in completing her Bible reading but would have to try again another day. Instantly, a chill shutters through her tired body, bringing her back to the present. The baby! Is he still okay? She sits up and listens for his breath, but all she hears is the hum of her husband’s CPAP. She leans closer to the bassinet listening ever more intently, hoping just for the soft whisper of the air. Maybe she could simply touch the top of his chest and feel his lungs as they rise and fall, if they were even still moving. The young child stirs just slightly, appearing to fall back sleep, only to whimper and then scream for milk.
Diaper change. Nurse. Diaper change. Nurse. Lays the baby down. Startle reflex. Nurse. Diaper change. Nurse. Lays the baby down. Baby starts to cry. Diaper change. Nurse. Baby finally falls asleep again. The mom kisses him good-bye and lays back down, hoping and praying that her baby makes it through the night. She hears footsteps in the distance, a creak in the floor boards. Slowly, she climbs out of bed, intensely watching the hallway light under the door for movement. She lays down at the base of the locked bedroom door. Waiting. Watching. Listening. Heart pounding. Mind racing. Surely, God would not allow someone to break in and take away the most precious things in her life again. Oh, the irony that would be. Everything precious to her goes away. It never lasts. She stays there frozen for what seems like hours until she finally builds up the courage to check the house for the third time that night. Coming back into the room, locking the door, she sits on the bed near the bassinet. Is he breathing? Again, sitting there staring, listening, watching for any sign of life. Laying back down again, the baby’s stomach shoots up acid, burning his little throat, sending him sputtering and coughing, almost drowning on his own fluids. She races to the side of the bassinet and picks him up, frantically patting his back and waiting for him to scream with full intakes of air. She sits in the all-too familiar ottoman to nurse, the cushion worn with use. Nurse. Diaper change. Nurse. Lays baby down to sleep. But will he make it through the night?
Needing out of the small room and hoping not to wake her husband or baby, the mother finds her place on the dining room floor, finally able to allow the out-pouring of tears, pooling in the dark circles under her eyes. Her old mentor’s words still race through her mind, “The only reason you want to get married is to have sex and to have babies.” His words haunt her day by day, over-spiritualizing yet condemning her desire for children. All I want right now is sleep. All I’ve wanted for months is sleep. Why isn’t he gaining weight? Why is my body failing him? The three-month-old still nurses forty-five minutes out of every hour during the day, giving a mere fifteen to twenty-minute break before nursing again. Why can I not figure out what my son needs? His undiagnosed lip-tie and tongue tie wears out the poor baby before he can finish a meal. He falls asleep with only a snack and wakes up shortly after, starving and not gaining weight. A six-month insurance complication further prevents the scrawny baby from receiving a proper evaluation of the ties. Her heart cringes as people coo over the baby, exclaiming how tiny he is. “Look at those little cheeks,” the older women always say. “You better enjoy it. It only gets harder from here.”
Her eye catches the masses of material, thread and snaps for cloth diapers swallowing up the table. At least she is attempting to sew? The Proverbs thirty-one woman “seeketh wool and flax, and worketh willingly with her hands” (Prov 31:13 ). How do other mothers balance caring for multiple children when she is drowning under the expectations of one? Awake at all hours of the night, she nurses in the chair for hours on end. For the first several months, she took to laying down on the couch in the mornings to nurse in hopes of catching up on just a moment of sleep. Those moments turned into broken hours of slumber, but never feeling rested or rejuvenated, always exhausted and trapped in the mundane cycle of nursing and changing diapers. The dishes would overflow onto the countertops as the laundry lounged on the hallway floor for days. “She riseth also while it is yet night” (Prov 31:15). “All her household are clothed with scarlet” (Prov 31:21). Why is it never enough? “Enjoy this time,” they said. “You will miss these days. They grow up so fast.” By the time she would have the strength to force herself off the couch, it would already be afternoon and almost time for her husband to come home. “All you do is sleep all day,” her husband scolded, weary from a long day at work.
Her blood boils within her, recollecting the nights he has fallen asleep on the couch as she nursed the baby for hours on end, her husband snoring loudly and keeping the baby awake. She recently adapted an extensive cleaning program to aide in keeping up on the little apartment, striving to be a “keeper at home” (Titus 2:5), but her mind now becomes fixated on completing minuscule details, even waking up at two in morning to “shine the sink” or “swish and swash the bathroom.” The day before, her husband’s socks mocked her from the bedroom floor while the unorganized silverware in the dishwasher sent her into almost uncontrollable fury. She is clueless that rage is yet another symptom of the postpartum depression that overtakes her day by day.
Her mind shoots back to her sleeping child. Even if he makes it through the night, is he even going to be able to make it through the next few days? We could lose him at any time. His pediatrician is afraid he has whooping cough. His little body has been sick for days, congested, coughing, gasping and lethargic. The new mother and father made the decision not to give him the new pertussis vaccine after three accounts of life-threatening reactions in the family history, including one tragic death. The new a-cellular pertussis vaccine is still the same formula, but simply a lower dose. Despite immense pressure from the pediatrician’s office and health department, the parents give everything except the pertussis vaccine. Now her child might die in her arms. She’s spent hours holding her child, weeping over his frail body, researching about the symptoms and progression of whooping cough, waiting anxiously for the results. If it is pertussis, the treatment is the same medication that can take his life. The test results take two weeks, but the sickness is lethal within ten days.
Oh God, please don’t take my baby away. I’m trying so hard. She knows God answers prayer as she has seen Him answer in the past. Please look past my failures in prayer and see my baby. Even after hours of counsel, the young mother has yet to re-learn how to pray. Under Mrs. Julie, she followed a set pattern, and oh, how she saw God work, first asking God how she should worship him, waiting for the answer, and then praying. Then she would ask how God desired for her to thank Him, then wait and pray. She asked what she needed to confess, how He wanted her to pray for others, and then for herself, always waiting for the answer before praying. She would commonly see up to five directly answered prayers in a day when she depended on and walked ever so close with the Lord. Her heart yearns to be able to pray again, but re-programming from the cultish-mindset prevents her, fear of her past overwhelms her, and the anguish of broken trust in the God she once loved breaks her at the core. He was supposed to protect her.
But how can she pray for her son now, knowing that she hasn’t “kept short lists with God”? Iniquity hides His face from her that He will not hear (Isaiah 59:2). She believes her son could die because she isn’t right with the Lord. “The effectual fervent prayer of a RIGHTEOUS man availeth much” (James 5:16). He is a righteous God of judgment after all. Maybe Mrs. Julie was right. Maybe I wasn’t ready spiritually for marriage, and much less for motherhood. Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten married and my husband should have married someone else that can truly care for him, his children, and a home. Her mind wanders and races, remembering the days of her and her husband’s courtship, the days they talked for hours, jesting and exchanging glances. He deserves a virtuous wife who is still faithful to and studies God’s Word diligently and can encourage him to do the same, not someone who panics with reminders of the past. The tears well-up as she remembers her pregnancy, filed with anxiety but with greater joy in anticipation of a baby boy on the way. He deserves a mom who can “train him up in the way he should go” (Prov 22:6). He deserves so much more.
The young new mom leans over, weeping bitterly for her family. They deserve so much more. Lifting her head, her vision blurred and eyes stinging, intrusive thoughts once again race before her as a daily ritual. “There’s a large knife in the kitchen.” What? No. She vigorously shakes her head as if it makes the idea disappear. “There’s a gun in the bedroom.” Where is this coming from? Besides, guns have recoil. It probably would not work. “There are other ways.” No. I’m not going there. “Your family deserves so much more. What will your children become if their own mother cannot read her Bible and pray? What you cannot handle around the house becomes a burden on your husband. It would be better if you stepped out of the way so God can use someone else to help and support them the way they need and deserve.” She leans back over to weep, but suddenly hears the baby from the backroom. He needs milk again in order to fall back asleep. Little does she know that these intrusive thoughts will continue for many more months to come.
Perinatal mood disorders (postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, bipolar disorder, psychosis, etc.) are actual disorders, valid despite the stigma society attempts to place on them. Combine that with the destructive results of spiritual abuse and one is left as a ticking time bomb. When society says “suicide is selfish: it’s all about attention,” they invalidate the emotional heartache and physical pain of the sufferer, only intensifying the anguish. Suicide is often a cry for help because of seemingly insurmountable suffering. For others, the focus is on attempting to end the pain of those close to them, the ones they love and care for. Sometimes, it’s SELFLESS. But depression and suicide lie, speculating the problems end with death, but truly, it’s only exacerbated for those that are left behind. There IS hope, and there IS a way out that does not involve ending a precious life.
If you are contemplating suicide, there is no reason to be ashamed. Nothing good comes out of a life lost. You are truly precious in God’s eyes. Seek out a friend or family member, a general care provider, or call the Suicide Hotline at 1(800) 273-8255. You can also text 741741 and a crisis worker will text you back immediately and continue to text with you. It’s a free service to anyone who lives in the United States and it’s run by the Crisis Text Line. There is a also a Facebook Group called “Suicide Hotline: Crises and Prevention” that attempts to answer questions quickly and is there for help and support. [2024 EDIT: The group is no longer available.] Suicide is not “always selfish,” but it is blind, and fails to show that not only are there are other ways, but that your life is worth living.
When Suicide is Selfless (Part One): Within the Cult
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In an ever-changing world, man depends on the permanents and invariables, clenching onto the solid and stable for a surety to hopes and dreams, for truth and understanding. When one facet of security falters, the mind scrambles for another source of refuge and strength. But what if another one falters? What if yet a third foundation crumbles?
Doctors and nurses spend thousands of dollars on education, learning the delicate intricacies of the medical field. Families go when their loved ones are hurting, sometimes on the brink of death. But what if the doctors can no longer be trusted? They encourage questions, but scrutinize the one who dares to ask or make a decision contrary to their advice.
For spiritual abuse victims, this lack of concern for the opinions of the patient, and often anger toward the patient’s defiance, triggers the fight or flight mentality, the patient still wounded from the indoctrination of authority. Still shamed into silence.
What happens when doctors cannot be trusted in one of the most vulnerable times of life?
A therapist finally found the common trigger in my life of an authority figure holding to a standard without care for those it affects underneath. Too often we trust or are guilted into trusting a doctor simply because he has a medical degree. Truly questioning them is frowned upon and shamed despite the encouragement to ask questions and be in charge of one’s own health care plan. The therapist believes these factors in my son’s traumatic birth triggered the trauma of the past spiritual abuse in my life.
***This first-hand account contains graphic details about afterbirth, including, but not limited to postpartum bleeding, bodily fluids, and breastfeeding, as well as medical examinations performed during pregnancy and postpartum***
Pulling up on dry, starchy sheets, the cold-bitter air still races across the long, hard bed.
Is he okay? I couldn’t take it. I tried. I tried so hard. Please. Just breathe. Oh God, let him be okay.
Nurses bustle around, changing sheets, checking the baby’s color, height and weight. The baby shrieks a newborn shrill, unhappy about the frigid, unfamiliar world.
He’s breathing. He’s here. He’s alive. Look at that little nose. Those little toes and little feet. He made it. He’s here. It’s over.
The nurse asks to take a picture for the new parents, hair-astray, exhausted and leaking.
My husband fell asleep. I told him he could. We almost lost the baby. I needed oxygen. They kept losing his heartbeat and he had no clue. But we didn’t lose him. He’s okay. He is okay. There’s so much blood. Am I allowed to get up to use the restroom now? Will that be restricted? Oh wait. The nurse said to let her know. I don’t want to be a bother.
The nurse comes over, gathers up the sheets from the bed, making sure not to miss the long ice pack saturated with blood. She holds the bedding at the front and back like a hammock to keep blood from spilling out all over the tired new mom as she hobbles across the floor to the bathroom in the room.
It feels so numb. It hurt so much. I tried. I planned so long. But what is this? Was this a good idea? Yes. “Children are an heritage of the Lord… (Psalm 127:3)”
Opening the bathroom door and guiding the mother in, the nurse gingerly helps the new mom get situated in the bathroom. She instructs about a slender bottle of water to spray with when urinating the first time after birth. The round sitz-bath goes under the toilet seat, filled with warm water for the mom to soak in for ten minutes, four to five times a day. The mom manages to sit down, overwhelmed and dazed at the magnitude of a new chapter of life, still weak from twenty-seven hours of labor.
I’m supposed to get water, and sit in it? There’s blood all over the seat. All over the floor. All over the gown. I wasn’t supposed to wear a hospital gown. The water is warm. Why is there so much blood? I didn’t know there would be so much blood. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I planned for months. I wasn’t ready for this.
I was just at the OBGYN group a few days ago, eagerly hoping the doctor that day would say we were in labor. He had me lay back for a cervical check. It wasn’t new. They’ve been doing it since 36 weeks. I could feel the pressure of his hand and fingers, the usual twinges of strong discomfort and sometimes pain. But this time was different. I tried to resist scooting back as sharp, debilitating pain shot against my cervix and downward as he continued checking dilation and the baby’s position. The tears streamed down my face as I cried out in shock and agony.
He finally pulled his hand out, said I was still only at two centimeters, but we could walk for an hour and see if labor progressed. I asked if it was normal for it to hurt so much at this stage. He proceeded to tell me my cervix was tilted, and he had tried to shift it over manually. I never gave permission for that. He never told me it was tilted, and he never asked if he could move it with his hands. But I’m just a first-time mom. Was that normal at this stage? He went on to say labor was like an elephant in the room that can’t be ignored.
Back in bed, the nurses hustle out the door with the new father to prepare the next room, helping him haul heavy duffel bags, months worth of preparation for the big day. Alone in the peaceful quiet of the room, she holds her newborn. This helpless little baby depends solely on the mother for comfort and nourishment. She fumbles awkwardly to get baby latched for breastfeeding. He only latches for a moment and falls asleep.
I’m so sorry little one. I tried. Oh God, let him be okay. Please do not let my decisions from today affect him. Today was set as his induction day and God answered my prayer. I’m sorry I couldn’t handle the rest of it.
Was it only two weeks ago? I rushed in for an appointment, terrified amniotic fluid soaked my clothes. A female doctor tested the fluid and put me on a monitor for contractions. She asked about setting an induction date but left it alone after I declined. After some time, a strange, older doctor came in and said that the previous doctor was called out for a birth. The quirky man looked like a modern-day Albert Einstein with half-crazed eyes and thinning hair that stood on end.
Relentlessly, he pushed for an induction date, calling himself a self-proclaimed interventionist. I had spent the last five months learning how to avoid interventions for my baby’s sake. Inductions meant Pitocin, confined to a bed, slowing down the progression of labor, increasing the risk of a c-section. Pitocin leads to an epidural, both of which can affect the baby’s heart rate, alertness after birth, jaundice, and the list went on. I politely but firmly declined an induction date, but he continued to push without apology or remorse.
His medical opinion was baby was safest in the womb until thirty-seven weeks, and safest out of the womb AFTER thirty-seven weeks. Law prohibited an induction before thirty-nine weeks without an emergency, so he stressed inducing as soon as possible at thirty-nine weeks. “Every year, a mom comes in one week and everything is fine, and then comes back the next week and there’s no heartbeat.”
Disappointed, shaking, and terrified, I left the appointment with an induction date set for February 26th, praying I’d go into labor before then. I went into labor the day before my scheduled induction and he was born twenty-seven hours later.
A few nurses came back in with the new father, everything ready to move from the birthing room to postpartum care for the duration of the stay. After a gentle nurse helps the mother into a wheel-chair, the nervous dad gives the little squirming boy back to his mother. They wheel slowly out the doors into the brightly-lit hallway.
This hallway. This circle. We walked around and around, stopping with every contraction to sway on my husband’s neck, determined to have a medication-free vaginal birth against the hospital norm.
There was the nurse’s station. They never looked at my birth plan. They didn’t care. I was a first-time mom and I didn’t know what I was talking about despite months of planning. They had seen it time and time again. What I wanted for my body and my baby didn’t matter.
When we first checked in, I asked for the stint-lock as my OB and I agreed on. I didn’t want to be hooked up to Pitocin without permission. The nurse said it was policy for necessary fluids and Pitocin. I denied the IV line, nervous but firm. She left to speak with the doctor who then approved the stint-lock.
Why couldn’t the battle have ended there? I wanted freedom to move around in labor, to allow gravity to aide naturally in the baby dropping and cervix dilating, but she told me I had to be strapped to the monitor, on the bed, for forty-five minutes out of every hour. Staying on the bed prevents labor progression, leading to Pitocin, an epidural, and a cesarean. We are going to the mission field. I cannot be in the position of needing to come back to the states for a c-section every time we have a baby!
With permission from the doctor again, she said I could stand by the bed for forty-five minutes. After all of this, I didn’t have the strength left to argue about wearing more comfortable clothes than a hospital gown, “the first intervention.”
Down the hall and through the double doors, the new parents enter a postpartum care room. Brightly lit, still pungent with the smell of housekeeping, the couple settles in. Back on the bed, a nurse knocks on the door to introduce the new shift nurse: names, status, medications, times. The nurses leave, only to have another knock at the door a few minutes later. The new nurse walks in to check on mom’s vitals: blood pressure, heart-rate, temperature. With permission, she presses hard on her stomach, intensely massaging her enlarged uterus to assist in its reduction back to normal size. The mom cries in pain, but the massaging is necessary. She checks the vaginal opening and swollen areas surrounding, checking the healing of the first-degree tear. Tucks pads are available for the pain. She asks the mom to roll over where she checks in the adult-size disposable underwear, inspecting hemorrhoids from birth.
This can’t be happening. I want to not be touched. I just want sleep. They inspect every part of my body as if cervical checks and birth were not enough. After five hours at six centimeters, I finally let them break my water and it was like a part of me died. Labor became more intense as expected, intensifying labor and adding a greater strain than my body intended. The only comfortable position was on my feet, but my feet throbbed and ached from swelling and standing for hours on end. Contractions were stronger and lasted longer but I couldn’t leave the bed because of the monitor.
Beginning at my tailbone, the pain would gradually increase like a knife in my back, followed by my stomach tightening from a contraction at seven centimeters, providing slight relief before the knife twisted deeper into my back until my knees began to buckle underneath of me. I needed to stay calm and relaxed to keep the pain tolerable through each birthing wave, but I tensed at the thought of each contraction.
Why couldn’t I handle it? Why wasn’t I more prepared? I was trapped. I was trapped at seven centimeters, contractions every few minutes for four grueling hours, knowing it was now too late for an epidural.
Shortly after the nurse leaves, the baby cries for milk again. Though the nerves in her arms are pinching from pregnancy swelling and carpal tunnel, the baby depends on her for survival. Just as the baby begins to fall asleep, there is a sudden knock at the door. A different nurse comes in from downstairs to check the baby’s vitals:
How many wet diapers? How many dirty diapers? How many feeds? How long is each feed on each side? How long is baby awake? The mom shakes her head in a daze, unsure of the answer.
Has he even needed a diaper change? I think a nurse changed it. I was supposed to keep the dirty diapers for weighing? I’m supposed to remember how long the baby nurses and how long the baby sleeps? All I want is sleep.
The baby is losing too much weight and a nursing consultant will be called in for assistance. The hospital provides a pump and a strange tube to feed the baby over the shoulder in hopes of him getting more milk into his tiny belly. As the nurse leaves, the mom asks permission to take a shower for the first time in two days. While in the shower, the flashbacks flood in as tears stream down her face, struggling to complete the simple task of bathing and washing away the never-ending flow of blood.
I allowed the doctor to lie to me about the side-effects of an epidural after finding out it was still available. I knew the one doctor I wanted to birth the baby was either ignorant or lied to my face, stating that she wouldn’t give medication that wasn’t safe. But I needed a way out. I screamed in pain from a contraction as they put in the epidural. I laid down, finally able to breathe but still shaking from the residual pain. I told my husband he could sleep after twenty-one hours of labor, not knowing the next several hours would consist of them losing my baby’s heartbeat again and again because of the monitor. Before I knew it, they were placing an oxygen mask on my face in order to keep his heart rate up, another side of effect of the epidural and the Pitocin required with the epidural. What if my baby didn’t make it because I couldn’t handle it? How has he been affected since then?
Coming out of the shower, the mom sighs as a nurse inquires about her use of the sitz-bath.
With what time? With what energy? They come in every thirty minutes for vitals and shift changes. All I want is to sleep. All I want is my bed. All I want is for things to make sense again and for the tears to stop.
Picking up the strange, round pink contraption, and fumbling to fill it with water, a suffocating level of shame drowns the first-time mom as she stays in the bathroom, her baby in the nursery away from its mother, not knowing how to handle the strain of demands with a newborn.
“The only reason you want to get married is to have sex and to have babies” replays again and again in my head. It shouldn’t be this bad. If only I hadn’t given up.
That bed. The doctor walked in. Time to push. There I was, on my back, the worst possible position for pushing: pushing while they counted. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I had read about “purple-pushing.” It decreases the oxygen to the mother and baby. It creates an added strain and adds to the likelihood of tearing, especially in a first-time mother. When he was finally born, it felt surreal.
The nurses begin to notice that something is off and asks continually if the mother is alright. She walks on her own down the hallway without her baby, exhausted and barely sleeping. She often cries, and feels lost with a history of depression, but she denies everything in fear of her baby being taken away.
This was the baby I had carried for nine months and already I could have lost him? I allowed them to break my water. Then the epidural, the Pitocin, his heart rate and the oxygen. I felt so alone not knowing if he would breathe when he was born. Now my back hurts from the epidural to the point that I can barely bend over and pick him up. Now the blood and the tears and the pain. Now he’s not gaining weight because of the jaundice- a side effect of Pitocin- and there’s nothing I can do about it. If only I was more prepared. If only I hadn’t let the doctor lie to me. If only I was strong enough.
Another knock at the door. The OBGYN comes in to check on the mother and the baby. It is the same quirky doctor who was a self-proclaimed interventionist.
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